Shutdown-a-palooza

The last gavel has still not fallen on the government shutdown, with a budget possibly still in the works at this late hour. What are the developments over the past few hours?

On the Republican side, it speaks volume that Tom Coburn seemed to be the only adult in the Republican caucus, but he may be getting support to make a deal from the House Republican ranks. Removing the rider that would prohibit the EPA from regulating industrial pollution shows that the Republicans are willing to back off of their showy issues in order to achieve their broader ideological goals. In the budget showdown, Republicans have laid their cards on the table. They are pushing for an America that can not provide adequate healthcare, economic security, international leadership, or consumer protections. The backing away from the naked language prohibiting such action is a positive sign, but does not lessen the magnitude of the Republican success in pushing an ideological budget at the expense of the American taxpayer. Meanwhile, Repbulicans are holding the budget hostage in order to fight womens' health, not to mention equality and freedom.

In the White House, Biden is showing the raw frustrated of being forced to argue with children. This type of honest emotional display will resonate with Americans when they ask themselves, "Who caused this shutdown?" although Republican propagandists are seriously pushing the line that democrats are at fault. Meanwhile, the President is playing good cop to Biden's more eye-catching bad cop routine. The mediator role tarnished President Obama's political standing in the health care debate, where he was caught in the middle of a prolonged legislative battle. In the budget fight, the decisive end probably will pay off better political dividends.

Your Times Tomorrow Today

Links to front-page New York Times articles to get you around the paywall.

• The deepening of the Egyptian Revolution seems more focused on ensuring real personnel change than any ideological or theological agenda, answering Islamaphobes everywhere.
• Meanwhile, airstrikes in Libya kill 5. No word yet on when Islamaphobes will have to eat their hat on preventing mass murder there.
• In La Cote D'Ivoire grim reality is setting in.
• The Portugal bailout is not without political cost.
• In the local carnivore movement, slaughterhouse capacity is proving the big bottleneck in getting beef to market. Thank me later for avoiding a "Where's the beef" pun.
• If your stated goal is to be the adult in the room, expect your political opponents to stick to 'No Deal' on matters of national importance.
• Speaking of which, a looming government shutdown would have serious consequences, including being more expensive than maintaining government operations. Even from a budget or 'cutting spending' standpoint, shutting down the government doesn't make any sense. Yet John Boehner is preparing a shutdown just to punish Planned Parenthood. Punishment, I suppose, for being a health resource for women.
• The race to the bottom for states attracting businesses is reaching new heights.
• Another look back at secessionism, of the oldentimes variety, not the Texas Governor style. It does seem like the GOP calls for secession have quieted down a bit recently, doesn't it?
• Getting on to the Republican substantive agenda, the House votes to prevent the EPA from protecting the environment against industrial emissions. Next week, they'll ask the Department of Justice to stop prosecuting criminals. Oh wait, they already did.
• Maybe feeding food crops into industrial energy processes isn't the best idea.
• Headline: Obama administration to tackle inequality in education. Meanwhile, Bloomberg's gambit of school reform has come crashing down in just 3 months. If Social Security is the third rail of American politics, inequality in education is the super high voltage long-distance power distribution grid cable.
• Why pay Congress? So we can have represntatives that don't have to be wealthy as a precondition for serving their constituents. I'm afraid to click the link to find out if Nicholas Kristof can come up with that answer after posing such a question.
• Japan is still not out of the seismic activity woods, registering a 7.4 magnitude aftershock friday morning (local time).
• Finally, Disney is planning to waste millions of dollars in China.

Consistency on WI Recount

There appears to be news from Wisconsin today that the initial election results were affected by a computer error, hiding some 7 thousand votes for incumbent David Prosser. This changes the math a little bit, putting him ahead by nearly six thousand votes. We'll see if there were other errors across the state in reporting, so the numbers could still move quite a bit.

