The Right Wing Replies To Hillary's Speech

This is a continuation of my last post, "Hillary Clinton's Bold Statement On Race." I said that I wanted to see the right-wing reaction to Hillary's speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Click here for a Breitbart response by Katie McHugh, in an article entitled "Hillary Clinton Denounces White Privilege, Calls for Taking Guns From ‘Those Whose Hearts Are Filled With Hate.'" Here's her first sentence:

In an emotional speech that heaped scorn and blame on America for failing to pass gun control measures while it supposedly perpetuates racism, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said white Americans need to “question our own assumptions and privilege."

McHugh heaps more scorn on Hillary and makes the usual right-wing point that the killer's motives were "unclear," and perhaps not race-based at all. Yeah, right.

Eric Owens, at the execrable Tucker Carlson's site, The Daily Caller, reacts to Hillary's speech with a post entitled "Hillary Clinton Chides America For Racism, Lives In Town With 1.9 Percent Black Population."

Is that the best you've got, Tucker? (I noticed, but didn't bother to read, an item where Carlson suggested on Fox News that as long as Obama supports gun control, his Secret Service contingent should go unarmed. Typical Tucker.)

Hillary Clinton's Bold Statement On Race

Click here for an article by Karoli at Crooks & Liars entitled "Hillary Clinton: America's Long Struggle With Race Is Far From Finished." It's about a speech Clinton gave to the U.S. Conference of Mayors soon after the murders of nine black people in a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. There are presently 16 Republican candidates for president: You won't hear a speech remotely like this from any of them. Follow the link to the article, or listen to the speech here:


I decided to check out the right-wing sites to see how they would spin Clinton's speech. First stop, Red State, a blog edited and run by prominent far-right commentator Erick Erickson. I was distracted by the first headline: "Hillary Clinton: Self-aggrandizing Grifter," by the appropriately named Red State front-page blogger, streiff. It was an attack on the Clinton Foundation, making the preposterous claim that 90% of the Foundation's money is spent "on things like salaries, travel, etc. rather than actually doing something useful."

This is a lie, but it has considerable traction with the far right. It is thoroughly debunked by FactCheck.org in this article -- at Newsmax, of all places! This article is a rebuttal of essentially the same anti-Clinton charges made by Republican dark-horse presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. According to the article:

The bottom line, according to the online information watchdog FactCheck.org: "Fiorina is simply wrong."

Fiorina is referring only to the amount of money donated by the Clinton Foundation to outside charities, ignoring the fact that most of the Foundation's charitable work is performed in-house.

The independent philanthropy watchdog CharityWatch analyzed Foundation funding and concluded that about 89 percent of it went to charity — higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard.

Streiff's article is mostly about how Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton received speaking fees from a particular children's charity; Rice was paid less and donated half back to the charity. He finishes with this delightful paragraph:

This is the irony of how women are viewed and treated in the Democrat party. When you have a truly accomplished woman like a Condoleeza Rice or a Sarah Palin [!] who works hard, often against significant resistance, and succeeds without any federal agency weighing in to smooth the way they are demonized and ridiculed. Then you get a unremarkable, though obvious vicious and grasping, harpy like Hillary Clinton whose position in the world is due solely to having occasional sex with Bill Clinton… which doesn’t differentiate her from a lot of other women… and she is a role model and a spokesman for women’s issues. The woman is an accomplished grifter, we can give her that. Of course, grifting is easy when you are devoid of shame, ethics, or a sense of propriety. But she is an utter failure at every other venture she has attempted in this life."

He seems nice.

Click here for an article by Jonathan Rauch at The Atlantic entitled "This Is Not Charity" for some more depth on what the Clinton Foundation actually does.

Anti-Government Extremists Much Worse Threat Than Muslims

Click here for an article in The New York Times by Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer entitled "The Other Terror Threat."

In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism.

ISIS was just cranking up when the survey finished; thus the reference to Al Qaeda. The article notes that since 2000, 25 law enforcement officers have been killed by right-wing extremists; none by Muslims.

Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years. In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.

The New Populism - May 22, 2014

Click here for a speech by Bob Borosage.

Florida Healthcare Subsidies For Me, But Not For Thee

Click here for an article at The Seminole Democrat blog entitled "FL GOP kills Medicaid AND refuses to stop their $8 gold packages. HERE'S WHAT WE DO."

The big guns in the Florida state legislature -- 17,589 people, including the governor, cabinet, various management-level employees, and their staff -- get medical insurance subsidized by the state. The cost to Florida taxpayers for this little perk? $1 million a month. The cost of medical insurance for the chosen few? $30 per month for a family, or $8 per month for an individual.

Other state employees pay $180 per month for a family, $50 per month for an individual.

The average cost, to the average person in the state of Florida for medical insurance, is $1,347 per month.

Meanwhile, about 700,000 low-income Floridians are stranded in the state’s “coverage gap,” in which they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to qualify for tax credits on the exchange. Governor Rick Scott refuses to accept the Obamacare solution, whereby the federal government would pay 100% of the cost of expanding Medicade to subsidize health care insurance costs for those 700,000 people, falling to 90% over time.

Google Photos (From Bob Rankin)

Click here for a Bob Rankin article on Google Photos.

Pendulum Motion

Krugman Hits It Out Of The Park (Yet Again)

Click here for an article at Salon by entitled "Paul Krugman condemns 'compassionless conservatism': Politicians don’t know how Americans actually live."

Sample quote: 

I am not, or not only, talking about right-wing contempt for the poor, although the dominance of compassionless conservatism is a sight to behold. According to the Pew Research Center, more than three-quarters of conservatives believe that the poor “have it easy” thanks to government benefits; only 1 in 7 believe that the poor “have hard lives.” And this attitude translates into policy. What we learn from the refusal of Republican-controlled states to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government would foot the bill, is that punishing the poor has become a goal in itself, one worth pursuing even if it hurts rather than helps state budgets.

Go to it for the link to the Krugman article in the NYT.

"Corruption Is Legal In America" - A 5-Minute Video

This video is taken from a post by Gaius Publius at Hullabaloo, a video portrayal of a Princeton study:



And he adds this George Carlin video (WARNING - NSFW (Not Safe For Work).

Iraq Wasn't A Mistake - It Was A Crime

Click here for Paul Krugman's take on the newly emerged discussion of the Iraq war -- a decade too late.

MoDo Gets It Right

Click here for what I think is Maureen Dowd's best column in years: "He is Heavy. He's My Brother." Commenting on Jeb's tough week of trying to escape his brother's legacy of the Iraq war, she pretty much rips W. to shreds. The intelligence wasn't wrong: It was manufactured in the White House and the Pentagon. Her final paragraph:

And consider this: Jeb hasn’t even been asked any questions yet about W.’s dark contributions on waterboarding, the deficit and the near-total collapse of the American economy.

Iraq: The "Faulty Intelligence" Lie

Click here for an article in The American Prospect by Paul Waldman entitled "The Myth of 'Faulty Intelligence.'"

Words Of Wisdom From Eisenhower

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Coffee's Good For You!

Click here for an article in The New York Times by Aaron E. Carroll entitled "More Consensus on Coffee's Benefits Than You Might Think."

Climate Change - Act Now

Click here for an article by Bill McKibben at HuffPo entitled "The Next Decade Will Decide What the World Looks Like for Thousands of Decades to Come."

