;)
Monday
Aug122013
The Commentariat -- Aug. 13, 2013
Pete Yost & Paul Elias of the AP: "Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major shift Monday in federal sentencing policies, targeting long mandatory terms that he said have flooded the nation's prisons with low-level drug offenders and diverted crime-fighting dollars that could be far better spent." Holder's full remarks before a meeting of the American Bar Association, are here. ...
The real value of these proposals will be in the implementation, which drug policy reform advocates have good reason to be wary about. For example, despite a 2009 Justice Department memo urging U.S. attorneys not to go after marijuana businesses that are legal under state law, more state-legal medical marijuana providers were shuttered by federal actions during the first term of the Obama administration than were closed during George W. Bush's two terms. And, we're still waiting for the administration to announce its response to the marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and Washington.... -- Tom Angell, Chairman, Marijuana Majority
The focus on racial disparity in the drug war is positive, but it sounds incredibly hollow given that at the same time President Obama is considering picking Ray Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security. As NYPD commissioner Kelly is responsible for the stop-and-frisk policy that a federal judge just declared an unconstitutional violation of the 14th amendment. -- Jon Walker of Firedoglake
... Ed Kilgore: "Long before Rand Paul drew national attention to his own support for sentencing reform, there was a quiet movement slowly but surely developing on the Right ... in favor of calling off the madness of mandatory minimums. Just as importantly, this trend was being fed by various tributaries of the conservative stream, not just libertarians but conservative evangelicals and budget-conscious fiscal hawks. Just last week, in fact, the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC], which probably contributed more to the spread of mandatory minimum legislation in the states than just about any other single source, reversed its position and endorsed sentencing reform. So Holder may be pushing on an unlocked door. Still, a whole generation of pols -- mostly Republicans, to be sure, but also many Democrats trying to prove themselves as 'tough on crime' -- have prospered politically from the 'Three Strikes' era." ...
... Steve M.: already the right is complaining that the administration should not be implementing sentences changes "by executive fiat," even when the writers agree with Holder on the underlying issue. "Um, you Republicans could solve this by helping to pass a bill. But you won't, will you? You certainly won't now that the policy is associated with Holder. Will you?" ...
... Charlie Savage & Erica Goode of the New York Times: "Two decisions Monday, one by a federal judge in New York and the other by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., were powerful signals that the pendulum has swung away from the tough-on-crime policies of a generation ago. Those policies have been denounced as discriminatory and responsible for explosive growth in the prison population."
** Peter Maass in the New York Times Magazine on how Laura Poitras helped Ed Snowden reveal the NSA's surveillance programs. After extensive e-mail contacts initiated by Snowden, "along with her reporting partner, Glenn Greenwald..., Poitras flew to Hong Kong and met the N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, who gave them thousands of classified documents...." ...
... "In the course of reporting his profile of Laura Poitras, Peter Maass conducted an encrypted question-and-answer session, for which Poitras served as intermediary, with Edward J. Snowden." The article is a full transcript of that conversation. ...
... CW: I don't regularly agree with libertarian Conor Friedersdorf, but he has an excellent post in the Atlantic detailing one-by-one the obfuscations & lies President Obama told in his Friday press conference about NSA programs. "... throughout the surveillance debate, the executive branch, including Obama, has lied, obfuscated, and misled the American people in a variety of ways. Before Edward Snowden's leaks, they could at least tell themselves that the disinformation was serving the purpose of keeping al-Qaeda operates from learning the general contours of our surveillance capabilities. But today, when that excuse has long since expired, Obama is still lying, obfuscating, and misleading the American people.... With the stakes so high, and his performance so dubious in so many places, Friday's speech has got to be one of the low points of his presidency." ...
... Gene Robinson: "The modest reforms Obama proposed [re: the U.S.'s surveillance apparatus] do not begin to address the fundamental question of whether we want the National Security Agency to log all of our phone calls and read at least some of our e-mails, relying on secret judicial orders from a secret court for permission. The president indicated he is willing to discuss how all this is done -- but not whether." CW: Yo Bama. When you've lost Gene Robinson, you've lost. ...
