Smart Things other People said (posted)

from Ed’s place

Scott Brown elected = Bad for Obama = Good
Dawn Johnsen = Abortion = Bad

The marketers spewing non-sequiturs fully expect the poor (read non existent) comprehension skills and sprinkle these gems to raise moron fury.

Posted by: MikeMa

Senator Al Franken, as the CEOs of Comcast and NBC sat before him in the Senate hearing on the merger of the two media giants:

“I worked for NBC for many years, and what I know from my previous career has given me reason to be concerned–let me rephrase that, very concerned–about the potential merger of Comcast and NBC Universal……..so while I commend NBCU and Comcast for making voluntary commitments as part of this merger, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t just trust their promises.”

Paul Krugman – on deficit spending and the media’s reaction to claims from the right about the danger it poses to America:

To me — and I’m not alone in this — the sudden outbreak of deficit hysteria brings back memories of the groupthink that took hold during the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, as then, dubious allegations, not backed by hard evidence, are being reported as if they have been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, as then, much of the political and media establishments have bought into the notion that we must take drastic action quickly, even though there hasn’t been any new information to justify this sudden urgency. Now, as then, those who challenge the prevailing narrative, no matter how strong their case and no matter how solid their background, are being marginalized.

And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction.

Digby on James O’Keefe and his compatriots:

there’s little doubt that these guys are jackasses of the highest order. They are just mean little pranksters seeking to entrap low level clerks into validating bigots’ worst imaginations. The fact that the MSM never did any real investigations of these little creeps before now and gave them credibility instead, is a sad comment on journalism.

Those damned socialists, living longer than ‘free’ Americans!

Radical Inequality Is Literally Killing Us

Over 200 studies since the early 1980s have now documented that people living in societies where wealth has concentrated at the top of the economic ladder live significantly shorter, less healthy lives than people who live in societies that spread their wealth more evenly.

And we’re not talking just poor folks here. All people in unequal societies do worse. Middle-income people in the United States, the world’s most unequal developed nation, have shorter lifespans than middle-income people in Japan, Sweden and a host of other more equal nations.

This same dynamic, Wilkinson and Pickett show in their new book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, is operating on all our most basic yardsticks of social decency. On everything from homicides and teen pregnancies to drug addiction and levels of trust, people living in more equal nations do better — from three to 10 times better — than people in societies where treasure tilts to the top.

Yeah, but they’re all socialists, so that longer life span just means they have longer to suffer under the oppressive governments that force them to have better health care.

CNN Poll: 3 of 4 Americans say much of stimulus money wasted

Washington (CNN) — Nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted, according to a new national poll.

Nice headline but it is just another fine example of the ‘librul’ MSM attacking a Democrat. The headline is ‘true’ but the detailed numbers tell a slightly different story.

Twenty-one percent of people questioned in the poll say nearly all the money in the stimulus has been wasted, with 24 percent feeling that most money has been wasted and an additional 29 percent saying that about half has been wasted. Twenty-one percent say only a little has been wasted and 4 percent think that no stimulus dollars have been wasted.

“One reason why the economic stimulus bill is no longer popular with the American public is the perception that a lot of the money has been wasted. Six in 10 believe that the projects in the stimulus bill were included for purely political reasons,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Gee, I wonder where Americans could have ever gotten the idea that the money was wasted?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 cost $787 billion but 40% of that cost comes from tax cuts. Tax cuts put into the bill in an attempt to assuage the Repubs – didn’t work, only three Republican Senators voted for the package, no Representatives voted for it. Many economists had said before the bill’s passage that the amount was insufficient and when the tax cuts were included, the stimulus aspect of the bill was about one third of what was thought necessary. That is, the stimulus should have been in the range of $1.2 – $1.3 trillion and not $450 billion.

Now the fact that they didn’t vote for the stimulus bill has not stopped Republican Congress critters from going home and bragging about how much money they got for their districts. Some like Gov Jindal of Louisiana made a big show out of dispersing the stimulus dollars by showing up in small towns with a giant cheque for photo-ops, never mentioning that the money came from the federal stimulus bill.

Republicans Who Opposed The Stimulus Line Up To Criticize It Publicly, Request More Money Privately

Is hypocrisy a job requirement for Republicans?

Prof. Dawkins is a tad angry

from The Washington Post’s On Faith column

Haiti and the hypocrisy of Christian theology

As with the Indonesian tsunami, which was blamed on loose sexual morals in tourist bars; as with Hurricane Katrina, which was attributed to divine revenge on the entire city of New Orleans for harboring a lesbian comedian, and as with other disasters going back to the famous Lisbon earthquake and beyond, so Haiti’s tragedy must be payback for human sin. The Rev. Pat Robertson sees the hand of God in the earthquake, wreaking terrible retribution for a pact that the long-dead ancestors of today’s Haitians made with the devil, to help rid them of their French masters.

