One week after the deadly massacre at Sandy Hook
Elementary School, the head of the NRA spoke in Washington. His plan for more
school safety is more guns in schools. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell offers his
take.Saturday, December 22, 2012
NRA's Wayne LaPierre Is A Desperate, Cornered Rat
One week after the deadly massacre at Sandy Hook
Elementary School, the head of the NRA spoke in Washington. His plan for more
school safety is more guns in schools. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell offers his
take.
When Gun Nuts Write Gun Laws, Nuts Have Guns
By Tom Scocca
Read more coverage about gun control in
Slate.
So this is what Wayne LaPierre came up with, with a week to reflect on the news that a law-abiding gun owner's legally purchased rifle, in the hands of her firearm-trained son, had been used to slaughter 20 kids: more guns, more law-abiding gun owners, more more more lead-spraying death machinery, more killing to stop the killers until all the killers have been killed. Only when we have eliminated the threat of "gun-free school zones," the danger and horror of children going through a school day unsurrounded by the implements of death, will we all feel safe.
People who live in the world of causes and effects and verifiable truths, the world the NRA has long since abandoned, had no trouble pointing out the flaws in LaPierre's analysis—the fact, for instance, that there had been an armed deputy sheriff on duty at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.
Around the time LaPierre was speaking, someone in Pennsylvania was shooting another batch of people, including armed state troopers.
Guns kill people. More guns kill more people. What the NRA gets wrong—intentionally or delusionally or, in the psychologically and financially profitable zone where intention and delusion overlap—is its bedrock premise: that gun killings are the work of Bad Guys, predators whose drive to hurt and steal and kill cannot be stopped by anything but a brave Good Guy armed with a powerful firearm and, not at all incidentally, trained through an NRA-backed firearms-training program.
And the NRA insists that these people—"the monsters and the predators," as LaPierre put it—will not be thwarted by gun control, except in the funny T-shirt both-hands-on-my-weapon sense. The next Adam Lanza is already picking out his target, LaPierre said.
That's because the next Adam Lanza is almost certainly able to get his hands on a weapon to point at that target. The original Adam Lanza was apparently too confused and low-functioning to navigate Connecticut's simple waiting period and buy one for himself. But his mother, a gun enthusiast in good standing, had a stock of her own. She reportedly had wanted to feel safe.
So Wayne LaPierre wants to talk about "evil," because evil is elemental and intractable. Evil is part of the human condition. You cannot legislate away evil.
Let's leave the darkest recesses of the soul for a second. Two days before the Connecticut massacre, this happened:
This is not unknowable wickedness. It's banal teenage rage and stupidity, amplified by a gun. That's what everyday gun crime is—fleeting moments of thoughtless viciousness, made permanent with the wiggle of a finger. The Jovan Belcher murder-suicide was an ugly domestic argument; Belcher's gun collection turned it lethal. Maybe, as the gun enthusiasts argue, he might have resorted to using a knife or a club. But that's a less likely result. And even if it did happen, it would be less likely to be fatal.
In Australia, gun violence decreased markedly after the implementation of strict gun control measures. In Bogota, the number of deaths by firearm is reportedly down 58 percent, after the mayor banned public possession of guns. Take away instant, easy death-dealing, and the death rate drops.
LaPierre does not live in the realm of probabilities and harm reduction. He lives in a sick, paranoid universe where guns substitute for law, custom, and morality. Here he is, describing the country as he sees it, a place that teeters on the brink of collapse because of our national softness on crime: "Add another hurricane, terrorist attack, or some other natural or man-made disaster, and you’ve got a recipe for a national nightmare of violence and victimization."
Violence and victimization. Now is a good time to remember what really happened after Hurricane Katrina: brutal cops and bands of racist civilians went around shooting and killing unarmed people.
Why? Because they believed in the NRA message, that predators were waiting to attack law-abiding citizens. And they were right about that. They were just confused as to who the predators were.
The same confusion was apparently on George Zimmerman's mind. Another armed citizen, looking out for danger—and finding it in a teenager walking home with a bag of Skittles. This is what LaPierre wants to mobilize: "millions of qualified active and retired police; active, reserve, and retired military; security professionals; certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel; an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens." With guns. Guns, guns, guns. Ready to use them.
And the police, too. "With all the foreign aid the United States does, with all the money in the federal budget, can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?" LaPierre said. Annie Lowrey of the New York Times quickly thumbnailed that proposal at $6.4 billion per year.
This is the most extraordinary thing about the NRA's ideology and the climate it's created. By the time you read this, there will almost certainly be someone who has jumped to the comments to denounce gun regulations as an infringement of fundamental liberties. It is only the presence of uncounted millions of guns, in the hands of uncounted millions of Americans—whether pointy-headed liberals recognize this as a "well-regulated militia" or not—that secures our freedom against the encroachment of a totalitarian police state.
Yet today, LaPierre got up and described the gun lobby's vision of our future: "A police officer in every single school." "Armed security ... building design ... access control ... information technology." "An active national database of the mentally ill."
This is the NRA’s idea of a free country. Kindergarteners on lockdown. Federal monitoring of everyone's mental-health status. Cops in every hallway.
The experts and counterexperts can and will keep arguing about the local and regional crime-rate effects under our ever-expanding concealed-carry and open-carry laws. One trend line, though, seems obvious: The Second Amendment and the Fourth Amendment have been moving in opposite directions. The NRA has racked up legislative triumph after legislative triumph, extending gun rights into airports, bars, churches, and schools. Yet rather than deferring to the armed public, the police have grown ever more militarized, ever less concerned with warrants, ever more willing to respond to disorderliness with overwhelming force. The government is collecting your email and tracking your phone. Drones are flying police missions in American skies. More than 2 million people are incarcerated.
None of that came up in LaPierre's discussion today, though he had time to denounce video games and the media. An ugly, violent, oppressive world is the world he wants. It's the world that gun culture thrives in. The only liberty that matters to these people is the liberty to kill.
So this is what Wayne LaPierre came up with, with a week to reflect on the news that a law-abiding gun owner's legally purchased rifle, in the hands of her firearm-trained son, had been used to slaughter 20 kids: more guns, more law-abiding gun owners, more more more lead-spraying death machinery, more killing to stop the killers until all the killers have been killed. Only when we have eliminated the threat of "gun-free school zones," the danger and horror of children going through a school day unsurrounded by the implements of death, will we all feel safe.
People who live in the world of causes and effects and verifiable truths, the world the NRA has long since abandoned, had no trouble pointing out the flaws in LaPierre's analysis—the fact, for instance, that there had been an armed deputy sheriff on duty at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.
Around the time LaPierre was speaking, someone in Pennsylvania was shooting another batch of people, including armed state troopers.
Guns kill people. More guns kill more people. What the NRA gets wrong—intentionally or delusionally or, in the psychologically and financially profitable zone where intention and delusion overlap—is its bedrock premise: that gun killings are the work of Bad Guys, predators whose drive to hurt and steal and kill cannot be stopped by anything but a brave Good Guy armed with a powerful firearm and, not at all incidentally, trained through an NRA-backed firearms-training program.
And the NRA insists that these people—"the monsters and the predators," as LaPierre put it—will not be thwarted by gun control, except in the funny T-shirt both-hands-on-my-weapon sense. The next Adam Lanza is already picking out his target, LaPierre said.
