Month: May 2014

This is why women can’t have nice things


by digby

So Tina Brown thinks Clinton shouldn’t run because she had her chance to be a first and she wasn’t sexy enough. Also too, she probably doesn’t realize how icky the press can be and how the presidency is really hard and disappointing. (I guess she was in a coma for the past 25 years.)

Tina Brown thinks Clinton should be a “post-president.” Why? Well, it’s lots more fun especially for someone with lady parts:

Now that Chelsea is pregnant, and life for Hillary can get so deeply familial and pleasant, she can have her glory-filled post-presidency now, without actually having to deal with the miseries of the office itself. She is as adored as any ex-president already, she is making a ton of money, and she can expand the real passion of her life, her global mission to promote women’s rights, education, and political participation. The spotlight follows her and always will. If she becomes president at 68 it will be another press onslaught from hell and such a hog-tied two terms, only the festive delights of hip replacement surgery will await her by the time she gets out.

Oh, and lest we forget, she’s really old.

I’d like to see a woman president before I die but frankly, I won’t be surprised if I don’t. The sexism in this culture runs so much deeper than I ever fully realized that I can only assume the first woman will be elected on a fluke. (That fluke could be the GOP’s rather startling implosion in 2016…)

And this is the sort of silly nonsense that makes me skeptical that we’re there yet. Brown is one of the most high profile successful women in publishing and this is the kind of fatuous, sexist nonsense she comes up with? “Hillary can get deeply familial and pleasant” because her daughter is pregnant??? And she can be famous and loved without taking on the presidency so why on earth would any gal choose to do otherwise?

I don’t care if Clinton runs and if she does I don’t know what kind of president she’d be if she wins. I suspect she’d be very much like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But I do think she is a serious person with serious ideas and if she runs for office it will be because she has more than a desire to be famous and loved.  I assume she has real goals she wants to achieve. Being a rich grandmother probably isn’t the total fulfillment of her goals.

Sheesh.

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This is what happens when you don’t draw sharp contrasts on economics

by David Atkins

The generic polling numbers look terrible for Democrats right now:

A new poll suggests Republicans have the biggest advantage in a midterm year in two decades.

The Pew/USA Today poll released Monday found 47 percent of registered voters support the Republican candidate in their district or lean Republican. By contrast, 43 percent favor the Democratic candidate or lean Democratic.

Democrats have lost ground on the generic ballot in recent months. Last October, Democrats held a 6-percentage-point lead of 49 to 43 percent. Regardless, they usually need a double-digit lead in order to pick up seats.

President Obama’s approval rating is now lower than at the same point during the 2010 campaign, Pew noted. The GOP later won the majority in the House that November.

While 44 percent approve of Obama’s job as president, half of the public disapproves, the poll found.
Just over half say Obama won’t affect their vote this November. Just over a quarter, meanwhile, see their vote as being against the president rather than the 16 percent who say it will be for Obama.

Less than a third of Democrats see their vote as being for Obama, but 46 percent of Republicans see their vote as being against him.

Nearly two-thirds say they want to see the next president offer different policies and programs than the Obama administration. Less than a third want Obama’s successor to offer a similar agenda.

Despite the GOP’s edge on the generic ballot, only 23 percent approve Republicans’ jobs in Congress and 32 percent approve of Democrats’ jobs.

More people, 43 percent, say GOP policies would do more for the economy, compared to 39 percent who say Obama’s policies are more effective.

Part of this is simply the fatigue that bedevils most two-term presidents in their sixth year. But part of it, too, is that the national party hasn’t given base Democrats any particularly strong reasons to feel inspired. We also spent several years agreeing with Republicans that cutting the budget deficit was the most important thing for the economy.

So now, nearly six years after Obama’s election, the economic malaise continues for the non-rentier class. Democrats are tired and despondent, not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel for policies that create good jobs or fix inequality. And many voters are having a hard time seeing why, if deficit reduction is so important, they shouldn’t just elect a Republican instead.

There are some lessons to be learned there.

An example for the hippies

by digby

I guess somebody had to go down for those protests and they decided that she was going to be the one:

An Occupy Wall Street activist is facing up to seven years in prison after being convicted by a jury in Manhattan of assaulting a New York police officer as he led her out of a protest.

