Month: May 2012

A reality check:

[A] case could be made that Occupy Wall Street's slogan should be, "We Are the 99.5%!" The … chart [above] shows that if you are in the top 10 percent of incomes, you command more of the income received in the U.S. today than your counterparts in the past. But unless you are in the top one-half of one percent, the increase has not been startling.

It's Barney Frank against Tony Perkins and it's a joy to watch.

Alison Fairbrother fears they are being over-depleted:

Harvested by the billions and then processed into various industrial products, menhaden are extruded into feed pellets that make up the staple food product for a booming global aquaculture market, diluted into oil for omega-3 health supplements, and sold in various meals and liquids to companies that make pet food, livestock feed, fertilizer, and cosmetics. We have all consumed menhaden one way or another. Pound for pound, more menhaden are pulled from the sea than any other fish species in the continental United States, and 80 percent of the menhaden netted from the Atlantic are the property of a single company.

Why their numbers matter:

For anglers, the health of Atlantic predator fish is inextricably linked to the size and availability of menhaden in the ecosystem. Fishery managers may not be required to consider the ways in which ocean life is linked, but fishermen are keenly aware of the dynamics of the system.

(Photo: Thousands of dead menhaden fish are seen on the beach on December 19, 2005 in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. By Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images.)

Larison thinks it unlikely to pay dividends. Millman reframes:

The mystery isn’t why President Obama is running (partly) on foreign policy. The mystery is why Romney is. There is just no percentage in attacking Obama from the hawkish right on foreign policy except with hard core Republican base voters, and the record-free Romney runs more risk of seeming “out of touch” by harping on anything but the economy than the President does in running on his record. 

Michael Crowley illustrates the GOP's continued hawkishness: 

Plenty of senior Republicans are open to a military strike on Iran and oppose scaling back the war in Afghanistan; many of them are advisers to Mitt Romney. Other leading Republicans call for bold action in response to low probability, high-drama nightmares like an electromagnetic pulse weapon plunging us all into the world of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. And now comes an effort by House Republicans to build a wildly expensive missile defense shield to protect America’s east coast. The plan itself makes little sense: It addresses an extremely speculative threat. Chinese missiles do threaten west coast, not the east, and despite some seemingly exaggerated warnings, Iran probably can’t land a missile beyond Eastern Europe. Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee say the system should be operational by 2015 to protect the U.S. from an Iranian attack.

Know hope.

How else to explain the ludicrous story at Breitbart claiming the entire story of Romney's high school gay-bashing has "imploded." The reason for this assertion is that the Post did indeed get something wrong – one of the sources had not "long been bothered" by an incident he didn't witness. He found out about it when the Post called. And the Post should have added a formal correction than just fixing a sentence.  [Update: they are now adding an Editors' Note.] But this information changes nothing about the core of the story, still testified to by others and not denied by Romney.

One of John Lauber's sisters, quoted in the story, says she did not know of the incident at the time. But a kid who, after the assault and battery, cut his hair short to conform to Romney's strictures, was not likely to tell others of what happened. The victims of bullies often feel shame and keep quiet. So no logic there either. The Breitbart piece also claims other factual inaccuracies but without citing any specifics, it's impossible to judge.

But the weirdest point is that somehow the fact that John Lauber went on to live a full life disproves he was traumatized. How? Plenty of bullied gay kids go on to recover and live full lives. It gets better, remember? I'm with Joe Klein (as always) on this:

I’m still waiting for the moment when Romney actually tells the truth about something difficult.

He could have said, “You know, I’ve been troubled by the Cranbrook episode for most of my life, and I feel relieved, in a way, that it’s come out now. I did a really stupid and terrible thing. Teenage boys sometimes do such things, and deserve to be punished for them. What I most regret is that I never apologized to John, and won’t be able to now that he’s gone, but let me apologize to his family and friends. Bullying is unacceptable under any circumstances. It is especially unacceptable when prejudice–against race, ethnicity or sexual orientation–is involved. If elected President, I will try to atone for my teenage behavior by campaigning against bullying all across this country. What I did back then should be an example of how not to behave. I hope we can all learn from this. I know that I have.”

Instead, Romney has a near-perfect record of cowardice, obfuscation and downright lies. It shows enormous disrespect for the intelligence of the public.

Waldman watches Obama exploit it. Alex Koppelman nods:

In an election about a struggling economy and about people out of work, people want to see that their next President can, to borrow a phrase, feel their pain. Romney’s opponents will spend the next several months telling you he can’t do that. Hari Sevugan, the former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, previewed that strategy Thursday on Twitter, writing, "The bullying wasn’t a teenage one-off. Seamus, slashing jobs. It’s all telling of a lack of empathy and compassion – Presidential qualities."

Josh Barro digs deeper into Romney's record. He encourages Mitt to show some humanity:

Here’s video of Chris Christie talking about the Tyler Clementi suicide. Yes, the question of why exactly Clementi killed himself has gotten a lot murkier than it looked at the time of Christie’s remarks in 2010. But you can tell from these remarks that Christie sees bullying as a real problem, and that he understands the human cost of young people treating each other cruelly. Where is that emotional reaction from Romney?

After reviewing new data, Electionate believes that Obama could gain votes:

Compared to 2008, Obama’s weakest voting group is actually young white voters. According to Gallup, Romney actually leads Obama by 3% (43-46) among 18-29 year old whites, a huge reversal from Obama’s 54-44% edge four years ago. In this light, Obama’s decision to embrace gay marriage becomes more strategic. While I doubted whether there were many voters who Obama could sway with support for gay marriage, these numbers suggest that I was wrong.  By all accounts, gay marriage is more popular among 18-29 year old whites than any other age group, and certainly more than 44% of young whites are in favor. If Obama’s support for gay marriage can persuade socially progressive Obama 08? supporters to return to the Obama camp, there’s actually much more room for Obama to gain from gay marriage than one might initially suspect.

Silver takes a close look at the Democratic base's views. The Dish rounded up more commentary on electoral consquences yesterday.

"Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the most unforgivable thing in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, ever been guilty," – A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams.