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Another long day comes to an end. Here are a few hilarities and brain-teasers.
* Santorum says Obama “war on religion” will lead to another French Revolution, use of guillotine. Yep, the guillotine.
* Yglesias says big losers in foreclosure fraud settlement are those interested in “big-picture” reforms of financial system.
* Weigel compares two hippest parties at CPAC: Scotch & Cigars, and BlogBash. Sound like more fun that a barrel of oil.
* Joanna Brooks discusses fading growth rates of LDS in America.
* Harold Meyerson pens comprehensive look at Americans Elect, which already has ballot line for its yet-to-be-identified presidential candidate in 14 states.
* Guttmacher Institute reports U.S. teen pregnancy rate lowest in 40 years.
* And, in today’s non-political news: Naomi Wolf calls Madonna “that forbidden thing, the Nietzschean creative woman.” Huh.
Plan to monitor CPAC as tonight’s Trash-TV investment, hope to glean insights tomorrow.
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SteveT on February 09, 2012 6:39 PM:
When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what's left is the French Revolution. What's left is the government that gives you right, what's left are no unalienable rights, what's left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you'll do and when you'll do it. What's left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we're a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road. -- Rick Santorum
Don't know much about history.
Don't know much biology.
Don't know much about a science book.
Don't know much about the French I took . . .
Wow. I thought Santorum was supposed to be an intelligent version of Rick Perry.
The French Revolution boiled over into violence and the Terror because of the indifference of the ruling elite to the plight of working people and the poor. People turned away from religion because the Church had supported the actions of the ruling elite and their special privileges.
Santorum's Republican party ALSO is indifferent to the plight of working people and the poor. The Republican party is hand-in-glove with the Religious Right in defending the actions of the One Percent and their special privileges.
Santorum and his Wingnut buddies are the people who are likely to cause the tumbrels to be brought out of storage.
Tom Hilton on February 09, 2012 7:34 PM:
Is Naomi Wolf trying to make people nostalgic about Camille Paglia?
theAmericanist on February 09, 2012 7:38 PM:
Oy.
The French Revolution was violent because it was run from the beginning by brutal people -- d'uh. There's a REASON why people speak of America's Founders with awe and reverence. It's because you can't name a whole lot of revolutionary generation other than America's that didn't end with wholesale murder.
As for the tumbrels and the Bishops now demanding that any employer have a conscience exemption: I keep reminding you guys how polls work, and no matter how many times you see the evidence, you go back to your own bullshit. What, you think Axelrod started backpedaling WITHOUT seeing better data than the Planned Parenthood polls? Ya think Biden is politically naive?
So now -- with the same kind of polling showing just how powerful their position in the public really is, not to mention the House, the Senate, and SCOTUS, the Bishops are asking for more than they would have settled for a month ago.
I've said it before: it's less like the French Revolution, and more like Green Acres -- when the Eddie Albert character would try to buy something that Mr. Haney was offering for $10, Haney would happily agree -- but then matter of factly note that of course there was a surcharge for that fine country air they were breathing, and a replacement fee for the empty space on the shelf. Mr. Douglas would answer stoutly that was outrageous, he wouldn't pay for whatever nonsense Haney was charging for, but Haney would come up with one after another so Eddie Albert was always totally lost, visibly strugging to stay sane as one demand became another, each nuttier than the last one -- and he never did get his footing and always wound up getting stuck.
But Eva Gabor as his wife Lisa played a ditz, she wasn't supposed to be rational: so Haney would offer to sell her something for $20, and she would agree: Fine, I pay you $18. He'd say, no, the price is $20, not $18, and she would say, well, if you're going to be that way about it, with an air of giving up, I will pay you $15, but not a penny more.
And he would insist, I can't sell you this for $15, I had to pay $12 for it myself, so she would reach out and pat his cheek and purr 'oh, you are such a nice man; so I will pay you $10 for it, let me get my purse,' as if she was going the extra mile for him (and they now had a secret, not to tell her husband that she had given in to his sales pitch).
Republicans negotiate like Lisa; Democrats like Oliver Wendell Douglas.
JustBeingPedantic on February 09, 2012 8:00 PM:
Santorum evidently hasn't read Simon Schama (among others), so he might more easily be persuaded to look through the Republican Window.
Joe Friday on February 09, 2012 8:35 PM:
"Naomi Wolf calls Madonna 'that forbidden thing, the Nietzschean creative woman"."
Blond Ambition ?
rea on February 09, 2012 8:45 PM:
you can't name a whole lot of revolutionary generation other than America's that didn't end with wholesale murder.
I think you underestimate the amount of gratuitous killing that accompanied the American Revolution. Consider the massacres of surrendered prisoners at Waxhaw and (to be even-handed) King's Mountain.
theAmericanist on February 09, 2012 9:23 PM:
Methinks you can't read well, and haven't read widely. There is nothing historically remarkable about armies killing captives.
I referred to "revolutionary generations", denoting how the French Revolutionaries killed each other -- Danton, Robespierre, etc. -- then the Russian Revolutionaries did the same -- Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and so on. Go back in time, to the British in 1688, or 1640, or go wider: the Chinese in 1911, or 1949; go all the way back to the end of the Roman Republic if you want -- every revolutionary generation indulged in fratricide.
Except ours.
Adams didn't send somebody to hunt George Mason down and smack him in the head with an ice ax; George Washington didn't have Thomas Jefferson strangled. Madison didn't become President by conducting a purge of the Congress, lining up the New England delegations for summary execution. Joseph Ellis pointed out that in every comparable modern Revolution (and pretty much all ancient ones), there were always dozens and often thousands of revolutionaries who won, then killed each other, by the time in our Revolution that Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton -- the ONLY political killing among the Founding generation. Lord, can ya na see yer nose when you look for yer lip?
The French Revolution was bloody because it was run by thugs. D-uh. It's kind of an important thing to keep in mind, as a contrast.
(You guys really do have an inexorable capacity to miss the point.)
SKM on February 10, 2012 12:12 AM:
As far as Santorum, it is and it isn't a 'culture war.' It's a culture war as far as the GOP tends to use religion...to rally their base. It isn't culture a war, in that the GOP is mostly for Corporations.
Just to give an idea of what I'm saying, the article, "The Rise of Corporations," http://www.globalissues.org/article/234/the-rise-of-corporations - here it talks about our modern day 'Citizens United.' Here, I partly summarize and use excerpts, "Yet, it was claiming of a corporation to be an individual in the United States in the 1800s, and claiming the same rights as a person that helped to provide for a large expansion of corporate capitalism...Relying on the Fourteenth Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1868 to protect the rights of freed slaves, the court ruled that a private corporation is a natural person under the U.S. Constitution and consequently has the same rights and protection extended to person by by the Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech. It also talks about churches and their rights/roles. Yet, Thomas Hartmann disputes this.
At the same site, there's article, "Corporations and Worker's Rights," I will do the same with excerpts... "Activist Arunhati Roy says, No individual nation can stand up to Corporate Globalisation on it own...Heads of State, they become powerless on the Global Stage...President Lula of Brazil was hero of World Social Forum...This year he's busy implementing IMF guidelines, reducing pension benefits...Ex-President Mandela of South Africa instituted massive programme of privatisation...left millions of people homeless, jobless...threat of capital flight, which can destroy any government overnight...
Santorum does have a 'pork problem.' He is one of the original 'Gang of Seven,' now known as 'Gang of Six.' However, if it takes the GOP to use race, religion, economics...they will do whatever it takes to rally their base - it is what the corporations want. Most familiar, the GOP is busting up unions, implementing 'right to work,' selling local government assets - roads, buildings, lands..., lowering wages, and most of all bringing in people to run for elections that are from 'Corporate America,' that use phrases such as, "I'm not a Washington Insider." Most of these people, like Willard Romney, and others that won their election through help of rally people for Tea Party are from Corporate America or helping to achieve the Corporations goals.
At the same site, see "Tax Havens: Undermining Democracy," it talks about how the corporations have at least $11 trillion dollars stashed in offshore banks - they are not paying taxes, but some are getting tax refunds, taxpayer dollars...
SKM on February 10, 2012 12:39 AM:
Oh, BTW, whoever is advising Santorum, he Should Not use the phrase 'war on religion.' The GOP has been waging war on other peoples' religions for a long time now.
For instance, there are some people that use weed as part of their religion(s) and have been arrested for a joint.
There are a couple of instances where people are of Jehovah Witness faith that don't believe in blood transfusions, and have been taken as 'Ward of the State,' or parents arrested for not wanting certain medical treatments.
There is the case of what was coined as 'Ground Zero Mosque.'
Then the case with Warren Jeff's with the child brides.
If anything, Santorum should just come clean with it, it is not a war on religion, but, a war on providing medical coverage and prescriptions, in addition to taking away of rights for women and minorities. First, you have the new 'redistricting,' and voter restrictions. Privatizing some public sector jobs such as prisons (which will also eliminate pensions, medical, unions and hand over to private sector), trying to privatize the post office...This is really about money.
theAmericanist on February 10, 2012 7:16 AM:
This really is beginning to feel like explaining to the five year old that when he puts his finger into the teething baby's mouth, he's gonna get bit: "And it hurts!"
(patiently) The HHS requirement that religious institutions who employ people and serve those of other faiths must violate their doctrine, is NOT like the US government determining that there is no religious exemption from drug laws, nor from the ban on polygamy, etc. If nothing else, this is because in those cases people wanted to DO something that the law forbid.
In this case, HHS is requiring that religious institutions buy something that their doctrine forbids.
Honest, do you guys really have much trouble with such an obvious difference?
Nor is it about access to contraception. People who work for religious institutions can buy the stuff. Those religious institutions are not trying to get the cops to arrest their employees if they do; there is no violation of the First Amendment when -- as has been the case throughout American history -- religious institutions act like they belong in civic life. You may like the idea of freedom FROM religion so much that you want to drive religious institutions out of civic life and condemn people of faith to hide among their own kind (Catholic hospitals only allowed to employ and treat Catholics, for example), but it's not a core American principle. Nor is access to free contraception a core American principle.
You know what is an essential American principle? Freedom OF religion.
This is the most politically deaf and ideologically-blind part of the pro-choice movement's Iraq war -- a decision that wasn't forced on them, which wasn't necessary to achieve the goal, which had a nano-second where it looked easy, and which is gonna exact a price that will just keep going up.
Consider: 1) The ACA is a law, after all, enacted by Congress. HHS is supposed to be implementing that law. Did Congress REQUIRE this decision? Nope.
2) To pass the ACA, the Administration needed the support of a lot of religious organizations, notably people like Sister Keehan. They got promises from the administration that there would be a religious exemption. They got double-crossed.
3) The White House wasn't ready for this. Their opponents were. Dolan met with the President. And...?
4) There is the odd notion that, actually, this was a Plan -- antagonize religious organizations on religious freedom, insist its about contraception, and energize young pro-choice voters! The classic move: lose 1 and pick up 2 voters. Um-- Obama's squishy support is twice as large as his squishy opposition: where exactly are those 2 new voters going to come from?
5) People are rarely energized by repeated failure, e.g., "comprehensive" immigration reform that is supposed to give the President overwhelming turnout among Latino voters (who are mostly Catholics.)
6) Congress is going to overturn the HHS rule by a large margin: House Republicans can do the vote at any time, and even the Democratic leadership is divided, e.g., John Larson. There are already SEVEN Democratic Senators on record criticizing the HHS rule, and the only Republican who ever expressed support for the idea (years ago) cosponsors Rubio's bill.
7) Anybody wanna bet that SCOTUS won't throw the HHS rule out?
8) By making this into a matter of principle -- which it ain't -- the White House has set itself up for a humiliating defeat, AND to disappoint the very people it was supposed to be mobilizing.
9) To the extent there is a principle here, it's the extraordinarily un-American notion that religious institutions cannot participate in civic life. That's how HHS defined the exemption -- ONLY when an employer is for a religious purpose, teaching its faith to the faithful.
I'm genuinely amazed that you guys don't see what a radical -- and frankly, fucking scary --
LaFollette Progressive on February 10, 2012 11:14 AM:
Anyone who thinks that access to contraception is a LOSING issue for the Democrats is completely and utterly insane. Full stop. Even the overwhelming majority of *Catholic* women use birth control.
This has absolutely nothing to do with religious freedom. No one is forcing Catholics to use contraception, or pay for it directly. The mandate is for an employer (who is subject to EEOC regulations and legally obligated to hire people regardless of religion) to pay a third party to provide a comprehensive insurance plan to all their employees, who can use that plan to acquire birth control according to their individual choice.
Hell, I've been forced for a decade to pay taxes to support WARS I opposed, in which tens of thousands of people died. Why on earth should I give a damn about this supposed attack on their "conscience"? This is just another political football, and it's favorable turf for Democrats, to boot.
By the "logic" of the argument against this rule, it's a crime against the conscience of Catholic employers to force them to HIRE women who use contraception and therefore subsidize the practice through their paycheck.
What's really at issue here is the freedom of individuals to not be subjected to religious discrimination by their employer... unless they are actually working in a clerical position that requires them to follow the tenets of the faith in their private lives. Period.
SKM on February 10, 2012 3:03 PM:
Again, this is about corporations and not about religion. If, again, if these so-called GOP candidates were so religious and concerned about women and their bodies, why do they continue to hire female strippers for their CPAC events? Why do they continue to have different people/groups associated with nationalists at their CPAC events, yet, they don't want GOProud at their events?
This is about rallying the religious base - getting voters to support and vote for them.
Another way to see right through these GOP candidates, you will almost always hear them say, "I believe...my beliefs...my values..." They almost never say, "My constituents want..." except when they are lying and say, "the American people," as if saying that ALL Americans agree with them.
It isn't about us, the American people. It never was!
Again, if you look at the articles I've listed above, one of the articles talks of corporations yelling to governments to cut public aid, services at the same time they are taking taxpayer money - and to make up for the shortfall of taxes that the corporations won't pay, the government always have to raise taxes on the poor to makeup the shortfall.