Month: September 2014

When you need Sarah Palin to come to Kansas to “on a rescue mission” to save your senate campaign you must be either crazy, or Pat Roberts:

Sarah Palin swooped into Independence to bestow her grassroots tea party credibility on the surprisingly troubled Roberts reelection campaign.

…Palin praised Roberts as a rock-ribbed conservative “who will fight like our country’s future depends on it.” And the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee thanked Roberts for standing alongside Cruz in filibustering funding for President Obama’s signature healthcare law, a move which resulted in the shutdown.

“He’s not wishy-washy on the fence like you know who, the other guy,” Palin said, a reference to Roberts’ opponent, independent candidate Greg Orman. “I am so thankful because we need those with that stiff spine, with the principles that are so invicted [sic] within them, that they take a side.”

I love rarely used or hardly known words, don’t you? Invicted.* Now if only Sarah had used it in a coherent sentence to give us some context for what she means when she used it. Than again, context is so overrated. It’s awfully darn close to substance, and we all know the only “substance” the Palin clan has any expertise about is alcohol.

Anyway, when Pat Roberts, an incumbent Senator in a deeply red state such as Kansas needs Palin to be his “savior” he must be up to his neck in the deep shite, as they say.

With fewer than six weeks until Election Day, Roberts has yet to consolidate Republican base voters behind his candidacy. Roberts won a bruising Aug. 5 primary with just 48 percent of the vote. The runner-up — tea party-aligned Milton Wolf, who garnered 41 percent — has yet to endorse Roberts. Bringing Palin into Kansas for a campaign stop was designed in large part to energize conservative activists about the incumbent.

Then again, he has Koch money to burn in support of his campaign, apparently. Maybe he’ll fool enough of the voters again to sleaze his way back into the Senate. Sure hope not, though, because you know who will take all the credit for his re-election, making her even more likely to appear on your TV screen for the next two years.

* Only two definitions I found for invicted were “invincible” or “unconquered.” Don’t think she used it correctly, but I could be wrong.

I suppose this will make people on both the Left and the Right happy, though for different reasons: Eric Holder is expected to resign as the Attorney General, effective as soon as his successor is appointed.

Eric Holder Jr., the nation’s first black U.S. attorney general, is preparing to announce his resignation Thursday after a tumultuous tenure marked by civil rights advances, national security threats, reforms to the criminal justice system and 5 1/2 years of fights with Republicans in Congress.

Two sources familiar with the decision tell NPR that Holder, 63, intends to leave the Justice Department as soon as his successor is confirmed, a process that could run through 2014 and even into next year. A former U.S. government official says Holder has been increasingly “adamant” about his desire to leave soon for fear that he otherwise could be locked in to stay for much of the rest of President Obama’s second term.

I will always be disappointed that Holder did not vigorously pursue litigation against the Big Wall Street firms whose fraud led to one of the greatest financial crises in our nation’s history. I would have also liked to have seen prosecution of former Bush officials for their illegal actions regarding the Iraq war, but I never realistically expected that to happen. I always assumed that was too hot a political potato. However, there was broad support, from many on both the right and the left, for investigations and prosecutions of the Banksters, but nothing was ever done beyond a few show piece fines and settlements, and the indictments of a few lesser echelon scapegoats, such as Bernie Madoff. That failure to reign in the financial industry after the economic collapse of 2008-2009 will forever tarnish Holder’s legacy as the first African-American to hold the office of Attorney General.

Good morning all. I have no update yet on Martin’s condition. Now for your morning dose of Steven D:

A video posted on Facebook was sent to me in an email. The person who sent it asked me my thoughts about it. Here’s the link to it as I am not putting it up here: Link. The video shows a man who says he is a former Muslim, the son of an Imam with a degree in religious studies, and now a Masters candidate in the field of “Terrorism Studies.”

You can go view it if you like, it’s not very long. The basic message is that ISIL stands for all of Islam, i.e., all Muslims are evil terrorists because the basic tenets of the faith require them to kill or convert infidels, and ISIL is doing just that. I was asked to watch the video and give my thoughts regarding it, and thanks to high doses of prednisone (which can bring out the compulsive need to write in me), I decided “what the hell,” and did just that.

So, without further ado, here’s my comments on the vid:

I have seen similar videos like that one before. They generally feature a former Muslim, man or woman, condemning all Muslims based on their special knowledge of the Muslim faith. It’s a guilt by association argument at its core, though they do their best to try to say it is not.

I wonder if you would judge all Christians by the actions of White Christian Nationalist Groups such as the Order, whose members committed crimes including murder?

Or the Westboro Baptist Church, which protests the funerals of everyone and anyone, including our dead soldiers, merely to spread their message of hate against homosexuals?

Or judge all Christians by the ones in Uganda that, with support from American fundamentalists, passed a law that made homosexuality a capital offense and made it a crime to support gay people (fortunately the Ugandan court declared it unconstitutional for which we can be thankful)?

Would you judge Christians by Eric Rudolph, the person who bombed the 1996 Olympics, and an abortion clinic and a lesbian bar? He was a devoted believer, too. He said so at his sentencing hearing.

Would you judge all Christians by the Serbian and Croat members of the Orthodox Church who killed tens of thousands of Muslim Bosnians and raped and murdered thousands of Bosnian Muslim women?

We had a Christian in our own country who massacred members of a Sikh community thinking that, because they wore turbans, so they must be Muslims. Should we judge all Christians by him?

Or what about the Christian kids in high schools that bully and beat up Muslim kids, gay kids and non-religious kids? That happened at high schools here where I live, but also around the country. Should we judge all Christians by them?

What about the Christians that defended slavery prior to the civil war, based on Biblical law?

Should we judge Christians by the pedophile priests of the Catholic Church or the Mormon Fundamentalists who have old patriarchs marrying girls as young as 12 and 13?

It is not intellectually honest or ethical to judge any single religion by those groups or fringe elements that practice or promote violence in any way. All religions have had a history of “believers” who preach hate and defended their wars and their killing sprees in the name of their version of God.

Personally, I think we have done more damage intervening in the Middle East with our military. You know who gave instruction and advice and helped train Osama Bin Laden? The CIA, when we were funding the Muslim jihadists to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan.

We also supported dictatorial regimes in the Middle East that repressed their people, such as the Shah of Iran and Mubarak in Egypt, leading many of them to turn to extremists such as Atyatollah Khomenei, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.

We even sent arms into Syria for those who opposed the Syrian dictator, Assad, and many of those same arms are now in the hands of ISIS or ISIL or whatever the hell they call themselves. Look how well that turned out.

I don’t defend Muslims who kill people in the name of their faith. But I don’t defend Christians for the atrocities they committed, either. Or Hindus who have participated in massacres. Organized religion, like many social institutions (governments, corporations, political parties, etc.), has much to answer for regarding crimes against other human beings committed in its name.

But I refuse to condemn all people who claim to follow a particular faith based on the actions of a few.

If we go down that route, everyone with associations with any category of people, however loosely defined, ends up being condemned for the bad acts of others who claim membership in that “group.” For example, should all husbands be tarred with the brush of those men who beat their wives, simply because they too, are married? Of course not.

I guess I do my best to take people as I find them and judge them by what they do, not by what someone who doesn’t know them tells me they are like because they are part of a religion, or an ethnicity, or follow the precepts of a particular ideology, or just work for some company which has harmed people.

I may not always succeed, but that’s what I strive for. It is too easy for all of us as human beings to take the easy shortcut of labeling and stereotyping other people. In reality, every person is different, has a unique set of experiences in life, and judging them by one thing in their life is usually a mistake.

