Rational Resistance

Gingrich chooses not to defend his honor

2012-01-26T22:37:00.004-05:00

Not a good news day for Gingrich leading into the last debate before the Florida primary.

A week ago Gingrich had to stand up to a debate the day after ABC aired an interview with his ex-wife in which she described his request to convert his marriage with a six-year affair on the side to what he called an open marriage. He handled it pretty well, doing what comes naturally to him: he lied.

The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested, because they would like to attack any Republican.

And the kicker is, it worked. Everyone agrees that his pugnacious presentation won the debate.

Unfortunately for him, he had to walk back his story just ever so slightly today. In fact, "Tonight, after persistent questioning by our staff, the Gingrich campaign concedes now Speaker Gingrich was wrong — both in his debate answer, and in our interview yesterday," King said on tonight's edition of John King USA. "Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond says the only people the Gingrich campaign offered to ABC were his two daughters from his first marriage."

You really should watch the video. A week after he lied in the debate, and two days after he lied on camera, they had to come back and admit that what was baloney here, to use Gingrich's term, was not ABC's reporting but Gingrich's own claims.

I didn't watch tonight's debate, but I'm pretty sure they didn't ask the question I would have asked. If I were asking the questions, my first one would be:

Mr. Gingrich at a debate the other night you stated that you had asked ABC to interview several of your friends and that they had refused to do so. Today your campaign admitted that your statement was false, and that the only people you offered to ABC to interview were your two daughters, who have also worked on your campaign.

In light of the fact that your statements during the debate were demonstrably and intentionally false, how can you expect the American people to believe anything else you say to them?

Alternate wording: In light of the fact that your statements during the debate were demonstrably and intentionally false, are you prepared to release to the American people a list of the other knowing misstatements you have made during your long political career?

So tell me, did anyone ask that question, or any version of it?

Obama again supports community colleges

2012-01-25T22:59:00.003-05:00

Once again President Obama emphasized the central role of community colleges in his education plans.

We have noted that before on these pages, as well as noting that his support for community colleges is a major campaign promise kept, but it's worth noting again.

From last night's State of the Union address:

Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.
I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers – places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

Community colleges can be the core of the next great American recovery. They're in communities (!) where people live, they are affordable, they provide flexibility for working and other nontraditional students, and they can adapt to meet the vocational and general educational needs of their students.

President Obama has it exactly right when he talks about the importance of community colleges to the new American century.

Bob Kerrey was right

2012-01-23T20:45:00.004-05:00

If you're a regular reader around here you know that I'm fond of Dan Savage's definition of Santorum, but the news reports today demonstrate that Bob Kerrey was right.

At an appearance in Florida one of Santorum's supporters spoke out, saying "He is an avowed Muslim and my question is, why isn't something being done to get him out of our government?"

Sound familiar? It should, because four years ago a John McCain supporter made a similar charge with regard to then-Senator Obama. Watch the video and then come back. It's short.

Okay, back?

See what McCain did? Even though he was fighting for every vote, he corrected this misguided woman, even saying that Obama was a decent man who just disagreed on policy.

He set quite a standard for your boy, Santorum, eh? So what did Santorum do?

"It's not my responsibility as a candidate to correct everybody who makes a statement that I disagree with," Santorum said. "There are lots of people who get up and say stuff in a town hall meeting and say things that I don't agree with, but I don't think it's my obligation, nor should it be your feeling that it's my obligation to correct somebody who says something that I don't agree with."

Maybe politics are like sports. They claim that sports build character, but maybe politics, like sports, reveal character.

And maybe that's why Bob Kerrey observed “Santorum, that’s Latin for asshole.”

No argument here.

Update: Limbaugh Defend's Gingrich's Honor

2012-01-21T14:20:00.002-05:00

This isn't the most important or substantive issue, but I can't let this go without one more post.

We saw the news this week about Newt Gingrich and his, shall we say, casual attitude toward marital fidelity, for which he got some negative publicity. Granted, it's not about politics, it's about sex, although the fact that he was busy impeaching Bill Clinton for extramarital sex while he was enjoying his how access to extramarital sex (to the extent you can say you're enjoying it when you're having sex with someone who is so sharp she can cut glass) says something not very favorable about his adherence to principle and intellectual honesty.

Nevertheless, the man who has been the leader of the right wing of the Republican Party ever since the election of Bill Clinton has rushed to defend Gingrich's honor.

From Rush Limbaugh's web page, to which I will not link:

I got a great note from a friend of mine. "So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That's a mark of character, in my book. Newt's a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation. We were soldiers in the sex revolution. We were tempted by everything from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to Plato's Retreat, Deep Throat to no-fault divorce. Many of us paid the ultimate price, AIDS, abortion, or alimony for the cultural marching orders we got. Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government." That's from a good friend of mine, "Newt's slogan ought to, 'Hell, yes, I wanted it.'" (laughing) I'm sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.

"Mark of character"?

I guess that's true. I guess that for the last thirty or forty years Gingrich has been demonstrating his character. In fact, we probably know more about the character of Newt Gingrich than we have known about any presidential candidate since Richard Nixon.

And they are remarkably similar.

Gingrich Defends His Honor

2012-01-20T07:43:00.003-05:00

Like any southern gentleman, when Newt Gingrich's honor is questioned he stands up to defend it. Maybe there was no slap across the face with a glove, or challenge to a duel at last night's debate, but how could he sit back in the face of charges of marital infidelity?

Let's take a step back and examine the charges.

Here's the question from last night's debate, based on ABC's reporting:

As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview with The Washington Post, and this story has now gone viral on the Internet. In it, she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair. She says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. Would you like to take some time to respond to that?

Gingrich's response in its entirety:

I think -- I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. (Cheers, applause.)

. . .

MR. GINGRICH: Every person in here knows personal pain.

Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine. (Cheers, applause.)

My -- my two daughters, my two daughters wrote the head of ABC, and made the point that it was wrong, that they should pull it. And I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. KING: As you noted, Mr. Speaker, this story did not come from our network. As you also know, it is a subject of conversation on the campaign. I'm not -- I get your point; I take get your --

MR. GINGRICH: John, John, it was repeated by your network. (Boos.) You chose to start the debate with it. Don't try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start this debate with that. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. KING: Now, OK --

MR. GINGRICH: Now, let me be quite clear. Let me be quite clear. The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested, because they would like to attack any Republican. They're attacking the governor, they're attacking me. I'm sure they'll probably get around to Senator Santorum and Congressman Paul. I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.

The typography is important here. In all that blathering, the only thing Gingrich says that actually responds to the charge is what's in bold there. "The story is false. Blah blah blah." The rest of his answer is to attack the media, which is always popular among Republicans, and to attack the questioner.

But when he says the story is false, what is he actually talking about?

The only real question was whether he asked his then-wife if he could have an affair with Callista while remaining married to his wife. After the fact.

There's no question about the fact that he was having an affair. We know that he had already been having an affair for six years before the divorce.

The facts are clear. Gingrich met his second wife in 1980 and married her in 1981. (Yes, okay, it is true that he started carrying on with Wife # 2 while married to Wife #1, if you want to be a stickler about it.) He filed for divorce in 1999. By that time he had already been having an affair with Callista for years, and when his divorce was final in 2000 he married her.

Oh yes, and during part of the time he was carrying on with Callista, 23 years his junior, he was trying to hound Bill Clinton out of office for carrying on with a much younger woman.

So to understand Gingrich's "The story is false," in the context of the known facts, we have to conclude that the only factual point that he could be disputing is whether he went to his wife and asked her if it was okay to keep on having affairs while staying married to her.

Not whether he was having affairs with women much younger than his wives during his marriages to them. Not whether he left two wives to marry his much younger paramours. No. Whether he tried to convince his wife that he should be allowed to have affairs.

What's false about the story if you believe every word he says, is that his ex-wife claims that he asked her for permission and he says he never asked for permission, he just carried on his affairs without any regard for what his wife wanted.

Oh yes, and when Gingrich talks about having "someone close to them go through painful things", what he's talking about is all the years he was married to one woman while having an affair with a different woman.

And this is why he feels he must defend his honor?

I'm waiting for the duel.

Life, Justice, and the Republicans

2012-01-19T07:30:00.002-05:00

Every so often we see a court case that illuminates the difference between two ideas of justice, and this week was one of those times.

The case involved Cory Maples, a young man in Alabama who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His court-appointed attorney made the kind of token effort you would expect of someone whose pay is limited to $1,000.00. Indeed, the trial lawyers actually admitted to the jury that they were "stumbling around in the dark," given their inexperience in capital cases. This would ordinarily be grounds for a challenge to the death sentence because he was denied his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel.

Since Alabama has no funding for court-appointed lawyers on appeal even in death penalty cases, Maples was forced to rely on two volunteer attorneys from one of the big New York law firms.

They literally abandoned the case: when they left their jobs they just left, not even telling their client or the court that they were out of it, so when the court in Alabama sent a notice to them that their request for post-conviction review had been denied it was just sent back to the clerk unopened. No lawyer, no hearing, no review of your death sentence.

The question before the Supreme Court this week was whether in this case, where the attorneys who represented the defendant abandoned the case, he was entitled to pursue an appeal of his death penalty. The question was so clear that even Roberts and Alito ruled in favor of the defendant, but what is most interesting is the dissent by the Scalia-Thomas twins. In their view, it doesn't matter that his lawyers in New York dropped the case, and maybe never even communicated with him, he is considered responsible for everything his lawyers knew and did.

The derelictions of the defense attorneys in this case are so shocking that even some of the most conservative justices ever to sit on the court ruled in favor of the defendant. What we know, though, is that Scalia and Thomas are the model for judicial appointments from the Republican Right. If you picture the vacancies likely to arise on the Court in the next five years, and if you consider the choices that Mitt Romney will be in a position to make if he is elected, you can see the paramount importance of this year's election to all who value justice in our courts.

More Santorum

2012-01-12T22:39:00.003-05:00

It's not just in the Times, it's also on NPR, and some people are unhappy.

Take this ombudsman's note defending their coverage of the Santorum story.

The ombudsman found that covering the story was a legitimate journalistic enterprise.

I have to say that for myself, I sympathize with Wolff but agree with Sydell. It would be disingenuous to ignore what anyone can see on Google. We Latinos call that trying to cover the sun with a finger. Sydell's story, at least, gives a responsible explanation of why you find what you find on Google. And why Santorum has a problem.

Of course it was. Journalists have no business pretending a real news story isn't news. Even if the subjects of those stories don't like it.

My favorite part of this whole thing, though, is the phrasing of the letter of complaint. Read this sentence:

All Things Considered has stepped out of bounds for this cheap political smear.

He said it, I didn't.

I've always been partial to Bob Kerrey's definition of Santorum, but I have to agree that Dan Savage has really topped him.

Don't you wonder, though, why Santorum's friends are working so hard to keep the meme alive?

So let me get this straight

2012-01-09T23:41:00.002-05:00

According to the Supreme Court a corporation has freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment, but an actual human being doesn't?

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court rejected on Monday a free-speech challenge to the longtime ban on campaign contributions by foreign citizens who temporarily live and work in the United States.

The justices affirmed a ruling by a three-judge federal panel that upheld the ban adopted by Congress to keep foreigners from financially influencing U.S. elections.

Thanks for explaining that.

Did you see that?

2012-01-08T16:55:00.005-05:00

Rick Santorum's anal sex problem just made it into the pages of the New York Times.

And the credit goes to Maureen Dowd, who has not always been treated kindly in these pages.

Still, credit where credit is due.

Rick Santorum is getting a bit more attention, what with his dead-heat finish with Willard M. Romney in the Iowa caucuses this week, but attention isn't necessarily good for him.

As MoDo points out,

Not satisfied with mentioning homosexuality in the same breath as bestiality and pedophilia, as he did in 2003, Santorum tried to win over the kids by equating homosexuality with polygamy.

Maybe Santorum doesn't remember what it was like to be a college student, or maybe he just was never the kind of college student who talks back or disrespects his elders, but here's the response he got:

The grating Santorum was their worst nightmare of a bad teacher. He merely got booed; he’s lucky the kids didn’t TP his car or soap the windows.

But that might just show that Santorum has a tin ear when it comes to talking to college students; here comes Dowd's money quote:

When 17-year-old Rhiannon Pyle, visiting with her civics class from Newburyport, Mass., pressed Santorum on how he could believe that all men are created equal and still object to two men in love marrying, he began nonsensically frothing.

"So what?" you say? It's only a "so what" moment if you are unfamiliar with Santorum's anal sex problem.

You see, back when Santorum first started saying homosexuality was the same as "man on boy" or "man on dog" it offended a gay sex advice columnist named Dan Savage, who decided to retaliate by coming up with an appropriate definition for Santorum's name. After a poll of his readers Savage decided the appropriate definition for Santorum is "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes a byproduct of anal sex."

Santorum doesn't like it. In fact, he hates it, and he's gone crying to Google to make it stop, but it won't stop. If you google Santorum the Dan Savage definition is likely to be the top link, and is pretty much guaranteed to be in the top two or three.

Now "frothy" is not a particularly common word, so when Maureen Dowd, a person who is undoubtedly familiar with the new definition of Santorum, uses "frothing" in referring to Santorum in a column about Rick Santorum and same-sex relationships, there is no way that's an accident.

So you go, MoDo!

By the way, in case you're wondering, one of the readers' pick comments in the Times had the same thought:

Frothing? As in the first Google entry for Santorum? Well, Maureen, you had me chuckling (even if it was a tad subtle).

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T07:13:00.004-05:00

It was pretty much literally impossible to agree with everything Christopher Hitchens said.

For example, I was 100% in agreement with his position that Henry Kissinger should be prosecuted, tried, and imprisoned for his myriad crimes against humanity. As he said in The Atlantic:

Many if not most of Kissinger's partners in politics, from Greece to Chile to Argentina to Indonesia, are now in jail or awaiting trial. His own lonely impunity is rank; it smells to heaven. If it is allowed to persist then we shall shamefully vindicate the ancient philosopher Anacharsis, who maintained that laws were like cobwebs-strong enough to detain only the weak and too weak to hold the strong. In the name of innumerable victims known and unknown, it is time for justice to take a hand.

On the other hand, if you agreed with him on Kissinger and Vietnam it was almost certain that you would disagree with him on Bush's invasion of Iraq, which he not only supported, but called "a war to be proud of".

You could agree with his positions on atheism and religions but wish he would be a little more polite and tolerant of the sensitivities of religious people, or at least that he would refrain from criticizing that beloved icon, Mother Theresa:

“[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”

Or you could take pleasure in his obvious enjoyment of language and learning, but just wish that he would be a little less sure of himself.

Hitchens was one of the greatest public intellectuals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, A man whose English breeding and education were evident with every word he spoke, but who became an American and embraced that identity.

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

Hitch died yesterday of esophageal cancer at the age of sixty-two. It is a great loss for all of us.

Wanna be adopted?

2011-12-11T22:24:00.007-05:00

Former Catholic? Atheist? General-purpose heathen?

If that's you, the Catholic League thinks they have what you need.

Today we are launching our “Adopt An Atheist” campaign, the predicate of which is, “We want atheists to realize that there may be Christians in their community, even if those Christians don’t even know they are Christian.”

Here’s what our campaign entails. We are asking everyone to contact the American Atheist affiliate in his area [click here], letting them know of your interest in “adopting” one of them. All it takes is an e-mail. Let them know of your sincere interest in working with them to uncover their inner self. They may be resistant at first, but eventually they may come to understand that they were Christian all along.

I only ask one thing: if you do hear from the Catholic League, and they do try to adopt/convert you, fair's fair. Give them every chance to become an atheist, but don't show them the secret handshake until you're sure.

Inside the Bizarro World of the extreme right

2011-12-09T07:39:00.004-05:00

Some of my comic book friends will be aware of the Bizarro World, a DC comics construct designed to be the opposite of earth. As Wikipedia teaches us: In the Bizarro world of "Htrae" ("Earth" spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: "Guaranteed to lose money for you". (And this was before AIG and credit default swaps!)

We've long thought that conservatives have a backward, bizarro understanding of how the world works, and today we have some excellent evidence of that fact.

