Avedon Carol presents: The Sideshow My motto as I live and learn is: dig and be dug in return. -- Langston Hughes

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Thursday, 03 September 2015 Never mind the forecast, 'cause the sky has lost control Avedon Carol talked about Puppies and science fiction, Bernie, Hillary, Corbyn, Trump, and election fraud on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd, and although there was a bit of drop-out (like when I said, "He wrote Glory Road!" which was completely gone), I'm happy to say that there were fewer technical problems than usual. (Of course, I had not yet read "Who Really Runs the Hugo Awards?" - but you can!) * Stuart Zechman and Isaiah Poole discussed the tensions in the Sanders and Clinton campaigns with respect to popular policy, populist rhetoric and the role of identity politics in the primary process on Virtually Speaking Sundays. (I note that Isaiah mentioned Bernie's new press secretary but didn't say who she was - she's Symone Sanders, no relation.) But see CMike's comment to the previous post, where he's already commented on this VSS, about the numbers, and points out an error on Jay's part - a significant one. On The Majority Report, Harvey J Kaye: The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great Bernie spoke at the Democratic National Convention on Friday. I loved the name-check for Paul Wellstone. "If Democrats want to keep the White House and recapture Congress and make gains in statehouses, then establishment politics won't do it." That's the video, but there are written stories from CNN and elsewhere, and The Hill says he and O'Malley characterized the DNC's debate process as rigged: "The DNC has drawn criticism for scheduling only four debates before the early-primary states cast their votes, and six total throughout the election cycle." For a little background on how sleazy it all is, here's a story from earlier in the week that says, "In 2007, the number of pre-primary debates was 26, allowing Democrats to get a full hearing from the people in the Party running for the highest office in the nation. 6 of those debates were sanctioned by the DNC. So, according to Wasserman Schultz, nothing has changed. Except it has. This time around, there is a new rule and it states that any candidate who participates in an unsanctioned debate will not be able to participate in any of the 6 that are sanctioned by the DNC." O'Malley, of course, believes this restriction is illegal, which is why he's going to court. And at Five Thirty Eight, "Is Six Democratic Debates Too Few? "Hurricane Katrina and Bernie Sanders: From Neoliberal Disaster to 'Political Revolution': There is only one presidential candidate who has consistently fought for the kinds of policies that New Orleans so desperately required prior to and during Katrina, and that it needs now more than ever." Adolph Reed is no starry-eyed, innocent child, so when he talks up Bernie Sanders, that's a big deal. Meanwhile, Sanders has also picked up endorsements from Killer Mike, David Crosby, Belinda Carlisle, and from Woz. The most interesting thing about this article may be that it's in Forbes. "Why Hillary Clinton Lacks Credibility On Criminal Justice Reform" Guy Sapertstein and Gaius Publius, "The Racial Justice Failures That Hillary Clinton Can't Ignore [...] History has not been kind to the Clintons' record and it is possible that Bill Clinton while president, with no public objections and often with enthusiastic support from Hillary, did more damage to the black community than any modern American president." Jeet Heer in The New Republic, "Donald Trump Is Not a Populist. He's the Voice of Aggrieved Privilege" - and how "populist" became a dirty word. "Democratic Blues: Barack Obama will leave his party in its worst shape since the Great Depression - even if Hillary wins." I don't understand the "even if" bit - it will take a long time to repair the damage Obama has done to the Democratic Party even if Bernie wins, but if Hillary wins it will be even harder since she hasn't shown much willingness to depart from Obama's horrible policies and strategies. It's a funny thing how right-wingers are all for "accountability" from teachers, but not so much when it's the cops. "Supreme Court Strikes Down Unconstitutional 'Three Strikes' Law" - This is a great victory, and, surprisingly, was an 8-1 decision, with Scalia writing for the majority. The sole dissenting voice was Alito, mainly because his thinking capacity is so limited that he objected on the grounds that he didn't like the particular guy in the specific case, but even Scalia could see past that one. EFF: "Appeals Court Falls for Government's Shell Game in NSA Spying Case:The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's opinion today in Klayman v. Obama is highly disappointing and, worse, based on a mistaken concern about the underlying facts. The court said that since the plaintiffs' phone service was provided by one subsidiary of Verizon - Verizon Wireless - rather than another - Verizon Business - they couldn't prove that they had standing to sue. The court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to give the Klayman plaintiffs an opportunity to prove that their records were in fact collected. The appeals court did not rule one way or the other of the constitutionality of the mass collection program. As an initial matter, recent releases by the government make clear that the plaintiffs' records were in fact collected. Earlier this month, in response to a Freedom of Information request from the New York Times, the government released documents confirming that it does indeed collect bulk telephone records from Verizon Wireless under Section 215. Specifically, the formally-released documents reference orders to Verizon Wireless as of September 29, 2010, when they had to report a problem to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This should mean that the plaintiffs records were collected, at least as of 2010, but likely long before and after. The government should give up its shell game here and admit the time frame that it collected the Klayman plaintiffs records, along with all other Verizon Wireless customers. Spocko: "What good can come out of the Ashley Madison Hack? [...] Let's start demanding the organizations that hold our private data have greater accountability to protect it and more liability when it is taken.The massive class action suit against the parent company of Ashley Madison is a start, but not enough. We also need to demand nationwide reporting of breaches. It's ridiculous that if you don't live in a state with mandated reporting the company or organization never has to tell you about it. Next we need an agency who actually wants to help us protect our data. But, since the fear is no entity can be trusted, we need to push for the tools to maintain some control over our privacy." "The Miami Herald has filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections, alleging that the agency has violated the state's open record laws by withholding information about suspicious deaths and possible sexual and physical assaults of inmates at the hands of corrections officers in the state prison system. A guy shot and killed two of his co-workers, journalists from WDBJ, live on television. But a funny thing happened to coverage of the story on CNN. (via) "Everyone But The NY Times Realizes James O'Keefe Is A Joke " So, how's that whole closing Guantanamo thing going? The Greeks are now being accused of plotting a secret exit from the Euro. Of course, it would have been completely irresponsible of them not to explore what it would take to do that, since it would be the best thing they could do. But it seems it couldn't be done fast enough, which is why it didn't happen - yet. Anyway, since he was involved, TRN did an Interview with James K. Galbraith on Grexit plans. "This week, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, The Palast Investigative Fund is offering my film, Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans as a FREE download." Watch the trailer. Harry Shearer's "The Big Uneasy" is currently available on Vimeo if you missed it five years ago or would like to see it again. (You really should.) Via Nicole Sandler's show post commemorating the tenth anniversary of Katrina, where you can listen to that whole show. Wine Train apologizes for kicking a group of black women off the train for laughing: "'The Napa Valley Wine Train was 100 percent wrong in its handling of this issue,' said wine train chief executive officer Anthony 'Tony' Giaccio. 'We accept full responsibility for our failures and for the chain of events that led to this regrettable treatment of our guests.' [...] The company is offering the group a free wine tour for 50 people. 'You can enjoy yourself as loudly as you desire,' the company pledged." They also apologized for and took down a post on their Facebook page accusing the women of verbal and physical aggression. "CRTC Hits Porn Channels For Not Enough Canadian Content: Who knew cable porn channels had a Canadian content requirement?" Christopher Priest leaps to the defense of Terry Pratchett. I remember years ago reading an article in Time Out from a woman who had been assigned to write about Pratchett and proceeded to state that she had not read any so she just asked her male friends if it was just boy's stuff and they said that it was, thus proving they hadn't read it, either. She rattled on for several more paragraphs but... seriously? That's how a "professional journalist" covers an assignment? So now we have some nitwit over on the Guardian's blog pontificating on the lack of quality of Pratchett's work which he says he hasn't got time to waste actually reading it. I don't know where these people come from. Video of the Hugo presentation is posted here in four parts. If you want to skip straight to the presentation itself, it starts at the 1:07 mark on part 2. Mr. Sideshow's highlight picks are "James Bacon accepting the Best Fanzine Hugo at 7:50 in part 3, basically because his was the best acceptance speech IMO." Also, the presenter at 6:25 in part 4, and "How the Best Novel Nominations were announced at 25.50 part 4." John Scalzi, "A Thing Not to Do When You're Smart" "The Women Other Women Don't See [..] Women have always made a significant contribution to the field ever since science fiction as a genre came into existence. They contributed as fans. They contributed as editors. They contributed as writers. To say otherwise is to marginalize their contribution and their work. Especially if you're pushing an agenda." About halfway down in this interview with Patrick Stewart, he reveals something that makes you sit up and say, "How could you not know that?" Kurosawas Dreams, Van Gogh Twinkling solar bike path inspired by Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night pops up in the Netherlands Why these colored water droplets seem to be alive Irish comedian Dara O Braian on Science vs. Quackery Novelty Automation The Head of Franz Kafka in Prague, kinetic statue. I admit to looking at some of these clever tiny home designs and indulging a five-minute fantasy of living that way right before I remember why that would not be possible for people who could never bring themselves to let go of our collections of books, magazines, fanzines, boxes of paper correspondence, and on, and on, and on.... I just listened to a vid from Omnibus and I lost count of the different ethnicities the music seemed to cover. Even got some Armenian church picnic in there.... A capella "Hotel California" OK, this has three different animation sets - and ends with the one I couldn't find on YouTube the other day: The Beatles Rock Band Cut Scene Intro-Outro. (I thought the middle one was a bit of a let-down.) Postmodern Jukebox: "My Heart Will Go On" - with doo-wops! Laura Nyro Live at the Seattle Opera House April 10 1971 13:25 GMT comment Tuesday, 25 August 2015 Your day breaks, your mind aches Bernie Sanders wants to end the for-profit prison industry, from his speech in Reno, Nevada. "When congress reconvenes in September, I will be offering legislation, I will be introducing legislation, which takes corporations out of profiteering from running jails." * "The Story of How Bernie Sanders Became Famous Will Make You Love Him Even More." "Top 10 Reasons Why Bernie Sanders May Actually Become President" * Michael Tkaczevski, "Nothing to See Here: On Pooh-Poohing Sanders' Surging Crowds" - Why, one would almost think the establishment doesn't want to acknowledge that Bernie is a threat to the Clinton campaign. Latest polls: Hillary is slowly sliding down, Bernie trending upward, latest poll - from FOX - shows Clinton at 49% and Sanders at 30% (up 8% from their poll two weeks earlier). Frankly, I'm thinking if protesters want to make any real headway, they should be demanding debates now. (A few are.) There had been at least nine Democratic debates by this time in 2007. Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report: "#BlackLivesMatter Performs a Self-Humiliation at Hillary Clinton's Hands: It is painfully evident from the video of last week's meeting between a #BlackLivesMatter delegation and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that the organization is philosophically incapable of making demands on the political representatives of the rulers of the United States. #BLM's leadership is either confused as to the nature of political demands, or has decided to reject the most fundamental lessons of mass movement politics - indeed, of human social dynamics. Political movements are defined by their core demands. The video of #BLM's closed-door encounter with Clinton in New Hampshire, August 11 - after the five activists had been prevented from attending and, presumably, disrupting her campaign event - should become a staple for future political education classes on what happens when would-be movement operatives enter the lion's den unarmed with political demands: they are humiliated and eaten alive." Touré F. Reed at Jacobin: "Why Liberals Separate Race from Class [...] This is not just wrong, but the formulation - which ultimately treats race as unchanging and permanent rather than a product of specific historical and political economic relations - undermines both the cause of racial equality in general and pursuit of equitable treatment in the criminal justice system in particular. [...] By the late 1980s, Moynihan's dystopian vision - which presumed that African-American poverty had taken on a life of its own, making it nearly impervious to economic intervention - had become liberal orthodoxy." One of the horrific revelations of getting onto the internet after having been physically separated from general discourse on the left in America once I moved to England was the discovery that some pretty high-information readers from back home harbored the illusion that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was some kind of great liberal. This was shocking to me, as I had been acutely aware of Moynihan's blind, sexist racism in his formulation of "benign neglect" from the bowels of the Nixon White House. See if you can figure out what is wrong with stating that black poverty and other alleged dysfunctions in the black community in America are caused by a "culture" in which black women in the workforce have better educations than black men in the workforce. It's that phrase "in the workforce" - and a less obfuscatory way to put it would be, "Black women must have better educations than black men in order to compete in the workforce." It's even more fun when you know that there's no control group, here - Moynihan made no attempt to determine a comparison with whites, although it is implied by making the statement as if this was a condition found only in the black community - but of course, it is also true that white women must have better educations than white and black men in order to compete in the workforce. Even way back then, this was obvious. And Johnson's War on Poverty had proven that economic action could change things - not only was poverty in the United States cut in half, but killings of black people by cops declined quite a bit as the black community started to accrue greater wealth and its middle class burgeoned. (But, ironically, not as much as it did during the earlier, real, New Deal era, when growth was strongest for everyone except the very rich, who were restricted in just how much of their income they could keep.) Of course, conservatives have eliminated or weakened Johnson's programs into oblivion and Clinton and Obama have given criminal banksters primacy over our economy, with the result that most of that hard-earned wealth has been stripped from the black community, so it's no surprise that racism seems so much stronger today than it was 30 years ago. Touré continues: "While centrist liberals like Presidents Clinton and Obama have encouraged conversations about race and have been willing to concede that racism can undercut the life chances of blacks and Latinos, they are more likely to trace poverty and inequality to the habits, attitudes, and culture of the poor than to the disastrous effects of labor or trade policies or even the health of a particular sector of the economy." Yes, indeed, the most useful thing so-called "liberals" can think of to fix our racial problems is to scold black people about their bad habits and ultimately blame the victims while throwing up their hands about the "intractable" problems that have been the result of their own atrocious right-wing policies. They now want me to believe that our best bet for the Democratic nominee will be the Senator from the credit card companies. Longtime readers of The Sideshow will recall that Biden was right behind one of the most pernicious pieces of law imaginable, a celebration of usury and theft. It looks like he wants to be Hillary's Secretary of State, really, but that's just yet another reason to vote for Bernie. David Cay Johnston reckons Donald Trump is all mobbed up, among other things, and gets a free pass from the media. Likewise, his extensive ties to the biggest Mafia figures in New York and Atlantic City, his history of cheating workers and vendors, and other unsavory aspects of his biography go largely unreported. I laid these out in an earlier National Memo column, but the major news organizations have tended to ignore skeletons in Trump's closet - again there are exceptions, namely Michael Smerconish on CNN; Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC. Trump gets a free ride because it's cheap and easy to cover what candidates say, but takes actual work to examine what they have done. And work costs more." "This Democrat sits in a blue seat - and he wants to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage: Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski is one of the worst Democrats - very possibly the worst - in the House: Among other things, he voted against Obamacare from the right, he's reliably anti-choice, and he's hostile to gay rights. But that thumbnail sketch doesn't fully convey just how awful Lipinski truly is in his heart. What follows will. [...] What's really insulting is that Lipinski represents a solidly blue district in the Chicago area that Obama won by 56-43 margin, so Democrats can and should do better. Pathetically, the establishment has long propped up Lipinski, even going so far as to remove the home a potential primary challenger from his district back in 2011. (Lipinski's father, Bill, was also a congressman; he handed his seat to his son years ago by retiring after the filing deadline.)" As Atrios says, this is hilarious. Democrats passed a whole bunch of bills they knew wouldn't pass because Governor Paul LePage (R-Sloth) would veto them. But he forgot to. "This is what the United States looks like if you scale states by population." "The IRS Is Allegedly Being Pressured Into Taxing Televangelists Thanks To John Oliver." Chevron attempts to enter Unist'ot'en Camp for fracking survey on unceded land. They brought an offering! Surprised they left out the beads. Radley Balko, excerpted from his new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces, in Salon: "'Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book': The new warrior cop is out of control: SWAT teams raiding poker games and trying to stop underage drinking? Overwhelming paramilitary force is on the rise " * "Former U.S. Marshal and DEA agent was told not to enforce drug laws in white areas." * "Officer Brad Miller fired after it was determined he lied about murdering teenager Christian Taylor." And yet, he is not in jail, and the media is silent. How much do you really know about the Drug War? "New Ferguson Judge Withdraws All Arrest Warrants Issued Before 2015: Ferguson's new municipal court judge, Judge Donald McCullin, issued an order Monday to withdraw all arrest warrants issued before the end of last year. The order may affect thousands of people in Ferguson who have racked up exorbitant debt for traffic violations or other minor offenses. McCullin also reinstated all driver's licenses suspended solely because the driver failed to appear in court or pay a fine. Suspended license penalties tend to trap poor people into cycles of debt, as they have little choice but to continue driving to work and risk being arrested for driving with a suspended license. The defendants whose warrants have been withdrawn will be given new court dates. Pretrial release conditions will also change, the judge said. Rather than jail people, the court will come up with alternative payment plans, commute fines for people who can't afford them, or require community service." "Picking Apart One of the Biggest Lies in American Politics: 'Free Trade' [..] When Washington became president in 1789, most of America's personal and industrial products of any significance were manufactured in England or in its colonies. Washington asked his first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, what could be done about that, and Hamilton came up with an 11-point plan to build American manufacturing, which he presented to Congress in 1791. By 1793, most of its points had either been made into law by Congress or formulated into policy by either Washington or the various states. Those strategic proposals built the greatest industrial powerhouse the world had ever seen, and were only abandoned, after more than 200 successful years, during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, and Bill Clinton (and remain abandoned to this day, as President Obama prepares to further expand 'free trade')." "In Chicago, a new synagogue seeks Judaism minus Zionism [...] We believe that that's led to some very dark places and that the establishment of an exclusively Jewish nation-state in a land that has historically been multiethnic and multireligious has led irrevocably to the tragic issues that we're facing today." Greek Left Platform Creates New Popular Unity Party: The new Popular Unity Party will hold up the "NO" Referendum, honor the Anti-Austerity wishes of the people, stop privatization, break up the banking system, build a new economy and exit the Eurozone." 'Go Back To Mexico' Sentiment Is Most Prevalent In States That Used To Be Mexico. QI: Where are 1% Of Americans? "I'd very much like to say something hilarious, but something must be done!... It's slavery by the back door." The New York Times did a story in which some ex-employees accused Amazon of being a brutal employer, and apparently Nancy Pelosi purports to be upset. Dean Baker on Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and the Lack of Profits "Stop the Jared Fogle 'footlong' jokes: Why do we still find prison rape acceptable, let alone funny?: I promise you this - you are not going to make the world a better place with your prison rape joke. You are not. I further promise that you can be entirely appalled by a story involving the sexual abuse of children and still not resort to gags about dropping the soap. And perhaps someday the idea that rape is not a hilarious feat of karmic comeuppance will be so widely accepted that we won't need to keep saying this. Not today, though." "Stop calling abortion a 'difficult decision' [...] However, when the pro-choice community frames abortion as a difficult decision, it implies that women need help deciding, which opens the door to paternalistic and demeaning 'informed consent' laws. It also stigmatizes abortion and the women who need it." "Why I am pro-Abortion, not Just Pro-Choice" "Forgetful scientists accidentally quadruple lithium-ion battery lifespan" - Man, I hope this turns out to be true. I need some yesterday. "Welcome to Dismaland: A First Look at Banksy's New Art Exhibition Housed Inside a Dystopian Theme Park" I think my favorite part of this Lily Tomlin interview is where she says, " It's the same as watching what the gay community has accomplished in the past 10 years. It's staggering, the progress they've made. I want the gay community to become president - they seem to get things done." Honor Blackman turns 90, and you still would. Noah Ward sweeps Hugo Awards. Jim Henley's post-Hugo summation echoes my reaction at the very beginning - a denial of service attack on better works getting on the ballot. He's also got a few interesting links up to other articles on the subject. Peter Capaldi Shows Wil Wheaton How to Drive the TARDIS How to grow old gracefully - advice for the ages. Congratulations to Lines and Colors, for ten years of blogging about drawing, painting, and illustration. Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales - with lots of nice illustrations. Hypnotizing Translucent Waves In 19th Century Russian Paintings Capture The Raw Power Of The Sea The Sea Organ in Zadar, Croatia Jon Stewart interviews George Carlin - Unless it's just me, the audio drops out for a bit but it comes back eventually. (I've never seen Stewart looking that way - it was interesting just for that.) John Lennon premiers "Imagine" video on The Dick Cavett Show, September 11, 1971. Jeff Beck's Rock n Roll Party Honoring Les Paul 2010 Postmodern Jukebox, "All About That Bass" Paul McCartney, "For No One" 13:24 GMT comment Friday, 21 August 2015 Your happening world, too much RIP: Julian Bond, Former N.A.A.C.P. Chairman and Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 75. He was a charming, witty, and very smart speaker - and in his day, possibly the best looking guy ever to be in politics, before or since. I was crushed when I woke up Sunday and his departure was the first thing I read. I always wanted him to be president - he would have been a great one. As evidence of Julian Bond's unchanging good looks, here's a photo of him as a child, hanging out with Paul Robeson. John Nichols in The Nation, "Julian Bond Built Coalitions, Practiced Solidarity, and Showed Us the Future." "Is it rolling, Bob?" * NYT: Bob Johnston, 83, Dies; Produced Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash Albums * Guardian article, Legendary Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen producer Bob Johnston dies and obituary * Rolling Stone Bob Johnston, Bob Dylan Producer, Dead at 83: Columbia Records staffer worked on 'Blonde on Blonde,' Johnny Cash's prison LPs and Leonard Cohen's 'Songs of Love and Hate': And, though none of the headlines mention it, he produced The Byrds and Simon & Garfunkle, too. RIP Yvonne Craig, 78, who played Batgirl in the Batman TV show and the green Orion slave girl in Star Trek (original series) and guested on many other popular shows of the '60s, including The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis. Bill Scher is an old friend of The Sideshow from back when the liberal blogosphere was wild and energetic and we used to link to each other a lot between here and Liberal Oasis. But Bill is a bit more partisan and mainstream than I am, and I'm not surprised to see him with an article at Politico dropping the old line about how Bernie shouldn't be primarying Hillary because it might weaken her in the general election. Um. Well, anyway, Josh Holland says a more accurate title for this article would be "Bernie Sanders learns it's tough to herd cats," but someone thought it was better to call it "Bernie Sanders, Progressive Enemy #1." (I don't blame Bill for that - my experience is that editors always do that crap.) It's funny, I keep hearing about how Bernie Sanders doesn't connect with people of color, but I keep seeing videos like this from people of color.... Just how bad is Bernie on the middle east? Still much better than everyone else. * Juan Cole, "The Middle East Policy of President Bernie Sanders" * "Bernie Sanders' Stance On Israel Has Caused Some Tension For Him In The Past" * "Bernie Sanders Explains Puzzling Education Vote - It's Because Accountability." I need to read this one again, I'm still not sure it makes sense. World Socialists don't think Bernie is a socialist. Actually, I think he's what we used to call a "liberal", as in "liberal government," which is the form of government Thomas Jefferson thought he was creating. Interesting that CNN has a a fairly positive article, "Could a 'President Bernie Sanders' deliver?" I love the way Hillary Clinton's surrogates criticize him as a socialist because he wants to expand Social Security and Medicare. I love the way they claim the media is giving Bernie a pass by never mentioning that he's a socialist - as if I have ever yet seen any coverage of him that didn't mention it. This one is very nice indeed, since the questioner is asking an intelligent question (!) for which McGaskill was completely unprepared. Thom Hartmann on "Why Republicans Vote for Bernie" - I'm not sure Ann Coulter is serious about being afraid Bernie can beat any Republican, but she's probably right all the same. And it doesn't matter - it never has - that most Americans believe the same things Bernie does if it doesn't translate into votes. The public first has to hear his message, and with Hillary Clinton doing her damnedest to minimize debates and thereby reduce his exposure, that could be hard. And on that front, "Martin O'Malley raises legal questions with Democratic debate plan." By this time in 2007, there'd been six Democratic debates. Ralph Nader with some good advice for Bernie Sanders. Andy Borowitz, "Sanders Shamelessly Pandering to Voters Who Want to Hear Truth" I realize she probably feels like she has to say this, but for me, it's a great reason to support Bernie: "Hillary Would Consider Naming Obama To Supreme Court After 2016 Win" Hillary Clinton seems to have some rather unpleasant-looking campaign bundlers, including "Gordon Giffin, a former lobbyist for the Canadian company working to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Giffin is also on the board of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which paid Clinton $990,000 for speeches she gave immediately before announcing her presidential campaign." - and prison industry lobbyists. * And Bruce Dixon says, "From Roosevelt Island to Rikers Island - Hillary Clinton Can't See Mass Incarceration " * "The Clinton dynasty's horrific legacy: How 'tough-on-crime' politics built the world's largest prison system " * In an open letter to the DNC and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz CREDO announces it will not support Hillary Clinton because of the way the debate schedule suppresses democracy - they'll take your signature. On the other hand, "Hillary Clinton sways the doubters at Wing Ding: She attacked her speech with a vigor Iowans - and even skeptical liberals - said they'd never seen from her before." "Donald Trump Told the Truth and You Didn't Listen." Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic, "What Do Donald Trump Voters Actually Want?" R.L. Stephens on the usefulness of new black leaders who connect with the white elite, "Dear #BlackLivesMatter: We Don't Need Black Leadership." I'll have to think more about whether I agree with this. It sounds true in some ways but not in all ways. Stephen Colbert shocks South Carolina schools by funding every single teacher-requested grant "Justice Department Says Homeless Shouldn't Be Cited, Sit/Lie Laws Unconstitutional." "New Statue in Germany Illustrates Just How Much the Rest of the World Opposes the U.S. Police State [...] Berlin, Germany 'This past Friday life-size bronze statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning were unveiled in Berlin's Alexanderplatz Square in front of German politicians and activists. In Germany and much of the world, the three are considered heroes in the fight for freedom of information and speech, for their respective leaking of classified U.S. documents." "Flamethrowers, given up by military, are now being sold to the public." What could possibly go wrong? "When Public Servants Refuse to Serve the Public [...] Government in particular has an obligation to dismiss any employee who claims a right to discriminate against citizens." Ryan Cooper in The Week, "America's despicable, hypocritical persecution of Chelsea Manning: Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army private who was imprisoned for giving thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, was recently threatened with torture for supposedly violating the conditions of her detention. As yet, the charges have not been officially verified. But Manning, who since her conviction has transitioned to female and been hired by The Guardian as a columnist, read the charges to one of her supporters, who posted them online. They are unbelievably petty. She is charged with: 1) sassing a guard; 2) spilling food on the floor; 3) possessing some books and magazines, including the Catilyn Jenner Vanity Fair issue; and 4) possessing an expired tube of toothpaste. There is to be a hearing on Aug. 18. This is exactly the kind of trumped-up nonsense a pissed-off bureaucrat out for revenge would come up with. And as punishment, she apparently faces unlimited torture, in the form of "indefinite solitary confinement."" Laurie Penny in The New Statesman: "Europe shouldn't worry about migrants. It should worry about creeping fascism [...] The behaviour of the British and wider European elite towards migrants is not simple inhumanity. It is strategic inhumanity. It is weaponised inhumanity designed to convince populations fracturing under hammer-blows of austerity and economic chaos that the enemy is out there, that there is an 'us' that must be protected from 'them'. There is a reason why David Cameron's precise suggestion as to how to deal with the desperate human beings coming across the channel is 'more dogs and fences'. There is a reason that Angela Merkel's response, in June, to a demonstration where the bodies of drowned migrants were buried on the front lawn of the Bundestag was stony silence. All of this has happened before. All of this, in fact, is precisely what the European Union was established to prevent." Since marijuana legalization, highway fatalities in Colorado are at near-historic lows. * Medical Marijuana States See Painkiller Deaths Drop by 25% * So, which is it? "Colorado Sells $34 Million in Marijuana in One Month: $3.4 Million Goes to Schools, and Crime Down 15%," or "Crime Is Up in Colorado: What That Tells Us About Pot Legalization"? (I admit to cracking up when I got to the claim in the last sentence that journalists "wouldn't blindly trust coal-industry statistics on the environmental effects of strip mining," since, of course, they do.) "Matt Taibbi: America Has A 'Profound Hatred Of The Weak And The Poor'." I'll give The Washington Post some credit for the article "Black and Unarmed" for actually being about the real issue instead of just casting it as another campaign race article. I've heard lots of people talking about the importance of BLM but damn few actually talking about police killing unarmed black people (or other people). This article is at least somewhat informative, although it still seems to express far more concern for police officers than for the citizens they kill. It's obvious to everyone that the police are out of control and something has gone very wrong with policing in America, and no, bodycams - while I think they are a great idea - are not The Answer. There is something deeply wrong with both the way cops are being armed and trained and the way politicians are using them. "Obama Announces Ban on Sale of Military-Style Equipment to Police Departments." I almost stood up and cheered when I read that headline until I remembered that (a) this is Obama, and his good news usually turns out to be a sham, and (b) since the only charge cop departments are having to pay are shipping and handling, they already aren't selling them this stuff, they're essentially giving it away. Also, the article says that "some" equipment will no longer be sold to them, but doesn't say what. No more desk lamps? Seriously, what actual change is really being made? Atrios reminds us that one reason some Labour Party hacks are so adamantly opposed to a Corbyn leaderships is that it would cost them their jobs. * "Gordon Brown urges Labour not to be party of protest by choosing Jeremy Corbyn " - because there will likely be no place for Brown in a Corbyn leadership, either. "Ex-Baltimore Cop Gives Brutally Honest Interview On Police Corruption & How The System Is Engineered Against Blacks & Latinos!" - This 30-minute video is really worth hearing. It's official: Texas Executed An Innocent Father After Prosecutor Hid Evidence In Kids' Arson Deaths. That guy should be on trial for murder. "It's Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid." John Oliver exposes the disturbing world of Christian televangelists: 'This is about the churches that exploit people's faith for monetary gain'. I couldn't see the video there in "my" country, but a search on YouTube found what appears to me the same thing, and I could see this phone call. "WATCH: Navajo Activists Chase John McCain Off Reservation: "Given the federal government's silence in the wake of the EPA's accidental Gold King Mine spill that contaminated rivers near the Navajo Nation, perhaps yesterday was not the day for U.S. Senator John McCain and Arizona governor Doug Ducey to visit the reservation. [...] To be clear, our government is doing a terrible job addressing the concerns of Natives. It is nothing short of obtuse to visit the Navajo Nation in their time of utmost need to talk about building a museum when they are in the midst of a crisis no one is paying attention to. It is foolish to think Natives would welcome anyone who has had no problem signing away sacred indigenous sites in the name of corporate greed." * Native American Council Offers Amnesty to 220 Million Undocumented Whites * This map is a .pdf of the tribal nations, and includes lots of names you've never heard before (including the actual name of the people who were known to whites as "Comanche"). Story here. No, no, not this map! "How a dubious statistic convinced U.S. courts to approve of indefinite detention" - Radley Balko on fact-checking the phony statistics behind extreme laws. Important news for convention goers: "It's About Damn Time: FCC Says Convention Centers Can't Block Wifi. "Christians Putting Bibles in Schools Flip Out After Atheists Hand Out Humanist Literature!" I guess I missed a similar event earlier this year: "Florida schools hand out Satanic colouring books to children" The famous Robert Frost poem we've read wrong forever TRUMBO, official trailer. Whew, I can't wait! (And here's an altogether different trailer for a different movie about Trumbo from the last decade.) "Elise Andrew F*cking Loves Science" - I confess to being surprised. I've always enjoyed the posts I've seen from her page, of course, but this isn't quite how I pictured the person behind it. Two Cellos. I'm sorry I can't figure out how to link directly to the version of this I originally saw (on Facebook), which didn't include a title so I wasn't prepared for suddenly recognizing the tune. Cracked me right up. :) Pretty: Time-Lapse: Watch Flowers Bloom Before Your Eyes Strangely work-safe: "The Hitachi Magic Wand Throughout Art History Interactive kinetic sculptures by John Edmark Miss Piggy & Nathan Fillion Everybody has a crazy old aunt. Alas, Molly West, who was apparently too "pink" for the family, died recently, before Rick Perlstein could ever meet her. And now he knows who she was. I haven't been able to find this on YouTube, as yet, but if you can get Facebook, this is a lovely (and short!) bit of animation, especially if you love the Beatles. 12:32 GMT comment Thursday, 13 August 2015 Fever all through the night I'll start with the latest headline, which made me happy: "New poll shows Sanders ahead of Clinton in New Hampshire: Sanders seen at 44 percent, Clinton with 39 percent of likely New Hampshire primary voters" - Sure, it's just one poll and it's just New Hampshire and we're more than a year out, but hey, who says he can't win? In between sleep, I keep waking up and seeing more and more about Black Lives Matter versus Bernie. Possibly the best piece I've seen on the issue is from Doug at The South Lawn, who expresses doubt about both the efficacy of the tactics of the people who are going after Bernie and the analysis that underpins their actions, in "Black Lives Matter and The Failure to Build a Movement," where he notes that they refer to Bernie's position as "weirdo populist economic determinism" and seem to deny that these economic issues are of interest to black Americans (including the 90% of black people who say they are very much concerned about these issues). There are many articles on the web questioning the bona fides of the two women who prevented Bernie from speaking, but what bothers me is that they've said themselves that was precisely their intention. What they did not do is expand or add to the (already-existing) discussion of police violence. The media misreports that Bernie has added the issue to his speeches in response to BLM, but the fact is, Bernie isn't saying anything he wasn't saying weeks and months and years ago, it's just that the press is noticing it now (and BLM and their defenders are taking credit for it). In any case, you can watch video of Bernie's Portland rally here and judge for yourself. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of links to articles about the disruption in Seattle. * Oliver Willis: "Right Now #BlackLivesMatter Is Wasting Everybody's Time: Representatives of the Black Lives Matters movement met with Hillary Clinton, and if you actually thought this movement was about stopping black people from being killed and reforming criminal justice issues with minorities, you should not only be disappointed but disgusted." * Pierce at Esquire: "Bernie Sanders and Ferguson Gunfire: When Protest Loses Its Purpose" * Seattle Times: "Black Lives Matter protesters shut down Bernie Sanders; later rally draws 15,000" * Washington Post: "Protesters drove Bernie Sanders from one Seattle stage. At his next stop, 15,000 people showed." * David Atkins at Washington Monthly: "BlackLivesMatter Protesters Err in Attacking Those Who Give Them the Microphone" * "Black Lives Matter Movement Gives Bernie Sanders' Racial Justice Agenda the Push It Needs" * Pramila Jayapal at The Stranger: "Guest Editorial: Why Saturday's Bernie Sanders Rally Left Me Feeling Heartbroken" Somewhere along the line, I was reminded of Bill Moyers' interview with Adolph Reed last year about the demise of the American left, which seemed to me to have some salience. And here's an article by Reed from 2009, "The limits of anti-racism". * The Hill: "Poll finds Clinton losing to four Republican candidates in Iowa [...] A recent survey by Quinnipiac showed Clinton trailing GOP candidates in the swing states of Iowa, Colorado and Virginia. Other polls have suggested voters don't trust Clinton." "Lewis Black Endorses Bernie Sanders, Tells Bill Cosby to F Himself" * National nurses union backs Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton * "Almost Every Major Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Challenging or Defeating Clinton and Republicans. Here's Why" - Actually, I'm not entirely sure this piece was good support for the headline, but it's a data point that the article exists at HuffPo. * Why Liberty University is requiring its students to attend a Bernie Sanders speech - Well, Hillary didn't accept the invitation.... * "Former Clinton Adviser Predicts Bernie Sanders Will Beat Hillary Clinton" * Feel the Bern Black Agenda Report: "Where's the #BlackLivesMatter Critique of the Black Misleadership Class, or Obama or Hillary?" Also at BAR, "Why Bill Clinton's Apology and Barack Obama's Prison Drive-By, Token Clemencies Are Cynical Election Year Posturing" Maybe Rev. Barber's Forward Together has that "All power to all the people" feel I can get behind. Here's Nicole Sanders' interview with him just after Netroots Nation, and here he is on video, delivering. "Ferguson is our "libertarian moment," but not in the way some libertarians want you to believe" Yes, Obama really is doing his best to make slavery acceptable. Charlie Pierce says, "The Keystone XL Pipeline Hits a Snag: Following hearings in South Dakota to determine whether to recertify TransCanada's expired permits for the pipeline, the project must now deal with a concern for safety issue. Up in the newly formed petro-state of South Dakota, the people wishing to build our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, the continent-spanning death funnel, have run into a snag, having discovered that all politics is local...and unusually pissed." MoveOn announces donor strike in response to Schumer's Iran position - Schumer is angling to replace Harry Reid as Senate leader, he needs to be stopped. "NYPD union introduces vagrant-shaming photos to address quality-of-life issues." Hm, in the richest country in the world, who should be ashamed of people having to literally live on the streets? Time for Ezekiel 16:49, again. Los Angeles Times fires Ted Rall and tries to ruin him completely, over BS. Jeremy Corbyn's try for the Labour leadership seems a lot like Bernie's run, complete with "serious" people saying it's a loony idea. I always did like Corbyn, but of course, the New Labour types don't. Brian Eno likes him, too. Meanwhile, if you're in Canada, you can geek out on this election choice. "Global movement votes to adopt policy to protect human rights of sex workers: A crucial vote to protect the human rights of sex workers was passed today in Dublin at Amnesty International's decision-making forum, the International Council Meeting (ICM). Delegates from around the world adopted a resolution which authorized the International Board to develop and adopt a policy on the issue.' Another High-Profile Sex Trafficking Tale May Be Falling Apart [...] It's a pretty good summary of the standard narrative on sex-trafficking these days: it's everywhere, all the time, and we don't even know it; the only way to combat it is to keep throwing cops and money and laws at it; and anyone who questions any of this is only aiding the evildoers. It's almost impossible to argue with people who buy this narrative, because the more evidence you present challenging sex trafficking's pervasiveness, the more they see proof that sex trafficking is so under the radar we need to throw more cops and money and laws at it. As we've seen time and again, however, these tactics tend to under-produce on the stopping sex trafficking front and overcompensate by targeting consenting adult sex workers - either by arresting them or labeling them victims and sending them to things like "prostitution diversion therapy" - and their clients. " John Oliver on Sex Education, and a strangely slow Part 2. - or you can just watch the sex ed video itself at normal speed. RIP: Frances Oldham Kelsey, FDA scientist who kept thalidomide off U.S. market, dies at 101 * George Cole, actor who played Arthur Daley, dies aged 90. The world is your lobster, and it's time again for this song. * Wrestling legend Rowdy Roddy Piper dies aged 61. But his real name-check, of course, is for his role as Nada in John Carpenter's movie about living in a neoliberal nightmare, They Live, in which he was out of bubblegum but he kicked ass. Strangely, they let me see the last of Jon Stewart. A Personal Take on Go Set a Watchman from Ursula Le Guin. "Obesity 'can cause sanctimonious, idiotic advice'." Cthulhu Announces He's Running For President, Promises To Eliminate ISIS By Destroying Reality" Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny and Daffy duck through an art gallery Carol Kaye - you may not know her name, but you know her bass lines. Bette Middler, "Fat As I Am" Peggy Lee, "Fever" 19:40 GMT comment Thursday, 06 August 2015 Anyone who had a heart "Understanding US public policy, both domestic and foreign, is impossible without considering the role of intelligence operations, government, contracted to government and private. The roles of domestic surveillance, foreign infiltration, and exploits directed at US assets are not reported in traditional media unless the breaches are yawning. Marcy Wheeler is on this beat, and reports upon it at emptywheel.net. We discuss espionage and its role in contemporary policy making" on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. "Our biggest adversary knows all our biggest secrets, so let's move to a beyond-secrecy regime." I can't recommend Thandeka's 1999 article "Why Anti-Racism Will Fail" enough, because I think there's a lot of supposedly illuminating discussion of race and racism among largely white liberals that can most charitably be summed up as a load of guilty wank, and it is definitely not helping. There's a reason Bobby Seale still says the important thing is "All power to all the people." "What Happened To Rex Henry In A Philadelphia, Mississippi Jail Cell?: Rexdale Wayne Henry, a Mississippi Choctaw Native American activist, was arrested on July 9 for failing to pay an old traffic fine. He was found dead in his Philadelphia, Mississippi jail cell on July 14. What happened?" Statistically, Amerinds are more likely than any other group to be killed by cops. Christy has packed up Firedoglake, and the torch is being picked up at Shadowproof. Hm, is Ezra Klein really this dumb, or did he just try to befuddle Bernie with a bunch of DLC-style talking points? Not that Bernie fell for it, but it appears a lot of other people did. (You can watch the video of the interview Ezra did with Bernie here.) In theory, Steve Israel is no longer running the show, but his jihad against progressives continues to weaken Democrats' chances. "More than a few highly qualified progressives told me they would never-- or, in many cases, never again-- waste their time and resources running for Congress with Blue Dog Steve Israel anywhere near the DCCC." So, we have two candidates in the race who have never and will not get the support of the Koch brothers. One is Bernie Sanders and the other is Donald Trump. It's a sad thing that the chair of the Democratic National Committee isn't smart enough to answer Chris Matthews' stupid question about what the difference is between socialism and the Democratic Party by simply saying, "Chris, socialism is an economic idea and the Democratic Party is a political party," but at least it's obvious she can tell he's being a jerk. In any case, it's worth clicking on this link to Matthews' attack on Sanders just to see the headline Ring of Fire gave it. David Sirota tweeted this quote from Obama: "We've put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable." And then said, "Oh really?" - and linked to this story: "US Prosecution of White Collar Crime Hits 20-Year Low: Report." Seems the Obama administration has become adept at making deals to make sure Wall Street isn't held accountable at all. There has never been a shortage of STEM workers. Never. "The Fight for American Voting Rights: Inside Ari Berman's New Book [...] In Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, journalist Ari Berman looks not just at the significance of this landmark civil rights law, but at what's happened to voting right in America since Lyndon Johnson signed the VRA in 1965." Ari talked to Sam Seder about it on The Majority Report. * Scott Lemieux in The Week, "John Roberts has been trying to gut the Voting Rights Act for decades." Thanks, Obama. The Restrictions Journalists Agreed To In Order To Attend The Koch Brothers' Conference Media Experts Blast New York Times Over Glowing Profile Of Koch Brothers If you've got self-appointed "experts" telling cops to shoot first all the time, then going into court and insisting that an officer who shot an unarmed person in the back had no choice, "Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer's story," yes, the cops become the most dangerous people on the streets. Back in April and May, Tom Sullivan did two posts on this sick situation and at least one experienced cop who says the current training cops are getting is deadly wrong. I almost didn't read far enough into this story to find out why someone sent me the link, but if you ever needed proof that it's possible to go beyond tribe and race, then read about Bryan Stevenson's legal work to keep black kids out of prison and off death row and why there's an even bigger story there. "Alabama case fills out the police brutality bingo card: This story out of Huntsville, Ala., reads like a checklist of police brutality cases. [...] The only thing missing here is the common racial element. In this case the officer is black, his victim is white. The other cops who lied for the black cop were also white. When it comes to covering up brutality, the blue code apparently transcends race. Progress!" Paul Craig Roberts, "Would Somebody Please Bring Freedom & Democracy To America [...] If you're starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed, intimidated and fearful for your life and your property, you should be. Never before have 'we the people' been so seemingly defenseless in the face of police misconduct, lacking advocates in the courts and in the legislatures." This is the way to do it: "Facebook Co-Founder Giving Millions Directly To The Poor, No Strings Attached" I'm not saying we should have to rely on private charity (the kindness of rich strangers!), but squeezing out a few paltry bucks and telling people exactly what they are allowed to spend it on is a wasteful kind of "help", it doesn't allow them to make decisions and frequently locks them into bad decisions someone else made. 90 Year Old Legendary Speaker of the House Jim Wright Denied Texas Voter ID Card Happy Birthday Copyright Bombshell: New Evidence Warner Music Previously Hid Shows Song Is Public Domain This is interesting: Funding for students activism has been dropping all the time, but apparently the Ford Foundation is stepping up. Can't help but wonder if something might actually come of this. "How Medicaid forces families like mine to stay poor: 'You'll have to get rid of everything'" There's a lot of interest in this interview Laura Flanders did with Cornel West, but I was particularly interested in his remarks on music, which were something I'd never thought about before. "Let's Go Full Crocodile, Ladies: A documentary that disappeared more than 40 years ago - available to everyone for the first time here - is a gift to modern-day feminists. It's belligerent, it's hilarious, and it reveals exactly what the Clinton campaign is missing." Actually, the Clinton campaign is missing a great deal more than what's in this video, but never mind that. Year of the Woman is the feminist movement that really was and that you never hear about - no bra-burning, no hairy legs, but raucous humor and righteous anger versus a bunch of smug, lame, guys who didn't get it or didn't want to know. And McGovern - oh, lord, he could have done the right thing and he could have chosen Sissy Farenthold as his runningmate and he could have won, but he didn't, and he didn't, and he didn't. That is a part of the McGovern loss that you never hear about, and it's just the kind of mistake Clinton is making right now by taking the wrong side in the issues of the day. Great moments in White House history: The Richard Nixon - Ray Conniff Incident BIG Plans to Turn 4 London Power Plant Chimneys into Tesla Coils 7 minutes of Alfons Mucha art, with pretty music 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art Interview by Peter Bebergal in The New Yorker, "Samuel Delany and the Past and Future of Science Fiction" RIP: Cilla Black, singer and TV star, dies aged 72. Her image became square and dowdy as her singing career turned into a TV career, but she had the pipes, and hers is still the definitive version of "Anyone Who Had A Heart". 