Month: May 2015

“Abuse is the new racism”

by digby

That comes from a conservative Christian writer who isn’t suggesting that abuse is a problem or even that it’s real. He’s saying that the people who are accused of abuse, like those who are accused of racism, are the real victims:

A conservative Quiverfull writer with ties to the Duggars has come out swinging in defense of the “19 Kids & Counting” stars, posting a series of outraged Facebook posts praising the family in spite of an ongoing sexual abuse scandal.

In the posts, which were first cited by watchdog group Homeschoolers Anonymous, homeschooling activist Rick Boyer — also the author of the Jim Bob Duggar-endorsed book “Take Back the Land” — asserted that the reality-show family appropriately handled allegations of incest and assault by eldest son Josh Duggar, and that they do not deserve to be criticized.

“‘Abuse’ is the new ‘racism,’” Boyer, who also sits on the board of the Home Educators Association of Virginia, wrote. “As soon as you’re accused of it, you’re considered guilty. Just what would you like the Duggars to have done? Turn all their kids over to a godless psychologist? Maybe one supplied by the local public school system where ‘abuse’ is so unheard of? Should they have skinned Josh alive, rolled him in salt and hung him on a meathook?”

Josh Duggar, who admitted to sexually assaulting several young girls when he was a teenager, stepped down from his position at the anti-LGBT Family Research Council after the allegations came to light last week. His parents also issued a statement corroborating the abuse claims, and stating that his “mistakes” led the family closer to God. The Duggars also emphasized that Josh’s victims had “forgiven” him.

“Do you hear Josh’s sisters railing against him?” Boyers continued. “No, it’s not the victims howling for scalps, it’s pagans and gullible Christians, eagerly grabbing the bait and shooting their own wounded.”

Boyers also defended disgraced religious activist Bill Gothard, whose hyper-conservative homeschool curriculum has been endorsed consistently on the Duggar family blog and promotes a victim-blaming mentality for handling sexual assault. Gothard stepped down from his position as head of the Institute in Basic Life Principles last year, after being accused of sexually harassing more than 30 women.

Yeah, these people are true believers — in themselves.

You can read his entire hypocritical whine here.

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The closet memo

by digby

All this talk about former Speaker of the House hastert and his “indiscretions” reminded me of this affair of 25 years ago.

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” That was the question Army counsel Joseph Welch asked Joseph McCarthy 35 years ago when the Senator ruined the lives of those who did not agree with him by impugning their character and patriotism. The same question could be posed to Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater, his communications director Mark Goodin and Congressman Newt Gingrich.

Acting directly or through subordinates, this trio last week worked to spread a long-standing unsubstantiated rumor designed to humiliate new House Speaker Thomas Foley. Just as Foley was poised to take the gavel from departing Speaker Jim Wright’s hand, a memo from the Republican National Committee was circulating to state party chairmen and G.O.P. Congressmen. Titled “Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet,” the memo compared his voting record with that of Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, an acknowledged homosexual. For days, an aide to Republican minority whip Newt Gingrich had been calling more than a dozen reporters trying to get the homosexuality rumor into print.

An effective smear has at its core an outrageous charge that would be devastating if true. The author must be both coy and cowardly: he must make the charge stick while retaining deniability. Although Goodin, Atwater’s friend of a decade, took the fall, the tactic bore the unmistakable Atwater stamp. As Bush’s 1988 campaign manager, Atwater specialized in character assassination: last summer Michael Dukakis was dogged by rumors that he had been treated for depression. In a similar incident in 1980, Atwater was managing the campaign of South Carolina Congressman Floyd Spence when a reporter asked Spence’s Democratic opponent whether he had undergone psychiatric treatment. When the Democrat accused Atwater of planting the question, Atwater said he wouldn’t respond to charges made by someone who had been “hooked up to jumper cables.” Atwater’s candidate won.

Before Atwater saw that he had gone too far, he stood by Goodin’s memo. On Monday he called it “no big deal” and “factually accurate.” Like the police captain in Casablanca who was shocked that gambling was going on, Atwater professed astonishment that anyone could interpret the memo as a slur on Foley. Other Republicans who understood the memo’s unmistakable meaning dissociated themselves, from George Bush on down. Even Congressman Vin Weber, a close friend of Gingrich’s, called the memo an “abomination,” pointing out that this had nothing to do with enforcing tough ethical standards and everything to do with “character assassination.” By Tuesday, Atwater was backpedaling, saying he had not approved the memo: “I feel confident that if I had seen this, it would not have gone out.” Atwater apologized to Foley; Gingrich also apologized and disavowed his aide’s actions. Wednesday Goodin cleaned out his desk.

