The cost of doing nothing

Everything has a cost, including the cost of doing nothing. If nothing for you means passing on a public option in healthcare reform, consider what the US pays, compared to countries with well-developed public plans:

Some of the costs of not having a public option are simple to calculate, but immeasurable in value. Infant mortality rates in the United States are 6.37 deaths/1,000 live births. A sampling of other industrialized nations with public health care finds the United Kingdom at 5.01 deaths / 1,000 live births. Canada at 4.63. France at 3.41. If the United States infant mortality matched that of the United Kingdom, just under 6,000 fewer infants would have died in the United States last year. If we could match France around 13,000 fewer infants would have died.

Let's move to the other end of the spectrum. As of 2009, life expectancy in the United States is 78.11 years. Which sounds pretty good, until you realize it puts us one slot above Albania. For the United Kingdom, this number is 79.01 years. For France it's 80.98. For Canada, 81.23. for the United States, that means about 270,000,000 years lost compared just to the slightly better numbers of the UK. 936,000,000 years lost compared to Canada. Want to stick a monetary value on it? Say that just a fourth of these Americans in their golden years are pulling down 20 hours a week and getting minimum wage to wave you into the local big box or bag your groceries. That's $442 billion worth of time lost compared to the UK. About $1.5 trillion lost if those workers had lived as long as Canadians.

There are good things to be said about the American system. When you're in an American hospital, a very good level of immediate care makes you more likely to survive the immediate aftermath of a health crisis. Just had a heart attack? Hug that cardiac care unit close and you're 20% more likely to hang around than your neighbor to the north. However, a low quality of long term and follow up care erodes that difference over the course of a year. Sorry.

That last point, too, speaks to the myth of the "best healthcare system in the world." The United States does have very good health care professionals. The system itself, however, only extends to those who can afford it (a shrinking number) and those who have it because its paid for through public benefits (typically, poor children and very poor adults.) In that respect, and in others, the system is a failure.

Fox News, in handy graph form

Via, Eschaton:

I've sometimes wondered about the best way to plot wingnuts in n-dimensional trait space. It's not trivial, because many characteristics are correlated to varying degrees, and the subjectivity of it all makes it hard. However, I think this simple example isn't far off from reality.

Dishonesty and stupidity are pretty much independent, and I think I plotted these particular wingnuts fairly. Glenn Beck is a deeply stupid person, but comes across as earnestly crazy. Bill O'Reilly, on the other hand, is just very cynical and dishonest, but not really stupid, just ignorant. Sean Hannity, of course, is both stupid and dishonest.

In Milwaukee, I think we'd have to rank Charlie high on dishonesty; Mark as well, but there is a much greater level of stupidity there.

And, clearly, we can't plot Vicki McKenna since raving isn't an option.

Charlie Sykes: Milwaukee's fearless, um, connected commentator

Remember when Charlie Sykes and his legions of mouth breathing Orcs went apoplectic after Milwaukee Magazine published Secrets of Talk Radio by Dan Shelley? Remember when they objected to Shelley's description of Sykes as being unwilling to put callers on the air who would make him look bad? Remember how they denied that Sykes received daily talking points from the Bush White House and the Republican National Committee? Remember how they defended Charlie's integrity and independence?

Well, Dan Bice, perusing newly released e-mails between Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn and freelance journalist Jessica McBride, lifts the veil on the Charlie Sykes program too:

McBride, who had a talk show on WTMJ-AM (620), suggested that the chief could count on Sykes. Journal Communications owns both WTMJ and the Journal Sentinel.

"Sykes will probably never turn on you, not with his wife’s job, and not with the other ties he has to Bradley," she wrote. "If I was a betting person, I’d say that Sykes came up with the idea to bring (George) Kelling here in the first place."

Sykes’ wife, Janet Riordan, works for the conservative Bradley Foundation. That group paid Kelling and another consultant to oversee the search for a new MPD chief two years ago. Sykes did not return a message Friday.

Of course he didn't.

How are pork rinds made?

You won’t be happy you watched this, but, regardless, you will.

My favorite line was: “They take Porky’s hide and cut it into one-inch squares to assure a uniform product.”



Mmmmmm. One-inch squares.

