Month: March 2015

Dear Smart People Charged with Influencing Idiots, How’s Your Fiction?

by Spocko

Heh.

This is the kind of entertaining, cynical comedy that makes me nod my head in agreement. You might too.

You see, I’m a liberal smart person who wants to be seen as smarter than I am.

I see myself doing activities or working on activities like those listed at  :54 seconds, and wondering if I, and they, have zero influence.

I see myself, or friends, doing jobs like the ones described at 1:53.

I don’t like thinking or feeling I have zero influence. It feels like a Simpson’s clip. “Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably, the lesson is, never try.”

There is the part of me, and I’m betting a bunch of you, that needs to have hope.

The success using our “smart people ways” are much greater than zero. For example, the FCC Net Neutrality vote.

The cynical will say, “Well, that action only happened because the rich people wanted it to happen.” That was the line I heard after the FCC Net Neutrality vote.
That opinion doesn’t take into account the cumulative and supporting effects of all the actions. It also misses another huge important strategic move:

Figure out how to use rich people and companies who want some of the same things you want

It reminded me of how I went about de-funding right-wing talk radio.
I convinced rich people (advertisers) that they didn’t want to associate their brands with the violent, sexist, racist, and bigoted comments coming out of talk radio.

How did that happen? Through passionate emails, letters, blogging, tweets and phone calls.

Who did it? People like my friend James Madison (not his real name), Angelo with @stopbeck and all the wonderful people who work on #stoprush.

This was NOT a Zero Influence action. It has had 100’s of million of dollars of influence on some companies bottom lines. That is a big fraking deal.

But, but Spocko, Rush is still on the air!  Glenn Beck got booted off of Fox News, but he’s still on radio! They are still making money from other sources! They still have Influence!

Yes, but they are now diminished in a way that pisses rich conservative people off. And that is always fun.

Now the rich have to pay for their propaganda more directly. They loved the idea that their propaganda was influential AND made them money. They liked to rub that line in the faces of liberals, ‘Ha, ha! Our radio propaganda MAKES money!”

At this point I usually remind people that Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post loses about 110 million dollars a year. Every. Single. Year. Also, think tanks don’t turn a profit. They beg for donor money Every. Single. Year.

Yet they sell a product. Ideas and Metaphors about how they want the world to work.

Which leads me to the other kind of influence the we wield that cynical smart people like to dismiss.  Language, Metaphors and Fiction.

I thought this example of the influence of fiction was an interesting one:
It’s from The Take Away, John Hockenberry’s new NPR show. It is about the “soft power” of fictional TV on North Korea.

If I’m one of those “smart people” who is charged with influencing idiots or smart people, I’d look to fiction.

Millionaires just get no respect these days. Billionaires take it all.

by digby

The Washington Post reports on the very sad plight of a group of wealthy former bundlers who just aren’t rich enough to garner the attention from politicians that billionaires do:

“They are only going to people who are multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires and raising big money first,” said Neese, who founded a successful employment agency. “Most of the people I talk to are kind of rolling their eyes and saying, ‘You know, we just don’t count anymore.’ ”

It’s the lament of the rich who are not quite rich enough for 2016.

Bundlers who used to carry platinum status have been downgraded, forced to temporarily watch the money race from the sidelines. They’ve been eclipsed by the uber-wealthy, who can dash off a seven-figure check to a super PAC without blinking. Who needs a bundler when you have a billionaire?

Many fundraisers, once treated like royalty because of their extensive donor networks,are left pining for their lost prestige. Can they still have impact in a world where Jeb Bush asks big donors to please not give more than $1 million to his super PAC right now? Will they ever be in the inner circle again?

“A couple presidential elections ago, somebody who had raised, say, $100,000 for a candidate was viewed as a fairly valuable asset,” said Washington lobbyist Kenneth Kies. “Today, that looks like peanuts. People like me are probably looking around saying, ‘How can I do anything that even registers on the Richter scale?’ ”

Sexual favors? Offer to kill someone? There must be something.

This is so twisted you have no choice but to laugh. These people are feeling slighted because they aren’t rich enough to gain the attention of politicians. Welcome to the world the rest of us inhabit, friends. But perhaps they need to ask themselves why they are treating these people as if they’re royalty or demi-Gods in the first place. This is supposed to be a democracy and politicians are supposed to be seeking the approval of the citizens. Instead we have citizens seeking approval from the politicians and the politicians seeking approval from the ultra-wealthy. Something isn’t quite right.

Still, you have to feel sorry for them for this terrible loss of status. It’s gotta hurt to be a millionaire member of the upper five percent, used to being treated with deference by the servant class (the rest of us) and suddenly find yourself tossed aside as just another useless poor person. The answer to this dilemma — the answer they would certainly give to any of the sad middle class and working class people who would ask this question is — must be to “work harder” and become a billionaire themselves. Isn’t it the case that rising to the top is just a matter of having a good work ethic? And if you fail, it’s because you just don’t put the kind of effort into it that billionaires do? That’s what I always heard anyway.

Come on, millionaires, buck up. Anyone can become a billionaire if they really try. This is America. You only have yourself to blame if you just don’t have enough money to make a politician care what you have to say.

.

Your daily apocalypse
by Tom Sullivan

Rush Limbaugh’s popularity during the Clinton administration prompted some restaurants to create “Rush Rooms” where you could listen to el Rushbo piped in over speakers while you washed down your burger and onion rings with iced tea. Two Minutes Hate that lasted for hours. A daily dose of outrage to get the juices flowing.

In an interview at Salon, historian Rick Perlstein looks at how other conservative hucksters such as Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck peddle outrage and miracle cures. The practice has its roots in evangelical culture and in Richard Viguerie’s mass marketing:

What he ended up mastering was a rhetorical style which is very familiar to viewers of Fox News, in which the apocalypse is right around the corner, and his innovation was to intimate that you could help stop it with a, y’know, $5, $10, $50 donation. His business model, as was very soon discovered, was taking 95 percent to sometimes even more than 100 percent of the take for his own purposes and profit and giving in only a minuscule percentage of the proceeds to the ostensible beneficiary, whether it was a fund that supposedly helped FBI officers injured in the line of duty or sending Bibles to Africa or supporting something like the National Conservative Political Action Committee.

Perlstein responds to Huckabee’s diabetes ad:

Let’s not forget 1988, when Pat Robertson won the New Hampshire primary. A lot of this stuff comes from Evangelical culture, which is a culture of witness, so the hawking of miracles is absolutely baked into the cake. Someone like Pat Robertson was followed by a figure like Pat Buchanan or any number of candidates in the last two or three Republican primary seasons, who make a lot of noise by doing decently well in early polls but then fade out once the seasoned pros take over and the money becomes preeminent.

If this historical pattern holds, Mike Huckabee, if he does well early, will flame out before the second or third inning but I see no impediment whatsoever for him to be disqualified by the conservative rank-and-file, simply because this stuff has been going on without much complaint since the 1970s. This is part of the hustle, right? If Huckabee can claim to have been victimized because of his activities, he can always claim it’s the conspiracy of the liberal elites… and then it’s off to the races.

Like Flannery O’Connor’s bible salesman, except selling reverse mortgages and diet pills via multilevel marketing.

“Aren’t you,” she murmured, “aren’t you good country people?”

What’s infuriating is that now everybody’s getting in on the daily apocalypse style. This DCCC appeal came in from Nancy Pelosi last night:

Thomas — I don’t have much time:

The House is voting TOMORROW on the Republican budget.

Paul Ryan, blah, blah, blah …

That’s why I’m coming to you. We need to raise $80,000 more before the vote tomorrow to show our Democratic strength.

Are you ready to fight back with me before it’s too late?

Hang on tight to your wooden legs.

The twisted mind of a duck caller

by digby

Here’s a little glimpse into the thoughts of America’s most popular Christian patriarch:

“I’ll make a bet with you,” Robertson said. “Two guys break into an atheist’s home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters.

Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him.

And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him.

And then they can look at him and say, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged? Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?’”

Robertson kept going:

“Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if this [sic] was something wrong with this? 

But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.’”

“If it happened to them,” Robertson continued, “they probably would say, ‘something about this just ain’t right.”

I don’t think that sociopathic little homily says what he thinks it says.

.

Hysterical Huckleberry Quote ‘O the Day

by digby

“The language used by the chief of staff of the president of the United States is exactly what Hamas uses. Today, the chief of staff of the president of the United States used language that has been reserved for terrorist organizations.”

Oh my God! What did he say?

Speaking at J Street’s annual conference, McDonough said that “an occupation that has lasted more than 50 years must end,” adding that Palestinians should be able to govern themselves.

And then he screamed “Allahu Akbar” which was really disconcerting.

Huck continued:

“Is your country occupying the West Bank, or are you there to make sure the West Bank doesn’t turn into Gaza? The chief of the staff of the president of the United States is looking at a world completely different than the one I am viewing.”

Graham warned Obama that, if his administration does not block anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations, “Congress will recalculate how we relate to the United Nations.”

“All I can say is, when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it has,” Graham said, referring to McDonough’s speech.

“Wake up and change your policies before you set the whole world on fire. Please watch your language. … You’re making everything worse, and now, you’ve added fuel to the fire.”

Runferyerlives!!! Everybody’s trying to kill us!!!!THE WORLD IS ON FIIIIYAH!!!!

.