Regardless of the outcome for the court, I am doubling down on my call for the loser of the election to forgo filing for a recount. A judicially overseen recount of a judicial election is a nightmare scenario for the perceived impartiality of the courts. Judges would be in the position of choosing their coworkers and bosses, inviting an already elite heavy institution to become downright oligarchic. The possibility of recounts is a major bug of the elected judiciary, but not an inescapable one. In Wisconsin's case, Kloppenburg could simply dismiss any evidence of fraud or mistakes, deciding not to file for a recount.

There is a bigger question for Kloppenburg, or any loser of a close election: does a recount secure accuracy of democratic results in elections? I find little evidence for the affirmative. If any real grounds for a recount are present, they could be ferreted out by journalists. The competitive search for shocking stories of fraud and abuse will drive enough inquiry into the matter. Would such an outcome leave the public without recourse? Of course not; political pressure would force any illegitimately elected official from stepping down. Recount procedures could quickly be put in place for the removal of intransigent officials.

Nobody who survived the 2000 election recount and abrupt court-ordered end to vote counting can trust courts to always decide political matters with a modicum of fairness or impartiality. That is precisely the lesson of the political question doctrine. Let political actors sort out the political. Vote counting is a technocratic field, not a suitably legal endeavor. If improprieties exist within the state vote counting apparatus, the legal system should involve themselves insofar as prosecuting offenders. The judicial branch has a few comparative institutional advantages to the political branches, but not when it comes to presiding over elections.

Prosser v. Kloppenburg

The Wisconsin Supreme Court election which pitted conservative incumbent David Prosser against Joanne Kloppenburg is heading towards a recount, which is a nightmare scenario for the perception of the judicial branch as an impartial mediator. Courts are typically involved in overseeing election recounts as candidates file legal challenges to the execution of the recount, which can at times deviate from the stated recount procedures. These lawsuits are an integral part of close elections, no less important or legitimate as campaigning.

With nearly 1.5 million votes cast for either candidate, only 204 ballots currently separate Prosser and Kloppenburg, with the challenger coming out narrowly ahead.

There is no automatic recount in Wisconsin; Prosser would have to ask for a recount. Because the total separating the candidates is less than .5% of the vote however, the state will pay for the recount of ballots. Prosser will be allowed to pick and choose wards to recount, though there is also nothing to prevent Kloppenburg from lodging a similar recount request in wards that she believes undercounted her votes. The most important thing about filing a recount in Wisconsin is that there must be specific grounds for believing that a count in a particular ward or municipality are mistaken or fraudulent. Because the recount petition is filed with an administrative body and not a court, there does not seem to be a fact-finding stage of the process to determine the validity of the grounds for recount. However, this is certainly a stage of the recount where the court is likely to be brought in. If Prosser files a recount alleging fraud or mistakes on poor evidence, Kloppenburg may go to the courts to enjoin the recount of districts where the evidence of irregularities is not sufficient.

I say that this is a nightmare scenario for the perceived impartiality of the courts in Wisconsin because such a legal challenge would undoubtedly be appealed up to the Supreme Court within a matter of weeks if not days. The Supreme Court cannot pretend to be impartial. It is a group of nine people working closely together. They certainly have professional and personal biases against or for either candidate, and with any electoral issue before them, the court would be able to choose between retaining Prosser or firing him and gaining Kloppenburg. Even in non-political arenas, this would be an impossibly sticky situation for the judges. Imagine that at your work place, your immediate team and hiring and firing power over a coworker. It's a coworker that at has publicly called your team leader a "total bitch." Judges are idealized to take into account only the issue before them, but petty office politics could easily win the day when the judges retreat to their chambers to come up with a decision.

My point is not that Prosser is doomed if his case comes before the Supreme Court.

Kloppenburg v. Prosser

Possibly the most closely watched judicial election ever in the United States Click the top link- I can't get it to go straight from this page.

Budget and Economic Messaging 101

The key for Democrats fighting the radical Paul Ryan budget is to be clear about what the budget means. The budget on its own terms are immensely unpopular. Of course, the key is message discipline and focus. I think Ezra Klein hones in on the simple problem for Republicans in the first line:

a) Non-defense discretionary: Brings spending back to pre-2008 levels and freezes it there for five years.

