Iran tug of war
by digby
She’s right. But you have to love the guy in the audience struggling to take away her sign … and losing.
There’s something deliciously symbolic about it.
.
"what digby sez..."
Month: September 2015
Somebody’s confused
by digby
I do not think it’s “statists” (presumably she means liberals) are the ones who are combining church and state. The marriage license that the state provides is a civil document that confers certain contractual privileges and responsibilities. It’s been doing that since time immemorial and it’s got absolutely nothing to do with religion.
Kim Davis made it about religion not the state. And lucky for her it is perfectly legal for her church to burn gay couples in effigy on the altar every Sunday if it wants to. It can pray for them to burn in hell and refuse to even let them in the door. The government, on the other hand, is not allowed to deny gay couples a marriage license. Everything’s separate, as it’s always been.
But Loesch isn’t an idiot. She knows this. I’m assuming that she’s just trying to confuse the rubes. There must be money in this somewhere.
.
And so it begins
by digby
I’ll bet they try to blame it on the Democrats. But I think we all know who’s really threatened by Trump, don’t we?
According to an e-mail obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post, an undisclosed private group will film a “smear video” Wednesday about the Republican presidential front-runner featuring actors of either Hispanic and Asian backgrounds solemnly reading short lines against a white background.
“Essentially this video is similar to reading tweets,” the e-mail explains, “like ‘I am a criminal,’ ‘I am an anchor baby,’ etc. We only have 25 spots.”
The e-mail was sent last week to a network of actors associated with TalentDirect LLC, a talent agency that connects Hollywood, commercial and corporate clients with actors in southern Florida.
Bianka Krausch, the agency’s director, confirmed the project Tuesday in a phone interview but declined to name the production company or the client who is funding the Trump-related venture.
“To be clear, we’re not part of the production and we’re probably not the only company involved,” Krausch said. “We’re a talent agency, not a casting office, and our job is to keep talent informed about possible opportunities.”
Kraush also said that “Erik,” who authored the e-mail, is Erik Van Bilderbeek, an assistant booker at the firm. Van Bilderbeek, reached by phone, said, “We are a talent agency.” He, too, declined to reveal or discuss the video’s financial backers.
Van Bilderbeek’s e-mail to the actors begins with a call for “Male/Female Hispanic, [Latinos], Asians, All ages (Kids 4 years to Adults 80 years).”
“Our client hired us to shoot a smear video against Donald Trump. This is acting, so it doesn’t matter about political affiliations. This is a web commercial, not for broadcast,” he continues. “This will be [filmed] in a studio on white background, multiple focal lengths with the people saying multiple lines in Fort Lauderdale.”
It’s Florida, Jake.
h/t to JP
QOTD: A piece of work
by digby
Kim Davis’ inane lawyer upon her release from jail:
“She can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell.”
Too bad she wasn’t free to just quit her job — the solution all the free-market wingnuts prescribe for every other complaint a worker might have against her employer. Oh wait, she was.
.
A little historical reminder for journalists
by digby
I keep hearing and reading that Clinton lost big in the 2008 campaign because of her political ineptitude and terrible personality and that she’s facing the same problems this time which will inevitably lead to similar rout in the primaries.
Perhaps it will happen. I cannot tell the future. But I would suggest that reporters at least remind themselves of what actually happened in 2008 before declaring her campaigning to be terminally disastrous and inept.
Here is what actually happened:
Considering that Clinton was running against one of the most gifted politicians of our time it was pretty damned close. In fact, it was the closest primary race in history.
This is why she is the presumptive nominee. She may not make it over the finish line this time either. It’s a different year with a different set of circumstances. And who knows, maybe Joe Biden will jump in and Democratic voters will see him as the next Barack Obama. Maybe they’re decide that Bernie Sanders’ time has come. But lazily reporting today that she’s always been a terrible campaigner who couldn’t win is a totally fatuous and inaccurate narrative. The winning margin in that race was 127 delegates out of 4,126.
