Joseph Ratzinger wasn't
shy about it. He's quitting the papacy because "both strength of mind and
body are necessary" to do the job well, and "I have had to recognize my
incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."
Unless he's infallibly well-sourced and saw this coming, Keith Humphreys'
meditation on aging politicians is
just eerily timely. Pope Benedict is three years younger than Sen. Frank
Lautenberg, who's puttering around condemning the very
idea of Cory Booker running against him. Humphreys:
What the press ought to do instead is communicate reality: The
burden of proof is entirely on Lautenberg to demonstrate that he isn’t too old
to be an effective senator until the age of 98. Extrapolating from life table data, a 92
year old has only a 1 in 6 chance of living to 98, and that’s the combined rate
for males and females. And those who do live to 98 have an extremely high rate
of significant physical and/or mental decline. It should therefore not be some
awkward responsibility for Cory Booker to hint vaguely about “new ideas”,
“vigor” etc. as a way to gingerly raise the age issue. Rather, the press should
put the question straight to Lautenberg: “Senator, if you are re-elected the
odds are very low you will survive your term at all, much less do so in good
health. Is that fair to the people of New Jersey when there are certainly other
politicians in the state who could do the job?”. That keeps focus on a
legitimate question that the public has a right to have answered (whether Booker
brings it up or not).
But coverage of Lautenberg goes just the opposite direction—it high-fives him
for his vigor. A recent
Philadelphia Inquirer story pointed out that the senator had returned from
"a cold that became the flu" and was "wielding a cane—which he insisted he
didn't really need," but otherwise focused on his "feistiness." A
Star-Ledger story quotes
Lautenberg on the Bob Menendez scandal(s), but the quotes are nearly word
salad: "I don’t want to be part of the external review at all. It’s much too
sensitive a thing to be discussed randomly." Someone else watching Lautenberg
deliver some of these quotes (i.e., me) might say that Lautenberg walked slowly
with the cane and took ages to make his point.
Those details don't appear in the stories because they seem subjective and
mean. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was unable to work while recovering from a bullet
that penetrated her brain, and I can't recall any mainstream calls for her to
resign. The two members of the Senate who've suffered from strokes, Illinois'
Mark Kirk and South Dakota's Tim Johnson, were robust guys stricken in their
50's. Johnson went on to re-election, and nobody's telling Kirk he shouldn't run
again.
Decorum plays a role here, as does the (mostly true) confidence that
staffers can do most of a senator's work. But should the media play along?
The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart and Lehigh University’s Dr. James Peterson debate why Republicans may prefer the sequester cuts – which the White House today says could mean teachers fired and more than half a million without food aid – to any compromise.
The massive operating deficits that have driven the U.S. Post Office to announce
an end to delivery of First Class mail on Saturdays, beginning in August,
are not the product of postal service ineptitude. Those deficits are not the
product of increased public access to emails or from competition by private
delivery services like UPS or FedEx.
The U.S. Postal Service has been victimized by the Orwellian-labeled Postal Accountability
and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), which embodies a scheme designed to
destroy the constitutionally established U.S. Postal Service in order to
privatize mail and parcel delivery. In a lame duck session, at the peak of the
USPS' profitability and productivity, a then Republican-controlled Congress
forced the U.S. Postal Service "to pre-fund 75 years worth
of pensions" in the span of ten years, "a requirement not made of any other
public or private institution." If not for the onerous and unprecedented
requirements of the PAEA, the U.S. Postal Service, which is not funded by any
taxes, would now be experiencing a $1.5 billion surplus.
The contrived demise of the postal service must be understood within the
broader subversive goals of libertarian and right wing philosophy --- a
philosophy which, despite the express provisions of both the Preamble and
Article I of the U.S. Constitution, rejects the right of government to "promote
the general welfare"...
'Privatization' threatens democracy
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people
tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
their democratic state itself," President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned in a speech to Congress
on Apr. 29, 1938. "That, in its essence, is fascism --- ownership of
government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private
power."
In The
Shock Doctrine, Naomi
Klein provided valuable insight on "privatization," a concept in which wealthy
elites seek to turn everything that was historically considered part of the
public domain into an activity or resource that can provide the billionaire
class with an opportunity to extract a profit.
Klein offers concrete examples documenting the authoritarian repression and
economic desolation that befell every nation that embraced "neoliberal" free
market economics and its accompanying austerity measures. As historian Chalmers
Johnson observed on the book's cover, The Shock Doctrine "rips away the
'free trade' and globalization ideologies that disguise a conspiracy to
privatize war and disaster and grab public property for the rich few" --- all,
as part of "our headlong flight back to feudalism under the guise of social
science and 'freedom.'"
Where Klein discussed the disturbing prospects of privatized police and fire
services, the ultimate absurdity came during the Sept. 13, 2011 'Tea Party'
Presidential Primary Debate when former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) went beyond a
call for the elimination of the of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA). Romney suggested
that FEMA's critical disaster relief function should be privatized.
Hurricane Sandy so exposed the folly of privatized disaster relief that the
mendacious Republican Presidential candidate evaded
reporters and the issue, even as he shamelessly sought to exploit the disaster
via a staged photo op that included fake food donations.
So when Sandy slammed into the Jersey shores and the President called for
swiftly cutting through red tape to insure prompt assistance from FEMA and other
federal agencies, the climate-science denying, oil industry oligarch Koch Brothers' keynote speaker, Gov.
Chris Christie (R-NJ), had a very significant decision to make. He could
responsibly step forward on behalf of the citizens of the Garden State or he
could abide by the ideological dictates of his plutocratic benefactors and be
reduced to the same feckless sycophant that his party's standard bearer
displayed with his fake food donations.
To Christie's credit, he chose the former. Orwellian hard-right ideology
simply gave way to a profound reality. No private organization is capable of
handling a disaster of that magnitude, which requires res publica in
the form of a coordinated effort of government at the federal, state and local
levels. Thus, despite his prior
commitment to the Koch brothers' privatization agenda, the harsh reality of
the massive scope of Sandy's devastation compelled Christie to opt for sanity.
But the U.S. Postal Service is not FEMA. The absurdity of privatization is
not as readily apparent, and, as forcefully demonstrated during a Feb. 6 segment
of The Ed Show on MSNBC (posted below), host Ed Schultz
appropriately notes that a wide swath of the corporate-owned mainstream media
has failed to report the fact that the forces of privatization, not the rise of
email, explains the U.S. Postal Service's economic woes.
Where were the Democrats?
Schultz correctly notes that the scheme to destroy the U.S. Postal Service
was hatched by Republicans during a lame duck session of Congress. Democrats
controlled both Houses of Congress from 2008 to 2010. Why were there no efforts
to repeal the PAEA during that session?
Schultz discusses whether or not the GOP will succeed in destroying the
Constitutionally-mandated U.S. Postal Service all together. The answer to that
question, it seems, depends largely on how forceful the President and
Congressional Democrats are in both speaking out and acting on the issue.
It
also depends on the extent of which the corporate media bothers to exercise its
own Constitutional mandate to inform the electorate by addressing the real
source of the Postal Services demise. It depends upon how forceful we the people
are in speaking out as well.
Video of the 2/6/2013 Ed Show segment on the U.S. Postal
Service's announcement to end Saturday deliver of First Class mail beginning in
August, follows below...
Ernest A. Canning has been an active
member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both
undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris
doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing.
Kratos unleashes his wrath today, as we get to see the Spartan warrior in
a live-action trailer, new single-player screenshots, and the
first 30 minutes of the game. God of War: Ascension will be unchained on
March 12th, and will include an exclusive access demo of The Last of Us.
“It wasn’t right what they were doing. It’s not the way to treat people,” an anonymous former contractor told San Jose Mercury News Reporter Eric Kurhi on February 7th, when asked why he blew the whistle on Bloom Energy. As previously reported
by Kurhi, the leading Sunnyvale, CA clean energy start-up had been
underpaying 14 Mexican contract workers for two years, at the equivalent
of $2.66 per hour in pesos. Not only does this compensation fall below
California’s minimum wage of $8.00 per hour, it’s also far below the $11.48-$24.01 per hour
welders — like these workers — earn in the Golden State. Oh, and the
workers often toiled over 50 hours per week and received no overtime
pay. Kurhi’s colleague Brandon Bailey also reports that the workers were here on visitors’ visas, “which generally don’t allow [visa] holders to work while they are here.”
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wages and Hours division — via signed
court order from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh — ordered Bloom Energy to
pay $31,922 in back wages, $31,922 in damages, and $6,160 in civil
penalties ($70,004.00 total). The Department of Labor requires minimum
wage and overtime to be paid regardless of the workers’ immigration
status. Ruben Rosalez, a regional Labor Department administrator told
reporters in a press release:
“This investigation has remedied illegal pay practices
for a group of workers subjected to substandard wages. It is appalling
that this was happening right in the heart of Silicon Valley, one of the
wealthiest per capita areas in the U.S.”
Bloom Energy released a statement promising not to let this happen
again, but not explaining why they thought they could get away with such
blatantly illegal and abusive practices:
“We take full responsibility for this and have paid back
wages, damages and fines … Furthermore, we are correcting and
strengthening our internal processes to ensure that this does not occur
again.”
The whistleblower — who remains anonymous so as not to risk future
employment opportunities — also told Kurhi, that he had overheard
workers complaining amongst themselves, including one who lamented, “I
don’t know why I came up here. I could be down there making the same
money and be with my family.” The workers had been transported back and
forth between Bloom Energy’s factory in Chihuahua, Mexico and the
Silicon Valley plant. When staying in Sunnyvale, the workers were put up
in a hotel and provided with a $50 a day per diem for meals, but were
required to return any money they didn’t use. The workers’ sub-standard
wages were wired to their bank accounts in Mexico.
Susana Blanco, director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s wage and Hour Division in San Francisco told Nadine Natour from NBCLatino
that “We were surprised that it was happening in the heart of the
Silicon Valley, which is known for its high-paid salaries.” Yet she also
seemed to enjoy playing a part in creating a much happier kind of
surprise. When asked how the workers responded to the court decision,
Blanco responded, “They were surprised … they were very surprised,
because they thought they didn’t have any protection in the United
States.”
Bloom Energy launched in 2002 cutting-edge, energy-efficient fuel cell batteries for high-profile corporate customers,
including Walmart, Staples, AT&T, FedEx, Coca Cola, Kaiser
Permanente, Adobe, ebay, and Google. The celebrated venture capitalist
John Doerr, and former Secretary of State and Retired General Colin
Powell serve on their board of directors.
The
United States and other independent governments around the world are
crumbling while Ayn Rand’s billionaires are taking over.
February 7, 2013
Thirty years after her death, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness
and billionaire empowerment rules the world. It’s a remarkable
achievement for an ideology that was pushed to the fringes for most of
her life, and ridiculed on national television in a notorious interview
with Mike Wallace.
But, it’s happened. And today, the United
States and other independent governments around the world are crumbling
while Ayn Rand’s billionaires are taking over.
With each new
so-called Free Trade agreement – especially the very secretive Trans
Pacific Partnership, which has less to do with trade and more to do with
a new law of global governance for transnational corporations – Ayn
Rand’s reviled “state” (or what we would call our democracy, the United
States of America) is losing its power to billionaires and transnational
corporations.
Ayn Rand hated governments and democracy. She
considered them systems of mob rule. She grew up in Russia, and as a
child watched the Bolsheviks confiscate her father’s pharmacy during the
Russian Revolution. Likely suffering from PTSD from that incident, Ayn
Rand devoted her future writings to evil government, including the
"evil" of its functions like taxation, regulation, and providing social
services to the poor and sick.
She divided the world into makers and takers (or what she called “looters”).
On
one side are the billionaires and the industrialists. People like Dagny
Taggert, a railroad tycoon, and Hank Rearden, a steel magnate. Both
were fictional characters in her book Atlas Shrugged, but both have
real-world counterparts in the form of the Koch Brothers, the Waltons,
and Sheldon Adelson. According to Rand, they are the “Atlases” holding
up the world.
So, in Atlas Shrugged, when the billionaires, tired
of paying taxes and complying with government regulation, go on strike,
Ayn Rand writes that the American economy promptly collapsed.
On
the other side are the “looters,” or everyone else who isn’t as rich or
privileged, or who believed in a democratic government to provide basic
services, empower labor unions, and regulate the economy. They are the
leeches on society according to Rand (and according to Mitt Romney with
his 47% comments). And, as she told Mike Wallace in in 1959, they do not
even “deserve love.”
To our Founding Fathers, looking out for the
general welfare of the population was an explicit role of the
government, one of its most important and the reason this nation was
created when we separated from Britian.
But to Ayn Rand, a
government that taxed billionaires to help pay for healthcare and
education for impoverished children was not just unwise economically, it
was also immoral.
Nature abhors a vacuum – both in the wild and
in politics. So, when people, organized in the form of a government,
are removed from power, then money organized in the form of corporations
and billionaires moves into the vacuum to take power – which is exactly
what’s happening today, worldwide.
In the thirty years after her
death, the United States crept closer and closer to Ayn Rand’s utopia.
Reagan dramatically slashed taxes on the rich and went after labor
unions. Clinton deregulated financial markets for the rich, ended
welfare as we know it, and committed our nation to one globalist
corporate free trade agreement after another.
And, under Bush and
Obama, we’ve seen the rapid privatization of our commons, the further
erosion of social safety nets, and more losses of national sovereignty
with more so-called free trade agreements.
In Europe, we’re seeing
sovereign governments neutered by Conservative technocrats. According
to Ayn Rand, the rich can never be asked to sacrifice. So instead, it’s
working people across the Eurozone who have to pay for the bad
investments that the banksters made in the run-up to the global
financial collapse.
As we saw in Greece in 2011 with the deposing
of Prime Minister George Papandreou, and all across the state of
Michigan over the last few years with financial managers laws, when
democratic governments are unwilling to do the bidding of the rich,
they're immediately replaced by corporate lackeys who will.
The Taggerts and the Reardens are holding the reins of government today.
Which
explains why Corporate America paid an average tax rate of just 12% in
2011 – the lowest rate in 40 years. It explains why 400 billionaires in
America now own more wealth than 150 million other Americans combined.
And it explains why fewer impoverished Americans are getting less
federal assistance than at any time in the last half-century.
Ayn Rand envisioned a world without governments – a world where the super-rich are free to do as they wish.
We
tried that during the so-called Gilded Age of the late 19th Century –
before Ayn Rand was alive. If she'd watched the ruthlessness of the
Robber Barons like she did the Bolsheviks, she may have reached
different conclusions.
She may have realized that American
Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Dwight
Eisenhower were right when they made sure that wealth was more evenly
distributed and the Billionaire Class was held in check.
Or she
may have come to understand that corporations and billionaires owe their
wealth to the state and not the other way around. Without favorable
patent and copyright laws, a court system, an educated workforce, and an
infrastructure to move goods about the country, then no one would be
able to get rich in America. We'd be like the Libertarian paradise
of Somalia.
As Harry Moser, the founder of the Reshoring Initiative, argued in
The Economist, “Corporations are not created by the shareholders or the
management. Rather they are created by the state. They are granted
important privileges by the state (limited liability, eternal life,
etc). They are granted these privileges because the state expects them
to do something beneficial for the society that makes the grant. They
may well provide benefits to other societies, but their main purpose is
to provide benefits to the societies (not to the shareholders, not to
management, but to the societies) that create them.”
Sadly, this understanding of how democratic republics work - and why - has been lost in this generation.
And Ayn Rand’s disciples are making sure the next generation never finds it again.
Idaho
State Senator John Goedde, who chairs that state Senate’s Education
Committee, introduced a bill this week that would require all students
to read Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged” before they can graduate.
Goedde explained that the book made his son a Republican and that it
“certainly gives one a sense of personal responsibility.”
Between
stupidity like this, and the re-birth of Ayn Rand through
corporate-funded think tanks and Hollywood movies, the Billionaire Class
wants to make sure the next generation buys into a toxic ideology
that’s quite literally destroying the world as we know it.
They
don’t want the 21st Century to be “America’s Century.” They want it to
be the “Billionaire’s Century.” And if they succeed, then the middle
class in America - and through most of the developed world - will go
extinct.
Sam Sacks is a former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill. He's now the senior producer on The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann airing weeknights at 7pm EST on Free Speech TV and RT America.
In the wake of 2012′s bitter political contests, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has single-handedly managed to forge a small swath of common ground between liberals and conservatives. On Monday, Paul issued a Tweet so insensitive that members of both political parties have since expressed their bipartisan disgust.
The Tweet was prompted by the tragic death of U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle on Saturday:
Chris Kyle's death seems to confirm that "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword." Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn't make sense.
To be fair, that does sound like a rather… risky? … form of PTSD treatment, but perhaps we can all agree it’s an egregiously dickish move to imply that Kyle’s death was caused by his own well-intentioned attempt to help a fellow veteran. Kyle dedicated much of his post-military career to helping PTSD sufferers such as his alleged killer, Eddie Ray Routh, who opened fire on Kyle at a shooting range.
While specialists will no doubt debate the safety and effectiveness of this form of PTSD treatment (the theory is that it reintroduces a small, “safe” PTSD trigger to help desensitize the sufferer), the rest of America has come to a consensus on the separate matter of Ron Paul’s comments. Even Paul’s own son, Rand, seems to agree that that was a stupid fucking thing to Tweet, Dad (not his exact words but given Rand’s proclivity for right-wing pandering, he was almost certainly thinking it).
Paul, an anti-war advocate, later offered his condolences, implying that his Tweet was meant as a criticism of “Unconstitutional and unnecessary wars” rather than of Kyle himself. While we don’t necessarily disagree with Paul’s anti-war stance, we’d like to offer him a few helpful tips for next time:
2.) And especially don’t do this within 48 hours of his tragic passing.
3.) And double-especially don’t do this if the guy was just trying to do something charitable for a fellow veteran in need, even if the guy’s methods were questionable.
4.) And triple-especially don’t do this via some glib comment on Twitter, you asshat. In fact, to be on the safe side, just never Tweet about anyone’s death, ever, from now on.
5.) And also, you need to rethink those hideous shoes you’re always wearing. That’s not really relevant to this particular controversy, but as long as we’re offering some constructive advice here it seemed appropriate to bring it to your attention.
MSNBC's Karen Finney & Richard Wolffe join Lawrence O'Donnell to discuss FOX
News, facelifts, and why Gov. Chris Christie feels a former White House doctor
should remain silent about his weight.
House Republican Leader Eric Cantor gave a new speech with the same old details
in an attempt to re-brand the Republican Party. The Washington Post's Eugene
Robinson and The Daily Beast's Bob Shrum talk with Ed Schultz about the
continuing failure to make substantive changes to the Republican Party.
One of the most powerful Republicans in Pennsylvania could introduce legislation
next month to reallocate his state's electoral votes. Ed Schultz explains how it works
and why 5 other states have abandoned the idea. Contributing writer for The
Nation Magazine, Ari Berman, explains how the plan puts Democrats and voters at
a disadvantage.
Glenn Beck and Alex Jones might be hawking overpriced “survival seeds,”
but you can be sure that the only seeds they are personally planting
sprout a big, ugly strain of paranoia. That paranoia is growing – so
much so that the majority of Americans now believe that the big, bad
gubmint is out to take away their rights.
Please allow me to submit Exhibit One – Alex Jones on a five-hour
freakout. You don’t have to watch the entire five hours. In fact, the
first 15 seconds or so will give you an idea, but trust me, there are
plenty of Americans who have listened to five hours.
Or there is this from Glenn Beck:
Obviously, I could go on. There’s Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and who
could forget the Tea Partiers…right there, destroying the government
from within.
According to an irony-filled poll conducted by Pew Research,
a full 53% of Americans believe that the government is out to take away
their rights. 43% feel that the government is more benign. That is
almost a direct reversal from 2003 (during the George W. Bush
administration), when the numbers were 45% and 54%, respectively.
Here’s where the irony starts: Despite the GOP’s laser focus on
eliminating women’s reproductive rights, men are more likely to feel
that their rights will be stripped away.
Despite the fact that minorities are most likely to be wrongfully incarcerated, it’s white people who are most likely to fear for their freedom. Ditto for young people and older people.
Republicans fear the government more than Democrats. Gun owners more than non-gun owners.
Most significant though, was the partisan divide - which of course, goes back to Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.
The growing view that the federal government threatens personal
rights and freedoms has been led by conservative Republicans. Currently
76% of conservative Republicans say that the federal government
threatens their personal rights and freedoms and 54% describe the
government as a “major” threat. Three years ago, 62% of conservative
Republicans said the government was a threat to their freedom; 47% said
it was a major threat. By comparison, there has been little change in opinions among
Democrats; 38% say the government poses a threat to personal rights and
freedoms and just 16% view it as a major threat. [Source]
In Republicans’ defense, it was Democrats who distrusted the government
during the Bush administration, but instead of fearing the government,
dissatisfied liberals expressed anger.
There is one thing everyone agrees upon though – Congress doesn’t work.
Geraldo Rivera expresses interest in running for Senate in 2014, and The Ed Show has obtained a (fake) exclusive copy of Geraldo Rivera's first campaign ad for United States Senate!
A huge stretch of severe storms ripped through the east coast yesterday with
some of the worst damage happening in Georgia. Every entire Republican
delegation from the state of Georgia, with the exception of Rep. Jack Kingston
voted against Sandy aid.
Ed Schultz gives his thoughts on what should happen if
the state of Georgia ends up needing federal assistance.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is planning big cuts to Medicaid that would have
a devastating impact on his state's poorest citizens. “Tha Hip Hop Doc” Dr. Rani
Whitfield of the National Association of Free Clinics tells Ed Schultz what
these cuts mean for Louisiana.
Dick Cheney may have accidentally shot a man in the face while he was
vice president, but that didn't stop Fox News from flying to Nevada to
get his advice on recently-proposed gun control laws.
Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins caught up with Cheney over the
week at the Safari Club International convention for gun owners and
manufacturers, where the former vice president and his daughter, Liz, participated in a discussion about gun rights and the realism of torture in the film "Zero Dark Thirty."
Cheney told Jenkins he was "worried" about President Barack Obama's efforts to increase gun safety.
"We may end up in a situation where you get a proposal or a
proposition that does, in fact, threaten the rights of law-abiding
Americans, and at the same time, doesn't do anything with respect to the
problem everybody's concerned about, such as the shooting that happened
in Connecticut," the Wyoming Republican said.
"I find especially in groups like the group here and an awful lot of
my folks in Wyoming who supported me all those years in Congress are
very, very concerned that there isn't adequate regard for the rights of
law-abiding citizens," he added. "We understand that there's clearly an
effort underway, but one of the things we've done in Wyoming -- with
respect to Jackson Hole, where I live, with respect to safety of schools
-- we have a deputy sheriff, armed deputy sheriff at the schools in the
city. And that's probably a more effective deterrent than anything that
Congress seems to be debating at the present time."
"How worried are you the President Obama's gun control plan threatens
the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding American?" Jenkins
asked.
"I think a lot of people are worried," Cheney said, pointing to a
recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit which
found that Obama had violated the Constitution by making recess appointments while lawmakers were using gimmick to keep Congress in session over the holidays.
"So I think the concern is very real and very legitimate, that the
administration sometimes isn't as cautious or as precise, if you will,"
Cheney opined.
While on a 2006 hunting trip for quail in Texas, Cheney mistakenly shot 78 year old Harry Whittington in the face.
"I am the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend," he later told Fox News. "That is something I will never forget."
36 Republicans vote no on disaster aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
Yet, most of those "no" votes voted "yes" when it came to disaster relief for
their own constituents. Ed Schultz looks into the hypocrisy, and discusses it
with Salon's Joan Walsh.
Some employees in Canton, Miss., say they want a fair vote on whether or not to
unionize. But several workers report feeling pressured to vote down a union.
What are their rights?
Ed Schultz explains why this has become a serious civil
rights issue and talks to Betty Jones, a worker from the Canton plant, as well
as Derrick Johnson, the President of the Mississippi State NAACP.
Sarah Palin has gone from being what MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell called "the most
recent losing vice presidential candidate who will never be president" to
someone who has "has lost even the slightest connection to political relevance"
now that she's been dropped as a political pundit by FOX News. He explains in
the Rewrite.
Rick Snyder, Scott Walker, John Kasich -- would you rather be remembered like John Jay or like Reince Priebus?
Portrait of John Jay by Gilbert Stuart, 1794 (The National Gallery of Art)
Everyone in American politics wants to follow the example of the Founding Generation. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell seems to have done so over the weekend.The lesson came from John Jay, one of the co-authors of The Federalist.
Here's hoping McDonnell introduces Jay to fellow Republican Governors
Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Snyder of
Michigan, and John Kasich of Ohio.
Jay, then serving as Governor of New York, protected his
own reputation by blocking a Federalist Party plan to rig the Electoral
College in 1800. In so doing, he left a lesson for today's Republicans,
which might be called "How Not to Panic as Your Party Seems to Be
Collapsing."
In 1800, the Federalist Party -- which had governed the
new nation since the Constitution took effect in 1789 -- found itself
facing many of the same forces that seem to be undoing Republicans
today: demographic changes, regional migration, immigration, and the
memory of a failed administration.
The Jeffersonian Republicans had the
wind at their back, led by the terrifying Thomas Jefferson (whom
Alexander Hamilton called "an atheist in religion and a fanatic in
politics").
Jay enters the story when Hamilton had a nifty idea to
hold onto power. On May 7, 1800, Hamilton wrote Governor Jay to warn
that Federalists had lost control of the state legislature in the recent
election. This disaster, he said, "will bring Jefferson into the
Chief Magistracy, unless it be prevented by . . . the immediate calling
together of the existing legislature." The old legislators, before they
left office, could change New York's electoral-vote system. Instead of
selection of a single statewide slate by the legislature, they could
award electoral votes by the popular vote by Congressional district. "I
am aware that there are weighty objections to the measure," Hamilton
admitted; but "in times like these in which we live, it will not do to
be overscrupulous."
Jay, a better politician than Hamilton ever was, never
committed an answer to paper. But on the back of the letter, he wrote,
"Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to
adopt."
On Friday, Bob McDonnell seemed to doom a plan by Virginia
legislators to use the old Hamilton scam -- awarding electoral votes by
district -- in future elections in Virginia. The Governor, a spokesman declared, "believes Virginia's existing system works just fine as it is. He does not believe there is any need for a change."
Jay and McDonnell's words should warn other GOP governors
of blue states, who are being urged to try to swing the next
presidential election by congressional-district electoral-vote plans.
Republican Chairman Reince Priebus, looking at the electoral map, is in a
distinctly Hamiltonian mood. The congressional-district switcheroo, he said recently, is "something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at."
As Nate Silver points out in Sunday's New York Times,
the congressional-district plan, if implemented in 2012 by Florida,
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- all of which
meet Priebus's "blue-but-red-controlled" criterion -- would have made
Mitt Romney President, even if Obama still obtained, as he did, an
absolute majority of the popular vote.
McDonnell's decision may put the brakes on a
congressional-district-vote stampede. But there is still enthusiasm in
some GOP circles for this sort of trick. One can see why: It's a lot
easier than confronting the long-term political trends that seem to be
hustling the Republican Party into the Great Caucus Room above where the
Federalists and the Whigs still hold their spectral meetings.
But it has a number of problems. It is dishonorable. It
would weaken our nation's commitment to principled application of the
Constitution. It would produce a political backlash. And worst of all,
considering this is politics, it probably wouldn't work.
Hamilton's scheme -- "the most high-handed and
undemocratic act of his career," according to biographer Ron Chernow --
is a permanent blot on the record of a distinguished Founder. Republican
governors like McDonnell may be asking themselves whether history will
judge them as more like Jay or more like Reince Priebus.
The Republican Party may very well right itself without
tricks or thuggery. Or it may disappear. That happened to the
Federalists, who never won another national election. Hamilton, ever the
hothead, followed his party into darkness; he provoked a fatal duel
with Aaron Burr in 1804.
Jay, on the other hand, retired to Westchester County,
lived another three decades, and died, honored by all, at the age of 83.
He is remembered as the man who signed the treaties that guaranteed
American independence. He refused to pervert his constitutional power
for "party purposes."
There are few organizations that elicit the combustible mix of
disdain, curiosity, horror and sheer confusion quite like Scientology. A
“church” whose methodology hews more closely to high-priced self-help
seminars than the God-based spirituality of traditional churches, this
brainchild of controversial “rainman,” L. Ron Hubbard, truly is the
poster-child religion of our modern times.
The most recent brouhaha has erupted in response to the just released book, Going Clear – Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and was named one of Time’s Top 100 Books of all time.
Clearly a guy with some bona fides.
As the story goes, Wright, in his position as a staff writer for The New Yorker, wrote a piece called “The Apostate”
on Oscar-winning writer/director Paul Haggis’ explosive exit from
Scientology back in 2009; it won the 2012 National Magazine Award and
became the basis of Wright’s new book.
Haggis, as you may know, is one of the most famous people to come out
against Scientology; a top-line writer/director whose long career in
Hollywood began in TV (most notably on the iconic 80s series, thirtysomething) and later moved in films. He won two screenplay Oscars (one for Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, the other for Crash), as well as a directing Oscar for Crash.
He is credible, smart, and very articulate on both his reasons for
joining and leaving the organization, which he boldly labels a “cult.”
That’s the set-up: two intelligent, highly
honored, very credible men taking on one of the most notorious churches
in the world, and how does Scientology respond? As it always does:
attacking the messengers.
The Daily Beast very graciously (in this writer’s opinion) ran an editorial from Scientology spokesperson, Karen Pouw,
in which she runs the standard Scientology playbook: everyone’s lying,
he’s lying, anyone with criticism is an “apostate” or a “disgruntled
suppressive person”; small factual mistakes are blown up into evidence
of larger “untruths,” and no one, NO ONE who has ever left the church
could possibly be speaking the truth. It’s the usual litany typically
spewed from various sources within the church when anyone writes
anything negative about the organization, but with a book and author
this high-profile, all wheels must be spinning. The Daily Beast did their own analysis of Pouw’s rebuttal to Wright’s facts in, “Scientology vs. Lawrence Wright” … see what you think.
Before I go any further, let me offer some
disclosure: I was an active member of Scientology for 10 years,
extending from my early to late 20s. While I had some significantly
negative experiences while a member, I left without any particular
fanfare or backlash (I apparently wasn’t high-profile enough!). I had
many friends within the organization who are now also out, many of whom
I’m still close with. Some had very negative experiences, others less
dramatic. I knew many good people while there; I knew many not-so-good
people. I left, quite simply, because it ultimately did not represent my
worldview, it did not offer me what I was looking for, and in my
personal experience, compassion for those outside the church was
lacking. It took years to fully deprogram my thinking, as it did for
everyone I knew, and I still find myself stunned by their antipathy
towards many methods of human healing, talk therapy in particular. Their
darker, more insidious abuses are known and documented and merit the
exact kind of exposure offered by Lawrence Wright’s book.
And with that insider perspective, I view the imbroglio over Going Clear with no surprise. Beyond The Daily Beast, the church also got in touch with TheAtlantic
magazine in late 2012 to purchase advertising space to coincide with
the release of Wright’s book. Clearly this was meant to counteract – or
perhaps, lure – the attention of interested readers. The Atlantic agreed in good faith, but what was supposed to be advertising turned out to be a rather shamefaced editorial called “David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year” (Miscavige is the group’s “ecclesiastical leader”), a journalistic embarrassment for The Atlantic that was widely mocked and ultimately taken down, as reported by The Huffington Post. TheAtlantic further apologized with an unusually chagrined statement:
Regarding an advertisement from the Church of Scientology that appeared on TheAtlantic.com on January 14:
We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism
— but it has — to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several
mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital
advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the
decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a
lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did
beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we
figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about
innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge—sheepishly—that we
got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put
things right.
Notwithstanding the mortifying snafu, one of Atlantic’s top writers, Jeffrey Goldberg, took to his own page in defense of his colleague:
Working with Lawrence Wright was one of the great pleasures of my journalism career. Even before I met Larry, at the New Yorker,
I was a great admirer of his, and my admiration only grew as I got to
know him personally, and as I watched him work. There is no more careful
reporter in the world than Larry, and no one who is as thorough and as
indefatigable.
That said, apparently Wright did get some
dates wrong (damn that copy editor!), which gave Pouw and others their
opening to editorially smear the writer. But the big facts, the salient
points, the major issues? Like any good journalist, he put in his
research work and has solid facts to back up his assertions. And while
there’s plenty of material to cull (just Google “L. Ron Hubbard” or
“Scientology” and the bombardment is biblical!), getting at the truth
of Scientology, particularly from sources within the church is,
frankly, impossible. Adherents are typically blind followers, mandated
explicitly and implicitly to speak positively of the church under all
circumstances. In my years of involvement, we were not only so
thoroughly programmed to not have any criticisms, to express it
publicly if we did was considered heresy and could result in all manner
of undesirable consequences. Given that, unbiased, objective opinions
from those still “inside” is literally not possible. Wright eludes to
that in response to the criticism from church spokeswoman, Pouw:
Pouw’s overall complaint is that Wright
refused assistance and never attempted to contact the church to confirm
facts, other than asking “about a dozen esoteric and obtuse”
fact-checking questions.
“I don’t know how many times she’s said
that we only asked 12 fact-checking questions. We asked about 160! It’s
just such a blatant lie that it makes me puzzled,” says Wright. He says
the church provided little help, either responding to his inquiries
after long delays, disputing the legitimacy of his questions, or not
responding at all. “What they really wanted, again and again, was a list of my sources. And I wasn’t going to give that to them.”
Wright acknowledges Pouw’s point that his
publishers in the U.K. and Canada have decided to pull the book because
of legal concerns.
“It’s a big project to write, essentially, a
history of a hostile organization that hides its data and tries to
mislead you about its past. And if I’ve made mistakes they will be
corrected,” says Wright. “But it is a monumental task to try to get at
the truth of what goes on inside Scientology.” [Source. Emphasis added.]
Surely one of the most difficult things for
the uninitiated to understand is how intelligent, well-meaning people
ever end up in this organization in the first place. In a Salon interview with L. Ron Hubbard’s great-grandson, Jamie DeWolf, (L. Ron Hubbard’s great-grandson: Scientology is a brainwashing “cult”), the following points are made:
DeWolf said that Scientology leaders “prey on narcissism….[You’re] told you’re a God-like creature.”
DeWolf also explained how Scientology
specifically tries to rope in celebrities, though they are often
“insulated from the nastier aspects of it.” DeWolf said Elvis Presley
turned down an offer to join Scientology.
But I and others have
often found it gut-wrenching to watch any one of the famous who sit in
judgment of others in service of their defense of the church; giggling
in dismissal of questions about the “dark side” of Scientology, when I,
as many do, personally know, have witnessed or, in some cases,
experienced that “dark side.” And there’s your narcissism: “my
experience has been fabulous so they must all be liars.” It’s akin to
the sibling of an abused child dismissing that child’s experience by
saying, “Daddy never touched me so you must be lying!” (and not such an
extreme example.)
What would have more integrity is if one of
the interviewed celebrities told Barbara Walters: “I have not
personally experienced a dark side, but if someone else has, that’s
horrible and I hope they and the church work together to make it right.”
Or how amazing would it be if the spokespeople of Scientology came out and sincerely and honestly said:
“There are many good people in the church
doing their best to do create positive change in the world. As in many
large organizations, mistakes have been made, policies have been poorly
implemented, unethical people have perverted the intent of good rules,
and people have been hurt. We are deeply sorry for any hurt or damage
that has been inflicted upon any current or former member of this
organization, and will do everything possible to rectify that hurt and
damage. We move forward with a goal of transparency and compassion and
welcome any questions or suggestions.”
Can you imagine?? But that will never happen.
Because this organization is not built on the notion of transparency,
compassion and truth. Its very DNA is subsumed in the secrecy of
invention, built on the foundation of science fiction, fantasy and
obfuscation and true spirituality cannot thrive in that atmosphere. In a
fascinating piece in the Daily Beast that documents the “tall tales”
told by Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard while he was a member of the
Explorers Club of New York City, his fantastical and highly creative
“history” is explored in detailed text and compelling photographs. I
urge you to take a look; it’s quite entertaining!
For many of us watching the rollout of
Wright’s book from the sidelines, it’s interesting to see what “guns”
the church pulls out this time in their exhaustive quest to shoot down
criticism. Their predictable script, however, not only rings hollow
after so many years of the same, it works to further alienate and create
disdain. This is an organization that’s spent years in the practice of
annihilating its enemies and is rife with written policy on just how to
do that. Pre-Internet, that usually involved mob-like tactics of
personal and professional harassment that often led to extreme duress
and incendiary lawsuits. More recently, with the ubiquity of information
available online, the church has been less successful in shutting down
critical content; in fact, even its most mysterious and arcane spiritual
philosophy regarding evil lords named Xenu and exploding volcanoes,
once so secret it was considered deadly to reveal before a student was
properly prepared, is now splattered all over the web in every
permutation available. So far no one has died from reading.
The point is: like other controversial
groups with zealot followers and blind allegiance as a mandate, the
church of Scientology, as seen from the outside, is an extremist cult
that dissembles for the sake of protecting its secrets. Transparency can
only exist in an organization that has nothing to hide and a
willingness to welcome and embrace all interested parties. But, as
Lawrence Wright discovered, “…it is a monumental task to try to get at
the truth of what goes on inside Scientology.” [Source]
But it is precisely Wright’s measured tone,
his use of a scalpel instead of a hammer to dissect Scientology and its
manifold abuses, which renders his conclusions all the more damning.
Acknowledging that members of a religion can “believe whatever they
choose,” Wright adds the important caveat that “it is a different matter
to use the protections afforded a religion by the First Amendment to
falsify history, to propagate forgeries, and to cover up human rights
abuses.” Scientology critics, myself included, have long argued that the
U.S. government should follow the lead of other countries and at the
very least revoke the Church’s tax-exempt status, if not take harsher
measures against it for a variety of criminal activities. Lawrence
Wright’s courageous investigation is a warrant to act.
A conclusion many of us – those who have been inside as well as those peering from the edges – share.
[For more information on this and other Scientology matters, visit Tony Ortega's The Underground Bunker.]
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell brags about filibuster deal in a
fundraising letter one day after getting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to
Cave. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joins Ed Schultz to talk about next steps.
Democrats are moving to expand their electoral map and turn Texas blue, while
Republican-controlled legislatures are trying to change the rules to
disenfranchise Democratic voters in states that went for President Obama in
2012. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell discusses with Steve Kornacki.
Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have agreed to a set of rule changes, but
the new regime falls far short of what young Democrats had demanded to fix the
chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced
today that he's reached a deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on some
procedural reforms that are intended to help cure the chronic, appalling
dysfunction that's bedeviled the Senate since 2006 or so, when Democrats took
over the body. Here's a quick list of the formal changes:
Shorten debate following a cloture vote on the motion to proceed from 30
hours to four.
Leave the ability to filibuster that cloture vote essentially intact.
Allow the minority to offer two amendments on every bill.
Shorten confirmation time for judicial nominees once cloture is invoked.
And two informal ones, which are to be executed without actually
changing Senate rules:
Senators will have to actually be on the floor to threaten a filibuster.
Time allocated for debate will have to actually be spent on debate.
You can see the full proposals at the bottom of this post.
That's ... something. But the changes fall far short of what reformers had
hoped for. In December, I wrote a
primer on what the reformers wanted. Here's a list of those proposals and
their fate:
End the filibuster altogether: As expected, Senator Tom
Harkin's call for legislation to pass by a simple majority died. The idea was
always fringe, even within the hardcore reform group.
Ban filibuster on the motion to proceed: Though debate
after the vote is curtailed, the motion to proceed can still be filibustered.
Bring back the talking filibuster: This was probably the
central tenet of a plan put forward by reform ringleaders Jeff Merkley of Oregon
and Tom Udall of New Mexico. It won't be happening
either. They wanted to force the minority to actually stay on the floor and
speak, just like Long and D'Amato back in the day, in order to hold up
business.
Ban filibusters on House-Senate conferences: No dice,
although there will now be only one chance to filibuster bills after they've
passed both chambers, rather than three.
Shift the burden on cloture: Al Franken's proposal to force the
minority to come up with 41 votes rater than forcing the majority to produce 60,
got nowhere.
So basically all of the major reform ideas came to
naught.
What happened? The reformers had the wind at their backs. Everyone agreed
that the Senate was grievously broken. Democrats had not only not lost seats in
the Senate but had gained them. And Reid had publicly said that reform was
needed and that he was willing to use the "nuclear option" -- changing the
official Senate rules with a bare majority of 51 votes -- to get it done if he
had to.
But the veterans got in the way. This was always the danger. Merkley and
Udall are both freshman senators; neither one has ever been in the minority.
While they agitated for changes, more senior Democratic senators eyed them
warily, remembering when they'd been in the minority and used filibusters --
albeit less frequently than the current minority. Changing the rules with less
than 60 votes seemed to them to set a dangerous precedent. Back in December, a
Hill staffer told me that despite public reservations, those members would get
in line when push came to shove. But it turned out Reid himself wasn't willing
to use the 51-vote nuclear option to get the changes.
"I'm not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote
threshold," Reid
told Ezra Klein Thursday. "With the history of the Senate, we have to
understand the Senate isn't and shouldn't be like the House."
Advocates for major reform aren't
delighted, but it looks like this plan will get
through. (Progressive advocacy groups are less happy, and have been firing
off angry missives all afternoon.) Democrats get at least some streamlining of
the procedure, and Republicans get a chance to offer amendments, their major
gripe.
And there will be ample chances to see whether it works soon. Will Richard
Cordray, the recess-appointed director of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau now up for confirmation, get a
vote? Will judicial nominees? Will the pace of business speed up? Time will tell. __ * Yes, all of those are real filibusters
of yore. Filibuster Reform (1) by tpmdocs Filibuster Reform (2) by tpmdocs
, Naomi
Klein provided valuable insight on "privatization," a concept in which wealthy
elites seek to turn everything that was historically considered part of the
public domain into an activity or resource that can provide the billionaire
class with an opportunity to extract a profit.
Portrait of John Jay by Gilbert Stuart, 1794 (The National Gallery of Art)