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Jun 12 2011
Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition
“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”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: This should be an interesting Economics forum with Sen. Richard “no” Shelby (R-AL), Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Chairman/CEO of MF Global Inc. Jon Corzine, who is also the former Democratic governor of New Jersey and former Chairman/CEO of Goldman Sachs and ABC News senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal, ABC News senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper and ABC News’ George Will discuss Gingrich’s “rats” jumping ship.
This should be a “winner” panel to discuss Weiner’s political suicide by Twitter:
ABC News’ Claire Shipman, co-author of “Womenomics,” former Assistant Pentagon Press Secretary Torie Clarke, and Cecilia Attias, former wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.I just might watch to hear what Cecilia has to say.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guest are House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist, Rana Foroohar, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor and John Heilemann, New York Magazine National Political Correspondent. They will discuss:
Tough new signs America won’t recover soon: can President Obama still win?
Is talking to the Taliban the way out of Afghanistan?
Meet the Press with David Gregory: The first debate between the new DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and RNC Chair Reince Priebus.
GOP presidential hopeful former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) is interviewed. Don’t expect Gregory to be “harsh”.
The roundtable guests Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D), GOP strategist Mike Murphy, MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe, and the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel will discuss Obama, the economy, the budget and the GOP presidential field.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: New Hampshire politics on the national stage, Candy talks to Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Rep. Charlie Bass.
Then, Candy sits down with two men who share a name well-known in the realm of New Hampshire politics. New Hampshire’s father and son pair, Fmr. Governor John Sununu and Fmr. Senator John Sununu, to give us their take on the GOP field shaping up for 2012.
Finally insights on Monday’s debate from Philip Rucker of The Washington Post and the Neil King of the Wall Street Journal.
Check out our Live Blog of the Le Mans finish and the Canadian Gran Prix.
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Rountable guests are CNN’s “In the Arena”, Eliot Spitzer, conservative commentator Ann Coulter, Reuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland, and the British historian Andrew Roberts.
Coulter??? Really, Fareed, that is scraping bottom.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the author of a new book On China discusses will discuss what, his war crimes?
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius will discuss spying and spies and his new novel Bloodmoney.
The Dow ended the week below 12,000 for the first time since March. This is the sixth straight week of downs for the Dow. It’s almost as bad over at the Nasdaq. All the gains racked up in 2011 have now been erased.
What’s going on?
The real economy is catching up with the financial economy, as it always does eventually. Wall Street is built on smoke and mirrors, while the real economy is based on jobs and wages. Smoke and mirrors can only take you so far – as we learned so painfully three years ago.
Jobs and wages stink, if you haven’t noticed. They’ve been bad for months, even before this week’s data made it fairly clear the recovery has stalled.
Eileen Appelbaum: No Tax Holiday for Multinational Corporations
If you think that “double Irish” and “Dutch sandwich” are schoolyard jump rope games girls play, think again. These are the nefarious, but legal, games that hundreds of multinationals play to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. According to a report by Bloomberg, Google used these techniques to cut its tax rate to 2.4 percent and its taxes by $3.1 billion over the three years from 2007 through 2009. The company’s top two markets by revenue are the US, with a 35 percent corporate income tax rate, and the UK, with a 28 percent rate, yet Google – using practices widely employed by global companies – dramatically reduced its tax rate.
At the heart of this strategy is the transfer of rights to intellectual property developed in the US – often, as in Google’s case, with early research funded by US taxpayers through the National Science Foundation – to a subsidiary in a low-tax country. Foreign earnings based on the technology are then attributed to the subsidiary. Google transferred its search and advertising technology for much of the world to its Irish subsidiary at a price sanctioned in 2006 by the IRS. But even the much-vaunted low Irish taxes were not low enough for Google. That’s where the “double Irish” and the “Dutch sandwich” come in.
Michelle Alexander: Think Outside the Bars: Real Justice Means Fewer Prisons
A white woman with gray hair pulled neatly into a bun raises her hand. She keeps it up, unwavering and rigid, as she waits patiently for her turn to speak. Finally, the microphone is passed to the back of the room, and she leaps to her feet. With an air of desperation she blurts out, “You know white people suffer in this system, too, don’t you? It’s not just black and brown people destroyed by this drug war. My son, he’s been in the system. He’s an addict. He needs help. He needs treatment, but we don’t have money. He needs his family. But they keep givin’ him prison time. White people are hurting, too.” She is trembling and sits down.
There is an uncomfortable silence in the room, but I am in no hurry to respond. I let her question hang in the air. I want people to feel this discomfort, the tension created by her suffering. The audience is overwhelmingly African American, and a few of them are visibly agitated or annoyed by her question. I’ve spent the last forty minutes discussing my book, The New Jim Crow. The book argues that today, in the so-called era of colorblindness, and, yes-even in the age of Obama-racial caste is alive and well in America. The mass incarceration of poor people of color through a racially biased drug war has birthed a new caste system. It is the moral equivalent of Jim Crow.
Michael Winship: The Perils of Ignoring Science
A local NPR reporter was talking with Joseph Nicholson, CEO of Red Jacket Orchards in Geneva, New York, up in the neck of the upstate woods where I was born and raised. There’s been a lot more rain than usual, he said. Produce hasn’t been exposed to sufficient “heat units” — in other words, the sun.
“We’re going to be at least two weeks behind in harvest or ripening,” he said, and if the skies don’t brighten up soon, yields could be down 30 to 35 percent. That’s a lot of lost apples — and cherries, peaches and plums (although the rhubarb is doing just fine, thanks for asking).
As upstate kids we were told — apocryphally — that the only part of the world more overcast than us was Poland, so the idea that all these years later it’s cloudier than ever is startling. Is this part of manmade climate change?
Nicholas D. Kristof: When Food Kills
The deaths of 31 people in Europe from a little-known strain of E. coli have raised alarms worldwide, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Our food often betrays us.
Just a few days ago, a 2-year-old girl in Dryden, Va., died in a hospital after suffering bloody diarrhea linked to another strain of E. coli. Her brother was also hospitalized but survived.
Every year in the United States, 325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours.
Yet while the terrorist attacks of 2001 led us to transform the way we approach national security, the deaths of almost twice as many people annually have still not generated basic food-safety initiatives. We have an industrial farming system that is a marvel for producing cheap food, but its lobbyists block initiatives to make food safer.
Jun 11 2011
Health and Fitness News
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
On the popular television show “Glee,” the ultimate prize for a great performance is a trip to a restaurant called Breadstix. And in the real world, breadsticks are a main attraction at restaurants like the Olive Garden, and even pizza delivery services have gotten on the breadstick bandwagon.
But in terms of nutrition, the typical breadstick is not a food most people associate with healthful eating. This week, Martha Rose Shulman tries to change that image with five new recipes for baking a more healthful breadstick. . . .
Here are five flavorful ways to prepare healthful homemade breadsticks. And for a gluten-free breadstick, you can substitute gluten-free flour mix for the whole-wheat flour in this week’s recipes.
These grainy breadsticks can be irresistible, and they’re much healthier than the restaurant variety.
Walnut oil gives these breadsticks a nutty flavor.
Sesame seeds are used in both the dough and the coating of these nutty-tasting breadsticks.
Rye and caraway, a match made in heaven, aren’t just for Jewish rye bread and rye crisps.
Sesame, poppy and sunflower seeds give these breadsticks a satisfying crunch.
Jun 11 2011
Punting the Pundits
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”.
Jamelle Bouie: Washington: ‘Let’s Cut Spending!’ The Public: ‘Let’s Raise Taxes!’
Conservatives are fond of claiming the United States as a “center-right country,” but public opinion polling routinely shows a country of people who amenable-if not enthusiastic-about liberal solutions to public policy problems. For example, in a recent Pew survey, when asked what they would support to cut the deficit, large majorities support a grab bag of liberal policies: raising the Social Security contribution cap, raising taxes on high-income earners, reducing our military presence, and limiting tax deductions for large corporations. . . . .
This holds true even when broken down by partisan affiliation. Along with 73 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents, 54 percent of Republicans support the Social Security contribution cap. Likewise, 56 percent of Republicans want to reduce our military commitments abroad, and 62 percent want to limit tax deductions for large corporations.
In other words, the deficit conversation in Washington-with it’s near-obsessive focus on spending cuts above all other solutions-is wildly out-of-sync with public preferences.
