New GOP Logo

In light of recent events, we suggest that the Grand Old Party replace their current logo:



with something far more relevant:


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I Think I Hear ALEC Knocking At My Door

From In These Times:

On February 25, 2011, Florida State Representative Chris Dorworth (R-Lake Mary) introduced HB 1021. The bill sought to curtail the political power of unions by prohibiting public employers from deducting any amount from an employee’s pay for use by an employee organization (i.e., union dues) or for any political activity (i.e., the portion of union dues used for lobbying or for supporting candidates for office).

And:

Given the similarities between HB 1021 and a rash of like-minded bills in states across the country, including Wisconsin, on March 30 a public records request was sent to Dorworth’s office seeking copies of all documents pertaining to the writing of HB 1021, including copies of any pieces of model legislation the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) may have provided.

And finally:

Dorworth’s office delivered 87 pages of documents, mostly bill drafts and emails, detailing the evolution of what was to become HB 1021. Buried at the bottom of the stack was an 11-page bundle of neatly typed material, labeled “Paycheck Protection,” which consisted of three pieces of model legislation, with the words “Copyright, ALEC” at the end of each.

The ALEC "Paycheck Protection" documents can be found here.I get ahead of myself.

When I wrote about ALEC in mid-June, I ended the blog post with a set of questions, the first one being:

I wonder how much ALEC legislation has oozed into Harrisburg?

Given all of the above, I have to wonder about State Senator John Eichelberger's Public Workers Paycheck Protection Act.

Eichelberger's conservative bona fides are set. He's proposed an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman and has already insulted the commonwealth's LGBT community.

So I gotta wonder how much of Eichelberger's legislation has been enhanced by the Scaife and Koch funded secret society?

More On Bob Vander Plaatz's Pledge

There's been an update or two to The Iowa Pledge I wrote about on the 8th.

For those who don't know, a conservative group from Iowa called The Family Leader issued this "pledge" for all GOP candidates (and their supporters) to deal with. At the time of my writing that blog post, only Michele Bachmann had signed it.

And now there's two:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was initially “taken aback” by a pro-marriage pledge that asks presidential candidates to promise personal fidelity to their spouses, but said he ultimately decided to sign it.

“When I first read it, I was taken aback by it. I can't argue that I wasn't,” the former Pennsylvania senator said in an interview airing Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“But I understand why they're saying it, because it does undermine people's respect for the institution, respect for the people governing this country. If you can't be faithful to the people that you're closest to, then how can we count on you to be faithful to those of us who you represent?”

There was some other stuff in there, too, that Rick's pledged to support:

Other provisions in the pledge include promises to only appoint conservative judges, to remove anti-traditional marriage provisions in the tax code and opposition to any constitutional redefinition of marriage.

And some stuff he doesn't have to.

For instance when he signed the pledge, there was this language in it:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an AfricanAmerican baby born after the election of the USA‟s first African-American President.

Wasn't slavery great?? It kept African-American families together!

Until someone was sold, of course. Keeping families together is one thing, but property rights are property rights. And as Ron Paul said (in another context, of course) private business owners have an absolute right to decide what to do with their own property.

But I digress.

Luckily for Rick and Michele, there's been some changes to the pledge:

Responding to a growing controversy, an Iowa-based conservative group has removed a passage in a marriage pact signed by two GOP presidential candidates that suggested black families were in better shape during slavery.

“After careful deliberation and wise insight and input from valued colleagues we deeply respect, we agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be misconstrued, and such misconstruction can detract from the core message of the Marriage Vow: that ALL of us must work to strengthen and support families and marriages between one woman and one man," said Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader.

"We sincerely apologize for any negative feelings this has caused, and have removed the language from the vow, " added Vander Plaats, who is known as a king maker in Iowa.

The campaigns have done the CYA dance:

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum signed the two-page document entitled "The Marriage Vow - A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family," on Thursday, but their campaigns emphasized that the "candidate vow" portion of the pledge that they put their stamps of approval on didn't mention slavery. Instead, it condemned gay marriage, abortion, infidelity and pornography.

Here's some meat from the pledge that's still in force. In that section of the pledge that outlines why marriage is in such deep trouble in Amurika, there's this:

Social protections, especially for women and children, have been evaporating as we have collectively “debased the currency” of marriage. This debasement continues as a function of adultery; “quickie divorce;” physical and verbal spousal abuse; non committal co-habitation; exemplary infidelity and “unwed cheating” among celebrities, sports figures and politicians; anti-scientific bias which holds, in complete absence of empirical proof, that non-heterosexual inclinations are genetically determined, irresistible and akin to innate traits like race, gender and eye color; as well as anti-scientific bias which holds, against all empirical evidence, that homosexual behavior in particular, and sexual promiscuity in general, optimizes individual or public health.

I am not sure about the "absence of all empirical proof" part, but let's for the sake of argument assume it's absolutely 100% correct (which it isn't, but let's just go with this for a second) and being gay is a choice, that it's not (as they say) hardwired into the brain.

What possible difference would that make?

For any given person, their sexuality is either a choice or it isn't. If it isn't, then no civilized society should condemn that person for merely being what they were born to be. If it's a choice then no civilized society should condemn that person for exercising his or her free will.

There's one republican who disagrees with the pledge:

Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson thinks the pledge that an Iowa Christian conservative group is circulating is offensive because it condemn gays, single parents, divorcees, Muslims, women who choose to have abortions “and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.”

And:

This ‘pledge’ is nothing short of a promise to discriminate against everyone who makes a personal choice that doesn’t fit into a particular definition of ‘virtue’.

Proof that not all conservatives got teh crazie.

Good to know.

Scenes From The (New) GOP

First there's the House Budget guy:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a leading advocate of shrinking entitlement spending and the architect of the plan to privatize Medicare, spent Wednesday evening sipping $350 wine with two like-minded conservative economists at the swanky Capitol Hill eatery Bistro Bis.

More on Ryan from TPM:

Susan Feinberg, an associate business professor at Rutgers, was at Bistro Bis celebrating her birthday with her husband that night. When she saw the label on the bottle of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru Ryan's table had ordered, she quickly looked it up on the wine list and saw that it sold for an eye-popping $350, the most expensive wine in the house along with one other with the same pricetag.

Feinberg, an economist by training, was even more appalled when the table ordered a second bottle. She quickly did the math and figured out that the $700 in wine the trio consumed over the course of 90 minutes amounted to more than the entire weekly income of a couple making minimum wage.

"We were just stunned," said Feinberg, who e-mailed TPM about her encounter later the same evening. "I was an economist so I started doing the envelope calculations and quickly figured out that those two bottles of wine was more than two-income working family making minimum wage earned in a week."

The Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25/hour. Assuming a 40-hour workweek and two minimum wage earners, that's $580 before taxes.

But of course the Tea Party wing of the GOP wants to look at eliminating the minimum wage:

Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has soft-pedaled her opposition to the minimum wage law considerably since 2005, when she was quoted as saying, at a Minnesota State Senate hearing, “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” Appearing on CBS’s (CBS) Face the Nation on June 26, Bachmann would say only that eliminating the minimum wage is “something that obviously Congress would have to look at” as a solution to high unemployment.

And then there's Senator Orrin Hatch who thinks the poor aren't doing enough to help out:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) voted against beginning debate on a measure that would have the Senate declare the rich should share the pain of debt reduction Thursday, a day after arguing that it's the poor and middle class who need to do more.

"I hear how they're so caring for the poor and so forth," Hatch said in remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, in reference to Democrats. "The poor need jobs! And they also need to share some of the responsibility."

Hatch's comments were aimed at a motion that passed 74 to 22 to start debating a non-binding resolution that says millionaires and billionaires should play a more meaningful role in reducing the nation's debt.

The point of all this?

Just to let you all know that this is the GOP these days. To all my Republican friends (and relatives), I'd like to ask a question: Do you really want to be associated with such mean spirited greed?

And we're not even talking about choice or marriage equality.

On The Iowa Pledge

From yesterday's Daily Santorum:

The 2012 GOP presidential nomination is all about pledges. There's the grandaddy of them all, Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge; there's the Susan B. Anthony List anti-abortion pledge; Sen. Jim DeMint, Tea Party-S.C., has the "Cut, Cap and Balance" pledge. And now Iowa conservative heavyweaight Bob Vander Plaats (shown above: photo by John Schultz of the Quad City Times) is getting into the act with a marriage pledge.

The Huffingtonpost has more on Plaats' pledge:

The pledge is titled "The Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMILY" (emphasis in the original), and what follows is pretty standard-issue Christian conservative rhetoric on the definition of marriage and the sanctity of same, but it comes with a fiscal twist that basically makes it clear that Vander Plaats does not cotton to the notion that social issues can be divorced from economic concerns.