Let's start with what's going on on Congress. Yesterday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a resolution to block those power-mad regulators from adopting a rule regulating farm dust. After all, who wants our stout yeoman farmers crippled by the nettling impositions of the pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington?

Only one tiny quibble, though: EPA had never proposed tightening rules on farm dust, and the agency said lawmakers were raising concerns based on a myth about the rulemaking.
. . .
In her letter dated Oct. 14, [EPA administrator Lisa] Jackson said that she decided to keep the 1987 dust standard in place after a review of the science, an analysis by agency scientists and recommendations from an outside advisory panel.

That's right, the Republicans have protected farmers against an imaginary regulation.

I guess that's better than spending their time on legislation that would actually do something, since we know how badly that comes up when Republicans get their way.

Or, to go to a more fertile hotbed of unreality, the right-wing talk radio.

You've undoubtedly heard something about President Obama's speech earlier this week (although, strangely enough, it seemed to get a lot less news coverage than what any number of Republicans said this week).

Here's what Rush Limbaugh said about it:

The elected president of the United States said in Osawatomie, Kansas, trying to be Teddy Roosevelt, that the United States of America has never worked. That is a quote, “has never worked.”

And here is what President Obama actually said:

Quote:
Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt's time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let's respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. "The market will take care of everything," they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn't trickle down, well, that's the price of liberty.
Now, it's a simple theory. And we have to admit, it's one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That's in America's DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It's not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the 50s and 60s. And it didn't work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't tried this theory.
As anyone with elementary reading ability can see, what has "never worked" in President Obama's statement is the boldfaced language: that if we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger and jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else.

There are two important observations to make about this:

1. He is incontrovertibly correct.
2. The people who believe in the assertion about the magical powers of cutting regulations and taxes, regardless of what they say, care nothing about what trickles down to poor people. As long as the rich are better off, that's literally all they care about.

But most importantly, we see that the only way Limbaugh was able to find to attack Obama's speech is by attacking the opposite of what Obama actually said. What we see time and again is that the Republicans are not only unaware of reality, they are actively hostile to it.

So in closing, I think there's only one thing to say: Hello!

It's our birthday!

2011-12-09T07:21:00.002-05:00

Hard to believe it's been six years, but the first post at Rational Resistance was exactly six years ago today, December 9, 2005.

I couldn't count, or even estimate, the hours I've spent writing here, or the hours that people have spent reading my posts. I hope I continue to be interesting, thought-provoking, and entertaining.

Whoever you are, I also hope that sometimes I post things you don't agree with, or that you wouldn't have thought of. If I do, let me know.

Proof of Republican vote Suppression

2011-12-07T08:12:00.002-05:00

One of the hotly contested areas in state legislation in recent years has been Republican attempts to create new, onerous identification requirements for voting and registering to vote. Republicans claim that all they are interested in is the integrity of our sacred ballot, while liberals and Democrats have pointed out that these efforts are no more than a thinly veiled attempt to prevent one of the most reliable Democratic voting blocks from voting.

For example, Attorney General Eric Holder has argued that voter suppression efforts are inconsistent with the values embedded in American democracy.

“I am not talking about any one particular state effort, but more generally I think for those who would consider trying to use methods, techniques to discourage people from coming to the polls — that’s inconsistent with what we say we are as a nation,” Holder said.

Evidence in a new case in Maryland proves that the Republican claims are the transparent lies we have argued they are, and that they have, in fact, been engaged in a systematic effort to keep black voters away from the polls.

The case is a prosecution for election law violations by the campaign of former Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich. The Washington Post reports that in the lead-up to the 2010 gubernatorial election, Ehrlich's campaign placed over 100.000 anonymous robocalls to the predominantly black Baltimore and Prince George's Counties, telling voters there that the election was in the bag for the Democratic candidate and that they could “relax.”

Without anything more this seems like a pretty clear-cut case of suppression, right? The jury agreed, and convicted Ehrlich’s campaign manager Paul Ehrlich of four counts of election law violations.

Documents obtained in the case prove beyond any question that the whole point of this campaign was to suppress the black vote. For instance in a campaign briefing document called the Schurick Doctrine the consultants say “The Schurick Doctrine is designed to promote confusion, emotionalism, and frustration among African American democrats, focused in precincts where high concentrations of AA vote. As a result of the doctrine, the three favorable outcomes will benefit Republicans on Election Day. The three outcomes are: Don’t Vote (Stay Home), Don’t Vote at the Top of the Ticket ( Skip Box/Bracket for Governor), and Vote Republican (largely due to our persuasion messaging).

Another page of handwritten notes from Rhonda Russell, who worked for the campaign, included the note “suppress turnout in Black communities”.

How do you defend the indefensible? Well, the Republican defendants claimed that the robocalls had nothing to do with suppressing black vote, it was just part of a “reverse psychology” strategy, whereby their calls to black voters would somehow motivate their white conservative base to get out to vote.

Of course, anyone who has worked on campaigns and knows about how they work knows that the Get Out the Vote (GOTV) effort is designed to make sure that identified supporters vote by calling them and reminding them to vote, not by calling people who you expect to support your opponent.

In other words, what we have argued for many years, racism in Republican efforts at vote suppression, has just been proved beyond a doubt.

That's what I like: tolerance!

2011-11-30T22:04:00.003-05:00

Two dispatches from the world of the religious.

First, from our open-minded ally in Israel:

The Netanyahu government's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption is sponsoring advertisements in at least five American communities that warn Israeli expatriates that they will lose their identities if they don't return home.

Supporters of Israel love to talk about how Israel is the best, most tolerant country in the Middle East, but as we've noted here before, the government of Israel, or at least the current incumbents, are as oppressive and narrow-minded as anyone else in the Middle East. Watch the videos. Even if you don't speak Hebrew, you'll get the idea.

Of course, we expect better in the good old USA, right?

One eastern Kentucky community is divided after a Pike County church voted Sunday not to allow interracial couples to be members or participate in church services. According to members of the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, not everyone is in agreement with yesterday's vote. Melvin Thompson, who actually submitted the proposal to the church, defended his position, and says he doesn't feel this will affect the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church at all. "I do not believe in interracial marriages, and I do not believe this will give our church a black eye at all.

Apparently it's a small church, and there was opposition, but it's still hard to get around how scummy people can be in the name of god, huh?

Or, as my brother Dan points out, religion can be such a comfort.

Farewell to Barney Frank

2011-11-28T20:04:00.000-05:00

I first heard of Barney Frank when I was a relatively new Legal Services lawyer back in 1981. It was the first year of Reagan's presidency, and also the first year Reagan tried to implement his war on the poor by killing off the Legal Services Corporation. We heard that the appropriation for Legal Services was going to be taken up, so a few of us went to watch the debate on the floor of the house on C-SPAN, which was also brand new at the time.

Although Frank was a new congressman (it was his first term), he was the floor manager for the Legal Services appropriation. I was completely impressed. He was pretty much everything you see when you see him today: smart, prepared, funny, and completely unwilling to back down from a fight.

We won the funding debate, and even in a year when Reagan was getting Congress, under Tip O'Neill, to give him just about everything he wanted, he never succeeded in destroying legal services for the poor.

In the last thirty years Frank has always been a strong voice for working people and those exploited by the powerful, big money interests that have come to increasingly dominate our government.

What has made him so popular, though, is not just his unapologetic liberalism, but also the pugnacious and witty way he disemboweled the other side.

Other people will have their favorite Frank moments, but I'll just close with this one:

Big win for D.C. Democrats

2011-11-21T23:34:00.001-05:00

What's in the news tonight?

From the Post: Leaders of ‘supercommittee’ concede defeat

From the Times: Panel Fails to Reach Deal on Plan for Deficit Reduction

From WCAX: Reaction to committee's failure to cut deficit

The truth of it, as pointed out by both Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean, is that this is a win for the Democrats.

First, they finally, FINALLY! stood up for something.

Second, what they stood up for is both good policy and good politics. As Bernie said, “What is amazing is in a time of strong political division in America on this issue the American people are united,” Sanders said on MSNBC. “Every single poll that I have seen says that the American people understand that when the richest people are becoming richer, and their effective tax rate is the lowest in decades, they’ve got to pay more taxes to help us with deficit reduction.”

Finally, for those who are concerned about the deficit and the national debt, the failure to reach a deal cuts spending by more than any deal would have, and takes more out of the military budget than we ever would have seen.

We have a promise from President Obama to veto any legislation that would sidestep or avoid the automatic sequestration, and he's also promised to block any attempt to extend the Bush tax cuts again.

Whether he will actually do it is anyone's guess, but for now I see this as a win for the good guys.

The University of California needs to hear from you

2011-11-20T08:11:00.001-05:00

You may have seen this video of brutal treatment inflicted on peaceful demonstrators by the University of California campus police.

Fortunately, there is a way to respond.

The University of California has a system to report and correct behavior that is counter to the values of the university.

Welcome to the University of California's systemwide intolerance report form.

The University of California's Principles of Community are grounded in our mission of instruction, research and public service. We value diversity, affirm the inherent dignity of every person and uphold communities of justice. We strive for a campus and a world free of discrimination, intolerance and hate. We are equally committed to freedom of expression, critical inquiry, civil dialogue and mutual respect.

If you experience or observe behavior that is inconsistent with our Principles of Community, please report it.

If you know of any instances of intolerant or violent behavior on campus you might want to report it using their handy online form.

My description of what I witnessed:

On November 18, 2011, a large group of armed men menaced and attacked a group of unarmed students sitting in the Quad. The mob were carrying firearms and other lethal weapons. Without provocation the mob discharged chemical weapons at a number of unarmed students, although the students had made no threat of violence and posed no danger to any person.

Based on the clothing and insignia worn by the mob, it is possible they were members of the campus police force.

The bias involved was apparently the desire of the armed mob to suppress unpopular political opinions on campus.

The university promises me that they will investigate my report and get right back to me:

Thank you for reporting your concern. The information you provided will be treated with sensitivity and addressed as appropriate. If you provided your contact information, we may contact you directly. If not, please check back on your report in 2 weeks to see if we have any questions or follow-up information for you.

Your Report Key: 2577753955

If you are aware of any incidents of bias, intolerance, or violence on one of the campuses of the University of California perhaps you would like to let the university know about it. After all, if they aren't aware of the problem they can't fix it, right?

Patterns

2011-11-10T23:25:00.003-05:00

Stupid people have attached mystical significance to the fact that all the digits in tomorrow's date, in a certain form of notation, are ones. 11/11/11. I'm not sure exactly what they think is going to happen, or what they think it means, but it's just another example of people thinking they can deduce meaning from meaningless and arbitrary coincidences.

We'll have a good solid twenty-four hours to test out their theories, but we can also seek some inferential guidance from previous dates 11/11/1.

For instance, what about just a hundred years ago?

According to Yahoo Answers:

A record cold snap hits the United States Midwest; many cities break record highs and lows on the same day (see The 11/11/11 cold wave).

The Upton Machine Company, now Whirlpool Corporation, was founded in St Joseph, MI.

An enormous fire strikes Visoko, Bosnia, burning over 450 houses and other objects. The upper city area is completely burned, as well as all the houses down the main street alongside Beledija.

Or we can go back another hundred years. On 11/11/(18)11 I couldn't find many significant or earthshattering event, although it was the date of birth of Confederate general, Ben McCulloch (no relation).

Or, if you want a really significant sequence of ones, what about November 11, 1111?

According to the English version of Yahoo Answers:

The Synod of Rathbreasail marked the transition of the Irish church from a monastic to a diocesan structure
Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Paschal II
Baldwin VII becomes Count of Flanders

In other words, nothing much.

My predictions for 11/11/11? It's going to be the 42nd birthday of a good friend of mine, and it happens that she was born on the exact same day I started growing my beard. We can expect that around the world about 360,000 people will be born and another 151,000 will die, but there's a good chance you won't have heard of any of them.

So meet me back here tomorrow night, and let's see what momentous events we met.

Developments across the country

2011-11-08T22:52:00.001-05:00

No elections in Vermont today, but there are a couple of important ones elsewhere.

In Ohio, voters have overwhelmingly voted to throw out the anti-union law that right-wing governor John Kasich pushed through the legislature this year. You may recall that this is the race that Mitt Romney got his fingers burned in recently because of jumping into the fight without clearly picking a side. Another profile in courage for the Mittster, but more importantly, the voters of Ohio have come out to support the rights of public sector workers.

In Mississippi voters have rejected a constitutional amendment that would have counted zygotes and embryos as complete human beings from the moment of conception, immediately outlawing all abortions and some forms of birth control, while at the same time forcing pregnant women to pay double admission to the movies and allowing them to drive in the car pool lane. This was considered a risk to pass, particularly since both gubernatorial candidates supported it.

In Maine the voters have approved a proposal for same-day voter registration, even though the Republicans used scare tactics against it, including ads claiming that the measure was supported by "the gays".

And on a more personal note, in the town I grew up in, voters in Glen Rock, New Jersey stayed true to a pattern established back in 1896, rejecting a Democratic candidate with new ideas for mayor in favor of the Republican establishment. The candidate was my brother Mark, running for the same office that our father ran unsuccessfully for forty-five years ago. Consistency isn't always a good thing, but the family tradition of working for Democratic ideals remains strong. Congratulations on the effort, Mark!

Looking like the real thing

2011-11-03T23:48:00.002-04:00

Is Scott Brown afraid of Elizabeth Warren? He should be.

Sure, we know all about Scott Brown. He defeated perhaps the weakest candidate for U.S. Senate since Jack McMullen, who ran for Senator from Vermont from his vacation home and lost the Republican primary to Fred Tuttle, a man with such a thick Vermont accent that they needed to run subtitles even when he appeared on the radio, but Brown was the beneficiary of an even worse candidate. That was, of course, Martha "What do you expect me to do, stand outside Fenway Park and ask people to vote for me?" Coakley.

Scott Brown has all the qualifications for Senate--he's posed naked in a magazine and he owns a pickup truck--but he may find Warren a bit more of a challenge.

At the beginning it was tempting to see her as merely an academic, or, as the latest dirty word in the Republicans' vocabulary, a technocrat. She is showing us, though, that she has the goods to get out there and campaign.

Exhibit A is the video of her talking about the nature of wealth and success in this country. It was great reading the transcript, but it's phenomenal when you see it.

Then we also saw pictures of her recent volunteer rally. Very impressive that she was able to motivate such a big crowd of volunteers.

Finally, just last night, she had to contend with a deranged heckler from the Tea Party who called her a "socialist whore".

Her response:

“I actually felt sorry for the guy. I really genuinely did,” Warren later told the Huffington Post. “He’s been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it would help to come here and yell names.”

She also added: “I’m not angry with him, but he didn’t come up with the idea that his biggest problem was Occupy Wall Street. There’s someone else pre-packaging that poison — and that’s who makes me angry.”

As I say, she can handle herself, and I think she's a problem for Naked Scott.

This seems kind of big

2011-11-02T21:57:00.003-04:00

We've already seen the board of Ben & Jerry's come out in support of the Occupy movement, but that's pretty much to be expected, since they're all a bunch of communist hippies anyway.

I've never seen anything political come from the management of Men's Wearhouse, but today is different. In their Facebook page today, here's what they said:

We closed our store near Oakland City Hall today, for one day, to express the company's concern for the issue of wealth disparity in our country. The issue affects our employees and customers across the political spectrum.

Could it be that concerns for wealth disparity and the engineered unfairness of the national economy are going mainstream?

"You're gonna like our politics. I guarantee it."

In case you were wondering

2011-10-31T18:11:00.002-04:00

The gay/lesbian mafia have absolutely taken over America.

Get a load of this story from the Daily News:

Happy is the head that wears the crown.

San Diego area high school senior and self-identified lesbian Rebeca Arellano has been voted homecoming king by her fellow Patrick Henry High school peers

Fortunately, ever at the ready, the readers of the Daily News will not take this lying down, and they are responding with characteristic articulateness and perspicacity:

Homecoming qÂ·uÂ·eÂ·eÂ·r???!

Enough is enough already.

Can't wait til some of the Butches decide to want to try out for the NFL or NHL. Then we'll see how tough they really are. I pretty much believe when a woman wants to be just like a man...its a SICKNESS!!!!

