Saturday, July 13, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(CNN): "Schweitzer won't run for Senate in 2014"

(Boston Herald): "Jurors in Zimmerman trial have question"

(Reuters): "Snowden documents could be 'worst nightmare' for U.S.: journalist"

(Daily Caller): "McDonnell aides deny resignation rumour"

(BBC): "Canada train blast: Vigils held as toll reaches 33"

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Listening to Now: John Pizzarelli - "Avalon"

By Richard K. Barry

Well, actually, according to the YouTube clip, it's "John Pizzarelli performing the Don Sebesky arrangement of "Avalon" in Fuerth, Germany with the Thilo Wolg Big Band on the German TV show Swing It.

Just happened to be thinking about this song, and wanted to find a big band arrangement. I love big band arrangements. 

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Unacknowledged media bias

By Frank Moraes

Paul Krugman has posted a couple of articles on his blog defending France. You see, "people" say that France's unemployment rate is high. "They" say that Fance is on the verge of becoming another Greece—or at least Portugal. "They" say that the French are just all screwed up.

The truth is that none of this is actually true. It turns out that the employment situation is actually better in France than in the United States. There is less labor force participation among the young and old, but that is because France doesn't require students to work and encourages early retirement. What's more, France has no trouble borrowing, and actually borrows at a rate below that of Germany.

So why do "they" beat up so much on France? Krugman gets it mostly right except in his caution, "[I]t's hard to avoid the suspicion that it's ultimately political: with their generous welfare state the French are supposed to be collapsing, so people assume that they are." The problem is that "people" assume France is a socialism and therefore believe that it much be failing. Socialism is bad, right? And France even has a socialist president: Francois Hollande.

But it isn't just that everyone assumes that France is doing badly. It is the press—especially the financial press, who tend to be far more economically conservative than the country as a whole. This, of course, is our "objective" press. And note how this objectivity works. It isn't that the press will come right out and lie about France. They would never, for example, report that labor force participation in France for prime age workers is well below that of the United States. That would be false—it is exactly the opposite. So they simply don't report that. Instead, they report that labor force participation in France for the young is well below that of the United States. That's true, but highly misleading. Objectivity!

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A.M. Headlines


(USA Today): "Zimmerman jury to continue deliberation Saturday"

(Texas Tribune): "Abortion bill finally passes in Texas legislature"

(Des Moines Resister): "Iowa Supreme Court out of touch with women’s concerns, says Nelson’s lawyer"

(The Guardian): "Edward Snowden accuses US of illegal aggressive campaign"

(Capital): "Spitzer soaks up national attention, while Weiner does what Franken did"

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Friday, July 12, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(New York Times): "Holder tightens rules for obtaining reporters' data"

(CNN)"Napolitano leaving Obama Cabinet"

(USA Today): "Zimmerman verdict sparks worry of riots"

(The Hill): "White House: Obama to personally lobby Putin on Edward Snowden"

(The Atlantic): "There's no Republican Party - There are 5 of them"

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We're rich

By Mustang Bobby

The U.S. was rolling in dough in June.
The U.S. government posted an unexpectedly large budget surplus in June, a further sign of the rapid improvement in public finances that has taken the heat off Congress to find savings and raise the nation’s borrowing limit.

Rising tax revenue, public spending cuts and big payments to the Treasury from government-backed mortgage companies helped the government take in $117 billion more last month than it paid out, the U.S. Treasury said on Thursday.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a surplus of $39.5 billion.

June’s surplus was the largest on record for that month.

That doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods in terms of the deficit. The government brought in more money last month than it spent, but it still has big outstanding debts on the credit cards. In other words, it’s like your paycheck covered your monthly bills with a little left to spare, but you still need to pay down those big Visa or Mastercard bills.

But it does mean that the government isn’t facing a debt ceiling crisis immediately. And we can probably build another useless Marine facility in Afghanistan.

(Cross-posted at Mustang Bobby.)

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Behind the Ad: New Jersey Senate candidate Frank Pallone gets in the game

By Richard K. Barry

Who: Rep. Frank Pallone's U.S. Senate campaign

Where: New Jersey (web ad)

What's going on: You're going to get tired of hearing that the NJ special U.S. Senate election is Cory Booker's to lose. Sorry, but it is. There are, however, other candidates who want to replace the deceased Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Frank Pallone is one of them. In a web ad in which The Hill says Pallone frames himself as a "hard-working everyman," the candidate says that his is a "typical Jersey story."

