Month: February 2011

Hardcore neocon Jennifer Rubin explains that despite his name recognition and ability to raise money, he faces these obstacles:

First, he's his own worst enemy, a gaffe-maker of epic proportions. He will seize on a bit of data or an odd theory (as he did on Obama's alleged "Keynian, anti-colonial" world view) and create a firestorm. Sarah Palin's verbal miscues may be more frequent, but Gingrich's are often more egregious. At a time when the public is arguably looking for a grown-up and a sober-minded leader, Gingrich projects instability and unpredictability. Second, he was a terrible speaker of the House.

Bill Clinton outfoxed him. He was a gadfly and a distraction, and virtually every House Republican who is still in Congress who went through that period has very negative memories. This isn't to say that Republican congressmen determine presidential primaries; but there will be no shortage of remembrances of a bitterly disappointing time for Republicans.

Third, he is going to have to win over Christian conservatives in Iowa, South Carolina and elsewhere. Sure, he talks a good game on religion these days, but let's face it: He has a huge personal issue that he's going to have to explain, again and again: "Gingrich, who frequently campaigned on family values issues, divorced his second wife, Marianne, in 2000 after his attorneys acknowledged Gingrich's relationship with his current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years younger than he is. His first marriage, to his former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. Although Gingrich has said he doesn't remember it, Battley has said Gingrich discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery."

I've never thought he was electable as president simply because he is so personally unappealing a character and so obviously an ideologue who thinks he is far smarter than he obviously is.

It's increasingly common, Hanna Rosin reports:

Already, younger people's relationships look radically different. A recent breakdown of census data showed that in all but three of the 150 biggest cities in the United States, young women age 30 and under are making more money than young men. Even if that changes when the women have children, such a vast shift in earning power suggests that the next generation may make different decisions about whose salary counts more and who should be the family's primary breadwinner…

I've lately started to encounter more and more women who outearn their husbands. Some couples seem to ease into the dynamic naturally—the woman is a born workaholic and the man lives at a slower pace, picking up contract work, savoring his afternoon coffee. One mother at our preschool can't stop bragging about her stay-at-home husband—although I am still startled by the sight of him hanging around the school, helping the teachers make handprint T-shirts. Some dynamics are not so pleasant and confirm the few studies claiming that these unions tend to be more unstable. One woman I know never seems to run out of ways to call her husband, who works as a part-time airline mechanic, a loser. Another complains about the small things: Why does he spend all her money on dress socks if he hasn't had a job interview in over a year and why does he have to subscribe to every damned sports channel and why will he never clean up after himself? In a couple of cases I know of, the disparity never felt natural and the couple got divorced.

Wait, why does he spend all his money on dress socks? The Wall Street Journal noted the numbers behind this phenomenon last September:

Beyond major cities such as San Francisco and New York, the income imbalance is pronounced in blue-collar hubs and the fast-growing metro areas that have large immigrant populations. The greatest disparity is in Atlanta, where young, childless women were paid 121% the level of their male counterparts, according to Reach Advisors.

…women on the whole haven't reached equal status in any particular job or education level. For instance, women with a bachelor's degree had median earnings of $39,571 between 2006 and 2008, compared with $59,079 for men at the same education level, according to the Census. At every education level, from high-school dropouts to Ph.D.s, women continue to earn less than their male peers.

Dana Milbank's dream come true:

A reader writes:

The reason I'm in the streets here in Madison aren't about unions or dealing with deficits.  I'm a state employee (at the UW) who is fine with paying more for my pension and health care – I feel blessed to have both.  But this governor is a train wreck.  He came into office with a surplus for the current budget year and promptly passed over $100m in tax cuts. He designed this "budget repair bill" with NO negotiations with either unions or the minority party.  That in itself wouldn't be so bad, but he then sent it to the legislature with directives to pass it in a week.  Think of that – a major bill restructuring pay and collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands, written with no negotiations and passed in a week.  No wonder we're pissed. 

Another reader:

I am no big fan of public sector unions, but I was still a bit shocked by your characterization of the proposed legislation. The bill would make it illegal for the union to negotiate on any issue other than wages, and when negotiating on wages they could not be allowed to negotiate any raises in real (inflation adjusted) dollars. This is not "renegotiating some deals" this is completely eliminating the union's role in negotiating contracts. I could support legislation that restricts the role of public sector unions in dictating work rules, promotion standards, or ability to fire workers – such rules compromise the quality of public sector services – but preventing unions from negotiating wages and benefits is pure union-busting.

Another reader:

The new Governor and Legislature passed business tax cuts that took the current budget from black to red to create an exploitable crisis. The collective bargaining agreement that existed had expired and been extended and the Governor exercised the option to cancel the extension with 30 days notice. The Governor made no effort to negotiate or ask for concessions, even though a number of the unions had expressed a willingness negotiate including increasing the share they paid for their benefits.

Instead the Governor and the Legislature have used the created budget crisis as a justification for unilaterally instituting cuts by increasing the share paid for benefits, changing the law such that it will be impossible to organize due to being unable to collect dues/creating free riding issues, forbidding organizations from collectively negotiating and requiring that any raise beyond CPI would need to be approved by a referendum.

Collectively this appears more about punishing a political constituency that didn't support you than trying to solve a budget issue. Especially when you realize that the four unions (law enforcement and police unions) that are exempt from these changes are the only four that endorsed Walker. 

Another:

I don't think I've ever disagreed with you on an issue this much.

The Wisconsin state government is in debt. That's clear and indisputable. Except that Governor Walker passed a bill lowering taxes, adding more to Wisconsin's debt. And, Wisconsin was doing pretty well until the recession when, cyclically, tax revenues fell but expenditures stayed the same. But instead of asking for a temporary decrease in salary or temporary increase in benefits contributions by employees, Walker is using the immediate crisis to enact long-term structural change. He's trying to permanently remove collective bargaining. This isn't to say that public workers shouldn't have some cuts. This isn't to say that public employee unions aren't different than private employee unions, because they are. But don't you think that public employee unions should have a little more job security than the whim of legislators and voters when they're doing vital jobs, like, you know, teaching our children and keeping our neighborhoods safe?

But really, for someone who's chastised today's GOP for not engaging with Obama, who's held Obama in esteem for his willingness to compromise, I am dumbstruck that when a Governor refuses to speak with legislators of the opposing party you suddenly think it's alright. The Democrats had no choice but to run away. It's a de facto filibuster, doing what a filibuster is meant to do – protecting the voice of the minority against the majority. Now, if the Democrats refuse to compromise at all and refuse to allow any cuts to public employees, then I'll be back on your side because they're doing what Republican Senators did to the US Senate 2008-2010.

A final reader:

Running away is pathetic? Maybe so, but Wisconsin law demands 20 people on hand to form a quorum.  Presumably there are reasons for that provision of the law.  Might one of those reasons be to enable the supermajority requirement to be triggered by a minority that feels sufficiently aggrieved?  You say the Democrats should try winning an election instead of running away.  Fourteen of them did win elections. Do the views of their constituents not matter at all simply because 19 is a bigger number than 14?  You might as well say to the Republicans that they ought to try winning over ONE member of the other party with a bit of compromise.  Or if they don't want to compromise, they ought try winning 20 seats instead of 19.

What you call running away, others call a fillibuster.

Jacqwi Campbell reports on a Bahraini protest and funeral for martyrs in Sitra:

From every corner of the funeral crowd, people were calling for the government to stop giving citizenship to members of the country’s police force, who they say are largely Yemeni, Syrian, Jordanian, and Pakistani. They spoke of how the government seemed to be bringing in Sunni foreigners as security personnel, to increase the Sunni population and to make the police primarily loyal to the royal family, which, unlike the majority of Bahrainis, is Sunni. The demonstrators preached unity between Sunni and Shiite, and Sunnis were in attendance at Sitra, but the inequality of the two sects weighs heavily in the demands and anger of the crowd. “The police will not be able to bring out the will of the people,” the speaker said.

In recognition of the coming spring, a mash-up of people seeing snow for the first time:

Not so serious, it turns out. They rule out any net increase in tax revenue for the federal government. All it took was for Grover Norquist to throw a tantrum.

Like the NYT, the WaPo and many other news sources, the Dish has focused on the horrors in Bahrain, the looming confrontation in Iran, riots in Libya, and the sudden earthquake in the Middle East, not a newly elected governor trying to curtail government spending, especially on healthcare for public sector unions. Readers are very irate. Well, we make choices here. But we're of no party or clique, which may be why I'm not that galvanized by a partisan mudfight. But, no, I don't see it as outrageous that a freshly elected GOP governor and legislature want to renegotiate some deals with public sector unions, and I see no reason why the president should intervene. Joe Klein makes a lot of sense here:

Public employees unions are an interesting hybrid. Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership. Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed…of the public? Despite their questionable provenance, public unions can serve an important social justice role, guaranteeing that a great many underpaid workers–school bus drivers, janitors (outside of New York City), home health care workers–won't be too severely underpaid. That role will be kept intact in Wisconsin. In any given negotiation, I'm rooting for the union to win the highest base rates of pay possible…and for management to win the least restrictive work rules and guidelines governing how much truly creative public employees can be paid.

You know what the Democrats might try next time? Winning an election. Running away is pathetic.