Democrats like Beryl Anthony of Arkansas contend that this is another episode in the “bad employee-good superior” political mud wrestling that Atwater perfected during the campaign. Staffers, encouraged by their bosses, go on the attack, then — like a corps of civilian Ollie Norths — take the blame and are publicly rebuked. The superiors apologize.

Yet by the time Atwater and Gingrich apologized, the rumor had achieved its purpose. Foley was forced to deny it both on national television and before a party caucus. One Democrat at the meeting said that all around him eyes were averted when Foley, married 20 years and with the bearing and rectitude of a parish priest, had to assure his colleagues he was not a homosexual.

Whether out of embarrassment or conciliation, Foley sought to downplay the incident, calling for an end to this “political Beirut.” Barney Frank was less forgiving. Calling the story scurrilous, he warned Republicans, “If they don’t cut the crap, something’s going to happen, and I’m going to happen it.” He knows of five top Republican officials who are homosexual, he says, adding, “My list will be accurate.”

Barney Frank was on Chris Hayes last night and said he had no idea about Hastert. And thank goodness times have changed to the point at which saying someone gay is no longer considered a smear.

You may recall that Foley became speaker in 1989 when Newt Gingrich engineered the takedown of Speaker Jim Wright over profits from a book deal — something which Gingrich went on to do himself as Speaker.

Foley lost his seat in the GOP sweep of 1994. And Newt Gingrich became Speaker.

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BIll Maher’s liberals

by digby

There wasn’t any violence, thank goodness:

Protesters at Friday’s “Freedom of Speech” rally outside a Phoenix mosque were met by counterprotesters.

The two groups lined both sides of the street in front of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix and yelled at each other, with a line of police officers standing in the middle of the street to keep them separated, CNN affiliate KNXV reported.

Jon Ritzheimer, organizer of the rally, is a former Marine, and he has no middle ground when it comes to Islam.

His T-shirt pretty much says it all: “F— Islam.” Some of the counterprotesters wore shirts that said, “Love Thy Neighbor.”

The Islamic Community Center of Phoenix is the mosque that Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi attended for a time. They’re the men who drove from Arizona to a Dallas suburb to shoot up a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest there. Both were killed by police early this month.

Many Muslims consider demeaning depictions of Mohammed to be blasphemous and banned by Islamic law.

“This is in response to the recent attack in Texas where 2 armed terrorist(s), with ties to ISIS, attempted Jihad,” the event’s Facebook page said.

Some 600 people said they would attend.

The rally was to start about the same time evening prayers were taking place inside the center.

The rally was to feature its own cartoon contest, similar to the one targeted in Texas.

“I think the whole thing, the cartoon contest especially, I think it’s stupid and ridiculous,” Ritzheimer said beforehand, “but it’s what needs to take place in order to expose the true colors of Islam.”

He knows from stupid, alright. And they have the desired effect: scaring innocent people:

Events like this one and other developments have Muslims in the area scared, said Imraan Siddiqi with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“Recently, the mosques here in Phoenix actually received threatening letters — very specific threats, saying that we are going to massacre your congregations,” he said…

“When we see these two things … then obviously it becomes more of a concern,” he said. “We’re advising people … it’s better to stay clear from the event, don’t engage with these people.”

No kidding.

Guys in full military fatigues here & armed to the teeth. No it’s not the National Guard. Outside #PHXMosque pic.twitter.com/8XnDPWgV1T

— Sara Sidner (@sarasidnerCNN) May 30, 2015

Sign vs Sign at Phoenix #Mosque. One side anti-Islam another side professing religious tolerance. #America pic.twitter.com/TWQk3fS1Vn

— Sara Sidner (@sarasidnerCNN) May 30, 2015

There’s some video here.

QOTD: Orin Kerr

by digby

The Volokh Conspiracy in the Washington Post

“If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy.”

Uhm, yeah, that’s pretty much it. Oh, by the way, the other 90s scandals were even more bullshit than that. They weren’t even true, much less scandalous. Something to keep in mind as you get excited over the obscure innuendo and scandal bullshit they’re throwing now.

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More than meets the eye
by Tom Sullivan

When a conservative politician uses some oddball term that makes my ears prick up, makes me cock my head like a dog and baroo, I have learned to dig deeper and not simply shrug it off. It is often a dog whistle. There’s more going on than meets the ear.

So when President Obama went to bat for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, kept it out of public view, and seemed ready to go to the mat for an agreement that seems likely to hurt American workers, you would think I might have done the same instead of thinking it was just the neoliberal agenda. But when Mike Lux yesterday (Slavery? Really?) highlighted that, in pursuit of the TPP, the first African-American president was ready to oppose any moves by the Senate requiring Malaysia to put the brakes on its tolerance for slavery, something finally clicked. Perhaps there was more going on than meets the eye. I dug deeper.

