Wednesday Mashup (6/22/11)

Memo to The Hill: The Sainted Ronnie R died seven years ago.

Also, it looks like Mark Krikorian of Irrational Spew Online is getting ready to call the civility police (here)…

Look, I understand that conservatives disagree on Libya, and more generally over how expansive our foreign policy should be. But this name-calling is inappropriate…

Oh, that’s a good one.

Here, Krikorian helped to amplify the “anchor baby” threat (I would say that constitutes name calling); here, he called Obama an “effete vacillator”; here, he called an immigration rally an "illegal-alien-palooza"; and here, he said Haiti is a “basket case” because “it wasn’t colonized long enough.”

Once more, a conservative looks into the mirror and sees everyone and everything but himself.

Continuing, Philadelphia’s conservative house organ of record tells us the following here (on the matter of the recent Supreme Court ruling that tossed the class action lawsuit filed by women employees of Wal-Mart)…

The misconceptions about this case begin with the identities of the real combatants. On NPR's Marketplace this week, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick described the plaintiffs as "1.5 million female employees of Wal-Mart who are trying to file a class-action suit." But, of course, most of those women are not "trying" to do anything of the sort.

Rather, a relative handful of them have hired lawyers, and those lawyers daringly sought to get themselves declared the legal representatives of the other 1.496 million (or however many), who have expressed no inclination whatsoever to sue.

The individual who wrote this really should acquaint himself with what a class action lawsuit truly is, which is an action by “any member of a class of plaintiffs” (the fact that the suit was brought on behalf of 1.5 million female employees although it wasn’t initiated by each of those employees doesn’t automatically make it invalid).

I took a little while to think this over, though, because, though this is yet another case of the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR doing the bidding of its corporate masters, I wasn’t sure about this action on the legal merits, though I see plenty of grounds for it.

Jonathan Turley can do a much better job of explaining it, and I think he does so here…

As anticipated, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Wal-Mart in an important workplace discrimination case. The Court divided 5-4 in adopting more stringent standards for future cases. From the outset, I viewed this as an extremely bad case that would likely make bad law for those fighting workplace discrimination. It now has.

In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, all of the justices agreed to reverse the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case which would have affected up to 1.6 million women and billions of dollars in damages.

That was the easy part. The justices, however, divided on the elements needed for future such cases. It divided along ideological lines with Justice Antonin Scalia holding that the court must require common elements to be the basis for such class actions.

Yeah, leave to Scalia as usual, who seemed to think the plaintiffs couldn’t establish a standard of discrimination “on a classwide basis.” And for good measure, Scalia and his pals also made it damn difficult for a plaintiff to recover lost wages as a result of a class action (the four dissenting judges, Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer and Sotomayor, believing the Wal-Mart workers had a case, would have sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit…for good measure, a New York Times Op-Ed chimed in on this here).

However, as Think Progress reminds us here, this wasn’t even the worst class action ruling by The Supremes this term (TP is having a fundraising appeal at the moment – they’re doing heroic work, and they could use any scratch you can send over to them).

Further, I give you the odious Ron Johnson at The Daily Tucker (here)…

Prior to being elected to the United States Senate last November, I spent 31 years building a plastics manufacturing business in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. My educational background is in accounting and finance, but when you help start a business from scratch, you wind up doing just about everything. I operated machinery, loaded trucks and railcars, hired and trained the staff, kept the books, paid taxes, purchased raw materials, sold our finished products, did payroll, opened mail, emptied trash, and made coffee.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I’m not in the least bit unusual. Every day, millions of hard-working business owners, and the good people that work with them, struggle to build a good life for themselves and their families. They are the backbone of America. They work hard and play by the rules. And they live within their means.

Why can’t Washington?

I get really fed up with Johnson in particular mythologizing his supposed business chops; as noted here, he got a “hand up” from government bonds and “stim” funds (neither of which is illegal, of course, but some honesty about this would be nice). Oh, and Johnson also used prison labor to get out of paying a fair wage for a hard day’s work.

Besides, I think it’s more than a bit of a contradiction for Johnson to now be praising our supposedly wonderful system of free enterprise in this country when he once reminded us how great Communist China supposedly is, as noted here.

Update 6/25/11: Tisk, tisk, tisk (here)...

And speaking of dictatorships ruled by an individual with an iron fist, this tells us that Ed Snider, chairman of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, has been the primary force behind the team’s efforts to sign Russian goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, formerly of the Phoenix Coyotes (I haven’t touched on sports for a little while, so I guess I’m overdue)…

LAS VEGAS - If there were ever any doubt about who controls the Philadelphia Flyers, Ed Snider put that to rest yesterday.

The Flyers' chairman and founder, now 78, is no omnipresent figurehead. He is still the one pulling the strings.

Snider made it clear that he is the one who wants (Bryzgalov) in a Flyers uniform next season, setting in motion a directive at the end of last season that put general manager Paul Holmgren on a mission.

The Flyers acquired Bryzgalov's rights on June 7.

"It had to be done," Snider told the Daily News, just after arriving here for tonight's NHL Awards show at The Palms Casino and Resort. "I was part of making it happen. It was hard to sit there and watch the Stanley Cup final, knowing what [Tim] Thomas was doing for Boston."

Some thoughts…I have to admit that Paul Holmgren has done a better job as the GM of this club than I thought he would, but the fact that he hasn’t been given the clout to tell Snider to butt out is pretty sad. Also, Boston won the Stanley Cup because of Thomas, sure, but also because the team (and I hate to admit this, but it’s true) did a superb job of finding role players who could step up and take some of the burden off the team’s stars (Brad Marchand, Rich Peverley, Chris Kelly, and former Flyer Dennis Seidenberg…also Nathan Horton – I think that stray elbow that put him out for the finals ended up being the turning point of the series, something I'm sure Aaron Rome of Vancouver will be thinking about for a long time).

The Flyers have some age issues to deal with, particularly among their defensemen, as well as talent issues among their forwards (there are guys who definitely have benefitted playing with Mike Richards and Danny Briere in particular who, I think, would not have comparable numbers otherwise…see Ville Leino, Scott Hartnell, possibly Dan Carcillo). Signing a marquee goaltender for about one-tenth of your entire salary cap won’t fix that stuff also.

(And I know it’s not in Snider’s DNA to congratulate the winning team on its victory if they’re not wearing orange and black, so I might as well not even go there.)

Besides, I’d heard from one of those Internet tubes somewhere that they’re also looking at Florida Panthers goalie Tomas Vokoun, who I think would be a better fit for a much lower price (all they need is someone to buy time for Flyers’ netminder Sergei Bobrovsky for maybe a year or two).

And I wonder if I’m the only one who sees this as a “Nixon Goes To China” moment for Snider, who once detested the Soviets, partly for good reason, and subsequently refused to scout or draft them or have much of anything to do with them, though he now is doing his best to curry the favor of a Russian player (and a guy who would be the second Russian goalie on the team).

Finally, “The Pericles Of Petticoat Junction” strikes again (here)…

When President Obama voted present on the Iranian uprising and Secretary Clinton described the monstrous Assad as a “reformer,” completely absent was any awareness that both countries are repressive, cruel, and intolerant of dissent…

In response, I give you this from President Obama…

…in too many countries, calls for change have thus far been answered by violence. The most extreme example is Libya, where Muammar Qaddafi launched a war against his own people, promising to hunt them down like rats. As I said when the United States joined an international coalition to intervene, we cannot prevent every injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people, and we have learned from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to try to impose regime change by force -– no matter how well-intentioned it may be.

But in Libya, we saw the prospect of imminent massacre, we had a mandate for action, and heard the Libyan people’s call for help. Had we not acted along with our NATO allies and regional coalition partners, thousands would have been killed. The message would have been clear: Keep power by killing as many people as it takes. Now, time is working against Qaddafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council. And when Qaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.

While Libya has faced violence on the greatest scale, it’s not the only place where leaders have turned to repression to remain in power. Most recently, the Syrian regime has chosen the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens. The United States has condemned these actions, and working with the international community we have stepped up our sanctions on the Syrian regime –- including sanctions announced yesterday on President Assad and those around him.

The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way. The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests. It must release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests. It must allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara’a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition. Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and will continue to be isolated abroad.

So far, Syria has followed its Iranian ally, seeking assistance from Tehran in the tactics of suppression. And this speaks to the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime, which says it stand for the rights of protesters abroad, yet represses its own people at home. Let’s remember that the first peaceful protests in the region were in the streets of Tehran, where the government brutalized women and men, and threw innocent people into jail. We still hear the chants echo from the rooftops of Tehran. The image of a young woman dying in the streets is still seared in our memory. And we will continue to insist that the Iranian people deserve their universal rights, and a government that does not smother their aspirations.

And as noted here, we recently marked the two-year anniversary of the death of Neda Soltan.

Not to fear, though – Hanson will be onboard the fall “conservative cruise” along with a cadre of wingnut luminaries. Book your reservations early.

I suppose an untimely November Caribbean hurricane is probably too much to ask for, but I’ll pray for one anyway.

Tuesday Stuff

God, did I miss "Countdown" (here)...



…and happy 60th birthday to Nils Lofgren (take it easy on the back flips, OK?).

Tuesday Mashup (6/21/11)

Over the weekend, former Bushco IRS head Mark Everson wrote the following (here, about our current economic mess)…

It will take decades to fully untangle the causes of the 2008 financial crisis…

Really? I would say that the causes have been pretty well defined at this point…inflating the housing bubble by “securitizing” crappy mortgages re-bundled as AAA-rated assets, peddling them all over the place (with life forms such as those at Goldman Sachs making money off the front end selling them and making money off the back end by hedging them with credit default swaps), then watching in horror as they imploded and jobs evaporated…of course, years of Republican budget profligacy including putting two wars and Dubya’s stinking tax cuts “on the card” didn’t help either…shall I go on?

Everson claims here that lawyers and accountants “who were once the proud pillars of our financial system have become the happy architects of its circumvention.” After having just gotten around to watching “Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room,” and witnessing the willing collaboration of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm in Enron’s ruinous scams, I really can’t argue that (to say nothing of the company’s lawyers).

Still, to me, this sounds a bit like a bank robber who gets caught and ends up suing the manufacturer of the weapon he used in his crime, because (he argues) that he would have gotten away with it had the gun not misfired (for some reason, Everson seems to give our supposedly august financial titans a pass here).

The column argues that companies should separate the role of a board chairman from a chief executive, as Everson puts it, though it kind of makes me wonder why that needs to be pointed out, given that someone holding two or more roles like that potentially opens the door for conflict of interest.

Everson also argues for abrogation of attorney/clients privilege within corporations trading in securities, to which I respond, yeah, just watch and see how long THAT stands up when it is challenged in the Supreme Court of Hangin’ Judge JR, who never met a corporate “person” he didn’t like (how about stringent enforcement of the existing rules for agencies charged with policing these entities like the SEC, as well as providing enough funds to hire enough agents to do their jobs as successfully as possible?).

Everson continues…

(One) idea is for corporations to reassess their compensation practices for financial and legal executives. Just as some large businesses are moving to separate the position of board chairman from that of chief executive in order to provide for stronger governance, companies might also consider development of a new pay scheme for their financial and legal personnel. This would mean paying handsome, multiyear fixed salaries to the chief financial officer, the general counsel and their top deputies — but without offering the opportunity for equity participation. Such an approach would sharply limit the temptation to inflate shareholder value at the expense of business substance.

It would also sharply limit the desire of a CEO to grow his or her company if they knew that they didn’t have an equity stake in that company (and somehow I have a feeling this would also cause them to believe that they could screw up with impunity).

I am hardly a business genius, but I still found this to be head-scratching stuff from Everson, who once had the brilliant idea to privatize IRS tax collection in 2004, though it ended up costing more than it generated before it was mercifully repealed by a Democratic Party-run House (here); froze more than 120,000 low-income taxpayers’ refunds on suspicion of fraud without notifying them or giving them a chance to respond and also eliminated the highly convenient and inexpensive Tele-File program (here); and resigned as head of the Red Cross because he had an “inappropriate relationship” with a female subordinate (here).

Everson also came up with the brilliant idea here of encouraging tax preparers to sell tax data to third parties, and from there "once in the hands of (those) third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks" (an observation made by a former Dem Illinois senator, a fellow named Barack Obama).

There are a lot of reasons why I’m glad that Everson is basically out of the picture when it comes to matters of federal governance, and one is that I don’t have to look at that self-satisfied mug of his anymore (though I’m sure that Red Cross thing brought him back down to earth just a little bit).

Next, I give you the latest from the U.S. House Repugs and their non-jobs agenda (here)…

The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to repeal an election commission set up after the controversial 2000 presidential election.

Members plan to vote on H.R. 672, which would repeal the Election Assistance Commission. That commission was established in 2002 after confusion and controversy over ballots in Florida for presidential election between then-Vice President Al Gore and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The commission was set up under the Help America Vote Act approved in 2002. That law created the commission, which set voting guidelines for states, and to distribute funds to states that could be used to update voting equipment.

Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the sponsor of H.R. 672, says repealing the commission would save $14 million a year and that it can safely be repealed because the commission's work has been completed. He said that in 2010, the National Association of Secretaries of State renewed their request to repeal the EAC, which has "served its purpose."

Sooo…The Repugs are trying to save $14 million, while our total deficit remains at about $14 trillion, over $10.6 trillion of which was racked up under Bushco.

And doing it on the backs of poor, elderly and minority voters. Nice.

In response, Dem House Rep Bob Brady of PA tells us the following in defense of the EAC (here)…

While the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) was a creation of Congress, the bulk of its services and guidance is intended to support and assist state and local election operations. As such, it is misguided and presumptuous for Congress to propose its termination unilaterally, without the input of the state and local election officials who rely on its resources in executing their most crucial functions.

In a Congressional Research Service report titled “How Local Election Officials View Elections Reform: Results of Three National Surveys,” most local election officials found the services provided by the EAC moderately important. [i] In the same survey, the degree to which election officials found the EAC helpful improved significantly in 2008, when compared to responses from a similar survey conducted in 2006. Comparing both surveys, we find that 65% of 2008 survey respondents found the EAC “Moderately helpful,” compared to 35% in 2006.[ii] And in 2008, the percentage of respondents who found the EAC less helpful dropped from 46% in 2006 to 18% in 2008.[iii] These trends suggest marked improvement in the functioning and/perception of the EAC, by those who works closest with it. It’s also important to note that we have yet to see the results of the 2010 survey, yet here we are, having a hearing on an opportunistic bill that was introduced in uncertain budgetary times under the guise of cutting costs.

Most of what the EAC does is advisory, providing guidance to state and local election boards to ensure fair and efficient elections. This is not someone’s pet project – it is a crucial, frontline effort to ensure the integrity of our elections system. I can think of very few, more worthwhile expenditures of taxpayer resources.

The misery of the wretched 112th Congress drags on.

Finally, this New York Times story tells us the following…

MOSCOW — Andrei Sakharov was one of the best-known dissidents of the Communist era — a celebrated physicist persecuted for crusading for human rights and against Soviet brutality. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, and came to personify the struggle to create democracy here.

Yet when a group of college students at the Russian Law Academy in Moscow were asked the other day for their views on his legacy, they fumbled. Most seemed never to have heard of him.

“One of our professors talked about him in a lecture,” said Maria Danilyants, 17, an aspiring lawyer, who was one of the few who recognized the name. “But I don’t really remember now exactly what he said.”

Many of Sakharov’s admirers are alarmed that memories of his achievements are fading, especially among young people, before his ideals have fully taken hold. Sakharov spent his life challenging government shortcomings, but today’s youth seem to easily look past them, if they notice at all.

A nuclear physicist who helped design the Soviet Union’s first hydrogen bomb, Sakharov spurned the Soviet elite to become a dissident. He championed human rights, spoke out against nuclear weapons and opposed the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, as well as a long stint of house arrest and exile.

He died in 1989, two years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and before many of today’s college-age Russians were born.

The story tells us that a web site has been created called the Sakharov Movement, intended to spur interest once more in this titan of the struggle for human rights, not just in the former Soviet Union, but throughout the world (made even more timely by the recent passage of Elena Bonner, Sakharov’s widow).

The Times story concludes with the following…

Many young people, however, follow different ideals.

Asked about his heroes, Suren Khachtryan, 18, another student at the Russian Law Academy, responded without hesitation: “Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Prokhorov,” two of Russia’s billionaire businessmen.

“They are successful, shrewd and intelligent,” he said.

Asked about Mr. Sakharov, he replied, “Who?”

This reminds me of the Chinese students who have no recollection of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which also occurred in 1989, the year Sakharov died.

And sorry, but I’m hard pressed to determine which is a more depressing development (and just remember to blame liberals for historical ignorance, as the Repug presidential candidate with a "Google problem" does here...yeah, right).

Saturday Stuff

Three words in response to this latest “New Rules” segment from Bill Maher – Nail. Hammer. Head. (and I don’t mean only about “Goodhair” Perry)…



…and in case I don’t post tomorrow, best wishes for a happy Father’s Day.



Update: RIP Big Man.

Friday Stuff

And once more (in a related item), I think this bears repeating.

If it weren’t for the fact that former Repug House Rep Chris Lee of New York stepped down in the wake of his shirtless little number on craigslist advertising for a date (a bit of a problem with him being married and all), I would also have encouraged Weiner to ride it out, though I’ll admit that the whole Vitter thing (as I and others have definitely noted) is enough of a precedent for Weiner to stay put too, which he won’t do now of course. Weiner should pay a price for his stupidity, but I’m not sure that resignation is it.

However, this clip from Rachel Maddow (and Cenk Uygur at the end) should be watched because it dissects perfectly the means in which the GOP plays the media to its advantage, almost always with the cowering acquiescence of spineless Democrats (and the media rabble including Breitbart of course and his minions along with the single-digit-IQed Howard Stern refugee…I once defended Stern at this site, but I’m done with that, particularly after that recent, pitiable Rolling Stone interview…”ooh, I’m so insecure but I’ve got so much money while I make jokes about women’s bodily functions…”).

I get what Rachel is saying here. However, the media and the Repugs know what works for the political DNA of this country, which is gratuitous titillation at the expense of reasoned, informed dialogue. And one day, when our society is dust and whatever comes after us writes our epitaph, that will be listed as the official cause of death (yep, living up to the name of this blog again, I know – by the way, that line from Pat Buchanan that Cenk tells us about should be tattooed on a body part of every Democratic member of Congress, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to do that to our POTUS and veep too)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Note: If you get tired of waiting for the video to load, try this instead.

…and on a much lighter note, the young one (who I alluded to earlier) has been singing this song all day, for obvious reasons.

Friday Mashup (6/17/11)

(I’ll try this blogging thing one more time; I know it has been a sporadic posting month, but there’s really not a lot I can do about that. Maybe at some point I’ll get into the gory details, but not now.)

(And by the way, here and here are items from last night that bear repeating.)

To begin, I give you the latest from Orange Man (here)…

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are ripping the Obama administration's economic policies on the one-year anniversary of the "Recovery Summer."

"One year later, Obama's recovery remains a failure while economists are delivering a grim prognosis for the future," an email from the RNC reads. "Now the economy is threatened by a double dip as small businesses, manufacturing and the housing market run out of steam."

I will admit that the whole “Recovery Summer” thing showed at least a partial tone-deafness (probably more) to the general plight of our economy by the Obama Administration (it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs or don’t freaking bother, President Hopey Changey, and yes, it’s not his fault that businesses aren’t hiring, but he needs to do a hell of a lot better job with the “Bully pulpit” on this than he has to date).

However, it is way beyond a joke for “so be it” Boehner and his playmates to poke fun at our chief executive while the Repug House “leadership” continues to play games with the debt ceiling; as noted here…

In the United States, the political problems include a fight over raising the legal ceiling on the nation's debt. A first-ever U.S. default would roil markets, and Fitch Ratings said even a "technical" default would jeopardize the country's AAA rating.

And as noted here…

"I fully understand the desire to use the debt limit deadline to force some necessary and difficult fiscal policy adjustments, but the debt limit is the wrong tool for that important job," (Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke) said at the annual conference for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in D.C. on Tuesday.

Republicans have recently tried to tie a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts, as well as completely unrelated proposals.

But if the debt ceiling is not raised, Bernanke said, the United States would be forced to stop payments on some of its existing obligations, possibly including Social Security and military pay.

The creditworthiness of the United States would be called into question and the financial markets could be severely disrupted, Bernanke said.

"Failing to raise the debt ceiling in a timely way would be self-defeating if the objective is to chart a course toward a better fiscal situation for our nation," he said.

Oh, and by the way, another way to close the deficit is to raise revenue of course, since, as Think Progress tells us here about the latest nonsense from Moon Unit Bachmann, the top earners in this country now pay the lowest amount of taxes they’ve paid in a generation (and raising taxes on the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch polls at about 72 percent in favor, as HuffPo tells us here).

Even though, as I noted earlier, I’m definitely not satisfied with the Obama Administration on this issue, at least they represent a sure hand that has steered the metaphorical car of our economy back safely onto the highway. However, if Boehner and pals had their way, we would be aimed straight at the cliff all over again.

Next, it turns out that today is the 40th anniversary of the “War on Drugs,” as former President Jimmy Carter reminds us here in a New York Times Op-Ed …

In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.

These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”

These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries.

As noted here, probably the main reason our government has supported this entire stupid “war on drugs” game is because too many people make too much money in the bargain (to say nothing of the for-profit prison biz which incarcerates a larger proportion of this country’s population than any other industrialized nation).

Just chalk this up to yet another moment of our 39th president’s prescience in the face of all manner of right-wing bloviation that ridiculed him and, with the passage of time, has been proven to be utterly wrong once more.

Continuing, this tells us that The Supremes issued the following ruling about what should be common sense legal matter…

The case involved a 13-year-old middle school student in Chapel Hill, N.C. The student, identified only by his initials in the court’s decision, confessed to two home break-ins after he was removed from class and questioned for more than half an hour in a school conference room by police officers and school administrators.

People in police custody must be given the familiar warnings based on Miranda v. Arizona before questioning if their answers are to be used against them in court. The question in Thursday’s case, J.D.B. v. North Carolina, No. 09-11121, was how to determine if the student was indeed in custody.

Judges generally make that determination by asking whether a “reasonable person” in the circumstances would have felt free to leave. The North Carolina Supreme Court, refusing to suppress the student’s confession, ruled that consideration of a juvenile suspect’s age did not figure in that reasonable-person analysis.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said that a 13-year-old would surely feel less free to leave a school conference room “than, say, a parent volunteer on school grounds to chaperone an event, or an adult from the community on school grounds to attend a basketball game.”

“In short,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age. They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.”

Cue the obligatory right-wing umbrage…

“Personal characteristics of suspects have consistently been rejected or ignored as irrelevant under a one-size-fits-all reasonable-person standard,” Justice Alito wrote, adding, “There is no denying that, by incorporating age into its analysis, the court is embarking on a new expansion of the established custody standard.”

Justice Alito wrote that the majority had failed to explain how age is different from other personal characteristics that are ignored under the usual analysis, like intelligence and education. “Bit by bit,” he wrote of the majority’s approach, “Miranda will lose the clarity and ease of application that has long been viewed as one of its chief justifications.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.

It’s really hilarious to me to read “Scalito,” Hangin’ Judge JR and Silent Clarence portraying themselves as supposed defenders of Miranda when you consider the following from here; namely, that the Court ruled twice prior to last year and three times in 2010 that evidence obtained without Miranda warnings was admissible in court (including the same four justices noted earlier in this paragraph, along with former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former Chief Justice William Rehnquist).

The Times also ran this editorial today on the matter (and just remember that, under – God help us – a McCain/Palin administration, a Repug justice would have ruled that the non-Mirandized admission from the child suspect would have been admissible, and the ruling surely would have gone 5-4 the other way).

And while we’re on the subject, let us never forget the “free speech” atrocity brought to you by the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR, as noted here.

Further, I give you the following Area Votes in Congress from The Philadelphia Inquirer (here – the House, mercifully, was not in session to do any further damage)…

Senate

Debit-card fees. Voting 54-45, the Senate failed to garner 60 votes needed to shelve new rules that will sharply reduce the fees that large banks charge retailers for debit-card sales. Under Federal Reserve regulations soon to take effect, these "swipe fees" are to be sharply lowered from their present range of 1 to 3 percent of the transaction cost. Authorized by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law, the rules are likely to cap fees at 12 cents or so per transaction.

Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and other large banks collected an estimated $20 billion last year in debit-card fees. The new limits on swipe fees will exempt banks with less than $10 billion in assets. This vote occurred during consideration of an Economic Development Administration reauthorization (S 782) that remained in debate.

A yes vote was to delay the new rules.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Chris Coons (D., Del.), and Pat Toomey (R., Pa.).

Voting no: Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

Carper isn’t called “the Senator from (formerly) MBNA” for nothing (along with a certain now-Vice President who also voted for that fraud bankruptcy bill…and Chris Coons sure learns fast, doesn’t he?).

And as usual, “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey never met a government regulation he didn’t oppose.

Curbs on regulations. The Senate shelved legislation to impose sweeping curbs on federal regulations that affect small businesses. The tally of 53-46 fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the amendment to S 782 (above). In part, the measure would require agencies to cancel regulations that they have failed to review every 10 years; establish pro-business advisory panels at all agencies for reviewing new regulations; give small businesses expanded power to challenge regulations in court, and require agencies to take into account the indirect as well as direct economic costs of proposed regulations on small businesses.

A yes vote was to curb the regulation of small businesses.

Voting yes: Toomey.

Voting no: Carper, Casey, Coons, Lautenberg, and Menendez.

What’s interesting to me about this is that this amendment was proposed by President Snowe, but it failed to meet the “60 votes needed for passage” threshold usually reserved for Democratic legislation in the Senate (with anything under 60 triggering an automatic Repug filibuster).

Gee, is it possible that the Dems have FINALLY learned this trick and are repaying in kind with filibusters of their own? Dare I dream?

Solicitor General Verrilli. Voting 72-16, the Senate confirmed Donald B. Verrilli Jr. as the 47th solicitor general of the United States, a position that entails representing the executive branch before the Supreme Court. Verrilli, 54, has served in the Obama administration as deputy counsel to the president and deputy attorney general and before that was a litigator in private practice.

A yes vote was to confirm Verrilli.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Coons, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Toomey.

This week, the Senate resumed debate on a bill funding the Economic Development Administration, with votes possible on ending tax breaks for ethanol and repealing last year's Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law. The House schedule was to be announced.

Finally, it seems that children’s book author Eric Metaxas is taking issue with a parody of his children’s book ”It’s Time To Sleep, My Love” (awwww) with what appears to be a hilarious parody called “Go The F*** To Sleep!,” as noted here (and apparently, the download of Samuel L. Jackson reading it is pretty popular…Rachel Maddow recently had a spot about this that I kind of glossed over, but I’ll go back and check it out...Metaxas seems to argue in part that the parody might lead to violence against children - give me a break!).

Yes, this topic definitely hits me where I live, as it would for any parent who gets to the point where you will do anything a sane person would do (and probably some things a not-so-sane one would be tempted to do as well) to get your son or daughter to quit talking about all that stuff they’re saving up until the end of the day to delay the inevitable and tell them, at long last, that, though I indeed love you, you’d better button it so I can sit my raggedy butt down and watch Adult Swim while you journey to the Land of Nod or else you can forget about an allowance for roughly the entire decade (and don’t get me started on that damn X-Box either).

It’s really funny to me how conservatives whine at the drop of a hat about “political correctness,” but never seem to have a clue as to when they’re practicing it themselves (which I think Metaxas does a bit also here).

Well, with that in mind, this goes out to Metaxas (if “It’s Time For Sleep, My Love” works here, let me know, OK?).

