I don't care if Obama loses in 2012

America's most powerful conservative

Against my better judgment, I’ve been commenting on stories on Huffington Post lately. Usually my comments are about how Barack Obama has failed both as a president and a liberal. There is little that distinguishes him from George W. Bush, save for some progressive rhetoric that is ultimately unaccompanied by action. Any honest and politically literate progressive knows this. The only supposed liberals who seem to really believe in Obama can be found on MSNBC or on the Washington Post editorial page—centrists posing as liberals, because they have allowed themselves to be dragged rightward by the craven corporate whores in the modern Democratic Party.

Even the liberal commenters on Huffington Post and Daily Kos have given up defending Obama with any degree of fervency. Most of them, anyway. A few die-hards remain, but their minds are impervious to reality, a la that infamous 30% of the population that was still approving of George W. Bush’s performance at the tail end of his second term.

Despite this widespread disappointment, I am frequently criticized for my Election Day 2012 plans, which do not include a trip to the polls, except perhaps to cast a Green for president and maybe a vote for my congressman. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I will not vote for him again. That much is certain. Even if I lived in a swing state like Ohio or Pennsylvania, I still would not vote for Obama. And it is here, for many liberals, where my need for “ideological purity” comes under fire. Whether it’s on the threads of HuffPost or when I’m having drinks with liberal friends, the specter of a Rick Perry/Michele Bachmann/Mitt Romney is always raised, as if failing to vote for Obama next year—despite my disappointment with him on almost every major issue—will haunt me until my dying breath.

Liberals insist that liberals must vote for Barack Obama because if we don’t, who knows what whackadoodle could be our next president, as if that outcome would be anyone’s fault but Barack Obama’s.

I for one am not going to allow myself to be scared into the voting booth at the mere mention of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or anyone else. No doubt, however, that millions of other liberals certainly will. And that’s a problem. It sends a message to the Establishment-oriented Obama, and all other Democrats present and future, that to secure the “base” of the party, one need only frighten those in it with the prospect of a theocratic supply-side dystopia if Republican candidate X wins the election.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s what we need in this country. Apparently, Bush didn’t make things bad enough in order for endless war, permanent tax cuts, and the trampling of the Bill of Rights to be deemed bad ideas by either party. After all, these buffooneries have continued apace into this so-called liberal administration, which has doled out trillions to the financial sector while destroying the savings of the general population, which eagerly awaits a jobs plan that they will no doubt be terribly disappointed by.

If Obama manages to win reelection, it would be a disaster for liberalism rather than a boost. Since Obama is not an actual liberal, his reelection would demonstrate that, electorally, core New Deal Democratic values don’t really matter on a substantive level, only at a very superficial rhetorical one. It would vindicate former press secretary Robert Gibbs’ dismissive assertion that only the “professional left” is disaffected with the president, meaning anyone who gives a shit about protecting America’s working class from corporate marauders, several of which populate the administration itself.

If Obama is defeated in 2012, the pundit class will proffer every explanation possible for the outcome, except for the correct one—that Obama is a centrist whose shamelessly pro-corporate policies failed to effect positive change in the lives of ordinary Americans during the worst financial crisis in 80 years.

- Max

Herman Cain perfectly summarizes Tea Party social values

Herman “The First Amendment Doesn’t Apply To Muslims” Cain

One of the great misconceptions about the Tea Party is that it’s driven mainly by concerns about the economy and the national debt. And for some members, that is certainly the case. However, as the current race for the GOP nomination shows, even those candidates who have labored to co-opt Tea Partyism simply can’t help themselves when it comes to engaging in Lee Atwater-esque social wedge issue campaigning. Witness the candidates tripping over themselves in attempting to secure the fetus vote, the obligatory tough talk on illegal immigration, and references to god, religion, and other bunkum.

Before today I thought the candidacy of former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain served only one function: To demonstrate the non-racism of the Tea Party crowd by giving them an opportunity to say nice things about an African-American. But now I realize he serves another function: To make Michele Bachmann look like Madame Curie.

Explaining why he opposes the building of the now-forgotten proposed mosque in Murfeesboro, Tennessee, Cain told the AP this about the allegedly devious machinations of that project:

“It is an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion,”[…]“And I don't agree with what's happening, because this isn’t an innocent mosque.”

So Herman Cain opposes the building of a mosque because “it is an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion.”

Read that again. Then again. And then again. Because no matter how many times you read it, it makes no fucking sense at all, unless you share Cain’s bizarro interpretation of freedom of religion, which to him apparently means he has the freedom to choose which religions others are not free to practice. Calling the building of a mosque “an abuse of our freedom of religion,” sends a clear signal to some of the more deranged Tea Partiers that he shares their vision of an America without Muslims.

Of course, I too wish for an America without Muslims, but also one without Christians, and Hindus, and every other practitioner of a faith premised on a belief in the supernatural. Nevertheless, we must never endeavor to hinder what is otherwise private religious practice by legislative fiat or other government mandate. For Cain to say that the mosque ought not to be built, is a direct attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution and the rights of private property. Apparently these don’t hold as much weight in Tea Party circles as some would have us believe.

- Max

Paul Ryan's proposes neoliberal junta budget

“We’re gonna get ridda your Medicare and you’re gonna like it. Capisce?”

I just finished perusing the Republican budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. It was unveiled at a news conference today by Wall Street bailer-outer Paul Ryan and about fifteen House Republicans; and with the exception of one woman, all were white men over the age of 40.