That's because the next Adam Lanza is almost certainly able to get his hands on a weapon to point at that target. The original Adam Lanza was apparently too confused and low-functioning to navigate Connecticut's simple waiting period and buy one for himself. But his mother, a gun enthusiast in good standing, had a stock of her own. She reportedly had wanted to feel safe.
So Wayne LaPierre wants to talk about "evil," because evil is elemental and intractable. Evil is part of the human condition. You cannot legislate away evil.
Let's leave the darkest recesses of the soul for a second. Two days before the Connecticut massacre, this happened:
This is not unknowable wickedness. It's banal teenage rage and stupidity, amplified by a gun. That's what everyday gun crime is—fleeting moments of thoughtless viciousness, made permanent with the wiggle of a finger. The Jovan Belcher murder-suicide was an ugly domestic argument; Belcher's gun collection turned it lethal. Maybe, as the gun enthusiasts argue, he might have resorted to using a knife or a club. But that's a less likely result. And even if it did happen, it would be less likely to be fatal.
In Australia, gun violence decreased markedly after the implementation of strict gun control measures. In Bogota, the number of deaths by firearm is reportedly down 58 percent, after the mayor banned public possession of guns. Take away instant, easy death-dealing, and the death rate drops.
LaPierre does not live in the realm of probabilities and harm reduction. He lives in a sick, paranoid universe where guns substitute for law, custom, and morality. Here he is, describing the country as he sees it, a place that teeters on the brink of collapse because of our national softness on crime: "Add another hurricane, terrorist attack, or some other natural or man-made disaster, and you’ve got a recipe for a national nightmare of violence and victimization."
Violence and victimization. Now is a good time to remember what really happened after Hurricane Katrina: brutal cops and bands of racist civilians went around shooting and killing unarmed people.
Why? Because they believed in the NRA message, that predators were waiting to attack law-abiding citizens. And they were right about that. They were just confused as to who the predators were.
The same confusion was apparently on George Zimmerman's mind. Another armed citizen, looking out for danger—and finding it in a teenager walking home with a bag of Skittles. This is what LaPierre wants to mobilize: "millions of qualified active and retired police; active, reserve, and retired military; security professionals; certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel; an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens." With guns. Guns, guns, guns. Ready to use them.
And the police, too. "With all the foreign aid the United States does, with all the money in the federal budget, can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?" LaPierre said. Annie Lowrey of the New York Times quickly thumbnailed that proposal at $6.4 billion per year.
This is the most extraordinary thing about the NRA's ideology and the climate it's created. By the time you read this, there will almost certainly be someone who has jumped to the comments to denounce gun regulations as an infringement of fundamental liberties. It is only the presence of uncounted millions of guns, in the hands of uncounted millions of Americans—whether pointy-headed liberals recognize this as a "well-regulated militia" or not—that secures our freedom against the encroachment of a totalitarian police state.
Yet today, LaPierre got up and described the gun lobby's vision of our future: "A police officer in every single school." "Armed security ... building design ... access control ... information technology." "An active national database of the mentally ill."
This is the NRA’s idea of a free country. Kindergarteners on lockdown. Federal monitoring of everyone's mental-health status. Cops in every hallway.
The experts and counterexperts can and will keep arguing about the local and regional crime-rate effects under our ever-expanding concealed-carry and open-carry laws. One trend line, though, seems obvious: The Second Amendment and the Fourth Amendment have been moving in opposite directions. The NRA has racked up legislative triumph after legislative triumph, extending gun rights into airports, bars, churches, and schools. Yet rather than deferring to the armed public, the police have grown ever more militarized, ever less concerned with warrants, ever more willing to respond to disorderliness with overwhelming force. The government is collecting your email and tracking your phone. Drones are flying police missions in American skies. More than 2 million people are incarcerated.
None of that came up in LaPierre's discussion today, though he had time to denounce video games and the media. An ugly, violent, oppressive world is the world he wants. It's the world that gun culture thrives in. The only liberty that matters to these people is the liberty to kill.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Only An Uprising Will Stop The Chained CPI Now
By Mike Lux
Us progressive insiders are failing. Only an uprising- a real uprising, like with the SOPA bill last year- will turn the tide and stop this bad deal that cuts Social Security.
Progressive insiders have been trying our best, doing what we do. We have reminded Democrats of all the promises they have made to not cut Social Security benefits. We have had the policy discussions about why this is a bad idea for poor and middle class seniors and seniors-to-be. There have been full page ads in the Washington Post, and coalition meetings aplenty to coordinate lobbying strategies. There have been discussions with Democrats about why this is bad for them politically, showing them all the polls that make that point. Appeals to morality and the Democratic legacy on Social Security have been made.
But as of now, it has all been for naught. The President is moving forward with his plan, Nancy Pelosi has jumped on board, and things are rolling. The way DC works, if the Republicans say yes (and they very well might, it has been their goal to cut Social Security benefits ever since it was created), this will happen. Unless the people speak out very, very loudly.
Here’s how DC works: when a Democratic President decides on a policy direction, most of the Democratic insiders tend to either go along, or are very low key in their opposition. In a town built on access and power, few want to directly confront the guy in charge. And you know what? Before everyone gets all worked up about that fact, they should understand that it is the nature of DC insider-ism. It’s not that all these good folks who have been working this issue are bad people or sell-outs, it is just the nature of the DC system. People’s jobs are built around access, and if you make the powers that be too unhappy, you tend to lose access. Everyone here has dozens of fights ahead of them next year and the years after that, crucial fights, and they don’t want to lose the influence they have. Is one fight, no matter how important, worth blowing up your relationships for the next battle, and the next, and the next? That is how folks here operate, and I don’t get angry about it: it is what it is, as natural as the winter following the fall.
So what happens when a President announces a policy direction is that most insiders, even those who have been loudly opposing that direction in all they had previously been doing, soften their tone. They still oppose the policy but they are more quiet, more deferential about that opposition. I've been in rooms, including when I was representing the White House on the other side of the divide, full of people who oppose what a President just announced where very little opposition is expressed- maybe a little bit of push back, maybe some technical questions, but nothing heavy. I've been on conference calls where senior people in institutions who oppose a President’s policy are rationalizing why a President did what he did and reminding people that we have other issues to fight on.
I’m not telling you this so you will get angry at the system: like I said, it is what it is. I’m telling you this so that everyone is very clear: if you want to save Social Security from serious benefit cuts that will cause seniors to go hungry and have their utilities shut off, you have to act. You have to rise up and raise hell, because otherwise this train is going down the tracks- it won’t be stopped unless a lot of people get in the way NOW.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. The White House number is 202-456-1414. You can sign a petition here. But it is going to take people doing more. Make sure your parents, grandparents, and everyone else you know does something. Talk to people at work and at church and everywhere you go. Join up with groups that are fighting the battle like MoveOn and Working America. Show up at your congressperson’s office and let them know what you think. Organize a picket outside that congressional office. Do not hold anything back if you care about this issue.
And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us raise some hell, this train headed down the track to cutting Social Security benefits, to taking money out of the hands of vulnerable innocents who had nothing to do with the deficits, will be forced to stop.
Us progressive insiders are failing. Only an uprising- a real uprising, like with the SOPA bill last year- will turn the tide and stop this bad deal that cuts Social Security.