It may surprise you, but one of my friends out here is a Tea Party guy. However, I’ve gotten to know him, and while we recognize our political differences, we respect that the two of us like each other and are essentially good people. I have deeply conservative friends from Law School I still maintain touch with. Two of them stood up for me when I married [redacted]. One was my best man.

So this has rambled on too long. Sorry for that. But you asked for my thoughts on this video and I gave them to you.

So what do you think of my reaction?

A little Betty for your morning…

Apart from getting out of bed and facing the day, what’s on the agenda?

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6841637/bill-simmons-suspended-espn

If he had called his boss a “liar” then I could see a suspension.

But how do you suspend an opinion writer for issuing opinions on his podcast?  And shouldn’t ESPN – as putative sports journalists – be protecting their writers from any pressure from the NFL?

I can’t imagine the NFL would be so stupid as to contact ESPN and tell them to silence Simmons.  Of course, the NFL has proven itself to be ham-handed and idiotic for a while now.

Instead, this is ABC/Disney/ESPN looking out for another powerful entity.  This is how the powerful ignore the voices from the street.

None of the Sunday morning shows dealt with the climate change protests that involved hundreds of thousands of people.  Much of the news just ignored it entirely, as they did the anti-war protests in March 2003.

It is time to understand that the Fourth Estate is looking more and more like the First.

Watching hundreds of thousands of marchers calling for action on Climate Change last Sunday warmed the cockles of this activist’s heart. I was canvassing for the upcoming general election but my marching shoes were itching for the streets of New York.

The bobbleheads on the Sunday Morning News (ha!) Shows ignored the gathering because, let’s face it, money rules the ratings…and speaking of money, ALEC is going to have less of it after this week:

Facebook is set to become the latest tech company to end its support for a controversial rightwing lobby group that works against climate change legislation.

The social media company has been a funder of American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which shapes legislation at state level across the US. But late on Tuesday the company confirmed to the Guardian it was quitting, following Google, which cut ties this week, and Microsoft, which left in August.

Yelp, the consumer review website, also said that quit Alec.

The Guardian

As a resident of ALEC’s petri dish – Arizona – I’m well-aquainted with their legislative shenanigans. Something recently changed, though – the boycotts called in response to SB1070 and HB2281 worked.

• Jan Brewer vetoed the anti-gay SB1062 after a number of Chamber of Commerce groups came out in opposition to it. The pressure even caused three of the bottom-feeder sponsors of the bill to call for a mulligan and withdrew their support.
• Ethnic Studies Ban masterminds John Huppenthal and Tom Horne both lost their primary races as incumbents for Superintendent of Public Instruction and Attorney General, respectively
• The state’s Chamber of Commerce and Phoenix-based AzRepublic(an) endorsed the Democratic candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, David Garcia, for the general election.

Arizona’s example is that it will take a multi-front effort to rid the political system of ignorant, anti-science, anti-consumer influences such as ALEC.
The state Democratic candidate, Fred Duval, is even polling strong for the November matchup. Canvassing, phone-banking, putting pressure on the status-quo via their traditional allies in the business community, and activists refusing to let an issue go despite being ignored by the media – all of this is necessary to turn the tide.

What’s going on in your state?

I am beat. Enjoy the music everyone. Steven D

Today marks what would have been John Coltrane’s 88th birthday. The video clip I am sharing is from his “Classic Quartet” period, and is a piece I have always treasured. Today also marks the release of one of his later concerts, which may well offer hints as to what direction his music would have taken had he not succumbed to cancer so young. It will be a minute before I can afford to pick up this newest recording, but if it is anything like the above-linked article describes, it will be right up my alley. I don’t have3 the formal musical training that probably most jazz fans have – in fact my formal training is precisely zero. All I know is what I like and how the music makes me feel. Coltrane’s music – including his later work – leaves me in a good place. As to what direction he would have taken had he lived, we might never really know, although I’d like to think that pieces like “Kulu Se Mama” might have given some hints. If so, he would have been at home during the heyday of the early AACM, Black Artists Group, Don Cherry’s increasingly world music explorations, and so on.

Anyway, before I begin to ramble, enjoy the “Alabama” video.

Promoted by Steven D. I think yastreblyansky has a valid point, but unfortunately, when Dem voters are suppressed by gerrymandering and ID voter laws, or don’t turn out in midterm elections, this may be an effective strategy for the GOP.

Something funny from the short-paragraph factory at Heritage Foundation’s Daily Dogwhistle, sorry, make that Daily Signal, their would-be counterpart to Think Progress:

War on women. Minimum wage. Climate change.
You hear liberals talking about these same topics all the time. Why?
Kevin Williamson of National Review believes it’s because the left is struggling to deliver new ideas and policies.
“I can’t remember the last time I heard a new idea from the left; they’re intellectually bankrupt,” Williamson told an audience at The Heritage Foundation for an event, “Where is Liberalism Going?”

It doesn’t occur to Kevin Williamson that the war on women is still going on, the federal minimum wage hasn’t been raised, and the need to deal with climate change is more urgent every day. Or that people, i.e. voters, really want these things fixed, and we keep talking about them because they haven’t gone away yet. To him it’s more like that stuff is just so last year: Ew, you’re still wearing those?

That’s because that’s how conservatives think about policy initiatives. Conservatives have two kinds of idea-sets, one they can’t talk about and one they can: the first is simply to provide whatever their corporate overlords want, a tax break here and a deregulation there, and the second is for whatever they hope to sell to the wider public, supplied in annual spring and fall collections, like the “Room to Grow” show recently rolled out by Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin.

Never mind the fact that there’s actually nothing new in such proposals, as everybody has noted from Krugman to Forbes Magazine, just a tweak in the hemlines and some unexpected color combinations. What’s really interesting is the nakedness with which they think that way, and can’t understand that liberals don’t.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.

Promoted by Steven D. The author is Murvin Auzenne, a teacher.

One of the ongoing debates in America is what to do about public education. It was Michelle Rhee who was the lightning rod for everyone who opposed, rightly in my opinion, the corporate/right-wing effort to gut and/or privatize public education.

Her teacher-bashing, confrontational style of reform eventually flamed out in DC. But now there is a new lightning rod, Campbell Brown. Both of them voice real and sometimes resonant critiques of the failings of public education. Both place the blame on teachers, tenure and unions. The response to them has often been ugly, personal and not very productive. In other words, it has played into the very narrative that teachers and their supporters rightly oppose.

Over at TPM, Sabrina Joy Stevens has written a sane response to this unproductive debate. Her basic point: don’t let the real weakness of the Rhee-Campbell reform approach get lost in the personal attacks.

To this I say, thank God.

I teach in a private Catholic school and I have much more freedom to run a Dewey-esque (Wiki link)classroom than my public school wife. I hear every night of the ridiculous counter-productive policies and standards she must overcome to do her job. I just feel overwhelmed when I even try to write about this. Where to start?

Here’s one example to illustrate my point. She is expected to have an engaging, student centered lesson that changes activity and focus every 15 minutes. Yet she has three classroom preparations, and it seems that any time she may have at school to work on preparations is filled up with mindless meetings and other duties. She, like I, work at least three hours every night at home on our preparation and grading.

The theories of education and school management that I find associated with the Rhee school of reform are typically rehashed corporate models which the business community has rejected and moved on from many years ago.

(cont. below the fold)

Case in point: emphasis on writing, parsing, and fitting objectives into some cookie cutter template. This is the old “management by objective” theory which corporate America walked away from a long time ago. It is not a bad idea in itself, but simply and rigidly applied it does not work in education. A teacher needs to plan out his/her use of time, but when the production of these plans becomes the focus instead of what happens in the dynamic of a classroom the tail is waging the dog.

Case in point: holding teachers accountable for student outcomes, an imprecise goal at best, but taking away (in my wife’s case) a month of instructional time to test student achievement!

