Cogitamus

And Let's Pile on Matt

I second what l-t c said regarding Yglesias's fairly glib claim that we are richer today than in 1999.  As l-t c notes, median income has fallen during that twelve year period, a pretty stunning fact in and of itself.

But I would also guess that median net wealth has probably deteriorated as well.  The bursting of the bubble in real estate has left 11 million Americans underwater in their mortgages.  So no wealth there to tap into in retirement, something that has been increasingly important in an era in which traditional pensions continue to vanish.

And speaking of pensions, many Americans who are fortunate enough to have pensions coming to them at retirement have seen the level of their retirement benefits get cut or have been required to work later in life to collect the same benefits.  This is a direct result of the stock market debacle that went on throughout the aughts.  

As for the huge chunk of us who only have 401ks with which to retire, the last twelve years have been no kinder.  I know personally that it took me over four years to get back to where my account had been in 2007 -- and being back to even so to speak when you are four years older is not exactly the recipe for successfully saving for retirement.  I also know that at its low point in 2011, the S&P 500 stock index was actually lower than it had been on January 1, 1999, a nearly unprecedented stagnation in the markets.

I tend to think that measured in terms of either income or wealth the average American is not better off today than he was in 1999, which is a pretty stunning indictment of the economic policies pursued during the Bush years.  (Obama has essentially spent three years trying to dig us out of the hole that Bush & Co. created.)

(Still working on the comment problem -- still deeply frustrated.  I will never understand blogs that don't have comments sections.  I feel completely cut off by this turn of events.  Keep your fingers crossed.)

 

A Brief Bit of Dumping on Matt Yglesias

Since nobody can comment on posts, a few more posts to read couldn't hurt in the meantime.  And Matt said a couple of pretty egregious things today. 

First up: "The United States in 2011 was a richer country than the United States in 1999 but people felt much better about the U.S. economy when GDP and incomes had been growing for years than they did during a period of stagnation and collapse."

WTF?!  Matt, my boy, "people felt much better about the U.S. economy" when they were earning more money.  The U.S. in 2011 may be a richer country than the U.S. in 1999, but that doesn't mean a rat's ass if the difference, and then some, has been pocketed by some subset of the richest 1%.

From Table A-2 of Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010:

Median household income, 2010: $49,445

Median household income, 1999: $53,252*

And that is why people felt richer in 1999.  They were richer in 1999. 

One thing that keeps coming back to me is this: people were almost as rich in 1973 as they are now.  Let's add one more line:

Median household income, 1973: $46,109*

You know, when liberating the free market makes "the United States" richer, it doesn't do a damned bit of good for most of us unless some of that extra richness finds its way into our pockets.  But when the median household in 2010 is only 7% richer than the median household in 1973, despite the fact that we're clearly way, WAY richer as a nation, that means our economy has failed in a very essential way.  It's succeeded admirably for the top 0.1% who actually run the country, but it's sure failed the rest of us.

*In 2010 dollars.

I had a 'next up,' but it looks like I'd better get back to work.  Maybe I'll have some time after the kid goes to bed tonight.

Primary Night Miscellany

Sorry for the continued problem with comments.  I have been trying to get assistance from Typepad, but have not been successful to date.  I am really frustrated by this and have no idea why it happened.  I am particularly sorry not to be able to have a dialogue on what looks to be a pretty interesting evening.  I will keep plugging away to get things fixed.  If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to email me at sircharlesofdc@gmail.com.

- I am extremely happy (and quite surprised) to see Olympia Snowe is not going to seek reelection to the Senate.  This presents the Democrats with the opportunity for a second Senate pick up in New England -- with Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts being the other.  (There are only ten Republican seats at stake in this election.)  I was also heartened by the prospect of Bob Kerrey running for Ben Nelson's seat in Nebraska.  Now I know that Atrios hates Bob Kerrey -- and I even understand why he is annoying -- but there is no way in the world that a more liberal Democrat is going to win that seat.  And if Bob Kerrey supports Harry Reid to be majority leader and votes with the majority of Dems six times out of ten, we are far better off than having another ultra conservative Republican in the Senate. 