Progressive insiders have been trying our best, doing what we do. We have reminded Democrats of all the promises they have made to not cut Social Security benefits. We have had the policy discussions about why this is a bad idea for poor and middle class seniors and seniors-to-be. There have been full page ads in the Washington Post, and coalition meetings aplenty to coordinate lobbying strategies. There have been discussions with Democrats about why this is bad for them politically, showing them all the polls that make that point. Appeals to morality and the Democratic legacy on Social Security have been made.
But as of now, it has all been for naught. The President is moving forward with his plan, Nancy Pelosi has jumped on board, and things are rolling. The way DC works, if the Republicans say yes (and they very well might, it has been their goal to cut Social Security benefits ever since it was created), this will happen. Unless the people speak out very, very loudly.
Here’s how DC works: when a Democratic President decides on a policy direction, most of the Democratic insiders tend to either go along, or are very low key in their opposition. In a town built on access and power, few want to directly confront the guy in charge. And you know what? Before everyone gets all worked up about that fact, they should understand that it is the nature of DC insider-ism. It’s not that all these good folks who have been working this issue are bad people or sell-outs, it is just the nature of the DC system. People’s jobs are built around access, and if you make the powers that be too unhappy, you tend to lose access. Everyone here has dozens of fights ahead of them next year and the years after that, crucial fights, and they don’t want to lose the influence they have. Is one fight, no matter how important, worth blowing up your relationships for the next battle, and the next, and the next? That is how folks here operate, and I don’t get angry about it: it is what it is, as natural as the winter following the fall.
So what happens when a President announces a policy direction is that most insiders, even those who have been loudly opposing that direction in all they had previously been doing, soften their tone. They still oppose the policy but they are more quiet, more deferential about that opposition. I've been in rooms, including when I was representing the White House on the other side of the divide, full of people who oppose what a President just announced where very little opposition is expressed- maybe a little bit of push back, maybe some technical questions, but nothing heavy. I've been on conference calls where senior people in institutions who oppose a President’s policy are rationalizing why a President did what he did and reminding people that we have other issues to fight on.
I’m not telling you this so you will get angry at the system: like I said, it is what it is. I’m telling you this so that everyone is very clear: if you want to save Social Security from serious benefit cuts that will cause seniors to go hungry and have their utilities shut off, you have to act. You have to rise up and raise hell, because otherwise this train is going down the tracks- it won’t be stopped unless a lot of people get in the way NOW.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. The White House number is 202-456-1414. You can sign a petition here. But it is going to take people doing more. Make sure your parents, grandparents, and everyone else you know does something. Talk to people at work and at church and everywhere you go. Join up with groups that are fighting the battle like MoveOn and Working America. Show up at your congressperson’s office and let them know what you think. Organize a picket outside that congressional office. Do not hold anything back if you care about this issue.
And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us raise some hell, this train headed down the track to cutting Social Security benefits, to taking money out of the hands of vulnerable innocents who had nothing to do with the deficits, will be forced to stop.
Howard Dean on fiscal cliff GOP fail
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean joins Ed Schultz to talk about House Speaker
John Boehner's failure to get enough votes needed to pass his "Plan B" fiscal
cliff proposal.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Rep. Steny Hoyer weighs in on ‘Plan B’ failure
House Speaker John Boehner has lost control of his caucus. He failed to get the
number of votes needed to pass his "Plan B" fiscal cliff proposal. Congressman
Steny Hoyer of Maryland weighs in on the GOP's failure.
Republicans try to blame Obama over fiscal cliff
House Speaker John fails to bring his "Plan B" up for a vote. Ed Schultz talks
to Steve Benen of the Maddow Blog and Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast about
Thursday's breaking news.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Boehner fails to get votes for ‘Plan B’
House Speaker John Boehner failed to get enough votes to pass his "Plan B" fiscal cliff proposal. Congressmen Elijah Cummings and John Garamendi weigh in on the breaking news.
Speaker Boehner's Plan B vote belly flops in the House
House Speaker John Boehner did not have the votes for his Plan B gimmick. Rep.
Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., joins Ed Schultz to explain what happened.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Mr. President, I am Disappointed
Remember when the White House said Social Security was “off the table” in the deficit talks because it has a $2.7 trillion surplus and hasn’t contributed to deficits? Remember when President Obama pledged not to cut benefits for
retirees, widows and orphans?
The White House has now agreed to adopt a stingier formula for cost-of-living increases which would cut benefits.
In a Senate floor speech, Bernie Sanders said the White House had offered repeated assurances that would not happen “and that Social Security should be off the table in terms of deficit reduction. I heard that many, many times. So I wonder how Social Security suddenly has gotten back on the table, including a chained CPI with devastating cuts to seniors and disabled vets,” Sanders said. “Mr. President, I am disappointed.”
Listen to an NPR report »
Sign Bernie’s petition »
The White House has now agreed to adopt a stingier formula for cost-of-living increases which would cut benefits.
In a Senate floor speech, Bernie Sanders said the White House had offered repeated assurances that would not happen “and that Social Security should be off the table in terms of deficit reduction. I heard that many, many times. So I wonder how Social Security suddenly has gotten back on the table, including a chained CPI with devastating cuts to seniors and disabled vets,” Sanders said. “Mr. President, I am disappointed.”
Listen to an NPR report »
Sign Bernie’s petition »
Rep. Keith Ellison says many in Congress refuse to ‘throw Grandma under the bus’ to solve fiscal cliff problems
Congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minn., tells Cenk Uygur that despite reports that
Obama has offered to cut to Medicare and Social Security to solve fiscal
negotiations, many Democrats have already determined they won’t support any cuts
to entitlements. Ellison says, “I’m not one of those who sits back and
calculates odds, and then does what I think is the most probable outcome. We are
standing for what’s right, and throwing Grandma under the bus to solve these
budgetary problems is wrong.”
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Why Democrats Must Break With Obama on Social Security Cuts
By John Nichols
There are a lot of complicated ways in which to describe the schemes being floated by President Obama and congressional Republicans to abandon the traditional Consumer Price Index in favor of the so-called “chained-CPI” scheme. But there is nothing complicated about the reality that changing the calculations on which cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients are based has the potential to dramatically reduce the buying power of Americans who rely on this successful and stable federal program.
So the word for what is being proposed is “cut”—as in: President Obama and congressional Republicans are proposing to cut Social Security.
“This is a cut affecting every single beneficiary—widows, orphans, people with disabilities and many others. It is a cut which hurts the most those who are most vulnerable: the oldest of the old, those disabled at the youngest ages, and the poorest of the poor. Perhaps fittingly, this will be done during the holiday season, when the American people are distracted,” says Nancy Altman, the founding co-director of the advocacy group Social Security Works. “They will cut Social Security not openly but by stealth—through a cruel cut known colloquially as the chained CPI.”
This is what Democrats—and most Republicans—said during the recently finished campaign that they would never do.
If Obama cuts the deal, he will in the words of CREDO political director Becky Bond being engaging in a “massive betrayal” of his own campaign commitments, and of the voters who reelected him barely a month ago.
The question is whether the president’s backers will back the betrayal.
The only responsible response is to say “No!”
The American Association of Retired People has done just that, rejecting the “chained-CPI” scheme as a “dramatic benefit cut would push thousands more into poverty and result in increased economic hardship for those trying desperately to keep up with rising prices.”
In this case, AARP speaks not just for seniors but for the vast majority of voters. Sixty percent of voters say it is unacceptable to change the way Social Security benefits are calculated so that benefits increase with inflation at a slower rate than they do now, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Needless to say, those numbers put congressional Democrats and progressive interest groups in a bind. They can look the other way as President Obama cuts a deal that cuts Social Security or they can do what the American people expect them to do: raise their voices in loud objection—so loud that the president has no choice except to keep his campaign promises. For congressional Democrats, the stakes are much higher than they are for Obama. The president is done with elections. But the Democratic Party must compete in elections to come, and the fight that is now playing out will define whether they do so as defenders of Social Security and a party that always on the watch for ways in which to compromise with House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan and other Republicans who salivate at the prospect of weakening and eventually privatizing Social Security.
No one will be surprised that Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who has been a stalwart defender of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is objecting.
“I want him to keep that promise,” Sanders says of the president’s commitment on the campaign trail and in the early stages of the fiscal-cliff negotiations to keep Social Security “off the table.” Adds Sanders: “I hope the president stays strong.”
Nor will there be much surprise with labor’s opposition.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is calling on Congress “to reject any cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare benefits, regardless of who proposes them.”
That “regardless-of-who-proposes-them” stance is spreading. Rapidly.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown calls Obama’s “chained-CPI” proposal “terrible.” Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, an Obama campaign co-chair, says: “I hope that offer… will be reconsidered.” A frustrated Schakowsky said what every Democrat must if the party is to retain its image as the defender of Social Security: “This should be off the table.”
A lot of Democrats, many with close ties to the president, are saying the same thing.
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who was one of Obama’s earliest and most enthusiastic backers in 2008, did the math: “The current average earned benefit for a 65 year old on Social Security is $17,134. Using chained CPI will result in a $6,000 loss for retirees in the first fifteen years of retirement and adds up to a $16,000 loss over twenty-five years. This change would be devastating to beneficiaries, especially widowed women, more than a third of whom rely on the program for 90% of their income and use every single dollar of the Social Security checks they've earned. This would require the most vulnerable Americans to dig further into their savings to fill the hole left by unnecessary and irresponsible cuts to Social Security.”
Ellison’s bottom line: “I am committed to standing against any benefit cuts to programs Americans rely on and tying Social Security benefits to chained CPI is a benefit cut."
Joining Ellison in opposition were other House Democrats who played critical roles in getting Obama elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012, including Schakowsky, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Michigan Congressman John Conyers, who says: “Any debt deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits is unacceptable.”
For Obama, these voices are significant. He is losing the allies who should be in the forefront of the fight to seal any deal he reaches with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Without a solid base of Democratic votes in the House and Senate for it, this deal won’t be done.
And make no mistake: a fiscal-cliff compromise that compromises Social Security should not be done. Period.
That’s the message coming from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which as usual has moved rapidly - and effectively - to build mass opposition to a cut that will only happen if Americans are unaware of the threat.
Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold's group Progressives United has partnered with MoveOn.org and leading progressive groups to develop a “whip count” that names the names of Senate Democrats who are "Weak-Kneed," who are "Part-way there, or Wavering," and who are "Champions" committed to opposing any deal that cuts Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits.
The president has placed himself in the “Weak-Kneed” camp.
Congressional Democrats should not stumble with him.
As Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon says, “We had an election, and the voters sent a message to Congress to focus on jobs and fairness—not cutting benefits for people who have worked all their lives and are now making ends meet on fixed incomes. The formula we use to adjust cost-of-living changes for seniors needs to reflect the real costs they face, not the budgetary fantasies of Washington.”
No matter WHO is peddling those fantasies.
Low-income, elderly women will be the hardest hit by benefit cuts. Check out Bryce Covert's coverage here.
There are a lot of complicated ways in which to describe the schemes being floated by President Obama and congressional Republicans to abandon the traditional Consumer Price Index in favor of the so-called “chained-CPI” scheme. But there is nothing complicated about the reality that changing the calculations on which cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients are based has the potential to dramatically reduce the buying power of Americans who rely on this successful and stable federal program.
So the word for what is being proposed is “cut”—as in: President Obama and congressional Republicans are proposing to cut Social Security.
“This is a cut affecting every single beneficiary—widows, orphans, people with disabilities and many others. It is a cut which hurts the most those who are most vulnerable: the oldest of the old, those disabled at the youngest ages, and the poorest of the poor. Perhaps fittingly, this will be done during the holiday season, when the American people are distracted,” says Nancy Altman, the founding co-director of the advocacy group Social Security Works. “They will cut Social Security not openly but by stealth—through a cruel cut known colloquially as the chained CPI.”
This is what Democrats—and most Republicans—said during the recently finished campaign that they would never do.
If Obama cuts the deal, he will in the words of CREDO political director Becky Bond being engaging in a “massive betrayal” of his own campaign commitments, and of the voters who reelected him barely a month ago.
The question is whether the president’s backers will back the betrayal.
The only responsible response is to say “No!”
The American Association of Retired People has done just that, rejecting the “chained-CPI” scheme as a “dramatic benefit cut would push thousands more into poverty and result in increased economic hardship for those trying desperately to keep up with rising prices.”
In this case, AARP speaks not just for seniors but for the vast majority of voters. Sixty percent of voters say it is unacceptable to change the way Social Security benefits are calculated so that benefits increase with inflation at a slower rate than they do now, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Needless to say, those numbers put congressional Democrats and progressive interest groups in a bind. They can look the other way as President Obama cuts a deal that cuts Social Security or they can do what the American people expect them to do: raise their voices in loud objection—so loud that the president has no choice except to keep his campaign promises. For congressional Democrats, the stakes are much higher than they are for Obama. The president is done with elections. But the Democratic Party must compete in elections to come, and the fight that is now playing out will define whether they do so as defenders of Social Security and a party that always on the watch for ways in which to compromise with House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan and other Republicans who salivate at the prospect of weakening and eventually privatizing Social Security.
No one will be surprised that Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who has been a stalwart defender of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is objecting.
“I want him to keep that promise,” Sanders says of the president’s commitment on the campaign trail and in the early stages of the fiscal-cliff negotiations to keep Social Security “off the table.” Adds Sanders: “I hope the president stays strong.”
Nor will there be much surprise with labor’s opposition.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is calling on Congress “to reject any cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare benefits, regardless of who proposes them.”
That “regardless-of-who-proposes-them” stance is spreading. Rapidly.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown calls Obama’s “chained-CPI” proposal “terrible.” Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, an Obama campaign co-chair, says: “I hope that offer… will be reconsidered.” A frustrated Schakowsky said what every Democrat must if the party is to retain its image as the defender of Social Security: “This should be off the table.”
A lot of Democrats, many with close ties to the president, are saying the same thing.
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who was one of Obama’s earliest and most enthusiastic backers in 2008, did the math: “The current average earned benefit for a 65 year old on Social Security is $17,134. Using chained CPI will result in a $6,000 loss for retirees in the first fifteen years of retirement and adds up to a $16,000 loss over twenty-five years. This change would be devastating to beneficiaries, especially widowed women, more than a third of whom rely on the program for 90% of their income and use every single dollar of the Social Security checks they've earned. This would require the most vulnerable Americans to dig further into their savings to fill the hole left by unnecessary and irresponsible cuts to Social Security.”
Ellison’s bottom line: “I am committed to standing against any benefit cuts to programs Americans rely on and tying Social Security benefits to chained CPI is a benefit cut."
Joining Ellison in opposition were other House Democrats who played critical roles in getting Obama elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012, including Schakowsky, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Michigan Congressman John Conyers, who says: “Any debt deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits is unacceptable.”
For Obama, these voices are significant. He is losing the allies who should be in the forefront of the fight to seal any deal he reaches with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Without a solid base of Democratic votes in the House and Senate for it, this deal won’t be done.
And make no mistake: a fiscal-cliff compromise that compromises Social Security should not be done. Period.
That’s the message coming from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which as usual has moved rapidly - and effectively - to build mass opposition to a cut that will only happen if Americans are unaware of the threat.
Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold's group Progressives United has partnered with MoveOn.org and leading progressive groups to develop a “whip count” that names the names of Senate Democrats who are "Weak-Kneed," who are "Part-way there, or Wavering," and who are "Champions" committed to opposing any deal that cuts Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits.
Congressional Democrats should not stumble with him.
As Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon says, “We had an election, and the voters sent a message to Congress to focus on jobs and fairness—not cutting benefits for people who have worked all their lives and are now making ends meet on fixed incomes. The formula we use to adjust cost-of-living changes for seniors needs to reflect the real costs they face, not the budgetary fantasies of Washington.”
No matter WHO is peddling those fantasies.
Low-income, elderly women will be the hardest hit by benefit cuts. Check out Bryce Covert's coverage here.
White House offer includes recalculating Social Security
The latest offer in the fiscal cliff debate includes something called "chained
CPI". Ed Schultz explains what that means and gets the facts from Pulitzer Prize
winning journalist David Cay Johnston.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Ed Schultz's comments spark social media reaction
After Ed Schultz said Americans need to “stop hiding behind the 2nd Amendment,”
viewers responded on Twitter and Facebook.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Republicans Want to Reform the Electoral College to Help Themselves
By
- Reid Wilson is editor-in-chief of National Journal's Hotline
Kim
Hong-Ji/Reuters
Republicans alarmed at the apparent challenges they face in winning the White House are preparing an all-out assault on the Electoral College system in critical states, an initiative that would significantly ease the party's path to the Oval Office.
Senior Republicans say they will try to leverage their party's statehouse majorities in Democratic-leaning states in an effort to end the winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes. Instead, bills that will be introduced in several Democratic states would award electoral votes on a proportional basis.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
3 Reasons Not to Take Obama's Pot Prosecution Comments Too Seriously
The president says the government has bigger fish to fry than small-time
smokers, but that doesn't mean it's safe to get baked.
By
Is it time to break out the bong and have a high time?
The big question since two states passed laws legalizing marijuana for non-medical use on November 6 has been how the federal government would respond. And thus far it's been silent -- until Friday.
Here's what President Obama told Barbara Walters: "We've got bigger fish to fry ... It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal."
That's set off some celebration. My colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates offers some (tempered) praise, writing, "This is typical Obama, and about what I would expect - carving out an argument that attempts to appeal to the most people while not interfering with Washington and Colorado." So does Andrew Sullivan, who was apoplectic about this just days ago. But I'm not so sure that pot smokers, legalization advocates, and states' rights champions should be celebrating yet, for three reasons.
1. The Administration Talks the Talk, But ... Not long after the Obama Administration came in, the Justice Department very noisily made clear with a guidance memo that while the president certainly didn't think it was a good idea to legalize weed - he literally laughed at it when asked - there was no way the federal government was going to spend its meager resources during a recession on busting California distributors of medical marijuana. But as Alex Seitz-Wald notes, the feds did just that. U.S. Attorneys launched a series of raids against dispensaries, and then Washington rolled reversed its original guidance.
2. Talking About Individuals Misses the Point. So the guy sitting in his basement toking up and watching DVDs of Planet Earth can breathe easy (although perhaps with a persistent cough). But the federal government was never going after him anyway, and he's always been able to buy pot in small quantities. What's revolutionary about the laws passed last month is that they change (at least in theory) the rest of the distribution system. Matt Yglesias explains:
By
Is it time to break out the bong and have a high time?
The big question since two states passed laws legalizing marijuana for non-medical use on November 6 has been how the federal government would respond. And thus far it's been silent -- until Friday.
Here's what President Obama told Barbara Walters: "We've got bigger fish to fry ... It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal."
That's set off some celebration. My colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates offers some (tempered) praise, writing, "This is typical Obama, and about what I would expect - carving out an argument that attempts to appeal to the most people while not interfering with Washington and Colorado." So does Andrew Sullivan, who was apoplectic about this just days ago. But I'm not so sure that pot smokers, legalization advocates, and states' rights champions should be celebrating yet, for three reasons.
1. The Administration Talks the Talk, But ... Not long after the Obama Administration came in, the Justice Department very noisily made clear with a guidance memo that while the president certainly didn't think it was a good idea to legalize weed - he literally laughed at it when asked - there was no way the federal government was going to spend its meager resources during a recession on busting California distributors of medical marijuana. But as Alex Seitz-Wald notes, the feds did just that. U.S. Attorneys launched a series of raids against dispensaries, and then Washington rolled reversed its original guidance.
2. Talking About Individuals Misses the Point. So the guy sitting in his basement toking up and watching DVDs of Planet Earth can breathe easy (although perhaps with a persistent cough). But the federal government was never going after him anyway, and he's always been able to buy pot in small quantities. What's revolutionary about the laws passed last month is that they change (at least in theory) the rest of the distribution system. Matt Yglesias explains:
Colorado and Washington didn't legalize recreational marijuana use. They set up a framework for legal marijuana cultivation, for marijuana processing, and for wholesale and retail sales of marijuana .... The actual question on the table isn't whether the federal government is going to be able to replace state and local law enforcement, the question is whether the federal government will do everything in its power to subvert the new frameworks in CO and WA. The president's statement to Walters is entirely consistent with a posture of maximum subversion.3. Most Importantly, This Isn't an Official Statement of Policy. Why take all this time analyzing a statement so carefully calculated to reveal little? There's not much reason to tune into until the Justice Department actually makes a public announcement about how it intends to deal with Colorado and Washington. A spokesperson at the Justice Department said Friday afternoon, with a verbal eyeroll, that the fuss was unwarranted. "The legislation in Colorado and Washington is still under review by the Department of Justice and as it stands marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug." And that's the most important thing for now.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Semi-Automatic firearms are Military Weapons: Lets at least Limit the Magazines
By Juan Cole
One of the two guns the Connecticut shooter used to murder 20 children and 6
adults was a Glock semi-automatic. This datum is not surprising. The Glock is
among the more popular pistols sold in the United States.
The Glock semi-automatic was developed in 1982 for the Austrian army. It was not envisioned that it would be bought by millions of citizens. It is not in fact bought by millions of civilians anywhere but in the United States. The gun should not be singled out for demonization; there are lots of semi-automatic pistols, and lots of semi-automatic rifles, and all of them are widespread and legal in the United States.
But it is worth underlining that Gaston Glock probably did not envision that you and your neighbors would just go into a shop and purchase his weapon.
This site tells the story:
Can anything be done about the phenomenon of “mass shootings?”
These killings have plagued the US for decades.
Gun advocates might argue that these mass shootings are relatively rare and exact a relatively low death toll in a country of 310 million people. In 2012, there were 16 mass shootings in the US, which killed 88 persons and wounded hundreds. We polish off 14,500 Americans a year with murders (around 9000 of them via firearms), and 30,000 a year in auto accidents. There are also something like 18,000 suicides a year by firearm in the US, about half of the total; perhaps large numbers of those people would still be alive if it hadn’t been so technically easy to take their on lives. Anyway, mass shootings as a subset of lives taken by firearms are a tiny proportion.
One problem is that mass shootings produce a national trauma, and probably are designed to do so. We were all, from President Obama on down, crying for the children yesterday. Isolated murders of adults, however tragic, don’t upset us the way a madman shooting down children does. Although they are few and the number of victims only account for 1% of those murdered by firearms every year, the mass shootings deeply disturb us.
It is also the case that mass shootings are arbitrarily defined as those in which 4 or more people are killed. For those affected, three is pretty “mass.”
Public policy is often made on the grounds of what we find unpalatable. You will note that we are also upset by airplane crashes, and we insist that they are always completely unacceptable. We don’t feel the same way about whacking 30,000 people a year (and injuring like 300,000) in auto collisions.
The problem is getting worse. 10% of all mass shootings since 1982 have occurred in 2012, and 12 percent of the 543 victims since that date have been killed this year.
In addition, however, some 2,000 of the 9,000 firearms murders a year are committed by drug gangs and other criminal gangs, and these are primarily using semi-automatic weapons to commit these murders.
So there is a problem, of increased numbers of mass shootings and increased numbers of victims over time. And there is a problem with the roughly 1 million gang members having military-style weapons and committing 14% of the murders every year in the US.
Is there a solution of the problem?
Even someone who really loves semi-automatic guns– Paul Barret, author of ”Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” admits of the 1994 ban on semi-automatic rifles:
Lots of extra rounds.
But I’ll tell you what, some sort of limitation is better than none, and at least such legislation might establish the principle that guns can be regulated by law.
So how about we propose a law specifying that no civilian may buy a semi-automatic weapon that has greater than a ten-round magazine, and that such weapons for the civilian market be constructed so that extra magazine drums cannot be attached? And we ban semi-automatic rifles altogether.
What about all the semi-automatic weapons already in people’s possession? There are like 280 million guns in the US, nearly one per person. (Though in fact, a small minority owns most of these guns, and the proportion of gun owners in the population has been shrinking; fewer and fewer people have more and more guns). Since the 1980's, sales of semi-automatic weapons have been in the tens of thousands annually.
Well, you could have a buy-back program, and could offer people trade-ins. Changing things would not have to be coercive. People would have a choice between having an illegal pistol and a legal one with a smaller magazine.
Contrary to what is often alleged, in any case, used guns are seldom the problem. Most used guns are in people’s safes. The new ones are the problem. Most people who commit mass shootings seem to go on a buying spree first, and gang members likewise most often like to purchase new weaponry.
So there you have it, a step toward a solution. 10-round magazines for the pistols, no semi-automatic rifles for civilians.
The Glock semi-automatic was developed in 1982 for the Austrian army. It was not envisioned that it would be bought by millions of citizens. It is not in fact bought by millions of civilians anywhere but in the United States. The gun should not be singled out for demonization; there are lots of semi-automatic pistols, and lots of semi-automatic rifles, and all of them are widespread and legal in the United States.
But it is worth underlining that Gaston Glock probably did not envision that you and your neighbors would just go into a shop and purchase his weapon.
This site tells the story:
“The Austrian military made an announcement in 1980 that it would be replacing the Walther P38 handgun – a WWII era weapon. Their Ministry of Defense outlined the basic criteria for this new service pistol. In 1982, Glock learned Austrian Army’s plan to procure a new weapon and begin assembling a team of European experts in the handgun field. He chose a variety of people – including some from the military, some from the police force and he even chose civilians involved in sport shooting.”
It wasn’t long before Glock had his first working prototype. Between Glock’s use of synthetic materials and the newer production technology, the design was very cost effective, making it a viable candidate. The Glock 17 (so-named as it was the company’s 17th patent) passed every endurance and abuse test and was chosen over a number of pistol designs from well-known manufacturers to be the official replacement of the Walther P38. Both military and police forces in Austria adopted the Glock 17 (aka: P80 – Pistole 80) into service in 1982. Many consider the Glock-17 one of the top pistols of all time.”But here’s the kicker:
” Within its first 10 years, this pistol reached sales in excess of 350,000 in over 45 countries; the U.S. alone accounting for 250,000 of that total. “So here is what happened: in the first ten years, 100,000 of these guns were sold to militaries and police in Europe, and then the rest went to the civilians and police of the United States. The US took 71% of all Glocks in their first decade, even though the US army rejected them. The US is peculiar.
Can anything be done about the phenomenon of “mass shootings?”
These killings have plagued the US for decades.
Gun advocates might argue that these mass shootings are relatively rare and exact a relatively low death toll in a country of 310 million people. In 2012, there were 16 mass shootings in the US, which killed 88 persons and wounded hundreds. We polish off 14,500 Americans a year with murders (around 9000 of them via firearms), and 30,000 a year in auto accidents. There are also something like 18,000 suicides a year by firearm in the US, about half of the total; perhaps large numbers of those people would still be alive if it hadn’t been so technically easy to take their on lives. Anyway, mass shootings as a subset of lives taken by firearms are a tiny proportion.
One problem is that mass shootings produce a national trauma, and probably are designed to do so. We were all, from President Obama on down, crying for the children yesterday. Isolated murders of adults, however tragic, don’t upset us the way a madman shooting down children does. Although they are few and the number of victims only account for 1% of those murdered by firearms every year, the mass shootings deeply disturb us.
It is also the case that mass shootings are arbitrarily defined as those in which 4 or more people are killed. For those affected, three is pretty “mass.”
Public policy is often made on the grounds of what we find unpalatable. You will note that we are also upset by airplane crashes, and we insist that they are always completely unacceptable. We don’t feel the same way about whacking 30,000 people a year (and injuring like 300,000) in auto collisions.
The problem is getting worse. 10% of all mass shootings since 1982 have occurred in 2012, and 12 percent of the 543 victims since that date have been killed this year.
In addition, however, some 2,000 of the 9,000 firearms murders a year are committed by drug gangs and other criminal gangs, and these are primarily using semi-automatic weapons to commit these murders.
So there is a problem, of increased numbers of mass shootings and increased numbers of victims over time. And there is a problem with the roughly 1 million gang members having military-style weapons and committing 14% of the murders every year in the US.
Is there a solution of the problem?
Even someone who really loves semi-automatic guns– Paul Barret, author of ”Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” admits of the 1994 ban on semi-automatic rifles:
“The one potentially sensible provision in the Assault Weapons Ban was the imposition of a ten-round magazine capacity, which affected both semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic pistols, including the Glock. You can begin to understand that at least this [limitation] might inhibit the mass shooter because, under that regime, he would at least have to think ahead enough to carry multiple ten-round magazines.”Personally, I don’t understand why civilians need semi-automatic pistols and rifles at all. And the evidence we have from the mass shootings this year is that yes, the shooter will bring extra rounds.
Lots of extra rounds.
But I’ll tell you what, some sort of limitation is better than none, and at least such legislation might establish the principle that guns can be regulated by law.
So how about we propose a law specifying that no civilian may buy a semi-automatic weapon that has greater than a ten-round magazine, and that such weapons for the civilian market be constructed so that extra magazine drums cannot be attached? And we ban semi-automatic rifles altogether.
What about all the semi-automatic weapons already in people’s possession? There are like 280 million guns in the US, nearly one per person. (Though in fact, a small minority owns most of these guns, and the proportion of gun owners in the population has been shrinking; fewer and fewer people have more and more guns). Since the 1980's, sales of semi-automatic weapons have been in the tens of thousands annually.
Well, you could have a buy-back program, and could offer people trade-ins. Changing things would not have to be coercive. People would have a choice between having an illegal pistol and a legal one with a smaller magazine.
Contrary to what is often alleged, in any case, used guns are seldom the problem. Most used guns are in people’s safes. The new ones are the problem. Most people who commit mass shootings seem to go on a buying spree first, and gang members likewise most often like to purchase new weaponry.
So there you have it, a step toward a solution. 10-round magazines for the pistols, no semi-automatic rifles for civilians.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Top Ten GOP Myths about Libya that Sank Susan Rice
By Juan Cole
The charge against US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was led by
a handful of Republican senators and congressmen, and based on the alleged
deficiencies of her account of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on
September 11. She withdrew
her name from consideration for secretary of state on Thursday. The GOP
narrative of Benghazi and of Libya in general, however, bears
no relationship to reality. This was pure politics, beginning as an attempt
to hurt the Obama administration’s reputation for being good on defense issues,
and then turning into sour grapes once Mitt Romney lost the election.
1. Benghazi, a city of over a million, is not dominated by “al-Qaeda,” contrary to what Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has repeatedly said or implied. The city had successful municipal elections in May, just before I got there. The number one vote-getter was a woman professor of statistics at the university. While political Islam is a force in Benghazi, only some relatively small groups are militant, and it has to compete with nationalist, tribal and regional ideological currents. In Libya’s parliamentary elections of July, 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood did very poorly and nationalists came to power. Women won 20% of the seats! The elected Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad Magarief, called for a secular constitution for Libya and a separation of religion and state.
2. Contrary to repeated assertions that it was obvious that terrorist groups were rampaging around in the city, members of the Benghazi municipal council told then US ambassador Chris Stevens that security in the city was improving in summer, 2012.
In fact, one Senator John McCain said during a visit to Libya last February, ““We are very happy to be back here in Libya and to note the enormous progress and changes made in the past few months… We know that many challenges lie ahead… but we are encouraged by what we have seen.” Doesn’t sound to me like McCain was running around like Chicken Little warning that the sky was about to fall on US diplomats there. Want to know who else came along on that trip? Lindsey Graham, who likewise didn’t issue any dire warnings in its aftermath.
3. Contrary to the “Libya-is-riddled-with-al-Qaeda” meme of the GOP politicians, there is a strong civil society and tribal opposition to fundamentalist militias in Benghazi, of which Amb. Chris Stevens was well aware. Tripoli-based journalist Abd-al-Sattar Hatitah explained in the pages of the pan-Arab London daily al-Sharq al-Awsat [Sept. 30, 2012, trans. USG Open Source Center]:
4. Al-Qaeda is not for the most part even a “thing” in Libya. The only formal al-Qaeda affiliate in the region is al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is not a Libyan but an Algerian organization. Just calling all Salafi groups “al-Qaeda” is propaganda. They have to swear fealty to Ayman al-Zawahiri (or in the past, Usama Bin Laden) to be al-Qaeda. The main al-Qaeda connection in Benghazi is to Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in northern Pakistan by a US drone strike in June. Some of his close relatives in Benghazi may have been angry about this (depending on how well they liked him), but they are not known to form a formal al-Qaeda cell. There are also young men from Dirna in the Benghazi area, some of whom fought against the US in Iraq. Their numbers are not large and, again, they don’t have al-Zawahiri’s phone number on auto-dial. Sen. McCain was a big supporter of the US intervention in Libya and seems to have been all right with Abdul Hakim Belhadj being his ally, even though in the zeroes Belhadj would have been labeled ‘al-Qaeda.’
5. Ansar al-Sharia (Helpers of Islamic Law) is just an informal grouping of a few hundred hard line fundamentalists in Benghazi, and may be a code word to refer to several small organizations. There are no known operational links between Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda. It is a local thing in Benghazi.
6. Leaders of Ansar al-Sharia have denied that they directed their organization to attack the US consulate and have condemned the attack.
7. Lindsey Graham and others point to instances of political violence this past summer in Benghazi as obvious harbingers of the September 11 consulate attack. But it was a tiny fringe group, the Omar Abdel Rahman Brigades, that claimed responsibility for setting off a small pipe bomb in front of the gate of the US consulate last June. This is what the US statement said last June:
8. The GOP figures keep saying that it was obvious that there was no demonstration at the Benghazi consulate against the so-called “film,” the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ that attacked the Prophet Muhammad. But in fact Libyan security officials repeatedly told wire services on September 12 that there was such a demonstration, and that the attack issued from those quarters. An American resident in Benghazi at that time confirms that there were such demonstrations that day. The secular-minded revolutionary militia that guarded the US consulate for the Libyan government kept the demonstrations far enough away from the consulate gates that they would not have shown up in security videos.
9. The GOP senators keep complaining about President Obama’s “leadership” on the Benghazi issue. But they know very well that presidents don’t typically get involved in things like consular requests for guards. Moreover, the consulate was amazingly well-guarded, not only by a revolutionary militia that did in fact rescue dozens of consular employees after the rpg fire came in, but by some 40 CIA operatives, many of them ex-special forces, in a nearby safe house. These were viewed by consular officials as “the cavalry.”
10. Susan Rice had nothing whatsoever to do with Libya, had no special knowledge of the situation in Benghazi, and she briefed the talking points she was given by the CIA in the aftermath.
Whether Susan Rice would have made a good secretary of state or not, it is a shame that the GOP Fantasy Machine should have attempted to harm her reputation for probity over the Libya situation. In fact, almost everything the GOP senators and congressmen have alleged about the situation in Benghazi is factually incorrect and easily shown to be so.
1. Benghazi, a city of over a million, is not dominated by “al-Qaeda,” contrary to what Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has repeatedly said or implied. The city had successful municipal elections in May, just before I got there. The number one vote-getter was a woman professor of statistics at the university. While political Islam is a force in Benghazi, only some relatively small groups are militant, and it has to compete with nationalist, tribal and regional ideological currents. In Libya’s parliamentary elections of July, 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood did very poorly and nationalists came to power. Women won 20% of the seats! The elected Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad Magarief, called for a secular constitution for Libya and a separation of religion and state.
2. Contrary to repeated assertions that it was obvious that terrorist groups were rampaging around in the city, members of the Benghazi municipal council told then US ambassador Chris Stevens that security in the city was improving in summer, 2012.
In fact, one Senator John McCain said during a visit to Libya last February, ““We are very happy to be back here in Libya and to note the enormous progress and changes made in the past few months… We know that many challenges lie ahead… but we are encouraged by what we have seen.” Doesn’t sound to me like McCain was running around like Chicken Little warning that the sky was about to fall on US diplomats there. Want to know who else came along on that trip? Lindsey Graham, who likewise didn’t issue any dire warnings in its aftermath.
3. Contrary to the “Libya-is-riddled-with-al-Qaeda” meme of the GOP politicians, there is a strong civil society and tribal opposition to fundamentalist militias in Benghazi, of which Amb. Chris Stevens was well aware. Tripoli-based journalist Abd-al-Sattar Hatitah explained in the pages of the pan-Arab London daily al-Sharq al-Awsat [Sept. 30, 2012, trans. USG Open Source Center]:
“It appears that the simple rule Benghazi’s people thought of applying was based on other experiences in which the radical Islamists or militants in general managed to grow, prosper, and expand by seeking protection from the tribes, as happened in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. But the civil movements which became very active [in Benghazi] after the fall of Al-Qadhafi’s regime were the ones that formed alliances this time with the tribes, the notables, wise men councils, and civil society figures against the militants. This is akin to the “Sahwat” in Iraq. The alliance managed to expel the brigades from the town and encouraged the nascent Libyan authorities to tighten their restrictions on all armed manifestations.
Abd-al-Hamid Ibrahim Bu al-Shunaybat al-Aquri, a member of the committee of wise men and shura in Libya and a popular leader in Benghazi, said that “in the week preceding the Benghazi events [of September 11], the popular and security leaders met in the eastern area of the country, from the town of Imsa’id in the east to Ajdabiya in the west. They were all tribal notables, members of wise men councils in the eastern region, and the revolutionary field commanders during the days of the liberation, not the commanders of the [fundamentalist informal] brigades.”
He adds that the meeting was also attended by representatives from the army chiefs-of-staff and the Interior Ministry as well as a number of members from the National Congress (parliament). “All civil society organizations also took part with us. Everybody consented to issuing the statement against the presence of the [fundamentalist] brigades and we distributed 3,000 copies. “This was around September 3. After the attack on the US consulate, tens of thousands of people in Benghazi demonstrated against the violence and in favor of the US and Stevens. Then they attempted to sweep the fundamentalist militias from the city.
4. Al-Qaeda is not for the most part even a “thing” in Libya. The only formal al-Qaeda affiliate in the region is al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is not a Libyan but an Algerian organization. Just calling all Salafi groups “al-Qaeda” is propaganda. They have to swear fealty to Ayman al-Zawahiri (or in the past, Usama Bin Laden) to be al-Qaeda. The main al-Qaeda connection in Benghazi is to Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in northern Pakistan by a US drone strike in June. Some of his close relatives in Benghazi may have been angry about this (depending on how well they liked him), but they are not known to form a formal al-Qaeda cell. There are also young men from Dirna in the Benghazi area, some of whom fought against the US in Iraq. Their numbers are not large and, again, they don’t have al-Zawahiri’s phone number on auto-dial. Sen. McCain was a big supporter of the US intervention in Libya and seems to have been all right with Abdul Hakim Belhadj being his ally, even though in the zeroes Belhadj would have been labeled ‘al-Qaeda.’
5. Ansar al-Sharia (Helpers of Islamic Law) is just an informal grouping of a few hundred hard line fundamentalists in Benghazi, and may be a code word to refer to several small organizations. There are no known operational links between Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda. It is a local thing in Benghazi.
6. Leaders of Ansar al-Sharia have denied that they directed their organization to attack the US consulate and have condemned the attack.
7. Lindsey Graham and others point to instances of political violence this past summer in Benghazi as obvious harbingers of the September 11 consulate attack. But it was a tiny fringe group, the Omar Abdel Rahman Brigades, that claimed responsibility for setting off a small pipe bomb in front of the gate of the US consulate last June. This is what the US statement said last June:
“There was an attack late last night on the United States office in Benghazi,” a US embassy official said, adding that only the gate was damaged and no one was hurt. The diplomat said a homemade bomb had been used in the attack on the office, set up after the 2011 uprising against Muammar Qadhafi and kept open to support the democratic transition “You’d have to be a real scaredy cat to pack up and leave because of a thing like that, which is what Sen. Graham keeps saying should have been the response. Likewise the same small cell was responsible for attacks on the office of the Red Cross and on a convoy of the British consulate, which injured a consular employ. Security isn’t all that great in Benghazi, though actually I suspect the criminal murder rate is much lower than in any major American city. I walked around freely in Benghazi in early June, and couldn’t have disguised my being a Westerner if I had wanted to, and nobody looked at me sideways. A pipe bomb and a shooting, neither of them fatal, did not stand out as dire in a city full of armed militias, most of them grateful to the US and Britain for their help in the revolution. You can understand why the Red Cross packed it in after a couple of attacks, but the US government is not the Red Cross.
8. The GOP figures keep saying that it was obvious that there was no demonstration at the Benghazi consulate against the so-called “film,” the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ that attacked the Prophet Muhammad. But in fact Libyan security officials repeatedly told wire services on September 12 that there was such a demonstration, and that the attack issued from those quarters. An American resident in Benghazi at that time confirms that there were such demonstrations that day. The secular-minded revolutionary militia that guarded the US consulate for the Libyan government kept the demonstrations far enough away from the consulate gates that they would not have shown up in security videos.
9. The GOP senators keep complaining about President Obama’s “leadership” on the Benghazi issue. But they know very well that presidents don’t typically get involved in things like consular requests for guards. Moreover, the consulate was amazingly well-guarded, not only by a revolutionary militia that did in fact rescue dozens of consular employees after the rpg fire came in, but by some 40 CIA operatives, many of them ex-special forces, in a nearby safe house. These were viewed by consular officials as “the cavalry.”
10. Susan Rice had nothing whatsoever to do with Libya, had no special knowledge of the situation in Benghazi, and she briefed the talking points she was given by the CIA in the aftermath.
Whether Susan Rice would have made a good secretary of state or not, it is a shame that the GOP Fantasy Machine should have attempted to harm her reputation for probity over the Libya situation. In fact, almost everything the GOP senators and congressmen have alleged about the situation in Benghazi is factually incorrect and easily shown to be so.
We Should Be Lowering The Medicare Age, Not Raising It
There have been rumors that
President Obama may agree to a Republican demand to hike the Medicare
age. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Obama suggested that this
move is on the table.
Progressive Democratic senators are revolting against this unpopular idea.
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent
that we should be “lowering” the Medicare age, “not raising it”:
“I do a lot of town halls,” Merkley said. “I can’t tell you how many times someone will come up to me and say, ‘Here’s the thing. I’m 61, and I have these major health problems. I don’t have insurance. I’m praying I make it to 65.’ The idea that we’re going to take all these folks with diseases setting in as they get older, and move them two years later? Absolutely unacceptable.”“We should be lowering the age, not raising it,” Merkley said. Speaking of the president, Merkley added: “I hope he hears long and loud from us who are connected to the real lives of working people.”
Merkley is absolutely right. Hiking the Medicare age from 65 to 67 would cost
seniors at least $11 billion every year. Meanwhile, expanding public
health insurance would save American beneficiaries and the Treasury
money. The Congressional Budget Office estimates,
for example, that offering a public option based on Medicare rates in
the Affordable Care Act would save about $15 billion every year.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Where Congress doesn't act, the Fed does
The Federal Reserve announced a big step to move the economy forward today. They
are acting where Republicans won't. Columnist Michael Cohan joins Ed Schultz to
tell us what the Fed's economic boost means for the middle class.
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