Month: December 2014

Good Dems, Bad Dems, Dems Who Are In-Between

by Gaius Publius

I’ve written about the possibility of an “Open Rebellion Caucus” (my playful name) forming in the Senate — a group of progressive senators strong enough and willing enough to openly defy their corporate-friendly Clintonian leaders.

Clintonian leaders frequently espouse anti-progressive policies, like cutting benefits to Social Security and punishing the poor by “ending welfare,” for example. Those “leaders” include both President Obama and former President Clinton, high-ranking members of their administrations, and most Democrats in Congress, including those in leadership positions — Steny Hoyer in the House (next in line for Pelosi’s position) or Chuck Schumer in the Senate (next in line for Reid’s), to name just two.

For years, real progressives have been frustrated by these men and women. They’ve also been shamed, bullied, blackmailed, and in some cases bought off by their “leaders.” Their losses, their fear, their attempts to advance more human policies have become just “part of the game,” and we’ve been watching the results since Al From, Bill Clinton and the DLC. It’s been a good game for bipartisan government “by the money” — they’ve scored win after win — but a terrible game for the rest of us. And mainly, the game’s been stable.

A United Party Is a Complicit Party

How have progressive office-holders
(most but not all) been complicit in government “by the money”? In two ways. First, many progressives have given their votes (reluctantly perhaps) to policies that benefit mainly the rich — Wall Street bailouts, gutting of the regulatory structure of the state, support for Monsanto when no one was looking, and so on.

And second, they’ve given ground cover (unknowingly perhaps) to the Democratic (“evil, but less so”) Party as a whole. How? Because the pro-corporate Democratic party can always point to its (often hated) progressive wing and say, “See, we’re the party with a conscience. Our evil really is lesser. Listen to the speeches of these fine progressives — you know, the ones we ignore.”

And progressives, in the name of party unity, have mostly held their tongues when it counted (for example, during the 2013 filibuster “debate” when they hid the names of their own anti-reform elders), mostly soldiered on, content to pick away at the edges of corporate rule, to win a few crumbs from the floor at the corporate feast. And they’ve traded away their principles, often, for those wins. Which makes them complicit in the first way I mentioned.

Open Rebellion Means Breaking the Chains of Complicity

But now there’s a birth, a start, of a new group of progressive office-holder, a group that won’t be party-loyal when the party sides against the people, that won’t hold its party-loyal tongue, that will openly criticize and fight the other enemy of pro-citizen government — corporate Democrats.

The calculus is simple — progressives are mostly losing anyway, and they’re also losing their “souls,” or at least obscuring their anti-corporate “brand,” with critical pro-corporate votes. By voting in party unity with corporate-friendly “leaders,” they’re giving voters a reason to look elsewhere than the Democratic party. If progressives are going to lose anyway, they might as well lose fighting the real enemy, the bipartisan corporate state, and be seen doing it. At least they’ll give the people someone to rally around. There’s no question that the people are looking for someone to rally around.

It’s a tough road to go down, though, fighting one’s own party leaders. What to choose? Party unity when the party demands it (and the perqs that go with that compliance), or progressive principles and life as an outcast if you hold to them? Choosing the latter takes extraordinary courage (remember Dennis Kucinich’s plane ride?). Thus there are three groups of Democrats in office today:

1. Money-bought and corporate-friendly. Bad to the core on most money issues; frequently deeply corrupt as well. The many.
    
2. Progressives willing to say publicly to their leaders, “Enough is enough.” The insurgents. The very few.
    
3. “Progressives” who triangulate between their principles and their loyalty to party (or their fear, their calculation, or their own careers). The in-betweens, the torn, or those who appear to be torn.

This is about those three groups. They’re starting to sort themselves. They’re starting to self-identify. And one group may be starting to grow.

What Did the Continuing Resolution Show Us?

As I’ve often written, when it comes to votes in the House or Senate, you can only trust the sincerity of people who vote with the winner when the outcome is uncertain. In situations where the outcome is not in doubt, votes for either side may be sincere, or they may be just “for show,” for “the district,” or a form of what Howie Klein below calls preening.

We got a perfect example of that in the Senate recently on the so-called “CRomnibus” bill — the continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government, which also contains the “omnibus” appropriations for all of its agencies. (That bill passed in both the House and Senate, by the way, so the government is funded through the end of its fiscal year, October 1, 2015.)

