May 1, 2014

Bill Clinton Defends His Economic Legacy

By AMY CHOZICK

Former President Bill Clinton, who has grown increasingly frustrated that his economic policies are viewed as out-of-step with the current focus on income inequality, on Wednesday delivered his most muscular defense of his economic legacy.

The speech reflected a strategic effort by Mr. Clinton and his advisers to reclaim the populist ground now occupied by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other ascendant left-leaning Democrats, and, potentially, to lay out an economic message that could propel his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the White House in 2016.

“My commitment was to restore broad-based prosperity to the economy and to give Americans a chance,” Mr. Clinton told students at Georgetown University, his alma mater, as Mrs. Clinton looked on from the front row. For nearly two hours, the former president defended the impact of policies like welfare overhaul and the earned-income tax credit, and displayed a series of charts detailing the number of people his policies lifted out of poverty.

“You know the rest,” he said of the 1990s. “It worked out pretty well.”

-snip-

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/us/politics/bill-clinton-defends-his-economic-legacy.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

May 1, 2014

Thomas Piketty terrifies Paul Ryan: Behind the right’s desperate, laughable need to destroy an econo

Thomas Piketty terrifies Paul Ryan: Behind the right’s desperate, laughable need to destroy an economist

Five years post-collapse, Piketty and Elizabeth Warren offer a way ahead. That's why the right must destroy them

PAUL ROSENBERG

Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century” hit No. 1 at Amazon, right around the time that Elizabeth Warren released her book “A Fighting Chance.” Far from being the only figures addressing the failure of unregulated market capitalism to produce fair outcomes and broad prosperity, they embody two key facets of that criticism: the intellectual/academic and pragmatic/political. But there are a host of other figures criticizing the workings of actually existing capitalism and the increasingly destructive inequalities of wealth we see it producing all around us.

It may have taken more than five years since the financial crisis hit in late 2008, but are we finally seeing signs of a coherent response coming together? A number of recent developments suggest that we are. Just in the last few weeks, for example, another hot new book is “Flash Boys,” the latest from Michael Lewis on the most recent form of mass-scamming on Wall Street, and there’s new attention being drawn to the work of Martin Gilens demonstrating the power of elite control of our political system. His book “Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America” was an award-winner in political science last year, but his follow-up study with Benjamin I. Page, the essay “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” has touched a broader nerve, with stories at the New Yorker, Huffington Post, and by Michael Lind here at Salon, among others, with added notice on cable TV. And of course, Pope Francis keeps mouthing off against inequality, too (which routinely causes Paul Ryan to comically insist – almost Stephen Colbert-style – that the pope is actually inveighing against the welfare state).

What makes Piketty and Warren stand out, in particular, is that real change needs both a framework of shared knowledge and possibility — which Piketty’s vast store of data helps provide — and exemplars of articulate, high-level struggle setting the terms of public debate, which is where Warren comes in.

This is not to say that Piketty’s work is something simply to rally around. That’s more of the pope’s territory. There is plenty to debate about Piketty’s work. But so far, criticism from the right has been ludicrous, while criticism from the left has been largely overlooked — a situation that must inevitably change if something is really to be done about inequality.

A neat summary of the right’s real source of upset comes from Lynn Stuart Parramore in an Alternet article republished here at Salon:

As fellow-economist James K. Galbraith has underscored in his review of the book, Piketty “explicitly (and rather caustically) rejects the Marxist view” of economics.

But he does do something that gives right-wingers in America the willies. He writes calmly and reasonably about economic inequality, and concludes, to the alarm of conservatives, that there is no magical force that drives capitalist societies toward shared prosperity.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/30/thomas_piketty_terrifies_paul_ryan_behind_the_rights_desperate_laughable_need_to_destroy_an_economist/

May 1, 2014

Fox News’ real gay problem: Inside a festering cesspool of reflexive bigotry

Forget Shep Smith rumors. If you care about LGBTQ people and their rights, here's the real Fox News scandal

KATIE MCDONOUGH

First came the Wednesday morning story alleging that Fox News president Roger Ailes had “shoved Shepard Smith back into the closet” after the longtime network anchor had reportedly expressed an interest in coming out. Peppered with quotes from anonymous Fox insiders, Gawker reporter J.K. Trotter alleged that rampant homophobia from network executives had come to define Fox’s relationship with Smith, kept him in the closet and ultimately cost him a prime-time hosting gig.

Then came the Wednesday afternoon denial from Fox News — a joint statement from Ailes and Smith calling the report “100 percent false and a complete fabrication.” Bill Shine, another network executive named in the piece as pretty much the beating heart of Fox’s homophobia problem, also called the report “pure fiction.”

A number of people have said that Smith is gay, but he has never disclosed this information publicly. I personally don’t know, and don’t really care. I also don’t really care that Ailes and Smith are denying the allegations about entrenched homophobia at the network. Because regardless of the Smith subplot, Fox News is still pretty much a cesspool of reflexive anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and that’s what actually matters here.

The network seems to pretty much despise LGBTQ people, and reliably supports the policies and politicians that make their lives dramatically shittier. This is Fox News’ actual LGBTQ problem.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/05/01/fox_news_real_gay_problem_inside_a_festering_cesspool_of_reflexive_bigotry/

May 1, 2014

GOP candidates’ freak-out moment: As Obamacare horror stories flop, what’s left?

Candidates like Scott Brown thought they'd win by attacking health reform. Looks like it's time to recalibrate fast

SIMON MALOY

It feels strange to say this, and maybe a bit premature, but we seem to be past the era of the viral Obamacare victim story.

Everyone who has followed the politics of the Affordable Care Act can tell you the saga of Julie Boonstra, the Michigan woman who bemoaned the financial injustice done to her by the health law in an Americans for Prosperity ad, when in reality she’s going to save a lot of money with her new insurance. Boonstra’s story, amplified by the conservative media, went national, as did the subsequent debunking of the AFP advertisement.

But how many people know who Christopher Schiff is? Schiff, a Marine veteran, stars in this Americans for Prosperity ad attacking Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., claiming that his “insurance costs are going way up because of Obamacare.”



The ad was released last week. In that time Schiff has appeared on Fox News and his story has drawn fleeting attention from the right-wing press, but overall no one has really taken notice of the former Marine allegedly under fire from Obamacare. (The Washington Post and PolitiFact attempted to verify Schiff’s claims, but neither was able to confirm his health coverage status; PolitiFact warned his ad “doesn’t include some important context and nuances.”)

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http://www.salon.com/2014/05/01/gop_candidates_freak_out_moment_as_obamacare_horror_stories_flop_whats_left/

May 1, 2014

The Shep Smith story shows the failure of fact-checking

A media story about the media reveals the media's lack of self-examination

MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

On Wednesday morning, Gawker writer J.K. Trotter published a piece alleging that “Fox News Shoved Shepard Smith Back Into The Closet” and asking, “Why hasn’t Shepard Smith come out yet?” By Wednesday afternoon, the story had been picked up and repeated ad nauseum throughout the media-on-media vortex of self-absorption. Who cares if the story itself had serious inconsistencies? Aggregate first, ask questions later – if at all!

Smith, generally regarded as the closest thing to a likeable, rational thinking individual in the Fox news stable, is a frequent obsession of Gawker and Trotter in particular, who’s pretty determined to reveal the world Smith’s personal life, regardless of how weird or flat out harassing he may come off in the process. Trotter’s run several stories focusing on Smith’s sexuality in the past few months, while Smith, for his part, remains private about his relationships and orientation.