Via Huffington Post.

So, was Obama really giving a woman (not his wife) a once over at the G8?

Well, not, really, at least according to the video evidence:



However, it is pretty darn clear, what's going on here:

By the way this photo was taken in August of 2008. There were 23 US casualties in Iraq that month. More information on all US casualties here.

Plus: Media Matters has a good roundup on how Drudge rules their world here.

How about dropping Saturday's printed edition of the Journal Sentinel?

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild is reporting that Journal Sentinel, Inc. negotiators are proposing an on-call system for some reporters and photographers:

Journal Sentinel Inc. negotiators are proposing a new system that would let newsroom managers schedule some reporters and photographers to be “on call” on weekends and holidays instead of working in the newsroom.

With a shrinking staff, the company wants more flexibility in scheduling personnel, management bargainers told the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild’s bargaining team Thursday. The move also would let more reporters work traditional Monday-through-Friday schedules, instead of adding more people to the local news desk weekend rotation and/or increasing the frequency of their shifts, company bargainers said.

Here’s how the system would work, under management’s proposal: The current crew of four local reporters and one photographer each Saturday, Sunday and holiday would be reduced by one or two positions. But one or two people would be scheduled to be on call for 12 hours that day. During that time, they would have to refrain from alcohol, be reachable by telephone and be available to come to work on short notice.

It's hard to know from the description if this is a move to cut costs, create flexibility for schedulers, or a little bit of both. As noted earlier, management is also proposing another round of buyouts aimed at reducing the newsroom staff as well.

I can't say I understand all the economics of it, but as the size of the paper has been reduced and other steps such as dropping the editorial page on Mondays have been undertaken, I 've wondered why the paper doesn't simply stop publishing one day per week altogether. The annualized costs of printing, producing, and shipping a single edition of the paper must be substantial. My guess would be that Saturday is a day where readership would be lighter. This could have the affect of increasing, slightly, the demand for advertising on other days. Any breaking news could be handled through the paper's Web site.

There is, surely, a prestige factor in running or working for a seven-day operation, but the main prestige of a publication is, or ought to be, based on the quality of its content. Chasing away talent through buyouts or complicated staffing systems seems counter-productive to achieving that end.

Three

There's this from The Mudflats via Taegan Goddard:

"On a hunch, I reviewed online lists of all the men and women who've been elected governor of their state since the year 1900. Pored over them for a few hours. Over 1200 politicians have taken that first-term oath of office. Some soon died in office. Many resigned to accept other positions in government, including Spiro Agnew who was 'tapped' by Nixon after being the Governor of Maryland for about five minutes. On a handful of occasions, a first-termer was dragged off to the slammer or impeached. One was incapacitated by a nervous breakdown and one left just as impeachment came knocking on his door. So -- how many out of over 1200 just up and quit before the end of their term?"

Three: Jim McGreevy, Eliot Spitzer and Sarah Palin."

What the French can teach us about healthcare

Via Matt Yglesias is the above chart from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development about health care spending in other industrialized nations as a percentage of gross domestic product. There's no evidence that these countries have worse health outcomes than the American system, but governments and businesses there have simply figured out a way to deliver it more efficiently. It's another factor to remember when you look at who is lobbying Congress in the current debate and what their motivations might be for spending millions against any option which includes a public plan.

On another somewhat related point, this article (it's just a stub; full article is for subscribers only) from the Business Journal of Milwaukee highlights why some people might have problems understanding the crush of data used to argue for or against certain healthcare plans. The headline, "Region's healthcare costs more in line with Midwest average," would seem to be communicating something positive about lowering healthcare costs. But as you read through to the details, you learn that employers have simply shifted more of the burden of the cost of their plan to their employees. This move doesn't lower any actual costs anywhere along the line--it just changes who is paying for it.

And since no individual or even a single company has any leverage to negotiate for significant reductions in the cost of healthcare, insurance companies and providers have little reason to lower their costs when these shifts occur. Businesses, however, can tell their shareholders that costs are going down and the media reports that in such a way that sounds like progress. And we all go back to doing the same thing as before.

In search of a business model for journalism

My post from a couple weeks ago on the affair between Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn and journalist Jessica McBride suggesting the Journal Sentinel hire an ombudsman to give readers insights into how the paper collects and produces news, generated about half a dozen off the record comments from staff members with the same message: Good luck with that.

Dan Bice, perhaps the paper’s most well-known reporter and author of the story about the chief’s dalliance with McBride, was the only one willing to go on the record. “Good luck on getting us to hire an ombudsman,” Bice wrote in an e-mail. “The talk around here is that we’ll soon be facing yet another round of buyouts.”

As if on cue, the Small Business Times Daily reported that Journal Communications, the Journal Sentinel’s parent company, sent a lawyer to meet with representatives of the Newspaper Guild Milwaukee Local 51’s bargaining unit recently. The message? Prepare to lose “substantially more than 25” positions from the newsroom.

The latest round of reductions also could include managers, sources said. If the targeted number of employees does not accept the company's latest buyout offer, layoffs will follow, sources said. People accepting the latest buyout offer would need to agree to leave by Aug. 1.

The Guild has asked the company to clarify some of the details of its latest demands.

The Guild’s blog has more details here.

It seems a pity that, just as almost everyone agrees that the quality of the Journal Sentinel’s reporting product has increased, the economic fortunes of the newspaper industry has gone into such a steep decline. Daily newspapers seem the biggest casualties, but a subtext of the Flynn story, raised here by Milwaukee Magazine editor Bruce Murphy, is that print publications of all sizes are struggling to find reporters who can provide in-depth reporting for not a lot of money, a situation complicated by the siren call and instant gratification of the Internet. “Blogging is fun, “Murphy notes. “In-depth reporting is hard work.”

The retreaded debate on journalism today is that a proliferation of free content online and the preferences of younger readers are driving down paid subscribers and, hence, advertising revenues. While I’m one who believes that there will always be a demand for professionally reported and written news, how that news gets produced and distributed certainly seems up for grabs.

One of the more interesting ideas to emerge in the last few years is that of reporting as a non-profit enterprise. This model was all the rage at a conference last month of the Investigative Reporters and Editors group.

A prominent local example of non-profit journalism initiatives is the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Wisconsin, which just received a $100,000 grant.

The Journal Sentinel used reporting provided by Center students in last Sunday’s story regarding Governor Jim Doyle’s travel expenditures. And this would seem to be a way to extend the paper’s coverage of important issues by partnering with organizations that can provide reporting at, presumably, a lower cost.

However, Murphy noted that the story lacked context and specifically didn’t compare Doyle’s travel expenditures to those of his predecessors. And to a certain extent, the story did seem to be little more than just an affirmation that the governor, well, makes trips for which there is a cost involved to taxpayers. Most readers probably already knew that.

The paper's editorial staff would probably disagree with that assessment, but the point is that generating interesting content is always an issue--with or without the pressures of quarterly earnings reports. It's a process that takes talented reporters and editors, and it's not made any easier when the newsroom is wondering when the next axe will fall.

Guns Protecting America: NFL Quarterback Edition

Compared to Wisconsin, the only thing surprising about the Steve McNair incident is that he didn't shoot her:

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Former National Football League quarterback Steve McNair was murdered by his “distraught” girlfriend, who then committed suicide, Nashville police said.

McNair and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, were found shot to death July 4 at a Nashville condominium that the former Tennessee Titans player owned with a friend.

Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas said at a televised news conference that Kazemi was “spinning out of control” in the days before the shootings, upset by money concerns and the belief that McNair was seeing another woman.

“While we may never know exactly what drove Miss Kazemi to make that decision on that Saturday morning, the totality of the evidence clearly points to a murder-suicide,” Serpas said.

Investigators determined that McNair was probably asleep sitting up on the couch when Kazemi shot him once in the right temple, twice in the chest and then once in the left temple. She then positioned herself next to him and killed herself with a single gunshot to the head.

McNair, who was married with four children, had been dating Kazemi for several months before the shootings. She bought the semi-automatic pistol two days before the killings.

McNair's death, thus, is a sad but somewhat routine fact of American life, in which the victim is intimate with the perpetrator and easily accessible firearms provide the means.

