I wonder how much Republican cooperation they’re going to get: WASHINGTON — Leaders of the effort to reform the filibuster in the Senate are pushing forward despite the election outcome, working to gather support within the Democratic caucus while reaching out to Republicans. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said that he and a core group of members will canvass their colleagues throughout November and December. “We’ll start the informal discussion in our caucus. Are you for reform? What kind of reform?” Udall told HuffPost. On the first day of the 112th Congress, Udall said, he will rise and make a motion to establish rules for the session, making the argument that the chamber is entitled by the Constitution to set its own rules. Vice President Joe Biden is then expected to rule — as vice presidents have done in the past — that the motion is in order. Senate Republicans will challenge the ruling and Democrats will move to table the objection. Only 50 votes will be needed to table the objection. If Democrats succeed, a debate would then begin over how to reform the rules. Udall said he and newer Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) have been gradually winning support for their effort to reform the rules. Abolishing the filibuster is far from the only reform under consideration. “You could clear out a lot of the underbrush,” said Norm Ornstein, a constitutional scholar who advised Udall on the effort. Currently, after the majority files a cloture motion to break a filibuster, 30 hours of “debate” must happen before the vote. That vote is followed by another 30 hours until the final vote is held, which means a single effort can take a full week of floor time. That time could be reduced or eliminated — or split in two 15-hour sections divided among the parties, Ornstein said. Or separate rules could exist for executive branch nominees, alleviating the crisis of understaffing that has beset both administrations since at least 2007 .
Continue reading …RNC front-runner (and Tea Party favorite) Saul Anuzis seems to have a thing about fascists
November 20, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media According to the Wall Street Journal, Michigan Republican leader Saul Anuzis is the front-runner to replace Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee. We’re sorry to see Steele go, because he’s provided so much amusement over the years. But where Steele never failed to provide us truckloads of Republican dumbassery, Anuzis may more than make up for it in far-right wingnuttery. You may recall that Anuzis argued vehemently last year that Republicans needed to attack President Obama’s agenda as “economic fascism” — and from the things he was saying then, it’s clear he had become an ardent follower of the cult of Jonah Goldberg and his fraudulent “liberal fascism” thesis. But Anuzis’ thing about fascists goes much deeper than that , as Heidi Beirich at the SPLC noted earlier this week. Because Anuzis has not only long maintained an association with one of Michigan’s leading young white supremacists — a former campus activist named Kyle Bristow — he has adamantly defended him: Bristow led the Michigan State University campus branch of Young Americans For Freedom (MSU-YAF) and was so virulent in his politics that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) began listing it as a hate group in 2006. Bristow also served as a Republican precinct delegate. enlarge Credit: Courtesy SPLC Kyle Bristow, left, and Saul Anuzis Bristow’s MSU-YAF engaged in extensive racist activities. One of its first stunts was presenting a 13-point agenda that would have established a “Caucasian caucus” at MSU and, in turn, eliminated all student government representation for practically every other non-white, non-heterosexual, non-male or non-Christian student group at the university. Bristow was on record saying, “Homosexuality kills people almost to a degree worse than cigarettes. … these [pro-gay rights] groups are complicit with murder.” MSU-YAF sponsored a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” contest, held a “Koran Desecration” competition, jokingly threatened to distribute smallpox-infested blankets to Native American students, and posted “Gays Spread AIDS” fliers across campus. Bristow’s YAF also brought several extremists to speak at the MSU campus, including Holocaust denier Nick Griffin, leader of the whites-only British National Party (for more on YAF, read here ). None of this seemed to bother Anuzis. “This [Bristow] is exactly the type of young kid we want out there,” Anuzis, then already the GOP state chair, said on a radio program in May 2007, the year after MSU-YAF’s more outrageous activities were made public. “I’ve known Kyle for years and I can tell you I have never heard him say a racist or bigoted or sexist thing, ever.” Just this past October, Anuzis’ Michigan GOP issued a press release attacking a Democratic candidate for secretary of state because she once interned at the SPLC, which the release said used “fear and intimidation” in its hate group listings. Since receiving this outpouring of support from Anuzis, Bristow has graduated to the top ranks of the American radical right. Now a law student at the University of Toledo, Bristow recently self-published a novel, White Apocalypse , whose plot revolves around a series of violent revenge fantasies against Jewish professors, Latino and Native American activists. A major subplot ends in the bloody assassination of a character apparently based on an SPLC staffer. Several notable white supremacists and anti-Semites have endorsed the novel. Anuzis compounded the creepout factor Monday, when he went on Neil Cavuto’s Fox show and said: Anuzis: And I think we’ve got to get back to the fundamentals — find somebody’s who’s basically going to make sure the trains run on time, raise the money, and then implement the best get-out-the-vote program Republicans possibly have in 2012. Considering Anuzis’ thing about fascism, maybe that wasn’t an accidental reference. Seem fitting , though, that Anuzis is being heavily backed by the Tea Party as well — which is why he was so adamant in his support for the Tea Party’s influence in the GOP. George Zornick has more at ThinkProgress.
Continue reading …Via the inimitable Jon Ralston : The Social Security spot at right was produced by some folks in the Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate campaign but never aired, as some of the “DC handlers” managed to kill it. I can’t imagine why. I also wonder why there is no laugh track…. Or as one person put it at Politico in one of the better lines I’ve seen lately: It’s like Night of the Living Dead crossed with Sponge Bob.
Continue reading …
South Africa is already home to more HIV positive people than any other country. South Africa is also home to the fastest growing HIV population, with experts believing that the country’s 5.7 million infected will almost double within the next 20 years even in the face of increases in treatment and prevention financing. —JCL The New York Times: South Africa, already home to 5.7 million H.I.V.-positive people, more than any other nation, can expect an additional five million to become infected during the next two decades even if the nation more than doubles its already considerable financing for treatment and prevention and gives prevention a higher priority, according to a report presented here Friday to the country’s leading advisory body on AIDS policy. South Africa has far and away the continent’s leading economy, but the study concludes that it nevertheless faces a “major and mounting financial challenge” to confront its AIDS problem, explaining that about $102 billion will need to be spent over the next 20 years merely to keep the number of new infections at the projected five million mark. “The government doesn’t seem to have their heads around the numbers yet, and they are going to have to do some thinking out of the box,” Teresa Guthrie, an economist and one of the report’s authors, said in an interview. “It’s not an encouraging picture.” Read more
Continue reading …
“In certain cases” condoms may be acceptable. Such are the words from renowned sexpert Pope Benedict XVI, reversing or at least detouring from traditional Catholic dogma that historically has shunned practices of safe sex. Benedict claimed that the use of condoms would reduce HIV transmission, especially with sex workers. But ultimately the pope maintains the argument that condoms, or any safe sex practice for the matter, “implies a banalization of sexuality”. —JCL The BBC: Pope Benedict XVI has said the use of condoms is acceptable “in certain cases”, according to a new book. He said condoms could reduce the risk of infection with HIV, such as for a prostitute, in a series of interviews he gave to a German journalist. The Vatican newspaper ran excerpts on Saturday. Read more
Continue reading …
A series of oil spills in Alaska is ratcheting up the pressure on British Petroleum operations there. A huge 2006 North Slope spill, which led to fines and probation and another leak last November have rattled Alaskan state officials, who are now out for blood, seeking new fines and scrutiny of the troubled oil giant. —JCL The Guardian BP is facing new fines in connection with its criminal conviction for a huge oil spill on Alaska’s North Slope in 2006. Federal probation officer Mary Frances Barnes argued in an Anchorage federal court yesterday that a second spill in Alaska in November last year constituted a violation of its probation. In 2006, a corroded pipeline leaked 200,000 gallons of oil on to the tundra in the worst leak in the history of the North Slope. The company was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay $20m (£12.5m) in criminal penalties and restitution. Read more
Continue reading …So now MSNBC is suspending Joe Scarborough — just to compound its idiocy in mishandling Olbermann
November 20, 2010 No CommentThere are a number of reasons I always have to chortle whenever Fox Republicans — or for that matter, Jon Stewart — try to portray MSNBC as a balancing counterpart to Fox News’ overt display of propaganda. The first is that, regardless of the rise of liberal talk-show hosts on its broadcasts, MSNBC remains a real news organization that actually strives to be careful with facts and truthfulness, not to mention its ethical responsibilities — something Fox long ago abandoned. That was underlined a couple of weeks ago when the network actually suspended Keith Olbermann for having donated to political campaigns — drawing a sharp contrast with Fox, where its anchors not only openly donate to campaigns, they actually help promote Republican candidates on-air and provide viewers fund-raising info, while News Corp. publicly donates large sums to partisan political campaigns. It’s an old-fashioned standard at MSNBC, though a fairly typical one for a traditional news organization, as distinct from a propaganda operation. The problem was with the network’s dumbassery in enforcing the policy, particularly in suspending Olbermann as “punishment” for such a minor infraction. Not only was it an overreaction, it was also absurdly inconsistent, considering that other MSNBC had made similar donations — notably Joe Scarborough, the Republican host of Morning Joe . So now the network has just compounded the dumbassery by suspending Scarborough. From MSNBC’s own account : When Olbermann, host of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” was suspended Nov. 5 for making donations to three Democratic congressional candidates, Scarborough acknowledged that two political contributions had been made in his name, but he said they had been made by his wife. Griffin said in a statement that Scarborough informed him Friday that he had in fact made eight contributions from 2004 to 2008 to local candidates in Florida that he did not recall. “He will be immediately suspended for two days without pay and will return to the air on Wednesday, November 24th,” Griffin said. “As Joe recognizes, it is critical that we enforce our standards and policies.” In his own statement Friday, Scarborough he had “recently” been made aware of the contributions and told Griffin about them himself. This just makes the network look amateurish. This is really all about MSNBC’s corporate culture and its longtime aversion to being labeled the “liberal media” — something it’s had since its inception in the 1990s. It has always tried to blunt these accusations by hiring a number of overt right-wing ideologues, and for most of its existence its demographic strategy was geared at being “Fox Lite”. Then, when it discovered that its tiny handful of liberal hosts were actually the greatest ratings successes, it shifted gears somewhat to more eagerly promote them. This is the other reason I chortle at the MSNBC-is-the-opposite-of-Fox analogies: MSNBC has always been and always will be primarily a corporate entity and fundamentally conservative in its basic approach to broadcasting. I know this from having worked at the network for four years at its conception. It has found that liberal hosts bring it some bottom-line success, but that doesn’t mean it will ever be a fundamentally — or unapologetically — liberal network. So when Olbermann leaves an opening, these corporate masters will punish him to prove once again that they are NOT the “liberal biased media,” as they did a couple of weeks ago. Then when its liberal audience is appropriately angered over the double standard, it tries to cover its tracks by over-punishing the conservatives who did the same. MSNBC needs to revise its policy to allow its opinion anchors some partisan leeway, but it should maintain its usual standards for its straight-news reporters and editors. And then it needs to make the sanctions for violations reflective of the actual grievance. But mostly, it needs to decide for itself what kind of news organization it is, set its own standards and live by them, and not get bullied by right-wing blowhards trying to work the refs. Or don’t they ever notice how Fox deals with the accusations that it has a right-wing bias? It blows them off. MSNBC could use a little of that spine.
Continue reading …
NATO’s 28 member states have unanimously backed a strategy to shift leadership of the near decade-long Afghan war to local forces by the end of 2014. But, lest the Taliban think they can wait it out, the NATO chief declared that the alliance’s commitment is open-ended. —JCL The BBC: Leaders of Nato’s 28 states have backed a strategy to transfer leadership for the fight against the Taliban to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai was in Lisbon, where he signed a long-term security partnership with Nato. Nato’s secretary general said the Taliban would not be allowed simply to wait for foreign forces to leave, saying Nato would remain committed. Read more
Continue reading …
CNN host Larry King channeled the left's frustration with the Obama administration on Thursday's Larry King Live as he questioned Vice President Joe Biden about their approach on overturning the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy: ” You were against it, as I understand? Certainly, the President is against it. Most of the administration is against it …. So why is this our policy? ” King had Mr. Biden on as his sole guest during the first half hour of his program, and brought on Second Lady Jill Biden to join her husband for the remainder of the program. The host raised the controversial issue immediately before Mrs. Biden came on, and besides noting how “most of the administration” is against the policy, he stated that ” apparently, they polled troops- they're against it, and you poll America- they're against it .” On October 29, 2010, The Washington Post cited unnamed “multiple people familiar with the findings” of a Defense Department survey of active-duty and reserve military, which apparently found that “a majority of active-duty and reserve service members…would not object to serving and living alongside openly gay troops,” but the actual results would not be available until December 1, when a “Pentagon report…regarding how the military would end enforcement of the “don't ask, don't tell” law” is released. However, only two years ago, The Military Times, in their annual poll of active-duty service members , revealed that 58% were opposed to the repeal of “don't ask, don't tell.” Moreover, General James Conway, who stepped down as commandant of the Marine Corps on October 22 of this year, stated in an October 15 interview that “as many as 95% of Marines would be uncomfortable serving alongside openly gay troops.” read more
Continue reading …