The latest asks, “Why hasn’t Shepard Smith come out yet?” and cites “multiple sources” who say Smith discussed coming out to Fox News president Roger Ailes but that “Ailes’ answer was definitive: Smith could not say he’s gay.” Furthermore, Gawker claims Smith was “demoted” after Executive Vice President of Programming Bill Shine ”flipped out” at a “dramatic” July 4 picnic that Smith allegedly brought a boyfriend to, leading Shine to call a meeting “among high-level executives to discuss a plan of action regarding Smith.” Not one of the “insider” sources at Fox is named. My favorite part of the whole thing is when Trotter congratulates his own vigilant “reporting” as the reason Smith attended a Fox gay journalists gala in March. My second favorite part is where Gawker updates the story to note that Shine actually didn’t attend said picnic, that Ailes and Smith call the story “100% false and a complete fabrication,” and then clarifies the timeline of Smith’s contract negotiations to acknowledge they occurred before the controversial picnic.

Yet faster than you can say “update,” the story had taken wings Wednesday, with Slate regurgitating, “Fox Allegedly Demoted Shepard Smith Because He Asked to Come Out” and shaking its head that “This doesn’t look good for the news network,” while New York asked, “Did Fox News Force Shep Smith to Stay Closeted?” The Daily Beast, meanwhile, went all in with a single paragraph saying that “Fox Allegedly Kept Anchor in the Closet.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/01/the_shep_smith_story_shows_the_failure_of_fact_checking/

April 30, 2014

Mississippi Rep. Not Sorry For Calling Clarence Thomas An 'Uncle Tom'

DANIEL STRAUSS – APRIL 30, 2014, 4:32 PM EDT

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) isn't sorry for calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an "Uncle Tom."

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Thompson, who made the remarks in an appearance on the New Nation of Islam radio program, didn't back down. Thompson stood by his decision to call Thomas an "Uncle Tom."

Here's the exchange between Bash and Thompson:

Bash: When you said Clarence Thomas was an "Uncle Tom," what did you mean by that?

Thompson: "Well if you look at his decisions on the court, they have been adverse to the minority community, and the people I represent have a real issue with an African American not being sensible to those issues."

Bash: Isn't that a racially charged term?

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bennie-thompson-clarence-thomas-remarks-racist

April 30, 2014

GOP governor’s ugly blood lust: Why Mary Fallin should account for state-sanctioned torture

Oklahoma pol presided over botched execution -- revealing gruesome lack of humanity. Here's what should happen next

JOAN WALSH

Last in the national news for signing a bill that prevented Oklahoma cities from raising the minimum wage, Gov. Mary Fallin now has to answer for the torture-execution of Clayton D. Lockett, whose so-called lethal injection merely induced enough prolonged pain and trauma to trigger a fatal heart attack. I can barely stand to read about it; Fallin should be forced to account for every gruesome detail.

Fallin is not the only guilty party here. The death penalty is legal in 32 states, but they have a problem: As the march of human progress makes it clear that one after another form of execution is barbaric, we search for a new method, and yet they all seem to fail us. We moved from hangings, beheadings and firing squads to the cleaner and scientific solutions of the electric chair and the gas chamber. (Along the way, 140 nations, including all of our European allies, gave up and abolished the death penalty altogether.)

When we found those new solutions wanting – prisoners are too often tortured to death by electricity or gas, too – we turned to “lethal injection”: quiet, out of view, the long sleep. Then problems arose with lethal injection too: It didn’t always work reliably or painlessly, either, plus drug manufacturers became squeamish about letting it be known that their products were being served in a final cocktail.

How did drug manufacturers, known for their avarice, develop more of a conscience than politicians like Mary Fallin? It’s fair to say they have different bottom lines, and Fallin’s is served by executing her state’s criminals.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/30/gop_governors_ugly_bloodlust_why_mary_fallin_should_account_for_state_sanctioned_torture/

April 30, 2014

The right’s paranoid tribalism: New poll reveals how the left should attack extremists

A new Pew poll has a key lesson for liberals. Here's how to game the right's knee-jerk reactions to certain words

TIM DONOVAN

As the right’s tribalism grows, with the party faithful dutifully expelling moderates and demonizing “RINOs,” extremist elements gain an increasingly outsize influence that is hard to both ignore and dismiss. This extremist push has led to a right wing of American politics deeply beholden to an impulse bordering on paranoid tribalism, a development in our politics that contributes to — and supports — Washington’s crippling intransigence.

There is hardly any policy that liberals can support these days, no matter how bipartisan or trivial, that the right won’t then summarily abandon. (If the Democratic Party ever took on a pro-life platform — even as an April Fool’s joke of monumentally poor taste — a rift in the space-time continuum would likely emerge directly above the Capitol building.)

While plenty of ink has been spilled exploring this problem in our politics, even just a brief summary of recently supported Republican policies that they’ve since abandoned will highlight the problem’s magnitude. As Jamelle Bouie notes, whether it’s Common Core education, energy-efficient light bulbs, solar power or mass transit, any moderate policy idea that’s connected with the left now causes an immediate shift in the right’s position. There’s been no clearer example of this tendency in our contemporary politics than Mitt Romney’s reversal on his own healthcare plan in 2012. (And was he for it before he was against it?)

But what’s the liberal politician to do? When Democrats moderate in an attempt to reach common ground with the right (because, for instance, some healthcare reform, no matter how imperfect, is better than no healthcare reform at all), the right simply move their goalposts further rightward, denouncing their previous favored policy and leaving the Democrats less liberal and no better off. It’s hardly an accident that Democrats are " target="_blank">losing ground among millennials, but it’s not like Republicans are seeing a comparable rise in their popularity: These young people abandoning the Democrats are likely to the political left of the modern Democratic Party.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/30/the_rights_paranoid_tribalism_new_poll_reveals_how_the_left_should_attack_extremists/

April 30, 2014

GOP’s white Southern men problem: Why they can’t hold Democrats down any longer

The days of the left humiliating itself in an effort to woo these voters are over. They're the right's problem now

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

In a very famous (and possibly apocryphal) quote, Lyndon Johnson said upon signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act that the Democrats had lost the South for a generation. And there’s little doubt that the Republicans immediately saw a path to a new majority. That realignment took more than a generation to gradually happen, but happen it did. The GOP marched through one election after another burning down every Southern Democratic stronghold in its wake.

And the Democrats have been bemoaning their Lost Cause ever since. For decades it was an article of faith that the only way for the Democrats to achieve a real majority again would be to recapture that Southern white vote. They agreed that they had to only nominate sons of the South who could speak the lingo. And they had to ensure that they never again spoke ill of guns, only spoke ill of gays and always praised God as if every day was an evangelical revival meeting. This was best articulated by a strategist by the name of Mudcat Saunders who spelled it out as clearly as anyone’s ever done it:

SouthNow: What’s the prescription for Democrats?

Mudcat: There’s only one prescription and that’s tolerance. I’m a white, southern male who hunts. I’m a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which has two black members, by the way. I don’t know how many northern Democrats who have tolerance for my kind.

SouthNow: What’s your strategy for Southern progress?

Mudcat: We need to quit all this tap dancin’ around the truth….We need to stop tap dancin’ around the issues of guns, gays and God….We’ve lost the white male. We need to get ‘em back. We need to get through the cultural wall. It’s a wall of straw. Inside every rural Republican is a Democrat trying to get out.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/04/30/gops_white_southern_men_problem_why_they_cant_hold_democrats_down_any_longer/

April 30, 2014

EX-MONTANA TEACHER TO BE RE-SENTENCED IN RAPE CASE

By MATTHEW BROWN
— Apr. 30, 2014 12:18 PM EDT

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a one-month sentence that was widely condemned as too lenient for a former high school teacher convicted of raping a 14-year-old student.

The court ordered a new judge to re-sentence defendant Stacey Dean Rambold, who has been free since completing the previous term last fall.

Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said that according to state sentencing laws, the decision means Rambold must serve a minimum of two years in prison.

The high court's decision cited in part the actions of District Judge G. Todd Baugh, of Billings, who suggested the young victim shared responsibility for her rape because she had some control over the situation.

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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/montana-teachers-1-month-rape-sentence-overturned