Month: May 2014

QOTD: LBJ

by digby

The challenge of the next half-century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life and to advance the quality of our American civilization. Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time, we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society but upward to the Great Society.

I excerpt that inspirational quote from a very interesting long form article by Karen Tumulty about the Great Society at 50. The funny thing is that for all the successful right wing propaganda against the Great Society and the resultant assumption that it was an abject failure — it wasn’t. In fact, many of the programs are still humming along doing good work to this day. And others were also doing well until the conservatives rolled them back. (They helped too many of yhe wrong people — if you know what I mean.)

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Why Alan Grayson needs to be the Democrats’ Benghazi! ™ representative

by digby

I wrote about the congressman with guts earlier:

Perhaps people don’t realize that Alan Grayson isn’t just another lawyer/congressman. He’s an experienced litigator who fought whistle-blower fraud cases aimed at military contractors. The Wall Street Journal characterized him in 2006 as “waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq.” And he was very successful at it. As a politician Grayson is usually seen as a pugnacious fighter always at the ready with a pithy put-down on cable news shows. His floor speeches are often fiery indictments of his political opponents and the power elite.

But that’s not why the Democrats should tap him for the job. As notable as all those characteristics are, they are not where Grayson’s true talent lies. He is a master at the task of committee questioning. During his first term as a member of the Financial Services Committee he practically had bankers whimpering on the hot seat and he took on everyone from Ben Bernanke to Timothy Geithner, eliciting important information. Unlike the vaunted prosecutor the GOP has tapped to lead the inquiry, Trey Gowdy (who specializes in browbeating and histrionic questioning), Grayson is never rude and he isn’t dismissive or insulting. He is serious, composed and extremely well prepared. And when he has the floor he is completely in control.

Read on…

Credo has a petition going to ask the Democrats to name Grayson as the Democratic representative to the Benghazi! ™  hearings. It’s not just a good way to infuriate the Republicans and make the Village press go mad — which it will.  But Grayson is a secret weapon. He’s really good at this.

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So the DEA is now part of “national security”?

by digby

I know that most people seem to feel that the US has a God given right to spy on any person of foreign soil for any reason it chooses, but I wonder how many liberals think it’s such a fine idea to use all this spying capability in the expensive and useless War on Drugs?

The U.S. intelligence community routinely justifies its massive spying efforts by citing the threats to national security posed by global terrorism and unpredictable rival nations like Russia and Iran. But the NSA documents indicate that SOMALGET has been deployed in the Bahamas to locate “international narcotics traffickers and special-interest alien smugglers” – traditional law-enforcement concerns, but a far cry from derailing terror plots or intercepting weapons of mass destruction.

“The Bahamas is a stable democracy that shares democratic principles, personal freedoms, and rule of law with the United States,” the State Department concluded in a crime and safety report published last year. “There is little to no threat facing Americans from domestic (Bahamian) terrorism, war, or civil unrest.”

By targeting the Bahamas’ entire mobile network, the NSA is intentionally collecting and retaining intelligence on millions of people who have not been accused of any crime or terrorist activity. Nearly five million Americans visit the country each year, and many prominent U.S. citizens keep homes there, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey.

In addition, the program is a serious – and perhaps illegal – abuse of the access to international phone networks that other countries willingly grant the United States for legitimate law-enforcement surveillance. If the NSA is using the Drug Enforcement Administration’s relationship to the Bahamas as a cover for secretly recording the entire country’s mobile phone calls, it could imperil the longstanding tradition of international law enforcement cooperation that the United States enjoys with its allies.

“It’s surprising, the short-sightedness of the government,” says Michael German, a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice who spent 16 years as an FBI agent conducting undercover investigations. “That they couldn’t see how exploiting a lawful mechanism to such a degree that you might lose that justifiable access – that’s where the intelligence community is acting in a way that harms its long-term interests, and clearly the long-term national security interests of the United States.”

There is much  more to this story at the link.

There has been some evidence already that this capability was being used for the drug war but this seems to be a pretty clear cut example of how “national security” has become a very, shall we say, fluid term that excuses the NSA using its massive powers beyond the threat of terrorism or even economic espionage (which is also a very dicey use of its power considering the multi-national nature of “American” firms.) They will undoubtedly term this “narco-terrorism” and attempt to convince the public that drug trafficking and terrorism are inextricably linked but that has not been determined and neither has anyone ever debated whether the use of these national security powers should be used in this way.

The DEA has long been in a unique position to help the NSA gain backdoor access to foreign phone networks. “DEA has close relationships with foreign government counterparts and vetted foreign partners,” the manager of the NSA’s drug-war efforts reported in a 2004 memo. Indeed, with more than 80 international offices, the DEA is one of the most widely deployed U.S. agencies around the globe.
But what many foreign governments fail to realize is that U.S. drug agents don’t confine themselves to simply fighting narcotics traffickers. “DEA is actually one of the biggest spy operations there is,” says Finn Selander, a former DEA special agent who works with the drug-reform advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Our mandate is not just drugs. We collect intelligence.”

It’s yet another example of how the government has secretly folded several law enforcement functions into its extra-judicial counter-terrorism powers without proper oversight or public input. The mere fact that they’ve done this should be enough to raise serious alarms about whether they should have these powers in th first place.

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Overinterpreting doom to help the 1%

by digby

Politico has the latest shocker: polling shows that Democrats are going to lose seats in 2014, especially in conservative regions.

The poll reveals that voters — even in the more conservative midterm states like Georgia and Arkansas, and tossup House districts in states such as Illinois, West Virginia and California — still lean in a liberal direction on several issues Democrats have championed this year, including immigration reform, pay equity for men and women and background checks for gun purchasers.

But none of those issues comes close to approaching health care as a major concern for midterm voters. Nearly nine in 10 respondents said that the health care law would be important to determining their vote, including 49 percent who said it would be very important.

By comparison, only 28 percent said that immigration reform was “very important” to determining their vote, and 16 percent who said the same of male-female income disparity.

Charles Pearre, a retired civil engineer in Virginia’s Prince William County, said his top priority for the midterms was “getting the government back on track where we have a Congress that can get something done.” But Pearre, a self-identified conservative, said he prefers a divided government and deeply distrusts the president.

“My opinion of the president is he’s not doing a good job at all and he’s not qualified,” said Pearre, who has not decided which party to vote for in the midterms. “The health care law, I think, should be totally revised.”

I wonder if that retired civil engineer has Medicare?

I’m beginning to think the Republicans have backed off on Obamacare because their job demonizing it is done. These people have just been propagandized to such an extent that they’ll hate it until they die. Even though they have no experience of it themselves.

As for “not qualified” I wonder who’s more qualified than a man who’s been president for almost 6 years? The only people alive besides him who have that experience are Bush Sr, Bill Clinton and W. (I also wonder if that fine fellow voted for Sarah Palin in 2008. I’ll bet he did.) But then, I think we know what “not qualified” really means don’t we?

The poll also shows that the issue has power because a majority of white people and a majority of men are hostile to the reforms. These are also known as Republicans. So the upshot of the article is that Democrats are doomed in 2014. And maybe they are. Midterms are usually unfriendly terrain for the majority party, particularly in year 6 when the show has gone very stale. The real problem is going to be if the press and the Democrats seize upon the loss as an opportunity to “interpret” the results as a mandate to move right. As they usually do.

That’s going to be the incentive, unfortunately. No primary challenge for president means there will be little opportunity for pressure from the left. (Not that progressives would necessarily take it — we tend to want to fight these battles on the basis of personality and identity rather than use our leverage on issues.) But it’s a moot point anyway. In addition, all the 2016 candidates for office have a massive incentive to interpret 2014 as a move away from populism — $$$$$. All the donor meetings and fundraisers will feature that message, I have no doubt.

It will be important to be prepared to push back hard on this if it comes to pass. These midterms were never going to be a big win for the Democrats and they know it. The only real question is how they choose to play the inevitable losses. I wish I trusted them to not use it to benefit the 1% but they’re going to be fighting a very expensive fight in 2016 and they’re likely to put the needs of the Big Money Boyz first. The system is, unfortunately, self-reinforcing at this point.

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Maybe guns in bars might not be such a good idea

by David Atkins

Remember back in 2011 when Ohio passed a law allowing guns into bars?

Maybe it was a bad idea:

Seven people were shot, one person badly beaten, early Sunday morning at a bar in Erie County.

According to the Sandusky Police Department, the incident occurred around 4 a.m. at DJs Sports Bar, 1643 Cleveland Road.

Sandusky Police tell WTOL, seven people were shot. Their injuries are not expected to be life threatening.

An eighth victim was flown to an area hospital by Life Flight. An updated on the victims’ conditions has not yet been released.

Police say they have not made any arrests related to the shooting. Officers are in process of talking to witnesses to find out what led up to the shooting.

Well, we don’t yet have all the details on whether the shooter was a concealed carry permit holder as covered under the law. But either they were in which case the law endangered the lives of everyone at the bar, or they weren’t–in which case putting another gun in the room would only have increased the likely damage to life and limb.

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A Major Moocher

by digby

She should have been forced to work 18 hours shifts in the chicken plucking factory. Then she would have understood the value of hard work and could have contributed something to society:

She’s clearly a commie who doesn’t understand that her obligation to society is to keep every last grubby penny for herself.

H/t to @Mikey_Nicholson
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The killer hippie gun rampage

by digby

Via Crooks and Liars:

Congressional District 1 candidate Gary Kiehne made extreme comments about gun rights at a Republican primary debate Saturday.

Asked how he would protect gun rights, Kiehne said he owns more guns and ammunition than the other candidates and said everyone should own a gun.

When it comes to mass shootings, “if you look at all the fiascos that have occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people,” Kiehne said to an audience of about 60 people. “So I don’t think you have a problem with the Republicans.”

Well, that’s quite a “problem” isn’t it? I wonder what he proposes to do about it? Itcertainly wouldn’t be something like background checks. Maybe he thinks Republicans ought to be “standing their ground” a little bit more often, if you know what I mean …

I’ve been very leery of all this gun stuff in the political arena. It seems to me that once you bring a gun to a political event you’ve effectively silenced anyone who disagrees with you. You’ve certainly intimidated them physically. But this is the first time I’ve seen anyone characterize this in a specifically partisan way. Yes, it’s true that most gun proliferation zealots are Republicans. But they haven’t generally made the leap that if there’s a problem with gun “fiascos” (presumably mass killings) it’s because the shooters are Democrats — the political home of the gun safety faction, led by a president who is trying to pass sensible gun legislation.

It reminds me of the extreme illogic that ran rampant after 9/11 where it was presumed that the gay loving, feminazi, free love, anti-traditional, non-violent hippie lefties were in cahoots with the super-strict, gay hating, women oppressing, sexually repressed, violent macho Islamic religious fundamentalists. Yeah, that makes sense.

Update: Apparently, I’ve been out of the loop on the “Democrats are the real killers meme”

Kiehne’s claim that 99 percent of shootings were committed by Democrats is completely false, yet continues to be a persistent myth on the radical right. Roger Hedgecock, a conservative radio host, seems to have originated this message soon after the Newtown shooting, as President Obama was preparing a plan to combat gun violence.

Since many of these mass killers aren’t political but are simply mentally ill, I’m going to assume that they think all mentally ill people are Democrats. Or perhaps it’s simpler than that: all Democrats are mentally ill.

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Treating service workers with dignity

by digby

This piece about how rich people treat their house cleaners rang very true to me. I’ve never been able to figure out why it is that so many people with money are such tightwads when it comes to paying for services when they throw it away without thought on disposable material goods. It should be the opposite.

Many years ago I worked as a hotel maid. And the experience taught me a lot — I can’t even tell you how revolting some people are. I’m a naturally messy person myself but I realized that something terrible happens to some folks who know that someone is going to clean up after them. (The article linked above discusses some of the gross behaviors people exhibit — which I also experienced, much to my horror.)

Be a decent human being: when you stay in a hotel straighten up before you leave. You don’t have to make the bed, but put your trash in the trash can, put your towels in a pile, think about the person who has to clean up after you and imagine how you’d feel if you had to deal with whatever you might be tempted to leave behind. And leave tip, especially if the room’s a mess. It’s just good manners, basically.

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It’s all about freedom

by digby

January 11, 1998

Julia Flesher Koch, a young woman of manners and social ambition from Conway, Ark., much admired in her Upper East Side circle for marrying one of the richest men in America, made her New York society debut last month when she ascended the stairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an explosion of flashbulbs and expectations. It was what the Met calls ”the party of the year,” the annual benefit for its Costume Institute, and Julia Koch, 34, a former Adolfo assistant who literally dressed Nancy Reagan in the old court designer’s knitted suits, was co-chairwoman — a position held in the past by both Pat Buckley and Jacqueline Onassis.

Koch (pronounced coke) shared her post with two crucial members of the fashion trade: Patrick McCarthy, the chairman of Fairchild Publications, and Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor, who handpicked her for the job. Koch’s husband of 18 months, David H. Koch, executive vice president of the $30 billion Koch Industries Inc., the second-largest privately held company in the United States, was helpful, too: he has given the Met, by his estimation, $3 million. In 1995, he paid $9.5 million for the Fifth Avenue apartment that belonged to Jackie Onassis. The couple plans to move in this spring.

Such were the circumstances that propelled Julia Koch upward toward the Met’s over-the-top tribute to the late Gianni Versace. Anyone in the crowd, from Katharine Graham to Madonna to Sting, might have considered her superbly prepared for the evening ahead. And yet, it was not an easy performance for Koch. She looked dazed, like a gazelle caught in the strobe lights.

”She was a nervous Nellie in the car on the way over,” David Koch, 57, said later. Perhaps in her eagerness to make a mark at a party of 900 peacocks, Koch had abandoned her beige-and-chocolate minimalist taste for heavy eye shadow, enormous lashes, upswept hair with cascading ringlets and a $25,000 black silk Versace with draping over the right breast. Looking like something out of a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic, she managed a few television interviews on the way up, but seemed no less high-strung when she made it through the

Met’s front door. There she whispered to her husband, who responded with a reassuring hand on her back.

”You’re doing great,” he said.

Then he nudged her into the crowd.

The arrival of Julia Koch in New York is a story as new as Sting’s performance for Versace at the Met and as old as Edith Wharton. Women of every era have social ambition, and society will always need new blood. Today, in the booming but cautious late 1990’s, there is a perceived vacuum — a dearth of people willing, able and perhaps foolish enough to carry on. Certainly Brooke Astor, at 95, can look down from Valhalla and see a landscape of uneven terrain.

It’s a good thing we don’t have an aristocracy or someone might think that the Koch’s “libertarianism” might just be a crock.

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A Great American Hero whose name you probably don’t know

by digby

The 60th anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education is rightly being celebrated. It marked a sea change in American culture and the escalation of the Civil Rights Movement into a truly urgent national cause. But there are a lot of back stories of which I have been unaware and I have to say that as I read about them now, I’m astonished by the courage of the people who literally took their lives in their hands to stand up for their rights and demand equality under the law.

This is one of the stories I’d never heard, about a 16 year old high school student named Barbara Rose Johns, whose actions in 1951 formed part of the Brown decision. She lived in Virginia and went to school in an overcrowded, dilapidated, run down building with no indoor plumbing:

Sometime in the winter of 1950 Barbara had an idea.

“The plan was to assemble together the student council members,” she said. “From this, we would formulate plans to go on strike. We would make signs and I would give a speech stating our dissatisfaction and we would march out [of] the school and people would hear us and see us and understand our difficulty and would sympathize with our plight and would grant us our new school building and our teachers would be proud and the students would learn more and it would be grand.”

With this vision in mind — and with the knowledge that those who did not have a vision to sustain their risky and courageous scheming might be more of a liability than an asset — she began organizing in secret with four other students. By early spring in 1951, they strategically built a coordinating caucus of 15 trusted students who had key ties to different communities of the student body. They kept the date of their event quiet until their decision the evening before. At times the group even sent out false information to head off any interference from so-called Uncle Toms, the name for those who would undermine them. The plan was to trick the principal to leave the building, then call an assembly so that all of the students could decide together to march out to petition the county superintendent for a new high school.

They were bold, smart and somewhat fearful of ending up in jail. So they asked a brother of a student in the core group who was home from college what they should do if they were arrested and held in jail.

“And he said, ‘how many students are in your school?’” John Stokes recounted to the civil rights oral history project “Voices of Freedom.” “We said 400-something. He said, ‘how big is the Farmville jail?’ And we knew then we were on a roll. And the rest is history.”

On April 23, the decoy phone call came that a couple of truants were causing trouble at the bus station downtown, and the principal left to take care of business. Quickly, the core students distributed forged announcements from the principal calling for an immediate school assembly in the auditorium. The planning caucus was gathered on stage; everyone was paying attention. After the caucus leaders asked the teachers to leave the auditorium, Barbara laid out the plan to go out on strike in protest of overcrowding and inadequate facilities. It was reported that almost all of the more than 450 students were supportive, even though the principal returned and tried to talk them out of it. They marched down to the county courthouse to air their grievances, but because of segregation, the white press and whites in general didn’t take much notice.

The next day, when the student strike committee tried to meet with the school superintendent, they were refused and threatened with retaliatory expulsions.

By this point, Barbara and her crew were in touch with the local NAACP leadership and supportive clergy. At first, the elders were not encouraging; all the efforts aimed at getting equal facilities nationally were going nowhere, and the difficult work of fighting segregation was widely seen as the more effective path. Committing to the work of desegregation would serve to show the NAACP that the students were serious and worthy of support; otherwise, the NAACP would not be involved.

The students had to take a vote on this, as they did with all decisions, and it was a hard one. As Stokes remembers, they didn’t go on strike for integration but rather for the seemingly simpler demand of better educational facilities and opportunities. They were keenly aware of the value of their existing teachers and their tight-knit, supportive community, and they rightly feared losing these benefits in the process of desegregation. After a difficult meeting, the central caucus voted to commit to integration — passed by only one vote — thereby allowing the NAACP to take the case.

With NAACP support, one of the largest ever community-wide meetings was held in the local civil rights church. Parents were asked to sign up to show support for the students and the lawsuit ahead. The white press also finally decided to cover this meeting — even though it had refused the students’ requests to report on the previous three actions. Knowing that having white media at this sensitive meeting would be difficult, the students turned the journalists away.

At one point, one of the respected adults raised objections to moving forward. Again it was Barbara who spoke out and rallied the crowd to not listen to “any Uncle Toms,” prodding the assembled students and parents into taking a courageous step for the community. Although described as very quiet and lady-like, when it came to this issue, Stokes said that “she became a tiger … put on gloves and started fighting.” Buoyed by the student’s commitment, the parents and students collectively decided to strike until the end of the school year and to support the lawsuit.

A month after the walkout, the NAACP filed the case — Dorothy E. Davis et al v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia — and Barbara was sent to live with relatives in Alabama out of fear for her safety.

That’s a long excerpt from a much longer essay. It’s well worth reading. Imagine what kind of courage it took to do this — and contemplate the radical style she used to get it done.

This was 1951. And that case the NAACP took that day became part of the larger case that changed the course of American history. There were many, many examples of such heroes and the vast majority of us don’t know their names. But there would never be any progress if it weren’t for brave citizens who step up, at potentially great cost to themselves, to lead the way.

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