Tag Archives: jobs

Texas Anti-Abortion Law Looks Likely to Survive Court Challenge

by Seraphinakbj Posted on November 20, 2013

Mother Jones

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Ever since the Republican landslide of 2010, conservative state legislatures around the country have been busily erecting barriers to abortion. The question is, how far can they go? At what point will the Supreme Court rule that these new laws have no legitimate motivation—improving patient safety, say, or guaranteeing informed consent—but are instead designed merely to make it burdensome for women to get abortions?1 Today brought a discouraging but oddly ambiguous omen on just how far the Court is likely to allow states to go:

The justices voted 5-4 to leave in effect a provision requiring doctors who perform abortions in clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital….Justice Antonin Scalia, writing in support of the high court order Tuesday, said the clinics could not overcome a heavy legal burden against overruling the appeals court. The justices may not do so “unless that court clearly and demonstrably erred,” Scalia said in an opinion that was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy did not write separately or join any opinion Tuesday, but because it takes five votes to overturn the appellate ruling, it is clear that they voted with their conservative colleagues.

This is discouraging because five justices voted to permit this Texas law to stand, despite abundant evidence that its only real purpose is to make it harder for clinics to hire doctors to perform abortions. But it’s weirdly ambiguous because Roberts and Kennedy declined to join the majority opinion. Unfortunately, my guess is that this is mostly for technical reasons, since this case will probably be back before the Court after the circuit court issues its final ruling. When that happens, I suspect that both Roberts and Kennedy will come down pretty firmly on the side of allowing states to enact virtually anything short of an outright ban.

1In case you’re not up on the lingo, these are known as TRAP laws—Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. They’re nothing new, but enactment of TRAP laws picked up serious steam after the 2010 midterms. More here if you’re interested.

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Texas Anti-Abortion Law Looks Likely to Survive Court Challenge

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How the US Militarized the Haiti-Dominican Republic Border

by al36olu Posted on November 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

It isn’t exactly the towering 20-foot wall that runs like a scar through significant parts of the US-Mexican borderlands. Imagine instead the sort of metal police barricades you see at protests. These are unevenly lined up like so many crooked teeth on the Dominican Republic’s side of the river that acts as its border with Haiti. Like dazed versions of US Border Patrol agents, the armed Dominican border guards sit at their assigned posts, staring at the opposite shore. There, on Haitian territory, children splash in the water and women wash clothes on rocks.

One of those CESFRONT (Specialized Border Security Corps) guards, carrying an assault rifle, is walking six young Haitian men back to the main base in Dajabon, which is painted desert camouflage as if it were in a Middle Eastern war zone.

If the scene looks like a five-and-dime version of what happens on the US southern border, that’s because it is. The enforcement model the Dominican Republic uses to police its boundary with Haiti is an import from the United States.

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How the US Militarized the Haiti-Dominican Republic Border

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Quote of the Day: Paul Ryan Continues to Pretend He Wants to Fight Poverty

by GemmaHornung Posted on November 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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From Paul Ryan, who’s apparently hard at work on a conservative plan to fight poverty:

You cure poverty eye to eye, soul to soul. Spiritual redemption: That’s what saves people.

Well, maybe so. But here on Earth, money helps out too. The quote above is from a Washington Post story about Ryan’s newfound focus on poverty, and Jared Bernstein reads through the rest looking for some more worldly policy recommendations. He doesn’t come up with much:

Then you read page after page, trying to figure out what the dude is actually saying he’d do to lower poverty, and here’s what you’re left with: vouchers, tax credits, and volunteerism.

All sizzle, no steak.

And is that not the story of Rep. Ryan? His is the classic example of the adage that if you’ve got a reputation for being an early riser, you can sleep til noon….His proposals to block grant major safety net programs (freeze their spending levels and hand them over to states), like SNAP and Medicaid, would gut their critical countercyclical function (as was the case with TANF). He used the Heritage Foundation’s economic wizards to predict the his budget would reduce unemployment to less than 3% (don’t look for this forecast, though–his team pulled it once they actually, you know, looked at it).

For the life of me, I can’t figure out the media’s love affair with Ryan. Sure, he’s young, fit, good looking, and he’s not a screamer. He’s also a smart guy who understands the details of the federal budget. But everything he’s ever done—everything—boils down to a single sentence: reduce taxes on the rich and reduce spending on the poor. That’s it. There’s literally nothing else he’s ever seriously proposed.

It doesn’t even take much digging to figure out that this is what he’s saying. You only have to be barely numerate, just enough to draw the obvious conclusions from his budget proposals (conclusions that he’s very careful not to draw himself). When you do that, you find that his budgets always propose lower taxes and lower domestic spending. Much lower. How is it that so many people seem so willing to pretend otherwise?

