The Daily News' Howard Gensler treats sex assault like a joke

I guess that gossip columnists are supposed to be a guilty pleasure, but there's nothing really pleasurable about the scribblings of Howard Gensler at the Philadelphia Daily News. I've not got the energy to go back and round up links of what I consider the routine misogyny he displays in his column. Instead, I'll just go ahead and say that today's entry is pretty representative of Gensler's work:

LENNY DYKSTRA may no longer be playing baseball, but he still likes to take his bat out of the rack.

In December, Lenny was accused of bouncing a $1,000 check to a female escort. In January, he was accused of sexual assault by his housekeeper, who claimed that Lenny had forced her to provide weekly oral sexual favors. The Los Angeles Times quoted her as saying she "needed the job and the money" so she went along with Lenny's requests.

Lenny always could get to third base.

Haha! Third base! A baseball joke! Get it! Because forced sexual assault is funny!

Me? I think it's a real problem when a major metropolitan daily newspaper gives regular space to a columnist who comments on sexual assault with frat-boy humor——and that's when he's not treating women with contempt generally. It signals to the broader readership the acceptability of "boys will be boys" behavior and reinforces the atmosphere that permits the Dykstras of the world to do their ugly stuff. Even by the low standards of a gossip column, Howard Gensler is loathsome.

Mr. Mom Chronicles: One minute of boy's monologue while playing with his trucks

"Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome so much. Good job! Thank you! THANK YOU SO MUCH! Beep beep beep beep."

Stairs

Taken at Schuylkill River Park

Jo and T

Taken at Schuylkill River Park

The rich are not unduly burdened by taxes (A continuing series)

Via Paul Krugman, a chart that reminds us the rich aren't unduly burdened by taxes:

On a related note, there's been a lot of effort lately from my conservative friends to assert that merely raising taxes on the rich won't solve America's long-term deficit problem. And you know what? I think they're right! The middle class is going to have to ante up a bit if it wants to maintain some of the services it likes so much. So if Dems suggest they can pay for everything simply by larding up marginal tax rates, well, they're probably wrong or lying.

However...

It's also true that the effective tax rates on the super-rich are the lowest they've been in recent memory. And it's true we face a long-term deficit problem. And it's also true that we were digging ourselves out of debt under the Clinton-era marginal tax rates that are slightly higher than they are now. But it's also true that the Republican plan going forward is to ... further reduce taxes on the rich.

That's silly. Maybe we can't fix everything by soaking the rich. But it's just as dubious to think we can solve our problems by letting them off the hook for their portion of supporting our government.

Ed Whelan says I'm confused about Vaughn Walker and Prop 8. Am I?

At National Review, Ed Whelan takes issue with my criticism of his call to have the Prop 8 verdict set aside. He lumps me in with the folks at Media Matters:

Meanwhile, the only two defenses of Walker’s non-recusal that I’ve run across conveniently misrepresent my argument. Media Matters falsely contends that I am arguing that Walker “should be disqualified because of his sexual orientation” (I have never made that argument) and conflates that argument with my argument that Walker should have disqualified himself because he was in a long-term same-sex relationship. And Cup O’ Joel likewise wrongly claims that I am arguing that Walker’s ruling must be vacated “because Walker has recently come out of the closet and thus can’t be considered impartial.” The implications that the two bloggers claim would flow from my argument rest entirely on their confusion.

I'll gladly cop to occasional confusion, but not to "conveniently misrepresenting" Whelan's argument--at least, intentionally. I do try to argue in good faith. But wait, if I am confused, what exactly did I miss? Let's go back to Whelan's original column:

Two weeks ago, former federal district judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled last summer in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, publicly disclosed for the first time that he has been in a same-sex relationship for the past ten years. A straightforward application of the judicial ethics rules compels the conclusion that Walker should have recused himself from taking part in the Perry case. Further, under well-established Supreme Court precedent, the remedy of vacating Walker’s judgment is timely and necessary.

(snip)

In taking part in the Perry case, Judge Walker was deciding whether Proposition 8 would bar him and his same-sex partner from marrying. Whether Walker had any subjective interest in marrying his same-sex partner — a matter on which Walker hasn’t spoken — is immaterial under section 455(a). (If Walker did have such an interest, his recusal also would be required by other rules requiring that a judge disqualify himself when he knows that he has an “interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”) Walker’s own factual findings explain why a reasonable person would expect him to want to have the opportunity to marry his partner: A reasonable person would think that Walker would want to have the opportunity to take part with his partner in what “is widely regarded as the definitive expression of love and commitment in the United States.” A reasonable person would think that Walker would want to decrease the costs of his same-sex relationship, increase his wealth, and enjoy the physical and psychological benefits that marriage is thought to confer.

Because Walker was deciding how the law in the very jurisdiction in which he lived would directly govern his own individual rights on a matter that a reasonable person would think was very important to Walker personally, it is clear that Walker’s impartiality in Perry “might reasonably be questioned.”

Or, as Whelan put it in his update: "The mere fact that Walker is gay does not trigger the principle that I have set forth, as (without more) it is much more remote and speculative that he would have a strong personal interest in conferring on himself a right to marry a man."

And I can see the distinction between what I said and what Whelan meant: Walker's verdict shouldn't be set aside because Walker is gay. Walker's verdict should be set aside because--to borrow a phrase--Walker lives the gay lifestyle. It's not the orientation that matters, but the fact that Walker acts on it that creates the appearance that Walker has something to gain from overturning Prop 8. For most of us, that's a distinction with little, if any, difference, and as a practical matter it really does seem to suggest there is no gay judge in California capable of ruling with the appearance of impartiality. But it might be a big enough difference that Whelan's argument carries the day in a court of law. OK. He's the lawyer, not I.

However...

My argument didn't revolve entirely around the fact of Walker's homosexuality. Implicit in Whelan's argument, I think, is the presumption that a straight judge could rule without the appearance of a conflict of interest. I wrote:

"Remember that one of the key arguments made by Prop 8 supporters was that gay marriages threaten straight marriages. ... Seems to me then, that any judge who is married or has been married or who might want to be married someday—be they gay or straight—thus finds him- or herself possibly compromised in this matter. Who is to say a straight judge wouldn't be acting to protect his or her marriage from the destabilizing influence of gay unions?

Under Whelan's argument, Prop 8 supporters get to have it both ways. They get to argue that straight marriage is threatened by gay marriage, but they also get to have a straight judge rule on the issue without fear of having to recuse his- or herself. Convenient, as Whelan might say.

Weirdly, that might end up being while gay-marriage advocates could end up carrying the day—if not in court, and not at this time, then somewhere down the road. Think about it: A key argument against gay marriage is that straight marriages will be undermined. But almost nobody takes the argument seriously enough—not even Prop 8 opponents—that they think straight judges face the automatic appearance of a conflict when ruling on the issue. If that's the case, doesn't that radically undermine that key argument against gay marriage?

I'm not a lawyer. I doubt the argument I've just made would carry much sway before the court; it's not strictly a legal argument. But the gay marriage debate isn't contained merely to the court, and what's going on in the court will have ramifications far outside the legal realm. Maybe I am confused about the law, as Whelan suggests. I'm pretty clear on the implications, though: Whelan's argument consigns gays to second-class status, both in marriage and in the legal profession.

Donald Trump and the Republican birthers

That the topic of this week's Scripps column with Ben Boychuk. I'm a little closer to the edge of vitriol this week than I usually like to be, but some topics elicit only contempt from me. And, uh, Trump isn't the target of my ire:

Here's the difference between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats who embrace conspiracy-minded nonsense are chased from public life.

Republicans who do the same are vaulted into the front ranks of presidential contenders.

