Month: January 2011

Drum adds some context to the public/private sector retirement earnings divide in California. He notes that some public sector workers don't get social security or have benefits reduced – which changes the math.

Larison also applauds the Obama administration's non-role in the Tunisian revolution:

In the days leading up to Ben Ali's flight, America took a publicly neutral stance toward the protests, and Secretary of State Clinton stated that the United States was "not taking sides." A few Western sympathizers of the Tunisian opposition were outraged by the administration’s neutral position, but it was actually an impressive example of not inserting the United States into a purely internal matter and allowing Tunisians to work out their own affairs. … Had the White House overtly endorsed the cause of the protesters, it is possible that this would have lent credibility to Ben Ali’s claims that outside forces were responsible for the uprising.

On the other hand, Lee Smith suggests that a speech Clinton delivered in Doha last Thursday actually played a role in the Tunisian coup, calling it "a shot across the bow of the Arab political order." Abe Greenwald scoffs at such suggestions and criticizes Clinton for taking an officially neutral stance during the ordeal:

It’s one thing to note that the revolution in Tunisia, like all infant revolutions, could lead to better or worse conditions. It’s quite another not to take the side of the oppressed at the outset — especially after delivering a “blast” to corrupt Arab governments. And especially after leaked diplomatic cables show American officials describing the regime of ousted Tunisian president Ben Ali as corrupt and “sclerotic,” with “no checks in the system.”

The Obama administration feels that the U.S. has no dog in the fight between freedom and autocracy. As a country, we’ve been there before — pre-9/11, to be exact. Look how peacefully those days came to a resolution. Still, one must pay lip service to tradition. So every now and then, the secretary of state or the president talk of reforming stagnant political orders and we all applaud. It’s kind of like saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes.

Weigel reports on the jubilant GOP mood after their symbolic repeal vote. He says that Republicans are still planning to tweak the healthcare law:

Repeal was HR 2. Right now the House is debating HR 9: "Instructing certain committees to report legislation replacing the Job-Killing Health Care Law." That was the plan. Step One: Pass a repeal bill that everybody knows can't go further than the House, to get on record fulfilling a Tea Party promise. Step Two: Craft replacement legislation and ways to defund portions of "ObamaCare" in the committees. Several Democrats I spoke to yesterday, like Rep. Jared Polis and Rep. William Lipinski, said they were ready to work with Republicans to, respectively, repeal the 1099 provision of health care reform and to get tougher on abortion funding.

But no actual plan to find a way to insure the uninsured or restrain costs. (Image via TPM)

Scott Horton tracks developments in the case of Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian citizen, another victim of international complicity in rendition and torture:

Now Australian authorities announce that they believe that Habib’s claims of torture at the hands of Egyptian police are credible and that Habib was transferred to Egypt from Pakistan through a CIA renditions process. They also state that Australian intelligence figures might have been complicit in the rendition to torture and may have been present or close by as he was tortured. …

With [Prime Minister Julia] Gillard’s announcement, Australia now joins Britain, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Italy among the nations now conducting formal investigations into CIA renditions operations on their soil or involving their government personnel. Torture allegations figure prominently in each case.

Bryan Lewis Saunders created dozens of self-portraits under the influence of various drugs. Above is "2mg Xanax". Below the fold is "Psilocybin Mushrooms (2 caps onset)":

(Hat tip: I Heart Chaos)

Tripp has now had a formal name-change and his last name is now Palin, not Johnston. I don't know about you, but I thought the official GOP line is that a child needs a mother and a father, even though Levi has obviously been deficient in that department (although breaking through the circled Palin wagons is no easy endeavor). Actually erasing the father from his son's own name is, well, Palinesque. Money quote from an "insider':

“Bristol wants to fully eliminate Levi from her life and Levi is making it easier than ever for her.”

The Vatican is downplaying the latest piece of evidence in the abuse crisis - a 1997 letter from late Archbishop Luciano Storero to Ireland’s bishops instructing the bishops not to report sexual abuse cases to secular authorities but to keep it in the Church. Jerry Coyne has a pdf of the letter. His analysis:

[W]hy shouldn’t the bishops report abuse to Irish authorities? The real reason, of course, is because it’s terribly damaging to the Church and its authority.  But the letter says this: “The text, however, contains ‘procedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the acts of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problems. If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchical recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.”

Translation:  Don’t report child abuse to nonreligious authorities because it might result in your being embarrassed at the Vatican; and it could even hurt your career.

And let us be clear who was presiding over this disgraceful and disgusting negligence of a core moral value: the protection of children from abuse and rape. The Pope ultimately responsible, John Paul II, is on an absurdly fast track for beatification. How will history look on a church that made a saint out of a Pope who ignored, suppressed, and had underlings covering up the rape of countless vulnerable children? In Ireland, the abuse was so severe, so long-running, so protected by a vile collusion between church and state that the attempt to hush it up is damning. It seems to me a stretch to argue that the Church under John Paul II returned to a very papal hierarchical structure and simultaneously say the Pope has no responsibility for the mass rape and abuse of children he so blithely presided over.

There's a reason the Church has traditionally waited a very, very long time before considering sainthood. That's because we can have the perspective of distance, of seeing the full life and legacy, and weighing every saint's flaws as well as grace. There is no doubt in my mind that John Paul II was a towering figure of Christianity who deserves a very critical role in the history of the last century. He was a deeply holy man, and sainthood may one day be appropriate. But there is also no doubt in my mind that he was a disgraceful manager of the Church with respect to the greatest crisis it has faced in generations. His relationship with and protection of the pedophile, incestuous neo-fascist, Marcial Maciel, alone makes beatification, to my mind, an appalling swipe at the children John Paul II abandoned to the wolves.

(Photo: Pope John Paul II waves to the wellwisher 28 April 1989 upon his arrival in Antanarivo at the beginning of a 10-day Africa tour. It was his 41st International Pastoral visit. By Derrick Ceyrac/AFP/Getty Images.)

A reader writes:

We’re all aware of your irrational hatred of boomers, but this time you’ve misidentified your target. Public employees holding taxpayers hostage for huge benefits packages is not a new problem. Meanwhile, boomers are just now beginning to reach retirement age. If you must make this a generational issue – which it really isn’t – then look to the “greatest” generation. While you’re at it, look to your own and see if it's responsible for any real reform or are continuing this outrage.

I'm doing my bit and have done for a long time. Too bad the boomers have the votes. Another writes:

There may very well be an argument to be made for cutting retirement benefits for government workers, but let's be fair about how we present the facts and let's avoid outrage.  A couple of things caught my attention right from the start:

"[A]verage state retirement packages now valued at more than $1.2 million. The taxpayers who pay for those retirement benefits have an average of $60,000 saved for their own retirement."  You are comparing retirement packages at the point at which they have ripened and are about to be dispensed against an entire population of taxpayers, many of whom are in their twenties and thirties and have yet to accumulate huge sums.  It also doesn't take into account those private sector folk who have been grasshoppers with regard to their savings, no?

Traditionally many government jobs have not paid as well and cannot pay as well as similar positions in the private sector.  Thus, government has used other benefits to attract personnel including pension plans.  Surely there was a time when pension plans, due to the sheer scale of state governments, gave state governments a way to compete with the private sector for talent.

Fallows went to the State Dinner last night.

The pathetic defense of censorship of a vital piece in a brilliant exhibition is a new low in Washington cowardice. What on earth is G. Wayne Clough doing as the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution if it isn't defending the curators he hired and freedom of expression. Goldblog gives a pitch-perfect wail of protest.