Daily Kos

This week in science: Perspective

rss@dailykos.com (DarkSyde) — Sat, 25 May 2013 13:00:14 UTC

A schematic of an iconic celestial object. To see it and a couple of its more exquisite cousin in full visible wavelength glory, click the image.

My skeptical peers and I were buoyed to see the hundreds of millions of people on earth who do not profess belief in religion given some positive attention in the media this week thanks to the Pope's hopeful statement on atheism. I'd love to see top-notch sites where this volatile topic is discussed, like FreeThoughtBlogs or Patheos, mentioned on air more often.

It's unavoidable for a science-blogger in this day and age to write on the conflict between modern science, some forms of fundamental religious dogma, and related political opportunism. But there's is always the risk a flame war might erupt between theist and atheist. Wouldn't it be more productive if we would look at our dedicated counterparts across the virtual and spiritual divide in comments below, and each in our way be thankful for Christians or Muslims, Jews or Hindus, atheists or agnostic etc., for invaluable help on issues of science, the environment, civil liberties and many others where we are far, far more united than divided.

NASA is making tentative plans to capture and move a 10 meter asteroid from interplanetary space to our neighborhood using revolutionary next generation thrusters:
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden dropped by JPL on Thursday to outline the agency's plans to capture an asteroid, and to look at a model of a powerful new ion thruster that has enough strength to drag a space rock into orbit around the moon.
Humans "benefited" from climate change is a dicey way to say it.
Egad! Homeopaths without borders does indeed exist.
Daily Kos diarist RL Miller on California Gov. Jerry Brown and his relationship with the fossil fuels industry.
For some inexplicable reason this makes me feel slightly better:
This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil ... It is a government that is more interested in keeping its corporate masters happy than in protecting the environment.

Open thread for night owls: Amy Goodman—Another Memorial Day in this endless war

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Sat, 25 May 2013 03:30:11 UTC

Independent investigative journalist Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now" and author of The Silenced Majority, a magnificent look at diverse groups of Americans engaged in resistance to plutocrats and jingoists. She wrote this column before President Obama gave his global war on terrorism speech Thursday; so she does not mention it. But what was said at the National Defense University by the president does not make any of her criticisms obsolete. There were, however, some encouraging words hinting at a fresh initiative that will move U.S. policy at least partway on some issues in a good direction. Words must now spark actions.

By Amy Goodman

In a remarkable but little-noticed oversight hearing last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee looked at “The Law of Armed Conflict, the Use of Military Force, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.” The 2001 AUMF is the act passed by Congress on Sept. 14, three days after the al-Qaida attacks on the United States.

 Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, opened his questioning of the military officials before him by stating: “Gentlemen, I’ve only been here five months, but this is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today.”   

King’s statement followed the questioning by longtime South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who recently pushed to have the Boston bombing suspect—a U.S. citizen accused of a violent crime on U.S. soil—named an “enemy combatant,” denying him his constitutional rights. Graham enjoyed unanimous agreement from the panelists to his series of questions: 

Amy Goodman

“Do you agree with me that when it comes to international terrorism, we’re talking about a worldwide struggle?” 

 “Would you agree with me the battlefield is wherever the enemy chooses to make it?”   

“And it could be anyplace on the planet, and we have to be aware and able to act.” 

 The message was clear from the Pentagon: The world is a battlefield.   

The AUMF reads, in part, “the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”   

Only one member of Congress voted against that 2001 bill. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said from the floor of the House of Representatives: “I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. ... Some of us must urge the use of restraint ... and think through the implications of our actions today, so this does not spiral out of control.” 

 Clearly, Sen. Angus King thinks things have spiraled out of control. As does journalist Jeremy Scahill, whose new book, “Dirty Wars,” is subtitled, “The World Is a Battlefield.” Scahill told me: “The concept of ‘The World Is a Battlefield’ actually is ... a military doctrine called ‘Operational Preparation of the Battlespace,’ which views the world as a battlefield. [If] the military predicts that conflicts are likely or that war is a possibility, [they] can forward deploy troops to those countries to prepare the battlefield. And under both Bush and Obama, the world has been declared the battlefield.” His film “Dirty Wars,” based on the book and directed by Richard Rowley, opens in theaters nationally this June. 

 Close to 12 years later, the AUMF remains in force, giving the Obama administration and the Pentagon carte blanche to wage war, to occupy nations, to kill people with drone “signature strikes,” based not on guilt but on a remote analysis of a suspect’s “patterns of life.” As these wars become increasingly hidden, it becomes even more important for journalists to go to where the silence is, to hold those in power accountable.   

Which is why the Obama administration seems to be waging low-intensity warfare on journalists at home, with dragnet surveillance of reporters to uncover protected sources, and targeting of whistle-blowers with unprecedented use of the espionage act. More than 100 prisoners at the U.S. base on Guantánamo are engaged in a life-threatening hunger strike. Most of them have never been charged and are cleared for release, but remain in that American gulag, with no hope, no change.   

Memorial Day, while for many not much more than a three-day weekend, will be marked by many solemn ceremonies. At the time of this writing, the most recent U.S. deaths in Afghanistan were two soldiers from the Pacific island of Guam, Sgt. Eugene M. Aguon, 23, and Spc. Dwayne W. Flores, 22, killed by a so-called improvised explosive device on May 16. Unreported by the Pentagon are the hundreds of soldier and veteran suicides, which now account for more deaths than combat. The backlog at Veterans Affairs, as of May 20, was more than 873,000 benefits claims pending, 584,000 of which were pending for more than 125 days.   

Thomas Paine wrote in the March 21, 1778, edition of his pamphlet The Crisis, “If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of willful and offensive war ... he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”

_{Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.}

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—Goopers can't handle the burden:

We already knew this, but it's nice to get confirmation anyway.

"It's extremely difficult to govern when you control all three branches of government," says Hastert spokesman John Feehery...

Given that 60+ percent think the country is going in the wrong direction, and that every decision made the last four years has been made by Republicans, we know that they can't handle the task.
So it's time to give Democrats a shot.
Incidentally, what Feedery is really trying to say is that it's tough to place blame on Democrats for the Republicans' shortcomings when they control all three branches of government.

Tweet of the Day:

History is considerably easier to revise than resubmit.
— @NeinQuarterly via Twitter for iPhone

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Economics Daily Digest: The real (student) debt crisis

rss@dailykos.com (Roosevelt Institute) — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:52:28 UTC

By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal

Click here to receive the Daily Digest via email.

Nobel winner: Cut student loan rates (USA Today)

Roosevelt Institute Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz says he backs Elizabeth Warren's plan to let students borrow at the same discount rate as banks because student debt is holding back our economy, especially compared to countries that are actually doing something about it.

Roosevelt Take: The Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network's policy report "A New Deal For Students" lays out concrete and innovative policy solutions from students to solve the student debt crisis.

Donors Urge Cuomo to Press for Public Financing of State Campaigns (NYT)

Thomas Kaplan talks to Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Ellen Chesler and others who feel public campaign financing is necessary to combat an unusual form of peer pressure—the kind the wealthy exert on politicians. According to Chesler, it's a moral issue.

In one chart: we have a demand problem, not a skills problem (Working Economics)

Heidi Shierholz looks at the unemployment and underemployment rates of college graduates under 25, and concludes that when even the young and highly educated have trouble finding jobs, the problem is pretty simple: No one is hiring.

America's Scandalous Underfunding of Community Colleges (Slate)

Matt Yglesias uses data on school spending changes to illustrate just how bad things have gotten at community colleges. Even with tuition hikes, they haven't been able to increase spending, which means they're forced to reduce services to our neediest students.

Black Unemployment Is Still Shamefully High (The Atlantic)

Jordan Weissmann knows the jobs crisis isn't close to over in the black community, where unemployment is both high and long-term. But Congress sees a string of decent jobs reports and a booming stock market and convinces itself the recovery is color-blind.

Food Stamp Cuts Backed By Farm Subsidy Beneficiaries (HuffPo)

Arthur Delaney points out the hypocrisy of lawmakers who receive significant subsidies for their family farms but feel the government doesn't have an obligation to feed the poor through SNAP. Anti-poverty programs: too costly. Photo op on a tractor: priceless.

Japan the Model (NYT)

Paul Krugman makes the case for Japan's current intense political efforts to turn around its economy, noting that no one else in the developed world is attempting stimulus on this level, and while it's too early to be certain, the signs look good that it's working.

New on Next New Deal

Michael Kinsley Gets It Wrong On "Austerians"

According to Mike Konzcal, austerians are setting eliminating the deficit as the only priority, while the rest of us see a bigger picture. Kinsley and other austerians are in a fantasy world where everyone saves, no one spends, and the economy improves without stimulus.

Apple launches iRomney

rss@dailykos.com (Jon Perr) — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:44:01 UTC

On Monday, Congressional investigators revealed that Apple has side-stepped billions of dollars in U.S taxes "through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen." Nevertheless, Tuesday's hearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations turned into an Apple love fest, with CEO Timothy Cook insisting to little opposition, "We pay all the taxes we owe—every single dollar."

Of course, if that line sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. After all, throughout the 2012 presidential campaign, private equity innovator turned GOP nominee Mitt Romney repeatedly declared, "I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more." As it turns out, both Apple and Romney used the same advantage in the tax code—the public subsidy that is the corporate debt interest deduction—to keep their profits high and their payments to Uncle Sam very, very low. Read more about this below the fold.

Banksters' lobbyists writing financial bills to water down Dodd-Frank

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:48:58 UTC

Maybe just to ensure that no bankster will ever face the slimmest possibility of being convicted and sent to prison, they're now writing the laws that would govern them, with the blessing of Republicans, of course.

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month—over the objections of the Treasury Department—was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.
In a sign of Wall Street’s resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)

They are also paying quite well for the privilege of doing Congress's work for it, or themselves, anyway. According to the Times, the financial services industry has doubled its campaign contributions, and the "lawmakers who this month supported the bills championed by Wall Street received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions compared with those who opposed them."

This isn't just a Republican thing, though it was probably easier for Wall Street to insert itself so completely in the process with Republicans. Plenty of Democrats are playing along, too, including most of them on the committee that passed Citigroup's bill. The freshmen among them were rewarded with a field trip to Wall Street in "a tour organized by Representative Joe Crowley," where they got to hobnob with Lloyd C. Blankfein and Jamie Dimon.

It's a good thing we've got the backstop in the Senate of Elizabeth Warren on the Banking Committee. Otherwise Congress would be likely to just sell the whole place off to Wall Street.

Steve King blames dirty wimp Ronald Reagan for Obama's eventual election

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:45:07 UTC

Hates Ronald Reagan

Now here's a conspiracy theory I've never heard before:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said Thursday that President Obama would not be president if it weren't for the 1986 amnesty bill that Ronald Reagan signed into law. […]
In an effort to dissuade Republicans, King argued that the 1986 immigration bill that Reagan signed into law is estimated to have brought amnesty to three million illegal immigrants.

He said conservative estimates show that, on average, each of these people brought in five others, leading to 15 million more people in the country, most of whom voted for Obama.

"[T]hey have to admit that Ronald Reagan's signature on the '86 amnesty act brought about Barack Obama's election," King concluded on the House floor.

"Don't be decent because it will hurt our party" isn't exactly a new refrain from King, but the rest? Are we now approaching that new, oft-predicted stage of Republicanism, the part where modern Republicans call Ronald Reagan a dirty stupid hippie and start calling each other "Reaganesque" as an insult? "You bastards want to be like Ronald Reagan and bring in millions upon millions of brown people to this country! It's already a giant pain in the ass to keep brown people from voting, and you want to add more? You damn liberal Reaganites." And then they all go defund cancer treatment for orphans or institute a new school lunch policy declaring adorable puppies to be one of the major food groups.

I've been waiting a long time for the day when the party would finally ditch Ronald Reagan himself as being a stain on true batshit crazy conservatism. I still thought it'd take a bit longer than this, though. Then again, I also never really thought "batshit crazy" would really become the GOP's dominant long-term electoral philosophy; predicting the direction these gasbags will float once you've untied their last mental strings remains a damn tricky thing.

Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY!

rss@dailykos.com (Bill in Portland Maine) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:30:13 UTC

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Late Night Snark: Impeachapalooza Edition!

"If you watch the news like I do, you know the Obama administration is embroiled in so many scandals that trying to pick which one to report on is like trying to pick which of your children to impeach. For the record, it’s the one who ate chips in Daddy's den."
---Stephen Colbert

"And that's how you write 'Darrell
Issa Will Never Be President.'"
-

"If they don't fix these crises pretty soon, honest to God, it could bring gridlock to a screeching halt."
---David Letterman
Clip of Peggy Noonan on Meet the Press last week: All three of these scandals makes a cluster that implies some very bad things. This is so broad. This IRS thing is something I've never seen in my lifetime.
Jon Stewart: Never in your lifetime have you seen a scandal this bad? What if a President secretly sold weapons to Iran in return for American hostages, and then used the proceeds to illegally fund a bunch of coked-up right-wing jungle rapists in Nicaragua? Ring a bell? Here's a hint: you worked in his White House as a high-profile speechwriter.
---The Daily Show (watch it in BruinKid's post.)

"Politics aside, should we be surprised that the IRS takes special attention to the tax forms of the Tea Party? Judging from the terrible spelling on their protest signs, attention to detail isn’t really their thing."
---Seth Meyers

According to a new survey, white Americans are more likely to see President Obama as angry than black Americans. After hearing about it, Obama got really angry, according to white Americans.
---Conan O'Brien

They spent the last five years claiming President Obama was weak and ineffective. Suddenly he’s Tony Soprano?
---Jay Leno

And two years ago:

"Y'know, there's a specific group of Americans out there whose name I won’t mention---but it begins with 'T' and ends with 'baggers'---and they have a habit of saying, 'I want my country back.' Well, I want my country forward."
---Bill Maher

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. It's the last one you're gonna get for a whole year. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Internal Wall Street pitchbook shows that you, the clients, are suckers

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:58:35 UTC

Do you despise Wall Street sufficiently yet? How about now?

An internal document, known as the “Golden Pitchbook” to senior brokers at John Thomas Financial, has been leaked and it is very, very sexist.

Sexism ain't the half of it. It's basically a manual on how to sell stocks modeled on how the biggest bastards of the used car industry might sell used cars, and is a fine demonstration of how similar the two worlds are. A part of the pitch book known colloquially at the firm as "Don't Pitch the Bitch" demonstrates how to push a client to hurry up and buy some stock without getting his wife involved:

“(Prospect) if you want to call me back so you can ask your wife if you can buy the stock, I will call my wife and see if I can sell you the stock, come on! You make business decisions daily without your wife.”
“Let’s face it, if you go home and tell your wife that you want to invest with a broker whom you don’t know very well, chances are you will be hit with a frying pan and spending the night on the couch. […]"

Alternatively, maybe you tease the client by … oh, hell, I don't even know what this is:

“Let’s face it, your first step is the hardest. I am not looking for a one night stand. You married your girlfriend right? Let me ask you a question, you met your wife, but you did not jump into bed with her on the first night did you? Of course not!! Maybe you held her hand or maybe even kiss. Well look, I am not looking to jump into bed with you or even get a kiss, I simply want you to hold my hand with 100 shares and [in] 3-6 months you are gonna (sic) want to get into bed with me quite frankly. I am not that guy [laugh]. So do the 100 shares not because it’s good for me, but because it is good for you.”

There's also tips on how to bully clients into buying a stock by claiming that time is running out on this hot deal, or by implying that the client is just a small fish and you're practically doing them a favor by letting them buy from you at all, what with all the bajillionaires you usually work with. Nearly all of it, in fact, it based on bullying the client. Here's the internal pitchbook for a high-profile Wall Street firm, and it reads like a how-to manual for telemarketing scams. Not that that there's much difference there.

Nothing about Wall Street exists to help the little guy. Nothing. It's all just a mechanism for extracting money from the less wealthy, from cities and states, and from entire industries to put into the hands of the very rich.

Open thread: 'Al Gore. Al Gooore,' says the cat

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Fri, 24 May 2013 22:00:10 UTC

Debt limit, budget fight fracturing GOP

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:20:19 UTC

The best political show in D.C. this week wasn't the IRS hearings, it was the GOP drama playing out sporadically on the Senate floor as four tea party bombthrowers, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Mike (me-too! me-too) Lee faced off against Susan Collins and John McCain over the budget. The four nihilists are blocking the Senate from naming the senators that will go to the budget conference with the House in the way the Senate has always done it, under unanimous consent. They are refusing to allow the conferees to be named unless the Senate votes in advance to bar the negotiators from raising the debt ceiling.

That's an unprecedented demand that set McCain off. Here he is on Thursday schooling Lee on how the Senate works.

"Perhaps the senator from Utah doesn't know about that—the fact that even if they did raise the debt limit, it could not become law because it doesn't go to the president of the United States," McCain said. "So again, maybe the senator from Utah ought to learn a little bit more about how business has been done in the Congress of the United States."

That's pretty representative of how this fight has been playing out all week. It also seems to be spreading in the Senate. Huffington Post has quotes from a handful of Republican senators who also are not happy with their new colleagues. Lindsey Graham, John Boozman, Jeff Sessions, Thad Cochran and Tom Coburn all expressed varying degrees of disagreement with the tea party tactics. Coburn even suggested that the four are posturing solely at the behest of the House crazies.

"It's all a political game," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told HuffPost, adding that he supported regular order. "This is a slowdown because the House wants a slowdown. As soon as the House doesn't want the slowdown, it will get released."

Meanwhile, as Greg Sargent points out, it's hard to see who other than fellow tea partiers in the House these guys are trying to appeal to: They remain out of step in all the polling, even with self-identified Republicans. It's certainly not going to endear these guys to the old bulls of the Senate, like McCain, that they are trying to turn their vaunted institution over to the rabble in the House.

No, the McCains of the Senate only want it to be obstructed and broken their way.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's staff has now verified that he knows a brown person

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:58:17 UTC

Please just stop talking for a while.

You may have heard of the odd exchange earlier this week in which Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett professed to not having any current Latino members of his administration, or at least none that he knows about, and invited folks to come suss out whether any in his staff were Latino and report back:

MODERATOR: Do you have staff members that are Latino?
CORBETT: No, we do not have any staff members in there. If you can find us one, please let me know.

MODERATOR: I am sure that there are Latinos that…

CORBETT: Do any of you want to come to Harrisburg? See?!

Fear not, however: After realizing just how strange that sounded, Corbett's staff has returned with a new list of brown people that Corbett has hired. Well, with one brown person. And that one brown person is the director of Corbett's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs, which is just kinda, well … really?

The reporter breaking the news that the governor's staff have indeed identified a Latino person in their midst, apparently after a day-long office search, says, "I would have published this sooner, but I was waiting for a response from Corbett's people confirming there's really no one else."

A memo to Pennsylvania Republicans: We're good, thanks. You can stop rummaging the office looking for ethnic people now. Seriously, please stop. Corbett's response was just a bit strange, that's all anybody was saying, but actually following up with the triumphant public identification of a Latino person has now well and truly entered the realm of creepy. Just … let's move on, shall we? I think it's best if we all just pretend this whole thing never happened.

E.W. Jackson explains why it's not fair to use his own words against him

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:06:07 UTC

E.W. Jackson, the whack-a-doodle running mate of the Virginia GOP's whack-a-doodle gubernatorial hopeful Ken Cuccinelli, defends himself from being tarnished by the statements he's made:

In an email sent to The Daily Caller this week, the running mate to Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli said “every one of those comments has a context and were spoken in my role as a minister, not as a candidate.”

Ah, okay then. As long as there's a context and he didn't say it as a candidate, then there was nothing wrong with saying this:

“Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was,” he said then. “And the Democrat party and their black civil rights allies are partners in this genocide.”

Nope, nothing to see there. Move right along, because, context. And you can go ahead and ignore all this and all this, because he wasn't a candidate. If you think he's an impossible fool for not just claiming that the three-fifths clause was anti-slavery but also a Constitutional amendment, then you're anti-religion because he said it as a minister.

In short, E.W. Jackson stands by everything that he's ever said, but none of it's relevant, and you shouldn't hold it against him, because when he said it, he didn't mean for it to be used in a context like a political campaign where it might interfere with his ambitions.

Midday open thread

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:00:11 UTC

Today's comic by Mark Fiore is Money Fer Nothin':
What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...
- The end of perpetual war, by kos
- Book review: Mary Pipher's 'The Green Boat,' by Susan Gardner
- A twist in the wind, by DarkSyde
- Book review: Barbara Garson's 'Down the Up Escalator,' by Laura Clawson
- The Race to Gracie Mansion, by Denise Oliver-Velez
- Catholic hospital mergers put women's health at risk, by Jon Perr
Brad Pitt and Markos, together in a slideshow like God intended.
If you've been drinking in a New Jersey bar and your drink seemed a little weak or funny-tasting, you probably weren't imagining things.
Buzzfeed's Max Blau has a great story on the fight for Wilcox County's first integrated prom, with a nice ending: In 2014, the school will sponsor prom, which means integration. That said, one of the organizers of this year's prom is reserving judgment:

I call Mareshia Rucker to ask when she heard about the decision and how she initially reacted. "Um...hold on just a second," she says before moving into a quieter part of her house. "Can you repeat that please?" I do. "No...actually...I...didn't...know that."
Rucker listens as I explain the school's brief message: Faculty, students, and parents will form a prom committee responsible for planning and fundraising at the beginning of next school year. Her initial excitement turns to leery skepticism. "I know the county that I live in very well," she says. "Even when they're forced to do certain things, people will still have their own preconceived notions."
Broadway vs. community theater: Why pastors and presidents are not CEOs:

Broadway is a business. Like any business, it wants to hire the best possible people for every role. So the Broadway production holds auditions in which some of the world’s best actors, singers and dancers compete to land a part in the show.
Casting doesn’t work like that at the community theater. Broadway starts with a list of roles to be filled, then selects only the very best people it can find to fill them. Community theater starts with the community — with everybody — and then tries to figure out how best to employ them, how best to manage the assembled ensemble so that everyone is able to participate and to contribute to the common goal.
Amazing how many totally not racist people say totally racist things, isn't it?

The pattern is unmistakable. Said golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, after joking that Woods shouldn't order fried chicken for the Masters champions' dinner: The comments were "misconstrued." Said comedian Michael Richards, after responding to a black heckler with a lynching reference and the N-word: "I'm not a racist." Said actor Mel Gibson, after claiming that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world: "I'm not a bigot."
Anthony Weiner kicked off his campaign for New York City mayor with a website featuring a picture of Pittsburgh. Oopsies! Fixed now!
This is not what we've always been told: Studies suggest women struggle more with monogamy than men.
Worse than Watergate? The ultimate White House scandal matrix.

GOP congressman outraged IRS didn't investigate how Harry Reid 'obtained' Mitt Romney's tax returns

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:15:19 UTC

Harry Reid's gambit continues to live on

Just when you thought you couldn't possibly get another laugh out of Harry Reid's claim that an anonymous source had told him Mitt Romney hadn't paid a single dime in taxes over the past decade, along comes this sublime moment from GOP congressman Paul Gosar during Wednesday's House Government Oversight Committee's IRS hearing:

REP. PAUL GOSAR (R-AZ): Are you aware that in July, 2012, Senator Harry Reid claimed Mitt Romney hadn't paid taxes for the last 10 years and claimed to have the information supporting that? Are you aware of that? I'm sure you are.
FORMER IRS COMMISSIONER DOUGLAS SHULMAN: I have a recollection of reading that in the paper.

GOSAR: Do you know how Mr. Reid obtained that information? Did you look into this?

SHULMAN: I -- I have no idea how he...

GOSAR: Doesn't that alarm you that -- all of a sudden, this pertinent information comes up, you're the head of this agency, and you're not asking questions? Shame on you. Absolutely shame on you.

Yes, shame on you Mr. Shulman! Shame on you, because when Harry Reid released that "pertinent information" the first thing the IRS should have done was to launch a probe into how Reid obtained it. If anything, Gosar went too easy on Shulman, because from the moment Shulman became of aware of Reid's obviously accurate and carefully documented bombshell, he should have put an entire team of investigators on the case. The fact that he didn't isn't just a scandal—it's a scandal that's probably even linked to Benghazi, which was (until now) the biggest scandal ever.

And while we're at it, The Onion today reports that the Obama administration is converting its drone fleet to taser drones. Who leaked that information? What were they trying to accomplish? And was Rand Paul a target? These are important questions about pertinent information, and if you don't want to get to the bottom of them, shame on you too! Absolutely, shame on you too!

Via Huffington Post

Unions target board members after they close nearly 11% of Chicago's elementary schools

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:30:52 UTC

Barbara Byrd-Bennett

Forty-eight of the 50 elementary schools the Chicago Public Schools board of education voted to close Wednesday will be shuttered in June. The other two will get short reprieves. For all but one of the schools the vote was unanimous. Most of the 27,000 students affected are black and Latino and all live in poor neighborhoods.

As they have for months, protesters objected to the closings Wednesday and tried to sit in at the meeting of the six-member school board. But security officers ushered them out. They aren't done with their protests yet, but they are readjusting their tactics:

A day after school officials approved shutting down 50 schools, the Chicago Teachers Union and community activists say they'll hold a voter registration and education campaign. The union is agitated that Mayor Rahm Emanuel, school board members and some lawmakers failed to listen to parents, teachers and others who called for the schools to remain open. [...]
Sonya Williams, a parent who had come to testify in defense of her school, said she understood the passion and the outbursts.

"It's just like going to a long funeral and no one will close the casket yet," she said. "The fate of your position, the fate of your job, the fate of your children are up in the air, and they're based on a few people making a decision."

The shutdown was the outcome pushed by the $250,000-a-year CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. She was hand-picked seven months ago for the post by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has had a contentious relationship with the city's unions and especially the teachers union, which went on strike last September. Since 1995, Chicago mayors have appointed school board members.

Byrd-Bennett was a controversial choice to replace the previous CEO. She had a hand in closing schools in Cleveland and in Detroit, a district where charter schools now make up 29 percent of the total. She also has served as "executive coach" for the "Broad Superintendent’s Academy." Founded by billionaire Eli Broad, the academy is part of a nationwide effort to privatize schools and bust teachers' unions.

The rationale for the Chicago closures, which have been hotly debated at numerous hearings and generated street protests, is the dwindling population of children of elementary school age. But, even though that population has fallen 145,000 in the past decade, only 30,000 fewer students are enrolled. The problem, said the mayor, the school board and Byrd-Bennett is underutilization of the elementary schools and a billion-dollar budget deficit.

Last week, parents filed two lawsuits that claimed that the closings violate the federal Americans With Disabilities Act and violate Illinois civil rights law by disproportionately harming minorities.

Tesla repays government loan, Republicans sniff

rss@dailykos.com (kos) — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:19:00 UTC

Who said government never helped create a job? There's 3,000 of them at this Tesla plant.

Good news for those who believe government should invest in next-generation green technologies that won't just help preserve our environment, but will make America industry a leader in that effort:

In a boost for the Obama Administration and controversial federal cleantech programs, electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors (TSLA) announced Wednesday it paid back its $465 million government loan nine years early.
The U.S. Department of Energy oversees $34 billion in taxpayer-funded loans for 33 clean energy projects, and Tesla is the first American car company to pay back its loan. The DOE loans came under fierce criticism from Congressional Republicans in the wake of the high-profile 2011 bankruptcy of Fremont solar manufacturer Solyndra, with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney calling Tesla a "loser" in a presidential debate last fall.

Republicans want to cede green tech to the Europeans and Chinese, but you'd think they'd at least be happy that the feds got their money back, with interest and other fees, from Tesla. But nope.

“When they’re picking all these losers, it’s nice for them to have one where they can point to,” Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who held a hearing last month on Fisker’s loan, said in an interview yesterday.

What did "picking" this "loser" get Americans, other than $12 million in interest-related profit? How about 3,000 jobs in California, hundreds more support jobs nationwide, and hints of a second assembly line in Texas. It helped an American company develop the benchmark electric-vehicle technology now licensed to Mercedes-Benz and Toyota for forthcoming electric vehicles by those companies.

Republicans want companies receiving government loan guarantees to fail. Why else complain when they don't? And they'll scream loudly that the $12 million taxpayers made from this deal won't offset the hundreds of millions lost from the Solyandra bankruptcies, the impending Fisker collapse, and a handful of others.

But those losses are no more significant than any venture capitalist's portfolio of failed companies. The idea isn't to bat 1.000. It's to seed innovation and find the next big hit. For venture capitalists, it's the next Facebook. For the government, it's ensuring that America plays a role in the economy of the future, and there's no doubt that electric vehicles are the future. We've already ceded solar energy to the Chinese and Germans. No need to surrender on more economic fronts.

For Republicans obsessed with "running the government like a business," you'd think this would be obvious to them. But regardless, Tesla is a hit, and it's a hit precisely because the government had the foresight to invest in the future.

And the punchline? The loan programs was a Bush-era program. If nothing else, Republicans should be happy that Bush finally has a success to his name.

In Iowa, Scott Walker says GOP should look to governors 'to move forward'

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:22:05 UTC

Tim Pawlenty, the Scott Walker of ~~2012~~2011, couldn't have said it better himself.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, offering something of a self-endorsement on Thursday night at Iowa's annual Polk County GOP fundraising dinner:

“We should look to our states, to our governors, to our state legislative leaders to show the pathway we take not only in our states but in our country to move forward,” the Wisconsin governor told more than 600 people in attendance at the annual Polk County GOP dinner. “Optimism, relevance, and courage I think are the three keys to success in 2014, 2016 and beyond.”

Walker has become a fashionable pick among some analysts as a 2016 frontrunner. The theory is apparently that being a mild-mannered Republican governor of a midwestern state that voted for Barack Obama is a recipe for success. Or, to put it a bit less charitably, the argument is that he's the Tim Pawlenty of 2016.

A bridge falling into the water and a vision for the future gone missing

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:44:52 UTC

In the wake of the I-5 bridge collapse, the authorities want you to know that "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete" don't necessarily mean "about to fall into the river." It's true! They don't. Necessarily. The Skagit River Bridge combined two problem categories: It was functionally obsolete, meaning built to outdated specifications, and it was fracture-critical, meaning that if one key part fails, the whole thing fails. It's believed that that failure of one part was triggered when an oversized truck hit the bridge at the wrong place.

So what are the lessons we should be learning about American bridge infrastructure? There's no doubt it's hurting, with tens of thousands of structurally deficient bridges needing tens of billions of dollars in repairs. Public construction spending as a share of GDP is not a pretty picture right now:

There's a strategy question paired with the funding one. The story of the Skagit River Bridge makes you wonder if we shouldn't be focusing on replacing rather than repairing many bridges. This bridge has been repaired repeatedly in recent years. So, uh, why is the government spending a bunch of money repairing a bridge that doesn't meet modern traffic needs, will fall apart when hit by a truck that apparently did not sustain all that much damage, and was at one point structurally deficient? Repair is cheaper in the short term, but aside from the long-term costs that can be racked up, it leaves us with bridges that are too narrow or don't have enough clearance. Lots of such bridges, along with lots of actively unsafe bridges.

It's completely of a piece with the narrow thinking and refusal to invest in the future that has plagued our government in recent decades. But at moments like this, that lack of vision for the future should be part of the discussion.

Thin-skinned Gomez: Markey is 'dirty and low…pond scum'

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:37:03 UTC

Republicans have found themselves another high-profile candidate who just is not ready for prime time, and certainly not ready for a state-wide run in blue Massachusetts. Gabriel Gomez proved that yet again Thursday when he responded to a question about whether his latest ad against Markey didn't show just a tiny bit of desperation in his campaign. To which Gomez replied with real desperation.

"You know I’ve got four young kids, and they gotta sit there and gotta see an ad with their dad—who served honorably, talk to anybody I served with—whether as a pilot or as a SEAL, anybody I worked with," Gomez said. "And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, like to put me up next to Bin Laden, he’s just gotta be called what he is. That simple."

You might remember that multiple fact-checkers have said that Gomez is pretty much lying about that. Markey has never compared Gomez to bin Laden; the ad in question used footage from an MSNBC interview with Gomez where he was defending a group that was trying to swiftboat President Obama over the bin Laden killing. A group, by the way, that Gomez says he wasn't a part of, even while he was acting as the organization's spokesman.

Maybe Gomez was a completely honorable Navy SEAL, but he's sure not an honorable candidate. And he's awfully thin-skinned for a tough guy.

Please contribute $3 to Ed Markey.

Karl Rove pretty sure Benghazi will be hurting the president anytime now

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:30:09 UTC

Karl explains the math. Good times.

I remember back when Karl Rove was considered some sort of election-bending genius. Now he's barely Fox News material. Here he is telling Newsmax (pfft) that just you wait, this Benghazi stuff is really gonna super-duper hurt the president. You know, because of all the probing questions Congress is going to be asking about it:

"These things will be corrosive. They'll eat away at the president's rating. We'll see it over time and, particularly, as Congress asks more questions in the weeks ahead."

In addition to being a straightforward cop to it being all about "eating away" at the president's rating, I think it's a bit charming that Rove is so dead sure that Congress can pantomime their way through this one in any manner that makes them not look like incredible twits. Benghazi!!! was already fighting hard to keep its exclamation points weeks ago, and was nearly disemboweled outright when Darrell Issa's Super Duper Witness Circus turned out to be a flaming bag of dog bidness left on his own front stoop. You've got to be seriously dedicated to the cause to pretend that Congress "asking more questions" is going to corrode anything other than America's already non-existent expectations of Congress shutting up and doing some actual work already.

Meanwhile, the rest of the village is pondering whether the House Republicans have already overreached on this one and how much of a price they may start paying for it. There's good evidence that's already happening, as recent polls have the president's approval rating increasing, not decreasing, and Republican approval ratings continue to plummet to unprecedented levels.

Not Karl, though. Karl's sure this is gold; Darrell Issa and the rest of the GOP superfriends just need to find some even more surprising questions. Questions, damn it! Saying we have questions will fix everything!

Report: Holder approved search warrant labeling reporter as a co-conspirator

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:45:28 UTC

NBC News National ~~Investigative Correspondent~~ Co-conspirator Michael Isikoff reports:

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.
The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs."

Assuming he shares the generally understood definition of what a journalist's job is, what President Obama said yesterday is entirely correct. The problem is that it's completely at odds with the legal rationale his administration used to obtain the Rosen search warrant.

It doesn't matter that Rosen hasn't been charged with a crime—the fact is that the search warrant accused him of criminal acts without giving him chance to respond to it before it was executed. That's pretty much the definition of being put at legal risk. Unless the guideline review renounces the tactic used in the Rosen case, the administration's policies will still be at odds with the principle articulated by the president.

Meanwhile, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes yesterday released a statement describing that administration's actions as "an attempt to intimidate Fox News." But while Ailes and his team will no doubt try to spin this into a partisan confrontation, the First Amendment doesn't say that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of The Fox News." Especially given the AP phone records subpoena, the issue isn't some sort of political witch hunt against Fox. Instead, it's that the government put its desire to stop leaks ahead of the Constitutional right to freedom of the press without even giving the press a chance to defend itself. That's a problem that needs to be fixed.

Money Fer Nothin'

rss@dailykos.com (Mark Fiore) — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:50:09 UTC

Be sure to follow @DailyKosComics !

Iowa, Maine struggling over Medicaid expansion

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:38:31 UTC

One Republican governor has finally given up his opposition to expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, while another is steadfastly fighting his legislature, vetoing an expansion bill.

The former is Iowa's Terry Brandstad who has finally signed off on a compromise the state Senate worked out. It's a variation of the privatized Arkansas model, in which the Medicaid money will subsidize the purchase of insurance either in a new state plan or on the new insurance exchange. Even with Brandstad's approval, though, the proposal faces two more hurdles: the state House and the federal government. Like Arkansas, it would have to obtain a waiver from the Department of Health and Human Service to use Medicaid funds in this way. A potential problem with the proposal is that it would require some of the 150,000 new recipients, who earn between 101 percent and 133 percent of poverty, to follow health directives from their physician or risk paying a percentage of their costs.

Then there's Maine, where crazy Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed the expansion passed by the Democratic legislature. The legislature linked the Medicaid expansion to a plan to pay the state's share of $484 million in debt owed to Maine's hospitals.

“Democrat leadership has spent the past week forcing this bill through the legislative process, over the objections of both Republicans and Democrats alike,” the veto letter reads. “This unadulterated partisanship tied two different issues together in a quest to force welfare expansion upon the Maine people. I have said all along this bill would receive a veto when it reached my desk, so this letter should be no surprise.”

So much for health care for 70,000 more Maine citizens. Democrats in the legislature have vowed an override attempt.

Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Welcome back, Tom Tancredo!

rss@dailykos.com (David Nir) — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:13 UTC

Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here.

Leading Off:

• CO-Gov: Aww yeah! Ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, whose maximally anti-immigrant zealotry makes him exactly who the Colorado GOP does not want as their standard-bearer, just declared that he's going to make a second run for governor. I admit I'm surprised at this turn of events, since Tancredo only first publicly mooted the idea last week, and even he said that he wasn't seriously considering the race. But Tancredo says he was motivated by Gov. John Hickenlooper's decision to temporarily stay the execution of a convicted murderer, as well as new gun safety legislation signed into law earlier this year.

It's immigration, though, where Tancredo has always shined brightest, and even if he doesn't capture the Republican nomination, he's very likely to pull the entire field rightward on the issue. That would be dangerous for whomever emerges with the brass ring. So far, the only other contender is Steve Laffey, the former mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island (yeah), though Secretary of State Scott Gessler may enter soon, too. Enjoy fending off Tom Tancredo, fellas.

Daily Kos Radio is NOT LIVE at 9am ET!

rss@dailykos.com (David Waldman) — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:30:09 UTC

In fact, Daily Kos Radio is not live at all today. But just in case you wish it was and happen to have missed yesterday's show, hit the play button below, close your eyes, and pretend:

We'll be back on the air LIVE again next Tuesday, following the Memorial Day weekend. Stay safe and stay low! There are a lot of guns in need of cleaning out there.

No deaths reported in Washington state bridge collapse

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:49:36 UTC

The collapse of a section of the I-5 bridge spanning the Skagit River between Seattle and Vancouver did not cause any fatalities, authorities say, though they plan to send in divers just to be sure. No deaths is excellent news. The fact that a large section of a major bridge fell into the river is less good news.

A truck with an oversized load is suspected to have hit the bridge:

According to KIRO, the white semi-truck that was being investigated by State Patrol troopers was marked with an oversize load sign and followed a pilot car southbound across the bridge.
"There was damage to the container's top right front corner—clearly from scraping something. However, it had surprisingly little damage overall," KIRO says. Investigators were measuring the truck, trying to determine its height and width.

Normally, of course, when a truck and a bridge collide, the truck gets the worst of it. A bridge collapse in the absence of an earthquake or truly catastrophic collision or such is always going to be a sign that the United States needs to reinvest in infrastructure, but this bridge, while not in great shape, wasn't rated among the worst:

The bridge was not classified as structurally deficient, but a Federal Highway Administration database listed it as being "functionally obsolete"—a category meaning that the design is outdated, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath.
The bridge was built in 1955 and has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, according to federal records. That is well below the statewide average rating of 80, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data, but 759 bridges in the state have a lower sufficiency score.

The collapse will require a detour, making travel between Seattle and Vancouver more difficult. But as we know from experience, it's unlikely to make Republicans in Congress say anything much more about infrastructure investment than "we can't afford it."

Abbreviated pundit roundup: Ending the state of perpetual war

rss@dailykos.com (Georgia Logothetis) — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:33:08 UTC

The New York Times editorial board examines President Obama's national security speech and stresses the importance of ending the current state of perpetual war:

President Obama’s speech on Thursday was the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America. For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future. [...] As frustratingly late as it was — much of what Mr. Obama said should have been said years ago — there is no underestimating the importance of that statement. Mr. Obama and his predecessor, President George W. Bush, used the state of war that began with the authorization to invade Afghanistan and go after Al Qaeda and others who planned the Sept. 11 attacks to justify extraordinary acts like indefinite detention without charges and the targeted killing of terrorist suspects.
While there are some, particularly the more hawkish Congressional Republicans, who say this war should essentially last forever, Mr. Obama told the world that the United States must return to a state in which counterterrorism is handled, as it always was before 2001, primarily by law enforcement and the intelligence agencies. That shift is essential to preserving the democratic system and rule of law for which the United States is fighting, and for repairing its badly damaged global image.

The Detroit Free Press editorial board chimes in too:

In an address remarkable for both its candor and its humility, President Barack Obama sought Thursday to limit the scope of his predecessor’s global war on terror, pivoting from a full-court campaign of military pre-emption to a new era of proportionality and political engagement. [...]
This page and others who criticized the Bush administration for overstepping its authority have expressed disappointment at the degree to which Obama has aped and even exacerbated the sins of his predecessor. That the president has followed this path with the tacit approval of lawmakers in both parties is no excuse; as Obama himself admitted Thursday, many Bush-era practices long ago outlived their usefulness. [...]

A single speech will scarcely bring about the sea change Obama seeks. But the shift in focus and tactics that he outlined Thursday is both worthwhile and long overdue, and America’s long-term efforts to contain terrorism can only be enhanced by its swift implementation.

Update-I-5 bridge over Skagit River collapses, cars with people in water

rss@dailykos.com (Lisa Lockwood) — Fri, 24 May 2013 02:51:01 UTC

From KOMO.News in Washington-

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. -- The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed Thursday evening, injuring a unknown number of people.
Both the northbound and southbound portions of the bridge dropped into the river sometime before 7 p.m., according to Washington State Patrol trooper Mark Francis.

Francis said several cars were on the bridge when it collapsed, and many are now in the water.

It's unclear how many people were injured or killed in the collapse.

This is a developing story that will be updated when more information is available.

And the inevitable:

Bart Treece with the Washington State Department of Transportation was unsure when the bridge was last inspected.

"All of our bridges in the area are pretty old," he said.

Open thread for night owls: Wheeler—Closing Gitmo is not enough

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Fri, 24 May 2013 03:30:09 UTC

Marcy Wheeler is the author of Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy. At Salon, she writes Obama admits "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare”—but fails to offer way out:

Four years ago, President Obama gave a seminal counterterrorism speech in front of the Constitution arguing we “uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe.” Today, amid controversies over his Administration’s killing of American citizens in drone strikes, efforts to break hunger strikes by Guantanamo Bay detainees who have long been cleared for transfer, and seizures of the call records of national security journalists, Obama tried to reclaim those cherished values in his fight against terror.

Marcy Wheeler

In a speech at the National Defense University, Obama tried to redefine that fight and at least rhetorically end the war. “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’”

In the speech, Obama proposed a number of policies that would return us closer to the values. He directed his aides to consider proposals—like a drone court or an additional Executive Branch review—to add oversight to targeted killing. He instructed Eric Holder to review Department of Justice guidelines “governing investigations that involve reporters” by July 12 (the only deadline in the speech). He even argued for the use of more foreign assistance rather than just military force in combating terrorism, though suggested people in both parties opposed such assistance.

Obama also promised to “engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing“ and threatened to veto any proposal that expanded this war. Obama has failed to make good on such veto threats in the past, and he made no mention of the Iraq AUMF, which remains in force two and a half years after the last troops were withdrawn from Iraq. So it remains to be seen whether his stated commitment to rework the AUMF will survive the political difficulties it has not in the past.

Obama’s most substantive proposals recommitted to closing Guantánamo Bay, a commitment that seemed to arise out of a focus on his own legacy. “[H]istory will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism, and those of us who fail to end it,” he reflected. […]

For all the answers Obama did offer today—some convincing, others not so much—ultimately some of the big questions remain.

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Torture: This shouldn't need to be said:

Let's put this straight right off the bat: favoring the use of torture is not a political position, it's a mental illness.

Any further discussion of torture should be unnecessary. However, since our our national media seems to be enthusiastically pimping depravity as a governing principle, we might as well point out that the guys that have been there, done that, seen the elephant show and lived to come home? They say it doesn't work, isn't worth it, and they want nothing to do with it.

If you need further evidence, check out Mike Ritz, a former SERE instructor who worked with our servicemen and women to prepare them for ~~harsh interrogations~~ torture, and who went on to found his own private "stress laboratory" where he could "use just about any technique" he had read about to "see what kind of results he could get." Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator who questioned prisoners in several locations, including Abu Ghraib. In other words, these are two people who have tortured other people, neither of them is shy about that fact, and they are willing to talk about that experience. Both men appeared on NPR's Tell Me More (audio link). The guys who have really done this stuff to actual human beings do not exactly back up the words of American's biggest Dick.

First off, they discussed the difference between what service people in the intelligence field had been trained to do, and what they were then asked to do by the Bush administration.

Tweet of the Day:

The fast food workers are told: "Get more education". The adjuncts are told: "What, you thought all that education would get you a job?"
— @sarahkendzior via web

On today's Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin on the lingering controversies and the variations in polling on the AP story. Also: the strange case of Josh Barro. On the IRS, Republicans now insist the President knew all about it, and if he didn't, that's evidence of a cover-up, too. Make your own untraceable AK-47 at a "build party." McCain looks to defuse a "nuclear option" showdown. Lamar! pretends not to see the difference between the ACA & Iran-Contra. A shocking chart on the shift in sources of federal revenues. "Why Private Schools Are Dying Out." When it comes to income inequality, the Medicis were pikers!

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Economics Daily Digest: Fearing the future

rss@dailykos.com (Roosevelt Institute) — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:49:00 UTC

By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal

Click here to receive the Daily Digest via email.

What’s in millennials’ wallets? Fewer credit cards (LA Times)

Emily Alpert talks to Pipeline Fellow Nona Willis Aronowitz about why young households are carrying less and less credit card debt. According to Aronowitz, it’s all about fear of an uncertain future.

Roosevelt Take: Aronowitz discusses why she thinks Millennials should be called the Crash Generation.

Why Suburban Poverty Is Less Visible and More Insidious (The Atlantic)

According to Emily Badger, suburban poverty is an incredibly isolating phenomenon. In areas where children play in back yards, not public playgrounds, and commuters drive instead of taking the subway, communal support for the poor all but disappears.

Elizabeth Warren Grills Treasury Secretary on Too Big to Fail (MoJo)

Erika Eichelberger characterizes Jack Lew’s response to Sen. Warren’s questioning on breaking up the biggest banks as nothing but avoidance. In the linked video, Lew sticks to name, rank, and serial number while Warren pushes for a direct answer on capping bank size.

How Budget Cuts Could Lead To Higher Costs From Tornadoes (Think Progress)

Bryce Covert reminds us that sequestration is still happening and is causing furloughs at the National Weather Service. The NWS warned residents of Moore, Oklahoma, about the tornado 16 minutes before it touched down, and we can’t afford to cut it much closer.

Fed Endorses Stimulus, but the Message Is Garbled (NYT)

Nelson D. Schwartz explains that it doesn’t look like the Fed will be cutting back its bond-buying program just yet. Bernanke’s testimony yesterday showed a sense of caution, despite the apparent signs of improvement in the job market.

Robert Kaiser on Dodd-Frank: ‘This example of Congress working also illuminated why it works so rarely.’ (WaPo)

Neil Irwin and Robert Kaiser discuss why no one would want to emulate the process required to pass Dodd-Frank, with months of negotiations for bipartisan support collapsing and the bill barely scraping by. Instead, we get no negotiation and no legislation, saving everyone time.

Why Obama’s Scandals Won’t Lead to Reform (Bloomberg View)

Ezra Klein points out the disconnect between who is upset about the policy problems raised by the IRS and AP scandals, and who wants to make a fuss about them. With those categories split, he doesn’t think we will see any changes in anonymous political spending through 501(c)(4)s or legislation to protect journalists and their sources.

U.S. Retailers See Big Risk in Safety Plan for Factories in Bangladesh (NYT)

Steven Greenhouse says major U.S. retailers are worried the accord that many European retailers have embraced will open them up to legal liability. Apparently the real risk isn’t sending workers into a death trap; it’s all the paperwork and billable hours that could result.

Fox and furious friends wanted DOJ to prosecute the New York Times

rss@dailykos.com (Jon Perr) — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:44:47 UTC

Throughout the tenure of George W. Bush, many of us to the left of center warned that unchecked presidential power was putting Americans' civil liberties in jeopardy. Now with the revelations that the Obama Justice Department seized AP phone records in one leak case and monitored a reporter's communications in another, some on the right are finally furious about infringements of our First and Fourth amendment rights. Apparently, all it took for this belated conservative change of heart was a Democrat in the White House and a Fox News reporter in the government's crosshairs. After all, when Americans learned of President Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, many of the same voices called for the prosecution of the New York Times. Then, Republican Sen. John Cornyn warned in a GOP talking point regurgitated by myriad conservative mouthpieces, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."

Word that the Justice Department obtained emails and phone records for James Rosen of Fox News after the publication of his June 11, 2009 story which references CIA findings from "sources inside North Korea" produced a torrent of criticism from the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other liberal voices. Over at Fox News, anchors and guests announced they were "appalled" at the "dangerous lunacy" of DOJ snooping on Rosen, calling it an unindicted co-conspirator "a huge assault on the First Amendment" (Charles Krauthammer) and "Big Brothers stuff" (Sean Hannity). Fox News executive vice president Michael Clemente issued a statement declaring:

"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

Of course, when Republican George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office, the shoe was on the other foot. And Fox News and its right-wing allies wanted to kick the New York Times' ass with it.

On Dec. 16, 2005, Eric Lichtblau and James Risen of the New York Times reported that President Bush had ordered the National Security Administration (NSA) to intercept Americans' overseas electronic communications without first obtaining a warrant as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Three days later, President Bush raged about what he deemed "a shameful act" that is "helping the enemy" and added "the Justice Department, I presume, will proceed forward with a full investigation." On Dec. 30, 2005, that investigation was announced, when White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy told reporters that the Justice Department department "undertook this action on its own" and that Bush had only learned about it from senior staff earlier in the day. Then in May 2006, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested on ABC News' This Week that the New York Times itself could face prosecution over its publication of the NSA domestic surveillance program story:

On the talk show, when asked if journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information, Gonzales responded, "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility."
He was referring to the 1917 Espionage Act, which made it a crime for an unauthorized person to receive national defense information and transmit it to others.

The next month, Deputy U.S. Attorney Matthew W. Friedrich told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Bush DOJ thought that journalists or "anyone" could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing classified information.

As it turned out, those words came as music to the ears of Fox News and the conservative commentariat. After all, as you'll see below, they had been cheerleading for the Bush administration to prosecute the New York Times for months.

Boy Scouts to allow gay scouts, but not gay scout leaders

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Thu, 23 May 2013 23:15:44 UTC

Zach Wahls announces the founding of
Scouts for Equality

Faced with the terrible, horrible, wrenching decision of whether to quit encouraging bigotry and allow gay scouts and scout leaders, the Boy Scouts decided to cut the baby in half and allow gay scouts, but not gay scout leaders:

“I’ve waited 13 years for this,” said Matt Comer, now 27, who was forced out of his scout troop at age 14 after he started a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school. Since the fourth grade, he said Thursday, he had dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout and was crushed when he was denied the chance.
“Today we finally have some justice for me and others,” he said. “But gay youths will still be told they are no longer welcome when they turn 18.” [...]

The vote was a bittersweet one for David Knopp, 86, who spent much of his life in scouting as a boy, as a professional staff member and later as a volunteer with a council in Connecticut. He had tried to keep his sexual orientation a secret but one day, he said, two scout officials said, “We found out you are a homosexual” and forced him out.

“I see this as a good step but with a lot of misgivings,” he said of the limited opening to gays.

Of course, even letting in openly gay scouts only to ban them on their birthdays is a bridge too far for some:

Epitaph: On this day, the Boy Scouts of America died, sacrificing their honor and the sexual integrity of young men.
— @BryanJFischer via Twitter for iPad

Expect an outcry from people announcing that they're pulling their sons out of the Boy Scouts—a noisily self-righteous contrast to the boys and men who've been forced by bigotry to leave over the years, slipping away one by one.

In 'seismic shift,' primary care physicians creating revenue for hospitals

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:46:56 UTC

Here's another shift in health care to go along with shrinking rate of growth in health care spending over the last few years: For the first time, primary care doctors are driving more revenue on a per/physician basis for hospitals than specialists. That's the finding in a new survey of hospital financial officers by physician recruiting firm Merritt Hawkins.

For 2013, the median revenue per primary care physician ascribed by about 3,000 hospital chief financial officers is nearly $1.6 million, and it is a little more than $1.4 million for specialists. In 2010, the last time Merritt Hawkins did such a survey, primary care was at more than $1.4 million, and specialties were at nearly $1.6 million. Specialists have outpaced primary care in Merritt Hawkins' survey, which began in 2002, continued in 2004 and has been conducted every three years since. The survey includes both inpatient and outpatient revenue generated for hospitals, and it does not give an aggregate total of the revenue generated by primary care and specialty physicians. [...]
“A seismic shift is taking place in medicine, away from specialists and toward primary care physicians,” said Mark Smith, president of Merritt Hawkins, in a statement. “Primary care physicians are increasingly employed by hospitals and in new delivery models, such as accountable care organizations. They are taking a greater role in driving both the delivery of care and the flow of health care dollars.”

Note that this is among physicians who are employed by hospitals, not independent providers. Researchers attribute much of the shift to the emphasis the Affordable Care Act puts on primary care, and the increasing role of primary care physicians in health care delivery because preventive services are now provided for patients with insurance without co-pays. Demand for these services is increasing, just as demand for primary care physicians will be increasing. Medicare provider cuts are also a factor. Not mentioned in the story, but another potential factor in the decline in specialist revenue is the recession and how people have curtailed spending because of it.

Given that the Affordable Care Act is going to create demand for primary care providers that will be a challenge to meet, it's good that these doctors are also increasing revenue for hospitals—that should drive more hiring and potentially better pay for these providers. Better pay could drive more medical school students into primary care instead of specialities.

Cleared of charges after explosion, Florida teen gets full scholarship to space academy

rss@dailykos.com (Jen Hayden) — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:21:45 UTC

By now you've heard about Kiera Wilmot. She's the Florida teen who was arrested for setting off a small explosion in her science class:

Kiera, 16-year-old junior, was arrested after the incident, which happened outside about 15 minutes before the school day began. No one was hurt, nor did she cause any damage.
The school's resource officer arrested her on two possible felony charges, possessing a weapon on campus and discharging a destructive device. Kiera was suspended for 10 days, sent to an alternative school, which she still attends, and told she faced expulsion.

Her headline-making nightmare hit one NASA veteran hard:

The explosion struck a chord with 18-year NASA veteran Homer Hickam, a former lead astronaut training manager for Spacelab, and later for the International Space Station.
In the late 1950s, Hickam had a brush with law enforcement for allegedly starting a forest fire. State police came to his high school and led him and his friends away in handcuffs, but his high school physics professor and school principal came to the rescue, clearing him of wrongdoing.

Hickam became determined to see Kiera Wilmot succeed:

"I couldn't let this go without doing something," Hickam said. "I'm not a lawyer, but I could give her something that would encourage her. I've worked closely with the U.S. Space Academy, and so I purchased a scholarship for her."

Great news! But it gets even better:

Learning of her twin sister, Hickam raised enough money so Kiera and Kayla could attend space camp together. Hickam runs several scholarships for kids with potential, and hopes to create an ongoing Space Academy scholarship. The twins will attend in July.

Both Wilmot sisters are headed to the Space Academy! Sometimes good things really do happen to good people. Three cheers for Homer Hickam!

Tennessee now evenly split on marriage equality; nearly 2/3 support benefits to same-sex partners

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:11:20 UTC

It's going to take a while, but the trends are clear:

A poll conducted this month for Vanderbilt University found that 49 percent of Tennesseans support gay marriage or civil unions while 46 percent are opposed to both, suggesting the state is now evenly divided on whether to extend legal recognition to same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, 62 percent of Tennesseans say health insurance and other employee benefits should be extended to the domestic partners or spouses of gays and lesbians. Thirty-one percent oppose the idea.

When the homophobes have lost even deep-red places like Tennessee, there's not much left for them. It also makes House Republican efforts to prop up the Defense of Marriage Act, which arbitrarily denies benefits to same-sex couples, look even more ridiculous.

Just when you think the GOP couldn't get any loonier, along comes E.W. Jackson

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:35:11 UTC

I love you, crazy ranting nutcase person.

Saints be praised, this guy is amazing. Aficionados of the GOP's new move towards abject batshit insanity have found a new poster boy in inexplicable Virginia lt. gov. nominee E.W. Jackson. He's Allen West, but more prone to irrational fury. He's Louie Gohmert, but more incoherent. He's Steve King and Michele Bachmann, but with the hatefulness dialed up to eleven and a half. How the hell is it that the Republican Party just discovered this loon now? I would have thought they'd have shaken every tree in the conservative nut orchard by now, but no. Here comes a new guy, and he's Akin to be worse. (Get it? Get it? Ha, it's been months since we could use that one.) No, this guy seems to have been specially cloned in a Republican Lunatic Candidate vat, and you don't want to even know what they pump into that thing.

Jackson seems to have no intention of pacing himself, either. Are we really going to have to have a Daily Jackson Roundup? Here's just the stuff brought up recently:

He says that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is just "claiming" to be Mormon. For folks like Reid, he says "they don't believe it or feel it in their hearts." Bonus points to EW for telling this to Glenn Beck, who otherwise would be reduced to interviewing soup cans in his kitchen.
He says that the federal government shouldn't be involved in disaster relief—and that he doesn't think there's "any constitutional authority to do it." Forget budget offsets, silly Sens. Inhofe and Cornyn—the new crazy Republican position is that states that face devastating natural disasters can get bent.
In 2009, he founded his own tea partyesque group called STAND. While the top issue of the hardcore social conservative group was to create a yearly American History Month, in part to help offset the "balkanizing" influence of things like Black History Month and Gay Pride Month, the second "top issue" was to call for "an end to the hyphenated American." That this made it onto the list before such social conservative mantras as the anti-abortion and anti-marriage-equality planks is odd, and the nice text at the top of his web page declaring Jackson as "Standing Up For The Judeo-Christian History And Values Which Made America Great" would be outright embarrassing, if that really were a hyphen there describing Americans. It's not, though—that's just an ant on your computer screen. That's another ant on his left-hand sidebar, which means you must have been eating at your computer again.
He's on Twitter, and it's exactly what you'd expect.
As for his history of spectacularly nasty rhetoric calling homosexuals "sick people," Democrats "slave masters" and Planned Parenthood "the Ku Klux Klan," etc., Jackson isn't backing down. "I say the things that I say because I'm a Christian," he told reporters, adding "attacking me because I hold to those principles is attacking every church-going person." Well, glad we've cleared that up. He also says, "I do not retract anything that I said."

So he's an ardent social conservative who's into rhetoric about how the other side is like the Klan, who doubts other people really are the religions they say they are, who doesn't believe the federal government should help disaster victims, who thinks gays are "sick" and "ikky" and who wants to unite some hyphens against the other hyphens in order to end hyphens, all the while saying that if you attack him for being a f--king insane hatemonger you're persecuting him and all his fellow Christians. Was I right about him being cloned in a GOP "batshit crazy" vat, or what?

Welcome, Mr. Jackson, to the Republican big leagues. Oh, you're gonna fit right in. And if the Republicans don't erect a statue to you in the next few years, I am almost positive the Democrats will do it for them.

What we need is a scandal big enough we could hang a "gate" on the end of it...

rss@dailykos.com (MattWuerker) — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:50:09 UTC

(Click for larger image)

Biggest GOP food stamp foe gets huge farm subsidies

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:45:14 UTC

Welfare recipient Stephen Fincher.

Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN) has been making a big splash with his supposedly Jesus-inspired opposition to the government helping to keep poor people alive by giving them food stamps. As could be totally expected, Fincher's Bible-quoting is highly selective and hugely misinterpreted, because that's what wingnuts quoting the Bible do.

Fincher should include in his Bible study the plethora of verses that address hypocrisy. Because, when it comes to where the funding in the Farm Bill is allocated, he's among the biggest.

Using Agriculture Department data, researchers at the Environmental Working Group found that Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican and a farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn., collected nearly $3.5 million in subsidies from 1999 to 2012. The data is part of the research group’s online farm subsidy database from which the group issues a report each year.
In 2012 alone, the data shows, Mr. Fincher received about $70,000 in direct payments, money that is given to farmers and farmland owners, even if they do not grow crops. It is unclear how much Mr. Fincher received in crop insurance subsidies because the names of people receiving the subsidies are not public. The group said most of the agriculture subsidies go to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country. These farmers have received $265 billion in direct payments and farm insurance subsidies since 1995, federal records show.

Fincher voted for $20 billion in cuts to the supplemental nutrition program over the next 10 years. He also voted to increase the farm subsidies he's on the receiving end of. It's likely that the bulk of Rep. Fincher's income is provided entirely by taxpayers, from these farm subsidies to his congressional salary. Flincher also, of course, is an enthusiastic supporter of Paul Ryan's budget that decimates social spending, presumably because he cares so much about the deficit. As long as the deficit cutting is happening to someone else.

He's also not much a true-believer when it comes to the sacred free market.

Fincher has said his farm would have shut down without the subsidies, which he argued protect American farmers from more heavily subsidized foreign competition. "We would be all for not having government in our business," Fincher told the Washington Post in 2010, "but we need a fair system."

He needs a fair system, but everybody else is on their own. Spoken like a true Republican.

Nashville charter schools 'lose' problem students to public schools—just in time for testing

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:00:10 UTC

If all you care about are test scores, one of the big advantages charter schools have over traditional public schools is that they don't have to take every kid who shows up. Charters can push out the weak students, leaving them for someone else to deal with. That certainly looks like what's happening in Nashville, Tennessee, where the eight schools with the highest net loss of students are all charter schools, WSMV's Dennis Ferrier reports. The only schools losing more than 10 percent of their students are charters, which are losing up to 33 percent.

The highly regarded national KIPP chain's Nashville school lost 18 percent of its students, a situation its principal says is unacceptable. Which it might be easier to believe he really meant if it wasn't such a common occurrence and if it didn't work out so well for his school:

[Metro Nashville Public Schools[ feels it's unacceptable as well, because not only are they getting kids from charter schools, but they are also getting troubled kids and then getting them right before testing time.
"That's also a frustration for the zoned-school principals. They are getting clearly challenging kids back in their schools just prior to accountability testing," said MNPS Chief Operating Officer Fred Carr.

Nineteen of the last 20 children to leave Kipp Academy had multiple out-of-school suspensions. Eleven of the 19 are classified as special needs, and all of them took their TCAPs at Metro zoned schools, so their scores won't count against Kipp.

Then those kids' test scores—the scores the charters didn't want to have on their records—get held against public schools. And we're told charters are such an amazing answer to all the problems our school systems supposedly have. If charters are so great, they should be great for all kids, not just the ones it's convenient for them to take.

(Via Diane Ravitch)

States that rejected Medicaid also have most uninsured, poorest health

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:30:20 UTC

Sadly, the states that have the greatest need to expand Medicaid also have the Republican leaders who are refusing to participate. That's according to an analysis from the Los Angeles Times, which states health data to determine levels of coverage and overall health status in the states.

Colon cancer deaths in states opposing Medicaid expansion, for example, are an average of 16% higher than in pro-expansion states, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of state health data.
Deaths from breast cancer are 8% higher on average in anti-expansion states. And adults under 65 are 40% more likely on average to have lost six or more teeth from decay, infection or gum disease. [...]

Yet most state leaders who are fighting the Medicaid expansion have advanced few alternative plans to tackle their states' health shortfalls. That means that, at least in the short term, America's unhealthiest states could fall even further behind as theAffordable Care Act is implemented.

"Many states may be missing a real opportunity to reduce some of the big differences we see across the country in health," said Cathy Schoen, a health economist at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund who has studied variations between states.

The residents of many of those states, those in the Deep South, would dearly love to see Medicaid expansion, a new survey suggests. Families USA polled in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina—all states where Republicans governors and legislatures have rejected the expansion—and found that 62 percent of respondents in those states support Medicaid expansion.

In minor McConnell cave on filibuster, Srinivasan wins confirmation in Senate

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:26:58 UTC

Sri Srinivasan

The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Sri Srinivasan to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with a 97-0 vote. The confirmation was essentially a shoo-in after he received a unanimous vote out of committee and has been more interesting because of the role it's had in the larger filibuster reform debate. And because it indicates that Mitch McConnell seems to be taking Harry Reid's reform threats seriously.

Reid and McConnell have disagreed about precisely when he should be officially confirmed. Reid wanted the vote this week. McConnell wanted to wait three business days—not a huge delay in most circumstances, but with the impending Memorial Day break it would’ve kicked the confirmation into early June.
So this week, Reid used the Senate rules to provoke a confrontation: Technically he filed cloture on Srinivasan’s nomination, guaranteeing him at least a test vote this week. More meaningfully, he forced McConnell to choose between sustaining a filibuster against Srinivasan through early June (a move that would have helped Reid build his case for changing the rules this summer) and agreeing to a confirmation vote now (effectively caving).

McConnell caved Thursday morning on the Senate floor. A small cave. But a cave nonetheless. Srinivasan will be confirmed Thursday afternoon. But the “cave” is only a small part of the story.

That part of the story is that McConnell takes Reid's threat to change the Senate rules over executive nominations seriously this time. That in turn indicates that he's concerned Reid might actually have enough Democrats on board to do it. Back in January, when a few Senate Dems were publicly undermining the ambitious reform plan from Sens. Harkin, Merkley and Udall, McConnell was largely quiet. He wasn't worried. Now he is. And he's giving Reid less ammunition to use to convince hold-out Democrats that they've got to use the nuclear option to get Obama's nominations confirmed.

But that still leaves the executive nominations of Richard Corday—which 43 Republican senators have vowed in writing to block—Elizabeth McCarthy, and Thomas Perez hanging out there, to be decided in July. With the stink Republicans have raised over these nominations, it's hard to imagine McConnell caving again.

We can't let Reid and the Democrats be complacent over this one vote. So we've got two jobs: getting Democrats on board with the nuclear option and keeping the momentum for reform going until July.

Use this link to send an email to your Democratic senators telling them to re-open filibuster reform and make the Senate function again.

Midday open thread

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:00:14 UTC

Today's comic by Ruben Bolling is The truth about the Nixonian presidency of Obama:
DHS scabs help undermine strike:
[T]here’s a 1-day strike today of non-unionized government contract workers who make low wages and who SEIU ultimately wants to organize. In ye olden days of the Gilded Age, the government would use federal troops to bust strikes. The Department of Homeland Security’s response to the strike? Serve as a scab force.
There's a need for a global minimum wage:
In America, we accept the minimum wage as a given. It enjoys broad support. It is the realization of an ideal: that there is a point at which low pay becomes a moral outrage. (Where that point is, of course, is up for continuous debate.) Do not mistake the minimum wage for some sort of consensus of nonpartisan economists; it is a moral statement by our society. A statement of our belief that the economically powerful should not have a free hand to exploit the powerless.
Yet we are all hypocrites. We protect ourselves with a minimum wage, while at the same time enjoying the low consumer prices that come with ultra-low wages being paid to workers abroad. Our own purchasing habits reward companies for paying wages that are sure to keep their workers in poverty for life.
Bike headlight projects grid that highlights bumps and potholes:
A team from the University of Sichuan won the Red Dot Design award for a concept design called "Lumigrid"—a bike-light that projects a grid on the ground ahead of the rider, making terrain irregularities easy to spot.
Cleveland kidnap hero gets free burgers for life:
More than a dozen Cleveland-area restaurants have offered Charles Ramsey a burger anytime he wants to stop by. Ramsey will receive a "Chuck Card" to get free burgers for life when he goes to any of the participating restaurants, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reports.
"We want to honor our local hero with local food," Scott Kuhn of Driftwood Restaurant Group told the Plain Dealer. Kuhn's group operates four of the restaurants participating in the offer. "He stopped his meal midway through to help those women. We're now making sure he has other opportunities to go out and fully enjoy his burger."
Liberalism, says young radical, is "well-intentioned" but "inadequate":
Maybe I wasn’t alone in looking for alternatives. A Pew Research poll from 2011 shows that more Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have a favorable opinion of socialism than of capitalism. We don’t know exactly what they mean by “socialism,” but it certainly reflects a discontent with what’s on offer in the political mainstream.
Time magazine publishes photos from Obama's senior prom:
These previously unpublished photos, obtained exclusively by TIME from Obama’s schoolmate Kelli Allman (née McCormack), show a 17-year-old Barack Obama on the night of his senior prom. [...]
Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. Greg Orme, a fellow varsity basketball player, was Obama’s constant companion. “They were like brothers,” says Allman. On prom night, the pair double-dated. Obama and his date Megan Hughes, a student at the Hawaii School for Girls at La Pietra, joined Orme at Allman’s house, where the two couples sipped champagne before going to the dance and then an after-party. “It was a really fun, happy time. We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling,” says Allman. “It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.”
Greek yogurt success has dark side. Maybe Little Miss Muffet could help:
For every three or four ounces of milk, Chobani and other companies can produce only one ounce of creamy Greek yogurt. The rest becomes acid whey. It’s a thin, runny waste product that can’t simply be dumped. Not only would that be illegal, but whey decomposition is toxic to the natural environment, robbing oxygen from streams and rivers. That could turn a waterway into what one expert calls a “dead sea,” destroying aquatic life over potentially large areas. Spills of cheese whey, a cousin of Greek yogurt whey, have killed tens of thousands of fish around the country in recent years.
A "new" Pearl Buck novel will be published:
The manuscript was stumbled upon in a storage unit in Texas and returned to the Buck family in December in exchange for a small fee, said Jane Friedman, the chief executive of Open Road Integrated Media, the publisher.
Buck, the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, is believed to have completed the manuscript for the book, “The Eternal Wonder,” shortly before she died of cancer in 1973, said her son Edgar S. Walsh, who manages her literary estate.
On today's Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin on the lingering controversies and the variations in polling on the AP story. Also: the strange case of Josh Barro. On the IRS, Republicans now insist the President knew all about it, and if he didn't, that's evidence of a cover-up, too. Make your own untraceable AK-47 at a "build party." McCain looks to defuse a "nuclear option" showdown. Lamar! pretends not to see the difference between the ACA and Iran-Contra. A shocking chart on the shift in sources of federal revenues. "Why Private Schools Are Dying Out." When it comes to income inequality, the Medicis were pikers!

Obama announces new policies on drone program in counterterrorism speech

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:55:08 UTC

One day after his administration publicly acknowledged that the U.S. drone program had killed 4 U.S. citizens, one of whom was specifically targeted, President Obama is scheduled to deliver a 2:00 PM ET speech at the National Defense University on the future of the program and U.S. counterterrorism policy more generally. According to the New York Times, which first reported the public acknowledgment, the president will announce policies that will curtail—but not discontinue—the drone program. According to the report, the president will also address efforts to close the Guantánamo prison.

You can watch the speech live in the video embedded at the top of this post. We'll post a copy of the president's speech when it becomes available.

11:03 AM PT: Here are the president's remarks, as prepared for delivery.

11:12 AM PT: Here's the administration's fact sheet accompanying the president's speech.

Nineteen House Democrats vote to take authority over Keystone XL decision away from the president

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:46:45 UTC

Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska makes a point
Wednesday about the bill he sponsored
to yank presidential authority for approving
the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

In statement after statement on the House floor Wednesday, Republicans clearly were tracking the same talking points on why representatives should vote for legislation to transfer to Congress the president's authority to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the Keystone XL pipeline. They might as well have been on the payroll of TransCanada, the pipeline's builder.

And they might as well have been playing tiddlywinks since President Obama has indicated that he will veto the bill that some have called unconstitutional if it makes it to his desk. With those 19 Democrats in tow, including eight of the 14 remaining Blue Dogs, all but one Republican voted for the bill, 241-175-1. As noted by Stephen Kretzman, executive director of Oil Change International, supporters have taken six times more campaign contributions from the oil industry than did the opponents, a total of $56 million.

The pipeline requires a presidential permit because it crosses an international boundary. The legislation would not change authority for approval of any other cross-boundary pipelines.

The Republicans at the podium Wednesday spouted permanent job numbers from the project as high as 20,000, long since debunked along with the 250,000 projected by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the million Foxaganda once claimed.

They noted that the State Department's March 1 supplemental environmental impact statement on Keystone gave a green light to the project without noting that the Environmental Protection Agency stated the SEIS had contained "insufficient information" to make a good decision.

They touted the alleged independence from OPEC oil that the United States would obtain from boosting the capacity of TransCanada to transport tar sands petroleum from the Alberta tar sands deposits to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. In a choice bit of hypocrisy, they did that even as they voted down an amendment by Democratic Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey that would have required all petroleum carried by the pipeline to be refined and sold in the United States.

They even talked ridiculously about how the pipeline would reduce the price of gasoline at the pump even though TransCanada itself said as far back as 2009 that the price of petroleum from the tar sands would rise by $3 a barrel, meaning so would the price of gasoline.

Among the several Democrats pushing back—including Holt, Henry Waxman of California, Peter DeFazio of Oregon—Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona called the bill a “reckless attempt to avoid environmental review.” Other Democrats even dared to bring up the impact the especially dirty product extracted from the tar sands has on climate change, a term which a large number of House Republicans believe or pretend to believe describes a hoax.

The outcome of the debate was preordained. The only variable from the outset was how many Democrats would vote for the legislation. Nineteen of them joined the all-but-one Republican (who voted "present") saying "aye." The legislation now moves on to the Senate. Whether it will reach there DOA or Majority Leader Harry Reid will decide to allow it to be considered is unknown so far. If it were to get a Senate vote, there is a chance it would be approved. Seventeen Senate Democrats previously have voted in support of the pipeline. But that was a symbolic vote. Fewer would no doubt vote to pull the president's authority over approval, but there might still be enough to pass the bill.

As noted, however, if it were actually to pass the Senate, there still wouldn't be enough votes to override a presidential veto. So, in reality, all the hyperventilating Wednesday represented little more than a tantrum by the congressional right wing. They had no problem offering a unique exception from long-standing rules to a foreign corporation by thumbing their noses at the processes mandated by the National Environmental Protection Agency and executive orders dating back to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 and reiterated by George W. Bush in 2004. Not exactly a surprise, but certainly more evidence of what they really mean when they talk about patriotism.

Below the fold is the list of Democrats who voted for the legislation.

•••

_{Liberty Fraternity Equality and Trees has a good discussion on the subject going on here.}

Multiple fact-checks of Gomez agree: He lies.

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:19:45 UTC

Gabriel Gomez isn't even "truthy."

The Boston Globe, in a news story, has already called out Massachusetts Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez for his dishonest new ad. Now the actual fact-checkers are on the case, and Gomez gets panned again. In essence:

Republican Gabriel Gomez falsely claims his opponent in the Massachusetts Senate race blamed him for the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and compared him to Osama bin Laden.

But that dishonest ad isn't the only fact-checking Gomez is failing on. On Monday, when Sen. John McCain stumped for him, Gomez used a line against his opponent, Rep. Ed Markey, that he's been using for a while to paint Markey as a do-nothing lifer in Congress, implying that he's been there for 20 years but hasn't passed a single bill that became law. That's bunk, says WBUR.

It’s, at best, a shaky attack,” says Norman J. Ornstein, a resident scholar at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute and one of the country’s most respected congressional observers. “I’ve watched Markey since he came to the House and I’ve written many times before that he’s one of the most effective legislators” in Congress. [...]
Markey pushed several measures over the last 20 years—designed to protect children’s privacy online, promote elder home care, and screen air and maritime cargo in the wake of 9/11—that landed in larger legislative packages signed into law.

President Obama also signed Senate legislation nearly identical to several bills Markey sponsored in the House. [...]

Markey is widely acknowledged as an architect of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which opened up competition in the industry and spurred the creation of broadband networks central to the growth of the Internet.

Bottom line: "Gomez’s claim that Markey hasn’t accomplished anything in the last 20 years doesn’t stand up to scrutiny." Gomez himself is increasingly not standing up to scrutiny. Although he is proving himself to be a typical Republican, and a good substitute for Scott Brown, who also had a rather loose relationship with facts.

Please contribute $3 to Ed Markey.

More evidence that scandalmania is taking a toll on the party of Nixon

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:30:10 UTC

If Boehner has to give that gavel back, then he'll really be crying

Yes, we know that Obama is Nixon, that the breakfast he had this morning is worse than Watergate, and that by the end of the summer he's going to be forced to resign, after which he will be forced to live in ignominy with William Jefferson Clinton, the last president to have been impeached by the Republican Party.

But in the meantime, let's enjoy the party, because as the latest ABC/Washington Post survey shows ... the GOP isn't enjoying the fruits of its scandal-exposing labors (RVs, 5/16-19, ±3.5 percent):

If the election for the U.S. House of Representatives were being held today, would you vote for (the Democratic candidate) or (the Republican candidate) in your congressional district?
Democratic candidate: 48
Republican candidate: 40

Democrats enjoy a whopping 56-33 edge among moderates, and while they get just 20 percent of the conservative vote, that's more than double the 8 percent of the liberal vote obtained by Republicans. Republicans have a miniscule 1-point edge among independents—41 to 40—but in 2010, they carried independents by a whopping 56-37 margin.

Also, as Greg Sargent notes, the poll contains more evidence that conventional wisdom about gun politics is wrong: In both red and blue states, more voters say they they would vote against a candidate who opposed expanding background checks to gun shows and the internet than say they would vote against a candidate who supported expanded checks. A total of 35 percent say they'd rule out a candidate who was against expanding checks compared with 14 percent who say they'd rule out a candidate who is for such checks. That helps explain why Republicans have been so eager to have it both ways on the issue, voting against expanded checks while simultaneously claiming that they support them.

Oklahoma tornado kicks off GOP fight over disaster relief

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:22:26 UTC

Sen. Tom Coburn's premature insistence that any disaster relief funding for his home state after this week's devastating tornadoes be offset has kicked off a big fight in the GOP.

Most other Republicans have said they don’t need offsets. A number of Republican senators, from Missouri’s Roy Blunt to Arizona’s John McCain, told reporters they won’t require offsets to vote for aid to help tornado victims in Moore.
But few of these senators were singing the same tune when New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut residents asked for financial assistance to help rebuild from the impact of superstorm Sandy. Two of the 36 votes against the major Sandy relief bill came from Oklahoma’s Senators Coburn and Inhofe. [...]

That has some prominent Northeast Republicans fired up. Congressman Peter King of New York, who fought passionately for aid for his home state after the storm, lashed out at Inhofe and Coburn, calling them hypocrites on Wednesday.

New Jersey Chris Christie, who also chastised his fellow Republicans for opposing Sandy recovery aid, supports sending aid to Oklahoma, insisting now is “not a time for political retribution” against Oklahomans. Christie urged his colleagues in Washington to provide” swift and immediate” aid to Moore on Wednesday.

The good news for Moore, and for FEMA, is that the relief fund has about $11 billion right now, plenty to cover the Oklahoma disaster. But there's still several months left in tornado season, and hurricane season hasn't even begun. That $11 billion may or may not suffice for the remainder of the year. Which means this Republican-on-Republican fight will likely be a prolonged one.

The only thing Boehner can't imagine is that Obama isn't guilty. Of something.

rss@dailykos.com (Jed Lewison) — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:15:09 UTC

House Speaker John Boehner can't imagine President Obama didn't know about the IRS investigation until it became public:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in an interview aired late Wednesday that it’s “inconceivable” someone didn’t inform President Obama about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.
“It’s pretty inconceivable to me that the president wouldn’t know,” Boehner said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Greta van Susteren.

And why can't he conceive of this?

“I’m just putting myself in his shoes. I deal with my senior staff every day. And if the White House had known about this, which now it appears they’ve known about it for about a year, it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t have come up in some conversation.”

Note that Boehner says the White House has known about the IRS probe for about a year, but according to the White House, they first learned about it in late April. No evidence has emerged suggesting that's untrue, which means that Boehner's explanation for why he can't imagine Obama didn't know is based on imaginary fact.

Adding to the irony, it turns out that House Republicans have known about the probe for roughly a year—the IRS Inspector General informed Darrell Issa and Jim Jordan of the inquiry last July. So, by Boehner's own logic, it's "inconceivable" that Boehner didn't know about the IRS inquiry, yet he remained silent. The logical conclusion from that flows from that "fact"—which was established by the first constructive law of inconceivability—is that House Speaker John Boehner covered up the IRS investigation.

Sure, those logical leaps are nonsense, but it's no different than what Republicans are doing here. Every day they have a new theory, but the end result of their theory is always the same: Obama is Nixon. Sure, as Steve Benen writes, when the IRS story first broke, Republicans accused President Obama of using the IRS as a political hit squad against his enemies. But that theory has been debunked, so now they are trying to accuse him of covering up knowledge of the investigation into the activities after the activities had been stopped.

Of course, this theory won't work, because even if the White House is lying (a claim for which there is no evidence), we know that Republicans were aware of the probe. Nothing was stopping them from talking about it publicly, but they didn't. But even though it's clear this latest Republican theory is going to go up in smoke, it doesn't mean they're going to stop arguing that Obama = Scandal = Nixon. It just means they've yet to imagine their next theory on why.

Initial applications for unemployment benefits improve to 340,000

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:19:15 UTC

After climbing sharply the previous week, seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 18 fell to 340,000, the Department of Labor reported Thursday. That was a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 363,000, originally reported as 360,000. For the comparable week of 2012, initial claims were 371,000.

The four-week moving average that flattens volatility was 339,500, down 500 from the previous week's revised average of 340,000. That's in the range of five-year lows.

For all jobless benefit programs, state and federally funded, the total number of claims for the week ending May 4 fell 98,540 to 4,745,266. For the comparable week in 2012, there were 6,168,434 persons claiming benefits. The drop is the result of people finding jobs or exhausting their benefits.

As a result of the budget sequester, jobless workers eligible for federally funddd emergency unemployment compensation will collect benefit checks that are 10 percent or smaller for the rest of the fiscal year. Moreover, several states have also reduced the maximum benefit payment. Some of the same ones and others have reduced the half-century-old standard duration someone can collect benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks or less.

Although the connection is by no means linear, a downward trending claims number is historically linked to an upward trend of new jobs created, as reported each month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the connection were linear, the number of new jobs reported June 7 for May would be slightly above the 165,000 announced last month. But anyone making bets on new jobs based on the benefits data could get the same outcome by flipping a coin.

While the "headline" unemployment numbers continue to improve, as they have every month for nearly three years, there are underlying problems—some of them chronic—that don't often make the news. For instance, the Economic Policy Institute reported this week:

Five years after the beginning of the Great Recession the unemployment rate for some minority workers is significantly higher than that for white workers in a number of states, including Texas, New Mexico, Michigan, Mississippi, and North Carolina.

In Michigan, Mississippi and North Carolina, the jobless rate for African Americans is more than double what it is for whites.

•••

_{h/t to another American for an important correction about whose compensation checks are being cut and for how long.}

The truth about the Nixonian presidency of Obama

rss@dailykos.com (RubenBolling) — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:50:10 UTC

Tom the Dancing Bug, by @RubenBolling.

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