... BUT Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast looks on the bright side: "No, they were not 'bold and sweeping' proposals [to change surveillance practices]. At the same time, it sure seemed to me like this was the first time in my adult life I'd ever heard a sitting president propose checks on his administration that he didn't have to offer. And Obama didn't have to offer these.... On May 23, [before any of Snowden's leaks became public,] he gave a speech at the National Defense University in which he foreshadowed the moves he just announced." ...
Robert Pear of the New York Times: "In another setback for President Obama's health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care. The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014."
Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Hillary Clinton's self-imposed absence from the country's political discourse ended Monday when the former secretary of state issued biting criticism of Republican-backed voter ID laws during a speech to a group of lawyers. Clinton said her appearance at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association marked the beginning of a speaking series she'll embark upon that will also include an address on the United States' national security policies next month in Philadelphia." ...
... "The Most Trusted Name in News." David Brock of Media Matters, in a Politico op-ed: CNN chief Jeff "Zucker has apparently made it his mission to compete with Fox News by having CNN from time to time become a pale copy.... CNN is tilting and slanting to the right, but without Fox's overt ideological agenda. CNN under Zucker has lent legitimacy to the right's agenda, especially the never-ending complaint that the network never airs enough conservative points of view -- a fair point, he said, and something he has vowed to correct. Now it is becoming clear that he is paying more than lip service to this demand for a course correction," with what he hints will be an unfavorable biopic of Hillary Clinton. "Just last week, CNN aired an hour-long special, 'The Truth About Benghazi,' that pushed long-debunked myths.... Just a few months ago, former producer Peter Dykstra, who oversaw CNN&'s environmental beat for 13 years, revealed top CNN executives now describing environmental stories as 'elite issues or liberal issues.' ... The shift toward more sensationalist coverage has also moved CNN into the infotainment business and out of the news business...."
Farenthold & a friend. That's Blake on the right, in the ducky pj's, circa 2010. If you're going to be impeached, might as well be by a guy who happily has his picture snapped while wearing pj's & wrapping his arm around a scantily-clad unidentified woman. (This is what I mean by too many clowns to cover; see my comment below on another anti-Obama clown.)A question I get a lot: 'If everyone's so unhappy with the president's done, why don't you impeach him?' I'll give you a real frank answer about that: If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn't be convicted. -- Rep. Blake Fahrenthold (R-Texas)
Farenthold wants to assure America that yes, the entire House of Representatives are exactly the sort of petty dumbasses that Farenthold considers his people, but I promise you: Nobody in the country had any doubt about that. -- Hunter of Daily Kos
... Tom Kludt of TPM: "A spokeswoman for Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) repeatedly declined Monday to say whether or not the congressman believes President Barack Obama is an American citizen, telling TPM it's a 'moot point.'" ...
... CW Update: Here's the full shot of Rep. Ducky Boy & friends. Contributor Noodge links to a fine piece by Juanita Jean, but she uses a photo which obscures the face of the young -- how young? -- lady on the left. I leave it to you to decide if she is a minor; I can't be sure, and surely, surely Ducky Boy had no idea! ...
... Update Update: Noodge explains, "The 'M' on the young lady's hand was, apparently, to indicate that she is a minor so she wouldn't be served alcohol." As Noodge says, that means she's less than 21, but could be 18 or older, so legally an adult. Farenthold would have been about 48 at the time the photo was taken. Wikipedia: "Farenthold lives with his wife Debbie and two daughters Morgan and Amanda in Corpus Christi." ...
... Here's another 4-shot; this time it's Ducky Boy & the family. The daughters appear to be about the ages of Ducky's young friend in the photo above. Ducky does not appear nearly as comfortable with the wife & kiddies as he was with his other friends; note how awkwardly he holds his arms at his sides & his "smile" looks more like a grimace:
Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "Over the weekend Republican National Committee chief Reince Priebus doubled down on his threat to withhold 2016 GOP presidential debates from CNN and NBC if the networks air planned programs on Hillary Rodham Clinton. On CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday, host Candy Crowley asked Mr. Priebus whether he'd throw Fox News into the debate penalty box as well, given a New York Times report that a Fox sister company is in talks to produce the Hillary Clinton miniseries now slated to appear on NBC. Priebus made it clear Fox would not be included in any RNC boycott. First of all, he downplayed the Times report, saying he 'doesn't know the truth of anything you're talking about.' ...