The next 10 years will be decisive when it comes to the planet's future—what we do (or don't) will play out over geologic time.

It could, if we set our minds to it, be the decade when the planet's use of fossil fuels peaks and then rapidly declines. We've built a movement that, for the moment, is starting to tie down the fossil fuel industry: from the tarsands of Alberta to the (as yet unbuilt) giant new mines of Australia's Galilee Basin, the big players in coal, gas, and oil are bothered and even bewildered by a new strain of activist. They're losing on the image front: when the Rockefeller family, the Church of England, and Prince Charles have begun divesting their fossil fuel stocks, you know the tide has turned.

And with it comes the sudden chance to replace that fossil fuel, fast and relatively easily. Out of nowhere the price of solar panels has fallen like an anvil from a skyscraper, dropping 75 percent in the last six years. Renewable energy is suddenly as cheap or cheaper than the bad stuff, even before you figure in the insane monetary cost of global warming. So in Bangladesh they're solarizing 60,000 huts a month; the whole country may be paneled by 2020.

That rapid change wouldn't be enough to stop global warming—we're already seeing drastic changes, as anyone living through California's drought can attest. We'll continue to see record-breaking years (like 2014. And like 2015 so far). We'll have to deal with record flooding. The ocean will grow more acidic. But maybe, if we really ratchet up the transition we'll avoid a challenge of civilization-scale.

Or, of course, we could change slowly, the way the Koch Brothers would like. (And for that matter, most political leaders). We could do nothing out of the ordinary, and wait three or four decades for solar power to replace fossil fuel. It would rattle the fewest cages in the short run.

And in the long run it would, by most of the computer models, condemn us to four or five degrees Celsius of global warming—enough to take the world utterly out of the rhythms of the Holocene, enough to call into question our ability to grow sufficient food or find sufficient water.

The next decade is decisive because trajectory counts for so much; if we bend it now, we may slide the car to a halt with just the front tires hanging off the cliff. But if we sail on for a few more years, it's pretty clear we're fast and furiously going airborne—that's what happens when, say, Arctic permafrost starts to melt in earnest, releasing clouds of methane.

So it's not too much to say that the next decade will decide what the world looks like for thousands of decades to come. We all get front row seats—but we can all be actors too, if only we'll join the growing movement to do something about it.

Vitai Lampada - Sir Henry Newbolt, 1897

Vitai Lampada

THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night -
Ten to make and the match to win -
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red, -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Pre-9/11 Intelligence Failuree

Click here for a Charlie Pierce article at Esquire Magazine entitled "Old Spy's Tale: A 9/11 Fable Lives Again."

Charlie tells us that, contrary to Marco Rubio's lies, there were plenty of opportunities to monitor a 9/11 hijacker named Khalid al-Mihdhar in San Diego.

Louie Gohmert (sigh)

Click here for an article by Hunter at Daily Kos entitled America's Dumbest Congressman weighs in On 'Jade Helm.' Who owns the distinction of being known as "America's Dumbest Congressman"? Louie Gohmert, of course! It's a good article describing the wingnut paranoia over a U.S. military exercise which designates certain areas as "hostile" -- including the state of Texas. Gohmert:

Once I observed the map depicting ‘hostile,’ ‘permissive,’ and ‘uncertain’ states and locations, I was rather appalled that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority, ‘cling to their guns and religion,’ and believe in the sanctity of the United States Constitution. When the federal government begins, even in practice, games or exercises, to consider any U.S. city or state in 'hostile' control and trying to retake it, the message becomes extremely calloused and suspicious.

My favorite paragraph:

While godforsaken desert hellholes do tend to skew conservative all over the world, can't imagine why, I'm going to guess it's a coincidence. That said, one of the points of conducting such training exercises is that in a real conflict troops will probably be working in "hostile" or "uncertain" territory, and so the pretended-at map of the exercise ground probably has to mark out at least some area as "hostile" or it wouldn't be much of a war game, now would it. An exercise in which all areas are labeled "super-friendly" or "puppy playdate center" would be grand if the sitting president wanted to invade Lollipop Mountain, but as of now most such conflicts take place in blisteringly hot desert hellholes with poor infrastructure, heavily armed roving gangs of authority-defying nutjobs, and led by hostile theocratic regimes that think the American president might be the devil. If some group of military leaders considers all that and thinks "Texas?" you have only yourselves to blame.

Republicans Are From Mars, Democrats Are From Venus

Members of the two parties view the world in entirely different ways.

Here in its entirety is an article by Joan McCarter at Daily Kos entitled Republican voters once again consumed by fear and "values."

People who still self-identify as Republican live in a totally different world than the rest of us, one made up primarily of fear. At least that's the findings of the the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. When asked to rank what issues were most important to them:

Republican primary voters' leading response was national security and terrorism (27 percent said it was their first choice).

That's followed by the deficit and government spending (24 percent), job creation and economic growth (21 percent) and religious and moral values (12 percent).

By comparison, the top priority for Democrats in the poll was job creation and economic growth (37 percent)—followed by health care (17 percent), climate change (15 percent) and national security and terrorism (13 percent).

As if Republican primary candidates needed more incentive to base their campaigns on fear and God and—never forget!—all the money the federal government spends on the poors.

America's Sheriff

Click here for an article at Daily Kos by Mother Mags entitled What county sheriff might spend $10 million to get elected? You guessed it: Arpaio.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost the people of his county nearly $45 million in lawsuits that were filed by victims whose civil rights were violated—people who were unfairly harassed, illegally detained or arrested, tortured or even killed. Arpaio was charged by the Department of Justice with abuse of powers, and a federal judge ruled that his office engages in racial profiling. The former county attorney and most of the sheriff's senior staff have been disbarred or fired for their role in helping to build Arpaio's police state.

Currently Sheriff Arpaio is in the middle of a civil contempt hearing for ignoring federal court orders to cease his immigration patrols and turn over evidence. Previous to the hearing, Arpaio admitted his guilt and tried to block the contempt hearing by offering to donate $100,000 to a civil rights organization. The judge declined that offer and the hearing began last month. During the first phase of the proceedings, which continue next month, Arpaio revealed that his attorney had hired a private detective to investigate the judge's wife. You can't make this shit up.

Arpaio is running for sheriff again in 2016, when he will be 84 years old. He's raised $5.5 million in campaign funds in the last two years and has $2 million on hand, and contributions from wingnuts all over the country keep pouring in.

People often ask: How and why do voters in Maricopa County keep electing this blowhard? He costs you money and he's not a good lawman. But it matters little to his base that, in addition to the millions in lawsuits, his office misspent nearly $100 million on tanks and other toys. Nor does it matter that he mishandled hundreds of child sex abuse cases. The wingers don't care, they really don't.

Allan Grayson Supports The Buffett Plan For Trade

Conservative Repression In Spain

Click here for an article by the Editorial Board in the New York Times telling of a law just signed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative party which controls both houses of the legislature. The harsh austerity measures the government has embraced in the recent financial crisis have given rise to many large popular demonstrations in protest. Now peaceful protesters may find themselves subject of fines of at least 30,000 euro; even as much as 600,000 euro. (The opposition party seems poised to make large gains in the next election.)

Lincoln on Labor v, Capital

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed, Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration, - Abraham Lincoln

Fun With Electricity!

Creative Financing Must Be Rewarded!

From Daily Kos, Cheers & Jeers, by Bill in Portland Maine:

The Cliff's Notes version: Louisiana free-market capitalists push a Trojan horse into Maine in the form of a new law that "provides tax credits to investors who back businesses in low-income communities." The Trojan horse is greeted in the Maine legislature to thunderous applause. A struggling paper mill is targeted for "backing." In the dead of night, the free-market capitalists leap out of the Trojan horse, push the paper mill into bankruptcy, strand 200 now-unemployed employees in the low-income town of East Millinocket, and then feast on the spoils:

Sometime this year, the state of Maine will cut two checks worth a total of $2.8 million and mail them to out-of-state investors. Next year, it will send two more checks, worth $3.2 million, to the same recipients. It will repeat that process for the next three years until roughly $16 million of taxpayer money has been withdrawn from Maine’s General Fund.

…and given on a silver platter to the Louisiana carpetbaggers, who, of course, have no comment.

Wingsuit Video

Good Police Work in San Berdoo

Martin Freeman Ad For The Labour Party

I wonder if he could be talked into doing an ad for the Democrats?

Epistemic Closure

Wikipedia:  The term "epistemic closure" has been used in U.S. political debate to refer to the claim that political belief systems can be closed systems of deduction, unaffected by empirical evidence.

In an article at Daily Kos by Dante Atkins entitled "It's so hard to be an Obamacare-hating Republican these days," the author quotes Julian Sanchez:

One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!)

Atkins goes on:

Julian Sanchez, a CATO Institute fellow who specializes in the areas of privacy and surveillance, was perhaps the first to concisely distill the alternate reality that has been created by the continuously cross-referencing circle of conservative media outlets. Conservatives live in a bubble of epistemic closure in which narratives and ideas that feed a particular narrative are introduced, reinforced and then judged to be accurate simply by virtue of having been presented by the correct media authorities. It doesn't matter if whatever is being claimed has an actual basis in objective reality: once an idea that pleases the conservative id has taken root, it is mighty hard for truth to pierce the bubble of fantasy.

This is why President Obama can in the conservative mind be a Kenyan, a Muslim, a socialist, and a black liberation theologist all at the same time. It's why no amount of evidence can ever convince conservatism the climate change is real. It's why they view it as a fact that Obama is killing jobs and exploding the deficit, even as the facts are exactly the opposite on both counts. And it's also why the Affordable Care Act is simply known to be a disaster that is ruining lives, damaging employers, and constraining freedom, even as in reality it is reducing costs, saving lives, and making health insurance affordable for people who have gone far too long without it.

Police Dash Cam Video

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

Click here for a feel-good post at Vox entitled "26 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better," by Dylan Matthews. The last paragraph:

More of a visual learner? Then check out this interview with the Center for Global Development's Charles Kenny (author of The Upside of Down and Getting Better), who runs through a wide array of positive trends, from longer life expectancy to falling murder rates to increased beer consumption.

[Increased beer consumption is a good thing?]

A reasonable question for Santorum

This is Rick Santorum on the campaign trail for 2016, but listen to the mouth-frothing question that starts the clip. Remember when Obama was foiled in his attempt to nuke Charleston, SC, a year or so ago?

Hillary's horrible, terrible email scandal -- not so bad

Has there ever been a worse scandal than Hillary Clinton's email difficulties?

Well, in the first place, THE REGULATIONS SHE IS ALLEGED TO HAVE VIOLATED DID NOT GET ENACTED UNTIL AFTER SHE HAD LEFT HER JOB AS SECRETARY OF STATE.

In the second place, in 2007, when Bush's aides -- yes, Karl Rove, this includes you -- claimed that MILLIONS of their emails had been mysteriously lost, it was a media sensation for -- about 48 hours. After that -- crickets. I guess IOKIYAR.

Click here for an article by Eric Boehlert at Media Matters entitled "FLASHBACK: When Millions Of Lost Bush White House Emails (From Private Accounts) Triggered A Media Shrug."

Jeb's Foreign Policy Advisers - Venn Diagram

Click here for a John Amato article at Crooks & Liars entitled "Jeb Bush Hires Same Foreign Policy Experts That Lied US Into The Iraq War."

His campaign announced a list of 21 foreign policy advisers; 20 of them served in the administrations of Reagan, Bush I, and W. He's surrounded himself with the same neocon hawks who got the U.S. into this horrible foreign policy mess in the first place.

I was unable to copy the Venn Diagram originally published in the Washington Post showing the overlap of this crowd, so click here for a link to the WaPo article, including a more easily read copy of the diagram.

Dog Dancing!

Vox Interviews Obama

http://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-domestic-policy-transcript

February 5 - Happy Birthday, Adlai Stevenson!

[Lifted from Bill in Portland Maine of Crooks & Liars, Cheers and Jeers -- as was the previous post, the PuppyCam.] Some quotes:

"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation. " "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."

And I love this:

We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

PuppyCam!

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

Click here for a PolitiFact article by Aaron Sharockman in the Tampa Bay Times (home of PolitiFact) entitled MSNBC, Fox, CNN move the needle on our Truth-O-Meter scorecards.

Takeaway: Fox News not only lies a lot (surprise, surprise), but it's lying more now than previously -- that is, since PolitiFact last did this survey, in September 2013. (MSNBC and CNN lie less, and are lying less then previously).

At Fox and Fox News, 10 percent of the claims we’ve rated have been True, 11 percent Mostly True, 18 percent Half True, 21 percent Mostly False, 31 percent False and nine percent Pants on Fire. That means about 60 percent of the claims we’ve checked have been rated Mostly False or worse.

At MSNBC, 44 percent of claims investigated were found Mostly False or worse; CNN was the best of the bunch, with 80 percent of claims found Half True or better.

The article includes a disclaimer of sorts: 

As we have said in the past, be cautious about using the scorecards to draw broad conclusions. We use our news judgment to pick the facts we’re going to check, so we certainly don’t fact-check everything.

PolitiFact is considered to be generally nonpartisan, but both left and right howl with indignation when a "fact-check" goes against them.

Don't Mess With Vincent (Tom Cruise, Collateral) -- No, Seriously, Just Don't.

Killer (no pun intended) scene from Collateral:

Tighten Your Belts, You Greedy Poors!

This article by Paul Krugman in the NYT is so short I'll reproduce it here. Entitled Paging Robert Burns, it links to Burns' poem, To A Louse, which includes the line: "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!" (And I love the Times tag line for the article: "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us yada yada." I prefer "yadda, yadda, yadda," but ...)

This Bloomberg report from Davos is making the rounds:

Billionaire Jeff Greene, who amassed a multibillion dollar fortune betting against subprime mortgage securities, says the U.S. faces a jobs crisis that will cause social unrest and radical politics.

“America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence,” Greene said in an interview today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We need to reinvent our whole system of life.”

Later in the article: Greene, who flew his wife, children and two nannies on a private jet plane to Davos for the week …

The Super-Rich

Excellent Signature Lines

In his regular Cheers and Jeers column at Daily Kos, Bill in Portland Maine salutes some of the signature lines "(links, quotes, or other words of wisdom that automatically appear when you post a comment---you can create a "sig" at your user profile page)" of his correspondents. My favorites:

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing
he was never reasoned into” --Jonathan Swift

It's disturbing how much exercise and extra fries sound alike.