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/lesbian-student-crowned-homecoming-king-article-1.969155#ixzz1cOvD8wts

This girl has to be one of the biggest idiots ever to not realize that she's the biggest joke of her school and now possibly the country.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/lesbian-student-crowned-homecoming-king-article-1.969155#ixzz1cOvObA3n

Oh, my goodness! If this can happen in a high school in San Diego, that pretty much makes a mockery of the true meaning of kings, monarchy, and the divine right of kings, doesn't it?

I can see why people would be so upset about this.

Of course, to be technical, since none of the previous contestants were of royal blood they probably weren't real kings either, were they?

The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda by Al

2011-10-29T19:21:00.002-04:00

The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda by Ali H. Soufan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who planned and carried out the bombing of the USS Cole? How about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? What about numerous other attacks, either successful or foiled?

That we know in detail not only who did these things, how they were planned and financed, and how they were carried out is due in large part to the efforts of Ali Soufan and people working with him. You may have seen him on 60 Minutes, heard him on Morning Edition, or heard him on Terry Gross, but The Black Banners is still worth reading.

For those of us who grew up in the 1960's, and came to view the FBI as the ultimate enemy of civil liberties, this book may be surprising, because it reveals that in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks it was Soufan and other FBI agents who opposed the Bush Administration's torture plots as both illegal and ineffective. Unfortunately, forces at the very top of the administration were determined to use torture even when it was shown not to lead to the discovery of actionable information. As a result, Soufan demonstrates that they delayed the discovery and apprehension of Osama bin Laden for many years and failed to discover and prevent at least one terrorist attack, on an oil tanker in the Arabian Sea.

Lies, coverups, internal deception, and disregard for constitutional and humane values: Soufan demonstrates how these were the hallmarks of the Bush Administration's conduct in the years following 2001. The stated justification for these practices was that they were the only effective way to obtain information we needed to defeat the terrorists, particularly in the so-called ticking time bomb scenario.

Of course, we know, both from Soufan and elsewhere, the opposite is true. For instance we are told that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was waterboarded 183 times, whereupon he gave up vital operational information. Soufan demonstrates that this claim is false, and that waterboarding and other forms of torture have, in fact, defeated attempts to obtain actionable information, rather than the reverse.

I strongly recommend The Black Banners. There are areas where it's tough going, frequently because of the merciless onslaught of unfamiliar names, when you don't know which names are important. There is a guide to names and persons at the end, and it would have been good to know that it was there when I started reading it. Since I was reading the Kindle version I would have appreciated links in the text to the appendix.

One other thing: if you're coming to find a debunking of the official version of the 9/11 story, look elsewhere. Fringe characters aside, the debate is over. There is no question of what happened on September 11, 2001. We know who did it, we know how they planned it, and we know it wasn't the CIA, Mossad, the Bilderberg Group, Bush, or anyone else the conspiracy nuts have claimed.

But if you're interested in reality, you should read this.

View all my reviews

Great news!

2011-10-29T10:14:00.004-04:00

Our national jobs problem is nearly solved.

True to his promise, the House of Representatives, led by John Boehner, is poised to pass legislation that is guaranteed to solve the jobs deficit plaguing the American economy.

From The Hill:House Republicans on Tuesday will try to pass a resolution reaffirming that "In God We Trust" is the national motto of the United States.

The concurrent resolution, sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), would not have the force of law, but instead is aimed at "supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools and other government institutions."

Expectations are high that in addition to creating millions of jobs, this new measure will resolve the real estate and foreclosure crisis, which will, in turn, generate trillions of dollars to balance the federal budget and eliminate the national debt.

Rick Perry, racist

2011-10-23T16:39:00.002-04:00

TPM is reporting today that Rick Perry has added a birther theme to his campaign.

In an interview in Parade magazine, here's what he said:

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?
I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.
I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?
I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

And?
That came up.

And he said?
He doesn’t think it’s real.

And you said?
I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.

Now it's very tempting to look at this interview and have it confirm your underlying opinion that Rick Perry is just a stupid guy, and this is another illustration of that opinion, but it goes way beyond that.

What we need to keep in mind is that the birthers are racists. Every single one of them.

So when Rick Perry joins up with the birthers, and garners the endorsement of Orly Taitz, he is joining up with the racists.

Do we know if he really believes anything he's saying here, or if he really has the racist position against President Obama that he is expressing?

No, but it doesn't really matter.

Inside the mind of the censor

2011-10-23T11:34:00.004-04:00

Almost four hundred years ago, John Milton published Areopagitica, a treatise in opposition to censorship of the press. Although he was not entirely in favor of unfettered expression, he argues that a regime of censorship gives power to the narrow-minded type of men who will fear and try to suppress any expression that threatens their world view.

As Vince Blasi, one of my Con Law professors puts it: The lowly wisdom of Areopagitica is considerable. Milton insists, for example, that the policy of licensing cannot be assessed without taking into account the capacities, incentives, working conditions, loyalties, and temperaments of the persons who will serve as licensers. "There cannot be," he says, "a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon [a man's] head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets, ofttimes huge volumes .. . and in a hand scarce legible, whereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest print." With such a job description, "we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary."

Our Founding Fathers rejected the rule of this type of person by permanently enshrining the freedom of the press as the paramount value of the Bill of Rights. Among other things, and subsequent case law embodies this, freedom of speech and of the press are vital to the polity because of their consequences: they enable a democratic populace to govern themselves.

What the mind of the censor, as described by Milton, fails to understand is that censorship doesn't work.

Take the book I'm reading now, The Black Banners by Ali Soufan. You've probably heard of it because of Soufan's argument and demonstration that torture doesn't work in general, and in particular was counterproductive in investigating the truth behind the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Another topic, though, is the ridiculous examples of censorship to which Soufan has been subjected. Here are a couple of examples:

Again [1 word redacted] was going with my instinct. [1 word redacted] didn’t know that they were friends, but [1 word redacted] guessed that, given Abu Zubaydah’s knowledge of KSM’s role in 9/11, they must be—and again [1 word redacted] wanted to make Abu Zubaydah think that [1 word redacted] knew all about their relationship.

And: As [1 word redacted] was drawing up an interrogation plan, at around 3:00 AM, the CIA medic tending to Abu Zubaydah came to my room. “Hey, Ali, how important is this guy?” he casually asked. He knew nothing about Abu Zubaydah and was only at the location because of his medical skills. “He’s pretty important,” [1 word redacted] replied.

There are other examples. I'm reading the book on Kindle, so the censorship is turning up as a notation of the number of words redacted. In the print version it is different: black marks covering up the words, as had previously been done with Victor Marchetti's The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, so commentators have observed that the redactions are ineffective because the reader can tell, for example, that the word redacted consists of a single letter.

In the quoted portions above, it is obvious that the redacted word is "I". For instance, what other word would make sense in "[1 word redacted] was going with my instinct"?

There are longer redacted passages, where the content isn't obvious, but it seems likely to me that in context, to someone who has read other sources, like the various investigation and government reports on the attacks, there wouldn't be much that you couldn't figure out.

Coming out of the Bush Administration's criminal activities, including torture and unprovoked war of aggression, free debate is essential. The redactions in The Black Banners demonstrate that the mind of the censor is directly and always opposed to such free debate.

Why doesn't he just make it official?

2011-10-17T07:34:00.002-04:00

The reprehensible Harold Ford once again comes down on the side of Republicans today. He has an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal about jobs, or allegedly about jobs, and he takes the opportunity to parrot the Republican myth that regulations are the obstacle to job creation.

Former U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln has argued forcefully in favor of an independent review process for proposed regulations. If the costs outweigh the benefits, they shoulhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd be eliminated. In the meantime, a moratorium on new regulations that don't immediately protect public safety is a reasonable step that could be taken until our economy gets back on its feet.

I don't know why Ford doesn't just make it official and stop pretending to be a Democrat.

Where are the jobs, Boehner?

2011-10-14T08:14:00.002-04:00

When he became Speaker of the House, John Boehner promised that his focus would be on creating jobs, no matter what.

Yesterday we saw another illustration of his commitment to that jobs focus.

Under the Protect Life Act, which passed the House 251 to 172 Thursday night, no health insurance policy that offers abortion coverage could be purchased with federal money made available through the new health care law. Current federal law prohibits plans in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program from covering abortion. The new bill would apply the same rule to plans in the newly created health exchanges, which are subsidized with federal government tax credits.

The legislation has almost no chance of being brought to the Senate floor, and President Obama is certain to veto it should it ever pass both chambers. The House has brought a few bills aimed at limiting abortion access to the floor since Republicans took control in January.

That's right, when faced with the choice between taking some action that would actually help people, or once again grabbing the opportunity to show how much the Republicans want to make women suffer for the crime of having sex, he again came down on the anti-woman side of the fence.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Where are the jobs, Boehner?

Government benefits

2011-10-12T21:18:00.003-04:00

At a discussion board I go to, City-Data.com, a conservative posted the following query:

Liberals, have you ever been helped by Gov't?
This question is for all those who consider themselves liberals who support Big Government: Have you ever received government assistance? Which programs?

My spouse and I have been poor most of our lives, but not ONCE have either of us ever qualified for a single government assistance program. We didn't have kids, we ALWAYS took whatever job was available (even the military, when we graduated in the middle of yet another major Recession), and even today we live like paupers--except for the house, which we wrongly thought was better than losing savings to no-interest and currency devaluation.

We also cannot save nearly enough for our retirement because our tax burden is insanely high. Two professional jobs, in the peak income years--aka Cash Cow for Government. After taxes and cost of living, we just about break even. When our health prevents continuing these 80-hour workweeks, we're up the creek without a paddle. And guaranteed, the governments that have been bleeding us dry will then say we're on our own.

Knowing the finances of Social Security and Medicare, and as part of the generation that is denied Social Security until age 67, I have no doubts that neither I nor my spouse will ever get a penny back from that program either.

I probably would be more supportive of the idea of Government stepping in and providing a "safety net," if I didn't know that there is NO safety net for responsible people like me.

There are a lot of responses to it. Here's mine:

I won't go all the way back to the day of my birth, but just a few highlights of government benefits that have helped me include:

I went to Catholic grammar school and high school, but my grammar school was located on a road paid for and maintained by the government. When I went to high school I traveled into New York City every day over government-built roads, crossed the Hudson River by means of the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel, both of which were built by the government, and then took public transit to get to my school. I regularly spent time in the government-operated Central Park while at school, and during the indoor track season I would have practice and meets at the 103rd Engineers Battalion Armory, now known as the Armory Track Center. Sometimes during the outdoor track season I would run in meets at Randalls Island, a stadium built with public funds; to get there I would travel across the Triborough Bridge.

I went to a public college and a public law school. Both universities were funded in large part by tax dollars, and my law school student loan was subsidized by the federal government. On occasion, while I was away at school, I traveled by airplane back and forth to my parents' house. Those airplanes would land at publicly built and financed airports, and they were enabled to land safely by the publicly operated air traffic control system. While in law school I lived in married student housing, which was also built and operated in part by the use of public funds. I also worked at Little Caesar's Pizza both as an undergraduate and a law student; the stores depended on public roads to get supplies and ingredients and to make deliveries, and the owners were able to deduct my pay from their taxes.

I have worked in employment that is in part funded by public funds. I have raised two sons, both of whom went to public schools and public universities, although one son graduated from a private college. When I want to communicate with them I might send them an e-mail or visit them on Facebook, made possible by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, or I might telephone them over wires put in place by operation of eminent domain.

I have owned three houses, one of which I still own. I am able to afford it in part because I can deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes that I pay. I can get to and from my house and to work on roads funded by the government. I don't worry about crime or fires because I am able to rely on my publicly funded police and fire departments. I also know that I can accumulate savings because the federally financed Securities and Exchange Commission is able to maintain a reliable, market for private and public securities.

When my parents were sick and dying I never had to worry about whether we could afford their care because they had medical coverage supported in part by the Veterans Administration and Medicare. They were able to receive treatment from professionals whose training was subsidized by the federal government, and who were licensed and regulated by their state government. That's how other members of my family and I get medical care, too.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop at saying that anyone who doubts that the receive benefits from the government is a fool.

I do know one other thing: if I were in the top 1% instead of in the bottom 99%, the list of benefits I get from government would be a lot longer, and the value and price of those benefits would be a lot higher.

You owe it to yourself

2011-10-10T10:46:00.003-04:00

UPDATE: Nothing happened!

Okay, just getting back to this.
Not only did nothing happen, but if you go to the site you will see that nobody on the site--not one person--has come back to the site to discuss or evaluate the dire predictions they made.
I guess they haven't internalized the whole process of testing your hypothesis.

To take a look at this site. It's called Prophecies Psychic Prediction Registry, and the name tells you the whole story.

If you're some kind of crackpot and you think you can predict the future, you can log on to the Psychic Prediction Registry and go on the record with your harebrained prediction.

Because after all,

Everyone may be psychic to some degree and we occasionally have a dream or premonition of future events. Prophecies is here to provide a public repository where anyone can submit predictions of the future to be shared, recorded and validated.

Or, if you're curious, you can look up any date in the future and see what's going to happen.

For instance, let's see what's going to happen tomorrow.

A few nights ago while lying in bed, I began to see a vision as I closed my eyes. I was not asleep yet...so it was not a dream. I seen it was a bright sunny day as the sky was blue and there was not a cloud in the sky. I was standing on a hill or elevated area which seemed to be out in a desert area (I guess like Arizona or Nevada?). I live in North Carolina so I know it was not in this area... Anyways, as I was gazing out over this hill into the horizon I began to see these very large mushroom clouds billowing into the sky which were probibly about 3-5 miles away from where I was standing on that hill. There were at least 6 of these huge clouds in the distance as if someone had dropped nuclear missles in a line? Anyways, I stopped myself from seeing anymore of this vision as I opened my eyes. The next morning as I awoke from a dream I had during the night I replayed over and over in my head a specific date. I am not sure if this date matches with what I had seen in the vision the night before. But the only thing I remembered from that dream was this date= 10-11-2011. Does anyone else get anything on that date or have some insight to this vision? Thanks

That's from Jen, and a few other psychic predictors have some possible interpretations:

Maybe a vision in reference to future events in the Middle-East?

Or:

my first thought was that you were sensing that an earthquake in the desert southwest or nevada (nuclear testing grounds) would be precursors to an earthquake in North Carolina or the surrounding region.

Or:

I had a dream about this date also back in september. In my dream a small nuclear weapon was detonated in NYC, I had a specific location but I don't want to say it for fear that this post might become misconstrued as a threat. Basically in my dream I was in nyc and a nuke went taking out a good chunk of the city and of course damaging the rest. In my dream the devil or a demon talked to me and told me this is only the start, and told me to remember today october 11 2011. Following this I viewed a calendar clearly showing oct 11 2011. Later I made it to my town, and someone said I can't believe this no one will forget oct 11 2011. At the end of the dream I was on a bus filled with first responders going towards the city to help and the man sitting next to me turned to me and said don't forget october 11 2011 and I woke up. It was the most vivid dream I have ever had, and it has been haunting me ever since.

Or:

I analyzed the date given in your dream and have found it to be very calm. Hopefully this could mean an intervention or prevention of what you saw may come on that date. I normally forecast natural disasters based on analyzing the dates they may occur on based in Chinese Astrology and numerology. October 11, 2011 ranks as one of the best dates possible, disaster-free.

So there you have it: a nuclear detonation in the Southwest or North Carolina, or possibly something in the Middle East, or possibly a nuclear attack in New York City, or possibly a day that is completely disaster-free.

I can hardly wait to find out. Let's set our calendars to watch this day together, okay?

A question for Christians

2011-09-29T00:38:00.003-04:00

Adrian Gonzalez, being interviewed after the Red Sox lost tonight to end their season, just said that he believes that God has a plan for us and it wasn't in God's plan for the Red Sox to be in the playoffs.

So what do you think? Does God care who makes it to the World Series, or at least the playoffs?

Why would he?

Fated to be the white man's salvation

2011-09-26T21:47:00.004-04:00

Once again, Pat Boone has shown himself to be at the cutting edge of the culture.

It could be that you know him best for this, when he demonstrated that rock 'n' roll maybe isn't quite as universal as you thought:

Or you might remember his heavy metal days:

So what can he do to top himself?

You had to ask, right?

Former singing star and now Republican activist Pat Boone has repeated his assertions that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore illegible to be in the White House.

In an appearance at a Republican convention in Los Angeles, Boone, a member of the Beverly Hills Tea Party, told reporters: “I was in Kenya a year and a half ago and everybody said, ‘You know, he [Obama] was born here.”

He added: “Why else would he be hiding all his records? He is spending millions of dollars so we do not have his records. And experts have already looked at and been able to verify that this long form document is a fraud. But the media ignores it; a total fraud. A photoshopped fraud.”

I'll leave it up to you which of these makes him a bigger clown.

Texas abolishes "last meals"

2011-09-24T10:02:00.003-04:00

Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made Thursday after a prominent state senator became miffed over an expansive request from a man condemned for a notorious dragging death.

"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege," Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Don't you think it would be nice if they would make an exception when they're going to execute somebody who actually didn't do it?

In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez’s approach seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” What’s more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, “not only the standards of today but even of the time period.” The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.”

Just before Willingham received the lethal injection, he was asked if he had any last words. He said, “The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I did not do. From God’s dust I came and to dust I will return, so the Earth shall become my throne.”

A question for you

2011-09-22T07:34:00.002-04:00

Here's a question you can only answer for yourself.

Two men died yesterday, both before their natural allotment of years.

Troy Davis was 42 at the time of his death. There is very little question about the facts: he was almost certainly innocent of the crime for which he was executed. Nevertheless, the mechanism of the state executed him, celebrating, in the immortal words of that thug Antonin Scalia, that "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually" innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged "actual innocence" is constitutionally cognizable."

The other premature death yesterday was Lawrence Russell Brewer. 44 years old, he was in prison since 1999. There is also no doubt about the facts of his case. He was one of two white supremacists who chained and dragged James Byrd to his death in Texas in 1998. It was a crime that horrified everybody I know.

Did you have the same reaction of revulsion and horror at Brewer's execution as at Davis's?

I sure didn't.

TPM crashed by cyber terrorists

2011-09-09T22:45:00.004-04:00

UPDATE: TPM is back up and running. they have the full story on their site, and no further direct evidence of the involvement of "Anonymous" at this point, but the story is still developing.

This evening Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo posted a note on TPM's Facebook page describing a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) that caused the site to crash at about 5:00 this afternoon.

There has been no claim of responsibility, but the attack comes on the heels of TPM's publication of fourteen mugshots of members of Anonymous, the "hacktivist" group that has been linked to related attacks on media and other outlets for taking action against Wikileaks.

This attack on freedom of the press is a serious threat, and demonstrates an ugly totalitarian streak in an organization that has allegedly taken a position in favor of public dissent.

Anyone who has been supportive or sympathetic of Anonymous to this point should reconsider supporting an organization that appears to be attempting to crush, rather than support, dissent.

Cruel and Unusual?

2011-09-05T10:03:00.002-04:00

Or just business as usual for Arizona?

Having worked with clients in prison, I would have thought that maintaining family ties would be a good thing, and keeping prisoners incommunicado a bad thing.

Apparently Arizona is making a different choice.

For the Arizona Department of Corrections, crime has finally started to pay.

New legislation allows the department to impose a $25 fee on adults who wish to visit inmates at any of the 15 prison complexes that house state prisoners. The one-time “background check fee” for visitors, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, has angered prisoner advocacy groups and family members of inmates, who in many cases already shoulder the expense of traveling long distances to the remote areas where many prisons are located.

Are we sure they haven't elected Sheriff Joe governor yet?

Which of these stories is from The Onion?

2011-08-30T20:27:00.003-04:00

Tea Party Congressman Calls For Tax Breaks To Put Out Raging Wildfire In District
WASHINGTON—With a massive wildfire currently raging out of control in his district, Tea Party Caucus member Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) pressed Congress to pass immediate tax breaks Tuesday to combat the rapidly spreading blaze.

Or this:

House Republican Bill Cuts Hurricane Monitoring Funds That Help Save Millions Of Dollars
In the wake of Hurricane Irene, which caused billions of dollars in damages up and down the U.S.’s eastern seaboard, House Republicans are callously claiming that any aid to victims of the disaster needs to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. The savings favored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) would come from cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and first responders.

Pretty hard to tell, isn't it?

They're still fighting in Wisconsin

2011-08-30T07:22:00.000-04:00

The recall elections in Wisconsin are done but the fight's not over.

The first Monday of September is Labor Day, and every year in Wausau the unions sponsor a parade.

Guess who's not invited this year.

Community parades often feature local politicians waving to the crowds, but this year's annual Labor Day parade in Wausau may be short a few elected officials.

That's because the head of the group that sponsors the Wausau Labor Day Parade, the Marathon County Central Labor Council, is telling Republican lawmakers from the area that they're not welcome Sept. 5.

"Usually they've been in the parade, but it seems like they only want to stand with us one day a year, and the other 364 days they don't really care," said Randy Radtke, president of the council.

At least one Republican got his widdle feewings hurt:

"Having walked in this parade in past years," the statement read, "Congressman Duffy was hoping that for a moment, we could set our differences aside and simply have some fun in a family-friendly event."

Guess what, Duffy: show that you support labor and maybe you get to march in their parade. How does that sound?

So conservatives are the ones who care about America?

2011-08-28T14:51:00.003-04:00

Then what do you say about this?

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck told listeners Friday that Hurricane Irene, the Category 1 storm that’s working its deadly way up the Eastern Seaboard, is “a blessing from God.”

And we now have another Christian Republican, Michelle Bachman, and what she had to say about the hurricane.

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

They may not care, but even though the storm was weaker than predicted, it killed 37 people across the country, including at least three in Vermont.

The Republicans can feel free to cheer for natural disasters and the damage they cause, but those of us who live in the real world wind up having to deal with the consequences.

Injustice x 2

2011-08-16T22:20:00.006-04:00

It's tempting to call the stage collapse in Indiana this week a tragedy. It was certainly a tragic loss for the families of the dead and injured, that much is true. On the other hand, it appears that the organizers of the show should have known enough to evacuate the area, and especially to get the light operators down from the structure, before there was any loss of life. They had plenty of advance warning, and a nearby outdoor concert was evacuated in time based on the same information.

Whether the stage collapse was due to a fluke, unpredictable gust of wind known as a gustnado, and whether the force could have been anticipated, will undoubtedly be investigated in the coming weeks and months.

A different human tragedy, though, is entirely manmade, and could be easily remedied.

One of the concertgoers killed in the collapse was Christina Santiago, who had become known in the Chicago community as a dedicated advocate for gay women’s health care. Santiago, 29, was a program manager at the Howard Brown Health Center, which provides health and services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

It was reported on Facebook and Dailykos yesterday that the local coroner's office was refusing to release the body to Santiago's legally married spouse, Alisha Brennan, because of Indiana's discriminatory marriage laws. This appears to be incorrect. In fact, the groups concerned with Santiago, Brennan, and their family are reportedly working with the coroner's office to obtain release of the body.

Alfarena Ballew from the Marion County Coroner's office called to offer this statement, "Her friend and her aunt are working together with the life partner to take care of the remains. We have nothing in writing from the partner asking to claim the body. Our records show that the next of kin is her aunt. Our understanding now is that they're all working together to release the body and take care of the services." Ms. Ballew described the incident as a "misunderstanding" and says the office is on track to release the body shortly.

Still, the bolded language above deserves special attention. Even in the face of a legal marriage, this government agency has determined that Santiago's aunt is her next of kin. Would this be tolerated, or even suggested, if this were a married heterosexual couple?

To even ask the question is to answer it. It's encouraging that this situation appears to be on its way to a resolution, and the coroner's office appears to be handling it with sensitivity. Nevertheless, can someone explain to me how the public interest or family values are served by refusing to recognize this marriage?

Note: all the technical information about the storm and outdoor stage construction posted or referred to here comes from John Huntington, a colleague of my son at City Technical College in Brooklyn.

Fiscal Responsibility, Tea Party style

2011-08-11T22:38:00.000-04:00

Any Tea Party supporters around here might be interested in hearing how your elected representatives interpret the concepts of personal responsibility and fiscal responsibility.

For instance, here's a Tea Party member of Congress from Georgia who just got sued for not paying back a loan worth more than two million dollars. His excuse? "They knew I couldn't pay it back, so it's the bank's fault!"

CALHOUN -- While U.S. Rep. Tom Graves was calling for fiscal responsibility in Washington his attorney was arguing in a lawsuit that a North Georgia bank is at fault for issuing Graves a $2.2 million loan the bank knew he could not repay.

Put this guy together with the Tea Party Republican and deadbeat dad Joe Walsh and you get a picture of people who are in no position to be pointing fingers at the government or anyone else.

With guys like this in Congress I guess it's no surprise the Tea Party doesn't think the government should pay its bills.

Who's the victim here?

2011-07-26T21:38:00.002-04:00

The classic definition of chutzpah is of a defendant who murders his parents and then asks the judge to have mercy on him because he's an orphan.

We have a new contender.

According to today's Times:

ROME — The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland on Monday, citing reaction to a recent Irish government report that said the Vatican had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sexual abuse to the police.

If you're wondering, the report of the Irish government, over 400 pages, is very strong in its condemnation of the church's responsibility for the rape of children all around Ireland by Catholic priests.

Last week, the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, denounced “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and the narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day,” in a speech that represented the government’s sharpest-ever direct attack on the Roman Catholic leadership.

The prime minister told Parliament last week, “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation.’ ” Mr. Kenny added that the Vatican had not listened “to evidence of humiliation and betrayal” with compassion, but had instead chosen “to parse and analyze it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.” The Irish Parliament also passed a motion denouncing the Vatican’s role in “undermining child-protection frameworks.”

Any decent human being, or any organization with the slightest regard for human rights and human dignity, would be so humbled the the only possible response would be abject apology, or, in the case of the organization, to dedicate all its resources to compensate the victims and help them to heal.

Of course, the Catholic church, having no regard for human rights and human dignity, takes the opposite approach, recalling its ambassador in affront over the Taoiseach's comments, noting that, "the decision “does not exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions.”

Yes, believe it or not, in this situation, the injured party is not the rape victims, or the government officials who stand up for them, but the criminals who were at the receiving end of "certain excessive reactions".

Chutzpah, anybody?

Thank you, John Boehner!

2011-07-23T08:11:00.005-04:00

It was just Thursday night and yesterday morning that I was resigned to another sellout by President Obama.

Once again, although negotiating from a position of strength, Obama was just about to sign onto a deal to give the Republicans what they wanted while holding out for what, exactly? Pretty much nothing. The terms of the deal were vague, but they clearly included slashing Social Security and other expenditures in exchange for some vague promise to raise revenues in the future. Like in the middle of campaign season next year, right when the R's were going to need to prove to their base that they held firm on no tax increases, ever.

Senior House GOP aides they had reached a tentative agreement on cuts of $300 billion to Medicare over 10 years and reductions of between .25 percent and .50 percent in program spending over the next 10 years. These savings were to be achieved by raising the eligibility age, increasing premiums and co-payments and other measures.

There was also an understanding the White House would accept up to $125 billion in 10-years savings on Medicaid and the children’s health insurance program. Those agreements, GOP aides said, did not shift and represented what they hoped would be the foundation of significant entitlement reform.

And remember, there was no reason for Obama to agree to this. The polls show us that Obama was winning this issue with the American people: they realized that the Republicans were to blame for the crisis, so Obama should have had the upper hand.

And still he wanted to cave.

But then John Boehner rides to the rescue. With his "fuck you" letter to Obama, Boehner rescued Obama from himself.

Because nothing is enough for the Republicans.

So instead of cursing yet another capitulation by the Democrat we worked to elect, we are cursing the Republicans, and thanking them for their loyalty to their wealthy patrons above all else.

Haboobs, or just plain boobs?

2011-07-21T22:04:00.002-04:00

Here's the latest from the Arizona booboisie.

PHOENIX — The massive dust storms that swept through central Arizona this month have stirred up not just clouds of sand but a debate over what to call them.

The blinding waves of brown particles, the most recent of which hit Phoenix on Monday, are caused by thunderstorms that emit gusts of wind, roiling the desert landscape. Use of the term “haboob,” which is what such storms have long been called in the Middle East, has rubbed some Arizona residents the wrong way.

Apparently there's something wrong with using a word for a sandstorm that comes from a part of the world where sandstorms are common. After all, "haboob" comes from the land of the A-rabs, or "Camel Meskins" as they're known in Arizona.

My question is this: I have no doubt that the people complaining about this will have no problem avoiding such Arabic invaders as algebra or algorithms, but whatever will they do without alcohol?

Prosecutorial Misconduct in Casey Anthony trial

2011-07-19T07:56:00.004-04:00

I didn't watch the coverage of the Casey Anthony trial. At all. I just wasn't interested, so I really have no opinion about whether the jury did the right thing, or whether she actually killed her baby, or anything like that.

What I am interested in, though, is prosecutorial misconduct. In a criminal trial the cards are already stacked against the defendant, with all the investigatory and prosecutorial resources of the state lined up to throw one person in jail.

What we have learned now, though, is that the prosecution's tactics went beyond its permissible advantage against the defendant and withheld potentially crucial evidence it had.

The murder case against the defendant was based in part on a finding that she had done on-line searches for chloroform, and that demonstrated her intent to kill her baby and her knowledge of the means of doing it.

Only it turns out that the computer analysis was wrong. The expert who did the analysis realized that he had made a mistake, and that when he thought he had identified 84 times that the defendant had searched for "choloroform", it turned out that it was only one time. He did the responsible thing. He redid his analysis, presented it in spreadsheet form to the prosecution, and even offered to fly down at his own expense to explain his error to the jury.

Concerned that the analysis using CacheBack could be wrong and that a woman’s life might be at stake, Mr. Bradley went back to the drawing board and redesigned a portion of his software to get a more accurate picture.

He found both reports were inaccurate (although NetAnalysis came up with the correct result), in part because it appears both types of software had failed to fully decode the entire file, due to its complexity. His more thorough analysis showed that the Web site sci-spot.com was visited only once — not 84 times.

Mr. Bradley, fearing that jurors were being given false information based on his data, contacted the police and the prosecution the weekend of June 25. He asked Sergeant Stenger about the discrepancy, and the sergeant said he was aware of it, Mr. Bradley said. He waited to see if prosecutors would correct the record. They did not.

If you're a regular viewer of any of the myriad of Law and Order shows on TV you know about the Brady rule. Based on the Supreme Court decision of Brady v. Maryland, it requires prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. Among other things, evidence that evidence being presented against the defendant may not be credible is specifically covered by case law applying the Supreme Court’s Brady decision.

This body of law was addressed by the Supreme Court this spring, when they allowed a conspiracy by New Orleans prosecutors to conceal evidence to go unpunished.

So now we have a well-established example of the prosecution sitting on substantial exculpatory evidence in a high-profile case.

What's the response from the prosecution?

The State Attorney’s Office in Orlando did not return messages seeking comment.

Capt. Angelo Nieves, media relations commander for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, said Mr. Bradley had a vested interest in coming forward since his software was used in the investigation.

“We’re not going to relive the trial again,” Captain Nieves said. “We are not prepared to do that nor are we going to participate in that.”

I hope there is followup to see that justice is done.

Murdoch, Journalism, and the Wall Street Journal

2011-07-16T08:55:00.004-04:00

It's obvious by now that not only does Rupert Murdoch have no affirmative interest in journalism, he's actually opposed to it, right?

Almost two years ago, shortly after Murdoch bought it, I published a diary pointing out how Murdoch's ownership had corrupted the news side of the Journal, bringing a newspaper formerly acclaimed for the quality of its reporting down to the status of a house organ.

Yesterday Joe Nocera has a column in the Times making the same point.

In her book, “War at The Wall Street Journal,” Sarah Ellison recounts how editors inserted the phrase “assault on business” in an article about corporate taxes under President Obama. The Journal was turned into a propaganda vehicle for its owner’s conservative views. That’s half the definition of Fox-ification.

One of the reasons we in the blogosphere do what we do is dissatisfaction with the mainstream sources of information. Even for someone who, like me, has never been a reader of the Wall Street Journal, the debasement of any publication of genuine quality is very bad news.