First, Ryan Grimm at Huffington Post:

That measure would bar governments considered to be complicit in human trafficking from receiving the economic benefits of a fast-tracked trade deal. Menendez, the author of the provision, has described it as a human rights protection that will prevent U.S. workers from competing with modern-day slave labor. The administration has pushed against the provision, saying it would prevent Malaysia from participating in the deal, and eliminate incentives for the country to upgrade its human trafficking enforcement. Human rights advocates strongly support the language that passed the Senate on Friday.

The president argues that if the U.S. doesn’t cut deals with these partner countries, China will, to U.S. disadvantage.

But you know all that. Mike Lux at C&L writes, “We’re not going to object to slavery because a country that openly engages in it might trade more with China than with us? Doesn’t this kind of blow up the whole ‘most progressive trade agreement in history’ thing?”

Then I came across this post from Gaius Publius at Down With Tyranny, referencing Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism:

Cue Antifa:

Malaysia’s membership in the circle of TPP nations is not vital because Malaysia — it’s vital because of the Malacca Straits, through which virtually all the shipping in that part of the world passes. It’s a bottleneck, a chokepoint, and if Malaysia is “driven into the arms of China” then China can close those Straits to shipping how, when, and as they please.

Which would neuter the US Navy in that part of the world, reducing them to observer status. When people at the Pentagon talk about America’s role as the world’s policeman, they are talking about the Navy’s ability to project overwhelming force wherever and whenever needed. The three little chokepoints world trade and shipping depend on are the Strait of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca, and the Panama Canal. Taking one of those and giving control of it to China and Friends — or to anyone but the US Navy — puts the world’s policeman in a clown suit.

And Andrew Watts added yesterday:

In terms of geopolitics, a pseudo-science imo, there isn’t a more strategic chokepoint in the world. A quarter of the world’s shipping goes through the Straits of Malacca. Look at a list of member states of TPP and tell me this isn’t an anti-Chinese military alliance or there are alternative shipping lanes. The transportation routes via the Eurasian Silk Road is one way to circumvent this potential naval blockade but shipping via the sea has always been cheaper than shipping by land.

The only reason why business and intellectual property rights is apart of the deal is because Obama needs to bribe as many domestic power centers as possible to pass it. This is straight outta his Obamacare playbook. The reason for the secrecy is probably due to the military nature of the pact. in any case nobody wants the perception that this is preparation for some future Sino-American war.

But if I were a Chinese political leader in Beijing I would not trust any assurances to the contrary that come from Washington.

Strait of Malacca control was also one of the domino theory issues that contributed to the Vietnam War.

Correct. Which proves that the US military has always had it in it’s sights AND they’re willing to go to war for control over it.

Gaius has much more must-read background at Down With Tyranny. But he offers three possible (and non-exclusive) explanations for why Obama might accept being the “Slavery in Asia” president:

▪ One explanation is pretty simple. He thinks no one will notice, or if they do, they’ll quickly forget. Pretty simple explanation, especially given that his best corporate friends control almost all of the messaging via corporate media.

▪ Another explanation is best expressed by Andrew Watt above. To repeat:

The only reason why business and intellectual property rights is [a part] of the deal is because Obama needs to bribe as many domestic power centers as possible to pass it. This is straight outta his Obamacare playbook.

That’s actually very kind to Obama. It says that he’s being a responsible president from a military standpoint, and bribing all major U.S. corporations — Nike, for example, corrupt as it is (do click) — to get the deal he needs because of solid national security concerns. As explanations go, this results in higher legacy points than the other ones do.

▪ The final explanation? He’s simply cashing out, feathering his future nest, foaming his own landing, getting his meal ticket punched, setting the table for the feast of his 20 years of life — his post-electoral, Obama Global Initiative legacy-tour life. You can’t ride the corporate stratospheric rails to Davos if corporate jet owners don’t like you. You can’t give speeches for $400,000 each (give or take) if you don’t give the check-writers a reason to say thanks.

Having lived through the Vietnam War and having seen the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution debunked decades after it passed, I find the Straits of Malacca explanation compelling. Although I wonder how an ice-free Arctic Ocean might impact its importance for world shipping. (And the U.S. controls one side of the Bering Strait.)

Great, now we’re probably going to hear insufferable chatter again from OFA about Obama playing multi-dimensional chess.

