Tag: Premium

When Republicans eventually retake the White House, Chait expects them to follow Bush’s example of fiscal recklessness. Douthat sees another way forward:

[T]he Bush playbook and the Tea Party playbook do not exhaust the options for the right.

The signal fiscal failure of the Bush era was not a willingness to spend more money in some areas (defense, education, foreign aid, prescription drugs) while cutting tax rates overall; it was the failure to successfully pair the rate cuts and new spending with the kind of tax and entitlement reforms that would have left the country on a sounder footing for the long term. (If the Medicare Part D expansion had been combined the reforms to Medicare the Bush White House originally wanted, if the push Social Security reform hadn’t gone nowhere, and if tax reform hadn’t died along with the rest of Bush’s second term ambitions, then the entire Bush agenda would have made more fiscal sense.)

So the question for our (still-hypothetical) future era of Republican governance is whether the right can combine a shift away from austerity-only policymaking with a continued commitment to the kind of entitlement reform proposals that the House G.O.P. has rallied around over the last few years. That’s the test: If you can introduce Ryan-style premium support for Medicare and do a real cleanup of the tax code, there’s room to experiment with a larger child tax credit or stronger work supports or payroll tax cuts or what-have-you without blowing out the deficit.

Mark Herring, Virginia’s new Attorney General, declared yesterday, as I noted in passing, that he will no longer defend the state’s same-sex marriage ban:

Lyle Denniston observes that this is “the first time that the top legal officer in a state in the South had begun supporting same-sex marriage under the Constitution.” What happens to the case challenging Virginia’s ban:

While the constitutional challenge goes forward, Herring said, state officials responsible for enforcing it will continue to do so, and its validity will be defended in court by private lawyers for county clerks in Norfolk and Prince William County.  Those clerks would have a legal right to appeal if the ban were struck down, he added. Herring said that he and other state officials will continue to work to ensure that the case moves forward to a final decision as “a fair and proper vehicle” for the constitutional test.

Weigel looks at how Virginia has changed since it passed its ban:

In 2006, 57 percent of Virginia voters approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment, adding the definition to their Constitution. Since then, lots of Virginians have, like Herring, changed their minds. As of six months ago, only 43 percent of Virginians opposed gay marriage—a 14-point swing. So Virginia’s one of those states that’s probably ready to wave in gay marriages, but can’t, because an older and more conservative electorate locked and bolted the door. Back in 2006, this was seen as a boon for Republicans. And now it’s left Republicans defending a pretty unpopular position.

Dreher is disturbed:

Whether you are for or against gay marriage, it ought to bother you that a state attorney general asserts a right not to defend the state constitution. What if a majority of Virginia voters had approved same-sex marriage, but Mark Herring were a gay-marriage opponent, and refused to defend the law against a court challenge from marriage traditionalists?

Josh Israel finds precedents:

Herring’s immediate predecessor, Ken Cuccinelli II, also refused to defend laws he deemed unconstitutional. Last year, one of his spokesmen noted, “If the attorney general’s analysis shows that a law is unconstitutional, he has a legal obligation to not defend it.” Indeed in 2009, Cuccinelli himself said in a debate, “I will not defend what I, in my judgment, deem to be an unconstitutional law.” “If I determine it not to be constitutional,” he explained then, “I will not defend it. My first obligation is to the Constitution and the people of Virginia.”

Pivoting off Leah Allen’s post about her father’s debilitating pot habit, Kleiman declares that full commercial legalization will create more problem users:

If you support making cannabis available from profit-seeking commercial vendors, heavily marketed, and cheap – which is the path Washington and Colorado are walking down right now – then the predictable result of your preferred policy will be more people with very bad cannabis habits. And there could be fewer such people if cannabis were kept expensive, if marketing were kept to a minimum, and if users were offered modest helps to their self-command, such as user-set periodic purchase quotas, or if we keep the commercial motive out of the business altogether with state stores or by limiting vendor licenses to consumer-owned co-ops and not-for-profit businesses with boards concerned with limiting drug abuse rather than maximizing revenue.

Of course you’re free to oppose all of that. But if you do so, you ought at least to acknowledge the inevitable human cost.

But the huge benefits of ending Prohibition and the tangible personal benefits enjoyed by the vast majority who consume marijuana responsibly still make an overwhelming case, to my kind, for legalization. Kleiman puts it this way:

As I keep saying: the evils of prohibition do not disprove the evils of substance abuse. In the case of cannabis, it’s probable that we could get rid of the former without greatly increasing the latter. But it’s not automatic.

Agreed. Brian Macaulay, a self-described recovering pot addict, wonders what that would mean for those like him:

While the consensus was once that marijuana is not an addictive drug in the same way heroin or alcohol are, society has come a long way in its understanding and definition of addiction. No longer is the condition a matter of simple chemical dependency. Addictions, be they to drugs, sex, food, gambling, or anything else, are now perceived as self-destructive behaviors a person is consistently unable to refrain from engaging in, despite negative consequences. The substance or action itself may be benign to ordinary people. From this point of view, the addiction is in the user, not what is used. So, for that addict portion of the population, what does a world with legal marijuana mean? …

“I see a lot of addicts from Colorado,” says Brooke Constable, an addiction treatment clinician in Orange County, California, “There are plenty who present with marijuana as their primary addiction.” Marijuana addicts may not often have parallel life problems to the more drastic ones of those afflicted with an addiction to harder drugs like heroin, but according to Constable, the difference is irrelevant in the broader picture of an addict coming to terms with their own powerlessness over drug use: “Addicts only find a true bottom when they have internal consequences. They need to want to change. If they don’t, things like family disapproval, career trouble, or the law won’t stop them.” Nor does she see the legal status of marijuana as particularly relevant to those already sober, “If they’re really working a 12-step program, it doesn’t matter. If someone is committed to their recovery, if they believe it’s what they need to do to take care of themselves and live a quality life, the legality of the drug doesn’t make any difference.”

Dish readers sounded off on Allen’s piece here.

Et tu with the etc, Jay? It’s et al. In response to me, Drum puts Ezra’s new enterprise in perspective:

[N]o one should feel like this is something new and unprecedented.

It’s the same thing that’s been happening to popular media for over a century. When radio was invented, it attracted young entrepreneurs like William Paley (using family money) and Richard Sarnoff (working his way up the ranks at RCA). The burgeoning market for middle-class reading material attracted young entrepreneurs like Henry Luce (magazines), William Randolph Hearst (newspapers), and Simon & Schuster (books). The film industry attracted young entrepreneurs like Walt Disney and Howard Hughes. Cheap four-color printing prompted Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson to start up the company that would later become DC Comics. Car culture produced car magazines. Computers produced computer magazines. Gaming produced gaming magazines. The rise of cable TV brought us CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. When politics collided with the rise of the internet, we got websites like Drudge Report, Talking Points Memo, the Huffington Post, and Politico.

Will Ezra Klein’s new venture succeed? Who knows. But I think it’s safe to say that some of these ventures will succeed, and they will indeed produce a realignment in the political media universe. They already have, after all: Fox News and Politico are probably more influential already than the entire old-guard newspaper industry combined.

But the best quote from the chatter on this comes from John Cassidy. Behold the paradox of Buzzfeed:

BuzzFeed and Upworthy aren’t really news sites: they specialize in listicles, lifestyle posts, funny GIFs, and celebrity stories. When I checked BuzzFeed’s home page on Monday afternoon, one of its featured headlines was “Ron Jeremy Does ‘Wrecking Ball.’ ” Over at Upworthy, there was this offering: “An Actor Who Got Super Famous Overnight Has Some Profound Thoughts on Celebrity Worship.” (Update: In fairness, and in response to some complaints from BuzzFeed writers, I should point out that BuzzFeed also puts out serious journalism, including political reports, dispatches from overseas, and long-form stories. Still, the lists and other lighter fare are what drive a lot of its traffic.)

How many complaints did he get, I wonder, from Buzzfeed readers?

Kavitha A. Davidson questions whether the seats will be filled in Sochi:

Because of security concerns, Russia can’t expect a boost from foreign fans. And it will probably have a tough time selling domestic fans on the cost, despite organizing committing Chairman Dmitry Chernyshenko’s optimistic estimate that 75 percent of spectators will be Russian citizens. Putin has boasted the affordability of the tickets — the cheapest tickets cost $15 and more than half the tickets sell for less than $150 — but the problem most Russians face is accessibility. Transportation to the remote city of Sochi is largely out of reach, with flights costing more than half the average monthly salary of $860.

Bershidsky notes that “the security measures have been obvious and oppressive — and the athletes and guests have yet to arrive”:

Residents of Sochi have endured emergency evacuations of the new railway station in Adler. Rail commuters must get special permission to transport liquids, laser and high-frequency devices, bicycles, tools and winter sports equipment. Since Jan. 7, out-of-town cars have been banned from entering the Sochi area and required to park in special lots at least 60 miles from the city center. Nikolai Yarst, a reporter for the Ura.ru site in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, visited checkpoints at the city limits and found long lines of cars with Sochi plates awaiting a painstaking examination by police.

Jonathan Mahler claims that the threats are unprecedented:

We’ve had terrorist attacks at the Olympics before. But this is the first time we’ve heard so many credible threats before the Games. It’s also the first time the Games have been held in a region featuring two wars between the host country and native Islamic separatists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised that Sochi won’t be another Munich, and he is turning the city into a police state to make good on that promise. But how much faith does anyone have in the integrity of the 1,500-square-mile security zone that Russia claims to have built around the Games? The U.S. will have two warships in the nearby Black Sea — a couple more high-value targets? — in case Americans need to be evacuated en masse. It has also volunteered military support to help keep the Games safe, though there seems little chance that Putin will accept the offer.

Meanwhile, Amelia Urrey shines a light on Sochi’s environmental toll:

Not only is this shaping up to be the most expensive Olympics in the history of the games, with $51 billion of new development, it is also arguably one of the most destructive. Five thousand acres of pristine forests have been felled, while wetlands that served as important stopovers for migrating birds have been filled in. Landslides and waste dumping threaten the watershed, which feeds into the Black Sea. … The construction projects have also left local Sochi-ers in the lurch, facing frequent power shortages, land subsidence, flooding, and widespread pollution. While the mayor of Sochi pointed to a new Louis Vuitton store as a symbol of progress, nearby communities are living without running water, and some have been cut off from the city by a new $635 million highway.

(Photo: Security personnel talk in the Olympic Park in the Coastal Cluster  in Alder, Russia on January 9, 2014. The region will host the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, which start on February 6. By Michael Heiman/Getty Images)

Maya Rhodan runs down the advice of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, appointed last year to suggest ways to improve voting procedures:

The recommendations focus partly on the impact improved technology can have on the voting process, such as using electronic poll books, improving access to voter information on states’ websites for voters overseas and in the military, and easing the process of updating and replacing old voting equipment. One key recommendation was that schools continue to serve as polling places. Some districts have expressed security concerns about that role in the wake of high profile school shootings, but the commission said schools remain ideal places to cast a ballot because they are accessible to people with disabilities and often located near voters’ homes.

Christopher Flavelle highlights the report’s revelation that gun violence, especially after Newtown, has discouraged voting in schools. Toobin wonders whether the Republicans care about fixing such problems:

Democrats are likely to greet the recommendations with some enthusiasm, though many will regret the absence of proposals on photo identification and the Voting Rights Act. A person familiar with the commission’s deliberations noted that these topics were not within the group’s charter and, besides, may not be as important as their high profile suggests. “There is a lot of sound and fury about photo I.D., but it pales in comparison to long lines, registration systems, and absentee ballots in terms of the number of people affected,” this person said. “We are talking about tens of millions of voters affected by these issues.”

The recommendations will test Republicans.

If, as many Democrats believe, they simply want to reduce turnout because they have a tendency to win low-turnout elections and lose high-turnout contests, Republicans can ignore or nitpick the recommendations, despite Ginsberg’s impeccable partisan credentials. (I first met both Ginsberg and Bauer when they were on opposite sides of the Florida recount, in 2000.) Or the commission’s work could serve as a model of bipartisan coöperation, with the two sides putting aside their differences in the interest of setting up fairer fights in the future. That, in any event, is today’s fond hope.

Bernstein doesn’t think any of the report will be adopted:

To the extent that the problem is mainly one of information not previously available to well-intentioned, non-partisan election administrators, then Bauer-Ginsburg could certainly make a big difference. But to the extent the problem is one of partisan state governments who want to maintain high hurdles between (at least some) people and the franchise — or to the extent that money is needed to implement change and election administration remains a low priority — then change will be minimal.

Wendy Weiser is more optimistic:

Although the lead up to the 2012 election saw widespread efforts to restrict voting rights, 2013 ushered in a countertrend of improving voter access. It’s true that the movement to cut back on voting rights did not end. But many states pushed forward with positive voting reforms as well, with 10 states passing laws making it easier to vote, many along the lines recommended by the Commission. Voter-registration reform has been especially popular. Interestingly, while voting restrictions passed almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states, voting improvements passed in Republican, Democratic, and mixed-control states. The appetite to improve the voting system can transcend partisanship.

The fact that I saw a commercial for a head shop since I'm in Colorado is awesome.

— David Holm (@dmholm) January 19, 2014

I want to move to Colorado and own a head shop

— Dan McGee (@Danmcgee_2) January 18, 2014

The legal pot business is already spurring the growth of supporting industries:

[I]n the world of legalized marijuana, pot shops and grow facilities aren’t the only business opportunities; there are also all the ancillary businesses that service those pot shops, grow facilities, and the pot-smokers themselves. “You can relate it back to the gold rush,” says Ean Seeb, co-founder of the Denver Relief marijuana consulting company. “For every chunk of gold, you needed picks and shovels, a pan and a sifter, and the same thing applies to cannabis. For every gram of marijuana, you need a bag, labels, receipts, exit packaging, point-of-sale, a way to pay for it, staff, uniforms, a payroll company, insurance, and so on.” …

Ancillary businesses are particularly attractive to out-of-state investors. That’s because to have an equity interest in a Colorado marijuana business, state law requires at least two years of Colorado residency. So if you’re an out-of-state entrepreneur who wants to bet on the new industry today, the only choice you have is to invest in the picks and shovels—buying interest in megasized garden product stores, consolidating real estate portfolios to lease to Colorado-based pot-store owners, funding research and development for thumbprint-based security systems for grow facilities. Plus, while buying recreational marijuana is starting to feel downright ho-hum here in Colorado, let’s not forget that selling, cultivating, and manufacturing marijuana remains prohibited by federal law. Thus, risk-averse businesspeople might prefer to invest in companies that are not directly involved in violating federal law.

A reader writes:

I need to challenge Joe Mathews’ assertion that the design of the average Council Chamber defeats the goal of public engagement in decision making. As a government employee, I have sat through many public hearings and forums specifically designed to solicit public comment on policy issues, and one of the observations I’ve made is that almost all speakers at these events aren’t bothering to speak to the council members or hearing officers – they’re speaking to the audience. Their attention is directed at the crowd, and their words are intended to enflame the crowd to support whatever their message is … which in turn is generally targeted towards the media covering the event rather than the government officials. Unless Mr. Mathews believes that we all live in a Norman Rockwell painting of small-town America, we should be prepared to accept the reality that those who speak at government meetings are those with the courage and the drive to do so, regardless of how the deck chairs behind the dais are arranged.

Another quotes Mathews:

“To unleash the untapped power of council and school board meetings – to make them about creating conversations – we must flip our priorities and redesign the spaces, so that council chambers and boardrooms are foremost places for people to gather and talk.” And the rest of the quoted text is just about the stupidest idea for city council and school board meeting spaces I can imagine. Cross-talk? Coffee and snacks? Booze? Holy crap, nothing would ever get accomplished (as opposed to almost nothing, as it often seems now).

I agree that raising the seating of the board above the floor level of the public is a problem because it makes them look like priests or something, but it’s a fairly inexpensive way to keep them visible. Rather than turn the whole thing into some sort of third space (per Oldenberg or Putnam), why not raise the public seating into a more auditorium-like configuration? We already (metaphorically) look down on our politicians, so why not in reality?

Joe Mathews seems mainly to be concerned that public decision making is petty, boring, and legalistic. No kidding. We’re talking about local politics, and decisions about roads, bus routes, and zoning (and so on, and on, and on, and on) – the important, daily, mundane work of developing and maintaining the (ideally) invisible frameworks through which we live our real, exciting lives getting along with our friends, neighbors, and strangers.

We already have third places where community members can talk about the issues of the day, and the week or month between public meetings is when people can chat up their neighbors and express their opinions to their officials directly: face-to-face, or e-mails, letters, social media, or even the public comment periods of the meetings. Making the meeting space look like a coffee shop isn’t going to eliminate closed sessions, or make it possible for the school board to do anything different about the problem teacher just because some parents are talking about it during the public meeting.

In my job as a planner in a small Midwestern city, I’ve seen well-run meetings, where citizens get engaged when someone does something to make people mad, and I’ve seen them invited to comment during board discussion of the current agenda topic to air the matter. Indeed, in one board, it’s done for every single agenda item. So citizen engagement is possible and desirable in the current, ordinary configuration. However, it’s up to the community to find the way to get that engagement. The configuration of the meeting space can surely make a difference in the feeling of a meeting, but the legal requirements of public notice and equal treatment mean meetings of public officials will never be as chatty as Mathews seems to want.

Another reader:

Although I’ve found the Quakers can be as full of crap and deluded as anybody else, their meeting houses can be a democratic delight – see photos here and here. There is neither dais, nor (in theory) any authority figure.

Another:

If Joe Mathews thinks that American city councils are bad, he should try British ones! Most British councils have rows of chairs for the councillors, facing towards a central dais where the mayor or council chairman sits, with the public seating up in balconies, facing the backs of the councillors. Not only are we not looking at our fellow citizens – we’re not even looking at the politicians themselves, but at their backs.

One more:

I have to call BS on the comparison between City Council and Church, or that City Councils will be more appealing if they looked like Starbucks. City Council officials are facing the crowd because they’re “elected”; they’re not equal to Joe Citizen in the crowd. They hold the responsibility and authority to actually make a decision. That’s why you address them. After all, this is not just a democracy, it’s a representative democracy. Average people in City Council meetings don’t get to talk much, not because it’s laid out like a Church, but simply because there’s only so much time and too many people who all want to ramble on and on about their stupid idea of how to fix everything.

So, how do we let everyone talk without wasting time and still letting good idea rise to the top and reach the council?

We do it online. Set up a web site where good ideas can rise to the top and enforce strict rules to keep the discussion civil. Then bring in those with the best ideas and argument to have a live discussion in the City Council meeting. People don’t go to Starbucks (or other coffee shops) because it has a comfortable layout. They go because there they don’t have to discuss mind-numbing issues and eventually have their voice drowned by the loser who has nothing better to do than be there at 6am to stand at the start of the line and shout at the council for their totalitarian regime.

I’d like to thank the Council and I yield the rest of my time.

A reader writes:

I enjoyed your review of the new TV show “Looking”, and I’m right there with you on your criticism of Philadelphia and Jeffrey and your praise for Weekend.  I’m guessing we might agree on the bulk of gay films and TV shows out there.

Do yourself a favor and check out the new French film Stranger by the Lake [trailer here]. It’s a fantastic drama that just happens to take place within a specific sub-culture of the gay male population, but the story asks questions which can just as much be asked of anyone gay or straight: what are the risks of love and sex, and why do we take them?  It’s honest and intelligent, but the bottom line is that it’s just plain entertaining as hell. I promise I’m not a troll working for the film’s publicity department.  I’m just a film nerd always looking for good cinema that portray gay characters with honesty and respect and doesn’t treat us like fashion accessories.

Another sends the above trailer:

If you are looking for a more authentic account of gay life, try the film Keep the Lights On.

It’s about a relationship that finally goes south because of one partner’s meth addiction, but overall it’s totally free of all the things that make you cringe. Ira Sachs, the director, has another film at Sundance right now, Love is Strange, which in some respects eerily resembles the case recently covered on The Dish about the teacher in the Pacific Northwest who lost his job when he got married. Anyway, I think you’ll find that Keep the Lights On beautifully represents a couple plagued by many troubles, none of them necessarily related to being gay.

Another looks back a decade:

I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned Six Feet Under in your discussion of gay men in the media. The character of David Fisher (played by Michael C. Hall) was portrayed in such a compassionate, human way – we see him break up with his long term boyfriend because of his inability to come out; engage in a period of self-destructive behaviour; and eventually grow up, become emotionally healthier, come out, and form a family. For me, following the life of this character, which is written and acted so naturally (indeed, all the relationships in this show are astonishing for how natural and right they feel, even when they’re dysfunctional or falling apart) that it really hammered home the idea that ALL people have the right to form a family with whomever they choose.

Another reader:

I hear ya. There’s a lot of bad gay-themed drama out there, stuff that thought it could pull in an audience just because it was “gay-themed”, in a world where there wasn’t much in the way of gay-themed art; stuff that tried so hard to be “representative” or “sensitive” that it forgot to have characters (“Take Me Out” and dozens of others too forgettable to name); stuff that relied on the titillation factor of getting its characters naked (“Party”, “Naked Boys Singing,” “Take Me Out”); stuff that thought being shocking was enough (“Taxi Zum Klo,” “F*cking Men”); stuff where the gay men acted more like suburban couples from the Mad Men era (“Love, Valour, Compassion” – ugh!).

And, yeah, as brilliant as the British “Queer as Folk” was, I couldn’t get past the first episode-and-a-half of the American series.

In fact, in all my years of seeing gay-themed theatre in Chicago, I can think of just two plays so good I could recommend them to anyone without reservation. In the 1990s, “The Expense of Spirit” by Michael Barto, and from this decade, “The Homosexuals” by Philip Dawkins (a terrific young playwright with a half-dozen plays of diverse styles and themes under his belt – three of which were being performed simultaneously by different theatre companies in Chicago a year ago).

I look forward to seeing “Looking” (but since I don’t have cable, that won’t happen until it’s available on DVD).