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass... it is about learning to dance in the rain." --Vivanne Grenne

In Honor Of Martin Luther King Day

Click here for an article by HamdenRice at Daily Kos entitled Most of you have no Idea what Martin Luther King actually did. King was born on January 15, 1929, and the official name for the holiday, celebrated on the third Monday in January, is Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

HamdenRice says he learned from his father during an angry discussion that "Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south."

Many people seem to feel that King "gave that great speech," and "marched." Yes, he did, but he did so much more. Happy birthday, Dr. King.
 





 

Charlie Pierce on the Civil Rights Movement

Click here for Charlie Pierce's post on his blog at Esquire, entitled The Ownership of America: Selma And The Way We Look At America. I haven't seen the movie, but I'll be thinking of Pierce's opinions when I see it. This is Charlie's (sometimes quite lyrical) take on the Civil Rights movement.

"Education" in South Carolina

Click here for an article at Mother Jones by Hannah Levintova entitled South Carolina Law Would Make Kids Study Second Amendment for 3 Weeks Every Year.

If passed, the Second Amendment Education Act would require that three consecutive weeks of each year in elementary, middle, and high school be spent studying the second amendment. As Ian Millhiser at Think Progress points out, that's an enormous chunk of the school year, especially given that some South Carolina schools devote just two weeks to slavery and a week and a half to World War II.

The law would also require that every December 15—the day after the anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in Newtown—be designated "Second Amendment Awareness Day." To celebrate the occasion, schools will be required to hold mandatory poster or essay contests at every grade level, with the theme "The Right To Bear Arms; One American Right Protecting All Others."

The curriculum would require students from first grade and up to get into the weeds of constitutional scholarship on the Second Amendment. Students will be asked to study Supreme Court cases "including the United States v. Cruikshank, the United States v. Miller, the District of Columbia v. Heller, and McDonald v. Chicago." (The majority arguments in Heller and McDonald grew out of the push by pro-gun researchers to redefine the Second Amendment.) The bill also mandates that students learn about "the constitutionality of gun control laws," the causes of mass shootings, and "the impact of legislative reactions to gun violence on Constitutional rights and the impact on reducing gun violence, if any."

Here is the Second Amendment, in its entirety:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

South Carolina ... sigh ...

Dogs In Cars - Miami

Golden Gate "Zipper Truck"

There have been 128 head-on collisions on the Golden Gate Bridge over the years, resulting in 16 deaths. Part of the problem is the "suicide lane," the center lane of the bridge which is reversed during the day, carrying an extra lane of traffic into San Francisco in the morning and out of the city at night, responding to rush-hour traffic.

The video shows a "zipper truck" that can move 3,500 barriers that weigh 1,500 pounds each along the length of the bridge in a matter of minutes.

Beware, World ... (John McCain)

Economic Recovery Despite Republican Obstructionism

Click here for an article by Jon Perr at Daily Kos entitled "Democrats saved the economy, Republicans tried to kill it."

It's a long article, with charts and graphs, but well worth the read. It's a comprehensive discussion of how the U.S. economy has performed during the Obama administration. It's the story of how, as Obama took control, the downturn was proving to be much more severe than had been forecast; how TARP, the stimulus, and the auto industry bailout slowly brought the economy back from the brink of disaster, as Republicans howled in anger over Obama's "destructive" programs; how the Republicans blocked and hindered economic progress at every turn, calling for cutbacks and austerity, predicting imminent catastrophe -- we're Greece, I tell you, Greece! -- which somehow never materialized.

Maher And Rushdie On Real Time

My apologies: It's hard to format a reproduction of blog comments.  Anyway, here's a comment by "Bung" from a Salon article on Maher's "Real Time" program with Salman Rushdie:

"My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it.

"So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century."
Noam Chomsky

Which prompted this, from "Basho":

I couldn't agree more.  Excellent quote.

And this, also from "Basho":

Here's an idea:  If you want to know why Islamic terrorists do terrorism, why not just ask them.   Well, it's been done - thousands of times.  And what is their universal and consistent answer?  It's Abu Graib.  It's Guantanamo Bay.  [Might I add: It's Fallujah. It's drone strikes killing innocents in Pakistan and Yemen. It's the plight of the Palestinians.] They don't say it's because the prophet said, "Kill the infidel."

Just think about the videos of ISIS beheadings.  Remember the victims wearing orange jumpsuits - just like the ones tortured prisoners at Guantanamo wear?  

And how does ISIS recruit new fighters.  Do they read passages from the Quran?  No. They show pictures of Abu Graib and Guantanamo as well as pictures of innocent Muslims killed by drones.  We are dealing with blowback, not rotten apples from a bad orchard.

We all thought GW Bush was stupid when he said they kill us because they hate our freedom.  Isn't it also stupid for Bill Maher to say they kill us because their religion teaches they should.

This prompted a reply by "carlos gonzales figueroa":

Ok Why the children murdered in Pakistan by the taliban are responsible for Guantanamo?, Why the girls kidnaped by Boko Haram are responsible for Abu Graib? What you have to understand is that is violence is due to the teaching of the Quran and the Hadith, and even more bizarre, the main victims of this madness are Muslims that are considered hypocrites by the fundamentalists,

To which "Basho" replied:

My post is based on empirical fact.  Yours is based on a vulgar prejudice and a vile theory you and Bill Maher pulled out of your butts.  The Quran clearly states that violence is justifiable only in cases of self defense.  Read history:  Islam has had centuries-long peaceful co-existences with non-Muslims.  Also, there is nothing in the Quran to justify what Boko Haram has done.  It is simply a coincidence that they are Muslims.

About the Taliban:  I don't like them, but quite frankly, the people of Afghanistan would be better off under the Taliban than under our so-called "liberation" - just as the people of Iraq would have been better off under Saddam than under the mess we have created.  And we are far from innocent.  We murder innocent women and children by having someone in Virginia sit at a computer and push a button.  Our secular government kills from a distance; they kill up close.  Both ways are reprehensible.  And it was we who invaded their territory, not the reverse.  Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

You condemn fundamentalists and so do I. I would add that the New Atheists who post on Salon are - as a group - fundamentalists and purveyors of irrational  hate.    

Pablogonzales15 chipped in:
"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."
— Osama bin Laden, 2004
7 July 2005 London bombings
--------------------------
Your democratically-elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.
                                  Mohammad Sidique Khan
Pakistan was attacked because under international pressure ( people who are far away and safe from taliban retaliation pakistan will face) they took on the taliban  guys jumping the afgan pakistan border. ( not there mess ) which po the taliban off and they started to attack pakistan civilans and military

This brought a reply from "akasidney":

Sure, that works.  And to stay in the same vein Maher uses in his quote of Cheney, I guess you'd argue that to find out the real reason we invaded Iraq would be to ask them... Cheney and Bush and Rummy and all the neo-cons "Why did you invade Iraq" and take their answer at face value.  See where I'm going with this?  And how silly your argument is?

To which "Basho" replied:

Poor analogy.  A better one would be asking ordinary Americans why they support attacks against Muslim countries.  They would say it is because of 9/11.  Both sides defend their homeland, their culture, their neighbors and friends.

I'm not naive enough to take Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld at face value.  I will concede that Bush called the invasion of Iraq a crusade and one of our generals boasted that our God is bigger than theirs - but in a way that proves my point.  Flaunting religion and claiming God is on your side is never the real reason for attacks.  It's just a technique to win over hearts and minds.

It seems to me "Basho" has some good points.

Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter

The Franklin News-Post is the newspaper of Franklin County -- "Serving The Land Between the Lakes - Philpott and Smith Mountain", published in Rocky Mount, Virginia. One of its reporters, Bethany Rodgers, wrote an article entitled "Shreve raises staffing, parking concerns" about Billy Shreve, a former councillor for Franklin County. Shreve expresses his dissatisfaction with the new council following an election in December 2014 in which he lost his seat. He complains, among other things, about lack of assigned parking spots for commissioners. The article includes the following sentences:

"Councilman Kirby Delauter, who is also a former commissioner, has joined Shreve in concern over parking for elected officials."

And later:

"Delauter, R-District 5, has asked Gardner to take parking spaces away from her government affairs liaison and her chief administrative officer and designate them for the council."

Those are the only mentions of Delauter in the article. But that was enough for Delauter to write the following on "social media" -- Facebook, I believe -- prompting a reply from Rodgers:





Okay; so far, so good. But Delauter replied:

"“Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an Attorney. Your rights stop where mine start.”

That prompted an editorial in the Franklin News-Post entitled "Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter":

Knowing Councilman Kirby Delauter as we do, we weren't surprised that he threatened The Frederick News-Post with a lawsuit because we had, he says — and we're not making this up — been putting Kirby Delauter's name in the paper without Kirby Delauter’s authorization. Attorneys would be called, Kirby Delauter said.

In fact, we spent quite some time laughing about it. Kirby Delauter, an elected official; Kirby Delauter, a public figure? Surely, Kirby Delauter can't be serious? Kirby Delauter’s making a joke, right?

Round about then, we wondered, if it’s not a joke, how should we now refer to Kirby Delauter if we can't use his name (Kirby Delauter)? Could we get away with an entire editorial of nothing but “Kirby Delauter” repeated over and over again -- Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter? OK, imagine we agreed because of temporary madness or something funny in the water that week, how would we reference "Kirby Delauter" and do our job as journalists without running afoul of our lack of authorization?

Blanks? Sure, we sometimes use hyphens in the case of expletives. Perhaps we could do that: "K---- D-------." Or, perhaps, "Councilman [Unauthorized]." We giggled a bit more than we should have when we came up with "the Councilman Formerly Known as Commissioner Kirby Delauter," which doesn't seem as funny written down in black and white and includes his name, which defeats the point. Maybe we should just put his initials, "KD," with an asterisk to a footnote (KD*), or refer to him as GLAT, the acronym for his campaign: "Govern Like A Taxpayer." We could even make it sound a little hip-hop with a well-placed hyphen: G-Lat. Speaking of, could we get away with "K-Del"? Or we could simply go with the Harry Potter-esque "He Who Shall Not be Named." (Cue the lightning strike and peal of thunder.)

Yet we could take the low road down even further and childishly mangle "Kirby Delauter" into references you, the reader, would still understand. "Sherbert Deluder," say. Or "Derby Kelauter." "Shirley Delaughter" (and don't call me Shirley). We found a great automatic online anagrammer that generated all kinds of alternatives and could make it a challenge for our readers to decode each time we have to reference the councilman: "Rebuked artily." That was a good one. "Bakery diluter" is just silly but does have a ring about it. "Keyed rural bit" was another that caught our eye as somewhat telling, because Kirby Delauter's pretty keyed up. We're sure there's a joke in "Brutelike Yard" somewhere.

Discernibly, though, Kirby Delauter's ignorance of what journalism is and does is no joke, and illustrates one disturbing aspect too prevalent in conservatives’ beliefs: That the media are all-liberal stooges hell bent on pursuing some fictional leftwing agenda. Generally this "fact" is bleated when the facts on the ground differ from conservative talking points. Take Councilman Billy Shreve's abstract, almost nonsensical defense of KD*: "I think media outlets are cowards and they hide behind the label of journalists and that's a bully pulpit to expand their liberal” agenda. Cowards? Tell that to the families of the 60 journalists killed in 2014, or the 70 in 2013, or the 74 who died in 2012, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. All in pursuit of the truth, or the most reliable version of it at hand in the most dangerous regions of the world.

Edifying as it may be to lapse into name calling -- and yes, we allowed ourselves a little childishness above and maybe a little bit below -- we need to make one serious point the councilman needs to hear and understand: We will not bow to petty intimidation tactics because a local politician thinks he can score political points with his base throwing around empty threats.

Legally, Kirby Delauter has no case.

And why? Here's how Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh, who "teaches free speech law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, and tort law, at UCLA School of Law," nicely sums it up:

“Uh, Council Member: In our country, newspapers are actually allowed to write about elected officials (and others) without their permission. It’s an avantgarde experiment, to be sure, but we’ve had some success with it." You know, that whole First Amendment thing.

That's why we're taking his threat with a pinch of salt. We've seen this behavior before (not just from Kirby Delauter) and it’s worth highlighting again. Bullying seems to be the only way Kirby "Don't say my name" Delauter feels he can lead. Only now, the target is not the public at hearings or occasional "punk" staff member, an arrogant, self-serving, whining middle school teacher or fellow "moron" commissioner, it's The News-Post. Instead of taking his job seriously like the voters demanded and the rest of the council seem to grasp, he's grabbing at distractionary shoot-the-messenger tactics that make a lot of noise but, to quote Shakespeare, a man who knew drama when he saw it, noise that "signifies nothing." Frederick County has big issues to tackle in 2015 and we have yet to hear Kirby Delauter sound out one single, sensible idea. He used the word "govern" in his slogan. Maybe he should apply that to his temper first.

Enough. Seriously. What's Kirby Delauter going to do? Sue everyone who's making fun of him on Twitter using the #kirbydelauter hashtag, or on Facebook? Boy, his attorney will be able to retire off that.

Reasonable men (and women) are required to move Frederick County forward. All Kirby Delauter is doing yet again is displaying his inability to control his temper, embarrassing himself, his district, the county and those who voted him into office. If he wants to govern like a taxpayer, he needs to respect the taxpayers whose money provides his paycheck, stop this silly, inflammatory nonsense, and get to work.

Aside from the title, that's 25 unauthorized uses of the name "Kirby Delauter." As an added bonus, the first letter of each paragraph spell out K-I-R-B-Y D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.

When I first saw this story, I Googled "Kirby Delauter" and got about 14,000 hits. The next day, the same search brought up about 160,000 hits; just now, the number of hits is up to 435,000. I think Kirby Delauter has a lot more instances of unauthorized use of his name to worry about.

Nous Sommes Tous Charlie

“Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”  –Salman Rushdie

Say It, Bernie!

Courtesy of Meteor Blades at Daily Kos, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont writes Fight for Our Progressive Vision:

As I look ahead to this coming year, a number of thoughts come to mind.

First and foremost, against an enormous amount of corporate media noise and distraction, it is imperative that we not lose sight of what is most important and the vision that we stand for. We have got to stay focused on those issues that impact the lives of tens of millions of Americans who struggle every day to keep their heads above water economically, and who worry deeply about the kind of future their kids will have.

