Why the Tea Party Isn't Going Anywhere

By Theda Skocpol

The demise of the Tea Party was loudly announced right after Congress voted on October 16 to lift the debt ceiling and reopen the federal government. “Finally! The Republican Fever Is Broken,” exulted Jamelle Bouie atThe Daily Beast, while Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson proclaimed President Obama’s “victory” over the Tea Party just as “devastating as Sherman’s march through the South.” With most Americans telling pollsters they do not like the Tea Party and its tactics, the GOP will eventually have to pivot back to the median voter, explained Noah Feldman in his Bloombergcolumn, “How the Tea Party Will Die.”

Other optimists placed greater emphasis on the supposed new will of business interests and Republican Party elders to recapture party control. Offering reassurance, supporters of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner told the pre-eminent inside-the-Beltway gossip site Politico that their guy was more effectively in charge of his raucous GOP caucus following the shutdown debacle. Karl Rove vowed to block far-right Tea Party challengers in GOP primaries, and the Chamber of Commerce started to make noises about supporting some supposed “moderates” against Tea Party candidates in 2014 GOP primaries.

But we have heard all this before. The Tea Party was supposed to be dead and the GOP on the way to moderate repositioning after Obama’s victory and Democratic congressional gains in November 2012. Yet less than a year after post-election GOP soul-searching supposedly occurred, radical forces pulled almost all GOP House and Senate members into at least going along with more than two weeks of extortion tactics to try to force President Obama and Senate Democrats to gut the Affordable Care Act and grant a long laundry list of other GOP priorities suspiciously similar to the platform on which the party had run and lost in 2012. The Tea Party’s hold on the GOP persists beyond each burial ceremony.

In 2011, Vanessa Williamson and I published our book The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, which used a full panoply of research—from interviews and local observations to media and website analysis and tracking of national surveys—to explain the dynamics of this radical movement. We showed how bottom-up and top-down forces intersect to give the Tea Party both leverage over the Republican Party and the clout to push national politics sharply to the right.

At the grassroots, volunteer activists formed hundreds of local Tea Parties, meeting regularly to plot public protests against the Obama Administration and place steady pressure on GOP organizations and candidates at all levels. At least half of all GOP voters sympathize with this Tea Party upsurge. They are overwhelmingly older, white, conservative-minded men and women who fear that “their country” is about to be lost to mass immigration and new extensions of taxpayer-funded social programs (like the Affordable Care Act) for low- and moderate-income working-aged people, many of whom are black or brown. Fiscal conservatism is often said to be the top grassroots Tea Party priority, but Williamson and I did not find this to be true. Crackdowns on immigrants, fierce opposition to Democrats, and cuts in spending for the young were the overriding priorities we heard from volunteer Tea Partiers, who are often, themselves, collecting costly Social Security, Medicare, and veterans' benefits to which they feel fully entitled as Americans who have “paid their dues” in lifetimes of hard work.

On the other end of the organizational spectrum, big-money funders and free-market advocacy organizations used angry grassroots protests to expand their email lists and boost longstanding campaigns to slash taxes, shrink social spending, privatize Medicare and Social Security, and eliminate or block regulations (including carbon controls). In 2009, groups such as FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, and Tea Party Express (a renamed conservative GOP political action committee) leapt on the bandwagon; more recently, the Senate Conservative Action Fund and Heritage Action have greatly bolstered the leveraging capacities of the Tea Party as a whole. Elite activities ramped up after many Tea Party legislators were elected in 2010.

Here is the key point: Even though there is no one center of Tea Party authority—indeed, in some ways because there is no one organized center—the entire gaggle of grassroots and elite organizations amounts to a pincer operation that wields money and primary votes to exert powerful pressure on Republican officeholders and candidates. Tea Party influence does not depend on general popularity at all. Even as most Americans have figured out that they do not like the Tea Party or its methods, Tea Party clout has grown in Washington and state capitals. Most legislators and candidates are Nervous Nellies, so all Tea Party activists, sympathizers, and funders have had to do is recurrently demonstrate their ability to knock off seemingly unchallengeable Republicans (ranging from Charlie Crist in Florida to Bob Bennett of Utah to Indiana’s Richard Lugar). That grabs legislators’ attention and results in either enthusiastic support for, or acquiescence to, obstructive tactics. The entire pincer operation is further enabled by various right-wing tracking organizations that keep close count of where each legislator stands on “key votes”—including even votes on amendments and the tiniest details of parliamentary procedure, the kind of votes that legislative leaders used to orchestrate in the dark.

The 2010 elections were a high watermark for Tea Party funders and voters. Amid intense public frustration at the slow economic recovery, only two of five U.S. voters went to the polls. The electorate skewed toward older, whiter, wealthier conservatives; and this low turnout allowed fired-up Tea Party Republicans to score many triumphs in the House and state legislatures. And the footholds gained are not easily lost. Once solid blocs of Tea Party supporters or compliant legislators are ensconced in office, outside figures like Dick Armey of FreedomWorks (in 2011) and Jim DeMint of Heritage Action (in 2013) appoint themselves de facto orchestrators, taking control away from elected GOP leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

In the latest such maneuver during the summer of 2013, radical-right Texas Senator Ted Cruz put himself forward as a bold Tea Party strategist calling for a renewed all-out crusade to kill Obamacare long after it was assured survival by the Supreme Court and the 2012 presidential election. With his strong ties to far-right funders and ideologues, plus a self-assured, even arrogant, pugnaciousness that thrills much of the GOP electorate, Cruz could direct a chunk of House Republicans to pressure a weak Boehner into proceeding with the government shutdown and debt brinkmanship. Apologists say Boehner was “reluctant,” but what difference does that make? He went along.

After the immediate effort flopped and caused most Americans to further sour on Republicans, Cruz remained unbowed. And why not? After all, Cruz gained near-total name recognition and sky-high popularity among Tea Party voters. He now appears regularly on television, and his antics have allowed elite Tea Party forces to lock in draconian reductions in federal spending for coming rounds of budget struggles. Americans may resent the Tea Party, but they are also losing ever more faith in the federal government—a big win for anti-government saboteurs. Popularity and “responsible governance” are not the goals of Tea Party forces, and such standards should not be used to judge the accomplishments of those who aim to undercut, block, and delay—even as Tea Party funders remain hopeful about holding their own or making further gains in another low-turnout midterm election in November 2014.

The bottom line is sobering. Anyone concerned about the damage Tea Party forces are inflicting on American politics needs to draw several hard-headed conclusions.

For one, at least three successive national election defeats will be necessary to even begin to break the determination and leverage of Tea Party adherents. Grassroots Tea Partiers see themselves in a last-ditch effort to save “their country,” and big-money ideologues are determined to undercut Democrats and sabotage active government. They are in this fight for the long haul. Neither set of actors will stand down easily or very soon.

Also worth remembering is that “moderate Republicans” barely exist right now. Close to two-thirds of House Republicans voted against bipartisan efforts to reopen the federal government and prevent U.S. default on loan obligations, and Boehner has never repudiated such extortionist tactics. Tea Partiers may not call for another shutdown right away, but they will continue to be able to draw most GOP legislators and leaders into aggressive efforts to obstruct and delay. In the electorate, moreover, more than half of GOP voters sympathize with the Tea Party and cheer on obstructionist tactics, and the remaining Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are disorganized and divided in their views of the likes of Ted Cruz.

