Cogitamus

Weekend (and End of Year) Open Thread

"Blue Jeans" - Lana Del Rey

(I find this song strangely affecting (rather than affected), although I gather she has a lot of detractors.  Once you are on the wrong side of 50 it seems to me one should feel free to disregard critics and not worry a bit about what's cool.)

So sorry for the lack of posting, but I've been taking this whole tropical vacation thing very seriously.  Sun, sea, too much fine French food ( a real virtue of St. Maarten) for which I remain a sucker, a little bit of gym time (a true shock to the system) and reading large dead tree tomes -- in keeping with the French theme a huge biography of Charles de Gaulle.  I am mostly boycotting the fiscal cliff stories at this point until my return.

- I was happy to hear that Ed Markey is going to take a shot at the Massachusetts Senate seat and seems to have garnered a great deal of support right out of the box.  Markey has been a good guy for a really long time -- I remember when he was a young Turk seeking election to Congress for the first time in 1976.  It seems to me that if Markey can scare off any primary challengers -- which seems possible with his $3.1 million war chest and high level endorsements -- that he should have a pretty decent chance of beating Scott Brown.  He's not a young guy at age 66 and will probably only serve a couple of terms, but if he can hold the seat and give the Dems a chance to develop more state wide talent, he will have done a huge service.  He is a true progressive and a guy who has been on the cutting edge of energy and climate issues for a long time.

-I really liked this discussion by TNC on deciding not to live one's life "armed." It reflects my own sense that one has to live life with a certain level of fatalism -- not stupidity, but the acceptance that random bad shit can happen and you can either choose to obsess and worry about it or you can roll with it.  I certainly did not grow up like TNC, but I lived in a number of marginal neighborhoods during my first 15 or so years in DC -- from 1982 to 1998 -- during a pretty violent time in the city.  The thought of packing -- or living life afraid all the time -- just didn't seem appealing.  

- I was also amused by this TNC post about catching crap for not knowing who Augustine of Hippo was. TNC notes that he has some significant gaps in his formal education -- to which I'd reply who the hell doesn't.  It seems to me that there remains this sort of bizarre, old-fashioned canonical snobbery that should have been banished long ago.  Yes, it's great I guess to have a mastery of the western canon, but the notion that it is the true path to wisdom or being learned strikes me as ridiculous.  (Indeed when one considers the kind of knaves and fools who are expert in this sort of thing dropping the ancient Greeks from the curriculum might well be in order.)  Like TNC, I have a ton of gaps in my reading -- moreover, I am at the point in my life where I feel free to say that I find a whole host of big thinkers to be either unreadable -- Nietzche, Hegel -- or uninteresting -- Plato, Aristotle, and a pretty large bunch of the Philosophy 101 reading list.  I have found that the kinds of writing from which I learn best are novels, histories, and biographies and that I have a distinct bias for the language and rhythms of the 20th Century onward.  Philosophical and theoretical political tracts tend to leave me cold.  So I say each to his own on the path to wisdom.  

- And to prove my point, Yglesias, a philosophy major who is hooked on dumb ass economic thinking, expresses his skepticism about DC as a place to retire -- because of its expensiveness.  He argues that retirees prefer places like Arizona -- (yes, because cold weather and ice and snow really suck when you're old) -- and should really be thinking about places like Mexico and other low cost countries as places to retire.  This suggests that retirement location is a simple economic transaction.  But the reality is that people for the most part still retire where they lived and worked for most of their lives.  Strangely enough, most retired people want to be around family and friends and institutions that formed the core of their adult existence.  Additionally, cities like DC can be ideal places for retirees.  They do not have to depend on driving to remain mobile -- a huge issue for older retirees.  There are activities like museums and theaters for them to enjoy, an array of social services geared to the elderly, and good access to doctors and hospitals.  [My mother in law -- after decades in suburbia -- moved to DC after my father in law died.  She lived here for 13 years and loved it.  She had some assets from the sale of her house, a modest pension and Social Security.  She managed to live a comfortable life on income of about $30,000 to $40,000 a year in a nice apartment in a safe and convenient neighborhood.]  You would think a density advocate like Yglesias would understand that newer suburbs and exurbs that are not pedestrian friendly and lack public transit and affordable cabs are really horrible isolating places to be as you age.      

