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Economy

Coburn Justifies Blocking Unemployment Benefits: It Only Affects A ‘Relatively Small Amount Of People’

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 7, 2010 at 4:27 pm

A few weeks ago, for the second time in two months, Senate Republicans objected to an extension of unemployment benefits. While the last dispute was resolved in time to keep benefits from expiring, as of Monday, hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers are seeing their benefits come to an end.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) led the GOP obstruction last time (telling the Democrats “tough sh*t” when they asked for unanimous consent to move the extension forward), but this time Sen. Tom “Dr. No” Coburn (R-OK) has stepped up to the plate. And he evidently has no remorse about his actions, as he feels they affect a “relatively small amount of people”:

The easiest thing in the world is to pass this bill unpaid for, but consider the millions of Americans whose financial futures would be damaged, versus the relatively small amount of people who will be affected by this delay. Now you tell me which vote takes the most courage.

First, Coburn is wrong on the economics. Providing unemployment benefits is one of the most effective steps that a government can take in terms of economic stimulus, and unless the economy starts moving again, long-term deficits (“financial futures”) will never be brought under control. As the National Employment Law Project’s Judy Conti explained, “every economist from every side of the political spectrum will tell you that unemployment benefits are most stimulative when they are not offset. In the history of the unemployment program, we have never offset these programs.”

And then there’s the human angle. Because of Coburn and the GOP’s obstruction, more than 200,000 people per week will lose their benefits. About one million are slated to lose their benefits this month. And this is taking place while 44 percent of unemployed Americans (about 6.5 million people) have been unemployed for six months or more. Plus, the same package that Coburn blocked included a renewal of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), while the Northeast United States has been hard-hit by flooding.

If you thought this whole sordid episode would prompt some soul-searching among the GOP, you’d be mistaken. They are, instead, circling the wagons around Coburn and trying to blame House Democrats (who objected to their proposed offset) for preventing the extension. In fact, Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) takeaway is that the GOP should have lent more support to Bunning when he blocked the extension. “We didn’t give [Bunning] as much help as we probably should have,” Kyl said. “It took an act of courage like Sen. Bunning’s to perhaps jolt people into the awareness of how bad it had really gotten.”

Politics

Both Mississippi And Georgia Have Confederate History Proclamations Without Any Mention of Slavery

By Amanda Terkel on Apr 7, 2010 at 4:20 pm

Confederate flag Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has been receiving significant attention this week for the fact that he has issued recognized April 2010 as Confederate History Month, but didn’t include any mention of slavery in his proclamation. He explained that he didn’t include a reference because slavery wasn’t one of the “most significant” aspects of the conflict between the states.

However, McDonnell isn’t the only Southern governor to honor the Confederacy while omitting any mention of slavery — he joins Georgia and Mississippi.

The Confederate History and Heritage Month proclamations are being spearheaded by a group called the Sons of the Confederate Veterans. Other projects around the country include trying to erect a monument remembering South Carolina’s secession. Today, Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., who chairs the Confederate History and Heritage Month Committee for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, sent around a press release touting the group’s success:

In 2009, the Georgia General Assembly approved Senate Bill No. 27, signed by Governor Sonny Perdue, officially designating April permanently as Confederate History and Heritage Month.

In 1999, Texas Senate Resolution No. 526 passed designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.

Georgia’s Governor Sonny Perdue, Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour and Virginia’s Governor Robert F. McDonnell have all signed a proclamation designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month for 2010.

Texas’ resolution does mention slavery. Perdue’s proclamation does not, nor does the Georgia Senate bill (with the exception of a reference to “Georgia’s best new history museum chronicles the civil rights struggle of Georgia’s oldest African American community from slavery to the present”). Barbour’s 2009 proclamation also has no slavery mention, and we received no response from Barbour’s office to our request for a copy of the 2010 proclamation. Perdue’s office also didn’t respond to our request for an official copy of their 2010 proclamation.

Today, ThinkProgress spoke to Johnson, who said that he supported McDonnell’s decision to leave slavery out of the proclamation:

JOHNSON: No, I don’t think so [that he should have mentioned slavery], because really, there was slavery on both sides. That was the issue — some of the Union commanders owned slaves. So that wasn’t really the issue of the war. The issue of the war was states’ rights, a lot of which you’re hearing today. … I wouldn’t say it didn’t play any role, but remember that slavery was recognized by the U.S. Constitution. It was protected. You still had slavery even in the North back then — in Washington, DC. [...]

TP: So Virginia’s proclamation didn’t need to apologize for slavery, you don’t think?

JOHNSON: I’m not saying it was right, but then again, both sides — No, I don’t think it should be in there. It was part, but like I said, it was on both sides — North and South. The reason it was more in the South, of course, was because the South was agricultural. But no, I don’t think it should have been in there, personally.

Matt Yglesias, Jack Balkin, and davenoon all point to historical evidence showing that the Civil War, indeed, was significantly about slavery.

Update

The Washington Post’s Virginia Politics Blog reports, “Alabama Gov. Bob Riley issued a similar proclamation last month. It asks that state residents ‘honor our past and from it draw the courage, strength and wisdom to reconcile ourselves and go forward into the future together as Alabamians and Americans.’ It also specifically condemns slavery, calling it ‘one of the causes of the war.’”


Update

,Not Larry Sabato recalls when then-Delegate Bob McDonnell tried to get the Virginia General Assembly to recite a salute written by a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Climate Progress

Weather Channel asks, “July in April?”

By Joe Romm on Apr 7, 2010 at 4:06 pm

Record smashing heat-wave hits nation

CP:  So it’s friggin’ hot in DC and much of the country.

Audience:  How hot is it?

CP:  It’s so hot that:

  • I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walkin’.
  • The robins are laying their eggs sunny side up.
  • I saw squirrels fanning their nuts.
  • Even meteorologists are doing stories about human-caused global warming.

Settle down, anti-science disinformers who try to shout down any talk of a link between climate change and extreme weather — these are only jokes.  We all know that you can’t use a single weather event as evidence for or against climate change — unless of course that weather event is a big snowstorm [see "Massive moisture-driven extreme precipitation during warmest winter in the satellite record "” and the disinformers say it disproves (!) climate science].

What people should be talking about are record highs versus record lows across the country.  The figure above comes from a Weather Channel post by Jonathan Erdman, “July or April? Spring skipped?“:

Read more

Yglesias

Making Connected Places

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 7, 2010 at 3:58 pm

David Brooks says: “urban downtowns will continue their modest (and perpetually overhyped) revival, but the real action will be out in the compact, self-sufficient suburban villages.”

That seems likely enough to me (NB: the column makes a variety of other claims I wouldn’t endorse), but of course it simply begs the question of what will the compact, self-sufficient suburban villages look like. Will the roads connecting them to the urban core feature congestion pricing at peak periods? Will commuters have a commuter rail alternative? Will the suburban villages themselves be walkable? And if so, to what degree? Will a fifteen year-old be able to get to his friend’s house without a ride from mom? Will buses connect one village to another along the suburban rim?

In the real world, the answers to these questions are likely to be “it will vary from place to place.” But thinking about these things is crucial. In the DC area, the Orange Line corridor in Arlington County in the “suburbs” is much more of a walkable, transit-accessible series of neighborhoods than are some parts of the city proper. And the areas around the Blue Line in Arlington and some of the Red Line stops in Montgomery County are like that to a lesser extent.

Bitter Lake, Seattle (cc photo by GypsyFae)

Bitter Lake, Seattle (cc photo by GypsyFae)

Consider that all as backdrop for Dave Roberts’ excellent post on how his neighborhood could be tweaked in the direction of walkability and sustainability.

Alyssa

Metamorphosis

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Apr 7, 2010 at 3:58 pm

So, Tilda Swinton often plays so kooky that it’s easy to forget what an insanely gorgeous, sensual woman she is.  One of the arresting scenes in movies from the last several years for me is the scene in Michael Clayton where she’s sweating through her dress shirt.  It’s rare that a movie would show a man sweating through clothing from stress, rather than intense, manly physical exertion, and almost inconceivable that a woman would be shown that way.  She made the character physically and morally clammy.  It was an impressive bit of acting.  But the trailer for I Am Love is a useful reminder of her appeal:

It looks like an impressive transformation, and that’s actually her speaking Italian throughout the movie, rather than a dub.  My sense of the particularity of language is such that I have a hard time imagining being able to truly imagine uttering words that don’t have deep and particular meanings for you.  Amor doesn’t mean the same thing to me as love.  But then, there’s a reason (or, er, many reasons) Tilda Swinton is a mesmerizing, chameleon-like actress and I’m a nerdy pop culture blogger.

Security

John McCain’s Nuclear Hypocrisy

By Max Bergmann on Apr 7, 2010 at 3:40 pm

john-mccain-speechOne issue we didn’t hear very much of during the 2008 Presidential campaign was nuclear policy, largely because both Senators Obama and McCain almost entirely agreed with each other. In fact, McCain called for dramatic nuclear cuts, a new START treaty, and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

At the University of Denver in May 2008, John McCain laid out his nuclear policy in a speech that could have just as easily been given by President Obama:

the Cold War ended almost 20 years ago, and the time has come to take further measures to reduce dramatically the number of nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals. It’s time for the United States to show the kind of leadership the world expects from us, in the tradition of American presidents who worked to reduce the nuclear threat to mankind.

Based off his comments in 2008, one would expect John McCain to be largely supportive of the Nuclear Posture Review and the New START treaty. But this is 2010 and McCain is doing some serious backtracking on his once mavericky forward-looking approach to nuclear weapons.

McCain it seems has joined forces with nuclear weapons-hugger Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in criticizing Obama’s nuclear efforts. In February, McCain signed on to a letter with Jon Kyl and Joe Lieberman, which held that the three would oppose the treaty if the Russians issue an entirely symbolic unilateral statement on missile defense. Such a stance is merely a smokescreen to disguise opposition to the treaty, since a unilateral signing statement would have no practical impact whatsoever, as the Russians could withdraw from the treaty with or without ever having issued a statement. McCain’s new skepticism contradicts his past stance as an advocate of getting a new START agreement. McCain said in 2008:

We should be able to agree with Russia on binding verification measures based on those currently in effect under the START Agreement, to enhance confidence and transparency.

McCain’s vote may be critical to the ratification of New START in the Senate and his new stance is a significant reversal that may delay ratification, at least until after the Arizona primary in August.

Now McCain is attacking the just released Nuclear Posture Review. Yesterday, McCain jointly issued a statement with Kyl that criticizes a nuclear posture review, that as Marc Ambinder noted, doesn’t have “all that much that Republicans can complain about.” Despite the fact that the Obama administration has already pledged massive increases in funding for the nuclear infrastructure, the statement raises concerns about the state of the nuclear arsenal and demands even more nuclear pork be lavished on the labs:

Moreover, the amount of money committed to this in the FY11-15 budget window – the $5 billion budget transfer referenced by Defense Secretary Gates, spread over five years – is woefully inadequate.

Funny that in an entire speech on nuclear weapons in 2008, McCain never mentioned his concern over the state of the nuclear arsenal, despite the Bush administration was funding our nuclear infrastructure at much lower levels. As Ambinder points out:

No one would have anticipated that the administration would be spending a billion dollars a year to modernize its stockpile. The folks who actually do this stuff requested more money, and they got it — a lot more.

Furthermore, while McCain, as did Obama, pledged to maintain the nuclear force during the campaign, he didn’t state his support for building new nuclear warheads in his 2008 nuclear weapons policy speech. But this seems to be one of the main demands of Kyl and may shape up to be the issue that Republicans will try to make Obama cave on in exchange for supporting the treaty. Building new warheads, essentially building new nuclear weapons, is both completely unneccessary and would be widely seen as the US backing off its disarmament commitments – commitments that the McCain of 2008 firmly supported.

Politics

The death of a maverick: John McCain backtracks on nuclear policy.

By Max Bergmann on Apr 7, 2010 at 3:22 pm

maccountryAt the University of Denver in May 2008, John McCain laid out his nuclear policy in a speech that sounded like it could have been delivered by President Obama:

[T]he Cold War ended almost 20 years ago, and the time has come to take further measures to reduce dramatically the number of nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals. It’s time for the United States to show the kind of leadership the world expects from us, in the tradition of American presidents who worked to reduce the nuclear threat to mankind.

Based off his comments in 2008, one would expect McCain to be largely supportive of the Nuclear Posture Review. But this is 2010, and McCain is doing some serious backtracking on his once mavericky, forward-looking approach to nuclear weapons. In a joint statement issued with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) yesterday, McCain attacked Obama’s new nuclear strategy, asserting that it wouldn’t allocate enough funding to maintain our nuclear weapons infrastructure. Funny that in an entire speech on nuclear weapons in 2008, McCain never mentioned his professed concern over the funding of the nuclear infrastructure, despite the fact that the Bush administration was funding it at much lower levels.

Update

Marc Ambinder offers more detailed commentary of McCain’s posturing.

Yglesias

Saving Money With Cloud Computing

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 7, 2010 at 3:14 pm

(cc photo by Kevin Dooley)

(cc photo by Kevin Dooley)

Here’s an eye-popping claim from Darrell West at Brookings:

The U.S. federal government spends nearly $76 billion each year on information technology, and $20 billion of that is devoted to hardware, software, and file servers (Alford and Morton, 2009). Traditionally, computing services have been delivered through desktops or laptops operated by proprietary software. But new advances in cloud computing have made it possible for public and private sector agencies alike to access software, services, and data storage through remote file servers. With the number of federal data centers having skyrocketed from 493 to 1,200 over the past decade (Federal Communications Commission, 2010), it is time to more seriously consider whether money can be saved through greater reliance on cloud computing. [...]

To evaluate the possible cost savings a federal agency might expect from migrating to the cloud, in this study I review past studies, undertake case studies of government agencies that have made the move, and discuss the future of cloud computing. I found that the agencies generally saw between 25 and 50 percent savings in moving to the cloud. For the federal government as a whole, this translates into billions in cost savings, depending on the scope of the transition.

Google, which obviously has a dog in this fight, has more on their public policy blog. Conversely, I’ve never been to Seattle so if Microsoft wants to pay for me to head that way and discuss this issue in greater depth I’m open to that.

Justice

Pentagon Study Group Holds First Hearing On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; Co-Chair Calls Chaplains’ Insights ‘Critical’

By Igor Volsky on Apr 7, 2010 at 3:00 pm

DADT Study Group Co-Chair Gen. Carter Ham

DADT Study Group Co-Chair Gen. Carter Ham

Yesterday, the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Review Working Group — which is tasked with studying the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy (DADT) — held its first hearing about ending the ban on gay service. “Picked at random and assembled in the Pentagon auditorium, about 350 rank-and-file troops asked the leaders of a new working group whether bunking arrangements would change and if the spouses of gay personnel would be given military family benefits, among other issues,” the AP reports:

Attendees of the Tuesday session said that one female Marine stated that bunking with a lesbian would be the same as being told to share a room with a man. A soldier said he didn’t want to wade into the political debate and that he would follow orders. Another service member asked if a gay service member who gets married — now forbidden under law — would receive military family benefits.

At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.

I’ve long argued that the personal opinions of military members — who already serve alongside gay and lesbian soldiers — should not determine the policy. The government ignored the troops’ opposition to racial integration when it allowed blacks to serve alongside white soldiers, allowed women in without regard to military opinion and should now lift the ban despite what some troops may think. As Rep. Susan Davis’ (D-CA) explained, “It’s not usual for us to go to the military and to have necessarily them believe that their personal feelings are going to determine the policy that moves forward,” she said. “They should be surveyed, but they should not be determinative.”

Unfortunately, it’s not clear that the co-chairs of the review — who have promised to survey “a wide variety of individuals both within the Department of Defense and without who will have views on this matter have an opportunity for their voice to be heard” — feel the same way. For example, Gen. Carter Ham, the Commanding General for U.S. Army Europe and the Co-Chairman of the review group, met with the Service Chiefs of Chaplains on Monday to discuss the repeal and later tweeted that their “insights” were “critical to our process“:

GenCarterHam: good first mtg w/ Service Chiefs of Chaplains today. Much to discuss as our review proceeds. Chaplains’ insights critical to our process.

One could certainly say that the Chaplains offer important insight into how the military can go about repealing the ban, but it’s difficult to argue that the opinion of religious leaders is “critical” to repeal. My hunch is they’re not very interested in allowing openly gay members to serve and in the armed forces and wouldn’t be very helpful to changing the policy.

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