Month: February 2014

A dirty word gets clean


by digby

Hmmm:

The shift toward greater liberal self-identification has been led by Democrats. Currently, 43% of Democrats say they are liberal, a nearly 50% increase from 29% in 2000. Over the same period, the percentage of Democrats identifying as moderate is down to 36% from 44%, and conservative identification is down to 19% from 25%. 

U.S. Political Ideology — Recent Trend Among Democrats 

Now, we don’t know exactly what they are defining as “liberal.” I would guess more than a few define it as President Obama’s philosophy which I think is more accurately defined as “moderate.” (He said himself that he would be considered a moderate Republican back in the 80s.) It is curious that this increase in self-defined liberals seems to have jumped just in the last couple of years, so it’s hard to say it’s all Obama driven.

In any case, there are two factors here that are of interest. The first is that the demonization of the word itself seems to have faded a bit. If 43% of Democrats are now willing to call themselves liberal it is obviously no longer a shameful label. I don’t know why that’s happened, but perhaps it’s just as simple as the fact that the conservatives have been making such asses of themselves in recent years that normal people are no longer as influence by their opinions.

But I’m more interested in the fact that 43% of one of the major parties is a big constituency. Now it’s not as large as the conservative constituency in the Republican Party, which holds a large majority, but it’s a plurality and it’s growing. I think the Party poohbahs had better start reckoning with the idea that they need to show that faction just a little bit more respect than they’ve been showing it in the last few decades. At the very least they need to stop insulting them.

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Paging Fix the Debt and Chuck Todd

by David Atkins

If Fix the Debt and Chuck Todd really want to reduce government deficits even more than the President has already done, the bloated defense budget would be the place to start. But if that’s entirely too politically difficult, then perhaps they should look here:

State and local governments have awarded at least $110 billion in taxpayer subsidies to business, with 3 of every 4 dollars going to fewer than 1,000 big corporations, the most thorough analysis to date of corporate welfare revealed today.

Boeing ranks first, with 137 subsidies totaling $13.2 billion, followed by Alcoa at $5.6 billion, Intel at $3.9 billion, General Motors at $3.5 billion and Ford Motor at $2.5 billion, the new report by the nonprofit research organization Good Jobs First shows.

Dow Chemical had the most subsidies, 410 totaling $1.4 billion, followed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway holding company, with 310 valued at $1.1 billion.

The figures were compiled from disclosures made by state and local government agencies that subsidize companies in all sorts of ways, including cash giveaways, building and land transfers, tax abatements and steep discounts on electric and water bills.

That’s some big money. And those numbers actually understate the case. David Cay Johnston explains why in the full story.

Obsessing over deficits at a time of record corporate profits, rising inequality and declining wages is such bad public policy that it can only be construed as ideological perversion or blatant corruption.

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Bring out yer dead (Grand Bargain)

by digby

Alex Pareene hits the Village scribblers’ obvious depression at the prospect of no Grand Bargain on Social Security this year. They really, really wanted to see “sacrifice” from the losers … er voters and it’s a crushing disappointment that they’ll have to settle for long term debt and unemployment and rising numbers of hungry people:

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd has a brief requiem for the seemingly dead grand bargain in this morning’s “First Take.” In just one brief paragraph, it manages to hit just about every single trope of Beltway centrist deficit scold writing, from treating an unpopular and unnecessary plan to cut social insurance programs as a universally acknowledged urgent necessity instead of a highly ideological goal, to bemoaning the fact that politicians who support unpopular things are campaigned against for supporting unpopular things.

Why entitlement reform isn’t going to happen for a long, long time

Want to know why achieving entitlement reform — even on an incremental, bipartisan basis — is so difficult in American politics? Because the political parties are poised to pounce on ANY changes to Social Security or Medicare. The latest example is this recent story from the FL-13 special congressional election: “NRCC Hits Alex Sink on Social Security for Backing Simpson-Bowles.” From the story: “‘Alex Sink supports a plan that raises the retirement age for Social Security recipients, raises Social Security taxes and cuts Medicare, all while making it harder for Pinellas seniors to keep their doctors that they know and love,’ said Katie Prill, a spokeswoman for the NRCC.” For political parties, it’s too tempting to exploit someone wanting to raise the retirement age, raise taxes, or cut benefits. (Folks, it also explains why politicians like President Obama or House Speaker John Boehner never 100% backed Simpson-Bowles.) But that is the only way to truly achieve bipartisan entitlement reform – something that we don’t believe will occur anytime soon.

You can just feel his disappointment, can’t you? In all the discussions about this, he’s never once revisited his basic assumption that voters are a bunch of silly, selfish assholes who refuse to give up their “goodies” and hamstringing our leaders’ genuine desire to do the “right thing.”

But as Pareene says:

I might have phrased the first sentences differently: Want to know why achieving entitlement reform — even on an incremental, bipartisan basis — is so difficult in American politics? Because it is deeply unpopular with actual voters who recognize it as a shitty deal for everyone but the rich.

The rich. Like wealthy political TV celebrities ….

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The social conservative “death by a thousand cuts” strategy

by digby

Ed Kilgore’s take on the future of the “religious liberty” strategy that has Arizona (and other states) proposing a gay Jim Crow legal regime and a War on Women is persuasive. He concludes his survey of how this is backfiring, with this:

On many fronts in the culture wars, the momentum has usually been possessed by those who can best identify themselves with the ambivalent attitudes of a mushy middle “swing vote”—favorable to contraceptives and early-term abortions but not late-term abortions; increasingly accepting of LGBT folk but indulgent of their parents’ and grandparents’ “ick factor.”

After years of shedding crocodile tears for the victims of late-term abortions, anti-choicers are now finding themselves defending businesses who in open court argue that the dividing line between acceptable contraception and murderous abortion occurs moments after sexual intercourse — when women instantly transition from autonomous individuals to “hosts” for a state-protected zygote. And after years of arguing against marriage equality on behalf of the positive “rights” of men and women in “traditional marriage,” those who actually think gay people in love are abominations unto the Lord are being exposed for who they really are.

I hope he’s right that these discrimination laws are not going to be acceptable to a majority and that banning contraception will, at the very least, remain a battleground rather than a fait accompli. Overall, I’ve been shocked at how fast gay rights have become mainstream and there’s certainly some good reason to hope that this flailing around over “religious liberty” (assuming the courts don’t go way out on a limb) will eventually lose its energy and die out.

But this is, unfortunately, just one tool in the social conservatives’ toolbox. For instance just today I read about this ingenious new approach:

HF 2098 was cosponsored by [Iowa] Republican (of course) Greg Hartsill and company, and it provides a formal legal mechanism for “establishing a civil cause of action for physical injury or emotional distress resulting from an abortion.”

The bill allows patients to do so for up to ten years.

Here’s the thing. There’s already a mechanism in the law for tort claims related to physical injury caused by medical malpractice. There’s a lot to be said about medical malpractice reform in the US and the suit-happy culture this country cultivates, but the short version is that if a patient incurs a physical injury as a result of an abortion, that patient already has a mechanism for bringing suit.

Let’s say, for example, that horrible complications during an abortion render a patient infertile — if this was the result of malpractice, the patient can claim a potentially very large settlement.

While medical malpractice is in urgent need of reform (especially in OB/GYN, where it’s particularly thorny), patients need to have the right to seek redress for serious injuries caused by negligence, carelessness, and mistakes made in the course of practicing medicine. Including mistakes made while performing abortions — fortunately, abortion has an extremely low complication rate. First trimester abortion (the most common) carries a complication rate of less than 0.05%.

But this bill isn’t really about malpractice. It’s about regrets. Specifically, a woman who regrets having an abortion and wants to sure the doctor who performed it. They call this “emotional distress.” The anti-abortion movement has already recruited a cadre of women who have made themselves into the poster children of abortion regret and I’m going to assume they will be able to find what they need to put doctors out of business wherever these laws are enacted. Fear of lawsuits may just be the silver bullet they’ve tried to use to kill doctors in the past.

This is just one of a number of different approaches being pushed by the social conservatives. This one could backfire too, of course. It’s possible that the “mushy middle” that Kilgore describes could acknowledge that a woman has free will and therefore has no case against a doctor who performs an abortion at her request. That would seem logical to me, but then I don’t understand the mush middle’s belief that because someone thinks a thing is “icky” it should be banned by the state so perhaps I’m not the best person to judge this. The point is that the social conservatives are not relying on any single strategy. It’s more like the death of a thousand cuts — they just keep at it incrementally and hope that the “mushy middle” just gets sick of the whole thing and lets them have their way. It’s a pretty good bet in my opinion.

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At what point do “job creators” become “unpatriotic thieves”?

by David Atkins

Another day, another tax evasion story in the annals of our patriotic job creators:

Senate subcommittee investigation accused Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse of using elaborate “cloak-and-dagger” methods to hide the accounts of 22,000 wealthy American citizens with a total of up to $12 billion in assets from U.S. authorities so they could avoid paying taxes.
The bipartisan probe also sharply criticized the Justice Department for being lax in using subpoenas and other legal tools to pressure the bank to reveal most of the names of account holders, which have been withheld as part of a long Swiss tradition of bank secrecy.
“The key to piercing the cocoon of bank secrecy and collecting the taxes owed by tax evaders is getting the names on those accounts,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“Yet after years of investigations, negotiations and jawboning, the United States has names for just 238 of those 22,000 Credit Suisse customers,” he said Tuesday in unveiling a 175-page report on the bank’s practices.
The subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on the report’s findings. Senators will question Credit Suisse Chief Executive Brady Dougan, other company executives and two top Justice Department officials.

It’s not just important that we get the rest of the names.

It’s also important that these 22,000 people not get a slap on the wrist or a fine they’ll barely notice. Real jail time would be a good start.

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Yes, we should be alarmed by documentation that shows spy agencies could be involved in dirty tricks

by digby

I notice that people are complaining about Glenn Greenwald’s latest piece about the spy agencies’ ratfucking operations because of its “tone” and I realize that it’s time to remind people of this little episode in case anyone’s gotten it into their heads that this is just some paranoid conspiracy theory:

How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power

by Lee Fang on June 11, 2013

Could the sprawling surveillance state enable government or its legion of private contractors to abuse their technology and spy upon domestic political targets or judges?

This is not a far off possibility. Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.

The episode also shows that Greenwald, who helped Snowden expose massive spying efforts in the United States, had been targetted by spy agency contractors in the past for supporting whistleblowers and WikiLeaks.

Firms like Palantir—a Palo Alto–based business that helps intelligence agencies analyze large sets of data—exist because of the government’s post-9/11 rush to develop a “terror-detection leviathan” of high-tech companies. Named after a stone in the Lord of the Rings that helps both villains and do-gooders see over great distances, the company is well-known within Silicon Valley for attracting support from a venture capital group led by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel and Facebook’s Sean Parker. But Palantir’s rise to prominence, now reportedly valued at $8 billion, came from initial investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, and close consultation with officials from the intelligence-gathering community, including disgraced retired admiral John Poindexter and Bryan Cunningham, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice.

