A new poll from the Center for American Progress shows that 9 out of 10 voters think there is a federal law protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination. They’re wrong. The poll found that 73 percent of voters do support such protections, including strong support from Catholics (74 percent), senior citizens (61 percent), and even people with unfavorable attitudes toward gay people (50 percent). Unfortunately, in most states the protections don’t exist, and levels of discrimination and harassment are high.
So you have a lobby group that has made passage of ENDA their top priority for twenty years running. It has overwhelming public support. And zero chance of ever making it through Congress.
One reason I don’t believe today’s Republican party should retain the word conservative is its relationship to institutions. Conservatives respect the institutions of government, even if they try to limit its power. My prime exhibit is the GOP’s contempt for the judicial branch of government, a critical element in a republic designed to check too much power in any branch. Another would be the Federal Reserve, and even, at this point, Medicare. Conservatives are respectful of these anti-democratic institutions because conservatives are concerned about excessive democracy which can trample on basic rights.
Now I do not think that drastic cuts in entitlements and defense are unconservative, because, in many ways, those cuts are necessary to preserve the fiscal balance of the ship of state. But the manner in which they are accomplished should be honed to avoid what Newt Gingrich rightly denounced as right-wing “social engineering.” Reform, not revolution, pragmatic experiments, not radical overhauls, are the lodestars of the real conservative temperament. And if you are trying to rein in healthcare costs, the ACA represents this conservative approach.
Which brings me to the debt ceiling. I think that raising it is a classic opportunity for the GOP and fiscally conservative Democrats to insist on more seriousness on deficit and debt reduction. I hope they do. But I do not believe it should be used as a piece of blackmail at the expense of the American and the global economy. In fact, this may be the riskiest un-conservative posture the GOP has yet advanced. Palin, who is the id of the GOP, addressed the question yesterday:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin weighed in on the debt ceiling debate Thursday night following a private clam bake in Seabrook, N.H., saying the nation’s borrowing ceiling should not be raised. It would be “a failure of leadership in the House” if “they were to cave and the debt ceiling were to be increased based on what I believe are Timothy Geithner’s false statements to the American people that a catastrophe would befall us all if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.” She told reporters outside the small beach house at which she had organized the party that increasing the debt ceiling is “just going to allow the big spenders to have an additional tool to spend more money.”
Remember: the spending has already been passed. This is not about changing spending in the near future. It’s simply about paying our debts on time. The minute that the US is regarded as being unreliable on this core piece of governing competence, the world markets will experience shock waves in the midst of a still very fragile, post-bubble recovery.
None of this matters to Palin. Because for her, radicalism is so much easier than responsibility. In fact, the reason I am focused on Palin is because she represents, to my mind, the core of today’s “conservative” movement: a desire to smash existing institutions and to “fundamentally restore” the American status quo before the Great Society, and even, the New Deal.
They are playing with sharks. But one of these days, it will no longer be play.
The level of the unemployment rate alone gives little guidance. The unemployment rate in 1980 was 7.2%, up considerably from the year before; Jimmy Carter duly lost his bid for reelection. In 1984, the unemployment rate was actually higher at 7.5%, but was on its way down from the previous year; Ronald Reagan was reelected in a landslide. In both cases, it was the trend that mattered.
It is not enough for a politician to be innocent; he also must appear to be innocent. In fact, it is often better to appear innocent than to actually be innocent.
In my column this week, I tried to find some kind of metaphor for the GOP race. And then I had a flashback. Remember Wacky Races? Romney vs Palin is Peter Perfect vs Penelope Pitstop. Newt is Muttley. Ron Paul is professor Pat Pending. And the rest are the Ant Hill Mob. Which led me down the Youtube rabbithole. Here's as good an analysis of Palin's campaign strategy as any I've seen:
In a comment to The Guardian, a spokesman for White House drug tsar Gil Kerlikowske disagreed with the report‘s conclusions by saying, “Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated. Making drugs more available – as this report suggests – will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe.”
First, as far as I can tell, the report does not suggest making drugs more available (unless you count the use of heroin in heroin treatment). More importantly, though, the quote reveals a serious flaw in the drug tsar’s understanding of the way things are.
Drugs are readily available to anyone who wants to use them. Current drug policy does not reduce the availability of drugs in our communities. The most difficult drug to acquire before I turned 21 was alcohol. It was easier to get almost anything else. Drug dealers never check ID.
Another writes:
You saying that “the Obama administration refuses to accept the empirically obvious” is unfair.
Neither of the main parties accepts the empirically obvious. Stating the empirically obvious could easily be a career-ending move, despite public support for many aspects of ending the war on drugs (e.g. marijuana decriminalization), the public is also easily convinced that any liberalization will result in drug fiends and more violent crime. The Obama administration can’t even do much to change drug policy because much of it (sentencing, funding and mandate for the DEA, drug scheduling, etc.) are a matter of law he is bound to uphold and which will require many members of Congress both parties to change. At least the Obama administration is recommending ending one of the worst Drug War inequities we’ve had since the 1980s — the crack vs powder cocaine sentencing rules.
Another:
Eric Holder is apparently supporting a retroactive easing of federal penalties for crack-cocaine. Sounds reasonable enough. And I’m glad Congress reduced the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine last year (though they are still 18-1 apparently). Effing baby steps, but at least it’s something.
The NYT runs the news today that the Dish cited yesterday: the former head of the Mossad's open battle against the reckless extremists running Israel. This is a huge story. The Guardian runs with it too. So does Fox. I think Obama in future speeches or remarks should note how he is more accommodating of Israel's security needs than the former head of the Mossad. If Romney goes there, cite Dagan.
Steve Kornacki thinks Romney is betting on a bad economy:
The weaker it becomes, the more vulnerable Obama will seem to Republicans. This, in turn, will create more urgency for the party's opinion-shaping elites to rally behind a candidate capable of taking advantage of a poor economy in the general election — and it will make it easier for them to persuade rank-and-file Republican voters to follow their lead.
One of Romney’s former aides recently told me that, whatever Romney’s difficulties explaining his support of the individual mandate in the health-care plan he passed in Massachusetts in 2006, nobody should discount him, because once he gets “locked in” it is “scary” to see how focussed he can become on a goal. Right now, Romney is locked in on the weakness of this economy—and that is a message that should scare Democrats this time.
The Dish 