The GOP's "autopsy" report ????

Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus called it an "autopsy."   That's a rather incredible image, given that he is talking about his own party's report on its failure in the 2012 election.

An autopsy is what you do to determine the cause of death -- not to figure out what needs to be fixed in a living body.   So is Priebus admitting that his party is dead?   Is it a meaningful slip, or just a poor choice of words?

Well, whatever, it's pretty frank in its assessment.  Quoting Priebus: 

“There’s no one reason we lost. . . .  Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren’t inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement. … So, there’s no one solution: There’s a long list of them.” 

The report calls for enacting comprehensive immigration reform, addressing middle-class economic anxieties head-on, condensing the primary process into a shorter time, and becoming more inclusive of women and minorities.

Though it skirted the marriage equality debate, the report did say that Obama got 5 million more votes than Romney in the under 30 category and that the party needs to be more tolerant of gays and their rights. 

“Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.” 

That's a pretty frank assessment.   Losing does incredible things to people's perception and honest.  Clearly, the RNC is trying to pull the party back from the right edge -- and it sounds like there was a bit of that even at the CPAC meeting too.  But then Rand Paul won the straw poll.  It'll be interesting to see how this plays out -- continued civil war?   Or choosing the only possible pathway to ever winning again?

Ralph

SCOTUS, please take note.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments, over three days, on the case to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8.

With so many changes during the past year, one can definitely say that public opinion and social evolution have moved in strong support for marriage equality.   Here's a list of what happened in 2012 and the first three months of 2013:

1.  President Obama and the Democratic Party announced support for marriage equality.

2.  Three more states adopted marriage equality -- and in these states the voters did it by referndum.

3.  The U. S. military is now officially open to gay men and lesbians at all ranks;  a lesbian was promoted to the rank of general, and a same-sex wedding was held in the chapel at West Point.

4.  The first person running as openly gay was elected to the U.S. Senate.

5.  Now, as another measure of how rapidly things are changing, the Conservative Political Action Conference went from excluding the GOP's own gay caucus GoProud from its meetings, when they were being set up, to this week having a big change of heart.   Those opposed to inclusiveness found themselves speaking to nearly empty rooms, while a panel on increasing tolerance -- and specifically mentioning gay marriage -- had a packed audience.

6.  Senator Rob Portman (Repuclican-OH) announced his support for gay marriage, saying that his son is gay;  and he wants him to have the same rights as his other two children.

If SCOTUS doesn't get this message from the conservative CPAC -- yes, the one that didn't invite Chris Christie to speak but had Sarah Palin and Rand Paul instead -- then they aren't paying attention.

And remember -- it was Justice Antonin Scalia himself who predicted, in his dissent to the decision that overturned all the sodomy laws in the U.S., that this would lead to same-sex marriage acceptance.

Ralph

Back from hiatus

I took a few days off from ShrinkRap to attend, and present a paper at a national Psychoanalysis and Clinical Social Work conference in Durham, NC.

Ralph

Rachel Maddow on the Ryan budget

Last night, Rachel Maddow made a very pointed observation.   Paul Ryan's just released "new" budget plan (which hurts the lower income folks even more than his old plan) is the same plan that he and Romney ran on during the 2012 election --- and lost.   Preserve the tax cuts and loopholes for the wealthy and preserve defense spending;  repeal ObamaCare, turn Medicare into a voucher program, cut Medicaid, money for education, etc.

She showed a clip of him from back then saying this was a big moment of decision for the American people:  two different ideologies about the government, and two different approaches to the budget.   The American people will choose which they want.

Well, said Rachel.   The Amercian people did choose, and they chose Obama and the Democrats.   They rejected Romney/Ryan and their budget plan.

So, naturally, Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, comes back trying to sell the same (or worse) budget that got decisively voted down in November.

Why?    Well, it seems that the Republicans don't pay much attention to the wisdom of the voters.   Another case in point:  gun control.   A staggering 91% of the American people favor expanding background checks on all purchases of guns, even at gun shows and private deals.

And exactly how many Republicans voted for that measure when it came up?    None.   Zero.  Zilch.

The next move couldn't be clearer.   Vote them out of office in 2014.

Ralph

The NYT catches up on guns

I wrote about it here almost two weeks ago (Feb. 27), and yesterday the New York Times finally wrote a lead front page story about the decline in the percentage of homes with guns.

It's based on the same study from the prestigious General Social Survey, done by a research center at the University of Chicago, which asks people about a number of things in their lives and is the source for many important demographic data bases.

From the news about gun shops being flooded with customers, and the total number of guns owned in the U.S. (about 200 million), you would think that two out of every three homes were armed.  Not so.    Here, quoting the Times:

The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s, and 35 percent in the 2000s.

The latest data is from 2012 and shows 34 percent of homes have a gun.   And the decline is true in all parts of the country, in red states as well as blue states, in cities as well as suburbs, in homes with children and in homes without children.   The biggest demographic drop was in people under 30. 

The one big difference was political affiliation.   There was a steep drop among Democrats and only a slight decline among Republicans.

The director of the survey attributes the decline to the decline in hunting and to a sharp drop in violent crime.   This fits with the general shift in population from rural areas, where ownership is high, to urban and suburban, where it has always been lower.

The NRA simply refutes the findings of declining ownership, pointing to the increase in gun sales and the long waits for gun safety training, as well as the growing number of background checks triggered by would-be gun purchasers.

Why the apparent discrepancy?   Assuming the data are right, the obvious answer would seem to be:   fewer people buying more guns.   Some folks who own guns have just got to go out and buy the AR-15 while they still can and pick up a Glock while they're at it.   The paranoid mistrust of the government, and the right-wing hype about Obama wanting to take away their guns certainly contributes to the craze among those with such fears.

But how large is this paranoid fringe?   Probably not as large as we think given the amount of emotion surrounding the issue and the media's mega-amplification of the hype.

Here's the question:   Which moves the Congress to pass laws:   data?   or emotion?   I'd like to think it was a balance of the two:   emotion bringing the questions that are then tempered by data.

The real answer, in this case, sadly, is probably neither.   It's money from the gun lobby and the threat of opposition in the next election if they dare vote for gun control of any sort.

Ralphre

Aunt Minnie McConnell has competition

Well placed sources say that Ashley Judd has decided to run against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, that chinless wonder that I like to call "Aunt Minnie."  Why, you ask?    Look at a picture of that droopy doughy face, the pasty complexion, the pursed lips;  picture it in a little lace cap.  Isn't he the spittin' image of your old Aunt Minnie?

So who better to run against him than beautiful Hollywood actress, environmentalist, women's rights advocate Ashley Judd?    She spent most of her childhood and college years in Kentucky and, according to Howard Fineman:  "She is smart, feisty and charming, and probably can, as one local here put it, 'out-Kentucky and out-country' the Louisville-based, owlishly professorial McConnell in a state where down-home, one-handshake-at-a-time style still matters."

No Democrat in Kentucky has better polls against McConnell than she does.   She has the backing of some politically important Democrats and the ability to raise a lot of money.

We might even just have the Democrats' saner, smarter answer to Sarah Palin:   A woman who captures your attention by her looks and charm but, unlike Palin, one who has something intelligent and progressive to say.  She's smart, quick-witted, and a fighter.   She also has a master degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and has experience as an activist for the environment, education, anti-poverty programs, and women's issues.   As an ambassador for the global YouthAIDS organization, she has traveled to Cambodia, Kenya, and Rwanda.

She can be down-home Southern (for courting the voters), or the Hollywood sophisticate (for raising money), or the global activist for good causes (for moral respect).  When asked whether she was tough enough to take on McConnell and the national GOP attack machine, Judd answered:  "I have been raped twice, so I think I can handle Mitch McConnell.”

Sounds like just what the Senate needs to join Elizabeth Warren, Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Kirsten Gillibrand, Barbara Mikulski, Claire McCaskill, Tammy Baldwin, and the eight other Democratic women senators.

Wouldn't it be lover-ly to have another like them take down the most powerful Republican in the Senate?  It can happen.

Ralph

More Elizabeth Warren

First, I want to thank the people of Massachusetts for electing Elizabeth Warren to represent them in the U. S. Senate.   She is going to be a major force for progressive legislation and regulation.

After Attorney General Eric Holder told the Banking Committee this week that it's difficult for the DoJ to prosecute the big banks because of the risk of what it would do to the economy.   Here's what Sen. Warren wrote about that:

This is wrong -- just plain wrong. We are a country that believes in equal justice under the law -- not special deals for the big guys. And that's not all the special deals that the big banks get.

According to recent calculations by Bloomberg, the top ten biggest banks receive an $83 billion subsidy every year in the form of lower borrowing costs -- something not available to your community bank or credit union.

To put things in perspective -- that $83 billion subsidy is about the same amount of money being fought over in the sequestration.

So why are we still debating this issue at all? . . .  We know we can take on the big banks and their army of lobbyists and win because we've done it before.

When banks are too big to fail, too big to jail, too big for trial, too big to manage, too big to regulate, too big to shrink, and too big to reform... they are just too big.

We're just getting started here.

Now that's the kind of thinking we need in Congress.

Ralph