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