Month: November 2014

Karen Tumulty Pumpkin Cake

For cake

* (3/4 cup) softened unsalted butter.
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting pan
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
* 2 tablespoons crystalized ginger, finely chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
* 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk 
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
* 3 large eggs

Icing

* 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons well-shaken buttermilk
* 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, 
* 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
* a 10-inch nonstick bundt pan 


Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter bundt pan generously.

Sift flour (2 1/4 cups), baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together pumpkin, 3/4 cup buttermilk, ginger and vanilla in another bowl.

Beat butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, add eggs and beat 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and add flour and pumpkin mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, just until smooth.

Spoon batter into pan, then bake until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan 15 minutes, then invert rack over cake and reinvert cake onto rack. Cool 10 minutes more.

Icing:

Whisk together buttermilk and confectioners sugar until smooth. Drizzle over warm cake, sprinkle with chopped walnuts (keep a little icing in reserve to drizzle lightly over walnuts) then cool cake completely. Icing will harden slightly.

Easy as pie (easier, actually.) 


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Concerned Women of America are very concerned

by digby

As usual:

Earlier this year, conservative groups led by Concerned Women for America tried unsuccessfully to stop the House from approving a plan to move forward on the building of the National Women’s History Museum, claiming that the museum would be a “shrine to liberal ideology, abortion, and liberal advocates.” Since then, that bill has been held up in the Senate by Republicans Tom Coburn and Mike Lee.

Now the coalition is resuming the fight after hearing that the new museum might be included in a public lands section of an upcoming defense budget. In a press release yesterday, CWA President Penny Nance claimed that the museum would “promote a skewed view of women on key issues like abortion, the free market, and feminism.” Nance also declared that the museum “would in fact be offensive to military members” by including exhibits mentioning people like feminist Bella Abzug, who advocated cuts in military spending.

In an op-ed for Brietbart News, Nance writes that she is against the “identity politics” of the museum in the first place, opposes it especially because she suspects (with no apparent evidence) that it would glorify “whiny” feminists instead of people like a female Peshmerga fighter who died fighting ISIS last month.

So the anti-feminist right loves women in combat these days. That’s quite a change of position. Here’s a litany of what they usually say when the subject comes up:

It is known that, by nature, women are weaker than men in regard to physical strenght and endurance. To hide this, military entry phyiscal requirements for women are greatly diminished in every country that allows women to serve. This of course means that, if a female soldier fights a male soldier in close quarters, she will inevitably succumb, just as a female martial arts practitioner tried to fight a male, equally trained, counterpart. While there are separate sport tournaments for women, this cannot be, obviously, replicated in war.

An official scientific study of the British Ministry of Defence, published in May 2002, stated that only the top 1% of the female soldiers match the strenght, endurance and military quality of the average male soldier. Furthermore, the study also noticed how mixed-sex units experienced a lesser level of espirt de corps and unit cohesion. Also, the Royal Armed Forces found out that women enrolled in co-ed basic training course suffered far more injuries – especially pelvis fractures – than men. An Army doctor was quoted as saying: “It is common sense that women are not as strong as men, and if you put them up against men they will suffer” and that “but if they are recruited to join the infantry and you put them into a combat situation they are obviously going to let the side down because they are not strong enough.” Women were eight times as likely as men to be discharged from basic training due to overuse injuries.

Women also anatomically have specifical hygienic needs that may not be met in war situations, thus leading to illnesses and distress on their part. These illnesses include, but are not limited to, urinary tract infections and gynecological disorders. US Army regulations explicitly advise female soldiers to wash more often and with more water than men.

Female soldiers may deliberately get pregnant in order to avoid hazardous duty. If a man tried to render himself medically unsuitable for combat, he would be subjected to punishment. Aside from being morally questionable, this frequently used-trick can severely harm a unit’s capability to operate by removing hardly replaceable skilled military personnel. For this reason, US Major General Anthony Cucolo, commander of the Northern Iraq zone, enacted in 2009 a policy prohibiting women from getting pregnant, allegedly with the threat of “court martial” and “jail time.” However, he was soon forced to back down when four Democrat Senators and the Natonal Organization of Women fiercely attacked him on political correctness grounds. The general reduced the penalty to a mere and symbolical “admonishment”.

Men’s instinct of protection towards women is ill-suited to war: Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s famous book “On Killing” stated that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) banned women from combat for a tactical reason: when women got killed, wounded or anyway under danger, male soldiers would completely lose control over themselves in an uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression, severely degrading the unit’s combat effectiveness. In the same book, Lt. Col. Grossman also noticed that Islamic fighters rarely if ever surrender to female soldiers. The same happens in today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where civilians and fighters alike aren’t intimidated by women.

Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld published a paper named “The Great Illusion: Women in Combat” where he explains, among many other arguments against women in combat, how hardly any “true” war around the world has been fought by women and that even legendary accounts of Soviet female soldiers are greatly inflated.

An “elephant in the room” of the US Military is the – alleged – rape rate of female soldiers: more than 30% of them – nearly one third, one out of three – experience some form of sexual harassment.This further gets out of control overseas, where a woman is far more likely to be raped by fellow soldiers than to be killed by enemy fire.

But hey, maybe those women Peshmergas as super women who don’t have any of those “problems.” In any case, I’d guess that feminists are very happy to give those female soldiers all the credit they deserve. I would also guess that unless it fit their political agenda, none of those “Concerned Women” would be quite so complimentary.

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Mowing down demonstrators isn’t a crime either?

by digby

Wait, what? I watched this footage of a car honking and running over protesters last night but I didn’t hear what happened later:

Several protesters jumped on the hood of the driver’s car and he eventually came to a stop. He was questioned by police, but the latest reports say he has not been arrested.

This is the same police department who accused the mayor of flashing gang signs, by the way…

What can possibly be the excuse that would allow allow this driver to get away with this. He could have killed someone. Unless he was having a heart attack at the time and lost control of the car it seems to me that he did an exceptionally dangerous thing that would land most of us in jail. I get impatient waiting for people who are jay walking. They often walk slowly, especially the elderly, and sometimes I have to wait through a couple of lights before I can turn. It hasn’t occurred to me that I can just honk and run them over and face no consequences.

This Ferguson crisis is a real learning experience. Apparently some people in this country have a license to kill whenever they feel threatened — or even inconvenienced. Who knew?

Shame

by digby

NYT:

The officer’s testimony, delivered without the cross-examination of a trial in the earliest phase of the three-month inquiry, was the only direct account of the fatal encounter. It appeared to form the spine of a narrative that unfolded before the jurors over three months, buttressed, the prosecutors said, by the most credible witnesses, forensic evidence and three autopsies.

But the gentle questioning of Officer Wilson revealed in the transcripts, and the sharp challenges prosecutors made to witnesses whose accounts seemed to contradict his narrative, have led some to question whether the process was as objective as Mr. McCulloch claims.


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Black bodies aren’t weapons

by digby

I wrote a piece today for Salon about this bizarre right wing rope that Michael Brown wasn’t unarmed. Because he was big. And he was black.

An excerpt:

In [Wilson’s] telling, Brown’s body itself was a lethal weapon (I was afraid another punch “could be fatal”) and impervious to pain. He was even able to “bulk up” as he was running straight into gunfire. He seemed to think Michael Brown had supernatural powers.

This tracks with some very ugly historical caricatures of young black males: 

(photo courtesy the Jim Crow Museum of racist memorabilia)

Charles H. Smith (1893), writing in the 1890s, claimed, “A bad negro is the most horrible creature upon the earth, the most brutal and merciless”(p. 181). Clifton R. Breckinridge (1900), a contemporary of Smith’s, said of the black race, “when it produces a brute, he is the worst and most insatiate brute that exists in human form” (p. 174). George T. Winston (1901), another “Negrophobic” writer, claimed:

When a knock is heard at the door [a White woman] shudders with nameless horror. The black brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust. His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole community is frenzied with horror, with the blind and furious rage for vengeance.(pp. 108-109)

Back in 1901, a writer described a “black brute” as almost “demoniacal”. Over a hundred years later, Officer Darren Wilson told the Grand Jury,”the only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.”

Read on to see how the militarization of the police and stand your ground and a whole lot of other things have contributed in recent years to enabling these noxious stereotypes to continue.

Some things never change.

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Just like a woman; the Weiss nomination pushback has begun

by Gaius Publius

This is an update to something I wrote recently. Elizabeth Warren is strongly opposed to Obama nominee Antonio Weiss for an under-secretary position at Treasury. She delineated her objections here (my emphases throughout):

Enough Is Enough: The President’s Latest Wall Street Nominee

I believe President Obama deserves deference in picking his team, and
I’ve generally tried to give him that. But enough is enough.

Last Wednesday, President Obama announced his nomination of Antonio
Weiss to serve as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the Treasury
Department. This is a position that oversees Dodd-Frank implementation
and a wide range of banking and economic policymaking issues, including
consumer protection.

So who is Antonio Weiss? He’s the head of global investment banking for the financial giant Lazard. He has spent the last 20 years of his career at Lazard — most of it advising on international mergers and acquisitions. …

One of the biggest and most public corporate inversions last summer was the deal cut by Burger King to slash its tax bill by purchasing the Canadian company Tim Hortons and then “inverting” the American company
to Canadian ownership. And Weiss was right there, working on Burger King’s tax deal. …

In recent years, President Obama has repeatedly turned to nominees with close Wall Street ties for high-level economic positions … Enough is enough.

My comment was:

Weiss is Money-to-the-core — the billionaire’s next nominee for Treasury
— so he’ll get Republican Yes votes. But he’s Obama’s nominee, so he’ll
draw Republican No’s as well.

If the nomination fails, every Democratic No has joined with
Warren and become an Open Rebellion candidate going forward. Voting No
in a winning cause will take real courage — “I decline to follow the
leader” courage — and every man and woman who does so deserves your
praise and support. The crack in the Democratic caucus will widen and
the insurgency will grow.

It will indeed take courage for a Democratic senator to oppose both Wall Street and the White House. Do you wonder what happens next? This.

The pushback has started

And now the pushback starts. On the pages of the NY Times Dealbook, editor Andrew Ross Sorkin writes:

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Misplaced Rage at Obama’s Treasury Nominee

Less than 48 hours after President Obama nominated Antonio F. Weiss, a
longtime adviser on mergers at the investment bank Lazard and a
Democratic supporter, to become the under secretary of Treasury for
domestic finance, Senator Elizabeth Warren denounced the appointment and
said that she would vote against his confirmation. …

She said she was
furious that the president would nominate someone from Wall Street.
“It’s time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall
Street banks have over economic policy-making,” she wrote on The Huffington Post.

Specifically, she took
Mr. Weiss to task for working as an adviser on Burger King’s merger
with Tim Hortons, which will result in a combined company based in
Canada, which she suggested should disqualify him.

It is rare to see such
ferocious opposition to a nominee for a deputy position in the Treasury
Department. It is rarer still when the objection comes from within the
administration’s own party.

Yet Ms. Warren’s wrath
is misdirected, and her understanding of the so-called inversion deal
on which she bases much of her opposition appears misinformed. On these
issues, as she might say, “Enough is enough.”

I’ll let you read and decide for yourself if Sorkin’s mitigation is mitigating enough, or if it even addresses the issues Warren raises. But as you do, also consider this, from the same article:

He [Weiss] has been a staunch supporter — and campaign donation bundler — for
President Obama and is considered relatively progressive, especially by
Wall Street standards.

Sorkin’s piece contains a lot to unpackage. First, go back to my earlier piece or to Warren’s and see if she accuses Weiss of the same things Sorkin defends him for, particularly regarding the Tim Hortons–Burger King inversion. In other words, does any of Sorkin’s yes-but really matter? Or more importantly, does the new Tim Hortons–Burger King information mitigate Warren’s main complaint, that:

In recent years, President Obama has repeatedly turned to nominees with close Wall Street ties for high-level economic positions.

I think the answer is no. Warren’s charge stands as she expressed it. Obama is too close to Wall Street, and Weiss is a good friend of the “billionaire class” and no friend of the “little guy” or “the middle class,” which he would need to be as head of the division that

oversees Dodd-Frank implementation and a wide range of banking and economic policymaking issues, including consumer protection.

As Warren said, Weiss is unqualified by background, both specific (his job history) and general (his industry).

“Just like a woman”

Second, there are “tells” in Sorkin’s piece, many of them, that tell us Sorkin is not just reporting the news, but trying the “move the needle” in Weiss’ direction. Can you spot them? Here are a few:

1. Warren has “rage” (from the headline no less).
2. She’s “furious” and “ferocious”.
3. She’s motivated by “wrath”.
4. She “reserves a special rage” for the Burger King deal (from an unquoted part).
5. She’s “to put it politely, mistaken”.

So unpackaging — “to put it politely” white male Wall Street reporter and Dealbook editor Andrew Ross Sorkin paints Elizabeth Warren as overly emotional (filled with “rage” and “wrath”) and a liar. Just like a woman it seems, except for the liar part. To put it politely.

If he had implied she was vindictive, he’s have the liar part connected to the “fury” (think about it). By these standards, his other complaints — that Warren’s objection is “symbolic” and a “campaign talking point” — seem almost tame, kitten-strong, weekday road dust of no special note.

It’s not just the attack; it’s the defense of Weiss

But something else should be screaming out at you, something you think I missed. No, I didn’t miss it. Here, from the text above, is part of Sorkin’s defense of Weiss. He’s:

Talk about a “tell.” If I were Sorkin, I’d shut up about the “bundler” part. Now the appointment just looks corrupt, like one more sleazy “thank you” deal. (“Is the cash all there? Great, here’s your appointment. Now scoot.”)

And about the second part, what does “progressive” even mean in an industry dominated by predators and a predator culture? That Weiss is kind to kittens so long as he’s not at work, eating them? (OK, that’s snark. They don’t eat kittens on Wall Street; they destroy human lives, then invest in the wreckage. Big difference.)

In my book, that “praise” earns an immediate No, even before I read Warren’s carefully argued piece.

So why did Sorkin write a defense of Weiss?

I can’t peek into Andrew Ross Sorkin’s heart. But if his goal is to get Weiss nominated, it plays out like this: 

Do the statement above reflect Sorkin’s motivation? Is he really carrying Wall Street water? Maybe not. But it’s clear the other side is engaged and wants this nomination badly. Perhaps to them it’s “symbolic” of something.

Watch this appointment

Again, watch this one. It will tell you a lot about Senate Democrats, the state of my fancifully-named “Open Rebellion” caucus — Will other Senate progressives go along, or toe the neoliberal line? — and perhaps reveal the role of Harry Reid going forward. I’m reading and hearing that all is not glassy-smooth across Senate Democratic waters, at least regarding the Weiss nomination. At The Nation they’re calling what Warren is doing an “insurrection” and they say she’s not alone in insurrecting.

About time, say I.

P.S. As an added treat, and apropos of nothing at all, this. Enjoy.

Or do you prefer Norah Jones?

GP

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“How you go to war”

by digby

“The most important” part of Rand Paul’s assessment of “questions of war,” the Kentucky senator told The Daily Beast this fall, is “how you go to war.”

No. Not really. The most important question is whether you should go to war, not how. Dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s is great but it cannot substitute for the right judgement. And assuming that’s going to come from the US Senate is laughable.

The closest we’ve come in a very long time to the congress objecting to a president’s desire to go to war was the proposed intervention into the civil war in Syria which, as it happened, the president didn’t really want to do anyway. We don’t know how it would have come out but the British voted against it and there was at least a rare chance that the US Congress might have gone that way too. Still, I doubt it. All they had to do was gin up the propaganda and there probably would have been enough support to back the president.

Prior to that, the last time there was a serious debate in congress (as opposed to a kabuki dance) was the resolution for the first Gulf war. It was a lively debate and the vote was close. But it passed and the war was a huge success and every presidential aspirant who made the call to vote against it was shut out of the nomination because of it. (It has been argued that the opposite happened to Hillary Clinton in 2008 — her vote for the war worked against her although it doesn’t seem to be hindering her at the moment.)

Let’s just say that politicians are often fighting the last war vote but there’s little reason to believe that they are likely to obstruct any war the president wants to fight. Yes, the opposing party always objects mightily when the president exercises his alleged unilateral power to wage a war. It makes for great political theatre. But when push comes to shove the likelihood that they would actually stop him is very, very slim.

Just so there’s no confusion about the outcome of this particular process, Rand Paul’s plan is to have congress declare war on ISIS:

In a draft of the resolution obtained by The Daily Beast, Paul states that “the organization referring to itself as the Islamic State has declared war on the United States and its allies” and that ISIS “presents a clear and present danger to United States diplomatic facilities in the region, including our embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and consulate in Erbil, Iraq.”

The Obama administration has justified the bombing campaign against ISIS by claiming that it is enabled by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force in Afghanistan, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. Paul’s resolution would terminate the latter and place an expiration date on the former, one year after the passing of his resolution.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Paul’s resolution will allow for limited use of boots on the ground “as necessary for the protection or rescue of members of the United States Armed Forces or United States citizens from imminent danger [posed by ISIS]… for limited operations against high value targets,” and “as necessary for advisory and intelligence gathering operations.”

“No. 1: Always go to Congress. We can’t do things unilaterally. This used to be the president’s position in 2007, when he ran for office.”

In an interview with The Daily Beast in September, Paul said he was against the idea of U.S. forces on Middle East soil. “I don’t think there needs to be any American soldiers over there on the ground,” he said. “I don’t mind helping them through technical support, through sophisticated intelligence, drones, Air Force, etc.”

He added: “The people on the ground fighting these battles, going hand-to-hand with ISIS, need to be their fellow Arabs and those who, I think and hopefully do, represent civilized Islam.”

Doug Stafford, a senior aide to Paul, said the senator has not flip-flopped: “He doesn’t believe we should send a bunch of troops in to start a ground war. But he has always said we have an obligation to defend people in the region. The declaration is tailored to allow for this.”

So there you have it. But at least the “process” will have followed. And that’s what counts.

Shift minions getting all uppity
by Tom Sullivan

So, what? Do these uppity, chronically stressed workers think The Economy exists to serve people instead of the other way around? Employees — I’m sorry, Associates — are supposed to genuflect and cross themselves at the sound of their master’s voice, and ask how high when Job Creators says jump. What are those Left Coast socialists smoking?

Politico:

Meet your new union reps: the statehouse and City Hall.

San Francisco’s new law, which its Board of Supervisors passed Tuesday by unanimous vote, will require any “formula retailer” (retail chain) with 20 or more locations worldwide that employs 20 or more people within the city to provide two weeks’ advance notice for any change in a worker’s schedule. An employer that alters working hours without two weeks’ notice — or fails to notify workers two weeks ahead of time that their schedules won’t change — will be required to provide additional “predictability pay.“ Property service contractors that provide janitorial or security services for these retailers will also need to abide by the new rule.

What’s worse, these subversive notions have a way of spreading east from the Left Coast like viruses. Call out the dragoons.

Speaking of predictability, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is predictably miffed about the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights.” For struggling hourly workers, taking classes, caring for families, and raising children (and managing day care logistics) is something The Economy expects you to fit in between work shifts at multiple, part-time, low-paying, no-benefits service jobs where shift schedules vary a lot. But that’s just the way it is and the way The Economy likes it. With labor unions weakened and workers disempowered, setting working conditions once governed by collective bargaining agreements now falls to local Democrats. That is, if you can find any that aren’t Republican lite.

And go figure, labor-friendly measures such as the Retail Workers Bill of Rights are popular. HuffPost:

With Congressional Republicans opposing a minimum wage hike and other legislation aimed at low-wage work, labor unions and their progressive allies have found much more success on the local level. Despite the drubbing that Democrats took in the midterm elections earlier this month, binding ballot initiatives on the minimum wage passed easily in four red states. A measure that will require many employers to provide their workers with paid sick days also passed in Massachusetts.

Politico continues:

Increased unpredictability in work schedules is driven by technology. When store foot traffic had to be measured manually and work schedules were typed out, employers found it cumbersome to alter work schedules too frequently. But just as computers created vast new producer efficiencies through just-in-time store inventories, so, too, did they create vast new staffing efficiencies through just-in-time work scheduling. Trouble is, getting moved around at the click of a mouse is more disruptive to human beings than it is to refrigerators and automobiles.

“Efficiency” is like “shareholder value” that way. When they start hearing it, flesh-and-blood consumable resources better update their resumes, stock up on antacid, and learn to get by with even less sleep.

Earlier this year, 32-year-old Maria Fernandes of Newark, NJ died of asphyxiation while catnapping in her car between shifts of her four part-time jobs. The Economy did not attend her funeral.

I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed …

by digby

Jesus. Panetta:

Panetta: “You never tell your enemy what the hell you’re going to do…It is important for our military leaders to know that they have to be able to use every possible option on the table in order to be able to succeed in that area.”

Building the GOP bench: no girls allowed

by digby

How surprising:

[A]ll 11 state lawmaking chambers that flipped to Republican control in this month’s elections –- six senates, five houses or assemblies — will be led by men. In 10 of the 11, the new Speaker or Senate President (or President Pro Tempore, depending on the state’s particular quirks) has been chosen; in the other, all the reported contenders are male.

But give the GOP some credit where it’s due. Republicans in Montana and Wisconsin have selected Debby Barnett and Mary Lazich to the top state senate posts, joining Susan Wagle of Kansas and Tonya Schuitmaker of Michigan to put women in charge of four of 35 Republican-controlled state senates next year. That’s 11 percent (for you women, who I hear are not so good at math); not great, but not as bad as it could be, considering that women make up just 15 percent of all GOP state senators in the country.

Women hold closer to 18 percent of all lower-chamber Republican seats, but there the boys are definitely in charge. Republicans will control 33 state houses and assemblies now, including five they’ve just taken over, and 10 more where they’ve just chosen a new Speaker. All 15 of those newly crowned leaders are men. It appears that the only female Republican Speaker in the country will be Beth Harwell of Tennessee — assuming she withstands a reported challenge. That’s one woman and 32 guys, a 3 percent/97 percent gender split.

Barring some possible late developments, it appears that men will hold the top post in 93 percent of all GOP-led house legislative chambers — the exact same percentage as before these elections, but now covering more than two-thirds of all the country’s lawmaking bodies.

There’s a lot of talk about what a great “farm team” the Republicans have in the states compared to the Democrats. Maybe so. But they certainly aren’t grooming any women for the big leagues.

Perhaps they subscribe to the Turkish president’s belief that women need “equal respect rather than equality.” That was, as Rick Perlstein reminded me, one of Phyllis Schlafly’s main arguments for rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment. And Schlafly won that one. It looks as though she’s still winning.

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