Thursday Stuff

(Looks like it’s just going to be videos for a little while – oh well)…

As Atrios sez, more like this – a lot more…



…and it looks like the Repugs have come up with a new way to try and stifle dissent, as noted here (just imagine how much they would be caterwauling if the Dems did something like this)…



…also, a belated happy 70th birthday to Lamont Dozier, who has built a fine career both as a solo performer and as a member of a truly legendary songwriting tandem along with Eddie and Brian Holland; here is one of the team’s signature accomplishments from “back in the day”…



…and a belated happy 60th birthday to Steve Walsh of Kansas.



Update 1: This is off-topic from the other stuff here, but I thought it definitely needed to be mentioned...I should probably have said this myself by now, but kudos to Laurence Lewis for doing it instead.

Update 2: This is also off-topic, but likewise needs to be pointed out.

Wednesday AM Stuff

What indeed - h/t Daily Kos...



...maybe this is a tune about the year they think they're living in.

Tuesday Stuff

So Tim Profitt gets probation for stomping Lauren Valle on the curb last year (here) – what a joke…



…and yes, there are some in Congress who actually do care about jobs…



…and this bears repeating over and over and over…



…and yeah, I have to admit that I like this tune, even if it’s going to be featured in another one of those awful movies.

Tuesday Mashup (6/14/11)

I have one word in response to this story – duuuhhh!!!

And this is what passes for editorial commentary on the Fix Noise web site, from the network that brought us such ingloriously chauvinistic moments as those noted here.

Oh, but don’t worry – there’s ample umbrage aimed at probably-soon-to-be-ex-Dem-House-Rep Anthony Weiner for his online stuff (Hey, Fox, I’ve got the proverbial “first stone” for you…and I’m pretty much on the fence with the Weiner thing anymore, considering as how fellow Repug Rep Chris Lee did the honorable thing and stepped down, even though David Vitter continues to take up space in the Senate…still can’t believe that a fighting Dem like Weiner is going down in flames over something he should have been smart enough to avoid).

(Oh, and by the way, concerning Fox, this is a great story on the demonic Roger Ailes in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.)

Before we leave the subject of the embattled New York congressman, I wanted to note this item in The Daily Tucker saying, more or less, that Weiner’s road to redemption is similar to the one followed by John Profumo, the former Secretary of State for War in the government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the 1960s…

A few days after the affair, (Profumo) showed up at the door of Toynbee Hall, a charitable mission in London’s east end, and asked if they might need any help. They assigned him to wash dishes and help with a children’s play group, which he did quite ably — for the next 40 years. He never again did anything in politics, commented in the press, or tearfully apologized on a TV show. He set himself on a course of redemption and charity and, one could fairly say, he succeeded at that task, at least in the eyes of those who mattered — his family, friends, and God. As well as anyone else who was paying attention.

So basically, as far as the wingnuts are concerned, Weiner must make amends for the utterly juvenile tactic of sending crotch shots of himself over Twitter by living a life of abject poverty.

Yeah, I think we’ve officially gone around the bend on this whole thing right about now.

It also needs to be pointed out, on behalf of The Daily Tucker’s Ike Brannon, that Profumo did not “(have) a fling with a comely KGB agent.” As Wikipedia tells us here, he had an affair with Christine Keeler, the reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy (the whole thing is the subject of the entertaining film “Scandal” from the 80s, starring John Hurt, Ian McKellen, Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda, with the latter upstaging the former).

Also, did you know that 80 percent of U.S. mosques promote violent jihad, as noted here?

Don’t worry – as noted here about a comparable report…

The report attempts to establish a link between what it calls the “Shariah adherency” of the 100 mosques “surveyed” and the promotion of violent jihad. (The surveyors supposedly made two visits to each mosque and asked certain questions of the mosque leader.) But the survey was structured with highly dubious assumptions. The Shariah-adherency of a mosque was determined by observing a dozen externally detectible religious practices, such as whether imams wore beards, whether men and women were allowed to pray together, and whether worshipers were formed into straight lines. But this could easily be nothing more than a reflection of an imam’s respect for tradition, and not a “tell” tipping off a secret embrace of radical Islam.

Then, the mosque’s supposed willingness to promote violent jihad was evaluated by noting the presence or absence of certain pre-modern Islamic law texts, contemporary pamphlets, and whether, when asked, the mosque leader “recommended” those that contained calls to violent jihad. But this, too, is a weak and unreliable standard, as it equates the simple presence of certain material, or the imam’s recommendation of it, as an endorsement of the most violent passages. (If a priest or rabbi had a Bible on hand and “recommended” the reading of the Book of Leviticus, would that establish that he favors killing adulterers, idolaters and incorrigible children?)

And as Media Matters tells us here, the “80 percent” claim is just the latest announcement of an evergreen “zombie lie.”

Next, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting anxiously to find out what our Repug PA-08 House Rep, “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick plans to do about jobs.

Well, as noted here, he plans to award a $1,000 tax credit to a business in Warminster for hiring a single employee.

…

I hope all of you nitwits who voted for this fraud last year are still pleased with yourselves.

Finally, I want to note that I recently watch the HBO production “Too Big To Fail” based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book about the 2008 financial meltdown from which we have yet to recover.

I think all of the performances were great, in particular William Hurt as Bushco Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Billy Crudup as New York Fed Chairman Tim Geithner, Paul Giamatti as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Tony Shalhoub as John Mack, Chairman of Morgan Stanley, and James Woods as Richard Fuld, Chairman of Lehman Brothers. I particularly liked some of the interaction between Hurt and Giamatti as they almost tried to out-deadpan each other while everything unravels.

Woods gets a chance here to do what he does best, and that is to chomp on the scenery big time as Fuld, and as I watched Woods’ portrayal, I thought to myself that Fuld must have been good at something, or else he wouldn’t have ended up in charge, even though he ends up committing an unending series of mistakes and miscalculations. And when Lehman goes down, Paulson is at first staggered, but then he ends up benefitting from some favorable press about “taking Wall Street to the woodshed” or something; his reverie is short lived, though, as the market begins falling even faster after Lehman goes under (and Paulson faces fire from overseas banks also as a result).

Another fine performance comes from Matthew Modine as John Thain of Merrill Lynch, someone who emerges as particularly detestable when he announces arrogantly (though correctly, as it turns out) that Lehman is “dead,” and Thain also ends up questioning Paulson and Bernanke over the issue of compensation when Thain is basically told to sign off on TARP, leading to a firm smack down by Bernanke (I can’t recall the name of the actor who played former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, but I thought he did a good job of showing Cox as a truly spineless individual, particularly in the showdown with Lehman).

The problem I have with this, though, really goes back to Sorkin (who appears in a vanity moment asking Paulson a question at a press conference). I have no grounds to question any of the facts that he presents here, but I could not help but feel that he was waaay too deferential to these people, particularly Paulson and Bernanke and, to a lesser extent, Lloyd Blankfein of AIG Goldman Sachs. Sorry, but I absolutely refuse to believe that even Bushco didn’t have any idea just how toxic the crap was that our geniuses in finance were peddling, and to hear Sorkin tell it, the fallout caught everyone utterly by surprise – again, that may be a spot-on retelling, but it doesn’t sit right with me.

It’s kind of a shame that the only sympathetic viewpoint from the audience here is expressed by two relatively minor players, though they were good also (Topher Grace and Cynthia Nixon portraying individuals on Paulson’s staff). I think the fact that they were the only people who apparently represented the actual interests of taxpayers here is symptomatic of the problem.