The introductory spot features average supporters touting Pallone's work on health care and environmental issues, while the congressman elaborates on his own policy efforts.

In the ad, Pallone says that deceased Frank Lautenberg was a "workhorse, and he didn't care about the spotlight." Well, well, who could that comment bring to mind?

Lautenberg's family has endorsed Pallone, and son Josh Lautenberg even used those words saying that Booker was a "show horse, not a workhorse," which Josh said bothered his father.

Booker's opponents believe characterizing him as a political celebrity concerned more with his political future than work for his constituents could help cut into his commanding lead of the Democratic primary field in the polls.

Doubt it.

Here's Pallone's ad:



 

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

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The farm bill and Big Government Conservatism

By Frank Moraes 

A lot of people wonder what a liberal like Dean Baker means when he writes a book like The End of Loser Liberalism. He means a lot, of course, and you should read it because that link provides the book in various electronic formats that are free. But mostly what he means is that the whole paradigm that we have of liberals being for big government and conservatives being for small government is just dead wrong. I write about this a lot myself, but I'm not sure that I didn't originally get the idea from him. The fact is that conservatives are just for a different kind of big government. Most of the time, it is even bigger than the government liberals want. What's more, it is infinitely more pernicious. My favorite example is that liberals want to spend money on libraries. No one ever lost their liberty because of public libraries. Yes, I know: conservatives think that taxation is theft, but that doesn't stop them from taxing for whatever it is they want. And the things they want to tax for really are associated with the loss of liberty: armies, spying, vaginal probes.

Yesterday, we had as clear an example of this divide as we will ever have. The farm bill is normally a very popular thing. Rural representatives like it because it gives money and price supports to farmers; urban representatives like it because it gives food (mostly in the form of food stamps or SNAP) to poor people. But when the House tried to pass a farm bill last month, it failed. Democrats didn't like it because it made savage cuts to SNAP. The most conservative Republicans didn't like it because it didn't cut SNAP enough. So in order to get a farm bill passed, the House Republicans split the farm bill in half: part for farms and part for SNAP. And they passed the "farm only" bill and said they would get to the "SNAP only" bill later.

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Your privacy is not their concern: Microsoft, the NSA, and the rise of the surveillance state

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This isn't quite the military-industrial complex, but it's something similar, and similarly nefarious, and it shows just how the national security state operates, the government enlisting the support of corporations in its quest for universal surveillance, your civil liberties be damned:

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

*****

Microsoft's latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: "Your privacy is our priority."

Similarly, Skype's privacy policy states: "Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content."

But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.

But Snowden and Glenn Greenwald are the bad guys, right? Because knowing about what's going on is apparently worse than what's actually going on.

Seriously, where's the fucking outrage?

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A.M. Headlines


(Associated Press): "Republicans to tackle cuts in food stamp programs"

(David Brooks): "Pass the bill"

(Greg Sargent): "Harry Reid escalates nuclear threat in a big way"

(Quinnipiac): "Clinton tops Christie by 6 points"

(Sabato's Crystal Ball): "Is doubling down on white voters a viable strategy for the Republican Party?"


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Thursday, July 11, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(New York Times): "House approves farm bill, without food stamps"

(USA Today): "Senators squabble over Reid's threat to limit debate"

(Huffington Post): "Rand Paul stands by his 'southern avenger"

(McClatchy): "Trapped: An air escape from Moscow unlikely for NSA leaker Snowden"

(CBS News): "George Zimmerman trial: Prosecutor blasts Zimmerman's self-defense claim during closing arguments"

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For any reason

By Capt. Fogg

Lyin' Bill. He earns his title every day. What's he lyin' about now, you might ask? Why, he's telling us that a Texas women can get an abortion at any time -- simply because of a sprained hand, for instance.

You can just kill the baby, or the fetus, however you want to describe it, any time you want for any reason, you know, women's health, that's any reason at all.

Sure, we all know that women are hypochondriacs, prone to hysteria and likely to be faking things like they fake orgasms and I'm sure Bill has experience there. God makes sure women don't die in childbirth anyway, just like he makes sure they don't get pregnant when they get raped. So if a woman wants to terminate a pregnancy, we can be sure it's because she doesn't want to cancel a hair dresser appointment or something equally as important. Why we ever let them vote, I don't know.

In one of those bilious exchanges that Fox is famous for, O'Reilly and Kirsten Powers went back and forth ratcheting up the lies: 

Lyin' Bill:  In New York here, there's a proposal, "I don't want any limitations on anything!" It’s crazy.

Powers: The current status quo in Texas that these people are fighting for, who are fighting the bill, is to be able to abort your baby up until the third trimester.

Lyin' Bill:  Yeah! For any reason! Women's health! "Hey! Look I sprained my hand!" 

Powers: "Yeah. For any reason. For any reason. Yeah."

Of course, no one of integrity, no one who gives a rancid shit about the truth or human rights or anything but his stinking faith believes this garbage. Very, very few late term abortions are ever performed and even fewer of that "partial birth" procedure they'd love to tell you happens all the time. Such things are done with dead fetuses, fetuses with no brain and the like, but Fox has never stumbled over a fact so far. Nor, for all their ranting, whooping, and hollering, all their pusillanimous persiflage about how liberals are trashing the Constitution have they ever really seen the law as anything but a nuisance and impediment to "freedom" and something that can be and should be ignored by any state with or without public support. 

No, there should be no regulation of anything but women and if God didn't bother to ban abortion, well then the Great State a' Texas is gonna take care of it for him, now all y'all have a nice day, y'hear?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

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Why we can't have nice things

By Mustang Bobby

Via The Washington Post:


The U.S. military has erected a 64,000-square-foot headquarters building on the dusty moonscape of southwestern Afghanistan that comes with all the tools to wage a modern war. A vast operations center with tiered seating. A briefing theater. Spacious offices. Fancy chairs. Powerful air conditioning.

Everything, that is, except troops.

The windowless, two-story structure, which is larger than a football field, was completed this year at a cost of $34 million. But the military has no plans to ever use it.

But student loan rates have to go up, the sequester knocked billions out of federal grants to public schools, and they're furloughing teachers because, you know, we're broke.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

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Water, water, everywhere

By Carl

And not a drop to drink. But you may drown:
Researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, funded by ice2sea, a European Union project, tackled the question of how both processes will evolve and interact in the future.

This was done with a computer model, which projects the future ice sheet evolution with high accuracy using the latest available techniques and input data.

They devised a method to generalize projections made in earlier research which concerned just four of Greenland's outlet glaciers. By doing so they could apply the earlier findings to all calving glaciers around the Greenland ice sheet.

Their results indicate a total sea-level contribution from the Greenland ice sheet for an average warming scenario after 100 and 200 years of 7 and 21 cm, respectively.

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Demographic doom still awaits the GOP

By Frank Moraes

In general, I've always thought that Sean Trende is a smart guy and I will always been impressed with this discussion of the sixth year curse. And I've thought that his arguments that the Republicans can continue to win some elections as a white man's party were pretty strong. They weren't strong in the sense that they made the idea a good one. But they did show that all was not lost and most important, they gave intellectual cover for the Republican Party to do what it was doing anyway.

Finally, some actual political scientists decided to look at Trende's numbers. Yesterday, Ruy Teixeira and Alan Abramowitz wrote an article for Think Progress, No, Republicans, 'Missing' White Voters Won't Save You. They don't take on Trende's entire argument, but they destroyed its core. Trende seemed to show that the big difference between 2008 and 2012 was that a whole bunch of white voters didn't show up in 2012. The Think Progress article showed that this conclusion was based on bad data. Basically, Trende assumed what he was trying to prove. He noted that not as many white voters showed up in 2012, but he ignored the fact that not as many nonwhite voters showed up either. When this is taken into account, 2012 was not an election where there were "missing" white voters; it was an election with a smaller turnout, for all voters. As Teixeira and Abramowitz wrote:
So: GOP phone home! Your missing white voters have been found, and it turns out they weren't really missing. They were simply sitting out a relatively low turnout election along with a large number of their minority counterparts. They may be back next time if it's a higher turnout election—but then again so will a lot of minority voters. Bottom line: your demographic dilemma remains the same. The mix of voters is changing fast to your disadvantage and there is no cavalry of white voters waiting in the wings to rescue you. 