Speaking of which, Cruz is very well positioned to garner unified Tea Party support in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries. During the last election cycle, no far-right candidate ever consolidated sustained grassroots Tea Party support, as those voters hopped from Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum. But this time, Cruz may very well enjoy unified and enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party support from the beginning of the primary election season. In the past, less extreme GOP candidates have always managed to garner the presidential nomination, but maybe not this time. And even if a less extreme candidate finally squeaks through, Cruz will set much of the agenda for Republicans heading into 2016.

When it comes to “reining in” the Tea Party, business associations and spokespeople may talk bigger than they will act. They have lots to say to reporters, but they show few signs of mounting the kind of organized, sustained efforts it would take to counter Tea Party enthusiasm and funding. Groups like the Chamber of Commerce have spent decades using right-wing energy to help elect Republicans, who, once elected, are supposed to focus on tax cuts and deregulation. It used to be relatively easy to con Christian-right voters with flashy election symbolism and then soft-pedal their preferences once Republicans took office. Today’s far right is unmistakably another cup of tea. Even as business funders realize this, however, they will be tempted to keep replaying the old strategies, because turning to Democrats will usually not seem acceptable, and it will be almost impossible in many states and districts to mount GOP primary challenges from the middle-right without improving Democratic prospects in general election contests.

Finally, Democrats need to get over thinking that opinion polls and media columns add up to real political gains. Once the October 2013 shutdown ended in supposed total victory for President Obama and his party, many Democrats adopted a cocky swagger and started talking about ousting the House GOP in 2014. But a clear-eyed look shows that Tea Party obstruction remains powerful and has achieved victories that continue to stymie Democratic efforts to govern effectively—a necessary condition for Democrats to win enthusiastic, sustained voter support for the future, including in midterm elections. Our debates about federal budgets still revolve around degrees of imposed austerity. Government shutdowns and repeated partisan-induced “crises” have greatly undercut U.S. economic growth and cost up to a year’s worth of added jobs. Real national challenges—fighting global warming, improving education, redressing extreme economic inequalities, rebuilding and improving economic infrastructure—go unaddressed as extreme GOP obstructive capacities remain potent in Washington and many state capitals.

True, the events of October 2013 helped millions of middle-of-the-road voters—and even quite a few complacent political reporters—grasp the dangers of the sabotage-oriented radicalism in today’s Republican Party. But it will take a long and dogged struggle to root out radical obstructionism on the right, and the years ahead could yet see Tea Partiers succeed by default. Unless non-Tea Party Republicans, independents, and Democrats learn both to defeat and to work around anti-government extremism—finding ways to do positive things for the majority of ordinary citizens along the way—Tea Party forces will still win in the end. They will triumph just by hanging on long enough to cause most Americans to give up in disgust on our blatantly manipulated democracy and our permanently hobbled government.

This article originally appeared in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, an Atlantic partner publication.

10 Reasons That Long Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe

By Kevin Drum

Unemployment is bad. Obviously long-term unemployment is worse. But it's not just a little worse, it's horrifically worse. As a companion to our eight charts that describe the problem, here are the top ten reasons why long-term unemployment is such a national catastrophe:

1. It's way higher than it's ever been before. When the headline unemployment rate peaked in 2010, it was actually a bit lower than the peak during the 1980 recession and only a point higher than the 1973 recession. As bad as it was, it was something we'd faced before. But the long-term unemployment rate is a whole different story. It peaked at a rate nearly double the worst we'd ever seen in the past, and it's been coming down only slowly ever since.
2. It's widespread. There's a common belief that long-term unemployment mostly affects older workers and only in certain industries. In fact, with the exception of the construction industry, which was hurt especially badly during the 2007-08 recession, "the long-term unemployed are fairly evenly distributed across the age and industry spectrum."
3. It's brutal. Obviously long-term unemployment produces a sharp loss of income, with all the stress that entails. But it does more. It produces deep distress, worse mental and physical health, higher mortality rates, hampers children’s educational progress, and lowers their future earnings. Megan McArdle summarizes the research findings this way: "Short of death or a debilitating terminal disease, long-term unemployment is about the worst thing that can happen to you in the modern world. It’s economically awful, socially terrible, and a horrifying blow to your self-esteem and happiness. It cuts you off from the mass of your peers and puts stress on your family, making it likely that further awful things, like divorce or suicide, will be in your near future."
4. It's long-lasting. Cristobal Young reports that "job loss has consequences that linger even after people return to work. Finding a job, on average, recovers only about two thirds of the initial harm of losing a job....Evidence from Germany finds subjective scarring of broadly similar magnitude that lasts for at least 3 to 5 years."
5. It dramatically reduces the prospect of getting another job. There's always been plenty of anecdotal evidence that employers don't like job candidates who have long spells of unemployment, but recent research suggests that this attitude has become even worse in the current weak economy. Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the Boston Fed, sent out a bunch of fictitious resumes for 600 job openings. Each batch of resumes was slightly different (industry experience, job switching history, etc.), and all of these things had a small effect on the chance of getting a callback. But one thing had a huge effect: being unemployed for six months or more. If you were one of the long-term unemployed, it was all but impossible to even get considered for a job opening.
6. It turns cyclical unemployment into structural unemployment. What we've mostly had during the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery has been cyclical unemployment. This is unemployment caused by a simple lack of demand, and it goes away when the economy picks up. But structural unemployment is worse: it's caused by a mismatch between the skills employers want and the skills workers have. It's far more pernicious and far harder to combat, and it's what happens when cyclical unemployment is allowed to metastasize. "Skills become obsolete, contacts atrophy, information atrophies, and they get stigmatized," says Harry Holzer of Georgetown University." Economists call this effect "hysteresis," and there's plenty of evidence that we're suffering from it for perhaps the first time in recent American history.
7. It hurts the economy. A recent study, which Paul Krugman called the "blockbuster paper" of last month's IMF research conference, concludes that "by tolerating high unemployment we have inflicted huge damage on our long-run prospects." How much? The authors suggest that not only has it cut GDP growth, it's even cut potential GDP growth. They estimate the damage at about 7 percent per year—which represents a loss of roughly $3,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
8. Cutting off unemployment benefits makes things even worse. Cutting off benefits obviously hurts the unemployed in the pocketbook. But there's more to it than that. Since you have to keep looking for a job to qualify for benefits, many discouraged job seekers have less incentive to keep looking when their benefits run out. This means they drop out of the official numbers and are no longer counted as formally unemployed. In other words, because we've allowed unemployment benefits to expire for so many people, the real long-term unemployment rate is probably even worse than the official figures say it is.
9. There still aren't enough jobs to go around. In a normal economy, there might be good reason to keep unemployment benefits short: it motivates people to go out and look for work. But that's not the problem right now. The number of job seekers for every open job has declined since its 2009 peak, but there are still three job seekers for every available job, which means that this simply isn't a matter of incentives. It's a matter of there being too few jobs for everyone. Conservative scholar Michael Strain uses a simple analogy to get this point across: "If you look at the long-term unemployed, a good chunk of them have children. A good chunk are married. A good chunk are college-educated or have had some college and in their prime earning years....It strikes me as implausible that this person is engaged in a half-hearted job search."
10. Practically everyone, liberal and conservative alike, agrees that this is a catastrophe. And yet, we continue to do nothing about it. Republicans in Congress have declined to extend unemployment benefits further, and they show no sign of changing their minds when Congress reconvenes in January. Democrats have a plan to fight for further benefits by linking them to a farm bill that Republicans want to pass, and right now that's pretty much the best hope we have to offer the workers who have been most brutally savaged by the Great Recession.

