Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Charles Meets Barack

by digby

Just watch it.

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A Democratic Era

by digby

All through this election cycle I’ve been featuring reports from an insider I call “Deep Insight.” This is the final one:

Democracy is coming to the USA
Leonard Cohen

With one week left to go before the election, it certainly looks like a greater measure of accountability will arrive soon. Of course after the last eight years of government by oligarchy, cronyism and rightwing ideology, any democratic accountability would be novel. George Bush is the proximate cause of a putative federal progressive majority after November 4th.

It is obvious the political landscape has been radically altered in the last month. The meltdown in the capital markets and the freeze of the credit markets has led a Republican Administration to nationalize a significant portion of the mortgage industry, a major insurer, and “invest” in the major banks. The explosion of unregulated portions of the capital markets was predicted years ago by major financial figures like Warren Buffett and George Soros, but the government waited until the unraveling was well underway. Alan Greenspan, the disciple of “philosopher” Ayn Rand, was “shocked” about problems with credit default swaps and the greed of Wall Street. Of course as Fed Chief, he fought vigorously against any new regulation of financial markets. The malfeasance and crime on Wall Street has claimed many innocent victims worldwide. The current blurred line between Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department is also very unsettling.

The public is reacting in both disbelief and anger as retirement savings are washed away. Any economic progress over the past several years has been revealed as a Potemkin village. Median wages already lower than in 2000, will head lower. Five million more Americans are below the poverty line than in 2000. Real hardship is underway for many.

The economic upheaval has driven George Bush’s approval rating back into the 20s, far lower than even the number of Americans who believe the words in the Bible are literally true. The country wants him gone now. Nine percent of the public currently thinks the country is on the right track. Again this is an historic number.

Barack Obama is the obvious beneficiary of this shift in the political dynamic. His steady performance in the debates and on the stump has allowed him to pass the threshold for a President. He now easily trumps McCain not only on the “economy” but also on “leadership.” He surpasses the old taunt against FDR by possessing both a first class temperament and a first class mind. Despite all the smears from the GOP, Obama has increased his favorability rating during the course of the year. He is wearing well with the majority of the public.

The financial advantage enjoyed by the Obama campaign is evident both in an unprecedented Election Day operation and the massive communication campaign. At the end of the day, however, any ads pale in importance to the real world unraveling of the GOP ideology. Senator McCain has reaped the whirlwind of conservative economic policy.

McCain’s erratic behavior during the market meltdown raised new doubts about his competence and temperament. At that point, the Presidential race shifted inexorably. Not only did the atmosphere become more toxic for Republicans, but also McCain’s words and actions were somewhat inexplicable except as a media stunt. Karl Rove once remarked that modern politics is TV with the sound off. There is a kernel of truth in this cynical view, and John McCain was damaged both with the sound off and on in three debates. In the most recent New York Times poll, McCain had a 36/45-favorable/unfavorable rating. This judgment incorporates both the public’s consideration of Senator McCain’s temperament and his positions on the issues. He seems to be a very angry man.

Sarah Palin may have excited the evangelical base of the GOP, but her incompetence in answering simple questions from Katie Couric sent many swing voters running for the exits. She was clever to go on Saturday Night Live. She had totally lost control of her public image to Tina Fey, and at least she proved she could take a joke. Maybe she has a show business future, for as long as the teleprompter works, she is persuasive. She exaggerates effectively, in part to hide her extreme views. Her unfavorability rating is now 41%, and she has become a major drag on John McCain. With her pick, he threw the “experience” and “judgment” cards out the window. Some anonymous sources in the McCain camp have already thrown her under the bus. The GOP civil war has begun before a vote is counted.

She and McCain though tag team with their character assaults of Senator Obama. (The current theme is that Obama is a socialist with a history of bad associates and also one who loves welfare.) Some conservative members of Congress have reprised McCarthy era themes. No doubt, the smear campaign against Senator Obama has reinforced some wavering on the right but it has also caused a steady decline in McCain’s favorability ratings. In the Internet age, a lie can be fact checked and rebutted in minutes. The news cycle now is calculated in hours, not days.

Of course when your issue program consists of a continuation of very unpopular policies, one is hemmed in. McCain now makes the argument that only he can stop Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid from driving the nation over the cliff. Unfortunately for this argument, the GOP has already accomplished this plummet.

The Republicans are out of substantive arguments. Fear, lies and misplaced nostalgia are the only arrows left in their quiver. The GOP is now trying to limit the damage through voter suppression. Party operatives and officials are working full time to limit voter participation by Democratic constituencies. Their full tactical suppression arsenal is on display. This will also be the GOP strategy on November 4th, build long lines on Election Day through voter challenges. Democrats and progressive allies have to be prepared for chaos. Florida officials have managed to have 2-hour early voting lines, however early voting in several states has been very heavy and in the Democrats’ favor.

Hopefully more touch screen machines will soon be phased out, since they can be easily hacked. There are already reports of machines in West Virginia registering for McCain when voters are going for Obama. As far as I know, there have been no reports of anyone attempting to vote for a Republican and having the machine register for a Democrat. It certainly makes one wonder. Some day the U.S. may have a safe and convenient registration and election system, say like Canada.

Senator Obama’s showing in the polls has put him consistently near or over 50%. He has maintained a steady 4-6% lead for the last month. This is enough for a clear Electoral College victory. Some polls with the most accurate 2004 records (like Mason Dixon) have the race much closer. No doubt there will be surprises both in the turnout in under polled youth and minorities as well as the drag of those undecided who would not tell a pollster their true feelings about Obama’s race. There is historical evidence involving African American candidates that a large majority of the late undecided voters will likely stay home or vote for McCain. The National Republican Trust is bringing Reverend Wright back with an ad campaign in three swing states.

Down Ballot
Like 1980 this could be the realigning election, as Democrats sweep up and down the ballot. Conservative 527 organizations are outspending Democrats 10-1 in a furious attempt to limit the GOP damage in the House and Senate. The Chamber of Commerce is spending at least $35 million to help Republicans in the Senate. Democrats now appear to have a minimum of five seats in their column and a pick up of seven or eight is in sight.

Senate
In Virginia (Mark Warner) and New Mexico (Tom Udall), the races are over in favor of the Democrats. The Democrats hold single-digit leads in the races in New Hampshire (Shaheen), North Carolina (Kay Hagen, and early voting for Democrats has been very good), Colorado (Mark Udall, who has been subject to millions of negative ads), and Oregon (Jeff Merkley). A third-party candidate complicates Minnesota, but polling has Democrat Al Franken narrowly ahead within the margin of error. Alaska should also be over now that the guilty verdicts for incumbent Republican “Uncle” Ted Stevens are complete. Mississippi is within the margin of error for former Democratic governor Ronnie Musgrove. In Kentucky, Republican Mitch McConnell has plenty of money to hang on to his seat, but he has a spirited challenger. The polling shows only a narrow lead for McConnell. The surprise race is in Georgia where without significant national money Democratic challenger Jim Martin has moved within striking distance of incumbent Saxby Chambliss. Even if Martin falls short, it is forcing the GOP to spend scarce dollars. The only Democrat who was thought to have any difficulty – Mary Landrieu in Louisiana – has a comfortable lead. Obama helps turnout in all these races except possibly Kentucky and Alaska. There needs to be miracle finishes or unusually favorable events in Maine, Nebraska, Kansas or Oklahoma for the underdog Democrats to win there.

House
This is the opportunity to put as many progressives in Congress as possible. The underlying fundamentals have not been so favorable for the Democrats since 1974. Winning any open seats in 2010 will generally be more difficult and expensive. Protecting good incumbents during redistricting in 2012 will also be easier.

There are 50 Republican incumbent or open seats in play in all of which the Republican candidate is under 50%. In 1994, any Democrat who was under 50% after Labor Day lost in November, and the public mood is worse for the GOP now than it was for the Democrats in 1994.

It seems quite possible the Democrats will only lose a couple of their seats. A 25- seat pick up now seems reasonable, and 30 or so new seats are possible. At this point, the Democrats are reaching deep into suburbia and exurbia. Some of the new members may be moderates. But the Republicans these candidates would be replacing, a Robin Hayes in North Carolina or Michelle Bachman in Minnesota, are truly awful. There is real potential for the most liberal White House with the House and Senate since 1965.

