Divine Right

No, I didn't get the days confused. This isn't a Sunday Funnies post. I included this 'toon by David Horsey and published by the Los Angeles Times because the blog post which went with it was really quite interesting and the cartoon added just the right amount of snark.

Rick Santorum is pulling out all the stops in South Carolina, capitalizing on his conservative religious views in a state known for, well, conservative religious views.

In the race to be the most sincere Christian candidate for president, Rick Santorum looks like the front-runner.

Out on the edge of town here Sunday afternoon, out among the big box stores and strip malls, at a family restaurant called Percy and Willie's, Santorum came by to shake hands and speak to a crowd of diners who had likely spent the morning praising the Lord at one of the area’s many evangelical churches.

"America is a moral enterprise, not an economic enterprise," Santorum declared. The United States is successful not because of its powerful military, its economic system or its form of government, he said; it is successful because of the American people’s faith in God. The news media don’t get it, he said, “and I’m running against a president who doesn’t believe it.” But the good people of South Carolina understand “the obligation we have to lead good, moral and decent lives.”

And he's having some success:

Jamie Thompkins, an attractive, middle-aged teacher from Georgetown, described herself as an ultra, ultra-conservative who is happy to be living in the middle of America’s Bible Belt. Santorum appeals to her, she said, because “he would put God before anything else. He’s going to really rely on God and not rely on what everyone else says.”

Another woman, a local psychologist who, like a lot of people here, didn’t want her name showing up in the media, said religious faith is an extremely important factor in her choice for president. She said she could tell that, with Santorum, it is not just rhetoric: “He talks the talk that we talk.”

What I found amazing about this (as did Horsey) is that both women and all of the other Santorum supporters are aware that Rick is a Catholic, not an evangelical, born-again Protestant. It wasn't all that long ago that the Religious Reich would have had as much trouble with Santorum's and Gingrich's religion as they obviously still do with Mitt Romney's Mormonism. I would have thought that Rick Perry, a bona fide evangelical would get the votes and the imprimatur of the 100 evangelical leaders who decided, after three ballots, to endorse Santorum instead. Maybe things are changing, or maybe, just maybe Rick Perry is seen as too weak to actually get elected in a match with Obama.

Or, and I agree with Horsey on this, the evangelicals still haven't decided on a candidate and all of this hoo-hah is just more evidence of division in the ranks.

...Still, by most reports, Santorum has not sewed up the evangelical vote. And if it stays split, Romney is very likely to come out on top in Saturday’s primary.

If South Carolina is as close as Iowa was, it's going to be a long campaign for the remaining candidates. If Romney cruises to a New Hampshire-like victory, I think the real contest is over.

I'm still going to pick up more popcorn this weekend.

Monkey Brains At Work

OK, I admit it. I enjoyed this this opinion piece entirely too much. In fact, I roared with laughter at a couple of points, even though I realized that probably was pretty good evidence that I still harbor a wide stripe of sexism. This wonderful little essay was written by Robert M. Sapolsky, who is a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, and examines the current slate of candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in light of what we know about primates, especially those species which are male dominated.

Now that Michele Bachmann has dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination, we are left with an array of the usual suspects in American politics — namely a bunch of men who seem to spend much of their lives bragging about how tough they are.

We have Rick Perry waxing macho about the number of executions he's overseen in Texas and Rick Santorum threatening to bomb Iran. There's Newt Gingrich proclaiming that the race is going to boil down to being between "Newt and not-Newt." Even the septuagenarian Ron Paul starts his campaign appearances with Darth Vader's theme music, which he uses to emphasize how dangerous he is to Mitt Romney.

As any zoologist would instantly recognize, what we have here are a bunch of male primates vying for dominance. [Emphasis added]

Professor Sapolski zeroes in on one species in particular: the rhesus monkey. He then explains in easily understood terms what studies of those monkey brains show us about the role of the brain in that dominance. That part of the essay is especially engaging because it contains a few surprises. The part of the brain that gets the most workout is not the "beat 'em up" center but the one that understands social connections and interactions. And that is rich with significance.

And there is an instructive lesson here for this presidential season. As the candidates vie to show how tough they are on Iran, the national debt and those suffering polar bears trying to foist the myth of global warming on us, we should think about those high-ranking, bully-boy rhesus monkeys and their large rostral prefrontal cortexes. It's likely that politicians too have developed parts of their brain that could be put to better use than feuding and posturing. Perhaps it's time for humans to demand that our leaders use their brains for more than coordinating the muscles responsible for chest thumping.

From your lips to the remaining candidates' ears, Professor.

Sunday Poetry: C.P. Cavafy

The Glories Of The Ptolemies

I am the son of Lagus, king. The absolute possessor
(with my power and my wealth) of voluptuous delight.
No Macedonian, or barbarian, can be found
my equal, or even to compare with me. The son of Seleucus
is ludicrous with his vulgar luxury.
But if you want more, see, these too are clear.
The city -- the teacher, summit of panhellenism,
in the word, in very art, the wisest.

--C.P. Cavafy

Sunday Funnies

(Editorial cartoon by Kevin Siers for The Charlotte Observer (January 11, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge.)

Bonus Critter Blogging: Octopus

(Photograph courtesy NERC CHESSO Consortium and published at National Geographic. Click on the link to learn about the rather interesting form of locomotion this critter uses.)

Elder Belle's Blessing: Mike Freeman and Warren Limmer

(Photo by Patrice Carlton and published at National Geographic.)

This award is given from time to time to those individuals or groups who go out of their way to enhance the lives and interests of the elders. The winners in this edition have dedicated themselves to changing the law in the state of Minnesota. At present, elder neglect, even when it results in serious injury or death, is a misdemeanor, which means the perpetrators get a slap on the wrist and a small fine. Freeman and Warren want to make it a felony.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Caregivers who intentionally neglect the elderly or other vulnerable adults could face felony prosecution for the first time in Minnesota under a legislative proposal unveiled Thursday that would close what proponents say is a gaping hole in state law.

Prosecutors say current misdemeanor penalties don't allow them to properly punish violators, even in extreme cases where months of horrendous treatment ends in serious harm or death.

The paper examined about 50 cases since 2004 where someone was convicted of misdemeanor neglect, including six that resulted in death. That included a mother in Bloomington who died after she was left in squalid conditions in a cold, darkened bedroom by her adult son, who paid a $50 fine and got a year of probation.

"Does this make me sick? You're damn right it does," said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, a DFLer who is among those spearheading the effort. "Every one of God's vulnerable adults deserves better, and we're going to do something about it." ...

The bill's chief Senate sponsor, Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, said the legislation is a reasonable proposal that targets the most extreme cases. Limmer, chair of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, said that with a wave of baby boomers set to retire, it's important to confront abuse and neglect.

It's always been important to confront abuse and neglect, and these two gentlemen, who are from opposing parties, by the way, have joined together to stiffen the penalties to a more appropriate level. What is so deplorable is that getting an reasonable bill through is going to be difficult. In the past, such bills failed because of pressure from some interest groups:

It remains uncertain whether the proposal, outlined by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, prosecutors and Gov. Mark Dayton's administration, will face opposition from nursing homes, hospitals and others in the care industry. For years, an influential group in the industry has blocked efforts at the Capitol to criminalize neglect.

If you are a Minnesota resident, please put some pressure on your state legislators to pass this bill. It's needed and needed badly to protect the elders from predators and negligent health care providers.

Kudos to Freeman and Warren for standing up for us.

Friday Cat Blogging

(Photo snagged from Presto Change-o. Click on the link for more great kitty photos. 250,000 visitors should tell you how great that site and its proprietor are!)

Gaming The System

We are seeing the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United play out in the GOP campaigns for the presidential nomination, as the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and now South Carolina have discovered. The airwaves are filled with commercials purchased not just by the candidates but by Super PACS not directly affiliated with the campaigns. Those spots not only extol one candidate, but attack the others, and while it is fairly obvious who the beneficiary of each ad is, that beneficiary gets to distance himself from the more egregious attacks by noting that it didn't come from his campaign.

One of hallmarks of this new part of electioneering is that most of the time, voters have no idea who actually is behind each ad. The donors supplying the cash for the commercial buys are not listed in the commercial as it takes up viewing space, and that makes the whole process opaque, something that Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, notes in a column she produced for the New York Times.

...the money the candidates raise themselves is only part of the story, and it may not be the most significant part, even with the possibility that the nominees of both parties will forgo public financing for the general election, as President Obama did last time. Every major presidential candidate is being aided by a group now known as a “super PAC” and sometimes by more than one.

Triggered by the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and a couple of lower court decisions, these new groups are allowed to collect unlimited sums of money from individuals, corporations, unions and trade groups — and to use these funds for expenditures that expressly call for the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office.

Not content with just pouring unlimited amounts of money into campaigns, these Super PACs are finding ways around the reporting requirements to keep the names of donors hidden from voters right before the election, something which the Supreme Court clearly did not intend in its decision. Because the Federal Election Commission hasn't actually caught up with the fallout from the decision, Super PACs are playing games with the system as it currently exists:

...Because 2011 was not an election year, super PACs that opted to file quarterly were not required to submit third-quarter disclosures that would have enlightened the public about their funders. However, the 1970s-era Federal Election Campaign Act does require quarterly filers to make special reports just before primaries. So as 2011 came to a close, many super PACs – including all of the candidate-specific ones – told the F.E.C that from now on they’d be filing monthly, rather than quarterly.

Monthly filers aren’t required to make “pre-primary” reports. So the funders behind the groups’ activities in the electoral contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida won’t be known until after the voting is all over. Three super PACs — Our Destiny, which supports Jon Huntsman; the Red, White and Blue Fund, which is backing Rick Santorum; and Endorse Liberty, a booster of Ron Paul — even made this change after the books had closed on the pre-election reporting period. [Emphasis added]

How convenient.

In other words, unless the FEC changes the rules midstream and quickly, the result of Citizen's United is an increase in opacity. Voters, for whom knowing the identity of key backers might make a difference (i.e., knowing just whom the candidates now owe favors to), are going into the voting booths blind. And unless Congress moves to defang this terrible Supreme Court decision, the fallout will continue through November.

Helluva way to run a democracy.

Speaking In Tongues

I don't often spend time reading Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum, but I am certainly glad I did this morning. Her latest column examines an issue that has long puzzled and troubled me: the apparent clout of the Religious Reich. She was in Israel when the story about the young school girl in an ultra-ultra Orthodox neighborhood who was spat upon and harassed by some of the locals because, even in her long-sleeved blouse and floor-length skirt, her ankles could be seen as she walked. Ms. Daum was clearly appalled by the act of the ultra-ultra Orthodox men, but (and this is key) she was even more appalled by the fact that the rest of Israel allowed them to behave in such a manner.

She then uses that experience as a backdrop to what is happening in this country, and particularly in the GOP campaigns for the presidential nomination, using Rick Santorum's pronouncements on gays, abortion rights, contraception, and even sex outside of baby-making as a prime example of extreme religious zealotry taking over the affairs of a democracy.

...I couldn't help but notice that just as Israel tolerates, and even cooperates in, the extremist behavior of a minority of its population, GOP leaders, especially in election season in the U.S., seem willing to pander to the furthest reaches of the right wing. ...

Why does Santorum persist with his rhetoric? Well, in fairness, he's a conservative (and an intensely literal-minded) Catholic, and he seems to believe most of it personally, even if hardly anyone else does. But zealots in Israel believe it's OK to spit at schoolgirls, even if hardly anyone else does. In both cases, the problem is what happens to democratic principles when such personal beliefs intersect public policy.

In the U.S., we too often grant the noisiest, most threatening zealots too much power to set the agenda. We're complicit in creating the illusion that religious fundamentalism is so rabid and so monolithic that we must appease it in order to keep it from turning against us. What we have in Santorum, who's clearly banking on South Carolina rolling quite a bit holier than New Hampshire, is a man enthralled with that mythic power — and it's making him speak in tongues. [Emphasis added]

Amen.

Beating The Drums

Well, another primary/caucus down and just 48 to go. The next one is two weeks away so we get a bit of a breather, but not much. It doesn't appear that any candidates will be dropping out of the race for the GOP nomination for president at this point. Instead, the race will get more heated as those remaining hope to stop the Romney juggernaut or at least slow it down. The dueling will continue via campaign speeches and ugly television ads.

New Hampshire did show us that the key issue there, and presumably a major issue in the rest of the country, is that of the economy. That's really no surprise. What is surprising, however, is the emphasis in the campaigns on other, more "red meat" issues. We've seen the remaining candidates trying to out-conservative each other on immigration and that will probably continue. The same is true on defense issues, particularly on what to do about Iran's nuclear ambitions. It is this issue which continues to be inflated by all the candidates but Ron Paul. He's no pacifist, but he doesn't think the country should be spending the treasury down as Policeman For The World.

The rest of the candidates have all promised to stop Iran at all costs, up to and including war. "All options must remain on the table." "We must have a regime change." We will no doubt continue to hear such phrases and more like them. Apparently at least these gentlemen have forgotten the debacle of Iraq and what it cost this country.

Micah Zenko and Emma Welch have an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times which explores this campaign issue and notes that when it comes down to any kind of specific plans, all of the candidates are woefully inarticulate. None of them have any plan in mind, and with good reason. They, like most of the rest of the population haven't any real clue as to just where Iran is in the quest for a nuclear weapon, or even if the quest is real.

First, does the U.S. intelligence community know where every weapons-related nuclear facility is located? As demonstrated by the revelation of a potential hidden uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom in 2009, it is impossible to know whether Iran is concealing other nuclear facilities.

Second, can airstrikes alone eliminate all nuclear facilities? Even Gingrich acknowledged: "The idea that you're going to wage a bombing campaign that accurately takes out all the Iranian nuclear program … is a fantasy."

Last, but certainly not least, have senior leaders in Iran decided to pursue nuclear weapons? Last February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted: "We do not know … if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

None of this will stop the candidates, however. They will continue with the glib assertions of the need to flex our national muscle at whatever cost without ever detailing just what they would do. Zemko and Welch have a few cogent words of advice for voters and the press at this point:

Initiating a preemptive military strike against Iran to eliminate its suspected nuclear weapons capability would be an enormously significant — and potentially disastrous — foreign policy decision. As the Republican presidential campaign continues, the media and prospective voters must challenge the candidates for greater explanation on this application of military force. In Iraq, the U.S. discovered the enormous costs and consequences of trying to disarm a country through regime change. It is crucial, therefore, that we demand that those running for president clearly articulate a realistic strategy for preventing an Iranian bomb before placing "all options on the table."

Not a bad idea, that.