Plot idea: 97% of the world’s scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.
— notorious (@NotoriousEliG) May 26, 2015
This really puts the anthropogenic climate change denialists’ statements in a properly thick-headed perspective.
The Nebraska legislature just overrode the Governor’s veto, so the state has abolished the death penalty:
Nebraska on Wednesday became the seventh state since 2007 to scrap the death penalty, the latest sign of weakening support for capital punishment in statehouses across the country.
The move was driven by a bipartisan group of legislators, who argued that the death penalty had grown inefficient and ineffective. Nebraska hadn’t executed anyone since 1997, and until recently had struggled to get the drugs needed to carry out executions.
On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts—who lobbied to retain capital punishment in the state—vetoed a bill that would make a life sentence the stiffest available criminal penalty in the state.
But Wednesday afternoon, the state’s legislative house voted 30-19 to override the governor’s veto.
Sixteen Republicans joined with 13 Democrats and one independent in support of the override. All 19 votes in support of Mr. Ricketts’ veto were lodged by Republicans.
I was surprised at the initial vote, and I am surprised at the override, but it’s a good kind of surprise.
In a case from (where else) Texas, the plaintiffs are claiming that redistricting should be done on the basis of registered voters, not on the basis of people:
The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a case that will answer a long-contested question about a bedrock principle of the American political system: the meaning of “one person one vote.”
The court’s ruling, expected in 2016, could be immensely consequential. Should the court agree with the two Texas voters who brought the case, its ruling would shift political power from cities to rural areas, a move that would benefit Republicans.
The court has never resolved whether voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places with large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally, including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants, children and prisoners. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic.
A ruling that districts must be based on equal numbers of voters would move political power away from cities, with their many immigrants and children, and toward older and more homogeneous rural areas.
………
The Supreme Court over the past nearly 25 years has turned away at least three similar challenges, and many election law experts expressed surprise that the justices agreed to hear this one. But since Chief Justice John G. Roberts has led the court, it has been active in other voting cases.
In 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, a closely divided court effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act.
The new case, Evenwel v. Abbott, No. 14-940, concerns state and local voting districts. But “the logic of the decision in Evenwel will likely carry over to congressional redistricting,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine.
This is a big deal, and the fact that they are even hearing this is an indication of just how corrupt and partisan the conservative wing of the Court.
This would be a complete reversal of decades of precedent, and if the Court to overturns their prior rulings, it would the most unprincipled and biased ruling by the Court since Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Note also that by putting impediments to registration between citizens, in Wisconsin, photo ID sites avoid urban areas for example, it possible for evil people to further skew redistricting.
Of course, for “jurists” like Scalia and Alito, this is a feature, not a bug.
The effect of this bill might be less than anticipated though: There were 2,266,800 adults in detention in 2011, and 70,792 juveniles incarcerated in 2010*, and particularly for the prison population these are overwhelmingly held in rural areas.
These inmates are counted as residents of the district in which they are held, and as such, they give a big bump to rural representation.
If these people are not counted for the purposes of redistricting, this would move what would likely be over a million people out of rural districts.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
The Cleveland Police have signed a consent decree with the Department of Justice which, among other things, has them to halt their practice of pistol whipping fellow citizens:
Cleveland police will stop hitting people on the head with their guns and document any time they unholster them, according to a consent decree between the U.S. Justice Department and Cleveland police released today.
The Justice Department found in a 21-month investigation that began in 2013 that Cleveland police routinely bash people on the head with their guns, sometimes accidentally firing them, according to a 58-page report released in December.
The consent decree released Tuesday between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Cleveland is the result of five months of negotiations, as well as dozens of meetings with community groups, church leaders and advocates. Once approved by a federal judge, the city is legally bound to enact the reforms included in the 105-page document, meant to protect citizens’ Constitutional rights.
Seriously?
Cleveland police pistol-whipped people as a matter of policy?
I think that this is WELL beyond the need for a consent decree.
They need to shut down the Cleveland PD, and bring in the State Police for the next few years.
What you will notice in passing is that Hasterd made his money in real estate investments by earmarking money for a massive highway project that ran past his real estate investments, which jacked up the price of the land. (Prior Link)
Now though, we have allegations that Denny Hastert tried to evade the money laundering statutes and then lied to the FBI:
J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct.”
