Hullabaloo

Friday, August 24, 2012

 
He's a white guy for Pete's sakes!

by digby

I don't know what they're seeing in the polls, but saying this on top of the "welfare" lie makes it clear they're going full blown white privilege solidarity now:

"I love being home, where but the both of us were born," Romney said after introducing his wife, fellow Michigan native Ann. "No one asked to see my birth certificate. They know this is where we were born and raised."

I've said it before, but we're entering some territory now that we haven't seen since the bad old days. This isn't even dogwhistling. It's a primal scream.


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digby 8/24/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
Prosperity for all: It's on the menu

by digby

Either by design or ineptitude, our leaders have gotten us into a terrible situation that is likely to play out immediately after the election no matter who wins.

The CBO reported this week that the "fiscal cliff," which is commonly defined as the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the effects of the sequester will result in a return to recession. Greg Ip of The Economist pointed out yesterday that the fiscal "cliflett" --- the expiration of the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance , new medicare taxes on the wealthy and prior scheduled cuts is almost as bad. The IMF projects that fiscal policy will tighten more in America next year than in Spain, Italy or Portugal.

Obviously, if Romney/Ryan wins the election we have no reason to believe the Republicans will not fulfill their campaign promise to enact unprecedented spending cuts and tax cuts. But even if the president wins another term and the Democrats hang on to at least one House, we have had the Pete Peterson deficit hawks circling behind the scenes all this summer to get a consensus for a Simpson Bowles style plan to cut the safety net programs in exchange for a vague agreement to raise some sort of "revenue". Sadly, this basically reflects the president's "balanced approach" as well, which he characterizes in campaign ads, as being 3 trillion dollars in spending cuts while "asking the wealthy to pay a little bit more." Two days ago he told the White House press corps that the Grand Bargain he envisioned with John Boehner remains his preferred approach:

[T]he biggest thing that Congress could do for the economy would be to come up with a sensible approach to reducing our deficit in ways that we had agreed to and talked about last year.

Last week he lamented to the New York Times that the Democrats don't get enough credit for being willing to cut social security and medicare.

The progressive House democrats have offered a best deficit reduction plan which takes the biggest bite out of defense and raises taxes substantially on the wealthy. The administration is not interested in this approach. Needless to say, neither are the Republicans.

So, we are about to enter an economic maelstrom immediately after the election in which the choices on offer wil be between going over the fiscal cliff, a harsh austerity program from the Republicans and a "balanced approach" from the Democrats which includes unacceptable cuts to social security and health care programs along with massive cuts to government. All of these choices will lead to more sluggishness and a likely return to recession.

Up until now there has not been a coherent, progressive growth agenda on the table, which means that the likely compromise would be between the president's mixture of cuts and "asking the wealthy to pay a little bit more" and the harsh austerity demanded by the Tea party. That is an unacceptable compromise. And it will make things worse. If Europe has shown us anything it's that the idea of the "confidence fairies" coming to the rescue once the government enacts an austerity agenda is a fantasy.

That agenda is now in play. A new report written by Yale professor Jacob Hacker, author of the influential books

Winner-Take-All Politics

,

The Great Risk Shift

and Off Center and Nathaniel Lowenthiel and it's called Prosperity Economics: Building an Economy for All:

This report lays out an alternative to austerity economics, one based on our history, the successful experiences of other nations, and recent currents of research and theory in economics and allied fields. We call this model “prosperity economics.” Its central conclusion is that there is no inevitable trade-off between creating a strong, dynamic economy and fostering a society marked by greater health, broader security, increased equality of opportunity, and more broadly distributed growth.

To the contrary, societies that cultivate a wider distribution of the returns from increasing social wealth are the ones that flourish economically. When all members of a society share in the rewards of advancement—from better health to greater political freedom, from basic economic security to greater upward mobility—society is more likely to prosper in a sustained way. And when the government plays an active role in the economy through investments in education and scientific research, economies are more dynamic and innovative.

With all the propaganda coming from all sides, I know it's hard to believe that progressive economics are for real, but the facts are the facts.

Considering the stakes that I laid out above, I think it's incumbent for progressives to make this case for prosperity economics as loudly as we can and show that there is an alternative to the deficit mania that's taken hold of everyone in Washington. If nobody ever makes the case for growth and prosperity as the alternative to austerity, the people can be forgiven for not knowing about it and the political establishment will logically see any election outcome as a mandate for more austerity, since some version of it is all that's on the table.

But if enough people speak up for the prosperity agenda they will have to be taken into consideration. And that alone will move the dialog away from the cliffs, clifflets and disasters that are awaiting us and set us on a more sane economic path.

I urge you to read the full report. It's written by smart people who know how to write clearly and unlike Paul Ryan's various Very Serious plans, it actually adds up. If progressives can get this into the mix we might have a chance to stave off this Pete Peterson trainwreck that's been hurtling out of control.


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digby 8/24/2012 09:17:00 AM |

 
Bucking the trend

by David Atkins

In spite of all the vote suppression happening in many Republican-controlled states, California is bucking the trend by allowing same-day registration and now a fully online voter registration process:

Beginning next month, Californians for the first time will be able to use the Internet to register to vote, giving them about six weeks of online access to register in time to participate in the Nov. 6 presidential election.

In an advisory sent late Wednesday, the office of Secretary of State Debra Bowen informed the state's 58 county elections officers that the California Online Voter Registration System is in its final stages of testing and will become operational in early September. Software upgrades are scheduled to be electronically transmitted to the counties Friday, with online training for local officials to be conducted next week.

"It's really huge," said Secretary of State Debra Bowen. "I think it will be extremely popular and am very hopeful it will increase voter registration."

California is not the first state to do this, but it shows the power of governors and state legislatures to make a huge difference in the conduct of democracy. As an activist, one of my biggest wake-up calls after the 2008 election was the gigantic degree to which state politics actually affects the lives in residents in tangible ways often more than does politics in Washington. State politics is also usually easier to influence because the districts are smaller and fewer people are frankly paying attention.

It's not an overstatement to say that the future of progressive politics in America may depend more on California achieving 2/3 supermajorities in the legislature, than in Nancy Pelosi getting the gavel back. Digby and I have often talked with derision about the "laboratories of the states" creating worse policy than what comes out of Washington. That is true. But it can be a double-edged sword, too. If we ever get full single-payer healthcare in this country, it will be because large states with progressive legislatures implemented it first.

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thereisnospoon 8/24/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Thursday, August 23, 2012

 
Hello Yellow Brick Road

by digby

Paul Krugman notes that the GOP platform's predictable demand to a return to the gold standard is nothing compared to Paul Ryan's demand that we return to a time before paper money. This belief stems from his devotion to passages of Atlas Shrugged, but one can go directly to the guru's mouth to find a straightforward explanation:

Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives. Money is not merely a tool of exchange: much more importantly, it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production. To fulfill this requirement, money has to be some material commodity which is imperishable, rare, homogeneous, easily stored, not subject to wide fluctuations of value, and always in demand among those you trade with.

This leads you to the decision to use gold as money. Gold money is a tangible value in itself and a token of wealth actually produced. When you accept a gold coin in payment for your goods, you actually deliver the goods to the buyer; the transaction is as safe as simple barter. When you store your savings in the form of gold coins, they represent the goods which you have actually produced and which have gone to buy time for other producers, who will keep the productive process going, so that you’ll be able to trade your coins for goods any time you wish. Ayn Rand --“Egalitarianism and Inflation,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 127

Also too, the Oracle:

Gold and economic freedom are inseparable, . . . the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and . . . each implies and requires the other.

What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an economy is not determined arbitrarily. Where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are neither homogeneous nor divisible.

More important, the commodity chosen as a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable . . . .

The term “luxury good” implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an ounce of gold is worth a half-ton of pig iron . . . .

Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy’s stability and balanced growth.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold . . . .

The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the “hidden” confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.

That's from an essay by uncle Alan Greenspan in Rand's book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. That's the guy, you'll recall who was in charge of America's monetary policy during the time of the greatest growth in income inequality since the gilded age. Somehow he made it work.

For a thoroughly enjoyable column on the nuttery of gold buggery, this piece by Krugman that Mark Thoma drew from the old Slate archives is not to be missed. Like so much else in rightwing economics, it's another example of magical thinking.


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digby 8/23/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
"I don't want to take care of those people"

by digby

NPR did a story on this preposterous welfare reform lie the Romney campaign refuses to stop telling. The reporter attempted to explain why they would keep doing it even though it's been rated "pants on fire" over and over again and they interviewed some voters.

I think this is the one who makes it pretty clear what's going on:

This specific attack about welfare ties into a broader concern that many Republicans share: Romney often argues that Obama and the Democrats are making America a government-dependent society.

"I really don't want to help somebody who just decides, 'Oh, well, I was raised on welfare. I can raise my children on welfare,' " Malcolm said. "I had a cousin who, she is a registered nurse and the stories she told me about people coming in there and having babies just so they could get more on their food stamps and more on their welfare. It's like no, I don't want to take care of those people."

That's a GOP base voter for you. When in doubt go to old faithful. Obama's taking away their health care and giving it to "those" people, too. And I think we know who those people are, don't we?

This isn't the first time the Republicans have played on racist tropes top win an election, but this one is worse than usual since their entire premise is built on a lie. But it does allow them to put the first black president in ads with the word "welfare" and activate that wingnut lizard brain. It's a very sensitive lizard brain when it comes to race.

Adele Stan had this campaign pegged from the beginning for exactly what it was. Romney will be remembered as the guy who reanimated Lee Atwater's vision for the Republican Party. It will go on his tombstone.

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digby 8/23/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Yes, it really is a war on women

by David Atkins

The DNC is hitting hard:



Democrats would likely have pursued this line of attack with or without Akin's big mouth. But Akin's statements have provided a crystallization of all that is wrong with social conservatism in America.

These are people who hate women because they see women as temptresses leading good men astray. These are people who don't respect women because they see women as little more than baby-carrying vessels.

And at bottom they're people are deeply, deeply afraid of sex and sexuality. One can pop psychoanalyze why ad infinitum, but at its heart we're dealing with deeply repressed people who worry that all social order will collapse without keeping strict taboos on sexual behavior. These are a bunch of insecure, authoritarian men who worry that their wives will cheat and their daughters won't respect them if those women are sexually awakened. They're a bunch of busybody repressed women who are sexually miserable themselves, and want company in their misery.

Those sorts of views are pathetic and archaic in the 21st century, whether they're in Saudi Arabia or rural Missouri.

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thereisnospoon 8/23/2012 03:10:00 PM |

 
Some Florida hospitality

by digby

Haha:

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digby 8/23/2012 01:45:00 PM |

 
Just because it's murder doesn't mean they're against it

by digby

Oh please:

The 2012 party platform crafted in Tampa this week includes an abortion ban that makes no exceptions for cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life.

“Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” the draft platform reads. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

But the party insists that its strict opposition to abortion doesn’t necessarily mean it objects to rape and incest exceptions. Instead, the RNC argues, it enshrined a broad set of principles that don’t delve into any policy details.

Exceptions to personhood? That's called murder.

But don't worry. It's not like they're all rigid about it or anything:

“So it’s not that we are being pro-exception or anti-exception — we are SILENT on exceptions and leave that up to the states,” the official said.

Interesting that they'd make a states' rights argument. I'd imagine they'll be quite a bit more viciferous in their support of fetuses to have the full protections of the 14th Amendment than they were for African Americans.

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digby 8/23/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
Maddow on Ryan's most outrageous lie yet

by digby

He's a very, very good liar:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"The Republican Vice Presidential candidate really did sponsor a bill that would ban hormonal birth control. And he did it just last year."

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digby 8/23/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
How can they be a hate group? They're members of the club.

by digby

When asked by Michaelangelo Signoreli why he doesn't think the Family Research Council should be called a hate group, here's what Village scribe Dana Milbank had to say:

“This is a group that was founded by James Dobson and was run for many years by Gary Bauer, who was a presidential candidate, a widely respected commentator around town,” he explained. “Why would would you say that’s the same sort of thing as Stormfront?”

It's not as if they're wearing white sheets, after all. (He really said that too.)

If you want to know how it's possible that extremists have taken over the Republican party with nary a peep out of the political establishment, you have your reason. The leaders are "highly respected" insiders and Very Serious People. Therefore, it's impossible for them to be hateful. Why, what would it say about Dana Milbank's judgment (and basic decency) if people thought he was associating with hatemongers?

The Village takes care of its own. And these hatemongers are definitely their own.

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digby 8/23/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
A public comment I'd like to see

by David Atkins

Small men with smaller minds and big, big mouths. They like to hear themselves talk. Judge Tom Head of Lubbock, Texas is no exception:



Please, if you know someone in Lubbock, Texas, beg them to get video of this public hearing. Unlike after the re-election of the President, that really would be a riot.


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thereisnospoon 8/23/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

 

Progressives aren't supposed to believe in banning abortion so there's no need for exceptions

by digby

I love Move-On, but this isn't good:

You know, I don't actually think progressives should be talking about which exceptions should be restored. We don't think politicians should be in the business of banning abortion in the first place. The last I heard we all had a right to it under the constitution.

There are an awful lot of people other than rape survivors who will be affected if the GOP platform is ever enacted into law. Incest survivors, teen-agers, older women with grown kids already, poor women, in fact .... one third of all women in the US. Probably best to keep it simple and advocate for all of them, rape survivors included.

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Update: 8/23

Move-On changed their petition language. It now states:

Romney and Ryan: "Remove the abortion ban for rape survivors--and all women--from the Republican Party platform."

Excellent.

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digby 8/22/2012 06:30:00 PM |

 
Daddy knows best

by digby

Why do I have the feeling that most right-to-life zealots have no problem with this?

[N]ine months after my rape, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. You could say she was conceived in rape; she was. But she is also so much more than her beginnings. I blissfully believed that after I finally had decided to give birth to and to raise my daughter, life would be all roses and endless days at the playground. I was wrong again.

It would not be long before I would learn firsthand that in the vast majority of states -- 31 -- men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy. When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child.

When faced with the choice between a lifetime tethered to her rapist or meaningful legal redress, the answer may be easy, but it is not painless. For the sake of her child, the woman will sacrifice her need to see her once immensely powerful perpetrator humbled by the court.

I know it because I lived it. I went to law school to learn how to stop it.
[...]
Today, it seems we may face a new and unbelievable challenge: convincing legislators that women can conceive when they are raped.

Make no mistake, my efforts and the efforts of others to persuade legislators to pass laws restricting the parental rights of men who father through rape will be directly impacted by Akin's recent comments. Whether these efforts will be helped or hurt, however, depends upon us as a society.

And who's to say, really, if the rape is legitimate rape or honest rape or if the lying slut is just trying to play the rape card again(like all those women in messy divorces do.) Since they presumably lie about this all the time in order to get abortions, why wouldn't they do it to deny decent men the right to their progeny?

When you peel away the layers of all this abortion, rape, contraception nonsense you end up in the same place: women are inveterate liars who will deny men their inherent right to their bodies and their offspring if their sexuality isn't tightly controlled by the church and the state. (It's not as if it's really about darling babies --- they're torturing women by making them go through childbirth even if their baby is dead.)

You just can't trust the beyotches. Never could:

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digby 8/22/2012 05:30:00 PM |

 

Arizona leads the way

by digby

And the hits just keep on coming.

The Republican Party has officially endorsed its backing for Arizona-style state immigration laws, adding into its platform language that such laws should be "encouraged, not attacked" and calling for the federal government to drop its lawsuits against the laws.

That language and other provisions were widely approved by the party after being introduced by the co-author of the Arizona law, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R).

"I was pleased at how overwhelming the majorities were, it was a voice vote and I think there were maybe 80 percent supporting it," Kobach told The Hill shortly after the hard-line immigration language was added to the party's official platform. "The Republican Platform is now very strongly opposed to illegal immigration."
The official party position now reads that "State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked," and says the Department of Justice should immediately drop its lawsuits against controversial state immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah.

That language is likely to please immigration hard-liners — but it could further damage the party's standing with Hispanic voters, a key voting bloc in a number of swing states. Many Hispanics see Arizona-style laws as discriminatory.

"I think it's an expression of support for Arizona-style laws," Kobach said. "The platform also encourages states to create laws in this area."

Kobach's amendment, which is now official party policy, also includes calls to withhold federal funding for any universities that provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants as well as "sanctuary cities" that refuse to enforce state and federal laws on immigration, and calls for the government to complete construction of a fence along the Mexican border that Congress authorized in 2006.

If there has been any doubt that the GOP is a shrinking party of cretinous throwbacks and xenophobes, this week has surely dispelled it. I don't know who they think is going to vote for them in the future but I guess they're pinning their hopes on the procreating power of the Romneys and the Duggars.

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digby 8/22/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
"Might as well give him fallopian tubes", or the conservative Id

by David Atkins

Kevin Williamson writes at the storied, Burkean moderate publication National Review:

hat do women want? The conventional biological wisdom is that men select mates for fertility, while women select for status — thus the commonness of younger women’s pairing with well-established older men but the rarity of the converse...

You want off-the-charts status? Check out the curriculum vitae of one Willard M. Romney: $200 million in the bank (and a hell of a lot more if he didn’t give so much away), apex alpha executive, CEO, chairman of the board, governor, bishop, boss of everything he’s ever touched. Son of the same, father of more. It is a curious scientific fact (explained in evolutionary biology by the Trivers-Willard hypothesis — Willard, notice) that high-status animals tend to have more male offspring than female offspring, which holds true across many species, from red deer to mink to Homo sap. The offspring of rich families are statistically biased in favor of sons — the children of the general population are 51 percent male and 49 percent female, but the children of the Forbes billionaire list are 60 percent male. Have a gander at that Romney family picture: five sons, zero daughters. Romney has 18 grandchildren, and they exceed a 2:1 ratio of grandsons to granddaughters (13:5). When they go to church at their summer-vacation home, the Romney clan makes up a third of the congregation. He is basically a tribal chieftain.

Professor Obama? Two daughters. May as well give the guy a cardigan. And fallopian tubes.

From an evolutionary point of view, Mitt Romney should get 100 percent of the female vote. All of it. He should get Michelle Obama’s vote. You can insert your own Mormon polygamy joke here, but the ladies do tend to flock to successful executives and entrepreneurs.

These guys really understand the human spirit, don't they? Oh, but he's not done:

Some Occupy Wall Street types, believing it to be the height of wit, have begun to spell Romney’s name “Rmoney.” But Romney can do better than that — put it in all caps: R-MONEY. Jay-Z can keep his puny little lowercase letters and the Maybach: R-MONEY doesn’t own a flashy car with rims, R-MONEY does billion-dollar deals with Keystone Automotive and Delphi. You want to make it rain? R-MONEY is going to make it storm, like biblical. Rappers boast about their fat stacks: R-MONEY’s fat stacks live in a beachfront house of their own in the Hamptons, and the bricks in that house are made from tightly bound hundred-dollar bills. You have a ton of money? R-MONEY has 200 metric tons of money if he decides to keep it in cash.

This sort of sneering social darwinism is why countries have revolutions. All these people know and care about is money and power. Literally every other human virtue in the world is opaque to them.


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thereisnospoon 8/22/2012 03:00:00 PM |

 
Todd Akin's Senate soul mate

by digby

The Mustache of Understanding shows his deep engagement with the reality of American politics once again:

Imagine if the G.O.P.’s position on debt was set by Senator Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who has challenged the no-tax lunacy of Grover Norquist and served on the Simpson-Bowles commission and voted for its final plan (unlike Ryan). That plan included both increased tax revenues and spending cuts as the only way to fix our long-term fiscal imbalances. Give me a Republican Party that says we have to put real tax revenues and spending cuts on the table to solve this problem, and you’ll get a deal with Obama, who has already offered both, although not at the scale we need.

Yeah, Coburn's a real economic brain trust. Recall this interview with Ezra Klein:

Klein: To go back to Krugman, if he were sitting here, he’d say in this crisis there’s been no evidence anywhere that cutting deficits leads to growth. We’ve not seen it in the euro zone or the UK. And he’d say the Reinhart/Rogoff story is a correlation story. It doesn’t prove that high debt always and everywhere hurts growth.

COBURN: Go look at Sweden. Here’s what Sweden did. They cut their spending and their taxes. They have the best growth rate in Europe. They had a surplus this year. They had growth at six-plus percent. They actually did a Reagan style approach to their problem by cutting spending and cutting taxes. And they’re the fastest growing with a decline in their debt-to-GDP ratio.

Klein: But correct me if I’m wrong, but if I recall, Sweden’s monetary policy went towards a very sharp devaluation, they’ve been driven by export growth, and alongside Israel, they’ve been more aggressive than any other central bank in the world. They’ve done stuff that if we did it here, people would lose their minds.

COBURN: I think there are monetary parts to that. But their finance minister put in place tough stuff. They had people who left Sweden because of the tax ratio. Now they’ve moved back. And it’s not a perfect example, but it’s an exception to the Krugman story.

(Krugman put the hammer down, here.)

Here's your good faith negotiator in action:

Influential Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) "decided to take a break" from the bipartisan "Gang of Six" budget negotiating team Tuesday, citing an impasse in the effort to agree on substantial spending cuts...

The aide said that Coburn had been extremely close to agreeing to a deal before a recent two-week recess, but returned with five new demands that hadn't been discussed before. On Monday, the aide said, Coburn asked for an immediate $130 billion in cuts to Medicare, on top of the $400 billion that had already been agreed to. Democrats refused and Coburn left the talks as a result, said the aide.

And lord knows we need more people like this in the Senate:

"Show me where in the Constitution the federal government is responsible for your health care?" Coburn said.

He went on to say that government programs such as Medicare are primarily responsible for rapidly rising health-care costs, and that Medicare has made the medical system worse.

"You can't tell me the system is better now than it was before Medicare," he said.

Coburn agreed that some people received poor care - or no care - before Medicare was enacted in the 1960s, but said communities worked together to make sure most people received needed medical attention.

He also conceded that doctors and hospitals often went unpaid for their efforts, or accepted baked goods or chickens in partial payment.

Earlier, in Langley, Coburn partially deflected criticism of President Barack Obama - and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke - by blaming the country's financial woes on Congress. He described his colleagues as "a class of career elitists" and "cowards," and at one point, talking about his frustrations, said, "It's just a good thing I can't pack a gun on the Senate floor."

But Coburn also said most members of Congress are good people with good intentions.

Responding to a man in Langley who asked if Obama "wants to destroy America," Coburn said the president is "very bright" and loves his country but has a political philosophy that is "goofy and wrong."

Obama's "intent is not to destroy, his intent is to create dependency because it worked so well for him," he said.

"As an African-American male," Coburn said, Obama received "tremendous advantage from a lot of these programs."

Tom Coburn is a cretin just one step removed from Todd Akin. In fact, he's not even one step removed:

You know, Josh Burkeen is our rep down here in the southeast area. He lives in Colgate and travels out of Atoka. He was telling me lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that's happened to us?"
Tom Coburn, 8/31/04

And this:

In 1999, social conservatives in Congress initiated a new strategy to further their moral agenda of promoting abstinence outside of marriage as official government policy—claiming that condoms do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Led by then-Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK), a physician and staunch proabstinence opponent of government-funded family planning programs, they were successful in attaching an amendment to the House version of the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act mandating that condom packages carry a cigarette-type warning that condoms offer "little or no protection" against an extremely common STD, human papillomavirus (HPV), some strains of which cause cervical cancer. Although this directive was removed before the bill was enacted, Coburn and his allies were able to secure a requirement that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reexamine condom labels to determine whether they are medically accurate with respect to condoms' "effectiveness or lack of effectiveness" in STD prevention. They also were instrumental in convincing the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—along with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—to convene a workshop in June 2000 to evaluate published evidence on condom effectiveness.

At the time, Coburn's anticondom views were widely considered extreme. Certainly, they were, and continue to be, out of step with mainstream public health prevention efforts. But in the intervening few years, the political landscape has changed radically. Coburn and like-minded colleagues are now ensconced within the Bush administration, and with the imprimatur of government and the report of an NIH workshop on condom effectiveness to cite, a campaign to disparage the value of condom use is in full swing, itself the cornerstone of an effort to undermine the very notion of sexual risk-reduction, or "safer sex."

In today's GOP, I guess that's as close as you get to a rational conservative. But that doesn't mean he is one. And the fact that influential centrists like Tom Friedman (and yes, Barack Obama) are out there pushing him as a mainstream, "center-right", man of good sense and decency is just plain terrifying.

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digby 8/22/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
Akin's Accomplished His Mission

by tristero

"No exceptions" is no longer extreme; it's standard policy of a major national party. What's extreme - ie, not batshit crazy, just extreme - is believing that "legitimate rape" doesn't result in pregnancy.

Thus a restricted rape/incest exception is now a reasonable. moderate position and so Romney looks like the height of sober, serious, and thoughtful conservatism, safely in the middle of the controversy, if not actually to the left. And abortion on demand, for no reason other than that is what a woman chooses? It's so not on the table, beyond serious discussion by serious people.

Akin's won: the discourse has been shoved even more violently right than it already was. The country has lost, especially women. This is what happens when you engage extremism in the mainstream discourse instead of simply mocking and denouncing it - the unthinkable becomes plausible.

Update: From Digby

Can you see what what's missing from this picture?



I knew that you could.

You'll be glad to know that the survey has nearly 90% support for banning it with exceptions for rape and incest. That's now the "liberal" position apparently.

h/t to @SheltieDad

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tristero 8/22/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
Blue America chat: Dr Syed Taj

by digby

This week Blue America is endorsing that pragmatic progressive Democrat, Dr. Syed Taj running for the open seat in swing district MI-11 and he'll be joining us for a live chat at CrooksandLiars.com today at 2pm (ET). Normally we meet our candidates on Tuesdays but Dr. Taj informed me he meets with his patients on Tuesdays at that time. The excuse says a lot about who he is and what motivates him.

His opponent, Kerry Bentivolio, is an accidental candidate who wound up on the GOP line when the incumbent, Thaddeus McCotter, was forced to resign to stay out of prison after a series of election fraud scandals. Horrified, Establishment Republicans tried running a normal candidate but it was too late and they got stuck with Bentivolio, a reindeer rancher who made some extra money as an actor in a low-budget conspiracy film that blamed George W. Bush for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has a vision for obstruction and turning the clock back to the Nineteenth Century. He thinks the Ryan Budget is just a good start and he would go further in gutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the rest of the social safety net that we have fought so hard to build.

"My opponent," Dr. Taj told us this week, "will not just be another vote for Speaker Boehner. He will be a ringleader for efforts that build on the type of hyper-partisan zealotry the House Republican Caucus has come to use as their standard operating procedure. In short, my opponent has the potential to be one of the worst Members of Congress in history. That may sound like hyperbole but even his ultra-conservative primary opponent took to calling him 'Krazy Kerry'.”

Dr. Taj is running to make sure we never have to worry about “Krazy Kerry” causing Americans problems by a stint in Congress. Dr. Taj has worked for over 40 years as a physician and understands the vital roll that programs such as Medicare and Social Security play in everyday people’s lives. He told us he not only understands how important it is to keep the Affordable Care Act in place but that we urgently need to iron out the wrinkles, improve and expand it’s programs and insure that every American has access to quality health care without undue financial burden.

"I came to this country because of the great opportunities and freedom that it provides. My family and I have lived the American Dream. That is why it pains me to see the dream slipping away from so many people. These are good folks, they’re my neighbors and friends that played by the rules and worked hard but through no fault of their own now find their American Dream turning into a nightmare. I will fight to insure that our economy works for everyone, that we use every option available to spur job creation and continue to grow our economy. Here in Michigan we are proud of the work President Obama has done to save the auto industry and reinvigorate American manufacturing. My opponent opposed the GM and Chrysler rescues that have proven to not only have saved those companies but also our state and national economy. I support American manufacturing and real fair-trade that protects workers and the environment here and across the globe. I am running to provide voters a choice between going back or moving forward."

However, Dr. Taj needs our help to make sure every voter in the 11th District knows just how stark the differences are between him and the crackpot running against him.

"When the people of my district know all the facts they will make the correct choice and vote for me. The National Republicans and the Ron Paul Super PACS know this and they will spend limitless amounts of money to obscure the facts and play to people’s fears. I need your support so we can counter these attacks and layout the real choice that voters will have to make.

This task will not be easy, because as you may have noticed I do not have the most average name. Nor do I practice the same religious faith as most Americans. But only in America could an immigrant from India that proudly attends a mosque be able to run for Federal Elective Office. This is the greatness of our country and why I know that with your support we can win this election.

So, please consider making a contribution to my campaign, we cannot afford more obstruction-- we truly need a 'Doctor in the House'.”

For reasons that are obscure, the party is not supporting Taj, despite the fact that the district is a swing district and the Republicans are stuck with another looney-tunes Todd Akin Jr accidentally running on their ticket.

Stop by C&L at 11p/2e to see what he has to say.


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digby 8/22/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
Ryan jumps "over the pail"

by digby

Ryan was questioned about his horrendous record on women's rights and abortion yesterday. And he proved what a hot potato it is with his lies, obfuscations and non-denial denials:

“His statements were outrageous, over the pail. I don’t know anybody who would agree with that. Rape is rape period, end of story,” Ryan told KDKA Political Editor Jon Delano.

Ryan, like Romney, distanced himself from Akin’s remarks, but in Congress, he joined Akin in opposing abortions even when a woman has been raped.

Delano: “Should abortions to be available to women who are raped?”

Ryan: “Well, look, I’m proud of my pro-life record. And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress. It’s something I’m proud of. But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president and he will set the policy of the Romney administration.”

Despite Ryan’s views, Romney says he will allow exceptions for rape and incest. Ryan also seemed to back away from earlier views on types of rape.

Delano: “You sponsored legislation that has the language ‘forcible rape.’ What is forcible rape as opposed…”

Ryan: “Rape is rape. Rape is rape, period. End of story.”

Delano: “So that forcible rape language meant nothing to you at the time?”

Ryan: “Rape is rape and there’s no splitting hairs over rape.”

As for the president’s claim that Romney-Ryan will restrict birth control, Ryan calls that ridiculous.

“Nobody is proposing to deny birth control to anybody,” says Ryan.*

First of all, what the hell is "over the pail?" I thought it might be some Wisconsin cow vernacular that I'd never heard, but it doesn't come up on google. Neither does "over the pale." So it would appear that he meant "beyond the pale" which means that Mr Ryan has more in common with his predecessor on the wingnut VP circuit, Sarah Palin, than we realized.

Anyway, that's hardly important compared to everything else he said, which is bullshit. He's obviously running from his clear record as a hard core anti-abortion zealot and these local reporters aren't going to be able to pin him down on it.

But the birth control answer is such a straight up lie that I can hardly believe he didn't start smirking like Beavis and Butthead when he said it. Both he and Romney have promised to shut down Planned Parenthood, they both agree that no insurance plans should be forced to offer it, they are both in favor of allowing "conscience exceptions" to anyone who can't bring themselves to participate in contraceptive evil. Basically, he's saying "sure you sluts can have your birth control --- if you can find it."

Just because he has boyish looks and a winsome smile doesn't mean he isn't a hard-core wingnut crusader with a record to match Todd Akin's. It's going to be interesting to see if the Democrats and their allies are clever enough to successfully hang him -- and the GOP generally -- with it in the eyes of the public.

Ryan, of course, is against the exceptions for rape and incest, but says he'll defer to Romney's views -- which are frankly bizarre in light of the fact that he's in favor of "personhood" which would render any abortion murder. But then he's not exactly known for his philosophical consistency.

*That portion of the interview was not included in the Think Progress clip. You can see the whole thing here.

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digby 8/22/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
Presidential debates: A grandiose spectacle set for so few

by David Atkins

In just a few months the Presidential debates will be upon us. I remember being a teenager and looking forward to Presidential debates as deeply consequential, pivotal events in our democracy. Now, of course, my view of the debates has been altered with the appropriate dose of cynicism.

But it's not just that the debates are largely vapid exercises in personality and body language assessment combined with gotcha zingers and deliberate dodges. It's also that they simply matter less and less than they used to.

I've been noting frequently of late how static the electorate has become, with a very small and shrinking set of undecided voters. The reality is that by the time the first debate takes place on October 3rd, 95% or so of Americans will already have made up their minds whom they will vote for.

Even the schedule of the debates makes a mockery of their relevance to a huge section of voters. By the time the third debate wraps up on October 22, an enormous number of voters will already have turned in their mail-in absentee ballot.

That's not to say the debates can't sway the election. They most certainly can. That's bound to happen in a country so evenly divided that a victory with 53% of the popular is considered a landslide.

But it is remarkable that such a grandiose spectacle of democracy is being put on for the benefit of so few voters who may actually change their minds after witnessing it.


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thereisnospoon 8/22/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

 
Going for the frozen zygote vote

by digby

I can't for the life of me figure out why Todd Akin removed this from his website:

... or why the Republicans think he'll have a problem winning his race.


h/t @litbrit
digby 8/21/2012 07:30:00 PM |

 
"Use of force is never pretty"

by digby

I wonder how many real crimes were committed unmolested while the LAPD engaged in brutality against a skateboarder and wasted the time of dozens of police officers in the process:

Ronald Weekley Jr., 20, of Venice, Calif., told USA TODAY that officers broke his nose and right cheekbone and gave him a concussion after they tackled him from behind Saturday night. Video shows several officers restraining the Xavier University sophomore and one officer punching him in the face while he was face down.

The Los Angeles Police Department, however, maintains that Weekley resisted arrest after officers tried to stop him and discuss his traffic violation. After he ran from police, officers pursued him and used force -- including "several punches" -- until he was put into handcuffs, Commander Andrew Smith told USA TODAY.

Weekley admits he was riding his skateboard in the street, against on-coming traffic. But he said that there were no cars at the time and that in Venice it's common practice, as with bikes, to ride in the street.

It is. I see it every day.

I don't know the whole story --- the preliminary word from LAPD is that the kid tried to run. But there's no excuse for punching someone who is in custody with four cops on top of him which we can see clearly in that video. I don't care if it was Charles Manson. But it wasn't Charles Manson. It was a skateboarding college kid doing what skateboarders do every day in Venice.

On the other hand, I give the other officers at the scene credit for not escalating the violence as they did in Orange County last month. And there didn't seem to be any attempt to take the video camera. So there are cops who know how to behave professionally. And, unfortunately, some who don't.


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digby 8/21/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
Akin "apologizes"

by David Atkins

Oh boy:

"Rape is an evil act. I used the wrong words in the wrong way and for that I apologize," Akin says. "As the father of two daughters, I want tough justice for predators. I have a compassionate heart for the victims of sexual assault, and I pray for them. The fact is, rape can lead to pregnancy. The truth is, rape has many victims. The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold. I ask for your forgiveness."

This non-apology is so very typical of the fatuous conservative Christian.
1) Refuse to admit that you were wrong. Insist only that you misspoke.

2) Try to sound tough.

3) Refuse to backtrack on the original statement. Akin never said that rapes couldn't lead to pregnancy in the first place. He said that the female body has ways of decreasing them. His "apology" still hasn't backtracked from that.

4) Show no real signs of contrition, but only "forgiveness." "Forgiveness" is the all-purpose conservative Christian get-out-of-jail-free card that lets them be as mean-spirited as they want but have it all turn out OK in the end.

The good news is that Akin is a belligerent SOB who believes that God is calling him to the U.S. Senate through divine providence. And when people believe something like that, nothing will convince them to quit.


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thereisnospoon 8/21/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Solidifying the base

by digby

I think this is pretty much what Romney expected:

According to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 22 percent of registered voters say Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan to be his running mate makes them more likely to vote for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

That's compared with 23 percent who say the Ryan pick makes them less likely to vote for Romney, and 54 percent who say the new running mate doesn’t affect their vote either way.

Romney's the "middle of the road" mushy moderate of the pair. He needed a hardcore wingnut who, post-Palin, would pass muster with the Villagers and not completely scare off the little old ladies. He didn't need a safe pick. He needed a polarizing pick who would validate him with the hardcore base. And he got him.

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digby 8/21/2012 03:30:00 PM |

 
The deficit reduction vicious circle

by digby

Oh, this is excellent news for our British friends:

George Osborne's attempt to cut Britain’s deficit was dealt a blow today when official figures revealed that the Government borrowed £3 billion more than expected last month.

Public sector finances suffered from a 20 per cent fall in corporation tax receipts from business while public spending rose by 5 per cent, fuelled by higher benefit payments.

Overall public sector net borrowing came in at £600 million in July, compared with a surplus of £2.8 billion in the same month last year. City's expectations had been for a surplus of £2.5 billion.

Public sector net debt now stands at above £1 trillion, compared to £940 billion a year ago, and represents 65.7 per cent of the UK's GDP, up from 61.8 per cent last year.

July is normally a strong month for tax income, but total receipts fell 0.8 per cent, driven by the drop in corporation tax. The poor figures were compounded by a revision of net borrowing for April to June, which was revised up by £1.4 billion. It means net borrowing is £44.9 billion, £9.3 billion higher than a year ago.

That sounds awful. Obviously, their deficit cutting has inhibited growth and they need to change course.

Terribly sorry, but that won't be happening:

The disappointing figures are likely to put pressure on Mr Osborne to cut back on departmental spending still further.

At the weekend it emerged that civil servants in the Treasury have been privately warning colleagues across Whitehall to prepare for a fresh round of cuts following the disappointing tax receipts. These cuts could come as soon as his autumn spending statement.

“There’s a lot of nervousness and other officials are talking to their oppos [opposite numbers] in spending departments,” said a Whitehall source. “They are saying we haven’t got enough cash and expect a much, much harsher environment.”

What's that old saying? Something about learning from the past and being doomed?

The truth is that the British seem to have found the magic formula for drowning the government in the bathtub. First you ignore everything you've ever learned about how to deal with an economic slump and immediately slash government spending and raise taxes. This will be explained as vitally necessary to turn the economy around as deficit spending is the central economic problem the nation faces. This will inevitably result in a double dip recession and lower tax receipts which will require even more slashing of government spending. And on and on until one day (when we're all dead) the economy rights itself and the government is the empty shell the conservatives always wanted. Huzzah.

The US managed to avoid the worst of this, although our system has allowed individual states to do much of the work that's kept our economy from rebounding. But the double-dip has been avoided by the behavior of stubborn wingnuts who refused to take yes for an answer when it was offered to them. Whether that will remain the case as time goes on is an open question. But those who are still clamoring for "deficit reduction" in the face of very low growth and high unemployment can certainly look to our very special friends across the pond for inspiration. They are showing the way.

Update: I heard the Very Serious Centrist Matt Miller on MSNBC earlier extolling the virtues of Mr Cameron a a leader who did the right thing by refusing to lower taxes on the wealthy as he promised in order to fight the deficit. (About four minutes in ...) Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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digby 8/21/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
Why should women have any say in who fathers their children anyway?

by digby

Don't kid yourself. The rape and incest exceptions are dead among Republicans:

The man trying to provide Rep. Todd Akin the softest possible landing after the congressman’s foolish comments about pregnancy and rape was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a strong supporter of Akin during his run to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate.

In the furor over Akin’s remarks and increasing pressure for him to drop out of his race against Sen. Claire McCaskill, Huckabee used his syndicated radio program Monday to give the embattled candidate a safe venue to express remorse and his determination to remain in the race. Huckabee also took the opportunity to cast the best possible light on Akin’s awkward position. The former Arkansas governor and onetime GOP presidential contender suggested a couple of cases in which he suggested that rapes, though “horrible tragedies,” had produced admirable human beings.

“Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape,” Huckabee said of the late American gospel singer. One-time presidential candidate Huckabee added: “I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”

Isn't that great? The dumb animals who are forced to go through the pregnancy and childbirth (and are physically reminded of their "horrible, horrible tragedy" every day for the rest of their lives) will just have to suck it up because their off spring might turn out to be a Christian conservative leader. Why should women have any say in who fathers their children in the first place?

And as I wrote yesterday, keep an eye on the exception to save the life of the mother too. They're edging quickly toward that position as well. That's where the rubber meets the road and they have to decide between "innocent life" and the dirty girls who got themselves pregnant.

This isn't a tough call for many of these so-called "pro-life" people. After all, almost all of them are proponents of capital punishment, even if some innocent people get caught in the mix. It's pretty clear that the only life they value is the one that has not yet been born.


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digby 8/21/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
Nice little network you have here

by digby

I guess when you get into bed with the Tea Party, you'll get out of it when they say you'll get out of it. From Eric Boehlert:

In the wake of the controversy that erupted when Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Party's nominee for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, claimed it was "really rare" for victims of "legitimate rape" to become pregnant from the assault, CNN earned an unfortunate media distinction: Among the very few pundits I've seen defending, or trying to excuse, Akin's outrageous comments are Dana Loesch and Erick Erickson.

Both work for CNN.

Thanks to Erickson and Loesch, CNN today is associated with a radical position on the Akin story that outflanks anything even Fox News commentators are saying about the controversy.

This is the price CNN continues to pay for wanting so badly to be connected with representative of the right-wing press. Perhaps in search of shields to protect itself from the incessant whines about "liberal media bias," CNN's decision to legitimize the strange views of Loesch and Erickson remains a deeply misguided one. read on ...

I'm not sure what these two would have to do to get treated the way that Rick Sanchez and Octavia Nasr were treated, but if calling Supreme Court Justices "goat fucking child molesters" or saying that you'd like to urinate on corpses doesn't do it, it's hard to see what would.

Obviously, CNN is terrified of the right wing. Which is just sad. The right wing couldn't hate them any more than they already do. That should be liberating and allow them to get rid of this failed Tea Party experiment. It doesn't appear that they understand this.

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digby 8/21/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
The Conservative Leadership

by digby


Well, if you ask the National Republican Senatorial Committee ...

Good morning –

Just a quick background update on the situation in the Missouri Senate race. While much of the press coverage has understandably focused on the statements by Republican leaders yesterday regarding Congressman Akin, I wanted to point out for your background that they have been joined by leading conservatives across the country who have called on Congressman Akin to step aside for the good of the party and the pro-life movement he cares so deeply about.

Below are just a few examples for your consideration…..

Radio/TV Host Sean Hannity urged Akin yesterday to reconsider running and reminded him that “elections are bigger than one person”

Radio Host Mark Levin similarly urged Akin to step aside saying this race is far too important to risk losing to the Democrats.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty observes, Who Isn’t Calling for Akin’s Withdrawal? Claire McCaskill & Planned Parenthood.

Columnist/Radio Host Dennis Prager penned a column for Townhall.com calling on his fellow pro-life leaders to join him in disavowing Akin’s remarks.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer on Fox News last night called Akin “toxic” and said “he’s got to go”

Radio Host Hugh Hewitt tweeted – “If Akin drops out and GOP wins Senate, he has career. If he stays in and GOP doesn’t win Senate, infamy and injury to prolife cause”

Author Ann Coulter penned a column in Human Events calling on Akin to do the right thing and step aside for the good of the pro-life movement

National Review editorial board called on Akin to step aside, writing in part, “Akin is a stalwart conservative and an honorable man, we regret to say that he inspires no such confidence”

Wall Street Journal editorial board also called on Akin to step aside, writing in part, “Having uttered one of the more offensive and ill-informed comments in recent years, Mr. Akin could cost his party a seat it is favored to win this November and thus possible control of the Senate.”

The Tea Party Express called on Akin to step aside saying “It is critical that we defeat Senator Claire McCaskill in November, but it will be too difficult to achieve that with Todd Akin as the conservative alternative.”

Limbaugh's on vacation so he's lost his usual spot at the top of the list.

Notice that most of them are offering the pragmatic reason that he can't win the election. Needless to say, if the seat wasn't so important to their chances of winning back the Senate in the fall, they would not have felt compelled to weigh in. Republican politicians say nutty nonsense all the time. Often from the floor of the House and Senate.

And, by the way, the new GOP platform is out. And guess what?

The draft official platform strongly supports a "a human life amendment" to the Constitution:

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

Let's be very, very clear that such an amendment--which Mitt Romney has said unequivocally he would sign--would not only criminalize abortions of any kind for any reason, but also would outlaw many forms of contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and treatment of pregnant women with life-threatening conditions such as cancer. Moreover, it would also criminalize miscarriage.

This is their official position. The only detail of Akin's they didn't add in was Akin's colorful "medical" information about women's magic secretions. Other than that, they're all good.


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digby 8/21/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
A heartfelt apology to conservatives on the subject of climate change

by David Atkins

Dear conservatives,

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize deeply on behalf of climate science.

I'm sorry that your worldview is deeply inconvenienced by the harsh realities involved. You're right: if climate change is real and man-made--which it certainly is--then the libertarian ideology you conservatives hew to so steadfastly requires rethinking. I know Ayn Rand's ghost would blanche at the thought, but take heart: she didn't believe in an afterlife, anyway.

As you know, conservatism is inherently reactive rather than proactive about any problem that doesn't involve killing foreigners, controlling women or preventing undesirables from voting. For all other matters of importance, conservatism requires standing athwart the history of human progress and yelling "stop!" to all of us altruistic, proactive bleeding hearts and do-gooders.

For instance, libertarian economics requires that instead of proactively regulating corporate activity that might hurt people, consumers punish a company reactively after it has done something wrong, and after consumers notice that said company has done so. But if companies and consumers are doing something wrong that nobody really notices until it's far, far too late to do anything about, that's a real fly in the ointment. I apologize for that. It's quite inconvenient to you, I know.

But then, life does have a habit of taking wrong and immoral assumptions about the world, and demonstrating just how wrong and immoral they are. Sadly, that also includes libertarian economics. Most of us learn this lesson about life while growing up sometime in our teens, but I understand that it may take time for those of us who never overcame our adolescent fascination with Atlas Shrugged to pick up a novel by an actual writer like Dickens or Steinbeck, instead. It's tough.

Finally, I apologize that reality cannot be made to conform to your pet worldviews and objectivist utopian fantasies. As you know, life is a scary place with deluded, grasping parasites lurking around every corner. Someday you may even learn not to be ones. In the meantime, please accept this apology on behalf of reality and science everywhere.

Sincerely yours,
David Atkins

thereisnospoon 8/21/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Monday, August 20, 2012

 

Does Rape Prevent Pregnancy? Views Differ!

by tristero

Disgusting. You may have read this article as a thorough debunking of extreme religious nuttiness. But you would be oh-so-wrong.

There's a hoary rightwing strategy called "Teach the Controversy" that's been a genuine pain in the neck to deal with for those interested in teaching evolution in science classes rather than lies. It's the same con being worked here.

Willke and that Harvard egghead - hey, they're both doctors, so who's to say who's right, huh? Let's keep an open mind, shall we?

But, you might ask, what about that thorough drubbing Wilke got? Well...

Who cares what the article says or the context? No one will remember in a week. But Harvard! The New York Times! What associations for Willke! This screwball's status as a national spokesman just increased dramatically. These mainstream guys take Willke seriously enough to engage his arguments. He's been waiting his entire career for this moment. Mission accomplished.

Here's the problem: Every moment spent engaging the "Teach the Controversy" scam by pretending there actually is a controversy - be it Ryan's nutty budget, a creationist's lies, or a misogynist's rape fantasies - is a moment not spent addressing our badly depressed economy, expanding our real knowledge of evolution, or grappling with the real horror and consequences of rape.

This country doesn't have the time to take the far right's crackpot notions seriously.  You simply don't give the Willke's of the world the satisfaction of soliciting a reaction from prominent physicians. Everyone has better things to do.

Disgusting.


UPDATE: I hope it's clear that I'm not suggesting that people ignore the extreme right. We know where that's got us, namely here. But we can't react to the right, either.

The physicists have a phrase: "It's not even wrong." That's about right. We need to make it very clear that these ideas don't have so much as a toe-hold in serious discourse. Not ban them, of course. Not ignore them. Not engage them. But pump the discourse so full of good ideas, real ideas, important ideas and genuine controversies that there is little space left for nuts like Akin and Willke and Ryan and Romney.

UPDATE: Akin clarifies further. A far more sensible article than the Times story. (I'm not being sarcastic.)


tristero 8/20/2012 08:00:00 PM |

 
Family Values in the sea of Galilee

by digby

My eyes!