- I wanted to reiterate my sense that Santorum's attack on higher education is deeply at odds with the historic blue collar sensibility in the United States.  One of the things that Republicans always point to when attacking Democrats for engaging in what they characterize as "class warfare" is the "aspirational" nature of Americans.  I think there is some truth in that description and that aspirations to social mobility through education are a deep-seated part of the American culture.  My wife and I were discussing the fact that both of our fathers spent years getting a college degree in night school -- while also working full time and being husbands and the father of three children each.  (Coincidentally, they both attended Northeastern University, which was once the classic working person's college, catering heavily to the post World War II generation that was seeking economic opportunity through education.)  That drive for education -- and the government support for it -- was a broad-based one in the culture.  I do not believe this mode of thinking has in any way diminished and that those of us who were raised by that generation are similarly committed to seeing our own children having every educational opportunity.

- The early returns are in from Michigan and with five percent of the vote in it is neck and neck between Santorum and Romney.  I have to admit I am rooting heavily for Santorum -- mostly because I am going to enjoy seeing the stricken look on Romney's face if he loses.  

Hopefully I will soon be inviting your comments.       

 

 

Santorum's Old Time Religion and Open Thread

 

"Catholic Boy" - Jim Carroll

It is pretty fascinating to watch Rick Santorum let his papist freak flag fly.  His recent bitter attack on John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech to an assembled group of protestant ministers -- viewed by many as a milestone in the mainstreaming of Catholic politicians in America -- is indicative of a mind that is 1) pretty much unfamiliar with the thinking of the founding fathers with respect to matters of church and state, a rejection of true 18th Century American exceptionalism; and 2) locked in pre-Vatican II Catholicism, a time where Catholics were in many respects ghettoized from much of mainstream America.  It is hard for me to imagine that this world view has much appeal beyond a very small hardcore of true believers.

Not content to attack JFK and the separation of church and state, Santorum is also attacking President Obama for encouraging people to go to college or obtain other post-high school education.  Santorum described the President as a "snob" who wants to send kids off to college to get them indoctrinated in the liberal way of thinking.  Really the mind boggles.  Only someone who is a fake blue collar candidate -- which Santorum manifestly is -- would try and sell this bullshit to working people.  I have spent my entire adult life working with blue collar people and I can assure you -- the vast majority of them respect education and want their children to be well-educated.  Even those who take a great deal of pride in their craft -- and have made a good living at the trades -- would often prefer that their children pursue careers that are physically easier.  (I am saddened how often this seems to involve work in the investment arena -- I would vastly prefer to see more accomplished welders than investment marketers.) 

And Santorum has no appreciation for the fact that skilled blue collar work requires significant education beyond high school.  Most of my clients have four to five year apprenticeship programs that require the new members to work during the day and attend class at least a couple of nights a week.  It's a rigorous and demanding path for young person, one that often entails later education as a journeymen as techniques and materials change and as things like licensing and certification requirements become more common.    

The bottom line is that workers live with increasing insecurity in the global economy -- something that Santorum and other right wing politicians show no intention of trying to mitigate.  In such a world almost everyone understands that education and the acquisition of skills is the best insurance -- albeit far from foolproof -- against unemployment and substandard wages. 

This guy is a fool and a faker.  And a truly emblematic candidate for the Republican Party.

Your thoughts here -- including primary result stuff if I don't get around to posting before tomorrow evening.

Still having trouble with comments.  Hope to get it fixed soon.

The War on Female Autonomy - and Open Thread

 

6'1" - Liz Phair

One of the many things that continues to amaze me in the current kulturkampf is the degree to which in 2012 feminism remains an object of attack and scorn for those on the right.  The radical proposition that women are equal to men remains contested ground not just among conservatism's many deeply insecure and misogynistic men, but also its despicable ladies' auxillary.  [These are just representative samples of the ongoing madness -- there is a mind-boggling amount of it being written these days.]

The current imbroglio in Virginia over the incredibly offensive attempt to impose trans-vaginal ultrasounds as a requirement before having an abortion should be seen not as simply another attempt to erect obstacles to exercising a constitutional right, but part of an overall fight against women controlling their fertility generally.  Thus, we have right wingers not only asserting their alleged "pro-life" agenda, but also affirmatively attacking contraception, something that for most people ceased to be controversial sometime around the Nixon presidency.  These attacks go to the heart of women's autonomy and particularly their sexual autonomy.  (Which is why the right wing can manage simultaneously to denounce contraception while also decrying the large number of women who are giving birth while unmarried in apocalyptic terms.*) 

The ability and right to control one's fertility is an essential element of women's health, not some kind of frivolous luxury.  It is also crucial to being able to attain the kind of advanced education and work opportunities that result in being an economically self-sufficient individual -- something one might think these brave Galtians would all favor.  But no, when it comes to women the message is one continuously based on fear-mongering -- "you'll end up alone with withered ovaries and no one but a cat with whom to spend your sad miserable final days" -- you know, that sort of thing.  And nothing infuriates them more than women don't succumb to the fear and settle for that willing man.   Except women who have sex outside of marriage and pretend to enjoy it.

