CATO Institute Finds $180 Billion Benefit to Legalizing Illegal Immigrants

The Washington Independent:

A new study from the libertarian CATO Institute concludes that legalizing the more than eight million undocumented workers in the United States would have significant economic benefits for the country, while simply enhancing border enforcement and applying restrictive immigration laws would actually hurt the U.S. economically.

The new report, written by Professor Peter B. Dixon and Research Fellow Maureen T. Rimmer at the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash University in Australia, relies on an economic model used by the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, and Homeland Security, as well as International Trade Commission.

Weighing public spending and revenues, U.S. employment rates in various occupations, and price levels for imports and exports, among other things, the authors conclude that “increased enforcement and reduced low-skilled immigration have a significant negative impact on the income of U.S. households.” The minimal savings in public spending on immigrants now “would be more than offset by losses in economic output and job opportunities for more skilled American workers.” A policy that reduces low-skilled immigration to about a third less than projected levels, then, over ten years, “would reduce U.S. household welfare by about 0.5 percent, or $80 billion.”

In contrast, “legalization of low-skilled immigrant workers would yield significant income gains for American workers and households,” the study found. Legalization would eliminate the costs of smuggling illegal immigrants, would allow immigrants to be more productive and openly participate in the economy, and it would “create more openings for Americans in higher skilled occupations.”

The overall positive impact for U.S. households of legalizing these workers over ten years would be “1.27 percent of GDP or $180 billion.”

The findings are consistent with previous studies that show economic benefits from the legalization of illegal workers.

Why is "amnesty" such a bad word among the Republican base again? I'm sure it's got nothing to do with racism, Holy Hyrax.

(Hat tip: Patrick Appel, filling in for Andrew Sullivan.)

Previously: On Immigration: Why I Favor Amnesty.

Big Government and the Bailouts Saved the Day

Krugman:

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.

Just to be clear: the economic situation remains terrible, indeed worse than almost anyone thought possible not long ago...

For all that, however, the latest flurry of economic reports suggests that the economy has backed up several paces from the edge of the abyss...

So what saved us from a full replay of the Great Depression? The answer, almost surely, lies in the very different role played by government...

Probably the most important aspect of the government’s role in this crisis isn’t what it has done, but what it hasn’t done: unlike the private sector, the federal government hasn’t slashed spending as its income has fallen...

In addition to having this “automatic” stabilizing effect, the government has stepped in to rescue the financial sector. You can argue (and I would) that the bailouts of financial firms could and should have been handled better, that taxpayers have paid too much and received too little. Yet it’s possible to be dissatisfied, even angry, about the way the financial bailouts have worked while acknowledging that without these bailouts things would have been much worse.

The point is that this time, unlike in the 1930s, the government didn’t take a hands-off attitude while much of the banking system collapsed. And that’s another reason we’re not living through Great Depression II.

Last and probably least, but by no means trivial, have been the deliberate efforts of the government to pump up the economy. From the beginning, I argued that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, was too small. Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall.

All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the private sector is the problem, and government is the solution.

And aren’t you glad that right now the government is being run by people who don’t hate government?

Yglesias points out that "“bailouts saved the economy” and “bailouts were structured so as to be very favorable to politically influential financiers” are not exclusive options."

I think that's right. The stimulus worked, but it could have worked better if it had been targeted solely at... stimulus, and less at, oh, say Goldman Sachs.

If there are any responsible Republicans left, please take lessons from this for the healthcare debate. You can't stop it, like you couldn't stop the stimulus. (In fact you shouldn't stop it, like you shouldn't have stopped the stimulus.) But if instead of fearmongering and holding your breath and throwing tantrums, you direct your opposition to things that actually should be opposed, you could affect positive change.

With regard to the stimulus, you could have held your fire, not smeared Obama as Stalin-incarnate, not ridiculed the very idea of stimulus, and instead insisted on making sure that the stimulus was as trim and directed as possible. Oh, you'll say you did argue against some of the waste and misdirected funds, and of course you did, but that was lost among the greater lunacy.