The collapsing economy and exploding deficit will likely constrain expensive federal initiatives. There may be only a short window for the Democrats to produce real improvement and opportunity for the majority of the public. This means gains in both the job market and wages. As the remaining Republicans in the next Congress will be even more rightwing, there will be very little cooperation on policy. There will be constant attacks on Democrats as “tax-and-spend” liberals. Even before any potential Obama inaugural, the rightwing communications infrastructure will undermine him.

The Beltway elite however is issuing calls for bi-partisanship. Expect this to be a constant refrain from the Washington Post. This is rich, as the same group was silent as Bush and the rightwing in Congress ran wild for six years. Hopefully a President Obama and the Democrats will respectfully ignore their suggestions. This should be the start of a Democratic era.

Fingers crossed. Knocking on wood. Hoping against hope.

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Feminists Of Gilead

by digby

Roger Simon says that Palin is going to run in 2012 and all this bad press will have been explained away as sexism. And here we have an alleged feminist making a similar case. You have to love the nasty opening:

It’s difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin’s “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS’s Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker.

Nice. She goes on:

As Fred Barnes—God help me, I’m agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard, these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.

Here’s the thing. There are probably many people who are smart once you know them personally, but politicians are supposed to be able to project their intelligence to the vast public. You shouldn’t have to share a beer (or a mooseburger) with them to know that when they say stupid things in public it’s not because they are stupid but rather … what? Completely uninterested in current events? Is that supposed to be something we should overlook?

Now, I’ll grant that George W. Bush gave the Republicans every reason to believe that appearing to be dumb as a post would be no detriment to winning national office. And he did get a freer pass than Palin. But I’m hard pressed to speak out for a female politician’s right to be as ignorant as George W. Bush. Palin was an unknown and the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket and it wasn’t very “smart” of her to not be prepared to even answer soft ball questions about what she reads or come up blank when asked about the Bush Doctrine. I’m sorry, it’s just not sexist to be unimpressed with a female politician who cannot demonstrate the most rudimentary knowledge of politics, government and current events. Indeed, it’s an embarrassment to women everywhere that she would put herself in that position and be seen byto represent the best and the brightest of women in the country. It makes it that much harder for the next one.

There have certainly been sexist smears against her. (Calling her a “Diva” for instance, rather than simply saying she’s “not a team player” — but that’s coming from the Republicans!) Frankly, they were nothing to what the press rolled out against Clinton in the primaries and I would guess that the feminist outcry against that behavior was largely what has kept Palin from getting much worse than she has. The criticisms of her have largely been substantive and reasonable. (There is no double standard on the wardrobe cost issue — ask John Edwards.)

But this is really delusional:

Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women’s rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV—that was just “empty rhetoric,” they said. At least the blogger didn’t go as far as NOW’s Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. And there you have the formula for diminishing what was once a great and important mass social change movement to an exclusionary club that rejects women who sincerely want to join and, God forbid, grow to lead. But here is the good news: women, citizens of America’s high and low culture, the Economist and People magazine readers, will get it. They got it with Hillary even when feminist leaders were not supporting her or doing so half-heartedly. Yes, Palin is a harder sell, she looks and sounds different, and one can rightfully oppose her based on abortion policies. If you only vote on how a person personally feels about abortion, you will never want her to darken your door. If you care about anything else, she will continue to intrigue you. As Time’s Nancy Gibbs noted a few weeks ago, quoting bioethicist Tom Murray, “Sympathy and subtlety are seasonings rarely applied to political red meat.” Will Palin’s time come next week? I don’t know. But her time will come.

I don’t have any idea what she’s talking about with the sympathy and subtlety quip, but the rest is unadulterated bullshit. She only “intrigues” neanderthals. And there is no one more “exclusionary” than a right winger.

Palin is no feminist except to the extent that she is willing to walk through all the doors that feminists opened up before her and them slam them shut on the girls coming behind her. She is from the far right of the Republican party where they would see women as permanent second class citizens, at the mercy of their reproductive tracts and able to succeed only to the extent that some man “allows” them to. She caters to fundamentalist throwbacks whose adherence to their so-called traditional values always seems to result in women getting the shaft.