Americans don't want to go back to pre-2008 government. Of course, that phrase is a little obscure, and hard to connect with Americans' concrete realities.
Americans don't want to go back to Bush era government. Independent fiscal hawks are still unhappy with the Bush-era spending as they were with the current administration's attempts to fix the holes. Even self-identifying conservatives still don't like the Bush brand. Yet, it's exactly the plan that Republicans have promised.

Americans still remember that the Bush administrations' policies ended in the financial catastrophe which started the recession on mainstreet. Americans understand that Bush-era spending levels did not reflect their values. Americans soundly rejected Bush-era politics and spending in the 2008 election.

Drug Control Regimes: Cigarettes on the Street

Today's New York Times features a piece detailing the black market for loosies on New York streets. Single cigarette sales are illegal in New York under state law. The market for loosies has soared along with prices for a pack.

The basic economic reality of cigarette taxes are clear: at a fairly low price point, a black market springs up to service demand for cigarettes. A legally bought cigarette, which comes in a pack of twenty, are quickly supplanted by either smaller-packaged cigarillos, usually coming in 6 per pack or the illegally sold loosies. Basic microeconomic models suggest that adding a tax to the manufacturer-determined price should knock out a certain segment of the market from affording the habit of smoking. That is the simple public health rationale behind sin taxes on liquor and cigarettes.

This simplistic model fails to take into account the ability of black market or grey market suppliers from poaching that pool of demand. The addicts who are priced out of their substance of choice are far more motivated to seek out a replacement market than purchasers of normal goods, making the market far more fluid, as well as making the demand relatively inelastic. Even price-control regimes such as tariffs and excise taxes introduce the problems of prohibition. The economic opportunity benefits undesirable elements of the society who benefit from a lack of state regulation. For public policy scholars interested in drug control regimes, I would recommend Alfred R Lindesmith's The Addict and the Law, a sociological review of post-World War II opium control regimes in the Pacific, the United States, and England.
Addict and the Law

Pleasure Reading NYTimes

A fun adventure linking the NYTimes so you and yours can avoid the paywall. Enjoy!

• Now that the economy is adding robust numbers of jobs each month, the New York Times puts on its best Jeb Bartlett impression and tells the Obama Administration, "Break's over." Now they have to advertise the democrats' hand in righting the economic ship.
• Tina Fey Book Review, though there isn't much value-added besides the snippets and anecdotes retold from the book.
• Scintilatingly titled op-ed on unapid internships and the death of out-of-college employment prospects.
• Historical bit on origins of American slavery.
• Insights into Alzheimer's disease from a genetic study.
• Non-scientist Paul Krugman tells a room of science-deniers I-told-you-so after the chief climate change denying scientist's analysis agrees that climate change is real.
• Tea Party favorite and everybody-else crazy person Michelle Bachmann is on the ground in Iowa after beating Mitt Romney and the rest of the putative Republican 2012 field in first quarter fundraising.
• Time to dust off the old Godzilla series, because a post-apocalyptic nuclear disaster is slipping into the sea.

Journalistic Elitism

In is swampland blog on the Time magazine website,Michael Sherer does a great disservice to electoral organizers and campaign workers. To be fair, his general theme-hunting Barack Obama's reelection campaign announcement video is not particularly problematic, and could even prove insightful. However, his fourth point rests entirely on an elitist distaste for campaign workers, volunteers, and organizers:

4. Obama will be running on his character. The most interesting quote of the video comes from the southern white guy. "I don't agree with Obama on everything. But I respect him and I trust him." Consider what an extraordinary line this is for a video meant to recruit volunteers to organize for a presidential campaign. Have you ever met a campaign organizer that goes door-to-door or works the phones for a candidate that they admit they don't agree with? The reasoning behind this line can be found in a recent Associated Press poll. As of late March, 53% of the country approved of the way Obama was doing his job as president. But 59% said they had a favorable view of Obama, 59% said Obama "cares about people like" them, and 84% said he was a likable person. Obama would rather make his pitch to 84% of the country than from 53% of the country. That white guy from North Carolina represents the gap between.

