Tax These Fuckers

The freakazoids have been getting an unjustified free ride for far too long. Tax exemption for god-botherers is stupid, unfair and in the reality-based world a direct violation of the Establishment Clause - even when they kept their traps shut about politics.

But when they blatantly violate even the weak, pathetic IRS rules on political involvement - then they are begging for the ax.

Steve Benen:

First up from the God Machine this week is a look at formerly apolitical preachers who are, at levels unseen in a long while, mobilizing their congregations for the 2012 election cycle.

[Iowa pastor Mike Demastus] is part of a growing movement of evangelical pastors who are jumping into the electoral fray as never before, preaching political engagement from the pulpit as they mobilize for the 2012 election.

This new activism has substantial muscle behind it: a cadre of experienced Christian organizers and some of the conservative movement’s most generous donors, who are setting up technologically sophisticated operations to reach pastors and their congregations in battleground states.

The passion for politics stems from a collision of historic forces, including heightened local organizing around the issues of abortion and gay marriage and a view of the country’s debt as a moral crisis that violates biblical instruction. Another major factor: Both Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Bachmann, contenders for the GOP nomination, are openly appealing to evangelical Christian voters as they blast President Obama’s leadership.

Both Republican and Democratic strategists say that pastors have already helped unleash an army of voters to shape the GOP primary contests in Iowa and South Carolina, two states with large numbers of conservative Christians. They are making plans to do the same in states that are even more important to next year’s general election. Those include Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Virginia and Colorado, where evangelical voters make up about a quarter of the electorate and their participation could greatly aid Republicans.

Richard Land, president of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, called it the “congregational version of the ‘tea party.’”

The religious right, as a political movement, has clearly fallen on hard times as powerhouse groups and leaders, prominent in the ’80s and ’90s, have faded from public view. But the concept of organizing churches into a political machine hasn’t gone away at all, and with technological advances and a reinvigorated right-wing base gearing up for 2012, this is an initiative that can make a difference, both in Republican nominating contests and the general election.

The one thing to keep an eye on, though, is federal tax law — tax-exempt institutions, including churches, are legally prohibited from intervening in political campaigns, either in support of or opposition to candidates and parties. If pastors are organizing voter-registration drives, they’re well within the law. If they’re organizing “Rick Perry for President” efforts, the IRS may be stopping by for a visit.

Anybody who pays attention knows that the freakazoid motherfuckers have been violating IRS rules on political involvement for decades; hell, here in Kentucky they call out Democratic candidates by name from the pulpit week after week, saying flat out that voting Democratic is the direct path to hell. Worse than abortion. Worse than being gay. Worse than enjoying sex.

Best and fastest way to stop them is to yank their tax exemption and take their money. All of it.

Parliament Is Not Amused

The British know from terrorism. They've been fighting it at home for going on a century now.

I'm part Irish and have a soft spot in my heart for the Irish Republican Army, vicious terrorists though I know them to be. But I've never given them money, never promoted their cause, even in private, much less with the full-throated public support Rep. Peter King has given them for decades.

King is free to do that here, in the U.S. Our government long resisted the entreaties of the British to name the IRA a terrorist group and treat their supporters accordingly. King was safe from British ire, as long as he stayed on this side of the pond.

But in addition to being a hypocritical bigot, King is a moron. He accepted an invitation to testify - on terrorism! - before the British Parliament, the first member of Congress to do so.

It didn't go well.

“Representative Peter T. King testified about terrorism on Tuesday before a legislative committee, but the committee was in London, not Washington, and the New York Republican found himself the uncomfortable object of tough questioning. In a hearing on ‘Roots of Violent Radicalization,’ Mr. King was asked about his own past support for the Irish Republican Army.”

Too bad they didn't arrest the fucker. A few years in the Tower staring down at the chopping block would do him a world of good.

American Jobs Act in Kentucky

What specifically will the American Jobs Act accomplish in your state? The answer is here.

In Kentucky, this is what we'll get:

1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

The President’s plan will cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level. In Kentucky, 70,000 firms will receive a payroll tax cut under the American Jobs Act.

2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job. Of the investments for highway and transit modernization projects, the President’s plan will make immediate investments of at least $455,500,000 in Kentucky that could support a minimum of
approximately 5,900 local jobs.

The President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, and will provide $406,500,000 in funds to Kentucky to support up to 6,100 educator and first responder jobs.

The President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. Kentucky will receive $390,900,000 in funding to support as many as 5,100 jobs.

The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses. Kentucky could receive about $20,000,000 to revitalize and refurbish local communities, in addition to funds that would be available through a competitive application.

The President’s plan proposes $5 billion of investments for facilities modernization needs at community colleges. Investment in modernizing community colleges fills a key resource gap, and ensures these local, bedrock education institutions have the facilities and equipment to address current workforce demands in today’s highly technical and growing fields. Kentucky could receive $54,700,000 in funding in the next fiscal year for its community colleges.

3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs.

Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative states, the President is proposing the most sweeping reforms to the unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs transition to the workplace. This could help put the 79,000 long-term unemployed workers in Kentucky back to work.

Alongside these reforms, the President is reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 30,900 people looking for work in Kentucky from losing their benefits in just the first 6 weeks. And, across the country, the number saved from losing benefits would triple by the end of the year.

The President is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries. Pathways Back to Work could place 2,200 adults and 8,700 youths in jobs in Kentucky.

4. Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family

The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. A typical household in Kentucky, with a median income of around $43,000, will receive a tax cut of around $1,330.

5. Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan.

To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy.

Beat that, Mitch, you insult to sad turtles everywhere.

Theft by Private Contractor

No, this isn't about specific incidences of overcharging. The most efficient public contract is still far more expensive than paying public employees. Even unionized ones.

Kevin Drum:

So how about those overpaid government workers? We should probably just can the whole unionized lot of them and contract out their jobs to the lean-n-mean private sector. That'd save the taxpayers some serious dough, wouldn't it?

Maybe not. There's a reason that private contractors are called Beltway Bandits, after all. The Project on Government Oversight took a look at how much private contracting really costs once you look at actual billing rates, and the private sector didn't come out looking too good:

The result of POGO’s analysis was shocking. In 94 percent (33 of the 35) of the occupational series POGO analyzed, the average annual contractor billing rate was much more than the average annual full compensation for federal employees: on average, contractors may be billing the government approximately 1.83 times what the government pays federal employees to perform similar work. When the average annual contractor billing rates were compared with the average annual full compensation paid to private sector employees in the open market, POGO found that in all occupational classifications studied, the contractor billing rates were, on average, more than twice the costs incurred by private sector employers for the same services.

The most egregious example of an outsourced occupational classification that resulted in excessive costs rather than cost savings is claims assistance and examining—administrative support positions that involve examining, reviewing, developing, adjusting, reconsidering, or recommending authorization of claims by or against the federal government. To provide these services, on average, federal employees are fully compensated at $57,292 per year, private sector employees are fully compensated at $75,637 per year, and the average annual contractor billing rate is $276,598 per year.

$276,000 per year! Nice work if you can get it. Federal labor unions might be tough bargainers, but they're pikers compared to the suits on mahogany row. Those are the guys who really know how to work the system. If you're on the lookout for overpaid chair warmers with cushy jobs, that's your first stop.

Liberals have known this all along. This isn't even the first time a credible study has turned up the facts to prove it. Maybe this time people will listen.

Ten Years Stupider, Ten Years Closer to a Police State

Every single one of us is just one unlucky seat assignment and a bunch of panicked idiots away from this. Or worse.

From the Atlantic:

And here is a further AP report, with the headline "No charges against 3 detained at Detroit airport."

Now, read this account from one of those three who escaped with the apparent good fortune of not being charged. Her name is Shoshana Hebshi, and she is an American citizen with a Saudi father and a Jewish mother. She is married and is herself a mother, and she lives in the Midwest. That's her picture, at right, from a column she did about her love of bicycles, two years ago while a graduate student in journalism at Iowa State.