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A.M. Headlines


(Washington Post): "Bush’s call for GOP to embrace immigration reform seems to have little effect"

(The Hill): "Boehner warns House GOP will be weaker without immigration reform"

(USA Today): "Eliot Spitzer leads in early NYC comptroller poll"

(Dana Milbank): "Republicans’ Obamacare search-and-destroy mission"

(New York Times): "In 2011 murder inquiry, hints of missed chance to avert Boston bombing"

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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(Fox News): "Senate fails, again, to advance bill reversing student loan rate spike"

(John Chait): "Conservatives hate all legislation now"

(Reuters): "Texas House approves sweeping abortion restrictions"

(Washington Post): "Wal-Mart says it will pull out of D.C. plans should city mandate ‘living wage’"

(Politico): "Mark Begich: Sarah Palin may not be Alaska resident"

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Behind the Ad: Cory Booker's second spot

By Richard K. Barry

Who: The Cory Booker Senate campaign

Where: New Jersey (statewide)

What's going on: Cory Booker is the prohibitive favourite to win the special election for the NJ Senate seat left vacant when Sen. Frank Lautenberg died. Booker released his first TV ad a couple of weeks ago. His second ad, featured below, builds on his record as Mayor of Newark.

 Up to this point he is the only Democratic candidate on television.

 The primary is Aug. 13th. The special election is Oct. 16th.



 

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public,)

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Disloyal Democratic Party

By Frank Moraes 

I am very glad that Eliot Spitzer has decided to re-enter politics by running for New York City comptroller. And right on cue, Matt Yglesias has said what had to be said, "Eliot Spitzer Never Should Have Resigned in the First Place." Mostly, his article was an excuse to point out that Spitzer most likely wants this "lowly" job because it would give him control of the public employee pension funds. And that means he would have some power to go after Wall Street. Surprisingly, Yglesias does not go to the next step, which is that Wall Street is going to put big money behind Spitzer's primary opponent Scott Stringer. And it may not be that hard for Stringer to get the advantage given he isn't a bad guy himself. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the election goes.

What I'm more interested in is the Spitzer resignation itself. As with Anthony Weiner, I think his resignation had more to do with the complete lack of support by his own party than anything else. In both of these men's cases, the scandal was relatively small. But Democrats are not a group prone to circling the wagons. They are more in the habit of waving a white flag and yelling, "We've got him here! He's all tied up! We'll bring him right out!"

This has long been a problem for me with the Democratic Party. As much as I hate just about everything the Republicans stand for, at least they are loyal when it comes to all of this non-ideological bullshit. Of course, they are like the medieval Catholic Church when it comes to ideology. The Democrats are just the opposite. A Democratic candidates can be anti-individual welfare and pro-corporate welfare and we will herald him as the greatest Democratic President since FDR. But let a sex scandal show up and suddenly the Democratic Party is as pure as Mother Teresa. In fact, I wonder if the Democratic Party would have stayed as loyal to Bill Clinton had it not been for the constant ridiculous trumpeting of fake scandals all through his presidency. (Regardless, it was only his will to fight that saved him.)

It is interesting, this comparison of the two parties. They kind of show the main ways that parties can go wrong. The Republicans have become too pure in terms of ideology and the Democrats have become too impure. Both of these failings have advantages. But what it means as a practical matter is that the very best politicians in both parties are drummed out: Republicans because they are too reasonable and Democrats because no one is ever that perfect. At least, no one who has anything going on intellectually!

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

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A Paul problem: Ron, Rand, and racism

By Michael J.W. Stickings


Jon Chait, New York: "Racists Love Ron and Rand Paul for Some Reason."

Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon: "Rand Paul’s team has another white supremacist."

Or there are a couple of posts I wrote last year:

-- "The ugly truth about Ron Paul"; and

-- "So is Ron Paul a racist, or what?"

Well, I wouldn't say that the Pauls are overt racists, let alone white supremacists, although Ron's notorious newsletters from way back when certainly suggest otherwise.

But it's interesting how racism keeps popping up all around them, notably these days in the sordid company they keep.

Not that it should come as a surprise. As Chait writes:

The deep connection between the Pauls and the neo-Confederate movement doesn't discredit their ideas, but it’s also not just an indiscretion. It's a reflection of the fact that white supremacy is a much more important historical constituency for anti-government ideas than libertarians like to admit.

Obviously, most of their libertarian supporters are anti-government in more general terms. But there are others among them who want the government out of the way because they want the Confederacy back in some form, including the ideology of racial supremacism that went along with it.

The Pauls can try to run from this association, but it's just too much a part of what they are, whether they and their followers like it or not.

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Sarah Palin is not running for Senate. Full stop.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As she told Hannity yesterday:

I've considered it because people have requested me considering it. But I’m still waiting to see what the lineup will be and hoping that... there will be some new blood, new energy, not just kind of picking from the same old politicians in the state.

Sounds familiar? She spewed the same bullshit in in the lead-up to last year's presidential election, tantalizing her moronic followers, and raking in the dough, with the prospect of a run that was just around the corner.

And it's always the same: "Who, moi? Well, you know, sooooo many people want me to run, and I sooooo believe in serving the people, but I want to wait and see what's going on, and maybe there will be some brilliant candidate we can all get behind, someone just like me, but not me, you know, but yeah, totally, I'm interested, and maybe I'll do it, because I'm sooooo serious about it, if people want me to... so... yeah. America!"

I'll predict now when I predicted then: not gonna happen. Because, you know, running for office -- and then staying in office -- would actually require some hard work, and commitment, and she'd much rather just keep raking in the dough by keeping her moronic followers on the edge of their seats, showing up on Fox to spew her bullshit, and otherwise trying to keep her star shining out on the crazy fringe of the Republican Party.

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A.M. Headlines


(New York Times): "With aid from Arab rivals, Egypt is arena for influence"

(USA Today): "Pro-Clinton super PAC hires Obama 2012 field organizers"

(Fox News): "Zimmerman defense winding down case Wednesday"

(Politico): "Immigration reform heads for slow death"

(The Star Ledger): "Christie is popular, but has short coattails, poll finds"

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Tuesday, July 09, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(USA Today): "Biden eulogizes Arizona firefighters"

(TPM): "Boehner and the right team up to quash immigration reform"

(New York Times): "Sex and the sorriest pols"

(Politico): "Rand Paul to object to James Comey nod"

(San Francisco Chronicle): "Ill. Senate adopts some Quinn changes to gun bill"

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It was never about credibility

By Frank Moraes

The always interesting, occasionally brilliant Matt Yglesias published one of the best headlines 
ever: S&P Legal Defense—No Reasonable Investor Would Take Us Seriously. (For the time, I will ignore his outrageous misuse of the em-dash; it should have been a colon.) The article is about the $5 billion civil case against Standard & Poor's. The case against them is that they weren't acting as a rating agency; they were just giving firms whatever ratings they asked for. Their defense is that their claims of objectivity are nothing more than "puffery." And yes, that's the word they use.

Yglesias argues that if this is the case, it is time to get rid of the credit rating agencies. He wrote, "That need to maintain a credible brand should give raters a financial incentive to avoid giving positive ratings to bad products even ifthey're being offered money to do that. But this entire logic rests on the theory that claims to objectivity and independence aren't puffery—that they're actually at the core of the ratings agencies' business model." So let's get rid of them. That's his take away from this whole thing.

Ah, Grasshopper! Your naivete is charming. The credit rating agencies were never given their power because they were credible, although at one time they might well have been so. They were always given power to pronounce this or that investment good or bad because they were the right kind of people. All one really needs to reasonably assess an investment's value is some investigators and mathematicians. Given this, ratings agencies ought to be pretty easy to start. But there are only three of them. Being accurate has nothing to do with being "credible" on Wall Street. "Credibility" is all about being one of the boys.



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The scandal about the "scandal"

By Mustang Bobby

Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon looks at the shameful way the so-called liberal media fell all over themselves — and fell down — in covering the I.R.S. “scandal.”

While the initial reports about the IRS targeting looked pretty bad, suggesting that agents singled out tax-exempt applications for Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the media badly bungled the controversy when supposedly sober journalists like Bob Woodward and Chuck Todd jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst from day one. Instead of doing more reporting to discover the true nature and context of the IRS targeting, or at least waiting for their colleagues to do some, the supposedly liberal mainstream press let their eagerness to show they could be just as tough on a Democratic White House as a Republican one get ahead of the facts. We expect politicians to stretch reality to fit a narrative, but the press should be better.

And they would have gotten away with it, too, had their narrative had the benefit of being true. But now, almost two months later, we know that in fact the IRS targeted lots of different kinds of groups, not just conservative ones; that the only organizations whose tax-exempt statuses were actually denied were progressive ones; that many of the targeted conservative groups legitimately crossed the line; that the IG’s report was limited to only Tea Party groups at congressional Republicans’ request; and that the White House was in no way involved in the targeting and didn’t even know about it until shortly before the public did.

In short, the entire scandal narrative was a fiction. But it had real consequences, effectively derailing Obama’s agenda not long after a resounding reelection, costing several people their careers, and distracting and misinforming the public. It’s not that nothing went wrong at the IRS, but that the transgression merited nowhere near the media response it earned. But instead of acknowledging its error or correcting the record, the mainstream political press has simply moved on to the next game.

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Denying reality: Surveillance state apologists and the obsequious submission to authority

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ever since the Edward Snowden saga started, I've been writing "surveillance state apologists of the left" tweets, directed mainly at Obama-can-do-no-wrong types who seem to think there's nothing wrong with what the NSA is doing, with what's been authorized under the Patriot Act, and with what the country is doing generally in its effort to go after terrorists. In some cases, these surveillance state apologists are also drone war apologists. Generally, they're a-okay with the national security state, not least because it's one of their own running the show right now, and so they viciously attack Snowden, and Greenwald, and make fun of "emoprogs," and avoid actually having to address the nuts and bolts of what the government is doing in their name, and to them, and what that means for life, liberty, and privacy.


At The Atlantic yesterday, Conor Friedersdorf, whom I admire greatly for his uncompromising views on drones, domestic surveillance, and other aspects of the national security apparatus, wrote about the "privacy moderates" in similar terms -- that is, about those who think that "the national-security state ought to be subject to more oversight, debate, scrutiny, and restrictions" but who also "contrive frames that enable them to criticize both the surveillance state and its antagonists, as if the excesses of both sides are commensurately important and worrisome," and who sometimes "even attack critics of the NSA more energetically than the surveillance state itself." He writes:

I am mystified by the "privacy moderate" who yearns for a debate about the surveillance state without anyone being so transgressive as to leak the information without which there would be no debate.

Indeed. I would just add that there are many not just in the "middle" but also on the left who aren't yearning for any such thing, so enamored are they of Obama, so much have they been taken in by the fearmongering propaganda that is the democracy-crushing currency of the national security state, the state of fear that it feeds to justify its acquisition of ever more power, justifying ever more intrusions into life, liberty, and privacy.

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This is CNN. And it sucks.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Particularly after what happened after the Boston Marathon bombing, I don't really think there's a good reason to watch CNN. Okay, maybe for breaking news, just because they cast such a wide net both domestically and internationally, but even then there are usually better options. I only turn to it out of convenience, and forgetfulness, but then quickly realize what I've done and turn the channel. And for politics, well, don't even bother. If you get your "news" from Wolf Blitzer and John King, and the grotesque morons who inhabit their "expert" panels, and so if you prefer to remain grossly uninformed, you deserve the collapse of American democracy that may well be coming.

Of course, it wasn't just the botched coverage of the bombing afternath, and specifically reports of an arrest when there wasn't one. We've long known that CNN, at least in its domestic form (International is far better), is a news network dedicated mostly to sensationalism, hence the focus on murder trials, natural disasters, and other such fare. But for whatever reason many of us keep hoping, keep thinking that CNN can right the ship, and so keep caring.

But enough already.

That's Jay Rosen's view, and he makes a compelling case. You may not care enough about CNN to bother reading his piece, but it's worthwhile for what it says about news media generally. CNN isn't alone in its sensationalism drift, after all, nor in its quest for ratings at all cost, including integrity.

But to Rosen, whom I like a great deal, I would just say this:

Anthony Bourdain. Parts Unknown.

And also Morgan Spurlock. Inside Man.

But mostly Bourdain's Parts Unknown. Like No Reservations before it, on a different network, it's one of the very best shows on television.

Sometimes, just sometimes, CNN gets it right.

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A.M. Headlines


(Reuters): "Texas House nears vote on proposed abortion restrictions"

(New York Times): "Spitzer quickly hits establishment headwinds"

(The Week): "Why Asiana Flight 214 crashed at San Francisco International Airport"

(Time): "Pakistan's bin Laden report: What you need to know"

(USA Today): "Toronto storm causes chaos throughout the city"

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Ink blots

By Capt. Fogg

Who needs ink blots?  Life itself is a Rorschach test. What you see as a pattern, a 'gestalt' if you prefer in something random or arbitrary is a window into your mind.  Likewise what you find to condemn in others may often illustrate what you feel - or fear to find - in yourself.  It's been my experience that people who feel guilty about all their lies are quick to see others as liars, for instance and when I hear certain TV personalities telling us how, as Rush once snickered, Michael J. Fox is faking his Parkinson's to get sympathy or the Republican hyenas who insisted that Hillary Clinton's cerebral blood clot was only an excuse to get out of testifying at the Benghazi witch hunt,  and when I heard Glenn Beck snickering yesterday that Theresa Heinz-Kerry, wife of our Secretary of State, hospitalized and in critical condition was faking it, what I heard was a faker, a phoney, a con man, a liar and a sociopath telling us his own story.

Am I wrong or is this a pattern?  Do the most vocal apologists for the wackadoodle Right routinely deny inconvenient reality and slander their opponents because they think everybody is like them?  Takers, leeches, liars, fakes and idiots?    Hey, the ink blots don't lie.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

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Monday, July 08, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(USA Today): "Asiana pilot was on a training flight"

(New York Times): "Army kills 51; deepening crisis in Egypt"

(Washington Post): "Rick Perry won’t seek reelection"

(The Week): "The Koch brothers' $1 million campaign to kill ObamaCare"

(The Hill): "Lautenberg's son blasts 'show horse' Booker as family endorses Pallone"

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Presidential Campaign Songs: JFK's battling ditties

By Richard K. Barry

Frank Sinatra had a hit with "High Hopes" in 1959, and then put it on his 1961 album, All the Way. He recorded a version of the song with different lyrics for JFK's 1960 presidential campaign.

You may also recall (I didn't) that there was another song commissioned by the Kennedy campaign called "Kennedy, Kennedy," as I discovered on this website:
[A]fter the convention, the campaign would commission a song, "Kennedy, Kennedy" with a jumpy mix of graphics and still photos used as a television commercial [which] sought to convey through its lyrics the idea of Kennedy as old enough to be seasoned and experienced but young enough to innovate policy with new ideas. [T]he chorus of alternating men and women had the distinctive sound of popular television commercials from the 1950s making it sound a bit dated next to the new version of the Sinatra hit.

Here are both songs. I think I'll stick with Frank.






(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

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The mourning will begin shortly -- after this commercial announcement.

By Capt. Fogg

Pavlov rang the bell, the dogs drooled. The media directs, we mourn or we scorn -- we rage, we mock, we believe, we vote, we ignore.

At last, at least for a while yesterday, our media circus was forced to notice that there's a world outside the Seminole county Courthouse and took some time out from endless speculation and pointless discussion of the George Zimmerman trial to obsess about the Asiana airliner that landed short in San Fransisco. In fact as of Monday Morning, it's still "Breaking News" long after the wreckage has gone cold and the survivors taken to hospitals or released.

Yes, two people died, as did many others in transportation related incidents over the weekend. 67 people were murdered in Chicago, one of the gun control capitols of our nation. 10 people died horribly when their plane caught fire in Alaska but I didn't hear a thing about it on CNN, nor about the runaway train explosion that killed 5 with 40 still missing.as the maudlin dirge droned and the newsreaders groaned on and on speculating and conjecturing and playing the same interviews and showing the same pictures of a California runway until I gave up and turned it off.

Oh, the humanity.

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Leading Indicator

By Carl

I’m not sure what all this means, but certain events happened over the weekend that could be foreshadows of things to come:

1) Dozens Reported Killed In Egypt – Clashes between pro-Muslim Brotherhood protestors, angered at the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, and pro-democracy protestors, supported by the Egyptian military, clashed several times over the past few days. The Obama administration has wisely stayed above the fray, opting to wait and see before picking the wrong side to back.

As Egypt was one of the first of the Arab Spring protests to rise up a few years back, this is indeed troubling, particularly as Egypt (specifically its military) has been a long—standing ally to us in the region.

2) 5 Dead, 40 Missing After Train Explosion – Yes, the XL pipeline will be safe, huh? In case you missed it, a freight train derailed near a town in eastern Quebec province in Canada, leveling a small town. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper described it as a “war zone”.

3) Tales of Flying Cinnamon Buns, iPods, and Gaping Exit Holes – How does a Boeing 777 with presumably enough fuel to make the flight and then some, manage to crash flying at less than the minimum speed a jet that size should be descending at?

Given Boeing’s problems with its Dreamliner (the 787) are passengers now beta testing airplanes? Or pilots?

We’re sort of seeing a period of troubling instability across the globe and spanning economics and infrastructure as well as politics. Given the turmoil in the Middle East, including Turkey, and now in South America, it will be hard for anyone to focus on things like ensuring our bridges stay up and the trains and planes run on time safely.

Well, maybe our rescue will come from off-planet…

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind)

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A.M. Headlines


(Business Insider): "Former Governor Eliot Spitzer is running for New York comptroller"

(USA Today): "Dozens reported killed in Egypt"

(New York Times): "In Congress, gridlock and harsh consequences"

(Washington Post): "Daniel Ellsberg: Snowden made the right call when he fled U.S."

(Reuters): "Dollar hits three-year peak, poised for more gains"

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Sunday, July 07, 2013

P.M. Headlines


(New York Times): "In secret, court vastly broadens powers of N.S.A."

