Month: January 2014

Using the word “lynching” as a noun is pretty dubious unless you are talking about an actual lynching. Stu Rothenberg should think about it for a while. It is offensive as a metaphor for, say, an extrajudicial proceeding unless that proceeding entails actual torture and death. What Rothenberg is attempting to say is that Chris Christie is being convicted in the court of public opinion before all the evidence is in, which is a fair point if you care to bend over backward to defend the governor. But the presumption of guilt in the public is not the same as the presumption of guilt on the jury. And the presumption of guilt by the jury is not the same as a mob taking you out of Drumthwacket and hacking you to pieces.

I’m sure Rothenberg doesn’t appreciate it when people make lazy comparisons to the Nazis and the Holocaust. How would this sentence look:

But given the governor’s immediate reaction to the personal crisis that has engulfed him, it isn’t too soon to wonder when the accusations and media frenzy crossed the line from inquiry and investigation to throwing him an oven….

That doesn’t go down so well, does it?

One thing about J-Rube falling in love with a Paul Ryan presidential candidacy is that it allows her to get right with the party base she has been alienating as she attacks people like Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

On the other hand…

…who does she think she’s kidding?

Oh, good, Erick Erickson is gunning for Mitch McConnell’s head. This should make our work easier. Mr. Erickson has noticed that a lot of people on the right are coming to terms with the fact ObamaCare isn’t going anywhere, and it’s making him crazy. Never mind that the law is improving and saving millions of peoples lives already, it must be repealed. And replaced with…what?

And the irony is that the Republicans plan on making their entire midterm election strategy a national attack on ObamaCare.

Mr. Erickson is a loon, but he’s correct about one thing. The Republican midterm strategy is a fraud. You can’t uninsure millions of people. You can’t make an exchange work without a mandate. You can tinker with ObamaCare, or you can move to a more comprehensive government-run system, but you can’t move backwards.

Why do religious gay bashers claim they are only preaching the Gospels when in fact they generally quote St. Paul rather than Jesus in support of their homophobia and misogyny?

McAleese and church stance on gays – Letters | The Irish Times – Thu, Jan 16, 2014

Sir, – Fr Patrick McCafferty (January 15th) states, “The church unequivocally proclaims the message of the Gospel ” and goes on to quote twice from Romans in support of his argument concerning homosexuality and church teaching. As he is no doubt aware, Romans is not, in fact, a gospel. Why is it that the opponents of gay rights generally quote St Paul rather than Jesus? Could it be because Jesus never actually condemned homosexuality, and indeed healed the centurion’s sick pais (male servant/lover)? – Yours, etc, FRANK SCHNITTGER

Former President Mary McAlease has stirred a bit of a hornets nest with her comments on the Catholic Church and homosexuality:
Ex-president McAleese criticises church’s stance on gay people

Former president Mary McAleese, who has urged a Scottish cardinal forced to stand down last year to admit publicly that he is gay, has said “a very large number” of Catholic priests are homosexuals.

The Catholic Church has been in denial over homosexuality for decades, particularly since many priests are gay, she said. “It isn’t so much the elephant in the room but a herd of elephants.

“I don’t like my church’s attitude to gay people. I don’t like `love the sinner, hate the sin’. If you are the so-called sinner, who likes to be called that? We also know that within the priesthood a very large number of priests are gay.”;

She also criticised words attributed to the previous Pope on this subject as being contradictory. “Things written by [Pope] Benedict, for example, were completely contradictory to modern science and to modern understanding, and to the understanding of most Catholics nowadays in relation to homosexuality.

“Nowadays, it is not something that is perceived as something that is intrinsically disordered. Homosexual conduct is not seen as evil,” said Mrs McAleese.

Her remarks were made in Edinburgh to the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper last month, but only published yesterday. She made them before she spoke last month to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

The former president, who has become increasingly outspoken about the church’s attitude to gays, compared the church’s stand to the “Christ killer” charge levelled against Jews for 2,000 years.

“I would have thought Cardinal Keith O’Brien, in telling the story of his life – if he was willing to do that – could have been of great assistance to gay people, not just in the church but elsewhere, who felt over many, many years constrained to pretend to be heterosexual while … acting a different life.”

The Scottish cardinal had to resign last year as an archbishop when it emerged that he had had a homosexual relationship with a young priest.

Her remarks are significant because she was always seen as something of a staunch Catholic who actually represented the Catholic Church as a member of the Catholic Church Episcopal Delegation to the New Ireland Forum in 1984, and a member of the Catholic Church delegation to the Northern Ireland Commission on Contentious Parades in 1996. She went on to study Canon Law in Rome after she stepped down and remains popular with all (or almost all) sections of Irish public opinion.

Priests, activists welcome McAleese’s criticism of Church stance on gay people

Former president Mary McAleese’s criticism of the Catholic Church’s stance on gay people have been welcomed by the Association of Catholic Priests and a gay advocacy group.

Fr Tony Flannery of the association said he was “very happy” with the former president’s remarks. She was bringing the issue out “into the open” as “it really does need to be discussed in the Church,” he told Newstalk radio today.

In an interview published in the Glasgow-based Herald newspaper yesterday Mrs McAleese said the Catholic Church has been in denial over homosexuality for decades, particularly since many priests are gay.

Fr Flannery said it was “useful” that she stated this in public. The “percentage of priests who are of homosexual orientation has undoubtedly increased” in the last decade, he said. “Some of my best friends in the priesthood are homosexual,” he said.

The Church’s’s teaching on homosexuality was “in serious need of reform”, he said. “When a certain approach to moral issue is clearly out of tune with the catholic faithful I think it has to be rethought. In a good few areas of Catholic Sexual morality I think we are in that area now, he said.

He hoped there might be more “openness and freedom” under Pope Francis. Church doctrine had developed in “all sorts of ways” throughout the centuries because of the “developing understanding about humanity”, he said.

However, as is to be expected, there has been the usual backlash from members of the conservative catholic pressure group, the Iona Institute. Breda O’Brien had this to say (in her role as columnist for the Irish Times):

Why I was so disappointed by Mary McAleese’s comments on gay priests

That’s why I was so disappointed in Mary McAleese’s comments as reported in the Glasgow Herald. McAleese is an erudite, intelligent woman and a committed Catholic. It is hard to believe that she really thinks the church’s teaching on sexuality, and in particular, on gay sex, stems from the fact that there are allegedly so many gay churchmen frantically trying to repress their sexuality. As someone with a qualification in canon law, she must know the church teaches that sexuality is ordered towards a certain goal, that of loving and mutual support that binds men and women together so they can best care for their children.

She might profoundly disagree with that teaching, as is her right, but why does she believe the alleged fact that so many priests are gay constitutes a “herd of elephants” in the room? I am not aware of any research that indicates real numbers, but even if 95 per cent of priests were gay, does that mean they are all repressed, stifling their sexuality, and self-hating homophobes as a result?

I know gay priests who manage to like themselves as much as anyone likes themselves, who radiate a hard-won and quiet contentment and who also accept and live out the church’s teaching on gay sex.

So? No one is forcing those who wish to remain celibate to do otherwise. Not surprisingly her (strangely argued) article elicited 743 comment when most Irish Times articles evoke few or no comments. Apparently homophobia is not the sole preserve of the Catholic Church and so it is unfair to single it out for criticism. “We are all sinners”, she goes on to argue, as if that means LGBT people are treated no differently from anyone else by the Catholic Church.

The one thing Christ does condemn in the Gospels is hypocrisy and denial. Perhaps the Gospel verses Fr. Patrick McCafferty might have quoted are Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged, and Let Him Who is Without Sin Cast the First Stone (Mathew 7:1, and John 8:7)…

Born, as I was, in 1969, I didn’t initially have much occasion to learn civics lessons through real-world examples. When Nixon resigned, I was more than a month away from my fifth birthday. My first encounter with anything that might be called a constitutional crisis was the Iran-Contra scandal, when I learned what the separation of powers really meant in a foreign policy context. But, right around my twenty-fifth birthday, things began to change.

In 1995, Gingrich’s government shutdowns gave me a glimpse of what it really means that the legislative branch holds the nation’s purse strings. In 1998-99, I saw what the impeachment process looks like. In 2000, I saw how the judicial branch can decide a contested election. In 2004, I got a further education on how state and local election officials can use their power to alter the result of elections. In 2005, I saw how the federal government acts (or doesn’t) with state and local officials in a major natural disaster. In 2008, I learned how the nomination process really works in the Democratic Party. Since Obama’s 2009 inauguration, I have been forced to learn Senate procedure to help me understand how the minority can obstruct the majority. In 2011, I was introduced to the concept of the trillion dollar platinum coin, as the GOP seriously contemplated defaulting on our sovereign debt.

This year, my lesson is in dirty dealings of politics in New York and New Jersey. Over the next several months, we will peel the onion that explains how New Jersey Governor Chris Christie managed to convince dozens of state Democrats to endorse his reelection, and how he dealt with those officials would declined to endorse him. Across the river, we will witness the challenges that Mayor Bill De Blasio faces in enacting reforms in New York City. And upstate, we can watch the evolving rivalry between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has asked people if they think Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York State, wears eyeliner.

Mr. Schneiderman has told people that he believes Mr. Cuomo’s administration is Machiavellian and is out to undermine him.

A little backbiting by the officials and their aides, who occupy power suites at opposite ends of the State Capitol’s second floor, might be chalked up to the kind of rivalry that is an unseemly but unsurprising fact of life atop the state’s political food chain. But this relationship, as described in repetitive detail by many in New York Democratic circles, has gone from bad to toxic.

“The two men are like oil and water,” said one Democrat who knows both of them well, “and lately fire seems to have been added.”

Right now, these two gentlemen are fighting over control of a $613 million “slush fund” that Schneiderman obtained in a settlement with JP Morgan Chase. Will that money go to fighting foreclosures and battling financial fraud, as Schneiderman wants, or will it go into the general fund to help pay for De Blasio’s universal pre-kindergarten and other programs?

We’d like to think of the New York Attorney General as the cop of Wall Street, but that do-good image is muddied by his role as a revenue-generator for the state. Meanwhile, over in Jersey, we’ll be digging into the doings of the Port Authority and how it interacts with powerful developers, influential law firms, and state lawmakers.

Don’t let yourself ever believe that you’ve learned everything there is to know about American politics.

There has been a major clarifying development concerning the ‘End Iranian Peace Talks Bill’, S-1881. And the bringer of focus to this pathetic mishegas is non other than Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California. She stood on the floor of the Senate yesterday (Tuesday, Jan 14, 2014 Mark your calendars-this is big!) and gave a definitive account of the folly and nonsense involved in thwarting peace with Iran. This is very significant. DiFi has always been identified as the MIC/NSA’s gal in the Senate. We hear about “no daylight” between a certain ally and the US but we can certainly say there was never daylight between DiFi and the Pentagon. She really is the Big Mama Bear of the government. (I know, I know, Hillary, also). So what this means is that the Real, Raw American Power has decided to continue to turn away from  military campaigns where we are increasingly guaranteed to come up short and impoverished. This is the dynamic that I have been calling the Peace Train.

I first saw it at Mondoweiss.net, who picked it up from Lobelog.com…..

Feinstein’s Denunciation of Kirk-Menendez Iran Act May Be Decisive…

Tuesday’s floor speech by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein could bury AIPAC’s hopes of winning passage of what I have called the Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013…at least for the next month or so. The speech, which was remarkably comprehensive in rebutting virtually every argument made by AIPAC and the 59 co-sponsors in favor of the bill, comes amid a surprising spate of newspaper editorials against the bill, particularly given the dearth of actual news coverage about it. Newspapers that have taken position against the legislation in just the last few days include the Minneapolis Star Tribune, USA Today, the New York Times, and the often-neoconservative-leaning Washington Post. As cash-poor as they are, newspapers are still less susceptible to the kind of pressure exerted by AIPAC and its associated PACs that are able to provide — or deny — substantial cash for political campaigns.

While the speech is worth reading in full — precisely because it is so thorough — it’s worth highlighting its explicit concern about the possibility of a “wag the dog” scenario. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern,” she said, “we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war. By stating that the U.S. should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.” This is a remarkable and courageous statement. So is her characterization of the bill’s likely impact of undermining negotiations as a “march to war.”

My Bold Above

Both those links above have the CSPAN video and the transcribed remarks. It really is worth it to hear her words, this is the real American Mama Bear saying enough of this nonsense to her fractious charges. The comments in the Mondoweiss coverage point to how big a speech this was. They live to chronicle the unfolding of the hasbara web of lies. Mondoweiss has more involving the backpedaling that has begun now that folks who had made it to the AIPAC list of supporters are starting to talk a little differently now that people are noticing. At the first link above.

Really, check it out. This is a case where ‘Stateswoman’ is a moniker well deserved, imo.

I am coming down with what feels like influenza, so please don’t expect much in the way of analysis here. I just want to start a conversation about the following quote:

“We’re in this for the long haul,” Rep. Kurt Schrader (Ore.), co-chairman of the Blue Dogs, said in an interview, predicting that the Democrats could regain the majority only if they are once again competitive in those rural and Southern districts. “We’re the way the Democrats are going to get back into the majority.”

It’s instructive to read the history of the Blue Dog Coalition. One of the co-founders, Nathan Deal, is now the Republican governor of Georgia. You might remember another founding member, Billy Tauzin, who used to be assistant majority whip of the House Democrats before switching parties, chairing a committee that oversaw the healthcare industry, and quitting to run PhRMA.

It’s actually not all that easy to pinpoint the ideological purpose for the Blue Dog Coalition. We can certainly understand that there are areas of the country where a traditional liberal can’t compete because of controversies about social issues like gay and reproductive rights. But, my impression has been that the Blue Dogs have distinguished themselves less as social conservatives than as deficit scolds. My friend Patrick Murphy joined the Blue Dogs when he was elected to Congress and then made a name for himself pushing through the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

I agree with Rep. Kurt Schrader that the Democrats need to win back seats in these traditional Blue Dog districts, but I don’t see them doing it with more votes to remove bankruptcy protections or more talk about slashing government debt.

I honestly think that Elizabeth Warren has the message that these Blue Dogs need to win over the voters. What she doesn’t have is the money they need to run in poor, rural districts. Times have changed. We don’t need a revival of the old Blue Dog Coalition. We need a populism that is funded well enough to compete with the mining and ranching operations that dominate these districts.

That used to be unions, but maybe it has to be small donors getting organized online.

This is just how things work now. Elites never pay a price for their misbehavior. They can start wars for no good reason. They can torture people. They can hold them in indefinite detention. They can blow off the statutes against spying without warrants. They can flout the campaign finances laws. They can probably cause a traffic jam for a week straight, on purpose.

The Federal Elections Commission believes Republican strategist Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, his pro-Republican fundraising organization, probably violated campaign finance rules.

The 2012 report, first reported by the Sunlight Foundation on Tuesday and released on Friday, recommends the FEC conduct a deep investigation of Rove’s organization. But the report was just a recommendation and the FEC did not act on it. The panel in charge of opening an investigation was tied 3 to 3 in a vote as to whether it should pursue an inquiry.

Specifically, the FEC report said that Crossroads GPS had violated campaign finance regulations going back to 2010 because it did not register as a political group.

The General Counsel says that Crossroads violated the law, but the Republicans on the FEC simply refuse to do anything about it.

Karl Rove has more lives than a cat.

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The Senate report is followed by a number of Appendices: Timeline of events, Democrats on Talking Points Memo (TPM) of Susan Rice, Republicans on TPM and culpability Secretary Hillary Clinton and separate remarks Sen. Susan Collins.

Documents Released on Benghazi Attack of 11 September 2011

(The Hill) – After publication of the recent NY Times article by Kirkpatrick, Sen. Dianne Feinstein reacted as follows:

“The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that key conclusions of a recent New York Times investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack are wrong.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) rejected the Times’s conclusion that al Qaeda wasn’t responsible for the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. She also took issue with the notion that the Libya strike was sparked by a U.S.-made anti-Islam video online.”

The committee’s 58-page report concludes intelligence reports contributed to the “talking points” that inaccurately referred to protests at the U.S. facility ahead of the attack. That information was presented by then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice the weekend after the attack, creating a political storm that helped sink her possible nomination for secretary of State.

The report says individuals involved had ties to al Qaeda affiliates, contradicting a recent New York Times story that said al Qaeda had no role in the attack. At the same time, the report notes the attack was “opportunistic” and was not highly coordinated.

My recent diaries …
○ US State Illustrates NYT Kirkpatrick’s Fallacy on Benghazi Raid
○ Bloggers Call BS on NY Times Benghazi Article

I was never a fan of the Republican Party but it didn’t used to be like this. It has always been a party primarily concerned with rich people, but they did not used to be cruel. And they used to have some shame.

The 900,000 poorest working families in North Carolina just got another tax hike from the conservatives who swept state legislature elections in 2010.

The change took effect at the beginning of 2014, meaning that the taxes those families file this spring will be the last to feature the state’s tax break for the working poor. The provision, known as the Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC, will also be 10 percent less generous in its final year. State-level EITCs work by tacking on an additional benefit to the federal EITC, and the law repealing North Carolina’s EITC for 2014 also cut the credit from 5 percent to 4.5 percent of the federal benefit.

In order to qualify for the federal or state-level tax credit, tax filers must earn less than about $50,000. The goal of the credit is to buoy the incomes of working people whose employers pay them too little to provide the economic stability that having a job is supposed to ensure.

So, they take away money from nearly a million working North Carolinians and then what do they do with the money savings?

Along with the disappearance of the EITC, low-income North Carolinians will be paying higher taxes in order to pay for a tax cut for the richest people in the state. Republicans moved from a two-tiered, progressive income tax system to a flat tax rate of 5.8 percent. A person who earns a million dollars per year will get a roughly $10,000 tax cut thanks to that move, but the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution will see their taxes rise. That means that four out of five taxpayers in the state were going to pay more next year even before the EITC repeal.

They’re not satisfied with screwing over working folks, though. Check this out:

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) dismissed concerns that a district with a majority of non-white voters may go unrepresented for an entire year, suggesting that delaying the special election until November would not hurt citizens because Congress gets nothing done in the fall anyway. Though Rep. Mel Watt (D) resigned his seat on the first day of the legislative year to become director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Governor Pat McCrory (R) announced last Monday that his replacement will not be elected until November 4.

Mel Watt served in the most ridiculously gerrymandered district in the country. And now the North Carolina Republicans are simply going to deny the Democrats a seat in Congress for the rest of the year.

I’d like to know how this is different from Jim Crow. The district is about 50% black, but they can’t vote for a new representative until November.

Jesse Helms would be proud.