He won it fair and square, but it was a close to a tie as you can get. This idea that the Democratic party has always found her to be a “cold and old” (as Bob Shrum called her) loser is a reflection of Villager fever dreams, not reality.
Update: I’m hearing several reporters discuss how much better at retail politics Joe Biden is.
He ran twice for president and got zero delegates. Zero. One of those times was against Clinton.
.
The Fox schism
by digby
Davis’ attorney, Mat Staver, was “ridiculously stupid” for asserting that the Supreme Court did not have constitutional authority to strike down same-sex marriage bans.
On Monday’s edition of Happening Now, trial attorney Chip Merlin pointed out that anyone who violates a judge’s order should “expect to be thrown in jail.”
“She can still practice her faith,” Fox News host Gregg Jarrett noted. “Just not on the job in a way that interferes with the legal rights of the citizens she serves. And in fact, the U.S. Supreme Court said so nine years ago.”
“She’s a hypocrite,” criminal defense attorney Sharon Liko agreed. “She’s applying for the job of a martyr. She wants to practice her faith by not issuing marriage licenses. Yet, she will not agree to let the deputy county clerks issue marriage licenses even if it’s okay with their faith.”
“When she took the job she swore to uphold the law,” Jarrett explained. “We rely on government officials to do that. They can’t just pick and choose what laws they like, which ones they don’t. If they were allowed to do that, wouldn’t that lead to chaos, anarchy and so forth?”
Jarrett also called out Davis’s attorney, who said it was “questionable” if the Supreme Court had the “constitutional authority” to rule on same-sex marriage.
“Whether the Supreme Court has constitutional authority?” the Fox News host said. “Article III Section 2 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court constitutional authority to decide constitutional issues!”
Jarrett added that Staver’s statement appeared to be “stunningly obtuse.”
“That’s a very polite way of putting it,” Liko replied. “I would say it’s just a ridiculously stupid statement. The Supreme Court does just that, and they determine constitutionality issues, they resolve these kinds of disputes.”
“This woman has a choice, she can either follow the law — she can do her job — or she can get out.”
Guys. That was Fox News.
I have been skeptical that the GOP was really starting to break apart but this makes me think it’s actually happening. It’s one thing to reluctantly admit that there’s not much you can do about gay marriage and that while you really truly think that people should have religious liberty, this stand by Kim Davis is doomed to fail and she really should take a different approach. Derisive insults toward both her and her lawyers are, shall we say, unexpected.
Ailes must really be worried to allow this sort of apostasy.
.
Return of the Dark Lord
by digby
I wrote about the Dark Lord for Salon this morning and his new book about American Exceptionalism. An excerpt:
But how to explain this new apostasy, which is so shocking that you have to wonder if there isn’t a tear in the Murdoch matrix somewhere. Liz and Dick Cheney appeared with Chris Wallace on Sunday to talk about their new book, and Wallace actually confronted them with some some inconvenient facts:
Wallace highlighted how the Bush administration dealt with Iran, pointing out how Iran went from zero centrifuges in 2007 to over 5000 in 2009. He asked, “In fairness, didn’t you leave––the Bush-Cheney administration leave––President Obama with a mess?”
Cheney rejected that assertion and pointed to the removal of Saddam Hussein as a blow against Iran. Wallace brought up the centrifuges again, and Cheney said that was “under Obama’s watch, not under our watch.”
Wallace again point out this happened between 2007 and 2009.
He moved on to Iraq, which the Cheneys have criticized Obama over, especially regarding the removal of U.S. troops in 2011. Wallace pointed out the original status of forces agreement was negotiated under George W. Bush.
Liz and Dick were not amused. The official propaganda line says that the Ayatollah was so shocked and awed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s big swinging leadership that when we invaded he threw his robe over his head and ran around in circles, screaming at his minions to tear up all plans to make a nuclear weapon before bursting into tears and taking to his bed for a good old fashioned cry.
That didn’t actually happen. In fact, the invasion of Iraq was cheered by the Iranian regime; they all high fived each other over their good fortune. Who could have ever predicted that America would be so generous as to take out Iran’s most hated rival on both a sectarian and nationalist basis for them? To then refuse to even engage in non-proliferation discussions, giving the regime the room to really crank up a nuclear program was just too kind.
And as for Iraq, Wallace had it right. The Bush administration left their successor with a terrible mess on his hands. Even the master dealmaker and four time bankrupt real estate mogul Donald Trump himself would have had a hard time extricating himself from that agreement. The Obama administration tried, much to the chagrin of his liberal supporters whose votes were largely based on his promise to get out. But the Bush administration and the Iraqi government had left them with very little to work with short of re-invading and putting the country under occupation.
According to the Cheneys’ book, none of that is correct. It’s a bizarroworld tour de force in which the Iraq war was a rousing American victory that resulted in the Middle East becoming a stable region where the Sunni and Shia were holding hands and promising to love one another. That is until Barack Obama came along and tore it all asunder with his weak and cowardly refusal to “lead.”
But the book isn’t just a recapitulation of their lame excuses for having trashed the Middle East and then standing on the sidelines pointing fingers as if they had nothing to do with it. It’s a lecture about “American Exceptionalism,” the right wing’s favorite rationale for American Empire. In other words, a campaign blueprint for the next Republican presidential candidate.
Cheney’s giving a bit Iran speech today on the anniversary of his and Condoleeza Rice’s visit to all the Sunday shows to wring their hands about “aluminum tubes” and declare that we shouldn’t let the “smoking gun” be a “mushroom cloud” thus proving that he is a member of the undead.
.
We could have had class
by Tom Sullivan
Pope Francis calls on the churches he leads to take in undocumented refugees as the crisis in Europe worsens:
“Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees who are fleeing death by war and by hunger, and who are on a path toward a hope for life, the Gospel calls us to be neighbors to the smallest and most abandoned, to give them concrete hope,” Francis said.
It’s not enough to say: “Have courage, hang in there,” he added.
“For thousands,” writes Mike Barnicle, “life boils down to a simple decision: risk death where they were born or risk death trying to escape.” Yet the spectacle on the borders and shores of eastern Europe barely registers here.
America is entranced by the man leading the polls for the Grand Old Party’s nomination for president of the United States and who promises to expel millions from this country. That will be a spectacle. He wants to deport them — men, women, and children — to the country a Latina checkout clerk from there recently warned me not to visit “until it’s safe.” Thousands of fans support Donald Trump for his deportation rhetoric alone. They find him “classy.”
Barnicle continues:
In the United States, the calamity consuming Europe is so far just another clip on TV, one more sad story streaming across a screen of a smart phone or a tablet. We have our own problems and our own politicians either trying to light fires or put out one blaze after another over the issue of our own recent immigrants, many here illegally for years without papers.
America sits on its hands. Did we ever lead when it did not involve blowing up things and killing people? One can dimly remember such a spirit, as Barnicle does:
America provided things that form the foundation of who we used to be: the prospect and potential of hope, mercy and freedom for strangers who came carrying not much more than a determination to survive in a big country with a bigger heart. The question is: Who are we now?
Classy? We could have had class.
Speaking of police corruption …
by digby
Ashleigh Banfield featured the reporter on this story on her program today and I’m sure few people saw it. It’s a fascinating look at a notorious Detroit drug dealer, arrested as a juvenile, who seems to have been kept in jail long past the expected expiration date because he informed on police:
I first happened upon White Boy Rick’s story last year and quickly became fascinated enough to call some of the police officers and federal agents who had figured in it in one way or another. With some surprise, I discovered that while most of them remembered the story in detail, few of them had any idea what had happened to Wershe since the Reagan administration. It was as if the legend of White Boy Rick had swallowed the real person at its center.
