I wrote a big goddamn thing about health care reform and then the post got eaten and I haven't anywhere near the energy to write the whole thing again at 1:12 AM. Synopsis: Of course the Court is going to strike it down. That much was painfully apparent the moment the White House and congressional Democrats decided that it was less important to reform a broken system than it is to keep the insurance companies happy and rolling in our money. The idea was ridiculous from the beginning, especially given that it would not only inevitably end up in the courts but would end up before a conservative Supreme Court. So as his signature (only?) legislative accomplishment is undone in the next few weeks, Obama has no one but himself to blame. When he decided that universal coverage could or would be achieved by contracting things out to a broken, profit-driven health insurance industry, he might as well have pulled the plug then and there. The law isn't going to be killed – it was essentially stillborn.
In grad school I had a professor who was big in the study of state politics, and he enthusiastically referred to states as "laboratories of democracy." He didn't coin the term but he certainly believed it with all his heart. Basically it means that in a federal system, one state implementing a new policy offers the other states an opportunity to watch and learn. If it succeeds it is imitated; if it fails everyone learns a valuable lesson from someone else's mistake.
Pavlov and Skinner and the other pioneering behavioral psychologists proved that almost any animal can be trained to learn from its mistakes through reward and punishment. That is, all animals except Republicans, whose brains never progress beyond an attachment to ideology. Combined with never-ending internecine litmus testing, it makes damn sure that no one ever learns from experience or the available evidence. Just keep doing the same thing over and over again, torpedoes be damned.
John Carl Baker has an outstanding piece ("Austerity in Heaven's Corridor", h/t Mike) on one little Laboratory, Florida, that has dived headfirst into austerity with its 2012 budget. It's like a sneak preview of what other states, and likely Congress as well, will be doing in the immediate and near future. No one will wait to see if it works in Florida or learn any lessons when it fails. It's just the only acceptable course of action, and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Baker points out that what little opposition gets in the majority's way comes from factions bought off by lobbyists. For example:
The reality is that Governor Rick Scott, elected during the 2010 wave of Tea Party victories, is so stridently right-wing (and the state Democrats so weak) that opposition to the leadership’s more draconian proposals inevitably comes from other Republicans. A few, such as centrist Paula Dockery, have fairly consistently voiced disapproval of their colleagues’ more egregious actions, but this dissent is highly circumstantial: decisive opposition to the notorious prison privatization plan, for instance, came from two Senators with direct ties to law enforcement. And the Parent Empowerment Act, a highly controversial proposal allowing for the swift conversion of neighborhood schools into publicly-funded charters via parental petition, was scuttled not by a united front of political moderates, but by intra-Republican skepticism.
Florida narrowly dodged $100 million in cuts to mental health and substance abuse programs, once again through a last-ditch ad hoc coalition: a motley crew of law enforcement officials, Republican politicians, health care advocates, and members of the judiciary successfully lobbied for funding that approximates 2011 levels. Florida’s per-capita mental health financing is already ranked 50th in the U.S. [pdf], and deep cuts would have had immediate disastrous effects across the state. Even redneck county sheriffs recognize the apocalyptic shadings of forcing hordes of the mentally ill to roam the state’s multitudinous strip malls.
His brief description of the benefactors and the driving force behind these legislative moves struck me as particularly keen:
The full list of tax breaks paints a grotesque but accurate portrait of the diverse subgroups within Florida’s bourgeoisie: faux-populist ranchers, managerial charter profiteers, neo-Confederate citrus plantation owners, still-panicked real estate swindlers eager to take a mulligan and rewind to 2005. But Scott’s plan—which may eventually eliminate corporate taxes entirely in a right-to-work state that already lacks a personal income tax—is the Hayekian wet dream everyone in Florida’s ruling class freak show can agree on. Banks got in on the feeding frenzy too.
For the better part of my post-adolescent life I've been waiting for the voting public to figure out that the Republican Party is a front group for both the New Money and Old Money plutocracies, and it isn't happening. Intellectually I understand why people who vote for guys like Rick Scott do so. But on a psychological level I don't get it. I can't empathize with some woman with three kids and two jobs who lines up to support the Palin/Gingrich/Scott/Walker/Ryan types. Regardless of how little sense it makes, it's not going to stop anytime soon. Consider Florida's budget a sneak preview of what will be appearing in your local legislatures soon. The Florida Experiment has been a smashing success at the one and only thing it was designed to do – line the pockets of the usual suspects on the right – and as such other states will be tripping over themselves to replicate it.
I have been in fail mode with respect to timely posting this week. Last evening I did something I do approximately once per decade: fall asleep at 8 PM and sleep for 12 hours. This conflicts with my 11:00-Midnight writing routine. Sorry. I blame the pollen.
In place of an actual post, check out this column by Dan McLaughlin and tell me how much (using any scale you find appropriate to the question) it needs to be FJMed.
Just a quick update on Monday's post regarding Trayvon Martin. Apparently the attorney for the boy's family has a (recording? transcript? This remains unclear.) of a cell phone call between Martin and his girlfriend as he was being pursued.
"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," Martin's friend said. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run, but he said he was not going to run."
Eventually, he would run, said the girl, thinking that he'd managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin.
"Trayvon said, 'What are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again, and he didn't answer the phone."
The line went dead. Besides screams heard on 911 calls that night as Martin and Zimmerman scuffled, those were the last words he said.
Remember: self-defense.
I still believe that the most likely outcome is a trial wherein a jury of Zimmerman's peers – 12 old white people from the Orlando suburbs – will hand down a Not Guilty verdict. Alternatively, Zimmerman could be convicted of something as a way to take heat and attention off the Sanford police. Or there might be so much evidence piled up that jurors and Federal investigators cannot help but come down hard on both the police and the shooter.
It will be very interesting in the next few days to see if (when?) the Sanford police realize that their optimal strategy is to thrown Zimmerman under the bus and run over him repeatedly until the story goes away.
OK not really. But I've been invited to be this year's speaker in a "last lecture" series on campus. The goal is to pretend this is the last lecture we'll ever get to give and make it about whatever we want. It's an interesting thought exercise, if nothing else. If I really was going to die tomorrow, what would I want to be the last thing I said to students, readers, my rats, etc.? Part of me would want to give a rambling three-hour political valedictory. Part of me would want to say "Eh, be nicer to each other" and leave it at that. Assuming that I don't want to subject the university community to either of those, I have to split the difference.
What's your favorite Gin and Tacos post? What if anything have I said that would be fitting – that is, important enough to qualify as "last words" but interesting enough that someone will actually want to listen to it. I've been doing this for so long that I've probably written about everything I could conceivably want to say to anyone, and I'm not the best judge of what will be well received or interesting as I write.
So help me out here, or these people may end up spending 22 minutes watching me air guitar and karaoke Milo Goes to College in its entirety.
Late comedy night on Tuesday, so this will have to be brief. Thankfully someone already said 99% of what I want to say about this, so I will simply direct you to this discussion of how sad-creepy-terrifying Callista Gingrich is. She is in many ways the ideal Republican woman – silent, dressed like a funeral home director, and her face frozen into a frightening rictus.
Callista Gingrich definitely looks like she's trying to be a proper Republican candidate's wife. She has the frozen devoted spouse gaze down pat. She shops from the Serious Candidate's Wife clothing catalog, all clothes tasteful and designed not to call to much attention away from her husband. She unfortunately still needs to work on a genuine smile, but with Republicans, it's not that big priority.
But all may not be well with this cultivated persona, as this clip suggests.
When asked by a reporter what he was giving up for Lent, the hefty Newt admitted sheepishly that he was giving up sweets. Perfunctorily, the reporter asked the same of Callista. Her response had just a tinge of bitterness to it: "My opinion".
Yikes. Anyone want to guess what precipitated that response? Whatever it was, it's clear that for many in the GOP, that's the definition of a perfect Republican wife.
She most definitely has the Laura Bush "silent and obedient" thing down pat. Overall you really have to question the sanity of any woman who would become Mrs. Newt Gingrich and especially Mrs. Newt Gingrich #3. Part of me wants to pity her but the rest of me remembers that she did this to herself. Regardless, she offers all of us a glimpse into the twisted Republican Utopia, the ideal America in which the women are silent, the men do the talking, and the poor and colored folk Know Their Place.
I have a special place in my heart for "Hey dumbass! I bet you forgot Valentine's Day! Buy this for your wife/girlfriend!" advertising on male-oriented TV shows, websites, and magazines. While it's not good to perpetuate the idea of obligatory gift-giving (Won't She be mad if you don't get anything?) I find most of this advertising hilarious and harmless. That is, it advises men to buy such ludicrously awful gifts – things that no woman on Earth would ever want like Pajamagrams or things involving teddy bears – that I can't get angry because I'm laughing so hard at the idea of anyone falling for it.
