Sen. Graham Bolsters His 'Conservative' (Anti-Choice) Creds, Introduces Abortion Ban Bill

Cracker gestures: to Hell with women!

Sen. Lindsey Graham ("The Cracker", R-SC) has introduced a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, 4 weeks earlier than the 24 weeks guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. If the bill seems familiar, it's because the House radical caucus passed it last year. Susan Erdreich at TPM has details.

Graham calls his bill the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" — a mouthful that tells you (and presumably Graham's base) all you need to know about the bill. What it doesn't tell you is that according to the Guttmacher Institute, as referenced in Erdreich's article, "88 percent of all abortions occur in the first trimester. Of the remaining 12 percent, less than half--approximately 5.3 percent--occur after the 16th week of pregnancy."

Most late-term abortions happen for damn good reasons: the mother's life is at risk, or the fetus's survival chances are nil, or the fetus has severe deformities that could not be determined by tests until the late 2^nd trimester. Those late-term abortions that are performed are expensive, risky and difficult to obtain because, thanks to anti-choice laws and court rulings, most doctors will not perform them... so they are sought and performed only because they are urgently necessary.

But that isn't good enough for Sen. Cracker. He has to ban abortions which are constitutionally protected according to Roe v. Wade. For him, as for most of his base, it can only be about establishing his domination over women. If women do not have reasonable control of their bodies, they are not full-fledged equal citizens of the United States. That inequality is exactly what Sen. Cracker and his base seek... and what we must proactively oppose.

The Myth Of 'Makers And Takers': Conservatism As Fiction

Joshua Holland, senior digital producer for BillMoyers.com, book author and radio host, thoroughly debunks the fundamental conservative notion that Americans are divided into "makers" — hardworking, self-sustaining people who create the goods and services that drive the American economy — and "takers" — lazy bums who live on government subsidies of various sorts and never contribute to the economy.

Not surprisingly, to me at least, that entire notion, the one at the core of present-day American conservatism, turns out upon serious study to be utter bunkum, total fiction in practically every way.

Read Mr. Holland's opus and learn the ways in which virtually every American is at one time or another in his or her life a maker, and at another time or even at the same time a taker. If conservatives were not so busy patting themselves on the back, congratulating themselves unjustifiably for being the only makers, perhaps they could assist the rest of us in accommodating in our social structure the fact that everyone makes and everyone takes.

Juan Cole Offers 'Top 10 Ways To Really Honor Veterans'

Cole speaks his mind... and reminds us that many recent and current GOP actions are truly harmful to veterans. Take your blood pressure meds before you read his list... that is, if your benefits still pay for blood pressure medication.

Moms' Gun Control Group Intimidated By Open Carry Group — In Texas, Of Course

Tom Kludt at TPM:

A small meeting for a gun control group in Texas was disrupted on Saturday by dozens of armed, pro-gun advocates, some of whom were photographed kneeling in a parking lot and brandishing their weapons.

According to a statement from the gun control group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, four of its members were meeting inside the Blue Mesa Grill in Dallas when the confrontation took place.

The group said the confrontation was carried out by members of an organization called Open Carry Texas. The statement said that nearly 40 armed men and women, including some with semi-automatic rifles, arrived in the parking lot outside the restaurant after learning of the small gathering on Facebook.

...

(Bolds mine. AP photo of the gun-totin' Texans available at TPM. - SB)

"A well regulated militia..." begins the Second Amendment to our Constitution. That's almost a description of this open-carry group: I don't know that they're particularly "well regulated," but it's plain to see they are "malicious."

Veterans Day

Bill Bates, SWTSTC Lineman	Bill Bates, Editor, College Star
Bill Bates, Graduate	Lt. SG William Bates, USN

It is hard to believe that these pictures of my father, presented (I believe) in time order, span a period of less than about 10 years, from his college days to his service in W.W. II. War does things to people... if it doesn't kill them outright. Dad grew up in a terrible hurry, and coming from his family, he was never immature in the first place.

To all the American men and women who have grown up in a hurry through military service in our (IMHO) far too many wars, in generations past and in my own lifetime... I lift my glass to you. You have my thanks. May the heretofore endless wars at long last come to an end.

Strictly From Hunger

ThinkProgress:

School Throws Out Student’s Breakfast For Being 30 Cents Short

By Bryce Covert on November 8, 2013 at 11:15 am

Barber Middle School in Dickinson, Texas threw out a student’s breakfast because his account was short 30 cents, according to ABC affiliate KTRK.

TANSTAAFL School District

The student receives reduced priced meals, but they are paid for by an account that his mother, Jennifer Castilleja, puts money into. While the school gives warnings when accounts are low, his family must have forgotten to replenish it, but rather than letting her pay it later in the day, Castilleja says the school told her the money would have to come before her son could get breakfast. The cafeteria threw his lunch in the trash. ”There were kids all around him,” his mother said. “I think he may have been a little embarrassed and [upset] and, of course, hungry.”

...

(Bolds mine. - SB)

Some days I'm not sure whether I'm more ashamed to be a Texan or more ashamed just to be human. These people make me ashamed of both.

Bragging Language, Mountain Language

I am still reading the first chapter (first of 61 chapters) of Scahill's new book, Dirty Wars, and have come to a few paragraphs about Cofer Black, who is full of braggadocio to his CIA agents about how they are going to kill Osama bin Laden, how they'll bring his head on a pike to alleged President Bush. We all know how that worked out. But this led me to contemplate the following question and answer:

Q: What language is spoken by a head on a pike, in the mountains?

A: Pike-Speak, of course!

<grin_duck_run />

Krugman: America's Economy 'Mutilated'

America is doing this to itself, says Krugman in his column, "The Mutilated Economy": our government is refusing to spend the money it would take to reduce unemployment, increase demand and, in general, prime the pump... refusing in the name of responsibility to our future, while doing things which compromise that very future.

Long-term unemployment — the number of people who have been out of work for six months or more — is four times what it was before the recession.

Read it and weep. This does not have to be happening. And we all know whose fault it is.

Worst Economics-Related Pun Of The Week, By Paul Krugman

Of course it's... The Confidence Ferry [sic]!

Chris Hedges On 'The Criminalization Of Journalism'

Jaisal Noor, producer for The Real Network News, interviews the always plain-spoken Chris Hedges. I started to say "the indefatigable Chris Hedges," but honestly, Hedges looks as tired as I feel these days. It must be a terrible burden that he carries, largely on our behalf and for our education. Be that as it may, Hedges addresses the detention... face it, the criminal arrest... of David Miranda by British officials at London's Heathrow Airport, charging him with "espionage" and "terrorism" — i.e., journalism embarrassing to officialdom on both sides of the Atlantic. The interview is published both as a video and in print; it is worth viewing both forms. A couple of quotations:

...

NOOR: So, Chris, let's start off by getting your response to the British government accusing David Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who often collaborates with Greenwald, of, quote, espionage and terrorism and saying those were some of the reasons why they held him for hours on end at Heathrow without letting him speak to his lawyer or anyone else.

HEDGES: Well, they didn't just told him. They seized all of his electronic equipment--his computer, his phone--because they were looking for some of the files that [Miranda's partner Glenn] Greenwald has been using to publish his stories that were leaked by Edward Snowden. And this is just part of the criminalization of journalism which has taken place not only within the United States but within countries like Great Britain as well.

NOOR: Britain doesn't have the same safeguards for journalists as places like the U.S. do. ...

HEDGES: Well, there aren't any safeguards left within the United States as well. ... the security and surveillance state has the phone--all of the electronic communications of every journalist in this country. They've used the Espionage Act aggressively seven times, the last time being against Snowden, to make sure nobody does talk to the press to expose the inner workings of power.

So we once had, at least legally, more protection as journalists than were provided to journalists in Great Britain. But all of it's gone up in smoke, both here and there. ...

NOOR: Now, the NSA and its defenders, they cite 54 terrorist plots they have been able to supposedly thwart due to this massive spying. But a recent report by ProPublica found that the NSA was only able to provide evidence in four of those cases. Why do you think the NSA is not providing additional evidence for those remaining 50 cases?

HEDGES: Well, because they're lying. ...

What's interesting is that a lot of times when they lie, they get caught because of courageous whistleblowers like Snowden who expose their [lies]. ...

...

Please read and/or watch the rest. The interview is short and to the point.

A mere few years ago I began to wonder whether the United States could survive the beating it has taken at the hands of Americans who truly do not care for its founding principles as long as they control the nation's power... Dick Cheney, the PNAC gang, Karl Rove, etc. I don't wonder anymore: in the words of Leonard Cohen, "The war is over. The good guys lost." The Bill of Rights... especially the First Amendment's freedom of speech and press... is nothing but pen-scratchings on parchment; there is no substance to those freedoms in the era of presidents George W. Bush Dick Cheney and Barack Obama. To parody the title of another Hedges book, war is a farce that gives the U.S. beatings.

It was great while it lasted. I feel I owe an apology to Thomas Jefferson and to my father, both of whom did their damnedest to create and then preserve a nation where things were done right — thank goodness neither of them survived to see what my generation has done to it.

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: A couple of days ago I began reading Jeremy Scahill's new book, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. I have not read Scahill's other book, but I am reminded by his first chapter of Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, a book which I went out and bought (used, of course) *after* I finished reading the library copy. One difference: the Scahill book is immense; you could use it to exercise your arms, pumping pulp instead of pumping iron. But the content is just as depressing as Mayer's excellent work. I may not be able to finish it...

Medicare Application: One Small Step For A Man...

... hardly a giant leap for mankind, but at least one man has taken one step toward getting into the Medicare system. I ran into only one technological glitch in the application process: I had to pause my sign-up to ask Stella a question about our current insurance; when I came back to sign in again, there was a mysterious obstacle. When the help line called me back (better than waiting on the phone for the advertised 55 minutes), I explained the problem. Try again, they said; although I had already tried three times, I did as they asked, and it worked. I'm guessing there was something keeping my previous session alive, though for the (session) life of me, I couldn't have told you what it was. Perhaps it had to do with the partial Social Security sign-up one must do even if signing up only for Medicare.

One recommendation to anyone else about to face medicare.gov for initial sign-up: don't try to learn everything before you try to do anything. It isn't possible; it is exasperating, and it isn't necessary. I tried yesterday only to end up a basket case; I abandoned the attempt for the day. If you try reading the entire "Medicare and You" pamphlet as an introduction, you'll end up screaming in frustration. Being led by dialogs through the process today worked pretty well when I got around to trying it. And there appears to be no penalty for not having all your ducks in a row before you start the process: they'll tell you what they need that you've forgotten.

Now I have to decide on some options and pick a plan. I have an idea, but I'm waiting for some info from Stella's brother, who just went through the same process. I'll let you know what happens.

Person Unclear On The Concept — That Would Be Keith Alexander

In one of Glenn Greenwald's presumably last pieces for The Guardian, he points to a Politico article and a TechDirt video in which Alexander... well, here's Greenwald:

... the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (Techdirt has the full video here):

The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden.

"I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog.

