The People's View

Open thread - President Obama at the Brandenburg Gate

2013-06-19T09:27:00.001-07:00

Because we have to be our own media, as the one we have is as useful as a hemorrhoid.

This is your Wednesday morning open thread.

Able Archer and the Cost of Mistrust

2013-06-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

It matters if one diplomat finds out another thinks his breath smells bad, it does in the relationship between the two people, scale it up it can matter in the relations of nations. There was something about the truth speaking to power and tree shaking Edward Snowden is doing that truly disturbs me and I wanted to discuss it around a story.

It is now apparent about a 75% of Edward Snowden’s story is completely untrue. From his CIA exploits in Switzerland, his salary, and his disclosure to China and Russia small bits of information along with big yarns of spin do nothing to help the impression one has about his integrity.

It’s fairly obvious the potential damage done to our relationship with Switzerland. We are currently trying to get them to drop veils of secrecy and help us chase down the 1% tax cheats an effort I’m sure Snowden didn’t help. Thankfully the leadership in Switzerland seems to be laughing at Snowden’s story. I want to compare what’s going on with what almost happened in 1983 during an exercise called Able Archer. It’s my intention to show how close we came to all out nuclear Armageddon over the same themes of misinformation and mistrust that seems to infect both left and right.

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Open thread - Peak Greenwald edition

2013-06-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

Yep - seems to be theory RT @ChadAustinSD If you don't submit to the most brutal, sprawling prison state on earth you are a coward.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 16, 2013

Pretty soon he's going to be wearing a sandwich board on Copacabana saying "The End Is Nigh".

This is your weekend open thread.

The NSA FISA and Glenn Greenwald Did he Lie to Anyone?

2013-06-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t like Glenn Greenwald and haven’t for some time. The incident that put him on my permanent shit list occurred when I was just a little bird deciding to see what this Twitter thing was all about.

There’s a presence out on those twitter streets that goes by the handle @angryblacklady if you aren’t following her I would suggest you do I was an open fan of hers before I tried to hop out the twitter nest. I was introduced to her by her political writing which has graced places like The Grio among others, I guess I could hit her bio and find tons of other stuff but I didn't need anyone’s validation then and just trust me she’s wicked wicked smaht.

One day I’m enjoying watching ABL dissect Glenn Greenwald live and before the world on the issue of the NDAA one of her arguments happened to be the Patriot Act is of far more impact, and scary and is going to bite us first let’s work on that. I wonder if the fact she was right means anything now anyway.

I know she was taking him apart because he and his followers decided that the issue of the NDAA was no longer the topic of the day but rather the character of Obama supporters. I once took philosophy way back in High School (I know huh? Public school taught philosophy) where we went over all the forms of logical fallacy in argument. Mr. Navarro spoke to me from the dim mists of time and said that’s an Ad Hominem Adept, an attack against the person not the topic means the person has nothing to say on topic.

That’s ok, as I said ABL was destroying him all day, it wasn’t that he engaged in Ad Hominem it’s what the attack was.

Glenn Greenwald said the supporters of Barack Obama would watch Barack Obama rape a nun on the cameras of MSNBC enjoy it and defend the action by saying Obama merely wanted to illustrate the evils of rape

Read about Glenn Greenwald use rape imagery to silence Black women

Scratch the record the police are here the party is over everyone has to go home. Wait a minute you say a Black lady, an Angry Black Lady who fights for feminist causes like just about no other would enjoy watching a rape, in the face of being destroyed in argument? Yes, yes he did.

No he never apologized mollified or adjusted the tone of the statement it stands just like that right now, so when Greenwald steps to me, I don’t care much about what he has to say, so there I did it, I don’t like him find him to be a man that has no integrity and uses rape imagery to silence the dissent of women. He does it for the same reason men rape as a power cudgel, and I will never play nice with such a person.

Did I shoot the messenger? I got nothing else to say about the message? Let’s do that!

The NSA FISA and President Obama Did He Lie to Anyone?

2013-06-12T18:00:00.001-07:00

First, in the interest of full disclosure I’m an Obamabot. Not just an Obamabot I’m the model T-1000 with the liquid skin and frickin lasers for arms. That’s not the point of this expose, but I don’t mind saying Barack Obama excretes excellence and gets the shit done. I feel no need to criticize him and would keep it to myself if I did.

That out of the way I’d like to examine a meme that has become pretty prominent in the controversy regarding the exposure of our NSA’s methods and practices by a 29 year old who believes highly in American civil liberties, yet donates money to Ron Paul a man who opposes the civil rights acts.

That is that Barack Obama is a liar. That he promised some kind of hope and change that he horns waggled a group of the reality community by his pretty words.

I submit the words of the President are kryptonite to said people to be ignored and substituted with what they want to TELL him to do.

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Letter from a Hong Kong hotel suite

2013-06-12T11:39:00.001-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary.

America’s history is written in blood and sacrifice. We have two holidays—Memorial Day and Veterans Day—which commemorate the sacrifices made by our military. But, we have only two national martyrs whom we acknowledge with holidays: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Both of our great martyrs died trying to expiate the sins of slavery and racism. Without their work, the America in which we live would be unrecognizable. In fact, there might very well be no America, as it would have split along the fissures caused by one of its two original sins, that of slavery.

Which is why it’s quite curious that Chris Hayes, on his show last night, brought up the memories of Dr. King and Rosa Parks when speaking of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
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A few thoughts on Snowden, Greenwald, and the NSA

2013-06-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

Cross posted on The Obama Diary.

Unless you’ve been under a rock (and more on that later), the “high-information” portion of our Republic has been treated to days of OHMYGODTHENSAISSPYINGONMYGOATPORN.

The current hero of the “left” “libertarians” is Edward Snowden, leaker of NSA collection of phone records and Internet traffic, with an able assist from his glibertarian guru Glenn Greenwald. For all of an hour, the hashtag #IStandWithEricSnowden trended on Twitter on Sunday, after he revealed himself as the freedom-loving mole in the heart of the Big Brother Beast.

Let me pause for a moment to share with you a quote from one of the best novels of recent years, World War Z. Yes, it’s a zombie novel, but it also serves as a commentary on modern day politics.

When you think of the CIA, you probably imagine two of our more enduring and popular myths. The first is that our mission is to search the globe for any conceivable threat to the United States, and the second is to believe that we have the power to perform the first.

…We can’t just spread ourselves thin looking for, and hoping to stumble on, new and possible dangers. Instead, we’ve always had to identify and focus on those that are already clear and present.

Replace “CIA” with “NSA” and you have a picture of where we are now.
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President Obama Pokes the GOP in the Eye

2013-06-06T15:19:00.001-07:00

Republicans thought they won one over the President by forcing him not to nominate Susan Rice to be Secretary of State, because, you know, BENGHAZIIII!!! But you really don't want to screw with Barack Obama like that. The President just promoted Susan Rice to National Security Adviser.

Hailing her longtime role as a “trusted adviser,” President Barack Obama formally named U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as his next national security adviser on Wednesday.

Obama tapped Rice, a target of Republican criticism in recent months, to succeed Tom Donilon; the president also nominated Samantha Power, a longtime foreign policy adviser, to take over Rice’s role at the United Nations.

In the president's national security and foreign policy teams, the National Security Adviser plays a pivotal role, often the crucial role of integrating the two. The president's words were carefully chosen, but not minced.

Susan was a trusted adviser during my first campaign for president. She helped to build my foreign policy team and lead our diplomacy at the United Nations in my first term. I am absolutely thrilled that she'll be back at my side leading my national security team in my second term," he said.

Intelligence agency conducts intelligence. News at 11.

2013-06-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

So, doughty warrior of the glibertarians Glenn Greenwald has a MAJOR SCOOP: the National Security Agency obtained a warrant from the FISA court to have Verizon Business hand over millions of phone records. SHOCK! ALARM! OBAMA IS SPYING ON YOU!

Now, I don't mean to be glib myself. The expanded powers given to intelligence agencies in the wake of 9/11 are a valid subject of debate. Barack Obama's NDU speech in which he wants to work to curtail the Presidency's expanded powers is an indication on where he stand on this issue.