Now. Two snapshots of where we're at as a society in 2012 and where we've taken the "Buy her this crap, she'll love it!" concept.
1. This was a very expensive Super Bowl ad for something called Teleflora, a 1-800-FLOWERS knockoff:
For those of you unable to watch and listen, the ad features beer commercial variety closeups of a hot woman in skimpy clothing and it ends with the line "Give, and you shall receive."
HEY GUYS, DO YOU GET IT? ORAL SEX. BUY HER FLOWERS AND SHE'S GONNA BLOW YOU. WITH HER MOUTH. ON YOUR PRIVATES. YOU WILL RECEIVE A BLOWIE. THAT'S WHAT THIS COMMERCIAL MEANS. TELEFLORA IS THE MIDDLEMAN IN A STANDARD FLOWERS-FOR-B.J. TRANSACTION.
2. I can't find the video, but there is a staggeringly offensive commercial for the latest Twilight film on DVD. It instructs male viewers to purchase said DVDs and watch them on Valentine's Day. That seems reasonable enough, I guess. If one's special lady likes Twilight, she would probably enjoy spending the evening that way. But the ad also reminds us that we should watch this film because "afterwards, it'll be Valentine's Day for you."
THAT MEANS SHE'LL DO THINGS TO YOUR WIENER! GET IT? WINK WINK WINK!
Bear in mind that the target audience for Twilight is tweens and high school girls. It takes a special kind of boldness to advertise one's product as an effective way to get a 14 year old to have sex with you.
Well, it looks like satire and reality have finally intersected:
In the past I have been accused, with justification, of being less attentive to cultural misogyny than I should be. If it's going to be this obvious, it looks like I won't have to look very closely after all.
I have minimal time tonight so I apologize for not giving this topic the attention it deserves. From Lincoln's famous "house divided" speech:
In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States; old as well as new, North as well as South.
Abe is referring to the various attempts to compartmentalize, minimize, or otherwise make the issue of slavery conveniently recede into the background so politicians would not have to deal with it. Of course they all failed and ultimately the nation had to confront the question directly and decide it definitively.
For years now the Supreme Court has been doing its damnedest to pass the hot potato on gay marriage. Different states have passed different laws regarding it and different federal courts have issued conflicting decisions. Because the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution requires things like marriage licenses issued in one state to be recognized as valid by others, it simply is untenable for this patchwork, confusing approach to continue. Now that one federal district court has ruled California's Prop 8 unconstitutional we have reached the decision point. Gay marriage bans cannot be unconstitutional in one state or one federal court district but constitutional in others.
We have kicked the can down the road for too long already. It is time to decide whether we will become all one thing or all the other. Is this legal or is it not? Will all states recognize legal gay marriages or will none? The Supreme Court appears to be painted into a corner. An appeal of this decision is a certainty and it is unimaginable that the Court would be so derelict in its responsibilities that it would not accept the case. My confidence in the current Court to make the correct decision here is shaky, but regardless we need this issue to come to a head. The status quo is untenable and it is time for the Supreme Court to do its job.
As an aside, if the dissenting opinion in the Perry case is any indication we are in for some disastrously poor legal reasoning from the gay marriage opponents on the Supreme Court.
1. Even though it was just a speech and he'll probably go back to being the Great Compromiser tomorrow morning, it was pleasing to see Angry Populist Man tonight…although he just couldn't help himself with the constant, appeasing references to debt reduction, reduced spending, and the like.
2. To quote Chief Wiggum, "Maybe lay off the Asians, Lou." He got quite a bit of mileage out of bashing China, no? I half expected him to bring kindly old Mr. Wong who owns the dry cleaners around the corner onto the podium so the assembled legislators could pelt him with tomatoes.
3. "OK, pan to Camera 2. Now back to Camera 1. Good. Let's switch to a wide shot of the presidential box in a few seconds….OH CRAP, HE MENTIONED ISRAEL! QUICK! LOCATE AND ZOOM IN ON A JEW! HURRY, BEFORE THE MOMENT IS GONE!"
4. I have no idea what speech Mitch Daniels or Ari Fleischer (who was bellyaching on CNN immediately afterward) watched, but it sounds like it was full of crazy ideas and un-American rhetoric.
5. Mitch McConnell might just be the worst person on Earth, and that's saying something on a planet inhabited by Newt Gingrich and the people who created True Blood.