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A Serious National Discussion on Race (NOT!)
By Joe Gandelman, July 24, 2013
Is it possible to have a s-e-r-i-o-u-s discussion on race in America?
In light of some of the reaction to President Barack Obama’s comments on race in the aftermath of George Zimmerman being found not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, you have to conclude that our political “debate” has jumped the killer whale. While many pundits called Obama’s comments “historic,” and he received praise from Republicans such as pundit David Brooks and Sen. John McCain, a commentator on Fox News immediately labeled Obama “race-baiter-in-chief.”
And then came conservative talker Sean Hannity with a tone that was soon to be echoed by other talk show hosts and many conservative websites, and so indicative of what is wrong with a national discussion often shaped by the political media — where all politics becomes snark-filled and personal:
“Now the president’s saying Trayvon could’ve been me thirty five years ago,” he said. “This is a particularly helpful comment. Is that the president admitting that—I guess because, what, he was part of the Choom Gang and he smoked pot and he did a little blow? I’m not sure how to interpret that, because we know that Trayvon had been smoking pot that night. I’m not sure what that means.”
It’s clear that race is a factor in the Zimmerman-Martin saga. Just like the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder case verdict, polls show there is a racial divide. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found African-Americans disapprove of the Zimmerman verdict 86 percent to 9 percent while whites approve 51 percent to 31 percent. A Pew Research poll found 39 percent approved and 41 percent disapproved. Some conservatives today seem determined to accuse blacks who try to explain what it feels like to be African-American with lying or exaggerating. CNN’s Don Lemon, for one, wouldn’t allow it.
Lemon lowered the boom on conservative commentator Brian Ferguson due to Ferguson’s charge that Obama was himself stereotyping white women by saying some were nervous in an elevator with a black man. Lemon would not accept not just that statement, but what some seem to think automatically undermines a point: going on attack and attempting to turn the issue into the person who expresses a viewpoint the attacker doesn’t like.
“I’m telling you my experience, the president’s telling you about his experience. And you’re saying that we’re not having that experience,” Lemon said. “Who are you to tell us we’re not having that experience, when you’re not living it? You’re not in our bodies. It’s insulting for you to say, ‘No that’s not happening.’ You don’t live as a black man, you don’t know that.”
Some conservative websites continue to write posts about Martin’s problems in school in a seeming frenzy to try and prove that the Skittles-armed Martin was a menace to society. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough nailed it in reacting to the comments of Hannity and others:
“The vultures are going to continue to circle around this young teenager’s body,” Scarborough said. “They continue to try a young man, and try to destroy his reputation for doing nothing more than walking through a neighborhood. It’s making it all too evident that too many people out there in the media and politicians are calculating and callous in their commentary. It’s nothing short of depressing.”
NBC’s First Read notes that Congressional Republicans were silent on Obama’s comments: “Bottom line: It sure looks to us the establishment wing of the GOP has no interest in being involved in this debate.” Which leaves the shrill conservative entertainment print and broadcast media the face of the party on the race issue.
Once upon a time in America people debated big issues passionately but thoughtfully. A big issue — even if both sides yelled at each other — became a meeting of the minds.
What we’re seeing, hearing, and reading in some quarters is more like is a meeting of the mouths.
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Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Shaking my head..........
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National Review Is Back to Warning White People About Black People
By Elspeth Reeve, July 23, 2013
Fifteen months after The National Review ended its relationship with longtime writer John Derbyshire for an essay he wrote for TakiMag.com in which he instructs his children to be afraid of black people, the conservative magazine has published Victor Davis Hanson's version of the same article. It is unlikely Hanson will meet the same fate as his former colleague.
What's changed? Well, all the attention on the killing of Trayvon Martin and the trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman and the hardening of stances on the merits of racial stereotyping. Derbyshire's piece was a response to several essays written in the aftermath of Martin's death about "The Talk" that black parents give their sons about how to deal with with white police officers and other authority figures. In "The Talk: Nonblack Version," Derbyshire wrote, "There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too." In his talk, he said, he told his children that they should "Avoid concentrations of blacks" who are strangers, "Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods," "Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress," and "If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving."
In The National Review on Tuesday, Hanson notes that Attorney General Eric Holder told the NAACP that George Zimmerman's acquittal meant he had to give his son "The Talk," about how black people are assumed to be violent by some white people and thus at great risk for harm. Hanson says, "Yet I fear that for every lecture of the sort that Holder is forced to give his son, millions of non-African-Americans are offering their own versions of ensuring safety to their progeny." Hanson does not try to be funny, the way Derbyshire did, and he doesn't make the same kind of vague warnings about a simmering race war. (Derbyshire said about 5 percent of blacks were "ferociously hostile to whites," and another 50 percent or so of them would go along out of solidarity and becaue they think white people have it coming.) But his basic idea is the same: watch out for black kids.
Hanson says his father — a Democrat! — told him once, "When you go to San Francisco, be careful if a group of black youths approaches you." Hanson continues:
This is dumb and not very polite, The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, but also does not actually make Hanson's kids safe.
And Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said on Monday night, "The sad truth is that from the president on down, our leadership has no clue, no clue at all about how to solve problems within the black community." The real problem black people face is not white racism, he said, but instead, "The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African-American family." This is about personal choice, not oppression, O'Reilly said — "White people don't force black people to have babies out of wedlock" — except in the case of the liberal entertainment industry, which "encourages the irresponsibility by marketing a gangster culture, hip hop, movies, trashy TV shows to impressionable children." He continued, "President Obama has welcomed some of the worst offenders in that cesspool to the White House when he should be condemning what these weasels are doing. These so-called entertainers get rich while the kids who emulate their lyrics and attitude destroy themselves." Get it? Maybe the black president, in some small way, is the one who's really responsible for some black crime, too.
..................................................................................................................................
National Review Is Back to Warning White People About Black People
By Elspeth Reeve, July 23, 2013
Fifteen months after The National Review ended its relationship with longtime writer John Derbyshire for an essay he wrote for TakiMag.com in which he instructs his children to be afraid of black people, the conservative magazine has published Victor Davis Hanson's version of the same article. It is unlikely Hanson will meet the same fate as his former colleague.
What's changed? Well, all the attention on the killing of Trayvon Martin and the trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman and the hardening of stances on the merits of racial stereotyping. Derbyshire's piece was a response to several essays written in the aftermath of Martin's death about "The Talk" that black parents give their sons about how to deal with with white police officers and other authority figures. In "The Talk: Nonblack Version," Derbyshire wrote, "There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too." In his talk, he said, he told his children that they should "Avoid concentrations of blacks" who are strangers, "Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods," "Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress," and "If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving."
In The National Review on Tuesday, Hanson notes that Attorney General Eric Holder told the NAACP that George Zimmerman's acquittal meant he had to give his son "The Talk," about how black people are assumed to be violent by some white people and thus at great risk for harm. Hanson says, "Yet I fear that for every lecture of the sort that Holder is forced to give his son, millions of non-African-Americans are offering their own versions of ensuring safety to their progeny." Hanson does not try to be funny, the way Derbyshire did, and he doesn't make the same kind of vague warnings about a simmering race war. (Derbyshire said about 5 percent of blacks were "ferociously hostile to whites," and another 50 percent or so of them would go along out of solidarity and becaue they think white people have it coming.) But his basic idea is the same: watch out for black kids.
Hanson says his father — a Democrat! — told him once, "When you go to San Francisco, be careful if a group of black youths approaches you." Hanson continues:
Note what he did not say to me. He did not employ language like “typical black person.” He did not advise extra caution about black women, the elderly, or the very young — or about young Asian Punjabi, or Native American males. In other words, the advice was not about race per se, but instead about the tendency of males of one particular age and race to commit an inordinate amount of violent crime.
It was after some first-hand episodes with young African-American males that I offered a similar lecture to my own son.When he was a grad student, Hanson says, two black guys tried to break into his apartment while he was in it. Another time, four black guys tried to steal his bike while he was on it. "Regrettably, I expect that my son already has his own warnings prepared to pass on to his own future children," he says.
This is dumb and not very polite, The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, but also does not actually make Hanson's kids safe.
If I were to tell you that I only employ Asian-Americans to do my taxes because "Asian-Americans do better on the Math SAT," you would not simply question my sensitivity, but my mental faculties. That is because you would understand that in making an individual decision, employing an ancestral class of millions is not very intelligent. Moreover, were I to tell you I wanted my son to marry a Jewish woman because "Jews are really successful," you would understand that statement for the stupidity which it is.But racism makes people do dumb things, Coates writes. So does politics. There have been pretty clear political "sides" to the Trayvon Martin case ever since President Obama spoke about him in March 2012. Coates wrote last fall:
As civil-rights activists descended on Florida, National Review, a magazine that once opposed integration, ran a column proclaiming“Al Sharpton Is Right.” The belief that a young man should be able to go to the store for Skittles and an iced tea and not be killed by a neighborhood--watch patroller seemed un-controversial…
The moment Obama spoke, the case of Trayvon Martin passed out of its national-mourning phase and lapsed into something darker and more familiar—racialized political fodder.Since the Zimmerman verdict, many people have defended racial profiling as the right reaction to crime rates — black people have a higher crime rate, though it is dropping, as it is with other demographics. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen did, so did Kathleen Parker, calling it "common sense." The racial debate intensified again after Obama's speech last Friday, when he said "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago." Several people pointed out that black people commit crimes too, and why didn't Obama mention that? "If you think of the young mother whose 2-year-old son was shot in the face by the two black teens that approached her in Atlanta and that baby had died, why do presidents choose to speak about one case and not the other?" former George W. Bush press secretary Dana Perino said on Sunday. Hanson points out that black men allegedly robbed a jewelry store the same day Holder gave his talk:
What were the names of two of the men suspected of being the ones who last week shot it out with the Santa Rosa jeweler as Eric Holder demagogued the Trayvon Martin shooting?
Traveon Banks-Austin and Alexander Tyvon Brandon.
And so the tragedy continues.They had similar names, so... so that must mean something, right?
And Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said on Monday night, "The sad truth is that from the president on down, our leadership has no clue, no clue at all about how to solve problems within the black community." The real problem black people face is not white racism, he said, but instead, "The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African-American family." This is about personal choice, not oppression, O'Reilly said — "White people don't force black people to have babies out of wedlock" — except in the case of the liberal entertainment industry, which "encourages the irresponsibility by marketing a gangster culture, hip hop, movies, trashy TV shows to impressionable children." He continued, "President Obama has welcomed some of the worst offenders in that cesspool to the White House when he should be condemning what these weasels are doing. These so-called entertainers get rich while the kids who emulate their lyrics and attitude destroy themselves." Get it? Maybe the black president, in some small way, is the one who's really responsible for some black crime, too.
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Congress = a cage full of monkeys
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This is being passed around the 'Net; I have no idea who the author is. It's appropriate, however!
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If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same result... all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put the cold water away.
Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.
The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one.
The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment... with enthusiasm, because he is now part of the "team".
Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by the fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Now, the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, not one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana.