Well now you have. I have campaigned door-to-door for candidates with whom I hold fundamental disagreements. I also doubt that I'm in the minority of campaign workers, who are as able to balance conflicting allegiances as reporters, if not more so.

The first-past-the-post electoral scheme encourages exactly this hold-your-nose-and-work for the candidate attitude. Campaign workers commonly disagree with the principals on a variety of issues, but strategically devote their resources to work for the best possible option. It's as if Michael Sherer has never heard of politics being the art of the possible.

Campaign workers, volunteers, and supporters are generally derided as "idealistic," especially if they are young and liberal. That perception is based on sloppy accounts like Sherer's which fail to take into account the contradictions that strategic actors face when evaluating opportunities to achieve incremental change. A campaign works because everybody pitches in towards a common goal, which the same reason that a corporation works. Yet no serious reporter would describe all employees of GE as "doe-eyed" idealogues hoping that pooling capital and laobr will deliver incremental improvements in their individual lives.

The fact is that campaign workers have as many disagreements with their bosses as people in any other field, from tactics to strategy to goals. I'll never forget the arguments in the Iowa field office where I worked over whether the individual mandate should be a part of the health care plan. The organizers simply didn't let their personal preferences from interfering with their jobs: amplify and organize support for the candidate.

The myth of a sheep-like following for any candidate is an obvious falsehood, yet elites are willing to baste in the fantasy. The lie allows political actors to dismiss the will of the voters, even to the point of encouraging eliminationist thinking. The tendency is perhaps more forgivable for arm-chair bloggers who uncreatively imagine unintelligent, undifferentiated opponents. Coming from a journalist, the idea that politicaly active workers are simple-minded, or can't carry two ideas in their heads at once, is offensively lazy.

Judges Own the Foreclosure Nightmare

I'm finding this article about the role of the courts in abrogating the foreclosure nightmare a compelling reflection on the role of the judicial system, and in particular, the judge in American democracy.

Republicans Fail MIddle School Civics

It appears that Repbulicans have forgotten how a bill becomes a law. Two hundred twenty Republican members of the House of Representatives voted through a bill which ignores the constitutinoal reality of how laws are made. A bill must be passed by both houses of Congress, a feat which usually requires that both houses pass versions of the bill then negotiate in a conference committee to find a solution that will pass both houses. The compromise bill, if voted for in both houses, goes to the President's desk for either a signature or a veto. Republicans have a different take on the matter:

Under the bill, the budget already passed by the House and rejected by the Senate becomes law if the Senate does not reverse course and approve it by April 6. The current budget that pays for the government runs out two days later, meaning that if no agreement is reached on spending for the remaining six months of this budget year, part of the government would shut down on April 9.

That's how democracy works. I put my idea forward- if you agree with it, my idea becomes law. If you disagree, then my idea still becomes law because I say so. That's how governing works in Iran, Libya, North Korea, Ivory Coast, and Syria, and if it's good enough for third-world plutocracies, it should be good enough for America.

The laughably unconstitutional bill has proved hard pill to swallow even for their traditional blogagandist cheerleaders, who can, afterall, read. The constitution is very clear on this matter:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

House GOP: Obstructing Justice

Darrell Issa is attempting to obstruct the Justice Department's investigations into the death of a federal agent on the U.S.-Mexico border and illegal gunrunning supplying arms to Mexican drug cartels. He unilaterally issued subpeonas of the Justice Department's records while the investigations are ongoing, despite receiving prior assurances from the investigators that they would cooperate with any Congressional oversight requests. The subpeonas take documents out of the hands of law enforcement agents and into the hands of politicians.

Why would a Republican politican do such a thing? It really is hard to know, but Issa's criminal history may provide some background to his attemtps to hamstring the wheels of the American justice system.

