“It’s the first time that our court has said that a closely held corporation has the rights of a person when it comes to religious freedom,” she said during a Q&A at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I find it deeply disturbing that we are going in that direction.”
“It’s very troubling that a sales clerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health care plan because her employer doesn’t believe she should use birth control,” she continued.
Tuesday Reads: Live and Let Live Edition
Posted: July 1, 2014 Filed under: Affordable Care Act (ACA), birth control, Discrimination against women, Feminists, fetus fetishists, fundamentalist Christians, GLBT Rights, Hillary Clinton, Marriage Equality, morning reads, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights 28 CommentsGood Morning!
Why is it that many religious people just cannot live without imposing their views on others? That’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about since the reliably patriarchal side of SCOTUS took one more step to force their favorite flavor of religion on the rest of us. Today’s photo montage is via “The Invisibles”. It is a montage of gay couples during the times when theirs was a “love that dare not speak its name”. There are so many folks that choose to live outside of the conventions of the society into which they were born. I was raised to think that this country was born of the dreams of folks wanting to establish a place where they could not be persecuted for not following the majority’s norms. Our country has not had perfect beginnings. But up until recently, I always felt that we were at least creeping towards a “more perfect union”.
While the plight of the GLBT community is improving and appears to have some forward momentum, there are others that are being shoved back into conformity with lives and values not of their choosing. This includes women, immigrants and many minorities. Why do others feel they have to justify their own lives by persecuting others? We’re headed towards our nation’s birthday. What has happened to the idea of creating our “more perfect union” with “liberty and justice for all”?
So, first I feel like I have to add more to the discussion on the SCOTUS decision that allows privately and tightly held corporations that are not engaged 
in the business of religion to hold religious beliefs identical to the owners that are supposedly separate from the corporation enough to be indemnified by any illegal activities it undertakes. Hillary Clinton made her views clear on the subject as did Justice Ginsberg writing for the dissent. I will rely on their words here. Hillary Clinton calls the decision “deeply disturbing”.
Justice Ginsberg wrote a masterful dissent.
On Monday, the Supreme Court sided with Hobby Lobby on the company’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, ruling that the mandate, as applied to “closely held” businesses, violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But the divided court’s 5-4 decision included a dramatic dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who called the majority opinion “a decision of startling breadth.” Ginsburg read a portion of her decision from the bench on Monday.
Addressing the majority of her colleagues — including all but one of the six men sitting on the Supreme Court — Ginsburg wrote:
In the Court’s view, RFRA demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith—in these cases, thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga or dependents of persons those corporations employ. Persuaded that Congress enacted RFRA to serve a far less radical purpose, and mindful of the havoc the Court’s judgment can introduce, I dissent.
The justice goes on to criticize the opinion’s interpretation of the religious freedom law, writing that “until today, religious exemptions had never been extended to any entity operating in ‘the commercial, profit-making world.'”
The reason why is hardly obscure. Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community. Indeed, by law, no religion-based criterion can restrict the work force of for-profit corporations…The distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention. One can only wonder why the Court shuts this key difference from sight.
“In sum,” Ginsburg adds about the free exercise claims at the heart of this case,“‘[y]our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.’”
Justice Alito got a little prickly in his majority opinion about Ginsburg’s strong criticism of their take on the case:
As this description of our reasoning shows, our holding is very specific. We do not hold, as the principal dissent alleges, that for-profit corporations and other commercial enterprises can “opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” Post, at 1 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.). Nor do we hold, as the dissent implies, that such corporations have free rein to take steps that impose “disadvantages . . . on others” or that require “the general public [to] pick up the tab.” Post, at 1–2. And we certainly do not hold or suggest that “RFRA demands accommodation of a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on . . . thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby.” Post, at 2.1 The effect of the HHS-created accommodation on the women employed by Hobby Lobby and the other companies involved in these cases would be precisely zero. Under that accommodation, these women would still be entitled to all FDA-approved contraceptives without cost sharing.
Ginsburg seems to reply to Alito by suggesting that what Alito sees as a narrow, limited decision is essentially an invitation for lots of future challenges on religious grounds: “Although the Court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations,” she writes, “its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private. Little doubt that RFRA claims will proliferate.”
Further quotes from Ginsburg’s dissent can be read at MOJO.
Here are seven more key quotes from Ginsburg’s dissent in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby:
- “The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage”
- “Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.”
- “Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby’s or Conestoga’s plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults.”
- “It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.”
- “Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”
- “Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”
- “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”
You can read the full dissent here. (It starts on page 60.)
The court attempted a narrow decision but crept into an area of corporate law that could create an interesting situation. Usually, corporations are considered distinct from their owners. Hobby Lobby is a corporation tightly held by a family so the majority view basically carved out this type of corporation and said “it’s different”. However, how can you indemnify owners from corporate malfeasance AND say that this specific corporation that doesn’t have a religious mission reflects this set of owner’s pet superstitions? Could the justices have unintentionally left a back door open to challenge the very basis of incorporation which is to make any corporation its own entity?
The decision’s acknowledgment of corporations’ religious liberty rights was reminiscent of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a 2010 ruling that affirmed the free speech rights of corporations. Justice Alito explained why corporations should sometimes be regarded as persons. “A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends,” he wrote. “When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people.”
Justice Ginsburg said the commercial nature of for-profit corporations made a difference.
“The court forgets that religious organizations exist to serve a community of believers,” she wrote. “For-profit corporations do not fit that bill.”
I wanted to point out the anniversary of a sad day in New Orleans history. I’m not sure how many of you know about the UpStairs Lounge fire of 1973. The arson mass murder of GLBT stands as the largest of its kind in modern history.
On June 24, 1973, an arsonist set fire to a gay bar in New Orleans called the Upstairs Lounge, killing 32 gay men and women in what has gone down in history as thelargest gay mass murder in U.S. history.
Today is the 41st anniversary of that tragedy, which has been documented by Robert L. Camina in the new film “Upstairs Inferno”. According to the first official teaser trailer below, the horrific event led to even more reprehensible acts in its wake – several bodies from within the club were never claimed by family members, those survivors featured in the news went on to lose their jobs and livelihoods, and the New Orleans police department lagged its feet and attempted to cover up the deadly crime.
To this day, no one has ever been charged with setting fire to the UpStairs Lounge.
Many folks believe this is an event that should not be forgotten.
For a complex array of reasons, including homophobia, shame, and despair, the fire and its victims languished in obscurity for years, not taking its proper place in the broader sweep of LGBT history, but this is quickly changing.
“Upstairs”, my musical tragedy commemorating the fire and honoring its victims premiered last year in New Orleans to sold-out audiences, as part of the 40th anniversary memorials and Pride events. A portion of the musical is now playing at the West Village Musical Theatre Festival in New York.
A new book, “The UpStairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a Louisiana Gay Bar”, released just last month, is the most extensively-researched and carefully-told history of the subject.
And “Upstairs Inferno”, a documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Robert Camina is currently in post-production.
In addition, Delery, Camino, and I are advocating the inclusion of the UpStairs Lounge site on the National Register of Historic Places.
To commemorate the anniversary of the fire, I spoke with Camina about his documentary.
The lion’s share of published research about the fire comes from Johnny Townsend, author of “Let the Faggots Burn”, and Clay Delery. Did you interview them for the piece and what did you learn?
Well of course Townsend had a lot to contribute, because without his efforts many years ago to interview people, many of the stories would have been lost. So I think he brought a lot of insight to the tragedy that, since so many have passed on, we are not able to access.
Did you get to talk to anyone that Delery and Townsend did not get to talk to?
I don’t think they interviewed Francis Dufrene. We were able to interview him. He was a survivor of the fire. He slipped through the bars and jumped and landed on the pavement. He suffered third-degree burns. He gave us a distinctive perspective of what it was like in the middle of it when the fire started, so we definitely learned a little bit of what it was like the emotions just the mood and a frame of mind of what people going through in there.
As far as you can tell, what was the UpStairs lounge like as a bar?
It was a very comfortable place. Everyone we talked to said that the patrons were like a family. And the word that has come up that you’re very familiar with is “Sanctuary”.Yes, that’s why I opened my musical with a song of that title. And of course, when a place that is considered a sanctuary is invaded and ruined, it has a profound impact on a community. And I’m not sure I had a whole sense of the impact that it had until I was there last year for the 40th Anniversary to see how the community responded to the memorial events and the play.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made an appearance at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas on Friday, where he claimed that the success of capitalism was deeply tied to the nation’s religious values.
“While I would not argue that capitalism as an economic system is inherently more Christian than socialism … it does seem to me that capitalism is more dependent on Christianity than socialism is,” Scalia, a devout Catholic, said during his speech,according to the Houston Chronicle. “For in order for capitalism to work — in order for it to produce a good and a stable society — the traditional Christian virtues are essential.”
Unfortunately, I can’t seem to read the part in the new testament where the jesus dude said ANY of that. Evidently, we’re supposed to all follow his brand of religion even if we find it to be complete bunk.
Why can’t we just live and let live?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Some Things Just Never Change
Posted: June 13, 2014 Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Iraq, morning reads, right wing hate grouups 78 Comments
Good Morning!
Do you remember the picture over there on the left? It’s our country getting out of Vietnam in 1975. That happened during my first year at university. My high school graduation was overshadowed by Watergate and the resignation of Nixon. My coming of age was basically full of these kinds of things that jade you. I won’t even go into the amazingly bad economy full of stagflation and unemployment. It’s amazing to me that my daughters now get to experience my Déjà vu with their fresh eyes. The photo down there on the right is the US leaving Iraq. The similarities are frightening. So look at these photos and then we will talk about Iraq which has been a singularly unpleasant topic for quite some time. It’s more unraveling of very bad U.S. Policy. Rachel Maddow covered it very thoroughly last night. Iraq is basically splitting into three distinct entities. It appears Baghdad will fall shortly. 
Iraq is completely and fully experiencing a civil war.
Iraq was on the brink of falling apart Thursday as al-Qaeda renegades asserted their authority over Sunni areas in the north, Kurds seized control of the city of Kirkuk and the Shiite-led government appealed for volunteers to help defend its shrinking domain. The discredited Iraqi army scrambled to recover after the humiliating rout of the past three days, dispatching elite troops to confront the militants in the central town of Samarra and claiming that it had recaptured Tikrit, the home town of the late Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, whose regime was toppled by U.S. troops sweeping north from Kuwait in 2003. But there was no sign that the militant push was being reversed. With the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria now sweeping south toward Baghdad, scattering U.S.-trained security forces in its wake, the achievements of America’s eight-year war in Iraq were rapidly being undone. Iraq now seems to be inexorably if unintentionally breaking apart, into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish enclaves that amount to the de facto partition of the country. As the scale of the threat to the collapsing Iraqi state became clear, Obama administration officials met to discuss options for a response, including possible airstrikes. An Iraqi official in the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the United States had committed to carrying out airstrikes against the militants, but U.S. officials said no decision had been reached. President Obama indicated there would be some form of intervention, though he did not specify what. “It’s fair to say . . . there will be some short-term things that need to be done militarily,” he said.