I honestly would think that these debates would be firmly in the past by now.  I have been married for twenty-four years to someone who -- and trust me it kills me to say this -- is smarter than I am.  (I also had several relationships in my pre-married days where this was true as well.)   It never occurred to me that my wife's ambitions should be deemed less worthy than my own.  As a result, we figured out strategies to share the burden of home and child-rearing while both of us worked full time.  In part, we did this by having only one child, but I've seen many other people -- probably with a higher tolerance for sacrifice than me -- who have managed the feat with larger families.  I have also had the pleasure of working with a host of extremely competent women in my professional life -- superiors, mentors, peers, colleagues, friends, fellow professionals, and now that I am an old guy, quite a few mentees (if such a word exists).**

Does anyone seriously want to argue that we as a society would be better off with all of this talent shunted into domesticity or appropriately pink-collar career choices?  Does anyone really think women generally or society writ large would be happier if we returned to the social constraints of yesteryear with respect to women's work and sex lives?  Would men be happier?  I suppose a certain kind of man -- Taranto and Rod Dreher and the small-dicked mouth breathers at NRO I guess -- but no one who is remotely sexually and socially well-adjusted.   

It is discouraging that these battles continue to have to be fought, but as with gay marriage, l think this is a last gasp before what is actually happening out there in the real world renders these arguments obsolete.

*I am actually a bit uneasy with all of the single parenting -- not out of any moral concerns, but because I continue to believe that parenthood is best done in teams and as I have observed here before, sometimes two isn't enough.  I worry about things like the stresses of one parent grappling with ill health, unemployment, or any of the other myriad things that sometimes require a reliable backup.  I also remain a huge believer in marriage, again not out of any kind of religious hogwash, but because as a lawyer I really like the bright line certainty that marriage brings to families in terms of both rights and obligations.  As someone who does a fair amount of work with things like medical coverage and pensions and the like, marriage really simplifies a host of legal matters that have a huge impact on the daily lives of parents and children.  It's one of the reasons that I am so vehement in my support for marriage equality.  In the end, though, family structure will continue to evolve and people will try to figure out ways to make their lives and those of their children work.  A state that took care of things like health care, mandatory sick and parental leave, day care, and a guaranteed minimum income with a child allowance would go an awfully long way to minimizing some of the worries I've cited.

**And, of course, I have the benefit of the wisdom of the many women who comment at this blog.       

What say you?  And what else is happening out there? 

I have no idea why this post stopped accepting comments.  I put up a new post, so hopefully comments will work there.  God forbid I should need to exercise some technological competence.

Do This, Don't Douthat - And Open Thread

 

"The River" - Bruce Springsteen

Reading the headlines and columns the last few weeks one can't help but have the sense we've entered  some kind of bizarre time warp in which contraception is genuinely controversial -- as opposed to being a strange vestigial obsession of a group of unelected, (alleged) celibates, who speak for precisely no one in the body politic.   Well, except maybe for Rick Santorum and Ross Douthat, two men whose world view is remarkably out of touch with how the vast majority of us live our lives. 

Douthat had a column last week essentially arguing that those of us on the pro-choice, pro-contraception side of the aisle are insincere when we profess to want to make abortion "safe, legal, and rare."  Douthat berlives that the relatively high abortion rates in liberal states -- states where barriers have not been erected to discourage women from exercising a constitutional right mind you -- belies the claims that most of us would prefer that abortion rates would drop.   He is skeptical about the idea that access to cheap and reliable contraceptives is the cause for so many pregnancies that end in abortions in blue states.  My response is that we would have lower rates of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy if there were easier access to contraception, particularly for teens, but more importantly, if we had a cultural atmosphere in which preventing unwanted pregnancies was dealt with as a practical public health issue rather than as some morally fraught endeavor.  One sees such a result in the countries of Western Europe, where rates of unwanted pregnancy, particularly among teens, are substantially lower than they are throughout the United States.

Douthat also doesn't appear to grasp why those of us on the pro-choice side want to make abortion rarer -- it is not because we share his moral qualms with the procedure, but rather because most sensible people would prefer to see unnecessary surgery -- however minor -- avoided where possible. 

Rick Santorum, not to be outdone, has attacked the health care reform law for mandating full coverage of certain pre-natal testing because it's part of a elite plot to cull the world of disabled people.  Santorum would prefer a world in which people remain ignorant of profound disabilities that will have a permanent, life-altering affect on them.  And, of course, once these uninformed people give birth to their disabled offspring, they will be on their own, because God forbid the state actually come to the aid of those who are suffering. 

I have watched people struggle with raising children with disabilities and it is an incredibly difficult thing.  A friend of mine with an autistic child told me one night at dinner that he literally never goes through a day without thinking about his son's future care and how he needs to make plans to provide for him after his own death -- and just how much weight there is to that sort of thing.  A client of mine had an adult child with Down's Syndrome and he and his wife were grappling with the difficulties of handling him at home as they were heading into their seventies.  The son was prone to periodic rages and would sometimes hurt his aging mother when the two of them were alone in the house.  These are the kinds of things that people have to weigh when they make a decision regarding giving birth to a child with genetic anomalies -- the kind of life-altering event that can follow you to the grave and beyond.  This is the most personal sort of decision I can imagine anyone making and the notion of state interference in it is repulsive.  

Unlike right-wing Republicans though, I do believe that those people who decide to give birth to a child with such problems should be assured that the child will receive life-long, state provided, health care and income support so that parents are relieved from at least some of the existential burden that goes along with such a decision.

In the end, what strikes one about the likes of both Douthat and Santorum is that there is little to suggest that either of them has a great concern for the lives of the people at stake in these dramas.  One senses instead their profound discomfort with people -- by which I mean women of course -- having happy sexual lives, free of negative consequences.  Thus, it is important to them to maintain a means of control over the sex lives of women by assuring that unwanted pregnancies ensue, that when they do they cannot be easily terminated, and when they cannot be terminated one is playing a kind of Russian roulette with the worst possible outcome.  It's a truly miserable world view and one which should not be considered respectable by thoughtful people.

What say you? 

 

More Progress and Weekend Open Thread

 

"Don't Take No for an Answer" - Tom Robinson Band

- And now Maryland joins the equality bandwagon.  This is great news.  A bill just squeaked through the Maryland House by a vote of 71 - 67 after some touch and go moments.  The African-American churches in Prince Georges County and in and around Baltimore had proven to be a significant obstacle, but in the end there were just enough votes.  Passage in the Senate -- which passed a marriage equality bill last year -- is pretty much assured.  And Governor Martin O'Malley will happily sign it, having pushed hard for its passage, in the process trying to duplicate Andrew Cuomo's feat of last year.  O'Malley pretty clearly has presidential ambitions and sees this as a path to national recognition.

It is a mark of the extraordinary progress that we have seen on this front in the last couple of years that aggressively pursuing marriage equality is seen as a means of generating mass appeal for a presidential campaign within the Democratic Party. 

I think that New Jersey will soon join the ranks, Chris Christie's gutless veto notwithstanding.  And I think California will get there one way or another.  Maine too.  I would think that Rhode Island can't be too far behind. 

Where the battle goes from there is a little uncertain.  I don't really have a sense of where things stand in Oregon, but that is obviously a place that you would think would be promising turf.  It would be nice to see some opening in the middle of the country -- beyond Iowa, where marriage equality was the product of litigation rather than legislation.  Although I am sympathetic to the idea that equal rights should not be left to the vagaries of electoral politics, I am always pleased when this sort of thing can be accomplished via legislation.  I would think Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota would be the logical places to try.

What's your sense of this?  

And what else has grabbed your attention?  The idea that in 2012, there would be some people who think contraception is controversial.  That Mitt Romney seems to be continuing to bleed support?  Suddenly there seems to be a lot more fun to be had in politics than seemed possible a year ago.

