Update

Further legal activity related to this story:  a federal judge in Ohio has ruled that the marriage must be recognized in Ohio.  (Thanks to Zandar Versus The Stupid.)  It's mostly for the dying spouse's death certificate.  Nevertheless.

(Apparently I forgot to crosspost last time.  Rectified.)

*sigh*

Skippy links to a 3 year old report on NPR pussyfooting by Barry Eisler at firedoglake.  In case you were wondering.  You might also want to peruse Jay Rosen's PressThink for other evidence and the Daily Howler for what gets missed.

It's One of Those Days

I've had several tabs open for several days.  I just haven't felt like doing anything about them.

• It is charming that Queen Elizabeth now has a great-grandchild, but the breathlessness of the coverage is more than a bit silly.
• The Rude Pundit last week ran a series of posts about Texas women and reproductive health care; I particularly like the one that begins

  There's a reason the average Texas woman is meaner than a goddamn snake: She lives with Texas men.

  but you should also read this one (and part 2), and this one, and this one; this one is by a Wisconsin woman, this one by a woman who had been raped, this one remembers Dr. Tiller, and this one brings the example of her mother.  More posts listed here.
  
  (Note:  The Texas women I have known have been quite nice.  As have the Texas men.  But none of the ones I know are either Republican or in the legislature.)
• Really, Mr. Weiner, didn't you learn anything the first time?
1. Keep it in your pants
2. Keep it off the Web.
Maybe that should be part of the Political Science curriculum now: How to Conduct a Clandestine Affair Without Getting Spread All Over The Media Including Internationally.
• Three from naked capitalism [see what I did there?]:
• David Dayen on mortgage databases:

  According to Section 331 of the bill, the utility would “organize and operate” the National Mortgage Data Repository. The repository would be a standardized catalog into which any qualified depositor (qualified by the utility, it appears) could stash all their mortgage-related documents – including notes, mortgages, and any related information. The repository would set the standards for the required information in the documents, as well as standards for recording a “creation, assignment, or transfer of interest.” You’ll notice the lack of any regulatory oversight of these procedures. Basically, this private entity, the National Mortgage Market Utility, which could be owned by banks, sets the rules for a brand new private mortgage transfer and document database, not dissimilar to MERS. Theoretically, the data in the repository would be publicly available, with privacy safeguards.
  
  Now here’s the kicker. The repository’s defined purpose is to “address problems that can arise when paper notes cannot be produced, due to loss or destruction as a result of natural disaster or other causes; and to provide a uniform procedure for demonstrating the right to act with regard to such notes or other registered data for all actions in any State or Federal proceeding, judicial or nonjudicial, involving such notes or other data.” Emphasis mine.

• Yves Smith on possible appointment of Larry Summers to Chair of the Fed.

  The big problem with Summers is not his record on deregulation (although that’s bad enough) or his foot-in-mouth remarks about women in math, or for suggesting that African countries would make for good toxic waste dumps. No, it’s his appalling record the one time he was in a leadership position, as president of Harvard. Summers was unquestionably the worst leader in Harvard’s history.

• Guest post by Bill Black on why conservatives and libertarians should favor a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act.
Doggie bags at the cash register.

Posy from AlterNet

• Detroit.  (Juan Cole, Informed Comment)
• Smearing Mr. Martin.  (Eric Boehlert, Media Matters)
• Your government on drugs power.  (Paul Craig Roberts, Institute for Political Economy)  
• Laos, Kissinger, and journalists being cowed by Presidents.  (Fred Branfman for AlterNet)

I need some serious scream time, and then a lot of sleep.

Meanwhile, have some "Dear Prudence" separated into its constituent tracks, via Avedon Carol (who linked to the "Sgt. Pepper" with graphics).

*Wipes Tear*

Via an Open Thread at Shakesville, two men go through some hoops to marry.

Also, Cincinnati radical dies.

Post 2201.  The horror.

More Education

I've neglected Mr. Riley lately, so here's Doghouse on Mitch Daniels pontificating about the teaching of history.

Anybody ever read a standard K-12 history book in this country? Dear God, they’ve been watered-down Chamber of Commerce pamphlets since Mitch Daniels was knee high to…I mean, since he was a lad. The introduction of Howard Zinn to Indiana classrooms (Daniels’ hench-emailers found nary a copy) would improve the teaching of history no matter what you think of what he says. Hell, Howard Stern would improve our secondary History curriculum.

This isn’t about free speech, or Daniels’ Randian dedication to it, though that’s plenty enough for starters. It’s about the Nixonian dishonesty at the heart of education “reform”. It’s about the wingnut echo chamber where even “reasonable” Republicans reside. It’s about the fact that you can somehow get an Ivy League education and not understand the concept of research.

