Month: August 2011

Leaving it to the states

by digby

Like Yglesias, I keep hearing from Ron Paul followers that we shouldn’t worry about abortion at a time when so many more important things are happening. (Presumably, the right to smoke pot being among them— which I’m also in favor of, btw.) Furthermore, I’m also frequently told that I needn’t worry my dizzy, little head about “Dr Paul’s” neanderthal position on women’s liberty because he’s not in favor of a federal ban on abortion but is rather in favor of letting the states decide.

Apparently, some people under the illusion that “states” aren’t governments with coercive powers just like the feds. If your principle is liberty, handing off the decision as to whether an individual has the inherent right to own her own body to a lesser government doesn’t strike me meaningful. The only way this works is if libertarians believe that a woman’s dominion over her own body is secondary to a zygotes. Ron Paul clearly believes this.

It’s a complicated matter, one that involves competing interests in ways that simply don’t exist in any other human experience. If there was ever an issue that is too complicated and personal for the clumsy, blunt instrument of the state, it’s this one. Trying to split the baby (so to speak) by saying that a smaller government entity is better placed to make these decisions about a woman’s body is a cop-out of epic proportions. Either recognize that you believe the state — any state — has the power to coerce women into giving up their bodily integrity or recognize that this is a unique and extremely intimate issue in which the individual is the only one who can reasonably be trusted to make the decision.

There have been many compromises and changes in understanding along the way to this uneasy place in the US. Some women are now being forced to carry fetuses all the way to term whom everyone knows for a fact will suffer and die once they are born. It’s stunningly cruel to all involved, but in order to appease the people for whom life is an uncomplicated matter of following God’s laws (as they are taught them) — or those unwilling or unable to accept life’s complexity, our society has decided that this must happen in order to preclude the infinitesimal possibility that some woman and her evil doctor somewhere will legally abort a 9 month old fetus for her own selfish convenience. Ok, that ship sailed. But for a libertarian to say that a blastocyst in the uterus has the same rights as the woman in whose body it sits is fairly shocking.

It says something important about the so-called principles of those who are so adamant about taxation that they are willing to take up arms, but think it’s fine for a state to force pregnant women seeking an abortion to be raped by the system with mandatory intrusive vaginal ultrasounds — and ultimately, forced childbirth, if Ron Paul has his way. And it isn’t good.

More on Paul from Adele Stan at Alternet. Honestly, he isn’t a libertarian once you scratch the surface.

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“I never died”, said he

by digby

The NY Times featured an amazing story this morning about famed union man, Joe Hill. Seems there’s some proof that he didn’t commit the murder for which he was executed after all. This seems all the more poignant and relevant considering the current crusade to kill off the labor movement once and for all.

Hill’s status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36.

The book’s author, William M. Adler, argues that Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union, as well as his own desire to protect the identity of his sweetheart.

And here I thought that couldn’t happen in America, where our justice system supposedly never errs in capital cases. Not that many people care about that, anyway. As one of Rick “Crotch” Perry’s fans is supposed to have said, “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

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Stormy Weather

by digby

I’m sure everyone is glued to the TV watching the intrepid reporters get wet, but in case you are at work or don’t have a TV, TPM is doing a nice job with updates about the storm. From what I gather it’s not as intense as feared, but it’s huge and looks as if it’s going to cause a major headache at the very least.

If you prefer learning about the the storm in the style of a History Channel documentary on Hitler’s invasion of Poland, go to The Weather Channel:

Stay thirsty my friends.

Update: I just learned that Ron Paul thinks America doesn’t need FEMA citing the self-sufficiency of the people of Galveston in its epic 1900 Hurricane, suggesting that the US should go back to those times. I’m sure they were very brave. It was an awful storm.

But I think we can do better than this in 2011:

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AP Poll: Republicans unpopular, Obama needs to lead

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

Digby did a fantastic job yesterday covering the latest Pew poll showing that Democrats are unhappy with Democratic leadership, and independents want Democrats to confront Republicans.

But Pew isn’t alone. The latest AP poll confirms it as well. Essentially, the public still blames Bush and the Republicans for the recession, but is souring on the state of the economy and the Obama approach even as Democratic support for the President’s stance is cratering. First off, the country’s economic views.

More people now believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows, and confidence in Obama’s handling of the economy has slipped from just a few months ago, notably among fellow Democrats.

The survey found that 86 percent of adults see the economy as “poor,” up from 80 percent in June. About half — 49 percent — said it worsened just in the past month. Only 27 percent responded that way in the June survey.

Not surprising. But the public also still has a long enough memory to know that it’s not President Obama’s or the Democrats’ fault exactly:

And more Americans still blame former President George W. Bush rather than Obama for the economic distress. Some 31 percent put the bulk of the blame on Obama, while 51 percent point to his Republican predecessor.

The willingness of House Republicans to hold the economy hostage hasn’t gone unnoticed or played well with the American people, either:

Obama also fares better than Congress in the blame department. Some 44 percent put “a lot” or “most” of the blame on Republicans while 36 percent point to congressional Democrats.