But comparing the NSA's latest data mining to what was occurring under the Bush administration is an exercise in the purest sophistry, and a way for Mr. Greenwald to drive clicks to his Guardian website. (And, really, Guardian, why do you employ a writer who BEGS FOR DONATIONS on your website? )

When the warrantless wiretapping regime was uncovered, the administration was forced to defer all data collection to the FISA court, much to its chagrin. And that's where all decisions on data collection have resided since 2007.
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Michelle Obama is Teh Awesome, and The LGBT Agitators Can Stuff It

2013-06-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

I get so tired of idiots on the Left constantly attacking this president and the White House instead of going after right wing nutjobs. And so it happened again, with a protester from tie-yourself-to-the-White House-fence gay rights group "Get Equal" heckling the First Lady at a DNC fundraiser. Michelle Obama wasn't going to stand there and take it - not as the better half of the first president ever to declare support for full equality. She got in the face of this heckler, and put her in her place.

Reports CBS:

According to a pool report from a reporter who attended the event, an audience member started shouting in support of an executive order on gay rights halfway through Obama's remarks.

"One of the things I don't do well is this," the first lady said. According to a pool report of the event, she then left the lectern, moved toward the protester and said the person could either, quote, "listen to me or you can take the mic, but I'm leaving."

Of course, Madam Heckler was suddenly very surprised that anyone would actually dare respond to her heckling. She didn't know what to do. She was shocked, shocked I tell you!

In an interview, Sturtz told the Washington Post, that she was stunned by the first lady's response to her heckling.

"She came right down in my face," Sturtz told the Post. "I was taken aback."

Yeah, how dare the First Lady talk back to me when I'm trying to heckle her? OMG! Like, get! Out!
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Privilege

2013-06-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

Cross posted on The Obama Diary.

Screw You MT @codepink: FLOTUS should have been coached, long ago, on how to deal diplomatically w ppl who stand up to protest govt policies
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) June 5, 2013

I did not grow up in an atmosphere of privilege. My dad owned his own barbershop, and my mom was a seamstress in New York’s garment district. I wanted for nothing, but I knew we were solidly working class. If I and my brothers wanted to go to university—and with our parents, it was expected—we would have to work for it. There were no college funds, and no rich uncle was going to swoop in and save us. All we had was each other, our willingness to work, and our native intelligences.

Not coming from a place of privilege, I know instinctively that most things in this life for most people come at a price, the price usually being hard struggle. The world gives up very little for free. Short cuts, when they do exist, are far and few between. As I said in my post yesterday, at first that made me a practiced cynic. Fortunately I grew out of it, and embraced the rewards that come with struggle; the struggle makes the reward all that much sweeter.

But just as cynicism infects our modern politics, so does a culture of privilege.
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A few thoughts on cynicism

2013-06-04T09:46:00.005-07:00

Cross posted on The Obama Diary.

“Cynicism is no more mature than naïveté. You’re no more mature, just more burned.”
― Karl Marlantes, What It is Like to Go to War

I was, in my callow youth, a practiced cynic. Perhaps it was due to the crowd with which I hung out, perhaps due to my own struggles, a combination of the two, or merely the condition of youth where one thinks oneself wiser than one really is. But my view of the world was dark, depressing, and pretty hopeless.

Or, at least, that’s what I put out. At a certain age, it’s quite hip and cool to pose with an cynical insouciance: you know the game, you know it’s rigged, there’s nothing you can do aside from letting “Them” know that you know. It’s your only power.

I, thankfully, grew out of my cynicism. There was no one “come to Jesus” moment to which I can point where I embraced hope and optimism to a deleterious despair. And I didn’t embrace a blind optimism; I’m too much a student of the world to believe that if we just wish hard enough things will magically conform to our ideas of the true and the good. It was when I started to work on all the things which made me unhappy, which stymied me, which made me think I’d never amount to anything, and when the work began to pay off, that it dawned on me that there was nothing “easy” about cynicism, that maintaining that mindset was actually hard work, much harder than evaluating yourself and saying “This is what I’ll change. I can’t stay where I am.” Doing that work—whether on yourself or on society—is much easier and more rewarding than staying in the rut where you’re convinced nothing will ever change because nothing has ever changed in the world’s history.
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One in Four Liberals Still Suffering from Obamacare Derangement Syndrome

2013-05-29T15:23:00.001-07:00

So, CNN released a poll yesterday on public support for the Affordable Care Act. The needle on overall support does not seem to have moved much, stuck at 43%. But while media outlets are trumpeting a 54% opposition rate for Obamacare, an interesting story lies in the breakdown of the opposition:

The survey indicates that 35% oppose the health care law because it's too liberal, with 16% saying they oppose the measure because it isn't liberal enough.

That whittles down to 25% of the liberals in the survey saying they do not support the president's health care law. You know which crowd this is - this is the Left's very own "kill the bill" and public option pony crowd.

Someone needs to tell me why the following somehow isn't "liberal enough:"

A massive expansion of an actual public health care program - Medicaid - to cover everyone under 133% of poverty.
Closing the Medicare prescription coverage gap.
The end of the worst insurance company abuses, including pre-existing condition discrimination, gender discrimination, and price fixing.
Mandated coverage for women's reproductive care, and no-copay coverage for primary care.
Making large corporations pick up their fair share of their employees' health care.
Letting individuals buy insurance from statewide pools, creating the largest subsidies for health care ever in American history to assist in the purchase of insurance for those with up to 400% of poverty-level income.

Obamacare's Real Death Panel: Killing the Tea Party by Civil War

2013-05-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well, here's one of Obamacare's best "fringe benefits":

Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is stepping up her pressure on the GOP-led legislature to expand Medicaid by declaring a moratorium on legislating until they give in.

Brewer vetoed five unrelated bills on Thursday, according to the Arizona Republic, and threatened to keep blocking legislation until Republicans expand Medicaid to cover thousands of Arizonans, which Obamacare permits at minimal cost to the state.

"I warned that I would not sign additional measures into law until we see resolution of the two most pressing issues facing us: adoption of a fiscal 2014 state budget and plan for Medicaid," Brewer wrote in a statement explaining her decision. "It is disappointing I must demonstrate the moratorium was not an idle threat."

Bwahahahahaha. Obamacare just pitted a crazy Teabagger favorite governor against a crazy Teabagger legislature. Tea Party governors in many states are already at odds with their states' Tea Party legislatures and groups.
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The beginning of the end of perpetual war

2013-05-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary

Of course it’s not good enough for Scahills, Greenwalds, and Benjamins. Nothing other than a strict policy of non-violence, irrespective of the dangers this country faces, would be good enough. And for the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and O’Reillys, it is nothing less than the affirmation of all their fears: that he’s a Manchurian candidate out to deliver the land of the free to its enemies.

But Barack Obama’s speech at the National Defense University on Thursday heralds nothing less than a total upending of the prevailing US security stance post-9/11.

For the past 12 years, we’ve been, quite frankly, in a perpetual state of war. The one in Afghanistan, it can be quite cogently argued, was a war of self-defense, pursued in pursuit of those who rammed planes into New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania. Very few people in this country argued that it wasn’t a war worth waging to extract an enemy who had struck deeply inside our territory.

We know what happened next. We installed a flawed strongman in Hamid Karzai. We gave cursory aid to the new regime, both financially and militarily, allowing Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup and carry on the war. And why? Because the neo-con dream of having a nation up in righteous indignation was too good to pass up to pursue its true project, which was to attack Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein, and remake the Middle East into an American satrapy. Gas would be under $2 a gallon forever, oil companies would reap the rewards of lucrative contracts from an Iraqi regime indebted to the US, and the Palestinians would lose their one ally in the region, leaving Israel to range freely. The new American Century would be born on the streets of Baghdad. And Karl Rove’s dream of a permanent Republican majority would be the fruit of a short, sharp, successful war, fought on the cheap, because the Administration knew that Saddam didn’t have the military capability to hurt his neighbors, much less withstand an invasion by the US.

It didn’t quite work out that way.
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The End of Obamascare: Affordable Care Act Premiums LESS Than Expected

2013-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

Well, there goes another scare tactic. You know how Obamacare was supposed to EXPLODE (!!!!!!!!) the cost of health insurance? Well, that's not happening.

Health insurers in California will charge an average of $304 a month for the cheapest silver-level plan in state-based exchanges next year, according to rates released Thursday by Covered California, which is implementing the Affordable Care Act there. But many residents will pay a lot less than that for coverage.

Factor in the subsidies for those who are eligible (at the start, up to $45,000 for individuals and $92,000 for a family of four) and most will pay a lot less. How much less? Here's an idea.

The least expensive silver plan for a 21-year-old could cost $216 a month, but those earning only 150% of the poverty line (or $17,235 annually) may pay only $44 after receiving federal subsidies. A 40-year-old may pay $276 a month, or $40 after the subsidies.

Why Dropping LGBT Equality from Immigration Bill is Tragic, But Probably Also Meaningless

2013-05-22T15:20:00.002-07:00

No one who believes in equality should be happy that the Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill has dropped immigration equality as a cornerstone policy. Thanks to Republican homophobia and threats to pull support should gay people be treated the same as straight people under our immigration laws, Democrats have agreed to drop that language in the interest of broader reform. And that has some gay groups fuming.

“Today it became clear that our so-called ‘friends’ don’t have the courage or the spine to stand up for what’s right,” Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, co-director of the social-justice organization GetEQUAL, said.

Sousa-Rodriguez said Democratic lawmakers “are content to buy into the false choice that Republicans created — holding a sorely-needed immigration bill hostage in order to cement inequality into law.”

While I am not happy either that the president's proposal to create immigration equality is not included as part of the immigration reform bill, I have never cared for the extremist tactics of groups like GetEQUAL (think chaining yourself to the fence of the friendliest White House in history). They are trying to create another public option pony demand, when it is pretty clear that the entire immigration bill would likely fail should provisions for same sex couples be included. It's not a good thing, but it is fact. Unfortunately, there is nothing false about this choice, as disheartening as the choice may be.
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President Obama's Teflon Coating: Demographics

2013-05-22T09:19:00.001-07:00

So, you know, last week was the worst week ever in the Obama presidency, and the Republicans really got him on the SCANDALS!!!!! See for yourself:

53% of Americans say they approve of the job the president is doing, with 45% saying they disapprove. The president's approval rating was at 51% in CNN's last poll, which was conducted in early April. [...]

The CNN poll is in-line with Gallup, which also indicated a very slight rise in Obama's approval rating over the same time period.

Ha! They got him now! Wait, what? His approval rating actually ticked up? That is... but but... Benghazi!!!!!

But there is a more important subtext in these numbers, and it's demographics. The tectonic shift in demographics that elected and re-elected Barack Obama remains in place, and remains in favor of him. According to the crosstabs, only 41% of whites approve of the president's performance, while an overwhelming 78% of non-whites approve. Men approve the president's performance by a 50-49 (+1) margin, while women approve the job he's doing by 56-42 (+14). That is a 13-point gender gap. Young people (18-34) overwhelmingly approve of the president 63-34, while those over 65 disapprove 44-54.
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If government is evil, then so are we

2013-05-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary.

If one lives in an oppressive system, like Iran or North Korea, then, yes, one can quite easily make the claim that government can be evil.

Modern history is littered with examples of evil governments, from Stalin’s USSR to Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

But what all these governments have in common is a lack of agency among its subjects. The people who lived and continue to live under those regimes have no political control over their lives. Decisions are mandated from some remote source, and all opposition is quashed. With my cantankerous nature, I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the Iran of Ahmedinajad, or the Belarus of Lukashenko.

This is not the case in the United States of America.

For all our faults, citizens are in control of their own destinies, or should be. Elections are frequent, common, and free. Whether we like it or not, Tea Party governors and legislatures were elected openly, and their policies have the imprimatur of the electorate.
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Open Thread: GOP Shocked to Learn American People No Longer Trusts them on National Security

2013-05-14T12:27:00.002-07:00

Did you know that this is the Month of Scandals^TM that will once and for all bring down the evil Obama conspiracy? Neither does most of America.

PPP's newest national poll finds that Republicans aren't getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin and Clinton's +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March. Meanwhile Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular with a 36/57 favorability rating.

.... and

One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.

Not that not knowing where some place is has ever stopped any wingbat from thumping their chest about it. I have met more than one who insisted that India was in the Middle East.
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The last play in the playbook

2013-05-13T17:41:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on The Obama Diary.

You will have to have been under a rock for the past two weeks to have missed the feeding frenzy being engaged in by what passes as the other major political party and its enablers in the press. Between BENGHAZI!!! and IRS-gate, it seems that nothing at all of importance has been happening in the world.

The GOP and the press finally feel they have what they’ve been looking for: a political “mistake” by Barack Obama which they can use to cut him down to size. One has to admit, that the nation’s first black President has been quite scandal-free since his first Inauguration, in spite of the usual suspects’ best efforts. Obamacare was supposed to be his “Waterloo”; it now promises to cement a generation of Democratic dominance as citizens benefit from a new social program, one which will guarantee that they don’t have to choose between the rent and their health. Obama brought Osama Bin Laden to justice, something which the previous administration had no interest in doing. And of course, before he was even elected, he had the Reverend Wright “scandal”—a moment he used to give the nation a sorely needed lesson on race. The scandal-mongers have, quite frankly, lacked decent material with which to work.
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How Citizens United Came Back to Bite Teabaggers in the Ass

2013-05-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

That's the way the story about the IRS giving extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups sounded to me. For all the concerns about the IRS' Cincinnati office's higher-than-usual scrutiny of Teabagger groups, here's something that's gone unnoticed in all the reportage about the story:

The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates.

The number of political groups applying for tax-exempt status more than doubled in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, forcing agency officials to make a slew of determinations despite uncertainty about the category’s ambiguous definition.

Citizens United was a group that basically were the Tea Party before it came to be known as the Tea Party. It was that case that made it possible for overly political groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on politics and still be tax exempt - which, by the way, created a huge, tax-payer subsidized sector of political speech - and in turn created room for the extra scrutiny under the IRS.
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Benghazi: The New Old Shiny Object

2013-05-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Republicans have called in their old chit: Benghazi. The media is doing its best to quickly paint this in the light of a scandal. Coverup! Outrage! OMG! Did you know that the CIA told the administration that it was a terrorist attack from the get-go but the State Department conspired with the OFA to edit the talking points to a mere spontaneous demonstration?

Ironically, some truth did come out in the fog of the dramatic scandal music from the GOP and the media. After testimonies, email revelations and fundraising grandstanding by the Republicans, at the end of the day, the story remains an incredibly simple one: before Susan Rice's now-famous appearance on the Sunday TV shows, the intelligence community was not only uncertain about the source of this attack, but they in fact thought that it was inspired by protests.

There's an easy way to find out whether the administration was trying to mislead the American people, however. Compare what Susan Rice actually said with what the CIA said, even in its first drafts, before the Evil Edits^TM suggested by State (and ultimately accepted by the CIA). Well, here's what Rice actually said. Let's take Rice's ABC News interview, where she said, after cautioning that there was an ongoing FBI investigation:

We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to -- or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in -- in the wake of the revolution in Libya are -- are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.

And here's what the same news organization reported about the first CIA drafts:

Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA's first drafts said the attack appeared to have been "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" but the CIA version went on to say, "That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

Obama Pays Down Debt, Smashes Republican House of Cards

2013-05-08T14:53:00.003-07:00

Oh boy. This is not good news for Paul Ryan.

After four years of trillion-dollar deficits, the red ink is receding in Washington, easing pressure on policymakers and shattering hopes for a summertime budget deal.

Federal tax revenue is up and spending is down thanks to an improving economy, January tax hikes and the budget cuts known as the sequester. As a result, the U.S. Treasury has slowed the pace of borrowing and actually was able to repay a tiny fraction of the $16.8 trillion national debt in the first quarter of this year.

Wait, what? Increasing taxes on the rich is actually raising revenue? I thought it was going to kill jobs! You mean there's no magic fairy dust to punish the socialist nemesis for raising taxes on our venerable "job creators?" And what is all this about the Big Black Spender actually paying down the national debt? Someone, please, stop the presses!
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Did Christians apologize for Timothy McVeigh?

2013-05-08T11:01:00.001-07:00

Here's a bio on Dr. Seema Jilani:

Seema Jilani is a physician who specializes in Pediatrics, and concentrates on International Health Care. She has worked in Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt and the Balkans. She has been a freelance journalist for Pacifica Radio for eight years. Her radio documentary, Israel and Palestine: The Human Cost of The Occupation, was nominated for The Peabody Award. Dr. Jilani's work has been published in The Guardian, The Independent, Newsweek, The Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers.

Dr. Jilani also blogs on Huffington Post, and yesterday posted the most extraordinary piece, detailing the unmasked bigotry she suffered at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Left without keys to her room, she tried to get into the ballroom to find her husband and retrieve her keys. Security staff disdainfully told her "no", saying she had no ticket—something which didn't seem to preclude Caucasian attendees easily passing through the security cordon.
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