00:31 GMT comment Wednesday, 29 July 2015 They decide and the shotgun sings the song They told me the radiation treatments would make me tired. They did. On the last day, they said, "It'll get worse before it gets better." They were right, but they didn't tell me how much worse. It's like my entire body is in open rebellion. Also, alien skin. Yikes. I really gotta post these links before it's suddenly September. Stuart Zechman was on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd to discuss The Liberal Policy Agenda and popular politics. Apparently, Barney Frank wants me to support Hillary because William Kirstol is always right. Barney Frank is tight with the banksters, you know. The only trouble with this formula is that there is plenty of reason to believe that Hillary can't beat the Republican nominee, but Bernie can. And Bill Curry at Salon figures Bernie to win the nomination. The polls are not with Hillary. Something strange happened at Netroots Nation. To set the scene for this, you need to know that a panel that immediately preceded the Incident was about police violence and that, of course, Bernie Sanders has talked about it all the time and in fact had done so twice in the preceding week. Bernie objected to the Clintons' Tough on Crime policies back in the day and has never changed his mind about it. So then up comes the event where two presidential candidates are supposed to address the crowd, and Jose Antonio Vargas had just asked Martin O'Malley about the sharp rise in arrests of black young people in Baltimore during his administration. So, you can understand the surprise of those in attendance when a bunch of black activists came in and appeared to accuse those present of "ignoring the issue" of police violence. Oliver Willis was not impressed. Sanders arrived at the event mere moments before he was supposed to go on stage and had no idea what had been going on; he reacted to the heckling that never let up much the same way he usually reacts to white hecklers. I'm told there was actually a lot of local infighting involved that no one from outside of the area would necessarily have been prepared for. Yes, Sandra Bland's death after a traffic stop raises lots of questions, but I'm not sure repeating a Twitter tag or even her name really addresses that. It did seem to some that it was really self-promotion. The Young Turks report. Josh Holland interviewed Charles Lenchner, co-founder of People for Bernie Sanders, and Imani Gandy, AKA @AngryBlackLady, separately on his podcast. Meanwhile, nothing has stopped the cops from making up silly stories "explaining" Bland's death, and there's still no explanation for her illegal arrest. Finally, Chuck Todd tried to sell the narrative but Bernie wasn't sitting still for it. Elizabeth Warren's speech at Netroots Nation 2015 How Politico reported it Warren is pushing to reinstate Glass-Steagall, but Hillary doesn't seem interested. She should be. "To this day some Wall Street apologists argue Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented the 2008 crisis because the real culprits were nonbanks like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Baloney. These nonbanks got their funding from the big banks in the form of lines of credit, mortgages, and repurchase agreements. If the big banks hadn't provided them the money, the nonbanks wouldn't have got into trouble. And why were the banks able to give them easy credit on bad collateral? Because Glass-Steagall was gone." But it sounds like Marcy Kaptur's bill to restore Glass-Steagall is better than Warren's. In fact, it's curious that Warren's bill doesn't have these virtues. Radley Balko enlisted attorney Nathan Burney, "author of The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law, to draw up some cartoons to help explain some of the more complex issues in this area of the law." In this cartoon, "What is 'qualified immunity,' and how does it work?" And on a related subject, the Dyller Law Firm on False Or Wrongful Arrest Or Malicious Prosecution. Conservatives started attacking the Iran deal long before they had any idea what it was going to be, mainly because they think war is a good answer to everything. They still haven't read it but they are talking like Iran and Obama got together and bombed Pearl Harbor. The Rude Pundit knows what it's about, and here's Fred Kaplan's view of Why Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Neocons Hate the Iran Deal. Just knowing they hate it is a good enough reason to be hopeful. Funny how neocons never mind holding hands with Saudi Arabia, the country that exports extremist Wahabism all over the world, resulting in minor inconveniences like 9/11. (Not sure whether you can still get Nicole Sandler's interview with Alan Grayson about his concerns about the Iran deal, but you can try here.) Digby at Salon, "The quiet Social Security revolution: How Democrats learned to stop loving benefit cuts. Duncan Black may turn out to be the hero of the 21st century. Okay, the Chicago school system is officially doomed: "Senate Passes Bill Letting Schools Give Education Money To Financial Consulting Firms: As budget-strapped Chicago follows a mass school closure with a new plan to layoff more than 1,400 teachers, one set of transactions sticks out: the city's moves to refinance $1 billion in debt through complex financial instruments called swaps." Georgia claims that publishing its state laws for free online is 'terrorism' Froomkin, "Justice Department Watchdog Complains He's Been Curbed: The Justice Department's internal watchdog said Thursday that his independence has been undermined by the department's refusal to let him see information derived from wiretaps or national security letters without special permission. The department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a 68-page opinion Thursday saying that Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz's office should not be granted access to several different kinds of typically confidential material unless there is a clear law-enforcement or counterintelligence purpose - and that the department's lawyers, not the inspector general's, would make that determination. That would appear to rule out many of the typical goals of oversight, such as rooting out fraud, incompetence, rule-breaking and cover-ups." UK Police Confirm Ongoing Criminal Probe of Snowden Leak Journalists: A secretive British police investigation focusing on journalists working with Edward Snowden's leaked documents remains ongoing two years since it was quietly launched, The Intercept can reveal. London's Metropolitan Police has admitted it is still carrying out the probe, which is being led by its counter-terrorism department, after previously refusing to confirm or deny its existence on the grounds that doing so could be 'detrimental to national security.'" Some days it just seems like Obama is taking the piss. It's bad enough they claim all these trade deals will "create jobs", which of course they won't, but they tacitly acknowledge that they will destroy jobs when they start talking about "trade adjustment" to give meagre help to those who lose jobs. And then insist we have to pay for it (even though hardly anyone will need it!)... out of Medicare! William Rivers Pitt on Killing a Nation With Euphemisms: TPP-Eats-Medicare Edition. McKinney Police Chief says cop who attacked girl at pool party was out of line, fails to defend him. I was dismayed to see people who should know better asserting that Donald Trump is the craziest clown in the GOP clown car. Leaving aside that these people clearly haven't noticed Cruz and Santorum, I have evidence that Trump is less crazy than most of the Democratic leadership, right here. A Democratic president should have said that years ago, dammit. The Young Turks got together with Amex, interestingly, to make a documentary about the finances of the poor, Spent: Looking For Change. Being poor is expensive. "Class vs. Special Interest: Labor, Power, and Politics in the United States and Canada in the Twentieth Century" - or why American pundits' explanation of the decline of unions is all wrong. The tech start-up plan I need to stick Stirling Newberry's website, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, over on my sidebar, as soon as I can remember how. Dan Perkins celebrates 25 Years of Tom Tomorrow. Tom Tomorrow on the gun argument Porn Sex vs Real Sex: The Differences Explained With Food 'Lost' material by Monkees star Micky Dolenz released. Book review comparing To Kill a Mockingbird to Go Set a Watchman A generous gift from Ursula Le Guin to the writing community Apparently, it's the return of Bloom County. And, apparently, the Lone Gunmen are coming back from the dead! Mr. Peabody adopts Sherman and invents the Wayback; plus, Rapunzel Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly - together. The Who live, 1978, final performance with Keith Moon, "Won't Get Fooled Again" 11:39 GMT comment Tuesday, 14 July 2015 She's so glad, she's tellin' all the world Jay Ackroyd got to interview a much-read and much-admired economist on Virtually Speaking: "Henry Jacob Aaron is an American policy analyst and economist. He is the Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he has been employed since 1968, author and co author of a plethora of public policy publications, including the seminal Setting National Priorities series analyzing the US budget." And David Dayen and Digby talked about Greece on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Atrios has a good, quick primer and summing-up of what's going on with Greece right here, a lot more straightforward than anything you'll read in most newspaper accounts. Read it all but here's the pull-quote: "Whatever it is, it ain't democracy. It's banksterocracy. The concept of central bank independence was, once upon a time, thought to be necessary to prevent irresponsible governments from doing, or being perceived as doing, irresponsible things with the money supply. Now the point of central bank independence is to hand immense power to a bunch of unelected unaccountable people engaged in revolving door careers with the banking system. Let's continue laughing at the silly Greeks and their silly corruption." Meanwhile, the Germans (who owe their quick recovery after WWII and continued success in large part to the Marshall Plan and a generous welfare state), don't exactly have a leg to stand on when they whine about Greece not paying their debts, since Germany hasn't, either. Alan Grayson is in - to be the Senator with Guts! Glen Ford on Eric Holder's next trip through the corporate revolving door. "TiSA WikiLeaked: Winners & losers of multinational trade deal [,,,] Leaked documents of TiSA (Trade in Services Agreement) negotiations reveal that the treaty is looking to undermine 'governments involved in the treaty' by supporting multinational companies instead of local businesses, according to a WikiLeaks press release. The revelations come just one week before TiSA talks resume on July 6. Negotiations have been taking place in secret since early 2013. [...] Even after the deal is finalized, WikiLeaks said that the TiSA documents are meant to remain secret for five years." The Young Turks on What Abigail Fisher's affirmative action case is really about America loved the marriage equality ruling - at least on Twitter. Isn't it funny that Claire McCaskill's campaign stumping for Hillary is saying all the stuff that would make people want to vote for Bernie? Meanwhile, not sure this will endear her, either. Just imagine if it had been the other way around. "Man Admits To Plotting To Massacre Muslims, Judge Sets Him Free Anyway." "Florida Judge Says It's Illegal to Force Women to Wait 24 Hours Before Terminating a Pregnancy: Florida Chief Circuit Judge Charles Francis blocked an intrusive bill on Tuesday that was signed by unpopular Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), reported CBS News. The bill would have required a one-day waiting period for women seeking to have an abortion." The Prosecutor Who Says Louisiana Should 'Kill More People' [...] Within Louisiana, where capital punishment has declined steeply, Caddo has become an outlier, accounting for fewer than 5 percent of the state's death sentences in the early 1980s but nearly half over the past five years. Even on a national level Caddo stands apart. From 2010 to 2014, more people were sentenced to death per capita here than in any other county in the United States, among counties with four or more death sentences in that time period. Robert J. Smith, a law professor at the University of North Carolina whose work was cited in Justice Breyer's dissent, said Caddo illustrated the geographic disparity of capital punishment. But he said this analysis did not go far enough. Caddo, he noted, has bucked the national trend in large part because of one man: Dale Cox. GREECE'D: We Voted 'No' to slavery, but 'Yes' to our chains: [...] fact is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Cruella De Vil of the Eurozone, will ignore the cries of the bleeding Greeks and demand we swallow austerity - or lose the euro. But, so what if we lose the euro? The best thing that can happen to Greece, and should have happened long, long ago, is that Greece flee the Eurozone. That's because it is the euro itself that is the virus responsible for Greece's economic ills." * "Greece Nazi occupation: Athens asks Germany for €279bn" Stanley Greenberg on A New Formula for a Real Democratic Majority - Basically, you want Democrats who sound like Democrats. "The £93bn handshake: businesses pocket huge subsidies and tax breaks: Guardian's analysis reveals that hidden subsidies, direct grants and tax breaks to big business amount to £3,500 a year given by each UK household [..] Many of the companies receiving the largest public grants over the past few years previously paid little or zero corporation tax, the analysis shows. They include some of the best-known names in Britain, such as Amazon, Ford and Nissan. The figures intensify the pressure on George Osborne, the chancellor, just as he puts the finishing touches to his budget. At the heart of Wednesday's announcement will be his plans to cut £12bn more from the social welfare bill." Lee Camp on Obama's Legacy - Gay marriage became legal because gay activists kept fighting for it, not because Obama did anything. Obama gave us TARP and undercut health insurance reform and prevented criminal banksters from being prosecuted and made sure the Bush administration paid no price for torture, but no, he is not responsible for gay marriage being legal. A Johnson & Johnson's heir finds that the 1% really don't want to talk about how they've vacuumed resources out of the country. I was always disappointed in the Cosby show for a number of reasons. For one thing, nothing about it reflected the genuinely funny comedian who warned me about ice cream and tonsillectomies or a $100 car or Sheldon Leonard. But there was also one very obvious other problem. Macy's fireworks. Your widely spread-out Grateful Dead Ripple moment. This is not work-safe. And yes, I know someone who says that's just how it was where she grew up back home in Texas - they knew they couldn't "do it" until they got married, so they did everything else. Live at Shea Stadium, "I Feel Fine". 08:55 GMT comment Sunday, 05 July 2015 I thought our little wild time had just begun "Legacy racism. Guns, statutes, and other artifact of our political, and social systems need to go, Fasttracking secret trade agreements. Commentary from Andrew Jerrell Jones, Stuart Zechman and Jay Ackroyd," on Virtually Speaking Sundays The Supremes startled many people by deciding King v. Burwell in support of the PPACA and Obergefell v Hodges in favor of same-sex marriage, and Ben & Jerry's renamed its Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream to celebrate the latter decision. Meanwhile, Antonin Scalia impressed many with his incoherent dissent in which he (this is Scalia, remember) complained that the court majority was a threat to American democracy Didn't worry about that much in Bush v. Gore, did ya, Tony? The Mary Sue celebrated, and The Huffington Post asked the nearest hippie as per Scalia's advice. Some people were just always cool, and they stayed cool even as they got older and greyer. Bernie Sanders is one of them, and the kids know it. "Brendan Eprile remembers the first time he saw Bernie Sanders on TV. Eprile was an 8-year-old growing up in Vermont, and he recalls 'being amazed, because I understood what he was talking about, unlike all the other politicians.' Sanders was on his soapbox about Iraq -or maybe it was economic inequality? In any case, the famously blunt independent from Burlington had him riveted. Jonah Ragir has a similar recollection. When he was young, he says, his grandmother was watching Sanders on C-SPAN in her California living room. 'I asked my grandma who he was, because he didn't sound like the other guys who were speaking,' Ragir says. 'He wasn't "boring" and he wasn't "lying," were the words I used as a little kid.'" And here's a completely different kid speaking up for Bernie. At Naked Capitalism, Yves and Robert Scheer on The Bankruptcy of America's Elites: "And I have spent my life interviewing people generally around power, in government and so forth. I've traveled with Nelson Rockefeller and David Rockefeller. You know, I have interviewed people who became president, from Richard Nixon, Clinton, and so forth and so on. And if I were to try to explain, the big shift that I've seen is long-term as opposed to short-term, that most of the people I had interviewed in the first stage of my career, say somewhere up until 1970, were people that at least were concerned what their grandchildren might think. You know? There was either through family, inherited wealth, or going to certain schools, or there was some sense of social responsibility, you know, that you could find, that we have to leave our mark, we have to leave it a better place, we have to - and just for our place in history, that it mattered. Okay? So you could be concerned, oh, we'd better get with the civil rights movement, because otherwise we're going to fall apart, or we'd better care about the economic condition of the rest of the world, because otherwise it will rebel, we'd better worry about the living condition of our own people here or they'll rise up with pitchforks and toss you out. I think what happened is we went into this madcap period of short-term greed." "Congressional Democrats Introduce Ambitious New Bill to Restore the Voting Rights Act." To me, that's not good enough. It should simply be illegal *everywhere* to try to prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote, including to use any method that is a known voter-suppression strategy. And that would overcome the Supremes' objection, too. "Christie's Conspiracy: The Real Story Behind the Fort Dix Five Terror Plot [..] For the Duka family, the arrests marked a tragic turn. They had escaped the turmoil of the former Yugoslavia and managed to start anew in the United States, only to find three sons publicly branded as terrorists. Dritan, Shain and Eljvir, seized when they were 28, 26 and 23, would be convicted of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel and sentenced to life in prison, devastating the Duka family and putting an end to their nascent American dream. Beyond the sensational headlines is the story of paid FBI informants with long criminal histories who spent a year working to befriend the brothers and enlist them as terrorists. This effort, both expensive and time-consuming, nevertheless failed to convince the Duka brothers to take part in a violent attack. Indeed, over the course of hundreds of hours of surveillance, the plot against Fort Dix was never even raised with them." Ettlin thinks it's time to write a whole new state song for Maryland, to replace An anthem from the Confederacy . Over here they're calling it TTIP, but even the Evening Standard is beginning to view it with alarm. We really need to rethink our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And, of course, the oil industry. I have a dumbphone, but it's not this dumb. Hefner: classier than you think. I thought this was fun. And this looks like it will be fun for some of us. Rainbow unicorn cookies Simels is having fun going all gay all of a sudden. 00:44 GMT comment Saturday, 27 June 2015 She's no fun, she fell right over I apparently missed linking this a month ago, but Stuart Zechman and Marcy Wheeler really got into it in the wake of passage of the USA Freedumb Act and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Patriot Act didn't authorize wholesale sucking up of everyone's data as is claimed, but most interestingly, they talked about why the US has this bizarrely intimate relationship with the odious regime of Saudi Arabia, on Virtually Speaking Sundays. * And this week, Susie Madrak and Sara Robinson on Conversations with Conservatives, and why we need to start having them in this teaching moment. Well, so much for the great Democratic rebellion and all that. Barack is triumphant, and, strangely, those horrible obstructionist Republicans cooperated with him magnificently. "Bernie Sanders on Obama's 'Biggest Mistake'" - Well, except it was no mistake, of course. Obama wanted to pen up all those activists and shut them up so he could impose his "centrist" policies without any push-back. "When Bernie met Hillary [...] They got their meeting at the White House that month, and the two doctors laid out the case for single-payer to the first lady. 'She said, "You make a convincing case, but is there any force on the face of the earth that could counter the hundreds of millions of the dollars the insurance industry would spend fighting that?"' recalled Himmelstein. 'And I said, "How about the president of the United States actually leading the American people?" and she said, "Tell me something real."'" And there's the difference between them right there - Bernie thinks you fight until you win, Hillary thinks you give up before you even try. But we always used to beat them with our message even though they had more money than we did. The DLC told us to stop trying, and they did that thing. "Democrats Who Move Right Lose Elections - There Is No 'Center" - "Centrists" tell a story where there are these people in the "center" who are swing-voters or independents who would vote for Democrats if only our candidates were right-wing enough. It's implausible for more reasons than one, but the fact that most indies already identify with one party or another is a big one, and they've rebelled not because they see their party as too extreme, but because they see it as too "moderate" - that is, too wishy-washy and too compromising with the other side. "Another Blue Dog Admits He's Just A Republican-- Switches Parties [...] Over time, Democratic voters start to understand that their Blue Dog congressman is a Republican and they either defeat them in primaries (example: Tim Holden) or sit on their hands and let a Republican win (example: Chris Carney). Sensing impending doom, many Blue Dogs, including some the founders of the rotten organization, have covered up their membership-- like Steve Israel and Adam Schiff most recently-- or have just admitted they're nothing but a Republican, jumping the fence and reregistering as such." "Guess who's being groomed for a promotion? If you said Patrick Murphy, you'd be right. Chuck Schumer is very high on Murphy to fill Marco Rubio's Senate seat. You see, only in the Democratic Party do they go out of their way to promote from among the top 10 congressmen who vote with the other party for the Senate. This can only be because they like that voting pattern and would like more of this, (which just happened last week)" Surely it is patently illegal to make people train H-1B immigrants to replace them. Those visas exist to bring in workers specifically when no Americans can be found to do the same job. If you are laying Americans off and replacing them with H-1Bs, you're fraudulently getting those visas for them. All 50 states fail to meet int'l standards on lethal force by police - Amnesty "The Saudi Finger-pointing at Iran: Parroting Israel and Saudi Arabia, much of Official Washington blames Iran for the current instability across the Mideast, but that may rank as one of the most inside-out explanations imaginable, as Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett explain." Ray McGovern says Obama is no Jack Kennedy. Hell, I coulda told him that. The US agency plundered by Chinese hackers made one of the dumbest security moves possible: Contractors in Argentina and China were given "direct access to every row of data in every database" when they were hired by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to manage the personnel records of more than 14 million federal employees, a federal consultant told ArsTechnica." 10 Stories That Were Missed While Everyone Was Talking About Rachel Dolezar Here's how much more you'd make if you were in a union Farmers find healthy soil works for crops, bottom line Jon Stewart, unfunny, about Charleston. In a similar vein, the Onion headline from last year: "'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" Tom Tomorrow on A Confederacy of Denial RIP: At the Firesign Theater site, it says, "Phil Austin 1941-2015: Nick Danger has left the office. Our dear friend and Firesign Theatre partner for over 50 years succumbed to various forms of cancer early this morning at his home on Fox Island, Washington, with his wife Oona and their six beloved dogs at his side. It is a tremendous and unexpected loss, and we will miss him greatly; but in keeping with his wishes, there will be no public memorial. Rest in Peace, Regnad Kcin." Volkswagen ad Lee Camp, The TRUTH About GMOs, The Insanity of The G7, & The Fun of Child Poverty "What Would Jesse Ventura Do?: Declassify 9/11 Now." The Night Tube is coming to London. Graffiti tribute to Terry Pratchett in Shoreditch completed three months after author's death 22 Incredible Facts About The Life and Career Of Sir Christopher Lee Wow, you could get a Lego professorship at Cambridge! 25 Of The Most Creative Sculptures And Statues From Around The World Simels managed to find some newly-unearthed Beatles footage I've never seen, and it's the best lip-sync performance ever. 01:05 GMT comment Saturday, 13 June 2015 Magic carpet ride Congress was the hot entertainment Friday night as fast-track hit the floor. Amidst speculation that Pelosi would support it, she suddenly surprised everyone by announcing that she would oppose both TAA and the TPP, ultimately voting against fast-track. Despite normally treating her as the anti-Christ, Drudge's headline immediately after the vote was: "PELOSI SAYS NO TO OBAMATRADE; TAKES BRAVE STAND FOR AMERICA " If you needed a primer on the contents of the Republican Clown Car, Digby presented it on Virtually Speaking. Digby also reckons it looks like the DLC types are planning to use O'Malley as their faux-left stalking horse. And then, of course, there are the Zombie Blue Dogs. I didn't realize Brendan Nyhan was up to something useful lately until he appeared with Jennifer Oellette on Virtually Speaking Science and talked about "The science of swaying popular opinion: think vaccines. Dartmouth political scientist/psychologist Brendan Nyhan specializes in the cognitive biases that come with identity politics. Jennifer and Brendan talk about the psychology of changing minds, how our beliefs and opinions are tied to personal identity, and what does and does not work in terms of strategy when it comes to swaying popular opinion." Homework includes "Study: You Can't Change an Anti-Vaxxer's Mind." On The Majority Report, Marcy Wheeler talked to Sammy about What's Next in the Fight Against the Patriot Act. Sammy's Casual Friday guest last week was Charlie Pierce. Sammy also talked to Mark Ames of Pando Media about Seymour Hersh and the Dangers of Corporate Muckraking - and why it's easier to report on government than on corporations, which makes private-public partnership even more dangerous. Dahlia Lithwick in Slate: "Dying of Excitement: Police often blame suspects' deaths on 'excited delirium.' Is that a diagnosis or a cover-up? [...] The obvious problem is this: What do we make of a syndrome that seems to occur almost unerringly when a police officer is choking, hog-tying, or stunning with a Taser someone with a mental illness or drug addiction? And why do many experts dispute that the diagnosis even exists? While excited delirium is used to explain a significant number of deaths occurring in police custody, the term has not been recognized as a genuine mental health condition by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, or the World Health Organization. Excited delirium - which sounds, to the naked ear, something like 'crazy-craziness' - is not found in the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, either. Yet medical examiners and police departments keep claiming it as the cause of death of people in custody." Glenn Greenwald had some fun unpacking Max Boot's BS about Edward Snowden. * Jason Leopold at Vice: "Exclusive: Inside Washington's Quest to Bring Down Edward Snowden. A bipartisan group of Washington lawmakers solicited details from Pentagon officials that they could use to 'damage' former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's 'credibility in the press and the court of public opinion.' That's according to declassified government documents obtained exclusively by VICE News in response to a long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit." Catholics For Choice were not much pleased with Lindsay Graham's anti-choice bill. Would you believe that jerk Jaime Dimon actually had the nerve to claim that Elizabeth Warren didn't understand global banking. She didn't sit still for it: "The problem for these guys is that I fully understand the system, and I understand how they make their money, And that's what they don't like about me." Matt Taibbi on Judith Miller's Comeback: "This preposterous 'dog ate my homework' story is even more humorous in retrospect, now that Miller has a self-serious Twitter handle (@jmfreespeech) under which she notes in her mini-bio, 'My dog, Hamlet, really does eat my homework.'" There is no reason to assume that Hillary Clinton can beat any potential Republican candidate. She's got a lot of baggage and Iraq is a big one. So is her State Department kick-back scheme, if the Republicans ever notice it and stop wasting time on Bengazi. It's already forced her to oppose her whole party on Citizens United. But there's every reason to believe that Bernie Sanders can beat any potential Republican candidate. Signs of creeping Bernie-ism: Wisconsin Straw Poll: Clinton 49 Percent, Sanders 41 Percent Hilariously, one "centrist" Dem worries that the left has 'hijacked' the Democratic Party message. I was so impressed that I left a comment. David Dayen in The New Republic, "The Scariest Trade Deal Nobody's Talking About Just Suffered a Big Leak: The Obama administration's desire for 'fast track' trade authority is not limited to passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In fact, that may be the least important of three deals currently under negotiation by the U.S. Trade Representative. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bind the two biggest economies in the world, the United States and the European Union. And the largest agreement is also the least heralded: the 51-nation Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). On Wednesday, WikiLeaks brought this agreement into the spotlight by releasing 17 key TiSA-related documents, including 11 full chapters under negotiation. Though the outline for this agreement has been in place for nearly a year, these documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, an example of the secrecy surrounding the agreement, which outstrips even the TPP." * "Now We Know Why Huge TPP Trade Deal Is Kept Secret From the Public [...] Let that sink in for a moment: '[C]ompanies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings -- federal, state or local -- before tribunals....' And they can collect not just for lost property or seized assets; they can collect if laws or regulations interfere with these giant companies' ability to collect what they claim are 'expected future profits.' [...] In sum, if corporations feel they have been denied s"expected" profits by a government regulation, ISDS lets them circumvent a country's courts and go to an international corporate tribunal with their grievance. But if labor organizers are murdered, workers and their families have nowhere to go. [...] While ISDS would give American multinational corporations tremendous powers over other governments, it places non-U.S. corporations (and, of course, non-U.S. subsidiaries of American multinational corporations) at a tremendous advantage over U.S. firms by giving only them -- not U.S.-based firms -- this right to challenge U.S. laws and regulations." Contact Congress. Also from Dday, "These Simple Steps Could Prevent Another Financial Crisis." Glyn Moody at Ars Technica: "TTIP explained: The secretive US-EU treaty that undermines democracy" "A Federal Appeals Court Just Denied Birthright Citizenship to American Samoans Using Racist Caselaw" - brought to you by the Obama administration. "Major Monsanto Lawsuit Completely Blacked out by Media: What happens when one courageous attorney and a few citizens try to take down Monsanto? The MSM doesn't cover it, for starters." And speaking of things you can't see, just try and Read the TPP. Hahaha. Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD This was the stupidest thing I saw Thursday: "'Marriage is simply too important:' Christian couple vows to divorce if gays allowed to wed." * The gay response This post is from last year, but still worth remembering when Cory Doctorow said "Obama's regressive record makes Nixon look like Che." Public pot scold William Bennet is back wondering how marijuana and pot dealers stopped being "seen for what they were - criminal and dangerous elements in our society." Well, that's because they weren't, Bill. RIP: Vincent Bugliosi, 80, successful prosecutor made famous by his prosecution of Charles Manson (which he later wrote about in Helter Skelter). But he may be best-remembered by longtime readers of The Sideshow for his book about the 2000 Selection of George Bush, The Betrayal of America, in which he presented his case against the Supreme Court 5. The book expanded on his article in The Nation, "None Dare Call It Treason; it became a New York Times best-seller despite the fact that, in contrast to his earlier works, none of the major talk shows were interested in having him come talk about it. In fact, he ended up talking to bloggers, such as Carolyn Kay at Make Them Accountable, who interviewed him in June of 2001. Nicole Sandler, hearing about his death, rearranged her show schedule to replay her interview with him from last October, which I believe you can hear here. * "Ruby Dee, a Ringing Voice for Civil Rights, Onstage and Off, Dies at 91." Such a compelling talent. * Christopher Lee, at 93. I met him once and just went totally fangirl. Of course, his SNL guest host spot was unforgettable - introducing the musical guest, and his performance as Mr. Death. * "Man who wrote famous New York Post 'Headless Body in Topless Bar' headline dies [...] Musetto was already working on the headline. It didn't take long to determine that the place where the torso - the 'headless body,' in tabloidese - was found was a bar, but was it a 'topless bar'? 'It has to be,' said Musetto, who had hatched the headline." It's always worried me that people are going out of their way to avoid the vitamins you need the sun for. What happens when they fire all the copy-editors The new design for the London Underground map from Transport for London has been met with wrinkled noses and derision by many transport mavens, but it turns out that someone has been posting their own alternative Tube map and it has some virtues. I could not help but notice, however, that as with previous versions, Bayswater is still too far from Queensway, an error I really wish someone would fix, because I once made the mistake of changing at Nottinghill Gate, which was a pain in the hiney, to get to one when it would have been easier to just get out at the other and walk the few yards. Anyway, here's the amateur map, which also omits the accessibility symbol the standard map has. And speaking of the Underground, a little cosplay. Terrorizing people with Michael Jackson moves If you can do Facebook, this is an absolutely lovely (and short!) bit of visual art. The couple from the Woodstock album cover are still together, 46 years later. Steppenwolf 17:58 GMT comment Tuesday, 02 June 2015 In the back of my mind I know it can't be real David Dayen and Gaius Publius were this week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays, and discussed the trade deals and the Sanders campaign and its coverage. Homework for this one includes Gaius' article in Naked Capitalism on the press silence on the Sanders campaign, but David pointed out that the NYT isn't being silent anymore, although of course they still say things like, "Her mix of centrist and progressive Democratic views may yet prove more appealing to the broadest number of party voters as well, while some of Mr. Sanders's policy prescriptions - including far higher taxes on the wealthy and deep military spending cuts - may eventually persuade Democrats that he is unelectable in a general election." In addition, Gaius' article at Down With Tyranny!, "Why Is Malaysia So Important to TPP?" - and The First Black President's willingness to put the stamp of approval on slavery. * Digby and Andrew Jeerer Jones were the panelists on last week's Virtually Speaking Sundays, discussing "in the Freedom Act; differential media treatment of Wako vs Baltimore; the latest from the republican klown car," with added commentary from Culture of Truth. * "Macro economist Dean Baker and Jay Ackroyd discuss the role public sector unions have played in the labor movement, wage rates, pensions and economic growth and income equality" on Virtually Speaking. "I've Read Obama's Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned.: 'You need to tell me what's wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago,' a frustrated President Barack Obama recently complained about criticisms of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He's right. The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That's by design - anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I've actually read the TPP text provided to the government's own advisors, and I've given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can't share my criticisms with you." * Meanwhile, in political drama, Gaius Publius says, "Schumer Organized the Democratic Collapse on TPP," and "Don't forget to notice "progressive" Patty Murray's role in this. As a member of Democratic leadership, she seems to have had to choose between 'following the neo-liberal leader' - in this case, Barack Obama on TPP - and standing with all other progressives in the 'Democratic coalition,' including every labor union. Murray is choosing to play ball with Senate leadership against progressives. Watch her carefully going forward. This looks a lot like the victory of careerism over principle." * "Here's how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill" Yes, Ron Wyden should lose his job for supporting this thing. * David Dayen suggests the pro-TTP forces may be a bit desperate if they are putting out such lame attempts at hit jobs on Elizabeth Warren. The 1973 Helms Act has unpleasant consequences for the victims of Boko Haram. The media's sickening Sanders double standard: How the socialist brings out their true colors [...] "This is what happens after more than three decades of economic policymaking that has enshrined tax cuts as the greatest good one can strive for. For Republicans, the policy is tax cuts everywhere and always and most especially for the rich. For Democrats, it's tax cuts for the middle class while the wealthy, who benefit disproportionately from a tax structure that is 'barely progressive,' are asked only to 'pay a little more.' We've become so accustomed to historically low rates of taxation for the wealthy that when someone like Sanders comes along and says the rich can and should pay a far higher rate, people assume he's out to lunch. But is a 90 percent top rate 'obviously too high'? Is it something one should instinctively 'flinch' at? Not really..." Watch This Atlanta TV Station Expose ALEC's Influence On Local Legislators - Good local reporting is what we need more of. How to Keep Down Sky-High Hospital Bills - What everyone dealing with America's commercial medical system needs is a plan that looks at bills, calls BS, and writes its own bottom line. So far it's just employers hiring them to protect them from ridiculous costs, but maybe the people who don't work for those people should get together and form a kind of "union" to hire them to protect them, too. Krugman on The Insecure American: "We learn, for example, that 3 in 10 nonelderly Americans said they had no retirement savings or pension, and that the same fraction reported going without some kind of medical care in the past year because they couldn't afford it. Almost a quarter reported that they or a family member had experienced financial hardship in the past year. And something that even startled me: 47 percent said that they would not have the resources to meet an unexpected expense of $400 - $400! They would have to sell something or borrow to meet that need, if they could meet it at all." But our leaders think we don't need an old "antique" like Social Security. Reading "The disdain Hillary Clinton deserves on trade" in The Washington Post is a classic experience. It's written with open contempt for anyone who recognizes the damage these "trade deals" have done; however, it baldly admits that both Obama and Clinton pretended in 2008 to want to change NAFTA to make it more beneficial to Americans, but that Clinton was unlikely to have done so and Obama clearly didn't mean it at the time: "Clinton took about the same position and attacked Obama for every hint that he didn't mean it. And, of course, he didn't. Sophisticated observers at the time assumed that Obama and Clinton weren't being honest about their intentions, that both were level-headed enough to realize that the anti-trade sentiment in some quarters of the Democratic Party is neither warranted nor wise. These assumptions were all but confirmed when word came that Austan Goolsbee, at the time a top Obama economic adviser, assured the Canadian government that Obama's anti-trade positioning was more about politics than an indication of what he would do in the White House. The Obama campaign aggressively denied the claims, but a leaked Canadian government memo subsequently indicated something like that nevertheless happened." And then it goes on to call Clinton a coward because her current line of rhetoric and refusal to come out in favor of anti-American "trade deals" encourages all that nasty populist thinking on the left. Your "liberal media". Arthur Chu in Salon, "Sci-fi's right-wing backlash: Never doubt that a small group of deranged trolls can ruin anything (even the Hugo Awards)." RIP: Tanith Lee (1947-2015); obits from the Telegraph, Guardian. How Bernie Sanders Shaped the Northeast Punk Scene This piece is a few years old but as someone whose familiarity with Rand's work is really that I saw the movie on my little black & white TV a couple times, it was nice to see the phrases that clarify why The Fountainhead never made sense to me. "Homeless Shelter Is Transformed Into 5-Star Restaurant, Hot Food And Warm Hearts All Around" This is cool: 3D Visualization of the Anatomy of a Tornado! The new Tube Map How to make a font in 9 hours "Baltimore" by Prince When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men "The Wachowskis Make Sci-Fi Sexy: Sense8 is this summer's bingeable sci-fi must-watch." (And a second trailer here.) BS&T, "I Can't Quit Her" 00:44 GMT comment Sunday, 17 May 2015 Why can't I pretend? So, these links are a little stale, and instead of just dropping hints I'll come out with it: There's been a bit of cancer surgery going on. Found a small bump a while back - self-exam had missed it, but it was right on the surface and found it by accident. (Even knowing it was there, I still couldn't find it with a self-exam.) The docs were ecstatic to see it so small, so apparently early, and so close to the surface. A "special" cancer that doesn't much metastasize. They've been all cheery and bouncy from the git-go. Me, I'm always a pessimist about these things, but I figure the worst that can happen is that it won't kill me fast enough, so I find it hard to worry. The surgery doesn't hurt - I mean, there's nothing there but fat. The lymph biopsy left a lot of soreness and made it hard to scrub my back in the shower, and with all those nerves involved there were of course all sorts of weird twinges, but anyway it was clear. I couldn't raise my arm all the way up without pain but I just figured, well, not a good time to join the Nazi Party, then. My favorite part was the blue dye they shot me up with; for three days I was peeing peacock blue. Of course, everyone I mentioned this to accused me of being a smurf. Next up I think is they want me to do three weeks of radiation therapy, or that was the plan as of when I went into surgery Tuesday. When I asked about chemo they said they didn't foresee that at all, and I said good, because I don't think I'd agree to that. I have good reasons for feeling that way. Cliff Schecter and Dave Johnson were the panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays and talked about the game-changing nature of Bernie Sanders' announcement that he's running for president. Jay Ackroyd also had a guest post at Digby's place discussing how to take advantage of this. Bernie Sanders on the Issues And Stuart Zechman and Jay continued on the subject of Broadbased Politics. I've been collecting TPP/fast-track links all along, and the situation moved faster than I could keep up with but the politics have been fascinating. Obama has been working harder on passing this passel of garbage than anything in his whole career, and just as he did during the 2008 primary campaign, he has proven again that trying to wreck the Democratic Party is just another step in his agenda. I've never, ever seen a Democratic President attack the most popular members of his party this way - a lame duck who is not running for re-election attacking leading contenders as if they were the opposition. And clearly, they are. Obama is pushing back against the astonishing, unexpected push-back from the democratic wing of the party, and the mail blasts have sent creepy little Obots out to try to spread the idea that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are lying or conspiracy theorists - and even Harry Reid is in the line of fire. When Obama accuses Warren and Sanders of sounding like Sarah Palin, you know this guy is bad news. * "Senate Democrats Are Revolting Against Obama's Trade Plan" * "Obama Hurls Insults at Liberals on Trade: Progressives called ignorant, insincere, and motivated by politics, sparking fury among President's base" * Timothy B. Lee: "The Trans-Pacific Partnership is great for elites. Is it good for anyone else?" * Down in comments, ifthethunderdontgetya says: "I say 'Obama on the TPP sounds like Paul Ryan on the TPP.' In sharp contrast to Our President, I can back my comparison up." * David Dayen, "The 10 biggest lies you've been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership" - David also discussed this on The Majority Report with Sam Seder. * So, Obama decided to go to Nike to give his TPP pep-talk. This is astoundingly appropriate, and of course his minions are out in droves to tell us we aren't supposed to disapprove because we sound like the president's Tea Party detractors. Funny how that happens. * So the Senate voted against TPP on Tuesday (52-45), but didn't stand so firm on fast-track on Thursday. "Feingold to run for US Senate seat: MADISON, Wis. - Democrat Russ Feingold has decided to run for his old Senate seat in Wisconsin against Republican Ron Johnson, who defeated him in 2010." Dave Ettlin at The Real Muck: "Turmoil then and now: Racial tension haunts Baltimore across chasm of 45 years." Paul Rosenberg is back on The Family beat: "Progressives can't trust Hillary Clinton: What's behind her bizarre alliance with the Christian right?" The Family, you will recall, is a sinister group that influences policy, and probably has a lot to do with some expensive and nasty programs that owe a lot to the Clinton administration. Radley Balko says "This isn't 1968. Baltimore isn't Watts. And Hillary Clinton isn't Michael Dukakis. [...] We did see a few examples of overt racism from city officials in the months after the Ferguson protests. But a system like this, one created by racism, will produce racist results even if none of the cops, prosecutors, or judges are racist themselves." John Oliver on Prisons "The Asshole Factory - Our economy doesn't make stuff anymore. So what does it make?" 14 year old girl suspended for her NSFW answers on this sex-ed condom survey - I'd be proud if that was my daughter. If you can stand Facebook, I thought this video was good even though I still want to slap NARAL around for some of their awful "strategy" of caving in to "centrists". * Also at FB, 3-D drawing. An Interview With Wanksy, Penis Doodler and Pothole Avenger RIP: * B.B. King at 89. (Guardian, Telegraph tribute). You know you love it. * Jayne Meadows, half of one of my favorite TV couples, with her (real life) husband Steve Allen, as Erlich's parents on St. Elsewhere. They were even funnier as themselves than they were as characters. (Of course, her sister Audrey was pretty famous, too.) * I didn't notice that Annette Funicello died last month. A lot of guys used to rhapsodize about how she was the girl they grew up adoring. And a lot of girls wanted to be her. "8 Essential Lessons We Learned From the Vietnam Antiwar Movement: The movement for peace in Vietnam has been erased from history, unremembered and dismissed by those in power." Just a reminder: I keep seeing people scream and cry about the prospect that people might vote for a third-party candidate rather than Hillary Clinton, and of course invoking Nader in Florida as the agent of all our misery &etc. Because I guess it's easier to blame Nader than it is to blame an incredibly long list of dishonest and illegal voter-disenfranchisement actions and vote-rigging and the Supreme Court for making everyone ignore the fact that, dammit, Al Gore won the 2000 election. (Here's the NORC recount report (.pdf) for those who want to get into the weeds.) I don't know whether I should be happy or frightened about this headline. Iranian Secrets Matt Inman doesn't believe in evolution, he believes in Jibbers Crabst. I've already seen some leave Pastafarianism for this. The Louisville Leopard Percussionists do Led Zep. Neat. Gosh, I completely forgot about Zachariah. I didn't remember those now older and more familiar faces, either.... Blood, Sweat & Tears, "Just One Smile" 11:20 GMT comment Friday, 01 May 2015 Happy Together David Brin talked about how to deal with a surveillance society, history and social advances, and the fact that, as Tony Benn once said, every generation has to fight the same battles, on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. * Virtually Speaking Sundays Bernie Sanders is running - it's official. And everyone is going to tell you he has no chance, but they said that about Reagan pretty much right up to the last minute. So take it seriously and he might just be president. Remember, it's the primaries that matter - don't let Hillary be anointed without a fight. (People are also going to say he copped out by running as a Democrat, but he wants to be heard, and this was the only way to do it. And we definitely want him to be heard - it can completely change the game to have Bernie out front on the discourse.) A lot of people will have serious reservations on his position on Israel, but that's an equation that's not going to change in Washington until the economics change and it restores democracy at home. Democrats' Frustration With Obama Boils Over As Trade Bills Advance * Obama escalates push-back against Elizabeth Warren and other trade deal critics * "Obama Says Warren On Trade Sounds Like Palin Touting Death Panels." Jeez, what is he, a weird version of Rush Limbaugh? How about "Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are worse than Hitler!" Somebody's all fraidy of those crazy democratic types. "The President's alignment with Republicans, Wall Street, and corporate lobbying organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, and against progressives, labor, and almost all Democrats to push TPP is frustrating Democrats across the board." Frustrating? *sigh* * "Elizabeth Warren Tells Obama To Put Up Or Shut Up On Trade [...] On Saturday, Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) responded with a letter essentially telling Obama to put up or shut up. If the deal is so great, Warren and Brown wrote, the administration should make the full negotiation texts public before Congress votes on a "fast track" bill that would strip the legislative branch of its authority to amend it." Gotta admit, after years of listening to the likes of Obama behaving as if Republican ideas are perfectly sincere and reasonable, it's refreshing to hear O'Malley calling them what they really are. But O'Malley has a lot to answer for himself, and if we take a look at what's been going on