Last September, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence issued its annual Domestic Homicide Annual Report for 2006 and 2007. The group found that murders involving intimate partners or family members increased from 2.3 per month in 2006 to 3.3 per month in 2007. Nearly all perpetrators are male (21 in 2006; 24 in 2007), white (15 in 2006;13 in 2007), and use a gun (12 in 2006; 21 in 2007.)

As to gun violence generally, the group makes a sobering case:

According to various research studies, when firearms are in homes, an abused woman was six times more likely than other abused women to be killed. Guns are kept in homes where there is domestic violence more often than in homes that are not violent. In addition, if a gun is present, its use in domestic violence situations is relatively common. In 2006-2007, 12 of the 22 firearm-involved incidents occurred in the victims' homes. All of the incidents involved an intimate partner relationship, either between the perpetrator and the victim, or between the perpetrators and someone involved with the victim.

You can read the whole report here. It's grim, particulary the sections about children, but worth it to get an idea of how the gun culture in the United States affects crime and upends innocent lives.

"What are all these black kids doing here?"

More here.

I'm sure they're just trying to make a big deal out of nothing. And this manager who booted them out? Well, he was probably recovering from some kind of surgical procedure. As we know, too many painkillers can make a person say really stupid things.

Mark Benson’s letter to Gene Mueller

I’m not sure what’ s worse about this.

Is it witnessing someone who's having the horrified realization that a life of privilege and promise is at an end?

Or is that 620-WTMJ slapped their ugly logo all over it?

Something about Sarah? Really?

Mark Belling is working the Rush Limbaugh show this week, which is always amusing, and when I tuned in for the rebroadcast on 1130 WISN-AM yesterday he was praising Republicans like Sarah Palin and trashing "country club Republicans," adding that Milwaukee had too many of the latter for his taste. Since Milwaukee is a small town and the list of active of Republicans is even smaller, Belling was almost certainly trashing individuals he's met, hosted on his show, maybe even shared dinner or a hot tub with--who knows?

Anyway, the manner in which Palin has captured the hearts and stirred the loins of Republicans all over the country has really been something to behold, and is a measure, I would posit, of how desperate the GOP is to hang onto anyone who might have some sort of credibility with the public at large. The problem is that Palin has very little credibility with the public at large--at least when it comes to her fitness to be president.

So, what's the attraction for Republicans? Belling was suggesting that it was because Palin represents a leaner, meaner GOP, one that's willing to hit Democrats hard, mock liberalism, and speak the truth to the MSM.

Whatever. I can't think of a single national election that's been won on those "issues" alone. Even if our politics are somewhat cheaper than they used to be, the public still expects its candidates to at least look like they have a reasonable understanding of how Social Security works. And the problem with Palin is that she demonstrated little grasp for the issues when she was given the chance as John McCain's running mate.

That isn't a fatal flaw. Freed from the constraints of having a job, she could spend the next couple of years learning public policy--or at least enough of it to make it through an interview with Katie Couric.

But Palin the policy wonk is not what Belling and many other conservatives want. What they want is the pit bull in lipstick, who will, presumably, embarrass and cow liberals into submission.

To that point, the best comment I've seen was this from Atrios:

The whole Sarah Palin "phenomenon" has been pretty weird. I've tried to figure out why she's so loved in wingnut world, where even they have to occasionally pick up on the fact that she's pretty absurd. And I guess I come back to what I usually do: they love her because they thinks she pisses off liberals.

We're not angry, we're laughing.

In other words, bring it on.

(Photo: Princess Sparkle Pony.)

Oscar Mayer is dead...

...well, the third one at any rate:

Madison — Oscar G. Mayer, retired chairman of the Madison-based meat processing company that bears his name, has died at the age of 95.

His wife Geraldine said he died from complications of old age.

He was the third Oscar Mayer in the family that founded Oscar Mayer Foods, which once was Madison's largest private employer. His grandfather, Oscar F. Mayer, died in 1955 and his father, Oscar G. Mayer Sr., died in 1965.

Mayer retired as chairman of the board in 1977 at age 62 soon after the company recorded its first $1 billion year. The company was later sold to General Foods, now a division of Philip Morris.