And it must have escaped this allegedly intelligent woman that Obama is getting far more of the female vote than Palin. The female Clinton voters were appalled that the Republicans thought for a moment that they would be appeased with someone who is a cipher compared to the competent and well-informed feminist Clinton:

McCain clearly hoped that having a woman on the ticket would sway Clinton voters. But Clinton voters here said Palin is beyond the pale. In many cases her very selection accelerated their support of Obama.Carol Kunz, a 42-year-old attorney from Manchester, said, “To compare the two women is insulting to women everywhere.”Christine Hines, a 43-year-old homemaker from North Andover, said, “Palin’s right-wing politics curl my hair. How could any Hillary voter align herself with Palin?”Carol Crowell of Haverhill, a 46-year-old executive editor in educational publishing, said, “My husband voted for Hillary too. But the idea that Hillary supporters would support someone the political polar opposite from Hillary on healthcare, education, and ending the war just because they’re women is crazy.

Just being a woman who made it in a man’s world doesn’t make you a feminist. (Some of the worst anti-feminists I’ve ever known were women I worked for — and one of the most committed feminists was a man.) Being a feminist is not determined by what genitalia you have but rather the principles for which you fight. Palin’s priorities are obvious. She’s more interested aerial wolf hunting than she is in woman’s equality.

I don’t know if she will flame out or if she will end up being the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. But whatever happens, the fact remains that she got to where she was because of feminism but not because she was a feminist. She walked on all our backs so she could step on our throats. She’s a typical right wing Republican.

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Why Obama Must Win, Chapter 1,000,000: The Judiciary

by tristero

This should scare you:

Earlier this month, Mr. Bush pointed with pride to his record at a conference sponsored by the Cincinnati chapter of the Federalist Society, the elite network for the conservative legal movement. He noted that he had appointed more than a third of the federal judiciary expected to be serving when he leaves office, a lifetime-tenured force that will influence society for decades and represents one of his most enduring accomplishments. While a two-term president typically leaves his stamp on the appeals courts — Bill Clinton appointed 65 judges, Mr. Bush 61 — Mr. Bush’s judges were among the youngest ever nominated and are poised to have an unusually strong impact.

They have arrived at a time when the appeals courts, which decide tens of thousands of cases a year, are increasingly getting the last word. While the Supreme Court gets far more attention, in recent terms it has reviewed only about 75 cases a year—half what it considered a generation ago. And Mr. Bush’s appointees have found allies in likeminded judges named by Mr. Bush’s father and Mr. Reagan.

Republican-appointed judges, most conservatives, now make up 61 percent of the bench, up from 50 percent when Mr. Bush took office. They control 10 of the 13 circuits, while Democrat-appointed judges have a dwindling majority on just one circuit.

David M. McIntosh, a co-founder and vice-chairman of the Federalist Society, said the nation’s appeals courts are now more in line with a conservative judicial ideology than at any other time in memory.

Emphasis added.

Good Time For An Enormous Gaffe On Health Care

by dday

Douglas Holtz-Eakin earned a reputation in the Congressional Budget Office as a fairly honest conservative economist. Today he told the truth about John McCain’s health care plan.

Experts, however, fear that eliminating the tax advantage of employer-based coverage would prompt younger, healthier workers to leave their office plans. If that happened, costs for the remaining workers could skyrocket. Companies may drop coverage altogether.

“If companies know their employees have the tax credit, it relieves them of the burden of providing coverage,” said Sara Collins, who directs a health insurance program at the Commonwealth Fund. McCain’s plan “moves people out of the employer system and to the individual market.” […]

McCain advisers counter these concerns. Changing the tax treatment wouldn’t hurt the employer-sponsored system and would allow more of the uninsured to buy their own coverage, they say. Also, his advisers say a McCain administration would keep an eye on the credit to make sure it didn’t lag behind the cost of coverage, while also working to lower the rate of medical inflation.

Younger, healthier workers likely wouldn’t abandon their company-sponsored plans, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s senior economic policy adviser.

“Why would they leave?” said Holtz-Eakin. “What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit.”

Ay caramba.

Holtz-Eakin is basically saying that the individual health insurance market is crap and the employer market is more preferable because it provides more. That’s elementary, since it pools resources to get a better deal. But of course the entire McCain health care plan seeks to get people AWAY from the employer system and into the individual market. Jason Rosenbaum explains:

Of course, tying health care to employment is the way we’ve done things in America for generations, and it turns out it’s also pretty popular. (Not to mention that insurance companies have to cover you through an employer health care plan, while they can deny you for pre-existing conditions on the individual market.) And so, in the face of political pressure, you have Douglas Holtz-Eakin admitting the truth.

Faced with the fact that destroying our employer-based health care system isn’t exactly a priority for most Americans, he argues that the McCain plan wouldn’t actually destroy the employer-based system. Why? Because the tax credit McCain is offering wouldn’t buy a decent health care plan, even for the young and healthy!

Let’s unpack this a little bit more. According to Holtz-Eakin, John McCain doesn’t actually want to dismantle the employer-based health care system. But, McCain’s plan would tax any health benefits you’d get through work. So, if Holtz-Eakin is right in saying you’d get better coverage through work than you’d get with the tax credit on the individual market (and he probably is), and if he’s right in saying most workers won’t drop their employer-based insurance for the individual market because they’re getting a better deal at work, then John McCain is simply proposing a tax on your current health care benefits without giving you anything in return. That’s the worst kind of tax increase.

There’s also the issue of employers cutting out of the system because of the loss of incentives to provide health care, too.

The best part of this is how the Obama campaign is going after it:

“This morning, the McCain campaign’s top economic policy advisor unleashed an October Surprise of straight talk when he finally admitted that the health insurance people currently get from their employer is ‘way better’ than the health care they would get if John McCain becomes President. Independent studies have shown that under John McCain’s health care plan, at least 20 million Americans will lose the insurance they rely on and be forced to buy health care coverage on the individual market that costs more than $12,000 with a tax credit of just $5,000. Senator McCain has been trying to cover this up for months, but his advisor’s brutal honesty today is certainly better late than never, and it should give every American pause about electing a candidate who has proposed such radical and dangerous changes to our health care system,” said Obama-Biden Spokesman Bill Burton.

Obama has put a significant amount of money into talking about health care, with a whopping 68% of his TV ads devoted at least in part to the issue, including 86% in October. That shows you that the potential is there to make reform an urgent priority. Our health care crisis is tied to the economic woes of the country – US companies are less competitive than their counterparts abroad because they have to also be a giant HMO, skyrocketing costs are putting a giant hole in the federal budget, and treating the uninsured costs everyone in increased premiums.

So far Obama’s spent lots of time defining McCain’s dangerous health care plan but less on his own. After the election, there needs to be massive education around this issue. McCain has steered the election to ground where it really has become a referendum on progressive policies – progressive taxation, government investment in energy and infrastructure, diplomacy versus militarism, and the need to rein in the free market. This mandate needs to carry into health care policy as well. The Republicans know that a Democratic Party giving Americans universal health care would be strong for decades, and will stop at nothing to block it. Even some employers are willing to fight against it even though it’s not in their economic interest. We have a responsibility on many fronts, but especially on health care, to steer the argument and make sure that we meet progressive policy goals and not just cheer because our home team makes it into the White House.

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All The Way To The Top

by digby

This statement should be the basis for serious congressional investigations:

The overblown histrionics about ACORN do not surprise those of us who have been watching the RNC’s election manipulation antics. For eight years White House operatives have been trying to gin up press stories about voter fraud. David Iglesias of New Mexico was one of seven U.S. Attorneys fired by the White House for their refusal to bring voter fraud prosecutions. “We took over 100 complaints,” from the GOP, he told us, “We investigated for almost 2 years, I didn’t find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico.”

Iglesias, a McCain supporter, has, for the first time, leveled a new and serious charge: Despite finding none of the 200 voters guilty, he says the White House nevertheless ordered him to illegally prosecute baseless cases against innocent citizens, just to gin up voter fraud publicity. His refusal, he says, cost him his job. “They were looking for politicized — for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases.”

There will never be a better opening for the Democrats to fix the electoral system and expose the sophisticated GOP vote suppression and propaganda program than now. The US Attorney scandal was never fully dealt with and it needs to be if we hope to have fair elections in the future.

The Republicans have a very well funded, professional operation, developed over years, to keep Democrats from voting and to brainwash local election officials. If the race isn’t close enough to win it by vote suppression and intimidation, they will have laid the groundwork to call the legitimacy of the outcome into question to justify total obstruction of the mandate. (And they have the nerve to say that ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy.)

One of the purposes of having political power is to use it to ensure your future political survival. It doesn’t have to be underhanded or illegal — indeed, in this case protecting the franchise protects the Democratic Party. If that weren’t true, the conservatives wouldn’t work so hard to keeping people from voting. The Democrats are suckers if they don’t take the opportunity of an historic win, with no sour grapes involved, to clean this up. This meme about “voter fraud” is taking hold and if they don’t put a stop to it right now they will regret it.

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Dirty Tricks Watch

by dday

Every year the Republican Party sends a flier into minority or poor neighborhoods telling people to vote on the wrong day. This one is even more efficient, because it claims that Virginia modified their laws to have Republicans vote on November 4 and Democrats on November 5. That way, they don’t lose one vote! Good work, Virginia GOP! There’s a copied logo from the Commonwealth of Virginia on the flier, too, making it look all official-like.

But as far as crude fliers go, this one from Wisconsin, distributed in a heavily white area, wins the prize.

“Change means…BLACK!” Mmm, that’s some delicious ratfucking!

And then there’s this, a pretty novel case of ballot-stealing.

Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office.

The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn’t work for them.

Juan “told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department,” said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. “He said, ‘Don’t worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.'”

Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez’s rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Martinez’s campaign manager, Jeff Garcia, has asked the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office to investigate.

Wow. That’s breathtaking criminality.

The Republicans are going to do everything they can to make sure that if you’re a Democrat, you don’t vote this year. Not all of it will work – the stories of young workers who probably need the money walking off the job at call centers rather than read smear call scripts against Barack Obama are inspiring. And the GOP is consistently losing in the courts. But they clearly have other means, as you can see above, and some will be effective. The best way to stop it is to bring them out into the sunlight.

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Proposition Hate: Meet The Funders

by tristero

In a previous post on the anti-marriage initiative in California called Proposition 8 (aka Prop Hate), I discussed one funder of this hateful proposal, the odious Howard Ahmanson, a well-known christianist extremist.

Now, here’s another, the less-well-known Vineyard Group of Mesa, AZ who donated $35,000 to the National Organization for Marriage of Princeton, NJ, one of the prime movers behind Prop Hate. (Email me if you need back up for this).

Turns out that Broc Hiatt of the Vineyard Group is a director of the Institute for American Values, a think tank that runs websites like The Happiest Wives where we learn that, among other things, “a breadwinning husband,” wives “who stay at home,” and “shared religious attendance” make for Stepford contented wives. Perhaps the oddest criteria for happy wives, however, is “traditional gender attitudes:”

Wives who hold more traditional gender attitudes—e.g., who believe that wives should focus more on nurturing/homemaking and husbands should focus more on breadwinning—are happier than wives who hold more feminist attitudes. One reason this may be the case is that traditional-minded wives probably have lower expectations of what their husbands can and should do for them emotionally and practically. We also find that more traditional-minded wives spend more quality time with their husbands, perhaps because they are less likely to argue with their husbands about housework and childcare.

Right. If you want a happy marriage, expect little to nothing from your hubby, and don’t argue. Just as long as he stays out of the house, working his butt off.

In other words, the people behind Prop Hate aren’t promoting marriage in general, but a particular kind of marriage: A patriarchy of the kind literally illustrated on their website. And again, as noted in my previous post, the role that they assign to religion in this kind of marriage brings up disturbing church/state issues in the Prop Hate initiative.

Broc Hiatt’s think tank has some other papers worth perusing to get an idea of who these people are. One of the stranger is this one, The Consequences of Marriage for African Americans which opines:

There are racial differences in the consequences of marriage. All in all, Black women appear to receive a smaller marriage premium than White women. Black men appear to receive a smaller marriage premium only in terms of their satisfaction with family life. A major reason for these differentials is that marriages of African Americans are, on average, of lower quality than those of Whites.

Let’s take this at face value, as William Raspberry did, and not as racist cant. Nevertheless, he was struck by this finding in the full report, which somehow did not make it into the executive summary available online:

Our research finds that marriage brings small health benefits to black men — and none to black women. In fact, married black women are significantly less likely to report having excellent health than are unmarried black women.

Actually, there’s no mystery why this information wasn’t in the executive summary. It undermined this confident, pre-ordained conclusion:

On average, married African Americans are wealthier, happier, and choose healthier behaviors than their unmarried peers, and their children typically fare better in life—differences that indeed seem to stem largely from marriage itself.

But there’s an unusual “tell” in their recommendations:

Policies seeking to increase marriage rates and marital quality among African Americans should focus on tax reform, reducing domestic violence, providing culturally-relevant marital education and counseling, and numerous other efforts outlined in the report.

Tax reform, first?

The clear picture that emerges is that one more funder for Prop Hate is actively involved in the advocacy of an extreme rightwing agenda, of which the denial of marriage equality is but one piece.

Vote NO on Prop Hate.

Holy Moldy

by digby

So Joe the sanctimonious jerk is making his move:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, one of John McCain’s closest political allies, said Friday he does not believe that Barack Obama is unprepared to be president.

“I’m saying he is less prepared than McCain,” Lieberman said.

But what about Sarah Palin?

Is she ready?

“If, God forbid, an accident occurs or something of that kind?” Lieberman said. “Um, she’ll be ready. You know, she’s had executive experience. She’s smart and she will have had on-the-job training.”…

“[McCain] is ready to be our president at this very difficult time,” Lieberman said. “And Sen. Obama is not as ready. It’s as direct as that.”

Hendrick Hertzberg says:

Not as ready. Sweet.

That little word—“as”—is supposed to be Lieberman’s life jacket, I guess, now that the SS McCain looks like it’s going glug glug glug and may not, after all, be seaworthy enough to deliver its chaplain to that big corner office in the Pentagon. Google “lieberman obama ‘not ready’” if you need a few thousand samples of the unqualified way Joe talked about Barack’s readiness before the ship hit the iceberg.

You probably don’t need any reminding of any more of Lieberman’s perfidy, but Hertzberg runs down some of the highlights if you like to torture yourself.

This reminds me of something that’s been driving me nuts for the past few days. The gasbags are chattering excitedly about the potential filibuster-proof Democratic senate majority. On what planet does anyone think that’s actually going to be operative? It wouldn’t happen with people like Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieu, much less Holy Joe. In fact, this fantasy would put Lieberman right back where he was in the last congress — the deciding vote. Oy vey. They’d be better off just sticking with 59 votes than let that jackass run his game anymore.

Matthews said today that he thought the governing party should have a filibuster proof majority so he would know who to blame when nothing gets done. Doesn’t that sound like a perfect set up? Either Reid and Obama will have to whip up some unprecedented party loyalty or they’re going to have to educate the mainstream media about the fact that having 60 “Democrats” in the Senate isn’t a magic legislative bullet. I’m not sure which one of those things is less likely to succeed.

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Playing With Fire

by digby

I understand why neither the authorities or the media want to make too big of a deal about assassination plots against Obama by knuckleheads. Elevating such things to a Big Story might just make some people think it’s worth doing. But sadly, knuckleheads are often the perpetrators of such crimes and the fact that we have had two plots (that we know of) thwarted already makes me very nervous.

I grew up in a time when American political leaders were assassinated with alarming frequency. It almost happened as recently as 1981, although the perpetrator was a nutcase rather than a racist or someone with a political agenda. It’s not a relic of some distant time in our history. And this election is running on some of those very same fault lines in American life, adding to the victimology of the right wing and feeding into some very ugly corners of the American lizard brain.

If anything happens, I will hold Republicans responsible for failing to call out the disgusting behavior of their rabid base and very explicitly and frequently reminding their neanderthal followers that political differences are not a cause for violence. Lying about Obama “palling around with terrorists” was damned close to endorsing an assassination attempt. It’s no wonder that knuckleheads are out there scheming.