Except he wasn’t gone. I had first learned this from a column about incarceration policy published last year on The Fix, a site covering drugs and addiction. The author reported that Wershe was, in fact, more or less where people had last seen him in the late 1980s: sitting in a prison cell somewhere in Michigan.
This made Wershe not only a local icon but also an anomaly, and something of a mystery, in the world of criminal justice. In May 1987, when he was 17, Wershe was charged with possession with intent to deliver eight kilos of cocaine, which police had found stashed near his house following a traffic stop. He had the misfortune of being convicted and sentenced under one of the harshest drug statutes ever conceived in the United States, Michigan’s so-called 650 Lifer law, a 1978 act that mandated an automatic prison term of life without parole for the possession of 650 grams or more of cocaine. (The average time served for murder in state prisons in the 1980s was less than 10 years.)
Sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide crimes was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, by which point such sentences were already exceedingly rare; the court was able to locate only 129 inmates serving them nationwide.
Michigan eventually acknowledged the failures of the 650 Lifer statute—the governor who signed it into law, William G. Milliken, has called it the greatest mistake of his career—and rolled it back in 1998. Those already serving time became parole eligible and began to be released. Wershe is the only person sentenced under the old law who is still in prison for a crime committed as a juvenile. Prominent and violent kingpins and enforcers from Wershe’s day in Detroit have long since been freed. And yet Wershe has remained incarcerated, for more than 26 years.
The Fix column, written by a prison activist who is himself serving a lengthy sentence for drug trafficking, quoted some of Wershe’s own explanations for his fate. He had been an informant for the FBI, he claimed, and his handlers had pushed him into the drug trade to serve their own ends. He had later run afoul of the local police by helping the FBI expose corrupt cops. “The FBI and police lied about this for more than two decades,” Wershe said. “I just want the truth to finally come out.”
Wershe’s claims seemed implausible, if not fantastical. But one detail near the end of the article caught my eye: a quote from a retired FBI agent named Gregg Schwarz. “The events surrounding the incarceration of Richard Wershe,” Schwarz said, “are a classic example of abuse of power and political corruption.” A former federal agent was backing the cause of the notorious White Boy Rick.
Apparently, it was widely known at the time that this fellow had been informing for the FBI. If you think that’s implausible, you haven’t been paying attention. Not to mention the way the FBI commonly coerces young people into committing crimes. In this case, it appears they used him for their purposes and then abandoned him allowing the Detroit cops to testify repeatedly at this parole hearings, keeping him in jail for years longer than anyone else in his position, even murderers.
This is a fascinating story with a current news hook: this week a judge ordered him to be resentenced.
.
So Nixon “deracialized” the Southern Strategy. Who Knew?
by digby
“If Trump isn’t offering workable solutions but he is identifying problems that others have ignored, the hope is some more policy-focused, more governance-focused competitor will make use of the opportunity that Trump has publicized,” Mr. Frum said.
In an analogy that won’t make anyone very comfortable, he said Mr. Trump could be useful in the same way George Wallace was in 1968: “Wallace talked about a lot of issues, many of them pretty dismaying, but he also seized on the crime issue. Crime was rising fast, and it was not an issue that respectable politicians wanted to talk about. The result was that Richard Nixon stole his issue and deracialized it.”
Well, not exactly. Pressed on whether Nixon’s anticrime language could really be considered deracialized, Mr. Frum argued Nixon “diminished its racialism and incorporated it into something like a workable policy agenda.”
I guess these people have actually convinced themselves that Nixon’s Southern Strategy wasn’t racist.
And now we can look at George Wallace’s campaign as being a big positive for our democracy which is really nice.
The “law and order” issue is coming to the fore. Hysteria is rising in both parties and among the intelligentsia. Flogging this fear is one of the most tried and true methods conservatives use to push back on racial justice, civil rights and liberal reforms in general. Trump’s moment isn’t coming out of nowhere.
.