Month: March 2012

An Inadvertent Truth From the Cato Institute

By tristero

Now, this is funny:

“We can’t be perceived as a mouthpiece of special interests,” Robert A. Levy, chairman of Cato’s board, said in an interview. “The Cato Institute as we know it would be destroyed.”

Get it? Mr. Levy is clearly saying that the Cato Institute IS a mouthpiece of special interests – of the Kochs’ creepy agendas – but its effectiveness would be destroyed if it becomes PERCEIVED as Koch’s mouthpiece.

What he probably wanted to say was, “We can’t be a mouthpiece for special interests. The Cato Institute as we know it would be destroyed.”

Instead, he inadvertently told the truth. And, as we have learned from Messrs Stewart and Colbert, the truth is often very funny. If not revealing.

No difference?

by David Atkins

Heeeeere’s Mitt Romney:

The overall rubric of my foreign policy will be the same as Ronald Reagan’s: namely, “peace through strength.” Like Reagan, I have put forward a comprehensive plan to rebuild American might and equip our soldiers with the weapons they need to prevail in any conflict. By increasing our annual naval shipbuilding rate from nine to 15, I intend to restore our position so that our Navy is an unchallengeable power on the high seas. Just as Reagan sought to defend the United States from Soviet weapons with his Strategic Defense Initiative, I will press forward with ballistic missile defense systems to ensure that Iranian and North Korean missiles cannot threaten us or our allies.

As for Iran in particular, I will take every measure necessary to check the evil regime of the ayatollahs. Until Iran ceases its nuclear-bomb program, I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must. I will speak out on behalf of the cause of democracy in Iran and support Iranian dissidents who are fighting for their freedom. I will make clear that America’s commitment to Israel’s security and survival is absolute. I will demonstrate our commitment to the world by making Jerusalem the destination of my first foreign trip.

Most important, I will buttress my diplomacy with a military option that will persuade the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. Only when they understand that at the end of that road lies not nuclear weapons but ruin will there be a real chance for a peaceful resolution.

My plan includes restoring the regular presence of aircraft carrier groups in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously. It also includes increasing military assistance to Israel and improved coordination with all of our allies in the area.

And here’s Barack Obama:

With Israel warning of a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Obama urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to give diplomacy and economic sanctions a chance to work before resorting to military action…

“We do believe there is still a window that allows for a diplomatic resolution to this issue,” the president said as Mr. Netanyahu sat next to him before the start of their three hours of talks.

Both leaders agreed to try to tamp down the heated debate about Iran in their countries, officials said. Mr. Obama said the talk of war was driving up oil prices and undermining the effect of the sanctions on Iran. Mr. Netanyahu expressed frustration that statements by American officials about the negative effects of military action could send a message of weakness to Tehran.

Keeping a measured tone may be challenging, however. At the Aipac conference under way in Washington, speakers have delivered fervent calls for tougher action on Iran.

But clearly there’s no difference between the two men and the two parties on foreign policy. No sirreee. Romney, Obama, eh, whatever. My vote’s with man of principle Ron Paul.

Also, Al Gore would totally have invaded Iraq, too. I’ve got the evidence for that here somewhere…

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The Golden State of despair

by digby

There was a time when California had the best and least expensive public educational system in the world. Not anymore:

Going to school at Harvard University is cheaper than attending a public university in California.

According to the Bay Area News Group, a “family of four — married parents, a high-school senior and a 14-year-old child — making $130,000 a year,” with typical financial aid, would pay around $17,000 for tuition, room and board and other expenses, if their child went to Harvard. However, if their child attended a Cal State, they would pay $24,000. Going to the University of California, Santa Cruz would cost around $33,000; at UC Berkeley would be about $19,500.

Other Ivy League schools including Yale University and Princeton University offer similar financial scenarios.

“It does sort of put you in an awkward spot,” Dean Kulju, financial-aid director of the 400,000-student Cal State system, said. Cal State has double their tuition since 2007, the Bay Area News Group reported.