Politico has a copy of the pledge.

Remember, this pledge will be something all the GOP candidates will have to address in order to be consecrated, sanctified, or otherwise blessed by Iowa's social conservatives prior to the Iowa caucuses next year. Each candidate must pledge:

--Personal fidelity to my spouse.
--Respect for the marital bonds of others.
--Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices.
--Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage - faithful monogamy between one man and one woman - through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.
--Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy.
--Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended "second chance" or "cooling-off" periods for those seeking a "quickie divorce."
--Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels.
--Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States.
--Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy - our next generation of American children - from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.
--Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.); plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.
--Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.
--Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security.
--Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA's $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.
--Fierce defense of the First Amendment's rights of Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech, especially against the intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy.

These are the hoops the GOP candidates will have to jump through.

Michelle Bachmann already has.

But there's something left out of the coverage. The pledge is not only for the GOP candidates. This is tacked onto the bottom of the pledge:

The Vow of Civic, Religious, Lay, Business, and Social Leaders:

We the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow* that no U.S. Presidential primary candidate – nor any primary candidate for the U. S. House, Senate, Governor, state or municipal office – will, in his or her public capacity, benefit from any substantial form of aid, support, endorsement, contribution, independent expenditure, or affirmation from any of us without first affirming this Marriage Vow. Furthermore, to uphold and advance the natural Institution of Marriage, we ourselves also hereby vow* our own fidelity to this Declaration and especially, to our spouses.

Some litmus test.

It should be interesting to see who pledges.

And who doesn't.

"Speak Up for Jobs!" Congressional Listening Tour Comes to Pittsburgh

(Click graphic to enlarge. Click here for .PDF)
WHAT: Join Congressman Mike Doyle (Pennsylvania), Congressman John Conyers (Michigan) and Congressman Raul Grijalva (Arizona) as they come to our city to hear your concerns about jobs and the economy.

WHEN: Monday, July 18th, Community Rally & Picnic @ 5:00 PM, Congressional Listening Tour @ 6:30 PM

WHERE: Kinglsey Association, 6435 Frankstown Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15206 (map)

WHY: Our communities need JOBS! But, Congress is giving tax breaks to millionaires and oil companies. Join us and tell Congress to invest in citizens before corporations!

RSVP: Here
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Obviously I'll be busy later today

(link)
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Song of the Day: "Jordan Miles"

Here's the full video for "Jordan Miles" by Jasiri X (directed by Paradise Gray) that we mentioned last week.


Call Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala, Jr. at 412-350-4400 and demand he file charges against the three police officers -- Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte and David Sisak -- who brutally beat Jordan Miles.

For more info go to http://justiceforjordanmiles.com
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Guess What?

It's my lovely wife's birthday today! I just wished her a Happy Birthday.

So if you should happen to bump into her today, you too can wish her a happy birthday with a big hug and smile.

If you don't happen to bump into her today, go find your favorite person - the nicest person you know, and give THEM a big hug and and a smile say "I am so glad you're here!"

Happy Birthday, lovely wife.

Pittsburgh City Council Approves Clean Air Act

Via press release from Councilman Peduto's office:

CLEAN AIR NOW
City Council Approves Clean Air Act
PITTSBURGH – Today, Pittsburgh City Council approved two pieces of legislation sponsored by Councilman William Peduto that will dramatically reduce harmful diesel emissions to improve air quality throughout the City. The first requires publicly subsidized developments to retrofit construction equipment with the best-available technology to limit their impact on the City’s air quality. The second puts in place a 10-year plan for the City to retrofit all of their diesel vehicles.

Pittsburgh ranks among the worst cities in the nation for short-term particulate matter and ozone pollution and for year-round particulate pollution. Clear linkages exist between these environmental pollutants and serious chronic health problems such as heart disease, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses.

It is estimated the 25% of the City’s diesel particulate pollution originates from diesel construction vehicles and the technology exists today to reduce this pollution by more than 85%.

The Clean Air Act was supported by a strong coalition of labor unions, environmental organizations, faith-based groups, and community organizations. The coalition stood together on the principle that Pittsburgh cannot compete for jobs, residents, and businesses unless we commit to environmental quality and sustainability.

“Today is a critical step forward in the City’s battle to improve air quality for all residents and visitors in the City of Pittsburgh,” said Councilman Peduto. “The passage of this bill, along with the prevailing wage legislation and Clean Water Act previously passed by City Council is part of a new policy of triple bottom line economic development that City Council supports. This policy recognizes that all development should have a positive economic, social, and environmental impact.”