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: Republican congressmembers have lost their enthusiasm for townhall-style meetings. "Though Republicans in recent years have harnessed the political power of these open mic, face-the-music sessions, people from both parties say they are noticing a decline in the number of meetings. They also say they are seeing Congressional offices go to greater lengths to conceal when and where the meetings take place." Tea party groups, who love opportunities to confront members of Congress, are furious, & Democrats think it's a hoot.
Ashlee Vance of Bloomberg BusinessWeek: "Almost a year after Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors (TSLA) and SpaceX, first floated the idea of a superfast mode of transportation, he has finally revealed the details: a solar-powered, city-to-city elevated transit system that could take passengers and cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. In typical Musk fashion, the Hyperloop, as he calls it, immediately poses a challenge to the status quo -- in this case, California's $70 billion high-speed train that has been knocked by Musk and others as too expensive, too slow, and too impractical. In Musk's vision, the Hyperloop would transport people via aluminum pods enclosed inside of steel tubes.... Musk published a blog post detailing the Hyperloop on Monday. He also held a press call to go over the details." ...
... Brad Plumer of the Washington Post: "Musk claims a Hyperloop would be ridiculously cheap, with tubes from San Francisco to Los Angeles costing just $6 billion or $7.5 billion (depending on whether the pods could transport cars). That's just one-tenth the cost of California's tumultuous high-speed rail project. But is this low price tag really plausible? Even if the Hyperloop technology did work, there's good reason to think it'd be a lot pricier than Musk is letting on."
Science Daily: "Smart people are just as racist as their less intelligent peers -- they're just better at concealing their prejudice, according to a University of Michigan study. 'High-ability whites are less likely to report prejudiced attitudes and more likely to say they support racial integration in principle,' said Geoffrey Wodtke, a doctoral candidate in sociology. 'But they are no more likely than lower-ability whites to support open housing laws and are less likely to support school busing and affirmative action programs. ... Intelligent whites give more enlightened responses than less intelligent whites to questions about their attitudes, but their responses to questions about actual policies aimed at redressing racial discrimination are far less enlightened.... According to Wodtke, the broader implication of this study is that racism and prejudice ... result from the need of dominant groups to legitimize and protect their privileged social position.... Thanks to James S. for the link.
Senate Race
Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times: "As New Jersey residents prepared to vote in a primary on Tuesday to fill a seat in the United States Senate, candidates traveled around the state to make their final pitches."
Local News
Jim Morrill of the Raleigh News & Observer: North Carolina "Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday signed into law a bill requiring voters to produce a photo ID when they go to the polls, and it was immediately met with legal challenges in federal court questioning its constitutionality. The new law brings sweeping changes to the state's election process by reducing the early-voting period by a week, abolishing same-day voter registration and ending straight-party voting.... Just hours after McCrory signed the bill, two separate lawsuits challenging the law were filed in federal court in Greensboro. A third lawsuit is expected to be filed in state court Tuesday. Congressman G.K. Butterfield also asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to 'take swift and decisive action by using any legal mechanisms' to protect North Carolina's voting rights."
Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed: "His poll numbers have plummeted, and his campaign donations have all but dwindled, but in a wide-ranging interview with BuzzFeed Monday night, Anthony Weiner appeared defiant, hopeful, and even a bit annoyed by the suggestion that he could possibly lose the New York City mayoral race this fall.' BuzzFeed also has several short items highlighting some of Weiner's remarks. A few headlines: "Huma Will Play Role In Hillary Clinton's 2016 Campaign"; "Stop-And-Frisk Is 'Racial In Nature'"; "I'm Still Seeing A Therapist."
Joan Greve of ABC News: "Republicans have joined Democrats in condemning a Missouri State Fair rodeo act that featured a bull nearly stampeding a clown wearing an Obama mask.... The clown has reportedly been 'permanently banned' from performing at the fair 'ever again.' Missouri State Fair officials issued an apology for the 'disrespectful' show...." CW: sorry I didn't link to any stories about this yesterday, but there are just so many clowns I can stomach in a day. This one didn't make the cut.
