Month: September 2014

On
last night’s episode of The Independents, anti-tax
activist Grover Norquist, fresh off his first trip to Burning Man,
described it as a life-changing event:

Back when the proposed Norquist trip was
pointlessly controversial, Reason TV did a funny video about
his untenable views. And
of course, Senior Editor Brian Doherty
wrote the book on Burning Man.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party,
or PKK, has been active in the Kurdish parts of Turkey since the
’70s. It has a sometimes sordid history: Its politics were
Marxist-Leninist, and its willingness to kill prisoners and
civilians earned a
rebuke from Amnesty International. Its leader, Abdullah Öcalan,
has been under arrest since 1999, but its armed struggle with the
Turkish state continued until a ceasefire was reached last
year.

I was vaguely aware of all that, and I may even have read at
some point that Öcalan had recently rejected his old Leninist
outlook and terrorist tactics, proclaiming a newfound devotion to
democracy. What I did not realize was what brand of democracy had
attracted Öcalan’s interest. Somehow, he became smitten with the
American left-anarchist Murray Bookchin.
He appears to be particularly interested in Bookchin’s idea of
devolving power to cities governed by
neighborhood assemblies.

I just called Bookchin an anarchist, but by the time he died
Bookchin had rejected that label, calling himself a “Communalist”
instead. But I’m not writing this post to discuss Bookchin’s
ideas—the curious reader can check out my obit for him here
and Reason‘s interview with him here—so much as
just to express my astonishment to see Bookchinism bubbling up in
the PKK, of all places.

ROAR has more on Öcalan’s evolution here.
Bookchin’s partner Janet Biehl discusses these developments

here. Some left-anarchists greet the PKK’s conversion with a
mixture of interest and skepticism
here. Kevin Carson is enthusiastic here. The most blistering
critique of Bookchin ever written is
here. A latebreaking correction to my Bookchin obit is here.

Funny or Die released a new video today featuring a very special
cameo from Michelle Obama. It’s a parody of The Hunger Games,
Divergent, et al, crossed with a healthy eating PSA.

The resulting video, “Snackpocalypse,” is
not remotely funny.

Yeah, yeah, kids are not eating healthy enough, whatever. The
joke falls flat, though—it’s too generic. The creators could have
replaced junk food with any other perceived social problem and made
pretty much the same video. Snack food-shaming fits here only
because it’s what Michelle Obama is best known for.

This isn’t the first time an Obama has appeared in a Funny or
Die video; President Obama sat down for a scripted interview with
Zach Galifianakis on his awkwardly hilarious “Between Two Ferns.”
The
video was a plug for Healthcare.gov and did earn some laughs,
despite being propaganda. “Snackpocalypse,” on the other hand, is
unfunny propaganda.

Interestingly enough, the Barack video was conceived by the
administration as a deliberate ploy to market the Affordable Care
Act to increasingly skeptical millennials. Obama’s people pitched
the idea to Funny or Die’s creative team, which accepted. It’s not
clear whether Michelle Obama’s video was also planned by the
administration (to be fair, this video is not promoting a specific
policy the way the other one was). I’ve asked for clarification
from Funny or Die, but have not heard back yet.

Funny or Die is also perfectly capable of pushing leftist policy
ideas without help from the Obamas. Check out the pro-minimum wage
video,
“Mary Poppins Quits with Kristen Bell,” and then watch Remy’s rebuttal
video.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio (LPO) has been
grappling in court all year with Republican pals of Gov. John
Kasich, and insists that the Ohio GOP is using unethical tactics to
snuff them out. Their claim just earned some more credence.

The Associated Press (AP) reports on the latest
revelation:

A Republican consultant and appointee of Gov. Kasich was
responsible for hiring the law firm whose challenge pushed two
[LPO] candidates off the statewide ballot.

Terry Casey worked for Kasich’s 2010 campaign and the governor
has since appointed him to the $70,000-a-year job chairing the
state personnel review board.

Casey’s role hiring Zeiger, Tigges & Little emerged in a
case in which Libertarians are asking federal Judge Michael Watson
to restore governor candidate Charlie Earl and attorney general
candidate Steven Linnabary to November’s ballot.

In a new court filing, the [LPO] also says Bradley Smith, hired
to oversee the disqualification hearing by Republican Secretary of
State Jon Husted, didn’t disclose he was working for Ohio’s
Republican attorney general, Mike DeWine, doing pro bono work at
the time.

It was
previously unknown who hired the Zeiger firm, and the Ohio GOP
chairman swore under oath that his party played no role in
Libertarian woes.

Some background is necessary: In March, Earl got enough
signatures to run, but Husted had him disqualified on a
technicality, because the person Earl hired to collect signatures
failed to list the LPO as his employer. The would-be candidate took
the case through the court system claiming that the signature
collector’s First Amendment rights, specifically his right to not
declare his employer, were being denied by Husted, but the courts
ruled against Earl, saying the burden on his rights were
minimal.

In order to get the ball rolling on that
disqualification, though, Husted needed a registered member of the
LPO to challenge Earl’s bid. Casey hired the Zeiger law firm, which
convinced a local Libertarian named Gregory Felsoci to sign the
challenge. Significantly, Judge Watson described Felsoci as a
“guiless dupe” who “lacks even a basic understanding of the nature
of the protest he agreed to sign.” That’s putting it lightly.
Felsoci thought he was signing a petition to help Earl get
on the ballot.

Judge Watson also acknowledged that the GOP or its affiliates
orchestrated a plot against the LPO, and higher courts admit that
this plot undermines the LPO’s status as a “ballot-qualified party”
and therefore could do “severe
and irreparable harm” to it. To regain its status as
ballot-qualified would require jumping through
new, burdensome hoops thanks to a GOP-crafted law that recently
took effect. 

Casey brushed off the LPO’s most recent complaint as a mere
distraction from the third-party’s own shortcomings, and then he
pulled a quintessential ’80s teen movie antagonist move: He
“thanked Libertarians for the free publicity” because it’ll help
him find donors to pay Zeiger’s legal fees, according to the
AP.

None of the Republicans’ meddling has any legal bearing on the
fact that Earl did break the rules by not disclosing a signature
collector’s employment status, but is that one technicality
anywhere near as anti-democratic or downright unetical as the fact
that the GOP is squashing voters’ alternative choices like
this? 

A trio of judges Tuesday heard the American Civil Liberties
Union’s challenge that the federal government’s mass collection of
telephone metadata is unconstitutional.

Media outlets have been quick to point out the
skepticism of the judges—from the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in
New York—that it was lawful for the National Security Agency (NSA)
to engage in the mass collection of telephone metadata from people
(including American citizens) under no suspicion of criminal or
terrorist activity.
Reuters reports:

Judge Gerard Lynch, one of three judges who heard the arguments,
said it was “hard for me to imagine” Congress had envisioned such a
sweeping effort when it passed an expansion of anti-terrorism
powers known as the Patriot Act after the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001.

Stuart Delery, a lawyer for the Justice Department, told Lynch
in response that Congress was fully informed when it voted to
reauthorize the Patriot Act twice.

The two other judges, Robert Sack and Vernon Broderick, also
expressed skepticism about the program’s legality, although it can
be difficult to infer judges’ eventual rulings from questions at
oral argument. The panel could take several months to issue a
decision.

Note that this case only covers telephone metadata, not online
metadata, e-mail information or anything else the government calls
metadata, though the judges expressed concern that the government’s
arguments could be expanded to other areas like financial records.
In August, the documents snagged by Edward Snowden
introduced us to ICREACH, the search engine the federal
government created to help agencies navigate all the information
they’ve been collected. We discovered through these documents that
the feds have added dozens of new forms of metadata, like passport
information, visa application records, and cellphone location data,
to the list of information it is collecting. But as this case winds
its way toward the Supreme Court—and let’s face it, eventually the
Supreme Court is going to have to tackle this issue (another reason
to thank Edward Snowden)—the nature of the court’s ruling could
affect more than just phone metadata collection.

If you’ve got two hours to spare, the hearing was televised on
C-Span and can be
watched here.

Below, Lily Tomlin breaks it all down: