Conservatives
mikethemadbiologist | June 11, 2008Or is it pendula? Regardless, one has to work for progress; it is not an indefatigable natural phenomenon. A while ago, I had this to say about racial progress in the U.S.:
Racial progress wasn't inevitable; it required a lot of sacrifice. It wasn't that long ago, that publicly saying that you weren't opposed to inter-racial marriage, in many parts of this country, meant that you would be called a Communist, un-American, and far, far worse. A few even paid for it with their lives. For all those left-of-center who think the political pendulum will swing back on its own, I think you're…
mikethemadbiologist | June 1, 2008In an interview (in which I think Huckabee was trying to ensure he wouldn't be chosen as the Republican vice presidential nominee), Mike Huckabee critiques conservative economic thought (italics mine):
The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it's this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it's a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says "look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don't get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go…
mikethemadbiologist | May 31, 2008By way of Lindsay, I read that David Corn relates the following about former Republican senator and McCain advisor Phil Gramm (italics mine):
No one in Washington apologizes for anything, so it's no surprise that Gramm has failed to issue any mea culpa. Post-Enron, says Greenberger, the senator even called him to say, "You're going around saying this was my fault--and it's not my fault. I didn't intend this."
This really is the end result of Peter Pan conservatism. If everything is first a matter of will, and not thinking, planning, or logistics, well then, good intentions are all that…
mikethemadbiologist | May 29, 2008There's a superb piece by Mark Schmitt that's been making the rounds. While most people have focused on the Republicans' use of "Americaness" and identity politics, something near the beginning of the piece stuck with me--and I think it has a lot to do with how Scott McClellan is being treated (italics mine):
The Republican Party, though, has always had a different attitude about risk, almost courting disaster while the Democrats postponed it. In Building Red America, his slightly belated 2006 opus on the Republican plan for permanent power, Thomas B. Edsall points to studies showing that…
mikethemadbiologist | May 26, 2008Chris Mooney comments on the recent attempt by movement conservatives to rebut the concept of a Republican War on Science:
A new wave of conservative science punditry--epitomized by an essay by Yuval Levin in The New Atlantis entitled "Science and the Left," which was itself recently publicized by former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson in an oped in the Washington Post--demonstrably lacks such candor. Setting out to debunk the idea that there really is a "war on science" coming from the right, these writers don't bother engaging on the facts of the case at all. They don't attempt to show…
mikethemadbiologist | May 24, 2008I had no idea how deeply involved nepotism was in the New York Times' decision to hire William Kristol as an op-ed writer. From the Greenwald:
The NYT should be very proud of itself. Of course, Kristol was hired at the NYT because his dad, Irv, was really good friends with former NYT Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal, whose son, Andy, currently runs the NYT Op-Ed page. Andy and Bill followed in their dad's footsteps by becoming good friends (and in every other sense), and Andy then hired his friend, Bill (son of his dad's friend), as the new NYT Op-Ed writer. So this is typically what one gets…
mikethemadbiologist | May 23, 2008So in my blog inbox I received a long piece of propaganda decrying the Universal Service Fund. I like the USF, although I'm sure some improvements could be made. But look at the list of people who sent the letter (italics mine):
National Taxpayers Union is the nation's largest and oldest taxpayer group, with 362,000 members nationwide. NTU is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes, smaller government, and economic freedom at all levels. Note: For further information about NTU, visit www.ntu.org.
Americans for Tax Reform (http://www.atr.org/) is…
mikethemadbiologist | May 22, 2008Washington Post syndicated columnist* Kathleen "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" Parker writes about the "patriot divide" (italics mine):
It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry's political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically -- and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century -- there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants--and…
mikethemadbiologist | May 11, 2008Tristero correctly points out those churches that are concerned that they will lose their tax exempt status have a solution to their problems:
...this is a lie because the reverend knows very well that the IRS is not banning him from endorsing a candidate. He is quite free to do so. Likewise, his church is also free to endorse whoever they want to.
All they need to do - and it's no big deal, really, unless the reverend and his church worship filthy mammon above all - is to forgo tax-exempt status...
Where I kind of disagree with Tristero is with this:
Maybe, but it is an indication of how…
mikethemadbiologist | May 2, 2008
Magic ponies: they're not just for Iraq, but healthcare too! (from here)
Yesterday, I described how families would pay more under McCain's healthcare plan. But one point that I neglected to mention is that this is supposed to be a good thing. The logic (of a sort) is that if you end up paying more for treatment, then you will choose not to receive unnecessary treatment.
Like heart surgery. Roger Hickey explains:
...McCain wants to tax workers' health care premiums that are paid for by employers. Ask any expert, conservative or liberal, and they will tell you the result will be…
mikethemadbiologist | April 28, 2008Despite the ludicrous, over-hyped claims in the movie Expelled about the intimidation of creationist academics, it's pretty clear that when intimidation does occur, it's by creationists against scientists. Here's one example from Science After Sunclipse:
Gwen Pearson taught biology at the Permian Basin branch of the University of Texas, located in the city of Odessa. Her three years as an assistant professor ended with assaults on her integrity and her physical self:
This all became a great deal more serious when I began to get messages on my home answering machine threatening to assist me…
mikethemadbiologist | April 7, 2008A survey of Florida teens' sexual health knowledge yielded some very disturbing results:
A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
There's been a lot said in favor of real sex ed and against abstinence-only 'education' (and rightly so), but, if the consequences of unwanted pregnancy and HIV weren't so serious, this other finding would be funny:
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana…
mikethemadbiologist | April 6, 2008...maybe it's time for Martin Luther King's promised land. Maha explains what I mean:
Much of white America was still simmering with resentment over court-ordered school desegregation. Also, Lyndon Johnson had initiated New Deal-style programs aimed primarily at relieving poverty among African Americans. Suddenly, whites who had had no problem with "entitlements" before - when benefits went mostly to whites -- discovered the virtues of "self-reliance."
...The Right-Wing Narrative says that Democrats lost power because George McGovern opposed the Vietnam War, and the Dem Party was overrun by…
mikethemadbiologist | March 5, 2008'Minimalist' conservative and Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts apparently believes that one's obligation to pay monetary damages after damaging the environment should be, well, minimal:
...the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on how much money ExxonMobil should be forced to pay as damages for its Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 years ago. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes that Chief Justice John Roberts appeared "bothered" that Exxon might have to pay for its destruction:
What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth…
mikethemadbiologist | March 3, 2008In the most recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, there is a perspective piece by Sara Rosenbaum that bluntly describes how the Bush Administration's opposition to S-CHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance Program) is based on ideology and not economic cost (italics mine):
Why would the President veto bipartisan legislation that does precisely what he insisted on -- namely, aggressively enroll the poorest children? One might blame the poisonous atmosphere that pervades Washington these days, but other important social policy reforms have managed to get through.
One answer…
mikethemadbiologist | March 2, 2008Stephen Budiansky's The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox is a powerful and detailed examination of the widely-supported terrorism in the post-Civil War South. Because Budiansky cites a lot of primary literature, such as newspaper editorials, legal testimony, and published memoirs, the horror and the nauseating race hatred of that era are not hidden with euphemisms. Were it up to me, this book would be required reading in every high school history class. And it is relevant to today's politics.
Why?
Because the Southern Strategy is beginning to fail: that is, the bogus notions of…
mikethemadbiologist | February 22, 2008I think Republicans want to be cast as cartoon villains. In California, Republicans have twice prevented a Democratic measure (supported by Republican governor Schwarzenegger) that would fix a loophole that allows yacht owners to avoid paying their sales tax.
Really. Keep in mind this isn't an additional tax (a luxury tax), but simply applying the same sales tax that most people who can't afford yachts pay on other goods. Dday writes:
You have the Republican Party prioritizing the interests of yacht owners. Is there any better expression of the conservative movement in our new Gilded Age?…
mikethemadbiologist | February 21, 2008...because then it's either Huckabee or Romney. And both of those guys scare me. I have no idea if Porkgate is even a real scandal, but, if you're a Democrat, you want to run against McCain. I realize that's contrary to the conventional wisdom (which, remember, decreed that McCain's candidacy was circling around the bowl only a few months ago...).
I've listed elsewhere the reasons why I think Romney would be the toughest Republican candidate to beat, but there's something else that make Romney and Huckabee far more potent: they are likable. These guys both know how to work a room and a…
mikethemadbiologist | February 20, 2008By way of maha (and also Roger Ailes the Good), I came across this screed from the conservative National Review's website (italics mine):
... Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City--a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but…
mikethemadbiologist | February 18, 2008Lest the humanities feel neglected, the Republican War on Art keeps chugging along. In Bush's 2009 budget, the arts take massive hits across the board, with the sole exception of much needed maintenance funding of the Smithsonian. But first, by way of the Boston Phoenix, let's look at the most unconscionable part of the budget:
...nothing exemplifies the right wing's embrace of public ignorance more than its opposition to funding arts education in the schools. This position is beyond primitive. Even cave dwellers probably delighted in the animal figures they painted on their walls; not Bush…