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David Frum Tweets: ‘Horrible Possibility: If The Geeks Are Right About Ohio, Might They Also Be Right About Climate?’

By Joe Romm on Nov 7, 2012 at 8:15 pm

The best conservative tweet of election night may belong to David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush:

Political junkies may know that the right-wing denial of data extended to the countless pre-election polls showing the President stubbornly retaining a lead in the decisive swing state of Ohio.

Heck, there’s even a website, UnskewedPolls.com, that “fixed” the polls conservatives didn’t like by using a different — which is to say, more Republican — electorate model. Think of it as a WattsUpWithThatPoll — a website where cherry-picking and phony analysis allowed readers to exist in a parallel universe to our own, in this case one where the voting public demographically resembled the electorate of the 1980s.

Reality intruded last night, as it inevitably does when one ignores basic arithmetic, statistical analysis, and inexorable demographic trends — or basic physics, for that matter.

Frum is a card-carrying conservative — he coined the phrase “axis of evil.” And his ironic tweet foreshadows an even more painful reality that will eventually intrude on those currently duped by the professional climate science deniers. But instead of this being “Nate Silver was right about Ohio” it’s gonna be “Al Gore was right about climate change.”

Unfortunately, climate denial is far more consequential than polling denial. And as amusing as Frum’s tweet is, it is of a kind with David Brooks’ line in a 2005 piece on conservative intellectual exhaustion, “Running Out of Steam”:

Global warming is real (conservatives secretly know this).

The tragedy is that seven years later, that remains the best-kept secret in DC.

Health

Massachusetts Voters Reject Physician-Assisted Suicide Initiative

By Sy Mukherjee on Nov 7, 2012 at 5:50 pm

The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts’ Question 2 — the so-called “Death With Dignity” initiative that would have permitted terminally-ill patients to request physician-assisted suicide medications — was narrowly rejected by a 51-49 margin.

Question 2 would have allowed Americans with six months left to live to request medication to end their lives, after making their request multiple times and being deemed mentally competent to make the decision. Advocates portrayed it as a means of relief and dignity for ailing Americans. But the proposition’s opponents launched a fierce fundraising campaign against the measure, eventually chipping away at its public support:

The ballot question has been the subject of a ferocious political battle. After a Boston Globe poll in September showed voters overwhelmingly supported the measure, support steadily eroded in the face of a last-minute effort by a diverse group of opponents, including religious leaders, anti-abortion activists, and conservatives who aired their message in aggressive television advertisements and at church services. The concerted opposition campaign, which also included a major physician’s group, raised more than three times as much money as proponents. [...]

Massachusetts would have followed Oregon and Washington, which have passed similar initiatives to allow terminally ill patients to seek life-ending drugs from physicians. Donations to opposition groups, which raised nearly $2.6 million, came from far-flung Catholic dioceses, fueled in part by fear of a domino effect if the measure were to gain a foothold in Massachusetts.

Proponents of the measure raised about $700,000.

Question 2 was closely modeled after similar legislation in Oregon, where records show that a fairly small number of patients request fatal doses of medication and even fewer numbers choose to use them, suggesting that the legislation is not being abused there. But the measure’s critics worried that the language of Massachusett’s ballot initiative was poorly constructed and ethically at odds with the medical profession. Although advocates for the terminally-ill see physician-assisted suicide as a personal choice and fundamental right — and often a way of ensuring patients don’t have to resort to desperate tactics — the issue remains contentious across party coalitions.

Security

Poll: Jewish-American Voters Overwhelmingly Support President Obama

By Hamed Aleaziz on Nov 7, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Seventy percent of Jewish-American voters supported President Obama last night. That’s according to a poll published today by “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J Street. The poll, administered by Jim Gerstein, a veteran pollster of Gerstein Bocian Agne Strategies, also found that Jewish-American voters overwhelmingly supported Obama on Iran: 58 percent sided with the President on this issue as opposed to 26 percent with Mitt Romney. Furthermore, 53 percent of Jewish-American voters supported Obama’s on Israel; as opposed to Romney’s 31 percent. The poll results indicate that the millions spent on ads in swing states like Florida that attacked the Obama administration for his handling of Israel and Iran failed to make a difference.