"We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared. [(Greenwald's) italics]

An American military leader is looking for a way to suppress journalists doing their jobs — is it OK for me to forget Godwin now?

Post-Election Headline Of The Morning: Is It Spousal Abuse?

Headline in the Houston Chronicle online:

Wife beats husband in Maine municipal election

I'm sure it happens every day...

... but not usually at the polls.

Texans: Tuesday Is Election Day — Vote!

Raise your Voice - Vote!

Texans... Tuesday Nov. 5 is Election Day. If you're a Houstonian, it's your chance to shape City Council. Wherever you are in Texas, it's your one rock to throw at the State Board of Education. Don't waste the opportunity... vote!

Be sure to bring your voter registration AND your driver's license, to appease the goddamned Governor and the goddamned GOP. If your names don't match on those two documents, you may be able to vote by signing an affidavit, which the election judge at the poll should provide you (though you may have to harass a GOP election judge to get yours). Do NOT be intimidated! If you are registered to vote, you have a right to vote!

(This post will float to the top through Tuesday. Newer posts may appear below.)

Church Of The Holy Phallus

Daily Kos (along with doubtless a lot of other sites) offers this pic of the Christian Science Church in Dixon, Illinois:

The photo is from Google Maps. The church was built around an old oak tree (no word on whether a yellow ribbon was tied around it) and apparently it doesn't look phallic from the ground. Even so, the church elders have announced their intention to place a "fig leaf" on the church. I do wonder what that will look like...

---

UPDATE: this reminds me of an incident in Redmond, WA and some doggerel I wrote about it in March 1998:

3/11/1998 (AP) ... U.S. District Court Judge Michael Telesca
ruled Feb. 19 that Ontario, N.Y. had the right to deny Sprint's
application to erect three 150-foot towers. Sprint had filed
the suit when its plans were rejected. Just last month,
Redmond, Wash., residents objected to a U S West proposal to
mix the high-tech with the holy. The company wants to build
a steeple for Trinity Anglican Church that would house six
wireless-telephone antennas. ...

In-spired

For blocks around, you hear the sound,
The church's neighbors bawling:
They love the spire but not the wire,
The steeple's one true "calling."

This line to God won't get the nod,
Well, not from Redmond's people,
Their secret fear? That God will hear
Your phone sex through their steeple!

- SB the YDD

Is The CIA Freelancing? Juan Cole Examines The Possibility

Juan Cole:

Pakistan: North Waziristan (yellow)

The CIA drone strike in North Waziristan yesterday killed 25 persons and targeted a high-level meeting of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP). It finally killed TTP leader Hakimu’llah Mahsoud of the large and important Mahsoud tribe in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of northern Pakistan. ... [Mahsoud's killing] was confirmed by the TTP ...

The deadly attack comes only weeks after Mahsoud said in an interview that he was ready for peace talks with newly elected Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, over the objections of TTP hard liners. ...

This context for the drone strike has to raise the question of whether John Brennan, head of the CIA, is deliberately attempting to forestall Pakistan-TTP peace talks and is determined to prevent Nawaz Sharif and Obama from cementing a strong relationship. Pakistani officials are talking about a ‘sabotaging’ of the talks. ...

The TTP will certainly launch reprisals... The Pakistani public is bracing itself for attacks.

...

(Bolds original by Cole. Red is emphasis by SB.)

Is there any possibility that Brennan is acting without direct authorization of President Obama?  Does he have that little control of his department heads? I understand there are some aspects of CIA and NSA operations that have to be independent of direct control by the executive branch, but this one seems to me to bear specifically on a matter of foreign policy, of which one would think a president would keep close personal control.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know there are aspects of our government that are run by the NSA. Are there also aspects of foreign policy that are not merely implemented through the CIA but are actually established by that agency? Or is Obama, as so often seems the case, content to let his appointees do whatever they think best, even in cases where their actions may lead to war?

A Regular Vegetarian Option In A Public School Cafeteria? What A Concept!

Well, OK; it's in New York, specifically, in Queens. But apparently it's more popular than anyone ever expected, let alone predicted. I wonder how long it will be before the same cattle ranchers' association that tried to shut down Oprah Winfrey when she commented on mad cow disease gets cranked up about this...

Setting Your Clock

Fall

Post this notice in your hall:
It is really, truly Fall;
You’ll receive a nasty shock
If you don’t SET BACK YOUR CLOCK!

- SB the YDD

... from "Daylight Saving, Daylight Wasting: Poems to Scare the Daylight Out of You and then Into You Again"

Our Nation's Mechanics

DC Circuit Strikes Down Obamacare Birth Control Mandate

In yet another instance of pure partisan politics manifesting itself on the federal bench, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Obamacare requirement that employer-provided insurance must offer women coverage for birth control. From Julian Hattem at The Hill's RegWatch Blog:

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the birth control mandate in ObamaCare, concluding the requirement trammels religious freedom.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — the second most influential bench in the land behind the Supreme Court — ruled 2-1 in favor of business owners who are fighting the requirement that they provide their employees with health insurance that covers birth control.

Requiring companies to cover their employees’ contraception, the court ruled, is unduly burdensome for business owners who oppose birth control on religious grounds, even if they are not purchasing the contraception directly.

“The burden on religious exercise does not occur at the point of contraceptive purchase; instead, it occurs when a company’s owners fill the basket of goods and services that constitute a healthcare plan,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote on behalf of the court.

...

Judge Brown

Janice Rogers Brown is a George W. Bush appointee, presumably paying off the man and the party who elevated her to the federal bench. But put aside that all justice is politics in this awful age. The ruling interests me not only for its consequences (how many business owners will suddenly get attacks of Catholic conscience and opt out of insuring their female employees on a footing equal to male employees) but for its implied assertion about the nature of protected religious freedom.

Let me pose a parallel example. I oppose war under almost all circumstances, arguably on religious grounds; therefore, under this court's reasoning, I should be able to decline to pay the share of my federal income taxes that underwrites the U.S. military. How well do you think that would work out for me?

Law has to be about actions, not beliefs. Religion is intrinsically about beliefs. Whatever I believe about war, it is no violation of my First Amendment rights to tax me to pay for the US Army just as everyone else is taxed for that purpose. I can pick and choose what I believe as a matter of religion or conscience. I cannot similarly pick and choose what taxes I pay. Those businessmen aren't even being asked to pay for the contraceptives; the government will do that. They just want, allegedly as a matter of religion, to decline to participate altogether.

If this decision stands, I want my tax exemption, as surely as those Catholic businessmen get their exemption from authorizing... not purchasing; the government does that and not the business... contraceptives for employees. In all fairness, neither of us should get the break; otherwise, no law involving government funding of any activity unpopular with any religion, or opposed by anyone's conscience, could ever be sustained.

I'm sorry; there's no way a government could operate on that basis. If these Catholic businessmen are prepared to violate the law as a matter of civil disobedience and uncomplainingly go to jail to sustain their conscientious objection, I might have some respect for them. Otherwise, make 'em comply like everyone else.

Hungry Kids, Hungry Breadwinners — Congress Talks And Talks

Welcome to America, where "if you're poor, it's your own fault":

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 47 million Americans who receive food stamps will see their benefits go down starting Friday, just as Congress has begun negotiations on further cuts to the program.

Beginning in November, a temporary benefit from the 2009 economic stimulus that boosts food stamp dollars will no longer be available. According to the Agriculture Department, that means a family of four receiving food stamps will start receiving $36 less a month.

The benefits, which go to 1 in 7 Americans, fluctuate based on factors that include food prices, inflation and income. The rolls have swelled as the economy has struggled in recent years, with the stimulus providing higher benefits and many people signing up for the first time.

As a result, the program has more than doubled in cost since 2008, now costing almost $80 billion a year. That large increase in spending has turned the program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, into a target for House Republicans looking to reduce spending.

...

Quick... somebody ask Chris Christie
what he thinks!

Seriously, obesity is often a consequence of poor diet, which in turn is often a consequence of poverty. Pasta is cheap. Potatoes are cheap. Beans are, well, sort of cheap. If the budget for SNAP is whacked again, and poor families have $36 less a month to buy food, it's going to be more pasta and less of any complete protein source... if meat is expensive, try dairy protein sources and you'll find they're no cheaper than meat.

Of course, this will harm kids the worst: developing bones and brains need a balanced diet most of all. So much for GOP "family values..."

Fifth Circuit Overrules Yeakel, One-Third Of Texas Clinics Can No Longer Perform Abortions

I can't say this was unexpected, but it is certainly unwelcome. Here's Chris Tomlinson at TPM:

...

... but not in Texas

A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled Thursday evening that Texas can enforce its law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward. The panel issued the ruling three days after District Judge Lee Yeakel determined that the provision violated the U.S. Constitution and said it serves no medical purpose.

The panel's ruling is not final, and a different panel of judges will likely hear the case in January. But in the meantime, Texas clinics will have to follow the order. Twelve of the 32 clinics in Texas that perform abortions don't have doctors who have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, meaning they won't be able to perform the procedure, though they can provide other services.

In its 20-page ruling, the appeals court panel acknowledged that the new provision "may increase the cost of accessing an abortion provider and decrease the number of physicians available to perform abortions." However, the panel said that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that having "the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate" a law that serves a valid purpose, "one not designed to strike at the right itself."

...

If this ruling is affirmed in January, make no mistake about its impact: women will DIE because of it.

Americans who have not lived in Texas have no idea of the distances involved; 32 clinics were really less than minimal coverage of the state already. For many poor women, a clinic 100 miles away might as well be on Mars.

I could cruelly hope that wives and daughters of federal judges would be among those who die of the effects of this ruling. But since it achieves its effect primarily by placing abortion beyond the financial reach of many women, I will save my breath. I could less cruelly hope that the other panel that rules on the lawsuit will rule the other way, but with a largely partisan federal judiciary... GOP presidents having appointed radicals to the bench; Democratic presidents Clinton and Obama not having used their appointments to balance the courts... that would not be a rational hope on my part.

So to hell with them all, GOP radicals and wimpy Democrats. The blood of the women who die is on their hands.

Happy Halloween!

Think about it before you go trick-or-treating:

Should your vegetarian child accept a (ahem) chocolate moose?

The Hostage-Taking Party

Now we see what the GOP learned from its ignominious defeat in the debt ceiling government shutdown:

GOP Threatens Mass Blockade of Obama's Top Judges (i.e., judicial appointments):

Republicans are threatening a mass blockade of President Barack Obama's three most important judicial nominees ahead of an expected Thursday vote on the first of them.

Backed by House colleagues and GOP attorneys general from around the country, Senate Republican leaders are whipping opposition to advancing the nomination of Patricia Millett -- or anyone else -- for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is one notch below the Supreme Court and often has the final word on matters of executive authority.

...

Pick it, John!

John Cornyn accuses Obama of "court-packing." Historically, "court-packing" meant expanding the size of a court in order to appoint a commanding majority; FDR attempted this with the Supreme Court... and failed. Obama is merely appointing vacancies to the DC Circuit that occurred during his term as president... ordinary, run-of-the-mill judicial appointments. Blocking these appointments a priori without regard to their qualifications is interfering with usual constitutional process.