And Happy Moon Landing Day!

In Memoriam

Helen Thomas, long time White House correspondent.

(Women journalists have particular reasons to be grateful to her.)

To The Bone

Willful ignorance and willed misapprehenson, that is, go all the way to the bone.

1. Seen at Southern Beale via Talking Points Memo, a Utah "lawmaker" speaks on education:  He's against it.  Specifically,he's opposed to compulsory education:

   Osmond said he is not advocating that students stop attending school, but instead that the culture be changed from an obligation to a choice. He gave the example of kindergarten, which nearly all children attend despite no requirement to do so.

   All I'm going to say here is that they seem to be pro-choice as long as women's bodies are not involved.
2. Next round:  Suit filed in the name of a county clerk to try to stop same-sex marriages in California.  

Who Would Have Thought?

Obamacare works!

Zandar cites the New York Times and makes some points.

And let's remember that competition in the free market has long, long been a Republican screaming point. When President Obama actually put that into effect, they went bonkers.

Odd how that works.

Other Voices

• Brilliant at Breakfast.
• Zandar Versus the Stupid.
• Walk On.  And poem.
• Ta-Nehisi Coates.
• Making Light.
• Daisy's Dead Air.
• ETA:  Welcome Back to Pottersville.

As far as I am concerned, the murderer Zimmerman is a murderer on whom I wish no good.  May the appellation "Murderer" always be adjacent to his name.  May his dreams fill with that word.  May--

OK, that's probably cursing.

Trayvon Martin

I don't think I need to explain this, right?  Billie Holiday?  "Strange Fruit."

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h4ZyuULy9zs#at=13)

There's also Dylan's "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," but that guy got 6 months.

Stew

• In memoriam:
• Elaine Morgan, writer and feminist
• Amar Bose, audio expert
• Evil:  Nigerian extremists targeting schools.
• TV station apologizes for stupid gaffe.  Someone needs to be found and fired, though.
• Margaret and Helen on the Texas legislative session.

  Perry is about as pro-life as any governor who has presided over hundreds of executions. Which is to say Perry is about 250 executions short of being pro-life. And for the record, pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. Being pro-choice means you trust women to make the right decisions for themselves and their families when it comes to healthcare.

  As we know, "pro-life" only applies until you're born.

Insert Appropriate Monty Python and the Holy Grail Scene Here

Prop 8's proponents trying another technicality to stop same-sex marriages in California.

But in Friday's lawsuit in the state Supreme Court, lawyers for Prop. 8's proponents argued that Walker's ruling applied only to the individuals who filed the suit, a lesbian couple from Berkeley and a gay couple from Burbank. The lawyers said Brown exceeded his authority when he ordered all 58 county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Y'know, if traditional marriage is that fragile, perhaps we should go to a contractual system, with term limits and group child-care, because it would be more organized, more family-friendly, and less amenable to people not involved.

ETA:  SCOTUSblog article (Lyle Denniston) with more detail, via Shakesville.

EFTA: Sorry, Charlie.  Same-sex marriages continue.

The Beat Beat Beat of the Tom Toms

• Via Mercury Rising, the United States Lost Output Clock.  Tracking production and income lost since the financial mess of 2008 and comparing it to wealth gained by the 1%.  Austerity is a lie.  Nobody's going to put this information on billboards outside of airports, either.  So share it with your friends!
• Florida lawmakers strike again.  As usual.  Via Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I, with added ridicule.

  Good old Florida, even the legislature in Texas is looking at them and saying: "Guys, really?"

• Speaking of bad law, Zandar Versus The Stupid cites Indiana's criminalization of applying for or officiating at a same-sex marriage.
• Terrance at Republic of T calls for a constitutional right to vote.

  That the Voting Rights Act needs fixing, and was even necessary in the first place underscores a glaring lack of any explicit right to vote in the constitution. The constitution never explicitly spells out or ensures a right to vote, but merely describes the ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. (It was less a right than a privilege bestowed upon white, male property owners.) The qualifications for voters are left to the states. As long as those qualifications don’t conflict with the constitution, the right to vote can be denied.

We Wish

GOP moves toward irrelevance.

What's Out There

• Three from Zandar Versus The Stupid:
• Wyoming Senate seat in 2014?
• "Subtle" undermining of Affordable Care (I've seen concern-troll ads for the last year on sites I read which have ads) 
• Austerity pressures (fraudulent)
• Remote control of automobiles?  Mills River Progressive questions fatal crash of reporter.
• Jelena Adzic at the CBC on privacy and social media.
• I am not a Jedi yet.