The movie ends with TARP getting passed and Paulson and company wondering if it will be used for its intended purpose. I actually supported it partly because then-Congressman Patrick Murphy said it was necessary to unfreeze credit markets, and also because I thought it would be accompanied by some effective mortgage modification on behalf of “underwater” consumers. More fool me, I guess.

I won’t make that mistake again. If God forbid we’re faced with another crisis like this, then just nationalize the bastards and throw all of these criminals out into the street.

Monday Stuff

Aw, c'mon, you REALLY didn't think the Repugs were done after trying to pass "Ryan Care" did you?

(Note: I FINALLY upgraded to Google Chrome, which proceeded to fix three of my browser issues...took me long enough, I know...maybe back to blogging tomorrow, I dunno.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and I'll say a prayer for you, big man - all the best (here).

Friday Stuff

Bill Maher laid into The Mittster a week ago during New Rules and made some good points; I was going to search for the clip, but then I came across this from Stephen Colbert, which is probably a little better...

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

...and yeah, Willard Mitt has been a "man in motion" all right (even though he managed to keep his campaign staff, unlike somebody else - almost too funny for words).

Friday Mashup (6/10/11)

Back to the blogging thing – I give you the following (here)…

Voter-photo-ID laws and the like are targeted at those ineligible to vote, regardless of race. If (Dem Congresswoman from Florida Debbie) Wasserman Schultz is concerned that photo-ID requirements have a disparate impact on minorities, she’s bought into a stereotype that minorities are too poor or feeble to obtain photo IDs.

So this person from Irrational Spew Online supports voter ID laws, of course, intended to fight the thoroughly nonexistent scourge of voter fraud in this country. And by focusing on minorities, Peter Kirsanow totally ignores the threat of these laws to younger voters also who vote in large numbers for Democrats, as noted here (ignoring by design I’m sure, and not that his argument towards minorities, such as it is, is credible either…and in that vein, I’m sure the findings from Repug Bucks County DA David Heckler on the Ciervo/Fitzpatrick letter from last year will be forthcoming any day now…any day now).

Also, voter ID laws drive up costs for local governments, as noted here recently in the Concord Monitor…

(New Hampshire) lawmakers yesterday continued to parse the fiscal implications of a proposal to require voters to show photo identification.

The bill would require people without valid photo identification to vote by provisional ballot and return by the third day after the election to verify their identity. The Department of State projects the law would increase state expenses by $80,670 in 2013 and $103,840 in 2015, and the state association of town clerks says the requirement would increase local costs as well.

The state would have to pay the cost of identification cards for people who lack them as well as the cost of hearings for people seeking waivers from the requirement.

And as Media Matters reminds us here, the closer we get to a national election, the louder the clamor you will hear from the wingnutosphere about alleged voter fraud (voter caging and disenfranchisement, not so much, though – Think Progress has much more on this here).

Next, I give you last week’s Area Votes in Congress writeup (here – the Senate was in recess...hey, philly.com, what happened to the comments?)…

House

Debt-limit increase. Voting 97-318, the House defeated a bill (HR 1954) to raise the national-debt limit by $2.406 trillion to $16.7 trillion. The Treasury is expected to soon reach the current limit of $14.294 trillion. Republicans sponsored this bill but voted unanimously against it, saying their purpose was to show that any new borrowing authority must be joined with comparable spending cuts.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.) and Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), John Carney (D., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Michael Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Pat Meehan (R., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), Jon Runyan (R., N.J.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Not voting: Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.).

In addition to more on this typically ridiculous bit of Repug gamesmanship here, I think the following should also be noted once more from here (Rob Andrews continues to slide in the wrong direction, as does John Carney).

Homeland Security budget. Voting 231-188, the House approved a $40.6 billion Department of Homeland Security budget for fiscal 2012, down $1.1 billion or 2.6 percent from 2011. The bill (HR 2017) funds agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Coast Guard. The first of the fiscal 2012 appropriations bills to pass the House, the measure reflects deep spending cuts fostered by the Republicans' 2012 budget plan.

Voting yes: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, and LoBiondo.

Not voting: Schwartz.

Firefighters' funds. The House voted, 333-87, to add $320 million to HR 2017 (above) for antiterrorism grants used by local fire departments to fund equipment purchases and recruit and train personnel. The added spending would be offset by cuts in the Department of Homeland Security's administrative budget. The amendment would set funding for firefighters' programs at $670 million for the budget year, reversing cuts fostered by the House Republicans' 2012 budget plan.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Dent, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Pitts.

Not voting: Schwartz.

I guess Pancake Joe doesn’t have to worry about the threat of terrorism or funding firefighters in PA-16 (once more, take a bow, you nematodes who insist on sending this meat sack back to Washington every two years).

Also, I’ll be interested to find out how many jobs are lost as a result of the Homeland Security Budget approved by “So Be It” Boehner and his pals – I’ll keep a lookout for more info.

Mass-transit security. Voting 187-234, the House defeated a motion by Democrats to set aside $75 million in HR 2017 (above) in dedicated funding to protect intercity and commuter rail lines and bus services from terrorist attacks. Although amply funded in previous Homeland Security budgets, these transportation modes face deep cuts fostered by the GOP budget plan passed in April.

A yes vote backed the motion.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, and Holden.

Voting no: Dent, Gerlach, Fitzpatrick, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Not voting: Schwartz.

As noted here, the Repugs no likey infrastructure projects generally, high-speed rail projects in particular (I guess they think it’s a “gumint” handout or something and not a “real” private sector job – and by the way, any word on when that glorious, private-industry-job-creating machine is going to ramp up at long last in this country?).

War Powers Act. Voting 148-265, the House defeated the tougher of two pending challenges to President Obama's addition of U.S. forces to the NATO-led air war over Libya. The measure (H Con Res 51) sought to end the action in 15 days under the 1973 War Powers Act, which authorizes presidents to deploy forces for up to 60 days without congressional approval. Obama on March 19 ordered U.S. forces to join the United Nations, NATO and Arab League effort to bolster Libyan rebels against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. Obama has neither sought nor received congressional approval of the action but has described his policy in detail to Congress and the public.

A yes vote was backed withdrawal within 15 days of enactment.

Voting yes: Pitts.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Dent, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Runyan, and Smith.

Not voting: Schwartz.

I’m sure Pitts voted for this just to slam our Kenyan Marxist socialist pre-zee-dint who was too busy killing bin Laden to show us his birth certificate. However, smarter life forms in his party realized that this would have set a precedent that could one day be used against a Repug chief executive also.

GOP Libya plan. Voting 268-145, the House adopted the softer of two resolutions before it concerning U.S. military actions over Libya. Introduced by Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), the essentially nonbinding measure (H Res 92) gives the president 14 days to justify the deployment but states no consequences if he fails to do so. A competing measure (above) sought to use the 1973 War Powers Act to force an end to the action within 15 days of enactment.

A yes vote was to back the GOP resolution.

Voting yes: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, and Holden.

Not voting: Schwartz.

If there is any issue where I have some agreement with the majority party in the House, it’s this one. Yes, Boehner and company are clowns, but the Obama Administration does owe us a legitimate explanation as to what our involvement is exactly in Libya as well as elsewhere and when exactly it will end.

After this vote, the House was in recess. The Senate's legislative schedule was to be announced.

In addition, this tells us that, with our economy stumbling along, two wars and the battle in Libya, our planet melting and our government doing its best to erode our civil liberties as much as possible while trying to turn every last one of us into debt slaves forever…leave it to the Repugs to fight the dread threat of the possible return of (wait for the scary-sounding music)…THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE!!! And I can’t believe FCC chair Julius Genachowski caved in response.

Here is more from the Hillbilly Heroin Addict and the Murdoch Street Journal on this fake “controversy,” and here is more on why we need it back (a day we likely will never see, of course…the Fairness Doctrine ended up going the way of Horn and Hardart’s, parachute pants and the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1980s).

Finally, George Will concocted some truly ripe stuff here yesterday at the WaPo (of course)…

Consider a hypothetical Ralph, who operated Ralph’s Diner until Applebee’s and Olive Garden opened competitors in the neighborhood. With economies of scale and national advertising budgets, those two franchises could offer more choices at better prices, so Ralph’s Diner went out of business. Should he and his employees be entitled to extra taxpayer subventions because they are casualties of competition?

Why should someone be entitled to such welfare just because he or she is affected negatively by competition that comes from abroad rather than down the street?

Sooo…it’s “welfare” to Will if a businessperson is shut down and they need a hand-up, but no word from Will about what you would call it when our august captains of finance in this country nearly crater our economy and they tells their bought-and-paid-for media/political sycophants to plead their case for them (and I thought this was a good response from a Daily Kos diarist).

(OK, to be fair, I should note that Will has decried all "handouts," though he was typically wrong here about bailing out the automakers.)

Besides, as noted here, Will’s notion of welfare is somewhat…how shall I put it…skewed anyway.

It should also be noted that Will’s attack on trade adjustment assistance is typically misguided partly because, in addition to leveling the playing field for those who are displaced by unfair competition, it was also signed into law by a Republican president in 1974, Jerry Ford to be exact (here).

And for good measure, here is more (a Will assault on unions, of course), and a real “evergreen” post from Will about “hard” and “red” America supposedly paying for “soft” and “blue” America (as you can read, Will has it exactly backwards).

And as a coup de grace of sorts, here is a clip from Keith Olbermann about how Will supposedly thinks liberals want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine (dove-tailing into the prior topic – just a reminder that K.O. returns to Current TV on 6/20 at 8 PM EST…yaaay!).

Thursday Stuff

Hopefully back to more posting tomorrow – this is a recording, I know…

I think the Weiner thing is now officially too bizarre for words (or, as Atrios might put it, “the Weinis meets the Clenis”)…

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

…and today marks what would have been the 120th birthday of music legend Cole Porter; here is one of his most famous works (P.S., I also featured one of his tunes two nights ago...interesting guy who ended up living a life with a lot of tragedy).

Wednesday Stuff

Yeah, let's watch and see what happens with crap like this if Willard Mitt wins the Repug nomination ...



...and I read this (h/t Atrios) and I find myself thinking of this song ("is it ever gonna be enough"? indeed).

Tuesday Stuff

I think this requires a replay of this fine commentary by Lawrence O’Donnell from a few months ago (bang bang, wingnuts – why do you hate America?)…



Update 6/9/11: "Here kitty kitty"...

…and yep, it looks like the thermometer is going to tick upwards by a bit over the next few days in these parts, so here’s a timely tune with an important message (the numbers are a little dated at this point, but it all still bears repeating).

Tuesday Mashup (6/7/11)

It’s bad enough that I have to do my best to avoid Christine Flowers of the Philadelphia Daily News on Fridays, but apparently, I have to do so now at other times during the week; here, she’s uncharacteristically polite in criticizing Sister Mary Scullion, a legendary figure in these parts for her work on behalf those who are disadvantaged in however many ways, particularly the homeless…

…I couldn't disagree more with Sister Mary's op-ed this week in the Inquirer, which berated Councilman Frank DiCicco's proposed legislation concerning the homeless. Like many of the bill's critics, Scullion believes it's more punitive than it needs to be in that it lets police deal with a homeless person without first contacting a social-service agency, as mandated by law.

Sister Mary conjures up an almost fascistic scenario where the government has the power to arrest vulnerable people on a whim when she writes:

"The problems with DiCicco's bill, beyond its sheer inhumanity, are manifold. Frivolous citations would create legal problems for homeless people, hampering their efforts to get housing and services and break the cycle of homelessness. Violations of their basic rights could lead to costly litigation. And enforcement would waste precious city resources while forcing many homeless people out of Center City and into nearby neighborhoods, shifting the problem rather than solving it."

As noted here from last March (depicting a scenario that, while “fascistic,” is also fairly likely to occur if DiCicco’s ordinance is passed)…

A little over a week ago, First District Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced Bill 110386 in an attempt to amend the 1999 Sidewalk Behavior law to, in his words, “give police … more authority … as to people who are aggressively panhandling …” by ordering those officers to arrest homeless persons without even attempting to first get the assistance of social service professionals who are trained to deal with the kind of financial, mental health, and/or substance abuse problems that many of those human beings have. The current law, which requires such mental health involvement, ain’t broken and therefore doesn’t need to be fixed. In fact, it has become a national model as noted by (Sister Mary), co-founder of Project H.O.M.E., an advocacy group for the homeless.

There are already laws on the books addressing harassment, terroristic threats and simple assault to deal with real criminal behavior if that’s what DiCicco is truly worried about. But that’s not really what he’s worried about. What he’s really stressed about is what he actually said, which is that “hotel guests … are uncomfortable” with having to deal with those kind of people. Well, whooptie-goddamn-do! Tell those upper-crust fancy pants that we’re blue-collar folks here in Philly, and we’re tough enough to deal with the trauma of encountering—GASP!—a talkative guy wearing ragged jeans who hasn’t showered in a few days.

I have worked in downtown Philadelphia, and the missus and I have journeyed to a variety of locales in Philadelphia primarily for dining out, but for other activities also, along with the young one on occasion. And based on our experience, I think Michael Coard of The Philly Post is absolutely right. You just don’t make eye contact if you see someone approaching you who looks like they plainly do not belong in that area. Or, on the rare instance where you happen to be accosted, call 911 at your first opportunity (though I think that is just as likely to happen on a concrete or cobblestone city sidewalk amidst steel-and-glass monuments to corporate America as it is among leafy suburban glades).

So I’m not a bit surprised to see that Flowers basically wants to lock up anyone who didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to emerge one day as a celebrated Philadelphia media columnist and lawyer, or some other well-to-do occupation, in the name of her twisted notions of Christianity. Particularly since, given this column in which she said that anyone who voted for Obama isn’t a real Catholic, she has at best what I would consider to be a depraved notion of spirituality anyway.

Next, I guess I’m supposed to weep crocodile tears over the departure of Bush Dog Dan Boren, who announced here that he will not seek another term in the U.S. Congress from Oklahoma (and the prognosticators say this seat will likely go Republican – gee, ya’ think?).

With that in mind, I give you the following:

Basically, Boren never met a Dubya tax cut that he didn’t like, as noted here (Think Progress commemorated the ten-year anniversary of the first batch here, with the requisite ruinous effects - more here).

As noted here, he opposed any legislation that set a timeline for troop WD from Iraq.

Boren said here that Obama was “the most liberal senator” in Congress and “had no intention” of endorsing him for the White House during the 2008 election (heh).

He accused Obama of being “weak on defense” (an evergreen Repug charge) even though the defense budget was paired by a Republican SecDef, Robert Gates (here).

Boren opposed health care reform here (of course).

He voted against three animal protection measures in the House in 2008, the only Dem to do so, as James Wolcott tells us here.

Lastly, he said here in January 2010 that Democratic congressional losses that fall would be “a good thing” for the party (sadly, his prediction was realized, though how “good” it turns out to be remains to be seen depending on November 2012 I guess).

So yeah, barring a cosmic miracle, Boren’s seat will officially go Red in about 17 months or so. Of course, given his record, it’s hard to argue that an actual Democrat held the seat anyway.

In addition, we learn the following from the Globe and Mail up north here, namely, that perhaps the most notorious liar in the world who still walks upright will appear at a symposium with Fareed Zakaria in a week or so…

The American war against Vietnam, the Pakistani massacre of Bengalis in 1971 (an estimated 1.5 million killed), the operations of the Shah of Iran’s secret police, the brutal Pinochet years in Chile, the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia that made possible the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal killing fields (1.5 to 2 million dead), the bloody 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus (an estimated 150,000 refugees), the betrayal of the Kurds in 1974-75, the Indonesian slaughter of some 100,000 East Timorese, the war against the government of Angola, the entrenchment of apartheid in South Africa.

No one will ever know how many millions of ordinary citizens were killed, maimed, tortured, brutalized or displaced in these merciless operations. A U.S. Senate subcommittee on refugees estimated that more than three million civilians were killed, injured or rendered homeless in Southeast Asia alone from 1969 to 1975.

And we do know this: By a curious coincidence, all of these horror stories have in common the very man who’s soon coming to Toronto, Dr. Henry Kissinger (somehow the only PhD in the world who’s regularly called Dr.). As Richard Nixon’s national security adviser and both Mr. Nixon and Gerald Ford’s secretary of state, Dr. Kissinger enabled or endorsed every one of them.

And this describes a typical Kissinger manoeuvre…

In a meeting with presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson in early September 2005, Kissinger was more explicit: Bush needed to resist the pressure to withdraw American troops. He repeated his axiom that the only meaningful exit strategy was victory.

"The president can't be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece," Kissinger said. "You may want to reduce troops," but troop reduction should not be the objective. "This is not where you put the emphasis."

To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.

"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded," he wrote.

The policy of "Vietnamization," turning the fight over to the South Vietnamese military, Kissinger wrote, might increase pressure to end the war because the American public wanted a quick resolution. Troop withdrawals would only encourage the enemy. "It will become harder and harder to maintain the morale of those who remain, not to speak of their mothers."

Two months after Gerson's meeting, the administration issued a 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." It was right out of the Kissinger playbook. The only meaningful exit strategy would be victory.

Kissinger also said in February ’07 that Dubya had “a secret plan” to end the Iraq war (hmmm, wonder what other Repug president had “a secret plan” to end a war? Think “I am not a crook” – this post also details how Nixon and Kissinger sabotaged the 1968 peace talks on Vietnam, thus allowing the war to continue for seven more horrendous years).

One day, Kissinger’s physical body will die, which will be a belated deterioration, his soul having died decades ago.

Finally, Andrew Breitbart clone Michael Walsh bellows as follows here (and yes, I’m still in shock that, after having defended Anthony Weiner, it turns out that he was guilty of the underwear pic after all, though I can’t think of a word to describe how pathetic our discourse is that, while our “gilded age on steroids” economy continues to plod along, our wars rage, our civil liberties continue to erode and our planet continues to melt, a picture of an erect member and the legal doings of a former Dem senator seem to rule the day for our corporate media).

(The title of Walsh’s screed, by the way, is “Behold The Face of the Modern Left”)…

In his combination of unctuousness, mendacity, mock-reasonableness, petulance, bullying, hypocrisy, overweening arrogance, brazen aggression, self-pity, victimhood, and bogus moral preening, it’s hard to beat Congressman Anthony Weiner. He’s the perfect face of the modern American Left in all its glorious pathology; why anyone takes these people seriously is utterly beyond me, so transparent are they. And yet for some, their sweet nothings continue to resonate.

It should be noted that Walsh has apparently also written for Irrational Spew Online under the alias of David Kahane, which is the name of an aspiring screenwriter in the film The Player who is killed by an irate movie producer (I suppose that fits the typical “oh I’m such a poor victim of that evil li-bu-ruul media” conservative mindset).

And as noted here, Walsh once ridiculed House Dem Steny Hoyer for speaking out against violence as a result of the Tucson tragedy, even though, as noted here, 10 Democrats received threats of violence after their health care votes (and Orange Man Boehner spoke out against those threats, even though he was guilty of that tactic himself against former Dem House Rep Steve Driehaus…that and much more is noted here; basically, except for former rep Paul Kanjorski threatening Lex Luthor in Florida, which I don’t condone even though Scott is horrible, I can’t find a comparable instance of bad Dem behavior).

Also, for good measure, it should be noted that Walsh referred to James O’Keefe’s lawbreaking here (for which O'Keefe entered a guilty plea) as “spitting on the sidewalk” (U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval described O’Keefe’s breaching of security at the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu as “an extremely sensitive matter,” so I think it’s safe to say that Judge Duval did not agree).

So to sum up, Walsh demonstrates perceived victimhood, a tolerance of violence against his enemies, a total inability or lack of desire (or both) to demonstrate any empathy whatsoever (on health care in this case), and a complete disregard for the rule of law.

Behold the face of the Radical Right.

Oh, and as noted here, Walsh describes “David Kahane” as “a complete idiot who never understands that the joke’s always on him.”

I rest my case.

Oh, and as long as we’re continuing to pile on Anthony Weiner (And by the way, CNN, why do I now have to know about Weiner’s wife too? Any pics on Mrs. John Ensign?), let’s just take a breath and remember something, OK?

This guy consorted with prostitutes and continues to serve in the U.S. Senate. And don’t give me that crap about how the voters of Louisiana, in their eternal, dunderheaded stupidity, sent him back to Washington. He should have had the guts to quit long before then.

Monday Stuff

This brought the following scene to mind…



…and speaking of food, I give you another tale of capitalism run amok (here)…

Save The Farm Trailer from Cinema Libre Studio on Vimeo.

…as well as the stupidity of voters in this country who continually elect the frauds on display here (“Democrat” Party, Baby Newtown Leroy? I’m still waiting for details on that space-based air traffic control system of yours)…



…and yep, this works for me too (h/t Thers at Eschaton – don’t quite get all the references to what appears to be Irish politics, but oh well...shape of things to come, maybe?).