Tom Steyer: Liberals' Answer to the Kochs?

By Evan Halper

The California billionaire is building a vast political network and inserting himself into elections nationwide, with a focus on fossil fuels and global warming.

Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, is spending some of his fortune on liberal and environmental issues like fighting the Keystone XL pipeline. (David Paul Morris / Bloomberg / December 4, 2013)

Tom Steyer is standing upright near the corner of a small, beige meeting room at Georgetown University, arms at his sides, eyes shut intently. Half a dozen ministers and priests surround him, laying hands on his torso.

Together, the pastors begin to pray, asking for divine help in shaping public opinion: "Soften them.... Open them to you … for your purpose.... Claim the promise made to Moses."

It is a curious warmup for a technical conference about an oil pipeline.

But like many other environmentalists concerned that America is dawdling as the world burns, these ministers, each a leader in efforts to mobilize churchgoers against climate change, see Steyer as, quite literally, a godsend.

Heady stuff, even for a 56-year-old billionaire.

For years, liberals have fretted about the power of ultra-wealthy people determined to use their billions to advance their political views. Charles and David Koch, in particular, have ranked high in the demonology of the American left.

But in Steyer, liberals have a billionaire on their side. Like the Kochs, he is building a vast political network and seizing opportunities provided by loose campaign finance rules to insert himself into elections nationwide. In direct contrast to them, he has made opposition to fossil fuels and the campaign against global warming the center of his activism.

The former financier is an unlikely green icon. Steyer built his fortune with a San Francisco-based hedge fund of the sort that drove protesters to occupy Wall Street. Some of the investments that landed him on the Forbes list of America's wealthiest went into companies he now says are destroying the planet. Adversaries and, in private, at least some erstwhile allies call him a dilettante.

Yet, unlike many others in a parade of super-rich Californians who have made forays into politics, Steyer has proved himself skilled at bringing attention to his cause and himself.

He has amassed impressive victories: helping persuade recession-weary Californians to pass a $1-billion annual tax hike; creating a gusher of money for energy efficiency; and this year playing a star role in destabilizing plans for the Keystone XL Pipeline with a campaign that has sown doubt about the project inside the administration and mobilized influential Democratic donors and business leaders against it.

Opponents of the pipeline, designed to move hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily along a 1,200-mile route from Canada's tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, say it would contribute greatly to global warming.

"Normally, in the American system, people yell and scream and holler and nothing happens, and then something happens and it gets fixed," Steyer said in a recent interview. "That happened with acid rain, with the hole in the ozone layer. That is normally what happens."

Global warming, "for whatever reason, was not getting addressed," he said. "And it is the biggest issue."

It was Keystone that brought Steyer and the pastors together at Georgetown. In June, President Obama said in a speech at the university that he could approve the pipeline project, which needs a federal license because it crosses an international boundary, only if backers could prove it would not contribute to global warming.

Six months later, Steyer returned to the campus with a panel of anti-Keystone scientists to host a conference aimed at proving that test could not be met.

John Podesta, President Clinton's former chief of staff, who recently joined the Obama White House as a senior advisor, says he used to give Keystone a 90% chance of winning approval from the administration. Then Steyer and grass-roots activists like Bill McKibben of 350.org launched their campaigns against it. Now, he gives it even odds, Podesta said in an interview shortly before his new post was announced.

"I doubt the President travels very much where he doesn't hear about this now, particularly with core supporters," Podesta said. "What he hears has got to make him take a few deep breaths before moving forward with it."

Steyer "is good at organizing the people the president knows and cares about," he added.

Defenders of the project call Steyer and fellow anti-Keystone activists misguided.

"It is an absolute calamity that it was not approved long ago," former Secretary of State George P. Shultz said of the Keystone project. Shultz was Steyer's co-chairman on the $1-billion tax hike campaign and another successful effort to protect California's global warming law against a ballot initiative, but he disagrees deeply with Steyer about the pipeline.

"With energy, we always need to keep in mind three objectives: security, economics, and the environment," he said. "Oil that comes from Keystone does not go through the Strait of Hormuz. It is secure oil."

But fellow opponents of Keystone hail Steyer's efforts. Steyer "understands that climate change is an existential challenge we face," Gov. Jerry Brown said in an e-mail. "He's doing something about it."
All that, plus a large team of consultants, has built and promoted the Steyer brand. There is constant speculation about whether he plans to run for governor. Or maybe the U.S. Senate. The White House also has its eye on him.

"There was serious discussion about him joining the administration," Podesta said.

What remains less clear, however, is whether Steyer has made progress on his larger goal of persuading average Americans that climate change is a menace that should drive their choices at the voting booth.

"If you are not talking about it at the kitchen table, you don't really care about it," Steyer said over lunch at a casual restaurant popular with Washington's moneyed elite. There were plenty of stylish suits, designer accessories and bling to be found there. Just not on Steyer, who dined in his tired tweed jacket, worn khakis and signature unfashionable argyle tie.

About a third of Americans polled say they see global warming as a "very serious" problem — a figure that has not changed much in recent years, according to surveys by the Pew Research Center.

A major focus of Steyer's political operation, which is run by Chris Lehane, a veteran of the Clinton White House, has been to prove that climate change can play a decisive role in elections. This fall his group, NextGen Climate Action, put an eye-popping $8 million into Virginia's election for governor, which Lehane called a "beta test to inject climate into an election and see if it will play a decisive role."

The results were mixed. The campaign hit hard against the Republican candidate, Ken Cuccinelli. It polled, it canvassed, and it scrambled to track down climate-anxious voters who normally sit out off-year elections.

"We flagged voters who are climate voters and targeted them," Lehane said. "We are confident we turned out a minimum of 65,000 of them."

Cuccinelli lost by less than 60,000 votes. But Lehane's claim that voters activated by NextGen made the difference is inherently hard to prove.

The Republican was a weak candidate — an outspoken conservative in a moderate state. The election took place just days after Cuccinelli's fellow Republicans in Washington shut down the federal government, endangering the livelihoods of the federal workers who make up a large share of Virginia's voters. The margin of victory for Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee, was not much smaller than the one Barack Obama enjoyed over Mitt Romney a year earlier.

Earlier in the year, Steyer intervened in the race for Massachusetts' open U.S. Senate seat, demanding in an open letter that one of the candidates seeking the Democratic nomination "act like a real Democrat and oppose Keystone's dirty energy" by "high noon" one Friday in March or face a torrent of campaign money against him.

The ultimatum gave the candidate, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, a former ironworker, a campaign issue: Radical California billionaire bullies local candidate. The Boston Globe editorialized that Steyer should "back off." Lynch's primary opponent, then-congressman Edward J. Markey — who ultimately won the race — asked Steyer to bow out.

Fellow environmentalists are loath to publicly criticize Steyer; many groups have actively sought his money. But some who have been in the trenches far longer privately say they see hubris behind his aw-shucks demeanor.

Steyer brushes aside such complaints. The big, established environmental groups, he says, have been doing "incredible" policy work but have a tendency to approach electoral politics with tactics more befitting of the "Yale-Harvard debating society."

"We hear an awful lot about theoretically how people would like us to engage voters," he said. "But we actually want to engage them."
evan.halper@latimes.com

The ‘All In’ Awards: Worst quote

Lots of people said terrible things in 2013. Chris Hayes and his guests contemplate the worst of the worst.

How ‘makers & takers’ rhetoric affects kids

Karen Finney, Zerlina Maxwell and Joy Reid talk about how Republican policies aimed at punishing parents affect children.

 

2 Star General + 2 Foreign Women + Booze = He’s Fired

Fired 2-star general in charge of nuclear arsenal spent week drunk with ‘two hot women’

By Scott Kaufman
Saturday, December 21, 2013 15:10 EST

 

This morning, the Inspector General of the Air Force released its report on the dismissal of Major General Michael J. Carey, who had been in charge of overseeing the United State’s arsenal of intercontinental missiles.

His firing caused concern in conservative circles that the Obama administration was creating a “martial-law-ready military.” At the time, the Air Force would only reveal what he hadn’t been fired for, including sexual misconduct, adultery, or abusing illegal drugs.

Today’s report indicates that his dismissal was predicated on his behavior during a trip to Russia in July of 2013 for a “Military Cooperation Working Group Event.” The United States and Russian Federation (RF) were to conduct exercises demonstrating their ability to safely transport nuclear warheads.

According to the report, instead of leading the U.S. delegation, Carey spent the majority of the exercise intoxicated. He drank both on the plane to Zurich and in the Zurich airport. The next day, he had drinks at the Marriott, then left to have drinks at the Ritz Carlton, where he met “two foreign national women.”

After being late for the next day’s lunch, he made “comments regarding Syria and Mr. Eric Snowden that were not well received by the RF,” as well as “comments regarding lovely ladies that were concerning to some members of the delegation.” Witnesses claim he had significantly more to drink than his counterparts, and that he had loudly announced having met “two hot women” the night before.

When the delegation toured a monastery, Carey “was slurring his speech and continually interrupting the tour guide.” At Red Square, Carey “was lagging behind” and declaring that he “didn’t want to walk around Red Square.” Other members of the delegation described him “as pouting and sulking.”

The delegation left Red Square to attend dinner at La Cantina, during which “Carey was drinking alcohol and kept trying to get the band to let him play with them.” He then left the delegation and joined the “two hot women” from the previous evening, with whom he drank and danced with until approximately 3 a.m.

Carey was late for the initial briefing again the next morning, and was rude throughout it. He attempted to correct the translators, using “an American TV ad ‘Can you hear me now’ to make a point but it was not received well.”

When interviewed by the Inspector General’s office, Carey claims not to remember having behaved in this manner, to which the office responded that he “had a poor recall of significant events, perhaps due to his alcohol consumption, or was untruthful during the interview.”

In either case, the report concluded that Carey had violated Article 133 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.
[Image via the U.S. Air Force]

Scott Kaufman

 

Scott Eric Kaufman is the proprietor of the AV Club's Internet Film School and, in addition to Raw Story, also writes for Lawyers, Guns & Money. He earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California, Irvine in 2008.

AFL-CIO invites MSNBC hosts to meet with unhappy NBC workers

By DYLAN BYERS

12/18/13 10:28 AM EST

The AFL-CIO sent a letter to Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and other top MSNBC hosts on Wednesday requesting that they meet with NBC production workers who have spent more than a year trying to form a union.

The letter, signed by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other members of the executive council, comes as workers at Peacock Productions have protested what they say is union busting by the liberal cable network.

"Since July 2012, producers and associate producers have worked with the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) in order to organize a union and bargain with Peacock Productions. They have expressed real concern about access to affordable health insurance, declining pay rates, long hours and an overall feeling of job insecurity among even the most talented and qualified," Trumka, et al., write in the letter.

"Today those workers do not have a voice on the job to express their concerns," they continue.

"Unfortunately, Peacock has not acted in good faith, as its parent company NBC has in the past. Instead, Peacock has fought against its workers’ rights, jeopardizing the livelihoods of the workers."

Last week, MSNBC host Chris Hayes met privately with Peacock workers after the AFL-CIO posted a petition to MoveOn.org Civic Action asking him, Maddow, Schultz, Al Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell to “please meet with these workers and take a public stand to support their right to organize."

Only Hayes attended the meeting. In an email to Salon regarding the MoveOn.org petition, Schultz wrote that Moveon.org "has never been an ally of Ed Schultz." Maddow, Sharpton and O'Donnell did not comment.

The labor dispute is especially significant for Schultz, given that he has frequently championed unions on his MSNBC program and his radio show. Schultz has also been paid hundreds of thousands by organized unions for speeches and advertising. As POLITICO reported last week, Schultz was paid $252,000 by unions over the last two years.

However, AFL-CIO spokesperson Josh Goldstein said the federation was not just focusing on Hayes and Schultz: "The bigger personalities like Maddow, Sharpton, [and] O'Donnell aren't off the hook."

In Wednesday's letter to MSNBC, Trumka, et al., accuse Peacock Productions of forcing workers to attend mandatory anti-union meetings and employing legal maneuvers "to impound the ballots the workers cast in a June election."

"These actions are wrong, and we hope that you will stand with your colleagues to denounce them," write Trumka, et al. "Millions of viewers across the country look to your shows as a platform for progressive ideas and advancing workers’ rights. The workers at Peacock respect your work, as do we, and have seen the influence you have on many issues important to working people. We urge you to take the time to meet with these producers and associate producers to hear their concerns first-hand. We would be glad to join you. We know you will be moved, as we have been."

Salon's Josh Eidelson has more on the workers' dispute with MSNBC here, here and here.

Fascinating? Yes. Far enough left? Maybe not.

Hillary Clinton may be Barbara Walters most fascinating person, but Gov. Brian Schweitzer isn’t impressed during a speech in Iowa. Ed Schultz & panel discuss.

What's Going on with Chinese Chicken Processing?

By Lydia Zuraw 
December 20, 2013

Many people have had something to say about chicken and other poultry destined for U.S. tables potentially coming from or through China.

The latest concerns come from 14 members of the House of Representatives who wrote to the chairmen and senior Democrats of subcommittees responsible for funding the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Since the issue is a complicated one, Food Safety News wanted to offer a primer on poultry slaughtered and processed in China.

Was my chicken slaughtered in China?

No. In November, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that its audit of China’s poultry slaughter system found that it’s not equivalent to America’s. This means that poultry slaughtered in China is not allowed to be imported to the U.S.

Is China allowed to process U.S. chicken?

Yes. In August, USDA reaffirmed that China’s processing system in equivalent to ours. This wasn’t exactly news since China’s processing had been established as equivalent back in 2006. But, regardless of the timing, it means that poultry raised and slaughtered in the U.S. or another approved source (Canada or Chile) could be shipped to China where it’s processed and then shipped back to the U.S.

Then was my chicken processed in China?

No. China has to certify plants to process chicken for export and give a list of them to FSIS. The country hasn’t done this or signified that they intend to. In addition, U.S. companies have not expressed the desire to have China process their poultry.

If, in the future, our chicken is processed in China, will we be able to tell?

USDA says the products would have a label reading “Product of China,” but there are a number of loopholes to existing labeling rules that could leave consumers in the dark on this one.

If our chicken is ever processed in China, will it be in school lunches?

Maybe, but not through USDA. Food that comes to schools through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is required to be 100-percent domestically grown and produced. But schools don’t get all their food from NSLP, and, if China ever did start processing our chicken, there would be the possibility that private vendors could sell it to schools.

Whole Foods Phasing Out Chobani Yogurt

By News Desk 
December 19, 2013

Whole Foods Market, Inc., announced on Wednesday that it plans to phase out Chobani Greek Yogurt from its stores early next year to focus on organic and non-GMO products.

“As the national demand for Greek yogurt has grown, the number of conventional Greek yogurt options has multiplied,” the Austin, TX-based grocery firm said in a statement. “Whole Foods Market challenged its Greek yogurt suppliers to create unique options for shoppers to enjoy – including exclusive flavors, non-GMO options and organic choices.”

“At this time, Chobani has chosen a different business model, so Whole Foods Market will be phasing Chobani Greek Yogurt out of its stores in early 2014 to make room for product choices that aren’t readily available on the market,” the statement continued.

Chobani yogurt is not organic, and critics say it uses milk from cows fed GMO animal feed. Chobani officials stated Wednesday in a blog post that its yogurt production requires a “high volume of milk and the necessary amount of organic milk is simply not available to support our broad consumer demand.” Chobani is the number-one seller of Greek-style yogurt in the U.S.

Chobani voluntarily recalled some of its Greek-style yogurt cups in September after customers complained about bloated cups and foul-smelling or off-tasting yogurt. At the time, the company blamed the situation on “isolated quality concerns” at its Idaho facility, which it said affected less than 5 percent of production. The problem was attributed to a common mold, Mucor circinelloides.

Whole Foods announced this past spring that it will start requiring labels on all genetically modified food (GMO's) by 2018.

Questlove Awkwardly Plugs His Now-Closed Restaurant on Top Chef

By Mariella Mosthof 12:35 pm, December 18th


Oof. This supremely awkward Top Chef: New Orleans Quickfire Challenge, guest-judged by fried drumstick connoisseur Questlove, could easily have been made a hell of a lot less awkward with the simple editing of one line.

Unfortunately, tonight’s drumstick challenge serves as an cringe-inducing plug for Quest’s now-closed New York City fried chicken joint Hybird (RIP). Check out a sneak peek below, and reclaim some of your dignity reading Quest’s beautiful postmortem on the restaurant here.

The Long, Expensive History of Defense Rip-Offs

A timeline of more than 230 years of military waste, from gouging George Washington to ditching $7 billion worth of stuff Afghanistan.

—By Eric Wuestewald

Wed Dec. 18, 2013 3:00 AM GMT

 

It didn't start with the F-35 or even the $640 toilet seat. Military overruns and rip-offs have a long (and expensive) history, starting in the earliest days of the republic:

1778	General George Washington decries the suppliers overcharging his army: "It is enough to make one curse their own Species, for possessing so little virtue & patriotism." George Washington Wikipedia
1794	The Navy's first order for frigates faces shipyard delays, and its cost shoots up to more than $1.1 million. USS Constitution Wikipedia
1861	A House committee exposes fraud, favoritism, and profiteering in Civil War contracting. Its findings, writes the New York Times, "produce a feeling of public indignation which would justify the most summary measures against the knaves whose villainy is here dragged into daylight."
1941	"Investigator Truman" Time/Wikimedia Commons Sen. Harry S. Truman kicks off a dogged investigation of wasteful war production. The Truman Committee, which runs into World War II, is credited with saving as much as $15 billion (more than $230 billion in today's dollars).
1975	Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire calls out the Pentagon for maintaining 300 golf courses around the world. (Today it has 200.) Golfing at a DoD course US Department of Defense
1983	President Ronald Reagan announces the Strategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. "Star Wars," a system of ground- and space-based lasers that will stop incoming nuclear missiles. Still unrealized, the program has cost more than $209 billion. President Ronald ReaganThe Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library
1985	Pentagon profligacy makes headlines with reports of $640 toilet seats, $660 ashtrays, $7,600 coffee-makers, and $74,000 ladders. "Our attack on waste and fraud in procurement—like discovering that $436 hammer—is going to continue," Reagan says, "but we must have adequate military appropriations."
2001	No-bid Pentagon contracts explode after 9/11, jumping from $50 billion in 2001 to $140 billion in 2010.
2001	Halliburton subsidiary KBR takes over a contract to feed soldiers in Iraq. It raises the price of a meal from $3 to $5 while subcontracting the services back to the previous contractor.
2009	F-22s Wikimedia Commons After safety problems and cost overruns, the Pentagon cancels the F-22 Raptor fighter jet (estimated price tag: $412 million per plane) and puts the money toward buying F-35s.
2010	The Government Accountability Office finds that the Defense Logistics Agency is sitting on $7.1 billion worth of excess spare parts.
2010	An anonymous congressional earmark sets aside $2.5 billion for 10 C-17 aircraft the Air Force says it does not need.
2011	Boeing charges the Army $1,678 apiece for rubber cargo-loading rollers that actually cost $7 each.
2012	One-quarter of the $1.6 trillion being spent on major weapons systems comes from unexpected cost overruns.
2012	The Air Force scraps a new logistics management system that has shown "negligible" results—after spending $1 billion on it.
2012	Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) slams $68 billion in frivolous Pentagon spending: "Using defense dollars to run microbreweries, study Twitter slang, create beef jerky, or examine Star Trek does nothing to defend our nation." The Starship Enterprise Paramount
2012	The House oversight committee finds that the Swiss contractor that fed troops in Afghanistan was overpaid by $757 million. The company claims it's still owed $1 billion.
2013	The military and VA are found to have spent $1.3 billion on a failed health records system for vets. That's after the Pentagon already spent $2 billion on an unsuccessful upgrade of its electronic medical records system.
2013	The Army announces plans to replace its camouflage pattern, which was introduced in 2004 and cost $5 billion to develop. The new one will cost $4 billion. US Army uniforms Wikipedia
2013	Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) decries the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as "one of the great national scandals that we have ever had, as far as the expenditure of taxpayers' dollars are concerned."
2013	The Pentagon plans to scrap more than 85,000 tons of equipment in Afghanistan, part of $7 billion worth of gear being left behind as the troops come home.

Larry Klayman's On-Air Fight With Don Lemon And Jeffrey Toobin

By John Amato December 18, 2013 12:30 P.M.

Crazy Larry Klayman dukes it out with Don Lemon and Jeffrey Toobin on CNN over the recent court ruling on NSA surveillance - which quickly turns personal. 



Wild man Larry Klayman, who routinely calls for Obama to put down his Koran, got into a shouting match on CNN with Jeffrey Toobin and Don Lemon over his victory in a lawsuit challenging NSA surveillance.

Conservative legal activist Larry Klayman got into an argument on CNN with host Don Lemon and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin when he was brought on to discuss his victory this week in a lawsuit challenging NSA surveillance, resulting in Lemon cutting him off the screen and Klayman comparing Lemon to disgraced former MSNBC host Martin Bashir.

Klayman’s appearance Tuesday night on CNN was preceded by a profile of him that included a quotation from a former George W. Bush staffer saying his lawsuits were about “fighting for himself and his own, in my opinion, delusions of grandeur.”

When Klayman was brought into the conversation, he came out firing.“I think it is important to note that you’re a big supporter of Obama,” Klayman said to Lemon. “That you have favored him in every respect. You have to try to do a hit piece to diminish a very important decision.”

Lemon interjected to clarify that Klayman was speaking about him personally, saying, “None of that is true, but go on.”

“Well, it is true. I’ve watched you for many years. You’re an ultra-leftist and you’re a big supporter of Obama,” Klayman said. “Let’s talk about the NSA, let’s not talk about Larry Klayman. This victory is for the American people. It wasn’t for me. And you, as somebody from the left … should appreciate that you don’t have a police state in this country that’s going to be able to intimidate Americans to chill their free speech rights.”

Lemon again protested the characterization, saying that only he knows his political affiliation, over interruptions from Klayman, prompting the host to threaten to cut Klayman’s mic. He then brought on Toobin, CNN’s legal analyst, who slammed Klayman as a “lunatic.”

This segment got personal and turned ugly from the get-go. I do always enjoy when a real lunatic like Klayman calls somebody else a lunatic. Here's a quick round up of some of Klayman's recent remarks:
 
In July, he called for the military to overthrow him.

In September, he vowed to force the "evil tyrant Obama" from office by November 16th.

Then he slid the date to November 19th.Just last week, he sadly announced that he believed violent revolution was imminent.

He used the very same language today that he used in mid-September, except then he added some rhetorical flourishes:

“[Obama] will finally know that his time has come to leave his perverted, Islamic concept of Mecca, our nation's hallowed capital,” Klayman concludes. “I do not advocate violence, but it is time we show Obama that we mean business. He would be well advised to ride off into his Islamic sunset, link up with 72 virgins and party on at his expense – not ours!”

Klayman's funding comes from billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who has some serious legal problems right now. Adelson seems to have no problem with this kind of dangerous and violent rhetoric from Klayman, especially if it means he can duck federal charges.

The highly-educated working poor: Adjunct professors

Posted by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary

There's a growing army of the working poor in our US of A, and big contingents of it are now on the march. They're strategizing, organizing, and mobilizing against the immoral economics of inequality being hung around America's neck by the likes of Walmart, McDonald's, and colleges.

Wait a minute. Colleges? You go there to get ahead in life. More education makes you better off, right? Well, ask a college professor about that – you know, the ones who earned PhD's and are now teaching America's next generation.

The sorry secret of higher education – from community colleges to brand-name universities – is that they've embraced the corporate culture of a contingent workforce, turning professors into part-time, low-paid, no-benefit, no-tenure, temporary teachers. Overall, more than half of America's higher-ed faculty members today are "adjunct professors," meaning they are attached to the school, but not essentially a part of it.

It also means that these highly-educated, fully-credentialed professors have become part of America's army of the working poor. They never know until a semester starts whether they'll teach one class, three, or none – typically, this leaves them with take-home pay somewhere between zero and maybe $1,000 a month.

Poverty.

Adjuncts usually get no benefits, no real chance of earning full-time positions, no due process or severance pay if dismissed, no say in curriculum or school policies… sometimes not even office space. Like their counterparts at Walmart and McDonald's, adjunct college professors are not treated as valuable resources to be nurtured, but as cheap, exploitable, and disposable labor.

Unsurprisingly, this contingent of the low-wage army is organizing, too. For information, contact New Faculty Majority: www.NewFacultyMajority.info.

"Adjunct Project Reveals Wide Range in Pay," www.chronicle.com, January 4, 2013.

"Adjunct Project," www.adjunct.chronicle.com 2013.

"Adjuncts at ACC face cut in hours School seeks to avoid paying health care for some faculty," Austin American Statesman, November 26, 2013.

"Adjunct professors in dire straits with low pay, lack of full-time jobs," www.aljazeera.com, October 15, 2013.

"Adjunct professors are the new working poor," www.cnn.com, September 25, 2013.

Half of America strips religion from Christmas

By Cheryl K. Chumley - The Washington Times

Nine out of 10 Americans do Christmas and three-quarters believe in the biblical account of Jesus' birth — but only a little more than half actually regard the holiday primarily as a religious celebration.

More than one-third say it's more a cultural holiday, a new poll from Pew Research's Religion & Public Life Policy found.

The poll also found that generational differences in how Christmas is celebrated abound. Younger adults generally see the holiday through less religious lens than older Americans. And those under the age of 30 are far less likely to attend a religious service as part of the holiday celebration.

Still, tradition plays a major role in how Americans celebrate the holiday. Eighty-six percent of adults say they will celebrate with friends and families — and the same number say they'll trade gifts.
Ninety percent say that's how they celebrated in their growing up years.

But not so many are sending out Christmas cards or greetings — and that's a deviance from what was normal in past generations. Meanwhile, caroling is on the decline, too.

By the numbers: About 74 percent said they attended religious ceremonies during their growing up years to celebrate Christmas. Only 54 percent say they will do so now.

The survey was conducted Dec. 3-8 and included a representative sample of 2,001 adults.

Tea Party Embraces Racist, Anti-Immigrant Poster From Bioshock Infinite

By Nathaniel Downes

A Tea Party group’s use of a piece of zealous propaganda from the video game Bioshock Infinite could underscore the flawed dogma at the movement’s heart. – Mural of deity George Washington expelling ‘foreign hordes’ from Bioshock Infinite

The above picture graced the Facebook page of the National Liberty Foundation not too long ago, joining their rather anti-minority photo-stream. However, as noted, this is not some patriotic symbol of years past, or cherished words of wisdom. Instead, it is art from the video game Bioshock Infinite.

Its use by the Tea Party affiliated group was intended to be some kind of rallying point, but instead it revealed how accurate the depiction of the fusion of politics and religion within Bioshock Infinite truly is.

Bioshock, The Series Which Cast A Spotlight On The Darkest Corners Of Utopian Thought.

Bioshock Infinite was released to much fanfare in March of this year. With years of anticipation, this continuation of the hugely successful Bioshock series sold millions of copies since release, and is considered a huge success. The Bioshock series has been part of popular culture since the original title was released in 2007, with references to it found in popular culture.

Every Bioshock title has picked on a radical element of society, and cast a cold spotlight on to it. The original Bioshock was heralded for its dissection of Ayn Rand Objectivism with its depiction of the final and ultimate expression of Objectivism in the dystopia of Rapture.

Bioshock 2 turned this on its head, with a harsh critique of Altruism and Communism, and its expression of their own impossibility in the wreckage of Rapture. In both games, it was not the root philosophy at fault, but that both philosophies requiring a super-human level of perfection in order to work. Their systems fail not because of the philosophy, but because those who are to implement and manage the systems are flawed, imperfect humans.

Much as with the earlier titles, Bioshock Infinite picked a segment of society, in this case those who bring religious fervor to politics. Set in the flying city of Columbia, Bioshock Infinite deals with a society in which a fanatical religious cult controls all, with the base of their tenants being that the founding fathers are akin to saints or gods, and the Constitution is religious scripture. One could point out the similarity of this deification of the founding fathers, with the fusion of religion and politics, to the Tea Party and their absolute dogma that this nation is one for theocratic rule and not democratic.

And as with the earlier titles, while a theocratic state works in theory (who would not love a nation ruled by the love and kindness of Jesus or the peace and harmony of Buddhism?) they are being managed by people, and the human element always destroys the utopian society in which the player finds themselves.

In Bioshock Infinite, a radical religious group based on the idea that America was divinely created as if god itself reached down the drew the lines on the map, has seceeded from the Union. They view the founding fathers as gods or saints, and worship them. They call those who do not follow their narrow view of the nation as heretics, those who are beneath contempt. The ideals of democracy and freedom are perverted, replaced with blind loyalty and a slavery to their fanatical leader.

Sounds like the Tea Party to me.

The launch trailer for Bioshock Infinite.



Should the Tea Party reach their pinnacle and reach the utopian future they imagine, the results would be as tragic as the closed cities found within the Bioshock games. That the National Liberty Foundation took a prime piece of that failure and promoted it on their wall, complete with its stated desire to eliminate any non-Anglo-Saxon from the continent, speaks poorly of the group and their mission. The other photos on their site show an ignorance for democracy, and the United States form of government as found in the US Constitution.

Once they realized that they had used a piece of video game propaganda which was criticizing their movement, the page took it down. However, here is the evidence, preserved for us:


The Bioshock series is an excellent dissection of the insanity which grips the fanatics across this nation. For the National Liberty Foundation to confuse this dissection with reality is, at the least disturbing. Or, do they honestly believe in the divinity of the founding fathers, as the Latter Day Saints have proclaimed? Do they believe that the US Constitution a divine document, given by god?

Bioshock Infinite explored the dangers of such a utopic vision. It would do the National Liberty Foundation, and all Tea Party groups in fact, to learn from it.

Elizabeth Warren Proposes A New Bill Aimed At Eliminating Credit History As a Metric For Employment

By Chris Lazare

Photo by Tim Pierce

Many Americans are still afflicted by the damages created by the financial downturn in 2008.

Millions of Americans were put out of work, lost their savings, and had their homes foreclosed. One of the most prominent side effects stemming from the recession is a growth in poor credit ratings.

Americans are now trying to get back on their feet, however, being denied jobs because of poor credit ratings is all too common. Elizabeth Warren has just introduced a bill in the Senate which would bar prospective employers from checking and denying employment based on credit scores.

The Equal Employment For All Act would help millions of poor Americans who were disproportionately affected by the financial crisis. According to research, roughly 47 percent of employers check credit history in order to judge the competence and character of job applicants.

However, the credit rating of individuals doesn’t necessarily predict the potential productivity of their labor.

Let’s consider the logic used to deny Americans jobs based on their credit ratings.

A potential employer refuses to hire an individual because they have shown an inability to pay their credit card bills, healthcare bills or their mortgages. However, the credit report doesn’t explain why the individual wasn’t able to pay their bills. Perhaps, like many Americans, they are suffering from chronic unemployment since 2008. It is also possible his/her home was foreclosed on improperly, which can hurt credit reports by 250 points!

Now the individual is disqualified from employment because they didn’t have the means to pay their bills, presumably because they didn’t have a job in the first place. These metrics are unfair and unjust. Clearly, low wage workers and the middle class are disproportionately afflicted by such policies. Utilizing credit checks only exacerbates the issue of chronic joblessness.

After introducing the bill, Elizabeth Warren highlighted the unfairness of credit checks:

“A bad credit rating is far more often the result of unexpected medical costs, unemployment, economic downturns, or other bad breaks than it is a reflection on an individual’s character or abilities. Families have not fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, and too many Americans are still searching for jobs. This is about basic fairness—let people compete on the merits, not on whether they already have enough money to pay all their bills.”

Using credit scores for hiring is already frowned upon.

More than 40 citizen advocate organizations support the bill. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington currently have laws, barring or limiting the use of credit checks for prospective employees. There isn’t a justifiable reason to place more barriers in front of individuals searching for a job.

Many Americans who possess poor credit ratings have them due to unforeseen circumstances. Although there hasn’t been any federal jobs bill passed in Washington, measures like the Equal Employment For All Act can help millions of Americans looking for work.

Bad budget deal for all those out of work

Paul Ryan’s budget deal heads to the House floor, while unemployment insurance remains missing from the negotiation. Ed Schultz and congressional panel discuss.

The Appalling Stance of Rand Paul

By CHARLES M. BLOW

I don’t put much past politicians. I stay prepared for the worst. But occasionally someone says something so insensitive that it catches me flat-footed.

Charles M. Blow 

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said Sunday on Fox News: “I do support unemployment benefits for the 26 weeks that they’re paid for. If you extend it beyond that, you do a disservice to these workers.”

This statement strikes at the heart — were a heart to exist — of the divide between conservatives and liberals about whether the social safety net provides temporary help for those who hit hard times or functions as a kind of glue to keep them stuck there.

Whereas I am sure that some people will abuse any form of help, I’m by no means convinced that this is the exclusive domain of the poor and put-upon. Businesses and the wealthy regularly take advantage of subsidies and tax loopholes without blinking an eye. But somehow, when some poor people, or those who unexpectedly fall on hard times, take advantage of benefits for which they are eligible it’s an indictment of the morality and character of the poor as a whole.

The poor are easy to pick on. They are the great boogeymen and women, dragging us down, costing us money, gobbling up resources. That seems to be the conservative sentiment.

We have gone from a war on poverty in this country to a war on the poor, in which poor people are routinely demonized and scapegoated and attacked, and conservatives have led the charge.

They paint the poor as takers, work averse, in need of motivation and incentive.

Well, that is simply not my experience with poverty. I have been poor, and both my parents worked. I grew up among poor people, and almost all of them worked. The problem wasn’t lack of effort, but low pay. Folks simply couldn’t make enough to shake the specter of need.

In fact, the poor folks I knew growing up were some of the hardest working people I have ever known — rising before dawn to pack lunches and sip coffee, trying to get the mind right for a day of toil and sweat that breaks the body but not the spirit.

They were people who wanted what most folks want — to earn an honest wage for an honest day’s work; to live a happy, meaningful life that leaves a mark on the world when they are gone from it; to raise bright, healthy children who go further in life than they did; to be surrounded by family and friends and neighbors — a village — where people support and cared for one another.

That is why I have such a hard time with the conservative argument that helping those in need diminishes their desire to do for themselves, that it suckles them to passivity on a government teat. Hogwash.

To buy into this destructive lie about the character of the poor means you’ve either had no experience being poor, or have no capacity to empathize with their plight.

Being poor is a job unto itself. The daily juggle of supplying the most basic needs — food, shelter, medicine — and the stress of knowing that you are always just one twist of fate away from calamity.

James Baldwin put it best: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

Most people want to work. But sometimes, bad luck comes calling. Sometimes you have a job, but you lose it. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, a new one proves elusive.

And following the Great Recession, that is a particular problem. Maybe you are older and employers are less willing to take a chance. Maybe your industry is shrinking and becoming more efficient, getting by with fewer employees. Maybe the jobs you can find are farther from your house than you can travel and you can’t afford to move. The problems are plenty.

But what we shouldn’t do is to tell people who had jobs and lost them, people who want work and can’t find it, that to help them does them a “disservice.”

That is the height of arrogance and callousness. And it’s disrespectful.

YouTube suddenly begins flagging game-related videos

By Jeffrey Grubb

Something is going down on YouTube that is causing a headache for many of the channels that upload video game-related footage. The automated Content ID system that finds copyrighted material in the massive amounts of content uploaded to YouTube every day suddenly began flagging videos that feature games like Dead Space 3, Metro: Last Light, and more.

And this flagging could cost YouTubers potentially millions in lost ad revenue.

Total Biscuit

A content claim on Metro: Last Light from a company that does not own the rights to the game.

The odd thing is that YouTube Content ID is naming companies in these complaints that do not hold the copyrights to many of these games, as first reported by YouTube news site Tubefilter. For example, one uploader got a notice for publisher Deep Silver‘s Metro: Last Light (a horror-themed first-person shooter) from a company called 4GamerMovie, which is some kind of Japanese gaming website.

A representative for Deep Silver has since confirmed that the publisher fully permits YouTube creators to monetize videos featuring their games.

YouTubers: If you are experiencing flagging issues with @deepsilver please get in touch with us! RT me!
— Stephanie Schopp (@AgentTinsley) December 10, 2013

We’ve reached out to YouTube to ask why this is happening, and we’ll update this post with any new information.

YouTube’s Content ID rampage is affecting some of the largest creators on the site. Popular YouTube gameplay channel TheRadBrad, which has nearly 2 million subscribers, is getting hit hard.

“YouTube is crippling gaming channels with third-party claims,” TheRadBrad posted to Twitter.

“Every video I’ve uploaded since 2010 is slowly being taken away from me.”

The issue is that once a video is flagged in YouTube’s copyright system, the creator who uploaded it can no longer earn money from the ads that show before the content. For TheRadBrad, someone who does this for a living, that is devastating.

Well unfortunately this cripples my channel at the moment. I wish I could upload but it seems as if I won’t be able to until this is fixed.
— theRadBrad (@thaRadBrad) December 10, 2013

TheRadBrad, among others, are under the impression this is part of YouTube’s recent attempt to crack down on affiliates within multichannel networks (MCN). The way YouTube works is that if a video gets enough views, Google will begin sharing revenue with the creator if the content passes a check for copyrighted material. If a YouTube user joins an MCN, however, they can bypass that check and immediately begin earning from their videos.

Machinima is a popular and massive MCN that splits revenue with tons of creators. In January, however, YouTube plans to start randomly pre-screening affiliates’ uploads for copyrighted content.

It’s possible that this wave of Content ID conflicts is a part of that.

For now, people that create game-related content on YouTube are wondering if the site even wants them around. Gaming continues to make up a huge part of YouTube’s traffic. The site’s most-subscribed channel is the game-playing PewDiePie … who plays games while screaming. He has more than 17.6 million subscribers, which is 3 million more than the next closest individual channel, Smosh, which also runs a lot of gaming content.

Invisible Child - Girl in the Shadows: Dasani’s Homeless Life

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

As New York has been reborn, children like Dasani have been left behind.

Pat Robertson's Latest Jawdropper

Posted by: dave-dr-gonzo

Is it just us — or has Pat Robertson been on a roll lately? By roll, we mean he’s saying the sort of outrageous things one would expect from, say, Rush Limbaugh, Hunter Moore, or my senile 92-year-old Uncle Ernie. His latest jawdropper came in response to a woman who had been through two very bad marriages:

TV preacher Pat Robertson this week advised a woman that she wasn’t “marriage material” because her “character” made her choose abusive men.

On Thursday’s edition of The 700 Club, a woman asked Robertson if God would classify her as an adulteress and send her to Hell if she got married for a third time after her first two husbands were alcoholics or refused to work.

“You’ve got a serious problem,” Robertson told the woman. “And I don’t think marriage is for you. You have picked a selection of losers. There’s something in your character that draws you to these men who are indigent or abusive. You don’t need to get married again.”

The televangelist said that the woman was probably not going to go to Hell but she was “making your own hell here on Earth.”

There’s nothing like bringing hope and inspiring to a caller in emotional need, Pat! Feel the warmth in this clip, courtesy Crooks and Liars.

Right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza sets off Twitter storm with outrageously racist tweet

The man who brought the world "2016: Obama's America" tries and fails to be funny on Twitter
 
By Elias Isquith

Disgraced far-right polemicist and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza sparked an outcry on Twitter on Tuesday with a racist tweet comparing President Obama to Trayvon Martin. D’Souza eventually deleted the tweet, but here’s a screen grab via MSNBC’s Adam Serwer:

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D’Souza, who was the president of the small evangelical school the King’s College until he was asked to resign after being caught engaging in an extramarital affair, is no stranger to controversy. His pseudo-documentary, “2016: Obama’s America,” while popular among right-wing audiences, nevertheless earned poor reviews and multiple charges of racism. The book on which the film was based, also by D’Souza, fared little better. It even garnered a negative review in the right-wing Weekly Standard.

Considering the source, then, D’Souza’s tweet is less than surprising. Still pretty terrible, though!

Elias Isquith is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at @eliasisquith, and email him at eisquith@salon.com.

Pizza Hut Employee: I Was Fired For Defending Thanksgiving

By Michael Hunt

With many stores staying open during Thanksgiving this year thereby forcing workers to miss out on spending the holiday with their families, one store manager decided to take a stand on behalf of his employees — and was promptly terminated.

Tony Rohr had held various position at the Pizza Hut in Elkhart, Indiana, since starting out as a cook there some ten years ago.

He was eventually promoted to general manager of the franchise, but his decision to refuse an order to open the store on Thanksgiving ultimately cost him the job.





"I said why can't we be the company that stands up and says we care about our employees and they can have the day off," he told local CBS affiliate WSBT.

According to Rohr, the store, owned by the franchise behemoth Franchise Management Investors US, has typically been closed on Thanksgiving to give employees time off to spend with loves ones.

When he was told to either open the store or sign a letter of resignation, Rohr opted for a third option: Sending his bosses a letter of protest.

"I am not quitting. I do not resign however I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company," Rohr wrote in his letter. "I hope you realize that it's the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible."

WSBT says the franchisee's director of operations insists Rohr quit, but also acknowledged that the decision to keep doors open on Thanksgiving came from corporate in response to other companies doing the same.

Pizza Hut's corporate offices have so far remained mum on the matter, but its Facebook page has been inundated with angry posts from customers unhappy with Rohr's termination.

Dumbest Cops In America

MILVALE, Pa. — The conduct of the Millvale police is being questioned after a video surfaced of a cuffed man being TASERed at Allegheny County Jail.

Thomas J. Smith, 27, is seen in the video cuffed on the floor, and slamming his head against a wall before an unnamed officer uses a TASER to stop him.

Smith was arrested in September and charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, aggravated harassment and public intoxication.

Smith's family asked a lawyer, David Shrager, to speak on their behalf after seeing the video, claiming the suspect has mental health issues, and TASERing him was unnecessary.

"It's easy to armchair quarterback people, and I get that, and people have to make split second decisions, but in light of the entire part that I found; I did find it to be disturbing," said Shrager.