Finally!

2011-07-13T21:53:00.003-04:00

Those of us who have been wanting to see Obama show some fight have to be happy tonight.

I wish I'd blogged this at the time, but it really is true that when I heard about the deal Obama cut with McConnell to extend the Bush tax cuts last year the first thing I thought to myself was, "I hope he got an increase in the debt ceiling as part of the deal."

Well, as we now know, he didn't, and we are now being held hostage by Republican terrorists.

But if the press reports are accurate, today's the day Obama decided to stop negotiating with terrorists.

Here's what he reportedly said at today's meeting with Cantor, McConnell, and the other Republicans:

"I have reached the point where I say enough," Obama told the leaders, according to the account. "Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this."

He's right. Enough is enough.

It will be very interesting to see what happens at their meeting tomorrow.

Good news in Wisconsin

2011-07-12T23:15:00.002-04:00

The first round of the Wisconsin recall elections was held today, and there's good news.

You probably recall that the Wisconsin Republican Party organized a bunch of fake
democrats to run in the primary leading up to the recall election. It was estimated that running the fake Democrats, which the Republicans didn't even bother to pretend that they weren't behind it, were going to cost the state more than $400,000.

That's right--the party that was supposedly trying to save the state money by screwing state employees out of their pensions and collective bargaining rights--is making the state throw money away.

The result, possibly inevitable, came out today. All six fake Democrats were defeated, leaving the real Democrats to move forward to the general election on August 9.

One step closer to replacing those union-busting scumbags.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

2011-06-29T22:54:00.000-04:00

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

After I finished reading The Finkler Question I felt moved to go back to Mark Twain's essay on Fenimore Cooper's literary offenses, because I am convinced that Jacobson is guilty of some of the same offenses. Specifically, he should have taken the time to make his main characters at least slightly believable as human beings, but that apparently would have been too much trouble.

The Finkler Question is meant to be an examination of Jewish identity, as depicted through the actions of a self-hating gentile who by means of a series of incredible events becomes convinced he is actually Jewish. Jacobson asks us to believe in a book with an utterly unbelievable main character. Julian Treslove, the protagonist, is a 49-year-old former BBC employee who makes his living masquerading as celebrities at parties. We learn that his looks are so generic that he can easily pass for Brad Pitt or Colin Firth, or be mistaken for Dustin Hoffman or Adam Sandler. You can believe me when I tell you that there is nobody who could be mistaken for all four of those men, no matter how generic his appearance.

He is also a university graduate whose two best friends are Jews, but has no idea of what goes on at a seder, or even what a seder is. And for some reason, because Finkler is the first Jew he ever met, he internally refers to Jews as “Finklers”.

He has two sons by two different women who dumped him, yet we are expected to believe that both women were moved to name their sons after characters in the operas he was listening to when he lived with them.

There are other characters who are more believable, but having to slog through the life of a character you neither believe in nor care about is a serious drawback.

So is trying to slog through a book that is supposed to be riotously funny and not finding the jokes. Or, to be more accurate, recognizing what are supposed to be jokes but for the glaring problem that they aren't funny.

So the plot, character, and humor in the novel are utterly lacking, what about the politics? If Jacobson is seeking to present a novel of ideas he falls short, because he takes pains to make sure that one of the sides of the debate has nothing going for it. The political debate is about Israel and the Palestinians, naturally, but Jacobson has his thumb on the scale. The supporters of the Palestinians are buffoons, from Finkler’s ASHamed Jews group (Why capitalize the ASH? No explanation is offered) to the frankly anti-Semitic, whereas the pro-Israel side is represented by the family of a young Jewish man who is stabbed and blinded by a Palestinian terrorist. Yeah, real subtle.

Ultimately all the major plot lines get resolved, and some of them are even believable, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say satisfying. Overall, though, this is another one of those Booker Prize winning books that leaves you wondering, “Really? For this?”

View all my reviews

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

2011-06-29T07:58:00.000-04:00

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Did I "like" Uncle Tom's Cabin? That's pretty much beside the point.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a historic, important work, one which was famously credited by Abraham Lincoln for the start of the Civil War.

There is no question that Uncle Tom's Cabin meets Stowe's goal of making the horrors of slavery vivid and concrete. She presents all the evils of slavery and the participants in the slave economy, from the beatings and other tortures visited on the slaves, to the anxiety of the slave at the prospect of a new owner, to the almost unimaginable pain of family separation; she also presents a range of owners, from the seemingly benevolent but cynical and negligent St. Clare, to the vicious Simon Legree. (Unlike Uncle Tom, Simon Legree truly earns the evil reputation popular lore has attached to the name.) She also presents the courage and dedication of Northern allies who assist escaping slaves without sparing sanctimonious and frankly racist northerners, and she presents some believable and memorable characters, sometimes even in minor roles.

The shortcomings? An overly sentimental religiosity, the frankly incredible purity and redemptive death of Little Eva, and a creaking writing style that many readers will have difficulty enduring.

If it is her best-known work, Uncle Tom's Cabin is not the only anti-slavery book by Harriet Beecher Stowe, including A Companion to Uncle Tom's Cabin, which sets forth documented cases supporting her portrayal of slavery. Probably one is enough, but as a powerful and influential element of American history, Uncle Tom's Cabin merits a read.

View all my reviews

A tale of two bishops

2011-06-19T09:15:00.003-04:00

How an organization treats is employees can be instructive as to that organization's core values.

Especially if that organization is the Catholic Church.

That thought is occasioned by the treatment of the bishop of a place called Toowoomba in Australia. You've probably never heard of the place, or the bishop, but the story is worth knowing about. That's because this particular bishop, William Morris, has recently been fired.

People get fired all the time, although not usually bishops. It's not unheard of for someone to be hired for a job, turns out not to be very good at it, so they get rid of him. No big deal, right?

In this case, though, the bishop got fired for a thought crime, the crime of entertaining the idea that the church might be well served if it considered the idea of women or married priests.

UPDATE: Last night the Vatican confirmed the resignation of Catholic Bishop William Morris and released him from the governance of the Diocese of Toowoomba in an official statement from Pope Benedict XVI.

“Catholics stand with the Pope as the successor of Peter and his role is to strengthen his brothers and to defend the apostolic tradition, and it’s now Catholic teaching that women cannot be ordained priests. That’s not an optional belief; it’s now part of the Catholic package,” said Cardinal Pell.

So that's pretty clear: the church has said that it will not tolerate disagreement when it comes to its core principles and values. It doesn't care what people think, to be in the club you need to think whatever they tell you to think.

It's a private organization, they have the right to set their own membership standards.

But who doesn't get fired?

How about serial justice obstructer and aider and abettor of child molesters Bernard Law?

Also a bishop who climbed the greased pole to cardinal, but when things got too hot for him not only did they not fire him, they arranged a sinecure for him in Rome. A guy who by rights should be spending the rest of his days in a dank prison, wondering when the next assault would meet him, instead gets to live in luxury in a palace, apparently with the high regard of the congregation.

Well, given that his current boss told bishops that they'd better STFU about what they knew of child rape or risk being kicked out, I guess it isn't surprising.

Is this a fight, or are we just playing?

2011-06-09T23:49:00.003-04:00

Okay, let's see a show of hands. Who takes politics seriously?

Really. Who thinks that the decisions made in Congress, and the balance of power in the Congress, are important?

Apparently not the Congressional Democrats, and you know how we can tell? Just look at what they're doing to Anthony Weiner.

Sure, he's got himself in a bit of trouble by his ridiculous and outrageous behavior, but the question is what should he, and what should the Congress, do about it?

The answer is clear: he should refuse to resign, stay in office, and keep fighting.

Matt Yglesias pointed out almost a month ago, before the Weiner story broke (I know, how do you ignore the punning potential?), that the way to win these sex scandals is to refuse to resign. If you don't resign, barring some significant illegality, you have a good chance of surviving. If you do resign, obviously, you're all done.

Look at admitted criminal David Vitter. When he was caught up in a prostitution ring he admitted that he had patronized prostitutes. He didn't admit what later came out, which was that apparently his kink had to do with prostitutes forcing him to wear diapers.

Where is he sitting now? In the United States Senate.

Did you hear any of his Republican colleagues calling on him to reisgn? Of course not, because they know that they'd rather have a criminal who consorts with prostitutes in their caucus than risk the chance of losing his seat to a Democrat.

In Weiner's case, while his activities may have been distasteful, creepy, or somewhat irresponsible, he did nothing against the law. His sexting interlocutors were adults, and apparently consenting. What's more, his constituents, who you would think have a legitimate interest in who represents them, want him to stay.

Elections have consequences, what is going on in Congress is a fight for the future of the country, and Anthony is an effective fighter for progressive causes. We can't afford to lose him.

Why isn't this obvious to Congressional Democrats?

Evan Bayh still sucks

2011-06-07T18:11:00.004-04:00

Here at Rational Resistance we've had problems with Evan Bayh for years, titling our first post on the subject "Evan Bayh sucks".

In case you're wondering, it's still true.

Yes, he's now part of a new "Dream Team" you might say at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, working with George Bush's boy Andy Card. As Ari Berman reports at The Notion, the group blog of The Nation,

Now he’s just a hired gun for big business. In a delicious bit of irony, Bayh will spend the summer denouncing the very financial reform legislation he voted for while in the Senate. Whatever principles he ever had are now long gone.

His mantra? Bipartisanship, or in other words, use a fake Democrat to get Democrats to start acting like Republicans.

So yup, in case you're wondering, Evan Bayh still sucks.

Democracy in Wisconsin, again

2011-06-07T07:43:00.004-04:00

Just a reminder of the commitment to democracy demonstrated by the Republican regime in Madison.

First off, if you're hoping to cover the political scene in Wisconsin by making a documentary film about the goings-on there, maybe you should think twice. Burlington filmmaker Sam Mayfield was arrested for doing just that at the Wisconsin capitol yesterday. In addition to Green Mountain Daily it's also being covered on Democracy Now.

Second, why would Republicans in Wisconsin work to get Republicans to run in Democratic primaries?

Pretty simple, actually. Right now six Republican state senators are facing recall elections this year, due to their undemocratic practices in this year's budget/union-busting fiasco. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that, fearing a strong Democratic campaign, the Republican Party is running fake Democrats in the primary, with the idea that if they get on the ballot they will squeeze out any real Democratic candidate.

When it comes to running fake Democratic candidates in this summer's recall contests, top state Republicans have one thought:

The more, the merrier.

Sources tell No Quarter that state Republican Party officials are aiming to line up spoiler Democrats - loyal Republicans who run as Democrats with no intention of winning - in all six recall elections for incumbent Republican senators.

Finally, a court in Wisconsin has granted a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of Scott Walker's illegally passed union-busting bill.

In what is seen as a win for public labor Unions, Governor Scott Walker’s controversial Anti-Collective Bargaining law was struck down.

Thursday Morning, Dane County Judge MaryAnn Sumi issued a permanent injunction against the bill, effectively killing it until the Supreme Court is able to act. Sumi’s 33 page decision said there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Republicans who control the Legislature violated the state’s open meetings laws. This referred to GOP actions at March 9th committee meeting where the measure was passed without providing proper notice to the public. Also at that time, the Capitol building was locked down tightly keeping many members of the public away.

“This case is the exemplar of values protected by the Open Meetings Law: transparency in government, the right of citizens to participate in their government, and respect for the rule of law,” Sumi wrote. “It is not the court’s business to determine whether 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 is good public policy or bad public policy; that is the business of the Legislature. It is this court’s responsibility, however, to apply the rule of law to the facts before it.”

That's the good news: At least one branch of government in Wisconsin still believes in the rule of law.

Answering one question

2011-05-25T21:58:00.002-04:00

There was a great story on NPR tonight about research being conducted to ascertain the shape of the electron.

Round, right? I bet you were going to bet that it's round.

Well, we'll leave that question for a minute while I talk about something else.

When you hear theists talk about evolution, or pretty much any kind of science, one of the things they always get into is their claim that scientists claim to know everything. "They're just so sure of themselves. They think they know everything."

Of course, the exact opposite is true. It's the theists who think they know everything because their god told them, and now they never have to think about anything ever again. All that thinking's been done for them.

So this story describes the entire set of experiments, going on over twelve years, with 25 million repetitions, and they were able to get the measurements to the level of precision that if the electron were magnified up to the size of the solar system they would have the measurement within the thickness of a human hair.

Pretty damn precise, wouldn't you say?

And what does the "arrogant" scientist say about his results?

“As best we can tell, you know, to our experimental precision, the electron seems to be round.”

Go over that one again:

“As best we can tell, you know, to our experimental precision, the electron seems to be round.”

That's the difference between science and religion right there. Science will not go beyond the evidence.

So the next time you hear one of these religious nuts droning on about how scientists claim to know everything, remember the shape of the electron.

Is it possible they were wrong?

2011-05-22T07:57:00.003-04:00

Can you believe it's not over?

2011-05-17T18:43:00.004-04:00

Here we go again.

(425) 643.1131; FAX (240) 384-7297For response to this letter:diehold@comcast.net
May 10, 2011
News Release
Re: Legal proof that President Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth is a forgery.Dear Sir/Madam,I have irrefutably proven that the Certificate of Live Birth that President Obama presented to theworld on April 27, 2011 is a fraudulently created document put together using the Adobe Photoshopor Illustrator programs and the creation of this forgery of a public document constitutes a class Bfelony in Hawaii and multiple violations under U.S. Code section Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47,Sec.1028, and therefore an impeachable offense. When this comes to the public’s attention, it will be the greatest scandal in the country’s history—nothing comes even close. This will surpass the all previous scandals including the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration.

So in case you're wondering, no, this is never going to end. After all, he'll never be able to produce a birth certificate that says he's white.

Major opportunity for Obama

2011-05-13T20:30:00.001-04:00

The successful raid on Osama bin Laden has handed President Obama a major opportunity to advance his foreign and domestic policy goals, please his liberal base, and make a major dent in the budget deficit.

The only question is whether he will have the political wisdom to build on this latest success.

Talking Points Memo reports this week that our congressman, Peter Welch, is one of the leaders of a bipartisan group calling on Obama to use the death of bin Laden as an opportunity to redirect the effort in Afghanistan from nation-building, and the quagmire of fighting a war against an indigenous force on behalf of a corrupt government (gee, sound familiar?) to what the war was intended to do: roll up and destroy the remaining al Qaeda forces in the country.

Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, want the Obama administration to view the successful mission against bin Laden as a model for U.S. counter-terrorism strategy as a whole. Welch, Chaffetz and a group of three Democrats and three Republicans sent Obama a letter calling for the end of the war in Afghanistan and a shift to more surgical, strategic operations to combat worldwide terrorism.

Whether Obama will capitalize on his success in Abbottabad remains to be seen, and in part it depends on secret developments based on the intelligence collected in the raid. Nevertheless, for someone who seemed like a smart political operative,, Obama has seemed strangely unable to develop and follow through on strategies, building on success in ways that not only advance his strategic goals but also enhance his political support.

This month Obama is riding a wave of increased support based on the bin Laden raid, but polling still suggests severe weaknesses. Redirecting the Afghanistan effort can address these weaknesses in a number of ways:

==>It can stop an unwinnable effort, the aforementioned quagmire, and redirect those energies to something that makes sense to people.

==>It will cost less than the war in Afghanistan. To a degree, Obama is a victim of his own honesty, because unlike Bush he has actually put the wars in the budget. A smaller, more targeted Afghanistan mission will be less costly than the current open-ended and inconclusive mission.

==>It can energize his base. Almost every day we hear from young or progressive activists, the people who walked the streets and worked the phone banks and the interwebs for Obama, saying that they will not lift a finger for him next year. A concrete move away from the failed Bush policy in Afghanistan can help get back those activists whose work will be needed to win in 2012.

As I said at the beginning, President Obama deserves the credit for getting bin Laden. Peter Welch has shown him the way to use that success to extract the United States from our Twenty-First Century Vietnam and keep his presidency moving forward.

Let's hope he has the wisdom to follow that lead.

Small government, Republican style.

2011-05-11T23:55:00.000-04:00

Don't you love the way Republicans claim to be committed to small government?

For years they've decided that there is one small segment of society who isn't entitled to privacy: women.

Things have gotten worse in recent years. We have seen an unprecedented wave of anti-choice, anti-woman legislative proposals.

Legislatures in more than 30 states are weighing — and in some cases passing — many fast-moving bills to restrict abortion rights in a blitz that could prompt the Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Along with bills prohibiting abortion outright, or in certain circumstances, they're also pushing bills that go to the heart of the doctor-patient relationship, limiting where abortions can be performed, telling doctors what they have to say to their patients, and the like.

I think it's important to keep straight in our minds what these bills are. To say they are anti-abortion bills oversimplifies it, and it really plays into the other side's hands because abortion is more controversial among the general public than other choice related topics.

The Supreme Court has recognized in its precedents that the questions of choice, contraception, and procreation are decidedly based on our constitutional right to privacy.

You would think that a political party that pretends to a commitment to individual autonomy and limited government would be against these laws that restrict the doctor-patient relationship, wouldn't you? After all, not only do they impinge on the personal autonomy of the person, the interfere with what is, at least in part, an economic transaction between the doctor (vendor) and patient (customer).

But no.

Here's the latest. I don't ordinarily link to Fox News, but they're kind of the source for this stuff.

With a stroke of the governor's pen, Florida is positioned to become the first state in the nation to prohibit physicians from asking patients if they have guns in their homes, a move some doctors say will interfere with health care.

That's right, a coalition of gun nuts and small government Republicans have decided that those private conversations between doctors and patients are just a little, well, too private, and the way to fix that is for the government to reach its hand into every doctor's office in the state, and tell those doctors what they are and are not allowed to talk to their patients about.

So let me get this straight. We need to have small government because it's un-American to have government interfering with people's private lives and individual economic transactions.

Except that if protecting privacy rights means protecting women's rights, well, then, privacy rights go out the window and so does small government.

Or if privacy rights interfere with someone's paranoid fantasies of big, scary government, well, there again, we can't stand up to those paranoid fantasies so the privacy rights get chucked aside.

Thanks, Republicans. Stay consistent.

More ultra-Orthodox sexism

2011-05-09T07:39:00.003-04:00

One of the facially attractive rationales for maintaining our military operations in Afghanistan at one time was the way women are oppressed under Islam. I'm actually prepared to accept that women are severely oppressed under conservative forms of Islam, but Islam is by no means alone in this respect.

Today I'm focusing on another example of sexual oppression under extremely conservative Judaism. We have addressed this issue once before just over two years ago when an ultra-Orthodox newspaper in Israel deleted two women from a photograph of the Israeli cabinet.

Today it's happening in the United States.

The picture at the top of this diary is one you've undoubtedly seen dozens of times. It shows President Obama's national security staff watching the feed of the bin Laden attack. You will note Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counterterrorism expert Audrey Thomasen in this gathering.

The second picture is Der Zeitung, a Brooklyn based Hasidic newspaper. Abracadabra, no women!

The stated rationale is familiar: any depiction of women in the newspaper runs the risk of being sexually suggestive.

When we hear fundamentalist Muslims say this we know that this is a transparent ploy to maintain women's oppression by preventing them from participating in the public life of their culture. After all, if women are virtual prisoners in their own homes, allowed to be seen in public only at the whim of a male relative, men have no reason to fear being supplanted by women in positions of power.

Is there any doubt that the true reason is the same here?

Ummm, tritium. . . Tritium . . . .TRITIUM!!!!!!!!!!

2011-05-07T13:13:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note here from a friend on Facebook. We don't usually cover news from Mississippi, but in this case I have to make an exception.

According to NaturalNews.com:

Workers at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Plant in Port Gibson, Miss., last Thursday released a large amount of radioactive tritium directly into the Mississippi River, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and experts are currently trying to sort out the situation.

What does that have to do with Vermont, you may ask?

Well, just take a wild guess what company owns Grand Gulf.

Yes, it's our friends at Entergy.

"Entergy. Meeting all your tritium needs since 1971."

Hard-hitting reporting

2011-05-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

I watched the NBC News tonight, per my usual routine (All Things Considered on the way home, then McNeill-Lehrer, then NBC News) and among the stories about the successful bin Laden mission and whether the photos would be released Chuck Todd reported that three Senators had said that they had seen the photos, only to be corrected by the White House.

End of story.

What he left out:

1. They did see a photo, it's just that it was the faked, photoshopped photo that was making the rounds on the Internet earlier in the week.

2. All three Senators who said they had seen the picture were Republicans.

Sure, it could have been anyone, but since it was well known who the three were, why not tell the world? Especially since one of them was Saxby Chambliss, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee?

Obama made the right decision

2011-05-04T20:43:00.003-04:00

We know now that President Obama has decided not to release the photographs of Osama bin Laden, and I think he made the right decision.

It's tempting to say that it's the right decision just because former half-term Alsaka governor Sarah Palin thinks it isn't, but there are better reasons than that.

My thoughts:

1. People already know we've killed him. Showing the pictures will make him more of a martyr than they already consider him.

2. Releasing the photos won't convince anybody. The people who don't believe bin Laden was killed Sunday are the same ones who have looked at a million copies of Obama's official birth certificate and decided it was a fake, while concluding that an obvious forgery was his actual birth certificate from Kenya. What are the odds they won't claim that any bin Laden death photos aren't faked?

3. This isn't like Abu Ghraib; the disclosure of those photos was needed to tell the truth to the American people and the world. Here there is no good-faith question of what happened, nothing to prove.

4. We're better than that. Civilized people are rightly repelled by the barbaric display of the heads of vanquished enemies. We have the opportunity to rise above the baser voices calling for a bloodthirsty display of the corpse of a man who amply deserved his fate. We don't display body trophies.

Four dead in Ohio

2011-05-04T06:52:00.003-04:00

It was forty-one years ago today that the Ohio National Guard murdered four students at Kent State University for the crime of disagreeing with what we were told was government "of the people, by the people, for the people."

Despite years of coverups and denials, the Cleveland Plain Dealer is continuing to investigate the massacre at Kent State, and making progress. In part those investigations have centered on tape recordings of the events.

Here's a link to one recent article:

KENT, Ohio — In the four decades since Ohio National Guardsmen fired on students and antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University, Terry Norman has remained a central but shadowy figure in the tragedy.

Despite numerous claims to self-defense, there has been no credible evidence presented that the National Guard contingent was in serious danger.

Inside the conservative mind

2011-05-03T08:20:00.001-04:00

It must be pleasant to be a conservative. Never let the facts confuse you, never worry about what to do when your precious ideology crashes into reality--just ignore the facts!

So tonight, in honor of the death of Osama bin Laden, we present to you a list of things that Conservatives know Bush had nothing to do with.

1. Failing to prevent the 2001 terrorist attacks. Bush had nothing to do with it. And he especially never told the guy who briefed him, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

2. Letting Osama bin Laden escape from the mountains of Tora Bora.

He was strong on defense, a decisive leader. He would never do anything like this:

In retrospect, it becomes clear that the battle's underlying story is of how scant intelligence, poorly chosen allies, and dubious military tactics fumbled a golden opportunity to capture bin Laden as well as many senior Al Qaeda commanders.

3. Abu Ghraib torture. He was the Commander in Chief, but conservatives know for sure that he had nothing to do with this. We should ignore the fact that he was President: after all, he wasn't down there applying the electrodes himself, was he?

4. Lying about yellowcake from Niger. Sure it was in a speech that Bush gave, and his own people tried to take it out, but he had nothing to do with it. It came from the English or somebody. Definitely not Bush's fault.

5. Blowing Valerie Plame's cover when Joe Wilson exposed Bush's lies. Definitely not Bush's fault. Nothing to do with it. There is no way you can hold the guy at the top for every little thing that happens on his watch.

6. Deficit spending. Get this straight. Republicans are fiscally responsible, Democrats are spendthrifts. That's the way it is. Just ask any conservative.
So if there were deficits that just happened to be during Bush's term in office, he had nothing to do with them, and they were good for the economy anyway.

7. Failing to respond to Hurricane Katrina. Bush has a special affinity for the common man. Just look at all that time he spends in his pickup or on his Segway. Only a regular guy would do that. So you can be sure he did everything humanly possible to prevent any harm to New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Because that's what conservatives do. And we know that Brownie did a heckuva a job, and since he was working for Bush, that means Bush did a heckuva a job too, right?

And I guess that's about it . . .

No, wait, they're telling me I have time for one more.

Here's one thing that conservatives are absolutely positive Barack Obama had nothing to do with:

Finding and capturing Osama bin Laden.

This is also a moment to salute George W. Bush.

This is what you're hearing conservatives say a lot,

Posted by a friend on Facebook:

OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found OBL and took him out.

A sampling of conservatives on a discussion board I frequent:

Sorry but thanks to the MILITARY.
President Obama deserves no credit.

Obama hasn't done sh*t. Bush started this War.
I am not a Bush fan but Obama deserves no credit.

God bless David Petreus Although the big earred dope will take credit for it

So Obama got him personally?
Wow that is amazing.

So if you're keeping score at home:

Anything bad that happened while Bush was president? Nothing to do with Bush.

Anything good that happened while Obama was President? Nothing to do with Obama.

The conservative brain at work.

Seriously?

2011-04-29T08:13:00.002-04:00

Yes, as it happens, this is serious.

In case you hadn't heard, two rich people got married in England today. If you've had any awareness of the celebrity news, as carried by every goddamn publication in the world, you already know this, even if you don't know why you should give a rat's ass about it.

I find it particularly mystifying that anyone in the United States, or any other civilized country, would care, and I'm not just grousing about it.

You see, a couple of hundred years ago some brave Americans stood up to an English king (well, he was German, really, like the current occupants, but he was the king of England) and announced what was at the time a radical proposition:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .

They view things differently over in England. They believe that a king or queen is entitled to rule by an accident of birth. Or, to be more specific, the English dogma is that the incumbent inbred king or queen, whoever he or she might be, is given authority by god to rule over the country.

When people, whether they be the yammering twits on the Today Show (Motto: "Just pretend you're watching the news") or the throngs of people lining the streets of England, celebrate or give any credence to the monarchy, they are saying that the Declaration of Independence is wrong. We're not all created equal, some lucky few families are inherently superior to everybody else in the world. They deserve everything they have because they, well, just because.

So if you see me scowl or grimace at every mention of one more undistinguished rich guy marrying one more conventionally attractive woman, or when you express similar feelings of disgust, that's standing up for American principles.

If the English are stupid enough to buy into their royalist ideology I can't stand in their way, but the world will be better off when nobody claims or recognizes any title of royalty.

Tonight's quiz

2011-04-27T20:19:00.003-04:00

Now that Obama has released his so-called "long form" birth certificate, one thing is certain: the racists who have been pushing the birther lie for more than two years now are not going to stop.

There's only one question: now that he's done exactly what they wanted him to do, what will they rely on to continue their campaign of lies?

Here are a couple of possibilities:

1. "It's still not a birth certificate, it's a certificate of live birth."

2. "It doesn't disprove the Kenyan birth certificate or his grandmother's story about seeing him born in Kenya."

3. This one's probably a forgery too.

4. Even if he's a citizen, he's not a natural born citizen because his father was not a citizen. (Note: the fact that no court has ever interpreted the "natural born citizen" clause the way they want it to be interpreted apparently doesn't bother them.

5. Hawaii? You really expect us to believe that's part of the United States?

6. Maybe he was born here, but he's still a Muslim.

7. And the ultimate birther argument: niggerniggernigger.

Now this is what I call a conversation starter!

2011-04-19T20:21:00.003-04:00

If you've ever had teenagers you know that it can be challenging to make sure they maintain their abstinence pledge. After all, look at Bristol Palin.

Now, a group of pro-abstinence mothers (how did they get to be mothers? I have no idea) have come up with a new line of sexy underwear to promote chastity in their little girls. Because after all, what's a better time to get your nubile young daughter to start a conversation about abstinence than when she and her boyfriend are down to their underwear.

We created a line of underwear to use as conversation starters to help reinforce family morals as they relate to relationships and dating.

So if you have decided that the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue has gotten too sexy for you, WWYMD might be just the thing for you.

Keep your pants on, Mr. President

2011-04-18T21:41:00.002-04:00

There's good news tonight from an unexpected source: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, she of illegal alien law fame, has vetoed Arizona's birther bill.

Brewer said in her veto letter that she was troubled that the bill empowered Arizona's secretary of state to judge the qualifications of all candidates when they file to run for office.

"I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions," said Brewer, who was secretary of state until she became governor in 2009.

I think she was also concerned that it might be a bit distasteful to ask the President of the United States to prove he was circumcised.

Want a tax cut?

2011-04-06T07:14:00.004-04:00

Who doesn't like the idea of having their taxes cut, right? After all, taxes are money out of your pocket, and nobody feels that they have enough money, so if they can hold onto some of it they'll be happy.

That's been the Republican mantra for decades, ever since Reagan was president, or even earlier (remember Jarvis-Gann in California, the proposition that has decimated California's educational and other public institutions?).

This idea continues to form the latest Republican tax proposal, and I think it really deserves a close look.

You see, the Republicans, and their head budget guy, Paul Ryan, have proposed a new tax plan, and their plan does, as promised, cut taxes. A lot. $182,900,000,000.00. In case you're not used to reading numbers like this, it's $182.9 billion.

There's only one problem here. With all that money in tax cuts, who's not getting a tax cut?

You.

That's right, you and everyone else who makes less that $127,769 a year. In fact, the bottom 90% of all taxpayers would receive a tax increase. Not to worry, though, because we are getting a big tax cut in the aggregate. Does it really matter if 100% of those tax cuts are distributed to the highest 10% of all earners?

The Republicans are betting that it won't matter one bit, because they'll still pitch the debate as one where they are proposing a tax cut and Democrats are proposing a tax increase. I would think, though, that there should be a huge difference between the Republicans' usual tactic, which is to package a pittance in tax cuts to the middle class with gigantic tax cuts to the wealthy and this new plan, which is to actually raise taxes on the middle class to fund big tax cuts on the rich.

This is really Robin Hood in reverse.

This should be a winning argument for us, but it has to be made, and made loud and clear, every single day.

One more time

2011-04-02T12:32:00.002-04:00

There were those who argued that there was no difference between the two major presidential candidates in 2000, and many of them will continue to argue, after the disappointments of the Obama administration, that there is no meaningful difference between the Obama who runs for reelection in 2012 and whatever troglodyte the Republican Party selects as its candidate.

One of the popular memes these last few years is that elections have consequences, and in a presidential election, one of those consequences is that the president gets to nominate justices to the Supreme Court.

The guy selected in 2000 got to appoint John Roberts, the current Chief Justice, and Samuel Alito, one of Roberts' accomplices. The guy elected in 2008 got to appoint Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Obama's two appointees and Bush's two appointees were on opposite sides of a case this week in which the Bush majority decided that a man who was convicted, sentenced to death, and served fourteen years on death row because of a fraudulent conspiracy to conceal exculpatory evidence carried out by prosecutor Harry Connick, Sr., and attorneys working under him, was not entitled to compensation.

Do you think things might have come out a little differently in this case if Bush hadn't been in the White House to appoint Alito and Roberts?

I sure do.

Thanks, Ralph.

The Wall Street Journal: Lying in the Service of the Ruling Class

2011-04-02T09:15:00.003-04:00

There are certain institutions in the American press that can always be counted on, and the Wall Street Journal is one of them. Here's the latest example of their overheated rhetoric.

Having lost their fight in the legislature, Wisconsin unions are now getting out the steel pipes for those who don't step lively to their cause.

What's the action the workers are requesting?

A sign that says the business supports workers' rights.

And those steel pipes?

"With that we'd ask that you reconsider taking a sign and stance to support public employees in this community. Failure to do so will leave us no choice but do [sic] a public boycott of your business."

Yup, count on the Wall Street Journal.

Michelle Rhee for Secretary of Education!

2011-04-01T08:01:00.006-04:00

The news this week makes one thing absolutely clear: the only person who can solve the problems or underachievement, featherbedding, and sheer ineptitude in America's schools is Michelle Rhee.

Let's take a look at the record. In just three years as chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools, Michelle Rhee was able to:

==>Improve the test performance at one of the public schools from 10% at or above grade level to 58%.
Standardized test scores improved dramatically. In 2006, only 10% of Noyes' students scored "proficient" or "advanced" in math on the standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Two years later, 58% achieved that level. The school showed similar gains in reading.

==>Fire or otherwise eliminate over 600 teachers and principals.

==>Award over $1,000,000 in bonuses to teachers and principals whose students improved their test scores.

==>Rolled out new educational technology in the DC Public Schools, the self-correcting answer sheet. By using this new technology, some high performing schools in the District were able to accomplish an erasure rate of 85%, with the rate of "wrong to right" erasures of 12.7 per test, a rate heretofore achieved only in some of the fraternities at the legendary Faber College.

==>Parlayed astounding DC test scores to $75 million in new federal funding for District schools.

We are long past the time when we can rely on overpaid "educators" with their so-called "credentials" and "diplomas" to understand what our students need. The time has come for a steady hand at the helm of our educational institutions, and that steady hand is attached to the steady arm, which is attached to the steady shoulder of the one person who recognizes that our educational problems are caused by teachers and students: attack them, fix the test results, and we'll be in great shape!

Today DC, tomorrow the world!

Atheist takeover? Inshallah

2011-03-30T20:22:00.003-04:00

Newt Gingrich (pbuh) explains the likely outcome of an atheist takeover of the United States:

"I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

No understanding of what it once meant to be an American? Is that as bad as no understanding of what it means to be an atheist or a Muslim?

The Rule of Law

2011-03-29T22:22:00.002-04:00

We actually think it's pretty important in the United States. We may have discovered the idea at Runnymede, when the barons stood up to the king and made him acknowledge that the law was more than whatever the king felt like.

Only they haven't learned that lesson in Wisconsin yet.

You know what they've done so far: they screwed around with the rules to pass Scott Walker's union-busting legislation, then they decided that if you were a Democrat your vote wouldn't count.

The violations of law were so clear that the opponents of the law went to court and got an injunction prohibiting publication of the law, an essential prerequisite to implementation under Wisconsin law.

So what did the Republicans do? They went ahead and published the law anyway.

If I had been the judge, I'd be some pissed by this time, and apparently the judge who issued the order is. She really did say "Maybe you fuckers didn't understand what I was saying."

Well, pretty close anyway:

"Further implementation of the act is enjoined," said Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi.

"Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation of Act 10 was enjoined. That is what I now want to make crystal clear," she said.

And:

"Now that I've made my earlier order as clear as it possibly can be, I must state that those who act in open and willful defiance of the court order place not only themselves at peril of sanctions, they also jeopardize the financial and the governmental stability of the state of Wisconsin," Sumi said.

We'll see what the next round brings, but I, for one, am looking forward to seeing Scott Walker frog-marched out of the state house to start serving his term for contempt of court.

Don'cha love these constitutional Republicans?

2011-03-28T22:54:00.003-04:00

Here's a new guy, pizza magnate Herman Cain.

Like most Republicans, his reading of the Constitution is a little, well, idiosyncratic.

KEYES: You came under a bit of controversy this week for some of the comments made about Muslims in general. Would you be comfortable appointing a Muslim, either in your cabinet or as a federal judge?

CAIN: No, I would not. And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.

Oops. I guess I spoke too soon when I talked about his reading of the Constitution, because that's obviously something he's never done. If he had, he might have noticed the Religious Test Clause.

all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Yes, sir, even though he wants the opportunity to take the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, apparently that doesn't apply to the parts he doesn't like.

Follow the link and watch the video soon, because we have a hunch he may not be in the race too long.

Birther time!

2011-03-28T21:03:00.001-04:00

You may have heard that as part of his birther campaign, the Donald has released copies of his birth certificate. He doesn't actually embrace the birther label, but he is parroting the birther line.

"Ronald Reagan, George Bush have produced their birth certificates. Why doesn’t Obama?"

Take a closer look at this birth certificate, though.

First off, is this the long form birth certificate? What about the footprints that birthers have been demanding to prove the validity of Obama's birth certificate?

But I think I see an even bigger issue here. This certificate says the Donald was born in Jamaica! I thought the president has to be born in the United States. Are we really ready for the ">first reggae president?

Of course, I'm really not that interested in Trump's pedigree.

Now, if we can get some information of the pedigree of whatever he has on top of his head, now that would be something.

Not good news for the Times

2011-03-26T15:08:00.003-04:00

Bob Herbert writes in his resignation letter: “I have been writing a column for 25 years, nearly 18 at The New York Times. The deadlines and demands were a useful discipline but for some time now I have grown eager to move beyond the constriction of the column format, with its rigid 800-word limit, in favor of broader and more versatile efforts.” He says he’s writing a book about “some of the great challenges facing the United States.”

And just a few weeks ago:

Frank Rich quits NYT for New York magazine

This is a real loss for the readers, and potentially a problem for the Times.

A few years ago they tried Times Select, an attempt to squeeze revenue out of their online publication by putting some of their most popular writers behind a paywall. Their writers hated it and they wound up having to scrap the whole idea. Now they're just announced a new paywall rollout and two of their best columnists have departed.

I know the new model is different, but doesn't this seem like one more disincentive for people to visit their site, or to accumulate enough page views to get into the pay zone?

Democracy, Wisconsin style

2011-03-15T20:05:00.003-04:00

We already know the high regard in which Wisconsin Republicans hold the sacred forms and traditions of democracy, right?

If you recall that they railroaded Walker's union-busting bill through the Assembly and Senate, likely nothing will surprise you.

But here are some new rules from the Republicans:

1. If you're a Democrat, you don't get a vote in committee.

2. If you're a Republican, you don't have to live in the district you are elected to represent.

Let's go over that once more.

The majority leader of the Wisconsin Senate has ruled that the Democrats who boycotted the proceedings to avoid giving the R's a quorum are in contempt of the Senate, and that consequently their votes in committee don't count.

They are free to attend hearings, listen to testimony, debate legislation, introduce amendments, and cast votes to signal their support/opposition, but those votes will not count, and will not be recorded

.

Nice, huh?

Now, Number 2: Like every other state, Wisconsin's legislature has a system of districts. The voters in those districts turn out and vote for their representatives, who live in and represent those districts.

Except that that's not how it works for one of the Republicans in the Senate. Last year Randy Hopper, R, Fond du Lac, left his wife and took to living with a 25-year old aide.

As you can see from the picture, Randy is not 25 years old. If it matters to you that his new paramour is twenty years younger than he is, that is.

And if it matters to you that she now works for the lobbying firm that represents some very nasty right-wing groups.

It's certainly not unheard of for an elected official to set up housekeeping outside of his district, or even to have an extramarital affair.

What seems to cross the line for me is that not only did he move out on his wife and out of his district, but he ran for re-election. That means he undoubtedly had to sign papers with the Wisconsin Secretary of State, probably under oath, verifying his place of residence. (He conveniently includes a map of his district--I mean the one he used to live in--on his legislative web page.)

And whatever he swore to on those papers was a lie.

So it's not the sex, and it's not just the hypocrisy (nothing like those bible-believing, family values Republicans, huh?), it's the whole package of sleeping with a scummy lobbyist, leaving your wife for her, and lying about where you live when you run for reelection.

In case you're wondering, his wife says she'll sign the recall petition. His maid already has.

Hey, NPR, slow down!

2011-03-13T18:13:00.002-04:00

Shouldn't people know better by now?

The scandal of the week was that James O'Keefe, the guy whose lies and distortions brought down ACORN and Shirley Sherrod (temporarily), had struck again. This time his target was another of the favorite punching bags of the extreme Right: National Public Radio.

I'll give you NPR's initial story on this, since this became the canonical version of the tale:

The top fundraiser for NPR has resigned after a videotape became public showing him openly disparaging conservative groups during what he thought was a fundraising meeting. The video was recorded secretly during a lunch Ron Schiller had with two people who claimed to be eager to contribute to public radio.

ARI SHAPIRO, host:

The top fundraiser for NPR, who had already announced that he was leaving NPR for another job, officially resigned last night. A videotape became public showing him disparaging conservative groups during what he thought was a fundraising meeting. The video was secretly recorded during a lunch with two people who claimed to be eager to contribute to public radio.

Eventually the fundraiser and the president of NPR were fired because of this, providing two more trophies for O'Keefe's wall.

The rest of the story came out Sunday, and it comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with O'Keefe's modus operandi.

Wait for it . . .

That's right: O'Keefe lied.

And he did it the exact same way he has lied to create these other stories: by creative editing to create a fictional account of what happened.

Keep in mind what Schiller said, as reported by NPR:

ABRAMSON: Schiller says the Tea Party, in particular, is, quote, "not just Islamaphobic, but I mean xenophobic. I mean, basically they believe in sort of white, middle America, gun toting - I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people," unquote.

This wasn't a big deal to some of us, except that we were pissed that NPR was firing people for telling the truth.

People at NPR lose their jobs for telling the truth? I guess that's why people at Fox have job security. #teaparty

It turns out that it was even worse than that. The Blaze reports what really happened.

4. The “seriously racist” Tea Party

NPR exec Ron Schiller does describe Tea Party members as “xenophobic…seriously racist people.”

This is one of the reasons why he no longer has a job!

But the clip in the edited video implies Schiller is giving simply his own analysis of the Tea Party. He does do that in part, but the raw video reveals that he is largely recounting the views expressed to him by two top Republicans, one a former ambassador, who admitted to him that they voted for Obama.

This is the key point right here: Schiller and his boss, Vivian Schiller, were fired largely for the claim that he was expressing his own views of the Republican Right, which confirms the right-wing view of NPR. What we now know is that he was quoting some large Republican donors, not expressing his own views (although it does appear that he was endorsing those views).

Still, if the headline had been, "According to NPR executive, top Republicans accuse Tea Party of xenophobia" it would have been no big deal.

What made it a big deal was the way O'Keefe used editing to lie about what Schiller said.

So this raises a big question in my mind: why haven't people learned yet? We know now that the very fact that James O'Keefe says something, that is prima facie evidence that it's a lie?

And why do serious people and organizations get their panties in a twist, and immediately take precipitous and irrational action, when we hear one more of these lying stories from O'Keefe?

Remember the American Dream?

2011-03-11T21:45:00.003-05:00

It's not just a dream for individuals. We grow up in the United States with the idea, hope, or plan to own our own home. Not everyone expects to do it, but it's definitely part of the American idea,, what used to be called without irony the American dream. Even if your vision of the dream isn't a house in the suburbs with a lawn, a swing hanging from the tree in your front yard, and you grilling burgers out on the deck, it's still a big thing for Americans. Why else would we have shows on cable around the clock showing people looking for that perfect house to buy?

Public policy for years has supported homeownership. In fact, our biggest subsidized housing program is the mortgage interest deduction. We spend $117 billion a year on it. The idea is that homeownership leads to stable communities, which may have some legitimacy to it.

But when you buy a house, or try to buy a house, you're not thinking about building a stable community, or public policy. You're thinking that you'll have a place to call your own, or that you won't have to move every year when your lease is up, or you won't have a landlord to deal with and tell you whether you can paint, or hang pictures, or have parties.

The dream's taken a beating the last couple of years. We've had the subprime mortgage crash, people losing their jobs, and millions of foreclosures.

Oh yes, we've had one other thing: fraud.

First off, we know now that the entire subprime industry, and the crash of the subprime bond market was built on fraud.

We also know that a lot of the foreclosures have been the product of fraud, and it's worth going into a little detail about that.

A mortgage is really two different transactions: the loan, a contract between the borrower and the lender, and the mortgage, whereby a property owner gives the secured party (remember: mortgagee rhymes with Simon Legree) the right to take the property away by foreclosure if the borrower doesn't pay. These mortgages get traded around, sold, so that the bank who gave you your loan might not be the bank you send your payment to every month; and if you fall behind the bank or mortgage company who owns the right to foreclose might be someone you've never heard of.

One thing we've learned lately is that the foreclosure system has been rife with fraud. If the bank forecloses on your mortgage it's like any other court case: the bank has to prove that it owns the right to foreclose, that it is the owner of your mortgage. This can be tricky if your mortgage has been bought and sold a few times between the day you signed the mortgage and the day the bank takes you to court. What has become obvious is that there are many, many foreclosures based purely on fraudulent affidavits. Banks have employed people, now referred to as robo-signers, whose job has just been to sign affidavits that establish the chain of title for these mortgages. These are essential to these foreclosures, because if the foreclosing bank can't establish that each one of the transactions in the chain of title happened the way they claim, the bank isn't entitled to foreclose.

As it happens, a lot of these affidavits are just lies. The banks and other financial institutions doing these foreclosures, including big institutions like Wells Fargo (it's not just stagecoaches any more!) J.P, Morgan, and GMAC, have been routinely going into court lying about their ownership of the mortgages.

It was so bad that even the Federal Reserve woke up and took notice. This week a special panel of the Federal Reserve released its report on mortgage foreclosures. They actually looked in detail at 500 foreclosures, and guess what: they found that 100% of the foreclosures were justified. Not a single wrongful foreclosure was wrongful!

But what about the robo-signers, you ask? It turns out that the standards of this study were so lax that no matter what improprieties, fraud, and lies were committed by the foreclosing lender, if the homeowner was behind in their mortgage payments the foreclosure was considered to have been justified.

But all 50 state attorneys general joined together last fall to probe banks' foreclosure practices after several companies halted home repossessions when improper paperwork practices -- like the so-called "robo-signing" scandal -- came to light. The law enforcement officers have said they've found banks violated numerous state laws. State and federal officials are considering a large-scale settlement with banks and mortgage servicers that could include penalties totaling up to $30 billion and requirements to modify more distressed mortgages.

I guess nobody needs to concern themselves too much with billions of dollars' worth of fraud in millions of foreclosures.

In related news, the Republicans in Congress also took action on foreclosures last week. Never let it be said they are blind to the suffering of their fellow Americans.

So what did they do? The Republicans in Congress voted to defund the federal program set up to provide relief to homeowners in foreclosure so they could keep their homes.

Should I repeat that?

According to Congressman Chaka Fattah, who is continuing to fight for the homeowners, "House Republicans today took another pound-foolish step by voting to de-fund the Emergency Mortgage Relief Program. This bridge-loan program provides a lifeline for middle-class homeowners who face foreclosure through no fault of their own because of the predatory and economy-wrecking policies of Wall Street".

And the Republicans never tire of accusing us of using "class warfare" when we point out who's winning the class war, and whose side the Republicans are on.

Congressman Fattah is obviously too polite to say this, but the most appropriate response to the Republicans in the face of this latest outrage is very clear.

In the words of the late Ashley Morris: Fuck you, you fucking fucks.

Does this mean David Brooks's time has come?

2011-03-09T22:32:00.004-05:00

I don't take pleasure in the death of David Broder.

Nevertheless, it would seem that the pinnacle of High Broderism is now all warmed up and ready for David Brooks, no?

The wit and wisdom of Margie Phelps

2011-03-07T09:35:00.002-05:00

Okay, I can't let go of this.

First off, as I pointed out the other day, the Westboro Baptist Church's case at the Supreme Court had to be a slam dunk if someone this stupid could win it.

She was on TV again yesterday and even Chris Wallace was incredulous at her theological position that Obama is the Beast of Revelation--yes, Mr. 666 himself.

Still, what I find interesting about her is her choice of language. For instance, if you listen to the tape from yesterday, you'll see that her way of expressing agreement with something Wallace said was "That's a big 10-4." And you may recall that her favorite locution when she talked about being confrontational, a phrase she used repeatedly when arguing at the Supreme Court, was "up in their grill." She really uses that exact phrase every time she talks about it.

What about you? Do you have a favorite Margie Phelps phrase I haven't mentioned yet?

Nobody went to jail, everybody got rich

2011-03-06T13:38:00.002-05:00

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've written before about the subprime mortgage crash and how it happened. We learned shortly after it happened that a major element was the Republicans' insistence on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which they snuck into the budget at the end of 2000. This act prohibits the federal and state governments from any regulation of derivatives, and this led to the creation of the credit default swaps that were the direct cause of the collapse of AIG and the other mortgage-backed bond funds. (An interesting sidelight is that the provision was inserted at the insistence of Texas senator Phil Gramm, whose wife Wendy directly benefits from this kind of trading.)

The Big Short looks at this from a different perspective. Author Michael Lewis, whose first book, Liar's Poker, was a view of Salomon Brothers from the inside, set out to find out if any of the people who were claiming, after the crash, that they had seen it coming really had.

What he found was that there were a very few, literally a handful, of investment analysts and investors who had seen the crash coming, and had made major investments that took advantage of the vulnerabilities they were able to find in the mortgage bond sector. What he also found was that these mortgage bonds, which were supposedly Triple A, virtually risk-free investments, were in fact based mainly on what we now know were mortgages that were guaranteed, and even designed, to fail. And finally, all the information needed to find these vulnerabilities was in the public domain, and it was only by a combination of corruption and gross incompetence that the market swallowed up these worthless bond instruments.

This is a fascinating account of how people who supposedly know what they're doing, and supposedly know way more about investments than you or me, conspired to cause the collapse of the American economy and throw millions of people out of their houses. As such, it is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got into our current economic situation.

View all my reviews

Another round in the war against women

2011-03-04T21:53:00.001-05:00

From Talking Points Memo:

AUSTIN, Tex (Reuters) - Women seeking an abortion would have to first get an ultrasound under a measure approved on Thursday by the Texas House of Representatives.

The proposal, the first significant bill considered by the House this year, was designated by Republican Governor Rick Perry as an emergency priority. A similar measure has already been approved by the state Senate.

A voice from inside

2011-03-03T21:33:00.002-05:00

Just a short post tonight. I came across a blog you may find interesting, written by an activist involved in the occupation of the Wisconsin State House.

The information is fragmentary, but it appears that the protesters have taken the governor to court for his actions in barring access to the capitol in violation of the state constitution.

The Blog from Inside the Capitol Endures...

My name is Jonathan Scott. I have been living inside of our Capitol Building in Madison, Wisconsin most days and nights since February 22, 2011. I want to give everyone a window into the real situation inside of our Capitol Building.

Keep checking back for updates.

It's official

2011-03-02T23:02:00.002-05:00

To anti-choicers, a woman is nothing but a container for a fetus.

From the Plain Dealer:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Two fetuses will be presented as witnesses before an Ohio legislative committee that is hearing a bill to outlaw abortions after the first heartbeat can be detected inside a woman's womb.

Don't worry, kids. If you wind up being born you can look forward to having your rights trampled and your needs ignored.

What's good for the Westboro Baptist Church is good for . . .

2011-03-02T20:38:00.003-05:00

You, me, and every other political dissident.

Let's be clear about this: Fred Phelps and his whole family are scum. They should get cancer and die.

The Westboro people brought their circus to Montpelier a couple of years ago and I think the people of my town, particularly the high school students, handled it very well. In other words, treating them with the ridicule they deserve.

Still, they were right in the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court was right in ruling in their favor.

You know the facts, so I won't spend a lot of time on them. To gain publicity for their vile ideas, these people go to events, like military funerals, and hold up their vicious signs, and they hope they will either get on TV or provoke some kind of reaction from the sane people in attendance, who are justifiably offended by their odious display. When they did it at the funeral of Matthew Snyder his family sued them and got a judgment for five million dollars.

Now the Supreme Court has overturned the judgment, holding that their actions are protected by the First Amendment. The legal questions in this case were so easy that even Scalia and Clarence Thomas got them right.

You don't have to like it, but here's the thing about the First Amendment: we don't need it to protect our right to say things that don't bother anybody. We don't need it except when we're pissing people off.

And if you're reading this, odds are that you find that you need to say things that piss people off.

What the Supreme Court said today is that you can piss people off and the government isn't allowed to stop you.

We all need that.

Our newest banana republic

2011-02-25T09:38:00.002-05:00

They used to use the term "banana republic" to refer to countries in Central America in which the government was run as a tool for the oligarchies that became rich by exploiting the natural resources of the country.

Now we have the official transformation of a state with a proud Progressive tradition into a banana republic.

Josh is reporting that after the Wisconsin Assembly concluded debate on Walker's anti-union bill, they went immediately to a vote. The vote lasted seconds, and as soon as there were enough Republican votes to pass it the Republican Speaker closed the voting.

The majority of the Democratic caucus didn't even get to have their votes recorded, even though they were pounding furiously on their electronic voting buttons.

The Democratic members of the Senate are standing firm, and there are suggestions that the vote was illegal and may be subject to a court challenge, but Wisconsin has taken one more step toward being a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.

Super Sad True Love Story

2011-02-24T12:28:00.001-05:00

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm really not sure whether this should be three or four stars. I think the author does what he sets out to do quite effectively. What I would say, though, is that this is one of the most unpleasant books to read that I've read lately, so I wouldn't recommend the experience to anyone else.

The main character is an aging (39) son of Russian immigrants who works for a business, possibly a scam, selling life extension to HNWI's (High Net Worth Individuals). He becomes obsessed with an utterly uninteresting and much younger woman who is the daughter of Korean immigrants and devotes his life to making her fall in love with him. He only partly succeeds, although he does succeed in enveloping her in his life.

The issues, though, are that American government and commerce have become entirely dominated by our creditors, primarily China, and the dystopia Shteyngart portrays, leading to almost total collapse (The Rupture), throws the lives of these two characters, their families and friends, and the rudimentary social structures that remain into chaos.

Super Sad Love Story presents us with some of the observational wit we are used to from Gary Shteyngart, but it is far from funny. If anything, it is closer to the grim, depressing atmosphere presented in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Consequently, here Shteyngart has failed at one of the essential projects of satire: humor.

As I say, well done, but not recommended.

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No difference? Really?

2011-02-23T13:25:00.003-05:00

A lot of what Obama has done has been a big disappointment, to me no less than to other liberals. I constantly hear people saying that Obama is no different from Bush, or from what McCain would have been if he'd been elected.

Today we have more proof that these claims are just wrong.

As of today, the Justice Department will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Andrew Cohen reports in Politics Daily:

In announcing the surprise move, Attorney General Holder wrote: "After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President's determination.

Part of our job as progressive activists is to push our elected officials farther than they want to go.

They deserve credit when they get a big decision like this right.

This is how stupid conservatives are

2011-02-13T08:21:00.003-05:00

Have you been paying attention to the annual circus knowns as CPAC?

You really should. Where else would you hear Donald Trump touting his presidential candidacy based on the twin pillars of "If I'm president the world will respect the United States (and the fleabitten weasel on my head) again" and "Ron Paul can't be elected"? (A friend of mine spent $10,000 on plugs (and admits the vanity of it),, has to spread minoxidil cream on his head twice a day, and he looks better than Trump; wouldn't you think Trump could afford better than that?)

The highlight of CPAC is always the straw poll, where we learn who the movement conservatives support for president. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much predictive value. I say unfortunately because they inevitably pick some ridiculous wack job as their favored candidate.

This year it's Ron Paul's turn, by a wide margin.

Here are a few of the favored positions enunciated by Ron Paul this year:

First, as reported by David Corn: "Government should never be able to do anything you can't do."

Paul may not be that familiar with the Constitution he has sworn to uphold, but here's a sampling of a few of the things that the Government is authorized by the Constitution to do that you and I aren't allowed to do:

To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

And that's just the Congress!

The Constitution also allows the government to seize private property for public use, providing just compensation is paid.

Apparently, Paul either wants to take all these powers away from the federal government, or he thinks that you and I should have the power to issue letters of marque, establish post offices and post roads, and establishing trademarks, patents and copyrights.

And apparently the deep thinkers at CPAC agree with him.

Another bright idea from Paul: let young people opt out of government.

I'm not kidding. Here's his offer:

His proposed deal works like this: you pay the government 10% of your income (presumably to protect your borders and such) and you promise you'll never take advantage of a government service for the rest of your life.

I'll let you just muse on that, and when you're ready, guess what else the group who just endorsed the perennial Libertarian candidate for president did.

Give up? They kicked a real libertarian out for supporting legalizing marijuana.

I guess the only problem is, these guys won't be picking next year's Republican candidate. Wouldn't you love that?

Ethics, Chamber style

2011-02-10T20:34:00.002-05:00

The Chamber of Commerce holds itself out as the voice of business in the United States. But they're not all crazy; they're responsible businesses. That's why they were happy to have Obama speak to them this week, even though there are lots of things they disagree on.

President Obama urged American businesses on Monday to “get in the game” by letting loose trillions of dollars being held in reserves, saying that they can help create a “virtuous cycle” of more sales, higher demand and greater profits that will put people back to work and turn around the sluggish economy.
. . .
But the chamber, too, is eager to tone down the rhetoric, according to senior officials there. At the height of the high-profile fight with the White House, several big-name companies left its board, citing concern about the chamber’s opposition to the administration’s efforts.

And how do they show their commitment to tone down the rhetoric and work constructively?

ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG, and other major international corporations, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.

Yup, American business at its finest.

Party of family values

2011-02-09T21:53:00.002-05:00

Don't you love this guy?

The kicker is this: he didn't resign because he concluded he lacked sufficient character to serve. After all, he already knew what his character was.

He resigned because he got caught.

Reagan at 100/30

2011-02-05T08:46:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow Is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, and we just passed the thirtieth anniversary of his inauguration as president, so we have already been subjected to hagiographic portrayals of him, his life, and his supposedly classic American virtues.

That makes this an appropriate time to consider some of the truth of Ronald Reagan as an antidote to the lies, half truths, and mythology that we are about to hear. There are many reasons to despise and scorn the memory of Ronald Reagan, so I'll just concentrate on a few of them.

Racism. It's impossible to consider Reagan's presidency without confronting the centrality of his appeals to racism. He opened his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the city most famous for the murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman. His speech made an appeal to "states' rights", a code word for segregation and racial oppression since the earliest days of the Civil Rigjhts Movement (not to mention the Civil War). His announcement was an explicit message to any who would hear that he would support the aims of the racist South. In this way, Reagan's presidency can be understood as the culmination of Nixon's Southern Strategy.

As he ran, so he governed. From his support for the racist policies of Bob Jones University to his references to "big bucks" abusing Food Stamps; from his support for apartheid to the clear understanding of his aide Lee Atwater, who explained how Reagan and Bush used concealed racism to win Southern votes, Reagan's presidency was suffused with racism, but you won't hear any of his acolytes discuss it this week.

Support for dictators. If you listen to the Reagan apologists this week you'll hear endless recitations of claims that he revered and valued democracy and freedom. Of course, the opposite is true. As I mentioned, he supported apartheid and resisted any efforts to attack or dismantle it. His foreign policy is characterized by support for the most vicious dictators, with his support for the incumbent dictator in El Salvador and his creation of the contra mercenaries in Nicaragua to restore the Somoza dictatorship there the most outstanding example.

Bargaining with terrorists. Maybe a smaller point, but remember that part of Reagan's support for the contras was giving weapons to terrorists to free American hostages.

Corruption. Let's not forget: Reagan's administration may have been the most corrupt in our history.

Superstition. It's a daily event that American presidents engage in superstition and mythology to gain public support. (Hint: when's the last time you heard a presidential speech that didn't end with "God bless you and God bless the United States"?) Reagan went beyond this by basing his public decisions on the favorite superstition of the soft-headed, astrology.

Taxes. Even today, every Republican pledges loyalty to Reagan's anti-tax ideology. We know that after he cut taxes he raised them again, so take it as stipulated that he wasn't as consistently opposed to taxation as his worshippers claim. Nevertheless, the message stuck. This is what I would say is the worst of the many evils that Ronald Reagan is responsible for: he convinced a wide swath of the American people that they can have all the benefits of our American society and government without paying for it. When the teabaggers claim him as their political and spiritual godfather, this is really what they're talking about.

Oh, just one last thing: it has become a shibboleth to ask Republican candidates for president or RNC chair who their favorite Republican president was. The universal answer is Ronald Reagan. When they give that answer, they're not lying. They actually do prefer the racist tool of the wealthy to the man who preserved the Union and ended slavery.

So this weekend, do contemplate the legacy and nature of Ronald Reagan. Just remember the reality, and not the myth.

Egypt: What happens now?

2011-01-29T17:06:00.003-05:00

Or Mubarak = Pahlavi?

I have the feeling I've seen this movie before. A dictator who is largely friendly to the United States and its foreign policy goals is in trouble, shaken by massive street demonstrations.

It's not quite the same as Iran, because in this case the dictator wasn't installed by the United States. Still, things are not looking too stable for Hosni Mubarak.

It's very hard to feel bad about what seems to be happening to Hosni Mubarak, who seems to be a born henchman. And it's almost impossible not to identify with the demonstrators in the street, to say, as a friend of mine just observed, we are all Egyptians now.
If you're old enough you remember the same feeling watching the students in Tehran, risking murder by Pahlavi's SAVAK. I sure did. In fact, when I was in law school I had the chance to represent an Iranian student who was arrested on campus at the University of Michigan for wearing a mask at an anti-Pahlavi demonstration.

My problem is that I also remember what happened next. All right-thinking Americans supported the Iranian students. None of us thought that the result would be installation of an Islamic fascist dictatorship that holds power to this day.

I don't know the answer, but my question is this: Is there any chance that Mubarak can be escorted out without creating and Iranian-style Islamic dictatorship?

And does anyone have any suggestions on how to get there?

What was Loughner thinking?

2011-01-23T21:55:00.005-05:00

We've seen a rapid swing on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, from the initial charges on the left that the shooter was encouraged by wild rhetoric from the extreme right, to an almost immediate backlash from the wingers who denied that he was motivated by right-wing views, to even claiming that he is a leftist.

Now we have a report that examines the actual content of his writings and guess what: his writings are saturated by some of the most extreme, right-wing anti-government ideas, conspiracy theories, and lots of pet claims by the extreme right (denial of the legitimacy of paper money, for instance).

Is this a claim that he was acting at the direction of Sarah "Crosshairs" Palin? No. I'll stipulate that Crosshairs wasn't seriously trying to provoke an assassination attempt when she published her violent campaign poster.

But there is no question that, to the extent Loughner's writings set forth any political ideology, it is the ideology of the extreme right.

Book Review: The Russian Debutante's Handbook

2011-01-16T17:12:00.002-05:00

The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like the author, Vladimir Girshkin immigrated from Russia to the United States as a boy, grew up in New York, and attended Oberlin (not named here). Hence, it is not unreasonable to assume an autobiographical element here.

I don't consider that a weakness.

Vladimir is the opposite of a picaro. Instead of getting into scrapes and living by his wits, Vladimir is generally carried along like a cork. Through various scrapes he manages to come out okay, but he is generally acted upon, rather than actor. If he is the Russian debutante, he is badly in need of a handbook.

Where the book excels is in its exploration of identity. Vladimir moved to the United States at fourteen and settles into what he sees as his natural role, that of a beta immigrant. As the novel progresses, we see him in other identities: minor bureaucrat, hipster hanger-on, organized crime boss. His mother excoriates him for "walking like a Jew", while a few months later his American girlfriend in Prague characterizes him as a "chewer of cud".

The questions his adventures raise are whether he will recognize and survive the real consequences of his choices, which of his adopted homelands he will wind up in, and whether he will ever achieve an identity he defines for himself, rather than take what is assigned to him.

Meanwhile, although not perfect, the book provides some colorful characters, some real laughs, and what I would call an entertaining read.

View all my reviews

The Associated Press: Running Scared

2011-01-16T11:03:00.002-05:00

It's been just a week, and we've gone from an outcry against the violent rhetoric of the extreme right to an equally rapid backlash, with "responsible" opinion cautioning against blaming the right-wingers for talk about crosshairs, reloading, and being armed and dangerous.

Now that backlash appears to be infecting our news coverage.

Today the Associated Press ran a story about a former Congressional candidate facing criminal charges for threats against Indiana judges.

Here's how the AP describes the defendant:

A woman who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress last year

What party, you might ask, was this woman a member of? Well you might as, but in the AP coverage you will never find out, because her party affiliation appears nowhere in the story.

If you're interested, she's a Republican.

But apparently, we're not allowed to say, or even know, the party affiliation of someone who engages in violent rhetoric.

That would be irresponsible.