Hullabaloo

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

 
Freedom to slut shame

by digby

From Jezebel, the latest attempted assault on women's rights in the great "laboratory of democracy" called Arizona:

A proposed new law in Arizona would give employers the power to request that women being prescribed birth control pills provide proof that they're using it for non-sexual reasons. And because Arizona's an at-will employment state, that means that bosses critical of their female employees' sex lives could fire them as a result. If we could harness the power of the crappy ideas coming out of the state of Arizona, we could probably power a rocket ship to the moon, where there are no Mexicans or fertile wombs and everyone can be free to be as mean a cranky asshole as they want at all times! Arizona Heaven!

Yesterday, a Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed Republican Debbie Lesko's HB2625 by a vote of 6-2, which would allow an employer to request proof that a woman using insurance to buy birth control was being prescribed the birth control for reasons other than not wanting to get pregnant. It's all about freedom, she said, echoing everyone who thinks there's nothing ironic about claiming that a country that's "free" allows people's bosses to dictate what medical care is available to them through insurance.

Ah yes, freedom. After all, the owner of the business has a right to spend his money on anything he chooses and if he only wants to pay for endometriosis and not for SluttyWhore sex then he has a right to do that. And assuming you are a privileged person who has many opportunities to make a living, you have a right to quit.(See Corey Robin on the libertarian relationship with workers, here.) That's what they call freedom -- it's only your imagination that the people with money and power have quite a bit more of it than you do.

But let's talk about this specific bill and what it's saying. These people aren't being vague about "individual conscience" or "religious liberty." There's no sugar coating this one. They want to allow employers to force women to prove they aren't using birth control for sexual purposes.

Now I would guess that many doctors would give their patients a "note" saying that they needed the pill for cramps or skin problems, but imagine the conversation you're forced to have with your boss about your health in order to get this coverage. I don't know about any of you, but I've had many bosses in my life with whom I would rather not have any such personal conversation --- not to mention that since I don't consider women slaves, I don't believe anyone should have to.

This is just a straight up slut shaming exercise, designed to make women feel embarrassed about having sex. Back in the bad old days, this was common, but I haven't seen it so blatant since I was young. And it brings up an interesting question. I have long wondered if one of the reasons that a lot of people are as passive about abortion rights as they seem to be is because female sexuality and single motherhood have become so acceptable in society. Since the stigma of being unwed and pregnant was gone, I thought some people might have adopted the view that forced childbirth wasn't that big a deal because any woman could go through nine months of pregnancy and give up the child for adoption if she didn't want to raise it and no one would call her a whore. (And even cases like this famous one which is credited with shocking people into a recognition that abortion had to be legal, would be different today with different sexual mores and laws governing divorce and domestic violence.)

Obviously, I think that's ridiculous --- nine months of pregnancy isn't some lark that doesn't matter and it's a very rare woman who just picks up and carries on as if nothing happened. It's a life changer regardless of whether or not you raise the child. (And in any case, women have the right to abortion because they are autonomous human beings who should be allowed to decide whether or not to reproduce.) But I have wondered if these social changes might have had the perverse effect of making some people less sympathetic to abortion.

So what to make of the fact that the right is now pushing a full blown attack on female sexuality? It's not new (it goes allll the way back to the Garden of Eden) but it's been on a low burner for several decades. We knew the social conservatives were against birth control, but I don't think anyone quite anticipated that they would so blatantly attack women for having sex. Maybe we were overconfident, thinking that their fetus obsession was going to carry over into this debate and it would be all about "abortifascients" and adorable little babies because that had worked for them in the past. But that's not what happened. Indeed, you can't help but have the feeling that this slut saga is an authentic, reflexive reaction, not a strategic response. This is what they've always felt, deep inside and for some reason they were unable to contain it this time.

Whether or not this assault on female sexuality wakes up those I suspect became complacent about abortion remains to be seen. But one thing I can say with certainty: this slut shaming will result in more abortions, not less. If a large segment of society decides that women who have sex outside of marriage are sluts and whores again, women will still have unplanned pregnancies (as they always have and always will) but some who might otherwise decide to give birth will seek abortions instead.

I know these people all want to put women back into traditional roles in which they are virgins until they get married and then have as many children as nature allows, but that's something that's not likely to happen any time soon. What will happen instead is that they will succeed in making some women feel guilty for having sex, subject all women to misogynist outbursts like we saw from Rush Limbaugh, more unplanned pregnancies and more abortions. And if we're really lucky and they finally succeed in making abortion illegal and birth control difficult and expensive to obtain, we'll end up with this. Again:

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digby 3/14/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
Kabuki Trigger Lock

by digby

Thing Progress reports:

[A]ccording to Reuters, both Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-OH) are ready to cut below the level specified in the debt ceiling deal:

Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are ready to break a hard-fought budget deal with Democrats as they try to quell a revolt by conservatives who are insisting on deeper spending cuts ahead of the November elections.

House Republican aides said on Tuesday that House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor were pressing for a modest $19 billion reduction of discretionary spending caps in this year’s Republican budget plan.

“I’m really disappointed that they’re considering a budget – violating the budget agreement that is now the law of this country. This was designed to avoid another government shutdown or a threat of a shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “We had a deal last August on the budget numbers, and we expect them to live with that deal,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has said. The end result of this standoff could be yet another impending government shutdown, as the government’s current spending authority expires on September 30.

I wonder what the Democrats had to promise to get the Republicans to take the heat for tanking the deal that nobody ever believed would be honored in the first place?

Those triggers are a vestige of negotiations that didn't work out. Even when they were still negotiating John McCain was out there saying they had no obligation to follow through on the defense cuts and the feckless Dems don't want more massive cuts in discretionary programs in an election year with a fragile recovery. It was basically a ploy for that moment that allowed everyone to get out of the corners into which they'd painted themselves. It was never going to happen and I imagine they're be happy to run extensions through the election.

The lame duck session is going to be very dangerous, however. That's when the bad stuff usually happens and this time won't be any different. If the congress is left more or less status quo, this will be where all the chits come due.

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digby 3/14/2012 09:34:00 AM |

 
A reminder about last night's voters

by David Atkins

After Santorum's big victories in Mississippi and Alabama, it's worth reminding oneself about the the nature of Mississippi Republican voters:

There's considerable skepticism about Barack Obama's religion with Republican voters in them. In Mississippi only 12% of voters think Obama's a Christian to 52% who think he's a Muslim and 36% who are not sure. In Alabama just 14% think Obama's a Christian to 45% who think he's a Muslim and 41% who aren't sure...

Alabama’s pretty much on board with interracial marriage, with 67% of voters thinking it should be legal to 21% who think it should not be. There’s still some skepticism in Mississippi though — only 54% of voters think it should be legal, while 29% believe it should be illegal.

Almost a third of Mississippi Republican voters think interracial marriage should be illegal, and over half think the President is a Muslim (as if it matters.)

And yet, the rest of us are supposed to pretend these people are worthy of respect, and we mustn't condescend to them lest we hurt their feelings. Above all, the big bad Yankee government mustn't impose its foreign, hostile, culturally hegemonic "lack of values" on these God-fearing hard-working folk. That would be awful.

Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are, after all, very serious candidates for President.


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thereisnospoon 3/14/2012 04:02:00 AM |

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

 
Progressives threaten to walk over the Village barricades

by digby

According to Stuart Rothenberg, the PCCC is just like the Tea Party --- well except for all the millionaire PAC money, of course. But other than that, they are the same sort of crazy wacked out fringe dwelling extremists who are making it very hard for decent, God fearing centrists to run the Democratic Party:

A very liberal group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, sounds like a tea party group of the left, given its rhetoric, strategy and tactics. Like many in the tea party, the PCCC sees itself as a protector of its party’s dominant ideology — in this case liberalism — and a judge of who constitutes a “real” Democrat.

Oooh, a liberal group. And they are protecting liberalism, no less, under the bizarre belief that their ideology should be dominant. Imagine that? Just one question: is there any other kind of Republican besides a conservative one?

But here's the rub. The PCCC is pursuing their dastardly agenda in Democratic primaries. What could be more destructive that that? Can you believe that liberals would believe they should have a voice in Democratic party elections? Who the hell do they think they are?

The PCCC has declared war on two Democratic primary candidates: businessman Brad Schneider in Illinois’ 10th district and former Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chávez in New Mexico’s 1st district. Instead, the group prefers two other Democratic hopefuls, Ilya Sheyman in the Illinois district and state Sen. Eric Griego in New Mexico.

In the Illinois race, the Russian-born Sheyman, who worked as national mobilization director for MoveOn.org, has the backing of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the PCCC. Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation magazine wrote a glowing piece about Sheyman.

The Democratic hopeful said during an interview last year that he was not running just to win the seat but to grow the power of progressives in Congress.
Sheyman, 25, and his allies have attacked primary opponent Schneider for contributing over the years to a handful of Republican candidates (including Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk and ex-Minnesota Rep. Mark Kennedy) and even for voting in one GOP primary. (A third Democrat, businessman John Tree, is not expected to be a factor in the contest.)

Well now, that's just dirty pool. Liberal groups should never attack a candidate in a primary for having supported the opposing Party with money and votes. What could possibly be wrong with such a stirring show of bipartisan loyalty?

Howie wrote about this earlier:

Brad Schneider has sent a dozen or so mailers to Democratic voters in the past month attempting to brand him as a “progressive,” presumably to inoculate himself against the news, which ultimately will come out, that our buddy Brad has a dirty little secret.

Brad Schneider has spent the past decade pouring cash into the coffers of some of the worst anti-choice, homophobic, war-mongering Republicans Washington has to offer. Yesterday, Sheyman Campaign Manager Annie Weinberg gave the following quote to Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet:

"Brad can try to mislead Democrats into thinking he's a progressive because his conservative ideas can't win. But whatever his poll says, the real number you need to know is 79.

"That's the percentage of voters who said in a recent Lake Research poll that Brad Schneider's history of funding far right-wing, anti-choice Republicans raised serious doubts about his candidacy.

"We've just launched an aggressive television and mail program, we've outraised Brad over the past two quarters, and with 12,000 individual donors, 500 volunteers, and a true progressive as our candidate, we've built a campaign to win that Brad can only dream of."

...the Lake Research poll did indicate that "Brad’s most damaging negative is not just his numerous donations to Republican Mark Kirk over the course of several election cycles, but his long history of funding far-right Republicans year after year. These are politicians who want to privatize Social Security, defund Planned Parenthood, and end Medicare as we know it. We know that when voters hear about Brad's history of donations to these people it gives them serious reservations about voting for him. I mean, wouldn't you question the sincerity of someone who claims to be progressive but donated thousands of dollars to help Republicans take back Congress?”

So Brad Schneider is basically a liar who is trying to get past progressive voters by pretending to be something that he isn't. I'm guessing that's what Rothenberg likes about the guy, but he might be just a teensy bit sympathetic to actual progressives who might think that's a bit of a bait and switch.

But he's obviously right about VandenHeuvel, though. Why, Sheyman might as well have been endorsed by Hugo Chavez.

The rhetoric in PCCC attacks, not surprising given how activists at both extreme ends of the political spectrum see things, is predictable. One of the group’s emails calls Schneider a “supporter” of “right-wing Republicans,” while another inaccurately portrays Schneider as a “Blue Dog.”

It is hard to find issue differences between the two Illinois Democrats, though there certainly are differences in style and tone.

Schneider, 50, has spent years in business as a consultant and working with the pro-Israel community. Sheyman has been an activist and organizer in Illinois, Vermont and nationally. Schneider believes that his experience and his more easygoing, personable style should give him an advantage in the race, but in a low-turnout race anything is possible.

Correct. It may be that until five minutes ago he was indistinguishable from a standard Blue Dog but it's inaccurate to literally call him one since he isn't in the congress. Shame on you PCCC.

Note that Rothenberg doesn't mention that Sheyman himself is also easygoing and personable. He's tarred with guilt by association with the crazed hippies. But Rahm Emmnuel's shall we say ... abrasive style isn't held against people he supports. Interesting.

I know it's hard for you to have gathered thus far what Rothenberg himself thinks about all this, but maybe you can read between the lines here:

The winner will face freshman Republican Rep. Robert Dold, who kept the seat in GOP hands when he won Kirk’s former seat. But Illinois Democrats made this district even more Democratic than it has been for the past decade, and that makes the Republicans’ hold on it tenuous.

Republicans, of course, would much prefer to face Sheyman in the fall because they believe they can portray him as more extreme, making the district’s upscale voters uncomfortable with his aggressive style and views. And, they believe, his age and lack of real world experience apart from political activism would benefit Dold in a general election.

Right, even though the seat is more Democratic than it's been in decades.

Still, the Sheyman race is nothing compared to the "apoplectic" PCCC's hysteria in their criticism of Marty Chavez, the opponent of their endorsee Eric Griego(and, as with Sheyman, Blue America's as well.)

They are behaving very badly toward the gentlemanly, soft-spoken Chavez apparently:

Chávez, who was first elected to the state Senate 25 years ago, served three terms as mayor of the state’s largest city. Soft-spoken and emphasizing his approach as a problem-solver rather than an ideologue, he presents himself as someone who has tried to work with the business community whenever possible.

The former mayor has been endorsed by President Bill Clinton, actor Robert Redford and women’s equality advocate Lilly Ledbetter.

Not surprisingly, Chávez’s relative moderation and decisions to eschew divisive rhetoric has the PCCC apoplectic, calling the former mayor a closet Republican.

How rude. Why the soft-spoken Chavez must just be shocked by such behavior.

Well maybe not. Here's Howie again:

The first time I really became aware of what a destructive tool Chavez is, wasn't even that long ago. New Mexico's progressive congressman, Tom Udall, then a Blue America fave, was running for the open Senate seat being abandoned by Pete Domenici. Chavez wanted the Senate seat as well and went on an insane, well-financed and distorted jihad against Udall. He was confident, he bragged, that he could defeat Udall in a primary.

“Philosophically, he’s so far to the left,” Chavez said. “I’d rather not have him in the race, but that’s a challenge I’d not shy away from.”

But he did shy away from the challenge. Polling showed him consistently losing to any Republican in the general-- and to Udall in the primary. So he quit the race... and then told the Albuquerque Journal running for a mere House seat-- the one he's running for now-- was beneath him.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez on Tuesday tossed a bucket of ice water on any speculation that he might be considering a run for the 1st Congressional District seat.

Chavez, in a telephone interview, blasted the U.S. House of Representatives and said that jumping into the race for the open, Albuquerque-based seat is "not an option."

The House is "not a place where I want to be," said Chavez, who late last week unexpectedly abandoned his short-lived bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

He said Tuesday that while the Senate remains a place where "individuals of substance gather," the House-- whose members face re-election every two years, compared with six-year terms for senators-- is "not a place for ladies and gentlemen any longer. ... They play a type of politics (that) I think is destructive."

Odd he would shy away from destructive politics. That, after all, is his hallmark. His short-lived race against Tom Udall didn't endear him to New Mexico Democrats.
Continuing his recent mean-spirited barrage against his high-polling Dem primary opponent for U.S. Senate, Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez is now accusing Rep. Tom Udall (NM-03) of "endangering our national security."

...It's one thing to criticize your primary opponent's positions, but I think this kind of over-the-top rhetoric coming directly from Chavez can only serve to turn more Dem voters against him. Chavez already has a reputation for publicly and privately trashing fellow Dems on the Albuquerque City Council, supporting Repubs and their causes and vowing to vote for Repub Sen. Pete Domenici if he ran for reelection.

Poor moderate, soft-spoken Chavez, having to put up with all that apoplectic hysteria from the left.

Rothenberg has no clue about the people he's talking about. He seems to believe, as all Villagers do, that the "business friendly" Democratic hack is also the nice, moderate type who just wants to go to Washington and "get things done." The liberals, on the other hand are all firebreathing extremists who care for nothing but their own narrow, ideological hobby horses. The truth is that the "nice, soft spoken" alleged moderates who want to get things done go to Washington and work on behalf of the narrow constituency of millionaires and corporations who bought these elections for them and treat their fellow Democrats like dirt.

Groups like the PCCC or Blue America or DFA have no billionaire sugar daddies footing the bill and they have no Fox Network telegraphing their talking points 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as the Tea Party did. They are financed by small donors throughout the country and depend on the internet to get the word out. They aren't breaking any rules --- indeed, they are explicitly playing by the rules the Party set up for grassroots groups to participate in Party elections.

I'm sorry that inconveniences the religious right and the big money boys who believe they have a God given right to rule, but here in America even liberals have a right to seek representation in their government. That's all they're trying to do.


If you'd like to make a Villager cry, throw a little cash toward Sheyman and Griego here at Blue America's 2012 page.

Update: Rothenberg thinks the differences between Sheyman and Schneider are all about tone and style? Not really:

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digby 3/13/2012 06:30:00 PM |

 
Sick, macabre ghouls

by digby

You know, I've seen some disgusting conservative misogyny in my day, but this is a new low:

A speech from a Georgia Republican state representative surfaced last week in which he compared women seeking abortions of stillborn fetuses to cows and pigs.

State Rep. Terry England was speaking in favor of HB 954, which makes it illegal to obtain an abortion after 20 weeks even if the woman is known to be carrying a stillborn fetus or the baby is otherwise not expected to live to term.
He then recalled his time working on a farm:

“Life gives us many experiences…I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive. Delivering pigs, dead or alive. It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”

Here's the thing. Yes, it's disgusting that this cretinous throwback compared women to pigs and cows. Butwhat's shocking me down to the soles of my feet about this one is that a political body is actually trying to pass legislation forcing women to carry a dead fetus to term. What can possibly be the excuse for something that grotesque? It's sick.

This provision was associated with one of those "fetal pain" bills. Now, I may not be a medical doctor or a GOP expert in livestock, but I'm fairly sure that dead fetuses don't feel any pain. These people's desire to force women to endure childbirth is so extreme that they even want to force them to go though labor to deliver dead babies.

Here's a post from Mark Hoofnagle, an MD and PhD in physiology from the University of Virginia on the risks to women from this gruesome bill:

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend dilation and extraction or induction of labor once the diagnosis of stillbirth has been made. The risks of carrying a non-viable fetus are the higher complication rate of delivery versus dilation and extraction, as well as a very high risk to the mother of complications like disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) if the amniotic sac is ruptured and she is exposed to the dying tissue. For stillbirth or nonviable pregnancies, dilation and extraction is far safer and more effective with 24% of patients undergoing labor experiencing complications compared to 3% for D&E.;

Oh, well. What's a 24% risk of complications? The almost-human livestock knew what they were getting into when they failed to put an aspirin between their legs didn't they?

These macabre freaks (and I'm looking at you Santorum) have developed a new religion of fetus worship and it's verging on psychotic. Invading the relationship between a doctor and a family who are informed that their fetus will not live outside the womb and insisting they carry it to term is immoral. Forcing a woman who is carrying a dead body inside of her to go through childbirth, despite all the physical and emotional risks that entails, should be criminal.

I have a strong feeling that these people would like to bring back the day when maternal; death was common. (Of course babies died too, so perhaps they'll make an exception for medical intervention in that case.)

This whole discussion makes it clearer and clearer that not much has changed since St Augustine:

"I don't see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes the purpose of procreation. If woman was not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be?"

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digby 3/13/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Murdoch editor Rebekah Brooks arrested

by David Atkins

Well, this took long enough:

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, the British newspaper division of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of obstruction of justice, according to a person with knowledge of the arrest. Her husband, Charlie, a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron from their days at Eton three decades ago, was also arrested, the person said. The police said in a statement that six people in and outside of London had been arrested on Tuesday as part of Operation Weeting, the criminal investigation into phone hacking and other illegal activities at The News of the World and other newspapers. None have yet been formally charged with crimes; in the British system, charges can be filed months after an arrest, and sometimes not at all.

Following standard procedure, the police statement did not identify those arrested. But a person with knowledge of the arrests said that besides Ms. Brooks and her husband, they included Mark Hanna, the head of security for News International.

The police statement said the six had been arrested between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and were being interrogated at different police stations on suspicion of “conspiracy to pervert the course of justice,” the British equivalent of obstruction of justice. This could relate to activities like destroying e-mails, computers and other evidence, people with knowledge of the investigation said.

Two former editorial staff members at News International said they had heard from inside the company that the questioning was related to e-mails that were deleted before the police widened their phone hacking investigation last year.

It's amazing how slow the British press was to fully latch onto this story, and how slow the American press has been as well. No one wants to cross the great Murdoch machine. Best as I can figure, they worry they might all be working for him one day.

So cheers to the brave people at the Guardian for exposing the scandal in the first place, and for forcing the wheels of justice to turn, even if they do so ever so slowly.


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thereisnospoon 3/13/2012 03:09:00 PM |

 
Very Serious Zombies

by digby

So the Very Serious Michael O'Hanlon is, once again, advising the United States to "stay the quagmire," this time in Afghanistan. Unsurprising. He's never met a war he thought was worth ending. I'll let you read the piece for yourself, but I'll just reprise my favorite O'Hanlon comment so that you can assess his credibility for yourself.

This was on Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson, where several people were asked "how'd she do?"

I thought she handled the discussion of the “Bush doctrine” fine. In fact, if you use those two words together among foreign policy analysts, some will also ask for clarification because the Bush doctrine can also mean “if you’re not with us you’re against us” going back to his 9/20/2001 speech and it can also be broadly interpreted to mean a more muscular, unilateralist America in general. So asking for clarification was totally within her rights, to be sure that Gibson was talking about preemption doctrine. And once she got that part right, her answer was reasonable.

Also her speech yesterday about going over to defend us against those who committed the attacks of 9/11, to troops headed for Iraq, is also correct because in fact al Qaeda is in Iraq now, even if it wasn’t then.

As a final point in her defense, her convoluted answer about whether we should use force against Pakistan—which apparently frustrated Gibson—was the right way to answer the question because you don’t want to be more blunt than you have to be on this matter, given how American political leaders’ comments play in Pakistan (and often make the situation worse).

Where I had concerns about her interview is where I have concerns about all four of the candidates—their support for admitting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, apparently fairly soon. That is the right long-term goal but we need to let this thing cool. It is not a classic case of an irredentist or imperialistic state poising to gobble up the next neighbor; it is rather a dynamic of competitive great power behavior (more like that leading up to World War I, though not as serious) in which mutually provoking each other makes the situation worse rather than better. So count me as a contrarian against both tickets on this one, at least in terms of their apparent readiness to admit those two states to NATO in fairly short order.

If you don't remember it, this is how she actually answered the Bush Doctrine question:

Asked by ABC News' Charlie Gibson whether she supported the Bush Doctrine, Palin stared blankly for a moment before turning the question back on Gibson. "In what respect?"

The ABC anchor responded, "Well, what do you interpret it to be?" clearly testing her knowledge of the policy that has been in place since September 2002, before the Iraq war.

Palin couldn't say, offering an answer that didn't even mention preemption. "I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent in destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made, and with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better"

And it was patently obvious to any sentient being that her Iraq answer was just uninformed nonsense, which reporting later confirmed:

Palin had “substantial deficiencies,” the authors report, and her “grasp of rudimentary facts and concepts was minimal.” Those deficiencies became apparent on Sept. 10, when she was getting ready to fly back to Alaska to see her son, Track, depart for Iraq, the authors report. She was also preparing for her interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson.

“Asked who attacked America on 9/11, she suggested several times that it was Saddam Hussein. Asked to identify the enemy that her son would be fighting in Iraq, she drew a blank. (Palin’s horrified advisers provided her with scripted replies, which she memorized.) Later, on the plane, Palin said to her team, ‘I wish I’d paid more attention to this stuff.”

Seriously, O'Hanlon has never been right about anything, not even whether Sarah Palin had a clue what she was talking about in foreign policy. (She didn't.) It's just amazing that he's still out there getting paid to pontificate.


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digby 3/13/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
Our moral arbiters

by digby

I think I'm finally understanding what some of these fine folks mean by "religious liberty."

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is sick and tired of coddling rape victims. That’s why he supports efforts by lawyers for two Missouri priests accused of sexual abuse to cripple an organization that advocates on behalf of the victims of pedophile priests – Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

SNAP is not involved in the Missouri litigation, but the priests’ lawyers are seeking “more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.” Donohue thinks this effort, which seeks to bankrupt and embarrass the organization, is justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

Donohue went further, telling the New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein that the Catholic Church “has been too quick to write a check” and could save money “in the long run if we fought them one by one” – them being rape victims.

Yeah, we really should be accommodating of his conscience. If he had one.


Update: Bill Donohue, moral leader:

"Just imagine if a white guy is performing oral sex on a statue of Martin Luther King with an erection. Do you need to see it to know it's ugly?" and "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex."

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digby 3/13/2012 12:15:00 PM |

 
Blue America chat: Dr Lee Rogers (CA-25)

by digby

Howie sez:

In the last few weeks Dr. Lee Rogers has been talking a lot with us about ending the occupation of Afghanistan, ending the use of bodyscanners by the TSA and about ending the occupation of American politics by the 1%. But what first drew our attention to his race was his approach, as a renowned surgeon and author, to health care reform.

The incumbent in this newly redrawn Los Angeles district, CA-25 (Santa Clarita, Porter Ranch, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley), is Buck McKeon. McKeon, notorious as one of the Mormon financiers of the hateful, homophobic Prop 8 jihad, is now drowning in several scandals and under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. A devout and dedicated warmonger and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, McKeon may be one of the worst Members of Congress-- and one of the most strategic targets to defeat in November. But it wasn't McKeon that has caused Blue America to endorse Dr. Rogers. It was Dr. Rogers; let's call him Lee from now on.

When Digby, John and I first met him in person we were intrigued by his opposition to healthcare bill. He was one of the Democrats-- and a doctor no less-- who felt it should be better, much better. "The current version of health reform," he told us at our first meeting, "while an improvement in some areas, leaves much to be desired in the way of affordability and accessibility. We need caps on insurance rate hikes. We need protections for women's health. We need aggressive comprehensive coverage of preventative medicine for expensive avoidable diseases."


Lee talks eloquently and realistically about [single payer]:

There are many fears of a single-payer system, from insurers, doctors, some patients, and certainly many Republicans. A single-payer system will drastically reduce the amount of profit going to big insurers, who are big campaign donors. But the single-payer system will increase the number of covered patients seeking care from doctors and hospitals which will be reimbursed. It will reduce the numerous insurance middlemen who impede the productivity of health providers and syphon off large profits that should be going into actual care. Patients will have seamless coverage. Employers will eliminate their second largest expense, health insurance. No system is perfect, but when one truly evaluates all the benefits of a single-payer healthcare, it is a desirable system where most come out winning.

That's not a polemic; that's a motivation for Lee getting into the race against an incumbent with more money from war contractors and armaments manufacturers than anyone else in the House. Lee knows it's a tough race but he's an energetic and idealistic young father-- he and his wife, Susan, just had his second daughter last week-- who is determined to try to make this country and this world a better place. He'll be joining us today at Crooks and Liars (11AM, PT) for a live blogging session. We sure hope you can come over and meet him. And if you'd like to help his grassroots campaign, please consider a contribution here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Please join us for this chat today if you have time. Lee Rogers is a wonderful candidate and he has a good chance to win this seat. Buck McKeon is imploding with scandal and the Republicans in the district are in a circular firing squad. This is a chance for a pick-up, not just for the Democrats, but for the progressive movement.

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digby 3/13/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
e coli in the word salad

by digby

So there's another controversy about edited tapes. This time it's Sarah Palin griping that the Obama campaign has selectively edited her comments on Hannity for a campaign ad. Hilariously, Breitbart.com is complaining about the editing too.(You can see the ad here.)

But TPM found the whole passage and guess what? The Obama campaign was doing her a favor. The real quote is much worse:

He is bringing us back to days, you can hearken back to days before the Civil War, when unfortunately too many Americans mistakenly believed that not all men were created equal. And it was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes we are equal, and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of your skin, you have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace God-given opportunities to develop resources and work extremely hard and as I say, to succeed.

Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand the gravity of that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America.

What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward with that understanding that as our charters of liberty spell out for us, we are all created equally?

It's always hard to figure out exactly what she was trying to say, but it looks to me as if she was saying that Barack Obama believes that white people are inferior. Either that or she's saying that he believes black people are inferior (like they did before the civil war) and I think that's a long shot, don't you?

This is probably one Sarah and the Breitbart gang should probably leave alone. It's not going to work in her favor.


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digby 3/13/2012 09:30:00 AM |

 
Southern Belles

by David Atkins

The polls in the Deep South primaries show a neck-and-neck between Gingrich and Romney, with Santorum in a distant second. But more interesting than the overall numbers is the continued gender gap. Take, for instance, the ARG poll in Mississippi:

Gingrich leads among men with 38%, followed by Romney with 26%, Santorum with 20%, and Paul with 14%. Romney leads Santorum 43% to 25% among women, followed by Gingrich with 24% and Paul with 2%.

While this is merely a continuation of a solid trend in this Republican contest, two things jump out here.

First, remember that this is a poll of Republican women in the Deep South. As women go, this is as conservative a population as you'll find in the United States outside of maybe Utah and Idaho. And even they can't stand Gingrich or Santorum.

If Republican men had their way, Romney would be toast. It's Republican women who are keeping him afloat, and it's an enormous gender gap. Given that Southern men make up the cultural heart and soul of modern Republicanism, the fact that the GOP is about to nominate a candidate despised by Southern men should be a gigantic flashing red sign that something is out of kilter for them.

But the second and perhaps more interesting point is that even Santorum does better among Mississippi Republican women than Gingrich does, despite Gingrich's (adopted) native appeal. That's a little disturbing, if not altogether surprising. Apparently, philandering husbands are more scorned than theocratic nutcases who try to take away their birth control.

Put in those terms, I suppose the Clinton years really do make sense after all.


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thereisnospoon 3/13/2012 08:00:00 AM |

Monday, March 12, 2012

 
Progressive persuasion

by digby

Ezra Klein has written a much commented upon piece for the New Yorker in which he gathers data and lays out the case that presidential speeches are rarely effective at persuading the public of that which they don't already believe. This has been an ongoing debate among political chatterers for some time, with those who have been unhappy with the president generally arguing that he should take his case to the people vs those who say that it's pointless and that a president's success depends upon his or her ability to manipulate the institutions of power within their partisan constraints. (I'm being very simplistic. You should read the article for the whole thesis.)

As one of those who has always thought the president should take the progressive case to the people, I found the data persuasive .. and disappointing. Until near the end, where he wrote this:

“Barack Obama is only the latest in a long line of presidents who have not been able to transform the political landscape through their efforts at persuasion. When he succeeded in achieving major change, it was by mobilizing those predisposed to support him and driving legislation through Congress on a party-line vote.”

There you go. Of course presidents can't really "persuade" people of the opposing party in a polarized environment, for all the reasons Ezra lays out in his piece. But I feel as if this whole argument is about doing something that nobody but President Obama, op-ed writers and some of his more fervent followers ever thought was possible in the first place. They're the only ones who believed that the Republicans were going to fall at his feet and work together in bipartisan harmony --- or that his magical powers of persuasion would create a groundswell of support among Independents and rank and file Republicans.

When progressives called for President Obama to make speeches it wasn't with the goal that he lift his poll numbers or get Mitch McConnell to sign on. Indeed, that's the opposite of what they wanted --- the "Grand Bargains" required to get such a deal are worse than nothing at all from their perspective. The reason they wanted him to make speeches was to mobilize his followers to help "persuade" their representatives to pass progressive legislation --- or even just reaffirm his commitment to shared goals and educate the public about what those goals are.

The administration abandoned any notions of doing this shortly after the election, when they spun off the grassroots organization they'd built in the campaign so I suppose that was a bit of whistling in the dark as well. But Ezra's piece reaffirms that this is the way major change happens in this environment, so you can't really blame the progressives for pushing it. That's what they wanted --- major change. And in a bit of an ironic surprise, Ezra demonstrated that in this case, the progressives were the pragmatic sorts calling for "what works" --- not the president.


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digby 3/12/2012 06:30:00 PM |

 
Millionaire Whine 'O the Day

by digby

Dave Weigel reports about Jeff Foxworthy, who's travelling the south stumping for Mitt Romney:

"We can't make an emotional decision. This country made an emotional decision in 2008. I've never known anybody that's so divisive as this president! It's the have-nots versus the haves. No, no, no! It's all of us! I've been a have-not and a have! I'm still Jeff. I still drive my same crappy truck.

Mitt's an interesting man. When he took over the business, he gave all his money away. He gave away his inheritance, and started up -- he's a self-made man. If I've got somebody running my business, I want him to be successful. It's amazing to me -- in the last four years it's become a badge of shame for someone to be successful! Obama's just divided people, into the 1% and the 99%. But it's these people, the successful people, who've given other people a great life. And if you've ever been around Romney, you know he's not entitled. He carries his own suitcase."

According to this website, Jeff Foxworthy's net worth is $114 million dollars.

(Think about that. Jeff Foxworthy is worth $114 million dollars.)



Bonus quote:

Romney took a moment to comment on the tightly-packed crowd.

"Look at us in here," he said. "We are all nice together, all nice and wet, you know, like a can of sardines."

A little glitch in the program, I assume.
digby 3/12/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Running against "Obamacare"

by David Atkins

Newt Gingrich tweets:

We ran against Obamacare in 2010 and won. We can't run against Obamacare if we have to defend Romneycare.

Like so much else that emanates from the pile of Newt, this isn't technically accurate. In 2010 Republicans scared a bunch of seniors into believing the lie that the Affordable Care Act would take money away from Medicare to pay for healthcare for the "undeserving." They didn't really run against what the Affordable Care Act actually does.

As it turns out, Romneycare is pretty popular in Massachusetts. It's not single-payer by a long shot, but it's a lot better than the system it replaced.

What Newt really means is that rather than getting away with lies about what the Affordable Care Act really does, Obama would eventually force Romney into conceding, in spite of himself and his current rhetoric, that universal healthcare really isn't so bad after all.

And it speaks volumes about the state of the modern Republican Party that the one good thing Mitt Romney did for the public is his Achilles' heel in the GOP primary.


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thereisnospoon 3/12/2012 02:55:00 PM |

 
Wanted: disgruntled employee

by digby

... and you know there have to be plenty of them. From Dan Froomkin:

CEOs may think twice before making what they intend to be secret campaign donations from their corporate treasuries, now that a progressive reform group is offering a $25,000 reward to the first employee who rats one of them out.

"We think there are a lot of big corporations on the bubble about whether they're going to use corporate funds to try to affect the outcome of the election," said Bob Creamer, a consultant with Americans United for Change, the group offering the bounty.

"And we want to make it clear that they cannot take that kind of action without the risk of economic consequences."

A key factor for CEOs, Creamer said, will be whether or not they are confident that their corporate contribution will remain secret.

The Target Corporation famously faced a boycott threat in the summer of 2010 until it apologized for one of its political donations that became public.

"The message is: In the digital age, nothing is secret," Creamer said. "The $25,000 is intended to make those CEOs wonder if the person down the hall -- who may look at an email or have some direct knowledge of the corporation's activity -- may decide that $25,000 is worth more than their loyalty to that corporation."

Yes indeed. Some of them may need that 25k because their greedy bosses refuse to give their employees raises even as they pile money into political campaigns.

This is a good idea. The one thing these guys are afraid of is being publicly exposed. Even that cretinous billionaire wingnut Kenneth Griffin said as much in his notorious interview with the Chicago Tribune:

Should you be able to donate $500,000 to a super PAC?

A. In my opinion, absolutely. Absolutely. The rules that encourage transparency around that are really important. And I say that with a bit of trepidation.

Q. Why with trepidation?

A. Target made a political donation and there was a huge boycott organized.

Q. So do you or don't you think the public should know if you're giving this money?

A. My public policy hat says transparency is valuable. On the flip side, this is a very sad moment in my lifetime. This is the first time class warfare has really been embraced as a political tool. Because we are looking at an administration that has embraced class warfare as being politically expedient, I do worry about the publicity that comes with being willing to both with my dollars and, more importantly, with my voice to stand for what I believe in.

Poor baby. He feels just like this person, I'm sure.

I know I don't have to explain to anyone why these rich guys can buy presidential elections as if they were side-bets on the golf course. They have too much money:

digby 3/12/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
Just don't be different

by digby

Young people who identify themselves as so-called Emos are being brutally killed at an alarming rate in Iraq, where militias have distributed hit lists of victims and security forces say they are unable to stop crimes against the subculture that is widely perceived in Iraq as being gay.

Officials and human rights groups estimated as many as 58 Iraqis who are either gay or believed to be gay have been killed in the last six weeks alone — forecasting what experts fear is a return to the rampant hate crimes against homosexuals in 2009. This year, eyewitnesses and human rights groups say some of the victims have been bludgeoned to death by militiamen smashing in their skulls with heavy cement blocks.

A recent list distributed by militants in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City neighborhood gives the names or nicknames of 33 people and their home addresses. At the top of the paper are a drawing of two handguns flanking a Quranic greeting that extolls God as merciful and compassionate.

Then follows a chilling warning.

"We warn in the strongest terms to every male and female debauchee," the Shiite militia hit list says. "If you do not stop this dirty act within four days, then the punishment of God will fall on you at the hands of Mujahideen."

At least they aren't gassing their own people.


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digby 3/12/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
Trust

by digby

Tom Tomorrow gets very shrill:

The fact is that deep down, many Americans really want to be subjects.


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digby 3/12/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
Welfare queens and college sluts

by digby

CNN, you really need to examine your hiring policies. Your "analyst" Dana Loesch wrote this piece of drivel on her site yesterday:

Maybe Fluke's boyfriend, the son of entrenched Democrat William Mutterperl, can pay for her contraception. His father donates heavily to Democrat candidates. The couple is currently enjoying spring break in California, which poses the question of how Fluke can afford a trip across the country when she can't afford birth control pills.

I assume that CNN knows that Fluke wasn't testifying about herself and they know that she wasn't talking about her own sex life, her boyfriend or indeed, anything about her personal life. Rush Limbaugh and his band of misogynist media puppets all pretended like she did and spent days calling her a slut, saying that she had so much sex, "It's amazing she can even walk" but the fact remains that she never said she could not afford birth control.

Here is what she said, in case CNN thinks its lovely "contributor" might have even the slightest bit of journalistic integrity:

On a daily basis, I hear from yet another woman...who has suffered financial, emotional, and medical burdens because of this lack of contraceptive coverage....

Without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary. Forty percent of female students at Georgetown Law report struggling financially as a result of this policy.One told us of how embarrassed and powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter, learning for the first time that contraception wasn’t covered, and had to walk away because she couldn’t afford it. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception. Just last week, a married female student told me she had to stop using contraception because she couldn’t afford it any longer. Women employed in low wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice.

Not that it matters. Even if Fluke had testified that she personally couldn't afford birth control, it would still not be Dana Loesch's business whether her boyfriend's father has money not is it a license for her to question whether Fluke could afford a trip. (That particular gambit was perfected by another lovely right winger, Michele Malkin who stalked the Frost family and determined that they had no right to health care subsidies for their two sick kids because they had granite countertops in their kitchen.) Contrary to right wingers' contention, you don't give up your right to personal privacy if you receive government assistance --- you certainly don't give up your right to be left alone by screeching fascists who insist that their tax dollars entitle them to tell other people how to spend their money.

But that isn't the point here at all. First of all, nobody's asking the taxpayers to pay for Georgetown students' birth control. The government is requiring insurance companies to offer coverage for birth control at no cost, just as they are required to offer other cost saving preventive health care. The only reason this has gotten turned into some sort of tax payer subsidy is because professional liars like Limbaugh and Loesch purposefully made this issue into one of "welfare sluts".

And they did this for a reason. The hard core right wing in America is largely driven by this idea that the government is taking money from hard earned tax paying Real Americans and giving it to "welfare queens" to pay the consequences of their wanton sex lives. Traditionally, this applied to women of color who were allegedly sex crazed and ended up having too many babies. Now it's applied to college women who are allegedly sex crazed and using birth control. The latter lacks the extra frisson of race but it easily falls into the same grooves. Bitches are taking hard earned money from the earners and screwing everything in sight. All these professional liars have to do is tickle that little corner of the lizard brain and it all makes sense.

It also makes sense that the right wing noise machine would activate their troops with this. It's a bit more of a mystery as to why an alleged mainstream news organization would employ someone who does it.


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digby 3/12/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
Leaving the quagmire

by David Atkins

There's little to say about the horrific massacre of of 16 Afghan civilians by an unnamed American soldier that others haven't said better than myself. It's another demonstration of the enormous peril of foreign intervention in largely intractable situations. Stick enough armed men in war zones for long enough and people start to become dehumanized. These sorts of incidents are almost inevitable, which is why prolonged occupations anywhere are a terrible idea. Nothing the President can say to Hamid Karzai will make up for what happened. Nothing Karzai can say to the Afghan people will make up for it or bring back the dead, pointlessly killed. It's just another in a long line of reasons why America needs to get out of Afghanistan.

And this isn't the only massacre in recent days, either. There's also the Kapisa incident:

Adding to the sense of concern, the killings occurred two days after an episode in Kapisa Province, in eastern Afghanistan, in which NATO helicopters apparently hunting Taliban insurgents instead fired on civilians, killing four and wounding three others, Afghan officials said. About 1,200 demonstrators marched in protest in Kapisa on Saturday.

This simply cannot continue indefinitely. It has to stop.

The darker side of all this, of course, is that the hardline theocratic conservatives in Afghanistan are primed to take power back after our departure, continuing the reign of terror they exercised for years. The methodical destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was a crime not only against humanity but against history and civilization itself. I was in New York recently and walked by an Afghan restaurant, where a painting of the Buddhas lay fixed in the window. I stood and stared as the tears welled in my eyes. Just thinking about it drives me into a furious rage.

The Taliban treatment of women was without question the most horrific in the modern world. And there's no reason to imagine it won't be just as bad after we leave. Karzai himself is no angel, but he's better on human rights than the warlords he replaced. He won't likely last long after American forces leave unless he becomes just as bloodthirsty and brutal as the warlords he replaced.

Even now, women who do work outside the home are subject to awful abuse, as NPR reported:

Protection of women's rights in Afghanistan remains a focal point for the West — and American officials regularly tout the fact that the Afghan security forces now include hundreds of women. In northern Afghanistan alone, about 300 women are serving in the police force.

But in a culture that is not fully comfortable with women working outside the home, these women face significant risks. An NPR investigation in the city discovered disturbing allegations of systematic sexual coercion and even rape of female police officers by their male colleagues.

The women at the recent training session at a huge base outside Mazar-e-Sharif hardly looked like victims as they assembled and loaded assault rifles. But none dared to give their names as they alluded to what is an open secret in the city.

"Some women are being promoted only if they agree to give sexual favors," said one female officer...

But privately, several told of terrifying experiences. The women agreed to speak on the condition that their names be withheld, and the only place they felt safe enough to talk with a reporter was in a car moving around the city.

"It's a fact. Women in the police are being used for sex and as prostitutes," said Ann — not her real name — who is in her mid-30s.

"It's happened to me. Male cops ask for sex openly because they think women join the police just to work as prostitutes," she said.

In Afghanistan, even in modern cities like Mazar-e-Sharif or Kabul, the capital, a wide array of supposedly "immoral" conduct can get a woman called a prostitute. Anything from wearing the wrong clothes to sitting in the front seat of a car, or simply working outside the home can cause dangerous rumors.

The law reflects that. With sexual assault, the woman is as often sent to jail as the man, the assumption being that any woman who puts herself in a situation to be vulnerable to rape must be immoral.

And that's the enlightened part of Afghanistan, where women have more rights. Seriously. Under the Taliban, it's far worse.

While I understand that many progressives are have no problem at all with paying fervent attention to women's rights within our own arbitrary national borders and closing their eyes with insouciance to what goes on in distant lands, I find it far more difficult. Rick Santorum and the Taliban are of a single mindset, symptoms of the same theocratic, patriarchal disease. It's the sort of perverse morality that freaks out at the burning of a religious "moral" text, but has no problem with institutional rape, be it in the traditional mode or with a newfangled ultrasound device. I find it much harder than most to obsess over minor changes to abortion laws in Virginia while utterly ignoring far worse declines in the rights of women elsewhere in the world. What happens there is just as much our business as what happens here--and vice versa. It's all our business, collectively, as an interconnected human species in an interconnected world.

But continuing this awful, endless occupation replete with civilian massacre after civilian massacre is no answer at all. It's long past time to go.

Still, weep for the people we will be leaving behind. Weep for the Shi'ite ethnic hazara who will likely be doomed upon our departure:

The ruling Taliban—mostly fundamentalist Sunni, ethnic Pashtuns—saw Hazaras as infidels, animals, other. They didn't look the way Afghans should look and didn't worship the way Muslims should worship. A Taliban saying about Afghanistan's non-Pashtun ethnic groups went: "Tajiks to Tajikistan, Uzbeks to Uzbekistan, and Hazaras to goristan," the graveyard. And in fact, when the Buddhas fell, Taliban forces were besieging Hazarajat, burning down villages to render the region uninhabitable. As autumn began, the people of Hazarajat wondered if they'd survive winter. Then came September 11, a tragedy elsewhere that appeared to deliver salvation to the Hazara people.

And mourn the fate of a people who once had hope for a better future, and now have none because America ended up doing more harm than good when all was said and done. It didn't have to be thus.


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thereisnospoon 3/12/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Sunday, March 11, 2012

 
Virtually Speaking Sunday

by digby



Digby & Dave Dayen Virtually Speaking Sundays
by Jay Ackroyd Featured Host

Call in to speak with the host
(646) 200-3440

From the VS Sundays media panel: digby and Dave Dayen compare their work of the past week to coverage from the corporate media’s Sunday morning talk shows. In a pre-recorded segment, Culture of Truth comments on the most ridiculous moment of this Sunday morning. Follow @DDayen @digby56 @bobblespeak


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digby 3/11/2012 05:31:00 PM |

 
Mississippi Mudslinging

by digby

The liberals are "indoctrinating" Mississippi children:

Some House members want to ban Mississippi school history courses from promoting "any partisan agenda or philosophy."

A measure, sponsored by House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, is supposed to keep history teachers or textbooks from indoctrinating students according to a particular partisan viewpoint.

"We're trying to protect the history of our nation in its purest form," said House Education Committee Chairman John Moore, R-Brandon.

The measure says in part that "public school history courses may not promote any partisan agenda or philosophy and may not be revised for the purpose of significantly changing generally accepted history to create a bias toward an ideological position."

House Bill 1384 moves to the full House after being approved Monday by the House Education Committee on a 10-5 vote.

Republicans introduced the bill in previous years, Gunn said, adding that it's a reaction to Texas disputes over what should be included in textbooks. He said he's not aware of any similar problem that currently exists in Mississippi.

"We want to make sure our textbooks convey accurate historical information, not slanted on one or another position," said Gunn, who did not attend the committee meeting.

Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, a committee member, said she was aware of problems at her daughter's school. Currie said a teacher took liberal viewpoints when discussing current events assignments, leading her to demand a conference with school authorities.

"No matter which side of the coin you're on, her teacher ended up going toward the liberal end," Currie told the committee. "I was surprised she made it out of there, still believing the way she was taught at my house."

Let me guess: she taught that slavery was wrong.

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digby 3/11/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Stepping Out of the Soviet Shadow

by David Atkins

I was going to cover billionaire Ken Griffin's repulsive comments today, but it seems digby has already beaten me to the punch, and admirably so. There's just one aspect to Griffin's defense of his Objectivist worldview that bears closer scrutiny, and it's this:

This belief that a larger government is what creates prosperity, that a larger government is what creates good (is wrong). We’ve seen that experiment. The Soviet Union collapsed. China has run away from its state-controlled system over the last 20 years and has pulled more people up from poverty by doing so than we’ve ever seen in the history of humanity. Why the U.S. is drifting toward a direction that has been the failed of experiment of the last century, I don’t understand. I don’t understand.

Russia and China have made a positive move away from suffocating totalitarian states and toward more market-based approaches, true. But they're hardly free democracies at this point; they're kleptocratic plutocracies where the vast majority are deeply impoverished, with a few princes and robber barons at the top. Sort of like late 19th century America, but even worse. It's Griffin's ideal system, one that serves men like him very well. Which is precisely why men like him shouldn't be able to spend unlimited sums of money to buy off politicians.

But more importantly, I suspect this sort of rhetoric--where it works at all--only works for people over the age of 30 who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War and the Soviet Union.

The Cold War did a lot of damage to this country in myriad ways. But one of its most damaging legacies has been a conservative rhetoric of policy dualism. It fostered the idea that there are two ways of doing things: 1) the American Way, and 2) the Commie Way. Socialism was lumped in with Communism, and anyone in America who pointed to the successes of the European or East Asian social democracies was drowned out with red baiting market triumphalism.

The entire infrastructure of the Left got beaten with that rhetorical stick so long and so often that it has become reflexively defensive. Perhaps behind only the power of race resentment and the need to get corporate contributions to match the right wing's spending prowess, fear of being labeled as Communists has been the single biggest reason for the long-standing rhetorical cowardice of most of the institutional American Left.

And I think this is one of the reasons the Millennial generation holds such promise. Millennials have no direct memory of Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Kruschev. There is only the faintest memory of the Reagan presidency, if any. Red-baiting appeals of the kind that Griffin is making fall on completely deaf ears to the under-30 crowd. When we think of socialism, we don't think of Soviets and Red China; we think of France, England and Germany. When we hear about "universal healthcare", our minds turn toward Sweden and Japan. They aren't couched in automatically hostile territory, and we don't feel the need to apologize automatically to jingoistic brethren for supporting them.

As a 31-year-old, I read Griffin's remarks and laugh not just at how wrong and self-serving they are, but also at their tone-deafness and appeal to ancient irrelevant bogeymen. But then I realize that it's tone deaf to me, but not necessarily to a 59-year-old swing voter in Missouri. And it occurs to me that while the future is bright, we're going to be working through a lot of the legacy of Cold War rhetoric for at least another generation.


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thereisnospoon 3/11/2012 03:00:00 PM |

 
Selective Indignation

by digby

From Kathleen Geier over at Political Animal, I see that the newspapers are getting all antsy over Doonesbury again:

From Romenesko’s description of the cartoons, it doesn’t appear that they’re sexually explicit. But politically, Gary Trudeau is not pulling any punches. To wit, here’s how one cartoon is described:

In the stirrups, she is telling a nurse that she doesn’t want a transvaginal exam. Doctor says “Sorry miss, you’re first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10″ shaming wand.” She asks “Will it hurt?” Nurse says, “Well, it’s not comfortable, honey. But Texas feels you should have thought of that.” Doctor says, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”

Lawd have mercy Miss Mellie, bring me the smellin' salts.

Geier archly notes:

Spokespeople for the newspapers which are banning the strips say their reason is that the material is “over the line” and “inappropriate.”

I wonder when the day will come when these extraordinarily nasty examples of unadulteratedly racist and misogynist (not to mention witless) political cartoons are also considered “over the line” and “inappropriate.”

Yeah, me too.

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digby 3/11/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
Begging for pitchforks Part XXIV

by digby

Via Michael Moore:

"We have helped to create real social value in the U.S. economy. ... I am proud to
be an American. But if the tax became too high, as a matter of principle I would
not be working this hard." – Ken Griffin in 2007, just before he and his
friends destroyed the world economy and just after paying himself $1 billion for a year of work

Here is Ken Griffin today:

Q. I’m going to come back to this. But I want to touch on two more areas first. What do you think in general about the influence of people with your means on the political process? You said shame on the politicians for listening to the CEOs. Do you think the ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate amount of influence on the political process?

A. I think they actually have an insufficient influence. Those who have enjoyed the benefits of our system more than ever now owe a duty to protect the system that has created the greatest nation on this planet. And so I hope that other individuals who have really enjoyed growing up in a country that believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and economic freedom is part of the pursuit of happiness – (I hope they realize) they have a duty now to step up and protect that. Not for themselves, but for their kids and for their grandchildren and for the person down the street that they don’t even know …

At this moment in time, these values are under attack. This belief that a larger government is what creates prosperity, that a larger government is what creates good (is wrong). We’ve seen that experiment. The Soviet Union collapsed. China has run away from its state-controlled system over the last 20 years and has pulled more people up from poverty by doing so than we’ve ever seen in the history of humanity. Why the U.S. is drifting toward a direction that has been the failed of experiment of the last century, I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
He also complained that this is a “very sad moment in [his] lifetime,” citing the now-familiar Republican charge that the Obama administration has “embraced class warfare.”

This man is proof that one needn't be brilliant to become a billionaire. He sounds as if his political views were shaped by reading a couple of chapters of Atlas Shrugged in high school and multiple viewings of Red Dawn. In that respect I suppose he does personify the idea that absolutely anyone can become a billionaire no matter how little they know. Read the whole interview for some ignorant Panilesque gobbledygook of epic proportions. Let's just say I'm not surprised these guys tanked the financial system:

[T]his is a very sad moment in my lifetime. This is the first time class warfare has really been embraced as a political tool. Because we are looking at an administration that has embraced class warfare as being politically expedient, I do worry about the publicity that comes with being willing to both with my dollars and, more importantly, with my voice to stand for what I believe in.

As government gets bigger every single day, how does my willingness to stand up for what I believe is right become eclipsed by my dependency on institutions that are ultimately controlled by the government? Remember I live in financial services, and every bank in the United States is really under the thumb of the government in a way it's never been before. And that's really worrisome to me, as someone who's willing to say, 'Wait, we need to step back and try to push government outside the realm of every dimension of our lives.'

He is a fervent supporter of Mitt Romney, by the way, and a major funder of American Crossroads.

I assume he owns an island somewhere. He'd better because if the working stiffs ever wake up to what these people have done, he's going to need one.


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digby 3/11/2012 12:30:00 PM |

 
Reacting to the Challenger

by digby

This interesting footage from the Challenger disaster has surfaced showing the reaction to the explosions among onlookers at the scene. I'm not sure what to think about this. I watched the thing live --- I was getting ready for work and it happened to be on TV, and I knew what had happened the minute I saw it. People my age watched dozens of space launches and I assumed knew exactly what one was supposed to look like --- and this certainly didn't look like it. But these people don't seem to understand that something's gone wrong until it's announced over the loudspeaker.

Maybe it's a human response --- you can't believe what you are seeing before you because it's so horrible, while seeing it on TV has enough distance that you can grok the reality more quickly. I think the same thing happened on 9/11 -- I knew the minute I saw the footage of the plane hitting the first building that it was likely a terrorist attack, but again there was that distance that allowed me to accept such a terrible thing.

Anyway, this amateur video is fascinating. It's amazing what awful things we witness in our lives and just go on. Of course, we don't have a lot of choice, do we?

Exclusive New Video: The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

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digby 3/11/2012 10:45:00 AM |

 
Disagreeing With Mark Bittman

by tristero

For the first time ever, I find myself disagreeing with the great Mark Bittman.

I get where he's coming from, I understand that the quest for the perfect should not stand in the way of the good, but, imo, our food system needs radical changes, not band-aids. Fake "chicken" will relieve animal suffering - as a 30-year-plus vegetarian, that strikes me as a very good thing - but it comes at a price. As with all modern processed food, the specific balance of nutrients and micro-nutrients in "chicken" hasn't been time-tested over centuries, as with traditional processes (e.g. cheeses). Replacing 40% of a culture's animal protein with this stuff - or even just a significant fraction of that 40% - strikes me as a classic Bad Idea. Although the ingredients seem benign enough, the long term consequences could very well be dire, one more example of nutrionism running the show rather than the eating and enjoyment of delicious food.

Endorsing heavily processed industrial food also opens a slippery slope. I think Michael Pollan got it exactly right: Eat [non-industrial] food, not too much. Mostly plants. The sooner we all move in that direction, - by among other things, making real food affordable again, and by no longer hiding the high price of bad food through outrageous subsidies - the better. Sorry, but fake chicken doesn't help.

A hallmark of liberalism - co-opted and cartooned by the right - is the willingness to question basic assumptions. To that end, I'm thrilled that Bittman, a man of enormous stature in the food world, is urging those of us who care about food politics to question carefully the practicality of "real food" and seek alternatives. I don't think he makes a convincing case for "chicken," but the issues are complex, there is a lot of needless animal suffering, and his voice is so important that I'm glad he raised the subject. It helps those of us who disagree articulate our problems with his position, and it may lead to other, more sensible ideas.

tristero 3/11/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying

by David Atkins

I'm a big fan of the humor site Cracked.com; it's a great source not only of humor but some really fascinating articles about nature, history and social science. Some of the articles could use a good deal of fact-checking so it's not an authoritative source, but most of it is accurate and eye opening.

There's also a lot of political opinion couched as humor, mostly from a progressive point of view. That's partly because progressive viewpoints are fairly common among the Millennials who make up the site's primary readership, and partly because good political humor has become almost the sole province of the left given the Right's implosion into self-parody.

And sometimes, it can be very helpful. One of the problems with talking about income inequality to folks who aren't politically obsessed is the tendency to become didactic and preachy, angrily showing off a lot of charts and graphs. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else, if not more so. It's exactly the sort of stylistic approach that helped cost Al Gore the election in 2000.

Well, David Wong (pseudonym of Jason Pargin) has a great article to show the politically uninvolved why winger arguments about income inequality are wrong, in an easily accessible way. It's called Six Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying. Some highlights:

Most high-income earners do put in a ton of hours. Bill Gates seemed to never sleep (an employee once said that putting in 81 hours in four days still couldn't keep up with Gates' schedule). So yes, it's unfair that we tend to think that "being rich" means "lounging by the pool while an albino tiger massages our feet with his tongue." So, "Hey, I work hard for what I have!" is perfectly true. It's also insulting.

It's insulting for the exact same reason "Hey, I love my country!" is insulting: It implies that the listener doesn't. Otherwise there'd be no reason to say it.

It implies a bizarre alternate reality where society rewards you purely based on how much effort you exert, rather than according to how well your specific talents fit in with the needs of the marketplace in the particular era and part of the world in which you were born. It implies that the great investment banker makes 10 times more than a great nurse only because the banker works 10 times as hard.

He doesn't.

And even stranger, it implies that money earned is a perfect indicator of a person's value to society -- if you're broke, it must mean you're a loser who contributes nothing to anyone's life. And that's downright bizarre when it comes from the same people who also go on and on about the importance of parenting and family values. Surely they've noticed that being a great stay-at-home parent makes you exactly zero dollars a year.

And volunteering to work at a shelter for battered women? Doesn't pay shit! Diving into a creek to save a toddler from drowning? It pays infinitely less than throwing a touchdown pass during the Super Bowl.

Or this:

I guess our entire philosophy about money kind of revolves around this premise -- that there is no poor or working class, but only people who have chosen to not buckle down to the task of getting rich (and thus deserve whatever salary, insecurity or poor work conditions they get). So there should be no talk about improving the lives of the non-rich, since any of them can simply choose to elevate themselves out of that group, right?

Seriously, now. How much time do you really have to spend off your goddamned yacht to see that this isn't true? You don't even need to leave the dock -- there's a guy standing right there who you pay to fix your boat's engine. You know that 1) you absolutely need guys like him and 2) he will never get rich doing what he does. He could be great at his job, he might be the Michael Jordan of mechanics, he might work 100 hours a week -- it doesn't matter. Sure, if that one guy somehow also has the head for management and finance and the networking skills, he could maybe open his own chain of yacht repair shops. But they can't all do that.

So "anyone can get rich" isn't just untrue, it's insultingly untrue. You can't have a society where everyone is an investment banker. And you can't have a society where you pay six figures to every good policeman, nurse, firefighter, schoolteacher, carpenter, electrician and all of the other ten thousand professions that civilization needs to survive (and that rich people need in order to stay rich).

It's like setting a jar of moonshine on the floor of a boxcar full of 10 hobos and saying, "Now fight for it!" Sure, in the bloody aftermath you can say to each of the losers, "Hey, you could have had it if you'd fought harder!" and that's true on an individual level. But not collectively -- you knew goddamned well that nine hobos weren't getting any hooch that night. So why are you acting like it's their fault that only one of them is drunk?

And those are just a few short excerpts. There are a few places it could be a little better or make some stronger cases, but overall it's one of the funniest, clearest and most accessible non-technical works out there on the arguments around income inequality. If you have non-political friends who have fallen for some of the one percent's talking points, I highly recommend sharing it with them.


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thereisnospoon 3/11/2012 07:36:00 AM |