Update on: Arizona's "papers please" law
It was sometime back that I spoke about Arizona's notorious law targeting undocumented workers, a law which had the effect of targeting for harassment anyone who looked Hispanic, even if they were born in the US and had lived all their life here. Even before it passed, the bill, numbered SB1070, became known as the "papers please" law.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down most of the law, leaving intact only the provision that police may check the immigration status of someone during the course of a lawful arrest. And that part is now the subject of a separate constitutional challenge.
I bring this up because in the course of the debate over SB1070, accusations were made that the law was driven less by concern over immigration and more by concern over the skin color of those immigrants. Supporters of the law of course vociferously denied this, although their repeated references to "protecting" and "sealing" the "border" didn't do much to dispel that notion. Now, however, we have proof that this law was - the polite form is "racially motivated," the more accurate form is racist.
The main sponsor and main force behind the bill was former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, a right-winger (no surprise there) who later got kicked out of office in a recall election, partly as a result of his efforts on this law. The ACLU of Arizona recently obtained thousands of emails Pearce sent during his time as Senate president and they make it absolutely clear the attitude driving it.
Here’s a sample of what the emails showed, and remember, these are quotes from Pearce's own emails:
"Last week, Denver’s illegal aliens sang our national anthem in Spanish and bastardized the words of OUR country’s most sacred song."
"Battles commence as Mexican nationalists struggle to infuse their men into American government and strengthen control over their strongholds. One look at Los Angeles with its Mexican-American mayor shows you Vincente Fox’s general Varigossa commanding an American city."
"They create enclaves of separate groups that shall balkanize our nation into fractured nightmares of social unrest and poverty."
"Corruption is the mechanism by which Mexico operates. Its people spawn more corruption wherever they go because it is their only known way of life."
"Tough, nasty illegals and their advocates grow in such numbers that law and order will not subdue them. They run us out of our cities and states. They conquer our language and our schools. They render havoc and chaos in our schools."
"We are much like the Titanic as we inbreed millions of Mexico’s poor, the world’s poor and we watch our country sink."
And finally,
"The new definition of racist is anyone winning an argument with a liberal, minority, pacifist, bible banger, or moron."
That is the man who pushed this bill.
When are we going to admit to ourselves that racism and bigotry is alive and - well, I don't want to say well because it's a sickness - but alive and thriving in our society and have been since the beginning? And not only against blacks. Hispanics are just the latest target of our isolationist xenophobia. We can trace it back generation by generation, group by group, target by target. Asians, Poles, Italians, Irish, Jews, Catholics: Any wave of immigrants that was in any way "different" - to be blunt, that wasn't a WASP - any time there was a wave of "different" people, we heard the same things: It's going to destroy the country, undermine it, these foreigners, they're dirty, they're filthy, they're all the rest of this nonsense. We can trace this right back to Native Americans, who weren't even immigrants.
Our record on this is a shameful one. It may not be the worst, it may not even be all that bad compared to other nations, that doesn't change the fact that it is shameful.
Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/immigration-ruling-shows-limits-of-states-rights.html
http://www.care2.com/causes/arizona-immigration-law-racially-motivated.html
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Left Side of the Aisle #70 - Part 3
Update on: Pennsylvania's voter ID law
I told you last week about the case in Pennsylvania challenging the photo ID law in that state. This is the case where Pennsylvania admitted even before the hearing began that the whole premise of the law was bogus because there was no evidence there had been in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and no reason to think there would be if the law was not enacted.
I said that a decision on the motion for an injunction against the law was expected soon. It was soon: It came out the afternoon of the day I recorded that.
Shockingly, Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson denied the request for an injunction on the grounds that meeting the requirements of the ID law was not "overly burdensome" for voters. Requiring a photo ID in order to vote, Simpson wrote,
What's more, he said - and this really struck me - that opponents of the law failed to establish “that disenfranchisement was immediate or inevitable” and - get this now - the law "does not expressly disenfranchise or burden any qualified elector or group of electors.”
In other words the law does not specifically say "this is intended to make it harder for poor people to vote." It does not specifically say "we don't want elderly people voting." And so because it doesn't "expressly disenfranchise" anyone, there is no problem with it.
In fact, here's something else about this: Simpson noted that the law already allows for absentee ballots and suggested some of the plaintiffs in the case could actually get an absentee ballot.
On the same day he cleared the path for this law to go into effect, the state government, the Tom Corbett administration, abandoned plans to make it easier for people to get absentee ballots. But, no, there is no intent to impact voting rights here. None at all.
Sources:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/judge_pennsylvania_voter_id_ruling.php
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20120817_Ruling_upholding_Pennsylvania__voter_ID_law_misplaced_its_sympathy.html
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20120817_Pa__drops_plans_for_2_online_initiatives_to_boost_voting.html?viewAll=y
I told you last week about the case in Pennsylvania challenging the photo ID law in that state. This is the case where Pennsylvania admitted even before the hearing began that the whole premise of the law was bogus because there was no evidence there had been in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and no reason to think there would be if the law was not enacted.
I said that a decision on the motion for an injunction against the law was expected soon. It was soon: It came out the afternoon of the day I recorded that.
Shockingly, Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson denied the request for an injunction on the grounds that meeting the requirements of the ID law was not "overly burdensome" for voters. Requiring a photo ID in order to vote, Simpson wrote,
is a reasonable, nondiscriminatory, non-severe burden when viewed in the broader context of the widespread use of photo ID in daily life.In other words, he's one of those people who can't - or simply doesn't want to - get it through their head that not everybody has a photo ID and not everybody commonly gets on a plane or checks into a hotel or even drives - especially in cities.
What's more, he said - and this really struck me - that opponents of the law failed to establish “that disenfranchisement was immediate or inevitable” and - get this now - the law "does not expressly disenfranchise or burden any qualified elector or group of electors.”
In other words the law does not specifically say "this is intended to make it harder for poor people to vote." It does not specifically say "we don't want elderly people voting." And so because it doesn't "expressly disenfranchise" anyone, there is no problem with it.
In fact, here's something else about this: Simpson noted that the law already allows for absentee ballots and suggested some of the plaintiffs in the case could actually get an absentee ballot.
On the same day he cleared the path for this law to go into effect, the state government, the Tom Corbett administration, abandoned plans to make it easier for people to get absentee ballots. But, no, there is no intent to impact voting rights here. None at all.
Sources:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/judge_pennsylvania_voter_id_ruling.php
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20120817_Ruling_upholding_Pennsylvania__voter_ID_law_misplaced_its_sympathy.html
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20120817_Pa__drops_plans_for_2_online_initiatives_to_boost_voting.html?viewAll=y
Left Side of the Aisle #70 - Part 2
Update on: LIBOR
On a somewhat positive note, I told you a few weeks ago about the scandal around LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered (or Offering) Rate.
Just a quick refresher: LIBOR is a daily interest rate set based on information from a group of international banks as to what it would cost them - what interest rate they would pay - on short-term loans they take from each other. The highest few and lowest few are tossed, the rest are averaged, and that is your daily LIBOR.
The importance of LIBOR is that the interest rates on trillions of dollars in financial transactions around the world are ultimately based on LIBOR - and there is clear evidence, in fact a confession from one involved bank, that the rate has been manipulated for the short-term benefit of those same banks.
The good news is that over the past few weeks, the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut have issued subpoenas to seven banks over the scandal. Subpoenas were issued to Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.
We're still waiting to see what the federal DOJ will do - but based on experience, don't expect much.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/banks-libor_n_1784535.html
On a somewhat positive note, I told you a few weeks ago about the scandal around LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered (or Offering) Rate.
Just a quick refresher: LIBOR is a daily interest rate set based on information from a group of international banks as to what it would cost them - what interest rate they would pay - on short-term loans they take from each other. The highest few and lowest few are tossed, the rest are averaged, and that is your daily LIBOR.The importance of LIBOR is that the interest rates on trillions of dollars in financial transactions around the world are ultimately based on LIBOR - and there is clear evidence, in fact a confession from one involved bank, that the rate has been manipulated for the short-term benefit of those same banks.
The good news is that over the past few weeks, the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut have issued subpoenas to seven banks over the scandal. Subpoenas were issued to Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.
We're still waiting to see what the federal DOJ will do - but based on experience, don't expect much.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/banks-libor_n_1784535.html
Left Side of the Aisle #70 - Part 1
Update on: DOJ will not prosecute Goldman Sachs
Last week, in the Outrage of the Week, I blasted the DOJ for its decision to not prosecute Goldman Sachs despite the clear evidence of massive fraud committed by the firm. I noted then that, quoting myself,
"If that isn’t fraud, Mr. Holder," Taibbi asked, "just what exactly is fraud?"
And Goldman Sachs is not the only recent example. The DOJ is apparently going to end its what it called an "investigation" into MF Global without filing any criminal charges. MF Global is - or was, it's now bankrupt - a brokerage and commodities company headed by former NJ Gov. Jon Corzine.
The company lost money - and I don't mean lost in a bad deal or as the result of a change in the market, I mean just lost, as in just can't find - some $1.6 billion in customer funds. That charge was that the investor's money was stolen and given to JPMorgan Chase in an attempt to cover MF Global's losses. But doggone it, our Justice Dept. just finds it too darn hard to prosecute a case like that. Instead, it has concluded that "chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the money to disappear."
Oh, well, I guess that's all right, then, and all those people who lost large amounts of money just should be grateful for the DOJ's diligent efforts.
Sources:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/ag-eric-holder-has-no-balls-20120815
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_%28finance%29
http://washingtonexaminer.com/judicial-watch-sues-sec-cftc-for-corzine-mf-global-docs/article/2504235#.UDR_6sWpOSo
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/no-criminal-case-is-likely-in-loss-at-mf-global/
http://my.firedoglake.com/masaccio/2012/08/16/jury-finds-mf-global-not-guilty/
Last week, in the Outrage of the Week, I blasted the DOJ for its decision to not prosecute Goldman Sachs despite the clear evidence of massive fraud committed by the firm. I noted then that, quoting myself,
the agency did grandly allow as how it would take another look if new information comes to light - that is, if someone else will do all the work of research and investigation and drop an air-tight case into their laps with such a loud plop that it can't be ignored.Apparently, I was not the only person thinking that. The same day I said that, Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog at Rolling Stone magazine that "AG Eric Holder has no balls." He wrote that
our prosecutors and regulators have basically admitted now that they only go after the most obvious and easily prosecutable cases. The only white-collar cases they will bring are absolute slam-dunks.How bad is this? Taibbi noted that the Congressional report Holder ignored included, for example, proof that in one case Goldman claimed, in writing, that it was fully "aligned" with the interests of its client, Morgan Stanley, because it held a $6 million slice of the deal. What Morgan Stanley wasn't told is that Goldman had a $2 billion short position against the same deal. That is, it had a few million invested in the deal - but stood to gain a couple of billion if it fell apart.
"If that isn’t fraud, Mr. Holder," Taibbi asked, "just what exactly is fraud?"
And Goldman Sachs is not the only recent example. The DOJ is apparently going to end its what it called an "investigation" into MF Global without filing any criminal charges. MF Global is - or was, it's now bankrupt - a brokerage and commodities company headed by former NJ Gov. Jon Corzine.
The company lost money - and I don't mean lost in a bad deal or as the result of a change in the market, I mean just lost, as in just can't find - some $1.6 billion in customer funds. That charge was that the investor's money was stolen and given to JPMorgan Chase in an attempt to cover MF Global's losses. But doggone it, our Justice Dept. just finds it too darn hard to prosecute a case like that. Instead, it has concluded that "chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the money to disappear."
Oh, well, I guess that's all right, then, and all those people who lost large amounts of money just should be grateful for the DOJ's diligent efforts.
Sources:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/ag-eric-holder-has-no-balls-20120815
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_%28finance%29
http://washingtonexaminer.com/judicial-watch-sues-sec-cftc-for-corzine-mf-global-docs/article/2504235#.UDR_6sWpOSo
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/no-criminal-case-is-likely-in-loss-at-mf-global/
http://my.firedoglake.com/masaccio/2012/08/16/jury-finds-mf-global-not-guilty/
Friday, August 24, 2012
Left Side of the Aisle #70
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 23-29, 2012
This week:
Various updates on earlier stories
- DOJ will not prosecute Goldman Sachs
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/ag-eric-holder-has-no-balls-20120815
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_%28finance%29
http://washingtonexaminer.com/judicial-watch-sues-sec-cftc-for-corzine-mf-global-docs/article/2504235#.UDR_6sWpOSo
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/no-criminal-case-is-likely-in-loss-at-mf-global/
http://my.firedoglake.com/masaccio/2012/08/16/jury-finds-mf-global-not-guilty/
- LIBOR
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/banks-libor_n_1784535.html
- Pennsylvania's voter ID law approved
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/judge_pennsylvania_voter_id_ruling.php
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20120817_Ruling_upholding_Pennsylvania__voter_ID_law_misplaced_its_sympathy.html
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20120817_Pa__drops_plans_for_2_online_initiatives_to_boost_voting.html?viewAll=y
- Arizona's "papers please" law
http://www.care2.com/causes/immigration-ruling-shows-limits-of-states-rights.html
http://www.care2.com/causes/arizona-immigration-law-racially-motivated.html
- Guns and mass shootings; the hypocrisy of the right
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/fbi_family_research_council_suspect_said_i_dont_li.php
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/family_research_council_says_liberals_gave_shooter.php
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/family-research-council-obama-administration-linked-to-shooting
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/family_research_council_shooting_splc.php
- NDAA and "indefinite detention"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/indefinite-detention-ruling_n_1749566.html
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/criminalizing_dissent_20120813/
Outrage of the Week: Treasury Secretary Erskine Bowles?
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/10/erskine-bowles-to-treasury-rumor-picks-up-steam/
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/09/obama-frustrated-he-doesnt-get-credit-for-wanting-to-cut-social-security-and-medicare/
Clarabell Award: Todd Akin and pregnancy
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/a-canard-that-will-not-die-legitimate-rape-doesnt-cause-pregnancy/261303/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#48732520
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8765248
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/akin-on-legitimate-rape-comment-i-misspoke
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/20/us-usa-politics-abortion-idUSBRE87J04A20120820
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Left Side of the Aisle #69 - Part 5
And Another Thing: Top 25 new words in Miriam-Webster's dictionary
Every year, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary adds about 100 new words or expressions. The company has just released a list of 25 of those 100 new words for this year, and I just thought it would be fun to run through that list with quick definitions of a few words that maybe people wouldn't know (or, to be more precise, I didn't).
Start with 21 new words or expressions:
aha moment
brain cramp
bucket list
cloud computing
Copernicium - a new element, named for Copernicus
craft beer
e-reader
energy drink
f-bomb
flexitarian - someone who usually doesn't eat meat or fish but might on occasion
game changer
gastropub - a neighborhood pub or bistro with really good food
geocaching - a game or sport where people use GPS to hide and find "caches"
life coach
man cave
mash-up
obesogenic - situations or conditions tending to create obesity
sexting
shovel-ready
systemic risk
tipping point
In addition to those 21 new words and expressions, there are new, additional definitions for four existing words:
earworm
gassed - really tired
toxic
underwater
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/fbomb-sexting-among-100-d_n_1774070.html
Every year, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary adds about 100 new words or expressions. The company has just released a list of 25 of those 100 new words for this year, and I just thought it would be fun to run through that list with quick definitions of a few words that maybe people wouldn't know (or, to be more precise, I didn't).
Start with 21 new words or expressions:
aha moment
brain cramp
bucket list
cloud computing
Copernicium - a new element, named for Copernicus
craft beer
e-reader
energy drink
f-bomb
flexitarian - someone who usually doesn't eat meat or fish but might on occasion
game changer
gastropub - a neighborhood pub or bistro with really good food
geocaching - a game or sport where people use GPS to hide and find "caches"
life coach
man cave
mash-up
obesogenic - situations or conditions tending to create obesity
sexting
shovel-ready
systemic risk
tipping point
In addition to those 21 new words and expressions, there are new, additional definitions for four existing words:
earworm
gassed - really tired
toxic
underwater
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/fbomb-sexting-among-100-d_n_1774070.html
Left Side of the Aisle #69 - Part 4
Voter ID laws: Attacks on the right to vote
I've talked before about attacks on The Commons, on the idea that we as a society are a community of shared interests and responsibilities, each to the other and to the whole. I've also discussed how that idea is under relentless attack by those who want to advance their own greed and selfishness and want to be freed from the idea of having any responsibility to or for anyone else.
I've also said that one form those attacks take are these voter ID laws, particularly the photo ID laws. These laws are an attack on the right to vote and they have disproportionate impact on the ability to vote among the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly. Three of those groups, when they do vote, often lean to the liberal side of things - and the fourth, the elderly, when it comes to things like Social Security and Medicare, will be on the liberal side as well. That is, these laws are an attempt to prevent people who might be more liberal from voting and so create a voting landscape permanently tilted to the right.
Put more directly, there is an organized effort by the right wing to permanently undermine our democracy and turn it into even more of a facade than it may well already be. If that charge seems overheated, just consider the facts.
First, there is the simple fact, so undeniable that even supporters of these laws don't bother to try, that these laws do have clearly greater impact on, again, the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly. There are multiple studies all concluding the same thing.
Then there is the equally simple fact, this one equally rationally undeniable but still denied by the rabid right, that the supposed problem these laws propose to address - in-person voter fraud - does not actually exist. In-person voter fraud means someone showing up at the polls, pretending to be someone else, and voting in their name. That is the only type of supposed voter fraud that these laws address - and that type of fraud is as close to non-existant as it's possible to get.
Again, there are a host of studies on this; I'm just going a brand new one. It came out this past Monday, August 13. It was done by News21, a nonpartisan investigative news project funded by the Carnegie and Knight foundations. Researchers there filed more than 2,000 public-records requests across all 50 states and reviewed nearly 5,000 court documents, official records, and media reports. They found a total of 2,068 alleged cases of voter fraud of all sorts since the year 2000, a period during which there have been more than 600 million votes cast in presidential elections alone. The study described that amount of fraud as "infinitesimal." It in fact works out to a rate of less than 0.0034% - a bit over 3/1000ths of 1 percent. The number of cases of in-person fraud? Ten. Ten out of over 600 million - a rate of less than 0.0000017%, or just under 2 millionths of one percent. Infinitesimal, indeed. And do not forget: These were cases of alleged voter fraud, not of proven voter fraud.
They also looked at the list of 375 claimed cases of voter fraud gathered by the Republican National Lawyers Association, only to find that most of them were just newspaper accounts of alleged fraud. In the list, News21 could find only 77 cases of alleged fraud by voters (as opposed to political parties, election officials, or others) which led to only 33 convictions. How many involved in-person fraud? None. Not one, not even one allegation. The GOPper list was crap.
In fact, the "voter fraud" myth is such a myth than when cornered, even the reactionaries will admit to it. Pennsylvania is one of 10 states that has a restrictive voter photo ID law. (The others are Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.) The state was sued over the law; the trial took place in July and a ruling is expected soon.
The thing is, before the trial began, in a stipulation agreement, Pennsylvania acknowledged there
But they want to have the law anyway. Why? Well, one argument is that made by Bill Denny, a state representative in Mississippi who sponsored his state’s voter ID bill, who said “Whether you have proof of it or not, what in the heavens is wrong with showing an ID at polls?”
Well, here's what's wrong: About 11% of eligible voters - more than 21 million people - don't have a current, unexpired government-issued ID with a photograph, and - no surprise - seniors, the poor, minorities, and the young are overrepresented in that group. In Pennsylvania, state election officials recently reported that more than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania, about 9.2% of the total number of registered voters in the state, do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department.
The governor's office insists that number is way off and most of those people have other forms of acceptable IDs. But even if the actual number with acceptable ID is half that many, a third that many, a quarter, a tenth - it would still mean that 75,000 people would be improperly denied their right to vote in order to prevent a crime that the state has admitted does not exist.
And according to a new study released just a few weeks ago from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, which studies voting rights, a half-million Americans in the 10 states with strict voter identification laws face serious challenges to obtaining the necessary photo documentation. Again, it is the poor who are the most affected, whose ability to vote is most at risk.
Legal precedent requires these 10 states to provide free photo ID to eligible voters who do not have one. But the fact is that a large number of eligible voters face real difficulties in obtaining that free photo ID. Problems of distance; lack of transportation; the money needed to get the documents to get the it's-not-really-free-then-is-it ID; the limited hours of many of the offices that issue the IDs. This November, states with restrictive voter ID laws will provide 127 electoral votes - nearly half of the 270 needed to win the presidency. The ability of eligible citizens without photo ID to obtain one could have a major influence on the outcome of the 2012 election.
But if even goes beyond that. I just mentioned something about the limited hours of offices issuing the IDs. A ridiculous example of that is that the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin - Governor Walkalloveryou's state - is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 - February, May, August, and October - have five Wednesdays. That is, this "free" ID-issuing office is open a total of four days all year.
There you have an example of another way the reactionaries are trying to make it hard for what they consider the "undesirable sort" to vote: Pretend to follow the rules, pretend to be fair, but just make it as inconvenient as you can possibly get away with for targeted people to meet the requirements you set.
Because it's not just about getting ID. Even if you have ID or even if you live in a state without a restrictive ID law, you can still face hurdles designed to hinder you. Consider Ohio. In 2008, Ohio had early voting to avoid the eight and nine hour-long lines there were in 2004, most of which occurred (gasp!) in minority areas. Well, perhaps prompted by those memories, minorities, who went heavily for Obama over McCain in 2008 and will likely do the same for Obama over Romney in 2012, disproportionately took advantage of early voting. So this year, guess what: Early voting has been cut back. Individual counties are now deciding whether to allow extended hours for early voting.
And isn't it amazing that of course by the purest of coincidences, heavily Democratic counties will see early voting hours limited to 8am to 5pm weekdays - while in heavily GOPper counties, hours will include evenings and even weekends. Live in a heavily Democratic county in Ohio, and it's just harder to vote.
Bottom line: These laws and these regulations are not about preventing fraud. So if they're not about preventing voter fraud - which they're not - and they're not about "protecting the integrity of the vote" - which they're not - what are these laws for? Mike Turzai, majority leader of the Pennsylvania House, told us in June. Speaking at a Republican State Committee meeting, he said the state's new voter ID law “is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
That's what these laws are about: They are part of a coordinated campaign to advance the cause of the rightwing, to cement their power and enshrine their greed and indifference to the needs of others, by undermining the basic human right of the vote. It is contemptible - and don't you ever forget it.
Sources:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/pennsylvania_gop_leader_voter_id_will_help_romney.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/mike-turzai-voter-id_n_1625646.html
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169284/ohio-early-voting-cutbacks-disenfranchise-minority-voters
http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-05/news/32537732_1_voter-id-new-voter-id-cards
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/voter-id-laws_n_1683274.html
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/the_challenge_of_obtaining_voter_identification
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/gop-voter-id-data-voter_n_1773142.html
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
I've talked before about attacks on The Commons, on the idea that we as a society are a community of shared interests and responsibilities, each to the other and to the whole. I've also discussed how that idea is under relentless attack by those who want to advance their own greed and selfishness and want to be freed from the idea of having any responsibility to or for anyone else.
I've also said that one form those attacks take are these voter ID laws, particularly the photo ID laws. These laws are an attack on the right to vote and they have disproportionate impact on the ability to vote among the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly. Three of those groups, when they do vote, often lean to the liberal side of things - and the fourth, the elderly, when it comes to things like Social Security and Medicare, will be on the liberal side as well. That is, these laws are an attempt to prevent people who might be more liberal from voting and so create a voting landscape permanently tilted to the right.Put more directly, there is an organized effort by the right wing to permanently undermine our democracy and turn it into even more of a facade than it may well already be. If that charge seems overheated, just consider the facts.
First, there is the simple fact, so undeniable that even supporters of these laws don't bother to try, that these laws do have clearly greater impact on, again, the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly. There are multiple studies all concluding the same thing.
Then there is the equally simple fact, this one equally rationally undeniable but still denied by the rabid right, that the supposed problem these laws propose to address - in-person voter fraud - does not actually exist. In-person voter fraud means someone showing up at the polls, pretending to be someone else, and voting in their name. That is the only type of supposed voter fraud that these laws address - and that type of fraud is as close to non-existant as it's possible to get.
Again, there are a host of studies on this; I'm just going a brand new one. It came out this past Monday, August 13. It was done by News21, a nonpartisan investigative news project funded by the Carnegie and Knight foundations. Researchers there filed more than 2,000 public-records requests across all 50 states and reviewed nearly 5,000 court documents, official records, and media reports. They found a total of 2,068 alleged cases of voter fraud of all sorts since the year 2000, a period during which there have been more than 600 million votes cast in presidential elections alone. The study described that amount of fraud as "infinitesimal." It in fact works out to a rate of less than 0.0034% - a bit over 3/1000ths of 1 percent. The number of cases of in-person fraud? Ten. Ten out of over 600 million - a rate of less than 0.0000017%, or just under 2 millionths of one percent. Infinitesimal, indeed. And do not forget: These were cases of alleged voter fraud, not of proven voter fraud.
They also looked at the list of 375 claimed cases of voter fraud gathered by the Republican National Lawyers Association, only to find that most of them were just newspaper accounts of alleged fraud. In the list, News21 could find only 77 cases of alleged fraud by voters (as opposed to political parties, election officials, or others) which led to only 33 convictions. How many involved in-person fraud? None. Not one, not even one allegation. The GOPper list was crap.
In fact, the "voter fraud" myth is such a myth than when cornered, even the reactionaries will admit to it. Pennsylvania is one of 10 states that has a restrictive voter photo ID law. (The others are Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.) The state was sued over the law; the trial took place in July and a ruling is expected soon.
The thing is, before the trial began, in a stipulation agreement, Pennsylvania acknowledged there
have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.Additionally, Pennsylvania
will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhereor even argue that
that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law.So even before the hearing started, Pennsylvania admitted the claimed basis, the whole claimed purpose, of the law is totally bogus.
But they want to have the law anyway. Why? Well, one argument is that made by Bill Denny, a state representative in Mississippi who sponsored his state’s voter ID bill, who said “Whether you have proof of it or not, what in the heavens is wrong with showing an ID at polls?”
Well, here's what's wrong: About 11% of eligible voters - more than 21 million people - don't have a current, unexpired government-issued ID with a photograph, and - no surprise - seniors, the poor, minorities, and the young are overrepresented in that group. In Pennsylvania, state election officials recently reported that more than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania, about 9.2% of the total number of registered voters in the state, do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department.The governor's office insists that number is way off and most of those people have other forms of acceptable IDs. But even if the actual number with acceptable ID is half that many, a third that many, a quarter, a tenth - it would still mean that 75,000 people would be improperly denied their right to vote in order to prevent a crime that the state has admitted does not exist.
And according to a new study released just a few weeks ago from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, which studies voting rights, a half-million Americans in the 10 states with strict voter identification laws face serious challenges to obtaining the necessary photo documentation. Again, it is the poor who are the most affected, whose ability to vote is most at risk.
Legal precedent requires these 10 states to provide free photo ID to eligible voters who do not have one. But the fact is that a large number of eligible voters face real difficulties in obtaining that free photo ID. Problems of distance; lack of transportation; the money needed to get the documents to get the it's-not-really-free-then-is-it ID; the limited hours of many of the offices that issue the IDs. This November, states with restrictive voter ID laws will provide 127 electoral votes - nearly half of the 270 needed to win the presidency. The ability of eligible citizens without photo ID to obtain one could have a major influence on the outcome of the 2012 election.
But if even goes beyond that. I just mentioned something about the limited hours of offices issuing the IDs. A ridiculous example of that is that the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin - Governor Walkalloveryou's state - is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 - February, May, August, and October - have five Wednesdays. That is, this "free" ID-issuing office is open a total of four days all year.
There you have an example of another way the reactionaries are trying to make it hard for what they consider the "undesirable sort" to vote: Pretend to follow the rules, pretend to be fair, but just make it as inconvenient as you can possibly get away with for targeted people to meet the requirements you set.
Because it's not just about getting ID. Even if you have ID or even if you live in a state without a restrictive ID law, you can still face hurdles designed to hinder you. Consider Ohio. In 2008, Ohio had early voting to avoid the eight and nine hour-long lines there were in 2004, most of which occurred (gasp!) in minority areas. Well, perhaps prompted by those memories, minorities, who went heavily for Obama over McCain in 2008 and will likely do the same for Obama over Romney in 2012, disproportionately took advantage of early voting. So this year, guess what: Early voting has been cut back. Individual counties are now deciding whether to allow extended hours for early voting.
And isn't it amazing that of course by the purest of coincidences, heavily Democratic counties will see early voting hours limited to 8am to 5pm weekdays - while in heavily GOPper counties, hours will include evenings and even weekends. Live in a heavily Democratic county in Ohio, and it's just harder to vote.
Bottom line: These laws and these regulations are not about preventing fraud. So if they're not about preventing voter fraud - which they're not - and they're not about "protecting the integrity of the vote" - which they're not - what are these laws for? Mike Turzai, majority leader of the Pennsylvania House, told us in June. Speaking at a Republican State Committee meeting, he said the state's new voter ID law “is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
That's what these laws are about: They are part of a coordinated campaign to advance the cause of the rightwing, to cement their power and enshrine their greed and indifference to the needs of others, by undermining the basic human right of the vote. It is contemptible - and don't you ever forget it.
Sources:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/pennsylvania_gop_leader_voter_id_will_help_romney.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/mike-turzai-voter-id_n_1625646.html
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169284/ohio-early-voting-cutbacks-disenfranchise-minority-voters
http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-05/news/32537732_1_voter-id-new-voter-id-cards
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/voter-id-laws_n_1683274.html
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/the_challenge_of_obtaining_voter_identification
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/gop-voter-id-data-voter_n_1773142.html
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
Left Side of the Aisle #69 - Part 3
Outrage of the Week: DOJ will not prosecute Goldman Sachs
Last week, August 9, the Justice Department announced that after a "careful review" it would not be prosecuting Goldman Sachs or its employees for financial fraud. There is no basis for a prosecution, the department declared.
This is despite the revelations in a Congressional report released jointly by Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn in 2011 as the result of a two-year investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That report singled out Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank as examples of Wall Street firms that reaped huge profits by marketing toxic securities as safe investments to clients, even as those same banks were betting against those very same securities - that is, were taking out insurance on them such that if the securities failed, they would collect - a fact they hid from their clients.
The charges in the report were based on thousands of internal company documents and e-mails, hundreds of interviews, and congressional testimony. Emails showed that even as the banks were pushing the securities as AAA-rated investments, internally they were calling them things like "junk," "crap," and "flying pig." There was that notable moment in the hearings when Levin persistently quoted one Goldman Sachs email that described one such deal as "shitty."
What's even more, Goldman had already agreed to pay $550 million to end a civil-fraud suit filed by the SEC, one which, again, involved Goldman deceiving clients about the actual worth of the investments it was pushing on them.
But none of that was good enough for the Justice Department. "Nope, just not enough. Nope." Something to note clearly here is that what the DOJ is saying is that there wasn't enough in the Congressional report for a prosecution. But that also means that the DOJ is saying it's not going to do any investigating about any of this on its own. The DOJ is not going to investigate financial fraud by the big banks.
The agency did grandly allow as how it would take another look if "new information comes to light" - that is, if someone else will do all the work of research and investigation and drop an air-tight case into their laps with such a loud plop that it can't be ignored.
Now all this might not be as much of a surprise as you think. Do you know what company was the source of the second largest amount of private contributions to the 2008 Obama for President campaign? It was Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan Chase was sixth, and Citigroup was seventh.
The beginning of last week, on August 6, a New York jury acquitted a former mid-level Citigroup official of financial fraud. The jury felt that the government hadn't proved his particular guilt and they believed he was being made a scapegoat for the entire industry. They concluded that he had structured the crooked deal the way his bosses told him to and wondered - and this is the key thing here - why this guy was on trial instead of the top executives of Citigroup, whose behavior was, in the words of the jury foreman, "appalling."
They felt this so strongly, and were so concerned that the acquittal would "send the wrong message," that they took the highly unusual step of issuing a statement along with the verdict. According to the foreman, Beau Brendler,
Hopefully. Because the American people know how crooked Wall Street is. We know how we have been screwed over again and again and will be screwed over again and again until it is stopped one way or another. And we know there have been no criminal prosecutions against Wall Street banks and executives a a result of them screwing us over again and again, in spite of the pain they inflicted on us, the losses of our jobs, our homes, our futures
And we know that the problem we face now is that the people in a position to do something about it also know - and they just don't care.
It is an outrage.
Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/justice-department-wont-prosecute-goldman-sachs.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/09/business/goldman-justice-department/index.html
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/justice-department-goldman-sachs-hook
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/brian-stoker-jury_n_1747218.html
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/s-e-c-gets-encouragement-from-jury-that-ruled-against-it/
Last week, August 9, the Justice Department announced that after a "careful review" it would not be prosecuting Goldman Sachs or its employees for financial fraud. There is no basis for a prosecution, the department declared.
This is despite the revelations in a Congressional report released jointly by Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn in 2011 as the result of a two-year investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That report singled out Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank as examples of Wall Street firms that reaped huge profits by marketing toxic securities as safe investments to clients, even as those same banks were betting against those very same securities - that is, were taking out insurance on them such that if the securities failed, they would collect - a fact they hid from their clients.
The charges in the report were based on thousands of internal company documents and e-mails, hundreds of interviews, and congressional testimony. Emails showed that even as the banks were pushing the securities as AAA-rated investments, internally they were calling them things like "junk," "crap," and "flying pig." There was that notable moment in the hearings when Levin persistently quoted one Goldman Sachs email that described one such deal as "shitty."
What's even more, Goldman had already agreed to pay $550 million to end a civil-fraud suit filed by the SEC, one which, again, involved Goldman deceiving clients about the actual worth of the investments it was pushing on them.
But none of that was good enough for the Justice Department. "Nope, just not enough. Nope." Something to note clearly here is that what the DOJ is saying is that there wasn't enough in the Congressional report for a prosecution. But that also means that the DOJ is saying it's not going to do any investigating about any of this on its own. The DOJ is not going to investigate financial fraud by the big banks.
The agency did grandly allow as how it would take another look if "new information comes to light" - that is, if someone else will do all the work of research and investigation and drop an air-tight case into their laps with such a loud plop that it can't be ignored.
Now all this might not be as much of a surprise as you think. Do you know what company was the source of the second largest amount of private contributions to the 2008 Obama for President campaign? It was Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan Chase was sixth, and Citigroup was seventh.
The beginning of last week, on August 6, a New York jury acquitted a former mid-level Citigroup official of financial fraud. The jury felt that the government hadn't proved his particular guilt and they believed he was being made a scapegoat for the entire industry. They concluded that he had structured the crooked deal the way his bosses told him to and wondered - and this is the key thing here - why this guy was on trial instead of the top executives of Citigroup, whose behavior was, in the words of the jury foreman, "appalling."
They felt this so strongly, and were so concerned that the acquittal would "send the wrong message," that they took the highly unusual step of issuing a statement along with the verdict. According to the foreman, Beau Brendler,
We were afraid that we would send a message to Wall Street that a jury made up of regular American folks could not understand their complicated transactions and so they could get away with their outrageous conduct. We also did not want to discourage the government from investigating and prosecuting financial crimes.The statement, read in open court, said
This verdict should not deter the S.E.C. from continuing to investigate the financial industry, review current regulations and modify existing regulations as necessary.Brendler said "It wasn't a particularly eloquent statement, but we hoped it would get a point across."
Hopefully. Because the American people know how crooked Wall Street is. We know how we have been screwed over again and again and will be screwed over again and again until it is stopped one way or another. And we know there have been no criminal prosecutions against Wall Street banks and executives a a result of them screwing us over again and again, in spite of the pain they inflicted on us, the losses of our jobs, our homes, our futures
And we know that the problem we face now is that the people in a position to do something about it also know - and they just don't care.
It is an outrage.
Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/justice-department-wont-prosecute-goldman-sachs.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/09/business/goldman-justice-department/index.html
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/justice-department-goldman-sachs-hook
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/brian-stoker-jury_n_1747218.html
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/s-e-c-gets-encouragement-from-jury-that-ruled-against-it/
Left Side of the Aisle #69 - Part 2
Clarabell Award: $60 million for high school football stadium
Allen, Texas, is a suburb of Dallas. Not long ago, it was a relatively small farming community but over the last 10 years it has developed into a site of high-end retail shops and entertainment. Its population has doubled to 84,000 and its median household income has risen to a hefty $85,000.
And like way too many places in Texas, they loves them some high school football; Texans will admit it's almost a religion in the state.
And so the city of Allen, Texas is about to open a new $60 million high school football stadium. It will have 18,000 seats, NaturalGrass Matrix turf, a 75-by-45 foot HD video scoreboard, a customized weight room, a press room, and private boxes that rival those of some college stadiums. It's being built in large part because it's held that the existing stadium, which holds a mere 14,000 seats, is not big enough.
It was funded from a $119 million bond package approved by 63% of voters three years ago. The head football coach at the Allen high school, one Tom Westerberg said "It shows that the people of Allen support their kids." I think it shows something else entirely.
What's more, Christian Herr, an architect who worked on the project, said he expects other towns now are going to be jealous and will want their own bigger stadiums.
This comes at a time when Texas lawmakers have cut the state's education funding by $4 billion. By the 2011-2012 school year, Allen was facing a $4.5 million budget shortfall and was forced to cut 44 teaching positions and 40 support positions.
Now, in fairness, the budgets for school operations and for the stadium construction were separate. And last fall, residents in Allen agreed to raise local property taxes to make up for the cuts from the state. So good for them on that.
But at a time when the state is cutting aid to education, when you're having to raise your own local taxes to keep from losing 84 teaching and support positions in your high school, at a time when Texas ranks 47th among states in SAT scores (and yes, I know all the problems with SAT scores, but they do provide some basis for comparison), for you to be spending $60 million on an 18,000-seat high school football stadium because the 14,000-seat stadium you already had wasn't big enough....
The people of Allen, Texas - in fact, all the towns in Texas that rate high school football above a high school education - you are clowns.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/dallas-suburb-unveils-new_n_1756434.html
http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/sat-scores-by-state-2011
Allen, Texas, is a suburb of Dallas. Not long ago, it was a relatively small farming community but over the last 10 years it has developed into a site of high-end retail shops and entertainment. Its population has doubled to 84,000 and its median household income has risen to a hefty $85,000.And like way too many places in Texas, they loves them some high school football; Texans will admit it's almost a religion in the state.
And so the city of Allen, Texas is about to open a new $60 million high school football stadium. It will have 18,000 seats, NaturalGrass Matrix turf, a 75-by-45 foot HD video scoreboard, a customized weight room, a press room, and private boxes that rival those of some college stadiums. It's being built in large part because it's held that the existing stadium, which holds a mere 14,000 seats, is not big enough.
It was funded from a $119 million bond package approved by 63% of voters three years ago. The head football coach at the Allen high school, one Tom Westerberg said "It shows that the people of Allen support their kids." I think it shows something else entirely.
What's more, Christian Herr, an architect who worked on the project, said he expects other towns now are going to be jealous and will want their own bigger stadiums.
This comes at a time when Texas lawmakers have cut the state's education funding by $4 billion. By the 2011-2012 school year, Allen was facing a $4.5 million budget shortfall and was forced to cut 44 teaching positions and 40 support positions.
Now, in fairness, the budgets for school operations and for the stadium construction were separate. And last fall, residents in Allen agreed to raise local property taxes to make up for the cuts from the state. So good for them on that.
But at a time when the state is cutting aid to education, when you're having to raise your own local taxes to keep from losing 84 teaching and support positions in your high school, at a time when Texas ranks 47th among states in SAT scores (and yes, I know all the problems with SAT scores, but they do provide some basis for comparison), for you to be spending $60 million on an 18,000-seat high school football stadium because the 14,000-seat stadium you already had wasn't big enough....
The people of Allen, Texas - in fact, all the towns in Texas that rate high school football above a high school education - you are clowns.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/dallas-suburb-unveils-new_n_1756434.html
http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/sat-scores-by-state-2011
Left Side of the Aisle #69 - Part 1
Good news: You can feed the poor in Philadelphia parks
I talked about this before; eight weeks ago, in fact, back in June. I was reporting the good news that Rhode Island had just passed the nation's first "Homeless Bill of Rights." As part of that, I mentioned how
Toward that end, more than 50 cities across the country have adopted anti-camping or anti-food-sharing laws. Bluntly, these cities are not trying to address homelessness and the problems of the homeless, they are trying to make them invisible so that the tourists and the rich corporate executives wouldn't be disturbed by the sight of such icky things as homeless people.
As one example of these laws, I noted how in Philadelphia, an ordinance took effect on June 1 under which even recognized charities cannot even feed homeless people in public places such as parks.
Well, there is some good news on that particular front. On Monday, August 13, Federal District Court Judge William Yohn issued a ruling blocking the Philadelphia law.
In Yohn's words, "It hardly needs to be said that plaintiffs' food-sharing programs benefit the public interest. Despite [the city's] considerable efforts, many Philadelphians remain homeless and hungry."
In a hilarious attempt to defend the law, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter - yes, that's his real name - has said the intention was to get homeless people indoors, so they could get other forms of help. Exactly how feeding people in a park prevents those same people from later going inside somewhere was not explained.
Not surprisingly, the appropriately-named Nutter administration has appealed the ruling.
Footnote: One of four charities that sued the city of Philadelphia over the ban is a religious charity called Chosen 300. The group continued feeding the homeless when the ban was in limbo and said it never had any intention of obeying the law. Reverend Brian Jenkins, head of Chosen 300 Ministries, said back in July that
Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/06/left-side-of-aisle-62-part-2.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/philadelphia-homeless-feeding-ban_n_1773438.html
I talked about this before; eight weeks ago, in fact, back in June. I was reporting the good news that Rhode Island had just passed the nation's first "Homeless Bill of Rights." As part of that, I mentioned how
this simple and humane legislation actually flies in the face of a trend in US cities to criminalize homelessness and things associated with homelessness- such as panhandling, sleeping outdoors, or being fed in a public place.