Polling the Last Election

Public Policy Polling ususally does a stand-up job at horse race and issue polling, designing good surveys that tend to get within an acceptable error range from actual election results. What they don't do well is pick candidates to poll. PPP released a poll of Florida voters in which they honest-to-god tested Rudy Giuliani as a potential Republican nominee. Not only is Giuliani not running in 2012, he hardly ran in 2008, choosing to skip the four early (i.e. crucial) states of IA, NH, SC, and NV and hoping that he could pull a rabbit from a hat in Florida's primary. Other (actual) candidates Huckabee, Palin, and Gingrich faired worse in hypothetical match-ups against Obama than the former mayor of New York City.

I understand the tendency to fight the last war given the knowledge gained on the battlefield. It's the most up-to-date test of your army's capability. I would however hope that public polling would be a little more forward-looking. After all, there's a wealth of information already out there about actual Republican politicians who are making an actual run. PPP did however discover that all of them are less popular than the man who finished an embarrassing third (with 14%) in the GOP primary in Florida in 2008.

NYT Paywall News Roundup

The game from now on is to follow a link into the NYTimes website and grab as many links as possible without clicking on any content links yourself. Repost on your blog, and you give your readers unlimited access behind the NYTimes paywall.

The CIA is on the ground in Libya, repeating the tactics that brought a (relatively) swift rout against the Taliban in 2001, partnering with the Northern Alliance and directing American air strikes against government forces. The Libyan rebels, however, have much less combat experience than the Northern Alliance had, and it seems less likely that Qaddafhi's regime will be as comfortable melting away to form a long-running insurgency, settling for local protection rackets and drug money to finance personal fortunes. The oil wealth inherent in control of a united Libya is a much stronger reason to stay in power, and Qaddafhi's regime is more entrenched than the Taliban were in Afghanistan.

Government bailouts are paying off for the American taxpayer, bringing in additional revenue.

Pawlenty: Economic Mission Accomplished

Former full-term Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has a message for the Republican presidential hopefuls: the Republican mission of creating a double-dip recession has been accomplished. Pawlenty is already attempting to blame the President for the recession his colleagues have been working towards.

The GOP playbook has been ratcheting up the war on jobs, beginning with Mitch McConnell's admission that the primary Republican motivation was to see the economic recovery fail. The House GOP has been taking the stuffing out of economic recovery programs, cutting jobs and mortgage modification programs. National Republicans have orchestrated a campaign to take capital out of the economy when the only evidence-based economic models would suggest that we need more money in the economy.

Republicans are scrambling to come up with a rationale for how the job-killing Republican agenda isn't the one killing jobs. Tim Pawlenty's move is certainly a novel one, blaming the coming double-dip recession on inflation.

The Old Inactivity Canard

The Republican legal attack on the Affordable Care Act rests on characterizing the Minimum Coverage Requirement as outside the authority of Congress. Congres can regulate activities related to commerce, and may even create any regulations or laws necessary and proper to regulate any commercial activity. The argument against the Commerce Clause power here is that the government, in requiring an action, is pursuing power that is neither necessary nor proper to regulate the insurance industry, which is clearly interstate commerce.

The same point came up in a debate with a good friend last night: could the state coerce citizens into vaccinating their children? The same characteristics of the health insurance debate are present. Private individuals have a personal belief that they do not need the vaccination/insurance. In the aggregate, the risk to society are unacceptably high if a substantial number of citizens do not receive vaccinations or purchase insurance. Health care costs for everybody skyrocket and more resources are squandered on reactive strategies instead of prevention.

For vaccinations, there appears to be the critically dangerous exercise in biopower. If the state can make health decisions for individuals, why could it not force sterilizations or outlaw abortions, not to mention conscripting citizens into unethical clinical studies?

