Month: March 2015

Who’s afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
by Tom Sullivan

“It will not work,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said bluntly after reports last week that some Wall Street banks may withhold campaign donations from congressional Democrats over tensions with her:

“They want a showy way to tell Democrats across the country to be scared of speaking out, to be timid about standing up, and to stay away from fighting for what’s right,” Warren wrote. “… I’m not going to stop talking about the unprecedented grasp that Citigroup has on our government’s economic policymaking apparatus … And I’m not going to pretend the work of financial reform is done, when the so-called ‘too big to fail’ banks are even bigger now than they were in 2008.”

It’s that intensity, the appearance that Warren cannot be bought and is in the Senate more to represent the little guys than herself that has the effort to draft Warren for president hard at work in Des Moines, Iowa (funded by Moveon.org and and Democracy for America):

Toria Pinter, a law student who is on medical leave, said that she was drawn to Warren because of the senator’s vocal call to lower the interest rates on student loans. Pinter said people should not misconstrue this campaign as anti-Clinton effort, but rather a pro-Warren movement.

“The campaign is not about Clinton,” she said. “That’s not what we are here to talk about. We are here to talk about Warren and how important she is to us. Because she embodies the ideals and issues that are important to us at the end of the day.”

[Blair Lawton, Iowa Field Director for the Run Warren Run campaign] said even if Warren decides not to run, he believes there are some long-term benefits from this campaign including “putting a big investment into the progressive community.

Meanwhile back in Washington, D.C. (cue theme from The Empire Strikes Back), Republicans are pushing back on Warren, reports Politico:

Republicans are deploying a new taunt to needle Democrats they say refuse to consider even modest changes to financial oversight laws: Why are you so afraid of Elizabeth Warren?

It’s part of an effort by the GOP to portray Democrats as being completely inflexible when it comes to changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank law because they are running scared from the populist wing of the party that views Warren, the most outspoken Wall Street critic in Congress, as their champion.

In an appearance at the American Bankers Association conference, House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) joked that they might need extra help when lobbying Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Warren: “May the force be with you.”

Reading through the rest of the article about what changes Big Bidness wants to to see in Dodd-Frank, one comes away asking whether Congress would show the same level of effort and concern over the needs and wants of less well-heeled and less well-connected constituents. Which explains why volunteers are busting their tails for Warren in Des Moines.

Who knows what words Republican old boys are actually using in D.C. to cast Democrats as inflexible or “running scared” or weak-kneed by asking “Why are you so afraid of Elizabeth Warren?” But that strikes my ear as, “What are you afraid of, a girl?”

With any luck, someone will catch one on tape saying explicitly what they really think.

Off the rails: Cooper and Lawrence in Serena

Funny headline ‘o the day

by digby

I know. It’s a cheap joke. I just couldn’t resist.

He received an award from the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation:

Every winter for the past several years, the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation has held a glittering dinner around Washington attended by hundreds of top intelligence and corporate officials. The stated purpose of the event, where the cost of sponsor tables ranges from $12,000 to $100,000, is to help raise money for the spouses and children of agency operatives killed in the line of battle since the September 11, 2011 terrorist attacks. But it also serves as an annual reunion of sorts for top intelligence officials and the corporate chieftains of America’s biggest military contractors.

This year’s off-the-record event, officially the Ambassador Richard M. Helms Award Ceremony, named for a Cold War-era CIA director, honored former President George W. Bush, an odd choice, it would seem, given all the trouble his administration caused the CIA (and NSA) during its eight years in office.

Whatever its accomplishments in Afghanistan and Iraq–or theaters unknown–the CIA seemed constantly in hot water under the Bush administration, from its failure to disrupt the 9/11 plot, to its false reports on Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to its use of torture on detainees under White House guidance. And more.

But all that was forgiven, apparently, when the former president was honored at the foundation’s hitherto unreported March 4 dinner at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, a few miles down the road from the spy agency’s headquarters in Langley.

They don’t publicize this little ceremony. It’s only for rich people. And spies. Which is nice.

This isn’t the only one of these spook-fests. There’s also Spy Prom, which I wrote about last year for Salon. (Poppy’s on the board of that one.) They honored Leon Panetta last year.

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When bigotry costs you

by digby

Evidently a lot of Indiana businesses are upset that the state government just legalized discrimination. It’s bad for business:

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has made good on a threat tweeted Wednesday evening, warning that the $4 billion company would “dramatically reduce” its investment in Indiana in response to a religious freedom law that critics say is a “license to discriminate” against LGBT individuals.

On Thursday, just hours after Gov. Mike Pence signed the legislation, Benioff announced his firm was “canceling all programs” that require its customers or employees to travel to Indiana, saying he would not subject them to discrimination.

Indiana is the first state to enact such a change this year among about a dozen where such proposals have been introduced. The measure would prohibit state and local laws that “substantially burden” the ability of people — including businesses and associations — to refuse services to individuals based on their religious beliefs.

Benioff says that goal puts Indiana law at odds with Salesforce philosophy.
“We are forced to dramatically reduce our investment in Indiana based on our employee’s and customer’s outrage over the Religious Freedom Bill,” he tweeted.

He is also calling on other technology company CEO’s to take similar action.

Salesforce is a 16-year-old cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco. It was among a number of businesses, including the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and local employers including Alcoa, Cummins, and Eli Lilly & Co., that spoke out against the bill.

Update: Also Thursday, San Francisco mayor Ed Lee banned all all taxpayer funded travel for city workers to the state of Indiana.

That won’t stop Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson of impeachment, US Attorney and NRA fame from signing one of these monstrosities if it comes across his desk.

A rare indictment for a taser assault

by digby

They did manage to indict this police officer, so that’s something. We’ll have to see if a jury thinks he’s guilty:

A federal grand jury has indicted a former Independence police officer who used a stun gun last fall to subdue a 17-year-old driver who nearly died during the encounter.

The four-count indictment unsealed Friday stems from an FBI investigation into whether Timothy N. Runnels used excessive force after he pulled over Bryce Masters of Independence on Sept. 14 at East Southside Boulevard and Main Street.

The indictment charges Runnels with two counts of deprivation of Masters’ constitutional rights, based on force Runnels allegedly used, and two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly making a false report and giving false statements afterward to investigators.

Runnels entered not guilty pleas during his first court appearance late Friday afternoon. His attorney, J.R. Hobbs, said Runnels denies the allegations.
[…]
The indictment said Runnels continuously deployed the stun gun while Masters was on the ground and not posing a threat to the officer, and that Runnels deliberately dropped Masters headfirst onto the ground while the nonthreatening teen was handcuffed.

It also said Runnels knowingly filed a false police report and omitted details to Independence police about the force he used.

Masters and his parents sat in the back of the courtroom during the brief court hearing. Masters’ father is a Kansas City police officer.

In a written statement released after the hearing, the Masters family said it has a unique perspective of what police officers face each day. Bryce Masters was not treated in a reasonable manner by a law enforcement officer, they said.

“This was evident during the traffic stop itself, the nebulous reasons for the contact, and by the lack of adequate medical care thereafter,” the statement said. “Bryce was exercising his right to politely ask questions regarding his detention.”

The family said the teen did not have a warrant for his arrest, and the car he was driving was properly registered to his parents and did not have a warrant associated with it.

That contradicts what Independence police said shortly after the incident, when officials announced the car’s license plate was associated with a woman wanted on an arrest warrant.

At that time, Independence police also said Masters refused to comply with Runnels’ demand to exit the vehicle, and that Masters physically braced himself to prevent the officer from pulling him out.

They also said Runnels reported detecting the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle.

Masters used his iPhone to record the encounter, according to a court document that police filed to request a search warrant for the car.

After Masters refused to exit the car, the officer used his stun gun, handcuffed Masters and told him to move to the curb. When he didn’t comply, Runnels dragged him there.

A witness recorded a portion of the incident on a cellphone.

Masters sustained brain damage after he went into cardiac arrest. Doctors placed him into a medically induced coma that included lowering his core body temperature. Since then, Masters has received physical therapy.

Daniel Haus, the attorney for Masters, said Masters is a senior at Truman High School in Independence, although the incident set back his studies. His condition is improving, Haus said.

If convicted, Runnels would face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the two constitutional rights violations. He would face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the other counts.

This behavior happens every day. POlice do not believe that using a taser is a form of brutality and that they can get away with using it indiscriminately to force citizens to submit and respect. If there hadn’t been a camera showing that he dropped the kind on his head deliberately it’s very unlikely they would have indicted this officer. He would have claimed that the kid resisted arrest, had “excited delirium” with super-human strength which made it impossible to subdue him any other way.

There is apparently a lot of video and most of it has not been released to the public (but was presumably shown to the Grand Jury.) This is some witness footage filmed after the stop:

But several witnesses told a different story, that Runnels yanked Bryce out the car when he started recording, handcuffing him and dropping him on his face on the sidewalk, which sent him into convulsions, causing his heart to stop.

One witness who began recording after the incident captured Runnels standing over Masters’ limp body with his foot on him as if to prevent the handcuffed teen from standing up and sprinting away. At no time during the 3:20 video did Runnels seem concerned for Masters’ “medical emergency.”

You can see the convulsions in the beginning. The officer actually nudged him with his foot a couple of times as if to see if he was still alive. And then he wandered away. Neither of the cops in that scene showed even the slightest concern that there was a teen-age boy in handcuffs lying unconscious on the sidewalk.

h/t to @tarkloon
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Mischief from the right

by digby

I’m pretty sure old Bill is yanking our chains. I’m also pretty sure that Rahm, whatever his true beliefs, doesn’t appreciate it. After all, he’s being challenged from his left.

Those Republicans sure are scamps aren’t they?

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Media Readies Softballs for Wannabe Presidents

by Spocko

A reader recently wrote me about dreading the upcoming election season. As they used to say on The Wire, “I feel ya.”

Today I heard Shields and Yarnell Brooks on the News Hour talking about about Ted Cruz’s announcement he’s running for President.

I understand the readers’ desires and dreads. Already friends have been bemoaning the same games and frames, people and parties.

Could we do anything different this time, the reader wondered. Could we make it more engaging for regular people? We know the media suck, never any follow-ups, ending with “We’ll have to leave it there” and of course the horrid “Both sides do it.” frame.

Maybe a reality show?  “Real House Members of the GOP.”  It’s already a bit like Survivor since losers get voted off the ticket.

But as people in the industry will tell you, reality shows are anything but.
Casting and editing play a huge role in the shows.

But what do we really want the journalists to do when interviewing the people we dislike running for office?  To get actual information from them about their plans, policies, and views? Nah. We want to watch a lying, slippery, greedy jerk squirm. We hope some journalist will embarrass them in front of the world and they will be forced out of the race.

The problem is that when someone tries to do that, the politician can see it coming and they are prepared. Then, instead of getting your chance to embarrass them, the journalist’s question gets dismissed with a prepared answer.

Politicians are so prepared that even a truly legitimate question can be turned to a partisan attack and deemed unworthy of answering. I was always astonished how calling something a “gotcha question” became a cover for not answering the question!

David Yarnell Brooks made a comment about how slick Cruz will be answering questions, but he’s not “likable” so he won’t win.  Coming from Mr. Likability himself, that’s pretty damning.

I could just hear the exhaustion in Yarnell’s voice as he anticipated 20 months of discussing the spiritual love child of Joe McCarthy and Steve Urkel.

The MSM know their roles. They report on: Money raised. Horses raced. Elect-ability figured. Likability ranked. Beer drinkability calculated. Throw in sound bytes on a few issues and then they will have to “leave it there.”

The RW media know their roles too.  Is the Candidate worthy of St. Ronald the Reagan? How many people is he willing to kill to show how tough he is? How many hippies will he punch and racists will he embrace?

Were the billionaires pleased with the strength of the butt kissing? [shutter] (Image redacted from brain.)

If people REALLY wanted to get in on the questioning, I could explain how to do it. I’ve been on both sides of this world, I know the tricks and traps. I’ve trained people and groups how to do this.

But I don’t know if it is worth it, especially at the presidential level. 

However, it might be worthwhile at other political levels. Let’s expand our target range with other types of people. Now that is something I’m really interested in helping people do. But serious inquiries only, most groups don’t have the stomach for confrontation. Especially when you are effective.  I’ve found out bullies hire other bullies to hit back.

But let’s go back to the goal, why might someone want to get in there and ask the tough questions? What do you ultimately want to happen? Show the world what a jerk the candidates are? For some candidates that’s a PLUS! (If I wanted to hurt Ted Cruz in front of his base, I would show a super liberal action he did or thing he said.)

Do you want them laughed out of the race? Start writing comedy bits! I’ve got two words for ya . Tina “I can see Russian from my house!” Fey.

Do you want to get them to resign in shame? Start looking for the kinds of things that actually get Republican candidates to resign vs. Democratic ones. Then anticipate how they will try to squirm out of it and block that mode too.
Plan ahead people!

This last week I realized that I have two modes when it comes to engaging with issues and people.

1) I want the truly horrible people who push bigotry, racism, division, war and hate to be thwarted, and I’ve developed methods to do that.

2) I want to help good people and ideas succeed and grow, and I’ve developed methods to do that too.

This year I want to spend energy on areas that do both effectively.

When 200 cameras are on someone, anyone can catch a game-changing event.

 The real excitement is to either make the event happen or be the one ready to get the story out when it does.

Plus, you’ll never have to compete with David Brooks for tired and cynical metaphors!

Reporting from DC, I’m Karen Ryan. (Just kidding, reporting from San Francisco. I’m Mr.  Spocko.)

Left, right agree on reducing prison population
by Tom Sullivan

The Bipartisan Summit for Criminal Justice Reform in Washington, D.C. on Thursday brought together a strange-bedfellows coalition focused on reducing the country’s swollen prison population: from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to former Obama adviser Van Jones. The ACLU and Koch Industries were listed as program partners. Press coverage seems limited. Time wrote:

If you mistakenly wandered into the Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform, you might have thought you had fallen into an alternate universe. Scores of liberal and conservative activists, policy wonks and lawmakers gathered for an all-day conference that seemed to defy all the old saws about Washington gridlock. Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich lauded Democratic Senator Cory Booker, who volleyed back praise for his Republican partners. Even Attorney General Eric Holder drew warm applause in a ballroom dotted with conservatives.

But as unusual as that may be in Washington, it’s becoming a routine sight when it comes to criminal justice reform. In recent months, a growing bipartisan alliance has formed around the need to change a prison system that critics say is broken and bloated. Thursday’s crowd was the clearest sign yet of the coalition’s breadth. “When you have an idea whose time has come,” said Jones, one of the hosts of the summit, “it winds up being an unstoppable force.”

This has been a long time coming. Since passage of New Gingrich’s Taking Back Our Streets Act, part of his 1994 “Contract With America,” and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, “written by Joe Biden … and signed by Bill Clinton,” the country’s prison population doubled, writes Shane Bauer for Mother Jones:

Today, Gingrich has changed his tune. “There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential,” Gingrich wrote in a 2011 op-ed in the Washington Post. “We can no longer afford business as usual with prisons. The criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it.”

The goal of Jones’ #cut50 campaign is to reduce the U.S. prison population by 50 percent in ten years. The question is just how that happens. It’s not just low-level drug offenders occupying those cells.

“Half the people in state prisons today have been convicted of a violent offense,” Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, told Slate. But “violent offender” is a rather loosely defined category:

… there are criminal statutes all over the country that routinely result in defendants being classified as “violent” in the eyes of the law even though most people would never describe their deeds that way. Many crimes are legally considered violent “even if no force is used, let alone injury suffered,” said Jonathan Simon, the director of the Center for the Study of Law & Society at the University of California in Berkeley, in an email. He added, “violence is a much more capacious legal category than most people assume.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told the conference, “We need to redefine what is considered violent crime.” But, writes Leon Neyfakh in Slate, none of the proposed reform currently addresses that issue. Defining down “violent crime” might not sit too well in certain sectors.

The alliance naturally raises concerns about what other political goals might come wrapped in proposed solutions. Still, if the left was acting alone pursuing this goal, conservatives opponents likely have the money and clout to stop it cold. An alliance, however uneasy and expedient, could get it done. But that remains to be seen. As Jones put it, “There’s no asterisk on the vote total if some of these people are opportunists…. If somebody’s sitting in a prison cell someplace doing thirty years for a nonviolent drug offense, are they going to care why somebody voted to shorten their sentence? They probably aren’t….”

I think he’s right about that.

Proud to be an American where at last I know I’m free

by digby

I’m going to guess they actually believe that makes sense.

Time for an adult beverage, folks…

h/t@billmon1

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A big run on Rambo costumes down at the border

by digby

This piece in Mother Jones about the GOP candidates making pilgrimages to the border reminded me of this picture of Rick Perry during last year’s so-called border crisis:

What is it with Republicans and costumes anyway? They just love to play dress up.