Babies unlimited

It would never happend in China, where they have a strict, one-child per family policy, imposed for population control. But here in the U.S., how many babies you want to have is pretty much up to those having them (and to the availability and reliability of birth control and/or fertility proceedures).

Headlines blared about the birth of octuplets in California last week -- that's eight (8) new babies in one family all at one time. Then news came that the divorced mother already has six (6) children, ages 7, 6, 5, 3, and 2 year old twins. That makes 14 children seven years old and younger !!!!

Why?

CBS/AP reports that "The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in-vitro fertilization, is not married, and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said." So it's clear that these were all planned pregnancies.

Identified by her family as Nadya Suleman, the mother has a college degree in child and adolescent development and has been studying for a master's degree in counseling. She has said that she wanted to have 12 children. After trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, she then had sought fertility assistance through in vitro fertilization with a sperm donor. All of her children have been from embryos with the same donor and implanted at various times.

Ms. Suleman's father says she didn't want to have the unused embroys destroyed, but she really had wanted only one more child, not the eight that were apparently implanted. (It could be that less than eight were implanted and some divided in utero.)

This raises ethical questions. Not about whether a woman has the right to have as many children as she wants. The answer to that seems clearly yes, in this country. Some question that right when women keep having babies they can't support and rely on governmental help. But that's as much politics as it is philosophy and ethics.

What is an ethical dilemma is the fertility doctor's decision to implant eight embroys at the same time. That is said to be highly risky and unwise if not outright malpractice. Most experts recommend implanting two, knowing that not all implantations will survive. But not eight.

Was it because Ms. Suleman insisted, so as not to "waste" or destroy the already fertilized embryos? Her father says that there won't be any more babies, because all the embryos have now been used. If she did make that request, it should not overrule medical judgment. Although now that all eight babies seem to have a pretty good chance of surviving, and the mother seems to be doing all right, the medical argument is weaker.

So it comes back to basic questions. Who decides how many babies we need? Only the mother? Only a married couple? The assisting fertility specialist? Only a social planning government? Only the marketplace -- with product endorsements likely to flock to this family and support them for life, as they did the Dionne quintuplets of 75 years ago? Ms. Suleman was quoted as saying she keeps having babies because she "gets paid for it." That was not explained.

If you say the main concern should be for the welfare of the children, then you have to decide whether it would have been better for some of these octuplets not to have been born. And then what about the welfare of the older siblings?

Interesting questions we get into around birth and death (think Terry Shiavo).

Ralph

Senator Gregg

Senator Judd Gregg, Repubican of New Hampshire, is said to be President Obama's top choice for Secretary of Commerce. As everyone knows by now, New Hampshire's governor is a Democrat and could appoint a Democrat to replace him in the Senate. Once Al Franken is finally seated, this would give Democrats the magic number of 60 votes to override Republican filibusters.

This sounds like very smart politics. In addition, Senator Gregg is considered a moderate Repubican and would add more bipartisanship to the Cabinet.

Just one thing is missing: in two days of news stories and comments, I have not seen one word about whether Senator Gregg has any special qualifications to run the Commerce Department. If this were Republicans doing this, I would not be surprised; it would only increase my cynicism.

Given that this stands out as the exception, rather than the rule, for the Obama administration, I raise only a mild concern. And Gregg may turn out to be just fine for the job. Let's see.

Obama does allow for exceptions in his very high principles, as in the rules he set to bar former lobbyists from working in areas they had previously lobbied for. One of his key second tier appointments at Defense is a former lobbyist for a defense contractor, who also happens to be the most highly regarded person for the job at Defense.

Admitting that this does not follow the strict guidelines he had set, Obama did the next best thing: put strict limits on what the appointee must recuse himself from in awarding contracts and promised regular oversight and transparency as to what he is doing.

Republicans have yelled 'hypocrisy' and tried to tarnish Obama's reformist image, saying he is already violating his principles. They have no standing to make that claim. What Obama is doing is a rare exception to the strictest standards ever, and the exception is openly acknowledged with built in oversight safeguards.

This is so far superior to anything the Republicans ever did that it makes their complaints laughable. First, they routinely appointed lobbyists to key positions where they influenced policy and contracts, without the justification that they had unique qualifications for the job. And they did everything possible to conceal the facts and to avoid transparency and accountability.

So far, the Republicans are not wearing their minority status well -- neither with grace nor with constructive participation. Let's hope the voters are taking notes and not just listening to Rush Limbaugh's narcissistic diatribes.

Ralph

Comments

Thanks to a tip from a friend about the difficulty posting comments on my blog, I discovered that the settings had somehow got changed without my knowledge. One of the internet gremlins, perhaps. I intended it to be open to comments from anyone, whether you have a google account or not. I don't know how that got changed, but it is now changed back.

Comments are welcome from anyone. To those who tried unsuccessfully, my apologies. Please try again.

Ralph

Short takes

1. Obama signed his first bill as president this morning: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which ensures the right to challenge not getting equal pay for equal work, even if you don't discover the discrepancy until years after it began. This is one more repudiation of George Bush and Senate Republicans who had previously blocked the bill's passage.

2. The Iraqi government is kicking Blackwater out of Iraq. Good riddance to the bad idea of privatizing and outsourcing the defense of our diplomats. Another repudiation of Bush's failures in Iraq.

3. HolyJoe Lieberman, who campaigned for McCain and spoke ill of Obama's readiness to be president, is now singing a different tune. Highly praising his stance on Afghanistan, he said of his interview with Al-Arabiya, "I thought the president was superb in that interview, it was very important that he did this as his first interview after he took office, that he spoke to the Muslim world." Chalk one up for Obama's political wisdom in letting HolyJoe stay in the fold. HolyJoe owes him one, and he is paying off.

3. "Outrageous. That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful:" President Obama's reaction to news that Wall Street had paid out $18.4 billion in bonuses to employees of financial companies in 2008. We all should be outraged at the rewards these people gave themselves for squandering other people's money.

4. Angry House Democrats are demanding that the tax cuts put in the recovery bill to gain Republican support be removed from the bill, now that it didn't work. I agree, and I also want them to put back in the family planning funds. John Boehner tried to turn it into an outrageous sound bite: "how can you spend $100 million on condoms?" In fact the funds were to save states' programs that help low income people avoid unwanted pregnancies, which save far larger future costs to the state health and welfare systems. Boehner's playing pure politics in the worst sense.

5. Governor Rod Blogojavech gave a spellbinding performance today in his "closing statement" to the Illinois Senate impeachment trial, after previously boycotting the proceedings, where he could have been questioned, in favor of TV talk shows where he could play victim. That's what he did today in the senate, play the innocent unfairly treated victim. The senators didn't buy it. They voted for impeachment 50 to 0.

Ralph

"Do it our way or be stampeded"

The Republican National Committee will be meeting this weekend to choose a new chairman. Will that choice be a clue as to which direction the floundering party will be going in the coming years? Or will their identity confusion make this just another internal brawl as they try to sort out their minority status?

Or is it perhaps not identity confusion, but simply a question of who is giving the marching orders to the loyal troops? Events of yesterday suggest it may be the latter and that Rush Limbaugh is the drill sergeant.

As Jay Bookman notes in the AJC today, Rush had famously "expressed hope that Barack Obama fails as president and he has insisted that congressional Republicans refuse to compromise with the president." Isn't that exactly what House Republicans did yesterday in voting in lock-step against the stimulus/recovery bill?

Georgia Congressman Phil Gingery first was critical of Rush's comments, saying it's easy for talk show hosts to stand back and throw bricks but "our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach."

Turns out that at least Boehner's "right approach" was exactly what Rush was pushing. So Gingery, ever the sychophant, fell all over himself apologizing to Rush and praising him, along with Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich, as "the voices of the conservative movement's conscience."

Ha!! Let them flounder and flip flop. My favorite political cartoonist, Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, captured it perfectly today. His drawing shows a very tall, resolute and serious looking Obama towering over and looking down at three very small, woeful looking elephants clustered together. The caption over the elephants' heads reads: "Do it our way or be stampeded . . . "

There is no question that the Repubs denied Obama his hoped for bipartisan endorsement yesterday. But there is also no question that the bill passed anyway by a very comfortable margin.

Stampede . . . schmampede. Ha!!

Ralph

Repubs: make the stimulus more ineffective

The House Republicans are all over the airwaves touting their beloved tax cuts as the answer to it all. Their alternate stimulus bill, which was defeated, had mostly tax cuts and little spending. Never mind the fact that even Republican economists say that tax cuts are less effective than infrastructure spending for stimulating the economy.

When Obama said in his inaugural address that we will restore science to its rightful place of respect, he did not simply mean laboratory experimental evidence. I think he meant broadly the scientific attitude of basing conclusions on verifiable evidence.

Abundent, reliable economic models have shown that infrastructure investment benefits the economy and that tax cuts do not.

So why do Republicans insist on what will not work?

Are they so wedded to the tax-cut ideology that they refuse to consider evidence? "Don't confuse me with facts."

Or do they really, actually want it to fail, so they can blame Obama and the Democrats? Rush Limbaugh said as much, "I want him to fail."

Ralph

Repubs don't realize they lost

Well, they did just what Josh Marshall predicted. The House Republicans whined and demanded, and Obama gave them some of what they wanted: more tax cuts than the Democrats wanted and cut out the funding for state family planning support -- and every single House Republican said No. Along with 11 Democrats.

Still, the economic recovery bill passed by a comfortable margin of 244-188. It shows what strength the Democrats have. They should go ahead and do what will work best, and let the Hoover Boys stew in their own constituents' anger.

It was a noble effort on Obama's part. But in the end, as I said in my prior post, he was earnestly trying for bipartisanship, but the Republicans were playing politics.

So let them play politics -- and lose. As Henry Waxman said: "Republicans haven't quite made the adjustment to their minorty status." They lost the vote, but they're acting like they won, because they kept Obama from having any bipartisan support. And they're trying to drive a wedge between him and Nancy Pelosi, saying things like, "Now maybe he (Obama) will tell Pelosi to work with us." Why would he bother? They've already proved they don't want to play ball. They just want to keep Obama from having a bipartisan bill. Don't give them another inch.

The bottom line: The House passed the bill by a good margin. The Democrats won. The Republicans lost.

Ralph

Fighting for recovery

We're coming close to a vote on the economic recovery plan. Obama has met with Republican leaders, who are calling for more tax cuts and less spending on infrastructure, despite agreement by economists across the political spectrum that infrastructure investment will be more effective than tax cuts. Even the public strongly supports that strategy.

And the Democrats have the votes to pass the bill they want, without help from Republicans. So why is Obama bending over backward to get Republican support? It's not only his campaign promise and the very high value he places on bipartisanship. He wants the Republicans to share ownership of the plan -- not just in the later blame game but in a committment to trying to make it work. In a larger way, he really wants to move beyond the petty partisan squabbling. And there is no better place to begin than on something that is urgent and necessary.

That's fine, and I hope it works. The worry is that Republicans are playing their old game. It's not just that Obama may give in too much. It's that he might compromise to get their vote, and then they'll doublecross him and vote against it anyway.

Here's Josh Marshall's thought on it:

I hear a lot of talk about whether Obama's governing approach can be 'bipartisan' if a good number of Republicans don't vote for his Stimulus Bill. But that dubious point seems to be obscuring a more obvious and telling reality: the Republican leadership in both houses has decided that it's in their political interest to oppose the Stimulus Bill no matter what.

In the most cynical of evaluations, it's not clear to me that they're incorrect. If the stimulus is judged a success, their political gain from adding more votes to what will be seen as Obama's bill will not be that great. So they're figuring that only failure will work for them politically; and they judge that they want Obama to own it entirely.

One can pick apart the political ethics of their stand, but the reality of it is clear. They want to criticize as many provisions of the bill as possible, push for as many non-stimulus inducing tax cuts as possible at the expense of spending on infrastructure, and then vote against the final bill en masse. I think it's possible Obama will get a smattering of moderate Republicans in the senate. But that is the Boehner/McConnell approach -- and the one few if any reporters seem to have the wherewithal to say out loud.

This is the worry: that Obama is earnestly working for a bipartisan bill, while the Republicans are playing politics -- and that he might wind up with a badly compromised bill that will not be nearly as effective, and then still not get Republican support. It's a variation on the old bait and switch trick. 'Just change it enough that we can support it; oops, sorry you didn't change it enough. We vote no.'

This huge economic stimulus/recovery bill is too important to give in on. He has already compromised more than I would like, and I don't trust John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. I'd rather the Democrats go all out for the best possible bill for maximum economic effectiveness, and forget trying to make it bipartisan -- certainly if they're not going to vote for it anyway.

Still . . . Obama knows hardball politics, Chicago style -- and certainly Rahm Emmanuel does. He's not likely to get fooled by these clowns. And Obama is far smarter than I am. But I worry. We've already had one $700 billion fiasco. This one has to work.

Ralph

The Amazing Obama

It is exactly one week since Barack Obama was sworn in as president. For all he has done, it seems it should be at least a month.

The Amazing Obama is juggling so many balls in the air that you would think he couldn't possibly have time for any more. Apparently he's not overly taxed by the all-consuming economic negotiating, getting his cabinet members confirmed, meeting with his defense team about Iraq and Afghanistan, defining a new policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, meeting with increasingly hostile Republican congressmen to ask for their support on the recovery bill, overturning dozens of bush regulations and restrictions, as well as planning his budget and legislative initiatives. And he does it all while seeming totally cool and utterly competent.

Yesterday the theme seemed to be "reach out to Muslims" day. First, it was announced that we will have direct diplomatic discussions with Iran, a first since 1979 and something for which his opponents scorned him during the campaign. He held a news conference to announce that George Mitchell, his special envoy to the Middle East, will be heading there to help secure the cease fire. Then his first formal interview as president was given to the Dubai based Arabic Network Al-Arabiya. As reported by Sam Stein on HuffingtonPost:

Much of the interview was spent defining the new approach that the United States would implement in that region: respectfulness over divisiveness, listening over dictating, engagement over militarism. But the president drew the line when it came to terrorist organizations.

"Their ideas are bankrupt," he told host Hisham Melhem. . . . There's no actions that they've taken that say a child in the Muslim world is getting a better education because of them, or has better health care because of them."

Pressed later in the interview to comment on Bush's use of the term 'War On Terror,' and the implications that the phrase held, Obama once again distanced himself from his White House predecessor.

"I think that you're making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters," he said, according to a transcript provided by the White House. "We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship."

If Obama's discussion on terrorism were marked by tones of firmness, his positions on other Middle East issues seemed defined by fresh thinking and inclusiveness. At one point he did something that would have been anathema on the campaign trail: he touted his hereditary and biographical links to the Muslim world.

"I have Muslim members of my family," said the president. "I have lived in Muslim countries."

Later on, Obama pledged to engage Iran as one of several means of preventing that country from developing a nuclear weapon. He promised to follow through on his campaign commitment "to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital," and said that George Mitchell, his recently appointed Middle East envoy, was going to the region to "listen" because "all too often the United States starts by dictating."

There will be those who will scream that they knew it all the time. Obama is a secret Muslim who will appease the terrorists and lead us into an even worse disaster as he gives away our freedom.

You know what? We tried the other approach: bombs, insults, and refusal to talk. And it only made things worse, increasing recruits for terrorist organizations faster than we could kill them.

I think Obama is exactly right, and I am simply in awe of his courage and his acumen.

His ability to handle so many things at once is amazing. Remember when McCain suspended his campaign and made a big to-do about going to Washington to make a lot of sound and fury about the economic crisis? And Obama just coolly kept going on the campaign trail, consulting with appropriate leaders in Congress about the economy -- and explaining that he thought the American people expected presidents to be able to handle more than one thing at the time.

Yes, indeed.

Ralph

odds and ends

Here are a few interesting or amusing things that caught my attention over the weekend:

1. News that, because of extreme cold weather effects on musical instruments, the quartet for the inauguration were playing along with a recording they had made the day before. They were actually playing, but what we heard was their recording. While that is perfectly understandable (tuning problems or a broken string would have marred a historic performance that needed to be perfect), it somehow was a slight deflation to learn the truth.

Now that has been turned to humor. In a letter to the New York Times, a writer suggested that for the next inauguration, perhaps the Chief Justice and the President can pre-record and then lip-synch the oath, so as to prevent the kind of flub that occurred this time.

2. Not to be upstaged by the inauguration and first week of fellow Illinoian Obama's presidency, the embattled Governor Rod Blagojavech is skipping his impeachment trial today in favor of a big PR push, appearing on Good Morning America, The View, and Larry King tv shows to declare his victimhood and martyrdom.

I suppose, when your lead attorney removes himself from the case and says he won't defend you at the trial because you refuse even to listen to his advice, the best you can do then is hit the entertainment circuit and play victim.

Blago almost surely will be turned out of office by the State Senate. His impeachment carried by 140 to 1, and he's not even mounting a defense in the trial, claiming that it is unfairly rigged against him. Even if some of the charges would not stand up in a court trial, an impeachment trial has different rules. They don't have to prove he committed an ordinary crime. Bringing dishonor to the State or simply being judged unfit to serve are enough. Bye, bye, Blago. It's time for you to go.

3. Another good riddance. A year ago, we progressives were astonished that The New York Times had hired William Kristol to write a weekly opinion column. One of the chief spokesmen for neoconservatism that led us into so much trouble during the Bush administration, Kristol has notoriously been wrong about so many things (including praise for Sarah Palin) that it was astonishing that The Times would give him a platform.

