September 2015 archive

In a speech Saturday at The New School in New York, Noam Chomsky explained why he believes the U.S. poses the greatest threat to world peace. “[The United States] is a rogue state, indifferent to international law and conventions, entitled to resort to violence at will. … Take, for example, the Clinton doctrine-namely, the United States is free to resort to unilateral use of military power, even for such purposes as to ensure uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources-let alone security or alleged humanitarian concerns. And adherence to this doctrine is very well confirmed and practiced, as need hardly be discussed among people willing to look at the facts of current history.” Chomsky also explained why he believes the U.S. and its closest allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are undermining prospects for peace in the Middle East. “When we say the international community opposes Iran’s policies or the international community does some other thing, that means the United States and anybody else who happens to be going along with it.”

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Dean Baker: Will President Obama Stand up to the Drug Thugs?

It takes a lot of courage to defy the folks who make tens of billions a year selling drugs. We will find out soon whether President Obama has the backbone to stand up to Merck, Pfizer, and the other major drug companies in order to protect the health and lives of hundreds of millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries.

The immediate issue is an extension of the period until the poorest countries must adopt U.S.-type patent protections for drugs under the World Trade Organizations (WTO) rules. In 1994, the Clinton administration inserted the trade-related trade aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS, provisions into the agreement that established the WTO. The TRIPS provisions effectively required all WTO members to adopt U.S.-type patent and copyright laws. [..]

The reality is that patent monopolies are a relic of the feudal guild system. They are poorly suited as a mechanism to finance research in a 21st-century economy. If it were not for the enormous political power of the drug industry we would be looking at developing modern alternatives.

It may be too much to expect President Obama to actually talk about reforming our mechanisms for subsidizing research, but it shouldn’t be too much to ask him to join the EU in supporting the indefinite extension for developing countries. It may not be as much fun as flying around the world with billionaires for charity, but it will do much more to help poor people.

Richard Eskow: “Sowers of Change”: The Pope Arrives At a Critical Moment

Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States begins with his arrival in Washington D.C. on Tuesday afternoon. From the nation’s capital he goes to its economic capital, New York City, before concluding his trip with a visit to the nation’s birthplace in Philadelphia.

That itinerary seems to suit the Pope’s message: that political institutions must respond to the needs of the people, that the economy is a tool for human betterment rather than an end in itself, and that it is just as possible to remake society today as it was when this country was founded.

You don’t have to agree with all of the Catholic Church’s doctrines to recognize that the Pope’s message has a timeliness and urgency. New data underscores his call to reduce economic inequality. The ongoing deaths of African Americans in police confrontations highlight his message of social justice. And the planet itself is in peril.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Nathan Hale hanged in the American Revolution; Iraq invades Iran; President Gerald Ford faces a second assassination attempt in weeks; ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ hits Broadway; Songwriter Irving Berlin dies.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Nathan Hale hanged in the American Revolution; Iraq invades Iran; President Gerald Ford faces a second assassination attempt in weeks; ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ hits Broadway; Songwriter Irving Berlin dies.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

September 22 is the 265th day of the year (266th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 100 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, shortly after Lincoln’s inauguration as America’s 16th president, he maintained that the war was about restoring the Union and not about slavery. He avoided issuing an anti-slavery proclamation immediately, despite the urgings of abolitionists and radical Republicans, as well as his personal belief that slavery was morally repugnant. Instead, Lincoln chose to move cautiously until he could gain wide support from the public for such a measure.

In July 1862, Lincoln informed his cabinet that he would issue an emancipation proclamation but that it would exempt the so-called border states, which had slaveholders but remained loyal to the Union. His cabinet persuaded him not to make the announcement until after a Union victory. Lincoln’s opportunity came following the Union win at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. On September 22, the president announced that slaves in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be free.

The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. The first one, issued September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America  that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named ten specific states where it would apply. Lincoln issued the Executive Order by his authority as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy” under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.

The proclamation did not name the slave-holding border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, or Delaware, which had never declared a secession, and so it did not free any slaves there. The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, so it also was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties that were in the process of forming West Virginia, as well as seven other named counties and two cities. Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and thirteen named parishes of Louisiana, all of which were also already mostly under Federal control at the time of the Proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, the Proclamation did free thousands of slaves the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception). In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves[2][3] were freed at once on January 1, 1863.

Additionally, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced, and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved South. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (approximately 4 million, according to the 1860 census) were freed by July 1865.

Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that while the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Several former slave states had already passed legislation prohibiting slavery; however, in a few states, slavery continued to be legal, and to exist, until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted.

C’mon.  Feel the Bern.

I kind of agree with the person (can’t find the link now) who finds late night candidate interviews generally appalling but admitted that Sanders did the best that could be expected.  He got on, made his points, answered a few questions, smiled, shook hands, and left.

The guests tonight are Stephen Curry and Ted Cruz with musical guest Don Henley.

The New Continuity

Debateliness

Tonightly Larry’s guest is…

Wait for it…

Bernie Sanders!

The rest of it hardly matters, but the panelists are Robin Thede, Cipha Sounds, and The Game.

First of all- Bernie!, Bernie!, Bernie!  I’m sorely tempted to bag Stephen even though the first 30 minutes will probably be the only ones worth watching (I mean Ted “I’m much less entertaining than The Donald” Cruz?) but I’m going to follow my usual practice and cover Stephen which is only once and defer Larry who will repeat.

As you read this , you are reading history. Not in the sense that it is something memorable but in the sense that it has happened. So everything that we do or say, once said or done, is in the past one nanosecond later. Think about that and now apply it to the the Fourth Amendment and warantless searches by law enforcement.   The North Carolina Court of Appeals has now applied that logic to a ruling involving the search of a defendant’s  cell phone records without a warrant (pdf) through the backdoor of warrant that was tangential to the case.