"Family Values"

Minuteman co-founder charged with child molestation.  (Orcinus.)

Creepy dude.

In Other News

Bartolo Colon named to All-Star team.

It's a terrific comeback.

Sidewinders of the Right

Stealth enactments:

They don't want to hear the truth. They don't want to acknowledge the voices, or the humanity, of the people over whose bodies they are trying to legislate governance. They want to protect the little bubble of bullshit fantasies about abortion and who gets abortion and who performs abortions in which they exist. And when we refuse to be silent, they try to forcibly silence us. Because they don't want to hear the truth about what this legislation actually means for real people.

Melissa McEwan, Shakesville, on the legislators of Texas and North Carolina and their cowardice.

Via By Neddie Jingo!, a video about how snakes slither (features snakes, so if snakes squick you, don't click that) in case you need to know how these lawmakers really move.

This is, again, reminding me that women got included in the civil rights act in the '60s as a joke.

5 Years--The Paper Anniversary

I managed to miss my fifth blogiversary (it fell Saturday), so:  A Happy Five to Me!

This is still a blog about politics, baseball, and anything else I damn please.  As you may have noticed, I have grown less patient with the political "right," especially as they veer toward suggesting the restoration of the Bourbon and Hapsburg dynasties and reintroducing the idea of a flat earth as fundamental science.  (You think I'm kidding.)  My team is *knocks wood* doing OK this year, and it is now possible to read about the Mets with just a twinge of nostalgia (the Mets have not been my team since 1992).  I have 2100+ posts (a drop in the bucket compared to Echidne of the Snakes, but respectable in that I have no cat), some of which take the form of rant essay.  I do not have, and do not intend to acquire, a "mission statement."

Think of this blog as a pack rat's version of Eärendil.

Two Totally Disparate Things

• Dick Armey, another serial harasser and hypocrite.  
• Doc Gooden, talking to Jason Fry and Greg Prince (Faith and Fear in Flushing) about his memoir.  Which I will buy.

Miscellaneosity

• Alexa O'Brien has a searchable database of the filings, rulings, and transcripts in the Bradley Manning case.  (Hat tip to Daisy.)  This, for example, is a transcript of the hearing held 6/26/13 (yesterday as of this writing), examining a witness; catch the disclaimer (p. 3).
• Low-tech spying, agents provocateurs, dirty tricks; your government at work.

  Sometimes, “intelligence” moves in the opposite direction -- from private corporations to public agencies. Among the collectors of such “intelligence” are entities that, like the various intelligence and law enforcement outfits, do not make distinctions between terrorists and nonviolent protesters. ConsiderTransCanada, the corporation that plans to build the 1,179 mile Keystone-XL tar sands pipeline across the U. S. and in the process realize its “vision to become the leading energy infrastructure company in North America.“ The anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska filed a successful Freedom of Information Act request with the Nebraska State Patrol and so was able to putTransCanada’s briefing slideshow up online.
  
  So it can be documented in living color that the company lectured federal agents and local police to look into the use of “anti-terrorism statutes” against peaceful anti-Keystone activists.

  Todd Gitlin at TomDispatch, via AlterNet.
• The dangers of Big Anything by Richard Eskow, AlterNet.
• Terrance Heath, Republic of T, on When It Changed.  (Sorry; I couldn't help it.)
• Why "getting rid of Fannie and Freddie" is unrealistic (Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism).
• Driftglass, just because this paragraph cracked me up:

  But history runs in two directions, and so having already conquered the past and scrubbed it of any reference of the actual, ugly Conservatism that shaped so much of recent American history and gave David Brooks a career, today Mr. Brooks turned his attention to America's bright, multicultural future where, apparently, the entire Republican Party has wandered off into the woods and been eaten by bears.

• Saddle up that gnat; I'm putting any respect I might have for the governor of Texas on its back along with a gnat-size ham sandwich.  Which is, by the way, larger.

I Had Hoped to Retire That Label

The Supes had other ideas.  Sorry.  Respect for the judiciary and all that.  But apparently the majority of justices spent the last couple of years not reading the papers (I don't expect them to read this blog.  That would be silly.  But major newspapers, even the Washington Post, have been concerned with the rollback of voting rights in the guise of so-called "voter fraud."  And remember, the "voter fraud" that has been turned up has been committed by Republicans and/or conservatives.  There are more lightning strikes hitting millionaire lottery winners than "voter fraud") or the case law.

Here is the actual decision.  Most of the really enraged writing got posted yesterday (I was inarticulate with fury, and then I went to a baseball game, which my team won despite the attempt to do the Wave counterclockwise), but Jesse Curtis had a nice essay yesterday, and a longer piece today, in which he states:

I'm actually more disturbed by the conservative reaction to the ruling than by the decision itself. I have not yet seen a single conservative criticize the decision. They are making it abundantly clear that they oppose proactive federal efforts to protect Americans' rights. Indeed, the predominant line of argument conservatives are taking implies that they envision the eventual repeal of all civil rights laws. They are treating yesterday's decision as almost self-evident progress. The idea seems to be that since we've made so much progress against racism, civil rights laws are now ugly distortions in our otherwise colorblind corpus of law. Removing protections is thus not a step back, but a ratification of the progress we've made.

As always, context is the terrifying enemy of racial conservatives. So let's introduce them to some context. In the United States of 2013, minorities are racially profiled with impunity, arrested for drug crimes out of all proportion to their use of drugs, receive harsher average sentences for identical crimes, attend unequally funded schools, frequently attend segregated schools that are, according to the Brown decision, inherently unequal, live in neighborhoods of much higher average poverty than almost any whites are exposed to, bear the brunt of environmental pollution, face pervasive discrimination in hiring even when their qualifications are identical, are discriminated against by realtors and banks, and, you get the idea. We're not going to have a debate about these things; if you do not accept them you are not ready to have an honest discussion. The point is, given this state of affairs, the urgent priority is to identify what more we can do to tear down this racist edifice. Worrying about repealing old civil rights laws, even if they were no longer needed, would be pretty low on our list of priorities.

Sorry; that was the smallest chunk I could take.

From the dissent (p.13, J. Ginsburg):

All told, between 1982 and 2006, DOJ objections blocked over 700 voting changes based on a determination that the changes were discriminatory. H. R. Rep. No. 109–478, at 21. Congress found that the majority of DOJ objections included findings of discriminatory intent, see 679 F. 3d, at 867, and that the changes blocked by preclearance were “calculated decisions to keep minority voters from fully participating in the political process.” H. R. Rep. 109–478, at 21. On top of that, over the same time period the DOJ and private plaintiffs succeeded in more than 100 actions to enforce the §5 preclearance requirements. 1 Evidence of Continued Need 186, 250.

Examples (recent examples, too) are given on pp.15-17 of the dissent, which is 37 pages long (the rest of the opinion is 31 pages).  I hear Justice Ginsburg actually yelled at Justice Scalia et al.  I don't blame her.  I've mislaid John Lewis' statement, but it was pretty scathing.

(In other news, DOMA is (partly) down and Prop 8 (California) is dead.  And I am happy about that.  John Scalzi's reaction.  Presumably the NOM people are making like Denethor after the beacon at Minas Tirith is lit.)

In Memoriam

• Bobby (Blue) Bland, bluesman.  (Other stuff, too.)
• Richard Matheson, writer.
• Gary David Goldberg, writer and producer.
• Parke Godwin, writer.  (Wintermind seems to pop up at the weirdest times.)

An Era Ends

(It wants to be a palindrome.  Later.)

The (former) Pan Am terminal at JFK is to be demolished.  (NYTimes article)

(Never flew Pan Am.  Might have landed there on a return flight once.  Kennedy is always under construction.)

Serious Bad News/Kafka Gets the Last Laugh

Supreme Court decision, Salinas v. Texas, from Bloomberg Law, via Better Than Salt Money.

Yes, we're in trouble.

The Supreme Court changed the rules today. Miranda, as a functional object, no longer exists. Silence is no defense against self-incrimination; refusing to speak can be used against you as evidence of guilt. One must specifically invoke the 5th Amendment to get it’s protections. That’s my takeaway (with some support) from Salinas v Texas.

First thing to know, cops don’t have to remind you of your rights if they don’t arrest you. If they can deny that you were a suspect until you slipped up and gave them something suspicious, they can ask you anything they like. Under this new ruling your silence can be used against you. If you stop talking, that’s suspicious, and can be used by the prosecution to show a guilty mind. Moreover, the only way to get out of that is to say the magic words, “I am not talking to you because I have a 5th Amendment right to avoid saying anything which might be used to incriminate me”.[Emphasis added by me.]

That 's pecunium.  There's more.  You might want to make up cards with that sentence, in case you forget.

Franz Kafka is guffawing.  As are totalitarian (and authoritarian) regimes the world over.  Why does the government hate our freedom?

"...Ever been our friend and ally!"

• Sad news:  Pam's House Blend is going away.  (via Driftglass)
  
  Now, I didn't go there much. For one thing, for many years, Safari and her net host's code were deeply antagonistic; I would go there and the browser would either freeze or crash. Not optimal, no.  On the other hand, when that stopped being a problem, there was an occasional gold nugget to be had.  And Pam's "voice" was unmistakeable.  Also, she put me onto a couple of resources for Journey.
• They're listening to your calls.  Via both Comrade Misfit and Anna van Z, who are in different ways scathing.
1. Comrade Misfit:

   Do you mind the government knowing what books you've been reading? Unless you live in a good-sized area, chances are that the neighborhood bookstores are all gone. Which means that you're buying books over the Internet or borrowing them from your library, all of which means that the government can find out what you read, what magazines you subscribe to. Maybe you like to catch up with your favorite shows using the cable company's "on demand" feature-- which means you told the cable company what you like to watch. Do you use an "affinity" card in the grocery store? Did you sign up for the rewards points at your local movie house?

2. Anna van Z:

   We got us a full-blown Stasi/Secret Police-state up in here!

ETA: Apparently CNet got it wrong and has walked back the assertions about random warrantless eavesdropping. Nevertheless, it's time for precautions.

It's not paranoia if someone is really out to get you.

60

60

(Apparently I forgot.)

You Have No Privacy

• Via the sidebar at Making Light:  "You commit three felonies a day."  (I'm a bit behind, but I was late to church this morning, and yesterday, I aborted a survey which claimed to be a quiz, but somehow all the questions were on personal details.  Uh-huh.  So I guess I'll have to find a Floridian porn website for dolphins, which is probably crossing state lines for immoral porpoises.)
• Pecunium on:
• the dangers of metadata
• the threat posed to the populace

  This shit matters because the slope to which it leads is serious, and steep. The laws we have are what protect us from each other, and from the basest aspects of our darker natures. Few of us would refrain from doing what we have to do to protect ourselves, and fear of those things against which there is no protection is a powerful appeal to the base natures of our little lizard brain.

• From ProPublica, via AlterNet:  What we don't know about NSA surveillance.  The word "unclear" appears a number of times.

Do we love Big Brother yet?

Thinkpieces

• Via the sidebar at Making Light, "How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps," with follow-up "Inequality, MOOCs and The Predator Elite." I think I like this guy.
• From the first article:

  Within one generation, in five easy steps, not only have the scholars and intellectuals of the country been silenced and nearly wiped out, but the entire institution has been hijacked, and recreated as a machine through which future generations will ALL be impoverished, indebted and silenced. Now, low wage migrant professors teach repetitive courses they did not design to students who travel through on a kind of conveyor belt, only to be spit out, indebted and desperate into a jobless economy. The only people immediately benefitting inside this system are the administrative class – whores to the corporatized colonizers, earning money in this system in order to oversee this travesty. But the most important thing to keep in mind is this: The real winners, the only people truly benefitting from the big-picture meltdown of the American university are those people who, in the 1960s, saw those vibrant college campuses as a threat to their established power. They are the same people now working feverishly to dismantle other social structures, everything from Medicare and Social Security to the Post Office.

• From the second:

  The game plan seems clear – destroy the teaching profession, then blame those educators still struggling against all odds to teach, hold them responsible for the systemic failures. Then replace a system which focused on the social good of education with a for-profit model run like an edu-factory. There is a reason that billionaires like Bill Gates have bought into education – and its the same reason that Gates owns over a half million dollars worth of Monsanto stock. Factory farming and factory-ed have the same goal: profit. And not for you or me. Certainly not for our children. But for Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates and the other 1%-ers who have muscled their way into ownership of the “education industry”. And, I will say it until I’m blue in the face (and yes that’s another Braveheart reference): Education is NOT a for-profit endeavor, any more than medicine should be. It is a social good, and must be treated as such. Teachers are professionals and know more about the complexities of educating individuals than the “Instructional Designers” and curriculum technicians who are doing their best to take over.
  
  [...]
  
  We’re all screwed. And we’ll stay screwed if we keep struggling as individuals, or as separate classes of professionals. We’ve got to come together and rise up together – all workers, across all platforms and industries – and put our talents and our multiple intelligences to use for our own benefit. Stop giving our talents and abilities away to the Predator Elite, and start working together to figure out how to use our talents for each other. If all exploited journalists stopped writing; if all exploited artists stopped creating; if all exploited educators stopped teaching — what would these exploiters have?

• Dan Baum at Harper's, suggesting that the gun control debate isn't really about gun control.
• On Robert Fletcher, recently dead, who managed the fruit farms of Japanese neighbors after they were interned in World War II.  Three newspaper articles, excerpted by Arthur Silber.