According to the article, the funeral is Friday. Hopefully, they'll sing this:

Health care reform: This is who we're fighting

From the Washington Post:

...at least 50 former employees of the Senate Finance Committee or its members now lobby on behalf of the healthcare industry, in many cases for more than one client.

And their job is to make money for their clients and stockholders, not ensure access to safe, affordable healthcare. Who is representing us? As usual, no one.

(H/T: Susie Madrak.)

So, what's Fred Thompson been up to?

Many of us were concerned that Fred Thompson would have a hard time of it after his tough loss during the 2008 Republican Presidential primary. After all, Fred, who's been a powerful US Senator and a star of television and film, is a man who's used to being where the action is. What would this energetic, vibrant, larger than life personality do to continue to make a difference, promote good ol' fashoned American values, and fight the good fight?

Well, we needn't have worried. As always Fred is the man with the plan...



...ROCK ON!!!!!!!!


(Credit: Rick Wood/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Senator Al Franken and the last laugh...

Robert S. McNamara, war criminal, dies peacefully in his sleep

Robert S. McNamara, architect of and advocate for the ruinous war in Vietnam, died today in his sleep--in sharp contrast to the nearly 60 thousand Americans who died horribly fighting a futile war the nation never needed to wage. Many thousands more suffered serious injuries or died as suicides.

Estimates are that nearly 2 million North Vietnamese and 2 million South Vietnamese died during the war.

From the New York Times article:

Mr. McNamara was the most influential defense secretary of the 20th century. Serving Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, he oversaw hundreds of military missions, thousands of nuclear weapons and billions of dollars in military spending and foreign arms sales. He also enlarged the defense secretary’s role, handling foreign diplomacy and the dispatch of troops to enforce civil rights in the South.

In other words, he was responsible for making the military industrial complex a reality.

Half a million American soldiers went to war on his watch. More than 16,000 died; 42,000 more would fall in the seven years to come.

The war became his personal nightmare. Nothing he did, none of the tools at his command — the power of American weapons, the forces of technology and logic, or the strength of American soldiers — could stop the armies of North Vietnam and their South Vietnamese allies, the Vietcong. He concluded well before leaving the Pentagon that the war was futile, but he did not share that insight with the public until late in life.

He could have worked to end the war, sparing the lives of perhaps thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Vietnamese. He did not. Decades passed before he revealed the truth about himself and the war.

In 1995, he took a stand against his own conduct of the war, confessing in a memoir that it was “wrong, terribly wrong.” In return, he faced a firestorm of scorn.

“Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting moral condemnation of his countrymen,” The New York Times said in a widely discussed editorial, written by the page’s editor at the time, Howell Raines. “Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late.”

By then he wore the expression of a haunted man. He could be seen in the streets of Washington — stooped, his shirttail flapping in the wind — walking to and from his office a few blocks from the White House, wearing frayed running shoes and a thousand-yard stare.

And he wasn't just haunted by Vietnam. In interviews with filmmaker Errol Morris for the Fog of War, McNamara echoed doubts about US actions against the Japanese at the end of World War II.

In the film, Mr. McNamara described the American firebombing of Japan’s cities in World War II. He had played a supporting role in those attacks, running statistical analysis for Gen. Curtis E. LeMay of the Army’s Air Forces.

“We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children,” Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians died in all. “LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He — and I’d say I — were behaving as war criminals.”

“What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” he asked. He found the question impossible to answer.

The world is a lighter place today.

MacIver Institute leadership should fire Dooley—but they won’t

Racially tinged language and jokes are a staple of right-wing talk radio programming like the Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage shows, but individual Republicans and conservative interest groups seem to be increasingly bold in distributing racist attacks, especially through e-mail and social media sites.

And there seems to be no attempt on the part of the Republican Party or conservatives to speak out against the trend.

Consider:

• Last December, an Alaskan state e-mail account was used to distribute a series of jokes about the new president, including “Another Black living in government housing.” Outgoing Governor Sarah Palin had no comment on the matter.
  
• The mayor of Los Alamitos, California sent an e-mail depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons and the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."
  
• Russ DePass, a South Carolina GOP activist, called Michelle Obama a gorilla and Sherri Goforth, a legislative aide for a Republican state senator in Tennessee, sent an e-mail with images of the American presidents that represented Obama as a pair of white eyes against a black background.
  
• Another aide to a Tennessee lawmaker, a former College Republican, was forced to resign after using a state e-mail account to distribute racist material.
  

The latest incident comes from Wisconsin. Fred Dooley, a blogger for the conservative MacIver Institute, used his personal Twitter account to forward a joke about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Posted Dooley:

"Got my stimulus package in the mail today. It contained watermelon seeds, cornbread mix, and ten coupons to KFC."

Dooley’s explanation for the racist crack was almost as lame as his post was offensive. He claimed his judgment was impaired from prescription medication and anesthesia following surgery:

"In that state I didn't notice any racial connotations. I'm from the deep south and to me that's not a racial thing, it is a southern thing. If I had not been under the effects of anesthesia I would have likely noticed that could have been taken the wrong way and would have passed on it."

Dooley doesn’t apologize for the racist nature of his post, only that it might have been misunderstood. MacIver Institute President Brett Healy also declined to apologize and told me this in an e-mail:

“While we will not comment on personnel matters, clearly this repost on his personal site never would have been published by the Institute and we are glad to hear Fred has apologized.”

Healy seems to be standing by Dooley—at least at this point—and he has not responded to my question about whether the Institute employs any minorities or has any persons of color on its Board of Directors.

Is it any wonder that when national GOP chairman Michael Steele spoke to the Wisconsin Republican Convention recently, a reporter noted that he appeared to be the only African American in the room?

Healy should do the right thing and fire Dooley immediately. It seems unlikely that he will, and part of the reason could be that that the GOP and conservatives may have given up on the African American vote altogether. Obama won 96% of the black vote in 2008, and turned out 13% more African Americans to the polls than in any of the last eight presidential elections.

Attacks from the likes of Dooley and his colleagues around the nation could just be an acknowledgement to the party’s base that 2012 is out of reach.

For those who follow politics, the Web and social media sites have the promise of strengthening our democracy by providing tools that increase communication and give activists opportunities to make connections and build coalitions.

It is a shame, frankly, that these same tools are being used to emphasize the worst elements of our culture and history.

Elvis Costello sings Pump it Up

We'll be at SummerFest tonight with two kids who are going to be pissed if Elvis Costello is doing a country set tonight.

Dear Sarah Palin: Please sue me

John McNamara:

I know how victimized you feel about the lies being spread online and in the media. I know you believe it's your right to threaten and silence those who would question or disagree with you. So let me offer my help in giving you the grounds to sue me for defamation, win and drive a stake into the heart of the First Amendment.

Because everything I'm now going to write about you in this public forum is a total lie:

Ready?

God, I admire you.

You are a skilled public speaker, a thoughtful public strategist and a natural leader.

You should wear longer skirts because your legs are an embarrassment.

The thought of you holding political office fills me with pride and joy.

Your reason for resigning will soon be revealed as measured, selfless and strategically brilliant. In future histories written about you it will be referred to as "the genius move."

You have been the recipient of more unfair attacks than any figure in world history.

And in the future, the words "quitter," "diva," "crybaby," "psycho," and "Little Miss Pouty Pants" will never be used against you.

...
You are a lock for president in 2012. Obama should just give up now. Because that guy's the kind of leader who, when he's questioned or attacked, just fires back low level insults then stomps off to sulk. You will wipe that guy off the map. Poor Obama.

You are the Democratic Party's worst nightmare.

Read the rest.

Grill green this summer

Unfortunately, grilling food is not very good for the environment. Grist TV has some suggestions, including Portabello Burgers and avoiding charcoal.



We like grilling in the summer and will certainly try some of these tips.

(Via Matt Yglesias.)

Happy Independence Day

Here's hoping.

(Via Cogitamus.)

Power to the People

It's Independence Day, and a good time to remember that this country was founded on ideas. Those ideas are powerful, and do a lot to maintain the nation through times like our recent shameful history of bringing death and destruction to so many innocent people around the world.

This isn't a perfect song to express the notion that we can control what our government does through our engagement and action, but it'll do.

