Month: October 2014

When the 2nd Amendment nullifies the 1st

by digby

I’ve been writing for quite a while about how the gun proliferation movement was essentially nullifying everyone elses freedoms. You might recall the final graph of this piece of mine at Salon which got a whole lot of comments:

All of this is allegedly being done to protect our freedoms. But it’s only the “freedom” of the person wearing a firearm that matters. Those parents who want their kids to feel safe in a public park aren’t free to tell a man waving a gun around to leave them alone, are they? Patrons and employees of Starbucks aren’t free to express their opinion of open carry laws when one of these demonstrations are taking place in the store. Those Jack in the Box employees aren’t free to refuse service to armed customers. Sure, they are all theoretically free to do those things. It’s their constitutional right just like it’s the constitutional right of these people to carry a gun. But in the real world, sane people do not confront armed men and women. They don’t argue with them over politics. They certainly do not put their kids in harm’s way in order to make a point. So when it comes right down to it, when you are in the presence of one of these armed citizens, you don’t really have any rights at all.

You can see why they think that’s freedom. It is. For them. The rest of us just have to be very polite, keep our voices down and back away very slowly, saying, “Yes sir, whatever you say, sir,” and let them have their way.

Check out this piece by Harold Meyerson at the American Prospect in which he talks about the video game critic Anita Sarkeesian having to cancel a speech because of gun laws:

The day before her speech, university administrators received an e-mail warning that a shooting massacre would take place should Sarkeesian go ahead with her speech. “This will be the deadliest shooting in American history,” the message read, “and I’m giving you a chance to stop it.” The e-mail’s author signed with the name Marc Lepine, who, the Times explained, was “a person who killed 14 women in a mass shooting in Montreal in 1989 before taking his own life.”

When administrators told Sarkeesian that Utah law explicitly forbade them from having the campus police stop people with guns from attending her talk, Sarkeesian had little choice but to cancel.

But my interest here isn’t in gamer culture, but rather in the almost incomprehensibly idiotic Utah gun law that keeps police from barring gun-toters from attending events where a gun massacre has been threatened.

I don’t think there even has to be a direct threat for speech to be chilled by this. Those Moms against Guns rallies where people show up and lurk around with their AR-15s were plenty intimidating without having to say a word. Telling someone who is armed to leave your place of business is an inherently more dicey proposition than one who is unarmed. In fact, dealing with people who are carrying guns is entirely different than dealing with one who is not. That’s great for the person with a gun. Not so good for everyone else. But that’s the point.

As Meyerson says:

The problem with the kind of Second Amendment absolutism stoked by the NRA and made into law by legislators and judges is that gun rights taken to extremes inherently imperil other rights. The raisons d’être of guns not used for hunting are self-defense and intimidation. A society where guns are unregulated and the threat of gun violence cannot be legally checked is a society where intimidation becomes the norm and freedom of speech can be easily abridged.

The Constitution is not frictionless machine in which all the parts move harmoniously together. Some of the rights it guarantees collide with other rights it guarantees. The elevation of the Second Amendment into a super-right has now diminished others—including those that the founders quite deliberately put first.

That’s the idea.

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What’s a plutocrat to do?
by Tom Sullivan

“We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic,” friends on the right will cheerfully correct when a Democrat refers to this country as a democracy. It’s true — a true fact, if you hew to the right — but that’s not why they’re so adamant about it. For some reason, Republicans just like the sound of republic better.

But they also don’t really like the idea of democracy itself. It’s a plutocrat thing, Paul Krugman writes, quoting Leung Chun-ying, the leader of Hong Kong, on why full democracy there would be a bad idea: “You would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month. Then you would end up with that kind of politics and policies.” Plutocrats worldwide (and their sycophants) really hate the idea of having to share power with people they consider inferiors. Recall Mitt Romney’s 47% and the makers-takers narrative? Krugman does too:

For the political right has always been uncomfortable with democracy. No matter how well conservatives do in elections, no matter how thoroughly free-market ideology dominates discourse, there is always an undercurrent of fear that the great unwashed will vote in left-wingers who will tax the rich, hand out largess to the poor, and destroy the economy.

In fact, the very success of the conservative agenda only intensifies this fear. Many on the right — and I’m not just talking about people listening to Rush Limbaugh; I’m talking about members of the political elite — live, at least part of the time, in an alternative universe in which America has spent the past few decades marching rapidly down the road to serfdom. Never mind the new Gilded Age that tax cuts and financial deregulation have created; they’re reading books with titles like “A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic,” asserting that the big problem we have is runaway redistribution.

“So what’s a plutocrat to do?” Krugman asks. Since they can’t come straight out and say only the wealthy should have the franchise, they resort to propaganda about voter fraud, etc.

As I wrote at my home blog, they find the whole notion of government of, by, and for the people very, very inefficient.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, there were an estimated half million Tories in this country. Royalists by temperament, loyal to the King and England, predisposed to government by hereditary royalty and landed nobility, men dedicated to the proposition that all men are not created equal.

After the Treaty of Paris, you know where they went? Nowhere. A few moved back to England, or to Florida or to Canada. But most stayed right here.

Take a look around. Their progeny are still with us among the one percent and their vassals. Spouting adolescent tripe from Ayn Rand, kissing up, kicking down, chasing their masters’ carriages or haughtily looking down their noses at people they consider inferiors.

A beating for turnstile jumping

by digby

Because we just can’t have that. This one got a little messy:

A video surfaced Thursday showing an undercover New York City police officer kicking a fellow officer in the head, apparently mistaking him for a suspect.

The news website DNAinfo New York published the video of a January confrontation that started with two transit cops and a man who allegedly tried to skip a fare at a subway station in Coney Island.

The suspect appeared in to physically struggle as they tackled him to the ground and attempted to cuff his hands.

Almost immediately, several uniformed officers streamed from the subway entrance, with what DNAinfo described as an undercover cop tagging along.

The plainclothes officer appeared to mistake one of his fellow officers on the floor for the suspect and kicked him in the head. A loud thump is heard on the tape.

“He kicked the cop,” a nearby bystander could be heard saying on the video.

The officer appeared to have realized his mistake soon after. He rubbed the head of his colleague and then grabbed hold of the suspect and punched him.

Well that’s good. It would have been a dereliction of duty not to get that extra punch in.

You can see the video at the link. I especially love that fact that the plainclothes cop has a handgun just casually tucked into the back of his pants while he’s rolling around in a pile of people without knowing who is the perp and who are the cops. Looks like excellent professional policing there.

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He knows good propaganda when he sees it

by digby

There was a name for this back in the good old days: Useful Idiot

An ad from Republican Arkansas Senate candidate Tom Cotton about his military experience and national security issues uses footage from an ISIS propaganda video as B-roll.

Cotton’s ad, “Decisions,” which came out on Oct. 13, highlights the “tough decisions” Cotton would have to make as a senator about ISIS, the militant group that controls parts of Syria and Iraq, and cites Cotton’s work as an Army Ranger.

The ad about ISIS uses footage directly from the group — a 55-minute long ISIS video, “Flames of War,” which was professionally made and features graphic content that includes a mass execution of a group of men who fall into a ditch.

“In the Middle East, radical terrorists are on the march, destabilizing our allies, beheading Americans, and crucifying Christians,” says Cotton in the ad. “President Obama admits he underestimated them. We need a senator who will hold the president accountable and make America safer. I made tough decisions as an Army Ranger in Iraq. I’ll make them again as your senator.”

Well that’s certainly helpful to the cause. The question is, which one? It’s hard to see how it hurts the cause of ISIS, that’s for sure. They must be pleased as punch to have their handiwork on American television. After all, they went to a lot of trouble to produce it with slick production values. The least we can do is give it some airtime.

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This is why people have no respect for rich people

by digby

They don’t even try to hide their selfishness:

Dear Prudence,

I live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, but on one of the more “modest” streets—mostly doctors and lawyers and family business owners. (A few blocks away are billionaires, families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children. Obviously this makes me feel like a terrible person, because what’s the big deal about making less fortunate kids happy on a holiday? But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services. Should Halloween be a neighborhood activity, or is it legitimately a free-for-all in which people hunt down the best candy grounds for their kids?

—Halloween for the 99 Percent

Dear 99,

You ARE a terrible person and if there is such a thing as karma you will get yours.

Prudence basically said the same thing but she was nicer about it.

Have you heard of “ballot harvesting”? You will.

by digby

My piece at Salon this morning is about another hysterical “vote fraud” pseudo-scandal, this time from Arizona. I recount some of Arizona’s Greatest Vote Suppression hits first and then:

Operation Eagle Eye may have faded but the vote suppression activities continue in Arizona just as they continue all over the nation. And like everywhere else, the modern approach is to hysterically accuse Democrats of committing “voter fraud” and creating an illusion that perfectly legal election practices constitute corruption of our electoral system. As everyone undoubtedly knows by now, this specious misdirection has led to onerous Voter ID laws throughout the nation which are making it very difficult for some people to vote.

But now that they’ve achieved this victory, it’s time to move on to the next step. And if the hysterical reaction from the conservative press is any example, a ridiculous story out of Arizona this week may clue us in to one of the next steps.

Back in 2013, the Republican-dominated Arizona Legislature passed a draconian vote suppression law which, among other things, would have made it illegal for anyone to collect an early voting ballot from another person and deliver it to the registrar’s office. This had been considered a crucial method of getting out the vote in the recall of resident kook Russell Pearce and was understood to be a threat to Republicans in the state. As it happened there was enough of an outcry that the Legislature repealed the measure this past February.

Nevertheless, in the muddled minds of Republicans this is now understood to be a method of “ballot box stuffing,” which is how they characterized an incident that was reported from Maricopa County.

Read on for the details. You won’t believe it.

Make a note of the term “ballot harvesting.” I have a feeling this isn’t the last time we’ll hear of it.

In fact, they are the Real America, the rest of us are foreigners

by digby

Truth:

You’re either the Party of Lincoln,
Or you fly the Confederate flag.
You cannot be both http://t.co/vVfRdChcAU pic.twitter.com/N7OJvfqmTz
— Candace Brown (@CandaceTX) October 23, 2014

I cannot count the ways in which this (from 2013) is idiotic:

Plans by a heritage group, the Virginia Flaggers, to erect a large Confederate flag on a major road outside Richmond has drawn considerable fire from critics who say it’s a symbol of hate.

That’s not true, says Barry Isenhour, a member of the group, who says it’s really about honouring the Confederate soldiers who gave their lives. For him, the war was not primarily about slavery but standing up to being over-taxed, and he says many southerners abhorred slavery.

“They fought for the family and fought for the state. We are tired of people saying they did something wrong. They were freedom-loving Americans who stood up to the tyranny of the North. They seceded from the US government not from the American idea.”

Here’s an All-American idea for you: you lost.

Somebody should ask him about this:

“The flag wasn’t a major symbol until the Civil Rights movement began to take shape in the 1950s,” says Bill Ferris, founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, “it was a battle flag relegated to history but the Ku Klux Klan and others who resisted desegregation turned to the flag as a symbol.”

Imagine that.
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Hope and change Rand Paul style

by digby

So Rand Paul is going to give a big foreign policy speech tonight which is being characterized as being “to the left” of the liberals in the Democratic Party, which is very interesting. One can only wonder who his constituency for such a thing might be. It certainly makes you wonder which Republicans he plans to convince to vote for him.

He will, of course, attack Obama for many things, some of which will undoubtedly be right. (The foreign policy consensus in both parties is certainly ripe for criticism.) He is going to quote Malala and sound very attractively dovish. But here’s what it comes own to:

“Here’s how I see the most important principles that should drive America’s foreign policy,” Paul will tell the crowd. “First, the use of force is and always has been an indispensable part of defending our country… A second principle is that Congress… must authorize the decision to intervene… A third principle is the belief that peace and security require a commitment to diplomacy and leadership,” and last, “we are only as strong as our economy.”

Paul then attempts to outline when, exactly, he believes force is justified: “War is necessary when America is attacked or threatened, when vital American interests are attacked and threatened, and when we have exhausted all other measures short of war.”

Granted, that’s probably more dovish than you’re going to hear from Rick Perry who sounds like he’d ready to round up Muslims all over the world and put them in FEMA camps. But revolutionary? Not exactly. That’s got so much daylight in it that the National Security State apparatus can drive a B-52 through it.

Seriously, what about this statement in any way represents a change from Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Obama or any other post WWII president?

War is necessary when America is attacked or threatened, when vital American interests are attacked and threatened, and when we have exhausted all other measures short of war

I’m sure there will be a few lefties who’ll be taken with this. But I’m much more interested in what the Republicans will say. Should be a fascinating primary.

Koch allies court NC stoners
by Tom Sullivan

Last night a colleague forwarded an email she received from an NC friend:

I was watching the Good Wife on Hulu Plus last night, and this ad with a couple of attractive young people talking about how cool it is that Sean Haugh wants to legalize marijuana. When it came up a few minutes later, I realized it couldn’t be for real, and I searched it on the internet, and yes, it’s the Kochs trying to pull votes away from Kay Hagan.

It is one of a series of 10 commercials that “came as a complete surprise” to Haugh. Whatever you are hearing from pollsters about the senate race in North Carolina, yes, Thom Tillis’ backers are just that desperate. Matt Phillippi at PoliticsNC:

Like many Americans I got rid of cable several years ago and now get a lot of my TV from streaming internet services. I was watching Hulu last night, and saw not one, but two different ad spots supporting Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh. This is odd in itself, because political campaigns rarely advertise there (with the exception of the President in 2012). The ads looked very homespun, and only really got my attention because the message of the first one was “Get Haugh, Get High” with young people holding up pictures of marijuana while wearing tie-dyes and Bob Marley T-Shirts, which seemed a little outlandish even for a Libertarian candidate. The second ad positioned Haugh as the anti-war candidate, and labeled Hagan as a “War Monger” literally labeled, right over her picture. That was when I read the ‘paid for’ tags on the bottom of the ad.

The ads were paid for by the American Futures Fund, a 501(c)4 organization started in 2008 by several members of Mitt Romney’s first presidential primary campaign staff. The organization claims to promote “Conservative, free-market ideals.” In reality the organization spends the majority of its money attacking Democratic candidates. According to Opensecrets.org, during the 2013-2014 cycle, AFF has spent 84% of its money attacking Democratic candidates and 16% supporting Republicans (scroll down on that link for a nice graph illustrating this).

Hagan laughed when I told her on Saturday that Thom Tillis was her best campaigner. Tillis’ backers apparently think so too if they are down to this Hail Mary play in an attempt to draw votes away from Hagan.

Early voting gets under way in North Carolina this morning.

That Film About Money 

by tristero

A friend of mine, James Schamus, spent his summer vacation making two hilarious, brilliant, and deeply unsettling films about the bizarre subject of modern money. They are not to be missed:

That Film About Money, Episode 6 of We The Economy 

The Second Part of That Film About Money, Episode 7 of We The Economy 

Much about our very weird country is revealed in the process. Enjoy (if that’s the word)!