;)
The Commentariat -- May 28, 2015
All internal links removed.
ObamaWeb! Rebecca Ruiz of the New York Times: "For 30 years, the federal government has helped millions of low-income Americans pay their phone bills, saying that telephone service is critical to summoning medical help, seeking work and, ultimately, climbing out of poverty. Now, [FCC Chair Tom Wheeler] will propose offering those same people subsidized access to broadband Internet.... While the plan is likely to secure the support of the F.C.C.'s Democratic majority in a vote next month, it is almost certain to also set off fierce debate in Washington." CW: Gosh, whoever would oppose a modest plan designed to reduce income inequality & help American children?
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama will put off a confrontation at the Supreme Court over his immigration executive actions, choosing not to ask for permission to carry out the programs while a fight over presidential authority plays out in the lower courts, officials said Wednesday. As a result, Mr. Obama&'s vast overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, which he announced with great fanfare last November, might not be resolved until just months before he leaves office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Charles Pierce: The Supreme Court is "now damned close to enshrining in law the principle that any electoral disadvantage -- self-inflicted or not -- that conservatives face is prima facie unconstitutional. First, they turn our elections into a plutocrat's playground (Citizens United, McCutcheon). Then they uphold in the main voter-suppression tactics designed by the candidates the newly corrupt system produces out in the states (Crawford). Then, they gut any remedy that the people against whom these new laws discriminate have in federal court (Shelby County.) And now, it appears, the day of Jubilee having been declared, the circle may be closing for good." ...
... CW: Nonetheless, it would seem that Little Johnnie & the Dancing Supremes could have some difficulty in sidestepping the 14th Amendment, as contributor Patrick pointed out yesterday, to wit: "... Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State...." They will have to declare that children & adult non-voters are not whole persons. That, as I noted yesterday, is the question. ...
... However, as several legal commentators have pointed out, the case the Supremes agreed to hear has to do with how the states determine the apportionment of legislative districts within their states, not how many "persons" form the basis for federal representation. ...
... BUT. Marty Lederman of Balkanization notes that when he was assistant solicitor general, John Roberts argued convincingly that one-man-one-vote must be applied to state districting. Lederman: "(Of course I am not suggesting the Chief Justice is or ought to be bound by what he argued as counsel for the government a quarter-century ago; I merely think that the substance of his argument in Garza was, and remains, quite compelling.)" Via Rick Hasen. ...
... Rick Hasen in Slate: "The conservatives behind Evenwel don't seem bothered much by the intrusion on states' rights that a decision in their favor would engender. That's because they are motivated more by the fact that noncitizens are getting representation, and in their belief that this is 'diluting' the voting power of citizens. They are the same people who backed attacks on affirmative action at the Supreme Court in the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin case and successfully got the Supreme Court to strike down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County v. Holder case. It is an agenda not about states' rights but about getting the Supreme Court to force states to empower conservatives and force onto all of us the theories of representation and power they envision." ...
... Noah Feldman of Bloomberg provides a helpful -- and easy-to-read -- historical views.
Mark Stern of Slate: The Supreme Court will hear a case contesting a death-penalty jury decision in which Georgia prosecutors left a paper trail showing blatant racism in jury selection. The state supreme court, BTW, saw nothing wrong with that. "A victory for Georgia ... would be a huge setback for the criminal justice system. It could give prosecutors across the country free rein to employ the kind of warped Southern justice that helped send [Timothy Tyrone] Foster to death row."
Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "As the Department of Homeland Security continues to pour money into border security, evidence is emerging that illegal immigration flows have fallen to their lowest level in at least two decades. The nation's population of illegal immigrants, which more than tripled, to 12.2 million, between 1990 and 2007, has dropped by about 1 million, according to demographers at the Pew Research Center.... Current and former DHS officials acknowledge that a confluence of factors explains the decline in illegal migration, including demographic changes in Mexico, improvements in its economy and Mexico's crackdown on Central American migrants headed to the United States." ...
... Nigel Duara of the Los Angeles Times: "Demonstrations unfolded Wednesday at six Arizona border checkpoints, where protesters complained that the Border Patrol has turned their hometowns into intimidating militarized zones, among other border control issues that threaten the quality of their lives."
Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "European soccer officials said on Thursday that they would not boycott an election that is widely expected to lead to a fifth term as FIFA president for Sepp Blatter, despite their intensified opposition to his candidacy. After leading an emergency meeting with representatives from FIFA's six regional confederations to discuss a criminal inquiry by the United States earlier in the day, Blatter rebuffed a call from Michel Platini, Europe's top soccer official, to step down before the election on Friday." ...
... Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times: "Dogged for years by suspicions of corruption, the governing body for the world's most popular sport is now in the center of a sprawling, spiraling scandal.... The FIFA imbroglio, unearthed as part of a joint effort that includes the FBI and IRS, extends far beyond the average sports scandal." ...
... David Graham of the Atlantic reports on the FIFA (football) arrests -- which are now up to 14 & counting. Graham describes FIFA as a Mafia-like organization. ...
Claire Phipps & Damien Gayle of the Guardian: "Fifa sponsors, including Adidas, Visa and Coca-Cola, are calling for the body to reform its practices.... The crisis has also cast doubt over [Sepp] Blatter's leadership of the body. He is seeking a fifth four-year term as president this week, but leading figures in world football have called for him to reconsider his position." ...
... Jackie Kucinich of the Daily Beast: "The Clinton global charity has received between $50,000 and $100,000 from soccer's governing body and has partnered with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association on several occasions, according to donor listings on the foundation's website.... Bill Clinton ... was an honorary chairman of the bid committee put together to promote the United States as a possible host nation for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup."
Some Would Be Heroes. Contributor safari links to the obituary of conservationist Leo Drey. ...
... And Some Would Not. Adam Lerner of Politico: Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, "downplayed the effects of climate change at his company’s annual meeting Wednesday, telling shareholders his firm hadn't invested in renewable energy because 'We choose not to lose money on purpose.'... At the meeting, shareholders sided with the company's board and voted against a measure proposed by Father Michael Crosby and Sister Pat Daly, representatives of a Milwaukee-based Roman Catholic organization, to add a climate change expert to the company's board."
Presidential Race
Say Who? Alexander Burns of the New York Times: Former New York Gov. George Pataki "announced Thursday in a video on his website that he is running for president.... Mr. Pataki, who left office in 2006, is an unlikely match for the Republican Party of 2016. A former Yale debater with an easy public demeanor, he is a supporter of abortion rights and pushed as governor for anti-discrimination rules protecting gays and lesbians."
[Pataki] sees and believes that there's an opportunity in New Hampshire to put himself forth in this race. Its voters are much more moderate on social issues.... Of course he'll be battling Jeb Bush, who is considered the more moderate of the candidates running. But Jeb doesn't know to take a position on Iraq even after the disaster we've seen. -- Former goofball Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R.-N.Y.), a long-time ally of Pataki's
Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: ", who was the runner-up in the Republican primary race four years ago but has never been considered his party's heir apparent, is announcing his second presidential bid on Wednesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dan Balz & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has been actively gauging reactions to a possible campaign for president in 2016, is now moving rapidly to assemble the staff and financial resources for such a bid and is looking to declare his candidacy sometime after June 30, according to knowledgeable Republicans." CW: Apparently god gave Kasich the signal. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Our Moral Dilemma of the Day: Should Christian bakers sell cake to sinners? ....
... Related Test Question: How is a mosque like a KKK march?
Katie Glueck of Politico: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal lashed out at Sen. Rand Paul for his recent comments about the Islamic State, saying the presidential contender is unfit to be commander in chief and is taking the 'weakest, most liberal Democrat position' when it comes to fighting the militant group. Using unusually harsh rhetoric and an unusual forum, Jindal posted a statement condemning Paul on Wednesday on his 'office of the governor' website." CW: I'm trying to think of what other presidential hopeful is unfit for the job. ...
... Ed Kilgore surmises Bobby is "grabbing every media opportunity available to get the kind of attention that might bump up those polling numbers and earn a spot on the debate stage.... "Perhaps Jindal decided to get energized after reading a Times-Pic piece from Julia O'Donoghue drawing attention to a FiveThirtyEight analysis by Harry Enten of polls showing Bobby running dead last (technically, tied for dead last with John Kasich )among born again/evangelical voters, his obsessive target for many months now." ...
... CW: I sure want Bobby to be in the same circus ring with Li'l Randy during the Fox "News" clown show debates. It would be so fun to watch these pipsqueaks duke it out. ...
... Update. Add Christie to the scrim. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: Chris "Christie accused Paul of siding with the 'criminal' leaker Edward Snowden." ...
... Update 2. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "... Jeb Bush sought to cast himself as a seasoned leader while faulting other candidates for shifting course to fit public opinion. Bush is not yet an official presidential candidate, but he suggested that others already in the race are being needlessly combative and that the eventual GOP presidential nominee should be 'hopeful and optimistic instead of grumpy and kind of reactionary.'... Bush made his comments as the featured guest on 'Calling Alabama,' a conference call series hosted by the Alabama Republican Party." ...
... Greg Sargent: "It's good that Bush is throwing down the gauntlet in claiming that GOP candidates should show courage in trying to persuade hostile GOP voters that legalization [of undocumented immigrants] is the only solution. But it remains to be see how far he'll go publicly. What's more, Bush does not deserve a pass here -- he, too, has equivocated on legalization."
Dana Milbank: "Ted Cruz, charlatan." Milbank points out how Cruz criticized President Obama for not bombing Syria at the same time Cruz was working against Congressional efforts to grant President Obama approval to bom Syria.
Adam Lerner: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker defended his decision to sign a law in Wisconsin mandating ultrasounds for women before they get abortions.... Defending the legislation against what he called the 'gotcha' media, Walker said, 'Most people I talk to, whether they're pro-life or not, I find people all the time who'll get out their iPhone and show me a picture of their grandkids' ultrasound and how excited they are, so that's a lovely thing. I think about my sons are 19 and 20, you know we still have their first ultrasound picture. It's just a cool thing out there.'... Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards responded in a statement sent to NPR that 'Women are very clear that forced government ultrasounds are not "cool."'" ...
... CW: I'm pretty sure women will want to share photos of their aborted fetuses. Maybe frame the pix & hang them on the wall. What an asshole. P.S. Once again: thanks, Wisconsin!
Ha Ha. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Carly Fiorina's attempted ambush of Hillary Clinton at a South Carolina hotel didn't go so well. ...
... Haberman: Meanwhile, Hillary called for a civil campaign, addressing "an unhappy memory from her last campaign in South Carolina, when her battle with Barack Obama grew intense and ugly." ...
... Patrick Healy of the New York Times: So then, in New Hampshire, Bernie takes a jab at Hillary for not taking a position on the TPP trade deal. ...
... Linda Greenhouse: "Hillary Clinton has been telling people ... that as president, she would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the Citizens United decision erasing limits on political spending by corporations.... Litmus tests can be problematic, for sure, but let's be intrigued rather than shocked that opposition to Citizens United has emerged as the latest one. During the presidential debates in 2012, neither candidate was asked a single question about the Supreme Court. If a Citizens United litmus test serves only to put the court on the campaign screen, where it urgently belongs, it will have done some good before the first vote is cast." ...
... Ken Vogel of Politico: "Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton, earned about $10,000 a month as a full-time employee of the Clinton Foundation while he was providing unsolicited intelligence on Libya to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to multiple sources familiar with the arrangement.... A Clinton loyalist who first earned the family's trust as an aggressive combatant in the political battles of the 1990s, Blumenthal continues to work as a paid consultant to two groups supporting Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign — American Bridge and Media Matters -- both of which are run by David Brock, a close ally of both Clinton and Blumenthal." ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge issued an order Wednesday requiring the State Department to make public batches of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails every 30 days starting next month. U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras also set particular targets for the agency to meet each month as it wades through the roughly 30,000 emails totaling about 55,000 pages.... The State Department initially proposed releasing the vast majority of the emails in a single batch by next January, but Contreras rejected that suggestion, citing the public interest in the materials."
Beyond the Beltway
Putting Some Heart in the Heartland. Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Nebraska on Wednesday became the first conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty, with lawmakers defying their Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of capital punishment who had lobbied vigorously against banning it. After more than two hours of emotional speeches at the Capitol here, the Legislature, by a 30-to-19 vote that cut across party lines, overrode the governor's veto of a bill repealing the state's death penalty law. After the repeal measure passed, by just enough votes to overcome the veto, dozens of spectators in the balcony burst into celebration."
Colin Campbell & Ian Duncan of the Balitmore Sun: "Defense attorneys for six police officers facing criminal charges in the Freddie Gray case are seeking to have the case tried elsewhere in Maryland, saying their clients can't get a 'fair and impartial trial' in Baltimore."
Zach Stafford of the Guardian: "An Illinois judge has released a long-concealed picture that shows two Chicago police officers posing over an unidentified black man in antlers while holding rifles as if he had been hunted. The photo, which was given to police by federal prosecutors in 2013, was made public for the first time on Wednesday by Cook county Judge Thomas Allen. It was taken sometime between 1998 and 2003 at the Harrison police district station on the west side. This station is a mile south of Homan Square, the facility where the Guardian earlier this year identified alleged police misconduct and torture as well as other civil rights violations."
James Nord of the AP: "A South Dakota jury on Wednesday convicted former U.S. Senate candidate Annette Bosworth [R] of election law violations. The 43-year-old Sioux Falls physician had been charged with six counts each of perjury and filing false documents stemming from the mishandling of her candidate petitions. Jurors convicted her on all of those counts...."
Share Article
Reader Comments (18)
To highlight some of the good that this country of ours produces, I recommend a quick reading of the legacy of Mr. Leo Drey, an average American with a vision for the future. Showing that conservation and money making can indeed go hand in hand, his death was probably hailed by the amoral moneymakers that proliferate among our population as his presence proved that we don't need to destroy everything just to make a buck. But Mr. Drey's method required time, patience and professionalism that many neoliberals just don't have time for.
They so much prefer to slash, burn, vacation. Repeat.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/obituaries/article_736f1bd8-6103-5202-aad0-7f74cb8f9234.html
I think we can all applaud the FIFA indictments and the will to reform such a clearly corrupt global organization, but reading between the lines shows the ridiculous hypocrisy of going after "corrupt officials" while simultaneously shielding banking executives from any true punishments. If we could show the same zeal while going after the fraudsters in charge of rigging global interest rates, or selling toxic assets to unsuspecting investors, or shady foreclosure practices that actually hurt the average citizen much more directly than some obtuse media deals for soccer matches, then the world would indeed be a better place.
Equal justice before the law does sound pretty good, though.
@safari: Well said on FIFA. My first thought had been the NFL but you went bigger and are right. The banks that just got busted for rigging exchange rates would fit the bill nicely.
I think the US is able to go after FIFA because the yahoos see soccer as "other."
I've really had to reconsider my own snarky comments about other states since Walker and his wrecking crew have taken over Wisconsin.
Only by living here can one understand the influence of rightwing talk radio which permeates the southeast Wisconsin market, the supposedly neutral largest paper in the state which props up the governor, and the divide and conquer politics whipping up resentment between urban-rural, public-private, educated-noneducated, and so on. Perpetrated on a populace hurting from the loss of manufacturing jobs and a recession, and aided by lots and lots and lots of money.
Walker was hired by the Koch brothers to enact their policies in this laboratory of democracy, and luckily for them he is a political savant. We expected that his national run would be widely ridiculed, but the national media is now, amazingly, taking him seriously as a candidate. If one pays attention to the national media, its apparent that he and his handlers are quite skilled in presenting him.
I think it's time to stop blaming Wisconsin voters for Walker's rise. It's hurtful, it's half-assed, and it ignores this fact: if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
In my previous post, I forgot to credit Charles Pierce with the notion of Walker being hired by the Koch brothers to run Wisconsin. I forget that not everyone reads Pierce.
FIFA spells: "business as usual." The US and International Olympic Committees have been even more notorious for graft and corruption. It might be fun to ask Presiding Plutocrat Putin and his Cadre of Kleptocrats how the Winter Games came to be in Sochi. And, of course, 150 million is lunch money on Wall Street, pocket change in the fossil fuel industry.
Nadd: Some time ago I gave the link to a long, comprehensive, excellent piece on Walker by Alec MacGillis: "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker: A journey through the poisonous racially divided world that produced a Republican star." I have it tucked away to display again on that rainy day if and when Scotty manages to get in the lead ahead of the other contenders. It's a full blown portrait of a man that has been bought and sold as someone worthy of leading a state and now a nation. Being a former Wisconsinite, I weep at this.
"But there was another explanation for Walker’s calm. In the WOW counties, his support was near-absolute; on talk radio, his views were echoed and amplified without question on a daily basis. A network of powerful conservative supporters, from the Koch brothers to Wisconsin’s own Bradley Foundation, had rallied to his side. Ensconced in this bubble of affirmation and adulation, Walker believed that he could crush collective bargaining without provoking a backlash." A. MacGillis
@PD Pepe: Here's a link to the MacGillis piece.
Marie
PDPepe--I read that article too. I'm not from that part of the state, and it is embarrassing that it exists. But I do think that the RW media and Walker's manipulation of it exacerbates the divide. The city of Milwaukee and Dane county neutralize votes from the WOW counties. It's Walker's skill at taking his message to the rural areas that tips the balance in state midterm elections.
We can hope that Walker is unelectable on the national stage, but I've seen closeup the effectiveness of his political skills and his backers, and I worry.
Again quoting Charles Pierce, "don't sleep on Scott Walker." At least if he is elected president, the whole country will share the blame.
The circular machinations of the Confederate Supreme Court and why democracy is on life support.
Step one: decide that money is speech.
Step two: ignore parts of the Constitution that don't suit your agenda (ensuring GOP electoral success)
Step three: gut the Voting Rights Act.
Step four: decline to hear any cases resulting from steps one, two, and three.
Step five: celebrate the rewards garnered by step one (massive gerrymandering favoring Republicans) because of the success of dark money.
Step six: reward the hucksters and flim flam artists by once again ignoring the Constitution and deciding that representation will, from here on in, be restricted only to those registered to vote with the understanding that widespread gerrymandering will make sure those votes count for a lot more than any others.
It was simple plan. Unleash unaccountable millions to dramatically reinforce Republican plans to take over, first, state legislatures, then congress. Then after declining to hear any cases challenging Citizens United, the court decides to hear a case brought by their Confederate colleagues looking to further tip the balance of power permanently to the right.
Despite the arguments about the Constitution's support for a broader definition of "representation" than the pinched, partisan one being floated by the Blum assholes, the current court, with it's Confederate Dwarfs, has been blithely ignoring the Constitution whenever it helps their ideological goals.
In addition to the 14th amendment protections being ignored by the one person one vote movement, I would suggest that the outrageous gerrymandering engendered by Citizens constitutes an appalling attack on the First Amendment by ensuring that the voice of millions of voters be ignored. That, in effect, they have no say, that the party that brings in far fewer votes, controls the speech and denies it to voters connected to the party which gained a huge surplus in votes.
How? Cheating. Gerrymandering like crazy.
A group called the Republican State Leadership Committee, in the wake of the Citizens debacle, and beginning the very next year, 2010, under the leadership of former Dubya flack, Ed Gillespie, realized that although it can cost millions to win a congressional seat, ten or twenty thousand can make a big difference in state legislative races. With all the new, untraceable dark money floating around, it was now nothing to throw $100 thousand into state races, practically buying up seats in order to speed up the gerrymandering so as to make winning all future races a cinch.
So, by 2012, with all the new state districts redrawn to favor Confederates we had, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin alone, states that went big for Obama, out of 56 congressional seats up that year in those states, 39 went to Republicans.
Shit got so bad in Wisconsin where Confederates and Scott Walker were redistricting like mad in a locked room somewhere, out of sight of everyone, that a court demanded to see what they were up to. "'Quite frankly,' the court wrote, 'the Legislature and the actions of its counsel give every appearance of flailing wildly in a desperate attempt to hide from both the court and the public the true nature of exactly what transpired in the redistricting process.'"
The RSLC spent $30 million in 2010, all dark money, to redraw state districts to their liking. The result? Even though over a million more votes were cast for Democrats in 2012, Confederates were shoved into House seats in record numbers. Records for the party who actually lost the popular vote.
Now the Supremes will have a chance to drive that last nail into democracy's coffin.
I have no doubt they'll do it. It's been their goal for decades. As Charlie Pierce points out, the current chief justice started his political life by attacking Voting rights. His predecessor, William Rehnquist, became infamous for attacking black democratic voters as they tried to vote in an Arizona election in order to deny them the vote.
The Republican Party is virulently, and violently against democracy. Has been for a loooong time.
And in the upcoming "One Vote" decision, the Confederate justices are unlikely to assist those they have always seen as the enemy (if not downright alien), not if they have a chance to guarantee their own continued electoral success (despite demographics piling up against them) into the bargain.
And one last thing. Marie suggested yesterday that the Winger Supremes may decide in favor of their ideological cult and sniff that congress can fix it if anyone sees something wrong with their decision.
Sure. And this might happen too.
Back in the old days (1975 to 1990), congress overturned Supreme Court decisions at a pace of about a dozen a year. They were doing their job, balancing the pillars of power. Once The Decider took over and Republicans ruled over all, that number dropped, between 2001 and 2014, to 2.8 a year. In other words, it hardly ever happens anymore.
So Little Johnny and the Dwarfs are free to continue legislating from the bench. Don't see that stopping any time soon.
Visiting hours for democracy are listed on the door of the ICU. See it while you still can.
Just by way of poking the hornets' nest re FIFA, here's a link copied from this AM's Naked Capitalism:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/05/ahead-of-israel-expulsion-vote-us-orders-raid-on-fifa-.html
As Yves Smith notes: Correlation is not causation. Nevertheless...
One vote, the Supremes, and incompetence deluxe.
Glancing through today's links to the most recent idiocy and shows of blathering incompetence by the Confederate phalanx of unqualified, self-promoting hacks scrambling for the White House, it's no wonder they need the Supremes to guarantee them victory without having to worry about actual, you know, democracy.
Voters smart enough to tie their own shoes would run gasping from these quacks and frauds. It's fucking embarrassing is what it is.
And given that the average GOP candidate these days talks such astounding tommyrot but seems, nonetheless, to have no problem being elected, I'm tempted to refer to these halfwits as the beneficiaries of gerrymaundering.
We have a while before Little Johnny and his dwarfs take a flame thrower to representative democracy so there's still a lot to contemplate and consider in a thoughtful fashion.
Johnny and his mates will be considering as well, but as they so often do, they may be considering not dispassionately but strategically: how to get what they want without looking like cheap partisan hacks.
But here's a thought. If the idea here is to ensure that only voters are represented or to put it another way, only registered voters have a right to representation, then we need to consider possible conditions that may be necessary and sufficient for this goal to be truly obtained.
For instance, if non-voters no longer deserve or get representation, does that mean they can't be taxed? Remember no taxation without representation? For that matter, what about voters who don't? Vote, that is. Why not take this idea to its logical conclusion and stipulate that only those who exercise their franchise have a right to representation. Water pipe bursts under your sidewalk, flooding your basement? You call city hall, they check to see if you voted last time around. No vote, no service. Sorry pal. No representation means we don't give a shit about you. In some systems this really is the way it works. Your kid needs a summer job? You call your city councilor. They can check to see if you or your kid, if she's old enough, voted in the last city election. No vote, that job goes to someone else's kid. Why not institutionalize this?
Well, obviously that would be stupid.
But never let it be said that stupid is a barrier to right-wing ideas.
More anon. Betcha can't wait.
Just a reminder: License plates in DC, home of Johnny and the dwarfs, read "Taxation Without Representation"
http://dmv.dc.gov/service/taxation-without-representation-vehicle-tags
Nisky Guy,
Forgot about those poor schlemiels who live in DC. I guess they're non-persons too.
Seriously though, the ablation of democracy by right-wing contrivances has gone on apace for decades; this contraction of the definition of representation, and it is, most definitely, a severe diminution, is just another ploy in the larger scheme of making sure an ever dwindling, aging, and predominantly homogenous population group gains and keeps power as long as possible, despite being outnumbered and outvoted. It's American Apartheid, nothing less.
I wonder if the population of DC looked (and voted) more like Ames, Iowa, would they have gotten representation a long time ago?
To show you how far, with reasonable approximation, Confederate ideology has diminished life in America and the world, I just caught the highlighted quote from Al D'Amato (above) and for a millisecond, a tiny, fleeting, itty-bitty micromeasure of time, experienced a surprising twinge of warped nostalgia for "the good old days".
D'Amato was a cheap, crooked chiseler, as corrupt as they come, but he wasn't an insane person. He knew how to finagle his way around legislative landmines, demonstrating far more native political skill and savvy than any of the crazed, walking, talking incarnations of stupid currently vying for the Republican nomination.
I'd go into just how bad he was, but I'm tired and depressed today. Maybe tomorrow.
Just let me say that Alphonse D'Amato, brought up under the vicious and base tutelage of mob lawyer and world class scumbag fixer, Roy Cohn, to provide succor and support for all manner of malefactors on streets from Mulberry to Wall, would be a giant among today's GOP crowd of sad sacks and delusional whackadoodles.
At least ol' Al was just an opportunistic crook. He wasn't a poster boy for the paranoid crackpots.
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson (linked above) is not alone among oil company CEO's when it comes to misreading the tea leaves.
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden is asking investors to bet against the world taking action on climate change or in renewables displacing fossil fuels, says influential economist Nick Stern.
Stern said, “They are completely missing what is happening in their industries, which is that the alternatives to hydrocarbon-based energy is becoming extremely competitive. For them to say that for the next 20-30 years we do not believe wind, solar and energy efficiency will be sufficient to displace hydrocarbons is a really very silly thing to be saying given all the technological advances we have witnessed in the last 10-20 years.”
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/27/stern-shell-is-asking-us-to-bet-against-the-world-on-climate-change?
Anybody remember Denny Hastret? He was just indicted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/28/dennis-hastert-indicted_n_7464262.html
Also, I guess Obama's lawyers got clobbered today by that GWBush judge.