An official act of racism

by digby

I’m horrified by the death penalty for many reasons. It’s simply immoral to premeditatedly kill people who are in the custody of authorities and are no threat to anyone. When the system that put them there is capricious, unequal and unjust it’s even worse. I will never understand how people can consider it a civilized act to murder someone who is shackled and unarmed.

But the absolutely most horrific aspect of capital punishment in America is the way it is used as an official, governmental act of racism. In the name of all of us:

IN APRIL 2005, nearly eight years after Kenneth Fults was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering his neighbor Cathy Bounds in Spalding County, Georgia, one of the trial jurors made a startling admission under oath: He’d voted for the death penalty, he said, because “that’s what that ni**er deserved.”

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given the circumstances—a black man admitting to the murder of a white woman in the deep South—that some white jurors might secretly harbor racist views. The surprising part was that this juror, Thomas Buffington, came right out and said it. And what should have been the most surprising development of all (alas, it wasn’t) came this past August, when a federal appeals court, presented with ample evidence, refused to consider how racism might have affected Fults’ fate.

In fact, state and federal courts have routinely avoided the evidence and consequences of racism in the criminal-justice system. (See “5 Death Penalty Cases Tainted by Racism.”) Consider one of the most famous examples, the 1987 Supreme Court case of McCleskey v. Kemp, in which lawyers for Warren McCleskey, a black man sentenced to death for killing a white police officer, presented statistics from more than 2,000 Georgia murder cases. The data demonstrated a clear bias against black defendants whose victims were white: When both killer and victim were black, only 1 percent of the cases resulted in a death sentence. When the killer was black and the victim white, 22 percent were sentenced to death—more than seven times the rate for when the races were reversed.

It’s sick. Jim Crow may have ended and a whole lot of our fellow citizens are better off, but its racist intentions just moved to a new space behind prison walls.

I wish I could understand how any judge could be so cold-blooded as the allow an execution under these circumstances. I know they care about making “the system” efficient and worry in the abstract about what will happen if they start tinkering too much with the machinery of death. But this machine is designed to snare the innocent along with the guilty and it seems to have a need for black bodies to fuel it. It’s a machine that doesn’t work properly and never will. It needs to be scrapped.

.

Bill Maher, the one true liberal?

by digby

My post for Salon today discusses some recent Bill Maher comments that truly are startling.  If he hadn’t made such a fetish out of the Islamic fundamentalist threat one might just dismiss it as a case of lazy rhetoric.  But in the context of everything else he’s been saying lately it’s worth looking at:

When he is defending his sweeping condemnation of the Muslim religion, Bill Maher inevitably proclaims himself to be “the real liberal” implying that those who don’t see things his way are impure in some way. He’s said it numerous times on his show and in interviews such as the one he did here at Salon with Elias Isquith claiming that standing on liberal principles (as he defines them) even against people who are oppressed minorities is what makes him “the liberal in this debate.”
[…]
But how to explain his latest comments defending the comments of Benjamin Netanyahu in the final days of the Israeli election complaining, “Arab voters are going en masse to the polls, left-wing NGOs are bringing them on buses.” Maher said:

“I guess that is racist, in the strictest sense — he’s bringing race into the equation. But, first of all, like Reagan didn’t win races with racism? Or Nixon? Or Bush? Like they didn’t play the race card? Reagan opened his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, remember that? Remember Willie Horton?”

Real liberals don’t say that racism doesn’t work. It’s that it’s wrong. But he didn’t stop there:

“I heard a lot of commentators here say, it would been as if Mitt Romney, in 2012, on the eve of the election said, ‘black voters are coming out in droves to the polls. But I don’t know if that’s really a great analogy. I think that would be a good analogy if America was a country that was surrounded by 12 or 13 completely black nations who had militarily attacked us many times, including as recently as last year. Would we let them vote? I don’t know. When we were attacked by the Japanese, we didn’t just not let them vote, we rounded them up and put them in camps.”

I’ve got a better analogy for him. Not too long ago there was a nation run by white people, surrounded by “black nations” and filled with oppressed black citizens who were very hostile to it. It is called South Africa. And principled liberals didn’t think their system was such a great idea and they certainly defend the white South African overlords simply because they felt afraid of losing power. Ronald Reagan did, as did most right wingers. And so did the other Republicans who Maher mentions using racist language to get elected. Liberals, on the other hand, believed that black South Africans should have full citizenship. Certainly they thought trying to prevent black people from voting, whether over there or here, was a very illiberal thing to do. Liberals were on the right side of history on that one.

Interning the Japanese was an immoral blight on America’s record for which the nation apologized and made reparations. The president who signed that reparations bill was none other than Ronald Reagan. The internment happened more than 70 years ago during a period when open racism was a normal part of American society. Today, the only people who support such a horror are Maher’s right wing buddy Ann Coulter and her fellow travellers like Michelle Malkin.