Cecily McMillan was on Monday afternoon found guilty of deliberately elbowing Officer Grantley Bovell in the face in March 2012. After a trial lasting more than four weeks, the jury of eight women and four men reached their verdict in about three hours.

Judge Ronald Zweibel ordered that McMillan, 25, a graduate student at the New School, be detained. He rejected a request from her lawyers for bail.

“I see absolutely no reason why a remand would be appropriate here,” said Martin Stolar, her lead attorney. “She is not likely to be somebody to cut and run.” Zweibel replied: “Remanded pending sentencing.”

Supporters of McMillan in the courtroom reacted furiously, shouting “shame” and screaming at the more than 30 police officers lining room 1116 at Manhattan criminal court. After half a dozen refused to leave the court, two were carried out by police officers.

Wearing a white dress and a beige jacket, McMillan sat still and silent as the verdict was read out. Sentencing was scheduled for 19 May. She was placed in handcuffs by police and led out of the courtroom as supporters went on shouting.

McMillan’s conviction is the most serious of the dozens against members of the protest movement, which sprung up in the autumn of 2011. Hers is believed to be the last of more than 2,600 prosecutions brought against members of the movement, most of which were dismissed or dropped.

Read up on this story and this trial. This judge is a madman.

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Weird isn’t good in the spook game

by digby

Hookay:

If you can understand this tweet, you can get a job at the NSA http://t.co/qIrkJ0TPdv pic.twitter.com/P5UKioH7jC
— Joseph Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) May 5, 2014

If you click the link to Business Insider you’ll see that some people tried to decode it.

I suppose they might be joking. Perhaps they’re trying it as some sort of PR campaign to get people to see the agency as “hip” and fun. Or maybe it’s just a mistake.

Whatever it is, it’s weird. And I don’t think a “weird” NSA is what they’re looking for.

by digby

Mark Liebovich on the nerd prom:

“Basically, this is just part of the disconnect between the self-celebration of Washington and the revulsion that people outside of it feel for the major institutions here, i.e. the media, i.e. Democrats, Republicans, Congress, lobbyists, whatever. And the disconnect between incredible prosperity and wealth and, frankly, decadence that has grown up here in the last couple of decades, and the very real economic struggles that the country has had in the last six years.”

This thing has been inappropriate for longer than that. Aside from the classic moment when Stephen Colbert harshed their mellow, I always think back to the one that happened the big run up to the Iraq war:

“What a fantastic audience we have tonight,” Bush said. “Washington power brokers, celebrities, Hollywood stars, Ozzy Osbourne.

“The thing about Ozzy is, he’s made a lot of big hit recordings — “Party With the Animals,” “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” “Face in Hell,” “Black Skies” and “Bloodbath in Paradise,” Bush said. “Ozzy, mom loves your stuff.”

(Notice he left out the two biggest hits: “Crazy Train” and “War Pigs.”)

That was when I knew we had totally lost the thread — 9/11 had just happened, we attacked Afghanistan and we were clearly gearing up for a major military adventure in the middle east. The media was in a state of overwhelming agitation 24/7. And this White House Correspondence Dinner spectacle happened right in the middle of it all. Tragedy fell directly into farce.

Update: Oh, I’m sorry, it’s White House Correspondents Dinner Week-end now:

Benghazi!™ the Scandal™

by digby

My piece at Salon this morning is about the GOPs patented scandal mongering:

The Republicans may be terrible at governance and they may even be awful at politics. But if there’s one thing they know how to do it’s stoke a scandal. In fact, it’s their very special gift and one to which they can always turn to rile up the rubes and make the Democrats dance on the head of a pin.

I won’t go into the details of the latest alleged “revelation” that supposedly prompted the new investigation (that they’ve obviously been planning for a while). You can read all the charges, countercharges and explanations all over the Internet. But the truth is that while it’s important for journalists and officials to produce the straight story, the substance of the story is not the winner the GOP seems convinced it has.

It’s how they roll.

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War is the only government jobs program both sides can agree to keep

by David Atkins

Just another depressing reminder that there’s only one government jobs program that’s seemingly untouchable:

The message of congressional defense advocates used to boil down to a simple question: “Where’s mine?”
Now, the shorthand pitch has become an equally simple declaration: “Not it.”

