Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The Party’s Over

By Taylor Marsh

01 January 2012

As a recovering partisan these days and after watching Pres. Obama’s compromising conservatism, I no longer feel the urgency to support a political party who has threatened dire consequences if I don’t vote for them. Beyond foreign policy, economic, and civil rights issues mentioned above, Pres. Obama has also chosen to short-change women again and again on our freedoms, starting in the health care bill, then by executive order that empowered conservatives of both parties, and finally by making the decision on Plan B that would have come from Mitt Romney, too.

Pres. Obama has helped Democrats deliver a climate that this party has threatened since the ’70s would happen if I didn’t vote for them.

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For over 30 years, modern feminists like myself have been hearing that we must support Democrats, because if we don’t our freedoms will be on the line yet again. After supporting Democrats since my one vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980, what has finally happened through Pres. Obama is exactly what I was told this political party would guard against. So now, as the 2012 elections approach, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are once again relying on the theory that because Republicans are worse women like me can be suckered into falling in line one more time.

The latest political move against women of all ages came recently when Pres. Obama decided to put politics over science on Plan B, even though it was conclusively proven safe for women, regardless of age. He said he was squeamish about it as a father. What made it worse is that he hid behind Kathleen Sebelius’s skirt, also saying he had nothing to do with the decision.

This kind of cowardice in a grown man is unattractive; in a president it is unacceptable.

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It’s now even considered an extreme position to think women’s individual freedoms are important. On Obama’s conservative Plan B decision, you get replies like “it’s smart politically” or his fans argue from the right using parental rights over individual female freedoms.

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Is it enough that the 111th Congress passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which Pres. Obama signed? Women of all political persuasions need to expect all 21st century politicians to support economic equality. We should also demand that when it’s found out we aren’t being treated equally we have recourse, which is what Ledbetter is all about. Would any other Democratic president not have signed the Ledbetter Act? To laud something so simple as financial equality for the same job done reveals women are expecting way too little from politicians that depend on our support to politically survive.

Obama’s constant chant on reforming entitlements, including changing COLA on Social Security, would hit women the hardest, because in older age we are more likely to depend on it, a subject I’ve written on before (here, here).

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On “reforming” entitlements, Pres. Obama comes down the same place as Republicans, though he’s the moderate conservative, so we can expect entitlement “reform” to happen regardless of who is in the White House. In his last political term, why wouldn’t Mr. Obama join with Republicans? If the Senate goes GOP, he’ll even have an excuse. Meanwhile, there’s no one suggesting that the limit on income taxed for Social Security be raised for the wealthy, with Democrats caving again and again on a millionaire surtax, so the progressive argument is not only weakly offered, but also never fought strategically.

Pres. Obama proved his economic timidity in the 2010 midterms, when you didn’t hear anything close to the speech he gave in Kansas, which didn’t come until he began campaigning for his own reelection. At least he always has his own back. Back in 2010, he and his pal at the DNC, Tim Kaine, now running for senator in Virginia, refused to make any Democratic case at all on economics. Obama then followed that up by caving and extending the Bush tax cuts. Obama and the Democratic midterm shellacking is what delivered state houses in record numbers to the right, which led to an assault on unions, the middle class, as well as women’s individual freedoms. At a time when we all needed an economic champion what we got was a total Democratic collapse.

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Pres. Obama not being able to find a reelection slogan boils down to the fact that “hope and change” has been reduced to Republicans are worse.

For 30 years I’ve unflinchingly supported and voted Democratic. Over the last thirty years I’ve held my nose to vote for some pretty uninspiring Democratic candidates. Many of my colleagues, friends, readers and people I hear from via email, now put Pres. Obama in the “hold your nose” category, too. He’s earned the spot, so, boy, do I understand how they feel. Cenk Uygur wrote recently that he’s "uncommitted."

As a feminist having listened to the Democratic Party’s warnings on what could happen if we let the right take charge, I’m no longer buying their propaganda or that the Democratic Party is worthy of support. On individual freedoms the entire Democratic structure has caved, including the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history, Nancy Pelosi, all the way down to the so-called “Progressive Caucus.” This includes on economics, where Democrats, with Pres. Obama leading, never made the progressive Democratic economic case, whether it’s for tax increases on Social Security taxed income, higher taxes on multi-millionaires, all of which would have required a barnstorming campaign to pigeon hole recalcitrant Republicans, then shame them into submission.

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The two political parties have been under siege for some time, because Americans just don’t trust Republicans or Democrats anymore. Barack Obama was the last chance for political parties, specifically the Democratic brand, with George W. Bush having already given rise to rebellion inside the GOP, which is seen best through Ron Paul and the Tea Party. Meanwhile, Congress long ago ceded their importance as an equal branch of government, preferring loyalty oaths to their political party, as well as the boss in the Executive branch, which has become a marketing tool for itself, an American kingship of sorts, with no difference between Republican or Democratic presidents. Once in the White House, the presidents club rules.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown;–yet ’twas not a crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets;–and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swounded and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

Julius Ceasar, Act I, Scene 2

Start Out the New Year with Indefinite Detention

By: emptywheel

Saturday December 31, 2011 4:03 pm

Shorter Obama: we were prepared to continue indefinitely detaining people based on my Executive Order until they die off. What’s wrong with that?

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At one level, it’s nice to see Obama affirming that he won’t indefinitely detain us in military custody. Partly, though, Obama is still signing a law that President Mitt or Newt or Santorum could-and would-use to indefinitely detain Americans. As I said, “Vote for me, or President Newt will indefinitely detain you.”

But Obama isn’t even making that campaign promise! Note the trick here. Section 1021 pertains to all indefinite detention, not just military detention. But Obama only promises not to put Americans into indefinite military detention. I guess promising that Americans wouldn’t be indefinitely detained, period, was too much of a stretch.

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Remember, "other applicable law" includes Scott v. Harris, which authorizes the use of deadly force when you’re pretending to try to detain someone.

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A belated defense of civilian law. And an attempt-one even more timid than I imagined-to pretend that Obama objects to the principle of indefinite detention, even including the possibility of indefinite civilian detention for American citizens.

The Worst Part of the Signing Statement: Section 1024

By: emptywheel

Saturday December 31, 2011 4:49 pm

Section 1024, remember, requires the Defense Department to actually establish the provisions for status reviews that Obama has promised but not entirely delivered.

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Lindsey Graham (and other bill supporters, both the right and left of Lindsey) repeatedly insisted on this review provision. Lindsey promised every detainee would get real review of his status.

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And yet, in spite of the fact that Section 1024 includes no exception for those detained at Bagram, Obama just invented such an exception.

Section 1024 was one of the few good parts of the detainee provisions in this bill, because it would have finally expanded the due process available to the thousands of detainees who are hidden away at Bagram now with no meaningful review.

But Obama just made that good part disappear.

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This seems to be saying two things. First, DOD doesn’t have to go back and grant everyone they’ve given the inadequate review process currently in place a new review. The 3,000 detainees already in Bagram are just SOL.

In addition, this says DOD gets to decide how long new detainees will have to wait before they get a status review with an actual lawyer-and Congress is perfectly happy making them wait over six months before that time.

Obama seems to have taken that language and pushed it further still: stating that DOD will get broad discretion to decide which reviews will carry the requirement of a judge and a lawyer.

It sort of makes you wonder why the Obama Administration wants these men to be held for over six months with no meaningful review?

New Year’s Eve News Dump: Obama Signs Defense Authorization Bill

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Saturday December 31, 2011 12:58 pm

The problem with this bill was always about the codifying of indefinite military detention into the law, available for any future President to pick up and use. The vagaries of the language in the statute, which allows for detentions of people “associated” with Al Qaeda, and the burden on Presidential waivers to avoid military detentions rather than an opt-in kind of process, make the language extremely unadvisable from the standpoint of the civil liberties community. However, it’s important to recognize that the Obama Administration really was already in practice allowing for the indefinite military detention of terrorist suspects. They didn’t want language that hindered their counter-terrorism processes, particularly those of the FBI. That’s what they got out of the changes, so the codification really didn’t matter to them at that point. There are painfully few political actors in Washington opposed to this complete breach of the Constitutional right to due process.

Three myths about the detention bill

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Friday, Dec 16, 2011 6:56 AM Eastern Standard Time

(T)here is simply no question that this bill codifies indefinite detention without trial (Myth 1). There is no question that it significantly expands the statutory definitions of the War on Terror and those who can be targeted as part of it (Myth 2). The issue of application to U.S. citizens (Myth 3) is purposely muddled – that’s why Feinstein’s amendments were rejected – and there is consequently no doubt this bill can and will be used by the U.S. Government (under this President or a future one)  to bolster its argument that it is empowered to indefinitely detain even U.S. citizens without a trial (NYT Editorial: “The legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial”; Sen. Bernie Sanders: “This bill also contains misguided provisions that in the name of fighting terrorism essentially authorize the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens without charges”).

(New York Times link added but previously cited- ek)

The NDAA, 2011 & a Happy New Year

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Saturday December 31, 2011 7:34 pm

(H)ours before 2011 came to an end, as ACLU executive director Anthony Romero stated, President Obama became “a president who will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.”

“The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield,” adds Romero. This is all deeply troubling. But, the provision for indefinite detention is even worse. As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, US citizens would not be exempted.

The bill expands the scope of the “war on terrorism” and also puts Congress’ stamp of approval on powers that had previously been primarily exercised by the Executive Branch without institutional support from legislators.

The NDAA is a product of the US government clinging onto the belief that it must project itself into the furthest reaches of the globe and exercise unbridled power because there is this far-reaching network of extremists, declared and undeclared, that want nothing more than to bring America to its knees. It comes from the same government that sent in special forces to kill Osama bin Laden but, with clear evidence that al Qaeda would no longer be able to thrive, declined to admit how irrational it is continue to treat terrorism as such a great threat to America. And, it is the same government that just over a week ago showed its true authoritarian spirit as it revealed Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused whistleblower to WikiLeaks, is being charged with “aiding the enemy” because the government believes he knowingly released “intelligence” through WikiLeaks to Al Qaeda.

ACLU Blog Postings-

• President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Into Law
  
  Amanda Simon
  
  Dec 31st, 2011

• Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window
  
  Chris Anders
  
  Nov 23rd, 2011

(h/t Jeralyn @ TalkLeft)

Obama Crowned Himself on New Year’s Eve

By: David Swanson, Firedog Lake

Saturday December 31, 2011 8:06 pm

To prevent the U.S. government from behaving like a king, the drafters of the U.S. Constitution empowered an elected legislature to write every law, to declare every war, and to remove its executive from office.  To further prevent the abuse of individuals’ rights, those authors wrote into the Constitution, even prior to the Bill of Rights, the right to habeas corpus and the right never to be punished for treason unless convicted in an open court on the testimony of at least two witnesses to an overt act of war or assistance of an enemy.

President Barack Obama waited until New Year’s Eve to take an action that I suspect he wanted his willfully deluded followers to have a good excuse not to notice.  On that day, Obama issued an unconstitutional signing statement rewriting a law as he signed it into law, a practice that candidate Obama had rightly condemned.  The law that Obama was signing was the most direct assault yet seen on the basic structure of self-governance and human rights that once made all the endless U.S. shouting of “We’re number one!” significantly less ludicrous.  The National Defense Authorization Act is not a leap from democracy to tyranny, but it is another major step on a steady and accelerating decade-long march toward a police-and-war state.

President Obama has claimed the power to imprison people without a trial since his earliest months in office. He spoke in front of the Constitution in the National Archives while gutting our founding document in 2009. President Obama has claimed the power to torture “if needed,” issued an executive order claiming the power of imprisonment without trial, exercised that power on a massive scale at Bagram, and claimed and exercised the power to assassinate U.S. citizens. Obama routinely kills people with unmanned drones.

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My chief regret is that we have not seen the major resistance we could have, and without any doubt would have, seen to this if only Obama were a Republican.

And now at last it comes.

You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth.

All shall love me and despair!

Happy New Year.

This week’s episodes originally aired January 25, 2005.

Well, what would you expect from a bank named after a tax cheating idiot plutocrat?

Internal BNY Mellon Documents Show Panic

By JEAN EAGLESHAM And MICHAEL SICONOLFI, The Wall Street Journal

DECEMBER 28, 2011

Five states, including Florida, and the Manhattan U.S. attorney have filed civil lawsuits over the past several months against BNY Mellon, seeking a total of more than $2 billion in damages. The suits allege the bank defrauded pension funds and other clients by systematically overcharging them on currency transactions.

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At issue in the suits filed against BNY Mellon is its “standing-instruction” service. That is when pension funds and other clients allow the bank unilaterally to handle their foreign-exchange, or FX, transactions. Clients could instead negotiate their own foreign-exchange trades, but that would require staff and technology.

In the documents, Mr. Wilson described how a “transaction desk” collected currency trades for BNY Mellon’s “standing-instruction” clients and then later in the day set the price at which the bank would record those transactions. The prices often were at or near the day’s least-favorable exchange rates, state attorneys general and prosecutors allege, with the bank profiting from the difference.

And you may ask yourself ‘where have I heard about BNY Mellon recently?’  Why, they are the bank colluding with Bank of America to pay off Countrywide’s securities fraud at pennies on the dollar.

But this is a totally different scam for stealing from their customers.

This goes beyond stopped clock into “Man Bites Dog” territory.

Midlife Crisis Economics

By DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times

Published: December 26, 2011

The United States spends far more on education than any other nation, with paltry results. It spends far more on health care, again, with paltry results. It spends so much on poverty programs that if we just took that money and handed poor people checks, we would virtually eliminate poverty overnight.

So, uhh…, why don’t we do that?

DSCC Wastes $1 Million in Ads on Retiring Ben Nelson

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Tuesday December 27, 2011 12:00 pm

Ben Nelson, Nebraska’s Democratic senator, will retire from the Senate next year, despite benefiting from a million dollars in early-cycle advertising funded by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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I understand that the ad money was meant to entice Nelson into running for re-election by showing him the support he would receive from national Democrats. I don’t understand why you would spend that money. Nelson has spent the last couple years voting in lockstep with the Republican minority on dozens of key issues, particularly around spending and debt. His vote to keep Harry Reid in the majority obviously meant more to the leadership than any of his votes on substantive issues.

What’s more, Nelson was going to lose next year. Polling showed him consistently under 40% in Nebraska, and unlike in some other states, increased turnout from the Presidential race would not help him. Senate observers were writing this one off all ready, and any money the DSCC sunk into this race would have been as wasted as money put toward re-electing Blanche Lincoln or Rick Santorum or any other doomed incumbent.

I once again put forth the proposition that I could vaporize money much more efficiently than any of our current banksters, political consultants, or pundits.

You know where to find me.