Month: March 2015

About that Tea Party primary

by digby

The TPers just took another scalp:

An aide to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s national political operation resigned late Tuesday after drawing heated criticism from the head of the Iowa Republican Party for questioning the state’s early role in the presidential nominating process.

Veteran Republican strategist Liz Mair told The Associated Press that she was leaving Walker’s team just a day after she had been tapped to lead his online communication efforts, citing the distraction created by a series of recent Twitter posts about Iowa’s presidential caucuses.

“The tone of some of my tweets concerning Iowa was at odds with that which Gov. Walker has always encouraged in political discourse,” Mair said in a statement announcing her immediate resignation. “I wish Gov. Walker and his team all the best.”

Mair had been the latest political operative tapped to join Walker’s growing political operation as he ramps up for a 2016 presidential bid. The Republican governor has intensified travel to early states in the presidential nominating process, including Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first presidential caucuses.

I wrote some analysis about this flap yesterday. I didn’t expect Walker to move quite this quickly.It will be interesting to see if Mair lands on a different campaign.

Donald Trump is giving up The Apprentice to run for president. And he’s got bank…

Mentally ill and black: the most lethal combination in America

by digby

This is an awful video and don’t watch it if you don’t like seeing people killed before your eyes:

The family of Jason Harrison released video Monday of Dallas police shooting dead their 38-year-old son just seconds after police arrived at the family’s front door. Harrison’s mother had called the police in June for help getting her mentally ill son to the hospital, as he was off his medication and experiencing a crisis.

The video shows two officers knocking on the door, as Harrison’s mother calmly answers and walks out, telling the officers that her son is “bipolar schizo.” Harrison stands in the doorway carrying a small screwdriver no larger than the size of his hand. Cops raise their guns and tell Harrison to “drop that for me” as Harrison appears to take a few steps forward and his mother screams “Jay” repeatedly.

Police fire several shots as Harrison drops to the ground. The mother shouts out in agony, “Oh! you killed my child!” Between the time officers first knock on the door and the time Harrison is on the ground, less than 20 seconds have elapsed.

I guess there’s simply no way the police could have used a different strategy here. None at all. They knew he was mentally ill before they marched up to the front door and knocked on it. The mother came out the door saying he was bipolar schizo. So the only thing they could reasonably do was just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and shoot him. They certainly couldn’t have taken any precautions at the door. Or called for mental health back-up before approaching. Or backed up themselves to try to assess whether this mentally ill man was actually trying to kill them with the small screw driver in his hand or whether he was just coming through the door. Sure, mentally ill people often have a hard time following orders when they’re being shouted at them but that’s obviously their problem.

Police are trained to have a hair trigger in all situations evidently. Even when the victim is unarmed — naked even:

Bridget Anderson says she had been planning to go to Anthony Hill’s place Monday evening to cook together and celebrate their three-year anniversary. Instead, she got a call that he had been shot dead by police.

A police officer responding to reports of a suspicious person knocking on doors and crawling on the ground naked at an apartment complex just outside Atlanta fatally shot the 27-year-old Hill. Officer Robert Olsen shot Hill twice when the man began running toward him and didn’t stop when ordered, DeKalb County Chief of Police Cedric Alexander told reporters Monday.

This is what tasers were supposed to be used for — as substitutes for lethal force when dealing with potentially dangerous situations that should not call for gunfire. But most police believe tasers are there to punish people who are already in custody for being non-compliant or to shut people up who are asking too many questions. They believe that lethal force is perfectly justified in all situations where they could conceivably claim they felt afraid. So basically the taser has done nothing to prevent gun deaths and basically just serves as a legal torture device.

Studies show that it’s likely half the people killed by police are mentally ill. And it’s not as if police aren’t aware of better strategies out there to deal with the mentally ill.  Apparently, they just couldn’t be bothered.

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Objectively pro ISIS

by digby

Tom Friedman just outdid himself. And that’s not easy:

O.K., so we learn to live with Iran on the edge of a bomb, but shouldn’t we at least bomb the Islamic State to smithereens and help destroy this head-chopping menace? Now I despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me just toss out a different question: Should we be arming ISIS? Or let me ask that differently: Why are we, for the third time since 9/11, fighting a war on behalf of Iran?

In 2002, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in Afghanistan (the Taliban regime). In 2003, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in the Arab world (Saddam Hussein). But because we failed to erect a self-sustaining pluralistic order, which could have been a durable counterbalance to Iran, we created a vacuum in both Iraq and the wider Sunni Arab world. That is why Tehran’s proxies now indirectly dominate four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Sana and Baghdad.