right now in Baltimore, it goes right to his doorstep.... Just in case you were thinking this is about race, check out David Simon on Baltimore's Anguish, where he points out that we're not talking about the classic all-white police force. Among other things: "The drug war began it, certainly, but the stake through the heart of police procedure in Baltimore was Martin O'Malley. He destroyed police work in some real respects. Whatever was left of it when he took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart. [...] There were two initiatives. First, the department began sweeping the streets of the inner city, taking bodies on ridiculous humbles, mass arrests, sending thousands of people to city jail, hundreds every night, thousands in a month. They actually had police supervisors stationed with printed forms at the city jail - forms that said, essentially, you can go home now if you sign away any liability the city has for false arrest, or you can not sign the form and spend the weekend in jail until you see a court commissioner. And tens of thousands of people signed that form." * Dave Ettlin remembers some lessons of his time on the police beat: "Baltimore's Riot of 2015: In the matter of Freddie Gray the 'routine' has vastly changed." * Charles Pierce on Baltimore Burning: A Bad Night Ahead: "Why in the hell does this country never learn? Why does it never learn that invasion and occupation and bombing is not the way to spread democracy and virtually always comes to blowback and ruin? Why does it never learn that reactionary, militarized policing will inevitably lead to rioting, which will inevitably lead to repressive techniques that the rest of the country, watching on television, will approve? The whole world is watching? Yes, the whole world is watching and applauding every burst of the water cannon and every swing of the truncheon. The country never learns because, goddammit, Americans never learn. Dr. King was right about an eye for an eye. The country is blind." And "Baltimore Burning: The Morning After And The Day Ahead." * Ta-Nehisi Coates on "Nonviolence as Compliance: Officials calling for calm can offer no rational justification for Gray's death, and so they appeal for order." "American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program, Report Says: WASHINGTON - The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists." Judith Miller explains to Brian Lamb why she was such a lousy reporter and reported only what the government wanted her to write. And doesn't know it. Perhaps some future Lincoln can meet her and say, "So you're the little woman who wrote the lies that started this stupid war." My favorite story from this episode of Act Out! is the story of the unauthorized installation in the park of a bust of Edward Snowden. Not the best likeness, but a great idea. I loved that when the police arrested it a few hours later, a hologram of it appeared. The Guardian has an update. When people ask me what science fiction TV shows I watch, I always mention CSI, because it is. I find it hilarious to think that prosecutions are driven by The Evidence, which is always so remarkably precise! Which is the first thought I had when I saw the story about how the FBI has been "exaggerating" DNA evidence from hair. "The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000." Ian Welsh explains why East Germans are missing that old regime. "Enron Billionaire Arnold Has A Problem with Librarians' Pensions." I think there's something missing from Rolling Stone's 10 Best Protest Songs of all Time. Baez, Cooke, Holiday, Seeger, St. Marie, Guthrie, Odetta, Ochs, Gaye, and so on. Women. Blacks. Gospel. Ron Paul actually has a couple of insightful ideas and policies, but he also has some very crappy ones. However, his son is skating on dad's rep without having even that much substance. Why your city needs an artist like Wanksy. "Not a Tea Party, a Confederate Party [...] Here's what my teachers' should have told me: 'Reconstruction was the second phase of the Civil War. It lasted until 1877, when the Confederates won.' I think that would have gotten my attention." Is it objectification to think Brian Cox is hot? Judith Tarr is guesting at Charlie Stross' place. I hadn't really thought about how all the psi stuff seems to have disappeared from science fiction, but it's an interesting piece about the rigidifying of the lines between science fiction and fantasy. "The Photography Book London Officials Never Wanted You to See: Subterranean London compiles the images of a dozen photographers who explored the city's underground spaces without permission." I don't know how I failed to link to the dead parrot at the time. Things Pappy Maverick used to say The Cau Rong Dragon Bridge in Da Nang is kinda cool. (I kinda like this video better.) I can't believe I don't have these already. The Turtles 20:23 GMT comment Tuesday, 21 April 2015 Some how some way, I'll find out what's the deal Srdja Popovic talked about a blueprint for revolution on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. The page description sounds a little dry but Popovic makes some cogent points in both his prescriptions for bringing about change and his critique of earlier failures. - Spocko and Charles Lenchner discussed pushing Hillary leftward and other strategies for changing the discourse on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Sam Seder talked to Marie Gotschalk about her book Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics The Majority Report - John Legend launches campaign to end mass incarceration [...] "We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country," Legend said in an interview. "It's destroying families, it's destroying communities and we're the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration." - It's worth listening again to the second half of this interview with Glen Ford we did in 2009 on Virtually Speaking to hear him talk about the damage the prison state does to the black community - and to black activism. Michael Hiltzik on the "spectacularly punitive Kansas welfare bill" Brownback just signed that makes it even more nasty and expensive to be poor. I still find it hard to believe that Obama or anyone else in the White House was stupid enough to believe he really was the magic man who could suddenly make Republicans behave like rational people, but maybe he's just that arrogant. I mean, yeah, he's pretty arrogant, but that arrogant? How could any of them think the choice was between picking polices Republicans in Congress wanted and picking policies that the polls showed 80% of Americans support - and spend all that time choosing to make room for the Republican policies? Is "Dan Pfeiffer's Exit Interview: How the White House Learned to Be Liberal" really a credible story? Elizabeth Warren Hammers The Endless Failures Of Wall Street Regulators I did like Atrios' comment on Obama's date with Castro the Younger. Gotta say it's about time. Eric Schneiderman says, "Gov. Cuomo can unilaterally hike N.Y. wages: How his Labor Department can use its existing legal authority to raise suffering workers' pay." And Schneiderman's office is trying to do something about wage theft in New York. That could make a real difference. Matt Taibbi isn't impressed by Hillary's "populism" - and who can blame him? "Having watched this campaign-reporting process from both the inside and the outside for a long time now, I knew what was coming after the initial wave of "Hillary the Populist!" stories. In presidential politics, every time a candidate on either the left or the right veers in a populist direction - usually with immediate success, since the American populace is ready to run through a wall for anyone who makes the obvious observation that they're being screwed by someone up above - it takes about two or three days before the "Let's let cooler heads prevail!" editorials start trickling in." - "How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World" - I think most of what Clinton did as Secretary of State was simply implementing Obama's policies, and Obama is a huge supporter of fracking. Unfortunately, Clinton was pretty damned good at doing what Obama wanted. - "8 things you need to know about Hillary Clinton and climate change" - Black Agenda Report: Glen Ford on The Ascent of Hillary, the $.2.5 Billion "People's" Candidate . "Four Blackwater guards sentenced in Iraq shootings of 31 unarmed civilians" - I wonder how likely it is that any of them will actually see the inside of a cell. Public Citizen: "ANALYSIS: Hatch Bill Would Revive Controversial 2002 Fast Track Mechanism that Faces Broad Congressional, Public Opposition." Wyden should lose his job over TPP and fast-track, but that won't happen if no one can find a challenger. Why can't we ever seem to find challengers, lately? That in itself is an issue that has to be solved. Texas woman invokes 'religious freedom' argument to fight $2000 fine for feeding the homeless" - Good on her. "Wealth Inequality Is Now As Bad As It Was During The 1920s." Britain Uncovered survey results: the attitudes and beliefs of Britons in 2015 - It's no surprise that keeping healthcare free is a primary concern of Brits and that the NHS is the most trusted institution or organization in the country. But I can't see why people would put immigration or terrorism above the economy as a concern. Well, if I didn't read newspaper scare headlines, I mean. The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller Even The New Republic has a feature on the Hugos: "Science Fiction's White Boys' Club Strikes Back." - Eric Flint has some observations about awards and perceptions. - "So far the only good thing to come out of this is #NewHugoCategories on Twitter" RIP: Our friend Art Widner has left us, at 97. This actually surprised me. He seemed to have so much more vigor than anyone else that even though he was much older than I am, I fully expected him to outlive me. Mark Evanier has some Stan Freberg stories: Freberg Stories #1, Freberg Stories #2, - Mark also attended the funeral for Gary Owens and provides a tribute - and don't miss the audio clip at the bottom! Armenian Prayer Some entertaining posters The Real Reason Why Christopher Eccleston Left 'Doctor Who' 13 Everyday Struggles Of Busty Girls Imagine my surprise at seeing The Currys of Atlantis. It's so not Aquaman. Percy Sledge, "I'll Be Your Everything" 14:22 GMT comment Saturday, 11 April 2015 Here,There And Everywhere On Virtually Speaking Sundays, Stuart Zechman and Dave Johnson talked about the evils of TPP and Fast-track, and argued about whether Hillary Clinton would have bad policies. (I don't understand why Dave keeps talking as if there will be no changes in the House and Senate after the next election - the one that theoretically elects Hillary Clinton. That Congress can easily be different from this Congress.) "Wisconsin Republicans seek to take away the weekend: Born is claiming this is just an attempt to streamline the process, but it's clear as day that the actual intention here is to remove the main obstacle - filing paperwork - that prevents employers from telling you that you work 7 days a week or you lose your job. Since Wisconsin is, under Scott Walker, a 'right to work' state, the 'work yourself to death or starve' choice is now being treated like it's a non-coercive choice and that people who choose working themselves to death are somehow doing so 'voluntarily'." (via) I guess someone wants to turn Baltimore into a plague city, because they are turning off the water for 25,000 households. This is crazy stupid, just aside from the inhumane aspects. "City officials like Department of Public Works director Rudy Chow claim that residents using water without paying are to blame for the $40 million in overdue water bills. In fact, the Baltimore Sun found more than a third of the unpaid bills stem from just 369 businesses, who owe $15 million in revenue, while government offices and nonprofits have outstanding water bills to the tune of $10 million. One of those businesses, RG Steel (now bankrupt) owes $7 million in delinquent water bills all by itself. 'It's interesting that the city isn't targeting those businesses first,' Grant said. " Sam Seder interviewed Ian Millhiser about The Surprising Wretched History of the Supreme Court. - Sammy also interviewed David Dayen about his article on Barney Frank's bombshell about how two presidents abdicated responsibility during the financial crises. - Barrett Brown told Sammy why he is in prison for doing his job. - Here's Sammy talking to Jeff Madrick about Why Economist Cling to Discredited Ideas. - I don't get the fairy story about how Obama finally learned to ignore the Republicans - too late. Maybe you can save enough money refusing to buy carbs like bread and cereals and pasta to afford to eat healthy food occasionally, like steak and lobster - maybe even if you're on food stamps. Only an idiot would object to this, surely? Oh, wait.... Digby in Salon on "The quiet Social Security revolution: How Democrats learned to stop loving benefit cuts [...] "That is a shocking departure from the way progressives have been strategizing for the past 30 years. Instead of being in a defensive crouch they took the offensive and tried to set a new agenda. And it worked." "The Biggest Outrage in Atlanta's Crazy Teacher Cheating Case: One of the defining issues of this millennium has been the bifurcation of the criminal justice system, with one set of rules for ordinary people and another for elites. We've learned that justice is a commodity to be purchased rather than a universal value delivered without prejudice. That's the proper backdrop to the news of convictions in the Atlanta test cheating case. Eleven educators were found guilty of racketeering charges - something typically reserved for organized crime - for feeding students answers to standardized tests, or changing test sheets after they were turned in. If you don't remember these kinds of creative prosecution strategies during the financial crisis, that's probably because no prosecutor ever used them. Teachers ordered to falsify tests and the superiors who demanded it, amid desperation to save schools from destruction, deserve no mercy from the court. Bankers who ran a criminal enterprise to engage in the largest consumer and investing fraud in world history deserve our thanks." "Exposing Hedge Fund Politics in New York: Two weeks ago, several busloads of New Yorkers made a pilgrimage to Greenwich, Conn., to visit the waterfront estate of the hedge fund titan Paul Tudor Jones II, where, suffice it to say, they were not invited in to see the china." Atrios says all of these rent-a-DAs should go to jail, and he's right. Also via Atrios, Michael Hiltzik on How Megan McArdle gets Social Security profoundly wrong. - And "After a story is published, a minimum wage worker loses her job" People on public benefits less likely to be on drugs than politicians who vote to drug-test people on public benefits. Two Men Imprisoned For Homophobic Murders Just Married Each Other In Prison "Ello, goodbye. [...] A venture-capital funded startup is a temporary company that has to convince enough people into using their platform so that they can make good on the exit they promised their investors at the very beginning. It is the opposite of a long-term, sustainable business." RIP: The legendary Stan Freberg, Madcap Adman and Satirist, Dies at 88 A right-wing blogger got all his friends (known to the rest of the SF world as the Sad Puppies) to join the World Science Fiction Convention to block-nominate right-wing writers and writings for the Hugo Awards. A sort of hard-copy version of a DoS attack on better works and authors getting those nominations, you might say. Vox Day has responded to criticism with, among other things, a video depicting Patrick Nielsen Hayden as Hitler for daring to be dismayed that good writers and stories got shut-out of the running. (And, I have to say that, although the very idea brought us gales of laughter, the actual monologue just wasn't very clever.) Anyway, here is a Voters Guide for people who want to make sure the undeserving don't win, and here's how No Award works. (Luckily, they missed the artist category. This house supports Steve Stiles!) John Barrowman meets River Song Artwork made from peeps This isn't a chameleon! Why can't I find Boasters in my local shops anymore? They're so good! The Beatles, and one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. 13:27 GMT comment Monday, 30 March 2015 All I gotta do Last week on Virtually Speaking Sundays: "Obama declaring he should have closed Gitmo on day one; Israel; Republican presidential candidates. Commentary from Susie Madrak (Managing Editor, Crooks and Liars) & Michael Brooks (contributor and producer for The Majority Report). Political satire from Culture of Truth. Jay Ackroyd moderates." - This week, Digby and McJoan discussed how Democrats messed themselves up over Social Security, how Atrios changed the story, and victories that could reshape even the Democratic leadership with some effort on our part - Patty Murray for party leader? "Analysis of Leaked Trans-Pacific Partnership Investment Text: After more than five years of negotiations under conditions of extreme secrecy, on March 25, 2015, a leaked copy of the investment chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was posted. Public Citizen has verified that the text is authentic. Trade officials from the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam - are in intensive, closed-door negotiations to finish the TPP in the next few months. The leaked text provides stark warnings about the dangers of 'trade' negotiations occurring without press, public or policymaker oversight. It reveals that TPP negotiators already have agreed to many radical terms that would give foreign investors expansive new substantive" (.pdf) This is what the original Boston Tea Party was really about, you know. I don't usually lead with climate change, but "Gulf Stream is slowing down faster than ever, scientists say" scared the hell out of me. Paul Krugman on the GOP budget, "Trillion Dollar Fraudsters" Doesn't it seem strange to see an actually sensible column like "The one sensible budget in Washington", about the Progressive Caucus' "People's Budget", in The Washington Post? "Activist pulls out of Trinity College talk due to 'restrictions' aimed at not 'antagonising' Muslims [...] Iranian-born Maryam Namazie was due to give a talk to the Society for International Affairs on Monday on 'Apostasy and the rise of Islam' but decided to withdraw from the event after college security imposed 'certain conditions'. 'I've just been informed... that college security (why security?) has claimed that the event would show the college is 'one-sided' and would be 'antagonising' to Muslim students,' she wrote on her blog." Which is interesting, since they did not do the same when someone who advocates killing apostates spoke there. - Meanwhile, is it really safe to protect students from "offensive" debate? "'It's amazing to me that they can't distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism,' Ms. Kaminer said in an email. " At Naked Capitalism: - "Bill Black: The DOJ and the SEC Spurn their Ace in the Hole - Richard Bowen." That would be because everyone wants to protect the banksters. - "Epic Fail for the Postal Service: The Wrong Model and the Wrong Board" "Waka Flocka Flame Didn't Make Anyone Say the N-Word [...] This is no defense of Waka, an awful rapper whose tracks sound like they come from a "Chappelle's Show" skit about awful rappers. But..." What Atrios said: "If only there were some press outlets and television networks that would give some attention to Senator McCain in order to disprove his point. Oh, wait..." Rahm needs Republicans. And it sounds like he may get them. Erick Erickson of Red State notices a problem with his party: What the hell does the GOP stand for anymore other than 'we're not Obama'? No kidding. He's more competent. The GOP, at this point, stands for nothing and the highest bidder at the same time." Now, if only Democrats can stop standing for nothing more than, "At least we're not the Republicans," not to mention the highest bidder.... Police who stand with big sticks Falsely-imprisoned for 39 years, former death row inmate to receive $1,008,055.80 in compensation. Oh, God, Sheila Jeffreys has written another hateful book. Roz Kaveney reports. Taylor Mali: "What do teachers make?" "Okay, but it's not just about getting paid to prance around in a princess costume." New Alzheimer's treatment fully restores memory function in 75% of treated mice. Massive Underground Ocean Discovered on Ganymede, Jupiters Largest Moon! Cosplay made...different. Dalek Relaxation Tape Minutes of the March 2015 Ankh-Morpork Assembly Transport Committee Fireworks in Glasgow 1928 England in color Many years ago, I was sitting around chatting with Christopher Priest and Rob Hansen and somehow we ended up with Chris talking about being a baby accountant and going up to Liverpool and finding out about the Cavern Club and meeting some people who would change his life. And we made him write it all down for us so we could make a one-shot fanzine and get a few other of our favorite people to contribute to it, and that fanzine was Chuch and that article was "Thank You, Girls". The Beatles 21:40 GMT comment Wednesday, 18 March 2015 "THERE'S NO JUSTICE. THERE'S JUST ME." Back in 2002 I talked about some authors who were in my pantheon of the Good Guys, and the gods know PTerry rated way up there with me. Like Jo Walton, I delighted in running into him at a party or convention, but I was often frankly awed by the way, in his books, he could hold up some of our ugliest traits and show us how silly and stupid we were when we expressed them - and still show us how good we can be, too. His light-hearted tone may have disguised the seriousness of his subject for some, but we weren't fooled into thinking they were just romps through fantasy's clichés. Terry Pratchett knew how awful we are, but he also knew about the rest, too: the good, the strong, the heroism of those who work in the background and know that their acts can never even be seen let alone rewarded, the heart that loves and believes. Terry made us laugh and made us love, and that is no small thing. I chose some of these links for the pictures, because there are some great ones here. I'm mad at myself for never having thought to shoot a few of him when I was around him, but the moment never emerged, and that's life. (I am also, by the way, completely outraged that fate took Terry and Iain away from us so soon and so close together, and if I believed in "God" I would believe in giving him a good smack in the face, too.) Obit at Tor.com "Leaving Early to Avoid the Rush: Sir Terry Pratchett Has Passed Away at 66" Andrew Brown at the Guardian, "Without Terry Pratchett, the world is less magical." Tributes from some of his better known fans "23 Of The Most Beautiful Terry Pratchett Quotes To Remember Him By" Neil Gaiman on Thursday, 12 March, and Neil last September. With video at the Guardian And, of course, Roz Kaveney wrote a poem. * * * * * Panelists RJ Eskow and Andrew Jones talked about the Ferguson Report and the persistence of institutional vestiges of Jim Crow--and its manifestation in Oklahoma. Iran negotiations and Bibi's visit and the Republican modern Know Nothings' grasp of "foreign policy." Vanishing email and the implementation of government transparency laws, viewed through the prism of Hilary's, Jeb's, and the State Department email systems, on Virtually Speaking Sundays. For a change I can agree with Kos without restraint: Hell yes! Donna Edwards for Senate! Stop that little weed Chris van Hollen in his tracks. And, while we're at it, we need someone to take van Hollen's Congressional seat, as well. A social worker got fired for writing this article. A dagger pointed at the heart of Texas, Chapter 2: "Obama absurdly declares Venezuela a security threat" - I wonder when Obama is going to start getting the Alzheimer's defense. "Evidence the DEA Attempted to Alter Testimony on Drug War Massacre in Honduras" William Greider, "Wrong-Way Obama? Disregard the happy talk from the Obama White House. The stagnant global economy remains at the precipice of something worse - full-blown deflation. And the so-called US recovery remains shaky, despite good employment numbers. Here and abroad, the governing authorities seem to have forgotten a key aspect of our situation: we live now in a globalized economy, in which one nation's cold can lead to another country's pneumonia. Their ignorance is shocking, but also dangerous." Well, I don't know about that - I think they re-wrote the laws that way on purpose. Edroso unpacks Brooks: "David Brooks says he has "taken [my] column in a spiritual and moral direction of late" -- or rather he says people (presumably A-list guests at Brooks' Vast Entertainment Space) have noticed that he has -- and explains that he has seen how well rich kids behave and how badly poor kids behave and so he is convinced that America needs poor kids to have more of what the rich kids have, namely money. Ha ha, kidding! The poors must have "social repair," which is less expensive than money. His models are England's Second Great Awakening and the Great Depression, events which few of us beyond fundamentalist lunatics and Stanley Kurtz would care to live through" (via) Will the "Congressman with Guts" become Senator Grayson? Stay tuned.... RAHM - "Rahm Emanuel allegedly screams at mental health activists - after running ad admitting he 'can rub people the wrong way'" - "Rahm Snaps at Mental-Health Advocates: 'You're Gonna Respect Me!'" - Chicago causing rear-end collisions for money - Rahm Emanuel's Housing Agency Sitting On Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars With Massive Waitlist - Just put a stake in him, Chicago. "After Beating FBI Entrapment, Environmental Activist Eric McDavid Looks Forward" Captives: - "The Possibility of Escape" - This is Kathy Kelly writing from behind prison walls, where the prisoners are more human than the society that put them there. - "Private Prison Companies Foresee Increased Profits as Ruling Limits Immigrant Detentions" - The Obama administration put that loophole right up front by saying they simply can't give the "deterrent" reason for treating people horribly. - "Jails: Time to Wake Up to Mass Incarceration in Your Neighborhood" - "Despite Uptick in Prisoner Release, Injustices Persist at Guantanamo "How Many Minimum Wage Hours Does It Take To Afford A Two-Bedroom Apartment In Your State? "In no state can a minimum wage worker afford a two-bedroom unit at Fair Market Rent, working a 40-hour work week, without paying more than 30% of their income." Will Cannabis be the new wonder drug? Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk are doing a show about two actors who used to play a space captain and his pilot and one got really famous and the other didn't and goes to conventions instead. Also featuring Gina Torres and other actors from the Whedon stable. "18 reasons Buffy The Vampire Slayer was the best show on TV" - Happy 18th birthday. And I still miss Xander. - Joss Whedon's original movie script for Buffy the Vampire Slayer Traffic - Live In Stockholm 14:05 GMT comment Wednesday, 04 March 2015 All in time Okay, since a few people know and a lot of other people have guessed, I'll admit that this medical crap is kind of suppressing a lot of my ability to focus on blogging. If my doctors are to be believed, I will be just fine, although there will be some period where I will likely be very short of enthusiasm for, well, moving. RIP Leonard Nimoy, at 83. I never met him or anything like that, but everything I knew about him told me he was cool, kind, and fun. Lot of sadness in my world the moment the news broke. And here's Leonard Nimoy's last tweet. William Shatner stole Leonard Nimoy's bike. Appropriately, as a guests on Virtually Speaking Sundays, Spocko and Digby, both commentators on media, commemorated Leonard Nimoy and discussed his impact on our way of thinking in his most famous role. And how far we have veered away from that. "FCC overrules state laws to help cities build out municipal broadband: Before it tackles net neutrality, the FCC is setting a major precedent for municipal broadband: it's just voted to preempt state laws that were preventing two cities from building out their own locally run broadband networks. The decision was prompted by separate petitions from Wilson, North Carolina, and Chattanooga, Tennessee - both cities that've established high-speed, gigabit internet services, but have been barred from expanding to neighboring communities due to existing state laws. So far, 19 states have similar regulations to those that the FCC is overriding in Wilson and Chattanooga, but today's ruling affects only those two specific cases." We need to make this national. If you heard that Obama vetoed the Keystone Pipeline, understand that that's not quite true. He vetoed a step of process, not the bill. But gee, it I'm sure it sounds good to uninformed Obama supporters. Charlie is on A different cluetrain and lists the axioms of a paradigm shift in political reality as the Robber Barons once again take control of the terrain. Google decides to do evil, then relents. Banning adult content was obviously a stupid idea. I can't imagine who came up with it in the first place. What were they drinking? This is interesting: "Actress Emma Thompson and her husband refuse to pay 'a penny more' in taxes until HSBC tax evaders go to jail. [...] 'I want to stop paying tax, until everyone pays tax,' Wise told the Evening Standard. 'I have actively loved paying tax, because I am a profound fucking socialist and I believe we are all in it together. But I am disgusted with HMRC. I am disgusted with HSBC. And I'm not paying a penny more until those evil bastards go to prison.'" Atrios has been keeping me up to date with Rahm Emanuel's problems (and also makes a side point about the reason something called "neighborhood schools" used to be universally regarded as a good thing) and why he's having them. And he really, really is a horrible person. And the revelation that the Chicago police have their very own black sites certainly didn't enhance his image as a man who stood for Truth, Justice, and The American Way. The possibility that Chicago could be getting rid of Rahm and replace him with someone who actually cares about citizens seems almost too good to be true. "Israeli Claims About Iran Nuclear Program Denied By Own Spy Agency" Debunking the Corporate Case For Fast Track Trade Authority From the only official to go to prison in connection with torture: "CIA Torture Whistleblower: US Government Lacks 'the Guts' to Face Its Crimes: John Kiriakou's advice to future national security whistleblowers: 'Get a lawyer first.'" No one could have predicted that Obama would support Rahm Emanuel's campaign. An incomplete list of lies our news media told Suppressing the Republican vote Greg Benford has posted his Trapdoor article about the legendary Sidney Coleman online. There's a reason why some of our friends thought Terry Carr must have made him up, but I can testify that he was very real and just as cool and funny as the legends specified. "Chocolate snorting offers new way to a cocoa high." Wonder Woman with curves If you can do Facebook, 365 days in 40 seconds Trailer for Joss Whedon's In Your Eyes The Motown Sound - 16 Big Hits Vol. 7 (1967) Marvin Gaye, "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" The Fireflies 14:04 GMT comment Friday, 20 February 2015 One less bell to answer This is a big bunch of catch-up, here, 'cause it's been a helluva few weeks. Gaius Publius interviewed Alan Grayson on Virtually Speaking, where Grayson discussed "how he 'cracked the nut' that allows him to get progressive legislation passed. Part of his secret - his goal is to be a person who 'gets things done for the progressive movement,' not a person who introduces bills and 'then does nothing' with them. In the last two weeks of the last Congress alone, for example, he passed 15 progressive amendments." - Cliff Schecter and Spocko discussed Boehner's independent Israel summit mistake and Brian Williams' little fibs and what the current media tone means, and how to try to take advantage of the current state of embarrassment in the media to try to get more opposing voices into the discussion of war, on Virtually Speaking Sundays, where Culture of Truth also reported on a question never asked before on the Sunday talk shows. - Matthew Sutton, Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of History at Washington State University, discussed his book, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. "The book describes the rise of the pre-millenialist foundation of modern evangelicalism, and how it has affected social and political participation of the very large fraction of Americans who believe the Second Coming is something we can expect to experience in the next generation or so." - Dave Johnson & JoanMcCarter, "Which lies really matter, Brian WIlliams' or Dick Cheney's? GOP governors and Medicaid expansion encapsulated in King v Burwell and the tension in the party between doing as the Koch's command and what their constituents need.," on Virtually Speaking Sundays Obama's progressive picks! - Marcy Wheeler, "Loretta Lynch: Not Enough Evidence to Charge HSBC Banksters" - Ring of Fire, "Only Obama and Wall Street Criminals will Love Loretta Lynch as AG" - Crooks and Liars, "After Laundering $800M In Drug Money, How Did HSBC Executives Avoid Jail?" The FCC Chairman's plan to ensure network neutrality. The newspaper many of us refer to as the Torygraph nevertheless has some great news coverage compared to most other British newspapers, but a funny thing happened with their HSBC coverage.... Dean Baker, "Throw the Truth Out the Door: President Obama Has to Pass a Trade Deal: Wow, this stuff just keeps getting worse. Apparently anything goes when the big corporations want a trade deal. Otherwise serious people will just make stuff up, because hey, the big campaign contributors want a trade deal to make themselves richer. The latest effort in creative myth-making comes from Third Way, which tells us that post-NAFTA trade deals aren't job losers like NAFTA." Yeah, right. A "meritocracy" is a society in which people who have too much money think they are better than you even though they are as manifestly stupid as this rank stupidity from Michael Bloomberg. Natasha Chart is glad that her heartbreaking situation wasn't made worse: "I Had an Ectopic Pregnancy, and Anti-Choice Laws Could Have Made My Experience Much Worse." Ian Welsh, being tempted by thoughts of Revolution, but like some of his commenters, I think that road leads to madness. He revisits the subject here. Bernie Sanders speaks at The Brookings Institution. Lee Camp talks to Presidential Candidate Jill Stein on Redacted Tonight. John Oliver on Doctors who market to doctors. A sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, written in 1960. David Tennant receives National Television Award for being Best David Tennant. Photo: Something seems wrong here. Gnome Liberation Front strikes Boulder. RIP: Gary Owens, 80. He wrote for Rocky & Bullwinkle and Fractured Flickers, but we heard his voice our whole lives, the man who minted the phrase "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" and was the on-camera announcer on Laugh-In, and a lot of other things. We loved him. - Lesley Gore, 68. She sang one of the great early feminist pop anthems. - Joe Challmes, fondly remembered newsroom character at The Baltimore Sun. Ettlin left out that although at first he didn't look like much, he sure had beautiful eyes. If you can deal with Facebook, Lenny Kravitz posted a neat little video from New Orleans. It's not unusual for science fiction authors to have a sideline. Everything we know about corsets is false? Keb' Mo' Fifth Dimension 00:11 GMT comment Monday, 02 February 2015 Take my hand as the sun descends I am going to be a little busy for the next few days. Wish me luck. On Virtually Speaking, Charles Lencher joined Jay to talk about corruption in New York politics and Andrew Cuomo. "Barrett Brown Sentenced to Five Years, Vows to Keep Investigating Government Wrongdoing [...] 'The U.S. government decided today that because I did such a good job investigating the cyber-industrial complex, they're now going to send me to investigate the prison-industrial complex,' Brown said mischievously in a written statement following his sentencing. 'For the next 35 months, I'll be provided with free food, clothes, and housing as I seek to expose wrongdoing by Bureau of Prisons officials and staff and otherwise report on news and culture in the world's greatest prison system.' 'Wish me luck!' he added." There is simply no excuse for Hugging the Saudi floggers Nice take-down by Alex Pareene of Jonathan Chait's latest freak-out against political correctness - or rather, of people failing to show proper respect for Jonathan Chait. And Glenn Greenwald said: "It would be wonderful on one level if all criticisms were expressed in the soft and respectful tones formalized in the U.S. Senate, but it's good and necessary when people who wield power or influence are treated exactly like everyone else, which means that sometimes people say mean and unfair things about you in not-nice tones. Between erring on the side of people with power being treated with excess deference or excess criticisms, the latter is vastly preferable." 12-Point Platform - I think I might quibble with this but it's good for thinking about. Ice cream made easy "Prize-Winning Animation Lets You Fly Through 17th Century London" - Strangely reminded me of the Ankh Morpork simulation in Second Life. The Langston Hughes Google Doodle We haven't had much news lately from the shadowy Gnome Liberation Front, but I think we may know who is stirring up all the trouble. Susie Bright at the church of Patti Smith 10:47 GMT comment Sunday, 25 January 2015 The long struggle for sleep This looks like some genuine good news, for a change: "Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with local, state police: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges. Holder's action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs." Oh, but wait: "Holder's decision allows limited exceptions, including illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the program." So, they can still take your house for child porn, eh? Watch for a sudden upsurge on that one, because it's really easy to frame someone for it. Susie Madrak talked about this in more detail on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Or, in short form: "Good, this should help. But this still leaves a double standard in place for some crimes. What this means, as a practical matter, is that local and police state departments will focus their energies on the firearms and child porn busts, because they'll be determined to fill those gaping holes in their budgets." Johann Hari has written what sounds like a really good book on the War On (Some People Who Use Some) Drugs, and Sam Seder interviewed him on Scott Horton about Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America's Stealth Warfare and to Karl Widerquist on The Case for a Basic Income. "It's not just Fox News: How liberal apologists torpedoed change, helped make the Democrats safe for Wall Street" - "The Fault, Dear Voter, Lies Not in Our Stars, But in Our Democrats - Thomas Frank Adds His Voice" "Perhaps the Most Important Question About the Democratic Party Right Now: Over at U.S. News & World Report, Pat Garofalo has a very interesting piece up that asks 'Are Democrats Trolling the Left?' This question deserves some serious consideration, because the answer could tell us a huge amount about American politics over the next several years." Yves Smith, "Senator Warren and America Win in a Skirmish in a Long Struggle Against Wall Street's Coup." - Also at Naked Capitalism, "MMT Versus the CBO: Replacing the Budget Constraint with an Inflation Constraint" - now that Stephanie Kelton is the Chief Economist of the Senate Budget Committee. "It's Not Just the Cops: Public defenders know that the trouble with our justice system extends far beyond abusive policing" "Most of America's rich think the poor have it easy" - you know, because of all those wonderful benefits they get. James Fallows on "The Tragedy of the American Military: The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can't win." "Prosecuting corporate culprits" - There are crimes that normal people get prosecuted for and go to jail. When you do it large, you should be tried for those crimes, too, right? Maybe it's starting. Commenter ksix reminds us that Mario Cuomo was no great liberal hero - but my point was that he came outta nowhere with a message that spoke to the people, and with a little help from Jimmy Breslin, he became governor of New York. Now, if we could only get a real one.... "Speaking While Female" - You already know this, but every now and then someone does a study or writes an article about how women get interrupted more or guys grab their ideas and take credit for them or whatever. It's particularly fun when you're the one person in the room who can actually answer a question, or has any expertise in the subject, or even has an idea, and they still won't let you finish what you're saying. (And hey, remember this?) RIP - Faith Seidenberg, 91, one of the women who invaded McSorley's all-male bar. - Al Bendich, 85, successful free speech lawyer for Ginsberg, Ferlingetti, and Lenny Bruce. - Kim Fowley, 75, music producer and influential background figure from doo-wop to heavy metal, P.J. Proby and the Runaways, all over the industry. You can blame him for this: "Introducing John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band at a festival in Toronto in 1969, and knowing that Lennon was experiencing a bout of anxiety at the prospect of facing a crowd of 20,000 with a new band, Fowley invited the audience to welcome the musicians by striking matches or holding up lighters - the first recorded instance of what would become a rock and roll tradition." Beth Moon's photos of ancient trees Bev Doolittle, How many horses? Gourmet Paper Mache Dragon "That Doesn't Make Sense" The Beatles in A Midsummer Night's Dream "I'm Only Sleeping" 00:03 GMT comment Wednesday, 14 January 2015 It's The Same Old Song In the further adventures of Jay Ackroyd and Stuart Zechman on Virtually Speaking Sundays, topics discussed included France declaring war on terror, James Fallows on the military industrial complex, and NYPD vs the Mayor and the Commissioner, with Political satire from Culture of Truth. Gaius Publius, "'Open Rebellion' Pays Off - Warren & Progressives Sink Obama Nominee Antonio Weiss" - which sounds like good news. Now they just have to stop Loretta Lynch. And now, the moment Obama has been waiting for, his big chance to finally get The Grand Bargain to save the disability hostages! "New GOP Congress Fires Shot At Social Security On Day One [...] The House GOP's rule change would still allow for a reallocation from the retirement fund to shore up the disability fund -- but only if an accompanying proposal "improves the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds," per the rule, expected to be passed on Tuesday. While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts." "Democrats, in a stark shift in messaging, to make big tax-break pitch for middle class" - Well, it's not that big, and it's just amazing how they didn't get these bright ideas before 2010... Oh, wait. Kudos to O'Malley, because whatever other complaints we may have about him, his actions to get rid of the death penalty in Maryland have genuinely been fruitful, and his commutation of the last DP sentences left is a very good thing. So, it turns out that Justice doesn't want James Risen to testify after all. "As Josh Gerstein first reported, the government has just asked the judge in the Jeffrey Sterling trial, Leonie Brinkema, to declare James Risen unavailable as a witness. After having defended their own right to call Risen as a witness all the way to the Supreme Court, claiming all the way they need Risen to prove their case, they're now saying Sterling should not be able to call him." I guess they're pretty miffed that he won't disclose his sources. So, this Councilman tells the local newspaper that he's gonna send his lawyers after him for using his name in stories without his authorization. That's right, he thinks he can do that. And the editorial response is very entertaining. There's only one problem: Although they stress the whole "free speech" idea, they make no mention of the public servants are accountable to the public idea. A little truth from David Horsey You would think, in the current climate, that the governor of Missouri would have pardoned a 61-year-old man who is serving life without parole for possession of five pounds of marijuana. But not Jay Nixon. For the first time ever, an Albuquerque PD cop will be charged with murder for killing someone: "The APD has one of the highest rates of officer involved shootings in the country and the body cam footage of James Boyd's execution helped to raise national awareness to this problem. James Boyd, 38, had been camping in a spot deemed 'illegal' by the state in March of last year. APD officers were dispatched, in full paramilitary force, to remove the man from his camp site." Chris Floyd, "Hunger Games: Western Terror Warriors Spurn Their Innocent Victims : So now there is no money left for the Syrian refugees created by the civil war fomented and fanned for years on end by Western governments. (Who, bizarrely, then prosecute any of their citizens who go off to fight in the war their governments promote as a noble and worthy cause.) For want of $64 million - the amount of money the US spends in an eyeblink on its drone campaigns and death squads, the kind of money that's just chump change for, say, oligarchs who prowl the world destabilizing governments and monetizing misery for their own pockets - the UN says it must halt a vital support program for Syrian refugees." I like the way the Mirror reported this story: "Cancer caused by 'bad luck' more than 'lifestyle choices' according to shock new study" We got a nice name-check from The Raw Story: "Scientists confirm there are two different forms of female squirting during climax". The link to our original paper (and the BBFC's reply) is here. Gotta admit, I got a fine giggle over the Muslim City of Birmingham story. I always get a chuckle out of the tales of Sharia law haunting the streets of London. Blasts from the past: - Pete Hamill, 1969, "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class [...] The White Lower Middle Class? Say that magic phrase at a cocktail party on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and monstrous images arise from the American demonology. Here comes the murderous rabble: fat, well-fed, bigoted, ignorant, an army of beer-soaked Irishmen, violence-loving Italians, hate-filled Poles. Lithuanians and Hungarians (they are never referred to as Americans). They are the people who assault peace marchers, who start groups like the Society for the Prevention of Negroes Getting Everything (S.P.O.N.G.E.), the people who hate John Lindsay and vote for George Wallace, presumably because they believe that Wallace will eventually march every black man in America to the gas chambers, sending Lindsay and the rest of the Liberal Establishment along with them. Sometimes these brutes are referred to as "the ethnics" or "the blue-collar types." But the bureaucratic, sociological phrase is White Lower Middle Class. Nobody calls it the Working Class anymore." -2009, "The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More" I'm not sure how to sum up this little story without spoilling it, but it's the kind of thing you always wish would happen - and, apparently, it did. "Once-In-A-Lifetime Chance To Spot The Green Glow Of Comet Lovejoy - Chance would be a fine thing for a clear night and remembering to go out and look. I think these photos are meant to be someone dancing with clouds of powdered coffee creamer. A love story told in lattes Renaissance superheroes and Star Wars characters Toolbox in your hair The Four Tops 16:24 GMT comment Thursday, 08 January 2015 Were you telling lies? On learning that Mario had died just a few hours after his awful son was sworn in for another term, my first thought was, "He probably couldn't stand the thought of watching Andrew do even more damage to the state he once governed, as well as the family name." I was just going to post a link to an obit and a link to the famous 1984 speech, but Roy Edroso has it covered here, along with what should also be the epitaph of several pernicious neoliberals along the way. Cuomo did have something going for him that no future potential candidate will have, which was Jimmy Breslin. But when you think about what he was and where he came from, you remember what people do to defeat bad candidates, which is run good candidates. And we will not get rid of the bad ones until the good ones stop waiting for a hero and start being that hero. "Let's abandon the Democrats: Stop blaming Fox News and stop hoping Elizabeth Warren will save us [...] It took more than the usual civic sloth to produce the lowest turnout in 72 years. It took alienating vast voting blocs, including the young and the working class of both genders and all races. The young now trend Republican. Voters of all ages migrate to third parties or abandon politics altogether. It's the biggest Democratic defection since the South switched parties in the 1960s. If Democrats don't change their ways, their 2016 turnout will be a lot harder to gin up than they think." - Americans Are Sick to Death of Both Parties: Why Our Politics Is in Worse Shape Than We Thought [...] But our cautious guess is that turnout in this year's Congressional races will finally weigh in at around 36 percent of the potential electorate that had legal rights to cast a ballot." - "Why the Democrats Need Labor Again" is an interview by Timothy Noah of Thomas Geoghegan, author of Which Side Are You On? Trying To Be For Labor When It's Flat On Its Back and now Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs A New Kind of Labor Movement. Bill Moyers episode, "American Indians Confront "Savage Anxieties": Earlier this month, as part of the $585 billion defense bill for 2015, Congress passed a measure that would give lands sacred to American Indians in Arizona to a foreign company. The deal gives the Australian-English mining firm Rio Tinto 2,400 acres of the Tonto National Forest in exchange for several other parcels so it can mine a massive copper deposit." "Congressional Research Service Report On Tax Cuts For Wealthy Suppressed By GOP (UPDATE): The New York Times reported on Thursday that Senate Republicans applied pressure to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) in September, successfully persuading it to withdraw a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation. "The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical," the Times reported. Democrats in Congress, however, have resurfaced the report and published it in full. It can be read below. Republicans told the Times they had issues with the tone, wording and scope of the report, but they clearly objected most strongly to its findings, which undermine the governing fiscal philosophy of the party, that tax cuts for the wealthy will spur growth and benefit everybody." Actually, I think tax cuts for the wealthy do indeed have an impact on job creation, in that the wealthier the wealthy get, the more power they have to effect policies that make them richer and everyone else poorer. The situation is now so bad that we not only need a 91% top marginal rate, but we need an actual wealth tax that takes money away from people simply because they have too much of it - flat-out confiscation of anything over $10m would just be a start. The NYPD really does have the worst, stupidest reason in the world to hate Bill de Blasio. (There's a certain irony in watching Giuliani pretend the cops never demanded that he stay away from their funerals, but the question still remains: Why is he still on TV?) "Who Is Watching You? Companies and institutions track us almost indiscriminately. Is this the world we want to live in?: Who is watching you? This was once a question asked only by kings, presidents, and public figures trying to dodge the paparazzi and criminals trying to evade the law. The rest of us had few occasions to worry about being tracked." "Glenn Greenwald: "On March 6, 2012, six British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan by a roadside explosive device, and a national ritual of mourning and rage ensued. Prime Minister David Cameron called it a 'desperately sad day for our country.' A British teenager, Azhar Ahmed, observed the reaction for two days and then went to Facebook to angrily object that the innocent Afghans killed by British soldiers receive almost no attention from British media. He opined that the UK's soldiers in Afghanistan are guilty, their deaths deserved, and are therefore going to hell [...] The following day, Ahmed was arrested and 'charged with a racially aggravated public order offense.' The police spokesman explained that 'he didn't make his point very well and that is why he has landed himself in bother.' The state proceeded to prosecute him, and in October of that year, he was convicted 'of sending a grossly offensive communication,' fined and sentenced to 240 hours of community service. [...] In sum, this is not merely an attack on free speech but on specific ideas. Writing about Ahmed's case in The Guardian, Richard Seymour described him as 'the latest victim of a concerted effort to redefine racism as "anything that could conceivably offend white people."'" "If Florida Counties Have To Marry The Gays, They Just Won't Marry Anyone. Happy Now, The Gays?" "Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use" (.pdf) "The reality of self-defense gun use bears no resemblance to the exaggerated claims of the gun lobby and gun industry." My horrible right-wing past: Confessions of a one-time religious right icon Ever wonder what it would look like if the Grand Canyon got covered in snow? Well, now we know. Must mean Al Gore is fat. Joseph Califano says the movie Selma tells a false story about LBJ. "As a result, the film falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself. In fact, Selma was LBJ's idea, he considered the Voting Rights Act his greatest legislative achievement, he viewed King as an essential partner in getting it enacted - and he didn't use the FBI to disparage him." Police Stop, Handcuff Every Adult at Intersection in Search for Bank Robber. More scary news about water. How to control the masses True story Signage The Honest Tube Map My .gif of the day I think this is the recipe my mom used to use. I loved them. I miss them. Maybe I should try to make some. If I can get off the internet long enough.... Gosh, I never knew this! This ain't tap dancing, but I have finally seen something I would class with the Nicholas Brothers. Breathtaking. The Beatles, perfect through your car radio. 00:01 GMT comment Sunday, 28 December 2014 You can leave your hat on Christmas ran away with me completely this year. A 3-yr-old helped me decorate my tree, and her favorite color is pink, so there were lots of bright pink balls clumped together at the bottom where she can reach. I was going to leave it that way and take a picture with the camera I'm supposed to be getting for my birthday (the old one having decided this was a good time to die), but shortly thereafter the Christmas lights stopped working and had to be replaced, which meant some of the decorations had to come off the tree, and Mr. Sideshow did not preserve the baby hurricane's unique contribution to the tree-trimming in the process, since he thought the distribution of pink balls should have been more even and made it so. I will report that I now have Betty Boop earrings, Betty Boop slipper-socks, and Betty Boop perfume (a different one), but the traditional Christmas post kinda got lost in the battle for time and/or sleep, so here are the traditional links, but without the fanfare: - Mark Evanier's wonderful Mel Tormé story, and here's the man himself in duet with Judy Garland. - Joshua Held's Christmas card, with a little help from the Platters. - Brian Brink's virtuoso performance of "The Carol of the Bells" - "Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime." - Ron Tiner's one-page cartoon version of A Christmas Carol Jay Ackroyd and Stuart Zechman struggled with the question of What is to be done? on Virtually Speaking Sundays. I don't think they came up with any answers, but they raised some more good questions. Like, now that you know that other people are yelling at the television, what are you doing about it? "St. Louis prosecutor admits witnesses likely lied under oath." Gee, I wonder why people are mad? I guess it's a measure of how awful the leadership Dems have been that I was actually shocked to hear that one of their rancid number actually did something good when "Citing Health Risks, Cuomo Bans Fracking in New York State." It's such an obviously right thing I just assumed he wouldn't do it. "Snyder signs suspicion-based drug testing bills: LANSING - Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation today that creates a drug-testing program for adult welfare recipients who are suspected of using drugs. The Republican-backed proposals, House Bill 4118 and Senate Bill 275, were among several bills approved by Snyder. The one-year pilot program will be implemented in three counties that have not yet been determined. Under the program, welfare recipients or applicants suspected of drug use will be required to take a substance abuse test. Refusal to take the test will result in being ineligible for benefits for six months." Think about that. Why would you have such a thing? If people are on drugs, doesn't that mean they need more help? "Investigators Said to Seek No Penalty for C.I.A.'s Computer Search [...] A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency's search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.'s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials." [froth..sputter...gnash] Scalia doesn't mind if employers break their contracts and reneg on promised benefits. It's true that Elizabeth Warren did not get Larry Summers and Tim Geithner thrown in jail where they belong, but I really don't think it was her intention or her doing to make him look elsewhere for a job that made him even richer. Yet, the Bloomberg story makes it look like she set up some kind of special deal to load him up with too much money. It's a weird article from start to finish, almost suggesting that she manipulated the situation for Summers' benefit, but also saying, "Nyaah, nyaah, nyaah, Elizabeth Warren! Larry Summers is even more filthy rich and it's all because you wouldn't let him run the Federal Reserve!." Robert Kuttner, "Schumer's Delicate Dance with Wall Street: Last week, I wrote a piece in this space lamenting the fact that so many Democrats had voted for a budget package that gutted a key provision of the Dodd-Frank Act. The so called swaps push-out provision, now repealed, required banks to separate their speculative business in derivatives from depository banking covered by government insurance and further protected by the Federal Reserve. The broader budget deal, technically a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through next September, also cut a lot of needed public spending and added several odious riders, including one that raises the ceiling on individual campaign contributions to party committees about tenfold. Had Democrats resolutely opposed the deal, I argued, it would have revealed Republicans as friends of Wall Street and enemies of Main Street -- a useful party differentiation between now and 2016. As it happened, the bill narrowly passed the House, over the strenuous objections of Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and most of the Democratic Caucus. But 57 House Democrats voted for the deal, blurring party differences. In passing, I referred to New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, the chair of the Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), as an "enabler" of the broader budget deal. Schumer, as the number-three person in the Senate leadership, supported the deal, and, I later learned, refused entreaties to use his influence to rid the measure of the gutting of a key provision of Dodd-Frank. I soon received an outraged phone message and email from Matt House, demanding that I issue a correction. House, the Communications Director for Schumer on the staff of the DPCC, dictated the Correction he requested me to run..." David Dayen, "Elizabeth Warren's real beef with Antonio Weiss: What her fight against him is actually about [...] Warren believes that Weiss not does carry the necessary experience for the Treasury position, which oversees many elements of financial reform. She also believes that continually plucking top government officials out of Wall Street closes off alternative perspectives and ensures policies favorable to their interests. For their part, former Treasury officials who have held this position defended Weiss, calling him 'very well qualified' for the job. The nomination has become a proxy fight for a battle inside the Democratic Party over how to handle the financial industry. But that has paradoxically released some of the pressure on Weiss himself, and his investment banking career. In fact, Weiss' history symbolizes what has gone wrong with American-style capitalism, with its focus on financial engineering rather than creating good products people might want. His deal-making has led directly to tens of thousands of lost jobs and billions in bonuses and stock options for top executives and money managers, who in many cases loot the companies they acquire." David Dayen, "Finally, a Financial Executive Is Sacked for His Company's Misdeeds." Stunningly, the NYT editorial says, "Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses." "Howie Kurtz mansplains the news: Fox's media reporter has some advice for lady journalists: President Obama caused something of a stir last Friday at his end of the year press conference when he made a point of only calling on women to ask questions. That had never happened before at a presidential press conference, and the reaction from most corners was one of approval - political journalism has long had a backslappy aura of 'boys club' bullshit attached to it, and anything that helps break down that nonsense can't be anything but positive. Not everyone was on board with the program, however." "Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, Challenging the Divine Right of Big Energy" Uh oh: "Republicans Block Reappointment of CBO Chief Doug Elmendorf: Conservatives would like to change the way the CBO conducts its budget analysis." "Why automatically believing all rape accusations actually makes it harder to fight rape" RIP: Daughter of the Beast. Except, she seems to have lived an exemplary life, despite the fact that her father really was the man they called The Beast (before they started using that term for Ken Livingstone, of course): Aleister Crowley. Louise Shumway Muhler, 93. (Amusingly, I have learned that there are rumors Crowley had another daughter. How did I miss this!?) Turns out my favorite book was the result of the best Christmas present ever. John Cleese in conversation with Eric Idle at Live Talks Los Angeles (I only realized this exited because someone pointed me to this illustrated transcription of some of Cleese's remarks about Chapman toward the end.) Martha Stewart's eggnog recipe Joy of Cooking eggnog recipe Your corset link for the day. A Scientifically Accurate Version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" "The Future is Gold" ad It's funny, it used to be near blasphemy for anyone who wanted rock cred to try to cover a Beatles song (because it was understood that you couldn't improve on the original), so not a lot of people tried. One guy had a good, long, run with it, though. Joe Cocker - With A Little Help From My Friends - Hammersmith Apollo, London - May 2013. (Huh, I never noticed that the lead guitarist on the record was Jimmy Page*.) Joe Cocker - You Can Leave Your Hat On - K�ln 2013 I can't remember now whether I first saw him at the Fillmore East or at Emergency. I think he may have been opening for the Jeff Beck Group. I just remember that no one seemed to be able to remember whether his name was "Cocker" or "Crocker". But everyone loved him instantly. RIP. 16:57 GMT comment Tuesday, 16 December 2014 Blue Christmas Avedon Carol and Stuart Zechman were the panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. First topic was generated by Matt Stoller's piece, previously referenced here, on Why the Democratic Party Acts The Way It Does. Other homework for that segment includes the DLC document "The Hyde Park Declaration: A Statement of Principles and a Policy Agenda for the 21st Century". But the other topic was how we came to be the kind of country where respecting the authority of the police in all circumstances is so important that citizens can be killed for not doing it. So maybe homework should include this article from 2005: "Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone." Maybe we should call them the Supreme Clique, anyway, since they won't talk to anyone who isn't on the same page and they can't even figure out what the cops are supposed to be for. I mean, seriously: "Supreme Court: It's OK for Cops to Guess Wrong About What the Law Is: A robust 8-1 majority of the Supreme Court ruled today that, contrary to folk belief, ignorance of the law is a perfectly good excuse - as long as it's a cop who's claiming ignorance." 8-1! Well, thank goodness Democrats keep appointing all those liberals to the bench, eh? I was almost afraid I'd find out the dissenter was one of the Republican appointees, but it was Sotomayor. - And then there's always more from Scalia, who unsurprisingly found an interesting defense of torturing suspects on the grounds that it isn't "cruel and unusual punishment" of people who've already been convicted. "Why it's so rare for police to be prosecuted for killing civilians, explained in 2 minutes" - Well, no, it explains why it's hard to convict them (because that's a defense argument), but it doesn't explain (a) why grand juries just don't happen to indict them and (b) why seeing someone being perfectly non-threatening scares a supposedly trained police officer to the point that they shoot them without, at the very least, being laughed off the force for being a pants-wetter. It doesn't explain how someone with so little sense of proportion that they kill harmless old men who don't want to go to the hospital or guys who are suspected of not paying a parking ticket or any number of other non-violent, non-felony infractions is on the force in the first place. Even cops who very definitely are not even close to following procedure use fatal choke-holds on such people and don't get prosecuted - but worse, the head of the police union describes this behavior as "good police work". What's that about? Claiming you shot an elderly gent in wheelchair because you were "in fear for your life" should be a firing offense just on the grounds that no one that easily frightened should be on the force, period. And these are the things the media should be talking about, instead of crap like this. - Cenk says, "American Cops Kill With Startling Frequency Compared To Other Nations" -Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post, "What America's police departments don't want you to know" There were some demonstrations recently. All over the country. People just don't seem to like the idea that the cops can shoot you with impunity, it seems. Anyway, the media worked pretty hard to give the impression that nothing much happened that day and hardly anyone turned out for it, but that doesn't appear to have been true. "Rabbis Recite Kaddish, Jewish Mourning Prayer, For Eric Garner, Later Arrested In NYC Protest" The Constitution-free Zone Mary Landrieu's bitter end: Why her complaints about Democrats abandoning her ring so hollow Journalism furore: Buncha writers quit The New Republic in outrage and solidarity. Lotta people wonder where these principled journalists were when they did things like, oh, publishing all that crap on The Bell Curve as if it weren't a bunch of already-debunked racist crap. Ta-Nahisi Coates, for example. Wonkette explains what happened and puts it all in context. Via Atrios, who referred to it all as "The Most Entitled Whinefest In History." The Mary Sue, "New UK Legislation Bans Female Ejaculation, Facesitting, Some BDSM From Streaming Porn" - The F Word, "Restrictions on porn that protect no-one" - Guardian, "Bound and gagged: the women urging a repeal of the porn laws" History Department: Robert Moses, The Power Broker, and why the public wasn't overwhelmingly grateful. "South Dakota Sadly Forced to Cancel 'Don't Jerk and Drive' Campaign ." Stephen Colbert interviews Jamie Dimon Smaug. Smokey Robinson on being black Damn, I missed my chance on day 10 of the Headline Advent calendar. "Virginia DMV Revokes World's Greatest License Plate" - Well, I rather liked this one, too. Hark! A Vagrant is a different kinda comic. Michael Abbot particularly wanted to call my attention to the one on Ida B. Wells. Nichelle Nichols, still inspiring them. James Brodie's comment on an earlier post's link to Dobie Gray performing "Drift Away" was, "The Neville Brothers would cover Drift Away. While Aaron would be the obvious lead, I can hear Art in there too. Poppa Funk!" And I thought, "That is such an obviously perfect idea that it must already be on YouTube." But, truthfully, I was disappointed. Gray's slower tempo leaves more room for the kind of vocalizations Aaron is so good at. Stonehenge by Ikea A Game of Shoes The Avengers: An photograph "Scottish Colloquialisms" featuring Karen Gillan Enterprise Dance Floor (Star Trek Stabilized!) Dear Santa The annual Christmas porn I finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy. I love the comics and I enjoyed the movie, although I had a little trouble with Gamora as the bleeding-heart liberal of the group. And I think they should have gone with Drax's tats from the comics - he looks a bit pink with the ones he has in the flick. But hey, they got Rocket and Groot perfect, and that's what matters! Anyway, here's an Honest Trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy. Moshe Feder says, "Chanukah starts Tuesday night and these guys do a great job with three holiday standards. (It's an irony of Jewish-American culture that our songwriters have written great Christmas songs, but nothing for Chanukah.)" This was fun to listen to. "Blue Christmas with Porky Pig" 16:53 GMT comment Monday, 01 December 2014 Time and tide This is my Thanksgiving and Advent post. As always, I am grateful to all of you who have been a part of The Sideshow and made it possible. It's been a pretty busy period, what with having two separate Thanksgiving dinners to throw on the nearest Saturdays, along with a death in the family. So I don't have an Advent calendar list ready, but check out the Christmas Countdown Calendar Hunt Emerson is doing this year for Cancer Research UK, which unfortunately doesn't start until the 1st of December. Meanwhile, the addresses from last year often work, so give them a try. Oh, and of course, it's "Carol of the Bells" time. "Ohio Could Pass the Country's Most Extreme "Secret Executions" Bill" - the most extreme, but by no means the only law that would eliminate checks and balances from the process. William Greider, "How the Democratic Party Lost Its Soul [...] Instead of addressing this reality and proposing remedies, the Democrats ran on a cowardly, uninspiring platform: the Republicans are worse than we are. Undoubtedly, that's true - but so what? The president and his party have no credible solutions to offer. To get serious about inequality and the deteriorating middle class, Democrats would have to undo a lot of the damage their own party has done to the economy over the past thirty years. [...] Long ago, the party abandoned its working-class base (of all colors) and steadily distanced itself from the unglamorous conditions that matter most in people's lives. Traditional party bulwarks like organized labor and racial minorities became second-string players in the hierarchy that influences party policy. But the Dems didn't just lose touch with the people they claimed to speak for; they betrayed core constituencies and adopted pro-business, pro-finance policies that actively injure working people." Here's Gaius Publius on "Harry Reid, Tax Extender Basics, And A Suggestion For Senate Progressives," or pushing back on stupid Democratic "deals". Dean Baker tweeted, "Have fun with right-wing uncle, ask them why they favor government patent monopolies on prescription drugs," and linked to "Current drug-patent system is bad medicine [...] This rapid run-up in costs is exactly what economists would expect from an industry that is protected from competition by the government. Just as the old system of cost-plus contracts in the military sector led to outrageous charges for weapons purchased by the Defense Department, the system of government-granted patent monopolies gives companies little incentive to control costs and reduce waste. For this reason, it would not be surprising to find that major drug companies are seeing runaway cost increases. [...] This is why it is very bad news for people in the United States, India and the rest of the world that India is now reviewing its patent policy at the insistence of Barack Obama's administration. The White House wants India to adopt a much stronger patent regime that would limit the ability of its generic industry to provide low cost alternatives to expensive drugs in the United States." - In related news, the real drug pushers. (via) RJ Eskow, "Prosecute Now: The Justice Department Can Still Act Against Bad Bankers: It's been a grim period for American justice. Despite compelling evidence of widespread bank fraud in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis -- and despite all those billion-dollar settlements -- prosecutors have not indicted executives at any major U.S. bank. This stands in contrast to the much smaller savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, which led to the conviction of more than a thousand bankers. And as the Justice Department's criminal division remained idle in the aftermath of 2008, the statute of limitations passed for most of bankers' crimes. But there's a ray of hope: The bankers' own deep-seated propensity for cheating and corruption may have given prosecutors a new opportunity to indict them. With the upcoming departure of Attorney General Eric Holder, there is the chance to forge a new approach toward Wall Street lawbreaking by pursuing evidence of wrongdoing wherever it may lead." Ta-Nahisi Coates on The Gospel of Rudy Giuliani, which is that, for some unclear reason, people should be more worried about "black on black violence" and not just about being murdered by cops. That's, you know, seriously needing a red-herring. Hm. It's rather unusual for a prosecutor to go before a Grand Jury and present the defense for the accused. Boy, that guy really didn't want an indictment. - "A prominent legal expert eviscerates the Darren Wilson prosecution, in 8 tweets" - "It's Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson's Just Did" - August's fine rant from Jon Stewart on Ferguson and race - John Oliver last August on Ferguson, MO and Police Militarization - "Video of Police Shooting of 12 Year Old Child Looks Almost Like a Drive-By" What's wrong with this story? I think I'm being told that it's okay for cops to kill people if they are obnoxious first. And also that I shouldn't worry about it if I learn of it from a libertarian. You can see why they want us to forget what Black Friday was. Adam Serwer writes the RIP for The Mayor: "Why D.C. Will Always Love Marion Barry [...] From the outside, observers could see only Barry's flaws, his corruptions and addictions. The mystery of Barry's political survival despite numerous run-ins with the law, mismanagement of the city government, and numerous allegations of sexual assault is easier to solve if you know the history of the city. Barry didn't bring corruption to D.C. He changed who benefited from it." In The Chocolate City, the beneficiaries had all been white men until Barry came along. And boy, they punished the voters for re-electing him, too. The District of Columbia gets a substantial part of its budget from the rent it charges the government for use of its lands. Congress got so mad at Barry that they actually withheld the rent for several years running - and then blamed Barry for the budget problems. (via) Stu Shiffman (1954-2014): Stu was our friend and brother and co-conspirator for the best part of our lives, a talented, funny, wonderful artist and dinner companion. I am grateful for the many gifts he brought us, and so, so sorry we will never hear his jokes or see his smile again. 066:33 GMT comment Sunday, 23 November 2014 I look for the light through the pouring rain Digby and David Dayen (dday) panelists last week on Virtually Speaking Sundays, discussing the "Supreme Court decision to revisit the constitutionality (!) of the PPACA exchanges; speculated on a GOP with control of the legislature, but no chance of overriding a veto; and celebrated (!) the hopeful news on net neutrality. Plus the Most Ridiculous Moment from satirist Culture of Truth." David Dayen at Salon: "Grossest midterms winner not GOP! Why K Street is readying an 'orgy of lobbying': The saddest people in Washington during the past two years of unrelenting legislative gridlock ply their trade on K Street. When there's no hope of passing laws, there's no reason to hire expensive lobbyists to push for them. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, lobbyist spending fell 12.5 percent in 2013, and is on target to decrease even more this year. Some have speculated that lobbying has just gone underground into less-regulated spheres, funneled through nonprofits and 'astroturf' organizations. But if that were the case, K Street firms, mired in a three-year slump, wouldn't be so enthralled by the imminent transfer of Senate power to the GOP. 'We're very excited,' said one Republican lobbyist. 'There's going to be more activity ... Corporations and trade associations affected by Washington power will be looking to invest in those policy decisions.'" David Dayen at The Fiscal Times: "The So-So Society: Democrats Have Forgotten What Made Them Great [...] Whether or not these points have merit, they are limited by the narrow range of mainstream party ideology. This is not the Democratic Party of your great-grandfather's New Deal or your grandfather's Great Society. The takeover of the party by more business-friendly interests - which ironically (or perhaps not) dates back to right around 1973, when wages decoupled from productivity - necessarily impoverishes the imagination around issues of economic security and prosperity." Matt Taibbi, back at Rolling Stone, on "The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare - she was there and she saw the disaster unfolding as Jamie Dimon's fraud machine went into action. But then she watched as Eric Holder made sure no one was held to account: "Fleischmann winced. Fully fluent in Holder's three-faced rhetoric after years of waiting for him to act, she felt that he was patting himself on the back for having helped companies survive crimes that otherwise might have triggered crippling regulatory penalties. As she watched in mounting outrage, Holder wrapped up his address with a less-than-reassuring pronouncement: 'I am resolved to seeing [the investigations] through.' Doing so, he added, would "reaffirm" his principles. Or, as Fleischmann translates it: 'I will personally stay on to make sure that no one can undo the cover-up that I've accomplished.'" Sam Seder interviewed Taibbi about the article on The Majority Report. Matt Stoller at Naked Capitalism: "Why the Democratic Party Acts The Way It Does [...] Everything is put on the table, except the main course - policy. Did the Democrats run the government well? Are the lives of voters better? Are you as a political party credible when you say you'll do something? This question is never asked, because Democratic elites - ensconced in the law firms, foundations, banks, and media executive suites where the real decisions are made - basically agree with each other about organizing governance around the needs of high technology and high finance. The only time the question even comes up now is in an inverted corroded form, when a liberal activist gnashes his or her teeth and wonders - why can't Democrats run elections around populist themes and policies? This is still the wrong question, because it assumes the wrong causality. Parties don't poll for good ideas, run races on them, and then govern. They have ideas, poll to find out how to sell those ideas, and run races and recruit candidates based on the polling. It's ideas first, then the sales pitch. If the sales pitch is bad, it's often the best of what can be made of an unpopular stew of ideas. Still, you'd think that someone, somewhere would have populist ideas. And a few - like Zephyr Teachout and Elizabeth Warren - do. But why does every other candidate not? I don't actually know, but a book just came out that might answer this question. The theory in this book is simple. The current generation of Democratic policymakers were organized and put in power by people that don't think that a renewed populist agenda centered on antagonism towards centralized economic power is a good idea. The book, however, is not written by a populist liberal reformer. It's written by one of the guys who put the current system in place. And it's a really good and important story. The New Democrats and the Return to Power is the book, and Al From is the man who wrote it. From was one of the key organizers of this anti-populist movement, and he lays out his in detail his multi-decade organizing strategy and his reasons for what he did." - John Emerson, "- Anti-populism one more time" "Open Letter to Democrats From a Disillusioned Young Voter" - Mike Flannigan on how "centrist" Democrats and their lies are a gift that keeps on giving - to the farthest right Republicans. - Down With Tyranny!: "The Class of Rahm -- Why Not Move Beyond That Kind Of Disastrous Politics" (Related: "Rahm Took Campaign Cash From Companies Doing Business With Chicago" - He's a criminal. We need to get rid of this creep.) "Local Officials Encourage Police To Seize Cars, Flatscreen TVs, And Computers From Civilians: Cops have the authority to seize items they suspect are linked to a crime, most individuals can't afford a lawyer to fight the forfeiture. And once the property is taken, it's extremely rare that they ever get it back." The perfect robbery - steal people's property and dare them to try to get it back. With a great presentation from John Oliver on Civil Forfeiture. Uncle Sam's Databases of Suspicion Fight to expand Social Security Banksters ignoring the courts some more - collecting on debts you no longer owe. For the First Time Ever, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting an Innocent Man Yves Smith updates us on the AIG bailout and tells us ISPs are removing customers' email encryption. "Extreme Wealth Is Bad for Everyone - Especially the Wealthy" (Actually, I still don't buy "especially the wealthy" - it doesn't actually kill them.) Man, I used to see McPherson in the WaPo for years, it's kinda scary and depressing to see him writing about what it's like to be poor - this was a guy who was the epitome of success for journalists, a Pulitzer winner and all. But it's a good piece. Mrs Tara Plumbing: "Why I don't think Julien Blanc should be banned and I won't sign the petition" - I do wonder about people who even have time to get so exercised about such garden-variety sexism when the whole country is being taken apart from the top. Benedict Cumberbatch on what Sherlock would be like on a date. Two minutes of baby elephants. Steve Winwood performing "Georgia on My Mind" with The Spencer Davis Group, 1967. Dobie Gray, "Drift Away" 18:11 GMT comment Monday, 10 November 2014 You just have to come to your own conclusion This week on Virtually Speaking Sundays David Waldman (KagroX) and Dave Johnson did the election post-mortem. Elsewhere, everybody's talkin' like the Democratic Party and "the left" took a beating in the election Tuesday, but by my lights the public did us all a favor by refusing to vote for Democrats whose only selling-point was that at least they weren't Republicans. Oh, yes, Begich lost, too, but no one really expects Alaska to turn blue, and he came a lot closer than people expected - although I expect he could have done better if he had gone stronger. And, unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership was deliberately sabotaging anyone with a progressive message or record, so no surprises there. I mean, how can you lose when you have this great record to run on? Happily, however, we got rid of some of the worst Dems in the party, and no doubt those who don't get cushy jobs as lobbyists will all have to become talking heads on Fox and Press the Meat for a while. Harold Ford, move over! Oh, but the carrying on! I can't believe that even on Alternet, there is nonsense about how the party might purge progressives in the future because the strong progressive message failed to bring Dems past the post. Y'what? Did Mark Pryor campaign on a strong progressive message? Did the national party project a progressive message? They did not. And the reason they did not is that they have already purged or whipped most of the progressives (such as they are) in the party and talk about crap like Social Security benefit cuts and hang out with people like Pete Peterson. Progressives did badly? Oh? Remember what a nail-biter it was waiting for Franken to win Minnesota back in 2008? Well, that wasn't a problem this time around. The incumbent Democrats who got hammered in this election - lost, or came painfully close to losing - were Blue Dogs and DLC/Third Way/New Democrat types. No one really wanted to come out for them and so their "easy wins" never materialized. As Cliff Schecter pointed out on Friday's edition of The Majority Report, Third Way lost a bunch of its elite in this one. Not that it's stopped them from pretending the party needs to move to their "center", but that might just be a hard sell. And where the voters had the chance to vote on issues, the left won handily. Ballot initiatives for legalizing weed, raising the minimum wage, and curtailing corporations did very well, even in states where Democrats lost. The details on who and what lost or won tell you a great deal. The so-called "left" - which these days seems to mean anyone who is not in the centers of power in DC and on Wall Street - seems to have won where they ran; it was right-wingers with a D after their names who took a bath. Which could be great news for the rest of us if only some real liberals decide to capitalize on it and jump into the ring. No, it wasn't "the left" who lost the election, it was Obama's right-wing economic policies. Let Howie Klein and Ian Welsh tell you that story, with the help of a couple of pretty scary charts. As our feathered friend says: "But I'd like to look back at something else. A while back, I wrote, 'To win the next election you have to deliver. Obama didn't deliver on jobs, housing, and banking, and it's pretty hard to message that away,' and also 'Faced with an election that is the crystallized result of essence of policy failure, Obama decides that he...sent the wrong message.' No, you idiots. You didn't send the wrong message. You bailed out the bankers and not the public. You let people be thrown out of their homes through rampant fraud. Six years after the crash, people are still out of work and you bargained away the unemployment insurance extension. Salaries have gone down. Most of us have gone through our savings and you have done nothing to help." That's a record to crash and burn on. See, it's still the economy, stupid. Meanwhile, on the avowed anti-Obama right, there's just a little bit of dismay over the fact that Republicans now want to give Obama more power for the dreaded fast-track. (We can argue with whether people voted for Republicans rather than simply refusing to turn out for bad Dems, but it's hard to argue that The People voted for fast-track.) "This would be a Republican ratification of the policies of Bush I and II that produced $10 trillion in trade deficits, hollowed out our manufacturing base, and sent abroad the jobs of millions of Reagan Democrats. Globalization carpet-bombed Middle America and killed the Nixon-Reagan coalition that used to give the GOP 49-state landslides. Why would Republicans return to that Bush-Clinton-Obama policy that ended the economic independence of Eisenhower's America? The party should re-embrace economic patriotism, stand up to Japanese protectionists and Chinese currency manipulators, and put American workers first, ahead of corporate outsourcers." The Election map - read it and weep. Bill Hicks on what happens after an election In other news that isn't actually unrelated to the foregoing: I can't even think about the so-called "school reform movement" without wanting to slap some people. "E-mail points to White House involvement in USDA's firing of Shirley Sherrod" - Did anyone really think Obama's fingerprints weren't on this somewhere? He may not listen to the voters, but he listens to Breidbart.com. Frank Serpico says, "The Police Are Still Out of Control [...] Today the combination of an excess of deadly force and near-total lack of accountability is more dangerous than ever: Most cops today can pull out their weapons and fire without fear that anything will happen to them, even if they shoot someone wrongfully. All a police officer has to say is that he believes his life was in danger, and he's typically absolved. What do you think that does to their psychology as they patrol the streets - this sense of invulnerability? The famous old saying still applies: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (And we still don't know how many of these incidents occur each year; even though Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 20 years ago, requiring the Justice Department to produce an annual report on 'the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers,' the reports were never issued.)" "Verizon is launching a tech news site that bans stories on U.S. spying: Verizon is getting into the news business. What could go wrong? The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology news site called SugarString.com. The publication, which is now hiring its first full-time editors and reporters, is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and the Verge while bringing in a potentially giant mainstream audience to beat those competitors at their own game. There's just one catch: In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today." Lee Camp: States Criminalize Off-The-Grid Living Racism Insurance, and other stuff. Entertainment: Huh. Movies That Passed the Bechdel Test Made More Money in 2013. Why, yes, I would like to watch a fantasy TV series with a superhero team called The Librarians. Is it any good? John Scalzi's erotic Watchmen fanfic novel Traffic, "Don't Be Sad" 16:16 GMT comment Tuesday, 04 November 2014 The crowd called out for more On Virtually Speaking, Marcy Wheeler talked with Patrick Eddington, a former CIA officer, and former intelligence staffer to Rush Holt, about the nature of "intelligence" and the loss of Congressional oversight. Homework for this one: Senator Frank Church on Meet the Press: The Intelligence Gathering Debate, 1975. "There would be no place to hide" The Democratic Party's Tea Party faction in action: Obama's friends may successfully defeat Progressive Caucus member Mike Honda. Because another odious technocrat is just what we need. (Thanks to commenter ksix for the tip.) Right now even the most optimistic Dem prognosticators are talking about hanging onto the Senate by a hair and probably losing some Congressional seats as well. And yes, we can blame the media for some of it, but let's not get carried away, because the Dems barely lifted a finger to try to give voters something to vote for. Robert Kuttner is right, even if the Dems aren't "routed" - this should have been an easy win. This is the most recent video I've found of the remarkable performance of a certain candidate behaving like a petulant 6-year-old during a very lamely-handled interview by a soft-baller at The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which the paper for some reason keeps making people take down. Ah, here's an update of the story at PressThink. Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and John Cook's statement on why Matt Taibbi quit First Look: "Taibbi's dispute with his bosses instead centered on differences in management style and the extent to which First Look would influence the organizational and corporate aspects of his role as editor-in-chief. Those conflicts were rooted in a larger and more fundamental culture clash that has plagued the project from the start: A collision between the First Look executives, who by and large come from a highly structured Silicon Valley corporate environment, and the fiercely independent journalists who view corporate cultures and management-speak with disdain. That divide is a regular feature in many newsrooms, but it was exacerbated by First Look's avowed strategy of hiring exactly those journalists who had cultivated reputations as anti-authoritarian iconoclasts." It's going even farther than usual to say, "Government didn't build my business, I did," when your whole town wouldn't exist without the government. Via Atrios, "The Red Cross' Secret Disaster" tells you what happens when you put a relief agency in the hands of people who come from today's Glorious Leaders. You'd think the Crown Prosecution Service would at least hire people who are smart enough to tell a spoof video from real porn. But they never have been, and the stupidity of the law makes it easy for them to get carried away. Remember when Samantha Power called Hillary Clinton a "monster"? Well, that's pretty rich, coming from Obama's Atrocity Enabler. Making the point? "Muslim Company Forcing Christian Employees to Wear Headscarfs: A Muslim-owned arts-and-crafts store in Dearborn, Michigan is forcing its female Christian employees to wear traditional Islamic headscarves while on the job. According to local reports, Khilaf Krafts began requiring its eight female employees to wear hijabs last week, following the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which gave religious rights to family-owned businesses. Although five women working for the company are Muslims, the remaining three are practicing Christians. The company has threatened to fire any Christian woman who does not comply." Elizabeth Warren may have just opened the door to a White House run Everything You Need to Know to Vote in the 2014 Elections Sean Wang says, "Midterm National Senate Polling Error Is Five Times Larger Than In Presidential Years." So, either way, don't count your chickens. Blast from the past: Whenever I hear anyone talk about Al Gore's lack of charisma, I remember seeing the video (which, alas, I can't find now - a real shame because it's even more obvious how much more visually dynamic Gore can be) of Gore talking to some students at Concord High School in New Hampshire, and answering a question about how individuals can make a difference, and his story about how the poisoned water at Love Canal was exposed by a high school student who wrote to her Congressman. This American Life preserved the audio, fortunately, in a segment about how different candidates - with the example being Gore - are from the way the media middlemen paint them. Some interesting student comments: "He wasn't as stiff as people say he was. He comes out, takes his jacket off or whatever. He walks around, he asks for audience participation, he talks to the audience." "I mean, he was still Gore. But he wasn't quite as stiff as like-- he didn't just get up and talk like the other candidates did. He's kind of a neat speaker to see." Some of you may remember how the media turned this event into what had to be a complete nightmare for Gore - all, apparently, because MoDo and the Spite Girls thought George W. Bush (George W. Bush!) was hotter than Al Gore. Kosher Halloween What emphasis is for: "I never said she stole my money." Our friend Pavl Duke, playing all the instruments. Award-winning shadow-casting sculpture - We've seen a couple of these before and enjoyed them, but I have to say I was touched by the background of this one, which the artist says was based on a design from the Alhambra fortress in Granada, Spain, "which was poised at the intersection of history, culture and art and was a place where Islamic and Western discourses, met and co-existed in harmony and served as a testament to the symbiosis of difference." Original 1967 video of "Whiter Shade of Pale" 16:06 GMT comment Sunday, 26 October 2014 When lights close their tired eyes Happy Dawali! Last week, Gaius Publius and David Waldman (KagroX) were panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays, discussing moving the conversation and how "Centrist" Democrats have been Tea Partying the Democratic Party. Joan McCarter and David Dayen were the panelists this week on Virtually Speaking Sundays, discussing banksters and Senate races. Longtime readers will know this is of special interest to me: Ryan Grim: Kill The Messenger: How The Media Destroyed Gary Webb - Grim spoke to Sam Seder on The Majority Report. On The Majority Report, Sam talked to James Risen about Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, his book about the corruption in the War on Terror, and about the fact that the government went after him for reporting the truth. Citizenfour, Laura Poitras film about Edward Snowden. Glenn Greenwald's TED talk on Why Privacy Matters. The Raven has written a short series of short posts on what Adam Baldwin has dubbed "Gamergate", which, depending on how you look at it, is either about corruption and cronyism in game reviewing or, um, not. For the Raven, it's something very scary, as his post titles may suggest: "In Which Open Political Terrorism Against Women in the USA Becomes A Thing", "GMRG8 and Censorship ", and "GMRG8 and Law". Matt's been covering this on The Majority Report, and had a good interview with Brianna Wu explaining the whole thing. I know Kevin Drum has always been too credulous about centrism and all that, but he's one of our longest serving members of the left blogosphere and has always been a nice guy, so best wishes to him. Has Krugman gone full-on Obot? Because he seems to be hippie-punching, lately. Bill Black isn't impressed when he bashes liberals for criticizing Obama, even though he has made the same criticisms himself. "Gretchen Morgenson on the Damage of Private Equity Secrecy: The short version is that if the private equity industry had nothing to hide, they wouldn't be hiding it." "Economists Say We Should Tax The Rich At 90 Percent" - Gee, y'think? Recommended reading: Julian Assange, "Google Is Not What It Seems [...] Since at least the 1970s, authentic actors like unions and churches have folded under a sustained assault by free-market statism, transforming 'civil society' into a buyer's market for political factions and corporate interests looking to exert influence at arm's length. The last forty years have seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiag1e, is to execute political agendas by proxy. [..] By all appearances, Google's bosses genuinely believe in the civilizing power of enlightened multinational corporations, and they see this mission as continuous with the shaping of the world according to the better judgment of the 'benevolent superpower.' They will tell you that open-mindedness is a virtue, but all perspectives that challenge the exceptionalist drive at the heart of American foreign policy will remain invisible to them. This is the impenetrable banality of 'don't be evil.' They believe that they are doing good. And that is a problem." I wonder if this is true. It would be fun just to sneer at the media. No one counts the number of people who have been killed by cops. But someone is looking at police lawsuit settlements, and it's no wonder Philly has budget problems. (Well, that and other graft and corruption, but still, maybe the teachers union should start including that in their arguments - "If you're running out of money, tell the cops to stop abusing their power!") "Documents Show NYPD Has Paid $428 Million in Settlements Since 2009" Over 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt said: "So long as governmental power existed exclusively for the king and not at all for the people, then the history of liberty was a history of the limitation of governmental power. But now the governmental power rests in the people, and the kings who enjoy privilege are the kings of the financial and industrial world; and what they clamor for is the limitation of governmental power, and what the people sorely need is the extension of governmental power." How many lattes do you have to give up to get rich? Milt Shook, "Toward a better understanding of religion: Muslim edition" - This is pretty reasonable, although I would argue that you can make sense of the Bible only if you read it as economic history, where it doesn't' actually fare badly. Societies get too unequal and mean and money-centered, God smites 'em. Which is another way of explaining the fact that those societies destroy themselves, and God didn't do it at all. (Also: Good on Ben Affleck.) Via Lee Camp, the only people who ever drove Jesus to violence - and it wasn't just because they were there, but because of what they did: He called them thieves. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics. The BBC has launched BBC Music, and if you can't see/haven't seen it yet at the BBC site, it's worth taking a look at the version of "God Only Knows" they put together to celebrate it. You'll recognize a few faces. Cream, live. I always thought Jack Bruce deserved better than to be overshadowed by his bandmates to such a degree. RIP, Jack. Ah, what the hell, listen to the whole album. I can't believe I'm having so much trouble finding more of my favorite type of hair-clip. They used to be everywhere, they were simple with only one piece, and now I can't even find a photo of them on the web. This is close, although it looks like it may have a decorative layer, and I'm just happy to have the plain ones. If you find any, let me know. More liberal media at The Sideshow. 17:30 GMT comment Wednesday, 15 October 2014 Woke up this mornin' with my mind stayed on freedom After the first time I saw Gaius Publius talking about this, I bugged him to post it where I could link it, and I attempted to sum it up last time I was on Virtually Speaking Sundays, but Gaius has finally posted "Are Democratic Leaders Already "Tea Partying" The Progressives?" In the context of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party talking about Tea Party tactics to get the "centrists" out of party leadership and replace them with liberals, the joke is that the "centrists" are the ones who are always warning us of the dangers of allowing the Republicans to win, while, of course, they have been putting up terrible "centrist" candidates all over the country promoting policies the public detests. "As DWT readers know, Steve Israel, the DCCC, and to a lesser extent the DSCC, have been disasters for the Democratic Party, if "success" means "taking or keeping control of Congress" and "disaster" means "failing to try to do that." These Democratic train wrecks have been well document on these pages-- for example, here and here. But click any link tagged "Steve Israel" or "DSCC" to get the gist." Related: Democrat takes liberal position in Senate race: "Democratic Senator Mark Begich of Alaska is embroiled in one of the toughest reelection campaigns in the country, and control of the Senate could be at stake. So he's going to ramp up his push for a proposal that is treated as marginal inside the Beltway, but could nonetheless prove to have appeal even in a deeply conservative state: The proposal to expand Social Security." Press amazed. DCCC recruits torturer for Congressional race. "Centrists' clueless obsession: Why do so many want to cut Social Security?" Why do miners have benefits denied when they obviously have black lung? Well: "Like many other miners, he had lost primarily because of the opinions of a unit of doctors at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions that had long been the go-to place for coal companies seeking negative X-ray readings to help defeat a benefits claim. The longtime leader of the unit, Dr. Paul Wheeler, testified against Steve, and the judge determined that his opinion trumped all others, as judges have in many other cases." Of course, the autopsy shows Dr. Wheeler was wrong. Now, how does that happen? Maybe Krugman jumps the shark once a week, but in a way, he's right. Obama is one of the most successful presidents in history, more consequential than Reagan, if his mission was to destroy the opposition to the Tory agenda and render the Democratic Party no more than a tool of arch-conservatives. He's done that. Yes, talk about pensions is exciting! But look again at the "centrist" bias of the NYT article referenced. "Asset seizures fuel police spending" - on stuff they don't need but convince themselves they have to have, so they look for opportunities to steal people money and cars and homes, even when those people haven't been formally charged let alone indicted for any crime. And good luck getting it back if you are exonerated. An enemy nation could just buy into a multinational corporation and arrange to attack our land, poison our water, and make our air unbreatheable. In fact, they already have. RIP Fred Branfman, journalist who exposed the truth about America's horrifying devastation of Laos in his 1972 book, Voices from the Plain of Jars: Life under an Air War, and continued to try to tell the truth for the rest of his life. Gaius Publius interviewed Stephanie Kelton, and she had this great idea: To guarantee a living wage, make government the employer of last resort. "If [FDR-style jobs programs] were created the right way, and you said, 'Anybody who's ready, willing and able to work, or unable to find a job in the private sector - or if you just don't like that job - you can come and take this [government] job. We're going to create one for you at a living wage with these benefits ...' You create a package for the worker that then becomes the minimum, [which] everyone else has to provide - or they're not going to get workers. That becomes the de facto minimum. - We're not going to let you starve in America." And that means people have money to spend in the real economy, which creates demand, which creates jobs.... Via Atrios, Frank Bruni, who I normally ignore, actually has a decent piece in the NYT about selective enforcement of religious doctrine by the Catholic church. Also via Atrios, Will Bunch describes "A heartbreaking act of staggering cowardice" - or out and out theft from the public when the state of Pennsylvania strips its teachers of health benefits and allocates nothing for textbooks. Presumably because they needed that money to offer Shell Oil $1.7bn. Commenter ifthethunderdontgetya points out that it's not just Steve Israel sabotaging the Democrats, but there's a history with Debbie Wasserman Schultz refusing to fight for seats the same way. "Liberal bloggers are irate that Wasserman Schultz, who co-chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Red-to-Blue program, has declined to endorse the Democrats running to unseat Cuban American Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother, Mario Diaz-Balart. Wasserman Schultz says she doesn't want to stab GOP members of her own delegation in the back. But liberal bloggers say she's killing her own while aiding and abetting the enemy." Stab them in the back? What the hell does that mean? She was supposed to be trying to beat them. Some rich liberal democrats are looking for the non-Hillary choice. Well, it's nice to think they are starting to get a clue, but then last time they went with Obama. I really wish I could get them in a line and slap their faces before they donate again. Your Taser Outrage of the Day, or How to Get Paid Leave: "Florida officer tases 62-year-old woman in the back just for the hell of it: After police arrived on the scene of her Tallahassee, Florida, neighborhood, 62-year-old Viola Young asked them why they were there. Told to turn around, Young did so and walked away. While walking away, at just about 2:31 in this video shot by a local resident, the officer brutally uses his stun gun to tase Young in the back. Immediately, she falls flat on her face. It's brutal. No charges have been brought and the officer is currently on paid leave." Scalia wants to know how deep prison inmates' religious beliefs go, among other things. "Justice Antonin Scalia questioned just how deep those beliefs were. Holt is supposed to have a full beard, so why does he compromise? Scalia asked. Laycock said Holt was trying to meet prison officials halfway and shouldn't be penalized for trying to be 'reasonable.' 'Well, religious beliefs aren't reasonable,' Scalia said. 