Now you have an opportunity to make sure that the health care plan does what it sets out to do rather than rewarding corporate interests at the expense of everybody else. But you've got to stop lying about everything, smearing Obama as a socialist, pretending that Obama's coming for grandma, insisting that government can never do good, and generally engaging in fearmongering. Instead, be a responsible opposition party. The Dems put forward a plan, respond with the same plan slightly improved. Stay on message. Say you support the plan, but you want to include tort reform. Or you want less money for X and more for Y. You can do that. If you put all your energy on making the plan better and none of it on insanity, you could not only cause a better health care plan, but take great strides in restoring a civil democracy.

Or you can scream "Socialism" and tear at your hair and have to live with whatever the Democrats manage to ram through without your help. Your choice.

Republicans Continue to Elevate Level of Discourse

The Republican National Committee will conclude a special session with a much-anticipated vote on a resolution to re-brand the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Socialist Party."

ANP senior producer Harry Hanbury roamed the RNC meeting with a camera and spoke with committeemen and state chairs to hear their thoughts on the vote and their ideas about both parties.

Via Oliver Willis, via Crooks and Liars.


At this point, I might actually prefer them to call us the "Socialist Party" over the grammatically incorrect Democrat Party they've insisted on for the last century. It would still highlight their immaturity but without grating on the ear as much. I wonder if we can convince them to go with that.

I like Willis's take, too:

I should point out the equivalent of this would have been, in May of 2001, if the Democratic party convened and decided whether we would call the Republican party the Poophead Party or the Crappy Pants Party.

Funny, but it'd be more like if the Democrats got together and tried to pass a serious resolution "rebranding" the Republicans as the "Republican Nazi Party."

Bias in Action: Ida the Fossil

I wasn't going to post about this amazing fossil find because I'm not in the mood to have another debate with creationists. But then I came across this wonderful example of scientific skepticism vs. creationist "skepticism." I'll post just the excerpts that are skeptical in some way.

The Washington Post, one of the most well-respected papers in the English language:

About the size of a small cat, the animal has four legs and a long tail. Nobody is claiming that it's a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, but it provides a good indication of what a long-ago ancestor may have looked like, researchers said at a news conference.

In an evolutionary sense, the fossil is like an aunt from several generations ago, said Jens Franzen of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.

The fossil is the best preserved ever found for a primate, said Jorn Hurum, of the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, one of the scientists introducing the specimen. It's about 95 percent complete, even including fingertips with nails, and lacks only the lower portion of one leg, Hurum said. It also includes gut contents, showing the creature ate leaves and fruit in its rainforest environment.

Experts not connected with the discovery said the finding was remarkably complete because of features like stomach contents. But they questioned the conclusions of Hurum and his colleagues about how closely it is related to ancestors of monkeys and humans.

"I actually don't think it's terribly close to the common ancestral line of monkeys, apes and people," said K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. "I would say it's about as far away as you can get from that line and still be a primate."

Rather than a long-ago aunt, "I would say it's more like a third cousin twice removed," he said. So it probably resembles ancestral creatures "only in a very peripheral way," he said.

Beard said scientists already have a fossil from China of about the same age that is widely accepted as coming from monkey-ape-human ancestral line, and it's much smaller than the new-found fossil and ate a different diet. "They are radically different animals," he said.

John Fleagle of the State University of New York at Stony Brook said the scientists' analysis provides only "a pretty weak link" between the new creature and higher primates, called anthropoids, that includes monkeys and man.

"It doesn't really tell us much about anthropoid origins, quite frankly," Fleagle said.

The Washington Times, favored by Republicans (Reagan endorsed it early on) and owned by cult leader (seriously) Sun Myung Moon:

But not everyone shares in the Ida adulation.

"This is an incredible piece of hype to popularize a movie and a book. It's hard to believe that this story took off, but the media picked up on very emotional claims about the 'missing link.' It's created good publicity," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis and founder of the Creation Museum.

"What was wrong with all the other fossils over the years? Why get so excited with this one?" he asked.

"This is a noteworthy fossil find because it's so complete. But comparing it to the Rosetta Stone is quite an exaggeration," said David DeWitt, director of Creation Studies at Liberty University.

"They say 'we have proof' of the missing link. A few years later, they'll claim they have proof all over again. The important question is this: Where did the genetic information come from that produced that skeleton in the first place? It's not random chance," Mr. DeWitt said.

A 2006 Gallup poll found that eight out of 10 Americans believe God guided creation in "some capacity" - with 46 percent thinking God created man in his present form sometime in the past 10,000 years, while 36 percent say man developed over millions of years from lesser life forms, but God guided the process.

Thirteen percent of Americans think mankind evolved with no divine intervention. [Emphasis added.]

LOL. Now that's "fair and balanced."

Nixon on Archie Bunker, Gays, and Marijuana

This is hilarious, if you can forget for a moment that this man was President of the United States and that tens of millions of Americans probably still agree with him. But we're supposed to believe opposition to gay marriage has nothing to do with homophobia. Uh-huh.



Via Andrew Sullivan.

Here's a partial transcript I found:

Then, inexplicably, Nixon turns to a prime-time show he had just watched on CBS and how they "were glorifying homosexuality."

"A panel show?" asks Ehrlichman.

"Hell, no," responds Nixon.

Haldeman knows to what his boss refers. "No, it's a regular show. It's on every week," says Haldeman. "It's usually just done in the guy's home. It's usually just that guy, who's a hard-hat."

"That's right, he's a hard-hat."

"He always looks like a slob."

"Looks like Jackie Gleason," says the president of the United States.

Haldeman, playing amateur TV critic, assists with word that "he has this hippie son-in-law and usually the general trend is to downgrade him and upgrade the son-in-law, make the square hard-hat out to be bad."

"But a few weeks ago," he continues, "they had one in which the guy, the son-in-law, wrote a letter to you, President Nixon, to raise hell about something. And the guy said, `You will not write that letter from my home!' Then said, `I'm going to write President Nixon.' Took off all these sloppy clothes, shaved and went to his desk and got ready to write his letter to President Nixon. And apparently it was a good episode."

"What's it called?" asks Ehrlichman.

" `Archie's Guys,' " says Nixon, referring, of course, to "All in the Family."

"Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter," Nixon relates. "The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy (enters). He's obviously queer, wears an ascot, but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who used to play professional football. Virile, strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar."

Nixon feels compelled to tell his chums: "I don't mind the homosexuality, I understand it . . . Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddamn it, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that so was Socrates."

"But he never had the influence television had," Ehrlichman says, apparently referring to Socrates.

"You know what happened to the Romans?" says Professor Nixon. "The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They (had sex with) the nuns, that's been goin' on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell, three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That's what's happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France."

"Let's look at the strong societies," says Nixon. "The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, (Atty. Gen. John) Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this."

"It's fatal liberality," declares Ehrlichman, ever the sycophant.

"Huh?" says Nixon.

"It's fatal liberality," says Ehrlichman. "And with its use on television, it has such leverage."

Nixon asks Ehrlichman to consider northern California. "You know what's happened."

"San Francisco has just gone clear over," says Ehrlichman.

"But it's not just the ratty part of town," says Nixon. "The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove (an elite, secrecy-filled gathering outside San Francisco), which I attend from time to time. It is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco."

Nixon finishes things off by turning into an observer of ladies' fashions.

"Decorators. They got to do something. But we don't have to glorify it," says Nixon. "You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the goddamned designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they're trying to get some more sexy things coming on again."

"Hot pants," says Ehrlichman.

"Jesus Christ," murmurs the president.

How Republicans Lie About Climate Change

The majority of climate scientists all over the world believe that climate change is happening, that carbon emissions are a big part of it, and that it's a big deal. Republicans? Not so much.

Here's George Will, the Republicans' version of an intellectual, in the "liberal" Washington Post:

According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

Ok, good. That's a simple, factual claim. Quite easy to check. The Washington Post's fact-checkers don't need to measure global sea ice levels -- they just need to check that the Arctic Climate Research Center says what Will says they say. And because everybody knows the Washington Post is liberal (that's sarcasm, folks) they obviously would have rushed to prove him wrong.

They don't. The ACRC:

We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.

Okay, so that's just a straight-up lie. No problem, it's easy to debunk lies. But disingenuous implications are harder. Will again:

[A]ccording to the World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade.

He cites his source again. Good! We can check.

Oops. The WMO:

The long-term upward trend of global warming, mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is continuing. Global temperatures in 2008 are expected to be above the long-term average. The decade from 1998 to 2007 has been the warmest on record, and the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C since the beginning of the 20th Century. [...] "For detecting climate change you should not look at any particular year, but instead examine the trends over a sufficiently long period of time. The current trend of temperature globally is very much indicative of warming," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General, Mr Michel Jarraud said in response to media inquiries on current temperature "anomalies".

Yes, George, if you choose the hottest year in recent memory as your baseline, most years since then will be cooler. That doesn't mean warming stopped. The decade beginning with the year you chose as your baseline has been the warmest on record.

It's hilarious listening to Republicans on climate change. When they're not outright lying, it's just total amateur hour. They'll start talking about sunspots and Martian temperatures and how that one measuring station is totally right next to a heating vent. But they don't know what they're talking about. They're just like creationists who go on and on about this fossil or that footprint and how obviously the eye is too complex to have evolved.

(It's always "obvious," too. It's not just that the majority of scientists are wrong, it's that they're OBVIOUSLY wrong. Most of the smartest and most expert people on Earth are wrong, but Joe the Plumber's got the truth. Right.)

Now there are of course some scientists who don't believe in climate change just as there are some who don't believe in evolution. It's just that they're vastly outnumbered. (Yes, Einstein was outnumbered at first. Science isn't a democracy, and sometimes the minority is right. But when they're right they can generally prove it, and win over the majority. That's what makes it science rather than, say, religion.)

Republicans love to list all the scientists they can find who don't believe in global warming. Now an honest person would then compare that number to the list of all the scientists they could find that do believe in global warming. But they don't do that. They're not interested in honesty. Their arguments are one-sided.

Project Steve is a great parody of that tactic as used by creationists. You may have seen the lists of scientists who don't believe in evolution, numbering in the hundreds. Here's one (.pdf) from The Discovery Institute. (See kids, even scientists don't believe in evolution!) Project Steve decided that they would create a list just of scientists named Steve (or variants thereof) to highlight the ridiculousness of that technique. A couple of days ago they reached a thousand. There are more scientists named Steve who believe in evolution than scientists with all names who don't. Ouch. I'm sure the folks at The Discovery Institute will change their minds based on this new evidence.

Finally, George Will again trots out the lie that the scientific community believed in global cooling just a few decades ago. Ezra Klein puts it best:

There needs to be some sort of Godwin's Law variant for conservatives who try to argue against global warming because they remember that Newsweek dipped into pop-science in the mid-70s and touted "global cooling." Call it Will's Law, after George Will, the supposedly cerebral conservative who brings this up every time he doesn't have a better column idea.

For a good summary on the global cooling myth -- an idea that took root in the popular press but never in the scientific literature -- go sit in on the free lecture provided by the folks at Real Climate. Will makes a lot of the 1975 Newsweek cover on the subject, but the more telling document is a National Academy of Sciences report from the same year. The report argued that climate change is the product of many potential forces and the state of the science wasn't yet advanced enough to discern which would prove decisive. To put it in the NAS's own words, "we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate." As such, they recommended "a major new program of research designed to increase our understanding of climatic change and to lay the foundation for its prediction."

Obama, the Jews, and Israel, Part II

Sometimes it's just funny how far removed from reality the Republican talking points are. As you may recall, Republicans have been trying to push the message that Obama is bad for Israel and has a long, scary pattern of associating with anti-semites.

Today he chose Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Emanuel is an Orthodox Jew. His father is Israeli. During the first Gulf War, Emanuel was a civilian volunteer in Israel, rust-proofing brakes on an army base in the north. He supported this Bush's Iraq war, too.

What an Israel-hating anti-semite that Obama is.

Credit Where Credit is Due: Charlie Crist

I'm becoming a fan of Republican Governor Charlie Crist. I mentioned him a while back for pardoning Richard Paey, a man who was jailed for taking pain medication that he had been prescribed. Now I find out he extended the voting hours in Florida even though it will almost certainly help the Democrats and he has endorsed John McCain.

Why did he do it?

At a hastily arranged news conference, Crist said the right to vote is sacred and that "many have fought and died for this right." He said he consulted a leading Democratic legislator, Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, before issuing his order, and that Gelber knew of a similar order issued by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002 that dealt with helping voters deal with new equipment. (Buzz audio here.)

As to the perception that more early voting helps Democrats, Crist said: "This is not a political decision. This is a people decision."

Kudos to Gov. Crist for actually putting country (or state) ahead of politics.

Kay Hagan's Disappointing Response to Dole's Anti-Atheist Ad

Kay Hagan responded to the despicable Dole ad which insinuated that she consorts with atheists and is one herself. Unfortunately, her response does not include a defense of the Godless Americans PAC or of atheists in general, but is merely an impassioned defense of her Christianity.

She head-fakes towards defending American atheists, but then pulls it back:

At their core, Americans aren't Democrat or Republican, red or blue – they're Americans, plain and simple. We ALL love our country, and we all value the role of faith in American life.

Shame on anyone who says differently.

No, Senator Hagan, not all of us "value the role of faith in American life." Some of us value the role of reason, of compassion, of a million other things. But one does not have to be a theist to be a good American or a good politician.

The Atheist Ethicist worries that politicians are going to be extra-careful in the future to avoid appearing anywhere with atheists.

Does this whole episode imply that groups like Godless Americans do more harm than good? Maybe, but maybe not. You've got to be out of the closet before people start accepting you. At least we're discussing the issue.

This is reminiscent of John McCain "defending" Obama when one of his supporters referred to him as an Arab: "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements wiamth." Um, Arabs can be decent "family men" as well, and even citizens of our great country. So can atheists. And even people without families can be decent, while we're at it! At least McCain can argue (although he hasn't) that he didn't intend to imply otherwise -- he was speaking live and everyone makes unfortunate statements by accident. Kay Hagan's non-defense of Godless Americans came in prepared remarks, and her statement that "we all value the role of faith in American life" was explicitly anti-atheist.

Elizabeth Dole Campaigning on Anti-Atheist Bigotry

Note that it's not even Hagan's voice at the end saying "There is no God." They just want you to think that. Because no atheist should ever be allowed in office, of course.

Donate to Kay Hagan.

Previously: National Republican Senatorial Committee Anti-Atheist Ad

National Republican Senatorial Committee Anti-Atheist Ad

Wow. That big powerful atheist lobby is going to get you! And obviously, no North Carolinians could be atheists or agree that "Under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Your Republican Party, ladies and gentleman. They can't win on the issues, so they paint the opposition as Other.

Kay Hagan is running against and winning against Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. Donate to her here, to the Obama and the DNC here, and to The Godless Americans PAC here.

The Ultimate Test of the Media

McCain and Palin are doing something interesting. They've apparently decided that if the media covers only controversy and that the media will not call people on lies, but dutifully report "both sides," then they're going to just lie and see what happens. They get to not only frame the debate, but take ideal positions having nothing to do with reality.

Ezra Klein wrote brilliantly about this:

The McCain campaign's decision to lie about, well, everything, really needs to be understood as more than the outcome of John McCain's consuming ambition. It is a rational and obvious response to the rules laid down by the media. Indeed, McCain's spokesperson Brian Rogers says this directly to The Politico's Jonathan Martin. "We ran a different kind of campaign and nobody cared about us. They didn’t cover John McCain. So now you’ve got to be forward-leaning in everything."