House Republican leaders reprimanded 30 lawmakers last August for antics including drinking and skinny-dipping during a fact-finding trip to Israel, according to published reports.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) scolded the lawmakers — many of them freshmen — and senior GOP staffers for a late-night swim in the Sea of Galilee. At least one of the lawmakers swam nude, according to a report published Sunday night by Politico. The FBI later inquired about the incident to determine whether there was any impropriety, the report said.

According to the report, Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) took off his clothes and jumped into the sea, joining a number of partially-clothed members, some spouses and family members and the staffers, “more than a dozen sources, including eyewitnesses” told Politico.
[...]
Yoder said that he and his wife joined colleagues for dinner at the Sea of Galilee. “After dinner I followed some Members of Congress in a spontaneous and very brief dive into the sea and regrettably I jumped into the water without a swimsuit,” Yoder said in the statement. “It is my greatest honor to represent the people of Kansas in Congress and [for] any embarrassment I have caused for my colleagues and constituents, I apologize.”

Yoder, elected in 2010, represents the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas, which encompasses an area west of Kansas City.

The report said that other lawmakers involved in the late-night swim included Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) and his daughter; Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and his wife; and Reps. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Denham (R-Calif.).

In an e-mail, Reed spokesman Tim Kolpien said that the lawmaker and his wife swam with the group “appropriately clothed” and that “there was no impropriety, and he is unaware of any investigation.” Spokesmen for the other members did not return requests for comment.

Imagine what these people are going to get up to in Tampa next week?

Update: Spinster aunts Romney and Ryan had this to say:

"I think it's reprehensible," Romney said. "I think it's another terrible mistake by individuals."

"This is unbecoming of a member of Congress," Ryan said. "It's behavior that shouldn't be tolerated. I think they know that."

They're running for President and Vice President for Pete's sake!

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digby 8/20/2012 06:30:00 PM |

 
Where do these crackpots get their crackpot ideas?


by digby

In case you were wondering where Todd Akin's loony ideas about pregnancy and rape come from, here's a possible source --- Christian Life Resources:

Let's look, using the figure of 200,000 rapes each year.

Of the 200,000 women who were forcibly raped, one-third were either too old or too young to get pregnant. That leaves 133,000 at risk for pregnancy.

A woman is capable of being fertilized only 3 days (perhaps 5) out of a 30-day month. Multiply our figure of 133,000 by three tenths. Three days out of 30 is one out of ten, divide 133 by ten and we have 13,300 women remaining. If we use five days out of 30 it is one out of six. Divide one hundred and thirty three thousand by six and we have 22,166 remaining.

One-fourth of all women in the United States of childbearing age have been sterilized, so the remaining three-fourths come out to 10,000 (or 15,000).

Only half of assailants penetrate her body and/or deposit sperm in her vagina,1 so let's cut the remaining figures in half. This gives us numbers of 5,000 (or 7,500).

Fifteen percent of men are sterile, that drops that figure to 4,250 (or 6,375).

Fifteen percent of non-surgically sterilized women are naturally sterile. That reduces the number to 3,600 (or 5,400).

Another fifteen percent are on the pill and/or already pregnant. That reduces the number to 3,070 (or 4,600).

Now factor in the fact that it takes 5-10 months for the average couple to achieve a pregnancy. Use the smaller figure of 5 months to be conservative and divide the avove figures by 5. The number drops to 600 (or 920).

In an average population, the miscarriage rate is about 15 percent. In this case we have incredible emotional trauma. Her body is upset. Even if she conceives, the miscarriage rate will be higher than in a more normal pregnancy. If 20 percent of raped women miscarry, the figure drops to 450 (or 740).

Finally, factor in what is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that's physical trauma. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. To get and stay pregnant a woman's body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows, but this factor certainly cuts this last figure by at least 50 percent and probably more. If we use the 50 percent figure, we have a final figure of 225 (or 370) women pregnant each year. These numbers closely match the 200 that have been documented in clinical studies.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you the problems with this "statistical analysis." But I can see where cretinous throwbacks like Todd Akin would find it convincing. It has numbers and everything.

If you want to know the real statistics, there have been real studies done and as you might imagine, they paint a very different picture.

h/t to DK
digby 8/20/2012 05:30:00 PM |

 
If it's murder, who is the murderer?

by digby

I posted this some time back, but it's worth watching again. Here you have some pro-life activists being cornered on the question of why women shouldn't be prosecuted if abortion is murder. It's very interesting:

The way the smarter people deal with this is by saying that women are like children who don't know what they're doing and can't be held responsible. But it doesn't scan very well, does it?

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digby 8/20/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Akin puts the Romney campaign in further peril

by David Atkins

Whatever effect Akin's reinforcement of the real GOP position on women and abortion might have in Missouri, the spillover has already moved far beyond the Show Me State. It is now doing damage to the Romney campaign in two significant ways.

First, the Romney campaign has avowed its support for the right to an abortion in cases of rape or incest. It might be tempting to view this as an advantage for Romney--an opportunity to "Sistah Souljah" the more ardent elements of the social conservative wing to make himself look better by contrast.

But the problem is that as I and others have noted before, the electorate is fairly static, with few undecideds left. Whatever gains Romney might make from people who are uncomfortable with social conservatism but would be placated by a "rape/incest only" provision would be quite small. But the damage from his base would be substantial. Certainly 98% of conservative voters will still vote for Romney over Obama, anyway. But this election will likely be won or lost at the margins in many states, and the True Believer crowd does make a difference at the margins.

The True Believers actually think that we are in a pre-Tribulation period, where demonic forces of darkness operate to corrupt governments worldwide, and only the True Believers will be spared the wrath of God. These are people for whom climate change doesn't matter because they believe the world won't be around that much longer, anyway. For them, unless they can be convinced that a person who shares their values will help "purify" the land to save more souls, they don't care. Policy preferences on taxes are largely irrelevant to these people. If many of these people stay home rather than vote for Romney, that could seriously sway the election in some swing states.

But there's also a second problem for the Romney camp: the official abortion position also highlights further divides between Romney and Paul Ryan:

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan say they disagree with Missouri Representative Todd Akin’s opposition to abortions for rape victims, but Akin’s reference Sunday to “legitimate rape” recalled the “forcible rape” language contained in a bill Ryan co-sponsored last year...

Last year, Ryan joined Akin as one of 227 co-sponsors of a bill that narrowed an exemption to the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions. The Hyde Amendment allows federal dollars to be used for abortions in cases of rape and incest, but the proposed bill -- authored by New Jersey Representative Christopher H. Smith -- would have limited the incest exemption to minors and covered only victims of “forcible rape.”

House Republicans never defined what constituted “forcible rape” and what did not, but critics of the bill suggested the term could exclude women who are drugged and raped, mentally handicapped women who are coerced, and victims of statutory rape.

The “forcible” qualifier was eventually removed before the bill passed in the House last May. The Democrat-controlled Senate did not vote on the measure.

Ultimately, the problem with constantly lying to the public about one's real views and depending on an out-of-control extremist base is that it's hard to keep all the lies straight and the extremism under wraps.


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thereisnospoon 8/20/2012 03:00:00 PM |