Laying The Groundwork For Plutocrats

Chris Christie is the perfect Republican. He won't get the nomination, especially with Scott Walker hating unions and workers as much as Christie does, Marco Rubio more experienced and just as hawkish on foreign policy, and John Ellis Bush ingratiating himself with the big money donors better than anyone possibly could. But he has seriously, and dangerously, advanced the conservative creed nonetheless.

It's not because of the $225 million settlement his administration has made with ExxonMobil, which had been sued by the State of New Jersey for polluting more than 1500 polluted acres in the northern region of the state.   It's not because he refused to make the contractually-required pension contribution, then even the payment required by legislation he enthusiastically supported.

It is not because he considers public school students "drug mules," nor that he calls medical marijuana, legal in New Jersey but resisted by the governor, "a front for legalization." It's not even because he has slashed social services in New Jersey while eliminating the millionaires' tax which helped pay for them. Nor is it because he falsely imprisoned Kaci Hickox or because he lusts for humongous gifts from nefarious characters.

Instead, Chris Christie is a splendid example of Repub mythmaking because of actions such as

Underneath the gleaming new tower on the north end of the boardwalk, Gov. Chris Christie (R) placed a bet that this down-on-its-luck city was about to turn around. Revel, a massive $2.4 billion casino willed to completion by Christie, was supposed to provide 5,000 “permanent” jobs and fuel a revitalization to the entire city.

“The completion of Revel and its opening is a turning point for Atlantic City and a clear sign that people once again have faith in the city’s ability to come back,” Christie said before the 2012 grand opening, which featured a performance by megastar Beyoncé.

Two years later, the Revel is shuttered — wiping out thousands of jobs amid an economic implosion of the gambling industry here. Rather than serve as a shining example of Christie’s economic stewardship, Revel now stands as a 57-story example of failure in a city that has bedeviled New Jersey governors for decades. 

Paul Waldman at one time conducted a poll which revealed that most Americans- even after being told of the huge exemption- favored repeal of the estate tax.  Among the reasons, he theorized, that people who support higher taxes on the wealthy int theory want the estate tax ended is

Americans tend to think that no matter what their current situation, eventually, they're going to be rich. Most of us are wrong about that, but that's what we think. It's practically our patriotic duty to believe it. So most everyone thinks that this tax will apply to their estate upon their death, no matter how modest that estate might be at the moment.

Most individuals who earn  $30,000, $40,000, or even $120,000 per year realize their job isn't going to make them wealthy.  But somehow, sometime, lightning may strike.

And that's where gambling comes in.  An individual can strike it rich by gambling. It is the longest of long shots- probably slightly likelier than getting struck by lightning,  but it can happen.  Those Repubs who support legalized gambling do so primarily because they believe it increases revenues available to government, an institution which, at other times, they're opposed to. In the short term- the only term most mayors and governors are concerned about- it usually does, although it costs in the long run, after their term is over. They know, too,that their constituents are hoping, even praying, that their number will come up and send a lot of easy money their way.

And if they believe, contrary to the reality displayed in the table and the graph below (from John Cassidy in The New Yorker), that they can leapfrog their peers into the elite, they can support the kind of policies Chris Christie and his fellow travelers promote.

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Being Fitted For White Sheets

It should be difficult to criticize someone who, appalled at the killing of a suspect by a volunteer Sheriff's Deputy in Tulsa, recognizes "these forms of neoliberal policing — in which private citizens and private monies impact the culture of policing but escape governmental checks and balances — endanger us all."

But it's not difficult when it's Brittney Cooper, whose Salon mini-bio informs us teaches "Women's and Gender Studies" and "Africana Studies" at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ).  God help her students.

"Why is the refusal of breath to Black people endemic to the American condition," she asks rhetorically, posing a question with no answer, given that the pretext to the question is false. She continues "What about the Black body makes the life-breath that we all hold so dear — so sacred — such a profane and devalued thing in the hands of white people," and I resist the temptation to arrest, indict, and prosecute myself on the charge of being a white person. (Fortunately, there is no capital punishment in New Jersey.)

When she charges "The fact that white men can sign up with government approval for the right to play cops and robbers on the weekends is appalling,"  she is conflating race with the practice of making significant contributions to the election of a sheriff, then to arming the latter's department. Were a black man to give to the campaign, he, too, probably would have been afforded privileges other people aren't. (Generally less well-off, blacks would be less likely to contribute, reflecting the privilege of class, a factor Cooper seems never to have picked up on.)

Reading "His breath seeped out of his Black body as public service officers taunted him in a barrage of profanity," one is tempted to ask why our sympathy is commanded only because of the race of the victim, but then one remembers this is Brittney Cooper, for whom such a diatribe is routine.

The hostility toward individuals who are not black mirrors that toward police whom, she maintains, "we all watch as" they "and the state communicate their clear disregard for the value of Black life" (all police, apparently).  She claims there is a "systemic disregard that police regularly show to Black people in America" and believes "police complicity and participation in lynchings and in the KKK make that clear," without noticing what occurred in the south during the pre-civil rights era may no longer apply.

This vendetta would be almost tolerable were it accompanied by an understanding of law enforcement in the nation.  Cooper slams "the supposed lack of control of working-class Black and Brown people (which) justifies the stultifying overpolicing of our communities." Cooper (wisely) avoids specific details, in this case what black communities are subject to "overpolicing."

If Cooper believes that poor black communities receive disproportionate attention from law enforcement, she really has to get out more often.  Far too frequently, police departments focus their attention on the downtown and affluent residential neighborhoods rather than the neighborhoods in greater need.  Much of this emphasis derives from class considerations, the concept which consistently is absent from a Cooper analysis.

The Rutgers academic argues the "life breath" of "the black body" is "such a profane and devalued thing in the hands of white people." Understandably, Cooper cites the shooting of a black male by police in Tulsa, Charleston, S.C., Cleveland, Staten Island, NY and Chicago. She does not, perhaps as understandably, cite the shooting death of a young black male by police a mere 100 miles from her job, captured on video:















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Conscience Law Strikes Again

As if there aren't enough reasons to despise Wal-Mart, here is another, with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick explaining

Discriminatory state Religious Freedom Restoration acts—proposed most recently in Indiana and Arkansas and coming soon in Louisiana—have been described as reactions to a spate of big wins for the gay and lesbian community, most notably in reaction to marriage equality...

But these religious freedom arguments are actually rooted in an older movement, a decades-old effort to protect religious “conscience” through health care refusal laws. And it’s a movement that goes far beyond cake bakers and florists, sweeping in physicians, pharmacists, and insurers.Unless you see these new RFRAs as of a piece of this much broader, deeper social movement, you are missing the context that helps frame the debate.

Although not the precise point made by Lithwick- or by NeJaime of the University of California–Irvine and UCLA law schools and Reva Siegel of Yale Law School, whose argument she brings forth- a recent case in Georgia  illustrates both the breadth and depth of the severe implications of religious conscience laws.  The married Brittany Cartrett of Georgia, who became pregnant only because "the Lord has plans that we don't understand sometimes,"

recently learned some bad news from her doctor about her pregnancy. She miscarried around five or six weeks along.

"So we made the decision to not do a D&C and to get a medicine. So he said I'm going to give you this medicine, you'll take it, and it will help you to pass naturally so that you don't have to go the more invasive route", said Brittany Cartrett.

The doctor's office called the Milledgeville Walmart to fill the prescription but they were told no and they were not given a reason.      
   
"So we found another place to fill it but I still had to go up there to get another prescription so when I went up there she asked if I had any questions about this prescription I said no I don't but I do have a question about the other one. And she looks at my name and she says oh, well...I couldn't think of a valid reason why you would need this prescription", Cartrett said.

The drug in question is Misoprostol, which can also used to induce abortions.

WGXA's Chace Abrose spoke off camera to Wal-Mart pharmacist Sandip Patel who said he was aware of the situation and also said that pharmacists have the ability to turn down prescriptions at their own discretion.

Mercer University Law Professor Zac Buck verified that the ability to turn down prescriptions based on personal beliefs has been a law in Georgia for about 15 years. 

WGXA also contacted Brian Nick at Walmart's corporate office who stated, "Our pharmacists fill prescriptions on a case by case basis every day in our stores throughout the country and we encourage them to exercise their professional judgment in doing so".

The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed during the Clinton presidency, stipulated "Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."

Certainly, many of the state conscience laws (sources of map the National Conference of State Legislatures, The Atlantic, the Human Rights Campaign) go beyond that, as law professor Marci Hamilton recently noted. Unlike the federal legislation, limited to cases against the government, state statutes may apply to disputes between private parties.In several instances, the definition of "religious exercise" has been expanded and that of "substantial burden" constricted.

"The original federal RFRA was misguided," Hamilton realizes, "and a leap from prior First Amendment doctrine, but it was nothing like this new iteration in the conservative states." This iteration goes well beyond same-sex marriage, well beyond the execrable Walton family, and will cause untold grief under the guise of "conscience," religious and otherwise.

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Insurance Agent, Taser, And A Revolver

One can only hope that the media follow the example of these three CNN writers, as well as of the family of Eric Courtney Harris, the fellow shot and killed (video, below) on April 2 by 73-year-old Reserve Deputy Robert Bates at the tail end of an undercover weapons sting by the Tulsa County Sheriff's Department.

It's not about age. Among the few sensible things uttered by Sheriff Stanley Glantz was "I am 72 years old, and I think I am still active." Given the task of reviewing the case, Tulsa Police Sgt. Jim Clark noted "It's happened to 21-year-old law enforcement officers. It's happened to 30-year-old law enforcement officers" (whereupon he went on to say something foolish).

Nor is it primarily about race, with the brother of the deceased helpfully- and realistically- commenting "I don't think this is a racial thing. I don't think this has anything to do with race. It might have a hint there somewhere... This is simply evil."

It isn't primarily about even tasers, though "according to the charge filed in Tulsa County District Court, Bates mistook a Smith & Wesson revolver for his Taser."  If he had not possessed a Taser, he would have realized it was a firearm he was drawing. (Unfortunately, the State of New Jersey now probably- has joined the 49 other states in approving Tasers, a bad option for the public but a good one for Taser International.  No, an excellent one for Taser International.

Instead, the folks at CNN addressed in at least eight paragraphs the primary issue involved in the fatal encounter. The family of the deceased has been

questioning why the 73-year-old Bates -- the CEO of an insurance company who volunteers as a certified reserve deputy -- was on the scene in such a sensitive and high-risk sting operation.

Daniel Smolen, an attorney representing the Harris family, said Bates paid big money to play a cop in his spare time.

"It's absolutely mind boggling that you have a wealthy businessman who's been essentially deputized to go play like he's some outlaw, like he's just cleaning up the streets," he said.

Wood said his client -- who had donated cars and video equipment to the Sheriff's Office -- had undergone all the required training and had participated in more than 100 operations with the task force he was working with the day he shot Harris. But he'd never been the main deputy in charge of arresting a suspect, Wood said, but was thrust into the situation because Harris ran from officers during the arrest.

"Probably in the past four of five years since he has been working in conjunction with the task force he has been on, (there were) in excess of 100 operations or search warrants where he was placed on the outer perimeter," Wood said. "He has never been on an arrest team or been the one who is primarily responsible for the capture or the arrest of a suspect. He is there more in a support mechanism."

Bates, who worked as a police officer for a year in the 1960s, had been a reserve deputy since 2008, with 300 hours of training and 1,100 hours of community policing experience, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Lest we think that Bates' experience in the 1960s (a little while ago) had much to do with his assignment, we then read

He was also a frequent contributor to the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, including $2,500 to the reelection of Sheriff Stanley Glanz.

