"The Case Against Gays In The Military"

Andrew links...

A laughable listicle of the latest Republican panic-tropes. There really is a theme here - from the undie-bomber to resisting transferring prisoners out of Gitmo to gays in the military. The far right are just a bunch of bed-wetting scaredy cats and panic-mongers. They were trained for eight years to be terrified of everything. And that's a hard habit to break.

The case for Coakley

Andrew makes his.

I would agree that the GOP has largely become a party of nihilist hacks. But I despise Coakley, remain supportive of Brown, and don't think it's fair to lump one of the most liberal Republicans in the country--more liberal than Dede Scozzafava--in the same camp as the rest of the right.

The new marijuana majority

Andrew updates us:

In California and Washington State, full legalization is now looking more and more likely:

The Washington state legislature will hold a preliminary vote Wednesday on whether to sell pot in state liquor stores, though even its authors say the bill is unlikely to pass. The same day in California, backers of a well-funded ballot measure to legalize marijuana are expected to file more than enough signatures to put the initiative before state voters in November.
Activists have also been busy in Washington state, with one group filing a marijuana-legalization initiative last Monday to put the issue on the November ballot. Activists in Oregon, meanwhile, say they have collected more than half of the signatures they need by July to allow a vote on whether the state should set up a system of medical-marijuana dispensaries.

It's coming in the nation's capital as well. And the polls are shifting swiftly in favor:

According to an Angus Reid poll, 53 percent of Americans are now in favor of legalizing marijuana. A further 68 percent of respondents said that the war on drugs has been a “failure.”

Scott Brown for Senate

Not that anyone in Massachusetts cares about my endorsement, but what the hey. It takes some ego to blog, so I'll throw it out here.

I like E.D. Kain's assessment:

All told, Brown strikes me as the right sort of leader for the Republican party of 2010. Not exactly a social conservative, but not particularly liberal either, he represents the larger middle on social issues. On economics he is a fiscal conservative, and he doesn’t seem particularly hawkish beyond the standard, boiler-plate support for Israel. On abortion he makes a great deal of sense, and on healthcare I think he could potentially be a strong ally of some bi-partisan legislation in the future should the current bill fail.

Quite frankly – though it’s far too early to say – I think he’s presidential material. He’s good looking, confident, well spoken, with strong conservative credentials and sensible, moderate social positions. He’s certainly strikes me as more down to earth than Mitt Romney.

Andrew correctly points out that Brown's Op-Ed contains absurdities. Sure, that's political salesmanship for you. But essentially I think he can do a lot of good for moderates as a Republican senator beholden to constituents in a very liberal state.

And FiveThirtyEight looked at the numbers and sees Scott Brown is a liberal Republican...

[..] two thirds of other Massachusetts Republican state legislators were more conservative than he was. This is evidence for my claim that he’s a liberal even in his own party. What’s remarkable about this is the fact that Massachusetts Republicans are the most, or nearly the most, liberal Republicans in the entire country!

So think of Maine's Snowe and Collins...that's the sort of sensible northeast Republican senator we can expect him to be. It'll be interesting if he becomes a presidential contender eventually.

Quote of the day

"In the days leading up to an interview with ABC News’ Charlie Gibson, aides were worried with Ms. Palin’s grasp of facts. She couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations and she did not know what the Federal Reserve did. She also said she believed Saddam Hussein attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001."

Andrew pounces.

Quote of the day

"You really think this kid can‘t be convicted? You really think we don‘t have enough evidence beyond the—beyond the, I don‘t know, 300 or so eyewitnesses who were on the plane? The fact that we have the weapon that he tried to use? The fact that he confessed? You think that‘s not enough to get this kid convicted? You have that little faith in our criminal justice system? That little faith in the rule of law? You don‘t believe that a supermax federal American prison is capable of holding this kid?

You think it might be cool, instead, to martyr this kid as some impressive soldier, instead of some idiot confused rich kid who couldn‘t even handle blowing up his own junk with a bomb that was secreted in his own underpants? We‘re supposed to take national security advice from you guys? Really?" —Rachel Maddow

(via the Dish)

Bullish on Obama

Andrew explains.

Types of global warming skepticism

A dish reader writes:

The problem with your reader's simplification of the AGW deniers' argument is that he's speaking very generally and generously about one small battalion in a broad coalition of deniers.

We have the supposedly literate folks like George Will who don't understand what a trend is, and therefore they think the Earth has been cooling since 1998, ergo AGW is a hoax. Then we have the folks who think that the Earth may indeed be warming, but it's not because of human activity, or if it is, the absolute proof hasn't been found yet. Then we have the folks who think that it's too late, too hard, and too expensive to do anything about it, so, oh well, we'll deal with it and we'll "evolve." Then we have the Christian right, which thinks that God sets the thermostat, period, and scientists are evil ghouls who bring about things like the Holocaust. Then there are the worshipers of "common sense" who think it's a stroke of genius to say things like "carbon dioxide only makes up a tiny percentage of the atmosphere." And let's not forget the paranoid viral email forwarders who think that the East Anglia story is evidence of a genuine conspiracy fronted by Al Gore that seeks to make money by setting up carbon offset programs. And on and on and on.

It's a vast army of millions that is supported by the apathy of millions of others who, understandably, don't know what to think. The common bond is denial, and the common goal is to do absolutely zilch to change our habits.

Bold is my flavor. I further suspect that models of warming's deleterious effects are more uncertain and exaggerated than those sounding the alarm will admit, and am also not fully convinced temperatures are at a significant high compared to a millenia ago (pre-Little Ice Age).

I'm not against a Pigovian framework to reduce unnecessary emissions, but I insist that it be done in an economically efficient manner so that we're not wasting resources and can be sure it passes cost-benefit muster.  There are worse things than doing nothing--a convoluted giveaway to special interests like Waxman-Markey, for instance.

"Under the Rightwing Rock"

Every time I think about maybe possibly voting Republican in the future, some bozo neocon opens his mouth and reminds me of the kind of people I'd be putting in government....here's Andrew:

If you don't think Bush's and Cheney's embrace of torture-as-policy has had a profound effect, check out this instant response to Fort Hood from Mark Noonan in the neocon camp:

A terrible event - but I don’t want anyone to call it an “act of violence” or “a terrible tragedy”. It was an attack - one or more men decided with malice to attack a US military base. We need to get right down to the bottom of this - and, liberals, if the stories of accomplices in custody are true, this is where harsh interrogation might be needed: whoever was involved in this most emphatically does not have a right to remain silent.

So we go from torturing a foreign terror suspect who may know the whereabouts of a WMD that is about to go off imminently (the original Krauthammer position) to torturing American suspects in a shooting spree (suspect, I might add, that subsequently turned out to be mirages).

This is not a slippery slope; it's a well-watered slide to throwing out the entire American system of government.

Obama on the debt

Ambers notes:

There will be talk of real, across-the-board limits to discretionary spending. There will probably be a bipartisan deficit-reduction panel set up, along with, perhaps, another Social Security reform commission.

Andrew sniffs:

Talk is cheap. And commissions are often ways of avoiding, not expediting real cuts in entitlements and defense. For this independent supporter of Obama, the key issue in the next year will be seriousness about reducing long term debt. If he cannot do it, or fails to make it a priority, he will lose me and many others. I understand why circumstances and inheritance have propelled the debt up right now. But circumstances cannot explain away the long-term crunch. A real leader tackles that. A phony leader ducks it.

I'm with Andrew. I want to see real progress before 2012.

Allowing Bush's tax cuts to expire won't be nearly enough.

Empire is like the welfare state

Andrew Sullivan reminds us of a conservative insight: the solution can be worse than the problem.

"What do you think I voted for at Omaha beach?"

Notwithstanding that I am generally quite skeptical of people who value military service over other pursuits, this man's message is a powerful one...



(Props to Andrew)

Israel's undiplomatic ambassador

Andrew takes down Michael Owen and gets letters.

Quote of the day

"We had the Republican equivalent of a two-term Carter presidency." —Andrew Sullivan

Bill Clinton on gay marriage

Fine stuff via Andrew:

Anderson Cooper: You said you recently changed your mind on same-sex marriage. I’m wondering what you mean by that. Do you now believe that gay people should have full rights to civil marriage nationwide?

Bill Clinton: I do. I think that, well let me get back to the last point, the last word. I believe historically, for two hundred and something years, marriage has been a question left to the states and the religious institutions. I still think that’s where it belongs. That is, I was against the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage nationwide, and I still think that the American people should be able to play this side in debates. But me, Bill Clinton personally, I changed my position. I am no longer opposed to that. I think if people want to make commitments that last a lifetime, they ought to be able to do it. I have long favored the right of gay couples to adopt children.

AC: What made you change your mind? Was there one thing?

Clinton: I think, what made me change my mind, I looked up and said look at all of this stuff you’re for. I’ve always believed that—I’ve never supported all the moves of a few years ago to ban gay couples from adoption. Because they’re all these kids out there looking for a home. And the standard on all adoption cases is, what is the best interest of the child? And there are plenty of cases where the best interest of the child is to let the gay couple take them and give them a loving home. So I said, you know, I realized that I was over 60 years old, I grew up at a different time, and I was hung up about the word. I had all these gay friends, I had all these gay couple friends, and I was hung up about it. And I decided I was wrong.

That our society has an interest in coherence and strength and commitment and mutually reinforcing loyalties, then if gay couples want to call their union marriage and a state agrees, and several have now, or a religious body will sanction it, and I don’t think a state should be able to stop a religious body from saying it, I don’t think the rest of us should get in the way of it. I think it’s a good thing not a bad thing. And I just realized that, I was, probably for, maybe just because of my age and the way I’ve grown up, I was wrong about that. I just had too many gay friends. I saw their relationships. I just decided I couldn’t, I had an untenable position.

Fear of trusts

Andrew is concerned:

It seems to me that a public option which allows the government to use its huge buying power to achieve cost cuts that no private company could manage would be a Trojan horse.

A Dish reader replies:

You call the public option a "Trojan horse." I take it that you do not mean that allowing a public plan in which the government could generate savings by using its collective buying power will not, in fact, result in lots of Greeks with swords jumping out and killing us in our sleep. I am at a loss, however, as to what exactly you imagine the danger to be -- your sentence follows with no explanation. This is one of those things that I just do not understand at all when public option opponents gesture in this direction: what is the perceived worst case scenario here and why do you find it objectionable?

Let's say that such a government public plan would prove so effective at negotiating low rates that it would price private plans out of the majority of the health care insurance market. Is this a problem in some way? Anyone who had enough money could assuredly buy whatever high-end services or plans they would wish--you can't seriously believe that such a government plan would result in the absolute legal preclusion of private payment for medical insurance or services, can you? Or is this just a generalized fear that people will overwhelmingly prefer the public option, and the portion of our collective income going to the government in taxes (rather than private insurance policies) will increase? Really wondering what your fear is.

Andrew doesn't respond further, but I'll bite: I would have the same kind of fear if the government or a large private entity got a similar near-monopsony over any market. Monopsonies and monopolies are bad for well-understood reasons, which is why we have antitrust law. I elaborated on this several months ago in "Public health insurance, antitrust, and price controls".

For instance, today Medicare has a near-monopsony on care for the elderly. You might think that, per liberal health-care theories, this would make geriatrics a thriving field!

Alas:

KINGMAN - As baby boomers reach retirement age, the need for geriatric physicians in America will increase.

However, slow or less-than-adequate reimbursement to them by Medicare and/or Medicaid is discouraging doctors from getting into or staying in that field of medicine. Jane Potter, president of the American Geriatrics Society, responded to several questions last week.

[..] "The best indication that physicians are leaving the field is the fact that the number of practicing geriatricians is declining," Potter said. "There are more physicians leaving than entering the field.

"In September 2006, a group of leading educators who operate the nation's top geriatrics fellowship programs told us that finances are a major disincentive for physicians in training to enter geriatric medicine.

[..] "Geriatricians have the lowest expected salary of all medical specialties.

Those shamelessly evil, profit-mongering doctors! Oh, wait...

Meanwhile, progressives like Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein often ridicule more conservative Democrats who both:

(a) Wish to reduce the cost of health-care reform.
(b) Simultaneously oppose a public option, which the CBO scores as lowering the deficit.

But as I've explained in the past, economic conservatism is not limited to reducing the cost of government.. Some of us actually want a healthy market in which the government does trust busting instead of, you know, creating and running one.

It is on these grounds that we consider a "robust" public option--one that uses outsized bargaining power to reimburse at Medicare's below-market rates--to be a trojan horse.

If I could be assured that a public option would compete on a level playing field (not take taxpayer funds, not pay below-market rates) I would still oppose it. But for different reasons, because I would think it as doomed to failure as, say, the government launching a new department store. Governments suck at running things competitively (see: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, economic history of).

This is why progressives are so adamant that the public option be "robust" and allowed to leverage its large size to create a "real alternative" to private health-care providers. It's the only way their idea has any merit.  Alas, it's merit of the trojan horse, we-play-by-different-rules variety.

Obama favorability by region

Northeast: 82-10, net +72
Midwest: 62-31, net +31
West: 59-34, net +25
South: 27-67, net -40

(source)

As Andrew mentioned last week:

For the first time in 16 years, the South does not have a native president in the White House. For the first time in 45 years, we have a Democrat not from the South in the White House. In trying to understand the passion and hysteria and anger out there, this may be worth taking into account.

Medicare prescription drug benefit: most underrated program ever?

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution:

Megan and Andrew Sullivan are having a squabble about how much it cost (and here).  I would remind everyone of this recent research result:

In spite of its relatively low benefit levels, the Medicare Part D benefit generate $3.5 billion of annual static deadweight loss reduction, and at least $2.8 billion of annual value from extra innovation.  These two components alone cover 87% of the social cost of publicly financing the benefit. 

And here's another research result:

Overall, a $1 increase in prescription drug spending is associated with a $2.06 reduction in Medicare spending.

Both papers are from very reputable sources.  Left-wingers focus on the "giveaways" in this plan and conservatives focus on the cost or maybe they don't walk to talk about it at all.  It's a little late to go through all the usual pro and con arguments on the policy as a whole.  I'd just like to note that -- relative to its reputation -- the Medicare prescription drug benefit is one of the most underrated government programs of our time.  If the goal is to cut or check Medicare spending, and I think it should be, we should do it elsewhere in the program.

This set ringing some enormous bells of cognitive dissonance in my mind.

Many are the times I've railed about the prescription drug benefit (including at LG) as the bastard spawn of an unholy alliance between stalwart tax and spenders like Ted Kennedy, and the deficit-happy Rovian cynicism of Bush neocons who wished to secure the senior vote in Florida.

In this opposition I've had much company from the left, gleefully at the opportunity to scornfully chastize the Bush administration's fiscal profligacy—and from the right, who insist that Bush betrayed them with a massive expansion of the entitlement state they abhor. A lot of ink has been spilt, most recently by Andrew and Megan in the posts linked above.

Can we all have been so wrong?

Goodbye to all that, ctd.

Andrew's beat goes on.

Riding the fox

I'm still catching up on posts from the last week. This graph is illustrative:

Andrew comments:

The tension between the business interests of the conservative-industrial-complex and the Republican party is real. There is a huge amount of money to be made by selling to a segment of the country that alienates the critical middle that every party needs to occupy to remain a national force. And so the success of the movement risks the failure of the party. And the failure of the party - its permanent isolation from power - only fuels the resentment and alienation that make so much moolah.

This is the GOP's Fox problem. You ride that fox; it eats you in the end.