Month: May 2012

The wonders of debt

by digby

Chris Hayes hosted an interesting conversation about private equity on his show today. I think my favorite observation is this one from Joe Wiesenthal:

“One thing about private equity is it benefits tremendously from the favorable legal stance toward debt. And so the great thing about Mitt Romney, were he to become president, is that his whole career is a testament to the wonders of debt, the wonders of borrowing cheaply.

And I’m trying to think if there’s one institution out there that’s borrowing incredibly cheaply right now that could afford to spend a lot more.. Uh, the US Government could afford to spend a lot more by borrowing cheaply right now. Hopefully, if he takes the lessons he learned from private equity, that will be the lesson he takes away.”

Somehow I doubt he believes that the government should run like a business in quite this way.

In any case, here’s the whole discussion:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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“It’s a depression”

by digby

Here’s a good interview with Paul Krugman by Joshua Holland at Alternet in which he asks an important fundamental question right off the bat:

Joshua Holland: Let me ask you first about a somewhat provocative word in your title, the D-word. What makes this a depression rather than a so-called “Great Recession” that we’ve heard so much about?

Paul Krugman: A recession is when things are going down, when the economy is heading down. A depression is when the economy is down, and stays down for a long time. We have the Great Depression, which was more than a decade. There were two recessions in there and there were two periods that were recoveries in the sense that things were getting better, but not much better. The whole period was a period that was really terrible for America and for the world. We’re in a period like that right now. Not as bad as the Great Depression, but that’s not much to recommend it. It’s a sustained thing. We’re now in year five of very high unemployment with terrible prospects for young people. It’s a depression.

This too:

JH: It’s the politics. Last year when our credit was downgraded it wasn’t downgraded because of any economic reality, but because Congress couldn’t get it together to lift the debt ceiling.

What about the bond markets? We’re hearing again and again that they’ll punish us if we don’t cut Social Security or if we don’t transfer healthcare costs onto elderly retirees. Have we seen any evidence for this? Is there anything behind this assertion?

PK: Gosh, if you believe the people saying that you would have lost a lot of money. I know people have lost a lot of money doing that. The bond markets are willing to lend America — the US government — long-term money at about 1.7 percent as of right now. That’s ridiculously low. The index bonds that are protected from inflation actually have a negative interest rate. The bond markets are saying they’re worried about economic stagnation. They’re worried there aren’t going to be investment opportunities because the demand is so weak. So they’re going to park their money in US government debt, which is considered safe. The last thing you should be worrying about, at least according to the bond market, is those deficits. Those are not the problem right now.

JH: We’re not the only ones who have been afflicted by this scourge of irrational deficit hysteria — the idea that we should cut spending when private sector demand is deep in a hole. Let’s talk about Europe. Are we headed toward the end of the European economic union? Basically, as I understand it when you look at the very heavily indebted countries, they’ve essentially created a gold standard. They can’t devalue their currencies and can’t do any of the monetary tricks that one would logically pursue in these circumstances.

PK: They created something that’s actually worse than the gold standard. If you’re serious about economic history then you know the gold standard was a major reason that the Great Depression got as bad as it did. But at least countries had their own currencies. All they had to do was say all right, enough of this gold standard business, and they could escape. Now it’s much harder.

I don’t see how Greece stays in the euro. Leaving will be terrible, but staying is a no-hope situation. They will leave. Once people see that can happen, there will be in effect bank runs in Spain and Italy, which are much bigger players. That can only be contained if European elites start to behave very differently. They have to say, wait a second — punishing people for their alleged fiscal sins is not the priority now — saving the euro is. That means open-ended lending to the banks and the governments of those countries. It means having a much more expansionary and somewhat inflationary monetary policy. Maybe that will offer enough hope to save the system. It’s moved pretty fast now. I think you can see that there’s quite a large chance that there will be no euro a year from now.

As they say, read the whole thing. It’s nothing you don’t know if you’ve been reading his columns and keeping up with the economic news. But Josh asks smart questions and puts it all into a good context. It’s scary.

And, too, you can order End This Depression Now!

Update: Oh my.