ISIS, with all its awfulness, emerged as the homegrown Sunni Arab response to this crushing defeat of Sunni Arabism — mixing old pro-Saddam Baathists with medieval Sunni religious fanatics with a collection of ideologues, misfits and adventure-seekers from around the Sunni Muslim world. Obviously, I abhor ISIS and don’t want to see it spread or take over Iraq. I simply raise this question rhetorically because no one else is: Why is it in our interest to destroy the last Sunni bulwark to a total Iranian takeover of Iraq? Because the Shiite militias now leading the fight against ISIS will rule better? Really?

He simply raises the question rhetorically, dontcha know. I mean, somebody’s got to ask it, amirite? Why aren’t we arming ISIS? (Well, we are actually, but only because they’ve managed to seize tons of weaponry we left in Iraq after foolishly invading the country to, as Friedman famously said, teach those silly middle easterners that we had to the power to shove a gun in their mouth and tell them to “suck on this.”)

This is the nonsensical point of view that Marco Rubio was throwing out there when he suggested to John Kerry that the administration was making a “bad deal” with Iran because of ISIS. Evidently, it’s simply impossible to walk and even breathe at the same time with these people. Asking them to chew gum at the same time would likely put them into a coma. Like Rubio, Friedman apparently is of the belief that we must take sides and that it probably makes sense to side with the medieval beheaders. (Kerry did patiently explain to Rubio that the nuclear arms deal exists separate and apart from any concerns about ISIS because they are trying to avoid a fucking nuclear war.)

I know it’s hard to believe, but maybe it would be better if we concentrate on not arming anyone in the region for a while — or blowing anything up, or “advising” anyone or putting boots on the ground or anything else. We don’t seem to accomplish anything by doing it except make things worse. In fact, the only intervention at this point that makes any sense at all is a negotiated deal to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. We just don’t have a very good history of keeping straight in our heads who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are. (Mujahadeen anyone?) Maybe it’s best we keep a little distance this time.

Maybe some day it will occur to our Very Serious People that invading and/or “arming” people in complicated conflicts halfway across the world isn’t really our strong suit. Unfortunately, it’s just as likely the US is going to continue to believe the fatuous notion that the “exceptional” US is the one “indispensable” nation and therefore must always be right in the middle of everything. It’s always all about us. Perhaps we should consider that a sectarian fight between Shia and Suni Islam is just a tad above our pay grade.

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Oh, but you must be-lieve!
by Tom Sullivan

The House Republicans’ new budget plan grabs a lot of ink this morning, little of it favorable. “This takes budget quackery to a new level,” according to Maryland Democrat Chris Von Hollen. From the New York Times:

Without relying on tax increases, budget writers were forced into contortions to bring the budget into balance while placating defense hawks clamoring for increased military spending. They added nearly $40 billion in “emergency” war funding to the defense budget for next year, raising military spending without technically breaking strict caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

The plan contains more than $1 trillion in savings from unspecified cuts to programs like food stamps and welfare. To make matters more complicated, the budget demands the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, including the tax increases that finance the health care law. But the plan assumes the same level of federal revenue over the next 10 years that the Congressional Budget Office foresees with those tax increases in place — essentially counting $1 trillion of taxes that the same budget swears to forgo.

And so on. Et tu, Kenny? Representative Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado told reporters, “I don’t know anyone who believes we’re going to balance the budget in 10 years … It’s all hooey.”

Dana Milbank, writing for the Washington Post, believes Republicans when they say there are no gimmicks in their budget: The budget is a gimmick.” Milbank begins by blasting the aforementioned military spending and doesn’t let up:

It assumes that current tax cuts will be allowed to expire as scheduled — which would amount to a $900 billion tax increase that nobody believes would be allowed to go into effect.

It proposes to repeal Obamacare but then counts revenues and savings from Obamacare as if the law remained in effect.

It claims to save $5.5 trillion over 10 years, but in the fine print — the budget plan’s instructions to committees — it only asks them to identify about $5 billion in savings over that time.

There’s more, but you get the point.

Jared Bernstein sums up the cynicism of the effort, which relies, once again, on Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s “magic asterisk” to produce revenues from sources other than taxes:

The policies put forth in this document suggest that America’s main problem is that the poor have too much and the wealthy, too little. The budget plan “corrects” this perceived imbalance by deeply cutting programs that help low- and middle-income people, and cutting taxes on those with high incomes, capital gains, multinational corporations and “pass through” business income.