Tulsa County Sheriff's Maj. Shannon Clark denied accusations that Bates had paid to play a cop, describing him as one of many volunteers in the community who have contributed to the agency.

"No matter how you cut it up, Deputy Bates met all the criteria on the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training to be in the role that he was in," Clark said.

That insurance professional Robert Bates was considered qualified to play police officer because he received some training should have been seen as more than problematic, very troubling.

So try a little experiment. Enter your local community bank, in which you are a well-known customer, and tell the manager you realize the bank is under-staffed with tellers on Saturday, their busiest day. Offer to volunteer your time and notice that after a few seconds of a quizzical look, the manager responds with hearty laughter. Then add that you expect to receive extensive training before you begin volunteering, and she doesn't bother to hesitate before laughing hysterically.

If you work with money, you'll be subject to a degree of accountability unknown to the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office. Volunteerism, the kissing cousin of privatization, is de rigueur there- and elsewhere, it appears, sometimes for a price.  Charles Pierce puts it as only he can when observing

Something has gone permanently squirrelly with law-enforcement in this country. There is the change in attitude by which police increasingly feel and behave like an occupying army in American cities. There is the preposterous increase in available armament. On a wider scale, there is the triumph at all levels of government of an attitude that we will not tax ourselves, ever, for anything, even our own safety. So we wind up with traffic cops who look on, ahem, certain citizens as resources to be pillaged, or we wind up with septuagenarian insurance salesmen empowered to shoot people in the street under color of law, because they were willing to buy guns and ammo privately for a public purpose. This is Kafka rewritten by Grover Norquist and Bozo The Clown. You get what you pay for, and we're not willing to pay for anything any more.












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Historical Path

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's announcement on Sunday that she's in it to win it and the disturbing, though much expected, victory of the moneyed Rahm Emanuel over Chuy Garcia in Chicago, Digby captures the challenge to Mrs. Clinton most significant to the nation's future.  She recognizes Emanuel and fellow neo-liberals have been

“re-defining” progressivism by making it into business friendly DLC centrism. We’ve been down that road before. These think tank technocrats have been selling  these vaunted “public-private” partnerships since the early 90s when Bill Clinton first ran for office and we’re still dealing with crumbling infrastructure, poor education, soaring wealth inequality and stalled social mobility. At some point these people need to confront the fact that these ideas aren’t getting the job done.

While less obvious, still intriguing was her quick take on the Democratic Party's 2008 primary/caucus campaign. Digby writes

With the Big Announcement yesterday, Hillary Clinton officially entered the race that everyone assumes she’s already won. Can you feel the excitement? No? Well, this shouldn’t come as a shock, because despite all the handwringing about a primary being necessary, it’s long been obvious that the Democratic party subconsciously saw 2008 as The Big Primary when decided it would use its current national electoral advantage to bring the U.S. into the modern world and break the white male presidential paradigm with two historic candidacies. It’s important to seize these openings to advance civil rights and establish a new “normal” for leadership when you have the chance and it’s to the party’s credit that it has taken this path.

She gives herself too little credit. It has not "long been obvious that the Democratic party subconsciously saw 2008 as The Big Primary when decided it would use its current national electoral advantage to bring the U.S. into the modern world and break the white male presidential paradigm with two historic candidacies."

Asked (video below) yesterday about Clinton's candidacy, GOP strategist Ana Navarro (echoing what others have imagined) maintained "Going back to the woman thing, I'm frankly fascinated by how it's playing out this time because it's so different from 2008, where she did not embrace the historical moment of being a woman."  In the same vein, Bash responded "maybe she learned from Barack Obama."








That contrasts with Digby's recognition that the Party saw itself in 2008 as presenting two historic candidacies.  Hillary Clinton, while noting the obvious- that she was the more experienced hand to respond to national emergencies- presented herself also as someone who would break "the glass ceiling." Without demeaning Obama's claim that his election would be historic, Clinton herself strongly and consistently implied that her own election would prove to be a momentous event in American history.

As Navarro and Bash demonstrated, it is a dynamic little understood. Both Democratic candidates saw the upcoming election as a watershed event, as did most of the Party's primary voters and caucus participants.  For reasons far beyond race, Barack Obama won out- but more of the electorate also saw election of the first black President more consequential than election of the first female candidate. Given the scope and arc of American history, that was an accurate perception, notwithstanding the disappointment of the centrist Obama presidency,

That was then; this is now, when Digby and most primary voters believe "the time is ripe for a woman president." Here is hoping the blogger is prescient when she adds" and it’s ripe for an unabashed progressive populist agenda.  If Hillary Clinton seizes this moment and runs with it, she could make history in more ways than one."





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Silly Criticism

On his "Overtime" segment available specifically on the Internet, Bill Maher on March 27 ridiculed (video below) the departure of Zayn Malik from the boy-band One Direction

by jokingly calling into question the 22-year-old’s decision to quit the popular group.

“I think after everything we’ve been through, I at least deserved the common respect of being told face to face,” he says, while sharing the screen with an image of the pop crooner.

“Just tell me two things, Zayn. Which one in the band were you?” he continued, “And where were you during the Boston Marathon?” At this point, Zayn’s image was shown next to accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.







Maher's humor, bereft of the superficiality of, say, "Saturday Night Live" or Jimmy Fallon, often comes under attack. This was no exception and Friday, on HBO's "Real Time," Maher responded (video below) to the controversy by unveiling a new segment. He called it "Explaining Jokes to Idiots," and explained

.... what the joke is, that they look alike; that's it- they look alike! Their facial features are quite similar, which is humorous because one is a murder and the other is in a boy band where they only murder the music. Now, it turns out Zayn Malik is a Muslim but neither I nor anyone on our staff even knew that. How could we- the whole joke is I don't know who the f_ _ _ he is.








Even before the second segment, the comedian's bit provoked a change.org petition out of Great Britain (which could explain the deviant spelling) beginning "Firstly, this is not about making Bill Maher a scapegoat."

Then attempting to make Bill Maher a scapegoat, SJ Temi continues....

and before you disregard this thinking 1D fans are angry because of Zayn Malik, think again.This is about how islamophobia, racism and discrimination of ANY kind is wrong, shouldn't be ignored and must end.

Bill Maher publicly not only insulted but also discriminated against Zayn Malik with an islamophobic terrorist joke, which was broadcast on television last night. (04/04/2015) "Where were you during the Boston Marathons?" -- followed by a picture of Zayn next to the Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

This is completely unacceptable. Racism should not become normalised especially on NATIONAL TELEVISION. Bill Maher and whoever wrote the script, need to be severely disciplined and at least apologise to show that this type of behaviour is NEVER ok.

It surely is unfortunate Temi doesn't realize this is not discrimination. It is not disparate treatment, but rather speech or, in the spirit of this petition, SPEECH.  It would not be Islamophobia, given no indication that Bill Maher fears Islam or Muslims. In his willingness to take on Muslims and radical Islam, the comedian demonstrates an extraordinary lack of fear of Islam.  While Maher's distaste for Muslims is at least debatable, he clearly is not Islamophobic- and SJ Temi accuses the comedian of a phobia, not of hatred.

Temi doesn't explain what he (if, indeed, a "he") means by racism but presumably a negative comparison of one Muslim to another is racist.    That is a little ridiculous, if unfortunately common, inasmuch as "Muslim" is not a race.  (I'll refrain from questioning whether someone who identifies an individual racially on the basis of his religion is a  racist; I probably would be committing a similar same sin as does Temi.)

Dzhokar Tsarnaev is ethnically Chechen, therefore probably Slavic and white.  One of Malik's parents is ethnically Palestinian (insofar as that is an ethnic group, itself questionable) and the other ethnically English.  That would, it seems, make him white. Your mileage may vary, for race is an elusive term. Unfortunately, "racism" and "racist" are not; they are bandied about recklessly.

"Where were you during the Boston marathon,"  Maher asked. It is a variant of the classic "have you seen these people at the same place," asked upon displaying the pictures of two individuals virtually identical in appearance.  As Maher stated, his joke was funny (or not, depending upon your sense of humor) because it was a joke, not primarily because it was politically incorrect or allegedly insensitive.

The response,however, demonstrates the value of making a point which, with or without humor, is made by few if any other people.  The charge of racism is invalid, the complaint of discriminationis confused, and the phobia is not Maher's toward Islam, but to other comedians, who merely feign edginess while fearing the controversial joke or comment.






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And To Debate Mr. Bush, Here Is Mr. Bush

Open the dictionary (if you still own one, which probably means you're over 50 years of age) and look up the word "weasel" (mountain weasel, below).  You will find that the picture accompanying the definition bears a striking resemblance to a former governor of Florida, who is raising the use of weasel words to an impressive level.

Reporting on the the appeal of the ex-governor to attendees of the NRA convention in Nashville, Patrick O'Connor and Beth Reinhard of The Wall Street Journal report

During his eight-year stretch as governor, Mr. Bush signed numerous bills extending new rights to gun owners, including those to expand protections for people permitted to carry concealed firearms. As a result, more than a million Floridians have permits to carry concealed weapons. He also approved a measure allowing Florida to extend its protections to residents of other states who visit the Sunshine State.

One of those Floridians with a permit to carry a concealed weapon was one George Zimmerman. Nonetheless, Bush's appeal is enhanced because of

.... the 2005 decision to sign a bill, among the most sweeping of its kind, that expanded protections for Floridians who use deadly force against home intruders or people who attack them in their cars, workplace or even on the street. The law has since become a touchstone in a broader debate about the use of deadly force, following the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.

Not only is that not embarrassing (nor would you expect it to be) among GOP activists, Bush tried in Nashville to turn the legislation to his own political advantage, contending "liberal, progressive worldview of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, and all of the other people who want to take the guns out of the hands of the good guys." You know those good guys- felons, the mentally ill, individuals who sell guns to Mexican drug cartels, and the others we should keep armed at all times.

John Ellis Bush did not say whether George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin, is one of the "good guys."   However, according to the WSJ

In the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Mr. Bush said the law shouldn’t have applied in those circumstances, in which the teen was shot by a self-appointed local neighborhood watchman. Mr. Bush also expressed sympathy for the victim’s family, telling reporters that “anytime an innocent life is taken, it’s a tragedy,” and he questioned the pace of the investigation.

But Mr. Bush didn’t waver in his support for the underlying legislation. “Applied properly, I support the law,” Mr. Bush stated shortly after the incident.

If John Ellis Bush believed a mistake had been made by the jury or by Judge Debra Nelson, he should have said so, for the latter told the jury 

If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

The error was the law, notwithstanding an attempt to weasel out of either admitting it was misguided or at least arguing that the legislation usually results in a fair outcome.  Instead, Bush takes no responsibility for instances in which the law has been counter-productive.  O'Connor & Reinhard quote "vocal critic" Democratic state senator Chris Smith noting Bush "was aware of the possible ramifications. We brought up Trayvon Martin situations in those debates."

This is the way it is with John Ellis Bush.  In South Carolina last month, he said "state minimum wage laws are fine" but also that he merely opposes raising the federal minimum wage. (His aides are noncommittal.) At around the same time, he asserted "there should be protections, and so, as it relates to marriage equality," using the left's code for support of same-sex marriage. Simultaneously, he maintained "I don't know about the law, but religious freedom is a serious issue, and it's increasingly so, and I think people that act on their conscience shouldn't be discriminated against, for sure."

Evidently, Bush is for same-sex marriage except when religious people speak out against it (spinning his web of deceit on the Hugh Hewitt Show in late March, below). And he "doesn't know about the law" because, presumably, the law doesn't matter. In virtually all matters, John Ellis Bush will be whatever his benefactors wish him to be.










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