People Without Brains: The Latest Republican Cause

 

The jokes just write themselves, but the Republican Party is increasing its involvement in a crusade on behalf of 'people' who are literally without brains.  And when I say 'literally,' I mean literally - I'm not using it as an intensifier, nor as a misguided substitute for 'figuratively.' 

No, the GOP is fighting to give full rights of personhood to 'people' who are literally without brains.

I refer, of course, to the bills in Virginia and elsewhere that would bestow personhood on an embryonic human being from the moment a sperm cell bonks into an egg cell.  (Some of you have commented on the Virginia bill in the previous thread, so you know what I'm talking about.)

Now I happen to think that at what point the onset of personhood occurs is actually the correct debate with respect to the abortion issue.  I think I passed the "if I hear the question 'when does life begin' one more time, I'm gonna scream!" point about two decades ago: the newly fertilized egg is alive; it's just a stupid and irrelevant question.

The personhood debate, I should add, is a very complex debate.  Is my cat a person?  I've got three of them, all with very distinct personalities; if they've got clearly formed personalities, then why aren't they persons, other than not possessing homo sapiens DNA?

I'm sure the fetal personhood advocates would simply regard that DNA as a necessary condition for personhood.  But it would still give rise to the question: DNA aside, at what point does a developing fetus become more of a person than my cats are?  Whenever that point might be, it's surely very late in the game.

A sincere effort to debate the beginnings of personhood would get very complex, and hashing through all those complexities isn't what I have in mind for this thread.  However, one part of the personhood debate should be quite simple: the locus of personhood is the brain. 

I am still I under many changes to my body: amputation of limbs, heart, liver, or kidney transplants, blindness or deafness - if any of these things should happen, I am still I, though changed of course in the ways that major changes in our circumstances inevitably change us.

But scoop out my brain, and there is no more 'I', at least not in this world.  No brain, no person.

Unless you're a Republican, apparently.

Because the fertilized egg doesn't have a brain.  The embryonic human body has no brain at all during its first several weeks of development.  And absent a brain, there is nowhere for personhood to reside - not even such personhood as a cat, or a mouse, or even a flea might have, let alone the sort of personhood we associate with fellow members of our species.

 So the Republican insistence that personhood begins when sperm and egg meet is an insistence that one doesn't need a brain at all, let alone a functioning brain, to be a person.

Somehow taking a position that one literally doesn't need a brain to be a person seems quite in keeping with the nature of today's GOP, doesn't it? 

Let the jokes begin.

Tuesday Open Thread

 

"St. Valentine's Day Massacre" - The Cocktail Slippers

- So Christine Gregoire has signed the marriage equality bill in Washington State.  Kudos to her and all who made it possible. 

- And the New Jersey Senate also passed a marriage equality bill by a pretty decent margin, albeit not one sufficient to override a promised veto by Governor Chris Christie.  Christie has insisted that this matter be put to a referendum, rather than enacted in the traditional fashion by the legislature.  At the moment, it appears that such a referendum would come down squarely on the side of equality.  

- One of the few upsides to the Republican landslide in 2010 was that it convinced the party's true believers of the popularity of their platform.  As a result all kinds of overreaching has occurred -- things that in the short run are deeply disturbing and dangerous, such as the anti-union activity we have seen in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Arizona, among others, and the broad assaults on reproductive freedom in more states than I can list.  Add to that the Republican presidential campaign and its congressional leadership, who still think things like contraception are controversial with voters (it's not) and still seem to think the American people long for bigger and better wars (they don't), and a very clear picture is painted of a party that is extraordinarily extreme.  Now this is not a revelation to those of us who are actively engaged in politics on a daily basis, but I do think it is for the apolitical or the casually political.  And for the teacher in Waukesha or the firefighter in Akron or the mother in suburban Philadelphia, I think this is the kind of thing that makes them understand that this is not the Republican Party that their parents may have supported and it is one that is now directly attacking things of which they approve and may even hold dear.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but right now I think if the economy continues to show modest growth and employment continues to improve, it is going to be a very tough election for the Republicans.

- Now that Pat Buchanan has given up electoral politics, Rick Santorum strikes me as the mainstream politician who would have been most comfortable serving in the Franco government.   

- Thomas Edsall is far too kind to Charles Murray. 

- And my old college history professor has an article in the New York Times about the long history of voter suppression in the United States.

What's going on with you?  I think I am going to pop in to the Westminster Dog Show if I get a break today.

Ross Douthat - Working Class Hero

I'm on the train heading up to NYC for a couple of days, relying here on the dubious mercies of AmTrak's wifi system, which combines slowness and caprice into a kind of perfect technological hell.  (For instance, the systems cannot handle video of any kind.)  I am reasonably convinced that anything I write that is longer than two sentences will be subject to a "lost connection" notice at the moment that I hit publish.

I wanted to comment on a couple of things that I got around to reading late last night in the Times.  First, Ross Douthat revisits Charles Murray and notes once again that "Coming Apart" describes a problem with the state of the white working class in America and literally poses no solution to those perceived problems.  Douthat protests, but then pretty much joins in the chorus of hopelessness, boldly striking a claim for improving things around the margins, basically by making the child tax credit more generous and cracking down on illegal immigration.  One can imagine the revolutions inspired by this kind of inspiration.  To describe it as weak tea is to insult weak tea.  (Actually, in fairness, Douthat also advocate reducing rates of incarceration and reducing the payroll tax burden on poorer workers -- he does not bother saying how he would finance Social Security and Medicare if this were to happen.)

Douthat admits that globalization and the weakening of unions are to blame for much of the decline in the economic status of the working class, but he insists that blaming Republicans for this is unfair.  Okay, let's blame Republicans and those Democrats who believe that a completely unfettered global marketplace will somehow magically result in a win-win situation for everyone.  (Douthat ignores, of course, the undeniable truth that whenever Republicans gain sufficient power, crushing unions quickly leaps to the top of their agenda -- see e.g. the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, PATCO, and, in recent days, the goings-on in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Arizona, among other.)  

Improving the plight of working Americans would not be all that difficult from a policy perspective: 1) decouple health insurance from employment altogether by adopting a single payer system; 2) labor reform that makes unionizing easier for employees; 3) mandating mandatory paid sick, vacation, and maternity/paternity leave for all workers; 4) creating a nationally subsidized network of daycare centers; 5) providing comprehensive, evidence-based sex education for all children; and 6) provide free access to contraceptives as part of national health insurance.

We know that these kinds of changes would work to transform the condition of a huge swath of the working class and the working poor.  They would eliminate most of the things that create enormous insecurities in working class life and would give people a far more hospitable environment in which to start and raise families.  Yes, such a society would require higher tax rates on almost eveybody and much higher rates than are presently imposed on investment-derived income.  But the payoff would be so tangible to people that once in place I am pretty sure these benefits would become unassailable. 

Yes, the social-democratic dream is, for the moment, unobtainable.  But we must persist in trying to accomplish it, even if in a piecemeal and not thoroughly satisfying way, because it is the only real path to making people's lives better.  The cut taxes and pray approach advocated by Douthat is simply inadequate to the challenge of protecting people from the ravages of global capitalism unleashed. 

Friday Open Thread

 

"Up on Cripple Creek" - The Band

I am too busy to crash CPAC, although it's tempting being only three Metro stops away.  Oh who am I kidding -- I am afeared of the kind of beat down I might get from Jonah Goldberg and Robert Stacey McCain if I dares show my face in such manly company.   For some reason the words "stwike him vewwy woughly" are embedded in my mind. 

- A lot has been written about this profile of anti-gay marriage zealot Maggie Gallagher in Salon.  It's a pretty fascinating read.  Gallagher is a living breathing embodiment of the concept of "vicious abstraction" -- a kind of thinking where the actual consequences of political advocacy on real live human beings is rendered meaningless.  One could almost feel sorry for this deeply damaged woman except for the fact that she is dedicating her life to depriving people of equal rights and of seeking to keep them second class citizens.  Oh, that and she has lived an incredibly privileged life and all of her wounds are essentially self-inflicted.  It is an interesting phenomenon to watch -- you have someone whose central life trauma is that the guy who impregnated her wouldn't marry her and she decides that her life's mission should be to stop other people from obtaining that which she clearly wanted so badly.  Twisted, twisted stuff. 

- It will be interesting to see just how embarrassingly groveling Romney's speech to CPAC is going to be.  

- And this isn't going to help the mood at the conference.  Mitt without electability as one of his attributes ceases to have any appeal at all to the GOP true believers.  (Note too that this poll is from the notoriously GOP-slanted Rasmussen.) 