What a tangled web. I wonder, if we’re going to raise a stink about entering a trade pact with a Malaysia that tolerates slavery, is Malaysia going to raise a stink about entering a trade pact with a United States whose past president the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal so recently convicted in absentia for war crimes? Guess it’s a good thing the Senate didn’t pass language excluding countries that engage in torture from joining the TPP.

She’s still got it

by digby

It’s getting harder and harder for blob throwing right wing miscreants to stand out these days but if anyone can do, Ann Coulter can. This is what she told Breitbart this week:

“When I’m in charge of immigration (after our 10 year moratorium), I will not admit overweight girls.”

She’s such a lovely person. And so helpful to Republicans. Because there are no fat Republican women.

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Only because 18 year old boys can vote

by digby

Iowa’s going to love it.

The sad thing is that this is an important issue…

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Sorry Republicans, insulting Boomers won’t make Millenials love you

by digby

Over at Salon today, I wrote about the bizarre notion that the Republicans seem to think that they have a snowball’s chance in hell of attracting large numbers of young people to their ticket because Hillary Clinton is an old hag:

The first shots were fired this week when The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol charged right at Hillary Clinton, basically saying she was too old to be president. Sure, he couched it in the usual “Baby Boomers suck” language (which is revealingly adolescent of the 62-year-old pundit) but basically he’s making the case that Gen-X Rubio or Walker are the better choices for GOP voters:

He writes:

The boomer presidents [Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama] were indulged as young men. They then indulged themselves with the fancy that they should be president. The voters indulged them, too, passing over the question of their qualifications—and, indeed, excusing several manifest disqualifications.

So Hillary Clinton would fit right in. She would be a worthy successor to the boomer presidents who have stood at the pinnacle of American politics for almost a quarter century. Hillary’s would be the echt-boomer presidency. She would be our second affirmative action boomer president (after Obama), our second boomer legacy president (after Bush), and our second reflexively dishonest boomer president (after her husband).

It may be that every generation gets the presidents it deserves. But enough already. Surely it’s time—to use a phrase associated with the Clintons—to move on.

In other words, just die already.

One is left to imagine what the “accomplishments” of the younger Republicans he envisions becoming president might be. If it’s Walker, you’d have to say successfully evading an indictment and surviving a recall election are his main claims to fame. Marco Rubio has also managed to evade an indictment, and ran for Senate and won, so that’s something too. The rest of the pack are all … Baby Boomers. Every last one of them, from Huckabee to Fiorina to Santorum to Bush were born during the ’50s or early ’60s. Even Rand Paul (whom Kristol is definitely not endorsing) comes in right under the wire.

But again, this is really about the inevitable right-wing narrative that Hillary Clinton is an old hag. You knew they couldn’t resist it. And that’s when you run right up against a different demographic group, and it’s a doozy: Baby Boomer women. Take for example, the angry reaction to Kristol’s smug screed by Republican columnist Kathleen Parker in Tuesday’s Washington Post:

Is it the Clinton in Hillary he doesn’t like? Kristol led the charge to defeat her efforts to reform health care as first lady. Or is it the woman in Clinton he finds so offensive? Perhaps he prefers women in flirty skirts and high heels to sturdy women in pantsuits? It was he, after all, who pushed Sarah Palin as the worthiest running mate for John McCain.

Probably all of the above and something more. Implicitly — and rather coquettishly, I might add — Kristol just defined the terms of his assault on Jeb Bush. Rather than say that Bush is merely another of those indulged boomers, he laid it all at Hillary Clinton’s feet, damning the past three presidents, insulting millions of his own cohorts, and revealing a measure of self-contempt in the process.

Perhaps Kristol was exorcising some of his own demons with this column — resolving long-simmering issues resulting from having been an indulged, Ivy League boomer who didn’t serve in the military and whose accomplishments are in the vein of commenting on the actions of others.

Half of the electorate are women and half of the older demographic Kristol insulted as a bunch of losers are women, and a good many of those are women who usually vote Republican, like Kathleen Parker. It would seem to be rather reckless of Republicans to denounce so many potential voters with such a sweeping condemnation.

The piece goes on to discuss all the polling that shows millennials are the least likely to vote for Republicans for a vast number of reasons. Read on …

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So much blackmail

by digby

There’s a lot of talk about Denny Hastert, of course, and some people are looking back at his handling of the Mark Foley affair in 2006 in which he was said to have sat on the information that Foley was harassing and molesting male teen-age congressional pages. People are wondering who knew about all that and I was reminded of the stuff Howie wrote at Down With Tyranny at the time.

This is a story I have been looking at since Dave Lutrin [running against Mark Foley at the time] started telling me how Emanuel and his bullyboys were trying to drive him out of the Democratic primary. At the time I was very aware that the entrenched incumbent in a very Republican south-central Florida district was gay. But it was no secret from anyone, except of course the suckers and rubes who vote in the district, that Foley was a homosexual who was out of control and couldn’t keep his hands off young men. It was over a year ago I started writing about Foley and young military boys. What I didn’t know at the time– but, we now find out (despite his earlier public denials on TV)– is that DCCC head Rahm Emanuel was aware at least since 2005 that Foley was molesting young male pages.

Emanuel, every bit as bad a scumbag as Foley and the GOP leadership who covered up for Foley, did nothing to protect the young pages from predators like Foley and Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe (who was also preying on them). Instead he decided to use the info as ammo in his partisan war to win a seat from the Republicans. I was scatching my head at the vehemence Emanuel employed in the run up to the primary in trying to drive Dave Lutrin out of the race. Lutin is a school teacher and union member and a good family man. He’s also an independent-minded progressive, passionate about Democratic ideals and values– exactly the kind of Democrat Emanuel loathes. Lutrin opposes the systemic corruption that allows weasels like Emanuel to thrive in DC and he opposed the war in Iraq that Emanuel was warning Democratic challengers to be quiet about.

Last June the current Emanuel-backed congressman-elect, Tim Mahoney, was a rich country club Republican and a corrupt businessman, Emanuel’s cup of tea. Emanuel, already aware that he could force Foley to resign, convinced Mahoney to switch party registration– although not values and principles; I mean there is a difference between Democratic values and Republican values… right?

Far be it from me to question whether Rahm, being a bigshot Chicago insider just like Hastert, might have also known about Hastert’s “problem” and used it for his own purposes. But you can’t help but wonder about that episode in light of the revelations of blackmail of the last couple of days. Lot’s and lot’s of blackmail…

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Unctuous right wing Eddie Haskells on parade

by digby

So Bernie Sanders made a lame attempt at satire 43 years ago talking about rape fantasies in service of an obscure point about gender inequality. Needless to say, the right is sanctimoniously shrieking about the media failing to call him the Todd Akin of the left. Sanders issued a statement saying “it was intended to attack gender stereotypes of the ’70s, but it looks as stupid today as it was then,” but fierce women’s rights advocate’s like Erick Erickson demand a closer look at Sanders’ record. Setting aside the fact that Sanders’ essay was more than 4 decades ago while Akin made his infamous gaffe during the 2012 campaign, Salon’s Katie McDonough took up the challenge and made a quick survey of votes just over the past decade:

In 2003, Sanders was among 32 co-sponsors of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a measure to “establish a zero-tolerance standard” for sexual violence in prison. (The measure passed unanimously, but enforcement has been weak in the last decade.)

In 2011, Sanders co-sponsored a measure to address the rape kit backlog. Here’s how Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another of the bill’s co-sponsors, explained the measure: ”Thousands of rape kits sit untested in police storage facilities nationwide. This is lost justice for rape victims. Testing DNA evidence in rape kits is a crucial tool to help law enforcement arrest and prosecute rapists. The Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act will make sure that victims are no longer denied the necessary tools for justice.”

In 2012, Sanders co-sponsored the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. Here’s how he explained that vote: “The act has been extremely successful in Vermont and across the country. While we are reducing the incidence of domestic violence, much more has to be done. Too many girls and women are still suffering from domestic violence and sexual abuse and that must end.”

In 2013, he called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to “step up efforts to provide care and benefits for veterans who experienced sexual assault in the military“ so that they “receive the care and benefits needed to confront the emotional and physical consequences of this horrific experience.”

In 2014, Sanders voted for New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s proposal to move the system of reporting and prosecuting rape in the military outside the chain of command. When that bill failed, Sanders issued the following statement about rape:

An estimated 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2012, a 37 percent increase in just one year, according to a recent Department of Defense study. I voted for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s bill because it would give servicemen and women an independent route outside the chain of command to report serious crimes, and I am disappointed that it was defeated… I also supported a separate measure by Sen. Claire McCaskill that includes some important reforms, but remain concerned that it does not go far enough. Victims of rape and sexual assault in the military deserve a fair and independent system outside the chain of command to report these types of crimes.

And just last month, Sanders balked at the GOP budget proposal because, among other programs put on the chopping block, it would slash funds for domestic violence service providers. He said at the time that “funding to help victims of domestic violence in Vermont could be slashed by more than $270,000, including funding for the STOP Violence Against Women Program that helps states provide support services for victims of domestic violence.”

Yes, that Sanders is true rape apologist.

Meanwhile, these right wingers believe that 12 year old girls should be forced to give birth to the children of their father rapists.

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