121.6 - Update: Voter suppression comes to North Carolina

Update #2: Voter suppression comes to North Carolina

Okay, the other update is feel-bad news.

Two weeks ago, I talked about how some states were moving at warp speed to impose new restrictions on voting and voters in the wake of the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act and how North Carolina was among them.

Well, they've done it. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has signed into law a bill that not only requires certain types of photo identification at the polls in order to vote, something that the state itself admits that as many as 300,000 registered voters in the state lack, many of those being - surprise! - the poor and minorities, it also eliminates a boatload of measures that had been designed to protect against voter disenfranchisement and to increase participation.

That is, in addition to the photo ID requirement, the bill also reduces early voting days from 17 to 10, eliminates same-day registration, ends pre-registration for 16-and-17 year-olds, ends a student civics program, and kills an annual state-sponsored voter registration drive.

It also requires the State Board of Elections to look for ways to "purge" voter rolls, eliminates the checkoff on tax returns for public funding of elections, raises individual donation limits, obviously of most benefit to the most well-off, expands the ways in which unlimited corporate contributions may be used by political parties, broadens those who can challenge another's right to vote from someone in the same country to someone anywhere in the state, drops a requirement that political ads paid for by parties or supposedly "independent" groups say who paid for them, and allows dark money groups to not report how much they spend on campaign-style ads except for the period after Sept. 15 of an even-numbered election year.

In short, it's a voter suppression and money rules wet dream.

Now, the wingnuts are right about one thing: A lot of states don't have same-day registration or have less early voting than North Carolina had or some such. But rather than saying, as you would foolishly rationally expect, "look how much better we do on encouraging voting than other states," the response from Gov. McCrazy is, “This new law brings our state in line with a healthy majority of other states." Which reminds me of nothing so much as the statement I recall from some years ago where a company announced it was "meeting the competition" by raising its prices to match theirs.

But the real excuse for all this, of course, is the supposed need to combat voter fraud, the mythological supposed "crisis" manufactured entirely in the PR firms of the right wing.

Consider: In 2012 in North Carolina, 6,947,317 ballots were cast in the general and two primary elections. Of those, the state Board of Elections said merely 121 alleged cases of voter fraud were referred to the appropriate district attorney's office. So alleged - not even proven, but alleged - voter fraud accounted for 0.00174 percent of the ballots: less than two one-thousandths of one percent. In 2010, 3.79 million ballots were cast and only 28 cases of suspected voter fraud were turned over to the appropriate DAs. So in 2010, alleged voter fraud accounted for 0.000738 percent of ballots cast: seven ten thousandths of one percent.

Meanwhile, with 300,000 registered voters lacking the photo IDs, that means that even if 99.9999% - literally four nines - of those people got photo IDs, there would still be more people disenfranchised by lack of ID than there were suspected fraudulent votes in 2010.

Oh, but that doesn't matter, no no no! It's all about the integrity of the system! It's just common sense! So much so that McCrazy used the phrase twice in a 90-second YouTube video announcing the signing. In that same 90 seconds, he also managed to find time to claim that the only opposition to photo ID comes from "the extreme left" only interested in "divisive politics," an argument that once again proves that the right wing has absolutely no sense of irony.

But face facts and this is important: This is all of a piece. It's not just North Carolina, that's just the latest case. It is all part of a program. There is an active movement, an active coordinated effort in and by the right wing to make it harder and harder, impossible if they can work it out, for anyone who cannot be expected to reliably vote for the wingnuts to vote at all - which is why, virtually without exception, the changes we see getting pushed have their greatest impact on the poor, minorities, and the young.

And I'm not talking about some dark conspiracy by dark and hidden forces. The forces are dark but they are not hidden. This is all right out in the open, coordinated by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded outfit that develops "model laws" friendly to corporations and the 1%, including on voter disenfranchisement, and distributes them to a network of like-minded state-level activists and legislators. And if you're in a demographic which they can't count on to suck up to the corporations and the rich and their reactionary allies and toadies, then they are after your vote. Not just in North Carolina. Everywhere.

The upside - or, more accurately, the not-downside - of the story is that within hours of the bill being signed, the ACLU of North Carolina and a coalition of other groups filed a lawsuit against the bill,
charging that it violates the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The North Carolina NAACP and Advancement Project followed shortly after with their own suit. And the Justice Department has suggested it might fight the new law, under a standing provision of the Voting Rights Act which bans changes to election laws that have the intent to discriminate. That's obviously much harder to prove than it has the effect of discriminating, but at least is means the DOJ is looking to see if the effort is worth it, which is at least a hopeful development.

There is a footnote to this one, too: The new law did do one thing right. It bans the use of touch-screen voting machines by 2018 because only systems that "generate a paper ballot or a paper record by which voters may verify their votes before casting them" will be allowed. Touch-screen machines are notorious for being both unreliable and for being hackable. Good riddance, at least in North Carolina.

Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/07/left-side-of-aisle-119-part-2.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/06/left-side-of-aisle-114-part-3.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/north-carolina-voter-id_n_3745253.html
http://www.wral.com/election-changes-coming-in-2014-2016/12750290/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/12/north-carolina-governor-signs-extensive-voter-id-law/
http://www.wncn.com/story/22934120/widespread-voter-fraud-not-an-issue-in-nc-data-shows
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/league-women-voters-north-carolina-et-al-v-north-carolina

121.5 - Update: "Pink Lemonade for Peace" stand goes national

Update #1: "Pink Lemonade for Peace" stand goes national

I've got a couple of updates on previous stories, one good news, one not.

Back in June, I told you about five-year-old Jayden Sink, who set up a "Pink Lemonade for Peace" stand in front of the Equality House, the rainbow-colored house that sits right across the street from the compound of the lunatic Westboro Baptist Church.

Well, her lemonade stand has become a national event.

On Saturday, August 10, Jayden set up her last lemonade stand of the summer, having raised, to date, nearly $24,000 for Planting Peace, which runs the Equality House. But she wasn't be alone. At least 56 other lemonade stands went up the same day, involving children as far away as England, which raised another $1000-plus, an amount that may well grow because it appears not all the participants have reported what they raised.

In any event, all the money is going toward Equality House's anti-bullying initiatives.

When I first reported on this, I called it "feel-good news." But more than that, I sometimes bestow a "Hero Award" on someone who just does the right thing on a matter, whether it be big or small. Jayden Sink is a hero.

Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/06/left-side-of-aisle-113-part-5.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/10/westboro-baptist-church-lemonade_n_3733086.html
http://www.crowdrise.com/jaydenslemonade/fundraiser/Planting-Peace

121.4 - Outrage of the Week: Judge orders name change based on her religion

Outrage of the Week: Judge orders name change based on her religion

Now it's time for our other regular feature, the Outrage of the Week.

Jaleesa Martin of Newport, Tennessee, could not agree with the father of her 7-month-old on what the child's last name should be. So they wound up at Cocke County Chancery Court before Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew.

The judge did resolve that issue, but that wasn't enough for her, oh, no. She didn't like the child's first name, so she she ordered the parents to change that, too, change it on the birth certificate - even though the parents had agreed on that name and didn't want it changed.

Now, be aware that the name in question was not something truly bizarre like Mr. Mxyzptlk or "an unpronounceable symbol representing the artist formerly known as Prince" - which, by the by, is something even he gave up on eventually. Knowing that, that decision in and of itself, that kind of arrogant overreach, should be cause for outrage. While a number of countries have lists of approved names or other such restrictions, the US is not among them.

But that's not enough for the lofty standards of the Outrage of the Week. The real outrage here is the reason the judge gave for demanding that change: You see, the child name is Messiah. The judge demanded it be Martin.

Now, according to the Social Security Administration's annual list of the top 1000 baby names, on the list of names with the fastest growth in popularity, Messiah was fourth among boys. Between 2011 and 2012, the name Messiah jumped 246 positions, from number 633 to number 387. It was more popular than, among many others, such supposedly more common names as Ari, Bruce, Chris, Damon, Gary, Jay, Jonas, Lawrence, Malcolm, Marvin, Ramon, and Rory.

No matter, not according to Lu Ann Ballew - whose name, speaking of names, really sounds like the combination of a cartoon character and something J. K. Rowling would make up. The child, she declared, could not be named Messiah because, quoting what she told local news, "The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ."

That is, "Judge" and I put the word very deliberately in quotation marks, "Judge" Ballew has decided that her religious beliefs, her religion, override all other considerations. Tradition doesn't matter, the desire of the parents doesn't matter, the law doesn't matter, the Constitution doesn't matter, the separation of church and state doesn't matter, none of it matters. Her church overrides it all.

That very concept is dangerous. Lu Ann Ballew is not competent to be in her position and the fact that she is, is an outrage.

Two footnotes to this: Jaleesa Martin, the boy's mother, said she will appeal. Good on her; the state ACLU says it will help, good on them. And in the comments on the story at the website of the Knoxville, Tennessee, TV station that reported the story, folks overwhelmingly condemned the judge's decision. There is hope for us yet.

Sources:
http://www.wbir.com/news/article/283997/2/Judge-orders-babys-name-be-changed-from-Messiah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mxyzptlk
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,273604,00.html
http://www.wbir.com/news/article/284063/2/Despite-Tennessee-Judges-order-Messiah-among-fastest-growing-baby-names
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/messiah-baby-name_n_3741893.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl29%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D356852
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/aclu-judge-cant-change-childs-name-from-messiah?ref=fpb

121.3 - Clown Award: Rep. Markwayne Mullin

Clown Award: Rep. Markwayne Mullin

Now for the Clown Award, given weekly for meritorious stupidity.

This week, the big red nose goes to US Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. At a town hall last week, Mullin said he would like to “do away with" many programs to help low-income folks because, he said, they allow people to be lazy.

How does he know? Because he personally had witnessed fraud in the food stamp program.

So I’m buying my groceries and I noticed everybody was giving that card. [I assume he means an EBT, an Electronic Benefit Transfer, card.] There’s a couple beside me. This guy was built like a brick house. He had muscles all over him. And she was all in shape and she looked like she had just come from a fitness program. She was in the spandex, and they were both physically fit. And they go up in front of me and they pay with that card. Fraud. Absolute 100% all it is is fraud. It’s all over the place.

And on that level of evidence - he saw a physically fit couple using food stamps - he concludes that "100%" of it is fraud and the whole thing should be brought crashing down.

That itself would be enough to win him this week's award, but there is more in that he is as appallingly ignorant of fact as he is of logic.

First, consider the very simple, very basic, fact that he knows absolutely nothing about this couple except that they look fit. How about maybe they recently lost their jobs, say a few months ago, maybe they are new to the program, and they work out at home to stay fit? Impossible! says Rep. Melonhead. It's fraud! All of it!

Well, according to the Department of Agriculture, which runs the program, nearly half of participants were under age 18 and nearly 9 percent were age 60 or older. In terms of income, it's the poor who get the help. Only about 17 percent of SNAP households - SNAP is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the official name for food stamps - had gross income above the poverty line, while 43 percent had income at, or below, half the poverty line. Twenty percent of SNAP households had no cash income of any kind.

Despite that, only eight percent of all SNAP households received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits and another four percent received State General Assistance benefits - so only 12 percent received what we used to call welfare. Income support, what there was, came mostly from Social Security, received by 22 percent of SNAP households, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits given to the aged and disabled, received by 20 percent.

More: The average SNAP household size was 2.1 persons, which is smaller than the national average of 2.55 persons per household.

Remember, this is all according to the Ag Department.

So why, in the face and fact of all that, do clowns like Melonhead keep screeching "Fraud!" even as the actual level of fraud, even broadly defined, in SNAP is about 1 percent, far below that of many other programs both public and private? I'll give you two reasons:

One, it's efficient. About 95% of SNAP costs go directly to families for the purchase of food. Only five percent goes to all administrative costs, including determining eligibility, monitoring of retailers that accept SNAP, and anti-fraud activities.

And two, it works. When SNAP benefits are added to gross income, 13 percent of SNAP households move above the poverty line. The impact is even greater on the poorest households, moving 15 percent of them above 50 percent of the poverty line.

It works. It reduces poverty. It reduces hunger. It reduces malnutrition. It works. And the jackasses with their jeremiads and the bozos with their bleatings cannot stand, they utterly hate, the simple truth that a government program to help the poor clearly, undeniably, does exactly that and they are more than willing to let millions go hungry rather than admit their intellectual and moral failure.

US Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma: clown.

Sources:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/08/09/2442191/congressman-claims-widespread-fraud-because-he-saw-a-physically-fit-couple-use-food-stamps-to-buy-groceries/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/2011CharacteristicsSummary.pdf
http://trends.e-strategyblog.com/2012/12/07/average-american-household-size-1948-2012/6070
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/fraud/fraud_2.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3744

121.2 - Good news: Holder blinks on "drug war"

Good news #2: Holder blinks on "drug war"

In a rather startling reversal and an implicit admission that the idiotic, decades-long so-called "War on Drugs" has been an abysmal failure, Attorney General Eric Holder has called for major changes to the nation's criminal justice system to scale back the harsh sentences given for certain drug-related crimes and rely more on drug treatment and community service programs. This includes changing Department policy such that what he called "low-level, nonviolent" drug users won't be charged with offenses that impose mandatory minimum sentences.

Adopting language long used by critics of mandatory minimum sentences, Holder said they "breed disrespect for the system. When applied indiscriminately, they do not serve public safety. They have had a disabling effect on communities. And they are ultimately counterproductive." Which is pretty much what critics have been saying for years.

There was, however, no immediate indication that the feds will stop their attacks on medical marijuana clinics, and in fact Holder completely avoided mentioning both the topic and the drug.

Even so, I can't help but wonder if the fact that 20 states and the District of Columbia now have legal medical marijuana laws, with three more states considering it, is forcing Holder's hand on those "low-level, nonviolent" users, especially since support for medical pot just went mainstream in a big way:

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, says he had been wrong to ignore marijuana's medical potential and has changed his mind. Speaking of the potential benefits of the drug in aiding people suffering from several medical conditions - including seizures, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and HIV - Gupta said "we have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that."

One of the things which he said changed his mind was discovering that in 1970, the Assistant Secretary of Health proposed that marijuana be classified as a schedule 1 substance, a category for those drugs with the highest potential for abuse, higher than cocaine, not because the government had evidence to show that level of risk but because it had no evidence about abuse. The decision was avowedly driven by ignorance, not by knowledge.

That's been the story of marijuana in general and medical marijuana in particular in this country since the days of Harry Anslinger - look him up. And while you're at it, look up the film "Reefer Madness." Looks like maybe, we just might, might, be starting to recover from those 70 years of lies and ignorance.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/eric-holder-drug-sentences_n_3744717.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/medical-marijuana-eric-holder_n_3746028.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/sanjay-gupta-changed-his-mind-on-weed-2013-8
http://www.businessinsider.com/difficulty-of-study-medical-marijuana-2013-8
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/health/gupta-changed-mind-marijuana/index.html

121.1 - Good news: Stop-and-frisk smackdown

Good news: Stop-and-frisk smackdown

I love to start with good news, so let's try again this week.

You heard about this, I know you have, so I can be fairly brief without going into a great amount of detailed background.

In a stinging and long-overdue smackdown of New York Czar Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissar Ray Kelly, US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin has ruled that the city's "stop-and-frisk" program deliberately and unconstitutionally violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

"The city's highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner," she wrote, saying they "willfully ignored overwhelming proof" that the policy is racially discriminatory. Proof such as the fact that in 2011, 92 percent of those stopped were males, and 87 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic, and nearly half were young black or Hispanic men, even though they account for only 4.6% of the city's population. Even in Greenwich Village, which is overwhelmingly white, 70 percent of those stopped in 2011 were black or Latino.

Stop and frisk, or, by its legal term, a Terry stop, the name being taken from Terry v. Ohio, a 1968 Supreme Court decision allowing the practice, is constitutional - but Scheindlin concluded that the plaintiffs in the case had "readily established that the NYPD implements its policies regarding stop and frisk in a manner that intentionally discriminates based on race," rather than the "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity that is the standard for a legal Terry stop.

Some tried to defend the policy: An article in the National Journal in the wake of the decision selectively quoted an article in The Atlantic to argue the policy was effective in reducing crime, saying that in 2011, 770 guns were "recovered," that is, confiscated, during frisks; by comparison, 594 guns were found in 2003, the year before stop-and-frisk went into effect in the city.

But in 2011 there were 685,724 stops reported by police, an average of nearly 1,900 a day, which means that a gun was confiscated in slightly over one-tenth of one percent of stops. It also means getting those additional 176 guns as compared to 2003 meant one additional gun found every 3,900 stops, which means that 99.975% of the time the stop failed to take an additional gun off the streets. It's hard to imagine by what standard a failure rate of 99.975% constitutes "working."

And don't give me the "crime is down" line Mayor BloomingIdiot keeps invoking as a one-size-fits-all excuse for violating the rights of tens of thousands of people. The fact is, crime has been dropping for years and not just in New York. Both violent crime and serious property crime are way down from the early 1990s. Violent crime in the US peaked in 1992 and has declined almost every single year since. The number of violent crimes in the US is now down by nearly 38% since 1992. The rate of violent crime, violent crimes per capita, is down even more: from 1 per 132 residents in 1992 to 1 in 259 in 2011, a drop of nearly 50%.

Judge Scheindlin did not ban stop-and-frisk, she probably couldn't in the face of the Terry decision, but she did order an independent monitor to oversee major changes, including in areas of policies, training, supervision, monitoring, and discipline. She also ordered that officers test out body-worn cameras to create records of the encounters.

“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” the judge wrote. “Targeting young black and Hispanic men for stops based on the alleged criminal conduct of other young black or Hispanic men violates bedrock principles of equality.”

Absolutely.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/stop-and-frisk-violated-rights-new-york-city-judge-rules_n_3743236.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/stop-and-frisk-may-be-working-but-is-it-racist/267417/
http://definitions.uslegal.com/t/terry-stop/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-stop-and-frisk-was-ruled-unconstitutional-20130812
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html?hp&_r=1&

Left Side of the Aisle #121

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 15-21, 2013

This week:

Good news #1: Stop-and-frisk smackdown
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/stop-and-frisk-violated-rights-new-york-city-judge-rules_n_3743236.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/stop-and-frisk-may-be-working-but-is-it-racist/267417/
http://definitions.uslegal.com/t/terry-stop/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-stop-and-frisk-was-ruled-unconstitutional-20130812
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html?hp&_r=1&

Good news #2: Holder blinks on "drug war"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/eric-holder-drug-sentences_n_3744717.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/medical-marijuana-eric-holder_n_3746028.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/sanjay-gupta-changed-his-mind-on-weed-2013-8
http://www.businessinsider.com/difficulty-of-study-medical-marijuana-2013-8
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/health/gupta-changed-mind-marijuana/index.html

Clown Award: Rep. Markwayne Mullin
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/08/09/2442191/congressman-claims-widespread-fraud-because-he-saw-a-physically-fit-couple-use-food-stamps-to-buy-groceries/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/2011CharacteristicsSummary.pdf
http://trends.e-strategyblog.com/2012/12/07/average-american-household-size-1948-2012/6070
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/fraud/fraud_2.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3744

Outrage of the Week: Judge orders name change based on her religion
http://www.wbir.com/news/article/283997/2/Judge-orders-babys-name-be-changed-from-Messiah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mxyzptlk
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,273604,00.html
http://www.wbir.com/news/article/284063/2/Despite-Tennessee-Judges-order-Messiah-among-fastest-growing-baby-names
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/messiah-baby-name_n_3741893.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl29%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D356852
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/aclu-judge-cant-change-childs-name-from-messiah?ref=fpb

Update #1: "Pink Lemonade for Peace" stand goes national
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/06/left-side-of-aisle-113-part-5.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/10/westboro-baptist-church-lemonade_n_3733086.html
http://www.crowdrise.com/jaydenslemonade/fundraiser/Planting-Peace

Update #2: Voter suppression comes to North Carolina
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/07/left-side-of-aisle-119-part-2.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/06/left-side-of-aisle-114-part-3.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/north-carolina-voter-id_n_3745253.html
http://www.wral.com/election-changes-coming-in-2014-2016/12750290/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/12/north-carolina-governor-signs-extensive-voter-id-law/
http://www.wncn.com/story/22934120/widespread-voter-fraud-not-an-issue-in-nc-data-shows
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/league-women-voters-north-carolina-et-al-v-north-carolina

Weekly reminder

As of August 6, at least 6,905 people had been killed by gunfire in the US since Newtown, at least 70 of them in Massachusetts.

Left Side of the Aisle #120 - Part 6

August 6 and 9: remember

I'm recording this on August 7, neatly set between August 6 and August 9, two dates that seem to carry less meaning than they used to but which some of us still note.

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 in Japan 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're 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 actually converted into energy. That 600 milligrams equals six-tenths of a gram, or a little more than 1/50 ounce.

Hiroshima

The energy released by that 1/50 of an ounce had the explosive force of 14,000 tons of dynamite. It was enough to devastate Hiroshima. 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.

Nagasaki

Just three days later, another nuclear bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," did the same to Nagasaki, with tens of thousands more dead and another city destroyed.

These attacks were probably the two greatest war crimes the US has ever committed.

War crimes? Yes, and here's why: The bombings were unnecessary and the excuse trotted out every time the question is raised that the only alternative was a bloody land invasion of Japan was a lie. A 68-year-old damned lie.

By the spring of 1945 Japan was already a defeated nation. It no longer had any navy to speak of, its air force had been decimated, its army driven back to its own shores. It was incapable of mounting any offensive action or even of defending itself against US air raids. Critical materials and even food were in short supply.

In fact, the situation was so bad that before - before - the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan had already made secret overtures to the United States through Sweden and the Soviet Union stating that it was ready to surrender. All of this was known to the US military, all of this was known to Truman, who rejected the offer because it wasn't unconditional: Hirohito would've kept his throne.

What was also known to Truman was the USSR's intent to declare war on Japan and its likely impact: In his journal about his meetings with Stalin at the Potsdam conference, Truman wrote on July 17, 1945, "He'll be in Japan War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about."

It was so bad that US analysts sent to Japan in 1946 concluded Japan would've surrendered before November 1, 1945 "even if atomic bombs hadn't been dropped, Russia hadn't entered the war, and no invasion was planned."

Bombing Hiroshima was unnecessary and the US government and military knew it was unnecessary. It was a crime, a war crime, one that we compounded by bombing Nagasaki before the impact of the first bomb had time to settle in. The Nagasaki bomb was made ready in a day-and-night effort, which raises the question of if the second bombing was to force Japan to surrender - or to get it in before Japan had a chance to do so.

There is good reason to think the latter. US officials, including Secretary of State James Byrnes, presidential advisor Bernard Baruch, and top military leaders, had urged the bombings as a means of warning the Soviet Union not to challenge American plans for a postwar world dominated by US interests, to, in Byrnes' words, allow the US "to dictate our own terms [with the USSR] at the end of the war" and "make Russia more manageable in Europe" by showing both our power and our willingness to use it.

Because The Bomb was, as President Harry Truman put it, the weapon given us by God that we were to use "for His purposes and His ends." Which means, ultimately, that hundreds of thousands of Japanese were destroyed, disintegrated, as sacrificial lambs at the start of a decades-long campaign to "contain" the Soviets if not to bully them into submission.The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the last shots of World War II, they were the first shots of the Cold War, and the Japanese the first of its many victims. And their deaths were war crimes.

Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/08/left-side-of-aisle-68-part-2.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n7_v41/ai_8257981/pg_2

Left Side of the Aisle #120 - Part 5

Outrage of the Week: Gov. Walkalloveryou doesn’t like singing

Gov. Scott Walkalloveryou of Wisconsin is proving, if more proof was needed, that unions aren't his only target. The very idea of opposition is.

For two years, opponents of his regime have been standing in the rotunda of the state capitol building at noon to sing songs of protest. Recently, Walkalloveryou has decided he's had enough. He endorsed new rules which require a permit for any gathering of - get this - four or more people and capitol police have begun arresting people for their "illegal" gatherings.

In response to a suit, a federal judge bumped the number up to 20, which seems to miss the point since no permit should be required so long as others are not denied use of the facilities, but that's the number until a trial on the law next year.

To the credit of the protesters, they haven't been deterred and continue to gather and sing even as to the discredit of Walkalloveryou the arrests continue. By August 6, the number of arrests was up to 160.

But what makes this truly outrageous is that capitol police have been going up to random bystanders, people, often tourists, watching the singing from the gallery above, and telling them they are "subject to arrest" if they don't leave. The cops don't appear to have acted on that threat yet, but they are putting the word out.

So that's right: In Scott Walkalloveryou's Wisconsin, it's not only illegal to sing protest songs in the state capitol, it may be illegal to watch someone sing protest songs in the state capitol. We are moving into really, really, dangerous territory.

Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/singing-can-get-you-arrested-in-wisconsin.html
http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_23762151/wisconsin-police-arrest-30-more-sing-along-protesters
http://www.startribune.com/local/218570671.html

Left Side of the Aisle #120 - Part 4

Clown Award: the ignorance of the right

Since I just mentioned last week's Clown Award, let's do this week's - the award given, as always, for meritorious stupidity.

This week the big red nose is a group award, given to some Kentucky citizens who opposed new science standards for the state, awarded in recognition of their striking demonstration of the truly appalling ignorance of right-wingers.

Kentucky is one of the states considering what are called Next Generation Science Standards. The Kentucky state Board of Education adopted the standards in June and held hearings last week to to get public feedback before the program is presented to the state legislature for official approval.

The standards were developed with input from officials in 26 states - including Kentucky - and are intended to make science curricula more uniform across the country.

And of course the know-nothings were out in force to express their utter shock that their dear children were to be exposed to - gasp - science! The standards in the program cover a wide swath of science and involve hundreds of points, but there were just two that were the main target of the mouth-breathers: You got it, evolution and climate change.

Matt Singleton, a Baptist minister, invoked the paranoid's all-purpose monster "outsiders" as he denounced the standards as "fascist" that essentially outlaw "the right to worship almighty god" because they teach "the rich man’s elitist" - he's working in all the clichés, isn't he - "the rich man’s elitist religion of evolution," evolution being, he said, "a lie" that has led to drug abuse, suicide, and other social afflictions by teaching that "our children are the property of the state.”

One parent, Valerie O’Rear, said the standards promote an “atheistic world view” and a political agenda that pushes government control.

Meanwhile, Dena Stewart-Gore claimed that the standards will ostracize religious students and that the standards are "socialism," which, she said, "takes anybody that doesn’t fit the mold and discards them. We are even talking genocide and murder here, folks.”

So in their minds, science, knowledge, is "fascist" "atheistic" "socialism" that leads to political and social oppression, drug abuse, suicide, murder, and genocide.

You know what? I take it back. These people aren't clowns. They are sick. Sick with fear of a world they can't control bringing changes they can't comprehend. And I feel sorry for them.

Someone who is a clown, however, is state Sen. Mike Wilson, who chairs the state’s Senate Education Committee, one that has to approve the new curriculum. And he has made it clear that he thinks that climate change is a lot of hooey.

By the way, there is some news on the climate change front, which I'll get to next week.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/next-generation-science-standards_n_3672418.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130723/NEWS01/307220132/School-science-hotly-debated-Kentucky?nclick_check=1
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/12/2141431/will-a-denier-scrub-curriculum-that-teaches-climate-science-to-kentucky-schoolchildren/

Left Side of the Aisle #120 - Part 3

Update 2: Lauren Green is still a clown

On another front, last week I gave Lauren Green of Fox News the Clown Award for her Islamophobic "interview" of religious scholar Reza Aslan, where she seemed incapable of grasping the concept that Aslan, who is a Muslim, could be interested in writing about Jesus - even though Aslan is a PhD in religious studies with a degree in the New Testament.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought Green was a clown: Buzzfeed asked "Is This The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?" On Twitter, The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum called it "demented." The Twitter hashtag #foxnewslitcrit was spawned, full of mock interview questions such as, "As a human, Mr. Tolkien, why would you want to write about hobbits?"

However, there was one place which thought she did a great job: Fox News, where her career is apparently safe.

On the network's "America Live," host host Shannon Bream claimed there was nothing to the whole business, that it had been drummed up by "liberal" and "far-left" media. Right-wing media hack Brent Bozell was there to say that he "applauded" Green for hinting Aslan was biased, that Aslan couldn't be a "very good Muslim," although why Brent Bozell is supposed to be some expert on what makes a "good Muslim" is a mystery for the ages, that Aslan was misrepresenting his academic credentials, and couldn't have read all the books he said he'd read.

Oh, and that Lauren Green is a great person, with which Bream agreed - just before plugging her own upcoming story on people who were attacking Christians.

Sources:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/29/206580444/book-news-outrage-after-fox-news-interview-with-zealot-author
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23foxnewslitcrit&src=typd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/30/lauren-green-fox-news-reza-aslan-interview_n_3675809.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/fox-news-defends-reza-aslan-interview_n_3683736.html

Left Side of the Aisle #120 - Part 2

Update 1: Moral Monday carries it on

A couple of updates on things I've talked about before.

First, I've mentioned the Moral Monday protests that have been taking place in North Carolina's state capital of Raleigh. Thousands have participated and over 900 have been arrested in nonviolent civil disobedience.

After the legislative session ended, the NAACP, which has been the sparkplug for the protests, decided to take them on the road. The first stop was Asheville, North Carolina - and on August 5, according to the police estimate, some 8,000-10,000 people turned out.

There are plans for protests in other cities in the state - Charlotte is tentatively scheduled for August 19 - with the intent of having one such rally in every Congressional district in North Carolina.

Meanwhile, it appears that the idea is starting to spread: Moral Monday protests also took place this week in Chicago and Oakland, California.

Sources:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/05/1229150/-TEN-THOUSAND-turn-out-to-protest-GOP-in-Asheville-NC?detail=email#
http://www.carolinamercury.com/2013/08/thousands-attend-mountain-moral-monday-protests-spread-to-chicago-and-oakland/
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-local/45075-breaking-news-clergy-unions-community-organizations-taking-over-palmer-house-hilton-lobby-demanding-hotel-rescind-invitation-to-alec.html
https://www.facebook.com/events/531402090247335/

Left Side of the Aisle #120 - Part 1

Good news on bad news: Civil asset forfeiture

So here's some good news to start off with, although as is too often true these days, the good news has a dark underside.

The good news is that a federal judge has ordered the return of $1 million seized by police during a traffic stop, after police presented only a questionable drug dog sniff as evidence that the money was associated with alleged drug activity.

That's the good news. The entire backstory is the bad news.

In March 2012 Nebraska state troopers pulled Rajesh and Marina Dheri of Montville, NJ, over for speeding. According to court documents, the cops then "obtained consent" to search the car. That right there should raise red flags. The cops didn't say that they had probable cause to search, they didn't even claim reasonable suspicion for a search, they said they "obtained consent." Such "consent" is usually "obtained" by verbal tricks, bullying, or implied threats of detention or arrest if you refuse. Cops have been known to go ballistic if they are told they can't search a car, others have been known to use your very refusal as a basis to claim they have reasonable suspicion that you're doing something illegal sufficient to empower them to search anyway, others have been known to detain drivers, held on the side of a road by an armed cop (sometimes with backup), until a drug-sniffing dog can be brought to the scene, however long that may be.

While certainly such searches do not happen at every or even at most traffic stops, they are common enough that people are frequently advised to let the cops do it, let them search your car, even if they don't have the authority, even if you can refuse, because asserting your lawful and Constitutional rights just causes you more trouble and so the best thing to do is passively surrender to arbitrary authority. In fact, some advise it makes more sense to submit even if you are carrying something illegal, that ultimately you'll be better off behaving as if the Fourth Amendment simply does not even exist.

But the thing about the drug-sniffing dogs brings me back to the case at hand. When they searched the car, the cops found bundles of cash in the trunk - $1 million worth. On that basis, they arrested the Dheris on suspicion of drug activity - even though there were no drugs nor any so-called drug paraphernalia found. The money alone was the excuse for the arrest. Once at the police station, the cops hid the money and a drug-sniffing dog correctly identified the location.

Here's the next red flag: the dogs. Not only are these drug-sniffing dogs notoriously unreliable, I maintain that their use by definition constitutes an invasive search that should require a warrant because they amount to a device being used to detect things not available to human senses, to detect things not available to the eyes and ears (or noses) of the cops. Courts would not - at least I hope they would not - approve of police routinely and without a warrant using an X-ray machine to look inside the trunk of your car, seeing things they otherwise could not see, so why should a dog, enabling them to be aware of smells which they could not smell be any different?

But there's even another thing: According to a variety of studies, somewhere between a third and more than three-fourths of US paper money contains detectable traces of cocaine. Which means almost any pile of bills, even a small one, can produce a so-called "hit" from one of these dogs. So even if the dog is right, it still means nothing in terms of a claim the money is related to illegal drugs.

No matter. Makes no difference. The dog got a hit on the money the cops took from the Dheris' trunk, so the cops decided to keep the money even as they let the couple go because they had no evidence, no cause, to arrest them. No evidence of a crime, but they said they were keeping the money anyway.

You may not have heard of this before, but if you haven't it's time that you did. This is a corrupted and corruption-ridden outgrowth of the War on Drugs. It's called civil forfeiture and it allows police to seize assets based on nothing more than their claimed belief that those assets either are related to illegal drug activity or were paid for with the proceeds of illegal drug activity. They can do this even if they have no basis for any charges against the person possessing the asset. No, I am not exaggerating. Not one bit. This is something the ACLU has been fighting for some time - in fact, several years ago I was for a short while part of an ACLU speakers' bureau and this is a topic I spoke on.

Once an asset is seized, it becomes the responsibility of the person whose property was taken to prove that the asset - whether it be money, a car, a house, or anything else - was not obtained through the drug trade, that is, they have to prove a negative and have the burden of proof in doing it. So it has become sadly commonplace for cops to just keep money or other valuables they find during traffic stop under a claim it's the result of illegal activity and therefore can be seized.

Such civil forfeiture has a long history; it was one of the things that drove the American Revolution and one of the things the part of the Fourth Amendment referring to people being secure in their effects against unreasonable seizure was designed to prevent - although it didn't take long for such seizures to be approved in cases such as piracy on the grounds that it was much easier to go after the ships and booty than the actual pirates, who might be continents away.

Even so, civil forfeiture was not widely used beyond such limited cases - not, that is, until 1984. That's when Congress passed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which established a special fund that turned over proceeds from forfeitures to the law-enforcement agencies responsible for them. Now, the value of assets seized didn't go to the general fund, most of it went to the cops and prosecutors. Put another way, the cops now had a profit motive for seizing property. The result? At the Justice Department, proceeds from forfeiture went from $27 million in 1985 to $556 million in 1993 to $4.2 billion in 2012.

Soon, states were crafting their own similar forfeiture laws. There are now states and localities where major parts of their police budgets are the result of assets, including money, seized under civil forfeiture. In fact, there have been some places where it literally became a racket, with local cops deliberately targeting people with out-of-state plates, especially minorities with out-of-state plates, for traffic stops with the specific intent of claiming their property was drug-related and taking it.

Most victims don't even try to get their money or goods returned because they don't have the money to fight back or because the legal costs involved would be more than the asset is worth. Remember, this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, so you have no right to an attorney and so any legal costs get paid out of your own pocket. What's more, many areas put up extra roadblocks: For example, people often have to put up bonds just to keep their stuff from getting sold before they can even try to get it back. For another, there are filing fees: Washington, DC, for one, requires a fee of $2500 just to file to try to get your stuff back.

And don't think this is just something "out there" somewhere. The Institute for Justice, in a state-by-state study of forfeiture laws called "Policing for Profit," gave Massachusetts an F, calling its civil forfeiture regime "terrible."

More recently, it's been revealed that over the three-year period 2009-2011, the most recent data available, Massachusetts cops and prosecutors have seized as much as $33 million in property via civil forfeiture.

Middlesex County officials have seized not only cash, cars, and bank accounts, but cell phones, computers, an engagement ring, GPS devices, and Lottery scratch tickets. Despite claims that such seizures are intended to punish drug dealers by taking away their stuff, County DA Gerry Leone said police usually don’t seize property that would cost more for upkeep, calling whether or not to seize property "a business decision."

Meanwhile, among the "other law enforcement purposes" on which Worcester County spent money it obtained by seizures were bottled water, attendance at conferences, tree-trimming services, and the purchase of a Zamboni - which, if you don't know, is the machine used to smooth ice at hockey and ice-skating rinks. No, the issue is not just "out there." It's right here.

Getting back to the case of the Dheris, the money taken - stolen would be a better word - was not even theirs. It belonged to a friend in Los Angeles who had saved it over 15 years of working as an exotic dancer and who kept it in a safe deposit box because she doesn't like banks. The Dheris were taking the money to New Jersey where it was to be invested in a nightclub to be jointly owned by the friend and the Dheris.

Unlike too many, the Dheris could and did fight back. And two weeks ago, on July 23, US District Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled that "'lots of money' is not a sufficient basis in and of itself for a forfeiture," and that there is "no nexus between the currency and any illegal activity" while dismissing the dog sniff as "inconsequential." He ordered that the money be returned - with interest.

So that is good news and this particular story has a happy ending. But too many other times civil forfeiture has simply been a means for cops and prosecutors to fatten their budgets and not even to "fight the bad guys" but to pay bonuses and buy everything from popcorn machines to boats.

In 2000, Congress reacted to increasing complaints of misuse of the law at the federal level by passing the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, which requires that federal prosecutors prove “a substantial connection between the property and the offense” in order to justify a seizure. Unfortunately, that only applies to federal law enforcement, not to the states, not to Massachusetts. It's long past time for that to no longer be the case. If civil forfeiture can't be contained to its original, limited purpose, then it should be done away with altogether. If local cops want a new popcorn machine, let the local taxpayers pay for it.

Sources:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/25/2352931/judge-orders-police-to-return-1-million-seized-based-on-drug-dog-sniff/
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/judge-orders-1-million-returned-exotic-dancer-151044009.html
http://www.dallascriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/2008/06/can-i-search-your-car.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087392/What-cop-goes-ballistic-driver-says-search-car-warrant.html
http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp
http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html
http://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/civil-asset-forfeiture
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1522324581/Drug-money-pads-DA-police-budgets
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/judge-orders-1-million-returned-to-exotic-dancer/

Left Side of the Aisle #120

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 8-14, 2013

This week:

Civil asset forfeiture
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/25/2352931/judge-orders-police-to-return-1-million-seized-based-on-drug-dog-sniff/
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/judge-orders-1-million-returned-exotic-dancer-151044009.html
http://www.dallascriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/2008/06/can-i-search-your-car.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087392/What-cop-goes-ballistic-driver-says-search-car-warrant.html
http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp
http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html
http://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/civil-asset-forfeiture
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1522324581/Drug-money-pads-DA-police-budgets
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/judge-orders-1-million-returned-to-exotic-dancer/

Update 1: Moral Monday carries it on
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/05/1229150/-TEN-THOUSAND-turn-out-to-protest-GOP-in-Asheville-NC?detail=email#
http://www.carolinamercury.com/2013/08/thousands-attend-mountain-moral-monday-protests-spread-to-chicago-and-oakland/
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-local/45075-breaking-news-clergy-unions-community-organizations-taking-over-palmer-house-hilton-lobby-demanding-hotel-rescind-invitation-to-alec.html
https://www.facebook.com/events/531402090247335/

Update 2: Lauren Green is still a clown
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/29/206580444/book-news-outrage-after-fox-news-interview-with-zealot-author
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23foxnewslitcrit&src=typd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/30/lauren-green-fox-news-reza-aslan-interview_n_3675809.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/fox-news-defends-reza-aslan-interview_n_3683736.html

Clown Award: the ignorance of the right
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/next-generation-science-standards_n_3672418.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130723/NEWS01/307220132/School-science-hotly-debated-Kentucky?nclick_check=1
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/12/2141431/will-a-denier-scrub-curriculum-that-teaches-climate-science-to-kentucky-schoolchildren/

Outrage of the Week: Gov. Walkalloveryou doesn’t like singing
http://www.care2.com/causes/singing-can-get-you-arrested-in-wisconsin.html
http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_23762151/wisconsin-police-arrest-30-more-sing-along-protesters
http://www.startribune.com/local/218570671.html

August 6 and 9
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/08/left-side-of-aisle-68-part-2.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n7_v41/ai_8257981/pg_2

Weekly reminder

As of July 30, at least 6,672 people had been killed by gunfire in the US since Newtown, at least 68 of them in Massachusetts.

Left Side of the Aisle #119 - Part 6

On the Bradley Manning verdict

Bradley Manning - remember him? I wouldn't be surprised if you went "oh, yeah, him, the leaker guy. Whatever happened with that?" Despite the significance of his actions and the importance of the case - including charging a military whistleblower with "aiding the enemy" for the first time since the Civil War - the media, at least in this country, pretty much let the whole three years now of his confinement and trial slide by with just the occasional reference, a lack of coverage which was encouraged by the military court, which put major burdens on the ability of the media to report on the trial, including, most recently, subjecting reporters and their cars to invasive searches and having armed guards stand directly behind them as they worked at their laptops in the press area. This was because of, the judge said, earlier repeated breaking of court rules - even though no one could tell the reporters what rules had been broken.

But after months in solitary confinement under conditions that if it was done to an American by another country, we would call torture, torture inflicted with the intent of breaking him so he would testify against Julian Assange in the trial of which the Obama gang still dream, Bradley Manning was brought to trial.

On July 30, Col. Denise Lind, the judge in that military trial - I'm reminded of an article I read some years ago which was titled "Military justice is to justice as military music is to music" - the judge released her verdict: She convicted Bradley Manning of almost all of the charges against him but, be thankful for what you can, acquitted him of "aiding the enemy."

That was the charge everyone was focused on for two reasons beyond its rarity: One, it was the most severe, carrying a potential penalty of life without parole. Two, the impact of a conviction on the future ability of the public to learn what it should know but the government for whatever reason doesn't want to tell, would have been severe. You have to understand: Bradley Manning was not accused of giving important information to al-Qaeda. He was not accused of actually helping al-Qaeda. He was not accused of wanting to help al-Qaeda. He was accused of giving information to a media organization knowing that al-Qaeda would be able to see whatever that organization published. And even if the information in and of itself was of no assistance to al-Qaeda, it potentially could be analyzed in coordination with other information, thereby revealing something that would be of assistance. That, believe it or not, was the actual basis for, the actual argument the government used in pursuing, the charge of "aiding the enemy."

A conviction would have set a precedent that any leak of information relating to the military or foreign policy that the government wanted to keep secret, any leak of information the government found inconvenient or embarrassing, any leak of information which could even hypothetically be linked with other undetermined information in a way that could be useful to any of our enemies even if we don't know who those enemies are because that information is also classified, could be the basis for a charge of "aiding the enemy."

So we as a people dodged a bullet - but it's not over: We got hit by shrapnel. Manning was convicted of a computer fraud charge and some other, lesser, military infractions as well as, bizarrely, five counts of stealing government documents. Exactly how the documents were "stolen" since obviously he sent copies to WikiLeaks and the originals never left the military's possession is unclear: I remember that in the many-ways similar Pentagon Papers trial of Daniel Ellsberg the feds made the same charge and were faced with the same dilemma: Ellsberg had provided copies to the New York Times, not originals. Prosecutors were reduced to the farcical claim that copying was stealing, that he had stolen "the arrangement of words on the page." Yes, that's a quote.

Apparently, that was not a dilemma for Col. Lind.

More importantly and more seriously, something else that did not trouble Col. Lind was convicting Manning of six counts of espionage for providing documents to WikiLeaks. Six counts of espionage for leaking information to the media. And in all six of those cases, Manning had pled guilty to a lesser offense but Lind and prosecutors refused to accept that plea and found him guilty of the original charge. In fact, Manning had earlier pled guilty to a lesser offense on nine of the 21 charges facing him; Lind and prosecutors accepted only two.

So despite the acquittal on "aiding the enemy," Bradley Manning still faces a possible 136 years in prison for daring to tell the people what they deserve and in fact need to know. And remember this: The government has ranted and raved about "damage to national security" but in the three years since his arrest has not offered one single shred of evidence, not a single strand of an argument, that such national security has in fact been harmed by Bradley Manning.

But I will say this, there was one significant effect of Manning's actions: The end of US participation in the Iraq War.

The Bush gang had been forced by the Iraqi government into an agreement to remove US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. But the Obama gang was pressuring the Iraqis to allow for perhaps tens of thousands of US troops to stay beyond that deadline under a new "security agreement." Among the things Bradley Manning leaked was a video of US soldiers on a helicopter gunship shooting up a group of people and then going back to shoot up a van that came to take away the wounded. The video was put on YouTube under the title Collateral Murder. You can see the video at collateralmurder.com. The Pentagon decided the soldiers had acted within "the rules of engagement" and there would be no punishment.

In the wake of that, the Iraqis demanded that any US troops remaining in Iraq be subject to Iraqi law. The Obama gang refused, so there was no new agreement - and all US troops left Iraq on schedule. I can't help but wonder if the extremism of the case against Bradley Manning and the furious attempts to crush WikiLeaks were an outgrowth of frustrated egomania.

This is the simple hard truth: This case was not about protecting the nation. It was -and is - about protecting the privileges of the powerful, this was -and is - about control, this was -and is - about the imperious condescension of a government and military elite treating the rest of us as, the joke has it, mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shit. It was - and is - about the Obama gang getting another skin to hang on its wall of secrecy. That's what this was and is about. And don't you forget it.

And don't you forget one other thing: Bradley Manning is a hero.

Sources:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/how-the-bradley-manning-verdict-avoided-a-serious-chill-on-whistleblowing-20130730
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/bradley-manning-guilty-charges-aiding-enemy/story?id=19797378
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/us/bradley-manning-verdict.html?_r=0
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57596093/bradley-manning-acquitted-of-aiding-the-enemy-for-giving-secrets-to-wikileaks/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-to-announce-verdict-in-bradley-manning-case-today/2013/07/29/e894a75c-f897-11e2-afc1-c850c6ee5af8_story.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/30/usa-wikileaks-manning-idUSL1N0G00PY20130730
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/journalists-at-bradley-manning.html
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/national/south/2013/07/bradley_manning_acquitted_of_aiding_the_enemy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&feature=youtube_gdata
http://collateralmurder.com/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2011/06/wars-and-not-rumors-of-wars.html

Left Side of the Aisle #119 - Part 5

Food Stamp (SNAP) benefits to be cut in November

Here's a little something I bet you didn't know: Come November, the 22 million American households involving 47 million people who rely Food Stamps will see their benefits cut. The average household's monthly benefit will drop by $20 to $25.

The general public doesn't realize it, the low income people on the program don't realize it, and Congress has no interest in, or intention of, doing a damn thing about it.

It's happening because in 2009 there was a 13% boost in benefits as part of the stimulus bill and that boost is expiring. The original idea was to let inflation catch up with the increase over time so that when the stimulus ended, recipients would not experience a dollar reduction in their benefits. Nice idea, which of course got screwed up: The Obama gang needed money to offset the cost of a series of spending bills. They said at the time they would replace the money later, but they never did.

Now, there's no chance of doing it as the debate in Congress over current funding for the Food Stamp program - which, by the way, is now formally called SNAP, for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but lots of folks still call it food stamps - but the debate isn't over whether to cut the program, but by how much and what sort of onerous or degrading conditions can be required of recipients.

There are proposals for additional work requirements, for example, under the ever-popular classist* notion that poor people are just lazy and what they really need is to be instructed in "the dignity of work." Rep. Steve Southerland calls it "moral reformation." This despite the fact that 92% of recipients are children, the elderly, disabled, or people who are already working.

Other ideas floating around include eliminating automatic food stamp eligibility for people who are enrolled in certain other benefit programs, turning the whole program into block grants, which essentially means going "hey, states, here's some money, do what you want with it, but if you wanna use it for food stamps, that's okay too," and another repeat offender, drug testing recipients under the ever-popular classist notion that poor people are just lazy and drug addicts.

If there's no agreement, Congress may have to extend current the farm law - and the current levels of spending for SNAP which is part of it - when it expires at the end of September.

Be that as it may, that November cut is still coming. A cut of $25 may not seem like much, but think of it this way: The current maximum monthly benefit for a family of four is $668. A 30-day month and three meals a day is 360 meals per month - so the benefit is a princely $1.86 per person per meal. (And then the ignorant, sneering buffoons wonder why people are buying cheap, processed, but filling foods rather than expensive fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains and so on.) Which also means a cut of $25 a month is 13 or 14 meals a month that someone going to have to skip.

And it adds up over time. According to the calculations of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, there are about 870,000 people in Massachusetts who will be impacted by these cuts, cuts which will over the period November 2013 to October 2014 total about $61,000,000.

And we're doing this at a time when, according to a recent study, three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Seventy-six percent of American families have less than six months’ worth of savings to their name. Half have less than three months emergency savings and more than a quarter have no savings at all.

And we're doing all this at a time when a new survey by the Associated Press reveals that four out of five US adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty, or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.

It's called "economic insecurity" and it's defined as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as Food Stamps, or having an income below 150% of the poverty line. By the time they reach 60, 79% of American adults have experienced economic insecurity at some point in their lives. Even among whites, whose rates of poverty and unemployment are persistently far below those of minorities, the experience of economic insecurity has touched 76% of them by that point in their lives. In fact, hardship among whites is growing faster than it is among minorities - which may well be because those minorities already had less to lose, with poverty rates much higher than those of whites, but it doesn't change the impact on the affected families.

The overall poverty rate remains stubbornly stuck at 15%, but equally significantly, Census Bureau figures say that about 40% of adults will live in poverty for at least one year of their lives.

An analysis to be published next year by the Oxford University Press shows that by a number of different measures, racial disparities in areas such as poverty, unemployment, and homelessness are shrinking - but not because blacks and Hispanics are doing better but because white are doing worse. We are increasingly all in the same boat - and it's leaking.

AP calls all this "a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream." I call it the next phase of the class war being waged by the rich against the rest.

Meanwhile, rich investors say that it takes at least $5 million to feel wealthy and two-thirds of millionaires don’t consider themselves to be rich as Congress says what the hungry need is "moral reform" and McDonald's grandly insists that of course their employees can make it on $8.25 an hour - they just need to get a second job, never get sick, and not require food or clothing.

This is the economy we are living in today. And it's not going to change unless and until we get mad enough to do something about it and I don't mean taking a job retraining course or signing up at DeVry University. I mean changing the very nature of our economy to promote cooperation over competition and the be more concerned with social value than personal greed.

I'll have more on that as time goes on.

*"Classism" is defined as contempt for the poor.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/food-stamp-cuts_n_3671142.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/food-stamp-work-requirements_n_3649357.html?ref=topbar
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3899
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/26/2220511/americans-paycheck-to-paycheck/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/poverty-unemployment-rates_n_3666594.html
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/23/2340411/the-rich-feel-poor-if-they-make-less-than-5-million/

Left Side of the Aisle #119 - Part 4

Outrage of the Week: List of al-Qaeda's "associated forces" is classified

Okay, now for the Outrage of the Week.

In a major national security speech this spring, President Obama said repeatedly that the US is at war with "Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces."

Well, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee nin May, Sen. Carl Levin asked the Defense Department to provide him with a current list of al-Qaeda affiliates.

Levin’s office later said that the Pentagon’s "answer included the information requested" but they were not allowed to discuss it because, a Pentagon representative later said, revealing such a list could cause “serious damage to national security” because it would enable those groups to "build credibility" by being on such a list. In the words of DOD PR flack Lt. Col. Jim Gregory, “We cannot afford to inflate these organizations.”

Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law, said the Pentagon’s reasoning seems, to put it kindly, weak. "If the organizations are ‘inflated’ enough to be targeted with military force," he said - which they are, with dozens of drone strikes against so-called "associated forces" in Yemen and Somalia - if they're "inflated" enough to be targeted, "why," he asked, "can't they be mentioned publicly?"

One reason might be a desire by government officials to avoid embarrassing themselves: At that May hearing, Michael Sheehan, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, described terrorist groups as “murky” and “shifting,” which is another way of saying "we actually don't know who they are and we just shoot at whoever happens to raise their head because we don't really know what we're doing."

But here's the more likely reason: They just don't want to tell us. They just want us to continue to live in a vague, unfocused fear, a fear of dark forces, undefined, but out there just waiting, trying, striving, to get us, to destroy our way of life, to murder us in our beds, oh please protect us, oh please oh please we'll be good oh please!

The bottom line here is that, in what Jack Goldsmith accurately calls "a remarkable testament to this unusual war," we are, according to our misleaders, "at war with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces" - but who those "associated forces" are, where they are, how we are fighting them, where and when we are fighting them, is all classified, a military secret which we the people are not entitled to know. We are not entitled to know the names of those with who we are at war. Hell, even Winston Smith got to blame Eurasia. Or sometimes Eastasia. But at least he got a name. We're not even entitled to that.

And if you do not find that an outrage, if you do not find yourself sickened by the concept of secret wars against secret enemies, maybe you'd better just check your citizenship at the door on your way out.

Footnote: Here's another reason why they might not want to tell us: The US's clandestine war in Somalia against Al-Shabab, touted as year as an unqualified success, which is probably why they were willing to identify Al-Shabab as an "associated force," but that "unqualified success" may be in danger of unraveling. According to recent analysis, al-Shabab remains intact and has preserved the core of its 5,000-strong fighting force and resources.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/pentagon-war-classified_n_3659353.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/07/the-long-classified-war/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/22/is_the_us_ramping_up_a_secret_war_in_somalia_al_shabab?page=0,0&utm_source=Africa%20Center%20for%20Strategic%20Studies%20-%20Media%20Review%20for%20July%2023,%202013%20&utm_campaign=7%2F23%2F2013&utm_medium=email