Daily Kos

This piece made it as a post to the Rec List today, but I wanted to underline it to encourage those who haven't read it to do so.

Barbara Ehrenreich, who has written about class and poverty for more than 30 years, is the author, among other books, of the best-selling Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. At TomDispatch, she writes Preying on the Poor: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks:

Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.

Barbara Ehrenreich

The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking.

Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states.

It’s not just the private sector that’s preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that they can partially make up for declining tax revenues through fines, fees, and other costs imposed on indigent defendants, often for crimes no more dastardly than driving with a suspended license. And if that seems like an inefficient way to make money, given the high cost of locking people up, a growing number of jurisdictions have taken to charging defendants for their court costs and even the price of occupying a jail cell.

The poster case for government persecution of the down-and-out would have to be Edwina Nowlin, a homeless Michigan woman who was jailed in 2009 for failing to pay $104 a month to cover the room-and-board charges for her 16-year-old son’s incarceration. When she received a back paycheck, she thought it would allow her to pay for her son’s jail stay. Instead, it was confiscated and applied to the cost of her own incarceration.

You might think that policymakers would take a keen interest in the amounts that are stolen, coerced, or extorted from the poor, but there are no official efforts to track such figures. Instead, we have to turn to independent investigators, like Kim Bobo, author of Wage Theft in America, who estimates that wage theft nets employers at least $100 billion a year and possibly twice that. As for the profits extracted by the lending industry, Gary Rivlin, who wrote Broke USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. -- How the Working Poor Became Big Business, says the poor pay an effective surcharge of about $30 billion a year for the financial products they consume and more than twice that if you include subprime credit cards, subprime auto loans, and subprime mortgages. [...]

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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:

These are the professionals we're supposed to be mourning and scrambling to save, the ones whose work all the rest of us are supposedly sponging off of. You know, the ones a democracy can't function without.

Maureen Dowd, Pulitizer Prize winner. Today. New York Times:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Josh Marshall. Blogger. Last Thursday. Talking Points Memo:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

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High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Steve Singiser

If you believe the House of Ras, over the last week the presidential election has moved clearly in the direction of Barack Obama, as a once-formidable Mitt Romney lead has evaporated. Fox News echoes that movement in the president's direction, though the gap there was three weeks, instead of one.

If you believe YouGov (at least, when your Wrap curator gets the numbers right ... more on that later), Mitt Romney has surged in the past week, and has a modest advantage.

And if you believe Gallup, TIPP or PPP, the election has barely moved at all.

Wow, glad we could clear that up for you.

On to the numbers!

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (45-45)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (46-45)

NATIONAL (TIPP for Investor's Business Daily and the Christian Science Monitor): Obama d. Romney (43-40)

NATIONAL (Zogby Analytics for the Washington Times): Romney d. Obama (44-43); Obama d. Romney and Gary Johnson (44-43-2)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

NE-SEN (Rasmussen): Deb Fischer (R) 56, Bob Kerrey (D) 38

NH-01 (PPP): Carol Shea-Porter (D) 47, Rep. Frank Guinta (R) 43

NH-02 (PPP): Ann McLane Kuster (D) 42, Rep. Charlie Bass (R) 42

NC-GOV (Rasmussen): Pat McCrory (R) 50, Walter Dalton (R) 41

ND-SEN (Essman Research/Forum Communications): Rick Berg (R) 51, Heidi Heitkamp (D) 44; Heitkamp 48, Duane Sand (R) 45

ND-SEN--R (Essman Research/Forum Communications): Rick Berg 65, Duane Sand 21

SC-07--R (Francis Marion University): Andre Bauer 22, Tom Rice 21, Chad Prosser 8, Jay Jordan 5, Katherine Jenerette 4, Dick Withington 2, Renee Culler 1, Jim Mader 1, Randal Wallace 1

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...

Mitt Romney, who has a few months yet to stumble-tongue his way into another dozen or so memorable head-shakers before he actually gets the nomination, offered what may well turn out to be this campaign's most blunderful word-blunder yet. It's already viral, unrecallable:

Uh, I'm actually going to to, I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was. And with regards to, uh, I'll go back and take at what was said there.

What's in evidence in this remarkable word salad is the mark of the bad liar.

We all know that Romney is a major liar. We've seen it over and over during this campaign. The pile of his lies already has grown enormously and the general election campaign is barely under way.