Travis Loller of the AP: "A Tennessee judge's decision to change a baby's first name from Messiah to Martin is drawing strong reactions from people who believe the judge overstepped her powers and those who think parents' creativity should have some limits. Thousands of people have commented online about the judge's order since WBIR-TV published its story over the weekend.... While Messiah may not be a traditional English name, it is becoming more popular. Messiah was No. 4 among the fastest-rising baby names in 2012, just ahead of King but behind Major at No. 1, according to the Social Security Administration's annual listof popular baby names. And other religious names are very common, such as Mohammed in Islamic culture and Jesus ... in Hispanic culture."
News Ledes
See the August 14 Commentariat for New Jersey U.S. Senate race primary results
New York Times: "After a decade of rapid consolidation in the nation's airline industry, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block the proposed merger between American Airlines and US Airways, which would create the world's largest airline. The move, joined by attorneys general from six states and the District of Columbia, surprised industry officials, who had expected little resistance to the deal. But it underscored a newly aggressive approach by the Justice Department's antitrust division, which has been more closely scrutinizing proposed mergers as the economy recovers."
Al Jazeera: "Israel has released 26 Palestinian prisoners on the eve of renewed Middle East peace negotiations. Buses carrying the inmates, most of whom were held for attacks on Israeli citizens, left Ayalon prison in the centre of the country late on Tuesday."
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Reader Comments (12)
There is but one god and his name is... Martin?
King, Major, Messiah... is this just an entrenchment of our overprotective 'everybody gets a trophy' culture? Not only do you get a "Hard worker" trophy for getting last place in the race, but now you can even grow up and forever be a King.
Muhammad and Jesús have always been popular names in Islamic/Latin American culture, but the recent rise in such names in the US seems to be a more recent phenomenon.
How to explain the national surge in baby names representing society's leaders?
It gets worse. You showed a cropped version of the picture of Fahrenthold. The full picture shows him with one other man and another young lady, who is clearly a minor. That picture has been pulled down from most web sites, but can still be seen here:
http://juanitajean.com/2013/08/12/ducky-boy-rides-again/
This fat piece of work had better not show up around my house. I'll set the dogs on him. Politics is one thing. I can get along with anyone whatever our political differences. This guy, however, is a lecherous sack of...........
So once again a right-wingy type has decided that her religious beliefs can and should be used to curtail the rights of citizens in a secular society. This is news? Sadly, it isn't. Another day, another reason for religious outrage on the right. But I don't imagine Judge Ballew would have objected had the kid been named Baal, or Brahma, or Krishna, or Aqua Buddha even. Presumably because those deities aren't "real" and thus adherents of those religions who might complain (not sure how many Baal worshipers are still around, but you get the point) don't have a leg to kneel on. Good thing we have that separation between church and state.
The judge apparently declined to expand on her views of other cultures in which babies are frequently named Jesus. Well, what could she say that wouldn't sound utterly insulting and stupid?
But the Jesus naming brings to mind a mildly humorous anecdote. When we were kids, my brother and I collected baseball cards like maniacs. We especially liked rookie cards, team cards, and specialty cards that marked things like MVPs, Gold Gloves, and Cy Young award winners.
Now we were brought up Catholic and in those days kids were taught to bow their heads whenever they said the name "Jesus" as a mark of respect. But it was a little jarring to see my brother (who must have been 6 or 7 at the time) bowing his head every time he picked up his Jesus Alou rookie card. It put baseball on a higher plane than merely the national pastime.
Yikes! Farenthold without my morning coffee. From the poses of the women, its clear that breasts were supposed to be the star of the photo. Pretty much what I keyed into was copious amounts of lard and no discernible package in Blake's sprayed on jammies.
One note on the Fahrenthold photo: The "M" on the young lady's hand was, apparently, to indicate that she is a minor so she wouldn't be served alcohol. Therefore she might very well be over the age of 18, but she sure as heck isn't 21.
Fahrenthold is 51 years old and drooling over teenagers. What a pig.
Even in the midst of the five year shit storm of Obama hatred that has swept across red states like a sirocco over the Sahara, there are still jaw dropping displays of loathsome racial animus and personal attacks from the right. The rodeo clown at the Missouri state fair (an event supported by taxpayers) putting on a show of the president being run over by a bull for the amusement and edification of the racists in the crowd, is one such.
Fair officials are pretending ignorance of the stunt but clearly the announcer was prepared to whip the wingnut bigots in the audience into a frenzy, so someone had to authorize this bullshit. And clearly the crowd was delighted. "They went nuts" reported one website.
One report noted that a family in attendance had brought visitors from abroad with them so they could get a feel for a certain aspect of American culture. They got it, alright.
And while some who witnessed this disgraceful exhibit of racism and idiocy were understandably upset, many more found it funny. The ever loathsome Dana Loesch on redstate.com declared the entire event simply a matter of free speech and that the whole thing was blown out of proportion by stupid Democrats because it was just an act. "The announcer was clearly referring to the clown and was not actually advising people to bring bulls to the White House or to mow down the President with a bull." Oh, thanks for clearing that up Dana, you smartass, condescending piece of shit.
So I guess it's okay because it was all in fun and whiners are silly for thinking that the racists really meant for Obama to be gored by a bull.
The clown has been banned from future rodeos but we still have the people who planned this thing and there are still those hundreds, maybe thousands, who cheered lustily at the idea of the president being killed by a wild animal. But, hey, it's just free speech at work, right?
So it's all good then.
Where the fuck do these people come from??
Republican Presidential debates not televised, Rance? What a loss to the nation!
Kinda like if you don't do what I say, I won't make you quaff cyanide-laced tea...
Wonder if Rance ever winces has hears this stuff come out of his mouth (he does often appear pained). But then it must be tough to negotiate from a position of such obvious weakness...or maybe he slept through the 2012 Republican debates and did not see the display of talent his party proffered.
I know many did.
I'd really love to discover the secret behind how and why people like Jeff Zucker get hired to run a network after destroying another one.
After a run of several decades with huge hits like Cheers, Cosby, Seinfeld, Frasier, Friends, ER, The West Wing, and Law and Order, NBC suffered a historic downturn under the "leadership" of Jeff Zucker whose primary claim to fame was promoting happy talk on the Today Show, a show whose decades long stint at number one fell dramatically for the first time under Zucker.
He did, however, give us legendary television like Fear Factor in which contestants see how many live cockroaches they can eat before puking. Riveting stuff. Oh, and he is also responsible for feeding Donald Trump's monstrous ego by giving him his own show in prime time and allowing him to fire people on the air. Words fail me.
And now he's at CNN where he wants to do what? Fox lite? This is a recipe for success? Allowing birther morons to spout their inanities and passing them off as news? Plus, why would red meat Fox viewers give up Roger Ailes' Carbon Steel Rambo Combat Killing blade of a network for Jeff Zucker's dull butter knife?
And why should anyone care? Because it's one more outlet for wingnut claptrap, one less opportunity for the occasional report from the real world.
One possible happy note. Zucker is rumored to have a hankering for life as a Washington politician.
With his record of disastrous failure, stunning mediocrity, and immense self-regard he'll fit right in.
Getting back (briefly) to the business of race, NPR is currently hosting a public forum about (as near as I can tell) what to do about the N word. As a honky, I have feelings of questionable value about dealing with it. But I am reminded that when Joseph Conrad's seminal novella "The Nigger of the Narcissus" and Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Niggers" were first published in this country, Conrad's title was changed to something like "Children of the Sea" and Christie's title was changed to "And Then There Were None." The change in Conrad's case was justified his publisher said because few would want to read a book about a colored person. I'm willing to bet Christie's case is similar.
Charles Pierce, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Roberts
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/hillary-clinton-voting-rights-act-speech-081313
James,
The Charlie Pierce piece reminds me what a cynical, prevaricating, dissimulating sack of shit is John Roberts, whose smarmy declaration that the VRA was so good that it is no longer needed, puts me in mind of critics of Glass-Steagall who judged its protections quaintly antique as they shivved it.
How'd that work out for us?
That creep in the ducky pjs? He's the step-grandson of Sissy Farenthold, a distinguished liberal Democrat from Texas!