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Quote of the Day: Paul Ryan Continues to Pretend He Wants to Fight Poverty

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Postal Service Officially Taken Over By America Haters

by UIVJodiexgz Posted on November 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Postal Service inflamed the general public earlier this year when it tried to eliminate Saturday delivery, but now it’s really playing with fire. Stamp collectors are up in arms over their latest venture, and you do not want to piss off stamp collectors:

On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service is scheduled to release 20 postage stamps honoring Harry Potter, and officials at the cash-strapped agency hope the images, drawn straight from the Warner Bros. movies, will be the biggest blockbuster since the Elvis Presley stamp 20 years ago.

But the selection of the British boy wizard is creating a stir in the cloistered world of postage-stamp policy. The Postal Service has bypassed the panel charged with researching and recommending subjects for new stamps, and the members are rankled, not least of all because Potter is a foreigner, several members said.

….“Harry Potter is not American. It’s foreign, and it’s so blatantly commercial it’s off the charts,” said John Hotchner, a stamp collector in Falls Church and former president of the American Philatelic Society, who served on the committee for 12 years until 2010. “The Postal Service knows what will sell, but that’s not what stamps ought to be about. Things that don’t sell so well are part of the American story.”

Meh. I just googled Harry Potter stamps, and it looks to me like half the countries in the world have already issued them. If France and Albania can do it, why can’t we? So go ahead. Next up for the America haters: Babar postage stamps. I’d buy some.

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Postal Service Officially Taken Over By America Haters

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Israel Ups the Anti-Obama Ante

by Seraphinakbj Posted on November 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Last week Israel announced it would build 20,000 new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank. It kinda sorta withdrew this plan in the face of international outrage. Then Benjamin Netanyahu went on CNN to blast President Obama’s peace overtures to Iran, while a key advisor told the Financial Times that Israel was ready and willing to bomb Iran whether America liked it or not. Dan Drezner says the technical IR term for this behavior is “wigging out”:

Israeli jaw-jawing about a military strike puts it into a corner with no good exit option. Netanyahu’s definition of a bad nuclear deal seems to include… any nuclear deal. So say that one is negotiated. What can Israel do then? Netanyahu could follow through on his rhetoric and launch a unilateral strike. Maybe that would set Iran back a few years. It would also rupture any deal, accelerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, invite unconventional retaliation from Iran and its proxies, and isolate Israel even further. If Netanyahu doesn’t follow through on his rhetoric, then every disparaging Israeli quote about Obama’s volte-face on Syria will be thrown back at the Israeli security establishment. Times a hundred.

“Right now,” Drezner says, “Israel is pretty much pissing all over the Obama administration.” Netanyahu obviously has good reason to think that Republicans will support him in this unreservedly, but he better be careful. Even Obama-hating tea party types can start to get a little antsy when a foreign leader is so obviously contemptuous of American interests and the American president.

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Israel Ups the Anti-Obama Ante

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Soundtrack for Your Séance: Cate Le Bon’s "Mug Museum"

by 2343b4u4u Posted on November 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Cate Le Bon
Mug Museum
Wichita Recordings

Languid Welsh chanteuse Cate Le Bon (no relation to Duran Duran’s Simon) practices an eerie kind of pop magic, effortlessly mixing intimacy and unease with the entrancing grace of early, Nico-era Velvet Underground. From the spooky shuffle “Are You with Me Now” to a duet with Perfume Genius on the gorgeous ballad “I Think I Knew,” the low-tech garage-folk of this hypnotic successor to 2012’s habit-forming Cyrk often seems on the verge of collapse, but Le Bon’s elegant melancholy holds everything together, barely. Occasional bursts of energy—the careening “Sisters,” or the unholy shriek that caps “Duke”—only underscore her otherworldly charisma. Play Mug Museum at your next séance and see what happens.

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Soundtrack for Your Séance: Cate Le Bon’s "Mug Museum"

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"Songs for Slim" Is an All-Star Benefit for the Replacements’ Ailing Guitarist. It’s Good, Too.

by AntonioRe Posted on November 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Various Artists
Songs for Slim
New West

This dandy two-CD set is subtitled Rockin Here Tonight: A Benefit Compilation for Slim Dunlap, which says it all. Former Replacements guitarist Bob “Slim” Dunlap suffered a severe stroke in early 2012, prompting friends and admirers to launch a fund dedicated to his care. Songs for Slim is one part of their efforts. Most of the cuts are covers of little-known, ’90s-era Dunlap compositions, which are raucous, funny and tender, and well deserving of belated discovery.