This was a preliminary vote and it passed 8-0.

More Fun With Right Wing Math

This is something I've been waiting to see. From this morning's Midweek Briefing:

President Obama's handpicked economic advisers waited until the Friday before the long Independence Day holiday weekend to release a report showing how bankrupt the economic "stimulus" was. It cost taxpayers $278,000 per added or saved job. As The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Anderson noted, "(T)he government could have simply cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the 'stimulus,' and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead." Consider "outlandish" redefined.

Here's Anderson:

When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Too bad this has already been debunked. By Calvin Woodward of the AP:

Some Republican lawmakers critical of President Barack Obama's stimulus package are using grade-school arithmetic to size up costs and consequences of all that spending. The math is satisfyingly simple but highly misleading.

It goes like this: Divide the stimulus money spent so far by the estimated number of jobs saved or created. That produces a rather frightening figure on how much money taxpayers are spending for each job.

Highly misleading? How?:

First, the naysayers' calculations ignore the value of the work produced.

Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker's output — a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid.

Second, critics are counting the total cost of contracts that will fuel work for months or years and dividing that by the number of jobs produced only to date.

A construction project, for one, may only require a few engineers to get going, with the work force to swell as ground is broken and building accelerates.

Hundreds of such projects have been on the books, in which the full value of the contracts is already counted in the spending totals, but few or no jobs have been reported yet because the work is only getting started.

And:

Third, the package approved by Congress is aimed at more than direct job creation, although employment was certainly central to its promotion and purpose.

Its features include money for research, training, plant equipment, extended unemployment benefits, credit assistance for businesses and more — spending meant to pay off over time but impossible to judge in a short-term job formula.

Nor do the estimates made Friday include indirect employment already created by the package — difficult if not impossible to measure.

But why let math and logic get in the way when there's a highly misleading political point to be made?

By the way, this report also tripped up our very own Rick Santorum. Aside from Rick's huge math blunder, he echoes this point made by Anderson:

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.

But what was Rick's math blunder? From CNN:

During an appearance on CNN's "American Morning" Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum claimed the 2009 stimulus package resulted in a loss of jobs. He cited a government report that he said previously stated 280 million jobs had been created by December and now says only 240 million jobs were created.

When pressed by CNN's Ali Velshi, who said there's a difference between a loss of jobs and creating fewer jobs than initially reported, Santorum remained firm on his position that the current administration has cost Americans' jobs. [emphasis added.]

Think Progress here's a transcript:

SANTORUM: [Obama] passed a huge stimulus package that now we know, over the past two quarters, has actually cost American jobs, and that’s from the report of his own administration. They claimed in December that, uh, by the end of last year that they created 280 million jobs, and now they’re saying that they created only 240 million jobs. So look, in this, you’re talking about huge increases in spending.

ALI VELSHI: Senator, I’m going to ask you to restate that, I’ve never heard that in my life. Tell me again, what you just said.

SANTORUM: If you look at the report that came out on Friday, the President’s own economic advisers said that the jobs stimulus package actually created fewer jobs over the period of time, since the uh, since the stimulus package went in place than it did when they reported back in December. In other words, there’s 30 million less jobs as a result of the stimulus package.

VELSHI: That’s not a loss of jobs, Senator, that’s a smaller aggregation of jobs. You can’t go on a campaign, a national campaign with this kind of math Senator. It’s just incorrect…I know you’ve got a lot of interviews to do. You might want to check that math.

And did you see Rick's blunder? Thinkprogress again:

Velshi is absolutely correct that Santorum needs to check his math, but he missed the huge problem with Santorum’s numbers. The entire American civilian labor force is about 153 million people. There are currently 13.9 million people unemployed. If the Obama administration had created 240 to 280 million jobs, the unemployment crisis would have been solved several times over, and America would have so many jobs that it would need to start employing workers from all over the world just to fill all the available positions.

Ah, the joys of right wing math!

Torture News - Good, Bad and Ugly

From last Thursday:

The Justice Department inquiry into CIA interrogations of terrorist detainees has led to a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two people while they were in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday.

