Wednesday Quick Hits and Open Thread

- I am sure that it could be arranged: Muamar Qaddafi indicates that the only way he will give up power is to go out feet first.  I hope someone obliges him.  My sense - and it is only that -- is that the Libyan state, such as it is, is extraordinarily brittle and that the dictator's days are numbered.  Incidentally, for those who think the U.S.'s penchant for cozying up with dictators is a unique phenomenon, check out Italy's shameful dealings with the Libyan despot. 

- I just noticed this at the supermarket counter this morning: Why on earth would Newsweek run a cover story of an opinion piece by the increasingly reprehensible neo-imperialist Nial Ferguson entitled: "Egypt: How Obama Blew It."  One of the inside tag lines to the story describes "Obama's Egypt debacle" -- a really strange characterization to a story that hasn't even begun to see a resolution.  In the article, Ferguson continues his reflexive Islam bashing -- really a persuasive point of view to present to 1.5 billion of the world's people, while lamenting Obama's lack of a grand foreign policy strategy.  It seems to me that one of the best aspects of Obama's foreign policy is the absence of any grandiose doctrine bearing his name.  He appears to react to actual facts on the ground, approaches things cautiously, tries not to overstate, overreact, or over commit and seems to understand that events in other countries are not first and foremost about the United States.  It's refreshing really -- approaching foreign policy with modesty, wariness, and prudence.       

- The assault on reproductive rights continues on too many fronts to count.  One thing for sure though, as this excellent Post Op-Ed piece points out (I don't know that I've ever written those words), is that there is nothing fiscally conservative about cutting funding for Title X family planning funds generally or funds for Planned Parenthood specifically.

- The one silver lining I see in the relentless attacks being launched by Republicans in both Washington and in the states in which they've achieved power is that they are making clear, for all to see, what they are all about.  Crushing unions, depriving women of their fundamental autonomy, giving the back of the hand to the poor and the unemployed -- these are the priorities of a pathological party at a time of maximum vulnerability for so many.  It's a sick, sad agenda -- but one that is actually forcing the Democrats to draw stark lines -- hence the desperate actions by the Democrats in both the Wisconsin Senate and the Indiana House to stave off union busting legislation.  It is my hope that the rallying effect that this causes in 2012 will result in a strong repudiation of the Republicans in many places.  But it is crucial that it happen in the next election cycle -- electoral failure that allows these moves to be institutionalized is going to be extremely harmful to progressive causes in the near term.

- Showing their Work: Have any of the pundits who proclaim that public employee unions are inherently different than those in the private sector since their political allies cannot say no to them, actually produced evidence to back that assertion.  Not to argue by anecdote, but my sister, who is a unionized public school teacher in Democratic dominated Massachusetts, noted that her cumulatively pay increases over the last five years total a whopping 1%.  (That figure is not annualized.)  I have seen no data at all that suggests that public employee unions have been winning pay increases in recent years that are better than those received by private sector employees.  The only thing I've seen is like many private sector unionized employees, many public employees have tried to preserve their benefits, often at the expense of receiving pay increases.    

- Has any major media figure actually tried to pin a Republican official down on how it is that their actions are supposed to help unemployment?  Since Republicans dominate the Sunday talk shows, you would think that there might be some probing on the most pressing problem facing the nation -- if it has happened, so far I've yet to hear it.

What's on your minds? 

Comments

[Stephen]

From what I've seen, the current union-busting efforts in Indiana and Florida are dead. This tells us a couple things; Daniels, for example, is preparing for a presidential run and obviously thinks that killing Indiana's unions will end up hurting him.

Rick Scott, for his part, is no ideologue. He's in it for power and money, and obviously believes that union-busting is a step too far for him to be able to hold onto his power.

Walker strikes me as an ideologue, a very willing lapdog for the Koch brothers. It's not just about the union busting, it's also about the various giveaways in Walker's budget and other measures. Hell, he wants the right to sell state assets with no oversight whatsoever, especially power plants. And of course the Koch brothers would be very interested in purchasing some power plants at a closed government auction.

The Koch brothers found their patsy willing to do whatever they say, but they didn't stop to consider that Wisconsin, despite the Republicans in office there, is a highly unionized state and damn proud of it. They also weren't smart enough to consider that a huge fight over unions would result in greater, not less, scrutiny of Walker's other actions.

Both the Kochs and the unions understand that Wisconsin is where the national fight will be won or lost, at least for this round. If we win, then union busting will recede into the background for a few years, and Walker will probably lose to a Democrat after this term, if he isn't recalled. If they win I might as well scout out a coal mine for my 4-year-old son now.

[Sir Charles]

Stephen,

Child labor laws are so 1930s.

Yeah, I was struck that Walker is coming out to the right of Scott on the issue of collective bargaining rights. That's pretty amazing.

I was surprised that Daniels was so anxious to avoid a fight over "right to work." Glad, but surprised. Sadly, I suspect that it will not be to his advantage in any Republican primary.

[oddjob]

The jihad against faggots continues apace as well:

Montana

Tennessee

Wyoming

[oddjob]

I suspect that it will not be to his advantage in any Republican primary.

I think that's a given. I don't see Daniels winning the GOP nomination for president. I don't see how it's possible. He's too wonky and not sufficiently willing to pander to the theocrats.

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

It is to weep.

I am glad that they are focusing laser like on the economy.

Fucking hateful bastards.

[Mandos]

I'm arguing for minimum wage again. Yes, I know. These modest people have a bizarre and undue influence on the terms of "serious" discussion, and it's impossible to avoid or ignore them, because they do not present as right-wing despite the consequences of their ideas.

[kathy a.]

very good op-ed on the defunding of title X/planned parenthood.

i've been trying to figure out how the budget hearings and votes went in the house -- the news accounts did not really explain the process very well. there were bunches of amendment proposed; each got a certain amount of time for arguments; then there was a voice vote. in some cases, someone called for a recorded vote.

with the title x funding -- we saw some of the statements of congresspeople, including rep. spieirs speaking of her own need for an abortion. this was late at night. the proposed amendment removing funding did NOT pass on voice vote that night. the recorded vote happened the next day, and then the amendment passed. [this info is buried in the house press gallery website.]

my guess is that many of the critters had toddled off to bed and did not even hear the arguments about the amendment. then, the troops were rallied for the recorded vote in the morning. the morning session began at 9 a.m., and i think the fairly widespread coverage of part of that debate did not really surface until after they were in session -- on the west coast, i saw just a couple of accounts early in the morning [about 11 a.m. east coast time].

i guess this is how things get done, but it is disappointing to realize those marathon hearings were all for show, that there was little chance of a congressperson being persuaded by any of the arguments presented. at least on this issue, which came up late at night.

[Sir Charles]

Mandos,

One really has to wonder about people who devote a lot of time and energy to fighting the ideologocial war against the minimum wage. I mean, really -- what kind of person takes this on as their raison d'etre?

[kathy a.]

what SC said.

oy, oddjob. i have that same feeling about the anti-gay true-believers. wtf? to borrow a page from teh pro-choice handbook [possession of which is presumably illegal in several states], "if you don't want a gay marriage, don't get one."

that tennessee piece you linked is kind of hilarious, though -- if kids aren't allowed to say the word gay, that will, ummmmm, wow.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Actually, the people who I actually consider pundits, the bloggers that haven't been 'blessed' with the New Village mentality, have done a very good job of making just the point about unionized employees that you do, with much more detail. Here are juts a few examples focussing mostly on teachers in a lot of cases:

Desert Beacon has been concentrating on nothing but this problem for the last week, and his discussion, while lengthy, is just this solid (brackets are links he includes but i didn't recode):

Myth: It's time for public employees to give back, just like private sector workers.
Fact: Nevada public employees have been giving back. In 2009 state workers took a 4% pay cut in the form of furloughs each month, and teachers took a 4% cut. [LVSun] Note, state workers in Nevada do not have union representation. Clark County teachers proposed taking a 1.5% pay cut to ease budget problems in 2010. [LVRJ] The union accepted a one year pay freeze. [Exam] In Washoe County teachers' salaries were frozen last year. Now, they could be looking at a 5% reduction. [KUNR] In July 2010 Washoe County employees took a 3.4% wage reduction, nurses agreed to pay into their own health care package, members of the Sheriff's Department agreed to suspend their uniform allowances, their safety allowance, and their physical fitness pay, in addition to contributing more into their health benefit plan. Employees of the Juvenile Dept., Law Library, District and Justice Courts took a 3.2% wage reduction. [Washoe] Elko County cut staff from its middle school tutoring program; cut overtime from janitors, central office clerical staff, school police at night events, and school secretaries. And, that was just for starters. [ECSD pdf] In the current proposal from Governor Sandoval teachers in Nevada are looking at a 5% pay cut, in addition to cuts in schedule advancement. [RGJ]

Also from Nevada, Blue Lyon posts pictures of a recent rally in the state. (I love the simple sign "When families need to cut back they don't starve their kids." (Some of you might also profit from his post "When a country goes insane.")

Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass makes the point more birefly and less politely:

An acquaintance who has a good job with a private company and a 401K plan asked why the pension account for state employees is underfunded. The tone of voice implied that public employees weren't contributing their share.

It went to keep your taxes low, motherfucker. All the money taken out of state employee paychecks for a defined benefit pension is still there. But the state hasn't deposited its share for more than a decade now.

Every budget year, the legislature looks at the amount of money the state constitution requires it to deposit in the state employee retirement plan, and realizes that it can't write that check unless it raises taxes. So it just blows off the obligation to state workers.

Without consequences. What are state employees going to do to them, after all? Foreclose on the Capitol?

More later.

[Mandos]

They convince themselves that their models indicate a more "efficient" way to ensure worker well-being. My attempts at pointing out the aspects of the analysis they do not consider are labelled as "style points", because the concepts I am deploying do not fit within the standard ontology of mainstream economic analysis, and are therefore by definition peripheral or irrelevant.

I have a long internetular history with that blog's founder, Stephen Gordon, an econ prof at Laval U in Quebec City. In the early-2000s, he correctly recognized that the left and mainstream economics do not have a friendly working relationship. Consequently he joined a new (at the time) progressive Canadian forum called babble in order to see whether he could find some common ground.

I was very happy to engage him there, especially as the bitter conclusion of the anti-NAFTA movement was still fresh in our minds, and he earnestly attempted to convince us that our opposition was a mistake.

It turned out that the dialogue was only ever going to be one-way, and that he simply could not comprehend the reasons why we objected. (But...but...tariffs are inefficient!!) After babble's schisms (this is the left we're talking about here), he joined one of the splinter groups and attempted to convince them that Quebec's highly progressive day care program was a regressive transfer and should be discarded (along with regulated tuition at Cdn universities, etc).

By that point he had started his own blog, and it has become pretty influential in the econ blogosphere, in that it gets links and responses from major US econ bloggers.

But the upshot is, his entire internet opus is a case in point for the bad relationship between allegedly neutral mainstream economics and the left. That all of these individually apparently regressive transfers might actually converge to make an integrated social/moral/political programme completely escapes him, and he sees no cost in dismantling it...and he is quite representative of the entire line of thinking.

[MR Bill]

http://www.slate.com/BLOGS/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/02/23/did-scott-walker-reveal-his-crisis-ending-ruse-to-a-prank-caller.aspx

From Slate : The liberal media has had some trouble getting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker on the phone, but by posing as "David Koch," blogger Ian Murphy managed to score a 20-minute conversation with the union-busting Republican. Aside from getting Walker to bash Chuck Schumer and agree that "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski is "real piece of ass," Murphy also gets the governor to give away his plans for getting Senate back in session. Walker tells "Koch" that he'll agree to meet with the assembly Democrat leader if he comes to the capitol with all 14 absent Democrats. "If they're actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they'd have quorum because it's turned out that way," Walker says. Murphy doesn't get Walker to fall into any big traps, and as Ben Smith tweets, the big takeaway "is that Walker really believes what he says and really won't compromise."

Walker is a fool AND an ass.

[MR Bill]

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

Here's the Beast story, and the kicker is that the Wisc. Governor's office appears to be confirming that Walker was punked.
Now go read what this odious toady says...

[low-tech cyclist]

"Since Republicans dominate the Sunday talk shows, you would think that there might be some probing on the most pressing problem facing the nation."

You would also think that the people who run the Sunday talk shows would regard unemployment as our most pressing problem. But since it barely seems to be even on their radar, they're not likely to press anyone about it.

[kathy a.]

it looks like the federal government is going to stop defending DOMA.

[kathy a.]

the governor of delaware comes out favoring state workers, and opposing the governor of wisconsin's hate on unions campaign.

[oddjob]

the big takeaway "is that Walker really believes what he says and really won't compromise."

Dude's a Teahadist, right? If so, this isn't a surprise.

[oddjob]

it looks like the federal government is going to stop defending DOMA.

VERY cool! :)

I have a question, however. I've read the link and I think my non-attorney mind more or less understands what's there, but I couldn't quite figure out what the Attorney General's intentions were. Obviously regarding the lawsuit in the 2nd Circuit they've opted not to defend DOMA, but does that mean they also are not going to defend DOMA any further in the lawsuits in the other circuits where they have previously defended it?

(I think the answer is no, that they're going to continue defending it in those lawsuits, but I'm not 100% clear on that.)

[kathy a.]

yes, you got it, oddjob. they won't defend in the other cases, either, having arrived at the conclusion that the thing is indefensible.

i think they went at this carefully, and cautiously [obviously]. a procedural/technical question is the standard of review, and they have concluded that a more protective standard applies -- i haven't read through all this stuff carefully, but i think this latest case presented just that question. and it gave them some solid legal reasons to discontinue defending DOMA. very persuasive ones, i think. the approach here was not political, but legal. it took a while longer, but it just might hold up.

[kathy a.]

wait, i misspoke. here is an articles discussing things further.

the US will not defend in those 2d circuit cases; in the other pending cases, it will argue for the stronger standard of review. it amounts to the same thing -- the US thinks now that the heightened review applies, and that none of the challenges passes that level of scrutiny. yes, lawyers do it the hard way. but that's useful, when one is up against the powers of nastiness.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Actually there's more in the Walker interview, including the whole stupidity of his 'gatekeeper.' He can't call 'Koch' back because "My goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I'd have her deported, but she works for next to nothing." And the idiot fell for it.

As for DOMA, to quote the DoJ statement:

Furthermore, pursuant to the President ’ s instructions, and upon further notification to Congress, I will instruct Department attorneys to advise courts in other pending DOMA litigation of the President's and my conclusions that a heightened standard should apply, that Section 3 is unconstitutional under that standard and that the Department will cease defense of Section 3.

The Department has a longstanding practice of defending the constitutionality of duly-enacted statutes if reasonable arguments can be made in their defense. At the same time, the Department in the past has declined to defend statutes despite the availability of professionally responsible arguments, in part because – as here – the Department does not consider every such argument to be a “reasonable” one. Moreover, the Department has declined to defend a statute in cases, like this one, where the President has concluded that the statute is unconstitutional.

It's here. (h/t Steve Benen)

[kathy a.]

prup, that's the link i posted before. but all to the good, quoting it. :)

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Actually, kathy, I was writing the piece while your comment went up. And, in regards to another comment of yours:

Lawyers 'do it the hard way' because they have to. Legislators frequently come up with 'great ideas' and it's lawyers that have to clean up the messes that pop up afterwards. Let's take two ideas that I am pretty sure that all of you will agree with. Anyone who walks along a city street -- or any street I'd guess -- would be glad to see a law against 'texting while driving' and certainly anyone to the left of Wayne LaPierre would agree that 'guns need to be kept out of the hands of crazy people.' (We might prefer that guns were kept out of people's hands altogether, but that has its problems under any interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Some people need guns in their work, or because they are particularly vulnerable -- most wheel-chair bound people find gun licenses easy to get and understandably so.

Good ideas, both of them, save lots of lives, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Now lets see what happens when the first law is passed, and a cop stops you, claiming you were 'texting with driving.' You deny it. He demands to prove it. You hand over your cell phone so he can check whatever it is that shows calls you've made (I've actually never owned one). But you've voluntarily given him your phone. He certainly knows who you were talking/texting to most recently, and what is to stop him from actually reading those messages, or checking for earlier ones? And certain hysterical civil libertarians will take this as evidence that we too have joined the crowd of oppressors whose oppressions are masqued with good intentions.

THEN they look at that other law. The one about crazy people and guns. Now how did we impliment that? Did we establish a nationwide registry of psychiatric committments? (We already can, theoretically, trace involuntary comittments, but what about people who are convinced by parents or friends to commit themselves, and who have a record of being unstable when they go off their meds. Should they get guns?)

But it isn't fair to penalize someone who, for example, commits himself for relatively minor things, is it? Or somebody like me, who simply needed a rest from poverty-exhaustion. (It worked, and I got back onto my feet.) Better include diagnoses in that registry.

Hmm, on the other hand, what about outpatients? There aren't always beds available for seriously disturned patients who can't be shown to be 'dangers to themselves or others.' Maybe we better make sure that, at the very least, a psychiatric patient gets special scrutiny.

But 'everybody' (I've heard numbers like 1/3 of the adult population) is in therapy of some kind. So maybe the smart way of handlign this would be to require doctors to compile lists of their patients who, in their opinion, should not be trusted with gun licenses. And maybe with some sort of liability, if they should reasonably known if their patient was untrustworthy and failed to notify police.

Kepping guns out of the hands of crazy people? Easy. All you have to do is eliminate the idea of medical privacy and doctor-patient confidentiality for psychiatric patients. And I challenge anyone to come up with a scheme that doesn't.

This is the problem with civil-libertarian absolutism, and one reason why I tend to get slightly angry at it. It just isn't that easy to solve an equation looking at only one side of it. We have to balance the equation, sadly, deciding between the dangers of oppression and insecurity. And unfortunately both are dangers that need to be accounted for. It's lawyers (and legal junkie lawyer wannabees like me) that have to look at all the angles, not just at the one side.

(Which is a milder version of a very nasty comment that Sir C. talked me, rightly, out of making.)

[kathy a.]

the whole gun thing is its own several cans of worms. if i was queen of the universe, it would be very hard to own one, and not very many people would want to.

as a practical matter, my state [CA] does not allow people who have been involuntarily committed as a danger to themselves or others ["5150" is both the code section and the common reference to this procedure] to own or buy firearms for 5 years. so, that's both over-inclusive and under-inclusive; it's just a rough attempt at some kind of control. nothing like searching your med/psych records for voluntary counseling or whatever.

it's the under-inclusive part that worries me. we can point to a good many high-profile mass shooters who kinda scraped by -- even in settings like a major university, and the US military -- and had access to extreme weaponry. and were never involuntarily committed for psych reasons.

my preferred solution is on restricting access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons particularly, and making it much harder to get saturday night specials. the ease with which these weapons can be obtained is the problem. we see the fruits of this problem not only in mass shootings, but in suicides, suicide/homicides, unintended killings in the course of stupid crimes like robberies, accidental killings in the home.

[kathy a.]

to get more to your point, prup -- even invading medical privacy would not necessarily do a single damned thing to increase the chances we will keep unstable people from shooting the hell out of somebody else. seriously ill people often do not want and do not seek help.

i'll offer one personal anecdote, the time a few years ago when the husband of one of our doctors decided things were not going well enough financially. he got a pistol at the one gun store in town, just 2 blocks from the medical office where he also worked. he and his wife held a big birthday party for the 2 young daughters. and he took the family up to a regional park nearby, shot the girls and his wife, and then himself. nobody -- not even the other people at the medical office -- knew he had these things on his mind.

my daughter made origami cranes, as she always does when we are wishing for peace and love. they are still there in the lobby of that medical office.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

kathy: My point had nothing to do with guns, or even the dubious suggestions I made. My point was the difficulty -- and necessity -- of balancing civil liberties and security; the likelihood of unexpected consequences even to acheiving a generally agreed upon goal; that these decisions are often simply ordinary disputes, and that seeing a dispute like this as one side attempting a sinister 'destruction of the liberties or safety of the American people' is not merely rather stupid but overwhelmingly unhelpful. I could have picked the old classic of Justice Black's belief that libel laws were inherently unconstitutional restrictions of free speech or many other examples.

The people making decisions are, even when hideously wrong, not attempting to crush liberties, they are usually merely choosing to 'err on the side of safety' either from simply wanting to cover their own asses ("If something happens, i damn well don't want it to be traced back to something I've done.") to a sincere worry that a mistake could lead to disaster. (Again, "if something happens, I damn well..." In many cases, I doubt if even the people making the decisions could sort out those motivations.)

Most of all, the people who are making the decisions are people not comic book villains. (Ironically the same people we would be supporting and praising if their union were being squeezed like the Wisconsin unions are.) Forgetting that is something we should be so used to coming from the other side that we should be especially careful not to make the same mistake.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

And I hadn't expected to go back to the question of guns, but then I saw the story from today in Florida, the attempt to pass a 'campus carry' law being -- at least temporarily -- derailed by the sudden appearance of the father of a student who had been killed 'at a Florida State fraternity house when an AK-74 owned by one of the fraternity members accidentally discharged.' I'll just ask you to read or watch the father's statement.

There are a lot of sensible suggestions out there on ways of lessening the gun violence.

I've moved off the totally anti-gun position because of the number of good Western liberals who have convinced me that there are situations where some times of gun possession should be allowed, not gigantic magazines or semi-automatics, but some handguns. (That is, in fact, the problem. Guns simply are different to a city dweller on the East Coast and a rancher or farmer in the Mountains, and I'm not sure a 'one-size fits all' attitude works here.)

I have what I hope is at least an interesting way pf approaching one part of the problem. I'd suggest registering guns -- not gun owners, but guns and all gun transactions from the point of manufacture on. Not only would all gun transfers be registered, but the rule would be that the last registered owner of the gun was responsible for any damage caused by that gun unless he had reported it stolen in a credible and timely way -- and that that would go straight back to the manufacturer.

Worth considering?