Yes. We make no apologies in stating that the great moral, economic and political issue of our time is the growing level of income and wealth inequality in our nation. It is a disgrace to everything this country is supposed to stand for when the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and when one family (the Waltons) owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. No. The economy is not sustainable when the middle class continues to disappear and when 95 percent of all new income generated since the Wall Street crash goes to the top 1 percent. In order to create a vibrant economy, working families need disposable income. That is often not the case today.

Yes. We will continue the fight to have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in understanding that health care is a human right of all people, not a privilege. We will end the current dysfunctional system in which 40 million Americans remain uninsured, and tens of millions more are underinsured. No. Private insurance companies and drug companies should not be making huge profits which result in the United States spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation with outcomes that are often not as good.

Yes. We believe that democracy means one person, one vote. It does not mean that the Koch Brothers and other billionaires should be able to buy elections through their ability to spend unlimited sums of money in campaigns. No. We will not accept Citizens United as the law of the land. We will overturn it through a constitutional amendment and move toward public funding of elections.

Yes. We will fight for a budget that ends corporate tax loopholes and demands that the wealthy and special interests begin paying their fair share of taxes. It is absurd that we are losing more than $100 billion a year in tax revenue as corporations and the wealthy stash their profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens It is a disgrace that hedge fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than teachers or truck drivers. No. At a time when the middle class is disappearing and when millions of families have seen significant declines in their incomes, we will not support more austerity against the elderly, the children and working families. We will not accept cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition or affordable housing.

Yes. We believe that we must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, rail, airports, older schools, etc.). At a time when real unemployment is 11.4 percent and youth unemployment is almost 18 percent, a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure would create 13 million decent paying jobs. No. We do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.

Yes. We believe that quality education should be available to all Americans regardless of their income. We believe that we should be hiring more teachers and pre-school educators, not firing them. No. We do not believe that it makes any sense that hundreds of thousands of bright young people are unable to afford a higher education while millions leave college and graduate school with heavy debts that will burden them for decades. In a highly competitive global economy, we must not fall further and further behind other countries in the education we provide our people.

Yes. We believe that the scientific community is right. Climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already creating devastating problems in the United States and throughout the world. We believe that the United States can and must lead the world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. No. We do not believe that it makes sense to build the Keystone pipeline or other projects which make us more dependent on oil and other fossil fuels.

Let me conclude by relaying to you a simple but important political truth. The Republican right-wing agenda—tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, unfettered free trade, cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition and virtually every other program that sustains working families and low-income people—is an agenda supported by Fox TV. It is an agenda supported by The Wall Street Journal. It is an agenda supported by Rush Limbaugh and the 95 percent of radio talk show hosts who just happen to be right-wing. It is an agenda supported by the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable and much of corporate America.

It is not an agenda supported by the American people.

By and large, poll after poll shows that the American people support a progressive agenda that addresses income and wealth inequality, that creates the millions of jobs we desperately need, that raises the minimum wage, that ends pay discrimination against women, and that makes sure all Americans can get the quality education they need.

In the year 2015 our job is to gain control over the national debate, stay focused on the issues of real importance to the American people, stand up for our principles, educate and organize. If we do that, I have absolute confidence that we can turn this country around and become the kind of vital, prosperous and fair-minded democracy that so many want.

"Reagan's Radical Rhetoric"

Click here for an article by Michael Lind at Salon entitled "Reagan's Radical Rhetoric." He fleshes out quotations from Reagan such as this excerpt from his keynote address at the 1964 Republican National Convention which nominated Barry Goldwater:

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

On Vietnam:

"It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."

Lind says:

The greatest damage done to American political culture by Reagan’s extremist rhetoric has been its effect on public perception of the legitimacy of government—any government, at any level, in any situation.  It is true that Reagan, after being elected as president, did not seriously try to repeal the New Deal.  It is also true that he reluctantly consented to tax increases when supply-side tax cuts blew a hole in the federal budget.  But his moderation in office had less effect on American society than the decades of vilification of the public sector that he pumped like toxic waste into public discourse.

Here are some Reagan quotes on the subject of government:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Lind says:

No American president or prominent public figure, including champions of small government like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, has ever demonized government as consistently and crudely as Ronald Reagan did. In three decades as a commentator, political candidate and politician, Reagan told the American people that government at all levels was a hostile alien force seeking only to steal their money and eradicate their freedom.

50 Million Americans Below The Poverty Line

This is nearly incredible. According to an article posted at Crooks & Liars, 49.7 million Americans are below the poverty line; 80% of the total U.S. population is below or near the poverty line. Last year, food stamps helped 5 million people "barely reach above the poverty line." Poverty rates are 27.8% for Latinos, 25.8% for African-Americans, 16% for Asians, and 10.7% for non-Hispanic whites.

“The primary reason that poverty remains so high,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist said, “is that the benefits of a growing economy are no longer being shared by all workers as they were in the quarter-century following the end of World War II.”

Click here for the post by Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars entitled Most of the Population Now Needs Government Assistance to Make Ends Meet.

The Gray Lady On Dick Cheney

 Wow. Just -- wow. (Ten years too late, but still ...)

On the heels of the Senate Intelligence Committee's blistering report on the CIA's brutal handling of prisoners after 9/11, the New York Times is calling for a criminal investigation of former Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration for conspiring to commit torture and other crimes prohibited by federal and international laws.

Click here for the NYT story.

You Don't Receive Fox News? Watch This.

I know a lot of people who don't receive and therefore don't watch Fox News, and they don't understand what goes on there. I don't receive it either, and I'm not going to pay extra to get it. But it was part of my cable package when I lived in Singapore, so I know what it's about.

When I first watched it, I knew what to expect from the opinion pieces -- O'Reilly, Hannity, Greta van Sustren. What I didn't realize until I watched it was that Fox News is a 24/7 attack on Obama and his administration.

Here's just an example of Fox & Friends -- Steve Doocy, the blonde, and not-Steve-Doocy -- with a regular Fox contributor, a psychiatrist (?!) named Keith Ablow.

Here's the story from Wonkette (Nasty Vile Little Snark Mob):

Fox News resident Psychopath psychiatrist Keith Ablow has Thoughts on the murder of two policemen in New York City this weekend. (We’re quite certain you were waiting to hear from him before deciding what you think of the horrific killings.)

In addition to calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to admit his personal responsibility for the murders, Ablow also insightfully diagnosed calls for police to be equipped with body cameras and to be trained in methods for de-escalating tense situations as signs of a sick society, calling it insulting to the good judgment of Our Protectors, who have done such an excellent job of protecting us from whatever criminals aren’t in blue uniforms.

On Fox & Friends this morning, Ablow called on de Blasio to own up to his crimes of calling for violence against police, explaining that because de Blasio suggested to his son that young black men need to be careful around police officers, he was quite literally stirring up hatred of cops: [The] mayor has to, just out of intellectual honesty, assume responsibility for launching a hate offensive against New York police officers, and, by the way, the judiciary […] And if the mayor says I don’t think I’m responsible in any way for someone that took murderous revenge on officers then it is unbelievable. This guy has to go or the city is in bad hands.

Brian Kilmeade then jumped in, incredulous that de Blasio and police commissioner Bill Bratton had agreed to retrain “the finest police force ever” to try to de-escalate interactions with the public: “What an insult that is,” Kilmeade complained. “The whole policing program with wearing body cameras and the rest of it is an insult to police officers,” Ablow agreed.