The attorney general said that he accepted the recommendation of a federal prosecutor, John Durham, who since August 2009 has conducted an inquiry into CIA interrogation practices during the Bush administration. Holder said Durham looked at the treatment of 101 detainees in U.S. custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and concluded that only these two deaths warranted criminal investigation. Holder said Durham found some of the 101 had never been held by the CIA.

And more from the Washington Post:

The Justice Department did not say which cases are being investigated, but U.S. officials said they are the death of an Afghan, Gul Rahman, in 2002 at a prison known as the Salt Pit in Afghanistan, and that of an Iraqi, Manadel al-Jamadi, who was questioned by three CIA officers at Abu Ghraib in 2003.

In the case involving the Salt Pit, known as a “black site” because the U.S. government did not officially acknowledge its existence, a CIA officer allegedly ordered Afghan guards in November 2002 to strip Rahman and chain him to the concrete floor of his cell. Temperatures plunged overnight, and Rahman froze to death. Hypothermia was listed as the cause of death and Rahman was buried in an unmarked grave.

Jamadi, the Iraqi, was captured on Nov. 4, 2003, by a Navy SEAL team hunting a terrorist cell thought to be responsible for a bombing in Baghdad. After initial interrogation efforts, he was transferred into CIA custody and was taken to Abu Ghraib. There he was hooded, placed in an orange jumpsuit and shackled to window bars in a shower room, where he died.

Jamadi’s body was put on ice to preserve it for autopsy. U.S. soldiers posed for photographs with the body — including some in which they gave the thumbs-up sign — provoking international outrage when news organizations showed the images.

The "Good" is that there are now criminal investigations into the torture related deaths that occurred during, at with the OK of, the Bush Administration.

The "Bad" is that this narrowing of an investigation leaves out a whole mess o' torture:

“It is difficult to understand the prosecutor’s conclusion that only those two deaths warrant further investigation,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “For a period of several years, and with the approval of the Bush administration’s most senior officials, the CIA operated an interrogation program that subjected prisoners to unimaginable cruelty and violated both international and domestic law. The narrow investigation that Attorney General Holder announced today is not proportionate to the scale and scope of the wrongdoing.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA created a network of secret prisons around the world to confine “high-value” al-Qaeda operatives. The detainees were subjected to what the agency called “enhanced interrogation techniques” — escalating forms of duress that began with slaps to the face and ended, in three cases, with prolonged bouts of waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

Among those held by the CIA were leading al-Qaeda figures, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who was waterboarded 183 times after his capture in March 2003.

Let's all say it together, children: Torture is illegal. Approving the use of torture is illegal. Both happened during the Bush Administration, though he tried to cover his tracks by having his office of legal counsel declare it not-torture.

The Good, Bad and Ugly can be summed up in this from the Post:

The Obama administration closed the CIA prisons and barred the use of the enhanced techniques. The Justice Department said it would not prosecute any CIA personnel who acted in good faith and followed the guidance of the Office of Legal Counsel.

As I pointed out in this recent Jack Kelly blog post, none of that actually flies. None of it gets the Bush Administration off the hook - and none of that gets the Obama Administration off the hook either.

From the Conventions Against Torture (signed into US Law in 1996), Article 1:

For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

And Article 2:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

And:

An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

So which is worse? Committing a war crime (as the Bush Administration obviously did) or letting the war criminals get away with their crimes (as the Obama Administration is obviously doing)?

As a patriotic American, the day after celebrating our nation's independence, I hang my head in a quiet itching disgust.

That is Liberty

"Liberty is not built on the doctrine that a few nobles have a right to inherit the earth. No! No! It stands on this principle: that the meanest and lowest of the people are, by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and Nature, as well entitled the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat, and clothes to wear, as the nobles or the king. That is Liberty! And Liberty will reign in America!" - John Adams
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July 4

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

A question

If "participating in Fourth of July celebrations as a child raises a person's probability of voting Republican."

And

If "Many cities and counties across the nation’s drought-stricken southern tier are banning fireworks because of the risk of wildfires."

Does that mean we can expect, say, Texas to go Blue in a decade or so?

I kid! I kid!
.

Wow. Just Wow.

I have no explanation for this. None what so ever.

But it tells you everything you need to know about how skewed the thinking is with Scaife's braintrust when it comes to climate science.

Take a look at this from today's Sunday Pops:

In the Orwellian moment of the week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science warned that efforts to promote transparency in "climate change" research, among other things, are inhibiting scientific inquiry. Transparency demands "make no constructive contribution to the public discourse," says the group. How utterly bizarre.