To skip ahead to the punch line, on this flight she was sitting by chance in a row with two Indian-looking passengers, neither of whom knew the other or knew her. But collectively they aroused the suspicion of other passengers or crew, and when the plane landed, heavily armed troops stormed aboard, handcuffed the three of them, and took them off for extensive questioning. After which they were eventually released with "no charges filed." Which is fair enough, considering that like everyone else on the plane they were simply trying to travel from Denver to Detroit and had done absolutely nothing wrong except to have "suspicious" looks.

A sample of her account of what happened after the plane landed and was directed away from the normal gate area:

Then what looked like the bomb squad pulled up. Two police vans and a police communication center bus parked off the road. I started to get nervous and rethink my decision to fly on 9/11.
[A Tweet she sent out: Cops in uniform and plainclothes in a huddle in rear of plane.]

We had been waiting on the plane for a half hour. I had to pee. I wanted to get home and see my family. And I wanted someone to tell us what was going on. In the distance, a van with stairs came closer. I sighed with relief, thinking we were going to get off the plane and get shuttled back to the terminal. I would still be able to make it home for dinner. Others on the plane also seemed happy to see those stairs coming our way.

[Another Tweet: I see stairs coming our way...yay!]
Before I knew it, about 10 cops, some in what looked like military fatigues, were running toward the plane carrying the biggest machine guns I have ever seen-bigger than what the guards carry at French train stations.
[My last tweet:
Majorly armed cops coming aboard]

Someone shouted for us to place our hands on the seats in front of us, heads down. The cops ran down the aisle, stopped at my row and yelled at the three of us to get up. "Can I bring my phone?" I asked, of course. What a cliffhanger for my Twitter followers! No, one of the cops said, grabbing my arm a little harder than I would have liked. He slapped metal cuffs on my wrists and pushed me off the plane. The three of us, two Indian men living in the Detroit metro area, and me, a half-Arab, half-Jewish housewife living in suburban Ohio, were being detained.

The cops brought us to a parked squad car next to the plane, had us spread our legs and arms. Mine asked me if I was wearing any explosives. "No," I said, holding my tongue to not let out a snarky response. I wasn't sure what I could and could not say, and all that came out was "What's going on?"...

And, much later, after the authorities begin to establish that she is not a threat:

Again, I asked what was going on, and the [policeman] said judging from their line of questioning that I could probably guess, but that someone on the plane had reported that the three of us in row 12 were conducting suspicious activity. What is the likelihood that two Indian men who didn't know each other and a dark-skinned woman of Arab/Jewish heritage would be on the same flight from Denver to Detroit? Was that suspicion enough? Even considering that we didn't say a word to each other until it became clear there were cops following our plane? Perhaps it was two Indian man going to the bathroom in succession?

Her account goes on, at quite some length. I think if you start reading you will continue. I should say that I cannot independently vouch for her version of events -- and it is so specific and detailed that I'm sure it will be challenged by the airline or police if it's inaccurate. But the worst thing about it is that it is so easy to believe. Compared with this, the Vance Gilbert "flying while black" case is nothing.

The AP story quotes the official response thus:

FBI Detroit spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said ultimately authorities determined there was no real threat.

"Due to the anniversary of Sept. 11, all precautions were taken, and any slight inconsistency was taken seriously," Berchtold said. "The public would rather us err on the side of caution than not."

"Caution," yes. But read this story and see if "caution" or "restraint" is the term that comes to your mind.

In a free and diverse society "the public would rather" that officials recognize the balance and tradeoff between "complete" security, on the one hand, and on the other the liberties and privacies that distinguish open societies from police states. In the Gilbert case, you can argue that once the authorities were called in, they kept their cool and reached a sensible "let's calm things down" decision. That is not how this latest case looks to me.

Assuming that Ms. Hebshi's account is correct, this is an important instance for recognizing what security-state, permanent-fear thinking has done to us. Which is a necessary part of the tenth-anniversary reflections.

Knowing this kind of thing is the logical consequence of fear-mongering over "security" is just one of the many reasons liberals fiercely opposed the disgustingly-named USA PATRIOT Act. It's still here, it's still worse than you imagine, and it still needs a stake driven through its heart and the corpse burned to ash and buried in lime.

"It's time to get to work" - Pass This Jobs Bill

I'm getting fully behind this one, because I think it may just be the first genuine no-lose proposition for the Democratic Party in this administration.

Obama has pounded it hard, every day, for a week now, and shows no sign of letting up. Yes, of course the repugs are going to kill it. But the bigger the push, the more people harass their congress critters over it, the more publicity it gets, and the bigger the price repugs will pay for killing it.



Full transcript here.

Bipartisanship is for Suckers

Or, "Aren't dems tired of always being the bottom with never a reach-around?"

Digby:

Michael Tomasky does an interesting analysis of the congressional support for Bush vs Obama. He discusses a number of high profile votes and crunches the numbers, coming up with this:

Here’s how it all adds up:

Average Democratic Senate support for Bush: 45.5 percent.
Average Democratic House support for Bush: 36.8 percent.
Average combined Democratic support for Bush: 41.1 percent.
Average Republican Senate support for Obama: 8.8 percent.
Average Republican House support for Obama: 2.7 percent.
Average combined Republican support for Obama: 5.75 percent.

It's fairly clear that the "both sides do it" trope is nonsense. And to my eyes, knowing the kind of centrist and right wing policies the president has proposed, it shows just how radical the Republicans have become.

However, judging from how the Villagers have interpreted this sort of result in the past rather than it being proof that the Republicans are mindlessly obstructionist, it proves that the country is "center-right." The point isn't that Republicans refuse to vote for a "liberal" president's proposals, it's that all those Democrats voted with President Bush. That's how you "get things done in Washington."

And they're not entirely wrong, unfortunately. The fact is that in Washington the only things that are even contemplated in the first place are center-right or right wing policies and the only way to "get them done" is to let Republicans do them with Democratic help. Anything else is considered out of the mainstream, regardless of the substance.

Still, it's good to see the numbers laid out so starkly. There can be no doubt of the imbalance. The only question is what it means.

Liberals are good-hearted souls who are easy to take advantage of - once. The next time, we fight back.

Quote of the Day

The Rude Pundit:

Simply put, there's a fuck of a lot more poor people in this country than rich ones. And they get to vote, too, despite the best efforts of Republicans, and they get the same number of votes per person as the wealthy. The Rude Pundit's said it before and will say it again: If the Democrats wanted to shake up the electoral landscape, they'd throw trucks of money at a movement to get the poor to the voting booths. They'd create jobs programs and housing programs and more real and actual liberal stuff, and when someone brought up tax breaks, they'd have a press conference from a shack in FuckYerCousin, Tennessee, to ask why.

If, you know, Democrats still gave a damn about the poor.

Celebrate Constitution Day

September 17 is Constitution Day.

Constitution Day commemorates the formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787, recognizing all who, born in the U.S. or by naturalization, have become citizens.

On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created. We encourage all Americans to observe this important day in our nation's history by attending local events in your area.

Celebrate Constitution Day through activities, learning, parades and demonstrations of our Love for the United State of America and the Blessings of Freedom Our Founding Fathers secured for us.

You might want to concentrate on the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Kentucky's Finest

By @KYYellowDog

"In Sergeant Dakota Meyer, we see the best of a generation that has served with distinction through a decade of war.

Let me tell the story. I want you to imagine it’s September 8, 2009, just before dawn. A patrol of Afghan forces and their American trainers is on foot, making their way up a narrow valley, heading into a village to meet with elders. And suddenly, all over the village, the lights go out. And that’s when it happens. About a mile away, Dakota, who was then a corporal, and Staff Sergeant Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, could hear the ambush over the radio. It was as if the whole valley was exploding. Taliban fighters were unleashing a firestorm from the hills, from the stone houses, even from the local school.

And soon, the patrol was pinned down, taking ferocious fire from three sides. Men were being wounded and killed, and four Americans -- Dakota’s friends -- were surrounded. Four times, Dakota and Juan asked permission to go in; four times they were denied. It was, they were told, too dangerous. But one of the teachers in his high school once said, “When you tell Dakota he can’t do something, he’s is going to do it.” (Laughter.) And as Dakota said of his trapped teammates, “Those were my brothers, and I couldn’t just sit back and watch.”

The story of what Dakota did next will be told for generations. He told Juan they were going in. Juan jumped into a Humvee and took the wheel; Dakota climbed into the turret and manned the gun. They were defying orders, but they were doing what they thought was right. So they drove straight into a killing zone, Dakota’s upper body and head exposed to a blizzard of fire from AK-47s and machine guns, from mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Coming upon wounded Afghan soldiers, Dakota jumped out and loaded each of the wounded into the Humvee, each time exposing himself to all that enemy fire. They turned around and drove those wounded back to safety. Those who were there called it the most intense combat they’d ever seen. Dakota and Juan would have been forgiven for not going back in. But as Dakota says, you don’t leave anyone behind.

For a second time, they went back -- back into the inferno; Juan at the wheel, swerving to avoid the explosions all around them; Dakota up in the turret -- when one gun jammed, grabbing another, going through gun after gun. Again they came across wounded Afghans. Again Dakota jumped out, loaded them up and brought them back to safety.

For a third time, they went back -- insurgents running right up to the Humvee, Dakota fighting them off. Up ahead, a group of Americans, some wounded, were desperately trying to escape the bullets raining down. Juan wedged the Humvee right into the line of fire, using the vehicle as a shield. With Dakota on the guns, they helped those Americans back to safety as well.

For a fourth time, they went back. Dakota was now wounded in the arm. Their vehicle was riddled with bullets and shrapnel. Dakota later confessed, “I didn’t think I was going to die. I knew I was.” But still they pushed on, finding the wounded, delivering them to safety.

And then, for a fifth time, they went back -- into the fury of that village, under fire that seemed to come from every window, every doorway, every alley. And when they finally got to those trapped Americans, Dakota jumped out. And he ran toward them. Drawing all those enemy guns on himself. Bullets kicking up the dirt all around him. He kept going until he came upon those four Americans, laying where they fell, together as one team.

Dakota and the others who had joined him knelt down, picked up their comrades and -- through all those bullets, all the smoke, all the chaos -- carried them out, one by one. Because, as Dakota says, “That’s what you do for a brother.” "

Full transcript here.

Dakota Meyer was 21 years old when he earned the Medal of Honor. His hometown in Adair County nestles in the foothills of south-central Kentucky, a long drive from the metropolises of Louisville, Lexington or even Bowling Green. He's back home now, working construction. Because that's what Kentucky heroes do.

If the Rich Aren't Paying 90 Percent, They're Not Sharing the Sacrifice

Via Down with Tyranny.

Brett Guthrie is a Lying Moron, Part 2

Yep, he's done it again. Sent out a "constituent email" chock-full of lies, stupidity and insanity.

"Get Our Economy Moving Again" reads:

Unfortunately, I am concerned that the president’s proposals follow the previous pattern of borrowing and spending.

The only thing wrong with President Obama's American Jobs Act is that it's about one-tenth the size it needs to be.

We have learned we cannot create a growing economy by spending more money in Washington and creating uncertainty for job creators.

Lies and stupidity. The evidence of the last 78 years is that the only thing that creates a growing economy is government spending.

Assuming that Kentucky's Second District's Only Congress Critter mendaciously means "corporate fat cats" when he says "job creators," it was just a month ago that Wall Street sent a clear message to congressional repugs: stop fucking around and start hiring people.

Our jobs agenda must be centered on supporting our nation’s small businesses and removing the burdensome regulations coming out of Washington that are impeding growth, employment and prosperity.

More lies and stupidity. Actual small business owners overwhelmingly say government regulations are neither burdensome nor an obstacle to hiring. The biggest obstacle to hiring is that their customers have no money to spend. Because they have no jobs. Because governments are laying people off rather than hiring them.

Over the recent August district work period I heard the same sentiment from small business owners, manufacturers and farmers across Kentucky.

Lying coward. Guthrie did not hold one single public meeting with his constituents this summer. That's because he knows the Second District's "small business owners, manufacturers and farmers" want taxes raised on rich people and corporations to pay for massive infrastructure projects that put millions of Americans back to work.

I support a plan to get our economy moving again. The proposal, put forward by House Republicans, addresses a number of regulatory burdens that have stifled job growth. We must get the government out of the way of job creation by reigning in the overeager regulations coming out of the EPA, the Obama health care law and Dodd-Frank financial reform that have our economy hanging in uncertainty.

Motherfucking lies. The "plan" Guthrie supports will kill any chance of economic recovery. Again, regulations are not preventing a single job. Government does not "get in the way of job creation;" government creates jobs through deficit spending. It has done so successfully for 73 years. Until Guthrie and his fellow assholes started obstructing everything President Obama does.

The Affordable Care Act is, in fact, already saving lives and lowering health care costs. The Dodd-Frank financial reform falls far short of what is needed to fix what's wrong with Wall Street and the banks, but because it doesn't regulate them enough.

By flipping off the switch on the federal regulatory factory we can restore certainty to our economy and foster the climate of prosperity that employers need to hire and grow their businesses.

Crazier than a shithouse rat. It was severe lack of financial industry regulations (repealing Glass-Steagall) that led directly to the 2008 economic disaster, and only President Obama's February 2009 stimulus kept the recession from becoming a full-blown Depression.

Here are fact-based charts to prove it.

During his speech, the president said any ideas should be put forward. I have voted in favor of dozens pro-growth measures designed to create jobs.

Guthrie has voted for dozens of bug-fuck insane repug plans to eliminate the middle class and turn America into a lords-and-serfs economy.

I hope we can work to find common ground to restore America’s competitive edge.

Unless you are voting in favor of President Obama's American Jobs Act, you motherfucking liar, that is the worst lie of all.

As always, please contact me with any questions or your thoughts on how we can create jobs and get our economy back on track.

And there's a poll!

What do you think is the most important priority to spur economic growth?

Stop overreaching federal regulations

Reduce the tax burden on small businesses

Achieve energy independence

Cut federal spending and reduce the federal debt

Unsure

The only thing on that list that would actually "spur economic growth" is "achieve energy independence." But of course Guthrie doesn't mean curing our addition to fossil fuels, which is the only path to true "energy independence." No, he means leveling every last mountain in Kentucky for planet-killing coal.

But we won't live to see civilization drowned and burnt, because Guthrie's plan to "cut federal spending and reduce the federal debt" will ensure we all die of the poverty first.

Williams Does the Full Wingnut Monty

The next time your septic tank gets clogged, don't ask David Williams for help.

He'll burn your house to the ground and form a committee of your neighbors to figure out how to improve the plumbing in the home you no longer have.

From the Herald:

Republican nominee for governor David Williams wants to eliminate state personal and corporate income taxes as part of his plan to create and retain jobs in Kentucky.

Williams’ plan, released Wednesday, also recommends several short-term tax suspensions designed to jumpstart Kentucky’s job market and several changes in the law, including allowing local voters to decide if their county should have a right-to-work laws. The plan also allows local voters to decide if local governments should have to pay the prevailing wage for public works projects.

Williams faces Democratic incumbent Gov. Steve Beshear and independent Gateood Galbraith in the Nov. 8 general election.

The plan also calls for creation of a commission of economic and tax experts to come up with a new state and local tax structure that would receive an up-or-down vote in the legislature.

Reporter Jack Brammer, who certainly knows better, simply transcribes this insanity as if it had a chance in hell of creating a single job rather than destroying what's left of Kentucky's economy.

Cutting. Taxes. Never. Creates. Jobs. When even proud "Capitalist Tool" Forbes magazine says so, the debate is over.

It’s a mainstay of conservative orthodoxy that tax cuts create jobs. In fact, the complexity of the tax code does create jobs for high-priced tax attorneys and accountants. But do tax cuts create “real” jobs?

The answer appears to be no for companies big and small. After all, U.S. public companies pay well-below the official 35% tax rate while 13.5 million American workers search unsuccessfully for jobs And start ups tell me that tax cuts don’t affect whether they’ll create new jobs. In short, the tax cut rhetoric, while effective politics, is lousy economics.

George H. W. Bush wisely pointed out in his 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan that expecting to balance the budget with tax cuts and defense spending increases was “voodoo economics.” But along with Reagan’s ascendancy came the rise of huge budget deficits — that Bush wisely helped end when he agreed to raise taxes in 1990.

Kentucky's tax system desperately needs reform, but Williams' plan is treating a brain tumor by cutting off your head. The operation was a complete success - the tumor's gone. Too bad the patient died.

Who needs a postal service, anyway?

Way back in April of 2010, I cited an article from The Nation about the need for Congress to save the Postal Service. In that post I wrote:

Now the brilliantly simple yet indispensable service Benjamin Franklin invented is on the verge of obliteration - far beyond the coming end of Saturday service.

Congress did nothing, and now it's a crisis.

Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks and Liars explains how the repugs destroyed the U.S. Postal Service:

The Republican plans to weaken the United States Postal Service are starting to get more and more attention, including Sam Seder's Majority Report, Thom Hartmann, Nicole Sandler's radio show and Allison Kilkenny's brilliant Truthout article:

It was only a few years ago that the USPS was considered not only stable, but thriving. The biggest volume in pieces of mail handled by the Postal Service in its 236-year history was in 2006. The second and third busiest years were in 2005 and 2007, respectively. But it was two events: one crafted during the Bush years and another supervised by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, that would cripple this once great institution.

Perhaps it was its booming history that first drew Congress' attention to the Postal Service in 2006 when it passed the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA), which mandated that the Postal Service would have to fully fund retiree health benefits for future retirees. That's right. Congress was demanding universal health care coverage.

But it even went beyond that. Congress was mandating coverage for future human beings.

"It's almost hard to comprehend what they're talking about, but basically they said that the Postal Service would have to fully fund future retirees' health benefits for the next 75 years and they would have to do it within a ten-year window," says Chuck Zlatkin, political director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.

It was an impossible order, and strangely, a task unshared by any other government service, agency, corporation or organization within the United States. The act meant that every September 30th, the USPS had to cough up $5.5 billion to the Treasury for the pre-funding of future retirees' health benefits, meaning the Postal Service pays for employees 75 years into the future. The USPS is funding the retirement packages of people who haven't even been born yet.

We keep being told that email and the Internet have killed the Postal Service and it's simply not true. Adjusting for the economic downturn, it appears the USPS is busier now than it ever has been before. E-commerce has been a huge boost as all the items people purchase online have to get to people's homes and the cheapest way to do that is still through the Postal Service.

The more details that we find out about this law, the PAEA, the worse it sounds. It passed on a voice vote. Why weren't any Democrats or progressives in Congress asking questions as to the validity of this bill? Why didn't they do their homework on its effects?

And what about Postmaster General Tom Donahoe, who has been getting a lot of time on television in recent weeks, arguing for massive cuts to the USPS?

What empower meant was to starve the Postal Service and its union. Since that day, Donahoe has abdicated his responsibility as the postmaster general, according to Zlatkin. The APWU's collective bargaining agreements in the past have included layoff protections, which Donahoe immediately offered up as sacrifice to his Republican masters when he asked to bypass worker protection so he might obliterate 220,000 career positions from the workforce by 2015.

"All he's trying to do is appease that committee. He's violated a contract he's signed. He's violated labor law. From my understanding, by going to Congress and having them change the laws to change our contracts, he's violating the Constitution of the United States."

In fact, Zlatkin says his local union chapter is so disillusioned with the postmaster's behavior that they're putting out a press release to call for his resignation or termination. "He is either a well-meaning incompetent or a duplicitous front man for the people who want to privatize the postal service," says Zlatkin.

And, again, for those who don't recognize why this is so important, the Postal Service is a vital cog in the American economy and is constitutionally mandated. It particularly benefits the poor:

But as Marcy Wheeler explains, there are still tons of people who need the USPS's services: poorer people, people using a post office box, rural people who live outside delivery areas, eBay-type entrepreneurs, immigrants sending care packages to people from their country of origin and nonprofits.

"It's part of the class war and it's against the poor and it's a class war against working people," says Zlatkin. Of the 34 post offices the USPS is considering closing in New York City, 17 are in the Bronx. The South Bronx district ranks as the poorest Congressional district in America.

If the repugs succeed in killing the quintessential American public service - one that predates the Revolution - then it's game over for American democracy.

Congressional Repugs Hate the Environmental Even More Than Polluters Do

As with everything congressional repugs do, there is no rational explanation for this. Not even the most extreme corporatism accounts for it. Just brainless, knee-jerk "Liberals like? Must kill!"

Kevin Drum:

Here's a handy tool from the redoubtable Henry Waxman: a searchable database of Republican votes to dismantle environmental protections in the current session of Congress. Just in its first six months! And it doesn't even count the growing popularity of calls from GOP presidential candidates to simply eliminate the EPA lock, stock, and barrel. (Excuse me: the "job-killing EPA." Precise terminology is important here.)

Anyway, it's handy stuff if you want to know with precision just how deeply Republicans are committed to undermining the environment in the service of their corporate interests. You can search by agency, by topic, or by legislation. The full database is here. Have fun.

Liberals know that environmental laws and regulations are pure self-protection. Without them, we all die.

Lying By Delusion

Six thousand American soldiers, marines and airmen dead ... for nothing. Trillions of dollars flushed down the toilet. Constitutional rights shredded. International respect destroyed.

But the greatest loss caused by the illegal invasion of Iraq may have been our ability to base decisions on reality.

Jonathan Schell in The Nation:

Many of these delusions play a role in a perverse pattern, apparently harking back to the war in Iraq, that has established itself in policy decisions. It consists of falsely alleging the existence of some problem to which your proposed solution is something you want to do anyway, for some other reason that you prefer not to advertise. The false allegation in the case of Iraq was, of course, that weapons of mass destruction existed in that country. The thing the Bush administration wanted to do anyway was to attack Iraq. The reason it wanted to do so was to make a demonstration of the United States’ readiness to use force in pursuit of its newly claimed global hegemonic ambitions. Stated honestly, these ambitions were unlikely to be popular. Saying you were preventing a nuclear attack on the United States was more appealing.

Now the pattern has cropped up at the center of economic policy, in the debate over the budget deficit. The false allegation here is that the deficit presents an urgent danger to economic growth, for example by threatening a rise in interest rates. (These, in fact, have remained very low as the deficit has risen.) The thing the right-wing groups want to do anyway is cut government spending on programs that benefit ordinary people and the poor. The reasons they want to do it can be debated, but they include undercutting programs, such as Social Security and Medicaid, that are among the foundations for popular support of the Democratic Party.

We can see the pattern again in the matter of voting restrictions now at issue in states around the country. The Republican Party and right-wing groups have been alleging an epidemic of voter fraud, to which they have been responding with a campaign of challenging voters at polls and passing legislation mandating onerous requirements for voting, such as presentation of official identification. The false allegation here is the wave of voting fraud. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University has shown fraud to be negligible to nonexistent. The thing the right-wing groups want to do anyway is restrict voting among Democratically inclined voters, such as poor people and students, who are less likely to meet the new requirements. The reason they want to do it is to get and keep themselves in power.

The provocateur’s strategy of manufacturing a threat in order to respond to it is a familiar one, but it has never played as large a role in American politics as it has since 9/11.

Another price has been exacted, perhaps the highest one, though it is the hardest to measure. While the United States has been exhausting itself trying to find solutions to unreal problems, the real problems facing the country, and world, go unattended. The nation that was absorbed in its misbegotten wars failed to notice the financial crisis that crept up on it and overtook it in 2008. The nation that has been occupied with propping up its misbegotten empire has had no attention or energy to spare for that existential threat to itself and the whole species, global warming.

The suspicion grows that our acts of self-destruction since 9/11 have at a more fundamental level been acts of self-distraction—that we have summoned up imaginary demons precisely in order to spare ourselves from facing the all-too-real burdens of our time.

The Welcome Return of Labor Violence

The 150-year history of union activism in this country is one long ugly recitation of repeated vicious, murderous violence by owners against workers. During the Mine Wars out west, mine owners were so powerful they actually got the U.S. Army to turn out, shoot and kill striking miners and their families. The infamous Ludlow Massacre was just one of many instances of workers and their families murdered on the orders of owners.