The GOP proposal is like something you’d find being advanced by a 1980s Latin American military junta hoping to win favor with the IMF and World Bank in order to obtain loans. The budget plan calls for $6.2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, but still wouldn’t lead to a balanced budget until the late 2030s. Part of the reason is its insane call for huge permanent tax cuts for individuals and corporations, including drastically lowering both the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25% from 35%. The proposal would eliminate the 2010 health care reform law. Naturally, the Pentagon’s budget is barely touched, and the GOP proposal has essentially deferred to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budgetary recommendations. Most of egregious of all, however, is that the GOP plan eliminates Medicare. Of course, that’s not the word Republicans are using. They’re saying they’re saving Medicare by reforming it, but Republicans want to save Medicare in the same sense that Lieutenant Calley saved My Lai village by ordering it destroyed.

Here’s the crux of the GOP’s plan to eliminate Medicare:

Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options, and they will be given the ability to choose a plan that works best for them. This is not a voucher program, but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.

The premium-support model would operate similar to the way the Medicare prescription-drug benefit program works today. The Medicare premium-support payment would be adjusted so that wealthier beneficiaries would receive a lower subsidy, the sick would receive a higher payment if their conditions worsened, and lower-income seniors would receive additional assistance to cover out-of-pocket costs.

This is interesting considering how similar it is to what Republicans call Obamacare. In the same budget proposal, Republicans are advocating the repeal of the president’s health care law with its sliding scale government subsidies allocated based on personal income levels, while simultaneously calling for the implementation of the same general plan for people who turn 65 after 2021. Even though this is the kind of idea that Republicans find worthy of the “socialist” epithet, they’re pushing this approach because it is much less socialistic than the current single-payer Medicare system.

What is surprising about the GOP’s proposed abolition of Medicare as we know it, is the brazen manner in which it’s being presented. Medicare is a very popular government program, even more so than private health insurance, which is remarkable considering that its only customers are people over 65—a demographic that can sometimes be difficult to please. Furthermore, everyone who is under the age of fifty-five right now would be affected by this change, which will have the surely anticipated effect of increasing out-of-pocket expenses. This is because there is nothing to prevent private health insurance premiums from continuing to rise at a rate that outpaces wage growth or inflation. Will the GOP’s premium-support model contain provisions for adjusting subsidies based on premium increases or will it be subject to a cost of living adjustment scheme that lags behind these hikes? Most likely the latter, since the whole point of “reforming” Medicare is for the government to spend less on it, and for the citizens to spend more. Even if this reality does not explicitly enter the minds of Americans under 55, they are still going to have some serious questions about gutting a program that has done well by their parents and other elderly loved ones. Frankly, I anticipate that the GOP’s Medicare proposal will be rebuked by the electorate with extreme prejudice.

On a related note, Ryan’s budget also contains a long-sought wet dream of the American right, federal tort reform. In this case, tort reform means placing a cap on damages rewarded by juries in medical malpractice lawsuits. By implementing a ceiling on damages, so the argument goes, malpractice insurers won’t have to pay out as much money in lawsuits, meaning the insurers could lower the premiums they charge doctors and hospitals, meaning the doctors and hospitals could lower what they charge to HMOs for providing those HMOs’ customers with care, meaning the HMOs could lower premiums for their customers, i.e., the American people. Notice that the American people are last in this wondrous chain of trickle down tort reform. Of all the entities in this relationship, patients are likely to benefit the least simply by virtue of being the furthest removed from where the reform is being initiated. That is, of course, unless you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, in which case you’d be right in the thick of it, as you’d be unable to reap the kinds of damages you would have been under various state laws, which brings me to my next point.

Not a day goes by when some prominent Republican doesn’t decry increasing encroachments by the federal government on states’ rights and individual liberty. And yet one of the key proposals in Republican health care reform has been the enactment of a federal tort reform law that would supersede state laws pertaining to medical malpractice. I’m not quite sure how conservatives square that one.

As if these proposals weren’t bad enough, we come to Ryan’s not-so surprising take on the Pentagon’s budget, which defers to the Obama administration’s insistence that the decades-long boondoggle for military contractors is maintained:

Reflects $178 billion in savings identified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reinvesting $100 billion in higher military priorities and dedicating the rest to deficit reduction.

Nice try, but that’s not $178 billion in savings. It’s $78 billion in savings. Spending $100 billion on weapons programs X, Y and Z instead of A, B and C because you deemed the latter projects wasteful doesn’t mean you saved $100 billion; it just means you spent that money, but more wisely (you think). Of course, this is the Pentagon we’re talking about, which has seen it appropriate to spend more than the GDP of Australia to build thousands of F-35 fighter jets to fight al Qaeda’s nonexistent air force.

Obviously the Republicans don’t expect all or even most of their ideas to make it into whatever FY 2012 budget finally gets passed. Nonetheless, they are hoping to frame and control the nature of the budget debate. By putting Medicare essentially on the chopping block in their budget, the GOP wants this proposal germinate into something that they hope will soon become “mainstream,” or at least be seen as a viable policy prescription.

As far as the Obama administration’s response to this plan goes, anything short of derisive laughter, mockery, and criticism will not do. When it comes to Medicare and Social Security, the electorate is on the side of the Democrats, who historically have enacted and protected these programs. Whenever the Republicans win an election, they always seem to overreach. Whether it was George W. Bush after the 2004 election proposing the privatization of Social Security, the unpopular gutting of labor unions in Wisconsin, or the proposed elimination of Medicare, Republican economic policy is starkly at odds with what Americans want. Sure, the GOP can cite polls saying people want them to crackdown on wasteful spending or some other vague idea that virtually everyone can get on board with, but once you get into the specifics, once you start asking people if they want their Medicare or Social Security or unemployment benefits messed with, that’s when the GOP hits serious resistance. This budget proposal is no different and is pure folly, and if there is a shutdown of the government, Obama will be able to point to the GOP Medicare proposal and tell Americans that the Republicans are after their Medicare and soon their Social Security.