But President Obama still doesn’t come off smelling like roses by a long shot:

More than 6 in 10 — 63 percent — disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. Nearly half, or 48 percent, “strongly” disapproved. Approval of his economic performance now stands at just 36 percent, his worst approval rating on the issue in AP-GfK polling.

And perhaps most importantly, the President is rapidly losing the support of Democrats:

Among Democrats, 58 percent approve of the president’s handling of the economy, down from 65 percent in June. Among Republicans, approval dipped to 9 percent from 15 percent.

Just 51 percent consider Obama a strong leader, down from 60 percent in June and 65 percent following the capture and death of Osama bin Laden in May. In June, 85 percent of Democrats in the poll called him a strong leader. Now, the number is down to 76 percent…

Some 75 percent in the poll said the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 63 percent in June. Among Democrats, 61 percent chose “wrong direction” — up from 46 percent in June.

That’s a full 15-point turnaround in the number of Democrats who think the country is moving in the wrong direction, and an 11-point turnaround in the number of Democrats who see the President as a strong leader. That’s heavy base attrition, due almost entirely to the President’s needless and pointless embrace of austerity in the last two months.

Democrats have a lot to celebrate in this poll, to be fair. Like the Pew poll, the AP poll proves that the public is not so easily hoodwinked as many pessimists like myself often believe. Republicans are suffering somewhat in the arena of public opinion due to their tactics (though those tactics remain beneficial for them in the long run), and the public still remembers that George W. Bush and Republicans drove up the deficit and were primarily responsible for the economic crash. And these numbers suggest that Barack Obama will likely survive and win re-election despite the bad economy by simply being a superior choice to the alternative.

But unless the White House and Congressional Democrats show more of a fighting spirit, this sort of approach will do lasting damage to the Party’s reputation of fighting for the average American, and cause much of the Party’s base to move to issue advocacy at best, or quit the Democratic Party entirely at worst. When 1 in 4 Democrats don’t approve of the President’s leadership, that’s a pretty big revolt brewing.

Hardcore supporters of the Administration would love to lay this decline in base enthusiasm at the feet of “emoprog” bloggers, which is fairly laughable. I would love to believe that a quarter of the entire Democratic Party regularly reads Hullabaloo and other blogs fairly critical of the Administration. That would be amazing. But, of course, that’s not true. The reality is that the more reasonable progressive bloggers are just the canary in the coal mine who see these things early and are out in front of the trend. They tend to have been skeptical of both the Clinton and Obama campaigns during the presidential primary, but ultimately more distrustful of Clinton due to her Iraq War stance and DLC ties. That stance was borne out by the votes of the Democratic base. They tend to have cut Obama a great deal of slack during his first couple of years in office, but started to grow increasingly cynical particularly during the healthcare debate when single-payer was not even on the table as a negotiating position even as the Administration cut big deals with PhRMA. Progressive bloggers were ahead of the Democratic base in being discontent with the ACA because it was too corporatist and did not go far enough to assure progressive outcomes.

And ultimately, that cynicism has grown to outright hostility as the President needlessly embraced austerity. And once again, reasonable progressive bloggers were ever so slightly out in front of base Democrats in making clear their dissatisfaction about the President’s leadership.

The President and the Democratic Party leadership in general needs to get moving quickly to begin repairing the damage. They can start, among other things, by not pressuring New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to give the banks blanket immunity over foreclosure fraud, and by helping him to hold the big banks accountable instead. It’s a move that would be popular with both independents and the Democratic base. Nor would it really hurt the economic recovery, either, since immunizing the banks against prosecution in a vain attempt to re-inflate an overpriced housing market won’t do a thing for the economy, either.

In any case, the message coming out of the AP and Pew polls is fairly clear: Republicans are unpopular, and both independents and base Democrats want the President to fight harder to check them in check. The only question is whether the President and his advisers will listen.

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War of Independents

by digby

There’s been a lot of chatter today (aside from the hurricane) about the new Pew poll’s finding that large numbers of Americans don’t want compromise at all costs after all. Indeed, more and more of them say they want the President to confront the Republicans.

But Greg Sargent homes in the really important part of this:

The poll finds that there’s been a six point rise, up to a plurality of 36 percent, among overall independents who want to see Obama stand up to the GOP. Only 21 percent of indys say he should go along with Republicans more often, and 27 percent say he has the balance right.

But more crucially, the poll breaks down Dem-leaning and GOP-leaning independents — and it finds that 51 percent of Dem-leaning independents want him to more aggressively confront the GOP.

Dem-leaning independents are the ones it’s crucial Obama not lose. As Alan Abramowitz noted the other day, there’s a myth out there that holds that independents are a bloc of free-floating, wholly independent voters. Rather, they mostly lean towards one party or the other.

And the Dem-leaning independents want Obama to fight the GOP harder, rather than be too compromising with Republicans. That’s the way to hang on to them.

That sounds right. Republicans have shown themselves to be willing to take the country over the cliff and a fair number of people are catching on. And as Greg points out the President is never going to appeal to GOP leaning Independents — it’s the Democratic leaners who are in danger of defecting. And they’re just as fed up with this appeasement as the rest of us.

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A planet is forever

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

Our economic woes are over! All we need to do is take a chip off this old block:

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.

“The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon — i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun,” said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

Lying 4,000 light years away, or around an eighth of the way toward the center of the Milky Way from the Earth, the planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits.

Who cares if it’s 4,000 light years away, or if the value of diamonds would plummet if humanity were ever to somehow bring chunks of it back to earth? It’s a more viable idea for fixing the economy than the austerity crowd has dreamed up.

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Same old good ole boys

by digby

If anyone needs any more proof that the Tea Party is nothing but the same old conservative movement types, check this out:

Rick Perry’s candidacy has attracted strong initial support from Republicans who identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement. Perry leads by 21 percentage points over the closest contenders among this group, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann. Among Republicans who say they do not support the Tea Party movement, Romney and Perry are essentially tied.

He’s a pro-war, gun nut, social conservative southern Governor, who believes in small government for regular people and big government for the security state. What else is new?

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Just do something

by digby

Not that anyone cares what we think, but this seems meaningful to me. From the new Pew Poll:

Changing Economic Priorities. As many Americans (47%) place a higher priority on spending to help the economy recover as on reducing the budget deficit (46%). In June, 52% said reducing the deficit was the higher priority while 42% said spending to help the economy recover was the higher priority.

Disgruntled Democrats. Currently, 61% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say their party is doing only a fair or poor job of standing up for its traditional positions, such as protecting the interests of minorities and helping the poor. Last fall, shortly after the midterm election, 50% said the party was doing only a fair or poor job in supporting the party’s traditional positions.

I think it’s fairly amazing that in an environment where there is absolutely no public discussion about government spending to help the economy recover that more and more people are demanding just that. It’s a tribute to the common sense of many Americans that they are able to see past the mountains of horseshit that’s being piled on daily and come to the obvious conclusion: people are hurting and it’s their government’s job, its raison d’etre, to use the tools at its disposal to try to fix the problem. Apparently it has not escaped the notice of half of Americans that this mumbo jumbo about the deficit and “confidence” and the rest isn’t addressing their concerns.

Moreover, and perhaps more interesting, is the fact that self-identified Democrats are finally waking up to the fact that their leaders aren’t acting like Democrats. After all, if you don’t believe in marshaling government power to mitigate the pain of average citizens in a time of crisis, then you should probably be in the other party.

I actually feel rather uplifted by this. If this much of the public can figure this out without anyone’s help, perhaps there’s some hope they can make the politicians listen.

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Batten down the hatches

Self-fulfilling austerity

by digby

Consumer confidence has dropped to a three year low. Fed Chairman Bernanke spoke this morning and said this:

“Bouts of sharp volatility and risk aversion in markets have recently re-emerged in reaction to concerns about both European sovereign debts and developments related to the U.S. fiscal situation, including the recent downgrade of the U.S. long-term credit rating by one of the major rating agencies and the controversy concerning the raising of the U.S. federal debt ceiling,” Bernanke said.

“It is difficult to judge by how much these developments have affected economic activity thus far, but there seems little doubt that they have hurt household and business confidence and that they pose ongoing risks to growth,” he added.

Perhaps he’s right. Everyone’s always talking about a lack of “confidence” and “uncertainty” as being the reasons growth is so sluggish. How about the fact that more than 10% of the nation’s workers can’t find enough work? And how about the fact that at the same time, “consumers” (otherwise known as citizens) are being pounded, day after day, with the notion that the nation’s debt is so crippling that they are going to have to basically live like animals if they suffer the least little setback? Does it occur to anyone that these non-stop discussions of a “debt crisis”, at a time of great financial insecurity in the present, are a self-fulfilling prophesy?

I’m not arguing for happy talk. But the entire public conversation over the past year has been dominated by this hand wringing and fear mongering over the deficit, with endless rending of garments over the need for “sacrifice” as if our financial doom was imminent. Why would any person of average means take a financial risk at a time like this? Our leaders all seem to believe that collapse is imminent unless every last person relinquishes their financial security in some measurable way, so common sense dictates that people hunker down and hope the storm passes them by.

Confidence? You’d be a fool to have confidence in the future. According to all of our most sagacious national commentators, the best case scenario is that our political leaders get past their minor differences on the scope of the cutting and come together to destroy the safety net. If they don’t, well … apparently it will be very, very bad.

Uncertainty? Average people don’t have uncertainty. As far as they are concerned they’re screwed no matter what happens. Our leadership demands that people buy into the silly notion that giving up their personal financial security is a patriotic duty and that high unemployment and underwater mortgages are niggling little problems that will be solved by putting more of their “skin in the game.”