- And lastly, I am still waiting for the damn final, final figures on the presidential vote.  It appears now that every state has certified results, except Hawaii and New York.  So as a result, Obama's edge continues to slowly grow.  He now has 51.06% of the vote to Romney's 47.21%, with total votes of 65,892,366 to Romney's 60,926,847, a gap of 4,965,519 votes.  The total popular vote for 2012 is down by 1.72% compared to 2008, with New York State's vote down by 7.74%, the likely affect of Sandy.  But for the storm (New York and New Jersey will probably cast about 850,000 fewer votes than in 2008), it seems likely that the total vote would be within about 1 million votes of the 2008 election.  The final margin should be about 4%, right around 5 million votes, a pretty respectable beating administered by the Kenyan Usurper.  (Virginia's 51.16% for Obama and 47.28% for Romney is appearing more and more like an incredibly accurate reflection of national voting behavior.)  

So jump in the fray and let us know what's on your minds.     

A Negotiating Primer for Obama: Three Simple Phrases To Repeat As Needed

A little Blondie, just because if it really mattered that a deal gets struck before the end of the year, this would be a good song for a post about the fiscal (non-)cliff.

Anyhow, those three phrases:

1) “Nothing’s agreed on until everything is agreed on.”

2) “Because we didn’t arrive at a deal, the concessions in my last offer are off the table. My original proposal is my only offer on the table at this time.”

3) “I await a concrete counterproposal from Congressional Republicans, listing specific spending cuts and tax hikes that a majority of their caucus is ready to vote for."

Saturday 12/29 Update: maybe Obama's absorbed the first two phrases, at least.  From TPM:

Obama announced that the fate of a potential deal lies with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who will work together to present a prospective package to their respective conferences over the weekend.

Should that effort fail, however, Obama indicated that he would call upon Reid to bring the original White House proposal -- extending Bush-era tax rates on income below $250,000, among other measures -- for an up-or-down vote in the Senate.

"We should let everybody vote, that's the way this is supposed to work," Obama said.

Obama's also going on Meet the Press tomorrow to make his case to the public.  Excellent.

Update, Sunday 12:09 am: a song for a Sunday.  It's all SC's fault for getting me started on a Blondie kick.

 

Some Small Gifts for Christmas

"Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant" - Diamond Rugs

The best ever Tom Waits song not written by Tom Waits.  Or at least that's how it struck me.

I want to extend my thanks to all of you who make this still such a pleasurable endeavor even if I worry that my output has not been as good or as frequent as I would like.  But I feel like even if I throw something out there that's less than stellar the discussion that ensues almost always redeems it. 

And today we are serving delicious schadenfreude, a dish that hot or cold just never gets old. I suspect that the election will continue to be a source of solace as the harsh reality that governance is going to remain as impossible as ever sets in.  I just don't believe that the Republicans, especially in the House, have any compromise in them.

- This piece in the Boston Globe about the Romney camp's delusions regarding its electoral prospects is particularly delicious.  Bonus points are added for Tadd Romney's ludicrous assertion that his father didn't really want to be president.  Mormon, please!   I suspect if there was a form you could fill out to sell your soul to obtain the office, Romney would have signed it in a heart beat.  The man spent years surrendering any shred of integrity he once might have had in his epic quest to suck up to every marginal right winger in the country.  The presidency seemed to be the only thing he really wanted, something he seemed to imagine would fill the hole in his soul.  

- I also really enjoyed this piece by Joe Hagan in New York Magazine about the most recent National Review cruise.  A ship filled with the old, white, privileged, racist, patronizing, and delusional.  I cannot even imagine what being the wait staff on such a cruise would be like.    

- And finally, Roy's end of the year month by month cavalcade of right wing nuttiness is a treat.  I don't know how he delves into this muck weekly and maintains his sense of humor and equanimity, but by God he does. 

Have a lovely Christmas day all of you.  I am heading to the gym here for what is likely to be one of the shortest work outs in history (first visit in over a year) and then will cautiously expose my pale but copious flesh to the tropical sun. 

Christmas Eve Open Thread

 

Joan Osborne, "Santa, What Do Bad Girls Get?"

It seems like a good time for a mellow, but non-traditional, Christmas song.

Tonight, we'll sing some Christmas carols around the piano, just the three of us, nibble on Christmas cookies, and drink cocoa and mulled cider.

Tomorrow, we'll open presents in the morning, and we'll go over to my little sister's house (she'll always be my little sister, even though we're all in our 50s now) for Christmas dinner.  My mother and all the sibs and spouses will be there.

So what's up with y'all for the holidays?  May you all have some pleasant time with family and friends to look forward to.

Update: I didn't mean to rain on Sir Charles' parade - I typed up this post yesterday evening, set the timer so it would appear at 12:01 a.m. today, and went to bed, figuring that chances were slim that he'd be posting in the few hours in between.

I'll leave this post up for the song, but I'm closing comments for this thread just to keep all the Christmastime chat in one place.

Further update: but I'm adding the Christmas Badgers, because that's how I roll.

 

Merry Christmas to All!

It is hard to be the dog of empty nesters.

Merry Christmas to all in our wonderful community.

I am actually catching a very early plane to spend Christmas in the Caribbean tomorrow.  We are going to St. Martin and Anguilla for two weeks -- it is our first full fledged vacation in three years due to a lot of complications in that time.  It's ludicrously expensive but it's a combined Christmas and twenty-fifth anniversary present. 

I've never spent Christmas away from the States, but the thought of tropical beaches, a couple of good books and a cocktail or two seems pretty irresistible at the moment. 

I will definitely be posting during the trip.  I suspect the fiscal cliff will seem less compelling from these climes. 

What are you all doing for the holiday?

Would You Believe Plan C and Open Thread

"Ceremony" - Chromatics

- The House Republicans are insane and uncontrollable.  Boehner's Plan B -- under which all income under $1 million would continue to be subject to the Bush tax cuts -- couldn't muster enough support among Republicans to be brought to a vote tonight.  And then the House recessed for Christmas.  It's very bizarre.  I assume that this might well be the end of Boehner's speakership. 

-  I remain astonished that Obama is willing to give Scott Brown another shot at the Senate by picking John Kerry for Secretary of State.  This is a horrible idea.  I am sure that Kerry would be a fine Secretary of State, but I suspect Obama can find someone else who will fit the bill.  In the meantime, he needs every Senate vote he can muster -- especially when one considers that in 2014 the Democrats will have many vulnerable seats, including Landrieu in Louisiana, Pryor in Arkansas, Begich in Alaska, Johnson in South Dakota, Rockefeller in West Virginia, Baucus in Montana, and Hagan in North Carolina.  It is easy enough to see a scenario in which five to six of these seats are lost.  With a 55 to 45 edge, we simply cannot afford to give up any seats.  Find someone else.

-   Just as I don't see a fiscal deal being reached because of the intransigence of the House Republicans, I also don't see any gun control initiative getting through Congress.  All of this talk about things having changed due to the slaughter in Connecticut ignore the fundamental nature of the GOP's House contingent, which remains fundamentally reactionary and completely immune to pressure from saner quarters.

- The vicious attacks on Chuck Hagel by the Israel First lobby are completely outrageous.  There has to be a point where people of good will say enough to this kind of thing.

- And in the spirit of the season, the passing of Robert Bork should remind us of how fortunate we were that Ted Kennedy and others stopped this incredible reactionary from having spent a quarter century dragging American jurisprudence even further to the right than it went. 

- Paula's discussion of the stupidity of Charlotte Allen (even dumber than Megan McArdle), made me dredge this one up from the archives.

What else is going on out there?

Monday Miscellany and Open Thread

Above -- Why I didn't write yesterday.  (Did you know a dog can double as a pillow? My wife greatly enjoyed snapping this shot.)

- So I reluctantly head back to the horror of Newtown for a couple of more thoughts.  It seems to me that the focus of most of the discussions has been on legal restrictions on types of gun and ammunition ownership and how these can be squared with political reality and the federal courts' expanding notions of Second Amendment rights.  I am thinking along the lines of a more market driven solution, i.e. the use of civil remedies against manufacturers of weapons and ammunition may be the most effective way to curb the proliferation of these inherently dangerous instruments.  In other words, impose a legal regime of strict liability on the manufacturers of guns and ammunition as well as those who sell them.  If your weapon or your bullets -- as manufacturer or importer or retailer -- are used in the commission of a violent act, you will be civilly liable in tort to the victims.  Under such a regime, it is not difficult to imagine a large number of makers of guns and ammunition, along with sellers, being put out of business in short order.  And it avoids all of the pesky Second Amendment issues.

- Well my idea may not be perfect, but in comparison to that idiot Megan McArdle's take on things, it looks like pure genius.  The list of things about which Megan knows nothing is a dauntingly long one, but good God, matters like these are just completely outside of her frame of reference.  Clearly here is a woman who knows nothing about 1) small children; 2) semiautomatic assault weapons; and 3) what it is to be in mortal danger -- but hey, I think having 5 and 6 year-olds try and swarm a madman wielding a Bushmaster is genius.  

-  Like Josh Marshall, I find the notion that gun ownership is the basis for our freedom as Americans to be offensive and laughable.  I would be hard pressed to think of a single instance in American history where arms wielded by civilians have advanced the cause of freedom.  (Please enlighten me if I've overlooked something.) I find it similarly preposterous when people make the same claim for military veterans .  I say that not to disparage military service but as a reflection on what most of our veterans have been asked to do in recent times.  Were American civil liberties really at stake in the outcome of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again?  WWII was against an enemy so powerful and vicious that I suppose one can make the case.  Other than that, what are we looking at?  WWI?  The war to end wars was hardly a boon to American freedom.  The Spanish American War?  Promoted the freedom to exploit and colonize.  Ditto the Mexican American War.  The Civil War is the only American war I can think of that directly brought about enhanced American freedoms.  Anyone else see it differently?

Alright, must grab the dog pillow and head for bed.  Got an early train to Philly to catch.  What else say ye?

Weekend Open Thread

"Mercy Now" - Mary Gauthier

"We hang in the balance, dangle between hell and hallowed ground."

I was going to entitle this post "All Hail American Exceptionalism" but then felt bad about it -- and then discovered James Fallows had gone there.  I never feel adequate to these kinds of occasions.  Like l-t c, I feel a sense of overwhelming disgust that the society in which we live is one that has decided that these kinds of massacres must be tolerated.  I don't care what the gun nuts say -- that is precisely the blood-soaked calculus in which they and their political enablers engage.  

It does not have to be that way.  No other industrialized country tolerates or endures this sort of thing.  I would be supportive of a Japanese style prohibitionist approach to gun ownership, but that ship sailed so long ago, to speak of it is an utter pipe dream.  It seems to me that we could at least ban high capacity clips, assault weapons, and the ability to avoid background checks via the gun show loophole.  Whether any of these changes would make a difference remains to be seen.

(Opposed as I am to gun violence, I would love to take a baseball bat to Mike Huckabee's knees.  What an imbecilic sonofabitch.)

What say you?  

Fuck the Massacre-Enablers of the NRA

 

First, a thought and a quiet prayer for the parents of the 20 children gunned down today.  If I were one of them, I would feel like my world had just ended.  I don't know how you console the inconsolable, but I can only hope that they each eventually find their own way through the pain.

But now we have to talk about why this keeps on happening.  How many gun massacres have there been just since Aurora, less than five months ago?  I've lost count.

You know, I'm no gun expert, but surely there have to be ways to reduce the amount of carnage one can do with guns in the space of a few minutes, that wouldn't involve taking away anyone's gun, and wouldn't make it more difficult to defend oneself from the marauding horde that gun nuts are always secretly hoping will show up at the doors of their suburban split-levels.  (And when no gangbangers show up, they kill a trick-or-treater or something.) 

Maybe reduce the capacity of a semi-automatic's clip?*  No, not even the slightest imposition on gun rights is acceptable to the gun crowd, no matter how many people have to die as a result.  In order that their gun rights remain uninfringed, of course, the unlimited right of every crazy person ready to go postal to obtain the latest and greatest in semi-automatic technology must also be preserved.

Their 'rights' to have no restrictions at all on the characteristics of the guns they own are more important, in their eyes, than the right that the victims of a shooting like today's had to keep on living.  That's the sort of everyday amorality and sociopathy that ensures that when someone flips out completely, he can take a whole batch of people with him.

I understand that there are total crazies in this world.  I don't understand the moral calculus of people who think the lives of the total crazies' victims are less important than the least imposition on the sort of guns they can carry.  I guess this is what the banality of evil looks like: tens of millions of people who put the slightest imposition on what they perceive as their rights ahead of the lives of thousands of their fellow citizens.

I don't understand their moral calculus, but I'm done with it.  Fuck 'em.

 

*What I've heard today is that since it only takes a second to change an ammo clip, that wouldn't do any good anyway.  Well, fuck, can't we try?  No, we can't, they say.  Not that I buy their argument anyway: today's killer shot 26 people at that elementary school.  Suppose there were a max of 6 bullets in a clip: he'd be on his fifth clip by the time he was done.  What's he going to do, juggle his reserve clips while he shoots?  If not, he's got to fumble for them as he pulls them out of his pocket, his tote bag, whatever, unless he's the most dextrous man in the world.  Every little bit helps - or would, if the gun nuts of America were doing their damnedest to block efforts at massacre prevention.

Obama's Stealth War on Christmas and Open Thread

Sorry for my absence.  I have had an incredibly full schedule in terms of both work and social commitments.  On Saturday, I returned from my Florida travels and went straight to the White House to see the Christmas decorations there.  I found that the wily Kenyan socialist usurper has outdone himself in his continued attempt to fool the American public -- not only were there Christmas trees and decorations in abundance, there was even a manger scene, captured above, albeit in somewhat tiny fashion.  This President will stop at nothing in his attempts to trick the nation into believing that he is one of us.

- I remain convinced that there will not be a fiscal cliff deal or a debt ceiling deal until into the new year and that there will be serious brinksmanship before either of those things are accomplished.  I think all of the talk of an even moderately chastened Republican Party are just that -- empty talk.  And I think Obama is determined to hold his ground, having seen the kind of people with whom he is supposed to deal.  Let's hope that the economic fall out is not too serious from all of this.

- The Michigan right to work for less law -- or right to shirk as I like to call it -- discussed by l-t c below, strikes me as a deeply serious blow against an already reeling labor movement.  The off year election losses in 2010 are proving to be a disaster for progressive causes, notwithstanding our strong showing in 2012.  The election of these hard core right wingers is likely to continue to reverberate even if their stays in office end up being relatively brief.  It is hard to overstate how important it is to get our electorate out and voting in 2014 to see if we can undo some of the worst of what these radical governors and legislatures have wrought.

- Speaking of elections, the final vote tallies continue to roll in and Obama's margin continues to increase slowly but steadily.  He is now at 50.97% of the popular vote to Romney's 47.29%, with a margin of 4,736,633 votes.  It looks like he will end up with just under 66 million votes and a margin of about 5 million.  Not too shabby really.  And turnout is now down by only 2%, despite earlier misinformation indicating that it was substantially lower than in 2008. 

What's on your minds?

Lame-Duck Legislative Trainwreck in Michigan

If there's an instance where the antidemocratic potential is approaching its full fruition, the current lame-duck session in Michigan has to be it.

In quick succession (giving bills to legislators literally minutes before votes, giving them no time to read the bills), the lame-duck GOP majority is cramming through right-to-work legislation, legislation to prevent abortion coverage by insurance policies in the health insurance exchange created by the Affordable Care Act and force women to buy a separate rider for abortion coverage, and a revised emergency manager law replacing the one that voters repealed by referendum on Nov. 6.  This last law would empower the state to hand over public schools (including the physical school property) to for-profit education operators.

They're really just out to wreck stuff, aren't they?

Needless to say, they wouldn't have tried to push this stuff through before the election, because the voters might've had a chance to express their feelings about such measures in short order.  And they aren't going to wait until the new legislature is seated, because they lost some seats in the election, and their prospects for pushing stuff like this through wouldn't be nearly as good in January as they are right now.  So they're taking advantage of their moment of maximum unaccountability to do it now.

In Michigan, they're getting ready to protest at the Capitol, and deluge their legislators with phone calls.  I'm not sure what those of us who live in other states can do, but I've got one suggestion for how to treat those who vote for these bills later, if they pass: treat them like the traitors they are.  When they show their faces, tell them to their face that they're worthless scum, and don't belong in civilized company.  Hell, dump buckets of shit on their doorsteps from time to time.  Let 'em know they are really, REALLY not wanted, that maybe they should consider moving to another state.

And if we ever have the luxury of passing geeky good-government legislation, one thing we should pass in as many states as possible is a drastically reduced lame-duck period: swear in those new legislators just 3 weeks after election day.  Don't give them until the new year to make deals that few actual voters would support.  And then maybe if it becomes the norm in state legislatures, we can try Congress as well.

Raising the Minimum Wage, and Other Overdue Reforms

 

These two posts by James Fallows, especially the second one, got me thinking about this again - not that I ever go all that long in between.  But he raised one new issue in particular, one that I'd been sort of aware of, to full consciousness.  I'll get to that.

First of all, I'm more than ready to jump on the bandwagon, such as it is, that the minimum wage ought to be raised to $10/hour in a series of steps over the next few years - and then indexed to inflation, so we don't have to keep on doing this every several years.  The most straightforward way to help working people who are struggling to get by is to pay them more. 

This would not only help workers earning between $7.15 (the current minimum) and $10 per hour, but those who are currently earning $10-$12 per hour (and as a result are currently getting a $3-$5 premium over minimum wage) would get a bit more too: you can't get someone to hold down a job that requires skills or experience if you're not going to pay them noticeably more than they can earn at MickeyD's.

And while I'm at it, let me return to some familiar hobbyhorses:

1) The law should mandate 10 paid days of vacation and 5 paid days of sick leave per year for full-time workers, to be accrued at least quarterly.  (That would be 20 hours of vacation and 10 hours of sick leave per quarter.) 

What's more, if someone's working part time, then the paid leave they earn would be pro-rated according to the number of hours they averaged over the most recent quarter: someone averaging 28 hours a week would get 28/40 times the number of hours in the parenthetical.  With many Americans working part time not by choice, it's important that benefits for part-timers be pro-rated where feasible, and not just disappear.

2) Below some annual salary (say, $50,000/year) or its hourly equivalent, everyone, regardless of supervisory or professional status, should get time and a half over 40 hours and double time over 60 hours per week.  The idea that a shift supervisor at MickeyD's earning maybe $11/hour is somehow exempt from this requirement because she's a supervisor is just bullshit.

And between that amount and 3x that amount, people should be compensated for overtime as if they were earning that amount.  So if the amount is $50,000 per year, which translates into $24/hour, people earning up to $150,000/year would have to be paid $36/hour for time between 40 and 60 hours a week, and $48/hour beyond that.  The base salary of someone earning $150,000/year would translate to $72/hour, so their time beyond 40 hours would be cheaper than their first 40 hours, but it wouldn't be free. 

I feel very strongly that overtime shouldn't be a free resource; even at fairly high levels of basic compensation, employers should have to pay extra money when they're making you work extra time.  The closer your overtime is to free, and the less power you have to do anything about it, the more likely they are to just gobble up all your 'free' time simply because they can.

And now, thanks to Fallows, the new hobbyhorse:

I'd been vaguely aware for awhile that many part-timers' schedules are becoming increasingly changeable and arbitrary, that such people never know more than a few days in advance when and how much they will work.  Apparently employers are increasingly using software to manage part-time employees' time so they'll only be there when they're most needed, and that they won't go over the line to being full-time and be eligible for full-timers' benefits.  So they might be working mornings on Monday and Thursday, evenings on Tuesday, afternoon on Saturday, and off on other days.

This borders on servitude.  If you're a part-timer with unpredictable hours, you can't get a second part-time job to make ends meet.  Getting day care for your kids is hard, because you never know whether your shift will be at a time when care is available, or whether it will end in time for you to pick the kids up.  There ought to be a law.

And I've got an idea for one: a part-timer's hours should fit in a regular 8-hours-a-day, 5-days-a-week block of time.  The part-timer's hours could bounce around without restriction within that block, but the employer would have to pay time-and-a-half for work outside the block, even if the employee was nowhere near 40 hours for the week. 

The hours wouldn't have to be 9-5, and the days wouldn't have to be M-F, but they'd have to be the same 8 hours every day, and the same 5 days every week. The employer would have to spell out the hours and days in writing, and there would be a limit on the number of times per year (maybe 4-6 times a year) that the employer could change the block of time, otherwise the employer could just change the block of time every week.

That way, the employee would have predictable hours for booking day car, predictable free time that would be available for working a second job, the possibility of a predictable sleep schedule, and so forth. 

It's bad enough when an employer eats up all of a full-time employee's spare time because they're exempt from the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  But it's absolutely, crazily unreasonable that an employer can all but monopolize the schedule of a part-time employee as well.

Your thoughts? Open thread.

A Few Reasons Why Smaller Government, Lower Taxes, and Family Values Isn't Selling Anymore

 

 

In a meeting between House GOP bigwigs and their K Street allies, the question was asked, "how can we message that we're the party of small business owners and we're not defending the rich?" There's no amount of messaging lipstick that will hide that particular pig at this point - as Kevin Drum points out at the link, even the fabled low-information voters know that the GOP is defending the rich from tax hikes.

But it made me think about the bumper-sticker message that the GOP has used effectively since the late 1970s, that they're the party of smaller government, lower taxes, and family values, and why it's not been quite as effective lately.

Smaller government: Ronald Reagan swept into office in 1980 claiming he'd cut large quantities of "waste, fraud, and abuse" from government budgets, and the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, in addition to attacking HillaryCare, ran against spending on things like midnight basketball games.

These attacks made sense to most people: whether or not there was nearly as much "waste, fraud, and abuse" in government as Reagan, his staff, or his supporters believed (there wasn't that much, but there was some), people believed it was there, and didn't want their tax dollars going for it.  And people didn't particularly want their tax dollars going for apparent frivolities such as the legendary midnight basketball games.  (Didn't matter that they may have made sense on closer inspection: most voters don't have time for that closer look.)

1) But now, the GOP's knives are clearly being sharpened for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  People don't just like these programs - they depend on them.  Despite the protestations of the GOP that they're really after those other moochers and takers, people are starting to get the idea that the knives are being sharpened for them this time, not some abstract 'other.'

2) Katrina and Sandy.  Most people want the government to do a fairly small number of things, but it wants those things to be done well.  The GOP is increasingly obvious in its failure to give a good goddamn whether government works - and it's starting to get on people's radar that they'd be just as happy if it didn't.

Lower Taxes: The Republicans used to be for low taxes for everybody.  And while tax cuts for people further down the income ladder may have been cover for giving much bigger tax cuts for those near the top, the folks further down did at least get tax cuts from Reagan and Shrubby.  Now that they've successfully done away with income taxes for nearly half the population, the GOP has publicly changed its tune with its "skin in the game" talk, and clearly wants higher taxes on the lower half of the income distribution even as they want to cut taxes on the rich.  I don't know how deeply this idea has sunk in yet, but unless the GOP changes its tune, it will sink in over time.

Family Values: this has always been mostly about abortion and gays.  But most people are OK with gays now, which ruins that pitch.  And while most Americans have mixed feelings about abortion, the GOP has shot itself in the foot by increasingly opposing contraception as well, which most people are strongly in favor of, and shot itself in the other foot by proposing to do away with rape and incest exceptions to abortion, which most people are also strongly in favor of.

And then there's the underlying reality that the GOP's been running against The Other for just about forever.  It may have worked as long as the GOP was 'just' running against blacks, hippies, government bureaucrats, and college professors, but it keeps on adding groups to the list, such as Hispanics and Muslims.  And while they may not have specifically attacked Asian-Americans, when the attacks on People Who Are Not Like Us get as broad as the GOP has made them, it's not surprising that people who have felt less than completely accepted by white America on account of their race, religion, or other characteristics are feeling that the GOP's hostility is aimed at them as well.

It's not just a demographic battle that the GOP is losing: its Big Ideas are all pretty much played out as well.  And between Bush in Iraq and Obama taking out Osama, it can't even claim to be the party of national security anymore.

Update: Take five, Dave Brubeck.  And thanks for everything.

The Joys of Right Wing Denial

This column by Michael Medved on the rosy demographic future of the Republican Party just cracked me up.  Medved's thesis -- the percentage of older people in the country is growing -- older people vote Republican -- ergo, a golden age awaits the party of golden-agers.  Really, there is so much wrong with this it is difficult to capture all of it.

First, the notion that people become more conservative as they age is simply a myth.  Young people have voted overwhelmingly for Barak Obama in the last two elections -- and the cohort of 30-39 year-olds, many of whom were in the under 30 cohort in 2008, increased the support for Obama in that age bracket.  That's the way these generational loyalties tend to work; the electoral loyalties formed by one's mid-twenties typically stay with most people as they age.  

Second, comparing the older people of today -- those born in the 1930s and 40s -- with those who will become senior citizens in another 15 to 20 years is pretty silly.  Medved takes solace in the fact that in 2030, 25% of the American population will be over 60, assuming that people in that age group magically become Republicans.  Moreover, Medved suggests that the young who are currently not religiously observant will become so as they age and marry.  In other words, Medved assumes that the older people of the future will be just like those we find today.

A snapshot of the actual demographics confirms that most of this is delusional.  42% of the voters between the ages of 18 - 29 in 2012 were non-white.  In 2000, that numbers was 26%.  This is a stunning change in twelve short years.  Non-white voters supported Obama over Romney by approximately 80-20%. This trend will not be slowing down.  By 2050, whites will be a minority of voters in the United States.  (I hope to turn 90 that year and celebrate the occasion.)  Right now, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians make up 37% of the country's population and 28% of the voters in the most recent election.  The Hispanic vote is expected to double by 2030.  Asian-Americans, the fastest growing demographic group in America, supported Obama over Romney by approximately 76 - 23%, a stunning 53% gap. 

Medved completely ignores this reality.  He also ignores the fact that 19% of the voters age 18-29 have no religious affiliation versus only 6% of those currently over age 65, that only 36% of them attend church services regularly as opposed to 51% of those over age 65, and, most importantly, that only 16% identify as white evangelical protestants versus 28% of voters over age 65.  As a group, those 18 - 29 overwhelmingly support gay marriage, abortion rights, and legalized marijuana.  They also strongly support more activist government by a margin of 59 - 37% while those over 65 -- the folks collecting Social Security and enjoying the benefits of socialized medicine -- reverse those numbers, with 58% claiming that government is doing too much -- although presumably not in terms of supporting their sorry white asses -- and 35% who think government should do more. 

In short, there is no reason for Mr. Medved's optimism.  But plenty of reason for most of us to feel the future is bright. 

Friday Night Open Thread

"Dreaming" - Blondie

An old favorite -- with a powerhouse performance by the awesome Dr. Clem Burke on drums. 

More apologies for my utter lack of productivity on the blog this week.  Last night and the night before I sat down with the lap top after walking Stanley, armed with all good and productive intentions, and both nights fell asleep sitting up in classic old man style.  It's just been that kind of week. (Hang in there with me -- I will produce more once I get past a couple of things.)

- I was amused and amazed by this story about the Romney campaign's internal polling.  How could this people be this inept?  If I were a Republican I would find this story chilling.  The inability to objectively obsess one's situation strikes me as the worst sin a campaign can commit.  Bubble living is a dangerous thing to do. 

- Meanwhile, back in the reality based world, the scope of Obama's victory continues to take shape.  His lead has now expanded to 4,573,000 votes, with his share of the popular vote edging up to 50.92% while Romney's has slipped to 47.35%.  (Since 1960 there have been five elections closer than this one.)

Update:  Some months ago I remarked on the fact that although the presidential election was polling in fairly close fashion on a national basis, there were very few states that appeared to be competitive at all.  Now that the results are nearly final, this has proven true well beyond what I had imagined.  Despite all of the talk of eight to twelve "swing states," the reality is that only four states in the country had margins closer than 5%.  Virginia, which thus far Obama leads by 3.88% (which is not that close), Ohio, where he leads by 2.96%, Florida, the closest state in the election, which Obama leads by .88%, and North Carolina, which Romney won by 2.04%.  Nowhere else was close, leaving all the talk of not knowing the results until Wednesday or the possible nightmare of multiple recounts seeming particularly silly.  Beyond these four states, the closest of the Obama states was Colorado, which he leads by 5.37%.  The margins in the next few closest states won by Obama were Pennsylvania by 5.4%, New Hampshire by 5.58%, Iowa by 5.81%, and Nevada by 6.68%.  The next closest of the Red States other than North Carolina was Georgia which Romney took by 7.82%.  In other words, the country is profoundly politically divided with the Democrats, in presidential races, seeming to have locked in a pretty solid 270 - 300 electoral votes, with a ceiling of about 350.  (Assuming that Obama's strong performances in Indiana and Missouri in 2008 were one off events -- which seems more likely than not to be the case.)  The Republicans are very solidly ensconced in their electoral strongholds, but these seem to top out at about 200 electoral votes -- even if they can swing Florida and Ohio, they still fall short in the electoral college.  The red states were so red in 2012 that Obama was held to below 42% of the vote in 16 of the 24 states that Romney took, and he only cracked 45% in the aforementioned North Carolina and Georgia.  Demographic change may alter this landscape, but with margins like these, I suspect that it will be at least a decade before this really manifests itself.  On the flip side, Romney was held under 42% in thirteen states, plus the District of Columbia, under 45% in another four states, and under 47% in another six.  The states in which Romney got less than 45% of the vote have 227 electoral votes and the states in which he had less 47% of the vote have 272 electoral votes.  In such an electoral landscape, the Democrats can afford to concede Florida, Ohio, and Virginia and still win the presidency.  This would worry me profoundly were I a Republican.  Fortunately, for so many reasons, I am not.  

- I believe that predictions that chastened Republicans will capitulate on higher taxes are erroneous.  I think that they will be unwilling to compromise through the end of the year.  Once taxes have increased across the board, they may be willing to move, but I don't know that I would bet on that either.  My sense is that they will make the Dems own the tax increases and hope that the economy slips into recession once again. 

What else is going on out there?

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