Case in point: my wife is expected to manage every type of student from the wheelchair bound special needs learner to the college bound one in the same classroom with no assistance ( no teacher’s aide, no additional prep time etc.). That means her test must come in not one form but as many as 3, with adjustments for the various special needs kids. It means that the lesson plans must be “differentiated” for the various learning styles and needs every class period, every day.

It means that her Principal can pop in and write her up because her “objectives are not written on the board,” or she didn’t vary her lessons enough that day, or her objectives were not sufficiently student centered.

What all this tells my wife is that she is constantly in the cross-hairs, no help is coming, and failure is always her fault.

—
If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you. Ben Franklin

The downing of Malaysian passenger flight MH-17 was a great tragedy, especially for the Dutch people. In The Netherlands I covered all ins- and outs 24/7 from the beginning, the first hours after the Boeing-777 crashed in eastern Ukraine near the border with Russia.

In New York, president Obama spoke about the tragedies in the world and was quite forcefull about Islamic State, Al Qaeda ‘remnants,’ Ebola  outbreak in western Africa and the conflict in Ukraine. Indeed the downing of flight MH-17 was covered and resulted in these immediate news headlines on Dutch news sites and tv coverage …

Obama: ‘Rebels blocked entry to crash site with help from Russia

This is a blatant and ugly lie from the U.S. president I will not let this pass unanswered.

The article continues …

“Rebels who were backed by Russia have blocked for days access to the crash site of flight MH17. Russia supported the rebels in eastern Ukraine later with troops. This reproach was made by the American president Barack Obama for the Kremlin today in his speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations.

With the disaster of the Boeing-777, which was likely shot down, 298 people were killed of which 196 were Dutch.

The Russian action in Ukraine, including the Russian annexation of Crimea, is a test of the international order, says Obama.”

Tweet from the White House [plus comments]

“We are heirs to a proud legacy of freedom and we are prepared to do what is necessary to secure that legacy for generations to come” –Obama

Remarks by President Obama at UN General Assembly | CFR |

Recently, Russia’s actions in Ukraine challenge this post-war order. Here are the facts. After the people of Ukraine mobilized popular protests and calls for reform, their corrupt president fled. Against the will of the government in Kyiv, Crimea was annexed. Russia poured arms into eastern Ukraine, fueling violent separatists and a conflict that has killed thousands. When a civilian airliner was shot down from areas that these proxies controlled, they refused to allow access to the crash for days. When Ukraine started to reassert control over its territory, Russia gave up the pretense of merely supporting the separatists, and moved troops across the border.

This is a vision of the world in which might makes right — a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed. America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might — that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, and that people should be able to choose their own future.

And these are simple truths, but they must be defended. America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy. We will reinforce our NATO Allies and uphold our commitment to collective self-defense. We will impose a cost on Russia for aggression, and we will counter falsehoods with the truth.

From my diaries covering the Ukraine crisis in the aftermath of the MH-17 crash:

○ Russia critical of MH17 inquiry, wants bigger U.N. role on Sept. 19, 2014
○ DSB Releases Preliminary, Final Report On MH-17 Due within a Year on Sept. 9, 2014
○ Russia Criticizes Stalled MH17 Investigation, Failure to Release Data on Aug. 25, 2014
○ Was Malaysia MH-17 Downed by Su-25 Fighter Planes? on Aug. 10, 2014
○ Dutch PM Rutte Abruptly Calls-off MH-17 Recovery Mission on Aug. 6, 2014
○ World In Turmoil (Ukraine and ME) – Brzezinski and Albright Speak Out on Aug. 2, 2014
○ The Dutch Have Gone Mad [More Mad] on July 25, 2014
○ Shrapnel Damage of Cockpit MH-17 Devastating on July 23, 2014
○ US building case tying separatists to plane crash | Dutch get Anne Applebaum as ‘neutral observer’ of Ukraine conflict | on July 20, 2014