Iraqi Kurds have taken the oil-rich city of Kirkuk while radical Sunnis head for Baghdad. Shia radicals aligned with Iran and Syria have also moved into the embattled country.
In Mosul, Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) staged a parade of American Humvees seized from the collapsing Iraqi army in the two days since the fighters drove out of the desert and overran Iraq’s second biggest city. Two helicopters, also seized by the militants, flew overhead, witnesses said, apparently the first time the militant group has obtained aircraft in years of waging insurgency on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. State television showed what it said was aerial footage of Iraqi aircraft firing missiles at insurgent targets in Mosul. The targets could be seen exploding in black clouds. Further south, the fighters extended their lightning advance to towns only about an hour’s drive from the capital Baghdad, where Shi’ite militia are mobilizing for a potential replay of the ethnic and sectarian bloodbath of 2006-2007. Trucks carrying Shi’ite volunteers in uniform rumbled towards the front lines to defend the capital. The stunning advance of ISIL, which aims to build a Caliphate ruled on medieval Sunni Islamic principles across Syria and Iraq, is the biggest threat to Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes in fear as the militants seized the main cities of the Tigris valley north of Baghdad in a matter of days. The security forces of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish north, known as the peshmerga, or those who confront death, took over bases in Kirkuk vacated by the army, a spokesman said.
There were no jihadis in Iraq when Dubya et al lied us into war. There certainly are jihadis there now.
As the U.S. pullout began under the terms of a treaty signed in 2008 by then-President George W. Bush, Maliki, the leader of a Shiite political party, promised to run a more inclusive government—to bring more Sunnis into the ministries, to bring more Sunnis from the Sons of Iraq militia into the national army, to settle property disputes in Kirkuk, to negotiate a formula on sharing oil revenue with Sunni districts, and much more.
Maliki has since backpedaled on all of these commitments and has pursued policies designed to strengthen Shiites and marginalize Sunnis. That has led to the resurgence of sectarian violence in the past few years. The Sunnis, finding themselves excluded from the political process, have taken up arms as the route to power. In the process, they have formed alliances with Sunni jihadist groups—such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which has seized not just Mosul but much of northern Iraq—on the principle that the enemy of their enemy is their friend.Something like this has happened before. Between 2005 and 2006, jihadists who called themselves al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took control of Anbar province, in the western part of the country, by playing on the population’s fear of the anti-Sunni ethnic-cleansing campaigns launched by Maliki’s army.* ISIS, an offshoot of Zarqawi’s organization, is following the same handbook, picking up support from one of northern Iraq’s leading Sunni militias, Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqah al-Naqshbandia, or JRTN. That is a risky move for a group like JRTN, which shares neither the millenarian goals nor the extremely violent tactics of ISIS (which, it’s worth noting, was expelled from al-Qaida because even current al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri considered the group too violent). But JRTN’s leaders have accepted the risk for now to advance their own goal of overthrowing Maliki. (They boast that they have been fighting alongside ISIS, but disavow involvement in the killing of civilians.)The fall of Mosul is particularly poignant because that was the city where peace and prosperity seemed most likely in the early days of the American occupation. David Petraeus, then the three-star general who commanded the 101st Airborne Division, applied his theory of counterinsurgency to all of Nineveh province, of which Mosul was the capital. And, for a while anyway, it worked.
While most U.S. commanders in post-Hussein Iraq were ordering their soldiers to bust down doors and arrest or shoot all men who seemed to be insurgents, Petraeus and his team took steps to create a government. Using funds pilfered from Saddam Hussein’s coffers, they vetted candidates for a citywide election (selecting leaders from all factions and tribes), started up newspapers and TV stations, coordinated fuel shipments from Turkey, and reopened businesses, communication lines, and the university. This game plan was classic “nation-building,” a phrase anathema to most Army generals and the secretary of defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld. The idea was not to make the people of Mosul love America, but rather to make them feel invested in the future of the new Iraq.
So, it seems Dubya et all have not only brought on a civil war in Iraq, they planted the seeds for a civil war in the Republican Party. More than ever, it’s important to vote in the midterms this year. We cannot afford to have this battle fought on the floor of our Congress. The Tealiban are fed up with lip service. They want to make sure that women wear their versions of the head-to-toe burkhas, that gays are stoned, and that we have no federal government to stand in the way of a new NeoConfederacy.
The GOP’s leadership crisis extends beyond Congress. In recent cycles, Republican presidential primaries have been relatively orderly affairs where the party establishment rallies around a frontrunner—often the person who came in second the last time (Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney)—who holds off right-wing challengers on his way to the nomination. This year, however, that kind of elite control looks unlikely. Chris Christie, the first choice of many GOP leaders, is so wounded that even if he runs, he will not be the frontrunner. Some donors are rallying behind Jeb Bush. If he does not run, they may turn to Marco Rubio. But the road to the GOP nomination runs through Iowa and South Carolina, whose Republican activists resemble the anti-establishment, talk-radio-powered folks who knocked off Cantor. If those activists helped defeat Cantor merely for supporting citizenship for undocumented immigrant children, think how they’ll react to Bush or Rubio, who support a path to citizenship for their parents as well. In the Democratic Party, by contrast—which has enjoyed a reputation for organizational anarchy since the days of Will Rogers—party hierarchies are clear and largely unchallenged. A February Pew poll found that Democrats were more than 20 points more likely than Republicans to say their party’s leaders stand up for party principles. And the consequences are plain to see.
Even though a lot of us–including me–are not really Democrats or Republicans, it is important that the extremists in the Republican party go no further. We could spend the next two years with a right wing radicalism we’ve never seen before in this country.
American political parties always face a tension between their establishment and ideological wings. On the Republican side, going back more than a hundred years to the Teddy Roosevelt era, that was a struggle between moderate progressives and conservatives. Now it is different. There are no moderates or progressives in today’s GOP; the fight is between hard-line conservatives who believe in smaller government and radical nihilists who want to blow up the whole thing, who have as much disdain for Republican traditional conservatives as they do for liberals.
Meanwhile, the urban-rural, reactionary-progressive split seems more pronounced than ever. An extremely interesting Pew Poll was released 
yesterday that shows exactly what it means to live in a divided America.
The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican. Today 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median RepublicanPartisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.”
I guess I do agree that today’s Republican party is a threat to this country. It’s definitely a threat to American women.
Here’s a Fresh Air interview with Hillary Clinton if you’re interested.
Hillary Clinton is on a national book tour for her new memoir, Hard Choices. The book outlines her four years as secretary of state during President Obama’s first term, when she met with leaders all over the world.
One of her priorities was to campaign for gay rights and women’s rights. She says she saw the “full gamut” on how women were treated, and in some cases it was “painful to observe.”
“It has become — and I think will continue to be — a very important issue for the United States to combat around the world and to stand up for the rights of all people,” she tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross.
The only thing that gives me hope is that the average Fox viewer and Republican are older than me. Let’s hope our daughters and sons, our granddaughters and grandsons see the insanity of repeating these same mistakes. The polls of our future citizens look a lot more hopeful than the polls based on the old guard.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Saturday Reads
Posted: May 31, 2014 Filed under: Crime, FBI, Hillary Clinton, metadata, morning reads, NSA, National Security Agency, Rape Culture, Real Life Horror, U.S. Politics, Violence against women | Tags: Edward Snowden, George Packer, Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Chait, Margaret Sullivan, Michael Kinsley 34 Comments
Good Morning!!
I stole the above Dave Granlund cartoon from JJ’s Friday night post, because it perfectly expresses my viewpoint on who and what Edward Snowden is. I’ll have the latest Snowden news for you in a minute, but first a personal update and some breaking Boston bombing news.
I’m in Indiana visiting my mom for a couple of weeks. The weather is gorgeous here, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s great to be out of the drizzly cold weather the Boston area has been having. I’m looking forward to doing quite a bit of yard work, helping my mom buy a new bed, celebrating her 89th birthday with her, and just generally enjoying her company.
As usual, I drove my car out here, and I made great time. The speed limits have been increased to 70 mph in Ohio and Indiana, and everyone in Massachusetts and New York routinely drives at least 10-15 miles over the 65 mph limit. So I probably averaged around 70-75 mph on the trip.
My mechanic told me that I need to start using premium gas in my car. I hated to do it, but to my surprise I got much better mileage with the expensive gas. I used 2-1/2 tanks of gas to go more than 900 miles. Usually it takes 3 full tanks and a little more to make the trip!
As I mentioned above, some Boston bombing news broke last night. From The Boston Globe: Man charged with obstructing bombing probe.
A cab driver from Quincy who was close to the two suspected Boston Marathon bombers was arrested Friday on charges of lying to investigators and destroying evidence, allegedly obstructing the ongoing investigation of the 2013 attack that shocked the city and the nation.
Khairullozhon Matanov, a 23-year-old Kyrgyzstan national, allegedly contacted Tamerlan Tsarnaev 42 minutes after the April 15, 2013, bombings, and he bought him and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, dinner at a restaurant that night. Matanov visited Tamerlan, whom he knew from playing soccer and from places of worship, at the suspected bomber’s Cambridge home two days later.
Over several days after the bombings, he also called the brothers repeatedly.
Authorities alleged in a sweeping indictment unsealed Friday that Matanov realized the FBI would want to interview him about his relationship with the suspected bombers, but that he deleted files from his computer and tried to get rid of his cellphones. They also allege that he lied to investigators about his encounters with the brothers in the days after the bombings.
Matanov discussed his friendship with the Tsarnaev brothers with others in the days following the bombing, but he claims that they didn’t confess their involvement to him. Apparently, the FBI knew about all this a year ago; it’s not clear why they waited until now to charge Matanov. I’ll be keeping my eye on this story.
Now the latest on the Snowden Operation.
Edward Snowden has been dominating the news for the past few days because of the interview he gave to NBC’s Brian Williams and the recent release of Glenn Greenwald’s book on his collaboration with Snowden in releasing classified NSA files. I have to admit up front that I haven’t yet been able to force myself to watch the interview. Frankly, I doubt if Williams asked any of the questions that I think Snowden should be asked; but I promise I’ll watch the thing today to find out for sure. Meanwhile, I’ve gathered some reactions from people who have watched it.
Frankly, I admit up front that I think Edward Snowden is a defector as well as an arrogant, grandiose, narcissistic jerk. But I think you all knew that already. With that said, here are the latest Snowden (and Greenwald) stories from my very biased point of view.