- I really hope the Administration doesn't back down on the contraception coverage issue.  I think it can be a winner.  This worries me. 

What's on your minds? 

Feel the Santorumentum (then Wash Your Hands)

Wow.  Rick Santorum is thus far thrashing Mitt Romney in all three states being contested tonight -- the beauty contest in Missouri -- no delegates at stake, but an incredibly important state for Republicans in the general election -- and allready called for Santorum -- and the caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado.  It's early going in the latter two and I don't yet have enough sense of where the vote is coming from, but it looks to me like Santorum could run the table. 

This is a pretty stunning setback for Romney and suggests as many of us have noted over the last few weeks just how weak a front runner he is.  Still, I don't see how anyone but Romney can prevail, due both to money and organization, but it doesn't say much for your organization -- or the product you are trying to sell if you get steamrolled in three different places by a guy as week as Santorum.

Stay tuned.

Update:  Santorum has indeed taken both Missouri and Minnesota.  It looks like Romney is going to finish third in Minnesota, with a mere 16% of the vote thus far, as opposed to the 41% he drew in 2008.  Amazingly, Gingrich has had an even worse night.  Not on the ballot in Missouri and a dismal fourth in Minnesota.  Suddenly instead of talk about Santorum getting out of the race, it is going to be Gingrich who looks like the conservative spoiler. 

I would imagine it would be a little chilling in the Romney camp to contemplate an evening in which he has sustained two 30 point losses to Rick Santorum. 

(I wish I could get some updates on Colorado -- no one seems to have them.)

Further Update:  Yes indeed, Santorum got the hat trick.  This is a sign of Romney's serious weakness among the conservative base.  Like poor infantry in warfare, Romney can only prevail by using the heavy artillery of television advertising.  There is little spontaneous affection for him -- indeed, one is struck by the degree to which support he enjoyed in 2008 in places like Colorado and Minnesota has seemingly evaporated.  I am very curious to see the reaction to this is among the Fox News set and within the right wing blogosphere.  Again, I don't think he can be stopped -- once the primaries resume in earnest, Romney's money -- and his opponents lack thereof -- can be brought to bear and he will likely begin winning again.  But I would be pretty unhappy if I were a Republican to be stuck with a candidate who cannot win among his own if he takes his foot off the gas for a minute. 

And Still More Good News and Open Thread

 

"Andrew in Drag" - Magnetic Fields

Sorry again for the paucity of posting.  I am up in NYC today and will be heading back tomorrow and then off to Richmond Thursday, so my time in front of the old keyboard is going to be limited.  (I was grateful that I arrived today after the Giants ticker tape parade -- there's only so much a man can stand.) 

On the very positive side, I just got wind of the Ninth Circuit decision on Prop 8 and am very pleased to hear it.  I need to actually do the lawyerly thing and read it before I opine much about it, but my sense is the Court did a wise thing and wrote an opinion that could conceivably be limited on its facts to California, thereby lessening the likelihood of a reversal by the Supreme Court.

This sort of thing has got to be a body blow to the religious right types, who are essentially being told that mere prejudice is not going to cut in the court room or in public policy.  (Although not generally a big fan of corporate influence, I must admit I am enjoying seeing corporate heavyweights like Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon weigh in heavily on the side of marriage equality and to pose it as an issue in terms of talent recruitment -- the implication being that states that don't want to be left behind will embrace equality.) 

Anyway, please lend your thoughts and insights about this and other things like tonight's caucuses.  I'll try and join in as much as possible. 

Weekend Open Thread

 

"World Party" - The Waterboys

Well it's got nothing to do with anything that is real
You just believe in it and it's true

- This article in the New York Times today (pointed out by Paula in comments) is yet another example of how the tea party types are the spiritual heirs to the American right wingers who inspired Richard Hofstadter's essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."  It's kind of a chilling read -- these crazy bastards out in the hinterlands fighting against everything from smart meters on furnaces to bike lanes to anti-sprawl measures, all of which they claim are part of a UN conspiracy to control the lives of Americans.  They are encouraged in their paranoia by shameless cynics like Newt Gingrich and other Republican office holders.   This sort of politics, based as they are on ludicrous fantasies, should and would be laughable -- but it appears that these people are actually having an impact on policy in some of these places.  And that really is scary.