Mr. Cornyn, would you accept such behavior from a Democratic Senate if the president were a Republican (I mean, officially)? If your only reason for this obstruction is partisan, you have to expect the next Republican president facing a Democratic Senate to see the same thing happen to his (face it, if the president is Republican, he will be male) nominees. Oh, and your argument about the cost of these judges' salaries... I'll believe you when you start declining your own salary. You talk about wasted money...

McCain Threatens to Hold Yellen Nomination Over Benghazi Details

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Wednesday that he and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) plan to delay the nomination of Janet Yellen to chair the Federal Reserve in order to obtain information on the 2012 Benghazi attacks from the Obama administration, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"That's the only way we get their attention," McCain told the Journal. "It's the only way we get any response."

...

"Get off
my lawn"

Yes, you motherfucking bastard, that's because your party has lost two presidential elections in a row... failed even to steal them the way you stole the one before that.

Let me quote the celebrated Republican president preceding Mr. Obama: "Elections have consequences." Apparently GOPers believe that is true only if they, not Democrats, win those elections.

To hell with all of you!

NSA Has Infiltrated Comm Between Yahoo, Google And Their Cloud‑Based Data Centers

Kevin Gosztola at FDL:

...

The Washington Post has revealed that the National Security Agency has infiltrated the main communications that connect Yahoo and Google to [their] data centers located around the world. Such revelation could have huge ramifications for the NSA.

According to documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden—and as reported by Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani, the NSA has developed a tool as part of a project called MUSCULAR. The NSA, in partnership with UK spying agency, GCHQ, are able to copy “entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.”

Over a period of 30 days from December 2012 to January 2013, the NSA sent copies of “millions of records” to warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. The agency’s “field collectors” were able to collect, process and send 181,280,466 records in that time span. The records included metadata and content “such as text, audio and video.”

...

(Note: the bracketed "their" above was originally "its" in Gosztola's post, but that cannot be correct; please see the linked WaPo article for the proper reading.)

Yes, the data includes American citizens' data, because a Yahoo or Google cloud is typically not confined to servers on American soil. Not that that would probably matter to most of the NSA geeks...

UPDATE:  oh, and there's this, from the linked WaPo article:

The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.

I am reminded of Lawrence Block's fictional burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr, who occasionally waxes eloquent on the visceral thrills he experiences entering other people's homes and stealing things, even things he could afford to buy. Do Keith Alexander and James Clapper experience a similar rush when they steal data they have already obtained legitimately by a court order?

Grand Bargain: Unofficially Dead, Killed By Paul Ryan (Thank You, You !@#$%^)

Sahil Kapur at TPM:

Harry Clarke, "Faust"

Paul Ryan killed any lingering hopes of a grand bargain within moments of the budget conference kickoff on Wednesday.

In his opening remarks, the Wisconsin congressman and chairman of the House budget committee laid down a firm marker against new taxes, which are essential to any major deficit reduction proposal that can pass Congress and be signed into law.

"Taking more from hardworking families just isn't the answer. I know my Republican colleagues feel the same way," Ryan said. "So I want to say this from the get-go: If this conference becomes an argument about taxes, we're not going to get anywhere. The way to raise revenue is to grow the economy."

In the same opening remarks, Ryan urged action on scaling back Social Security and Medicare -- which progressives want to avoid at all costs, and which President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders have promised not to touch without new federal revenues.

...

No... the way to raise revenue and grow the economy is for citizens to boot every goddamned Republican from the House of Representatives, say "f∧<k that" to the grand bargain, resume taxing the (almost never hardworking) rich, and engage in reasonable government spending on needed programs. There you have it in a nutshell.

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: I kid you not... when I googled "bargain with the Devil" on Google Images, about halfway down the results, I came across a picture of... get this... Paul Ryan, posted on Politico back in late March. Google it yourself if you're interested; I don't hate Politico, but I have no interest in increasing their hit count from here for something so frivolous.

'Congress' Hears Pakistani Family Whose Grandmother Was Killed By US Drone

Kevin Gosztola at FDL:

Members of a family in Pakistan, who became victims of the United States drone program in October of last year when their grandmother was killed and children were wounded, traveled to the US to inform Americans of what the US government is doing to Pakistanis and how it directly impacts them.

Rafiq ur Rehman, the son of 67-year-old Mammana Bibi who was obliterated by Hellfire missiles fired by a drone while she was out in the family garden, addressed an audience at a congressional briefing convened by Congressman Alan Grayson today. Rafiq’s son, 13-year-old Zubair, who was injured in the strike, and his daughter, 9-year-old Nabila, also injured in the strike, spoke as well. Brave New Films director Robert Greenwald was present to introduce the family and show a clip from his new film in which the family appears, “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars.”

...

Only five congressmen, including Grayson, made an appearance at the briefing: Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Rush Holt, Rep. Rick Nolan and Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

...

Five members of Congress. Five Democrats, mostly progressives. Only those five turned out to hear the aggrieved family. What does that tell you about how much the House of Representatives cares about Mr. Obama's drone victims?

So... an isolated mistake in a big war? Hardly. From the same article:

...

Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer for the human rights organization, Reprieve, provided testimony and put the attack that killed their grandmother into perspective.

“This tragedy is far from the only one,” Gibson explained. “Since 2010, Reprieve and the Foundation for Fundamental Rights have interviewed more than 150 families and civilian victims of US drone strikes. Only three could make the long journey from the tribal areas of Pakistan, but all of them have stories, largely unheard and untold here in the US. Together they reveal a secret war that is immoral, unlawful and counterproductive. Mistakes like the mistake that killed Mammana Bibi are not stand-alone events. They started with the very first strike this administration took.”

...

Some say the United States has no obligation to "commit suicide" as a nation in the face of terrorism. I agree... but that has never been the issue. Neither does America have the right to kill people indiscriminately with a weapon against which there is no effective defense. Considering the number killed who are innocent bystanders, the practice of drone warfare is often effectively murder.

I am ashamed of what is being done in the name of my country. Ashamed. In my 65 years, I never felt this way until Mr. Bush Junior turned that nation into an international murder machine... and Mr. Obama decided to follow the same awful pattern.

You Knew This Would Happen Eventually: DoJ To Use Data From Warrantless Surveillance In Criminal Case

Warrantless searches aren't just for alleged terrorists anymore. Jeralyn of TalkLeft has the details from a New York Times article:

... the government intends to offer into evidence or otherwise use or disclose in proceedings in the above-captioned matter information obtained or derived from acquisition of foreign intelligence information conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended, 50 U.S.C. 1881a.

It's a sad day for anyone who ever depended on the Fourth Amendment to keep the government's nose out of their ordinary noncriminal business.

UPDATE: via the NYT article, it is, after all, a terrorism case: the charge is "providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a designated terrorist organization based in Uzbekistan." It is still significant because the DoJ has only just begun a new policy of informing defendants if a link in the chain of evidence against them was obtained by surveillance without a warrant, in this case, wiretapping the defendant's phone calls. Damned nice of them to tell them, isn't it?

State Of Texas Goes Court-Shopping On Abortion Ruling

Becca Aaronson at Texas Tribune:

The Texas attorney general's office is seeking an emergency stay, asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel’s ruling against abortion regulations in House Bill 2.

...

Call it whatever you want. I call it court-shopping.

Oklahoma Supreme Court: 2011 OK Abortion Law Is Unconstitutional

This time it's Oklahoma, where the state Supreme Court has struck down the state's draconian abortion law, passed in 2011, based on answers to questions long ago posed by the US Supreme Court:

In answering questions posed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the court ruled that the law "restricts the long-respected medical discretion of physicians” and effectively bans all drug-induced abortions, according to the judge's order.

Look: nobody really likes abortion. It's a last-ditch solution to a problem nobody wants. But as the US Supreme Court ruled way back in 1973 in Roe v. Wade, a woman has a constitutional right under the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment to control her own body, including a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Most of the recent state laws on abortion are nothing more nor less than attempts to preempt Roe and violate that constitutional right.

If women are to be fully equal citizens of the United States, they must have fully implemented constitutional rights: as federal courts including the US Supreme Court have noted, e.g. in the complex, divided affirmation of the Roe ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, prior Courts long ago rejected the doctrine of "separate but equal," which was the basis of support for racial segregation in schools in Plessy v. Ferguson but later rejected in Brown v. Board of Education. Perhaps someday Republicans will succeed in appointing a Court that will overturn Roe... the current Court comes damned close to being willing, with its six Catholics... but if that day comes, women will have a constitutional and human right to rebel against any such decision.

If you really want to reduce the impact of the abortion issue, get busy inventing perfect contraceptives, at least one each for women and men, and make them available at no cost and with no restriction to any potentially fertile person, legal adult or not. While you're at it, remove all restrictions from "morning after" pills, which despite claims to the contrary are not abortifacients. It is this blatantly false claim that tells me, as much as anything else, that the fundamentalist Right privately perceives the abortion debate as nothing but an opportunity to take away women's basic human rights, an opportunity having nothing to do with alleged rights of fetuses.

Republicans Speak Their Mind, Reveal Their Nature

The recent Republican practice of "doubling down" ... standing by things they have said that never should have been said in the first place... is getting out of hand.

Twice within the past week a Republican has touched the third rail of racial politics:

• A GOP precinct chair in North Carolina (on the Daily Show, of all places) spoke of "lazy black people that wants the government to give them everything." Even if we put aside the ignorant lack of agreement of subject and verb in number, that statement, in the second decade of the 21^st century, is dumbfoundingly racist in itself. And then the man, in defending himself, used the "n-word" a couple of times, apparently not realizing he had done anything offensive. But the GOP apparently made him resign as precinct chair.
   
• Today, another GOPer, this one an assemblyman in Nevada, was revealed in a YouTube video from 2010 (apparently since removed) to have said to a county party meeting that he would vote to bring back slavery if that's what his constituents wanted: "If that's what they wanted, I'd have to hold my nose ... they'd probably have to hold a gun to my head, but yeah," he was quoted in an AP article on TPM as saying in response to a talk show host's question.

When will Americans realize that these videos are not anomalies? When will Americans see that these Republicans are bigots finally coming out to their constituencies as who they really are? When will Americans stop electing these hateful people?

Comment CAPTCHA, Removed At Request, Now Restored... And Removed Again

At the request of NTodd, I removed the CAPTCHA filter (the word and number you have to type to leave a comment). That was four days ago. For whatever reason, during those four days, I received no comments at all... none. On the chance that the changed CAPTCHA setting caused some sort of blockage on comments, I am restoring the CAPTCHA filter. I don't like it either. Sorry, galz & guyz, but just in case that's the problem, I have to try it.

UPDATE: some comments arrived while CAPTCHA was on; now I'm trying it again with CAPTCHA off. Give me a shout, please.

Are 'Good Male Contraceptives' Possible, Or Is It 'Pick Two Of The Three Attributes'?

Birth control: old standards

Valerie Tarico of RH Reality Check discusses eight new possibilities for male contraceptives (some completely new to me) in various stages of testing, and of course necessarily examines women's and men's attitudes, old and new, American and international, toward men's taking responsibility for pregnancy prevention... not all that common through history. Here's an excerpt that gets to the point:

...

On the surface, it may seem that scientific challenges are the primary barrier to excellent male birth control. A woman produces an egg only once each month, while men produce millions of sperm daily. Female fertility can be detected and timed. It starts later and ends sooner than male fertility. But those in the know say biology isn’t the problem. The question is one of politics and priorities. The National Institutes of Health summed up the problem [.pdf] in direct (if wonky) terms over a decade ago:

The lack of progress in developing affordable, safe, effective, and reversible male contraceptives is due not to the biological complexity involved in suppressing spermatogenesis [the production of sperm], but rather to social and economic/commercial constraints.

Today, research on male contraception is 50 years behind research on female contraception. The difference is as much as anything an artifact of history and tradition, which ripple into the present. ...

...

Well, yes. Perhaps some progress on that 50-year gap will be made in the more progressive nations of Western Europe, and possibly against all odds in parts of Asia, where the incentives for limiting family size are often matters of both health and law. But I doubt seriously the advances will be made in America or by Americans. If gender relationship stereotypes in America weren't already beginning to harden in highly asymmetric ways, there is always religion to obstruct real progress... and religion's new best friend, national politics. I am not hopeful.

---

(On a not completely unrelated matter, a federal judge has declared the part of Texas's new abortion law (the one State Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered unsuccessfully) requiring clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital to be unconstitutional, ruling that the provision “lacks a rational basis and places an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion.” Note two things: 1) Judge Lee Yeakel did not declare the entire law unconstitutional, only the one provision; and 2) the six Catholics of the US Supreme Court have yet to get their soiled mitts on the law. Don't expect this ruling to be sustained.)

Obamacare As Kludge

Paul Krugman discusses how Obamacare and Medicare got where they are with the "help" of the GOP and concludes:

...

No, the assault on Medicare is really about an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the notion of the government helping people, and tries to make whatever help is given as limited and indirect as possible, restricting its scope and running it through private corporations. And this ideology, at a fundamental level — more fundamental, even, than vested interests — is why Obamacare ended up being a big kludge.

... For now, the priority is to get this kludge working, and once that’s done, America will become a better place.

In the longer run, however, we have to tackle that ideology. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

Your economic wellbeing,
GOP model

The GOP ideology Krugman refers to pitches the same shit Republicans have been pitching for decades. It's no more true now than it was in my childhood; it makes no more sense regarding Medicare and Obamacare now than it ever did about Republican plans (if one can dignify, e.g., Paul Ryan's fantasy with the word "plan") for the economy.

If the GOP withers and goes to ground, America may become healthy for the short time (IMHO) before global climate change hammers us for good and all. But if the GOP continues its minority rule by a relatively small group of crazies in one chamber of one branch of government, we aren't going to last even that long. People driven to the desperation of joblessness, homelessness and hunger aren't as particular about whether their approaches to redress are good for the whole society or not, and even Republicans, whatever they may actually believe, cannot live in the chaos that will inevitably ensue.

Mozilla Lightning Crashes On Me

Thunderbird

Lightning is the calendar add-on for Mozilla Thunderbird email/list/news client (even though the standalone version of Lightning is called Sunbird). Development ceased on Thunderbird something under a year ago, more-or-less in working condition, and Lightning stopped being maintained sometime after that, and not nearly as far along as Thunderbird was. So all the software is a bit old... and cranky. Old and cranky, sort of like me.

Yesterday and today I was pushing the bleeding-edge limits of RAM while shopping for a suitable Medicare plan (the gov't is open now, right?), opening a dozen or so windows in Firefox. I started up Thunderbird to check my mail and it did so without problem, except that the Lightning calendar window came up... with no scheduled events. And stayed that way.

Lightn... er, Sunbird?

Someone on a forum suggested a reinstall of Lightning in response to a similar problem, and the person with the problem got it working by doing exactly that. So I backed up the SQLite data and reinstalled Lightning. Nope; no good for me.

I am fortunate this happened after all those doc and clinic appointments. I believe I've lost only one appointment, and I know whom to call to find out when it is (sometime in November). Matters could have been worse. Well, except for staying up until 4:00am working on it (and also on getting Gmail going for Stella, but that didn't take long).

Firefox is such excellent software for a freebie; one would think Thunderbird/Lightning should be the same. But noooo...

One More Time I'm Glad I Don't Eat Meat

This post is mainly directed at my many carnivorous friends, because they are in danger and I am not. From the AARP Blog:

Ready-to-Eat Salads With Meat Recalled for Listeria

Posted on 10/24/2013 by Candy Sagon
Updated Friday Oct. 25

Sample only...
NOT the recalled food

Refrigerated, ready-to-eat salads from two firms have been hit with government recalls because of possible contamination with dangerous listeria, both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announced.

Boston Salads and Provisions Company is recalling nearly 223,000 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken salad products distributed to retailers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the USDA announced today on its website.

Package labels will have sell-by dates ranging from “9/13/2013″ through “11/4/2013” as well as the establishment number “P-17999” inside the USDA mark of inspection. ...

Just a few days earlier, USDA also announced a recall of 22,000 pounds of products by Reser’s Fine Foods of Beaverton, Ore., including several kinds of chicken salad, ham salad, barbecue beans with beef, pasta salad, and potato salad with bacon.

... [The products have been distributed nationwide in the US and in parts of Canada. - SB]

Recalled products will have the establishment number EST. 13520 or P-13520 inside the USDA mark of inspection. The USDA said the packages will be marked with a use-by or best-by date and followed by a plant identifier code of 20.

...

Most old folks like me eat a lot of convenience foods; e.g., prepackaged potato salad and coleslaw are standards in this household. Grocers are actually pretty good about observing recalls, but in case you're concerned, it doesn't hurt to look at the various links from the FDA Food page.

Here's to your health!

Andrew Bacevich On American Wars, Rumors Of American Wars And The New... New... New... New... New... New... New Isolationism

To an old unabashed peacenik like me, it always seems as if America is quite literally always at war. Somewhere in the world in a place known to the American public or not, for some purpose possibly admirable but probably not, possibly in America's interest but just as likely not, America's massive military might is arrayed and deployed against... whatever. Sometimes against the might of an assortment of dictators, as in W.W.II just before I was born. Sometimes against the only other remaining superpower, as in the Cold War in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies and diminishing through the Eighties, a war that seemed never to heat up and never to end. Sometimes... but never mind; no matter how young you are, if you're reading this, you probably know of America's newer wars within your own lifetime; you may even have participated in them.

Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich, professor at Boston University, IMHO one of the deepest thinkers alive today on American international relations and military adventures in the past century, offers an article, published in this case on TomDispatch.com, basically framing his latest book, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, and explaining the perpetuation of accusations of American isolationism for at least the span of the 20^th century, what writers have meant by the word, and who has been vulnerable to accusations of isolationism. Hint: apparently, in the minds of anti-Fascists, anti-Communists, neoconservatives and just plain nutjobs, I am one... an isolationist, that is.

And yet it's hard for me to see myself as one. Read the article by Bacevich and see whether you qualify as somebody's isolationist. If you've opposed any war in the 20^th or 21^st century, you probably are, in the opinion of one or another nutjob, or at least of the New York Times, and they have not been shy about calling you out. Not by name, of course; that would concede too much respect.

As for me, as talk turns to "pivoting" toward African nations (as military targets, what else), I think I'm going to sleep most of this century. My body is telling me that that's what fate has planned for me anyway. At least the timing is good!

Raise Medicare Age To Save Cost? No Significant Savings, Says CBO

TPM's Sahil Kapur:

Raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 saves far less than previously projected, a revelation that makes the policy far less attractive in upcoming deficit reduction negotiations in Congress.

The long-debated policy now cuts the deficit by just $19 billion over a decade, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Last year, the same policy -- of gradually lifting the eligibility age by two months every year until it reached 67 -- was found by the CBO to save $113 billion over the same time period.

...

Part of the reason for the low savings is Obamacare. Moving 66- and 65-year-olds off Medicare means they'll likely be eligible for federal subsidies or the expanded Medicare program under the 2010 law. But a larger part of the reason for the dramatic drop since last year, according to one expert, is that the CBO appears to have fixed a technical error.

"They were previously basing their estimates of the average costs of the 65-66 year olds who would no longer be on Medicare on the average costs of ALL 65 and 66 year old Medicare beneficiaries," said Loren Adler, the research director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, "which includes disabled and end stage renal disease beneficiaries who are clearly far more expensive than your average 65 or 66 year old."

...

(Bolds mine. - SB)

There was little enough reason to increase the Medicare eligibility age before the discovery of this error. Now you'd have to be crazy to support it... oh, wait; one could say "now you'd have to be Republican":

A top House Republican budget aide declined to comment.

Right. Admit your insanity by silence rather than admit the truth.

Opinion Or Dominion? Disjointing Or Anointing? Makeover Or Takeover? Ted Cruz's Dominionist Heritage

David Atkins (thereisnospoon) at Hullabaloo first alerted me to this in his post, Ted Cruz, King of the Seventh Mountain, but the basis of most of his information is an AlterNet article by Bruce Wilson, "Ted Cruz's Father Suggested His Son Is 'Anointed' to Bring About 'End Time Transfer of Wealth'," about a sermon delivered by Larry Huch, pastor of New Beginnings Church, an Irving, TX megachurch, and Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz's father, back in August, 2012. Here's Wilson's introduction:

"The pastor [Huch] referred to Proverbs 13:22, a little while ago, which says that the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur." - Rafael Cruz, August 26, 2012

(Graphic added, not by Wilson.)

In a sermon last year at an Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, Cruz' father Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as "kings" to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the "Seven Mountains" mandate, and "bring the spoils of war to the priests", thus helping to bring about a prophesied "great transfer of wealth", from the "wicked" to righteous gentile believers. link to video of Rafael Cruz describing the "great transfer of wealth" and the role of anointed "kings" in various sectors of society, including government, who are to "bring the spoils of war to the priests".

...

Please read the (rather long) article all the way through. There is no mistaking the intention: what Rafael Cruz is talking about is nothing more nor less than overt revolution, overthrow of the secular government of the United States and replacement with a theocracy, in which Ted Cruz is one of seven "kings" of seven "mountains" (listed in the article, or visible [just barely] in the graphic above). If this notion doesn't frighten you, it should. More than just your freedom of religion is at stake, though there is no doubt that that is the Cruz family's target as well. Just read it.

Irving, TX is a small suburb of Dallas, a scary place with a street unofficially known both to locals and to other Texans as "Church Alley." You can drive literally for a couple of miles on Church Alley, passing one church after another. I've never counted them, or surveyed them by their religions, but if you are yourself "off-brand" (UU like me, or Jewish, or [Allah help you] Muslim), you may be inclined to accelerate for the last few blocks just to get out of the neighborhood. I advise against it: you don't want to meet their cops.

Further reading: for a broad context on proposed religious extremist takeovers of the United States, try Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.