Why, you ask? Because in their minds... that is the way it has always been!
This, my friends, is how Congress operates... and this is why, from time to time:
ALL of the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME.
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This is being passed around the 'Net; I have no idea who the author is. It's appropriate, however!
..................................................................................................................................
If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same result... all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put the cold water away.
Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.
The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one.
The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment... with enthusiasm, because he is now part of the "team".
Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by the fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Now, the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, not one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana.
Why, you ask? Because in their minds... that is the way it has always been!
This, my friends, is how Congress operates... and this is why, from time to time:
ALL of the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME.
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Monday, July 22, 2013
Political skullduggery on the part of Indiana's GOP governor
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Proof Of Politics: Indiana Fudges Truth On Health Exchange Rates To Make Obamacare Look Bad
By Rick Ungar, July 22, 2013
Sometimes, the political urge simply overwhelms anything resembling common sense and appropriate behavior.
Witness the latest example of political skullduggery playing out in the great State of Indiana where GOP Governor Mike Pence has found it necessary to take extreme liberties with the reporting of the state’s healthcare exchange data—all to justify his anti-Obamacare political positioning.
Anyone paying attention to data projecting what a health insurance policy will likely cost on the newly formed individual policy insurance exchanges could hardly miss the headlines late last week announcing that premiums for health insurance policies stood to rise to an average monthly price of $570—a 72 percent increase over current rates in Indiana.
Of course, if this data is correct, it would be quite a blow to Indiana residents at the hand of the dreaded Obamacare.
At first glance—the only glance the Indiana officials intend for you to see—this is certainly disturbing news. Even those willing to accept the projections and claims made by the President during last week’s health care address—where he referred to the ‘good news’ in California, Oregon, Washington and, particularly, New York—would have to come to the understanding that there may, indeed, be states where the law is going to badly hurt consumers.
Fortunately, there are those whose job it is to dig below the surface of that ‘first glance’ to discover the truth of any situation—and, in this situation, we learn that Indiana has sought to play cute in its efforts to present a grim picture of the healthcare reform law, even when the data reveals otherwise.
You see, while the states that have already released their projections have based their price expectations on what insurance company filings suggest will be the cost of a ‘Silver’ plan (the second least expensive option to be offered on the exchanges), Indiana decided to publish their projections based on a calculation that took all the levels of plans to be offered—ranging from the less expensive Bronze and Silver plan to the most expensive Gold and Platinum plans—and averaged them all together to come up with their projected rates.
As Sy Mukherjee points out, “That’s like saying the average cost of a car in an Indiana dealership is $100,000 because it sells $20,000 Fords, $60,000 BMWs, and $220,000 Lamborghinis — technically true, but highly misleading.”
Exactly.
What possible benefit can there be to taking an average of costs ranging from most expensive to least expensive when we know full well that the overwhelming majority of those living in Indiana—and, for that matter, everywhere else—will purchase the policies in the lower cost ranges?
How do we know this?
We know this because we have the evidence of buying patterns provided by the State of Massachusetts, a state that has been utilizing this system for quite some time now.
As Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post reports—
“In Massachusetts, 8 percent of enrollees bought a gold plan. Eighty-four percent chose bronze or silver. At least one carrier in Indiana seems to agree with this distribution. In state rate filings, Physicians Health Plan of Indiana estimates that 45 percent of its enrollees will pick bronze and 38 percent take up silver. It is expected that the average mix of Individual Market will be more toward less rich benefit plans and credit should be given for the associated reduction in induced utilization,” the company wrote in its filing. In other words, the average plan cost isn’t a great estimation of what the average person will pay.”
Ms. Kliff also did a little digging to discover that the actual prices for Bronze and Silver plans in Indiana are going to be far below the $512 a month estimate provided by the state’s government.
“Anthem’s rate filing includes projections for health insurance costs in their bronze plans. A 47-year-old male who does not smoke would be charged, on average, $307 per month. Sample plans from another plan, MDWise, predict a 47-year-old man will be charged $294 and $391 for a bronze and silver plan, respectively.”
While you may find the actual rates of the policies to be made available on the Indiana individual exchange to be good news or bad— depending on what you currently pay for health coverage—one would at least hope that the state would want to put out an honest analysis.
But an honest analysis gets in the way of politics, particularly when we are talking about an ambitious Republican governor like Mike Pence.
One can only hope that, at some point, the public at large will begin to ‘get’ the games and lies opponents of healthcare reform have been playing ever since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. When you have a situation like what we are seeing in Indiana, it becomes difficult to understand how anyone could avoid acknowledging that the disingenuous behavior of the anti-Obamacare forces truly knows no bounds.
Should the public ever reach that point, maybe we can finally embark on a legitimate and meaningful effort to review what appears to work in the law and what may not. Only then, can we get to work on perfecting this effort to make healthcare accessible to more Americans.
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Proof Of Politics: Indiana Fudges Truth On Health Exchange Rates To Make Obamacare Look Bad
By Rick Ungar, July 22, 2013
Sometimes, the political urge simply overwhelms anything resembling common sense and appropriate behavior.
Witness the latest example of political skullduggery playing out in the great State of Indiana where GOP Governor Mike Pence has found it necessary to take extreme liberties with the reporting of the state’s healthcare exchange data—all to justify his anti-Obamacare political positioning.
Anyone paying attention to data projecting what a health insurance policy will likely cost on the newly formed individual policy insurance exchanges could hardly miss the headlines late last week announcing that premiums for health insurance policies stood to rise to an average monthly price of $570—a 72 percent increase over current rates in Indiana.
Of course, if this data is correct, it would be quite a blow to Indiana residents at the hand of the dreaded Obamacare.
At first glance—the only glance the Indiana officials intend for you to see—this is certainly disturbing news. Even those willing to accept the projections and claims made by the President during last week’s health care address—where he referred to the ‘good news’ in California, Oregon, Washington and, particularly, New York—would have to come to the understanding that there may, indeed, be states where the law is going to badly hurt consumers.
Fortunately, there are those whose job it is to dig below the surface of that ‘first glance’ to discover the truth of any situation—and, in this situation, we learn that Indiana has sought to play cute in its efforts to present a grim picture of the healthcare reform law, even when the data reveals otherwise.
You see, while the states that have already released their projections have based their price expectations on what insurance company filings suggest will be the cost of a ‘Silver’ plan (the second least expensive option to be offered on the exchanges), Indiana decided to publish their projections based on a calculation that took all the levels of plans to be offered—ranging from the less expensive Bronze and Silver plan to the most expensive Gold and Platinum plans—and averaged them all together to come up with their projected rates.
As Sy Mukherjee points out, “That’s like saying the average cost of a car in an Indiana dealership is $100,000 because it sells $20,000 Fords, $60,000 BMWs, and $220,000 Lamborghinis — technically true, but highly misleading.”
Exactly.
What possible benefit can there be to taking an average of costs ranging from most expensive to least expensive when we know full well that the overwhelming majority of those living in Indiana—and, for that matter, everywhere else—will purchase the policies in the lower cost ranges?
How do we know this?
We know this because we have the evidence of buying patterns provided by the State of Massachusetts, a state that has been utilizing this system for quite some time now.
As Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post reports—
“In Massachusetts, 8 percent of enrollees bought a gold plan. Eighty-four percent chose bronze or silver. At least one carrier in Indiana seems to agree with this distribution. In state rate filings, Physicians Health Plan of Indiana estimates that 45 percent of its enrollees will pick bronze and 38 percent take up silver. It is expected that the average mix of Individual Market will be more toward less rich benefit plans and credit should be given for the associated reduction in induced utilization,” the company wrote in its filing. In other words, the average plan cost isn’t a great estimation of what the average person will pay.”
Ms. Kliff also did a little digging to discover that the actual prices for Bronze and Silver plans in Indiana are going to be far below the $512 a month estimate provided by the state’s government.
“Anthem’s rate filing includes projections for health insurance costs in their bronze plans. A 47-year-old male who does not smoke would be charged, on average, $307 per month. Sample plans from another plan, MDWise, predict a 47-year-old man will be charged $294 and $391 for a bronze and silver plan, respectively.”
While you may find the actual rates of the policies to be made available on the Indiana individual exchange to be good news or bad— depending on what you currently pay for health coverage—one would at least hope that the state would want to put out an honest analysis.
But an honest analysis gets in the way of politics, particularly when we are talking about an ambitious Republican governor like Mike Pence.
One can only hope that, at some point, the public at large will begin to ‘get’ the games and lies opponents of healthcare reform have been playing ever since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. When you have a situation like what we are seeing in Indiana, it becomes difficult to understand how anyone could avoid acknowledging that the disingenuous behavior of the anti-Obamacare forces truly knows no bounds.
Should the public ever reach that point, maybe we can finally embark on a legitimate and meaningful effort to review what appears to work in the law and what may not. Only then, can we get to work on perfecting this effort to make healthcare accessible to more Americans.
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Hillary-- the GOP's latest worst nightmare
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‘Stop Hillary’ group ramps up anti-Clinton efforts
By Peter Hamby, July 22, 2013
Hillary Clinton may or may not run for president in 2016, but the conservative effort to derail her potential candidacy is already underway.
The organizers behind Stop Hillary PAC, a political action committee quietly incorporated in May, are stepping into public view this week as they ramp up their efforts to harangue Clinton as she mulls over her political future.
On Monday, the PAC is announcing its leadership team, steered by Ted Harvey, a conservative Colorado state senator who was a vocal opponent of the recent gun control laws passed in the state.
Also coming on board are Garrett Marquis, a media strategist and alumnus of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign; Alex Shively, a former aide to Georgia Rep. Tom Price; Jacob Leis, a Colorado-based political strategist; and Dan Backer, a Washington attorney and lobbyist.
Those aren’t the most prominent names in Republican politics, but according to Marquis, that’s just fine. The PAC and its messaging are designed to appeal to grassroots conservatives and low dollar contributors, not traditional big donors.
Put another way, the group wants to be a boisterous party-crasher as the 2016 campaign gets underway, ginning up controversy and online contributions with barbed attacks against Clinton. To start, the PAC is releasing a video later this week “that will get a lot of attention,” Marquis promised.
The organization’s plans to “Stop Hillary” are admittedly scattershot in these early stages of the race. Their portfolio could include “bracketing” events at Clinton appearances around the country, or local TV and radio ads, or social media efforts. If Clinton does decide to run for office, the PAC will be in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina waiting for her.
The point, Marquis said, is “to make noise” wherever Clinton goes.
“We’re supporting anything that is the opposite of Hillary,” he said. “We will play however needed, wherever Hillary is playing. If she endorses in the Virginia governor’s race, we will go there. Assuming she is active in Iowa, we will be there, too, and we will make some considerable noise.”
The group is separate from “Stop Hillary 2016,” a project initiated last month by America Rising, a new opposition research outfit helmed by former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades and a pair of former Republican National Committee officials.
