Thursday Reads: Fallen Idols, President Pushover, Worsening Weather, Rogue Federal Agency, and More
Posted: June 30, 2011 Filed under: Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Economy, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, Foreign Affairs, Greece, morning reads | Tags: Bert Adams, Chris Hansen, Climate change, Commerce Department, Federal debt limit, Federal Deficit, feminism, fishing industry, Greek protests, Japan earthquake, Jimmy Carter, John Lennon, Michele Bachmann, National Enquirer, NOAA, Ronald Reagan, sandcastles, Twitter, weather 19 Comments
Good Morning!! I’ve got a variety of interesting reads for you today, so let’s get right to it. Imagine the guy who wrote these words:
“Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people, sharing all the world.”
Now imagine that he admired Ronald Reagan.
John Lennon, the long-haired British peacenik who was investigated by the FBI in 1972 after he allegedly contributed $75,000 to a group suspected of planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention later was a closet conservative….Fred Seaman, who was Lennon’s personal assistant from 1979 until the singer’s assassination in 1980, claims the former Beatle and anti-war activist favored Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter and would have voted for the Gipper if he could have.
“John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on Jimmy Carter,” Seaman told Seth Swirsky, who is making a film about the Fab Four.
Seaman said the guitarist “met Reagan back, I think, in the ’70s at some sporting event.”
“Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to go after the young [peace] demonstrators in Berkeley, so I think that John maybe forgot about that,” Seaman told Swirsky in excerpts published in the Toronto Sun. “He did express support for Reagan, which shocked me.”
I don’t even know how to respond to this stunning news. Lennon was apparently a Reagan Democrat. If he’d lived he probably would have been an Obot too….
NYT: Violent Clashes in the Streets of Athens
Confrontations between the police and protesters reached a violent climax here on Wednesday as armored riot officers beat back demonstrators and fired volleys of tear gas into the crowds who had gathered outside Parliament. Inside, lawmakers approved a package of austerity measures aimed at helping Greece avoid a default.
On the second day of a two-day general strike called by unions, rogue protesters also attacked the Finance Ministry on Syntagma Square across from Parliament and set fire to a post office in the ground floor of the building. The King George Palace, a luxury hotel that faces the square, was evacuated in the afternoon.
A police spokeswoman said that 31 police officers were injured and that 30 people had been detained, leading to 11 arrests. Local news media reported that dozens of protesters were hospitalized, and video clips showed the police striking people with their batons.
Amnesty International released a statement on Wednesday condemning the “repeated use of excessive force by police in recent demonstrations, including the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of tear gas and other chemicals against largely peaceful protesters.”
Is this what’s coming for the U.S.? At a press conference today President Obama warned Republicans to wake up and smell the tax increases (aside: I’m not holding my breath for Obama to follow through).
President Obama pressured Republicans on Wednesday to accept higher taxes as part of any plan to pare down the federal deficit, bluntly telling lawmakers that they “need to do their job” and strike a deal before the United States risks defaulting on its debt.
Declaring that an agreement is not possible without painful steps on both sides, Mr. Obama said that his party had already accepted the need for substantial spending cuts in programs it had long championed, and that Republicans must agree to end tax breaks for oil and gas companies, hedge funds and other corporate interests.
In a 67-minute news conference, Mr. Obama cast the budget battle as a tug of war between the interests of the rich — like owners of corporate jets, who he said get generous tax breaks — and those of the middle class, the elderly and children.
But Obama himself offered at best very weak tea:
Mr. Obama, under assault from Republicans on the campaign trail for an unemployment rate that remains above 9 percent, asked voters to understand that the economic recovery would take time but said that Washington, even in its current financial straits, could still do more to help. He expressed support for extending a reduction in payroll taxes for an extra year, providing loans for road and bridge-building and approving trade pacts that could help spur exports.
Big whoop. Why didn’t he fight to end the Bush tax cuts then?
Ezra Klein explains “How you know the negotiations have truly failed.”
The best advice I’ve gotten for assessing the debt-ceiling negotiations was to “watch for the day when the White House goes public.” As long as the Obama administration was refusing to attack Republicans publicly, my source said, they believed they could cut a deal. And that held true. They were quiet when the negotiations were going on. They were restrained after Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl walked out last week. Press Secretary Jay Carney simply said, “We are confident that we can continue to seek common ground and that we will achieve a balanced approach to deficit reduction.” But today they went public. The negotiations have failed.
“The primary goal of President Obama’s presser, which just wrapped up, was obvious,” writes Greg Sargent. “He was clearly out to pick a major public fight with Republicans over tax cuts for the rich.” That’s exactly right. But he didn’t want this fight. He wanted a deal. And he wasn’t able to get one that the White House considered even minimally acceptable. After putting more than $2 trillion of spending cuts on the table, they weren’t even able to get $400 billion — about a sixth of the total — in tax increases.
The conventional wisdom is that now this fight moves to the people. I’d put it differently. Now this fight moves to the consequences. Neither side is going to give in the face of purely rhetorical salvos. The White House is expecting Republicans to accuse them of wanting to raise taxes. The Republicans are expecting the White House to accuse them of putting the interests of large corporations and wealthy donors in front of the needs of seniors, children and the poor. Both parties have seen the poll numbers behind their positions. If a few news conferences were going to be sufficient to end this, it would never have started.
Climate experts warn that “epic weather” will continue because of climate change
Epic floods, massive wildfires, drought and the deadliest tornado season in 60 years are ravaging the United States, with scientists warning that climate change will bring even more extreme weather.
The human and economic toll over just the past few months has been staggering: hundreds of people have died, and thousands of homes and millions of acres have been lost at a cost estimated at more than $20 billion.
And the United States has not even entered peak hurricane season.
“This spring was one of the most extreme springs that we’ve seen in the last century since we’ve had good records,” said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While it’s not possible to tie a specific weather event or pattern to climate change, Arndt said this spring’s extreme weather is in line with what is forecast for the future.
The Boston Globe reveals that fishermen in Gloucester, MA and up and down the Atlantic coast were the victims of abuse of power by NOAA.
About a decade ago, the Commerce Department’s fish police started a fight with Larry Ciulla, who owns and operates the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction with three other family members. Claiming that the auction had exceeded the day’s catch limit by one 60-pound fish, the regulators levied a $120,000 fine and ordered a 90-day shutdown.
Outraged, Ciulla challenged the penalty. He turned to Gloucester lawyer Ann-Margaret Ferrante, who is now a state representative and whose grandfather, father, and uncle were fishermen. Together, they decided to take on the agency known as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In need of political backup, they went to US Representative John Tierney, whose district covers Gloucester. Eventually, their grass-roots effort drew in the mayors of Gloucester and New Bedford, the Bay State congressional delegation, and a bipartisan string of lawmakers from Maine to the Carolinas.
This year, federal officials finally acknowledged their own regulators had gone rogue. They were guilty of overzealous, abusive, and targeted enforcement, a series of independent investigations revealed. Regulators were levying crippling fines for invented or inflated offenses, as they relentlessly bullied an entire industry. They were using the fishermen’s money to finance a fleet of cars, a luxury boat, and assorted foreign junkets.
Please read the whole sordid story.
Twitter has released fascinating data on the number of tweets and direct messages during and after the Japan earthquake.
“On Twitter, we saw a 500% increase in Tweets from Japan as people reached out to friends, family and loved ones in the moments after the March 2011 earthquake,” said the company on its blog.
Kirstin Powers interviewed Michele Bachmann, and learned that the Tea Party queen is no feminist.
Unlike Sarah Palin, who has brandished the feminist moniker and spoken of an “emerging conservative feminist identity,” Bachmann told me in an interview Tuesday that she wouldn’t call herself a feminist—instead, she simply described herself as “pro-woman and pro-man.” When I pressed her on the matter, the Minnesota congresswoman said she sees herself as an “empowered American.”
Bachmann seemed loath to engage in the kind of girl-power rhetoric utilized by Palin and Hillary Clinton, who both invoked the perennial—and so far unbreakable—presidential glass ceiling.
Said Bachmann: “I’m a woman comfortable in her own skin. I grew up with three brothers. My parents didn’t see us [as] limited [by gender]. I would mow the lawn and take out the trash; I was making my own fishing lures. I went along with everything the boys did.”
Bachmann is still doing everything the boys do, but as a female candidate she endures indignities that are foreign to your average male pol. Yet she takes it all in stride.
Don’t you just love it when smarmy, self-righteous people are brought low? I know I do. Despite the fact that I loathe pedophiles, I’ve always been turned off by Chris Hansen and his obnoxious TV show “To Catch a Predator.” Now Hansen himself has been caught on “candid camera.”
Chris Hansen has found himself on the receiving end of his own hidden camera tactics, after the married NBC anchor was secretly filmed on an illicit date with a blonde television reporter 20 years his junior.
Hansen, 51, has allegedly been having an affair with Kristyn Caddell, a 30-year-old Florida journalist, for the last four months.
ROFLOL!
Secret cameras filmed the couple as they arrived at the hotel for dinner and then drove back to her apartment – where the pair left, carrying luggage, at 8am the following day.
Hansen lives in Connecticut with his wife Mary, 53, but he has been spending more and more time in South Florida investigating the disappearance of James ‘Jimmy T’ Trindade – and allegedly sleeping with Miss Caddell.
The cameras belonged to The National Enquirer. Fortunately for Hansen, Miss Caddell is slightly beyond the age of consent.
"Agony," by Bert Adams
Finally, here’s a nice summery story to get you ready for the upcoming long weekend: Work’s a Day at the Beach for Sand-Castle Consultants
CANNON BEACH, Ore.—On a recent weekend, sand creatures were sprawled across this Pacific Coast beach. There were sea horses by a giant squid, with an “Attackin’ Kraken” sea monster nearby, along with several pigs, some giant mice and an amputee octopus.
Many of the sand sculptures had the same point of origin: They had been built by people who at one time or another were advised by Bert Adams, one of the nation’s handful of professional sand-castle consultants.
“They did well,” said Mr. Adams, a 51-year-old former electrical engineer, as he surveyed the array of creations made by his onetime students at Cannon Beach’s 47th annual sand sculpting tournament.
“He’s a great mentor,” says Amos Callender, an Olympia, Wash., architect who took a course—Sand 101—that Mr. Adams taught two years ago. Mr. Callender and his team took first place at Cannon Beach last year, while this year they built a sand sculpture depicting “the good life”—a wine lover sporting a beret; a mouse tucking into a giant wheel of cheese—that finished second.
What a great idea. Now if only I could find a niche that would pay me big bucks for something I love doing!
So what are you reading and blogging about today? Hit me with it!
Tuesday Reads
Posted: June 28, 2011 Filed under: abortion rights, Federal Budget, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, Foreign Affairs, Global Financial Crisis, morning reads, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights | Tags: abortion rights, Argentina presidential elections, choking, Federal Deficit, Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab, New Zealand Southern Right Whales, Planned Parenthood, Prosser, Too big to Fail, Wisconsin 32 Comments
Good Morning!
Well, I hate to keep having to read about states out to get women’s health clinics, but here we go again!
The Texas Legislature approved a bill Monday that would both compel the state to push the Obama administration to convert Texas’s Medicaid program into a block grant and defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.
The omnibus health bill also includes a number of other controversial provisions, including plans to save $400 million over the next year by increasing the use of Medicaid managed care.
The legislation now goes to the desk of Gov. Rick Perry, who has been generally supportive of both the Medicaid reforms, as well as anti-abortion language.
Here’s so more details on the Texas situation from the Dallas News.
The bill would deny $34 million to Planned Parenthood from family planning grants, curb abortions at public hospitals and promote use of adult stem cells from the patient’s own body in new medical treatments.
“Early in the session, I didn’t dare dream that we could make the gains this bill would accomplish,” said Joe Pojman of Texas Alliance for Life.
Also, under the bill, Texas could join Georgia and Oklahoma in creating a health care compact. Under the proposal, if Congress approved, the states could agree to cap the federal government’s contribution to several health care programs, including Medicaid and Medicare. In return, they would be freed from current federal laws on eligibility and benefits.
Planned Parenthood is asking a federal court to block Kansas from cutting off its federal funding, after winning a similar injunction Friday in Indiana.
Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri filed a lawsuit Monday that seeks to prevent Kansas from implementing a provision of the state budget that would cut off federal funding.
According to the group’s brief, Kansas blocked federal money from going to organizations that specialize in family planning without also providing primary and preventive care. The provision would cut off funding to all Planned Parenthood clinics, even those that do not provide abortions, the group says.
This is really getting serious folks! States are trying all kinds of things because they know think the courts might rule in their favor. The amount of money going to defend nuisance laws in these states must be astounding.
The President is signalling that a ‘significant’ deal with the Republicans might be in the works about the federal budget and deficit. Better check your passport status! It’s likely we’re about to get fleeced and you may want to head for a country that appreciates its middle class for a stay!
President Barack Obama plunged into deadlocked negotiations to cut government deficits and raise the nation’s debt limit Monday, and the White House expressed confidence a “significant” deal with Republicans could be reached. But both sides only seemed to harden their positions as the day wore on, the administration insisting on higher taxes as part of the package but Republican leaders flatly rejecting the idea.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for about 30 minutes at the White House, and then met with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for about an hour in the early evening.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama reported after the morning session that “everyone in the room believes that a significant deal remains possible.” But Carney also affirmed that Obama would only go for a deficit-reduction plan that included both spending cuts and increased tax revenue, an approach that Republicans say would never get through Congress.
It has increasingly fallen to institutional investors to hold mortgage lenders, investment banks and other large financial institutions accountable for their role in the mortgage crisis by seeking redress for shareholders injured by corporate misconduct and sending a powerful message to executives that corporate malfeasance is unacceptable. For example, sophisticated public pension funds are currently prosecuting actions involving billions of dollars of losses against Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, Countrywide, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, among many others. In some instances, litigations have already resulted in significant recoveries for defrauded investors.
Historically, institutional investors have achieved impressive results on behalf of shareholders when compared to government- led suits. Indeed, since 1995, SEC settlements comprise only 5 percent of the monetary recoveries arising from securities frauds, with the remaining 95 percent obtained through private litigation as demonstrated by several examples in the chart at right.
Institutional investors must continue to lead the charge and prosecute fraud to send a strong message that such misconduct will not be tolerated and to guarantee that shareholders are fairly compensated for their losses. Both the courts and Congress have recognized that meritorious private securities litigation is “an indispensable tool with which defrauded investors can recover their losses[,]…promote public and global confidence in our capital markets and help to deter wrongdoing.” While originally intended as a supplement to government regulation, recent events demonstrate that institutional investors may now be the entities best positioned to protect investors’ rights. Without such protection, and if Wall Street bankers are permitted to profit from their frauds without a proportionate retributive response, we may be fated to repeat the same economic calamity that has defined our generation.
The state Capitol Police Chief, Charles Tubbs, said Monday that he is turning over the case to local law enforcement.
“After consulting with members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I have turned over the investigation into an alleged incident in the court’s offices on June 13, 2011 to Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney,” Tubbs said in a statement. “Sheriff Mahoney has agreed to investigate this incident and all inquiries about the status of the investigation should be made with the Sheriff’s Department.”
Mahoney issued a concurrent statement declaring that he has directed detectives to investigate the incident.
“Beginning today, detectives will work diligently to conduct a thorough and timely investigation,” Mahoney said. “Because this case is in the very early stages, no further information is available at this time.”
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism first revealed the June 13 incident on Saturday, reporting that Prosser put his hands on Bradley’s neck during debate over the legality of the “budget repair bill,” which the court’s conservative majority ruled is legal in a 4-3 decision June 14.
Reaction on the Web — where partisans have been arguing Wisconsin politics for months — was swift.
At ThinkProgress, Ian Millhiser surmised four ways Prosser can be legally removed from office.
“Should the allegations against Prosser prove true, it is tough to imagine a truer sign that our political system has broken down than if the calls to remove him from office are not unanimous,” he wrote.
Natural disasters in our country have triggered concern about nuclear facilities. The latest facility to be jeopardized is Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico. Add this to the two nuclear power plants in Nebraska surrounded by the flooded Missouri River.
The Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico has been shut down for the day due to a fast-moving wildfire that is endangering the lab and surrounding area. The fire began around 12 miles southwest of Los Alamos, charring about 6,000 acres. Fire officials say none of the fire is under control yet. Lawrence Lujan of the Santa Fe National Forest said, “We have homes and we have the labs, so it’s a very, very big concern, not only locally, but nationally and globally.”
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner--Argentina’s president–has announced she’ll run for a second term in office in October.
Her announcement marks the beginning of Argentina’s presidential election campaign. Ms Fernández is in good shape to secure another term. She is comfortably ahead in the opinion polls, thanks in large part to Argentina’s strong economic performance: GDP grew by an annualised 10% in the first quarter of 2011, due in no small measure to growing international demand for soya, now the country’s biggest export.
Ms Fernández faces no challenges from within her governing Peronist Party. And despite months of attempts to form a coalition of opposition, her political adversaries remain hopelessly split. Her strongest opponents are likely to be Eduardo Duhalde, a former president, and Ricardo Alfonsín, the son of a former president. But her biggest problems lie elsewhere.
One is a corruption scandal surrounding the Association of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of women campaigning to discover what happened to their children under Argentina’s military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Ms Fernández and her husband allied themselves to the group, providing them with millions of dollars of state funds with which to build houses for the underprivileged and without seeking any guarantees. The Mothers have now been caught up in a fraud investigation, which some think could cause problems for Ms Fernández.
One last bit of good news! Southern Right Whales Return to New Zealand After a Century of overhunting and being on the
brink of extinction.
Southern right whales were once a common sight along the coast of New Zealand, though in the 19th century overhunting brought the species to the brink of extinction. But now, after a decades of being virtually non-existant off New Zealand’s shores, wildlife experts are seeing endangered right whales finally returning to their ancestral calving grounds — offering hope that the whales’ are rediscovering a ‘cultural connection’ to this region after a century-long hiatus.
Before they were brought to near-extinction by whalers who considered them to be the best whale species to target — hence the ‘right’ in their name — southern right whales are thought to have numbered in the tens-of-thousands in the waters off New Zealand. In the decades that followed, however, the few surviving whales limited their calving grounds to the sub-antarctic regions to the south, despite the fact that closer to the New Zealand mainland had ancestrally been where they raised their young.
But recently a team of researchers from the University of Auckland and New Zealand Department of Conservation made a remarkable discovery; right whales seemed to be heading home.
“With the increase in numbers observed around the Auckland Islands over the last decade, we think that some individuals are re-discovering the former primary habitat around the mainland of New Zealand,” researcher Scott Baker tells The New Zealand Herald.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads
Posted: June 24, 2011 Filed under: abortion rights, Economy, Federal Budget, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, GLBT Rights, morning reads, We are so F'd 19 Comments
Good Morning!!!
Washington continues to be puzzled about why the economy is so bad. I watched Ben Bernanke’s presser and nothing he said sounded the least bit surprising to me. The Fed’s basically ending it’s QE program. It’s keeping the discount rate low. It also has lowered its economic outlook and believes that unemployment will stay higher than previously thought and the economy will slow down. In answering some questions, Bernanke mentioned that austerity budgets in the states was one of the reasons the economy is doing poorly. He also mentioned things that will likely be short-lived like supply line problems resulting from Japan’s catastrophes and bad weather. In short, monetary policy has reached its ability to do something. It’s up to our politicians. May all the wisdom beings help us!
On national television today, the Federal Reserve chairman painted a picture of a recovery that, two years after it began, remains “frustratingly slow” and too weak to make a meaningful dent in joblessness anytime soon. Even if the current slowdown proves temporary, as the Fed expects, its forecast pace of growth won’t bring unemployment back down below 7 percent until after 2013.
Much more troubling is the country’s lack of a backup plan if things get worse. The economy’s weakness leaves it vulnerable to shocks of the kind that Europe’s festering sovereign-debt crisis could easily deliver. But neither the Federal Reserve nor the U.S. government is in a good position to provide more life support should it become necessary.
Having already spent some $2.3 trillion on two bond-buying programs aimed at lowering interest rates and boosting growth, Bernanke recognizes that the costs of a third round of so-called quantitative easing may outweigh the benefits.
The above Bloomberg op-ed calls for more stimulus because that’s what stops this. We know that from a lot of data, experience, and theory. Too bad we’d rather have the equivalents of high school graduates remove our national appendix and argue our death penalty case before the Supreme Court. None of these folks appear to have one clue let alone the knowledge to get things done.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have left the budget talks because returning taxes to responsible levels is too politically unpalatable for them. They’d rather rely on tanking the economy and blaming it on Obama. The Senate Republicans are hoping that John Boehner will take the bullet for them. We’re all going to need lessons on surviving our politicians destroying our economy. In that sense, we could be Greece who was brought low by Wall Street Bankers who convinced them they really could fund a grandiose project like The Olympics and everything else. We’ve spent about 10 years adding grandiose wars and feeding our Wall Street Bankers. Of course, the people that will suffer from this will not be those bankers, or defense contractors or the politicians who are bringing us low.
Intra-caucus dynamics on the GOP side seem to be dooming the debt limit talks. Eric Cantor’s preference is for John Boehner to sign a deal he can grumble about, so that when the GOP loses seats in 2012 he can challenge Boehner for the leadership. Boehner, meanwhile, doesn’t want to sign a deal that Cantor won’t sign. Consequently, we can’t get a deal.
This, then, returns us to the subject of tactical modalities available if the country runs up to the debt ceiling. The key issue at this point becomes the fact that hitting the debt ceiling doesn’t force an automatic default or a government shutdown. Revenue continues to come in to the federal government. There’s simply a gap between how much comes in and how much the government is supposed to spend. The first step to sound policy in this case is to make sure we keep paying interest on the debt. Thus default and immediate catastrophe is avoided. Second, what you want to do is minimize the impact on government activities. That means that in the first instance you want to try to stiff people to whom the government owes money but who will probably keep working even if you don’t pay them. Take defense contractors, for example. If Robert Gates tells a bullet-making company that he can’t pay the Pentagon’s bills this month because Eric Cantor is being obstinate, but please keep sending bullets anyway, the bullet-makers aren’t going to leave our troops bullet-less. We just need to tell them to keep sending the invoices coming, and promise that all bills will be paid once Cantor relents. Hospitals, doctors, and other Medicare providers are the other low-hanging fruit here. Patients will continue to be treated, doctors will keep filing paperwork, and Kathleen Sebelius will keep reassuring people that they’ll be paid when the congressional gridlock is resolved.
Over time, of course, these tactics tend to run into limits. We may need to start paying people less than their full Social Security checks, mailing a partial benefit plus a note explaining that back benefits will be paid once congress lifts the debt ceiling.
Meanwhile, President Obama pulls a present vote while addressing a GLBT fundraiser for him last night in New York City. He pulled the traditional republican cop-out position. Leave the issue to the states. Guess that means Rick Warren will be doing more prayer appearances for him this election cycle.
OBAMA: Part of the reason that DOMA doesn’t make sense is that traditionally marriage has been decided by the states and right now, I understand there is a little debate going on here in New York about whether to join five other states and DC in allowing civil marriage for gay couples. And I want to say that under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, with the support of Democrats and Republicans, New York is doing exactly what democracies are supposed to to do. There is a debate, there is a deliberation about what it means here in New York to treat people fairly in the eyes of the law and that is — look, that’s the power of our democratic system.
No, we won’t but maybe the states will.
Appearing at a “Gala with the Gay Community” fundraiser in Manhattan Thursday, President Obama said he believes “gay couples deserve the same legal rights as any other couple in this country.” But he stopped short of backing same-sex marriage, even as attendees yelled out for him to do so.
Mr. Obama, who was greeted with a standing ovation by the roughly 600 attendees — who paid between $1,250 and $35,800 to attend — said he always believed discrimination was wrong, joking that “I had no choice. I was born that way.” After a beat, amid laughter from the crowd, he added, “in Hawaii.” He went on to say that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity “runs counter to who we are as a people.”
I guess discrimination is okay if you hide behind religion. Oh, wait, isn’t that what the confederates said about slavery. Let’s see, I seem to remember reading arguments about state rights and that it’s okay to own other people’s because it’s right there in the bible.
The TSA is finally listening to some of the complaints about it’s aggressive pat-down procedures and at least changing the rules for children. It will no longer trigger automatic pat-downs for any one under the age of 12.
“As part of our ongoing effort to get smarter about security, Administrator Pistole has made a policy decision to give security officers more options for resolving screening anomalies with young children and we are working to operationalize his decision in airports,” TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball said in a written statement. “This decision will ultimately reduce – though not eliminate – pat downs of children.”
Already widely criticized for the controversial airport security technique, the TSA has come under increased fire after reports surfaced that its officers patted down a 6-year-old girl and an 8-month-old.
There’s an interesting scandal brewing in New York that may take down Mayor Bloomberg. You can watch more about this at Democracy Now.
Prosecutors have unsealed indictments against the company TechnoDyne and its founders in the CityTime payroll scandal in New York City, which was first exposed by Democracy Now!’s co-host Juan Gonzalez in his column for the New York Daily News. TechnoDyne executives face charges of paying millions in kickbacks to get CityTime work, and money laundering. Meanwhile, the founders of the company, Reddy Allen and his wife Padma, are now fugitives after fleeing to India. Prosecutors described CityTime as “one of the largest and most brazen frauds ever committed against the city.” Following the indictments, Gonzalez says the question remains whether top officials in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will also be charged.
Kansas may wind up being the first state where women cannot access abortion services. Kansas is trying to shut down its three abortion clinics. It’s doing this by imposing immediate changes to the clinic’s physical plant.
Back in April, the state legislature passed a law directing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to author new facility standards for abortion clinics, which the staunchly anti-abortion GOP governor, Sam Brownback, signed into law on May 16. The law also requires the health department to issue new licenses each year, and it grants additional authority to health department inspectors to conduct unannounced inspections, and to fine or shut down clinics.
The department wasted no time in drafting the new rules, issuing the final version on June 17 and informing clinics that they would have to comply with the rules by July 1, as the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, told the AP that inspectors were expected at their clinic in Overland Park, Kansas, on Wednesday. There are only three clinics left in the state: Planned Parenthood’s, a clinic in Overland Park, and the Aid for Women clinic in Kansas City.
The new requirements require facilities to add extra bathrooms, drastically expand waiting and recovery areas, and even add larger janitor’s closets, as one clinic employee told me—changes that clinics will have a heck of a time pulling off by the deadline. Under the new rule, clinics must also aquire state certification to admit patients, a process that takes 90 to 120 days, the staffer explained. Which makes it impossible for clinics to comply. And clinics that don’t comply with the rules will face fines or possible closure.
It’s increasingly clear that the U.S. is becoming a hostile place for nearly any one that doesn’t want to comply with the narrow definitions of what’s right to a handful of Republican activists. What’s worse is that Democrats act powerless to stop them and the Judiciary appears to be completely dysfunctional at the moment. We’re losing more rights day by day. There seems to be a play book and none of us are included.
What’s on your reading and blogging list this morning?
The Republican Tax Scam or why compromise the Cow when the President will give you the Milk Free?
Posted: June 23, 2011 Filed under: Domestic Policy, Federal Budget, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, Surreality, Team Obama | Tags: Biden, Budget talks, Cantor, Kyle 9 CommentsI think it’s safe to say that no one likes paying taxes. However, every one likes roads without pot holes, functional national
defense, public safety and justice systems, and modern infrastructure that supports commerce, travel, and trade. How can Republicans justify their just say no new taxes position when they themselves continually run up government spending for their own pet projects? Well, that’s where they’ve decided to lie and say that decreased taxes means more revenues. That’s also why our deficit has been spinning out of control since the Dubya Bush tax cuts. Unfortunately, they seem to want to continue this disingenuous game rather than tell the Grover Norquists in their base to take the delusion elsewhere.
Today, the last Republican walked away from VP Biden’s bipartisan task force to find a compromise solution to the budget. Again, the issue was the lack of Republican will to pay for anything and to stop paying for anything that the majority of the nation demands. This has gone beyond ridiculous to dangerous. Let me point you to the Bloomberg coverage and I’ll bold the important part.
President Barack Obama likely will step into the final stages of talks to break a deadlock over a plan to cut budget deficits, his spokesman said after two Republicans dropped out of talks led by Vice President Joe Biden.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor cited an “impasse” over tax increases in refusing along with Senator Jon Kyl to attend today’s planned negotiating session. They called for Obama to take the lead.
The move caught Democrats by surprise and raised the prospect that the Biden-led talks could collapse over taxes. Republicans insist on major spending cuts, and no tax increases, before they will agree to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. The Treasury Department says the limit must be raised by Aug. 2 or the U.S. will risk defaulting on its obligations.
“It has always been the case that these talks would proceed to a point where the remaining areas of disagreement would be addressed by leaders and the president,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One. He said the Biden talks “may or may not resume” and that he had nothing to announce on the next steps.
My guess is that Republicans want Obama to “step into the final stages” for several reasons. First, the President’s direct involvement in talks will allow them to take political advantage of any suggestions they perceive as worth exploiting. Second, every time Obama’s come to the bargaining table, he’s caved in or basically agreed to Republican demands. Obama agreed to extend the Dubya tax cuts to the richest of the rich violating his own promise and stepping way over his line in the sand. Obama also took every last Democratic policy out of Health Care Reform to the point there is virtually no difference between the 1990s plan American Heritage Institute plan first introduced by then Republican Senator John Chafee and later championed by Republican Senator Bob Dole. We don’t have Obamney Care. We have the old Dolecare. So, the Republicans have been fairly good at getting Republican policy passed without taking any of the blame. Why would they do any thing differently?
Cantor has the credibility with the Tea Party that Boehner lacks. But that’s why Cantor won’t cut the deal. The Tea Party-types support him because he’s the guy who won’t cut the deal. He can’t sign off on tax increases without losing his power base. But if he’s able to throw it back to Boehner, and Boehner cuts the deal, that’s all good for Cantor: Boehner becomes weaker and he becomes stronger. Which is why Boehner will also have trouble making this deal. It’ll mean he made the concessions that Cantor, the true conservative, didn’t. That’s not how he holds onto the gavel in this Republican Party.
One analysis of the House GOP right now is that there are two players in the GOP who can cut a budget deal: Eric Cantor and John Boehner (and, on some of the other budget issues, Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers). One of them is going to have to do it. Which means one of them is going to lose his job. The optimistic take is that what we’re seeing right now is a game of musical chairs over which one of them it’ll be.
But the pessimistic analysis is that if you had to write a plausible scenario for how America defaults on its debt, or at least seriously spooks the market, this is how it would start. After insisting on using the debt limit as leverage for a budget deal, the Republican leadership finds they can’t actually strike a deficit-reduction deal, but nor can they go back on their promise to vote against any increase in the debt limit that isn’t accompanied by a deficit-reduction deal. What follows is a lot of jockeying and fingerpointing, a short-term increase or two, and eventually, a market panic.
Cantor is putting personal power before country here, and in a very dangerous way.
ABC News explains that Senator Kyl has dropped out for similar reasons. None of the Republicans want to be the one’s to have signed the Read My Lips, No New Taxes Pledge, then sign on to new taxes.
A Senior Democratic aide says, “Cantor and Kyl just threw Boehner and McConnell under the bus. This move is an admission that there will be a need for revenues and Cantor and Kyl don’t want to be the ones to make that deal.”
I still think that the Republicans would rather go mano-y-mano with the President than nearly any other Democrat. The hapless Senator from Nebraska–Ben Nelson–is probably the only other spineless critter that would be somewhat attractive. The only difference is that he’s got no pull within the party.
So, here’s the Republican spin:
In a joint statement with the chief Senate Republican negotiator, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, McConnell followed up by portraying Obama as a champion of higher taxes at the expense of “a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. He can’t have both. But we need to hear from him.”
Cantor had sent mixed signals earlier this week, first saying that he wanted greater involvement by the president and then insisting that he remained committed to the talks led by Vice President Joe Biden. His decision now appeared to catch some in the GOP leadership, including his fellow negotiator Kyl, by surprise. And it came just as Cantor has been on the defensive in the talks over Democratic demands for greater cuts from defense spending.
Adding to the intrigue was the almost Washington novel orchestration of the announcement. The Wall Street Journal was called in to get the news Thursday morning — the editorial pages of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper are famous for their anti-tax orthodoxy. And Cantor made his move just hours after a Wednesday night meeting at the White House between his sometimes rival, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and Obama, who are slated to take over the talks once the Biden negotiations have run their course.
I still can’t figure out how the Republicans can be so successful at painting the President as being something completely at odds with reality but they continue to do so successfully. My guess is they will get the President to step in and they will get what they want. Then, look out. The incredibly low taxes will continue to do nothing but drain the Treasury. The incredibly high spending cuts will do nothing but tank the economy. The dithering around the debt ceiling increase will drive market interest rates up. In short, the current situation will deteriorate. Then, some one completely bat shit crazy like Michelle Bachmann will continue to spin the alternate reality and the opposite of truth and facts. To be even short, we are going to be incredibly f’d.
This feels a lot like watching a high school graduate do an appendectomy on your best friend. The people that know what they’re doing have left the building a long time ago.
Friday Reads
Posted: June 10, 2011 Filed under: abortion rights, Economy, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, fetus fetishists, Foreign Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Libya, Middle East, morning reads, religious extremists, Reproductive Rights, Women's Rights | Tags: 30th anniversary AIDS epidemic, Robert Reich, War on Rape victims, War on Women 30 Comments
Good Morning!!!
The news continues to be fairly depressing as news tends to be, but we’ll try to cover some interesting things today!
It’s really hard to believe, but we’re about to mark the 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic. All of us that came of age during that period have a lot of lost friends and stories to tell. Thankfully, AIDS is a manageable disease now. Unfortunately, too many people still don’t do what it takes to protect themselves. Here’s an interesting story of how Congress came to realize that we had a growing health threat on our hands.
Oddly enough, it was the specter of Republican budget cuts that led to the first awareness of the AIDS epidemic in Congress. Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, had targeted public health agencies for massive cuts. A Waxman staffer, concerned about their potential effects, had gone to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to do reconnaissance. CDC scientists were alarmed and predicted that the cuts would lead to an epidemic, although they imagined it would involve a preventable childhood illness, since Reagan had proposed cutting the immunization budget in half. Waxman was worried enough by what he learned to join with a Republican colleague, Pete Domenici, to protect the immunization budget.The epidemic came anyway. While in Atlanta, the Waxman staffer was told that he should meet with a doctor named Jim Curran, who had noticed an outbreak of an unusual and deadly pneumonia among gay men in Los Angeles. Today, Curran is renowned as the doctor who first raised the alarm among epidemiologists. But back then, he declined the offer of a congressional hearing to help direct research funding to his work because he was afraid that the attention would interfere with his access to a gay community that was fearful of the government (homosexuality was a felony in many states). “I’ll call you when I’m ready,” he told Waxman’s staff. Let’s pause here to note that before AIDS even had a name, members of Congress were aware of the disease and working to help.Curran called a year later. In 1982, Congress held its first hearing on what was now called AIDS, a field hearing in Los Angeles. A single reporter showed up. But eventually Waxman and a group of colleagues succeeded in drawing attention to the epidemic
Texas continues its attacks on women’s right to choose. It has revived an anti-abortion measure to omnibus legislation. It’s also continuing the Republican extremist attack on Planned Parenthood.
Besides the two health care provisions to privatize Medicare and Medicaid, the Texas House attached several anti-abortion amendments to the omnibus legislation: (1) a bill to “ban hospital districts from using local tax revenue to fund abortions, except in emergency situations — or else risk losing state funding,” (2) “limit the state family planning funds received by Planned Parenthood,” (3) force physicians who provide abortions to collect more data on their patients.
More Kind and Kompassionate Konservative philosophy comes from a Republican in Massachussetts who believes that any undocumented worker who has been raped “should be afraid to come foreward”.
Massachusetts GOP state Rep. Ryan Fattman has such contempt for illegal immigrants that he believes undocumented women who are raped should be afraid to go to the police. Yesterday, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported on Fattman’s incendiary comments, which he made while defending a controversial federal immigration program that many say will damage the relationship between law enforcement and immigrant communities. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) has refused to join the program out of concern that immigrants who are victims of violent crimes will be afraid to report them and seek help…
Representative Fattman supports deporting any undocumented rape victim who goes to the police immediately. That appears to be more important to him than preventing crimes and supporting victims of crime. Unbelievable.
Robert Reich continues to be an outspoken advocate for the unemployed and for a stimulus to correct the current economic problem. He accuses Obama of going over to the supply side fairy tale spun by Republicans. Yup, it’s not about more business incentives, it’s all about the lack of customers. He joins me and other economists who say it’s all about the Demand side right now.
Obama says he’s interested in exploring with Republicans extending some of the measures that were part of that tax-cut package “to make sure that we get this recovery up and running in a robust way.”
Accordingly, the White House is mulling a temporary cut in the payroll taxes businesses pay on wages. White House advisors figure this may appeal to Republican lawmakers who have been discussing the same idea. It would, in essence, match the 2 percent reduction in employee contributions to payroll taxes this year, enacted as part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts.
Other ideas under consideration at the White House include a corporate tax cut, accompanied by the closing of some corporate tax loopholes.
Can we get real for a moment? Businesses don’t need more financial incentives. They’re already sitting on a vast cash horde estimated to be upwards of $1.6 trillion. Besides, large and middle-sized companies are having no difficulty getting loans at bargain-basement rates, courtesy of the Fed.
In consequence, businesses are already spending as much as they can justify economically. Almost two-thirds of the measly growth in the economy so far this year has come from businesses rebuilding their inventories. But without more consumer spending, businesses won’t spend more. A robust economy can’t be built on inventory replacements.
The problem isn’t on the supply side. It’s on the demand side. Businesses are reluctant to spend more and create more jobs because there aren’t enough consumers out there able and willing to buy what businesses have to sell.
The so-called Gang of Six are close to releasing their budget ideas. They’ve shared what they’ve come up with so far with some members they feel may be responsive. Will it be enough to head off Republican calls for default on US debt?
Freshman Republican Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who was in the meeting, said she was open to looking into any potential plan that would address the deficit in a serious and responsible way. She characterized the meeting as an update on the group’s progress.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) who is spearheading the group’s efforts with Chambliss was tight-lipped about the presentation and refused to take any questions or even vaguely describe the mood of the meeting.
“Do you really think, as somebody who’s obsessed about this that I’m going to do anything to screw it up now?” Warner said emphatically Thursday afternoon.
Even Dick Durbin, another Gang member and the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, was coy with reporters after the meeting. The Illinois Democrat is typically quick to present even a basic line expressing optimism or progress made in the meeting, instead opting to playfully pretend with reporters he knew nothing about the group or the meeting.
“I can neither, confirm, deny or retract [anything about the meeting,” Durbin teased with reporters.
Aides on the Hill are quick to point out that lawmakers will talk more when things are going poorly and less when things are going well. Perhaps after a few weeks of uncertainty, the remaining “Five Guys” trying to forge a deal are close to one.
NATO has upped the ante in Libya by hammering Tripoli and directly targeting Colonel Gaddafi. Some countries are seeking to give access to the country’s frozen assets to the rebels. Many believe that the regime’s days are coming to an end shortly. Qaddafi is said to have ordered mass rape and to have handed out Viagra to troops. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the middle east working with other nations to plan for a post-Gaddafi Libya.
But another U.S. official indicated there was a conscious effort by NATO military planners to target air strikes closer to where Gaddafi is thought to have been taking shelter — and the Obama administration is privately supporting the intensified strikes.
So, that’s a little bit of what I found is going on in the world. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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