While Palantir boasts that its government-backed technology is geared towards helping the military track terrorists, stolen e-mails from HBGary Federal show the firm and its senior executives were eager to use its platform on behalf of the Chamber, one of the largest corporate lobbying associations. In the fall of 2010, the Chamber had received unflattering attention, first from a New York Times piece about allegedly laundered money from AIG, and then from my reporting at the Center for American Progress’ ThinkProgress blog about foreign funds flowing to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity used to run campaign advertisements. The Chamber’s attorneys at the firm Hunton & Williams, at the time already busy prosecuting a group of activists for impersonating the Chamber, sought out the help of Palantir to develop a team to go after the Chamber’s critics. As I reported later for TheNation.com, Palantir eventually connected with Berico and HBGary Federal, and along with the Chamber’s attorneys, the group began plotting a campaign of snooping on activists’ families and even using sophisticated hacking tools to break into computers:

The presentations, which were also leaked by Anonymous, contained ethically questionable tactics, like creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then subsequently exposing the document as a fake to undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with Change to Win, a federation of labor unions that sponsored the watchdog site, US Chamber Watch.

Even more troubling, however, were plans by the three contractors to use malware and other forms of malicious software to hack into computers owned by the Chamber’s opponents and their families. Boasting that they could develop a “fusion cell” of the kind “developed and utilized by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC),” the contractors discussed how they could use “custom malware development” and “zero day” exploits to gain control of a target’s computer network. These types of hacks can allow an attacker not only to snoop but to delete files, monitor keystrokes and manipulate websites, e-mail archives and any database connected to the target computer.

In January of 2011, Hunton and Williams, which had met with the Chamber to discuss the proposals, sent by courier a CD with target data to the contractors. The targets discussed in e-mails included labor unions SEIU, IBT, UFW, UFCW, AFL-CIO, Change to Win, as well as progressive organizations like the Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org, Courage Campaign, the Ruckus Society, Agit-Pop, Brave New Films and others.

Fang goes on to describe their emails targeting Greenwald for allegedly helping Wikileaks and looking forward to using their spying capabilities for the private sector in the future to rake in the big bucks. Unfortunately, this particular scheme was exposed when Anonymous discovered it and dumped their emails online.

Nothing happened to any of these people, needless to say. Indeed, the government has subsequently stepped up its actions against the “hactivists.” A handful of Democrats made a desultory call for an investigation but nobody bothered.

The results?

In the wake of the scandal, HBGary Federal shut down, but its sister firm, HBGary, was later sold to another military contractor, ManTech International for $23.8 million. Berico retained an influential DC lobbyist; Palantir increased their spending on lobbyists. Both companies managed to escape much scrutiny.

Fang’s story concludes with an aside which wasn’t much addressed at the time of the Snowden revelations:

Although some media outlets have reacted to the Snowden story with apprehension that such a young employee of a government contractor would have such wide-ranging spy capabilities, the disclosure presents other questions. Journalist Tim Shorrock, who also blogged recently about the rise of Palantir, reported that some 70 percent of the nation’s intelligence gathering budget is spent on private contractors. Could any of these firms, which number in the hundreds, use their terrorist-seeking espionage weapons against their fellow Americans? If what Snowden claimed is true, he could have spied upon judges and journalists and sold that information to powerful domestic or foreign interests. At one point during the discussions about how to use their technologies to attack activists, Barr had met with Booz Allen Hamilton senior vice president Bill Wansley. The disclosure of the Palantir-Berico-HBGary proposals suggest other abuses could be lurking out there, from a rogue employee to a carefully planned effort to spy on activists.

Indeed. And I found that very interesting in light of this recent comment from James Clapper:

“In the end,” he says, “we will never ever be able to guarantee that there will not be an Edward Snowden or another Chelsea Manning because this is a large enterprise composed of human beings with all their idiosyncrasies.”

Or another Palantir or another HBGary either. As Conor Friederdorf put it:

Consider the implications of that admission.

The NSA has collected information about the communications of millions of Americans. Nefarious actors, given access to metadata from the phone dragnet alone, could blackmail countless citizens and quietly manipulate the political process. The NSA doesn’t deny that. They just insist that they’re not nefarious actors, that safeguards are in place, and that we should trust them as stewards of this data.

Well, here is Clapper telling the truth: Despite regarding Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden as having done grave damage to the United States with their data thefts, he can’t guarantee the same thing won’t happen again. And if a future whistleblower could gain access to the most sensitive data, so could a blackmailer.