Hastert, who has been a high-paid lobbyist in Washington since his 2007 retirement from Congress, schemed to mask more than $950,000 in withdrawals from various accounts in violation of federal banking laws that require the disclosure of large cash transactions, according to a seven-page indictment delivered by a grand jury in Chicago.
The indictment did not spell out the exact nature of the “prior misconduct” by Hastert, but it noted that before entering state and federal politics in 1981, Hastert served for more than a decade as a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in Illinois.
In 2010, confronted about the “prior misconduct,” the former speaker agreed to pay $3.5 million to the person “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A,” prosecutors alleged.
That person, whose identity was shielded by prosecutors, has known Hastert most of his or her life, growing up in Yorkville, the city next to Hastert’s home town of Plano, in the exurbs west of Chicago. Prosecutors said the actions “occurred years earlier” than the 2010 meeting that sparked the payments.
The investigation began in 2013, by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service, which cited “possible structuring of currency transactions to avoid the reporting requirements.”
First thing to be noted here, if law enforcement (particularly the FBI) wants to have an innocuous discussion with here, tell them no.
Politely let them know that you are asserting your constitutional rights, and will not talk without a lawyer.
It is important to specifically mention your constitutional rights. Recent courses by the perfidious Roberts Court have allowed a person’s silence against them in court unless they specifically invoke the 5th amendment.
The second thing to be noted is that the prosecutors are being remarkably circuitous about the nature of Hastert’s “Prior misconduct” against “Individual A.”
I’m not sure whether the prosecutor is giving Hastert a pass because he was House Speaker, or if the US Attorney will use that as a lever to get a guilty plea
The indictment provides some tantalizing clues though:
My guess is that he sexually abused a student when he was a teacher, but it’s just a guess, based on the amount of the blackmail and the above facts.
The interesting thing here is that it is likely, though not certain (Republicans are a perverted bunch), that whatever you and I imagine is far worse than the reality of the situation.
In any case, it’s nice to see Tom Delay’s sock puppet going down.
Over 30 years ago, Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated at the orders of right wing politician Roberto D’Aubuisson.
It is almost certain that this was done with the active agreement of elements within the Reagan administration, and the passive acquiescence of the Holy See in Rome.
John Paul II was determined to extirpate what saw as left wing elements in the Church, and making noise about Romero’s murder was inconvenient when viewed through the lens of this agenda, (on edit) and so the silence on the assassination.
Well, Pope Francis just Beatified Archbishop Romero:
The Salvadorean archbishop Óscar Romero was beatified on Saturday, the final step before sainthood, 35 years after he was shot dead at the altar by a rightwing death squad for denouncing the oppression of the poor by the military dictatorship.
Roman Catholics from around the world mixed with former Marxist rebels from El Salvador’s brutal civil war as more than 250,000 people gathered in the capital to celebrate the country priest who confronted a US-backed government.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, sent by Pope Francis, officiated the ceremony that followed decades of debate over whether Romero had rejected Church doctrine by embracing radical, leftwing rebels. [Actually the record shows that he was no fan of the rebels either, he opposed violence on both sides]
………
Born in 1917 in a mountain town near Honduras, Romero apprenticed as a carpenter as a boy before entering the church, where he rose through the ranks, appearing to be a quiet conservative.
But soon after being appointed archbishop in 1977, he became a staunch critic of the military government after it began killing, kidnapping and arresting priests who had been organising peasants and supporting workers’ rights.
His sermons, often broadcast on radio, riled rightwing extremists. But he ignored multiple death threats, remaining defiant up to his murder while giving mass in the chapel of a San Salvador hospital.
“In the name of this suffering people, whose cries to heaven become more deafening each day, I beg you, I beseech you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression,” he said in a speech to government soldiers the day before his death.
This, along with the sainthood for John XXIII, show a clean break for this Pontiff with his reactionary predecessors, though his longest term impact might be on cleaning up more mundane corruption in the finances of the Papal bureaucracy and the Vatican bank.
Time will tell.
It appears that the juxtaposition bribery, money laundering, and tax evasion is is enough to pique the interest in soccer of some people in America:
With billions of dollars at stake, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa jockeyed in 2004 for the privilege of hosting soccer’s most prestigious tournament, the World Cup. The outcome hinged on a decision by the executive committee of FIFA, soccer’s governing body, and a single vote could tip the decision.
And at least one vote, prosecutors said Wednesday, was for sale.
Jack Warner, a committee member from Trinidad and Tobago, shopped his ballot to the highest bidder, federal prosecutors said. In early 2004, he flew to Morocco, where a member of that country’s bid committee offered him $1 million. But South Africa had a sweeter deal, offering $10 million to a group that Mr. Warner controlled, prosecutors said. He voted for South Africa. South Africa got the 2010 World Cup. And Mr. Warner got his $10 million payout, much of which prosecutors said he diverted for his personal use.
For decades, that was how business was done in international soccer, American officials said Wednesday as they announced a sweeping indictment against 14 soccer officials and marketing executives who they said had corrupted the sport through two decades of shadowy dealing and $150 million in bribes. Authorities described international soccer in terms normally reserved for Mafia families or drug cartels, and brought charges under racketeering laws usually applied to such criminal organizations.
Hours after Swiss authorities arrived unannounced at a Zurich hotel and arrested top FIFA officials early Wednesday morning, the Justice Department and prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York forcefully declared that their investigation had only just begun and pledged to rid the international soccer organization of systemic corruption.
“These individuals and organizations engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held, and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who supervised the investigation from its earliest stages, when she was the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament.”
It’s been common knowledge that FIFA is so deeply corrupt that it makes the International Olympic Committee look like Bernie Sanders, so I am not at all surprised that allegations of corruption have finally been made public, though I am a bit surprised that it was the US that led the investigation.
As it stands now, the FIFA president, Sepp Blatter is not among those arrested, but given that these indictments include the FIFA statutes, which cast a very broad net (the phrase “corrupt pattern” comes to mind), if only a few of these people roll, I imagine that he could be a defendant as well.
It appears that these arrests are the proverbial good news for the Jews, as it looks like this will side-track for a while efforts to expel Israel from FIFA:
Israelis were expecting some big news to come out of the annual FIFA Congress this week. But they probably weren’t expecting this.
In a bombshell operation, a Swiss law enforcement team showed up at the Zurich hotel hosting the annual gathering of the international soccer organization — and arrested nine senior officials.
The arrests come after decades of corruption allegations aimed at FIFA. (If you’re unfamiliar, comedian John Oliver’s got you covered.) The arrested officials face charges of taking money in exchange for World Cup hosting bids, as well taking bribes in exchange for media and marketing rights for major international tournaments.
The allegations are damning, but frankly, they couldn’t have come at a better time for Israel. Until Wednesday, much of the coverage of the FIFA Congress surrounded whether delegates would vote to suspend Israel from world soccer.
The Palestinian Football Association is introducing the motion to suspend Israel, accusing it of unjustly restricting Palestinian soccer players’ freedom of movement and claiming that Israel’s West Bank settlement teams violate FIFA rules. Israeli officials have called the effort blatantly political and said that the Palestinians’ complaints all concern Israel’s security forces — not Israel’s soccer teams.
Needless to say, some people are already blaming the “international Zionist conspiracy” for the arrests.
Personally, I’m hoping that we eventually see similar arrests directed at the NFL, and its head Roger Goodell.
Needless to say, we must remind everyone that Santorum is a term meaning, “The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”
Needless to say, I believe that we all have the duty to get Spreading Santorum to the top of the Google rankings, it is currently the 14th result, which means that for a lot of people, it is not even on the first results page.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) offered a critical assessment of some of the problems with his last presidential run.
“I wasn’t healthy. You all know the health stories — it was what it was,” Perry said in front of reporters in Souix City, Iowa, according to an NPR report published on Tuesday. Perry has taken steps toward running for the White House again and is expected to formally jump into the race on June 4 in Dallas.
During a 2012 GOP debate in Rochester, Michigan, Perry struggled to name the three federal agencies he would cut if elected president.
“The third agency of government I would do away with —the Education, the uh, the Commerce, and let’s see. I can’t find the third one. I can’t,” Perry said during the debate. “Sorry, oops.”
Later in the cycle, aides to Perry said that the governor suffered from severe back pains and depended on painkillers to make it through the debates, which seemed to have affected his debate performances.
Seriously? You are suggesting that unwise use of painkillers made you behave erratically, and it’s all better now?
This is the worst bit of stupidity by a Presidential candidate since ……… Ummmmm ……… Sorry, oops.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has backtracked on his 90 days and then delete email policy:
The emails of New York officials will no longer be automatically deleted after 90 days, aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week in response to political pressure over the purge policy.
It’s been a slow burn leading to the policy shift. The purge policy was first reported by the Albany Times Union back in mid–2013, but didn’t stir much protest until more recently, following coverage by ProPublica and Capital New York.
