National Progressive Blogosphere

Long-term planning

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 08:30:17 +0000

GM logo (Wikipedia)

Somebody at GM in the early part of this century had the kind of idea their corporate forebears had perfected in the generations before.

Pretending no one would ever find out about bad stuff.

And that always works well.

General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Tuesday that she did not learn details about defective GM cars linked to 12 deaths until January 31, just two weeks after she took over as CEO and nearly 13 years after GM engineers first documented problems.

The automaker last month recalled more than 1.6 million cars from 2003 to 2007 to replace faulty ignition switches that could cause the engine to shut down and turn off the airbags. The first death linked to the defect occurred in Maryland in July 2005.

I’m sure the always successful legal defense of “whoops” will play out really well with those future juries.

Late, Late Night FDL: Miss You

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 05:00:04 +0000

The Rolling Stones – Miss You

Here’s Mick Jagger’s response to the tragic demise of L’Wren Scott…

I am still struggling to understand how my lover and best friend could end her life in this tragic way.

We spent many wonderful years together and had made a great life for ourselves. She had great presence and her talent was much admired, not least by me.

I have been touched by the tributes that people have paid to her, and also the personal messages of support that I have received.

I will never forget her,
Mick

Rolling Stones cancel Australia concert in wake of L’Wren Scott’s death

RIP L’Wren…!

What’s on your mind tonite…?

Open thread for night owls: An innocent man's first days of freedom after 30 years imprisoned

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 03:30:14 +0000

I spent 44 months in "reform" school, jail and prison. Except for the three weeks I was in the Atlanta jail 49 years ago on a trumped-up charge of parading without a permit and insurrection against the state of Georgia, I did the crimes (mostly civil disobedience) that I was charged with. These weren't the most pleasant months of my life. I suffered from violence, rape and the pathetic incompetence and arrogance of staff at several institutions. But compared with most in our penal system, I got off easy.

I can't imagine what it would be like to serve 30 years for a crime I didn't commit. Not just locked-up, but locked-up because prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, because the lawyers were inexperienced, because the convicting jury was all white, because a witness lied. Not just locked up, but held on death row, suffering the torture of decades of solitary confinement, waiting for the executioner to ply his trade. Just going on living, separated from kin and friends, would become a burden. Staying sane would be miraculous.

Somehow, Glenn Ford, a black Louisianan just three years younger than I, managed to do so. Arrested, railroaded, convicted, incarcerated and sentenced to die because of lies and prosecutorial misconduct. His dogged attorneys finally pried him out of the hands of the state last week. Exonerated and freed after 362 months' incarceration, 348 of them behind bars at one of the nation's foulest prisons, Ford has joined a world that is far different than the one he left when Ronald Reagan had not yet begun his second term.

Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic writes:

Anywhere he wanted to go, the jubilant defense attorneys told a hungry Glenn Ford late Tuesday afternoon as they left the television cameras behind, piled into their car, and left the yawning grounds of Louisiana's notorious Angola prison. Ford was hungry, very hungry, because from the moment he had learned that he would be released from death row—after serving 30 years there for a murder he did not commit—he had decided that he would not eat another morsel of prison food.

On their way back to New Orleans, driving on State Highway 61, there was this one restaurant that Ford had wanted to try, but it had closed for the day. And then the relieved lawyers and dazed client passed a gas station that served Church's fried chicken and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Doughnuts? Ford pondered the possibility until the car was about a mile further down the road. "Look, if you want doughnuts we'll get you doughnuts," even if they come from a gas station, attorney Gary Clements told his longtime client.

So they pulled a U-turn and arrived back at the gas station. The lawyers got out of the car and started to walk in. Ford stayed in the car. It did not immediately occur to him that he would have to open the door himself to get out. When you are on death row for 30 years, when every door in your life is opened and closed for you every day by guards, you forget that you have to reach out and grasp the handle to move from one place to another. "He was just sitting there and waiting for someone to come and tell him he could get out," Clements told me.

That moment, the moment Glenn Ford hesitated inside that car on his way to get his first doughnut since Ronald Reagan was president, crystallizes the challenges that exonerees face upon their release from prison. In an instant they go from a world where they have virtually no choices to a world in which their choices seem limitless. And they go from a world in which they have no control—over opening a door, for example—to one in which they can, indeed, control their own fate. […]

Just before Glenn Ford walked out of prison late Tuesday afternoon, the state of Louisiana—which had wrongfully charged, convicted, and incarcerated him for 30 years—gave him a $20 dollar debit card for his troubles. (As recently as 2011, the state gave only $10 to inmates leaving prison.) When you combine the debit card with the balance in Ford's prison account, the total he received upon his departure from Angola was $20.04. He left, too, with some photographs and with his medicine, all in two small boxes. He left behind his headphones. […]

Soon, Ford's lawyers will ask Louisiana to compensate him for his wrongful conviction and incarceration. By statute, Louisiana today entitles people like Ford to get $25,000 for each year they were wrongfully imprisoned, a figured capped at $250,000. Ford also will be entitled to up to $80,000 for what the law euphemistically calls "loss of life opportunities." If Louisiana honors its commitment to this man, as it should, he will receive in the neighborhood of $330,000 for 30 years of an unjust sentence—roughly $11,000 per year.

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—$90 billion for war:

Bush will ask Congress for $90B for War after the shooting starts. And, that number assumes just one month of combat. While some of that money would go to homeland security and aid to Israel, the bulk of it -- over $80 billion, would be for combat operations.

This expense will push the budget deficit well into the $400 billion range, and that's assuming a short war. The occupation and reconstruction will likely cost hundreds of billions more, not all of it recoverable by Iraqi oil revenues.

And Bush's plan to pay for it all? More tax cuts.

Tweet of the Day:

CNN is giving lessons on how to hijack a plane. Complete with flight simulator. FOr days now.
— @notlikenormal

On today's Kagro in the Morning show, another plutocrat lines up to claim that his enormous privilege is just like Nazi persecution. Freedom Industries CEO wants to be paid for "work" in bankruptcy. Greg Dworkin takes the reins and explores nothing less than the origin of the universe, even as sequestration threatens to slash science funding. "Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About Cosmos." ACA enrollment passes the 5 million mark. Christie's still toast. Edwin Edwards is back. "Groucho Marx's Republican Party." GA considers the craziest new gun law going. Wells Fargo accused of routinely forging mortgage documents. But aren't you victims the real Hitlers here?

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Late Night: Hey Joe, All Things Being Equal

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 03:00:45 +0000

Tomorrow packs a double whammy: It’s the Feast of St. Joseph–patron saint of confectioners, carpenters and cuckolds, along with fathers and real estate sales–and the Spring Equinox. St. Joseph’s also the patron of saint of Sicily, and the Feast of St. Joseph’s Day is a big deal in New Orleans which has a large Sicilian/Italian population (muffalettas!). Altars are laid out with lemons for new love. Fava beans represent the drought in Sicily which ended after prayers to St. Joe statues of the Holy Family (plus additional saints if you’re so inclined) candles, flowers and food, with an emphasis on seafood, round out a traditional altar.

And the equinox, when all things come into balance, and the sun moves into Aries. It’s a holy day for pagans and for Thelemites (those who follow Aleister Crowley). Passover falls on the first full moon after the spring equinox, and since Easter falls on the Sunday after Passover–surprise, fundie Xians!, you’re in a lunar-based religion whose roots go back to an agrarian society.

This equinox I’m having dinner with friends at my favorite restaurant. I might have the lamb.

In honor of St. Joseph and the start of Spring, here’s a live version of ”Top of the World” from the the Nixon White House.

Exxon’s Russia Partnerships Challenge US Energy Weapon Narrative

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 02:15:41 +0000

Is Exxon playing both sides in the “new cold war?”

In a long-awaited moment in a hotly contested zone currently occupied by the Russian military, Ukraine’s citizens living in the peninsula of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia.

Responding to the referendum, President Barack Obama and numerous U.S. officials rejected the results out of handand the Obama Administration has confirmed he will authorize economic sanctions against high-ranking Russian officials.

“As I told President Putin yesterday, the referendum in Crimea was a clear violation of Ukrainian constitutions and international law and it will not be recognized by the international community,” Obama said in a press briefing. “Today I am announcing a series of measures that will continue to increase the cost on Russia and those responsible for what is happening in Ukraine.”

But even before the vote and issuing of sanctions, numerous key U.S. officials hyped the need to expedite U.S. oil and gas exports to fend off Europe’s reliance on importing Russia’s gas bounty. In short, gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is increasingly seen as a “geopolitical tool” for U.S. power-brokers, as The New York Times explained.

Perhaps responding to the repeated calls to use gas as a “diplomatic tool,” the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced it will sell 5 million barrels of oil from the seldom-tapped Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Both the White House and DOE deny the decision had anything to do with the situation in Ukraine.

Yet even as some say we are witnessing the beginning of a “new cold war,” few have discussed the ties binding major U.S. oil and gas companies with Russian state oil and gas companies.

The ties that bind, as well as other real logistical and economic issues complicate the narrative of exports as an “energy weapon.”

The situation in Ukraine is a simple one at face value, at least from an energy perspective.

“Control of resources and dependence on other countries is a central theme connecting the longstanding tension between Russia and Ukraine and potential actions taken by the rest of the world as the crisis escalates,” ThinkProgress explained in a recent article. “Ukraine is overwhelmingly dependent on Russia for natural gas, relying on its neighbor for 60 to 70 percent of its natural gas needs.”

At the same time, Europe also largely depends on Ukraine as a key thoroughfare for imports of Russian gas via pipelines.

“The country is crossed by a network of Soviet-era pipelines that carry Russian natural gas to many European Union member states and beyond; more than a quarter of the EU’s total gas needs were met by Russian gas, and some 80% of it came via Ukrainian pipelines,” explained The Guardian.

Given the circumstances, weaning EU countries off Russian gas seems a no-brainer at face value. Which is why it’s important to use the brain and look beneath the surface.

ExxonMobil and Rosneft

The U.S. and Russian oil and gas industries can best be described as “frenemies.” Case in point: the tight-knit relationship between U.S. multinational petrochemical giant ExxonMobil and Russian state-owned multinational petrochemical giant Rosneft.

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson sung praises about his company’s relationship with Rosneft during a June 2012 meeting with Vladimir Putin. [cont'd.]

Franklin Graham Supports Russian Anti-Gay Persecution, Disgraces His Father and His Religion

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 01:31:03 +0000

Franklin Graham

It is commonly believed that in the early days of the Christian church, followers of Jesus dealt with harsh persecution. The tales of Romans falsely labeling the Holy Communion as “cannibalism,” and Christians being thrown to the lions while Roman citizens cheered have entered the canon of legends and we don’t know truth from apocryphal tale.

What we do know is that from time to time, enterprising Roman politicians made Christians the scapegoats of the community, thereby leading to various acts of violence while they themselves reaped the spoils.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have faced persecution from different factions, including themselves via unnecessary disagreements regarding denominations and customs.

Not surprisingly and justifiably, Christians have always maintained a fierce devotion to their beliefs. It is a shame that, at least in the case of one Christian, this devotion isn’t accompanied with a desire to speak out for other groups facing the same type of persecution.

Franklin Graham, son of the iconic pastor Billy Graham, chose to go the other direction, i.e. embracing the perpetrators of evil rather than the victims. In recent comments, he commended the country of Russia for the recent passage of its anti-gay laws under the lie that it protects children:

Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue—protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda—Russia’s standard is higher than our own? In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues. Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.

The inference that gays will somehow harm children is an old dodge perpetrated continuously because it works. Whenever someone wants to pass anti-gay laws or keep pro-gay laws from passing, or build a reputation for themselves on the hallmarks of “values” and “family,” they exploit children as psychological shields, playing on the heart strings of the ignorant by conjuring up images of oversexed gay men raping children, “indoctrinating” children, or “recruiting” children.

It’s the same in Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The claim that these anti-gay laws in Russia were created to “protect children” is a lie created give Putin more power and popularity. And in exchange, Russian lgbts now face horrible consequences as a result of these laws. The beatings, the unfair arrests, the all-around abject fear which now grips Russia’s gay community are the results. The sad irony is that before these laws, Russian children weren’t in danger. But they are now, if they are gay. more…

And with his one ignorant statement, Mr. Graham dips his hand into the blood spilled because of these laws and publicly wipes it on his face with zest. In doing so, he spits not only his father’s legacy, and the faces of Russian lgbts facing daily persecution. He also spits upon his own religion, particularly the memory of Christians persecuted so long ago after themselves being falsely accused.

No matter what your personal or so-called religious belief about homosexuality may be, there is no excuse for making lgbts scapegoats via lies and scapegoating. Jesus never stooped to doling out excuses designed to justify horrible acts of violence and uncaring attitudes about innocent groups of people. It is an awful shame that those who claim to follow Him have no problems doing this. It is an awful shame in the eyes who claim to follow Jesus, political power makes the lives of lgbts disposable liabilities.

Even in today’s oxymoronic climate of Christian leaders clutching the lapels of their expensive suits as they trod across immaculately clean carpets of megachurches or before congregations of thousands and in front of cameras broadcasting to millions as they whine about being persecuted simply because they must acknowledge folks with different belief systems, Mr. Franklin’s cluelessness is just obscene.

If he wanted to be a leader with as much notoriety as his father, then mission accomplished. But it’s notoriety in the other direction. I’ve been to a Billy Graham crusade and I’ve seen him on television numerous times. He represented the humility of Christianity, the acknowledgement and respect for a higher power who we must leave all judgement up to while we do whatever good we can for each other.

Franklin now represents the hypocrisy of Christianity, the lack of humility which now plagues the religion but is something no one wants to talk about. Franklin represents the cluelessness that comes with forgetting your past and sacrifices of those who came before you; forgetting the innocent blood shed by those who paved the way to those expensive suits, mega churches with their immaculate carpets, congregation of millions, and television cameras. And especially the lack of shame which comes with scapegoating innocent groups of people in the same manner which your group was scapegoated and using the Bible to justify your sad behavior.

Mr. Graham, you are a disgrace to not only your father, the Christian religion, but humanity as well. I hope that you can see past the glitz which comes with being a supposed acclaimed Christian leader so that you can one day embrace the same humility which made your father such a wonderful person.

Political Dubious Achievement Awards: Winter Edition

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:46:33 +0000

Readers of a certain age might remember Esquire magazine’s Dubious Achievement Awards. Sadly, the annual feature was discontinued for good in 2008; but fortunately, other publications and websites carried on the tradition.

Political Dubious Achievement Awards. My version was originally intended as an end-of-the-year column. However, the Republicans contributed so much material in so short a time that I already have enough for a special edition.

My version, which concentrates on political dubious achievements, was originally intended as an end-of-the-year column. However, the Republicans contributed so much material in so short a time that I already have enough for a special edition.

Without any further ado, the winners are…

Silliest Argument Against Legalizing Pot and Worst New Phrase of 2014 (double winner)

After admitting that he smoked marijuana as a young man, David Brooks argued that no one else should legally do so because legalization would harm our nation’s “moral ecology.” Maybe one has to smoke a joint or two to understand what “moral ecology” means.

Dumbest Objection to the Common Core Standards

Al Melvin, a Republican state senator from Arizona, earns the award by arguing that the Common Core’s math standards use “fuzzy math” because they substitute letters for numbers in some examples. Wait until he discovers that this is “algebra,” and that the word is derived from Arabic.

Biggest Act of Thuggery By a Member of Congress

Congressman Michael Grimm, a Republican from Staten Island who, inside the Capitol, told a television reporter, “I will break you in half”, and reportedly threatened to throw him over a balcony. Maybe he’s angling for the number-two spot on a Chris Christie fantasy ticket.

Speaking of Governor Christie, the…

Flimsiest Excuse for Bad Behavior by a Public Official

…was offered by Fox News’s Brit Hume, who argued that Christie isn’t a bully but rather is a victim of our culture’s “feminized atmosphere”. Wrong, Brit. He’s a bully.

Most Far-Fetched Economic Argument Against Legal Abortion

Congressman Bob Goodlate, a Virginia Republican, contended that banning abortion creates jobs because it results in more children which in turn results creates more jobs because someone has to care for those children. Yes, you heard that right.

Creepiest Justification of Date Rape

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal offered this fractured analogy: “If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn’t determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver’s sex. But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault.”

Least-Prepared Witness at a Legislative Hearing

Annapolis, Maryland, Police Chief Michael Pristoop, who opposed legalizing marijuana, told the State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee he’d found a news story which reported that 37 people in Colorado had died of overdoses the very day that state legalized marijuana. The story was a spoof that appeared on the online comedy magazine The Daily Currant.

Most Flagrant Prosecutorial Overreach by Someone Who Isn’t a Prosecutor

Michele Bachmann, stepping up to the defense of the Koch brothers (she thanked God they were on her side), told Conservative Political Action Conference attendees that Democrats should be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statute for–get this–”intimidating billionaires.” For this extravagant interpretation of RICO, Bachmann deserves to have her law degree revoked nunc pro tunc.

Zaniest Witness List in a Federal Court Trial

In a trial on the constitutionality of Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage, Attorney General Bill Schuette, called Douglas Allen, a Canadian economist, as a witness. During cross-examination, Allen said that those who engage in homosexual acts and don’t repent will burn in Hell. Schuette also called University of Texas professor Dr. Mark Regnerus, whose work is so flawed that U-T publicly disavowed his views. And to complete the trifecta, Schuette tried to put a philosopher named Sherif Girgas on the stand to offer his views on marriage. The judge refused to qualify him as an expert witness because he’s still in school.

Most Egregious Violation of Godwin’s Law

Venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who compared the Occupy movement to Kristillnacht. Soon afterward, Perkins earned himself a first-class ticket on the crazy train by advocating the repeal of universal suffrage.

Most Acute Case of Cold War Nostalgia

At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Sarah Palin offered the following solution to the Ukraine crisis. She said, “Mr. President, The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.” Just what we need, Wayne La Pierre with warheads.

Finally, the Paul Ryan “I Got Mine, Jack” Award

Josh Miller, a Republican lawmaker from Arkansas, opposed the expansion of his state’s Medicaid program arguing, among other things, that recipients might abuse their prescription drugs. It was a supreme act of chutzpah on the part of Miller, who years earlier was seriously injured in an alcohol-related traffic crash. Since he wasn’t insured, Medicaid wound up paying most of the $1 million tab for his care and rehabilitation.

Headline 'O the Day ... "an upheaval of society like we haven’t seen in 700 years")

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:30:02 +0000

Headline 'O the Day

by digby

Drones will cause an upheaval of society like we haven’t seen in 700 years

That's quite a statement isn't it? The article to which it refers explains a lot about why some people are instinctively concerned about the rise of drones and see them as not just another weapon. They are something very different and could revolutionize the way we organize society:

The human race is on the brink of momentous and dire change. It is a change that potentially smashes our institutions and warps our society beyond recognition. It is also a change to which almost no one is paying attention. I’m talking about the coming obsolescence of the gun-wielding human infantryman as a weapon of war. Or to put it another way: the end of the Age of the Gun.

You may not even realize you have been, indeed, living in the Age of the Gun because it’s been centuries since that age began. But imagine yourself back in 1400. In that century (and the 10 centuries before it), the battlefield was ruled not by the infantryman, but by the horse archer—a warrior-nobleman who had spent his whole life training in the ways of war. Imagine that guy’s surprise when he was shot off his horse by a poor no-count farmer armed with a long metal tube and just two weeks’ worth of training. Just a regular guy with a gun.

That day was the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity. For centuries after that fateful day, gun-toting infantry ruled the battlefield. Military success depended more and more on being able to motivate large groups of (gun-wielding) humans, instead of on winning the loyalty of the highly trained warrior-noblemen. But sometime in the near future, the autonomous, weaponized drone may replace the human infantryman as the dominant battlefield technology. And as always, that shift in military technology will cause huge social upheaval.
[...]
Note that what we call drones right now are actually just remote-control weapons, operated by humans. But that may change. The United States Army is considering replacing thousands of soldiers with true autonomous robots. The proposal is for the robots to be used in supply roles only, but that will obviously change in the long term. Sometime in the next couple of decades, drones will be given the tools to take on human opponents all by themselves.

Meanwhile, technological advances and cost drops in robotics continue apace. It is not hard to imagine swarms of agile, heavily armed quadrotor drones flushing human gunmen out of buildings and jungles, while hardened bunkers are busted with smart munitions from cheap high-altitude robot blimps. (See this video if your imagination needs assistance.)

The day that robot armies become more cost-effective than human infantry is the day when People Power becomes obsolete. With robot armies, the few will be able to do whatever they want to the many. And unlike the tyrannies of Stalin and Mao, robot-enforced tyranny will be robust to shifts in popular opinion. The rabble may think whatever they please, but the Robot Lords will have the guns.

Forever.

Where this scenario really gets scary is when it combines with economic inequality. Although few people have been focusing on robot armies, many people have been asking what happens if robots put most of us out of a job. The final, last-ditch response to that contingency is income redistribution – if our future is to get paid to sit on a beach, so be it.

But with robot armies, that’s just not going to work. To pay the poor, you have to tax the rich, and the Robot Lords are unlikely to stand for that. Just imagine Tom Perkins with an army of cheap autonomous drones. Or Greg Gopman. We’re all worried about the day that the 1% no longer need the 99%–but what’s really scary is when they don’t fear the 99% either.

I don't know if any of this plausible from a technological viewpoint, but it does sound at least possible from a human, sociological standpoint. Let's assume that there are a number of global "stresses" on the horizon, the most important of which is climate change and the inevitable large scale migration that naturally ensues. In a time of limited resources, growing population and vast wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer, is it really so outlandish to think that something like this might come to pass? (And I would also guess that it won't be --- at first,anyway --- just the mega-wealthy --- the regular people in certain places with more resources will be likely to enable their government to "protect" them as well.)

Was it the gun that empowered the individual? I don't know about that. But it certainly seems plausible to me that the autonomous drone can disempower them. There is something truly different about drone weapons. It's the distance, the lack of personal danger, the sheer coldness of it. (Even B-52 bombers could get shot down or malfunction the crew could be killed or captured.) I don't know if this dystopian scenario is realistic in any way. But there's something about it that does make the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Mostly because if it is possible, I cannot imagine any way of stopping it.

.

So Far Mixed Results in the ACA Goal of Boosting Competition

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:01:07 +0000

In some large urban areas you can theoretically support several HMO’s with their own hospitals competing. More rural areas can support only one medical center and the largest insurer will be able to negotiate the best price thereby gaining a real advantage.

One of the big stated reasons for the Affordable Care Act was to increase competition in the individual market since many markets are dominated by just one or two insurers, but so far early indications are a mixed bag. The Kaiser Family Foundation looked at seven states with their own exchanges which have put out more comprehensive enrollment data. It found increased competition in two states but decreased competition in another two. From KFF:

Only scattered information is available so far on enrollment across plans. Seven state-run exchanges have released market share data, but these enrollment numbers do not include individual market enrollment outside of the exchange. Off-exchange individual markets will continue to exist alongside exchanges, so exchange enrollment alone does not tell the whole story of consumer choice and competition.

Nonetheless, early indications suggest that some exchange markets are more competitive than their states’ individual markets before the ACA. In particular, the two largest states, California and New York, have significantly more competitive exchange markets compared to their individual markets in 2012. Two states (Connecticut and Washington) that have also been successful at enrolling consumers seem to have less competition than in their 2012 individual markets. Results from the remaining states generally show either similar levels of competition as their pre-ACA markets or mixed signs.

These only very preliminary results and things could still change. It will probably take at least another year or two to get a real sense of the impact since many insurers will probably reassess their business strategies after they have some real-world data to analysis.

That said, I doubt the ACA will make most markets more competitive because it doesn’t change the core dynamics which drove concentration in the first place. In some large urban areas you can theoretically support several HMO’s with their own hospitals competing. More rural areas can support only one medical center and the largest insurer will be able to negotiate the best price thereby gaining a real advantage. Without some significant changes, like all-payer, the insurance market in such places is unlikely to ever be competitive. Craeting shopping websites and slightly increasing the number buying insurance simply doesn’t change the basic economics.

Photo by Henry Alva, used under Creative Commons License

Could Uighur Separatists Have Hijacked #MH370?

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 23:16:41 +0000

Could Uighur separatists have seized missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370?

Keeping in mind that no wreckage has been found and we do not know who commandeered Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 or why they did it, I ask the following question:

Could Uighur separatists have hijacked the flight?

In my last post, we took a look at radar coverage along the northern corridor to determine whether it is as impenetrable as many officials and experts claim. We discovered that in some places, it’s operated during the day on an as-needed basis and turned off at night.

Why?

Because it’s too expensive to operate.

We also are discovering that the Southeast Asian nations are reluctant to admit the limitations and weaknesses of their respective radar systems. While understandable, this reluctance constitutes a barrier to solving the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370.

CNN is reporting today,

Jeffrey Beatty, a security consultant and former FBI special agent, says someone could have planned a route that avoided radar detection.

‘It certainly is possible to fly through the mountains in that part of the world and not be visible on radar. Also, an experienced pilot, anyone who wanted to go in that direction, could certainly plot out all the known radar locations, and you can easily determine, where are the radar blind spots?’ he said. ‘It’s the type of things the Americans did when they went into Pakistan to go after Osama bin Laden.’

In fairness, CNN notes in the same article,

U.S. officials have said they don’t think it’s likely the plane flew north over land as it veered off course. If it had, they’ve said, radar somewhere would have detected it. Landing the plane somewhere also seems unlikely, since that would require a large runway, refueling capability and the ability to fix the plane, the officials have said.

The northern corridor crosses the highest and most rugged terrain in the world, the Himalayas, a place where radar would not function very well.

Assuming for the sake of argument, that the last recorded ping from MH 370 originated along the northern corridor, the 777-200 ER could have reached Central Asia in the vicinity of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The latter three of those nations border the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China, which is just to the east.

Who are the Uighur?

Enemies of the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 23:00:57 +0000

Enemies of the Internet

by digby

The government that prides itself on its constitution and guarantee of civil rights must be doubly proud today:

The U.S. government is an enemy of the Internet, according to an annual list released by Reporters Without Borders.

The press freedom group chided the Obama administration for its surveillance activities through the National Security Agency (NSA), which it claimed have "undermined confidence in the Internet and its own standards of security."

“U.S. surveillance practices and decryption activities are a direct threat to investigative journalists, especially those who work with sensitive sources for whom confidentiality is paramount and who are already under pressure,” the organization said.

The U.S. had never before been included on Reporters Without Borders’ "Enemies of the Internet" list. Other countries listed as enemies include Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea, as well as the United Kingdom, which was criticized for its Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

Along with the NSA, the GCHQ was implicated in many of the programs unveiled in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“The Internet was a collective resource that the NSA and GCHQ turned into a weapon in the service of special interests, in the process flouting freedom of information, freedom of expression and the right to privacy,” Reporters Without Borders said.

According to documents released by Snowden, the NSA actively worked to weaken encryption standards, have private software firms reduce their tools’ security and capture information about the users of major Web companies like Google and Facebook.

Disclosures about the controversial surveillance programs have caused a stir around the world and upset advocates of freedom online.

This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called President Obama to denounce personally the breadth of the surveillance programs. In a post on his website, he said that the government’s activities are posing a “threat” to the Internet.

At the same time, the NSA was denying reports that it had posed as Facebook in order to infect targeted computers with malware.

The internet shouldn't feel singled out anymore. We now know they have the capability of collecting recordings of 100% of the phone calls to and from certain countries so they can go back and listen to them later. But that is no cause for alarm at all. What could possibly go wrong with that? True, this one of the reasons they are building the massive storage facility in Utah (all those recording and metadata take up a lot of space!) but that doesn't mean we should be concerned.

Clearly, we need all of this to fight Islamic terrorism. (How could they have ever caught this dangerous terrorist madman without it? Oh never mind. They did catch him without it.) But I'm sure there are lots more terrorists out there making phone calls and writing emails and the government needs to have a recording of every single bit of communication in the world just in case. To keep us safe.

And if they happen to overhear some other stuff well, that's the price you pay for freedom.

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The NSA Is Collecting ’100%’ of Phone Calls in Some Country—But Which One?

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:22:17 +0000

Cover slide for NSA surveillance program that can collect “100%” of calls in a country

The National Security Agency has developed a system of surveillance that allows it to collect all of a country’s telephone calls. The capability envelops this nation’s entire telephone network and collects the content of conversations, many which are from Americans who “telephone, visit and work in the target country,” according to The Washington Post.

The report comes from Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani and revelations on this top secret surveillance program come from documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The “voice interception program” called MYSTIC started in 2009. A RETRO tool enables “retrospective retrieval” and functions like a “time machine.”

A “call buffer opens a door ‘into the past,’” according to the Post, and enables users to “retrieve audio of interest that was not tasked at the time of the original call.” The entirety of calls are typically not listened to by analysts, however, “millions of voice clippings, or ‘cuts,’ are sent “for processing and long-term storage.” And, for up to 30 days, analysts are able to “replay voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.”

This makes it possible to “pull an instant history of the subject’s movements, associates and plans” and to collect “names, dates, locations, fragments of intercepted calls in convincing detail”—information which is shared with “some other US intelligence agencies.” The collection is being conducted under Executive Order 12333.

The cover slide for the surveillance program features an image of a wizard. Atop the wizard’s staff is a cellphone. Coming out of the wizard’s left hand is a spark of light. Stylistically, it’s as if an NSA employee who was hooked on “Magic: The Gathering” as a kid was given an opportunity to design the logo for the program.

The Post’s report indicates, “Ubiquitous voice surveillance, even overseas, pulls in a great deal of content from Americans.” The NSA asserts that this content is “acquired incidentally as a result of collection directed against appropriate foreign intelligence targets.”

Obama issued a presidential policy directive outlining six threats that would justify bulk surveillance. Two of the threats included terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“An independent group tasked by the White House to review U.S. surveillance policies recommended that incidentally collected US calls and emails— including those obtained overseas— should nearly always “be purged upon detection.’” But the Post notes that Obama rejected this recommendation.

Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued the government to stop the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by the NSA, reacted.

“This is a truly chilling revelation, and it’s one that underscores how high the stakes are in the debate we’re now having about bulk surveillance,” Jaffer declared in a statement. “The NSA has always wanted to record everything, and now it has the capacity to do so. The question now is simply whether we have the political will to impose reasonable limits on the NSA’s authority – that is, whether we have the political will to protect our democratic freedoms.”

Amnesty International’s Zeke Johnson said in a statement, “The NSA is making George Orwell seem unimaginative. If true, this latest revelation should be a clarion call for reform. By its very nature, the dragnet collection of communications content violates the right to privacy enshrined in international law.”

The documents provided suggest the NSA has plans to expand the use of this program and target other countries. more…

Cartoon: War time classic

rss@dailykos.com (keefknight) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:50:15 +0000

Support indie cartooning! Join the Round Table!!

Bridgegate Expands To Include More Governor Chris Christie Staffers

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:29:13 +0000

Records revealed in legal proceedings show that the scandal over illegal lane closures on the George Washington Bridge – aka Bridgegate – touched even more members of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s staff than previously thought. New emails show the Christie’s chief strategist, Michael DuHaime, was also included in communication related to the lane closures and how to manage the resulting controversy with the media.

The public revelation of the emails were due to a court case involving Governor Christie’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien who has invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid disclosing documents and testifying before the New Jersey legislature’s Special Investigative Committee. Stepien’s lawyer demanded the committee turn over evidence to the court. The emails proved Stepien was in the loop:

In one exchange on Sept. 12, during the lane closings, Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, e-mailed a letter from Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich to Stepien, to which he replied, “Thanks.”

On Oct. 1, Kevin Roberts, the Christie campaign spokesman at the time, and Stepien coordinated a response to questions from a Wall Street Journal reporter. “Coordinated with Drewniak on this, but heads up,” Roberts wrote to Stepien. “I’ll let you know when I hear back from him on the conversations on his side of things.” “Awesome,” Stepien replied.

Enter Mike DuHaime who, along with Stepien, was coordinating a media response with another Christie staffer, Matt Mowers, to a Wall Street Journal reporter asking questions about the lane closures.

Mowers wrote to both Stepien and DuHaime “Not sure how you are handling or wanted handled, I don’t plan to return his call on this unless you want me to.” After working for Governor Christie Mowers went on to become Chairman of the New Hamphire Republican Party, presumably to help setup a Christie’s presidential run.

DuHaime has said that so far he has not been subpoenaed.

Objectively Pro-Putin

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 20:58:44 +0000

Objectively Pro-Putin

by digby

It figures that in a time when gangs of various political and cultural persuasions take to social media and demand that putative allies conform to their rules of discourse or risk being stalked or banished, it would only be a matter of time before this group dynamic made its way to foreign policy. I'm surprised it took so long.

Check this out, from TPM:

The clock strikes 13: The longer @ggreenwald and Snowden remain silent on events in Ukraine, the more I suspect their previous motives.
— tom ricks (@tomricks1) March 17, 2014

In a post published Monday on his blog, Ricks once again seemed to insinuate that Greenwald and Snowden are in cahoots with the Russians.

"Bottom line: I am no longer going soft on Greenwald and Snowden," he wrote. "In fact, rather the opposite, I am beginning to believe the worst about them. If they acting on moral beliefs, now would be the time for both of them to speak out against Putin. It could have a great impact, I think."

Whatever you do, don't think about the uncomfortable parallels with some not so distant historical events in American political life in which it was demanded that people publicly denounce Russian leaders or risk being named as sympathizers. It was not exactly our finest hour. (Also too, best not to think about the Soviet Show Trials, which also demanded denunciations --- not that it mattered, they were executed anyway, which is what usually happens.)

Ricks claims that Greenwald and Snowden are "profiting" from Russia (how that's happening is rather obscure) and therefore, if they fail to loudly denounce events in the Ukraine, they are objectively Pro-Putin. Greenwald refuses to bow to his demands because well ... bowing to such a demand is unethical in itself (and useless.) Anyone who requires you to denounce someone else to prove that you are not a sympathizer is playing an authoritarian power game and giving them the "denunciation" they demand will never fully satisfy.
We have a long history of witch hunts both real and metaphorical in this country. One of the defining characteristics is this requirement that one prove one's loyalty to the group. You may recall that the way they used to do it was to strap the accused witch to a chair and throw him or her into the water. If the accused floated to the top and lived he or she was obviously guilty. If he or she sank to the bottom and drowned, she was not. I think we can all see the problem with that.

Ricks is free to think what he wants about Greenwald and Snowden's political beliefs and if he has some evidence that they have signed on to Vladimir Putin's Ukraine agenda, as a top journalist I'm sure he can figure out a way to prove it. Otherwise this is just another example of a certain strain of creepy social coercion that rears its head in our culture from time to time and should be resisted by anyone who believes that administering loyalty oaths and demanding intellectual conformity, whether it comes from a church, the government or one's social group, is antithetical to a free society. One would think that journalists would be at the top of that list of resistors, but if there's one thing I've learned in the past few years it's that there are no greater enforcers of elite membership rules than political journalists.

Of course, there are Americans who openly applaud Putin's actions in Ukraine for their own ends, but strangely I haven't seen much push back:

“We obviously see other things driving the news cycle,” a top industry executive said. “Ukraine keeps the focus off the evil 1 percent, so I guess we have Putin to thank for that.”

Well, he has been a good friend to oligarchs.

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You talkin' to me???

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 20:30:32 +0000

You talkin' to me???

by digby

Americans do not have the right to make fun of a policeman's driving. Or, at least, this cop didn't think so:

A Philadelphia police officer has been suspended and criminally charged after he allegedly yanked a war veteran off a Center City corner, handcuffed him and drove him around in his SUV, irked that the man and his friends had criticized his driving.

The 16-minute saga started when Officer Kevin Corcoran, 33, a nine-year veteran of the force, was patrolling in his SUV near 13th and Lombard streets at about 2 a.m. last March 31, according to the District Attorney's Office. A pedestrian, part of a group of people on the sidewalk nearby, yelled to Corcoran that he'd made an illegal turn, prompting the officer to get out of his car and yell at them, according to the D.A.'s Office.

As onlookers began recording the incident on their cell phones, Corcoran allegedly slapped a device out of Roderick King's hands and confronted him, saying: "Don't f***ing touch me." The officer allegedly kept walking toward King, "who was backing up with his hands out in front of him making no contact with the officer," the statement from the D.A.'s Office said.

Corcoran then pushed King, grabbed him by the chest, threw him against the side of the SUV, handcuffed him, hurled him into the back of the car and then sped away with him, the D.A.'s Office said. The whole incident was caught on tape. King was not the person who criticized Corcoran's driving.

Corcoran drove King somewhere off Broad Street, telling him he was under arrest for public intoxication, the D.A.'s Office said. But Corcoran "did not prepare any of the required police paperwork for a public intoxication arrest, had no evidence that the victim was intoxicated, and was in fact driving in the opposite direction of the 17th police district where Corcoran was assigned," the D.A.'s Office said.

King then told Corcoran that he was an Iraq War veteran and had never been arrested before. That prompted Corcoran to stop at 13th and Rodman Streets, uncuff King and release him without charges.

Gosh, I wonder what would have happened if someone hadn't been recording this incident?

I wouldn't bring this up normally since examples of overzealous policing are so commonplace, even including physical violence and torture. But this illustrates something very specific about our policing and what's going haywire with it. This "respect" nonsense, that seems to spring from the military and/or gang culture is now normal. I get that cops need to have authority in order to function safely in emergencies and times of danger. But this is about being "dissed", an entirely different proposition and one that has no place in a free society.

I think that most cops would shrug at someone making fun of their driving --- some might even roll their eyes or laugh. But there exists a non-negligible number who have adopted this authoritarian attitude that demands that citizens bow down to them. That's not right. Luckily the law seems to have been following in this case --- thanks to documentation --- and this officer has been sanctioned. But I don't know how many departments would do that. There's way too much macho, military swagger in our police departments.

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Anonymous CNN executive praises Flight 370 coverage. It's 'in our wheelhouse.'

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 20:04:59 +0000

If it were Fox, all the countries would be labeled 'Iraq.'

I'll go out on a limb here and say that the reason a "senior CNN executive" needed anonymity to talk about their obsessive and often humiliatingly silly non-stop coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is because even CNN knows that it says nothing good about their network.

“It is a tremendous story that is completely in our wheelhouse,” said a senior CNN executive, who asked not to be identified defining the network’s strategy for its coverage.

Little actual information to be conveyed? Check. New "facts" constantly being trotted forth, only to be retracted as false a few hours or days later? We got that. Rampant uninformed speculation, often by people with absolutely eff-all expertise in anything remotely resembling the actual topic at hand? Oh yeah. (Why Rep. Peter King in specific has needed to weigh in on multiple occasions on multiple networks in order to say that he knows exactly the same amount of jack-squat that any person off the street might, now that is a topic all its own, and ought to be seen as evidence of just how inexplicably invested both Peter King and the national media are in putting Peter King on the teevee as an authority on things. As opposed to, say, not doing that.)

More about the praise of this anonymous CNN executive below the fold.

Nearly 200 members of Congress urge Obama to sign ENDA executive order

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 19:44:11 +0000

Time to sign, Mr. President.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act has passed the Senate and is stuck in the Republican-controlled House. But there's something President Barack Obama could do to extend workplace protections to LGBT people. Just as Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers, he could sign an executive order extending ENDA's protections to federal contractors. A letter now signed by 47 senators and 148 members of the House, all Democrats plus one Bernie Sanders, asks Obama to "fulfill the promise in your State of the Union address to make this a 'year of action' and build upon the momentum of 2013" by signing such an order.

Obama has said he'd prefer for Congress to pass ENDA, but the letter, circulated by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, Jeff Merkley, and Tom Harkin and the House LGBT Equality Caucus, makes clear that it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition:

As we continue to work towards final passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) with strong bipartisan support, we urge you to take action now to protection millions of workers across the country from the threat of discrimination simply because of who they are or who they love. We are committed to doing all that we can in Congress to get ENDA to your desk this year; however, there is no reason you cannot immediately act by taking this important step. This executive order would provide LGBT people with another avenue in the federal government they could turn to if they were the victim of employment discrimination by a federal contractor.

Even if Obama signed an employment non-discrimination order tomorrow, it would still be important for the House to pass ENDA to protect the millions of workers who don't live in states that ban workplace discrimination and don't work for the federal government. But signing the order is something that doesn't rely on John Boehner to either do the right thing or fold to political pressure, and the president should do it as soon as possible.

The professional haters 2016 reunion tour

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 19:37:55 +0000

The professional haters 2016 reunion tour

by digby

Media Matters has helpfully compiled a list of 1990s right wing Clinton haters for all you kids so you'[ll know who you're dealing with when they start turning up in the media once the 2016 campaign kicks in. It's already started on Fox, but I fully expect to see some of these people appearing elsewhere as well:

Fox News hosted the "professional dirty trickster" who founded an anti-Hillary Clinton group with the acronym "C.U.N.T." The day before, it was the attorney who pushed fabricated anti-Clinton stories in the 90s. Last month, it was the woman who has suggested the Clintons may have had her husband killed.

Fox has never had particularly high standards for who they put on air, and it appears there's no source too incredible for Fox to host as long as they are willing to smear the Clintons. And that list is long.

As Joe Conason and Gene Lyons detailed in their book The Hunting of the President, in the 1990s, an array of conservative operatives, right-wing journalists, and opportunists sought to drive the Clintons from the White House. Their backgrounds were often shady, their methods deceitful, and their claims fraudulent.

So who might be the next guest for a network with no standards and an urge to stop a potential Hillary Clinton presidential run? Some of these figures have gone on to extensive careers in the conservative media, while others haven't been in the public eye for decades.

But all have literally unbelievable stories to tell.

Read on for the whole list. I was getting nervous they had left off Toensing and diGenova but I see they sved them for last.

I would also expect the gaggle of blond "former prosecutors" to be back as well. (They were the precursors to the FOX anchor archetype.)They are always good TV.

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Ten years of political progress. And yes, we've made progress

rss@dailykos.com (kos) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 19:30:27 +0000

This was a thing.

Ten years ago, in 2004, we had a 51-49 Republican Senate. But the fact that Republican Bill Frist ran the joint wasn't the worst of it. Because look at this motley crew on our side of the aisle: Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, John Breaux, Tom Daschle, Fritz Hollings, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Zell Miller, and Mark Pryor.

Ugh. What a pile of suck. And those were just the worst offenders. Of that crowd, Baucus recently announced his retirement, leaving only Landrieu and Pryor—and Pryor will lose his re-election battle. Maybe Landrieu will, too. Daschle was in charge of the Democratic caucus, horrifyingly enough.

On the progressive end we had Barbara Boxer, Daniel Inouye, Daniel Akaka, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold and Barbara Mikulski. Maybe a handful more. Not too bad, but a minority within the party.

Today, we still have Boxer and Mikulski, but they've been reinforced by Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Martin Heinrich, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, Brian Schatz, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse. Furthermore, our middle-of-the-road senators are people like Jeanne Shaheen, not Bob Graham. And our conservative faction is a shell of its former self, with only Joe Manchin left at the level of our 2004 gallery of rogues. The caucus has shifted significantly to the left.

Back in 2004, Republicans held a 222-210 lead in the House. On paper, that looks better than our current 234-201 deficit. But numbers deceive, because that year the Blue Dog Coalition had 47 members, and several more were excluded because of an arbitrary cap on membership. That cap was eventually lifted, and the Blue Dogs boasted 54 members in 2010 with "Democrats" in the mold of Harold Ford and Jane Harman hogging the media spotlight. That meant that over a quarter of our caucus was happier making common cause with Republicans than with Democrats. Today, the Blue Dogs are down to 19 members, and GOP gerrymandering and retirements will whittle that down even further after this year's elections.

I haven't even gotten into policy: marriage equality, marijuana legalization, better access to health care, renewed push on economic issues (such as minimum wage hikes and broader discussion on income inequality), and so on. The Virginia election in 2013 was won on an explicitly liberal agenda.

We still have to contend with that GOP gerrymander in the House and at the state level (2010 was a huge step backward), with a conservative Supreme Court, and a media and political establishment that still overly defers to increasingly fringe Republicans. And of course, our party can be infuriatingly slow to change. But political change happens gradually, over time. And we've dramatically improved the quality and ideological cohesiveness of our Congress and are the beneficiaries of demographic trends that will only accelerate those changes.

Ten years ago, Howard Dean was branded "unelectable" because he supported civil unions. We've evolved dramatically as a society. We're nowhere close to where we want to be. But every once in a while, it's worth taking a deep breath and appreciating just how far we've come. We really are making genuine progress.

NSA's bulk collection bonanza

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 19:30:08 +0000

There's new news on the NSA's bulk data collection front. First, which will come as no surprise, the government has confirmed that it swept up huge amounts of data from emails, in the U.S., without any court approval. For several years. Under the order of then-President George W. Bush. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court finally approved that collection in 2004, probably in the wake of the big confrontation when then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey refused to reauthorize some aspect of the warrantless surveillance program.

The confirmation of this program is included in a 2007 court filing made public Monday by the Justice Department, though documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed the program, which was hinted at when the cell phone warrantless surveillance story broke in 2005. And they wonder why we don't trust them.

The second story will do little to help the nation's diplomatic efforts abroad in the midst of the Ukraine and Syria crises. The Washington Post's Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani report that the NSA has built a surveillance system that can record 100 percent of a country's telephone calls, store those recordings, and go back to them to listen as long as a month after they were recorded. The country in question is not named in the report.

A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine — one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.
The voice interception program, called MYSTIC, began in 2009. Its RETRO tool, short for “retrospective retrieval,” and related projects reached full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere. […]

Some of the documents provided by Snowden suggest that high-volume eavesdropping may soon be extended to other countries, if it has not been already. The RETRO tool was built three years ago as a “unique one-off capability,” but last year’s secret intelligence budget named five more countries for which the MYSTIC program provides “comprehensive metadata access and content,” with a sixth expected to be in place by last October.

But that's all happening overseas, right? So Americans don't need to be concerned, right? Well ... "Present and former U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide context for a classified program, acknowledged that large numbers of conversations involving Americans would be gathered from the country where RETRO operates." Those calls are not filtered out, but are part of that amorphous "incidental" acquisition that the NSA says is okay because the real targets are foreign.

Again, they wonder why we don't trust them? Maybe Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), having found her committee at the wrong end of some illegal surveillance by the CIA, will now see the value in having some real oversight hearings of the NSA as well as the CIA.

Midday open thread: Oil train accidents worry insurers, white man's march fails, 'zygote' oppressive

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 19:10:15 +0000

Today's comic by Jen Sorensen is : Corporate Cosmos:
These Daily Kos community posts were the most shared on Facebook March 17:

Amazing photos show us why the American transportation network has fallen off the rails!, by Democrats Ramshield
Pelosi refuses to apologize to Cantor for saying Republicans are "Mean", by Vyan

We are close to eating bait fish and jelly fish as big fish numbers plummet., by Pakalolo

Yale students, faculty blast Sen. Coons's vote against civil rights division nominee:

Responding to his being one of only seven Democrats in the Senate to vote against Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s nominee to head the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, over 200 students, faculty and alumni of Yale Law School and Yale Divinity School have signed a letter criticizing Coons and urging him to change his vote. [...]
“As students, professors and practitioners, your vote alarmed us,” reads the Yale letter. “It signaled a lack of respect for the fundamental American legal principle that all parties have a right to zealous representation, and sent a message that young people considering public service careers should avoid work on behalf of unpopular or marginalized communities and clients.”

DeSmogBlog—Record year of oil train accidents leaves insurers wary: In 2008, there were 9,500 railroad carloads of crude oil transported in the United States. In 2013, there were 400,000 carloads. And a growth in accidents as well. Insurers are pushing for better safety measures, which, so far, have all been voluntary.

All told, railcar accidents spilled more than 1.15 million gallons of crude oil in 2013, federal data shows, compared with an average of just 22,000 gallons a year from 1975 through 2012—a fifty-fold spike.

"White Man's March" doesn't quite pan out:

Kyle Hunt had grand visions of thousands of white men coming out of the woodwork this weekend to stand up and defend their interests in a public march that would grab the nation’s attention. Like a lot of such plans, things didn’t exactly work out that way. [...]
Hunt told the press beforehand that he expected “thousands” to participate. On Saturday, only a smattering of attendees showed up in New York. There were similarly tiny gatherings in Florence, Ky., Tempe, Ariz. and Birmingham, Ala., where police took down the “Diversity” banners. Demonstrators also showed up in Branson, Mo. and Olympia, Wash.

Words commonly used to refer to the developmental stages of an embryo—and even the word embryo itself—are used as a tool of oppression, according to the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Dr. Russell Moore made the comments last week during a prayer at the Susan B. Anthony List 2014 Campaign for Life Gala.[...]

“We know that tomorrow morning legislators in this city will be deciding whether or not to oppress the most vulnerable around us, not only with laws but also even before that with words, referring to persons you have created in your image as simply zygotes or embryoes or fetuses or crisis pregnancies rather than persons, neighbors, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters.”

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University have demonstrated that, after over 1,500 years frozen in Antarctic ice, moss can come back to life and continue to grow. For the first time, this vital part of the ecosystem in both polar regions has been shown to have the ability to survive century to millennial scale ice ages. This provides exciting new insight into the survival of life on Earth.
The team, reporting in Current Biology this week, observed moss regeneration after at least 1,530 years frozen in permafrost. This is the first study to show such long-term survival in any plant; similar timescales have only been seen before in bacteria. Mosses are known to survive environmental extremes in the short-term with previous evidence confirming up to a 20 year timescale for survival. Their potential to survive much longer timescales had not previously been examined.

On today's Kagro in the Morning show: A new Godwin alert. Greg Dworkin takes the wheel & rounds up everything from politics to the origins of the universe. Gimmetarian entitlement on guns & money (no law, so no lawyers). How stealing it all is just like being oppressed by Nazis.

Students kicked out of Christie town hall for asking about Sandy aid

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 18:22:21 +0000

Tough guy.

Faced with scandal and nosediving poll numbers, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going back to one of his classic moves: acting like a tough guy for being able to stand up to union members under carefully controlled circumstances.

At a town hall Tuesday, Christie warned the crowd to expect union disruption, saying that the Communications Workers of America had brought protesters and "when you begin to ask questions they will stand up and start to scream and yell over you and over me." Oh noes, union members yelling over Chris Christie instead of standing meekly while he yells at them and then posts it on YouTube. But in this case, while some CWA protesters were removed from the town hall, so were protesters from another union ... the Rutgers Student Union.

Outside of the St. Mary Coptic School, where the meeting was held, Rutgers University student Frangelin Pozo said 23 students from the Rutgers Student Union attended the meeting.
"We are here solely trying to ask and hold Christie accountable for all of the millions of dollars that Hurricane Sandy victims have not received," said the 21-year-old from Hamilton."How come the money is going to luxury apartments in New Brunswick but not to the victims of Sandy?"

Needless to say, this was not a question the scandal-plagued Christie was interested in answering.

Another debunked Obamacare horror story: Republican attack ad cites phony job loss numbers

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 18:08:23 +0000

This ad will sound awfully familiar to you, if you've been following the saga of debunked Obamacare ads. This isn't from the Koch brothers, for once, at least not directly. It's from the Republican Governors Association. The RGA says this about the ad: "Gregg Hughes, a South Carolina small business owner whose company ObamaCare has cost jobs."

Hughes doesn't actually say in the ad how Obamacare has cost jobs for his company. He says that he received notice of a rate increase in insurance premiums. And we all know that no insurance company ever raised rates before Obamacare became law, right?

But the egregiously false claim that the RGA makes is the one showing in that screen shot in the video above: "34,000 jobs could be lost" because of the law. If this is sounding vaguely familiar to you, it's because we've debunked that claim already, previously over Medicaid expansion. But it's the same lie.

At least, that's according to a study that the South Carolina Hospital Association conducted. It concluded that expansion "would generate approximately $11.2 billion between 2014 and 2020," and "South Carolina’s total annual economic impact of the increase in federal funding due to the Medicaid expansion will be approximately $1.5 billion in labor income, $3.3 billion in state economic activity while generating nearly 44,000 new jobs in the state by 2020." The net gain for the state until 2020, the study says: "a surplus of approximately $9 million."

For those keeping score, that's one unsubstantiated claim about the impact of Obamacare on one small business and an already debunked claim about the impact of the law for the whole state of South Carolina.

That 'Hitler' billionaire guy? He's Cuomo's BFF, of course

rss@dailykos.com (kos) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 18:05:00 +0000

Ken Langone, not just any asshole, but Andrew Cuomo's asshole friend

We already saw this early this morning:

"I hope it’s not working," Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. "Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy."

Would it surprise you to find out that he's tight with New York pretend-Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo?

Since January, “Republicans for Cuomo”—a group chaired by Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone—has held at least three events at which the governor pitched potential G.O.P. supporters, wooing them with talk of spending and tax cuts and economic development incentives.

That whole article is a brutal indictment of Cuomo—happy to cozy up with Republicans at $50,000-a-head fundraisers and undermining Democratic efforts to take outright control of the state Senate (currently in GOP hands thanks to renegade Democrats).

And Cuomo continues to maintain a strong relationship with the State Senate Republicans, declining to offer even a gesture of help to the Democrats hope to re-take control from the current coalition running the chamber.

All of this might make sense in a place like Alabama or Kansas. But this is New York, where Republicans are irrelevant. Or would be irrelevant if Cuomo hadn't signed a Republican gerrymander of the Senate in order to keep them in power. Apparently, he thinks that playing footsie with Republicans and using the state Senate to block progressive legislation is the way to the White House, with Ken "liberals are just like Hitler" Langone bankrolling him all along the way.

His father's last name will keep him going in New York. But I can't wait for the day he announces a presidential bid, because we haven't had this good a villain since Joe Lieberman.

Progressive Caucus rolls out website as part of its 'Better Off Budget' campaign. Check it out

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:58:44 +0000

When it rolled out its three previous alternative budgets, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to be charitable, didn't do a very good job of spreading the word. What little media coverage appeared was awful. But mostly it was non-existent. That lesson seems to have been learned. This time around, with the Better Off Budget—which was reported on here at Daily Kos last week—the CPC has put together a website with videos, links to the proposal and to articles and commentary about it, and other relevant material. The budget has been given its own hashtag, #betteroffbudget. The caucus has scheduled a webcast of its March 19 roundtable on the budget and encouraged "citizen sponsors" to publicly endorse it. There is a concerted effort under way to spur local media coverage.

This is a marked improvement over past efforts.

But getting the word out on this progressive alternative to both the Republican budget being put together by Rep. Paul Ryan and President Obama's budget shouldn't be left to the 73-member caucus alone. Like any good progressive project, this one requires citizen activism. Letting people know that this fiscally smart, job-creating, oil-subsidy smashing, infrastructure-building budget exists can be an important aspect of mid-terms campaigning this fall.

As you can see over on the right, one thing you can do to build support is sign our petition to Congress favoring the Better Off Budget. We've already surpassed our 10,000-signature goal, but there is no reason that number can't be doubled or even tripled over the next couple of weeks.

If you've got the time, one very important way to spread the word is to ensure that your local media cover the budget. One way to accomplish that even in this era of mega-concentration and propaganda disguised as journalism is by helping print and television reporters by doing some of their work for them.

Read more about the Better Off Budget campaign, and how you can help spread the word about it, below the fold.

As contenders mull 2016 bids, Ted Cruz finds he really, really likes visiting Iowa

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:43:36 +0000

The chosen one!

Wait, do you suppose Ted Cruz really believes he has a shot at the presidency?

Texas tea party darling U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is making his fourth trip to Iowa in eight months, logging serious face-time before most other potential 2016 White House hopefuls in the state that kicks off presidential voting.
Cruz will keynote a Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators' event Tuesday in Des Moines before heading to Mason City for a GOP fundraiser with Iowa's U.S. Rep. Steve King, with whom Cruz went pheasant hunting. The trip comes five months after Cruz addressed the Iowa Republican Party's annual Ronald Reagan dinner, and he met with Christian conservatives and evangelical leaders during two visits last summer.

Hmm, he might. Ted Cruz is not exactly known for his brilliant political judgments, and after a past primary season that saw Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and The Rest all take their turns as supposedly serious candidates, he might not even be the silliest candidate to run. (Also, going into a field with an armed Steve King sounds like a recipe for disaster, so give the man some points for that one.)

The scenario that awaits us, then: The Republican perhaps most single-handedly responsible for convincing fellow Republicans to shut down the government last fall wants to become president, presumably so he can shut down the government in new and exciting ways that a mere senator can't. Can't wait to see that sales pitch.

Massachusetts becomes the latest state to piss off John Boehner by blocking food stamp cuts

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:27:27 +0000

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick

Add Massachusetts to the list of states House Speaker John Boehner thinks are cheating because they're following the law as they move to block food stamp cuts. Massachusetts follows a series of states in acting entirely within the new law to thwart the congressional Republican push to cut nutrition assistance:

Under the plan announced by Gov. Deval Patrick, the state will provide at least $20 in heating assistance to about 163,000 eligible families, which in turn will make those families eligible for an additional $80 a month in Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program — formerly known as Food Stamps.
Administration officials said the move would prevent a loss of $142 million in SNAP benefits. [...]

The Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, which administers the federal Low Income Heating Assistance Program will use federal funding to provide the $3 million needed to increase the benefit, according to a spokesman for the agency.

Such state actions, which have also been announced in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Montana, mean that a significant percentage of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts recently passed by Congress have been blocked. That said:

If you live in one of the eight remaining states where low-income Americans are still facing the threat of food stamp cuts—California, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington, or Wisconsin—then click here to sign and send a petition directly to your governor, urging him to take the appropriate action to restore food stamp funding.

With Republican Rep. Cory Gardner's entry, PPP finds a 2-point race for Senate in Colorado

rss@dailykos.com (David Nir) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:55:28 +0000

GOP Rep. Cory Gardner will be pleased with these new polling numbers

Public Polling Policy's new Colorado poll confirms exactly what we imagined when up-and-coming GOP Rep. Cory Gardner made a late and unexpected entry into his state's Senate race: The numbers look pretty good for him. Democratic Sen. Mark Udall sports a narrow 42-40 lead over Gardner, who starts off already known to half of all voters with a 23-25 favorability rating, despite representing just a seventh of the state for barely three years. (Udall's job approval is a middling 41-40.) A year ago, when PPP tested a hypothetical Udall-Gardner matchup, the incumbent led 49-39. Things, evidently, have changed.

But it's important to point out that even before Gardner's appearance, Udall was facing a re-election campaign that had already grown more difficult than initially anticipated. In PPP's December poll, Udall only sported a 46-42 lead on 2010 GOP nominee Ken Buck, who has since dropped down to run for Gardner's seat. And in the new survey, Udall also doesn't do a whole lot better against the one remotely plausible non-Gardner candidate still in the race, state Sen. Randy Baumgardner, who trails 44-37 and is unknown to 70 percent of the state.

But what about state Sen. Owen Hill, who was so voluble about the backroom switcheroo arranged by Buck and Gardner that he branded as "corrupt"? Well, Hill's decided to be a team player after all: On Monday, he dropped out and endorsed Gardner, saying Republicans need a "united front."

It's possible, though, that his departure might aid Baumgardner if any kind of anti-Gardner movement coalesces. And actually, Baumgardner came closest to Gardner (albeit not close) in PPP's test of the GOP primary, trailing 44-15, with Hill at 6 and a couple of Some Dudes in low single digits. Hill, though, had at least earned the backing of the outside group Tea Party Express; no one really seems to love Baumgardner, and Democrats have to operate with the expectation that Gardner will be the nominee.

As we always like to caution, this is just one poll—but it doesn't come in a vacuum. Not only is there Gardner's decision to consider, but the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity just inserted itself into the race for the first time, with a $1 million television ad buy targeting Udall.

Udall, though, is a strong campaigner and excellent fundraiser, and he still has an advantage here. But Republicans have succeeded in putting this race into play, and even if Udall prevails, a competitive contest in Colorado means that already-stretched resources will likely get spread even thinner. With control of the Senate up for grabs and so many blue seats vulnerable, this is not a positive development for Democrats.

Chick-fil-A CEO now regrets dragging the company into anti-equality morass

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:52:53 +0000

Everyone can change. That's the message we're supposed to take from Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy's new humility over publicly tying his company to anti-marriage-equality efforts two years ago. He really wishes he hadn't done that.

“Every leader goes through different phases of maturity, growth and development and it helps by (recognizing) the mistakes that you make,” Cathy said. “And you learn from those mistakes. If not, you’re just a fool. I’m thankful that I lived through it and I learned a lot from it.

So does that mean he's had a change of heart, and in his new maturity has grown to accept that marriage equality is not, in fact, the doom of America? No. He just regrets saying it out loud, because money.

“Probably the elements that were stressful for me most is from our internal staff and from operators and how this may be affecting them,” he said. “The bottom line is we have a responsibility here to keep the whole of the organization in mind and it has to take precedence over the personal expression and opinion on social issues.”

There ya go, lesson learned. From now on he'll be trying very hard to not link his own anti-equality views with the company brand, at least not in public.

Of more possible substance: The company itself also steeply reduced donations to anti-gay organizations after the flap, though it's not yet clear if that was a sea change or a temporary interruption.

Conservative advice: The best way to run against abortion is to lie about it

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:39:43 +0000

S.E. Cupp

Republicans aren't usually this honest about what they want their candidates to do, but this sums up the real intent of all those "rebranding" efforts:

“We, of course, want to make abortion illegal,” said S.E. Cupp, a conservative commentator and co-host on CNN’s Crossfire. “We can’t be afraid to talk about that, but I think politically right now it’s probably more beneficial for our candidates to say, ‘Look, I’m not going to Washington to overturn decades-old legislation. I’m going to fight to keep abortion safe and rare.’ That’s how we get pro-life candidates elected and in positions of power to actually do something about abortion, to roll it back.”

This can't be easily dismissed as just one commentator freelancing on message. After all, the 2012 Republican Party platform included adding "a human life amendment to the Constitution" and applying the Fourteenth Amendment's protections to "unborn children." So they definitely want to make abortion illegal, but most Republican candidates also definitely claim their own views fall short of criminalization of abortion.

Cupp wasn't the only one making such suggestions at the Susan B. Anthony List's Campaign for Life Summit:

“We’ve got to be compassionate,” said Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) at Wednesday’s donor conference. “Let’s face it, there is no easy answer. For a woman that faces an unplanned pregnancy it is a difficult situation. And I think that’s what our guys need to do—since they can’t be in a situation of actually carrying the child—is empathizing with that woman, to say, right up front, ‘I am pro-life.’ Just acknowledge it; get it out there. ‘But I understand, this is a really, really tough situation, and I want to help you. I want to help you to make the best decision.’”
“And now you’ve gone all the way from all that rape and incest stuff,” she concluded.

Sound compassionate, and change the subject from the actual legislation you support, in other words. Luckily for Democrats, there's usually a Todd Akin—or, for that matter, an S.E. Cupp—around to make the real Republican agenda crystal clear.

The fallout from Grand Bargaining

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:00:00 +0000

The fallout from Grand Bargaining

by digby

While the entire Democratic establishment is wringing its hands and blaming Obamacare for Alex Sink's loss in Florida last week, this article points to a different issue:

With everyone trying to draw some national lesson from last week's special election in Florida ahead of the November midterms, add this to the mix: Liberals think Democrats shot themselves in the foot on Social Security, an issue that played a central role in the district.

Democrats used a familiar playbook, accusing Republican David Jolly of wanting to privatize the program. House Majority PAC, an outside group that supports Democratic candidates, dropped almost $750,000 on an ad warning that Jolly "lobbied for a special interest that wanted to privatize Social Security," and that he "still says privatization should be on the table."

Democrat Alex Sink herself called Social Security "an American promise" and said that unlike her opponent, she would "fight to protect the integrity" of the program. It's a message the party hoped would resonate in a district that has one of the nation's highest concentrations of voters over the age 65.

But Jolly had an easy comeback: He denied wanting to privatize Social Security, and fired back by noting that Sink voiced some support for the Simpson-Bowles debt-reduction plan, which included cuts to Social Security.

The National Republican Congressional Committee hit Sink from the left on this, saying she "supports a plan that raises the retirement age for Social Security recipients, raises Social Security taxes, and cuts Medicare." Katie Prill, a spokesperson for the Republican group, added: "Sending Alex Sink to Washington guarantees that seniors right here in Pinellas County are in jeopardy of losing the Social Security and Medicare benefits that they have earned and deserve."

Liberal writers cried hypocrisy, but it didn't matter: Sink lost.

For the Left, it's evidence that Democrats need to take a firm line on the entitlement program -- or even support expanding it -- at a time when some in the party, and especially the White House, have offered concessions.

It couldn't hurt to try. Obviously, Democrats get no political benefit from trying to cut these programs, (unless you count Villagers extolling them for being "grown-ups" which should get them at least a hundred votes in Virginia.) Why they persist in thinking this was good politics is beyond me.

Senator Jeff Merkley came out for Social Security expansion this week and Senator Mark Begich had signed on earlier so we should have a decent experiment in a blue state and a red state on this issue. I have no idea if it will be decisive, but in an off-year election that traditionally tilts heavily to older voters I think it's fair to say that denying the Republicans the ability to slap you in the face with a stated desire to cut Social Security (and a plan to actually improve it!) is a smart idea.

Politico has a different take on the election results in Florida. Surprise: she lost because Democrats are too mean to the wealthy:

"Fresh off a bruising loss in Florida, the Democratic playbook for the midterms appears in need of a major rewrite - and the pro-business wing of the party is ready to draw up new plans. President Barack Obama in his budget once again floated a plan to raise taxes on Wall Street, but no one took it seriously. ... In two-dozen interviews, the denizens of Wall Street and wealthy precincts around the nation said they are still plenty worried about the shift in tone toward top earners and the popularity of class-based appeals. On the right, the rise of populists including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz still makes wealthy donors eyeing 2016 uncomfortable. But wealthy Republicans - who were having a collective meltdown just two months ago - also say they see signs that the political zeitgeist may be shifting back their way and hope the trend continues."

I'll bet they do.

.

Texas Republican: Addressing discrimination isn't the right answer to discrimination

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:53:54 +0000

The day after the executive director of RedState Women babbled about being busy and juggling things when asked about equal pay remedies, Texas Republicans sent out their executive director to try to fix things by at least being prepared for the question. Her answer, while better on style, wasn't much better on substance:

"Men are better negotiators," Beth Cubriel said on YNN’s "Capital Tonight." "I would encourage women, instead of pursuing the courts for action, to become better negotiators."

Right. Okay. Just negotiate! Never mind that you might not know what to ask for because, without passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, it's easy for employers to keep pay information a secret. And even if you know exactly what you want and are prepared to negotiate, it's not that simple—at least, not if you're a woman:

... research shows that initiating negotiations while female can be dangerous business. In a 2007 study, Linda Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles found that men and women were less likely to want to both hire and work with women who asked for raises; the go-getting femmes were perceived as demanding and uncollegial. Raise-seeking men, on the other hand, faced no backlash at all: Not only did the study participants tend to grant them lots of (hypothetical) perks, but socially their images went untarnished.

Also included in the Paycheck Fairness Act, the pay gap remedy that Republicans have been blocking for years? Funding for training women how to negotiate salaries.

But what if negotiation fails? What if an employer is simply determined to pay women less than men? Republicans don't have an answer beyond "don't take it to court." Which means their real answer is that pay inequities should continue. When you cut through the dodging and obfuscation, that's what Republican spokespeople are saying, again and again and again.

House Republicans plan roadshow to sell a health insurance plan they don't have

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:53:40 +0000

House Republicans are moving forward to perfect that PR strategy they've developed for the Obamacare replacement plan they don't have. They've decided to take their ideas to the people in town hall meetings and find out what sounds good to the masses. They're calling it "listening."

"It's important to show the American people that there is a better approach to improving health care for Americans than Obamacare," said Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority whip. "Unlike the president and congressional Democrats, we have been listening to the American people, and what Americans want is affordability, greater flexibility and access to care, which we are focused on achieving." […]
Republicans emphasize that they have a way to go, and may not succeed, and Mr. McCarthy said he was operating on no time line.

“Right now, our goal is to discuss policy alternatives and build consensus,” he said.

How they're going to accomplish all that is as yet unclear, since they can't actually get a majority of Republicans in the House to agree to a plan. As the Times understates the problem, "[l]egislating on big, divisive issues has been elusive for House Republicans for years." The reality is, tea party Republicans want one thing and one thing only: repeal. They believe government has no part in, well, anything but especially not in health care. There's nothing other than repeal that they'll go along with.

Republicans can take whatever they have on the road to try to convince voters that they're actually doing something to help them. But there's nothing their PR can do to deal with the fundamental dysfunction in the party.

Marriage equality campaign launches in Wyoming

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:09:59 +0000

Coming soon to Wyoming?

A statewide campaign for marriage equality kicked off in Wyoming Monday. Yes, Wyoming—don't you wish Liz Cheney was still in the state's Senate race so that we could all make popcorn and get another look at how this fight is playing out in the Cheney family? Four couples and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed a lawsuit challenging the state's marriage ban—and we all know how such lawsuits have been working out since the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act. In fact, Wyoming won't be the first or even the second case heard in the federal circuit court that covers the state:

In addition to the recently filed state-based lawsuit, oral arguments are set for April 10 in a federal case challenging Utah’s marriage ban. The case is on appeal after a federal judge struck down the ban and recently, several prominent Republicans – including former Wyoming U.S. Senator Alan Simpson – urged the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court's ruling.
A second appeal will be heard April 17 in the 10th Circuit on a similar case from Oklahoma where a federal judge ruled the state’s marriage ban violated the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Circuit covers six states, including Wyoming.

While, as of last summer, a majority of Wyoming voters opposed marriage equality, a majority supported civil unions; this is also an issue on which public opinion is shifting year to year. In any case, it's also an issue where the courts may just have to force some states to catch up with the times.

Bill Gates wants governments to beg corporations for scraps, by @DavidOAtkins

noreply@blogger.com (thereisnospoon) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:30:00 +0000

Bill Gates wants governments to beg corporations scraps

by David Atkins

It's important to understand that in the halls of international power, this is the conversation that's actually happening:

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates isn’t going to sugarcoat things: The increasing power of automation technology is going to put a lot of people out of work. Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots.

“Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses… it’s progressing,” Gates said. “Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set… 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.”

As for what governments should do to prevent social unrest in the wake of mass unemployment, the Microsoft cofounder said that they should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms. This means perhaps eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage so that businesses will feel comfortable employing people at dirt-cheap wages instead of outsourcing their jobs to an iPad.

That mass unemployment is coming soon isn't the wild fancy of futurists. It's real.

There are only two ways to deal with that. One is the Gates way. It's the way that most world leaders are quietly putting into place, not only because of corruption, but because they they feel they must. It's the international race to the bottom, in which the capital mobility of the jet set crowd trumps and overwhelms the power of sovereign states.

The other way is completely opposite--a hard turn toward social democracy, universal basic incomes, universal jobs programs, and international treaties that limit the power of mobile global capital while giving power back to real people and severing the assumed link between doing a billionaire's bidding and human dignity.

There isn't a middle ground. Either billionaires and the Tea Partiers win, or the progressives do. There's no third way.

.

Putin sings to Crimea, 'You're back in the USSR, you don't know how lucky you are, boys'

rss@dailykos.com (Barbara Morrill) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:21:13 +0000

This is sure to make conservatives swoon:

President Vladimir V. Putin claimed Crimea as a part of Russia on Tuesday, reversing what he described as a historical mistake made by the Soviet Union 60 years ago and brushing aside international condemnation that could leave Russia deeply isolated for years to come. [...]
The events unfolded two days after Crimeans voted in a disputed referendum to break away from Ukraine.

That would be the referendum where 96.8 percent of the people allegedly voted to join Team Vlad (you'd need to go to North Korea for a more sweeping mandate).

What will be the result of this blatant land grab? Presumably more sanctions, condemnations and international pressure from the adults in the room. Closer to home? Probably more starry-eyed praise of their favorite ex-KGB bear wrestler. Stay tuned.

White House trying to salvage surgeon general nomination

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:10:38 +0000

Dr. Vivek Murthy

Earlier this month, the Senate rejected the nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Actually it wasn't the whole Senate; it was Republicans and seven Democrats who were afraid of controversy because when Adegbile was a lawyer with the NAACP, he did his job and was in the team that got a convicted killer off of death row. Being good at your job, if your job is something Republicans object to and Democrats are afraid of, is a problem. That's what Vivek Murthy, a well-respected physician, is finding out as opposition grows to his nomination as surgeon general.

This time it's the heavy hand of the NRA intimidating senators.

Murthy, a physician at a top Boston hospital and a teacher at Harvard Medical School, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in February with the support of all Democrats and one Republican, Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.). He would be the first Indian-American surgeon general, if confirmed, and he's supported by more than 50 key organizations and figures in the health and wellness community, per the White House.
But past comments he made in support of gun control have drawn strong opposition from the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America. Specifically, in his role as the leader of Doctors for America, Murthy called gun violence "an important public health issue" and urged a ban on military-style assault weapons after the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings in December 2012. That position isn't sitting well with powerful leaders in the gun lobby.

"Simply put, confirmation of Dr. Murthy is a prescription for disaster for America's gun owners," Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA's legislative arm, wrote to Senate leaders in February.

Dr. Murthy would not be in a position to actually do anything but talk about guns. Because of the NRA's ceaseless lobbying, federal medical research institutions are forbidden to study guns as part of their public health mission or even to advocate for firearms restrictions. Murthy, or any other surgeon general, would have very little influence at all on the issue. Murthy himself testified in his confirmation hearing that he would not use this position, should he be confirmed, to advocate for gun restrictions.

Not good enough for as many as 10 Democrats who are terrified of having the NRA campaign against them. Thus far, Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) is the only one to publicly say he's a likely "no" vote, but Democratic opposition has prevented Harry Reid from scheduling a vote. That's forced the White House to, in the words of press secretary Jay Carney, "recalibrate" their approach to the nomination. They don't want another debacle like the Adegbile nomination. It's unclear right now whether recalibrating means having Murthy withdraw his nomination, or President Obama stepping in and personally lobbying Democrats to grow a spine.

What do Hitler, the super-rich and journalistic hackery have in common?

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:04:11 +0000

There are two competing but equally hard to believe possibilities about "The Rich Strike Back," a Politico article drawing attention for including yet another .01 percenter comparing liberals to Hitler. Either it's meant entirely seriously, or Politico's Ben White and Maggie Haberman have jumped straight from stenography to satire. Sadly, it's probably the former.

The article's premise is that the Republican victory in the House special election in Florida's thirteenth district is evidence that it's time for Wall Street and big business and lobbyists to reclaim both the Democratic and Republican Parties. The Democrats because they lost the election—never mind that the seat had been held by a Republican for 30 years and that, while President Barack Obama carried the district in 2012, his margin was tiny and Democrats typically see significant drop-off in off years, never mind special elections—and the Republicans because the election's winner is a former Washington lobbyist. That's the cue for the billionaire sharks to circle. And circling they are (right around White and Haberman, eager to give quotes). So about that Hitler analogy:

“I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”

These guys are always talking about how they're so wealthy because they're smarter and harder-working than anyone else, but apparently those smarts don't extend to understanding the difference between returning the top marginal tax rate to what it was in, say, 1980 and world war in the service of genocide.

All the signs point to this piece being stenography, not satire, and one of the key signs is that it says nothing new. We know that Wall Streeters are always looking to pull the Democratic party into their class war from above. We know that the Republican establishment is always looking to channel the passions of the far-right fringe into a nice, predictable MBA candidate. The facts that Republicans held a Republican seat in a narrow special election victory and Wall Street's boy in the New York governor's mansion, Andrew Cuomo, is doing his best to thwart New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's agenda don't actually translate into income inequality being popular and expanding Social Security being unpopular. All they translate into is what we've always known: Even when the majority is with you on the issues, it's hard to win when the money is pouring through cannons from the other side. And all this article is is rich people reminding us that they're rich, and that money means influence. And the occasional Hitler comparison, evidently.

Cartoon: Corporate Cosmos

rss@dailykos.com (Jen Sorensen) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 13:50:14 +0000

(Click to enlarge)

Get a signed print of this cartoon from the artist. Follow Jen on Twitter and Facebook.

Daily Kos Radio is LIVE at 9am ET!

rss@dailykos.com (David Waldman) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:30:16 +0000

Daily Kos Radio's Kagro in the Morning show podcasts are now available through iTunes.

Hey, I forgot to mention yesterday that there's a whole lot more corporate malfeasance out there in the world. Did you know this? Boy, how stinky! We should talk about it.

And thanks to the weather, we'll have yet another opportunity to turn over the reins to Greg Dworkin (and maybe Armando, depending on his phone connection) for a bit. That'll help shake up the content a little, too.

Listen LIVE at 9:00 ET, here: The Daily Kos Radio Player

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Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

rss@dailykos.com (Bill in Portland Maine) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:24:50 +0000

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Maine Governor to Poor, Veterans: Drop Dead

No thanks, but we'll happily
kick it in eight months.

The #1 question we Mainers ask ourselves on any given day is, "Good lord, what's he done now?" We're referring, of course, to our Teapublican Governor Paul LePage, one of the oddest and most reckless meatheads ever to lead our 194-year-old state.

So, good lord, what's he done now? Well, Last Friday he sent a message to the estimated 70,000 low-income Pine Tree Staters who would benefit from an expansion of Medicaid here, as the Affordable Care Act recommends, at virtually no expense to the state. And all I can say is, golly does he have a way with words:

Gov. Paul LePage on Friday called a proposed expansion of Medicaid “sinful” during an appearance in Kennebunk, his starkest condemnation of the plan yet.

Expanding sickness- and death-prevention to those who need it most is---oh, let's go with Merriam-Webster---"wicked, wrong according to religious or moral law." Perfect. What a guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hoisting his middle finger as he said it. LePage's remark drew a quick response from the current congressman who will have the pleasure of defeating him in November, Democrat Mike Michaud:

“What we are talking about here is providing life-saving health care to tens of thousands of Mainers and Gov. LePage is calling it sinful,” Michaud said in a statement. “I don’t know how he explains that to the 70,000 Mainers---including nearly 3,000 veterans---who are counting on him to do the right moral thing and sign the bipartisan Medicaid expansion plan into law.”

I have an idea. Maybe Pope Francis should pick up the phone and give LePage one of his famous surprise jingles to explain that the real sinner here is the one coddling the rich and screwing the poor. I'd love to be the NSA snooper on that call.

On the web: Mike Michaud for Governor
Also too: healthcare.gov

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Economics Daily Digest: Society doesn't work on a volunteer basis

rss@dailykos.com (Roosevelt Institute) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:01:07 +0000

By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal

Click here to receive the Daily Digest via email.

The Voluntarism Fantasy (Democracy Journal)

Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal looks to the history of public and private social insurance in the U.S. to explain why the conservative belief that private charity could take the place of government is deeply misguided.

In City's Job Growth, Faces of the Working Poor (WNYC)

New York City now has 237,000 more jobs than it did before the recession, reports Mirela Iverac, but too many of those jobs aren't paying enough to live on.

Hunger Crisis: Charities are Strained as Nearly 1 in 5 New Yorkers Depend on Aid for Food (NY Daily News)

Over five years, the number of people relying on food aid has increased by 200,000, and Barry Paddock and Ginger Adams Otis report that charities have seen even more need since November's food stamp cuts.

Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape (NYT)

Steven Greenhouse reports on the lives of the working poor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where workers with many years of experience can still make only $9 per hour.

Inside Low-Wage Workers’ Plan to Sue McDonald’s — and Win (MSNBC)

Timothy Noah explains that these workers are targeting the franchise system, arguing that McDonald's as a corporation created the conditions that led to wage theft, not just the franchise owners.

New on Next New Deal

Florida Election Shows Danger and Promise in Obamacare Debate

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Richard Kirsch says polling from the recent special election for Florida's 13th congressional district shows that standing up to "keep and fix" Obamacare is a path for Democratic success.

The Progressive Budget Reminds Us That Government Can Create Jobs

The Congressional Progressive Caucus's budget is a reminder that an aggressive approach is still needed to push job growth, writes Nell Abernathy, Program Manager for the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative.

Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Democrats exhale as Rep. Collin Peterson will run again

rss@dailykos.com (David Nir) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:00:17 +0000

Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here.

Leading Off:

• MN-07: Once more unto the breach! Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, who had kept the political world waiting on a decision about his future all cycle, announced Monday that he will indeed seek a 13th term this November. Peterson, 69, represents Minnesota's 7th Congressional District, the fifth-reddest district held by a Democrat, and Republicans had long tried to goad him into retirement; to that end, they managed to recruit the strongest challenger Peterson's had in many years, state Sen. Torrey Westrom.

It seemed like the Blue Dog Peterson might finally hang it up, particularly since Congress at long last passed a farm bill this year, something of special importance to Peterson given that he represents a heavily rural region. But Peterson said he still has "a lot of work to do," citing implementation of the farm bill, among other things. It's a break for Democrats, as Peterson remains the favorite despite the fact that Minnesota's 7th went 54-44 for Mitt Romney.

But Peterson, who typically does not engage in a lot of fundraising in odd-numbered years, will have to step it up to make sure that when he does choose to leave office, it's on his own terms, rather than at Westrom's hands. He's more than capable of doing so, but he can't take anything for granted. And even if he survives this year, Peterson's career isn't going to last a whole lot longer, so Democrats will have to resign themselves to likely losing this district after Peterson moves on.

For now, though, reflecting Peterson's unique strengths as a candidate, we maintain our rating of Likely Democratic while acknowledging that this race could easily become more competitive.

Abbreviated pundit roundup: Playing offense on Obamacare, the NRA, and more

rss@dailykos.com (Georgia Logothetis) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 11:51:56 +0000

Noam Levey at The Los Angeles Times:

More than 5 million people have now signed up for health insurance on marketplaces created by President Obama’s healthcare law, thanks to a surge in enrollment over the last two weeks, the Obama administration announced Monday.
The quickening pace of sign-ups confirms that many Americans are using the new marketplaces as a March 31 deadline approaches for getting coverage this year.
The latest figures indicate that roughly 1 million people enrolled during the last two weeks, surpassing the total for all of February.

If the pace continues, the Obama administration may come close to registering 6 million sign-ups in the first year that Americans are able to get guaranteed health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post:

Republicans obviously are going to make opposition to the Affordable Care Act the main theme of their campaigns this fall. Democrats will be better off if they push back hard — really hard — rather than seek some nonexistent middle ground. [...] They should tell voters that the ACA is a landmark achievement — the biggest expansion of access to health care in decades, fulfilling a long-held progressive dream. They should accuse their GOP opponents of playing voters for fools by cynically pretending that repeal is just around the corner.
Democrats should talk about what’s right with the ACA. They should talk about the millions of formerly uninsured Americans who now have coverage. They should talk about the millions of others who now are covered under Medicaid. They should talk about the young people who are able to be covered under their parents’ policies. They should talk about the diabetics and cancer survivors who now cannot be denied coverage because of their conditions.

The Democratic Party has long taken the position that no one should have to declare bankruptcy because of illness, that no one should have to choose between paying for medicine and paying the mortgage. If Democrats can’t proclaim these beliefs with pride, why on earth are they running?

More on the day's top stories below the fold.

Open thread for night owls: Mass incarceration in the U.S., in pie format

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 03:30:16 +0000

Peter Wagner and Leah Sakala at the Prison Policy Initiative write Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie:

Wait, does the United States have 1.4 million or more than 2 million people in prison? And do the 688,000 people released every year include those getting out of local jails? Frustrating questions like these abound because our systems of federal, state, local, and other types of confinement — and the data collectors that keep track of them — are so fragmented. There is a lot of interesting and valuable research out there, but definitional issues and incompatibilities make it hard to get the big picture for both people new to criminal justice and for experienced policy wonks.

On the other hand, piecing together the available information offers some clarity. This briefing presents the first graphic we’re aware of that aggregates the disparate systems of confinement in this country, which hold more than 2.4 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,259 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.

While the numbers in each slice of this pie chart represent a snapshot cross section of our correctional system, the enormous churn in and out of our confinement facilities underscores how naive it is to conceive of prisons as separate from the rest of our society. In addition to the 688,000 people released from prisons each year, almost 12 million people cycle through local jails each year. Jail churn is particularly high because at any given moment most of the 722,000 people in local jails have not been convicted and are in jail because they are either too poor to make bail and are being held before trial, or because they’ve just been arrested and will make bail in the next few hours or days. The remainder of the people in jail—almost 300,000—are serving time for minor offenses, generally misdemeanors with sentences under a year.

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—The U.S. Tortured. Now what?
:

We knew, even before the convening authority of military commissions at Guantanamo, Susan Crawford, said it was torture, that it was torture. Systematic. Presidentially approved. Torture.

But now, as Meteor Blades, buhdydharma and valtin have pointed out on these pages, it's official. The ICRC report makes it so.

Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions also gives the ICRC the right to request access to persons detained in non-international armed conflicts. Under the statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the ICRC can also request access to persons detained in connection with situations of violence that fall below the threshold of armed conflict. These statutes were approved in 1986 by the International Conference of the Red Cross, of which all States party to the Geneva Conventions, including the United States, are members.

When the ICRC, acting its capacity as the arbiter of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, says it's torture, it's torture.

Which brings us back to the explosive story Mark Danner brought us this week, when he obtained a leaked copy of that report. The obscene and nauseating details of what was done to human beings in the name of "justice" has been detailed elsewhere. I want to focus on Danner's conclusions.[...]

Tweet of the Day:

The universe was awesome for the first 10⁻³³ seconds and then it was all downhill from there.
— @TheTweetOfGod

On today's Kagro in the Morning show: Yet. Another. Snow day. Greg Dworkin joins us in coming back from a weekend of Crimean voting and Malaysian plane searching to discuss the 2014 Senate outlook, perceptions of the economy and the healthcare system, and the Republican 2016 field. Forbes column says Obamacare is working & its opponents are wrong. Fun! In gun news: that anti-texting FL movie theater shooter was texting in the theater just minutes earlier! Counter to some popular talking points, accidental shootings are on the rise in WA. Weekend open carry protests in TX & AR go off safely, all participants being required to empty their weapons. Lastly, wage theft at Amazon.

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

What happens if the traditional broadcast model of television collapses?

rss@dailykos.com (Doctor RJ) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 02:00:18 +0000

Every other week it seems like there's an article about the death of the music industry, or the death of newspapers, or the death of television. Nothing lasts forever, and that's especially true when talking about forms of media delivery. Once there were music shops like Tower Records, and video stores like Blockbuster. But as tapes went to discs, and discs went to streaming downloads, things have changed. Not only have things changed in the way material is procured and watched, but there's also implications for the distribution models of TV series, news and political ads. Next month the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., et al. v. Aereo, Inc. The case has huge implications for the future of television and how it's delivered to consumers. But no matter which direction the decision goes, it's also indicative of the ways consumption of media has changed, and what it might mean for the future of television.

Back in 1976, Congress included a "Transmit Clause" when they updated the Copyright Act. Without getting too deep into the legalese, the Transmit Clause was aimed at cable and satellite companies, and made the rebroadcast of "free," over the air antenna signals copyright infringement. Because of that clause, cable and satellite companies must license the content through negotiating and paying retransmission consent fees. However, there's a bit of a loophole in the Copyright Act of 1976. The law prohibits public displays of the material "at any place where a substantial number of persons" may be watching or listening, but it allows for private performances between "social acquaintances." Hence the reason why lawyers for Fox don't show up at your Super Bowl party to serve you with a lawsuit for gathering your friends together to watch the game. And the reason you can DVR a program and "time shift" watching it, or use a VCR to tape a broadcast and share it with a friend or someone you know.

Aereo, a startup backed by media mogul Barry Diller, has royally pissed off all of the broadcast networks (and their big studio, content provider owners) by attempting to use those exceptions to copyright law for subscription based, time-shifted streams of network television on internet connected devices. To do that, Aereo leases each subscriber within a given service area their own personal dime-sized antennae to either view live television or record programs to a cloud based "DVR." Since the company claims their actions are legal private viewership, because it's an individual antenna for every subscriber, and an individual copy of the content for each user, Aereo pays no retransmission consent fees. Those fees comprise a significant chunk of broadcaster revenue. CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, in one of his more diva-ish moments, threatened to take CBS off the air as a broadcast network if Aereo should win this case. In the same vein, both the National Football League and Major League Baseball have said they will consider removing their games from network television if Aereo should receive a favorable outcome.

Continue below the fold for more.

Shamrock shake

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 01:34:55 +0000

Shamrock Shake

by digby

It didn't last long but it was a good jolt:

I know it's kind of funny to watch them dive under the desk, but they're under a bunch of lights that could come crashing down on their heads and kill them ...

On the other hand, here are a couple of cool customers during the Loma Prieta quake back in 1989:

The Northridge quake was a real shaker. I literally knocked me out of bed and knocked over everything in my house:

The aftershocks days later were a lot bigger than the one we had today.

My cat didn't even wake up during this morning's quake. But my heart pounded a little. When they first start you don't know how it's going to go. And anyone who lives at the beach as I do, thinks about that Tsunami ...

Scary stuff.

Justifiable homicide

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 23:30:01 +0000

Justifiable homicide

by digby

This is ridiculous:

Florida has executed 84 people since the Supreme Court announced the modern death penalty regime in 1976. Zero of them are white people sentenced to death for killing an African American. Indeed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “no white person has ever been executed for killing an African American” in the state of Florida.

Nor is Florida particularly unusual in the racial impact of its death penalty. In Alabama, 6 percent of murders involve black defendants and white victims, but 60 percent of black death row inmates were convicted of murdering a white person. In Louisiana, a death sentence is 97 percent more likely in murder cases where the victim is white.

Nationwide, only 20 white people have been executed since 1976 for killing a black person. By contrast, 269 black defendants were executed for killing someone who is white.

This system is so arbitrary that to execute anyone makes a mockery of the idea of equal protection and justice. Clearly nobody should be executed.

And in case anyone thinks that white people don't kill black people in Florida, well, we only have to look at a couple of fellows named George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn to know otherwise. Or this, for that matter:

On October 23, 1945, the Brooklyn Dodgers announced that they had signed Jackie Robinson, assigning him to their International League team, the Montreal Royals. Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager, believing he "knew" Florida, thought his team could train there, ruffling as few feathers as possible. Robinson and his wife were instructed by Rickey not to try to stay at any Sanford hotels. He and his wife did not eat out at any restaurants not deemed “Negro restaurants." He did not even dress in the same locker room as his teammates.

As soon as the citizenry became aware of Robinson's presence, the mayor of Sanford was confronted by a "large group of white residents" who "demanded that Robinson...be run out of town."

On March 5, 1946, the Royals were informed that they would not be permitted to take the field as an integrated group. Rickey was concerned for Robinson’s life and sent him to stay in Daytona Beach. His daughter, Sharon Robinson, remembered being told, "The Robinsons were run out of Sanford, Florida, with threats of violence."

Also too, the Rosewood massacre, along with countless other examples of white on black violence in Florida.

Let's just say that Florida has a long history of racial violence. And it's more than willing to execute people. It's just unusually forgiving of white people who kill black people.

.

"It's an international race to the bottom", by @DavidOAtkins

noreply@blogger.com (thereisnospoon) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 22:28:56 +0000

"It's an international race to the bottom"

by David Atkins

Thomas Frank has an interesting little interview with legendary S&L loan regulator Bill Black in Salon:

It is even more infuriating to realize that the correct answers to the test have been available to Professor Obama all along. Back in September of 2008, when the financial crisis was gathering speed, I was writing a column for the Wall Street Journal; in my efforts to comprehend the disaster, I learned that the nation’s foremost authority on the type of fraud that had wrecked the economy was a former S&L regulator named Bill Black. I went on to ask Bill Black’s opinion probably dozens of times; as the years passed and the crisis deepened, Bill Black went on to be quoted by just about everyone and to become probably the most famous former S&L regulator in the world. His doctrine of “control fraud” is today familiar to anyone trying to understand what went wrong in 2008.

Another group that sought out my friend Bill Black during the crisis year was the Obama campaign. For them he narrated a twelve-minute campaign video, describing at length the involvement of Republican candidate John McCain in the Keating Five scandal, and faulting McCain for choosing a zealous deregulator as his chief economic adviser—“he’s picked the worst possible source of advice.” (You can watch the video here.)

When Obama won the presidency, I assumed that Bill Black would soon be moving to Washington to usher prominent bankers through their perp walks. That’s what opportunity and meritocracy meant, after all. You bring in the guy who understands the problem.

Of course it never happened. His phone never rang. There was no ladder of opportunity for him or anyone like him, precisely because they represented accountability. And Barack Obama, champion of meritocracy, went on instead to pick the second-worst-possible source of advice.

When I ask Bill Black now what these last few years tell us about fairness and meritocracy, he refers me to Gresham’s law. “If you gain a competitive advantage by cheating,” he says, “then you won’t get a meritocracy, you’ll get a system where cheaters prosper and bad ethics drive good ethics out of the market.” Is that what kept him out of Washington, I ask? Yes, in part. It’s “the international race to the bottom, which the administration has largely adopted. ‘We can’t crack down [on the banks, the administration thinks,] they’ll all move to the City of London. We need to have the JOBS bill,’ a godsend to fraudsters, ‘because too many IPOs are being done in China instead of the United States.’ ”

“People like me were moved out long ago,” Black concludes. To a government “trying to signal continuity and friendliness to the banks,” his presence would have been, he supposes, more than a little discordant.

This is a crucial point to understand. But in fairness the Obama Administration isn't the only one to think this way. No less a progressive thinker than Thomas Piketty agrees, which is why he advocates nothing less than global wealth taxes in order to prevent capital mobility.

Every country out there is terrified that if they crack down on their own banksters, the vulture finance parasites will punish that by moving the capital out of their neck of the globe. There may be some truth to that.

The nations of the world need to realize that it's better to work together than apart, and that every government worldwide is threatened by the same group of jet setting plutocrats holding all of us hostage. Placing international regulations on global capital and making pariah states out of those who harbor plutocratic money will ultimately be absolutely necessary as the human race progresses.

.

Obamacare officially hits 5 million enrollees

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:53:49 +0000

Obamacare enrollments have reached the 5 million mark, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. A press release from HHS profiles a couple of the new enrollees.

Fernando Valdez, 25, of El Paso, New Mexico woke up early on Saturday, after his mother insisted that he walk to an enrollment center and enroll in Marketplace coverage. Now, he will pay $22 a month for his health insurance. Fernando said that he walked away knowing that if “I get into an accident I will not be in trouble with trying to find health care." Read more about Fernando’s story at: http://www.elpasotimes.com/....
And Denise Schroeder says she now feels like “I have a whole new life” after enrolling in coverage in recent days. Denise, a small business owner in West Chester, Pennsylvania who runs “Happy Heart Clown N'Stuff” which does balloon decorating and entertainment for parties is also a cancer survivor. Because she had cancer, Denise knew she couldn’t let her health coverage lapse, but the $880 premium she was paying each month wiped out her savings account, and she said it was killing her. But after working with an enrollment navigator, she enrolled on Thursday in a Silver Plan for $22 a month. When she saw the new premium, she cried.

Just last week the White House had announced 4.2 million sign-ups through February, not counting Medicaid enrollments, which means the pace has picked up in the last two weeks. The pace of enrollments is likely to continue over the next two weeks, meaning the administration's goal of six million enrollees is likely to be reached.

Election Diary Rescue 2014: Week 10

rss@dailykos.com (Election Diary Rescue) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:50:14 +0000

The following diaries are examples of this week's Election Diary Rescue. This post features a collection of 39 diaries.

(NC-Sen) NC-Sen: PPP Has Tillis (R) & Brannon (R) Tied In The GOP Primary, Hagan (D) Back In The Lead by poopdogcomedy - The latest PPP poll for North Carolina's US Senate race shows support for Republican frontrunner Thom Tillis' falling. A month ago Tillis led Greg Brannon 20/13. They are now tied for the Republican nomination with 14 percent, followed by Heather Grant with 11 percent, with several other candidates polling in the single digits. The bad news is that Sen. Kay Hagan (D) fails to win a majority in any potential November matchup, coming out in a dead heat with each of the challengers tested.

(NH-01) An Analysis of the Results of Tuesday's Special Election in Northern New Hampshire, with maps! by ProudNewEnglander - Diarist offers detailed analysis of the special election race between Joseph Kenney (R) and Mike Cryans (D) for the seat vacated by the death last November of moderate Republican Raymond Burton. Kenney won.

(CT-Gov) CT-Gov Boucher out, Newtown Truther in by DisNoir36 - Two developments in the already crowded Republican primary for governor of Connecticut. Martha Dean, the newest entry, has run two losing campaigns for State Attorney General (2002 and 2010). But she is best known for posting a video on her Facebook page which claimed that the shooting at Sandy Hook was faked so government officials could confiscate guns. Meanwhile State Sen. Toni Bucher has ruled out a run, deciding instead to campaign for re-election.

Help Oregon Win GMO Labeling by delillo2000 - The State of Oregon is currently in an excellent position to become the first state in the country to pass a GMO Right-to-Know Labeling initiative by popular referendum WITHOUT a trigger clause. The state has a Democratic Governor, John Kitzhaber, and a strongly liberal Senator, Jeff Merkley, both up for reelection in November.

This is the 10th weekly edition of Election Diary Rescue. It covers rescued down-ticket election diaries published from Sunday 3/9/14 through Saturday 3/15/14. We hope you enjoy the following gems dug up by our dedicated team of miners.

Diaries: (39)
Senate: (10) posts (6) states
House: (14) posts (11) states (12) districts
State and more: (9)
Ballot Initiatives: (1)
General: (5)

Huckleberry and Benghazi!™

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:30:02 +0000

Huckleberry and Benghazi!™

by digby

For those who have been puzzled by the right's obsession with Benghazi!™ this ad should clear it all up:

This is a traditional Republican appeal to patriotism. It's been subdued for a few years because of the Iraq disaster but it always comes back. It's a huge part of the GOP's sales pitch and extremely important for a large part of their Southern base.

Fox hasn't been pimping the Benghazi!™ story for no reason. The word has been repeated so often that it's now just a brand name, like "Whitewater" --- or "Obamacare." The details don't really matter --- just saying it in front of a GOP crowd is guaranteed to evoke a hostile response in the audience. Graham is going to use it in his Senate race and the GOP candidate for president will most certainly use it against Hillary Clinton in 2016. They need to have something to hang their patriot flag on and I'd guess Roger Ailes thought it would be smart to ensure that Clinton could be personally smothered in it.

Whether this will actually help them win in the near term is another question. But they're going to be banking on making something of the fact that a woman can't have a big swinging foreign policy and I suppose this is one way to do that. That Huckleberry Graham is deploying it is a delicious irony.

.

Support for marriage equality rising, but stalled out among white evangelicals

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:23:20 +0000

President Barack Obama famously said he was "evolving" in the years leading up to his eventual support for marriage equality. New numbers from the Pew Research Center show that several groups of Christians are, like the president, evolving. Bringing up the rear, though, in absolute level of support and speed of evolution are white evangelicals, a group with just 23 percent support for equality, a number that held steady over the past year. By contrast:

The sharpest change has occurred among black Protestants, only 32% of whom favored same-sex marriage in our aggregated 2013 polling. A survey we conducted last month found that figure has now risen to 43%.
There also has been an uptick in support for same-sex marriage among white mainline Protestants (from 55% in 2013 to 62% this year). [...]

Although the changes among Catholics in the past year have not been statistically significant, support for same-sex marriage has increased among that group over the past several years. Roughly six-in-ten U.S. Catholics (59%) now favor same-sex marriage.

As the swift rise in support among black Protestants shows, things can change in a hurry. But white evangelicals aren't just lagging, they're falling further behind. It's already clear how history will judge this issue; time for the laggards to catch up.

Three Democrats seek audience with Eric Holder over FBI's making mortgage fraud a low priority

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:18:00 +0000

Working for us. Again

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Rep. Maxine Waters of California, all Democrats, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Monday expressing their "deep concern" about an investigative report released last week that concluded the FBI placed mortgage fraud as its lowest priority for criminal investigations. The report by Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice also found that much of the data collected regarding mortgage fraud prosecutions was not accurate. Diane Olick reported Thursday:

One glaring example of inaccurate reporting was cited by the OIG. Specifically, it says, the Justice Department inflated the number of criminal defendants by five-fold during an October 2012 highly publicized press conference. The event was held to tout the success of the Distressed Homeowners Initiative, a mortgage fraud program involving the Justice Department and the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. It took a year for the Justice Department to correct the mistake.

It's not exactly the first time anyone has called into question the lack of criminal prosecutions of mortgage fraud, but this is the highest-placed source of such an accusation so far. A DOJ spokeswoman implied the OIG report was misleading and said prosecutions for mortgage fraud had doubled under the Obama administration and convictions had risen by 100 percent. The DOJ itself has called mortgage fraud investigations a high priority, and the FBI was allocated $196 million to investigate such activities from 2009 through 2011. But the OIG report found that in the FBI offices it checked in the giant real estate markets of Los Angeles, Miami and New York City, mortgage fraud was a low priority or none at all.

Read more about the OIG report below the fold.

FreedomWorks announces new list of preferred Freedom Morons

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:56:02 +0000

Louie Gohmert is a FreedomWorks "champion," which is all you need to know.

America's biggest astroturfers look to make their mark: FreedomWorks PAC (The Tea Party Was A Totally Spontaneous Uprising of Not-Bigoted White Folks Who Suddenly Discovered Taxes (TM)) is out with their newest listing of preferred arsonists and morons.

The list, shared first with POLITICO, names a dozen Republican lawmakers, including: Sens. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Jim Risch of Idaho; and Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Matt Salmon of Arizona, Tom Graves of Georgia, Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, and Ron DeSantis and Ted Yoho of Florida.

So we've got America's Dumbest Congressman, we've got the Argentinian mistress guy, and a laundry list of other people who shouldn't be trusted with big people scissors, much less a government. Sounds about right, though I have to wonder how you even narrow these things down. Not every incumbent is getting a thumbs-up, though:

The organization has also endorsed several challengers, including Matt Bevin, who is vying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Well, sure. Whatever his conservative merits might be, Mitch McConnell is in a position of actual power and has been known, on occasion, to not want to run the entire federal government into the ground on any given Tuesday so that Ted Cruz can give a speech about it. FreedomWorks likes their politicians dumber and considerably more pliable. And no, I'm not joking on that one.

Read more about the FreedomWorks PAC list below the fold.

Hoops and health insurance

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:39:42 +0000

If you don't already have health insurance, you have two weeks to get it under Obamacare. The White House is hoping that some star power from the likes of LeBron James, Magic Johnson, and Alonzo Mourning will help get the message across in a series of ads that will be running during March Madness.

They've also decided to have some fun with the hoops hoopla to highlight the benefits of the law.

Seeking to reach young people who will be watching a lot of tournament basketball in the next three weeks, the Obama administration Monday unveiled its own "Sweet 16" reasons to sign up for health care.
The reasons are paired off in a tournament bracket, with users invited to vote on their favorites.

One match-up pits "women can't be charged more than men" against "because accidents happen."

Another is "birth control is free" against "insurance companies can't discriminate."

The White House bracket site even provides the obligatory cat gifs. But, despite the cats and the major cheese factor in that video up there, it's actually pretty informative, touching on all those things that people who are uninsured are most confused about and need to know.

The February Kaiser Health Tracking poll found that fully 50 percent of the uninsured say they don’t know enough about the law to understand how it will impact their own families. Just about two-thirds say they know only a little (37 percent) or nothing at all (26 percent) about the exchanges, and only a quarter (24 percent) are aware that the deadline to sign up for coverage is the end of this month. Let's hope they're all big hoops fans.

Midday open thread: Palin to channel herself on TV, House stenographer says she didn't lose it

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:00:15 +0000

Today's comic by Tom Tomorrow is The woman who took birth control:
Here's what you missed on Sunday:

An avalanche of spin, but few tea leaves, in the Florida 13th, by Steve Singiser.
Vergara v. California: The most dangerous lawsuit you probably haven't heard of, by Dante Atkins.

Republicans force black, brown, female and poor to pay an opportunity premium, by Egberto Willies.

Here's a way to volunteer right now that both helps people and has a political impact, by Ian Reifowitz.

The damnation of the happy slave, by Hunter.

The sleazy auto dealers war on the free market, with an assist from Chris Christie, by Kos.

Kentucky showcases Paul Ryan's wrong-way war on poverty, by Jon Perr.

Women's history: The abolitionists, by Denise Oliver Velez.
Oopsy. The New York Times ran a correction to its story about Mayor Bill de Blasio's perceived slighting of the Irish community:
An earlier version of this article misquoted a comment from Malachy McCourt on St. Patrick. Mr. McCourt said, “My attitude is, St. Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland and they all came here and they became conservatives.” He did not say St. Patrick banished the slaves from Ireland.
Hedge power?
Plants have many valuable functions: They provide food and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, a team of MIT researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance their energy production and give them completely new functions, such as monitoring environmental pollutants.
In a new Nature Materials paper, the researchers report boosting plants' ability to capture light energy by 30 percent by embedding carbon nanotubes in the chloroplast, the plant organelle where photosynthesis takes place. Using another type of carbon nanotube, they also modified plants to detect the gas nitric oxide.
"Think of it as the video version of her Facebook page". Sarah Palin is launching her own channel, tentatively called "Rogue TV." It will feature the former governor of Alaska commenting on current events and political issues of the day:
The channel will be available through Tapp, the digital video service founded by former CNN chief Jon Klein and former NBC Universal entertainment executive Jeff Gaspin. Subscriptions will cost $10 per month.
Sunday talk shows full of unaccustomed "I don't knows": The disappearande of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 has generated enormous amounts of speculation, sourced and unsourced. But guests on many Sunday news shows, where speculation about everything is usually rife, had nothing much to add this weekend.
Meanwhile. former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte showed what happened if you took the other tack and answered every question with “I don’t know.” State of the Union host Candy Crowley kept throwing out theories, and Negroponte kept shrugging, as if to say, you can believe that if you want, or its opposite, or anything in between, there will just be no facts to back you up. If it were up to me, Negroponte would be on every Sunday show, shrugging after every comment, and saying, “That’s pretty wild.”
Hateful hubbub arises over haboob. The word, from the Arabic for "strong wind," and, in particular, a dust storm in North Africa or the Arabian peninsula, has been used by meteorologists to describe such storms in the United States since the 1950s. But after KCBD News Channel 11 in Lubbock, Texas, posted a photo on its Facebook page with the caption “Haboob headed toward Lubbock,” some Texans went crazy:
“Since when do we need to apply a Muslim vocabulary to a good ole AMERICAN dirt storm?? ...I take great offense to such terminology! GO BACK TO CALLING THEM DIRT STORMS!!”
“It’s called a dust storm..Texas is not a rag head country.”

“Never had a haboob until we got that Muslim boob for POTUS.” [...]

If only these people realized how many other Arabic-based words are part of our daily lexicon. Take, for example, the word “alcohol,” which is probably what many of them were consuming before posting on Facebook. There’s also words like algebra, coffee, safari, and almanac, to name just a few.
Former House stenographer says she didn't lose it last year when she interrupted the proceedings:
"I got up, and I do remember walking to the dais and speaking, and standing at the podium where the president speaks as God would have it, but I did not lose my mind. I did not have a breakdown."
She said she knew well in advance “God was going to speak through me” during an important vote.
On today's Kagro in the Morning show: Yet. Another. Snow day. Greg Dworkin helps round up Crimea & Malaysia, 2014/16 outlooks, and economy & healthcare polls. Forbes column says Obamacare is working & its opponents are wrong. Gun news roundup. Amazon's wage theft.

St Patricks Day

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:00:03 +0000

St Patricks Day

by digby

... is fun what with all the green beer and the corned beef. But I remember being at an Irish pub one year many moons ago when everyone in the whole place cried when this song came on:

This may seem like ancient history now. But it really isn't.

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California hits huge Obamacare landmark

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:55:52 +0000

California has absolutely blown through its goal for enrollments in Obamacare.

Covered California hit a milestone late Friday of one million people signed up for coverage in the state’s new health benefits exchange.
By the end of Saturday, the figure was up to 1,018,315 people who have applied for coverage and selected a health plan. […]

"This is a historic threshold for our exchange, for the state of California and for the nation," Peter Lee, executive director at Covered California, said in a news release. "It speaks to the immense need for the Affordable Care Act and the millions of people who have been waiting for affordable coverage."

The state had originally set a goal of 696,000 enrollments and the CBO estimated it would have 800,000 new enrollees. So, yeah, California is definitely overachieving. But they're still pushing, focusing on outreach to Latinos and young people in the final two weeks of enrollment.

Ex-governor and ex-con Edwin Edwards is actually going to run for Congress

rss@dailykos.com (David Nir) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:41:07 +0000

Edwin Edwards (D) announces his bid for Congress, with his wife, Trina Scott, at his side

After playing games for months, former governor, ex-con, and D-list reality TV show star Edwin Edwards has decided to run for Congress—at the age of 86:

"I acknowledge there are good reasons I should not run. But there are better reasons why I should," Edwards said.
The 86-year-old Silver Fox, known for his memorable, often shocking quotes and the nearly nine years spent behind bars on extortion, fraud and racketeering charges, made the announcement at a meeting of the Press Club of Baton Rouge on Monday (March 17).

Among the many "good reasons" Edwards would have for not running is the fact that Louisiana's 6th Congressional District—open because GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy is running for Senate—is almost implacably Republican. State lawmakers redrew the lines a few years ago to make the seat much redder, and it obliged by going 66-32 for Mitt Romney. Edwards, a Democrat, is almost the definition of a larger-than-life figure, but even though he always retained a strong measure of popularity in spite of (or perhaps a little bit because of) his law-breaking ways, he'll be hard-pressed to overcome this district's demographics.

Still, Republicans haven't exactly assembled a very impressive field to replace Cassidy, and there are few political figures as unpredictable as Edwards. For now, though, we're maintaining our rating of Safe Republican for this race, but at the very least, Edwards is always entertaining. This contest probably will be, too.

Wyoming's Troy Mader wrote self-published book promoting AIDS conspiracy theories

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:11:17 +0000

Yikes.

He was young then, and stupid. Now he's just a lot older and stupid:

Wyoming’s newest legislator stands by a book he wrote nearly 30 years ago that claims many gay people demand the right to have sex with children and people with AIDS should be quarantined if they continue having sex.
The book is called “The Death Sentence of AIDS: Vital Information For You and Your Family’s Health and Safety.” It was self-published by T.R. Mader, who at the Wyoming Legislature goes by the name Rep. Troy Mader, R-Gillette.

It was mostly a compilation of news and opinion pieces on the subject, some of them Insane, with the author's own commentary apparently leaning towards the Insane side. Among the claims were that gay Americans with HIV were seeking to purposely infect straight Americans and that gay Americans were likely to have sex with an "average" of over 1,000 sex partners.

Mader still stands by the book, because hey-he-was-just-quoting-the-experts.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” he said. “That’s what the experts recommended at the time. I will say this: I haven’t seen anything to refute their statements at the time. Again, that was 30 years ago. I have researched a lot of issues over the years. I am not up to speed on all the issues the experts said back then.”

And it sounds like he's a real character. He even has gay friends, he says.

“I don’t preach to them,” he said. “They know where I stand. I know where they stand. We get along great.”

So if you were wondering, that's where the current crop of Republican nuts come from. They're the same crop of Republican nuts that were nuts way back during the Reagan years, but now they've aged 30 years and so have three decades of being wrong about things tucked away under their belts.

President Obama imposes 'most comprehensive' sanctions on Russia since the Cold War ended

rss@dailykos.com (Meteor Blades) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:05:41 +0000

President Obama announced promised sanctions Monday.

President Barack Obama announced an executive order imposing sanctions Monday against seven Russian and four Ukrainian officials that the administration blames for the Russian Federation's military actions in Ukraine and separatist activity there. The sanctions do not include Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sanctioning a head of state would be highly unusual, a senior White House official said. You can read a transcript of the president's announcement here.

Peter Baker reported:

“These are by far the most comprehensive sanctions applied to Russia since the end of the Cold War—far and away so,” said one of the officials, who under the ground rules of the briefing was not permitted to be identified.

The sanctions freeze the personal assets that any of the 11 have in the United States and bars granting visas for their travel to the States.

The action came a day after Crimeans voted under military occupation in a referendum with Stalinesque results: A 75 percent turnout with 96.8 percent favoring becoming part of the Russian Federation, officials said. Both questions on the referendum amounted to the same thing. At least one group, the Crimean Tatars—who now make up perhaps as much as 20 percent of the Crimean population since their repatriation after decades of exile under Stalin's orders—had called for a boycott of the referendum. Polls in 2011 showed 33 percent of Crimeans of all ethnic backgrounds in support of joining the federation, and another showed that figure had dropped to 23 percent in 2013.

More on Obama's new sanctions on Russia below the fold.

Democrats doomed! Or a class in punditry fail

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:02:53 +0000

It's okay to run this ad, but only if you're a Republican.

Just spare me this kind of ridiculous, false equivalency punditry.

[T]he Democrats' anti-Koch strategy is risky.
The brothers are not a familiar presence to many voters, making it hard to demonize them. Moreover, as Democrats have embraced the new era of big-money donations and super PACs in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, they, too, are growing more reliant on ideological billionaires such as Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund executive who plans to target Republicans over climate change.

While many Democratic operatives say they think the anti-Koch attacks will help mobilize the liberal base, several also said that Democrats must tread carefully.

"If voters see it as an overwhelmingly negative campaign, it'll effectively turn people off and keep them from voting," said Jerry Rephan, a Democratic Party county chairman in Arkansas.

Okay, there's one Democrat. Where are the several others? We've got quotes from "Republicans," a spokesman for Koch, more "several prominent Republicans," and Mitch McConnell. Maybe they're honorary Democrats for the purposes of dooming.

Beyond that, we're told an overwhelmingly negative campaign, being run from the right, is effective because it mobilizes the base. A negative campaign run by Democrats to point out that a couple of billionaires are trying to buy the Senate—while mobilizing the base—is dangerous.

And the Koch brothers spending millions on telling false "horror" stories about Obamacare is exactly the same as a rich Democrat putting money behind the very real threat of climate change.

It's bad enough that four years into the takeover of the Republican Party by the tea party, pundits are still trying to say that the nihilists are the equivalent of a party that's actually trying to make this government work. But why oh why are there any Democrats still reinforcing that false narrative? Seriously, people, is it that important to get your name in the paper? Snap out of it!

CNN asks whether maybe God stole Flight 370

rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:56:54 +0000

ALIENS

It would be irresponsible not to speculate:

CNN anchor Don Lemon and Decoded host Brad Meltzer bandied about the idea Sunday afternoon that something “beyond our understanding” happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370, that “something” being perhaps supernatural maybe?
“Especially today, on a day when we deal with the supernatural,” Lemon said. “We go to church, the supernatural power of God…people are saying to me, why aren’t you talking about the possibility — and I’m just putting it out there — that something odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding?”

Sure why not, The News. Why the heck not.

Christie's final nail

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:44:50 +0000

Christie's final nail

by digby

This, from Lee Fang, should put him away:

Christie had just won his first statewide election with the help of Paul Singer, the hedge fund manager who chairs the Manhattan Institute. The month before Christie’s election victory in November 2009, Singer had given $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA), which aired a barrage of advertisements in Christie’s favor.

In that campaign, among Christie’s lines of attack against incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine was that he had mismanaged the state pension system and had unethically invested retiree money on Wall Street. “Jon Corzine made it easier for his friends from Wall Street to manage New Jersey’s pension fund,” blasted a “Christie for Governor” press release.

But once he was elected, Governor Christie moved to award big pension management contracts to the Wall Street donors who have helped boost his political fortunes. In his second year in office, Christie’s administration proposed giving Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Associates, a contract to manage $200 million in state public pension funds. Elliott Associates won the contract in 2012. Singer again demonstrated his political loyalty to Christie in December 2013, shortly after Christie became chair of the RGA, a coveted post for GOP presidential aspirants. This time, Singer gave the group $1.25 million, making him the largest contributor that year and significantly enlarging the RGA’s war chest under Christie.

Another hedge fund manager with close political ties to Christie, Daniel Loeb, has also won big contracts to manage state retiree money under the governor, The Nation has found.

I don't know why it didn't seem obvious to everyone that this guy was a pretty typical crooked, right wing jerk. He sure seemed like one to me, but maybe my instincts are honed in a different way than some. Still, this seems like it should finally put an end to his national ambitions. A thuggish "boss" type who used his office to punish political rivals and engaged in crooked dealings with a pension fund is right out of the movies. Even the Republicans would have a hard time selling that to the rubes.

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Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown embraces outside money in New Hampshire run

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:40:08 +0000

Scott Brown, then a Massachusetts Everyman, in his pickup truck. In Massachusetts.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has apparently learned his lesson about outside money in politics: He needs it. As a Massachusetts incumbent in 2012, he agreed to a "People's Pledge" with now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren to reduce outside expenditures on the race. As a New Hampshire challenger in 2014, he's declaring himself open for business in typically weaselly fashion. Responding to an offer by New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen to sign onto exactly the same pledge he signed in 2012:

Brown made clear he thought the offer was a stunt.
"It's hard to view Jeanne Shaheen's actions as anything other than hypocritical and self-serving,” he said in a statement. “The people of New Hampshire can see through the Washington-style game she is playing.”

Yes, the "Washington-style game" of doing exactly what Scott Brown did in Massachusetts in 2012. Brown's claim is that it's too late to sign the pledge because some outside groups have already spent money running "negative, untruthful ads against me." This is, frankly, excrement of the large farm animal of your choosing, be it horse or bull. As Shaheen's campaign points out, groups like the League of Conservation Voters had also spent money opposing Brown in Massachusetts in 2011 and early 2012, before he signed the pledge in that election. Yet he apparently didn't think that "the horse has kinda left the barn" back then. Additionally, while it's true that Democratic or progressive groups have spent $360,000 in New Hampshire in recent months, during the same time, groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads and the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity have been bombarding Shaheen with more than $1.5 million in attacks.

It's all too obvious that Brown knows that third-party spending is his only route back to the Senate. Hilariously, he's peppering his refusal to reject Koch money with self-righteousness not just about the lopsided outside spending that's already happened but about New Hampshire authenticity. He keeps insisting that Jeanne Shaheen is "Washington-style"—Scott Brown, a guy who's running for Senate for the third time in four years and from a second state—and highlighting Shaheen's travel outside of New Hampshire. Seriously, the former Massachusetts state and U.S. senator who sold his home in Massachusetts to move to New Hampshire, the state where he had a vacation house, is trying to out-New Hampshire a woman who has lived in New Hampshire since 1973 and served in the state Senate and as governor. The fact that she occasionally leaves the state doesn't make her less New Hampshire than Mr. Vacation House, any more than the outside money that's already been spent in this race is Brown's reason for rejecting the People's Pledge. No, he knows that lots and lots of Koch money is his only chance to win.

House Republicans have a 'vision' for health care, but no plan

rss@dailykos.com (Joan McCarter) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:04:23 +0000

A month ago House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) promised that Republican leadership was on the verge of releasing their comprehensive Obamacare replacement plan. That fell apart almost immediately and since then it's only become more apparent that they've got nothing. They can't get agreement on anything approaching systemic reform, so they're now calling their plan to vote on a bunch of ideas they've been warming over for the past decade a vision.

The plan includes an expansion of high-risk insurance pools, promotion of health savings accounts and inducements for small businesses to purchase coverage together.
The tenets of the plan—which could expand to include the ability to buy insurance across state lines, guaranteed renewability of policies and changes to medical-malpractice regulations—are ideas that various conservatives have for a long time backed as part of broader bills.

But this is the first time this year that House leaders will put their full force behind a single set of principles from those bills and present it as their vision.

Notice what's not included? There's nothing about that promise that they would maintain the stuff that people like in Obamacare, the stuff they said they would preserve. Chiefly, they'd scrap the ban on refusing insurance to people with preexisting conditions, and put them all into expensive, inefficient high-risk pools. They say they might back allowing people to stay on their parents' plans until they're 26, otherwise Obamacare and all the protections that come with it would be toast.

Not that it's going to work anyway, not even with House Republicans.

But some conservatives are wary of the push to have House Republicans sing as a unified chorus. At Wednesday’s Weyrich Lunch on Capitol Hill, a gathering of hard-right operatives named after the late conservative strategist Paul Weyrich, there was much skepticism about the leadership’s strategy, with conservatives urging their allies to be cautious.

All Republicans can really agree upon is repeal. Because taking affordable health insurance away from millions of people is their real vision.

Republican ladies' outreach specialist blatantly unprepared for equal pay question

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:27:43 +0000

"We believe Texas woman want and deserve equal pay," said RedState Women executive director Cari Christman on Sunday. But the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, she said, is not the answer. What is the equal pay solution?

"If you look at it, women are extremely busy," she said. "We lead busy lives, whether working professionally, whether working from home, and times are extremely busy. It's a busy cycle for women, and we've got a lot to juggle. So when we look at this issue we think, what's practical? And we want more access to jobs. We want to be able to get a higher education degree at the same time we're working or raising a family."

Christman isn't entirely wrong about the Ledbetter Act—it doesn't go far enough. But there's one very simple legislative answer for promoting equal pay, and it's called the Paycheck Fairness Act. It wouldn't be a magic bullet, but it would be a start. Republicans, of course, oppose it, which is why Christman couldn't include it in her answer, forcing her to babble nonsensically.

It would be great if higher education was more affordable and accessible, but with women earning more than half of college degrees these days, yet earning less right out of the gate, education is not the answer. And "more access to jobs?" Again, sure, women should have access to jobs. No argument there. But if in those jobs they are consistently paid less than men, that's not an equal pay answer either.

This is Republican outreach to women. A lot of words used to evade the fact that Republicans consistently oppose measures to reduce the pay gap. And seriously, the executive director of one of the GOP's new "let's reach out to women" initiatives was obviously taken by surprise by a question about equal pay and didn't have her talking points at the ready. Doesn't that tell you all you need to know about how prepared Republicans are to actually address this issue?

Heads in the sand

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:17:07 +0000

Heads in the sand

by digby

This seems to be an excellent illustration of how our current system is likely to kill us. It's a story about the sea levels rising in North Carolina and how the various people in charge are dealing with it:

There’s not much dispute these days, up and down the coast, about whether the ocean is rising. The question is: How high will it go here, and how fast?

North Carolinians must wait until 2016 for an official answer. That’s the law.

After promoters of coastal development attacked a science panel’s prediction that the sea would rise 39 inches higher in North Carolina by the end of this century, the General Assembly passed a law in 2012 to put a four-year moratorium on any state rules, plans or policies based on expected changes in the sea level. The law sets guidelines under which the Coastal Resources Commission, a development policy board for the 20 coastal counties, will formulate a new sea-level prediction to serve as the official basis for state planners and regulators.

The backlash fomented by a conservative coastal group called NC-20 prompted commission members in 2011, most of them Democratic appointees, to reject the 39-inch prediction from the panel of engineers and geologists, including Riggs, that has counseled the commission since the 1990s. A new documentary film, “ Shored Up,” shows anguished commission members imploring their science advisers to somehow “soften” the high-water warning.

Everything about that, from the greedheads, to the GOP ideologues to the impotent Democrats is a microcosm of the problems we face in dealing with ... well, everything. But climate change is the Big Kahuna, where the consequences will be truly catastrophic.

If we thought that we had gone beyond the time of irrationality and superstition, that humans had evolved to the point at which we could at least deal with the facts as we know them, we are quickly proving that this is just not so. I always thought the big mistake would be a nuclear disaster or war. (And that remains a possibility, obviously.) But I can see now that our technological capability has outstripped our reason in many other ways. We may just kill ourselves in slow motion instead.

h/t to TS

Republicans are angry about the poor getting food ... so, who are these people?

rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 15:05:08 +0000

Speaker John Boehner is angry that states are "cheating" (following the law) to prevent food stamp cuts.

As Republicans gnash their teeth over a series of states blocking the nutrition assistance cuts Republicans worked so hard to achieve, who exactly is benefiting from food stamps?

The annual report from the United States Department of Agriculture showed that about 45 percent of food stamp benefits went to children under 18, totaling about 20 million youngsters. Nine percent of recipients were age 60 or older, and nearly 10 percent were disabled adults who were under 60, according to the analysis of food stamp usage for the fiscal year that ended in September 2012.

So, yes, more than 60 percent were people we don't expect to be in the workforce. At least, not if we retain some basic humanity. And a substantial percentage—about four in ten—live in a household in which someone is working. Because working poverty is very definitely a thing.

There are some simple, effective ways to reduce Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending. Raise the minimum wage. Invest in jobs. But that's not The Republican Way. They'd rather cut the aid that keeps people fed without addressing the reasons they're hungry to begin with.

What Krugman said, by @DavidOAtkins

noreply@blogger.com (thereisnospoon) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:30:02 +0000

What Krugman said

by David Atkins

Part of what makes Krugman a joy to read is how sharply he can both clarify and eviscerate without resorting to the level of angry indignation that most progressive writers constantly express, myself included. Particularly on the subject of conservatives and race, it's hard to keep the arguments piercing but the passions cool.

This is Krugman at his best:

There are many negative things you can say about Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee and the G.O.P.’s de facto intellectual leader. But you have to admit that he’s a very articulate guy, an expert at sounding as if he knows what he’s talking about.

So it’s comical, in a way, to see Mr. Ryan trying to explain away some recent remarks in which he attributed persistent poverty to a “culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working.” He was, he says, simply being “inarticulate.” How could anyone suggest that it was a racial dog-whistle? Why, he even cited the work of serious scholars — people like Charles Murray, most famous for arguing that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. Oh, wait.

Just to be clear, there’s no evidence that Mr. Ryan is personally a racist, and his dog-whistle may not even have been deliberate. But it doesn’t matter. He said what he said because that’s the kind of thing conservatives say to each other all the time. And why do they say such things? Because American conservatism is still, after all these years, largely driven by claims that liberals are taking away your hard-earned money and giving it to Those People.

Indeed, race is the Rosetta Stone that makes sense of many otherwise incomprehensible aspects of U.S. politics.

We are told, for example, that conservatives are against big government and high spending. Yet even as Republican governors and state legislatures block the expansion of Medicaid, the G.O.P. angrily denounces modest cost-saving measures for Medicare. How can this contradiction be explained? Well, what do many Medicaid recipients look like — and I’m talking about the color of their skin, not the content of their character — and how does that compare with the typical Medicare beneficiary? Mystery solved.

Or we’re told that conservatives, the Tea Party in particular, oppose handouts because they believe in personal responsibility, in a society in which people must bear the consequences of their actions. Yet it’s hard to find angry Tea Party denunciations of huge Wall Street bailouts, of huge bonuses paid to executives who were saved from disaster by government backing and guarantees. Instead, all the movement’s passion, starting with Rick Santelli’s famous rant on CNBC, has been directed against any hint of financial relief for low-income borrowers. And what is it about these borrowers that makes them such targets of ire? You know the answer.

One odd consequence of our still-racialized politics is that conservatives are still, in effect, mobilizing against the bums on welfare even though both the bums and the welfare are long gone or never existed. Mr. Santelli’s fury was directed against mortgage relief that never actually happened. Right-wingers rage against tales of food stamp abuse that almost always turn out to be false or at least greatly exaggerated. And Mr. Ryan’s black-men-don’t-want-to-work theory of poverty is decades out of date.

I wish I could post the whole thing, so go read it. The second half of his argument lays out how even if there had been a shred of validity to conservative arguments about laziness and welfare back in the 1970s, the fraying of the middle class and the dismantling of the ladders of opportunity since then make conservative claims about the safety net ridiculous.

It's part of a thesis I've been laying out for some time: conservatives simply have no answers for the new plutocrat-controlled two-tier economy. They're stuck pretending it's the late 1970s forever, on both social and economic policy.

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Daily Kos Elections Illinois primary preview

rss@dailykos.com (Darth Jeff) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:00:15 +0000

Voters in Illinois go to the polls Tuesday to select candidates in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Polls will be open until 8 PM ET throughout the state. Our guide to the key races to watch is below.

• IL-Gov (R): Four Republicans are jockeying to take on vulnerable Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in November: wealthy businessman Bruce Rauner; state Sen. and 2010 candidate Kirk Dillard; state Sen. and 2010 nominee Bill Brady; and state treasurer Dan Rutherford. Rauner has poured his personal funds into the race and was helped when Rutherford's campaign imploded after the treasurer was accused of sexually harassing a former aide. Dillard and his allies are making a late push but it looks like it'll be too little too late, as polls give Rauner a dominant lead in the primary.

Please read below the fold for our preview of House races to watch.

Economics Daily Digest: The Pacific Standard for Bad Deals

rss@dailykos.com (Roosevelt Institute) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:29:16 +0000

By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal

Click here to receive the Daily Digest via email.

On the Wrong Side of Globalization (NYT)

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that trade deals like the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership create a race to the bottom for regulations, and exacerbate inequality.

The Great Corporate Cash-Hoarding Crisis (AJAM)

David Cay Johnston says that multinationals keeping their cash abroad instead of investing in their businesses or paying income taxes on it is what is keeping the U.S. from a real economic recovery.

10 Things Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Protection Agency Has Done for You (MoJo)

Erika Eichelberger lists the changes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already pushed through since its creation in 2011, which affect homeowners, student loan holders, and anyone with a credit card.

Capping Public Service Loan Forgiveness at $57.5K Defeats Its Purpose (HuffPo)

People who use the PSLF program are trying to do good for the country, and according to Tim Lowden, this proposed cap would create a disincentive to entering these absolutely vital careers.

Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap (NYT)

Two U.S. counties, separated by only 350 miles, have life expectancies that differ as much as Sweden and Iraq. Annie Lowrey reports on how inequality is affecting the length of people's lives.

Paul Ryan’s Worst Nightmare: Here’s the Real Way to Cut Poverty in America (Salon)

Michael Lind thinks planning to avert future poverty is great, but we could reduce poverty today with a simple solution: increased government spending in the form of generous welfare and social insurance programs.

The Cost of Kale: How Foodie Trends Can Hurt Low-Income Families (Bitch Magazine)

Flat wages and rising food costs are only exasperated by food gentrification and trends, says Soleil Ho. From 2007 to 2012, wages remained stagnant, while the cost of feeding a family increased 18 percent.

The Sunshine Years

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 01:00:06 +0000

The Sunshine Years

by digby

“This is the most transparent administration in history,” Obama said during a Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout. "I can document that this is the case,” he continued. “Every visitor that comes into the White House is now part of the public record. Every law we pass and every rule we implement we put online for everyone to see.” February 14, 2014.

As Paul Harvey used to say, and now we have the rest of the story:

The Obama administration more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

The administration cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy. Most agencies also took longer to answer records requests, the analysis found.

The government's own figures from 99 federal agencies covering six years show that half way through its second term, the administration has made few meaningful improvements in the way it releases records despite its promises from Day 1 to become the most transparent administration in history.

In category after category - except for reducing numbers of old requests and a slight increase in how often it waived copying fees - the government's efforts to be more open about its activities last year were their worst since President Barack Obama took office.

In a year of intense public interest over the National Security Agency's surveillance programs, the government cited national security to withhold information a record 8,496 times - a 57 percent increase over a year earlier and more than double Obama's first year, when it cited that reason 3,658 times. The Defense Department, including the NSA, and the CIA accounted for nearly all those. The Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency cited national security six times, the Environmental Protection Agency did twice and the National Park Service once.

And five years after Obama directed agencies to less frequently invoke a "deliberative process" exception to withhold materials describing decision-making behind the scenes, the government did it anyway, a record 81,752 times.

I suppose there are a couple of people out there who thought that when candidate Obama promised to have a transparent administration he just meant that he would put the rules he implemented online. But I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that most of his voters thought he was promising to reverse the paranoid secrecy and usurpation of the constitution during the Bush years by being accountable to the people. I think they were especially concerned about the tendency to cite national security as a reason to deny citizens access to information and due process.

That was a wrong assumption. But hey, we do have the White House visitor logs to pore over now, so that's something.

Read on ...

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Just a regular guy

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:30:02 +0000

Just a regular guy

by digby

Who are they talking about here?

...[H]is possessions are modest: three houses, one plane, no yachts. He wears loafers and khakis and V-neck sweaters. He often needs a haircut. His glasses haven't changed much in 40 years

Bill Gates. (What? No yachts????) To be fair, they did preface that with "given the scale of his wealth" but even so.

Here's the Seattle "house":

1. The mansion took seven years to build and cost $63M.

2. The swimming pool runs 60-feet-long and includes underwater music system. A locker room has four showers and two baths.

3. The home includes a 2,500 square-foot gym,

4. The dining room is 1,000 square-feet large. Chances are the apartment you're reading this inside isn't even 1,000 square-feet.

5. When a guest arrives, they are given a pin that interacts with sensors in each room in the house. Depending on their preferences, the temperature, music and lighting will change in the house wherever they are.

6. The home is also an "earth-sheltered house," meaning it uses its natural surroundings as walls for temperature and to reduce heat loss.

7. Bill Gates pays $1M a year...on taxes on the house.

8. The house has a trampoline room with a 20-foot ceiling. We're guessing there is a trampoline inside it, but, not confirmed.

9. Located somewhere inside the house is Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century notebook, the Codex Leicester, which Gates purchased for $30.8 million.

10. There are 84 steps down from the entrance to the ground floor. Of course you can always just take the elevator if you're lazy.

11. The 2,300 square-foot reception hall can seat 150 people for dinner or 200 for a cocktail party.

12. The house contains 24 bathrooms. Twenty-four. Including ten baths. That is a lot of bathrooms, you guys.

13. Speakers are hidden beneath the wallpaper and allow music to follow you from room to room, depending on where you go and who you are.

14. The home comes with a 23-car garage. Twenty-three people can drive to his house, get their own parking spot and then use their own bathroom WITH ONE TO SPARE!

15. Anyone in the house can "call up" a favorite painting or photograph on $80,000 worth of combination TV-computer screens that is run by several $150,000 computer-storage devices.

Hard to reconcile any of that with the word "modest."

Ok, here's 15 more:

1. The total assessed value of the estate in 2006 was $125M. In 2009, the value was $147.5M. The most expensive area home on the market at the time of this writing...$16.75M. Gates purchased the lot for $2M in 1988.

2. Early in construction of the house, an interior designer didn't like the layout of one section. Sixty cubic yards of concrete were demolished and redone.

3. It was important to Gates that a forty-year-old maple tree adjacent to the driveway was preserved. The tree is monitored electronically 24 hours per day via computer. If it becomes too dry, water is automatically pumped into it.

4. The 17-by-60-foot swimming pool comes with a fossil-motif on the floor and an underwater music system. A locker room includes four showers and two baths.

5. The 2,100 square-foot library includes two secret pivoting bookcases, one of which contains a bar.

6. A quote from The Great Gatsby is engraved on the ceiling of the library, "He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it."

7. The 1,500-square-foot, art deco theater contains twenty plush seats as well as couches. There's also a popcorn machine if you get hungry.

8. The 1-BR, 1-bath guesthouse is 1,900 square-feet was the first structure completed on the estate. Gates wrote most of his book The Road Ahead here.

9. Outside the home is an artificial stream and wetland estuary stocked with salmon and sea-run cutthroat trout.

10. Half a million board feet of lumber was used to build the estate.

11. 300 workers were needed to complete the home. One hundred of them were just electricians.

12. Want to tour the home? It will cost you $35,000. All of that money goes to charity, if that makes you feel better.

13. Every door handle in the house is custom-made and cost $200 each.

14. When the house hosted a party for the National Governors Association in 2004, a temporary security zone was placed around the entire estate, blocking access to large portions of Lake Washington.

15. The estate's sand on the lake bank is not natural to Lake Washington. It is actually delivered via barge annually from a tropical beach in St. Lucia.

Hey, as far as I know, at least he isn't agitating to do away with property taxes. For someone of his wealth that practically makes him a saint.

(That Gatsby quote though. Wow...)

QOTD: Bill Kristol

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 22:00:02 +0000

QOTD: Bill Kristol

by digby

On This Week:

I will defend the intelligence community against a bunch of senators and their staff. And I will defend the interrogation program!

I have to give him some credit for consistency. He really believes in torture. Always has. Here he is back in 2009 when the whole right wing went crazy over the release of the torture memos:

I think now that the door is open, I say "bring it on." Let's have a big national debate on this. Let's have Steve Bradbury confront his accusers, who are one tenth the lawyers he is, and we're not under the pressure he was under and not a real threat. Let's have George Tenet testify. Let's have Mick Hagen testify. Let's have a serious debate, let's have Dick Cheney take on anyone that the left wants to produce about whether we were responsible, whether it was a dark chapter in our history that we have to be ashamed of or whether the US government behaved in a very fine way and I think a very impressive way...

I think he speaks for a lot of people who believe that torture is a fine and impressive thing to do.

And, by the way, it's bad that the CIA was spying on congress and that should be investigated. But it's not as bad as torturing people. Just thought I should raise that small point.

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From the "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" files

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 20:00:00 +0000

From the "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" files

by digby

Matt Stoller dug up another blast from the past about our history of spying on congress.

First, here’s Abzug, who had received her CIA file the night before the hearing. It’s pretty obvious the CIA was fighting disclosures, and only gave her the file at the last minute because it simply had to. The file detailed extensive surveillance of her activities as a member of Congress and as a private attorney, including surveillance of her work when she represented entertainment figures during the House Un-American Activities Committee red-baiting episodes. It also showed violations of attorney-client privilege. Colby responds that CIA surveillance happened to her and three other members of Congress in ‘perfectly natural’ ways, namely because she was talking to foreigners who might be suspicious.

There's more at the link. You'll especially enjoy the part where the Mike Rogers of his day wonders if Freedom of Information requests could be a radical plot to cripple the agency and make America unsafe. (Mr Colby thought it might be ...)

What this means is that what we think of as "oversight" is largely a convenient construct and always has been. It's not useless, mind you. It provides some avenues for officials outside the White House and the agencies to have access to classified material. And you never know, at some point they might even find a way to tell the people. But the point is that from the very start of the surveillance state after WWII, the system has been closed and it has been abused and no amount of "oversight" has ever been enough to keep that from happening.

I don't know that any rules or laws will ever be adequate to that task. Social norms are actually probably more important in something like this (which is why it's so depressing to see so many people defending this stuff and condemning those who object.) In my opinion, as long as we are the world's policeman, the best we can probably hope for is constant pressure from the (mostly impotent) overseers, the legal system, and a free press, with the outcome being a constant growth and then restraint of the Deep State apparatus. If the constitution works, it should be possible to keep it mostly in check. But if any one of those pieces of restraining power breaks down, who knows what could happen?

ICYWW, Stoller's post was kicked off by this interview with Jason Leopold who is called a "FOIA terrorist" by some government agency because he files so many FOIA requests.

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Pouncing on Paul. Poor Congressman Ryan, he can't even dogwhistle without cats getting upset.

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:15:00 +0000

Pouncing on Paul

by digby

Poor boo-boo:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday addressed the controversy over Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) remarks about a "culture problem" in inner cities where men don't want to work.

When asked about Ryan's comments by the host of CNN's "State of the Union," Candy Crowley, Priebus did not directly address whether Ryan's comments were appropriate, but defended the congressman's efforts in general.

"Paul said he thought it was inarticulate, but quite frankly Democrats are lying in wait as well to pounce on whatever might be off tone," he said when asked about Ryan's claims.

You know, there's a lot of hair-trigger offense-taking that goes on in our political discourse these days so I might be sympathetic to his claim that people are lying in wait to attack if it weren't for the fact that there's even a name for the cold, calculating strategy that employs the very same "inarticulate" phrasing Ryan used. Unless Paul Ryan is even dumber than we think, he knew exactly what he was doing.

[W]hat of Ryan’s insistence he did not consider race whatsoever, or his later explanation that he had been “inarticulate” in his comments? Perhaps Ryan genuinely did not recognize the racial narrative embedded in his remarks about an inner city culture that devalues work. But at best, this suggests that Ryan has uncritically adopted the charged rhetoric of his party without understanding its racial undertones.

Less charitably, in weighing Ryan’s protestations of innocence, we should be clear that denying racial intent is par for the course in dog whistling. The whole point of speaking in coded terms is to transmit racial messages that can be defended as not about race at all. Today’s broadly shared anti-racist ethos condemns naked appeals to racial solidarity; those politicians who nevertheless seek to trade on racial provocations must do so in ways that maintain plausible deniability.

Another defense is to insist that Ryan is no bigot. Here’s one version, from Republican political strategist Ron Christie: “Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is not racist nor did he blow a ‘dog whistle’ to launch a thinly veiled racist attack against black people. I offer this from the perspective of someone who has known Paul for more than 20 years: there is not a racist bone in his body.” The fact that Christie is black no doubt lends credibility to his testimony.

But this retort misses the point. Dog whistling is not rooted in fiery hatred but rather in cool calculation—it’s the strategic, carefully considered decision to win votes by stirring racial fears in society. Suppose we stipulate that Ryan is no bigot. So what? The question is not one of animus on Ryan’s part, but of whether—as a tactical matter—he sought to garner support by indirectly stimulating racial passions.

Of course, an individual’s mindset in any particular instance is almost impossible to know. We cannot be certain what Ryan intended. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that Ryan employed rhetoric closely connected to a dismal history of Republican racial demagoguery.

No, there is no doubt. And there is also no doubt that he also has a history of being a standard issue right wing demagogue when speaking to right wing audiences and then trying to deny that he is one. At some point people in the beltway need to grapple with the fact that their lovely young "wonk" is actually not much different from Michele Bachmann. He's just smoother.

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11 years ago today

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 16:43:02 +0000

11 years ago today

by digby

... we were one day away from the invasion of Iraq. Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press. Here's a little bit of what he said that day:

MR. RUSSERT: How close are we to war?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think we are still in the final stages of diplomacy, obviously. That’s one of the main reasons for the president’s meeting today with the British and Spanish prime ministers in the Azores. But there’s no question but what we’re close to the end, if you will, of the diplomatic efforts. We have done virtually everything we can with respect to trying to organize a second resolution in the U.N. Security Council. And, clearly, the president is going to have to make a very, very difficult and important decision here in the next few days.
[...]
MR. RUSSERT: Many Americans and many people around the world are asking one question: Why is it acceptable for the United States to lead a military attack against a nation that has not attacked the United States? What’s your answer?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Tim, we have, I think admittedly, a new and unique set of circumstances we’re trying to deal with here. If you think back to the way we were organized in the last century, the 20th century, to deal with threats to the United States, or to our friends and allies, we had to deal with large states, significant military forces, intercontinental ballistic missiles, the kinds of threats we dealt with throughout the period of the Cold War, all of that changed on September 11 of a year and a half ago. Since that time, we’ve had to deal with the proposition that truly deadly weapons could be delivered to the United States by a handful of terrorists. We saw on 9/11 19 men hijack aircraft with airline tickets and box cutters, kill 3,000 Americans in a couple of hours. That attack would pale into insignificance compared to what could happen, for example, if they had a nuclear weapon and detonated it in the middle of one of our cities, or if they had unleashed weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons of some kind, smallpox or anthrax, on a major attack on the United States. That’s a whole different proposition for us to think about, how we deal with that.

And at the front of our concerns as we try the deal with these issues is the proposition that the al-Qaeda organization is absolutely determined to do everything they can to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. We found ample evidence of that in the camps and the tunnels and the caves in Afghanistan. We see evidence of it in the interrogations that we have been able to do now on many of the al-Qaeda members that have been captured. We know that they have done everything they could to acquire those capabilities over the years, and we also are confident that if they ever do acquire that kind of capability, there’s no doubt they’ll use it. There’s absolutely nothing to restrain them from doing that.

If you look back at our strategies that we used in the 20th century, specifically, say vis-a-vis the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we had a policy of containment, alliances, NATO in particular very successful at containing the Soviet Union, a policy of deterrence we could hold at risk, those things that they valued with our ballistic missiles and we were able to forestall a conflict throughout that whole period of time; enormously successful policy.

Then you look at the proposition of a handful of terrorists operating in a part of the world where they find sanctuary and safe haven in a rogue state or in an area that’s not even really governed by anybody, developing these capabilities to use against the United States. And how do you apply containment to that situation? How do you deter a terrorist when there’s nothing they value that they’re prepared to defend, when they’re prepared even to sacrifice their own lives in the effort to kill Americans and there’s no piece of real estate that they value highly enough so that a concept of deterrence works.

We have to think new thoughts about how we deal with that threat, and so when we look at the kind of strategy we want to pursue, we do a number of things. We, obviously, want to defend the homeland, so we spend an enormous amount of time and effort trying to make it a tougher target, but we know defense isn’t enough. You’ve got to have good offense, and we’ve gone aggressively after the terrorists wherever we can find them. We worked the financial circuits and the intelligence and law enforcement efforts. We’ve had great success there recently; Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others.

But we also have to address the question of where might these terrorists acquire weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons? And Saddam Hussein becomes a prime suspect in that regard because of his past track record and because we know he has, in fact, developed these kinds of capabilities, chemical and biological weapons. We know he’s used chemical weapons. We know he’s reconstituted these programs since the Gulf War. We know he’s out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization.

Now, if we simply sit back and operate by 20th century standards with respect to national security strategy, in terms of how we’re going to deal with this, we say wait until we are hit by an identifiable attack from Iraq, the consequences could be devastating for the United States. We have to be prepared to prevent that from happening. I have argued in the past, and would again, if we had been able to pre-empt the attacks of 9/11 would we have done it? And I think absolutely. I think the American people would have supported it. We have to be prepared now to take the kind of bold action that’s being contemplated with respect to Iraq in order to ensure that we don’t get hit with a devastating attack when the terrorists’ organization gets married up with a rogue state that’s willing to provide it with the kinds of deadly capabilities that Saddam Hussein has developed and used over the years.
[...]
MR. RUSSERT: The Los Angeles Times wrote an editorial about the administration and its rationale for war. And let me read it to you and give you a chance to respond: “The Bush administration’s months of attempts to justify quick military action against Iraq have been confusing and unfocused. It kept giving different reasons for invasion. First, it was to disarm Hussein and get him out. Then, as allies got nervous about outside nations deciding ‘regime change,’ the administration for a while rightly stressed disarmament only. Next, the administration was talking about ‘nation-building’ and using Iraq as the cornerstone of creating democracy in the Arab/Muslim world. And that would probably mean U.S. occupation of Iraq for some unspecified time, at open-ended cost. Then, another tactic: The administration tried mightily, and failed, to show a connection between Hussein and the 9/11 perpetrators, Al Qaeda. Had there been real evidence that Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, Americans would have lined up in support of retaliation.”

What do you think is the most important rationale for going to war with Iraq?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think I’ve just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons.

MR. RUSSERT: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program, we disagree?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree, yes. And you’ll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community disagree. Let’s talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We’ve got, again, a long record here. It’s not as though this is a fresh issue. In the late ’70s, Saddam Hussein acquired nuclear reactors from the French. 1981, the Israelis took out the Osirak reactor and stopped his nuclear weapons development at the time. Throughout the ’80s, he mounted a new effort. I was told when I was defense secretary before the Gulf War that he was eight to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon. And we found out after the Gulf War that he was within one or two years of having a nuclear weapon because he had a massive effort under way that involved four or five different technologies for enriching uranium to produce fissile material.

We know that based on intelligence that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He’s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq’s concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past.

And when you hear people beating the drums for war, and talking about American "weakness" think of this:

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back with the vice president. Front page in The New York Times: “Anger On Iraq Seen As New Al-Qaeda Recruiting Tool.” The Arab street will rise up, recruit more people. The president has embraced a new road map of the Middle East. Some say that was a political calculation to help with the war in Iraq. What will happen in the Arab street? And will more young Arabs, Muslims sign up to attack the United States?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can’t predict that, Tim. It’s possible. There’s another point of view, though, that I think is very valid here, important not to lose sight of, and to some extent the United States has established over the last several years, going back at least to the ’80’s, an unfortunate practice that we’ve often failed to respond effectively to attacks on the United States. And I think the impression has grown in that part of the world—I think Osama bin Laden believes this and I think Saddam Hussein did, at least up until 9/11—that they could strike the U.S. with impunity, and we had situations in ’83 when the Marine barracks was blown up in Beirut. There was no effective U.S. response. In ’93 the World Trade Center in New York hit; no effective response. In ’96, Khobar Towers, in ’98 the east Africa embassy bombings, in 2000, the USS Cole was hit, and each time there was almost no credible response from the United States to those attacks.

Everything changed on 9/11 when we got hit here at home and we had a different president in place, who was bound and determined to go forward. And I firmly believe, along with, you know, men like Bernard Lewis, who’s one of the great, I think, students of that part of the world, that strong, firm U.S. response to terror and to threats to the United States would go a long way, frankly, towards calming things in that part of the world. People who are moderate, people who want to believe in the United States, and want to support us will be willing to stand up because the United States is going to stand with them and not pull back and disappear when the going gets tough.

One of the keys, for example, with respect to Iraq is our friends in the region have been willing to step up now and be supportive of what we need to do from a military standpoint because they believe this president will do exactly what he says he will do. They don’t want to stand up and stick their necks out if the U.S. is then going to fade as we have so often in the past, so...

MR. RUSSERT: But a lot of countries, Mr. Vice President, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the neighbors of Saddam, other than Kuwait, are not supportive.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think we will find, Tim, that if in fact we have to do this with military force that there will be sighs of relief in many quarters in the Middle East that the United States finally followed through and deal effectively with what they all perceive to be a major threat, but they’re all reluctant to stand up if Saddam’s still in power and if there’s a possibility he will survive once again to threaten them and to threaten their region. So for the United States to follow through here, be determined, be decisive, do exactly what we said we were going to do, I think we’ll find we’ve got far more friends out there than many people think.

MR. RUSSERT: And Jordan and Pakistan and countries like that will be stable?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think so. I think weakness, vacillation, and unwillingness of the United States to stand with our friends, that is provocative. It’s encouraged people like Osama bin Laden, as I say, to launch repeated strikes against the United States, and our people overseas and here at home, with the view that he could, in fact, do so with impunity and now he knows different.

If only we'd be tougher nothing bad would ever happen.

I urge you to go and read the whole thing. It's absolutely shocking in its arrogant mendacity. We now know that at least 80% of what he said was a lie. In fact, it was pretty obvious even at the time (although the degree to which this man in particular --- cosseted as he was by Villagers like Tim Russert --- had altered the intelligence was hard to imagine at the time.)

And after you read that interview again, ask yourself why we --- or anyone else --- should automatically trust the US Government to be telling us the truth. A little humility is called for before the people of this world --- and this country --- will have confidence in its integrity again. Indeed, if there was one thing that this administration was tasked with doing, it was that. The ongoing scandals around CIA torture and the NSA surveillance prove that it's still a long way from achieving that goal.

Oh, and you have to love this:

MR. RUSSERT: In order to pay for this war, would the president consider suspending his proposed tax cut?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t believe that’s the right course of action, Tim. This is one of those times when as important as the war on terror is and as important as the problem of Iraq is, we’ve also got a lot of other balls in the air. And an American president these days doesn’t have the choice of focusing on only one thing. We’ve also got to deal with the Middle East peace process, with Israelis and Palestinians which we did this week. We’ve got to deal with the domestic economy. It’s very important to get the economy growing again. And one of the reasons we’ve had a fall-off in revenue, obviously, is a slow economy and we need to get growth started again. We can’t wait until after we’ve dealt with our military problems to get the economy growing again. So we believe the tax cut is good, long-term growth policy for our economy. And that’s the best way for us to be able to afford the kind of things we’re going to have to do internationally.

That's right. National security issues all come down to the US being "strong" and there's never been an economic problem that can't be solved with a tax cut. It must be nice to live in such a simple world.

Scientists are alarmed. Why aren't policymakers? by @DavidOAtkins

noreply@blogger.com (thereisnospoon) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 14:30:00 +0000

Scientists are alarmed. Why aren't policymakers?

by David Atkins

It's almost as if they're trying to tell us something:

A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting centuries - have been quite common."

The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary 'Human And Nature DYnamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharri of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics...

Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that "with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites."

In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners", allowing them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe." The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases)."

Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth.

Most of the answers are pretty obvious, really. Reduce inequality, tax excessive wealth globally, invest heavily in renewable energies to stop CO2 pollution, provide contraceptive and abortion services to empower women and reduce birthrates in the developing world.

We know what has to be done as a species. There just isn't the political will, because obscenely rich people like staying obscenely rich.

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Saturday Night at the Movies by Dennis Hartley --- Quark, strangeness and charm: "Grand Budapest Hotel" and "Particle Fever"

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis Hartley) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Saturday Night at the Movies

Quark, strangeness and charm

By Dennis Hartley

Quirky lodgings: The Grand Budapest Hotel

In the interest of upholding my credo to be forthright with my readers (all three of you), I will confess that, with the exception of his engaging 1996 directing debut, Bottle Rocket, and the fitfully amusing Rushmore, I have been somewhat immune to the charms of Wes Anderson. I have also developed a complex of sorts over my apparent inability to comprehend why the phrase "a Wes Anderson film" has become catnip to legions of hipster-garbed fanboys and swooning film critics (even the normally discerning Criterion Collection seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid). Maybe there's something wrong with me? Am I like the uptight brother-in-law in Field of Dreams who can't see the baseball players? Am I wrong to feel that Plan 9 From Outer Space should be supplanted by The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou as Worst Movie of All Time? To me, "a Wes Anderson film" is the cinematic equivalent to Wonder Bread...bland product, whimsically wrapped.

At the risk of making your head explode, I now have a second confession to make. I kind of enjoyed Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel. A lot. I know, I know, I was just as shocked as you are right now. I can't adequately explain what happened. The film is not dissimilar to his previous work; in that it is akin to a live action cartoon, drenched in whimsy, expressed in bold primary colors, populated by quirky characters (who would never exist outside of the strange Andersonian universe they live in) caught up in a quirky narrative with quirky twists and turns (I believe the operative word here, is "quirky"). So why did I like it? I cannot really say. My conundrum (if I may paraphrase one of my favorite lines from The Producers ) would be this: "Where did he go so right?"

Perhaps it was the casting. Ralph Fiennes is an absolute delight as the central character of the tale, Gustave H., a "legendary" concierge at the eponymous establishment, a luxurious mountain resort housed in the mythical eastern European Republic of Zubrowka. His story (the bulk of which takes place between the World Wars) is told in flashback, as recollected decades later to a young writer (Jude Law) by the hotel's owner, the "mysterious" Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). Young Zero (Tony Revolori) was originally hired by Gustave as a lobby boy, but eventually becomes his protege and closest confidante. When rich eccentric Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) a longtime hotel patron who has enjoyed the suave Gustave's additional "special services" over the years, dies, she leaves her favorite concierge a priceless heirloom painting in her will, much to the chagrin of her greedy heirs, spurred by her unscrupulous son (Adrien Brody). Knowing that Madame D.'s family will never willingly surrender the treasure as directed, Gustave and Zero abscond with it on a whim. Gustave is framed for murder and gets sent to prison, but not before striking a pact with the devoted Zero, making him his sole heir.

What ensues is part Arnold Fanck (DP Robert D. Yeoman's beautiful cinematography cannily emulates the look of the German "mountain films" of the 1930s), part Ernst Lubitsch, and part Herge (in fact, Anderson's film played closer to a Tintin adventure to me than Spielberg's actual The Adventures of Tintin did). The huge supporting cast is peppered by familiar faces, from "regulars" (Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban) to a few you wouldn't necessarily expect to see in an Anderson film (Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Wilkinson). Saoirse Ronan is a charmer as Zero's love interest. I still can't pinpoint where Anderson went so "right" (aside from instilling his story and characters with a hint of emotional resonance for once) but I'd dare say this is the most entertaining film I've seen so far this year (stranger things have happened). By the way...when did those ball players get here?

The big whirl of little atoms: Particle Fever

What I know about particle physics couldn't fill a flea's codpiece. And if you're like me (isn't everyone?), I'd bet you don't spend a good deal of your day contemplating quarks, hadrons, mesons or baryons (wasn't he a famous English poet?). Nonetheless, I found Particle Fever, physicist-turned-filmmaker Mark Levinson's documentary about a group of folks who do spend a good deal of their day thinking about such things, to be much more riveting than I had expected. Levinson documents the years of experiments and painstaking analysis that led up to the astounding announcement in 2012 that scientists had successfully identified the elusive "Higgs boson" (aka "The God Particle"), which could be the crucial key in proving that The Big Bang is, well, more than just a "theory". Levinson gives equal time to the empirical and theoretical schools of thought on this groundbreaking discovery. The former group is represented by the physicists who work at CERN, which houses the Large Hadron Collider (an immense complex that resembles the set of Metropolis), and the latter by academics and theoreticians. While largely concerning itself with the parsing of the scientific minutiae, it is the sometimes uneasy yet necessary yin-yang partnership between those camps that lends the film a very human center. One theoretical physicist sums it up best when he bemusedly wonders aloud if this discovery makes the previous 40 years of his life meaningless. Higgs boson only knows...

Previous posts with related themes:

Hotel Lux

Chelsea on the Rocks/Top 10 worst places to check in at the movies

Saturday Night at the Movies review archives

Nothing to see here folks ...

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:00:04 +0000

Nothing to see here folks ...

by digby

Just get on with your business...

This winter has been a tale of two Americas: The Midwest is just beginning to thaw out from a battery of epic cold snaps, while Californians might feel that they pretty much skipped winter altogether. In fact, new NOAA data reveal that California's winter (December through February) was the warmest in the 119-year record, 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.

Yeah, I know it's cruel to complain about endless summer. Until you think about this:

California, supplier of nearly half of all US fruits, veggies, and nuts, is on track to experience the driest year in the past half millennium. Farms use about 80 percent of the state's "developed water," or water that's moved from its natural source to other areas via pipes and aqueducts.

As the maps above show, much of California's agriculture is concentrated in the parts of the state that the drought has hit the hardest. For example: Monterey County, which is currently enduring an "exceptional drought," according to the US Drought Monitor, grew nearly half of America's lettuce and broccoli in 2012.

I guess if you hate salads, it's no big deal.

.

The wardoves of the GOP

noreply@blogger.com (digby) — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 22:01:33 +0000

The wardoves of the GOP

by digby

Well bowl me over with a feather. You mean libertarian, isolationist Rand Paul from Kentucky is just like the rest of the Republican Party, rattling his sabre the minute he gets the chance? Say it ain't so!

It is our role as a global leader to be the strongest nation in opposing Russia's latest aggression.

Putin must be punished for violating the Budapest Memorandum, and Russia must learn that the U.S. will isolate it if it insists on acting like a rogue nation.

This does not and should not require military action. No one in the U.S. is calling for this. But it will require other actions and leadership, both of which President Obama unfortunately lacks...

I would reinstitute the missile-defense shields President Obama abandoned in 2009 in Poland and the Czech Republic ...

The real problem is that Russia's President is not currently fearful or threatened in any way by America's President, despite his country's blatant aggression.

Missile defense! Now there's a Big Gummint boondoggle for you. And one might think that being upset that the US isn't threatening enough wouldn't be a libertarian position, but there it is ...

I guess my point is that if what you care about is an anti-interventionist foreign policy, you are obviously in a minority in American politics. But your best chance of actually not intervening is voting for non-interventionist Democrats, who have at least some influence in their party. For instance, Syria. It is highly doubtful that the President would have backed off without the British no vote and the impending no vote in the House led by anti-war Democrats. It's not much, but it's what we have to work with. If libertarians could get past their obsession with keeping taxes low for millionaires, they could add their numbers to the existing anti-war liberals and have a real impact. But as long as they fall for Rand Paul's flim-flam, they will be a totally marginal presence in American politics. The American right loves war. It's their main organizing principle. As bad as the Democrats are on these issues, and they are bad, they will always at least have to pay some attention to the doves in their ranks. There are a hell of a lot more of them than there are peacenik Republicans. As Paul proved this week, even the GOP doves are warmongers.

Well, when it suits them. There are times, as when Paul was speaking of college students back in 2009 when he made the non-interventionist case and called for a strong pullback from global military adventures. Who knows what he really believes?

.

Daily Kos Elections moves Arkansas and Kentucky Senate races to 'Lean Republican'

rss@dailykos.com (David Nir) — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 21:54:17 +0000

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) probably wants to crawl back into his shell

This week, Daily Kos Elections is changing our ratings on seven races: three Senate, two gubernatorial, and two House. Overall, four are in favor of Democrats and three are in favor of Republicans. The most notable are in Arkansas and Kentucky, where we're moving both Senate contests to "Lean Republican"—but from very different directions. Read on for our explanations of each move.

• AR-Sen: Tossup to Lean R. For a long time, it's been evident that Sen. Mark Pryor is the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent up for re-election in 2014, and the reason is simple: demographics. Arkansas is simply playing catch-up with the rest of the South, which preceded it in galloping to the right. In 2010, five of the state's six members of Congress were Democrats; now Pryor is the last standing. And it wasn't merely that year's towering GOP wave that did the party in: Republicans took control of both chambers of the legislature in 2012, despite brand-new Democratic gerrymanders.

Republicans also landed a top-tier recruit in freshman Rep. Tom Cotton, a Harvard-educated attorney who served in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Army. Cotton's also been fortunate to avoid any tea party-fueled primary opponents. Pryor, meanwhile, is simply hampered by the fact that he sports a "D" after his name, and unhappiness over Obamacare is a difficult thing to contend with in Arkansas, given how red the state is.

The race certainly isn't over yet, and the national mood could still improve. But the polling has never been any good for Pryor, who is stuck in the low 40s at best. However, at this point, the incumbent is now the decided underdog, and if Pryor manages to win a third term, it would be an upset.

Head below the fold for our other six changes, including Kentucky.

FiveThirtyEight to Relaunch on March 17

Nate Silver — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 14:00:00 +0000

We have some news! We're planning to relaunch FiveThirtyEight on March 17, a week from Monday.

As with all plans, this one could go awry. We're still completing final testing on the new website, and tweaking the final elements of the site's design. But we estimate the probability of a March 17 launch at 90.617854%.

A list of FiveThirtyEight's staff can be found here. We also have a handful of open positions.

The relaunched site will be at this address: www.FiveThirtyEight.com.

For further updates, you can check this site or follow FiveThirtyEight on Twitter.

Follow @FiveThirtyEight

Nate Silver — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 20:17:00 +0000

The relaunch of FiveThirtyEight is getting closer and closer.

In preparation, we've performed a little wizardry on Twitter.

My (Nate Silver's) personal Twitter account is now @NateSilver538. If you were following me on Twitter before when I was @FiveThirtyEight, you're still automatically following me now that I'm @NateSilver538.

However, @FiveThirtyEight has been reborn as our newsroom's team account. You should consider following that one if you haven't yet. It will provide the most comprehensive feed of our coverage on a day-to-day basis.

More news about the launch soon, and we'll see some of you this weekend at SxSW.

FiveThirtyEight Seeks Data-Driven Freelance Writers

Nate Silver — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:12:00 +0000

We've hired our initial team of staff writers and editors, and we’re well on our way to building our team of visual, computational and database journalists. We can't wait to show you their work. But we’re also looking for a few good men and women to contribute writing and analysis to FiveThirtyEight on a freelance basis.

Let me be a bit more specific about what we’re looking for.

First, and most important, we’re looking for freelance features and articles that involve original research, analysis, or reporting -- specifically those that involve statistical analysis, data mining, programming, data visualization, or other data-journalism methods. FiveThirtyEight is not the right outlet for “smart takes,” opinion pieces, or long-form essays that don’t involve some data component. We would potentially have interest in features that involve shoe-leather reporting (i.e., interviewing, first-person observation) if they are numerate as well as literate, and help our readers put data and statistics into context.

Second, we’re looking for freelancers to cover relatively specific subjects -- e.g. hockey, weather, the economics of food -- as opposed to generalists. A list of subjects that we know we’d be interested in is included below.

Third, as the site has not yet launched, we’re thinking ahead and looking to develop relationships with writers to produce recurring series of articles for FiveThirtyEight. As a general guide, this might mean writing anywhere from once every other month for FiveThirtyEight to once every week or two. The articles might typically be somewhere between 750 and 2,000 words in length.

Fourth, we’re looking for authors who have a track record of publishing work under their byline. This could mean at The New Yorker, in an academic journal, or at an obscure blog. But we’ll want to be able to evaluate published examples of your work and consider how it might fit into our plans.

We recognize that these requirements are strict. But as disciplined as we are in our approach toward journalism, we’re hoping to apply it to a wide range of subjects in the news and in everyday life.

The following list of potential freelance topics is not exclusive: if you want to pitch us on an epic, eight-part series on the statistics of dog breeding, we’re happy to listen. But the subjects listed below are those we’re most likely to be interested in -- especially those listed with an asterisk (*).

One major focus for freelance content is our science vertical. Potential subtopics within science include but are not limited to the following:

Weather*
Health and medicine*
Technology*
Energy, climate and environment*
Biology and neuroscience
Psychology
Hazards and disasters (e.g. earthquakes, asteroids)
Geography
Philosophy of statistics and mathematics

Our lifestyle vertical is broad. We’d be interested in people who provide data-driven analysis of these topics, along with others:

Education*
Travel and transportation*
Food and drink*
Sex, dating and romance*
TV and movies*
Parenting
Music
Crime statistics and criminal justice
Games (video games or otherwise)
Gambling

Within our sports vertical, we have several writers on staff who provide coverage across multiple sports. But there are a couple of ways that we might expand upon their coverage, such as with writers who:

Focus on one sport in particular, e.g.

Baseball
Football
Basketball
Soccer
Ice hockey
Tennis
Golf

Examine the intersection between sports and other FiveThirtyEight verticals, e.g.

Sports science
Sports economics and finance

In politics, we have strong coverage of U.S. elections on staff, but we’d consider pitches in the following areas:

Congressional voting and behavior*
Fundraising and lobbying
Political rhetoric and media framing
Demographics
International elections
National security and military strategy
The Supreme Court and legal affairs

In economics, we have strong coverage of micro- and macroeconomic data on staff, but we'd be interested in someone with a strong understanding of:

Personal finance
Trading markets, or,
Overseas economies, particularly in the developing world

These are paying assignments. We have a schedule of freelance rates that can vary depending upon the writer’s experience, the time commitment involved in preparing the features, and other factors.

If you’ve been patient enough to read to the end of this post and have an idea that you think might be a great fit for FiveThirtyEight, we’d love to hear from you. Send us a note at 538FREELANCE AT GMAIL DOT COM. Give us a specific sense of what you’d like to write about, illustrated by sample headlines or short summaries. Tell us how you can do this in a differentiating and data-rich way. Include links to articles that you’ve published elsewhere. And let us know how to reach you. We look forward to hearing from you.

-Nate

FiveThirtyEight Hiring Update

Nate Silver — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 15:16:00 +0000

UPDATED ON MARCH 6, 2014.

Here's a quick update on where we stand with our hiring process at FiveThirtyEight.

The bad news: we've filled all of our open editing positions, including all features editors and copy editors. We're not actively evaluating resumes or interviewing candidates for these positions.

We're also no longer hiring full-time writers, although we will soon begin to consider freelance writing positions.

The good news: several other key positions remain open. We are in the active stages of our search process for each of these positions, and are very near to a decision on some of them -- so you should contact us as soon as you can if you'd like to be considered. The open positions are as follows:

Applications for the Manager, Technology & Product Development position may be sent to 538 JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM, to the job listing at the ESPNCareers website, or both. Applications for all other positions should be sent to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please follow the instructions in the links above when applying for the positions, etc. etc., so that we can make sure your application gets to the right place and that we'll have enough information to give your candidacy a fair hearing.

We are also currently soliciting pitches from data-driven freelance writers

The hires we've announced publicly so far are as follows:

Editorial Personnel
Carl Bialik (@CarlBialik) -- lead writer, news; formerly of The Wall Street Journal
Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) -- chief writer, economics; formerly of The Wall Street Journal
Mona Chalabi (@MonaChalabi) -- lead writer, FiveThirtyEight blog*; formerly of The Guardian
Lisa Chow (@lisaechow) -- features editor, podcast host, economics reporter; formerly of NPR
Micah Cohen (@micahcohen) -- senior editor, FiveThirtyEight blog*; formerly of The New York Times
Carla Correa (@pinkgrammar) -- general editor and social media coordinator; formerly of The Washington Post
Harry Enten (@forecasterenten) -- senior writer and analyst, politics; formerly of The Guardian
Kate Elazegui (@KateElazegui) -- creative director; formerly of Pentagram, New York Magazine
Andrew Flowers (@andrewflowers) -- quantitative editor, economics writer and analyst; formerly of Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Walter Hickey (@WaltHickey) -- senior writer, lifestyle; formerly of Business Insider
Ritchie King (@RitchieSKing) -- visual journalist, science reporter; formerly of Quartz
Simone Landon (@simonelandon) -- general editor; formerly of Huffington Post
Chad Matlin (@ChadwickMatlin)-- features editor; formerly of Reuters, Slate
Allison McCann (@atmccann)-- visual journalist, data reporter; formerly of Bloomberg Businessweek
Benjamin Morris (@skepticalsports) -- senior writer and analyst, sports; formerly of skepticalsports.com
Neil Paine (@Neil_Paine) -- senior writer and analyst, sports; formerly of sports-reference.com
Andrei Scheinkman (@ascheink) -- deputy editor and director of data and technology; formerly of Huffington Post, The New York Times
Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) -- editor-in-chief
Mike Wilson (@mWilstory) -- managing editor; formerly of The Tampa Bay Times

Noneditorial and Affiliated Personnel
Lauren Bork (@laurenbork) -- director, sports management, ESPN (Lauren's responsibilities include FiveThirtyEight ad sales)
David Cho (@davidcho) -- senior director, business development, Grantland (David is also serving as director of business development for FiveThirtyEight on an interim basis)
Marie Donoghue (@mariepdonoghue) -- senior vice president, global strategy & business development, ESPN (Marie is my boss and FiveThirtyEight's overseer)
Amanda Gordon (@Amandables) -- administrative assistant, FiveThirtyEight
Jeremy Weinrib (@espnjeremy) -- senior director, mobile technology, ESPN (Jeremy is leading the backend development of our website and CMS)

* Pedantic media-nerd note: Once FiveThirtyEight relaunches, it will house a variety of content forms (e.g. feature articles, data visualizations, podcasts). One type of content will be a blog, which will be contributed to by all FiveThirtyEight staffers, but for which Mona Chalabi will be the lead writer and Micah Cohen the lead editor. The blog will be a subcomponent of FiveThirtyEight, in the same way that The Triangle, a blog, is a subcomponent of Grantland. (We'll spare you the Venn diagram.)

Status Update: Building FiveThirtyEight

Nate Silver — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 22:43:00 +0000

We're continuing to build our team of journalists at FiveThirtyEight as we prepare for re-launch with our partners at ESPN and ABC News early this year. This is an interim landing page for site announcements and job postings; it also contains the archive of FiveThirtyEight from 2008 through mid-2010, prior to its tenure with The New York Times.

In contrast to the previous version of the site, which mainly focused on electoral politics, the new FiveThirtyEight will provide coverage of five major subjects: politics, economics, sports, science, and lifestyle. By design, almost any topic in the news can potentially fit into one or more of these categories. Our idea is that the site's mission will be defined by how we cover the news rather than what we cover.

How will we cover the news? The new version of FiveThirtyEight will seek to apply the concept of data journalism on a wider scale.

What is data journalism? In one sense, data journalism can refer to the application of statistics and other quantitative methods toward issues in the news. Plenty of us are "stat geeks" at FiveThirtyEight. However, our methods will also include data visualization; the development of interactive graphics and features; and investigative and explanatory reporting, especially as applied to publicly-available data sets.

We're aware that our strengths as a journalistic organization provide more value in some fields than others. For instance, statistical analysis is more likely to be useful when applied to a gubernatorial election in South Carolina than to a civil war in Syria. We have immense respect for news-gathering journalists and for original reporting.

However, part of our mission will be to critique irresponsible uses of data and statistics when they arise in news coverage, or elsewhere in society. As I describe in my book, the increased availability of larger datasets and faster computers (i.e. "Big Data") has produced rapid progress in some fields -- but disappointing results in many others. My view is that statistical data, like other types of information, has the potential to mislead unless it is placed into context and backed by a method that seeks to scrutinize evidence and develop hypotheses about the world. (The idea that journalism might learn something from the methods of science has been around for many years.)

All of this may sound very serious. But we're going to have a lot of fun in exploring everything from baseball to burritos.

Hiring a great team of journalists is essential to making this a sustainable enterprise. We've hired 15 amazing journalists so far, and we're actively interviewing candidates for several open positions, including database journalists, visual and computational journalists; and a Director of Business Development. Applicants can send their materials to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM, and should follow the instructions associated with the links for the individual job postings.

For further information about the new FiveThirtyEight, please see the videos of my recent appearances at the Paley Center in New York, and at the Online News Association in Atlanta, or my recent interview with AdAge.

We appreciate your patience during this interim period and we hope that you'll become regular visitors to FiveThirtyEight when the site relaunches.

Data Visualization Job Openings @ FiveThirtyEight

Andrei Scheinkman and Nate Silver — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 14:21:00 +0000

FiveThirtyEight is continuing to build its data visualization and interactive features team, which will employ information design, web programming and other tools to produce groundbreaking data journalism.

The nature of these jobs is more fluid and open-ended than most others at FiveThirtyEight. In fact, we will be especially enthusiastic about candidates with multifaceted skill sets.

However, we would ask that candidates submit their materials in consideration of one of the two job titles described below – Visual Journalist or Computational Journalist. We will identify candidates whose skills and interests potentially bridge the gap between these areas. There are several open positions, which will require a mix of people with different strengths and experience levels. All positions are full-time and are based in New York City.

Visual Journalist

We are looking for one or more Visual Journalists to design and develop graphics, interactive features and web applications for the site. The Visual Journalists will work on a small team in the FiveThirtyEight newsroom in New York City, using information design and web development to help readers explore and understand the data behind the news.

The ideal candidate will have experience with:
- front-end web technologies including HTML, CSS, and Javascript;
- data visualization libraries like Raphael, D3, processing;
- and mapping tools such as TileMill, QGIS, TopoJSON.

We view these as editorial and journalistic positions. Thus, in addition to their technical and design skills, candidates should also be able to demonstrate interest in several of FiveThirtyEight’s core subject areas -- politics, economics, sports, science and lifestyle. They should be excited about pushing the boundaries of online storytelling through databases, maps and visualizations.

To apply, send a resume, links to projects you've designed and developed and your GitHub and Twitter accounts to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please include the phrase VISUAL JOURNALIST in the subject line.

Computational Journalist

FiveThirtyEight is also looking for one or more Computational Journalists to join our data visualization team. Our Computational Journalists will create interactive features, models, and systems that collect, process and present real-time data and predictions about sports, politics, economics, science and lifestyle topics.

We're looking for candidates with extensive practice building web applications. Candidates should be full-stack programmers, with experience using:
- modern programming languages including Python, Ruby and Javascript
- web frameworks such as Rails, Django or node.js
- relational and document-based data stores like MySQL, Postgres or MongoDB

As is the case for the Visual Journalists, we view these as editorial and journalistic positions. Thus, in addition to their programming and development skills, candidates should be able to demonstrate interest in several of FiveThirtyEight’s core subject areas -- politics, economics, sports, science and lifestyle. Candidates with an aptitude for statistics may find the FiveThirtyEight environment especially interesting.

To apply, send a resume, links to projects you've designed and developed and your GitHub and Twitter accounts to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please include the phrase COMPUTATIONAL JOURNALIST in the subject line.

Job Opening: Database Journalist, Politics

Nate Silver — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 18:40:00 +0000

'Tho the weather outside is frightful, we're looking for some delightful people to join our team at FiveThirtyEight, and we'll be posting several job opportunities over the coming days.

Most of these positions require a more technical background than those that we've advertised so far, meaning some combination of database, programming, and design skills in addition to a keen interest in data journalism.

This particular listing is for a Database Journalist who concentrates on U.S. Politics -- analyzing, developing, maintaining, and reporting upon databases in areas like campaign finance, congressional voting, and federal and state elections.

The ideal candidate will have experience in working with publicly-available databases such as those from the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Census Bureau. They should be able to demonstrate capabilities in several of the following environments:

* Relational database systems such as MySQL or Postgres;
* Statistical programming languages like R or STATA;
* General purpose programming languages like Python and Ruby.

Although the technical requirements for this position are fairly precise -- candidates with different skills and interests should consider waiting until we post jobs that are better suited for them -- it is also a position on the front line of FiveThirtyEight’s newsroom. The candidate will work with the rest of FiveThirtyEight’s journalists, especially its interactive team, to develop interactive features, stories, and models based on political data. The candidate will frequently have his or her byline on the site, and will have regular opportunities to write short-form and long-form stories for FiveThirtyEight. They'll also have opportunities to collaborate with our colleagues at ABC News and ESPN.

We are happy to consider candidates with a wide range of professional backgrounds, including journalism, academia, the nonprofit sector, the private sector, and government. The compensation level will vary depending on the candidate’s skills and experience level. We will be especially enthusiastic about candidates with multifaceted skill sets – for instance, those who can demonstrate skills in writing, reporting, statistical analysis or data visualization, in addition to their strong database and programming abilities.

Our strong preference is that the candidate work out of our New York newsroom, although Washington, D.C. would be considered as an alternative.

If you are interested in this position, please send a resume to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please include the phrase DATABASE JOURNALIST, POLITICS in the subject line. We’re very excited to hear from some of you. Stay tuned for more job openings over the course of the next week.

Job Openings: Business Development, Features Editor, Copy Editor

Nate Silver — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 11:13:00 +0000

FiveThirtyEight has announced the names of a number of exceptional journalists who will be joining our team, along with our Managing Editor, Mike Wilson, and our Creative Director, Kate Elazegui. We're getting more and more excited as we think about the scope and ambition of our data journalism project, and as we have some incredibly talented and creative co-workers moving into our offices in New York.

However, we still have a ways to go in building our team. For right now, we are directing our attention toward several job openings: a Director of Business Development, two Features Editors, and two Copy Editors. A description of these jobs, and how to apply for them, follows below.

Director, Business Development
FiveThirtyEight is hiring a Director of Business Development, one of our most senior positions. We want someone to help us build a sustainable first-class journalistic enterprise, developing and executing FiveThirtyEight’s business and content strategy. The Director for Business Development will have an outward-facing role -- evaluating prospective partners for content and sponsorships, and managing third-party relationships -- as well as inward-facing responsibilities, such as helping the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor in managing the newsroom and serving as a representative to our colleagues at ESPN, ABC News and Disney.

The basic qualifications are as follows:

Five years of business development or other highly relevant experience, preferably in an entrepreneurial, digitally-focused environment. Excellent project management skills, and the ability to manage multiple, time-sensitive projects with competing demands for resources. Professionalism and people skills in interacting with a diverse array of colleagues: external vendors and clients, journalists, editors, ESPN managerial personnel. Experience in managing and growing business relationships, and digital content and marketing strategies; strong and effective strategy execution skills, including deep understanding of the Internet, new media and interactive platforms and the associated business models. Meticulous attention to detail, especially in evaluating budgets and revenue opportunities.

Put more succinctly, we're hoping to identify a candidate who possesses a rare combination of attributes. The job requires both high-level creative and strategic thinking, and the attention to operations that will allow us to execute on those plans. While the job does not require a background in data journalism and analysis, enthusiasm for the overall FiveThirtyEight project is essential.

The job is based out of New York, and will sometimes require travel, and night and weekend work.

If you are interested in this position, please send a resume to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please put “BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT” in the subject line.

While we're asking for a lot from this position, we have a lot to offer in return. You'll have tremendous influence on a growing and dynamic media brand. You'll have excellent opportunities for professional growth. You'll have some great colleagues. And you'll have a ton of fun.

Features Editor
We are also hiring two Features Editors, who will assist Mike Wilson and Nate Silver in drawing up high-level editorial plans and editorial standards for FiveThirtyEight, and developing story and project ideas, along with providing day-to-day editing, web production, and deadline management.

The Features Editors will edit 2-3 data-driven feature articles per weekday. These can range from 500 words to much longer. The job will occasionally require editing shorter blog posts. In addition to their responsibilities with the FiveThirtyEight staff, the Features Editors will assist in soliciting and responding to story pitches from freelance contributors.

The ideal candidate will a be self-starter who is capable of managing a heavy workload and who has excellent time management skills. Reliability, creativity, and a strong work ethic are a must. The person should be highly organized, with a demonstrated aptitude in managing multiple stories on a daily basis, while also keeping track of FiveThirtyEight’s long-term plans.

Job requirements are as follows:

A minimum of 3-4 years editing experience, preferably in managing a high volume of copy at a prominent national print or digital outlet. Skill in refining prose for a broad audience. Candidates must be able to demonstrate they are gifted in editorial speed and judgment. Ability to scrutinize empirical claims made by FiveThirtyEight authors. While a formal background in mathematics or statistics in not required, the candidate should be comfortable working with and checking the accuracy of numbers. Strong working knowledge of at least some topic areas pursuant to FiveThirtyEight’s major verticals, such as politics, sports, science, culture and economics. Creativity in developing story ideas, and judgement in adapting them to FiveThirtyEight's editorial voice and values. Familiarity with HTML, and curating content for online publishing platforms. Strong people management skills; the ability to interact as part of a team of editors and writers with different strengths and needs.

The Features Editor jobs may also involve opportunities to write content for FiveThirtyEight. However, the candidate should expect to devote at least 85 percent of their work hours to editing. The Features Editor jobs are based in New York, and will require a significant office presence, along with occasional night and weekend work.

If you are interested in this position, please send a resume to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please put “FEATURES EDITOR” in the subject line. If you have previously applied for a different editing position, e.g. Managing Editor, and are interested in the Features Editor positions, you should consider re-submitting your materials.

Copy Editor
FiveThirtyEight is hiring two Copy Editors, who will assist Mike Wilson, and its Blogs Editor, Micah Cohen, in ensuring the accuracy and consistency of style, text, syntax and grammar of feature articles, blog posts and graphics text. The ideal candidate will have experience as a copy editor with a developed sense of prose style and grammar, and outstanding interoffice and communication skills.

The Copy Editors will typically edit several feature-length articles and several shorter blog posts per day, sometimes on demanding deadlines. The job may also occasionally entail working with FiveThirtyEight’s interactive news team, editing the text of longer-term projects. The Copy Editors will assist in writing headlines, producing content for the web, and developing FiveThirtyEight's style and usage guide.

The most important requirements of the job are as follows:

A minimum of 2 years copy editing experience, preferably at a prominent national print or digital outlet. Familiarity with a well-developed style guide, such as the AP Stylebook, The Chicago Manual of Style or The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. While a formal background in mathematics or statistics in not required, the candidate should be comfortable working with and checking the accuracy of numbers. Strong working knowledge of at least some topic areas pursuant to FiveThirtyEight’s major verticals, such as politics, sports, science, culture and economics. Familiarity with HTML, and curating content for online publishing platforms. Punctuality and the ability to edit copy on tight deadlines, occasionally at irregular hours.

The Copy Editor jobs are based in New York, and will require a significant office presence, along with occasional night and weekend work.

If you are interested in this position, please send a resume to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM. Please put “COPY EDITOR” in the subject line.

A quick note on strategy: if your credentials are somewhere in between the Features Editor and Copy Editor positions, we would recommend that you apply for the Copy Editor position. We anticipate a high volume of applications, and it's easier to stand out by being impeccably qualified for a position. Candidates who are brought in as Copy Editors will have significant growth opportunities at FiveThirtyEight.
--

We look forward to hearing from some of you, and continuing to tell you about our plans for FiveThirtyEight. Watch this space and the ESPN Careers website for additional job openings. For example, we will soon be posting about a set of job opportunities for designers, developers, and interactive journalists.

Seeking Lead Writers in Sports, Politics and Economics

Nate Silver — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:09:00 +0000

FiveThirtyEight is conducting a search for lead writers in three of our most important content verticals: sports, politics and economics.

These are high-profile, full-time positions for people with an outstanding combination of writing and statistical skills. They will principally involve: (i) writing 2-3 feature-length articles per week (typically between 500 words and a few thousand words) and (ii) contributing to long-term FiveThirtyEight projects — that is, assisting in the build-out of our data-driven models and interactive features.

The three principal qualifications for these lead writing positions are as follows:

· First, candidates must be able to write clearly about complex ideas. Strong prose style and composition represents a major part of the skill set. But we also seek candidates who can display a clear sense of editorial judgment: how to select story ideas, and how to present data-driven content in a way that can be approachable for a smart (but non-specialist) audience. We strongly prefer candidates who have a demonstrated track record of writing for the broader public.

· Second, candidates should have a demonstrated aptitude in conducting original statistical analysis within their subject areas.

· Third, these jobs require candidates who are willing to take full-time positions with FiveThirtyEight. These jobs will involve a regular newsroom/office presence, and occasional travel. For the sports and economics verticals, we strongly prefer candidates who are willing to relocate to New York City, where the FiveThirtyEight newsroom will be headquartered. For the politics vertical, we strongly prefer candidates who are willing to relocate to New York or Washington, D.C.

There are also some particular qualifications for each of the verticals:

· Sports. Candidates should have the demonstrated ability to write and think capably about several different sports: in particular, baseball, basketball, and football (perhaps along with others). Candidates who specialize in just one sport will be considered for freelance writing positions instead.

· Economics. Candidates should have expertise in analyzing U.S. economic and market data (rather than analyzing economic policy). For instance, familiarity with the mechanics of officially-reported statistical series such as the monthly jobs report, and with the dynamics of equity markets and other trading markets, are strong positives.

· Politics. Candidates should focus on those political subjects that are most amenable to empirical scrutiny – especially forthcoming U.S. elections, the behavior of Congress, demographic trends, and public opinion and polling on major policy issues. By contrast, we have no interest in partisan political commentary. (We don’t care what your political views are, nor how public you choose to make them. But this is a job for an analyst rather than an advocate or essayist.)

Finally, there are some skills that we consider somewhat less essential to the job, but which we will regard positively among potential applicants. In rough order of importance, they are as follows:

· “Traditional” reporting skills (e.g. interviewing and tracking down source documents) are something we view very positively. We are intrigued by candidates who can combine traditional reporting with critical, empirical analysis — in the way that (for example) Zach Lowe of Grantland or Keith Law of ESPN.com do.

· Experience in managing or editing writers is a positive. While these are principally writing and analysis positions, a track record in managing and editing may contribute to the growth potential for the candidate.

· Programming skills, database skills, and familiarity with statistical software packages are clear positives.

· So is the demonstrated ability to produce high-quality charts, graphics, and interactive features.

· Experience in communicating via television, video and radio is a plus.

We recognize that these positions demand an impressive and diverse background. But we are hoping to find a few “perfect” candidates. And we expect these to be incredibly fun and rewarding jobs.

If you are interested in these lead writing positions, please send a resume and writing samples (or links to your published content) to 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM.

Notes about other FiveThirtyEight positions:

We have plans to incorporate freelance feature content on a regular basis, in addition to our staff positions. But we will be advertising those opportunities at a later date.

Likewise, we have profound respect for blog-style content (i.e. news cycle-driven articles written at a reasonably high frequency) — but we will be advertising for blogging positions at a later point in our staffing process.

Candidates for blogging or freelance roles are welcome to contact us at 538JOBS AT GMAIL DOT COM, but they will probably not receive a substantive reply until we are more focused on those positions.

We are also actively considering candidates to become our Managing Editor. Candidates for the Managing Editor job should refer to our previous post and should apply to the Managing Editor job posting at the ESPN careers website as soon as they can.

FiveThirtyEight Job Posting: Managing Editor

Nate Silver — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 12:13:00 +0000

FiveThirtyEight's expansion in partnership with ESPN is beginning in earnest. In the coming weeks and months, we will be looking to hire a variety of journalists, including editors, writers, developers and designers. Notice of new job listings will be posted at this site, and at ESPNcareers.com.

One of the first positions we want to fill is our most senior editorial position, Managing Editor. The Managing Editor will be responsible for establishing the overall editorial vision for the site, and managing day-to-day editorial operations. The job requires a minimum of 10 years related editorial work experience and a minimum of 5 years experience in people management. Specific experience heading a newsroom or large news desk at a print or digital media outlet is preferred. The job is based in New York City, and will require a significant office presence.

If you want to apply for this job, or to see further detail on responsibilities and qualifications, please go to the job posting at the ESPN Careers website.

If you want to apply for another position -- more detail on these will be coming soon -- please e-mail 538JOBS at GMAIL dot COM.

FiveThirtyEight To Be Relaunched in Partnership with ESPN

Nate Silver — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:40:00 +0000

This is an interim navigation page for past, future and present versions of the website FiveThirtyEight.com

FiveThirtyEight will be relaunched at this address in the impending months in partnership with ESPN. The new version of FiveThirtyEight will continue to provide data-driven coverage of politics and elections, while expanding its reach into other topics including sports, economics, technology and culture. More information about FiveThirtyEight's future plans with ESPN can be found here.

We will be hiring a team of writers, editors, designers and analysts in preparation for the relaunch. We are looking for exceptional candidates who combine quantitative acumen with strong communication and editorial skills. A variety of positions are available, including full-time and freelance roles. Some positions will require relocation to New York City. If you are interested in being considered for a role at FiveThirtyEight, you can send your materials to the email address 538JOBS at GMAIL dot COM. We deeply appreciate all inquiries -- but the hiring process is in the very early stages so we cannot promise a quick response.

FiveThirtyEight was licensed exclusively to The New York Times for three years beginning on August 25, 2010. FiveThirtyEight content from that period can be found at The New York Times website.

Archived FiveThirtyEight content from 2008 through August 2010 can be found at this website.

My book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't was published by The Penguin Press in September, 2012.

To reach me (Nate) personally for matters other than job inquiries, my email address is NRSILVER at GMAIL dot COM.

Tuesday Night Live

Nate Silver — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:00:00 +0000

4:40 AM [Nate]. Miller's leading is holding with about 71 percent of the vote reported -- but Alaska is apparently done counting until the morning. Speaking of which, I need to get to bed. Thank you immensely for your patronage of FiveThirtyEight over the past two-and-a-half years.

3:33 AM [Nate]. Miller retains the lead at 52-48 in Alaska with around half the vote counted, although the speculation is that Murkowski may recover as more vote comes in from the Alaskan wilderness, which benefits significantly from federal pork. Meanwhile, Ben Quayle was declared the winner in AZ-3 -- although with only 23 percent of the vote. The Democratic Gubernatorial primary in Vermont, meanwhile, remains much too close to call.

1:21 AM [Nate]. Tuned out there for a long while (my "dinner" of two Papaya Dogs and a Red Bull didn't give me as much staying power as I thought), but Lisa Murkowski -- surprisingly -- slightly trails Joe Miller with about a quarter of the vote in from Alaska.

11:33 PM [Ed]. Back in Vermont, AP finally got hold of the Burlington results a couple hours after the Burlington Free-Press reported them, and now with over 80% of the precincts reporting, Doug Racine leads Peter Shumlin by 199 votes, and Deb Markowitz by 545 votes. Regardless of who wins, admirers of the civil tone of this primary will be pleased that turnout seems to have considerably exceeded the pre-election estimates.

11:16 PM [Nate]. It's safe to assume that John McCain will be re-nominated.

11:13 PM [Ed]. While we were preoccupied with Florida and Vermont, the two GOP congressional runoffs in OK were decided, and neither was close. Of the two underfunded and little-known challengers to Dan Boren in OK-02, the older one, veterinarian Charles Thompson, defeated Daniel Edmonds by a 2-1 margin. Now we'll wait to see if the NRCC decides to make Thompson's campaign rich and famous.

In the higher-visibility OK-05 runoff for Mary Fallin's House seat, church camp director and political neophyte James Lankford beat Club for Growth endorsee Kevin Calvey by a surprising 65-35. Calvey got perhaps a bit too nasty against Lankford, and also strained credulity by trying to create an Oklahoma version of the Islamic/Shariah Law threat.

11:12 PM [Nate]. Ben Quayle's race is interesting, with four candidates between 16 and 22 percent of the vote. Quayle is on top for now though.

11:04 PM [Nate]. Good night so far for PPP, which unlike certain of its counterparts, had the temerity to poll actual elections.

11:02 PM [Nate]. McCain 63, Hayworth 26 in very early results.

10:59 PM [Nate]. Possible we'll get some quick calls in Arizona, which has been counting ballots for an hour, but has a state law preventing them from releasing the results until just about ... now.

10:55 PM [Nate]. The AP now has called it for Scott -- and for Boyd in FL-2.

10:43 PM [Ed]. AP hasn't called it for Scott yet, but 538 can, with two-thirds of Miami-Dade now in and Scott still up by more than 40,000.

10:38 PM [Nate]. Rasmussen -- which polled the McCain-Hayworth primary eight times in a race where there was some disagreement among pollsters -- was not willing to do so during the final four weeks of the campaign. Our pollster ratings are always becoming more sophisticated and we're going to be looking at appropriate ways to punish pollsters who dodge putting their necks on the line.

10:35 PM [Ed]. If Rick Scott does win, it's a good news/bad news scenario for Alex Sink and Florida Democrats. The good news is that most of the attack lines on Scott have already been aired, and only have to be reinforced; plus it really may take an effort to get Florida Republicans off their hands to help him. The bad news is that he's the East Coast Meg Whitman, and has about $175 million in net worth that's theoretically available to spend.

10:16 PM [Ed]. The McCollum-Scott race is all coming down to South Florida. With nearly three-fourths of the precincts reporting, Scott's lead is about 40,000 votes. Of 1946 precincts still out, 1597 are in just three counties: Miami-Dade, where McCollum's winning 63-30; Palm Beach, where he's winning 48-42; and Broward, where he's winning 48-46. It will definitely tighten up, but it's unclear whether there are enough votes out for McCollum to catch up.

10:13 PM [Nate]. There were some strong differences of opinion among pollsters in the Florida governor race, which Scott now looks increasingly likely to win.

9:54 PM [Nate]. Looks like Allen Boyd will hold on.

9:42 PM [Ed]. With a third of the precincts voting in VT, according to AP, Deb Markowitz leads Doug Racine by 14 votes, with Peter Shumlin back another 270 votes. That's with no votes in from Burlington or Chittendon County, which together normally cast about a fourth of the statewide Democratic vote.

But the Burlington Free Press is tweeting that Racine's won Burlington pretty handily, with Shumlin second and Markowitz third. So if that's right, Racine should soon pull into the strongest lead of the night.

9:36 PM [Nate]. We now have significantly more sophisticated methodology to handle three-candidate races in the Senate. Don't know that Kendrick Meek is likely to be terribly happy about the result that we'll show for him tomorrow. Even if he peels some votes off from Crist, it's going to be quite difficult for him to knock off both Crist and Rubio simultaneously. We assume super high variance in three-candidate races, but Meek's just not winning very many simulations.

9:09 PM [Nate]. Stata is almost done processing the Senate forecasting script. We're running "retro" forecasts every two weeks dating back to February 1st, so you can get a sense for how our model's sense of each race will have evolved over time.

9:04 PM [Ed]. With over half the precincts reporting in Florida, it looks to me like the thread Bill McCollum is holding onto in hoping for victory is the possibility that his buddy Jeb Bush will get him a huge win in Miami-Dade. Rick Scott has fought him to a draw in the Tampa-St. Pete area, beaten him in SW FL, and looks to be running even or better in the counties running from Melbourne down to Ft. Lauderdale. Scott is also winning Duval County handily. McCollum's Orlando base has largely already reported. There's not much in yet from the Panhandle, but Scott's winning Bay County (Panama City) easily.

Though only one precinct has reported in Miami-Dade, it looks like the early votes have been reported, and McCollum's winning better than two-to-one. He'll need that trend to continue.

8:59 PM [Nate]. Rubio's pretty good on the stump.

8:44 PM [Nate]. Blue Dog Allen Boyd and pretending-not-to-be-a-future-Blue-Dog Al Lawson locked in a tight battle in FL-2 so far. The vote is 51-49 so far, favoring Boyd, with Lawson having benefited from a strong vote in Leon County.

FL-24 is also looking very competitive on the Republican side.

8:30 PM [Ed]. AP called the Senate race for Meek because he was winning just about everywhere; better than 2-1 in Pinellas; 2-1 in Hillsboro and Sarasota; nearly 2-1 in Duval; 20 points in Brevard.

8:24 PM [Ed]. Very early returns from VT show expected close four-way race among Markowitz, Dunne, Shumlin and Racine. None of the larger towns or counties are in. Total turnout could fall under 40,000 votes.

8:22 PM. These next couple of weeks are going to be really important in the Florida general election campaign. Rubio is the one who has a good 30, 35 percent of the electorate locked away, where as Crist and Meek are probably in more direct competition for the center-left of the electorate. Crist can't afford to let Meek gain too much momentum after his convincing primary win tonight and I might expect some subtle movement toward his left. Or not-so-subtle, since Charlie Crist doesn't do subtle well.

8:17 PM. Wow, the AP has already called the race for Kendrick Meek. That was fast.

8:05 PM. No surprise based on late polling, but Kendrick Meek with a big lead over Jeff Greene, who may have had one of the more pointless candidacies this side of Fred Thompson.

8:00 PM. It's a busy night. We're just now spitting out the final run of our new-and-improved Senate model -- which will debut on NYTimes.com tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've got another 1,000 words or so to get into my editors, and we'll be at least trying to check in on the five states -- in literally every corner of the country -- which are holding some kind of primary election tonight.

We'll keep this slow-paced and sort of open-ended -- a necessity when polls don't close in Alaska until midnight. Perhaps later on in the evening, I can grab a tasty beverage and even take a few questions from the comments section. There's a lot of stuff that we're very excited to roll out for you over the next week or so.

Money and Mud: A Preview of Florida's Two Big Statewide Primaries

Ed Kilgore — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Today's Florida primary features two marquee statewide races, one in each party, and a host of congressional contests. The overall atmosphere, however, is one of jaded cynicism and much-expressed contempt for the cost and negativity of this year's campaigns. Turnout may not reach 20%.

There's little doubt this mood is being driven by the Republican gubernatorial and Democratic senatorial races, both of which pit "establishment" candidates against wildly free-spending "outsiders" in campaigns dominated by bitterly personal attacks and counter-attacks. The "insiders," Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum and Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek, are the best bet to win today, though McCollum's not a safe bet. Largely overshadowed by these slugfests, and by the general election rivalry between Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio and incumbent Gov. Charlie Crist, running for the Senate as an independent, are many down-ballot races, which I will not get into in this post. But certainly House candidates have made a bid for attention; one's being called mentally ill by her opponents, while another was robbed at gunpoint while waiting to campaign at a church.

Without question, this election year in Florida was transformed by the late entry of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, a former hospital executive and anti-"ObamaCare" lobbyist, and Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene, the king of credit default swaps.

Scott has shattered every Florida campaign spending record by a sizable margin, spending $39 million of his own money and benefitting from a family trust that channeled another $11 million into a 527 organization that's bought ads attacking McCollum. Until Scott appeared, McCollum was slowly drifting towards the nomination after a long career of party service in Congress, as a two-time Senate candidate, and as Attorney General. Scott immediately ran ads calling McCollum a relic of politics-as-usual, and identified himself with the Tea Party movement. Overwhelmed by Scott's spending and facing political extinction, McCollum (with the backing of most of the state's GOP establishment, including former Gov. Jeb Bush, along with 2008 presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee) fought back with ads drawing attention to the huge Medicare fraud fines paid out by Scott's Columbia-HCA hospital chain. The back-and-forth has definitely eroded both candidates' approval ratings, to the tangible benefit of likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink, who's held a narrow lead in recent polls over both Republicans in a three-way match that also includes independent Bud Chiles.

Polls have shown Scott doing better than McCollum among self-identified conservatives, and among younger voters, so turnout patterns will matter, with a higher turnout probably benefitting the "outsider" in this closed primary. Overall, McCollum led by a 45-36 margin in the final pre-primary poll from Mason-Dixon; and by 39-35 in a Quinnipiac poll released about the same time. Scott led 47-40 in a late poll from PPP.

McCollum's regional base is in the Orlando area; Scott's a recent transplant to Florida, but lives on the Gulf Coast in Naples.

In the Democratic Senate race, Jeff Greene, who is reportedly a billionaire (mainly from profits made in successful anticipation of a housing market collapse), has spent $23 million of his own money, roughly four times the pre-primary budget of Meek, who, like McCollum, was the presumptive nominee in the early going. As with Scott, Greene's heavy spending initially vaulted him into a lead in the polls, but then counter-attacks from Meek, and bad publicity about his past in the news media, brought him back to earth. In the latter category, reports about his relationship with former boxing champ Mike Tyson, and Tyson's behavior during a long cruise on Greene's yacht, has been a perpetual headache, compounded by another report that the yacht had actually docked in Cuba (a definite no-no for someone running for office in Florida).

While Greene's tried to shift attention to alleged corruption involving Meek and his mother, former congresswoman Carrie Meek--and more recently, accusing Meek of insufficient sympathy for Israel in a bid for South Florida Jewish voters--he's been sinking in recent polls. He trailed Meek 42-30 in an August 17-19 Mason-Dixon poll; 29-39 in a Quinnipiac survey this weekend; and 27-51 in the final PPP poll. PPP showed Meek leading Greene 70-9 among African-Americans and 47-37 among white voters. Contributing to Meek's popularity among "regular" Democrats has been endorsements from President Obama and former President Clinton.

Meek's next challenge, of course, is to convince Florida Democrats--not to mention wealthy donors and the party poohbahs in Washington--to support him rather than independent candidate Charlie Crist. Right now Meek is running a dangerously poor third in three-way polls. And he probably can't count on Marco Rubio or Charlie Crist helping him by hanging out with Mike Tyson on a yacht.

Dog Days Diversion: A Preview of Tomorrow's Primaries in AZ, AK, VT, and OK

Ed Kilgore — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:44:00 +0000

It's a bit hard to understand why multiple states would decide to call voters to the polls in the depths of the Dogs Days, but they are: Florida, Arizona, Alaska and Vermont are holding primaries tomorrow, while Oklahoma is staging a runoff for nominations not resolved in its July 27 primary.

We'll be covering Florida, which has attracted the most national attention lately, in a separate post tomorrow. In this roundup, we'll take a look at AZ, where there are several very competitive GOP House primaries; VT, where the Democratic gubernatorial contest is a multi-candidate scrum; AK, where a long-shot challenger to Sen. Lisa Murkowski will meet his fate; and OK, where two Republican House runoffs are occurring.

Not that long ago, national observers were licking their chops at AZ's statewide Republican primaries, with John McCain looking potentially vulnerable against former congressman and talk-show host J.D. Hayworth, and an unelected and little-known governor named Jan Brewer appearing poised for a return to obscurity.

That's all obviously changed. According to virtually all observers McCain is on the brink of a landslide win, benefitting from a huge financial advantage, some serious strategic respositioning to the Right on key issues, and several misteps by Hayworth. McCain will be a heavy favorite over the likely Democratic candidate, former Tucson city councilman Rodney Glassman. Meanwhile, the immigration issue has transformed Brewer from an accidental governor unpopular in her own party to a national conservative star whose endorsement is craved in other states, and a certain winner tomorrow. Brewer also has opened up a big lead in the polls over likely Democratic nominee, Attorney General Terry Goddard.

But AZ's crowded Republican House primaries feature three contests in districts where GOPers think they have a chance of beating incumbent Democrats, and one for an open Republican seat.

The race that's attracted the most national attention is probably in AZ-08, a Tucson-based district represented by two-term Democrat Gabby Giffords. A classic Establishment-Tea Party matchup involving former state senator Jonathan Paton, the early frontrunner, and Tea Party activist Jesse Kelley, is considered very close. Giffords is a veteran of two close races, and is building up her campaign treasury as Republicans squabble, but her opposition to the new AZ immigration law and votes for key Obama legislation have made her appear vulnerable.

In Phoenix-suburban AZ-03, where Republican John Shadegg is retiring, the early frontrunner was Ben Quayle, son of the former Veep from Indiana, but he is fighting to hold off self-funder Steve Moak. It's been a battle of self-inflicted wounds, with Quayle hurt by association with an off-color internet site (to which he occasionally made posts under a pseudonym inspired by a porn-star character in Boogie Nights), and Moak battling claims of conflicts of interest between non-profit and for-profit businesses.

In AZ-05, another Phoenix-area district, former Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert is so confident of victory that he's saving money for a general election against Democratic incumbent Harry Mitchell, but businessman Jim Ward remains financially competitive down the stretch.

And in the huge, largely rural AZ-01, dentist Paul Gosar is in a close race with 2008 nominee Sydney Hay for the right to take on freshman Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. The incumbent beat Hay by a 56-40 margin two years ago.

Up in Alaska, the Republican Senate primary has drawn national attention as a surrogate grudge match between Sarah Palin and incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, daughter (and appointee) of the incumbent whom Palin beat en route to becoming governor in 2006. Murkowski's actual opponent is former judge Joe Miller, something of a conservative protest candidate (he's been endorsed by anti-abortion groups and the Tea Party Express) against the incumbent. But Palin's gone after Murkowski avidly in the stretch run of the primary, not only attacking the incumbent in one of her famous Facebook posts, but recording robocalls for Miller. Murkowski has a vast financial advantage, and a loss would be a major upset.

At the other end of the country, in Vermont, no fewer than five viable candidates--four rated as even bets for a win, though there has been no public polling in this contest--are competing for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in this blue state where four-term (terms are still just two years in VT) Republican governor Jim Douglas is retiring. Early in the contest (before Douglas announced his retirement) the clear front-runners were former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine (who lost to Douglas back in 2002) and six-term Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, with Racine considered the more traditional liberal and Markowitz the moderate. Douglas' retirement drew other strong candidates into the race, including state senate president pro tem Peter Shumlin, credited with a key role in passage of Vermont's landmark gay marriage statute; former state senator Matt Dunne, a tech entrepreneur who also ran the national VISTA program; and state senator Susan Bartlett.

All five candidates have taken similar issue stands in a very civil primary with many debates. A key factor is that Vermont's well-established left-bent Progressive Party has decided against running its own candidate for governor, greatly improving the chances of the ultimate Democratic nominee. Though under-funded, Racine has the bulk of union endorsements, and appears to be splitting Progressive Party support with Shumlin. Markowitz has been in the race the longest, and has high name ID. Like Markowitz, Dunne is relatively well-funded. Shumlin is generally thought to have late momentum. And Bartlett will get enough votes to affect the outcome.

Perhaps the biggest X-factor in Vermont is turnout: this primary is in traditional vacation-time, and early voting levels have been very low. Vermont is an open primary state, with no party registration.

The winner will face Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, a professional airline pilot with light official duties and a folksy, anodyne image as Douglas' deputy the last eight years. Dubie has positioned himself somewhat to the right of Douglas on cultural issues, opposing both gay marriage and abortion rights while disclaiming any interest in making such issues a priority as governor. In late June, Rasmussen showed Dubie holding a 47-40 lead over Markowitz, with much bigger, majority leads over the other four Democratic candidates.

Finally, in Oklahoma, there are two GOP congressional runoffs. The one with the most fireworks has been OK-05, for the seat of Republican gubernatorial nominee Mary Fallin. Political neophyte and church camp director James Lankford surprisingly led the primary, but former state legislator Kevin Calvey has been on the offensive in the runoff, trying to play off the national conservative focus on alleged domestic Islamic threats by attacking Lankford for saying he'd talk with representatives of CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations). Calvey enjoys backing from the Club for Growth, and has also significantly self-financed his campaign, but Lankford has strong evangelical Protestant support and has reportedly been very effective in the utilization of social media.

By contrast, the Republican runoff in OK-02, where Charles Thompson and Daniel Edmonds are competing for a shot at Blue Dog incumbent Dan Boren, has been pretty quiet with very low spending. Thompson ran ahead in the primary, but Edmonds seems to have a slight advantage among Oklahoma's "true conservative"/tea party activists, so it could go either way. The battle-hardened and well-financed Boren will be the favorite in November in a contest that will serve as a good test of the strength of any Republican "wave."

Moving Day

Nate Silver — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:52:00 +0000

It's pretty weird having a desk to go into in a big office building after having worked at home for the better part of six years, but here I am, trying to make sure that everything us up to speed for our upcoming launch at the New York Times, and that we'll have the highest possible probability of launching on schedule and with a fully functional site tomorrow. Thus, I can't promise that we'll have much in the way of substantive posts for you here at FiveThirtyEight.com today.

The work that my colleagues on the interactive team have done at nytimes.com is terrific and I hope that you'll be really impressed. I've also given the Senate model a relatively thorough statistical makeover and it will now be much more sophisticated in how it estimates the amount of error associated with each forecast (for instance, the more the polling tends to diverge in a given race, the higher the margin of error associated with the prediction), and in how it handles incumbent vis-à-vis open seat races. Plus, we should have our gubernatorial forecasts to launch for you later this week, and our House forecasts soon afterward.

In the meantime, suggestions on good lunch places near 40th & 8th are appreciated, because right now I'm projected to gain about 7 pound a month due to the recent opening of a Shake Shack near the office.