So could a foreign spy.

Data retention of this sort, whether carried out by the NSA or telecoms, poses a grave threat to privacy, in part because neither the NSA nor the telecoms can guarantee that the highly sensitive information they collect on us won’t be stolen. “To this day,” Lake writes, “the U.S. government doesn’t know the full extent of what Snowden revealed or whether more documents that have yet to be published in the press have made their way into the hands of Russian or Chinese intelligence.”

But they expect us to keep trusting them with our data. Why?

Yes, a foreign spy could get access. Or a blackmailer. Or the Chamber of Commerce! They already tried! And when it was revealed that they wanted to ratfuck left wing activist groups, nobody gave a damn. (Meanwhile, the right wing is still crying victimhood over an IRS program that targeted both left and right…)

If they could give us even one good reason beyond “because we can” and “maybe we might find it useful some day” perhaps people would be less alarmed. But when you have documented misuse of the data by private organizations, documented plans to use propaganda and dirty tricks to discredit dissenters along with not even one example of how these programs have been helpful, it’s just beyond my ken as to why people are still defending the government’s ongoing insistence that this is perfectly above board.

Clapper even goes so far as to clutch his pearls over Edward Snowden’s “betrayal” wondering how anyone who has access to all this information could find fault with the NSA. As Friedersdorf says:

Granted, no one but Snowden himself can know his motivations with 100 percent certainty. Still, he has offered what strikes me, and millions of other Americans, as a perfectly plausible explanation: earnest alarm at the scale of NSA spying.

It isn’t as if no one else has felt this alarm. Snowden’s revelations alarmed masses in multiple countries, including heads of state, legislators in both American political parties, professionals at some of the world’s leading IT companies. Clapper can’t even imagine what might’ve inspired Snowden? The answer is everywhere. Maybe he should get outside the SIGINT bubble.

I truly believe that lies at the center of this issue. The national security apparatus and, in particular, the spy agencies, are like a cloistered cult at this point, completely oblivious to the real world implications of what they are doing or how it’s being perceived. They seem to be stunned that anyone would question them — a very bad characteristic for any institution with the kind of power they have. You don’t have to be an oracle to see how that can go sideways very easily. Indeed, all you have to do is look at that Chamber of Commerce gambit to see exactly how it can happen.

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What’s next? Exempting themselves from taxes? Oh wait … 

by digby

On last night’s show, Chris Hayes featured the most obnoxious case of NIMBYism I think I’ve ever heard of.  Get this: Exxon’s CEO is suing to keep fracking out of his backyard:

It’s this sort of thing where you begin to see the process by which wealthy powerful people eventually declare themselves to be living Gods. I suspect the concept of shame and hypocrisy are the first to go as they exempt themselves from consequences they inflict on others:

Is Ted Nugent a closet gun-grabber?

by digby

I watched this bizarre CNN interview last night in which Ted Nugent explained that his good friends in the GOP had requested that he cut back on the dehumanizing Nazi rhetoric in public because it’s making them look bad. He said he was sorry for doing that. Making them look bad. Because they’re good people. Like him.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting:

Last week, under siege for his comments referring to the President as a “subhuman mongrel”, Nugent backed off with an apology stating, “I do apologize–not necessarily to the President–but on behalf of much better men than myself.”

Asked by Burnett if he meant it, Nugent replied, ” I bet you understand that the question is, do you apologize and I answer yes. You don’t really have to ask that question again, do you?”

After Nugent stated that ‘mongrel’ “was a street word”, Burnett followed up, pointing out that the only place she found the term ‘mongrel’ used in that context was on the Aryan Nation’s membership form.

“The only use of the word ‘mongrel’ that I could find in common talk, because you’re talking about street talk, was actually the Aryan Nation membership form where you have to affirm, quote, ‘I’m an employed white and Christian. I concur the Aryan Nations is only Aryans of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Nordic, Basque, Lombard Celtic and Slavic origin,’ Burnett read. ‘I agree with Aryan Nation’s biblical exclusion of Jews, Negroes, Mexicans or Orientals and mongrels.’”

“That’s the only place I could find that word. Did you mean that way?”

Nugent explained that he had served as a police officer in Lake County, Michigan and that he had been involved “with the DEA and ATF and U.S. Marshals and the FBI and Texas Rangers and heroes of law enforcements.”

“And we are re-arresting fugitive felons let out of their cages after murdering and raping and molesting children, carjacking. And we keep going after these guys,” he stated. “The adrenaline is something like you will never experience, I hope you never have to experience it, but when we are done with these kinds of raids, we get together and our hearts are broken that we have to face these monsters. We call them mongrels. We call bad people who are destroying our neighborhoods mongrels.”

Stung by criticism from CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Don Lemon that his comments appeared to be racist, Nugent told Burnett he is not a racist and accused her network of propaganda.

“But for anyone to claim that I’m a racist or it had racist overtones is the typical crap that the propaganda ministry and the media, particularly most of your cohorts there, even though I got Piers Morgan’s ass thrown out and I’ll do the same with Don Lemon and Wolf Blitzer when I can.”

Why would Ted Nugent be participating in “raids” with the DEA, ATF, FBI, Texas Rangers and the U.S. Marshals? Is he in some kind of program? Shouldn’t we be aware of it if he is? After all, he’s been on record making violent threats against government officials including the president. His disgusting threat against Hillary Clinton was especially colorful:

I realize the Secret Service considers these threats not to be serious, but you’d think that Federal agencies would at least be careful about consorting with such a twisted piece of work.

And anyway, I thought the federal government was a bunch of jack booted thugs coming to take your guns. Does the NRA know about Ted’s affiliation with the ATF? That’s a great big no-no in the fun proliferation crowd. Even Islamic terrorists are supposed to be exempt from gun laws, much less your average All American subhuman mongrel.

Is ted Nugent a closet liberal gun-grabber merely posing as a right wing terrorist? Someone should look into this…

Today’s neanderthal QOTD

by digby

Lobbyist Jack Burkman announcing his proposed law to ban homosexuality in the NFL:

”We are losing our decency as a nation. Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?”

I hate to tell you Jack but every mother’s son has showered with a gay man if he’s showered in a group of guys in a locker room. Even your mother’s son.

BTW:

Burkman’s firm, J M Burkman & Associates, signed 70 new clients last year, the most of any K Street firm, a recent review by The Hill found.

The four-lobbyist firm specializes in helping companies secure contracts with the federal government.

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Arizona Republican legislator has clearly never heard of algebra

by David Atkins

Via Reading Is for Snobs comes this gem from the Arizona legislature:

Ignoring pleas from business leaders, the Senate Education Committee voted 6-3 along party lines Thursday to bar Arizona from implementing the Common Core standards the state adopted four years ago.

Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, who championed SB 1310, said he believes the concept of some nationally recognized standards started out as a “pretty admirable pursuit by the private sector and governors.”

“It got hijacked by Washington, by the federal government,” said Melvin, a candidate for governor, and “as a conservative Reagan Republican I’m suspect about the U.S. Department of Education in general, but also any standards that are coming out of that department.”

Melvin’s comments led Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, to ask him whether he’s actually read the Common Core standards, which have been adopted by 45 states.
“I’ve been exposed to them,” Melvin responded.

Pressed by Bradley for specifics, Melvin said he understands “some of the reading material is borderline pornographic.” And he said the program uses “fuzzy math,” substituting letters for numbers in some examples.

This is what happens when you put woefully ignorant people who despise education and science in charge of education and science. There are consequences.

This is not to say that Common Core doesn’t have problems, but Arizona Republicans who aren’t even aware of algebra wouldn’t have any idea what those problems might be.

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