Indeed, according to Gerstein, Obama’s numbers among Jewish-American voters are in line with the “average received by Democratic candidates since exit polling began in 1972.” Gerstein himself added that the poll results make the point clear: Jewish-American voters “won’t be swayed by the latest campaign or attack.” In fact, 78 percent of Jewish-American voters who saw ads that “criticized President Obama for his positions or actions toward Israel” were either “more likely to support” the President or said that the ads “made no difference” in who they were going to vote for. Only 23 percent of Jewish-Americans said the ads made them “more likely to support Mitt Romney.”

When it came to attacks, the Romney campaign tried all angles. Romney famously went after the president for having “thrown allies like Israel under the bus.” He added to his criticism at the foreign policy debate in October, where he said there was “turmoil with Israel.” Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan jumped on the issue as well, at one point describing President Obama’s treatment of Israel as “indifference bordering on contempt.” In September, Romney backer and wealthy casino mogul Sheldon Adelson started spending, according to the New York Times, “$6.5 million on an air-and-ground strategy to reach Jewish voters who may view Mr. Obama as unreliable on the question of Israel’s security.” The same September Times article found that Florida was “where the largest share of the $6.5 million is being spent.” But it seems Adelson’s money had little impact; in Florida, President Obama beat Mitt Romney on the issue of Israel by 32 percentage points and on the issue of Iran by 27 percentage points.

In the end, it wasn’t just the issue of Israel that turned Jewish-American voters against Mitt Romney and toward President Obama. On economic issues like Medicare and Social Security, the president held comfortable double-digit leads; similarly, in swing states like Florida, the president achieved a significant amount of support from Jewish-American voters on economic and foreign policy related issues.

According to Gerstein, “only 10 percent cited Israel as one of its
two most important issues.” In a press release on the results, Gerstein adds that “notably, the least important issue for Jewish voters was Iran (2 percent).”

NEWS FLASH

Greek Protesters Clash With Riot Police Ahead Of Austerity Vote | Greek protests ahead of a parliamentary vote on yet another austerity package turned violent Wednesday when riot police fired tear gas a protesters who had thrown petrol bombs at them, BBC reports. The $13.5-billion euro ($17.5 billion) austerity package includes tax increases and pension cuts and would be the country’s fourth major austerity package in three years. The package would also cut severance pay and other benefits for workers while raising the retirement age. Greek workers launched a three-day strike Monday after unemployment reached 25 percent this month, as austerity measures have led to contraction that has increased both economic hardship and the debt they was supposed to reduce.

NEWS FLASH

Ole Miss Students Use Racial Slurs To Protest Obama Victory | Following news of Obama’s win, University of Mississippi students staged a protest early Wednesday morning where they yelled out “racial slurs related to Obama and African-Americans.” According to the Jackson Clarion Ledger, up to 400 students participated, with police arriving shortly after midnight to break up the angry crowd. There is one photo shared on Twitter of students allegedly burning an Obama/Biden sign, and local reports suggest students may have thrown rocks at cars, as well.

NEWS FLASH

Catholic Leaders Not Giving Up On Marriage Inequality | The Catholic Church gave millions of dollars to fight marriage equality this year — money that could have gone to charitable causes — but is apparently unfazed by the defeat in all four states. When congratulating President Obama on his re-election, Cardinal Timothy Dolan promised that the Church will continue to “stand in defense” of life, marriage, and religious freedom. Responding to the marriage equality victory in Maryland, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori similarly said the Church must “redouble our efforts to defend marriage,” warning that the freedom to marry “will prove not to have been for the common good of our state.” If one of the Church’s top priorities remains opposing legal security for same-sex couples and their children, it will become more difficult to argue that its mission has anything to do with supporting the common good.

Alyssa

David Simon On Obama’s Victory And America’s Political Future

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Nov 7, 2012 at 4:34 pm

The Wire and Treme creator David Simon has a tremendous post up about President Obama’s reelection that is also a back-door explanation for why Simon’s own work in television. He writes, among other things, that:

America is different now, more so with every election cycle. Ronald Reagan won his mandate in an America in which 89 percent of the voters were white. That number is down to 72 percent and falling. Fifty thousand new Latino citizens achieve the voting age every month. America will soon belong to the men and women — white and black and Latino and Asian, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist, gay and straight — who can comfortably walk into a room and accept with real comfort the sensation that they are in a world of certain difference, that there are no real majorities, only pluralities and coalitions. The America in which it was otherwise is dying, thank god, and those who relied on entitlement and division to command power will either be obliged to accept the changes, or retreat to the gated communities from which they wish to wax nostalgic and brood on political irrelevance…

This election marks a moment in which the racial and social hierarchy of America is upended forever. No longer will it mean more politically to be a white male than to be anything else. Evolve, or don’t. Swallow your resentments, or don’t. But the votes are going to be counted, more of them with each election. Arizona will soon be in play. And in a few cycles, even Texas. And those wishing to hold national office in these United States will find it increasingly useless to argue for normal, to attempt to play one minority against each other, to turn pluralities against the feared “other” of gays, or blacks, or immigrants, or, incredibly in this election cycle, our very wives and lovers and daughters, fellow citizens who demand to control their own bodies.

This phrase stuck out at me, the idea of people “who can comfortably walk into a room and accept with real comfort the sensation that they are in a world of certain difference.” My friend Tyler Lewis and I spend a lot of time talking about the real losses that would come to culture from being “post-racial” if such a thing were possible. It makes characters flatter to insist that their experiences living as a person of whatever race they are have had as little influence on their character and outlook as a sip of water has on the tongue, just as it does so to create characters who represent only racial tropes, uninflected by generation, or geography, or profession, or groups of friends, or cultural exposure. David Simon’s work has always occupied a rare space in between the colorless of race neutrality and the obscurantism of race as the only important fact about a character: his characters lives are shaped by race, including, and sometimes even especially in the case of Jimmy McNulty, their whiteness. And Simon is interested in how living as members of particular races and ethnicities have shaped his characters because he’s interested every single thing about the people he conjures to life on screen.

That ability to be interested in difference rather than intimidated by it, and to approach the things that make someone different from you not as a matter of anthropology but out of desire to know them, is critical to the political distinctions Simon is drawing here. For so long, our politics have been split between ideas like Mark Penn’s theory of microtargeting, which aimed to divide up the population into easily comprehensible interest groups based on shared characteristics, or the uglier, more pervasive strain of thinking that President Obama’s blackness, like that of all African-Americans, is the most defining thing about him. It’s time to abandon that tendency to predict–or diagnose–behavior from a distance maintained out of distaste and fear. And it’s time to embrace a politics oriented towards a genuine desire to understand and appreciate difference, a process that allows for mistakes and clarification as a necessary precondition for growth. It’s made for astonishing television. It could make for transformative politics.

Security

5 Overlooked Foreign Policy Challenges Of Obama’s Second Term

By Hayes Brown on Nov 7, 2012 at 4:31 pm

As President Obama’s electoral victory continues to sink in, many have already begun to refocus on the many foreign policy issues overshadowed by the race for the White House. Most rapid analysis has focused on those items that always seem to top such lists: ongoing issues in the Middle East, the winding down of the war in Afghanistan, and possible confrontations with China. Rather than rehashing those matters, here’s five issues that while they may be less discussed will definitely help shape Obama’s second term:

MEXICO

Absolutely ignored during the general debate, and only brought up the the myopic frame of border security during the Republican primaries, President Obama will eventually be forced to confront the instability in Mexico. President Felipe Calderon’s six-year war against the drug cartels has yielded an estimated 50,000 deaths just south of the U.S. border as of August. The bloodiest of the gangs, the Zetas, have made it their strategy to consolidate control over large swaths of territory in their entirety. By conquering all elements of crime and supplanting the government, the Zetas now control the third-largest state in Mexico. As President Enrique Pena Nieto takes office next month, Obama needs to work closely with his counterpart at finally developing a strategy for cooperation.

NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

During Obama’s first term, there was a rhetorical emphasis on nuclear disarmament, with the President calling for a world free of nuclear weapons in 2009. Obama then launched the Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, became the first sitting President to chair the U.N. Security Council during a high-level meeting on nuclear non-proliferation, and achieved passage of the New START Treaty with Russia.

Since 2010, however, North Korea has proved to be unwilling to roll-back its nuclear weapons program despite substantial concessions from the U.S. Russia has likewise opted to walk away from the Nunn-Lugar agreement, saying they can now safeguard nuclear material throughout the former Soviet Union without the United States. Obama next has the chance to show American leadership on the issue at the Helsinki Conference on a Nuclear-Free Middle East later this year, possibly bringing Iran and Israel both to the table.

EUROZONE

While also completely forgotten during the election, Europe is nowhere near out of the woods yet in ending its ongoing economic crisis. On Wednesday, the European Commission revised its projected growth for the Eurozone from 1 percent to 0.1 percent. The ongoing economic instability continues to rattle financial markets, making it clear that the United States’ economic recovery remains closely tied to Europe’s. Obama made significant progress at the last meeting of the Group of 20 in forcing Europe to take strong action, counter to Germany’s prescribed austerity measures. It’ll take even more leadership over the next four years to ensure Europe pulls out of its tailspin.

STRENGTHENING INTERNATIONAL LAW

Far more so than if Mitt Romney had won, a second term for President Obama can be expected to include a strengthening of the role of international law in the world. First, the President can showcase the U.S. commitment to international law through the signing and ratification of new treaties, including final passage of the Law of the Sea Treaty in Senate or a United States-led push on climate change, a subject finally mentioned by Obama in his victory speech. Obama will also likely continue to strongly hold other states accountable to their obligations under international law and bolster support for those adhering to the rule of law. Such an approach has been, and will continue to be, key in Obama’s strategy towards China, particularly in its territorial dispute with Japan.

AFRICA PIVOT

Though it’s gotten far less press than the much-more publicized “Asia Pivot,” the increased flow of resources to Africa during the Obama administration can’t be denied. The shift has been part of Obama’s fight against terrorist groups globally, including the launch of drone strikes from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and providing support for Kenya’s fighting al-Shabab in Somalia. The U.S. also currently provides military training and support to armies throughout the continent, such as the task force helping Uganda hunt war -criminal Joseph Kony. As questions of how to handle al Qaeda-related or branded groups in Africa, such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali, continue to grow, Africa will remain closer to the forefront of Obama’s foreign policy than many realize.

Economy

Boehner’s Offer For Bipartisan Compromise On Taxes Nearly Identical To Romney Plan

By Pat Garofalo on Nov 7, 2012 at 4:30 pm

During a press conference on Wednesday, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) laid out the GOP’s first proposal for addressing the set of budget issues confronting the next Congress. The so-called “fiscal cliff” is set to occur on January 1st, bringing with it automatic spending spending cuts and tax hikes.

The fiscal cliff was set in motion by the debt ceiling deal of 2010, when Republicans brought the nation to the brink of default due to their intransigence on taxes. At the time, Boehner agreed to a deal that would have increased revenue, though it was quashed by House Republicans.

Now, Boehner is once again suggesting that new revenue should be part of a plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, but only if that revenue coincides with a lowering of tax rates. His pitch is similar to the plan presented by Mitt Romney, which was supposed to boost growth while lowering taxes and making up the revenue from closing loopholes:

For the purposes of forging a bipartisan agreement that begins to solve the problem, we’re willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions. What matters is where the increase revenue comes from and what type of reform comes with it. Does the increased revenue come from government taking a larger share of what the American people earn through higher taxe rates? Or does it come as a byproduct of growing our economy, energized by a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, with fewer loopholes and lower rates for all? And at the same time we’re reforming the tax code, are we supporting growth by taking concrete steps to put our country’s entitlement programs on a sounder financial footing or are we just going to continue to duck the matter of entitlements, thus the root of the problem?

Watch it:

Like Romney, Boehner cited the Reagan 1986 tax reform — which included lowering rates and closing loopholes — as proof that his vision of boosting growth (and thus raising revenue) through tax reform is possible. But as Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett has noted, the 1986 reform didn’t actually result economic growth: “Real gross domestic product growth was about the same after the 1986 act took effect in 1987 as it was before…By the mid-1990s, it was the consensus view of economists that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 had little, if any, impact on growth.” Other studies came to the same conclusion.

It is theoretically possible to close enough loopholes and deductions to raise revenue in a tax reform package. But Boehner’s insistence that tax reform will cause growth that raises significant revenue is a conservative fantasy. This is the same game Republicans, including Boehner, have played since Obama came into office: promising that they’re open to revenue, so long as taxes never go up.

Climate Progress

What Obama’s Re-Election Means For Coal, Climate Change, And America’s Energy Future

By Climate Guest Blogger on Nov 7, 2012 at 4:30 pm

by Mary Anne Hitt, via the Sierra Club

President Obama’s victory yesterday was a victory for clean energy, one that gives us a fighting chance to slash coal pollution and turn the corner on climate change, in the wake of a devastating hurricane that brought global warming into sharp, painful focus for millions of Americans.

As the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune said on election night, “We did it.” Fossil fuel billionaires had spent at record levels to defeat Obama in this election, and Romney had returned the favor, promising to open the floodgates on more mining and drilling if elected. But then Hurricane Sandy hit the Eastern Seaboard, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama as the candidate most likely to lead on climate change, and Romney’s dismissal of rising oceans as a laugh line in his GOP Convention speech became an especially chilling out-of-touch episode, in a Republican Presidential campaign that had no shortage of such moments.

Ironically, the coal industry had pinned its hopes on Romney — the consummate businessman — to protect the industry from the harsh realities of the free market. Now, the coal industry will have to stop hiding behind inflammatory slogans like “the war on coal,” and will have to grapple with a marketplace and an American public that are turning away from coal in favor of cleaner, cheaper sources of energy. Coal will only produce 37% of America’s electricity this year, down from 50% just five years ago, and those trends show no signs of reversing.

In reality, the decline of coal and the rise of clean energy have more to do with Main Street and Wall Street than with Pennsylvania Avenue. Over the past four years, in almost every state in the nation, hundreds of thousands of people have worked together to retire polluting local coal plants, get more wind and solar power on the grid, and use energy more efficiently. Today, 125 coal plants — out of over 500 nationwide — are now slated for retirement. As a result, U.S. carbon emissions are at their lowest level in two decades, clean energy is coming on line at record levels, and tens of thousands of Americans now have clean energy jobs.

The marketplace and the American people have spoken, and there is no amount of grandstanding by coal barons that will turn this tide. By the end of Obama’s second term, the Beyond Coal Campaign plans to:

  • Secure the retirement of one-third of the nation’s coal plants.
  • Power the nation with record amounts of clean energy and energy efficiency.
  • End mountaintop removal once and for all.
  • Close additional coal pollution loopholes, including long-overdue protections for carbon, soot, smog, coal ash, and water pollution.
  • Prevent increased coal exports overseas to places where it will be burned with fewer pollution controls and no climate safeguards.

Making this happen will require the continued energy and dedication of our Beyond Coal grassroots movement. While the coal industry did its best to paint President Obama as their sworn enemy during the election, in fact, in Obama’s first term, he was a centrist when it came to energy. On one hand, his Administration took historic measures to clean up some of the most dangerous pollution from coal — mercury, arsenic, lead, and other toxins — while also putting a carbon standard in place for new power plants. The Obama White House also helped jumpstart clean energy, creating tens of thousands of new wind and solar jobs and helping to ensure that America will be a lead innovator in the clean energy revolution that will power the nations and economies of the twenty-first century.

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