Last week there were a couple of high-profile negative reviews of Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide, one by George Packer and the other by Michael Kinsley. As you know, Greenwald doesn’t take criticism well, and he and his fans were not happy with either review. Packer’s review was the most scathing and carefully argued, but Kinsley is taking most of the heat from the Greenwald fan base, probably because the review was quite snarky. For example:
Greenwald was the go-between for Edward Snowden and some of the
newspapers that reported on Snowden’s collection of classified documents
exposing huge eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, among
other scandals. His story is full of journalistic derring-do, mostly set in
exotic Hong Kong. It’s a great yarn, which might be more entertaining if
Greenwald himself didn’t come across as so unpleasant. Maybe he’s
charming and generous in real life. But in “No Place to Hide,” Greenwald
seems like a self-righteous sourpuss, convinced that every issue is
“straightforward,” and if you don’t agree with him, you’re part of
something he calls “the authorities,” who control everything for their own
nefarious but never explained purposes….Throughout “No Place to Hide,” Greenwald quotes any person or
publication taking his side in any argument. If an article or editorial in
The Washington Post or The New York Times (which he says “takes
direction from the U.S. government about what it should and shouldn’t
publish”) endorses his view on some issue, he is sure to cite it as evidence that he is right. If Margaret Sullivan, the public editor (ombudsman, or
reader representative) of The Times, agrees with him on some controversy,
he is in heaven. He cites at length the results of a poll showing that more
people are coming around to his notion that the government’s response to
terrorism after 9/11 is more dangerous than the threat it is designed to
meet.Greenwald doesn’t seem to realize that every piece of evidence he
musters demonstrating that people agree with him undermines his own
argument that “the authorities” brook no dissent. No one is stopping
people from criticizing the government or supporting Greenwald in any
way. Nobody is preventing the nation’s leading newspaper from publishing
a regular column in its own pages dissenting from company or government
orthodoxy. If a majority of citizens now agree with Greenwald that dissent
is being crushed in this country, and will say so openly to a stranger who
rings their doorbell or their phone and says she’s a pollster, how can
anyone say that dissent is being crushed? What kind of poor excuse for an
authoritarian society are we building in which a Glenn Greenwald, proud
enemy of conformity and government oppression, can freely promote this
book in all media and sell thousands of copies at airport bookstores
surrounded by Homeland Security officers?
And so on . . . After Kinsley’s piece was published the Snowden cult, of which NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan is a charter member, reacted as usual with an over-the-top firestorm of rage. I’ll let Sullivan speak for the cult. She questioned the choice of Kinsley as reviewer and accused the long-time book-reviewer of arguing the only the government should decide whether classified government materials should be published. She apparently also felt that Kinsley showed insufficient deference to her idol Glenn Greenwald. I’d like to quote from Sullivan’s piece, but for some reason I can’t copy and paste from it. But here’s a reaction to the kerfluffle from Jonathan Chait: Times vs. Sullivan vs. Kinsley vs. Greenwald. Chait agrees with me that the Packer review is “more devastating.” Chait thoroughly skewers Margaret Sullivan, and she can’t attack him because he didn’t do it at the NYT.
It’s certainly true that Kinsley is more effective [than Packer] at poking a hole in Greenwald’s argument than in making the case for his own (obviously problematic) alternative. That would seem to be fair enough given that he’s writing a review of Greenwald’s book. Not to Sullivan, who sprung into action, using her public editor’s column to scold Kinsley. His review “expressed a belief that many journalists find appalling,” she wrote, aghast. Also, “there’s a lot about this piece that is unworthy of the Book Review’s high standards, the sneering tone about Mr. Greenwald, for example.” No sneering in the book review!
Paul writes back to Sullivan — in a rebuttal posted at the bottom of Sullivan’s item — to say, more or less, “let me explain to you what what a book review is”:
It seems there is a lot of confusion on the Internet, especially among those who do not work in the media but even — disturbingly — within the media, about the differences between an editorial and a book review, between what “The New York Times” says and what a reviewer for The New York Times Book Review says. …
For a reviewer to address how a writer comes across, particularly in a memoir or first-hand account, is entirely fair game for a book review, and by no means an ad hominem attack.
The notion that it’s wrong for the book review to print abhorrent reviews, let alone to poke fun at no less a hero than Glenn Greenwald, is an artifact of the culture of smugness that Kinsley is writing about here. If there’s one thing objective journalists are allowed — indeed, expected — to hold extremely strong opinions about, other than the importance of reducing the budget deficit, it’s the importance of journalists themselves. How dare a newspaper publish a review expressing skepticism about special rights for journalists?
Just for balance, here is a fairly non-judgmental summary of the overall “controversy” at the Neiman Report.
Finally, Kinsley’s response to Margaret Sullivan
Since I haven’t yet watched the Snowden interview with Brian Williams, I’ll give you what I think is the best response I’ve seen so far from Kurt Eichenbaum at Newsweek: 16 Questions Edward Snowden Wasn’t Asked. This article is must-read–if only I could quote the whole thing! Here’s a small sample:
1. Most of the information that has been revealed from the documents you obtained dealt with the abilities, rather than the actions, of the NSA. Did you see or do you have any evidence that the agency was, in fact, spying on Americans who were not linked to terrorist organizations through what is known as the “three-hop” standard? (Under this rule, one of 22 NSA officials must give approval to an analyst who believes a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” exists that a number is directly linked to terrorists. Then the analyst is allowed to determine through searches of metadata which phone numbers were called by the first number. The NSA can then determine the numbers called by the second phone, and the numbers called by the third. The intent is to see if numbers called in the United States by phones directly connected to terrorists will reveal terrorist operatives inside the country.)
5. Did you see or do you have evidence of the NSA reading content of emails sent by Americans or listening to phone calls of Americans without meeting the standards required by the national security courts known as FISA courts?
10. Do you believe that surveillance in foreign nations is intrinsically wrong?
11. You say that you do not believe your actions damaged United States security and that the government has failed to reveal instances where it did. Two questions: What kind of analysis did you conduct to be sure that the information you were taking did not compromise security? And, secondly, given that journalists do not have security clearances, why did you think they were the best placed to Click here and determine what would compromise national security and what didn’t?
Please go read the rest. It sounds like Brian Williams pretty much avoided asking Snowden any hard questions at all.
A few more quick headlines:
NBC News (Irony alert!): Russia Web Journalism Award Named For Edward Snowden.
More horrendous gang rapes in India–from Reuters India: Home minister seeks report on grisly rape, hanging of teens in Uttar Pradesh.
Exclusive: The Daily Banter’s Investigation Helps Catch Sandy Hook Memorial Thief.
Hilarious must-read from Politico: NSA releases Snowden memo.
Oliver Willis: Republicans already handing the White House to Hillary Clinton.
Those are my offerings for today. What are you reading and blogging about? Please share your links on any topic in the comment thread.http
Monday Reads: the Hillary Factor
Posted: May 19, 2014 Filed under: 2014 elections, 2016 elections, Hillary Clinton, morning reads, right wing hate grouups 73 CommentsGood Morning!
The Republicans are seriously flipping out at the thought of President Hillary Clinton. I didn’t watch the Sunday talking head shows but I certainly followed the follow-up fallout. Reince Prebius is literally pissing his Little Lord Fauntleroy suits in anticipation of the 2016 race.
By repeating the claim over and over again that she won’t run, RNC chairman Reince Priebus admitted that the Republican goal is to smear Hillary Clinton into not running for president.
Priebus claimed that Clinton’s age and health are fair game. The RNC chairman said, “What was her record as Secretary of State? Benghazi, Boko Haram, you know, Syria, Russia, those are going to be the issues that I believe will cause her to rethink whether or not she wants to run for president.”
Later he said, “What I think is going to make her rethink whether she should actually run for president. By the way, I don’t think she will if she has another month like she just had, but the issues that I talked about are the issues that are going to make her unacceptable to the American people.”
Priebus denied the that issue is to convince her not to run, then he claimed that Clinton is trying to sweep Benghazi under the rug, and he repeated, “My view though is David, is that given the month she just had, actually I doubt very much that she will run for president in 2016.”
The man who should be in front of a firing squad for lying us into war, violating our torture agreements, and ignoring all the intelligence leading up to 9/11 even crawled out from the Wyoming caves long enough to snarl Benghazi! Like this guy doesn’t need a full out investigation leading to his arrest and imprisonment. When do we get to hold Bush/Cheney inc responsible for all their screw ups?
Dick Cheney, the former vice president who was in office during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and later pushed the country into war with Iraq based on faulty intelligence, said on Sunday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be “held accountable” for four Americans that died during a terrorist attack in Benghazi.
During a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Cheney if Clinton “did anything wrong,” and if she should be “held responsible for the events surrounding that attack.”
“She was secretary of state at the time that it happened,” Cheney opined. “She was one of the first in Washington to know about it. I think she clearly bears responsibility for whatever the State Department did or didn’t do with respect to that crisis.”
“I do think it’s a major issue,” he added. “I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it yet, and I expect that she will be held accountable during the course of the campaign.”
Cheney’s wife, Lynne, who was also on the program also doubled down on her recent suggestion that Hillary Clinton had conspired with Vanity Fair to publish an article by Monica Lewinsky to get the issue out of the way before a 2016 presidential run.
“I was really paying the Clintons a large compliment,” she insisted. “I was saying how clever they are politically. And it seemed to me, if you had something that might come up during the campaign that would be damaging, it was very smart to get it out of the way early.”
“So, that’s my case, Chris, and I’m staying with it.”
The totally irrelevant Karl Rove continued his spiel on Fox. He’s been so consistently wrong on things recently that you’d think even the Fox vacuum tube would burst.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Rove said the Clintons are hypocritical for crying foul.
“I love President Clinton’s comments the other day,” Rove said. “Let’s remember, this is a guy who ran for office savaging Bob Dole.”
“I love being lectured by Bill Clinton,” Rove said sarcastically.
Bill Clinton didn’t necessarily lecture Rove, but he did defend his wife last week, saying she is “strong.” But the former president might have made the situation worse for his wife by saying she had a “terrible” concussion that took six months to get over. That is the first time anyone from her team has said it was a six-month recovery.
“Karl Rove is struggling to be relevant,” Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri shot back on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” calling the former Bush adviser’s super PAC, which spent more than $175 million trying to elect Republican Mitt Romney, an “abject failure.”
What is it with these men that they are so afraid of one woman? It just amazes me to see the kind of filth the kick up about her.
Bernie Sanders is questioning Hillary from the left.
Sanders says he doesn’t know whether Clinton will run or not but, like everyone, can see the direction of things this spring. He already has plenty of questions about whether the former senator and secretary of state is what he believes the times demand.
“If she does run, will she be as strong as the times require in taking on the billionaire class that has so much power? I’m not sure that she will be,” Sanders said during an interview in his Senate office. “Will she be as strong as needs be to address the crisis of climate change? I am not sure that she will be. Will she be as strong as needs be to take on the power of Wall Street? I’m not sure she will be.”
It has been widely assumed that if Clinton runs, someone who speaks for the party’s restive progressive wing could mount some kind of challenge — symbolic, gadfly or otherwise — to force a more robust discussion about economic issues and the power of Wall Street and corporate interests. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is a popular choice among many on the left to lead that effort, but she has so far demurred. Sanders is not so reticent.
He appears slightly uneasy presenting himself purely as the anti-Hillary. “I like Hillary and have known her for many years,” he said somewhat defensively after he was reminded that he recently told Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine that he would be a better president.
“What I do know about Hillary Clinton is that she has been a very strong advocate of women’s rights,” he continued. “I respect that. She and I have worked together on some issues regarding children. She’s been a strong advocate of children. I have a lot of respect for Hillary Clinton.”
But it’s clear his respect has limits when it comes to the core issues that long have animated his politics. “These are extraordinary times, which require a boldness and an aggressiveness that I’m not sure her past history suggests is there,” Sanders said. “I am not sure that she has been — ” He paused and caught himself. “Well, that’s all. I’m going to leave it at that.”
I do worry about the “inevitability” factor raising its head again. That caused a lot of democratic pols to search out other candidates. Will we see some of the same?
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said he is concerned about the “inevitability” factor with a potential Clinton nomination.
“I do worry about the inevitability thing,” Patrick said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that it’s “off-putting to the … average voter.”
“I think that was an element of her campaign the last time,” he said, without having to specify how that turned out (Barack Obama won). “I just hope that the people around her pay attention to that this time around.”
All of this effort is pure speculation at the moment anyway since Clinton still is coy about her future. I also hope we can continue to focus on the 2014 elections and the need to ensure we don’t see the Republicans win the Senate Majority. There is still a good chance that the ever scarier Repubican loonies could do it. Right now many folks are saying there are 48 seats leaning towards each party and about 4 are a toss up. This is the outlook from Larry Sabato.
The calculated takeaway is this: As of now, Democrats are clear underdogs in the two states where they want to play offense. They also are probably no better than 50-50 in any of the seven red states where they are defending seats, and drowning in a couple. A big enough wave could cut into the blue states, too, although probably not as deeply as Republicans fantasize. Put it all together, and the current forecast calls for a wave that’s more than a ripple but less than a tsunami — a four to eight-seat addition for the Republicans, with the higher end of the range being a shade likelier than the lower.
So, I’m really worried about all of this. I don’t want to experience the absolute misogyny again and I certainly don’t want the right wing religious whackos in office. I think we really need to work on GOTV for the fall and try to get off the 2016 races already!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: Freedom Fried Edition
Posted: April 24, 2014 Filed under: corporate greed, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, morning reads, right wing hate grouups, Rush Limbaugh, the GOP, Women's Rights 65 CommentsGood Morning!
BB is having internet problems this morning so I’m going to try to get this quick post off this morning!
I’ve really come to believe that the Republican Party is basically the victim of the success of the Southern Strategy. The coupling of neoconfederates and religious fanatics with big business interests seems to be coming full circle. A new poll seems to broadly indicates this as we continue to see the educated, women, minorities, the young, and most states out of the deep south turn away from Republicans. But you know, it’s all about white,straight, christian male freedom, so every one else can just go sit at the back of the bus or be thrown under the bus.
While white Southerners have been voting Republican for decades, the hugeness of the gap was new. Mr. Obama often lost more than 40 percent of Al Gore’s support among white voters south of the historically significant line of the Missouri Compromise. Two centuries later, Southern politics are deeply polarized along racial lines. It is no exaggeration to suggest that in these states the Democrats have become the party of African Americans and that the Republicans are the party of whites.
The collapse in Democratic support among white Southerners has been obscured by the rise of the Obama coalition. Higher black turnout allowed the Democrats to win nearly 44 percent of the vote in states like Mississippi, where 37 percent of voters were black. But the white shift is nearly as important to contemporary electoral politics as the Obama coalition. It represents an end, at least temporarily, to the South’s assimilation into the American political and cultural mainstream.
There are many reasons for this, but the role of right wing media is undoubtedly important. Fox eagerly jumps on the story of “beleaguered white man”
only to find their new hero is a secessionist, a misogynist, a homophobe, almost violently anti-modernity and law, and terribly racist. JJ had a great post yesterday about Clive Bundy. Well, here’s the latest interview with the old coot who thinks black folks were better off as literal slaves than they are today.
Republican politicians began backtracking on their support of Nevada anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy after the New York Times caught Bundy making racially-inflammatory remarks blaming African-Americans for willingly submiting to dependency on federal assistance.
“They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton,” Bundy was quoted as saying to a group of supporters last Saturday. “And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
Bundy’s statements about “the Negro,” published on Wednesday, were made during his daily speech to supporters outside Bunkerville, Nevada, where a crowd gathered to support him in defiance of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) during an attempted round up of his cattle. The confrontation was the result of Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees on federally-owned land for more than 20 years, in spite of multiple court rulings against him. Bundy has stated on several occasions that he does not recognize the existence of the federal government.
During the speech, Bundy said he remembered driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, which he called a “government house” with “always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch” with nothing to do.
These dudes clearly hate and misunderstand women too. And, it’s not just southern white men.
A New Hampshire lawmaker found himself being heckled by his colleagues on Wednesday during a state House speech, which asserted that women lacked the work ethic of men so they should be paid less.
During a floor debate on Wednesday, state Rep. Will Infantine (R) argued that the “Paycheck Equity Act” was not necessary to prevent wage discrimination based on gender because women deserved to make less.
“Men, by and large, make more because some of the things that they do,” he opined. “Their jobs are, by and large, riskier. They don’t mind working nights and weekends. They don’t mind working overtime or outdoors.”
At that point in the video clip uploaded by Granite State Progress, other lawmakers began to loudly object to Infantine’s remarks.
“It’s not me!” he exclaimed, insisting that his facts came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Men work five or six hours longer a week than women do,” he continued. “When it comes to women and men who own businesses… women make half of what men do because of flexibility of work, men are more motivated by money than women are.”
The poster boy for TV Ugly is Erick Erickson. He’s the Rush Limbaugh of the internet and FOX and here’s what he’s saying about Hillary.
Red State and Fox News’ Erik Erickson makes believe he’s a big time Christian conservative politico, but when he opens his mouth about the left, he almost always sounds like nasty degenerate. I guess he is a Christian conservative active in politics after all.
Here he is on Rush Limbaugh’s airwaves, discussing the upcoming election and Charlie Cook’s analysis when he went into his goatf*&king child molester routine on Hillary.
Erickson…it’s very, very hard for incumbent parties to win three in a row no matter how it goes. Look at Bill Clinton going into 2000. I could be wrong. All my Democratic friends are salivating, yea, I have a couple of them.
They’re all salivating at the idea of Hillary Clinton running in 2016. She’s gonna be old. I don’t know how far back they can pull her face, can I say that on the air? I don’t know…There’s gonna be an age factor there and does she wanna go out and be like John McCain in 2008, the Democrats were playing up the old card
Oh, my God. This is what qualifies as top notch Conservative policy analysis. This is what Hillary has to look forward to when she runs for 2016. It’s not about her policy ideas or issues, but her face, her age, her clothes, her smell, her bitchiness, her sexual preferences, her ____ (Fill in the blank)
It’s really difficult for me to understand how these men can live with all this anger, rage, and pent up hatred. What’s worse is that they all seem to come equipped with guns. It also is beyond me how these guys can be so completely duped into supporting the very people that are picking their pockets daily. Here’s a great interview with Michael Lewis on the nature of our Wall Street billionaire problem.
IC: How much has Wall Street behavior sparked the inequality conversation that is going on now?
ML: They are very connected. If you go back and look at the boom in CEO pay, it is tied directly to Wall Street compensation. Social norms changed. And they changed first on Wall Street. This bothers me a lot. What do I want to tell people coming out of school? I want to tell them about noblesse oblige, which has just died. There is an absence at the top of the culture.
IC: Have you read the new Thomas Piketty book?
ML: I just downloaded it because it’s impossible to get copies of the hardcover any more. It is sold out.
IC: I had the same experience. You would have more luck getting The Satanic Verses in Iran. The reason I ask is because Piketty and others talk less about noblesse oblige than things such as higher tax rates. The government has to step in.
ML: I feel such despair at how the government responded to the financial crisis. It did a lot of good things to prevent a depression. But the Wall Street firms ended up even more of a problem. They got bigger. I thought they should be broken up in one way or another.
IC: So you think they are worse now?
ML: Probably not worse in the sense that they are probably more afraid to do bad things. More skittish. But as a market problem they are worse because they are bigger. The effect of a lot of the regulation has made it harder on would-be-competitors who could challenge them. And Dodd-Frank throws decisions to the regulators, and then that discussion ends up being run by banks. I just hate it. I have given up on the government. I wrote this book because I feel like these guys in my book have figured out a market version of Occupy Wall Street. This may be the way we have to deal with this. People ask me what the SEC should do. Well, there are things I’d like them to do, but for now they may ned to just get the hell out of the way. Maybe they can force some transparency. People at the SEC have said that they are counting on these market solutions.
IC: What are your thoughts about the culture on Wall Street? I don’t know if you saw Wolf of Wall Street, but it seemed to me that the movie was arguing that the culture there inspires bad behavior.
ML: I did see it. I know too many people there and love too many people there so I have mixed feelings about this. They are not all bad people. The problem is that the incentive system is really screwed up and that screws up the behavior.
Meanwhile, SCOTUS is still working very hard to make sure that our political system is rigged.
There’s a first amendment case going in front of the Supreme Court right now that’s very, very dangerous. Why? Because it might allow religious opinion to become legal fact, corrupting the intent of our constitutional rights, if not the specific wording. As you’re probably well aware, the decisions handed down by SCOTUS as of late have shown remarkable intention to broadly change United States law to fit a conservative, activist agenda, that of the five right-wing justices (seen below). The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), an anti-choice and anti-family planning group, is suing because they believe they have a right to publicly advertise lies if they have sufficient reason to hold the advertised opinion. Paradoxical, yes, but if you’re familiar with American culture, you’ll completely understand. Cognitive dissonance and bold denial in the face of proof are defining characteristics.
So, let’s be very clear again that the Republican “Freedom” agenda seems to be very clearly aimed at a few people.
Any way, that’s it for me this morning! Let me know what’s on your reading and blogging list while I brew up some coffee!
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