Month: May 2016

More Trump “populism”

by digby

He’s a real friend of the working man:

The Supreme Court is being asked to take up a bankruptcy dispute involving the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and to decide whether to restore the health and pension benefits of more than 1,000 casino workers.

At issue is a conflict between labor laws that call for preserving collective bargaining agreements and bankruptcy laws that allow a judge to reorganize a business to keep it in operation.

“This is about how a bankruptcy was used to transfer value from working people to the super-rich,” said Richard G. McCracken, general counsel for Unite Here, the hotel and casino workers’ union that appealed to the high court.

Billionaire Carl Icahn stepped in to buy the casino – founded by Donald Trump – after it filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

As the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said in January, Trump’s “plan of reorganization was contingent on the rejection of the collective bargaining agreement,” also known as the CBA, with the union. Icahn promised a “capital infusion of $100 million” to keep the casino in operation, but “only if the CBA and tax relief contingencies are achieved.”
This is about how a bankruptcy was used to transfer value from working people to the super-rich.— Richard G. McCracken, general counsel for Unite Here

With that understanding, the Philadelphia-based appeals court upheld a bankruptcy judge’s order that canceled the health insurance and pension contributions called for in the union’s contract. “It is preferable to preserve jobs through a rejection of a CBA, as opposed to losing the positions permanently,” wrote Judge Jane Roth.

The union is urging the Supreme Court to review and reverse that ruling, arguing the labor laws call for preserving collective bargaining agreements, even if they expire during a bankruptcy. The National Labor Relations Board agreed and filed a brief in the support of the casino workers union when the case was before the 3rd Circuit.

The appeal petition in Unite Here Local 54 vs. Trump Entertainment Resorts argues the bankruptcy judge wrongly allowed the casino management to bypass the union.

“On Sept. 9, 2014, Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., and its affiliated debtors including Trump filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code,” the union told the justices. On Sept. 26, Trump filed a motion with the bankruptcy judge “seeking to reject the collective bargaining agreement and implement different terms proposed by Trump.”

Union officials and Trump’s representatives met twice to discuss a new contract, but were unable to agree. The bankruptcy judge then granted Trump’s motion on Oct. 17, 2014.

“Trump immediately implemented the changes in terms and conditions of employment that the Union had rejected. It ceased making contributions to the pension, health and welfare, and severance funds that provided benefits to Trump’s employees. It expanded its own authority to consolidate positions, assign work and subcontract, which resulted in layoffs and loss of pay,” the union said.

In February, shortly after the appeals court ruling, the casino emerged from bankruptcy. While Trump’s name remains on the property, Icahn is the new owner.

The justices met Thursday to vote on dozens of pending appeals, including the union’s case against Trump Entertainment Resorts. The court will issue orders on Tuesday morning and could announce whether it will hear the case.

This happened in 2014, folks.

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The first Memorial Day

by digby

The forgotten origin:

Union General John Logan is often credited with founding Memorial Day. The commander-in-chief of a Union veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic, Logan issued a decree establishing what was then named “Decoration Day” on May 5, 1868, declaring it “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

Today, cities across the North and South claim credit for establishing the first Decoration Day—from Macon, Georgia to Richmond, Virginia to Carbondale, Illinois. Yet, a key origin story of the holiday has been nearly erased from public memory and most official accounts, including that offered by the the Department of Veterans Affairs.

During the spring of 1865, African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina—most of them former slaves—held a series of memorials and rituals to honor unnamed fallen Union soldiers and boldly celebrate the struggle against slavery. One of the largest such events took place on May first of that year but had been largely forgotten until David Blight, a history professor at Yale University, found records at a Harvard archive. In a New York Times article published in 2011, Blight described what he considers to be the first Memorial Day:

During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the city’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison. Union captives were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.

After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

The symbolic power of this Low Country planter aristocracy’s bastion was not lost on the freedpeople, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”

The procession was led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Several hundred black women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantrymen. Within the cemetery enclosure a black children’s choir sang “We’ll Rally Around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner” and spirituals before a series of black ministers read from the Bible.

After the dedication the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches and watched soldiers drill. Among the full brigade of Union infantrymen participating were the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th United States Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite.

This origin story of Memorial Day, also reported by Victoria M. Massie of Vox, was not merely excluded from the history books but appears to have been actively suppressed. The park where the race course prison camp once stood was eventually named Hampton Park after the Confederate General Wade Hampton who became South Carolina’s governor following the civil war.

QOTD: An important lawman

by digby

This strikes me as important but I guess your mileage may vary:

“We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made.”

That quote is from former Attorney General Eric Holder.

*In fairness he did say he thought what Snowden did was illegal and harmful but felt that the public service aspect of his revelations mitigated that enough that a judge should take it into account in any sentencing. The funny thing is that the law won’t allow that evidence to be considered.  But otherwise great idea …

Whither the Democrats?
by Tom Sullivan

A story about California Governor Jerry Brown in the New York Times comes as friends ponder just where the Democratic Party goes in the wake of the 2016 presidential primary. (I’m not the one here to comment on California politics, but I’ve got the 3-hour news jump.)

Whether a hard rain is gonna fall or not this year will depend on how the party appeals to the wave of energized voters who support Bernie Sanders and whether it can energize those who support Hillary Clinton. Putting aside arguments about the process, it is undeniable that there are broad bases in the party for both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Party leadership that is typically ham-fisted about finding any kind of message would be foolish not to take to heart themes that have energized Sanders’ base and led to his strong showing nationwide. Adam Nagourney suggests Jerry Brown can show them how it’s done:

Mr. Brown is in many ways a blend of these two very different candidates, having created a style that has made him an enduringly popular and successful California governor. And it is not only Mr. Brown: The California Democratic Party stands as a model of electoral success and cohesion, in contrast to national Democrats struggling through a divisive primary and debate about an uncertain future.

California is one of the few states in the country, and easily the largest, where Democrats are completely in control, holding every statewide office as well as overwhelming majorities in the Assembly and the Senate, not to mention both United States Senate seats. Mr. Brown and his party are using that power to try to enact legislation — on guns, tobacco, the environment, the minimum wage and immigrant rights — that suggest the kind of agenda that has eluded national Democrats.

On big reason for that is demographics. As the Latino population has grown, Republican registration has shrunk. Republican governor Pete Wilson’s 1994 initiative to cut off social services for illegal immigrants didn’t help, Nagourney writes. But Brown’s popularity is more than that:

“Jerry Brown is a unique combination of the leadership qualities of Hillary and Bernie,” said Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, who is running to succeed Mr. Brown when his term ends in early 2019. “Jerry is extraordinarily adept at populism. But he also has the hardheaded pragmatism that comes with experience, wisdom — and age.”

It certainly seems appealing to California voters: According the latest Field Poll in April, 55 percent approved of his performance. But he has not endorsed anyone in the presidential primary on June 7, and it is difficult to say whether voters prefer the Sanders or the Clinton side of their governor. A poll last week by the Public Policy Institute of California found Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton essentially tied, a surprise to Mrs. Clinton who had expected California to be a relatively easy win. As a result, both candidates are making frequent appearances here, and are advertising on television, in advance of the primary.

Newsome goes on the say that Brown will be hard to replace because he has “figured it out” and found the “sweet spot.”

Endless online discussions among activist friends (pre 2016) about building progressive infrastructure as the way to advance policy goals have given way to near-religious ones about whether the soul of the Democratic Party is redeemable. Perhaps that is because the focus is and has been what happens in Washington more than what happens in the states. Republican gains across the country in 2010 and 2014 did not just happen because of the collapse of the Obama coalition (Democratic failure in Washington), but because of REDMAP and good organizing in the states by Republicans as Democrats napped. It is something national Democrats have neglected since Howard Dean’s fifty-state strategy got tossed, sure, but long-term coalition building is often just not sexy enough or immediate enough for new activists. They want to fight the big, high-profile fights when the real action where things get done is more local. Finding the sweet spot between national and local focus seems to elude progressives as a movement, especially during presidential years.

From a tribute at my other blog to an activist friend I just lost, a reflection on that:

I live in a state taken over by a T-party legislature that has passed one of the worst voter ID bills in the country, drafted absolutely diabolical redistricting maps, passed HB2 as a get-out-the-vote tool, and launches regular legislative attacks against our cities where the largest block of blue votes are. President Bernie isn’t going to fix that for me. Neither is President Hillary. And not in Michigan or Wisconsin either. We have to beat them ourselves. Here, not in the Electoral College.

But friends on the left now talk about the Democratic Party the way conservatives talk about “the gummint,” as though it is some sort of monolithic beast with agency of its own apart from that of its voters and activists. I get it. That’s how it looks if your focus is Washington. It looks a mite different out here in the provinces where we’re fighting the border wars. Sometimes out here — and more regularly than every four years — we get to win. That’s what keeps us going. Because the battle never ends.

If we are going to talk about sustainability, it is the smaller wins that sustain us for the long haul, not just the marquee battles. If you don’t show up to play, you forfeit. But showing up — consistently — really improves your chance of winning and of building that infrastructure we so often complain of lacking.

What is perennially impressive about California is how state and local initiatives begun there seem to migrate east. That makes them worth doing and perhaps makes their national impact more long-lasting. Maybe that’s what Jerry Brown figured out.

An extra soother for the long week-end

by digby

A reader pointed out to me that my Friday night soother this week was somewhat political even though it featured an adorable wallaby and therefore cannot be considered truly soothing.  Since the name Trump was even mentioned in the video I had to agree.

So here:

A wild convention

by digby

Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort is known for his convention shows back in the 1980s. I think he did Reagan 84. He’s been promising an extravagant show in Cleveland to nominate Trump, a show like we’ve never seen before.

Well, they just set the bar pretty darned high at the Libertarian convention:

Now this is happening pic.twitter.com/zHZbQpqwZa

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 29, 2016

That was a candidate, by the way.

Let’s hope Trump doesn’t try to top it. And he could. He has, after all, talked about the size of his penis in a GOP debate on national television. He prides himself on being a man of action so …

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Lil’ Marco, showing his fealty to his Liege Lord

by digby

God this is embarrassing:

Meditating on everything from Trump’s rise to his fractious relationship with Jeb Bush, Rubio revisited nearly every turn of his presidential run in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that aired Sunday on “State of the Union.” The former presidential candidate, who has grudgingly said he will support Trump in November, also admitted a series of mistakes that he says eventually bedeviled his campaign.

Chief among those, Rubio has said, was belittling Trump for the size of his hands in the leadup to Super Tuesday, which he has publicly said he regrets. But Rubio went further when speaking with Tapper.

“I actually told Donald — one of the debates, I forget which one — I apologized to him for that,” Rubio said. “I said, ‘You know, I’m sorry that I said that. It’s not who I am and I shouldn’t have done it.’ I didn’t say it in front of the cameras, I didn’t want any political benefit.”

A tight ship

by digby

I hadn’t heard this but it’s either true or it’s a sign of paranoia behind the scenes:

KARL: OK, one more question before you go. The New York Times reported that some on your campaign staff believe that the campaign headquarters there at Trump Tower has been bugged. What’s going on with that?

MANAFORT: I don’t know who said that. Certainly there are people probably would like to, because there’s a lot of good work going on there and we’ve been able to develop a campaign that is cohesive, that’s working together, and in a record time thanks to a great candidate who has got a vision and connected to the American people, put the campaign in a position to win the presidency.

And so we’re going to continue to move forward…

KARL: But do you believe your campaign headquarters has been bugged?

MANAFORT: Do I believe it? No, I don’t believe it. But I don’t know who said that.

KARL: All right. Paul Manafort, thank you for joining us.

No, the campaign is not cohesive and their candidate is in so far over his head that he’s drowning in his own bile at this point.

Chris Wallace asked Corey Lewandowski about this:

“Is there any bugging going on at the Trump Tower?” Wallace asked:

“I think that’s a lot of speculation, I don’t think that’s the case at all, I think we’re very happy with the way that our offices are set up.”

What?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s 90% likely to be true.

Trump’s a control freak we know that. He’s also an authoritarian nutcase. You do the math.

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It’s a man’s world

by digby

Food for thought:

Gordon Dahl at the University of California, San Diego and Enrico Moretti at the University of California, Berkeley noticed more than a decade ago that men are more likely to marry, and stay married to, women who bore them sons rather than daughters. In an analysis of American census data, they found that men were more inclined to propose to their partners if they discovered that a baby in utero was a boy, and they were less prone to getting a divorce if the first child was a boy rather than a girl. In the event of divorce, men with sons were more likely to get custody, and women with daughters were less likely to remarry.

To confirm this relationship between sons and marital harmony, Laura Giuliano, an economist at the University of Miami, analysed a survey of parents of children born in America between 1998 and 2000. She found that couples with a son were indeed more likely to be married three years after the birth of their child than those with a daughter. This effect can be seen in data on households across a number of rich countries, which show that adolescent boys are more likely than girls to live with both biological parents. The difference is small – in America, for example, 39% of 12- to 16-year-old girls live without their biological father in the house, compared with 36% of 12- to 16-year-old boys – but consistent. “I have never found a single statistic on a father’s presence in the household that didn’t have a significant gender difference,” says Shelly Lundberg, an economist who specialises in family behaviour at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

What is going on here? Do fathers simply prefer sons? Or are there other forces that bind fathers to homes with boys?

Well:

Part of the appeal of having a child of the same sex as oneself is what Pharaon calls the “mini-me phenomenon”: parents hope to create someone who is both similar to and better than themselves. By granting their children opportunities that they themselves lacked, and by behaving as the parents they always wanted, many seek to remove the same obstacles they believe were set on their own paths as they were growing up. “A lot of parents will see themselves through their child. They think, ‘Here is where I can get it right’,” Pharaon says.

This desire is hardly exclusive to men. Faith, a woman in her mid-60s with long dark hair, concedes that it was “kind of a relief” to have daughters. “There’s something we have in common,” she says of her three girls, now women in their 30s. “At each stage of their lives I would relate to how I felt at that age, and what I wished my mom said to me.”

But among fathers, this preference is plainly more profound. Sean Grover, a family psychotherapist in New York and author of the book “When Kids Call the Shots”, suggests that this is because men often feel less intuitive as parents than women do. Mothers offer babies their first opportunity for attachment; their bodies are literally essential for nourishment. Many fathers find it takes longer to connect with their children, not only because they lack that physical bond, but also because they are often stuck at work during the day. “A lot of men complain that when the baby arrives they don’t know what to do with themselves,” says Grover. “Once you get past their bravado, they are really lost.” Some men, says Pharaon, “attach themselves to the idea that at least my boy will need me to throw a ball around.” They feel a sense of purpose in the job of modelling what it means to be a man.

Fathers also like to see themselves as “the fun dad who takes their kids places,” says Grover. Mothers often get stuck with the lion’s share of routine child care – all the cleaning and feeding and whatnot – whereas fathers tend to swoop in for more recreational experiences. So it makes sense that the activities they are most eager to share are the ones they enjoy themselves. Nick, a journalist in his early 50s with two sons, aged 22 and 14, adds that men in general tend to like “bonding over a third object”, such as technology or sports, which can seem easier to do with a boy. “Men are much more gendered in their behaviour, and in their expectations of the behaviour of their kids, than women are,” says Michael Lamb, a professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge whose research investigates parent-child relationships. “Fathers tend to be more involved and engaged with sons than with daughters, and this distinction only gets more marked over time.”
[…]
A new study of California’s paid-leave benefit, for example, found that fathers were twice as likely to take paternity leave for a son than a daughter. American time-diary data from 2003 to 2006 found that married fathers with a child between six and 12 years old spent nearly 40 more minutes per day with sons than with daughters, mostly doing things like playing sports and watching television. In married families with two children of the same sex, fathers with sons spent between 22 and 27 minutes more per day on child care, and said they had less leisure time than those with daughters. Married mothers, on the other hand, spent only around six minutes more per day with a daughter than a son.

I think this is all pretty primitive stuff. I have, for instance, known plenty of women who favored their sons as the “keeper of the family legacy” which is also plainly gendered stuff.These currents run deep. And they manifest themselves in the wider culture in ways we are not always fully aware of. None of these fathers are bad people who don’t love their daughters. That’s not the point.

The reason I bring this particular story up is just to illustrate in another small way that gender affects our thinking in ways we don’t necessarily consciously comprehend or purposefully act upon. These gender roles are more primal than any other form of human interaction, going all the way back to the caves. If one genuinely believes in freedom and equality, to dismiss it, to not care about it, to think that it isn’t real is … wrong. And it’s disorienting and painful for those of us who know it is real, who see the subtleties in this dynamic everyday, who feel this gendered imbalance in our culture, to hear people tell us it isn’t happening. Just saying.

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Politics and Reality Radio with Joshua Holland: LOL James O’Keefe; Do Sanders’ Supporters Favor His Policies?

by Joshua Holland

This week, we’re joined by LA Times reporter Matt Pearce, who parachuted into Minnesota to report on a terror trial of three Somali-Americans and ended up with a much more interesting story of a refugee community trying to carve out a piece of the American Dream.

Then we speak with Princeton University political scientist Christopher Achen, who co-authored a piece in the NY Times this week arguing that people tend to choose a candidate based on their “inherited partisan loyalties, social identities and symbolic attachment,” rather than the candidate’s policy positions.

Then Ed Kilgore, the NY Magazine columnist, drops by to talk about the State Department’s IG report on Hillary Clinton’s email brouhaha. We keep that one short and to the point.

And finally, Digby joins us to point and laugh at right-wing dirty trickster James O’Keefe, who recently managed to sting himself when he failed to hang up his phone before articulating his scheme to burn George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Musical theme this week is TV theme-songs!

Playlist:
CBS Orchestra: “Theme from Hawaii-5-0”
Sammy Davis, Jr.: “Baretta’s Theme”
Jerry Scoggins: “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” (Beverly Hillbillies)
The Blues Brothers: “Rawhide”
Mike Post: “Hill Street Blues”

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