Paul Krugman: Inflation Fears Rising Faster Than Prices in US and Europe
Two questions about inflation:
1. What would the European Central Bank be doing if it were the Federal Reserve?
2. Why have some measures of core inflation in the United States ticked up slightly recently?
On the first question, Eurostat offers a consumer price index online sans energy, food and tobacco (which is more or less U.S.-style core). If you look at the 12-month change, the euro zone looks like the United States – there is no good reason to raise rates. To be fair, on the labor side things look a bit different: there are actual labor shortages in some parts of Europe, reflecting both low labor mobility and the extreme asymmetry of the European shock. But raising rates for all of Europe because parts of Germany are doing well is, as I’ve written before, worse than the one-size-fits-all policy euroskeptics warned about. It’s one size fits one. And the case for a somewhat higher inflation target is even stronger for the euro zone than it is for the United States.
Meanwhile, back in the new country: Core inflation in the United States has ticked up slightly recently. What’s that about?
Laugh me off as the idealistic son of a physician (which I am), but I still thought the doctor’s ethos of “first do no harm” was a notion we could all agree on. Even in this hyper-polarized Era of the Screaming Red-Faced Partisan, I thought we would witness the recent Fukushima reactor meltdown or footage of Americans setting their tap water on fire and at least agree to stop pursuing energy policies that we know endanger our health and safety-if not out of altruism, then out of self-interest.
How embarrassingly naive I was. That, or I momentarily forgot that this isn’t just any industrialized country-this is America circa 2011, a haven of hubris that has become hostile to the “do no harm” principle.
This makes us different from, say, Japan and Germany when it comes to nuclear power. Scarred by fallout, the former has canceled plans to build 14 new nuclear plants and has radically altered its energy agenda, now moving to pursue solar rather than atomic energy. Likewise, according to The Associated Press, the latter reacted to Japan’s plight by voting “in favor of a ban on nuclear power from 2022 onward.”
Robert Parry: Making the US Economy “Scream”
Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using almost any means available, from challenging the legitimacy of opponents to spreading lies and disinformation to sabotaging the economy.
Over the past four decades or so, the Republicans have simply not played by the old give-and-take rules of politics. Indeed, if one were to step back and assess this Republican approach, what you would see is something akin to how the CIA has destabilized target countries, especially those that seek to organize themselves in defiance of capitalist orthodoxy.
To stop this spread of “socialism,” nearly anything goes. Take, for example, Chile in the early 1970s when socialist President Salvador Allende won an election and took steps aimed at improving the conditions of the country’s poor.
Sarah Anderson: Cut Wall Street Down to Size With a Financial Speculation Tax
If you want to transform the economy, you have to cut Wall Street down to its proper size. One way to do that is to tax the short-term speculative activities that dominate and distort financial markets.
For ordinary investors, the costs would be negligible, like a tiny insurance fee to protect against crashes caused by speculation. But for the highfliers who are most responsible for the financial crisis, the tax could raise the cost of highly leveraged derivatives trading and stock-flipping enough to discourage the most dangerous behavior.
Remember the “flash crash” of May 6, 2010, when the Dow plummeted nearly 1,000 points? If a tax of only 0.25 percent on each transaction had been in place for just the twenty most frenzied minutes of that day, traders would’ve faced $142 million in fees.
John Nichols: Fraud in Fitzwalkerstan: A Legislator is Lying
Wisconsin State Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, is proud of the fact that his Republican Party is recruiting and running spoiler candidates in Democratic primaries for the seats of GOP senators who are being recalled.
These races will decide who will control the upper house of the legislature in a state that now has one-party rule-and a governor who is bent on using all of that power to break labor unions, slash education funding and begin a process of dismantling some of the best Medicaid-supported state healthcare programs in the nation.
Governor Scott Walker could not do any of these things without a pliant legislature. And Fitzgerald (with his brother, Jeff, the Assembly Speaker) keeps things working for Walker.
Scott Fitzgerald, a longtime ally of the governor (who recently appointed Fitzgerald’s father to head the State Patrol) is Walker’s most ardent legislative handmaiden.
Fitzgerald is shameless-and proud of it.
Jun 11 2011
When Is A Lobbyist Not A Lobbyist?
Answer: When it’s a Republican former governor shilling for fracking. It takes a comedian to nail former Governor Tom Ridge (R-PA) trying to say he’s not a lobbyist and cover up the dangers of fracking.
Jun 11 2011
On This Day In History June 11
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.
Click on image to enlarge
June 11 is the 162nd day of the year (163rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 203 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence.