So when striking workers today break a few windows in pursuit of justice, I say it's about time.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

The Longshoremen’s strike in Longview, Washington, which I have discussed before, has gone hard-core, with union members “unofficially” deciding to bust up the offending company’s property. The company, EGT, violated an agreement it made to use union labor to unload grain. The Longshoremen have supported their Longview brothers and sisters by not coming to work in Seattle and Tacoma, essentially shutting down the Puget Sound docks.

This is kind of a big deal. It’s a small strike in a small town that could have big implications. If the Longshoremen decide to stand strong and expand their sympathy strikes, they could have a real short-term impact on the economy. The Longshoremen have always been one tough union, going back to the days of Harry Bridges.

I’ll be frank here–I have absolutely no problem with the Longview local’s actions of breaking some windows, dumping grain, and damaging rail cars. I know some of you will be outraged by union violence, even though they have hurt no one, but if your livelihood is being destroyed, isn’t that violence committed against you? Certainly this is an extreme action for this day and age, and you wouldn’t want to resort to such actions everyday, but as I have said before, extreme actions need to be part of the union playbook. With all-out war declared against unions, at what point do workers press the boundaries of the law, a legal code increasingly defined to limit people’s rights to organize?

Not surprisingly, the courts look very poorly on such actions, but theoretically at least, so long as the union leadership can prove this is not centrally planned, they might get away with it.

In any case, this is a situation very much worth following.

Update: Here’s Craig Merrilees, Communications Director for the ILWU on the Rick Smith Show, talking about the struggle of the Longview workers.

Liberals know you have to fight fire with fire, especially when the owners have all the matches.

Why It's Got To Be Obama in 2012

Yes, Barack Obama richly deserves the landslide loss he will suffer next year if all the liberals who voted for him in 2008 stay home in 2012.

But not even the worst of us deserves what will happen to this country if the president loses re-election.

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Complaints among progressives with the decisions of President Obama and many high-level Democrats are numerous and well justified. On everything from financial regulation to the environment, the Administration has been disappointing on a number of levels. To call the modern Democratic Party the heir to the party of FDR would be a misnomer. It has long since ceased to be that. Returning the party to its former stature of a true mover of liberal ideals should be the goal of progressives nationwide.

But the idea that we have two similar corporatist parties in America is simply insane. Case in point: Mitt Romney. You see, Mitt Romney has a plan for America posted on his website, which he expects America to fall in love with. Remember that this isn't stuff they're hashing out in backrooms while laughing maniacally and smoking cigars. This is stuff they're putting right out in the open:

SNIP

Now try to remember that Mitt Romney is the supposedly sane GOP candidate. The one that GOP voters are currently rejecting for being insufficiently conservative. However bad a Romney presidency would be, a Perry or Bachmann presidency would be far worse, both on economics and especially on social issues.

It doesn't really matter how disappointed with President Obama many of us may be. We every right to be angry and disappointed, and we have every obligation to make doubly sure that our presidential candidates are vetted for progressive values in 2016.

But anyone who sits out 2012 from a sense of disappointment in the current Democratic standard-bearer will deserve every last second of the Brave New America that Romney and friends have in store for us. Republicans are openly telegraphing their intention to remake America as an undisguised corporatocracy. It's up to us to do decide just what we intend to do about it.

So don't let the idiotic hippie-bashing the administration insists on continuing sway you.

Atkins again:

The third (possibility) is that the Administration is right that the vast majority of Democratic activists and voters will be so afraid of the Republican nominee that they'll jump on board regardless. This is the least likely possibility: many of the activists like myself will probably hunker down and glumly do their duty because they know more than anyone how devastating a Perry/Romney presidency would be, but many will not. And a great many of the less-informed voters themselves will stay home regardless. But it's also the most troublesome, because it means that progressive Democrats have a Hobson's choice:

support a standard-bearer who openly mocks them, their passionate beliefs and their very existence, or allow a Romney/Perry presidency to destroy everything they've spent their lives working for.

That dynamic will make mincemeat of Democratic Party activism for years to come, and Administration officials seem to be utterly unfazed by that prospect, if they're even aware of it.

No matter which of these three possibilities is the real one, the answer for good Democrats remains the same: build progressive infrastructure, use the primary system to evict Blue Dogs and elect progressive Democrats at all levels from hyper-local to Congressional, and make damn sure that we have a reliable Democratic candidate who respects the Democratic base to take office in 2016, no matter who wins in 2012.

You thought the Smirky/Darth Interregnum was bad? It'll seem like Camelot next to what the repugs will do if Obama loses next year.

So start making more liberals today, vote for Obama in 14 months, and keep your eyes on the prize, goddammit.

Only Tyrants Fear Protesters

As a rough rule of thumb, you can judge the justice of a particular protest by the (over)reaction of the protest target. It's directly proportional.

Lisa Derrick at Firedoglake:

Thursday’s No Justice No BART protest–which shut down Powell Street Station in San Francisco–turned into an ugly attack on free speech and freedom of the press when BART police arrested between 25 and 30 people, a third of whom are reported to be journalists, including seven student journalists from San Francisco State University and the Chronicle’s Vivian Ho. Ho, and others were cited for interfering with transit; the student journalists were not cited. Also arrested: No Justice No BART organizer Krystoff.

During the event protesters and the press stayed outside the platform areas of the station. No Justice No BART had called for the demonstration to take place in front of the fare gates in an effort to force BART to open the emergency exits, allowing passengers walk out for free. The portion of BART stations before the turnstiles is considered to be, has been stated by BART to be, a free speech area.

Also on hand, the Department of Homeland Security.

Read the whole thing, including tweets.

The Ultimate Labor Strike

As our economy slides further down the anti-worker slope - demonizing the unemployed and forcing people to work without pay - remember that traditionally labor strikes aren't about featherbedding, but about life and death.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

We sometimes don’t immediately think of the history of slavery as labor history, but of course, it’s absolutely fundamental to any understanding of labor history in the American South (and to a lesser extent in the North) both before and after the Civil War. This series will cover major events in the history of slave labor as well as events more typically thought of as labor history.

On September 9, 1739, the largest slave rebellion in the American colonies before the American Revolution took place in South Carolina, when a group of recent arrivals from Africa, probably the Congo, under the leadership of a man named Jemmy, rose up in arms, deciding that death was preferable to slavery. About 20 men started, but they recruited about 60 more as they marched. They began on a plantation about 20 miles southwest of Charleston, along the Stono River. They hoped to reach the Spanish fort at St. Augustine, which they had heard offered freedom.

September 9, 1739 was a Sunday. The South Carolina legislature had recently passed the Security Act of 1739, which made it law that plantation owners must carry weapons to church on Sunday, fearing slaves would revolt on Sunday when their masters were at church (isn’t really only a matter of time before South Carolina passes a similar law again). Knowing this, the Stono slaves chose one of the last remaining Sundays before the was to go into effect (September 29, 1739) to launch their desperate rebellion.

SNIP

The South Carolina legislature responded harshly to the Stono Rebellion, inaugurating some of the first truly restrictive slave laws in the North American colonies. The Negro Act of 1740 banned reading in English for slaves, the right to assemble in groups. raise food, earn money, and allowed slaveowners to kill their slaves. South Carolina also made it more difficult to free slaves, forcing slaveowners to ask the legislature for permission in order to manumit their human property. Some of this wouldn’t be enforced much. For instance, owners of South Carolina’s lowcountry rice plantations found they could make more money if they allowed their slaves to have rifles and hunt for themselves rather than provide food. But the Negro Act became one of the first steps toward making South Carolina not only the center of North American slavery, but the leader in suppressing black rights and the use of maximum violence toward slaves.

Another outcome of the Stono Rebellion was that slaveowners intentionally began mixing the ethnic background of their slaves, rightfully assuming that rebellion would be more difficult if people couldn’t understand each other, or even better, came from enemy tribes. This later became a strategy for capitalists in America’s 19th and early 20th century industries to prevent unionization. It also helped convince slaveowners that keeping slaves alive had value, since American-born slaves were less likely to revolt than recent purchases.

SNIP

For more information on the Stono Rebellion, I strongly recommend Peter Wood’s Black Majority, the classic book on the subject.

Liberals know all wealth comes from labor. That's why owner/parasites are always desperate to prevent labor exercising its power.

Quote of the Week

In response to the repug debate Wednesday, Steve M nails it:

Worship of Reagan is like worship of Jesus: people love Jesus for what they want to believe he stood for. He didn't stand for getting rich or fighting endless wars against brown people, but don't tell that to his most fervent followers in America . Similarly, Reagan raised taxes and busted budgets, but don't say that to his followers. Tell them he believed in, or at least tolerated the existence of, big-government entitlement programs and they won't believe you. It doesn't matter what the facts are.

Start Videotaping Your Local Government

They know gondamned well that Kentucky state law and the U.S. constitution mandate that public business be conducted in public, but they also know that most people don't know the law and can be intimidated into backing off.

Don't let your local officials get away with it.

Katie Brandenburg at the Ashland Daily Independent:

The Kentucky attorney general has issued a decision that a resolution adopted by the Carter County Fiscal Court violates state open meetings law and calls the resolution “unenforceable and inimical to the public good.”

The decision was issued on Thursday and addresses a fiscal court resolution, effective as of Sept. 1, restricting cameras and video recording of fiscal court meetings to the last pew of the fiscal court room.

The decision finds that “The Carter County Fiscal Court cannot, by ordinance, executive order, or resolution, abridge the statutorily invested right to videotape public meetings.”

Members of the Carter County Fiscal Court approved the resolution at an Aug. 9 meeting after asking Mignon Colley, Carter County Republican chairwoman, to move her video camera.

Colley issued a complaint to Carter County Judge-Executive Charles Wallace on Aug. 12, according to the attorney general’s decision. In it, she states that the resolution prevented her both from having a clear view of the court and picking up audio of proceedings.

In that complaint, Colley said it was impossible to record fiscal court discussions from the designated area, which is about 25 feet away.

She also emphasized that her camera is about the size of her hand and is mounted on a tripod that doesn’t obstruct the public’s view of proceedings or otherwise interfere with the meeting, according to the attorney general’s decision.

The decision also states that the fiscal court didn’t respond to Colley’s written complaint within the three business days it had to do so, which is also considered a violation of open meetings law.

Colley appealed to the office of Attorney General Jack Conway on Aug. 19 after receiving no response from the fiscal court, according to the decision. The attorney general’s office then issued a notification of the appeal to Wallace along with a copy of the contents of the appeal.

The fiscal court chose not to respond, according to the decision.

Colley said she originally began recording fiscal court meetings after an instance in June when she said the fiscal court went into an executive session without giving the general nature of the business to be discussed, something which is required under Kentucky’s open records and meetings law.

“At least with my video tapes, these people in Carter County can see what’s going on,” she said.

Colley said she was pleased with the attorney general’s decision.

“I think it was a right decision on the attorney general’s part to not allow them to infringe on anyone’s rights,” Colley said.

When contacted on Friday evening about the decision, Wallace said he didn’t know anything about the complaint. He also said that a decision from the attorney general was “just an opinion.”

According to the Kentucky attorney general’s website, the attorney general “issues legally binding decisions in disputes under the open records and meetings laws.”

Wallace referred comment on the decision to County Attorney Patrick Flannery. Flannery was not immediately available for comment.

The attorney general’s decision can be appealed in circuit court.

Before anybody starts cheering for Colley, let me just say that if the Carter County Fiscal Court majority were republican, Colley would probably be chasing Democratic Party videotapers out of the courtroom herself.

But through gritted teeth I will give Colley kudos for standing up to political intimidation, and possibly worse. County executives are not above using sheriff's deputies to enforce their tyranny.

Labor Lies Teachers Tell

I read Loewin's book years ago and still treasure it - because everything in it is still true, only worse.

Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks and Liars:

James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me discusses the avoidance of social class in high school history education.

A new report shows major problems with the way American textbooks teach labor history to students. Specifically:

The report found that these textbooks often present labor history in a biased, negative way, focusing on strikes and strike violence while giving little or no attention to the employer abuse and violence that caused the strikes.

In addition, it notes that the textbooks virtually ignore:

• The role of unions in passing protections and reforms such as the eight-hour work day, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, occupational safety and health, the end of abusive child labor, and environmental protection;
  

• Unions’ strong support for the civil rights movement; and
  

• The role unions played in the 1960s in particular, when the rise of public sector unions brought many more Americans into the middle class and gave new rights to public employees.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said the report “explains why so few Americans know much about labor’s history and contributions.”

"It paints a devastating picture of distortion and omission. Too often, labor’s role in U.S. history is misrepresented, downplayed, or ignored. The result is that most American students have little sense of how the labor movement changed the lives of Americans for the better. A vital piece of U.S. history is disappearing before our eyes."

The report is from the Albert Shanker Institute and the American Labor Studies Center and furthermore reports:

Many of the textbooks we reviewed do not tell the full story of the existence of the organized working women’s movement in the United States, instead often focusing on middle class women. For example, the books do not tell the full story of the Lowell Mill girls’ formation of an early, all-female union, including the awareness by the Lowell Mill girls that their union rights stemmed directly from their democratic rights, and their union’s sophistication in launching a public and political campaign against abusive mill owners. Another example: the books fail to mention important women union leaders of the 19th century, such as Kate Mullany and Augusta Lewis Troup. The books do not adequately cover key events spearheaded by women’s labor unions, such as the massive 1909 Uprising of the 20,000, led by the ILGWU.

Liberals don't lie about history because history justifies liberalism.

Living Without Religion

Much as I would love to claim that in a world without religion, the attack on the Towers 10 years ago would not have happened, I can't, because it's not true.

Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. for political reasons. Religion was their excuse for violence, not their cause. Power is the goal, violence is the means, religion is the lie. It has always been thus.

But it doesn't always have to be.

Via @PZMyers:

This is the promo video for CFI’s “Living without religion” campaign — nicely done!

We await the communicators who will complain that it is unscientific and destructive.



Living Without Religion

Scaring Ourselves Into Tyranny

Ten years ago, in a piece on the anti-American abomination known as the USA PATRIOT Act, Molly Ivins recalled the boy who overreacted to the presence of a harmless chicken snake in the henhouse, quoting him:

"Sometimes you scare yourself so bad you hurt yourself."

Kevin Drum:

Glenn Greenwald calls our attention to the ACLU's ten-year commemoration of 9/11. It's a little different from most of the others hitting the news stands this week. No pictures of the twin towers falling, no touching paeans about how we all came together as a nation for a brief shining moment, no photo spreads of exhausted firefighters or grieving relatives. In fact, no pictures at all. It's just plain, sober text about what's happened to our civil liberties over the past decade. Here are a few excerpts:

Torture: Just as the public debate over the legality, morality, and efficacy of torture was warped by fabrication and evasion, so, too, were the legal and political debates about the consequences of the Bush administration’s lawbreaking. Apart from the token prosecutions of Abu Ghraib’s “bad apples,” virtually every individual with any involvement in the torture program was able to deflect responsibility elsewhere.

The military and intelligence officials who carried out the torture were simply following orders; the high government officials who authorized the torture were relying on the advice of lawyers; the lawyers were “only lawyers,” not policymakers. This had been the aim of the conspiracy: to create an impenetrable circle of impunity, with everyone culpable but no one accountable.

Indefinite detainment: President Obama’s pledge to close Guantanamo was undermined by his own May 2009 announcement of a policy enshrining at Guantanamo the principle of indefinite military detention without charge or trial....The real danger of the Guantanamo indefinite detention principle is that its underlying rationale has no definable limits.

Targeted assassinations: No national security policy raises a graver threat to human rights and the international rule of law than targeted killing....Under the targeted killing program begun by the Bush administration and vastly expanded by the Obama administration, the government now compiles secret “kill lists” of its targets, and at least some of those targets remain on those lists for months at a time.

Surveillance: The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has used excessive secrecy to hide possibly unconstitutional surveillance....Hobbled by executive claims of secrecy, Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have nevertheless warned their colleagues that the government is operating under a “reinterpretation” of the Patriot Act that is so broad that the public will be stunned and angered by its scope, and that the executive branch is engaging in dragnet surveillance in which “innocent Americans are getting swept up.”

Profiling: No area of American Muslim civil society was left untouched by discriminatory and illegitimate government action during the Bush years....To an alarming extent, the Obama administration has continued to embrace profiling as official government policy....There are increasing reports that the FBI is using Attorney General Ashcroft’s loosened profiling standards, together with broader authority to use paid informants, to conduct surveillance of American Muslims in case they might engage in wrongdoing.

Data mining: Nothing exemplifies the risks our national surveillance society poses to our privacy rights better than government “data mining.”....The range and number of these programs is breathtaking and their names Orwellian. Programs such as eGuardian, “Eagle Eyes,” “Patriot Reports,” and “See Something, Say Something” are now run by agencies including the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security....Without effective oversight, security agencies are now also engaged in a “land grab,” rushing into the legal vacuum to expand their monitoring powers far beyond anything seen in our history. Each of the over 300 million cell phones in the United States, for example, reveals its lcation to the mobile network carrier with ever-increasing accuracy, whenever it is turned on, and the Justice Department is aggressively using cell phones to monitor people’s location, claiming that it does not need a warrant.

But hey, it's just the ACLU. So serious! And such party poopers too. Anyway, aren't they the guys who hate America? I'm pretty sure they are. There's really no need to pay attention to all their tedious whining. Please carry on.

UPDATE: A few moments after I wrote this, I turned on the TV and found myself watching Time managing editor Richard Stengel intone the banal conventional wisdom that the lesson of 9/11 ten years later is that "we've recovered, we've moved on."

God no. Just no. I don't care how many people say this, or how many times they repeat it. It isn't true. Just yesterday we declared ourselves thrilled by the news that maybe someday in the future we'll be able to board a plane without first taking off our shoes. Thrilled! Listen to the ACLU. We haven't even come close to moving on.

Molly saw it all coming just a month after the attacks, and spent the next six years writing about it, deploring it, insisting we not surrender to terroristic fear by giving up the core of our democracy.

Until we dismantle the Bush/Cheney/Obama Anti-Liberty State, the terrorists have indeed won.

"We Will Protect the Country We Love"

Tomorrow, Mr. President, would be the perfect time to reject and eliminate the fascist American Surveillance State Smirky/Darth created and you have expanded.



Full transcript here.

Not Cynics; Nihilists

Ezra Klein posts yet another Village piece defending repug terrorists as misguided patriots, and Kevin Drum and Steve Benen respond:

Kevin:

Ezra Klein rounds up a series of quotes from 2001 showing that Republicans loved the idea of fiscal stimulus back when a fellow Republican was wrestling with a recession. But now they hate the idea:

So what happened?

Some say the explanation for all this is obvious: Republicans want the economy to fail because that is how they will defeat President Obama. After all, didn’t Sen. Mitch McConnell say, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president”? How much clearer can it be?

I don’t believe this sort of behavior is quite that cynical.

Well, I think it's exactly that cynical. But not because Republicans want the economy to fail. Self-interest probably motivates them to believe they're doing the right thing when they oppose measures that might help the economy and therefore help President Obama's reelection, but that's about it. They don't literally want the economy to tank.

But the obvious thing Ezra doesn't mention is that all of those 2001 mash notes to stimulus were based on the prospect of getting an even bigger tax cut for the wealthy than they had counted on. Republicans don't really care about stimulus one way or the other. They care about upper-income tax cuts, and back in 2001, portraying them as a stimulus measure was a handy way of getting them passed. If Obama were to offer up the same deal — big, permanent cuts in the top marginal rates — they'd be happy to become Keynesians for a day if that was the price of admission.

Cynical? Sure. But this is all pretty much common knowledge. Republicans like tax cuts for the rich, and they'll adopt whatever argument comes to hand to get them. If we're in a recession, tax cuts are a short-term stimulus measure. If the economy is doing well, tax cuts are a long-term productivity enhancement. If estate taxes are at issue, they're trying to save family farms. If it's capital gains, cuts are a vital tool for energizing our manufacturing base. Any port in a storm.

Steve:

Regular readers know I tend to see the resolution of this question quite differently. Ezra believes GOP officials aren’t that cynical; I believe they’re absolutely that cynical. Indeed, I tend to agree with a different piece Ezra wrote last week, when he argued that the “fundamental fact” of American politics right now is that Republicans are principally concerned with winning in 2012, not fixing the economy. “Boehner,” he wrote, “simply will not cut off his party’s candidates at the knees, especially its presidential contenders, by handing Obama a major economic accomplishment.”

That’s pretty cynical, and I think it’s entirely correct: Boehner is willing to hold back the economy, on purpose, as part of an election strategy.

It’s unlikely Republicans want the country to suffer, per se, but it seems plausible to me that they see this as a temporary approach — they’ll undermine the economy and abandon their previous principles for just a little while, and then see what they can do to help Americans in 2013. They can’t act sooner, though, because it might help Obama.

And they can’t have that.

They're both wrong. The repugs do, indeed, want the economy to crash and the country to fall to its knees. Because only then can they get what they really want: a pure lords-and-serfs economy that will free them forever from even pretending to care about anyone who is not rich, white, straight male Xians like themselves.

Yes, of course, many millions of repugs will find themselves on the serfs end of that deal, but it will come as a huge surprise to them. They all think they're going to be among the one thousand or so lords who will own the rest of us.

Watch and Pass It On

Fuck the analpundits. This thing speaks for itself. But it won't work unless everybody sees it.



Full transcript here.

Fight for the Issues, and the Elections Will Follow

Of course you should support genuinely liberal candidates, but if they're not thick on the ground where you live, turn your efforts to the issues you want your dream candidate to run on.

Steve M:

But more to the point, what's the end result Stoller seeks? To get people talking seriously again about issues like labor? Why not try to accomplish that by ... talking seriously again about issues like labor? Why build a movement to support candidates who'll focus on issues -- why not just cut out the candidate part and try building a movement directly focused on those issues?

I know I say this all the time, but here I go again: movements don't have to be focused on who wins elections and who doesn't. The civil rights movement wasn't. In recent years, the gay rights movement wasn't. The tea party wasn't about elections in its early days in 2009. There were no candidates; there was just anger.

Elsewhere in the piece, Stoller complains that the financial realities of our electoral system mean that anti-liberal insiders dominate the process of nominating Democrats. So why look to that corrupt process as liberalism's salvation? The fat cats control the parties. They still don't (fully) the streets.

We can't make more liberals by putting the candidate cart before the issue horse. We can't make more liberals by waiting for Big Daddy to do it for us. We have to make more liberals by working the issues. One voter, one precinct, one election at a time.

Killing Women's Rights Softly

The War on Women escalates and degenerates, as red-state abominations go unnoticed, unobjected, unfought.

Sarah Burris at Crooks and Liars:

The past (two weeks have) been unfortunate for women's rights and reproductive health. On (August 26) the super strict abortion law passed by the Virginia Legislature took effect. The new regulations require that the 22 clinics that perform abortions now must comply with physical standards that may require buildings to be rebuilt, renovated, or facilities to be moved at significant costs to the clinics of course.

The new restrictions that require five-foot wide hall ways and 250 square-foot operating rooms are a kind of financial asphyxiation of women's health care resources in the state of Virginia. Since anti-choice advocates can't overturn Roe, despite their best efforts, and voters are too worried about jobs and the economy to take anti-choice legislation seriously, they're just going to work slowly to bankrupt anyone providing women's health out of the business.

The same law that Virginia passed and is now enforcing was also passed in Kansas earlier this summer that would have closed all but one abortion clinic. Perhaps, realizing that the law was an effort to make [or "was part of efforts to make"] the compliance standards difficult and nearly impossible, a judge blocked the state from enforcing those regulations and shutting down the clinics.