Now let's go see what they're actually talking about.

If you google the phrase they quote (""make no constructive contribution to the public discourse") you eventually make it to this board statement, dated June 28, 2011, from the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Begin to read it and you'll see it's NOT about transparency at all.

The quotation is taken from the last sentence of the statement's opening paragraph:

We are deeply concerned by the extent and nature of personal attacks on climate scientists. Reports of harassment, death threats, and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policymakers and the public. This both impedes the progress of science and interferes with the application of science to the solution of global problems. AAAS vigorously opposes attacks on researchers that question their personal and professional integrity or threaten their safety based on displeasure with their scientific conclusions. The progress of science and protection of its integrity depend on both full transparency about the details of scientific methodology and the freedom to follow the pursuit of knowledge. The sharing of research data is vastly different from unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists. The latter serve only as a distraction and make no constructive contribution to the public discourse. [Emphasis added.]

This is not about "transparency" (which the AAAS clearly states that it supports) but about excessive FOIA requests for personal data that'll then be used for harrassment and intimidation. Then there's the death threats.

Only those infected with teh climate crazie could possibly equate the two.

Here's what else the AAAS has to say about science. Stuff the braintrust curiously omits:

Scientists and policymakers may disagree over the scientific conclusions on climate change and other policy-relevant topics. But the scientific community has proven and well-established methods for resolving disagreements about research results. Science advances through a self-correcting system in which research results are shared and critically evaluated by peers and experiments are repeated when necessary. Disagreements about the interpretation of data, the methodology, and findings are part of daily scientific discourse. Scientists should not be subjected to fraud investigations or harassment simply for providing scientific results that are controversial. Most scientific disagreements are unrelated to any kind of fraud and are considered a legitimate and normal part of the scientific process. The scientific community takes seriously its responsibility for policing research misconduct, and extensive procedures exist to protect the rigor of the scientific method and to ensure the credibility of the research enterprise.

And yet Scaife's braintrust whittles all that down to the AAAS declaring efforts to promote transparency are inhibiting scientific inquiry.

Tells you everything you need to know about the mendacity that doubles for editorial policy with Richard Mellon Scaife's braintrust. How truly bizarre.

The editorial page an embarrassment to us, the news-reading public. As it also must be an embarrassment to all the fine reporters who find themselves working for Richard Mellon Scaife. They must realize that all their good work is being undermined, tainted or otherwise sullied by teh climate crazie dripping off of Scaife's editorial page.

I feel sorry for them. I really do.

Another Lesson In How The Right Wing Message Machine Works

We'll start at the end and work backwards. Today in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review we find an editorial that begins thusly:

Eric Holder's coddling of terrorists -- during both the Clinton and Obama administrations -- makes him manifestly unfit to be U.S. attorney general.

At a National Press Club conference in Washington this week, Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival Inc., and speakers personally affected by terrorist beneficiaries of Mr. Holder's lax approach laid out his damning record.

When we head to the website for America's Survival Inc., we find this:

America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) President Cliff Kincaid, who also serves as the Director of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Center for Investigative Journalism, has announced a national conference in Washington, D.C. to examine Communist Cuba’s sponsorship of anti-American terrorism and harboring of fugitives from justice and the need to keep Cuba on the official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Evidence will also be presented of how Castro’s agents of influence continue subversive operations on American soil and how the Obama Administration’s expansion of travel to and from the communist island undermines American national security.

On June 29, the Trib's news division published this:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder "has lied about his role in granting pardons to terrorists" under Presidents Clinton and Obama and should be removed from office, according to Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival Inc.

Kincaid moderated a daylong conference on Tuesday at the National Press Club, sponsored by his Washington-based investigative organization.

Which then was reposted at the America's Survivial website here:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder "has lied about his role in granting pardons to terrorists" under Presidents Clinton and Obama and should be removed from office, according to Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival Inc.

Kincaid moderated a daylong conference on Tuesday at the National Press Club, sponsored by his Washington-based investigative organization.

And then finally editorialized this morning at the Tribune-Review.

Why the trail?

You guessed it. America's Survival's got some serious funding support from the foundations controlled by Trib owner, Richard Mellon Scaife.

• $200,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2010
• $150,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2009
• $150,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2008
• $60,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2007
• $110,000 from the Carthage Foundation in 2007
• $100,000 from the Carthage Foundation in 2006

That's about three-quarters of a million dollars worth of support from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Any mention of any of that in the coverage?

Nope. Not a peep. Even from the Trib's news division. It's one thing for the editorial page (which I am told has no connection with the news division) to want to cover for the boss, but it's another when the more or less straight news division does the same. It's an embarrassment all the way round.

And we didn't even get to the Scaife money used to support Kincaid's other employer, Accuracy in Media. According to the media transparency project (or whatever it's called) Scaife's supported AIM to the tune of $4.36 million dollars.

Why does all this matter? Think of it this way, if Scaife hadn't given all that money to America's Survival, then it probably wouldn't exist. And if it didn't exist, there probably wouldn't have been a conference/discussion about AG Eric Holder at the National Press Club. And if there wasn't a discussion of the AG, there wouldn't have been any news coverage of it in the Scaife owned Tribune-Review.

The fact that none of the financial ties that bind Kincaid to Scaife are mentioned in the Trib's coverage of ASI is another example of the journalistic conflict of interest that's defining the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's editorial page and has tainted the Trib's news division.

Jasiri X's "Jordan Miles" Premieres Today

There will be a premiere of Jasiri X's "Jordan Miles" today:

WHAT: One Hood Media presents: "Jordan Miles" World Video Premiere and Forum on Police Brutality
WHEN: 7:00pm, Thursday June 30th
WHERE: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Homewood Branch, 7101 Hamilton Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15208 (map)

Here's a snippet of the new video:



Pittsburgh rapper Jasiri X is probably best know for "What if the Tea Party was Black?"

A Note On Richard Poplawski

Yes, they found him guilty. Yes, he killed those three police officers. And yes, he deserves to be punished for it.

All these things are true.

Know what else is true?

He was a right wing extremist, a right wing terrorist. A right wing domestic terrorist.

From the Trib in 2009:

A secret U.S. Department of Homeland Security report on "right-wing extremism" mentions by name only one potential domestic terrorist: accused cop killer Richard A. Poplawski.

The report was finished by Homeland Security's Extremism and Radicalization Branch and the FBI on April 7 — three days after the Stanton Heights gunfight during which Poplawski allegedly killed three police officers, Eric G. Kelly, 41; Stephen J. Mayhle, 29; and Paul J. Sciullo II, 36.

The report was intended only for law enforcement leaders, but the Tribune-Review was able to obtain a copy. It paints a disturbing picture of the rise of American hate-based groups that reject governmental authority in an era of foreclosures, unemployment and dwindling credit.

The report cites Poplawski, 22, as an example of "white supremacist lone wolves" or "small terrorist cells" inflamed by the possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the recent election of America's first black president.

From that DHS report:

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that a number of economic and political factors are driving a resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization activity. Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization.

— (U) A recent example of the potential violence associated with a rise in rightwing extremism may be found in the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009. The alleged gunman’s reaction reportedly was influenced by his racist ideology and belief in antigovernment conspiracy theories related to gun confiscations, citizen detention camps, and a Jewish-controlled “one world government.”

Don't ever let them tell you there's no such thing as a right wing domestic terrorist.

On The Defense of Male Genital Mutilation

In Wednesday's P-G, I read a stunning, faith-based defense of male genital mutilation.

And let me say right now that I reserve the right to use that phrase instead of its gentler euphemistic cousin "circumcision" because, simply put, when one surgically removes the foreskin from the the penis a mutilation of the genitals has occurred. It is all more horrific when one understands that it's done involuntarily to babies as young as a few days old.

Back to the defense. Professor Steven L Jones of Grove City College begins:

The citizens of San Francisco will decide in November whether to ban circumcision, a practice that dates from antiquity and is embraced by at least three of the world's major religions.

Gotta stop him there. It's not exactly a ban. It's not a ban in the same sense that all heroin use is banned or all cigarette smoking in public places is banned. The law only applies to the genital mutilation of male minors. And there is an exception for the health of the minor as well.

Let's take a look at the proposed measure:

Section 1: The San Francisco Police Code is hereby amended by adding Article 50 to read as follows:

ARTICLE 50: GENITAL CUTTING OF MALE MINORS

SEC. 5001. PROHIBITION OF GENITAL CUTTING OF MALE MINORS.
Except as provided in SEC. 5002, it is unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years.

SEC. 5002. EXCEPTIONS.
(a) A surgical operation is not a violation of this section if the operation is necessary to the physical health of the person on whom it is performed because of a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need with no less-destructive alternative treatment available, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner.