Giant Lender in Spain Asks for Billions to Fend Off Collapse

Dumpster diving

by digby

This seemed like a good day to make a little foray into rightwingland and see what’s cooking. I came upon a web site called rightmarch.com. Here’s a sample of their wares:

LATEST ACTION ALERTS!

Join hundreds of thousands of members of RightMarch.com as we TAKE ACTION on bills and issues important to YOU, every day — sign up for our Daily Conservative Alert Newsletter, and check out our latest Action Alerts below!

IRS Preparing to TAKE our GUNS?

A new bill that Congress is ready to pass has several hidden provisions in it — including provisions that could give the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the authority to TAKE AWAY the Second Amendment RIGHT to bear arms from anyone they simply ACCUSE of being delinquent on their taxes! BOTH Houses of Congress are preparing to PASS this OUTRAGEOUS bill — We MUST move FAST to stop it!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Congress to REJECT the United Nations LOST Treaty!

The United Nations is at it again — and this time, with the help of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and RINOs in Congress, they may actually succeed in imposing TAXES directly on the American people and stealing American sovereignty! We MUST stop the UN monstrosity called the “LOST” TREATY!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Congress to DEMAND a Full Pardon for Falsely Accused Border Patrol Agent!

Remember the Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were prosecuted during the Bush years JUST FOR DOING THEIR JOBS, after pressure from the Mexican government? NOW IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN — and this time, Border Patrol agent Jesus Diaz was falsely accused, arrested, prosecuted by the same office that prosecuted Ramos and Compean, thrown in prison, had his family fined, and is currently in federal prison serving a two-year criminal sentence in solitary confinement. THIS IS AN OUTRAGEOUS INJUSTICE — and YOU AND I need to FORCE the U.S. government to RIGHT THIS WRONG NOW!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Every Secretary of State to CHALLENGE Obama’s Eligibility to be on Presidential Ballots NOW!

Barack Hussein Obama does NOT meet the Constitutional standard of “natural born citizen” that was established by Minor v. Happersett and other court cases. WHY? Because the Court decided very clearly that a “natural born Citizen” is one who is born on U.S. soil to U.S. citizen parents. Barack Obama has stated clearly that one of his parents was NOT a U.S. citizen! Mind you, we’re not talking about whether Obama was actually born in the United States — even though there is plenty of evidence showing that he wasn’t. Barack Hussein Obama II has publicly admitted his father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan native and a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. Barack Obama Sr. NEVER became a U.S. citizen. Therefore, Barack Hussein Obama II is not now, and never CAN be, a natural born citizen of the United States! NOW, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NEED TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD LOUD AND CLEAR TO EVERY SINGLE SECRETARY OF STATE — REMOVE BARACK OBAMA’S NAME NOW!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Congress to REJECT Obama’s Request to Raise the Debt Ceiling AGAIN — by $1.2 TRILLION!

Do you remember last summer, and the HUGE fight that erupted in Congress because Barack Obama wanted to raise our debt ceiling by $2 trillion? The American people fought hard against that increase to our national debt. We flooded Congress with faxes, emails, and phone calls to STOP it. But Congress caved to Obama, and like alcoholics with “just one more drink,” they promised that “this would be the last debt increase.” But then, they didn’t stop another half-a-trillion-dollar increase in September. GUESS WHAT? NOW OBAMA WANTS ANOTHER DEBT CEILING INCREASE — THAT’S MORE THAN TWICE AS LARGE AS THE LAST ONE! These big-spending liberals MUST be stopped — so YOU AND I MUST FORCE THE U.S. CONGRESS TO STOP THIS DEBT CEILING HIKE NOW!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Congress to END Congressional “Insider Trading” NOW!

Did you happen to see the 60 Minutes report that just aired, where Nancy Pelosi was BUSTED for what can only be called Congressional “insider trading”? Members of Congress can engage in “insider trading” — using non-public information to make stock trades — and there’s no law against it… America’s lawmakers can legally make tidy profits on information only they know, simply because they won’t pass a law against themselves. Now it’s up to YOU AND I to FORCE Congress to finally pass the bill that would STOP ANOTHER “PELOSI-GATE”!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Obama Begins AMNESTY – Tell Congress to STOP Him!

The Obama administration has just PULLED A FAST ONE on us — they have instituted a “BACKDOOR AMNESTY” program to allow over 300,000 illegal aliens to stay in this country… He snuck this in with lightning speed — which means we have to move FAST to REVERSE what his cronies have done! TAKE ACTION NOW!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Congress to STOP the TSA from Groping the Flying Public

First it was taking off our shoes. Then it was no liquids over 3 ounces. Now, the Transportation Safety Administration has instituted “airport security procedures” that COMPLETELY CROSS THE LINE: New body scanners that amount to an electronic strip search. “Enhanced” pat-downs of passengers’ genitals and breasts. Search of children that one mother described as a “sexual assault.” THE GOVERNMENT EXPECTS US TO “SHUP UP AND TAKE IT” — but we are AMERICANS, and we do NOT have to put up with being MOLESTED by government agents. Thankfully, a bill has been introduced to put a STOP to this outrageous nonsense… But Congress has to PASS it RIGHT AWAY, during the upcoming “lame duck” session!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Tell Congress to DEFUND NPR!

National Public Radio gets several million dollars in taxpayer money directly from Congress every year. More importantly, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets several hundred million dollars of taxpayer money each year, which it then doles out to PBS stations around the country. Those PBS stations then turn around and send fees and dues to NPR — which make up more than half of NPR’s yearly budget. It’s time to finally do the RIGHT thing — DEFUND NPR and the CPB. This has gone on WAY too long!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Support the State Constitutional Tender Act!

Every State in the Union is in violation of the U.S. Constitution, because each State is making some other “Thing” a Tender in Payment of Debts, both to and by the State, namely, Federal Reserve Notes. It’s time to return each State to the required use of Constitutional tender: gold and silver coins. With an added benefit rescuing the States’ economies AND helping bring an end to the Federal Reserve!
CLICK HERE to read more…

Quite a group of issues, isn’t it? (There’s even something I agree with — TSA groping and insider trading in congress.)

This group wasn’t formed in response to Obama’s election. It’s been around for some years and has a huge email list. The man behind it is named William Greene, a protege of Richard Viguerie, the GOP Godfather of direct mail and the modern conservative movement. And it’s clearly a big money maker.

If you wonder how these crackpot right wing memes get out there, this is one of the ways. And it’s very profitable.

Ok, just one more:

I’m fairly sure that if you go to that website, they’ll ask you for money.

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The states’ rights con and single-payer healthcare

by David Atkins

We already know that conservatives use “states’ rights” as a way to maintain abuses of patriarchy, racism and private power. But one would at least hope that if they were to maintain such an attitude, they would have to stay consistent on the principle of federalism. Of course, that isn’t true, either. Whether it’s drug laws, gun laws, or any other issue on which federal power is convenient to them, they seem to reverse ground. The McDermott bill allowing federal funding for states to create single-payer healthcare programs will be no exception:

Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It’s clear that conservative forces are determined to prevent such a system from ever being introduced at the national level. So it’s up to the states.

The catch is that to make universal coverage work at the state level, you’d need some way to channel Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare funds into the system. At the moment, that’s difficult if not impossible.

But legislation quietly being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) would change that. It would create a mechanism for states to request federal funds after establishing their own health insurance programs.

If passed into law — admittedly a long shot with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives — McDermott’s State-Based Universal Healthcare Act would represent a game changer for medical coverage in the United States.

It would, for the first time, create a system under which a Medicare-for-all program could be rolled out on a state-by-state basis. In California’s case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.

“This is a huge deal,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. “This is a lifeline for people who want to create a Medicare system at the state level.”

I learned of McDermott’s bill after getting my hands on documents he had sent to other members of Congress seeking support for the legislation.

McDermott’s office confirmed that the documents and legislation are real but declined to make the congressman available for comment until the bill is formally introduced, which could happen as soon as next week.

Kinsey Kiriakos, a spokesman for McDermott, said by email that the bill is intended to advance the goals of President Obama’s healthcare reform law, which would extend coverage to about 30 million of the 50 million people nationwide without insurance.

The reform law is now under scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court, primarily because of its requirement that most people buy health insurance or face a modest tax penalty.

McDermott’s bill “is based on the congressman’s belief that the Affordable Care Act will be upheld and the congressman’s new bill is meant to achieve the overall goals of the Affordable Care Act while giving states the option to build an alternative single-payer system,” Kiriakos said.

California came close to building such a system in 2006 and again in 2008 when the Legislature passed bills laying the groundwork for statewide universal coverage. Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both bills.

In theory, this would be a great issue for conservatives truly interested in states’ rights. Any state that wanted a single-payer system would have one. Any state that didn’t want one, wouldn’t. But, of course, Republicans aren’t interested in states’ rights. They’re interested in maximizing private power and corporate profits at the expense of regular people.

As ThinkProgress says:

The bill could warm the hearts of liberals who expressed frustration with the Affordable Care Act’s more moderate approach of building on the existing health care system and should also satisfy GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has sought to differentiate his 2006 health reform from Obamacare by rejecting a federal prescription for reform and promising to “pursue policies that give each state the power to craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens.”

The ACA creates state flexibility by granting waivers to states that meet certain coverage standards and a bipartisan group of lawmakers has offered legislation expanding the provision by allowing states with innovative health care solutions to opt out of certain provisions beginning in 2014. Romney, meanwhile, has pledged to build on the ACA’s flexibility and grant states to the ability to opt out of the law entirely.

McDermott’s measure would go even further and encourage states to repurpose federal funds to build a universal single-payer health system of their own. If Republicans are truly interested in states rights, they will back it in mass.

In a universe in which conservatives weren’t abject liars, that might be the case. But that’s not the universe we live in.

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Gekkoian Heroics

by digby

If you haven’t read today’s Paul Krugman’s column yet, do it. I have no doubt that quite a few Masters of the Universe broke down and had themselves a good old fashioned cry when they read it.

Look for the federalist label

by digby

Adele Stan talks to pollster Celinda Lake about this alleged drop in “pro-choice” sentiment and she explains that it’s less the attitude than a revulsion toward the fight:

[W]e know from other data that people are significantly less interested in labels right now, period,” Lake said. “[W]e’re seeing it in everything — it has nothing to do with abortion; we’re seeing it in lots of different areas — is that people just don’t like labels right now. They think it’s divisive, and not reflective of the complications of an issue, gets in the way of solutions.”

We’re seeing a lot of this, particularly in the issues that have to do with the “lady-parts.” Recall Dana Milbank just recently:

In his latest column, Dana Milbank criticizes abortion provider Merle Hoffman for raising a ‘false alarm’ about the threat to reproductive rights in this country. He then goes on the cite the numerous marches and events that will take place on both sides of the debate over the next week as the country celebrates – or laments – the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in this country.

All of this attention troubles Dana Milbank. He writes, “if these groups cared as much about the issue as they claim, and didn’t have such strong financial incentives to avoid consensus and compromise, they’d cancel the carnivals and get to work on the one thing everybody agrees would be worthwhile — reducing unwanted pregnancies.”

He chastises the choice movement by telling us that “not every compromise means a slippery slope to the back alley.” He tells us to stop with the “sky is falling” argument and to acknowledge that the majority of Americans have legitimate concerns.

That’s very typical gaslighting, which is something almost guaranteed to make almost any women want to scream in frustration. But be that as it may, there are a lot of people who just want this to go away as an argument and most of them happen to be people who support abortion rights.

I don’t know what to do about that. It’s a complicated argument and we’ve clearly failed along the way to make it simple enough to counter the lugubrious paeans to “life” from the people who want to cut off unemployment insurance. But still, there remains at least a bare majority of Americans who support the policy itself.

And Stan spells out how the right is effectively dealing with that:

When you look at the results of national polls on both abortion and marriage equality, you get a clear sense of why the right plays the states’ rights game today, just as slave-owning Southerners did two centuries ago. Opponents of equality for women and LGBT people know they can’t win a national popular vote on their bigotry and misogyny; the best they could hope for is a draw on women’s rights, and a loss, however close, on LGBT rights. That’s why the right aims its biggest battles at state legislatures. Now that the Supreme Court is a right-winger’s dream, any test of draconian law at the state level may well be sanctioned at the federal level. And if enough Tea Partiers and religious-right types win election to Congress, the law of the land may come to defy overall public opinion.

Just look at the Washington Post poll on marriage equality. It was released just days after North Carolina passed a particularly restrictive amendment to the state constitution that not only banned same-sex marriage, but civil unions and domestic partnerships for both gay and heterosexual couples. In passing such a ballot measure, North Carolina joined another 30 states that have already passed same-sex marriage bans.

Even as the nation remains divided on abortion, a torrent of restrictive legislation aimed at women seeking abortions or the medical facilities that provide them is flooding state legislatures. This year, bills have been introduced for mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortion — some of which demand that the ultrasound technician ask the woman to view the image or listen to the fetal heartbeat — in 17 state legislatures. Two of those bills have already passed, in Virginia and Arizona.

For advocates of reproductive justice and marriage equality, nothing less than a shift in the balance of power on the Supreme Court will settle the law in their favor.

Indeed. And the only people who are old enough to retire any time soon are people who already support women’s and LGBT rights. Barring something unexpected happening, this battle is going to rage on for quite awhile. Sorry.

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A failure to organize

by David Atkins

The world was deeply inspired by the people power that brought about the Arab Spring. It was a leaderless loose assemblage of citizens gathering into public squares, doing nothing other than peacefully demanding change and the removal of longstanding dictatorships.

In its aftermath, we’re also seeing the Achilles’ Heel of that anarchistic approach:

Egypt looks set for weeks of tension and uncertainty after the first round of its landmark presidential election produced a runoff between the candidate backed by the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and a former general who is seen as a hangover from the regime of the deposed Hosni Mubarak.

In what many described as a “nightmare scenario” that will mean a polarised and possibly violent second round, Mohammed Morsi of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party polled around 26% in the two-day first round. Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, came second with 23% when 90% of the votes had been counted.

Amr Moussa, the former head of the Arab League, who tried to capture the centre ground, was knocked out. Late on Friday there was only a slight chance that the final picture would change when votes for Cairo and Giza were in.

Turnout was said to be around 40% of the 51m-strong electorate. Official results are yet to be published but a combination of exit polls, centrally collected data and reporting by the candidates appeared to confirm a dramatic runoff that many supporters of the revolution consider a catastrophic outcome. “It feels as if the revolution never took place,” lamented a despondent George Ishaq, a founder of the leftwing Kifaya Party.

“The Brotherhood are despotic and fanatical and Shafiq is the choice of Mubarak. It is a very bad result. The revolution is not part of this contest.”

Those who fail to organize will always be at the mercy of those who do. Religious and secular authoritarians alike have no trouble with this principle. Neither do hardline Maoist/Leninist regimes. Champions of liberal democracy, on the other hand, seem to have a unique problem here, which leads to our defeat time and time again.

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Let them eat … nothing?

by digby

I love it when people who have 250 million dollar contracts paying them to sit on their asses and spout lies for a couple of hours a day call other people lazy moochers:

“The fact that 88 million Americans aren’t working but they are eating Obama loves. Because he’s the one getting credit for feeding them.

And not only are they eating, but they’ve got their televisions and their cellphones and they’ve got cable. And a number of these 88 million who aren’t working but have food, have cable, have cellphone and have flatscreens may be saying, ‘what more do I need?'”

This extremely well-fed fatuous gasbag seems to believe that people should starve if they can’t find work. And if the little people have some food, a phone and a TV whah, there ain’t nothin’ more they kin want outta life!

Here’s the dining room of the apartment he sold in NYC for 11 million dollars. It looks as though it was designed to look like a cartoon version of Versailles, don’t you think?

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Goodbye Mistah Soljah

by digby

So the General Election has officially begun and the predictable “race to the middle” is in full swing. What, you ask, has Mitt Romney finally distanced himself from the Birthers? Well, no. They’re holding fundraisers for him. Is he tacking back to the center on the war on women? Not hardly. So, what’s going on?

It looks like we’re going to have six more months of the Obama campaign trying to prove that their candidate has conservative values and believes in conservative ideas. That’s what we can learn from the latest fact check from Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama 2012 Stephanie Cutter.

FACT CHECK: Romney off on Obama’s relationship with teachers’ unions; it’s anything but cozy: http://wapo.st/Lu0nYZ

The link takes you to a story at the Washington Post with the same name as what Cutter quoted approvingly. And I can’t say that anything in the Post’s fact-check is wrong. It makes the case that President Obama has promoted ideas and instituted policies that teachers’ unions oppose, and that’s true:

“Education “reform” is a pretty contentious topic with a split in the Democratic coalition. But Obama has always lined up on the opposite side of the unions on the matter. Not only that, he boasts of it.”

They don’t have any shortage of such “achievements” to tout as proof of their center right bona fides, from the civil liberties crackdown to the record number of deportations of undocumented workers. But I’m fairly sure that in order for this to have the desired effect, the middle must be some agreed upon place between the two parties, and the other side must tack back to that place as well. Is there any evidence that this “center” exists?

Update: When was the last time a GOP candidate for any office boasted about flouting a major conservative constituency? I’m, sure it must happen sometimes, but nothing comes to mind.

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Rightwingers for all seasons

by digby

Have you heard about the “Fortnight For Freedom?” (I know, how many Americans know what a fortnight is …) Anyway, this is happening:

[The] “Fortnight for freedom” [is] between “June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day.” Fusing the martyrdom of Catholic saints with Independence Day, the Bishops write, “Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power . . . . Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action would emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty.”

That’s right, now the Catholic Bishops are fully integrating their “religious liberty” trope with patriotism. It’s not that right wingers haven’t been doing this for some time, but this is the first time I’ve seen it organized this way.

Sarah Posner wrote about this last month:

All of this will of course come to a head as the general election campaign is heating up over the summer months. The Bishops urge commemoration of “resistance to totalitarian incursions against religious liberty” and call on “an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith. They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom.”

It will be the summer of the Bishops’ discontent. Their call to action ensures that it will spill over into the presidential campaign. The culture wars are far from over. This new chapter has just begun.

In fact, we’re looking at a full fledged effort to re-fight the Reformation. Here’s Posner a couple of days ago:

In the coming weeks, as the Fortnight for Freedom approaches, expect More’s name to be invoked again and again, and his martyrdom compared with, supposedly, that of 21st century American Catholics, who live in a modern democracy, not a 16th century monarchy. Yet in this depiction—wait for it—the Obama administration is like Henry VIII, attempting to require loyalty to the Church of England (or the Department of Health and Human Services) rather than the Vatican.

Fr. Paul Scalia, pastor of St. John the Beloved Parish in McLean, Virginia, writing in the Catholic Herald last month, implored Catholics to mimic More in response to the Obama administration (emphasis mine):

Just as in St. Thomas’s day it was a moral issue that precipitated the larger crisis, so also in our day. The Church’s teaching on contraception is at the core of this crisis. We can — and should — say many things about this teaching. It is one of the most important, challenging and beautiful of the Church’s doctrines. But the teaching itself — as important as it is — really just occasions another, broader issue. The crisis now before us between the bishops and the administration turns on the rights of the Church and the rights of man: the Church’s right of self-governance and the rights of individual conscience.

Henry VIII redefined the Church in England. It is not too much to say that by the HHS mandate, the administration seeks to do likewise in the United States. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, asks the question: Can a government bureau define for us or any faith community what is ministry and how it can be exercised? Of course not. The Church has the right to define herself and not be told by outside authorities what does or does not define her work.

Uhm … holy shit. As Posner rightly points, unlike England of the period, the United States government, the last we heard, does not answer to Church authority of any kind. Indeed, the American experiment was a product of the 500 years of bloody religious wars that preceded it and explicitly rejected the very idea of Religious and Monarchical rule.

According to Posner, the Catholic hierarchy begs to differ:

The Archbishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, recently said that “efforts to restrict religious liberty are seemingly founded in a reductive secularism that has more in common with the French Revolution than with America’s founding.”

So the Catholic Bishops have joined the wingnut chorus in full voice, making the case that up until now only the far right fringies like David Barton have made. It’s profoundly disturbing.

Posner concludes:

The very idea that providing women with insurance coverage is somehow tantamount to the terror and violence inflicted on both sides in Reformation England—or to the historical cataclysm that was Henry’s schism from Rome—is so absurd I’m stunned as my fingers tap across my keyboard. If we’re going to spend the next five and half months discussing whether Barack Obama is like Henry VIII, well, God help us.

Somehow I doubt this is only go to go on for the next five months. This one’s going to be with us for a while.