There were many many reasons to vote against this abomination (there are at least ten at the link), but Elizabeth Warren and others made several impassioned pleas to kill it over a “Citibank rider” that would have put taxpayers back on the hook for derivatives-gambling losses. Warren was especially strong and caustic, as in this floor speech:

In the Senate and in the caucus, it was Warren who led the charge, who forcefully urged rejection of the “CRomnibus” bill. Since Steny Hoyer and almost everyone in House leadership except Nancy Pelosi supported the bill, and since both Barack Obama and Joe Biden whipped for its passage, she put herself squarely in the insurgency, in open and public rebellion against her leaders.

As it played out in the Senate, those three groups revealed themselves, partly in caucus meetings and partly in their votes. Let’s consider just the votes here, and leave the caucus discussion for another time. There were two votes on the bill, two chances to kill it. One group tried to kill the bill every chance they got. One group supported the bill every chance they got. And one group voted against the bill only after it was sure to pass.

As usual, three groups of Democrats. And because Warren created such a sharp bright line with her charismatic, principled intra-party challenge, the self-sorting into those groups was both revealing and perhaps a harbinger. Let’s look at the names.

Where Was the Merkley Crowd During the Cloture Vote?

The Continuing Resolution/Omnibus Spending bill came for a vote in the Senate on Saturday, December 14. First it had to survive a cloture vote to bring it to the floor, then a floor vote on the bill itself. From a valuable Howie Klein analysis (my emphasis and paragraphing):

First there was a cloture bill. The Democrats who were really serious
about blocking Schumer’s Wall Street bailout voted against cloture. They
were ready to filibuster for real. There were only 5 plus Bernie [Sanders]:
Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Joe Manchin, Claire
McCaskill. And, of course a bunch of crackpot Republicans who actually
want to shut down the government. The total there was 77-19.

What
happened to Jeff Merkely, Tammy Baldwin, Brian Schatz, Sheldon
Whitehouse and Jack Reed [on the cloture vote]?

Then there was the vote on the bill itself. Klein again:

Once the filibuster was broken and it was
impossible to really stop the thing from passing, senators could posture
and preen on the final bill– and they did. Corporate whores like Bob
Menendez (NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Cory Booker (NJ), Maria Cantwell
(WA), Ed Markey (MA) and Carl Levin (MI) scurried across the aisle to
safely pose as liberals. Tom Harkin (IA), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and
Barbara Boxer (CA) too. It passed 56-40.

Let’s break out these lists. In bold are the Democratic No votes on cloture, votes to kill the bill by keeping it off the floor:

These are the people who tried to kill the bill at the first opportunity. Everyone who voted Yes on the cloture vote helped it pass. Once the cloture vote failed, 77-19, everyone in the Senate knew there were plenty of votes to pass it. Time for some posturing.

Here are the Democratic No votes on the bill itself. Bolded names also voted against cloture. Underscored names are those who let it pass during cloture, then voted against it when the lights were on. Remember, this is the vote that gets reported in the papers and on TV.

In other words, the following Democrats helped the bill pass during cloture, then sided against it, knowing they would lose (but look good doing it). These are just the underscored Democrats from the list above. Note that most have a well-cultivated “liberal” or “progressive” reputations.

I’m calling these people, or most of them, the “Merkley crowd” because they frequently take progressive stands behind Merkley’s leadership — on filibuster reform, for example, which I mentioned above. I’m also calling them the “in-between” crowd, at least on this vote, for reasons I just explained. Howie Klein has more about this group of senators here, including some striking and specific information about where some of them get their funding.

If you feel like making a phone call, you don’t need anyone’s permission. Just use the list above, check Klein’s list of funding sources to see if your callee is mentioned (not all are), and then ask the senator this:

“Why did you vote for cloture if you opposed the bill?”

For example, Jeff Merkley issued this statement opposing the bill after it passed (my emphasis):

WASHINGTON — Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released the following statement after the Senate voted on passage of the 2015 spending bill.

“Tonight the Senate voted on final passage of the 2015 spending bill. While there are many positive aspects of the bill, I voted ‘no’ [but not on cloture] because of my deep opposition to a provision that puts the Wall Street Casino back in business.

“This provision allows big Wall Street banks to get back in the business of making risky and exotic bets with government backing. These bets have no place inside a bank, putting our financial system at risk. And they certainly don’t merit government backing.

“Just six years ago, these types of bets melted down our entire economy with great losses in jobs and savings for middle-class Americans. We must not allow this to happen again. We can and must do better.”

A principled statement. But given that he didn’t vote No on cloture, what does it mean? That he wanted to indicate he was opposed while taking the deal anyway as the best they were going to get? A plausible explanation perhaps, but he could have just said that. I struggle to understand.

Again, Jeff Merkley’s DC office number is (202) 224-3753, and his Portland office number is (503) 326-3386. He may have an excellent explanation, but if so, we deserve to hear it, especially in light of the statement above.

Democrats Who Voted With Wall Street All the Way

There were plenty of Democrats in the corporate group — who were a Wall Street Yes all the way. Granted there were other reasons to vote Yes on both cloture and the bill — including and maybe especially, reasoned surrender to blackmail, or a (complicit) “this is the best deal we could get.”

Still, a double Yes was a Wall Street Yes, for whatever reason. You can get the full list here of double-yes Democrats, but the names that jump out at me are —

Care to ask about their votes? Full Senate phone numbers here.

There are several on this list I’d personally add to an “Addition by Subtraction” file immediately, people whose presence should never be missed by any real progressive. For example, I could lose Michael Bennet and Mark Warner in a Wall Street Minute. If their presence cost Democrats the Senate, I’d be glad for their absence. (I could lose Schumer as well, but maybe that’s just me.)

What About McCaskill and Manchin?

Finally, an apparent anomaly. Claire McCaskill and Joe Manchin, two “centrists” (corporatists), voted with Warren to defeat the cloture motion. How do we account for that? One way is this. If the rule is …

In situations where the outcome is not in doubt, votes for either side may be sincere, or they may be just “for show.”

… maybe they’re in that “for show” group. It’s possible they’re opposed to Wall Street, though both are generally allied with Chuck Schumer, who’s widely rumored to have worked to keep the Citibank rider in the bill. But McCaskill and Manchin are also reportedly enemies of Harry Reid, Schumer’s frequent opponent in Senate leadership.

So this could just be “for show” on their part. If so, what are they showing? Perhaps a big middle finger to Reid, knowing cloture would fail and the bill would pass without them. According to The Hill (my paragraphing):

Manchin and McCaskill wage protest against Reid’s leadership style

Two centrists, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Joe Manchin
(D-W.Va.), voted against Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.)
Thursday to protest his leadership style.

McCaskill said that,
under Reid’s tenure as Senate majority leader, the chamber has become
engulfed in partisan sniping and produced little in the way of
legislative progress. The Missouri Democrat said she’s focused on “making this place functional again and working with our Republican colleagues.” …

She voted no on a yes-or-no secret ballot question on
whether Reid should serve as minority leader in the 114th Congress. She
did not have an opportunity to vote for another leader.

Sen. Joe
Manchin (D-W.Va.) sounded exasperated after emerging from a four-hour
meeting, during which Democrats voted to keep their leadership team
largely in place. “I voted for a change,” Manchin told reporters. “I didn’t get a change.” …

 And this is how the game is played, as I analyze it.

Where Do Our Three Groups Stand Now?

Thus our three groups, at the dawn of the late-Obama era, the post-2014 world. In the first group — the corporatists — money-bought Democrats lost ground to the corporate, money-bought Republicans. On the Democratic side, this group is smaller in number, but still in control of the caucus. Their number is legion relative to the other two groups.

In the second group — the insurgents — we see Elizabeth Warren leading the charge, and so far refusing to triangulate, to settle for less than a fight that puts teeth on the floor, Democratic teeth as well. Their number is six after first the round of battle.

In the third group — the “Merkley” group — we see many progressives who perhaps lack that fight, for whatever reason. (I’ll examine those reasons separately; there’s news from the caucus meeting.) On this fight they were less than insurgent, less than rebellious. Their number is 16.

If the Merkley group would all join the six insurgents — unlikely, I know, but still — the insurgency would have an impressive increase in strength. According to the latest count, the next Senate is 44 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 54 Republicans. Assuming “centrist” Angus King still caucuses with the Democrats, imagine if the insurgency caucus swells to 22 votes out of 46. (And frankly, without Angus King, 22 votes in a caucus of 45 is even better. Addition by subtraction, remember?)

What’s not to like? Democrats would benefit (think of the increase in credibility). The insurgents would individually benefit (think of the increase in credibility). And the people themselves (remember them?) would also benefit. What’s not to like?

Will Warren draw the 16 to her side? Will they quiet the fight in her? Or do we have a stalemate in alignment that is unlikely to change? These are fascinating days for a fly on the wall. Welcome to the wall.