Apparently they now agree. Kristol's column today ends with these words: "This is William Kristol’s last column." Good riddance. Maybe the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will follow suit and stop publishing fellow-neocon pundit Charles Krauthammer.

4. Now that he has time on his hands, and no power to mess up government anymore, I wonder if george bush is reflecting at all on the fact that President Obama is busy with an undoing-a-day of bush's mess: time-line to exit Iraq, stop torture, close Guantanomo, end gag orders on family planning agencies, allow stem cell research, stop selling our national parks to developers, cease warrantless wire-tapping, purge DoJ of politicization -- and today's: allowing California and other states to set auto fuel and emissions requirements that exceed the federal levels.

Despite dubya's reputation for not listening to criticism, it must sting a bit to be so thoroughly repudiated.

Ralph

Clash of ideologies

Aside from political posturing, which undoubtedly exists even in the urgency of our economic crisis, the fight over the stimulus/recovery package contains the essence of the difference in Democrats' and Republicans' economic views.

Republicans are fighting to make Bush's tax cuts permanent and for further tax cuts for business; Democtrats rely on more government spending in the form of investment that will both create jobs and build necessary public works projects with long-term benefits to society.

Republicans favor business and the upper crusts; Democrats favor benefits to enhance the middle class and services for the poor. Trickle down vs trickle up economics. I'm for the latter.

Democrats have the votes to pass the legislation they want and a president who will sign it. But they also want it to be bipartisan -- because it will make it more easily accepted by the public and because there will be shared "blame" if it falls short of desired results. In that sense, it is ultimately about politics more than ideology, perhaps.

Obama has already compromised some -- more money for tax cuts than he wanted. Republicans are demanding more in order to support the bill. I want Obama to stand firm and compromise no further. The urgency of now is as good a time as any to assert the power we gave him in the election.

Economists say that, in our current economy, spending will be more effective than tax cuts. What will work is more important than feel-good bipartisanship. And as for blame, don't let that worry lead us to less effective solutions.

Ralph

Economic recovery

The economic recovery package was a major topic on This Week With George Stephanopolis, with a very civilized discussion of the problems and proposed solutions. Here are a few things I learned:

1. Paul Krugman counters arguments comparing the current situation with the recession of the 1980s, when Reagen economics emphasized manipulating monetary policy and tax cuts. He points out that today's economic situation is very different. Whereas the unemployment rate was even higher then (10%), interest rates were also high -- making it possible for Federal Reserve lowering of interest rates to stimulate growth. That's not possible now, because they have already lowered interest rates to almost 0% even before the worst of our current crisis. Thus, we are left with infrastructure investment as the most effective tool.

2. Carly Fiorini, sounding more logical and sane than when she was trying to defend McCain during the campaign, emphasized the need to get credit flowing to small businesses, in addition to stimulating the economy with spending and tax cuts. Of course that's what Bush's Treasury Secretary Paulson's plan was supposed to do; but it didn't work, because banks kept the money to balance their books instead of lending it. Carly says the government should not take equity in the banks, as many have urged so that tax payers get some return when things improve. She says, instead, we should put conditions on the money we give them: banks could be required to put the money into loans, instead of holding on to it.

3. Nancy Pelosi said that economists, across the liberal/conservative spectrum, agree that we will get more bang for the buck from infrastructure investment than from tax cuts. Which then puts the Democrats in the position of defending the tax cuts that they have put into the package. Is it just to appease the Republicans and get their votes? Nancy says that tax cuts, particularly for those who will spend them, help somewhat -- just not as much as the investments. So they're doing both.

4. Paul Krugman responded to critics who say that much of the spending won't be done until the end of 2011. He says we will still be in the recession that long; it's not a v-shaped recession that will spring back quickly. So longer range spending plans are fine. We'll be needing it then too.

Others also pointed out that the big fuss Republicans were making about a Congressional Budget Office report, which reputedly said the bulk of the money wouldn't get used for 18 months (and therefore bad, in their view), was based on a preliminary report that only looked at 40% of the proposed spending. It was not a comprehensive evaluation, and the Republicans were misusing it to bolster their arguments.

Everyone continues to remark on Obama's emphasis on bipartisanship. But Republican leaders continue to snipe and whine, and Obama has stood his ground on the basic principles. He's emphasizing listening to all views, openness to different ideas, but committed to doing what will work. He has the power to get his package passed. Let's give him the grass roots support so he will know he can use the power we have given him.

Ralph