Month: April 2012

All blahs are the same

by digby

From Think Progress

According to The Grio, Brian Beckmann, a captain in the Miami-Dade fire department, posted a rant on his Facebook page suggesting that Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman was unjustly accused and that Martin’s killing can be blamed upon poor parenting by “urban” parents who are “welfare dependent”:

How many of these people are out there I don’t know. But as long as there are vigilantes shooting unarmed teenagers, we should probably be concerned about them.

Oh, and Trayvon’s parents are both middle class working people. Of course mom is a public employee so she might as well be on welfare, right? But then so is this racist fire captain.

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Mitt’s Secret Assurances

by digby

So a reporter standing outside on the sidewalk at a Mitt Romney fundraiser overheard the pitch. And guess what? Mitt’s openly telling people that his campaign is dishonest:

In a speech to donors in the backyard of a private home here, the former Massachusetts governor and presumptive GOP presidential nominee outlined his plans to potentially eliminate or consolidate federal agencies, win back Latino voters and reform the nation’s tax code.

And even Ann Romney, the subject of a national debate last week over the role of women in the workplace, was more direct than usual. She sounded like a political tactician when she described a Democratic consultant’s criticism of her decision to be a stay-at-home mom as “an early birthday gift.”

Romney went into a level of detail not usually seen by the public in the speech, which was overheard by reporters on a sidewalk below. One possibility floated by Romney included the elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Cabinet-level agency once led by Romney’s father, George.
“I’m going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go,” Romney said. “Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later. But I’m not going to actually go through these one by one. What I can tell you is, we’ve got far too many bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the states.”

Asked about the fate of the Department of Education in a potential Romney administration, the former governor suggested it would also face a dramatic restructuring.

“The Department of Education: I will either consolidate with another agency, or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller. I’m not going to get rid of it entirely,” Romney said, explaining that part of his reasoning behind preserving the agency was to maintain a federal role in pushing back against teachers’ unions. Romney added that he learned in his 1994 campaign for Senate that proposing to eliminate the agency was politically volatile.

Right. It’s “politically volatile” to tell voters that you have an extremist agenda. They might not vote for you. So, lie and tell them what they want to hear.

Now, if today’s GOP were a normal political party it might not make any difference. There would be moderating tendencies and Mitt could play mediator. But it isn’t a normal political party:

I won’t even mention the fact that rather than being hurt or insulted, Ann Romney was pleased that Hilary Rosen said she’d never worked a day in her life. Obviously, being a craven politician is a family trait.

Read the whole thing for the panoply of lies that Mitt plans to tell in order to win election. Latinos should especially beware of the pile of bullshit that’s coming their way.

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More trouble in tea party land

Looks like more bloom is coming off the tea party rose:

More than three years after its inception, the tea party continues to attract support from more than four in 10 Americans. But a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds waning interest in the political movement and a drop in the number of women giving positive reviews of its message.

Women are the biggest problem for the tea party crowd by far:

Women in particular have lost curiosity and become more negative about the movement. In 2010, just under half of men and women alike said they were interested in learning about the tea party. Men are similarly inclined now, but the percentage of women who say they’d like to hear more has dropped significantly.

There’s also been a sharp increase among both independent and Republican women in the percentages saying that the more they hear about the tea party the less they like it. In 2010, a plurality of independent women said they liked the movement increasingly as they learned more; today, they say they like it less by 2 to 1. Republican women — who gave some of the most positive reviews of the tea party message two years ago — are far more tempered in their support this year.

It’s almost as if trying to throw over half of the population into the middle ages wasn’t such a great idea, politically. Who’d have thought it?

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Submission rules

by digby

Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick:

In an age where women are dominating – in the workplace, at school, at home – why are they seeking to be dominated in their love lives? Recent media portrayals have shown that a rising number of modern women fantasize about being overpowered, while studies are turning out statistics that bewilder feminists. New shows like HBO’sGirls and books like Fifty Shades of Grey are showcasing the often hidden desire for powerlessness. But why? Katie Roiphe examines the submissive yet empowered female in Newsweek. “It is perhaps inconvenient for feminism that the erotic imagination does not submit to politics, or even changing demographics,” she writes.

