Month: January 2015

Scary environmental chart of the century


by digby

Chris Mooney:

It is official: According to both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the year 2014 was the hottest ever measured, based on records going back to the year 1880.

It now surpasses all past scorchers, including 1998, 2005, and 2010. Indeed, except for 1998, says NASA, the 10 hottest years recorded have all occurred since the year 2000.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the new record is that it occurred even though 2014 was not an El Niño year, of the sort that usually powers the already up-trending global average temperature to new highs.

Sure, this may have happened before but even if it did we should probably concern ourselves with the fact that it’s happening again, don’t you think? And maybe try to do something about it? Yes, we know that science isn’t perfect but this seems like one situation where in which the preponderance of evidence says that humans are contributing to this problem might require that we take steps to mitigate this problem if we can.

What I don’t understand is the vehemence of the opposition. Sure, the Koch brothers and the other oil and coal soaked Big Money Boyz stand to see a dent in their billions over time if we get off fossil fuels. But why are so many ordinary people against doing something about this? How will it hurt them personally? Nobody anywhere has suggested that people go back to living by candle light and moving around by horse and carriage.

I guess it’s sheer tribalism and hatred of hippies and scientists. What else could it be?

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Scary political chart of the day

by digby

Good lord:

In the past three elections, Republicans have gained 913 state legislative seats, according to calculations made by Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia. Here are Sabato’s figures in chart form — and with historical comparisons — via GOP lobbyist Bruce Mehlman.
Now, there are more 7,000 state legislative seats in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which makes that 913 number slightly less eye-popping. Still, the Democratic losses between 2010 and 2014 amount to 12 percent of all state legislative seats nationwide.

As NCSL notes, Republicans now control more than 4,100 seats — their highest number since 1920. After taking over 11 legislative chambers from Democrats in 2014, Republicans now control 30 state legislatures completely — and have full control of state government (state legislature and governorship) in 23 states. Democrats, by contrast, have full control of 11 state legislatures and total control of state government in just seven states. (Click here for an amazing NCSL chart that details which side controls every state legislature.)

Maybe this is a reflection of the fact that the Democratic base is substantially younger and hasn’t yet entered electoral politics? Redistricting that benefits Republicans on the state level as much as it does on the national level?

I don’t know. But it’s a problem for regular folks trying to live their lives. These modern Republicans are nuts. Of course, that’s one reason I don’t worry as much as some that they will be a huge threat going forward. The nuttiest of them probably won’t last and he pendulum wil swing a bit back. But still, it’s startling. And worrisome.

Have DC Democrats Learned Their Progressive Lesson, or Has the Ad Campaign Started?

by Gaius Publius

I’ve been noticing Chris Van Hollen lately, first with his proposal on carbon emissions, and now with his proposal on a “Robin Hood” Wall Street transaction tax, to finance a middle-class tax cut.

Van Hollen first got on my radar as someone who appears at Pete Peterson deficit “summits,” like this one in 2012, along with “liberal” stalwarts like Bill Clinton:

At the same time, I’ve been wondering when the ad campaign would start, the one where post-election Democrats would tell their base, “Dear progressives, forget 2014. We really do love you most after all.” I’m willing to believe the words, so long as they’re backed by deeds.

Which brings us back to Van Hollen. The problem is, now that Steve Israel in the House and Michael Bennet in the Senate have lost the House and the Senate — kicking progressives to the side of the road in the process — there’s no way any pleasing words can be backed by deeds. Nothing they propose has a prayer of passing; most of their bills won’t even see the floor. (The exception to that is Alan Grayson, who’s been remarkably effective at getting bills and amendments passed. More on that later.)

The consequence is, neoliberal-leaning Democrats can now say anything they want. It seems that George Zornick at The Nation has spotted this as well (h/t the writer Masaccio for the link):

Perhaps the Most Important Question About the Democratic Party Right Now

Over at U.S. News & World Report, Pat Garofalo has a very interesting piece up that asks “Are Democrats Trolling the Left?” This question deserves some serious consideration, because the answer could tell us a huge amount about American politics over the next several years.

In recent weeks, once had Washington re-formed with a Republican Congress, Democrats made a sudden left turn on economic policy. House Democrats, led by Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen, proposed a middle-class tax cut that would be financed by higher taxes on wealthy CEOs along with a small tax on financial transactions. Meanwhile, President Obama is preparing to ask Congress for a bill that would allow workers to earn up to seven paid sick days per year.

Zornick catches the on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand aspect of this behavior:

There’s an optimistic way to look at this: Democrats learned a lesson during the 2014 midterms about failing to offer a bold economic agenda, and have finally seen the light on some good policies that tackle income inequality and an ever-growing financial sector directly.

That’s the one hand. Here’s the other, quoting the article by Pat Garofalo that Zornick referenced (my emphasis):

A less charitable reading, though, is that the Democrats are seizing on the opportunity to be progressive at a moment when it’s cheap and easy; being out of power (or in Obama’s case, term-limited) they won’t have to pay the price in campaign dollars or blowback that would come from pursuing these policies in an environment in which they could actually become law. After all, when Democrats controlled all of Congress and the presidency, it’s not like they made a move on paid sick leave or a financial transactions tax or any of a host of other ideas that would have helped out the middle class

“It’s not like they made a move on paid sick leave or a financial transactions tax” when they could have done anything about it. A tell, in my book.

Color Me Sceptical

Which leads me here: Normally, if you keep the same leaders, you get the same policies when they’re back in power. As I wrote earlier:

[T]he 2014 elections showed that the voting layer [of the left coalition] — people who go to the polls, choose progressive policies, and don’t choose Democratic candidates — know in increasing numbers that the party has largely abandoned them. Since in fact the party has abandoned them, the voter split can only be healed by an ad campaign, a change of policy, or both.

That ad campaign would be a cynical can of lies without the change of policy. And a change of policy can only be accomplished by (a) aggressively defeating current “Democratic party” leaders, depriving them of any position of power; and (b) convincing fence-straddlers in the current generation of progressive activists to stop supporting the “lesser evil” and start supporting the “greater good.”

So what do you think — change of heart, or can of lies? I guess we’ll see. My suggestion, don’t fall in love with just words, no matter how welcome (that’s 2016 advice as well). Tell them, “Deeds, or no deal” — deeds they can actually do.

As for Van Hollen, he’s in House leadership now. Does he have eyes on Pelosi’s chair when Pelosi steps away? If so, this is a good move in that direction. And I still worry about those Peterson “summit” appearances. After all, we know where Clinton stands on issues like austerity and Social Security. Peterson as well. Is Van Hollen another?

Lots to think about.

GP

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A little welcome perspective on the threat of terrorism

by digby

After a somewhat shrill Cycle segment on the terrorist threat ‘o the day (hordes of ISIS fighters coming home to kill you in your beds) Toure asked a good question. He pointed out that the common response from the military and police was kind of like playing whack-a-mole and wondered if there were more systemic responses than just “fighting the terrorists.” Daniel Benjamin, the counter-terrorism expert they were interviewing prefaced his comments with this:

“Let’s be clear, the total number of deaths from terrorism in recent years has been extremely small in the West. And the threat over the past few years has been considerably reduced. Given all the headlines people don’t have that perception but if you look at the statistics that is the case.”

Here’s a graph of political violence in Europe over the past several years just to illustrate. You can see that the mass killings in Spain and Britain a decade ago were the worst of the Islamic terrorist attacks. And the Norwegian right wingnut attack was right up there.

All such violence is awful and scary. In Europe they don’t have a lot of daily mass violence like we do here in the US so it’s probably even more horrifying for them than for us. But we really need to fight to keep this in perspective before we go off the deep end again like we did after 9/11. Opportunists use these events to pursue an agenda and they aren’t all Islamic extremists. Some are radicals of another kind. We need to fight the urge to see this as an existential threat when it clearly isn’t, at least not for us. (It’s other Muslims who are facing the more serious threat.)

Opportunists like John Boehner, who said this today:

Boehner: We live in a dangerous country and we are reminded every week of the dangers that are out there and we got reminded of that by what happened in Paris just a week ago.I’m going to say it one more time because you’re going to hear about over and over again in the months to come as we attempt to reauthorize the FISA program. Our government does not spy on Americans unless there are Americans that are doing things that frankly tip off our law enforcement officials to an imminent threat.

He got one thing right. We do live in a dangerous country. But it’s quite a bit of misdirection to say that the most dangerous threat any of us face is from Islamic terrorism:

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A BFD: Holder ends federal civil forfeiture

by digby

This is a big deal:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without evidence that a crime occurred.

Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.

Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.

The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. The program allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.

“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.

Holder’s decision allows some limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program.

While police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments. Many states require seized proceeds to go into the general fund.

A Justice official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the attorney general’s motivation, said Holder “also believes that the new policy will eliminate any possibility that the adoption process might unintentionally incentivize unnecessary stops and seizures.”

This program was a huge incentive to what can only be called outright theft of private property by police authorities. It’s actually hard to believe they got away with it for so long. But interestingly, the alleged anti-federal right (along with the pro-police center) had no problem with it. They get very angry about any kind of taxes on rich people but had no problem with police targeting innocent people and just taking everything they own to fund their own activities. Odd that.

One hopes the libertarians among us will give old Holder and Obama some kudos for this action. It’s been easy for Democrats to let this stuff go for both political and economic reasons. It funds police and lets politicians look like they are tough on crime. Ending this is going to make police across the nation — many of who already hate Holder and Obama — very angry. Tough.

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Why don’t most Republican state legislatures allow guns in their workplace?

by digby

I wrote a piece for Salon today about the odd fact that while legislatures are legalizing the carrying of loaded firearms where the rest of us work they don’t think it’s a good idea where they work.

However, even as Republican legislatures throughout the land are working overtime to make it legal to openly carry loaded weapons virtually everywhere in our society, most have not followed Michigan’s example and legalized carrying guns in state houses. Even in Georgia where they passed a “guns everywhere” bill, including in airports outside security checkpoints, they exempted their own state capitol. This is curious. In other situations they would say “an armed society is a polite society” and argue that if everyone carried loaded weapons it would deter any “bad guys” from shooting up the place. This argument assumes that most of these “bad guys” intend to live through the confrontation which may be a bit of wishful thinking since most mass killings result in the perpetrator getting killed by police or committing suicide.

But they also have a back-up argument which accepts that while these crazed killers would probably take out quite a few civilians they would leave a smaller body count if the good guys with guns could take them out earlier in the massacre. (This is supposed to make those of us who argue for gun control feel better for some reason …) But they do have a point. Perhaps fewer people would be killed in the long run, although there is evidence that most of these armed civilians would not be inclined to join a gunfight with a mad man and would likely kill civilians themselves in the melee. But nonetheless, this is their best argument for open carry in workplaces like bars, restaurants, libraries, elementary schools and well … everywhere: more citizens with guns in public will save lives.

So why don’t they allow guns in the state capitols where they work?

They don’t allow them because they know that a bunch of armed zealots will show up and try to intimidate them. Like they did in Texas this week.

And sadly, since it happened Texas, ground zero for the Open Carry movement, there will be no legislation to stop them. Instead, the legislators who were threatened have proposed that the state install panic buttons in legislators offices so that when some armed lunatic or angry gun nut threatens them in their office they can easily call for the police. Their other option is to engage in a gun battle. Asking anyone to give up their guns for even the few minutes they’re in the state capitol would destroy the American way of life.

Anyway, read on. This story’s a doozy.

h/t to JS.

Arkansas Project Part Two?

by digby

Mike Allen’s playbook leads to day with this exciting news:

You know the RNC must have unlimited funds because there’s really no need to spend a penny to send researchers to Arkansas. They could just hire an intern to read the approximately 12,792 books that have been written about the Clintons in Arkansas.

Everyone tells me that nothing that’s ever been said about Bill and Hillary Clinton in the past will have even the slightest effect on the upcoming election. It’s old news and no one cares. But I have to wonder if there aren’t some young people who haven’t heard the details and some old people who would love to hear it all over again. Perhaps there aren’t many of them in which case this stuff will land with a dud. But it sure was exciting to the press corps the first time around. And Politico, at least, seems like they’re getting a little bit stimulated at the prospect already.

If any of you folks who were out of the country, in elementary school, or in a coma during the 90s and don’t know these details, there is one book you should read: The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton. It tells you everything you need to know about the so-called Clinton Scandals and how the press finally earned the contempt of just about everyone in the nation.

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Or the terrorists win
by Tom Sullivan

Encryption is the best defense for protecting private data from Russia, China and criminal gangs according to a secret 2009 report by the US National Intelligence Council uncovered as part of the Edward Snowden documents:

Part of the cache given to the Guardian by Snowden was published in 2009 and gives a five-year forecast on the “global cyber threat to the US information infrastructure”. It covers communications, commercial and financial networks, and government and critical infrastructure systems. It was shared with [Government Communications Headquarters] and made available to the agency’s staff through its intranet.

One of the biggest issues in protecting businesses and citizens from espionage, sabotage and crime – hacking attacks are estimated to cost the global economy up to $400bn a year – was a clear imbalance between the development of offensive versus defensive capabilities, “due to the slower than expected adoption … of encryption and other technologies”, it said.

And yet authorities object to the idea that private encryption will keep them from reading what you and I are saying. It’s like the trending enthusiasm for free speech that way. Authoritarians are all for it so long as it is speech directed at Muslims. Even as they warn of the risks from hacking, they are doing it themselves:

The Guardian, New York Times and ProPublica have previously reported the intelligence agencies’ broad efforts to undermine encryption and exploit rather than reveal vulnerabilities. This prompted Obama’s NSA review panel to warn that the agency’s conflicting missions caused problems, and so recommend that its cyber-security responsibilities be removed to prevent future issues.

In a 2008 memo, the Guardian reveals, British authorities sought more ways to hack communications:

The memo requested a renewal of the legal warrant allowing GCHQ to “modify” commercial software in violation of licensing agreements. The document cites examples of software the agency had hacked, including commonly used software to run web forums, and website administration tools. Such software are widely used by companies and individuals around the world.

The document also said the agency had developed “capability against Cisco routers”, which would “allow us to re-route selected traffic across international links towards GCHQ’s passive collection systems”.

GCHQ had also been working to “exploit” the anti-virus software Kaspersky, the document said. The report contained no information on the nature of the vulnerabilities found by the agency.

But rest assured. Per a statement from spokesmen, “all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight,” etc., etc., etc.

So keep that software up-to-date, ya’ll, or the terrorists win.

QOTD: Chris Matthews

by digby

Today on Chris Christie:

I sort of liked his style in the beginning before I realized it was for real, you know this Jilly Rizzo thing, this tough guy thing. Not exactly attractive when you realize it’s for real it’s not a feint.

Huh. He liked him until he found out that he wasn’t putting on an act. And here I thought “authenticity” is supposed to be the most important characteristic any politician can possess.

For some reason that brought this conversation from long ago to mind, although it could have been one of dozens over the years with similar themes:

MATTHEWS: [Hillary Clinton’s] got to be challenged, ultimately, by one person. Three guys aren’t going to beat her, one has to beat her. Is John Edwards now get the advantage — he’s leading in the Iowa poll, the most recent Des Moines Register poll.

BORGER: Came in second in Iowa last time around.

MATTHEWS: He’s also got — apparently, there’s labor support out there in Nevada. If he can make it to South Carolina, can he beat Hillary Clinton?

BORGER: I think that’s a possibility, and it’s not just because he’s talking an awful lot about poverty now. It’s not just because South Carolina is his home turf. But what it really is is that, Chris, I think he’s a more authentic person than Hillary Clinton. On that likability scale we all talk about —

MATTHEWS: No, no, no — don’t step back from what you just said.

BORGER: No, no, no.

MATTHEWS: No, no, Gloria, you said “genuine person,” meaning —

BORGER: Genuine.

MATTHEWS: — he honestly says what he feels and thinks. He doesn’t go to his calculating consultants. So, in other words, he’s a more sincere candidate than Hillary Clinton. That’s a strong statement by you.

BORGER: It is a strong statement, but I meant it.

O’DONNELL: It’s a powerful narrative.

SULLIVAN: Who is less authentic than Hillary? I mean, isn’t she the least authentic person in America?

MATTHEWS: Kelly.

FINEMAN: She’s authentically unauthentic.

Villagers …

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Why are hawks reacting so differently to the Charlie Hebdo attack than they did to the Boston Bombing?

by digby

Newt Gingrich had a Facebook chat today and said something I haven’t heard anyone say before, at least not in quite this way:

He’s making the usual hawkish distinction between fighting a “war” and fighting “crime” but it’s usually deployed in service of the idea that we shouldn’t allow prisoners to have any rights. Here he’s conflating the NSA breaching its mandate against domestic activity by suggesting that the distinction is the type of activity the government is tracking rather than people it’s tracking and where it’s tracking them.  And what does the NSA have to do with that anyway? We have an FBI that is tasked with both terrorism and criminal investigations. The laws of the land apply to both of those activities in the United States. So what’s he talking about exactly?

It sounds as though he thinks that if anyone, including a US citizen, is suspected of “terrorism” civil liberties shouldn’t apply. That strikes me as a very dangerous proposition.

He may have just been talking out of his hat and didn’t mean anything specific.  But I keep hearing stuff along these lines from other gasbags and I’m beginning to think there’s some kind of serious theory developing here.

In case you missed it, Gingrich penned a hysterical screed for the WSJ yesterday that pretty much declared a world war (again) against terrorism everywhere on the planet, which is what inspired this Facebook chat.  Like all the rest of the Chicken Little Hawks, he apparently thinks that small scale terrorist attacks are going to destroy the country unless we wage a full scale war against radical Islam.

Meanwhile, this is just business as usual, no big deal.

There have been 95 shootings on K-12 and college campuses — an average of nearly one every week — in the two years since the deadly attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., according to a new analysis by two anti-gun violence advocacy groups.

These shootings have left 45 people dead and 78 injured, the analysis claims.

Gingrich and company literally could not care less about that.  But this attack in Paris is a threat to all we hold dear.  The only way these right wingers will care about all these school shootings is if terrorists decide to do it.

I also think it’s interesting that so many people seem to be reacting with the kind of hysteria we saw after 9/11 to the Charlie Hebdo killings but managed to keep their wits about them after the Boston bombing. That one seemed to me much more like a real terrorist attack against civilians just going about their business and being killed and maimed purely for shock value. And it happened right here in the good old USA. I was actually quite impressed with the fact that Americans kept calm and carried on without a lot of hand wringing over how this represented a new terrorist threat and we needed to immediately start killing somebody somewhere or our way of life would be destroyed. I thought we had matured.

Perhaps it’s just the idea that this latest was an attack on the abstract concept of free speech that makes it more scary. But the perpetrators were locals just as the Tsarnaev brothers were locals (albeit immigrants) so it’s not the scary middle eastern foreigner thing that sets it apart. There’s something different in the air after this one. And it isn’t good. If I didn’t know better I might think there was some politics involved.

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