Happy St. Paddy's Day and Open Thread

 

"Bolloxology" - Sir Reg

I see the President was out celebrating at a bar that I used to frequent quite a lot when I was a law student and young lawyer.  It was right around the corner from where I took bar review -- and then the Metro stop used to use when I lived on Capitol Hill.  I can't quite imagine eing several pints in and having the President walk in.

How goes it out there.  I'm wasting away the day watching a superb battle between Ohio  State and Gonzaga with Stanley at my feet.  Looks like Ohio State is going to win it. 

- More and more I have the feeling that the Wisconsin recall effort and upcoming election is going to prove to be a really consequential moment for the left.  If we can send Walker packing and take back the Wisconsin Senate it will be a powerful tribute to the grass roots strength that even a weakened labor movement can muster. 

- Shouldn't Slate just change its name to "Concern Troll Daily?"  Jesus, they make me ill over there.

- This piece by Tim Noah made me laugh because the first time I ever saw Obama speak was as a candidate at the Building and Construction Trades Legislative Conference.  All of the Democratic candidates spoke and Obama was scheduled last right after Biden.  Biden went over his time by some insane amount, leaving Obama with only fifteen minutes to speak before having to get back to the Hill to vote.  It threw him off his stride a bit and although he was as cool as he always is, one get sense perhaps a little irritation at being thrown off his stride.  As a result, I was quite surprised when Obama picked Biden for VP -- it seemed like the sort of little annoyance that in the heat of battle might stick with you.  (Both Edwards and Hillary were quite impressive that day, which I would have thought might have added to the irritation.)  My sense, though, is that Obama is quite comfortable with Biden and that he has been a useful Vice President.

Must get ready to go out to dinner.  Be careful out there if you're going out -- it's amateur night. 

Comments

[jeanne marie]

A Guinness at Dubliner? How very cool!

[kathy a.]

we already ate the corned beef and cabbage; that'll show my beloved for buying the stuff last sunday. cross fingers for my daughter's job interview! her dad counseled that she had to wear green in S.F., a city that takes this holiday semi-seriously.

so, sen. blunt thinks the lady-card has been "overplayed"? well, bless his shriveled little heart. he can't help it if he failed to notice that adult women have brains -- their reproductive organs are just, you know, so distracting. and it's only been, what, 90 years since women got the vote?

slate, however, has no excuses. like hell i'm going to "leave the good fight at home." besides, my body IS my home. i have valued my personal autonomy my entire life, and i will defend it for others as well. that's the kind of cranky bitch i am.

in a stunning coincidence, my female friends and many male friends have also become alarmingly cranky about the Special League of Utilitarian Tenders of Secretgirlparts (SLUTS) proclaiming dominion over other people's private parts, health care providers and plans, etc. we think those SLUTS should just shut the hell up and attend to their own personal medical and moral problems.

[nancy]

Erin go Bragh. Much beer. Facilities occupied. The Secret Origins of Irish Dance.

Gonzaga men out -- but our women still in and playing at home court today. Go Zags.
[And I dare anyone to ask any of those young athletes about the value of contraception.]
Professor husband did a poll in one of his classes with younger students. These mostly Catholic kids are incredulous, to a person, at the legislative wastes-of-time games now playing. They vote.

[kathy a.]

nancy -- go, zags! i have no opinions about sports, but good news from the students in hubby's class.

and the international irish dance champion is: a jewish/african-american kid from ohio, with real talent.

[low-tech cyclist]

Maybe someone at Slate should tally up all the state-level initiatives since the beginning of 2011 that have targeted women in negative ways. And then ask its readers whether it's remotely possible for the Dems to overplay their hand, given that context.

This war wasn't our idea. We're just making sure it's visible. The wingnuts played it well by conducting most of this war at the state level, which mostly tends to fly under the national media's radar. We're just trying to make sure that isn't gonna work anymore.

[low-tech cyclist]

Peggy Noonan joins the 'War on Women deniers' camp.

Big surprise, huh?

[low-tech cyclist]

Four GOP Senators want to get rid of Medicare right away, and enroll seniors in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan instead.

Now can we say they want to get rid of Medicare?

I liked some of the quotes in the article:

Democrats, DeMint said, “know that a dependent voter is a dependable vote.” The proposal he and the other GOP senators were offering is “basically kryptonite to a Democrat – because it gives people choices, it gives them freedom … .”

