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WillyT

WillyT's Journal
WillyT's Journal
December 18, 2013

Did Lawrence Just Lose It ???

I mean... I understand his use of Madison's history of what he would, or would not be aghast of...

But invoking 9-11 at the end, made me want to retch.


December 18, 2013

MUST SEE TV: David Cay Johnston... On The Budget Deal, The Poor, The TTP, And Our Future...

"Makes Absolutely No Sense": David Cay Johnston on Budget Deal That Helps Billionaires, Not the Poor
Any Goodman - DemocracyNow
12/16/13



DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, this deal is a—actually, I think, a big win for the Paul Ryan Republicans. They will avoid the embarrassment, shame and political damage of shutting down the government, and they will obtain this from the—they obtained this from the Democrats without, as Congressman Pocan pointed out in his statement, touching at all the major issues. The corporate loopholes aren’t being closed. The tax-avoidance techniques of billionaires, who can legally live tax-free if they choose to, are not being shut down. The hedge fund and private equity managers will continue to be advantaged. And we’re going to kick 57,000 poor children out of Head Start, which means we’re going to narrow their economic futures and make all of us worse off in the future. We’re cutting a billion-and-a-half dollars from medical research to save lives. Why? Because the very richest people in America, those who have benefited most from being in this market, don’t want to pay for that kind of services. And by the way, being The War and Peace Report, the Pentagon is getting an extra $20 billion out of this deal. We already spend 42 percent of all the money in the world on our military. More money for the Pentagon? Seriously? While we are cutting off unemployment benefits and cutting medical research, reducing pensions for federal workers? This makes absolutely no sense. It will make us worse off.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the poorest Americans, David Cay Johnston? How are they affected?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, there is a war going on in this country, and it’s on the poor. And we have all sorts of ways that we are doing this. We are restricting their access to Medicaid. We are cutting food stamps dramatically in this country, or will be very soon. There is a 90-day fix for doctors who treat people who are on Medicaid. That, I suspect, will not be continued. And why would we be cutting fees to doctors who provide healthcare to people, unless, of course, you just, as Congressman Grayson once said, want them to die?


And...

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get a comment from you to respond to this quote. You talk about the TPP, the largest-ever economic treaty, representing more than 40 percent of the world’s GDP. This is Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker explaining why she supports the TPP.

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE PENNY PRITZKER: The TPP is a—meant to be a high-quality 21st-century trade agreement. And what we know from those trade agreements—take, for example, our trade agreement with Singapore—when we do a trade agreement of this quality, everyone’s economy grows. Trade has grown 60 percent with Singapore since we completed our free trade agreement. So this is a great opportunity.


AMY GOODMAN: David Cay Johnston?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, trade, in theory, can make us all better off. I’m not arguing against trade. The deals we have made have been awful. Our trade deal with China has cost us 2.8 million jobs. That’s the equivalent of every job in greater metropolitan Philadelphia. We’ve had over 50,000 factories close simply because of that deal. Our trade deal with South Korea, we were told it will result in more trade. Well, it has: one dollar of exports of goods by us to South Korea for every $25 of increased imports from South Korea. The global capitalist class see to it that these secretive deals are written in a way that they benefit, that workers in America have their wages driven down.

And the Trans-Pacific Partnership is widely believed—and remember, it’s a secret agreement that they want to ram through Congress with no debate—it is widely believed it will cement current U.S. law, while allowing trading partners flexibility to alter their laws. That’s a prescription for absolute disaster. And, by the way, Penny Pritzker is a queen of corporate welfare. That she is out promoting this, that she is treasury—commerce secretary, is itself astonishing, given how much the operations that she owns have benefited and supped with a big spoon at the public trough.


Link (w/Full Transcript): http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/16/makes_absolutely_no_sense_david_cay


December 17, 2013

Snowden Whistleblower Status Confirmed By Ruling On Unconstitutional Bulk Phone Data Collection

Snowden Whistleblower Status Confirmed by Ruling on Unconstitutional Bulk Phone Data Collection
by Douglas Kim on December 17, 2013 ( The Whistleblogger / 2013 )
Goverrment Acountability Project

US District Court Judge Richard Leon has declared that the bulk phone record collection activities of the National Security Agency (NSA) are likely in violation of the Constitution's ban on unreasonable search. The very first of its kind, the 68-page legal opinion is highly critical of the constitutionality, and even the effectiveness, of the NSA's bulk data collection program.

This ruling significantly bolsters the claim of whistleblower status by federal contractor Edward Snowden, who disclosed NSA mass surveillance programs after he perceived these programs to be in violation of the Constitution's fourth amendment and was, consequently, charged with two counts of espionage in a criminal complaint in mid-June.

"There can be no doubt Edward Snowden is a whistleblower," commented Government Accountability Project (GAP) Executive Director Beatrice Edwards. "Despite highly disingenuous claims to the contrary, whistleblowers in the intelligence community have no protections whatsoever. There are no safe internal channels for someone like Mr. Snowden who seeks to disclose illegality."


Judge Leon's highly critical opinion goes even further by concluding the government didn't cite a single instance in which the program actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack. "I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism."


Link: http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/44-2013/3116-snowden-whistleblower-status-confirmed-by-ruling-on-unconstitutional-bulk-phone-data-collection




December 17, 2013

Court Finds S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley Violated Civil Rights By Arresting Occupy Protesters - RawStory

Court finds S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley violated civil rights by arresting Occupy protesters
By David Edwards - RawStory
Tuesday, December 17, 2013 12:44 EST



<snip>

A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) could be sued for violating the civil rights of Occupy Columbia protesters who were removed from the Statehouse grounds and arrested in 2011.

A month after the activists set up tents on the Statehouse grounds in October of 2011, Haley ordered the Bureau of Protective Services to arrest anyone who camped at the site past 6 p.m. in the evening. Officers eventually placed zip ties on the wrists of a number of protesters and took them to Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. Trespassing charges against the protesters were dropped two weeks later.

In the Monday ruling, the court found that Haley had violated the civil rights of the protesters because there was no regulation in place preventing camping on the Statehouse grounds. The state Budget and Control Board, which is chaired by Haley, eventually did create emergency regulations against camping.

“In light of the case law from this circuit and from the Supreme Court, it was clearly established on November 16, 2011, that arresting Occupy Columbia for protesting on State House grounds after 6:00 p.m. was a First Amendment violation,” Circuit Judge Stephanie D. Thacker wrote.

“It is not disputed that South Carolina and its state officials could have restricted the time when the State House grounds are open to the public with a valid time, place, and manner restriction,” the court said. “However, as explained above, at the time of Occupy Columbia’s arrest, no such restrictions existed.”


<snip>

More: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/17/court-finds-s-c-gov-nikki-haley-violated-civil-rights-by-arresting-occupy-protesters/


December 17, 2013

LOL !!! - Talk About WHO Is Under The Bus... Looks Like It's The NSA Now !!!

Judge Questions Legality of N.S.A. Phone Records
By CHARLIE SAVAGE - NYT
Published: December 16, 2013


An advertisement thanking former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden appears on the side of a bus in downtown Washington, D.C.

<snip>

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, describing its technology as “almost Orwellian” and suggesting that James Madison would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia ordered the government to stop collecting data on the personal calls of the two plaintiffs in the case and to destroy the records of their calling history. But the judge, appointed to the bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, a matter that he said could take at least six months. The case is the first in which a federal judge who is not on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorized the once-secret program, has examined the bulk data collection on behalf of someone who is not a criminal defendant.

The Justice Department has said that 15 separate judges on the surveillance court have held on 35 occasions that the calling data program is legal. It also marks the first successful legal challenge brought against the program since it was revealed in June after leaks by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote in a 68-page ruling. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Andrew Ames, a Justice Department spokesman, said government lawyers were studying the decision, but he added: “We believe the program is constitutional as previous judges have found.”

In a statement from Moscow, where he has obtained temporary asylum, Mr. Snowden praised the ruling.

“I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,” Mr. Snowden said in his statement. It was distributed by the journalist Glenn Greenwald, who received leaked documents from Mr. Snowden and who wrote the first article about the bulk data collection. “Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights,” the statement said. “It is the first of many.”

The case was brought by...

<snip>

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/us/politics/federal-judge-rules-against-nsa-phone-data-program.html


December 17, 2013

A Few Words About The Upcoming Mid-Terms... 'Needed: Freedom Summer 2014'

Needed: Freedom Summer 2014
Robert Kuttner - HuffPo
Posted: 12/15/2013 10:52 pm

<snip>

...
...
...

The impact of freedom summer was electric. It added to the pressure on Congress to pass what became the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But first, there had to be more marches, more murders, and finally, after the Selma marches and LBJ's stunning "We Shall Overcome" speech, the federal guarantee of the right to register and vote -- in the same Act whose key provision the Roberts Court has overturned.

What we need is a new Freedom Summer 2014, half a century after the original. If the forces of reaction are demanding photo ID cards, let's just go door to door and make sure that every eligible voter gets one. In the process, we can remind people why the right to vote in a democracy is precious, why it can make a difference. We can turn ID cards into a badge of active citizenship, and turn the politics of voter suppression on its head.

Demographics aside, the 2014 elections are going to be very tough for Democrats and progressives. In the sixth year of a presidential incumbency, the president's party almost always loses seats in Congress. 2014 is looking even riskier than usual because the botched launch of Obama Care is rubbing off on other Democrats. People who might normally look to government in a prolonged economic slump are at risk of succumbing to passivity because government is offering such little help.

A new Freedom Summer could reverse the impact of the attempted voter suppression and mobilize voters -- not just to elect progressives but to demand a more responsive government. It could teach the right a lesson about citizenship and teach the Democrats something about leadership.

<snip>

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/voting-rights-act-section-5_b_4450999.html


December 17, 2013

The Question At The Heart Of The Democratic Schism - NewRepublic

The Question at the Heart of the Democratic Schism
Should the burden of proof be on reformers—or on vested interests?

BY NOAM SCHEIBER - NewRepublic
12/15/13

<snip>

Throughout the summer and fall, a group of writers (including me) began documenting the growing appeal of economic populism and the rising influence of its practitioners. We populist-boosters mostly had the field to ourselves for several months. But in the last few weeks, the skeptics have gotten vocal, culminating with a Wall Street Journal op-ed two weeks ago by the centrist group Third Way. The Third Way piece decried “the economic populism of New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren,” which it labeled a “dead end for Democrats.”

Lost in the back and forth has been a precise definition of what populism actually is. In some tellings it’s a rhetorical posture—say, denouncing inequality or Wall Street banks. In others, it refers to specific policy ideas, like raising the minimum wage or boosting Social Security benefits. Sometimes it’s been nothing more than a thinly-veiled cultural attack—a contempt for people who live on the Upper East Side and rent summer houses in Long Island.

Whatever the case, this vagueness does no favors for anyone trying to advance genuinely populist ideas. The lack of precision lets critics define populism in ways that are most convenient—coopting certain elements and distorting or trivializing others until the term gets drained of meaning. At that point, you no longer have a clash of worldviews, just what Slate’s Dave Weigel recently called a “game” between rival political mau-mau-ers.

Weigel’s piece on the flare-up between Third Way and the party’s populist wing was a useful case study in the dangers of defining our terms too loosely. Several times in the piece Weigel quotes Third Way’s co-founder and communications chief, Matt Bennett, who suggests everyone has gotten hung up over a mangy little label (never mind that his group wielded it like an epithet). If you set aide the loaded lingo, Bennett insists, we Democrats are mostly on the same side, with the exception of a few policy quibbles. “The idea of the op-ed was … [d]o we grapple with the entitlement crisis or not?” Bennett said. “[W]e’ve taken very progressive views on financial reform. We’ve featured lectures by people like Paul Volcker and Sheila Bair who are not, shall we say, running dogs for the banks.” Hey, some of my best friends are populists!

These characterizations are highly misleading. Populism can’t be ghettoized in a single issue like entitlements or financial reform. It touches pretty much every economic issue that divides Democrats...

<snip>

More: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115942/democratic-schism-over-bankers-vs-reformers-real


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