;)
The Commentariat -- June 4, 2015
All internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
They're Just Gonna Do It Anyway. Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of Americans' international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents. In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad -- including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show. The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and 'cybersignatures' -- patterns associated with computer intrusions -- that it could tie to foreign governments. But the documents also note that the N.S.A. sought to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers. The disclosures, based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden ... and shared with The New York Times and ProPublica, come at a time of unprecedented cyberattacks on American financial institutions, businesses and government agencies, but also of greater scrutiny of secret legal justifications for broader government surveillance." ...
... Eric Tucker of the AP: "The growing use of encrypted communications and private messaging by supporters of the Islamic State group is complicating efforts to monitor terror suspects and extremists, U.S. law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, the officials said that even as thousands of Islamic State group followers around the world share public communications on Twitter, some are exploiting social media platforms that allow them to shield their messages from law enforcement."
Peggy Fikac of the Houston Chronicle: "Former Gov. Rick Perry announced for president Thursday with a promise to 'restore hope' to Americans left behind by the economy at home and unsettled by chaos abroad. 'We have the power to make things new again, to project America's strength again, and to get our economy going again,' he said at a small airport hangar in the Dallas area, backed by veterans against a backdrop formed by a C-130 plane of the type he flew while in the Ai Force. 'And that is exactly why today I am running for the presidency of the United States of Americas.'" CW: Bigger news: got through speech without once saying "oops." I still think his chances would be better running for president of the Republic of Texas.
Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice president who was among 14 people indicted by a United States grand jury as part of an inquiry into corruption in world soccer, says he knows why the organization's president, Sepp Blatter, announced plans to step down from soccer's governing body.... Mr. Warner, who said he feared for his own life, also said he had evidence linking FIFA to his country's 2010 election.... Mr. Warner's sons, Daryan and Daryll, are also cooperating with the authorities, having secretly pleaded guilty in 2013 after they tried to deposit more than $600,000 in nearly two dozen United States bank accounts in an attempt to avoid detection. During a rambling and sometimes incoherent seven-minute television address..., [which was] a paid political advertisement, he said he had reams of documents, including copies of checks, linking Mr. Blatter and other senior FIFA officials to an effort to manipulate a 2010 election in Trinidad and Tobago." ...
... AP: "Military intelligence officers have raided the headquarters of the Venezuelan Football Federation amid the spiraling FIFA scandal. Venezuela's public prosecutor's office said agents raided the Venezuelan organization's offices Wednesday to gather evidence for a criminal investigation. The organization's former head, Rafael Esquivel, was detained in Switzerland last week along with six other FIFA officials accused of taking bribes." ...
... The Guardian has a liveblog of developing FIFA stories.
*****
Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reports an excellent story about the writing of President Obama's speech delivered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march, a speech in which the President sought to define his concept of "American exceptionalism." BTW, Republicans presidential candidates are too ignorant & bellicose to understand it. Which matters. Here's the speech:
... If we're lucky, this is what the kids will be studying in tomorrow's history classes.
Patriot Act, Ctd. Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Obama administration intends to use part of a law banning the bulk collection of US phone records to temporarily restart the bulk collection of US phone records. US officials confirmed to the Guardian that in the coming days they will ask a secret surveillance court to revive the program -- deemed illegal by a federal appeals court -- all in the name of 'transitioning' the domestic surveillance effort to the telephone companies that generate the so-called 'call detail records' the government seeks to access." ...
Michael Shear of the New York Times puts the focus on President Obama: "Now, after successfully badgering Congress into reauthorizing the program, with new safeguards the president says will protect privacy, Mr. Obama has left little question that he owns it.... 'The reforms that have now been enacted are exactly the reforms the president called for over a year and a half ago,' said Lisa Monaco, the president's top counterterrorism adviser. She called the bill the product of a 'robust public debate' and said the White House was 'gratified that the Senate finally passed it.' The president is trying to balance national security and civil liberties to put into practice the kind of equilibrium he has talked about since he was in the Senate, when he expressed support for surveillance programs but also vowed to rein in what he called government overreach."
Dana Milbank: "Here's a case study in rapid radicalization. Just three years ago, the House voted overwhelmingly to extend the charter of the Export-Import Bank and to expand its business of loaning money to boost American exports. Among Republicans, 147 voted yes and 93 voted no. Nothing much has changed since then.... Yet now Republicans say a majority of the caucus wants to abolish the bank, and the Republican Study Committee -- representing 170 House conservatives -- has come out against renewing the charter. Opponents in both the House and Senate have so far succeeded in keeping the renewal from coming up for votes.... There's little chance the rebellion will kill the bank permanently, but there's a real chance the bank will close temporarily."
American "Justice," Ctd. Radley Balko of the Washington Post: "Barring last-minute interference from the U.S. Supreme Court, Lester Bower will soon be dead. And as Jordan Smith at the Intercept reports, [also linked on the Commentariat a few days ago] that would be a travesty of justice. His story is everything that's wrong with the death penalty in America." ...
... Update. Meghan Keneally & Ben Candea of ABC News: "Lester Bower Jr. received a lethal dose of pentobarbital for killing four people in an airplane hangar on a ranch about 60 miles from Dalla in 1983. He was executed hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from his lawyers."
Jess Bidgood &Dave Phillips of the New York Times: "Investigators had been watching Usaamah Abdullah Rahim long enough to know about his avid interest in Islamic State militants, but when they overheard him talking on a cellphone about beheading Massachusetts police officers, they moved in, leading to a confrontation Tuesday morning outside a CVS here that left Mr. Rahim dead, and once again raised alarms about the influence of foreign extremists on homegrown radicals." ...
... Charles Pierce: "But the actual story continues to be extremely murky."
Annals of Twitter "Journalism." J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "A Twitter spokesperson just provided [a] statement to Gawker regarding the apparent suspension of Politwoops' access to Twitter's developer API, which enabled the Sunlight Foundation-funded site to track tweets deleted by hundreds of politicians. Summarized: Politwoops is no more." ...
... CW: Twitter is mostly stupid, but this is an exceptionally stupid policy. While it's fine to allow ordinary people to delete their Tweets, the law treats politicians & other public figures differently -- and so should Twitter. The Sunlight Foundation is a boon to our right-to-know. And we have a right to know, for instance, when Scott Brown is tweeting drunk. Which is not illegal. Even in Massachusetts.
Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: "Harvard University announced its largest single gift ever Wednesday, a $400 million donation from alumnus and hedge-fund billionaire John A. Paulson to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Not everyone was impressed, some because of Harvard's substantial endowment, others because of the way Paulson became so wealthy, in part, by betting against the overinflated housing market nearly a decade ago. On social media, one commenter turned up his nose at money 'made betting your kids would be homeless.'"
Presidential Race
Brian Naylor of NPR: "Lincoln Chafee has been a Republican U.S. senator and an independent governor and now is taking a shot at the presidency, as a Democrat. Chafee announced his bid in a speech in Arlington, Va., at George Mason University on Wednesday. In his speech, Chafee said, 'I enjoy challenges, and certainly we have many facing America. Today I'm formally entering the race for the Democratic nomination for president.' During his speech, Chafee highlighted his strong opposition to military intervention in the Middle East, saying, 'we have to find a way to wage peace.'" ...
... Gerry Mullany of the New York Times outlines Chafee's major policy positions. ...
... Jaime Fuller of New York: "New presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee [is] still kilometers behind opponents despite vow to fight for the metric system." ...
... Paul Waldman: "That makes three presidential contenders whose more accomplished fathers served in the U.S. Congress."
Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "A once-sleepy Democratic presidential primary contest is fast coming alive as Hillary Rodham Clinton's poll numbers fall and a diverse array of long-shot opponents step forward to challenge her. The recent developments mark a dramatic evolution in the 2016 sweepstakes, which until now has been shaped by the large assortment of hopefuls on the Republican side, where there is no front-runner." CW: Sounds to me like a bit of news-industry wishful thinking, but I'm not that good at predicting the future. ...
... Maggie Haberman & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Democrats allied with Hillary Rodham Clinton are mounting a nationwide legal battle 17 months before the 2016 presidential election, seeking to roll back Republican-enacted restrictions on voter access that Democrats say could, if unchallenged, prove decisive in a close campaign. The court fights began last month with lawsuits filed in Ohio and Wisconsin, presidential battleground states whose governors are likely to run for the Republican nomination themselves. Now, Democrats are attacking a host of measures, including voter identification requirements that they consider onerous, time restrictions imposed on early voting that they say could make it difficult to cast ballots the weekend before Election Day, and rules that could nullify ballots cast in the wrong precinct.... A similar lawsuit was begun last year in North Carolina. Other potential fronts in the pre-emptive legal offensive, Democrats say, could soon be opened in Georgia, Nevada and the increasingly critical presidential proving ground of Virginia. Almost all of those states have growing African-American or Hispanic populations...." ...
... Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to call for an early voting period of at least 20 days in every state. Clinton will call for that standard in remarks Thursday in Texas about voting rights, her campaign said. She will also criticize what her campaign calls deliberate restrictions on voting in several states, including Texas." ...
... Thanks for the Donation, You Scoundrels. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: A "donation from the Qatari committee serves as the latest example of the willingness of the Clinton Foundation to accept big-dollar contributions from controversial and, sometimes, politically problematic sources. Donors have included foreign governments, Wall Street banks and some of the world's richest business tycoons.... While a number of controversial donations came during the years that Bill Clinton headed the organization alone, the Qatari committee's involvement in CGI came in the months after Hillary Clinton stepped down as secretary of state and joined the foundation's board."
Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "On Thursday, [former Texas Gov. Rick] Perry made his candidacy [for president] official on his official Web site. 'I am running for president because I know our country's best days are ahead of us,' said a message on the site, which included a video that stressed his ability to bridge political divides in Washington. The post came hours before Perry was scheduled to announce his plans for 2016 at an airplane hangar in [Addison, a] northern suburb of Dallas.... He is ... mired in low single digits in early polls, lightly regarded by many of his rivals, ignored or dismissed by many in the media and struggling for the kind of attention that a politician who served 14 years as chief executive of one of the nation&'s most populous states might normally command."
Nick Gass of Politico: "Jeb Bush will officially enter the presidential race on June 15 in Miami, nearly six months after announcing that he was 'actively' exploring running for the Republican nomination. In a tweet sent Thursday morning, Bush teases 'Coming soon,' linking to jebannouncement.com, which features a 06.15.15 date and says it was paid for by 'Jeb 2016, Inc.'" ...
... Lyndsey Layton & Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Starting next school year, any parent in Nevada can pull a child from the state's public schools and take tax dollars with them, giving families the option to use public money to pay for private or parochial school or even for home schooling. The new law, which the state's Republican-controlled legislature passed with help from the education foundation created by former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R), is a breakthrough for conservatives, who call it the ultimate in school choice.... Democrats, teachers unions, public school superintendents and administrators are alarmed, saying that the Nevada law to provide private school vouchers is the first step toward dismantling the nation's public schools." ...
... CW: If you can't think of any reason that Jeb Bush wouldn't make a swell president, herein is the one. He's been at this campaign to decimate public schools (with help from ALEC), & making money on it, for a long while.
Manu Raju of Politico: "After Rand Paul said GOP defense hawks had 'created' ISIS, he told Sean Hannity: 'I think I could have stated it better.' When he claimed some of his adversaries were 'secretly' hoping for a terrorist attack so they could blame him for shutting down the PATRIOT Act, the next day he admitted that 'hyperbole' got the better of him 'in the heat of battle.' And when Paul quipped that he was 'glad' his train didn't stop in Baltimore in the wake of riots there, he later offered 'regret' that his comments were 'misinterpreted.' As Paul has sought to stand out from the clustered GOP presidential field, he's finding that his freewheeling, off-the-cuff speaking style can cut both ways."
George Will, the great conservative intellectual whose wife Mari works for the great conservative intellectual Scott Walker, complains that Republicans are socialists like Bernie Sanders, too, ever redistributing wealth from deserving business owners to us "entitled" government moochers." Will might be the only person in the U.S. who is upset that the Hoover Dam & the dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama (part of the Tennessee Valley Authority), are owned by the federal government. ...
... Dr. Wanker Understands the Concerns of Victims of Rape & Incest. Ahiza Garcia of TPM: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Monday that he'd be willing to sign a 20-week abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest, adding that women were mostly concerned about those issues 'in the initial months' of pregnancy, television station reported. 'I mean, I think for most people who are concerned about that, it's in the initial months where they're most concerned about it,' Walker said of pregnancies caused by rape and incest."
... CW: I don't know precisely what the real-life experience of being raped is like, but it seems highly likely that young victims of rape & incest would delay coming forward (a) out of fear, (b) out of shame, & (b) out of ignorance -- they might not know they're pregnant. I'd love to know the basis for Dr. Wanker's diagnosis. Or is it possible he's just a crass, pandering prick? Also, too, I wonder if George Will approves of government's determining women's personal healthcare needs. Evidently the answer is yes. (Because promiscuity & states' rights.)
Politicians Say the Damndest Things. Nick Gass of Politico: "Lindsey Graham says Hillary Clinton is avoiding media questions on the campaign trail" to the extent that "it's easier to talk to the North Korean guy than it is her." CW: According to Politico's headline, "Lindsey Graham compares Hillary Clinton to Kim Jong Un." Nah, he didn't. Besides, it was a joke.
Beyond the Beltway
Brownback the Redistributor. Washington Post Editors: Kansas Gov. "Sam Brownback (R) proposed raising taxes over the weekend.... He didn't roll back his steep cuts to income and business taxes, instead proposing an increase in the sales tax from 6.15 percent to 6.65 percent.... The way Mr. Brownback originally cut business taxes provided 'an incentive to game the tax system without doing anything productive for the economy,' the Tax Foundation's Joseph Henchman found. Raising revenue by reversing this distortionary policy would seem to be the obvious first step toward fixing the budget.... Even if that weren't the case, it is very hard to run a modern government on sales taxes without also imposing a heavy burden on low- and middle-income people."
New York Times: "The sealed papers from the soccer official Chuck Blazer's criminal case were released on Wednesday. Blazer pleaded guilty in 2013 to charges that included racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering and income tax evasion." ...
... Here's the related Times story, by Stephanie Clifford. ...
... Also, Blazer had a $6,000/month Trump Tower apartment for his cats, which he rarely visited. CW: Could explain where the Donald got his orange-tabby comb-over.
CW: Love the headline: "Man raises eyebrows carrying rifle through Atlanta Airport." It is legal to carry a rifle in the Atlanta Airport (because what could possibly go wrong?), but maybe it is illegal to raise your eyebrows while carrying a gun through ATL.
CW: No, I am not covering the Duggars. If you want to know the latest, just go to any site that at least occasionally covers news or gossip.
Way Beyond
Bank Robbers in Fine Suits. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Relative to the modest size of Moldova's economy, the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars from three lenders, now insolvent, could rank among the world's biggest bank thefts." ...
... CW: This is not only as fascinating story, it is both a cautionary tale & a reminder of how our own lending institutions have been run for a long time. Evidently, Moldova is controlled by a few crooked oligarchs who use banking schemes & political bribes to enrich themselves, but our own oligarchs are richer, more numerous & just as crooked. The Modovan banks' sleights of hand may constitute a big bank theft, but banks based in or operating in the U.S. shared a haul that dwarfs the Moldovan take. Our bankers just don't have to resort to burned-out cars. They've had Tim Geithner, Barack Obama & a host of other politicians to protect them & "stand between them & the pitchforks." Imagine where we'd be if McCain had won in 2008 & put some Phil Gramm crony into the top job at the Fed.
News Lede
Washington Post: "A Washington judge on Thursday granted a new trial to the man convicted of killing federal intern Chandra Levy in 2001, after prosecutors dropped their opposition to a defense request to retry the case."
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Reader Comments (21)
The other day I made a comment about the appalling depravity of winger assholes who had been making jokes about the death of Beau Biden. At the time I hadn't heard that chief among those inhuman scumbags was liar, charlatan, and amoral slug Ted Cruz, a lightweight in every sense, both as a politician and a human being. Biden's body was barely cold when this bottom feeder, who sings his own praises as a follower of Jesus every chance gets, could not resist the urge to mock a grieving father.
Despicable doesn't come close. No half-assed apology would be able to cloak the stain of such shocking callousness if any of these hypocrites had even a passing acquaintance with the concept of shame.
@Akhilleus. Here's a related Politico story. From the Politico story: "Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood tweeted that he questioned Cruz about the joke immediately after the speech and that 'the Texas senator turned and walked away.' Livengood described the reaction to Cruz’s joke as 'faint laughter.'”
I suspect Cruz is so self-absorbed that he didn't know Biden's son had died. If he knew, & was callous enough to use the old "joke" anyway, then he's a worse creep than I realized.
Marie
On the Selma speech: I am in awe of our President's ability to bring forth a vision of how this democratic idea of a country was conceived and grew, and still manages to be a remarkable experiment in human capacity. He drew on our literature, history, sports, music and political tensions to illuminate the essential nature of our polity: average people can be trusted to govern themselves, but in the process will repeatedly screw up, but recover, grow and try to do better.
He did not mention that we were fortunate to be blessed with lots of natural resources and space to fuel growth and take off the political pressure that historically comes from aristocratic property hoarding. He really talked about the character of our citizens, and the fact that they are by no means homogenous, or ordered, but that our institutions can accommodate heterogeneity -- with some pain.
This speech, and some other trends, illustrates our need to re-establish the idea that democracy needs citizens, not subjects -- and that citizens are made by participation in the polity.
It is going to be a long haul, but we can do this.
@carlyle: Congrats on your great typo at the end of yesterday's thread: "People without medical care die from chronic deceases." That is, BTW, exactly the sort of mistake I make all the time. But yours was funnier than mine usually are.
Marie
I once heard a mother say to her young son who had just taken a dump truck and rammed it into my young son's backside, "you know mommy doesn't love you when you do bad things like this." What a terrible message, I thought––a child needs to always feel the security of being loved, but he needs to know his wayward behavior is not LIKED and cannot be tolerated.
I thought of this while reading Greg Jaffe's excellent piece on Obama's Selma speech and his search for just the right words to convey this country's strengths while needing to recognize its faults.:
"Those who only understand exceptionalism as preserving the past; who deny our faults or inequality; who say love it or leave it; those are the people who are afraid,” Obama said, according to Keenan’s notes. “Those are the people who think America is some fragile thing.”
And those like Rudy G. who simply have no understanding of this message, who think in a two-toned mindset, who believe one has to love your country unconditionally are puny people who seem unable to stretch their minds around being able to criticize, bring out the failures, be furious at the failures, and yet, not out of fear, but out of wanting to make a country that one loves a better country.
I hear in my head that wonderful song the Muffets sang with such gusto: "Someday we'll find the rainbow connection––the lovers, the dreamers and me~~~~~"
@Marie: Wanted to tell you I listened to the whole of the Souter panel discussion: Mickey Edwards was on the panel and I recognized him from way back, but can't remember why. He stressed, and did the others, of the importance of bringing the teaching of Civics back into the classroom. Our citizens, they said, are sorely ignorant of how the government is run and make disastrous choices at the polls. The overall message was overturning our disastrous money madness surrounding candidates plus the inequality that permeates and is, in many instances, the result of all of the above.
Today in the Confederacy.
Hey kids, great news from the Confederacy. Two items of interest top our news. First, former governor of Texas Rick Perry is officially running for president. Again. And he'd like you all to know three things.
First, he goes armed everywhere. Never know when some stray coyote will make a move on him outside a Waffle House in New Hampshire. Ka-POW! Got 'im.
Second, he's a lot smarter this time around. He's got glasses. See? AND...he's been studyin'. Hard. I mean, things like readin', writin' and 'rithmetic. And even some 'merican hist'ry. Did you know that there were two president Harrisons and two president Johnsons? How in the yellow rose of Texas did that happen?
Third......
Ahh....He can't remember the third one. But no matter, vote his gun totin', Medicaid hatin' ass into office. He can't be any worse than the last Texas governor.
Can he?
Next up, Jebbie Jeb Bush (University of Texas) announces that he'll be raising campaign funds illegally for only another week and a half or so. Happy now, whiners? I mean, c'mon, rules and laws and such are not for Bushes. Surely everyone knows that by now. Neither is telling the truth.
Just another day under the stars and bars. "Ohhhh...I wish I was in the land o' cotton..."
Marie,
I would be very surprised if Cruz didn't know about Mr. Biden's demise. Even Fox relayed the good news to Republicans and I'll bet my last dollar that Cruz watches Fox every day to take in the generous helpings of sycophancy shoveled his way. You are correct, however, in your assessment of him as a self-absorbed buffoon. I noticed in your links that Cruz's cold blooded joke was made at a Lincoln Day dinner.
No doubt the back stabbing Cruz fancies himself a modern Lincoln. He just doesn't see the need for all the actual thought and intellectual processing, not to mention heart and substantial moral core that went into the making of the real Lincoln. In fact, Cruz's authenticity, sincerity, and humanity are, to quote the genuine article, "...as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death”.
"CW: I don't know precisely what the real-life experience of being raped is like, but it seems highly likely that young victims of rape & incest would delay coming forward (a) out of fear, (b) out of shame & (c) out of ignorance . . . "
I do - And can identify with (a) and (b) (I was instinctively aware of my "condition" soon after the event). I am astonished that Wanker M.D. remains unaware that non-consensual sex - owing to subliminal female-physio intelligence - cannot possibly result in pregnancy.
Ophelia M.
Well, I've largely given up reading the so-called work of both Our Miss Brooks and Cardinal Douthat, the Times' lazy excuse for conservative thinkers, but I caught sight of a Douthat column on polygamy and I thought it would be worth a chuckle or two.
Considering the fact that one woman can reduce Rossie to a sweating, disgusted heap as flaccid as...well, you know, I thought it no wonder the idea of multiple women sends him running for the shelter and warm brotherhood of the nearest woman hater's club.
What he mostly concentrates on is what he does best, inventing non-existent psycho wingnut fantasies to freak out about, and blame it all on liberals and the unfortunate immorality abroad in the country. Because liberals.
It appears that Little Rossie Poo is going all chicken little because there have been several reality shows about polygamous families, and some poll has indicated that acceptance of polygamy is up, up, up...doubled in fact, to 16%. This worries him. And it's all because liberals are okay with stuff that used to get people burned at the stake, like gay marriage. Just terrible, in'it? Acceptance of different kinds of people? The idea!
What Douthat, who is both a religious fanatic and a diehard social conservative, doesn't bother to mention is that polygamy is the product of a diehard socially conservative religion. It has nothing to do with liberalism. It's based in a hidebound patriarchal religious system that is anathema to all liberals I know. Oh, but why get bogged down in details like fact when he's on a roll?
He opines that pretty soon polygamy, because LIBERAL, will be just another social experiment indulged in by the granola-digital crowd. Seriously? Jesus, how does the Times editorial board put up with this guy just making shit up with nothing to support his outrageous claims? His suggestion that because more people are willing to live and let live, pretty soon every liberal kid will be trying multiple marriages is insultingly stupid and intellectually without a foundation strong enough to support an empty penny roll.
But that sort of baseless prognosticating is trumpeted by Douthat as one of the things conservatives do best, extrapolating from the real world to the far reaches of idiocy, what Douthat calls a "...good track record ...when it comes to predicting how the logic of expressive individualism unfolds."
Oh, wait. You mean the way wingers predicted the end of the world when women got to vote, or when blacks were allowed to vote without being hung, and how they predicted the end of civilization when gays were allowed to serve in the military without being beaten up and thrown out, and how gay marriage would be the end of the country, and how...?
Well, Ross, I'll give you one thing conservatives actually are good at when it comes to things like social sacred cows like the sanctity of marriage, and that is not giving a good goddam about it. Divorce...multiple marriages and more divorces, are rampant in red states, far more prevalent than blue states where those horrible liberals live.
I knew there was a reason I don't read this idiot anymore. The real question is why the Times pays him to just make shit up and pass it off as reasoned commentary.
Both sides don't do it. One side bases their commentary and ideas in facts and the real world. You can argue about the interpretation if you like, but not about the facts. The other side makes shit up and disseminates their often dangerous drivel in a mass mailing of letter bombs.
Since Scotty Walker wants all women who become pregnant due to rape or incest not only have a look-see at their ultra-sounds but carry that pregnancy to term cuz 1.he thinks it's cool and 2. abortion is a sin then I'd propose we give all those babies to the Walkers.They could open a rape/incest child care center, but since he's such a stingy Sombitch, he and his wife would have to carry the load and be responsible for all those babies of burden. That would wipe that arrogant smirk off faster than you could say "On Wisconsin."
So enjoyed Ak's pillorying of our Priest in residence at the NYT. He do indeed get all wobbly when womens comes into the picture––all them womens give him the hibbie jibbies ––makes Ross blush at the thought of...(fill in the blank).
"Love is like learning French––if you don't learn it when you're young, it's hard to get the hang of it." –––Shrimpie on Downton Abby
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/04/1390399/-Ted-Cruz-is-the-biggest-a-hole-in-America?detail=email
The he above sums up Ted Cruz perfectly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/03/how-a-curmudgeonly-old-reporter-exposed-the-fifa-scandal-that-toppled-sepp-blatter/?tid=pm_pop_b. For those of you who enjoy hearing the successful albeit lengthy machinations of investigative journalism, this is a great read.
PD,
My dear, I believe you've hit on the perfect solution for Gov. Forced Penetration.
Opening up a home for the children of rape and incest would dovetail nicely with two favorite Confederate goals, increasing corporate bottom lines while loosening all regulations, and turning back society's clock to the mid 19th century (antebellum days, of course, when the South was still in the midst of genteel ways, high born ladies sleeping on beds of orange blossoms and their knights on horseback, sons of the old south coming to court them after a hard day of whipping slaves who passed out after working 18 hours straight with no food or water, or an equally trying day of auctioning off babies and children of slave mothers and having to listen to them wail about it. You know, the good old days).
Scotty must have a plan in place to repeal child labor laws. With a warehouse full of children resulting from his policies, he could trundle them off to corporations who could use them to improve their profit margin, or maybe sell them to gangs in other countries who would pay well for children. Or he could do the Confederate thing, rehome them to child abusers who will hopefully create more offspring for his "employment mill".
Wingers are nothing if not creative in ways to make life better for the few and more miserable for the millions.
Barbarossa,
Re: the Ted Cruz posting.
And they wonder why people hate them.
@Barbarossa & Akhilleus: You're right. Barbarossa went to the videotape, & before the reporter asked him why he told a joke about Joe Biden under the circumstances, he asked Cruz about Beau's death, whereupon Ted said it was "heartbreaking & tragic." When the reporter then asked him why he told the joke, Ted turned around & walked away.
To those of you who knew all along that Ted was a psychopath, I apologize. You're right about that, too. What a horrible human being.
Marie
P.D.
There will have to be some suitably Dickensian (and profitable) work for the inmates of Walker's Institutes for the Improvement of Unwanted Waifs. The bottom has fallen right out of the market for picking oakum. Sweeping street crossings probably wouldn't bring much... Oooh, I know, chimney sweeping. Yeah, that's it. We lower the little buggers down into industrial smoke stacks with scrub brushes, charge for the service, then claim a tax credit for reducing particulate emissions. A win-win.
Apropos to CW's link about the President's Selma speech there is a resolution for which the Alabama Senate voted to rename the bridge named after a member of the KKK to the "Journey to Freedom Bridge."
I suspect that the resolution will not be successful because:
1. a Democrat is sponsoring it
2. the idea to do so is the result of a grassroots movement by a group Students UNITE of Selma
3. it has to be approved by the AL House and governor by the end of today
4. there is still strong sentiment by other Confederates of "Why would we want to change a piece of history in our state?"
Maybe in another 150 years.
Rick Perry, come on down! From the Washington Post story:
"He promised to return power to the states, boost economic growth, reform the tax code, tackle entitlement programs, reduce federal regulations, secure the border, protect the middle class and build the Keystone XL pipeline. Internationally, he said he would, as president, rescind any nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the Obama administration."
A pretty ambitious agenda, considering giving all that power back to the states would turn us back towards the Articles of Confederation. But then I suppose all that economic growth from getting rid of regs and revising taxes will make up for that.
Marie: Thanks for not running another picture today of the snarling
Dick (Cheney, that is). I suspect he has had cosmetic surgery to
remove that damned smile, smirk, he once had. And that was only
when he thought about war, more money, and maybe another wife,
and more war.
Also, I've been trying unsuccessfully to find out how to apply for my
$4.9 billion 'cause I have a plan to put thousands of people to work..
.....on my new digs in Palm Springs, the one with the 12 car garage
full of those E. Musk cars. Any help would be appreciated.
Forrest,
First, hold a press conference to let everyone know that libertarians (like you) rule. Then proclaim your hatred of government handouts and simultaneously announce your lifelong devotion to Ayn Rand. Tell everyone that poor people are poor because they like it that way, or that they're lazy moochers and not a John Galt go-getter like yourself. Make sure you set up any business partners you might collect along the way so that when you steal their ideas, you can throw them under the bus and declare their essential unimportance, taking a moment to note how sad it must be for them to be so jealous of your genius.
If any VC types show up to wonder what the all the fuss is about, make sure to tell them that any government investment you may receive was forced upon you.
You'll be in like Flynn.
You would think that even a blindered ideologue like George Will would notice that the entire economy is Redistribution, just as our mega-corporations and bigger governments are aspects of the Great Collective to come, that is,where it has not already arrived.
The only choices we have about redistribution are who gets what and at what cost to the general population. As for the Collective, George and his buddies, as well as the rest of us who still have a vote, will be deciding if we want a government strong enough to control and tax the international mega-corporations and the billionaires who are already making most of the rules.
Today, a "government issued ID," variously and conveniently interpreted.
Tomorrow: I don't think we're that far away from property qualifications for voting. They already exist for anyone to run for high office.
And I suspect George likes it.