Month: September 2014

Blue America contest for civil liberties, progressive leadership (and valuable Fleetwood Mac memorabilia!)

by digby

This letter from me went out to Blue America members this morning:

One of the advantages of being a Blue State politician has to be the fact that an authentic progressive has a chance to push some real progressive legislation and take bold steps in certain policy areas that might be considered too risky in places dominated by conservatives. Sadly, it happens less than we might hope. Far too many officials get elected on a progressive platform and then go to the state capital or Washington and immediately succumb to the pressures of the corporate and establishment status quo. 

All of us at Blue America think Ted is exactly the kind of progressive leader we need more of in Washington. If you donate today, you could own Howie’s own copy of Fleetwood Mac’s quadruple platinum record for “The Dance.”

That’s why Blue America is so excited about California State Senator Ted Lieu, who is running to succeed California’s long time fighting liberal, Henry Waxman. You don’t have to comb through Lieu’s record to find clues as to how he will vote in the US Congress. His record in Sacramento is one of bold progressive leadership. 

In fact, as his final act as a State Senator on the last day of the session last week, Ted Lieu wrote and passed a directive to the state government of California to not cooperate with any unconstitutional attempts at domestic spying by the NSA, CIA or any other government operations legally prohibited from spying on American citizens. You don’t get any bolder than that.

It was quite a final session for Senator Lieu. Earlier in the week the San Jose Mercury News thanked Senator Lieu for “riding to the rescue” on the issue of children in California’s foster care system being over-drugged with psychotropic medications that haven’t been tested on kids. Last month he led legislative efforts to target child sex traffickers and it passed unanimously. 

But then Lieu has been leading this way since he first went to Sacramento. Long before anyone else had an inkling that something was rotten in the home mortgage market, Lieu pressed for legislation to rein in mortgage bankers — and when he was thwarted by Democrat Gray Davis he kept trying until the Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it. He doesn’t let much stop him.

And that’s undoubtedly why Newt Gingrich’s sugar-daddy, the megabucks GOP donor Sheldon Adelson has pledged to swoop in to this very expensive California media market to help Lieu’s Republican opponent. This is a Democratic district and all things being fair and up front we would have Lieu winning easily in a rout. But when have Republicans been fair and up-front? It’s very likely that Lieu will be the subject of a barrage of dishonest propaganda that our current Citizens United environment is very difficult to rebut without a large campaign chest.

All of us at Blue America think Ted is exactly the kind of progressive leader we need more of in Washington and we want to do what we can to help. 

Howie even agreed to let his valuable quadruple platinum award for Fleetwood Mac’s album “The Dance” — the 5th biggest selling live album in music history — go to one fortunate, randomly-selected Ted Lieu donor this week. This isn’t just any platinum album — it’s one that hung in Howie’s Reprise Records office until he retired and donated it to Blue America. As he says,

In many ways Fleetwood Mac’s sound is an integral part of the Southern California lifestyle and perfect for Ted’s district, where several of the band members live.

As it happens, I live there too — and John is just down the road. This race is close to all our hearts.

All you have to do is contribute to Ted’s campaign on this ActBlue page and you will qualify for the random drawing. (And, if you’re a big Fleetwood Mac fan but can’t make contribution, send us a postcard– asap– and tell us you’re rooting for Ted and want the plaque.)

The contest will run for just one week so be sure to enter as soon as possible. Remember, it doesn’t matter if you donate a dollar or thousand dollars you have an equal chance to have your name drawn. Whether you are lucky enough to win the plaque or not, we will all be winners if Ted Lieu goes to Washington and takes up where Henry Waxman left off.

We need representatives from these deep blue districts to be stellar progressives who will challenge the status quo in Washington and take the leadership roles that those who come from less liberal districts are too afraid to take. Ted Lieu is one of those stellar progressives. He is worth our support.

Navel gazing about November

by digby

Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium thinks the Democrats are going to hold the Senate:

In most cases, added assumptions (i.e. special sauce) have led the media organizations to different win probabilities — which I currently believe are wrong….The major media organizations (NYT, WaPo, 538)…all use prior conditions like incumbency, candidate experience, funding, and the generic Congressional ballot to influence their win probabilities — and opinion polls.

….Longtime readers of PEC will not be surprised to know that I think the media organizations are making a mistake. It is nearly Labor Day. By now, we have tons of polling data. Even the stalest poll is a more direct measurement of opinion than an indirect fundamentals-based measure. I demonstrated this point in 2012, when I used polls only to forecast the Presidency and all close Senate races. That year I made no errors in Senate seats, including Montana (Jon Tester) and North Dakota (Heidi Heitkamp), which FiveThirtyEight got wrong.

Kevin Drum wrote about thisand said that all his instincts say this is wrong and that the Republicans are going to take over. I have to say my instincts are saying the opposite. I’d guess the Democrats will lose a couple of seats overall (and might pick at least one up in Georgia or Kentucky) but will keep control.

But here’s why my instincts might be off: I don’t care that much. It’s almost inevitable that if the Democrats lose the Senate they will get it back in 2 years when a ton of seats are up that favor them. I don’t see that the GOP taking over will alter the status quo much. I recognize that a lot of people are nervous about Obama caving to GOP demands, but honestly, they’re so nuts at this point that I really doubt it. It’s not as if they’re going to craft elegant, sophisticated legislation that’s designed to entice Obama to walk the tightrope that’s holding the Democratic coalition together. They are juvenile bomb throwers who will make it easy for Obama to just say no.

And if anyone’s worried about Supreme Court Justices, let’s just recognize that it’s highly unlikely Obama will get to appoint any more of them — and if he does, it’s unlikely they’ll be confirmed. If one of the Justices retires in the next two years I’m fairly sure they’ll keep the seat vacant until the next president takes office.

Obviously, I don’t think it will be a good thing for Republicans to win the Senate. But I’m not fretting about it. They’ve already shown they are perfectly capable of obstructing the Democratic agenda from one House of congress. A Senate majority is just gilding the lily.

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Keep calm and carry on

by digby

Via Buzzfeed from yesterday:

A message has gone viral claiming that there is a high likelihood of a terrorist attack on London’s underground network on Monday morning and all London police officers have been called in to a special 4 a.m. shift.

Wow. That sounds really scary. Except it wasn’t true.

But a Metropolitan Police spokesman told BuzzFeed the text message is “completely untrue” and no extra officers are coming in early.

The Met, which is responsible for policing the capital, say they have a policy of not normally commenting on hoaxes for fear of encouraging more. But they felt this particular message had reached such a wide audience they had to issue a public denial.

The London boss of the British Transport Police, the law enforcement body that looks after the tube network, has hit out at such “rumours”.

I can see why the Brits are nervous. The government issued a scary warning on Friday. And since it’s clear that some of these ISIL members are British I’d guess they feel more vulnerable than usual. But it isn’t the Battle of Britain.

I feel as if we’re going back to that place we were a decade ago when the fear of 9/11 excited people into a frenzy that led them to some very bad judgment. I get that governments have to warn their people of these threats and they should. But the people shouldn’t allow themselves to be overstimulated by it. The old British trope, however stale and over-exploited it’s been in the past few years — is still a good one:

Just kidding …

Charts ‘O the Day

by digby

Here’s a nice short labor day piece by Ezra Klein about unions and capitalism (including a thoughtful quote by Rich Yeselson.)  You can click over to read it but I thought I’d just share the charts:

Far be it from me to suggest that the continuing campaign to destroy unions in America has contributed to income inequality. But let’s keep on bashing them! It’s so much fun.

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Big Brother is paranoid

by digby

Ok, we’re officially a depraved, paranoid society. A man was taking pictures of his daughters on the ferry as the family went on vacation. He’s been doing that every year since they were little. Now they are teenagers:

Totally engaged with the scene in front of me, I jumped when a man came up beside me and said to my daughters: “I would be remiss if I didn’t ask if you were okay.”

At first none of us understood what he was talking about. His polite tone and tourist attire of shorts, polo shirt and baseball cap threw us off. It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, but then it hit me: He thought I might be exploiting the girls, taking questionable photos for one of those “Exotic Beauties Want to Meet You!” Web sites or something just as unseemly. When I explained to my daughters what he was talking about, they were understandably confused. I told the man I was their father. He quickly apologized and turned away. But that perfect moment was ruined, and our annual photo shoot was over. (Only after we arrived at our rented condo did I find out I had gotten a great shot.)

As I was telling my wife what had happened, I saw the man again, scanning the horizon with his binoculars. The more I thought about what he had said, the more upset I became. My wife and I, both white, adopted our two daughters in China when they were infants. Over the years, as a transracial family, we have often gotten strange looks and intrusive questions from strangers, but nothing like this. Yet part of me understood what he was seeing: Here was this middle-aged white guy taking lots of pictures of two beautiful, young Asian women.

Would this man have approached us, I wondered, if I had been Asian, like my children, or if my daughters had been white? No, I didn’t think so. I knew I’d regret not going back to speak to him about what had happened. My wife warned me I might be asking for trouble, but I reassured her that I would be fine.

I walked outside to where he was standing and calmly said: “Excuse me, sir, but you just embarrassed me in front of my children and strangers. And what you said was racist.”

The man didn’t seem at all fazed. He replied: “I work for the Department of Homeland Security. And let me give you some advice: You were standing there taking photos of them hugging for 15 minutes.”

A couple of things: it’s bad enough that we’ve become so paranoid that a man taking pictures of teen age girls is automatically a sign of a pedophile at worst and a dirty old man at best. The girls were hugging because they are sisters. It says more about this man’s turn of mind than it does about anything these people were doing. They were, after all, on a public ferry. Anyone with a normal thought process would not automatically suspect porn or trafficking in that situation. This says something about the way we have puritanically sexualized everything in this culture.

And then we have the fact that this is an undercover “Homeland Security” officer saying “let me give you some advice, you were standing there taking photos of them hugging for 15 minutes” as if that’s a suspicious act in itself that’s bound to get the attention of authorities. I don’t think the people have been made aware that the government finds this sort of thing a cause for intervention.

I appreciate the fact that we are concerned about human trafficking but this strikes me as absurdly intrusive. As the author of the piece points out, there were many ways to approach this if the agent felt it required further investigation. (For instance, he could have engaged them in a normal conversation and found out quite readily that they were a family.) But once again we see this authoritarian mentality encroaching on daily life in America wherein we see police everywhere, in various guises, looking over our shoulders, asserting their authority, making themselves known in small ways and large.

We always had aggressive cops in this country and they’ve always been willing to stretch the meaning of the bill of rights. But this sense of them being everywhere, seen and unseen, is new. And it’s chilling.

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As California goes, let’s hope the rest follow

by digby

Good news for anyone who eats in restaurants in California:

Early on Saturday morning, the California Senate passed a bill guaranteeing at least three paid sick days a year for about 6.5 million workers, sending it to Gov. Jerry Brown (D).

Brown’s office said it supports the bill, and in a statement after it passed he said, “Tonight, the Legislature took historic action to help hardworking Californians.” Assuming he signs the bill, California will become just the second state ever to guarantee paid sick leave and the law will be the tenth in the nation.

The bill would require employers to provide sick leave to employees who work 30 or more days within a year, allowing them to accrue at least one hour for every 30 they put in. Currently, about 44 percent of the state’s workers don’t have access to a single paid day off if they or a family member gets sick.

I will never in a million years understand why employers insist that their employees come to work sick. They can’t work efficiently, they infect their co-workers and if it’s a job working with the public or for the public, they can infect their customers. It’s ridiculous.

California just took a step toward making paid sick days compulsory. On Labor Day week-end no less. We’re not perfect here in the land of fruits and nuts, God knows. But sometimes we’re pretty good.

(I have another idea — how about neighborhood clinics like they have in Japan where anyone can get looked at on a walk-in basis. That way employers could even insure that their employees aren’t malingering. Awesome for everyone, right?)

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Why labor day?

by digby

There are a lot of good reads around the internet on the subject today. (Here are a couple from Ed Kilgore and Ian Milhiser.)

I thought I’d just share this clip from Barbara Kopple’s ground breaking documentary Harlan County USA:

Here’s Kopple from a couple of years ago talking about the film. Very interesting discussion.

Enjoy your day off all you 99 Percenters. You deserve it.

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Not everything in life is horrible

by digby

Of course it isn’t.  A whole lot of it is wonderful. But it’s at times like these we might need a little reminder.  Here’s one:

Seen here at just seven weeks old, San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Cheetah cub is getting to know his new dog companion as the two continue to bond and spend time at the Safari Park’s Animal Care Center. The Rhodesian ridgeback puppy was paired with the cub after the Cheetah was rejected by his mother and had to be hand raised as an animal ambassador. The Cheetah and puppy will be raised together and the dog will serve as a lifelong companion to the Cheetah.

Safari Park Cheetahs selected for training as ambassadors are paired early in life with a domestic dog. As the two companions grow up together, the dog’s body language will communicate to the cheetah that there’s nothing to fear in new or public surroundings, which relaxes and calms the Cheetah. The Safari Park currently has four cheetah ambassadors all of which are trained to participate in the Park’s Cheetah Run experience.

My husband and I went to the San Diego Zoo some years ago just as it opened after a big rain. The zoo was almost empty and we came upon some zoo keepers walking two cheetahs and their dog companions on the path. They are amazingly beautiful, other-worldly creatures. It was a privilege to have a close encounter with them.

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