Sadly, this story creates more questions than it answers….
Our National Discourse
You know the state of political journalism is in sorry shape when you read things like this:
This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change.
I'm getting a lot of use out of this graphic:
House GOP Strikes A Blow In The Fictional War
The War on Christmas, as you probably know, is a ginned-up war against those who show their hate for Christmas by banning the word "Christmas".
Of course, nobody in reality bans the word Christmas, although some businesses like to acknowledge other holidays during the, you know, holiday season. Still, to some on the right, even the acknowledgement of other holidays and other religions is, of course, nothing less than the equivalent of a public urination on Baby Jesus himself. Hence, the hyped-up "War on Christmas".
Today, several house Republicans took a bold stand by adopting a non-binding resolution, (H. RES. 951), to make it clear that Congress isn't one of those Christmas-haters. It reads:
Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and
Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment of the Constitution, in prohibiting the establishment of religion, would not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–
(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas.
Take THAT you people who want to ban references to Christmas. Obviously, the resolution will pass, but I hope before it does, some smart Democrat attaches an amendment that includes support for the use of symbols and traditions of Channukah and Kwanzaa. Let Republicans vote that down.
Republican Sex Scandal of the Week: Hypocrisy Alert
Republican Missouri State Senator Rod Jetton fired a state lawmaker from his committee chairmanship in 2007 because the lawmaker had changed a bill in order to end a state ban on gay sex. You can read Jetton's defense of his actions from a 2007 editorial here. In it, he boasts "I have fought attempts by liberals to repeal the gay sex ban for years".
Also in that 2007 editorial, Jetton laments how, thanks to his colleague's actions, gays can have sex (what Jetton calls "deviate sexual intercourse") in Missouri.
Uh-huh.
Flash forward to Monday. Seems the (now-former) state senator has more than a passing familiarity with "deviate sexual intercourse":
The former speaker of the Missouri House has been charged with a felony after what looks like a bout of sado-masochistic sex that went way too far.
Details are still unconfirmed, we should note. But a woman appears to have suggested to police that Rod Jetton, a Republican who now works as a political consultant, may have slipped something into her drink, then beat her up during sex, after she failed to use the safe word they had agreed upon as a signal to calm things down.
Here's what we know: The woman, who lives in Sikeston, Missouri, told police that Jetton and she spoke by phone on November 15th about their plans to have sex that night, according to the blog of a TV station. Several hours later, she says, he went to her home with two bottles of wine. According to the woman, Jetton poured the wine in the kitchen, out of her view. He then returned to the living room and handed her a glass. While they were watching a football game, the woman says, she started 'fading' in and out and lost consciousness several times.
The woman added that she and Jetton had agreed on the phrase "green balloons" as a "safe word" that she could use if things got too rough during sex. That's not uncommon among people who enjoy sex that involves dominance and submission.
But somehow things seem to have gotten way out of hand. The police report continues: "[The woman] recalls Jetton hitting her on the face very hard. She then remembers waking up, lying on the floor and Jetton was choking her. [The woman] said she did not know what happened with her memory because she had been drunk but had never had the blank spots in her memory."
According to the formal complaint filed against Jetton, he "recklessly caused serious physical injury" to the woman "by hitting her on the head, and choking her resulting in unconsciousness and the loss of the function of part of her body."
Jetton then stayed the night, says the woman. When he woke up, she says, he kissed her and said, "You should have said green balloons." He then left and hasn't returned.
So, in the Jetton world view, consensual gay sex is "deviate"; beating that crap out of woman during sex in which you slipped her date rape drugs… not so much.
UPDATE: Yeah, this was particularly nasty….
Is Same Sex Marriage “Inevitable”?
In this article of Politico, Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage (which oppose SSM), states that:
"The events of the last few months have put a serious dent in the idea that gay marriage is inevitable."
In this post here, she expands on this view, giving eight reasons why gay marriage is not inevitable. It's an interesting look into narrow-minded thinking:
Maggie's Top Eight Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Not Inevitable
1. Nothing is inevitable.
We are talking about the future here. It's weird to have "reporting" that something that has not yet happened will certainly happen. The future is never inevitable.
My response: Well, she's technically correct: nothing is 100% guaranteed "inevitable", including gay marriage or the Rapture. But she's taking issues with the parameters of the argument, not the argument itself. A pretty weak opening for her list.
2. Young people are not as unanimous as most people think.
In California, the young-adults vote split 55 percent to 45 percent. Is it so hard to imagine 5 percent of those young people changing their minds as they move through the life cycle?
My response: It's not hard to imagine that 5 percent of those young people will change their minds as they get older, but it's not hard to imagine that MORE than 5 percent might changes their minds the other way. Meanwhile, a new generation will crop up. And is it hard to imagine that their support for gay marriage will be 60-40? 70-30?
The point here is to look at trends over time, not one snapshot in time and then "imagine" it might be different in the future. Maggie's blinders prevent her from looking at the fact that, while young voters in California favored SSM 55-45, it was balanced the other way a generation earlier, and so on and so on. Because each succeeding generation — in California and everywhere — is less and less opposed to homosexuality in general, the trends lead to the conclusion that gay marriage is inevitable. Maggie apparently doesn't do "trends".
3. The argument from despair is bait and switch.
They are trying push the idea that gay marriage is inevitable, because they are losing the argument that gay marriage is a good idea.
My response: "They" being….. who?
Listen, conjuring up fictional bad motives on the part of those with whom you disagree? That is desparate.
4. Progressives are often wrong about the future.
Here's my personal litany: Progressives told me abortion would be a dead issue by today, because young people in 1975 were so pro-choice. They told me there would be no more homemakers at all by the year 2000, because of the attitudes and values of young women in 1975. Some even told me the Soviet Union was the wave of the future. I mean, really, fool me once shame on you. Fool me over and over again . . . I must be a Republican!
My response: This is classic "somebody told me X and they were wrong, so therefore I'm right now". Whoever these unnamed people are who told Maggie certain things (and I frankly don't trust Maggie to accurately reflect those conversations), they certainly don't represent the progressive viewpoint.
But as for abortion, it IS a dead issue from a public policy standpoint. It stands zero chance of being overturned. That doesn't make it uncontroversial. It's like taxes. We talk about them and complain about them, but is there a reasonable likelihood that they will go away? No, of course not.
Same with abortion. If abortion viewpoints are so different compared to 1975, then tell us Maggie why aborytion is still legal everywhere in the United States?
And by the way, Maggie – young people in 1975 were pro-choice…. and guess what? The young people of today still are.
5. Demography could be destiny.
If there is one force that directly contradicts the inevitability argument, it is that traditionalists have more children. Preventing schools and media from corrupting those children is a problem, but not necessarily an insoluable one. Religous groups are increasingly focused on the problem of how to transmit a marriage culture to the next generation (see the USCCB's recent initiatives).
My response: What Maggie and so many of her ilk ignore is this: almost every single gay person is the child of a traditional marriage. They didn't become gay because of corrupt school systems or the media. Many, in fact, had traditional and religious influences in their early life. Yet….. here they are. Culture didn't create gays, and a change in culture — the kind of change that Maggie recommends — isn't going to make the tide go in a different direction. And if there is one thing that history does teach us is this: attempts to turn culture into one of intolerance have a 100% failure rate…. inevitably.
6. Change is inevitable.
Generational arguments tend to work only for one generation: Right now, it's "cool" to be pro-gay marriage. In ten years, it will be what the old folks think. Even gay people may decide, as they get used to living in a tolerant and free America, they don't want to waste all that time and energy on a symbolic social issue, anyway. (I know gay people who think that right now). I am not saying it will happen, only that it could. The future is not going to look like the present (see point one above). Inevitability is a manufactured narrative, not a fundamental truth.
My response: No, generational arguments don't work "only for one generation", particularly when it comes to matters of civil rights and equality. And wishing doesn't make it so. Look at the advancements of women and minorities over the course of, say, the past 5 generations. Any backsliding there? Any reversals? No, the march toward equality always go forward — sometimes slowly, and sometimes with obstructions. But it never moves backward.
Also, I don't know anyone who supports gay marriage because it is "cool" or trendy. That's an insult. Everyone I know supports it because it is simply the right thing to do, especially for a country built on the notions of freedom and equality. Those are enduring values that mean something; they're not "cool" for a generation or two.
7. Newsflash: 18-year-olds can be wrong.
Should we really say "Hmm, whatever the 18-year-olds think, that must be inevitable," and go do that? I mean, would we reason like that on any other issue?
My response: Wow. Is that dumb. Nobody is reasoning like that. Again, Maggie is trend-blind. The fact that young people (not just 18 year olds) over time, not to mention older people (especially those of a libertarian bent), increasingly don't give a rat's ass about other people's sexual preferences, is something that can't be ignored.
8. New York's highest court was right.
From Hernandez v. Robles:
The dissenters assert confidently that "future generations" will agree with their view of this case (dissenting op at 396). We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives. We therefore express our hope that the participants in the controversy over same-sex marriage will address their arguments to the Legislature; that the Legislature will listen and decide as wisely as it can; and that those unhappy with the result — as many undoubtedly will be — will respect it as people in a democratic state should respect choices democratically made.
My response: Right or wrong, this doesn't address the inevitability argument — in fact, the New York Court was explicitly avoiding weighing in on the inevitability issue (they even said so!). So this doesn't even count as a reason why inevitability of gay marriage is supposedly wrong. All this does is address a separate issue — whether change, if it is to happen at all — should come through legal interpretation of the Constitution, or through the legislative process. An issue, to be sure, but a side issue. And I think Maggie knows that.
UPDATE — New York magazine weighs in on this too. Their take:
A lot of times, people that are fighting for marriage equality console themselves in defeat with the idea that it's not the right time — that one day, people will be more open-minded. That like other civil-rights battles in American history, the tide will change as time goes by. Sometimes, this comes out with phrases like "It's inevitable" and "foes will be on the wrong side of history."
But anti-gay activists like Maggie Gallagher should make no mistake: Gay people do not really think that marriage equality is "inevitable" in the sense that it is incapable of being avoided. They know all too well that their rights are fleeting and nearly impossible to grasp. For it to happen, it'll take a lot of hard work, persuasion, time, and yes, fighting.
The first time I came across this "inevitability" quote was in an AP story on Thanksgiving day, running in the Portland Press Herald up in Maine. There was Gallagher, who is from Oregon, went to school in Connecticut, and lives in New York, on the front page, lecturing Mainers about what they were thinking. I picked up the paper while spending the holiday in rural Stoneham, Maine, population 251, with my parents. Stoneham is in a central part of the state where the majority of townships voted against marriage equality last month. But that teeny town voted No on 1, to protect the right for gay people to marry. Why? Because a small handful of gay people, or families with gay kids, like mine, live in the area. And tiny in number though they may be, they've been steadily winning people over with their arguments. Gallagher would no doubt be surprised by how little it takes. I talked with one lesbian resident of the town who returned from her wedding in Massachusetts this year and was greeted with a reception thrown by the town.
Is marriage equality inevitable? Maybe not. But the odds are on its side, for a dozen different reasons. In the meantime, proponents would do well to focus on stories like that of Stoneham, Maine, rather than ones that come straight from the mouths of gleeful, close-minded people like Maggie Gallagher.
More Fox Flubs
Isn't it funny how the "mistakes" that Fox makes always seem to err against Obama or liberals?
Here's a clip from yesterday in which Obama announces that the TARP bailout cost U.S. taxpayers $200 billion less than we originally thought. That's good news, right? The bailout's addition to the deficit is $200 billion lower?
Still, Fox can't get it right. Watch:
Wasn't it only a couple of weeks ago that Fox announced a "zero tolerance" policy for on-air mistakes?
The Headline Says It All
So we had a massive economic breakdown last year, and we're still suffering for it. And it was primarily due to banks trading toxic assets, which was something they could do because there was no financial regulation to stop them. The big boys of Wall Street played with matches; the economy burned.
So naturally, we don't want this to happen again, right? We want to not only get out of this hole, but be sure we do't fall into it again, right? Makes sense. We need to pass some tough financial regulations so that the Wall Street fatcats don't lead us again into another depression.
Guess who is going to try to prevent this happening?
The headline says it all: "House Republicans Huddle With Lobbyists to Kill Financial Reform Bill."
House Democrats are seizing the oppotunity to paint Republicans as what they are — politicians beholden to corporate interests:
Democrats launched a coordinated offensive Tuesday in support of the financial regulatory overhaul.
They have recast the issue as "Wall Street reform" and promise a "barrage" of advertisements and news stories in the districts of vulnerable Republicans who oppose the bill, depicting them as the obedient servants of Wall Street. […]
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) blasted out a fundraising appeal Tuesday through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) saying Republicans oppose the bill in hopes of continuing to reap contributions from Wall Street banks.
"House Republicans now oppose financial regulation because they have learned nothing from the current economic crisis," Frank added.
Those who don't learn from the past are forced to repeat the past.
Gay Marriage Issue Shifts To New Jersey
After defeats in Maine and New York, I'm not optimistic about the New Jersey Senate passing same-sex marriage legislation tomorrow. But The Boss is behind it, so maybe….
A BRIEF STATEMENT FROM BRUCE
Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, "The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is — a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law." I couldn't agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now.
Health Care Reform News
Well, this much I understand: the Senate defeated the amendment which attempted to ban all abortion-related healthcare coverage from the public option. So that's good.
The other piece of news escapes me. It seems that the public option didn't have the votes in the Senate, so a compromise was worked out. What is it? This:
Under the agreement, people ages 55 to 64 could ‘buy in’ to Medicare. And a federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management, would negotiate with insurance companies to offer national health benefit plans, similar to those offered to federal employees, including members of Congress. If these private plans did not meet certain goals for making affordable coverage available to all Americans, Senate Democratic aides said, then the government itself would offer a new insurance plan, somewhat like the ‘public option’ in the bill Mr. Reid unveiled three weeks ago.
So it seems to me that we get a two-tiered system: (1) an expansion of Medicare for those 55 and up, and (2) for everyone else, a national not-for-profit plan run by insurance companies but overseen by the OPM. And if #2 ends up sucking, we get the "public option" run by the government.
I guess it is a good thing although I'm not sure that insurance companies offering a national health benefit plan, which will (I assume) compete with their OWN plans, is workable. I just don't like insurance companies in the loop. But I'll keep an open mind.
Logic
Michael Steele, GOP chairman in Politico:
Over 2.8 million jobs have been lost since President Obama’s began to experiment with his deficit funded stimulus package.
That's like saying that the house continued to burn even after the firemen showed up and opened their hoses on it; therefore, the firemen and the water are at fault.
The truth is that the stimulus has worked and is working. And who says so? Three independent financial advisors whose job it is to provide this advice to their clients:
So, to recap…. have jobs been lost since Obama infused the economy with the stimulus? Sure. Have fewer jobs been lost than without the stimulus? Yeah, about twice as few. We would be looking at 14% unemployment right now….. but for the stimulus.
Oddly enough, Steele goes on to talk about health care and how it "will cost nearly $1 trillion dollars after ten years of implementation". Setting aside the overinflation of that figure, Steele then says something odd:
Hold on. Before we wave goodbye to that trillion, maybe we should ask ourselves: If our economy is still struggling next year, shouldn't we invest that trillion bucks into creating jobs?
Wait a second. He's now admitting that spending money creates jobs?
Margaret and Helen Review “Going Rogue”
One of the most enchanting blogs on the intertubes is Margaret and Helen, a joint blog by two octogenarian women who have been friends for 60 years (one lives in Texas, the other in Maine). Grandson Matthew designed the blog; Margaret and Helen provide the content — well, Helen mostly. They're very witty (Below the fold, I've posted Helen's Thanksgiving rules from a recent post).
Anyway, Helen had a particularly pithy review of the first chapter of Palin's "Going Rogue" which is a fun read. An excerpt:
Margaret, I tried to come to this with an open mind. Really I did, sweetheart. I wanted to believe that there really was something of substance to someone who captured the imagination of millions. Even Barbara Walters has Sarah on her Top 10 list for the year. But it’s just not there, Margaret. Substance. She has none. Not even with a ghost writer. I mean how much respect can you have for a woman who describes the birth of her first son by writing, “Oh. My. Gosh. I thought I was going to die… Had any woman ever hurt this much? I didn’t think so.” Is it possible her ghost writer is a man?
But honestly, why am I so nasty about this woman? First I called her a bitch and now I am suggesting her knees are together about as often has Hillary Clinton appears in public with Bill. Look. There I go again sounding like a dime novel. But her entire attitude and approach to life – the sheer hypocrisy of it all – just really gets my goat. Consider the following excerpt from the book which refers to a State Trooper who pulled her over for an illegal joy ride on a snow machine:
“It was Christmas Day; we were out in the middle of nowhere, a couple of kids on a snowmachine up against a big dude with a gun and a badge. I couldn’t help but wondering about his priorities, if he really didn’t have more important things to do, like catching a bad guy, or helping a poor old lady haul in her firewood for the night. Looking back, maybe that was my first brush with the skewed priorities of government.” Page. 18
And that, dear Margaret, sums up my issue with Sarah Palin and so many others like her. They are so quick to look for the “bad guys” in everyone else never seeing the one staring back at them in the mirror each morning.
Here’s hoping Chapter Two has something worth writing about because I’ve only got a few years left on this earth and I hate that even a few hours are being wasted on this exercise in fertility. Pun intended. I mean it. Really.
EPA: Greenhouse Gases Endanger Human Health
That may not sound like news, but it is.
Believe it or not, this was an open question under the Bush Administration. In fact, during the Bush Administration, the EPA did nothing to regulate. It was so bad that several states (like Massachusetts) and environmental groups tried to sue the EPA to do its job. The EPA at the time argued that it did not have the authority under the Clean Air Act do regulate greenhouse gases.
The case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held in 2007 that the Clean Air Act did oversee greenhouse gases provided that the EPA concludes that greenhouse gases do endanger human health.
A new administration has taken the shackles off of the EPA, and today they are planning to announce that, in their view, greenhouse gases harm humans and therefore the EPA will start regulating them.
Speaking of the environment, all eyes are on Copenhagen this week. Kyoto didn't work out so well; the new agreement (one hopes) that will incolve China and other developing countries might be better. Krugman is optimistic; I am not.
UPDATE: Matt Yglesius writes that business groups are freaking out over the EPA's newfound commitment to control carbon emissions, adding that the EPA's power to seriously make effectatious changes in this area is overblown.
Tea Party More Popular Than Republican Party
In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.
For this survey, the respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party. In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the polling data indicates. The rules of the election process—written by Republicans and Democrats–provide substantial advantages for the two established major parties. The more conventional route in the United States is for a potential third-party force to overtake one of the existing parties.
Space Chair
The new Toshiba ad is the highest HD advertisement ever filmed, and it is pretty fun.
And no, it's not fake.