- It is amazing to watch how many members of the media have no sense of what the concept of religious liberty really means.  I have seen a slew of commentary from the likes of Kathleen Parker, E.J. Dionne (shame on him), Mark Shields (ditto), Michael Gerson (to be expected), and Ross Douthat (invevitable) suggesting that the requirement that all employer sponsored health plans (including plans sponsored by Catholic hospitals and universities for their employees) provide coverage for a host of basic services, including those related to family planning, is somehow an attack on religious liberty.  This is patent nonsense.   Catholic universities (I actually went to one for law school) and hospitals (I have been treated at one on multiple occasions) are primarily secular institutions, employing, teaching, and treating a huge and diverse cross section of America, charging fees for the services they render, receiving government grants, contracts, subsidies, and payments.  The employees at these institutions -- the doctors, nurses, technicians, orderlies, janitors, professors, teaching assistants, and clerical workers -- are rarely priests or nuns, they are employed for their technical and professional prowess rather than their spiritual vocation, and many, if not most, are not Catholics.  There is no reason that the employees of these institutions should not be entitled to receive the same basic health benefits as those mandated for all other employer based programs in the United States.  No one is being forced to use contraception against her will or conscience by these regulations.  Quite simply, their employer is not being allowed to impose the beliefs of a handful of unelected old men to deprive them of a medical service that an expert panel, in accordance with its legislative mandate, has deemed an essential health service.  

By the way, I find the notion that this is going to cost Obama the Catholic vote to be laughable.  The vast majority of Catholics reject the Church's teaching on birth control, finding it to be absurd.  Catholics use birth control at rates in excess of the population on average.  The bishops (and their contemptible apologists like Dionne) are deluding themselves if they think that Obama is going to lose any votes on this.

- Many people have already weighed in on the ridiculous claims that the Susan G. Komen Foundation has been bullied by Planned Parenthood and its allies in recent days.  (One wonders, if Komen has been bullied, how would one describe the onslaught to which Planned Parenthood has been subjected by Republicans and right wing media over the last year or two?)  Again, this is a simple matter.  Komen went out of its way to treat Planned Parenthood shabbily, in the process cavalierly disregarding the impact of such a decision on the sizable number of women who receive primary health care at Planned Parenthood clinics.  In so doing, Komen revealed itself to be an organization in which right wing Republican beliefs appear to trump public health concerns, a fact that prompted justifiable outrage.  As a result, many people had their eyes opened to Komen true nature as an institution -- and won't be buying any more hideous pink ribbon merchandise in the future.  

- Romney has notched a comfortable and unsurprising win in the Nevada caucuses.  Nevada's large Mormon electorate made this particularly hospitable territory for Romney, who is well on his way to a double digit victory over Gingrich, who remains his closest rival.  I don't know that there is going to be much more drama in the nomination contest.  Romney's overwhelming advantage in terms of money and organization and Gingrich's almost complete lack of establishment support would seem to preclude a path to victory for anyone but Romney.  The only thing that might give Gingrich a glimmer of hope would be for Santorum to drop out and for that vote to rally to him.   Minnesota and Colorado have caucuses on Tuesday -- if Romney takes both of them his air of inevitability gets overwhelming.

- And as for tomorrow's big game, I will be watching anxiously.  In recent years, the Super Bowl has seemed to go to the team that has been on a roll in recent weeks.  And I would say that that team has been the Giants, notwithstanding the fact that the Patriots have a ten game winning streak.  The Patriots have a great deal of talent, but have not been overwhelming for a team that is 15-3.  I am picking them to win on the hope that Tom Brady will be at his best after a shaky (for him) performance in the conference championship game, but I am uneasy to say the least.  If Gronkowski can play, I say Patriots 27-17.

What say you?      

Good News and Thursday Open Thread

 

Oh L'Amour - Erasure

(From back when the straight kids first starting going to gay clubs.) 

Great news from Washington State where the Senate has just approved a marriage equality bill by a vote of 28-21.  They even managed to snag four Republican votes in the process.  The House is expected to pass the bill as well, and Governor Christine Gregoire, who was so enthusiastic about the bill that she stood on the Senate floor throughout the vote, will sign it.  And just like that another victory for equality.  Expect Maryland to follow suit soon.  And then possibly New Jersey.

I'm down in southern Florida for a couple of days filled with meetings, so posting may be a bit spotty.

Carry on without me if need be.