Time to Institute the Random Penis Swabs

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This is the panel Darrell Issa had today on whether women should have access to birth control as part of their health care.

Five penis creatures testifying about whether vagina monsters should be able to control their own vaginas.

Issa said he had only men for religious reasons. Apparently, Issa doesn’t believe women faith leaders are really faith leaders.

Sorry. I mean “vagina monster faith leaders.”

What’s missing from this entire discussion is that men, too, can use birth control–like condoms. And the logic of these penis creature faith leaders is that employers should be able to control whether or not employees spend money on birth control, period. Condoms, like the pill, are generally not free.

So shouldn’t these penis creatures be worried about their penis creature employees spending money on condoms, in the same way they claim to be concerned that their vagina monster employees use their compensation to buy the pill?

The logical extension of the argument of these faith leaders is that religious employers also ought to be able to make sure their male employees aren’t using their compensation to buy condoms, either. So I suggest they impose random penis swab tests to check for latex residue, just to make sure their employees haven’t been donning little rain coats on their free time.

That’s freedom of religion, right, the freedom to intrude in employees’ private life to police their actions?

Line up, gentlemen, it’s time for your employer to check your dick to make sure it hasn’t been using birth control.

9th Circuit Prop 8 Decision: Equal Protection NOT At The End Of The Rainbow

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Liberty & Justice by Mirko Ilic

The highly anticipated Ninth Circuit decision on the appeal from Judge Vaughn Walker’s groundbreaking opinion in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now captioned “Perry v. Brown“) has arrived! IT IS A VICTORY for supporters of marriage equality and constitutional protection of sexual identity interests!

The full text of the decision is here. Authored by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, it is a long opinion discussing several key issues of law. Generally, they break down into three areas: 1) whether Vaughn Walker was qualified to sit as the trial judge in light of the fact he is an acknowledged homosexual, 2) whether or not the proponents of Proposition 8 (referred to in the trial court as “Defendant-Intervenors” or “D-I’s”) have standing to bring the appeal, and 3) whether or not the merits of Judge Walker’s decision trial court decision to grant constitutional due process and equal protection status to the plaintiffs Perry, and thus find that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, should be upheld. We will take those in order.

Vaughn Walker’s Qualification

The new Chief Judge in the Northern District of California, James Ware, wrote a very strong opinion finding it completely proper for Walker to sit as the trial judge in Perry. And the 9th Circuit had already slapped down an attempt by the Prop 8 Proponents (hereinafter “Proponents”) to disqualify Panel Judge Stephen Reinhardt because his wife worked for the ACLU. So, it would have been shocking for the 9th to bite off on the nonsense that Vaughn Walker could not impartially serve as trial judge for the case. There is no shock delivered today, the 9th has joined Ware in blasting this craven argument, in fact the court states that it adopts Ware’s basis effectively in full.

Standing To Appeal

The issue of standing is arguably the most critical in the appellate case. Since the State of California made the calculated decision not to appeal and give the nominal cover their participation would provide to Proponents, if the Proponents do not have individual standing, there is effectively no appeal. There are actually two parties that have sought standing, the Proponents, and Imperial County of California through its court clerk.

As to Imperial County, I, along with others on the ECF mailing list got accidental notice of the court’s ruling yesterday when the 9th Circuit slipped up and transmitted the separate ruling on their motion to intervene in the appeal. It is denied as being untimely brought.

The Proponent’s intervention was certainly not untimely though, and it was unanimously certified by the California Supreme Court as being proper on the merits. In light of the strong decision finding standing for proponents by the California Supremes, after the 9th Circuit had asked them to make the determination, it would be pretty hard for the 9th to not follow the certified advice and grant standing. And they have done exactly that:

It is for the State of California to decide who may assert its interests in litigation, and we respect its decision in holding that Proposition 8’s Proponents have standing to bring this appeal on behalf of the state.

Constitutional Merits Issues

The big kahuna, of course, is whether or not Vaughn Walker’s meticulously laid out and reasoned decision granting protection to plaintiffs Perry under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses would be upheld. And, as I have consistently predicted would occur, the 9th has indeed upheld Judge Walker’s ruling. WAHOOOO!

It is a narrower and shallower victory than I had hoped and predicted though.

All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of ‘marriage,’ which symbolizes state legitimization and social recognition of their committed relationships. Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those opposite-sex couples. the Constitution simply does not allow for “laws of this sort.” Romer v. Evans, 517 US 620, 633 (1996).

As I said, this is much narrower than hoped for. By basing on Romer instead of the full constitutional protections of due process and equal protection, the court has likely increased the odds the decision stands up to further appeal, but has done a disservice to those seeking true equality, both as to marriage and otherwise, for gays and lesbians. In short, it does not move the ball nearly as much as it should have, and was hoped for. The decision of the 9th does not go nearly as far as Vaughn Walker did, and wastes much of the meticulous taking of evidence, making of findings of facts and law, and crafting of his decision. It was hand tailored to go MUCH further, and that now appears at least significantly squandered.

Also of note, it is a split decision, with Reinhardt and Mike Hawkins joining the majority, and N. Randy Smith dissenting. Although Smith is a Mormon, and reasonably conservative, the strength of his dissent is somewhat surprising compared to his seeming attitude at oral argument of the appeal.

So, where does that leave us? With a good decision for those same sex couples wanting to marry in California, and one more likely than a broader decision to stand up to appeal. But, it is by no means certain that even this narrow ruling will maintain; if the case was going to go to SCOTUS, it should go with all the gusto and Constitutional protection afforded that it can muster for all the same sex couples, in all the states, not just California. Today’s decision falls shamefully short of that. It is somewhat of an embarrassment for one of the last great liberal lions like Steve Reinhardt actually. I have to believe he was choked somewhat by Mike Hawkins, but, frankly, such is surprising to me based on my knowledge of Hawkins, even though he is not nearly the wild eyed liberal Reinhardt is.

Not only is the decision disappointing, but it will likely also be stayed pending further review as well. so not even relief for those in California is in the offing anytime soon. Sigh.

[As always on these Prop 8 posts, the absolutely incredible graphic, perfect for the significance and emotion of the Perry Prop 8 case, and the decision to grant marriage equality to all citizens without bias or discrimination, is by Mirko Ilić. Please visit Mirko and check out his stock of work.]

Chrysler’s Halftime Lesson: Government Investment for America’s Rebound

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[youtube]pGMOhOYvcw4[/youtube]

Once again, Chrysler had one of the best ads in yesterday’s Super Bowl, once again using the aesthetic of Detroit disaster porn to offer gritty inspiration. And while it’s not as good as the Eminem version last year, it might appeal to Chrysler’s target market even more, as it generalizes the uncertainty so many people feel.

I was struck by an irony at the core of the ad, though. Eminem really does embody Detroit. Clint Eastwood, in contrast, has no such personal tie to the city. And while his gritty voice works great for the ad. His delivery of, “This country can’t be knocked out with one punch” perfectly caught his performed toughness (it reminded me of his Million Dollar Baby, which I loved).

The one other reason to choose Eastwood for this ad, it seems to me, is the role he played as Walt Kowalski in his Gran Torino. That guy, an old Korean war vet struggling with the increasing diversity of his lifetime neighborhood, did embody Detroit, as much as Eminem does.

Yet, as written, Kowalski was not a lifetime Detroiter. Rather, screenwriter Nick Schenk based him on a bunch of veterans he met while working in a liquor store in his native Twin Cities. (h/t Wizardkitten)

“And in all of those jobs, especially in the liquor store, I would meet a lot of guys who were vets,” he said.

Schenk recalls asking customers with military tattoos about where and when they served.

“Little by little, as they came in every day for their bottle of ‘medicine,’ they’d tell you a little bit more,” he said.

“If you were respectful — I think everyone wants to get stuff off their chest, and they’re not going to tell their wives, they’re not going to tell their kids — and so if they can find an outlet to dump it out off on, that was me. I had a lot of guys telling me stories for years,” he said.

