Corey Robin makes the case that progressives need to reclaim the language of freedom. The argument may be correct, but you should always beware people carting arguments that attribute FDR’s stunning electoral success in 1936 to elements of his rhetoric:
In forging his realignment, Roosevelt was careful to identify the enemy not as a political party but an economic aristocracy. Throughout the 1936 campaign, he barely mentioned Alf Landon. Instead, he denounced the Liberty League and the businessmen it represented. Realignments in America are like that: Jackson railed against the Bank; the Republicans ran against the slaveocracy; Reagan campaigned against the liberal elite. Part of this is strategic: it’s easier to peel away voters from the opposition if you can show that it is not their party you oppose but the interests it represents, which are not theirs. But part of it is substantive, reflecting a conviction that the task at hand is not simply to defeat a party or win an election but to free men and women from a malignant social form.
Just keep in mind what was happening to the economy:
Any politician would look like a genius under those circumstances. And you see the same with Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1984.
If the White House and congressional leaders don’t get a budget deal done by midnight tonight, much of the federal government will shut down. U.S. troops will continue to work — and fight abroad — without any pay. While servicemembers will eventually receive back pay when the impasse is resolved, Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted yesterday that the interim period “can be a problem” for military families because many live paycheck to paycheck.
Stars and Stripes talked to some troops stationed overseas. “It’s very frustrating for the lower enlisted,” said Spc. Fotuotamatane Toluao, who is based in Germany. “I have a family to take care of, diapers aren’t that cheap,” he said. “There are half a million troops deployed to some ragged country who depend on their paycheck. Taking that away will turn our military upside down,” wrote one service member in Afghanistan on the Stars and Stripes website.
Back here at home, military families are worried, as evidenced by numerous local news reports from all around the country:
ARMY SGT, FORT CAMPBELL, KY: If they stopped both our paychecks that would definitely have a devastating effect.
MILITARY HUSBAND, SPOKANE, WA: It’s really important to me that their families who have a hard time anyway when dad is overseas, mom’s overseas that they have their, something certain, a paycheck.
NAVY WIFE, JACKSONVILLE, FL: I’d like answers. What am I supposed to tell my children when they ask, “Why don’t we have any money?” What am I supposed to – oh because they decided to shut the government down? My kids are 7, 5, 2 and 1 do you think they’re going to understand that?
MILITARY WIFE, DETROIT, MI: House payment’s got to be made. I mean bills got to be paid. … I’m stunned. I mean all the aid that we give to all these other countries and we can’t take care of our own?
MILITARY MOTHER, TOLEDO, OH: It would be absolutely devastating. … At the current time our household counts on Adam’s income because he is the sole provider for our rent and utilities and for the care of his daughter.
Watch the compilation:
While members of Congress said they would scramble to get a bill passed that would fund troops in the event a shutdown occurs, the Navy Federal Credit Union has said that it will otherwise advance servicemembers’ pay. Stars and Stripes reports that according to a statement, “Active-duty servicemembers belonging to the credit union would not see any change in their April 15 paychecks, even if the government fails to pay them.”
Climate Central is a reliable producer of analysis and reporting on climate science. As they explain, the idea for CC developed from some large meetings of “leading scientists, policymakers, journalists, and leaders from business, religion and civil society” who “identified a critical need for a central authoritative source for climate change information.”
Later, “a broad group of climate experts later confirmed this need.” At the same time, other groups “began organizing with the mission to popularize good information about global warming solutions.” Their tag line “sound science & vibrant media” gets to the heart of what their important niche has been — emphasis on “sound science.”
That’s why it is disappointing to see a new blog, “Frontier Earth,” that isn’t focused on science and isn’t authoritative in the least bit. Two examples will suffice.
The first piece is headlined, “Momentum Shifts on Climate Adaptation.” The piece has no discussion whatsoever of the scientific literature on adaptation or the climate impacts we’d have to adapt to. Nor does it examine adaptation policy or even what is happening in the political world. If it did, it would’ve come to a completely different conclusion.
If the White House and congressional leaders don’t get a budget deal done by midnight tonight, much of the federal government will shut down. U.S. troops will continue to work — and fight abroad — without any pay. While servicemembers will eventually receive back pay when the impasse is resolved, Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted yesterday that the interim period “can be a problem” for military families because many live paycheck to paycheck.
Stars and Stripes talked to some troops stationed overseas. “It’s very frustrating for the lower enlisted,” said Spc. Fotuotamatane Toluao who is based in Germany. “I have a family to take care of, diapers aren’t that cheap,” he said. “There are half a million troops deployed to some ragged country who depend on their paycheck. Taking that away will turn our military upside down,” wrote one service member in Afghanistan on the Stars and Stripes website.
Back here at home, military families are worried, as evidenced by numerous local news reports from all around the country:
ARMY SGT, FORT CAMPBELL, KY: If they stopped both our paychecks that would definitely have a devastating effect.
MILITARY HUSBAND, SPOKANE, WA: It’s really important to me that their families who have a hard time anyway when dad is overseas, mom’s overseas that they have their, something certain, a paycheck.
NAVY WIFE, JACKSONVILLE, FL: I’d like answers. What am I supposed to tell my children when they ask, “Why don’t we have any money?” What am I supposed to – oh because they decided to shut the government down? My kids are 7, 5, 2 and 1 do you think they’re going to understand that?
MILITARY WIFE, DETROIT, MI: House payment’s got to be made. I mean bills got to be paid. … I’m stunned. I mean all the aid that we give to all these other countries and we can’t take care of our own?
MILITARY MOTHER, TOLEDO, OH: It would be absolutely devastating. … At the current time our household counts on Adam’s income because he is the sole provider for our rent and utilities and for the care of his daughter.
Watch the compilation:
While members of Congress said they would scramble to get a bill passed that would fund troops in the event a shutdown occurs, the Navy Federal Credit Union has said that it will otherwise advance servicemembers’ pay. Stars and Stripes reports that according to a statement, “Active-duty servicemembers belonging to the credit union would not see any change in their April 15 paychecks, even if the government fails to pay them.”
Kevin Drum’s observation that “[i] a national healthcare system, taxpayers who are footing the bill have to make decisions continuously about how much they’re willing to pay for healthcare” prompts a thought from me that the generational transfer element of Medicare makes it difficult to engage in these tradeoff calculations.
The way this works, recall, is that Medicare is a universal single-payer health insurance scheme for retired people. And it’s financed through payroll and income taxes. Consequently, there’s virtually no overlap between people who are paying taxes to finance Medicare and people who are benefiting from Medicare. Worse, people suffer from the illusion that Medicare is something they’ve already “paid for” via their payroll taxes in their working years. For Social Security this is approximately true, but for Medicare it’s not even close:
This is why Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal features an arbitrary ten year delay before it’s phased in.
A more typical system would feature universal coverage starting at age zero and a large chunk of the financing would come from a Value Added Tax, which people pay whether they’re working or not. There’s still always an element of inter-generational transfer since old people consume more health care services on average. But there’s less insulation. If you cut health care spending right now, then right now the very same people will be able to pay lower taxes. Alternatively if you want to boost health spending right now, then right now the very same people will have to pay higher taxes. This hardly guarantees wise choices, but it frames what the choices are correctly.
Following the ouster last year of three Iowa Supreme Court justices who legalized same-sex marriage in the state, social conservative groups are now working hard to overturn marriage equality in the Hawkeye State. One such organization is the Iowa Family Leader, led by former gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats.
Vander Plaats and the Iowa Family Leader are at the forefront of a misinformation campaign to support the anti-equality effort. Vander Plaats, currently on a 99-county tour intended to solicit support for the Family Leader and rally social conservatives, regularly compares gay marriage to polygamy and incest, telling audiences, “Why not open it up! Bisexual, polygamy, multiple women? Why not?” Earlier this year, Vander Plaats was caught on video railing against “absolute tolerance” during a campaign stop.
Most outlandish, however, was the Family Leader’s comparison on its website of homosexuality to secondhand cigarette smoke. (The Family Leader later removed the link to www.SecondHandEffects.com, a website which asserts that homosexuality reduces life expectancy by up to 35 years and promotes the idea that homosexuality is a curable disease.)
ThinkProgress spoke with Vander Plaats at a recent Family Leader campaign stop in Ames and asked the Iowa kingmaker about the claim that homosexuality is a public health risk akin to secondhand smoke. Though Vander Plaats had been loathe to discuss such matters publicly in the past, in this instance he did not mince words. After declaring that homosexuality is a “risky lifestyle,” Vander Plaats argued that “If we’re teaching the kids, ‘don’t smoke, because that’s a risky health style,’ the same can be true of the homosexual lifestyle”:
KEYES: I know the Iowa Family Leader came under a little bit of controversy during the fall for one of the advertisements was talking about how homosexuality can almost even be seen – sorry, don’t think it was an advertisement – during a speech that homosexuality can almost even been seen as a public health risk.
VANDER PLAATS: It is a public health risk.
KEYES: A public health risk akin to, for instance, secondhand smoke and secondhand smoking?
VANDER PLAATS: When you take a look at it, this isn’t the Family Leader, but say the New York Health Department. They’ve put out an ad basically highlighting all the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle, that you’re this many times more to get this particular disease or this many times more to get this other type of disease. Now, they conclude with “practice safe sex.” But they’re almost taking our talking points. Because anybody, the Journal of Medicine will back us up on this, that this is a risky lifestyle, health risk lifestyle. If we’re teaching the kids, “don’t smoke, because that’s a risky health style,” the same can be true of the homosexual lifestyle. That’s why I think we need to speak the truth once in a while.
Watch it:
In 2010, Vander Plaats and his associated groups played an integral role in removing three Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of marriage equality. Now, social conservatives are setting their sights on impeaching the remaining four justices who ruled in the 2009 marriage case if they do not resign. Articles of impeachment have already been drafted by Republican state legislators.
During his stop in Ames, Vander Plaats told audience members that he had not yet decided if the Family Leader would formally support the impeachment proceedings. He did tell supporters, however, that same-sex marriage opponents had a strong case to impeach the remaining justices on “malfeasance” grounds.
President Obama has been saying throughout the negotiations over funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 that he is willing to meet House Republicans “halfway” when it comes to their desired spending reductions. But Democrats have already agreed to far more than that, as House Republicans have continually moved the goalposts instead of cutting a deal.
The original House Republican proposal for the rest of fiscal year 2011 called for about $30 billion in spending reductions from the 2010 level of spending. However, a Tea Party-inspired revolt forced Republicans to increase that total to $61 billion, which is the total that they passed in H.R.1. H.R. 1 was subsequently defeated in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said today that he would agree to $38 billion in cuts from the 2010 level, exceeding the level of cuts that the GOP asked for in its original proposal:
With the Democrats having moved so far, it’s clear that this “negotiation” is not about the budget at all, but about the various policy riders that House Republicans want to attach to a funding bill. These include provisions preventing the District of Columbia from using its own local funds for abortions and crippling the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. It’s also worth remembering that even the original GOP proposal — which included cuts that are not as steep as those now on the table — included budget cuts that would undermine the economy, decreasing key investments and causing significant job loss.
Planned Parenthood is getting all the attention because Americans know what it is and use their services, but the Planned Parenthood rider isn’t the only plank in the right’s war on reproductive health services that’s holding up negotiations. Republicans, led by Chris Smith of New Jersey, also have a rider about the United Nations Population Fund, which they don’t like because it funds abortion even though it doesn’t fund abortion:
I spoke with Sarah Craven of the United Nations Population Fund moments ago. She, once again, reiterated that UNFPA does not fund abortions. After all, she said, UNFPA is a part of the UN–and there are several UN members states in which abortion is still illegal. Beyond that, UNFPA’s steering document specifically excludes abortion as a method of family planning under UNFPA’s mandate. If that were not enough to convince you that U.S. funds to UNFPA does not go toward promoting or conducting abortion, the U.S. Congress has passed several pieces of legislation since the 1970s specifically stipulating that no U.S. funds can in anyway support abortion overseas.
Still, several members of Congress–most notably Chris Smith of New Jersey–are somehow convinced that UNFPA promotes abortion. Specifically, they are concerned that UNFPA abets China’s one child policy. This is false, but you don’t have to take my word for it. In 2001, the Bush White House sent a fact finding team to investigate UNFPA in China and found, “no evidence that UNFPA has supported or participated in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China.”
This won’t get people as riled up, but realistically the harm done to public health here is probably bigger than with Planned Parenthood since UNFPA’s work is concentrated in places that are so much poorer.
Last year, the National Organization For Marriage (NOM) embarked on a disastrous 23-city “Summer for Marriage Tour 2010” to spread the gospel of one-man-one-woman marriage. Throughout the tour, bus driver Louis Marinelli — who ran NOM’s Twitter account and Facebook page — denounced gay people by claiming they have “shorter life spans” and are an “abomination” to natural law.
Well today, Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper reports that Marinelli — who still retains some preconceived notions about gay people — is “coming out in full support of the civil marriage rights that gay people are seeking” and he “credits exposure to the NOM tour as the very thing that led to his change of heart”:
Whether it is an issue of disbelief, shame or embarrassment, the one thing that is for sure is that I have come to this point after several months of an internal conflict with myself. That conflict gradually tore away at me until recently when I was able to, for the first time simply admit to myself that I do in fact support civil marriage equality for all. [...]
Ironically, one of the last tour stops added to the itinerary was Atlanta and I bring this site up because it was in Atlanta that I can remember that I questioned what I was doing for the first time. The NOM showing in the heart of the Bible-belt was dismal and the hundreds of counter-protesters who showed up were nothing short of inspiring.
Even though I had been confronted by the counter-protesters throughout the marriage tour, the lesbian and gay people whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people for me almost instantly. For the first time I had empathy for them and remember asking myself what I was doing.
As Marinelli writes on his own blog: “if there is an issue of embarrassment, its roots lie in the face-to-face encounters I have had and expect to have with those with whom I once toiled over this very contentious issue.”
Indeed, public opinion polling has found a correlation between knowing gay people and being supportive of equal rights for the LGBT community. For instance, according to a CBS News Poll from last year, “77 percent of Americans now say they know someone who is gay or lesbian,” an increase of 35 percentage points since 1992. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll also found that 53 percent of Americans now support marriage equality (up from only 32 percent support in 2004), including 53 percent of white Catholics and 57 percent of nonevangelical Protestants.
As Hooper put it in a Tweet this morning, “Today, my friends, we have more proof that exposure to our lives = @freedomtomarry.”