The W.A.N.D

(You've got the power in there)
(Waving your wand in the air)

Time after time those fanatical minds try to rule all the world
Telling us all it's them who's in charge of it all
I've got a tricked out magic stick that will make them all fall
We've got the power now, motherfuckers; that's where it belongs

You've got that right
(Power in there)
You know that it's...
(Wand in the air)

They've got their weapons to solve all their questions, they don't know what it's for
(Cause they don't know what it's for)
Why can't they see it's not power, just greed, to just want more and more?
(Just want more and more)
I got a plan and it's here in my hand but it's all made of rights
We're the enforcers, the sorcerer's orphans, and we know why we fight
(And we know why we fight)

You've got that right
(You've got the power in there)
(Waving your wand in the air)

(You've got the power in there)
(You've got the power in there)
(You've got the power in there)
(Waving your wand in the air)

You've got that right
You know that it's...

Heh

Jason Haas:

Quitters are the new fighters.

Palin resigns: Collossal sulk, brewing scandal, or 2012?

Josh Marshall:

Okay, we're getting our first indication of what happened. It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media.

Said Palin, according to a reporter at the press conference, "You are naive if you don't see a full-court press on the national level, picking apart a good point guard."

Here's the video of the announcement. It's, frankly, very weird. Apparently, she asked her children "Do you want me to make a positive difference and fight for all of our children's future from outside the governor's office?"Plus, resigning means "No more politics as usual."

My guess? There's another scandal brewing.

Update: Even Rich Lowry agrees: That speech was terrible.

We carried you in our arms on Independence Day

A Richard Manuel/Bob Dylan song performed by The Band.

Following a national trend, MacIver Institute blogger tweets a racist joke

Barack Obama's continues to bring out the worst among some conservatives, and the latest is the MacIver Institute's Fred Dooley. According to Dan Bice, Dooley offered this "joke" recently at his Twitter feed:

"Got my stimulus package in the mail today. It contained watermelon seeds, cornbread mix, and ten coupons to KFC."

Now that might pass as funny at a MacIver Institute staff meeting or at a cocktail party for their donors, but for most people it's extremely offensive. Asked by Bice to explain himself, Dooley offers up the classic, "I was under the influence of pain medication and I'm from the South excuse:"

In an e-mail today, Dooley said he took the tweet from somebody else and re-posted it on his page. In addition, he said he did all this shortly after having gall bladder surgery and while he was still under the influence of painkillers and anesthesia.

"In that state I didn't notice any racial connotations. I'm from the deep south and to me that's not a racial thing, it is a southern thing. If I had not been under the effects of anesthesia I would have likely noticed that could have been taken the wrong way and would have passed on it."

As seems to be usual in these cases, Dooley does offer an apology, but not for the joke itself, only that anyone saw it.

"I do regret posting it and hope no one took any offense form it. In the future I'll not Tweet under the influence."

Dooley joins a growing list of Republicans and conservatives making racist jokes at the expense of the President and the First Lady. I'm not sure if it's some kind of strategy to win back the White House in 2012, but it could be. One can never tell with these people.

Dooley's been tolerant with racism at his own blog in the past. This post contains a rant from an anonymous blogger who's obsessed about identifying Obama as a "mulatto."

So far, at least, there's been no statement from the leadership of the MacIver Institute. I'm sure they're delighted this matter has come to light at the start of a long holiday weekend. Nevertheless, I've asked for a comment and I'll let you know how they respond.

See also Cory and Zach.

The "Ledge" at the Sears Tower in Chicago

Via Shakesville. Do not watch if you're afraid of heights. I am.

Deep thought

Had it been the Bush Administration staging this massive offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, conservative pundits and bloggers would have been linking, high-fiving, and drooling at the prospects of sticking it to Allah. As it stands, they want Obama to fail, so nothing.

A grown-up’s view of what’s happening in Honduras

Do not miss Mike McCallister’s take on what’s happening now in Honduras.

And, for laughs, do not miss this discussion joined, mostly, by folks who likely could not identify Honduras on a map with hints and help from Dora’s naked monkey.

News Release of the Day

If you’re a Republican, you know you’ve hit one out of the park when you manage to tie your primary opponent to mooning, public promiscuity, MTV reality shows, and gay bars. Especially mooning.