That’s assuming Obama doesn’t cave once again, but at this point who the hell knows?

- Max

Doesn't anyone care that Obama is bombing Libya without Congressional authorization?

Bye bye, Constitution. It’s been real.

The very first article of the United States Constitution enumerates the powers of Congress. Among these is the power

“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water…”

Nowhere in the Constitution is the president given the authority to make war unilaterally. It is true that the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but that clause comes with an important qualifier:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States…”

As specified by Article I, calling the military into service falls under the expressed powers granted to Congress. Several presidents have ignored the Constitution in this regard, with Barack Obama becoming just the latest example with his initiation of military action against Libya (not to mention his predator drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, but we’ll leave this aside for the time being.) For his part, George W. Bush waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in each case had congressional authorization to carry out military action, however vague that permission was in the case of Iraq. Indeed, many gutless Democrats who in 2002 gave Bush wide-ranging discretion to handle Iraq’s WMD compliance/noncompliance as he saw fit, later claimed that they did not intend to give him the authority to order an invasion.

Establishment liberals can always be counted on to support a war if the justification for it is rife with enough fear-mongering or is couched in lofty rhetoric about human rights. Time magazine’s Joe Klein, for example, never tires of suckling at the teat of executive power. And when a president, whether Bush or Obama or whoever, says we need to send warships to wherever and fire up the fighter jets to bomb another race of brown people, the worst Klein can say about such an operation is that he’s “skeptical” about the mission’s potential for success, despite the occurrence of some “amazing diplomacy.”

Which brings me to my next point: after a unilateral decision has been made by a US president to bomb somewhere, the media has the awful tendency of examining the action’s efficacy, and not its legality or its morality for that matter. Talking heads on television delve into whether the war is worth the cost in terms of blood and treasure. Even decades later wars are discussed in such terms, as the case of Vietnam illustrates. The problem with that war, so Establishment wisdom goes, that the war simply was not worth the American lives and money. Never mind the fact that two million East Asians were mercilessly subjected to a holocaust of indiscriminate bombing by three successive presidential administrations, or the fact that the US essentially had to wage war on the South Vietnamese people so it could “defend” them from their own National Liberation Front. No, the problem with Vietnam was that policymakers didn’t have the foresight to know that half a million US soldiers and all the munitions tonnage the US could drop would not be sufficient for victory. Meanwhile the legality and altruistic intentions of US foreign policy are always taken for granted. And if someone like a Kucinich or a Paul gets out of line—as one surely will—pundits from the Right and the Left will be happy to impugn his patriotism and accusing him of not “supporting the troops.”

But what about the War Powers Resolution of 1973? That gives the president the authority to deploy the military as he sees fit, so long as he notifies Congress within 48 hours, and doesn’t keep forces committed for more than 60 days, 90 days counting the troop drawdown process. I’m no ConLaw expert, but I fail to see how Congress can just abdicate its constitutional war-making responsibilities. Every person who’s taken AP Government or History is familiar with the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, in which the Marshall Court struck down a provision in the 1789 Judiciary Act that expanded the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction beyond the scope of its constitutional authority. In providing a precedent for the vital concept of judicial review, Marshall wrote,

“Certainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.”

Congress’ war-making powers have been usurped by the executive with such frequency that most people seem desensitized to the phenomenon. Indeed, some Obama apologists on Huffington Post (scroll down to the comments for attacks on Kucinich from Obama worshipers) and elsewhere have cited as evidence of the Libya operation’s legitimacy, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, passed 10-0 (with five abstentions), that authorized the implementation of a no-fly zone if Moammar Gaddafi did not agree to cease military operations against the rebels. No doubt the UNSC resolution has the force of international law, but the question here isn’t whether Obama’s/Sarkozy’s/Cameron’s war on Libya is legal under international law, but whether Obama’s decision to enter into the agreement and carry out its provisions is allowable under US law. Be advised that this has nothing to do with international law trumping domestic law, since international law is often a product of decisions made with domestic considerations, such as public opinion, and checks and balances in mind. Before ordering his ambassador, Susan Rice, to vote “yes” at the UN, and indeed, before he decided to commit American military resources to a bombing campaign in Libya, he could have, and should have, sought authorization from Congress. Besides, there was nothing preventing the Obama administration from approving UNSC Resolution 1973, while telling its allies that for the US to take part in instituting a no-fly zone, that Congress would first have to give its blessing.

Anyone who thinks that the Framers intended for the President to have sole discretion to engage the military in hostilities with no authorization is free to attempt to find evidence for this in Madison’s Notes on the Debates of the Federal Convention, the Federalist Papers, or other correspondence from the Framers. The truth, however, is that here the preponderance of evidence shows a disdain for unilateral executive war-making authority—a prospect that calls to mind the worst facets of monarchy. Via Glenn Greenwald at Salon, then future Supreme Court Justice John Jay made the case against such a scheme in Federalist No. 4:

“It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”

Barack Obama cares no more for the Constitution or rule of law than George W. Bush did. And the longer his administration goes on, the more I become convinced of a near-seamless continuity between the two.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Haley Barbour's Mississippi Problem

I’m really intrigued all the buzz about a possible Haley Barbour candidacy for president in 2012. He’s the affable baby-faced Governor of Mississippi, former tobacco, pharmaceutical, and utility company lobbyist who was elected to the state’s highest office partly on a platform to preserve the Stars and Bars on the state flag. Barbour recently made waves by commenting that he didn’t remember racism in Mississippi in the 1960s “as being that bad.” During his campaign for governor in 2003, he spoke at a fundraiser held by an officially racist organization called the Council of Conservative Citizens, whose Statement of Principles reads in part, “We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind.”

But as a lobbyist, Barbour also pushed causes which he will surely have to explain away if he is to have any hope of securing the GOP’s presidential nomination. In 2001, the Mexican government retained his firm, BGR Group, to lobby Congress and the White House to advocate for amnesty lite, whereby illegal immigrants could pay a fee for being undocumented, but be placed on a fast-tracked path to citizenship.

Based on what I know about Barbour, I’m pretty sure he’s not a racist. As with all politicians, he is first and foremost an opportunist. He spoke at a fundraiser held by a group that opposes “all efforts to mix the races” because he knows that there is not an insubstantial chunk of the Mississippi electorate that agrees with such sentiments. On the other hand, he lobbied for liberal immigration reforms because the Mexican government was paying him handsomely to do so. While it’s true that Barbour has previously taken a softer stance on illegal immigration than some in his party, that position is likely to harden out of necessity if he throws his hat in the presidential ring. During the race for the GOP nomination set to begin this year, we can expect the yet-to-be-determined candidates to try to out-Southern Strategy one another, as they jockey for the support of the party’s white base.

Nonetheless, Barbour has been learning the hard way that the national political scene is quite different from Mississippi politics. Praising the defunct White Citizens’ Councils of the 1960s might not ruffle any feathers in Yazoo City, but when you’re pondering a run for president, lauding pro-segregation groups can have consequences. But Barbour is an adept politician, so I’m sure he won’t have too much trouble making the transition to a national Republican figure from his origins in what Gallup just declared is the country’s most conservative state, which brings me to my next point about a possible Barbour run.

For more than seven years, Haley Barbour has been governor of a state that ranks at or near the very bottom in just about every single quality of life category humanly imaginable. No doubt Mississippi’s problems far predate Barbour’s governorship, but I’m having a difficult time fathoming just how it is that a man in charge of a state with such a low standard of living relative to the rest of the Union can be considered a serious contender for the nation’s highest office.

Let’s take a moment to review some rankings from various sources on Mississippi relative to other 49 states:

Median household income: Worst

Poverty rate: Worst

Internet access: Worst

Overall health: Worst

Obesity: Worst

Children’s Well Being: Worst

Infant mortality: Worst

K thru 12 education performance: 5th worst

Traffic fatalities: 5th worst

Percentage of population over 25 with a bachelor’s degree: 3rd worst

Convicted public officials per capita: 7th most

You get the idea, if one state had to be deemed the asscrack of America, it would be Mississippi. But there is one area that Mississippi—this most conservative of conservative states—ranks high in. That’s federal aid per capita, in which it ranks fourth, and rate of earmarks, where it comes in second. For a state filled with people who decry the big bad federal gubmint, they sure as shit have no qualms about receiving handouts from Uncle Sam.

Haley Barbour is not the reason Mississippi is in such bad shape relative to the rest of the country, but he hasn’t exactly done a whole lot in seven years to reverse his state’s fortunes. During his first year in office, Barbour succeeded in making medical malpractice reform—a frequent wet dream of Republicans—a reality. Barbour and a few other conservatives have touted Mississippi as a model in health care, even though as seen above, it is the unhealthiest state in the Union. Furthermore, health insurance premiums in the state have risen 89% since 2000, which is a common theme across the country. (I looked in vain for data on premiums since Barbour’s tort reform took effect.)

If it seems like I’m trashing Mississippi here, it’s because I am. But this is not my principal object, but rather to ask just how it is that a chief executive of state mired in a standard of living that is markedly lower than the rest of the country can be considered a serious contender in a race for president. Because I’ll be damned if I know the answer.

ps: Mississippi is also the most religious state in the country, and I must confess, I find the inverse correlation between the state’s conservatism/religiosity and it’s quality of life rankings endlessly amusing.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Ron Paul vs. the Constitution?

Readers of this site know that I’m a Ron Paul fan. Even though I fundamentally disagree with him on fiscal policy, I appreciate the way he sticks up for the Bill of Rights, speaks out against American interventionism abroad, and votes his conscience. We need more honest people like him in politics.

That being said, the Texas Congressman has it totally wrong on the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending the ridiculously named Defense of Marriage Act in federal courts. In announcing the decision Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that DOMA “contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships—precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the [Fourteenth Amendment’s] Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”

Paul penned a response critical of the administration’s position, saying in part,

The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 to stop Big Government in Washington from re-defining marriage and forcing its definition on the States…I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected.

I supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’ constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same sex marriage license issued in another state. I have also cosponsored the Marriage Protection Act, which would remove challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act from the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

First off, what Paul is essentially saying is, “Big Government in Washington defined marriage to stop Big Government in Washington from re-defining marriage and forcing its definition on the states.”

Apparently, Paul views DOMA as a preemptive strike against a future Congress that is run by gay-loving states’ rights haters who will define marriage as a union between any two persons. I don’t think he has much reason to worry about that happening in his lifetime.

Until today I did not know Paul’s position on DOMA, though I assumed he was against it because the legislation does two things that seem to be anathema to his principles. For one thing, DOMA defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” Paul is personally opposed to same-sex marriage, but I had always figured that the idea of the federal government (Congress) defining marriage would thoroughly repulse him. Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power—either expressly or implicitly—to define marriage, thus reserving it to the jurisdiction of the states.

But DOMA does something else, and this is the key to understanding Paul’s misguided position on the legislation. DOMA also declares:

No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.

To say this provision is constitutionally on shaky ground is an understatement. Consider the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause which Paul mentioned above:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

The purpose of this clause is clear. A legal contract entered into and legitimized in one state must be recognized as such in another. If you and your significant other get married in Massachusetts and move to Ohio, you don’t have to get married again, in Ohio, in order to get a another marriage license. The state of Ohio is obliged to recognize the license issued in Massachusetts. This much no one disputes. But DOMA tells states they can ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause when it comes to marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples. Thus, under this law, Ohio does not have to recognize a legal same-sex marriage consummated in Massachusetts.

But can Congress simply deem certain state laws exempt from the FFCC? The Clause says that Congress “may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” I’m not sure there is anything here that gives Congress the power to tell the states that they may ignore one another’s laws altogether, thereby rendering the actual full faith and credit part of the Full Faith and Credit Clause a mere suggestion.

Paul asserts that Congress has “constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.” But if this is the case, then why doesn’t the FFCC just say so? The word “except” occurs eleven times in the original Constitution. The Framers were not afraid to utilize this word for the sake of specificity. Indeed, one can easily imagine a wording of the FFCC that leaves no doubt as to its intent. If Paul’s reading is correct, why doesn’t the Clause say something like,

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State [except those Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings expressly exempted by the Congress]. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Without additional wording of this kind, however, the FFCC is vague, and in such a manner that I don’t think can be construed as to allow Congress the authority to exempt certain acts which some states, or Congress itself, may find objectionable. The Clause only says that Congress may, but is not necessarily obligated to, prescribe how such acts and records are proved and what effects they have, not what if any acts and records are exempt from this provision altogether.

There are also Equal Protection implications of DOMA, as mentioned by Holder, but that is a whole other issue. Sufficeth to say conservatives hate the Equal Protection Clause, or at least the way in which it has been interpreted by federal judges for the last century, because states can no longer discriminate as freely as they once did against certain demographics. Perish the thought that federal government act as a guarantor of life, liberty, and property against the occasional anti-liberty machinations of the states.

Of course, all of this Constitution-parsing and legal wrangling—important though it is—takes away from one very fundamental fact: there is no good reason for opposing same-sex marriage. To be opposed to this is to be bigot. Ron Paul and millions of other Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves for their position on this issue.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Allen West's sadly ironic take on progressivism

Newly minted Teabag Florida Congressman Allen West delivered a well-received harangue this weekend at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which featured more red meat than a slaughterhouse. His oratory contained the usual talking points required for any successful speech to a conservative audience: limited government, American Exceptionalism, and the evils of liberalism. As a bonus, West tossed in a completely ancillary quote from the Book of Isaiah. West’s speech was emblematic of the entire weekend hoedown there in Washington, where conservatives lied to themselves about wanting smaller government and more freedom. And anyone who thinks my cynicism on this front is unwarranted may examine other CPAC moments, such as the enthusiastic reception that Constitution-stepper-onner Dick Cheney received, as well as the hearty approbation heaped upon Ann Coulter when she insisted that more journalists should be in prison. Remember, the majority of self-described conservatives in this country are statists of the military/national security variety, and they don’t give a roaring rip about the Bill of Rights.

West, an African-American, had by far the most ironic remark of the weekend. As speaker number 4,318 to denounce the left at the conference, it wasn’t so much what he said, but the overall context in which his comments occurred:

The liberal progressive agenda offers no viable solutions for our republic…

Liberal progressivism evolved after our Constitution. It has been tried. It has repeatedly failed all over the world. So why would we think it can be successful here in our United States of America.

Here’s a black man, talking to a predominantly white audience, some of which no doubt have some sort of homage-to-the-confederacy bumper sticker on their Ford F-150s, and whose psychological constitution produces a conservative mindset—one that necessarily wishes to keep the status quo in principle, or return the society to an earlier and more idyllic epoch in American history. In either case, the conservatives throughout American history have been content to stand pat on a myriad of issues, while the liberal progressives against whom West is railing have sought to move the country forward politically, socially and economically. This is not to stay that conservatism has no merits, or that liberalism always fosters positive advancements, but for West to say that progressivism has failed “everywhere,” is to ignore that it was the progressives who had to drag his ideological predecessors, kicking and screaming, into ending slavery, desegregating public schools, and passing major pieces of civil rights legislation in the big bad federal government. “Liberal progressivism” has also done much more, such as enfranchising women, overhauling workplace standards for safety and wages, and providing social safety nets that most Americans will benefit from at some point in their lives, but I thought the achievements of progressivism vis-à-vis black rights might be particularly salient to West.

Or perhaps not. If we could send West back in time to a gathering of prominent conservatives in 1960, perhaps he would be glad to lecture that audience on the pernicious liberal progressivism of Martin Luther King Jr. and the burgeoning liberal judicial activism that has been ruling that states may not engage in racial discrimination. Perhaps West would also decry the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as an undue liberal progressive-inspired federal encroachment on states’ rights.

Or maybe we could send West further back in time to a gathering of conservatives in 1860. There he could slam the abolitionists and the liberal progressivism of Frederick Douglass and the threat represented by a candidate for president named Abraham Lincoln, whose sympathies clearly do not lie with the country’s well-established slaveholding gentry. West could cite the Tenth Amendment and the preachments of John Calhoun in justifying state nullification of federal law, despite that annoying little Supremacy Clause in Article VI in the Constitution.

Conservatives are free to cite Lincoln (as West did in his speech) and other patron saints of American politics, but this does not change the fact that many right-wingers—given their mindset that leads them to conservatism—surely would have hated Lincoln, MLK, and others who possessed untried ideas such as emancipation and equal rights for all. Indeed, both men were killed for this reason by people who preferred the status quo. Allen West insists that liberal progressivism has failed everywhere and that’s wrong. In a way, he represents how far we have come as a nation in the realm of race relations. I have no doubt that West has achieved what he has based on his own merits, but for him to assert that the same progressivism that knocked down the unjust racial barriers that stood in the way of him and his forbears, is a detriment and a failure, is sad and absurd.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Congress is full of cowards and the Tea Party is full of shit

In a miscalculation yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner expedited a vote on three expiring provisions of the horrendous USA Patriot Act. Under the move, the renewals required a two-thirds vote (290 votes) to pass. They got 277. It will pass eventually because most of our congresspersons are gutless cowards who have no qualms about sacrificing liberty for merely the illusion of security. The Republican Party—supposedly the faction of “small government”—was the worst offender today, with 210 of them voting to grant Barack Obama’s wish of continued overreaching executive power.

Meanwhile, where the fuck is the Tea Party on this one? All we hear from those people is how government under the Obama administration is taking away our freedom, but they’re nowhere to be found on this issue. Show me a Tea Party rally against the Patriot Act, or the Afghan War, or the military-industrial complex. You can’t because there are none. And the reason there is none is because 90% of self-described Tea Partiers are statists. They’re the same people who rushed to line up behind Dubya and his military adventurism and Bill of Rights curtailments. They’re the same people who virulently trashed, as traitors, opponents of Bush’s “big government” policies. And they’re the same people, who right now, are doing jack shit while the Obama administration is about to be handed extensions on roving wiretaps, expansive surveillance powers, and warrants issued by secret courts. Why? Because they are authoritarians who simply don’t like the current Dear Leader in power. Sure, they’ll protest a health care plan or whatever, but anything that contributes to the security and glory of the State and it’s thank you sir, may they have another? One day, the Tea Party may very well get its dream president: a white man or woman who will return the Fatherland to the days of the Cold War and the nuclear family. And if the president has to start World War III to get there, so be it.

*****

Does Ron Paul ever not nail it when it comes to civil liberties? Guy’s like a one-man police state wrecking crew. Here he is before the vote to extend the three sunset provisions.

- Max max.canning@gmail.com

Sarah Palin's justifiably unjustified egomania

In nearly two years of posting and over 200 posts, I have written two pieces in which Sarah Palin was the primary focus. And one of those was a rather terse mocking of her reality show. Beyond these, I haven’t given Palin much thought because I assumed she would gradually fade from the spotlight. After all, resigning midway through one’s term as governor of one of the least populous states is hardly the move of a person who wishes to be considered a serious figure in American politics.

Alas, my optimism has been misplaced. Nearly two and half years after she was desperately thrust onto the national scene in a Hail Mary tossed by the tired arm of political journeyman John McCain, Palin somehow remains aloft. Much of this is her own doing, of course. She has written two books, has her own television show, is a Fox News contributor, and gives innumerable speeches to anyone willing to cough up a $100,000 speaking fee plus airfare. For that price, Palin will lecture an audience for 45 minutes about the honest and industrious nature of Real Americans, the virtues of American Exceptionalism, and the necessity of lowering corporate tax rates. She will manage to talk about these subjects and more, while managing to say hardly anything at all.

Then there is the media—both liberal and conservative—which tells us on a regular basis just how important Sarah Palin truly is. Fox News cannot get enough of their darling political dynamo, and neither can MSNBC and the Huffington Post for different reasons altogether. Truth be told, the latter outlets and their ilk have done more to keep Palin in the limelight than anyone else. Her critics are so numerous that an entire industry has been built around her ridiculousness, which provides an ample supply of malapropisms and other buffooneries to fuel its forever-burning furnaces. The thing about Palin-bashing is that it is so easy even a politically aloof person with barely a shred of common sense can partake. If I had the stomach for it, I could update this site daily using only Palin’s Facebook page and Twitter feeds as my inspiration. But there wouldn’t be much fun in that.

The same can be said for her speeches, though I imagine she bears little if any personal responsibility for their content, however superficial it may be. A case in point: this recent video is both a defense of her vague use of gun-related rhetoric and symbols, and an attack on those who suggest a relationship between that and the recent mass shooting in Arizona. Ever the victim of the “lamestream media” which she loathes but nonetheless profits handsomely by, Palin accused her accusers of engaging in a “blood libel” against her. Few contexts would provide a more inappropriate and might I add, bizarre venue for this term, which refers to the belief held by some medieval Christians that Jews murder gentiles in order to use the blood of their victims in ritual sacrifice.

Palin has encountered some harsh criticism for her use of the term, and she ought to have. But personally I doubt she even knew what the term meant, and it was probably written into her speech by someone who is paid to write her speeches. We may even see Palin eventually admit that she was not actually the one to author that line so as to deflect some of the blame.

Of course, people should not be as surprised by her “blood libel” remark as they actually are. Since bursting onto the scene Palin has been a wellspring of imaginative metaphor and dramatic rhetoric. For her, such an oratorical approach is necessary to obscure the obvious reality that there is very little substantive thought going on in her mind. This works to her advantage since, were it not for gems like, “blood libel,” “mama grizzlies,” “death panels,” “refudiate,” etc., there would hardly be any reason to pay her much attention. But every colorful new term she utters has the surely anticipated effect of keeping her in the spotlight for another week more. And if the publicity takes the form of a castigation from Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, that’s just as well, because the Real Americans Palin appeases figure that if the liberals be against her, how could god-fearing people like themselves not be with her?

The natural consequence of all this is a Palin-Mainstream Media dynamic that is continuously reinforcing itself. Palin provides the gaffes. The media reports them, with the liberals doing so derisively. And in turn Palin wears these lashings like a badge of honor to show her fans how they persecute her so. It is not entirely clear whether Palin actually suffers from the sort of persecution complex suggested by her rhetoric or not. Either way, she has become very adept at portraying herself as the target of an unceasing medley of malicious mockery. She is partly right. The liberals in the media do mock her, but the mere act of doing this—especially on a such a constant basis—is an implicit declaration that she actually matters. There is one problem with this, however.

She doesn’t.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

The problem with media mudfights

Has anyone noticed how much time and effort cable news pundits and bloggers put into ridiculing, fact-checking, and demonizing the pundits and bloggers on the other side of the political spectrum? Rather than act as watchdogs of the power elite, Fox News and MSNBC personalities, for example, often seem more interested in engaging in the following kind of shtick: “You won’t believe what [FILL IN TALK-SHOW PERSONALITY’S NAME HERE] said today!” And off they go with a ten minute segment about how crazy that person is. I don’t think I need to provide any examples because this is a well-known phenomenon. If you’ve watched Glenn Beck, The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity, Hardball, The Ed Show, Countdown, Rachel Maddow, or the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is not to say that some of these shows don’t present new and insightful information and perspectives on the important issues in politics, but Left/Right mudslinging matches have become a significant part of all these media programs.

In 1987 Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman put forth their “propaganda model” to paint a picture of how the American media operates in their classic book, Manufacturing Consent. In it, they argued that although the US technically has a free press that is not officially constrained by the government, it is nonetheless self-censoring and serves to protect and reinforce the status quo. Their propaganda model has five key features, or “filters” as they call them, through which information must pass before being published or put on the airwaves, lest news that is damaging to the Establishment be consumed by the masses. Anyone interested in a full explication of the model can read about it here, but in this post I would like to concentrate on their fourth filter, which is “flak.”

Chomsky and Herman note,

“Flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. It may take the form of letters, telegrams, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, speeches and bills before Congress, and other modes of complaint, threat, and punitive action. It may be organized centrally or locally, or it may consist of the entirely independent actions of individuals.

The authors here are discussing flak that it is heaped upon the media by non-media types, such as the government, media watchdogs such as the Media Institute, Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Accuracy in Media, and other groups or individuals who write or telephone their complaints. When Chomsky and Herman were writing, the media news landscape was quite different, with no internet, no Fox News, and no MSNBC. In the late 1980s, the primary sources of news were print media and the half-hour nightly network newscasts (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and one twenty-four cable news channel (CNN).

Among conservatives, there has always a feeling that these news organizations have a liberal bias (despite the fact that they are all giant corporations that rely on other giant corporations for funding through advertisements). As an endnote (pg. 28, no. 110) in Manufacturing Consent observes,

George Skelton, White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, noted that in reference to [President Ronald] Reagan’s errors of fact, “You write the stories once, twice, and you get a lot of mail saying, ‘You’re picking on the guy, you guys in the press make mistakes too.’ And editors respond to that so after a while the stories don’t run anymore. We’re intimidated.”

This sort of flak continues to this day, obviously, and I imagine there is way more of it coming these days because of the ease of email correspondence.

But since the arrival of Fox News, MSNBC, and the internet, another form of flak has taken shape, one that has seemingly surpassed the older form in importance if not volume. And that’s the media-on-media flak I alluded to in the opening. Watch one of the big opinion shows on cable news and see how long it takes the host to discuss the latest dimwitted remarks from one of their ideological adversaries. I think in the last two years, Glenn Beck has been the target of more media-originated flak than anyone. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but at some point the MSNBC crowd and the liberal blogs have to give it a rest. “Oh my god! Glenn Beck said the craziest thing today!”

No shit. That’s his job—to be an insane, ranting, schmuck who exploits conservatives’ absurd sense of victimhood by pulling back the curtain on a gallery of phantom socialist menaces: Barack Obama, Van Jones, Paul Krugman, and paradoxically, billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros. Though Beck is a nut (or at least plays one on television), he is a symptom, not a cause of 21^st century (mis)information overload. The ideological lines have been drawn for a while and very few will ever think beyond this narrow paradigm—a completely natural consequence of a media culture that has trained the rabble to think of its problems as being caused by “the other side.” Meanwhile, the elites who run the country go largely unscathed and continue to exploit and pillage the bickering serfs below.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Salon news editor attacks media's false narrative on tax cut compromise and replaces it with one of his own

Standard vanilla beltway hack

Salon’s news editor, Steve Kornacki, has published a truly remarkable exercise in establishment liberal-centrist sophistry concerning Barack Obama’s tax cut compromise. To this point, the preferred media narrative about this is that by agreeing in principle to a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, Obama has alienated his “liberal base.” The problem with that assessment, as I pointed out the other day, is that it completely ignores the fact that according to a CBS poll, a majority of Americans wanted the cuts to be extended only for those making less than $250,000 a year, and that 67% do not want the cuts extended for those making more than that. Since that post, Bloomberg—obviously a news organization that caters to wealthier readers—confirmed these results with a poll of its own which “shows that only a third of Americans support keeping the lower rates for the highest earners.”

Ignoring this data, Kornacki wrote a bizarrely titled apologia for the Obama administration, “Obama’s Silent Majority,” in which he attacks the media’s portrayal of the deal as a sellout of his liberal base. According to Kornacki, it turns out that not only did Obama not sell out the base, Obama didn’t really sell out anybody! Apparently, the only ones who are feeling left out in the cold after this compromise are “[l]iberal commentators and activists and interest group leaders.”

How does he know this? Because, “their rage has not trickled down to the Democratic voters (and, in particular, the Democratic voters who identify themselves as liberals), even though they’ve been venting their grief for the better part of two years.”

Kornacki then goes out to note how Obama’s approval rating among Democrats has remained static throughout 2010 before concluding:

Obama, in other words, seems to have developed his own silent majority. Rank-and-file liberal Democrats may not agree with everything he has done, but they do not share the sense of abandonment and betrayal that has defined liberal commentary throughout so much of his presidency. The party’s liberal base still very much likes him; it’s the elites who have turned on him.

The only poll numbers Kornacki cites are the president’s approval ratings among Democrats. He says nothing of the polls which demonstrate that a two-thirds majority of Americans—not just Democrats—do not want the tax cuts to be extended for those making over $250,000 a year. Given this fact, where exactly is Kornacki finding this silent majority? Or do two-thirds of Americans comprise those elites he was talking about?

Citing polls showing how Democrats have continued to support Obama even after he’s wussed out on a myriad of occasions—including closing Gitmo, caving on the public option, and extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, among other capitulations and failed promises—does not impress me in the least. Democrats overwhelmingly favor closing Gitmo, favored the public option, and want the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. On these latter two issues, Democratic opinion is in step with a majority of Americans in general. That Obama’s approval rating has remained steady among liberals suggests that either liberals aren’t paying enough attention to see the gap that exists between their ideas and the president’s policies, or, what is a more likely explanation, that liberals see no viable alternative. As such, they are often disappointed by Obama, but in the context of the American left/right paradigm, he looks good by comparison. At a time when the right is led by the likes of wackdoos Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it’s easy for Obama to seem like the last, best hope for American liberalism. He is after all, the president. But looking like a liberal compared to say, Mitch McConnell, is a hardly a noteworthy achievement. So Kornacki can point to Obama’s approval ratings among his “base,” but it doesn’t change the fact that more often than not, on major issues Obama has gone against them. Apparently, for Kornacki this is not relevant. What’s relevant is that Democrats endure one disappointment after another, only to keep coming back to Obama like an emotionally scarred woman who always goes back to her abusive husband because she’s convinced that he’s the only one who could possibly love her.

- Max Canning

max.canning@gmail.com

Obama capitulates on tax cuts and the media creates a predictably false narrative about it

Apparently, support of 67% of the American public doesn’t get you what it used to.

Today I watched Barack Obama’s quasi-impromptu press conference where he made a few canned remarks about his compromise in principle with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone for two years. Before I get into the media’s reaction, I want to highlight a CBS poll conducted a week ago. A whopping 67% of Americans say that the Bush tax cuts should either be allowed to expire for everyone, or expire just for those making more than $250,000 a year. Below is the exact breakdown. I have added the data in the bottom row which shows what percentage of Republicans, Democrats, and independents want (at the very least) the tax cuts for the $250,000-plus crowd to expire. This is done simply by adding rows three and four:

CBS Poll conducted 11/29-12/01	All	REPS	DEMS	INDS
Continue for all	26%	46	10	25
Continue for households <$250K	53	41	70	47
Expire for all	14	11	14	17
Expire for >$250K (at very least)	67	52	84	64

Most amazing of all, notice how a majority (52%) of self-identified Republicans think the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 should expire.

Watching the news, you would never know that two-thirds of Americans are in favor of not extending the tax cuts for these wealthier Americans. Meanwhile, a straight 53% say the tax cuts should be extended just for those making under $250,000. And you wouldn’t know this because every media outlet I have seen report on this tax cut compromise—whether CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on—has presented this as an instance of Obama defying his “liberal base” and nothing more. See for yourself:

But it’s just the newest chapter of an old fight, and despite the liberal base’s fury, it’s evidence that Obama is trying to re-center himself before the 2012 elections.

CNN

He made clear he was willing to alienate his liberal base in the interest of compromise, more interested in crafting measures that can pass to the benefit of the middle class than waging battle to the end over principle.

New York Times

Even as liberals complain, White House officials believe independent voters will reward him if he’s seen as leading Washington to results.

Wall Street Journal

By cutting the deal they have, the White House has likely concluded that it is more important to cozy up to the middle than it is to keep it’s left-leaning base happy, probably believing that it has no where else to go and will, therefore, stick with Obama through 2012.

US News & World Report

As we just saw in the CBS poll, which merely confirmed similar results in previous polling on this issue (see here and here), two-thirds of Americans do not want tax cuts extended for anyone making over $250,000. And yet the American media would have us believe that in striking this deal, Obama dealt a cold serving of mainstream political reality to his überliberal critics. Except that unless Obama’s “liberal base” is that aforementioned two-thirds of the American population who are against extending the tax cuts for the wealthy, this analysis makes no sense whatsoever.

What this sorry episode shows is that our media is incapable of or unwilling to present serious political and economic issues in a way that goes beyond a convenient, narrow, and usually false left-right dichotomy. This narrative reminds me of the health care debate—based on the media coverage of which, you’d never know that 60% of Americans wanted a government health insurance option to compete with private coverage. Now once again, we are being told that the political realities being what they are, there’s just no possible way to extend tax cuts for the middle class while allowing them to lapse for the wealthy because only a majority of the American population favors it.

Perhaps this really does mean that a majority of Americans are in that “liberal base” the media keeps talking about.

- Max Canning