Reader Jake from North Carolina sent this in to me last night:

We (Asheville) are hosting Ms. Palin in the arena this evening in a big, last-minute and hastily planned rally.

People have come from all over the southeast. Primarily, the crowd is local, but there seems to be a large contingent from South Carolina, just about an hour’s drive from here. The crowd was estimated to be about 8,000, but I can tell by how long the line is (and comparing it to concerts that have had large turnouts), that there’s easily 15,000 out there. The line has gone around the block completely and backed up around back to the front door again…

You should see this crowd. These people all look normal enough, until you really start studying them. Most are happy, but about every third one is angry and quite willing to scrap with the occasional protester that wonders by (The good news, about one of every 10 is an Obama supporter.) I’ve spoken to a few, they’re very sure they’re going to win. That Palin is going to be the next VP, and shortly, the Pres. Comments on our local paper’s site show that people are taken with the notion that Palin is just like their neighbors wife.

I didn’t delve into “why” they were so sure that things are going to swing their way. Maybe they believe that they’ve prayed about it fervently enough. Maybe the fact that so many are from the reddest of red states where red state media only serves up red meat to chew on has skewed their world view. One can only imagine. Maybe in their last meeting in the great conspiracy cornfield were they all meet to breed they discussed the proper techniques for stealing votes. Who knows?

It only takes one of those disappointed true believers who have been convinced that Obama is a Muslim socialist in league with terrorists to do something stupid. particularly since millions of them will be convinced that ACORN stole the election for him. If you think that all this doesn’t tie into those white supremacist twits they caught today, think again:

The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism’s flagship publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is “more Maoist than Stalinist,” and National Review writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren mused, “for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.”

This conclusion is one she shares with Robert Shelton, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s, who declared that “amalgamation is ultimately the goal of the Communist element.” (To be fair, these conclusions make a bit of sense: could there be a more perfect vessel for a secret communist takeover of the United States than a biracial one-term senator from Chicago with an Arabic-sounding name? At a Starbucks somewhere, Chairman Mao is leeching WiFi for a quick instant message to William Ayers: “It’s happening exactly how we planned it.”)

McCain, a child of privilege who spent the late 1960s in a Vietnamese prison camp, may simply be unaware of the feelings and historical context he has evoked through his campaign’s rhetoric. When Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and suggests that Obama hates his own country enough to wish it violence, the McCain campaign fuels age-old paranoia built around the conflation of black rights and the radical left. As for McCain himself, his attempts to tamp down the vitriol of his crowds suggest that he is somewhat confused by their response. He wants voters to dislike Obama, but he seems unaware of just what he has unleashed. However, by implicitly invoking the idea that Obama represents a socialist takeover of the United States, McCain is inviting what can only be a rational response from those who would die for their country: violence. What else is a patriot to do when freedom is threatened? Especially when their fears have been validated by no less authoritative a source than the Republican nominee for president of the United States?

Here are Rush’s comments on today’s nonsense regarding Obama’s comments in 2001 about the Supreme Court:

LIMBAUGH: I just think it’s about the economy right now. You mentioned cap gains — that may be a little sophisticated. But this Obama tape that’s out there is not. It’s not too sophisticated. It is easily understood. When you’ve got a guy out there saying that he doesn’t believe in the U.S. Constitution, yet he’s got to take an oath to defend it and protect it. I mean, did Hillary put this out? Where’s this been? How come this has not come out until now? Now there’s a lot of undecideds and that’s where this tape and that’s where the economic mantle on Obama can have some impact here in the final week.

Yeah right, saying Obama doesn’t believe in the constitution is an “economic” argument. It plays directly into some of the more arcane weirdness in the far right about blacks and communism and Muslims forcing Sharia law on your virgin daughters and all sorts of wingnut crazy that’s only going to get worse if the Democrats win. He knows exactly what kind of fear and rage he’s feeding.

These conservatives are playing with fire, just like those firebugs out here in California who persist in playing with matches on the dried up hillsides and causing catastrophes.

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