Superior Court Judge Lucy N. Inman signed the order and Detective Mitchell submitted it to AT&T, the cellular phone service provider and holder of the account associated with the phone number. AT&T provided the records of the location of the cell phone tower “hits” or “pings” whenever a call was made to or from the cell phone. AT&T sent emails of the longitude and latitude coordinates of these historical cell tower “hits” to Detective Mitchell every fifteen minutes. Detective Mitchell testified an approximately five- to seven-minute delay occurred between the time the phone “pinged” a cell phone tower and the time AT&T received and calculated the location and sent the latitude and longitude coordinates to him.

Tim Cushing at Techdirt explains how the definition of “historical” has now been twisted to violate a defendant’s civil rights:

The defendant argued that the “real time” tracking of his location violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights (as well as analogous parts of North Carolina’s constitution). The court doesn’t buy these arguments, citing the Stored Communications Act, which allows government entities to obtain certain third party records without a warrant. It says the difference between what’s been considered unconstitutional by several courts — obtaining real-time location information with a tracking device — isn’t what’s happening here.

It argues that because the police didn’t intercept these “records,” everything is above-board, even if the sought “historical” data included two days of “records” that were created after the court order was approved.

Several courts have held the SCA permits a government entity to obtain cell tower site location information from a third-party service provider in situations where the cell tower site location information sought pre-dates the court order and where the cell tower site location information is collected after the date the court order issues. Although the former may technically be considered “historical” while the latter is “prospective” in relation to the date of the court order, both are considered “records” under the SCA. The government entity only receives this information after it has been collected and stored by the third-party service provider.

In plainer English, this means law enforcement entities can seek “historical” records from the “future,” with the mitigating factor being that the records are collected by third parties first. A short delay of a few minutes is enough to call these records “historical” under this interpretation.  [..]

While the majority’s interpretation dilutes the meaning of “historical” by including location data yet to be generated under its warrantless wing, it does point out to possible future problems with the use of Stingray devices. These have often been deployed with the same sort of court orders, but contain the ability to track individual phones in real time. Once more details on these deployments come to light, the courts will be forced to confront a plethora of Fourth Amendment violations — at least if they’re going to remain consistent with this interpretation of “historical.”

Can you hear the sound of the shredder?

That desk is my great-grandfather’s.  My road warrior kit is on the right, the keyboard and monitor are part of my semi-permanent installation.  In road mode it all fits in that little case between the waste basket and desk including the power supplies and cords.  My camera bag with 5 batteries and 4 32 Gb Memory cards is hanging off the leaf with the notepad.  The pen is also a smartphone stylus, Moto E, FM Antenna, 2 x 10 hr Earpieces.

This room is haunted.

Not by Chet or even by my Uncle who lived there longer than I did and eventually died there.  Those are his videos in the book case.

Nope.  I haunt it.

I painted it blue like all my rooms and there’s a wall lamp and a plug next to each window and the door (this house is older than I am and I’m 120+).  At the time I arrived the heating was central monoxide so I set up my base on an old kitchen table where the bookcase is today and used the out of sight radiator that didn’t work anyway as a shelf by laying a plank across it.

This is the view from my window.

My bed is once again where it was, the only place it really fits.  My wingback chair long lawn trashed, rattan Chesterfields instead.

I spent 3 years there, writing poetry for machines.  I’ve done a bunch of that.  It was after my career in shipping and receiving and before my turn as a pump jocky.

When I left it was business, it always is.  I said I’d be back in a month or two.  I’ve been gone over 30 years and it seems like yesterday.

There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: The Rage of the Bankers

Last week the Federal Reserve chose not to raise interest rates. It was the right decision. In fact, I’m among the economists wondering why we’re even thinking about raising rates right now.

But the financial industry’s response may explain what’s going on. You see, the Fed talks a lot to bankers – and bankers reacted to its decision with sheer, unadulterated rage. For those trying to understand the political economy of monetary policy, it was an “Aha!” moment. Suddenly, a lot of what has been puzzling about the discussion makes sense: just follow the money. [..]

It’s true that rates – near zero for the short-term interest rates the Fed controls more or less directly – are very low by historical standards. And it’s interesting to ask why the economy seems to need such low rates. But all the evidence says that it does. Again, if you think that rates are much too low, where’s the inflation?

Yet the Fed has faced constant criticism for its low-rate policy. Why?

New York Times Editorial Board: Use Medicare’s Muscle to Lower Drug Prices

Many of the people most affected by rising drug prices are older patients on Medicare, who often live on modest incomes, are in poor health, and take four or more prescription drugs. One way to reduce drug costs for this population is to reverse the policy set by the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare’s prescription drug program.

At Republican insistence, that law barred the federal government from negotiating with drug manufacturers. It relied on bargaining by private insurers that manage drug benefits for Medicare patients, like UnitedHealth, Aetna and CVS Caremark, to wring discounts from the drug makers. That wasn’t enough. [..]

While drug prices paid by insurers are usually discounted from the list price, those prices can still be very high. Medicare, with its enormous buying power, could drive costs down more. This is important because the newest, most expensive drugs for high cholesterol, hepatitis C, cancer and other ailments are needed by a large number of the elderly and disabled people enrolled in that program. Those high prices then result in high co-payments and other cost sharing for its beneficiaries.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

President Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal aired on TV; Authors H.G. Wells and Stephen King born; ‘Monday Night Football’ premieres; Actor-comedian Bill Murray born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

You can’t move mountains by whispering at them.

Pink