Read on…

The good cops

by digby

This nice note came across my twitter feed last night and as a harsh critic of police tactics, I think it’s important to make sure the other side gets out there too:

El Dorado Police Department Lieutenant Tim Baker and Sergeant Larry Arnold responded to a disturbance call. The homeless man was combative toward the officers, even throwing his bicycle. The man has a volatile history and his behavior could have escalated and caused injury to the officers or himself.

Instead, Sgt Arnold patiently calmed him down and Lt Baker helped him reattach his bicycle tire. 

Patrol Officer Mike Holton brought the man lunch, spent hours finding him a bed in a shelter in Wichita and then drove the man to the shelter.

None of these officers would have expected anyone to notice or thank them, but a citizen just happened to look out their window, see the interaction and snap these pictures.

I see this sort of thing frequently here in Santa Monica where the local police are often called upon to deal with a large homeless population. They are unfailingly polite and patient. (LAPD, not so much — it must be a cultural thing.) The best cops are those who not only project authority but also have an understanding of psychology and a healthy dose of patience and empathy. It’s not the job of a soldier. It’s something more.

Update: and I can’t let this post go by without showing this youtube again. It makes me laugh out loud every time I see it:

.

Huge White House Scandal!

by digby

Sure this happened in the Obama White House but it’s so redolent of the travel office firing back in 1993 that you have to suspect that Hillary Clinton had something to do with it. She’s been talking about emails regarding weddings and funerals after all. And who but a florist would be in the know about all that, amirite? Call the special prosecutor!

When White House chief pastry chef Bill Yosses left the executive mansion last summer, the president publicly mourned the loss of “the crust master’s” mysteriously addictive pies. And when the first family’s personal chef and pal, Sam Kass, left in December, Michelle Obama heaped praise on Kass’s “extraordinary legacy of progress” in an official White House statement.

But the recent exit of head florist Laura Dowling, who’d been in the job since 2009, has been a much quieter affair. So hush hush, in fact, that most outside of 1600 Penn knew nothing about it. There’s still no official comment on why Dowling is no longer at the White House, but according to a source with close ties to current residence staffers, she was escorted from the building on Friday Feb. 13.

The East Wing initially confirmed via a very brief e-mail that “Laura left her position earlier this year” but provided no further details. Later, the first lady’s office (not quoting the first lady specifically, mind you) sent this enhanced statement:

“As Chief Florist, Laura Dowling and her team treated guests of the White House to their beautiful floral arrangements. Ms. Dowling’s creations were always lively and colorful, reflecting not only the season but the unique and historic rooms which they graced. No two arrangements were ever the same and each one left guests with a lasting impression of the elegance and history of the People’s House. We are grateful for her contribution over the years and wish her well”

We also reached out to the Office of the Chief Usher, which oversees all residence staff. When we asked to speak with Dowling, the woman who answered the phone said, “She no longer works here.” And when asked if there was another head floral designer, she responded, “There really isn’t.”

Hours after we put in a call to Dowling’s Alexandria floral design shop, Intérieurs et Fleurs, she issued a statement via the law firm Sidley Austin.

“After almost 6 years as Chief Floral Designer at the White House, I have resigned in order to pursue exciting new opportunities and explore my passion for floral artistry and design. Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be launching a new platform for my work as an author, speaker, instructor and design consultant that builds on the creative ideas and partnerships I’ve formed during my tenure there. It’s been such an honor to work at the White House and I will always be grateful for this incredible opportunity.”

“This absolutely comes from the top. The first lady has the final say,” explained Kate Andersen Brower, author of the upcoming book, “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House.” Andersen Brower first heard of Dowling’s departure from three former residence staffers.

The silence from the East Wing surrounding Dowling’s exit is in sharp contrast to the buzz of her hiring.

According to a former residence staffer, Dowling’s exit “surprised a lot of people.” But the White House’s staff, continued this source, was discouraged from “trying to come up with their own conclusions.” Rumors, of course, have been flying ever since.

“I’m not sure what the reason is,” continued our source. “But I can think of a few.”

As Jon Stewart would say, “Doo tellllll ….“

Ok, so the Clinton connection might be a bit thin, even for the Village. But obviously Michelle Obama was unhappy with the floral arrangements for some reason. So she fired the florist without so much as a by-your-leave or a fare-thee-well. Now why would that be, hmmmmm?

I have no idea and obviously neither does the journalist who wrote this but it would be irresponsible not to hint darkly at something.

.

Oh what a tangled web we weave

by digby

Via WSJ:

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.

“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

Yeah, I hate when that happens.

That is one shocking situation if you think about it. Israel is spying on the US, with US knowledge apparently. But Israel is sharing what it learns with opposition members of congress in order to influence policy within the US government.

These people want to jail Edward Snowden for espionage while actual members of the US Government are working with a foreign nation to undermine an anti-nuclear peace agreement! WTH?

.