For someone with his assets, you would think he would have hired himself a better coach of effective lying. He can certainly afford it given the gobs of cash he's sucked up by destroying jobs and being rewarded for it. But apparently he's been a cheapskate on that front. Because he just isn't very good at it despite all the practice.

A good coach of effective lying will tell you that the first rule is: Don't deviate too far from the truth when lying. Because doing so will make it hard to follow the second rule, which is: Remember your lies.

Mr. "Whatever" has told so many lies and strayed from the truth so often that he can't remember which lie he told when. Sometimes, he's told two different lies about the same thing. And, in the heat of a campaign, that can really make things rough. Can, in fact, lead to the hemming and hawing we see in the statement made today. A jumble that will be used in campaign training seminars from now until mid-century on what not to do. Romney should patent that snippet now and make sure he makes money off it.

But, entertaining as it may be, it's not Romney's campaign clumsiness that's at issue. It's his policy agenda. And that is a nasty piece of business that would have him and his cronies doing even more of what Romney did when he was at Bain: demolishing jobs and transferring wealth into the pockets of the demolishers.

From that perspective, more stumble-tonguing, please.

Oh sweet merciful Zeus, they're at it again. About a year ago, Republican women in the House of Representatives had themselves a little consciousness-raising session, "telling their own stories," trying to correct the "misconception about who are the Republican women," and declaring, "The Republican agenda is indeed pro-woman."

Well, since that went over like a lead balloon, those same women have now penned a column, insisting that "The Republican Party is the real party of American women." And if those meanie Democrats would just stop pointing out all the horrible things Republicans do and say to deprive women of their basic rights, women would finally "see that it’s the Republican Party that’s advancing their values, not the Democrats."

So how do the lady Republicans go about demonstrating their pro-woman bona fides? By opening with an "old joke":

There’s an old joke about a married couple that’s asked about their hobbies and interests. The husband says he’s focused on “important things” — like the federal budget, health care reform and peace in the Middle East. The wife says she’s focused on the “small things” — like their household budget, their children’s health care and keeping peace within their family.

Hahahahahahahahahaha! Get it? Women care about small stuff that doesn't matter! Hahahahahah! Hilarious! And feministical!

But let's continue down this ovarian acid trip of fauxminism below the fold:

About a week ago, one of the closest runners-up for America's Dumbest Congressmen, Louie Gohmert (no, you will not be able to convince me he is dumber than Rep. Allen West, so save your breath on that one) held a prayer event at the Capitol. It was under the pretense of honoring George Washington's presidential inauguration, presumably because George Washington would have loved nothing better than to be forced to sit in a room listening to several hours worth of hard-right conservative preachers telling America what God and George Washington most wanted them to do. It sounds like the main focus was on how sin and abortion was leading America to ruin, and how the only solution is to put Republican Jesus in charge of both Congress and the Federal Reserve.

This bit, from ultra-right preacher Jim Garlow, I think serves as a nice little object lesson on why religion and politics should not be allowed to dance together too closely. An occasional hoedown is probably fine, but if they stay together too long, or aren't chaperoned closely as the long night wears on, things lead to things and after a while you've got a whole bunch of little Official State Religion Jesus-Law babies crawling all over the place, getting into everything. Yes, I know that metaphor went a bit off the rails there. I don't care. All I know is that religion is very, very promiscuous, and politics doesn't always think decisions through.

All right, so go ahead and watch that tape up there, and let's go through it and add some commentary to noted homophobe Dr. Jim Garlow's little speech as we go:

What would happen if we stop saying right versus left, as if they're moral equivalents, and start talking about right versus wrong that are not moral equivalents, in the pulpits of the day.

Why the hell are you talking about right versus left at all, in the pulpits of today? Are you saying it would be nice to switch things up and start preaching about right versus wrong, but you're just too consumed with talk about the political right and left and so there's just no time for the right versus wrong stuff? Then give up your damn tax exemptions, at the very least.

If 350,000 pulpits stood, would have stood for the last fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years. We wouldn't have a debt of sixteen trillion in unfunded liabilities that can cause us to economically self-destruct.

So Jesus is, apparently, deeply against deficit spending and unfunded liabilities? I entirely missed that part of the Bible; I  guess it must have been in the long-lost Gospel According to Paul Ryan. And Lo, for Jesus visited that guy in the wilds of Wisconsin, and told him that economic downturns should always be met with severe government austerity or the poor people wouldn't learn the proper lesson.

It wouldn't have happened. You know why? Because pulpits would have said thou shalt not steal from future generations. It's morally wrong. It's obscene. And people would have gone into voting booths with that riveting in their heart and would affected, and shaken, the kind of legislation that would take place in this great city.

I imagine it's less wrong to promise someone social insurance benefits after they've paid a lifetime of taxes, then cheat them back out of it because you've decided you want to spend their money on some spiffy new (insert war here), but nobody ever talks about that one. For that matter, the pulpits are damn quiet about the (insert war here) part, because Jesus said smite those guys, they probably have it coming. Me, I say Jesus says thou shalt have a decent transportation infrastructure, so thou dost not get thy economic ass kicked by other countries more willing to invest in themselves. Oh, and Jesus says pollution makes God cry, and he's going to smite the tar outta you if you keep pumping it up there into his backyard. The angels have to breathe that crap, you jerks.

If we'd had 350,000 pulpits across America understanding the potential of a holocaust that up to this point has cost us 55 million of our citizens there would have been declaration, the tearing up babies in the womb is a wrong thing and it needs to be stopped now, and it would have never happened,

Translation: If we lived under religious law, things would be different. Namely, the rest of you would do what our particular religion says and believe what our personal sect believes. And we believe all sorts of stuff that the rest of you disagree with, which for some reason means we should have been trying harder to force you to do what we say anyway. The rest of you don't get your own religious law, though—we're going to pass laws forbidding that. It's just ours.

if we had pulpits in America that would understand the dimension of the catastrophic price when you mess with the definition of the most fundamental institution there is, one man, one woman, in marriage. It would have been declared from every pulpit, and we wouldn't have the discussions going on we have going on today.

Yes, yes, it's the end of the world. Marriage is properly between one man and one woman's father, who is allowed to sell his daughter off to the highest bidder or in order to further his political or business ambitions. How dare you take that away from us.

I don't particularly care what Jim Garlow has to say on anything. It is, though, a nice instructive little reminder of how in general it is good to keep a nice little moat between the laws we all have to follow and what people like Jim Garlow have to say about anything. Having a political opinion is fine. Dressing your opinion up in the trappings of What God Wants is not fine, especially if your opinion is that the world needs to treat women, poor people, homosexuals, and the vast majority of everyone else much worse, just because your own invented morality says so.

This is probably why Americans are still not sold on the whole church-state blender idea, according to a recent Pew poll:

A majority of Americans (54%) say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters, while 40% say they should express their views on social and political questions. After a decade in which the balance of opinion tilted in the opposite direction, this is the third consecutive survey in the past four years in which more people say churches should keep out of politics than say churches should express their views on social and political issues.

Personally, I'm fine with churches expressing opinions on social questions. Have at it! Political questions, too, so long as you're willing to toss the tax exemptions aside and be honest about it. But there's still a difference between expressing an opinion and demanding the United States government write their laws in order to codify your opinion as the only valid one. People like Garlow don't understand the difference, and think that their mission in life is not just to tell their own followers how to live their lives, but to make damn sure the rest of us have to as well.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by David Jarman Public Policy Polling (PDF). 5/10-13. New Hampshire voters. MoE ±4.4% for NH-01 and 3.9% for NH-02. (6/30-7/5/2011 in parentheses):

Carol Shea-Porter (D): 47 (41)
Frank Guinta (R-inc): 43 (48)
Undecided: 10 (10)

Ann McLane Kuster (D): 42 (42)
Charlie Bass (R-inc): 42 (43)
Undecided: 15 (15)

New Hampshire seems to have especially outsized reactions to swings in the nation's political pendulum. That's particularly pronounced in the state's enormous House of Representatives, which swung from a 216-174 Democratic edge to a 298-102 Republican edge in the 2010 election—but it's also the case with the state's two U.S. House seats, which both flipped from Republican to Democratic control in the 2006 wave, and back again to Republicans in 2010. We don't seem to be looking at a wave building one way or the other in 2012; instead, put together an election likely to be fought at the 50-yard line and two very swingy seats, and you've got two true tossups, which is exactly what PPP's newest poll of the Granite State finds.

Most observers (with the notable exception of local blogger Dean Barker) have expected that NH-02 is likelier to flip back into Democratic control than NH-01. That's based partly on the districts' leans (the lines barely changed at redistricting, keeping NH-01 53 percent Obama and NH-02 56 percent Obama), but also the 2010 results, important because both races are rematches. Democratic incumbent Carol Shea-Porter lost by double digits to Republican Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, while Ann McLane Kuster (who was trying to hold the seat left open by Paul Hodes' Senate run) came much closer to ex-Rep. Charlie Bass (who picked back up the seat that he lost to Hodes in 2006). Add in Shea-Porter's reputation for weak fundraising, and voila: Conventional wisdom was formed.

However, PPP's newest poll stands that on its head: Shea-Porter leads Guinta by 4, while Kuster ties Bass. That's quite the turnaround for Shea-Porter from PPP's previous poll from almost a year ago, where she trailed Guinta by 7. What seems to have happened is that Guinta has become much less popular, down to a 36/44 approval from 39/38 last year. I'd speculate that might have to do with buyer's remorse, as Guinta has turned out to be much more rigidly conservative than that district would warrant; compare that with Bass, who's one of the House's most moderate Republicans.

But Bass's moderation isn't helping him much: He has even worse 34/49 approvals, though some of that seems to be Republicans who disapprove of him from the right (as seen in that only 62 percent of GOPers approve, but 79 percent will still vote for him). The real problem for Bass might be that there are significantly more undecided Democrats (16 percent) than there are Republicans (9 percent), so a tie is a bad place for Bass to start; that would give Kuster more room to grow than Bass.

When we issued our House Race Ratings several weeks ago, we started NH-01 at "Lean Republican" and NH-02 at "Tossup," based on the previous PPP poll but also on the difference in the districts, the candidates' 2010 margins, and their very different fundraising abilities. This poll (plus the Univ. of New Hampshire poll last month), however, shows that thanks to her name rec from her previous two terms and her grassroots support (along with an assist from an unpopular Guinta), Shea-Porter may actually have the better shot at a pickup here. With that, we're moving NH-01 to "Tossup" as well.

Seems Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has led one too many filibusters. Cuz he really doesn't seem to understand what voting means anymore.

"Yesterday in the Senate we got a vivid look at why the challenges in this country are so difficult to address," McConnell said. "With a looming deficit some have called the most predictable in history, with a national debt at a level none of us ever even imagined, with millions unemployed and millions more underemployed, with the biggest tax hike in history looming at the end of the year, and with entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security drawing ever closer to insolvency, here's what Senate Democrats did yesterday: they ducked.

"They were presented with five different options for dealing with these problems, and they voted against every single one of them."

Democrats ducked by voting? Disagreement is avoidance? Democrats agreed to voting on five bullshit budget resolutions, two of which didn't even get 20 votes! So were a couple of dozen Republicans ducking when they voted against those two resolutions?

Maybe this explains the Republican filibuster addiction. Maybe they're so confused they think if voting is ducking, then obstructing must be taking action.

Filibuster reform is back in the news. Or at least, talk of reform is back in vogue.

Now there's a renewed effort to revive another avenue of reform: the courts.

A lawsuit filed Monday by Atlanta-area Democratic U.S. Reps. John Lewis and Hank Johnson, among others, argues that the 60-vote hurdle to conduct Senate business is unconstitutional because it subverts the idea of majority rule.

[...]

Filed in federal court in Washington, the suit argues that the filibuster gives a minority of one legislative chamber veto power over all three branches of government, by allowing frequent blocking of executive and judicial nominees.

The suit focuses in particular on the failure to pass the Disclose Act and the Dream Act.

I'm not hugely optimistic about the prospects of the suit, simply because federal courts are normally loathe to get involved in the business of the political branches, particularly (you would think) where internal, procedural rulemaking is concerned. Nor am I 100 percent convinced it's a great idea to throw Congressional rulemaking open to the Roberts/Scalia judiciary. But I'll admit it was fascinating and enjoyable discussing the idea with lead counsel in the suit, Emmet Bondurant (who recently laid out his case to Ezra Klein), at an NYU Law school panel on filibuster reform a few years ago. (Brag, brag, brag! Yes, sometimes your Cheeto-munching front pagers masquerade as Very Serious People.)

Still, at the very least, perhaps the threat of outside forces acting on the Senate rules will be a motivating factor for the senators to clean their own house, before anyone else—particularly another branch of government (and one arguably in the unaccountable hands of conservative ideologues, at that)—takes the opportunity to do it for them.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Meteor Blades For the week ending May 12, the Department of Labor Thursday, seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment benefits were unchanged at 370,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 370,000. The four-week moving average that flattens volatility in the weekly numbers was 375,000, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average of 379,750.

For all programs, including the federal emergency extensions in the states hardest hit by the economic downturn, the total number of people claiming benefits for the week ending April 28 was 6,273,624, a decrease of 149,759 from the previous week. That number has been dropping sharply and will continue to do so as the number of weeks allowed for collecting benefits falls from 99 to 63 in September.

Although the job situation overall has been getting marginally better, what this reduction in benefits duration means is that hundreds of thousands of the worst-hit households will now be without jobs and without the modest safety net that unemployment benefits provide. Republicans argue that this will be a good thing because the benefits just keep lazy people from looking for a job. In fact, not only do the benefits help keep a roof over people's heads and food on the table for those without jobs, they keep other people employed as a consequence of the money being spent in thousands of local businesses.

Extended benefits are now available in 15 states and the District of Columbia. They are Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut,  Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia.

Florida Special Prosecutor Angela Corey has released a vast array of evidence Thursday in the February shooting death of  Trayvon Martin. He was shot by George Zimmerman in an incident that created a firestorm of public protest and debate. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder and is free on $150,000 bond.

The evidence, including interviews, recordings of 911 calls, video and other hundreds of pages of documents, is available to the media on a website specifically created for the purpose, and reporters combing through it so far have discovered:

ABC:

• The autopsy report shows traces of the active ingredient of marijuana, THC,  in Martin's blood and urine.

• The report indicated that Martin was shot from a distance of 1 to 18 inches.

• It also said there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on Martin's left fourth finger, indicating a possible struggle.

Associated Press:

• A photo shows Zimmerman with a bloody nose, a one-inch laceration to the back of his head and a forehead abrasion.

Miami Herald:

• Twenty-three witnesses were interviewed. Their statements conflict:

[O]ne eyewitness who said he saw a man in a red shirt getting hit by someone else. When he returned for a second look, the man who was hitting the other was dead.

“I heard yelling out back in the grass area,” the unnamed witness said. “[...] I opened door and saw a guy on the ground getting hit by another man on top of him in a [...] position hitting a guy in a red sweatshirt or red top. I said I was calling the cops and ran upstairs then heard a gun shot. ... The guy on top who was sitting the guy [...] layed out on the grass as he had been shot.”

Another witness saw a “broad man” on top hitting another. The evidence list shows Zimmerman wore a size 38. His shirt was red.

“First we heard like a howling sound. And then the second time we heard a more-clearly ‘help’ sound,” the witness said. “I know after seeing the TV of what’s happening — comparing their pictures — I think Zimmerman is definitely on top because of his size.” [...]

Another female witness told Sanford Detective Chris Serino she was concerned for her safety because Zimmerman knew where she lived, lived in her neighborhood and could come back to harm her, according to a police report.

Serino replied: the person we’re talking about is not somebody who’s going to do something like that.

NPR:

• Reporter Greg Allen states a witness says one man was chasing another, but with no indication of who was chasing whom. Police said they determined that, in one instance, Zimmerman called for help.

Orlando Sentinel:

• The documents reveal that Sanford Police believed the shooting was "ultimately avoidable" if Zimmerman had "remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement."

The autopsy (pdf)

Steve Kornacki reminds us that despite his weird embrace of Bill Clinton in 2012, back in 1994, Mitt Romney campaigned for U.S. Senate on a pledge to roll back Bill Clinton's economic policies:

Running against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, he embraced the ’93 budget as an issue, playing up the tax increases and claiming that it would do nothing to curb deficits because Democrats had refused to make real cuts in spending. When Clinton came to the state in late October to campaign with Kennedy, Romney held a rally of his own with Bill Weld, then the state’s Republican governor.

Kornacki dug up this passage from the Boston Globe at the time:

As Weld led the cheers of “Go, Mitt, Go,” Romney labeled Kennedy and Clinton “the guys who put together the biggest tax increase in the history of the nation” and said they were in Massachusetts “explaining why they need more of your money.”

“It’s fine for Bill and Ted to have their excellent adventure,” Romney said. “But I’d rather be here with Bill Weld showing the voters we care about taxes, about real jobs being created, about being tough on crime and being tough on welfare.”

But now Romney is trying to claim that he's the true heir of Bill Clinton ... even though his policies represent nothing more than Bush's policies on steroids. There's no chance that Romney will actually convince anybody with his weird gambit: The only question is whether it will help people understand just how delusional he can be.