(b) In applying subsection (a), no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of that or any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.

SEC. 5003. PENALTY.
Any person who violates any provisions of this Article shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction such person shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000 or by imprisonment in the County Jail for a period not to exceed one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

It's a fine distinction I realize, but according my reading of Section 5001, if a lad of 18 years decides for himself to mutilate his genitals this measure can not stop him. He's perfectly free to do so.

Back to Professor Jones' next paragraphs:

Now, the fact that something stretches far back into human history is by no means a guarantee that it has social value. Slavery, human sacrifice and arranged marriages for adolescents also have long histories, but, thankfully, are no longer accepted by Western societies. The question is whether circumcision belongs on this list.

It doesn't.

It does. But I'll let Professor Jones continue:

The Centers for Disease Control reports that circumcision has numerous health benefits. Circumcised infants have fewer urinary tract infections, a blessing to any young family already stretched by numerous doctor visits.

I am sure the prospect of protecting a baby boy from a Urinary Tract Infection is a good thing, but let's look closer at UTIs in infants. How often does it occur?

From the American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statements on Circumcision and Urinary Tract Infection:

It is estimated that 10 of 1000 (1%) uncircumcised male infants will develop a UTI during the first year of life compared with 1 of 1000 (0.1%) circumcised male infants.

So while it's true that a genitally mutilated boy will have fewer urinary tract infections, most boys (mutilated or not) will not have one in the first place.

Back to Professor Jones:

International studies from Africa, Asia and the United States also have found that circumcision lowers the likelihood of HIV infection and a host of other sexually transmitted diseases. And the CDC report makes clear that this is not just attributable to behavioral or lifestyle issues that may be correlated with circumcision. The procedure itself results in lower rates of STD infection and may lower the risk for certain types of cancer, too.

While Professor Jones paints a rosy picture of the benefits of male genital mutilation, the American Academy of Pediatrics is far less supportive. From the Abstract of the AAP's Policy Statement itself:

Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. [Emphasis added.]

But what about the hygiene benefits?

Circumcision has been suggested as an effective method of maintaining penile hygiene since the time of the Egyptian dynasties, but there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene. [Emphasis added.]

Penile cancer?

An annual penile cancer rate of 0.9 to 1.0 per 100 000 translates to 9 to 10 cases of penile cancer per year per 1 million men. Although the risk of developing penile cancer in an uncircumcised man compared with a circumcised man is increased more than threefold, it is difficult to estimate accurately the magnitude of this risk based on existing studies. Nevertheless, in a developed country such as the United States, penile cancer is a rare disease and the risk of penile cancer developing in an uncircumcised man, although increased compared with a circumcised man, is low. [Emphasis added.]

AIDS? Here's where it directly contradicts Jones:

Evidence regarding the relationship of circumcision to STD in general is complex and conflicting. Studies suggest that circumcised males may be less at risk for syphilis than are uncircumcised males. In addition, there is a substantial body of evidence that links noncircumcision in men with risk for HIV infection. Genital ulcers related to STD may increase susceptibility to HIV in both circumcised and uncircumcised men, but uncircumcised status is independently associated with the risk for HIV infection in several studies. There does appear to be a plausible biologic explanation for this association in that the mucous surface of the uncircumcised penis allows for viral attachment to lymphoid cells at or near the surface of the mucous membrane, as well as an increased likelihood of minor abrasions resulting in increased HIV access to target tissues. However, behavioral factors appear to be far more important risk factors in the acquisition of HIV infection than circumcision status. [Emphasis added.]

So if there's little, if any, medical benefit from male genital mutilation, then what's the issue here?

To Professor Jones, it's an issue of religious freedom and banning the mutilation will lead to worse things:

In the minds of the faithful, circumcision is not just an act performed on a given day; it is an initiation into a community and a way of life. And it is not the only such practice. Faith-based schooling, for example, is designed to instill and nurture faithful observance by religious adherents and is often chosen not by the child but by the parents.

Ban the mutilation today and Faith-based schooling is next.

If there's no real medical need for the mutilation and the only support for it is to "instill and nurture faithful observance" in a larger community, does that give parents have the right to mutilate their children?

But let's run a little mental experiment. If Jones is correct and there are health and well-being benefits to be had all for the cost of a foreskin, how many uncircumcised 18 year old men do you think would volunteer to have their genitals mutilated for those benefits?

Yea, I thought so.