July 2015 archive
Jul 03 2015
Cartnoon
Jul 03 2015
The Breakfast Club (Notes)
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
Union forces win the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War; George Washington takes charge of the Continental Army; Algeria gains independence; Actor Tom Cruise born; Singer Jim Morrison dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.
Jul 03 2015
On This Day In History July 3
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 images to enlarge.
July 3 is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 181 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1863, Battle of Gettysburg ends
On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end.
General Lee wished to renew the attack on Friday, July 3, using the same basic plan as the previous day: Longstreet would attack the Federal left, while Ewell attacked Culp’s Hill. However, before Longstreet was ready, Union XII Corps troops started a dawn artillery bombardment against the Confederates on Culp’s Hill in an effort to regain a portion of their lost works. The Confederates attacked, and the second fight for Culp’s Hill ended around 11 a.m., after some seven hours of bitter combat.
Lee was forced to change his plans. Longstreet would command Pickett’s Virginia division of his own First Corps, plus six brigades from Hill’s Corps, in an attack on the Federal II Corps position at the right center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Prior to the attack, all the artillery the Confederacy could bring to bear on the Federal positions would bombard and weaken the enemy’s line.
Around 1 p.m., from 150 to 170 Confederate guns began an artillery bombardment that was probably the largest of the war. In order to save valuable ammunition for the infantry attack that they knew would follow, the Army of the Potomac’s artillery, under the command of Brig. Gen. Henry Jackson Hunt, at first did not return the enemy’s fire. After waiting about 15 minutes, about 80 Federal cannons added to the din. The Army of Northern Virginia was critically low on artillery ammunition, and the cannonade did not significantly affect the Union position. Around 3 p.m., the cannon fire subsided, and 12,500 Southern soldiers stepped from the ridgeline and advanced the three-quarters of a mile (1,200 m) to Cemetery Ridge in what is known to history as “Pickett’s Charge”. As the Confederates approached, there was fierce flanking artillery fire from Union positions on Cemetery Hill and north of Little Round Top, and musket and canister fire from Hancock’s II Corps. In the Union center, the commander of artillery had held fire during the Confederate bombardment, leading Southern commanders to believe the Northern cannon batteries had been knocked out. However, they opened fire on the Confederate infantry during their approach with devastating results. Nearly one half of the attackers did not return to their own lines. Although the Federal line wavered and broke temporarily at a jog called the “Angle” in a low stone fence, just north of a patch of vegetation called the Copse of Trees, reinforcements rushed into the breach, and the Confederate attack was repulsed. The farthest advance of Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead’s brigade of Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s division at the Angle is referred to as the “High-water mark of the Confederacy”, arguably representing the closest the South ever came to its goal of achieving independence from the Union via military victory.
There were two significant cavalry engagements on July 3. Stuart was sent to guard the Confederate left flank and was to be prepared to exploit any success the infantry might achieve on Cemetery Hill by flanking the Federal right and hitting their trains and lines of communications. Three miles (5 km) east of Gettysburg, in what is now called “East Cavalry Field” (not shown on the accompanying map, but between the York and Hanover Roads), Stuart’s forces collided with Federal cavalry: Brig. Gen. David McMurtrie Gregg’s division and Brig. Gen. Custer’s brigade. A lengthy mounted battle, including hand-to-hand sabre combat, ensued. Custer’s charge, leading the 1st Michigan Cavalry, blunted the attack by Wade Hampton’s brigade, blocking Stuart from achieving his objectives in the Federal rear. Meanwhile, after hearing news of the day’s victory, Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick launched a cavalry attack against the infantry positions of Longstreet’s Corps southwest of Big Round Top. Brig. Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth protested against the futility of such a move but obeyed orders. Farnsworth was killed in the attack, and his brigade suffered significant losses.
Jul 03 2015
The Daily/Nightly Show (Tearful Retrospective)
Soul Daddy
Tonightly, Bree Newsome, remover of the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia from the South Carolina Confederacy display. Should be fun. The panel will be Holly Walker, Rory Albanese, Mike Yard, and Ricky Valez.
Continuity
17, 18, …
Next week repeats. Week after that pre-empted. Regular shows resume July 20th which leaves scant time before Jon’s departure.
Not quite sure what I’m going to do, maybe I’ll follow Shark Week (just kidding).
Sarah Vowell is actually the Senior Historical Context Correspondent for The Daily Show, so she’s no doubt on to announce she’s starting a new project and won’t be appearing anymore followed by a tearful retrospective as we wonder just exactly what Trevor Noah will have left to work with when he takes over.
On the other hand she may just want to talk about reprising her role as Violet in Incredibles 2 (in production for 2016 release).
