Rock Wisdom
by digby
“I’ll pay higher taxes. I look at it this way. I can pay higher taxes and people can have jobs, or I can pay lower taxes and I have my kid’s teacher asking me for a loan, which is true,”
Just goes to show that wealthy people don’t have to be greedheads.
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Could it be…real reforms?
by David Atkins
This is interesting:
In a sign of just how unpopular Congress has become, rank-and-file senators hijacked this week’s debate over a narrow-tailored conflict-of-interest bill and turned it into the chamber’s most sweeping ethics debate in a generation.
From conservative back-bench Republicans to liberal junior Democrats, senators launched an ethical arms race of amendments by offering far-reaching reforms that were not even considered when Congress last re-wrote its ethics rules five years ago.
Freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment that would require former congressmen to forfeit their federal pension and insurance plans if they become lobbyists after retiring from Capitol Hill. Not to be outdone, freshman Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) offered an amendment that would impose a lifetime ban on lawmakers ever becoming federal lobbyists.
Leave to Rand Paul to go after pensions and insurance again. That guy really hates federal guarantees, doesn’t he?
Beyond that, though, it appears that the mass of public sentiment against revolving door corruption is large enough that legislators are stepping all over each other to put in their own amendments. The key provision that got it all started was a ban on Congressional insider trading. But the collective weight of the amendments could mean some very serious reforms.
But one “reform” being considered is a very bad idea: an attempt to ban earmarks:
Even this scaled-down collection of amendments has alarmed some senior senators, who did not anticipate having such a full-throated debate on ethics at this point in the year. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, took to the floor to defend a senator’s right to dedicate earmarks to his or her state as part of the Constitution’s grant of the “power of the purse” to Congress and not the executive branch.
“Each one has issues that cannot be fully understood by civil servants located thousands of miles away,” said Inouye, the second-longest-serving senator in history. He then noted the obvious: “However, trust in the Congress is at an all-time low.”
Earmark “reformers” seem not to understand that eliminating earmarks doesn’t mean that the money won’t get spent. It just means that the Executive Branch will make all the decisions about where the money goes. Those who are very concerned with the overweening power of the White House should be extremely worried about this. Under Republican Administrations, that means that blue states will get screwed out of funding. Under Democratic Administrations it means the money will be spent evenly across political lines but without the intelligence of local input. Dems won’t pursue partisan funding because Dems are more ethical, actually in believe in the power of government to do good, and have the spinal fortitude of invertebrates. So hopefully that particular “reform” will go down to defeat.
In any case, Reid and others are doing their best to slow this train down, lest their gravy train be threatened. When it comes to bills like this, speed if the reformers’ best friend, before the corporate lobbyists can gum up the works. So let’s hope the final vote is taken quickly.
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How not to do damage control, by Nancy Brinker:
Ugh.
Look, at this point it’s quite clear that the Komen Foundation has gone over to the dark side. This isn’t a result of bullying. This woman agrees with this decision and is simply dancing as fast as she can to tamp down the reaction. The willing hire of a forced childbirth zealot was the first clue.
Jeffrey Goldberg spells it out:
[T]hree sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut-off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new “no-investigations” rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization’s new senior vice-president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is “pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.” (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) I’ve tried to reach Handel for comment, and will update this post if I speak with her.
The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. Williams declined to comment when I reached her yesterday on whether she had resigned her position in protest, and she declined to speak about any other aspects of the controversy.
Three sources told me the organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood.
Update: If you would like to see some spinning that would make even Tanya Harding dizzy, check out this interview with Nancy Brinker:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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“The argument that governments should engage in austerity appears to be collapsing”
by digby
From the “who could have ever predicted” files:
[W]hat’s interesting about this particular moment is that while Mr Grabell is writing about what did and didn’t work in the stimulus, and Mr Obama is staying away from the topic for political reasons, out there on the barricades what’s happening is that the entire argument that governments should engage in austerity appears to be collapsing.
What’s that they say about those who don’t understand history are doomed to condemn those who do? (Or something like that 😉
The article is well worth reading in its entirety if you want to end up pulling out your hair and screaming, “well, duh!” Otherwise, just read Krugman and ask yourself how he must feel.
Update: And then there’s this, from the Laurie Mylroie of economics.
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It’s only OK if a state does it
by David Atkins
No one ever accused Ann Coulter of consistency or intellectual maturity, but even then this is really something:
Ann Coulter offered a surprising defense of Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care law — affectionately dubbed ‘Romneycare’ — on Wednesday.
In a blog post featured on her website, entitled “Three Cheers For Romneycare!”, she explains, “If only the Democrats had decided to socialize the food industry or housing, Romneycare would probably still be viewed as a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles — as it was at the time…
In her post, Coulter lays out what she sees as a basic distinction between the Massachusetts law and the federal law. “One difference between the health care bills is that Romneycare is constitutional and Obamacare is not,” writes Coulter.
Coulter explains the big difference:
As Rick Santorum has pointed out, states can enact all sorts of laws — including laws banning contraception — without violating the Constitution. That document places strict limits on what Congress can do, not what the states can do. Romney, incidentally, has always said his plan would be a bad idea nationally.
The only reason the “individual mandate” has become a malediction is because the legal argument against Obamacare is that Congress has no constitutional authority to force citizens to buy a particular product.
One perspective on this would be to mock Coulter as an irrelevant has-been making an argument of convenience for her candidate. But that approach seriously underestimates the degree to which tentherism has wholly consumed a significant portion of the Republican Party.
The remarkable thing about tentherism is that while it is clearly driven by wingnuts who don’t want the federal goverment denying them the “right” to work 9-year-olds for $2 an hour while segregating the schools, in theory it is completely devoid of any particular ideology beyond the notion that each State can run its affairs pretty much however it pleases. What Coulter is saying here is that she doesn’t object to the Affordable Care Act in principle, beyond the notion that such things should be enacted solely at a State rather than Federal level. For daring to implement at a national level what Romney did at a State level, President Obama is an overweaning Socialist Dictator.
Most normal people would say that’s crazy. Things like child labor laws and healthcare mandates are either a good idea or they’re not. Some people passionately oppose them, while some passionately support them. Generally speaking, they either work for everyone with minor nuances and exceptions, or they work for almost no one. That’s basic Kantian ethics (which is why Kant was Ayn Rand’s public enemy #1.)
There is precious little Constitutional backing for views like Coulter’s and Ron Paul’s. But even if there were, it would be a sure sign that the Constitution needed changing to reflect modern reality. Stretching for strict Constitutionalist mewling in the face of every piece of common sense and ideological coherence is the sign either of a dishonest or immature, hyper-legalistic mind.
Coulter’s argument amounts to an abandonment of even her own shoddy ethical principles, in favor of the adoption of the bizarre assumption that allowing the State of Alabama to control people’s lives is somehow more “free” than allowing Washington, D.C. to do so–regardless of the ideology of the laws in question.
I don’t really think most Americans will go for that idea. It would inevitably lead to dissolution of the Union. But hey, if that’s the direction history takes us, so be it. Those states should really be careful what they wish for.
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SWATTING Fratboys
by digby
“The purpose for creating the UNCC SWAT Team is to protect the community and prevent the loss of life,” said Lieutenant Josh Huffman of Campus Police. “We must be prepared to respond to high risk situations such as those tragedies that occurred at Virginia Tech and Columbine.” . . .
Right. As Radley Balko points out:
Now, let’s look at the numbers: Any given middle school, high school, or college in America can expect to have exactly one homicide on its campus every 12,000 years. So how long before the UNC-Charlotte SWAT team feels the need to justify its existence by expanding its mission? I predict they’re serving drug warrants and raiding frat houses within a year.
Yep. And if the people no respect Robocop, Robocop get very mad.
If you build it they will use it.
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RIP Wislawa Szymborska
By tristero
The world just became a lot less mordantly silly and quirky and profound.
A few years ago, I set this poem of hers. It was the final piece in a suite of songs that dealt with different kinds of freedoms. Miracle Fair, and so many others, have haunted me.
I agree with her friends: it was an awful tragedy that she won the Nobel Prize. For one thing, that implies that this most human and approachable of contemporary poets was somehow beyond the reach of us mere mortals. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Thank you, Ms. Szymborska, for all the beauty and joy, and for so much love.
Right Wing Watch is featuring some of the triumphant press releases from the religious right over the Komen Foundation’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood over trumped up wingnut nonsense. One of the weirdest things about them is this common refrain:
Tony Perkins: Susan G. Komen’s decision to stop funding the abortion industry is good news for women seeking help dealing with breast cancer.
Lou Engle- Let’s rejoice but let’s not stop praying! Today’s announcement isn’t given with permanence. Komen officials state they want to keep a “positive relationship” with Planned Parenthood, so that, along with their support of embryonic stem cell research, means we shouldn’t be running to sign up for a Race for the Cure quite yet, but we should positively reinforce what’s happening and thank Komen for this decision. Every step is a step for LIFE.
The destruction of one of the country’s leading mammogram providers is good news for women with breast cancer. And being against stem cell research is a step for “LIFE”. These people are funny.
It’s possible that Tony Perkins is still advancing this pernicious lie that says abortion causes breast cancer, but if so, he’s being very obscure. (It wouldn’t be the first time.) But I suspect that this is just reflexive paternalism — all women are better off if abortions are inaccessible, even the ones who might die of breast cancer because of this single-minded crusade. After all, abortion is literally worse than death for any woman who has one. Cancer victims should be happy to make the sacrifice for the greater good. As should pregnant women:
[L]est you think these people are just pandering to the fringe so there’s nothing to worry our little heads about, remember this from this past year:
[T]he GOP-led House of Representatives, with the blessings and encouragement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and extremist religious groups such as the Family Research Council, passed a bill in a vote of 251 to 172 that would, among other things, allow doctors and hospitals to “exercise their conscience” by letting pregnant women facing emergency medical conditions die.
And it’s entering the popular consciousness. Witness the glowing words applied to yet another sad young woman who made the decision to forego cancer treatment in order to give birth. Perhaps you’ll recall this earlier case as well, as reported by Robin Marty:
Did the “pro-life” cause really need an actual martyr? The conservative website “Hot Air” has published a doting ode to Stacy Crimm, a woman who refused chemotherapy that would save her life in order to not endanger her long awaited pregnancy.
And anti-choice supporters couldn’t be more proud of her.
Tina Korbe writes:
Crimm truly did have a choice: Even if abortion were illegal, she could have opted to receive chemotherapy. That she bravely chose to place her child’s life before her own recalls forcibly to mind why the phrase “a mother’s love” has such resonance. When we talk about abortion, rarely do we talk about the ache many women feel after they choose to abort their babies. Crimm’s physical suffering must have been unimaginable — and, yet, three days before she died, she was able to hold close the fruit of her choice in what Phillips said was a perfect moment. Would that her story might help all mothers see nothing is worth the sacrifice of their own child.
Crimm did have a choice, and acted out on her own wishes. But when you switch that to “nothing,” including the life of the mother, is worth ending a pregnancy, well, then that’s not really a choice, is it?
Evidently, the pro-life movement is now calling for women to die rather than have an abortion or even treat their illnesses if it might result in fetal death. I guess some lives are more valuable than others after all. And it isn’t the woman’s.
[T]he politically-charged investigation [was] launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) into [Planned Parenthood], which is greatly based on the smear campaign by Lila Rose, who recently told WORLD magazine that lying is appropriate as long as it’s for a worthy cause.
It’s how they roll.
Update: Here’s a good question: If Komen is required to sever all relationships with any institution that’s under investigation, why haven’t they severed their ties to Bank Of America?
Tasering: “just made of awesome”
by digby
Via Jesse LaGreca, I see that the fine, upstanding mainstream CNN political pundit who once claimed that a Supreme Court justice was a “goat-fucking child molester” has once again shown his gravitas:
Erickson: “Here is a story to make you laugh for the day, an Occupy DC protester, believe it or not these people are still occupying places. McPherson square near the White House, an Occupy DC protester was shocked by stun gun yesterday afternoon at McPherson Square . . .
They arrested him. They took him to the hospital because of a medical condition. He was charged with disturbing the peace. Now I would play the video for you because it was caught on film, it’s hilarious, I mean you should just watch this video, if you go to wtpo.com you can watch it, I won’t play it on the radio because the number of F-bombs the guy just starts yelling as they’re tazing him . . hahahah . . ahh, but watching that hippy protester get tazed just made my day, wtpo.com, you can watch it for yourself, it is just made of awesome.”
He’s screaming in excruciating pain! That is so awesome! Hahahahahaha!
The video of the incident is here along with the story of what happened. Apparently, the protester was tearing down some flyers posted around the encampment and walked away from police when they stopped to question him. And in America you submit immediately to authorities and don’t ask any questions. This is what makes us free.
As for that sadist Eric Erickson, I can’t wait to see him on my TV “analyzing” our politics again. I’d really like to get his opinion on the torture issue. Oh wait — he’s for it, obviously. And he vastly enjoys seeing it applied to his political opponents.
If any pets go missing in his neighborhood, the neighbors know where to look first.
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Brutality in Syria
by David Atkins
This is horrifying:
Ammar Cheikh Omar recalled the first time he was ordered to shoot into a crowd of protesters in Syria. He aimed his AK-47 just above their heads, prayed to God not to make him a killer and pulled the trigger.
Mr. Omar, 29, the soft-spoken and wiry son of Syrian parents who emigrated to Germany in the 1950s, grew up in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, a prosperous village of half-timbered 16th-century houses, where he listened to Mariah Carey and daydreamed about one day returning to Syria.
Today, he is still trying to make sense of his unlikely transformation from a dutiful German student to a killer for the brutal Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and, ultimately, a defector. “I was proud to be Syrian, but instead became a soldier for a regime that was intent on killing its own people,” Mr. Omar said on a recent day, chain-smoking at a cafe in this Turkish border town. “I thank God every day that I am still alive.”
Human rights groups and Syrian activists said he was one of thousands of Syrians who had inadvertently found themselves deployed as foot soldiers for a government that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since the crackdown on demonstrators began in March.
What to do about situations like this is going to need to be an ongoing discussion, not just in America but around the world. The tradition of pacifism and anti-imperialism on the Left would indicate that Syrian problems are Syrian, and that nothing should be done beyond sending sternly worded letters and maybe a few targeted sanctions. The tradition of intervention on behalf of the weak and defenseless on the Left would indicate that the world has a moral obligation something to step in.
But what would stepping in look like? Would it do more harm than good? What would be the blowback? It’s hard to say here that Assad is a dictator backed by the West, as has so often been the case elsewhere. In this case, it’s the Russians who have strategic resource interests in Syria and have been trying to keep Assad in power. But obviously, having America act as the world’s policeman hasn’t worked out so well for the last 50 years or so.
These are not easy questions; no one should pretend that they are, or that anyone has all the answers. But it’s hard to obsess over minor issues in the tax code or reproductive access domestically, while shrugging in helpless resignation over what’s happening in Syria right now.
The world has increasingly global problems, and we should be seeking global solutions so that one day the Assads of the world can never be in a position to do this again.
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