Month: February 2012

Here’s an idea. Why don’t we all take our business to Office Max or our local stationary retailer until Staples stops complaining about “lactation chambers” and provides its nursing employees with reasonable break time to nurse their babies in a space that is not a bathroom and is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public. I don’t even know what the co-founder is complaining about. How many Staples employees bring their kids to work? It’s not like they provide daycare. So, maybe we should shop elsewhere just because Tom Stemberg is an a-hole. Or, maybe we should shop elsewhere because Mitt Romney helped get Staples started as a franchise and we don’t like to support ventures launched by people who strap their dogs to the roofs of their cars and go out on the interstate for 12-hour drives.

Tom Stemberg, co-founder of mega-office supply chain Staples is questioning an Obamacare provision that discourages job creation by dictating employers funnel their capital into lactation chambers.
“Do you want [farming retailer] Tractor Supply to open stores or would you rather they take their capital and do what Obamacare and its 2,700 pages dictates – which is to open a lactation chamber at every single store that they have?” he asked.
“I’m big on breastfeeding; my wife breastfed,” Stenberg added. “I’m all for that. I don’t think every retail store in America should have to go to lactation chambers, which is what Obamacare foresees.

Yeah, I see no reason to buy my printer paper and cartridges at Staples. I won’t be printing my photos there, either. Screw them.

Nate Silver has some interesting analysis on today’s caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and the primary in Missouri. It’s interesting that Romney canceled planned appearances in Minnesota to race back to Colorado. I say it is interesting because polling shows that Romney is favored to win in Colorado but is in a toss-up race with Santorum in Minnesota. This move might indicate that Romney’s internal polling shows him losing in Minnesota and in Missouri, and he wants to run up the score in Colorado to compensate.

In some sense, all of these contests are a fraud. They’re non-binding, and the actual delegates won’t be selected until party conventions later in the year. The Missouri primary is actually a complete beauty contest. Gingrich isn’t even on the ballot and the result has no bearing at all on delegate selection. The delegates will be determined by a caucus on March 17th. The only reason today’s primary is even being held is because the Republicans couldn’t get their act together to cancel it.

Nevertheless, polling shows that Rick Santorum is primed to win the Missouri primary tonight. It won’t win him any delegates but, if combined with a win in Minnesota, it will boost Santorum’s campaign and cast some real doubt about Romney’s ability to compete with Obama in the Midwest.

After tonight, we’ll have the results of the Maine caucuses on Saturday and then we won’t have another contest until Arizona and Michigan have their primaries on February 28th.

If Romney sweeps tonight in Colorado and Minnesota, he’ll probably have no problem winning in Maine and then the GOP will spend the hiatus between Feb. 11 and Feb. 28 trying to consolidate around his candidacy. But that won’t be possible if Romney loses to Santorum in Minnesota and Missouri. Either way, it seems to me like Gingrich will have a hard time staying in the race long enough to get to the Super Tuesday contests on March 6th. The biggest prize on Super Tuesday is Gingrich’s home state of Georgia, with 76 delegates. Gingrich could hope to win in Oklahoma and Tennessee on that day, too. But it won’t matter if he can’t survive the rest of February, and tonight won’t offer him much hope.

Let’s hope Sticky Rickey has a big night tonight and keeps everything in chaos.

David Brooks:

Members of the Obama administration aren’t forcing religious organizations to violate their creeds because they are secular fundamentalists who place no value on religious liberty. They are doing it because they operate in a technocracy.

That’s an interesting take. In David Brooks’ view, the Department of Health & Human Services has issued a rule mandating coverage of contraceptives in health care plans “because they [are] a technocracy.” It’s a bit like saying that President Obama decided to intervene in Libya because he is the president. In actuality, the Department of Health & Human Services had very specific reasons for issuing their rule. Here they are:

Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.

There are three reasons packed in that excerpt. Birth control has health benefits to women and their families, it lowers health costs, and its use is so widespread that the lack of co-pays will save women a significant amount of money. Those are the rationales for this rule.

David Brooks doesn’t like these science-based rationales. For him:

Technocrats are in the business of promulgating rules. They seek abstract principles that they can apply in all cases. From their perspective, a rule is fair when it can be imposed uniformly across the nation.

Technocratic organizations take diverse institutions and make them more alike by imposing the same rules. Technocracies do not defer to local knowledge. They dislike individual discretion. They like consistency, codification and uniformity.

In this case, the uniformly-imposed rule is not based on abstract principles but scientific consensus. Unless women’s health and containing the cost of health care are abstract principles, it’s hard to know what Mr. Brooks is talking about.

I’ll tell you what is an abstract principle: the idea that all sexual activity should be directed at reproduction. So, no masturbation, no heavy petting without intercourse, no same-sex sexual activity, no non-vaginal sex, no pulling out, no effort at preventing conception. And these rules are promulgated by a caste of all-male technocrats who have taken a vow of abstinence. The rules are consistent, codified, and uniform. They are not at all based on science. They have no data to support any claim that these rules will improve human health or happiness, nor is it even clear that the rules are aimed at anything more than regulating sexual activity.

Western Civilization spent many centuries living under these top-down rules that took no account of local knowledge or individual discretion. Then we had a Reformation and an Enlightenment. Then we had government by and for the people, instead of by and for the cardinals and bishops. Then we had science and modern medicine. Mr. Brooks should look around. It’s not the fifteenth-century anymore. It’s not even the 1950’s anymore.

Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, announced yesterday that the Obama campaign will start working more closely with Priorities USA and other SuperPACs that support the president’s re-election.

It’s about time.  For liberals and Democrats, this is good news.  It means that Obama is not going to unilaterally “disarm” in this campaign, and give Republicans an even larger fundraising advantage than the one they already enjoy.

Yes, in the world as it should be, money wouldn’t matter so much in our politics.  But we live in the world as it is.  Fortunately (thanks in part to his organizing background) that’s something Barack Obama understands.  It’s why when push came to shove, he opted out of public financing for his 2008 presidential campaign when it became clear he could raise far more money from his base of supporters than he would get from the public financing option.  (The fact that it was also clear that John McCain wouldn’t be able to match his fundraising prowess was a not inconsiderable factor in the decision, too.)

Here’s how the invariably polite, mild-mannered and soft-spoken E. J. Dionne described the Citizens United decision that created the brave new world of SuperPACS:  “(A)scribing an outrageous decision to naiveté is actually the most sympathetic way of looking at what the court did in Citizens United. A more troubling interpretation is that a conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing: that it set out to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Seen this way, Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcomes in a direction that would entrench their approach to governance. “

Given that reality, liberals shouldn’t give up any legal means available to combat the power of organized money aimed at creating and preserving a permanent plutocracy in the US.

Crossposted at:  http://masscommons.wordpress.com/

It seems like everyone wants to claim Clint Eastwood as their own. The Republicans point out that he has voted for their party in every presidential election since the Eisenhower administration. That’s seems conclusive to me. He even served as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California as a Republican nonpartisan. The problem is that you can’t extrapolate much from Eastwood’s voting record to know where he stands on the issues. He’s pro-choice, he supports gay marriage and the Equal Rights Amendment. He’s supported Democratic politicians in the past. He has supported many environmental causes. And if you want to know where he stands on race, go see Invictus, the movie he made about Nelson Mandela’s decision to support the traditionally all-white national rugby team as a way to promote national unity. Ask Morgan Freeman about Mr. Eastwood’s heart and character.

The truth is that Clint Eastwood can’t be claimed. His politics are broader than either party. But that doesn’t keep Fox News from distorting his words. Take a look a what Eastwood said about his Chrysler commercial and compare it to the headline that Fox News decided to use.

I am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message about just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK.

I am not supporting any politician at this time.

Chrysler to their credit didn’t even have cars in the ad. Anything they gave me for it went for charity. If any Obama or any other politician wants to run with the spirit of that ad, go for it.”

Fox emphasized that Eastwood denied any “affiliation” with the president. I would emphasize that he didn’t rule it out in the future and that he encouraged the president to run with the pro-American message of job growth.

After the way the right has treated him over this Super Bowl commercial, I won’t be shocked if Eastwood comes out and supports Obama for president. Then again, I won’t be shocked if he doesn’t. Voting for a Democratic president would break sixty years of precedent.

Rather than asking whether we are better off today than we were four years ago, we really should be asking whether the Republican Party is more or less dysfunctional and deranged than it was four years ago. By almost any measure, we’re better off than we were when Barack Obama was inaugurated, but that is not the most important question. Elections are choices. And the choice isn’t between sticking with Barack Obama or going back to the land of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales and John Bolton. We’d be fortunate to have that choice.

As part of his Scold the Poor Tour 2012, which he launched a couple of weeks ago to promote his new book, Charles Murray invited a New York Times reporter to his home in Burkittsville, Maryland, where he explained why just being in proximity with him is good for the poor:

Looking at America Mr. Murray sees a country increasingly polarized into two culturally and geographically isolated demographics. In Belmont, the fictional name Mr. Murray gives to the part of America where the top 20 percent live, divorce is low, the work ethic is strong, religious observance is high, and out-of-wedlock births are all but unheard of. Meanwhile in Fishtown, where the bottom 30 percent live, what Mr. Murray calls America’s four “founding virtues” — marriage, industriousness, community and faith — have all but collapsed.

… The first step, he writes, is for the people of Belmont to drop their “nonjudgmentalism” and lecture Fishtown on the importance of marriage and nondependence: to “preach what they practice,” as Mr. Murray puts it.

Next they need to leave their upper-middle-class enclaves and move closer to Fishtown.

That’s exactly what Mr. Murray said he did two decades ago, when he and his second wife, Catherine Cox, a retired English professor, moved from Washington to Burkittsville, Md., a historic rural town of about 170 people about 50 miles to the northwest….

Life in Burkittsville, as he described it, approximates the small-town virtues he enjoyed growing up in Newton, Iowa….

Yes, Burkittsville — it’s Anytown, USA … if Anytown had a median household income that’s about 40% higher than the national average (or, according to another estimate, 30% higher than that, or nearly $100,000), and if it included the occasional $895,000, 6,472-square foot house:

This spectacular estate sited on 83 (+/-) acres exudes quality and character. Being sold by the estate, the home features embassy sized rooms, extraordinary detail and wonderful views of the two ponds and the farm.. Very formal, very private, but very livable at the same time with large kitchen family area overlooking indoor pool. First floor master suite with 4 additional bedrooms up.

And surely Murray’s Iowa boyhood home had something like this right next to Pop’s Malt Shoppe:

Martin Paule, 45, gave up a white-collar job in Los Angeles as a paralegal in 1979 and came east seeking a “more rural, more tranquil existence.” In 1980, he found it in Burkittsville.

Mr. Paule owns Deva (pronounced Day-vah and meaning “shining one” or “angel” in Sanskrit), a “cottage industry” on East Main Street that makes free-flowing colorful “natural fiberwear for women and men.” Mr. Paule says the business has a mailing list with 100,000 names and projected 1992 sales of $2 million.

Ah, but this just means that Burkittsville is the glorious exception to the rule that chi-chi folks and regular Joes don’t mingle. So I guess that means the regular Joes are learning from the good example of their betters and are hard-working and industrious — right? Er, not according to what Murray tells the Times:

In Burkittsville, he said, he and his wife attend Quaker meetings and enjoy friendships with both other professionals and blue-collar tradespeople, whose travails he cited to counter the suggestion that the problems described in “Coming Apart” might have something to do with the disappearance of working-class jobs.

Until the recession hit, Mr. Murray insisted, his blue-collar friends were eager to hire apprentices at good wages but struggled to find anyone willing to do the work. “They are looking at a marked deterioration in industriousness that is real and palpable,” he said.

Or maybe the fact that Burkittsville is 50 miles from D.C., 65 miles from Baltimore, and 75 miles from Annapolis leads the local kids to believe that there’s are opportunities out in the world that don’t involve working blue-collar in a town with 126 residents — even if leaving town means passing up the golden opportunity to watch Charles Murray and his wife ring church bells on New Year’s Eve. (I’m sure Murray thinks that alone ought to have encouraged at least two blue-collar horndogs to stop living in sin and tie the knot.)

I have no problem with Murray’s decision to move to Burkittsville — a lot of financially comfortable people buy houses in small, rural towns in middle age.

But most of them, when they do it, aren’t so egomaniacal as to think that they’re doing their neighbors a favor.

(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog)

I think Juan Cole is right when he lists some of the bad consequences of a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear research facilities. It would likely cause a spike in oil prices that would not be appreciated by anyone. It would likely cause a barrage of rocket fire from southern Lebanon and Gaza that would necessitate yet another Israeli-Lebanon war. European public opinion would be sufficiently horrified by Israel’s actions to take unprecedented economic steps to punish them. The Syrian resistance would be crushed and the Beirut-Damascus-Tehran axis strengthened. Iraq would probably join that axis in important respects. Egypt could conceivably rip up the Camp David accords.

On the other hand, if Israel is restrained and patient, the Russians’ worst fear may be realized. The Assad regime will fall, eliminating Russian influence in the country and creating a break in the Beirut-Damascus-Tehran axis. Hezbollah would be weakened and Israel’s northern border would become more secure. Iran’s ability to make trouble on Israel’s borders would be diminished and their position in the region would be contained and isolated.

Sometimes I feel like Israeli political leaders need Iran to provide an excuse for inaction on the peace process and support for a deteriorating status quo. But the truth is that Israel learned during the 2006 war with Lebanon that they are extremely vulnerable to rocket attack and they have no idea how to solve that problem, which is only getting worse. Simply put, Israel feels too insecure to talk peace. They are too insecure to politically get away with making concessions. Unless the Beirut-Damascus-Tehran axis can be broken and Israel’s borders secured, the politics in Israel will continue to be extremely unfavorable.

I admit to having a nuanced view which might be hard to discern since it doesn’t fall neatly on one side or the other of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. My view is that Iran’s influence in Syria and Lebanon is bad for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. It’s bad for the Palestinians because it makes any progress for peace impossible, and it makes the Israelis act in a very bellicose and defensive manner. It’s bad for Israelis because it they are ringed by increasingly accurate and well-armed rockets that they cannot adequately defend. The result is a status quo in which the position of both the Israelis and the Palestinians grows worse every day. The Israeli civilian population becomes more vulnerable while the Palestinians lose more land with the passage of time.

As the much stronger party, the Israelis won’t negotiate or make needed concessions if they don’t feel secure, and Iran’s actions make them feel less and less secure. This is more than an ideological position. It’s a psychological reality that creates political constraints. Anyone who thinks Israel will behave better toward the Palestinians if they are threatened is simply wrong, in my opinion.

To give an example, one can plausibly argue that Hezbollah won the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon War but you can’t say the same for the Palestinians. I don’t see how the Palestinians benefitted in any way.

Outside actions that bolster Israeli insecurity and paranoia wind up empowering the right-wing in Israeli politics, and that is always going to be bad news for the Palestinians and peace. That is the main result of the Beirut-Damascus-Tehran axis, and it’s why breaking that axis is in the interests of both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

It would be quite amazing if the Israelis torpedoed the imminent break in that axis by making a preemptive attack on Iran that strengthened it. This is true especially because such an attack would rupture Israel’s relations with Turkey, Egypt, (probably) Jordan, and Europe, while quietly infuriating the American governing classes and Pentagon.

Here is a new rough draft for a TV commercial I will be producing for the Democratic Super PAC AmericanLP. Please send me suggestions and criticisms.

“Religious Tolerance”
:60 Second TV Ad
*

Opening video of Rev Jeremiah Wright “God Damn America!”
Voiceover: “Intolerance is ugly in whatever form it takes, especially when it flows from the pulpit.”

 (Text only: “November 19, 1993,”) Voiceover “the Mitt Romney family baptized Mitt Romney’s father-in-law, Edward Davies, 13 months AFTER Davies had died. Davies was a lifelong opponent of organized religion. Was this tolerant of Davies Wishes?”

(Text and images: On March 22, 1969, Ed Davies daughter Ann married Mitt Romney.) Voiceover: “Neither of Ann Romney’s parents was allowed into the Romney wedding ceremony performed at the Salt Lake Temple. Non-Mormons are not tolerated at the wedding ceremonies of Mormons.”

(text: “From 1966-1969, Mitt Romney was a full-time employee of the Mormon Church. Romney was appointed Bishop in the Mormon Church. Romney became one of the largest multi-million dollar donors of the Mormon Church”) Voiceover: “Since the 60s, Mitt Romney has been a powerful, influential Mormon Church leader.  Mormons did not accept that Black people had full souls equal to Whites until 1978. What kind of leader promotes an organization that had an official policy of racial intolerance?”

Closing graphic in text “In 2012, vote in favor of religious tolerance.”

“Paid for by AmericanLP”

Sadly, I have to agree with Ed Morissey. If I had to vote for someone in the Republican primaries, I’d vote for Rick Santorum. And even if I were a conservative, I’d vote for Rick Santorum. I’ll give you my reasoning on both scenarios.

As a progressive Democrat and a concerned citizen, I think Rick Santorum would make a better president than Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. The number one issue for me is temperament. It’s true that Santorum travels in some of the whackiest of socially conservative circles and routinely says things that are just inexcusably offensive. I didn’t say I had any good choices here. But Santorum knows how to control his emotions. Like all the other Republican aspirants, he’s espoused some radical economic and foreign policies in this race, and his domestic policies are horrible, too. Yet, he’s a creature of Congress and he would at least understand what is possible and know how to craft compromises. Gingrich would also understand these things, but he’s far too erratic to be trusted with power. Mitt Romney’s temperament might appear to be even, but he’s actually very, very thin-skinned. He has trouble answering tough questions and he takes offense easily. I don’t think he’d fly off the handle at the first opportunity, but I also think he lacks the personal attributes you need to be the president of the United States.

Of the three, it is only with Santorum that I feel like I know what I’d be getting. I’d rather settle for the evil I know than gamble on the evil that I do not know. I could vote for Gingrich because I think he’d be the easiest to beat, but I don’t want to take the chance that he might win.

If I was a conservative voter, I would also vote for Santorum. I’d vote against Gingrich for all the same reasons that I’d vote against him in real life. As for Romney, not only do I not know what I’m getting, but I’d rather not have a flip-flopper and author of RomneyCare in charge of the RNC, even for a brief time. There really isn’t any reason for me to conclude that Romney would have a better chance in the general election than Santorum because Romney just doesn’t seem to be a very good campaigner. Plus, the conservative movement hasn’t advanced by nominating supposedly electable candidates like Dole and McCain, but in spite of that. A Romney presidency could potentially loosen conservatives’ grip on the Republican Party. And if the Republicans are going to lose, better to go down swinging with a candidate who has a more consistent record of supporting conservative causes.

Finally, with Santorum, even though he’d probably lose, he wouldn’t depress conservative turnout and hurt Republicans in down-ticket races. If he alienates voters in the middle and hurts Republicans that way, that’s still a preferable way to lose.

So, yeah, Romney and Gingrich are unacceptable choices regardless of where you stand on the politics spectrum, so I’m going with Sticky Rickey.