'I mean, religious beliefs are categorical. You know, it's 'God tells you.' It's not a matter of being reasonable. God be reasonable? He's supposed to have a full beard.'" In The Raw Story, "David Simon: Corporations 'the cancer' that are slowly killing American middle-class: The writer's next show, Show Me a Hero, is the true story of a battle over public housing that convulsed New York in the 80s. Here, on location in Manhattan, he talks about how money corrupts US politics, the erosion of the working class, why it's a crime to be poor in America - and why he likes to argue" "The Wisdom of the Commons [...] One of Menzies' first tasks in her book was to correct an erroneous impression of the commons. Over the course of a century, from about 1750 to 1850, public use of the common lands in Scotland and England were systematically eliminated by the British House of Commons - ironically named after the same democratic and egalitarian commons that they legislated out of existence. Justification was based on the misconception that the competitive character of people would cause the land to be abused and exploited to the point of exhaustion. This fallacy, popularized in an 1832 pamphlet by the Oxford mathematician, William Forster Lloyd, was abetted by the new thinking about the economic merits of private ownership, capital investment, industrial agriculture and market competitiveness that were forming the basis of modern capitalism. In reality, if anyone had bothered to check, they would have found that the commons in Scotland and England were operating sustainably, cooperatively and democratically, just as they had been doing for centuries." "Simple chart confirms where stock market is heading." (via) "Has Neoliberalism Turned Us All Into Psychopaths?" - It's a kiss-up/kick-down kinda world. To Ferguson, in solidarity, from around the world Tom Tomorrow with a nice little wish-fulfillment fantasy I remember this photograph, but I didn't know this story. This sculpture by Issac Cordal in Berlin is called "Politicians discussing global warming". File 770 says, "Ellison In Hospital Following Stroke: Harlan Ellison suffered a stroke on Thursday, October 9 and is hospitalized. Harlan's right side is paralyzed, his wife Susan told readers of his forum. Mark Evanier adds he has been told Susan says Harlan's mind is sharp and the rest of him seems unaffected." I've never actually heard anything interesting said before about the movie Six Degrees of Separation, but then, I don't pay attention to that sort of thing much anymore. However, I noticed this link in a thread that started when Robert Whitaker Sirigano said, "Name a book that has heaps of critical praise and positive reviews that you absolutely found impossible to read, finish and/or like." More than one person listed this book that, long ago, my best friend recommended to me and for the life of me I never understood why. So many people rave about that book, and to me it was boring and I could never identify with main character. God knows I was as confused a teenager as anyone else ever was, but the book didn't speak to me at all. Here is Will Smith's monologue in Six Degrees of Separation on The Catcher in the Rye. Historical note: "Al Gore's support of the Internet," by V.Cerf and B.Kahn, or how Al Gore really did invent the internet, even though he didn't claim credit for doing so. Footage from the Great Martian War The Barbie doll I never expected to see Controversial scene from Hedy Lamarr's Debut Film, Ecstasy, 1933 Sun dogs - pretty! Ruthie Foster, "Woke Up This Morning" 04:00 GMT comment Friday, 03 October 2014 Stuff that happened, stuff they said Avedon Carol and Dave Johnson were panelists on this week's Virtually Speaking Sundays, discussing perpetual war, climate change, and whether Hillary Clinton should be a candidate for president. Background includes this article on shopping for homes that won't be washed out by climate change. And here's two recent articles by Dave, "The Extortion Game Corporations Play To Cut Their Tax Bill" and "Voters Will Oppose Politicians Who Support 'NAFTA-Style' Trade Deals". On Thursday's Virtually Speaking: "Gaius Publius & RJ Eskow explore[d] the consequences of Democratic party leaders' continued espousal of unpopular positions in a time of progressive change. What does the New York Democratic primary battle tell us? What does it mean for the party in 2016?" On Wednesday of last week, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that expanded the state's early-voting period by a week, and added weekend and evening hours leading up to the Nov. 4 election. But that could still change because Secretary of State Jon Husted is appealing the decision by a three-judge panel to the full appellate court, based in Cincinnati. This American Life, "The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra: An unprecedented look inside one of the most powerful, secretive institutions in the country. The NY Federal Reserve is supposed to monitor big banks. But when Carmen Segarra was hired, what she witnessed inside the Fed was so alarming that she got a tiny recorder and started secretly taping." Bloomberg seems to think this is an important revelation about regulatory capture. The public isn't as stupid as some people would have you believe: "He cites specific states, such as Colorado, where data 'shows that the Koch brothers have a net favorability of negative 14 percent among all likely voters.' The issue is being used to push against Republican Senate hopeful Cory Gardner there. In Michigan, where Koch-aligned groups recently stopped running ads, the Kochs are at a negative 23 percent favorability, according to the memo. And in Iowa, 71 percent of likely voters said they were 'less likely to support a candidate if he or she was being bankrolled by the Koch brothers.'" It's amazing how smart people get once they are kept informed. Gee, I wonder if this could work for Democrats who want to promote good policy... Oh, wait, first they would have to want to promote good policy. Now, if we could just get people informed about how regressive their state and local taxes are.... "Largest City In Vermont Now Gets All Its Power From Wind, Water And Biomass: The 42,000 people living in Burlington, Vermont can now feel confident that when they turn on their TVs or power up their computers they are using renewable energy. With the purchase of the 7.4 megawatt Winooski One hydroelectric project earlier this month, the Burlington Electric Department now owns or contracts renewable sources - including wind, hydro, and biomass - equivalent to the city's needs. " See? It's not that hard. "Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire: he enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate. What is less clear is where all that money comes from. [...] But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company's troubled legal history - including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions - augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle�-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP." "Naomi Klein's New Book Is a Manual for a Movement" Naomi Klein: 'We Can't Dodge This Fight' Between Capitalism and Climate Change [...] In This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, she explores the failures of 'Big Green' environmental groups and supposedly benevolent CEOs, the right-wing climate deniers who actually understand the stakes of climate change better than many progressives, and the grassroots movements coalescing to fight climate change. Klein spoke with In These Times from her home in Toronto." "Court rules Wal-Mart must compensate workers: OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) - Canada's Supreme Court ruled Friday that Wal-Mart must compensate former workers at a Quebec store that was closed after they voted to become the first Wal-Mart store in North America to unionize. [...] The court ruled in a five-to-two decision that the world's largest retailer modified working conditions for the employees without a valid reason when it shut down. The court ruled an arbiter will determine appropriate reparations, possibly with damages and interest. The store never re-opened." "Pelosi's Worst Mistake Comes Back To Plague House Democrats: From the moment Nancy Pelosi announced she was reappointing failed Blue Dog Steve Israel to be DCCC Chairman again, it was apparent to anyone who pays attention that the Republicans had nothing to worry about in regard to losing the House majority. Once Israel started announcing his recruits-- garbage conservative Democrats in unwinnable red districts like anti-Choice, antigay,/pro-NRA, pro-fracking Jennifer Garrison in OH-06 and a trio of CIA stooges from Michigan and Pennsylvania the agency is trying to use to infiltrate Congress." "How Dangerous is Being a Cop in the US? [...] On average a police officer dies in the line of duty in the US about every 55 hours (everything you need for this calculation is above so I'm not going to insult your intelligence by including it). On average a police officer kills a civilian (about 400 annually) about every 22 hours. So I think we have more to worry about from them than they do from us." "Policing for Profit [...] FBI agent and researcher Gregory Vecchi and criminal justice professor Robert Sigler note, '[W]hat is evident from their behavior is that federal, state, and local governments use assets forfeiture to generate revenue, despite their claims otherwise.' For example, the U.S. Attorney General stated in 1990, 'We must significantly increase forfeiture production to reach our budget target. Failure to achieve the $470 million projection would expose the Department's forfeiture program to criticism and undermine confidence in our budget predictions. Every effort must be made to increase forfeiture income in the three remaining months of fiscal year 1990.'" Extract from Richard Vague's The Next Economic Disaster: Why It's Coming and How to Avoid It at Naked Capitalism, "How Private Debt Strangles Growth, Stokes Financial Crises, and Increases Inequality [...] The primary issue is not public debt but private debt. It was the runaway growth of private debt - the total of business and household debt - coupled with a high overall level of private debt that led to the crisis of 2008. And even today, after modest deleveraging, the level of private debt remains high and impedes stronger economic growth. Rapid private debt growth also fueled what were viewed as triumphs in their day - the Roaring Twenties, the Japanese 'economic miracle' of the '80s, and the Asian boom of the '90s - but each of these were debt-fueled binges that brought these economies to the brink of economic ruin." "Bernie Sanders: Longterm Democratic strategy is 'pathetic' [...] People are furious about it. We have a very conservative Senate and House. Congress is dominated by large campaign contributors who exercise enormous influence. I think, the people here [in Washington] have almost developed an instinct not to attack the people who put money into their coffers. Obviously the Republicans are beholden to these guys. But too many Democrats are nervous about talking about issues including income and wealth inequality. But in fact, the American people absolutely want to hear about it. I talk about it all the time. I give a lot of speeches and large crowds come out. People are very, very concerned about the overall impact of income and wealth inequality in terms of morality, in terms of economics, in terms of - with Citizens United - what it means to our political system." "Why is 2 percent the Federal Reserve's inflation target? Because it is." And there is definitely a bias in favor of suppressing wages - and jobs. "Who Stole Television News? [...] In 1978, Roone Arledge, then President of ABC Sports was also made President of ABC News. In an instant television news went from broadcast journalism to "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." This winners and losers mindset became the narrative model. And behind the scenes, TV station owners injected the influence of the yet-not-public Powell Memo into the bloodstream of network and local news." Gosh, they're going to make Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy into a TV series. When I first saw the Qwerkywriter, I instantly thought, "I want one!" But that was when I'd been up too late. In the cold light of day, I realized that, cosmetic or not, that carriage return was gonna drive me nuts forever. 1958: Marilyn Monroe Poses for Life Magazine and Richard Avedon - as Lillian Russell, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Jean Harlow, and Marlene Dietrich. Miss Piggy and Christopher Reeve "Nikola Tesla Dood" Peter Capaldi as George Harrison A long, long time ago, I heard this "Memphis Blues" for the first time at the Memphis Blues Festival and it was my first clue about how the blues was banned on Beale Street. 05:07 GMT comment Wednesday, 24 September 2014 Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace If you can get into the iPlayer, The One Show followed up with the mood on the morning after. (And even if you can't get into iPlayer, here's "Both Sides the Tweed" in full.) Only three precincts voted Yes. That came as a surprise to a lot of people, but folks in the Orkneys don't expect any more from the elite of Scotland than they do from those toffs in Westminster. Meanwhile, you might not expect it to be good news when the court rules that Kansas must remove the Democratic candidate from the ballot, but it's actually great news. At Angry Bear: Beverly Mann on "Freedom! Liberty! And Being For the Little Guy. As Brought to You By the Conservative Movement" Edward Lambert, "In Praise of Net Social Benefits [...] The low Fed rate increases the existence of low road firms, as Bruce Kaufman calls them. The result is that they impede healthy organizational investments for long-run growth. Thus, net social benefits are reduced." Stephanie Kelton on Government big and small Via "Eschaton: After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn't Know [...] In operating rooms and on hospital wards across the country, physicians and other health providers typically help one another in patient care. But in an increasingly common practice that some medical experts call drive-by doctoring, assistants, consultants and other hospital employees are charging patients or their insurers hefty fees. They may be called in when the need for them is questionable. And patients usually do not realize they have been involved or are charging until the bill arrives." "Lost in the Hedges: Fund players, not casino experts, behind majority of A.C.'s failed rescues." "Israel's N.S.A. Scandal [...] Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications - email as well as phone calls - of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. 'I think that's amazing,' he told me. 'It's one of the biggest abuses we've seen.'" "To recline your seat or not? Stop arguing. Capitalism already won this stupid war" - Toldya. Facebook for rich people (for just $9,000) Ruth with some archeological news about a Unique Discovery in Pennsylvania Dig This is a couple of years old, but Kevin Phillips was a big deal operative in the Republican Party and they say he wrote the book, and here he tells Democracy NOW! why he's become an apostate. "Well, I think the Republican Party today is not very sure of what it is. It is a little bit too interested in upper-bracket America. But I think the party system as a whole has drawn away from its moorings. You have a Democratic president supporting the bailouts of banks. The history of the Democratic Party, under Jefferson, Jackson and FDR, was to crack down on the banks. So I think you have both parties today don't stand for very much aside from self-interest, and they're mostly involved in hustling money from the 20 or 30 richest zip codes in the country." This is for fans of Harley Quinn. Paper Sculptures by Hari & Deepti Pin-ups - retro cheesecake. Nils Frahm's "Inside Me" is a bunch of pretty swirls. P.F. Sloan 03:20 GMT comment Monday, 15 September 2014 Even slower glass Marcy Wheeler and Richard (RJ) Eskow were this week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. They talked about war, spying, and how ISIS is sucking out all the air of Democratic efforts to look back at economic issues (esp the minimum wage). - McJoan and Gaius Publius discussed the New York Dems, Dems in general, what we need from Obamacare; net neutrality and other stuff on Virtually Speaking Sundays last week. - Philip Napoli discussed oral histories from Vietnam vets, and the source of trauma, on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. OK, the reason Scots want independence from Westminster is that Westminster is being run by a load of right-wing scum that seems to take special pleasure from screwing Scotland. (Well, Maggie sure did.) Of course those people are also screwing most of the people in England, which is now a runaway train, thanks in large part to the way the Labour Party membership has allowed their own party to be run by people who may not be capital-C Conservatives but are certainly Tories. Which sounds a lot like American politics, of course, except that there doesn't seem to be much threat of, say, California declaring itself an independent nation and taking it's Democratic votes in the Electoral College with it. A lot of people are fretting that without Scotland, England will be stuck with Conservative governments forever, but that is true only to the extent that everyone is happy to let neoliberal policies keep marching on without an argument. The question, judging from the kinds of arguments some of my friends are having, is whether the answer is a new generation of Labour members banding together to take back their party on behalf of real people, or whether creating a new party is the more feasible path to that end. Again, sounding familiar. In both cases, of course, nothing is going to work unless people are prepared to fight the right-wing rhetoric, as well as the policies, with something more than fevered angst. "California School Cops Received Military Rifles, Grenade Launchers, Armored Vehicles. [...] The spokesperson said one reason the school district sought the military gear was to prepare for a mass shooting incident like Columbine High School or Sandy Hook Elementary School." Because that would have worked so well to prevent those incidents. You know, it used to be understood that you didn't want to allow foreign powers to be able to put their influence into American elections because, you know, they might not have America's best interests at heart. That's one reason we used to expect transparency in campaign donations, among other things. So... "SEC Inundated by One Million Requests for Corporate Campaign Contribution Transparency: On September 4, Public Citizen held a news conference to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to consider a rule that would prohibit corporate campaign contributions from being cloaked in secrecy. The organization announced that one million people in the United States had either sent formal comments to the SEC or signed a petition to bring transparency to corporations contributing shareholder-owned funds to elections without full disclosure." Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks. Marcy Wheeler, "Awlaki Really Seems to Have Been Drone-Killed Exclusively on Presidential Authority [...] Man. It's just like they kept throwing legal arguments against the wall in hopes that one saying 'You can kill Americans with no due process' would stick. And since this one is not signed, we may never know what lawyer gets rewarded with a lifetime judicial sinecure!" Matt Stoller, "5 Reasons for the Zephyr Teachout Phenomenon, and 5 Reasons Andrew Cuomo Is Still Governor" - Cuomo had a lot more money to spend than Teachout did, but he won with "a shockingly low percentage of the vote, roughly 20 points less than Spitzer got in his primary for Governor in 2006." That makes a real difference not just in New York, but in national politics, as well. And more could come, if people know how to take advantage of this. I don't know if the book is any good, but "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette" is the video for Peak Inequality: The .01% And The Impoverishment Of Society. I think there may be someone sane on the editorial board of The Washington Post, but they didn't have any input into this cheerleading for holy war. "Police intelligence targets cash" - This is a big profile in The Washington Post of a guy who has made a lot of money out of going after suspected drug dealers of color. It's also about the profitability of asset confiscation. "Washington Supreme Court Holds State In Contempt: The Washington Supreme Court issued a decision Thursday holding the Legislature in contempt for its lack of progress on fixing the way the state pays for public education but withheld possible punishment until after the 2015 session." Actually, I think everyone should be whining about the way airlines are packing people into tin cans like sardines and making us all fight for space in such increasingly unpleasant surroundings. Air travel did not used to be Hell, and there is no reason it should be, now. Before deregulation, fear of flying was about the actual being thousands of feet off the ground held up only by theories part of flying, and not about being crammed in with a bunch of people who had already been aggravated repeatedly at the airport and now couldn't even stretch their legs, let alone find room for their carry-on luggage (which now has to be much smaller than it used to be and your handbag has to fit into it). I don't blame people wanting to put their seats back (although I never do unless the person in front of me has, partly because it isn't really that much more comfortable and partly because I don't want to force the person behind me to do the same), and I really don't blame people for wanting to stop the person in front of them from putting their seat back. Flying shouldn't be this unpleasant in the first place, it didn't used to be, and, by the way, before deregulation, the airlines used to make real profits and did so without so seriously underpaying their flight staff that they had to get flood stamps. When I hear about people fighting over space in a plane, I know where to point the finger, and it isn't at the passengers. I've never actually had any stomach for the "principled stand" of showing deference among the boys, even fairly liberal Democrats, to right-wing guys who might be, y'know, John Ashcroft or Michael Boggs. Principle would surely mean refusing to vote for someone who clearly does not belong on the bench, wouldn't it? At Naked Capitalism, "All in the Family: How the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, and Other Billionaires Are Undermining America [...] There is no Tycoon Party in the U.S. imposing ideological uniformity on a group of billionaires who, by their very nature as �bermensch, march to their own drummers and differ on many matters. Some are philanthropically minded, others parsimonious; some are pietistic, others indifferent. Wall Street hedge fund creators may donate to Obama and be card-carrying social liberals on matters of love and marriage, while heartland types like the Koch brothers obviously take another tack politically. But all of them subscribe to one thing: a belief in their own omniscience and irresistible will." Elizabeth Warren talks to Bill Moyers. Lee Camp on Operation Northwoods I enjoy a lot of Russell Brand's analysis, which isn't at all stupid, but he still makes me think of every person I've run into, left or right, who imagines the answer to bad politicians is to walk away. When Brand brags that he doesn't vote, he's erecting a fantasy in which sheer magic will take down the corrupt, ugly system that's been built up around us. So, don't vote, don't organize, don't come up with a coherent response to what the bad guys are doing, just...what? Wish for it? And that's precisely the ground on which fascism grows. Tansy Rayner Roberts on "Pratchett's Women: The Boobs, the Bad and the Broomsticks" - Part 1, apparently. Nicely done. The title of this article should actually be something like, "Don't leave ripe tomatoes on the counter for four hot days." Painted Ladies - I love this stuff. Truth is Beauty, a spectacular sculpture by Marco Cochrane Steve Simels made me listen to this, and it truly rocks. And, in case you're wondering, here's the Box Tops and Alex Chilton really not getting into the spirit of lip-syncing "The Letter". 16:37 GMT comment Friday, 05 September 2014 I can't hide and I just can't fake it Brian Burghart talked about his project to create a database of police killings on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. Here's the homework: "Fatal Encounters - 'A step toward creating an impartial, comprehensive and searchable national database of people killed during interactions with law enforcement' "What I've Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings" - Digby and Rick Perlstein discussed Rick's book, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, on Virtually Speaking. - David Dayen and Dave Johnson talked about Ferguson, shutting down government, austerity, Rick Perry's indictment, the Bank of America mortgage settlement, etc. on Virtually Speaking Sundays. - Kathleen Geier discussed Women, Public Policy and the Workplace on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. Alan Grayson's attempt to demilitarize the police didn't get very far in Congress. Legislators seemed concerned that doing so would "devastate police departments." "Here's How Lawmakers Use The War On Terror To Defend Police Militarization. [...] Grayson pointed out that police aren't using military weapons for terrorists. 'Where is the terrorism on our streets? Instead, these weapons are being used to arrest barbers and to terrorize the general population,' he said. 'In fact, one might venture to say that the weapons are often used by a majority to terrorize a minority.'" Intercept Reporter Shot With Rubber Bullets and Arrested While Covering Ferguson Protests Marcy Wheeler at The Week, "This is why you can't trust the NSA. Ever." - Let's just say their reports on themselves leave a lot of gaps. "Anti-trans trolling spree forces Wikipedia to ban U.S. House staffers for third time [..] According to The Hill, Wikipedia instituted the ban on Wednesday night after users operating from the House IP address made a series of anti-trans edits to the page for Netflix series Orange is the New Black." Sirota has been doing lots of coverage lately of the blatant corruption in, well, everything. Recent stories include "Small State, Big Losses On A Wall Street Gamble", "SEC Complaint Filed Against Erskine Bowles", and "Chicago Mayor Received $100K From Comcast Before Boosting Merger". Sam Seder talked to him about Taxpayers Funding the Marriage Between Wall Street & Politicians on The Majority Report Amazingly, Princeton notices that the U.S. is No Longer An Actual Democracy: "A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy - namely, that it no longer exists. Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power. Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters." Well, fancy that. How the Democratic leadership sabotages the Democratic Party in Tennessee and in Ohio. It's almost like they don't want to win. Walsh in Salon, "Exclusive: Secret new tape exposes Kochs' ludicrous strategy to win over America: Takeaway from secret panel on outreach to women, Latinos and youth? Dems should fear Koch money, but not messaging" - Actually, Dems should fear Koch messaging when it comes from the mouths of Democrats, as it has done for more than a couple of decades, now. Lauren Windsor at the HuffPo, "Top Koch Strategist Argues The Minimum Wage Leads Directly To Fascism" Tom Sullivan at Scrutiny Hooligans on Fighting A Command Economy With Monopoly: "At the end of the Revolutionary War, there were an estimated half million Tories in this country. Royalists by temperament, loyal to the King and England, predisposed to government by hereditary royalty and landed nobility, men dedicated to the proposition that all men are not created equal. After the Treaty of Paris, you know where they went? Nowhere. A few moved back to England, or to Florida or to Canada. But most stayed right here." With lots of quotes from Thomas Frank's interview with Barry Lynn, "Free markets killed capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 percent's sick triumph over us all ". "Progressive Left's Latest Target: EMILY's List" - EMILY stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast - but the organization isn't really that interested in people who aren't already getting money from other sources. "Saldana said that in one conversation with EMILY's List officials, they pointed to the gangbuster fundraising that Christie Vilsack, the wife of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, was doing in her congressional race in Iowa. 'I thought, "OK, I am not married to a Cabinet member. I would love to do a fundraiser in Washington, but I don't have those connections,"' Salda�a said. 'I wouldn't even say they supported me. Everything was met with resistance because we weren't wealthy enough.'" "Incarcerated For Writing Science Fiction: A Dorchester County, Maryland, teacher was taken in for an "emergency medical evaluation," suspended from his job, and barred from setting foot on another public school. Authorities searched his school, Mace's Lane Middle School in Cambridge, for weapons. As classes resumed, parents worried that their children were in danger, so police decided to remain on the premises to watch over them. What happened? The teacher, Patrick McLaw, published a fiction novel. Under a pen name. About a made-up school shooting. Set in the year 2902." This week in astroturfing, "Sacramento: Debate over plastic bag ban takes a weird but familiar turn" when it turns out that advocacy groups for keeping plastic bags are just industry lobbyists in disguise. I am delighted that Nobody likes Andrew Cuomo anymore, even the NYT. Putz. Thomas Frank interviews Cornel West: "He posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency, a national security presidency. The torturers go free. The Wall Street executives go free. The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza, the war criminals go free. And yet, you know, he acted as if he was both a progressive and as if he was concerned about the issues of serious injustice and inequality and it turned out that he's just another neoliberal centrist with a smile and with a nice rhetorical flair. And that's a very sad moment in the history of the nation because we are - we're an empire in decline. Our culture is in increasing decay. Our school systems are in deep trouble. Our political system is dysfunctional. Our leaders are more and more bought off with legalized bribery and normalized corruption in Congress and too much of our civil life. You would think that we needed somebody - a Lincoln-like figure who could revive some democratic spirit and democratic possibility." (Via Welcome to Pottersville 2.) Fastest Internet in US? It's Chattanooga, TN, Thanks to Local and Fed $$$ (PS. Big Cable Very Angry) "Workers Win Supermarket President's Job Back" - This is a rather inspiring story of customers and workers getting together to force a company to do what the workers are demanding. (via) How health insurance companies still cheat customers under Obamacare: "One of the things that the Affordable Care Act (aka ACA, aka Obamacare) was meant to do was make sure that people with pre-existing medical problems could get health insurance. And that their insurance was affordable. But that may not be the case with some insurance companies. What these insurance companies seem to be doing is targeting prospective patients who have medical illnesses that require a lot of treatment and placing obstacles in their way to getting insured with the offending companies." Comment at DKos from Joy22: I've been a nurse for 32 years....part of that in an emergency dept. Dealing with combative, physically and verbally abusive patients was a frequent occurrence. We've been cursed, pushed, swung at, bitten and spit on. We've dealt with patients who are confused and belligerent due to drunkenness, drug reactions, head injuries, mental illness and even diabetics with low blood glucose levels. We didn't have guns or mace or tasers or clubs. We were armed with only a stethoscope. We used our training, our skills and our wits to subdue aggressive patients. Yes, there were times when we had to restrain and sedate patients....but there are ways to accomplish this without further harming your patient or allowing them to harm themselves. There was no beating, kicking or choke holds involved! Maybe cops need to take the medical profession's motto into consideration: "FIRST DO NO HARM". Our lives are on the line too.....especially considering the numerous life threatening blood borne illnesses that we are in contact with. Somehow.....we manage to get out jobs done without shooting anyone." Sam Seder talked to Dana Goldstein about the Teacher Wars on The Majority Report. The Great Dereliction: "A quick thought experiment: name a leader in a position of power you (really) admire, trust, and respect. Not just the head of an 'alternative' company or political party, but a well-known, mainstream, orthodox, leader of the status quo. Can you?" "Obama Weighing Delay in Action on Immigration" - This guy is such a coward I can't believe it. Justice Ginsburg Laments 'Real Racial Problem' in U.S. This NYPD Idea Backfired Horribly On Twitter Gorgeous landscape/skyscape photography by Lars Leber Rock and Roll: The Blue Pills Someone find me the .pls file for this radio station, I like it. Carol King and Danny Kootch, "It's Too Late", 1971. Sorry it's taken so long for this one, not least because the longer I take to post, the longer the posts get. But at least I've finally finished re-reading the entire Thunderbolts saga from start to finish. Now I just need to catch up with the Honorverse and - wait, no spoilers on whether Weber ever figures out that centrism is bad economics. 16:36 GMT comment Sunday, 24 August 2014 Roll up Man, that convention took more out of me than I expected. They have a big truck full of mobility scooters waiting for people to find out just how far you have to walk in the ExCeL merely to get a glass of water or go to the loo. And then you find out they charge £25 a day for them and by god they can get it, too, even though it is extortionate. I can't spend money that fast, I just sat down a lot. It's been so long since I've seen some people that we almost didn't recognize each other - and after the first day, I realized that if I didn't wear my hair down, no one would recognize me, so I took it down and people started finding me after that. Evidence that you never quite grow up even when you've been around for quite a while is that it still hadn't crossed my mind that my plucky little insurgent pals would someday grow up to be WorldCon Guests of Honor. Wait, aren't you still a teenaged trouble-maker doing funny little fanzines on twiltone? Gosh! (And yet, somehow, deep down, we still are.) Last week' panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays were Avedon Carol and Cliff Schecter, talking about militarized police, Ferguson, the war at home, and also the attacks on Rick Perlstein. And here are some relevant links: "Militarized Policing: One Nation Under SWAT" Meanwhile, there seems to be a new example of what's wrong with the police every day. I don't think it's a coincidence that the three (weapons the cops in Ferguson claim to have confiscated from the crowd are three identical, rare (and brand-new-looking) guns made exclusively for law enforcement. "In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest." "Missouri Police Cite Threats in Deciding Not to Name Officer Who Shot Teenager." "Dallas PD leaders speak out on police shootings, militarization and protest." Justin Raimondo, "Ferguson: Ten Days That Shook the Country [...] When one of the provinces rebel - be it in Donetsk or Nevada - the Empire's response is identical. The MRAPs assemble in military formation, the Long Range Acoustic Devices are set off, and the helmeted camie-wearing troops advance toward the crowd, guns pointed at the rebel rabble." Veterans on Ferguson Criminalizing Motherhood: "Nightmarish stories about the criminalizing of motherhood have been making headlines of late. There was Shanesha Taylor, arrested on child abuse charges for leaving her kids in a car to go to a job interview; Debra Harrell, locked up for child abuse for letting her 9-year-old play at a nearby park while she worked her shift at McDonald's; Mallory Loyola, the first woman to be charged under a new Tennessee law that makes it a crime to take drugs while pregnant; and Eileen Dinino, who died serving a jail sentence because she was too poor to pay legal fees from her kids' truancy cases. Other countries provide social programs and income supports for poor single mothers; in the United States, we arrest them." Radley Balko has Good news from Mississippi - Steven Hayne, a "controversial medical examiner who has testified in thousands of cases, and whose testimony, professionalism and credibility have been under fire for years," finally has his credentials challenged in court in such a way that it might make a real difference, and the court found his testimony to lack credibility. This could actually turn out to be a pretty big deal - although not, alas, for victims whose lawyers realized too late that this "expert witness" was a bit of a fabulist. "Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession: The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found. This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed's thrall, the economists missed it, too." (Is it just me, or does anyone else have problems with the way HuffPo loads? I really hate going there.) Thomas Frank on "Jon Stewart is not enough: The curse of centrism, and why the Tea Party keeps rolling Daily Show Democrats [...] Let me explain what I mean by reminding you of one of the most disturbing news stories to come across the wires in the last month. In a much-reported study, the Russell Sage Foundation discovered that median household wealth in this country fell by 36 percent in the 10-year period ending last year. Wealth for people at the top, as other news stories remind us, has continued to soar. These things are a consequence of the Great Recession, of course, but they are also a reminder of the grand narrative of our time: The lot of average Americans constantly seems to be growing worse. The Great Depression of the 1930s was awful, but it set America on the path toward a period of shared prosperity. Our bout of hard times has had the opposite effect. It has accelerated the unraveling of the middle class itself. Now, you can blame the risible, Ayn Rand-reading Tea Party types for this if you like, and you can also blame the George W. Bush Administration. They both deserve it. But sooner or later you will also have to acknowledge that there are two parties in this country, not just one; that the Democrats held significant power during the period in question, including (for much of it) the presidency itself; and that even when they are not in the White House, these Democrats nevertheless retain the capacity to persuade and to organize. For a party of the left, dreadful news like this should be rocket fuel. For the Dems, however, it hasn't been. Why is that? Well, for one thing, because a good number of those Democrats have not really objected to the economic policies that have worked these awful changes over the years. They may believe in the theory of evolution - hell, they may savor the same Jon Stewart jokes that you do - but a lot of them also believe in the conventional economic wisdom of the day. They don't really care that union power has evaporated and that Wall Street got itself de-supervised and that oligopolies now dominate the economy. But they do care - ever so much! - about deficits and being fiscally responsible. Bring up this obvious point, however, and you will quickly discover what a dose of chloroform the partisan style can be. There's a political war on, you will be told; one side is markedly better than the other; and no criticism of the leadership can be tolerated. Instead, let's get back to laughing along with our favorite politicized comedians, and to smacking that Rick Santorum punching bag." . Unbelievably, George F. Will explains that Nixon was a criminal. Not that everyone didn't know that already, but it's fascinating to me that conservatives have thrown Nixon under the bus even though they still seem to think he was "hounded out of office" by evil liberals. Good on the Public Editor at The New York Times for answering the question, "Was an Accusation of Plagiarism Really a Political Attack?" regarding their article promoting the flimsy charges from right-wing operatives against Rick Perlstein's latest book: "So I'm with the critics. The Times article amplified a damaging accusation of plagiarism without establishing its validity and doing so in a way that is transparent to the reader. The standard has to be higher." The Zero Hour How can you live without these socks? When Gregory Benford met Philip K. Dick Worldcon - Seacon, Brighton, 1979 Flowers I didn't expect to see "Holy crap, these bionic arms look just like Doc Ock's" Photo: The Beatles on Plymouth Hoe in 1967, taking a break during the filming of Magical Mystery Tour "Magical Mystery Tour" 16:06 GMT comment Tuesday, 12 August 2014 I ain't quite a ready for walkin' This week on Virtually Speaking Sundays, Jay Ackroyd asked Stuart Zechman, "Why can't we have nice things? On Thursday, RJ Eskow talked about Insiders vs. Outsiders. "Exiting the Vampire Castle" is an important piece I wish more people who think they are doing good work would read. Look, you grew up here, you're bound to say stupid things from time to time. If everyone who might say something stupid is afraid to speak because they are going to get called out and branded a sexist/racist/size-ist/looksist oppressor for all time, it's not going to do a damned thing to improve the lot of women or minorities or anyone else. The first law of the Vampires' Castle is: individualise and privatise everything. While in theory it claims to be in favour of structural critique, in practice it never focuses on anything except individual behaviour. Some of these working class types are not terribly well brought up, and can be very rude at times. Remember: condemning individuals is always more important than paying attention to impersonal structures. The actual ruling class propagates ideologies of individualism, while tending to act as a class. (Many of what we call 'conspiracies' are the ruling class showing class solidarity.) The VC, as dupe-servants of the ruling class, does the opposite: it pays lip service to 'solidarity' and 'collectivity', while always acting as if the individualist categories imposed by power really hold. Because they are petit-bourgeois to the core, the members of the Vampires' Castle are intensely competitive, but this is repressed in the passive aggressive manner typical of the bourgeoisie. What holds them together is not solidarity, but mutual fear - the fear that they will be the next one to be outed, exposed, condemned." None of the obits I've seen before have mentioned it, oddly, but for many of us, this will always be Robin Williams: Mork and Mindy Season 1 Episode 1 Pilot. Stephanie Kelton was RJ Eskow's guest on The Zero Hour. Marcy Wheeler notes that the government keeps freaking out over The Intercept, thereby raising its profile. "The government has chosen to make it a Big Story that at least one more person has decided to leak the Intercept documents." Well, better that than having to admit their terrorist watchlist is getting to just be a watchlist of people who have nothing to do with terrorism. Martin Longman in The Washington Monthly, "It's Not Easy to Hold the CIA Accountable [...] By any normal standard, John Brennan would be prosecuted for his actions. But he is being protected by the administration. I don't think this is best explained by the idea that Brennan is doing a good job in other respects. He's a major embarrassment to the administration and protecting him makes them look extremely bad. From the very beginning of his administration, I think President Obama has simply been afraid to take on the Intelligence Community. And his official rationale is morally bankrupt." PS. Hail Hydra. Seriously, they had to call it Hydra? The water news is scaring the hell out of me. Lots of places where you can't drink the water, or the water levels are frighteningly low. (Thanks to commenter ifthethunderdontgetya.) Ever since they started lying about alleged falsehoods in Michael Moore's movies, it has been a right-wing tactic to make stuff up about why a particular critique from the left that might get people's attention is academically unreliable. It's not actually a surprise that they are accusing Rick Perlstein of various academic sins. It could be argued that his publisher's decision to put the notes online rather than in the book itself is a mistake (personally, it makes me pretty uncomfortable), but that says nothing about whether the book is well-researched and uses its citations legitimately and properly. Calling it "plagiarism" when the citations are marked in the text, even if you have to go online to read them, is simply wrong. The citations are marked and accessible, it's not stolen material. Perlstein discussed his new book, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, as well as the phony attacks, with Sam Seder on The Majority Report. Mark Regev, deciphered: "This is good. The video above was created by Alex Nunns, who subtitled a BBC interview with Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev. The interview follows the Israeli bombing of an UN school in Beit Hanoun that killed at least 16 Palestinians." (Thanks to commenter ksix.) "How We Imprison the Poor For Crimes That Haven't Happened Yet [...] 'Evidence-based sentencing' describes the use of data-driven 'risk assessments' in the sentencing phase of criminal trials. This means that people convicted of crimes are given a 'risk score' based on some formula that purports to predict what their risk is of committing more crimes in the future. Are you detecting a few possible problems with such a practice? Yes! I sincerely hope that you are! First of all, these formulas are obscure and not transparent; second of all, the formulas incorporate demographic information such as 'unemployment, marital status, age, education, finances, neighborhood, and family background, including family members' criminal history' which clearly skew them against members of certain socioeconomic groups; and, most importantly, this practice condones people being sentenced more harshly based on predictions of things they haven't done yet." Via Atrios, who congratulated us for being so generous to the poor. Lee Camp on How To End Police Brutality AND Homelessness You know, even for Ted Rall, I thought this cartoon was particularly bitter. Thanks to BruinKid at DKos for telling me what was in Jon Stewart's piece on the invasion of foreign babies and immigration. John Oliver on the Wealth Gap The true corporate flowchart - It's all so clear.... David Simon encounters Governor O'Mally on the Acela. "Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test" RIP: Charles Barsotti, who drew cartoons for The New Yorker from the '60s right up until his death last June. In the most fitting tribute, many of those cartoons have been posted at the link. Monsters terrorized by children Fairy Tale Photos by Margarita Kareva Stainless Steel Wire Fairies by Robin Wight Marble and Stone Sculptures by Matthew Simmonds Beautiful Glass Sculptures by Ben Young Janis Joplin, live on Cavett, "Move Over" The little girl in some of the pictures I've been posting is the Baby Hurricane, the child of the best sysadmin in the world. He's a lily-white English cavefish from the West Country, and the baby's mom is a dark chocolate Carribean woman who works too hard. So Daddy brings the baby over sometimes to wreak choas in our house for a couple of hours and she just makes me laugh and laugh. In recent photos, she destroyed the District Line, walked on the beach, and held a tea party. 16:03 GMT comment Saturday, 02 August 2014 Sometimes I wonder, will I ever be the same? Australian economist Steve Keen discussed his critique of neoclassical economics as inconsistent, unscientific and empirically unsupported, and his book Debunking Economics, on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. David Dayen, at Naked Capitalism, "Financial Predators Move On From Foreclosure Rescue, Enter Student Debt, Military Lending Spaces" - They're still allowing the originating scams on mortgages to continue, but at least they are starting to go after the rescue scams. - at The Fiscal Times, "From Public Service to Lobbyist - The Revolving Door Is on Auto Pilot" - a little list of corruption atrocities. Charlie Pierce, "The Tar Comes Home: Almost unnoticed with all the noise surrounding our old friends, the Keystone XL pipeline, the continent-spanning death funnel that aims to bring the world's dirtiest fossil fuel from the blasted environmental moonscape of northern Alberta to the refineries of Texas, and thence to the world, is the fact that a lot of the current mobilization by environmental activists is aimed not so much at the pipeline as at the poisonous glop it carries. Moreover, the controversy over the pipeline has almost completely obscured the fact that the extraction industries want to create a blasted environmental moonscape out in Utah, home of some of the country's loveliest natural moonscapes. Both of these elements have come together in the last week or so. Some 21 activists, many of them from the Ute tribe, were arrested last Monday for chaining themselves to the fence of a construction site in the Book Cliffs Mountains. This fight has been going on, largely out of the spotlight, for years and, once again, our oil-drunk neighbors to the North are behind it. Pretty soon, Joni Mitchell isn't going to be enough of an alibi, folks." Dan Froomkin at The Intercept, "It's About the Lying: I don't want to understate how seriously wrong it is that the CIA searched Senate computers. Our constitutional order is seriously out of whack when the executive branch acts with that kind of impunity - to its overseers, no less. But given everything else that's been going on lately, the single biggest - and arguably most constructive - thing to focus on is how outrageously CIA Director John Brennan lied to everyone about it. [...] Figuring out how to right the constitutional imbalance between the branches of government, as exposed by this CIA assault on Congress, is very complicated. But doing something about lying isn't. You need to hold people accountable for it. History will assuredly record that President Obama lied about a number of things, particularly as he carried water for the intelligence community and the military. But he's no Cheney. So if you're the president, you fire everyone who lies. Starting with John Brennan." When Benjamin Netanyahus sounds like Joseph Goebbels. You know, I'm really sick and tired of hearing about how Palestinian terrorists "hide" among the general population and keep their weapons in (unused) school buildings. As opposed to - what? Living in and keeping their weapons in their massive military bases? The Israeli government is bombing civilians because they are trying to terrorize Palestinians into submission, period. It's the whole point of what they are doing. "Hiding War Crimes Behind a Question" "Analysis: Hamas history tied to Israel" (2002) Humanize Palestine. Political cartoon, 1988 Tom the Dancing Bug, "Corporate Sky-Deity Bless America" An angry letter regarding Graham Chapman Jonathan Ross at the Eisners Fun with costumery (I especially liked the bunnies.) Photos of Iceland in winter Lace art on the city streets Rare photos of interiors of Iranian Mosques 33 Pictures Taken at the Right Moment Doorways from around the world Paint the town blue Baked demons A dog-eat-dog Game of Thrones The Four Tops, "Baby I Need Your Loving" 21:05 GMT comment Sunday, 27 July 2014 One can have a dream, baby Tonight's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays are Digby and Gaius Publius. Should be good. Last week on Sunday, Susie Madrak talked with Jay Ackroyd. Well, Obama finally mentioned something everyone expected him to deal with early in his first term: "Obama presses to end corporate trick for evading taxes: (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday hammered U.S. companies that avoid federal taxes by shifting their tax domiciles overseas in deals known as "inversions" and called on Congress to pass a bill to end the practice." In the olden days, of course, there was no incentive for companies to do this stuff since we deliberately imposed tariffs to make it more expensive to be a foreign company than to be an American company. We did that because we believed in a thing called "protectionism"; that is, protecting American workers - and the American economy - from unfair competition, either from subsidized foreign companies or from countries that allowed workers to be abused or even used as slave labor in order to undercut fair prices in the US. On Virtually Speaking, Dave Johnson spoke with Frank Clemente of Americans for Tax Fairness about how these little tricks work. Corruption: With Albany rocked by a seemingly endless barrage of scandals and arrests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo set up a high-powered commission last summer to root out corruption in state politics. It was barely two months old when its investigators, hunting for violations of campaign-finance laws, issued a subpoena to a media-buying firm that had placed millions of dollars' worth of advertisements for the New York State Democratic Party. The investigators did not realize that the firm, Buying Time, also counted Mr. Cuomo among its clients, having bought the airtime for his campaign when he ran for governor in 2010. Word that the subpoena had been served quickly reached Mr. Cuomo's most senior aide, Lawrence S. Schwartz. He called one of the commission's three co-chairs, William J. Fitzpatrick, the district attorney in Syracuse. And that was the end of that. "Zephyr Teachout to Andrew Cuomo: Resign Now" "'We don't want politicians who've gotta be cajoled': Keith Ellison unloads to Salon" - interviewed by David Dayen. "Chris Dodd Warns Of Coalition Between Populist Democrats And Republicans: WASHINGTON -- The rise of anti-corporate conservatives is a significant threat to the American banking establishment, according to former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who warned a gathering of Beltway centrists on Tuesday about a potentially formidable coalition between hard-line banking critics in both parties. [...] 'There's a new right emerging in the country which is as hostile, in my view, to financial services, as many on the left have been over the years,' Dodd told an audience at a Bipartisan Policy Center event Tuesday. Dodd appeared to be worried that if these "hostile" folks got together they might make Dodd-Frank into a bill that does what everyone hoped it would do in the first place, or something. Why should bipartisan efforts to reign-in the banksters be a problem for the Bipartisan Policy Center? Well. "In D.C. political circles, however, 'bipartisanship' is often used as a shorthand way to describe policies and reforms that are friendly to corporations, favored by corporate elites, or both. This is sometimes referred to as being 'moderate,' 'centrist' or 'bipartisan' because traditionally such policies have been able to find support among both Republicans and Democrats." Glen Ford, "U.S. Funds 'Terror Studies' to Dissect and Neutralize Social Movements: The U.S. Department of Defense is immersed in studies about...people like you. The Pentagon wants to know why folks who don't themselves engage in violence to overthrow the prevailing order become, what the military calls, 'supporters of political violence.' And by that they mean, everyone who opposes U.S. military policy in the world, or the repressive policies of U.S. allies and proxies, or who opposes the racially repressive U.S. criminal justice system, or who wants to push the One Percent off their economic and political pedestals so they can't lord it over the rest of us." Dean Baker, "More Confusion on Sovaldi and Government Granted Monopolies at the Washington Post" - WaPo says this drug for Hepatitis C costs less in Egypt ($900) than in the US ($84,000) because "Sovaldi is cheaper in countries where the government sets drug prices." But, as Baker points out, "This is almost the opposite of reality. The price is very high in the United States because the government gives Gilead Sciences (the drug's patent holder) a complete monopoly on the drug's sale. The price is low in Egypt because there is no patent monopoly and manufacturers are free to sell generic versions of the drug. That means the price in Egypt is closer to a free market price. The price in the U.S. is a price that is high because the government will arrest competitors." Cenk, "Al Jazeera Journalists Targeted By Expanding Israeli War Machine?" "How VA Reform Fell Apart In Less Than 4 Days" - Republicans complain about costs, but if they really meant it, they'd complain about bringing private commercial interests into the system to siphon off money. Privatizing any part of the VA is obviously going to cost more. So don't. Just fully fund the VA and fix it. Ian Welsh on "The Barbarism of ISIL, the Taliban and Wahhabism and collapse of hegemonic ideology" - No pull-quote, it's one to read through. The Democratic Party Apology Handbook "Do what you love" is a mantra of elites. A fitting tribute (Thanks, CMike!) Solar Freakin' Roadways! Mark Evanier's favorite Rockford moments Buster Keaton .gifs - and, if you can read the shouty text below, you can find out who saved Buster Keaton's life. Taral wrote a spooky little fannish story honoring a classic horror theme. Doctor Who Pre-Movie Theater Introduction Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston 16:58 GMT comment Monday, 21 July 2014 She never got there, they say RIP James Garner: "Through many films and two influential television series, Maverick and The Rockford Files, James Garner, who has died aged 86, developed a persona with a subtly different appeal. It began as original and accrued familiarity over the course of four decades: a coward who was the soul of honour, a hero likely to ride away, stick his finger up the barrel of his opponent's gun or get winded in a fight and complain of damage to his dentistry." It's got to be a national day of mourning for at least my whole generation. And the one compensation I ever get from these things is some great story from Mark Evanier about all the great stuff the guy did and when he met him and - but we don't get that this time. Lots of people saying good-bye, of course, he meant so very much. (BBC obit) Watch Maverick, "Stage West" The Rockford Files, "The Deep Blue Sleep" And, of course, there is when Charlie meets Mrs, Barham and what he said to her. (And I know there is a clip of the whole scene in one clip somewhere because I've posted it before, but I just can't seem to find it now.) Wired: "A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted its expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday." Frog Gravy: An Evening Spades Game, KCIW 'PeWee Valley' women's state prison, near Louisville, sometime in 2009. David Dayen says, "The Costs of Obama's Housing Mistakes Keep Piling Up [...] When homeowners hear from a government looking to help them, and previous efforts along similar lines led to broken promises and foreclosure nightmares, you can't blame them for saying no. This is why, if you believe in an activist government that can help solve problems, failures of this sort become so debilitating. The housing policy disappointments reinforced the old Ronald Reagan dictum that the most dangerous words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" "I was poor, but a GOP die-hard: How I finally left the politics of shame [...] To make up for my own failures, I voted to give rich people tax cuts, because somewhere deep inside, I knew they were better than me. They earned it. My support for conservative politics was atonement for the original sin of being white trash." ADVICE TO CONSERVATIVES (OFFERED NOT IN KINDNESS, BUT BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO STUPID TO TAKE IT). "Everyone In Middle East Given Own Country In 317,000,000-State Solution" Check to see if your website is being blocked in the UK. John Oliver on Warren G. Harding's love-letters George Takei on Bill Shatner It's amusing to see some of our friends in pictures on the Forbes site. The Iron Throne Vocabulary word: squick In Memoriam: "The KKK Took My Baby Away" 03:27 GMT comment Saturday, 12 July 2014 It's a long, long way to Paradise This week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays were Jay Ackroyd and Avedon Carol, discussing the Supreme Court decision on religious exemptions from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Homework for the show includes: "Countering Conventional Wisdom: New Evidence on Religion and Contraceptive Use" - new Guttmacher report (.pdf) says pretty much all women use contraception, including Catholic women. NYT, "Birth Control Order Deepens Divide Among Justices" The American Prospect, "5 Men on Supreme Court Impose Substantial Burden on Women in Illogical Decision" Salon, "Here are the highlights of Justice Ginsburg's fiery Hobby Lobby dissent" - In The Nation, "The Real Reason Pot Is Still Illegal [...] People in the United States, a country in which painkillers are routinely overprescribed, now consume more than 84 percent of the entire worldwide supply of oxycodone and almost 100 percent of hydrocodone opioids. In Kentucky, to take just one example, about one in fourteen people is misusing prescription painkillers, and nearly 1,000 Kentucky residents are dying every year. So it's more than a little odd that CADCA and the other groups leading the fight against relaxing marijuana laws, including the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids (formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America), derive a significant portion of their budget from opioid manufacturers and other pharmaceutical companies. According to critics, this funding has shaped the organization's policy goals: CADCA takes a softer approach toward prescription-drug abuse, limiting its advocacy to a call for more educational programs, and has failed to join the efforts to change prescription guidelines in order to curb abuse. In contrast, CADCA and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids have adopted a hard-line approach to marijuana, opposing even limited legalization and supporting increased police powers." - In The Daily Beast, "Why Did America's Only Pot Researcher Suddenly Get Fired?" - They don't say so, but I'm willing to bet that Nation article could help them answer that question. At Black Agenda Report, Bruce Dixon on "Why Elections Still Matter, Except When They Don't". "Monsanto's Herbicide Linked to Fatal Kidney Disease Epidemic: Could It Topple the Company?" I really hope something will, because it's become increasingly obvious that Monsanto is doing more harm than good. Noam Chomsky has some advice for people who support the Palestinians, but that whole two-state solution thing seems a bit dead to me what with what's left after the settlements. I'm not the only one who is starting to think that way. Via some High Snark from Atrios, here's Kevin Drum baying, "The NSA Said Edward Snowden Had No Access to Surveillance Intercepts. They Lied." Kentucky court strikes down gay marriage ban. Judge: "These arguments are not those of serious people." "How is this painting 'pornographic' and 'disgusting'? You might think that in an art world that encompasses the Chapman brothers' phallus-nosed children and Jeff Koons' lascivious studies of La Cicciolina (sample title: "Dirty Jeff On Top"), you would have to sweat blood to produce a work so offensively sexual it would be ejected from a top London gallery. This, however, was the fate meted out to Leena McCall's Portrait of Ms Ruby May, Standing, which was removed from the Society of Women Artists' 153rd annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries after being deemed "disgusting" and "pornographic", according to the artist." I don't know whether to call this one "RIP" or "Independence Day" since it's really rather a relief that Richard Mellon Scaife kicked the bucket on the 4th of July, one day after his 82nd birthday. Few men have wreaked such destruction on America as Scaife did by financing his far-right gravy train of lies and distortions; beside his works, 9/11 is barely a squib. The Guardian's obituary is more polite, but Counterpunch pulls fewer punches, which is as it should be. I think Laura Ingraham confused soma with chocolate. I found a radio station called Absolute Motown. "Be My Lover", live, with snake. 20:49 GMT comment Monday, 07 July 2014 Make me an angel Last week's guests on Virtually Speaking Sundays were David Dayen (dday) and David Waldman (KagroX), who discussed the hollowing out of the middle class in a slow growth economy, a solution for the absurdly high college tuition and student loan burdens as an example of counterproductive public policy, and #gunfail. And I was already going to link this story they discussed: He got disgustingly rich by seeing the emerging patterns and knowing where to bet, and now Nick Hanauer says, "The Pitchforks Are Coming - For Us Plutocrats [...] But let's speak frankly to each other. I'm not the smartest guy you've ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I'm not technical at all - I can't write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now? I see pitchforks." I hadn't been aware of the nanny from Hell story, but as Atrios points out, it's a real mark of how much we value kids that we expect to pay their caretakers (nannies or mothers) nothing. Don't like paying teachers much, either, for that matter. And Thursday, Sheila Bapat was on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd to discuss Economic and gender justice, the focus of Part of the Family? Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers and the Battle for Domestic Workers' Rights (reviewed here). Note that Alito actually invented a new category of employee just to prove that he is either stupid beyond credence or will literally say anything, no matter how nonsensical, to get an anti-union ruling out of it. A new poll says Mitch McConnell's got trouble, but it also says this: "The survey shows that by an almost six-to-one margin, 80% to 14%, voters are more likely to vote for 'a candidate who wants to close loopholes to make sure millionaires do not pay a lower tax rate than the middle class.' Wide majorities of Democrats (87%), Republicans (70%) and independents (80%) support this position. The poll also reveals that by more than four-to-one, 76% to 17%, Kentuckians would be more likely to vote for 'a candidate who wants to make sure that the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes,' including 88% of Democrats, 57% of Republicans and 83% of independents. But they would be less likely by a two-to-one margin, 63% to 31%, to vote for 'a candidate who wants to cut the taxes of the wealthy and corporations.' Voters also said by more than a two-to-one margin, 66% to 27%, that they would be more likely to vote for 'a candidate who wants to end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas.'" What a shame McConnell is just going to be beaten by another "centrist" Dem and not someone who would campaign to give the public what it so obviously wants - and needs. Just think, if we had a politician who would simply vote for what most of these red state Republican voters want, we'd have more liberal policies than the "centrist" Democratic leadership is giving us. "Flawed Oversight Board Report Endorses General Warrants [...] The board skips over the essential privacy problem with the 702 'upstream' program: that the government has access to or is acquiring nearly all communications that travel over the Internet. The board focuses only on the government's methods for searching and filtering out unwanted information. This ignores the fact that the government is collecting and searching through the content of millions of emails, social networking posts, and other Internet communications, steps that occur before the PCLOB analysis starts. This content collection is the centerpiece of EFF's Jewel v. NSA case, a lawsuit battling government spying filed back in 2008. The board's constitutional analysis is also flawed. The Fourth Amendment requires a warrant for searching the content of communication. Under Section 702, the government searches through content without a warrant. Nevertheless, PLCOB's analysis incorrectly assumes that no warrant is required. The report simply says that it 'takes no position' on an exception to the warrant requirement when the government seeks foreign intelligence. The Supreme Court has never found this exception." It would be nice to replace the creeps in the Supreme Court with people who are better, but that doesn't usually happen unless other things happen first. It's a mistake to just wait on the Supreme Court. It's also crazy-making to have people talk about how important it is to have a Democrat in the White House to make sure crazy judges don't get appointed when we elect Democrats who go out of their way to protect the nomination of someone like Roberts. Roberts is a radically crazy judge and that was obvious from the outset. People really have to stop thinking that sociopaths can't come in the form of soft-spoken or mild-mannered folk; actually, it is the mark of a really effective sociopath that they don't foam at the mouth. Charlie Pierce, "The United States Of Cruelty: We are cheap. We are suspicious. We will shoot first. It does not have to be this way. Like Lincoln before us, it is time to do something about it." Some people complained that they couldn't get the Beth Schwartzapfel Great American Chain Gang piece, so here's the direct link for "Modern-Day Slavery in America's Prison Workforce" in The American Prospect. John Oliver on Hobby Lobby Barbara Ehrenreich On Marriage Equality & 2-Party System Annie Lowrey in the NYT, "Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones" The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants. In essence, the poor economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones. That is the conclusion of a new report from the National Employment Law Project, a research and advocacy group, analyzing employment trends four years into the recovery. Surviving the 'Pit of Vipers' RIP: Frank M. Robinson (1926-2014), author, editor, fan, and Harvey Milk's speechwriter. Felix Dennis, former hippie street vendor and eventual staff-member of the alternative newspaper Oz, who became frighteningly rich as your basic cut-throat magazine publisher in later years. Christopher Priest, who once shared a flat with him, doesn't remember him fondly. The Guardian, 100 years ago: "'It is not to be supposed,' wrote a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian analysing the significance of the assassination 100 years ago on Saturday, 'that the death of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand will have any immediate or salient effect on the politics of Europe.'" "Orphan Black Embodies the Female Gaze Better than Anything Else on Television: As a show chiefly concerned with the ways women's bodies are commodified and controlled, Orphan Black is careful not to view its female characters with that same hungry eye. This is a triumph: On so many shows, the camera works at cross-purposes to the high-minded themes." "Fandom Fixes: Don't over-dude it, Orphan Black [...] Orphan Black is also the TV embodiment of the modern LGBT community's most perplexing question: Are we born this way? It takes that Pride anthem and flips it on its head, offering up clones created from the exact same DNA who have completely different ideas about sexuality and gender. 'Sexuality is a spectrum,' Delphine says in season one, after finding herself attracted to Cosima. 'But social biases codify sexual attraction, contrary to the biological facts.' And that certainly seems to be Cosima's take on it as well. She's attracted to who she's attracted to. 'It's the least interesting thing about me,' she says." See the Earth LIVE! ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment Yes, kids get into everything. Who's the mastermind behind this? Where armor meets corset - and before you ask, yes, they are leather. When radiologists take a selfie Well, I had no idea that Harlan was a Scooby-Doo! character. It's the kind of thing you just have to look up. Donnalou Stevens is hawt. 4th of July Cake Wrecks Bonnie Raitt, "Angel From Montgomery", live. 07:23 GMT comment Saturday, 28 June 2014 Ain't that peculiar? This week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays were Avedon Carol and Dave Johnson, who argued about why the Democratic leadership keeps sabotaging the Democratic Party and democracy. Homework for this one includes: WikiLeaks, "Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)" "Secret Rahm memo to Clinton: Step up attack on immigrants. Be Nixon on crime". Digby on "Triangulatin'90s style" Populist Majority "Why Blue Dog Mike Ross Will Lose His Run For Arkansas Governor" "The Lamest Operation in America" - or how Emily's List siphons off liberal donations for losers. (Also at Down With Tyranny!"Vive la libération: St. Louisans celebrate as their city is declared a George F. Will-free zone.") David Atkins talked about his blog post "Wherein I sympathize with Erick Erickson" on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. (Related story: "Crazy Mississippi runoff turns ugly: 'Poll watchers' head to black voting sites.") "Obama alums join anti teachers union case [...] The Incite Agency, founded by former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and former Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, will lead a national public relations drive to support a series of lawsuits aimed at challenging tenure, seniority and other job protections that teachers unions have defended ferociously. LaBolt and another former Obama aide, Jon Jones - the first digital strategist of the 2008 campaign - will take the lead in the public relations initiative." (via) David Dayen, "Wingnuts and liberals' bizarre role reversal: Why Export-Import Bank politics are so perverse: Nowadays, Democrats are defending Ex-Im, and the right is calling it "corporate welfare." It wasn't always that way: A fascinating game of role reversal is playing out in Congress, where Democrats are teaming up with the Chamber of Commerce, and Republicans are using phrases like 'stop corporate welfare.' Many of the same politicians lined up on the other side of the debate just a few years earlier. What has turned Washington into a wonky remake of Freaky Friday? The reauthorization of the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, a government-run enterprise that grants loans and insurance at below-market rates to facilitate large trade deals. [...] But pre-Internet liberals might want to get out their back issues of the Nation and Mother Jones at this point to jog their memory, for they will see article after article condemning the 80-year-old institution as a slush fund that allows the government to fund a series of nasty activities. Here's one from 1981 ('The Ex-Im helps sell nuclear reactors to dictatorships like the Philippines'). Here's another from 1992, about the Reagan administration using Ex-Im to funnel loans to Saddam Hussein's Iraq during their war with Iran. Even more recently, in 2011, Mother Jones reported on how Ex-Im loan guarantees helped build one of the largest coal plants in the world, in South Africa. (Ex-Im subsequently announced it would stop facilitating coal plant production - but only in December of last year.) [...] And Sanders certainly did not believe that financing for multinational trade deals would dry up without Ex-Im. He questioned the head of the bank in 2004, asking, 'General Electric, which itself is one of the largest financial institutions in America, cannot get loans anyplace else but from the taxpayers and the workers of America? Are you going to tell me with a straight face that GE is a struggling small business, a minority business in the barrio of New York, and they just cannot find financing?'" So, looks like we're lucky we have Republicans in Congress to finally refuse re-authorization of this piece of crap. And here's a little reminder that stop-&-frisk and marijuana possession laws criminalize being black, because it's routine to stop and search black males, and to ignore whites who are at least as likely to be in possession of marijuana. On The Majority Report: Beth Schwartzapfel discussed her recent piece, "The Great American Chain Gang." Yes, there is legal slavery in America, they just call it something else. Philip Mirowski talked about How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. Of course, it could be worse. You could, for example, be a 95-Year-Old WWII Vet who the police shoot to death for refusing to go to the hospital. Will these cops be held to account? Even if the UK, it just doesn't happen. The police are the most dangerous people on the streets. Digby on the exoneration of the Central Park 5: "This case is actually one of the few that has a satisfying result but a lot of the credit has to go to the DA's office which actually endorsed the fact that they had wrongfully convicted these men. That is an anomaly." Democracy Now!, "The Guantánamo 'Suicides' Revisited: Did CIA Hide Deaths of Tortured Prisoners at Secret Site? In one of the great mysteries of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, three prisoners, two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, died the night of June 9, 2006. Authorities at Guantánamo said the three men - Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, Salah Ahmed al-Salami and Mani Shaman al-Utaybi - had killed themselves. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, described their deaths as an "act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us." But explosive new evidence shows there may have been a cover-up on how the men actually died. Recently discovered pages from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service suggest that the men died not from suicide, but torture." Thanks to esteemed commenter jcapan for reminding me of why Bernie Sanders should not run for president: "In other words: We recognize this guy won't win - we're implicitly acknowledging that in the very petition calling on him to run - so don't worry, loyal Democrats, after we blow off some steam during the primary we will turn out in force for whoever isn't the Republican." Hm, who would be deliberately committing voter fraud? Oh, right. "Now we learn about the curious case of Robert Monroe, a 50-year-old health executive who is accused of voting a dozen times in 2011 and 2012, including seven times in the recalls of Scott Walker and his GOP ally Alberta Darling. Wisconsin officials say it's the worst case of multiple voting in memory. Oh, and, did I mention he's a Republican?" Why, yes, if Detroit is really planning to take people's water away, I see no reason why they shouldn't dump their unflushable waste on toney golf courses. I liked the first commenter's inventory of rights: "Things that are, according to conservatives, not a right: drinkable water, breathable air, food, jobs you can earn enough to survive on, health care, education, functioning infrastructure, voting. Things that are rights, according to conservatives: hoarding as many guns as possible, the legal standing to refuse to serve someone whose race or sexual orientation you don't like, sexual harassment of women, publicly exposing one's racism and bigotry and not getting fired for it, shooting people who look like criminals and getting away with it, the entire media and entertainment industry catering to you and only you, and, of course, delivering college graduation commencement speeches." "Mass. abortion clinic buffer zones ruled illegal" The Rude One says, "You Wanna Keep Harassing Women at Clinics? Then Let's Play." Great idea! "City to fine owners of Little Free Libraries" - I hadn't seen this idea before but I love the thought of having a little "library" on your front lawn where people can just pull out a book and sit down and read it. "'We came back to find a letter from the code enforcement telling us it was an illegal dwelling or structure,' Brian Collins said. Collins put up a Little Free Library on Mother's Day in his front yard near the intersection of 89th Street and Ensley Lane. 'Given that nothing can dwell in here except maybe mice, I really didn't understand what that was all about,' he said." John Oliver makes a deal: Sit through his discussion of the death penalty and be rewarded with a video of a tiny hamster eating a tiny burrito/ After everything sex has done for the internet, it seems an awful lot of important sites are biting the hand that fed them. Paypal cracking down on adult sites, a big image-hosting site banned adult content, Amazon weeding out porn books, and now Google refusing to make shortlinks for "adult" content. Last month's feelgood story: "Ivan Fernandez Anaya, Spanish Runner, Intentionally Loses Race So Opponent Can Win" I've really been enjoying these "This is what anti-pot messages look like to me" mock-ups. Costume party 17 British accents (via) This article on Merry Clayton's recent car crash injury includes a clip of just the vocal track on "Gimme Shelter". I admit, I did not get why this old ad was supposed to be funny, at first. "I want to imagine that this is what Fernando de la Jara intended all along when first constructing the sculpture. 'Someday,' the artist must have mused, 'years after all of Germany has come to marvel at the beauty and wonder of my work, some kid will jam his legs right in there 'for the vine,' and his cries for aid will briefly awaken the bright soul of Georgia O'Keefe from death's cold embrace, and her ghost will laugh so hard that her face falls off.' You know, something poignant like that." More Firefly .gifs. Marvin Gaye at The Bitter End 00:09 GMT comment Friday, 20 June 2014 Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand Marcy Wheeler and BMAZ on Virtually Speaking Sundays about the military's war on media freedom, after Chelsea Manning's op-ed in the NYT, "The Fog Machine of War". Lina Khan in The Washington Monthly, "Thrown Out of Court: How corporations became people you can't sue [...] All this may seem like an archetypical story of our times, combining corporate misconduct, cyber-crime, and high-stakes litigation. But for those who follow the cutting edge of corporate law, a central part of this saga is almost antiquarian: the part where Target must actually face its accusers in court and the public gets to know what went awry and whether justice gets done. Two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings - AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors - have deeply undercut these centuries-old public rights, by empowering businesses to avoid any threat of private lawsuits or class actions. The decisions culminate a thirty-year trend during which the judiciary, including initially some prominent liberal jurists, has moved to eliminate courts as a means for ordinary Americans to uphold their rights against companies. The result is a world where corporations can evade accountability and effectively skirt swaths of law, pushing their growing power over their consumers and employees past a tipping point." Khan discussed the article with Sam Seder on The Majority Report. Sammy also talked to Jack Schneider about The War on Teachers & Democracy. He diplomatically didn't say anything about his co-blogger, Michelle Rhee. Meanwhile, Alan Bennett wrote an attack on private education in the Guardian. Sterling Newberry has a paper up on economics, "Recession and unemployment", which I haven't finished reading yet, but it's good to see him back in the saddle. It seems Justice Scalia has a little trouble discerning the difference between not liking something and, you know, an establishment of religion. As a matter of personal offense, of course, the people who should be most outraged at public displays of false piety that harness the trappings and talismans of faith to political posturing and tribalism would be the Christians who should recognize this blatant flouting of the teachings of Jesus for cynical purposes. That is personal. But letting the government do it is an affront to the 1st Amendment, which one would think a Supreme Court justice might find just a bit, you know, unconstitutional. On the other hand, the Supremes unanimously did something intelligent: they curbed software patents. In The American Conservative, a thoughtful piece on Bowe Bergdahl as a GOP scapegoat for a host of warhawk/chickenhawk failures, and of course Obama. I just love the way Charlie Pierce writes. "Here's Some Stupid For Lunch: We've kept a weather eye on Ruth Marcus, who writes a column at Fred Hiatt's House Of Hopeless Hacks, ever since she explained that 'potty-mouthed' teenagers - Her word, by the way - should know their place, and that their place was not mocking Sam Brownback, the Papist loon currently turning Kansas into Mordor. Recently, she joined the mourning over the loss to the Republic of the genius that was Eric Cantor." I don't know what the fuss is about, they just exchanged one No vote for another. I expect a walk-back update momentarily, but it seems Glenn Beck admitted on the air that liberals were right about Iraq. I'm not holding my breath for the "liberal media" to make the same admission on CBS or in the Newspaper of Record. Of course, Beck's analysis of why liberals opposed the invasion are at about 180 degrees from anything any liberal actually ever said, but still. An alert from ql at Eschaton: "One of our pals has launched his own news site, The Halifax Examiner. Even though I don't live anywhere near Halifax, I subscribed because the issues covered are the same whether they occur in Philadelphia, Seattle or Halifax. From juicing the numbers as to how much revenue a convention center will generate to how a contract for a sewer plant is awarded, it's almost as if they are all using the same playbook. It seems no one else in the main stream press is covering these stories and they have a direct impact on our quality of life. I look forward to seeing how this develops. Good luck! " "Recovered Economic History: ''Everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious' [...] Yep, despite what you might have learned, the transition to a capitalistic society did not happen naturally or smoothly. See, English peasants didn't want to give up their rural communal lifestyle, leave their land and go work for below-subsistence wages in shitty, dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of landowning capitalists. And for good reason, too. Using Adam Smith's own estimates of factory wages being paid at the time in Scotland, a factory-peasant would have to toil for more than three days to buy a pair of commercially produced shoes. Or they could make their own traditional brogues using their own leather in a matter of hours, and spend the rest of the time getting wasted on ale. It's really not much of a choice, is it? But in order for capitalism to work, capitalists needed a pool of cheap, surplus labor. So what to do? Call in the National Guard!" "PRIVACY BREACH: Oklahoma posts ALL of your personal info online if you get arrested: Online court records in Oklahoma reveal your social security number, birth date, telephone number, address, and much more personal information before you're ever convicted of a crime." Richard Wolff: We Need "Democracy in the Workplace" Should politicians wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers to identify their corporate sponsors? Iggy Pop Praises Justin Bieber (Under Torture) in Amnesty Ad "Hobby Lobby Fires Employee For Divorcing Husband" Quiz: How Well Do You Know America? Obama's first term: a reminder. Churchill on democracy Leonard Cohen's Seven Immutable Laws of Business Jeff Schalles dug up this old photo he took of me and John Shirley and Tess Kissinger. Imagine my surprise upon learning that Frank Zappa was once a guest on The Steve Allen Show. The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot - The Sequel: Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann in the Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Photo: BBCPaul McGann has reported that a sequel to last year's online/red-button anniversary special, The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot has entered production. The actor, who appeared briefly in the original, was speaking at an event for Cambridge Union Society, which also saw "Reboot" co-star Sylvester McCoy speak back in May. Whorhythmics Congratulations: Andi Schecter and Stu Shiffman got married - woohoo! RIP Gerry Goffin, 75. The Guardian has its own Six of the best, but here's some more breadth: The Animals, "Don't Bring Me Down", Goffin-King 1966 Bobby Vee, "Take Good Care of My Baby", Goffin-King 1961 The Righteous Brothers, "Just Once In My Life ", Goffin-King 1965 Freddie Scott, "Hey Girl", Goffin-King 1963 Barry Mann, "Who Put The Bomp", Goffin-Mann 1961 15:48 GMT comment Friday, 13 June 2014 It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry How gay activists - led by GetEQUAL and Service Members United - won in the Obama era, when other progressive communities were stymied by Democratic inaction and hostility. AmericaBlog former Deputy Editor Joe Sudbay talked with Contributing Editor Gaius Publius on Virtually Speaking. Dave Johnson and Joan McCarter talked about game-changers on last weekend's Virtually Speaking Sunday. On The Majority Report, David Huyssen discussed his book Progressive Inequality: Rich and Poor in New York, 1890-1920, about why the progressive movement wasn't what was needed and was failing the public. When It Came To Wall St., David Brat Actually Ran As Elizabeth Warren: "Brat told Internet radio host Flint Engelman that the 'number one plank' in his campaign is 'free markets.' Brat went on to explain, 'Eric Cantor and the Republican leadership do not know what a free market is at all, and the clearest evidence of that is the financial crisis - When I say free markets, I mean no favoritism to K Street lobbyists.' Banks like Goldman Sachs were not fined for their role in the financial crisis - rather, they were rewarded with bailouts, Brat has said." Chris Floyd: "US and European politicians won't explain it because any honest explanation would expose the emptiness at the core of all their proffered reasons for the Terror War. They can't explain it because the Terror War system -- including the increasing militarization and repression in their own countries -- has now become organizing principle of Western society. Or rather, it is the latest incarnation of what has been the guiding principle of Western society since World War II: organizing society and the economy around war, either active war or the ever-present "threat" of war (assiduously exaggerated -- or even manufactured -- at every turn). For government and big business, the immense power and profit and control they inevitably accrued from conducting total war on a global basis was far too enticing to give up once the war was over. The full mobilization of society's resources for war simply carried on; indeed, was expanded and amplified." "Republicans Aren't The Only Anti-Gay Members Of Congress [...] On April 29, 2009, the House passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, 249-175, 18 Republican abandoning their hate-filled and bigoted leaders, crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats. Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and McCarthy were against the bill and they had support from 17 of the most racist and conservative Democrats in the House" "China Laughed When It Saw How Cheap Solar Could Be: Do you remember when Dr. Evil was going to hold the world ransom for $1,000,000? This is what we are facing today in Solar - the Dr. Evil ultimatum. The cost to get Solar to coal parity is going to be laughably tiny." The technocrats who want to eliminate cash - and why we need to oppose them: "So there you have it: Let Yglesias and his technocrat-manager friends bring all money under the control of government and corporate financial institutions (never mind their recent performance record) and hard times will be a thing of the past! Does that sound too good to be true to anyone else?" I'm sure the idea of never having to use cash at a counter must sound great to anyone who has never, ever needed to send someone else out to the shops for something, but I have had days when I simply couldn't have functioned if I'd been unable to hand someone some cash. Like those times when you need to have someone pick up your prescriptions and you don't want them to have to pay for it, or those moments when you just don't have time to do two things at once. And when I buy something directly off of a friend, I don't see why I should have to find some way to make an electronic transfer to them instead of just pulling a couple of quid out of my pocket. And that's just what's on the surface, the everyday stuff. There could be a lot more important reasons to deal untraceably among honest people. Especially when you know how dishonest your government is. The Mass Murderers' Conference Adam Roberts in the Guardian, "War of the worlds: who owns the political soul of science fiction?: In the sci-fi genre, two diametrically opposed ideologies are battling it out as leftwing writers embrace otherness, while the rightwingers look up to authority" "Bill Watterson's Strips For Pearls Before Swine", and "'Calvin and Hobbes' creator Bill Watterson returns to the comics page - to offer a few 'Pearls' gems". "Saskatoon honours Joni Mitchell with new parking lot: After years of contemplation on how to pay tribute to an iconic Canadian musician, the City of Saskatoon will honour Joni Mitchell with a 400 space parking lot. The Joni Mitchell Paradise Parking Lot will be located beside a Wal-Mart and several other box stores located in the city's East End." (Okay, it's a parody site, but it was good for a laugh. Waitin' on the Tree Museum.) This is from 2008, but still: "Where Are They Now - WKRP in Cincinnati". The Band, featuring Paul Butterfield, "Mystery Train" Paul Butterfield, "Two Trains Running" Al Kooper and Steve Stills 23:40 GMT comment Monday, 09 June 2014 Money for nothin' David Margolick, senior contributor at Vanity Fair, discussed his book Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. "He takes us back to 1939 when Billie Holiday first performed, and then recorded, one of the most extraordinary songs of the 20th century. The book reflects wide-ranging interviews, from Lena Horne to Pete Seeger, all of which describe how they were affected by the song." (.mp3) "Strange Fruit" has, of course, since been covered by a remarkable range of artists (I had some surprises looking around YouTube), but it almost never got recorded at all, because no record company would touch it. Jim Hightower: "5 Signs That America Has Gone Bonkers - And a Glimmer of Hope [...] It might appear that the U-S-of-A has gone bonkers. So let me clear up any confusion that you might have: Yes, it has! Yet, it hasn't. More on that in a moment. First, though - whether looking at the 'tea party' congress critters who've swerved our nation's political debate to the hard right, or at the peacocks of Wall Street who continue to preen and profit atop the wreckage they've made of our real economy - it's plain to see that America is suffering a pestilence of nuts and narcissists in high places. These 'leaders' are hell bent to enthrone themselves and their ilk as the potentates of our economic, governmental and social systems and they are aggressively trying to snuff out the light of egalitarianism that historically has been our society's unifying force. [...] Most people know that things are screwy, that this is not the America that's supposed to be. And therein lies the good news: The USA hasn't gone crazy - its leaders have and they can be changed." Hightower is always more optimistic than I am, but some part of me needs to believe. As to what's actually happening, Sirota, "If the Left Had a Tea Party: Suburban Albany is not known for its rip-roaring weekend scene, but this most recent Saturday night, it was the momentary center of the political universe, as an underfunded political party was using its quadrennial convention to try to force America's most powerful and best-financed governor to submit to its demands. Though the Working Families Party's conventions are typically low-key affairs, this one had drawn 800 activists and operatives and most of the New York press corps - all to see if the party would endorse conservative Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo or run a third-party candidate against him." In the end they endorsed Cuomo, but maybe they got something for it. He should still be run out of town on a rail, though. NY Times reporter faces jail time after Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal: A New York Times journalist faces jail time after the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on Monday over whether the First Amendment gives him the right to protect his confidential source. James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has repeatedly refused to name the source for his 2006 book entitled the State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration exposing CIA abuses he had discovered. In particular, chapter 9 of that book disclosed an attempt by the CIA to have a former Soviet nuclear scientist subvert the Iranian nuclear program. Arguments presented in Risen's book, forced the US Department of Justice to search his phone, credit card and bank records to compile a case against a former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, charged under the Espionage Act, for allegedly leaking the Iranian story to the reporter. Amazon plays Monopoly: "But the fact that it's entirely normal doesn't mean that we should casually dismiss this particular spat. Amazon's influence over the book business is now greater than anything Barnes & Noble ever enjoyed. The retail landscape is vastly different than it was five or 10 years ago. There are far fewer options for buying books. What Amazon's most virulent critics feared has come to pass. Having consolidated its power over the book publishing industry, Amazon is now exploiting it. If it continues to do so, unchecked by antitrust enforcement or meaningful competition, there's a very real chance that the quality product at the center of all this - the book! - will suffer." "Pepper Spray Cop's Settlement Sets Dangerous Precedent [...] Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis police pepper-sprayed a group of sitting protesters in 2011. Amidst an autumn of federally-coordinated, violent police suppression of the Occupy movement, the incident in Davis was clearly one of the most heinous cases. A group of students had linked arms, sat down, and refused to move when the police came to evict their encampment. Lt. John Pike then casually exhibited a red can of military-grade pepper spray, nonchalantly strolled past the protesters, and doused them in orange gas, which led to the hospitalization several of the students. International outrage ensued. "Pepper Spraying Cop" became a widely-shared meme, and Pike was originally put on paid leave and eventually fired. The students sued, and a $1 million settlement was split between all 21 of them. Pike was just awarded $38,058 in disability payments, after claiming he suffered "emotional and psychological damage" from his attack on UC Davis students." Matt Stoller on "The Con-Artist Wing of the Democratic Party" and Geithner's self-serving book: "There's another serious omission about this period in Geithner's career: his time as a Treasury lobbyist. As documents unearthed by financial analyst Josh Rosner show, in the late 1990s, Geithner, Summers, and Rubin lobbied for World Trade Organization rules forcing the liberalization of financial services across borders, at the behest of large bank CEOs. This matters because the entire book is about Geithner's reflections on financial crises, and one of the central causes of these crises was 'hot money.' 'Globalization had unleashed enormous sums of 'hot money' that could instantaneously flow across borders,' he warns, 'while the aspects of human psychology that had helped produce financial booms and crises for centuries remained unchanged.' By presenting globalization as an inherent natural force, and not mentioning his role in crafting the policies that led to hot money flows, he misleads by omission. In other words, Geithner wasn't just a firefighter, but an arsonist. You wouldn't know this, because Geithner in the book laments free capital flows. But he wasn't lamenting them when it mattered (and the position of the US government's trade representative today is still that hot money is good)." David Dayen, "Summers: Helping Homeowners Would Have Hurt Banks: I have a review of Mian and Sufi's House of Debt out today, and so does Larry Summers. His review is very strange. It starts off with almost unvarnished praise for the book, saying 'it could be the most important book to come out of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession.' He celebrates their data collection, largely agrees with their alternative rendering of the causes of the crisis, and pronounces it 'a major contribution' that should give pause to what Mian and Sufi call 'the banking view' of the crisis, essentially that the economy hinges on protecting and saving the financial system. And then, Summers calls them naive and says they didn't understand the reality of what policymakers faced in 2008 and 2009. Specifically, he says that 'We all believed in 2009 what Mian and Sufi have now conclusively demonstrated - that reducing mortgage debt would spur consumer spending,' saying they did not have a narrow banking view of crisis response. Yet almost every one of Summers' objections - to supporting bankruptcy judges rewriting terms of primary mortgages, to forcing principal write-downs, to buying underwater mortgages through a Home Owners Loan Corporation-type structure - comes with the warning that the preferred policy of mortgage debt relief would hurt the banks." There's a more detailed analysis of Larry Summers' Attempt to Rewrite Cramdown History here from someone who actually understands bankruptcy, unlike, apparently, anyone in the Obama administration. Elizabeth Warren And Thomas Piketty Discuss Nature, Causes Of Economic Inequality The price of austerity is one those who won't pay it are always willing to pay. I suppose Stiglitz is being circumspect in his calls for higher taxation of capital, but surely everyone has figured out by now that there's a level of wealth that no one should have. Torture isn't torture in California prisons, either. "There is a certain ironic symmetry in the resignation of General Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs" - but of course, it's so much easier to short-change the VA and blame everyone else than it would have been to simply fund it - and fix it. John Oliver on Net Neutrality. Update, the FCC website couldn't handle it. Theory And Practice - Conversations With Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn Here's the FULL PREMIERE of Lee Camp's new weekly TV show. The Ansible obits tell me Ken Brown has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 57. Damn, I liked him. He even occasionally commented here at The Sideshow. I really miss Steve Gilliard. I just can't help thinking it would have been better if he'd been here these last seven years. The Absurd Reason Why America Circumcises Baby Boys When George Clooney made Roseanne work overtime Wouldn't you know, the Anxiety Arts Festival London 2014. The Comics Curmudgeon Mark Evanier has a nice clip up of Holbrook's Mark Twain. The Jazz Photography of Bill Gottlieb Dire Straits 13:19 GMT comment Saturday, 31 May 2014 Madness takes its toll I meant to have posted this piece from the Bread and Roses page earlier, but I didn't get around to it. They're on Facebook, which many people are justifiably allergic to, so here's the full text: "We are coming up on the anniversary of the MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE - one of the bloodiest days in labor history: On May 30, 1937, outside Republic Steel in Chicago, heavily armed police and company thugs attacked workers and their families with impunity, as they peacefully marched across a field to picket at the steel mill after a holiday picnic. At the time, mill owners were refusing to recognize the Steelworkers union. Many workers were shot in the back, others were beaten while bleeding and on the ground. Police bullets killed four marchers right away; six more would die from their wounds. Thirty more people were seriously wounded, with 100 more clubbed by police. Nobody responsible was ever prosecuted and newspapers called the massacre 'a labor riot', claiming it was led by 'Red Chiefs' and a 'Mexican Army.' Mill bosses and their govt. supporters suppressed film footage of the event. The U.S. Senate eventually held hearings on what happened that revealed most strikers were shot in the back while fleeing." RJ Eskow and Stuart Zechman talked about ACA, the VA, and Democrats' disappointing election strategies as they emerge, on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Steven Durlauf discussed the Piketty data and Durlauf's 2008 paper Are Growth Theories Robust? on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. Michael Kinsley has turned into the cranky old man who gets trotted out to yell at the kids, I think. But he started down that road a while ago, and I don't suppose we should be surprised that he came out waving his golf club at Glenn Greenwald. Still, it's always bizarre to see a journalist advocating giving the government veto power over what the press can publish and suggested that somehow prior restraint is preferable to letting Glenn Greenwald decide that he's got a story the public needs to hear. So you would expect lots of journalists - especially those who supposedly have liberal credentials - to be recoiling in horror. I just hope we can put to bed once and for all the fantasy that any of these people are part of anything liberal. Oh, but that Glenn Greenwald, he just makes those "liberals" So mad! Las Vegas cop cleared after shooting unarmed man [...] This is the consequence when we put a premium on officer safety, giving it more value than the rights and safety of citizens. When I was researching my book, I talked to Neil Franklin about this. Franklin is a former Maryland state trooper, a former narcotics cop and was once in charge of curriculum at the Maryland State Police Academy. 'I think there are two critical components to policing that cops today have forgotten,' Franklin told me. 'Number one, you've signed on to a dangerous job. That means that you've agreed to a certain amount of risk. You don't get to do start stepping on others' rights to minimize that risk you agreed to take on. And number two, your first priority is not to protect yourself, it's to protect those you've sworn to protect. But I don't know how you get police officers today to value those principles again. The 'us and everybody else' sentiment is strong today. It's very, very difficult to change a culture.'" The Washington Post continues to be a voice for the warmongers, and Charles Pierce has a rather good rant about Fred Hiat's War. On the other hand, good on the NYT for looking at The Price of a Sex-Slave Rescue Fantasy. It's very difficult to get across to people that the figures we have are unreliable and usually heavily inflated. Not to mention the people who just make stuff up. It's even harder to tell people that general economic issues, not kidnapping, account for large numbers of girls and women going into prostitution when they'd rather not - just like it accounts for many, many people all over the world staying in employment they can't stand. (via) Could aspirin be an anti-cancer drug? Union workers see only part of big hourly markups at Convention Center - and middlemen get 150% more than the workers. The "new economy", generates a special kind of thinking, where being a middleman is worth more than actual work. Maya Angelou on the Black Side of the Tracks, 1982, with Bill Moyers. "New STEM Education Initiative Inspires Girls To Earn Less Than Men In Scientific Career" "Permission Slip" - Father versus "Christian Volunteer" (via) A Great Big Bunch Of Game Of Thrones Interviews To Help Tide You Over Best privit hedge ever The Worst Waiter in History Alien retro The Necronomithong Let's do the Timey-Wimey Time Warp again. 16:47 GMT comment Saturday, 24 May 2014 Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong Marcy Wheeler was this week's guest on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. For background, you might want to check out Marcy's "Why USA Freedumber Doesn't End (What You and I Think of as) Bulk Collection", "The Source of the Intelligence Legitimacy Problem", "No Protection For International Communications: Russ Feingold Warned Us" and all the other stuff on spies she has up at Emptywheel. Of note is "The Disturbing Paradox of the David Barron Nomination". It's amazing how helpless Obama is to appoint good nominees and yet still manages to appoint bad ones. Stephanie Kelton joined Sam Seder Thursday to talk about how money works, on The Majority Report. "Barack Obama, Wall Street co-conspirator" - It's nice to see Sirota has come to grips with the issue. "Of course, that many can and do see him as something else is proof that Obama's cynical political formula works - and works well. As I wrote in my column last week, he seems to know that in a short-attention-span country where the electorate focuses more on TV packaged rhetoric than on reality, he can give tough-sounding speeches and be widely credited as 'tough on Wall Street' - even if he isn't doing anything to stop financial crime. He also seems to know that liberals, in particular, want to believe 'their guy' is trying to do the right thing, even when he's trying to do the opposite. He knows that for many liberals, it is simply too painful to admit 'their guy' is often as duplicitous and destructive as their sworn GOP enemies - and so he knows he probably will face no real opposition movement among the voters who put him in office. " Dean Baker, "Robert Samuelson Wants Us to Default on the National Debt: Actually, he probably doesn't, but that would be the logic of his complaint (taken from Gene Steuerle) that "dead men" have established priorities for federal spending. After all, dead men made the decision to borrow the money that constitutes the debt, which thereby obligates the country to pay back the interest and principal. But Samuelson's complaint is not about the interest and principal being paid back to rich people like Peter Peterson, Samuelson is upset about the money being paid out to ordinary workers (mostly retirees) for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid." It's pretty amazing that a grown man could believe some of the crap that comes out of the Chicago School boys. The idea that health care is exactly the same as the automobile market is so bananas that even David Cameron - David Cameron! showed them the door when they proposed it. New Obamacare Loophole Shows Failure of For-Profit Health System: "This new rule to limit payments for needed medical procedures is a reminder of everything that is wrong with our profit-driven healthcare system." Digby says there's "No hope and change for mortgage relief: If you've been reading Dave Dayen's work over the past few years (and I know you have) then you already know the details of what went wrong with housing policy in half a dozen different ways. It's not a pretty picture. Today legislative expert Sarah Binder summarizes one of the more depressing aspects of the failure: the administration's strange unwillingness to push for "cramdown" --- the mortgage relief program which had been widely assumed, even by the banks, to be a done deal." Also at Hullabaloo, David Atkins alerts us to a worthy NPR report on increasing court fees that further disadvantage the poor. The logic of the poor house seems to have overtaken our "justice" system with startling effectiveness. "Defendants are charged for a long list of government services that were once free - including ones that are constitutionally required." Also from Digby, collusion between the NSA and the DEA - spying on everyone in the world is not just for terrorism anyone. As if it ever had been. Commenter ksix points to an article on "Five things you need to know about Credit Suisse's criminal charge" and notes that, yes, it's hard to want to see your friends go to prison, but you do choose what kind of friends you will have. If you want to know why southern Republicans think the Democratic Party is a thing of evil, you might ask why the Democratic Party keeps working so hard to push Democratic candidates who are too right-wing for the Tea Party. To recap: Obama tried to get Congress to have a commission to worry about the important work of "reducing deficits" (aka cutting or privatizing Social Security). Congress wanted nothing to do with it (because it's a stupid idea) and was smart enough to ignore him. So Obama put his own commission together stacked with anti-Social Security crackpots and housed by uber-SS-hater Pete Peterson. Even they couldn't manage to agree to screw up Social Security, so Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson wrote a letter saying we should really do some nice destructive things to the economy and, fortunately, nothing happened except some windbags continuing to insist that we really really really need to do something about "entitlements". And David Brooks apparently thinks that's just what we need more of! Ohio Prison Shows Pirated Movies to Prisoners Convicted of Pirating Movies 50 years on: The reason conservatives hated Great Society programs is because they worked. It's just amazing to me that it's taken this long for women to be included in pharmaceutical testing. I've been complaining about this since at least the '70s and I really had thought by now that no one would assume that tests on males were sufficient to account for female responses to drugs. Just another example of how people are so busy inventing false differences between men and women that they keep forgetting the real ones. (And now I see PZ Myers has picked up on this one, too. This reminds me of the argument about using "he" as the default general pronoun, even though it produced nonsense sentences and phrases.) "Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies" via Atrios, who notes that this service is not going to be available to a little guy with a big idea, but to a big guy with a a lot of power. "AR-Gov: Asa Hutchinson (R) Turned Away from Polls Because of Voter ID Law: Asa Hutchinson was turned away from the polls because he didn't have proper ID as required under Arkansas's Voter ID Law. Given Asa's support for making it harder for Arkansans to cast a ballot, you'd think he would have been prepared to produce his ID at the polls." Valued Sideshow commenter Jcapan recommends "Western intervention will turn Nigeria into an African Afghanistan" the "best thing I've read about Boko Haram", and Ian Welsh's "Equal Rights to Profit from Impoverishing People and Causing a Great Extinction Event" as the best reaction to the firing of Jill Abrahmson. Everybody hates Comcast. Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection With Humane New Head-Ripping-Off Machine My favorite headline of the week Dracula's castle for sale. Law & Order Game of Thrones Sudden extreme homesickness: I just made a typo on YouTube and accidentally discovered an advertisement for something I had never seen an advertisement for previously. It used to just be one restaurant I first learned about when, um, well, when my friends were stoned and had the munchies and remembered that I had a car and phoned me up and convinced me to come pick them up and drive them to Adelphi. When I was in college and feeling flush and wanted to treat myself - or a friend was feeling flush - we would stop there on the way home to pick one up. (But only if we had enough time on our hands for what seemed an excruciatingly long wait.) Then at some point we discovered that another restaurant had been given a franchise to serve the miraculous dish. And one day, after I moved to London, my brother picked me up at Dulles when I went home for a visit and drove directly to something that hadn't existed before: They'd opened a restaurant in Wheaton, not far from his house! Wait, they have an advertisement now? But Wikipedia tells me that, "There are now over 100 restaurants in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, West Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina, and Florida." I can't believe anyone living within a 20-minute trip to a Ledo's would even think of going anywhere else for pizza. How could you? I'm pretty sure I already posted the original link to this, but I'm posting this one because David Bowie or his lawyer or someone is being a jerk. 19:17 GMT comment Sunday, 18 May 2014 Please, Mr. Postman David Waldman and Stuart Zechman will probably be talking about guns and gunfail on this week's Virtually Speaking Sundays. Stuart may very well take issue with the idea of being anti-self-defense. But actually, despite Jay Ackroyd's obsession with KagroX's #gunfail habit, David is good on some other issues I hope they'll be talking about, too. David Cay Johnston discussed Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. Well, Geithner managed to score Atrios' World's Worst Human award, and he links to Michael Hitzik's article in the LAT, "What Tim Geithner doesn't know about Social Security is ... shocking : Could Tim Geithner really not know that Social Security doesn't contribute to the deficit?" Meanwhile at Salon, David Dayen continues his mission of making sure no one believes the story the World's Worst Human is trying to tell about himself, with "This man made millions suffer: Tim Geithner's sorry legacy on housing." Felix Salmon says Geithner is an unreliable narrator. I'm thinking Geithner's book doesn't say much about how he and Summers engineered the crisis in the first place. The FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal Is Out: It's Time to Make Our Voices Heard House Democrats aren't supporting Big Cable like they did in 2010 Somehow, Activists Have Put Protecting Net Neutrality Back on the Agenda "The touching, eternal optimism of liberal hawks: As the response to the kidnapping of several hundred Nigerian schoolgirls has grown from hashtag activism to full blown international incident, the calls for action have become increasingly bellicose. Some of those calls have revealed (once again) a deeply rooted militaristic streak in America, one that transcends political affiliation. [...] " Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now!: U.S. Corporate Media is "Neutered, Impotent and Obsolete". "Kidnapped Girls Become Tools of U.S. Imperial Policy in Africa" - Glen Ford tells you more than you're supposed to know about the madness of Boko Haram, and how it got that way. Mad Cops: "Cop Shoots Dead an Unarmed, Tased and Subdued Teen, 'We don't have time for this' Bang!" "Cop Who Zip Tied, Tortured, & Beat His Daughter Daily is Trying to Stay Out Of Jail" We know that the spy program was going on at least as early as February of 2001. It's well-known. We don't get to forget this. So why does everyone - and I do mean pretty much everyone - talk about it as having been instituted "because of" or "after" September 11th of 2001? Because that just isn't true. Obama's Worst Judicial Nominee - Maybe it's time we all ask Pat Leahy why he is so busy giving so much power to the Republicans? "Why a Principled Left Should Support the Benghazi Inquiry [...] One would think that those on the left would support this inquiry, as limited and partisan as it will be, on the democratic principle that the people have a right to know what occurred before, during and in the aftermath of the attack. But even more importantly, by demanding a more comprehensive examination of all the activity of the U.S. in Libya in the aftermath of the destruction of that state, including the mission of the CIA in Benghazi, the left can and should raise serious questions that expose the dangerous strategy of empowering anti-democratic, right-wing forces, from al Qaeda-connected jihadists in Syria to neo-fascists in Ukraine." "Jill Abramson fired for seeking equal pay: Report: The announcement, today, that Jill Abramson was departing her job as executive editor of the New York Times prompted much speculation across the media. Abramson, appointed in 2011, had enjoyed a relatively brief tenure and one riven by nasty, critical coverage, particularly in Politico. Howard Kurtz, a Fox News media reporter, noted that there's 'Gotta be a backstory there.' Ken Auletta of the New Yorker has reported on Abramson in the past, and today reports that there indeed was: that Abramson recently learned her pay package was not commensurate with that of her predecessor, Bill Keller, and sought parity. Auletta reports: 'She confronted the top brass,' one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management's narrative that she was 'pushy,' a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.' The counterargument to Abramson's pay request, predictably, is that ownership did not want to outlay more money in a difficult time for print media, but in an update, Auletta notes that a deputy of Abramson's, a man, made more money than she did while she was managing editor." Romenesko has more. Pierce has a few words of his own for the Times brass. But Wonkette wins this one. "The court that created the patent troll mess is screwing up copyright too [...] The Federal Circuit is the court that hears appeals in all patent cases. Over the last three decades, it has shown a consistent bias in favor of patent holders, setting legal precedents that made the current patent troll problem possible." Henry A. Giroux | Noam Chomsky and the Public Intellectual in Turbulent Times RIP HR Geiger Correlations - This is fun. Browsing an Incredible New 'Social Atlas of London' I just love this picture. Cool steampunk dragon-eye jewelry and stuff Jazz for Cows The Marvelettes 17:56 GMT comment Monday, 12 May 2014 You got me so I don't know what I'm doing Dave Johnson and Jay Ackroyd were this week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays, talking about the trade deficit, tax extensions vs infrastructure bank, profit repatriation and the $2 trillion held offshore. Cecily was found guilty - A strange man reached around Cecily McMillan and grabbed her breast - something any normal person would recognize as a sexual assault. Cecily elbowed him back, which is pretty much what any normal woman would do. Manhattan DA Cy Vance prosecuted Cecily for assaulting an officer, since the molester turned out to be a plainclothes cop. The judge suppressed evidence and prejudiced the jury. WTF, Amazon? More patent craziness, and this one's a doozy. More at Boing Boing. From Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism: " No Evidence Justice Department Will Prosecute U.S. Banks Responsible for Financial Crisis: "Bill Black is in particularly fine form in this Real News Network video. Black recounts the various excuses for not prosecuting the parties that blew up the global economy, and gives a new one from the Justice Department: that regulators told them that yanking bank charters would blow up the global economy. Of course that's a straw man; Black and others who've been serious about prosecution have stressed the importance of targeting individuals. [...] In case you've got friends and colleagues who'd like better talking points as to why the banks (or more accurately banksters) got away with murder, this segment is a great place to start." " SEC Official Describes Widespread Lawbreaking and Material Weakness in Controls in Private Equity Industry: At a private equity conference this week, Drew Bowden, a senior SEC official, told private equity fund managers and their investors in considerable detail about how the agency had found widespread stealing and other serious infractions in its audits of private equity firms. In the years that I've been reading speeches from regulators, I've never seen anything remotely like Bowden's talk. I've embedded it at the end of this post and strongly encourage you to read it in full. Despite the at times disconcertingly polite tone, the SEC has now announced that more than 50 percent of private equity firms it has audited have engaged in serious infractions of securities laws. Amazingly, Politico actually published a piece by David Dayen, and while it doesn't pack the punch of most of his stuff, it does say you already know what kind of self-serving claptrap to expect from one of the architects of America's economic catastrophe and what you should read first: "What Timothy Geithner's New Book Won't Tell You: Don't accept the former Treasury secretary's account without reading Elizabeth Warren's take on all the people he left behind." "Majority Of U.S. Millionaires Say They Should Be Taxed More To Reduce Inequality: In one of the first surveys of its kind, a CNBC poll has revealed that 51% of millionaires in America believe that inequality is 'a major problem', and nearly two-thirds advocate being taxed at a higher rate. [...] One of the most surprising findings was that a tiny minority, just 6%, believe that poor people do not work as hard as the rich." I'm guessing that you'd get a different result from a survey of billionaires. "Lopsided Approach to Wall Street Fraud Undermines the Law: After the failures that led to the financial crisis, many taxpayers expected that the government would take a hard stance against those who had committed egregious violations." But something else happened.... Glenn Greenwald highlights a quote, saying, "Larry Summers explains Washington to Elizabeth Warren in one sentence:" - and the quote is from "The Warren Brief" in The New Yorker and looks like this: "In the spring of 2009, after the panel issued its third report, critical of the bailout, Larry Summers took Warren out to dinner in Washington and, she recalls, told her that she had a choice to make. She could be an insider or an outsider, but if she was going to be an insider she needed to understand one unbreakable rule about insiders: 'They don't criticize other insiders.'" Bill Moyers, "Is Net Neutrality Dead? [...] For most Americans, they have no choice for all the information, data, entertainment coming through their house, other than their local cable monopoly. And here, we have a situation where that monopoly potentially can pick and choose winners and losers, decide what you see" Regular listeners of The Majority Report know that Sam Seder takes great delight in getting calls from libertarians and challenging them to make their case. And from time to time people suggest to him that he ought to have someone on the show as a guest who is a bit more coherent than some of the libertarian callers (nearly all of whom seem to have issues with their telephones). So it came to pass that someone recommended an actual College Professor to debate him, and...it wasn't any better than random wankers, except for the comedy of him expecting Sam to behave like a student listening to a lecture instead of treating it like it was, you know, his own radio show. Glenn Greenwald on "Keith Alexander Unplugged: on Bush/Obama, 1.7 million stolen documents and other matters" - This long "interview" with the recently retired NSA chief generated many quotes, and gave Glenn plenty of meat to get into: "There are few things in life more ironic than being accused by U.S. Generals, including those who participated in the war in Iraq, of being responsible for the loss of lives. For that sort of irony, nothing will beat that episode where the US Pentagon chief and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that WikiLeaks - not themselves, but WikiLeaks - has 'blood on its hands' by virtue of publishing documents about the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In the world of the U.S. National Security State and its loyal media, those who go around the world killing innocent people over and over are noble and heroic, while those who report on what they do are the ones with 'blood on their hands'." Digby posted a good little discussion on Twitter between Glennzilla and Billmon about the new anti-Russia hatefest. Here's one from Glenn I quite liked: "Yep - been a neocon tactic for years (save the gays by bombing Iran! - war in Afghanistan for the women!) - it's working well here." Thomas Piketty's 'Capital' in 3 Minutes Fact-Checking Hillary Clinton's Comments About Edward Snowden and the NSA How Bill Clinton is going to help remind Democrats not to vote for a Clinton One teacher's answer A quick history of racial policy in America - clip from the half-hour documentary Legalize Democracy, which you can watch in full for free. Everything Obama says. This cartoon made me think of Obama's speeches. Important chocolate news R. Crumb's short history of America, in 52 illustrated seconds I apologize for this animated .gif. The quick brown fox jumps.... Librarian Rap Somebody make me a framed copy of this for my wall. The laid-back smooth jazz of Professor RJ Ross 20 minutes of live Rascals, makes me feel good. The papers loved the musical about The Kinks. "You Really Got Me", live. 14:30 GMT comment Sunday, 04 May 2014 Only the echoes of my mind Avedon Carol and Stuart Zechman are tonight's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. We will probably talk about net neutrality and maybe this: I actually listened live to the Munk Debate with Glenn Greenwald and Alexis Ohanian versus Michael Hayden and Alan Dershowitz, which was action-packed adventure. You can watch it on YouTube, and the debate vote results are here. I think it's fair to say that Hayden talked rubbish and Dershowitz was sheer sophistry. Glenn gets in a nice kicker toward the end that completely refutes any arguments about the security of the system, which is simply that Snowden did what he did and there was nothing in the system that prevented that. Marcy Wheeler has posted a little fact-check on Hayden. "Justice Scalia Makes Epic Blunder In Supreme Court Opinion [...] The problem: the EPA's position in the 2001 case was exactly the opposite. The agency was defending its refusal to consider cost as a counter-weight to health benefits when setting certain air quality standards. It was the trucking industry that wanted the EPA to factor in cost. The 9-0 ruling sided with the EPA. The author of the ruling that Scalia mischaracterized? Scalia himself." Musta been one of them senior moments. "The Rise of Corporate Impunity [...] But the crackdown never happened. Over the past year, I've interviewed Wall Street traders, bank executives, defense lawyers and dozens of current and former prosecutors to understand why the largest man-made economic catastrophe since the Depression resulted in the jailing of a single investment banker - one who happened to be several rungs from the corporate suite at a second-tier financial institution." "US death row study: 4% of defendants sentenced to die are innocent: Deliberately conservative figure lays bare extent of possible miscarriages of justice suggesting that the innocence of more than 200 prisoners still in the system may never be recognised." "Alex Pareene Joins Matt Taibbi's New Digital Magazine as Executive Editor" - First Look seems to be scarfing up every journalist who's worth the candle. I hope Rolling Stone and Salon nurturing new ones to replace them who will be in the same class, 'cause I hate to see all the eggs end up in the same basket. (Also, I hate it that FL's homepage doesn't link directly to The Intercept. It should have links to any of its magazines right there.) Atrios has Free Advice For Republicans - with a handy graphic! "Why can't we just get back to the good ol Reagan times?" Toles on the fundamentals of the economy "The curious tale of the economist and the Cezanne in the hedge" - Thank you, Mr. Keynes. Optical illusions at the beach The version of "Everybody's Talkin'" that isn't a cover. 18:33 GMT comment Thursday, 01 May 2014 Date it tomorrow but mail it today John Nichols in The Nation, "Net Neutrality Will Be Saved Only If Citizens Raise an Outcry" - Candidate Obama sounded like he supported net neutrality, but President Obama appointed an industry lobbyist to head the FCC. It's time for the public to exert its influence, and yes, we do still have some influence - but only if we get together and do the business. David Dayen talked about the FCC's position on net neutrality, and what you can do to try to get them to do the business, on Wednesday's Majority Report. Digby and RJ Eskow were this week's guests on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Matt Taibbi was an The Majority Report talking about The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. Matt Stoller is saying America is not an oligarchy - yet, which I might argue with, but he does make this point: A lot of people are misreading this Princeton study on the political influence of the wealthy and business groups versus ordinary citizens. The study does not say that the US is an oligarchy, wherein the wealthy control politics with an iron fist. If it were, then things like Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, veterans programs, housing finance programs, etc wouldn't exist. What the study actually says is that American voters are disorganized and their individualized preferences don't matter unless voters group themselves into mass membership organizations. Then, if people belong to mass membership organizations, their preferences do matter, but less so than business groups and the wealthy. He heads the article with that great quote Martin Sheen has in Wall Street that goes, "The rich have been doing it to the poor since the beginning of time. The only difference between the Pyramids and the Empire State Building is the Egyptians didn't allow unions." (Yep, they told you all this back in 1985, but not enough people were listening.) Ian Welsh on "The Prelude to the End of the American Era: And so it begins. Russia is not restraining the separatists, the Kiev government is finally really sending in the troops, Barack Obama and EU leaders claim they will impose real sanctions and Russia and China are set to ink a deal to export Russian Gas to China, the world's industrial heartland. If the sanctions are imposed, for whatever reason (Russian invasion or not), they will force the creation of a second economic, non-dollar bloc. Russia is not Iran, and China is not going to cut off Russia to please the West, rather the contrary. The creation of a real non dollar bloc which can make almost anything people want, and which has access to essentially all key resources from oil to rare minerals, metals and food is an existential threat to the hegemony of the West and its allies like Japan and Korea." On All In, Chris Hayes talks to Thomas Piketty: "capital is a multi-dimensional concept'". Krugman on The Piketty Panic from the right: "No, what's really new about Capital is the way it demolishes that most cherished of conservative myths, the insistence that we're living in a meritocracy in which great wealth is earned and deserved." "Elizabeth Warren Simplifies Thomas Piketty: 'Trickle Down Doesn't Work. Never Did'." "Obama Administration Argues in Favor of Right to Fire Public Employees Who Testify at Corruption Trials [...] Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked, 'What are you doing about the truth finding functions of a trial setting when you're saying or telling people, employee, don't go and tell the truth because if the truth hurts your employer you're going to be fired?' And, 'What kind of message are we giving when we're telling employees, [who are] subpoenaed [for] any reason in a trial, go and tell a falsehood otherwise you can be fired?' The Fourth Amendment Takes Yet Another Body Blow [...] More important is Navarette vs. California, which has real potential to do some long-term damage. In this case, a 911 caller reported an erratic driver, who was then pulled over and eventually convicted of transporting four bags of marijuana. The police had no probable cause to stop the driver except for that one anonymous phone call, but the Court upheld the conviction anyway. Justice Scalia is typically apoplectic in his dissent, but nonetheless makes some good points" - Scalia being right for a change is itself big news. Jonathan Cohn wrote an entire article called "Cause for Concern: Health-care costs are rising - and the experts aren't sure why prices keep rising" that doesn't mention the secret committee that decides how much to overcharge you for health care, with the connivance of our government: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Perhaps Cohn needs to study the subject. "Obamacare: The Biggest Insurance Scam in History [...] The industries that profit from our current health care system wrote the legislation, heavily influenced the regulations and have received waivers exempting them from provisions in the law. This has all been done to protect and enhance their profits." Radley Balko and Policing and the deaf, and Marlee Matlin on what everyone should know about dealing with the police - especially if you are deaf. "Pork" is the stuff that, in theory, your legislators bring back to your state to spend on its people - that is, on you. No matter that we know it doesn't seem to be happening that way at the moment, the whole idea that "earmarks" are necessarily wasteful is just another right-wing meme that works for them because it says that bringing money back to the people is actually not a good thing. Kudos to Atrios for trying to get people to remember this. The New York Times finally figures out what David Dayen said two months ago: that the economy can't recover if people have no money. "Parents Call Cops to Stop Kids From Handing Out Banned Book [...] Earlier this month, parents convinced Idaho's Meridian school district to ban Sherman Alexie's National Book Award-winning Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian over the objections of 350 students who signed a petition to keep it. According to the local paper, the Statesman, adults argued at a meeting that the book contains offensive words 'we do not speak in our home,' while others objected to a 'reference to masturbation,' and called the book 'anti-Christian.'" If this sounds almost like something George Carlin would say, that's because he said something like it, but not about government. "How to Starve the For-Profit Prison Beast [...] Introducing a cell phone into a correctional facility used to be a misdemeanor in Oklahoma. Now, it's a felony. This change did not happen for any reason other than a private prison lobbyist provided his client with a good way to make even more revenue off of people already imprisoned. Bumping this crime up from a misdemeanor to a felony means that when a person is caught with a cell phone in prison, he or she will end up staying in prison even longer; in most cases the new sentence will be added to the end of the existing one, instead of allowing people to serve time for both the crime that landed them behind bars and the cell phone infraction simultaneously. More prison time, more profits." Dean Baker looks at the latest contribution from The Washington Post to the age war: "Robert Samuelson Is Badly Confused About the Well-Being of Retirees." Apparently, $12K a year makes you rich or something, so old people are really rolling in it. Yes, what we really need is another Democratic presidential candidate who mocks Snowden. But then, we didn't really need another DLC troll, anyway. Just leaving aside the dynasty part. This cartoon caught my eye - there's no longer anything radical about thinking the NYT belongs in the fiction section - but if you can stand Facebook, there's a story that goes with it. Matt Bruenig on the incivility of the way Megan McArdle and David Brooks write about the poor. (via) Was David Graeber evicted for political reasons? That's the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, and his tweet says, "There is a pattern here: almost everyone mentioned in press as involved in early days of OWS has been getting administrative harassment." Political cartoon: The most transparent administration in history The Donald Sterling thing really kinda defies credulity. I honestly don't think I've ever heard anything like it, and I've met a number of interesting racists in my life. It does expose a way of thinking that you really can't imagine any normal person having, and it's not just about race. This is what happens when you let people get way, way too rich. Fortunately, the NBA players all threatened to boycott playoffs, and now Sterling is banned for life from basketball, but jeez. Headline that looks like it was create from MadLibs: "Arkansas ex-cop killed while trying to set anti-corruption blogger's hot dog cart on fire." Vox Day's Hugo nomination has caused a bit of a dust-up in science fiction fandom, which has not escaped Brad DeLong's notice. But I'm linking to this because it gives you easy access to Lois McMaster Bujold's thoughts on the reader as the unsung collaborator in an author's work, which is really worth readying. For more on the kerfluffle, check out John Scalzi, PNH, TNH, and the ensuing comments. "Original Chaucer manuscript in Aberystwyth goes online" Anna tells me it's time to write a letter to Santa: "DEAL ALERT/John Martyn: the Island Years 18-disc box" Cake Wrecks for National Princess Week You know exactly what was going through Bruce's mind when he was doing this. Acyrologia - now you know a high-falutin' name for it. Treehouses Jerry Butler, "Western Union Man" 02:29 GMT comment Wednesday, 23 April 2014 Moonlight through the pines Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Alexa O'Brien and others sue Obama over a clause of the NDAA. "The Barack Obama administration, determined to thwart the attempt by other plaintiffs and myself to have the courts void a law that permits the military to arrest U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and indefinitely detain them, has filed a detailed brief with the Supreme Court asking the justices to refuse to accept our petition to hear our appeal." "US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy: 'Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, ...' and then they go on to say, it's not true, and that, 'America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened' by the findings in this, the first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead 'the nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.'" Digby on the Oligarchy, complete with a link to Phil Agre's indispensable 2004 article, "What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?", which has been on my sidebar forever and gets frequent links on the front page because everyone should read it and recommend it. At Suburban Guerrilla David Cay Johnson on Too Big to Jail Krugman on Gordon Gekko's daughter and America's inherited wealth problem - I can see why Susie excerpted this, but Naked Capitalism has the full interview with some commentary, and there's an article called "What the 1% Don't Want You to Know" with it over at the original Moyers page. Oklahoma wants to charge homeowners who install their own solar panels Thom Hartmann in Salon, "Reaganomics killed America's middle class [...] You can see this trend today in America. When we had heavily regulated and taxed capitalism in the post-war era, the largest employer in America was General Motors, and they paid working people what would be, in today's dollars, about $50 an hour with benefits. Reagan began deregulating and cutting taxes on capitalism in 1981, and today, with more classical 'raw capitalism,' what we call 'Reaganomics,' or 'supply side economics,' our nation's largest employer is WalMart and they pay around $10 an hour. [...] According to Piketty, the post-World War II middle class was created by two major things: the destruction of European inherited wealth during the war and higher taxes on the rich, most of which were rationalized by the war. This brought wealth and income at the top down, and raised working people up into a middle class." Schneier's Crypto-Gram includes lots of meaty stuff, including what the public-private partnership means to cyber security and privacy, and what IBM doesn't say. "Elites Discover So-Called 'Free Trade' Is Killing Economy, Middle Class" - Yes, you'll never guess what The New York Times will notice next. This story makes no sense at all: "NBC hired a 'psychological consultant' to find out what is wrong with David Gregory's ratings [...] Last year, the network commissioned a psychological consultant to interview Gregory's friends and wife. According to a network spokeswoman, Meghan Pianta, the network wanted 'to get perspective and insight from people who know him best,' a project some at the network found unusual given his almost 20 year tenure at NBC." Funny they didn't ask the viewers and non-viewers, who might actually know. "Inspired by the Daily Mail's brave exposé of the fact that charities will give emergency food packages to undercover journalists fraudulently claiming to be destitute and hungry," The Daily Mail Timeline of Shame. A really small fish makes the case against despair. This is probably the only truly credible threat I have heard about Al Queda since 9/11. "FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States: WASHINGTON - Putting the nation on alert against what it has described as a 'highly credible terrorist threat,' the FBI announced today that it has uncovered a plot by members of al-Qaeda to sit back and enjoy themselves while the United States collapses of its own accord." "Farscape Creator Confirms That A Movie Script Is In The Works." Scattered: Short film adapted from Ken MacLeod story This is not the ad I saw previously when I clicked that Steam Powered Giraffe link, but I decided I wanted to play the song again and was instantly mesmerized by the new ad. Ray Charles, "Georgia On My Mind" Boz Scags, "Georgia" 15:46 GMT comment Saturday, 19 April 2014 Me and my baby love Saturday nights Avedon Carol and Jay Ackroyd are the panelists for the Easter edition of Virtually Speaking Sundays. Listen live or later at the link. Jon Walker was the guest on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd, discussing what we want to happen and what is likely to happen once marijuana is legalized. Meanwhile, Lee Camp says, "Police Spend Millions Of Hours Arresting People For This Stupid Reason." Watch (or listen to, or read) Matt Taibbi on Democracy NOW! talking about his book The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap and who goes to jail. You can read an excerpt here. Paul Krugman interview clip: worse than the Gilded Age. Vanity Fair interview with Edward Snowden "What the MSM Did Not Report About Edward Snowden's Testimony Before the Council of Europe" And when I clicked on this link, I thought I'd accidentally gone to Free Republic. It seemed obvious to me that Snowden had a good reason for this. I'm not a big fan of Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), but I certainly respect and applaud his efforts on behalf of whistleblowers (despite the fact that he's still refusing to acknowledge Snowden as one of them). He gave a long speech last week in which he emphasized that it is the right and duty of government employees to expose wrong-doing within the government, and detailed the history of whistleblower legislation and how his own efforts to strengthen whistleblower protections had been stymied by both Reagan and Obama. He also revealed that the FBI had refused to comply with his requests for documents relating to their process regarding whistleblowers, instead saying it could best be answered with a briefing - a briefing the FBI walked out on when they decided they didn't like being asked questions about how they dealt with whistleblowers. Nevertheless, they told Grassley and Leahy's staff enough to damn their process: "However, the head of the Insider Threat Program told the staff that there was no need to worry about whistleblower communications. He said whistleblowers had to register in order to be protected, and the Insider Threat Program would know to just avoid those people. Now I have never heard of whistleblowers being required to 'register' in order to be protected. The idea of such a requirement should be pretty alarming to all Americans. Sometimes confidentiality is the best protection a whistleblower has. Unfortunately, neither my staff nor Chairman Leahy's staff was able to learn more, because only about ten minutes into the briefing, the FBI abruptly walked out. FBI officials simply refused to discuss any whistleblower implications in its Insider Threat Program and left the room. These are clearly not the actions of an agency that is genuinely open to whistleblowers or whistleblower protection." I wonder why I didn't notice this story before now: "Right wing cyber attacks on Healthcare.gov website confirmed: Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee published a video on their Youtube page highlighting a portion of the committee questioning Roberta Stempfley, acting assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Cyber-security and Communications, who confirmed at least 16 attacks on the Affordable Care Act's portal Healthcare.gov website in 2013." Unusually, The New York Times hints that it is aware of the unequal recovery, but puts it purely in generational terms. 'Cause we need an age war. Meanwhile, The Washington Post got a little crazy in its defense of the Comcast merger: "I'm not sure where the Washington Post's editorial board falls in terms of insider/outsider status, but it just issued an editorial supporting the merger. And, oh man, it's just a terrible set of opinions bolstered by some equally terrible assertions. The gist of it is that a massive cable company is no problem because regulators have done such a great job at ensuring a competitive playing field to this point." SCOTUSblog has been denied press credentials. This doesn't actually seem to be affecting whether they can cover the court, but it's certainly an inconvenience and it's hard to fathom a justification for it. Elsewhere, a court has declared that blogs are real "media". The reason we started having a 40-hour work week (as opposed to an 84-hour work week) is that over 100 years ago there was a real union movement. But the reason we kept having a 40-hour work week is that people learned that it's more productive for the company. Isn't it funny just how like a crazy far-right wingnut your basic "moderate" is? So, I guess that student loan thing was yet another false promise. Ian Welsh, "Markets and Competitive Markets: Markets are almost entirely a product of government regulation and enforcement, and cannot be anything but. This is not just about the common observation that government must enforce contracts, but about the how it enforces contracts because contract law changes over time, and is differs from country to country." It's amazing how different Southern Baptists were within living memory. But then, a lot of things ain't what they used to be. What's wrong with this story: "Fox's Brit Hume: Obama Uses Race As 'A Sword' To 'Attack Others'." Tom Lehrer, a voice of "the pre-counterculture left" (Click through; he's stranger than you think.) How the Yippies levitated the Pentagon A "stupid chain of unfortunate circumstances" - I wish the story had told us just what that was, because I'm having a little trouble figuring out how this little mistake could have been made. "Finland just released this amazing, slightly NSFW stamp collection" - yes, by Tom of Finland. Great traffic signs of our time: Silly walk. The Muppets' Jesus Christ Superstar Is A Real Album That Someone Made. "Steam Powered Giraffe" is a good name for a band. 04:12 GMT comment Sunday, 13 April 2014 No wind, no rain, no winter's cold Marcy Wheeler and Stuart Zechman are scheduled panelists for tonight's Virtually Speaking Sundays: "There's a common transparency theme with the NSA and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services). There's the question of what missions are being served--neither seems primarily focused on the general citizenry, and acts in disdain, at best, for democratic processes. Both topics require explanation--most people haven't heard of CMS or know the role it plays in price fixing. Likewise, while we know the NSA has been collecting exploits and back doors rather than publicizing and fixing them, that's something else most people are unaware of. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They set Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, which are the basis for most insurance reimbursement rates. " Related article from the NYT, "Sliver of Medicare Doctors Get Big Share of Payouts" Cliff Schecter and Richard (RJ) Eskow were last week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. On The Majority Report: MR's tenth birthday, with Janeane Garofalo April Fools: MR Goes Right Wing Jake Rosenfeld: What Unions No Longer Do; and Josh Orton: The McCutcheon Disaster Henry Giroux: Zombie Politics: "McMaster University Professor and author of Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education Henry Giroux explains what exactly Neoliberalism is, why civic literacy is a threat to Neoliberalism, the public education crisis, why Neoliberals view the function of government as protecting the 1%, the delusions that drive the school privatization movement, the ideology of civic illiteracy, the distortion of freedom in American politics, why we have lost the ability to understand the broad context of the Neoliberal assault on the public, how the left has failed in understanding the culture war, how power is separated from politics, how we are living in a society of spectacle, why the left needs to have a bigger politics, the role of liberal reform in radical politics and how the young are suffering under austerity and how they could lead a movement for genuine change and are we heading towards another 1960s." Greg Mitchell: When Hollywood Turned Left Matt and Michael talked to Seyward Darby about the hidden victims in Rwanda, and to Scott Keyes about "Welcome To Shawnee, Oklahoma: The Worst City In America To Be Homeless." And Sammy talked to Zoe Carpenter about her article "Will Phony Populists Hijack the Fight Against Inequality?" Tom O'Donnel in The New Yorker, "L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department [...] 'Stop right there!' I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen." Marcy Wheeler, "The Neverending CIA Drone Story Actually about Outsourced Intelligence [...] That is, the NYT is really reporting that, in spite of nominal efforts to change things, we remain captive to those relationships with liaison services, almost 13 years after 9/11. And that happens to also translate into operating drone strikes in such a way that two countries which were implicated in the 9/11 attacks - Pakistan and especially Saudi Arabia - have managed to stay relevant and above criticism by sustaining (perhaps artificially) our dependence on them." "Angus King Offers To Waterboard Dick Cheney 'Hundreds' Of Times: Dick Cheney has defended torture techniques so many times that a frustrated U.S. senator has finally offered to waterboard the former vice president." "Nearly Half Of Americans Claim They've Changed Their Behavior Due To NSA: The folks at the NSA and their defenders used to use the argument that we were on the verge of a "cyber pearl harbor" in their constant attempts to change laws to give the NSA and others in law enforcement and intelligence more powers to spy on everyone (the argument being that they would do this in order to "protect" us). But... it's beginning to look like the "cyber pearl harbor" wasn't an attack from foreign hackers... but from the NSA itself. Eric Schmidt recently noted that the NSA's actions were a hostile "attack" and it appears that many Americans agree. A new poll found that nearly half of American adults who responded have changed some form of online behavior because of the NSA stories, and they think a lot more carefully about where they go, what they say and what they do online." Alex Pareene in Salon, "Want to cut the rich's influence? Take away their money! [...] If the super-rich had less money, they would have less money to spend on campaigns and lobbying. And unlike speech, the government is very clearly allowed to take away people's money. It's in the Constitution and everything. I know it wasn't that long ago that it also seemed obvious that the government could regulate political spending, but in this case the relevant constitutional authority is pretty clear and there is no room for a so-called originalist to justify a politically conservative reading of the text. Congress can tax income any way it pleases. There is one glaring problem with my plan, of course, which is that Congress is already captured by wealthy interests, and is not inclined to tax them. But all I'm saying is that would-be campaign finance reformers ought to give up on their lost cause and shift their energies toward confiscation and redistribution." "Why Obama's Regulators Let Wall Street Bankers Off Easy: If there's anything more maddening than the sheer scale of the financial fraud that sent America and the rest the planet spiraling into the economic abyss in 2008, it's the fact that no Wall Street bankers have gone to jail for causing the mess. As in zero, zilch, none at all. So at his farewell party last month to celebrate a lengthy career at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - the US regulatory agency that supposedly keeps Wall Street in check - James Kidney, a trial attorney who had been hamstrung for years by indifferent bosses, broke his silence and went off on an awesome rant about how no one in the financial sector fears the body supposedly policing their behavior. The SEC, in essence, is a joke." Robert Reich is right, we shouldn't be campaigning to raise the minimum wage to just $10.10 an hour. "Why The Minimum Wage Should Really Be Raised To $15 An Hour" Lee Camp: "The President of the World Bank said something UNBELIEVABLE the other day. He said that there will be violent protests popping up around the world BECAUSE... smart phones and access to media have made it so everyone knows how everyone else lives. That's right! The problem with the immense inequality around the globe, the issue with having SO MANY destitute people worldwide is that they're now FINDING OUT just how much we're f*cking them! The cat's out of the bag! They saw an Instagram of Kim Kardashian on a jet-ski! GOD DAMN IT! If only they weren't all up on our motherf*cking Facebook wall, everything would be fine!" Ian Welsh on "The First Real Russian Retaliation for American Sanctions" - Oil deals that don't involve US dollars will make it a whole new ball game. Heartbleed - No one has figured out exactly how this vulnerability got all over the net, but there's no reason not to suspect the NSA. I don't know much about oncology, but if it's really true that doctors make money from prescribing chemotherapy as is described in "97 Percent of The Time, Chemotherapy Does Not Work And Continues To Be Used Only For One Reason", that in itself would be a reason to distrust it. Of course, if it's true that these toxic drugs don't work in the treatment of most of the major cancers, that's a pretty big deal. "Dr. Allen Levin stated: 'Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumors.' In his book, The Topic of Cancer: When the Killing Has to Stop, Dick Richards cites a number of autopsy studies which have shown that cancer patients actually died from conventional treatments before the tumor had a chance to kill them." "Tom Frank interviews Barbara Ehrenreich: 'You're the anti-Ayn Rand'" Ugh, I clicked without thinking and got reminded of just how creepy Bill O'Reilly is. It's brand-new that college students do stuff they've always done, but people shouldn't complain about inequality because the United States set the gold standard on opportunity and, um, it's still the 1960s so nothing has changed since then. Seems Joan Walsh sees fear in O'Reilly's eyes. Hm, this ad might have been a mistake. Oh, I guess so! 250 Years of Campaigns, Cash and Corruption - a handy timeline. A bunch of scientists and Kate Mulgrew were conned into being in a geocentrist film. "British Columbia Enacted the Most Significant Carbon Tax in the Western Hemisphere. What Happened Next Is It Worked." It's funny that people talk so much more about global climate than they do about the immediate environment, because I think people forget that one of the issues here is whether you want you and your children to be able to drink clean water and breathe clean air. You can be as much of a climate denier as you like, but those issues are right inside your house. (via) "The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence" - Debtor's prison is coming back with a vengeance. "Psychopaths: how can you spot one?" The interesting thing about this story is who the doctor spotted. "Dorset Police unveil Tardis-style box." Or, as we think of it, a police box-style police box. The 2014 Sony World Photography Awards (via) The taste treat I've been waiting for: deep-fried butter on a stick. Oh, and these. Simels has another female vocalist he wants us to listen to. Retro pin-ups of DC Comics heroines - These are really nice work. Robert Downey, Jr. does great birthday parties. Your archeology moment This is definitely not the bra of the week. This is the most unusual performance of "Mack the Knife" I've ever heard. Or seen. Strangely, it made me think of Hendrix. Probably not work-safe performance of the 5th. This is kinda cool - Doris Troy's original version of her song "Just One Look" with Linda Ronstadt's cover slapped on top of each other. (Would not have worked with the Hollies version.) Marvin Gaye, "Can I Get A Witness" Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrel, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" 13:19 GMT comment Friday, 04 April 2014 Clip joint I was just noticing my friend Jack's sig file: A Mission Statement for America: form a more perfect Union establish Justice insure domestic Tranquility provide for the common defence promote the general Welfare secure the Blessings of Liberty Marcy Wheeler discussed NCAA unions, Obama dragnet reforms and Ron Wyden. Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. Who could have guessed? "CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says: A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years - concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques." (via) "The CIA and the Moral Sunk Costs of the Torture Program: Once they sold their souls, they had to justify the sale, even if it meant misleading everyone about what torture was achieving." Stuart and Jay were talking about this the other night,* and now here's Krugman on Growth Versus Distribution: Hunger Games. I guess this means he's getting over the idea that growth is necessarily good. Welcome to our world, Paul. "Someone Else's Debt Could Ruin Your Credit Rating: Debt collectors are pursuing one in seven Americans - and often screwing up [...] That's not far from the truth. According to statistics from the Federal Reserve, one in seven Americans is being pursued by a debt collector, up from one in 12 just ten years ago. And substantial numbers of these Americans report being hounded for debts they do not owe. A new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau logged tens of thousands of complaints claiming just this - that the debt in question is simply not theirs." "Wealth Inequality Is Now As Bad As It Was During The 1920s" - complete with handy graphs. "Interview with Ex-CIA Collaborator: 'The CIA's Plans in Venezuela Are Far Advanced': U.S. intelligence agencies have long been engaged in their own brand of social engineering, conjuring up 'color' revolutions energized by students in targeted countries - with Venezuela currently topping the list. 'If you succeed in getting these youngsters to believe that savage capitalism is the solution to all their problems, then there will be no revolution for Latin America. It's that simple.'" "Armstrong Williams Wants 'Diversity' Favor from FCC" I actually think Atrios had the most astute reaction to McCutcheon. Campaign finance reform isn't even meaningful when you have an aristocracy that is so wealthy it already controls who can be nominated and who the media will inform voters about (and how), and rich enough that they can buy government with promises of great rewards to officials after they "retire" (or are retired by the voters). "'Deeply held principles' - Hobby Lobby does lots of business with China, land of forced abortions, and invests in companies that provide "morning after" pills, but after being solicited by moneyed right-wing interests suddenly decided to bring their "principled" stand against abortion to the Supreme Court. "Judge: Probation for du Pont heir in daughter rape because 'he would not fare well' in prison: A Superior Court judge who sentenced an heir to the du Pont fortune to probation for raping his 3-year-old daughter wrote in her order that he 'will not fare well' in prison and suggested that he needed treatment instead of time behind bars, according to Delaware Online." Just how well does this judge think anyone else does in prison? Do they "fare well"? Does it improve their lives in any way? Are they completely unaffected? Perhaps we should ask her who she has sent to prison thinking they would "fare well" there. This experiment reminds me of the Democratic Party, except without the first generation of monkeys that got the cold water. "How to Get People to Accept Unfairness" "Republican Monopoly" Ryan Cooper in The Week: "Hey, liberal hawks: Stop hating the anti-war left" - What really pisses me off about this is that I disliked Putin even way back when it was fashionable to like him, and I don't like being lectured by some crackpot Iraq war-supporting "liberal" about being too in love with Putin. PS. We were not only right about Iraq, we were right about not trusting Bush to run an invasion of Afghanistan. (via) Confused about economics? Visit BoonyvilleUSA, where it's all explained. Fun with Corporate Conscience Clauses Despite what you may have heard, "Cannabis in the Netherlands is doing just fine." Pot legalization music Lance Mannion is reading a book and writing about it. "Why I just threw Peter Baker's Days of Fire across the room" - The most important phrase to remember is "uncounted votes". A little warning about how study results can be misinterpreted. Political Cartoons from The Week's collection The Indy's April Fool's round-up And the Grauniad Your steampunk shopping site I had been entirely unaware of the Alpine spaghetti harvest. Simels wants you to see this Sandy Denny clip. 23:26 GMT comment Friday, 28 March 2014 That's the way to lose your chains Sorry if you missed me - been preoccupied over the last week. Or distracted. Or something. This week on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd, Stuart Zechman joins Jay to discuss the prevailing assumptions about the goals of economic policy and what they are supposed to be for. Digby and Joan McCarter (McJoan) were this week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Last week on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd: "Masaccio is the nom de blog for Ed Walker, former Securities Commissioner for the State of Tennessee. He and Jay Ackroyd discuss the nature of markets and their role in a mixed economy. "Market solutions" have become an objective for policy makers, both conservative and centrists, which is entirely wrong. Markets are policy tools, not policy goals.Moreover,there are no "free markets." Markets can only arise within a framework of complex regulation. There is no more regulated marketplace than securities markets." Homework for this episode includes "How High Frequency Trading Works". On The Majority Report: Sarah Leonard, about her new article for Al Jazeera, "No sleep till world domination," on how Wall Street and Silicon Valley work cultures support inequality. Matt Stoller: The Lost History of Free Trade Mike Konczal: The Voluntarism Fantasy - Because there was never a time when charity and volunteerism solved the problems of the poor. Obama gave a speech that was, well, incredible. And not in a good way. This is how a liberal president talks about national security. Joe Firestone says, "Progressives Need to Up Their Game Against Social Security's Enemies." Which isn't a terribly new thing to say, and we all know there's a reason why members of the Democratic leadership who call themselves "progressive" aren't making the case against Social Security's enemies, but since they're not, everyone else needs to study up on the issue and press the case even harder. (The discussion of taxes is beside the point since when the Democratic leadership talks about raising taxes on the rich, they aren't really talking about doing so in any significant way. Eliminating the cap on Social Security is a good idea, but if we're going to focus on economic inequality, it's going to take massive wealth confiscation at the top to make any real difference. I'm all for a 100% tax on wealth over $100,000,000, but that's not a proposal I've been hearing a lot about.) Post-racial America - There are still people who think black people get "special treatment". Yeah, it's special, all right. Robert Reich says if nobody good runs for president, he will. "Microsoft Looked Through Reporter's Hotmail And MSN Chat Accounts To Identify Windows 8 Leaker: Apparently, Microsoft's desire to track down someone who leaked screenshots of Windows 8 is so strong that it's willing to violate its own privacy guidelines and promises to the public -- even if it means undermining Microsoft's main promotional campaign for email services." Update: But here's The Register's take, which puts a different light on things. And a further update to the story. "Exile: Sarah Harrison On Paying The Price For Helping Edward Snowden "I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write. For instance, if I were to say that I hoped my work at WikiLeaks would change government behaviour, this journalistic work could be considered a crime under the UK Terrorism Act of 2000." Revealed: Apple and Google's wage-fixing cartel involved dozens more companies, over one million employees "Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It." "Iraq War Vet Whose Skull Was Fractured By Oakland Cops During Occupy Protest Settles For $4.5M" I have nothing to say about Fred Phelps dying except that it would be nice if his family and flock don't continue his business model. However, Bill Day said this. And Tyler Lopez and Mark Evanier figure we owe Phelps a debt for helping to energize gay rights. I was looking for an article on the median income for 1914. Apparently, the word "median" just doesn't apply. I found a number of items on the average income for 1914, but they didn't really help. The closest I came was "The Overworked Working Poor of 1914: Women and Children and What They Didn't Get Paid". Which is interesting, I guess, but not what I needed. A plane got lost. That's about as much as anyone knows, but it dominated the news all week. "Why It's Time for the Journal of Porn Studies" "Revisiting Dirty Looks" (Thanks to Gary Farber for the tip.) Photos by Elena Halfrecht Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos I saw this in the sidebar of Making Light, where Teresa had linked it as "At which point, a historian has a horrible realization...." And from Patrick: "A Church So Poor It Has to Close Schools, Yet So Rich It Can Build a Palace" Calvin & Muad'Dib "Capital One says it can show up at cardholders' homes, workplaces" ("Even the Internal Revenue Service cannot visit you at home without an arrest warrant," Rofman observed.)" Your amazing bus stop - This is brilliant, although no power on earth could get me to buy the product, even if I still drank fizzy soft drinks. I still can't believe people drink diet soda. Everybody's got a list in their head of things they'll do if they ever somehow end up with too much money. My list is mostly about sharing the wealth and has very few items of personal luxury, but these just went on it. Cool aerial pictures of London Skies you don't see very day You just never know where William Shatner will turn up next. Have some more Animusic: "Resonant Chamber". Rascals, Live (and not young) "Forward! Not Forgotten" - HUAC version 15:27 GMT comment Tuesday, 18 March 2014 I don't know what it's all about "I've been a loyal American all of my life, long enough to realize what the true American way is. The true American way is a simple function of appetite. When I see something I want, I take it - as much of it as I want. And I don't care a bit if that doesn't leave enough for anyone else." - Lex Luthor I like the Iain Banks quote in the graphic, but I can't help feeling the same lack of attention that led to the misspelling of his name is responsible for bothering to be against the Tea Party when there are bigger fish to fry. A great deal of money has gone into convincing you - whether you identify as liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican - to hate the people in the "opposite" tribe, and the Tea Party is a wonderfully misleading alternative to the two major parties/identifiers. You have three "parties", all funded by the same people, led by people who want to dismantle good government and reduce service to the people on behalf of a multinational group of extremely powerful people who think you are just an impediment to them having a good life - and their followers are all people like you who want the government to serve the people and not just corporations and a handful of rich dynasties scattered all over the globe and successfully (so far) managing to suppress the vast majority of ordinary people who have to work to live. Alternatively, here is Abbie Hoffman's response to Jerry Rubin's emergence as a Yuppie. The context may be lost, but he was right then and he is still right. "The battle is not over." RIP Tony Benn. I used to spend a lot of time talking to MPs, and only two MPs from the Labour Party were willing to say they opposed censorship. They were Mo Mowlem and Tony Benn. There used to be a joke floating around about how his lengthy name (Anthony Wedgewood Benn, Viscount Stansgate), got smaller and smaller until someday it was expected he would simply be known as "Ton" (pronounced "tone"). 10 quotes from Tony Benn. - It's definitely worth listening again to Benn's explanation of the National Health Service - and democracy and choice - from Sicko. Tony Benn on democracy. "Every generation has to fight the same battles again and again and again." Do not tell me that the left isn't as good as the right at telling it. We were always better. But we forgot to buy up all the radio and TV stations. * * * * * David Dayen and Stuart Zechman were this week's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. They discussed "Dianne Feinstein, the Senate and the CIA: a Constitutional crisis. Then the Progressive Caucus Budget and the politics of income redistribution. Plus political satire from Culture of Truth." Background material/homework for the show includes: Steve Coll in The New Yorker, "The Senator vs. The C.I.A." LarryE, "Spying fan Dianne Feinstein objects to being spied on" "Obama: Taking Sides In CIA-Feinstein Spat 'Not Something That Is An Appropriate Role For Me' To Wade Into" Dday: "This Is the Fed's Most Brazen and Least Known Handout to Private Banks" Dday: "Most despicable bank scam ever? How you may be paying them checking fees for following the law!" The People's Budget Progressive Caucus Unveils the Better Off Budget A little background on Jack Anderson for those too young to remember or too old to still remember. "NBC News Prez to meet with David Gregory" Once again, thank the FSM for Crooks and Liars for providing their own videos of material they highlight from Comedy Central, in this case for this very good clip of Jon Stewart taking a GOP mouthpiece to school about food stamps. Poor people's health care - not the same as everyone else's. Dean Baker at Beat the Press: "George Will Is Badly Confused on Economic Issues, Again" "MSNBC Finds It's Hard to Get Good Help: Abby Huntsman on Social Security " "Washington Post Is Confused: Pharmaceutical Industry Lobbyists Try to Increase Profits, not Improve Global Health" "Inequality in Income Translates Into Inequality in Life Expectancy" "Stiglitz Sets the Record Straight on 'Globalization'" "Household Debt and the Great Depression: In November 1930, before anyone knew how Great the Depression would be, Charles Persons published an article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics called 'Credit Expansion, 1920 to 1929, and Its Lessons.' His thesis was stated forcefully in the first paragraph: 'The thesis of this paper is that the existing depression was due essentially to the great wave of credit expansion in the past decade.'" Something Krugman says too little about in "That Old-Time Whistle" is that dismantling War on Poverty programs is something that started the minute Lyndon Johnson left the White House and that precious little is left of it. Conservatives hated those programs because they worked. Getting rid of them while continuing to blame them for the devastating effects on our communities of corporate irresponsibility is a great twofer for those folks, just like it was back in the day when they started crippling any program aimed at helping low-income families and then blamed the resulting effects on black culture. Black families didn't suddenly start splintering because they just collectively decided it would be more fun, they did it as a direct response to the fact that welfare rules were changed to make it impossible to get enough money to feed your kids if the father was still in the home - a rule that was "justified" by claims that such homes were somehow not "the truly needy". Once conservatives took over leadership of the Democratic Party, we had Clinton ending "welfare as we know it," thus making it even more difficult for people in the plundered inner cities to get by. This was disguised somewhat by an economy that overheated in the wake of the "technology revolution" of the period, but we all know what's happened since. Snowden more optimistic than Digby - Or at least, Snowden's lawyer believes Snowden's revelations will spur a reversal of the entrenchment of the Deep State. Digby fears that not enough people care and the Deep State is so entrenched that it's hold can't really be reversed. I remember when I first saw an article in Time promoting the idea that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance (complete with nifty neon-lit pictures of brains) and that a brief infusion of drugs could reset people. There was no evidence for the idea, of course, and if I'd been a bit more cynical at the time I would have realized it was all an unlabelled advertorial for a new line of drugs that shrinks could hand out like candy. But the thing was, even then, you were only supposed to take these drugs for a couple of weeks and then you would be toggled back to normal. Except no one I know who was ever given this treatment was simply taken off the drugs after a couple of weeks and sent on their merry way. In fact, they seemed to get worse, continued on the drugs, lived in terror of not being able to get the drugs, and never recovered from their depressions. And some of these people had situational depressions, they would surely have recovered with no treatment at all. But they didn't, and instead they are spending a pile of money on dope all the time... Why is a widely-used drug to treat pneumonia that used to cost $4.00 now costing $50.00? Jeralyn Merrit tells me that Comcast has been airing a medical marijuana ad. That's new, I can't imagine that happening ten years ago. Jeralyn also has a brief post on the failure of the nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the Civil Rights Division on the grounds that he defended some civil rights. Or at least he was part of the division of his organization that did. But it was Mumia Abu-Jamal. Anyone who is familiar with the details of that case knows it never passed the smell test, and the fact that his death sentence - not his conviction - was overturned has had the law-enforcement lobby in a tizzy for some time. "Tomgram: David Bromwich, The Leader Obama Wanted to Become and What Became of Him: "Doesn't this just say it all? After Majority Leader Harry Reid went the ultimate mile for the president, loosing the 'nuclear option' on the Senate to wipe out Republican filibusters of a bevy of log-jammed presidential nominations, and after the Republicans -- the president's proudly disloyal opposition -- had fumed to their hearts' content, Obama still couldn't get his nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division confirmed. The culprits in a Congress where, from the White House point of view, evil has been every shade of Republican turned out to be seven disloyal Democrats. Despite a "sustained closed-door effort" by Obama and his aides, they voted the nominee down. Think of it as a little parable for the Obama presidency." Will Bernie Sanders run for president? He says he'd make a better president than Hillary Clinton, and he's right about that. He'll have to register as a Democrat, though. Tom Tomorrow on what the Sunday talk shows said about Ukraine. Life in Pottersville continues to bite - help if you can. How many women can you find in this photo? An Entire Day of All of Europe's Air Travel, Visualized Not sure what it is about this picture, but I just can not stop laughing. Young Rascals, live, "A Girl Like You" 16:33 GMT comment Sunday, 09 March 2014 If I had my way I would tear this building down RIP: Bartcop, aged 60. Not just the blog,* the man*. His real name was Terrence R. Coppage, though we never knew that back then. Back in the day, I used to link to him all the time, quote him, go to his page daily. Before I started my own blog, Bartcop.com was the focal point website for a whole lot of us. It was in Bartcop chat on IRC that I badgered Atrios about starting his own blog and gave him the link to Blogger that got him started. I met some of my favorite internet people at Bart's, found some of my favorite journalists. I've even met a few of these people when they visited London. I did not share his love of tequila, but we both loved Led Zep, I'm glad he made me aware of Shirley Manson. The Rude Pundit, Susie Madrak and Brad Friedman have their own tributes up, and there's an article at The Raw Story. Dave Johnson and Cliff Schecter will be tonight's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays and will "consider why the trade deficit matters more than the budget deficit, Ukraine, Robert Duncan and the 'war on drugs.' Plus political satire from Culture of Truth.". Isaac Martin, fiscal sociologist and author of author of Rich People's Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent, was the guest on Thursday's Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. Adolph Reed, who recognized Obama's neoliberalism long before he became the Democratic nominee for the presidency, has an article in Harpers called "Nothing Left: The long, slow surrender of American liberals," which is only available to subscribers, but he discussed it with Sam Seder Wednesday on The Majority Report - highly recommended. Also recently on the show, David Dayen on how the Post Office could save money, and Jodie Griffin: The Threat of The Comcast-Time Warner Merger & What Next For Net Neutrality?. And Sam spoke to Mike Lofgren about his essay "Anatomy of the Deep State" at Bill Moyers' site. Doesn't it bother anyone that the Israeli army is targeting Palestinian soccer players and murdering them on phony pretexts? It seems like the sort of thing you'd at least read about in the sports pages. "Just imagine if members of Spain's top-flight World Cup team had been jailed, shot or killed by another country and imagine the international media outrage that would ensue. Imagine if prospective youth players for Brazil were shot in the feet by the military of another nation. But, tragically, these events along the checkpoints have received little attention on the sports page or beyond." Jon Stewart ponders the Fox News position on food stamp expenditure, which appears to be that poor people shouldn't eat junk food or nutritious, healthy food: "what's the right mixture of quality and class-based shame poor people should aim for in their meal planning?" (The video is Hulu so I can't see it, but text is supplied.) And, of course, Obama is still working hard to promote the idea that Social Security cuts are a perfectly reasonable idea, once again saying they are still on the table. And then there are Alan Grayson's ex-wife's allegations - which, true or not, could hurt him. Why did the chicken cross the ocean? "Scores of Americans are in an uproar since Food Safety News revealed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will soon allow U.S. chickens to be sent to China for processing before being shipped back to the states for human consumption." Aasif Mandvi demonstrates how America has the best healthcare system in the world. And a Fox News commentator tells us how to solve the problems of those who can't afford health insurance. "If you're poor, stop being poor." (Video from Crooks and Liars, so I can see it!) We know that Paul Ryan is what he is, but Atrios did what looks like a whole blog post, not just a link, on how The Washington Post writes about his war on the poor as if for all the world it's a great big piece of social justice for the poor. "Journalists can't be this stupid, so they've just chosen to let the politicians write the story they want told. It's 'make you stupider' journalism, instead of 'inform you' journalism, which is what so much political journalism is." Atrios also made Paul Taylor his Wanker of the Day* Wednesday after his appearance on NPR promoting generational warfare. As Dean Baker reports, "Taylor repeatedly complained that younger generations don't seem angry about their parents' Social Security and Medicare. He told his interviewer: 'Well, what's so fascinating is there isn't any tension at the moment. You have a generation coming in that isn't wagging its finger with blame at mom or grandma, in fact, they're living with mom and grandma.'" I thought that was particularly interesting myself, since the quote from Taylor contains what should be the only explanation he needs for the not-so-curious fact that kids don't want to make war on their parents and grandparents. If you're living with mom and grandma, and you know perfectly well that they can't go out and get jobs instead of collecting the Social Security that is currently supporting you, it doesn't make sense to want to take their Social Security away, since it's not going to magically supply you with a good job, and in all probability it would mean you'll just all be living together in a cardboard box. Who is the genius who believes that if old people stay in the workforce longer - assuming they could manage to stay employed longer - they wouldn't be part of the job-competition that young people have to face? You don't have to spend that much time in the workforce to know that advancement often depends on the people above you retiring. And since employers these days are much more inclined to cut staff than add to it, getting rid of the people above you is sometimes the only way to move up, which is why more and more these days, you see some people actively conspiring to push out even the most valuable older workers (and they don't have to be that much older, either). Just leaving aside Taylor's bad math, most kids are also smart enough to figure out that mom and grandma are not the people who invented overwhelming student dept and policies that export and reduce American jobs. So, basically, the reason These Kids Today are not doing what Paul Taylor wants them to do is because they are smarter than him. Also via Atrios, McClatchy reports that the CIA is spying on members of Congress. "WTF: CIA Took Secret, 'Unprecedented Action' Against Senate Intelligence Committee [...] The [Senate Intelligence] committee has spent several years working on a voluminous report about the detention and interrogation program, and according to one official interviewed in recent days, C.I.A. officers went as far as gaining access to computer networks used by the committee to carry out its investigation.... The specifics of the inspector general's investigation are unclear. But several officials interviewed in recent days - all of whom insisted on anonymity, citing a continuing inquiry - said it began after the C.I.A. took what Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, on Tuesday called an 'unprecedented action' against the committee." "Statement on Congress's Oversight of the CIA from U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: "The Senate Intelligence Committee oversees the CIA, not the other way around. Since I joined the Committee, the CIA has refused to engage in good faith on the Committee's study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program. Instead, the CIA has consistently tried to cast doubt on the accuracy and quality of this report by publicly making false representations about what is and is not in it. The public must be given a complete and accurate accounting of this dark period in our history by declassifying not only the full Committee study, but the Panetta Review as well. Only then can the American people understand the scope and impact of the CIA's actions and hopefully future generations will learn from these mistakes." 18th and 19th Century Paintings of London Superimposed on Contemporary Photos of the City I have no idea what they mean about this house, which to me looks better on the inside than on the outside. Some of those carpets really have to go, though. Reaping for Dummies Peter, Paul, & Mary, live. Or, this very different, but interesting, cover from Garbage (that seems to forget the point that Samson tore that building down with brute strength). 16:32 GMT comment Tuesday, 04 March 2014 I got so much honey the bees envy me Susie Madrak explained just how expensive it is to be poor on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. I wish everyone understood this. It's amazing to me that there are people who don't already. David Sirota talked to Sam Seder about the attack on pensions and how PBS is turning into the Plutocrat Broadcasting System, on The Majority Report. And David Dayen talked to Sam about why the Post Office should become a bank. Radley Balko on The drug war's profit motive explains that opposition to a medical marijuana bill in Wisconsin is meeting a brick wall from a law enforcement coalition that seems to be all about the money - without asset seizures and drug war funding, cops won't have as much money to play with to buy shiny military gear to assault people who have leaves, so having leaves needs to be illegal. "Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case: In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto's third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion." Glenn Greenwald, "How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations: One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It's time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents." Krugman makes a chart on Austerity: "If spending had tracked what happened under Bush II, discretionary spending would be about a third - or more than 2 percent of GDP - higher. Since there is good reason to believe that the multiplier is 1.5 or more, this would mean real GDP 3-plus percent higher, closing much if not most of the output gap, and probably an unemployment rate below 5.5 percent. In short, we would have had a vastly healthier economy but for the de facto victory of disastrous austerity policies." South Carolina legislature confiscates budget of college for assigning Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: "The South Carolina House of Representatives has withdrawn $52,000 from the College of Charleston for including Alison Bechdel's brilliant, celebrated memoir Fun Home in its summer reading program. Bechdel, creator of the Dykes to Watch Out For strip, published the memoir in 2006. In graphic novel form, it tells Bechdel's story of growing up closeted in a family riven by a father who can't admit that he is gay and an embittered mother who doesn't allow herself to notice her husband's affairs." Ryan Cooper in The Washington Monthly advocates Free Money for Everyone. Good. The fix - on gold. Everything is fixed. Ted Rall on the horse race dilemma This is a couple of years old, but I stumbled on it while looking for something else and it just reminded me that, aside from making great speeches on important issues, (unlike some presidents we could name), I've always wanted to be able to vote for Julian Bond for president. He's just naturally a right guy. Telemarketing counter-script - for when they won't leave you alone. Aurora Borealis seen in Northumberland - nice pics. Nebula Nominees June, 1968: How science fiction voted on the Vietnam War in the pages of Galaxy. RIP: Legendary fan Bhob Stewart (1937-2014) Music from Hell - "Luke and I were looking at Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights and discovered, much to our amusement, music written upon the posterior of one of the many tortured denizens of the rightmost panel of the painting which is intended to represent Hell. I decided to transcribe it into modern notation, assuming the second line of the staff is C, as is common for chants of this era. so yes this is LITERALLY the 600-years-old butt song from hell." It could have been a lot worse, all things considered. "J. Michael Straczynski Options Harlan Ellison's Classic Sci-Fi Story 'Repent, Harlequin!'." Submitted for your approval - Rod Serling Nice hat. I completely love it that someone made this, and I want to play in it, too! This is such a great group, and such a great song. 18:05 GMT comment Sunday, 23 February 2014 A million miles away Stuart Zechman and Avedon Carol are scheduled panelists this weekend on Virtually Speaking Sundays. Assuming whatever I have doesn't get worse or something. David Brin talked some more about privacy and transparency on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd. One of the things we have to remember about Obamacare is that most of it is in the hands of the insurance companies, including the immediate PR aspects. So right off the bat, we had the companies sending letters to people saying things to the effect of, "We're sorry, but president Obama is making us get rid of your cheap policy and you'll have to buy a more expensive policy now," without also explaining that "the reason for this is that your cheap policy was so crappy that even offering it to you was fraudulent and we should all be in jail for it." Luckily for Obama, they didn't also explain that, "Of course, the other fraudulent aspects of commercial health insurance are still with us, so you probably still can't afford to use the policy to get health care of a quality you could get in most of the rest of the world, and you can still end up losing your home." And they certainly didn't get around to explaining that, "The reason for this is that President Obama and his pals in the White House refused to even consider the greater effectiveness and sustainability of kicking commercial insurers out of the equation." We kept being told that any other option was not "feasible", but maybe they had a different definition of "feasible" than we did. (And while I was reading the comments on that, I found a link to this discussion at the Oxford Union on "Has capitalism failed the world?") Bernie Sanders asks "a panel of experts" whether Walmart should pay its workers enough to live on, or if the taxpayers should have to help support them instead. Of course, the poor get less welfare than anyone else does. (And here's Barry Ritholtz on How McDonald's and Wal-Mart Became Welfare Queens . Apparently, even he forgot that there used to be laws governing the treatment of employees in terms of time and pay that also would have prevented a lot of this.) From Atrios: "Message: I Care About Poverty" - even supposed "help" for the poor turns out to be another attack on the poor. "Shouting And Screaming Is Part Of My Job" - This is obviously a response to people who claim that it was and is unnecessary for liberal progressives to scream with alarm when the White House seems to be proposing right-wing policies, since those right-wing policies end up not happening anyway (except for the ones that do). Just leaving aside the fact that Obama's offers to cut Social Security keep failing to pass because those crazy, obstructive Republicans refuse to accept them, the fact that the White House keeps proposing them even though no one wants them is a big clue. Yes, I think bloggers have certainly been instrumental in slowing down the train-wreck, although that was easier to do under Bush because more supposedly liberal bloggers were on the same page with liberal policy rather than "We have to support our Democratic/First Black President," but we had help from the right-wing on that, and if these odious policies are not already baked into the pie (along with the already-baked and extremely odious rise of the age of eligibility to 67), it's not for lack of trying on the part of the Obama Administration. It's not that they didn't want Social Security cuts, it's that they failed to get them because absolutely everyone else opposed them. And, frankly, I don't care if the Republicans did it for the stupidest and nastiest reasons in the world (which they did), I'm just glad they stopped it. Via Eschaton: "Watch This CNN Anchor Stop The Spin On The Minimum Wage" "Here's Why Your Netflix Is Slowing Down" "Here's Why Obama Can't Get Democrats To Back His Trade Deal" Dean Baker: "America's Invisible - and Very Diverse - Working Class" "Obama Admin's TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks" A lot of people are confounded by what happened to the vote at the Volkswagen plant - it seemed the union had everything going for it, and Volkswagen itself was not being hostile to unionization. So how did they lose? Wonkette: "Cool New Kansas Bill Would Let Everybody Spank Your Child [..] OK, so the proposed law says that you must spank a child on the buttocks, and can restrain him or her to do so AND you can do it til the kid is a full-grown adult. We just can't see any downside to telling school personnel that they should tackle a high school senior and spank the kid. No liability or safety concerns at all nosiree." An interesting question explored by Yanis Varoufakis at Naked Capitalism: "Can the Internet Democratize Capitalism?" Lambert Strether had some fun with Greg Mankiw's NYT op-ed about the deserving rich, and aside from providing an interesting chart, raises a question I hadn't seen before about what "inequality" is and why suddenly everyone in Washington feels comfortable talking about it. How come we let banks make money by creating debt? What if we didn't? Ah, Tony Blair, the guy who was instrumental in catapulting the propaganda for war on Iraq, managed to earn Atrios' Worst Person in the World award for Wednesday with the revelation that he personally advised Rebekka Brookes on how to weasel out of phone-hacking charges. My favorite quote from the article: "According to Brooks's note, Blair advised her to set up an 'independent' inquiry, suggesting it could have "outside counsel, Ken Macdonald [the former director of public prosecutions], a great and good type". He said the inquiry would be "Hutton style" - a reference to Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of David Kelly - and would "clear" her, but warned that "shortcomings" would have to be accepted as a result of the report. Some might interpret that as being practically an admission that they engineered a faux "enquiry" to cover up the suspected murder of David Kelly. Ad with secret anti-abuse message only visible to children When "Stand Your Ground" won't work Cartoon: Energy sources Lee Camp, Everything You Know About The Death Penalty Is Wrong! A graphic of two financial collapses Really? Women don't write epic fantasy? Do they really believe that? A Tribute to Paintings We'll Never See - because the Nazis destroyed them as "degenerate art". Your Steampunk Moment: Cool picture of The abandoned City Hall Subway Station in New York. More here. Hanoi Rocks 15:36 GMT comment Sunday, 16 February 2014 You find little excuses RJ Eskow and Gaius Publius are scheduled to be tonight's panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays. They apparently plan to talk about "the mentality of plutocrats and climate.." With Culture of Truth's usual contribution. Sam Seder's guest the other day on The Majority Report was Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing The Whore: The Work of Sex Work, and it was a pleasure to hear her saying things I've been saying for years. Most of the criticisms you hear about sex work apply to plenty of other jobs that we don't talk about the same way. Is it a job you take only because you need the money? You mean, as opposed to working in a factory, or for a horrible boss, or as a cleaner? Do miners go down the mines for the view, or for their health? And here's what might be seen as a companion piece at the Guardian, "Strippers are not the problem - they're just doing a job." Taibbi, "The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet [...] All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation - till now, basically - to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is 'complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally.' 'From the perspective of the banks,' says Saule Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, 'pretty much everything is considered complementary to a financial activity.'" I really wish I could get across to certain of my liberal friends that both sides are funded by the Koch Brothers. You don't get something like the DLC out of nowhere, and when the people who support it are so few and so fringy, there has to be a lot of money behind it to give it the profile - and the success - it's had. "His book's acknowledgments list only sixteen politicians but identify twenty people 'whose support and generosity...made the DLC story possible.' Among them are Jon Corzine, the disgraced financier and former New Jersey governor; Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund manager, major Republican donor and founder of the defunct neoconservative New York Sun newspaper; and Rich Richman, who recently gave $10 million to Columbia University for a research center directed by R. Glenn Hubbard, former chair of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors. (A Newsweek investigation in 2000 turned up some DLC underwriters that From doesn't mention: Du Pont, Philip Morris, Merck and the Koch brothers.)" That'd be DLC power-boy Al From. Alex Pareene, "Is one of 'the crazy ones' behind a threatening email sent to House Republicans? [...] Yes, Republicans also think of certain other Republicans as 'the crazy ones.' No, those Republicans do not generally have policy beliefs that differ significantly from those of the crazy ones. One issue that does divide them, though, is the debt ceiling. 'Sane' Republicans exploit the regular mandatory debt ceiling vote by falsely claiming that raising it incurs additional debt, while understanding that raising the limit is necessary. 'The crazy ones,' though, genuinely believe that not raising the debt limit wouldn't end up causing an economic catastrophe, or that somehow causing that catastrophe is necessary in order to finally shrink our bloated federal government. What makes 'the crazy ones' crazy, in fact, is that they genuinely believe the cynical lies - about government debt, global warming, taxes, healthcare, immigration, Democratic Party fiscal policies and so on - that the non-crazy ones have been feeding the rubes for years." Via Atrios. Jay Ackroyd notes that "Glenzilla's new home has quite the masthead." It sure does. And here's Dan Froomkin on The Terrible Toll of Secrecy. "You Know Who Else Collected Metadata? The Stasi. The East German secret police, known as the Stasi, were an infamously intrusive secret police force. They amassed dossiers on about one quarter of the population of the country during the Communist regime." Call for the UN to stop giving anti-drug aid to Vietnam: "The United Nations should immediately freeze anti-drug assistance to Vietnam after the communist country sentenced 30 people to die for drug-related offenses, three human rights groups working to get countries to abolish the death penalty said Wednesday. The call from Harm Reduction International, Reprieve and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty cites the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's internal human rights guidance requiring the organization to stop funding for a country if it's feared that such support may lead to people being executed." The Odd Man Out and Swamp Rabbit discuss Media Monopoly and the latest (illegal!) assault by Comcast, who bought out Time Warner Cable without, apparently, any concerns by the FCC or Justice. The History of English in Ten Minutes (Thanks, Moshe!) This one is about me, I just know it. I can hear politics in all sorts of things, even this really fine cover of an old Martha & the Vandellas song by Bonnie Raitt. 17:33 GMT comment Wednesday, 12 February 2014 Shipwrecked and comatose This week, David Dayen and Digby were panelists on Virtually Speaking Sundays, and commented "on the postal banking proposal; ACA and entrepreneurship; bipartisan McCarthyism from Mike Rogers (R) House Intelligence, and Dianne Feinstein (D), Senate Intelligence. Political satire from Culture of Truth." Not to mention the open assault on the United States Postal Service by the people who are supposed to be running it. David O. Atkins was the guest on Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd, discussing "a world where the central banks' closest partners, the money center banks, routinely engage in criminal activity. It has the effect of turning the entire economy into a house of cards." On The Majority Report, Matt & Michael Monday With Kevin Gosztola On The NATO3 and Bob Kincaid On West Virginia. The water has been poisoned, and no one is even sure the mess can be cleaned up. Maybe if we can convince people that these corporations are run by jihadist Muslims, something could be done to stop them. Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report, "American State of the Union: A Festival of Lies [...] Barack Obama, who has presided over the sharpest increases in economic inequality in U.S. history, adopts the persona of public advocate, reciting wrongs inflicted by unseen and unknown forces that have 'deepened' the gap between the rich and the rest of us and 'stalled' upward mobility. Having spent half a decade stuffing tens of trillions of dollars into the accounts of an ever shrinking gaggle of financial capitalists, Obama declares this to be 'a year of action' in the opposite direction. 'Believe it.' And if you do believe it, then crown him the Most Effective Liar of the young century." A Rash of Deaths and a Missing Reporter - With Ties to Wall Street Investigations [...] The case of David Bird, the oil markets reporter who had worked at the Wall Street Journal for 20 years and vanished without a trace on the afternoon of January 11, has this in common with the other three tragedies: his work involves a commodities market - oil - which is under investigation by the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for possible manipulation. The FBI is involved in the Bird investigation." "North Carolina's Moral Monday Movement Kicks Off 2014 With a Massive Rally in Raleigh [...] If today's rally was any indication, the Moral Monday movement will be bigger and broader in 2014. An estimated 15,000 activists attended the HKonJ rally last year, bringing thirty buses; this year, the NC NAACP estimated that 80,000-100,000 people rallied in Raleigh, with 100 buses converging from all over the state and country. It was the largest civil rights rally in the South since tens of thousands of voting rights activists marched from Selma to Montgomery in support of the Voting Rights Act." The corruption of our judicial system has created a monster that defies any concept of "civilization" - and wasn't even funny on an episode of QI. Absolutely everyone finds the editorial pages at The New York Times embarrassing. And, of course, the most embarrassing thing is Thomas Friedman. The Koch Brothers Left a Confidential Document at Their Last Donor Conference - Read It Here "The NSA Doesn't Spy On Americans" - This statement just might be inaccurate. Strange, the right-wing seems upset about the idea that people might have the freedom to leave jobs they hate if they have portable health insurance. New Photos of the NSA and Other Top Intelligence Agencies Revealed for First Time The late Gary Webb on C.I.A. Trafficking of Cocaine - and why the media round against The San Jose Mercury News until it was finally bullied into repudiating its own very good story. Progress: Olympic ad from Norway "Satirical spaghetti monster image banned by London South Bank University as 'religiously offensive'." RIP: Shirley Temple, 85. Eventually I started to think of her as a Disney princess, and then just a Republican diplomatic appointee, but on reflection, she may have been the ultimate 20th Century Fox. And I still remember her this way. Wow, that clip is weird to watch now. "Woody Allen Speaks Out" - Again, the internets are abuzz with outrage, and everyone has to take a side. Is Woody Allen a strange, sometimes anti-social seeming guy? (I'd say so, yeah.) Well, then he must be guilty! Is Mia Farrow a flake who was raging with jealousy? (Sure looks that way to me.) Then her daughter made it up! Um, maybe neither of those conclusions are correct. I look for similarities in different kinds of child abuses cases - the real kind, and the false-accusation kind. They are both realities, and I'm a bit disturbed that some otherwise sensible people are willing to acknowledge only one of them. "Scalzi's Redshirts coming to TV: John Scalzi's Hugo-winning, existentialist comedy space opera novel Redshirts is being adapted into a TV series by FX -- it's a natural! This is just wonderful news -- intelligent, funny science fiction from a novelist who plays with the tropes of the field, it's just what TV needs. Congrats, John!" Why Did Someone Put a Giant Wooden Cock on a Kremlin Critic's Car? A fabulous bit of gymnastics I am Jello! Fairy wings. More fairy wings. Watch Matt Damon and Friends Read Mean Tweets About Themselves. Have some cute overload. "Here's the latest/annual Edwardian Ball after-movie, featuring San Francisco's alt-circus Vau de Vire Society, pagan-lounge act Rosin Covin, opera divas, shovel-playing guitarists, and many well-dressed types in San Francisco." The Red Dwarf Theme 15:17 GMT comment Wednesday, 05 February 2014 Out of touch with the rhythm and blues Four years ago, Obama said this: So the point I'm making -- and Blanche is exactly right -- we've got to be non-ideological about our approach to these things. We've got to make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning, so we can't be demonizing every bank out there. We've got to be the party of business, small business and large business, because they produce jobs. We've got to be in favor of competition and exports and trade. We don't want to be looking backwards. We can't just go back to the New Deal and try to grab all the same policies of the 1930s and think somehow they'd work in the 21st century. What a pity our president doesn't read blogs, or he might have seen this a few months earlier: Splitting banks into retail and investment banks, keeping brokerages and insurance companies separate as well is part of a solution set which kept major financial crises like the recent one from happening for most of the second half of the 20th century. It was put in place by people who were experiencing the Great Depression and had learned the lessons of the roaring 20s. The inability of our decision makers, whether British, American, Canadian or otherwise to understand those lessons and take action is why it is inevitable at this point that we will have an economic collapse. It is, at this point, all but inevitable, not because nothing could be done to stop it, but because no one will do what it takes. "Progressive linguist George Lakoff: 'Liberals do everything wrong.'" - Like giving sound-bites such as, "Liberals do everything wrong." Thank you, Mr. Lakoff. Another thing you could be doing wrong is confusing "liberals" and "progressives" with those talking heads on TV and those people in the Democratic leadership who might use those terms to refer to themselves but who are actually embarked on pushing arch-conservative policies to re-establish aristocracy and eliminate democracy, destroying hundreds of millions of American lives along the way. Because they can only hire so many servants and the rest of us are just a threat. The reason the "liberals" and "progressives" on your TV and in your newspaper are always nattering about things like "nuance" and how "complicated" things are is because they need to confuse you about their own complete lack of liberalism or progressivism. But Lakoff is right about one thing: We don't need to hedge, fudge, or produce statistics every time we want to say something, and we should be talking like real liberal policies are the only moral policies, because they are. It shouldn't be that hard to point out that killing people in order to make a few Malefactors of Great Wealth even richer is evil. I keep seeing people linking to a Daily Beast article called, "No, Women Don't Make Less Money Than Men." The funny thing about it is that at no time does it actually show that women don't make less money than men, it just tries to explain it away. So it's really a "Women make less money than men because" story. It doesn't explain why certain professions that actually hurt society make more money than other professions that women are more likely to be in. It doesn't explain why in some jobs that are associated with men - say, doctors and lawyers - there are artificially imposed ceilings on the number of people who are certified to perform those jobs, thus creating more demand for them individually, which helps jack up their pay scales - just aside from the government allowing some of them to set their own pay scales so people have to pay them some ridiculous fees for their work. So they're trying to pretend that the "gender gap" in income doesn't exist because of sexism, it exists because of some natural thing that just happens to mean society is ordered in such a way that women are more likely to be paid less for their work, or move into uncompensated work for part of their careers, and it's all just an accident of nature or something. Except that women still end up making less money than men. Here's Ian Welsh on "The Four Principles of Prosperity", and it's a reminder of how the perception of what economics is and what it's for have been changed over the last 30-odd years. But it's not just economics, it's everything. Over here a relative of Mister Tristan jumps off from the Loaves & Fishes graphic I posted to quote someone who begins, "It is hard for us to come to grips with just how different the Bible's assumptions about poverty are from that of the average American Christian. Which tells me that there's an easy assumption that Elitist Jesus has risen so high in the American pantheon that we don't even know about the other one - although, in fact, the Jesus who loved the poor and told the rich to give their riches away is the one the Boomers were raised on. Atrios has been talking from time to time about the view of "The Poors And The Blahs" that shapes a lot of the right-tribe's feelings of resentment, and he's very smart on this. People honestly believe (because their political leadership is prone to imply it or say it outright) that certain people - certain people who are poor or black or foreign - are getting things that "real Americans" aren't able to get, even when they need just as much help. Tom the Dancing Bug on the poor, persecuted rich. - Obama wants your children to be as miserable as Korean children, because Americans just care too much about their kids. It's actually old news that business is now focusing on either the rich or the underclass, because the middle class is just too small to bother with, but apparently newspapers are noticing, too. "President of Uruguay Criticizes the Business Suit: 'We have to dress like English gentlemen!' exclaimed [Uruguay President Jose] Mujica, clad in a rumpled white shirt. 'That's the suit that industrialization imposed on the world! Even the Japanese had to abandon their kimonos to have prestige in the world,' he continued, gesturing forcefully and rapping a pen on the table to punctuate his words. 'We all had to dress up like monkeys with ties.' (via) A good start: "Third prominent banker found dead in six days" Lee Camp on The Shocking Truth About Black People "How to Find out Anything from Anyone" - and, he doesn't say it, but it's why torture is pointless and stupid. And now, a New Yorker cartoon. If the wingers are boycotting Girl Scout Cookies, it's time for you to send me some mint cookies! "This Anti-Skipping School Ad Is The Most Disturbing Thing I've Ever Seen." I have long believed that firms pay people to come up with PSAs that are so ridiculous they will have the opposite of the purportedly-desired effect, so that your average kid will be convinced their elders are making crap up to scare them out of doing perfectly harmless things (which is sometimes the case, but those anti-tobacco ads in comics looked geared to make kids roll their eyes). Bloomberg, "The World's 200 Richest People End January With a $107 Billion Loss" - via Corrente. "The Woody Allen Allegations: Not So Fast" - This article seems to have kicked up quite a fuss on the internet, with people unfriending each other and the usual recriminations that go with this sort of thing. Either you're willing to reserve judgment or you're an apologist for child abuse, or something. But since I've been on several sides of being the kid in the middle, I've gotta say that no amount of the reading I've done on this tells me what actually happened, because I've seen how carried-away people can get with this stuff, and I've seen how what goes on between the grown-ups can happen without anyone really paying attention to what's actually happening to the kid - all the while swearing they are doing it for the kid. I read "Doctor Who: 10 Mind-Blowing Uses Of Foreshadowing You Never Noticed" but, frankly, my memory is so bad I can't remember half the stuff they're talking about. Cory sez: "Campbellian anthology: more than 860,000 words of free fiction from new sf/f authors: A reader sends us The 2014 Campbellian Anthology, a free and DRM-free ebook (.epub and .mobi) with 111 authors eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and over 860K words of fiction." You can download them here. Pete Seeger's Last Letter "Porn gives young people an unrealistic and unhealthy idea of how quickly a plumber will come to your house." Brian Wilson in studio with George Martin I admit, I've never bought a Billy Joel album or gone to one of his shows, but I've never been one of his detractors, either - no one who knows music can say he isn't a talented man. He recently provided his audience with one of those perfect fan moments when he did a Q&A at Vanderbilt University and a student stood up and asked if he could play "New York State of Mind" with him. This is a nice one. 16:56 GMT comment

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Avedon Carol at The Sideshow

And, no, it's not named after the book or the movie. It's just another sideshow.