Month: September 2014

“The 47 percent is true. It’s bigger now.”

by digby

I’m beginning to think we need some sort of basic qualification test for congress:

A GOP House candidate in Nevada has been caught on tape telling a crowd at a fundraiser that Mitt Romney was right to say that 47 percent of the country freeload off the government. Cresent Hardy, the Republican candidate for Nevada’s 4th district, added that since 2012, when Romney made his remarks, the “47 percent” has only grown.

“Can I say that without getting in trouble, like Governor Romney?” Hardy said, at a fundraiser held last Thursday at the Falcon Ridge Golf Club. “The 47 percent is true. It’s bigger now.”

It’s just bigger.

This fine fellow also says that young people, women and minorities are the reason the country is in trouble and believes the people in “welfare districts” drive Escalades.

It’s amazing how these throwbacks still seem to thrive. You can’t chalk it up to advanced age in his case (like Matt Lewis did about Bundy and Sterling.) He’s still in his 50s.

.

What do voting and abortion have in common? A tactic to make both of them harder for people conservatives don’t like.

by digby

This piece by Irin Carmen and Zach Beauchamp tells an important story that most people, particularly in Washington, don’t seem to appreciate: the long term conservative strategy to roll back successful policies won by liberals in the culture war. They haven’t surrendered, not by a long shot:

Texas has been ground zero for both crusades. In 2011, the state passed the nation’s strictest voter ID law, dubbed a “poll tax” by Attorney General Eric Holder, which is currently being challenged in federal court. In recent years the state has also passed restrictions on voter registration drives. Texas is also the living laboratory for the right’s attempt to end legal abortion. It is the only state where a federal appeals court has allowed about half of the state’s clinics to close. Doctors, thanks to opposition to abortion at local hospitals, were unable to comply with the requirement that they have admitting privileges there.

But the striking parallels go well beyond the Lone Star State.

On both abortion and voting, key progressive achievements thought to have been decisively settled decades ago during an era of relative liberal supremacy are now under threat.

“These are two of the most significant movements to roll back rights going on in the country right now,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Combined, she said, efforts to restrict voting and abortion rights “go contrary to the general trajectory of American legal history, of rights expanding…and I think that should be alarming to people.”

The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) appeared to settle the question of access to the ballot for good. But the law was badly weakened by the Supreme Court last year in Shelby County v. Holder, a ruling that smoothed the path for a sequence of restrictive state voting measures—including Texas’s – to advance in its wake.

A woman’s right to end her pregnancy until fetal viability was asserted by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973. But the court subsequently watered down the right with later decisions that have left lower court judges with relatively free rein.

Strategically, the campaigns around each issue have been similar, too. In both cases, conservatives have largely taken a piecemeal approach, patiently chipping away at their targets instead of going for everything at once.

I think a lot of us who follow the right closely have been noticing this for a while. I remember posting about this cunning pro-life activist from Kansas almost a decade ago:

BRANCACCIO: The head of Kansans for Life, Mary Kay Culp has a good reason for watching the big story in Washington this week.

Appeals court judge Samuel Alito did not trip up in any grotesque way this week. The conventional wisdom that dictates these things signals that Alito will soon occupy the swing seat on the Supreme Court. And his rulings could shift the court’s position on hot-button issues like abortion.

It’s just that kind of shift on the court that Mary Kay Culp and her group in Kansas have been hoping for.

BRANCACCIO: Thanks for coming in.

MARY KAY CULP: Thanks for having me.

BRANCACCIO: Well, looks like Samuel Alito is going to get this. That must, given all the work you’ve done over these years, make you happy.

MARY KAY CULP: I am glad that President Bush’s nominee looks like he’s going to make it on the court. Whether or not it’s going to make me happy from a pro-life point of view, I think that remains to be seen.

BRANCACCIO: Why are you being tentative? He–

MARY KAY CULP: Well, he looks like he’s a real careful– a real careful, thoughtful, analytical guy, and I like that. And– because I’m a little tired of this being portrayed as if he has an agenda, that all of a sudden, poof is going to happen if he gets on the court.

BRANCACCIO: Agenda being getting rid of Roe v. Wade?

MARY KAY CULP: Exactly. I don’t think that that’s going to happen. And if it does, all it means is that the issue comes back to the states.

BRANCACCIO: But, with all the work that you’ve been doing in Kansas for all these years, don’t you think that if it becomes a State’s matter that in Kansas like that (SNAP) you’ll get rid of abortion? Huh?

MARY KAY CULP: No. I don’t. Unh-uh. I don’t think that’ll happen in the states. But, what can happen is a real discussion. What can happen are committee hearings in your Senate and your House where witnesses are called– witnesses who have had abortions– witnesses on both side of the issue. And, it can be heard — the most frustrating thing about Roe is that it just slammed the door. When you try to get a State law passed even to regulate just a little bit, or partial birth abortion, anything, a legislator will tell you– “Well, you know– we can’t do that under Roe versus Wade anyway.”

BRANCACCIO: But you must be encouraged about the way things are going with Samuel Alito? All right, I’ll encourage you then.

MARY KAY CULP: Okay.

BRANCACCIO: You know– Pat Buchanan?

MARY KAY CULP: Uh-huh.

BRANCACCIO: My favorite conservative commentator.

MARY KAY CULP: Yes. Uh-huh.

BRANCACCIO: He said with Alito– here’s the quote from this week.

MARY KAY CULP: Okay.

BRANCACCIO: “Roe could go. George W. Bush is one Justice away from succeeding where Nixon, Ford, his father and even Ronald Reagan all failed.”

MARY KAY CULP: That would be – one Justice after Alito.

BRANCACCIO: One Justice after Alito.

MARY KAY CULP: Unless– not with Alito. Yeah.

BRANCACCIO: So, it’s gettin’ there.

MARY KAY CULP: Right.

BRANCACCIO: I don’t understand how Kansas wouldn’t– ban abortion quit quickly after that. What do you know about the state of that debate in your state…

MARY KAY CULP: It isn’t that. It’s just that I know how the political system works. Then you can have real discussion. Then every– both sides are gonna get aired, and if the media’s fair about it, both sides are gonna get aired. That– you know, that’s a question. But at least democracy will have a chance to work on it. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything either way.

But, well, I do know what might happen in Kansas. We have late term abortions in Kansas, and we’re known for having late term abortions in Kansas. Those, yes, we might be able to get rid of right away.

BRANCACCIO: But, really there are two questions here. There’s the political calculation that I did ask you about. Do you think that Roe v. Wade’s going to be overturned and therefore abortion will become illegal? You don’t think so. But, what about your goal? Would it make you happier? Is this your vision of America where abortion is illegal.

MARY KAY CULP: It would be nice to know that tomorrow morning no knives are gonna be taken to unborn babies. That’d be a nice thing. But, in order for that to happen and for it to– to stay in place, I mean, if you just boom turn it around– without people really understanding the issue, it’s not as– certainly not as satisfying as it happening for the right reasons.

Because, the media in this country becomes unafraid to actually hear both sides of this issue, ’cause that hasn’t been the case for 30 years. It’s been getting better. But, really it’s kind of an interesting dynamic, because– I didn’t notice really a change until a partial birth abortion issue came along in Congress, and that really earns you a lot of credibility. And, then people start to look and listen. And, as we got stronger politically, it’s really– it’s amazing how a political win really can draw peoples’ attention to an issue.

BRANCACCIO: You know, Mary Kay, from your discussion, though, there are a lot of people who do not like abortion, who want to reduce the number of abortions I America–

MARY KAY CULP: Uh-huh.

BRANCACCIO: But are very concerned about an America where if a woman chooses to do this for whatever complicated reason that they have that choice. You could have some of these States deciding based on a different Supreme Court, “We are gonna outlaw it.” And, that means if you got the money, you go to another state. If you don’t got the money and your poor, terrible things could happen.

MARY KAY CULP: You know, terrible things are happening right now– terrible things. But, nobody knows about ’em, because nobody’s really looking at the other side of this issue. Terrible things can happen on both sides of this issues, if it’s recognized for what it is and the way it impacts a woman’s life and impacts society. And that’s what I think we need to look at.

There are a lot of mainstream Americans out there that care about this issue. It isn’t– you know– people can stereotype us and call us names if they want to. You know what? We don’t care, because there’s just more and more of us, and we’re having more of a political effect. And, I hope we’ll get some credibility with the media only so that we can look at these issues in a– in a real way.

BRANCACCIO: Well, Mary Kay Culp, Kansans for Life, thanks for coming in to help us understand where you’re coming from and possibly understand where the ascent of Samuel Alito came from.

MARY KAY CULP: Thank you for allowing me to come. I appreciate it.

They decided some time ago to take one baby step at a time until there was nothing left. They lie about their intentions and go to great lengths to obfuscate their true goals. That woman was good but not good enough to hide it entirely.

Read the whole Carmen Beauchamp piece. If political activists read it they can see how this same approach can be applied to so many of the decent advances liberals have brought to our society at both the state and federal level. They just keep chipping away.

.

War will keep us together


by Tom Sullivan

The WaPo front page headline “Airstrikes bring together
Arab nations often at odds” started that old Captain and Tennile song playing in my head. (I know. Sorry.) It seems we’ve been thinking about it wrong all these years. Lasting war is the only hope for peace in the Middle East.

The four Persian Gulf nations whose warplanes flew in concert with U.S. jets over Syria this week have spent the past few years acting with far less harmony, riven by divergent approaches to address the growth of Islamist political movements in the Arab world. 

The differences among the countries have grown so stark and acrimonious that earlier this year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar, which has funded Islamists across the region to the consternation of the other three nations. In the months that followed, they have continued to wage a proxy war of sorts in Egypt and Libya, where the UAE recently conducted airstrikes against rebels backed by Qatar.

But then along comes ISIS (ISIL, the Islamic State, etc.). Theodore Karasik, the director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, says the group considered the threat “to be greater than what was happening among them.” The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the U.S. believes that this new and improved radical Islam is such an existential threat to the region that, “We need to confront it as a team.”

Now, combining their roguish ways with old-fashioned American firepower, this undisciplined band of miscreants and misfits must somehow work together to save the galaxy from ISIS — to a 1970s soundtrack.

Uh-huh.

What If Your City Was Hit by Raytheon-made Cruise Missiles 

by Spocko

Photo collage by Spocko
BTW, since this has been picked up as “news” I want to make it clear this post is not about San Francisco being hit, but to point out being hit by the a cruise missile is an everyday thing in many cities.
Imagine it was your city being hit.

Their true colors come through

by digby

60% of Americans approve of the Iraq Syria bombing campaign. But they are divided about whether or not to send in combat troops:

Now can we dispense with the idea that Republicans are becoming isolationists?

Thank you.

QOTD: The Australian Prime Minister

by digby

Making the world safe for President Ted Cruz:

“Regrettably, for some time to come, Australians will have to endure more security than we’re used to, and more inconvenience than we’d like,” Mr Abbott said.

“Regrettably, for some time to come, the delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift.

“After all, the most basic freedom of all is the freedom to walk the streets unharmed and to sleep safe in our beds at night.”

Mr Abbott’s comments come after the government agreed to explicitly ban torture in new national security legislation to be introduced to the Parliament this week.

The Prime Minister told the House of Representatives that laws would include the creation of an offence for travelling to certain areas, such as Raqqa in Syria, without good reason.

“My unambiguous message to all Australians who fight with terrorist groups is that you will be arrested, prosecuted and jailed for a very long time; and that our laws are being changed to make it easier to keep potential terrorists off our streets,” Mr Abbott said.

“The only safe place for those who have been brutalised and militarised by fighting with terrorists is inside a maximum security prison.”

Tellin’ it like it is. Get ready for the police state, mate.

This comes on the heels of a “raid” staged earlier in search of some homegrown ISISites who claimed to be planning to kidnap a random person and behead him on the street. (One wonders if they always deploy 800 police officers when they get wind of a murder plot.) The government and the press is now in full froth, changing laws calling for a state of emergency. Of course.

.

.

Our bombs are so smart they can wage war on their own

by digby

Wow, I guess we really do have bombs that are so smart they only kill “bad guys.” And the Saudis and the others who participated in the bombing strikes must have them too.

Obama administration officials emphasized Tuesday no civilians were killed during U.S,. air strikes in Syria, first tentatively in a televised Pentagon briefly, then much more strongly in an on background call, assuring reporters that no civilians had been killed.
[…]
On the call, the administration was far more confident that the only people killed in Syria last night were the ones America and its allies want dead.

“Ninety-five percent of the munitions that we dropped were precision-guided munitions. And that includes the Tomahawk missiles which were very precise. Which I think goes a lot to the reason why we haven’t seen any kinds of claims of collateral damage or civilian casualties thus far.

This is great. We no longer have to worry that bombing campaigns will end up hurting innocent civilians. In war these days, we just kill people who deserve to die. Huzzah.(We should give some of them to Israel. They really need them …)

*Word is trickling out that there were civilian casualtie…er, “collateral damage”. Some of those bombs might have needed some remedial instruction.

.

The vote fraud fraud continues

by digby

And they’re getting slipper and more violent.  My piece in Salon this morning takes up the story of vote suppression and voter intimidation in Wisconsin.  A three judge panel of the 7th District Court just ok’d the Wisconsin voter ID bill, leaving almost no time for official or unofficial outreach to let voters know how to obtain ID necessary for voting this November. An estimated 300,000 eligible voters don’t have ID.  (Scott Walker’s election is likely to be a lot closer than that.)

So, now everyone can relax, knowing that there is no way that the thus far nonexistent voter fraud could ever happen in the future, right? Well, not exactly. It would appear that vote suppression may not entirely get the job done. Just because you have an ID doesn’t mean you should be voting and even if True the Vote is patting itself on the back for its success, there are still some good Americans out there who are willing to make sure that you don’t. This time they are going for full-blown voter intimidation.

A local Wisconsin activist named Meg Gorski captured a screen shot of some tweets by a group calling itself the Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia:

It fairly clear what they mean by “look.” According to this account, the Facebook page (now removed) left little doubt what they were talking about:

A visit to the group’s Facebook page features makes it clear exactly who they are targeting. All of the pictures on the page feature African-Americans. The group is trying to get African-Americans who may have outstanding warrants arrested in order to keep them from voting. The group wants people to report those they suspect of having warrants out on them to the police on election day, “Do the community a favor and keep an eye out for people wanted on warrants and report them to the police on election day.” 

The “poll watchers” also plan on harassing and following people who they suspect of being wanted on warrants to their homes. The plan seems to be to use the police to intimidate African-Americans into not voting in November’s election.

There are more threats at the link. They have, of course, abandoned their web site with the information about “training” as well as invitations to go to the shooting range. It’s lovely.

.

It’s not making sense guys

by digby

So, last night I noted that the array of friends and enemies in our bombing campaign in Syria is … complicated. It’s even more complicated than the fact that our close friend Saudi Prince Bandar (aka Bandar Bush) is implicated in creating ISIS as a way to defeat Assad. Today we’re seeing more reports about the shadowy group called Khorasan which is allegedly even worse than ISIS which is worse than al-Qaeda which is actually the group behind Khorasan. (I wrote about Khorasan last week when it first bubbled up in the press.)

Well, we’re bombing all of them now so hopefully everyone can relax and enjoy the carnage. Just don’t try to understand the various relationships here because they are keeping tons of information classified and trickling out whatever they need to trickle out for their own reasons.

The U.S. has said that Khorasan, an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group said to be led by an operative named Muhsin al-Fadhli — who the Department of State has said was based in Iran —was a direct threat to the U.S homeland. But hardly any public information was available about the group before this and some are suggesting the Khorasan group is simply a renaming of already-known Al-Qaeda operatives in Syria.

That started to change in the last week, as stories about Khorasan began appearing in the media. U.S. officials have described the group as being part of Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria fighting both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces as well as ISIS.

According to a source familiar with the situation, U.S. officials have been familiar with Khorasan for months. And Rep. Peter King, the former Homeland Security Committee chair, said that members of Congress have “known about it for several months.”
“I’m surprised it [the name] even came out,” King said. “It was supposed to be top secret, classified, and it wasn’t until last week that an AP story had it in there. But we weren’t supposed to talk about it.”

“The intelligence community has known about it … [Khorasan] are extremely lethal and dangerous,” King said.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said “we have been briefed on the Khorasan group for some time.”

“I knew about the group a year ago from the media but didn’t know the name or personalities until the past few days—again from the media,” said Will McCants, a terrorism analyst and fellow at the Brookings Institution.

An Amnesty International report on drones in Pakistan from October 2013 refers to an “al-Qa’ida-linked outfit” called Mujahideen Khorasan, but is unclear if it’s the same Khorasan.

Read the whole thing because it’s fascinating and informative, but take a couple of Excedrin first because sorting out the truth from the propaganda is impossible.

I don’t know why they have inflated the threat of ISIS over this other group which some are saying is the real threat to the west, being al Qaeda and all, but they have. (According to the article, some people doubt that this group is actually more dangerous than either ISIS or al Qaeda … oy.) Certainly it makes little sense when you consider they have used the 2001 AUMF as their legal rationale for acting — it specifically requires an al Qaeda connection, which they are saying is closely linked to Khorasan while the connection to ISIS is much more vague. (Remember all the blather about how al Qaeda kicked ISIS out of the clubhouse because it was too brutal?)

Anyway, when you see this kind of contradictory and confusing rationalizing after the bombing campaign has begun, it’s probably a good idea to be skeptical that it’s all on the up and up. It’s happening, whether we like it or not, and the American people seem to be on board.  Those videos were a master stroke.  But we really have no idea what’s really going on.

Oh, and it’s nice to know that congress, the alleged overseer that’s going to check the president’s war making powers, was kept informed about all this for months. I feel so confident now that if we only have a debate everything will properly fall into place.

Who are these creeps?

by digby

I don’t write much about this new aggressive misogyny, especially online, because there are so many great writers already tackling it better than I could. But this story contains a quote that really clarifies what they believe and it struck me:

“Feminism is a growing cancer.”

That’s quite statement. What caused this particular outburst?

On September 21, actress and UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson stood up at the UN Headquarters in New York City and delivered a powerful speech condemning the harm that gender discrimination causes to both men and women, and inviting men to become active participants in the global struggle for equality. The next day, anonymous individuals from the message board 4chan set up a website targeting Watson with sexual threats, counting down the five days until, presumably, her private nude images will be made public

.

The global struggle for gender equality is what caused this outburst. Something I would have thought so anodyne and predictable by now that nobody would even notice it. Instead it incited a furious response.

And I think we can dispense with whatever convenient delusions we may have had about the release of those pictures. It’s not for harmless masturbatory fun. It’s not a celebration of the human form. It’s not adolescent hijinxs. It’s humiliation, plain and simple:

The site threatening Watson was greeted with glee on 4chan and Reddit, where commenters explicitly stated their hope that the threats would force her to abandon her feminist campaigning. “If only her nudes got leaked and she had the load on her face. Her feminism kick would be over,” a commenter wrote. “If this is true her recent feminism rally is going to be shutdown hard,” wrote another. “Feminism,” one 4chan user opined, “is a growing cancer.”

Again, who are these creeps? The piece I linked above is by Amanda Taub and it’s very powerful and worth reading. She points out many examples of this worldview all over the globe. It’s not an American problem, it’s a global problem.

But in modern America overt misogyny does have a very important Godfather, validator and inspiration. This guy, who routinely decries the “feminization” of America and refers to feminists as “feminazis.” He’s feted and honored by some of the most important members of our political system. It’s not as if these online woman haters have any reason to believe that their ideas are outside the mainstream. They clearly aren’t.

.