That's why Van Jones was rightly forced to resign from the Obama Administration in 2009; he'd signed a petition calling for an investigation of the government's secret involvement in the 9/11 attacks on America. His apparent belief in discredited "truther" theories destroyed Jones' credibility and made it impossible for him to serve the president effectively.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, wasn't on anyone's list of presidential candidates until he started giving interviews embracing "birther" nonsense and challenging President Barack Obama's citizenship. Now he tops the polls. And for good reason: Public Policy Polling's results show that only 38 percent of GOP primary voters would support a candidate who clearly states the truth -- that Barack Obama is a natural-born American citizen.

Rather than educate their supporters, cowardly Republican leaders have decided to avoid the topic. That's why House Speaker John Boehner answered questions about the topic in February with slippery language.

"It's not my job to tell the American people what to think," Boehner told NBC's David Gregory, and later added: "Listen, the American people have the right to think what they want to think. I can't -- it's not my job to tell them."

Boehner, of course, does vigorously advocate for the ideas that his base supports. That's how he got his job. And that's why Trump is succeeding with his brand of birtherism -- because the GOP base loves it.

True: A year from now, Trump will probably be back to making TV shows.

But Republican voters will still be Republican voters -- apparently more willing to embrace birther lies than the truth. And that could mean trouble for all of us.

Ben sees both Trump and birtherism as passing fads. Read the column for his take.

Matt Miller on Paul Ryan's really awful budget

For the life of me I don’t understand why the press doesn’t shove this fact in front of every Republican who says the debt limit cannot be raised unless serious new spending cuts are put in place. The supposedly “courageous,” “visionary” Paul Ryan plan — which already contains everything Republicans can think of in terms of these spending cuts — would add more debt than we’ve ever seen over a 10-year period in American history. Yet Ryan and other House GOP leaders continue to make outrageous statements to the contrary.

Without blushing. And without anyone calling them on it.

“The spending spree is over,” Ryan said the other day, after the House passed his blueprint. “We cannot keep spending money we don’t have.” Except that by his own reckoning Ryan is planning to spend $6 trillion we don’t have in the next decade alone.

“We have too many people worried about the next election and not worried about the next generation,” Ryan added. So Ryan is expressing his concern by adding at least $14 trillion to the debt between now and when his plan finally balances the budget sometime in the 2030s (and only then if a number of the plan’s dubious assumptions come to pass).

“We cannot afford to ignore this coming fiscal train wreck any longer,” Eric Cantor says. “Complacency is not an option.” Well, if $14 trillion in fresh debt and unbalanced budgets until the 2030s do not amount to “complacency,” I’d hate to hear what the GOP definition of “profligacy” is.

via washingtonpost.com

I've said it before: Paul Ryan's budget is a "path to prosperity" for the already-prosperous. It doesn't fix the debt but it does weaken the safety net while giving a tax break to the rich. It's just not good.

Grover Norquist's latest very bad idea

My preference would be to keep the administration on a short leash and extend the debt limit by only a small amount and for a short period of time. This debt-limit increase is one of the few pieces of legislation that Obama must sign. Why not have such an extension every month and attach to each of them something small, reasonable, and related to debt or spending?

via nationalreview.com

That's Grover Norquist, in an NRO symposium about whether Congress should raise the debt ceiling. His proposal, of course, would tie Washington down in never-ending debates about the debt ceiling and the budget, leaving the government with no energy or capacity to focus on anything else. Which might be Norquist's aim. But that doesn't mean the rest of us should sign on.

What Col. Qaddafi learned from Iraq

Sending advisers to Libya is the latest in a series of signs of trouble for the NATO campaign, which began in earnest with a stinging, American-led attack but has seemed to fizzle since operational command was transferred to NATO on March 31. After that, a rebel offensive was smashed by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces, which sent the rebels reeling toward the eastern city of Ajdabiya.

New tactics used by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces — mixing with civilian populations, camouflaging weapons and driving pickup trucks instead of military vehicles — have made it hard for NATO pilots to find targets. At the same time, loyalist artillery and tanks have hammered the rebel-held city of Misurata with cluster bombs, which have been banned by much of the world, making a mockery of NATO’s central mission of protecting civilians.

via nytimes.com

I don't know if Col. Qaddafi learned these tactics by watching the war in Iraq. But I do know they're pretty classic insurgent tactics. If you've got a weaker force than your opponent--and at this point, Qaddafi's opponent is NATO--then you don't confront your opponent strength to strength. You hide out in the population and rely on subterfuge instead of overt force. Unsporting? Sure. But Qaddafi wants to hold onto power; there's no reason for him to play by the rules of the West. Becoming an insurgent is the best way for him to hold onto power.

LZ Granderson: The favorite openly gay dad of social conservatives everywhere

Interesting phenomenon the last couple of days: A few of my socially conservative Facebook friends have posted a link to this LZ Granderson essay about the oversexualization of young girls. An excerpt:

And then I realize as creepy as it is to think a store like Abercrombie is offering something like the "Ashley", the fact remains that sex only sells because people are buying it. No successful retailer would consider introducing an item like a padded bikini top for kindergartners if they didn't think people would buy it.

If they didn't think parents would buy it, which raises the question: What in the hell is wrong with us?

Sensible stuff, hitting that sweet spot where social conservatives and feminist liberals can find common ground. And I don't think my socially conservative friends know each other, which indicates the essay is going viral. But I wouldn't mention it except for one thing: LZ Granderson is gay. Openly gay. With a teen son. He's a gay dad.

A conservative friend responds to this observation with one of his own: "If he's right, he's right." And my friend is right!

But here's the thing: So much of the modern argument against gay marriage is actually against gay parenthood. Maggie Gallagher of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage re-made the argument in explicit terms this week in testimony before Congress:

“Marriage is the union of husband and wife for a reason: these are the only unions that create new life and connect those children in love to their mother and father,” Gallagher said. “This is not necessarily the reason why individuals marry; this is the great reason, the public reason why government gets involved in the first place.”

Gallagher said the need to raise children by married parents of opposite genders affirms the rationale for having in place DOMA, the 1996 law that prohibits recognition of same-sex marriage, and criticized the Justice Department for dropping defense of the law.

“This is the rationale for the national definition of marriage proposed by Congress in passing DOMA: ‘civil society has an interest in maintaining and protecting the institution of heterosexual marriage because it has a deep and abiding interest in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing,’” Gallagher said. “If we accept, as DOMA explicitly does, that this is a core public purpose of marriage, then treating same-sex unions as marriage makes little sense.”

Implicit in all of this is the idea that gay parents can't be good—or maybe even adequate—parents. And because of this, government shouldn't recognize the unions of gay men and women regardless of whether or not child-rearing comes into play.

But when a gay dad like Granderson describes himself as a "Tiger Dad" whose approach to parenting is to be his son's parent, not his friend—and when that gay dad happens not to mention his gayness—he becomes a hero of social conservatives.

And that's fine. It's good! I don't expect it will convince my socially conservative friends that a mother-and-father parenting relationship isn't the best way to raise kids. But I guess I can hope that admiring Granderson's parenting philosophy can open their minds (just a little bit) to the idea that other types of families deserve government support and recognition.

Are you ready for some football! And mourning?

There's something that kind of weirds me out about how the national commemoration of 9/11 has been somewhat co-opted by the NFL:

NEW YORK -- The New York Giants will visit the Washington Redskins and the New York Jets will host the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 11, marking the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The first Sunday features several high-profile games, including Indianapolis at Houston and Atlanta at Chicago. But much of the national focus will be on Washington and New York, the two cities most affected by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"That stadium is going to be full of emotion, not only the people from the area but in the entire country," said Jets coach Rex Ryan, who will be matching wits with his brother, Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. "The fact that it's the 10th anniversary of 9/11, that's where the focus should be, not me playing against my brother."

"For nearly 10 years, we have felt an obligation to use our platform to make sure none of us ever forget the tragedy and heartbreak and courage and heroism of Sept. 11," Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon said. "That responsibility becomes even greater."

Because without football, we'd probably have forgotten 9/11 right now.

That's ridiculously unfair of me, of course. And I guess that sports are so tightly interwoven into our society that the major events of our collective lives are filtered through them. But it's been particularly noticeable in connection to 9/11. George W. Bush turned throwing out a World Series pitch in the attack aftermath into a legend of his courage and fortitude. (I can't find the video, but I recall the 2004 Republican National Convention featured a short video lauding the president's manliness for throwing that pitch so soon after the terrorists struck.) And some months later, the Super Bowl seemed to act as a national catharsis for all the pent-up emotion leftover from 9/11—including a Budweiser commercial with the clydesdales offering their condolences—that seemed all the more meaningful because the Patriots won. The Patriots. Get it?

It's possible I'm being incredibly churlish. But at some point the need to mourn a horrific terrorist attack through sports seems insanely trivial.

Today in inequality reading: What's your CEO making?

The AFL-CIO has launched a new website focused on CEO pay:

The site, 2011 Executive Paywatch, notes that total compensation for C.E.O.’s averaged $11.4 million in 2010, up 23 percent from the previous year, based on the most recent pay data for 299 major companies.

The Web site notes that the C.E.O.’s at those 299 companies received a combined total of $3.4 billion in pay in 2010, enough to support 102,325 jobs paying the median wage.

The Web site notes that chief executives’ compensation is 343 times the median pay — $33,190 — of American workers. It adds that the $11.4 million average for C.E.O.’s is 28 times the pay of President Obama, 213 time the median pay of police officers, 225 times teacher pay, 252 times firefighter pay, and 753 times the pay of the minimum-wage worker.

Did you do 23 percent better in 2010 than 2009? I sure didn't. Did your company add that much value to its bottom line? Maybe, maybe not.

I don't doubt that CEOs create value for their companies, and they're always going to make more money than rank-and-file workers. But they didn't used to outstrip the pay of their workers by quite so much, and it's hard for me to find a good economic reason why that's so now. My free-market friends will roll their eyes, but I think oligarchic brand of capitalism is--and probably should be--simply unsustainable.

Why? Because CEO pay continues to skyrocket when stuff like this is happening to regular American families:

7. Employer-provided health insurance benefits continue to disappear. The share of people with employer-provided health insurance dropped from 64.2 percent in 2000 to 55.8 percent in 2009. This is the lowest share since 1987 when the Census started to track these data.

8. Family incomes drop sharply in the recession. Median inflation-adjusted household income fell 3.6 percent in 2008 and by another 0.7 percent in 2009. It stood at $49,777 in 2009, its lowest level in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1997. White family income stood at $54,461, compared to African-American family income, which was $32,584, or 59.8 percent of white income. Hispanic family income was $38,039 in 2009, or 69.8 percent of white income.

9. Poverty continues to rise. The poverty rate stood at 14.3 percent in 2009—its highest rate since 1994.

You can't blame this on Barack Obama. The employer benefits were dropping in 2009--before ObamaCare passed. I guess we can argue about the stimulus in regards to the other numbers, but count me as somebody who suspects things would've been much worse without it.

That's not the point. The point is that a society chooses to organize itself along free-market lines because a free market helps the vast majority of citizens sustain themselves. For most of American history--and there have been exceptions--that has been the case. If the system only works at the top, if the rest of us have only bread and circuses to console us, then trouble is coming ... and all the Ayn Rand movies in the world won't change that. Defenders of the free market should concern themselves with inequality issues because that's probably how they can best defend free markets.

Thomas Sowell doesn't know what he's talking about in Philly schools

Thomas Sowell says the key to stopping bullying is empowering educators to dispense with the bullies without due process or fear of lawsuits. As proof of educational namby-pambyness, he throws in this aside:

For years, there have been stories in New York and Philadelphia newspapers about black kids beating up Asian classmates. But do not expect anybody to do anything that is likely to put a stop to it.

If these were white kids beating up Hispanic kids, cries of outrage would ring out across the land from the media, the politicians, the churches, and civic groups. But it is not politically correct to make a fuss when black kids beat up Asian kids.

But there was a huge fuss in Philadelphia. It was on the cover of Philadelphia Weekly, and when a mini-riot happened at South High, it resulted in weeks of media coverage—I covered a couple of the protests myself—and a change in the school's administration. That led to the Philadelphia Inquirer's huge week of stories this spring about violence in Philly schools more broadly. If Sowell wants to suggest that Arlene Ackerman's administration hasn't done enough to solve the problem, I'll join him. But he suggests that "the media, the politicians, the churches, and civic groups" are ignoring it—and ignoring it because we're afraid of saying bad thing about black kids. But he's wrong.

So what happened at South High, anyway? It looks like things are getting better, but it's taking real effort.

And for what it's worth, that effort doesn't involve booting the bullies post haste. Instead, it involves taking steps to keep students safe in the moment and creating a better atmosphere at the school:

The doors of student bathrooms are kept propped open - a screen blocks direct sight inside - but staff can hear if trouble starts.

Hackney also changed how Southern handles complaints of harassment and assault, which Asian students say were often not taken seriously. Now, students can write incident reports in their first language, crucial for those learning English.

Something else is different too: There's no trash on the floor. Staffers still bend over to pick up the occasional wrapper, but last year the litter seemed ankle-deep.

As the story indicates, the new principal is willing to get rid of students who make problems—but he's also more focused on stopping violence before it starts. A carrot-and-stick approach seems to be more effective—and proven—than Sowell's stick-first approach.

I'm happy to criticize the district for what it has failed to do. Honesty compels acknowledgement of where things are going right. But Sowell doesn't even bother to check the facts. He's got his headlines and his assumptions, and nothing else seems to matter.

Prop 8 and Judge Vaughn Walker: Gay judges are automatically unqualified

Ed Whelan makes the case in National Review that Judge Vaughn Walker's decision overturning Prop 8 in California be set aside because Walker has recently come out of the closet and thus can't be considered impartial:

Two weeks ago, former federal district judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled last summer in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, publicly disclosed for the first time that he has been in a same-sex relationship for the past ten years. A straightforward application of the judicial ethics rules compels the conclusion that Walker should have recused himself from taking part in the Perry case. Further, under well-established Supreme Court precedent, the remedy of vacating Walker’s judgment is timely and necessary.

As a practical matter, I'm unsure if Whelan's thinking will carry the day. As a broader matter, I find it discomfitting: Would we ask an African-American judge to step aside in a race discrimination case? A female judge to step aside in a sex discrimination case? Not automatically, no. There is a suggestion in Whelan's argument—a spirit that pervades Prop 8 itself—that gay Americans cannot be full citizens with the full rights and duties of citizenship. The only impartial, qualified judge is, well, a heterosexual judge.

But is that really the case? Remember that one of the key arguments made by Prop 8 supporters was that gay marriages threaten straight marriages. Judge Walker cited such arguments in his ruling last year, quoting from the California voter education guide:

And:

The foundation of Prop 8, in other words, is not that gay marriage should be prohibited for any old reason—but because it threatens to undermine female-male marriages.

Seems to me then, that any judge who is married or has been married or who might want to be married someday—be they gay or straight—thus finds him- or herself possibly compromised in this matter. Who is to say a straight judge wouldn't be acting to protect his or her marriage from the destabilizing influence of gay unions? The only person capable of passing a good judgement would be a demonstrably asexual judge—and while that's not impossible to imagine, let's just concede it's unlikely. There's nobody who can escape the appearance of a conflict of interest here if Whelan's logic is being applied to everybody. Otherwise, "straight white male" is the default standard of impartiality; everybody else is just an interest group, compromised by their biases.

The anti-immigration movement: Brought to you by eugenicist John Tanton

One recurring theme in the anti-abortion movement is that organizations like Planned Parenthood are the fruits of bad seeds—irrevocably tainted by events that happened decades ago. And so you see frequent invocations of "eugenicist Margaret Sanger" in these debates. By that standard, then, I guess it's fair to accompany every single mention of the modern anti-immigration movement with a reference to eugenicist John Tanton—who helped create Numbers USA, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and the Center for Immigration Studies.

Here's a key excerpt from Sunday's profile in the New York Times:

But if anything, Dr. Tanton grew more emboldened to challenge taboos. He increasingly made his case against immigration in racial terms.

“One of my prime concerns,” he wrote to a large donor, “is about the decline of folks who look like you and me.” He warned a friend that “for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”

Dr. Tanton acknowledged the shift from his earlier, colorblind arguments, but the “uncomfortable truth,” he wrote, was that those arguments had failed. With a million or more immigrants coming each year — perhaps a third illegally — he warned, “The end may be nearer than we think.”

He corresponded with Sam G. Dickson, a Georgia lawyer for the Ku Klux Klan, who sits on the board of The Barnes Review, a magazine that, among other things, questions “the so-called Holocaust.” Dr. Tanton promoted the work of Jared Taylor, whose magazine, American Renaissance, warned: “America is an increasingly dangerous and disagreeable place because of growing numbers of blacks and Hispanics.” (To Mr. Taylor, Dr. Tanton wrote, “You are saying a lot of things that need to be said.”)

Beyond immigration, he revived an old interest in eugenics, another field trailed by a history of racial and class prejudice.

“Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids?” he wrote. “And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less. Who is going to break the bad news to them?”

I don't believe that everybody who favors tight restrictions on immigration and the forever treatment of immigrant children as outlaws is a racist or a secret eugenicist. (I do think they're wrong.) But by the standards of our modern discourse, though, none of that really matters. John Tanton's ties to modern-day anti-immigration organizations are deeper than Margaret Sanger's to modern Planned Parenthood—he's still alive, and sitting on the board of FAIR. As the Times piece noted, his colleagues in those organizations have been mostly reluctant to distance themselves from him and his views. (Probably out of politeness, like how you tolerate a racist relative at Thanksgiving, but still.) If the fruit of a bad seed is forever tainted, then today's anti-immigration organizations can't remove John Tanton's outrageous racism from their DNA.

Billy Eger returns

I was worried he'd stopped paying attention. Billy Eger's latest:

Your definitely not an accounted,your definitely a communist liberal loser,you have 2 braincells an 1s out looking for the other one.Joel you really can't be this stupid ,but ,then again you think your a journalists,far, far,far from it.its ok,cause soon thier won't be print media an your stupidity will NOT grace the paper anymore unless sum1 goes online too read your immature beliefs,wich I doubt they will do.have a crappy day Asshole .oh all those loser government workers who enslave themselves to the sleeper cell in the whitehouse,fuck them,those people need to get a life ,its all corrupt DEMS an Republicans,don't need to be in public schools or tell me what too eat,drive or breath,this was created by banks that didn't even need to be bailed out. It's the next ponzi scheme,they ran out of tax dollars because of layoffs an jobs leaving country they have to devise way to tax u so they can have their martini in Belize.I feel sorry for stupid people like you,even more for your kids if you have any,they'll probably even laugh at how stupid you are an how they can pull the wool over your eyes an closed mind.later loser,1 more thing ,all you media assholes play with peoples emotions instead of just printing facts.your ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL losers. Fuck off an .........
billy from wickliffe

Today in inequality reading: Barlett and Steele return

In short, corporate America does not come close to paying its fair share of government's cost. Nor, obviously, is it called upon to make any human sacrifice. As for all those hundreds of billions, they simply were and are added to the national debt, a tab that will be borne disproportionately by working Americans.

What kind of corporation escapes responsibility for any of these bills? Carnival Cruise Lines for one, a Miami company whose glitzy megaships have names like Carnival Fantasy, Ecstasy, Elation, and Paradise. From 2005 to 2010, Carnival - the world's largest cruise carrier - racked up $13 billion in profits. The company's tax bill for those years? Chump change of $191 million. That's million. And that included U.S. income tax, foreign income, and local income tax. The overall tax rate came in at 1.4 percent. This even though the ships sail out of Miami and are inspected by the Coast Guard.

Middle America has not fared nearly so well, thanks to a Congress that likes to sock it to ordinary people, the same people who are and will be hammered even more as lawmakers target them to be a scapegoat for the ballooning deficits. Though corporate profits have continued to climb, the wages of working people remain frozen in time. In 2008, according to IRS data, 10 million working individuals and families filed tax returns reporting incomes of between $30,000 and $40,000. Their effective tax rate: 6.8 percent - nearly five times the Carnival rate.

via philly.com

Songs on my iPod with 'America' in the title

• "America" by Neil Diamond.

• "America" by Simon & Garfunkel.

• "America (Reprise)" by Neil Diamond.

• "An American in Paris" conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

• "American Music" by Violent Femmes.

• "The American Patrol" by The Glenn Miller Orchestra.

• "American Wedding" by Gogol Bordello.

Heh.

"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant ... This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for," Mr. Obama told his supporters. "So it's not on the level."

via cbsnews.com

We don't have a spending problem. We have a paying problem.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

I don't think we need to bring tax revenues up to Norway levels. But ... this is why I don't trust deficit-reduction plans that involve huge tax cuts. (I could see rate cuts as part of a tax reform package that eliminated loopholes, but Paul Ryan's plan seems aimed more at cutting revenues to government.)

Raise the debt ceiling

Ben and I tackle the debt ceiling vote in our newest Scripps column

When you're out driving with your family and see a stop sign ahead, how do you usually handle the situation? Do you wait until the very last second, then slam on the breaks -- hurtling your passengers forward against their seat belts and causing bruised ribs and bloody noses, along with no small amount of unnecessary alarm? Do you ignore the stop sign altogether and drive right on through, oblivious to crossing traffic?

If you're a halfway decent driver, you do neither of these things. You try to slow down gently and calmly before coming to a full stop -- knowing that the panic-driven way of halting might be just as injurious as plunging through the intersection. This, roughly, is the situation we face with the debt ceiling.

Simply put, if the feds try to completely slam the breaks on federal spending now, we'll end up in a fair amount of pain. Under one scenario, America would simply stop making interest payments to China and its other creditors -- destroying our country's worldwide economic leadership, most likely never to be regained. In the other scenario, interest payments would continue and all other programs would be hollowed out immediately.

That might sound good in some Tea Party scenarios, but the sudden loss of funding and thousands of federal jobs would upend the recovery.

To throw another metaphor on the pile: This wouldn't be ripping off a Band-Aid quickly -- it would be re-opening the wound. We don't need that.

We also don't need to pile up ever-more exorbitant amounts of debt endlessly into the future -- neither Democrats nor Republicans believe that. Big changes are coming to the federal budget. They should happen in an orderly fashion. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling at this point wouldn't be orderly, but it would be incredibly destructive.

Ben, on the other hand, advocates "holding the line." Read the full column for his take.

Raise the debt ceiling

Ben and I tackle the debt ceiling vote in our newest Scripps column

When you're out driving with your family and see a stop sign ahead, how do you usually handle the situation? Do you wait until the very last second, then slam on the breaks -- hurtling your passengers forward against their seat belts and causing bruised ribs and bloody noses, along with no small amount of unnecessary alarm? Do you ignore the stop sign altogether and drive right on through, oblivious to crossing traffic?

If you're a halfway decent driver, you do neither of these things. You try to slow down gently and calmly before coming to a full stop -- knowing that the panic-driven way of halting might be just as injurious as plunging through the intersection. This, roughly, is the situation we face with the debt ceiling.

Simply put, if the feds try to completely slam the breaks on federal spending now, we'll end up in a fair amount of pain. Under one scenario, America would simply stop making interest payments to China and its other creditors -- destroying our country's worldwide economic leadership, most likely never to be regained. In the other scenario, interest payments would continue and all other programs would be hollowed out immediately.

That might sound good in some Tea Party scenarios, but the sudden loss of funding and thousands of federal jobs would upend the recovery.

To throw another metaphor on the pile: This wouldn't be ripping off a Band-Aid quickly -- it would be re-opening the wound. We don't need that.

We also don't need to pile up ever-more exorbitant amounts of debt endlessly into the future -- neither Democrats nor Republicans believe that. Big changes are coming to the federal budget. They should happen in an orderly fashion. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling at this point wouldn't be orderly, but it would be incredibly destructive.

Ben, on the other hand, advocates "holding the line." Read the full column for his take.

The wealthy aren't unduly burdened by taxes

With Tax Day fast approaching and deficit reduction all the rage, one fact deserves significant attention: the wealthy are enjoying the some of the lowest taxes in generations. The Figure shows the average tax rate in 1979, 1992, and 2007, as well as the tax rate for the top 1% of households, and the top 400 households (who have an average annual income of nearly $350 million).  Since 1979, the country’s overall average tax rate—the share of income paid in taxes—has fallen slightly, but for those at the top of the earnings ladder this share has fallen dramatically.

via epi.org

It may not be the case that we can solve all our problems by increasing taxes on the wealthy. But it's also not the case that the wealthy are stumbling under the weight of an overbearing tax burden in the United States, either.

Terry Bradshaw's concussions

Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw says he’s feeling the effects of numerous concussions sustained during his NFL career.

Bradshaw, a 62-year-old Shreveport, La., native, says he has been having short-term memory loss as well as the loss of hand-eye coordination. He also said he is undergoing rehabilitation for those ailments.

“I forgot the numbers. It’s pretty staggering,” Bradshaw said. “If you play in the NFL and start for 10 years, it’s not good. It is not good.”

via kansascity.com

There is part of me here that says: "So what?" Coal miners, for example, see their lives shortened pretty regularly by the work they do, but I'm not going without electricity. So if Terry Bradshaw finds himself harmed by the same work that made him rich and famous, who am I to complain?

The difference here, of course, is that electricity is a vital and necessary component of modern life. We can't really live without it. Terry Bradshaw scrambled his brain ... so we could be entertained. Me? I can easily find something else to do on Sunday afternoons that doesn't involve watching men sacrifice their mental capacities and good health for my amusement.

Big Gubmint for its own sake

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said in a speech on the floor Tuesday that “too often, it seems, Democrats in Washington claim to be interested in helping those in need, when what they really seek is to protect big government.”

via nytimes.com

I hear this a lot from my conservative friends, and I guess my question is: To what end? Why would we love big government if not as an ends to helping those in need?

Conservatives value small government for its own sake--they believe smaller government produces more liberty. I think that's an insight worth considering, frankly. But some of my conservative friends (like Mitch McConnell above) seem to then assume the inverse is true: Liberals want Big Government because, well, we really love Big Government.

It doesn't really make sense. The truth is that lots of liberals really do want to help the less-fortunate, and see government programs and regulation as the best way to do so. There's nothing tricky about it, no love of government for government's sake.

Priorities

They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs.  That’s not right.  And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

Barack Obama, via whitehouse.gov

If you don't believe government should be in the business of defraying health costs for the elderly, this probably doesn't move you. I've got to think there are more than a few independent voters out there who would agree with the president.

Barack Obama didn't make the deficit by himself. Neither did Social Security.

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon.  They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid.  Like parents with young children who know they have to start saving for the college years, America had to start borrowing less and saving more to prepare for the retirement of an entire generation. 

via whitehouse.gov

Still reading my way through Obama's speech, but it's worth noting that the long-term deficit problem we have today didn't start with Social Security back in the Roosevelt era or Medicaid back in the LBJ years. It started in the 1980s...roughly the same time we started getting a generation of politicians who told us we shouldn't have to pay for the government we get. As I said in the Scripps column last week, the deficit isn't just a spending problem—it's a paying problem.

Somebody tell Tom Corbett

The total number of job openings in February was 3.1 million, and the total number of unemployed workers was 13.7 million (unemployment is from the Current Population Survey).  The ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was 4.4-to-1 in February, a substantial improvement from the revised January ratio of 5.1-to-1.  However, February marks 26 months that the “job-seeker’s ratio” has been substantially above the 4-to-1 ratio.  A job seeker’s ratio of 4-to-1 means that for 3 out of 4 unemployed workers, there simply are no jobs.

via epi.org

A fantasy budget for liberals that will never, ever happen

The People’s Budget would finance $1.7 trillion worth of public investment over the next decade, most of which is front-loaded over the next five years. The budget would strengthen Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable earnings. The budget also would accrue health savings of $308 billion over the next decade, primarily by creating a public option for health insurance and negotiating prescription drug prices for Medicare Part D.

The budget would reduce conventional and strategic military forces, for savings of $692 billion and end all emergency war supplemental appropriations for savings of $1.6 trillion. Finally, individual and corporate tax reform would ensure sufficient revenue to cover federal outlays by the end of the decade.

via epi.org

Quotes that don't actually elicit sympathy from me

We have an au pair from France, and she recently filled up our minivan and gave me a bill for $70,” said Melanie Janin, a mother of three from Bethesda. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ 

via washingtonpost.com

The difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party

Democrats who believe in offensive conspiracy-minded myths are hounded from office.* Republicans who believe in offensive conspiracy-minded myths are considered major presidential contenders.

*And good riddance.

Today in inequality reading: Feminism edition

If different occupations don’t explain the pay gap, might it be caused by women’s decisions to work less outside the home in order to care for their children? Researchers have found that even when differences in work experience, education, age, and occupation are held constant, women continue to earn less. In fact, research by Columbia University social work professor Jane Waldfogel reveals that mothers receive a 4 percent wage penalty for the first child and a 12 percent penalty for each additional child. In contrast, University of Washington economists Shelly Lundberg and Elaina Rose find that men’s wages increase 9 percent with the birth of their first child. One possible explanations sociologists offer is that, upon parenthood, men are perceived as more committed to their work and women less.

via washingtonpost.com

My conservative friends shrug off the pay gap as being a result of the different choices men and women tend to make: Women stay home with kids for at least a little while, the notion goes, so they tend to not keep pace with their male peers. The evidence seems to indicate that women who make the exact same choices as their male peers still lose out. Thank goodness for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, one of the few unambiguously good things the Obama Administration has accomplished.

We're No. 5! We're No. 5!

Perhaps I just lack the mentality of a true winner, but there's something weird to me about the way this New York Times story is framed:

The United States continues to lag other nations in its use of computing and communications technology, according to an annual study issued Tuesday by the World Economic Forum.

That's awful! We need to win the future and build a bridge to the 21st century! Otherwise our kids will someday play with their iPads while more forward-thinking countries use personal holograms in the classroom! Oh the humanity!

For the second consecutive year, the United States finished fifth in the study’s comparison of 138 countries that make up 98.8 percent of the world’s total gross domestic product. Sweden was first, followed by Singapore, Finland and Switzerland.

