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After Irene Batters Her District, GOP Rep. Hayworth Pledges To Hold Disaster Funds Hostage For Budget Cuts

By Zaid Jilani on Sep 1, 2011 at 5:15 pm

Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY)

Last week, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) shockingly demanded that Congress should not approve emergency aid to states battered by Hurricane Irene unless it makes offsetting budget cuts elsewhere first. Several other congressional Republicans have made the same demand since then.

Now, Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) has joined this chorus of disaster aid hostage takers. Hayworth, who represents a portion of New York that the hurricane hit, said Congress has to have budget cuts before it allocates more disaster aid because the “challenges we face with the national budget have not changed,” and likened it to a family skipping a vacation:

Only days after a record-setting storm destroyed her district, Rep. Nan Hayworth and her House colleagues threatened to withhold disaster money if lawmakers don’t cut additional spending from the federal budget. “We’re facing a natural disaster in the middle of an economic disaster,” Hayworth said Wednesday. “Certainly, the challenges we face with the national budget have not changed.”

Hayworth, R-Mount Kisco, said she would only vote to replenish the federal disaster fund if new spending was offset by budget cuts. She said those cuts should come from “non-defense discretionary spending.” Hayworth likened her position to a family skipping vacation if it was overwhelmed by bills. “We have to control spending,” she said. “There’s no question about it.”

Hayworth represents a number of cities, including Yorktown, that were battered by Irene. Thousands of her constituents were left without power and there was widespread flooding and damage to water systems, as some towns are now warning their residents to boil their water before consumption. Orange County alone said it received three times as many emergency phone calls as during a major snowstorm in February 2010, and 36,000 people were left without access to electricity. A resident of the town of Monroe in Orange County posted a YouTube video of the streets outside, where natural waterfalls had formed from flooding and cars were stuck in water:

Both Govs. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Chris Christie (R-NJ) have called on their fellow Republicans to immediately deliver disaster aid and put aside hostage taking about complimentary budget cuts.

Update

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) seemed to reaffirm his stance after retweeting a tweet by Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) also demanding budget cuts for disaster aid.

Health

Santorum: It’s ‘A Biological Fact That Life Begins At Conception,’ Thus Every Fertilized Egg Should Have Full Rights

By Tanya Somanader on Sep 1, 2011 at 5:00 pm

GOP presidential “fringe runner” Rick Santorum has put a lot of effort into becoming the most anti-choice candidate in the field. Having cast 99 votes against women’s rights while in Congress, Santorum not only supports a federal abortion ban but is a consistent supporter of “personhood” rights for embryos. Those who subscribe to “personhood” ideology believe life begins at the moment of fertilization, which, if enshrined in law, would effectively ban contraception like birth control pills.

Yesterday in an interview with CNN host Piers Morgan, Santorum corrected his “belief” that life begins at conception. “I shouldn’t say I believe it,” he told Morgan, because “it’s a biological fact that life begins at conception.” This “fact,” he argued, bestows every right guaranteed under the Constitution to a zygote:

SANTORUM: I do believe that life begins at conception. I shouldn’t say I believe it, it’s a biological fact that life begins at conception. That child in the womb is biologically human — completely and fully human — and alive. Therefore, a human life. It’s reason that tells me that person that is now alive and human should be given the rights of any person under the Constitution. Where they are or where they’re located at the particular time in their life cycle shouldn’t determine whether they have constitutional rights or not. So, that’s something I came to as a matter of study more than anything else.

Watch it:

The medical community has long been in agreement that fertilization does not mark the beginning of pregnancy. Fully half of fertilized eggs never result in a pregnancy because they never begin dividing, never implant, or implant but spontaneously abort, often so early on a woman never knows she may have been pregnant. Some conservatives consider birth control pills tantamount to abortion because they can act to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.

There’s no actual scientific moment at which life is agreed to begin — many scientists will explain life is an unceasing continuum that doesn’t “begin” at any one moment. The “fact” Santorum speaks of doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, embryos are not viable outside the uterus until at least their 23rd week. This standard of viability is a critically important medical distinction for practical purposes and forms the basis of the Roe v. Wade decision. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Committee on Ethics stated in 2006 that an embryo left or maintained outside the uterus “cannot develop into a human being.”

Regardless of the rhetoric-based debate about when life begins, extrapolating from personal religious belief that a single-celled fertilized egg inherently deserves the same exact rights as a human being ignores some pretty glaring biological differences — not to mention women’s constitutionally-protected right to an abortion.

Santorum’s ideology drives him far to the right of most Americans and even most Republicans who allow abortion exceptions to victims of rape or incest. During Fox’s GOP presidential debate this month, he used the “moment of conception” belief to argue that “the child is an innocent victim” and that rape victims should not be allowed to have abortion because that would be traumatizing them twice.

Yglesias

Copy Digital Files Still Isn’t The Same As Stealing Physical Objects

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 1, 2011 at 4:45 pm

This is fun. Gavin Muller at Jacobin Magazine has decided to defend the thesis that “pirating” of MP3 is the same as looting of physical goods except this time from a pro-stealing, anti-property rights point of view.

From where I sit, the left-wing version of this argument runs no better than the right-wing version. The two acts have almost nothing in common besides being illegal. If I email you a copy of the new Fountains of Wayne album, then nobody has less stuff than they had pre-emailing. By contrast, if I break into Adam Schlesinger’s house, take his shoes, and then give the shoes to you, the upshot is that Schlesinger has less shoes than he had before. The mere fact that “in the context of the actual world (from which all analysis should proceed), we know that vast quantities of shoes are produced” and “few, if any, readers reading this right now face an actual scarcity of shoes available for purchase” doesn’t alter the fact that redistributing a fixed stock of shoes is very different from increasing the stock of digital files by copying. The wronged party in a case of copyright infringement isn’t even the person who owns the file that’s been copied. Rather, the government has granted someone the right to extract a fee every time a copy is made and, naturally, people who’ve been granted that right don’t like to see it violated. That’s fine for them, and at some margins it’s good public policy, but it’s a completely different animal. As a professional content creator, I’m not thrilled when I see around the web that people have copied my posts without permission, but the vast majority of the time I haven’t actually been harmed in any clear way. If you steal my laptop, I’m going to have a real problem.

In some ways I think the decision of the pro-copying community to try to appropriate the language of “sharing” as an alternative to the language of “piracy” simply served to obscure how genuinely different digital copying is. Even if you and I “share” a physical object, there are still limits. If I borrow my girlfriend’s car to drive somewhere, I haven’t stolen it from her, but it’s genuinely the case that she can’t use it until I bring it back. If she copies a file I own, then we both have it.

NEWS FLASH

Hung Jury Over Shooting Of Lawrence King | After eight weeks of testimony, the jury has been unable to reach a verdict over the fate of Brandon McInerney, the 17-year-old who shot his openly gay classmate Lawrence King twice in the back of the head in 2008. Though there is no doubt the killing took place, the defense pushed heavily for a voluntary manslaughter charge over a premeditated murder charge. The LA Times has more background on the trial.

Economy

White House Budget Review Shows Sluggish Growth, High Unemployment Through 2016

By Pat Garofalo on Sep 1, 2011 at 4:20 pm

The White House Office of Management and Budget released its latest budget projections today, which show that the current trajectory of the economy is still exceedingly weak. According to the alternative economic scenario, which includes the most updated economic assumptions, GDP growth will be just 1.7 percent this year and 2.6 percent next year. The alternative economic scenario also doesn’t project unemployment falling below 6 percent until 2017:

As the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein noted, the report does show that corporate America, unlike Main Street, is doing quite well:

In 2009, domestic corporate profits were $906 billion. By 2011, that number had risen to $1.322 trillion — an increase of roughly 46 percent. During that same time period, employee compensation went from $7.812 trillion to $8.264 trillion — an increase of just 5.7 percent.

According to researchers at Northeastern University, 88 percent of the real national income growth since 2009 have gone to corporate profits, while just one percent has gone to wages and salaries.

The OMB’s alternative scenario is slightly less optimistic than that coming from the Congressional Budget office. According to the CBO’s models, “as the growth of output picks up after 2013 in CBO’s forecast, the unemployment rate falls to 5.3 percent by the second half of 2016.” Still, CBO projects that unemployment will be 8.7 percent at the end of 2013.

Next week, President Obama is laying out a jobs plan, which will reportedly include an extension of the payroll tax cut enacted last year and a national infrastructure bank, but an intransigent House Republican majority has already said they will oppose some facets of the plan.

Politics

Florida Republicans Fight To Keep ‘Cohabitation’ Of Unmarried Couples Illegal

By Marie Diamond on Sep 1, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Thousands of unmarried couples who are living together in Florida may be surprised to learn that they are actually breaking the law. Under outdated and rarely enforced state laws that have been on the books since the late 1800s, “cohabitation” is actually a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by $500 or up to 60 days in jail. The same penalty applies to adultery – which one Florida woman tried to have enforced for her cheating husband in 2006.

The Sun Sentinel reports that one Florida Republican is commendably trying to repeal these irrelevant laws — only to be met with mass opposition from his fellow Republicans including Gov. Rick Scott (R). These social conservatives won’t support his effort to finally legalize a common practice and would prefer that official condemnation of couples “living in sin” stay enshrined in state law:

Now, Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, is on a mission to repeal the statutes penalizing adultery and cohabitation, as well as other laws he finds outdated, like a requirement that all bicycle riders keep one hand on the handle bars. [...]

Nobody else much wants to talk about it either.

Asked how Gov. Rick Scott felt about the measure, spokeswoman Amy Graham replied simply, “This isn’t an issue the governor is focused on.”

The bill has no Senate counterpart. And given the almost-certain opposition of social conservatives who lobby hard on “family values” issues, it’ll face tough sledding in an election year.

Consider the response of state Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who previously headed the Florida chapter of the Christian Coalition: “I’m not ready to give up on monogamy and a cultural statement that marriage still matters,” he said.

Cohabitation, especially among young couples, has become an increasing trend in recent years. The number of unmarried couples living together increased tenfold from 1960 to 2000, the U.S. Census says. It’s a practice that’s often derided by social conservatives, who fear that it is replacing traditional marriage.

However, maintaining the legal option of throwing these couples in jail seems a tad over-the-top, not to mention tragically out of touch with the reality of millions of Americans. In fact, one of Florida’s most prominent residents, NBA star LeBron James, is technically breaking the law by living in Miami with his high school sweetheart.

Alyssa

‘Deadwood’ Late Pass: ‘New Money’ And ‘Requiem For A Gleet’

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Sep 1, 2011 at 4:08 pm

There’s something heartbreaking about watching Seth and Martha try to figure out how to make a life together, building it on the foundations of honor and not much else. “Certain things I said yesterday, I regret,” Seth tells her the morning after her arrival in town in the midst of his slugout with Al Swearengen over whether his affair with Alma is distracting him from his duties as sheriff. “I’ll be grateful if you’ll not rely on them. Representations I’ve made of letters I’ve written. I didn’t.” Martha, who was quick to play along with his deception, even as it bewildered her, tells him with painful composure: “I hold my deepest gratitude, Mr. Bullock, for what will let us live as we are now.” Later, they have a veiled discussion about whether or not to have sex before they begin their day after Seth fell asleep before they could go to bed the night before. “I would enjoy to converse in the stillness at the end of the day like that,” Martha says. Anna Gunn is just so tremendous in this role, and there’s something remarkably compelling and vulnerable about watching her in this profoundly alien situation, torn between duty and sexual excitement. I think we’ve all thought through arranged marriages, but a situation like this, a marriage of convenience tinged with the forbidden—Seth, after all, has married his brother’s wife—feels just as alien and distant. “Tonight, after dinner, I will have two cups of coffee, and I will not fall asleep,” Seth promises her. Duty, but not entirely an unpleasant one.

While Martha and Seth are profoundly controlled, Trixie and Sol are beyond the boiling point. I really have to say that Paula Malcomson’s embodiment of Trixie is one of the finest sustained television performances I’ve ever seen as an actress, and I hope that appearing in The Hunger games does nothing but wonderful things for her. She is magnificent, and maybe never moreso than in these episodes, where she’s taking steps towards furthering her relationship with Sol and her education, though not without profound ambivalence. “I wonder, would you teach me how to do accounts?” she asks Sol. “I’ll pay you, or you can take it out in cunt.” Her resistance to the idea that Sol could want her for himself, and even if she does, her reluctance to let him, is fascinating and nuanced. There’s a certain amount of clarity about only being wanted for one thing, and a terror of being wanted for something ephemeral that can’t be assigned a clear erotic geography. It does help that she’s making this decision against the backdrop of Al’s impending kidney stone operation, which is impressively gruesome. Ian McShane’s acting out of his agony is so fearsome that I felt actual physical discomfort watching it. And as Trixie explains to Jane while they’re out for a drink, “Far is it goes, he also brought the cripple from that orphanage. Don’t buy that bullshit about the 9-cent trick.” We can understand why Trixie cries in Sol’s arms that “I can’t stay. But it’d be smart to stay and fuckin’ learn to calculate interest.” This is not some simple choice between Al and Sol, between prostitution and non-sex work, between a man who beats her and a man who treasures her. There are merits to both lives.

And there’s the beginning of something between Alma and Whitney Ellsworth, her growing more confident, he advising her. “I’d like to buy Mr. Farnum’s hotel,” she tells him with malicious glee on their way back from the claim, “To renovate and make it my residence…[there are no other options] that would offer the finer pleasures of putting Mr. Farnum in the thoroughfare.” And while Ellsworth gets the impulse, he tells her”I guess most of us are lucky to be too broke to act on those kinds of ideas.” While he checks her more reckless impulses, he isn’t afraid to run off Hearst’s stalking horse, Mr. Wolcott (who feels like a false note to me, too much of a cartoon villain) or to suggest to Alma that she go head to head with E.B. when he’s trying, yet again, to get her to walk away from her claim even if not to sell it to him.

But the partnership that isn’t working particularly well for me is Joanie and Maddie. Some of it is clearly that it’s tied up with Wolcott, who feels to me like a stock Law & Order villain of some noxious variety. But I think it’s also that with Maddie in the picture, Joanie’s move to open her own business just seems to put her in the shadow of yet another powerful partner; I’d almost be more interested in her depressed with Cy than with a spark that seems continuously to be put under a bushel. When Wolcott tells her “A tiny corner of operation for such an amusing mind. I promise as I sojourn here to bring you stories from the world of men,” I feel a certain amount of regret that we’re not seeing Joanie out on the streets, mixing it up with Charlie Utter, and building a life.

Security

Frank Gaffney Thinks ‘We Need A New House Anti-American Committee’ For Islam

By Ali Gharib on Sep 1, 2011 at 4:03 pm

One of the featured “experts” in the new CAP “Fear, Inc.” report on Islamophobia, Frank Gaffney, appeared on a religious right program and called for renewed McCarthyism against not just American-Muslims but also those who support them or don’t do enough to stymie what Gaffney considers their pernicious influence.

Gaffney, who runs a well-funded Islamophobic operation, celebrated the House Un-American Activities Committee — the Cold War-era investigative committee that epitomized the overblown “red scare” of a Communist takeover of the U.S. — before calling for a new similar committee. The new “House Anti-American Activities Committee would look into American-Muslims, who Gaffney thinks are criminally “seditious” for observing their faith, and their witting and unwitting allies:

Back in the Cold War as we talked about in our first program we wrestled with another totalitarian ideology that was determined to destroy us back when the McCarren Act was enacted, we had what was then called the House Un-American Activities Committee to explore what was going on, who was doing it, who was helping them do it, what the implications would be if it weren’t stopped. I think we need at the very least a new House Anti-American Activities Committee.

Watch the video:

The new “green scare” committee came up as Gaffney and the host, Christian right figure Rick Joyner, discussed prosecuting Americans for simply not reporting “treasonous” acts — known as “misprision of treason” — by American Muslims. Gaffney has previously accused Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) of this crime, which carries a seven-year sentence, for appointing a Muslim to a judgeship in New Jersey. Gaffney considers adherence to Muslim religious law to be “seditious“:

A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.

While many regard the “red scare” and the McCarthyism associated with it as a less than savory period in American history, Gaffney seems to whole-heartedly approve of the program and calls for its revival — but targeted at religious beliefs instead of a political views. Some might argue that taking away the freedom of speech and religion are themselves “un-American” acts. (HT: Right Wing Watch)

Yglesias

Why Tax When You Can Borrow At Negative Rates?

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 1, 2011 at 3:58 pm

Tyler Cowen’s not persuaded that the existence of negative real interest rates means the government should increase its borrowing because, basically, he takes a very dim view of government spending.

So . . . fine. Yet the fact of the matter is that the United States government does spend lots of money. One important question we face is how to pay for that spending. Normally the correct answer is “with taxes of some kind” because the alternative to taxes is borrowing, and when you borrow money you have to repay it with interest. Right now, though, financial markets are offering to lend the United States money at negative real interest rates. Under the circumstances, taxing productive work in order to avoid borrowing is kind of nutty. It’s true that separate from the financing question there’s a vigorous debate in the United States about desirable levels of federal spending. And it’s unfortunate that the existence of this debate keeps deadlocking us on the basic point that a larger short-term federal budget deficit would be good policy.

That said, to me no matter how many times I hear people assert that this California train project is a poor use of money it still sounds like a good use of money to me and I just wish we would pony up the full trillion dollars Randall O’Toole warns me it would take to build out a true nationwide HSR network.

The point, though, is that whatever we do or don’t spend money on the interest rate is relevant to whether we pay for our spending with taxes or with borrowing. Negative real rates are a great time to pay with borrowing.

NEWS FLASH

White House will consider any online petition that gets 5,000 signatures. | Politico reports: “The idea behind ‘We the People’ – as the new program will be known – is that anyone with an idea or cause can go to the White House’s website, and make a public pitch for support. If the idea gets 5,000 backers within 30 days, said White House spokeswoman Sandra Abrevaya, a ‘working group of policy officials’ will respond.” You can check out the White House website HERE.

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