It’s a shame (sort of) that Paul Ryan gets all the blame for voodoo economics when Saint Ronnie’s team invented it back when Ryan got quarters from the Tooth Fairy. Reagan ran for president in 1980 promising to cut taxes and expand military spending — and build a 600-ship navy — all while balancing the budget. Tax cuts that pay for themselves. “Trickle down.” I thought he was nuts. But after he won, I thought, okay, you got elected in a landslide; show me what you’ve got.

I’m still waiting. Ryan still believes in the Tooth Fairy.

Baby on board

by digby

I’d been meaning to write about this and it slipped my mind. The other night I was watching All In with Chris Hayes and he interviewed writer Rebecca Traister, who appeared with her little baby in her arms. Here’s how TV Newser discussed it:

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes sent a subtle message last week when he interviewed The New Republic editor Rebecca Traister. When “All In” producers tracked down Traister for a last-minute interview about Hillary Clinton and her email, the TNR editor said she could do it, but she had her newborn baby with her. No problem, they said.

As Randye Hoder writes in Fortune, the interview was your typical cable news segment–anchor asks questions, interview subject gives answers, and it’s all over in about five minutes. Only there was a baby on board:

As I watched the interview, I couldn’t get over the fact that two worlds were colliding on live TV: that of the pundit and that of the parent.

In most professional settings, there still is great pressure for women to pretend that their kids don’t exist, at least from 9 to 5. Women feel the need to go out of their way to avoid the stigma—yes, stigma—of being labeled a mom.They don’t say they’re leaving work early for a parent teacher conference. Instead, they say, “I have a meeting.”

Effortlessly, Hoder argues, the interview broke down the strange mystical barrier between working and Mom. “In a public, high-profile, but matter-of-fact sort of way, Traister and Hayes were saying, ‘Newborn baby, breastfeeding mom, no big deal—let’s get to work.’”

“It seemed totally natural,” Hayes told Fortune. “This is part of…normalizing that kind of thing.”

Good for him. In the real world moms carry their newborns around with them. It’s as natural as it gets. And it was charming.

But the article leaves out an important detail. Traister was attending the Emily’s List meeting at which Clinton was speaking. Not that it matters, but I am not too surprised that a woman’s organization would be friendly to moms with newborns in arms. I would be shocked, however, if we saw such a thing at a regular political meeting. But we should. Thanks to Hayes for “normalizing that kind of thing.”

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They need money

by digby

Ronald Brownstein unpacks the data in a recent poll which asked people how the economy is doing. It’s mostly good news. But I couldn’t help but notice this:

While the disenchantment over wages and living standards was broadly based, one group stood out in its especially stark level of discontent: white women without a college education. Just 10 percent of those women, who are often described as “waitress moms,” described the situation in wages or the cost of living as excellent or good. On each measure, just over one-third described conditions as only fair and about half picked the most negative option—poor. By contrast, no more than about 40 percent of either college-educated whites or noncollege white men picked the most negative option on either measure.

Donna, a part-time cafeteria worker who lives near Evansville, Ind., and asked not to give her last name, vividly expressed their discontent. “Most of the people I know only have part-time jobs. They don’t make enough money working to even cover their bills, so a lot of people get some kind of assistance,” she says. “Almost everything here is around minimum wage. Even working 40 hours a week—that’s not enough to support yourself, much less a family.”

If the frustration over stagnant living standards represents a slow-motion earthquake rattling support for all of America’s institutions, working-class white women like Donna may be at its epicenter.

These people are pretty much invisible in our national dialog. But there are a whole lot of them and they’re looking for more than a daddy figure to keep the terrorists from invading our shores. They need money. The right isn’t going to do a damn thing to make it possible for them to get some. (Tax cuts for millionaires isn’t exactly responsive…)just  Despite their alleged love of independence and freedom they tell women they need to get married or go begging for help at church. They don’t even think they should be able to buy affordable health insurance if they work two part time jobs or that it should cover their birth control (much less an abortion!) Poor women shouldn’t be having sex in the first place.

