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The two most important questions that both critics and supporters of Waxman-Markey must answer

By Joe Romm on Jun 22, 2009 at 4:33 pm

First, is the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill compatible with “” indeed integral to “” a national and international effort to keep global warming as close as possible to 2°C?

Second, what would be the outcome if the bill failed?

This is the basis of the 500-word post at Yale e360, in which they asked “11 prominent people in the environmental and energy fields for their views on this controversial legislation.”

Much of the writing about about the bill — particularly by people critical of it — don’t fully address these two crucial questions, especially the second, and so they are, as I see it, not particularly helpful to the debate.

Many people, including some commenters here, are under the misimpression that absent passage of this bill, the EPA can and will use the endangerment finding to achieve comparable regulation of CO2 under the Clean Air Act.  That view has several flaws.

Read more

Security

Anti-Immigrant Front Group Courts Progressives With Shoddy Polling Data

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Jun 22, 2009 at 4:30 pm

pfir3The deceptively named anti-immigrant front group, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), released a set of counter-intuitive polling data today suggesting that while over half of 600 polled liberals support a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the US, they also see immigration as an economic, social, and environmental liability.

The anti-immigration movement has long been trying to woo progressives by exploiting pro-labor and environmental arguments to make the case against immigrants. The Center for New Community’s (CNC) Eric Ward warns:

“PFIR is simply another addition to a growing list of anti-immigrant groups being set up under the Tanton Network to give the illusion that the anti-immigrant movement is broader than it really is. This network of organizations is named after white nationalist John Tanton the founder and key leader in a network of anti-immigrant organizations, spin-offs and front groups. Key entities include Center for Immigration Studies, Social Contract Press, and the Coalition for the Future American Worker.”

PFIR’s Executive Director Leah Durant is listed as the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) Legal Analyst. Frank Morris, PFIR’s vice president, is also a board member of the Center for Immigration Studies and sits on FAIR’s national board of advisors. According to the CNC, PFIR’s “sister group,” the House Immigration Reform Caucus, chaired by Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray (CA), has an abominable voting record on environmental and labor issues.

According to the poll, 67% of liberals/progressives feel that immigration causes population growth which “negatively impacts the quality of life.” 58% feel that immigration is environmentally harmful and 63% think immigration hurts American workers. Yet over half support a pathway to citizenship.

PFIR’s confusing findings might also have something to do with their polling company, “Pulse Opinion Research,” the favored pollster of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a group which was recently pinned for fueling hate crimes with its anti-immigrant rhetoric and the Eagle Forum, a “pro-family” organization that opposes the “liberal agenda,” “radical feminists,” and supports “American identity.” The pollster has also been used to promote the presidential bids of Libertarian candidates Bob Barr and George Phillies. Yet, while Pulse Opinion Research’s findings were used to predict the relative success of Barr and Phillies, Phillies lost his bid for the Libertarian Party’s nomination to Barr who only won 0.4% of the national vote — compared to the 7% win that Pulse Opinion Research predicted.

Most immigration polling backs the claim that the majority of Americans support a legalization program for undocumented immigrants. Yet, it’s hard to find any polling that shows the same respondents holding immigrants responsible for the nation’s woes. According to a Benenson Strategy Group poll, 71% of 1,000 likely voters said that immigrants are not responsible for taking American jobs. A poll conducted by Bendixon and Associates for the progressive think tank, the New Democratic Network (NDN), found that 60% of voters in four battleground states echoed similar views. Both surveys were bi-partisan polls that consistently showed Democrats leaning towards pro-immigrant views and solutions. None of polls connected immigration to environmental or population growth concerns, however the progressive Green Party itself specifically condemns scapegoating immigrants for social and environmental problems:

“While we recognize that there must be some controls on immigration, if only for the sake of national security, the Green Party would endorse a friendlier (less intimidating) attitude towards immigration in all nations within certain guidelines…We oppose those who seek to divide us for political gain by raising ethnic and racial hatreds, and by blaming immigrants for social and economic problems.”

Polling data aside, US government scientists say there’s insufficient evidence to draw any clear conclusion on immigration’s impact on the environment.

Politics

Dodd comes out in support of marriage equality.

By Amanda Terkel on Jun 22, 2009 at 4:18 pm

doddblaz Yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) wrote an op-ed in the The Meriden Record-Journal announcing that he had shifted his position on gay marriage. He now supports full marriage equality:

Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds. But I firmly believe that it’s important to keep learning. Last week, while I was in Connecticut meeting with members of the gay and lesbian community from across the state, I had the opportunity to tell them what I’ve learned about marriage, and about equality.

While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage. And I want them to know that, even if he was a little late, their dad came down on the right side of history.

Brian Rice of the Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Governors was at the meeting with Dodd and writes that when the senator announced his change in position, “attendees let out a huge cheer and extended ovation.” Last month, President Clinton also said that his position on marriage equality was “evolving.” (HT: Pam’s House Blend)

Update

“In the most vocal plea yet for the White House to take the lead in pushing for gays and lesbians to be allowed to serve openly in the military, 77 Democratic lawmakers today urged President Obama to use his executive powers to order a halt to military discharges under the controversial ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law and work aggressively with Congress to pass new legislation to overturn what they describe as a discriminatory policy that harms national security,” reports the Boston Globe.

Yglesias

My Netflix Weekend

By Matthew Yglesias on Jun 22, 2009 at 3:57 pm

Saturday afternoon, I watched Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie. I think the polemical political argument that some contemporary reviewers claim to have seen in the film in 1972 is a little bit hard to detect over 35 years later. But I think that may be a change for the better. The Nation review linked above gets tripped up on the fact that it’s not really clear how a corrupt ambassador from a Latin American country fits into the class struggle, but now that we know the revolution was not, in fact, around the corner I think we can appreciate the bourgeoisie’s discreet charm as genuinely charming. Long story short, for a decades-old classic French film, this is an honest-to-God laugh-out-out funny movie.

Pixies fans will, of course, recall Buñuel as the auteur behind Un Chien Andalou, whose eyeball-slicing scene is the inspiration for “Debaser.” I was saying to myself, “someone should really do a YouTube mashup of the movie with the song” but of course it’s already been done:

The other thing I watched was the first three episodes of Planet Earth on Blu-Ray. This really makes the case for Blu-Ray pretty convincingly; it’s simply jaw-dropping. That said, the series seems to have an anti-American bias. The episode about fresh water doesn’t even mention the Great Lakes! And it goes beyond that to make the controversial claim that Lake Baikal is the largest lake in the world. This is true by volume, by Lake Superior is the biggest by area, which I think is a more intuitive way of understanding the phrase. And either way, it’s hard to understand how you can profile the world’s lakes without mentioning this giant series of lakes we have. Oh well.

Justice

Voting Rights Act Lives To Fight Another Day

By Ian Millhiser on Jun 22, 2009 at 3:51 pm

In an unexpectedly narrow 8-1 decision today, the Supreme Court chose not to heed right-wing voices calling upon them to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.  Today’s decision in NAMUDNO v. Holder preserves–at least for now–Section 5 of the Act, which requires voting districts who have historically engaged in discrimination to “preclear” any new voting rules with a federal court or the Department of Justice.

Under today’s decision, Section 5 will remain in effect, but voting districts are allowed to “bail out” of its requirements if they can show that they have not recently engaged in race discrimination and are not likely to do so in the future:

[The district] must show that for the previous 10 years it has not used any forbidden voting test, has not been subject to any valid objection under § 5, and has not been found liable for other voting rights violations; it must also show that it has “engaged in constructive efforts to eliminate intimidation and harassment” of voters, and similar measures.

It’s not entirely clear what today’s decision means for the Act’s future.  Tom Goldstein predicts that the Court is simply giving Congress a brief window to amend Section 5 themselves before the Court takes the hatchet to it; “[i]f the statute remains the same by the time the next case arrives,” Goldstein warns, “the Court will invalidate the statute.”

Goldstein may be right–he’s been right before–but the Roberts Court has hardly shown the kind of judicial restraint that Goldstein suggests it engaged in today.  Just last week, for example, the Supreme Court ignored both precedent and its own internal rules to eliminiate a particular kind of suit brought by victims of age discrimination.  Justice Thomas’ opinion in that case, made no bones about the fact that the Court’s conservatives were at peace with ignoring precedent because “it is far from clear that the Court would have the same approach were it to consider the question today in the first instance.  In other words, when the conservative bloc has five votes, they feel no compunctions about doing whatever they please–so today’s modest opinion may be a sign that Chief Justice Roberts and his co-ideologues lack the fifth vote necessary to toss out Section 5.

One thing that is absolutely clear, however, is that the Section 5 remains absolutely necessary to American democracy, no matter what Chief Justice Roberts may think.  The Department of Justice has blocked literally hundreds of new voting procedures since the Voting Rights Act was last reauthorized in the 1980s, each time determining that the new procedure discriminated on the basis of race.  Moreover, some of the states’ attempts to discriminate against their own voters have been quite audacious.  As voting rights attorney Nina Perales explained at a recent American Constitution Society panel, for example, Texas’ governor recently tried to sway a Congressional race away from Mexican-American voters’ preferred candidate by scheduling the election during a Mexican religious festival:

America dodged a bullet today.  Hopefully, the Court’s conservatives will keep their guns holstered in the future.

Politics

Former Rep. Tom Davis To Elderly Woman With Diabetes: ‘Good Luck’ Finding Health Insurance

By Matt Corley on Jun 22, 2009 at 3:20 pm

On CSPAN’s Washington Journal yesterday, former Republican congressman Tom Davis received a call from an elderly woman named Dorothy, who said that because she has diabetes, health insurance companies “reject” her. “They don’t even want to accept me,” said Dorothy. “Is that, is that possible they could get away with that? That seems like discriminating.”

Davis responded by saying that he understood her “dilemma” and that she probably wouldn’t be able to retire by 62 as she desires. Advising her that she’d be alright if she found “a job with a major employer,” Davis said it would be “difficult” on her own:

DAVIS: I don’t think you’ll find, probably be able to find some health insurance but if its with a small business or you’re going out on your own, it’s difficult at this point. There may be a government plan or private plans that are mandated coming out of this that are maybe able to help you. … I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t be able to find something out there, but you want to look for an employer that has a health care plan. Good luck.

Later in the show, another caller criticized Davis for his “good luck” response, saying that it “encapsulates the entire Republican Party’s attitude towards any problems that are facing the American people today.” Davis replied that he didn’t mean “good luck” as a “kiss off,” but just as “good luck to you as you try to move through this problem.” Watch it:

Beyond responding to Dorothy with seeming callousness, Davis’ answer to her problem is also contradictory in its approach to a public health care option.

Davis first tells Dorothy that “a government plan” may “be able to help you.” (Which is true.) But when challenged by the later caller, he argued, “I don’t know that she can count on Washington to solve it for her.” In the next sentence, however, he said that she “can probably get some relief” when she qualifies for Medicare, which is government-provided. A NYT/CBS News poll this weekend found that 72 percent of Americans support creating a public health insurance option.

Transcript: Read more

Yglesias

Infinite Pagination

By Matthew Yglesias on Jun 22, 2009 at 3:14 pm

infinitejest-1-1

Last night I was reading various people’s tweets about Infinite Summer and found myself caught up in the enthusiasm and suddenly burning with a desire to read Infinite Jest. Since using the Kindle is really the only practical way to buy a book at 11 PM, that’s what I did. Then I read some before going to sleep. And in doing so, I think I stumbled upon an inadvertent flaw in the Kindle. Namely, what when you read really long books—particularly as part of a quasi-group enterprise—you want to either brag about how many pages you’ve read or else whine about how many pages you’ve fallen behind. But the Kindle doesn’t have pages! Just, um, locations.

So I read 1,100 locations worth of the book. But nobody knows what that means. Normal people won’t even know if that’s a lot or a little.

In general, the Kindle strikes me as somewhat hobbled by an overly generous view of why people buy books. Not only is there this problematic lack of bragging, but with the kindle edition of the book I can’t have a handsome volume laying around the house as if to say to visitors, “why, yes, I may be a professional political pundit but I’m also a man of culture.” And I’ll have nothing on my shelf. Amazon should at least send you a sticker when you buy a book on Kindle so you can maintain some kind of display wall of all the impressive books you’ve read. People sometimes lament that element of signaling in the book buying/reader process, but I think that’s misguided. Signaling is a powerful human motivator, and often motivates people to do genuinely worthwhile things—read great books, go to college, get a haircut, etc.

Politics

Corker reschedules meeting with Sotomayor that he initially blew off.

By Ian Millhiser on Jun 22, 2009 at 2:42 pm

corkerAs ThinkProgress reported this morning, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) refused to meet with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor after she was delayed ten minutes by her recent ankle injury. In the wake of these reports, Corker spokesperson Laura Lefler says that the meeting has been rescheduled:

“Sen. Corker’s meeting with Judge Sotomayor has been rescheduled for tomorrow,” Lefler said. “Sen. Corker was originally scheduled to meet with Judge Sotomayor last week, but when he arrived at the Capitol for the meeting, the Judge was running behind. It was decided that rather than rush or cut short his meeting with Judge Sotomayor and be late for his next meeting, it would be best to reschedule.“

While meeting with Sotomayor is a positive first step, it remains to be seen whether Corker can keep an open mind and consider voting for her nomination.

Politics

Scarborough Lambastes McCain And Graham On Iran: They’re ‘So Shortsighted I Find It Stunning’

By Nate Carlile on Jun 22, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Since the disputed June 12 presidential election in Iran, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been routinely criticizing President Obama’s response to the crisis. Yesterday on CBS’ Face the Nation, McCain echoed the GOP’s party line, saying “the United States hasn’t done anything” and sought fervently to cast Obama’s actions as “tepid.” Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) demanded that Obama “lead the free world and not follow it.”

But this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough broke ranks and called the senators’ criticism “an exercise in doing things that make us feel good about ourselves” while labeling it “outrageous.” Scarborough — called  the “new face” of the GOP by Christopher Buckley — went on to say that those rebelling in Iran would be punished more severely if Obama were to follow McCain’s advice:

SCARBOROUGH: All we would do is undermine those people in the street, who the second that they are attached to the United States of America, the country after all that’s been known in Iran as the great Satan since 1979, we will undermine their cause … It’s so shortsighted I find it stunning. […]

What would John McCain and Lindsey Graham specifically have the president say? All of those people that are emailing in and telling me that I’m being liberal? Oh really? I’m being liberal? No I think it’s called restraint. Showing a little bit of restraint. Looking at the battlefield in front of you and not just running up Pickett’s Charge and getting gunned down. If you want to feel good about yourself — and you can only feel good about yourself by screaming about the evils of Iran — fine do that. But our leaders in Washington don’t need to do that because people will be routed in the street the second they are identified with the United States of America.

Watch it:


Despite McCain and Graham’s claims to the contrary, Obama has expressed U.S. disapproval of the Iranian government’s actions. Obama released a statement on Saturday condemning the violation of human rights while steering clear of the politics. In an interview with CBS’ Early Show this morning, Obama responded similarly to Scarborough, saying the U.S. has to guard against being used as a scapegoat by the Iranian regime:

“The last thing that I want to do,” the president said, “is to have the United States be a foil for — those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’ve already seen. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the — Iranian people are seeking to — let their voices be heard.

McCain and Graham are growing increasingly isolated, as Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the media endorse Obama’s measured response.

Related Posts

Yglesias

Senators Have Agency

By Matthew Yglesias on Jun 22, 2009 at 1:43 pm

The Ironist

The Ironist

In today’s column, Paul Krugman lamented the circular arguments you sometimes see presented as a reason for watering-down reform:

And Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota offers a perfectly circular argument: we can’t have the public option, because if we do, health care reform won’t get the votes of senators like him. “In a 60-vote environment,” he says (implicitly rejecting the idea, embraced by President Obama, of bypassing the filibuster if necessary), “you’ve got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all the Democrats together, and that, I don’t believe, is possible with a pure public option.”

Timothy Noah had a great example of this near the end of a recent column offering a tour of health care systems around the world:

Afterward, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who has since become interior secretary, noted that other countries saw a conflict between profits and health. How could the United States possibly persuade insurance companies to give up profits? [Author T.R.] Reid answered that Switzerland, home to many powerful insurance companies, had done it in 1994 when it adopted the Bismarck model. The insurers fought it tooth and nail, of course, but now they compete energetically to sign up people for basic care on a nonprofit basis because they constitute a customer base for supplemental insurance that they’re allowed to sell on a for-profit basis. This answer didn’t satisfy Baucus. “Perhaps you don’t know how much money [U.S. insurers] have,” he told Reid.

Which would be an amusing and apposite remark from Baucus were it not for the small part that Max Baucus is the most powerful legislative voice on health care policy in the country. It makes sense for Tim Noah or Paul Krugman or Matt Yglesias or TR Reid to ironically step outside the debate and start talking about the political obstacles to really hitting the insurance companies where it hurts. But Max Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee! “Political reality” is something pundits and activists need to adjust to, it’s something powerful Senators create.

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