(Reuters): "Crew tried to abort landing before San Francisco air crash"

(The Telegraph): "Canada train crash: 40 still missing as death toll expected to rise"

(BBC News): "Egypt's pro- and anti-Morsi protesters take to the streets"

(The Hill): "Perry vows Texas will pass abortion bill"

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Behind the Ad: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) plays defence

By Richard K. Barry

(Another in our extensive Beyond the Ad series.)

Who: Sen. Lamar Alexander's reelection campaign

Where: Tennessee (statewide)

What's going on: According to Roll Call, about a week ago Senate Conservative Fund Executive Director Matt Hoskins got in touch with like-minded folks to inform them of his interest in supporting a primary challenge against Alexander if "a strong, conservative" candidate steps forward.

No doubt concerned about such a thing, incumbent Alexander will be airing ads in the state to prove how gosh darn conservative he really is, using the highly contentious right-to-fish issue as his instrument.

The ad, which is all about letting Tennesseans fish wherever the hell they want, will air later in July. It features Rand Paul and it contains a strong anti-government / pro-libertarian message that people ought to be able to make their own decisions about the risks they want to take.

The possibility of a primary challenge for Alexander is interesting, though also interesting in this piece is the notion of personal responsibility, a conservative theme of long-standing, which they like to apply to things like gun control, health care, and, apparently, fishing.

The issue in this ad has to do with a prior ban by the Army Corps of Engineers on fishing in parts of the Cumberland River in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Army Corps had constructed barriers that would keep boats from entering tailwaters of ten dams along the Cumberland River, with plans to construct more. Their argument was that the waters surrounding the dams were hazardous and that there had been three deaths and ten near misses or rescues since 2009.

Subsequently, President Obama signed legislation prohibiting the Army Corps of Engineers from restricting recreational access along the Cumberland River. Chalk one up for the fishers and Alexander.

I don't have a strong opinion on the issue, though I do have concerns about the lives of rescuers put at risk by the stupidity of those fishing these waters. Personal responsibility is a great thing if it doesn't unduly butt heads with other people's interest in exercising their own rights, like the right not to die saving someone who insists on putting him or herself in harms way.

I'm sure it makes for great local politics in Tennessee and Kentucky.

If you're marking a calendar, the Tennessee GOP primary is scheduled for Aug. 7, 2014.




(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

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Media bias and 22 years on death row

By Frank Moraes

I keep waiting to hear something about Debra Milke, the women who was wrongly convicted of having her son murdered 23 years ago. But I guess Maricopa County hasn't decided if they are going to retry her yet. Regardless, The Daily Beast published an article a bit more than a month ago that showed a lot of what is wrong with the media's coverage of our justice system, Death Row Debbie Milke Could Soon Be Free. The problem is not just the original reporting but this article itself.

Much of the article focuses on Phoenix journalist Paul Rubin. He reported on the trial at the time. And I find his whole approach to the case deeply troubling. He seems to see it more like theater than a criminal trial. For example, he said, "She was one of the worst witnesses I've ever seen." He added that when the prosecutor handed Milke her son's shoes for identification, "She just nodded." Oh my God! That is telling.

The Daily Beast writer, Terry Greene Sterling, added to this impression by noting that the misogynistic lying copy, Armando Saldate "had been a police officer for 21 years, and had testified frequently in court." So you see: it isn't that an injustice was done; this is just the kind of thing that happens to bad performers. If only Milke had learned her trade by testifying at trials for lesser crimes, maybe she could have competed with such a polished pro as Saldate.

The original journalist continues to wrong Milke (and Sterling willingly obliges). He noted that 22 years ago, Milke seemed "kinda flirty" during interviews. I don't even know what that means, but Rubin clearly thought it meant she was guilty. Now, I don't know what Rubin's or any other reporter's stories looked like. But I'm sure they were a lot heavier on innuendo about Milke and a lot lighter on Armondo Saldate's background. And that was kind of important given that the entire reason that Milke is currently on death row is his testimony that Milke confessed to him.

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A.M. Headlines


(Fox News): "NTSB recovers black boxes as it hunts for answers in Asiana Airlines crash that left 2 dead, injured dozens"

(New York Times): "In Wyoming, a Cheney run worries GOP"

(USA Today): "Wildfire experts call for more controlled burns"

(The Virginia Pilot): "Spokesman denies rumour Gov. McDonnell is resigning"

(Washington Post): "Dispute over PM in Egypt spurs fears of violence"

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