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Mitt Romney Warns Against A Branch Of Populism That Scapegoats Immigrants

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Mar 5, 2010 at 7:32 pm

Earlier today, while promoting his book “No Apology: The Case For American Greatness” at the National Press Club, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) staked out a stance against a brand of populism which he describes as scapegoating, or looking for someone to blame for the fundamental problems that face the U.S. — specifically immigrants:

There’s another branch of the word populism which I’m referring to when I say these words, and that is that there are some people who are scapegoating — who look for someone to blame for more fundamental problems that we have as a society. It may be a politician, it may be a Wall Street banker, it may be immigrants, it may be a certain ethnic group…

You’ll see people take on immigrants and suggest that immigration is the source of America’s challenges. Our problems are more significant than that and that kind of scapegoating in my view doesn’t make sense. And I would note that it exists.

Watch it:

Romney, who ran smear ads in 2008 portraying fellow presidential contenders as soft on immigration, appears to be in the process of changing his position on the issue yet again. In his book, Romney echoes today’s remarks, writing “populism sometimes takes the form of being anti-immigrant, and appearing anti-immigrant, and that likewise is destructive to a nation which has built its economy through the innovation and hard work and creativity of people who have come here from foreign shores.” With his eyes on a 2012 presidential run, Romney is amongst a growing number of Republicans who have recognize the need to adjust their immigration rhetoric and regain the trust of a growing Latino demographic that might otherwise be voting Republican.

Ironically, back in 2008 Romney embraced the powerfully symbolic political backing of anti-immigrant hysteric, former Rep. Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is currently under investigation for racial profiling and civil rights allegations related to his immigration policing efforts. Perhaps Romney himself succumbed to the “temptations of populism” he discusses in his new book when he enthusiastically accepted the endorsements of two public figures who have essentially built their careers on the kind of nativist populism that Romney warns against.

Despite his disdain for the politics of scapegoating, Romney still described the tea party movement as “an encouraging development” at today’s Press Club appearance.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 5, 2010 at 6:15 pm

Only flesh so wolves can feed:

— Why is Treasury pretending there’s no too big to fail bank guarantee?

— Tea Party back to the future.

— Obama administration touts commitment to the rule of law on the very day it’s backtracking on giving KSM a real trial.

— Mitt Romney acknowledges that man-made climate change is real so he’s probably toast in the 2012 primaries.

— Robert Solow is funny.

— The Fed’s deflationary bias.

Surfer Blood, “Anchorage”

Politics

Mitt Romney Refuses To Say If The Foundation Of The Massachusetts Health System Is Constitutional

By Lee Fang on Mar 5, 2010 at 5:41 pm

In recent days, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has tried to simultaneously tear down President Obama’s proposals to reform healthcare, while defending his own legacy of reforming healthcare in Massachusetts. Romney’s health plan includes an expansion of Medicaid using $385 million in annual Federal money, as well as an individual mandate and a sliding scale of subsidies. Today, 98% of Bay State residents have quality, highly regulated coverage. Defending his plan last night, Romney told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that the only way the Massachusetts “system can work” is by having an individual mandate.

Fighting to kill health reform, the right-wing has attacked the individual mandate as unconstitutional. Along with a cadre of Republican Congressmen, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have said that the individual mandate violates the constitution. Similarly, as a ThinkProgress investigation has found, insurance company lobbyists have orchestrated an effort to use state legislatures to pass resolutions condemning the individual mandate as unconstitutional. An individual mandate is absolutely necessary for health reform to work. Simply put, the right has hoped to kill health reform by undermining the individual mandate.

Today at the Press Club, Romney again tore into Obama’s efforts on health reform. After the speech, ThinkProgress caught up with Romney to ask him about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Romney refused to answer if the individual mandate, which underpins his own Massachusetts system, is even constitutional:

TP: What do you think about the current effort to declare the individual mandate as unconstitutional?

ROMNEY: You know I’ve got a long discussion that I could give you on that, but I’m in too harp hay of a hurry right now but I think we have that on the site.

TP: Do you think it’s constitutional though, I mean just as a quick answer.

ROMNEY: I think I’ve answered that the best way I can right now which is it’s a big topic and I’m happy to discuss it at length but I just can’t do it in the hall going to the elevator.

TP: Well I mean it is constitutional though, right?

Watch it:

On Romney’s website, there is no mention of the individual mandate. During the 2008 Republican primary, Romney famously crept to the far right, flip flopping on many core issues to appease the right-wing base. With Romney refusing to state if the core foundation of his own health plan is even constitutional, Romney is again pandering to far right conservatives.

Last year, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), a close ally of Romney, said the Senate health reform bill “mirrors” the Massachusetts system Brown and Romney helped enact. And as Igor Volsky details, the current version of reform Congress is preparing to enact still resembles the Massachusetts plan, except that Obama’s reform proposals do far more to control costs. However, Romney is making a political calculation by attacking health reform. With Romney refusing to state if the core foundation of his own health plan is even constitutional, Romney is again pandering to far right conservatives.

Yglesias

Imagine If

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 5, 2010 at 5:31 pm

Congressional Democrats wondering whether it’s politically smarter to side with President Obama or John Boehner on health care, should give this chart a look:

Confidence in Politicians to Recommend the Right Thing for Healthcare Reform 1

Also note that if “centrist” Senators had done the sensible thing back last summer (!!!) and just agreed to expeditiously enact a health care bill, they’d all have been in much better shape. A few key issues could have been submitted to the then-super-popular White House for binding arbitration and you could have been done with it.

Health

‘No Apology’ Romney Embraces Senate Massachusetts Health Reform And Individual Mandate

By Igor Volsky on Mar 5, 2010 at 5:05 pm

Mitt-Romney-No-Apology-The-Case-For-American-GreatnessFormer Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who must be biting his lip to keep from announcing his bid for the White House, went on the record with Greta Van Sustren yesterday and doubled down on his support for Massachusetts health care reform and the individual mandate:

ROMNEY: [Reform in Massachusetts] is actually working pretty much as anticipated at the time it was passed….In my view, we could make the plan much more effective by doing something I proposed in the original legislation, which was to say that everybody had to pay something for their insurance, that there were no free rides, that people had to at least put some portion of the cost down for their premiums….

Actually, in our plan in Massachusetts, everybody is insured, so there’s no issue about preexisting conditions or changing jobs because you’re always able to have insurance. And the insurance companies don’t have a problem with that because we have everybody in the pool. They don’t have to worry about adverse selection where only the sick or only those with preexisting conditions go out and buy insurance. So because the entire state is insured, the system can work.

While Governor, Romney had advocated a “personal responsibility” policy that would have required individuals who failed to purchase coverage to spend up to $10,000 in the form of a bond that could be used to pay for hospital care. As my colleague Emma Sandoe explains, Romney’s plan ensured that the penalty funds were directed back into health care and provided a pretty powerful incentive to purchase coverage (rather than pay $10,000), but Democrats argued that charging everyone the same flat fee would disadvantage poorer families. To a family making $1 million a year, a $10,000 fee is only 1% of their income, while to a family making $30,000 a year, this fine is a third of their income. “The final version of the Massachusetts plan included a fee based on half of the cost of the lowest price plan either in their private insurance exchange system (Commonwealth Choice) or in their government subsidized program (Commonwealth Care) for lower income individuals.”

Romney may have some minor qualms with Massachusetts reform, but he supports its key pillars (although he disagreed with the employer requirement), which are also, as it turns out, part of the Senate health care proposal. It’s basically the Massachusetts plan with cost controls:


Major Provisions Senate Bill Massachusetts Bill
Individual Mandate Yes Yes
Employer Responsibility Yes Yes
Affordability Credits Yes Yes
Standard Benefit Package Yes Yes
Establishes Exchanges Yes Yes
Prohibits Insurance Company From Canceling Coverage Yes Yes
Bans Denying Medical Coverage For Pre-existing Conditions Yes Yes
Medicaid Expansion Yes Yes
Medicare Cuts Yes No Authority
Cap On High-Cost Plans Yes No

In recent media interviews promoting his new book, No Apology, Romney has tried to argue that the health care bill he signed differs from the Senate legislation because Massachusetts did not reduce Medicare spending. It’s a blatantly ridiculous argument, since states don’t have the ability to cut into the federally-funded Medicare program.

As Romney prepares for his second presidential campaign, he should take a page from his book and offer ‘no apology’ for supporting the kind of health care reform that Democrats are promoting. But if the previous campaign is any indication, to Romney, it’s probably still just a book title.

Yglesias

The Siberian Methane Feedback Loop

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:44 pm

As I mentioned yesterday, there’s mounting evidence that global warming is about to reach a very dangerous feedback point in which thawing of the Arctic Ocean seabed allows increased levels of methane to leak into the atmosphere. This will have a large greenhouse effect and make the world warmer, leading to more methane.

Via Joe Romm, here’s a video where lead author Natalia Shakhova explains her findings:

But since it’s still cold in Siberia during the winter, this must all be made up, right? After all, Al Gore is fat!

Politics

Virginia attorney general instructs state colleges to stop protecting gay students from discrimination.

By Igor Volsky on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:30 pm

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Just weeks after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) refused to renew an executive order that would have protected gay and lesbian state workers from discrimination, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the state’s colleges and universities “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” Cuccinelli — who has previously argued “homosexual acts are…intrinsically wrong” — wrote a letter to all of the state’s public colleges and universities:

“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote.

Most colleges protect gays from anti-discrimination and violence. Earlier this month, students at John Carroll University, a Jesuit college in Cleveland Ohio, staged a sit-in to protest “the university’s decisions not to include the protection of sexual orientation of in its anti-discrimination statement.” Other Jesuit universities, like “Canisius College, College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, Le Moyne College, and St. Louis University” all include “sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies.” The blogger Joe.My.God. writes, “Virginia is going to have a VERY hard time attracting top students and faculty after this, not to mention the inevitable backlash against people or companies willing to work with the Virginia higher education system.”

Security

NRO’s McCarthy: Adm. Mullen’s, Gen. Petraeus’ Position On Gitmo Is ‘Loopy’

By Matt Duss on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:20 pm

McCarthy_photoNational Review’s resident birther/deather fruitcake Andy McCarthy argues that “If a deal to grant military commissions in exchange for closing Gitmo happens, it is a major win for the Obama Left and an enormous loss for public safety.”

Senator Graham and others will tell you such an outcome will be a great victory for national security conservatives who think terrorists should be tried by commission. Don’t buy it. The deal would be a great victory for the terrorists. [...]

In sum, we were winning the argument. But instead, in Gang of 14 style, Senator Graham and whoever else are treating the president like he has cards to play. Rather than just be quietly embarrassed over their loopy position that Gitmo causes terrorism, these senators are using that fiction as a reason for trading away Gitmo (i.e., a facility we need) in order to achieve military commission trials for enemy combatants (i.e., something we’d get anyway without the trade).

Last year, Chairmain of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mullen told ABC “the concern I’ve had about Guantanamo in these wars is it has been a symbol — and one which has been a recruiting symbol for those extremists and jihadists who would fight us… That’s at the heart of the concern for Guantanamo’s continued existence.”

Explaining why he supports closing Gitmo, CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus told Fox News last year “Gitmo has caused us problems, there’s no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has indeed been used by the enemy against us.”

I’d love to see McCarthy explain to Adm. Mullen and Gen. Petraeus why their support for closing Gitmo is “loopy.” After that, maybe he can ask them if they’ve actually seen the president’s real birth certificate.

Yglesias

Real Talk on Health Care and Abortion

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 5, 2010 at 3:58 pm

Stethoscope

What Theda Skocpol said:

“FEMINISTS” who are pushing on abortion-funding limits rather than supporting American women need to examine their consciences. NOW’s obsession over abortion is, in effect, betraying a long tradition of American women’s advocacy on behalf of the wellbeing of families and the poor. Poor women cannot now get publicly funded abortions, and middle class women will always get what they need. At issue now is a health reform that will extend critical resources to millions of ordinary women.

CATHOLIC PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS also need to get a grip on core values. Do they — or the U.S. Catholic Bishops — really want to be responsible for scuttling access to health care for millions? Many deaths will be on their hands if they do. Scuttling reform over abortion will give the lie to “pro life” claims. Abortion funding is not directly available through public funds — it has not been for a long time, and it won’t be under this legislation. Congressman Stupak, one suspects, really wants to defeat comprehensive health reform; he was conspiring with Republican leaders in the last episode. Other Democrats should not follow Stupak. And responsible Catholic leaders should support the true “pro-life” cause here: expanded, affordable health care coverage for all Americans.

The majority of pro-life members of congress at least claim to believe that the overall health care bill is bad. But the Stupak bloc of legislators who were willing to vote for a version of the bill that included super-duper-duper strong restrictions on abortion but not one that merely includes super strong restrictions are really offering up a reductio version of the “life begins at conception and ends at birth” version of pro-life politics.

Consider:

A study led by Heather Rosen, MD, MPH, research fellow in the Department of Plastic Surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, found that uninsured children were over three times more likely to die from their trauma-related injuries than children who were commercially insured, after adjustment for other factors such as age, gender, race, injury severity and injury type in an analysis of data from the National Trauma Data Bank.

Then conversely from a feminist point of view, undue focus on the abortion-funding provisions is missing the forest for the trees. Not only will the bill give subsidized health insurance to currently uninsured poor women, but the requirement that insurance companies not charge women higher premiums than men will be a financial boon to middle class single women. As a matter of principle, discriminating against abortion services is indefensible. But in practice, the need to pay out of pocket for abortions is going to be far offset by other benefits women are getting.

Justice

Virginia AG Instructs State Colleges To Rescind Policies That Protect Gays And Lesbians From Discrimination

By Igor Volsky on Mar 5, 2010 at 3:32 pm

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Just weeks after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) refused to renew an executive order that would have protected gay and lesbian state workers from discrimination, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the state’s colleges and universities “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school Thursday that their boards of visitors have no legal authority to adopt such statements.”

In a letter sent to all of the state’s public colleges and universities, Cuccinelli wrote, “only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees — a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take, including as recently as this week“:

“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote.

It’s incredible that Cuccinelli found time to deal with the growing menace of schools protecting their gay students from discrimination in the midst of the state’s economic woes, and his decision will certainly outrage Virginia students and faculty members across the country. In fact, the practice of protecting gays from violence is so widespread that earlier this month, students at John Carroll University, a Jesuit college in Cleveland Ohio, staged a sit-in to protest “the university’s decisions not to include the protection of sexual orientation of in its anti-discrimination statement.” Other Jesuit universities, like “Canisius College, College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, Le Moyne College, and St. Louis University” all include “sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies.” Even conservative schools like Texas Christian University and its divinity school, both protect “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in their policies. This almost universal adoption of sexual orientation “as a protected class” suggests that violence against gay people is a problem at college campuses and Cuccinelli’s decision to rescind Virginia’s policies could lead to more crime against homosexuals.

This won’t be Cuccinelli’s first brush with controversy. Last month, Cuccinelli joined Texas and right-wing industry groups in challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public.

Update

Cuccinelli’s comments about homosexuality during the election:

My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. … They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.


Update

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA): “I believe the Attorney General’s advice will hurt the ability of our colleges and universities to attract the very best faculty, staff and students, and damage the Commonwealth’s reputation for academic excellence and diversity.”

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