“What I would tell the person near retirement is don’t fear change, embrace it, because you’ll have more doctors available to treat you and your family,” [Sen. Lindsey] Graham said.

You know what? Old people ARE increasingly dependent. It's just the way it is. And many of them, quite frankly, aren't up to dealing with changes, or sorting through a bunch of 'choices' that aren't as good as Medicare, to try to figure out which is the least bad for them.

They don't need choices, they need Social Security and Medicare to be reliable, dependable, simple, and straightforward.

I hope someone on our side is getting this all down - I want commercials running this fall in states like Florida and Arizona that tell seniors that Republicans want to take Medicare away from them, and give them lots of choices. I can only hope that DeMint and Graham said these things with the cameras running.

“Entitlements are broken,” said Paul. “It’s not Republicans’ fault; it’s not Democrats fault. I tell people, ‘It’s your grandparents’ fault for having too many kids and then your fault for not having enough kids.’ It’s a demographic problem.”

Not that that's the heart of the problem, but there's an easy way to fix that: increased immigration.

Oh yeah: you're against that, aren't you? Don't want more young people if they've got brown skins.

[beckya57]

I think I have previously made my views about Slate very clear. I wasn't at all surprised about that article (heard about it, didn't bother to read it, what tripe). SLU (one of my alma maters) gave MSU a good battle, but succumbed. :( Am about to go to this cool thing in my neighborhood called Blues Vespers: it's a vespers service at at local Presbyterian church (every 3rd Sunday) with live blues music. We go as often as we can (husband is in NC at a conference this weekend, unfortunately).

[big bad wolf]

i'm going to be contrary. the slate article was not what digby and duncan made it out to be. ironically, they were a bit rhetorically excessive. the slate guy's only point was that the rhetoric on our side, the side he made very clear he substantively supports might be overplayed. i think he's entitled to that opinion and that the feinstein quote lends his position some support. i don't necessarily agree with him, but it's not an invalid or unspeakable point. one wouldn't get that from digby or duncan, so sometimes i think one has to keep clicking back. a bit surprising in digby; not so much in duncan, his place is just a snark factory.

[kathy a.]

how can it possibly save money to push people into for-profit insurance plans? how can that possibly be squared with the promise of health care when one grows old?

as to the second question, the answer is obviously, it can't. this "demographic problem" means old people get screwed. i guess the answer to #1 is, the feds will save money and the insurance companies will make profits, so win-win, unless you are an older person without a lot of money, in which case they say there is still medicaid, until they cut that because it is too expensive. which also translates to, old people without a lot of money get screwed.

while they are trying to sell this as "no impact on people currently 54 and younger," you tell me what happens when grandma can't afford a nursing home. when i was my grandmother's caretaker, i was raising 2 small kids, working full-time as the primary support for my family, and completely unable to financially cover the nursing care she needed. she had dementia (with some weird things like hallucinations and delusions), was unable to walk, was incontinent, had problems now and then with bedsores despite diligent care, etc., and so this was not a matter of giving grandma a spare room.

if we had not had medicare, SS, and medicaid, i would have been forced to decide between sacrificing my young family plus my career, and -- i don't know what, putting her on the streets? dropping her off at a hospital?

[kathy a.]

bbw, i differ. i think the GOP has its nose bent out of shape because it only wants to support the *right kind of victims*. this is from the NYT article:

The legislation would continue existing grant programs to local law enforcement and battered women shelters, but would expand efforts to reach Indian tribes and rural areas. It would increase the availability of free legal assistance to victims of domestic violence, extend the definition of violence against women to include stalking, and provide training for civil and criminal court personnel to deal with families with a history of violence. It would also allow more battered illegal immigrants to claim temporary visas, and would include same-sex couples in programs for domestic violence. *** It also dilutes [according to Republicans] the focus on domestic violence by expanding protections to new groups, like same-sex couples, they say.

i think that if a woman is beaten up, that's still a woman beaten up -- even if she is an immigrant, even if she is native american, and even if she is a lesbian. the threat of deportation, though is an especially potent kind of control over a victim. do they really favor that?

[nancy]

bbw -- I just don't think it's sensible for our Slatist to call going into reasonable *clarion call* about this climate as "noble posturing." It's difficult if not unwise to morselize what's going on now by looking at the Senate alone and not taking into account what is happening at the same time in statehouses across the country. Feinstein is justified in looking at the broader picture. No one I've talked with is exhibiting "giddiness" about any of this either. Hardly. Fear and loathing definitely.

Pointing out the obvious is not "overplaying" unless one believes these folks are toying and stalling. I sure don't.

[Sir Charles]

bbw,

With all due respect, I disagree strenuously. The Lowder piece seems to me yet another in an endless series at Slate that objects to the Democrats playing political hard ball when it comes to exposing Republican extremism. This is a war on women plain and simple -- reproductive rights and health really go to the heart of issues of so many things from sexually autonomy to important aspects of personal health -- even if there are quisling women like Peggy Noonan, Kathryn Lopez, and Kathleen Parker whose identity as right wingers requires them to betray women.

The piece struck me as positively Broderesque.

[big bad wolf]

i think the guy tailored his comments to the particular two issues of the VAWA (visas and same sex funding). those two things are, i think distinct from the VAWA and distinct from the other reproductive/medical services attacks that have constituted the war on women. for that, i cannot join in the slam on him. close reading does not convince me that the other things of which he is accused are borne out.

[Crissa]

Sure seems to me like he's whining that we shouldn't point out the obvious, bbw.

[low-tech cyclist]

bbw - that's the dodge: pretending that all that other crap just isn't happening, that there aren't state legislatures around the country passing laws that are fundamentally hostile to women. That's the game Noonan and Kathleen Parker and so forth are playing as well.

Once you adopt that pretense, it makes sense to say the Dems are making a big deal out of small potatoes.

But that pretense is fundamentally dishonest, and any argument based on that pretense is dishonest as well. Including the Slate piece, and Noonan's and Parker's pieces too.

[big bad wolf]

ltc, i don't see the slate guy engaging in that dodge. one can disagree with his argument---i tend to---but i do not see that his specific argument as to the VAWA and the rhetoric that might be used in favor of it is a denial of other battles or a denial that different rhetoric might be appropriate in other battles in the war. as i said, i don't think what he said is invalid, let alone unspeakable, particularly since his job is to crank out political analysis pieces for content. because the writer is very specific to the VAWA issue, i disagree with SC that the piece is broder-esque. broder was big-picture, dreamy bipartisan. this is small-scale, legislation specific. i would accept that if the writer makes this arguemnt on every piece of legislation than he is broder-esque by accretion.

we can agree or disagree with the writer, but i think engaging the argument is more useful than hollering in horror because it was made or snarking about it or calling it whining. one way of engaging is ltc's excellent suggestion about talking more about state legislation. that's tough because most people don't pay much attention to their state, let alone someone else's state, but it is worth trying to forge a narrative that makes it clear what is happening and how it is deliberate. i'd say too many left blogs spend way to much time yelling and criticizing and not much building a coherent case of what we support and how we set priorities. i don't think that's the case here, as both SC and ltc have articulated specific agendas and beliefs. i like that much more than mere slate bashing. slate and what's his name who wrote the piece ain't the threat.

[kathy a.]

via balloon juice, tennessee is contemplating a bill to require very detailed public disclosure of abortions, including not only the doctors and their hospital affiliations, but also the "time, date, the woman’s medical conditions at the time, the age of the fetus, the type of procedure performed, the location of the procedure, and the woman’s age, race and marital status, along with details on how many times she has been pregnant."

this not only targets abortion providers, but it also targets women seeking abortions for whatever reason. oh, no -- they won't name the women. they will just disclose enough personal information that somebody with enough spare time has a decent chance of identifying them. (nevermind HIPPA.)

or mis-identifying them! whatever. i assume that most abortion providers also provide other women's health care. i myself have had several ob/gyn procedures over the years, aside from giving birth. apparently i look like other people, too. hey, mistakes happen.

[Crissa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u8FqrVK_rI

Sometimes listening to Poptron, songs don't sound like they belong on second-tier radio ^-^ Of course, sometimes they do...

[Sir Charles]

kathy,

This law is unbelievable. As Balloon Juice put it, let's just paint targets on their backs.

I think it runs afoul of HIPAA and should be deemed preempted.

These fuckers just never stop though do they.