Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 389

Marijuana Moderation

Sullum points out that Brooks “cannot possibly justify the arbitrary distinctions drawn by our drug laws, even if you share his paternalistic premise”:

As I point out in my book Saying Yes, the same could be said of any enjoyable activity that can be carried to excess. Drinking is the most obvious example, but any pleasure can be the focus of an addiction that crowds out more meaningful aspects of life. That is not an argument for abstinence, let alone abstinence enforced by law. It is an argument for temperance, in the original sense of the term.

After announcing his own pot use, Joe Klein makes related arguments:

I am not proselytizing for weed here, although it does seem to have strongly salutory effects for people suffering from a variety of maladies, from glaucoma to post-traumatic stress. I am proselytizing for moderation in all things.  Our societal reaction to marijuana use has not been moderate. It has been extreme, ridiculous and costly. We should be spending our time and money on other, more pressing issues. It is good to know that sanity seems a rising tide.

There are three ways to deal with cannabinoid-induced pleasure: prohibition, excess, and moderation. The proper conservative response to a substance already widely used, barely harmful but dangerous for kids is to regulate it away from minors, and encourage moderation. It’s really not that hard once you get rid of the fear.

Does The Cold Give You A Cold?

The answer is more complicated than you think:

Meanwhile, as temperatures continue to plummet nationwide, Andrea Anderson reviews research on the correlation between cold weather and violence:

[M]ost real-world studies suggest assaults—and many other crimes—wane in winter months and during cold snaps when temperatures dip below what is considered comfortable in a given climate. There are exceptions, including crime spikes in December and January, although researchers tend to attribute those to confounding circumstances such as the holiday season rather than the cold and more hours of darkness.

Such real-life patterns point to cold’s potential for curbing crime and reflect some of the difficulties associated with trying to study crime triggers in a controlled setting. Unlike the lab, for instance, where scientists get final say over the temperature, people at large in the world are typically at liberty to add a layer or two. Experts also note that it is generally easier to get back to a comfortable body temperature when it gets nippy than when it is excessively hot.

Previous Dish on the effects of cold weather here, and on the connection between weather and crime here.

Obamacare’s Silent Success

Medicaid expansion:

If expanding Medicaid is so much easier, why was the administration so intent on focusing on the exchanges — and, for that matter, why were exchanges needed in the first place?

To Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, this exposes a core reality of U.S. health-care politics. “Republicans don’t like entitlement programs, and Democrats want to portray the ACA as mostly a marketplace solution based on private insurance and not another expansion of a government program,” he says, “so neither side wants to emphasize the ACA’s success enrolling people in Medicaid even though it may be the law’s biggest achievement so far in terms of expanding coverage.”

This has left both the Obama administration and Republicans in a tight spot. The White House can’t really tout the Medicaid expansion because it’ll revive fears on the right that Obamacare is really a stealthy effort to create a single-payer health-care system, and it’ll arouse criticism on the left that the administration should have expanded Medicaid to all.

As for Republicans, they can’t admit the Medicaid expansion is going well because doing so is dangerously close to advocating a single-payer health-care system. The exchanges, marred by their troubled introduction, are also a problem as they are a Republican idea, enshrined in Representative Paul Ryan’s health-care bill.

Scheiber believes that the Medicaid expansion could pave the path to single-payer:

[T]here will likely be millions of white working-class voters on Medicaid in the coming years. (Even in some conservative states, like Arkansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia.) Once that happens, something tells me Republicans will become more charitably-disposed to the program.

Then there’s the likelihood that, one day soon, especially if Medicaid becomes more generous, the working-class person who makes 175% of the poverty level will look at his working-class neighbor making 130% of the poverty level and think, wow, his health insurance seems a lot better than my private Obamacare plan. How long can it be before most people earning 175% or 200% of the poverty level are allowed to buy in, too?

Suderman disagrees:

Scheiber’s theory … overlooks how tough passage of Obamacare was in the first place—and how much support the administration had to get from health industry stakeholders in order to eke out a legislative victory. Single payer would be even tougher. Moderate Democrats who were nervous about Obamacare the first time around would be even less likely to support single payer, especially given how the law cost Democrats at the voting booth. And there’s no way that doctors, insurers, hospitals, and other major health industry groups would play nice with a single-payer push. Quite the opposite: Even beyond the insurers, much of the industry would see single-payer as a de facto nationalization of the health system, and they would fight the transition with everything they could muster.

Drum’s view:

I think Medicaid expansion is great, but unlike a lot of lefties, I also think it’s a dead end. It’s not going to lead to single-payer, and it’s never going to be a template for future health care reforms. The marketplaces, despite all their problems, have far more potential to eventually lead to health care coverage for all. I think they also have more potential to produce delivery reforms down the road and to rein in cost growth. For that reason, I’m OK with the Medicaid expansion staying under the radar. That’s a fine place for it.

Face Of The Day

Ripley the chihuahua wears his winter boots while out on a morning walk at Bathurst St. and Queen’s Quay on January 6, 2014. By Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images.

The UI Battle

David Freddoso opposes extending unemployment insurance (UI), claiming that North Carolina proves it doesn’t help:

In July, North Carolina became the first state to end extended unemployment benefits altogether. As John Hood notes in the Carolina Journal, the number of employed in the state jumped by 39,000 between July 1 and Nov. 30, after standing still for the entire first half of the year. The state’s unemployment rate had taken more than two years to come down by 1.5 points to where it was in June (8.8 percent). Between July 1 and Nov. 30, it declined by roughly that amount (to 7.4 percent). During that same period, about 26 percent fewer workers were dropping out of the workforce each month than had been previously.

That’s at least enough to conclude that the world didn’t end. It may even suggest an upside to returning benefits to their normal duration. In a market with few good jobs available and long-term unemployment benefits, it was rational for earnest job-seekers to hold out for something better than what was there. But when the issue is forced, some job is better than no job at all. The supposed “new normal” is a permanently less dynamic economy. In that context, extended benefits are just adding months before people have to accept the disappointing, lower-paying jobs that eventually await them anyway. Nobody wants it to be that way — it just is.

Pethokoukis looks at the national numbers and argues for more relief efforts, not fewer:

The Long Emergency that is the US labor market continues, meriting both an extension on emergency benefits and UI reform that would be pro-work such as (a) giving unemployed workers a modest cash bonus when they secure employment; (b) paying jobless benefits monthly so workers who get a job at the beginning of a pay period could take in both unemployment compensation and a paycheck for that month; (c) temporarily reducing or eliminating the capital-gains tax on new business investment; (d) relocation subsidies to the long-term unemployed to finance a good chunk of the costs of moving to a different part of the country with a better labor market; and (e) significantly lowering the minimum wage for the long-term unemployed for at least the first six months after the date they begin work at their new job, and coupling that lower minimum with an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit or with wage subsidies exclusively available to the long-term unemployed.

Ryan Cooper contends that even the best conservative ideas on unemployment aren’t dealing with the real problem:

The basic analytical error here is ignoring the idea of aggregate demand. “Reforms” on labor supply might help some individual people get a job somewhat faster, but they won’t increase the total number of jobs.

If the problem is unemployed people who won’t get off their hind ends to hustle for work (“structural” unemployment), then you would expect to see persistent vacancies and rising wages in some industries due to a skills mismatch between job openings and the unemployed. This is what you find in countries like South Africa which really do have massive structural unemployment. But in the US, we don’t see anything like this.

Employment is down across the board (with a few tiny exceptions, like North Dakota) and job seekers outnumber job openings 3-1. There just aren’t enough jobs. This realization: that otherwise well-qualified people who are trying their level best to find work and can’t do it, leads you inexorably to a basically Keynesian view of depressions. The problem is not enough spending, and the solution is more spending. Private, public, doesn’t matter, “You just fling resources in the general vicinity of the problem.” The vast majority of conservatives, needless to say, refuse to believe this, and their supply-side tinkering is just not even close to big enough to make a dent in unemployment even if all their ideas are right.

Sargent wonders whether Republican Senators from high-unemployment states will vote for a new UI extension bill:

The unemployment rate in Illinois (Senator Mark Kirk’s state) is 8.7 percent; in Tennessee (Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander) it’s 8.1 percent; in Arizona (John McCain and Jeff Flake) it’s 7.9 percent; in Georgia (Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson) it’s 7.7 percent; in Ohio (Rob Portman) it’s 7.4 percent; and in Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey) it’s 7.3 percent. In many of those states, tens of thousands of people have already been cut off, according to stats compiled by Ways and Means Dems. [Rhode Island Senator Jack] Reed said many of who have lost benefits are “desperate,” and said he thought other Senators understood this. “Many of them are middle aged, have worked for a long time, and have found that it’s difficult to find jobs,” Reed said. Fellow Senators, he added, ”are sensing back home, through editorials and newspaper stories, that these aren’t people who are enjoying collecting $300 or $400 per week. These are people who worked for decades. The reality is not this hypothetical where everybody will get a job.” But there’s still no indication Republicans will vote accordingly.

George Zornick weighs in:

Alas, many of those very senators are already on the record against an extension. Many of those states are deep, deep red—so even though polls show substantial, bipartisan support for extending the emergency unemployment program, and though many local media outlets are aggressively covering the issue, the senators in question have little to fear. There are certainly enough senators remaining who might deliver the needed ‘yes’ votes—say, someone like Republican Mark Kirk in Illinois, which is a blue state with a high level of long-term unemployment. And maybe that will work. But if it doesn’t, there are larger perils for the Republican party—Democrats are reportedly ready to once again embrace economic populism as a campaign message this year, and if Republicans block a meager benefit extension for those hardest hit by the recession, they play into Democratic hands. That should worry all GOP Senators regardless of where they’re from. Voting against a benefit extension may not hurt Senator Jeff Sessions too badly in Alabama, but it may do real damage to his chances of being in the majority at this time next year.

GOP rhetoric on this issue seems to be evolving:

“I’ve always said that I’m not opposed to unemployment insurance, I am opposed to having it without paying for it,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday on ABC. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) likewise said Sunday on CBS that he could back an extension if Democrats agreed to vague compromises like easing “burdensome regulations.” And Boehner, too, has said he would be open to an extension with some conditions.

Democrats, meanwhile, are going on the offensive to keep the issue in the spotlight and put pressure on Republicans. Framing the debate as being between one party favoring benefits for the needy, and the other party opposing those same benefits, they think, is a winning campaign argument. Decrying a do-nothing GOP caucus at the same time would only be an added bonus. Then again, Republican calls for compromise could be little more than pre-election posturing. Blocking unemployment benefits out of hand probably won’t sit well with voters. But by blocking those benefits while claiming to back said benefits if paired with compromises, Republicans could deflect some of the blame from themselves, passing it along instead to everyone’s favorite scapegoat: Dysfunctional Washington.

Snowden On Trial

Chuck Schumer recently suggested that Snowden would be allowed to plead his case in court if he returned to the US to stand trial:

Trevor Timm says Schumer was wrong:

In reality, none of that information would be heard by a jury, if prior Espionage Act cases against leakers are any guide. Judges have ruled evidence of showing intent to inform the public, benefits of the leaks, and lack of damage to national security is inadmissible. We made this point just two weeks ago, but it seems worth repeating since it seems as though members of Congress opining on Snowden’s legal options do not know how the law works.

Fred Kaplan distinguishes between Snowden’s domestic and foreign revelations to argue that he doesn’t deserve clemency:

The documents that he gave the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman and the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA’s interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what’s going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls “worldwide,” an effort that (in the Post’s words) “allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.” In his first interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden revealed that the NSA routinely hacks into hundreds of computers in China and Hong Kong.

These operations have nothing to do with domestic surveillance or even spying on allies. They are not illegal, improper, or (in the context of 21st-century international politics) immoral. Exposing such operations has nothing to do with “whistle-blowing.”

Amy Davidson counters:

Kaplan says that some of what Snowden revealed isn’t useful for Americans to know; the extent to which that is so (and is harmful) is debatable. But Kaplan oddly includes on his list things like the worldwide collection of cell-location data, which has entangled and violated the rights of Americans. (He also errs in writing that the revelations don’t involve “any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries,” something Britain’s GCHQ would be surprised to hear.) Nevertheless, there is no question at this point that the usefulness has been great, as even the President would concede.

Barro joins the debate:

Snowden’s defenders often say that his disclosures haven’t had any demonstrable negative impact on U.S. security. That relies on too narrow a definition of “security,” along the lines of “did they enable a terrorist attack?” The Snowden disclosures have worsened our relations with a variety of our allies and competitors, notably including the Germans, the Russians, and the Brazilians. The U.S. invests a lot of money and energy in fostering favorable international relations; if damage to those relations is irrelevant, there’s a lot of diplomacy we can just stop bothering with.

Ryan Lizza suggests that if the U.S. wanted to avoid international incidents, we shouldn’t have tapped Merkel’s phone. That’s probably true in the specific instance. But there are some things U.S. intelligence agencies should be doing that would annoy our allies if they were disclosed. There are many more whose disclosure would annoy our competitors. The Medvedev surveillance falls into this category: It’s something the NSA should have been doing, and something that should have been kept secret.

Young Catholics Revolt

Be bold today ECHS students. You may not know this, but 99% of your teachers and faculty stand behind you today. #KeepMrZ2013

— Support Mr. Z! (@KeepMrZ2013) January 6, 2014

Something interesting is happening at an esteemed Catholic high school in Seattle. Another beloved teacher was recently terminated not because he was gay, but because he chose to marry his husband. That commitment is anathema to current Catholic doctrine, but it is nonetheless regarded as self-evidently Christian by the students at Eastside Catholic High School, who are rallying behind their vice-principal, Mark Zmuda. And their protests are building in confronting the Seattle archdiocese:

“We care too much about Mr. Zmuda to let this go,” said Ian Edwards, a senior at Eastside Catholic, after speaking at the second demonstration in as many weeks outside the old chancery of the archdiocese. With social media at their disposal, the students are thinking big. They plan to organize, nationwide, a  “Z-Day” on Jan. 31 to protest the forced resignation of Eastside vice principal Mark Zmuda after his same-sex marriage last summer.

“We encourage students, at Catholic schools or otherwise, as well as any other impassioned individuals, to proudly wear the color orange on that day. In so doing, we will be showing solidarity with Mark Zmuda, as well as expressing our hopes for an enlightened perspective on issues of sexuality in the Catholic Church,” said a statement read by Edwards and other students.

The archdiocese has yet to respond in any way. The Dish wishes the students luck and God’s love on January 31. Check out their Facebook page here and Twitter feed and send them some Dish-love.

Too Crazy Even For North Korea?

Fisher doubts the claim that Kim Jong-un had his uncle eaten alive by dogs:

“This story has hardly been picked up on by Korean media which is one reason to be suspicious,” Chad O’Carroll, who edits the news site NKNews.org (their invaluable e-mail newsletter is here), told me via e-mail. “The other reason to be suspicious is because the rumor surfaced ages ago — but no one paid attention to it,” he said. South Korean media are quite plugged in to North Korean defector communities, to sources still in the country and most especially to South Korea’s intelligence agency. Some of those outlets can be eager to pick up stories or rumors that portray North Korea in a negative light. And, as O’Carroll pointed out, they’re not shy about running single-source stories. But South Korea’s many news outlets, big and small, seem to be treating this story as so implausible it’s not even worth mentioning. And they would know.

Update from a reader:

It might be worth noting that the origin of the story has apparently been traced to a series of posts on Tencent Weibo from an account imitating satirist “Pyongyang Choi Seongho.”

The Best Of The Dish Today

Another remarkable statement from the Pope – urging new perspectives on how to deal with children being brought up by gay or divorced parents:

“On an educational level, gay unions raise challenges for us today which for us are sometimes difficult to understand,” Francis said in a speech to the Catholic Union of Superiors General in November, extracts of which were published on Italian media websites on Saturday. “The number of children in schools whose parents have separated is very high,” he said, adding that family make-ups were also changing. “I remember a case in which a sad little girl confessed to her teacher: ‘my mother’s girlfriend doesn’t love me’,” he was quoted as saying. The pontiff said educational leaders should ask themselves “how can we proclaim Christ to a generation that is changing?”

“We must be careful not to administer a vaccine against faith to them,” the 77-year-old added.

A “vaccine against faith”: the legacy of too many Catholic upbringings in the past (but mercifully not my own).

This weekend, we launched into the new year with our usual eclectic mix: why walking is good for thinking; are TED talks “middlebrow megachurch infotainment“?; is anti-evolution claptrap forcing Millennial evangelicals to lose their faith altogether?; the man with two dicks; dolphins who get high; and the origins of the funny pages.

The most popular post of the weekend? Time For A TED Takedown? Runner-up? Converting to belief in evolution.

See you in the morning.

(Photo: A contestant launches a Christmas tree in the distance discipline of the Christmas Tree Throwing World Championships on January 5, 2013 in Weidenthal, Germany. The less-than-serious annual event is now in its eighth year and features competitions in distance throwing, height throwing and flinging of Christmas trees. By Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images.)

Let The Great Pot Debate Begin

 

It appears that the boomer punditocracy has just woken up to the fact that this is a live and vital debate – probably the most significant social change since marriage equality in this country. David Frum and I had it out recently (and found some common ground as well), moderated by Mike Kinsley, and set up by Bob Wright. Here’s a highlight reel. We’ll post a few clips over the coming days, and the full discussion is here. Enjoy.