While my friend's initial etaction was to rely on a distinction between positive and negative power (the government may prohibit the metabolization of certain chemicals, but could not force the same)

Still Ratfucking After All These Years

Nixon's team of paralegal political operatives used to have a term for discrediting, disorienting, and otherwise disrupting the opposition: ratfucking. It turns out that rank-and-file officials in the Republican party are still operating under the pretense that this is an acceptable way to conduct a party in a democracy. An Indiana prosecutor encouraged Governor Scott Walker to stage an assassination attempt and blame it on public employees and the unions that they organize. Of course, Scott Walker considered such options, and admitted to as much on his phone call with "David Koch," but ultimately decided against it. Probably because he isn't "Tricky" Dick Nixon.
If Nixon does have a second incarnation, there will surely be Republican operatives willing to do his misdeeds.

Ad Hominem Ad Nauseum

I originally started writing this observation on Monday morning, but fittingly came down with a bad flu, postponing completion until today:

I couldn't help but be struck by the memeorandum-capturing headline "A Liberal Intervention" Monday morning, which typifies much of the right-wing analysis available to the blogosphere. The adoption of the anti-intervention screed across the right is equally fascinating. The original article, a Ross Douthat brainchild, is an attack on the "liberal way of war." Throughout, however, Douthat fails to articulate a reason that of any the following: a) the intervention is bad or b) an alternative would be better. Yet the article smack of a decidedly negative, if not downright dismissive tone towards the prevention of mass murder in Libya. Douthat comes closest to making a substantive point when he acknowledges that the current intervention is in line with the modern American diplomatic and military practice of launching interventions supported by the international community, except for the Bush invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Weirdly, Douthat pretends that diplomacy is a purely Democratic tactic, ignoring entirely the international build-up towards Operation Desert Storm under Bush I or the UN-supported military action in Korea, attributing all prior American international interventions solely to Clinton.

As always, several possible explanations exist for Douthat's curious omissions.

Rand Paul's Budget: A Lesson in Publicaphobia

The Tea Party elements of the Senate (read: entrenched corporate interests) are coalescing around Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)'s 5-year plan for the budget. Since this is thus far the only budget proposal offered by Republicans that lasts for more than a month, let's just call it the GOP budget plan for short. The plan obliterates the departments of Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, and Commerce. This is remarkable restraint from Rand Paul; devotees of the Senator's past would have expected Rand Paul to abduct the federal government, force it to take drugs, and coerce it into praying to "aqua buddha" rather than just cut off a few essential functions upon which its citizens and constituent states.

It's hard to imagine a worse plan for the economy right now, or for states. The Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development shovel federal taxpayer money into state coffers, paying for state-led projects, state teacher payrolls, and preventing fraud and waste. States are fighting tooth and nail to keep basic programs alive. An enormous part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act kept local progams afloat amid the massive dip of property taxes brought on by the burst housing bubble. The failure of Republicans to create a similar pro-state project has precipitated massive state budget shortfalls from Washington to Florida.

Yet the Republicans backing the Paul 5-year plan are making a grotesque argument that cutting grants-in-aid to states will strengthen state power

Right Wing Cheers School Closings

Is anyone surprised that Michelle Malkin is leading the Republican cheerleading for closing down schools? Leaving children behind? hurrah, GOP!

That should illuminate any debate about the values of the mainstream of the Republican party.

Link the NYTimes

The New York Times is exploring a new business model for online traffic today. Canadian readers of NYTimes.com start facing a 'metering' scheme today which erects a pay wall after a user makes more than 20 page views in a month on the Times website. Links that lead to NYTimes content will not count towards the metered pageviews. American and global visitors will wait until the 28th of March before facing the same metered traffic and paywall scheme.

Clever devotees of the Times would do well to start linking to articles on the Times site and seeking out other bloggers who do the same to avoid the metering. One pageview to the NYtims front page would yield dozens of links to articles. A blogger can provide links to readers, in essence creating free portals to the Times website. Twitter, tumblr, and blogs will provide links to free articles, making it easier for friends and connected media to share the information that a person wants friends to see. A failure to provide links to friends freezes the connected people out from content for which they might have to pay $15-$35 per month.

Boldest Marijuana Legalization Proposal Yet

News today from Washington State has a former US Attorney voicing support for a plan to have Washington State sell marijuana to adults over 21 years of age via the state liquor board. The state liquor board already controls all non-beer and wine sales in the state, excepting of course sales that occur on tribal lands.

The attempt to have state officials distribute marijuana to Washington residents is in direct conflict with the Controlled Substances Act, which prohibits any sale, manufacture, or possession of Schedule 1 substances. Schedule 1 substances are classified as having a high addiction potential and no medical value. Marijuana was made a Schedule 1 substance when the CSA was signed into law despite a long history of being used in health tinctures in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the infamous program in which the federal government provided marijuana cigarettes to a limited number of patients who benefited from the drug. State officials are sworn to uphold the laws of the United States if they are in conflict with state laws.

There is little reason to believe that Washington state would prevail over the federal government if they chose to resist federal law in this instance. The federal government has vast resources devoted primarily to enforcing the controlled substances act, with plenty of backup possible from the Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, a department that already has plenty of interaction with the Washington State Liquor Board. US Attorneys would likely not choose seek a federal judge's injunction on such a program when the executive branch already possesses precisely the authority to disrupt distribution networks. This bill is a rare honest attempt at imagining a post-prohibition marijuana regulation regime, and it deserves to be debated in that hypothetical realm. Dismissing the plan on the basis of incompatibility with federal law would do a disservice to the citizens of Washington.

Federal laws will necessarily occupy much of the field in the quality standards, packaging, and basic legality of marijuana. Federal power to regulate marijuana is well established.

Wisconsin State Senator Recall Update

Progressive groups are flashing cash towards recalling Republican state senators in Wisconsin who voted to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights. Since the Wisconsin assembly passed the Attack On Union Workers bill, groups vowing recall efforts in the badger state have raised upwards of $1 million. This is an impressive feat for such an unconventional fundraising effort. Recall campaigns rarely are launched on a national level, mostly because they target state elected officials.
The feeling among donors must be that this campaign is an efficient use of resources. I see the value question split into two parts. First, can a recall campaign be successful, and we'll define success as having the elections called and having a challenger win. If the threat proves credible, the second value of the recall campaigns would come into pay, which is the spectre of "accountability" as some progressive groups are describing. In value-neutral terms, let's just say that the recall campaign would have to be reproducible in other states. Ohio Republicans won't care about Republican losses in Wisconsin unless the results can generalize to other states. The recall campaign is about making unpopular Conservative policy goals less attractive to Conservative politicians in the short run. Essentially, can the recall campaign force ideological Republicans to respect their constituents' values and aspirations?

The threat against the Wisconsin senators has certainly proved credible. Organizers are well on their way to collecting the recall signatures ahead of schedule. This is only the first bit of the credibility puzzle. The election is the more important test. Certainly Dan Kapanke looks very vulnerable based on the 2010 election results in his own senate district.

All Eyes on Fukushima

The 8.9 magnitude quake that hit Japan earlier today crippled the cooling system at a nuclear plant in Japan. The eyes of the world are on the Fukushima reactor, holding collective breath to see if there will be a second catastrpohic nuclear accident in thirty years.
As Republicans consider pushing through new energy bills, this should refocus American opposition to nuclear plants, which have the low-frequency potential for unthinkable consequences. Nuclear power has always presented this risk calculus, which is exceptionally difficult to perform in a rational way.

NY-26 Special is a Go

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has scheduled the special election to replace craigslist-disgracing Chris Lee for May, 24. The Hill has a word on the candidates:

Republicans have chosen state lawmaker Jane Corwin as their nominee. The Democratic favorite for the nomination is Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul, but officials are still deliberating.

Hard to know what "Democratic favorite" means here, but it probably reflects some comments gleaned from party infrastructure and not voters.

The Best the Right Can Do

Looking at Memeorandum today, it looks like Conservatives got everything they wanted. Most of the day's blog discussion seems to be about the serial felon James O'Keefe's (probably doctored) attack of already-outgoing NPR executive Ron Schiller. The focus is on a traditional Right Wing enemy (non-corporate media), not the unbelievably unpopular Republican agenda in Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Ohio of stripping workers of their bargaining rights. Nor is the discussion focused the possible economic plunge that the proposed Republican cuts to jobs would cause.

It seems clear looking at the broader media picture that the rest of the media are not biting on this story. CBS News and ABC News has the story on the front pages of their websites, but buried with other links. On MSNBC, the link doesn't even show up in the splash window; you have to scroll down to find it. The story won't be out front on the broadcasts. NYTimes is dutifully covering the story, as are other traditional media outlet blogs. The Washington Times presents a very odd anti-NPR angle on the whole affair.

My editorial judgment is that the story simply has no pull with a normal viewer/reader/voter.

Honest Question

The Washington Times tries a new attack on NPR, spinning off of the serial felon James O'Keefe's punkumentary propaganda:NPR officers compare deniers of climate change to birthers and flat earth believers.

Don't bother reading the article (I didn't; the website's ads were too annoying). Focus on the headline that the Washington Times provided, which I copied verbatim. Here is the allegation again:

[] compare [climate change deniers] to birthers and flat earth believers

Is there anything in that comparison that isn't apt?

Please, if you can answer that question honestly, or if you know anybody who can, send them here to comment. Again, your prompt is "Is there any aspect of the comparison between 'deniers of climate change' and 'birthers and flat earth believers' that is inappropriate?"

Or is the attack simply that NPR employs people?

#WIunion No Surrender

WSJ apparently stands for 'wishful thinking,' with this morning's banner article claiming that Wisconsin Democrats are surrendering to Governor Walker's union-busting bill. The Wall Street Journal seems to be caught in a Rupert Murdoch fantasy world where the rich always win against workers. At the beginning of the Wisconsin standoff, it looked to national pundits as though Republicans had a high-profile winning issue. After weeks of polling showing consistent support for public employee bargaining rights (at about 60% versus 30% against), the right-wing media outlets are attempting to bury the story. Democrats are highlighting Republicans' hostility towards workers with a series of U.S. House hearings. The union-bashing has tepid support from national Republicans, and Democrats are hoping to force a more public stand:

Other congressional leaders haven't been reluctant to weigh in. On the Republican side, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders have weighed in on behalf of Walker, whose proposal would eliminate most collective bargaining rights for public employees and force increased contributions by workers to pension and benefit programs.

Republicans have dramatically sloughed off all pretense of a mandate. The public has weighed the Republican agenda and found it wanting.

More heartening in the long run is the fact that Congressional Democrats are picking this fight. Nancy Pelosi proved her effectiveness as a minority leader against Bush in the 2005-2007 cycle, and now her team is picking the right fights with a much less disciplined opponent. If House Democrats can continue to gain the offensive against the GOP's less least popular ideas, we could see a return of Speaker Pelosi in 2014, if not necessarily Democratic control of the Senate. A Democratic House and a Republican controlled Senate would hardly be different from the first two years of the Obama presidency.

Gut Check on Republicans and Jobs

All of a sudden, it looks like Republicans are mired in a war of their own making. The Republican Party was catapulted into power in the U.S. House and in State Legislatures across the country. After two months of seeing what Republican power looks like, voters are registering this displeasure for Republican ideas. The first legislative act that Congressional Republicans took was the "Repeal the [Lie About the Affordable Care Act] Health Care Act." Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care ACt would have added $200 billion to the federal deficit. Now they're trying to pass a spending agenda that takes 700,000 workers out of the workforce, meaning there will be fewer jobs for every job seeker.

Meanwhile Republican governors have riveted the country's attention on the GOP's crusade against the right to organize. Nationally, Americans disapprove of the Republican positions in Ohio and Wisconsin by a nearly 2-1 margin. The worker-busting agenda is the primary news story associated with the Republican brand at this moment, with a close second being "cutting social security," something that the Wall Street Journal rather blandly said Americans

The current Republican spending plan would depress the GDP by 1.5-2.0%, very likely giving rise to a second, prolonged recession.

Accordingly, Republican House members are starting to worry about their own jobs, blaming their messaging emphasis: