Month: October 2014

The Villagers and the far right are united in their excitement at the prospect of putting Fox News in the henhouse.

by digby

My piece in Salon today is about the “suggestion” from Glenn Reynolds that President Obama appoint a Republican to be the new Attorney General:

It must be football season because here comes Lucy with the football just begging poor old Charlie Brown to kick it one more time. Well, actually, it’s right wingers once again insisting to liberals that they need to be more bipartisan to appease the opposition. They must get a lot of laughs down at wingnut central over that one.

The latest example would be the very earnest suggestion in USA Today from professor Glenn Reynolds who says that President Obama should prove he isn’t really the tyrannical despot everyone thinks he is by appointing a Republican to head the Justice Department:

Perhaps President Obama — and, for that matter, future presidents — should take a lesson from the way we handle the Department of Defense, and apply it to the Department of Justice: Consider naming someone outside his own party as attorney general…

Having a Defense secretary from the other party makes war bipartisan, and reassures members of the opposition that the powers of the sword aren’t being abused.

But, of course, he’s only referring to the tradition of appointing members of the opposite party as Secretary of Defense under Democratic presidents. Republicans don’t do that.

As it happens Obama appointed three Republicans to his cabinet in 2009, the most ever in history. He kept Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense and appointed Ray LaHood at Transportation and Senator Judd Gregg at Commerce. (Gregg dropped out before he could be confirmed as Secretary of Commerce.) Here’s the record of prior presidents:

Read on. Let’s just say that only one party appoints members of the opposition to the Defense Department. And it isn’t the Republicans. Moreover, they aren’t ever “reassured”. Click over to see some of the lovely comments from Reynolds about Chuck Hagel that Roy Edroso found.

But apparently, this is all the rage now in the Village too. People are seriously suggesting that the President appoint a certified GOP war criminal as head of the Secret Service. And now Jane Harman thinks Obama should appoint one of the most partisan character assassins on the planet — Ted Olsen — as Attorney General. (You know, it’s great that some conservatives don’t hate gay people. I’m all for it. But that alone doesn’t erase someone’s despicable political behavior or destructive ideology … just saying.) I guess it isn’t enough that Democrats are always obliged to appoint Republicans to Secretary of Defense and the head of the FBI lest Republicans accuse them of being partisan (which they do anyway), they must also agree to put Republicans in charge of all Federal law enforcement.

In other words Republicans are now supposed to be permanently in charge of the military and law enforcement. Feel safer? I know I do.

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Back to the elections board
by Tom Sullivan

Local Boards of Elections in North Carolina were scrambling yesterday to rework election instruction documents after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an order blocking enforcement of two provisions of the state’s new election law in this November’s election.

But for NC Governor Pat McCrory and Republican colleagues, that’s not the end of it:

The Republicans plan to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving questions about whether North Carolinians will be allowed to vote the same day that they register during the early voting period this year as well as whether provisional ballots cast outside a voter’s proper precinct will be counted.

The NAACP, the ACLU, and other groups have sued to have the law ruled unconstitutional. That case will not be heard until July. The photo identity card requirement in the law does not got into effect until 2016.

The Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA) had been a 15-page voter ID bill winding its way through the GOP-controlled legislature last year. Then in June, the Shelby v. Holder decision by the U.S. Court set aside of two preclearance provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Winston-Salem’s Camel City Dispatch explains:

Once that happened, the North Carolina State Senate dumped in a laundry list of voter suppression provisions that ballooned HB 589 into a 57 page collection of the most restrictive voter suppression regulations since the Jim Crow era. All of this while at the same loosening campaign finance restrictions on politicians. Apparently the Republican Supermajority felt that the voters of North Carolina needed to be regulated, but for politicians to be kept under the government thumb was just too much.

Millions of voter guides have already gone out with information contradicted by yesterday’s court ruling. It’s going to be a wild ride.

This time it’s personal

by digby

One of the things we’ve learned as activists over the past few years is how hard it is for good people to run for office. It’s tremendously draining, both in energy and money and you don’t get a lot of thanks from the people for trying.  I’m always in awe of anyone who puts himself or herself out there to do the hard work of retail politics.

So imagine the thrill Mr Digby and I felt when Adam Wool, one of our closest friends, decided to throw his hat into the ring and run for the State House in Alaska. And yes, he’s a Democrat. He’s also a business owner (restaurant, nightclub and movie theatre) a musician, a family man and an all around great guy.

If there’s one thing Alaska needs it’s some sanity in its politics, particularly at the state level. And some honesty.  (I can guarantee that Adam Wool won’t be joining any new versions of the infamous Alaskan Corrupt Bastards Club. )

Adam, like his potential constituents, was in favor of repealing the current oil tax plan which is bankrupting the state government by giving massive giveaways to their unctuous patrons.  The Republicans, needless to say, blocked all attempts to rein them in. The Democrats will keep trying. Meanwhile, people in Fairbanks are paying gargantuan monthly heating bills — so much for energy independence, eh?

Anyway, we’re very proud of Adam here at Digby headquarters and we’re rooting for him all the way.  And if you feel like contributing to the career of a potential Democratic leader in Alaska, you can do so here.

Here’s his first ad:

Yes, Joni Ernst is an extremist, thank you


by digby

Elias Isquith makes note of some extremist GOP candidates’ slicker rhetoric in this campaign:

The Senate campaigns dominating the politics of Colorado and Iowa right now both feature Republican nominees who ideologically come from their party’s hard right. Colorado’s got Rep. Cory Gardner, a photogenic and talented young politician who happens to hold extreme views on all of the Christianists’ biggest issues — abortion, contraception, “religious liberty” and same-sex marriage — but is nevertheless slightly ahead in his neck-and-neck race. Iowa, meanwhile, has state Sen. Joni Ernst, who is similarly radical, similarly able to mask her extremism with a smile and similarly ahead in her Senate campaign.

Yet there’s one more similarity between these two respective Republicans, and it’s one that may tell us a lot about the future of Christianism in the GOP: Both have previously supported — and are now desperately trying to disown — initiatives pushed by Christianist activists to add so-called personhood amendments to the constitutions of their states.

The question is whether they will be able to hide from their fringe-dwelling recent past. From the looks of it they will have no problem. Iowa’s Joni Ernst, who will make a lovely addition to the Ted Cruz faction, voted for a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution. When confronted about by her Democratic opponent Bruce Braley in a recent debate she offered up a nice anodyne response she had clearly been fed by the DC strategists: “That amendment is simply a statement that I support life.” Uh huh.

Anyway, the Washington Post decided to do a fact check and this is what they vomited up:

Braley goes too far with his scary scenarios, especially because he repeatedly said the amendment “would” have the impact he described. Ernst is on record of not opposing contraception—though she also favors punishing doctors who perform abortions. We concede that the legal terrain in murky, and the impact uncertain. But that’s all the more reason not to speak with such certainty. Braley thus earns Two Pinocchios.

That’s right. Braley is the big liar because he can’t prove to a certainty that a constitutional amendment that would declare a fertilized egg a full human being will lead to the banning of abortion and many kinds of birth control. So she gets to say she’s “fer life!” and Braley is portrayed as the extremist.

Kevin Drum says:

Ed Kilgore is dumbfounded by this kind of treatment, and so am I. I just don’t get it. Kessler is not some babe in the woulds. He knows perfectly well exactly what the goal of this amendment is. It’s possible, of course, that Democrats in Iowa will prevent Republicans from enacting enabling legislation. Or that the US Supreme Court will stand in the way. But why does that matter when the intent is so clear? Ernst may say that “I will always stand with our women on affordable access to contraception,” but that’s plain and simple weaseling. And it doesn’t even matter. Republicans in the legislature can keep their hands completely clean and simply let activists take things to court. With an amendment like that in place, no judge could turn away a suit that asked for a ban on abortions or in-vitro fertilization or certain forms of contraception.

I get it. Unlike the local fact check which rated Braley’s accusations true, Kessler doesn’t want to bring on the flying harpies if he doesn’t absolutely have to. So he can give this one to them by employing a literalism so stringent that he’d need to see some kind of testimony that this personhood amendment was intended to ban abortion.

Perhaps he should have asked the fellow who proposed it:

More than 20 Iowa state senators have signed a resolution intended to outlaw abortion in the state, but even a key supporter said Friday it likely won’t get a vote.

Republican Sen. Dennis Guth of Klemme said the resolution he sponsored would make abortion illegal by amending the state constitution to define life as beginning at conception.

“This would send a message to the Supreme Court of Iowa that the people of Iowa want to defend life at all stages,” he said.
[…]
Also signing the resolution were: Republican Sens. Ken Rozenboom, Kent Sorenson, Amy Sinclair, Nancy Boettger, David Johnson, Jake Chapman, Mark Segebart, Bill Anderson, Joni Ernst, Rick Bertrand, Tim Kapucian, Hubert Houser, Jack Whitver, Mark Chelgren, Michael Breitbrach, Jerry Behn, Brad Zaun, Randy Feenstra, Roby Smith and Democrat Sen. Joe Seng.

To pretend that Ernst did not intend to ban certain kinds of contraception and outlaw abortion is simply ridiculous.  But with the help of the Washington press nobody will know about it. So that’s good. For her.

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Oh snap

by digby

Here’s another nominee for worst ad of the season:

This college Republican ad is supposed to be millenial outreach. Let’s just say that most millenials (most people) woul tune that out by the 20 second mark because it’s so incredibly boring.  Even the weirdness isn’t enough to make you stick with it all the way to the end.

Here’s what the typically snotty little twits who always join the College Republicans have to say about it:

“We’ve seen an overwhelming positive response from college students and a small negative response on twitter from scared liberal activists and confused old men, which means the ad is accomplishing exactly what we wanted,” said digital director Stefanie Petropoulos.

And then she did this:

Marcotte has more.

Hysterical Fox News celebrities fomenting panic among their fragile elderly followers

by digby

Apparently the Obama administration is actively trying to kill Americans with Ebola. No one knows why they want to do this. It’s hard to see the political advantage in it — it’s pretty random and will probably kill as many Democrats as Republicans. There’s really no hiding it.

But that’s what the right wing apparently suspects:

So even the CDC is now just another political hack operation and all those hysterical Fox viewers who are already convinced that ISIS is coming over the Mexican border any day now to kill them all in their beds now believe that the Obama administration is hiding the extent of an American Ebola epidemic.

Has there ever been a bigger bunch of cynical bastards in American history? And the sad thing is that they are undoubtedly spreading fear throughout their audience of elderly white folk who are already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At this point they probably think that Obama had ISIS terrorists sneak into America to spread Ebola by beheading journalists. Sad…

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Shocker ‘o the day

by digby

It turns out that when you cut taxes on the rich their incomes go up.  Who would have guessed?

That’s from a week-long series at Mother Jones about the effects of income inequality.  

I thought this one was particularly interesting:

That proverbial rising tide is really a giant wave. The wealthy are comfortably riding it on their multi-million dollar yachts while the rest of us are strapped to the keel. Sure, you could say we rise with that wave too but we’re still under the water.

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The patriarchal lizard brain is only resting

by digby

It always comes back to this:

We need to be careful that we are never, ever throwing the baby out with the bath water as far as the best person always has to get the job,” [Deutch] said. “As we kind of go through her resume, you go ‘Obviously, coming off the prostitute scandal, okay, yeah, women on top makes sense, good for the brand, if you will.’ But the brand doesn’t work if it’s not competent.”

“In positions of national security, quota second, competency first,” he added.

Co-host Joe Scarborough then turned the conversation to the female agent who was guarding the White House’s front door when an intruder entered the building last month and managed to overpower her.

“Now, if a woman, 6′ 4″, can tackle a big guy or a big woman that’s intruding, that’s one thing,” he said. “But we can’t have people standing between the President of the United States and a terrorist that can get knocked down and that’s there for politically correct reasons.”

Scarborough echoed conservative pundit Laura Ingraham with his comments. Speaking Tuesday on “Fox and Friends,” Ingraham blamed a desire for “political correctness” in the Secret Service following the agency’s 2012 prostitution scandal for the fact that a female agent was guarding the door when the White House jumper entered the residence.

They’ve had female Secret Service agents for a long time. And no president has been assassinated since they put them in the job. In fact, the only presidents who’ve ever been assassinated were guarded only by men. Therefore, we should get rid of all the male Secret Service agents. End of story. At least if you’re a moron like these people.

It’s a mistake to get too complacent. The patriarchal lizard brain is just as powerful as it ever was. Sure, you can have equality ladies: until we decide you can’t.

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Dark money and leitmotif
by Tom Sullivan

We’re all pretty tired about now of the fundraising emails. Even without opening them [DELETE], the familiar, red-flashing, DEFCON 1 subject lines from brand-name politicos introduce what’s inside the way Wagner introduced recurring characters as they walked on stage.

I know they are crafted by dedicated, hard-working campaign stiffs just poorly paid to do their jobs. And maybe the mailings “work,” if raising as much money as fast as possible for your team is your sole focus. Still, it feels like democracy’s death spiral. “Look Honey, there’s a fella in a thousand dollar suit who wants to fight for me!” quipped joe shikspack at Firedoglake.

Thomas Edsall takes on the larger money chase in a piece for the New York Times. Comparing and contrasting conservative and liberal “dark money” donors, Edsall reviews a leaked tape of an speech by Mark Holden, general counsel at Koch Industries. Dark money on the left and right are not so different, Holden explains.

Edsall seems not so sure. Although “dark money tilts decisively to the right,” the left’s Democracy Alliance is at least willing to talk about more transparency. The Kochs? Not so much. Still, the influence of money — big and small, light and dark — on politics is troubling as well as an email nuisance.

In the long run, the relatively modest (but growing) dependence of Democrats on dark money, mega-dollar contributors to “super PACs” and other funding mechanisms is corrupting, even as it comes alongside the party’s parallel success in building a powerful small donor base. On issues of taxes, regulation, spending and campaign finance, the Republican Party has established itself as the advocate of the wealthiest Americans. Insofar as the Democratic Party moves in the same direction, it will be unable to act as a counterbalance to the right.

Fine. But instead of just wringing our hands over the corrupting nature of political fundraising, the tactics and vectors for it — and before we start receiving begs from the president’s dog — could we think just a tad about getting that corrupting money out of politics? That’s a light theme we could stand to hear a bit more of, thank you.

The other day Google announced it will be leaving ALEC. “Google becomes latest company to abandon right-wing ALEC.”

This is a big deal. It comes on the heels of a number of other corporations like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo! having left ALEC.

REHM
That’s great. Is it different when you’re thinking about millennials? Are they perhaps more open to the kinds of ideas that Google has come to stand for?

SCHMIDT
Certainly, the millennials that we recruit, hire and so forth, in every way, they seem better than my generation. They’re better prepared, they’re better educated, they’re more collaborative than my generation and they’re more socially conscious. They don’t want to spend their time working for the man in some cog in a wheel doing one task. They want to feel that there’s a social purpose to what they’re doing, that they’re improving the world in some way.

SCHMIDT
And, indeed, you’ll look in tech companies, many of them have very sophisticated corporate responsibility programs or branding around trying to help. And that’s as much to keep the employees motivated as it is for good customer relationships.

What tipped Google over the edge into leaving ALEC? I don’t know exactly, but his answers give us clues. The lying, the hurting children and grandchildren are a big part of it. Then the key phrase, “we should not be aligned with such people.”