In other news Amy Schumer confirms she had serious discussions with Jon about hosting, but decided that the workload was too onerous and the role not well suited for the direction she wants to take her art.
Sigh.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s 2 part web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.
Jul 02 2015
On This Day In History July 2
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 images to enlarge.
July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 182 days remaining until the end of the year.
It is the midpoint of a common year. This is because there are 182 days before and 182 days after (median of the year) in common years, and 183 before and 182 after in leap years. The exact time in the middle of the year is at noon, or 12:00. In the UK and other countries that use “Summer Time” the actual exact time of the mid point in a common year is at (1.00 pm) 13:00 this is when 182 days and 12 hours have elapsed and there are 182 days and 12 hours remaining. This is due to Summer Time having advanced the time by one hour. It falls on the same day of the week as New Year’s Day in common years.
On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.
In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The 10 years that followed saw great strides for the African-American civil rights movement, as non-violent demonstrations won thousands of supporters to the cause. Memorable landmarks in the struggle included the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955–sparked by the refusal of Alabama resident Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a city bus to a white woman–and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech at a rally of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., in 1963.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (“public accommodations”). Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.
Jul 02 2015
Sucky Blogging Breakfast Club!
I’m telling you, I’m busy.
Today TMC and I are busy together.
The Hermione Sails Into New York Harbor, Cannons Blazing
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER, The New York Times
JULY 1, 2015
The last time a boat sailed into New York Harbor bearing the Marquis de Lafayette, the arrival touched off a frenzy that would put Beatlemania to shame.
The year was 1824, and some 50,000 people – roughly a third of New York’s population – lined the streets for a glimpse of Lafayette, the “French founding father,” who was visiting the United States as part of a 13-month triumphal tour of the nation he had helped liberate nearly a half-century earlier.
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Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, a staggeringly wealthy provincial aristocrat who had married into one of France’s grandest families, was only 19 when he first landed in America, in 1777, having sailed across the ocean on his own dime to support the Revolution, in defiance of Louis XVI. He became a major general and something of an adopted son to Washington. After fighting at the Battles of Brandywine (where he was wounded) and Rhode Island, he returned to France, where he successfully persuaded the king to lend troops to the American cause.While passed over as commander in favor of Rochambeau, Lafayette was sent ahead on the Hermione in May 1780 to personally inform Washington that a half-dozen ships and some 5,000 French troops were on their way. That support helped turn the tide of the Revolution.
“If America forgets its independence was due to French military assistance, that would be a sad thing,” Miles Young, the New York-based worldwide chairman and chief executive of Ogilvy & Mather and the president of the Friends of Hermione-Lafayette in America, said last week.
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The drawings for the original ship had been lost, so shipbuilders in Rochefort, on the west coast of France, worked from those of a sister ship held in British Admiralty archives.The hull and masts were constructed from 2,000 French oaks. Each stitch in the 19 linen sails was sewn by a single sailmaker, and rigged by a team from Sweden. In all, the project involved about 400,000 wood and traditionally forged metal parts.
“It’s completely mad to build an 18th-century frigate with this kind of almost religious authenticity,” Mr. Young said.
I would like to say more about the Marquis de Lafayette and probably will at some point, but I just got back this evening from another meeting of the Gilmores that was, umm…, not to be missed and there are several more this summer.
Likewise TMC will be visiting with her family over the 4th and today is the only time we can do this. Besides, she tells me that the 4th in the City is a cruel joke on anyone who wants to get anywhere at all.
So no news except the personal kind. Saturday the 4th we will be celebrating the 5th anniversary of The Stars Hollow Gazette, the start of Le Tour, and the 2015 Women’s World Cup Consolation Match. Sunday will be Silverstone, Day 2 of Le Tour, and the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final.
Plus the normal non-sense. I’m busy!
Lafayette Video
This Day in History
Jul 02 2015
A Long Way to Go for Transgender Rights and Respect
Last week’s victory for the LGBT community was historic but the transgender community still faces staggering challenges. John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” tackles the “T” in LGBT.
Jul 02 2015
The Daily/Nightly Show (Eh? I’m a little deaf in my Right ear)
Handsome Ape Update
If there is Facebook in the afterlife, you are in hell.
Tonightly we will be talking about Church burnings. Remember, because this is a war against the Christian faith in general, the fact that the congregations of these Churches is overwhelmingly African American has no relevance whatsoever.
Right.
The panel is Jim Gaffigan, Cenk Uygur, and Kerry Coddett.
Continuity
Mad as a Hatter
This week’s guests-
- Wednesday 7/1: Kirsten Gillibrand
- Thursday 7/2: Sarah Vowell
You have every reason to mistrust Kirsten Gillibrand. Her donations from pro-TPP groups was second only to – wait for it – Mitch McConnell. He got $8.2 million, she got $6.2 million.