And it's true. Earlier this year McCain made poverty tours and offered policy speeches. No one cared, Obama retained his lead. It was only when he began offering vicious attacks and daily controversies that he began setting the pace of the coverage. The McCain campaign learned something important about the media: It's an institution that covers conflict. If you want to direct its coverage, give it more conflict than your opponent. And so they have.

None of this, of course, absolves McCain of what he has done. He has sacrificed his honor and dignity with astonishing enthusiasm. He has become much worse than "just another politician." He is a politician who was once more than that, and used that reputation to go lower than the rest. But the fact remains that he wouldn't be doing this, that no one would do this, if the media ignored or censured the behavior. If lies were covered as lies and an allergy to substance was treated as evidence of an unfitness to govern, the tenor of campaigns would lift. These are, at the end of the day, rational beasts, and they hunger for good coverage. The McCain campaign has found its best coverage comes from its worst campaigning. And so they are following the incentive structure laid out by the media.

I don't think it's going to work. There's too much time until the election and the evidence is too obvious.

Here's Andrew Sullivan on the Bridge To Nowhere lies:

In her speeches, Sarah Palin routinely and repeatedly uses the phrase: "I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere." In the McCain-Palin ads, the claim is that she "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."

These are, again, demonstrable lies. Again I will cite Wikipedia, since it's the fairest summary of the facts of the case, and includes all the links for you to see for yourself:

In 2006, Palin ran for governor on a "build-the-bridge" platform,^[101] attacking "spinmeisters"^[102] for insulting local residents by calling them "nowhere"^[101] and urging speed "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."^[103] About two years after the introduction of the bridge proposals, a month after the bridge received sharp criticism from John McCain,^[104] and nine months into Palin's term as governor, Palin canceled the Gravina Bridge, blaming Congress for not providing enough funding.^[105] Alaska will not return any of the $442 million to the federal government^[106] and is spending a portion of the funding, $25 million, on a Gravina Island road to the place where the bridge would have gone, expressly so that none of the money will have to be returned.^[101] Palin continues to support funding Don Young's Way, estimated as more than twice as expensive as the Gravina Bridge would have been.^[107]

Your call.

Probably much more important is this picture:



Unfortunately, I think the "lipstick on a pig" lie and the "Obama voted for comprehensive sex ed for kindergartners" lies won't hurt them. McCain can simply stand by the "Lipstick on a pig" lie, as he did on The View, and it's not something one can really prove to be false. The sex ed one won't hurt him, because the refutation doesn't make a good sound bite. Any day talking about "sex ed" and "kindergartners" is a win for McCain.

If he is brought down by his lies, it'll be the lies about Palin. The bridge, the earmarks, and McCain's and Palin's standing by them long after they'd been revealed as lies. The Obama campaign must frame the issue: "Is John McCain a liar?" The contrast between the honorable soldier he presents himself as and the dishonerable campaign he's leading represent a great opportunity for Obama. Rove took Kerry's greatest strength and turned it into his greater weakness, and Obama has the opportunity to return the favor with the message "John McCain is dishonest and dishonerable."

OMG: A Democrat Fights Back

Man that is nice to see after Gore and Kerry let the opposition demolish their characters. The Republicans have no chance if Obama makes them stick to the issues.

For My Conservative Blog-Friends Still Defending Palin

Republican strategists Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan, believing themselves off mic:

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

In an alternate universe, television pundits would be smart people giving honest analysis even when they know the mics are on.

Palin Vetoed Funding for Homeless Teen Moms

Wow.

ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

I've got nothing to add.

Palin

I'll be honest, I thought her speech the other day was great. If McCain successfully becomes the anti-corruption candidate with her help, that would possibly distance himself enough from Bush and the Republicans to win. However, he'll now look hypocritical if he makes the experience argument against Obama after officially vouching for Palin, whose sole job as VP is to be ready to step into the presidency "from day one."