The Defense Department wants to close a base? Not the one in my district. The Air Force wants to decommission a squadron? Not my guys. The Navy wants to get rid of some warships? Not ones built by the folks who vote for me.
It’s a new twist on an old story. Bone-deep partisan divisions over taxes and spending mean Congress cannot act collectively to reverse the trend of a flat or falling defense budget. That means lawmakers can’t increase the size of the pie and serve each other a bigger slice, the way they did for many years after 2001. Instead, unable to stop the shrinking, each member wants somebody else to be the one who gets less.

This is happening everywhere. In my own Ventura County we have a top-tier contested Congressional race in CA26. Julia Brownley is a 2012 freshman, and the first Democrat to represent the district in over 70 years. The district contains a naval base that isn’t in serious danger of closing, since it’s on the Pacific Ocean and the majority of naval force projection is being reoriented to aim at China and Russia. Republican Armed Services Committee Chair Buck McKeon admits as much. But her opponent this year is Republican Assemblymember Jeff Gorell, a veteran who has been frantically waving his arms in the air to anyone who will listen screeching that the naval base will be in imminent danger of closure at a 2017 BRAC hearing unless the voters elect him instead. How exactly he thinks he’ll be likelier to do that than Congresswoman Brownley, who sits on the Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, is something of a mystery.

It’s all politics, of course. Gorell wants to highlight his military background and make up a fake jobs/military combo issue to use against Brownley. Few outside of the shrinking GOP base are fooled.

But isn’t it curious? Gorell is just one of dozens of Republicans who are absolutely allergic to any sort of government job that isn’t their own or the projection of violent force against other nations.

The world is certainly still a dangerous place, and military jobs are important. But so are the jobs that educate our children, repair our roads, serve the disadvantaged, reduce greenhouse emissions, and otherwise benefit the common good. Poverty, rampant inequality and climate change are all clearer and more present dangers than any non-nuclear military threat from China or Russia. Anyone who claims otherwise is an ignoramus or a con artist. Why is it OK for a Republican to vigorously defend every Keynesian taxpayer-funded military job, while trying to slash the jobs of teachers and railway workers so billionaires like Donald Sterling can pay less in taxes?

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Proud killer

by digby

Remember this?

WILLIAMS: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you…

(APPLAUSE)

Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?

PERRY: No, sir. I’ve never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which — when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that’s required.

But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you’re involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.

WILLIAMS: What do you make of…

(APPLAUSE)

What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?

PERRY: I think Americans understand justice. I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of — of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens — and it’s a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don’t want you to commit those crimes against our citizens. And if you do, you will face the ultimate justice.

Via John Amato, I see that this week-end he defended Texas’ death penalty again and said that while the “botched” execution in Oklahoma was unfortunate he couldn’t say if it was inhumane.

But then this man has now executed 275 people — more than any governor in American history, so he’s something of an expert on this sort of killing.

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Four dead in Ohio

by digby

I know this seems like ancient history. And it sort of is. But it was scary and abnormal even then.

This sort of thing happens when there are too many loaded guns and too many people high on adrenaline with itchy trigger fingers. And it doesn’t matter which “side” is armed, if it’s the jackboots or the “militia” — or both, innocent people get killed:

There is no place for guns at political protests — not carried by police, not carried by participants. It’s just not a democracy when you can’t argue over the government’s policies without fear of being shot.

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Even George Will knows that Benghazi!™ is BS

by digby

Fox News personality George Will  responds to Charles Krauthamer’s hysterical contention that the stale Benghazi!™ emails released earlier this week was worse than the Watergate tapes:

“It’s rather less than the Watergate tapes which showed a president at the heart of a crime wave suborning perjury and raising hush money and all the rest…

I don’t know why any Democrat would want to participate in this. By boycotting it this obviously becomes a redundant and obviously partisan Republican exercise. It’s only a matter of time before Democrats raise the following question: would there be a select committee if it didn'[t want to have to power to subpoena the former Secretary of State,obviously for reasons pertaining to presidential politics.”

Yeah.  There’s only one reason they’ve created a new scandal brand around this. And I think we know what that is. Anyone who doesn’t understand this doesn’t understand the basic workings of the GOP scandal machinery.

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