At a public meeting Friday, aides to the governor said they had reviewed the policies of other states and, going forward, any email deletion would be manual. That means more communications should be retained and be accessible in response to public records requests or in the case of investigations of wrongdoing.
Good government groups welcomed the move, writing in an open letter that it “shows the power the governor has to lead by example to increase transparency” – rare praise for Cuomo, whose administration has generally been marked by secrecy.
Since the purge policy was in effect for about two years in some state agencies, it’s probable some public records have been lost.
The cynic in me thinks that Cuomo has already managed to delete records that he wanted deleted.
The optimist in me thinks that someone, perhaps his counsel, or perhaps someone from the US Attorney’s office told him that they would either take actions to protect the data, which would be profoundly embarrassing to Hizzoner.
In either case, this is good news, and I am hoping to see Cuomo indicted, because he is clearly corrupt, at least by the ordinary standards of decency, if not the letter of the law.
It comes from my choice for Democratic nominee for President, Bernie Sanders:
In the interview, Sanders also indicates that he’d like to see a 90 percent tax rate in the country. After he sarcastically referred to that rate existing under “radical socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Harwood asked him if he thought it was too high. “No. That’s not 90 percent of your income, you know?” explained Sanders, “That’s the marginal. I’m sure you have some really right-wing nut types, but I’m not sure that every very wealthy person feels that it’s the worst thing in the world for them to pay more in taxes, to be honest with you. I think you’ve got a lot of millionaires saying, “You know what? I’ve made a whole lot of money. I don’t want to see kids go hungry in America. Yeah, I’ll pay my fair share.”
I love the bit about, “Radical socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower.”
The whole discussion (it’s informal enough that it’s more of a chat than an interview) with John Harwood, NBC’s Chief Washington correspondent, is well worth a watch.
Gulf War 3.0 pic.twitter.com/pV3dIPHNv7
— Stuart (@MrStuartLodge) September 25, 2014
Truth be told, this might also be the finest letter to the editor, as well as the best essay ever written on the Middle East.
I do not say this to diminish or demean the actions taken by members of the military, but rather because the boiler plate, “Thank you for your service,” is patronizing and demeaning.
What you are really saying, and the soldiers understand this, is “I am so glad that it’s you, and not me, or my children, who are doing this.”
Rather unsurprisingly, the folks who have served have a similar view of that cliche:
………
As the size of the military shrinks, the connections between military personnel and the broad civilian population appear to be growing more distant, the Pew Research Center concluded after a broad 2012 study of both service members and civilians.
Most of the country has experienced little, if any, personal impact from the longest era of war in U.S. history. But those in uniform have seen their lives upended by repeated deployments to war zones, felt the pain of seeing family members and comrades killed and maimed, and endured psychological trauma that many will carry forever, often invisible to their civilian neighbors.
………
“I am well-aware that many Americans, especially our elite classes, consider the military a bit like a guard dog,” said Lt. Col. Remi M. Hajjar, a professor of behavioral sciences and leadership at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“They are very thankful for our protection, but they probably wouldn’t want to have it as a neighbor,” he said. “And they certainly are not going to influence or inspire their own kids to join that pack of Rottweilers to protect America.”
………
George Baroff, enjoying an outdoor lunch at an organic food co-op in Carrboro one recent afternoon, said he understood the military quite well: He served three years as a draftee during World War II before eventually becoming a psychology professor in nearby Chapel Hill.
Baroff, 90, finds himself startled when people learn of his war record and say, as Americans often do to soldiers these days, “Thank you for your service.”
“You never, ever heard that in World War II. And the reason is, everybody served,” he said.
In Baroff’s view, today’s all-volunteer military has been robbed of the sense of shared sacrifice and national purpose that his generation enjoyed six decades ago. Today’s soldiers carry a heavier burden, he said, because the public has been disconnected from the universal responsibility and personal commitment required to fight and win wars.
“For us, the war was over in a few years. The enemy surrendered and were no longer a threat,” he said. “For soldiers today, the war is never over; the enemy is never defeated.” The result, he added, is “a state of perpetual anxiety that the rest of the country doesn’t experience.”
………
What most don’t realize is how frequently such gestures ring hollow.
“So many people give you lip service and offer fake sympathy. Their sons and daughters aren’t in the military, so it’s not their war. It’s something that happens to other people,” said Phillip Ruiz, 46, a former Army staff sergeant in Tennessee who was wounded twice during three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Douglas Pearce, a former Army lieutenant who fought in Afghanistan and is now a marriage and family counselor in Nashville, said civilians seem to think they “can assuage their guilt with five seconds in the airport.”
“What they’re saying is, ‘I’m glad you served so that I didn’t have to, and my kids won’t have to.‘”
(Emphasis mine)
Seriously, find something a bit more meaningful to say.
H/T Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly.
There’s a breed of pedigreed dolt endemic to Washington, D.C. They determine their opinions socially, not empirically; what “everybody knows” trumps facts any old day. Their notion of tough, hard-nosed realism invariably entails that other people should suffer, from the blithe imperialism that cheers on unnecessary wars to the ‘sensible centrism’ that insists that unnecessary cuts to the social safety net are absolutely imperative. (The occasional safely contrarian view offers some novelty and the gloss of independence without truly challenging the establishment framework.) They remain cheerfully cloistered from the effects of their pronouncements about what the less privileged should be doing (and should be having done to them).
—Batocchio at Hullabaloo
The is commenting specifically about the rush to war in Iraq, but it applies generally.
Read the rest.
During the (quite disastrous for Labour) UK elections, Ed Millibrand was insistent on two big issues: He would not go into a coalition with the Scottish National Party (SNP), and he would oppose a referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
Both positions were big political losers, with Labour being basically turfed out in Scotland, and losing votes from a significant Euroskeptic constituency.
Ed is gone, and the acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, has announced that the party will support the referendum, but campaign for a “No” vote:
Acting leader Harriet Harman has said Labour will now support plans for an EU referendum by the end of 2017.
Ms Harman told the Sunday Times the change in position came after they “reflected on the conversations we had on doorsteps” during the election.
The PM has pledged to renegotiate a “better deal” for the UK and hold an “in/out” referendum by the end of 2017.
Ms Harman told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show the party would still campaign for the UK to stay in the EU.
She said: “Whether we are in the European Union or not is a huge, important, constitutional, political, economic decision.”
The Conservatives were bringing forward a bill to allow the referendum to happen, said Ms Harman, and Labour “wouldn’t succeed” in stopping it.
While she coaches this decision in terms of a lack of agency, this is actually a very politically savvy move.
The mainstream Tories (Conservatives) want to stay in the EU, because big business, particularly The City (London’s equivalent of Wall Street), because it makes doing business (and hiding income from Inland Revenue HM Revenue and Customs) much easier, and, particularly for the British FIRE sector.
As such I am sure that the reelected Prime Minister, David Cameron, is really not particularly eager to put Britain’s continued membership in the European Union up to a vote.
However, political realities forced Cameron to promise a referendum, because the loony right of his party was pressuring him, and because the even more right wing UKIP has been taking an increasing portion of what would have been Tory votes, which in the UK’s first past the post system, could prove problematic.
With Labour saying that they will not oppose a referendum, it removes one of the few excuses for Cameron to delay a vote on status, and regardless of what happens, this will not be good for him politically, because, even while he has promised a referendum, which necessarily will upset UK big business, he must also campaign against it, which would serve to strengthen UKIP.
I am not sure if Ms. Harmon intended for there to put the Conservative mainstream in this position, but they appear to be thoroughly skewered on the tines of Morton’s fork.
The US, acting on behalf of Monsanto and its ilk, pressured the EU into revoking its common sense pesticide regulations using the TTIP to coerce regulatory forbearance:
EU moves to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility were shelved following pressure from US trade officials over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade deal, newly released documents show.
Draft EU criteria could have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). But these were dumped amid fears of a trade backlash stoked by an aggressive US lobby push, access to information documents obtained by Pesticides Action Network (PAN) Europe show.
On 26 June 2013, a high-level delegation from the American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham) visited EU trade officials to insist that the bloc drop its planned criteria for identifying EDCs in favour of a new impact study.
Minutes of the meeting show commission officials pleading that “although they want the TTIP to be successful, they would not like to be seen as lowering the EU standards”.
The TTIP is a trade deal being agreed by the EU and US to remove barriers to commerce and promote free trade.
Responding to the EU officials, AmCham representatives “complained about the uselessness of creating categories and thus, lists” of prohibited substances, the minutes show.
The US trade representatives insisted that a risk-based approach be taken to regulation, and “emphasised the need for an impact assessment” instead.
On 2 July 2013, officials from the US Mission to Europe visited the EU to reinforce the message. Later that day, the secretary-general of the commission, Catherine Day, sent a letter to the environment department’s director Karl Falkenberg, telling him to stand down the draft criteria.
“We suggest that as other DGs [directorate-generals] have done, you consider making a joint single impact assessment to cover all the proposals,” Day wrote. “We do not think it is necessary to prepare a commission recommendation on the criteria to identify endocrine disrupting substances.”
The result was that legislation planned for 2014 was kicked back until at least 2016, despite estimated health costs of €150bn per year in Europe from endocrine-related illnesses such as IQ loss, obesity and cryptorchidism – a condition affecting the genitals of baby boys.
A month before the meeting, AmCham had warned the EU of “wide-reaching implications” if the draft criteria were approved. The trade body wanted an EU impact study to set looser thresholds for acceptable exposure to endocrines, based on a substance’s potency.
“We are worried to see that this decision, which is the source of many scientific debates, might be taken on political grounds, without first assessing what its impacts will be on the European market,” the chair of AmCham’s environment committee wrote in a letter to the commission.
These could be “dramatic” the letter said.
In a high-level internal note sent to the health commissioner, Tonio Borg, shortly afterwards, his departmental director-general warned that the EU’s endocrines policy “will have substantial impacts for the economy, agriculture and trade”.
The heavily redacted letter, sent a week before the EU’s plans were scrapped continued: “The US, Canada, and Brazil [have] already voiced concerns on the criteria which might lead to important repercussions on trade.”
The series of events was described as “incredible” by the the Green MEP Bas Eickhout. “These documents offer convincing evidence that TTIP not only presents a danger for the future lowering of European standards, but that this is happening as we speak,” he told the Guardian.
Even without a signed deal, it appears that the two big “Free Trade” deals being negotiated have already been used to subvert consumer and environmental safeguards.
Of course, this is precisely what Obama said wouldn’t happen, but I guess that he’s looking forward, not back.
He managed to get an amendment in the Senate’s TPP bill, which has the effect of toughening human trafficking requirements of member countries, which means that Malaysia’s horrific human trafficking record would make the treaty ineligible for fast track:
Remember, passing Fast Track in the Senate was supposed to be the easy part. Not only did Fast Track get rejected on its first try — “Welcome aboard the S.S. Lame Duck, Mr. President!” — now we get this. Ryan Grim explains:
The Senate approved a bill to “fast-track” trade agreements negotiated by the president. The agreement will prevent Congress from amending or filibustering Obama’s controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The TPP deal would have a hard time surviving without fast-track authority.
But a key crackdown on human trafficking survived the legislative jujitsu. The White House considers the provision a deal-breaker, as it would force one of the nations involved in the TPP talks — Malaysia — out of the agreement.From the US State Department:
Malaysia (Tier 3 [the worst]) is a destination and, to a lesser extent, a source and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and women and children subjected to sex trafficking. The overwhelming majority of trafficking victims are among the estimated two million documented and two million or more undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia.
Foreign workers typically migrate willingly to Malaysia from other countries in Asia—primarily Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Nepal, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Thailand, and Laos—in search of greater economic opportunities.Here I pause to note that somebody decided that it would be a good idea for the US to take in the Rohingya, the Muslim boat people who have turned to traffickers to escape a slow motion Burmese genocide, after which the Malaysians offered temporary, one-year status to such Rohingya as actually reach their shores.
………
Complicating any efforts to “fix” the bill, however, is the possibility of an alliance between feminist factions in the Democratic party, and Christianist factions among the Republicans, both of whom take strongly principled positions on human trafficking.
Complicating the picture even more, when you think about it, is the potential for agita in 2016. Suppose Obama, very ironically, gets the anti-slavery provisions “fixed,” i.e. removed, and the bill passes in time. The campaign ads practically write themselves. “A vote for TPP is a vote for human trafficking.” “Why does Senator X support slavery?” Cue the ominous music. Cue pictures of skeletal women and children. Cue the die-ins on the trail. I’m sure campaign shops on both sides are practically drooling with joy, because the only way TPP will pass is with bipartisan support. Getting that amendment in there was GENIUS, and we’ll get to how that happened in a moment.
So what we are seeing here is a pissing contest between Menendez and Obama.
The time line is:
Note also the consequences of excluding Malaysia, the most populous Muslim majority state in the world the only sizable majority Muslim state in the TPP, so its exclusion would leave the rump state of Brunei (population 415,717) as the only majority Muslim nation in the agreement.
I cannot believe that I am actually on Menendez’ side on all of this, but the TPP is clearly bad news, as the TTIP with Europe, (more on that later) so to the degree that these treaties can be stopped, the better it is for everyone but the multinational business for whom this is a big government subsidy.
If there is a Western European country that I would not have expected to vote for same sex marriage, it is Ireland.
Once again, I am pleased to be proved wrong, as Ireland became the first nation to approve same sex marriage by referendum:
Ireland became the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote, sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory Saturday for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change.
With the final ballots counted, the vote was 62 percent in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, and 38 percent opposed.
The turnout was large — more than 60 percent of the 3.2 million eligible voters cast ballots, and only one district out of 43 voted the measure down. Cheers broke out among the crowd of supporters who had gathered in the courtyard of Dublin Castle when Returning Officer Riona Ni Fhlanghaile announced around 7 p.m. that the ballot had passed, 1,201,607 votes to 734,300.
Not long ago, the vote would have been unthinkable. Ireland decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993, the church dominates the education system, and abortion remains illegal except when a mother’s life is at risk. But the influence of the church has waned amid scandals in recent years, while attitudes, particularly among the young, have shifted.
This wasn’t just a victory, this was a blowout.
The Catholic Church needs to get with the program. If they get blown out in Ireland, in a plebiscite no less, they need to know that they have lost the war.
Rather ironically, at nearly the same time, Northern Ireland just killed same sex marriage:
Politicians in Northern Ireland will face intense pressure from LGBT rights campaigners to “catch up” with the rest of western Europe after the Irish Republic overwhelmingly backed same-sex marriage in a referendum.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions will join Amnesty International and gay rights group the Rainbow Project to hold a mass rally in support of equal marriage rights on 13 June, while a legal test case has also been lodged with Belfast’s courts.
After Friday’s historic referendum, in which the Republic’s voters endorsed same-sex marriage by 2-1, Northern Ireland remains the last country in western Europe where LGBT couples are barred from getting married.
Attempts to legislate to allow gay marriage have been vetoed by the Democratic Unionist party and a majority of Ulster Unionists in the devolved Northern Ireland assembly at Stormont.
An ICTU spokesman said the region needed to catch up with the rest of democratic Europe – and in particular every other part of the UK. “In 1998 Northern Ireland became one of the most advanced places on earth for human rights. Section 75 of the Good Friday agreement dealt with human rights and enshrined the rights of every citizen to be treated equally in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“Since then Northern Ireland has slipped back in terms of the human rights agenda and is now isolated in the UK as the only place where a gay couple cannot get married. The rally will be held in solidarity with the gay community.”
Section 75 of the Good Friday agreement guarantees the right of every citizen to avail themselves of state services in the region. LGBT rights campaigners believe that these services include marriages in civil spaces such as council chambers.
Amnesty’s campaign director in Northern Ireland, Patrick Corrigan, has called for a mass turnout at the rally, which will start from Belfast’s Writers Square at 2.30pm. Corrigan said people in Northern Ireland should show they are “sick of living in a discriminatory backwater for gay people”.
Last month, a Sinn Féin motion on marriage equality fell after 47 Stormont assembly members voted in support while 49 unionists voted against. Even if there had been a small majority in favour, the DUP would have exercised a special veto drawn up under devolution.
So, we have the political wing of the IRA agreeing with Ian Paisley’s DUP.
I gotta think that this is more political posturing than anything else.
Basically, no one wants to be a first mover.
“There is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these [factual] questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”
—Obsidian Wings, which linked to former Reagan administration official Bruce Bartlett, who in turn linked to Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll.
I must add (thankfully former) Twitter “Hashtag activist” Suey Park, who face planted with her #CancelColbert tag about a year ago.
It started with ……… Hell, just watch the attached video.
Short version:
We can all agree that nothing that Ms. Park did merited the threats against her person.
What is also clear that, even by the incredibly lame standards of “Twitter Hashtag Activists,” Suey Park squandered whatever credibility she once had: She has become a punchline to a very bad joke.
She has made some attempt to rehabilitate her reputation (see link), but, I don’t care about her reputation, or how she feels about herself, or how she might have learned from the experience.
Until she does something that affirmatively proves that her opinions have some insight beyond what could be generated with an ELIZA program, she goes on my list of They Who Must Not Be Named.
That is all.