Wait. What? We're No. 5? Out of 138 countries? That puts us in the top 3.6 percent of nations? And we're much, much, much bigger than the nations ahead of us—meaning their higher ranking might be partly the result of the ease of organizing and wiring up smaller communities than big, continent-spanning countries with big, continent-spanning populations?

USA! USA! USA!

Now, it's true that the Times points out some of America's weaknesses in the ranking: "For example, it ranked 76th in the rate of mobile phone subscriptions, 48th in low-cost access to business phone lines and 24th in percentage of households with a personal computer — behind Bahrain, Singapore and Brunei, among others." Hey: Let's work on that stuff.

But it seems that in the big picture, the United States has actually done a pretty decent job of transitioning society into its current tech-centric incarnation. The nations we "lag" behind just don't face the same challenges of scale that we do. Are we so fixated on being No. 1 in all things that we can't see when we're actually doing a pretty good job?

 

Why can't Chuck Grassley just say no to Trump?

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a longtime GOP leader in the Hawkeye State, tells National Review Online that he is open to hearing Donald Trump’s case for the presidency. But that’s where his enthusiasm ends. “I’ll listen to anybody,” he says, “but I wish that General Petraeus would get interested. I’ve only had one person in Iowa ask me about Donald Trump.”

via nationalreview.com

Obviously, this is a long way from being a full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump on Grassley's part. But given that Donald Trump is a reality TV host who has lately been doubling- and tripling-down on "birther" accusations against President Obama, would it hurt Grassley to skip the politeness and say flatly: "This guy has no credibility"? Is he being overly polite, or is the Republican party that far gone these days that even the worst conspiracy-driven vanity candidates must be given a respectful hearing?

Today in inequality reading: Kevin D. Williamson

The numbers generally cited in support of this argument do not actually tell us much about what has happened to the incomes of wealthy households over time. That’s because the people who are in the top bracket today are not the people who were in the top bracket last year. There’s a good deal of socioeconomic mobility in the United States — more than you’d think. Our dear, dear friends at the IRS keep track of actual households (boy, do they ever!), and sometimes the Treasury publishes data about what has happened to them. For instance, among those who in 1996 were in the very highest income group isolated for study — the top 0.01 percent — 75 percent were in a lower income group by 2005. The median real income of super-rich households went down, not up. The rich got poorer. Among actual households, income grew proportionally more for those who started off in the low-income groups than those that began in high-income groups.

Kevin D. Williamson, via nationalreview.com

This piece appeared a day ago and I've been waiting to see a good blogospheric response to it. I'm still waiting. All the data I've looked at in recent months suggests that income mobility is as stagnant as wages in the lower quintile—and, in fact, what makes the income inequality problem a problem is that there's not much chance you're going to be able to work your way out of those lower quintiles.

But I'm not an economist: I rely on economists to make sense of the data for me. And I'd really like to know if Williamson's right or wrong about this, or if this information looks different within a larger picture. Anybody out there?

Listening to my iPod songs, A-Z

Started my iPod from the beginning of the song list this morning. There's 5,000 songs on there, so this project might take ... awhile. Here's the first 10 selections:

• "Abandon Love," by Drakkar Sauna.

• "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan," by Magnetic Fields.

• "About A Girl," by Nirvana.

• "About Face," by Grizzly Bear.

• "About Her," by Malcolm McLaren.

• "Abracadabra," by Judee Sill.

• "Absolutely Cuckoo," by Magnetic Fields.

• "Acapulco," by Neil Diamond.

• "Accidents Will Happen," by Elvis Costello & The Attractions.

• "Ach, Elslein, liebest Elslein," King's Singers.

 

Congress and war

What dirty hippie said this?:

"The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."

Just George Washington is all. Conor Friedersdorf notes: "So 218 years ago, the ratification of the Constitution having just occurred, the first president of the United States insisted in the face of raids on the homeland, and the virtual certainty of future attacks, that he couldn't commit to a military response without the permission of the United States Congress."

I'm sure John Yoo, Dick Cheney, and (cough, sputter) Barack Obama would be happy to set George Washington straight. One of those three actually used to talk the same way.

Deborah Solomon is gone, but her spirit still lives at the New York Times

I rejoiced when Deborah Solomon's needlessly inane interviews disappeared from the Sunday Times Magazine. Unfortunately, they've been replaced with ... needlessly inane interviews. Take this Q&A with CBS anchor Katie Couric:

Since your new book, “The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons From Extraordinary Lives,” is about great advice, imagine that your boss, Les Moonves, called you on Christmas 2009 and said: “Charlie Sheen was just arrested for holding his wife at knife point. He has a history of this sort of behavior with women, but he makes a ton of money for the network.” What do you tell him?
Fire him.

Have you told him as much?
No. He hasn’t really sought my advice on Charlie Sheen. I hope what Charlie Sheen did wouldn’t be consistent with the values of this network. That’s probably an unrealistic response, but that’s my initial gut reaction. Luckily, that’s not my job.

Did you feel less proud going to work at CBS knowing that he was essentially a colleague?
I don’t really consider Charlie Sheen a colleague.

You know, this is inane bullshit. I wouldn't pick Katie Couric as one of the top five people I'd like to interview, but this is like if I asked Andrew Goldman--the interviewer--if he was less proud going to work at the New York Times because he once had Manny Ramirez as a colleague. After all, the Times owns a chunk of the Boston Red Sox, and Ramirez won the World Series MVP playing for the Red Sox, and Ramirez just retired after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. Why won't Andrew Goldman stick up for the integrity of the New York Times?!

That's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous the New York Times--which is better than this in so many ways--keeps giving space to pointless provocation. It's an insult to the interviewees, and it's an insult to the readers.

Single-Tasking Sundays: Week Two

"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."

Our second Single-Tasking Sunday occurred the same day Virginia Heffernan's column, debunking the notion of Internet addiction, appeared in the New York Times. New pastimes have often drawn widespread condemnation, she noted, but today's Web-enmeshed folks are merely finding new ways to play, do some intellectual exploration, and (yes) waste time that might be used clearning house.

At first, this might seem to rebuke my efforts to create a day each week that isn't dominated by the Internet and electronic doo-dads. I don't think so, in part because I believe Heffernan is largely correct.

After all, I spent a day last week hosting a Facebook thread about Paul Ryan's proposed budget, a sometimes fierce blow-by-blow that featured contributions from really smart and passionate people from coast-to-coast--some of whom I have never met in person, but whose place in my circle of online friends I find nonetheless enriching.

And on Saturday night, we hosted--in person--new friends here in Philadelphia whome we'd most likely never met without Facebook. They were friends of a Facebook friend, another man whom I've not met in "real life," but whose interactions I've valued. He recommended we me Joe and Stephanie, Philadelphia residents whose daughter is just a little younger than our son. It's been a real pleasure getting to know them. And I can provide several more examples of how Facebook and Twitter have widened our circle of attachments here and thus rooted us more deeply in Philadelphia. Many of the good things that have happened in my life have been connected, in some way, to the rise of the Internet during my adult life.

However....

There is one thing the Web does not give me, and that is a few moments of quiet, a chance to sit, to watch people walk by my front door, to be bored, to be at a momentary loss for what to do next. It is always there--especially in this still-young era of the mobile Web--coloring in the blank spaces.

I don't know how to explain the worth of my one-a-week down time, then, except to note that I find it valuable. So many days of the week, I wake up and plunge straight into cyberworld, sometimes not coming up for air again until it is time to sleep. The self-enforced day off from that world distrupts the pattern, lets me think more clearly, lets me think without distraction, and gives me space to think about how to live more intentionally the other six days a week.

Heffernan suggests it's not such a bad thing to be distracted from our most depressive and anguished thoughts by an immersive pastime--and, true, angst is way overrated-- but I can't help but suspect that complete and total distraction is somehow hollow. Perhaps I'm a Puritan after all.

But I don't think so. I do not rebuke the blessings of the Internet--I'm not wearing the Information Age equivalent of a hair shirt--but neither do I surrender completely to its charms. One day a week spent drying off next to the digital pool isn't the first step toward giving up swimming. It's an attempt at balance, an effort to ensure that the fingers of my experience (to stretch a metaphor way too far) aren't always pruney.

Paul Ryan's budget

Ben and I discuss it in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:

Credit Paul Ryan for bravery: He has done what Republicans avoided doing for decades -- show exactly how the party would cut government.

Americans may not like taxes, but they do like government services.

Just don't give Ryan too much credit.

Why? Because his proposal is not entirely honest. Ryan presents cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell Grants as a means to preserve the safety net for America's poorest. But many of Ryan's conservative allies see the proposal as an opening gambit to undo the welfare state entirely and turn the clock back to the 1920s, when the sick and elderly suffered needlessly. Back down, and it won't be long before we're debating whether the programs should exist.

Why? Because Ryan's diagnosis is wrong, treating government spending as though it is the main cause of America's recent financial troubles.

That's wrong: Wall Street went on a gambling spree and finally lost -- threatening to unmake the world financial system when it did so.

Spending on social programs was not the problem.

Why? Because to the extent that a long-term deficit does pose a problem, it's not entirely a spending problem. It's a paying problem: Americans aren't financially supporting the government we get.

Personal income tax rates are among the lowest they've been in 70 years; major corporations like GE pay little or no tax at all. Writer Bruce Bartlett notes that in 2011, federal revenues will only consume 14.4 percent of GDP -- below the postwar average of 18.5 percent, and well below the 20-percent-plus that accompanied the surplus years of the late 1990s.

Ryan's proposal hurts the poor. It benefits the rich. And according to Ryan himself, it doesn't balance the budget until 2040. That's not a path to prosperity for anybody except the already prosperous. This proposal must be defeated.

Ben is more enthusiastic. I think a welfare state should be sustainable, and I think Democrats have real work to do to address that issue. But I think Ryan's budget really begins a discussion that goes all the way back to the 1930s and 1960s—do we really want to have a welfare state at all?

The people's work

So: Who thinks voters gave the GOP control of the House in order to shut down government over abortion?

Why police officers shouldn't use Facebook

I think it's interesting that the common departmental response to officers posing as vigilante power abusers on Facebook isn't to try to curb the officers' attitudes—but to get them to stop posting to Facebook.

Congressman Kevin McCarthy's mighty big bootstraps

Last week I noted that the Koch brothers believe in the power of hard work and free enterprise because they turned themselves from millionaires into billionaires—seemingly missing the point that it's lots easier to become a billionaire if you start out with some word ending in "illionaire" as a description of your monetary worth.

Via Adam Serwer, I note that GOP Congressman Kevin McCarthy has a similar story to tell.

FOX: Sure. Such a good point. You would actually know something about the American dream because going... in the Wayback Machine for a moment... you won the California lottery.

McCARTHY: On my first ticket. I was 19. I won the lottery. I could do one of two things: I could become Charlie Sheen and throw a big party, but I chose to invest in the market, and after a while... I decided to invest in the American dream and open my own small business. [Despite] the challenge of government regulation, luckily I was successful, and at the end of two years, I then had enough money to pay my way through college.

He was a deli guy, so I wonder what kind of "challenges" government regulation posed. Did the government put its boot on his neck by forcing him to put unused meat in the refrigerator?

More seriously, it does seem to be a theme among Corporate Republicans that even in instances where they clearly benefitted from great luck or great genes, well, they believe that it was their own virtue that really carried the day. That's simplistic. Success is probably often a matter of both luck and hard work—and one without the other probably doesn't offer much long-term reward, generally speaking. Acting as though the stool only has one leg is foolish.

My Glenn Beck prediction

I've already said this on Twitter, but want to preserve this at the blog so that I can say "I told you so" in about two years.

My prediction is this: Within two years, Glenn Beck remakes himself as a David Brock/Arianna Huffington lefty 'disillusioned' with the right. He'll be so good at it that liberals will ... like him. Beck's left himself plenty of escape hatches along the way, with the "rodeo clown just trying to understand stuff" routine he does. He'll say: "Well, I understand now! And once Fox realized I was going places that weren't in line with GOP orthodoxy, they got rid of me!"

When I fall for this, I ask that one of you slap me. Hard.

'Never in history has liberals abstaining from a vote lead to a more progressive government'

Adam Serwer casts his lot with the lesser of the two evils:

Liberals may ultimately come back to the Democrats, but this isn't merely out of blind loyalty or because they're easily manipulated by cheap Democratic fearmongering. It's because the consequences of Republican dominance are anything but abstract.

And that makes sense. But there has to be something better for liberals than hoping for better Democratic governance and shrugging our shoulders when we don't get it. (Read Serwer's post, and that's more or less what his position amounts to.) On the civil liberties front, there are plenty of allies across the political spectrum—including, yes, the libertarian-oriented right—that a coalition that exerts real pressure and that can cause real pain ought to be possible. Perhaps I'm too optimistic. But seeing "civil liberties" as the cause of a narrow portion of the Democratic base, I think, is viewing things too narrowly—as is the idea that those of us who care about such issues find our natural home in the Democratic Party. I'm certain that's no longer the case.

Finding a positive way forward—one that's realistic and and create real change in favor of civil liberties—doesn't appear to be an easy project. I'm not interested in spending my days going to Green Party rallies. But I'm not interested in lending legitimacy or support to a president who doesn't deserve it, either.

The end of Barack Obama

First, do no harm.

That's where I start with my philosophy of governance. Maybe it sounds conservative. I don't think conservatives would have me as one of their own, though, because I think it is also wise—where possible—for republican government (as the servant of the community) to provide services we can't otherwise provide for ourselves. A safety net for the poor. Universal healthcare. NPR. Stuff like that.

But a government charged with providing such services to—and on behalf of—the citizens has a basic obligation that supersedes those: Do no harm.

Do not torture people.

Do not lock away people without due process of law.

Do not eavesdrop on people without a warrant.

Do not subject people to cruel and unusual punishment.

Do not deprive people of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If a government cannot do those things, the rest—the social services, the safety net—is just a payoff. If a government cannot do those things, then it is probably no longer a government that derives its power from its citizens, but instead is (or is on its way to becoming) a government that rules its citizens. It's not always easy to tell the difference between the two, but the distinction is there—and it is important.

I have lost confidence in the ability of Barack Obama to first do no harm.

He is in charge of a government that—despite promises to end torture—is clearly trying to break the will of one of its own citizens in a military brig.

He is in charge of a government that prosecutes suspected terrorists in whichever format seems most likely to guarantee a win for prosecutors, instead of giving every suspect equal access to the law.

He is in charge of a government that seeks ever more-expansive ways to spy upon its citizens. He is in charge of a government that claims the right to kill a citizen without any kind of legal proceeding. He is in charge of a government that proclaims itself legally immune from efforts to hold it accountable for transgressions. And he is in charge of an administration that reserves to itself the right to make war without permission from Congress.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because I was mad. I was mad at George W. Bush for doing everything I've listed above, plus a few other things. I was kind of mad about Republican governance that seemed interested, mainly, in catering to the interests of the rich, but I was mostly mad about how the Bush Administration had reserved to itself unlimited, abusive wartime powers—in the name of prosecuting a war without end. Obama seemed to promise more than that.

He has delivered, on these matters, almost exactly what came before. I can no longer trust Barack Obama, or the Democratic Party, to be truly on the side of civil liberties.

Adam Serwer, a liberal, wrote: "Point is, though, if you voted for Obama in 2008 expecting a restoration of the rule of law, a rejection of the Bush national-security paradigm or even a candidate who wouldn't rush headlong into wars in Muslim countries expecting to turn back the current of history through mere force of will, then you don't have a candidate for 2012. You probably don't have a party either." He is right.

Conor Friedersdorf, a conservative, wrote: "Since his January 2009 inauguration, President Obama has embraced positions that he denounced as a candidate, presided over a War on Drugs every bit as absurd as it's always been, asserted the unchecked, unreviewable power to name American citizens enemy combatants and assassinate them, and launched a war without seeking Congressional authorization. His attorney general's efforts to live up to his boss' campaign rhetoric have been thwarted at every turn. And presiding over the disgraceful treatment of Bradley Manning, he has lost the right even to tout his record on detainee policy. On civil liberties, President Obama cannot be trusted." He is right.

For a long time, I have paused before the decision I find I must make. Democrats are awful, but Republicans are worse. They'll do all of the above—gleefully, without any pretense of a furrowed brow—and they'll do it while doing everything they can to exacerbate inequality between the very rich and the rest of us.

After the darkness of the Bush years, I came to convince myself that the lesser evil is, well, less evil. At some point, though, the lesser evil is still too evil to support. I don't believe Barack Obama is evil. I believe he is better than his opponents—but not in the critical realm where the "do no harm" rule applies. And I do not believe he is good enough.

The president has announced his re-election campaign. At this point, he will not have my vote. He has until November 2012 to earn it back. I do not expect he will.

Who wins under Paul Ryan's budget plan?

Chait: "Americans overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Ryan understands he can only make his plan acceptable if those cuts are seen as necessary to save the programs.

And certainly some level of cutting is necessary. But Ryan's level of cutting goes far beyond what's needed to preserve those programs, and it does so in order to clear room for a very large, regressive tax cut. He is making a choice -- not just cut Medicare to save Medicare, but also to cut Medicare in order to cut taxes for the rich."

Barack Obama and Bradley Manning

A petition: "President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions—and immediately end those that cannot withstand the light of day."

Can Obama be trusted on civil liberties?

No: "Since his January 2009 inauguration, President Obama has embraced positions that he denounced as a candidate, presided over a War on Drugs every bit as absurd as it's always been, asserted the unchecked, unreviewable power to name American citizens enemy combatants and assassinate them, and launched a war without seeking Congressional authorization. His attorney general's efforts to live up to his boss' campaign rhetoric have been thwarted at every turn. And presiding over the disgraceful treatment of Bradley Manning, he has lost the right even to tout his record on detainee policy. On civil liberties, President Obama cannot be trusted."

Adam Serwer on Obama's failures

Co-sign.: "Point is, though, if you voted for Obama in 2008 expecting a restoration of the rule of law, a rejection of the Bush national-security paradigm or even a candidate who wouldn't rush headlong into wars in Muslim countries expecting to turn back the current of history through mere force of will, then you don't have a candidate for 2012. You probably don't have a party either."

Corporate America has a smaller tax bill than you do

Nancy Folbre: Tax Havens and Treasure Hunts - NYTimes.com:

"Our budget deficit would be smaller – and pressure to cut social programs lower – if corporate tax revenues had not declined over time relative to gross domestic product and relative to individual income tax revenues.

Corporate America is a world leader in creative tax minimization. As David Kocieniewski reported in The New York Times, General Electric used some particularly innovative strategies to take advantage of overseas tax havens, including “offshore profit-shifting.”

The Boeing Corporation, a major federal contractor, has had a net rebate in federal taxes over the last three years, and a total tax rate of 4.5 percent over the last five years, though the company points to pension contributions and research credits that have reduced the bill.

In 2008, the Government Accountability Office reported that 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded corporations in the United States had subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens; it cautiously emphasized that this did not prove that their decisions to locate there were motivated by tax minimization."

Single-Tasking Sundays: Week One

The first Single-Tasking Sunday is over, and I think I can call it a success. I confess to using my phone to make a call and peak in the world on Sunday morning, but otherwise managed to keep the day clear of e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and a host of other electronic distractions. In the morning, we had breakfast and read the papers. (Actual papers.) Around midday we did some housecleaning. In the afternoon, my wife and I went to see a movie and have dinner. Very relaxing all around.

In some respects, it wasn't an extraordinary day. It was just ... quieter. Two moments stood out for me.

• We took a brief break from our mid-day chores. Often, these 10-minute breaks involve iPhones, iPads, and all manner of diddling around—to the point that chores are never returned to. On Sunday, I just sat. We had a Billie Holiday album playing on our sound system, and so I listened. Music is often background noise for me; on Sunday, for a few minutes, it moved to the foreground.

• At dinner, I found myself talking to my wife, instead of fiddling with my iPhone. (I left it at home to ensure some discipline.) Sure, there were moments of silence, but I didn't fill them with my usual e-diddling. We just took in each other's company.

I'm not sure what will come of this exercise in electronics-free Sundays. But if all I get are a few stolen moments of silence and serenity, that will probably be enough to justify this exercise.

Today in inequality reading: Real economic stability

New York Times:

"But many of the jobs being added in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food, health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care.

A separate report being released Friday tries to go beyond traditional measurements like the poverty line and minimum wage to show what people need to earn to achieve a basic standard of living.

The study, commissioned by Wider Opportunities for Women, a nonprofit group, builds on an analysis the group and some state and local partners have been conducting since 1995 on how much income it takes to meet basic needs without relying on public subsidies. The new study aims to set thresholds for economic stability rather than mere survival, and takes into account saving for retirement and emergencies."

As it happens, I've been thinking a lot about this National Affairs essay by Yuval Levin, which suggests tearing down much of the American welfare state and replacing it with a "true" safety net that offers government support for the real hard cases. The proximate cause of this is that the federal government is spending way more than it takes in, but there's a larger philosophical justification:

Because all citizens — not only the poor — become recipients of benefits, people in the middle class come to approach their government as claimants, not as self-governing citizens, and to approach the social safety net not as a great majority of givers eager to make sure that a small minority of recipients are spared from devastating poverty but as a mass of dependents demanding what they are owed. It is hard to imagine an ethic better suited to undermining the moral basis of a free society.

There's something very seductive about this vision—but only if people who do work hard and honestly stand a reasonable chance to provide for themselves and their families. And that doesn't seem to be the case, according to the Times' report:

According to the report, a single worker needs an income of $30,012 a year — or just above $14 an hour — to cover basic expenses and save for retirement and emergencies. That is close to three times the 2010 national poverty level of $10,830 for a single person, and nearly twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

A single worker with two young children needs an annual income of $57,756, or just over $27 an hour, to attain economic stability, and a family with two working parents and two young children needs to earn $67,920 a year, or about $16 an hour per worker.

That compares with the national poverty level of $22,050 for a family of four. The most recent data from the Census Bureau found that 14.3 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line in 2009.

Two notes:

• Median household income in 2009 was around $50,000 a year. That means half of all households were making less than that. I presume there are a number of four-person families in the lower half of all American households. And since the sustainability number is actually north of the median number ... well, I'm going to presume that most American families aren't earning enough to sustain themselves without some form of government subsidy—at least if we accept the Wider Opportunities for Women study. Yikes.

• As Paul Krugman notes this morning, the GOP plan for getting the economy moving involves ... lowering American wages. That's good for business, but not so good for workers.

I'm all for retooling the safety net if the market provides a reasonable living for its participants. That doesn't seem to be happening right now. And it's not, frankly, how the market seems inclined to act.