Month: October 2012

The Mayor of the Village proposes to scrap the foreign policy debate

by digby

Mark Halperin helpfully explains to silly voters what’s important to them:

This is a proposal that probably won’t be taken up but I’d be for scrapping foreign policy as the topic of the last debate. I think we’ve had a fair amount of foreign policy discussion. The last debate should be all about the Fiscal Cliff. 90 minutes. What are you going to do about taxes? What are you going to do about spending? Because we’re not having the adequate debate if it doesn’t happen in that last debate, which it won’t because it’s now on foreign policy. We’re never going to have them talk about it. It is the issue facing the country. It is the issue for whoever gets elected because, if they don’t deal with it in January, we’re going to have a world of trouble.

Foreign policy is for the birds. Of course, just five years ago it was the only thing worth talking about. When Republicans wanted to talk about it. Now it’s all about taxes and spending. Oddly, that’s what Repubicans want to talk about now too.

This is not to say that I wouldn’t welcome a debate on the economy, jobs, income inequality, education, climate change, immigration and women’s rights among a dozen other important topics. But the fiscal cliff? It’s a phony crisis that only plays into the hands of the deficit hysterics who are determined to use any excuse they can to cut the hell out of our already tattered safety net. The differences between the two parties are so infinitesimal on this anyway that all we’d have is a hour of bullshit designed to make the voters forget about the fact that they are getting screwed by millionaires and worry instead about fiscal phantoms. No thanks.

And hey, if we get lucky in an hour long foreign policy debate we might even find out that foreign countries exist outside the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. I’m so old I remember when we used to talk about the Far East and South America once in a while. I’m not holding my breath. I have a feeling it’s going to be a truly impressive dick measuring contest with Obam finding ways to mention that he killed bin Laden at every opportunity and Mitt rsponding that if it had been him he’d have killed him twice as hard. (I’m anticipating a major next day hangover.)

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Banker who stabbed cabbie gets charges dropped at last minute

by David Atkins

The law only applies to the little people:

Charges against William Bryan Jennings, the former Morgan Stanley (MS) U.S. bond-underwriting chief accused of stabbing a New York cab driver over a fare, will be dropped, police said.

“I’m aware that the charges are being dropped,” Detective Chester Perkowski of the Darien, Connecticut, police department said today in an interview. He declined to comment further.

Jennings was accused of attacking the driver, Mohamed Ammar, on Dec. 22 with a 2 1/2-inch blade after a 40-mile (64 kilometer) ride from New York to the banker’s $3.4 million home in Darien. Ammar, a native of Egypt and a U.S. citizen, said Jennings told him, “I’m going to kill you. You should go back to your country,” according to a police report.

Jennings faced assault and hate-crime charges, each of which brings a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He was also charged with not paying the fare, a misdemeanor. He pleaded not guilty March 9.

Eugene Riccio, Jennings’s attorney, wouldn’t confirm that the case had been abandoned.

“All I’m saying is we’re showing up,” he said today in a phone interview. “We have a court date Monday, and we’re going to be there.”

Jennings car service didn’t show up after a Christmas party, so he hailed a cab. Jennings says the cab driver agreed to a $204 fare, but the driver asked for $294. Jennings also claims the cab driver changed his story.

It’s possible the police are dropping the charges because the driver’s testimony wouldn’t be considered trustworthy by jurors. But it’s also extremely likely that a poor person without good lawyers who had pulled this stunt would be getting the maximum sentence.

A rich banker confronting a cab driver over a fare dispute, attacking him over it after a Christmas party, and then getting the charges dropped at the last minute, is pretty much a microcosm of criminal and economic justice in this country today.

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Does Obama still think his Grand Bargain was smart politics?

by digby

My friend DebCoop reminded me of this interview by Jonathan Singer with then Senator Obama back in 2007:

I asked Obama why he would use the word “crisis”, particularly given the fact that the Social Security trust fund will not run out until 2042 or 2052 (depending on who is doing the analysis), and that even then the program will provide greater benefits than it does today, even accounting for inflation.

Barack Obama: I think the point your making is why talk about it right now. Is that right?

Jonathan Singer: Yeah. And why use the term “crisis”?

Obama: It is a long-term problem. I know that people, including you, are very sensitive to the concern that we repeat anything that sounds like George Bush. But I have been very clear in fighting privatization. I have been adamant about the fact that I am opposed to it. What I believe is that it is a long-term problem that we should deal with now. And the sooner the deal with it then the better off it’s going to be.

So the notion that somehow because George Bush was trying to drum up fear in order to execute [his] agenda means that Democrats shouldn’t talk about it at all I think is a mistake. This is part of what I meant when I said we’re constantly reacting to the other side instead of setting our own terms for the debate, but also making sure we are honest and straight forward about the issues that we’re concerned about.

By the time he was inaugurated he “set his own terms” by folding this “long term problem” into his Grandiose Bargain:

I asked the president-elect, “At the end of the day, are you really talking about over the course of your presidency some kind of grand bargain? That you have tax reform, healthcare reform, entitlement reform including Social Security and Medicare, where everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good?”

“Yes,” Obama said.

“And when will that get done?” I asked.

“Well, right now, I’m focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you described is exactly what we’re going to have to do. What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?”

“And eventually sacrifice from everyone?” I asked.

“Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game,” Obama said.

A month later they convened the fiscal summit and out Pete Peterson’s BFF David Walker was all signed on to the new “terms”:

WALKER: You touched on the remarks on the balance sheet. As a former controller, we are $11 trillion in the hole on the balance sheet and the problem’s not the balance sheet. It is off balance sheet. $45 trillion in unfunded obligations. You mentioned in January about the need to achieve a Grand Bargain involving budget process, social security, taxes, health care reform. You’re 110% right to do that. Question is, how do we do it?

Candidly, I think it takes an extraordinary process that engages the American people, provides for fast track consideration and with your leadership that can happen. But that’s what it’s going to take.

OBAMA: Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Again, when we distribute the notes coming out of the task forces, I want to make sure that people are responding both in terms of substance and in terms of process. Because we’re going need both in order to make some progress on this.

I only bring this up to emphasize, once again, that this desire for a “comprehensive” solution to the “structural deficit” (and every other possible problem for the next 50 years) did not originate with the Republicans. That was the President’s vision. And the fact is that the Republicans eagerly signed on. The only real difference between them is the president’s insistence that “the rich pay a little bit more.”

Somebody should ask the President if, after everything that’s happened, he still believes that was a smart political move — and if he still thinks he’s having this debate on his own terms.

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When candidates go wild

by digby

From the land of fruits and nuts:

Naturally, they’re both incumbent Democrats fighting for a newly drawn district in California’s new “top-two” election law that can pit members of the same Party against each other in the general election. But who knows? Someday they might even be as aggressive against a Republican.

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Master Debaters

by digby

I’ve been struggling to come up with something interesting to say about last night’s debate, but I’ve got nothing. It was fun to watch because I hate Paul Ryan and I enjoyed the contempt and incredulity Biden showed him and his word salad. (Why people assume this guy speaks inscrutably because he has a deep command of the facts eludes me.) What’s not to like?

The Republicans are predictably having a case of the vapors over that horrible Joe Biden’s terrible manners, which is hilarious from the people who had no problem with Newt Gingrich browbeating the moderators to their faces or audience members screaming out “yeah!” when Wolf Blitzer asking if people who don’t have insurance should die. To hear them go on today, fainting couches have sold out all over the country.

I have one little piece of advice for what these delicate Republicans should do when confronted with a Democrat who behaves aggressively:

I thought Raddatz was much better than Lehrer, but so what? She ended the debate with a couple of vapid questions that would have made Barbara Walters cringe. The one asking about these two middle aged men’s feeling on abortion from a personal perspective really floored me. Ryan took her seriously and talked about his experience looking at an ultrasound and said that his opposition to abortion stemmed from the “scientific” observation of the “bean” in his wife’s uterus as much as his Catholic religion. Wow.

Naturally, he is also far more concerned with an employer’s freedom to impose his religious views on his employees than individual workers’ freedom to use their compensation and benefits in any way they see fit. He is a Randian through and through and the parasites must be controlled.

Biden gave a good answer, which is the one that most liberal Catholics give, namely that he personally follows his Catholic religion’s edicts but doesn’t believe he should inflict his religious views on others. The “pro-choice” camp includes many people like him. It would be very nice if the President could make the case on the basis of liberty and personal autonomy, but I’m not holding my breath.

Ryan concluded his statement with this:

We don’t think that unelected judges should make this decision; that people through their elected representatives in reaching a consensus in society through the democratic process should make this determination.

Right. Women’s neighbors, bosses and state legislators are the ones who should decide when and if she has children. For all of you states’ rightists out there who think that basic human rights should be dependent on the superstitions and beliefs of the people who live between arbitrary lines on a map, this will be good news.

Me, I’m just an old fashioned American who believes the individual is far better placed to make such personal and intimate decisions.

As for the rest of the debate, I agree with what C.A. Rottwang writes in an email:

I thought Biden forced some key admissions that ought to have some sustained impact on the campaign. These of course are preserved for all to see:

Romney/Ryan are warlike. They are soft on getting out of Afghanistan, eager to involve the U.S. in risky adventures in Iran and Syria. Relatively speaking, Biden was the peace candidate in a national political climate that is tired of the pushes in the ME.

R/R are ready to outlaw abortion. As others have said, this could have been hammered a bit more, but it’s out there.

R/R are hypocrites on spending and the deficit (WI earmarks, votes for wars, Medicare Part D).

R/R have now established their refusal to specify a tax plan as a principle. I think the D’s should say they simply have no plan. There is no there there.

R/R are the party that has always hated Medicare and SS, and still want to privatize it. Ryan did not back down from the latter, toxic formulation.

That last is extremely important, I think. And Biden summarized it very well: “Folks, use your common sense. Who do you trust on this?” Anyone over the age of 40 knows that the Republicans want to privatize Social Security and Medicare. They know this because they’ve proposed it over and over again. Appealing to gut-level common sense on this is very smart politics.

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Multiple Choice

Debates become a machismo contest in a fact-free environment

by David Atkins

The reviews are in: Joe Biden cleaned Paul Ryan’s clock last night in the Vice-Presidential debate. It’s unclear just what the impact of that might be for the election, but there’s no question that Biden’s performance lifted progressive spirits while potentially moving undecided voters, among whom Biden won the debate across many polls.

Those on the left would like to believe that it was Biden’s command of the facts and figures that won the day. But that would probably be putting too much faith in the undecided voter, who largely has no idea what the facts are. More likely, it was Biden’s commanding personal presence on the stage that did more to sway the debate, just as Romney’s display of alpha-dog confidence won him the first debate despite being as devoid of substance as he was full of lies and evasion. In a sense, the two debates were mirror opposites of each other in that polls afterward showed that the loser of each debate (Obama and Ryan) came across as more likeable. But that didn’t help their cause.

This isn’t always the case. In a reasoned and grounded debate, it’s often the more charming yet gaffe-free candidate who winds up the “winner.” But these aren’t your parents’ debates. Romney and Ryan lie so effortlessly and breathlessly that it’s difficult to even have a conversation with them, but less a debate. Witness this extraordinary catalog of debate lies from Romney, for instance:

The moderator can only do so much to help with this. Jim Lehrer was totally useless. Martha Raddatz did a much better job, but Ryan still lied and evaded at every turn, making a productive conversation between the two candidates practically impossible.

And that’s a big problem. When debaters can’t even argue from a single set of facts, the argument ceases to be a debate and becomes a pissing contest instead, with each interlocutor interrupting and shouting the other down. Respect is impossible to maintain. With a female politician the negative effects of this are mitigated somewhat thanks to sexist cultural expectations. But especially in a debate between two men, when factual ground rules disappear the contest goes almost entirely to the alpha dog with the bigger bite, louder bark and broader grin.

Yes, Biden had greater command of the facts, better moral values and greater empathy. But that’s not why he won.

And that’s a bad sign for our democracy.

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Paul Ryan: Beck fan and Randroid

by digby

And 80’s sitcom star!

In honor of the debate I’m just going to run my favorite Paul Ryan interview with Glenn Beck:

GLENN BECK: Nice to meet you, sir. Tell me, tell me your thoughts on progressivism.

PAUL RYAN: Right. What I have been trying to do, and if you read the entire Oklahoma speech or read my speech to Hillsdale College that they put in there on Primus Magazine, you can get them on my Facebook page, what I’ve been trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism because I see progressivism as the source, the intellectual source for the big government problems that are plaguing us today and so to me it’s really important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate.

GLENN: I love you.

PAUL RYAN: So people can actually see what this ideology means and where it’s going to lead us and how it attacks the American idea.

GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second. I ‑‑ did you see my speech at CPAC?

PAUL RYAN: I’ve read it. I didn’t see it. I’ve read it, a transcript of it.

GLENN: And I think we’re saying the same thing. I call it ‑‑

PAUL RYAN: We are saying the same thing.

GLENN: It’s a cancer.

PAUL RYAN: Exactly. Look, I come from ‑‑ I’m calling you from Janesville, Wisconsin where I’m born and raised.

GLENN: Holy cow.

PAUL RYAN: Where we raise our family, 35 miles from Madison. I grew up hearing about this stuff. This stuff came from these German intellectuals to Madison‑University of Wisconsin and sort of out there from the beginning of the last century. So this is something we are familiar with where I come from. It never sat right with me. And as I grew up, I learned more about the founders and reading the Austrians and others that this is really a cancer because it basically takes the notion that our rights come from God and nature and turns it on its head and says, no, no, no, no, no, they come from government, and we here in government are here to give you your rights and therefore ration, redistribute and regulate your rights. It’s a complete affront of the whole idea of this country and that is to me what we as conservatives, or classical liberals if you want to get technical.

GLENN: Thank you.

He sounds just like the Ayn Rand acolytes I used to debate back in the early days of Usenet. They all turned out to be teenagers in real life.

And wouldn’t it be nice if this man were retired from politics altogether? You can help by donating to his congressional opponent Rob Zerban, here.

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The question of abortion is “simpler” than they think

by digby

Here’s another interesting highlight from an interview for the Frontline Choice 2012 program. This one is with Lawrence Tribe, who has known Obama very well since his earliest days at Harvard Law:

Q: Let’s go backward just for a second, but I think it informs everything that we’ve said now. When you were working on the abortion — was it a book?

It was a book called Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes.

Q: He emerges as centrist, trying to figure it out in a way — I don’t need to put words to it. You can.

It was a book that I cared a great deal about. I believe and believed then — still believe — that women need to be able to control their lives and their bodies if they are to be fully equal citizens. On the other hand, I have enormous sympathy for those who think of the helpless unborn as an entity with rights of its own and who find abortion a tragic choice.

And Barack Obama and I, I think, were on the same wavelength in recognizing that there is this important clash of values. It’s not simple. And indeed the reasons that people come out one way or the other on this impossible clash of absolutes, those reasons have to do with their comfort or discomfort with modernity, with what is happening to society, with the role of women, but with also the marginalized role of cultural minorities who have views that others mock and don’t take seriously.

So it was a struggle, and it was a wonderful project to work with him on, because he saw all sides. He was interested in not necessarily finding a point in the middle of the spectrum, but in finding a line that was sort of perpendicular to the normal access of disagreement, ways of coming to terms. We wouldn’t necessarily agree, one side and the other, and we wouldn’t each of us individually see ourselves necessarily as on one side or the other of that clash.

But we could find ways of making abortion less necessary, making less people feel desperate enough to feel that they had to end a pregnancy, making contraception more available, making education more widely available, making adoption a more realistic option. And working with him on that clash and on how to resolve it, not find a midpoint but ways of getting beyond it, was a way of seeing a very interesting and all-encompassing mind at work. …

Notice the assumptions in all that — that abortions are only “necessary” if women feel desperate or are uneducated or simply can’t find a good way to put their children up for adoption. As if the millions and millions of American women who have abortions year after year just need some “services” that will make it so they will be happy to go through pregnancy and childbirth regardless of the circumstances in their own lives at the time or the emotional difficulty of then giving up their own offspring for someone else to raise. (Do these people think that’s easy to do if only you have the right phone numbers?)

I know this is Tribe talking and not Obama and I’m not attributing those thoughts to him because of that. But I assume that Tribe does have some insight into the way the President reasons and this doesn’t sound all that different from the post-partisan POV he came into office with (combined with the typical technocrat’s faith in problem solving by the numbers.) The fallacy, of course, is that these answers would ever fully satisfy the anti-abortion people unless one also agreed to ban the practice. Did they not understand this?

This issue will never be “solved” at least not that way. There will always be unintended pregnancies. That is a function of being human. And there will always be abortion. There always has been. Some people do not agree that women should have the right to do that and they will agitate to outlaw it. But it will not prevent it. Because women do own their own bodies and direct their own lives and some of them will go to extreme lengths to maintain that autonomy, even if it means putting their health and lives in danger. We have centuries of data supporting this.

So when a couple of elite males decide that they will find some sweet spot that will make these women happy as well as those who don’t think these women should have the right to make that choice, it’s an infuriating denial of women’s basic human agency. It is simple. Women are going to have abortions, full stop. The only question is whether or not they are going to be forced to go through hell and possibly die to get them — and whether society is going to admit that it cannot and should not make that decision for them. Once you accept that reality, the rest is just talk. If religious leaders want to counsel their adherents not to do it, fine. If politicians want to lecture the public that it’s wrong, fine. If they want to create programs to help women get access to birth control and afford to raise kids if they want them and all the rest, terrific. If you care about your fellow humans, you should want all of that. But the right to abortion is a fundamental human right and the necessity of it being safe, legal and available is a requirement for a decent society.

The common behavior of everyday women from all walks of life proves that this is a simple question:

INCIDENCE OF ABORTION

• Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.

• Forty percent of pregnancies among white women, 67% among blacks and 53% among Hispanics are unintended. • In 2008, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. However, between 2005 and 2008, the long-term decline in abortions stalled. From 1973 through 2008, nearly 50 million legal abortions occurred.

• Each year, two percent of women aged 15–44 have an abortion. Half have had at least one previous abortion.

• At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, one in 10 women will have an abortion by age 20, one in four by age 30 and three in 10 by age 45.

• Eighteen percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers; those aged 15–17 obtain 6% of all abortions, teens aged 18–19 obtain 11%, and teens younger than age 15 obtain 0.4%.

• Women in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions; women aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and women aged 25–29 obtain 24%.[6]

• Non-Hispanic white women account for 36% of abortions, non-Hispanic black women for 30%, Hispanic women for 25% and women of other races for 9%.

• Thirty-seven percent of women obtaining abortions identify as Protestant and 28% as Catholic.

• Women who have never married and are not cohabiting account for 45% of all abortions

• About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.

• Forty-two percent of women obtaining abortions have incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level ($10,830 for a single woman with no children).

• Twenty-seven percent of women obtaining abortions have incomes between 100–199% of the federal poverty level.*

• The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.

Those numbers tell the story. Unless you want forced contraception, full sexual control or a Handmaid’s Tale society it’s going to happen.

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People don’t think corporations are people

by David Atkins

With all the politician-vs-politicians poll numbers flying around, it’s important to remember that when it comes to most policy questions, Americans are decidedly progressive. That goes especially for core questions of economic law and justice, including the question of corporate personhood. Per a PPP poll of conservative-leaning Montana:

Montana’s ‘corporations are not people’ amendment continues to lead for passage. 52% of voters say they will support it to 22% who are opposed. Democrats (71/12) and independents (59/17) overwhelmingly support it, while Republicans (28/35) are slightly opposed.

Even 28% of Republicans don’t think corporations are people. They do seem comfortable voting for corporate shills, though. Closing that gap is the core task ahead of Democrats and progressives.

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