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‘Stop Hillary’ group ramps up anti-Clinton efforts
By Peter Hamby, July 22, 2013
Hillary Clinton may or may not run for president in 2016, but the conservative effort to derail her potential candidacy is already underway.
The organizers behind Stop Hillary PAC, a political action committee quietly incorporated in May, are stepping into public view this week as they ramp up their efforts to harangue Clinton as she mulls over her political future.
On Monday, the PAC is announcing its leadership team, steered by Ted Harvey, a conservative Colorado state senator who was a vocal opponent of the recent gun control laws passed in the state.
Also coming on board are Garrett Marquis, a media strategist and alumnus of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign; Alex Shively, a former aide to Georgia Rep. Tom Price; Jacob Leis, a Colorado-based political strategist; and Dan Backer, a Washington attorney and lobbyist.
Those aren’t the most prominent names in Republican politics, but according to Marquis, that’s just fine. The PAC and its messaging are designed to appeal to grassroots conservatives and low dollar contributors, not traditional big donors.
Put another way, the group wants to be a boisterous party-crasher as the 2016 campaign gets underway, ginning up controversy and online contributions with barbed attacks against Clinton. To start, the PAC is releasing a video later this week “that will get a lot of attention,” Marquis promised.
The organization’s plans to “Stop Hillary” are admittedly scattershot in these early stages of the race. Their portfolio could include “bracketing” events at Clinton appearances around the country, or local TV and radio ads, or social media efforts. If Clinton does decide to run for office, the PAC will be in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina waiting for her.
The point, Marquis said, is “to make noise” wherever Clinton goes.
“We’re supporting anything that is the opposite of Hillary,” he said. “We will play however needed, wherever Hillary is playing. If she endorses in the Virginia governor’s race, we will go there. Assuming she is active in Iowa, we will be there, too, and we will make some considerable noise.”
The group is separate from “Stop Hillary 2016,” a project initiated last month by America Rising, a new opposition research outfit helmed by former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades and a pair of former Republican National Committee officials.
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In reaction to the NSA leaks, people change their digital habits
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NSA revelations reframe digital life for some
By Oskar Garcia, July 22, 2013
In Louisiana, the wife of a former soldier is scaling back on Facebook posts and considering unfriending old acquaintances, worried an innocuous joke or long-lost associate might one day land her in a government probe. In California, a college student encrypts chats and emails, saying he's not planning anything sinister but shouldn't have to sweat snoopers. And in Canada, a lawyer is rethinking the data products he uses to ensure his clients' privacy.
As the attorney, Chris Bushong, put it: "Who wants to feel like they're being watched?"
News of the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs that targeted phone records but also information transmitted on the Internet has done more than spark a debate about privacy. Some are reviewing and changing their online habits as they reconsider some basic questions about today's interconnected world. Among them: How much should I share and how should I share it?
Some say they want to take preventative measures in case such programs are expanded. Others are looking to send a message — not just to the U.S. government but to the Internet companies that collect so much personal information.
"We all think that nobody's interested in us, we're all simple folk," said Doan Moran of Alexandria, La. "But you start looking at the numbers and the phone records ... it makes you really hesitate."
Last month former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing that the National Security Agency, as part of its anti-terrorism efforts, had collected the phone records of millions of Americans. A second NSA program called PRISM forces major Internet firms to turn over the detailed contents of communications such as emails, video chats, pictures and more.
Moran's husband, an ex-Army man, already was guarded about using social media. Now she is looking through her Facebook "friends" to consider whom to delete, because she can't know what someone in her network might do in the future. Moran said she's uneasy because she feels unclear about what the NSA is keeping and how deep the agency's interests might go.
In Toronto, attorney Bushong let a free trial of Google's business applications expire after learning about PRISM, under which the NSA seized data from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and AOL. Bushong is moving to San Diego in August to launch a tax planning firm and said he wants to be able to promise confidentiality and respond sufficiently should clients question his firm's data security. He switched to a Canadian Internet service provider for email and is considering installing his own document servers.
"I'd like to be able to say that I've taken all reasonable steps to ensure that they're not giving up any freedoms unnecessarily," he said.
Across the Internet, computer users are talking about changes small and large — from strengthening passwords and considering encryption to ditching cellphones and using cash over credit cards. The conversations play out daily on Reddit, Twitter and other networks, and have spread to offline life with so-called "Cryptoparty" gatherings in cities including Dallas, Atlanta and Oakland, Calif.
Information technology professional Josh Scott hosts a monthly Cryptoparty in Dallas to show people how to operate online more privately.
"You have to decide how extreme you want to be," Scott said.
Christopher Shoup, a college student from Victorville, Calif., has been encouraging friends to converse on Cryptocat, a private messaging program that promises users they can chat "without revealing messages to a third party." Shoup isn't worried that his own behavior could draw scrutiny, but said the mere idea that the government could retrieve his personal communications "bothers me as an American."
"I don't think I should have to worry," he said.
Cryptocat said it nearly doubled its number of users in two days after Snowden revealed himself as the source of leaks about the NSA's programs. Two search engine companies billed as alternatives to Google, Bing and Yahoo are also reporting significant surges in use.
DuckDuckGo and Ixquick both promise they don't collect data from users or filter results based on previous history. DuckDuckGo went from 1.8 million searches per day to more than 3 million per day the week after the NSA revelations came to light. Ixquick and sister site Startpage have gone from 2.8 million searches per day to more than 4 million.
Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of DuckDuckGo, said the NSA programs reminded people to consider privacy but that government snooping may the least of an everyday computer user's concerns. DuckDuckGo's website warns of the pitfalls of Internet search engines, including third-party advertisements built around a user's searches or the potential for a hacker or rogue employee to gain access to personal information.
Potential harm is "becoming more tangible over time," said Weinberg, who is posting fewer family photos, dropping a popular cloud service that stores files and checking his settings on devices at home to ensure they are as private as possible.
At Ixquick, more than 45,000 people have asked to be beta testers for a new email service featuring accounts that not even the company can get into without user codes, spokeswoman Katherine Albrecht said. The company will levy a small charge for the accounts, betting that people are willing to pay for privacy. As computer users grow more savvy, they better understand that Internet companies build their businesses around data collection, Albrecht said.
"These companies are not search engines," she said. "They are brilliant market research companies. ... And you are the product."
Representatives for Google, Yahoo and PalTalk, companies named in a classified PowerPoint presentation leaked by Snowden, declined comment. Microsoft, Apple and AOL officials did not return messages. Previously, the companies issued statements emphasizing that they aren't voluntarily handing over user data to the government. They also rejected newspaper reports indicating that PRISM had opened a door for the agency to tap directly into companies' data centers whenever the government pleases.
"Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users' data are false, period," Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog post.
It's not clear whether big Internet companies have seen changes in how their products are used. An analysis released this month by comScore Inc. said Google sites accounted for two-thirds of Internet searches in June — about 427 million queries per day.
In Tokyo, American expat Peng Zhong responded to the spying news by swapping everything from his default search engine and web browser to his computer's operating system. Zhong, an interface designer, then built a website to help others switch, too. Called prism-break.org, the site got more than 200,000 hits in less than a week after Zhong announced it on social networks.
Since then, Zhong said he's seen numerous people talking online about their own experiences in changing their computing habits.
"It's a start," he said.
..................................................................................................................................
NSA revelations reframe digital life for some
By Oskar Garcia, July 22, 2013
In Louisiana, the wife of a former soldier is scaling back on Facebook posts and considering unfriending old acquaintances, worried an innocuous joke or long-lost associate might one day land her in a government probe. In California, a college student encrypts chats and emails, saying he's not planning anything sinister but shouldn't have to sweat snoopers. And in Canada, a lawyer is rethinking the data products he uses to ensure his clients' privacy.
As the attorney, Chris Bushong, put it: "Who wants to feel like they're being watched?"
News of the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs that targeted phone records but also information transmitted on the Internet has done more than spark a debate about privacy. Some are reviewing and changing their online habits as they reconsider some basic questions about today's interconnected world. Among them: How much should I share and how should I share it?
Some say they want to take preventative measures in case such programs are expanded. Others are looking to send a message — not just to the U.S. government but to the Internet companies that collect so much personal information.
"We all think that nobody's interested in us, we're all simple folk," said Doan Moran of Alexandria, La. "But you start looking at the numbers and the phone records ... it makes you really hesitate."
Last month former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing that the National Security Agency, as part of its anti-terrorism efforts, had collected the phone records of millions of Americans. A second NSA program called PRISM forces major Internet firms to turn over the detailed contents of communications such as emails, video chats, pictures and more.
Moran's husband, an ex-Army man, already was guarded about using social media. Now she is looking through her Facebook "friends" to consider whom to delete, because she can't know what someone in her network might do in the future. Moran said she's uneasy because she feels unclear about what the NSA is keeping and how deep the agency's interests might go.
In Toronto, attorney Bushong let a free trial of Google's business applications expire after learning about PRISM, under which the NSA seized data from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and AOL. Bushong is moving to San Diego in August to launch a tax planning firm and said he wants to be able to promise confidentiality and respond sufficiently should clients question his firm's data security. He switched to a Canadian Internet service provider for email and is considering installing his own document servers.
"I'd like to be able to say that I've taken all reasonable steps to ensure that they're not giving up any freedoms unnecessarily," he said.
Across the Internet, computer users are talking about changes small and large — from strengthening passwords and considering encryption to ditching cellphones and using cash over credit cards. The conversations play out daily on Reddit, Twitter and other networks, and have spread to offline life with so-called "Cryptoparty" gatherings in cities including Dallas, Atlanta and Oakland, Calif.
Information technology professional Josh Scott hosts a monthly Cryptoparty in Dallas to show people how to operate online more privately.
"You have to decide how extreme you want to be," Scott said.
Christopher Shoup, a college student from Victorville, Calif., has been encouraging friends to converse on Cryptocat, a private messaging program that promises users they can chat "without revealing messages to a third party." Shoup isn't worried that his own behavior could draw scrutiny, but said the mere idea that the government could retrieve his personal communications "bothers me as an American."
"I don't think I should have to worry," he said.
Cryptocat said it nearly doubled its number of users in two days after Snowden revealed himself as the source of leaks about the NSA's programs. Two search engine companies billed as alternatives to Google, Bing and Yahoo are also reporting significant surges in use.
DuckDuckGo and Ixquick both promise they don't collect data from users or filter results based on previous history. DuckDuckGo went from 1.8 million searches per day to more than 3 million per day the week after the NSA revelations came to light. Ixquick and sister site Startpage have gone from 2.8 million searches per day to more than 4 million.
Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of DuckDuckGo, said the NSA programs reminded people to consider privacy but that government snooping may the least of an everyday computer user's concerns. DuckDuckGo's website warns of the pitfalls of Internet search engines, including third-party advertisements built around a user's searches or the potential for a hacker or rogue employee to gain access to personal information.
Potential harm is "becoming more tangible over time," said Weinberg, who is posting fewer family photos, dropping a popular cloud service that stores files and checking his settings on devices at home to ensure they are as private as possible.
At Ixquick, more than 45,000 people have asked to be beta testers for a new email service featuring accounts that not even the company can get into without user codes, spokeswoman Katherine Albrecht said. The company will levy a small charge for the accounts, betting that people are willing to pay for privacy. As computer users grow more savvy, they better understand that Internet companies build their businesses around data collection, Albrecht said.
"These companies are not search engines," she said. "They are brilliant market research companies. ... And you are the product."
Representatives for Google, Yahoo and PalTalk, companies named in a classified PowerPoint presentation leaked by Snowden, declined comment. Microsoft, Apple and AOL officials did not return messages. Previously, the companies issued statements emphasizing that they aren't voluntarily handing over user data to the government. They also rejected newspaper reports indicating that PRISM had opened a door for the agency to tap directly into companies' data centers whenever the government pleases.
"Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users' data are false, period," Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog post.
It's not clear whether big Internet companies have seen changes in how their products are used. An analysis released this month by comScore Inc. said Google sites accounted for two-thirds of Internet searches in June — about 427 million queries per day.
In Tokyo, American expat Peng Zhong responded to the spying news by swapping everything from his default search engine and web browser to his computer's operating system. Zhong, an interface designer, then built a website to help others switch, too. Called prism-break.org, the site got more than 200,000 hits in less than a week after Zhong announced it on social networks.
Since then, Zhong said he's seen numerous people talking online about their own experiences in changing their computing habits.
"It's a start," he said.
..................................................................................................................................
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Boehner, aren't you supposed to be the leader of the House? How about doing some leading, then?
..................................................................................................................................
Boehner refuses to take stand on key immigration provision
By John Whitesides, July 21, 2013
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner refused on Sunday to say whether a comprehensive immigration overhaul should include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, declaring that the House debate is "not about me."
Boehner, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," dodged repeated attempts to get him to spell out his personal views on a path to citizenship for up to 11 million illegal immigrants now in the United States, a major point of contention between the House and the Democratic-led Senate.
"It's not about me, it's not about what I want," said Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "This about allowing the House to work its will."
The Senate has passed a sweeping, bipartisan immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship, which Republican opponents have called an "amnesty" that would reward lawbreakers and attract more illegal immigrants.
Boehner said taking a personal stand on the issue would make it harder for him to find consensus on immigration in the House.
"If I come out and say, 'I'm for this and I'm for that,' all I'm doing is making my job harder," Boehner said. "My job in this process is to facilitate a discussion and to facilitate a process."
Boehner said the sweeping Senate bill would not pass the House and reiterated that the House would tackle the issue in smaller "chunks" that would include stricter provisions on border protection.
"We want to deal with this in chunks, chunks that the members can deal with and grapple with, and frankly chunks that the American people can get their arms around," he said.
With polls showing public approval of Congress at near record lows, Boehner was asked how he felt to have presided over the least productive and one of the least popular Congresses.
"We should not be judged by how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal," Boehner said.
Republicans have made repeal of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul one of the party's top priorities.
..................................................................................................................................
Boehner refuses to take stand on key immigration provision
By John Whitesides, July 21, 2013
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner refused on Sunday to say whether a comprehensive immigration overhaul should include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, declaring that the House debate is "not about me."
Boehner, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," dodged repeated attempts to get him to spell out his personal views on a path to citizenship for up to 11 million illegal immigrants now in the United States, a major point of contention between the House and the Democratic-led Senate.
"It's not about me, it's not about what I want," said Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "This about allowing the House to work its will."
The Senate has passed a sweeping, bipartisan immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship, which Republican opponents have called an "amnesty" that would reward lawbreakers and attract more illegal immigrants.
Boehner said taking a personal stand on the issue would make it harder for him to find consensus on immigration in the House.
"If I come out and say, 'I'm for this and I'm for that,' all I'm doing is making my job harder," Boehner said. "My job in this process is to facilitate a discussion and to facilitate a process."
Boehner said the sweeping Senate bill would not pass the House and reiterated that the House would tackle the issue in smaller "chunks" that would include stricter provisions on border protection.
"We want to deal with this in chunks, chunks that the members can deal with and grapple with, and frankly chunks that the American people can get their arms around," he said.
With polls showing public approval of Congress at near record lows, Boehner was asked how he felt to have presided over the least productive and one of the least popular Congresses.
"We should not be judged by how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal," Boehner said.
Republicans have made repeal of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul one of the party's top priorities.
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The Tea Party and its ilk are government-plundering pirates
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John Laird is The Columbian's (Vancouver, WA) editorial page editor. His column of personal opinion appears each Sunday.
..................................................................................................................................
Political piranhas cut funds, then criticize performance
By John Laird, July 21, 2013
Many people ask why anyone who hates government would ever want to actually work in government as an elected official. The answer comes so easily, a columnist need only rest his hands on the keyboard and wait for the explanation to magically materialize on the monitor.
Politicians fixated on gutting government tend to follow a predictable strategy: Cut funding to a particular agency, then point with feigned surprise at how poorly the agency performs, and finally — and hopefully, in their minds — privatize it.
Voila! Touchdown Tea Party!
On the national stage, this strategy is used by those who are trying to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service.
Step 1: Require the Postal Service to prefund pensions 75 years in advance, a mandate forced upon no other agency.
Step 2: Create such gridlock in Congress that dozens of viable savings proposals — including an end to Saturday mail delivery — are held hostage. (Which reminds me, don't miss this letter to the editor by local middle-school student and future marketing guru Jimmy Muse.)
Step 3: Then, after kicking the legs out from under the Postal Service, scoff at its inability to walk. Cite the agency as yet another example that government IS the problem. Golly, ol' Grover Norquist must've been right all along. We really DO need to make government so small we can drown it in a bathtub.
Perpetuating this crusade is this reality: When you're addicted to making government look bad, gridlock is your crack cocaine.
Nothing gets done? Voila! Tea Party scores again!
Immigration reform gets stalled, progress is thwarted and status quo amnesty is preserved? Great! Another heapin' helping of gridlock, please!
A new farm bill is blocked? Perfect! We told those farmers and food-stamp welfare queens to stop picking the taxpayers' pockets!
Social services for the poor and disabled are withdrawn? Hey, how 'bout they stop mooching off our cradle-to-grave, nanny-state government and flex some of that rugged individualism and American exceptionalism!
Step into the tub, please
Locally, we see this death-by-denial strategy — this attrition-through-atrophy — deployed in Clark County government. Times are tough and getting tougher over at the Public Service Center. Talented, highly respected department leaders are leaving in droves. Morale among rank-and-file workers is at rock bottom.
During this awful Great Recession, since about 2007, our county has cut its budget by more than $60 million and laid off about 100 people. For the political piranhas, though, that's not enough. The bathtub awaits, and they've got the water running. So they implement the plan:
Step 1: Remove parking fees at six local parks at a cost to the cash-strapped county's general fund of about $325,000.
Step 2: Act shocked — shocked! — when vandalism and littering increases at some of those same parks.
Step 3: Blame the overworked and understaffed county parks department. Fire off condescending emails to the bureaucrats demanding that they solve the problem you created. Remind them that, if they can't repair the damage to your political career, the consequences just might include a dunking in Grover's tub.
Some public services, though, aren't so willing to climb into the bath water. When the county withheld funding to the job-creating Columbia River Economic Development Council, the CREDC decided fine, we'll just open the floodgates to jobs without the county's help.
And when the county tried to cut funding to the Humane Society for Southwest Washington, the HSSW stood its ground and announced the precise terms that are needed in a new contract.
Still, the government-plundering pirates will hold to their strategy: Cut funding, then angrily criticize performance.
All of these preordained problems forced by funding cuts remind me of playing baseball with my brother back in the '50s. He used to love walking me on four pitches — all fastballs at my head — and then yelling, "See? I told you you couldn't hit!"
..................................................................................................................................
John Laird is The Columbian's (Vancouver, WA) editorial page editor. His column of personal opinion appears each Sunday.
..................................................................................................................................
Political piranhas cut funds, then criticize performance
By John Laird, July 21, 2013
Many people ask why anyone who hates government would ever want to actually work in government as an elected official. The answer comes so easily, a columnist need only rest his hands on the keyboard and wait for the explanation to magically materialize on the monitor.
Politicians fixated on gutting government tend to follow a predictable strategy: Cut funding to a particular agency, then point with feigned surprise at how poorly the agency performs, and finally — and hopefully, in their minds — privatize it.
Voila! Touchdown Tea Party!
On the national stage, this strategy is used by those who are trying to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service.
Step 1: Require the Postal Service to prefund pensions 75 years in advance, a mandate forced upon no other agency.
Step 2: Create such gridlock in Congress that dozens of viable savings proposals — including an end to Saturday mail delivery — are held hostage. (Which reminds me, don't miss this letter to the editor by local middle-school student and future marketing guru Jimmy Muse.)
Step 3: Then, after kicking the legs out from under the Postal Service, scoff at its inability to walk. Cite the agency as yet another example that government IS the problem. Golly, ol' Grover Norquist must've been right all along. We really DO need to make government so small we can drown it in a bathtub.
Perpetuating this crusade is this reality: When you're addicted to making government look bad, gridlock is your crack cocaine.
Nothing gets done? Voila! Tea Party scores again!
Immigration reform gets stalled, progress is thwarted and status quo amnesty is preserved? Great! Another heapin' helping of gridlock, please!
A new farm bill is blocked? Perfect! We told those farmers and food-stamp welfare queens to stop picking the taxpayers' pockets!
Social services for the poor and disabled are withdrawn? Hey, how 'bout they stop mooching off our cradle-to-grave, nanny-state government and flex some of that rugged individualism and American exceptionalism!
Step into the tub, please
Locally, we see this death-by-denial strategy — this attrition-through-atrophy — deployed in Clark County government. Times are tough and getting tougher over at the Public Service Center. Talented, highly respected department leaders are leaving in droves. Morale among rank-and-file workers is at rock bottom.
During this awful Great Recession, since about 2007, our county has cut its budget by more than $60 million and laid off about 100 people. For the political piranhas, though, that's not enough. The bathtub awaits, and they've got the water running. So they implement the plan:
Step 1: Remove parking fees at six local parks at a cost to the cash-strapped county's general fund of about $325,000.
Step 2: Act shocked — shocked! — when vandalism and littering increases at some of those same parks.
Step 3: Blame the overworked and understaffed county parks department. Fire off condescending emails to the bureaucrats demanding that they solve the problem you created. Remind them that, if they can't repair the damage to your political career, the consequences just might include a dunking in Grover's tub.
Some public services, though, aren't so willing to climb into the bath water. When the county withheld funding to the job-creating Columbia River Economic Development Council, the CREDC decided fine, we'll just open the floodgates to jobs without the county's help.
And when the county tried to cut funding to the Humane Society for Southwest Washington, the HSSW stood its ground and announced the precise terms that are needed in a new contract.
Still, the government-plundering pirates will hold to their strategy: Cut funding, then angrily criticize performance.
All of these preordained problems forced by funding cuts remind me of playing baseball with my brother back in the '50s. He used to love walking me on four pitches — all fastballs at my head — and then yelling, "See? I told you you couldn't hit!"
..................................................................................................................................
The GOP: its future on the national level looks worse than its past
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Two Political Stories, Hold the False Equivalence
How to begin chronicling a reality that historians will want to explain
By James Fallow, July 18, 2013
Something truly remarkable is underway in party politics at the moment. One of our national parties has lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections, and its future on the national level looks worse than its past. It is losing badly among the largest bloc of voters, women (who went for Obama over Romney 56-44 last year). Among the fastest-growing blocs of voters -- Latinos, young voters, Asians, the tech elite, etc -- it is losing by even more.
Yet all of the energy, pressure, and big personalities in this party -- and, you've guessed, I am talking about the Republicans -- are pushing it closer to its fervent but outnumbered base and away from more centrist positions and candidates who might give it a better national-election chance. That's the story behind the primary challenges that knocked off the likes of Dick Lugar and gave us the likes of Todd Akin. It's the story of the repeated debt-ceiling showdowns and filibuster abuse, plus the vote to eliminate Food Stamps. It's the story behind the intra-mural GOP struggle over the immigration bill. The party's Super-ego, in the approximate form of the Bush family (plus business allies, some evangelicals, etc; and technically maybe all these amounting to the party's Freud-parlance Ego) is pushing for approval. The party's Id is doing everything it can to resist.
This contest will be chronicled in our histories -- but, as I've pointed out once or twice, it poses surprising challenges for mainstream journalism of the moment, given reporters' strong instinct to remain "fair" by keeping equal distance from the main parties' views.
Here are two illustrations of what you can do if you work free of that impulse. One is from Thomas Edsall, on the NYT's Opinionator blog, who examines the struggle between Republicans concerned about the party's national ambitions and those appealing to, or fearful of, the hard-line local base. Sample:
..................................................................................................................................
Two Political Stories, Hold the False Equivalence
How to begin chronicling a reality that historians will want to explain
By James Fallow, July 18, 2013
Something truly remarkable is underway in party politics at the moment. One of our national parties has lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections, and its future on the national level looks worse than its past. It is losing badly among the largest bloc of voters, women (who went for Obama over Romney 56-44 last year). Among the fastest-growing blocs of voters -- Latinos, young voters, Asians, the tech elite, etc -- it is losing by even more.
Yet all of the energy, pressure, and big personalities in this party -- and, you've guessed, I am talking about the Republicans -- are pushing it closer to its fervent but outnumbered base and away from more centrist positions and candidates who might give it a better national-election chance. That's the story behind the primary challenges that knocked off the likes of Dick Lugar and gave us the likes of Todd Akin. It's the story of the repeated debt-ceiling showdowns and filibuster abuse, plus the vote to eliminate Food Stamps. It's the story behind the intra-mural GOP struggle over the immigration bill. The party's Super-ego, in the approximate form of the Bush family (plus business allies, some evangelicals, etc; and technically maybe all these amounting to the party's Freud-parlance Ego) is pushing for approval. The party's Id is doing everything it can to resist.
This contest will be chronicled in our histories -- but, as I've pointed out once or twice, it poses surprising challenges for mainstream journalism of the moment, given reporters' strong instinct to remain "fair" by keeping equal distance from the main parties' views.
Here are two illustrations of what you can do if you work free of that impulse. One is from Thomas Edsall, on the NYT's Opinionator blog, who examines the struggle between Republicans concerned about the party's national ambitions and those appealing to, or fearful of, the hard-line local base. Sample:
"Their rigidity is killing them. It's either holy purity, or you are anathema," Tom Korologos, a premier Republican lobbyist and the ambassador to Belgium under George W. Bush, said in a phone interview. "Too many ideologues have come in. You don't win by what they are doing."
A number of prominent figures in the Republican Party share this harsh view. Jeb Bush warned last year that both Ronald Reagan and his own father would have a "hard time" fitting into the contemporary Republican Party, which he described as dominated by "an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement."The other is from Rich Yeselson, who argues today in Politico that while freshman Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has essentially no chance of carrying the Electoral College and becoming president in 2016, he nonetheless has a plausible chance of becoming the party's nominee. Sample:
So it's best to think of Cruz as the perfect expression of what Perry and Rubio were mere beta versions: the exemplification, brilliantly articulated, of the fringe pathologies trapped in the body of a major party that is today's GOP. Cruz is the real deal. He is deeply grounded in his worldview, and skilled in his presentation of it. He's the man that rightwing activists must wish had started his national political career just a few years earlier: Is there any doubt that Ted Cruz would have been a more daunting challenger for Mitt Romney than the charlatans and bozos Romney defeated for the 2012 nomination?
It doesn't take much imagination to envision a titanic faceoff in 2016 between Cruz and the round mound of Trenton town, Chris Christie, his only peer in sheer political talent and chutzpah among the other GOP presidential contenders.My point in highlighting these articles, apart from their respective merits, is not to ask for more attitude or partisan bias in reporting. Rather it is to illustrate the adjustments "responsible" journalism is having to make to reflect the actual reality of our politics now. We know for certain that people looking back on our era, a generation from now, will be asking "What happened to the Republicans in the post-Lehman Bros, post-GWBush age?" Journalism might as well begin grappling with that question now.
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Saturday, July 20, 2013
Can the Republicans come up with an actual plan instead of always bashing Democrats?
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In political talk, a little is plenty
By Mike Goens, July 21, 2013
My experience has been that it’s usually a good idea to take the Brylcreem approach to any discussion involving politics. Indeed, “a little dab’ll do ya” in most cases.
How often have you had conversations about politics that didn’t involve someone getting a little too excited? It’s difficult to have a civil debate about two sides of a political issue. People, especially in Alabama, are passionate about their politics and don’t have the time or patience for people who don’t think as they do or even have the nerve to ask “what about the other side?”
With that in mind, I proceeded cautiously with a friend the other day when the issue of the next presidential race was mentioned.
My friend, a somewhat-close-to-the-middle Republican, wanted my opinion about whether his party would take back the White House after eight years of Barack Obama.
The simple answer is it depends on the two nominees. We tossed out some names and ended up with a Republican Marco Rubio versus Democrat Hillary Clinton scenario. I said Clinton would win that one, and my friend reluctantly agreed.
“What’s wrong with the national Republican Party?” he asked.
Against my better judgment, I waded into the deep end and gave him some thoughts. Surprisingly, he listened without his face turning red.
First, I told him, you can’t view national politics as we see and hear things in Alabama. The rest of the country doesn’t think the way Alabamians and most Southerners think. If the nation thought like our state, Obama nor any other Democrat would be president.
I said the Republican Party has become more like a social club — more exclusive and less inclusive. The face of the GOP is essentially white and older than 55. My friend’s head moved up and down in agreement, and he pointed out his party learned nothing from 2012 when Obama’s re-election was fueled by his stance on immigration. House Republicans keep making their party’s perception on that issue worse with the immigration law they are pushing.
Finally, I told him what I consider to be the real problem. The GOP bashed Bill Clinton from the moment he announced he was running. They have blamed him for everything wrong in this country. It was an approach that helped Clinton get re-elected. By the way, Republicans, for some reason, kept blaming Clinton long after he left office.
Now, Obama is blamed for all bad things regardless of whether facts support the position. It got him re-elected, too. Republicans still bash him, but he won’t be on the ballot in 2016.
I asked: Has it occurred the anyone that the bashing strategy should be replaced with an actual plan about how they will make life better for all Americans, not just Republicans?
My friend got a little tense, but paused before talking. “Let me think about that for a minute,” he said.
..................................................................................................................................
In political talk, a little is plenty
By Mike Goens, July 21, 2013
My experience has been that it’s usually a good idea to take the Brylcreem approach to any discussion involving politics. Indeed, “a little dab’ll do ya” in most cases.
How often have you had conversations about politics that didn’t involve someone getting a little too excited? It’s difficult to have a civil debate about two sides of a political issue. People, especially in Alabama, are passionate about their politics and don’t have the time or patience for people who don’t think as they do or even have the nerve to ask “what about the other side?”
With that in mind, I proceeded cautiously with a friend the other day when the issue of the next presidential race was mentioned.
My friend, a somewhat-close-to-the-middle Republican, wanted my opinion about whether his party would take back the White House after eight years of Barack Obama.
The simple answer is it depends on the two nominees. We tossed out some names and ended up with a Republican Marco Rubio versus Democrat Hillary Clinton scenario. I said Clinton would win that one, and my friend reluctantly agreed.
“What’s wrong with the national Republican Party?” he asked.
Against my better judgment, I waded into the deep end and gave him some thoughts. Surprisingly, he listened without his face turning red.
First, I told him, you can’t view national politics as we see and hear things in Alabama. The rest of the country doesn’t think the way Alabamians and most Southerners think. If the nation thought like our state, Obama nor any other Democrat would be president.
I said the Republican Party has become more like a social club — more exclusive and less inclusive. The face of the GOP is essentially white and older than 55. My friend’s head moved up and down in agreement, and he pointed out his party learned nothing from 2012 when Obama’s re-election was fueled by his stance on immigration. House Republicans keep making their party’s perception on that issue worse with the immigration law they are pushing.
Finally, I told him what I consider to be the real problem. The GOP bashed Bill Clinton from the moment he announced he was running. They have blamed him for everything wrong in this country. It was an approach that helped Clinton get re-elected. By the way, Republicans, for some reason, kept blaming Clinton long after he left office.
Now, Obama is blamed for all bad things regardless of whether facts support the position. It got him re-elected, too. Republicans still bash him, but he won’t be on the ballot in 2016.
I asked: Has it occurred the anyone that the bashing strategy should be replaced with an actual plan about how they will make life better for all Americans, not just Republicans?
My friend got a little tense, but paused before talking. “Let me think about that for a minute,” he said.
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It all depends on which side you're on, doesn't it?
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Talk about leaping to conclusions: "Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant, said she cringed at first ... [but] 'When I actually read his words, I thought he had been measured, respectful of the legal process.'" Unfortunately her original response is too often the only response of the conservatives.
..................................................................................................................................
Political world reacts to Obama’s 'Trayvon' moment
By Brad Knickerbocker, July 20, 2013
President Obama says he doubts whether he or any other politician could play a lead role in a national “conversation” about race in America today.
“I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations,” he said at the White House Friday, an observation in the middle of his long, unscripted comments on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin – except that what he said certainly will be seen as a key moment in just such a conversation.
Five years into his presidency, Mr. Obama spoke movingly and at length about the case of an unarmed teenager killed by self-appointed neighborhood “watch” volunteer George Zimmerman, apparently suspicious of, following, and then ignoring the direction of a 911 police dispatcher to confront the black youth.
“There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me,” Obama said. “And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator.” (Obama's full speech here.)
The reaction to Obama’s 18-minute unannounced oration in the White House press room Friday came quickly and across the political spectrum.
“I’m glad he spoke up today,” Robert Zimmerman, George Zimmerman’s brother and a family spokesman told FOX News. “I think he was very sincere in his remarks.”
“No matter what your opinion of the verdict is, there have to be things that bring us together, there have to be teachable moments that we learn from what happened here,” Robert Zimmerman said.
Elsewhere on the conservative cable channel, the comments had a sharper edge.
Fox’s Sean Hannity suggests that the main reason Obama identifies with Trayvon is that the two as teenagers had smoked marijuana.
On Facebook, Fox News radio host Todd Starnes wrote that Obama’s comments about the Trayvon Martin shooting makes the president “Race-Baiter in Chief.”
“His remarks today on the Trayvon Martin tragedy are beyond reprehensible,” Starnes wrote.
Other defenders of George Zimmerman, found not guilty by a jury of six, seemed to better understand what Obama was trying to do.
“Ppl say we need to have an honest conversation about race. Sounds like the President tried to start one. Don't see the need to attack,” tweeted Eric Ericson, conservative editor-in-chief of RedState.com.
"It takes courage to talk about race,” Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's lawyer, said in a statement. “It took courage for our President to address the Zimmerman Case and candidly discuss how and why people are upset by the verdict."
Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant, said she cringed at first when she heard the president had spoken about the case.
"I cringed because I think the last thing we need is to insert politics into what is already a very divisive, emotional debate," she told the Associated Press. "When I actually read his words, I thought he had been measured, respectful of the legal process."
Many in the African-American community have wanted more from Obama on race in the nation today, which they trace back to what’s been called “America’s original sin” of slavery.
"I think African Americans in particular wanted him to speak to an issue that deals with race as African Americans see it, and I think African Americans are pleased he's done so," Brenda Stevenson, a history professor at the University of California Los Angeles, told the AP. "But I think the president wanted to do so without alienating other people."
But civil rights leader and MSNBC host Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network is planning rallies in 100 cities to press for federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman on Saturday, called the president's words historic.
"There is nothing more powerful than the president of the United States, for the first time in history, saying, 'I know how they feel,'" he said.
As they have been throughout their ordeal, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s parents, were dignified and respectful in their response to Obama’s comments Friday.
“We are deeply honored and moved that President Obama took the time to speak publicly and at length about our son,” they said in a statement. “The President’s comments give us great strength at this time.”
“President Obama sees himself in Trayvon and identifies with him,” they said. “This is a beautiful tribute to our boy.”
If there is to be any conversation on race, Obama said, the most important part may be private – like prayer.
Individual Americans should “do some soul-searching” about their own racial biases, he said, asking themselves, “Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character?"
"That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy," he said.
..................................................................................................................................
Talk about leaping to conclusions: "Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant, said she cringed at first ... [but] 'When I actually read his words, I thought he had been measured, respectful of the legal process.'" Unfortunately her original response is too often the only response of the conservatives.
..................................................................................................................................
Political world reacts to Obama’s 'Trayvon' moment
By Brad Knickerbocker, July 20, 2013
President Obama says he doubts whether he or any other politician could play a lead role in a national “conversation” about race in America today.
“I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations,” he said at the White House Friday, an observation in the middle of his long, unscripted comments on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin – except that what he said certainly will be seen as a key moment in just such a conversation.
Five years into his presidency, Mr. Obama spoke movingly and at length about the case of an unarmed teenager killed by self-appointed neighborhood “watch” volunteer George Zimmerman, apparently suspicious of, following, and then ignoring the direction of a 911 police dispatcher to confront the black youth.
“There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me,” Obama said. “And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator.” (Obama's full speech here.)
The reaction to Obama’s 18-minute unannounced oration in the White House press room Friday came quickly and across the political spectrum.
“I’m glad he spoke up today,” Robert Zimmerman, George Zimmerman’s brother and a family spokesman told FOX News. “I think he was very sincere in his remarks.”
“No matter what your opinion of the verdict is, there have to be things that bring us together, there have to be teachable moments that we learn from what happened here,” Robert Zimmerman said.
Elsewhere on the conservative cable channel, the comments had a sharper edge.
Fox’s Sean Hannity suggests that the main reason Obama identifies with Trayvon is that the two as teenagers had smoked marijuana.
On Facebook, Fox News radio host Todd Starnes wrote that Obama’s comments about the Trayvon Martin shooting makes the president “Race-Baiter in Chief.”
“His remarks today on the Trayvon Martin tragedy are beyond reprehensible,” Starnes wrote.
Other defenders of George Zimmerman, found not guilty by a jury of six, seemed to better understand what Obama was trying to do.
“Ppl say we need to have an honest conversation about race. Sounds like the President tried to start one. Don't see the need to attack,” tweeted Eric Ericson, conservative editor-in-chief of RedState.com.
"It takes courage to talk about race,” Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's lawyer, said in a statement. “It took courage for our President to address the Zimmerman Case and candidly discuss how and why people are upset by the verdict."
Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant, said she cringed at first when she heard the president had spoken about the case.
"I cringed because I think the last thing we need is to insert politics into what is already a very divisive, emotional debate," she told the Associated Press. "When I actually read his words, I thought he had been measured, respectful of the legal process."
Many in the African-American community have wanted more from Obama on race in the nation today, which they trace back to what’s been called “America’s original sin” of slavery.
"I think African Americans in particular wanted him to speak to an issue that deals with race as African Americans see it, and I think African Americans are pleased he's done so," Brenda Stevenson, a history professor at the University of California Los Angeles, told the AP. "But I think the president wanted to do so without alienating other people."
But civil rights leader and MSNBC host Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network is planning rallies in 100 cities to press for federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman on Saturday, called the president's words historic.
"There is nothing more powerful than the president of the United States, for the first time in history, saying, 'I know how they feel,'" he said.
As they have been throughout their ordeal, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s parents, were dignified and respectful in their response to Obama’s comments Friday.
“We are deeply honored and moved that President Obama took the time to speak publicly and at length about our son,” they said in a statement. “The President’s comments give us great strength at this time.”
“President Obama sees himself in Trayvon and identifies with him,” they said. “This is a beautiful tribute to our boy.”
If there is to be any conversation on race, Obama said, the most important part may be private – like prayer.
Individual Americans should “do some soul-searching” about their own racial biases, he said, asking themselves, “Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character?"
"That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy," he said.
..................................................................................................................................
Friday, July 19, 2013
"Can we at least take baby steps in that direction?" No, because we shouldn't be including babies, either!
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Let's Spare Political Wives Their Awful Ordeals
By Conor Friedersdorf, July 19, 2013
In Slate, Katy Waldman notices that a certain male politician who left office in a sex scandal, but who is now attempting a comeback, is mostly campaigning without his wife by his side. A New York Times piece alerted her to that fact. "It's not just that she's not there to humanize her husband," she writes, "her absence keeps questions about their relationship and his transgressions front and center." This is why wronged wives end up standing next to their misbehaving husbands at press conferences: whether they are present or absent, the press treats it as a story, and the prevailing reaction suggests that "present" is politically better than "absent."
American voters ought to have the opposite reaction.
Campaigning beside one's wife, bringing her to press conferences, and especially involving her in public life after you get caught cheating on her ought to be seen for what it is: a transparent PR gambit. Politicians could stand on stage cradling adorable puppies in their arms, but they never do, because even people who love puppies would understand and react against the cartoonish manipulation. I want to live in a country where campaigning with one's wife is equally distrusted, because even if she's extremely intelligent, accomplished, and articulate, she's usually being used as little more than a cynical prop rather than a thinking human with distinct ideas or a willingness to reveal how she'll influence her spouse.
It would be more appropriate to campaign with a puppy -- there wouldn't be any squashing of intellectual autonomy, or any attempt to hide the fact that staffers are leading it around on a leash. There are, of course, women like Callista Gingrich, who encourage the political ambitions of their husbands and appear to want to stand beside them on stage. I would like to live in a country where we are deeply suspicious of those wives (I might already live in that country).
Politicians could stand on stage cradling adorable puppies in their arms, but they never do, because even people who love puppies would understand the cartoonish manipulation.
I'd have the same objection to political husbands if they were used in this fashion. But from what I've observed, female politicians mostly don't use their husbands as props, don't get caught cheating, and don't have husbands who aspire to be "First Gentleman." We could learn from those women.
(Note: For all sorts of reasons, the Clintons are sui generis.)
The aversion to using political wives as props should be strongest in cases of sex scandals. Guys like Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner shouldn't have an incentive to persuade their spouses to publicly support them. They should be terrified of bringing their wives to a campaign stop, even if they want to be there, because of the perception that they're putting them in an awkward, unpleasant position to further personal ambition. If that were the operating assumption, the pressure on political wives to put an airbrushed version of themselves in the spotlight would wane, and the public would benefit, because a candidate's marriage is not a public concern whether or not the spouse wants to be in the spotlight. Campaigns should be focused elsewhere, and if they were, more people who don't run for office because they don't want to put their families through the process -- that is, normal people -- might put themselves forward.
Okay, now let's practice how things should go under the new norm:
..................................................................................................................................
Let's Spare Political Wives Their Awful Ordeals
By Conor Friedersdorf, July 19, 2013
In Slate, Katy Waldman notices that a certain male politician who left office in a sex scandal, but who is now attempting a comeback, is mostly campaigning without his wife by his side. A New York Times piece alerted her to that fact. "It's not just that she's not there to humanize her husband," she writes, "her absence keeps questions about their relationship and his transgressions front and center." This is why wronged wives end up standing next to their misbehaving husbands at press conferences: whether they are present or absent, the press treats it as a story, and the prevailing reaction suggests that "present" is politically better than "absent."
American voters ought to have the opposite reaction.
Campaigning beside one's wife, bringing her to press conferences, and especially involving her in public life after you get caught cheating on her ought to be seen for what it is: a transparent PR gambit. Politicians could stand on stage cradling adorable puppies in their arms, but they never do, because even people who love puppies would understand and react against the cartoonish manipulation. I want to live in a country where campaigning with one's wife is equally distrusted, because even if she's extremely intelligent, accomplished, and articulate, she's usually being used as little more than a cynical prop rather than a thinking human with distinct ideas or a willingness to reveal how she'll influence her spouse.
It would be more appropriate to campaign with a puppy -- there wouldn't be any squashing of intellectual autonomy, or any attempt to hide the fact that staffers are leading it around on a leash. There are, of course, women like Callista Gingrich, who encourage the political ambitions of their husbands and appear to want to stand beside them on stage. I would like to live in a country where we are deeply suspicious of those wives (I might already live in that country).
Politicians could stand on stage cradling adorable puppies in their arms, but they never do, because even people who love puppies would understand the cartoonish manipulation.
I'd have the same objection to political husbands if they were used in this fashion. But from what I've observed, female politicians mostly don't use their husbands as props, don't get caught cheating, and don't have husbands who aspire to be "First Gentleman." We could learn from those women.
(Note: For all sorts of reasons, the Clintons are sui generis.)
The aversion to using political wives as props should be strongest in cases of sex scandals. Guys like Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner shouldn't have an incentive to persuade their spouses to publicly support them. They should be terrified of bringing their wives to a campaign stop, even if they want to be there, because of the perception that they're putting them in an awkward, unpleasant position to further personal ambition. If that were the operating assumption, the pressure on political wives to put an airbrushed version of themselves in the spotlight would wane, and the public would benefit, because a candidate's marriage is not a public concern whether or not the spouse wants to be in the spotlight. Campaigns should be focused elsewhere, and if they were, more people who don't run for office because they don't want to put their families through the process -- that is, normal people -- might put themselves forward.
Okay, now let's practice how things should go under the new norm:
TV Personality: I understand your wife will be sitting down with us for the second part of the interview.
Studio Audience: (scattered, incredulous gasps).
Viewer Watching at Home: That self-obsessed asshole.
TV Personality: Lots of people watching are probably wondering why you'd want to have your wife here. Most spouses find being in that role unpleasant, and it isn't like your marriage has anything to do with the office you're seeking. Should voters focus on your spouse or your qualifications?
Political Wife: If I might interject, I understand how unseemly this sort of thing often is, but in this case I really did want to be here.
TV Personality: I'll take you at your word. (Turning to politician.) Still, sir, even if she's here willingly, you're still trafficking in the illusion that we're getting some real window into your marriage, when of course no media appearance can afford anything of the sort. Have you no shame?
Politician: You're as implicated in the unseemly charade as I am. Your producer booked us, after all.
Studio Audience: (collectively) Ooohhhhh.
TV Personality: You've got a point.Can we at least take baby steps in that direction?
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Wonder what else I've been missing out on?
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Your Political Rants Are Too Awful Even for Reddit
By Janet Paskin, July 19, 2013
Reddit, the site that calls itself the front page of the Internet, has relegated all political topics to the digital basement. More specifically, the website has taken its political domain—or, in Reddit-speak, subreddit—off the default front page so that when the casual user stops by, he no longer gets /r/politics topics in his feed.
You could file this in the annals of Internet trivia and move on, and that would be fine. Except for this: The /r/politics forum has had some offline political muscle, most notably in the 2008 election when it became something of a staging ground for Ron Paul’s campaign. Whatever your feelings on Paul, it was an historic example of third-party organizing on a national scale.
There is also the fact of Reddit’s standout status for the variety and quality of its content, which is generated by the people who use the site, with links and essays and the signature “Ask Me Anything” feature, in which someone famous or otherwise interesting opens the floor for questions. Sometimes it’s ridiculous, and not everything is for everyone, but the quality can be pretty high. Even when a porn star such as Trinity St. Clair does an AMA, you can read it without feeling like you need to take a shower. Taking the front-page megaphone away from its political debate is just more evidence of what most Americans already suspected: Almost anywhere you find it, our public political discourse is pretty off-putting. Or, as Alex Angel put it in a blog post announcing the change, it’s “just not up to snuff.”
A lot of the redditors, as the volunteer curators are known, suspected the change had something to do with advertising. It’s true that advertisers don’t like being adjacent to overtly political content because, as Michael Jordan famously said, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” That was the case in 2008 when Nick Denton spun off Wonkette from his Gawker Media company. Readers liked the site. Advertisers didn’t. Denton pointed out in a memo that political advertisers usually come through different kinds of ad agencies than the usual Gawker ad buyer. “Someone else will have better luck selling their advertising than we did,” Denton wrote.
But that wasn’t the case with Reddit, insisted Chief Executive Yoshin Wong. In a post on the site, after he detailed how Reddit makes its money, he explained that ad sales wasn’t part of this calculus:
Not everyone appreciated the change or Reddit’s bluntness. “4chan, I’m sorry, old friend. I’m coming home,” wrote one irate user. Which, come to think of it, was probably Reddit’s point.
..................................................................................................................................
Your Political Rants Are Too Awful Even for Reddit
By Janet Paskin, July 19, 2013
Reddit, the site that calls itself the front page of the Internet, has relegated all political topics to the digital basement. More specifically, the website has taken its political domain—or, in Reddit-speak, subreddit—off the default front page so that when the casual user stops by, he no longer gets /r/politics topics in his feed.
You could file this in the annals of Internet trivia and move on, and that would be fine. Except for this: The /r/politics forum has had some offline political muscle, most notably in the 2008 election when it became something of a staging ground for Ron Paul’s campaign. Whatever your feelings on Paul, it was an historic example of third-party organizing on a national scale.
There is also the fact of Reddit’s standout status for the variety and quality of its content, which is generated by the people who use the site, with links and essays and the signature “Ask Me Anything” feature, in which someone famous or otherwise interesting opens the floor for questions. Sometimes it’s ridiculous, and not everything is for everyone, but the quality can be pretty high. Even when a porn star such as Trinity St. Clair does an AMA, you can read it without feeling like you need to take a shower. Taking the front-page megaphone away from its political debate is just more evidence of what most Americans already suspected: Almost anywhere you find it, our public political discourse is pretty off-putting. Or, as Alex Angel put it in a blog post announcing the change, it’s “just not up to snuff.”
A lot of the redditors, as the volunteer curators are known, suspected the change had something to do with advertising. It’s true that advertisers don’t like being adjacent to overtly political content because, as Michael Jordan famously said, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” That was the case in 2008 when Nick Denton spun off Wonkette from his Gawker Media company. Readers liked the site. Advertisers didn’t. Denton pointed out in a memo that political advertisers usually come through different kinds of ad agencies than the usual Gawker ad buyer. “Someone else will have better luck selling their advertising than we did,” Denton wrote.
But that wasn’t the case with Reddit, insisted Chief Executive Yoshin Wong. In a post on the site, after he detailed how Reddit makes its money, he explained that ad sales wasn’t part of this calculus:
“The truth is that (sorry, reddit), reddit is really not as provocative as it imagines itself to be. Probably the biggest contributor to the removal reason is that alone among the existing defaults, /r/politics and /r/atheism had significant rates of ‘sign up an account, then unsubscribe’ occuring. None of the other defaults had this going on. There’s long been this conspiracy theory that we were leaving /r/atheism as one of the defaults as an ‘irritant’ in order to drive people to sign up for accounts but that’s patently false. Actual redditors using reddit just didn’t like them, whereas advertisers don’t care.”
Not everyone appreciated the change or Reddit’s bluntness. “4chan, I’m sorry, old friend. I’m coming home,” wrote one irate user. Which, come to think of it, was probably Reddit’s point.
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"... makes you SEEM racist"? How about "... you ARE racist"?
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How to Seem Racist: A Guide
By Tina Dupuy, July 19, 2013
It feels like this needs to be said: Pro-Zimmerman folks, when you celebrate the now decidedly legal shooting death of an unarmed adolescent, it’s ghoulish—and it makes you seem racist.
Here’s why: Trayvon Martin was a kid. He didn’t have a criminal record—his killer did. Martin had a legitimate reason for being in that neighborhood that night and he had the right to defend himself when, after he ran away to avoid confrontation, Zimmerman admittedly chased him down. When you reflexively call a young black kid a “thug” you seem racist. There’s no other reasonable explanation for gloating about an unnecessary killing.
If you see Trayvon Martin’s life as having equal value to any other person who chooses to walk down the street, there’s no need to dislike him. He was a hapless victim.
And saying, “this is not a race issue”— doesn’t make it not a race issue. Just as being offended by being called racist doesn’t make you less racist.
That’s not color blindness; that’s tone deafness.
The numbers tell us African Americans endure inequities, both legal and circumstantial. They are disproportionately targeted, disproportionately incarcerated, and disproportionately poor. Saying “nu-huh” doesn’t make that untrue.
Also saying, “But Obama is president!” makes you seem racist. There have been 43 white presidents, out of 44. Really, don’t bring up Obama—whom you irrationally hate—as proof racism is over. Just don’t.
Zimmerman defense attorney Mark O’Mara, in the wake of the not guilty verdict, said: “If George Zimmerman were black he’d never have been charged with a crime.” Former RNC chairman Michael Steele (fired by Republicans on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, by the way, months after winning the House for his party) replied on Twitter: “Is he high?”
Because with few exceptions, black people who kill white people (or black people for that matter) will not be found to be justified in our legal system. Ever. This is according to data compiled by the FBI in their Supplemental Homicide Report. Sarah Childress at Frontline writes, “Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be found justified in their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground states, whites are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states, that number jumps to 354 percent.” For black shooters? There’s a negative 60 percent chance their actions will be found justified in court.
The most widely cited example of this is the case of Marissa Alexander. In 2010, she fired a warning shot to ward off her husband, against whom she had an order of protection. She tried to use Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in court. The judge rejected her bid and sentenced her to 20 years in jail.
She didn’t kill anyone. She’s the mother of three. But she’s African American.
White people who feel they are the real victims of racial prejudice—their evidence consisting of them saying so out loud and on camera—seem racist. To proclaim you’re the one who really suffers seems unempathetic to people who have been systematically oppressed by the law.
That’s why you sound racist, O’Mara.
“I’m sure there were some fabrications, enhancements, but I think pretty much it happened the way George said it happened,” Juror B37 told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in her first interview. If self-serving lies don’t make you dismiss the credibility of someone who’s gunned down an unarmed black kid—you seem racist. You seem to sympathize a little too strongly with the killer who arguably would not have gotten out of his car in the first place had it not been for his loaded gun.
If you feel like Martin is responsible for his own death because he wasn’t docile and apologetic; that simply running away from a guy stalking him wasn’t good enough; or, that he should have known better than to wear those clothes in that neighborhood on that night, you seem racist.
And if your opinion would be different if he had blond hair and blue eyes…
..................................................................................................................................
How to Seem Racist: A Guide
By Tina Dupuy, July 19, 2013
It feels like this needs to be said: Pro-Zimmerman folks, when you celebrate the now decidedly legal shooting death of an unarmed adolescent, it’s ghoulish—and it makes you seem racist.
Here’s why: Trayvon Martin was a kid. He didn’t have a criminal record—his killer did. Martin had a legitimate reason for being in that neighborhood that night and he had the right to defend himself when, after he ran away to avoid confrontation, Zimmerman admittedly chased him down. When you reflexively call a young black kid a “thug” you seem racist. There’s no other reasonable explanation for gloating about an unnecessary killing.
If you see Trayvon Martin’s life as having equal value to any other person who chooses to walk down the street, there’s no need to dislike him. He was a hapless victim.
And saying, “this is not a race issue”— doesn’t make it not a race issue. Just as being offended by being called racist doesn’t make you less racist.
That’s not color blindness; that’s tone deafness.
The numbers tell us African Americans endure inequities, both legal and circumstantial. They are disproportionately targeted, disproportionately incarcerated, and disproportionately poor. Saying “nu-huh” doesn’t make that untrue.
Also saying, “But Obama is president!” makes you seem racist. There have been 43 white presidents, out of 44. Really, don’t bring up Obama—whom you irrationally hate—as proof racism is over. Just don’t.
Zimmerman defense attorney Mark O’Mara, in the wake of the not guilty verdict, said: “If George Zimmerman were black he’d never have been charged with a crime.” Former RNC chairman Michael Steele (fired by Republicans on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, by the way, months after winning the House for his party) replied on Twitter: “Is he high?”
Because with few exceptions, black people who kill white people (or black people for that matter) will not be found to be justified in our legal system. Ever. This is according to data compiled by the FBI in their Supplemental Homicide Report. Sarah Childress at Frontline writes, “Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be found justified in their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground states, whites are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states, that number jumps to 354 percent.” For black shooters? There’s a negative 60 percent chance their actions will be found justified in court.
The most widely cited example of this is the case of Marissa Alexander. In 2010, she fired a warning shot to ward off her husband, against whom she had an order of protection. She tried to use Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in court. The judge rejected her bid and sentenced her to 20 years in jail.
She didn’t kill anyone. She’s the mother of three. But she’s African American.
White people who feel they are the real victims of racial prejudice—their evidence consisting of them saying so out loud and on camera—seem racist. To proclaim you’re the one who really suffers seems unempathetic to people who have been systematically oppressed by the law.
That’s why you sound racist, O’Mara.
“I’m sure there were some fabrications, enhancements, but I think pretty much it happened the way George said it happened,” Juror B37 told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in her first interview. If self-serving lies don’t make you dismiss the credibility of someone who’s gunned down an unarmed black kid—you seem racist. You seem to sympathize a little too strongly with the killer who arguably would not have gotten out of his car in the first place had it not been for his loaded gun.
If you feel like Martin is responsible for his own death because he wasn’t docile and apologetic; that simply running away from a guy stalking him wasn’t good enough; or, that he should have known better than to wear those clothes in that neighborhood on that night, you seem racist.
And if your opinion would be different if he had blond hair and blue eyes…
..................................................................................................................................
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Something missing......
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The Zero and the Trib have blessed us with redesigned websites. I'll reserve my overall opinion, but I immediately noticed something missing on both sites-- the number of "yesterday's visitors". Guess they don't want to toot their own horns anymore? Or maybe the Zero is embarrassed to admit what low numbers they have, and the Trib doesn't want to show them up?
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The Zero and the Trib have blessed us with redesigned websites. I'll reserve my overall opinion, but I immediately noticed something missing on both sites-- the number of "yesterday's visitors". Guess they don't want to toot their own horns anymore? Or maybe the Zero is embarrassed to admit what low numbers they have, and the Trib doesn't want to show them up?
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Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Hmmmmm, not practicing what you preach?
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Documents Detail Implosion At Leading Conservative Christian Political Firm
July 16, 2013
BuzzFeed:
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Documents Detail Implosion At Leading Conservative Christian Political Firm
July 16, 2013
BuzzFeed:
Hundreds of pages of email and text message correspondence made public last week shed new light on the infighting and organizational disarray that have plagued America’s leading conservative Christian political consulting firm in recent months.
As BuzzFeed reported in June, the Columbus-based Strategy Group for Media — which has represented dozens of Tea Party and religious right Republicans, including Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich — has been mired in lawsuits and internal tumult since last spring, when seven of the firm’s managers staged a religious intervention with their CEO, Rex Elsass. After the managers made their demands in a dramatic meeting that culminated with them laying hands on their boss and praying for his soul, Elsass fired three of his top lieutenants, including his longtime protege and Strategy Group president Nick Everhart.Read the whole story at BuzzFeed
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Why are we not surprised?
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The NSA Admits It Analyzes More People's Data Than Previously Revealed
By Philip Bump, July 17, 2013
As an aside during testimony on Capitol Hill today, a National Security Agency representative rather casually indicated that the government looks at data from a universe of far, far more people than previously indicated.
Chris Inglis, the agency's deputy director, was one of several government representatives—including from the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence—testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this morning. Most of the testimony largely echoed previous testimony by the agencies on the topic of the government's surveillance, including a retread of the same offered examples for how the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had stopped terror events.
But Inglis' statement was new. Analysts look "two or three hops" from terror suspects when evaluating terror activity, Inglis revealed. Previously, the limit of how surveillance was extended had been described as two hops. This meant that if the NSA were following a phone metadata or web trail from a terror suspect, it could also look at the calls from the people that suspect has spoken with—one hop. And then, the calls that second person had also spoken with—two hops. Terror suspect to person two to person three. Two hops. And now: A third hop.
Think of it this way. Let's say the government suspects you are a terrorist and it has access to your Facebook account. If you're an American citizen, it can't do that currently (with certain exceptions)—but for the sake of argument. So all of your friends, that's one hop. Your friends' friends, whether you know them or not—two hops. Your friends' friends' friends, whoever they happen to be, are that third hop. That's a massive group of people that the NSA apparently considers fair game.
For a sense of scale, researchers at the University of Milan found in 2011 that everyone on the Internet was, on average, 4.74 steps away from anyone else. The NSA explores relationships up to three of those steps.
Inglis' admission didn't register among the members of Congress present, but immediately resonated with privacy advocates online.
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The NSA Admits It Analyzes More People's Data Than Previously Revealed
By Philip Bump, July 17, 2013
As an aside during testimony on Capitol Hill today, a National Security Agency representative rather casually indicated that the government looks at data from a universe of far, far more people than previously indicated.
Chris Inglis, the agency's deputy director, was one of several government representatives—including from the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence—testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this morning. Most of the testimony largely echoed previous testimony by the agencies on the topic of the government's surveillance, including a retread of the same offered examples for how the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had stopped terror events.
But Inglis' statement was new. Analysts look "two or three hops" from terror suspects when evaluating terror activity, Inglis revealed. Previously, the limit of how surveillance was extended had been described as two hops. This meant that if the NSA were following a phone metadata or web trail from a terror suspect, it could also look at the calls from the people that suspect has spoken with—one hop. And then, the calls that second person had also spoken with—two hops. Terror suspect to person two to person three. Two hops. And now: A third hop.
Think of it this way. Let's say the government suspects you are a terrorist and it has access to your Facebook account. If you're an American citizen, it can't do that currently (with certain exceptions)—but for the sake of argument. So all of your friends, that's one hop. Your friends' friends, whether you know them or not—two hops. Your friends' friends' friends, whoever they happen to be, are that third hop. That's a massive group of people that the NSA apparently considers fair game.
For a sense of scale, researchers at the University of Milan found in 2011 that everyone on the Internet was, on average, 4.74 steps away from anyone else. The NSA explores relationships up to three of those steps.
Inglis' admission didn't register among the members of Congress present, but immediately resonated with privacy advocates online.
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Why? Because Rush is an a******
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Almost 12,000 comments have been posted to this at this time! One of the good ones is, "Why is anything this pompous moron says news worthy?"
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Why Does Rush Limbaugh Even Want to Say the N-Word?
By Tim Molloy, July 17, 2013
Many people have drawn many conclusions from the Trayvon Martin case, but Rush Limbaugh's is this: He's allowed to say the N-word, now.
Bear in mind, I'm not writing about this because I think Limbaugh's comments are interesting or provocative. This post exists to make fun of a famous person being dumb. But I also wonder why Limbaugh -- and so many other of my fellow white people -- even want to say the N-word.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, Martin's friend, Rachel Jeantel, said something Limbaugh took as the justification he's apparently long sought to say the word. He's found a loophole, you see: Jeantel said that while "n----er," is an offensive term, "n----a" is just a word that refers to "any male." She said even a Chinese person could be male.
"So, n---a with an a on the end," Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday. "It's not racist! I could be talking about a male. A Chinese male. A guy at the laundromat."
Sure, because that's where Chinese guys love hanging out, right? But let's set that one aside for a moment.
It's unclear why Limbaugh thinks a teenage girl giving him permission to use the word would make her a spokeswoman for all people who might be offended by the word. It's also unclear why so many white people think it's so unfair that black people can say the N-word and they can't.
So let's talk about fairness. White people have an amazing deal, by virtue of being born white. Is that fair? We've had a 400-year economic head start, police don't profile us, old ladies don't clutch their purses when we walk by because of our skin color.
The supposed downside? We can't say the word. That's it. The one thing we can't do.
Seems like a more than fair tradeoff.
And I still I hear some white people thinking: What about in the car, with the windows rolled up, when I'm singing along with N.W.A.?
I guess that's harmless, in a tree-falls-in-the-woods sort of way. But I'd probably feel differently if you were saying the word while listening to NPR.
Here's the reason you shouldn't say the N-word, ever, even if someone you see on TV seems to be reaching out to you directly to say it's okay: Because you might make someone feel bad. Or like you value them less because of their race. Their nice day might be ruined by having to wonder whether you were making a racial joke, or just referring to hypothetical Chinese guys "at the laundromat."
Oh wait: In that situation, you would be racist either way. Bad example.
..................................................................................................................................
Almost 12,000 comments have been posted to this at this time! One of the good ones is, "Why is anything this pompous moron says news worthy?"
..................................................................................................................................
Why Does Rush Limbaugh Even Want to Say the N-Word?
By Tim Molloy, July 17, 2013
Many people have drawn many conclusions from the Trayvon Martin case, but Rush Limbaugh's is this: He's allowed to say the N-word, now.
Bear in mind, I'm not writing about this because I think Limbaugh's comments are interesting or provocative. This post exists to make fun of a famous person being dumb. But I also wonder why Limbaugh -- and so many other of my fellow white people -- even want to say the N-word.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, Martin's friend, Rachel Jeantel, said something Limbaugh took as the justification he's apparently long sought to say the word. He's found a loophole, you see: Jeantel said that while "n----er," is an offensive term, "n----a" is just a word that refers to "any male." She said even a Chinese person could be male.
"So, n---a with an a on the end," Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday. "It's not racist! I could be talking about a male. A Chinese male. A guy at the laundromat."
Sure, because that's where Chinese guys love hanging out, right? But let's set that one aside for a moment.
It's unclear why Limbaugh thinks a teenage girl giving him permission to use the word would make her a spokeswoman for all people who might be offended by the word. It's also unclear why so many white people think it's so unfair that black people can say the N-word and they can't.
So let's talk about fairness. White people have an amazing deal, by virtue of being born white. Is that fair? We've had a 400-year economic head start, police don't profile us, old ladies don't clutch their purses when we walk by because of our skin color.
The supposed downside? We can't say the word. That's it. The one thing we can't do.
Seems like a more than fair tradeoff.
And I still I hear some white people thinking: What about in the car, with the windows rolled up, when I'm singing along with N.W.A.?
I guess that's harmless, in a tree-falls-in-the-woods sort of way. But I'd probably feel differently if you were saying the word while listening to NPR.
Here's the reason you shouldn't say the N-word, ever, even if someone you see on TV seems to be reaching out to you directly to say it's okay: Because you might make someone feel bad. Or like you value them less because of their race. Their nice day might be ruined by having to wonder whether you were making a racial joke, or just referring to hypothetical Chinese guys "at the laundromat."
Oh wait: In that situation, you would be racist either way. Bad example.
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