Knowing Jefferson’s prowess with a pen, Adams urged him to author the first draft of the document, which was then carefully revised by Adams and Franklin before being given to Congress for review on June 28.
The revolutionary treatise began with reverberating prose:
While political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence, a document explaining the decision was being written. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a “Committee of Five”, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded-accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable. What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. Considering Congress’s busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next seventeen days, and likely wrote the draft quickly. He then consulted the others, made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled.” Congress ordered that the draft “lie on the table”.
On Monday, July 1, having tabled the draft of the declaration, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia presiding, and resumed debate on Lee’s resolution of independence. John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation.[64] John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration.
Jun 10 2011
25 Years of FAIR
Last month Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) celebrated its 25th Anniversary. It held an event in Manhattan on May 11th with four of the most well known voices of the the left and advocates for fairness, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Amy Goodman and Glen Greenwald. Glenn’s 30 minute speech is now available on You Tube. The DVD of the entire night is available for sale at FAIR’s website.
Jun 10 2011
Punting the Pundits
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”.
Paul Krugman: Rule by Rentiers
The latest economic data have dashed any hope of a quick end to America’s job drought, which has already gone on so long that the average unemployed American has been out of work for almost 40 weeks. Yet there is no political will to do anything about the situation. Far from being ready to spend more on job creation, both parties agree that it’s time to slash spending – destroying jobs in the process – with the only difference being one of degree.
Nor is the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, acknowledged the grimness of the economic picture but indicated that he will do nothing about it.
And debt relief for homeowners – which could have done a lot to promote overall economic recovery – has simply dropped off the agenda. The existing program for mortgage relief has been a bust, spending only a tiny fraction of the funds allocated, but there seems to be no interest in revamping and restarting the effort.
Dean Baker: Political Advice to Republicans on Medicare
The Republicans are very upset that their vote for Representative Ryan’s plan to end Medicare is being used against them. The loss of an upstate New York Congressional seat that they held for 50 years was quite a shock. Furthermore, groups are already using this vote in attack ads around the country to threaten incumbents.
This could be really bad news for their election prospects in 2012 since Medicare is a hugely popular program. Polls consistently show that the program has enormous public support among all political and demographic groups. Not only do Democrats and independents overwhelmingly support the Medicare program, even Republicans overwhelmingly approve of Medicare. Even Tea Party Republicans overwhelming approve of Medicare.
The same story holds by age group. Of course, Medicare has the greatest support among the over-65 age group that currently depends on it, but the program even draws large majority support among young voters who hope to be able to rely on the program in their retirement. Republicans could try to extend the vote to ten-year-olds, but this route probably does not hold much promise.
“I am concerned about the fact that the recovery that we’re on is not producing jobs as fast as I want it to happen,” President Obama said Tuesday, amid the flood of bad economic news, including last Friday’s alarming jobs report.
Does this mean we’re about to see a bold package of ideas from the White House for spurring growth of jobs and wages? Sadly, it doesn’t seem so.
Obama says he’s interested in exploring with Republicans extending some of the measures that were part of that tax-cut package “to make sure that we get this recovery up and running in a robust way.”
Accordingly, the White House is mulling a temporary cut in the payroll taxes businesses pay on wages. White House advisors figure this may appeal to Republican lawmakers who have been discussing the same idea. It would, in essence, match the 2 percent reduction in employee contributions to payroll taxes this year, enacted as part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts.
Roger Cohen: When Fear Breaks
MONTREAL – Whenever I come to Canada I think the world should be simple. People are nice. They’re decent. There’s lots of space. Angry identities assumed in tougher climes morph into gentler ones beneath the wide Canadian sky.
But not everyone can come to Canada. That’s a pity. This is a good place, even if Michael Moore did go a little over the top. Oscar Wilde, however, was too harsh – “a mournful Scottish version of America.” It’s less dark than that.
Outside Canada things are tense because seismic shifts are underway. Some of them are clear: The American Century is ending. Some are not: Nobody predicted the Arab Spring because nobody can predict the human spirit.
Leonard Pitts, Jr.: Commentary: Like Sarah Palin, many of us don’t know U.S. history
Don’t know much about history” – Sam Cooke
It would be the easiest thing in the world to make this about Sarah Palin.
She makes mistakes like Apple makes iPhones, so there is a temptation to catalogue her recent bizarre claim that Paul Revere’s midnight ride in April of 1775 was to “warn the British” (He actually rode to alert patriots Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were coming to arrest them) as superfluous evidence of intellectual mediocrity. The instinct is to think her historical illiteracy speaks ill only of her.
But the thing is, she is not the only one.
Eugene Robinson: A plan for Afghanistan: Declare victory – and leave
Slender threads of hope are nice but do not constitute a plan. Nor do they justify continuing to pour American lives and resources into the bottomless pit of Afghanistan.
Ryan Crocker, the veteran diplomat nominated by President Obama to be the next U.S. ambassador in Kabul, gave a realistic assessment of the war in testimony Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Here I’m using “realistic” as a synonym for “bleak.”
Making progress is hard, Crocker said, but “not impossible.”
Not impossible.
What on earth are we doing? We have more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan risking life and limb, at a cost of $10 billion a month, to pursue ill-defined goals whose achievement can be imagined, but just barely?
Jun 10 2011
It’s the Beans
The deadly deadly out break of food poisoning in Germany has supposedly been traced to its source, bean sprouts that were grown at an organic farm in Germany. Over 3000 people have been sickened, many of them seriously, and 31 one deaths have been attributed to this contamination. According to the article in the NYT, even though there has been no harmful bacteria found in the sprouts, Reinhard Burger, the head of the country’s disease control agency said:
investigations centering on interviews with patients and even the chefs at restaurants where they had eaten showed that people who had consumed bean sprouts were nine times more likely to become infected than those who had not.
Even though Germany has lifted the advisory about eating fresh produce and sealed off the organic farm that was the source of the sprouts, the damage has been done with consumers all over Europe still not buying fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and other frsh produce from Spain. Meanwhile, Spain has refused to accept the compensation that was offered for the losses to farmers as too little. From the Guardian:
The European commission on Tuesday promised to pay more than €150m (£134m) to farmers hit by the E coli crisis, following robust lobbying by Spain and France.
The agriculture commissioner, Dacian Ciolos, proposed sharing out to farmers affected by falling sales amid the public health panic the sum of €150m, equating to payments worth about 30% of the average market price for the unsold crops.
But at the meeting of agriculture ministers in Luxembourg, representatives from several member states demanded more help.
Spain immediately warned the €150m would not be enough. Spain has suffered disproportionately from the economic impact of the outbreak, in part because it grows a significant share of Europe’s salad produce but also because blame for the bacteria outbreak at first was attributed to its cucumber crop.
The German health ministry was too quick to make a conclusion and should have been more diligent in their investigation.
Jun 10 2011
On This Day In History June 10
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.
June 10 is the 161st day of the year (162nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 204 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1990, Luther Campbell and fellow 2LiveCrew members are arrested on obscenity charges
Though the First Amendment to the Constitution clearly states that the U.S. Congress “shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,” free speech is widely understood to have its limits. It is dangerous and potentially criminal, for instance, to yell, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But what about yelling “$&%#@!!” in a crowded nightclub? Lenny Bruce and other comedians tested the limits of that practice in the 1960s, but it was not until the late 1980s that the issue of obscenity came front and center in the world of popular music. The group that brought it there was 2LiveCrew, a hip-hop outfit led by Luther “Luke Skyywalker” Campbell. On June 10, 1990, just days after a controversial ruling by a Florida federal judge, Campbell and two other members of 2LiveCrew were arrested on charges of public obscenity after performing material from their album As Nasty As They Wanna Be in a Hollywood, Florida, nightclub.
In 1989, the group released their album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be, which also became the group’s most successful album. A large part of its success was due to the single “Me So Horny”, which was popular despite little radio rotation. The American Family Association (AFA) did not think the presence of a “Parental Advisory” sticker was enough to adequately warn listeners of what was inside the case. Jack Thompson, a lawyer affiliated with the AFA, met with Florida Governor Bob Martinez and convinced him to look into the album to see if it met the legal classification of obscene. In 1990 action was taken at the local level and Nick Navarro, Broward County sheriff, received a ruling from County Circuit Court judge Mel Grossman that probable cause for obscenity violations existed. In response, Luther Campbell maintained that people should focus on issues relating to hunger and poverty rather than on the lyrical content of their music.
Navarro warned record store owners that selling the album may be prosecutable. The 2 Live Crew then filed a suit against Navarro. That June, U.S. district court Judge Jose Gonzalez ruled the album obscene and illegal to sell. Charles Freeman, a local retailer, was arrested two days later, after selling a copy to an undercover police officer. This was followed by the arrest of three members of The 2 Live Crew after they performed some material from the album at a nightclub. They were acquitted soon after, as professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. testified at their trial in defense of their lyrics. Freeman’s conviction was overturned on appeal as well.
In 1992, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned the obscenity ruling from Judge Gonzalez, and the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear Broward County’s appeal. As in the Freeman case, Gates testified on behalf of Navarro, arguing that the material that the county alleged was profane actually had important roots in African-American vernacular, games, and literary traditions and should be protected.
As a result of the controversy, As Nasty As They Wanna Be sold over two million copies. It peaked at #29 on The Billboard 200 and #3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. A few other retailers were later arrested for selling it as well, including Canadian Marc Emery who was convicted in Ontario in 1991, and would later gain fame as a marijuana activist. Later hard rock band Van Halen sued over an uncleared sample of their song “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” in The 2 Live Crew Song “The Fuck Shop”. The publicity then continued when George Lucas, owner of the Star Wars universe, successfully sued Campbell for appropriating the name “Skywalker” for his record label, Luke Skyywalker Records. Campbell changed his stage name to Luke (and changed the record label’s name to Luke Records) and the group released an extremely political follow up album, Banned in the USA after obtaining permission to use an interpolation of Bruce Springsteen‘s Born in the U.S.A. The 2 Live Crew paraphernalia with the Luke Skyywalker or Skyywalker logos are often sought-after collector’s items.
Jun 09 2011
Altering the Space Time Continuum by the Far Right
More fun from the far right and re-inventing history. Sarah Palin’s ignorance about Paul Revere’s ride at least didn’t screw with the time line. The right wings favorite winger historian, Texan Evangelical, David Barton, whose theory is that America’s unique success in the world is divinely caused and due to its commitment to core Judeo-Christian principles, has his own version of history stating that the Founding Fathers rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Small problem with that, Darwin hadn’t been born yet and Origin of the Species wasn’t published until 1859 but according to Barton “there is no need to debate the teaching of Creationism in public schools, because the Founding Fathers made clear that we needed to do so.”
From Mother Jones:
On Wednesday, Right Wing Watch flagged a recent interview Barton gave with an evangelcial talk show, in which he argues that the Founding Fathers had explicitly rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Yes, that Darwin. The one whose seminal work, On the Origin of Species, wasn’t even published until 1859. Barton declared, “As far as the Founding Fathers were concerned, they’d already had the entire debate over creation and evolution, and you get Thomas Paine, who is the least religious Founding Father, saying you’ve got to teach Creation science in the classroom. Scientific method demands that!” Paine died in 1809, the same year Darwin was born. . . . .
It’s been said that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were ahead of their times. But perhaps not that prescient.
In the same interview, Barton explains that one of the main reasons that the colonies wanted to break away from England was because it would then become easier to abolish slavery. Any who has studied the basics of the American Revolution knows that the issue of slavery was tabled in order to secure approval of the Declaration of Independence. (For the record, Britain abolished slavery in 1833-32 years before the United States.)
Also according to Baron, Jesus would have love Paul Ryan’s budget because Jesus was opposed to the progressive income tax and he was opposed the minimum wage. The Republican’s just love this guy:
Newt Gingrich is a fan. So’s Michele Bachmann. Mike Huckabee’s such a booster that he recently said that all Americans should be “forced at gunpoint” to listen to this guy.
The object of this high praise from Huckabee-and recent shout-outs from other potential GOP presidential contenders-is David Barton, a Republican activist and minister who founded WallBuilders, a for-profit evangelical outfit that works to inject religion into politics. Barton holds some pretty unconventional views, and in the past he has spoken alongside fringe figures like Holocaust deniers and white supremacists. Among other things, he claims that Jesus would oppose the capital gains tax and the minimum wage; that global warming is “self-correcting”; and that the nation’s homeland security apparatus has been infiltrated by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. He also contends that the separation of church and state is a perversion of the Founding Fathers’ intention to create a Christian nation.
Remember the Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever, maybe Darwin popped through the portal to meet with the Founding Fathers to discuss evolution. I bet Ben Franklin would have been quite intrigued.
h/t John Aravosis at AMERICAblog
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