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November 2012 archive
Nov 25 2012
Elections: “Super PAC’s Upped the Ante”
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
One of the people I am thankful for is Bill Moyers and his quiet, rational discussion of the problem that plague this country and the world on his PBS program Moyers & Company. In an interview with Trevor Potter, the former Federal Election Commission Chairman and the lawyer behind the creation and functioning of Stephen Colbert‘s PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow”, they discuss how Citizens United has effected, not only this campaign, but campaigns in the very near future with the influx of undisclosed money to Super PACs from very wealthy donors who want only to protect their influence in Congress.
Former Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter – the lawyer who advised Stephen Colbert on setting up a super PAC – dissects the spending on the most expensive election in American history. Many voices are claiming “money didn’t matter, Citizens United wasn’t a factor,” but Potter disagrees.
“Super PACs just upped the ante,” he tells Bill. “If you’re a senator and you have just been elected, or heaven forbid you’re up in two years, you’re thinking I don’t have time to worry about deficit reduction and the fiscal cliff. I have to raise tens of thousands of dollars every day to have enough money to compete with these new super PACs… And that means I need to be nice to a lot of billionaires who often want something from me in order to find the funding for my campaign.”
The transcript can be read here
Nov 25 2012
On This Day In History November 25
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
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.
November 25 is the 329th day of the year (330th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 36 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1999, The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The resolution, which was introduced by the Dominican Republic, marked the anniversary of the death of three sisters, Maria, Teresa, and Minerva Mirabel, who were brutally murdered there in 1960. While women in Latin America and the Caribbean had honored the day since 1981, all UN countries did not formally recognize it until 1999.
Many organizations, including the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), had been pushing for international recognition of the date for some time.
The Mirabal sisters were four Dominican political dissidents who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Three of the sisters were assassinated by persons unknown.
Patria Mercedes Mirabal (February 27, 1924 – November 25, 1960), Belgica Adela “Dede” Mirabal-Reyes (March 1, 1925 – present), Maria Argentina Minerva Mirabal (March 12, 1926 – November 25, 1960) and Antonia Maria Teresa Mirabal (October 15, 1935 – November 25, 1960) were citizens of the Dominican Republic who fervently opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Dede Mirabal was not assassinated and has lived to tell the stories of the death of her sisters. Presently, she lives in Salcedo, Dominican Republic in the house where the sisters were born. She works to preserve her sisters’ memory through the Museo Hermanas Mirabal which is also located in Salcedo and was home to the women for the final ten months of their lives. She published a book Vivas en El Jardin, released on August 25, 2009.
The Mirabal women grew up in an upper class, well-cultured environment. Their father was a successful businessman. All became married family women. When Trujillo came to power, their family lost almost all its fortune. They believed that Trujillo would send their country into economic chaos. Minerva became particularly passionate about ending the dictatorship of Trujillo after talking extensively with an uncle of hers. Influenced by her uncle, Minerva became more involved in the anti-Trujillo movement. She studied law and became a lawyer, but because she declined Trujillo’s romantic advances, he ordered that while she would be issued a degree she was not to receive her practitioner’s license. Her sisters followed suit, and they eventually formed a group of opponents to the Trujillo regime, known as the Movement of the Fourteenth of June. Within that group, they were known as “The Butterflies” (Las Mariposas in Spanish) because that was the underground name that Minerva was given. Two of the sisters, Maria Argentina Minerva Mirabal and Antonia Maria Teresa Mirabal, were incarcerated and tortured on several occasions. While in prison they were repeatedly raped. Three of the sisters’ husbands were incarcerated at La Victoria Penitentiary in Santo Domingo.
Despite these setbacks, they persisted in fighting to end Trujillo’s leadership. After the sisters’ numerous imprisonments, Trujillo was blamed for their murders, but this is now being questioned. During an interview after Trujillo’s assasination, General Pupo Roman claimed to have personal knowledge that they were killed by Luis Amiama Tio, perhaps to create a rise in anti-Trujillo sentiment. On November 25, 1960, he sent men to intercept the three women after they visited their husbands in prison. The unarmed sisters were led into a sugar cane field and executed, they didn’t even have the luxury of being shot, instead they were beaten to death, along with their driver, Rufino de la Cruz. Their car was later thrown off of a mountain known as La Cumbre, between the cities of Santiago and Puerto Plata, in order to make their deaths look like an accident.
This day also marks the beginning of the 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence. The end of the 16 Days is December 10, International Human Rights Day.
Nov 25 2012
Six In The Morning
U.S. Election Speeded Move to Codify Policy on Drones
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: November 24, 2012Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.
The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.
Nov 25 2012
Turkey Day TV: Day 4 Day
Nov 25 2012
What We Now Know
Up with Chris Hayes host Chris Hayes shares all that the is thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Tell us about what tou have learned this week. Open Thread
Nov 25 2012
Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette
Our regular featured content-
- On This Day In History November 24 by TheMomCat
- Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat
And these featured articles-
- Popular Culture 20121123: Thanksgiving: (Almost) Everything You Know is Wrong by: Translator
- Turkey Day TV: Day 3 Day by ek hornbeck
- Parents, Rejoice: Peanut Allergy Cure Within Sight by terryhallinan
- Formula One 2012: Interlagos Qualifying by ek hornbeck
- THE Game. by ek hornbeck
- Health and Fitness News TheMomCat
- Turkey Day TV: Day 3 Night by ek hornbeck
Write more and often. This is an Open Thread.
Nov 24 2012
Turkey Day TV: Day 3 Night
Nov 24 2012
Don’t Buy Anything
Black Friday is a bunch of meaningless hype, in one chart
Posted by Neil Irwin, The Washington Post
November 23, 2012 at 9:58 am
When television news crews and newspaper writers go to cover the holiday crowds, they try to give the festivities some great economic import. Standard aspects of the genre include noting that holiday sales can account for about a third of retailers’ annual sales; cite authoritative-sounding projections from the National Retail Federation about what this year’s sales will be, and perhaps even note that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy (conveniently leaving out that most of that spending has nothing to do with gift-giving or holiday cheer).
In fact, sales over Thanksgiving weekend tell us virtually nothing about retail sales for the full holiday season-let alone anything meaningful about the economy as a whole. Paul Dales of Capital Economics analyzed the relationship between retail sales during the week of Thanksgiving against the overall change in retail sales for November through January. As the chart shows, the relationship is a very weak one, with dots all over the grid. But if there is any conclusion to draw at all, the relationship is actually negative!
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In other words, strong sales results around Black Friday actually predict slightly weaker holiday sales overall.
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Retailers know that a typical family spends whatever it will spend on holiday gift-giving, and that whether that spending comes on Nov. 23 or Dec. 23 doesn’t make that much difference in the aggregate. But retailers aren’t a monolith; they are all chasing market share from the others.
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For the media, it is a ready-made story. It takes place at a time that there is little other news, and it is known in advance, so editors and TV news directors can plan in advance for coverage. And there’s no doubt that video of people stampeding through the doors of a Wal-Mart in hot pursuit of a new Wii makes for great television. That is even putting aside more cynical possibilities, such as that media depend on retail advertising and thus have a vested interest in creating a sense of hype and anticipation around an orgy of consumerism.And what, then, of the people themselves, the consumers who line up with breathless anticipation and make the whole thing possible. From an economists’ perspective, this is a case in which the retailers are using a rationing mechanism other than price to allocate scarce goods: They price a limited number of TVs and other products at a below-market price, and then ration those goods based on who is willing to stand in line the longest.
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“I think they want to bring the people here and make them tired,” a man named Saeed Yazdi told my colleagues Abha Bhattarai and Steven Overly Thursday night outside the Best Buy in Columbia Heights. “It’s veiled punishment.” Well yes, Saeed, precisely.
Our elites hate us
DCblogger, Corrente
Fri, 11/23/2012 – 11:21am
Looking at this video of shoppers at Walmart fighting over Phones I realized how much our elites must really hate us. I am sure that when members fo the Walton family watch videos like this they must laugh.
Walmart does this deliberately. They have a handful of low priced loss leaders, but nowhere near enough to meet the demand. So people line up and fight to be first, because if you are low income, getting one of those low priced items might be your only chance to own one. This is what the elites delight doing, creating situations where we are battling each other frantically for crumbs. It is not just their workers they hate, the Walton family hates their customers, hates everyone with a net worth less than a billion dollars.
Nov 24 2012
THE Game.
noon
- ABC– Michigan @ Ohio State
- ESPN– Georgia Tech @ Georgia
- ESPN2– Rutgers @ Pittsburgh
- FX– Tulsa @ Southern Methodist
2:30 pm
- NBC– Grambling State v. Southern
- Faux– Texas Tech v. Baylor
3:30 pm
- ABC– Florida @ Florida State
- CBS– Auburn @ Alabama
- ESPN– Oklahoma State @ Oklahoma
- ESPN2– Wisconsin @ Penn State
- Vs.– Air Force @ Fresno State
6:30 pm
- Faux– Stanford @ UCLA
8 pm
- ABC– Notre Dame @ USC
10:30 pm
- ESPN2– Louisiana Tech @ San Jose State
midnight
- Vs.– Grambling State v. Southern
3 am
- ESPN2– Missouri @ Texas A&M
4:30 am
- ESPN– South Carolina @ Clemson
If your alma is represented I’m sure that’s the big game to you. The two with the most BCS significance are Stanford/UCLA @ 6:30 pm and Notre Dame/USC @ 8 pm. Armando will be watching Florida/Florida State @ 3:30 pm.