The first disc compiles the 18 tracks originally featured on limited-edition 45s that were auctioned earlier this year. Among the highlights: the reunited Replacements’ “Busted Up”; John Doe’s stomping “Just for the Hell of It”; the swaggering “Ain’t Exactly Good,” from underrated, long-running Australian band You Am I; and Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood’s poignant “Hate This Town.” (There’s also Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and more.) The second disc offers previously unreleased performances, including a dreamy reading of “When I Fall Down” by Replacement Chris Mars, and for you old-timers, there’s “Love Lost,” by The West Saugerties Ale & Quail Club, with none other than Lovin’ Spoonful leader John Sebastian on harmonica.

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"Songs for Slim" Is an All-Star Benefit for the Replacements’ Ailing Guitarist. It’s Good, Too.

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Mike Tyson, Former Boxer and Convicted Rapist, Makes Charming Film With Spike Lee

by zdtadaqod1 Posted on November 16, 2013

Mother Jones

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Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth affords Mike Tyson yet another big opportunity to open up. Spike Lee‘s new film (premiering Saturday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HBO) documents the controversial boxing legend’s one-man Broadway show. Tyson—sharply dressed, sweaty, charismatic—commands the stage for an hour and a half, dishing on his public and private ups and downs. (The show was written by his wife, Kiki Tyson.)

“I came from the gutter,” he says to the packed theater. He discusses (in full-on emotional vulnerability mode) his rough childhood and deaths in the family; his star-making fights and his history of substance abuse; his adrenaline rushes and his rude awakenings. He cracks a lot of cheap jokes, including one about Mitt Romney‘s whiteness and one about George Zimmerman.

This documentary and one-man show are the latest steps in his years-long effort to reinvent himself. Instead of a drug-addled, off-putting, ear-chomping fighter, he’s now a sensitive, vegan funnyman who writes for New York magazine, appears in the Hangover franchise, dances with Neil Patrick Harris and Bring It On cheerleaders, and makes fun of Oscar-bait and George W. Bush with Jimmy Kimmel:

Tyson’s life story—the grit, the career renaissance—is no doubt compelling. But there is a hugely significant part of his “truth” that is very much disputed. On stage, Tyson ever so briefly addresses his 1992 rape conviction. Tyson served three years in prison for the rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington, a contestant in the Miss Black America pageant. Medical examination following the incident found Washington’s physical state to be consistent with rape. High-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz tried and failed to get him off on an appeal, and Tyson maintained that the encounter was consensual and that Washington had a history of crying rape. “I did not rape her,” Tyson says to the applauding New York audience in Undisputed Truth. (What makes this more awkward is that, in the same performance, Tyson jokes about not knowing whether to beat or sexually attack young pretty-boy Brad Pitt, who he once caught supposedly having an affair with ex-wife Robin Givens.)

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Mike Tyson, Former Boxer and Convicted Rapist, Makes Charming Film With Spike Lee

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Sorry, But the 2012 Campaign Just Wasn’t That Interesting

by Adan Baird Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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God knows, Walter Shapiro has earned the right to be cynical about his fellow ink-stained wretches. Today, he takes on Double Down, the 2012 campaign sequel to Game Change from authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Shapiro thinks that it basically represents the final triumph of the “win the morning” approach to politics:

Double Down is all about shiny objects. It is as if the authors, in a desperate effort to justify their reported $5-million advance, opted for sleight-of-hand to divert readers from the predictable story of the actual 2012 campaign. So after luxuriating over Donald Trump’s ludicrous presidential pretensions early in the book, Halperin and Heilemann devote yet another page to this loathsome self-promoter in their final chapter. The only narrative justification (beyond having another Trump anecdote to peddle on TV) is that Obama’s research team discovered that in ads “voters always noticed and remembered Romney juxtaposed with a private jet branded TRUMP.

….Double Down, in truth, peddles bite-sized dramatic nuggets rather than a nerd’s-eye view of how contemporary politics really works. The authors’ guiding philosophy seems evident: If it can’t be hawked on a talk show then it doesn’t belong in the book.

….Halperin and Heilemann show little interest in unraveling one of the enduring mysteries of Campaign 2012: Why did the supposedly data-driven Romney lose touch with reality and believe to the end his overly optimistic internal polls and the eager Republican faces at campaign rallies? For all of its in-the-moment hype, Double Down exudes a slightly musty aroma, as if the authors are uncomfortable with how politics has changed with the advent of social media. In fact, Double Down may be remembered as a historical curiosity—the last campaign retrospective that fails to mention Facebook.

I almost feel sorry for Halperin and Heilemann. The truth is that the 2012 campaign just wasn’t very interesting. Republicans put on an amusing clown show during the primaries and then ended up nominating the most boring person in the world—who, in turn, refused to spice things up with a Sarah Palin-esque choice of running mate. Obama, for his part, ran a Spock-like campaign that only Nate Silver could love. What’s more, there were no novel issues in the campaign, just an endless relitigation of the same themes that had been occupying us for the past three years. There were some gaffes here and there, and Obama’s Denver debate meltdown provided a tiny spark of uncertainty about the election’s final outcome, but even that wasn’t much. Honestly, the result was entirely predictable for at least the final month, and it took heroic spin efforts from the media to pretend otherwise.

So is it any surprise that the book is fairly uninteresting except for the occasional shiny object? Not really. I read Jon Alter’s The Center Holds a while back, and I’m a fan of Alter’s writing. But it was a dull book for anyone who followed the campaign even loosely. Campaign coverage is now so dense and omnipresent that there just isn’t very much we don’t know by the time all the wrap-up books come out. So Halperin and Heilemann can make hay with the odd shouting match that wasn’t reported in real time, but aside from that there just isn’t very much to say. 2012 will go down in history as a pretty routine fight.

Hell, you can’t even say it was the beginning of the nerd era, or the blog era, or the data mining era, or the social media era. That stuff all got started in 2004 and 2008. It got stronger in 2012, and will get stronger still in 2016, and it’s a fascinating story. It’s also the only story worth taking a deep dive into if you want to understand the mechanics of presidential elections in the 21st century. But it’s not for the Morning Joe crowd.

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Sorry, But the 2012 Campaign Just Wasn’t That Interesting

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Republicans Want to Torpedo the Insurance You Like Far More Than Obamacare Ever Will

by rakil23 Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Jon Chait notes today that to the extent conservatives have any kind of plan to replace Obamacare, their plans are generally far more disruptive to far more people. It wouldn’t just be one or two million people who have their plans canceled or suffer from rate shock, it would be tens of millions who would be forced to give up coverage they like. What’s more, contrary to a general preference for comprehensive coverage, Republicans almost universally prefer plans that dump huge amounts of risk on individuals:

The right’s dilemma grows more acute when you move from the general to the particular. Their argument is that Obama forces healthy people to pay higher premiums to pay for a bunch of crap they don’t want or need. Karl Rove argues in his Wall Street Journal column that Obamacare forces people to pay for “expensive and often unnecessary provisions.” And what provisions are these? Where is the medical equivalent of Bridge to Nowhere or scientific research on animals that Republicans love to mock? The problem turns out to be a requirement that “every policy offer a wide range of benefits including mental health and addiction treatment, and maternity care (even for single men or women past childbearing age), and cover 100% of the cost of an array of preventive services.”

This is a morally bizarre conception of what health insurance means. Most of us don’t need mental-health or addiction treatment. Some of us do. Some of us who don’t currently need mental-health treatment might potentially need it one day. You could have a system in which only people who need mental-health treatment pay for mental-health insurance, but then it wouldn’t be insurance anymore. It would be a system in which you pay for a doctor out of pocket.

I’ve identified the new “welfare mothers.” Are you ready? Mothers.

The whole point of insurance is to pool risk because you don’t know what kind of problems you might have in the future. Would it be better to allow people to choose from a menu of things they want individually, rather than simply covering everyone for everything and then spreading the cost around? That’s surely a matter of opinion, but most Americans don’t like the idea. They don’t like it substantively because it obviously promotes free riding, and they don’t like it emotionally because it just doesn’t smell right. When we sign up for employer coverage—by far the most popular kind of health coverage outside of Medicare—we all understand that we’re joining a risk pool. I’m paying for someone else’s maternity coverage. They’re paying for my blood pressure meds. We’re all paying for the possibility of some kind of catastrophic bout of cancer that we all dearly hope will be someone else’s problem. What’s more, we all understand that the benefits of employer health care are immensely unequal. A 50-year-old head of household receives benefits that are probably worth about $20,000 or so. A healthy 25-year-old single worker receives benefits worth about $4,000. Is that unfair? I wouldn’t say so, and Americans have voted with their feet for years in favor of this kind of system.

In any case, as Chait says, the most bizarre part of the current Republican screamfest is their objection to men being forced to pay for maternity coverage. Seriously? They think that the societal cost of carrying on the species should be borne solely by women aged 18-40? Young women should pay the full freight and the rest of us should give them a vote of thanks but otherwise tell them they’re on their own? That’s morally contemptuous, and I’m pretty sure that most of us understand that.

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Republicans Want to Torpedo the Insurance You Like Far More Than Obamacare Ever Will

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