Ablow didn’t have time to elaborate on how body cameras — which early studies suggest may lead cops to be less violent and may also prevent unwarranted complaints of police misconduct — are insulting; presumably, the way to show someone respect is to let them bash all the heads they want and then load the grand jury with liars.

We would say a lot more about the weirdness of finding it insulting that cops should learn ways to avoid going to DefCon Four whenever anyone looks at them wrong, but we’re still trying to wrap our minds around Keith Ablow calling on another human being, anywhere in the known universe, to demonstrate “intellectual honesty.”

Col. Jessup -- Or Dick Cheney?

This passage from A Few Good Men neatly presents Dick Cheney's worldview (except, of course, that Cheney got five deferments and never served in the military; he is just a chickenhawk who sent others' sons and daughters to die for a lie):

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Jessup: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

George Washington On Torture

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775.

Seems pretty clear.

Digby:

He was nothing but a lily-livered coward who didn't understand the nature of an existential threat. We should blast his face from Mt. Rushmore.

Reagan On Torture

"The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today. The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.' Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution." – Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, 1984 Address to the Nation upon signing the UN Convention On Torture

Hockey - Jane Siberry

Part of Charlie Pierce's tribute on the death of Jean Beliveau (his Favorite Canadian).

Winter time and the frozen river
Sunday afternoon
They're playing hockey on the river
Rosy
He'll have that scar on his chin forever someday his girlfriend will say hey
Where
He might look out the window or not
You skate as fast as you can 'til you hit the snowbank that's how you stop
And you get your sweater from the catalogue
You use your rubber boots for goal posts
Ah walkin' home

Don't let those sunday afternoons
Get away get away get away get away
Break away break away break away break away

This stick was signed by jean belliveau so don't fucking tell me where
To fucking go
On sunday afternoon
Someone's dog just took the puck-he buried it it's in the snowbank your turn
They rioted in the streets of montreal when they benched rocket richard it's
True

Don't let those sunday afternoons
Get away get away get away get away
Break away break away break away break away

The sun is fading on the frozen river
The wind is dying down
Someone else just got called for dinner
Rosy
Hmm sunday afternoon

Gas Prices Are Down? Dodd-Frank!

This is copied-and-pasted from an article at Smirking Chimp. I think it's by wizard2000, but it's hard to tell:

"A couple of weeks ago MSNBC host Chris Hayes had an oil industry expert on as his guest to ask him a simple question, "Why are gasoline prices going down?"

"Haven't you noticed? Fuel prices have dropped quite significantly over the past several months, not as much (yet) as when they plummeted in late 2008 and early 2009 following the crash and disruption in trading on the stock market, but still by a substantial amount. So, Chris Hayes wanted to know why.

"I expected the usual answer, oil glut, refineries up and working at full capacity, etc etc, but I was surprised when Hayes' guest said that certain provisions of Dodd-Frank (passed by Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in 2010) had finally kicked in a couple of months ago (after years of delay by Republicans suing Dodd-Frank in court and right-wing commissioners on the Commodities Futures Trading Commission refusing to enforce Dodd-Frank anti-speculative provisions). And then Hayes's guest said that these long-delayed Dodd-Frank provisions that restricted oil futures trading had caused Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan (and probably Koch Industries, and other speculators in oil futures) to shut down their oil futures trading desks.

"Now, you might ask why restricting oil futures trading would lead to lower oil barrel and gasoline prices? Well, just look at what happened in late 2008. The stock market crash (from an index over 12,000 to about 6,000, with 401-Ks taking a major hit) affected fuel prices (oil barrel prices fell from $150 to about $30 a barrel, while gasoline prices at the pump fell from over $4 to under $2 a gallon). Wow!! And all because trading on Wall Street was disrupted, including oil futures trading by the speculators.

"But I thought oil futures trading on the commodities exchange was primarily for heavy fuel users like airline companies, so they could lock in lower prices due to high volume purchases to keep ticket prices lower? Oh, this was the case until former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) inserted a speculator-friendly provision into a 1999 bill which deregulated completely oil futures trading, opening the door to billionaire/millionaire speculators. Over the past 15 years, their speculative activity has driven up and kept high the fuel prices hitting hard the middle class in America. Several years back, someone did a study showing that in the 1990s, oil futures trading was 70 percent heavy fuel users (airlines companies, etc) with only about 30 percent of the trading being done by speculators. After Gramm's bill was signed into law, this percentage reversed over the years with over 70 percent of oil futures trading being done by the speculators (J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Koch Industries, etc) leaving the 30 percent or so to the heavy fuel users. In other words, U.S. car drivers and long-haul truckers have been pumping billions of dollars into the pockets of the speculators every time they've pumped gas into their vehicle...just the way the greed-driven speculators planned.

"Dodd-Frank in 2010 (along with other provisions) was meant to address this theft from Americans and America's middle-class by rapacious Republicans, which of course explains why Republicans tried every trick they could think of to stop it from being implemented and enforced, even though the Dodd-Frank restrictions are far less stringent than those in place during the 1990s regarding oil futures trading. This obstruction of Dodd-Frank is the same as Republicans trying to restrict the Affordable Care Act even before it went into effect.

"So, what can we expect from Republicans starting in about a month when they take charge of Capitol Hill? In between numerous House impeach hearings of President Obama (who has hardly done anything approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors," just like President Clinton before him never got close to "high crimes and misdemeanors"), Republican will no doubt try one trick after another to repeal (in part or whole) the Affordable Care Act AND also repeal Dodd-Frank, so that price-gouging Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan and price-gougers like the Koch brothers can return to speculating (rigging) the oil futures trading market like before, artificially driving up fuel costs in the process, making billions more for them and the other insatiable 1 percenters.

"And the Democratic Party better make this the central message of the Democratic Party over the next two years (and beyond), whether addressing rural or urban audiences, because anyone that drives a car has been paying enormous amounts of gas money over the past 15 years to a bunch of anti-American greed-driven thugs, domestic and foreign, with Repubilcan politicians and speculator front groups doing their dirty work. Hey, these Republican politicians and front groups are just another "investment commodity" in the eyes of the insanity insatiable 1 percenters, the best puppets their money can buy.

Frank Serpico

Click here for an article at Politico written by 78-year-old Frank Serpico, entitled The Police Are Still Out Of Control. I Should Know. Some quotes:

Forty-odd years on, my story probably seems like ancient history to most people, layered over with Hollywood legend. For me it’s not, since at the age of 78 I’m still deaf in one ear and I walk with a limp and I carry fragments of the bullet near my brain.

A few years ago, after the New York Police Museum refused my guns and other memorabilia, I loaned them to the Italian-American museum right down street from police headquarters, and they invited me to their annual dinner. I didn’t know it was planned, but the chief of police from Rome, Italy, was there, and he gave me a plaque. The New York City police officers who were there wouldn’t even look at me.

Times have changed. It’s harder to be a venal cop these days. But an even more serious problem — police violence — has probably grown worse, and it’s out of control for the same reason that graft once was: a lack of accountability.

Today the combination of an excess of deadly force and near-total lack of accountability is more dangerous than ever: Most cops today can pull out their weapons and fire without fear that anything will happen to them, even if they shoot someone wrongfully. All a police officer has to say is that he believes his life was in danger, and he’s typically absolved. What do you think that does to their psychology as they patrol the streets—this sense of invulnerability?

In some ways, matters have gotten even worse. The gulf between the police and the communities they serve has grown wider. Mind you, I don’t want to say that police shouldn’t protect themselves and have access to the best equipment. Police officers have the right to defend themselves with maximum force, in cases where, say, they are taking on a barricaded felon armed with an assault weapon. But when you are dealing every day with civilians walking the streets, and you bring in armored vehicles and automatic weapons, it’s all out of proportion. It makes you feel like you’re dealing with some kind of subversive enemy. The automatic weapons and bulletproof vest may protect the officer, but they also insulate him from the very society he’s sworn to protect. All that firepower and armor puts an even greater wall between the police and society, and solidifies that “us-versus-them” feeling.

All a policeman has to say is that “the suspect turned toward me menacingly,” and he does not have to worry about prosecution.

Many white Americans, indoctrinated by the ridiculous number of buddy-cop films and police-themed TV shows that Hollywood has cranked out over the decades—almost all of them portraying police as heroes—may be surprised by the continuing outbursts of anger, the protests in the street against the police that they see in inner-city environments like Ferguson. But they often don’t understand that these minority communities, in many cases, view the police as the enemy. We want to believe that cops are good guys, but let’s face it, any kid in the ghetto knows different. The poor and the disenfranchised in society don’t believe those movies; they see themselves as the victims, and they often are.

As for Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, they’re giving speeches now, after Ferguson. But it’s 20 years too late. It’s the same old problem of political power talking, and it doesn’t matter that both the president and his attorney general are African-American. Corruption is color blind. Money and power corrupt, and they are color blind too.

Christopher Walken

As Hook in Peter Pan:



In the Fatboy Slim video, Weapon of Choice:

Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday)

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

 Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Bernie Sanders For President!

Click here for an article by Heather at Crooks & Liars entitled Sen. Bernie Sanders Unveils 12-Point Economic Plan.

Nostalgia - Dial-Up Internet

Bobby Kennedy's Speech On The Assassination Of Martin Luther King

"I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee."

Read This Post!

This is an extremely important article by Mike Lofgren at Bill Moyers & Co. Lofgren was "a congressional staff member for 28 years specializing in national security and possessing a top secret security clearance ..."

His description of "The Deep State" would have been considered 30 years ago to be the raving of a wingnut conspiracy theorist; today, it's a harsh and unpleasant reality.

Click here for his article, entitled "Anatomy of the Deep State."

The Fox's Agents In The Henhouse

The Republicans have a long and unillustrious history of appointing chairmen of committees and heads of agencies who are bitterly opposed to the ostensible purpose of those committees and agencies. I recently came across the following article about the 2010 appointment of Spencer Bachus as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The Republicans recently routed the Democrats in the 2014 Midterms, taking control of the Senate, where they will now appoint committee heads. Scheduled to be chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is one James Inhofe (R-OK), author of the 2012 book "The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future."

Bachus's Alabama colleague Richard Shelby (R-AL) is set to become Senate Banking Chairman. He has lambasted the Obama administration’s Dodd-Frank financial law and is expected to push to roll back powers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

John McCain (R.-AZ), on the other hand, is in line to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee. Far from being opposed to anything to do with the armed services, McCain is expected to seek to pursue new and exciting military ventures all over the globe.

Click here for an article by Mary Orndorf Troyan at blog.al.com/sweethome entitled "Spencer Bachus finally gets his chairmanship." Some illustrative quotes from the article:

House Republicans on Wednes­day promoted Bachus to chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which has wide juris­diction over banks, capital markets, housing, consumer credit and the overall health of the American fi­nancial system.

Bachus, in an interview Wednesday night, said he brings a "main street" perspective to the committee, as opposed to Wall Street.

"In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks," he said.

He later clarified his comment to say that regulators should set the parameters in which banks operate but not micromanage them. [Yeah, right.]

Influenza Season

Cover up!

Jon Stewart v. Koch Brothers

Krugman Hits Another One Out Of The Park

Click here for a recent NYT article by Paul Krugman entitled "Ideology and Investment."

John Oliver's Canine SCOTUS

John Oliver's canine take on SCOTUS:



And then the additional time on the web:

Eisenhower: Military/Industrial Complex

Video clip and transcription of Eisenhower's "military/industrial complex" speech.


Good evening, my fellow Americans.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time, and as required, make swords as well.

But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. How to do this? Three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.

Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Shep Smith Goes Off The Fox Reservation Again

Say it, Shep! (But I frequently fear for your future employment at Fox.)

For the next few minutes, I'm going to give you the facts on Ebola. It'll take just three minutes.

But first, today, given what we know, you should have no concerns about Ebola at all. None. I promise. Unless a medical professional has contacted you personally and told you of some sort of possible exposure, fear not. Do not listen to the hysterical voices on the radio and the television or read the fear-provoking words on line. The people who say and write hysterical things are being very irresponsible.

Here are the facts. A man contracted Ebola overseas. Tragically, he was dying in a Texas hospital. He was at his most contagious while showing the most severe symptoms; that's how Ebola works. And a healthcare worker at the hospital got the virus from him. She is doing well, she says, Skyping with her family from isolation just yesterday, saying she's blessed to have so much support and such great medical care.

The CDC director told us, all of us, yesterday, that he did indeed expect other health care workers at that hospital who treated that one dying patient to contract the virus, and that's now happened. Another health care worker at that same hospital now has Ebola. They tell us they're transferring her to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Now, before she showed symptoms, she flew from Cleveland to Dallas on Frontier Airlines. They say she should not have done that, but she did. But as we all now know, if you don't show symptoms, you are not contagious. She did not show symptoms, according to the doctors. Still, medical professionals are contacting everyone who was on that plane to make sure each person is okay. The CDC director says chances are very slim that any of those passengers is sick.

Now, big picture, and this is important: You have to remember that -- in the middle of all of this, you have to remember that there is politics in the mix. With midterm elections coming, the party in charge needs to appear to be effectively leading. The party out of power needs to show that there is a lack of leadership. So the president has canceled a fundraising trip and is holding meetings, and his political opponents are accusing his administration of poor leadership.

For the purpose of this fact-dissemination exercise, those matters are immaterial. Again, these are the facts. We do not have an outbreak of Ebola in the United States, nowhere. We do have two health care workers who contacted the disease from a dying man. They are isolated. There is no information to suggest that the virus has spread to anyone in the general population in America: not one person in the general population in the United States.

Suggestions have been made publicly that leaders and medical professionals may be lying to us. Those suggestions are completely without basis in fact. There is no evidence of any kind of which we at Fox News are aware that leaders have lied about anything regarding Ebola.

I report to you with certainty this afternoon that being afraid, at all, is the wrong thing to do. Being petrified -- and that's a quote -- is ridiculous. The panic that has tanked the stock market and left people fearful that their children will get sick at school is counterproductive and lacks basis in fact or reason. There is no Ebola spreading in America. Should that change, our reporting will change. But there is nothing to indicate that it will.

Best advice for you and your family at this moment: Get a flu shot. Unlike Ebola, flu is easily transmitted. Flu, along with resulting pneumonia, killed 52,000 Americans last year alone. A flu shot will reduce your chance of getting flu. So get one.