Those experiences helped him shape the character of Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran played by Clint Eastwood.

And the Hmong community was based on the Twin Cities’ sizable Hmong community.

Gran Torino, that tale of troubled old America coming into conflict with, and learning to love, the future of America, was shot in Detroit rather than the Twin Cities because of government intervention. The film was shot during the period when film credits offered under Jennifer Granholm and cut under Rick Snyder brought lots of new, creative jobs to MI; it was one of the first big films to be shot using the credits. Walt Kowalski was a native Detroiter only because MI invested in making him one.

And so Clint Eastwood, that Bay Area native who told a story about the Twin Cities but set it in Detroit, generalized the Detroit-specific ad about resilience from last year. But both the invocation of the Chrysler bailout and the use of Eastwood remind that rebounds work best when governments invest.

One more detail: this story–as told by Chrysler–leaves out a key part of the story. As John Nichols reported this morning, Chrysler specifically edited unions out of this story.

At the fifty-second point in the ad, images from last year’s mass pro-union protests in Madison, Wisconsin, were featured.

But something was missing: union signs.

The images from Madison appear to have been taken from a historic video by Matt Wisniewski, a Madison photographer whose chronicling of the protests drew international attention and praise. Wisniewski’s work went viral, and was even featured in a video by rocker Tom Morello.

Wisniewski’s original video, from an evening rally at the King Street entrance to the Wisconsin Capitol, features images (at the two-minute, seventeen-second mark) of signs raised by members of Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI), the local education union that played a pivotal role in the protests. One sign features the MTI logo, another reads: “Care About Educators Like They Care for Your Child.”

In the Chrysler ad, the MTI logo is missing and the “Care About Educators…” sign is replaced with one featuring an image of an alarm clock. Several other union signs are simply whited out.

It’s an incomplete picture, because government support is not enough to bring on America’s second half. But it is a key part of it.

Update: Karl Rove hates it. Always a good sign, in my book.

Wildcard Weekend and Battleship Potemkin Trash

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Sometimes you see things that just make you shake your head and say “what the hell is going on here?”

Here we are at the start of the NFL Playoffs – the always thrilling, and often surprising Wildcard Weekend – topped off by the Saturday night special featuring the Detroit Kitties first return to the playoffs since the late 1990s. And Marcy is going to be getting her culture on at a staging of Battleship Potemkin.

Say what???

Yes, you read that correctly. We have here a playoff game with two, count em two, 5,000 yard passers. Yep, while all the focus down the stretch was on Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady, Matt Stafford quietly put up one hell of a season and eclipsed the magic 5,000 yard barrier. In short, he has been great and along with a semi-healthy MegaTron Johnson, gives the Lions a puncher’s chance tonight. One other thing about Stafford, while he did give up 16 picks this year, 9 of them came when he was struggling with a protective glove over a broken index finger. That has mostly resolved and Stafford was money down the stretch. Also, the Kitties have their defensive backfield back to full strength with the return of Louis Delmas and CB Aaron Berry. The Saints are, of course what we thought they were. Flat out bad ass nasty good on offense led by the field general Brees and Darren Sproles chewing up ground. The Saints’ O-boys can get some game on, but their defense is not what it was in the Super Bowl run two years ago.

I won’t bet any money on it, but the Lions are more than capable of winning this game over the Saints, and it should be a LOT of fun to watch. Well, that is, assuming you are actually watching the game and not Battleship Potemkin! Which brings up the collateral damage problem. McCaffrey. You see McCaffrey LOVES him some football, and must be in the throes of despair at not being able to watch the Kitties and Saints like other rational American dogs. McCaffrey, seen at left during happier times, is considering filing a lawsuit for emotional distress. Soon as he puts his paw print on the contingency fee agreement, we are off!

The early game on Saturday is Bengals at Texans. If the Texans were at full strength, this is not close. But Matt Schaub is done for the year and Houston is going with rookie TJ Yates, who has a bruised up left shoulder, with Jake Delhomme in reserve. Andre Johnson should play, but is clearly still fairly hobbled. Linebacker Mario Williams also out. Houston really backed in to the playoffs with three losses to close out the season, but do have a great ground game. The Bengals did not exactly light it up down the stretch, but did really shows signs of maturing as a team, and Andy Dalton looks very much like a professional QB rather than a rookie. Edge to the Bengals.

The early game Sunday is Dirty Birds at Gents. If this game was in Hot’Lanta, I think it is not even close. But in NY (okay New Joisey), it is a tossup. The Giants defense seems to be gelling at just the right time and the running game is coming around a little. Atlanta despite the stability that should come from the air/ground combo of Matt Ryan and Michael The Burner Turner, has tendencies to be flaky. Probably all comes down to whether Good or Bad Eli shows up. Bet here is that it is Good Eli and the Giants boasting is correct, they are going to be a tough out in the playoffs.

The late game Sunday is, of course, The Tebowl. Stillers are gonna go pay their respects to Baby Jesus at the Mile High Mount. Probably won’t be much actual respect shown though. Big Ben is gimpy, and Ryan Clark is staying home because of the altitude and his sickle cell issue. And the Steelers have other health issues and blah, blah, blah. They are still the Steelers and Tim is still Tebow, great heart and no arm. Is it possible for the Broncs and Baby Jesus to pull off a shocker and win? Sure, but not damn likely.

This will in all likelihood also be the designated Trash post for Monday’s BCS Championship game. Not much to discuss there, we have already seen this game, it is just that the craptastic BCS is making us watch it again. Both are excellent teams, and both have killer D’s. But, just like last time, the slight edge goes to Honey Badger and LSU.

Throw down some Trash people!

Fuck You To Jamie Dimon & His Plaintive Wail For The 1%

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Pardon me for the Taibbi like insolence, but this is just fucking amazing. While most Americans are struggling to stay alive, employed, and their families fed and in their homes, much less celebrate a decent Christmas, the 1% Masters Of The Universe have gotten together for a group bitchfest of elitist assholes:

Jamie Dimon, the highest-paid chief executive officer among the heads of the six biggest U.S. banks, turned a question at an investors’ conference in New York this month into an occasion to defend wealth.

“Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) CEO told an audience member who asked about hostility toward bankers. “Sometimes there’s a bad apple, yet we denigrate the whole.”

Dimon, 55, whose 2010 compensation was $23 million, joined billionaires including hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Home Depot Inc. (HD) co-founder Bernard Marcus in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves and the richest 1 percent of the population targeted by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.

Uh, fuck you Jamie Dimon and to the plaintive wail of the skimming, raping moneychangers.

Oh, and in case you had any question on what side of the 1%/99% divide Barack Obama and his Administration are on, yet another answer was given today with the announcement of their proposed selection for the critical “independent” seat on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC):

The Obama administration is considering nominating Jeremiah Norton, an executive director for JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank, to sit on the FDIC’s board of directors.

Who is Jeremiah Norton? Well, as this quote states, he executive director of the investment banking shop and one of Obama’s buddy, Jamie Dimon’s, right hand men. Oh, and before that, Norton was former Goldman Sachs honcho Henry Paulson’s right hand man in the Bush Treasury Department and assisted Paulson in getting Goldman Sachs a backdoor bailout through AIG.

And, remember, if Barack Obama has to replace Turbo Tax Timmeh Geithner, Jamie Dimon is near the top of the list of replacements thought to be on the White House’s list.

So, while OWS is out protesting and the majority of citizens are falling deeper in despair and many losing their homes and hopes, and Barack Obama duplicitously coos about feeling the pain of the 99%, this is what is going on where the rubber meets the actual road.

PS: Digby has pounded Dimon on this as well if you want more searing criticism.

Václav Havel: From the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution to the Year of the Protestor

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We’re an empire now. And when we act, we create our own reality. –Senior Bush Advisor to Ron Suskind

 

It can be said, therefore, that ideology, as that instrument of internal communication which assures the power structure of inner cohesion is, in the post-totalitarian system, something that transcends the physical aspects of power, something that dominates it to a considerable degree, and therefore, tends to assure its continuity as well. It is one of the pillars of the system’s external stability. This pillar, however, is built on a very unstable foundation. It is built on lies. It works only as long as people are willing to live within the lie. –Václav Havel, “Power of the Powerless“

In his essay, Power of the Powerless, Václav Havel described how citizens of “post-totalitarian” societies perform certain rituals–his central example was a green grocer putting the sign, “Workers of the World, Unite!” in his shop window every morning, but he saw the “dictatorship of consumption” to work similarly–to signify their adherence to the ideology on which power in the system rests. The system relies on (and rewards, with access to a comfortable livelihood) the universal performance of such rituals to sustain the ideology that gives the raw power behind the system some legitimacy. He argued that if people began to live within the truth–stopped putting up the sign every morning and paid the consequences in terms of lost benefits–it might expose the lie behind the myths people told themselves about their society.

But the moment someone breaks through in one place, when one person cries out, “the emperor is naked!”–when a single person breaks the rules of the game, thus exposing it as a game–everything suddenly appears in another light and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably.

Read more →

Obama: “As the Father of 2 Daughters” I Want the Government to Ignore Science

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Barack Obama, who was educated in the country’s most esteemed universities, has implied that having daughters has convinced him the government should ignore science.

His anti-science justification came in response to questions about HHS’ decision to override the FDA’s recommendation that Plan B be made available over-the-counter. He justified his support for the decision on the fact that he has daughters.

President Obama said today that “as the father of two daughters,” he supports his health secretary’s decision to block over-the-counter sales of the Plan B “morning after” birth control pill to girls under 17 years of age.

He also appealed to that classic anti-science “wisdom”–common sense–as rationale to ignore science.

“I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine,” Obama said during an impromptu news conference at the White House.

I find it troubling not just that Obama wouldn’t see the wisdom of making it possible for young girls to avoid unplanned pregnancies that might otherwise present a much bigger health risk to them. But I find the appeal to fatherhood as justification for ignoring science even more troubling.

Because, of course, Obama has ignored the scientists before, most notably when he decided to let his and everyone else’s daughters breathe dangerous levels of ozone for several more years so as to appease big business. It’s science that shows Obama ought to reject the Keystone pipeline for the good of his daughters. It’s science that shows if we don’t take climate change more seriously immediately, Obama’s daughters’ and the rest of their generation will face a calamitous future.

Obama’s daughters are not my business, and in any case they seem well-able to see past the bullshit of their father’s job.

But when a highly educated person decides all of us should put aside science out of the pretense that his daughters will be safer because of it–that’s highly dangerous. It’s precisely because he has children that Obama ought to make sure all government decisions are governed first and foremost by the science.

Update: Emily Douglas makes almost the same point here.

Update: See also this excellent post from Kaili Joy Gray.

California Supreme Court Rules There Is Standing For Prop 8 Intervenors

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Liberty & Justice by Mirko Ilic

When the Ninth Circuit initially referred the issue of standing for the Defendant-Intervenors in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger/Brown back at the start of the year, I wrote this:

I still look for the California Supreme Court to certify this issue, and my best guess is they will find standing, the case will be sent back to the 9th Circuit for a merits decision and the 9th will uphold Vaughn Walker. Assuming all that is the case and plays out accordingly, it will sure eviscerate much of the ability of the US Supreme Court to avoid the merits on standing (which I think they otherwise would do). The bad news is this is going to take well over a year, and could easily be two years if there is an en banc process as well in the 9th. An attempt to repeal Proposition 8 will almost certainly be on the ballot for the 2012 election and if it gets repealed, this case is moot. That would not be so bad, as it would reinstate marriage equality in California. However if it fails, and Barack Obama loses in 2012, and there is a very early opening on the Supreme Court, the resulting extreme rightward shift would be very detrimental. There are a lot of ways this could go in the future, stay tuned!

The California Supreme Court just issued its opinion and I have been affirmed! In short, the highest California appellate court has certified to the 9th Circuit that, as a matter of state law, the DI’s have legitimate standing to represent their side of the matter in Federal appellate courts.

The key finding is:

At the request of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, we agreed to decide a question of California law that is relevant to the underlying lawsuit in this matter now pending in that federal appellate court. (Perry v. Brown (9th Cir. No. 10-16696); see Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.548.) As posed by the Ninth Circuit, the question to be decided is “whether under Article II, Section 8 of the California Constitution, or otherwise under California law, the official proponents of an initiative measure possess either a particularized interest in the initiative’s validity, which would enable them to defend the constitutionality of the initiative upon its adoption or appeal a judgment invalidating the initiative, when the public officials charged with that duty refuse to do so”.
….
Accordingly, we respond to the question posed by the Ninth Circuit in the affirmative. In a postelection challenge to a voter-approved initiative measure, the official proponents of the initiative are authorized under California law to appear and assert the state’s interest in the initiative’s validity and to appeal a judgment invalidating the measure when the public officials who ordinarily defend the measure or appeal such a judgment decline to do so.

Here is the full decision.

The opinion was written by newly seated Chief Judge Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who was literally sworn in the day before the 9th Circuit dumped this question in the laps of the California Supremes. It appears quite well sculpted and the full court signed on to her opinion; however, Judge Kennard issued a specially concurring opinion to “highlight the historical and legal events that have led to today’s decision and to explain why I concur in that decision”. As I said back in January, this was not really all that novel of an issue in California jurisprudence, and so the court has noted and, now, established with certainty.

Time for Steve Reinhardt and his merry band of 9th Circuit pranksters to fire up the cert alert in the stodgy halls of SCOTUS! And I think that will be happening sooner rather than later as the 9th has already received full briefing and oral argument on the merits. I would even go so far as to say there are draft opinions already written and ready to be tweaked and supplemented with today’s California Supreme Court ruling. So expect a ruling from the 9th fairly quickly.

I will be adding in some more analysis after a thorough reading of the full opinion.

[The absolutely incredible graphic, perfect for the significance and emotion of the Perry Prop 8 case, and the decision to grant marriage equality to all citizens without bias or discrimination, is by Mirko Ilić. Please visit Mirko and check out his stock of work.]

The Army Teaches American Culture to Americans

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Sorry for my absence over the last week. Mr. EW and I drove to South Carolina to visit his family. I had thought I’d get posting time. It didn’t work out that way.

Profuse thanks to Jim White and bmaz for watching the shop while I was gone.

While I was in SC, I read this Secrecy News piece about the cultural literacy flash cards the Army had developed for soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

These cards can be used in many different ways, but they are designed as ―fillers‖ to be taken out of your ACU pocket and used between tasks or waiting for the next training to begin. Soldiers must understand how vital culture is in accom-plishing today’s missions. Military personnel who have a superficial or even dis-torted picture of a host culture make enemies for the United States. Each Soldier must be a culturally literate ambassador, aware and observant of local cultural be-liefs, values, behaviors and norms.

I was interested in the cards because I’ve had several conversations with fans of CounterInsurgency doctrine. Repeatedly, I’ve argued the US is never going to be good at COIN, because Americans generally–and a good proportion of grunt recruits more specifically–are too parochial to be able to execute COIN, which requires a fairly acute sensitivity to culture. Hell, we don’t even learn other languages–not even Spanish, which is virtually a second language in this country. So I was curious about how the Army tried to overcome this parochialism.

The cards struggle to explain what culture is, generally.

Humans are biologically equipped to create and use culture. Culture is all knowl-edge passed from one generation to another. Culture can be divided into symbolic culture and material culture. Symbolic culture is all of a group’s ideas, symbols and languages. Material culture is tools, clothing, houses and other things that people make or use. It is all human inventions: from stone tools to spacecraft.
[Critical Thinking: What kinds of culture do we take for granted in everyday life?] [brackets and emphasis original]

Having tried to get honors college freshman to understand culture, I get that this is a tough concept for relatively sheltered young adults to understand. The cards, curiously, didn’t ask readers to do what has worked for me in the past–a straight inventory of differences between one’s own culture and that of others. Rather, it spent pages laying out Afghan culture (without, IMO, distinguishing sufficiently between Pashtun and other Afghan cultures). And then included one page (see page 31) describing what the card authors believe American culture to be. Here’s how the cards describe “the characteristics of American Culture”:

  • Fast-paced.
  • Punctuality.
  • Women’s rights.
  • Egalitarian, belief in equal opportunity; not outcomes.
  • Goal-oriented.
  • Individualism.
  • Pragmatism.
  • Tolerance.
  • Separation of church and state.
  • Value work and personal success.
  • Love of technology.

Now, to be fair, the military generally is one of the most egalitarian institutions left in our increasingly unequal country. So I don’t blame whatever contractor the Army inadvisedly picked to write these cards for claiming the US still is egalitarian.

But “women’s rights”? “Separation of church and state”? “Tolerance”?

Maybe I found these assertions to be all the more laughable because I read them in SC–not known for either its commitment to women’s rights or tolerance.

But if you want to point to one reason why we’ll never succeed at COIN, you can look to the military’s institutional misunderstanding of who we Americans are.

A Rancid Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Trial Balloon, Herbert Obamavilles, What Digby Said & The Import of the Occupy Movement

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I do not usually just post simply to repeat what another somewhat similarly situated blogger has said. But late this afternoon/early this evening, I was struck by two things almost simultaneously. Right as I read Gretchen Morgenson’s latest article in the NYT on the latest and most refined parameters of the foreclosure fraud settlement, I also saw a post by Digby. The intersection of the two was crushing, but probably oh so true.

First, the latest Foreclosure Fraud Settlement trial balloon being floated by the “State Attorney Generals”. There have been several such trial balloons floated on this before; all sunk like lead weights. This is absolutely a similar sack of shit; from Morgenson at the NYT:

Cutting to the chase: if you thought this was the deal that would hold banks accountable for filing phony documents in courts, foreclosing without showing they had the legal right to do so and generally running roughshod over anyone who opposed them, you are likely to be disappointed.

This may not qualify as a shock. Accountability has been mostly A.W.O.L. in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. A handful of state attorneys general became so troubled by the direction this deal was taking that they dropped out of the talks. Officials from Delaware, New York, Massachusetts and Nevada feared that the settlement would preclude further investigations, and would wind up being a gift to the banks.

It looks as if they were right to worry. As things stand, the settlement, said to total about $25 billion, would cost banks very little in actual cash — $3.5 billion to $5 billion. A dozen or so financial companies would contribute that money.

The rest — an estimated $20 billion — would consist of credits to banks that agree to reduce a predetermined dollar amount of principal owed on mortgages that they own or service for private investors. How many credits would accrue to a bank is unclear, but the amount would be based on a formula agreed to by the negotiators. A bank that writes down a second lien, for example, would receive a different amount from one that writes down a first lien.

Sure, $5 billion in cash isn’t nada. But government officials have held out this deal as the penalty for years of what they saw as unlawful foreclosure practices. A few billion spread among a dozen or so institutions wouldn’t seem a heavy burden, especially when considering the harm that was done.

The banks contend that they have seen no evidence that they evicted homeowners who were paying their mortgages. Then again, state and federal officials conducted few, if any, in-depth investigations before sitting down to cut a deal.

Shaun Donovan, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said the settlement, which is still being worked out, would hold banks accountable. “We continue to make progress toward the key goals of the settlement, which are to establish strong protections for homeowners in the way their loans are serviced across every type of loan and to ensure real relief for homeowners, including the most substantial principal writedown that has occurred throughout this crisis.”

Read the full piece, there is much more there.

Yes, this is certainly just a trial balloon, and just the latest one at that. But it is infuriating, because Read more →

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