Left unexplained: What’s an aggressive farmer?

Note to state GOP: Obey isn’t going anywhere. However, you might want to ask after Tom Petri.

McCain-Feingold going down?

That’s the speculation. And isn’t it interesting how Chief Justice Roberts times it?

Ted Kanavas: I might move to Texas

Mike Tate: Can we help you pack?

Politics forces policy decisions during budget process

Like 99.8% of Wisconsin residents, I didn’t pay that much attention to the recently concluded budget discussions in the Legislature. This was not for lack of interest—it’s just that I didn’t care.

Unless you have a political axe to grind, there is not much to do about government budgeting in a recession. Yes, taxes and fees are going up, but Democrats in control of the Legislature seemed to have struck the best balance they could in preserving spending to stimulate the economy and making cuts in personnel and program expenses. And, in truth, there are states far worse off than Wisconsin.

Conservative critics of the budget should remember that behind every furloughed or laid-off state employee is a family that needs to put food on the table, and that reality will stress the economy as much as job cuts in the private sector. This is a fact not much regarded by Republicans in the Assembly and Senate, who, like their counterparts in Congress, have decided that doing and proposing nothing serves their short-term political interests.

Criticize Democrats all you want (especially for this silly dispute over transit) but the GOP is again proving they don’t have a plan to govern in either good economic times or bad.

In fact, all the GOP seemed to lend to the process was criticisms like this from Julaine Appling, the state’s leading moral scold:

“The governor and the majority of the state legislature ignored the will of the people, especially in regards to the non-fiscal policy items in the budget, including the statewide, same-sex domestic partner registry. The multiple non-fiscal policy items and the huge increases in taxing, spending and borrowing contained in this budget make it very clear to the people of Wisconsin that their dollars, their concerns and their votes were not a high priority for the proponents of this budget.”

Appling is lately of the reactionary Wisconsin Family Action, and formerly leader of the effort that denied gay and lesbian partners civil marriage rights (at least temporarily) in 2006. Policy items she criticizes include extending limited domestic partnership benefits for state employees, expanding programs to reduce teen pregnancies, and ensuring that women won’t have to argue with state-licensed pharmacists to receive contraceptives prescribed by physicians.

This isn’t really surprising. Being critical of these issues is Appling’s job. Despite her claims, these are mostly uncontroversial items. But Rick Esenberg, Appling’s intellectual handmaiden in 2006, suggests a broader problem with using the budget process to adopt policy. “This results in a lack of public scrutiny and debate and, in my view, too much logrolling,” Esenberg writes. “It empowers the ability of legislative leaders—as opposed to constituents—to twist the arms of backbenchers.”

This view strikes me as somewhat naïve and fairly disingenuous. First, over the years each of the items noted above have had a fair airing, if not on the particulars then certainly generally. The public has, largely, accepted a government role in reducing teen pregnancy through the encouragement of contraceptive use. State and federal funding for Planned Parenthood, another Appling complaint, has been going on for years to, again, little public outcry, except among extreme anti-Choice partisans. What we have here is not a lack of debate, but unhappiness with an outcome.

And suggesting that the budget process lacked transparency because it was passed with policy items overlooks a reality of electoral politics—a reality that Appling and Esenberg and the groups they support share a responsibility for creating. Elected officials are reluctant to call too much attention to any vote that might later be twisted in a negative ad or used by political operatives. Burying some of these items in a large budget looks like an attractive option compared to seeing it used in a direct mail piece.

Is this a best-case process for making policy? No. Is it fair to the public to make decisions at 2:00 AM? Certainly not, and I’m sure at some point something will get passed in a similar fashion that I’ll oppose when legislative power swings, as it inevitably does. Esenberg, too, notes this is a bipartisan crime.

But where’s the trade-off? Restricting organization’s like Appling from getting involved in elections? I’m not there, even if the public might support it, since preserving free speech rights is far more important than a one-time vote on a domestic registry.

Still, when things have to get pushed forward for the benefit of the public, a way must be found. The budget cycle may not be the best place, but our politics, at least as they’re practiced now, seems to make it a necessity—for both sides.