Democrats are for a raise in the minimum wage so that’s good. (The great “centrist” hope Jeb Bush is against it, btw.) But as Donna said, the higher minimum wage is not enough to pay the bills. When working full time will not support a single worker, there is a big problem. So, what else are they offering this group of Americans? I mean, I realize that it’s the loss of the white male blue collar vote that really bothers most Democratic strategists, but it seems to me that there are just as many white female blue (and pink) collar workers out there who are making shit wages and working long hours and cannot get ahead. Perhaps they might be the subject of some concern as well. It could be good for the party …

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QOTD: an elected official

by digby

…. hard as it is to believe, this person is not some local wingnut radio host.  He’s the Lt. Governor of Missouri:

There is more racism in the Justice Department than anywhere I see in the St. Louis area. We’ve come an enormous way in 50 years, that’s not to say that we don’t have still more to do. It is the left, it is the Eric Holder and the Obama left and their minions that are obsessed with race while the rest of us are moving on beyond it.”

“The whole blow up of this protest movement was based on the lie that never happened of ‘hands up don’t shoot. But it’s bad enough the protestors were behaving that way but we have a right to expect more from the attorney general, the head of the Justice Department of the United States, and the president of the United States. And instead what we got too often from them was incitement of the mob, and, uh, encouraging disorder in Ferguson and distributing the peaceable going-about of our lives in the greater St. Louis region.”

Also too, this:

Kinder added President Obama and Eric Holder “took one side” following the death of Michael Brown. Asked why, he said the Justice Department was “staffed with radical, hard-left radical, leftists lawyers.”

He called the Justice Department under Holder, “not like any Justice Department in American history” and “Eric Holder is unlike any previous attorney general.”

“Many of them have spent most of their careers defending Black Panthers and other violent radicals,” he added. ”

I don’t know about you, but I’m convinced. Racism no longer exists.

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Another Walker “massive misstep”

by digby

I know that all the smart people think immigration isn’t going to matter in 2016 and maybe they’re right. But it certainly could be a problem for Scott Walker in the primaries because he’s known as a squish on the subject even if he recently “changed his mind”.  The anti-immigration people just do not trust him.

Breitbart reports:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made another massive misstep on Monday, hiring Liz Mair of Mair Strategies to handle communications and social media for his campaign-in-waiting.

Mair’s support for amnesty for illegal aliens, wide-open-borders immigration policies, and public advocacy for the Senate “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill is sure to dog Walker in Iowa, South Carolina, and other early presidential states.

During the Senate Gang of Eight bill fight, Mair very publicly and very aggressively promoted the amnesty bill—pushing it to media and making the case for the need for it over and over again. She claims her advocacy was done out of the good of her heart, for free, because for religious reasons she believes in amnesty and open borders. But Mair wouldn’t answer who was paying her bills for her advocacy during the timeframe of the “Gang of Eight” bill in early 2013 through the end of the last Congress–when asked by Breitbart News if any specific tech companies or a select group of Wall Street billionaires were paying her.

“We’re contractually barred from disclosing our clients,” Mair said.

That could mean anyone—even foreign companies potentially—were paying her during the timeframe she was publicly advocating for the amnesty bill. While she didn’t have to disclose it to the public at the time now that she’s hitched to Walker the Wisconsin governor owns everything she said and did.

She also insulted Iowans, which has conservative Iowa activists a little bit upset. (And note the “made another massive misstep.” It’s early days but you can’t keep making “massive missteps” forever.)

Unless they turn up some truly terrible tweets, her job is probably safe. Staffers aren’t of much interest to voters. But as much as everyone wants to pretend that the only important “primary” going on right now is the so-called donor primary, there’s also one that’s going on in the right wing media and they are thoroughly scrutinizing the purity of these candidates. Walker is supposed to be one of them but his stance on immigration seems to have them spooked.

Firing Line: Qs raised abt @ScottWalker ‘s New Open Borders Amnesty Advocate Staffer Who Mocks Iowa http://t.co/RVaqoEGZif
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 17, 2015

Thank goodness we’re not barbarians

by digby

Because we’re so good and “they” are so evil:

In 1972, a large splinter of wood ricocheted off Cecil Clayton’s saw blade and pierced his skull in his left temple. The injury destroyed 20 percent of Clayton’s frontal lobe—about eight percent of his brain overall—and changed his life. One of his brothers later testified that after the accident, Clayton “broke up with his wife, began drinking alcohol and became impatient, unable to work and more prone to violent outbursts.” His reading and writing skills dropped to third- and fourth-grade levels, respectively, and he started to suffer from hallucinations, paranoia, and other psychiatric symptoms.

In 1996, roughly 24 years after his original accident, Clayton shot and killed police officer Christopher Casetter, who had been called to a domestic dispute. A Missouri jury found Clayton guilty and sentenced him to death. On Saturday, a sharply divided Missouri Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against his procedural request for a mental competency hearing before his execution. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court or Governor Jay Nixon intervenes, the state of Missouri will execute the 74-year-old Clayton on Tuesday afternoon.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruling raises serious questions about the constitutionality of Clayton’s execution. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the Eighth Amendment forbids the execution of persons whose mental illness or intellectual disability prevent them from understanding the consequences of their actions or why they are being put to death. The Court’s rationale for this prohibition was that ending a person’s life for reasons they cannot understand serves “no legitimate penological purpose,” and is therefore cruel and unusual.

After Missouri set his March 17 execution date in January, Clayton’s attorneys petitioned the courts for a competency hearing, hoping to establish his intellectual disability and prevent his execution. The Supreme Court has ruled that inmates have a due-process right to a mental competency hearing once their execution date is set. At these hearings, inmates can present evidence and testimony to demonstrate their incapacity for execution to a neutral fact-finder.

A bare majority of the court decided he couldn’t even have that hearing. They believe it’s more than obvious he’s competent to be executed (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean) and they voted that he’s to be killed tonight at 6pm.

And why they think executing people rather than locking them up for life ever serves any “legitimate penological purpose” is beyond me.

The Governor or the Supreme Court could intervene. But as of this writing they have not said they would.

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Revisiting LBJ’s “We Shall Overcome” speech

by digby

I wrote a piece for Salon today about the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” speech in which he exhorted the congress to pass the voting right act:

Johnson gave that speech 50 years ago almost to the day. The Voting Rights Act was passed and many more African-Americans and other racial minorities were able to participate in our democracy as full citizens. It resulted in such a sea change in American politics that the regional coalitions that formed the two parties in Johnson’s time have switched places. Ironically, today practically the only Southern Democrats are African-American and the Northern Republican is as rare as an albino elephant. There are very few conservatives in the Democratic Party and you’d have to waterboard any Republican to make him admit to being the “l” word.

But one thing has continued: the reactionary right’s relentless quest to deny African-Americans the right to vote. In fact, after having calmed down a bit for a few years, they are more aggressive about it than ever, passing voter ID laws designed to make it difficult for people to vote. And while they will caterwaul 24/7 that there is no racist intent, America’s history proves otherwise, particularly since there is no evidence that their alleged “concerns” over voter fraud have any basis in fact. Just this week, the state of Ohio had to reluctantly announce that yet another waste of taxpayer’s money has proved that there is no systematic “voter fraud” in the state:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has been on a mission to weed out purported voter fraud in the state since he took office in 2011. After launching an investigation into what he called an “expanding loophole” allowing non-citizens to vote in Ohio and potentially decide elections, he announced Thursday that 145 non-citizens were registered to vote illegally in 2014, amounting to just .0002 percent of the 7.7 million registered voters in the state. Husted’s office would not provide any information about the 27 people it referred to the Attorney General’s office for further review.

But in 2013, his office sent 17 potential cases — .0003 percent of total ballots cast in the state — to the AG who eventually referred them to county prosecutors. Most reports of voting irregularities were dropped by the county prosecutors because the “voter fraud” problems were determined to have been caused by simple mistakes and confused senior citizens, according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer investigation. Voter fraud in Ohio is a fifth-degree felony and could carry up to a year in prison. But of the cases referred to prosecutors’ offices in 2013, most irregularities were caused by voter confusion or mistakes made by elections officials and not deliberate attempts to commit fraud, the investigation found.

For example, Cuyahoga County looked into 15 cases referred from Husted’s office and chose not to pursue criminal charges against any of the individuals, concluding that the voters were confused about the “Golden Week” during which people can both register to vote and also cast their absentee ballot.

He did find two non-citizens who registered to vote, so all that work was surely worth it. No word on how much all this cost the state but evidently there is no limit on how much time and money can be spent by frugal, small government, liberty lovers on these quixotic scavenger hunts for the Sasquatch of the electorate: the fraudulent partisan voter.
[…]
Fifty years ago brave civil rights activists in the streets and a president and other officials who knew the moment for change had arrived put justice and equality ahead of a property owner’s right to discriminate and the state’s right to deny the vote to their citizens. It was a radical move, necessitating a serious challenge to federalism. Unfortunately, the story did not end there. Millhiser reminds us at the end of his piece that Johnson and company may have been radicals in their time but today the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts overturned much of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and Sen. Rand Paul, who lugubriously proclaims that liberty is never harder for him than when his philosophical integrity forces him to support the constitutional rights of racist property owners over everyone else’s, is running for president.

Those people are radicals of a different sort and they stand ready to overturn and subvert progress wherever they find it.

read on…