Month: April 2009

Finally, a Limbaugh caller who breaks through to him on his support for torture. By the way, Rush, even the Pentagon concedes over a dozen deaths during "interrogation" and human rights groups tally close to a hundred prisoners tortured to death in American custody. And you haven't heard about this? You haven't heard because you will not listen, will not look and will not hear – for fear reality will interrupt your ideological and adolescent fantasies. But here's the full – and immensely satisfying – transcript of the conversation:

LIMBAUGH: We're going to go to Chicago. This is Charles. Charles, thank you for waiting and for calling. Great to have you here. Hello. CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Rush, listen, I voted Republican, and I didn't — really didn't want to see Obama get in office. But, you know, Rush, you're one reason to blame for this election, for the Republicans losing.

First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue is the — was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people. This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, or North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you kept harping about it — "It's OK," or "It's not really torture." And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners were killed under torture.

And it just — it was crazy for you to keep going on and on like Levin and Hannity and Hewitt. It's like you're all brainwashed.

And my last comment is, no matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you're brainwashed. You're just — and I hate to say it — but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who could believe in torture just has got to be – there's got to be something wrong with them.

LIMBAUGH: You know —

CALLER: And I know Bush wanted to keep us safe and all of that, but we're not supposed to be torturing these people.

LIMBAUGH: You know —

CALLER: And I know Bush wanted to keep us safe and all of that, but we're not supposed to be torturing these people.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, if anybody is admitting that they're brainwashed it would be you.

CALLER: No, no, no, Rush. I don't think so.

LIMBAUGH: Charles. Charles, Charles —

CALLER: You, Hannity, Hewitt, and Levin are all brainwashed and you know it.

LIMBAUGH: — you said — you said at the beginning of your phone call —

CALLER: Yeah.

LIMBAUGH: — that you didn't want Obama in there —

CALLER: That's right.

LIMBAUGH: — but you voted for him because of me.

CALLER: I didn't vote for him. I voted for McCain. I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, so —

CALLER: I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: — you're saying I turned people off to —

CALLER: You turned people off with all your — all this "vote for Hillary" and all this BS, because you must think people are really stupid.

LIMBAUGH: That was Operation Chaos. That was to keep the —

CALLER: You — no. It didn't work.

LIMBAUGH: — chaos in the [unintelligible] of the Democrat primaries.

CALLER: It didn't work. And now what we have with you Hannity, Levin, and Hewitt: sour grapes. That's all we have. And believe me, I'm not — I'm more to the right than I am to the left.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course, you are.

CALLER: I am, and that's —

LIMBAUGH: Of course, you are. You wouldn't be calling here with all these sour grapes if you weren't.

CALLER: Well, I'm so tired of listening to you —

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course, you are.

CALLER: — go on and on with this — you've been brainwashed.

LIMBAUGH: I don't know of anybody who died from torture. I do not ever —

CALLER: We are not supposed to torture people.

LIMBAUGH: I do not ever —

CALLER: Do you remember World War II, the Nazis? The Nuremberg Trials?

LIMBAUGH: I —

CALLER: Do you remember the Nuremberg Trials?

LIMBAUGH: Charles —

CALLER: Klaus Barbie?

LIMBAUGH: Charles, let me say —

CALLER: Huh?

LIMBAUGH: Barack Obama —

CALLER: What's the matter with you?

LIMBAUGH: Barack —

CALLER: You never even served in a military.

LIMBAUGH: Barack Obama is —

CALLER: I served in the Marine Corps and the Army.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama is president of the United States today because of stupid, ignorant people who think like you do. You pose — you and your ignorance are the most expensive commodity this country has. You think you know everything. You don't know diddly-squat.

You call me a Nazi? You call me somebody who supports torture and you want credibility on this program? You know, you're just plain embarrassing and ludicrous. But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you've said here.

The NYT is hosting a debate over whether the economy's 'green shoots' are real or imagined. It's a gloomy crowd. Here's Roger Altman:

America will fall way short of a cyclically normal recovery. The balance sheet nature of this recession mandates this. In other words, American households and lending institutions have suffered so much financial damage that healthy levels of consumer spending and overall lending are not achievable through 2011. Without them, especially with consumer spending representing 70 percent of G.D.P., a healthy recovery is not possible.

Yes, the stock market has experienced a nice three week rally. But, it remains 45 percent below its mid-2007 high. Glimmers or no glimmers, that’s the real point.

Arnold Kling argues with Ezra about rationing:

In America, about 90 percent of health care spending is paid for by third parties–most individuals do not fend for themselves. He also writes as if those who don't have health insurance do without health care. They do with less than other Americans, but it is not accurate to say that they do without.

My view of the American health care system is that it hardly rations health care at all. That is why we spend so much more than other countries. I wish we put more responsibility on individuals. Instead, we have this delusion that we cannot possibly afford health care if we pay for it individually, but of course we can afford it if we pay for it collectively.

Megan's light-bulb lament:

…when I look back at almost every "environmentally friendly" alternative product I've seen being widely touted as a cost-free way to lower our footprint, held back only by the indecent vermin at "industry" who don't care about the environment, I notice a common theme: the replacement good has really really sucked compared to the old, inefficient version…That is not necessarily an argument against the switch–if the costs are high enough (and maybe, in the case of phosphates, they are), then we should go ahead and use the more annoying product.  But it's well to remember that there are tradeoffs–that indeed, "industry's" reluctance is probably because they are well aware of what those tradeoffs are.

A reader writes:

Marriage equality across the country promises to strain DOMA through lawsuits like those from Massachusetts and California suing for federal benefits, but this move by the council sets up a direct conflict because of home rule. D.C. is under the jurisdiction of Congress, and Congress enacted and abides by DOMA. If Congress chooses to ignore this move by the council (as federal law mandates it should), they not only continue to back inequality–they feed the enduring struggle of D.C. citizens to ensure some measure of self-governance and legal autonomy. Even though the step of recognition feels less significant than legalizing the sanctioning of these unions in the District, its unique context stages a much bigger confrontation, and we should all pay attention.

Yes, and that is even more the case of the DC Council moves to legalize marriage equality in the District itself. This is particularly appealing to the Rove wing of the GOP, because they can use black homophobia as a wedge issue. DC is a perfect place to pit gays and straight, religious African-Americans, and we know that Republicanism as it has evolved under Rove is almost defined by finding groups of Americans to pit against each other.

A.L. celebrates:

I repeat my prediction that, within a decade, the Supreme Court will strike down bans on gay marriage nationally.

Many conservative critics (at least the principled ones) are today praising Vermont for legalizing gay marriage the "right way," i.e., by a vote of the legislature and not by judicial decree. But I think that analysis vastly oversimplifies the issue. The reality is that what happened in Vermont today likely would not have happened but for the actions of judges in Massachusetts, and several years earlier, in Vermont.

 In 1999, in the landmark decision of Baker v. Vermont, the Vermont Supreme Court held that the state's ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional and ordered the legislature to either permit same sex marriage or institute some alternative framework (civil unions) that would provide the same rights as marriage. That decision led directly to Vermont's first-in-the-nation civil union law. It also laid the legal groundwork for later decisions, including Goodrich.

Perhaps more importantly, however, these early judicial decisions changed the scope of the public debate. They forced people, for the first time, to grapple with the obvious tension between prevailing attitudes regarding gay rights and the inequality inherent in existing marriage laws. The fact that the world didn't collapse after gay people were allowed to enter into civil unions and then marriage also helped people adjust to the idea and get over their initial apprehensions. It changed public opinion. Without the court decisions that paved the way, it is very unlikely that this day would have come (at least at the speed it did).

Well you learn something new every day. A reader writes about this post:

Most people don't realize this, but when the Tango first originated in the slums of Buenos Aires, it was considered so decadent that no women, excepting prostitutes, would dare perform it in public – thus it was often originally two men who danced.

It's true!

The right of residents of DC to govern themselves has always been a bete noir of the far right. Michael Goldfarb, for example, believes in democracy in Iraq, but not in the United States. For him the District's democratic decisions to restrict gun rights and recognize civil marriages performed in other states amount to just another partisan opportunity:

The District of Columbia's Council voted today to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, setting Republicans on the Hill up for a great opportunity to hit an issue that polls well.

Notice no discussion of the actual merits of either question – just a cynical take on how it can be worked for one political party. Goldfarb is so emblematic of what has happened to the right: eager for torture, enraptured with a "near-dictatorial" presidency, supportive of murdering children to teach their parents a lesson, and always, always in favor of more war and longer, deeper occupations of foreign countries. Yes, John McCain chose his spokesman well. As McCain capitulated to Rove from 2006 onwards, he earned the dividend of all those who take Rove's awful advice: he lost.