Thanks Howard Jarvis. You must be so proud to see your “revolution” resulted in the state of California being drowned in the bathtub.

And as California goes, so goes the nation, if Mitt Romney has anything to say about it:

“It would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that,” he said, to sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory here. “Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”

What do you suppose these “affordable” colleges he speaks of are?

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Getting his due as a broadcaster

by digby

How did Rush get away with it for so long? Well …

LAMB: I mean, how do you – so much the conservative media criticize anchors living in New York City and in Connecticut for being isolated and never paying attention to their thought. How do you – do you ever listen to the Limbaugh show or any of that stuff?

WILLIAMS: Oh, often, often, and I’m one of the few in a very select group that Rush has allowed on when I’ve called in from the car. I do listen to Rush. I listen to it from a radio in my office or depending on my day, if I’m in the car, I will listen to Rush and he will tell you I’ve been listening for years.

I think it’s my duty to listen to Rush. I think Rush has actually yet to get the credit he is due because his audience for so many years felt they were in the wilderness of this country. No one was talking to them. They would look at mainstream media and they’d hear sentences like the following: Conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich today accused Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy….

Well, what’s wrong with that sentence? My friend Brit Hume – we covered the White House together, always would call reporters on this. Where’s the appellation for Ted Kennedy in that sentence, you remembers of the perhaps unintentionally liberal media? Why aren’t you calling Kennedy something if you’re going to label Newt Gingrich a conservative firebrand?

That’s what Rush did. Rush said to millions of Americans, you have a home. Come with me. For three hours a day you can listen and hear the like minded calling in from across the country and I’ll read to you things perhaps you didn’t see that are out there. I think Rush gave birth to the FOX news channel. I think Rush helped to give birth to a movement. I think he played his part in the contract with America. So I hope he gets his due as a broadcaster.

Your liberal media, folks.

And by the way, listening to Chris Matthews criticize Limbaugh for his sexist commentary is rich. Really rich.

h/t to Jonathan Schwartz

Another day, another proof of the desperate need to act on climate change

by David Atkins

MIT has a new report out on climate change:

• The Copenhagen pledges will nearly stabilize emissions in the developed countries, but global emissions will continue to grow rapidly.
• Global change will accelerate with changes in global and regional temperatures, precipitation and land use, and the world’s oceans will warm and acidify.
• Population and income growth will fuel a significant rise in the motorized vehicle fleet and increase CO2 and other pollutant emissions, especially in developing regions.
• While further emissions cuts in developed countries would be useful, such cuts will have less impact on global emissions over time.
• The Copenhagen pledges begin a transition to alternative energy in developed countries and China, but they do not provide enough incentive to create the full transformation needed within the energy system (i.e., wide-scale adoption of renewables, carbon capture and storage, nuclear or alternative propulsion systems in vehicles) to avert dangerous levels of climate change.
• While emissions from fossil fuels are sizeable, other greenhouse gas and land use emissions are also important and cannot be ignored if more stringent stabilization and temperature goals are to be achieved. Reductions in these emissions are often the most cost-effective. If policies to reduce them fail, a major opportunity to limit climate change may be missed.

Check the graphs in the report. Very scary stuff.

What’s most frustrating about all this is that humanity has three unique challenges at this point: 1) an impending climate change disaster that would require an international Apollo program-style, multi-industry endeavor to switch to renewable energies; 2) a general economic malaise with huge numbers of people out of work; and 3) international conflicts centered around oil-producing regions of the globe.

These problems could all be solved by an international economic focus on putting people to work to develop renewable energy. People from research scientists to engineers to laborers to white-collar professionals would all be employable in the transition with real, non-outsourceable jobs in every country on earth; a global climate disaster would possibly be averted; and there would be no more need to bomb people in desert countries that happen to have oil underneath them. Win-win-win. It’s a time of extraordinary potential for humanity.

But instead, the world’s best and brightest are obsessed with austerity measures to protect the health of the parasitic financial services industry, while allowing war and climate change to continue unabated.

Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to look back in horrified shame, and the history books will use this era as the prime example of obvious solutions ignored due to corruption and lack of collective will.

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Picking and Choosing

by digby

Well you knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?

Keep in mind that in the Village all Democratic presidents are considered to have made an excellent decision if liberals are incensed at the sell-out of their principles but Republicans can still call them cowards and terrorist lovers. This one seems to have been a huge success by that metric. What a great idea on both politics and policy.

The good news is that the law will be there for others to use in the future so old Buck shouldn’t completely despair. He can hit Obama now for thwarting the law and throw suspected terrorists in Gitmo and throw away the key later. It’s all good.

Update: I’m guessing Old Buck won’t be complaining too much ab out this, though. Adam Serwer explains:

On Monday, the Obama administration explained when it’s allowed to kill you…

If the standards for when the government can send a deadly flying robot to vaporize you sound a bit subjective, that’s because they are. Holder made clear that decisions about which citizens the government can kill are the exclusive province of the executive branch, because only the executive branch possess the “expertise and immediate access to information” to make these life-and-death judgments.

Holder argues that “robust oversight” is provided by Congress, but that “oversight” actually amounts to members of the relevant congressional committees being briefed. Press reports suggest this can simply amount to a curt fax to intelligence committees notifying them after the fact. It also seems like it would be difficult for Congress to provide “robust oversight” when intelligence committee members like Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are still demanding to see the actual legal memo justifying the policy.

Both supporters and opponents of the administration’s targeted killing policy offered praise for the decision to give the speech. They diverged, however, when it came to the legal substance. “It’s essential that if we’re going to be doing these things, the top officials of our national security and legal officials explain why it’s legal under international and constitutional law,” said Benjamin Wittes, a legal scholar with the Brookings Institution, who said he thought the speech fufilled that obligation. “I think [the administration] is right as a matter of law.”

In a statement, Hina Shamsi, Director of the ACLU’s national security project, called the authority described in the speech is “chilling.” She urged the administration to release the Justice Department legal memo justifying the targeted killing program—a document that the ACLU and the New York Times are currently suing the US government to acquire. “Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust the next president with that dangerous power.”

I think we already know the answer to that, don’t we?

Update: Spencer Ackerman adds this:

“The Constitution’s guarantee of due process is ironclad, and it is essential — but, as a recent court decision makes clear,” Holder argued, “it does not require judicial approval before the president may use force abroad against a senior operational leader of a foreign terrorist organization with which the United States is at war — even if that individual happens to be a U.S. citizen.”

Holder left several aspects of his argument unexplained. He did not define the terms “senior operational leader” of al-Qaida, nor what it means to be an “affiliate” of the amorphous group. The attorney general only referred to the drones through the euphemism “stealth or technologically advanced weapons.” Holder did not explain why U.S. forces could not have captured Awlaki instead of killing him, nor what its criteria are for determining on future missions that suspected U.S. citizen terrorists must be killed, rather than captured. Holder did not explain why Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, whom a missile strike killed two weeks after his father’s death, was a lawful target. Holder did not explain how a missile strike represents due process, or what the standards for due process the government must meet when killing a U.S. citizen abroad. Holder did not explain why the government can only target U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism for death overseas and not domestically.

The decision to kill an American, Holder said, is “among the gravest that government leaders can face.” Targeted killing is not assassination, he argued, because “assassinations are unlawful killings.” Among the few external limitations on the government’s war power that Holder mentioned were the approval of a local government where the strikes occur — which must have pleased reluctant, unsteady U.S. allies in Pakistan and Yemen — and the after-the-fact disclosure of the strikes to Congress.

Well that clears that up. It can’t be assassination because assassinations are unlawful and this isn’t. These legal arguments are waaay over my head.
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Romneycare: for it before he was against it

by digby

Uhm, Mitt?

Jonathan Chait discusses a USA Today op-ed from 2009 in which Romney said the same thing, namely that the Obama administration should adopt the Romney plan for the whole country. Meanwhile in the Bataan death march, also known as the Republican presidential debates, he has said this repeatedly:

My health care plan, by the way, is one that under our Constitution we’re allowed to have. The people in our state chose a plan which I think is working for our state.

At the time we crafted it, I was asked time and again, “Is this something that you would have the federal government do?” I said absolutely not.

I do not support a federal mandate. I do not support a federal one-size-fits-all plan. I believe in the Constitution.

I’m surprised his nose didn’t grow right out of the building.

Chait chalks up the Romney opposition’s passivity in the face of such blatant lying to incompetence. But I’m beginning to wonder if this whole primary “battle” hasn’t been some sort of conspiracy cooked up by the Not-Roomneys to con a bunch of wealthy idiots into handing over many millions to line the candidates’ pockets.(In fact, the most “independent” of the candidates has been shockingly kind to Mitt while doing plenty of damage to the others.) Nobody can be that inept.

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The 16 Percenters

by digby

I’ve been alluding to this frequently over the past couple of months as it’s once again being demonstrated that women’s rights are a still a major battleground in the culture wars. I don’t bring it up to suggest that women haven’t made progress. Of course they have. But something’s wrong. I’ve felt that it’s stalled out for some time. And lately I’ve been feeling it sliding backwards, particularly when I see vicious misogyny publicly celebrated in certain quarters, something which I don’t recall being acceptable even in the bad old days. (That was perhaps because of the “protective” aspect of patriarchy that pervaded the culture. But still…) And we wonder why women only hold 16% of the positions of power in our country.

Anyway, here’s a piece by Leslie Bennets in TDB discussing this issue. It’s sobering:

“Women remain hugely underrepresented at positions of power in every single sector across this country,” said Barnard College president Debora Spar at a White House conference on urban economic development last month.

“We have fallen into what I call the 16 percent ghetto, which is that if you look at any sector, be it aerospace engineering, Hollywood films, higher education, or Fortune 500 leading positions, women max out at roughly 16 percent,” Spar said. “That is a crime, and it is a waste of incredible talent.”
Seventeen percent of United States Senators are women, and only 16.8 percent of the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court has three women justices out of nine, and six women governors out of 50, or 12 percent. In state legislatures, 23.6 percent of elected representatives are female, and only nine percent of mayors are women in the 100 largest cities.

Such figures belie America’s self-image as a world leader with enlightened values; the nation actually ranks 71st in female legislative representation, behind Bangladesh, Sudan and United Arab Emirates.

From politics and business to academia, law and religion, the allocation of power remains stunningly lopsided. “Over half of college graduates but less than a quarter of full professors and a fifth of college presidents are female,” reported Deborah Rhode and Barbara Kellerman in their book Women and Leadership. “In management, women account for about a third of M.B.A. classes, but only 2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, 6 percent of top earners, 8 percent of top leadership positions, and 16 percent of board directors and corporate officers. In law, women constitute about half of new entrants to the profession, but less than a fifth of law firm partners, federal judges, law school deans, and Fortune 500 general counsels. Half the students in divinity school are women, but they account for only 3 percent of the pastors of large congregations in protestant churches that have been ordaining women for decades.”

Nor are such imbalances improving; in most areas, women’s advancement has flatlined in recent years. “I think we are stuck in the muck,” says Kathryn Kolbert, director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard. “We made great progress on the rights front in the 1970’s, and life has changed significantly, but progress for women has plateaued in rights, in leadership, and in the ability to contribute equally in social and cultural affairs.”
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Women’s ongoing failure to attain leadership positions can no longer be blamed on a lack of qualified candidates in the professional pipeline that ultimately limits the executive talent pool; even when women are abundantly represented in a given field, they rarely manage to reach the top levels of management. “In the financial services industry, 57 percent of the workers are women—but only 1.5 percent of the CEO’s are female,” says Mary Quist-Newins, an assistant professor at The American College, the nation’s largest non-profit educational institution for financial services.
[…]
Whatever the arena, analysts cite various reasons why women’s progress has stalled in recent years, starting with a backlash to the previous period of rapid social evolution. “Classically speaking, resistance to change comes at two points,” Gloria Steinem explains. “The first is right in the beginning, when you break the rules and people say, ‘No, women can’t do that!’ And the second comes when you reach a critical mass, because then the dominant group thinks, ‘Wait a minute!’ Up until then, it hasn’t seemed as if the other group might have great influence or, in the case of women, might actually outnumber them. We’re now at the second stage of resistance.”

I feel that. Having come of age with the women’s movement, I’ll admit that I felt for many years that change was coming fast and was inevitable. For a long time I bought into the idea that once women had to come to a certain age and level of experience parity would naturally be reached. That time is now. And we’re at 16%.

With the rise of social conservatism as a political and cultural force I felt the backlash, but I still thought that we were in the midst of inexorable change. (Ironically, I believed it was the advent of birth control that made the difference — being able to control reproduction was the big change.) Now I’m seeing backsliding on reproductive freedom — and a whole lot of other things, including a sort of misogynistic cruelty I first dealt with when women were trying to break into male dominated jobs in the 1970s. Then I saw this movie, which was based on a true story and saw that it was still going on in the late 80s, virtually unchanged. In recent years, it’s bubbled up to the surface online in a big way. This thing never goes away.

A lot of men hate women in a serious, fundamental way. (And they aren’t all old guys.) Rush Limbaugh is clearly one of them. He’s demonstrated it over and over again for more than two decades, and has been feted as a hugely powerful media and political celebrity that entire time. I think the problem is that this is still such an accepted part of male culture that even decent enlightened men (and women) often don’t recognize the milder version when they see it for what it actually is.

This worries me. When you look at what’s happening around the globe, it’s very easy to see just how possible it is for women’s rights to backslide. It’s true that it’s been most obvious in the middle eastern countries in the grip of Islamic fundamentalism. But our “exceptional” Western democracy is hardly a world leader in feminist achievement:

Update: Now I really do feel sick:

Since We Can’t Call Sandra Fluke a ‘Slut,’ Would ‘Lying Liberal Bitch’ Be OK?

UPDATE: At one point in this “controversy,” Ace tried to find the proper comic tone for riffing on Sandra Fluke:

She’s not a hero. She’s just a Chubster looking for some camera time.

Not good. I thought about going there. The line where I have Fluke “lying through her teeth”? That was going to be “lying her chubby ass off,” but I wasn’t sure that readers would understand that I actually like chubby asses, and I didn’t want to risk offending women who’ve got that kind of more-cushion-for-the-pushin’ biscuits-and-gravy action that me and Sir Mix-a-Lot dig, IYKWIMAITYD.
So I decided against that joke, with a bit of a guilty conscience for even having considered it.

I also felt a slight twinge of guilt when I remembered having made fun of Maureen Dowd’s musty old vajayjay a few years ago. But then I thought about all the vicious things MoDo wrote about Sarah Palin, and my conscience felt a whole lot better all of a sudden.

UPDATE II: Linked by Bob Agard, Monoblog and Rio Norte Line — thanks! — and I want to take this opportunity to apologize to readers for some of our commenters who have made derogatory remarks about Sandra Fluke’s appearance. This is terribly unfortunate, and probably sexist, too.

Besides, it is inaccurate to imply that Sandra Fluke is unattractive.
A recent survey I’ve conducted indicates that 27% of men are attracted to women with the “varsity softball scholarship” look. In fact, seven out of 10 Eritrean immigrant cab drivers in the D.C. metropolitan area say that they would be attracted to Sandra Fluke, especially if her family were willing to provide a dowry that included a small herd of goats, or if they could score a Permanent Residency Visa out of the deal.

Also, if given a choice between Maureen Dowd and Sandra Fluke, the Eritrean cab drivers would unanimously choose Fluke.

Don’t even look at the comments.

Democratic Manliness

by digby

Paul Begala makes the smart observation that Democrats shouldn’t take the election for granted and posits that foreign policy could end up being a very serious impediment for a number of reasons(virtually all having to do with Israel and oil.) I think it’s always smart to remember that events can take over the best laid plans in politics and that something major could happen overseas, especially in the Middle East, to turn things upside down. Now whether or not you agree with Obama’s foreign policy or not, I think most of us can agree that this is just bellicose bullshit:

Ultimately, the best foreign policy is the best politics. President Obama’s foreign policy has been remarkably successful. Just ask 22 of the top 30 al Qaeda leaders. Oh, wait, you can’t. They’re dead—on Obama’s orders. He has approved 239 Predator drone attacks in just three years. George W. Bush approved 44 in eight years, the wuss. As he promised in the 2008 campaign, Obama has ended America’s combat mission in Iraq, which has been the most divisive issue in America, indeed the world. He is imposing tough sanctions on the terrorists in Tehran and has won what may be pivotal concessions from North Korea. He’s helped lead on the European debt crisis and rebuilt America’s battered global image.

I guess there are Democrats out there who are really getting off on this macho posturing, but it smacks of the same sort of primitive schoolyard taunting that I hated during the Bush years. The celebration of assassinations, sanctions on innocent children — oh, excuse me, “terrorists” in Iran — is unseemly to say the least and not just a little reminiscent of the way our enemies tend to behave. It breeds more of that shallow cruelty that led Americans into the morass of Iraq in the first place. It’s hard to see much daylight between the flagwaving chauvanism of the Bush administration and that chest thumping screed.

I’ll let Glenn Greenwald and other informed critics of the drone operations make the detailed case against them. For me, the idea that a president’s foreign policy success is based upon how many remote killings he’s approved is simply repulsive, particularly in the context of calling the previous president a “wuss” for failing to approve more of them. (Begala should know that these planes have been mass produced only in recent years, by the way. I’m sure Bush would have happily approved as many killings as Obama if he’d had the hardware. It’s one area that we have total bipartisan agreement in Washington.)

I am glad that there seems to be some movement on North Korea, although I understand a lot of kids had to starve to get there, and there is no reason to believe that Obama led Europe on anything to do with the debt crisis. And it’s too bad, really. By comparison, he’s handled it better than they did although that’s small comfort to the masses of unemployed. And as for Iraq, well, the administration tried to extend combat operations and were rebuffed by the Iraqi government. It’s possible that the Cheney administration would have put up more of a fight, I admit.

I appreciate the fact that Begala is warning Democrats not to get too cocky because “shit happens.” But this is a funny way of doing it. It’s exactly the kind of “shit” that makes things “happen” and we should be skeptical of it not celebrating it. Obama successfully cooled the rhetorical temperature when he came into office, which is probably his greatest foreign policy success. Even if you disagree with me on all those points about the foreign policy and think that every one of them has been a correct decision, I would hope that we can all agree that this fratboy machismo goes a long way toward building back the image that got us into many of these messes in the first place.

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SNL takes on Mitt Romney

The folks over at Saturday Night Live are having a field day with Mitt Romney:

I know one isn’t supposed to say this to remain in good standing with Axelrod and crew, but Mitt Romney is really weird–in ways that have nothing to do with his religion. More and more Americans are figuring that out. He’s distant, elitist and out of touch–everything conservatives like to pretend about liberals, except in this case it’s actually true of one of their own plutocrats.

Which is part of why he seems unable to close the deal with even Republican voters as several polls, including the latest Marist poll out of Ohio, are showing.

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