You’re going to do this now Tina? Really?

The marriage panic. Again.

by digby

Regarding that hysterical NY Times article about cohabitation ruining marriage, well, there’s more to the study it relies on than the author reveals:

– Many of the media reports about the study exaggerate the link between cohabitation and divorce. The study found a small difference (9%) in the rate of divorce in the first ten years for spouses who cohabited before marriage compared to those who didn’t. However, many other studies find that most or all of this link is explained by the differences between the kinds of people who cohabit and those who don’t. Since most couples who marry today are already living together, those who don’t are a more religious, conservative group with different divorce patterns. As sociologist Judith Seltzer wrote in a 2000 article in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, “Claims that individuals who cohabit before marriage hurt their chances of a good marriage pay too little attention to this evidence.”

– The study did not demonstrate that cohabitation causes people to have a higher divorce rate. The two factors are correlated, but that doesn’t mean that one necessarily caused the other. As CNN.com reported, “One of the study’s authors said the report did not draw the conclusion that living together before marriage was the cause of the relationship ending. ‘It may not be the experience of cohabiting but the people who cohabit,’ said William Mosher. ‘What we’re saying about that is that we think that couples who cohabit before marriage may have different values than couples who do not,” he said.'”

– The researchers found much larger differences in divorce rates for other factors they considered. While there was a 9% difference in the ten-year divorce rate between couples who cohabited and those who didn’t, the difference was 30% by family income (couples with an income of $50,000 or more are much less likely to get divorced), 24% by age at marriage (women who marry when they’re 25 or older are less likely to divorce), 14% by religion (religious women are less likely to divorce), and 13% by education (women with education beyond high school are less likely to divorce).

– The study considered only women ages 15-44.

Obviously, the real lesson here is that any educated person over 25 who makes more than $50,000 should go ahead an cohabitate. Young people, on the other hand, might want to concentrate on getting an education, building their careers and dating rather than thinking too much about marriage. Or everyone can become more religious and get married before they graduate from high school.

If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s been common sense forever and it’s how it already works. Panic averted.

h/t to MS

Tienen problemas

David Atkins

Marco Rubio again affirms his refusal to join a presidential ticket:

A few developments over the weekend muddied the waters of the Republican vice presidential search, particularly in regards to the chances of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Beginning on Friday, as he sat down with CNN en Espanol’s Ismael Cala, the tea party favorite denied that he would be riding shotgun on the Republican ticket.

“I’m not going to be the vice president. I’m not,” he said, the second such announcement this month.

“Marco has said repeatedly that he’s not going to be vice president, and all of the speculation in the world isn’t going to change that fact,” senior Rubio advisor Todd Harris added.

Regardless of his rejections, there’s a sense that Rubio is still under consideration, and his name still finds its way into the vice presidential conversation.

Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, a prominent figure during President George W. Bush’s tenure, interviewed with CNN the next day, dismissing Rubio as unqualified for the vice presidency.

“Rubio’s resume does not reflect someone prepared to confront serious and dangerous issues that our country faces as president,” he said.

Aside from the fact that the only interviews Alberto Gonzales should be giving should be coming from a jail cell, he’s right. Rubio isn’t qualified to be vice-president, and he knows it. The only reason he keeps coming up as a possibility is because he’s Latino, which just goes to show that Republicans believe in affirmative action, too, as long as it’s the right kind of affirmative action. And Diós mio do Republicans need help with the Latino vote:

Despite growing disappointment in his handling of immigration issues, Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll conducted under the direction of Latin Insights and released Monday.

The national poll of likely Latino voters indicated that 73 percent of them approved of Obama’s performance in office, with over half those questioned looking favorably upon his handling of the healthcare debate and the economy, at 66 percent and 58 percent respectively.

Released on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries in the race for the GOP nomination, the Fox News Latino poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 35 percent of Latino voter support, to Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s 13 percent, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s 12 percent, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s 9 percent.

Buena suerte, Republicanos. You’ll need every bit of it.

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Virtually Speaking 6pm pst

by digby

Listen here.

Call in to speak with the host: (646) 200-3440

Titanic Ego

by digby

You all remember John Astor, right? (He’s the one Kathy Bates as Molly brown rudely called “Astor” in the movie.) Anyway, he was said to be the richest man in America at the time the ship went down.

Here’s yet another sample of how they are “different from you and me.”

Madeleine and John were engaged in August 1911 and married in September. There was a considerable amount of opposition to his marriage mainly because John had divorced his first wife only two years previously in 1909. Many were opposed to divorce at this time and felt that if people were divorced they should not be allowed to remarry. Some Episcopalian Ministers refused to perform the ceremony. The couple were eventually married at Beechwood which was John’s mansion in Newport, by a Minister of the Congregational Church.

After they were wed John Astor took Madeleine on his yacht and before he left he said. “Now that we are happily married I don’t care how difficult divorce and remarriage laws are made. I sympathise heartily with the most straight-laced people in most of their ideas but I believe remarriage should be possible once, as marriage is the happiest condition for the individual and the community.”

He believed in “what works.” For him.

He was 47 years old when he married Madeleine. She was 18.

h/t to JS

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The long awaited White House sex scandal finally arrives

by digby

And Darrel Issa’s on the case:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said Sunday that he believes there were more Secret Service agents involved than current figures say in the prostitution scandal that broke Friday night.

“We think the number might be higher. And we’re asking for the exact amount of all the people who ‘were involved,’” Issa said on CBS’ Face The Nation. An upcoming investigation, he said, will be “about how did this happen and how often has this happened before. Things like this don’t happen once if they haven’t happened before.”

I don’t think he should overlook this damning piece of evidence:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enjoys a relaxing momment at Cafe Havana in Cartagena, Colombia, on April 15.

Cafe Havana? Clinton? Coincidence? I think not. Clearly, subpoenas are called for and a full investigation must commence immediately.

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How many jobs are they supposed to work?

by digby

I’m not sure I fully understand Mitt’s position on this, but it sounds as though he believes that being a wealthy stay at home mom is a full time career while being apoor stay at home mom is undignified and lazy:

Republicans have spent the last week attacking President Barack Obama after a Democratic CNN contributor said that Ann Romney, who is the mother of five, had “never worked,” but it turns out that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also said mothers on welfare “need to go to work.”

“I wanted to increase the work requirement,” Romney told an audience in New Hampshire in January. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work.”

“And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.'”

Perhaps he should have them take up dressage. I hear it’s very dignified.

This is actually revealing. For years, conservatives and centrists have argued that welfare makes women lazy and dependent. They needed to get out into the workforce and learn the value of a hard day’s work. But at the same time, they fetishize the stay-at-home mother as a very difficult full-time job which must be considered a career equal to any work outside the home.

This nicely illustrates that their loathing of welfare is not about dependence or dignity. It’s about preserving their own privilege. And in their mind it’s always a zero sum game. Any time the government gives a dollar to help a poor person it’s a dollar they don’t have. That’s what’s unacceptable.

And their position on being a stay at home mom is that it’s a full time job as long as you don’t need wages, which is a very neat trick. “Ladies, we’d prefer that you choose a traditional lifestyle as long as you don’t need any money.”

In the end, it’s all basically just conservative boilerplate: a poor mother should work two full-time jobs, a middle class mother should also work two full-time jobs (or agree to sacrifice a middle class living to stay home) but a wealthy full time mother should get the same credit they do because she’s a respected member of the “job creator” class and is therefore naturally superior. It’s nice work if you can get it.

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