More talk of Greece leaving the euro

The discussion is slowly shifting from "it's impossible for Greece to leave" to "how can we plan an orderly departure." The latest call for exiting may be a Conservative, but he's not saying what others aren't hinting behind closed doors. As painful as it's likely to be, it's hard to see a scenario where Greece can stay in the euro. The Greek economy is a mess and saddling the population with decades of debt is not the answer. The Independent:

He told a European Parliament debate: "European politics is no longer anchored in reality. EU summits are becoming a political ritual, divorced from the real world - nobody believes that the latest package will save Greece." He went on: "Greece is suffering from a 30% loss of competitiveness against Germany. How do you eliminate such a deficit? Economic reform will, in the long term, be essential. But in the short-term, there is only one solution: a devaluation coupled with a default is the only way to salvage something from the wreckage of the Greek economy and to save a generation or more of young Greeks from a miserable economic inheritance." Mr Callanan added: "All the energy currently being devoted to drafting and ratifying a new treaty that is irrelevant to the ongoing crisis would be better employed drafting and implementing a plan for the orderly withdrawal of Greece from the euro, including carefully prepared support for the banks that will be most affected.

There's always a soft spot for the banks - those who created the problem - among the political class. Read the rest of this post...

The right wing myth of moral decline

Is America really in a long term social decline as David Brooks claims in the NYT?

In the half-century between 1962 and the present, America has become more prosperous, peaceful and fair, but the social fabric has deteriorated. Social trust has plummeted. Society has segmented. The share of Americans born out of wedlock is now at 40 percent and rising.

Kevin Drum does a good job at challenging the assumption that things are worse now than before. On four of the five measures he proposes, only one has got worse since the 60s: The marriage rate is down and the divorce rate is up. But even that is a subjective measure, a good divorce is often better than a bad marriage as anyone who reads certain parts of the Huffington Post is reminded every other article.
But Kevin still misses the most important measure: It's the bigotry.

How can anyone possibly claim that the social fabric of the US was better under segregation unless they are either: (1) ignorant and stupid; and/or (2) think society better with the addition of institutionalized racism, sexism and homophobia, to name a few?

But this is always the way with right wing Jeremiads on the moral decline of the nation. Has there been a decline in British social morals since the Dickensian era? Only if you ignore the working conditions in the factories, the child prostitution and the fact that it took the resources from a third of the world to support the opulent lifestyle of the elite.

It's sad that David Brooks is what passes for an 'intellectual' in the modern conservative movement. Read the rest of this post...

Report: Murdoch's Sun paper paid off public officials in UK

I wonder how Fox News would report this if it was happening to any other news network. If the charges are true, this is yet another blow to the News Corp organization. Paying off public officials hardly sounds like anything that anyone who supports democracy would want to be involved in, no? Reuters:

Murdoch has been trying to regain the high ground ever since an outcry last summer - over revelations that his journalists had hacked the voicemails of crime victims and their families - forced him to close the profitable News of the World title and abort a planned multibillion-dollar buyout of Britain's biggest satellite broadcaster. "This is not about sources or expenses, this is an investigation into serious suspected criminality over a sustained period," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It involves regular cash payments totaling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on retainers to provide information. In totality it involves a six-figure sum."

Read the rest of this post...

Santorum says birth control is "harmful to women" and suggests married people don’t use it

In the video, from 2006, Santorum says that birth control is "harmful to women." He also seems to suggest that only single people use birth control.

Watch the video, it's short, then Jen Rubin at the Post (their conservative blogger) has a few on-point comments:



Then again, this video is from 2006, when Mitt Romney was more pro-gay and pro-choice than Ted Kennedy - so maybe Santorum can write this off as a youthful indiscretion (kidding, I'm sure he'll embrace the position again). Here's Jen:

For starters, does he realize that married women (men too!) use birth control? The impression that Santorum finds the prevalent practice of birth control “harmful to women” is, frankly, mind-numbing. If he meant to focus on teen sexual promiscuity, he surely could have, and thereby might have sounded less out of touch.

[T]his sort of thing undermines Santorum’s electability argument.

This is how, in part, he lost Pennsylvania — by appearing extreme and schoolmarmish, too far to the right of average voters in a purple state. If he is the nominee in 2012, he might get some blue-collar fellows, but what about those women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.? And what about more secularized suburban communities? Fuggedaboutit.

Santorum is all cute in his little sweaters, but a lot of America hasn't had to deal with his perpetual craziness. The man is a far-right nut.  Listen to that interview again.  He seems to suggest that sex, even in marriage, should never be for fun.  And to the degree it is for fun, then you have to take your lumps by risking getting pregnant.  And while I realize that may be the view of the Catholic leadership - along with giving a nod and a wink to sodomizing 5 year old boys - I tend to write the Catholic bishops off as morality outliers.

Santorum epitomizes the problem with electing a doctrinaire person of faith to office.  It's one thing to be a good Christian.  It's an entirely other matter to say that if elected you're going to force everyone in the country to live under your faith's rules. Read the rest of this post...

How GOP intransigence on contraceptives helps Santorum get the nomination

From Andrew Sullivan in the Daily Beast:

As for politics, the Republican fusion with the Vatican is also, it seems to me, a terrible mistake for the party. Obama’s greatest skill is in getting his opponents to overreach and self-destruct. And this issue could not be more tailor-made to benefit the candidate with real potential pull with far-right-wing Catholics and evangelicals: Santorum. If the GOP really makes this issue central in the next month or so, Santorum (whose campaign claims to have raised $2.2 million in the two days following his victories last week) is by far the likeliest candidate to benefit. It could finally unite the Christian fundamentalist right behind him—especially since Romneycare contained exactly the same provisions on contraception that Obamacare did before last week’s compromise was announced. That’s right: Romneycare can now accurately be portrayed as falling to the left of Obamacare on the contraception issue. This could very well be the issue that finally galvanizes the religious right, especially in the South. Imagine how Santorum could use that on Super Tuesday. In fact, it could be the issue that wins him the nomination. And do you really think that would hurt Obama in the fall?

Read the rest of this post...

Video: Sparky the dog likes rolling himself down hills

My dog Sasha, oddly, yesterday walked into the shower with me for her monthly bath. Normally she avoids the shower like the plague, but this time I locked her in the bathroom, so she knew what was coming (started shaking the poor thing), but when it was time, I opened the shower door and with water running she walked right in. Was truly bizarre. I want to say she finally gave in to the inevitability, but dogs don't really do that. It's been two years now that I've been putting a harness on Sasha every time we go for a walk, and she still holds out hope every time that maybe if she just backs away far enough I won't put the harness on. Hasn't worked in two years.

Read the rest of this post...

TSA porno-scanner agents accused of picking out hot women for multiple scans

Ah, guys, this isn't supposed to be a peep show. It's supposed to be about national security, but we all know what a sad joke that really is. Can we not stop this security theater and move on?

TSA agents in Dallas singled out female passengers to undergo screening in a body scanner, according to complaints filed by several women who said they felt the screeners intentionally targeted them to view their bodies.

One woman who flew out of Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport several months ago said a female agent sent her through a body scanner three times after the agent commented on her “cute” body.

“She says to me, ‘Do you play tennis?’ And I said, ‘Why?’‘You just have such a cute figure,’” Ellen Terrell recalled to CBS News in Dallas.

Terrell said the female agent appeared to be acting on a request from male agents who were in a separate room viewing the scans and who apparently asked the agent to send Terrell back through the scanner twice because the scan was blurry.

After the third scan, Terrell said the agent seemed frustrated with her co-workers in the screening room. “She’s talking into her microphone and she says, ‘Guys, it is not blurry, I’m letting her go,’” Terrell said.

Some of our past coverage on this issue:

Why is the TSA's porno scanner picking up people in line who aren't even IN THE SCANNER?

German TV highlights the failings of body scanners.

The day the TSA grabbed Penn's (of Penn & Teller) crotch.

TSA fires baggage handler for joking about vibrator in woman's luggage.

TSA humiliates cancer survivor.

TSA confiscates cupcake.

TSA bans cream cheese, unless it's on a bagel. (But what if it's on a cupcake?) Read the rest of this post...

GOP amendment would permit hospitals, docs, pharmacies to turn away inter-racial couples

Nice way to offend a large swath of the electorate right before an election.  From HuffPo:

"Let's be clear about what's at stake," said [White House spokesman Jay] Carney. "The proposal being considered in the Senate applies to all employers -- not just religious employers. And it isn't limited to contraception. Any employer could restrict access to any service they say they object to. That is dangerous and it is wrong. Decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss.”

The measure, proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) would amend the Affordable Care Act to allow any employer to exclude any health service coverage, no matter how critical or basic, by claiming that it violates their religious or moral convictions. Moreover, according to the National Women's Law Center, the amendment would remove critical non-discrimination protections from the Affordable Care Act. For instance, an insurer could deny maternity care coverage to a same-sex couple, an interracial couple or a single woman for religious or moral reasons.

So inter-racial couples are out. As are blacks, generally. And Mormons. And Catholics (the evangelicals consider them Satan-worshippers, seriously). Then there are rape victims. Not only can health care providers refuse to provide them with the morning after pill, but they could just refuse to serve them at all - after all, what was the woman wearing, had she been drinking, did she have a chaperone? For all we know, the hussie was asking for it.

Huff Post says that Democratic Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid has decided to allow a vote on the Blunt Amendment, in order to embarrass the hell out of the Republicans. Of course, Ben Nelson (D-NE) is supporting the Blunt amendment, because Nebraskans apparently don't like saving the lives of people they don't approve of (of course, now I don't approve of Ben Nelson, so what does that mean the next time he needs emergency care?)

And once again we come down to the question of why these people want to be doctors, pharmacists, or ambulance drivers in the first place if they moral or religious qualms about the job?  It's a bit like becoming a hooker and then complaining that you're expected to have sex.  Or a cashier at a bakery complaining that she's gluten-intolerant so she's not going to sell bread, or cake, or any baked goods in the future.

As we noted two days ago, the Republicans and the Catholic bishops are wrong about how our democracy works.  And none other than arch-right Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is the one who proved them wrong (Jay Bookman at AJC, then quoting Scalia):

In fact, a century of American jurisprudence - including Antonin Scalia himself - prove that you can, and should.Scalia, himself a devout and very conservative Catholic, wrote in the majority decision:

“We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition."

Scalia traces Supreme Court rulings on the issue back to an 1879 decision that upheld federal laws against polygamy. A member of the Mormon Church had argued that because his faith required men to marry multiple wives, polygamy was protected under the First Amendment and that Mormons could claim a religious exemption from such a law.

So where did Republicans get this crazy notion that health care providers can conscientiously object from selling you, and providing you, life-saving health care? They're making it up, as they always do, in order to create a right where it doesn't exist. You might call them "activist legislators." Trying to constantly spin lies into truth, spin nothing into something.

If Dems had a backbone they'd be running TV ads showing people getting turned away from the pharmacy, or the ambulance, because they're black, white, female, Catholic and so own.  Then again, maybe Roy Blunt and the Republicans want people to be able to turn away inter-racial couples and Catholics. Read the rest of this post...

Right-wing rag Daily Caller seems to admit Fox News is the head of the GOP

Tucker Carlson's online rag, The Daily Caller, is doing a series of hit pieces on Media Matters for America. Based on anonymous sources and conspiracy-minded dreck, the whole series is a hot mess. Today's feature piece is an attempt to discredit Media Matter's non-profit tax status, with the dramatic sounding headline of Media Matters tax-exempt status may face new scrutiny from Congress. They may face congressional scrutiny! Maybe!

My favorite part of the whole mess is when The Daily Caller claims that Media Matter's criticism of Fox News as not just an arm, but a leadership element, of the Republican Party amounts to Media Matters engaging in partisan, political activities which are prohibited by their 501(c)3 status:

Because Brock has referred to Fox News as a political organization and the “de facto” leader of the GOP, Gray and other critics have argued that Media Matters is engaged in the kind of direct political activity forbidden by IRS regulations.

The Daily Caller is trying so hard to kick-start a Republican Congressional investigation into Media Matter's tax status that they seem to have just conceded Media Matter's core criticism of Fox News, namely that it is a Republican propaganda outlet.  Otherwise, how could it be a violation of Media Matters' tax status to criticize Fox unless it really is a "political organization"?  I see a congressional investigation coming all right, but not the one the Daily Caller wants.  (And of course, if the Daily Caller is now claiming that Media Matters is a political organization for simply claiming Fox plays politics, doesn't that, under the same logic, mean the Daily Caller is violating its tax status by claiming Media Matters play politics? Maybe we ought to have an investigation of that too.)

Politics is serious business, and progressives should be concerned that a major piece of progressive infrastructure is under concerted attack from the right. But if this sort of nonsense from The Daily Caller doesn't make you laugh out loud, you're missing one hell of a performance. Read the rest of this post...

Private prison corp offers needed cash to states—in exchange for prison ownership and guaranteed 90% "occupancy"

Yep, the CCA (Corrections Corp of America) is waving a bunch of cash in front of 48 cash-strapped states. The deal — states turn over prison ownership and guarantee the prisons stay 90% full.

In other words, "we own the store and you guarantee the inventory."

Chris Kirkham at Huffington Post has the story:

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post.

The move reflects a significant shift in strategy for the private prison industry, which until now has expanded by building prisons of its own or managing state-controlled prisons. It also represents an unprecedented bid for more control of state prison systems.

Starve states of money, then offer to buy everything they own. What do you call it when you're the only one in the world with cash? Mission accomplished, baby.

And CCA certainly has cash. Revenues have soared "more than fivefold since the mid-1990s" — aided, natch, by the war on brown people that conveniently arrived just in time for the fall of the Soviet Union. War on Drugs, War on Immigrants, War on (dusky) Terrorists — it's all good. One man's War is another man's Inventory, right?

The article goes into much of what's wrong with these deals, including the fact that if states no longer own the warehouse (prison, in this case), it becomes harder to change the management contractor (the private prison corp and its network of subcontractors). Plus the fact that promised cost savings often don't materialize. Etc.

And while the article doesn't mention it, I wonder if some of the outsourcing is on the backs of those Republican-leaning prison worker unions. Something to check into, if you're feeling Jimmy Olsen-ish these days. (Feel free to tweet me links, or add them to the comments — I always read them. Thanks!)

I'll leave you with what I wrote above, since I think it's the core dynamic, the one-two punch of low taxes and looting:

Starve states of money, then offer to buy everything they own. What do you call it when you're the only one in the world with cash? Mission accomplished, baby.

But hey, rubes, look — low taxes.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Why do Republicans hate their own employees? (And why do Dems enable them?)

The talk is that the Republicans want to pay for the payroll tax cut extension by dipping into the pensions of federal employees.

On unemployment benefits, which will cost about $30 billion, Democrats were resisting GOP efforts to cut into pension plans of federal workers, but aides suggested that another pay freeze was more likely. Republicans have demanded about $20 billion in savings from Medicare to finance the move to stabilize doctor rates, while Democrats have demanded that any such cuts not reduce benefits for elderly patients in the health-care program.

I guess federal employees suck, says the party of Timothy McVeigh. And I don't drop that name lightly. The GOP hated government long before people, often Republicans, started acting on that hate. There's only one party in town that routinely trash talks federal employees, attacking judges but just as happy to take a swipe at their own staffs on the Hill or the entire federal workforce (such as they did when they froze pay for Hill employees and federal employees a few years back). And that party is the GOP.

The Republicans do tend to hate people, so there is some legitimate loathing of federal workers, just as they loathe gays, women who aren't barefoot and pregnant, Latinos, blacks, Jews who aren't for Jesus, Hollywood (read: Jews), the media, New York City (again, they mean Jews), and "elites" (who usually live in NYC and Hollywood, if you get my drift). And second, the GOP does a good job of constantly harping on a single point that feeds a larger agenda. They want to cut back any and every government program they can, regardless of who it hurts, and the best way to do that is to inspire lots of little Timothy McVeighs who are just this side of the violence.

So why do the Dems enable this all the time? Why give in to the GOP, freeze federal salaries, and further reinforce their argument that federal employees suck?  And just as bad, why do the Republicans' own staff tolerate their own bosses hating on them so much?  Unless they're party and parcel of the GOP culture of hate as well. Read the rest of this post...

Greek economy shrank by 7% in 2011

The five year recession in Greece doesn't look much better now than it did at the start. Austerity is ripping the economy to shreds, delaying any hopes of recovery for an even longer period than necessary. There's no question that Greece needs economic reform, but at this point it's increasingly hard to see how austerity and more loans are the answer to the problems over default and exiting the euro-zone. Bloomberg:

Greece’s economy, reeling from austerity measures demanded by creditors in exchange for rescue funds, contracted almost a percentage point more last year than the government forecast, according to Bloomberg calculations. Gross domestic product fell 7 percent from a year earlier in the fourth quarter after contracting a revised 5 percent on an annual basis in the previous three months, the Athens-based Hellenic Statistical Authority said in an e-mailed statement today. GDP declined 6.8 percent in 2011, according to Bloomberg calculations, compared with a 6 percent contraction estimated in the government’s 2012 budget. “Recessionary pressures have intensified as the impact from additional austerity measures have been amplified by high uncertainty about the prospects of the country,” said Nicholas Magginas, an economist at National Bank of Greece SA in Athens.

Keep in mind that the Republicans are eager to roll out their own austerity plan. Between Greece and the UK, we've seen enough to know that austerity is not the answer. Read the rest of this post...