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Beck On Family’s Home Burning Down As Firefighters Watched: ‘We Are Going To Have To Have These Things’

By Zaid Jilani on Oct 5, 2010 at 7:45 pm

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, last week South Fulton Fire Department firefighters from Obion, Tennessee, stood by and watched as the Cranick family’s home burned down — which also led to the death of the family’s three dogs and a cat — because their fire-fighting services were available by subscription only, and the family had not paid the $75 fee. Immediately, right-wing writers at the conservative movement’s bulkhead magazine, The National Review, defended the county and argued that firefighting should not be a public service available to all, regardless of ability to pay.

Now, yet another major conservative has joined the defense. On his radio show this afternoon, leading right-wing talker Glenn Beck and his producer Pat Gray openly mocked the Cranick family. After playing a news clip explaining the situation, Gray adopted a southern drawl and began to mock Gene Cranick’s explanation of how the county’s firefighters refused to help his family.

Beck then went on to complain that “those who are just on raw feeling are not going to understand” that the county’s actions in refusing to assist the Cranicks were justified. He explained that America will be having the “argument” about the case of the Cranicks and that it will go “nowhere if you go onto ‘compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion’ or well, ‘they should’ve put it out, what is the fire department for?’” Beck then went on to say that the Cranicks would be “spongeing off their neighbors” if the fire department had helped them put out their fire. The radio host concluded his rant by saying “this is the kind of stuff that’s going to have to happen, we are going to have to have these kinds of things”:

GRAY: (mocking Cranick’s accent) Even tho’ I hadn’t paid mah seventy five dollahs I thought dey’d put it out. [...] I wanted ‘em to put it out, but dey didn’t put it out.

BECK: Here’s the thing. Those that are just on raw feeling are not going to understand. [...]

GRAY: But I thought they was gonna put the fire out anyway, but it burned down. Dat ain’t right! [...] What’s the Fire Department for if you don’t put out the fire?! [...] I thought they’d put out mah fire even if I didn’t pay seventy five dollars.

BECK: This is the sort of argument that Americans are going to have.

GRAY: It is.

BECK: And it goes nowhere if you go onto “compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion” or well, “they should’ve put it out, what is the fire department for?” [...] If you don’t pay the 75 dollars then that hurts the fire department. They can’t use those resources, and you’d be spongeing off your neighbor’s resources. [...] It’s important for America to have this debate. This is the kind of stuff that’s going to have to happen, we are going to have to have these kinds of things.

Watch it:

It appears that Beck believes that events like what transpired in Obion County should teach Americans lessons about personal responsibility. But where does Beck draw the line when it comes to opposing public services for those who have not paid fees? Would he oppose subscription-based police officers refusing to help a rape victim? How about subscription-based military personnel refusing to repel a terrorist attack on a community that hasn’t paid up? One has to wonder just how far Beck is willing to go.

Security

GOP Pundits Belittle Latinos, Then Ask Them To Rethink Support For Democrats

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Oct 5, 2010 at 7:45 pm

vote hereYesterday, the Pew Hispanic Center released a polling data indicating that two-thirds, or 65 percent, of Latino registered voters say they plan to support the Democratic candidate in their local congressional district. Meanwhile a couple of articles have appeared in recent weeks authored by conservative pundits attempting to convince Latino voters that they should “rethink” their party loyalty.

The first one appeared in Politico. Joel Kotkin accused Latino Democrats of “mindlessly following” Democratic leaders, suggested that Latino Democratic politicians have no “independent thoughts,” and called Latino Democratic politics “dysfunctional.” After belittling the Latino electorate and the Latino lawmakers that represent it, Kotkin suggested that the solution might be to start embracing “growth-oriented Democrats and enlightened Republicans”:

As Latinos become a critical part of our emerging economy, they need to develop a policy agenda that focuses less on old-style, machine ethnic politics and more on the critical issue of upward mobility.

Latino voters might also consider avoiding the African-American one-party model by embracing both growth-oriented Democrats and enlightened Republicans. This is most likely to increase their political leverage, while creating a politics that supports their most fundamental interests.

The second article appeared today in the National Review. The author, Dennis Prager, had two messages — one for Latinos illegally living in the U.S. and another for “legal” ones. “If America opened its borders to all those who wish to live here, hundreds of millions of people would come in. That would, of course, mean the end of the United States economically and culturally,” explained Prager to undocumented Latinos. Prager later asserted, “Democrats will act as your defenders, telling you that opposition to your presence here is race-based. There is no truth to that…you have come to the least racist place on earth.”

Prager’s second message to Latinos who are legally living in the U.S. was two-fold: “First, while many of you understandably sympathize with the plight of fellow Latinos who are here illegally, you surely must understand that America cannot afford unlimited illegal immigration. [...] For your sake as well as America’s, please do not succumb to the politics of victimization.” Prager also told Latino voters, “by voting for Democratic candidates, you are voting for a type of government more like the ones most Latinos fled.”

Kotkin at least acknowledges that the GOP has contributed to its own isolation, lamenting the “party’s increasing embrace of its noisy nativist right.” Nonetheless, rather than recommending the Republican Party adopt a more welcoming immigration policy, Kotkin argues that Latinos should consider embracing the GOP in spite of its immigration platform and Prager seems to suggest they should go as far as embracing the party’s platform itself. Kotkin assures Latinos it will improve their economic situation. Prager simply warns that “a vote for the Democratic party is a vote to undo the great American achievement of uniting the children of immigrants from all over the world as Americans.” Neither claim is very convincing.

The reality is that the hostile and obstructionist approach that many, if not most, Republicans have adopted towards immigrants has touched every corner of the Latino community. It has promoted the separation of Latino families through increased enforcement measures. It has pushed relatives in Latin America who want to be reunited with their loved-ones in the U.S. to the back of an endless visa line or through a perilous journey across the border. It has lowered the wages and working conditions of all Latinos who work side-by-side undocumented workers. It has led to the widespread demonization of the Latino population as a whole. And, with the passage of SB-1070, it threatens to further expose Latinos to racial and ethnic profiling.

The majority of Democrats support comprehensive immigration reform as way to remedy this problem. Not a single Republican has jumped on board. Instead, they have blocked legislation at the federal level while pushing enforcement-only bills on the local level that will make life even harder for all Latinos. Simply put, Latinos have turned their back on the GOP with good reason. However, that doesn’t mean that Democrats should assume the Latino vote is in the bag. The Pew survey also found that among Latino registered voters, Republicans may be more likely to turn out and vote.

Health

New Ad Shows How Affordable Care Act Covers Young People…Literally

By Igor Volsky on Oct 5, 2010 at 6:45 pm

Always looking for ways to get young people engaged in progressive politics, my colleagues over at Campus Progress Action teamed up with the Young Invincibles project to produce this ad touting how health reform would cover young Americans:

This strikes me as a fairly clever effort to remind people that the law does a lot of good for younger people. Under the current system, some 30% of young people are uninsured because, as a group, they have higher rates of unemployment, earn less than older Americans, or feel like they don’t need insurance. The healthy among them may be sucked into cheaper subprime coverage on the individual market — that’s a desirable group from the insurers’ perspectives — but that coverage will not work if they become sick and need actual care.

Under reform, not only are young people going to benefit from the early provisions in the Patients’ Bill of Rights (as the video points out), but they’ll also have coverage options in the exchanges and could even enroll in a more affordable (but less comprehensive) young invincibles insurance plan. Interestingly, that last option was included at the behest of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) but all of these early provisions — like much of the health care law — have a lot of bipartisan support, despite the GOP’s repeal rhetoric. Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle even proposed legislation that “would have gone a step further than the Democrats’ new health care law by requiring the coverage of adult children up to age 30.”

You can take the Getting Covered pledge by clicking over here.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 5, 2010 at 6:33 pm

Reputation gained through intimidation:

— Apparently my building sits on the former site of a convention center.

— How performance pay works.

— In addition to being a ridiculous thing to patent, Cover Flow is also totally sucky.

— Renting is in.

— Robert Gordon’s case for economic doom is pretty persuasive, but somehow leaves me feeling more optimistic.

— Contra Greg Mankiw, most Harvard undergrads are pretty unlikeable and I don’t necessarily exempt myself from that critique.

— Who’s suing whom in the mobile phone business.

I’m going to Israel tomorrow for the first time (more details TK), so here’s NOFX’s classic Jewish nationalist anthem “The Brews”.

Politics

Levi Strauss Exec Says Measure To Suspend Global Warming Law Would ‘Turn Back The Clock’ For Business

By Brad Johnson on Oct 5, 2010 at 6:20 pm

levi straussLevi Strauss & Co., the California-based apparel giant that invented blue jeans over a century ago, has come out in strong opposition to Proposition 23, a ballot initiative that would suspend the state’s landmark global warming law, calling it “backward thinking.” In a blog post by Senior Vice President Amy Leonard, the company describes how the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) has spurred “the clean technology industry and clean energy businesses.” Backed by out-of-state oil companies and the Chamber of Commerce, Tea Party groups are trying to suspend the law, which Leonard says has given California businesses “critical tools” for “energy and climate innovation“:

Proposition 23 would eliminate critical tools recently put in place to promote energy efficiency. It would discourage energy and climate innovation by making it more expensive for businesses to invest in necessary research and development. It would turn back the clock by removing incentives intended to move us ahead.

Levi Strauss is joined by other California-based global companies in opposing Proposition 23, including Clif Bar, The North Face, the Gap, and eBay, the company once run by Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman — who stands in opposition to AB 32.

Economy

Will House Republicans Try To Defund Financial Regulatory Reform?

By Pat Garofalo on Oct 5, 2010 at 5:45 pm

Since it was signed by President Obama, House Republicans have threatened to essentially repeal the Affordable Care Act by refusing to fund it. “I can’t imagine a Republican Congress is going to give this President the money to begin this process,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has said. A spokesman for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) even has a list of “possible targets for defunding.”

Could Republicans attempt to do the same to the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform legislation? Before Congress left for its current recess, the federal bank regulators — including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Treasury Department — requested funding to begin implementing the bill, but were shot down by Republican opposition:

The request for additional short-term money ran into tough criticism from Republicans, who sought a “clean” spending bill without the increases. House Republicans opposed the Obama administration’s request for money for the Treasury Department because it creates a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) with oversight of consumer products, including home loans and credit cards. With Republicans set to gain additional seats, or possibly control of Congress, in the midterm elections, the battle over appropriations will likely continue in a lame-duck session of Congress.

“The implementation of that good and historic law is in jeopardy if the CFTC doesn’t have increased resources,” Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, said last week. Let’s not forget, many Republicans have expressed a desire to repeal Dodd-Frank outright, and if they can’t get that, defunding agency efforts to implement the new rules is the next logical step.

Right now, the agencies are implementing Dodd-Frank with whatever money they can scrape together from their existing budgets, but of course setting up a new consumer protection agency and creating the infrastructure necessary to police previously unregulated portions of the financial system requires some additional money. I’d also argue that it’s worth investing over the long-term in a system aimed at protecting the American taxpayer from a repeat of 2008′s financial meltdown.

There’s also a fairly simple solution for finding the funds necessary to implement the bill, in a time of necessary fiscal restraint, if they can’t be found elsewhere: a bank tax. Remember, Republicans scuttled such a tax during the last-minute negotiations over Dodd-Frank, which left Democrats scrambling for another way in which to make the bill’s resolution authority deficit neutral (which they found). Since we’re talking millions that are needed for Dodd-Frank implementation, but billions are able to be raised via a bank tax, the rest could be used to reduce the deficit or be dedicated to job creation programs.

A regulatory system only works if regulators have the resources to do their job and if their pay is adequate enough that they actually attract people who can competently go head-to-head with Wall Street’s finest minds. Refusing to fund enhanced regulations is an implicit show of support for the previous regulatory framework, which was a stupendous and spectacular failure.

Yglesias

The Great Books Translation Problem

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 5, 2010 at 5:28 pm

Keynes-1

It turns out that yesterday Robert Waldmann posted a great example of the great books problem I was discussing. Waldmann is explaining Keynes’ account of the classical account of unemployment and reveals that what we call “involuntary unemployment” nowadays was considered voluntary by Keynes:

When contemporary economists speak of “involuntary unemployment” we mean that there are three agents, a worker, an unemployed person and an employer, that the unemployed person would be glad to work for a wage lower (perhaps slightly lower) than the one paid to the worker and the employer would be glad to employ the unemployed person at that lower wage (perhaps laying of the worker). With this definition, involuntary unemployment can occur because labor unions force employers to pay a high wage even if there are people who would accept a lower wage. This case is an example of the “Insider/outsider” model of involuntary unemployment.

Keynes meant something else. He would have called that unemployment voluntary because “labour as a whole” or the workers or the working class were unwilling to supply labour at a lower wage.

To the modern ear, it simply seems absurd to characterize this form of unemployment as “voluntary” since, after all, “labor as a whole” is not an entity to which it makes a great deal of sense to ascribe volition. Equally confusing, as Waldmann explains the “classical” economists Keynes was criticizing held a view on this subject more similar to today’s “new Keynesian” economists than to today’s “neo-classical” economists.

None of this is anyone’s fault, as such, but you probably wouldn’t spend your time reading a lot of 70-100 year-old economics books and when you pick one up out of context the terminology turns out to be very at odds with contemporary practice. The dispute over whether unemployment is “voluntary” or “involuntary” doesn’t even really make sense in today’s context where unemployment is deemed involuntary by definition.

Politics

In Proclaiming Child Health Day, Jan Brewer Ignores Every Budget Cut She Made To Child Health Programs

By Tanya Somanader on Oct 5, 2010 at 5:25 pm

JanBrewerYesterday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) held a press conference to announce that the first Monday in October will be recognized as Child Health Day. “This is at time when we all come together to rededicate ourselves to Arizona’s children,” she said during her speech at the Arizona Children’s Center in Maricopa, AZ. Children’s advocates, however, had one word for Brewer’s proclamation: “ironic.” In touting her devotion to “the health and well-being of our children,” it seems Brewer failed to mention that the agenda she “spearheaded” directly undermines their health and well-being:

During the past two fiscal years, however, Brewer has agreed to cut more than $72 million from government-funded children’s health services. The cuts were part of $2.1 billion in state budget reductions that were focused primarily on health care, education and human services.

Brewer also spearheaded legislation to eliminate the state Medicaid program known as KidsCare, though the federal health care law required the Legislature to reverse the decision. Yet Brewer imposed an enrollment freeze in January that has lowered the number of children receiving health care coverage to about 27,000 from 47,000.

Brewer also proposed the elimination of the Early Childhood Development and Health Board and redirecting its money into the state’s general fund. The proposal became a ballot measure, and voters will decide the issue in November’s election.

Brewer also wants voters to approve Proposition 302, a bill “that would kill the First Things First program designed to improve early childhood health and development.”

According to the East Valley Tribune, she said “there is nothing inconsistent about the proclamation she signed and the spending cuts she has championed.” The proclamation, apparently, was specifically “designed to focus on preventative care for children” to make children “aware” of “eating good food and watching that they don’t become obese and exercise daily.” As for the spending cuts, she said it’s “unfortunate” but “hard decisions are going to have to be made.”

But with 23 percent of Arizona children living in poverty, up from 20 percent in 2007, children’s advocates say it’s more than unfortunate. Because of Brewer’s current freeze, nearly 53,000 KidsCare applications have not been processed and more than 70,000 children have been denied coverage. According to the Children’s Action Alliance, such a freeze means that “more than 100 kids a day are being denied health insurance coverage.”

Protecting Arizona’s Families Coalition’s Tim Schmaltz says Brewer ignored numerous possible revenue sources that she could have used “that would not attack children and children’s health,” such as taxing spa treatments or country club memberships. “Rather than just stand up and proclaim that we care about children, we should act like we care about children,’’ he said.

Climate Progress

Cuccinelli Revives Witchhunt Against Climate Change Scientist

By Ian Millhiser on Oct 5, 2010 at 4:55 pm

ken_cuccinelliIn August, a Virginia state judge blocked Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s (R-VA) attempt to subpoena documents from the University of Virginia to try to discredit a leading climate scientist.  In addition to citing several amateurish errors in Cuccinelli’s document request, the judge found that Cuccinelli failed to provide even the most rudimentary explanation of just what Professor Michael Mann did “that was misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Yesterday, Cuccinelli tried to revive this witchhunt:

Cuccinelli’s new subpoena narrows the scope of the documents he’s requesting to only those related to one $214,700 state grant to fund a 2003 climate study. Cuccinelli claims that Mann “mislead the granter” by basing his application on flawed studies, and that UVa. has documents that his office needs to investigate that assertion. He also expands his reasoning for the request, arguing that two of Mann’s papers on global warming “have come under significant criticism” and that Mann knowingly included “false information, unsubstantiated claims and/or were otherwise misleading” in his publications.

“Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect,” the civil investigative demand from the AG’s office states.

It’s not at all clear that Cuccinelli’s office actually read the judge’s opinion tossing out its first subpoena before issuing this second one.  That opinion stated that the document request must state “[w]hat the Attorney General suspects that Dr. Mann did that was false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth” in order to move forward.  Yet Cuccinelli’s doc request barely even mentions any evidence suggesting that Mann misled the state, instead largely claiming that Dr. Mann’s research lacks “rigor,” that it “was contrary to what had been previously regarded as the known historical record,” and that it engages in “inncorrect calculation[s].”  At best, most of Cuccinelli’s arguments simply suggest that Mann is a bad scientist, not that he engaged in any kind of fraud or deliberate deception.

And Cuccinelli’s attacks on Mann’s professional competence are laughable.  The primary source of his claim that Mann showed a “lack of rigor” is the so-called “Wegman Report,” an attack document commissioned by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) — the same Joe Barton who apologized to BP after the White House pressured BP to actually pay for the harm it caused in the recent oil catastrophy.  Likewise, one of Cuccinelli’s very few claims that Mann actually took misleading action misreads an independent review of climate science that actually exonerated climate scientists such as Mann.

Needless to say, it would be a disaster if a court does not reject Cuccinelli’s attempt to revive this witchhunt.  For one thing, the witchhunt is shockingly broad in scope — Cuccinelli is demanding all of Mann’s communications with 39 different scientists, as well as all his communications with all of his research assistants, secretaries and other administrative staff, and any correspondence Mann has had with UVA since he left for another university’s faculty. If an industry shill in Congress — Joe Barton — can produce a false report and then another industry shill in a state AG’s office can use that report to demand such an expansive investigation, then it will be a cakewalk for industry to cow other research institutions into silence.

Sadly, UVA has been already been forced to spend over $350,000 in legal fees defending against Cuccinelli’s frivolous subpoenas, so this witchhunt has already done a great deal to intimidate researchers with potential financial consequences if they dare to tell the truth about climate change.

Yglesias

Can’t Tackle Health Care Costs Without Tackling The Interests of Health Care Providers

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 5, 2010 at 4:27 pm

Stethoscope

Washington doesn’t want to hear about it at this point, but the fact of the matter is that having passed a big health care overhaul at the beginning of this year we need to keep on reforming our health care system. Simply put, health care costs are still rising way too fast. An in an interview with my colleague Igor Volsky, former Senator Tom Daschle helps shed light on what the problem is.

The headline out of Igor’s piece is that Daschle says, contrary to the White House, that the public option was de facto taken off the table relatively early in the process. This is what I think many people have long suspected, and it will rightly be the subject of continuing inquiry. But also important, I think, is who the deal was struck with—not just insurance companies, but also “the hospital association” and other “stakeholders.”

This is what tends to go missing when people talk about the politics of the public option. Opposition to it, or to similar proposals like Medicare buy-in, isn’t limited to the easily excoriated insurance industry. It extends pretty broadly across the community of health care providers who fear that one of the main ways a public option would control costs would be by aping Medicare to use its market size to drive a hard bargain and cut fees. On the merits, that’s a feature rather than a bug. But it does mean that if we ever want to see a public option, we need to be prepared for a tougher public fight than a simplistic read of poll numbers would indicate. You’d be looking at a protracted public battle with the “stakeholders”—i.e., the highly trusted health care providers—which would be difficult.

That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Essentially any effort to control costs, either the “liberal” ones or the “conservative” ones suffers from this same problem. A huge quantity of our excessive health costs are going into the pockets of hospital administrators, doctors, medical device makers, etc. and any workable method of controlling costs is going to attract opposition from those quarters.

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