The other interesting news in Kansas, however, is a strange law that was passed very late in the legislative session this year that some even think was in violation of the rules. It prohibits any insurance company from providing coverage for elective or necessary abortion procedures. Women requiring these services would have to obtain an insurance rider under the new law - but when the petitioner in the suit asked her insurance company for the rider she was informed that an insurance rider doesn't exist. The law also does not provide an exemption for the life and health of the mother nor does it provide any coverage for women who are the victims of rape or incest. Those women would also have to obtain an insurance rider for the insurer to provide the procedure - but again - the riders don't exist.

The Kansas ACLU is suing the Insurance Commissioner saying that these practices are discriminatory to women because they don't require men to obtain separate insurance riders for procedures. Interestingly, when this bill came up last session there was a lot of activity on the House floor with members who said that it shouldn't stop at abortion coverage riders. Members attached amendments to the bill that would require that prescriptions for Viagra would require a rider, treatment for smoking would also not be covered unless a rider was obtained. So many amendments were attached for so many things that the bill was sent back to committee where it promptly died.

SNIP

Kansas is no stranger to fighting for the rights of women. In 2009 late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was gunned down by a right-wing terrorist affiliated with the anti-choice movement. The war for women's health rages on.

Liberals know that the difference between failing, oppressive, oil-dependent autocracies like Saudi Arabia and strong, diverse, thriving economies like the U.S. is educated, healthy, liberated women.

Straitjacketing women into domestic slavery as anonymous wombs is a major bridge to the medieval lords-and-serfs economy the repugs crave.

"The Only Ones Who Can Stop the Onslaught"

I was horrified on Monday to witness a small-town "Labor Day" parade with dozens of vehicles not one of which mentioned a union, workers, labor or the real point of the day in any way. However, at least three vehicles flaunted their support for treason by flying large confederate flags.

I should have gone to Louisville.

Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks and Liars:

On Labor Day, despite all the focus on Jimmy Hoffa's comments, it was actually Vice President Joe Biden whose speech was the most important one of the day. He gave the type of speech that labor supporters have long wanted to hear from the White House. The speech was fiery and was an accurate portrayal of the struggle that labor faces in the United States. The problem is we should've heard this speech from the president and it should've been given years ago and been matched with significant action. If the vice president finds him self unemployed in January 2013, this failure might be a key reason as to why.

The speech had particular resonance because of where Biden made it. Zandar:

Here in Cincy, the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic at Coney Island is always a big draw, and following last year's visit by President Obama, this year Vice President Joe Biden showed up to talk about the GOP's assault on Ohio unions.

Thousands of Greater Cincinnati union members say they are energized following a speech by the Vice President on Monday.

Vice President Joe Biden told crowds of people at the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic at Coney Island repealing SB5, now Issue 2, is the fight of their life.

“You are the only folks keeping the barbarians in the gates. You are the only non-governmental power, the only non-governmental power, the only one that has the power and the capacity to stop this onslaught.”

Issue 2, the referendum to overturn GOP Gov. John Kasich's bill that removes collective bargaining power from the state's unions, means Democrats have a big opportunity to send a major message to anti-labor Republicans in just two months. Kasich's law removes strikes, collective bargaining, sick pay for teachers, and lets local, county and state government have the final say on labor issues, basically eliminating unions in the state, period. Some 400,000 Ohio workers are affected by this law, and it's unleashed an anti-GOP backlash among Ohio's working class.

Hey Ohio? Vote NO on Issue 2 and remember what Kasich tried to do to Ohio workers.

If the total takeover of the Democratic Party by corporate owners finally forces liberals to form a party that genuinely represents the middle class, we should call it the Labor Party.

Death By Failure to Learn

At some point, surely, we have to stop taking direction from the people who have been wrong on the economy at every single crisis point for the last 40 years. Whether that point will come too late remains to be seen.

Looks like the cratering economies in Europe caused by austerity hysteria are still not enough to persuade neoliberals to blame the real culprits: predatory banks, criminal corporations and the parasitic rich.

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Oh right. It's the fault of the labor unions. The same labor unions that have served the Spanish middle class very well for decades. They clearly had a lot to do with the real estate bubble.

Seems like no matter which door you peek behind, a neoliberal is behind it with a wrong answer. And when they're called on being wrong, there's another neoliberal waiting behind the next door with another wrong answer. In fact, there's an endless string of stupid and/or corrupt business school graduates waiting to tell us that the banking sector crisis is the fault of social security, labor unions, universal healthcare, strange swarthy Greeks, individual deadbeat homeowners, welfare queens driving Cadillacs, the Environmental Protection Agency, and anyone and anything else they care to dream up. Anyone, of course, but the banks, business school grads and Milton Friedman acolytes who drove this car straight in the ditch and refuse to take any responsibility for having been right behind the wheel the whole time.

Liberals - who are the opposite of "neoliberals" - listen to the economic voices who have been proven right in the past.

Liberals know who is to blame for our economic catastrophe: the same ones who have been responsible for every economic crisis for 200 years.

Not Your Grandfather's Democratic Party

In this sesquicentennial of the Civil War, we're going to be seeing a lot more of this "Democrats are the party of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation" bullshit from repugs trying to hide their fundamental racism.

Steve Benen sets the record straight:

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), who recently compared himself to Harriet Tubman, was on Fox News the other day raising an argument about race and politics that occasionally pops up.

“When you look at the history of the black community with the Democratic Party, you see slavery, you see segregation, you see the Jim Crow Laws, you see secession and now you see socialism which is really not beneficial to the black community.”

Now, it’s probably fair to say West doesn’t know what “socialism” means, but it’s the rest of the quote that’s interesting. As far as the right-wing Floridian is concerned, the Democratic Party’s history on race is ugly and offensive. This comes up from time to time, so let’s set the record straight.

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to competing constituencies — southern conservative whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.

It wasn’t easy. As Steve Kornacki noted a while back, “When the party ratified a civil rights plank at its 1948 convention, Southern Democrats staged a walkout and lined up behind Strom Thurmond, South Carolina’s governor and (like all Southern Democrats of the time) an arch-segregationist. Running under the Dixiecrat banner, Thurmond won four Deep South states that fall.”

As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role as champions of civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed.

In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. Other than his home state, Goldwater won exactly five states in that cycle: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Whether this related to race — we’re talking about states that hadn’t backed a GOP candidate since the Civil War — is not an open question.

This was, of course, right around the time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition, leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP.
In the ensuing years, Democrats embraced their role as the party of diversity, inclusion, and civil rights. Republicans became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond.

Through the ’80s and early ’90s, the Southern realignment continued, with conservatives in the region, including figures like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, making the GOP their new home.

West wants the African-American community to associate the Democratic Party with Southern conservatives who fought for segregation and Jim Crow. What West chooses to ignore is the fact that these Southern conservatives left the party and became Republicans, where they were not only welcomed with open arms, but also where they began to shape the GOP’s agenda. Indeed, it was a Republican National Committee chairman who conceded last year that his party deliberately used racial division for electoral gain for the last four decades.

West may not know this history, or perhaps hopes he hopes we don’t know this history, but either way, those are the facts.

Liberals don't let repugs define us, our history, our values, our priorities, our policies, our politics or our legacy.

How Social Security is Like A Ponzi Scheme

It's not.

From Mother Jones:

(Last) Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a group of voters that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie" to younger Americans. It's not the first time the GOP presidential candidate has made such claims. The Texas governor also described Social Security as a Ponzi scheme in his 2010 book, "Fed Up!," and has argued the program is unconstitutional and could be handed over to the states.

When politicians make clearly false claims, reporters have an obligation to explain to readers why those claims are false—or at least quote someone who can. I would suggest political scientist Jonathan Bernstein:

Very simple: anyone who says that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme either misunderstands Social Security, misunderstands Ponzi schemes, is deliberately lying, or some combination of those...After all, a Ponzi scheme is a deliberate fraud. Saying that Social Security is financed like a Ponzi scheme is factually wrong, but saying that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme or is like a Ponzi scheme is basically a false accusation of fraud against the US government and the politicians who have supported Social Security over the years.

Andrew Sullivan's readers also have a number of good reasons why Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. The Social Security Administration also has a good web page explaining why Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. But I find that charts often make understanding things easier, so here's a Venn diagram I made that explains some of the differences and similarities between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme: