Rachel Maddow's Blog, page 3401

Avik Roy and the wonk gap

Among conservatives who care about substance and policy detail -- not just everyday pundits and columnists, but genuine, grade-A wonks -- Avik Roy has a reputation for being a pretty serious guy. He advised Mitt Romney on health care policy, for example, and has written extensively on the subject for a conservative think tank.

With this in mind, note that Roy was on "All In with Chris Hayes" last week, and as Kevin Drum noted, Roy "offered up a criticism of Social Security's disability program that was so misleading that Michael Astrue, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration appointed by George Bush, nearly had a heart attack on the air."

Shortly thereafter, Roy weighed in on the latest report on California's exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. While most of us saw the news from the Golden State as excellent news and proof that "Obamacare" implementation is proceeding apace, Roy published a remarkably dishonest piece arguing the opposite, deliberately omitting relevant details.

The always-mild-mannered Jonathan Cohn explained in detail why Roy is plainly, demonstrably wrong, but added an important point about the larger issue.

If you want to know why we can't have an honest debate about Obamacare, all you have to do is pay attention to some recent news from California -- and the way a highly distorted version of it, by one irresponsible writer, has rippled through the conservative press.

Right. Jon, Krugman, and Ezra, among others, have detailed reports explaining why Avik Roy's analysis simply doesn't make sense -- I won't recreate the wheel here -- and I hope folks will follow the links to understand the underlying policy dispute. It's not just of a gray area; Roy is simply wrong.

But it's the point about "why we can't have an honest debate" that resonates with me.

Indeed, it reinforces the "wonk gap" thesis I've been kicking around for a while.

Remember, Avik Roy isn't just some guy who shows up on Fox to rant and rave about "death panels"; Roy is one of the conservatives who hopes to prove that serious policy scholarship still exists on the right. He publishes content with a credible tone; he doesn't fly off the rhetorical rails; and he genuinely understands the policy details.

But when it comes to advancing a partisan/ideological agenda, Roy is nevertheless willing to publish "Obamacare" criticisms that are transparently ridiculous.

I believe this is yet another data point that highlights the wonk gap. As Republicans become a post-policy party, even their wonks -- their sharpest and most knowledgeable minds -- are producing shoddy work that crumbles quickly under mild scrutiny.

Indeed, it's not just health care. The Heritage Foundation -- an ostensible think tank -- produced an academic paper on immigration reform, which was intended to provide such intellectual backup for conservatives opposed to the comprehensive legislation, and which was torn to shreds by even casual observers who noticed its careless errors of fact and judgment.

We see the same dynamic on display on economic and tax policy discussions, in which House Budget Committee Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is supposed to be a standout for his intellectual rigor, only to find his arguments crumbling in the face of evidence, too.

But health care is certainly where the wonk gap shines brightest. As we've discussed before, this came up in earnest during the fight over health care reform. In 2011, for example, after National Review ran a piece with obvious factual errors about health care policy, Jon Chait noted, "One of the unusual and frustrating aspects of the health care debate is the sheer imbalance of people who understand the issue at all from a technical standpoint. Even the elite policy wonks of the right make wildly incorrect claims about the issue."

Most people are not policy wonks. We really on trusted specialists to translate these details for us. This is true as well of elected officials and their advisors. Part of the extraordinary vitriol of the health care debate stems from the fact that, on the Republican side, even the specialists believe things that are simply patently untrue. As with climate change and supply-side economics, there isn't even a common reality upon which to base the discussion.

Paul Krugman added some related thoughts at the time.

First of all, I don't think this is unique to health care, or especially unusual. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, you name it, there's a gap, although not quite as large as on health.

Second, I'm surprised that Chait doesn't refer to Upton Sinclair's principle: it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. In fact, in general right-wing think tanks prefer people who genuinely can't understand the issues -- it makes them more reliable.

Doesn't this apply to both sides? Not equally. There was a time when conservative think tanks employed genuine policy wonks, and when asked to devise a Republican health care plan, they came up with -- Obamacare! That is, what passes for leftist policy now is what was considered conservative 15 years ago; to meet the right's standards of political correctness now, you have to pass into another dimension, a dimension whose boundaries are that of imagination, untrammeled by things like arithmetic or logic.

I write often about the asymmetry in American politics, and the consequences of a radicalized party in a two-party system. But this wonk gap points to something related but different: it's not just Republicans who've become more extreme and less interested in substance; it's also conservatives who've allowed their intellectual infrastructure to atrophy and collapse.

Credible policy debates are rendered impossible, not because of the chasm between the two sides, but because only one side places a value on facts, evidence, and reason.

Carney laughs off Issa attack

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) started to lose his composure a bit yesterday, lashing out at White House Press Secretary Jay Carney as a "paid liar" who's "still making up things." What is it, exactly, that Carney said that wasn't true? Issa didn't say, but he certainly felt strongly about it.

Naturally, the White House press corps was eager to hear Carney's reaction at today's briefing, but President Obama's spokesperson was content to stick to the high road. Carney would only say that Issa's accusation was "amazing," adding, "I'm not going to get into a back and forth with Chairman Issa."

In a bit of a surprise, some Republican critics of the White House agreed that Issa's outburst was inappropriate. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox's Brian Kilmeade this morning that it "never helps" to engage in name-calling. "Let's not make it personal," Graham said. "Jay Carney is not the issue here."

Asked about Issa's comments, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) added, "I never like to use that word. I think that we should let these investigations take their course, let the facts come out."

There's been no word as of yet on whether Issa is willing to walk back his unsubstantiated accusations.

A generation of voters with no use for the GOP

Associated Press

When political observers talk about the Republican Party's demographic challenges, we tend to focus on the GOP's difficulties in earning support from Latino voters, women, African Americans, and other racial and ethnic minorities, each of which tends to prefer Democrats.

But let's not overlook the Republican Party's generational challenges, either -- today's GOP isn't just overwhelmingly white in an increasingly diverse nation, it's also dependent on older voters.

And according to College Republicans, it's a problem that's getting considerably worse. Sahil Kapur reports today:

The Republican Party's troubles with young voters are well known. But a new internal report virtually elevates the threat level to apocalyptic, declaring that the GOP needs a "fundamental re-thinking" of its approach in order to remain viable with the younger generation.

The 95-page report by the College National Republican Committee, based on in-depth research by the Winston Group on voters aged 18-29 nationwide, illustrates the daunting challenges facing the party -- including its policies -- when it comes to Millennial voters.

This is the sort of document that's likely to keep party leaders up at night. "In the focus group research conducted in January 2013," the report said, "the young 'winnable' Obama voters were asked to say what words came to mind when they heard 'Republican Party.' The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned."

Also note, it's not just the party and its brand -- younger voters are proving to be more progressive when it comes to public policy. This is a segment of the population with no use for anti-abortion extremism and anti-gay rhetoric, but the GOP remains dominated by fierce culture warriors.

It is, the report argues, a "dismal present situation."

What's more, people tend to forget this, but we're also seeing a massive shift from a generation ago. It's not as if young people are always going to be reflexively more liberal -- Reagan and H.W. Bush easily won voters under 30 by wide margins. But what was a 20-point GOP advantage in 1984 is a 23-point GOP deficit in 2012.

So, what's a party to do about this?

In 2012, the Republican Party thought it would be wise to run on a platform what would have scrapped college aid for millions of younger Americans, curtailed contraception access, ended the federal law that allows young people to gain health care access through their family plans until they turn 26, and eliminated Planned Parenthood, among other things.

In 2013, Republicans still support all of those same ideas, but are also arguing against reduced student-loan interest rates, saying things like, "I think, as Republicans, we've got to do a better job of explaining how our ideas apply to young people.... But I think personal responsibility is pretty cool."

It sounds as if the RNC has quite a challenge on its hands. It's going to take more than a to turn this around.

Heard in Oklahoma: 'We cannot wait for our government to fix this'

On Friday night, at least 14 people were killed in Oklahoma in tornadoes and flooding. Another half dozen people are still missing.

The Oklahoman

The safe room worked.

The night of the storm, the Oklahoman posted a report from the city of Moore, where 24 people were killed last month, including seven kids at an elementary school with no safe rooms for them to take shelter in during a storm.

The report noted that researchers into extreme weather had finished their survey of safe rooms in Moore, and the safe rooms had worked, even in that EF5 tornado:

[Larry]Tanner said researchers found 16 aboveground safe rooms or storm shelters in the damage path or near the damage path of the storm. All survived.

"They all performed great," Tanner said. "We continue to have great success stories both in Joplin and in Oklahoma City."

In some cases, all that was left after the tornado passed were the shelters. Tanner said aboveground shelters have had a hard time catching on in Oklahoma, where people have been told for decades that the safest place during a tornado is underground.

During Friday night's storm, students at the Canadian Valley Technology Center in El Reno, Oklahoma, took shelter in an underground classroom as a tornado destroyed their school. They all lived. From the New York Times:

Mr. Winters, the superintendent of the three-campus technology center, said he would not build another school without shelters, underground or aboveground, or safe rooms. "If it was a full school day, 500, 600 people in the building at that time, that hallway would have been used," he said. "We're going to build a new building. Why don’t we build one that's got multiple safe rooms? Why don't we build one that we can safely put 500 people in at one time? When you see the devastation and you see the end result, it clears up for you pretty quick."

If the need for a storm shelter gets clear after you survive a storm thanks to having one, the question of how to pay for it remains. Governor Mary Fallin says she wants to have "a very vigorous discussion as to what can we do within budgetary means," which depends at least partly on government having the will to spend more. 

One state lawmaker, Democratic Representative Joe Dorman, is pushing for a $500 million bond issue to build safe rooms at every school in the state. Dorman tells us the state -- the reddest in the nation -- is resistant both to government mandates for things like storm shelters and to bond issues for putting them in schools. Still, he's going to try. Dorman's argument is that if we can mandate that kids attend school, then we can mandate that they have somewhere safe to go in dangerous weather.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has started a nonprofit to raise money for safe rooms. One big donor argues that Oklahoma doesn't have a consensus on paying for safe rooms and can't wait to get one:

"People on both sides of the aisle have concerns about government interaction/intervention, one way or the other, whether it be too much or too little. But the fact of the matter is that we have to take the safety of our children into our own hands. Who else’s hands would we have it be in? We cannot sit back and let these matters of life and death be handled administratively. We as a citizenry and a populace have to rise together and form a solution for the good of all. We are their parents, their guardians, the ones they look to for guidance and instruction. In times of need we cannot let them down. We owe more, but at least this much, to our children. That is why we have started this fund. 

"The children at Plaza Towers elementary did not have to perish.  Nothing we can do will bring them back or console their loved ones who remain, but we can try to stop this from ever happening again.  We cannot stop natural disasters, but we can endeavor to mitigate their effects at every step of the way.  We live where we live, and our weather will not change; but we must be proactive. We cannot wait for our government to fix this.  It is time we did what needs to be done, and do not suffer through yet another tragedy in another 14 years.  Now is the time to act.  A call to action must be made. Together we can make a difference.  We are a Country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and the people must come forward at this time.  No amount is too small, and certainly no amount is too large."

 

The transcripts Issa doesn't want to share

Getty Images

Still hoping to uncover an elusive White House scandal, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has scheduled more IRS-related hearings for Thursday, and published an interesting press release late yesterday afternoon.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) revealed new testimony from IRS employees in Cincinnati involved with the IRS's political targeting today on CNN's State of the Union.

The Committee released excerpts from bipartisan transcribed interviews between Committee Investigators and Cincinnati IRS employees. In these interviews Cincinnati IRS employees reject the White House's claim that the targeting was merely work of "rogue" agents and say targeting of conservative political groups came from Washington, D.C.

"As late as last week, the administration was still trying to say the [IRS targeting scandal] was from a few rogue agents in Cincinnati, when in fact the indication is that they were directly being ordered from Washington," Issa told CNN.

In theory, this could be a noteworthy development. There are transcriptions between Issa's hand-picked investigators and the IRS employees in Cincinnati, and according to the committee chairman, they point to "Washington" involvement. In what capacity? We don't know, but the point is to pique one's interest.

OK, but what did the IRS employees say, exactly? Well, we don't know that, either -- Issa has seen the full transcripts, but he's only willing to release portions that he and his staff have edited and excerpted. If Issa had the goods, why wouldn't he drop the political bomb and reap the benefits? I suspect he would.

Indeed, if you read through the published excerpts, you'll see plenty of exchanges between Republican investigators and IRS employees. What you won't see are the exchanges between Democratic investigators and the same IRS employees -- Q&A that seems quite relevant in providing context.

We've seen this schtick before, and it's never turned out well for Issa.

A month ago, the California Republican thought he had a blockbuster hearing lined up on Benghazi; he leaked edited excerpts; and his team made movie posters to promote the event. And what happened? The hearing was a dud and the "scandal" faded away.

He's back for another round, and doing his best to generate some degree of interest in another congressional spectacle. He's calling Jay Carney a "liar" for no apparent reason; he's talking about what's in his "gut" rather than what he can prove; and releasing edited excerpts that aren't quite what they appear to be.

[T]wo Democratic congressional sources involved in the IRS investigation told CNN's Dana Bash that Issa's characterization of the interviews is misleading.

Their impression from the Cincinnati employees was that the Washington connection the employees were referring to were tax attorney specialists. These individuals answer questions from the tax-exempt division in Ohio about what level of political activity is acceptable for 501(c)(4) status, the sources said.

So when Issa refers to "Washington," he wants you to think "White House." The truth is more mundane, and not at all scandalous.

A couple of years ago, Issa conceded, "Our committee, unfortunately does have a reputation for jumping to the end result."

Ya don't say.

Monday's campaign round-up

Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* In Massachusetts' U.S. Senate special election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) boasted last week that Gabriel Gomez may be key in the Republican Party's drive to take back the Senate. This is, of course, exactly what Massachusetts Democrats hoped McConnell would say.

Watch on YouTube

* On a related note, Gomez is not only failing to disclose his 2005 tax returns; he's also refusing to disclose his clients from his career at a private equity firm.

* It's generated very little attention, largely because the result is a foregone conclusion, but there's a congressional special election in Missouri tomorrow, with a race to fill the vacancy left by former Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R). Speaker Pro Tem of the Missouri House of Representatives, Jason Smith, is expected to easily defeat state Rep. Steve Hodges (D).

* In Florida, former Gov. Charlie Crist, gearing up for a likely gubernatorial campaign in 2014, has spoken in recent weeks "with multiple national political consultants" about assembling a campaign team. Crist, formerly a moderate Republican, is now a Democrat.

* In Virginia, the controversies surrounding Gov. Bob "Ultrasound" McDonnell (R) got a little worse this morning with a Washington Post report that his wife "was paid $36,000 last year to attend a handful of meetings as a consultant to the philanthropic arm of one of the state's major coal companies."

* On a related note, though McDonnell has expressed an interest in national office, most of his constituents believe he should not launch a White House bid.

* Michigan's U.S. Senate race got a little more interesting this morning when Terri Lynn Land, a former secretary of state and current Republican National Committee member, kicked off her campaign.

* And in Nebraska, where Republicans have struggled to recruit a top-tier candidate, former state Treasurer Shane Osborne became the first GOP candidate to enter the race.

Corporations have religious liberty, my friend

Associated Press

Especially after the 2012 presidential race, we're pretty familiar with the assertion that corporations are people, so I suppose it's only natural for some corporate lawyers to argue that they have the same religious liberty rights as people, too (thanks to reader R.P. for the tip).

In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. asked a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill.

The Oklahoma City-based arts-and-crafts chain argued that businesses -- not just the currently exempted religious groups -- should be allowed to seek exception from that section of the health law if it violates their religious beliefs.

When it comes to the federal law that treats contraception as preventive care, available without copays, the Obama administration already exempts houses of worship. The White House also created a compromise for business owners so that they wouldn't have to cover contraception costs directly through their insurance plans.

But for Hobby Lobby, that's apparently not quite good enough. The company's lawyer, Kyle Duncan, said that if corporations have free-speech rights under Citizens United, then corporations have religious liberty, too.

"We don't say, well, a corporation can't exercise a right because it's in corporate form," Duncan said. "Is religion the kind of right can only be exercised by a natural person? Well, the question nearly answers itself. ... It's not a purely personal right."

And in this case, this "person" is so opposed to birth control, he/she/it doesn't want his/her/its employees to have subsidized access to contraception, the workers' preferences notwithstanding.

The Obama administration, not surprisingly, doesn't see it that way.

A lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice argued that allowing for-profit corporations to exempt themselves from requirements that violate their religious beliefs would be in effect allowing the business to impose its religious beliefs on employees.

"If you make an exemption for the employer, it comes at the expense of the employee," said Alisa Klein, who argued the government's case in a similar contraceptives mandate appeal heard Wednesday in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

So, do the religious-liberty claims of pseudo-people (corporations) trump the interests of real people (the business' employees)? I'll look forward to the ruling.

This Week in God

First up from the God Machine this week is a look at the unfortunate ways in which social-conservative activists are responding to American women's economic empowerment.

The Pew Research Center released a report this week that found women are now the sole or primary source of family income in 40% of U.S. households with children. These findings led to a bizarre Fox segment, featuring Lou Dobbs and his panel of all-male guests, who condemned the cultural/socioeconomic shift,

As my friend Kyle Mantyla reported, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer raised some related concerns.

Watch on YouTube

For those who can't watch clips online, Fischer cited his vision of a "biblical" family model, citing men's "physical strength" and "brain power," and the need for women for "to focus her energies ... on making a home for her children and for her husband." Fischer then argued:

"I don't think it's a healthy dynamic to have a wife out-earn her husband, because so much of his sense of worth as a male is tied up in what he does vocationally and providing for his family. That's his calling. It's not his wife's job to provide for his family; he knows that it's his job. And if he has a wife who out-earns him, I think that's going to put some stress on his psyche. It's going to put some stress on that marriage."

In other words, according to this prominent leader in the religious right movement, women shouldn't earn more money than men, because men's feelings might be hurt -- and the male "psyche" can't handle it.

Yesterday, Fischer also defended Fox News commentator Erick Erickson, who joined Dobbs in rejecting the idea of wives out-earning their husbands, against criticism from Fox News host Megyn Kelly. Fischer characterized the host as a "dragon lady," motivated by "angry feminist energy."

Between this and last year's Republican war-on-women agenda, I sometimes get the impression conservatives are trying to push as many American women as possible to the left on purpose.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* Hobby Lobby continues its push to deny contraception coverage to its employees, despite the federal health-care law, arguing this week that corporations have religious liberty, just like real people. The business' lawyer argued, "Is religion the kind of right can only be exercised by a natural person? Well, the question nearly answers itself. ... It's not a purely personal right" (thanks to reader R.P.).

* Arguably the greatest example of progressive religious activism in recent memory is the "Nuns on the Bus" tour, and this week, the nuns are back. This time, they're advocating in support of comprehensive immigration reform.

* Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin was elected Bishop of the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) yesterday, becoming "the first openly gay clergy person elected to serve as one of the 65 synodical bishops in the denomination."

* After the Boy Scouts announced it would stop discriminating against gay kids, Kentucky's Southeast Christian Church said it would end all ties with the youth organization.

* And my friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State this week released a must-watch video featuring two brilliant entertainers -- Jane Lynch and Jordan Peele -- making a creative case in support of church-state separation. Warning: the remarkably cheesy song in the video may get stuck in your head for a while.

Watch on YouTube

Ahead on the 5/31 Maddow show

Tonight's guests include:

David Cay Johnston, Reuters columnist blogger for Tax Analysts and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who covered the IRS hearings held by Senate Republicans in 1998

Tom Goldstein, attorney who teaches Supreme Court litigation at Harvard Law School, co-founder of SCOTUSblog

Here's some hold music while tonight's video preview gets itself together. 

'As a marine biologist, I can tell you unequivocally that despite millennia of humans exploring the ocean, no credible evidence of the existence of mermaids has ever been found. '

jaymasee

Over at Slate this week, marine biologist David Shiffman addresses the mermaid conundrum. Why, you may ask?

Policy solutions can help, but if you are so ignorant about what is really happening in the ocean that you believe that there are organisms that are half human and half fish, you're almost certainly unaware of the important problems, much less how to solve them. Even if you don’t believe in mythical creatures, you may be unaware of the severity of the crises facing our oceans.

For those requiring additional persuasion, NOAA launches this harpoon:

No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found. Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples? That’s a question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists.

So, to confine this myth to a watery grave: Mermaids? Fictional. 

Fascinating. Alluring. Highly cinematic. But fictional.

So glad, after all these years, to finally clear that up.