Toward that end, more than 50 cities across the country have adopted anti-camping or anti-food-sharing laws. Bluntly, these cities are not trying to address homelessness and the problems of the homeless, they are trying to make them invisible so that the tourists and the rich corporate executives wouldn't be disturbed by the sight of such icky things as homeless people.
As one example of these laws, I noted how in Philadelphia, an ordinance took effect on June 1 under which even recognized charities cannot even feed homeless people in public places such as parks.
Well, there is some good news on that particular front. On Monday, August 13, Federal District Court Judge William Yohn issued a ruling blocking the Philadelphia law.
In Yohn's words, "It hardly needs to be said that plaintiffs' food-sharing programs benefit the public interest. Despite [the city's] considerable efforts, many Philadelphians remain homeless and hungry."
In a hilarious attempt to defend the law, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter - yes, that's his real name - has said the intention was to get homeless people indoors, so they could get other forms of help. Exactly how feeding people in a park prevents those same people from later going inside somewhere was not explained.
Not surprisingly, the appropriately-named Nutter administration has appealed the ruling.
Footnote: One of four charities that sued the city of Philadelphia over the ban is a religious charity called Chosen 300. The group continued feeding the homeless when the ban was in limbo and said it never had any intention of obeying the law. Reverend Brian Jenkins, head of Chosen 300 Ministries, said back in July that
We're going to break the law, in the city's view we're breaking the law. In our view, it's the command of Christ.Nice to know some Christians actually understand what it is to be one.
Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/06/left-side-of-aisle-62-part-2.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/philadelphia-homeless-feeding-ban_n_1773438.html
Left Side of the Aisle #69
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 16-22, 2012
This week:
Good news: You can feed the poor in Philadelphia parks
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/06/left-side-of-aisle-62-part-2.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/philadelphia-homeless-feeding-ban_n_1773438.html
Clarabell Award: $60 million for high school football stadium
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/dallas-suburb-unveils-new_n_1756434.html
http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/sat-scores-by-state-2011
Outrage of the Week: DOJ will not prosecute Goldman Sachs
http://www.care2.com/causes/justice-department-wont-prosecute-goldman-sachs.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/09/business/goldman-justice-department/index.html
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/justice-department-goldman-sachs-hook
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/brian-stoker-jury_n_1747218.html
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/s-e-c-gets-encouragement-from-jury-that-ruled-against-it/
Voter ID laws: Attacks on the right to vote
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/pennsylvania_gop_leader_voter_id_will_help_romney.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/mike-turzai-voter-id_n_1625646.html
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169284/ohio-early-voting-cutbacks-disenfranchise-minority-voters
http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-05/news/32537732_1_voter-id-new-voter-id-cards
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/voter-id-laws_n_1683274.html
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/the_challenge_of_obtaining_voter_identification
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/gop-voter-id-data-voter_n_1773142.html
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
And Another Thing: Top 25 new words in Miriam-Webster's dictionary
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/fbomb-sexting-among-100-d_n_1774070.html
Friday, August 10, 2012
Left Side of the Aisle #68 - Part 6
Death of Mary Tamm, Romana #1
Mary Tamm has died of cancer, aged 62. I know the name won't mean a lot or even anything to most of you, but it means something to some of us. Mary Tamm was a British actress; she did some theater and some movies and a fair amount of British TV.
But to some of us, she will always be the first Romana, starring in Doctor Who during the Tom Baker era.
Romana's actual name was Romanadvoratrelundar, but the Doctor called her Romana because he said that in the event of danger, by the time he called out her whole name, it would be too late.
By all accounts, Mary Tamm was a very sweet, quite likeable person. So RIP, Mary Tamm.
Sources:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Romana
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18995370
Mary Tamm has died of cancer, aged 62. I know the name won't mean a lot or even anything to most of you, but it means something to some of us. Mary Tamm was a British actress; she did some theater and some movies and a fair amount of British TV.
But to some of us, she will always be the first Romana, starring in Doctor Who during the Tom Baker era.Romana's actual name was Romanadvoratrelundar, but the Doctor called her Romana because he said that in the event of danger, by the time he called out her whole name, it would be too late.
By all accounts, Mary Tamm was a very sweet, quite likeable person. So RIP, Mary Tamm.
Sources:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Romana
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18995370
Left Side of the Aisle #68 - Part 5
And Another Thing: Curiosity lands on Mars
Curiosity, the largest and most advanced spacecraft ever sent to another planet, made its extraordinary, multi-step, landing on Mars Sunday night (or Monday morning, if you prefer). Everything worked just as intended.
Curiosity now begins its two year mission focused on the question of if there ever was - or, quite improbable as it may be, is - life on Mars.
It joins a colleague on a distant part of the Martian surface, the rover Opportunity - which is now in the eighth year what was originally scheduled as a 90-day mission. If we have the same kind of luck with Curiosity as we've had with Opportunity, by the time of a hoped-for human landing on Mars in the 2030s, Curiosity may still be running.
Just two quick things I want to mention: One is that when you see the video, as I'm sure you have, of the excitement in the control room when touchdown was confirmed, you should remember that a lot of those people worked for literally 10 years for that moment.
And two, I have to show you this. I think it's one of the most extraordinary space photos ever. It was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. We have two satellites orbiting Mars. One of them was used to relay signals from Curiosity back to Earth so we knew what was going on. The other, the Reconnaissance Orbiter, took this shot. Note the white box toward the left end of the picture. In that box you can see Curiosity descending on its parachute, part of the process of its landing.
Seriously, majorly, cool.
Sources:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0806-mars-curiosity-rover-landing-20120806,0,2608752.story
Curiosity, the largest and most advanced spacecraft ever sent to another planet, made its extraordinary, multi-step, landing on Mars Sunday night (or Monday morning, if you prefer). Everything worked just as intended.
Curiosity now begins its two year mission focused on the question of if there ever was - or, quite improbable as it may be, is - life on Mars.
It joins a colleague on a distant part of the Martian surface, the rover Opportunity - which is now in the eighth year what was originally scheduled as a 90-day mission. If we have the same kind of luck with Curiosity as we've had with Opportunity, by the time of a hoped-for human landing on Mars in the 2030s, Curiosity may still be running.
Just two quick things I want to mention: One is that when you see the video, as I'm sure you have, of the excitement in the control room when touchdown was confirmed, you should remember that a lot of those people worked for literally 10 years for that moment.
And two, I have to show you this. I think it's one of the most extraordinary space photos ever. It was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. We have two satellites orbiting Mars. One of them was used to relay signals from Curiosity back to Earth so we knew what was going on. The other, the Reconnaissance Orbiter, took this shot. Note the white box toward the left end of the picture. In that box you can see Curiosity descending on its parachute, part of the process of its landing.Seriously, majorly, cool.
Sources:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0806-mars-curiosity-rover-landing-20120806,0,2608752.story
Left Side of the Aisle #68 - Part 4
Clarabell Award: commenters on story about racial slur
This week's Clarabell Award, given as needed for acts of meritorious stupidity, is a group award. But first I have to give you the necessary background.
Joseph Ross is a black man who lives in Dayton, Ohio. The first weekend in August he stopped in Sharonville, Ohio, on his way to Cincinnati, where he planned to attend the Macy's jazz festival.
He checked into a Motel 6, went to his room, and turned on the TV. It showed an in-house screen - you know, the kind of screen that comes up when you first turn on a motel or hotel TV; it shows something about services, the TV channels available, that sort of thing.
This time, however, it also included a greeting of "Hello Nigger!"
Ross complained to Motel 6's corporate office and the Dayton chapter of the NAACP and - note this well - WCPO, a TV station in Cincinnati, got video of the screen, showing the offensive message.
The police are also investigating the incident, saying they take it "very seriously." The corporation released a statement deploring the incident - while carefully noting it was an "isolated" case - and the motel gave him a better room.
Okay, so who are the clowns? They are a significant portion of people who commented on article online. When I saw it there were like 15 pages of comments; I just went through the first five. (Oh, and in what's below I corrected all the misspellings and such in the cited comments.)
In that space there were a number of people who attacked the Huffington Post for running the story. Apparently it had been up a couple of days and one person answered that question "Why are you still this? by saying
You'd be surprised - or perhaps you wouldn't be - at how many comments were along the lines of "They call each other this all the time. What's the problem?" One insisted "I actually think it was pretty friendly of them to greet him." Several others said it was "funny" or even "hilarious." Ross "got totallly upset over nothing, why so dramatic," wondered another. Apparently the concept of "context" is beyond these people's mental faculties.
Another commenter said this was just "the liberal press still trying to stir up some shit!" Still another said "I'm telling you. Racism has been rampant, since the President took office." (That one actually got a good comeback: "Yeah - President Washington.)
Many commenters said they just did not believe it. For example:
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/motel-6-racial-slur_n_1720762.html
This week's Clarabell Award, given as needed for acts of meritorious stupidity, is a group award. But first I have to give you the necessary background.Joseph Ross is a black man who lives in Dayton, Ohio. The first weekend in August he stopped in Sharonville, Ohio, on his way to Cincinnati, where he planned to attend the Macy's jazz festival.
He checked into a Motel 6, went to his room, and turned on the TV. It showed an in-house screen - you know, the kind of screen that comes up when you first turn on a motel or hotel TV; it shows something about services, the TV channels available, that sort of thing.
This time, however, it also included a greeting of "Hello Nigger!"
Ross complained to Motel 6's corporate office and the Dayton chapter of the NAACP and - note this well - WCPO, a TV station in Cincinnati, got video of the screen, showing the offensive message.
The police are also investigating the incident, saying they take it "very seriously." The corporation released a statement deploring the incident - while carefully noting it was an "isolated" case - and the motel gave him a better room.
Okay, so who are the clowns? They are a significant portion of people who commented on article online. When I saw it there were like 15 pages of comments; I just went through the first five. (Oh, and in what's below I corrected all the misspellings and such in the cited comments.)
In that space there were a number of people who attacked the Huffington Post for running the story. Apparently it had been up a couple of days and one person answered that question "Why are you still this? by saying
They will run it as long as they feel it will bring the country closer to a race war. Of course that is the NAACP's agenda also.The NAACP was another frequent target, with one calling it "nothing more than a black version of the KKK."
You'd be surprised - or perhaps you wouldn't be - at how many comments were along the lines of "They call each other this all the time. What's the problem?" One insisted "I actually think it was pretty friendly of them to greet him." Several others said it was "funny" or even "hilarious." Ross "got totallly upset over nothing, why so dramatic," wondered another. Apparently the concept of "context" is beyond these people's mental faculties.
Another commenter said this was just "the liberal press still trying to stir up some shit!" Still another said "I'm telling you. Racism has been rampant, since the President took office." (That one actually got a good comeback: "Yeah - President Washington.)
Many commenters said they just did not believe it. For example:
"He is just very unappreciating [sic]. Look at him we can see he came from a shelter; damn they just don't know how to act when greeted." [The photo, as I'm sure you realize, is of Joseph Ross.] ...But this was the one, the one that could have secured the award all by itself:
"This guy is on a set up from day one as he just happens to know an employee there." [When asked from where that knowledge comes, there was no response.] ...
"He is in it for the money grab."
Yes, I think it was one of his buddies who put it there, I cannot see a white person doing it, what would be the purpose for a white to do it?It's hard to imagine how someone could have sufficient brains to operate a keyboard and still be so out of touch with the world around them. But what is clear is that whoever this person is, they are the King Clown of a whole group of racist clowns.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/motel-6-racial-slur_n_1720762.html
Left Side of the Aisle #68 - Part 3
Outrage of the Week: blocking relief for homeowners
A recent study revealed that more homes are underwater than originally believed; "underwater" of course meaning you owe more on your mortgage than the property is worth. Roughly 16 million borrowers owe the banks $1.2 trillion for real estate value value that no longer exists.
The United Steel Workers Union did some projections from that study and found that more than 40 million people - about 13% of the population of the US - live in those homes, with total mortgages outstanding of roughly $4.8 trillion.
One of the ideas of dealing with that has been straightforward principal reduction - put a different way, the bank or whatever financial institution holds the mortgage simply forgives some of the debt, says you don't have to pay that part back. That reduces the burden on the homeowner, allows for lower monthly payments so that the home doesn't wind up in foreclosure, and can free up money for purchases in the broader economy, with the stimulating effect that brings. A broad principal relief plan, in fact, would be the equivalent of a massive economic stimulus program.
Most economists who don't work for or depend on the big banks think it's a good idea and studies back them up. Now the O gang - which so far has been somewhere between indifferent and hostile on actually helping homeowners - says it wants to do more on principal reduction.
But oh my oh dear what a shame, it just can't. Why? Because of Ed DeMarco.
DeMarco is the Acting Director of the FHFA, the agency which took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after their bipartisan-backed “privatization” led to an swamp of greed and incompetence. And DeMarco has just said flat-out "no" to the idea of any principal reduction for any Fannie or Freddie-backed mortgage. He just won't allow there to be any such help for struggling homeowners.
Well, you can just imagine the outraged response from the White House! Why, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote to DeMarco saying “I urge you to reconsider this decision,” while at the same time insisting "you have the legal authority to make this decision." Boy, I bet that sent DeMarco reeling.
DeMarco's argument - if you can call it that - comes down to an assertion that relief via principal reduction would ultimately cost taxpayers money, even though his own agency would come out ahead. Admittedly, that loss to taxpayers is possible, although it's hotly disputed. But as Paul Krugman has pointed out, deciding if debt relief is a good policy for the nation as a whole is not DeMarco’s job.
His job is to run his agency. And his agency comes out ahead on the deal. If the executive branch decides that it's in the national interest to spend some taxpayer funds on debt relief, if the decision is made that spending taxpayer money to provide relief and some sense of security in their homes to 40 million Americans is a good thing, DeMarco has no damn business deciding on his own to refuse.
So what can be done? Fire him!
Oh, but we caaan't, comes the whine. He's the head of an independent agency. We caaan't fire him. Well, first, he's the acting director. Obama could replace him at any time by appointing a permanent director. Oh, he couldn't get his nominee through the "Filibusters'r'Us" Senate? Then do a recess appointment! Or don't fire him, transfer him! Move him to the bureaucratic equivalent of Outer Slobovia! But do not try to tell me this guy can single-handedly stand athwart national policy just because he feels like stamping his foot and saying "no" like some petulant child and be untouchable.
But nothing will happen. Nothing will happen on the policy and nothing will happen to DeMarco. Why? Because when the TARP program was first getting started, Tim Geithner was making exactly the sort of arguments DeMarco is making now. DeMarco is not challenging what has been Obama administration policy, he's expressing it. And it is an outrage.
Sources:
http://blog.usw.org/2012/08/06/f-the-bureaucracy-the-white-house-can-help-homeowners-right-now/
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/why-firing-ed-demarco-is-no-solution-to-fhfa-refusal-to-engage-in-principal-modifications.html#xyIvFz4WfX0tyG7Z.99
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/01/why-ed-demarco-wont-be-fired/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/fire-ed-demarco/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/more-demarco/
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/08/06/tim-geithner%E2%80%99s-principal-hypocrisy/
A recent study revealed that more homes are underwater than originally believed; "underwater" of course meaning you owe more on your mortgage than the property is worth. Roughly 16 million borrowers owe the banks $1.2 trillion for real estate value value that no longer exists.
The United Steel Workers Union did some projections from that study and found that more than 40 million people - about 13% of the population of the US - live in those homes, with total mortgages outstanding of roughly $4.8 trillion.
One of the ideas of dealing with that has been straightforward principal reduction - put a different way, the bank or whatever financial institution holds the mortgage simply forgives some of the debt, says you don't have to pay that part back. That reduces the burden on the homeowner, allows for lower monthly payments so that the home doesn't wind up in foreclosure, and can free up money for purchases in the broader economy, with the stimulating effect that brings. A broad principal relief plan, in fact, would be the equivalent of a massive economic stimulus program.
Most economists who don't work for or depend on the big banks think it's a good idea and studies back them up. Now the O gang - which so far has been somewhere between indifferent and hostile on actually helping homeowners - says it wants to do more on principal reduction.
But oh my oh dear what a shame, it just can't. Why? Because of Ed DeMarco.
DeMarco is the Acting Director of the FHFA, the agency which took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after their bipartisan-backed “privatization” led to an swamp of greed and incompetence. And DeMarco has just said flat-out "no" to the idea of any principal reduction for any Fannie or Freddie-backed mortgage. He just won't allow there to be any such help for struggling homeowners.
Well, you can just imagine the outraged response from the White House! Why, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote to DeMarco saying “I urge you to reconsider this decision,” while at the same time insisting "you have the legal authority to make this decision." Boy, I bet that sent DeMarco reeling.
DeMarco's argument - if you can call it that - comes down to an assertion that relief via principal reduction would ultimately cost taxpayers money, even though his own agency would come out ahead. Admittedly, that loss to taxpayers is possible, although it's hotly disputed. But as Paul Krugman has pointed out, deciding if debt relief is a good policy for the nation as a whole is not DeMarco’s job.
His job is to run his agency. And his agency comes out ahead on the deal. If the executive branch decides that it's in the national interest to spend some taxpayer funds on debt relief, if the decision is made that spending taxpayer money to provide relief and some sense of security in their homes to 40 million Americans is a good thing, DeMarco has no damn business deciding on his own to refuse.
So what can be done? Fire him!
Oh, but we caaan't, comes the whine. He's the head of an independent agency. We caaan't fire him. Well, first, he's the acting director. Obama could replace him at any time by appointing a permanent director. Oh, he couldn't get his nominee through the "Filibusters'r'Us" Senate? Then do a recess appointment! Or don't fire him, transfer him! Move him to the bureaucratic equivalent of Outer Slobovia! But do not try to tell me this guy can single-handedly stand athwart national policy just because he feels like stamping his foot and saying "no" like some petulant child and be untouchable.
But nothing will happen. Nothing will happen on the policy and nothing will happen to DeMarco. Why? Because when the TARP program was first getting started, Tim Geithner was making exactly the sort of arguments DeMarco is making now. DeMarco is not challenging what has been Obama administration policy, he's expressing it. And it is an outrage.
Sources:
http://blog.usw.org/2012/08/06/f-the-bureaucracy-the-white-house-can-help-homeowners-right-now/
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/why-firing-ed-demarco-is-no-solution-to-fhfa-refusal-to-engage-in-principal-modifications.html#xyIvFz4WfX0tyG7Z.99
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/01/why-ed-demarco-wont-be-fired/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/fire-ed-demarco/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/more-demarco/
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/08/06/tim-geithner%E2%80%99s-principal-hypocrisy/
Left Side of the Aisle #68 - Part 2
67th anniversary of bombing of Hiroshima
Monday was August 6. Not too many people, at least not too many in the US, make note of the day anymore. We used to back in the '60s but not much now. But in Japan, they still do. Monday was the 67th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Early on the morning of August 6th, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress bomber nicknamed "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island in the Pacific, headed for Hiroshima, a city of about 250,000 people. It carried a single bomb, codenamed "Little Boy." At 8:15 am local time, Little Boy was dropped.
I want to pause for a moment to give you a sense of the kind of power we are talking about here. The bomb contained 64 kilograms - about 141 pounds - of highly-enriched, fissionable uranium. Of that amount, only about .7 kilogram, or about 1.5 pounds, actually fissioned - that is, split - and only about 600 milligrams was converted into energy. That 600 milligrams equals six-tenths of a gram, or a little more than 1/50 ounce.
The energy released was enough to do this. It had the explosive force of 14,000 tons of dynamite. Around 70,000 people died instantly; some of them were literally vaporized. Another 70,000 died by 1950 due to injuries, radiation poisoning, and cancer.
Just three days later, another nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, with tens of thousands more dead and another city destroyed.
I'm not going to get into the history of the decision to drop the bomb, I don't have time here. If you want to debate it with me, fine. But I will say that the bombing of Hiroshima was quite likely the second biggest war crime the US has ever committed. It was a crime because the bombing was unnecessary. Before - before - the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan was so thoroughly defeated that it had already offered to surrender. But there was one condition: Japan wanted to be allowed to keep its emperor. The Truman administration rejected the offer because it wasn't "unconditional" - only to, after the bombing of Nagasaki, accept a surrender on essentially the same terms it had rejected before, including retention of the emperor. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gained nothing in terms of surrender terms.
But you may think that's the past, nuclear weapons are no longer an issue - except, of course, when it involves fear mongering about Iran. You'd be wrong.
There are today eight known nuclear powers: Russia, United States, France, China, the UK, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. In addition, Israel is universally believed to possess at least a few score nuclear weapons but refuses to admit it. Estimates are that there are today about 4,400 nuclear weapons deployed and ready; most of those, but not all, are held by the US and Russia. Add up the reserves and the stockpiles, and we are talking about around 11,500 nuclear weapons in the world today, weapons that make the Hiroshima bomb look like a popgun next to a howitzer.
This is not an issue whose time has passed.
Footnote: I called Hiroshima the second greatest war crime the US had committed. What was the first? Nagasaki, which was even less necessary than the unnecessary bombing of Hiroshima and occurred only because the military, unwilling to wait to see Japan's reaction to the first bomb, was rushing to get in another strike before a predicted run of bad weather and the sky over the main target was too cloudy. That's why Nagasaki was bombed.
Sources:
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/08/06/hiroshima-marks-67th-anniversary-of-a-bomb-attack
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/hiroshima_64_years_ago.html
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html
http://www.doug-long.com/summary.htm
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/08/60.html
Monday was August 6. Not too many people, at least not too many in the US, make note of the day anymore. We used to back in the '60s but not much now. But in Japan, they still do. Monday was the 67th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Early on the morning of August 6th, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress bomber nicknamed "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island in the Pacific, headed for Hiroshima, a city of about 250,000 people. It carried a single bomb, codenamed "Little Boy." At 8:15 am local time, Little Boy was dropped.
I want to pause for a moment to give you a sense of the kind of power we are talking about here. The bomb contained 64 kilograms - about 141 pounds - of highly-enriched, fissionable uranium. Of that amount, only about .7 kilogram, or about 1.5 pounds, actually fissioned - that is, split - and only about 600 milligrams was converted into energy. That 600 milligrams equals six-tenths of a gram, or a little more than 1/50 ounce.
The energy released was enough to do this. It had the explosive force of 14,000 tons of dynamite. Around 70,000 people died instantly; some of them were literally vaporized. Another 70,000 died by 1950 due to injuries, radiation poisoning, and cancer.Just three days later, another nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, with tens of thousands more dead and another city destroyed.
I'm not going to get into the history of the decision to drop the bomb, I don't have time here. If you want to debate it with me, fine. But I will say that the bombing of Hiroshima was quite likely the second biggest war crime the US has ever committed. It was a crime because the bombing was unnecessary. Before - before - the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan was so thoroughly defeated that it had already offered to surrender. But there was one condition: Japan wanted to be allowed to keep its emperor. The Truman administration rejected the offer because it wasn't "unconditional" - only to, after the bombing of Nagasaki, accept a surrender on essentially the same terms it had rejected before, including retention of the emperor. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gained nothing in terms of surrender terms.
But you may think that's the past, nuclear weapons are no longer an issue - except, of course, when it involves fear mongering about Iran. You'd be wrong.
There are today eight known nuclear powers: Russia, United States, France, China, the UK, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. In addition, Israel is universally believed to possess at least a few score nuclear weapons but refuses to admit it. Estimates are that there are today about 4,400 nuclear weapons deployed and ready; most of those, but not all, are held by the US and Russia. Add up the reserves and the stockpiles, and we are talking about around 11,500 nuclear weapons in the world today, weapons that make the Hiroshima bomb look like a popgun next to a howitzer.
This is not an issue whose time has passed.Footnote: I called Hiroshima the second greatest war crime the US had committed. What was the first? Nagasaki, which was even less necessary than the unnecessary bombing of Hiroshima and occurred only because the military, unwilling to wait to see Japan's reaction to the first bomb, was rushing to get in another strike before a predicted run of bad weather and the sky over the main target was too cloudy. That's why Nagasaki was bombed.
Sources:
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/08/06/hiroshima-marks-67th-anniversary-of-a-bomb-attack
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/hiroshima_64_years_ago.html
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html
http://www.doug-long.com/summary.htm
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/08/60.html
Left Side of the Aisle #68 - Part 1
The Sikh temple massacre and the "lone wacko" nonsense
On Sunday, a 40-year-old Army veteran named Wade Michael Page walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI, a suburb of Milwaukee, and started shooting. When he was done, six people were dead. Page himself died in a shootout out with police, during which one cop was hit several times.
And so once again we have to clean up the blood of yet another massacre, once again we have to console yet another set of grieving families and friends - and once again we have to listen to yet another round of NRA-driven, corporate-sponsored, and assorted right-wing flake crap trying every way possible to blame everything and everyone except the gun.
For example, we have Pat Robertson raving about how the source of attacks on religious sites comes from
More important is that once again we have to listen to "the lone wacko" bull as if guns and resolving conflicts with murderous violence were not woven into our culture, into our very national DNA. Page may have been a lone shooter, but he was no lone wacko. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Page was a "frustrated neo-Nazi." Page himself told a white supremacist website in 2010 that he had been part of the white-power music scene since 2000 and had started a racist white supremacist band called End Apathy in 2005.
That is, for several years he lived in the sewer of hate that takes up a good portion of the right half of the American political spectrum today - and that was equally true of most of the mass killers of recent times. And no, I am not saying that most right-wingers are Nazis or neo-Nazis but I am saying that hatred and fear, based on race, religion, culture, or anything else that makes you "different" in their eyes, that hatred, fear, and all the other evil spawn of xenophobia fill every available gap in their worldview.
Meanwhile, once again we have to listen to political cowards and wimps like Barack Obama go on about how such "terrible, tragic events" call for "soul-searching" but not for doing a damn thing about how easy it is for pretty much anyone to turn themselves into a one-person strike force. This was the fifth such mass killing in Wisconsin - which has among the nation's weakest gun laws - since 2004. According to a survey by Mother Jones magazine, there have been, including Oak Creek, nearly 60 mass gun killings in the past 30 years. "Mass killing" was defined as at least four people killed, not counting the shooter, in a single event at a single place.
Page himself used a semiautomatic handgun, regarded now as the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they are small, easily concealed, can be fitted with high-capacity magazines - and, of course, are easy to come by. Page, no surprise, got his gun legally. Just like the roughly 300 million other guns out there were.
And once again, again, again, we get bombarded with the lies that people don't support doing anything about gun control. Now, it's true that if you just ask people about "more gun laws" versus "the same gun laws" and "fewer gun laws," the middle choice gets the clear plurality - as "about the same" does in a lot of polls on a lot of topics. If you add that together with the third choice, you have a majority.
(I will note that the “fewer laws” people are essentially a fringe, at 12%: According to a Gallup poll, more than twice as many people, 26%, favor banning handguns outright.)
But even now, when it's supposedly a hopeless cause and a certain loser, a disaster for any political campaign, 44% support tougher gun laws. Not a majority, no, but much further from the fringe position it's usually described as by politicians and the media.
What's more, when you shift the question to "which is more important, gun control or protecting gun owner rights," according to surveys by the Pew Center, the nation is, and has been for several years, split roughly 50-50. Remember, this is at a time when no one on the national stage is making the case for gun controls, when all we get is "gun rights," "self-defense," "Second Amendment Second Amendment Second Amendment," and "they're coming to take our guns." No leader is making the case for gun control - and we are still split 50-50.
Even beyond that: When you get the vague generalities and ask about actual proposals, the numbers sometimes flip dramatically. A poll done in May by Republican pollster Frank Luntz showed that 74% of NRA members support background checks. Sixty-eight percent of NRA members believe that individuals who have been arrested for domestic violence should not be eligible for gun permits. And 75% of NRA members believe that concealed weapon permits should not be available to people who have committed violent misdemeanors. Other polls have shown majority support for bans on assault weapons - not a big majority, but a majority - and very strong support for closing the "gun show loophole," where sales at gun shows are regarded as "private transactions" that don't require any background check.
We can do something about the ocean of guns out there. All we really need is some politicians not cowering before the NRA who would find, if they actually took a stand, that they would have more support than they expected.
Sources:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0806/Sikh-temple-shooter-identified-as-Wade-Michael-Page-white-supremacist-video
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-temple-shooting-gun-violence-obama-20120807,0,2176449.story
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sikh-temple-shooting-wisconsin-mass-killing-7-years-article-1.1129793
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/killings-mark-4th-mass-murder-in-state-since-2004-4k6cgse-165072026.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-07/business/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-weaponbre876068-20120806_1_sikh-temple-attack-gun-laws-handgun
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/05/wisconsin-shooting-sikh-temple_n_1744256.html
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/27/157469718/new-republic-nra-members-support-gun-control
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/30/pew-poll-little-support-for-new-gun-control-regulations-after-aurora-shooting/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-truth-about-gun-politics-many-americans-support-restrictions-20120720
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/pat-robertson-suggests-atheists-blame-sikh-t
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/pat-robertson-says-those-_n_1749532.html
On Sunday, a 40-year-old Army veteran named Wade Michael Page walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI, a suburb of Milwaukee, and started shooting. When he was done, six people were dead. Page himself died in a shootout out with police, during which one cop was hit several times.
And so once again we have to clean up the blood of yet another massacre, once again we have to console yet another set of grieving families and friends - and once again we have to listen to yet another round of NRA-driven, corporate-sponsored, and assorted right-wing flake crap trying every way possible to blame everything and everyone except the gun.
For example, we have Pat Robertson raving about how the source of attacks on religious sites comes from
people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God, and they are angry at the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshipping God.Beyond the fact that no one has reported on Page's religious affiliation or lack of it, although given what we do know about him, I would bet - I don't know but I would bet - he calls himself some form of Christian, there is the simple fact that it's hard to see how atheists "hate god" since atheists believe god does not exist and how can you hate something that doesn't exist. Then again, even some on the right have consigned Pat Robertson to "family embarrassment" territory like the weird uncle who drives everybody nuts every family gathering with tales of how his neighbor down the street is organizing the neighborhood cats into a gang of robbers.
More important is that once again we have to listen to "the lone wacko" bull as if guns and resolving conflicts with murderous violence were not woven into our culture, into our very national DNA. Page may have been a lone shooter, but he was no lone wacko. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Page was a "frustrated neo-Nazi." Page himself told a white supremacist website in 2010 that he had been part of the white-power music scene since 2000 and had started a racist white supremacist band called End Apathy in 2005.
That is, for several years he lived in the sewer of hate that takes up a good portion of the right half of the American political spectrum today - and that was equally true of most of the mass killers of recent times. And no, I am not saying that most right-wingers are Nazis or neo-Nazis but I am saying that hatred and fear, based on race, religion, culture, or anything else that makes you "different" in their eyes, that hatred, fear, and all the other evil spawn of xenophobia fill every available gap in their worldview.
Meanwhile, once again we have to listen to political cowards and wimps like Barack Obama go on about how such "terrible, tragic events" call for "soul-searching" but not for doing a damn thing about how easy it is for pretty much anyone to turn themselves into a one-person strike force. This was the fifth such mass killing in Wisconsin - which has among the nation's weakest gun laws - since 2004. According to a survey by Mother Jones magazine, there have been, including Oak Creek, nearly 60 mass gun killings in the past 30 years. "Mass killing" was defined as at least four people killed, not counting the shooter, in a single event at a single place.
Page himself used a semiautomatic handgun, regarded now as the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they are small, easily concealed, can be fitted with high-capacity magazines - and, of course, are easy to come by. Page, no surprise, got his gun legally. Just like the roughly 300 million other guns out there were.
And once again, again, again, we get bombarded with the lies that people don't support doing anything about gun control. Now, it's true that if you just ask people about "more gun laws" versus "the same gun laws" and "fewer gun laws," the middle choice gets the clear plurality - as "about the same" does in a lot of polls on a lot of topics. If you add that together with the third choice, you have a majority.
(I will note that the “fewer laws” people are essentially a fringe, at 12%: According to a Gallup poll, more than twice as many people, 26%, favor banning handguns outright.)
But even now, when it's supposedly a hopeless cause and a certain loser, a disaster for any political campaign, 44% support tougher gun laws. Not a majority, no, but much further from the fringe position it's usually described as by politicians and the media.
What's more, when you shift the question to "which is more important, gun control or protecting gun owner rights," according to surveys by the Pew Center, the nation is, and has been for several years, split roughly 50-50. Remember, this is at a time when no one on the national stage is making the case for gun controls, when all we get is "gun rights," "self-defense," "Second Amendment Second Amendment Second Amendment," and "they're coming to take our guns." No leader is making the case for gun control - and we are still split 50-50.
Even beyond that: When you get the vague generalities and ask about actual proposals, the numbers sometimes flip dramatically. A poll done in May by Republican pollster Frank Luntz showed that 74% of NRA members support background checks. Sixty-eight percent of NRA members believe that individuals who have been arrested for domestic violence should not be eligible for gun permits. And 75% of NRA members believe that concealed weapon permits should not be available to people who have committed violent misdemeanors. Other polls have shown majority support for bans on assault weapons - not a big majority, but a majority - and very strong support for closing the "gun show loophole," where sales at gun shows are regarded as "private transactions" that don't require any background check.
We can do something about the ocean of guns out there. All we really need is some politicians not cowering before the NRA who would find, if they actually took a stand, that they would have more support than they expected.
Sources:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0806/Sikh-temple-shooter-identified-as-Wade-Michael-Page-white-supremacist-video
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-temple-shooting-gun-violence-obama-20120807,0,2176449.story
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sikh-temple-shooting-wisconsin-mass-killing-7-years-article-1.1129793
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/killings-mark-4th-mass-murder-in-state-since-2004-4k6cgse-165072026.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-07/business/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-weaponbre876068-20120806_1_sikh-temple-attack-gun-laws-handgun
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/05/wisconsin-shooting-sikh-temple_n_1744256.html
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/27/157469718/new-republic-nra-members-support-gun-control
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/30/pew-poll-little-support-for-new-gun-control-regulations-after-aurora-shooting/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-truth-about-gun-politics-many-americans-support-restrictions-20120720
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/pat-robertson-suggests-atheists-blame-sikh-t
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/pat-robertson-says-those-_n_1749532.html
Left Side of the Aisle #68
Left Side of the Aisle
for August 9 - 15, 2010
This week:
Sikh temple massacre and the "lone wacko" nonsense
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0806/Sikh-temple-shooter-identified-as-Wade-Michael-Page-white-supremacist-video
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-temple-shooting-gun-violence-obama-20120807,0,2176449.story
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sikh-temple-shooting-wisconsin-mass-killing-7-years-article-1.1129793
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/killings-mark-4th-mass-murder-in-state-since-2004-4k6cgse-165072026.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-07/business/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-weaponbre876068-20120806_1_sikh-temple-attack-gun-laws-handgun
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/05/wisconsin-shooting-sikh-temple_n_1744256.html
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/27/157469718/new-republic-nra-members-support-gun-control
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/30/pew-poll-little-support-for-new-gun-control-regulations-after-aurora-shooting/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-truth-about-gun-politics-many-americans-support-restrictions-20120720
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/pat-robertson-suggests-atheists-blame-sikh-t
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/pat-robertson-says-those-_n_1749532.html
67th anniversary of bombing of Hiroshima
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/08/06/hiroshima-marks-67th-anniversary-of-a-bomb-attack
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/hiroshima_64_years_ago.html
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html
http://www.doug-long.com/summary.htm
Outrage of the Week: blocking relief for homeowners
http://blog.usw.org/2012/08/06/f-the-bureaucracy-the-white-house-can-help-homeowners-right-now/
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/why-firing-ed-demarco-is-no-solution-to-fhfa-refusal-to-engage-in-principal-modifications.html#xyIvFz4WfX0tyG7Z.99
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/01/why-ed-demarco-wont-be-fired/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/fire-ed-demarco/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/more-demarco/
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/08/06/tim-geithner%E2%80%99s-principal-hypocrisy/
Clarabell Award: commenters on story about racial slur
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/motel-6-racial-slur_n_1720762.html
And Another Thing: Curiosity lands on Mars
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0806-mars-curiosity-rover-landing-20120806,0,2608752.story
Death of Mary Tamm, Romana #1
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Romana
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18995370
Monday, August 06, 2012
I am curious - Mars
The Mars rover Curiosity has safely landed on Mars.
The 2000-pound (910kg) vehicle, the size of a small car, now begins what is planned as a two-year mission focused on the question of if there ever was or could at some time be life on Mars.
It joins Opportunity, now in the ninth year of a mission that was planned to last for 90 days.
And the geek smiles.
Footnote: What with all this, it's probably appropriate that there have been a spate of new reports about Roswell 1947.
The 2000-pound (910kg) vehicle, the size of a small car, now begins what is planned as a two-year mission focused on the question of if there ever was or could at some time be life on Mars.
It joins Opportunity, now in the ninth year of a mission that was planned to last for 90 days.
And the geek smiles.
Footnote: What with all this, it's probably appropriate that there have been a spate of new reports about Roswell 1947.
Friday, August 03, 2012
Left Side of the Aisle #67 - Part 4
Pennsylvania admits claims of "voter fraud" used to support voter ID laws are bogus
There is much more to say about this issue and about the particular case, but I've no time this week. But I did want to tell you this:
I've talked before about attacks on The Commons, on the idea of a community of shared interests and responsibilities, and that one of the forms of those attacks are these voter ID laws and how they are an attack on the right to vote and how they have disproportionate impact on the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly, four groups that when they do vote tend to lean to the liberal side of things.
Supporters defend the laws by going on about alleged "voter fraud." "Don't you care about the integrity of the vote?"
Pennsylvania is one of the states with these insane laws. That law is now under court challenge and a hearing on the suit has been going on. In a stipulation agreement before the hearing, the state of Pennsylvania acknowledged there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”
Additionally, Pennsylvania “will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhere” or even argue “that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law.”
In other words, before the hearing even started, Pennsylvania admitted the claimed basis, the whole claimed purpose, of the law, is totally bogus. And don't you forget it.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php
There is much more to say about this issue and about the particular case, but I've no time this week. But I did want to tell you this:
I've talked before about attacks on The Commons, on the idea of a community of shared interests and responsibilities, and that one of the forms of those attacks are these voter ID laws and how they are an attack on the right to vote and how they have disproportionate impact on the poor, minorities, students, and the elderly, four groups that when they do vote tend to lean to the liberal side of things.
Supporters defend the laws by going on about alleged "voter fraud." "Don't you care about the integrity of the vote?"
Pennsylvania is one of the states with these insane laws. That law is now under court challenge and a hearing on the suit has been going on. In a stipulation agreement before the hearing, the state of Pennsylvania acknowledged there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”
Additionally, Pennsylvania “will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhere” or even argue “that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the Photo ID law.”
In other words, before the hearing even started, Pennsylvania admitted the claimed basis, the whole claimed purpose, of the law, is totally bogus. And don't you forget it.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php
Left Side of the Aisle #67 - Part 3
Clarabell award: Federal judge ignores Supreme Court to impose abortion restrictions
The Clarabell Award is given on a regular basis for acts of meritorious stupidity. This time the dishonoree is US District Court judge for the District of Arizona, one Judge James A. Teilborg.
Back in April, Arizona Governor Jan Brewery signed a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks except in narrow cases where the life of the mother is seriously at risk. It was to go into effect on this past Thursday, August 2. The ACLU went to court on behalf of three Arizona physicians who sought a temporary injunction against the law going into effect pending the outcome of their legal challenge to it.
Their argument was simple: The controlling legal authority is the 1992 Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The Court ruled in that case that states can't ban abortions prior to viability, that is, prior to the time when the fetus could survive outsite the womb. That now is regarded as around 22 to 24 weeks. Which would appear to make for a slam-dunk case.
Unfortunately, it was heard before Judge Teilborg, who in effect told those doctors and the ACLU that resistance is futile. In fact, in the course of the hearing, he actually lectured the lead counsel for the plaintiffs - that is, the ACLU lawyer - on her supposed lack of compassion for “the unborn child” and suggested that supposed lack “underscores the legitimacy” of the state’s action.
Given that patent bias in favor of fantasy - as I’ve said a number of times, there is no such thing as an “unborn child” unless you also start calling a caterpillar an unborn butterfly, a tadpole an unborn frog, and an acorn an unborn oak tree - given that bias, it should come as no surprise that Teilborg denied the temporary injunction, allowing the law to go into effect.
What could be a surprise but perhaps shouldn’t be given that transparent bias, he also declared that the hearing was not on the injuction but actually on the merits of the law and threw the suit out entirely.
His reasoning? Because of the provision regarding saving the life of the mother, the law doesn't actually ban abortions after 20 weeks, it merely "restricts" them. Quoting him: "[the law] is not a ban on previability abortions, but is rather a limit on some previability abortions between 20 weeks gestational age and viability."
You know, there is a law against shooting people in the street. But the truth is, if you shot someone who was in the process of, say, trying to kill you with a knife, I doubt you would be charged. So by Teilborg's logic, that law doesn't actually ban shooting people in the street, it merely restricts some cases of it. And there's a law that says you can't run a red light. But I expect that if you went thought a red light while rushing someone to the Emergency Room because you thought they were having a heart attack - as I did once with my father - you would be unlikely to be given a ticket. So according to Teilborg, that law doesn't ban going through red lights, it's just a limitation on some cases of it.
The ACLU is making an emergency appeal of the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, calling Teilborg's ruling "just wrong on its face."
Which is not surprising, since Judge James Teilborg's own face has a great big red nose. James Teilborg, clown.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/arizona-20-week-abortion-ban_n_1720803.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/30/fetal_pain_nonsense_prevails_in_arizona/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/opinion/anti-abortionists-on-trial.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey
The Clarabell Award is given on a regular basis for acts of meritorious stupidity. This time the dishonoree is US District Court judge for the District of Arizona, one Judge James A. Teilborg.Back in April, Arizona Governor Jan Brewery signed a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks except in narrow cases where the life of the mother is seriously at risk. It was to go into effect on this past Thursday, August 2. The ACLU went to court on behalf of three Arizona physicians who sought a temporary injunction against the law going into effect pending the outcome of their legal challenge to it.
Their argument was simple: The controlling legal authority is the 1992 Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The Court ruled in that case that states can't ban abortions prior to viability, that is, prior to the time when the fetus could survive outsite the womb. That now is regarded as around 22 to 24 weeks. Which would appear to make for a slam-dunk case.