Needless to say, milder-mannered faith-heads are falling over themselves to disown Pat Robertson, just as they disowned those other pastors, evangelists, missionaries and mullahs at the time of the earlier disasters.

What hypocrisy.

It is a long piece but I think well worth the time to read it. Professor Dawkins is much angrier in this essay than in any other piece of his that I have read. I agree with his contention that much of the religious talk about the disaster in Haiti seems to have at least a hint of Pat Robertson’s take on the matter – i.e., at least part of the blame for the earthquake must lie in the past of the Haitian people and their religious practices.

update on Citizens United

Glenn Greenwald doesn’t think the ruling will have as catastrophic effect on US political life, as I and many others think it will.

I’m also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one principal fact: I really don’t see how things can get much worse in that regard. The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: “banks own” the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions — their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold — and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can’t imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There’s not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday’s issuance of this ruling?

So while I find myself agreeing with his points on ‘free speech for one must be free speech for all’ (go read the piece to understand), I find it incredibly sad his feeling that the ruling will make little difference in America because “There’s not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. “

Pat Robertson is a poopy head

There’s the world inhabited by Pat Robertson and those deluded by his words

PAT ROBERTSON: And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.” True story. And so, the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.”

And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now, we’re helping the suffering people, and the suffering is unimaginable.

_{not only is Robertson’s theology the stuff found in outhouses but so is his history – Napoleon III didn’t take the throne in France until 44 years after the slave revolt in Haiti was over and done.}

and there’s the real world rational people live in

Economy – overview: Dominican Republic
Although the economy is growing at a respectable rate, high unemployment and underemployment remains an important challenge. The country suffers from marked income inequality; the poorest [b]half of the population receives less than one-fifth of GNP[/b], while the richest 10% enjoys nearly 40% of national income. – World Fact Book

There’s much talk about how Haiti just sucks up the charity and the country never seems to change or improve. Among the multiple reasons for the poverty in Haiti, would be control of the few resources by a tiny elite class, normal in third world nations and various requirements placed on Haiti by the multi-national agencies that supposedly are meant to help poor countries. One of the favourite talking points of the right has been ‘trade liberalisation’ policies – freer trade means increased prosperity. Well, not always

The Story of Haitian Rice

In 1994 the Haitian government entered into a new agreement with the IMF that contained a “medium-term structural adjustment strategy” which “included sweeping trade liberalization measures.” In 1995 when this agreement went into affect, Haiti’s tariffs on rice imports were cut dramatically from 35% to the current level of 3%. By comparison, the Common External Tariff on rice in the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) zone for rice in 1999 was 25%.

Haiti’s extremely low import tariff on rice is part of the trade liberalization policies which earned it a score of 1 on the IMF’s 1999 Index of Trade Restrictive ness, making Haiti the least trade restrictive country in the Caribbean. Yet, in the almost 10 years that have passed, Haiti has also remained the least developed country in the Caribbean despite its openness to trade, critics of trade liberalization have been quick to point out. Following the adoption of these policies local production of rice in Haiti dropped dramatically. Though most people engaged in the debate over trade liberalization in Haiti agree on this point, the different camps come to very different conclusions on what the collapse of rice production means for the Haitian people.

Rice import tariff reductions in Haiti has made it more difficult for local rice producers to compete with imports. An article published in 1999 after evaluating agricultural and food price policy in Haiti concluded that “reducing tariffs on both rice and corn, decreased retail and farm prices and increased consumption and imports.” This is also confirmed by the IMF which in a report 2001 states “Trade liberalization has contributed to a large increase in imports of rice. At the same time, domestic production has gone down substantially.”

Some argue that the resulting flood of relatively cheap rice imports originating mostly from the United States has had a negative impact on Haiti. The decline in the demand for Haitian rice has been devastating to an already desperate rural population. Rice farmers are some of the most vulnerable members of the population; the alternative employment options for farmers in Haiti are extremely limited.

Furthermore, competition between Haitian and American rice growers is not exactly fair. While US rice production is “subsidized through a variety of mechanisms”, the small, struggling domestic rice industry in Haiti receives no support from the government. Rice farmers do not receive export subsidies or other types of domestic support.

more on Citizens United v. FEC

In their book, The Growth of the American Republic, Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, in examining the Gilded Age of late 19th C. America wrote:

“The nation was fabulously rich but its wealth was gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of the population, and the power of wealth threatened to undermine the political integrity of the Republic.”

This movement of the nation’s wealth has once again been taken place during the past 20-25 years in America, with an ever smaller percentage of the population owning an ever growing percentage of the nation’s assets. Now with the decision in the Citizens United case, I fear we will see an accelerating move in this change toward an oligarchic republic where the richest have the loudest voices and the most votes.

That fear of a tiny minority controlling political discourse had provided the reasoning for a century’s worth of Congressional actions beginning with the Tillman Act of 1907 and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. A century’s worth of cases and precedent has now been overturned by the faction on the Court that in the past has been the most vocal in their supposed support of precedent and Constitutional originalism. Justice Antonin Scalia having been one of the most vocal proponents of relying on previous decisions, what is known as stare decisis from the Latin with a meaning of “Maintain what has been decided and do not alter that which has been established”, and also one who has often loudly denigrated those who speak of a “living Constitution”. This decision and Scalia’s concurrence continue his record of using ‘bad’ history and personal attacks against those justices who disagree with his interpretations of judicial reality.

In March of last year, the SCOTUS listened to the initial arguments in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission but for some reason, a majority of the justices decided to ask for re-argument on a broader scale than the plaintiffs had requested in the initial filing as it was presented to the Court. This is an obvious refutation of Justice Scalia’s claim:

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don’t understand what you are saying. I mean, we are not a self — self-starting institution here. We only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to.

_{quote from transcript}

Not too surprising when one looks at Scalia’s record of throwing lots of words around with his own interpretations of history and his rather flexible personal definition of ‘originalism’. The original plaintiff in the case had not asked for the broad re-interpretation of law and prior decisions that the SCOTUS ruled on. It was the decision of the Court itself to expand this case – unlike Scalia’s claim regarding “self-starting institution”

My original posting as to the effect of this decision on American democracy is further amplified by the unanswered questions that guaranteeing personal rights to corporations will subsequently bring forth.

Number one has to be the evident belief of five Supreme Court Justices that money equals free speech, the more you have, the more you can ’speak’ and the wider your audience.

Although much of the media has included labour unions, which have been regulated along with corporations in regards to political speech in the past, as also benefiting from the ruling, there was no explicit inclusory statement on the status of labour unions under this ruling. The court did not specifically state that unions would also be covered.

No statement was made as to whether foreign entities, nations or corporations, with legally incorporated companies in America, would also be covered. Think about it – under this decision, China, Saudi Arabia or any other nation which controls an American corporation may now inject as much money as they wish into American political campaigns, either directly or indirectly by creating and broadcasting “issue advertising” or by paying for robocall campaigns and thru the creation of astroturf groups.

The inclusion of corporations into the protections of the First Amendment may also open up a Pandora’s Box of new lawsuits asking for further rights being granted to corporate entities. Is a corporation covered under the Second Amendment? What about interstate commerce? – if a human can travel freely around the country and work in all of the states, why can’t corporations do the same? This is directly relevant to the present question about health care insurance. It may be argued that state regulations of corporations is precluded unless the regulations also apply to all adult, mentally-competent and breathing individuals.

for further reading, here is SCOTUS Wiki with all of the filings, transcripts and decision

Why are the Dems acting so weak?

Excellent post by John Amato at Crooks&Liars

…”conservatism” should have been called out for being the manifest cause of the destruction wreaked on the American people and the world during eight years of Bush-Cheney-GOP congressional rule. But did you hear a peep out of President Obama? He actually brought up Reagan’s name in the election in a positive fashion.

Supreme Court has killed democracy in the USA

Supreme Court says corporations can spend as much money as they want on election campaigns.

Supreme Court rolls back campaign spending limits

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

The decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, removes limits on independent expenditures that are not coordinated with candidates’ campaigns.

The full decision may be read here

Nice of the ‘librul’ Washington Post to throw in the bit about labour unions being able to spend more also but the unions of today don’t have near the excess cash of American corporations. This decision doesn’t even restrict foreign countries or companies from spending money on American campaigns – all they have to do is have some type of legal business registered in a US state.

and you thought politicians were ‘bought and paid for’ previously? Ha! Ordinary Americans of any stripe have just been relegated to the back row of the upper balcony in the theatre of modern American politics.

The entire concept of corporations as persons with equal rights to human beings goes back to a clerk inserting a phrase into a SCOTUS decision after the judges had ruled. The case was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. A brief explanation may be read here

A NYTimes editorial this past Sept concluded with these words

The drive to give corporations more rights is coming from the court’s conservative bloc — a curious position given their often-proclaimed devotion to the text of the Constitution.

The founders of this nation knew just what they were doing when they drew a line between legally created economic entities and living, breathing human beings.

This is very bad for all living, breathing American citizens. Those on the right with their teabagging party protests about socialism and those on the left worried about the environment – you are now inconsequential bits of fluff on the floor of the chamber that housed the political conversation. Your megaphones will not be heard over the roar of the media. In the worst of all possible outcomes, movie houses will only be showing escapist films with zero political content or propaganda films supported by the theatres owners. TV shows will also be either mindless entertainment or purely partisan in the way that FoxNews acts today – 3 of the potential Repub candidates already work for Fox, we can expect to see even more of their faces from now on. Opposition candidates, unsupported by a corporation will never be seen on your screens.

The Supreme Court of the United States has just killed democracy. Sure you can stand out in front of your house and shout at traffic, or join a Tea Party with a few thousand others but if the corporations don’t want to show your opinions on TV or print them in your local paper – eh, too bad. You still have freedom of speech but damn few people are going to ever be able to hear what you have to say.

Remember that “Fairness Doctrine” that Limpballs, Scammity and O’Really have been screaming about for years? It is really gone now. The Fairness Doctrine stipulated that all broadcast media had to provide equal time for opposing political views, often that meant the opposition was broadcast in the wee hours of the morning but at least they were sent out. With this decision, every word you read, every voice you hear during political campaigns will be from a corporate employee.

From this day forth, all political candidates will either be corporate lackeys or independently wealthy individuals whose wealth is not held in corporate shares and who then MAY listen to some of their constituents but really why should they bother?

The mindless bias of some Americans is exemplified by the following comment posted at 10:38AM on the NYTimes site

Doesn’t say how they voted but any bets the newest judge had something to do with it? Nothing like telling corporations and unions to do whatever they want to buy/steal/control an election and just in time for the Nov. elections after the Democrats get their heads handed to them in MA -

The words of a person so blinded by their personal beliefs that all the words written about the decision have convinced him that the exact opposite of reality has taken place. Newly-seated Justice Sotomayor voted against corporate/union funding but this individual is sure in that tiny thing he calls a brain that it was the ‘libruls’ who voted for it.

Incrementalism, ain’t gonna git it done!

Yesterday, watching Meet the Press, we saw a closing of the usual left/right divide. Closed because all of the panelists agreed that the health-care reform pushed for by progressives has failed.

Transcript quotes, 20 Dec 2009

DAVID GREGORY: Markos Moulitsas, I want to start with you. You heard David Axelrod say this is in keeping with the president’s principles; it is in keeping, this compromise on health care, with the way the president campaigned on this. And this is the bill, essentially, the reform that Americans deserve. What do you say?

MR. MARKOS MOULITSAS: Yeah, I don’t think this is a reform bill. I mean, I think it’s very clear, this is not insurance or healthcare reform. What it is, it’s allowing more people, 30 million people, to buy into the existing broken system. It’s very important to keep in mind that healthcare insurance is not the same as health care.

MR. GREGORY: Joe Scarborough, what has the president achieved?

MR. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, he’s made a lot of people with insurance stock a lot richer. I mean, this is great for insurance companies. They’re going to reform the system. Neither side wanted to take on the insurance companies. Neither side wanted to get rid of the antitrust exemptions. Neither side really pushed hard to allow you or me or anybody here to buy across state lines. And as Howard Dean said, and this is a devastating fact, insurance companies’ stocks reached a 52-year high on Friday after this so-called reform bill got its 60th vote.

MR. GREGORY: Tavis Smiley, you’ve always advocated for the public option being part of this. You heard David Axelrod say that, you know, the president was for it, but we know that he didn’t really fight for it. And Governor Dean just said, “Look, without a public option in the ultimate compromise legislation, this cannot be considered reform.”

MR. TAVIS SMILEY: Yeah. Throughout the campaign, the president promised change. We have change on the horizon here but, unfortunately, it’s small change. I find myself kind of like John McCain agreeing with Howard Dean, here I am agreeing with my friend Joe Scarborough.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Oh, God.

MR. SMILEY: I think the real winners here are the insurance industry.

MR. GREGORY: Ed Gillespie, speaking for conservatives…

MR. ED GILLESPIE: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: …what has the president achieved?

MR. GILLESPIE: Well, I think he’s achieved actually a lot in terms of expanding the size and scope and power of the federal government. And the fact is, this bill is an unmitigated disaster. It’s going to increase the cost to the federal government on health care, it doesn’t bend the cost curve down. Spending is going to go up on health care. It increases–it’s going to increase personal insurance costs to consumers, people are going to have higher premiums.

for those who may quibble, the preceding is not an exact quote – I cut out much of what was said. Just go and read the transcript at the link provided, but it is meant to provide a brief, and accurate, idea of the thinking on both the left and the right about the Senate’s health care bill.

Tavis Smiley’s summation was best.

That ain’t gonna git it done!

An essay by Drew Westen at Huffington Post: Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator, is an accurate assessment of the President and his actions in office to date. Progressives can only hope that the man they voted for last year will make a reappearance.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn’t hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president’s leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress’s penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What’s costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn’t a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.