;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 27, 2013
** Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "The Obama administration on Tuesday moved to issue new rules that would curtail political activity by tax-exempt nonprofit groups, with potentially significant ramifications for one of the fastest-growing sources of campaign spending. The proposed rules, announced by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, would expand and clarify how the I.R.S. defines political activity and then establish clearer limits for how much activity nonprofits can engage in. Such a change ... would be the first wholesale shift in a generation in the regulations governing political activity." The Washington Post story, by Matea Gold, is here. ...
... Kim Barker of ProPublica: "Experts also cautioned that the real test of oversight on the political spending by nonprofits will be how these regulations are enforced, something that the IRS has been so far reticent to do."
Norm Ornstein in the National Journal: "... if the [Senate] norms are blown up, which is what Senate Republicans under Mitch McConnell have done over the past five years -- using the rules not to build bridges but to construct dams — it becomes almost inevitable that the rules will change to adapt." Ornstein provides quite a good overview of how Republicans destroyed "the atmosphere" that so concerned Ted Cruz that I couldn't control my laughter (November 25 Commentariat). ...
... Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "Obama faces one remaining barrier to his ability to fill vacancies in the federal courts: an arcane senatorial tradition known as the blue slip." Toobin explains why President Obama hasn't even tried to fill vacancies in some districts.
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to consider a new challenge to President Obama's Affordable Care Act and decide whether employers with religious objections may refuse to provide their workers with mandated insurance coverage for contraceptives. The cases accepted by the court offer complex questions about religious freedom and equality for female workers, along with an issue the court has not yet confronted: whether secular, for-profit corporations are excepted by the Constitution or federal statute from complying with a law because of their owners' religious beliefs. The justices accepted two cases that produced opposite results in lower courts." ...
... Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog comments on the ACA cases. ...
... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: No, corporations are not people, my friend. ...
... NEW. CW: Amanda Marcotte & I are on the same page about the Hobby Lobby case: "... if they're allowed to withhold benefits because they disapprove of your private life, then what else will they be able to do? Refuse to hire women at all?" Includes tweets by Jill Filiovic that express some of the same concerns I did in today's Comments.
Michael Shear & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "White House officials, fearful that the federal health care website may again be overwhelmed this weekend, have urged their allies to hold back enrollment efforts so the insurance marketplace does not collapse under a crush of new users. At the same time, administration officials said Tuesday that they had decided not to inaugurate a big health care marketing campaign planned for December out of concern that it might drive too many people to the still-fragile HealthCare.gov."
... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: Don't blame ObamaCare if you lose your doctor: "... the primary reason carriers are offering so many small-network plans in the exchanges is that they believe consumers want them. Their marketing research suggests that, when forced to choose between paying higher premiums for wider networks or lower premiums for narrower networks, the majority of people will go for the cheaper insurance.... Market forces, not government, and the main reason insurers are introducing tighter networks. Yet the people objecting to the result are the same ones who say they love markets." ...
... Paul Krugman predicts, "... the whole horrors-of-Obamacare meme will be gone in weeks, not months. But the GOP echo chamber won't be able to let it go." ...
... NEW. Tom Kludt of TPM: "In an interview on Monday with the conservative Newsmax, Time's Mark Halperin said that so-called 'death panels' are enshrined in the Affordable Care Act.... 'So, you believe there will be rationing, a.k.a "death panels"?' host Steve Malzberg asked Halperin.... 'It's built into the plan. It's not like a guess or like a judgment. That's going to be part of how costs are controlled," Halperin said before arguing that it's necessary to ration care.'" Kludt points out that the ACA specifically prohibits "death panels." ...
... Kludt: Halperin later "clarified" his remarks. He does the same thing on MSNBC, digging the hole deeper, as far as I can tell. Video. ...
... ObamaCare Obsession. Olivia Kittel & Olivia Marshall of Media Matters: "Right-wing media are dismissing President Obama's and Congressional Democrats' work on filibuster reform, a diplomatic agreement with Iran, and immigration reform as merely attempts to distract from the Affordable Care Act." ...
... Obama Obsession. Jose Delreal of Politico: "Conservative commentator and writer Dinesh D'Souza ignited a social media backlash Tuesday, when he referred to President Barack Obama as 'Grown-Up Trayvon' on Twitter.... D'Souza followed up 45 minutes later, writing, 'Feigned outrage on the left over me calling Obama 'grown up Trayvon' except that Obama likened himself to Trayvon!'" ...
... Igor Bobic of TPM: D'Souza deleted both tweets a short time later. CW: D'Souza isn't a grown-up at all; he's an adolescent prick.
Craig Timberg, et al., of the Washington Post: "Microsoft is moving toward a major new effort to encrypt its Internet traffic amid fears that the National Security Agency may have broken into its global communications links, said people familiar with the emerging plans. Suspicions at Microsoft, while building for several months, sharpened in October when it was reported that the NSA was intercepting traffic inside the private networks of Google and Yahoo, two industry rivals with similar global infrastructures...." Slides, provided by Edward Snowden, suggest "but do not prove" the NSA would target Microsoft. CW: Here is where Snowden does something useful: demonstrating that the U.S. is targeting U.S. companies & gathering info on their customers. ...
... Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "The United Nations moved a step closer to calling for an end to excessive surveillance on Tuesday in a resolution that reaffirms the 'human right to privacy' and calls for the UN's human rights commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the impact of mass digital snooping. A UN committee that deals with human rights issues adopted the German- and Brazilian-drafted resolution that has become an increasingly sensitive issue among UN members."
Who's Right in This Exchange -- President Obama or Heckler Ju Hong?:
... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "As the likelihood for congressional action [on immigration reform] diminishes, there is pressure on President Obama to act unilaterally.... Clarissa Martinez-De-Castro [of] ... National Council of La Raza, an ally of Obama's on immigration reform, said the administration should do more to prioritize deportations to focus on national security and community safety concerns.... Pro-immigrant activists argue the president has more authority over deportations than he acknowledged Monday." ...
... CW: I said the other day that the President handled the heckler well. But his critics suggest in his "handling," he didn't tell the whole truth. However, there's this from Bolton's report: "'Contrary to popular myth, the administration has enormously scaled back deportations and now almost all the individuals deported are either convicted criminals, repeat immigration violators or national security threats,' said a GOP aide. The aide noted that Hong, the heckler, is an illegal immigrant himself who was arrested in 2011 and was not deported. Instead, he was invited to stand on stage with the president of the United States." (Emphasis added.) So you decide.
Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: "Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and executive producer of '60 Minutes,' informed staff Tuesday that Lara Logan and her producer, Max McClellan, would be taking a leave of absence following an internal report on the news magazine's discredited Oct. 27 Benghazi report.... Al Ortiz, executive director of standards and practices at CBS News, presented his findings in a memo to employees.... He wrote that the Benghazi story 'was deficient in several respects' ..." Calderone's report includes the full memos from Fager & Ortiz. ...
... Hatas Gold of Politico: "CBS News correspondent Lara Logan is no longer hosting the Committee to Protect Journalists' press freedom awards dinner Tuesday night in New York. In her place will be 'CBS Evening News' anchor and fellow '60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley." ...
... AND, people, when it comes to dressing up for gala affairs, Scott Pelley is no Lara Logan:
... Digby: "If CBS thinks [Logan's] comments about Benghazi show a bias, her comments about Afghanistan and Pakistan show exactly the same one. She thinks that powerful 'dark forces' are trying to destroy our way of life and evidently believes they are capable of doing it. She believes that the US should be sending in 'clandestine warriors' and drones to 'take people out' to send messages and exact revenge. She has a particular hang-up about Pakistan and apparently wants the US government to 'teach them a lesson.' She identifies very closely with the military brass.... That is a pretty immature worldview.... She's a hardcore, but somewhat shallow, warhawk and her work needs to be seen through that filter." ...
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post wonders, among other things, "Where's Jeff Fager's leave of absence?"
Dana Milbank: "The White House has increasingly excluded news photographers from Obama's official events and is instead releasing images taken by in-house photographers, who are government employees. 'As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist's camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government,' the White House Correspondents' Association, joined by the Associated Press and other news organizations, wrote in a letter to White House press secretary Jay Carney last week. 'You are, in effect, replacing independent photojournalism with visual press releases.'"
Homophobia Hoax. Brian Gingras of WNBC New York: "After a gay server at a New Jersey restaurant said a customer denied her a tip and wrote her a hateful note on the receipt, a local family contacted NBC 4 New York and said their receipt shows they paid a tip and didn't write any such note."
Local News
NEW. Luz Lazo of the Washington Post: "The Prince George’s [Maryland] County Council voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to raise the $7.25-an-hour minimum wage to $11.50 over the next four years. The action came a day after Montgomery County [Maryland] Council approved a similar measure."
Rene Stutzman & Jeff Weiner of the Orlando Sentinel: "Seminole County deputies found five guns and more than 100 rounds of ammunition in the home George Zimmerman shared with his girlfriend, where he was arrested last week, accused of domestic violence. A search warrant made public Tuesday shows that Zimmerman had the weapon that his then-girlfriend said he had used to threaten her: a high-capacity, high-tech 12-gauge shotgun. He also had a semi-automatic assault rifle and three handguns."
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: Gov. Tom "Corbett [of Pennsylvania] is now the most unpopular Governor anywhere in the country that we've polled, with only 24% of voters approving of him to 65% who disapprove." Corbett is running for re-election next year.
News Ledes
AP: "China acknowledged Wednesday it let two American B-52 bombers fly unhindered through its newly declared air defense zone in the East China Sea despite its earlier threat to take defensive measures against unidentified foreign aircraft." The New York Times story, which is more extensive, is here.
Guardian: "More than two months after the German general elections, Angela Merkel's CDU party has reached an agreement to form a coalition government with the Social Democrats."
Reuters: "Pakistan named a career infantry officer considered a moderate as army chief on Wednesday as the country fights a Taliban insurgency and seeks accord with the United States on how to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced that Lieutenant-General Raheel Sharif, brother of a war hero, would take charge of the world's sixth-largest army, with a formal handover from General Ashfaq Kayani on Friday."
Reuters: "Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis has resigned after the collapse last week of a supermarket roof in the capital Riga that killed more than 50 people.... The resignation throws into political turmoil a Baltic state that is due to join the eurozone in January and is seen as an example of fiscal prudence and economic recovery after a deep financial crisis in 2008."
Guardian: "Silvio Berlusconi could suffer arguably the heaviest blow of his political career on Wednesday night when the upper house of parliament is expected to vote to oust him following a conviction for tax fraud." ...
... New York Times Update: "Having spent months manufacturing procedural delays or conjuring political melodrama in hopes of saving himself, Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday could no longer stave off the inevitable: Italy's Senate resoundingly stripped him of his parliamentary seat, a dramatic and humiliating expulsion, even as other potential troubles await him."
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Reader Comments (32)
I think we need to wait a bit on the homophobia hoax issue. No one has yet seen the Visa bill which is the only way to verify their claim on the tip.
Fabulous news on cracking down on those 501(c)3s! That, along with the "distraction" of a deal with Iran, makes my week.
I just spent the last hour trying to find out about the Vitter amendment which was to eliminate the subsidies for congress and their staff. I didn't realize it didn't get passed and was confused when your links talked about Boehner's subsidy. In my search I came across a Forbes article. The author thanked Vitter for information on the law. Yeah. I guess that's why it was a bunch of lies.
@Haley Simon: You must know something I don't know. According to the WNBC report linked above, "They also provided a document they said was a Visa bill, which appears to indicate their card was charged for the meal plus the tip, for a total of $111.55." Not sure why the reporter didn't just write it was a Visa bill, but I suppose there's a long shot that the couple doctored it.
I can't see any motive for the couple to lie about leaving the tip. They weren't named in the original stories & they're not seeking publicity now (they didn't want WNBC to use their names), so if they were jerks, there was no way for anyone to know they were the jerks who stiffed the waitperson.
It could be that a cashier in the restaurant stole the tip & wrote the note or it could be that the waitperson just made up the story. I don't think the customers were the guilty parties, but I'll be glad to say I wuz wrong if you have further info.
Marie
If the principal owner of a large corporation believes that mental illness is the work of the Devil & the only cure is prayer, can his corporation refuse to provide mental health coverage in its healthcare package? If he believes it's sacrilegious for women to work outside the home, can his corporation refuse to accept jobs applications from women? If he believes it is a sin to fraternize with people of other religions, can his corporation refuse to accept applications from people of religions other than his? If the Supremes rule for Hobby Lobby, I think that's the kind of discriminatory crap that will follow. Hobby Lobby's discrimination against female employees is but a hop, skip & jump from Rand Paul's contention that business owners should be able to discriminate on the basis of race because they should have the freeeedom! to do what they want on their own property.
Hobby Lobby's case is based on Southern authoritarianism: the patriarch knows best. His employees should accept his views on personal matters & adopt those views as their own. If the patriarch believes women should not use contraceptives, then women under his control -- i.e., his employees -- may not use contraceptives. In the Southern model of freeeedom!, only the few are free. The rest of us are meant to be pawns who follow the leader & lack free will.
Marie
On SCOTUS assigning Bill of Rights freedoms to corporations, those entities we've been told "are people, my friends:"
In addition to Marie's objections to the absurd positions taken by the plaintiffs, something else occurred to me when I heard the Court would be taking up two cases that contend corporations or their owners had the right to impose their religious views on their employees, but first I had to consult King James.
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
So...I own an incorporated business and I'm convinced (or would like others to believe I'm convinced) that only those who work should eat. After all, I can, as I just did, cite a Biblical injunction to that effect. Makes both moral and financial sense then, doesn't it, that I stop paying my share of the unemployment insurance tax? Why should I, as an upstanding citizen of this fine republic, encourage sinful unemployment, one of the great softeners of our nation's moral spine?
What rational court could argue with that?
(BTW, that many believers still assert that bad people should and do go directly from the dust to the hot place leads me to suggest that if corporations are indeed people that should mean many of them also ought to go straight to hell...)
But while we await SCOTUS' summer of '14 decision, maybe a more immediate and truer test of personhood is upon us. Can a corporation eat too much turkey? I know I can and will.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Marie, Nope. I don't know anything special. But with 50% of the country flinging poo these days, I just want to SEE the Visa bill. "Document" "appears" is too damn weaselly. But you're right about the missing motive, so I will be glad to say I wuz wrong...
Haley Simon; see http://www.queerty.com/family-claims-lesbian-lying-about-being-denied-a-tip-based-on-her-lifestyle-20131126/
@cowichan: The Queerty story you link appears to rely wholly on the WNBC story. I don't think Queerty did any original reporting. The author simply assumed, as I do, that the Visa statement the couple presented was authentic. Haley Simon thinks it could be fake. I think the odds of that are extremely low.
In the WNBC on-air story, the reporter presents a closeup of a redacted copy of the Visa statement, & she treats it as credible. If the WNBC reporter & producer thought the couple were phonies, they wouldn't have run the story.
Bridgewater is an upscale bedroom community. This couple claims to have visited the restaurant several times; that is, they can afford to regularly dine out at $100 a pop. The husband said he didn't vote for Christie because Christie opposed gay marriage. I'm not sure a bigot would even think of saying something like that. I don't mean to suggest there are no well-to-do homophobes in Western New Jersey. But it would be beyond stupid to express such hatred in a neighborhood bistro where you often dined. Come back next time & expect spit -- or worse -- in your soup.
My first guess is that the waitperson -- who could be suffering from PTSD -- invented the story to feel like an important contributor to the site where she posted it. I doubt she expected her story to go national, so she couldn't foresee that she would get caught in a hoax. The couple who came forward with their receipt & bank statement, on the other hand, know that this is a big story, so again they would be pretty stupid to fake their claim as they know they would be likely to get caught. Moreover, they're rich enough to worry they could become defendants in a defamation-of-character suit if they were inventing their claims.
It is also possible, as I wrote earlier, that a cashier -- not the waitperson -- rang up the charge & somehow skimmed the tip. But to me the preponderance of the evidence is that the customer is right here. I'd say there's no more than a two percent chance they didn't pay the tip.
Marie
I'm really hoping that the reason we're restricting independent photographers from the President is because we'll soon be adopting the North Korean model of sharing images of our leader with the world.
Obama always perfectly centered, flanked by his officers, with the always determined and insightful gaze toward the future. His faithful cabinet all scribbling down each word the Great Leader speaks while the others applaud his sagesse and otherworldly visions. Everyone in their perfect suits and plenty of stickers and pins to prove their worthiness to the groveling public.
I've really admired the photographic expertise of the North Koreans, their ability to capture each moment in the perfect fleeting frame, almost as if it had been prearranged beforehand. Their cunning ability to be in the right spot at the right time astounds me. I actually await each new photograph to adore its majestic artistry.
Just imagine if each Obama photograph had the effect...
Motive: Seem to recall a piece recently about a waitress somewhere in the South who was stiffed a tip with a snide note. The story went viral and the waitress reportedly received "donated" tips in excess of $10,000.
@Marie and Ken; If corporations are people; friendly people at that, and they are always trying to fuck somebody, do they have to pay for their own condoms? Will they tie their condom choice to their own products; "Bank of America", we'll fuck you with ribbed, non- lubricated protection." "Citi Corp, fucking clients for years with natural sheepskin." "Hobby Lobby, Love the unexpected, we go bareback."
Ever notice the number of people against birth control have only one or two offspring themselves? I think there's a Trojan in the house.
@James Singer. Good point. Here's the New York Daily News story on the Tennessee server:
"Toni Christina Jenkins of Franklin, Tenn., was stunned after she picked up the check from a table she served on Sept. 7. to find that someone wrote the N-word on the total line. But another shock came Sept. 30 when a Californian raised $10,749 for her through a fund-raiser called Tips for Toni."
Marie
@Re: Waitperson: Marie, I agree with you. The waitperson wanted to get attention, so she posted her tale on Facebook. When will people ever learn that what's posted on social media is NOT private nor is it necessarily true. Could it be that's why it's called "social media?"
Re: Zimmerman. This guy is a fucking coward who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near firearms of any kind.
@JJG: Your comment got me to wondering. The founders of Hobby Lobby, David & Barbara Green, met & married when he was 19 & she 17 -- i.e., both of high fertility age -- & have been married for four decades. They have three children.
Steve Green, who runs Hobby Lobby now, & his wife apparently adhere more to their religious principles: "Steve and his wife, Jackie, have been married for 28 years and reside in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They are the proud parents of one son and five daughters."
Marie
DON'T invite Gary Oldman to Thanksgiving dinner:
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/27/must_see_morning_clip_gary_oldman_hates_thanksgiving_punches_a_series_of_holiday_foods_to_display_his_hatred/?source=newsletter
I have to agree with him on the turkey, which I've always despised.
In addition to the examples that Marie gave in re: Hobby Lobby, I guess there is a potential for Christian Scientists and Jehovah's business owners to avoid providing health insurance in general? Apparently, Orin Hatch attempted to add "spiritual" care to the ACA, unsuccessfully, prior to passage. However that seemed to be a nod to users rather than employer providers.
When I looked at the photos of L. Logan, I was confused. I thought they were an ad for Dr. Boobs-R-Us, a noted Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Jeebus, every woman alive knows those 2 poses. Pull your shoulders back and your boobs thrust forward and the squinsh the girls together and lift them up with your arms move. Not to say women can't or shouldn't be pretty as well as competent and smart. Clearly, smart isn't the object here.
@Barbarossa. If Zimmerman were threatened from the business end of a firearm, I wager as he was crying and howling, he'd develop a much healthier understanding of weapons.
Random thoughts as I work through today's punch list:
1. Waitress/Receipt saga sure smacks of opportunism.
2. Prepare brine. Marinate turkey breasts 10 hours. (Check).
3. After he used his first get-out-of-jail card, how does
Zimmerman support himself and build up his gun & ammo collection? Windfall from? Trust fund baby?
4. MoDo on football and Austen. Charlie Pierce weighs in. Zing!
5. @CW: "D'Souza isn't a grown-up at all; he's an adolescent prick." (Check).
6. Chop chestnuts for bourdin blanc. (Check).
7. Lara Logan vs. diva Anne Coulter. A (new, younger) Star is Born perhaps!
8. PA Governor most unpopular! Bet the runners-up aren't far behind.
9. (Over on MSN.com) Poll finds unprecedented anxiety over jobs "...newspaper noted that the anxiety is concentrated among low-income workers: 54 percent of workers making $35,000 or less now worry "a lot"
No kidding?
10. Peel parsnips. (Check).
11. Feed pet gerbil!
Re: Supreme Court's choice to hear additional complaints about the ACA.
A pattern has been set. Over the next few years, even if the ACA turns it around and is a palpable hit, the right will continue to bring piddling suits against it knowing full well that the wingers on the court will likely opt to hear all but the most risible, and allow them to peck away at the law. An ear here, a nose there, a toe, a finger, a leg. The only health insurance the ACA has is its own success and even that may not be enough to save it from the wrath of right-wing skullduggery, racisim, and malicious intent.
Will I be surprised if the court decides that Hobby Lobby doesn't get to impose its own pinched, religious based morality on employees, no matter their own personal beliefs? I'll be stunned.
But here's what I think will happen. The Roberts court, even though it tips precariously rightward, tries not to seem as biased as it actually is (Alito, Scalia, and Thomas notwithstanding). Therefore it finds technical flaws in arguments it doesn't like. This is nothing new. Roe was not a decision about abortion, it was made on the basis of privacy. But privacy is not a piddling technicality. Nonetheless, the court refrained from coming right out and saying "fuck yeah, abortion". The wingers on the present court will find some tiny loophole that will save them from coming out directly and saying "fuck yeah, religion". Instead it's more likely to come down along the lines indicated in other comments about the validity of rights for corporations, as if they were people. The difference is that the exercise of my personal rights don't trump anyone else's.
But say the Supremes do decide that the religion of the owner rules over all the employees, a sort of modernized "cuius regio, eius religio" the 16th century practice, based on the Peace of Augsburg, that made the religion of the ruler the religion of the ruled. The king is Lutheran so you're Lutheran. Would this allow a corporate chief who was an old fashioned Mormon to legally discriminate against any non-whites, based on the rules of the Book of Mormon that equate white skin with good and dark skin with evil?
As Marie points out, this is not just a Pandora's Box, it's a Pandora's Big Ass Box, just a quick hop over a few dead bodies to Li'l Randy's dream of being able to legally kick black people out of his place of business.
It's a dark place, Right Wing World.
We're about to see how dark. And even if they do the Technicality Tango, it's likely that the chipping away at the ACA will continue apace.
@MAG. Love your punch list. Much the same for me with a few differences. #6 - clean collards, #10 - tear up challah to dry for bread pudding, #11 - feed the divine Ms Frida.
Over at right wing Teevee they are having a fit at the firing of Lara Logan–––how dare they fire her and not Bashir over at MSNBC who made some snarky comments about Sarah Palin––you see, they say, it's a double standard. Those liberals don't care if they denigrate Republicans, they have no ethical standards at all! Well, someone says, they did fire Alec Baldwin. The reply? Oh, well, he's a jerk. When I looked in again during a commercial break, one station was again talking about Benghazi and the other about the terrible, awful problems of the ACA. These people are relentless sticking to the same old tired tales like a stubborn burrs.
And for turkey day here's a bit of history:
By KENNETH C. DAVIS
Published: November 25, 2008
"TO commemorate the arrival of the first pilgrims to America’s shores, a June date would be far more appropriate, accompanied perhaps by coq au vin and a nice Bordeaux. After all, the first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French. And they beat their English counterparts by 50 years. That French settlers bested the Mayflower Pilgrims may surprise Americans raised on our foundational myth, but the record is clear."
"Long before the Pilgrims sailed in 1620, another group of dissident Christians sought a haven in which to worship freely. These French Calvinists, or Huguenots, hoped to escape the sectarian fighting between Catholics and Protestants that had bloodied France since 1560."
"Landing in balmy Florida in June of 1564, at what a French explorer had earlier named the River of May (now the St. Johns River near Jacksonville), the French émigrés promptly held a service of “thanksgiving.” Carrying the seeds of a new colony, they also brought cannons to fortify the small, wooden enclosure they named Fort Caroline, in honor of their king, Charles IX."
The rest of this piece is too long to post here; suffice to say that the Spaniards arrived and did the whole lot of them in. So here's to the French and the Indians who first broke bread together. I'll drink to that.
Last night Chris Hayes had an interview with Paul Wolfowitz: this is definitely worth watching.
Here's the link.
Sorry, the link above does not work. I don't know why.
@MAG: You make your own sausage??!!! Guess who's coming to dinner. (I'll buy my snowshoes someplace in Western Massachusetts on the way north.) Don't feed my portion to the damned gerbil. Or the sled dogs.
Marie
@P.D.Pepe: Fixed the link.
Marie
Crazy keeps on keepin' on.
One Everett Wilhelmsen, the leader of the Christian American Patriots Militia (what, they couldn't fit FREEDOOOM and GUNS into that title?) has posted on his Facebook page that he now has the authority necessary, under the Constitution, to shoot and kill the president for blah, blah, blah, being black, blah, blah, blah, treason, Muslim, hates America, blah, blah, etc, etc.
What part of the Constitution sanctions murdering the president you might ask, even considered through the filter of crackpot wingnuttery? Why, the Second Amendment, natch. The all time winger fave. The rest of the Constitution might as well be printed on toilet paper.
I realize that every president has a share of this sort of thing, but I'm guessing that such incidents are dramatically increased by the constant banging away by the right-wing echo chamber about Obama's illegal occupation of the White House, his religion (Muslim), his birth certificate, his hatred of Christians and guns and Americans, and, of course, his skin color. Non stop. 24/7/365.
Even worse, the MSM sits on its hands whenever the screwballs at Fox and Breitbart and the hundreds of other outlets for hate and mayhem start frothing at the mouth, dozens of times every day. These people should be held up for the venomous vipers they are. Instead, we're treated to "oh well, both sides do it, you know"....as if one Alec Baldwin is the same as Lara Logan spreading lies on CBS or Anne Coulter talking about killing liberals, or this asshole declaring his legal right to murder the president.
Haters, racists, loons, gun nuts, threats of violence and murder. Just another day in Wingnut Paradise
Thanks, Marie: Oh, and as we speak Joe is busy making sausage––lots of wine, & fennel mixed in with that good pork and spices. He has been making his own sausage for years–––it is truly the best so if you can manage that dog sled over to MAG's you can stop here in Ct. along the way and we'll fix you up good and proper.
Two stories that are interrelated have emerged but the relationship is not recognized. First is the Hobby Lobby suit and the other is the widely viewed comments by Pope Francis about the need to address the poverty (read - death) that hits a growing proportion of humans.
The thing they have in common is the fact that they are both one of the, if not the major cause of the millions whose lives are in hell. The term is called contraception. And while the Pope is doing the right thing in trying to deal with the issue of poverty, his church and many other religions are the major cause of the problem.
You see the problem is that the earth cannot handle an infinite number of humans. Two million about 90 years ago, now 7 and soon 10.
So the human race is headed to hell by poverty, climate change and the fact I can't stand standing on the Garden State Parkway.
And the most significant cause is the fact that no religion will ever admit that the 2000 year old story cannot fit in today's world.
P.S. It only took the Church about 400 years before it sort of admitted that Galileo was right.
Marvin,
If the point of a religion--any religion--could be reduced to the very simple construction of love, as in love your neighbor as yourself, there would be no problem with adjusting to ever changing real world situations. The difficulty arises when you start layering on all the double talk and pomp and hippity-hop and "our religion is the only true one; is now, always has been, and always will be infallible no matter what kind of delirious gibberish is advocated".
Admittedly, most religions (all?) seek in some way to understand and explain the universe, and in the process come up with wild-ass stories and endless rules for what to do and when and to whom, with sidebars for what will happen if you screw it up or do something on the wrong day of the week before you've had coffee and a shower, thus the need for priests to interpret the mishegas, and uber priests to keep all the flunky priests in line and make sure the interpretations are within the range of acceptable bullshit.
Pretty soon you've got a flying, wheelie, jumping-up-and-down, overwound, permanently sprung, elephantine thingie that puts Rube Goldberg in the tough spot of not knowing whether to shit or go blind.
So, while it's nice and refreshing and all for the pope to point out how often unbridled capitalism is a canker sore in the mouth of humanity, all the rest of the rules have their own sets of problems.
But one thing at a time. It's a great relief, for now, not to have a pope who straps on the iron boots and kicks people in the groin.
That job has been taken up the Supreme Court.
Akhilleus, or to put it another way, religion is a business designed to make certain people feel very powerful and important and in some cases really rich. And the basic deal is if you give me money every week, you get to go the heaven.
Since the new pope seems to at least be trying to follow the beliefs of Jesus, I expect him to be seriously unpopular among the rest of the leadership, particularly in America.
re: Hobby Lobby.
I thought that the prime reason for forming a corporation was de-couple the business from the person. If I, as a sole proprietor business, make a product that injures someone else in an unforeseen way, the injured party can come after my house and life savings in addition to any business holdings and insurance. If I first form a corporation and sell my items through that entity, the injured party can only clean out the business and its insurance policy.
It seems to me as if the Hobby Lobby people are aiming to destroy the separation between owner and corporation. I am surprised that other corporation owners are not pulling them aside and asking if they understand what they are really asking for here.
My guess is that the pope's assessment of capitalism merely reflects what many in Central and South America have been saying forever. It's a wonder the CIA didn't assassinate him.
@NiskyGuy: "I am surprised that other corporation owners are not pulling them aside and asking if they understand what they are really asking for here."
I think lawyers used to refer to this as 'piercing the corporate veil,' which is/was an illegality evidently overlooked by Citizens United and "corporations are people, my friend..."
PD you can pile on Marie's sled and head over heah for a sausage throwdown! Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
For a good summary of Pope's statement:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/26-9
If he gains traction he indeed will be at risk, and not just from the CIA.