Unfortunately, it was heard before Judge Teilborg, who in effect told those doctors and the ACLU that resistance is futile. In fact, in the course of the hearing, he actually lectured the lead counsel for the plaintiffs - that is, the ACLU lawyer - on her supposed lack of compassion for “the unborn child” and suggested that supposed lack “underscores the legitimacy” of the state’s action.
Given that patent bias in favor of fantasy - as I’ve said a number of times, there is no such thing as an “unborn child” unless you also start calling a caterpillar an unborn butterfly, a tadpole an unborn frog, and an acorn an unborn oak tree - given that bias, it should come as no surprise that Teilborg denied the temporary injunction, allowing the law to go into effect.
What could be a surprise but perhaps shouldn’t be given that transparent bias, he also declared that the hearing was not on the injuction but actually on the merits of the law and threw the suit out entirely.
His reasoning? Because of the provision regarding saving the life of the mother, the law doesn't actually ban abortions after 20 weeks, it merely "restricts" them. Quoting him: "[the law] is not a ban on previability abortions, but is rather a limit on some previability abortions between 20 weeks gestational age and viability."
You know, there is a law against shooting people in the street. But the truth is, if you shot someone who was in the process of, say, trying to kill you with a knife, I doubt you would be charged. So by Teilborg's logic, that law doesn't actually ban shooting people in the street, it merely restricts some cases of it. And there's a law that says you can't run a red light. But I expect that if you went thought a red light while rushing someone to the Emergency Room because you thought they were having a heart attack - as I did once with my father - you would be unlikely to be given a ticket. So according to Teilborg, that law doesn't ban going through red lights, it's just a limitation on some cases of it.
The ACLU is making an emergency appeal of the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, calling Teilborg's ruling "just wrong on its face."
Which is not surprising, since Judge James Teilborg's own face has a great big red nose. James Teilborg, clown.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/arizona-20-week-abortion-ban_n_1720803.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/30/fetal_pain_nonsense_prevails_in_arizona/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/opinion/anti-abortionists-on-trial.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey
Left Side of the Aisle #67 - Part 2
Good news on same-sex marriage
After that, I need some good news. So here's some.
The government of Scotland has announced plans to legalize same-sex marriages. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said last week that legislation permitting the marriages would soon be introduced and is sure to pass because it has the backing of all the major Scottish political parties. Scotland thus could become the first part of the UK to allow same-sex marriages.
The UK government has conducted what they call a public consultation, inviting public comment and so forth, on legalizing same-sex marriages but officials are waiting for the results before taking further steps - that is, they're waiting to make sure it's politically safe. But since legalization is endorsed by Prime Minister David Cameron, it can't be too far out there as a position.
But in a real surprise, Vietnam is considering recognition of same-sex marriages. Vietnam is hardly a bastion of human rights and until just a few years ago, homosexuality was labeled as a "social evil" alongside drug addiction and prostitution, so this is a real shift.
It's unclear just what form such recognition would take or even if the idea will survive the coming intra-governmental debates. But the very fact that it's being considered is a major step forward. Justice Minister Ha Hung Cuong described it as facing reality. If it does come to pass, Vietnam will be the first nation in Asia to take that step.
Here at home there is some interesting news on this front, particularly as it reflects changing attitudes. Among those who follow the issue, the Chick-fil-A fast food chain had long been known for its anti-same-sex-marriage stance, contributing millions of dollars to groups opposing recognition. But something happened recently that brought attention to the company: A couple of weeks ago, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy was asked about those reports of its anti-gay stance and answered "Well, guilty as charged." That flip response, along with his insistence that "We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family" and "We ... operate on biblical principles" struck a nerve and there were calls to boycott the chain. Those calls were countered by folks like Mike Huckleberry, Rick IshouldbeinaSanitarium, and Sarah Failin', among others, who urged people to eat more Chick-fil-A.
So what's happened? YouGov is a polling organization that tracks, among other things, approval scores for members of the Top National Quick Service Restaurant Sector - that is, the leading fast food chains. Just before the interview was published, Chick-fil-A's index score was 65, well above the average score for the sector of 46. Just four days later, Chick-fil-A's score had fallen to 47 and last week, it was down to 39, below the sector average score of 43.
If you celebrate your opposition to equal rights for same-sex couples - yes, your customers do care. And that is good news.
Footnote: I didn't refer to "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" because it was happening on August 1, the same day the show was taped, so I had no info on how well or badly it had gone. Apparently, it was a success for the anti-rights crowd, with large turnouts and long lines. Disappointing, but not surprising: We all know the haters are still out there in considerable numbers. Still, one day is not the issue; the longer-term is the issue. And on that score, I would say the YouGov results mean a lot more than a single day's fast food choice.
Sources:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/29/157561604/vietnam-considers-legalizing-same-sex-marriage
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/scottish-government-to-ba_0_n_1701443.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/chick-fil-a-brand-approval-rating-anti-gay-controversy_n_1719359.html
After that, I need some good news. So here's some.
The government of Scotland has announced plans to legalize same-sex marriages. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said last week that legislation permitting the marriages would soon be introduced and is sure to pass because it has the backing of all the major Scottish political parties. Scotland thus could become the first part of the UK to allow same-sex marriages.
The UK government has conducted what they call a public consultation, inviting public comment and so forth, on legalizing same-sex marriages but officials are waiting for the results before taking further steps - that is, they're waiting to make sure it's politically safe. But since legalization is endorsed by Prime Minister David Cameron, it can't be too far out there as a position.
But in a real surprise, Vietnam is considering recognition of same-sex marriages. Vietnam is hardly a bastion of human rights and until just a few years ago, homosexuality was labeled as a "social evil" alongside drug addiction and prostitution, so this is a real shift.
It's unclear just what form such recognition would take or even if the idea will survive the coming intra-governmental debates. But the very fact that it's being considered is a major step forward. Justice Minister Ha Hung Cuong described it as facing reality. If it does come to pass, Vietnam will be the first nation in Asia to take that step.
Here at home there is some interesting news on this front, particularly as it reflects changing attitudes. Among those who follow the issue, the Chick-fil-A fast food chain had long been known for its anti-same-sex-marriage stance, contributing millions of dollars to groups opposing recognition. But something happened recently that brought attention to the company: A couple of weeks ago, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy was asked about those reports of its anti-gay stance and answered "Well, guilty as charged." That flip response, along with his insistence that "We are very much supportive of the family - the biblical definition of the family" and "We ... operate on biblical principles" struck a nerve and there were calls to boycott the chain. Those calls were countered by folks like Mike Huckleberry, Rick IshouldbeinaSanitarium, and Sarah Failin', among others, who urged people to eat more Chick-fil-A.
So what's happened? YouGov is a polling organization that tracks, among other things, approval scores for members of the Top National Quick Service Restaurant Sector - that is, the leading fast food chains. Just before the interview was published, Chick-fil-A's index score was 65, well above the average score for the sector of 46. Just four days later, Chick-fil-A's score had fallen to 47 and last week, it was down to 39, below the sector average score of 43.If you celebrate your opposition to equal rights for same-sex couples - yes, your customers do care. And that is good news.
Footnote: I didn't refer to "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" because it was happening on August 1, the same day the show was taped, so I had no info on how well or badly it had gone. Apparently, it was a success for the anti-rights crowd, with large turnouts and long lines. Disappointing, but not surprising: We all know the haters are still out there in considerable numbers. Still, one day is not the issue; the longer-term is the issue. And on that score, I would say the YouGov results mean a lot more than a single day's fast food choice.
Sources:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/29/157561604/vietnam-considers-legalizing-same-sex-marriage
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/scottish-government-to-ba_0_n_1701443.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/chick-fil-a-brand-approval-rating-anti-gay-controversy_n_1719359.html
Left Side of the Aisle #67 - Part 1
Outrage of the Week: US and guns
The Outrage of the Week this week involves multiple outrages, so many that I couldn't pick just one. I'm going to start with something you already know about.
On Friday, July 20, 24-year-old James Holmes went into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and started shooting. When it was over, 12 people were dead and 58 more were injured, a few in the general chaos but most by being shot. So the first outrage, the first moral outrage, is the incident itself.
When he went on his rampage, Holmes was wearing a ballistic helmet, a gas mask, a throat-protector, plus tactical vest and pants. It was such complete protective gear that responding officers almost thought he was a member of their SWAT team. He threw tear gas into the crowd before he started shooting. He was armed with two handguns and an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle modified with a high-powered 100-round drum magazine. Holmes also had a shotgun which he left in his car. He had amassed over 6000 rounds of ammunition, including 300 for the shotgun.
And everything - every bit of that of that armory, the ammunition, the guns, the clothing, the tear gas, all of it - he obtained entirely legally. Not only legally, but without even raising any red flags anywhere. As one writer put it, "an unregulated online marketplace allows consumers to acquire some of the tools of modern warfare as if they were pieces of a new wardrobe."
Which raises the second outrage: What are we going to do about this? The answer is, absolutely nothing. We're not going to do one single damn thing.
In fact, both the AR-15 and the 100-round drum had been illegal under the federal assault weapons ban passed in 1994. But that expired in 2004 with no effort then or anytime since to renew it. And nothing will be done now.
Oh, President Hopey-Changey went on about how "saddened" he was and Witless Romney joined right in and the House of Representatives even adopted a resolution honoring the victims of the massacre - isn't that precious - but not one of them proposes to actually do anything to reduce the chance of this happening again.
In 2007 we had the Virginia Tech massacre: 32 dead, 12 injured. Nothing was done. In 2011 we had the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson: six dead, 13 injured. Nothing was done. Now we have Aurora. And again, nothing will be done.
In his first official response to Aurora, Obama emphasized how he intends to safeguard the Second Amendment - like it was actually under some kind of threat - and praised "the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation" as part of "a cherished national heritage." The White House later added that Obama will work "within existing law." That is, he won't do a damn thing.
As for House Speaker John Boner, he said "I agree" with Obama: We must have no new laws.
What makes this even worse is that it's not just Aurora. That's the kind of thing that gets our attention - but the fact is, the US sees two Auroras every single day. On average, about 25 Americans are killed by guns every single day. That's upwards of 9000 a year - and that doesn't include accidents or suicides. Include those and you're talking about over 25,000 guns deaths a year.
That means the United States accounts for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest nations of the world combined. But actually do something to stop the carnage? Do something to limit the amount of sheer firepower that is out there that wipes out the equivalent of the entire population of Carver every six months? We can't do that. Because, apparently, 9000 murders and 16,000 more gun deaths every year is part of our "cherished national heritage."
Now, we all know that the real reason for this "can't do" attitude is spelled N-R-A and actually has far more to do with political cowardice than with any "heritage" - except a heritage of political cowardice.
That cowardice, by the way, is not limited to the federal level by any means. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper - who is a Democrat, by the way - dodged a question about gun control, saying of Holmes "Even if he didn’t have access to guns, this guy was diabolical. He would have found explosives. He would have found something.” Yeah, maybe he might have gone into that theater and, I dunno, thrown lawn furniture at people. Or maybe it would have been "Omigosh, look out! He's got a backpack full of frisbees and he's not afraid to use them!"
Meanwhile, Colorado State Rep. Mark Waller cautioned against trying to limit purchases of ammunition -the purchase of which, except for armor-piercing and hollow-headed rounds, is essentially totally unregulated in the United States - saying the 300 shotgun rounds Holmes had was just everyday stuff.
And the mayor of Aurora, Steve Hogan, who you would think would be particularly concerned, appearing with Hickenlooper, contented himself with saying of Holmes "there was something wrong with this individual" while ignoring the weapons involved completely.
In fairness, I have to note that not every voice was one of cowardice: Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed "I'm not really a progressive but I play one on MSNBC" Rendell said "Everyone is scared of the NRA," but added
I will in the future be talking more about this, about the politics of guns, about the role of money and the power of the NRA. I'll also be talking about our "gun culture," so aptly summarized by Dudley Brown, the executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, who said in the wake of the shootings that Holmes' collection of guns was "the average male in Colorado" and that "If I only had 6,000 rounds for my AR-15s, I'd literally feel naked," a statement I think rather more revealing than he intended.
I'll be looking, that is, at why we are so much more violent than other nations, the reasons for which clearly include the hundreds of millions of guns out there but actually are not limited to that.
But right now I want to address something else: The despicable, inhuman, subhuman responses from the wackos and wingnuts that populate the right side of the American political spectrum. That they respond the same way to every such bloodbath makes it no less contemptible.
There was, for example, Sarah Failin', who inanely blathered on about how “The bad guys don’t follow laws and restricting more of America’s freedoms when it comes to self-defense isn’t the answer." Because, again "Bad guys don’t follow laws.” Which may well be true. On the other hand, maybe the owners of the gun shops and the gun show dealers and the rest of those who supply the guns to "the bad guys" would follow the law.
Then there are always those ready to blame the victims, those such as former Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, the author of the state's infamous "papers please" anti-immigrant law. The day after the tragedy, he wondered online why none were “brave” enough to stop it.
“Where were the men of flight 93?" he bloviated. "All that was needed is one Courages [sic] man prepared mentally or otherwise to stop this it could have been done.”
After the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix New Times reported his remarks, Pearce got all huffy and insisted he was being "mischaracterized.” He wasn't blaming the victims, oh no, perish the thought even though that's exactly what he had just done. No, he insisted, he was actually blaming gun control, because it left so many people disarmed and vulnerable "when the only real effect is to disarm everyone who could have saved lives.”
That was echoed by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who said the slaughter proved "one of the rationales behind conceal and carry, where criminals actually have to be concerned that somebody could stop them. That somebody, a responsible individual had been carrying a weapon, maybe they could have prevented the death and injuries."
What's the argument here? It's that there aren't enough guns out there. That there aren't enough people walking around carrying concealed loaded weapons. Because by god if there only had been a bunch of people in that theater packing heat, then amid the darkness of the theater and the tear gas and smoke so thick that one survivor described seeing Holmes only as a silhouette, amid the noise and the people running and screaming, amid the tumult and chaos, that if only other people had been shooting off guns so that no one could even tell who was the original shooter, all trying to hit a target they couldn't really see - and who was wearing body armor - oh yeah, you farina-for-brains jackasses, that would have made it all better.
And of course we have the conspiracy nuts like talk radio guy Alex Jones. If you don't know who he is, count your blessings. It's estimated that listening to one half-hour of Alex Jones can cost you more brain cells than the entire decade of the '60s.
He claims that the Aurora theater Shooting was a “staged event” designed to generate support for (gasp) taking away our guns, leaving us defenseless against the New World Order, black helicopters optional. According to Jones, the person who did the shooting was some “black-op” masked operator and Holmes was a “patsy” who was drugged with “amnesiacs” and duped into taking the fall. Who it was that received the dozens of shipments of ammunition, body armor, and explosive materials delivered to Holmes' apartment and to his place at school goes unexplained.
And finally we come to the religious fanatics of the right. They know who is to blame for this! There is no question! It's liberalism and secularism!
Fred Jackson, head of the American Family Association blamed Hollywood movies, "what we see on the Internets" (Just how many Internets do these people think there are?), liberal bias in the media, "politicians changing public policy," and - get this now - "churches leaving the authority of Scripture."
Jerry Newcombe, a spokesperson for Truth In Action Ministries, blamed the shooting on the separation of church and state - which he apparently thinks is a brand-new thing. That separation, he said, has "chased away any fear of God in the hearts of millions." And in case you didn't get his point about the "fear of god," he declared that any among the dead who were really really Christian, well, for them to die wasn't so tragic because "they are going to a wonderful place" - but those who weren't Christian enough for him, they went straight to hell.
If I believed in hell, I'd have to believe there would be a special place in it for despicable scum like Jerry Newcombe and Fred Jackson - right along with the right-wing wackos and the whole mass of political cowards who mouth platitudes that turn to dust in the air because they are more interested in kissing the butt of the NRA than in protecting the lives and safety of their constituents.
Again, I will have more to say about this at some point. but for right now, all I can say is - it is an outrage.
Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/evangelical-leaders-blame-the-obvious-culprits-in-aurora-shooting-liberals.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/russell-pearce-blames-shooting-victims-facebook.php
http://underthemountainbunker.com/2012/07/22/alex-jones-and-the-aurora-theater-shooting-was-a-staged-event-conspiracy/
http://www.care2.com/causes/gunman-kills-12-in-colorado-movie-theater.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/us/colorado-theater-shooting/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/james-holmes-weapons-internet_n_1694451.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/aurora-shooting-victims-house-resolution_n_1706044.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Giffords
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/21/gun-control_n_1691781.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/sarah-palin-on-aurora-shootings-gun-control_n_1702936.html
http://www.cagle.com/2012/07/its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/
http://www.city-data.com/city/Carver-Massachusetts.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/john-hickenlooper-colorado-shooting_n_1692875.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/michael-bloomberg-nyc-mayor-reacts-colorado-shooting_n_1689211.html
http://thismodernworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TMW2011-01-12acolorlowres-copy-2.jpg
The Outrage of the Week this week involves multiple outrages, so many that I couldn't pick just one. I'm going to start with something you already know about.
On Friday, July 20, 24-year-old James Holmes went into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and started shooting. When it was over, 12 people were dead and 58 more were injured, a few in the general chaos but most by being shot. So the first outrage, the first moral outrage, is the incident itself.
When he went on his rampage, Holmes was wearing a ballistic helmet, a gas mask, a throat-protector, plus tactical vest and pants. It was such complete protective gear that responding officers almost thought he was a member of their SWAT team. He threw tear gas into the crowd before he started shooting. He was armed with two handguns and an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle modified with a high-powered 100-round drum magazine. Holmes also had a shotgun which he left in his car. He had amassed over 6000 rounds of ammunition, including 300 for the shotgun.
And everything - every bit of that of that armory, the ammunition, the guns, the clothing, the tear gas, all of it - he obtained entirely legally. Not only legally, but without even raising any red flags anywhere. As one writer put it, "an unregulated online marketplace allows consumers to acquire some of the tools of modern warfare as if they were pieces of a new wardrobe."
Which raises the second outrage: What are we going to do about this? The answer is, absolutely nothing. We're not going to do one single damn thing.
In fact, both the AR-15 and the 100-round drum had been illegal under the federal assault weapons ban passed in 1994. But that expired in 2004 with no effort then or anytime since to renew it. And nothing will be done now.
Oh, President Hopey-Changey went on about how "saddened" he was and Witless Romney joined right in and the House of Representatives even adopted a resolution honoring the victims of the massacre - isn't that precious - but not one of them proposes to actually do anything to reduce the chance of this happening again.In 2007 we had the Virginia Tech massacre: 32 dead, 12 injured. Nothing was done. In 2011 we had the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson: six dead, 13 injured. Nothing was done. Now we have Aurora. And again, nothing will be done.
In his first official response to Aurora, Obama emphasized how he intends to safeguard the Second Amendment - like it was actually under some kind of threat - and praised "the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation" as part of "a cherished national heritage." The White House later added that Obama will work "within existing law." That is, he won't do a damn thing.
As for House Speaker John Boner, he said "I agree" with Obama: We must have no new laws.
What makes this even worse is that it's not just Aurora. That's the kind of thing that gets our attention - but the fact is, the US sees two Auroras every single day. On average, about 25 Americans are killed by guns every single day. That's upwards of 9000 a year - and that doesn't include accidents or suicides. Include those and you're talking about over 25,000 guns deaths a year.
That means the United States accounts for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest nations of the world combined. But actually do something to stop the carnage? Do something to limit the amount of sheer firepower that is out there that wipes out the equivalent of the entire population of Carver every six months? We can't do that. Because, apparently, 9000 murders and 16,000 more gun deaths every year is part of our "cherished national heritage."
Now, we all know that the real reason for this "can't do" attitude is spelled N-R-A and actually has far more to do with political cowardice than with any "heritage" - except a heritage of political cowardice.
That cowardice, by the way, is not limited to the federal level by any means. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper - who is a Democrat, by the way - dodged a question about gun control, saying of Holmes "Even if he didn’t have access to guns, this guy was diabolical. He would have found explosives. He would have found something.” Yeah, maybe he might have gone into that theater and, I dunno, thrown lawn furniture at people. Or maybe it would have been "Omigosh, look out! He's got a backpack full of frisbees and he's not afraid to use them!"
Meanwhile, Colorado State Rep. Mark Waller cautioned against trying to limit purchases of ammunition -the purchase of which, except for armor-piercing and hollow-headed rounds, is essentially totally unregulated in the United States - saying the 300 shotgun rounds Holmes had was just everyday stuff.
And the mayor of Aurora, Steve Hogan, who you would think would be particularly concerned, appearing with Hickenlooper, contented himself with saying of Holmes "there was something wrong with this individual" while ignoring the weapons involved completely.
In fairness, I have to note that not every voice was one of cowardice: Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed "I'm not really a progressive but I play one on MSNBC" Rendell said "Everyone is scared of the NRA," but added
There are some things worth losing for in politics and to be able to prevent carnage like this is worth losing for.And New York City Mayor Micheal "I'm just an average, everyday billionaire tool of Wall Street" Bloomberg said
Soothing words are nice, but maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it.Unfortunately, Mr. Mayor, we already know the answer. They are going to do precisely nothing.
I will in the future be talking more about this, about the politics of guns, about the role of money and the power of the NRA. I'll also be talking about our "gun culture," so aptly summarized by Dudley Brown, the executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, who said in the wake of the shootings that Holmes' collection of guns was "the average male in Colorado" and that "If I only had 6,000 rounds for my AR-15s, I'd literally feel naked," a statement I think rather more revealing than he intended.I'll be looking, that is, at why we are so much more violent than other nations, the reasons for which clearly include the hundreds of millions of guns out there but actually are not limited to that.
But right now I want to address something else: The despicable, inhuman, subhuman responses from the wackos and wingnuts that populate the right side of the American political spectrum. That they respond the same way to every such bloodbath makes it no less contemptible.
There was, for example, Sarah Failin', who inanely blathered on about how “The bad guys don’t follow laws and restricting more of America’s freedoms when it comes to self-defense isn’t the answer." Because, again "Bad guys don’t follow laws.” Which may well be true. On the other hand, maybe the owners of the gun shops and the gun show dealers and the rest of those who supply the guns to "the bad guys" would follow the law.
Then there are always those ready to blame the victims, those such as former Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, the author of the state's infamous "papers please" anti-immigrant law. The day after the tragedy, he wondered online why none were “brave” enough to stop it.
“Where were the men of flight 93?" he bloviated. "All that was needed is one Courages [sic] man prepared mentally or otherwise to stop this it could have been done.”
After the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix New Times reported his remarks, Pearce got all huffy and insisted he was being "mischaracterized.” He wasn't blaming the victims, oh no, perish the thought even though that's exactly what he had just done. No, he insisted, he was actually blaming gun control, because it left so many people disarmed and vulnerable "when the only real effect is to disarm everyone who could have saved lives.”
That was echoed by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who said the slaughter proved "one of the rationales behind conceal and carry, where criminals actually have to be concerned that somebody could stop them. That somebody, a responsible individual had been carrying a weapon, maybe they could have prevented the death and injuries."
What's the argument here? It's that there aren't enough guns out there. That there aren't enough people walking around carrying concealed loaded weapons. Because by god if there only had been a bunch of people in that theater packing heat, then amid the darkness of the theater and the tear gas and smoke so thick that one survivor described seeing Holmes only as a silhouette, amid the noise and the people running and screaming, amid the tumult and chaos, that if only other people had been shooting off guns so that no one could even tell who was the original shooter, all trying to hit a target they couldn't really see - and who was wearing body armor - oh yeah, you farina-for-brains jackasses, that would have made it all better.
And of course we have the conspiracy nuts like talk radio guy Alex Jones. If you don't know who he is, count your blessings. It's estimated that listening to one half-hour of Alex Jones can cost you more brain cells than the entire decade of the '60s.
He claims that the Aurora theater Shooting was a “staged event” designed to generate support for (gasp) taking away our guns, leaving us defenseless against the New World Order, black helicopters optional. According to Jones, the person who did the shooting was some “black-op” masked operator and Holmes was a “patsy” who was drugged with “amnesiacs” and duped into taking the fall. Who it was that received the dozens of shipments of ammunition, body armor, and explosive materials delivered to Holmes' apartment and to his place at school goes unexplained.
And finally we come to the religious fanatics of the right. They know who is to blame for this! There is no question! It's liberalism and secularism!
Fred Jackson, head of the American Family Association blamed Hollywood movies, "what we see on the Internets" (Just how many Internets do these people think there are?), liberal bias in the media, "politicians changing public policy," and - get this now - "churches leaving the authority of Scripture."
Jerry Newcombe, a spokesperson for Truth In Action Ministries, blamed the shooting on the separation of church and state - which he apparently thinks is a brand-new thing. That separation, he said, has "chased away any fear of God in the hearts of millions." And in case you didn't get his point about the "fear of god," he declared that any among the dead who were really really Christian, well, for them to die wasn't so tragic because "they are going to a wonderful place" - but those who weren't Christian enough for him, they went straight to hell.
If I believed in hell, I'd have to believe there would be a special place in it for despicable scum like Jerry Newcombe and Fred Jackson - right along with the right-wing wackos and the whole mass of political cowards who mouth platitudes that turn to dust in the air because they are more interested in kissing the butt of the NRA than in protecting the lives and safety of their constituents.
Again, I will have more to say about this at some point. but for right now, all I can say is - it is an outrage.
Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/evangelical-leaders-blame-the-obvious-culprits-in-aurora-shooting-liberals.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/russell-pearce-blames-shooting-victims-facebook.php
http://underthemountainbunker.com/2012/07/22/alex-jones-and-the-aurora-theater-shooting-was-a-staged-event-conspiracy/
http://www.care2.com/causes/gunman-kills-12-in-colorado-movie-theater.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/us/colorado-theater-shooting/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/james-holmes-weapons-internet_n_1694451.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/aurora-shooting-victims-house-resolution_n_1706044.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Giffords
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/21/gun-control_n_1691781.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/sarah-palin-on-aurora-shootings-gun-control_n_1702936.html
http://www.cagle.com/2012/07/its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/
http://www.city-data.com/city/Carver-Massachusetts.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/john-hickenlooper-colorado-shooting_n_1692875.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/michael-bloomberg-nyc-mayor-reacts-colorado-shooting_n_1689211.html
http://thismodernworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TMW2011-01-12acolorlowres-copy-2.jpg
Thursday, August 02, 2012
Left Side of the Aisle #67
Left Side of the Aisle
for August 2 - 8, 2012
This week:
Outrage of the Week: US and guns
http://www.care2.com/causes/evangelical-leaders-blame-the-obvious-culprits-in-aurora-shooting-liberals.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/russell-pearce-blames-shooting-victims-facebook.php
http://underthemountainbunker.com/2012/07/22/alex-jones-and-the-aurora-theater-shooting-was-a-staged-event-conspiracy/
http://www.care2.com/causes/gunman-kills-12-in-colorado-movie-theater.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/us/colorado-theater-shooting/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/james-holmes-weapons-internet_n_1694451.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/aurora-shooting-victims-house-resolution_n_1706044.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Giffords
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/21/gun-control_n_1691781.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/sarah-palin-on-aurora-shootings-gun-control_n_1702936.html
http://www.cagle.com/2012/07/its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/
http://www.city-data.com/city/Carver-Massachusetts.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/john-hickenlooper-colorado-shooting_n_1692875.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/michael-bloomberg-nyc-mayor-reacts-colorado-shooting_n_1689211.html
Good news on same-sex marriage
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/29/157561604/vietnam-considers-legalizing-same-sex-marriage
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/scottish-government-to-ba_0_n_1701443.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/chick-fil-a-brand-approval-rating-anti-gay-controversy_n_1719359.html
Clarabell award: Federal judge ignores Supreme Court to impose abortion restrictions
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/arizona-20-week-abortion-ban_n_1720803.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/30/fetal_pain_nonsense_prevails_in_arizona/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/opinion/anti-abortionists-on-trial.html
Pennsylvania admits claims of "voter fraud" used to support voter ID laws are bogus
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/pennsylvania-voter-id-trial_n_1697980.html
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/pennsylvania_voter_id_no_in_person_voter_fraud.php
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