GP

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Stand for something!

by Tom Sullivan

“The Republican message was ‘We’re not Obama,’ no substance whatsoever. What was the Democrats’ message? ‘Oh, we’re not either.’ You cannot win if you are afraid! Where was the Democratic party? You gotta stand for something if you’re gonna win!” – Howard Dean on Meet the Press, November 9, 2014

That message from Howard Dean has stuck with me ever since. After so many episodes of yelling at Democrats on TV to “Stand for something!” it was validating. At long last, are they taking Dean’s advice? This from the Guardian about the aftermath of recent budget fight:

“I’m walking out of this meeting feeling very proud of my caucus because there was moral clarity, there was conviction”, said freshman California congressman Jared Huffman at the height of the great Democratic revolt of 2014. “I had the feeling a few moments ago that we stood for something. I hope it holds.”

Less than 60 minutes later, after that hopeful party meeting wrapped up last Thursday evening, such optimism already seemed naive. Backroom pressure from the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, had quickly killed off an attempt by Democrats in the House of Representatives to draw a line in the sand against a federal budget that favoured Wall Street and wealthy donors.

So don’t hold your breath. Fifty-seven Democrats eventually joined Republicans in passing the spending bill.

There’s the usual speculation in the article about a presidential run by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of course, but maybe more. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Warren’s revolt against the spending bill last week. “[S]omething intangible snapped,” among Democrats, writes the Guardian’s Dan Roberts:

Most surprising of all was the withering disdain for the White House expressed by Pelosi, a usually staunch ally of Obama, of whom his press secretary said the next day: “It is hard to think of anybody that the president has worked with more closely or more successfully on Capitol Hill.”

And yet, Pelosi sided with the Senate’s Warren against the White House on this one. After January 3 when Republicans take control of the Senate too, it only gets worse.

Nevertheless, the future success of more reliable renegades like Senator Warren depends on their being able to capitalise on simmering party divisions like this – arguably in much the same way that the Tea Party has leveraged power among Republicans so successfully in recent years.

Warren and her new-found friends in the House also have the advantage of being able to team up with conservatives on the right on the Republican party when it suits them, something that Pelosi demonstrated to great effect when she almost brought down the budget bill.

As we found here after Republican-led redistricting, there’s nothing quite like being outnumbered with your back to the wall for motivating people to fight. Maybe Democrats will even take a few more stands. And about damned time.

More debt ceiling chicken

by digby

It was such a big winner for them they’re going back for more:

Republican Tom Price, the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, said his party could demand steep spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling next year, the most provocative comments by a senior GOP member to date on how negotiations could play out.

The Georgia congressman, during an hour-long briefing with reporters Friday, said the expected mid-2015 debate over whether to raise or suspend the debt ceiling offered Republicans an opportunity to make a sizable imprint on government policy.

Why wouldn’t they? They have never suffered anything at all for their tactics. They are rewarded for them.

Steve Benen says this isn’t 2011 and that the Democrats have learned the GOP won’t go through with it:

Hostage crises only work when there’s a credible threat. In this case, Democrats have to actually believe that Republicans would do deliberate harm to the country unless Dems paid a ransom. But once Obama realized that GOP leaders had no intention of crashing the economy on purpose, the fear disappeared and the incentive to hold the nation hostage again vanished with it.

On Friday, Tom Price said in effect, “Maybe we can go back to the way things were in 2011?” And the polite response from the Oval Office and sensible adults everywhere will be, simply, “No.”

Maybe that’s true. But playing chicken with the debt ceiling will almost assuredly end up forcing more cuts than would have happened otherwise as Democrats run around in circles trying to find some sweet spot in anticipation of the battle ahead. If these Republicans can’t drown the government in the bathtub, they’ll just waterboard it until it passes out.

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“God bless you men and God Bless America”

by digby

This whole thing is disgusting, but this exhortation to thank the torturers has to be among the most insulting.

No, these are people I will not be thanking for their service.

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Rape by instrumentality

by digby

I think people don’t realize how much anal rape was going on. It wasn’t just those “high value” detainees and it didn ‘t happen just a couple of times.

This was from Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side”:

A former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the ‘takeout’ of prisoners as a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location. A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories during the takeout of detainees, likened the treatment to ‘sodomy.’ He said, ‘It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability. The interrogation became a process not just of getting information but of utterly subordinating the detainee through humiliation.’ The former C.I.A. officer confirmed that the agency frequently photographed the prisoners naked, ‘because it’s demoralizing.”

And this:

None of the approved techniques, however, covered some of what people have now said occurred. Mr. Kahtani was, for example, forcibly given an enema, officials said, which was used because it was uncomfortable and degrading.

Pentagon spokesmen said the procedure was medically necessary because Mr. Kahtani was dehydrated after an especially difficult interrogation session. Another official, told of the use of the enema, said, however, “I bet they said he was dehydrated,” adding that that was the justification whenever an enema was used as a coercive technique, as it had been on several detainees.

There was this at Abu Ghraib:

A US military investigation, carried out by Major General Antonio Taguba, uncovered evidence of war crimes against the inmates, including: breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

There have been many similar reports of sodomy and other sexual abusecollected by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which have routinely been dismissed as some kind of slick propaganda training by Al Qaeda. Now we have a former Guantanamo prison guard also validating the charges — and implicating medical personnel (which is another sick aspect of this that we’ve discussed at length, but still don’t know the extent of.) Scott Horton reports:

[T]the Nelly account shows that health professionals are right in the thick of the torture and abuse of the prisoners—suggesting a systematic collapse of professional ethics driven by the Pentagon itself. He describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgment that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. 

Folks, they were raping these prisoners and they knew they were raping these prisoners. It wasn’t just the CIA, it was the Pentagon too.

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Torturers R Us


by digby

This makes me want to cry:

76% of Republicans say CIA interrogation methods justified; 37% of Dems agree, 46% disagree http://t.co/gKruktpkib pic.twitter.com/Y3f9bumhxZ
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) December 15, 2014

I’d love to hear them explain that to their kids. At church.

BTW: When people say there’s no difference between the parties, this is the sort of thing that disproves it. Yes, there are many Democrats who support torture or idiotically think it works despite all evidence. But there are whole boatloads more Republicans who are cheerfully onboard the torture train.

It’s not much, but it does explain why one might choose one party over another in a two party system.

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How Cheney planned his move for decades

by digby

I wrote about Dick Cheney’s ignominious legacy in Salon today:

As many of us wade through the horror of the Senate torture report, it’s hard not to think back to a time when the man who ran the country explained to us in plain language what he was doing. I’m talking about Vice President Dick Cheney, of course, the official who smoothly seized the reins of power after 9/11 and guided national security policy throughout his eight years in office. He was one of the most adept bureaucratic players American politics has ever produced and it’s his doctrine, not the Bush Doctrine, that spurred government actions from the very beginning. It was called the One Percent Doctrine and according to author Ron Suskind it went like this:

If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response.

Or put another way: “It’s time to take the gloves off.”

read on …

This went all the way back to the 70s when Cheney was working in the Nixon and Ford White Houses and thought that the USA was becoming soft and the presidency was losing its juice. He was ready to fix that when he got the chance and he has no regrets. He does not care one bit that he’s considered by millions of people to be a war criminal and a sadist. He got what he wanted.

9/11 opened a new door for Cheney as well. The One Percent Doctrine not only presented him with a perfect chance to restore presidential authority to its full power, he could enlist members of the opposing party, the press and a large number of the American people in his goal to exempt the U.S. military empire from all obligations to international law and norms. It was not considered a problem if America had to go it alone. In fact, in many ways it was preferable. (It’s the logic of Winner Take All Politics, writ large.) It was American Exceptionalism to the 10th power: No matter how infinitesimal the threat we may act, and act with brutal force. We’ve got your new world order for you, right here. By capitalizing on the fear and anger among Americans after 9/11, and even more important, leveraging the political cowardice of his opponents, Dick Cheney deftly manipulated an atmosphere of chaos to his desired ends: an imperial presidency, a permanent war footing and an even more powerful national security apparatus that operates with impunity.

As we all wring our hands and rend our garments over an official report that reveals what we already knew, the system he put in place remains intact and operating at full steam. The president washes his hands of the past, the Congress declares its innocence and then averts its eyes, the CIA says it was only following orders, and the press clutches its collective pearls unable to even use the word “torture” when questioning the head of the agency about horrors it perpetrated.

There are Godwinesque restrictions on certain things we can say about Dick Cheney in public. But I don’t think it’s too much to point out that having him on television saying what he said yesterday is the very definition of the banality of evil. Yesterday morning Dick Cheney, torturer, unrepentant war criminal was presented as just another government bureaucrat doing his job. He will be welcomed into the homes of the political elite like any other former VP, as will the man he went to great lengths to say approved it all: George W. Bush.  In fact, Jeb Bush is widely hailed as the best man to carry on the “Bush tradition” and cognoscenti of all political stripes are cheering on his candidacy.

Think about that: the political establishment believes that the brother of the president who ordered torture and invaded a country on false pretenses — and who has never shown the slightest daylight between his brother’s policies and decision and his own beliefs — is an excellent candidate for the presidency. It’s not even a question as far as I can tell.

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The racist bone in our congressional body

by digby

This is in the new spending bill. Seriously.

Everyone is aware, I’m sure, that ACORN has not existed since 2009. There are no affiliates or successors. It’s dead. They killed it. Based on a hoax.

It seems to me that this should be a big story although I know it’s considered just a little GOP quirk. But it’s actually a bone being fed to racists. Why is that ok? And why is the media not exposing it for the racist nonsense it is?

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Cleveland police behaving badly (again)

by digby

Talk about not getting it:

A Cleveland police union has demanded that the Cleveland Browns football team apologize for a player who wore a T-shirt before Sunday’s game protesting the police shootings of two black people.

Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt reading “Justice for Tamir Rice And John Crawford III” during pre-game warmups. Rice, who was just 12 years old, died last month after a Cleveland police officer shot him when he mistook the boy’s toy gun for a real weapon. Crawford, 22, was shot dead by police in August at an area Wal-Mart while he was holding an air rifle.

Cleveland Police Patrolman Union President Jeff Follmer sent local TV station WEWS a statement after Sunday’s game that called for an apology from the NFL team.

“It’s pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law,” the statement read, as quoted by WEWS. “They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.”

The only right way to deal with this is to say nothing. This self-righteous defensiveness just exposes them as the kind of thin-skinned, unprofessional authorities with little regard for citizens’ constitutional rights that has people up in arms in the first place. Failing to treat the police with the respect they believe they deserve is not against the law. At least not yet.

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You: Wall Street’s human shield
by Tom Sullivan

During a similar period of prolonged, public face-palming over Washington idiocy, somebody asked: Where’s Tom Lehrer when you really need him? Well at 86, the singer-satirist is no longer performing. Thankfully, we have Matt Taibbi, back at Rolling Stone.

Taibbi gives the Citigroup provision in the “Cromnibus” budget bill a bit of the “vampire squid” treatment. Senator Elizabeth Warren made headlines on Friday night when the Massachusetts Democrat read aloud the title of the Dodd-Frank rule the Citigroup-sponsored provision aimed to repeal: “PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS OF SWAPS ENTITIES.” And then proceeded to vivisect it in her speech on the Senate floor, warning that passage means more corporate welfare in the form of taxpayer-funded bailouts. It is a provision neither Republicans nor Democrats would own up to inserting, neither would defend, yet would not stand up in numbers to remove lest it precipitate a government shutdown. Neither will the White House veto it.

Taibbi writes (emphasis mine):

There’s no logical argument against the provision. The banks only want it because they want to use your bank accounts as a human shield to protect their dangerous gambling activities.

Or maybe us as human sacrifices. The vote to pass the Continuing Resolution without stripping the Citigroup provision proved Warren’s point that the original Dodd-Frank bill properly should have broken Citigroup into pieces:

Think about this kind of power. A financial institution has become so big and so powerful that it can hold the entire country hostage. That alone is a reason enough for us break them up. Enough is enough.

Warren reinforced my point as well: What vestigial meaning has the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers when it is all the same power?

Taibbi gets it too, albeit more colorfully:

Conservatives for welfare, and liberals for big business. It doesn’t make sense unless we’re not really dealing with any divided collection of conservatives or liberals, and are instead talking about one nebulous mass of influence, money and interests. I think of it as a single furiously-money-collecting/favor-churning oligarchical Beltway party, a thing that former Senate staffer and author Jeff Connaughton calls “The Blob.”

INDESCRIBABLE… INDESTRUCTIBLE! NOTHING CAN STOP IT! At least, that’s what Big Money would have us believe.

Responding to Warren’s third speech in a week criticizing financial deregulation, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suggested Warren and other critics of the measure were not mature enough to run Washington. “Don’t follow her lead,” Graham warned the Senate. “She’s the problem.”

Uh-huh.

Washington critics may be a dime a dozen, but for Villagers cozy with the money brokers, Warren is the most irritating kind. Everyone knows she’s right.