And McCain is crazy if he thinks a pro-life woman is going to get Hillary voters just because she has a vagina.

The Human Toll of Republicanism

Ezra Klein writes about the real-world ramifications of a McCain victory:

It's almost inarguable that a McCain presidency will push policies leading to an increase in illness and homelessness. Last year, McCain voted against expanding S-CHIP, which would have extended pubic health insurance to millions of currently uninsured children. Many of those children will become sicker than they would have if they'd been able to access a doctor early in their illness. Some may well die. In 1995, McCain voted for a GOP plan to balance the budget by cutting Medicaid by $182 billion over 10 years. Many adults would have been tossed off the rolls, been incapable of accessing a doctor, and fallen ill, or even died as unchecked hypertension led to cardiac arrest or a small lump grew into a full-body cancer. You can find similar examples of McCain trying to chop apart the safety net in almost every year of voting since.

...

There's a tendency to want to sugarcoat the outcomes of elections. You can say you disagree with McCain's policies because universal health care is important and humane and social programs are just and decent and upper-crust tax cuts are regressive and shameful and he's on the other side of all those opinions. What you're not supposed to say is that if John McCain is elected, the policies he has signaled he will pursue will harm the country's health, defund its safety net, lead to untreated illnesses, reduce mitigation of the ravages of poverty, and, in many cases, the outcome will be sickness and death and homelessness and, for those cut off from health coverage and help, probably hopelessness, too. McCain, for his part, would argue that even so, tax cuts are a matter of fairness and it's more important that health insurance is primarily private than that health insurance is actually accessible. And fair enough. But no reason we should ignore the implications of that philosophy.

It's easy to forget the real human cost of the right's political philosophies. They have a rationalization for everything -- progressive taxation is a priori immoral, higher taxes will kill the economy, universal health care will kill the economy, etc. -- but when you put their rationalizations on one side of the scale and the reality of those who will suffer as a direct and inevitable result of their policies, you've got to be awfully confident in the rationalizations for it to balance out.

When they make predictions that fly in the face of experience -- such as the claim that returning the tax code to Clinton's levels will kill the economy -- you really have to question their calculus.

Link Roundup

• Hilzoy has a roundup of the praise Republicans are giving Jesse Helms juxtaposed with the horrible things Mr. Helms said and did during his political life.
• Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection -- does the 3 day resurrection story predate Jesus?
• The Atheist Jew (who pointed me to the previous story) wonders if the legend of Moses was a re-imagining of Hammurabi.
• Ben Avuyah is back!
• I explain to Mark why liberals sometimes feel the need to qualify their patriotic sentiments. Via dbackdad, one liberal explains why he's not patriotic.
  
• XGH quotes a Rabbi who speaks the truth without realizing it. The Rabbi argues that academic Bible study is only a "problem" for those with more chochma (intelligence/wisdom) than yiras shamayim (fear/awe of Heaven.) Uh, yeah.

Obama, Wright, and the Republican Debate: Double Standards Watch

Did you know that at this year's Republican Values Voters Debate, they had a choir sing a song, in front of all the candidates, that started like this:

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

Watch the whole thing:


I didn't know that either. One wonders why the media loops Obama's pastor saying "We should say 'God damn America'" but never mentioned the above incident.

Can you imagine if, at a Democratic debate, they had sung a similar song, to the same tune, saying things like, "Why should God bless America when we let the poor go hungry?" Cable news would be wall-to-wall outrage.

"Why should God bless America? God have mercy on America/Forgive her sin and heal her land." No, no double standard at all.

McCain vs. Romney on Torture

It's amazing how eloquent and sincere one can be when he's on the right side of an issue:



Romney just comes off as a weasel.

I don't understand why McCain isn't doing better in the polls. He comes off as honest and decent. Although he's not a religious fanatic, he is a mostly consistent conservative, unlike Rudy and Romney. Huckabee also strikes me as honest and decent, and he's an ordained minister! Does Romney have anything besides looks and money? Does Rudy have anything besides 9/11?