Today, the Supreme Court of the United States voted 5-4 to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Directly after this decision was handed down, conservatives around the country went even more batshit than they are already are and took to Twitter and Facebook to scream about the federal government.
"What doesn't the federal government have the power to tax?" one of my FB friends asked? Xanax? Therapy?
Anyhoozles, here are my thoughts on the decision.
As I noted yesterday, everyone wins. The president's signature bill is Constitutional. The Democrats can now run with a very large win under their belt as there will be no more legal challenges to the ACA. Mitt Romney wins because now he can now energize the base for this election with promises of repeal. I know he is saying "Repeal and Replace" but I have yet to see the "Replace" part of that equation. In fact, is there a solution from anyone on the right other than "Do Nothing?" Regardless, there are a lot of Armageddon shelter builders out there that will now turn out to vote.
The main thing I keep thinking about is how this was originally a GOP plan. It originated at the Heritage Foundation and does, in essence, what the right bitches about all the time-ELIMINATE THE FREELOADERS. Since the law states that we must treat everyone, then everyone should have health insurance. If you choose not to (that's right, no one is forcing you), you have to pay a penalty.
Now the GOP were all for this until January of 2009 when Obama and the Democrats got behind it in the completely hilarious hope that the Republicans would support it as well. That ended up going something like this.
"What?!!!? Dad and Mom support it now??!! Fuck that noise!"
And then they hated it.
Toss in all the feelings and emotions they have about the other side winning and you have all the usual.
I'm sadly disappointed in Anthony Kennedy for not siding with Chief Justice Roberts and the other four justices in the majority. For being a "swing voter," he certainly does seem to fall on libertarian grounds more often than not. The fact that he couldn't see it as a tax shows how his personal ideology interfered with his supposed blind judgement. That's also true of Scalia, Alito, and Thomas.
Speaking of taxes, wasn't it great how Chief Justice Roberts did the Democrats job for them? The fact that they were so chicken shit back in 2009-2010 that they couldn't call it a tax says a lot. Now, of course, it's fine to talk about raising taxes on the wealthy after the OWS movement but where were they back then when it took real guts?
Doing a piss poor job of effectively communicating why this bill is needed while allowing the right to panic monger the shit out of it.
I guess I'm happy, mostly, though with the outcome today. It's the best option we have right now for dealing with this problem and I'm grateful that John Roberts saw this in a larger picture rather than his personal ideological lens.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Chief Justice Roberts Mans Up
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, is constitutional in a five to four decision. The ruling lets stand the personal mandate and most of the other provisions, the exception being the penalties imposed on states that refuse to expand Medicaid.
This is a major milestone for the Supreme Court, which for the last twelve years has made many decisions for political instead of legal reasons. This ruling, along with Monday's on the Arizona immigration law, may indicate that Chief Justice John Roberts is evolving into an independent jurist who takes his stewardship of the law of the land seriously, and is not a political puppet bent on satisfying his political masters or pursuing a partisan agenda. The different between Roberts and Antonin Scalia is particularly striking.
The interesting thing about the ruling was that the mandate was found constitutional not on the commerce clause, but on the federal government's authority to levy taxes. This was always obvious to me from the beginning, but Democrats avoided characterizing it that way because they didn't want to be painted as creating a new tax. During oral arguments the justices seemed to denigrate the commerce clause as a justification for the mandate, making many think it would almost certainly be overturned. Scalia attempted to equate the mandate to forcing people to buy broccoli.
This was always a bogus argument, because people who don't buy broccoli don't eat broccoli, but people who don't pay for health insurance can still use health care. If you have a medical emergency the hospital is required by law to treat you. Which means that if you have a heart attack while jogging you won't die just because you didn't have your insurance card with you.
The law does not make it a crime to avoid buying health insurance. You just have to pay a penalty if you're not covered. In essence you have the choice between a) buying health insurance and b) paying an obstinacy tax. Furthermore, if you really can't afford to pay for health care the law provides subsidies and exceptions.
People have characterized the mandate as Obama's plan, but during the 2008 presidential primary he frequently voiced his opposition to it. Hillary Clinton had endorsed mandates by 2008 because conservatives, like Mitt Romney and Bob Dole and the Heritage Foundation, had proposed it to counter the health care plan she developed during the first Clinton administration. Obama and many Democrats compromised and reluctantly signed on to the mandate thinking that they could get some number of those same conservatives to be consist and continue to support what they themselves had invented. But almost no Republicans signed on; they only cared about handing Obama a political defeat.
Everyone knows that our health care system is too expensive and inefficient, that hospitals can't be expected to provide emergency room treatment for free, and that people should be responsible for themselves. Republican opposition to the health care law is simply political sabotage.
It's a relief to see Justice Roberts admit that and do what's right for the country.
This is a major milestone for the Supreme Court, which for the last twelve years has made many decisions for political instead of legal reasons. This ruling, along with Monday's on the Arizona immigration law, may indicate that Chief Justice John Roberts is evolving into an independent jurist who takes his stewardship of the law of the land seriously, and is not a political puppet bent on satisfying his political masters or pursuing a partisan agenda. The different between Roberts and Antonin Scalia is particularly striking.
The interesting thing about the ruling was that the mandate was found constitutional not on the commerce clause, but on the federal government's authority to levy taxes. This was always obvious to me from the beginning, but Democrats avoided characterizing it that way because they didn't want to be painted as creating a new tax. During oral arguments the justices seemed to denigrate the commerce clause as a justification for the mandate, making many think it would almost certainly be overturned. Scalia attempted to equate the mandate to forcing people to buy broccoli.
This was always a bogus argument, because people who don't buy broccoli don't eat broccoli, but people who don't pay for health insurance can still use health care. If you have a medical emergency the hospital is required by law to treat you. Which means that if you have a heart attack while jogging you won't die just because you didn't have your insurance card with you.
The law does not make it a crime to avoid buying health insurance. You just have to pay a penalty if you're not covered. In essence you have the choice between a) buying health insurance and b) paying an obstinacy tax. Furthermore, if you really can't afford to pay for health care the law provides subsidies and exceptions.
People have characterized the mandate as Obama's plan, but during the 2008 presidential primary he frequently voiced his opposition to it. Hillary Clinton had endorsed mandates by 2008 because conservatives, like Mitt Romney and Bob Dole and the Heritage Foundation, had proposed it to counter the health care plan she developed during the first Clinton administration. Obama and many Democrats compromised and reluctantly signed on to the mandate thinking that they could get some number of those same conservatives to be consist and continue to support what they themselves had invented. But almost no Republicans signed on; they only cared about handing Obama a political defeat.
Everyone knows that our health care system is too expensive and inefficient, that hospitals can't be expected to provide emergency room treatment for free, and that people should be responsible for themselves. Republican opposition to the health care law is simply political sabotage.
It's a relief to see Justice Roberts admit that and do what's right for the country.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
SCOTUS EVE
'Twas the night before the Supreme Court ruling and all through the house, predictions and prognostications were stirring even the mouse! Any thoughts on how it will go? Politico has an interesting piece up that essentially says that if the law is partially or entirely struck down, everyone loses.
I agree.
I agree.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
To the Ends of the Earth!
A lot of the people who support Big Oil are skeptical that human CO2 emissions from the burning of coal and oil could possibly change the climate. But Big Oil is about to make out like bandits because the receding arctic ice cap has uncovered a new supply of oil near the North Pole. Because the ice cap is now gone most of the summer, Shell Oil will be able to start exploratory drilling this summer.
According to an article in Scientific American (which has frequently run ads for Shell):
That means the entire reserve in the arctic would last the world about a thousand days, or less than three years. However, it will likely take years or decades to extract that oil, because the oil fields are remote, frigid and deep beneath the ocean. If you thought the technological challenges of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico were daunting, imagine drilling for oil when the temperature is 40 below zero and the wind is blowing 50 miles an hour. Because even though the arctic sea ice now melts almost completely in the summer, winter at the pole is still terribly harsh. And since countries like Russia, Norway, Sweden, Canada and Finland will also have claims to arctic oil the amount the United States could drill would likely last less than a single year.
Doesn't it seem a little crazy to spend that much money and risk men's lives in such a treacherous environment to extract that last little bit of oil from the ends of the earth? At this point it makes more sense to invest those resources on a renewable source that will provide us with energy for long term. We can always wait to go after that oil later, after the technology has improved.
But it makes you wonder: are Big Oil's supporters intentionally lying about global warming so they can get at that last bit of oil?
According to an article in Scientific American (which has frequently run ads for Shell):
The US Geological Survey estimated in 2008 that the Arctic holds up to 90 billion barrels of oil — 13% of the world’s technically recoverable supply. Exploration and production is already under way on the other side of the Arctic, off Norway and Russia, for example (see The great Arctic oil race begins). Many parts of the Arctic circle are becoming ever-more accessible thanks to improved technologies and a reduction in summer sea ice because of climate change.That 90 billion number is interesting, because the estimated world consumption of oil for 2010 is about 90 million barrels a day, according to this website and by adding up the numbers on the CIA world factbook website.
That means the entire reserve in the arctic would last the world about a thousand days, or less than three years. However, it will likely take years or decades to extract that oil, because the oil fields are remote, frigid and deep beneath the ocean. If you thought the technological challenges of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico were daunting, imagine drilling for oil when the temperature is 40 below zero and the wind is blowing 50 miles an hour. Because even though the arctic sea ice now melts almost completely in the summer, winter at the pole is still terribly harsh. And since countries like Russia, Norway, Sweden, Canada and Finland will also have claims to arctic oil the amount the United States could drill would likely last less than a single year.
Doesn't it seem a little crazy to spend that much money and risk men's lives in such a treacherous environment to extract that last little bit of oil from the ends of the earth? At this point it makes more sense to invest those resources on a renewable source that will provide us with energy for long term. We can always wait to go after that oil later, after the technology has improved.
But it makes you wonder: are Big Oil's supporters intentionally lying about global warming so they can get at that last bit of oil?
Step One: Be A Giant Dick
When 14-year-old boys sound exactly like you do and can produce radio shows and books and speeches that sound exactly like yours, maybe you should rethink the shit that comes out of your mouth. Remember the Republican debates we had this year? They applauded for the idea of letting a sick man without insurance die. Herman Cain got cheers for saying he’d electrify the border fence. They booed a gay man serving his country in the military. No wonder 14-year-old boys can do your act, you act exactly like 14-year-old boys.
There’s no ideology here. It’s just about being a dick.
Yep.
There’s no ideology here. It’s just about being a dick.
Yep.
Monday, June 25, 2012
A Victory? Really?
Today in what many are calling a victory for the Arizona immigration law, the Supreme Court ruled most the law unconstitutional:
The justices let stand for now the part of the law that requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain or arrest if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) declared that decision, on the part of the law that had generated the most controversy, a victory.
The court ruled that Arizona cannot make it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to carry identification that says whether they are in the United States legally; cannot make it a crime for undocumented immigrants to apply for a job; and cannot arrest someone based solely on the suspicion that the person is in this country illegally.
The court also said the part of the law it upheld — requiring officers to check the immigration status of those they detain and reasonably believe to be illegal immigrants — could be subject to additional legal challenges once it is implemented.This means that the state of Arizona can force the police to you for your papers if they've stopped you on the street for some other reason, but the cops can't arrest you if you fail to do so, they can't arrest you for applying for a job without producing papers, and they can't arrest you just because they suspect you're here illegally.
What's the point of being able to ask for your papers if you can just say no, and there's nothing they can do if you refuse?
Basically, the Supreme Court says it's okay for Arizona to make laws that require the police to hassle people on the street. It's okay to pass laws that produce an oppressive cloud of suspicion on anyone who looks "Mexican."
The Court also left open the door for challenges the law once it goes into effect. This seems quite likely because different jurisdictions will enforce it differently, and different officers will exercise varying degrees of "reasonable suspicion," meaning that there will be selective enforcement and individuals will not all receive equal treatment under the law.
This doesn't sound like a big victory for Jan Brewer and the "centerpiece" of law. It sounds like this law was just gutted of its enforcement provisions, and will promptly be challenged when Joe Arpaio's men start harassing people for DWL (driving while Latino). And since the entire basis of it is blatantly subjective, it will probably face a skeptical Supreme Court if the state bothers to appeal it that far.
Dude, Is This My Flying Car?
The e-volo volocopter won the Lindbergh Prize for innovation in aviation in April, but I didn't hear about it until I recently read this article in Scientific American.
At first glance the thing looks crazy and more than a little dangerous with all those whirling knives. The design calls for a small 50-75 kw engine (typical of ultralight aircraft) that generates electricity for the 18 electric motors that drive the carbon-fiber propellers. There's also a lithium battery backup power supply. It steers by changing the speeds of individual rotors, using a joystick for control rather than standard helicopter rudder pedals, control stick and throttle. A computer will magically translate your directions into commands for the 18 rotors.
Using a bunch of small inexpensive rotors instead of one big rotor and tail boom drastically reduces the mass of the aircraft. Having 18 rotors provides redundancy that standard helicopters don't have—the craft should be able to fly with as few as 12 rotors, as long as they don't all fail on one side. That doesn't really comfort me, though: if you run into a tree or power line you're gonna lose all the rotors on one side.
They've done exactly one test flight as a proof of concept. The test vehicle used an exercise ball as its primary landing gear. The thing looks like something they built in a garage. But the Wright brothers built their first plane in a bicycle workshop, so more power to them.
I don't know if the volocopter will ever get off the ground, but the amazing thing is that the inventors are from Germany. Apparently not all innovation has been crushed by that over-regulated union-run health-care-for-all socialist European economy.
Bladerunner was set in LA in 2019. Maybe Philip K. Dick and Ridley Scott's bleak vision of a future with flying cars and megacorporations where Americans speak a patois of German/Spanish/Japanese/English isn't so far off.
Now, where are those basic pleasure model androids that look like Daryl Hannah?
A Sad Witness
I'm glad Nikto got up a post yesterday as I was too ripped to put anything up after my weekend in Wisconsin for my mom's retirement. Sadly, I was a witness to an old and dear friend (he's 84 years young) complete submission to the Cult.
It didn't take him long to bring up Barack X as he loves to talk politics.
"The biggest problem I have is that Barack Obama is a Muslim," he said with vehemence.
"No, he's not. He went to the same Christian church for over 20 years. Reverend Wright, remember?" I replied.
"Ah, bullshit. He wasn't even born here either. That birth certificate is fake."
I tried to convince him but the facts just bounced off.
And no, he's not an outlier.
It didn't take him long to bring up Barack X as he loves to talk politics.
"The biggest problem I have is that Barack Obama is a Muslim," he said with vehemence.
"No, he's not. He went to the same Christian church for over 20 years. Reverend Wright, remember?" I replied.
"Ah, bullshit. He wasn't even born here either. That birth certificate is fake."
I tried to convince him but the facts just bounced off.
And no, he's not an outlier.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
—All You Zombies—
The New York Times has an interesting article about the employees at Apple stores. These guys, mostly in their 20s and mostly with college degrees, make up 30,000 of Apple's 43,000 US employees and earn between $11.25 and $17.31 an hour.
It's a decent enough job, as far as retail goes. Unlike Walmart, they offer health care, 401(k) contributions, a chance to buy Apple stock and discounts on Apple products. But unlike employees at Verizon and AT&T stores, they're not on commission. They work in very hectic and stressful conditions and have no real path to career advancement. It's a dead-end job. But many Apple store employees move up to $3 million a year of expensive Apple products.
Now, some people will say that these guys don't deserve a piece of the action because Apple products sell themselves. Apple's customer base is essentially a cult who will buy anything emblazoned with the logo, no matter how expensive it is, and they will buy it over and over again each time the company releases a new version with even the most trivial enhancements just so they can say they have the latest Apple gewgaw.
As such, Apple store employees are just glorified cash registers. But the fact is, these guys do more than ring up purchases. They help you pick the right product and provide tech support: no matter how fabulous the product might look in the ads, there are always problems that require real human beings to fix.
But let's say that this is true. Apple store employees are interchangeable cogs that don't deserve a living wage because Apple customers are zombies with an insatiable hunger for brains—err, iPhones. The genius of Steve Jobs, his vision, drive and cynical manipulation of his customers' egos made Apple what it is today. Fair enough. But if so, what's good for the employee is good for the CEO.
According to the article, Apple CEO Tim Cook "received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period, that at today’s share price would be worth more than $570 million." Yes, Apple's CEO Tim Cook is worth half a billion dollars just because Steve Jobs died. Cook did squat to earn that kind of compensation, he's just the guy who happened to sit down in Jobs' chair when the music stopped.
This is a perfect illustration of what's wrong with executive compensation in this country. Pretty much anyone could have inherited Steve Job's job and kept Apple profitable, just be staying out of the way of product designers and marketers. If Tim Cook got hit by a bus tomorrow, Apple wouldn't skip a beat.
The fact is, the guys on top of pretty much any publicly owned corporation are just as interchangeable as Apple store employees. But since interlocking corporate boards of directors (CEOs typically sit on the boards of other companies) decide compensation, for the last 50 years CEOs have been sitting around voting each other pay raises. In that time CEO pay has risen from 40 times the average employee's salary to 400 times.
But we still haven't mentioned the people who are really responsible for Apple's success: the engineers and programmers who design these products, and the workers in China who work 18-hour days at a rate of $22 a day to build them. And, lest we forget, the legions of zombies who ultimately provide all the company's profits, the customers themselves.
It's really All You Zombies out there who made Apple a success. If you think the guy at the Apple store who fixed your iPhone helped you more than Tim Cook ever did, let Apple know that Apple store employees deserve a piece of the action.
It's a decent enough job, as far as retail goes. Unlike Walmart, they offer health care, 401(k) contributions, a chance to buy Apple stock and discounts on Apple products. But unlike employees at Verizon and AT&T stores, they're not on commission. They work in very hectic and stressful conditions and have no real path to career advancement. It's a dead-end job. But many Apple store employees move up to $3 million a year of expensive Apple products.
Now, some people will say that these guys don't deserve a piece of the action because Apple products sell themselves. Apple's customer base is essentially a cult who will buy anything emblazoned with the logo, no matter how expensive it is, and they will buy it over and over again each time the company releases a new version with even the most trivial enhancements just so they can say they have the latest Apple gewgaw.
As such, Apple store employees are just glorified cash registers. But the fact is, these guys do more than ring up purchases. They help you pick the right product and provide tech support: no matter how fabulous the product might look in the ads, there are always problems that require real human beings to fix.
But let's say that this is true. Apple store employees are interchangeable cogs that don't deserve a living wage because Apple customers are zombies with an insatiable hunger for brains—err, iPhones. The genius of Steve Jobs, his vision, drive and cynical manipulation of his customers' egos made Apple what it is today. Fair enough. But if so, what's good for the employee is good for the CEO.
According to the article, Apple CEO Tim Cook "received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period, that at today’s share price would be worth more than $570 million." Yes, Apple's CEO Tim Cook is worth half a billion dollars just because Steve Jobs died. Cook did squat to earn that kind of compensation, he's just the guy who happened to sit down in Jobs' chair when the music stopped.
This is a perfect illustration of what's wrong with executive compensation in this country. Pretty much anyone could have inherited Steve Job's job and kept Apple profitable, just be staying out of the way of product designers and marketers. If Tim Cook got hit by a bus tomorrow, Apple wouldn't skip a beat.
The fact is, the guys on top of pretty much any publicly owned corporation are just as interchangeable as Apple store employees. But since interlocking corporate boards of directors (CEOs typically sit on the boards of other companies) decide compensation, for the last 50 years CEOs have been sitting around voting each other pay raises. In that time CEO pay has risen from 40 times the average employee's salary to 400 times.
But we still haven't mentioned the people who are really responsible for Apple's success: the engineers and programmers who design these products, and the workers in China who work 18-hour days at a rate of $22 a day to build them. And, lest we forget, the legions of zombies who ultimately provide all the company's profits, the customers themselves.
It's really All You Zombies out there who made Apple a success. If you think the guy at the Apple store who fixed your iPhone helped you more than Tim Cook ever did, let Apple know that Apple store employees deserve a piece of the action.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
A Conversion and a Remembrance
Yesterday one of the staunchest opponents of gay marriage, David Blankenhorn, had a change of heart and announced his support for gay marriage in an editorial in the New York Times.
Blankenhorn was a big supporter of California's Proposition 8, and was one of only two witnesses called in the California Supreme Court trial over the anti-gay marriage proposition that had been adopted by voters (Proposition 8 was pushed hard by the Mormon Church). But his testimony in the trial has often been characterized as being personal opinion rather than expert scientific testimony, and many believed that he actively hurt the case by testifying that gay marriage would reduce the divorce rate. The ban was struck down by the court.
Blankenhorn's evolution on gay marriage is good news, and further evidence that acceptance of gays is continuing an inevitable trend. I welcome his recognition that gays should enjoy the same rights as everyone else, and that they can and have made significant contributions in science, society and even war.
Take the case of Alan Turing, who was born this day 100 years ago. Turing was a mathematician and, by many accounts, the father of the digital computer. During WWII Turing worked at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking center. He was responsible for building the machine that was able to find the settings for the Nazi Enigma cipher machine, which played no small part in the Allied victory over Hitler. (By the way, today's Google doodle is a reference to the Turing Machine.)
After the war Turing went on to design one of the first stored program computers. In 1952 his home was broken into and matter-of-factly Turing mentioned to the police that he had a male lover. He was charged with "acts of gross indecency." Turing accepted chemical castration by taking female hormones. He died two years later of cyanide poisoning. At the time his death was ruled suicide, but some recent theories posit that his death was accidental (he was experimenting with cyanide in his home, as his research had expanded beyond computing into chemistry and biology). Rather than being despondent, Turing was characterized as defiant, cheerful, and humorous by acquaintances in the days before his death.
In Turing's day, a mere sixty years ago, laws across the world were used to persecute gays and lesbians. Now such discrimination is limited to countries like Iran, where they executed three men for homosexual activity last year and have sentenced four more men to hang last month. Does conservative America really want to align itself with Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs on the issue of gays and gay marriage? Doesn't the American ideal of liberty and justice for all have a better ring?
Blankenhorn was a big supporter of California's Proposition 8, and was one of only two witnesses called in the California Supreme Court trial over the anti-gay marriage proposition that had been adopted by voters (Proposition 8 was pushed hard by the Mormon Church). But his testimony in the trial has often been characterized as being personal opinion rather than expert scientific testimony, and many believed that he actively hurt the case by testifying that gay marriage would reduce the divorce rate. The ban was struck down by the court.
Blankenhorn's evolution on gay marriage is good news, and further evidence that acceptance of gays is continuing an inevitable trend. I welcome his recognition that gays should enjoy the same rights as everyone else, and that they can and have made significant contributions in science, society and even war.
Take the case of Alan Turing, who was born this day 100 years ago. Turing was a mathematician and, by many accounts, the father of the digital computer. During WWII Turing worked at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking center. He was responsible for building the machine that was able to find the settings for the Nazi Enigma cipher machine, which played no small part in the Allied victory over Hitler. (By the way, today's Google doodle is a reference to the Turing Machine.)
After the war Turing went on to design one of the first stored program computers. In 1952 his home was broken into and matter-of-factly Turing mentioned to the police that he had a male lover. He was charged with "acts of gross indecency." Turing accepted chemical castration by taking female hormones. He died two years later of cyanide poisoning. At the time his death was ruled suicide, but some recent theories posit that his death was accidental (he was experimenting with cyanide in his home, as his research had expanded beyond computing into chemistry and biology). Rather than being despondent, Turing was characterized as defiant, cheerful, and humorous by acquaintances in the days before his death.
In Turing's day, a mere sixty years ago, laws across the world were used to persecute gays and lesbians. Now such discrimination is limited to countries like Iran, where they executed three men for homosexual activity last year and have sentenced four more men to hang last month. Does conservative America really want to align itself with Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs on the issue of gays and gay marriage? Doesn't the American ideal of liberty and justice for all have a better ring?
Huh?
Any of the commenters that migrated from Kevin's site care to explain this video?
The last four years have seen more relaxed gun laws and, honestly, the decimation of the gun control lobby so I don't get it.
The last four years have seen more relaxed gun laws and, honestly, the decimation of the gun control lobby so I don't get it.
Friday, June 22, 2012
The Blatant Quid Pro Quo
The basis of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision is the assumption that the presence of unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns does not lead to corruption, or even the appearance of corruption. The incredibly naive assumption they're making is that when people donate money to political campaigns there is no quid pro quo expected.
The Supreme Court should hear what some of these donors have been saying recently to see how campaign donations work in practice. From an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Bob Cummins, who has donated more than $3.5 million to Minnesota Republican causes, is telling allies he has had it with Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature and will not give their campaigns any cash this year, according to multiple sources.The reason? Cummins paid Republicans to put a union-busting "right-to-work" amendment on the 2012 ballot, and they failed to do so. Instead, they put a voter suppression "voter ID" amendment and an anti-gay "marriage" amendment on the ballot.
The Republicans wanted to bust the unions, but they feared a backlash that would bring a flood of union money and a big labor turnout on election day that would defeat all three amendments and their Republican backers. Since this is a redistricting year, the whole legislature is up for grabs--there are no "safe" Senate seats. If there's a huge Democratic turnout in 2012 the Republicans will lose control of the House and Senate, which they took in 2010.
Now, you can see why Cummins is mad. He gave a quarter million dollars to Republicans last year, expecting them to pass a union-busting amendment. All he got was this stupid gay marriage amendment. The Republicans just aren't doing what he paid them for.
Everyone assumes that there's an unspoken quid pro quo associated with campaign contributions, but big Republican donors aren't even hiding it anymore. They have publicly announced that they expect direct and immediate action when they give politicians money.
Cummins and Grover Norquist are committing blatant political extortion and assassination. Norquist has already driven several conservative Republican icons such as Dick Lugar from office because they were too accommodating to their constituents' concerns: i.e., working with Democrats to actually get things done.
Republicans will come to regret Citizens United and the increasingly demonic role of money in politics. Soon, it won't matter how conservative you are: the only thing that will matter is how much pork you provide your corporate donors. Business interests will quickly diverge from mainstream conservative thought and focus purely on promoting a corporate kleptocracy that has no ideology other than money.
You need look no further than Mitt Romney's campaign promises: he would cut all government expenditures, except for defense. Why? Defense spending goes directly into the pockets of giant corporations. The same old military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Using Government to Enforce Religious Orthodoxy
This November Minnesota has an amendment on the ballot to ban gay marriage, although there's already a law on the books that prevents it. This has brought out many of the usual suspects, such as the Catholic Church, which supports the ban, and the ACLU, which opposes it.
But there have been a few surprises, such as General Mills coming out against the ban, and two influential pastors who have decided not to take a public stand on the amendment.
This last development seems surprising, but is quite logical once you think about it. Both men have spoken out against gay marriage in the past, so it's clear what they think. But the Rev. John Piper said in a sermon:
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, does not get it. If the Catholic hierarchy believes government has the ability to dictate something as basic as who you can and can't marry, then government certainly has the authority over picayune details such as requiring Catholic universities to provide their employees with health insurance policies that include birth control.
In other words, the Church can't complain that the government is trampling their religious freedoms while simultaneously calling for the government to trample other people's religious freedoms.
Hasn't the Catholic Church learned its lesson after centuries of bloodshed in its name? The Church has burned homosexuals at the stake, executed people for heresies as trivial as the Protestant rejection of transubstantiation and the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and gone to war for that most heinous of heresies, the Protestant heresy, which according to current Catholic doctrine "denies the infallible authority of the Church and claims that each individual is to interpret Scripture for himself."
Amending a state constitution to enforce Catholic orthodoxy on everyone is less bloody than the Inquisition or the massacre of thousands of Calvinist Protestants on St. Bartholomew's Day by King Charles IX of France. But it's no different than Muslim countries incorporating Sharia law into their legal code, something which Catholics and Protestants alike can agree is a bad thing.
But there have been a few surprises, such as General Mills coming out against the ban, and two influential pastors who have decided not to take a public stand on the amendment.
This last development seems surprising, but is quite logical once you think about it. Both men have spoken out against gay marriage in the past, so it's clear what they think. But the Rev. John Piper said in a sermon:
Don't press the organization of the church or her pastors into political activism, Expect from your shepherds not that they would rally you behind political candidates or legislative mandates, but they would point you over and over again to God and to his word.I applaud these men, because they realize that it's not in religion's best interests to enlist the government to enforce religious beliefs on others.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, does not get it. If the Catholic hierarchy believes government has the ability to dictate something as basic as who you can and can't marry, then government certainly has the authority over picayune details such as requiring Catholic universities to provide their employees with health insurance policies that include birth control.
In other words, the Church can't complain that the government is trampling their religious freedoms while simultaneously calling for the government to trample other people's religious freedoms.
Hasn't the Catholic Church learned its lesson after centuries of bloodshed in its name? The Church has burned homosexuals at the stake, executed people for heresies as trivial as the Protestant rejection of transubstantiation and the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and gone to war for that most heinous of heresies, the Protestant heresy, which according to current Catholic doctrine "denies the infallible authority of the Church and claims that each individual is to interpret Scripture for himself."
Amending a state constitution to enforce Catholic orthodoxy on everyone is less bloody than the Inquisition or the massacre of thousands of Calvinist Protestants on St. Bartholomew's Day by King Charles IX of France. But it's no different than Muslim countries incorporating Sharia law into their legal code, something which Catholics and Protestants alike can agree is a bad thing.
The Question
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Bristol Palin's latest foray into television, the reality show Life's a Tripp, was less than stellar: its premiere had a 0.2 rating, much less than the 0.8 rating its lead-in, Dance Moms, drew on the Lifetime cable network.
It's not surprising. The Palins are old hat. Everyone is buzzing about Ann Romney's horse being in the Olympics. Who cares about the trials and tribulations of a has-been Dancing with the Stars contestant and her illegitimate child?
I missed the show Tuesday night, but based solely on the title I can imagine that it's all about the wonderfulness of her choice to bear Tripp to term, and to not have an abortion. I'm guessing she goes on and on about how little Tripp has brightened her life and made everything worthwhile and more meaningful. And, just like all the conservatives who constantly posit what Obama must really believe, I'm under no obligation to find out what she really said.
But there is a Question at the heart of this show, the same Question that abortion opponents always throw in your face during arguments: what if your mother had aborted you?
It's a pointless existential Question. If my mother had aborted me I wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't have asked me that question. It's like asking, what if your mother had miscarried? What if you had been creamed by a bus this morning? What if Stalin's father had strangled little Iosif in the cradle? What if the star of Bethlehem that the wise men followed was an asteroid that hit the earth and killed all the water buffalo in the manger? What if that little girl hadn't beat up Karl Rove when he said he would vote for Nixon in 1960?
The Question is a psychological trick to elicit a personal revulsion against abortion in the listener. It's a shameless gimmick to remove attention from the real issue, which is women exercising control over their own bodies, to promote a me-first mentality.
But if you're going to ask the Question, why not ask Tripp Palin, "What if your mom hadn't fornicated?"
Conservatives are always talking about abstinence, but here we have Bristol Palin on national television telling us how Trippy it is to have a child out of wedlock.
Looking at this more closely, we actually see that fornication is good because it creates life. Like abortion, abstinence is bad because it denies life. Like abortion, abstinence is bad because starts with "ab."
Fornication gave Bristol Palin a wonderful child and a fulfilling relationship with him. Fornication got her on Dancing with the Stars, it got her memoir published, it got her dozens of $15, 000 to $30,000 speaking fees, and it got her a TV show. Fornication made Bristol Palin rich. Fornication also made Levi Johnston rich, but he's already blown his wad and is living the life of a pauper with his mom.
Fornication is fabulous. Fornication is fun. And like fornication, adultery and rape are also pro-life, at least when it's guys on girls. That's why we must oppose abortion, even in cases of incest and rape.
We must still condemn Jerry Sandusky and all those priests who fornicated with boys. But we should slyly wink and give a prayer of thanks to all those men who fornicated with girlfriends, committed adultery with mistresses, hooked up with hookers, cavorted with drunk girls at parties, consoled female parishioners and forced themselves on stepdaughters. They're doing their part to create more life! Down with condoms and the morning after pill! Up with Viagra!
Maybe the Lifetime network will get all those impregnated unmarried women their own TV shows, like Bristol Palin. Or at least get them a webcam so they can follow in Octomom's footsteps.
Yay For Them
You really have to hand it to the Republicans sometimes. There are moments when they can really be quite clever.
Take, for example, yesterday's contempt of Congress vote for Eric Holder which spurred an executive privilege order from President Obama regarding the "remaining documents" that the GOP led committee is claiming must be produced. Either way, they win on this one.
Now they can run around, stomp their feet, and foam at the mouth about how the president and the AG are hiding something. If they end up releasing the documents....documents which certainly contain sensitive law enforcement information...they can point and laugh and say that the Obama administration truly doesn't know what it is doing and are bumbling fools. Yay! It's a pretty ingenious plan but will it work?
Perhaps not. To begin with, no one (save for gun bloggers) really cares about this issue. And someone who really doesn't care is Mitt Romney who considers this a distraction from his central message on the economy (yes, we are the ones who dumped rats, bugs and other assorted pests in your house to fuck it all up but now here we are four years later as exterminators who promise to clean it up). The Romney campaign knows that this is the best way to beat the president and, with the monumentally low approval rating of Congress, this whole thing could backfire.
By "thing," I mean a whole lot of juvenile payback. The GOP is still smarting from all of the ethics investigations during the Bush Administration. Of course, back then, there was a lot more evidence as they really were breaking the law. So, when Darrell Issa took over the Oversight Committee, he promised "seven hearings a week times forty." This without any investigation having even commenced. Clearly, we know what the motivation is here.
As always, the Cult of Both Sides has already popped out and the people that are paying attention see the Democrats as being just as guilty as the Republicans even though that is completely false. Some of you might like Holder to release all the documents and pin the fallout on Issa and his goons on the OC.
But then would mean that more operations would be jeopardized and some people would likely die. I guess I'm pretty thankful that the adults are in charge and that won't happen.
Take, for example, yesterday's contempt of Congress vote for Eric Holder which spurred an executive privilege order from President Obama regarding the "remaining documents" that the GOP led committee is claiming must be produced. Either way, they win on this one.
Now they can run around, stomp their feet, and foam at the mouth about how the president and the AG are hiding something. If they end up releasing the documents....documents which certainly contain sensitive law enforcement information...they can point and laugh and say that the Obama administration truly doesn't know what it is doing and are bumbling fools. Yay! It's a pretty ingenious plan but will it work?
Perhaps not. To begin with, no one (save for gun bloggers) really cares about this issue. And someone who really doesn't care is Mitt Romney who considers this a distraction from his central message on the economy (yes, we are the ones who dumped rats, bugs and other assorted pests in your house to fuck it all up but now here we are four years later as exterminators who promise to clean it up). The Romney campaign knows that this is the best way to beat the president and, with the monumentally low approval rating of Congress, this whole thing could backfire.
By "thing," I mean a whole lot of juvenile payback. The GOP is still smarting from all of the ethics investigations during the Bush Administration. Of course, back then, there was a lot more evidence as they really were breaking the law. So, when Darrell Issa took over the Oversight Committee, he promised "seven hearings a week times forty." This without any investigation having even commenced. Clearly, we know what the motivation is here.
As always, the Cult of Both Sides has already popped out and the people that are paying attention see the Democrats as being just as guilty as the Republicans even though that is completely false. Some of you might like Holder to release all the documents and pin the fallout on Issa and his goons on the OC.
But then would mean that more operations would be jeopardized and some people would likely die. I guess I'm pretty thankful that the adults are in charge and that won't happen.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Third Party Delusion
Tom Friedman is at it again: he's wishing wistfully for a gallant knight to come loping out of the wilderness to become a moderate third-party candidate who would magically force the presidential campaigns to discuss substantive solutions to our problems.
Dana Milbank realized how silly this idea was last month when his Americans Elect pipedream evaporated. Jonathan Bernstein pointed the problems with third parties in his PostPartisan piece, "Elections are about the party, not the man."
The fact is, third-party candidates do indeed affect the election. But not the way you want them to. Generally, they steal the election from the candidate they're most similar to and give it to their opponent. In modern politics the party is more important than the candidate.
In the last four Minnesota gubernatorial elections a third party candidate has received a substantial number of votes. In 1998 Jesse Ventura won running as an independent. He remained in office for a single term, deciding not to run again because media jackals were hounding him and his family. But the real problem was that he had no base of support in the legislature and had a devil of a time getting anything passed because neither party was obligated to help him.
People like to think that governors and presidents can somehow make things happen through sheer force of personality. But the structure of our government requires that all laws originate in the legislatures. Unless a governor or president has the support of a party in the legislature, he can accomplish nothing. That's why Obama had only a very short window in 2009 to accomplish his agenda -- the few weeks after Al Franken was seated and Ted Kennedy died. Basically, only enough time to get the health care law passed. Before and after then Republicans in the Senate could stop any Obama initiative cold by threatening a filibuster.
In Minnesota, the Democrats generally worked with Ventura, but he had no permanent sway over them. Democratic and Republican governors can always count on the party to introduce their bills, and to deliver a certain number of votes for them, but Ventura had to depend on members of other parties to get his legislation drafted. That made his job much harder and, I imagine, very discouraging. Ventura was in many ways a jerk, but in office he mostly seemed to want to make things run well. After his term as governor Ventura bugged out on the Independence Party, fled to Mexico and grew a squidgely beard.
In 2002 a former Democrat running as an independent delivered the 2002 election to Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, by siphoning off votes from the Democratic candidate. In 2006 another former Democrat ran under the same independent banner and got Pawlenty reelected. And in 2010, a former Republican ran as an independent in that same party, giving the election to Mark Dayton, a Democrat.
And we all remember how Ralph Nader delivered Florida into the hands of George Bush, by taking hundreds of thousands of liberal votes from Gore, and helping make the Florida ballot that much more confusing, with the zillion candidates and all the idiotic manual hole punching that was involved. Bush won by some 500 votes, only after the U.S. Supreme Court stopped a state recount on a 5-4 decision.
Twenty or thirty years ago, when most Republicans in Minnesota were still reasonable, it was possible to split the ticket and vote across party lines. I voted for many Republican candidates like Al Quie, Dave Durenberger and Arne Carlson, and things worked out. These men were reasonable, but more importantly, the Republican Party was still reasonable. They wanted things to work smoothly, not wage endless ideological battles to score political points. No longer.
The Republican Party is now a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of Koch Industries and Sheldon Adelson's worldwide casino empire, dedicated solely to promulgating their power and wealth. Many people feel George Bush was just a figurehead and that Dick Cheney really called all the shots. If elected, Mitt Romney will be in even less control than Bush was.
Romney likes to pretend you can run a country like you run a corporation. Romney would be the "CEO of America." But CEOs don't answer to the employees or even the shareholders, they answer to the board of directors. And the Republican Party's board of directors consists of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Grover Norquist and all the other wealthy fatcats we've never heard of who've been donating tens of millions of dollars to Republican Super PACs.
You see, no one in the Republican Party actually likes or trusts Romney: they only picked him because they believed he was the candidate independent voters would find least objectionable in a race against Obama. They hate everything that Romney did as governor, they hate that he's from Massachusetts, they hate that he's a rich elitist who's totally clueless about normal people live their lives, they hate that his wife rides dressage, they hate that he's a Mormon. But they knew full well the guys they actually liked (remember Gingrich, Cain, Paul, and Santorum?) were too far off the deep end to beat Obama.
By choosing Romney, the Republicans have made it eminently clear that it's all about the party and not about the man. But if Republicans have to hold their nose when they vote for Romney, why would anyone else want to vote for him? We won't be putting a rich Mormon businessman in the White House if we elect him, we'll be installing the party of Bush that brought the current recession down us with lax oversight over greedy and incompetent bankers, locked-in profits for big pharmaceutical companies, huge tax cuts for the richest people, needless and bungled wars in the Middle East, and hundreds of thousands of veterans with serious medical problems that will haunt them for the rest of their lives -- as well as cost us trillions of dollars over the next sixty years.
Dana Milbank realized how silly this idea was last month when his Americans Elect pipedream evaporated. Jonathan Bernstein pointed the problems with third parties in his PostPartisan piece, "Elections are about the party, not the man."
The fact is, third-party candidates do indeed affect the election. But not the way you want them to. Generally, they steal the election from the candidate they're most similar to and give it to their opponent. In modern politics the party is more important than the candidate.
In the last four Minnesota gubernatorial elections a third party candidate has received a substantial number of votes. In 1998 Jesse Ventura won running as an independent. He remained in office for a single term, deciding not to run again because media jackals were hounding him and his family. But the real problem was that he had no base of support in the legislature and had a devil of a time getting anything passed because neither party was obligated to help him.
People like to think that governors and presidents can somehow make things happen through sheer force of personality. But the structure of our government requires that all laws originate in the legislatures. Unless a governor or president has the support of a party in the legislature, he can accomplish nothing. That's why Obama had only a very short window in 2009 to accomplish his agenda -- the few weeks after Al Franken was seated and Ted Kennedy died. Basically, only enough time to get the health care law passed. Before and after then Republicans in the Senate could stop any Obama initiative cold by threatening a filibuster.
In Minnesota, the Democrats generally worked with Ventura, but he had no permanent sway over them. Democratic and Republican governors can always count on the party to introduce their bills, and to deliver a certain number of votes for them, but Ventura had to depend on members of other parties to get his legislation drafted. That made his job much harder and, I imagine, very discouraging. Ventura was in many ways a jerk, but in office he mostly seemed to want to make things run well. After his term as governor Ventura bugged out on the Independence Party, fled to Mexico and grew a squidgely beard.
In 2002 a former Democrat running as an independent delivered the 2002 election to Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, by siphoning off votes from the Democratic candidate. In 2006 another former Democrat ran under the same independent banner and got Pawlenty reelected. And in 2010, a former Republican ran as an independent in that same party, giving the election to Mark Dayton, a Democrat.
And we all remember how Ralph Nader delivered Florida into the hands of George Bush, by taking hundreds of thousands of liberal votes from Gore, and helping make the Florida ballot that much more confusing, with the zillion candidates and all the idiotic manual hole punching that was involved. Bush won by some 500 votes, only after the U.S. Supreme Court stopped a state recount on a 5-4 decision.
Twenty or thirty years ago, when most Republicans in Minnesota were still reasonable, it was possible to split the ticket and vote across party lines. I voted for many Republican candidates like Al Quie, Dave Durenberger and Arne Carlson, and things worked out. These men were reasonable, but more importantly, the Republican Party was still reasonable. They wanted things to work smoothly, not wage endless ideological battles to score political points. No longer.
The Republican Party is now a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of Koch Industries and Sheldon Adelson's worldwide casino empire, dedicated solely to promulgating their power and wealth. Many people feel George Bush was just a figurehead and that Dick Cheney really called all the shots. If elected, Mitt Romney will be in even less control than Bush was.
Romney likes to pretend you can run a country like you run a corporation. Romney would be the "CEO of America." But CEOs don't answer to the employees or even the shareholders, they answer to the board of directors. And the Republican Party's board of directors consists of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Grover Norquist and all the other wealthy fatcats we've never heard of who've been donating tens of millions of dollars to Republican Super PACs.
You see, no one in the Republican Party actually likes or trusts Romney: they only picked him because they believed he was the candidate independent voters would find least objectionable in a race against Obama. They hate everything that Romney did as governor, they hate that he's from Massachusetts, they hate that he's a rich elitist who's totally clueless about normal people live their lives, they hate that his wife rides dressage, they hate that he's a Mormon. But they knew full well the guys they actually liked (remember Gingrich, Cain, Paul, and Santorum?) were too far off the deep end to beat Obama.
By choosing Romney, the Republicans have made it eminently clear that it's all about the party and not about the man. But if Republicans have to hold their nose when they vote for Romney, why would anyone else want to vote for him? We won't be putting a rich Mormon businessman in the White House if we elect him, we'll be installing the party of Bush that brought the current recession down us with lax oversight over greedy and incompetent bankers, locked-in profits for big pharmaceutical companies, huge tax cuts for the richest people, needless and bungled wars in the Middle East, and hundreds of thousands of veterans with serious medical problems that will haunt them for the rest of their lives -- as well as cost us trillions of dollars over the next sixty years.
Sore Winners
One of Kevin Baker's commenters?
They, like me, are relieved that the state I grew up in (and where my mom still lives) was saved from those teachers and civil servants who make 30K a year who were poised to ruin hard working Wisconsinites lives. Thank goodness that the victims of this monumental attack (the Koch Brothers and other billionaires) are now free to live their lives!
They, like me, are relieved that the state I grew up in (and where my mom still lives) was saved from those teachers and civil servants who make 30K a year who were poised to ruin hard working Wisconsinites lives. Thank goodness that the victims of this monumental attack (the Koch Brothers and other billionaires) are now free to live their lives!
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