Despite that she voted against TPA, so… points for her I guess.
She’ll be on to promote her new ghostwritten by her writer and Hillary Clinton’s writer book- Off the Sidelines: Speak Up, Be Fearless, and Change Your World
The real news below.
Jul 01 2015
The New Colonialism
“Civilized” countries will not stand for TPP, TTIP, TISA, Colonies will be forced to accept it
CETA Isn’t Dead, But Its Corporate Sovereignty Chapter Is Still A Huge, Unresolved Problem
by Glyn Moody, Tech Dirt
Wed, Jul 1st 2015
It’s been a while since we last wrote about CETA, the trade deal between Canada and the European Union. Back in March, we noted that the French Secretary of State for External Commerce, Matthias Fekl, said that France would not ratify CETA unless the corporate sovereignty, or investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), provisions were removed or replaced by something completely different. Of course, it’s hard not to be sceptical about these statements, since politicians like to grandstand, and are happy to change their positions every few months. But not, it seems, Matthias Fekl. According to a report on the French site Le Devoir (original in French), he’s still of the same opinion.
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The EU Commissioner for trade, Cecilia Malmström, is well aware of the issues here — not least because 145,000 people told her in the ISDS consultation last year — and has presented a concept paper entitled “Investment in TTIP and beyond – the path for reform” (pdf). These are quite similar to proposals made by Fekl for the creation of a new European court to settle trade disputes.
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Given that Malmström has admitted that the current ISDS is unsatisfactory, and that she is trying to come up with something better, it will be hard for her to include it in TAFTA/TTIP in its current form. But the US side has made it clear that it is not happy with dropping corporate sovereignty completely, which leads once more to the problem of time-scales, since a serious replacement for ISDS may not be available even for TTIP. It will be interesting to see how Malmström deals with this key issue for both CETA and TAFTA/TTIP.
Leaked: What’s in Obama’s trade deal
By Michael Grunwald, Politico
6/30/2015
POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam.
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(T)he draft chapter will provide ammunition for critics who have warned that TPP’s protections for pharmaceutical companies could dump trillions of dollars of additional health care costs on patients, businesses and governments around the Pacific Rim. The highly technical 90-page document, cluttered with objections from other TPP nations, shows that U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma.The draft text includes provisions that could make it extremely tough for generics to challenge brand-name pharmaceuticals abroad. Those provisions could also help block copycats from selling cheaper versions of the expensive cutting-edge drugs known as “biologics” inside the U.S., restricting treatment for American patients while jacking up Medicare and Medicaid costs for American taxpayers. “There’s very little distance between what Pharma wants and what the U.S. is demanding,” said Rohat Malpini, director of policy for Doctors Without Borders.
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The draft chapter covers software, music and other intellectual property issues as well, but its most controversial language involves the rights of drug companies. The text reveals disputes between the U.S. (often with support from Japan) and its TPP partners over a variety of issues-what patents can cover, when and how long they can be extended, how long pharmaceutical companies can keep their clinical data private, and much more. On every issue, the U.S. sided with drug companies in favor of stricter intellectual property protections.Some of the most contentious provisions involve “patent linkage,” which would prevent regulators in TPP nations from approving generic drugs whenever there are any unresolved patent issues. The TPP draft would make this linkage mandatory, which could help drug companies fend off generics just by claiming an infringement. The Obama administration often describes TPP as the most progressive free-trade deal in history, citing its compliance with the tough labor and environment protections enshrined in the so-called “May 10 Agreement” of 2007, which set a framework for several trade deals at the time. But mandatory linkage seems to be a departure from the May 10 pharmaceutical provisions.
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advocates fear that generic manufacturers may not take on the risk and expense of litigation in smaller markets if TPP tilts the playing field against them. One generics manufacturer, Hospira, reportedly testified at a TPP forum in Melbourne, Australia, that it would not launch generics outside the U.S. in markets with linkage.The opponents are also worried about the treaty’s effect on the U.S. market, because its draft language would extend mandatory patent linkage to biologics, the next big thing in the pharmaceutical world. Biologics can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for patients with illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis B and cancer, and the first knockoffs have not yet reached pharmacies. The critics say that extending linkage to biologics-which can have hundreds of patents-would help insulate them from competition forever.
“It would be a dramatic departure from U.S. law, and it would put a real crimp in the ability of less expensive drugs to get to market,” said K.J. Hertz, a lobbyist for AARP. “People are going to look at this very closely in Congress.”
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Malpani of Doctors Without Borders said U.S. negotiators have basically functioned as drug lobbyists. The TPP countries have 40 percent of global economic output, and the deal is widely seen as establishing new benchmarks for some of the most complex areas of global business. Malpani fears it could set a precedent that crushes the generic drug industry under a mountain of regulation and litigation.“We consider this the worst-ever agreement in terms of access to medicine,” he said. “It would create higher drug prices around the world-and in the U.S., too.
Jul 01 2015
The Failure of Neo Liberalism
As Greece Heads for Default, Voters Prepare to Vote in Pivotal Referendum on More Austerity
How Eurocrats, Greeks, Germans, and Eastern Europeans View the Greek Crisis
by Mandos, Ian Welsh
2015 June 28
The first group I’ll discuss isn’t really a “national” grouping at all, but rather a stratum of mostly continental Europeans who view themselves as first and foremost “Europeans” as in citizens of the European Union. I am going to dub them “EUians” from this point on. On the extreme end, I have met EUians who explicitly believe that European countries should abandon their national languages and just adopt a lingua franca (i.e., English). All in all, they believe that Europeans need to “grow up” and accept that the era of the culturally-defined nation state is “over” and that it is a monkey on the back of Europa herself.
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In this worldview, it is only progress that national politics become increasingly devoid of content, and it is only necessary to build European-level democracy when the Europeans have finally, ironically, swallowed the medicine of their own mission civilisatrice. A case in point that is unfolding right now is the drama over refugees, specifically, how to settle them. Brussels had a perfectly reasonable and fair idea that refugees be allocated to countries in proportion to countries’ relative economic weight. This was met with absolute rejection, particularly by newer EU countries in Eastern Europe, who explicitly do not want even a small increase in the proportion of brown people who live there. Behind these countries hid some of the older, larger countries, whose national politics are already burdened by immigration-fatigue.To EUians, this can only be confirmation that, at the national-political level, Europeans are only a hair’s breadth away from poking each other with sharp sticks in order to maintain ethnoreligious homogeneity. And they may be. But is it a sustainable solution to gradually dilute their democratic rights? To EUians, it is the only answer.
And that bring us to the inner cadre of EUians: the Eurocracy, the elite bureaucrats whose job it is to ^manage^ European economic and political convergence. One of the principal political functions of the Eurocracy is precisely to circumvent national politics. Eurocrats are to act as would-be philosopher-kings, coming up with reasonable solutions based on scientific principles. Oh, they’re human and can be corrupt and venal, but so can elected politicians. Whence the repeated referenda, and then adopting the Lisbon treaty anyway? Well, if the people say “no,” it’s not like the philosopher-kings are going to come up with a better answer-they already emitted the best answer! That’s why they’re Eurocrats.
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(F)or EUians and Eurocrats, the bad signs started off very early – choosing ANEL over To Potami as a partner. Readers here probably think of To Potami as a Quisling, capitulationist part(y), but for the Eurocracy, an alliance with To Potami would have signalled that Syriza could be mollified ultimately through fudging an agreement and was not itself a dangerous populist party. But Syriza chose the spear-carrying nationalist Greeks instead.So from their perspective, Syriza wanted to play populist politics on the open field of democracy and is reaping what it sowed. Europe does not, cannot, should not have room for a populist left, regardless of whether or not the policy proposed makes sense. European politics is about giving cover, and rational, professorial arguments embedded in a dangerous “democratic mandate” framework is just not on. Even this referendum, which the now apparently non-existent proposal might actually win, is a simply unacceptable exercise that, if repeated elsewhere, will destroy the European project, which is an inherent good that cannot survive the popular sovereignty of barbarian peoples.
This is sometimes an overlooked aspect of the discussion, but the views of Baltic and East European states do matter. Some of the Baltic states took very painful medicine recently, and not medicine that different in character from what Greece was being asked to take, but has either refused (under Syriza) or only fudged (under ND, etc). And a lot of these countries have populations that are already poorer than Greeks are now.
Now many of you will retort that these countries, instead of joining in solidarity with the creditors, should likewise have the higher ideological standards that Greeks seem to have. But from their perspective, they embraced austerity and social pain as a manner of slicing off their own forearm in order to escape from the bear that has it by the wrist. Yes, I’m talking about Russia. I know that a good number of readers here think of Russia and Vladimir Putin as a kind of last-stand resistor against “AngloZionist” world domination, but for these countries, what they want to know is how soon the West can bring them that sweet, sweet AngloZionism.
So in a sense, Greece’s apparent cozying up to Putin is in some ways a worse affront than its apparent sense of entitlement. Greece is playing with existential fire for these countries, instead of thanking its lucky stars that’s it’s under the AngloZionist umbrella and putting their grandmothers on ice floes of austerity in gratitude.