tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215067442024-03-12T16:11:19.750-07:00Vichy DemocratsPatriotic Democrats, Perversely Pragmatic AND Doggedly Resisting the Vichys, DINOs, Blue Dogs, Triangulators, and DLC Accommodationists.
And Still Dogging Joe Lieberman Until He's Festering in His Political Grave, of course.M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.comBlogger444125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-45938021535826936622012-05-04T17:25:00.000-07:002012-05-04T17:25:05.037-07:00Joe Lieberman's Leather Yarmulke, circa Y2K, $200Anyone who appreciates the motto of this blog, which has remained essentially the same since 2006, will understand why I was struck with blindingly painful abdominal cramping, overwhelming nausea and uncontrollable bodily twitching <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/shoppe" target="_blank">when I saw this</a> (which is, nevertheless, for an excellent cause):<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVGtxNw5Y6KzK-opHq1JF-Gb5_1aXMteSWKhyphenhyphen6ZVSEEtAqmYysui48MpbmJOnqEHbgnrUQnM1iwbS1CuZAhGATFGQLnq8-rB7ckcHTrv8PjB9BExKrM16BRY09KrORfz3R8Kp/s1600/Yarmulke.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVGtxNw5Y6KzK-opHq1JF-Gb5_1aXMteSWKhyphenhyphen6ZVSEEtAqmYysui48MpbmJOnqEHbgnrUQnM1iwbS1CuZAhGATFGQLnq8-rB7ckcHTrv8PjB9BExKrM16BRY09KrORfz3R8Kp/s1600/Yarmulke.JPG" /></a></div>
<b> </b><br />
<a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-20533249812199872882012-02-23T16:31:00.009-08:002012-02-24T09:41:37.579-08:00The Way It Used To Be -- And Could Be Again: Griswold v. Conn. (1965)Think about the year 1965. Not quite as wild as 1969, of course, but a pretty modern time in American history, right? James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone," and Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" were on the hit charts; Jane Fonda ("Cat Ballou") and Ursula Andress ("What's New, Pussycat?") sexed up the big screen. The Sixties were in full, groovy swing in 1965: think Mad Men-meets-Austin Powers. <br /><br />And, until 1965, contraception of ANY kind, including condoms, was illegal in Connecticut, which (like the 2012 G.O.P. Presidential race and the current U.S. Supreme Court) was predominantly Catholic. The law applied equally to married and unmarried people. And we're not talk<span style="font-style:italic;"></span>ing about a mere traffic ticket: in Connecticut, a person found guilty of using contraception was "fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned." <br /><br />Two professionals affiliated with Planned Parenthood intentionally turned themselves in for having counseled a married couple on contraceptive use, incurred the mandatory fine, then challenged the legality of the law under which they were convicted. The U.S. Supreme Court decided their case, <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold v. Connecticut</span>, in 1965 -- finding, along the way, that an unstated "right of privacy" is impicit alongside the stated freedoms set forth in the Constitution. <br /><br />When I first read <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold</span> in college in 1983, and again in law school in 1986, it was unimaginable to me that any American jurisdiction had prohibited birth control during my lifetime. Even my professors treated the case as an artifact of times long, long gone: <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold</span> was a historically important link in the line of reproductive freedom cases that finally resulted in <span style="font-style:italic;">Roe v. Wade</span> and other "right of privacy" jurisprudence, but it was not taught as relevant in itself -- because who in their right mind would want to ban birth control? <br /><br />History, however, repeats itself: Planned Parenthood -- which courageously instigated the <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold</span> case four decades ago -- has replaced ACORN as the Right's <span style="font-style:italic;">bete noire</span>, and the fight has shifted from abortion <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/republican-war-birth-control-contraception">to contraception itself</a>. Rick Santorum has stated publicly that birth control is "<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/10/19/348007/rick-santorum-pledges-to-defund-contraception-its-not-okay-its-a-license-to-do-things/">not OK</a>" even for married people, and conservative pols up and down the food chain <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/09/20/323512/texas-gop-rep-on-cuts-to-family-planning-of-course-this-is-a-war-on-birth-control/">admit</a> that they want to eliminate all forms of contraception. <br /><br />None of this should be a surprise: Santorum has <a http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhref="http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/20/10460819-santorum-privacy-ruined-everything">taken direct aim</a> at the "right of privacy" articulated by <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold</span>, Robert Bork opined during his combative (and fortunately unsuccessful) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/28/us/the-law-echo-of-87-bork-uproar-rings-softly-in-abortion-debate.html">confirmation hearings</a> that no right to privacy exists, and the last several Supreme Court nominees were asked directly whether they believed <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold</span> was rightly decided. For conservatives, the unstated but implied Constitutional right to privacy <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0268_0510_ZS.html">wasn't so bad in 1925</a>, when it was used to protect parents' right to send their children to religious rather than public schools; but extending it to sexual matters (or, worse, using it to protect women's ability to decide their own futures) "ruined everything," as Santorum put it. <br /><br />So, no, they're not kidding: the law once permitted states to ban birth control, even for married people, and today's conservatives expressly want to return to that world. <br /><br />If we do not wish to repeat history, we need to remember it -- making now an excellent time for us all to refresh our knowledge of how things used to be, what arguments were used to make them better, and what the majority of Republicans currently running for President want to undo. (And, while we're at it, why -- notwithstanding concerns about drones and public option and other imperfections -- it's vital that the next Supreme Court justice be appointed by a Democrat rather than by one of these Republicans, whose nominee likely would vote to overturn <span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold</span>.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Griswold v. Connecticut</span>, the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case finding that the Constitution protects married people's right to use birth control, is reproduced in full below. Some excellent context materials, and links to the actual oral arguments before the Court, always fascinating to listen to, can be found <a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1964/1964_496">here</a>.<br /><br />*****************************<br /><br />U.S. Supreme Court<br />Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)<br /><br />Griswold v. Connecticut<br /><br />No. 496<br /><br />Argued March 29-30, 1965<br /><br />Decided June 7, 1965<br /><br />381 U.S. 479<br /><br />APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT<br /><br />OF ERRORS OF CONNECTICUT<br /><br />Syllabus<br /><br />Appellants, the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and its medical director, a licensed physician, were convicted as accessories for giving married persons information and medical advice on how to prevent conception and, following examination, prescribing a contraceptive device or material for the wife's use. A Connecticut statute makes it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent conception. Appellants claimed that the accessory statute, as applied, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. An intermediate appellate court and the State's highest court affirmed the judgment.<br /><br />Held:<br /><br />1. Appellants have standing to assert the constitutional rights of the married people. Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44, distinguished. P. 381 U. S. 481.<br /><br />2. The Connecticut statute forbidding use of contraceptives violates the right of marital privacy which is within the penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Pp. 381 U. S. 481-486.<br /><br />151 Conn. 544, 200 A.2d 479, reversed.<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 480<br /><br />MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.<br /><br />Appellant Griswold is Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Appellant Buxton is a licensed physician and a professor at the Yale Medical School who served as Medical Director for the League at its Center in New Haven -- a center open and operating from November 1 to November 10, 1961, when appellants were arrested.<br /><br />They gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free.<br /><br />The statutes whose constitutionality is involved in this appeal are §§ 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). The former provides:<br /><br />"Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned."<br /><br />Section 54-196 provides:<br /><br />"Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender."<br /><br />The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each, against the claim that the accessory statute, as so applied, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed. The Supreme Court of Errors affirmed that judgment. 151 Conn. 544, 200 A.2d 479. We noted probable jurisdiction. 379 U.S. 926.<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 481<br /><br />We think that appellants have standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married people with whom they had a professional relationship. Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44, is different, for there the plaintiff seeking to represent others asked for a declaratory Judgment. In that situation, we thought that the requirements of standing should be strict, lest the standards of "case or controversy" in Article III of the Constitution become blurred. Here, those doubts are removed by reason of a criminal conviction for serving married couples in violation of an aiding-and-abetting statute. Certainly the accessory should have standing to assert that the offense which he is charged with assisting is not, or cannot constitutionally be, a crime.<br /><br />This case is more akin to Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, where an employee was permitted to assert the rights of his employer; to Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, where the owners of private schools were entitled to assert the rights of potential pupils and their parents, and to Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, where a white defendant, party to a racially restrictive covenant, who was being sued for damages by the covenantors because she had conveyed her property to Negroes, was allowed to raise the issue that enforcement of the covenant violated the rights of prospective Negro purchasers to equal protection, although no Negro was a party to the suit. And see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390; Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 485; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415. The rights of husband and wife, pressed here, are likely to be diluted or adversely affected unless those rights are considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.<br /><br />Coming to the merits, we are met with a wide range of questions that implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Overtones of some arguments<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 482<br /><br />suggest that Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, should be our guide. But we decline that invitation, as we did in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379; Olsen v. Nebraska, 313 U. S. 236; Lincoln Union v. Northwestern Co., 335 U. S. 525; Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483; Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490. We do not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions. This law, however, operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician's role in one aspect of that relation.<br /><br />The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights.<br /><br />By Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, the right to educate one's children as one chooses is made applicable to the States by the force of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. By Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, the same dignity is given the right to study the German language in a private school. In other words, the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read (Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 319 U. S. 143) and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach (see Wiemann v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 344 U. S. 195) -- indeed, the freedom of the entire university community. Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 354 U. S. 249-250, 354 U. S. 261-263; Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 360 U. S. 112; Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 377 U. S. 369. Without<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 483<br /><br />those peripheral rights, the specific rights would be less secure. And so we reaffirm the principle of the Pierce and the Meyer cases.<br /><br />In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 357 U. S. 462 we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid<br /><br />"as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association."<br /><br />Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. In like context, we have protected forms of "association" that are not political in the customary sense, but pertain to the social, legal, and economic benefit of the members. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 371 U. S. 430-431. In Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, we held it not permissible to bar a lawyer from practice because he had once been a member of the Communist Party. The man's "association with that Party" was not shown to be "anything more than a political faith in a political party" (id. at 353 U. S. 244), and was not action of a kind proving bad moral character. Id. at 353 U. S. 245-246.<br /><br />Those cases involved more than the "right of assembly" -- a right that extends to all, irrespective of their race or ideology. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353. The right of "association," like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion, and, while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment, its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful.<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 484<br /><br />The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 516-522 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner, is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause, enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."<br /><br />The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 630, as protection against all governmental invasions "of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." * We recently referred<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 485<br /><br />in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 367 U. S. 656, to the Fourth Amendment as creating a "right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully an particularly reserved to the people." See Beaney, The Constitutional Right to Privacy, 1962 Sup.Ct.Rev. 212; Griswold, The Right to be Let Alone, 55 Nw.U.L.Rev. 216 (1960).<br /><br />We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of "privacy and repose." See, e.g., Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622, 341 U. S. 626, 341 U. S. 644; Public Utilities Comm'n v. Pollak, 343 U. S. 451; Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167; Lanza v. New York, 370 U. S. 139; Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 316 U. S. 541. These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.<br /><br />The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives, rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a<br /><br />"governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms."<br /><br />NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 288, 377 U. S. 307. Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 486<br /><br />very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.<br /><br />We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights -- older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.<br /><br />Reversed.<br /><br />* The Court said in full about this right of privacy:<br /><br />"The principles laid down in this opinion [by Lord Camden in Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029] affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach farther than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its adventitious circumstances; they apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employes of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life. It is not the breaking of his doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offence; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offence -- it is the invasion of this sacred right which underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden's judgment. Breaking into a house and opening boxes and drawers are circumstances of aggravation; but any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's own testimony or of his private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of crime or to forfeit his goods is within the condemnation of that judgment. In this regard, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments run almost into each other."<br /><br />116 U.S. at 116 U. S. 630.<br /><br />MR. JUSTICE GOLDBERG, whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join, concurring.<br /><br />I agree with the Court that Connecticut's birth control law unconstitutionally intrudes upon the right of marital privacy, and I join in its opinion and judgment. Although I have not accepted the view that "due process," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, incorporates all of the first eight Amendments (see my concurring opinion in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 380 U. S. 410, and the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN in Cohen v. Hurley, 366 U. S. 117, 366 U. S. 154), I do agree that the concept of liberty protects those personal rights that are fundamental, and is not confined to the specific terms of the Bill of Rights. My conclusion that the concept of liberty is not so restricted, and that it embraces the right of marital privacy, though that right is not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution, [Footnote 1] is supported both by numerous<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 487<br /><br />decisions of this Court, referred to in the Court's opinion, and by the language and history of the Ninth Amendment. In reaching the conclusion that the right of marital privacy is protected as being within the protected penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights, the Court refers to the Ninth Amendment, ante at 381 U. S. 484. I add these words to emphasize the relevance of that Amendment to the Court's holding.<br /><br />The Court stated many years ago that the Due Process Clause protects those liberties that are "so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental." Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 7, 291 U. S. 105. In Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 268 U. S. 666, the Court said:<br /><br />"For present purposes, we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press -- which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress -- are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States."<br /><br />(Emphasis added.)<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 488<br /><br />And, in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 262 U. S. 399, the Court, referring to the Fourteenth Amendment, stated:<br /><br />"While this Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration, and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also [for example,] the right . . . to marry, establish a home and bring up children. . . ."<br /><br />This Court, in a series of decisions, has held that the Fourteenth Amendment absorbs and applies to the States those specifics of the first eight amendments which express fundamental personal rights. [Footnote 2] The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments. The Ninth Amendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Amendment is almost entirely the work of James Madison. It was introduced in Congress by him, and passed the House and Senate with little or no debate and virtually no change in language. It was proffered to quiet expressed fears that a bill of specifically enumerated rights [Footnote 3] could not be sufficiently broad to cover all essential<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 489<br /><br />rights, and that the specific mention of certain rights would be interpreted as a denial that others were protected. [Footnote 4]<br /><br />In presenting the proposed Amendment, Madison said:<br /><br />"It has been objected also against a bill of rights that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow, by implication, that those rights which were not singled out were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system, but I conceive that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 490<br /><br />last clause of the fourth resolution [the Ninth Amendment]."<br /><br />I Annals of Congress 439 (Gales and Seaton ed. 1834). Mr. Justice Story wrote of this argument against a bill of rights and the meaning of the Ninth Amendment:<br /><br />"In regard to . . . [a] suggestion, that the affirmance of certain rights might disparage others, or might lead to argumentative implications in favor of other powers, it might be sufficient to say that such a course of reasoning could never be sustained upon any solid basis. . . . But a conclusive answer is that such an attempt may be interdicted (as it has been) by a positive declaration in such a bill of rights that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."<br /><br />II Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 626-627 (5th ed. 1891). He further stated, referring to the Ninth Amendment:<br /><br />"This clause was manifestly introduced to prevent any perverse or ingenious misapplication of the well known maxim that an affirmation in particular cases implies a negation in all others, and, e converso, that a negation in particular cases implies an affirmation in all others."<br /><br />Id. at 651. These statements of Madison and Story make clear that the Framers did not intend that the first eight amendments be construed to exhaust the basic and fundamental rights which the Constitution guaranteed to the people. [Footnote 5]<br /><br />While this Court has had little occasion to interpret the Ninth Amendment, [Footnote 6] "[i]t cannot be presumed that any<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 491<br /><br />clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 5 U. S. 174. In interpreting the Constitution, "real effect should be given to all the words it uses." Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 272 U. S. 151. The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution may be regarded by some as a recent discovery, and may be forgotten by others, but, since 1791, it has been a basic part of the Constitution which we are sworn to uphold. To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment, and to give it no effect whatsoever. Moreover, a judicial construction that this fundamental right is not protected by the Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment, which specifically states that<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 492<br /><br />"[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." (Emphasis added.)<br /><br />A dissenting opinion suggests that my interpretation of the Ninth Amendment somehow "broaden[s] the powers of this Court." Post at 381 U. S. 520. With all due respect, I believe that it misses the import of what I am saying. I do not take the position of my Brother BLACK in his dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 68, that the entire Bill of Rights is incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment, and I do not mean to imply that the Ninth Amendment is applied against the States by the Fourteenth. Nor do I mean to state that the Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of rights protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government. Rather, the Ninth Amendment shows a belief of the Constitution's authors that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments, and an intent that the list of rights included there not be deemed exhaustive. As any student of this Court's opinions knows, this Court has held, often unanimously, that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect certain fundamental personal liberties from abridgment by the Federal Government or the States. See, e.g., Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116, Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254. The Ninth Amendment simply shows the intent of the Constitution's authors that other fundamental personal rights should not be denied such protection or disparaged in any other way simply because they are not specifically listed in the first eight constitutional amendments. I do not see how this broadens the authority<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 493<br /><br />of the Court; rather it serves to support what this Court has been doing in protecting fundamental rights.<br /><br />Nor am I turning somersaults with history in arguing that the Ninth Amendment is relevant in a case dealing with a State's infringement of a fundamental right. While the Ninth Amendment -- and indeed the entire Bill of Rights -- originally concerned restrictions upon federal power, the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States as well from abridging fundamental personal liberties. And the Ninth Amendment, in indicating that not all such liberties are specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments, is surely relevant in showing the existence of other fundamental personal rights, now protected from state, as well as federal, infringement. In sum, the Ninth Amendment simply lends strong support to the view that the "liberty" protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments from infringement by the Federal Government or the States is not restricted to rights specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments. Cf. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 330 U. S. 94-95.<br /><br />In determining which rights are fundamental, judges are not left at large to decide cases in light of their personal and private notions. Rather, they must look to the "traditions and [collective] conscience of our people" to determine whether a principle is "so rooted [there] . . . as to be ranked as fundamental." Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 291 U. S. 105. The inquiry is whether a right involved<br /><br />"is of such a character that it cannot be denied without violating those 'fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions.' . . ."<br /><br />Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 287 U. S. 67. "Liberty" also "gains content from the emanations of . . . specific [constitutional] guarantees," and "from experience with the requirements of a free society." Poe<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 494<br /><br />v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 517 (dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS). [Footnote 7]<br /><br />I agree fully with the Court that, applying these tests, the right of privacy is a fundamental personal right, emanating "from the totality of the constitutional scheme under which we live." Id. at 367 U. S. 521. Mr. Justice Brandeis, dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 277 U. S. 478, comprehensively summarized the principles underlying the Constitution's guarantees of privacy:<br /><br />"The protection guaranteed by the [Fourth and Fifth] Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. "<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 495<br /><br />The Connecticut statutes here involved deal with a particularly important and sensitive area of privacy -- that of the marital relation and the marital home. This Court recognized in Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, that the right "to marry, establish a home and bring up children" was an essential part of the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. 262 U.S. at 262 U. S. 399. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, the Court held unconstitutional an Oregon Act which forbade parents from sending their children to private schools because such an act "unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control." 268 U.S. at 268 U. S. 534-535. As this Court said in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, at 321 U. S. 166, the Meyer and Pierce decisions "have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter."<br /><br />I agree with MR. JUSTICE HARLAN's statement in his dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 551-552:<br /><br />"Certainly the safeguarding of the home does not follow merely from the sanctity of property rights. The home derives its preeminence as the seat of family life. And the integrity of that life is something so fundamental that it has been found to draw to its protection the principles of more than one explicitly granted Constitutional right. . . . Of this whole 'private realm of family life,' it is difficult to imagine what is more private or more intimate than a husband and wife's marital relations."<br /><br />The entire fabric of the Constitution and the purposes that clearly underlie its specific guarantees demonstrate that the rights to marital privacy and to marry and raise a family are of similar order and magnitude as the fundamental rights specifically protected.<br /><br />Although the Constitution does not speak in so many words of the right of privacy in marriage, I cannot believe that it offers these fundamental rights no protection. The fact that no particular provision of the Constitution<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 496<br /><br />explicitly forbids the State from disrupting the traditional relation of the family -- a relation as old and as fundamental as our entire civilization -- surely does not show that the Government was meant to have the power to do so. Rather, as the Ninth Amendment expressly recognizes, there are fundamental personal rights such as this one, which are protected from abridgment by the Government, though not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.<br /><br />My Brother STEWART, while characterizing the Connecticut birth control law as "an uncommonly silly law," post at 381 U. S. 527, would nevertheless let it stand on the ground that it is not for the courts to "substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws.'" Post at 381 U. S. 528. Elsewhere, I have stated that,<br /><br />"[w]hile I quite agree with Mr. Justice Brandeis that . . . 'a . . . State may . . . serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments,' New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 285 U. S. 280, 285 U. S. 311 (dissenting opinion), I do not believe that this includes the power to experiment with the fundamental liberties of citizens. . . . [Footnote 8]"<br /><br />The vice of the dissenters' views is that it would permit such experimentation by the States in the area of the fundamental personal rights of its citizens. I cannot agree that the Constitution grants such power either to the States or to the Federal Government.<br /><br />The logic of the dissents would sanction federal or state legislation that seems to me even more plainly unconstitutional than the statute before us. Surely the Government, absent a showing of a compelling subordinating state interest, could not decree that all husbands and wives must be sterilized after two children have been born<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 497<br /><br />to them. Yet, by their reasoning, such an invasion of marital privacy would not be subject to constitutional challenge, because, while it might be "silly," no provision of the Constitution specifically prevents the Government from curtailing the marital right to bear children and raise a family. While it may shock some of my Brethren that the Court today holds that the Constitution protects the right of marital privacy, in my view, it is far more shocking to believe that the personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution does not include protection against such totalitarian limitation of family size, which is at complete variance with our constitutional concepts. Yet if, upon a showing of a slender basis of rationality, a law outlawing voluntary birth control by married persons is valid, then, by the same reasoning, a law requiring compulsory birth control also would seem to be valid. In my view, however, both types of law would unjustifiably intrude upon rights of marital privacy which are constitutionally protected.<br /><br />In a long series of cases, this Court has held that, where fundamental personal liberties are involved, they may not be abridged by the States simply on a showing that a regulatory statute has some rational relationship to the effectuation of a proper state purpose.<br /><br />"Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling,"<br /><br />Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 361 U. S. 524. The law must be shown "necessary, and not merely rationally related, to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy." McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 379 U. S. 196. See Schneider v. Irvington, 308 U. S. 147, 308 U. S. 161.<br /><br />Although the Connecticut birth control law obviously encroaches upon a fundamental personal liberty, the State does not show that the law serves any "subordinating [state] interest which is compelling," or that it is "necessary<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 498<br /><br />. . . to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy." The State, at most, argues that there is some rational relation between this statute and what is admittedly a legitimate subject of state concern -- the discouraging of extramarital relations. It says that preventing the use of birth control devices by married persons helps prevent the indulgence by some in such extramarital relations. The rationality of this justification is dubious, particularly in light of the admitted widespread availability to all persons in the State of Connecticut. unmarried as well as married, of birth control devices for the prevention of disease, as distinguished from the prevention of conception, see Tileston v. Ullman, 129 Conn. 84, 26 A.2d 582. But, in any event, it is clear that the state interest in safeguarding marital fidelity can be served by a more discriminately tailored statute which does not, like the present one, sweep unnecessarily broadly, reaching far beyond the evil sought to be dealt with and intruding upon the privacy of all married couples. See Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 378 U. S. 514; NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 288, 377 U. S. 307-308; McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, at 379 U. S. 196. Here, as elsewhere, "[p]recision of regulation must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms." NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 371 U. S. 438. The State of Connecticut does have statutes, the constitutionality of which is beyond doubt, which prohibit adultery and fornication. See Conn.Gen.Stat. §§ 53-218, 53-219 et seq. These statutes demonstrate that means for achieving the same basic purpose of protecting marital fidelity are available to Connecticut without the need to "invade the area of protected freedoms." NAACP v. Alabama, supra, at 377 U. S. 307. See McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, at 379 U. S. 196.<br /><br />Finally, it should be said of the Court's holding today that it in no way interferes with a State's proper regulation<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 499<br /><br />of sexual promiscuity or misconduct. As my Brother HARLAN so well stated in his dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, supra, at 367 U. S. 553.<br /><br />"Adultery, homosexuality and the like are sexual intimacies which the State forbids . . . , but the intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution which the State not only must allow, but which, always and in every age, it has fostered and protected. It is one thing when the State exerts its power either to forbid extramarital sexuality . . . or to say who may marry, but it is quite another when, having acknowledged a marriage and the intimacies inherent in it, it undertakes to regulate by means of the criminal law the details of that intimacy."<br /><br />In sum, I believe that the right of privacy in the marital relation is fundamental and basic -- a personal right "retained by the people" within the meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Connecticut cannot constitutionally abridge this fundamental right, which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from infringement by the States. I agree with the Court that petitioners' convictions must therefore be reversed.<br /><br />[Footnote 1]<br /><br />My Brother STEWART dissents on the ground that he<br /><br />"can find no . . . general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court."<br /><br />Post at 381 U. S. 530. He would require a more explicit guarantee than the one which the Court derives from several constitutional amendments. This Court, however, has never held that the Bill of Rights or the Fourteenth Amendment protects only those rights that the Constitution specifically mentions by name. See, e.g., Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116; Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89, 380 U. S. 96; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232; NAACP v. Alabama, 360 U. S. 240; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390. To the contrary, this Court, for example, in Bolling v. Sharpe, supra, while recognizing that the Fifth Amendment does not contain the "explicit safeguard" of an equal protection clause, id. at 347 U. S. 499, nevertheless derived an equal protection principle from that Amendment's Due Process Clause. And in Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, supra, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects from arbitrary state action the right to pursue an occupation, such as the practice of law.<br /><br />[Footnote 2]<br /><br />See, e.g., Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226; Gitlow v. New York, supra; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25; Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335; Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1; Pointer v. Texas, supra; Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609.<br /><br />[Footnote 3]<br /><br />Madison himself had previously pointed out the dangers of inaccuracy resulting from the fact that "no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea." The Federalist, No. 37 (Cooke ed.1961) at 236.<br /><br />[Footnote 4]<br /><br />Alexander Hamilton was opposed to a bill of rights on the ground that it was unnecessary, because the Federal Government was a government of delegated powers, and it was not granted the power to intrude upon fundamental personal rights. The Federalist, No. 84 (Cooke ed.1961), at 578-579. He also argued,<br /><br />"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted, and, on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power."<br /><br />Id. at 579. The Ninth Amendment, and the Tenth Amendment, which provides,<br /><br />The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,<br /><br />were apparently also designed in part to meet the above-quoted argument of Hamilton.<br /><br />[Footnote 5]<br /><br />The Tenth Amendment similarly made clear that the States and the people retained all those powers not expressly delegated to the Federal Government.<br /><br />[Footnote 6]<br /><br />This Amendment has been referred to as "The Forgotten Ninth Amendment," in a book with that title by Bennett B. Patterson (1955). Other commentary on the Ninth Amendment includes Redlich, Are There "Certain Rights . . . Retained by the People"? 37 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 787 (1962), and Kelsey, The Ninth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, 11 Ind.L.J. 309 (1936). As far as I am aware, until today, this Court has referred to the Ninth Amendment only in United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 330 U. S. 94-95; Tennessee Electric Power Co. v. TVA, 306 U. S. 118, 306 U. S. 143-144, and Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 297 U. S. 330-331. See also Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 3 U. S. 388; Loan Assn. v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 87 U. S. 662-663.<br /><br />In United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, at 330 U. S. 94-95, the Court stated:<br /><br />"We accept appellants' contention that the nature of political rights reserved to the people by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments [is] involved. The right claimed as inviolate may be stated as the right of a citizen to act as a party official or worker to further his own political views. Thus, we have a measure of interference by the Hatch Act and the Rules with what otherwise would be the freedom of the civil servant under the First, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. And, if we look upon due process as a guarantee of freedom in those fields, there is a corresponding impairment of that right under the Fifth Amendment."<br /><br />[Footnote 7]<br /><br />In light of the tests enunciated in these cases, it cannot be said that a judge's responsibility to determine whether a right is basic and fundamental in this sense vests him with unrestricted personal discretion. In fact, a hesitancy to allow too broad a discretion was a substantial reason leading me to conclude, in Pointer v. Texas, supra, at 380 U. S. 413-414, that those rights absorbed by the Fourteenth Amendment and applied to the States because they are fundamental apply with equal force and to the same extent against both federal and state governments. In Pointer, I said that the contrary view would require<br /><br />"this Court to make the extremely subjective and excessively discretionary determination as to whether a practice, forbidden the Federal Government by a fundamental constitutional guarantee, is, as viewed in the factual circumstances surrounding each individual case, sufficiently repugnant to the notion of due process as to be forbidden the States."<br /><br />Id. at 380 U. S. 413.<br /><br />[Footnote 8]<br /><br />Pointer v. Texas, supra at 380 U. S. 413. See also the discussion of my Brother DOUGLAS, Poe v. Ullman, supra, at 367 U. S. 517-518 (dissenting opinion).<br /><br />MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring in the judgment.<br /><br />I fully agree with the judgment of reversal, but find myself unable to join the Court's opinion. The reason is that it seems to me to evince an approach to this case very much like that taken by my Brothers BLACK and STEWART in dissent, namely: the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not touch this Connecticut statute unless the enactment is found to violate some right assured by the letter or penumbra of the Bill of Rights.<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 500<br /><br />In other words, what I find implicit in the Court's opinion is that the "incorporation" doctrine may be used to restrict the reach of Fourteenth Amendment Due Process. For me, this is just as unacceptable constitutional doctrine as is the use of the "incorporation" approach to impose upon the States all the requirements of the Bill of Rights as found in the provisions of the first eight amendments and in the decisions of this Court interpreting them. See, e.g., my concurring opinions in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 380 U. S. 408, and Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, 380 U. S. 615, and my dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 522, at pp. 381 U. S. 539-545.<br /><br />In my view, the proper constitutional inquiry in this case is whether this Connecticut statute infringes the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the enactment violates basic values "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 302 U. S. 325. For reasons stated at length in my dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, supra, I believe that it does. While the relevant inquiry may be aided by resort to one or more of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, it is not dependent on them or any of their radiations. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment stands, in my opinion, on its own bottom.<br /><br />A further observation seems in order respecting the justification of my Brothers BLACK and STEWART for their "incorporation" approach to this case. Their approach does not rest on historical reasons, which are, of course, wholly lacking (see Fairman, Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Bill of Rights? The Original Understanding, 2 Stan.L.Rev. 5 (1949)), but on the thesis that, by limiting the content of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the protection of rights which can be found elsewhere in the Constitution, in this instance, in the Bill of Rights, judges will thus be confined to "interpretation" of specific constitutional<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 501<br /><br />provisions, and will thereby be restrained from introducing their own notions of constitutional right and wrong into the "vague contours of the Due Process Clause." Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 342 U. S. 170. While I could not more heartily agree that judicial "self-restraint" is an indispensable ingredient of sound constitutional adjudication, I do submit that the formula suggested for achieving it is more hollow than real. "Specific" provisions of the Constitution, no less than "due process," lend themselves as readily to "personal" interpretations by judges whose constitutional outlook is simply to keep the Constitution in supposed "tune with the times" (post, p. 381 U. S. 522). Need one go further than to recall last Term's reapportionment cases, Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, and Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, where a majority of the Court "interpreted" "by the People" (Art. I, § 2) and "equal protection" (Amdt. 14) to command "one person, one vote," an interpretation that was made in the face of irrefutable and still unanswered history to the contrary? See my dissenting opinions in those cases, 376 U.S. at 376 U. S. 20; 377 U.S. at 377 U. S. 589.<br /><br />Judicial self-restraint will not, I suggest, be brought about in the "due process" area by the historically unfounded incorporation formula long advanced by my Brother BLACK, and now in part espoused by my Brother STEWART. It will be achieved in this area, as in other constitutional areas, only by continual insistence upon respect for the teachings of history, solid recognition of the basic values that underlie our society, and wise appreciation of the great roles that the doctrines of federalism and separation of powers have played in establishing and preserving American freedoms. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 59 (Mr. Justice Frankfurter, concurring). Adherence to these principles will not, of course, obviate all constitutional differences of opinion among judges, nor should it. Their continued recognition<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 502<br /><br />will, however, go farther toward keeping most judges from roaming at large in the constitutional field than will the interpolation into the Constitution of an artificial and largely illusory restriction on the content of the Due Process Clause.*<br /><br />* Indeed, my Brother BLACK, in arguing his thesis, is forced to lay aside a host of cases in which the Court has recognized fundamental rights in the Fourteenth Amendment without specific reliance upon the Bill of Rights. Post, p. 381 U. S. 512, n. 4.<br /><br />MR. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring in the judgment.<br /><br />In my view, this Connecticut law, as applied to married couples, deprives them of "liberty" without due process of law, as that concept is used in the Fourteenth Amendment. I therefore concur in the judgment of the Court reversing these convictions under Connecticut's aiding and abetting statute.<br /><br />It would be unduly repetitious, and belaboring the obvious, to expound on the impact of this statute on the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against arbitrary or capricious denials or on the nature of this liberty. Suffice it to say that this is not the first time this Court has had occasion to articulate that the liberty entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right "to marry, establish a home and bring up children," Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 262 U. S. 399, and "the liberty . . . to direct the upbringing and education of children," Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 268 U. S. 534-535, and that these are among "the basic civil rights of man." Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 316 U. S. 541. These decisions affirm that there is a "realm of family life which the state cannot enter" without substantial justification. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 321 U. S. 166. Surely the right invoked in this case, to be free of regulation of the intimacies of<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 503<br /><br />the marriage relationship,<br /><br />come[s] to this Court with a momentum for respect lacking when appeal is made to liberties which derive merely from shifting economic arrangements.<br /><br />Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 336 U. S. 95 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).<br /><br />The Connecticut anti-contraceptive statute deals rather substantially with this relationship. For it forbids all married persons the right to use birth control devices, regardless of whether their use is dictated by considerations of family planning, Trubek v. Ullman, 147 Conn. 633, 165 A.2d 158, health, or indeed even of life itself. Buxton v. Ullman, 147 Conn. 48, 156 A.2d 508. The anti-use statute, together with the general aiding and abetting statute, prohibits doctors from affording advice to married persons on proper and effective methods of birth control. Tileston v. Ullman, 129 Conn. 84, 26 A.2d 582. And the clear effect of these statutes, as enforced, is to deny disadvantaged citizens of Connecticut, those without either adequate knowledge or resources to obtain private counseling, access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control. State v. Nelson, 126 Conn. 412, 11 A.2d 856; State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A.2d 479. In my view, a statute with these effects bears a substantial burden of justification when attacked under the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232; McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 379 U. S. 192.<br /><br />An examination of the justification offered, however, cannot be avoided by saying that the Connecticut anti-use statute invades a protected area of privacy and association or that it demeans the marriage relationship. The nature of the right invaded is pertinent, to be sure, for statutes regulating sensitive areas of liberty do, under<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 504<br /><br />the cases of this Court, require "strict scrutiny," Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U. S. 535, 316 U. S. 541, and "must be viewed in the light of less drastic means for achieving the same basic purpose." Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 364 U. S. 488.<br /><br />"Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling."<br /><br />Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 361 U. S. 524. See also McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184. But such statutes, if reasonably necessary for the effectuation of a legitimate and substantial state interest, and not arbitrary or capricious in application, are not invalid under the Due Process Clause. Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1.*<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 505<br /><br />As I read the opinions of the Connecticut courts and the argument of Connecticut in this Court, the State claims but one justification for its anti-use statute. Cf. Allied Stores of Ohio v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522, 358 U. S. 530; Martin v. Walton, 368 U. S. 25, 368 U. S. 28 (DOUGLAS, J., dissenting). There is no serious contention that Connecticut thinks the use of artificial or external methods of contraception immoral or unwise in itself, or that the anti-use statute is founded upon any policy of promoting population expansion. Rather, the statute is said to serve the State's policy against all forms of promiscuous or illicit sexual relationships, be they premarital or extramarital, concededly a permissible and legitimate legislative goal.<br /><br />Without taking issue with the premise that the fear of conception operates as a deterrent to such relationships in addition to the criminal proscriptions Connecticut has against such conduct, I wholly fail to see how the ban on the use of contraceptives by married couples in any way reinforces the State's ban on illicit sexual relationships. See Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, 353 U. S. 239. Connecticut does not bar the importation or possession of contraceptive devices; they are not considered contraband material under state law, State v. Certain Contraceptive Materials, 126 Conn. 428, 11 A.2d 863, and their availability in that State is not seriously disputed. The only way Connecticut seeks to limit or control the availability of such devices is through its general aiding and abetting statute, whose operation in this context has<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 506<br /><br />been quite obviously ineffective, and whose most serious use has been against birth control clinics rendering advice to married, rather than unmarried, persons. Cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356. Indeed, after over 80 years of the State's proscription of use, the legality of the sale of such devices to prevent disease has never been expressly passed upon, although it appears that sales have long occurred and have only infrequently been challenged. This "undeviating policy . . . throughout all the long years . . . bespeaks more than prosecutorial paralysis." Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 502. Moreover, it would appear that the sale of contraceptives to prevent disease is plainly legal under Connecticut law.<br /><br />In these circumstances, one is rather hard pressed to explain how the ban on use by married persons in any way prevents use of such devices by persons engaging in illicit sexual relations, and thereby contributes to the State's policy against such relationships. Neither the state courts nor the State before the bar of this Court has tendered such an explanation. It is purely fanciful to believe that the broad proscription on use facilitates discovery of use by persons engaging in a prohibited relationship, or for some other reason makes such use more unlikely, and thus can be supported by any sort of administrative consideration. Perhaps the theory is that the flat ban on use prevents married people from possessing contraceptives and, without the ready availability of such devices for use in the marital relationship, there will be no or less temptation to use them in extramarital ones. This reasoning rests on the premise that married people will comply with the ban in regard to their marital relationship, notwithstanding total nonenforcement in this context and apparent nonenforcibility, but will not comply with criminal statutes prohibiting extramarital affairs and the anti-use statute in respect to illicit sexual relationships, a premise whose validity has not been<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 507<br /><br />demonstrated and whose intrinsic validity is not very evident. At most, the broad ban is of marginal utility to the declared objective. A statute limiting its prohibition on use to persons engaging in the prohibited relationship would serve the end posited by Connecticut in the same way, and with the same effectiveness or ineffectiveness, as the broad anti-use statute under attack in this case. I find nothing in this record justifying the sweeping scope of this statute, with its telling effect on the freedoms of married persons, and therefore conclude that it deprives such persons of liberty without due process of law.<br /><br />* Dissenting opinions assert that the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause is limited to a guarantee against unduly vague statutes and against procedural unfairness at trial. Under this view, the Court is without authority to ascertain whether a challenged statute, or its application, has a permissible purpose, and whether the manner of regulation bears a rational or justifying relationship to this purpose. A long line of cases makes very clear that this has not been the view of this Court. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500; Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1.<br /><br />The traditional due process test was well articulated and applied in Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, supra, a case which placed no reliance on the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights.<br /><br />"A State cannot exclude a person from the practice of law or from any other occupation in a manner or for reasons that contravene the Due Process or Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114. Cf. Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U. S. 551; Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183. And see 60 U. S. 19 How. 9, 60 U. S. 13. A State can require high standards of qualification, such as good moral character or proficiency in its law, before it admits an applicant to the bar, but any qualification must have a rational connection with the applicant's fitness or capacity to practice law. Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165; Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 71 U. S. 319-320. Cf. Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502. Obviously an applicant could not be excluded merely because he was a Republican, or a Negro, or a member of a particular church. Even in applying permissible standards, officers of a State cannot exclude an applicant when there is no basis for their finding that he fails to meet these standards, or when their action is invidiously discriminatory."<br /><br />353 U.S. at 353 U. S. 238-239. Cf. Martin v. Walton, 368 U. S. 25, 368 U. S. 26 (DOUGLAS, J., dissenting).<br /><br />MR. JUSTICE BLACK, with whom MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins, dissenting.<br /><br />I agree with my Brother STEWART's dissenting opinion. And, like him, I do not to any extent whatever base my view that this Connecticut law is constitutional on a belief that the law is wise, or that its policy is a good one. In order that there may be no room at all to doubt why I vote as I do, I feel constrained to add that the law is every bit as offensive to me as it is to my Brethren of the majority and my Brothers HARLAN, WHITE and GOLDBERG, who, reciting reasons why it is offensive to them, hold it unconstitutional. There is no single one of the graphic and eloquent strictures and criticisms fired at the policy of this Connecticut law either by the Court's opinion or by those of my concurring Brethren to which I cannot subscribe -- except their conclusion that the evil qualities they see in the law make it unconstitutional.<br /><br />Had the doctor defendant here, or even the nondoctor defendant, been convicted for doing nothing more than expressing opinions to persons coming to the clinic that certain contraceptive devices, medicines or practices would do them good and would be desirable, or for telling people how devices could be used, I can think of no reasons at this time why their expressions of views would not be<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 508<br /><br />protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee freedom of speech. Cf. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar, 377 U. S. 1; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415. But speech is one thing; conduct and physical activities are quite another. See, e.g., Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 379 U. S. 554-555; Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 559, 379 U. S. 563-564; id. 379 U. S. 575-584 (concurring opinion); Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490; cf. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 98 U. S. 163-164. The two defendants here were active participants in an organization which gave physical examinations to women, advised them what kind of contraceptive devices or medicines would most likely be satisfactory for them, and then supplied the devices themselves, all for a graduated scale of fees, based on the family income. Thus, these defendants admittedly engaged with others in a planned course of conduct to help people violate the Connecticut law. Merely because some speech was used in carrying on that conduct -- just as, in ordinary life, some speech accompanies most kinds of conduct -- we are not, in my view, justified in holding that the First Amendment forbids the State to punish their conduct. Strongly as I desire to protect all First Amendment freedoms, I am unable to stretch the Amendment so as to afford protection to the conduct of these defendants in violating the Connecticut law. What would be the constitutional fate of the law if hereafter applied to punish nothing but speech is, as I have said, quite another matter. The Court talks about a constitutional "right of privacy" as though there is some constitutional provision or provisions forbidding any law ever to be passed which might abridge the "privacy" of individuals. But there is not. There are, of course, guarantees in certain specific constitutional provisions which are designed in part to protect privacy at certain times and places with respect to certain activities. Such, for example, is the Fourth<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 509<br /><br />Amendment's guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures." But I think it belittles that Amendment to talk about it as though it protects nothing but "privacy." To treat it that way is to give it a niggardly interpretation, not the kind of liberal reading I think any Bill of Rights provision should be given. The average man would very likely not have his feelings soothed any more by having his property seized openly than by having it seized privately and by stealth. He simply wants his property left alone. And a person can be just as much, if not more, irritated, annoyed and injured by an unceremonious public arrest by a policeman as he is by a seizure in the privacy of his office or home.<br /><br />One of the most effective ways of diluting or expanding a constitutionally guaranteed right is to substitute for the crucial word or words of a constitutional guarantee another word or words, more or less flexible and more or less restricted in meaning. This fact is well illustrated by the use of the term "right of privacy" as a comprehensive substitute for the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures." "Privacy" is a broad, abstract and ambiguous concept which can easily be shrunken in meaning but which can also, on the other hand, easily be interpreted as a constitutional ban against many things other than searches and seizures. I have expressed the view many times that First Amendment freedoms, for example, have suffered from a failure of the courts to stick to the simple language of the First Amendment in construing it, instead of invoking multitudes of words substituted for those the Framers used. See, e.g., New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 376 U. S. 293 (concurring opinion); cases collected in City of El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U. S. 497, 379 U. S. 517, n. 1 (dissenting opinion); Black, The Bill of Rights, 35 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 865. For these reasons, I get nowhere in this case by talk about a constitutional "right of privacy" as an emanation from<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 510<br /><br />one or more constitutional provisions. [Footnote 2/1] I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to. invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision. For these reasons, I cannot agree with the Court's judgment and the reasons it gives for holding this Connecticut law unconstitutional.<br /><br />This brings me to the arguments made by my Brothers HARLAN, WHITE and GOLDBERG for invalidating the Connecticut law. Brothers HARLAN [Footnote 2/2] and WHITE would invalidate it by reliance on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but Brother GOLDBERG, while agreeing with Brother HARLAN, relies also on the Ninth Amendment. I have no doubt that the Connecticut law could be applied in such a way as to abridge freedom of<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 511<br /><br />speech and press, and therefore violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. My disagreement with the Court's opinion holding that there is such a violation here is a narrow one, relating to the application of the First Amendment to the facts and circumstances of this particular case. But my disagreement with Brothers HARLAN, WHITE and GOLDBERG is more basic. I think that, if properly construed, neither the Due Process Clause nor the Ninth Amendment, nor both together, could under any circumstances be a proper basis for invalidating the Connecticut law. I discuss the due process and Ninth Amendment arguments together because, on analysis, they turn out to be the same thing -- merely using different words to claim for this Court and the federal judiciary power to invalidate any legislative act which the judges find irrational, unreasonable or offensive.<br /><br />The due process argument which my Brothers HARLAN and WHITE adopt here is based, as their opinions indicate, on the premise that this Court is vested with power to invalidate all state laws that it considers to be arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or oppressive, or on this Court's belief that a particular state law under scrutiny has no "rational or justifying" purpose, or is offensive to a "sense of fairness and justice." [Footnote 2/3] If these formulas based on "natural justice," or others which mean the same thing, [Footnote 2/4] are to prevail, they require judges to determine<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 512<br /><br />what is or is not constitutional on the basis of their own appraisal of what laws are unwise or unnecessary. The power to make such decisions is, of course, that of a legislative body. Surely it has to be admitted that no provision of the Constitution specifically gives such blanket power to courts to exercise such a supervisory veto over the wisdom and value of legislative policies and to hold unconstitutional those laws which they believe unwise or dangerous. I readily admit that no legislative body, state or national, should pass laws that can justly be given any<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 513<br /><br />of the invidious labels invoked as constitutional excuses to strike down state laws. But perhaps it is not too much to say that no legislative body ever does pass laws without believing that they will accomplish a sane, rational, wise and justifiable purpose. While I completely subscribe to the holding of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, and subsequent cases, that our Court has constitutional power to strike down statutes, state or federal, that violate commands of the Federal Constitution, I do not believe that we are granted power by the Due Process Clause or any other constitutional provision or provisions to measure constitutionality by our belief that legislation is arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable, or accomplishes no justifiable purpose, or is offensive to our own notions of "civilized standards of conduct." [Footnote 2/5] Such an appraisal of the wisdom of legislation is an attribute of the power to make laws, not of the power to interpret them. The use by federal courts of such a formula or doctrine or whatnot to veto federal or state laws simply takes away from Congress and States the power to make laws based on their own judgment of fairness and wisdom, and transfers that power to this Court for ultimate determination -- a power which was specifically denied to federal courts by the convention that framed the Constitution. [Footnote 2/6]<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 514<br /><br />Of the cases on which my Brothers WHITE and GOLDBERG rely so heavily, undoubtedly the reasoning of two of them supports their result here -- as would that of a number of others which they do not bother to name, e.g.,<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 515<br /><br />Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, Jay Burns Baking Co. v. Bryan, 264 U. S. 504, and Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525. The two they do cite and quote from, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, were both decided in opinions by Mr. Justice McReynolds which elaborated the same natural law due process philosophy found in Lochner v. New York, supra, one of the cases on which he relied in Meyer, along with such other long-discredited decisions as, e.g., Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, and Adkins v. Children's Hospital, supra. Meyer held unconstitutional, as an "arbitrary" and unreasonable interference with the right of a teacher to carry on his occupation and of parents to hire him, a<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 516<br /><br />state law forbidding the teaching of modern foreign languages to young children in the schools. [Footnote 2/7] And in Pierce, relying principally on Meyer, Mr. Justice McReynolds said that a state law requiring that all children attend public schools interfered unconstitutionally with the property rights of private school corporations because it was an "arbitrary, unreasonable and unlawful interference" which threatened "destruction of their business and property." 268 U.S. at 268 U. S. 536. Without expressing an opinion as to whether either of those cases reached a correct result in light of our later decisions applying the First Amendment to the States through the Fourteenth, [Footnote 2/8] I merely point out that the reasoning stated in Meyer and Pierce was the same natural law due process philosophy which many later opinions repudiated, and which I cannot accept. Brothers WHITE and GOLDBERG also cite other cases, such as NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, and Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, which held that States in regulating conduct could not, consistently with the First Amendment as applied to them by the Fourteenth, pass unnecessarily broad laws which might indirectly infringe on First Amendment freedoms. [Footnote 2/9] See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel.<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 517<br /><br />Virginia State Bar, 377 U. S. 1, 377 U. S. 7-8. [Footnote 2/10] Brothers WHITE and GOLDBERG now apparently would start from this requirement that laws be narrowly drafted so as not to curtail free speech and assembly, and extend it limitlessly to require States to justify any law restricting "liberty" as my Brethren define "liberty." This would mean at the<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 518<br /><br />very least, I suppose, that every state criminal statute -- since it must inevitably curtail "liberty" to some extent -- would be suspect, and would have to be Justified to this Court. [Footnote 2/11]<br /><br />My Brother GOLDBERG has adopted the recent discovery [Footnote 2/12] that the Ninth Amendment as well as the Due Process Clause can be used by this Court as authority to strike down all state legislation which this Court thinks<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 519<br /><br />violates "fundamental principles of liberty and justice," or is contrary to the "traditions and [collective] conscience of our people." He also states, without proof satisfactory to me, that, in making decisions on this basis, judges will not consider "their personal and private notions." One may ask how they can avoid considering them. Our Court certainly has no machinery with which to take a Gallup Poll. [Footnote 2/13] And the scientific miracles of this age have not yet produced a gadget which the Court can use to determine what traditions are rooted in the "[collective] conscience of our people." Moreover, one would certainly have to look far beyond the language of the Ninth Amendment [Footnote 2/14] to find that the Framers vested in this Court any such awesome veto powers over lawmaking, either by the States or by the Congress. Nor does anything in the history of the Amendment offer any support for such a shocking doctrine. The whole history of the adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights points the other way, and the very material quoted by my Brother GOLDBERG shows that the Ninth Amendment was intended to protect against the idea that, "by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power" to the Federal Government, "those rights which were not singled out were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government [the United States], and were consequently<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 520<br /><br />insecure." [Footnote 2/15] That Amendment was passed not to broaden the powers of this Court or any other department of "the General Government," but, as every student of history knows, to assure the people that the Constitution in all its provisions was intended to limit the Federal Government to the powers granted expressly or by necessary implication. If any broad, unlimited power to hold laws unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the "[collective] conscience of our people" is vested in this Court by the Ninth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, or any other provision of the Constitution, it was not given by the Framers, but rather has been bestowed on the Court by the Court. This fact is perhaps responsible for the peculiar phenomenon that, for a period of a century and a half, no serious suggestion was ever made that the Ninth Amendment, enacted to protect state powers against federal invasion, could be used as a weapon of federal power to prevent state legislatures from passing laws they consider appropriate to govern local affairs. Use of any such broad, unbounded judicial authority would make of this Court's members a day-to-day constitutional convention.<br /><br />I repeat, so as not to be misunderstood, that this Court does have power, which it should exercise, to hold laws unconstitutional where they are forbidden by the Federal Constitution. My point is that there is no provision<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 521<br /><br />of the Constitution which either expressly or impliedly vests power in this Court to sit as a supervisory agency over acts of duly constituted legislative bodies and set aside their laws because of the Court's belief that the legislative policies adopted are unreasonable, unwise, arbitrary, capricious or irrational. The adoption of such a loose flexible. uncontrolled standard for holding laws unconstitutional, if ever it is finally achieved, will amount to a great unconstitutional shift of power to the courts which I believe and am constrained to say will be bad for the courts, and worse for the country. Subjecting federal and state laws to such an unrestrained and unrestrainable judicial control as to the wisdom of legislative enactments would, I fear, jeopardize the separation of governmental powers that the Framers set up, and, at the same time, threaten to take away much of the power of States to govern themselves which the Constitution plainly intended them to have. [Footnote 2/16]<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 522<br /><br />I realize that many good and able men have eloquently spoken and written, sometimes in rhapsodical strains, about the duty of this Court to keep the Constitution in tune with the times. The idea is that the Constitution must be changed from time to time, and that this Court is charged with a duty to make those changes. For myself, I must, with all deference, reject that philosophy. The Constitution makers knew the need for change, and provided for it. Amendments suggested by the people's elected representatives can be submitted to the people or their selected agents for ratification. That method of change was good for our Fathers, and, being somewhat old-fashioned, I must add it is good enough for me. And so I cannot rely on the Due Process Clause or the Ninth Amendment or any mysterious and uncertain natural law concept as a reason for striking down this state law. The Due Process Clause, with an "arbitrary and capricious" or "shocking to the conscience" formula, was liberally used by this Court to strike down economic legislation in the early decades of this century, threatening, many people thought, the tranquility and stability of the Nation. See, e.g., Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45. That formula, based on subjective considerations of "natural justice," is no less dangerous when used to enforce this Court's views about personal rights than those about economic rights. I had thought that we had laid that formula, as a means for striking down state legislation, to rest once and for all in cases like West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379; Olsen v. Nebraska ex rel. Western Reference & Bond Assn., 313 U. S. 236, and many other<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 523<br /><br />opinions. [Footnote 2/17] See also Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 198 U. S. 74 (Holmes, J., dissenting).<br /><br />In Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 372 U. S. 730, this Court two years ago said, in an opinion joined by all the Justices but one, [Footnote 2/18] that<br /><br />"The doctrine that prevailed in Lochner, Coppage, Adkins, Burns, and like cases -- that due process authorizes courts to hold laws unconstitutional when they believe the legislature has acted unwisely -- has long since been discarded. We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws."<br /><br />And only six weeks ago, without even bothering to hear argument, this Court overruled Tyson & Brother v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418, which had held state laws regulating ticket brokers to be a denial of due process of law. [Footnote 2/19] Gold<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 524<br /><br />v. DiCarlo, 380 U. S. 520. I find April's holding hard to square with what my concurring Brethren urge today. They would reinstate the Lochner, Coppage, Adkins, Burns line of cases, cases from which this Court recoiled after the 1930's, and which had been, I thought, totally discredited until now. Apparently my Brethren have less quarrel with state economic regulations than former Justices of their persuasion had. But any limitation upon their using the natural law due process philosophy to strike down any state law, dealing with any activity whatever, will obviously be only self-imposed. [Footnote 2/20]<br /><br />In 1798, when this Court was asked to hold another Connecticut law unconstitutional, Justice Iredell said:<br /><br />"[I]t has been the policy of all the American states which have individually framed their state constitutions since the revolution, and of the people of the United States when they framed the Federal Constitution, to define with precision the objects of the legislative power, and to restrain its exercise within marked and settled boundaries. If any act of Congress, or of the Legislature of a state, violates those constitutional provisions, it is unquestionably void, though I admit that, as the authority to declare it void is of a delicate and awful nature, the Court will never resort to that authority but in a clear and urgent case. If, on the other hand, the Legislature of the Union, or the Legislature of any member of the Union, shall pass a law within the<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 525<br /><br />general scope of their constitutional power, the Court cannot pronounce it to be void, merely because it is, in their judgment, contrary to the principles of natural justice. The ideas of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard: the ablest and the purest men have differed upon the subject, and all that the Court could properly say in such an event would be that the Legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice."<br /><br />Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 3 U. S. 399 (emphasis in original). I would adhere to that constitutional philosophy in passing on this Connecticut law today. I am not persuaded to deviate from the view which I stated in 1947 in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 90-92 (dissenting opinion):<br /><br />"Since Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, was decided, the practice has been firmly established, for better or worse, that courts can strike down legislative enactments which violate the Constitution. This process, of course, involves interpretation, and since words can have many meanings, interpretation obviously may result in contraction or extension of the original purpose of a constitutional provision, thereby affecting policy. But to pass upon the constitutionality of statutes by looking to the particular standards enumerated in the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution is one thing; to invalidate statutes because of application of 'natural law' deemed to be above and undefined by the Constitution is another."<br /><br />"In the one instance, courts, proceeding within clearly marked constitutional boundaries, seek to execute policies written into the Constitution; in the other, they roam at will in the limitless<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 526<br /><br />area of their own beliefs as to reasonableness, and actually select policies, a responsibility which the Constitution entrusts to the legislative representatives of the people."<br /><br />"Federal Power Commission v. Pipeline Co., 315 U. S. 575, 315 U. S. 599, 315 U. S. 601, n.4. [Footnote 2/21]"<br /><br />(Footnotes omitted.) The late Judge Learned Hand, after emphasizing his view that judges should not use the due process formula suggested in the concurring opinions today or any other formula like it to invalidate legislation offensive to their "personal preferences," [Footnote 2/22] made the statement, with which I fully agree, that:<br /><br />"For myself, it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 527<br /><br />knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not. [Footnote 2/23]"<br /><br />So far as I am concerned, Connecticut's law, as applied here, is not forbidden by any provision of the Federal Constitution as that Constitution was written, and I would therefore affirm.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/1]<br /><br />The phrase "right to privacy" appears first to have gained currency from an article written by Messrs. Warren and (later Mr. Justice) Brandeis in 1890 which urged that States should give some form of tort relief to persons whose private affairs were exploited by others. The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv.L.Rev.193. Largely as a result of this article, some States have passed statutes creating such a cause of action, and, in others, state courts have done the same thing by exercising their powers as courts of common law. See generally, 41 Am.Jur. 926-927. Thus, the Supreme Court of Georgia, in granting a cause of action for damages to a man whose picture had been used in a newspaper advertisement without his consent, said that "A right of privacy in matters purely private is . . . derived from natural law," and that<br /><br />"The conclusion reached by us seems to be . . . thoroughly in accord with natural justice, with the principles of the law of every civilized nation, and especially with the elastic principles of the common law. . . ."<br /><br />Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga.190, 194, 218, 50 S.E. 68, 70, 80. Observing that "the right of privacy . . . presses for recognition here," today this Court, which I did not understand to have power to sit as a court of common law, now appears to be exalting a phrase which Warren and Brandeis used in discussing grounds for tort relief, to the level of a constitutional rule which prevents state legislatures from passing any law deemed by this Court to interfere with "privacy."<br /><br />[Footnote 2/2]<br /><br />Brother HARLAN's views are spelled out at greater length in his dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 539-555.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/3]<br /><br />Indeed, Brother WHITE appears to have gone beyond past pronouncements of the natural law due process theory, which at least said that the Court should exercise this unlimited power to declare state acts unconstitutional with "restraint." He now says that, instead of being presumed constitutional (see Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 94 U. S. 123; compare Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525, 261 U. S. 544), the statute here "bears a substantial burden of justification when attacked under the Fourteenth Amendment."<br /><br />[Footnote 2/4]<br /><br />A collection of the catchwords and catch phrases invoked by judges who would strike down under the Fourteenth Amendment laws which offend their notions of natural justice would fill many pages. Thus, it has been said that this Court can forbid state action which "shocks the conscience," Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 342 U. S. 172, sufficiently to "shock itself into the protective arms of the Constitution," Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 347 U. S. 138 (concurring opinion). It has been urged that States may not run counter to the "decencies of civilized conduct," Rochin, supra, at 342 U. S. 173, or "some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental," Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 291 U. S. 105, or to "those canons of decency and fairness which express the notions of justice of English-speaking peoples," Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401, 324 U. S. 417 (concurring opinion), or to "the community's sense of fair play and decency," Rochin, supra, at 342 U. S. 173. It has been said that we must decide whether a state law is "fair, reasonable and appropriate," or is rather<br /><br />"an unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right of the individual to his personal liberty or to enter into . . . contracts,"<br /><br />Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 198 U. S. 56. States, under this philosophy, cannot act in conflict with "deeply rooted feelings of the community," Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596, 332 U. S. 604 (separate opinion), or with "fundamental notions of fairness and justice," id. 332 U. S. 607. See also, e.g., Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 338 U. S. 27 ("rights . . . basic to our free society"); Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U. S. 312, 272 U. S. 316 ("fundamental principles of liberty and justice"); Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525, 261 U. S. 561 ("arbitrary restraint of . . . liberties"); Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, 316 U. S. 462 ("denial of fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice"); Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 539 (dissenting opinion) ("intolerable and unjustifiable"). Perhaps the clearest, frankest, and briefest explanation of how this due process approach works is the statement in another case handed down today that this Court is to invoke the Due Process Clause to strike down state procedures or laws which it can "not tolerate." Linkletter v. Walker, post, p. 381 U. S. 618, at 381 U. S. 631.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/5]<br /><br />See Hand, The Bill of Rights (1958) 70: .<br /><br />"[J]udges are seldom content merely to annul the particular solution before them; they do not, indeed they may not, say that, taking all things into consideration, the legislators' solution is too strong for the judicial stomach. On the contrary, they wrap up their veto in a protective veil of adjectives such as 'arbitrary,' 'artificial,' 'normal,' 'reasonable,' 'inherent,' 'fundamental,' or 'essential,' whose office usually, though quite innocently, is to disguise what they are doing and impute to it a derivation far more impressive than their personal preferences, which are all that, in fact, lie behind the decision."<br /><br />See also Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 342 U. S. 174 (concurring opinion). But see Linkletter v. Walker, supra, n. 4, at 631.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/6]<br /><br />This Court held in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, that this Court has power to invalidate laws on the ground that they exceed the constitutional power of Congress or violate some specific prohibition of the Constitution. See also Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87. But the Constitutional Convention did, on at least two occasions, reject proposals which would have given the federal judiciary a part in recommending laws or in vetoing as bad or unwise the legislation passed by the Congress. Edmund Randolph of Virginia proposed that the President<br /><br />". . . and a convenient number of the National Judiciary ought to compose a council of revision with authority to examine every act of the National Legislature before it shall operate, & every act of a particular Legislature before a Negative thereon shall be final, and that the dissent of the said Council shall amount to a rejection, unless the Act of the National Legislature be again passed, or that of a particular Legislature be again negatived by ___ [original wording illegible] of the members of each branch."<br /><br />1 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Farrand ed.1911) 21.<br /><br />In support of a plan of this kind, James Wilson of Pennsylvania argued that:<br /><br />". . . It had been said that the Judges, as expositors of the Laws, would have an opportunity of defending their constitutional rights. There was weight in this observation; but this power of the Judges did not go far enough. Laws may be unjust, may be unwise, may be dangerous, may be destructive, and yet not be so unconstitutional as to justify the Judges in refusing to give them effect. Let them have a share in the Revisionary power, and they will have an opportunity of taking notice of these characters of a law, and of counteracting, by the weight of their opinions the improper views of the Legislature."<br /><br />2 id. at 73.<br /><br />Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts<br /><br />"did not see the advantage of employing the Judges in this way. As Judges, they are not to be presumed to possess any peculiar knowledge of the mere policy of public measures."<br /><br />Ibid. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts likewise opposed the proposal for a council of revision:<br /><br />". . . He relied, for his part, on the Representatives of the people as the guardians of their Rights & interests. It [the proposal] was making the Expositors of the Laws the Legislators, which ought never to be done."<br /><br />Id. at 75. And, at another point:<br /><br />"Mr. Gerry doubts whether the Judiciary ought to form a part of it [the proposed council of revision], as they will have a sufficient check agst. encroachments on their own department by their exposition of the laws, which involved a power of deciding on their Constitutionality. . . . It was quite foreign from the nature of ye. office to make them judges of the policy of public measures."<br /><br />1 Id. at 97-98. Madison supported the proposal on the ground that "a Check [on the legislature] is necessary." Id. at 108. John Dickinson of Delaware opposed it on the ground that "the Judges must interpret the Laws; they ought not to be legislators." Ibid. The proposal for a council of revision was defeated. The following proposal was also advanced:<br /><br />"To assist the President in conducting the Public affairs, there shall be a Council of State composed of the following officers -- 1. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who shall from time to time recommend such alterations of and additions to the laws of the U.S. as may in his opinion be necessary to the due administration of Justice, and such as may promote useful learning and inculcate sound morality throughout the Union. . . ."<br /><br />2 id. at 342. This proposal too was rejected.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/7]<br /><br />In Meyer, in the very same sentence quoted in part by my Brethren in which he asserted that the Due Process Clause gave an abstract and inviolable right "to marry, establish a home and bring up children," Mr. Justice McReynolds also asserted the heretofore discredited doctrine that the Due Process Clause prevented States from interfering with "the right of the individual to contract." 262 U.S. at 262 U. S. 399.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/8]<br /><br />Compare Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. at 367 U. S. 53-54 (HARLAN, J., dissenting).<br /><br />[Footnote 2/9]<br /><br />The Court has also said that, in view of the Fourteenth Amendment's major purpose of eliminating state-enforced racial discrimination, this Court will scrutinize carefully any law embodying a racial classification to make sure that it does not deny equal protection of the laws. See McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/10]<br /><br />None of the other cases decided in the past 25 years which Brothers WHITE and GOLDBERG cite can justly be read as holding that judges have power to use a natural law due process formula to strike down all state laws which they think are unwise, dangerous, or irrational. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, upheld a state law forbidding minors from selling publications on the streets. Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116, recognized the power of Congress to restrict travel outside the country so long as it accorded persons the procedural safeguards of due process and did not violate any other specific constitutional provision. Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, held simply that a State could not, consistently with due process, refuse a lawyer a license to practice law on the basis of a finding that he was morally unfit when there was no evidence in the record, 353 U.S. at 353 U. S. 246-247, to support such a finding. Compare Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199, in which the Court relied in part on Schware. See also Konigsberg v. State Bar, 353 U. S. 252. And Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, merely recognized what had been the understanding from the beginning of the country, an understanding shared by many of the draftsmen of the Fourteenth Amendment, that the whole Bill of Rights, including the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, was a guarantee that all persons would receive equal treatment under the law. Compare Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 309 U. S. 240-241. With one exception, the other modern cases relied on by my Brethren were decided either solely under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or under the First Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth, some of the latter group involving the right of association which this Court has held to be a part of the rights of speech, press and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment. As for Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, I am compelled to say that, if that decision was written or intended to bring about the abrupt and drastic reversal in the course of constitutional adjudication which is now attributed to it, the change was certainly made in a very quiet and unprovocative manner, without any attempt to justify it.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/11]<br /><br />Compare Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525, 261 U. S. 568 (Holmes, J., dissenting):<br /><br />"The earlier decisions upon the same words [the Due Process Clause] in the Fourteenth Amendment began within our memory, and went no farther than an unpretentious assertion of the liberty to follow the ordinary callings. Later, that innocuous generality was expanded into the dogma, Liberty of Contract. Contract is not specially mentioned in the text that we have to construe. It is merely an example of doing what you want to do, embodied in the word liberty. But pretty much all law consists in forbidding men to do some things that they want to do, and contract is no more exempt from law than other acts."<br /><br />[Footnote 2/12]<br /><br />See Patterson, The Forgotten Ninth Amendment (1955). Mr. Patterson urges that the Ninth Amendment be used to protect unspecified "natural and inalienable rights." P. 4. The Introduction by Roscoe Pound states that "there is a marked revival of natural law ideas throughout the world. Interest in the Ninth Amendment is a symptom of that revival." P. iii.<br /><br />In Redlich, Are There "Certain Rights . . . Retained by the People"?, 37 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 787, Professor Redlich, in advocating reliance on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to invalidate the Connecticut law before us, frankly states:<br /><br />"But for one who feels that the marriage relationship should be beyond the reach of a state law forbidding the use of contraceptives, the birth control case poses a troublesome and challenging problem of constitutional interpretation. He may find himself saying, 'The law is unconstitutional -- but why?' There are two possible paths to travel in finding the answer. One is to revert to a frankly flexible due process concept even on matters that do not involve specific constitutional prohibitions. The other is to attempt to evolve a new constitutional framework within which to meet this and similar problems which are likely to arise."<br /><br />Id. at 798.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/13]<br /><br />Of course, one cannot be oblivious to the fact that Mr. Gallup has already published the results of a poll which he says show that 46% of the people in this country believe schools should teach about birth control. Washington Post, May 21, 1965, p. 2, col. 1. I can hardly believe, however, that Brother GOLDBERG would view 46% of the persons polled as so overwhelming a proportion that this Court may now rely on it to declare that the Connecticut law infringes "fundamental" rights, and overrule the longstanding view of the people of Connecticut expressed through their elected representatives.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/14]<br /><br />U.S.Const., Amend. IX, provides:<br /><br />"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."<br /><br />[Footnote 2/15]<br /><br />1 Annals of Congress 439. See also II Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (5th ed. 1891):<br /><br />"This clause was manifestly introduced to prevent any perverse or ingenious misapplication of the well known maxim that an affirmation in particular cases implies a negation in all others; and, e converso, that a negation in particular cases implies an affirmation in all others. The maxim, rightly understood, is perfectly sound and safe; but it has often been strangely forced from its natural meaning into the support of the most dangerous political heresies."<br /><br />Id. at 651 (footnote omitted).<br /><br />[Footnote 2/16]<br /><br />Justice Holmes, in one of his last dissents, written in reply to Mr. Justice McReynolds' opinion for the Court in Baldwin v. Missouri, 281 U. S. 586, solemnly warned against a due process formula apparently approved by my concurring Brethren today. He said:<br /><br />"I have not yet adequately expressed the more than anxiety that I feel at the ever increasing scope given to the Fourteenth Amendment in cutting down what I believe to be the constitutional rights of the States. As the decisions now stand, I see hardly any limit but the sky to the invalidating of those rights if they happen to strike a majority of this Court as for any reason undesirable. I cannot believe that the Amendment was intended to give us carte blanche to embody our economic or moral beliefs in its prohibitions. Yet I can think of no narrower reason that seems to me to justify the present and the earlier decisions to which I have referred. Of course, the words 'due process of law,' if taken in their literal meaning, have no application to this case, and while it is too late to deny that they have been given a much more extended and artificial signification, still we ought to remember the great caution shown by the Constitution in limiting the power of the States, and should be slow to construe the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment as committing to the Court, with no guide but the Court's own discretion, the validity of whatever laws the States may pass."<br /><br />281 U.S. at 281 U. S. 595. See 2 Holmes-Pollock Letters (Howe ed.1941) 267-268.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/17]<br /><br />E.g., in Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U. S. 421, 342 U. S. 423, this Court held that<br /><br />"Our recent decisions make plain that we do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation nor to decide whether the policy which it expresses offends the public welfare."<br /><br />Compare Gardner v. Massachusetts, 305 U.S. 559, which the Court today apparently overrules, which held that a challenge under the Federal Constitution to a state law forbidding the sale or furnishing of contraceptives did not raise a substantial federal question.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/18]<br /><br />Brother HARLAN, who has consistently stated his belief in the power of courts to strike down laws which they consider arbitrary or unreasonable, see, e.g., Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 367 U. S. 539-555 (dissenting opinion), did not join the Court's opinion in Ferguson v. Skrupa.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/19]<br /><br />Justice Holmes, dissenting in Tyson, said:<br /><br />"I think the proper course is to recognize that a state legislature can do whatever it sees fit to do unless it is restrained by some express prohibition in the Constitution of the United States or of the State, and that Courts should be careful not to extend such prohibitions beyond their obvious meaning by reading into them conceptions of public policy that the particular Court may happen to entertain."<br /><br />273 U.S. at 273 U. S. 446.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/20]<br /><br />Compare Nicchia v. New York, 254 U. S. 228, 254 U. S. 231, upholding a New York dog-licensing statute on the ground that it did not "deprive dog owners of liberty without due process of law." And, as I said concurring in Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 342 U. S. 175,<br /><br />"I believe that faithful adherence to the specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights insures a more permanent protection of individual liberty than that which can be afforded by the nebulous standards"<br /><br />urged by my concurring Brethren today.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/21]<br /><br />Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, and similar cases applying specific Bill of Rights provisions to the States do not, in my view, stand for the proposition that this Court can rely on its own concept of "ordered liberty" or "shocking the conscience" or natural law to decide what laws it will permit state legislatures to enact. Gideon, in applying to state prosecutions the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of right to counsel, followed Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, which had held that specific provisions of the Bill of Rights, rather than the Bill of Rights as a whole, would be selectively applied to the States. While expressing my own belief (not shared by MR. JUSTICE STEWART) that all the provisions of the Bill of Rights were made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, in my dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 89, I also said:<br /><br />"If the choice must be between the selective process of the Palko decision applying some of the Bill of Rights to the States, or the Twining rule applying none of them, I would choose the Palko selective process."<br /><br />Gideon and similar cases merely followed the Palko rule, which, in Adamson, I agreed to follow if necessary to make Bill of Rights safeguards applicable to the States. See also Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400; Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/22]<br /><br />Hand, The Bill of Rights (1958) 70. See note 5, supra. See generally id. at 35-45.<br /><br />[Footnote 2/23]<br /><br />Id. at 73. While Judge Hand condemned as unjustified the invalidation of state laws under the natural law due process formula, see id. at 35-45, he also expressed the view that this Court, in a number of cases, had gone too far in holding legislation to be in violation of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Although I agree with his criticism of use of the due process formula, I do not agree with all the views he expressed about construing the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights.<br /><br />MR. JUSTICE STEWART, whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK joins, dissenting.<br /><br />Since 1879, Connecticut has had on its books a law which forbids the use of contraceptives by anyone. I think this is an uncommonly silly law. As a practical matter, the law is obviously unenforceable, except in the oblique context of the present case. As a philosophical matter, I believe the use of contraceptives in the relationship of marriage should be left to personal and private choice, based upon each individual's moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. As a matter of social policy, I think professional counsel about methods of birth control should be available to all, so that each individual's choice can be meaningfully made. But we are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the United States Constitution. And that I cannot do.<br /><br />In the course of its opinion, the Court refers to no less than six Amendments to the Constitution: the First, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Ninth, and the Fourteenth.<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 528<br /><br />But the Court does not say which of these Amendments, if any, it thinks is infringed by this Connecticut law.<br /><br />We are told that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not, as such, the "guide" in this case. With that much, I agree. There is no claim that this law, duly enacted by the Connecticut Legislature, is unconstitutionally vague. There is no claim that the appellants were denied any of the elements of procedural due process at their trial, so as to make their convictions constitutionally invalid. And, as the Court says, the day has long passed since the Due Process Clause was regarded as a proper instrument for determining "the wisdom, need, and propriety" of state laws. Compare Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, with Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726. My Brothers HARLAN and WHITE to the contrary,<br /><br />"[w]e have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws."<br /><br />Ferguson v. Skrupa, supra, at 372 U. S. 730<br /><br />As to the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, I can find nothing in any of them to invalidate this Connecticut law, even assuming that all those Amendments are fully applicable against the States. [Footnote 3/1] It has<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 529<br /><br />not even been argued that this is a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." [Footnote 3/2] And surely, unless the solemn process of constitutional adjudication is to descend to the level of a play on words, there is not involved here any abridgment of<br /><br />"the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [Footnote 3/3]"<br /><br />No soldier has been quartered in any house. [Footnote 3/4] There has been no search, and no seizure. [Footnote 3/5] Nobody has been compelled to be a witness against himself. [Footnote 3/6]<br /><br />The Court also quotes the Ninth Amendment, and my Brother GOLDBERG's concurring opinion relies heavily upon it. But to say that the Ninth Amendment has anything to do with this case is to turn somersaults with history. The Ninth Amendment, like its companion, the Tenth, which this Court held "states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered," United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 312 U. S. 124, was framed by James Madison and adopted by the States simply to make clear that the adoption of the Bill of Rights did not alter the plan that<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 530<br /><br />the Federal Government was to be a government of express and limited powers, and that all rights and powers not delegated to it were retained by the people and the individual States. Until today, no member of this Court has ever suggested that the Ninth Amendment meant anything else, and the idea that a federal court could ever use the Ninth Amendment to annul a law passed by the elected representatives of the people of the State of Connecticut would have caused James Madison no little wonder.<br /><br />What provision of the Constitution, then, does make this state law invalid? The Court says it is the right of privacy "created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees." With all deference, I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court. [Footnote 3/7]<br /><br />At the oral argument in this case, we were told that the Connecticut law does not "conform to current community standards." But it is not the function of this Court to decide cases on the basis of community standards. We are here to decide cases "agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States." It is the essence of judicial<br /><br />Page 381 U. S. 531<br /><br />duty to subordinate our own personal views, our own ideas of what legislation is wise and what is not. If, as I should surely hope, the law before us does not reflect he standards of the people of Connecticut, the people of Connecticut can freely exercise their true Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights to persuade their elected representatives to repeal it. That is the constitutional way to take this law off the books. [Footnote 3/8]<br /><br />[Footnote 3/1]<br /><br />The Amendments in question were, as everyone knows, originally adopted as limitations upon the power of the newly created Federal Government, not as limitations upon the powers of the individual States. But the Court has held that many of the provisions of the first eight amendments are fully embraced by the Fourteenth Amendment as limitations upon state action, and some members of the Court have held the view that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment made every provision of the first eight amendments fully applicable against the States. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 68 (dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BLACK).<br /><br />[Footnote 3/2]<br /><br />U.S. Constitution, Amendment I. To be sure, the injunction contained in the Connecticut statute coincides with the doctrine of certain religious faiths. But if that were enough to invalidate a law under the provisions of the First Amendment relating to religion, then most criminal laws would be invalidated. See, e.g., the Ten Commandments. The Bible, Exodus 20:2-17 (King James).<br /><br />[Footnote 3/3]<br /><br />U.S. Constitution, Amendment I. If all the appellants had done was to advise people that they thought the use of contraceptives was desirable, or even to counsel their use, the appellants would, of course, have a substantial First Amendment claim. But their activities went far beyond mere advocacy. They prescribed specific contraceptive devices and furnished patients with the prescribed contraceptive materials.<br /><br />[Footnote 3/4]<br /><br />U.S. Constitution, Amendment III.<br /><br />[Footnote 3/5]<br /><br />U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV.<br /><br />[Footnote 3/6]<br /><br />U.S. Constitution, Amendment V.<br /><br />[Footnote 3/7]<br /><br />Cases like Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479 and Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, relied upon in the concurring opinions today, dealt with true First Amendment rights of association, and are wholly inapposite here. See also, e.g., NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449; Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229. Our decision in McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, is equally far afield. That case held invalid under the Equal Protection Clause, a state criminal law which discriminated against Negroes.<br /><br />The Court does not say how far the new constitutional right of privacy announced today extends. See, e.g., Mueller, Legal Regulation of Sexual Conduct, at 127; Ploscowe, Sex and the Law, at 189. I suppose, however, that, even after today, a State can constitutionally still punish at least some offenses which are not committed in public.<br /><br />[Footnote 3/8]<br /><br />See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 377 U. S. 562. The Connecticut House of Representatives recently passed a bill (House Bill No. 2462) repealing the birth control law. The State Senate has apparently not yet acted on the measure, and today is relieved of that responsibility by the Court. New Haven Journal-Courier, Wed., May 19, 1965, p. 1, col. 4, and p. 13, col. 7.<br /> <br /><br /><span style="font-size:.70"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-87888925143023017072011-12-13T08:47:00.000-08:002011-12-13T09:29:36.710-08:00I Was Born A Poor Black ChildForbes contributor Gene Marks is making waves with his envelope-pushing advice that if he were a <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/12/12/if-i-was-a-poor-black-kid/">"poor black kid"</a> he would lift himself by his bootstraps by "work[ing] to make sure I got the best grades possible" and buying himself a computer at TigerDirect. <br /><br />I'm sure that's fine advice, but personally, if I were born a poor black child, I'd learn to play banjo or invent a little flying buttress to keep people's eyeglasses from sliding down their noses, because that worked so well for Steve Martin:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/D3Vp9fQ616k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Oh, also: Gene Marks is a jerk.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:.70"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-46864188137650333072011-09-11T09:03:00.000-07:002011-09-11T20:37:42.501-07:00The 9/12 MentalityLate in the day on September 11, 2001, a day tumbled in a <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swash" target="_blank">swash</a> of unhappy and roiled emotions, I sought to escape by sitting down and collecting my thoughts instead. What emerged was a letter to the editor of the (Portland) Oregonian newspaper.<br /><br />On 9/12, I was surprised when I opened my newspaper and found my letter, under the heading "Leaven Outrage With Reason," leading the day's letters, at the top of the Op-Ed page. It read:<br /><br /><blockquote>Now there will be an outcry to "do something" -- as we should, by punishing those responsible and strengthening our nation's defense and intelligence installations in effective ways.<br /><br />However, I hope our anger does not make us react unwisely. I fear these tragedies soon will be cited to justify "hawkish" actions such as withdrawing from peacekeeping missions or overspending on missile defense, at the expense of our other commitments.<br /><br />To do so would please these terrorists almost as much as killing our people. I hope our leaders are resolute enough to punish those responsible swiftly and terribly, and wise enough to leaven their outrage with reason and a larger view of the nation's and the world's best interest.<br /><br />Remaining true to our principles, supporting those around the world who honor democracy, healing our economy, and in general "staying the course" is the best and bravest response to those who wish us harm.</blockquote><br />Re-reading that letter today, I am struck not by my prescience, but by my naivete.<br /><br />I chose the word "hawkish" rather than "conservative" that day because I did not want to alienate my conservative compatriots. Like most liberals, I instinctively sought to place partisan and ideological divides behind me. Conservatives, I believed that day, were my allies against the people who wished us harm. And so I chose to narrow my concern to "hawks" rather than broaden it to "conservatives," even though "conservatives" was the first word that came to my mind.<br /><br />And my perception even of that subset of conservatives, "hawks," was relatively mild back on September 12, 2001. On 9/12, the worst I could imagine of America's "hawks" was that they might lobby for us to withdraw from peacekeeping missions or waste a few billion dollars on an unneeded weapons program. I correctly feared that conservatives would seize the opportunity to advance military-industrial goals; but I did not conceive that they would so rapidly conflate Al Qaeda (evil people intending us harm) with the Taliban (ignorant rural yahoos generally content with destroying Buddhist bas-reliefs and oppressing their own wives and daughters). I could not imagine that they would launch us into the longest war in America's history; that they would persuade our own citizens that Saddam Hussein somehow was involved in the attack and start a new war there; or that their greed for war profits would contribute substantially to their bankrupting the nation, doubling the national debt and launching the Great Recession. I did not, on 9/12, realize how bad these people are.<br /><br />Now I do.<br /><br />Conservatives love to remind us how, on 9/12, we suspended our political and ideological differences and, briefly, considered ourselves to be one nation, indivisible and undivided. But the consequences of that suspension of ideology have been terrible: because of 9/11, liberals allowed conservatives to launch two wars, alienate a world that (on 9/12) universally supported us, pass the Patriot Act, steal money from education and healthcare to give to "defense" (i.e., offense), create new espionage and warmaking institutions, and turn our national self-image inward just when it should have been turned outward by injecting the Orwellian, totalitarian word "homeland" into our lexicon.<br /><br />Liberals, Progressives and even Libertarians did not serve our nation well by adopting a "9/12 mentality." Quite the opposite: the 9/12 mentality -- well-intentioned, unable to conceive how deeply malevolent the Dick Cheneys of the world are -- allowed those malevolents to harm America far more mortally than Osama bin Laden ever could have.<br /><br />On the tenth anniversary of 9/12, then, we on the Left should calmly but firmly reject the calls to adopt the 9/12 mentality again. We are not, today, as naive as we were ten years ago -- and America cannot afford for us to allow ourselves to be fooled again.M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-44229789070893546552011-08-05T17:44:00.000-07:002011-08-08T07:53:55.953-07:00Shoot the People Who Ignored the Message(Updated thrice below)
<br />
<br />Before you start screaming at Standard & Poor's for <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903366504576490841235575386.html" target="_blank">downgrading U.S. debt for the first time in history</a>, remember this: they warned G.O.P. leaders, very specifically, that U.S. credit ratings were at serious risk of downgrade EVEN IF the debt ceiling was lifted. In fact, S&P warned on July 14, and then reiterated on July 15, that a deal in the $1-2 trillion range (like the one that was enacted) would be insufficient, and kicking the can down the road (as the "Joint Committee" does) would be insufficient, and a deal that doesn't demonstrate that the G.O.P. is a serious partner in bending the debt curve (i.e., one that doesn't contain immediate new revenues as a sign of "seriousness") would be insufficient.
<br />
<br />[Update, Aug. 5, 10:33 PT: full text of S&P's two "downgrade" press releases can be read <a href="http://wiretaps.typepad.com/warranted_wiretaps/2011/08/standard-poors-downgrade-press-releases-in-full.html" target="_blank">at this link</a>.]
<br />
<br />On July 15, I wrote <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/en/standard-poors-gop" target="_blank">the following for PoliticusUSA</a>:
<br /><blockquote>The credit-rating agency Standard & Poors has released a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/market-ratings-creditwatch-us-idUSWNA372820110714" target="_blank">statement</a> that says, among other things, that merely raising the debt ceiling is not enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States’ credit rating, triggering market instability and causing the interest rate on U.S. debt to skyrocket. </blockquote>On July 18, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/635837/ratings_agencies_threaten_the_u.s._with_disaster_--_are_lawmakers_listening" target="_blank">I expanded on S&P's warnings in a piece for Alternet</a>:
<br /><blockquote>Late Thursday, the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/market-ratings-creditwatch-us-idUSWNA372820110714">released a statement</a> announcing that merely raising the debt ceiling will not be enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States' credit rating for the first time in <a target="_blank" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576445731595487202.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_News_BlogsModule">seventy years</a>, potentially causing the interest rate on both government and private debt to skyrocket and destabilizing the entire economy. Remarkably, the statement also prescribed the specific numbers and conditions that would allow the U.S. to avoid such a catastrophe: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some "mix" of spending cuts and tax increases, and must involve concessions by both sides (a strong hint that the G.O.P. must consider closing tax loopholes, as well as a repudiation of Eric Cantor's assertion that <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/jul/12/hoyer-slams-cantor-over-gop-debt-concession/">merely attending negotiations</a> is the only concession the GOP intends to make).</blockquote><blockquote><p name="paragraph3" id="paragraph3">In short, Standard & Poor's has put G.O.P. lawmakers on notice that if they take the easy way out instead of making the "Grand Bargain" that Obama has advocated for, including tax increases, they may be responsible for disrupting the U.S. economy.</p><p name="paragraph4" id="paragraph4">The S&P statement clearly states that merely raising the debt ceiling, or implementing a deficit-reduction package in the $1-2 trillion range, will not be enough to prevent a costly rating downgrade, because it would show that the country is not serious about tackling the deficit....</p></blockquote><p name="paragraph4" id="paragraph4"></p>And on July 19, here on VichyDems, <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/standard-poors-underscores-merely.html" target="_blank">I discussed S&P's July 15 warning</a>, which neither I nor any MSM reported had noticed immediately:
<br /><blockquote>A <a href="http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245315232186">Standard & Poor's report</a> dated July 15, the day after it threatened to downgrade U.S. debt if a debt-bending deal is not reached, underscores <a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/635837/ratings_agencies_threaten_the_u.s._with_disaster_--_are_lawmakers_listening">what I've been writing about</a>: that merely lifting the debt ceiling, or authorizing a so-called "Debt Commission" to propose further spending cuts by the end of the year, is not enough to ensure that U.S. debt is not downgraded to AA status, with enormous "knock-on" effects to the rest of the economy.</blockquote>
<br />I don't blame S&P for doing its job (identifying borrowers that are no longer as reliable as they used to be). Does anyone on Earth believe the U.S. is, indeed, as safe and reliable a borrower as it was in, say, 1999, when we had both a balanced budget and enough of a budget surplus to begin re-investing in education and infrastructure? In fact, by trying to warn U.S. politicians of the problem and avoid a downgrade, S&P was actually bucking pressures to aggressively downgrade flimsy AAA debtors, because there's currently far <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/should-we-worry-about-a-aaa-rated-debt-bubble/242025/">too much false AAA debt in the market</a> right now. (That fact also answers the correct but irrelevant complaint that S&P and the other major credit-rating agencies contributed to the bad economy by failing to correctly identify the riskiness of AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities in the past. True, the agencies blew that call -- but the lesson they (properly) learned is to not take healthy-looking debtors at face value. A wise agency, burned once by a AAA credit bubble, should be more willing to downgrade AAA debt in the future -- exactly as S&P has just done.)
<br />
<br />Standard & Poor's is just the messenger. It did exactly what it said it would do (and tried to avoid doing). The House G.O.P. is who refused to endorse a "clean bill" early, before S&P became an issue; the House G.O.P. is who refused to accept the "Great Compromise" that both Obama and S&P clearly wanted; the House G.O.P. is who refused to accept any new revenues in the immediate deal (though new revenues starting in 2013 are <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/08/democrats-powerful-negotiating.html" target="_blank">embedded in the plan</a>), thereby showing S&P that they were not (in S&P's word) "serious."
<br />
<br />Don't shoot the messenger. Shoot the people who ignored the message.
<br />
<br />UPDATE, Aug. 5, 7:00 pm PT: Harry Reid, at least, is seeing the political leverage this provides; his office just issued the following statement:<b><span style="Times New Roman","serif"font-family:";font-size:12.0pt;" >
<br /></span></b><blockquote><b><span style=" Times New Roman","serif";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >REID: S&P ACTION SHOWS NEED FOR BALANCED APPROACH TO DEFICIT REDUCTION</span></b> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span style=" Times New Roman","serif";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ></span><b><span style=" Times New Roman","serif";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Washington, D.C.-</span></b><span style=" Times New Roman","serif";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" > <i>Nevada Senator Harry Reid issued the following statement following the decision by S&P to downgrade the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+:</i></span></p> <span style=" Times New Roman","serif";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >“The action by S&P reaffirms the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners. This makes the work of the joint committee all the more important, and shows why leaders should appoint members who will approach the committee’s work with an open mind - instead of hardliners who have already ruled out the balanced approach that the markets and rating agencies like S&P are demanding.”</span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />UPDATE, Aug. 8, 2011: Standard & Poor's held a conference call this morning to explain its decision. Full audio of that call can be found <a href="http://wiretaps.typepad.com/warranted_wiretaps/2011/08/standard-poors-explains-the-us-downgrade-press-conference-call.html" target=blank>here</a>, as well as an excerpted clip of S&P's global Managing Director of Sovereign Debt Ratings saying that S&P's "upside scenario" is for the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy to expire. That alone, said S&P, would restore the U.S. rating from "outlook negative" to "outlook stable."
<br />
<br /><span style="font-size:.70;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-89596313972892504442011-08-02T16:24:00.000-07:002011-08-03T10:28:27.582-07:00The Democrats' Powerful Negotiating AdvantageSome otherwise-savvy people are obsessing on how awful the debt ceiling/budget-bending deal is, and are especially hung up on the fact that the Deal contains no new taxes (whether cast as "new revenues," "canceling tax expenditures," "revenue increases," "closing loopholes," "tax reform," etc.). In reality, however, the Deal not only has new taxes embedded in it, but it's slanted heavily to the Democrats' advantage in future negotiations. Both the new taxes and the negotiating advantage are so obvious to me that I almost suspect some Progressives feel such a disconnect between the nearly infinite promise Obama displayed in the heady days of 2008, and his actual, imperfect performance when confronted with the actual demands of office, that they are emotionally unable to admit that, this time around, Obama may have negotiated a really good deal for Democrats.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong: I agree wholeheartedly that, <span style="font-style: italic;">emotionally</span>, this doesn't FEEL like a good deal for Democrats. But as Stephen Colbert explained brilliantly in his very first show, it's conservatives who make decisions based on how the <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/24039/october-17-2005/the-word---truthiness?redirect=true" target="_blank">truthiness</a> feels; if liberals have anything going for them, it's the ability to understand and accept truth even when it doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">feel</span> like truth. So, as a professional mediator who trusts that liberal prefrontal cortices are beefier than liberal amygdalas, let me try to explain why Democrats are in a pretty darn good negotiating position right now:<br /><br />Let's start with the reasonable assumption that Congress doesn't have the stomach to get into a huge new budget/tax brouhaha before the Joint Committee created by the so-called "Satan Sandwich" has a chance to meet and make its recommendations. (Avoiding such a fight is why Congress punted to a committee in the first place.) That means that the Committee's likely outcome is the main variable affecting the final outcome.<br /><br />There are three broad options available to the Joint Committee: a mutual agreement that may affect entitlements but also raises taxes; a deadlock; or a Democratic cave-in. (Note that I didn't consider a G.O.P. cave-in; it's not their style.) Let's look at each option in turn:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OPTION ONE:</span> The Committee does its job and agrees on a mutually-painful package of additional spending cuts (possibly including entitlement "reforms" of some kind) plus tax reforms, including closing loopholes and canceling tax expenditures, to increase revenues.<br /><br />Liberals will disagree about whether any Democratic concessions were reasonable, and it is entirely possible that the Democratic negotiators will surrender too-large cuts to social programs or entitlements -- but any deal that raises taxes <span style="font-style: italic;">unquestionably</span> will infuriate the GOP's Tea Party base and would seriously compromise its ability to demagogue budgets/deficits/Big Gubmint in the 2012 election. Regardless of how the Democratic base feels about Democratic concessions, any deal that allows the Dems to claim equal credit for fiscal responsibility, while stoking Tea Partiers into apoplexy over the GOP "traitors" who've whored away their tax-purity pledge, would be so palatable to independents (and bond-rating agencies) and so destabilizing to Republicans that Obama would almost be guaranteed reelection and <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html" target="_blank">Nancy Pelosi could well be restored to the Speaker's chair</a>.<br /><br />That's why I've <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html" target="_blank">referred</a> to even a tiny tax increase as a "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8" target="_blank">wafer thin mint</a>": the GOP's House majority would explode if they brooked it. And if Dems control the House, then under the Constitution they get to initiate all spending, and the remaining nine years of this illusory "ten year plan" would suffer terminal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration" target="_blank">defenestration</a>.<br /><br />Option One: net win for Democrats.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OPTION TWO: </span>The Republican delegates to the Joint Committee refuse to do anything that the Tea Party might construe as "raising taxes." The Democratic delegates refuse to do anything liberals might consider harmful to entitlements. Both sides hang tough. The Joint Committee stalemates.<br /><br />In the event of a stalemate, the "triggers" set forth in the Satan Sandwich automatically go into effect. Those cuts hit both sides -- but they don't hit Democrats in any vital organs. In fact, in electoral terms, they hurt Republicans more than they do Democrats.<br /><br />(I don't want to get bogged down in discussions of cuts here, but in brief: the "triggers" include nasty cuts in domestic discretionary spending -- but, under the explicit terms of the Deal, Social Security and Medicare are exempt from those cuts, except for a 2% reduction in payments to providers, who primarily are a Republican constituency. But while the Democrats' key constituencies among Social Security and Medicare recipients would be relatively undisturbed, key Republican constituencies -- defense contractors and Tea Party-dense, military-dependent communities located primarily in conservative states and districts -- will be subjected to deep, automatic cuts.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">But the action's not on the cuts side of the equation, folks: it's on the revenues side.</span> Republican negotiators entered the debt ceiling negotiations under the assumption that current tax rates were the baseline for measuring the next decade's tax impacts. If a deal simply continued current rates for the next ten years, it was "revenue neutral" in their eyes.<br /><br />But that's not what current law says! Current law slates the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012. What Republicans considered a "tax neutral" baseline actually would have been a huge tax cut when compared to the rates current law prescribes from 2013 forward. And that, in a nutshell, is why Obama and Boehner couldn't agree on a deal that raised taxes today: they don't even agree on what ruler to use.<br /><br />But the law is the law, and the truth is the truth: if Congress is so dysfunctional that it does absolutely nothing but name post offices between now and 2013, tax rates will increase dramatically. Obama didn't need to gain a single concession from the Republicans in order to win "new revenues"; to both prevent a Presidency-jeopardizing economic collapse and win the "new revenues" he said he wanted, all he needed to do was exit the negotiations with a deal that prevented the nation from default and left current law in place.<br /><br />Let me repeat that, because people don't seem to realize its importance: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Current law slates the 1991 and 1993 Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012. Obama didn't need to gain a single concession from the Republicans in order to win "new revenues" -- all he needed to do was exit the negotiations with a deal that prevented the nation from default and left current law in place.</span><br /><br />Which, of course, is what this deal does.<br /><br />So here's what Option Two (Joint Committee deadlocking) really does: it imposes spending cuts on both domestic spending that Democrats favor and defense spending that Republicans fetishize; it nevertheless protects the entitlements that are totemic to the Dem base; in electoral terms, it gores the Republicans' ox more than the Democrats'; and it results in automatic, across-the-board tax increases totaling roughly $3.5 trillion over the next decade.<br /><br />Option Two: win for Dems.<br /><br />[UPDATE, 8/3: Dave Weigel confirms <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/08/02/can_the_supercommittee_screw_republicans_over_taxes_.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/08/03/the_supercommittee_s_tax_trap_continued.html" target="_blank">here</a> that the bill itself mandates current law, not current rates, as the baseline. See comments for discussion of some interesting, I think unintentional, consequences of this.]<br /><br />It's hard to imagine even the most azure canine conservaDem not getting giggly over this kind of negotiating advantage. If the Committee reaches agreement that includes tax hikes, the GOP loses its base. If the Committee deadlocks, taxes return to pre-Bush levels and the budget balances itself in just a few years. Those are two very good outcomes for Dems.<br /><br />Or, of course, there's what the Left's Cassandras expect to happen:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OPTION THREE:</span> The Republican delegates to the Joint Committee demand both spending cuts and entitlement "reforms" that painfully cut benefits to the poor and the elderly. The Democratic delegates ask for tax hikes in return, but the Republicans steadfastly refuse. Despite the clear advantages that simply announcing "hung jury" would bring them, the Democratic delegates instead simply cave in.<br /><br />There's no real reason why they would cave in, except for the fact that (as Paul Krugman keeps saying and Glenn Greenwald has <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/01/debt_ceiling/index.html" target="_blank">painstakingly cataloged</a>) Obama and those in his camp actually are closet Republicans who love spending cuts and know nothing about John Maynard Keynes and don't believe in fiscal stimulus and have decorated their private bathrooms with little framed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve#Origin_of_the_term_.22Laffer_Curve.22" target="_blank">cocktail napkins signed by Arthur Laffer</a> and probably agreed with Ralph Nader back in 2000 that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and, I suppose, think that John Kerry really was a coward in Vietnam, too. [UPDATE 8/03: In fairness to GG and PK, yes, I'm speaking hyperbolically -- but not as hyperbolically as I wish.]<br /><br />In this view, it's a given that the Democratic delegates will give away the farm in exchange for absolutely nothing of value, because that's what Krugman and the folks at FireDogLake say Obama Dems always do. Option Three is inevitable, because Democrats suck and Obama is governing "<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/obama-nixon/" target="_blank">to the right of Richard Nixon</a>" and his supporters are "<a href="http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/07/14/about-that-mcconnell-deal/" target="_blank">the dumbest motherfuckers in the world</a>." And then, even though Barack Obama retains the power to veto a bill that gives the Republicans everything and the Democrats nothing, he doesn't veto it. Because, again, he's a terrible negotiator who secretly hates liberal ideals anyway.<br /><br />Option Three: Democrats suck, and (as the Teapartiers have said all along, but in reverse) Obama's a Manchurian candidate bent on selling us out, so of course <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWX9-_zvsBQ" target="_blank">the Republicans win, as always. Sigh</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">___________________________<br /></div><br />Of course, the endgame probably won't be decided by the Joint Committee at all. The Committee will meet and issue a report, but there's plenty of time for the parties to negotiate a different compromise after the Committee reports but <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span> either the automatic triggers or the automatic tax hikes go into effect. And there's some legitimate fear, based on Obama's past less-than-steely negotiating history over the public option and the last extension of the Bush tax cuts, that here is where a bad deal for Democrats may be made.<br /><br />But the contours of any alternative agreement will be shaped by the likely outcomes of the "triggers" scenario -- what we mediators call the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, or BATNA. In other words, neither party is likely to negotiate an agreement that's worse than the outcome of NOT reaching an agreement.<br /><br />Under the deal President Obama just negotiated, Democrats' BATNA is a survivable set of spending cuts, a diminished Pentagon budget that hurts Republican home states and districts, automatic tax hikes that almost guarantee a balanced budget in less than a decade (reinforcing the Democratic narrative that, as Bill Clinton showed, Democratic Presidents are better fiscally than Republican ones), and a Republican base that's furious -- as an election looms -- at its own representatives for allowing those tax hikes to occur.<br /><br />With a good BATNA like that, even poor Democratic negotiators almost can't help but cut a good deal for themselves. And (flipping around and looking at things from the other perspective), with a lousy BATNA like theirs, even the hardest-nosed, most regressive Republican negotiators have little choice but to accept some sort of spanking -- for instance, by letting Dems raise taxes on the richest Americans while preserving low tax rates for the middle class.<br /><br />Yes, Option Three might happen -- if D.C. Dems are the utter fools a few pundits claim them to be. And if they let themselves be beaten that badly as this plays out, I'll be among the first to label them fools.<br /><br />But Options One or Two are far, far, FAR more likely. And instead of wrapping themselves in sackcloth and ashes, crying in woe and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4q6eaLn2mY" target="_blank">beating themselves up</a> for their leaders' factitious sins, Progressives would be wiser to join ranks and work together to pressure Reid and Pelosi with one simple, bridge-building demand: that the Democratic side of the Joint Committee be represented by reasonably intelligent liberals who understand how much leverage their President has given them in this deal -- and have the toughness to play out that good hand.<br /><br /><span style=""><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-69460608840403293182011-08-02T10:19:00.000-07:002011-08-02T13:51:43.864-07:00Why It's a NOUGAT-FILLED Satan Sandwich<span style="">Yes, the Deal is clumsy and unsatisfying, kicks the can down the road, and is an embarrassment to a supposedly functional democracy -- a "<a href="http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/08/02/whats-in-a-satan-sandwich/" target="_blank">sugar-coated Satan sandwich</a>." But it's still a Democratic win, because it leaves the probability of Republicans, suicidally, at election time, either agreeing to tax hikes (in the Joint Committee) or allowing tax hikes to happen (by letting the Joint Committee deadlock, causing all Americans' taxes to increase automatically).<br /><br />That is, it's a Democratic win IF progressives can keep their sh*t together, stop the idiotic and nonproductive internecine warfare between so-called Firebaggers and Obamabots, and pull together to demand that the Joint Committee include true Democrats who'll hold firm rather than Blue Dogs and Vichies who'll surrender on the <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html" target="_blank">electorally all-important new revenues issue</a>.<br /><br />Here, in a highly sophisticated graphical format developed after over one minute of communications-strategy research and diligent labor, is why the Satan Sandwich contains a nummy, pro-Democrat nougat center:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_0yAz0gby-sw4iba9sjwisRdSqstjOXfdR94YfrhdZbz6jXURxmrsN2NsjnnP522-wUxbuJiYo4XqpjJNPCRZ8GUxDL2q7C0s_XkyYaQxiWWQZVnIxia_1zjsEFxm8wSvOJjI/s1600/NOUGAT-FILLEDsatansandwich.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 309px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_0yAz0gby-sw4iba9sjwisRdSqstjOXfdR94YfrhdZbz6jXURxmrsN2NsjnnP522-wUxbuJiYo4XqpjJNPCRZ8GUxDL2q7C0s_XkyYaQxiWWQZVnIxia_1zjsEFxm8wSvOJjI/s400/NOUGAT-FILLEDsatansandwich.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636312627148091682" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-16872061952051561372011-07-29T14:35:00.000-07:002011-07-29T16:58:02.919-07:00The Christian-Rock Roots of the G.O.P.'s "No Compromise" RigidityIn a televised speech on July 24, Barack Obama <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/25/bloomberg1376-LOX31B1A1I4H01-5EAPV9AO3H1BCG8T8EIT5B4FM7.DTL#ixzz1TWrJ2Jys" target="_blank">said</a> that Americans are "fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word." But some Americans believe that "compromise" is not just a dirty word, but a sinful one -- a belief that is rooted at least partly in conservative Christian theology and Christian rock music.<br /><span style=""><br />In politics, there always have been varying degrees of acceptable compromise, depending on the individual and the issue. And, yes, some people are less flexible (1964's Barry Goldwater, preaching that "extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice!", comes to mind), and some issues are less negotiable, than others. On the other hand, the purist absolutism of "no compromise <span style="font-style: italic;">whatsoever</span>" seems to be a modern phenomenon -- and the refrain "no compromise" has exploded since Barack Obama was elected President. </span><br /><br />In <span style="">October 2010, </span>Rep. <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/10/28/127045/gop-reject-compromise/" target="_blank">Mike Pence</a> (R-IN) said that earlier Republican majorities had allowed "altogether too much compromise" and <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/125383-republicans-say-compromise-not-on-the-agenda" target="_blank">promised</a> that “there will be no compromise” if Republicans took control again (as they did). John Boehner, discussing how he would work with Barack Obama if he became Speaker, <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_10/026352.php" target="_blank">promised purity</a>: <span style="">"</span>This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles.” <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/10/issa-defines-compromise-on-top-line.html" target="_blank">Darrell Issa</a> tried to redefine the term into meaninglessness: "You know, the word 'compromise' has been misunderstood,” he said, clarifying that his job will be “Getting America back to the center right where it exists.” <span style="">And those leaders' "no compromise" stance has seeped its way down to the grassroots, so that, for example, a gun-rights advocate <a href="http://wyominggunowners.org/about/what-is-compromise/" target="_blank">can write</a>, </span>"One of the reasons our system of government has lost its way is legislators fail to stand on principle and instead give into compromise."<br /><br />The refrain is at the heart of the current debt ceiling impasse. <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/28/ron-paul-calls-on-supporters-to-lobby-gop-leadership-for-no-compromise/#ixzz1TWlXTZOI" target="_blank">Ron Paul</a>: "“What you and I need is someone who stands for conviction over compromise.” <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/eric-cantor-on-the-chance-for-tax-compromise-this-year-no-video.php" target="_blank">Eric Cantor</a>, asked "is there any compromise you can make on taxes?," answered "No"; his position is that <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/jul/12/hoyer-slams-cantor-over-gop-debt-concession/" target="_blank">merely showing up at negotiations</a> is compromise enough. Michelle Bachmann is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/gop-presidential-candidates-cool-to-boehner/2011/07/26/gIQAbeGtbI_blog.html" target="_blank">sending signals</a> that no compromise is acceptable. Rush Limbaugh, quoting Ayn Rand, <a href="http://www.therightscoop.com/rush-there-is-no-compromise-with-obama/" target="_blank">asked</a> "where do you compromise between food and poison" and, later, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/rush-limbaughs-advice-to-republicans-you-hold-the-cards-dont-cave-and-dont-compromise/" target="_blank">advised the G.O.P. to hang tough</a>, saying, "winners do not compromise" -- a statement Fox News calls an "<a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/rush-limbaugh/2011/07/29/hot-video-rush-unleashes-epic-rallying-cry-conservatives" target="_blank">epic rallying cry</a>." A right-wing blogger <a href="http://visiontoamerica.org/tag/no-compromise/#ixzz1TWnaY300" target="_blank">states straightforwardly</a>, "Republicans must never attempt to compromise with Democrats."<br /><br />No compromise. No compromise. No compromise. That phrase sounded oddly familiar -- and then I remembered why.<br /><span style=""><br />In 1982, I was college roommates, and good friends, with a born-again Christian. My friend (I'll call him "Matt") was a very good guy: a hard studier, wryly and intelligently funny, an exuberantly bonecrunching flag football player, always happy to pop open a few beers on a sunny afternoon or do serious damage to a bottle of V.O. while we played cards. Although he was a "born-again," conservative in his interpretation of the Bible, and sincere about his faith, he wasn't intolerant of others -- and, significantly, his faith didn't infect his politics; the professional Christian Right simply hadn't advanced that far yet. (Once, when we listened to some audiotapes of a then-unfamiliar Jerry Falwell, he agreed with me that Falwell was strangely shrill and theologically unsound, and was uncomfortable with his God-and-Mammon blending of religion, politics, and fundraising.)<br /><br />But while Matt wasn't an extremist back then, he was at least a prototype of future extremists -- the subject of an early-Reagan-era experiment in conservative religio-political engineering. Early political fundamentalists like Falwell, Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson, and related groups like Young Life and Dobson's Focus On The Family, were starting to use Christian radio and books and campus organizations, not to save souls, but to see whether the religious integrity of good people like Matt could be twisted into political servience -- whether, by cleverly marketing certain issues that blended morality and politics, like abortion, people like Matt could be convinced that conservative politics and conservative Christianity were branches of the same vine, so that they would sweat, bleed and even die for conservative politicians as if they were angels of the Lord Himself.<br /><br />Of course, they succeeded.<br /><br />An early sign of the religiopolitical messaging that was pushed on people like my friend back in the late '70s and early '80s was a seminal album by the immensely talented and influential Christian musician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Green" target="_blank">Keith Green</a>: 1978's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-Compromise/dp/B000SZBJFW/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1311977999&sr=8-5" target="_blank">No Compromise</a>."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepNcuxLyhkPobm7YYjQOMd-wVgwfN2_rbhuvRd7LfxHxZyfDswHagEYrzbobwBZK84xyqcS35dEEfGRoVubm70hES5eqcZ5J8WuYl2t1JYN8qqiiv9UGOBVh_RBrLAY9Z1y4i/s1600/01.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepNcuxLyhkPobm7YYjQOMd-wVgwfN2_rbhuvRd7LfxHxZyfDswHagEYrzbobwBZK84xyqcS35dEEfGRoVubm70hES5eqcZ5J8WuYl2t1JYN8qqiiv9UGOBVh_RBrLAY9Z1y4i/s400/01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634902210242523250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=""><br /><br />"No Compromise" was tremendously successful on the Christian rock charts, helped establish Christian rock as an economically viable market, and influenced countless later musicians. After Green died in a plane crash in 1982, both his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-Compromise-Story-Keith-Green/dp/1595551646/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311977999&sr=8-1" target="_blank">biography</a> and a tribute album also were named "No Compromise," the phrase Green believed summed up his entire religious philosophy:</span><i>"No Compromise is what the whole Gospel of Jesus is all about..."</i> And, apparently disregarding copyright laws, innumerable later Christian musicians gave their albums the same name.<br /><br />Although the surface meaning of Green's "No Compromises" statement may have been religious, it always had political overtones. The original album cover didn't show a Christian refusing to bow down to a pagan idol, along the lines of Robert Service's poem "<a href="http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/4409/" target="_blank">The Soldier of Fortune</a>." Rather, it showed a crowd bowing down to some kind of <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">political</span> leader, a king or pasha of some sort -- and the Christian in the image is refusing to bow down to <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" target="_blank">him</span>. In other words, "No Compromise" always promoted political wilfulness and resistance, not just religious integrity.<br /><br />My roommate had that album, of course, as well as a T-shirt with the same slogan and a cross. And he talked a lot about what it meant, which to him was that a person of integrity should not only refuse to compromise his faith, but refuse to compromise <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> of his ideals, in <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> circumstances. Over time, his fondness for the phrase turned him from a reasonable, spiritual person into a rigid, inflexible moralist -- with "moral" being defined only by the people and ideas he considered authoritative. Sadly, the very independence that he had (rightly) treasured as a moral good had been twisted, psychologically, into the very subservience to worldly men that he considered unfaithful to his God and wanted passionately to avoid.<br /><br />Since then, "No Compromise" has continued to serve as right-wing religionists' version of "No Fear!" or "Just Do It!" -- but it also has spread to the political world. The slideshow below has a sampling of "No Compromises" images, showing how the phrase has expanded from a niche Christian pop album, to church youth groups and advertisements, to Tea Party and anti-immigration symbolism, and even to become the logo of an international military weapons manufacturer. And, to the extent it has shaped the ethics of a generation of (now middle-aged) social conservatives who now serve, lobby, petition, and fundraise for the G.O.P., how it has become the Republican Party's counterproductive maxim for how to govern in a diverse, secular democracy. <span style=""><br /><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=https%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fmsbellows%2Falbumid%2F5634888999776381937%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCODDs7bwvuTo3AE%26hl%3Den_US" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" height="400" width="600"></embed><br /><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-55364947085346719992011-07-29T09:33:00.000-07:002011-07-29T10:54:39.636-07:00The Debt Ceiling Debacle, Explained in Popular Video<span style="">You've all been extraordinarily patient with my how-many-angels prognostications and general debt-ceiling wonkiness. And I understand that some people (timid, weak-minded souls, or without access to unlimited Valium) might consider the prospect of the collapse of the world's greatest democracy and the implosion of the global economic system to be A Bad Thing. So, I've decided you deserve a bit of cheering up.<br /></span><span style=""><br />Nearly all my recent, wonky posts on the D.C. debacle have contained links to video clips that help illustrate my points. Below, I've collated these clips (and a couple of new ones) into a sort of "tick tock" or "explainer" of the debt ceiling debate as it stands today. Enjoy! Learn! And don't tell the M.P.A.A.! </span><span style=""><span> <br /></span></span><ul><li><span style=""><span>Barack Obama offers the Republicans everything they could ever want in a bill</span>, so long as they also accept just one tiny little tax hike (that the Tea Party would rebel against). C'mon, just one little tax hike -- "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8" target="_blank">It's wafer thin!</a>" (originally in <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html" target="_blank">this post</a>)</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="">The G.O.P., which initially thought it was being clever by linking the debt ceiling to spending cuts, begins to realize that it has made a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfWDilXZQEo" target="_blank">classic blunder</a>. (originally in same post as previous)</span><br /></li></ul><ul><li><span style=""> John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, and Grover Norquist begin to realize what a trap Obama set for them, and hold this meeting (secretly videotaped) to brainstorm clever ways out. ("<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4D00nSAmD4" target="_blank">Put that thing away, you're gonna get us all killed!</a>") </span><span style=""> (originally in <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/en/standard-poors-gop" target="_blank">this post</a>)</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style=""> The parties play chicken, racing each other to that August 2 deadline. As the cliff approaches, Boehner suddenly realizes both that his own caucus won't support his bill -- and also that maybe it wasn't such a great idea to buy that cool motorcycle jacket with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7hZ9jKrwvo" target="_blank">extraneous strap on the sleeve</a>. (originally in <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html" target="_blank">this post</a>)</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style=""> With Boehner locked upstairs in his bedroom crying, serious Wall Street Republicans missing in action, and the Tea Party (lacking adult supervision) breaking into Boehner's liquor cabinet, jumping on the nation's couches and watching "GGW" on pay-per-view, the previously-unified House G.O.P. splinters into combative, ungovernable factions that can't agree on what bedtime should be, let alone on a plan to save America from default. ("<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE" target="_blank">Splitters!</a>") (originally in <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-prime-minister-pelosi-and-american.html" target="_blank">this post</a>)</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style=""> But never fear: Arthur Jensen will now explain why, no matter how Boehner or the Tea Party squirm and squeal, the debt ceiling WILL be lifted and the markets WILL be saved. ("<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmuhZY2mgs" target="_blank" target="_blank">I have seen the face of God!</a>") (originally in <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2006/05/arthur-jensen-makes-it-all-perfectly.html" target="_blank">this post, from 2006</a>)</span></li></ul><span style=""><br />So keep your chin up! I'm confident that even our dysfunctional government will muddle through somehow. Meanwhile, </span><span style=""> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB8XDk3sQBc" target="_blank">don't panic</a>! Instead, </span><span style="">just remember to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ" target="_blank">always look on the bright side of life</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-50250753253202022492011-07-28T16:41:00.000-07:002011-07-28T16:55:07.298-07:00How Prime Minister Pelosi and the American Parliament Can Solve the Debt CrisisThe main functional difference between the U.S. Congress and a parliament is that in Congress the coalitions are formed before the election, while in a parliament they're formed afterward. Many Americans envy the plethora of parties found in parliamentary democracies (Labour! Conservatives! Christian Democrats! Greens! <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE">The People's Front of Judea</a>!), without realizing that we have just as many minor parties as they do. <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The truth is, American politics are as rife with factions as anyone else. Religious-conservative <a href="http://buriedtreasurebooks.com/PrairieMuffinManifesto.php">Prairie Muffins</a> have nothing in common with the uber-rich hedonists who fund the Heritage Foundation, but both are Republican; union autoworkers have no natural affinity for Birkenstocked environmentalists, but both tend Democratic. What we call "The Right" actually is a grab-bag of paleoconservatives, Tea Partiers, Christian Dominionists, Libertarians, gun nuts, and a handful of LaRouchies (who, like Zoroastrian fundamentalists or Bruce Willis, don't realize they're ghosts yet). On what we call "The Left," nominally like-minded liberals perpetually respond to electoral success by devolving immediately into warring clans: Obamabots versus Firebaggers, resurrected New Democrats (who, I gather, seem to have <a href="http://nolabels.org/talking-points">snipped the labels</a> out of their Izods) shoving things to the right while Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader pray for someone to primary Obama from the left. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In a Parliament, each of these groups would comprise its own political party: Democrats, Republicans, New Democrats, Greens, Tea Partiers, Dominionists, etc. And before the Parliamentary election, they would be studiously separate. Each would win some seats in Parliament, but most of the time none would win an absolute majority, so after the election, coalition-building would begin: Republicans and Democrats alike would woo the Libertarians by pitching small government and personal freedom, respectively; Dems would send Jim Wallis as an envoy to try and peel off a few Dominionists by appealing to social justice issues. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sometimes the politics of Parliamentary coalition-building make very strange bedfellows, as in the British Parliament today (where the governing coalition was formed by what in America would be Republicans and Greens). But horses would be traded, a majority would be cobbled together, and that strange coalition would elect the new Prime Minister.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In America, we think we do things differently -- but we don't. We simply conduct our coalition-building and odd-bedfellow-matchmaking BEFORE the popular election instead of afterward. This is clearest during Presidential primaries, where each candidate effectively represents a minor sub-party (e.g., Romney representing the center-right, Bachman the Tea Party, Pawlenty the often-overlooked Boring Vote). Those sub-party primary candidates fight not only to win the nomination, but also to claim a place for their constituents in the final administration. (That's why can't-win candidates still find it worthwhile to enter the fray.) As each back-runner drops out, he or she horse-trades with the front-runners, exchanging their endorsement (and their faction's votes) for some position or increment of power in the new regime. That's how primary losers wind up being Vice-Presidents or Secretaries of State: they have traded their own coalition's support to help form the governing majority, in exchange for a slice of the power. And whoever builds the largest coalition wins the election. It's the same as Parliament, but done before the popular election rather than after it. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That's a long introduction to a very short thought, which is this: sometimes Congress can function like a Parliament, with the coalition-building occurring after the body is constituted. Whenever Republicans win the votes of Blue Dog Democrats, that's Parliamentary-style coalition-building. Whenever Democrats peel off the moderate <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/12/993801/-Snowe,-Collins:-No-Medicare,-Social-Security-cuts-in-debt-deal">Maine Twins</a>, that's Parliamentary-style coalition-building. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's very possible that late this week or early next, the U.S. House of Representatives will transform itself into the House of Commons. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is in a death spiral: unable to control the Tea Party branch of his own caucus, bearing most of the popular blame for the debt ceiling debacle, stalked from behind by Eric Cantor, reduced to griping publicly about <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20083269-503544.html">how much his job sucks</a>, his grip on the Speakership itself slipping away -- and, since no one really fears the threats or trusts the promises of a soon-to-be ex-Speaker, he seems to have lost the clout even to pass his own weak debt-ceiling bill through the house he nominally leads. In short, his coalition is falling apart. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In a parliament, this is precisely the moment when someone would shout "no confidence!" and call for new elections. The factions would reshuffle: the Tea Party would support Eric Cantor for Speaker, but more adult Republicans, aware of how deathly serious a default and debt downgrade would be, would look elsewhere for a champion. And if a No Confidence vote were held in the House of Representatives today, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans would have a simple majority. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But if the Republican brand is failing, there remains one faction in the House that could form itself a majority government: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Adults. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You know, serious politicians who are able to look into the abyss and have the sense not to plunge into it. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Congress-turned-Parliament would allow allow the factions in Congress to reshuffle, create a new majority comprised of strange bedfellows allied for a common (if sadly ephemeral) purpose, prevent a catastrophic default next Tuesday, and possibly even hammer out a deal to bend the medium-term debt curve so that Standard & Poor's and Moody's don't downgrade the U.S. debt by the end of the summer (which they will do if we only lift the debt ceiling). All it would take is for Nancy Pelosi to step up, craft a reasonable, non-punitive debt ceiling/spending bill, and pitch it to the adults in the room. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A good Pelosi "grown-ups" bill would do three things: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1) Lift the debt ceiling until after the elections; </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2) Sail into Standard & Poor's <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/standard-poors-underscores-merely.html">non-downgrade safe harbor</a> by both cutting $2.5 trillion or so in spending over the next decade and by raising slightly under $1 trillion in new revenue by simply closing some of the more egregious tax expenditures and loopholes and trimming back the spendthrift Bush tax cuts on the rich (goring both liberals and conservatives -- but like it or not, S&P's threat must be responded to); and </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3) Firewall any significant cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare until at least 2013. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That bill could be supported, albeit with predictable griping, by every House Democrat. And it already is <span style="font-style: italic;">privately</span> supported by many 24 House Republicans; all that Pelosi needs is to get 24 of them to step up and support it publicly. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Tea Party would scream bloody murder. Rush Limbaugh would lambaste the "traitorous twenty-four." So what. For some Rs, the remaining good and serious ones, those blasts would be badges of honor.<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yes, Boehner could prevent a Pelosi solution from coming to the floor -- but Boehner, with nothing left in his toolkit, the world's economy on the bubble, his "friend" Eric Cantor at his throat, his Speakership (if not his seat) already lost, 24 Republicans begging him to get out of their way, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which is on Obama's side in this fight) <span style="font-style: italic;">instructing</span> him to <span style="font-style: italic;">damn well</span> get out of the way, may well allow such a bill to be voted on. Again, he doesn't love the Tea Party; he hates it, and he is beholden first to Wall Street, which has been <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/13/after-months-of-planning-obama-mobilizies-big-business-in-debt-talks/">collaborating with Obama</a> to force Boehner into this precise predicament to <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html">hobble the uppity Tea Party</a>. Push come to shove, Boehner would (probably tearfully) allow the vote. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And if he did, then he and those 24 "turncoat," patriotic Republicans would save the nation's economy, and possibly the world's. Boehner would, most likely, see that his Speakership is lost, and retire. The 24, depending on their districts, would either win re-election as common-sense pragmatists and move on to brilliant careers as pragmatic, common-sense centrists, or would lose their seats and move on to lucrative jobs offered by an eternally grateful Wall Street (which, again, is firmly in the "solve this problem" camp). For all of them, life would go on. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Democrats plus 24: that's all it takes to solve this problem. All it would take to make it possible is for Pelosi to recognize that as the Republican caucus crumbles into its constituent factions, Congress briefly becomes the House of Commons -- giving her the chance to craft a new majority from the rubble of the G.O.P. </p> <span style=""><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-86294212101561123272011-07-22T15:18:00.000-07:002011-07-22T15:23:54.679-07:00Reprise: How Obama is Pwning Boehner in Debt Talks<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As I watch Barack Obama, live, telling the nation that John Boehner has walked out of debt negotiation talks, I am feeling both optimistic and prescient. For convenience, I'm excerpting the "predicting the future" portion of <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html">this post (on this same site) from July 13,</a> which I believe is holding (and will continue to hold) true:</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Admittedly, Obama might not be able to pull off his hat trick. In particular, if the House were to cut its losses, abandon negotiations altogether and unilaterally pass a clean, stand-alone, two-year debt ceiling increase, it would be hard for Harry Reid not to allow a similar bill to pass the Senate, and even harder for Obama to veto it (though if he has nerves of steel he could do so, and force the House Republicans to accept a package of spending cuts and tax increases in the minutes before their midnight deadline). But in the meantime, Obama will keep slapping pucks at the G.O.P.'s beleaguered orange goalkeeper, trying to go three for three.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If winning a landslide reelection and reclaiming the House are indeed his true objectives, look for Obama to do the following: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Keep Taking Republicans to the Boards: </span>At this point, this is full-contact politics. Look for Obama to keep up the hard play. <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/13/obama-storms-out-of-debt-limit-talks-with-republicans/">Today's body blow</a>: Obama rejected one version of a debt ceiling increase, "insisted on one comprehensive deal" (i.e., one including tax increases), threatened to veto any short-term approaches, promised to "stake his presidency" on the issue, and walked out of a meeting with Canter. Look for more of the same.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Divide and conquer:</span> Obama's game depends on splitting the Tea Party Caucus from the Wall Street gray eminences, and foolish ideologues like Cantor from pragmatists like Boehner. Look for him to exploit every opportunity to drive wedges -- as he did today when he walked out of a meeting with Cantor, to Boehner's almost certain aggravation. If Obama's plan is working, on the other hand, look for ideological freshmen like Mike Lee (R-UT) to <span style="font-style: italic;">stop</span> saying <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/gop-freshman-mcconnell-ruined-our-leverage-on-the-debt-limit-which-obamas-holding-hostage.php">stupid, divisive things</a> -- a sign that their elders are explaining how the world really works. And also look for the better strategists on the G.O.P. side to air increasingly desperate plans to avoid being forced to raise taxes -- which will, in turn, bring fresh waves of outcry from party purists.To aggravate Republicans' internal divide, also look for Obama to uncharacteristically toss darts and jibes at the TeaParty to aggravate it further, at least until the deal's down to the short strokes.<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Move to the Right on Debt:</span> If the G.O.P. suggests a clean debt ceiling increase, Obama will co-opt the "debts matter" argument and, with less-politically-savvy purists like Paul Krugman screaming epithets at him, will demand budget cuts (and, by the way, just one <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8">wafer-thin</a> little tax increase!) as part of any deal. He will reiterate, over and over, that if not now, when? He will, to the dismay of the people at FireDogLake, adopt Frank Lautenberg talking points, crying that he does not want Sasha and Malia to inherit debt simply because John Boehner isn't willing to cut spending (with, again, just one tiny, insignificant tax increase attached).<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Appear to be Caving on Cuts and Entitlements:</span> Perversely, if Obama is focused on retaking the House, he will temper his hard-line position on tax increases by being almost ridiculously open to spending cuts and entitlement "reform" that his base considers intolerable. There are several reasons for this. First, the "raising taxes" pill is so poisonous that nearly any sacrifice that leads to them swallowing it is worthwhile. Obama is willing to eat a lot of garbage in exchange for the Republicans swallowing one teeny, tiny little tablet of cyanide. Second, any major cuts that pass the House must still pass the (Democrat-controlled) Senate. Finally, regaining both Houses of Congress opens the possibility of Democrats repairing any damage to entitlements that today's deal causes. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Almost inexplicably, keep avoiding a "clean vote" on the debt ceiling:</span> Even down to the last minute. Good games of chicken <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7hZ9jKrwvo">take it all the way to the edge of the cliff</a>.</p><br />Finally, how will we know if Obama has completely pwn3d the G.O.P.? Easy: the House of Representatives will, before the default deadline, pass a negotiated package that lifts the debt ceiling, contains something that can be characterized by wingnuts as a tax increase, and infests the G.O.P.'s 2012 platform's "debt hawk" plank with so much dryrot that it will be unsafe for them to stand on it.</blockquote><span style=""><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-41936560503675128292011-07-19T12:32:00.000-07:002011-08-05T17:40:41.108-07:00Standard & Poor's Underscores: Merely Lifting Debt Ceiling is NOT Enough to Preserve AAA CreditA <a href="http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245315232186">Standard & Poor's report</a> dated July 15, the day after it threatened to downgrade U.S. debt if a debt-bending deal is not reached, underscores <a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/635837/ratings_agencies_threaten_the_u.s._with_disaster_--_are_lawmakers_listening">what I've been writing about</a>: that merely lifting the debt ceiling, or authorizing a so-called "Debt Commission" to propose further spending cuts by the end of the year, is not enough to ensure that U.S. debt is not downgraded to AA status, with enormous "knock-on" effects to the rest of the economy. The salient portion, with my emphasis added:<br /><blockquote>The action on the U.S. government's 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term ratings reflects our view of two issues: the failure to raise the federal debt ceiling so as to ensure that the government will be able to continue to make scheduled payments on its obligations, <span style="font-weight: bold;">and our view of the likelihood that </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Congress and the Obama Administration will agree upon a credible, medium-term </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">fiscal consolidation plan in the foreseeable future</span>. (See "United States Of America 'AAA/A-1+' Ratings Placed On CreditWatch Negative On Rising Risk Of Policy Stalemate," published July 14, 2011.)<br /><br />As it stands, we see at least a one-in-two likelihood that <span style="font-weight: bold;">we could lower the </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">long-term rating on the U.S. within the next three months-–by one or more </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">notches, into the 'AA' category–-if we conclude that Washington hasn't reached </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">agreement on the latter of these two issues</span>.</blockquote>Let's repeat that: S&P is likely to downgrade U.S. debt if the nation either fails to lift the cap or fails to reassure ratings agencies that it's serious about "credible, medium-term fiscal consolidation" -- i.e., bending the debt curve. And S&P's <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/market-ratings-creditwatch-us-idUSWNA372820110714">earlier report</a> clearly defined "credible, medium-term fiscal consolidation plan" as one in the roughly $4 trillion range, involving some "mix" of spending cuts and revenue enhancement, involving compromises by both parties, put in place sooner rather than later.<br /><br />In other words: not the McConnell plan (which merely lifts the debt ceiling, albeit in a complicated way); not the Reid-McConnell plan (which lifts the debt ceiling and makes small spending cuts but otherwise kicks the can down the road to a so-called "deficit commission"); and not "Cut, Cap & Balance" (which is pure showmanship, not designed to pass).<br /><br />Meanwhile, the bad news isn't limited to the government itself. The foreseeable "knock-on" effects are already happening: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/15/bloomberg1376-LOE2JS1A1I4H01-1EKC3QIEDUFC7A087FKER8SQ43.DTL">New York Life, Northwestern Mutual</a>, and other blue-chip insurers, and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and home and farm loan banks <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/15/standardandpoors-credit-idUSN1E76E1AK20110715">were placed on notice</a> of possible downgrades Friday, and Moody's placed five states (Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Tennessee) <a href="http://www.moodys.com/research/MOODYS-PLACES-RATINGS-OF-FIVE-OF-15-Aaa-STATES-ON?lang=en&cy=global&docid=PR_222988">on downgrade notice today</a>. Because, as S&P says, "<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/15/bloomberg1376-LOE2JS1A1I4H01-1EKC3QIEDUFC7A087FKER8SQ43.DTL">no financial institution can carry a higher rating or outlook than its sovereign</a>," the entire U.S. economy will be degraded, either directly or indirectly, if the U.S. government is downgraded.<br /><br />Far from being bad actors, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_Recognized_Statistical_Rating_Organization">ratings agencies</a> are trying very hard not to downgrade U.S. debt, even though there is increasing concern in financial markets that there is <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/15/the-horrifying-aaa-debt-issuance-chart/">too much</a> nominally AAA debt out there already. No, the agencies are not the bad guys here; like Paul Revere, they keep sounding the warning (as <a href="http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245315249359">here</a>, <a href="http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245315232186">here</a> and <a href="http://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=646469">here</a>).<br /><br />Is anybody in Washington listening?<br /><br /><br /><span style=""><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-78636008869492032232011-07-17T17:19:00.000-07:002011-07-17T17:20:44.904-07:00Financial Heavyweights Tell G.O.P. to Raise Taxes -- But They're Not Listening<p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">As the president and Congressional Republicans squabble over how to avoid a default on the nation's financial obligations, the financial world's heavy hitters are increasingly signaling that they want the G.O.P. to embrace the $4 trillion "Grand Bargain" preferred by Barack Obama, including revenue increases that some Republicans consider politically suicidal. Yet G.O.P. lawmakers don't seem to be listening, steering instead toward a politically easier solution that appeases the Tea Party but may not be enough to avoid economic catastrophe.</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">Late Thursday, the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/market-ratings-creditwatch-us-idUSWNA372820110714">released a statement</a> announcing that merely raising the debt ceiling will not be enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States' credit rating for the first time in <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576445731595487202.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_News_BlogsModule" target="_blank">seventy years</a>, potentially causing the interest rate on both government and private debt to skyrocket and destabilizing the entire economy. Remarkably, the statement also prescribed the specific numbers and conditions that would allow the U.S. to avoid such a catastrophe: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some "mix" of spending cuts and tax increases, and must involve concessions by both sides (a strong hint that the G.O.P. must consider closing tax loopholes, as well as a repudiation of Eric Cantor's assertion that <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/jul/12/hoyer-slams-cantor-over-gop-debt-concession/">merely attending negotiations</a> is the only concession the GOP intends to make).</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">In short, Standard & Poor's has put G.O.P. lawmakers on notice that if they take the easy way out instead of making the "Grand Bargain" that Obama has advocated for, including tax increases, they may be responsible for disrupting the U.S. economy.</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">The S&P statement clearly states that merely raising the debt ceiling, or implementing a deficit-reduction package in the $1-2 trillion range, will not be enough to prevent a costly rating downgrade, because it would show that the country is not serious about tackling the deficit:</p><br /><blockquote>"U.S. political debate is currently more focused on the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation than it has been for a decade. Based on this, we believe that an inability to reach an agreement now could indicate that an agreement will not be reached for several more years. We view an inability to timely agree and credibly implement medium-term fiscal consolidation policy as inconsistent with a 'AAA' sovereign rating...."</blockquote><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">Standard & Poor's bombshell capped a week filled with communiques from the financial world telling politicians in general to stop posturing and Republicans in particular to be more flexible on taxes. On July 7, a <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18928600" target="_blank">blistering editorial in The Economist</a> took Republicans to the woodshed:</p><br /><blockquote>"[T]he Republicans are pushing things too far. Talks with the administration ground to a halt last month, despite an offer from the Democrats to cut at least $2 trillion and possibly much more out of the budget over the next ten years. Assuming that the recovery continues, that would be enough to get the deficit back to a prudent level. As <em>The Economist</em> went to press, Mr Obama seemed set to restart the talks.</blockquote><br /><blockquote>"The sticking-point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical."</blockquote><br /><p>The Economist even advocated for the tax hikes that Obama has demanded (and which many House Republicans have staked their political careers on refusing):</p><br /><blockquote>"This newspaper has a strong dislike of big government; we have long argued that the main way to right America’s finances is through spending cuts. But you cannot get there without any tax rises. In Britain, for instance, the coalition government aims to tame its deficit with a 3:1 ratio of cuts to hikes. America’s tax take is at its lowest level for decades: even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so.</blockquote><br /><blockquote>"And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look. Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence. The White House is offering an 83%-17% split (hardly a huge distance) and a promise that none of the revenue increase will come from higher marginal rates, only from eliminating loopholes. If the Republicans were real tax reformers, they would seize this offer."</blockquote><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">Last Tuesday, nearly 500 U.S. business leaders, including solidly conservative groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Financial Services Forum, <a href="http://www.financialservicesforum.org/attachments/365_Coalition%20Letter%20to%20President%20&%20Members%20of%20Congress.pdf" target="_self">signed a letter</a> urging both sides to make "hard choices" to adopt a long-term solution, not just a temporary extension of the spending cap. The next day, the rating agency Moody's also warned of a downgrade unless lawmakers negotiated a "<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/13/news/economy/debt_ceiling_moodys/index.htm" target="_blank">substantial and credible</a>" debt-reduction deal.</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">Thursday, as Obama dismissed negotiators to decide over the weekend how they wanted to proceed, Standard & Poor's issued its warning to the federal government, then followed Friday with additional warning that it also may <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/15/bloomberg1376-LOE2JS1A1I4H01-1EKC3QIEDUFC7A087FKER8SQ43.DTL" target="_blank">downgrade the credit ratings of several blue-chip financial firms</a> that are heavily invested in U.S. Treasuries, including New York Life Insurance Co. and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., simply because "no financial institution can carry a higher rating or outlook than its sovereign," and those of some <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/15/standardandpoors-credit-idUSN1E76E1AK20110715" target="_blank">other financial services organizations</a> (including Federal Home Loan and Farm Credit System banks and the mortgage loan guarantee companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that have "direct links to, or reliance on, the federal government." Those warnings are likely to reverberate into the rest of the financial sector over the coming week.</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: medium none; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #000000;">Standard & Poor's remarkably prescriptive warnings, which sound more like World Bank admonishments to a fiscally irresponsible Third World nation than an assessment of the most secure investment on Earth, </span>would seem to be the final blow to beleaguered Republicans' ability to resist any semblance of new taxes. And some senior Republican statesmen have, indeed, been trying to educate the party's junior members about the seriousness of the problem. Former Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici, who helped negotiate the nation's last balanced budget under President Bill Clinton, has teamed with former George H.W. Bush Treasury undersecretary Jay Powell to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/domenici-s-truth-squad-challenges-fellow-republicans-on-debt-cap-debate.html" target="_blank">issue a report</a> saying that tax purists like Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann are "wrong" and calling for Republicans to embrace some tax hikes. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, originally a Bush appointee, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151645/will_obama_finally_play_hardball_in_debt_ceiling_standoff_/" target="_blank">warned House Financial Services Committee</a> that a failure of U.S. Treasury bonds "would throw shockwaves through the entire global financial system."</p><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: medium none; padding: 0in;">But the message does not seem to have penetrated the Republican caucus, which appears irreconcilably split between economic pragmatists and anti-tax ideologues and therefore is continuing to pursue economically inadequate, but politically palatable, solutions:</p><br /><p>Asked by Obama Thursday to return by Saturday with at least a general idea of what direction they would like to pursue, House Republicans <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/171873-gop-leaders-ignore-obamas-36-hour-deadline?utm_campaign=briefingroom&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitterfeed" target="_blank">let the deadline slip</a> and instead plan to spend the next week passing a "Cut, Cap & Balance" bill and balanced budget amendment that do not address the immediate problem and have no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate. In the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reportedly are continuing to work on a "hybrid" plan to temporarily raise the cap and enact smaller spending cuts without tax increases -- precisely the sort of plan that Standard & Poor's has said would result in a downgrade of America's debt -- plus a "<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0717/us.html" target="_self">debt commission</a>" that would consider further deficit reduction measures later, which may or may not demonstrate the kind of "seriousness" that the financial markets say they want. And Senate Minority Whip John Kyl (R-AZ) continues to parrot <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/17/us-budget-ceiling-standoff-default" target="_blank">anti-tax talking points</a>, referring Sunday to the president's "absolute obsession with raising taxes" and "[j]ob-killing taxes." At the other extreme, budget hawk Tom Coburn (R-OK) <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/17/us-usa-debt-snapshot-idUSTRE76G18N20110717" target="_blank">said Sunday</a> that he will offer a plan that closes some tax loopholes -- but his plan seeks to cut a massive $9 trillion by making punitive reductions to entitlements and social programs, and he acknowledges it stands no chance of passing.</p><br /><p>The debt ceiling question has become a proxy war over the soul of the Republican Party, pitting old-school pragmatic conservatives who understand how complex the financial system is against anti-tax and Tea Party ideologues. Wall Street clearly is allying itself with the pragmatists, even if doing so means that Republicans <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html" target="_blank">may suffer electoral setbacks</a> in 2012. Rank-and-file Republicans appear to be struggling to decide which of their impulses is stronger: the desire to help the economy recover, or the desire to retain control of the House of Representatives in the face of Tea Party wrath over tax hikes. If they follow their current course, and if Standard & Poor's keeps its promises, they may wind up with neither.</p><br /><br /><span style=""><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-38052505070555248292011-07-14T18:28:00.000-07:002011-07-14T22:26:27.135-07:00Standard & Poors to G.O.P.: "We'll Downgrade U.S. Credit Rating If You Don't Accept Obama's Offer"<blockquote></blockquote><span style="">Holy cow. This is mind-blowing (and confirms my <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-election-stupid-how-obama-is.html">contention</a> that Barack Obama has been working closely with "Big Money" to pressure the G.O.P. to commit what may be electoral suicide):<br /><br />The credit-rating agency <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/market-ratings-creditwatch-us-idUSWNA372820110714">Standard & Poors has released a statement</a> that says, among other things, that merely raising the debt ceiling is not enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States' credit rating, triggering market instability and causing the interest rate on U.S. debt to skyrocket. What's more, S&P is attaching numbers and conditions to its statement: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some balance of cuts and revenues (ie, tax increases), and will involve concessions by both sides (a thinly-veiled repudiation of Eric Cantor's assertion that <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/jul/12/hoyer-slams-cantor-over-gop-debt-concession/">merely attending negotiations</a> is the only concession the GOP intends to make).<br /><br />In short: the G.O.P. must grow up and accept Obama's offer, including politically suicidal tax increases, or the U.S. economy will tank.<br /><br />The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business leaders <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/13/after-months-of-planning-obama-mobilizies-big-business-in-debt-talks/">already have written</a> to tell John Boehner to stop screwing around and take a deal, the credit-rating agency Moody's had <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-13/u-s-debt-rating-placed-on-review-for-downgrade-by-moody-s-as-talks-stall.html">threatened to downgrade U.S. debt</a>, and a <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18928600">blistering editorial in The Economist</a> last week took Republicans to the woodshed:<br /></span><blockquote>"[T]he Republicans are pushing things too far. Talks with the administration ground to a halt last month, despite an offer from the Democrats to cut at least $2 trillion and possibly much more out of the budget over the next ten years. Assuming that the recovery continues, that would be enough to get the deficit back to a prudent level. As <em>The Economist</em> went to press, Mr Obama seemed set to restart the talks. <p> "The sticking-point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical."</p></blockquote><p></p>The Economist even advocated for the tax hikes that Obama has demanded (but which the GOP knows may cost them control of the House of Representatives in 2012):<br /><br /><blockquote>"This newspaper has a strong dislike of big government; we have long argued that the main way to right America’s finances is through spending cuts. But you cannot get there without any tax rises. In Britain, for instance, the coalition government aims to tame its deficit with a 3:1 ratio of cuts to hikes. America’s tax take is at its lowest level for decades: even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so. <p> "And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look. Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence. The White House is offering an 83%-17% split (hardly a huge distance) and a promise that none of the revenue increase will come from higher marginal rates, only from eliminating loopholes. If the Republicans were real tax reformers, they would seize this offer."</p></blockquote><p></p>Coming on top of this, <span style="">S&P's remarkably detailed statement -- almost a prescription for what Congress must do, much as the World Bank instructs third world nations to adopt austerity measures -- may be the final blow to beleaguered Republicans, who are tasked tonight and tomorrow with deciding which way to proceed with debt ceiling negotiations -- but who now appear to have little choice in the matter.<br /><br />A fascinating side question is whether the Obama administration had a role in whether or when S&P issued its statement -- and when Obama knew that the statement would be issued. </span><span style="">It's already been reported that the Obama Administration <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/13/after-months-of-planning-obama-mobilizies-big-business-in-debt-talks/">primed the financial community</a> months ago to put pressure on the G.O.P. (There's some benefit to having Wall Street insiders on the Cabinet!)<br /><br />Earlier today, Obama appeared to retreat from his previous hard-line, must-raise-taxes position, and asked Republicans to choose which of three options they preferred: (1) work toward $4 trillion in total debt reduction over the next decade, including some tax increases and closed loopholes; (2) settle for a lower, $1.5-1.7 trillion debt reduction without tax increases; or (3) Mitch McConnells' complex plan that essentially simply raises the debt ceiling without any deficit reduction.<br /><br />While Obama was making that seemingly-generous offer, however, Standard & Poors was preparing to issue its report announcing that options (2) and (3) would be ruinous to financial markets and to the nation's ability to borrow -- i.e., that only Obama's first option, the $4 trillion, must-increase-taxes plan he has pushed for all along. Taking it all together, I strongly suspect Obama knew the S&P report was coming and timed the day's events perfectly, coming away looking more reasonable than ever while making sure that the Republicans' <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4D00nSAmD4">box is getting smaller and smaller</a>. </span><br /><br />The key portion of the Standard & Poors <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/market-ratings-creditwatch-us-idUSWNA372820110714">report</a> is printed below:<br /><br /><blockquote>"We expect the debt trajectory to continue increasing in the medium term if a medium-term fiscal consolidation plan of $4 trillion is not agreed upon. If Congress and the Administration reach an agreement of about $4 trillion, and if we to conclude that such an agreement would be enacted and maintained throughout the decade, we could, other things unchanged, affirm the 'AAA' long-term rating and A-1+ short-term ratings on the U.S. </blockquote> <span id="midArticle_12"></span> <blockquote><p> "Standard & Poor's takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might agree on. But for any agreement to be credible, we believe it would require support from leaders of both political parties. </p> <span id="midArticle_13"></span> <p> "Congress and the Administration might also settle for a smaller increase in the debt ceiling, or they might agree on a plan that, while avoiding a near-term default, might not, in our view, materially improve our base case expectation for the future path of the net general government debt-to-GDP ratio. U.S. political debate is currently more focused on the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation than it has been for a decade. Based on this, we believe that an inability to reach an agreement now could indicate that an agreement will not be reached for several more years. We view an inability to timely agree and credibly implement medium-term fiscal consolidation policy as inconsistent with a 'AAA' sovereign rating, given the expected government debt trajectory noted above. </p> <span id="midArticle_14"></span> <p> Further delays in raising the debt ceiling could lead us to conclude that a default is more possible than we previously thought. If so, we could lower the long-term rating on the U.S. government this month and leave both the long-term and short-term ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications pending developments."</p></blockquote><p></p> <span style=""><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-61828441168107215842011-07-13T20:27:00.000-07:002011-07-14T09:24:11.303-07:00It's The Election, Stupid: How Obama is Leveraging Debt Ceiling Negotiations to Win Reelection and Regain the HouseThe drama unfolding in Washington the past few days has nothing to do with the debt ceiling. It doesn't even have to do with the federal budget. Barack Obama's noble, President-of-both-parties overwillingness to compromise since 2009 seems to be giving way to a leaner, meaner, more Machiavellian campaign mindset, and Candidate Obama appears to have his eyes set not only on his own reelection but on engineering a Democratic re-takeover of the House of Representatives, using the debt ceiling negotiations as his chosen, and carefully pre-surveyed, battlefield. <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The G.O.P.'s Three Weaknesses</span>:<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the G.O.P. has had a very good run in Washington: they have persuaded Americans that "liberal" is a dirty word, retained the "fiscal conservative" moniker despite octupling the national debt, and rebounded after presidential setbacks in 1992 and 2008 by exploiting Clinton's and Obama's nonexistent "coattails" to gain impressive new Congressional majorities. But while the conservative juggernaut has been formidable, the Republicans have made three blunders in the past thirty years that exposed their vulnerabilities and knocked them profoundly off their pace. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Here are the G.O.P.'s three "classic blunders," the errors that for them are the political equivalents of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfWDilXZQEo">getting involved in a land war in Asia</a>:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1. Running a weak Republican for President against a charismatic, Kennedy-esque young Democrat; </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2. Shutting down the government, as Newt Gingrich did in 1995-6; and</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3. Breaking a promise not to raise taxes (which cost George H.W. Bush reelection in 1992). </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The G.O.P. can't help but repeat blunder number 1 in 2012: the G.O.P. field is weak, and Obama will be the Democratic candidate. Obama is now maneuvering to force them to make blunders 2 and 3, as well -- a "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat-trick">hat trick</a>." If he succeeds, the result -- and, most likely, his objective from the start -- will be not only his reelection, but Democratic control of the House of Representatives as well.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Here are the clues, tea leaves and puzzle pieces that support this analysis: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama Finds a Spine and Keeps Insisting on Raising Taxes</span>: Until now, Obama has been over-quick to buy in to Republican frames. Republicans argue that the debt is too high (even though it's not); Obama agrees that the debt is too high and counterproductively supports budget cuts during a recession. Republicans say that healthcare should still be paid for privately; Obama agrees and doesn't even allow singlepayer advocates a seat at the healthcare reform table. Republicans argue that tax cuts are the key to an effective stimulus package; Obama agrees and squanders nearly half the stimulus on tax cuts. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But now Republicans are screaming that taxes shall not be raised -- and Obama, for the first time, is pushing back and insists that a tax increase is his one non-negotiable. Yet, strangely, Obama is not adamant about how large the tax increases ("revenue enhancements") must be; he is blithely willing to accept spending cuts that are disproportionately larger than any tax increases; all he really demands is that there must be some tax increases. He even signals a willingness to carve large, bloody chunks out of sacred cows like Social Security and Medicare and throw them on the grill for Republicans' dining pleasure -- if only the Republicans will just accept some itty, bitty little tax increases. And, at the same time, the G.O.P. suddenly seems panicked about the issue. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Why is Obama so hell-bent on increasing taxes, when conventional wisdom in an election (and a recession) says that's suicidal? And why is the G.O.P. suddenly turning pale and insisting gaspingly that it "will not, will not, will not EVER!" submit to increasing taxes, like a maiden hopelessly proclaiming her eternal chastity before a horde of slavering Mongols?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Poppy Bush. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In 1988, the first President Bush won the White House largely on the strength of a single, clear promise: "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5DZBFbMdjI">read my lips: no new taxes</a>." Then, being a well-educated, old-school Republican and a pragmatist (who had called Reagan's supply-side theories "Voodoo Economics"), he adapted to changing circumstances and agreed some tax increases were necessary. His base exploded, his supporters stayed home on election day, and Bill and Hillary evicted George and Barbara after only one term. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The entire G.O.P. freshman class has, in more or less identical words, taken the same pledge as George H.W. Bush, and the Tea Party, like Grover Norquist but without his political sophistication, has made "no new taxes" its latest line in the sand. It's a binary, black-white, either-or test: either you increase taxes or you hold the line, and if you choose wrong, we will jettison you and back someone with more commitment to the anti-tax cause. And because a <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/freshmen-republicans-push-house-toward-right/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter">larger than usual proportion</a> of the current G.O.P. majority are freshmen, and because freshmen are especially vulnerable in their first reelection, the G.O.P. majority is highly vulnerable to being overturned in 2012. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Obama knows this -- and so do the G.O.P.'s (relative) grown-ups, who now realize they're in a box and are looking desperately for a way out. That's why Boehner complained bitterly today that the only thing Obama is inflexible on is "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6X2nWc-aB0">these damn tax increases</a>." That's why, as Brian Beutler has astutely observed <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/mcconnell-debt-back-up-plan-gives-dems-opportunity-to-break-gop-anti-tax-hegemony.php?ref=fpa">here</a> and <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/author_blogs/2011/07/why-grover-norquist-supports-mcconnells-big-debt-punt.php">here</a>, even anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist has figured out what's happening and is moderating his absolutism to help the Republicans escape Obama's trap. That's also why the Wall Street Journal, always the oracle of Big Money and even more so now that it is part of Rupert Murdoch's propaganda machine, is <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576442231815463502.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop">defending</a> Mitch McConnell's strange debt-ceiling proposal (which is simply a device for surrendering to Obama without having to raise taxes, made intentionally overcomplex in hopes that the Tea Party rank-and-file won't realize what's going on). </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Obama is forcing the G.O.P. to pull a Poppy and break their pledge. The G.O.P. knows that it will pay a terrible price if it does so. But, when the final seconds tick their way to a default, those wiser G.O.P. heads also know that they will follow the financially-sensible bidding of Big Money rather than the suicidal bidding of the spoiled children who think they run the Tea Party, and will do what Obama (and Wall Street) demand -- after which they will start privately telephoning friends in important places to look for job openings beginning in January, 2013. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. In a Tie, The Call Goes to the Democrat:</span> But, you say, isn't Obama under the same pressure as Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, so that he's as likely to hit the brakes as they are before the nation drives off the cliff?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Nope.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">True, Obama doesn't want the U.S. to default. But he has skilfully positioned himself as the more reasonable player by offering tax cuts much larger than his proposed tax increases, by leaking to the Washington Post and others that he is willing to alienate his base by gouging Medicare and Social Security, and by manipulating the Republicans into huffily walking out of negotiations (and into Obama's trap). The majority of Americans will blame Republicans, not Obama, for any default -- and both sides know it. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">History bolsters this conclusion. The last time a Democratic President and an ideologically purist Republican Congress allowed a stalemate to shut down the government, Republicans lost in the public's mind (and those Republicans, the infamous "Contract With America" class led by Newt Gingrich, was then voted out of office, allowing Democrats to regain the House). A default now will be much, much more harmful than the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_of_1995_and_1996#Result">brief shutdown that occurred in 1995-1996</a> , and the negative consequences for Republicans will be proportionately worse as well. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In the leadup to the current negotiations, Boehner tried to position the G.O.P. differently than Gingrich did in 1995, but he clearly has failed. Politically, Obama has less to lose than the Republicans do -- and, as one of my father's truisms says, you should never get in a fight with someone who has less to lose than you do. In Boehner's nightmares, he could go down in history as the man who allowed the nation to double-dip into the Second Great Depression and permanently stripped the G.O.P. of the "fiscal grown-up" label it has claimed since before WWII. He won't take that risk.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Wall Street will not allow the G.O.P. to cause a default:</span> Pundits and talking heads keep focusing on the Tea Party's likely reaction to a tax increase, forgetting that fiscally there is another, more deeply imbedded, subtler but infinitely more mercenary influence on Republican politics: Big Money. Big Money -- Wall Street, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the myriad networks of individual donors and independent campaign ad funders and potential post-Congressional-career employers that are the G.O.P.'s (and, to be fair, half of the Democratic Party's) true constituents -- calmly allows its minions to showcase and speechify and engage in tiny, irrelevant acts of political theater to meet the needs of the political moment, but the ground of Big Money's existence is the integrity of the financial system. Are big banks about to go under? D.C. is mobilized overnight, ideology is set aside, and supposed free marketeers like John Boehner <a href="http://blog.reidreport.com/2010/09/flashback-john-bailout-boehner-cries-begs-colleagues-to-vote-for-bank-bailout/">tearfully</a> beg Congress to intervene in the free market to bail them out. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If Big Money can make conservative congresscritters scramble to serve its will when a few banks are on the bubble, what do you think it can accomplish when the integrity of the U.S. government -- the ground of the U.S. financial system's being, the issuer of public tender and surety of U.S. businesses' credibility in world markets -- is in jeopardy? Answer: anything it wants. Big Money can tell Boehner to step down and retire, and he will. It can tell Paul Ryan to jettison his budget, and he will. It can tell Eric Cantor to back down from his hardcore rhetoric, and Ron Paul to silently brook a larger federal government, and they will. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The pressure's already building -- the normally pro-Republican U.S. Chamber and other business leaders, carefully prepped and cultivated by the Administration well in advance of this crisis (!), already have started <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/13/after-months-of-planning-obama-mobilizies-big-business-in-debt-talks/">leaning on Republicans to take a deal</a>, and Moody's is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-13/u-s-debt-rating-placed-on-review-for-downgrade-by-moody-s-as-talks-stall.html">threatening to downgrade U.S. securities</a>. If Obama can sustain his bluff to the bitter end, the G.O.P. will do whatever it takes to prevent a default, because their masters are telling them to do so. (And don't believe Cantor's assertion that passing a bill raising taxes is impossible: the unofficial "Wall Street Caucus" has always been larger than the Tea Party Caucus, and combined with House Democrats, who outnumber Tea Party Caucus members three-to-one, can easily pass whatever is needed.) </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The process of persuading the G.O.P. to accept the inevitable has already begun; it's precisely the slowly-dawning realization that Republican control of the House is at stake that's making G.O.P. leaders look so shaky lately. It's why Mitch McConnell has, remarkably, proposed an alternative bill that would actually increase the power of a Democratic president -- and why Obama has rejected the offer. It's why the White House adamantly refuses to accept any short-term, pressure-relieving solutions. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Admittedly, Obama might not be able to pull off his hat trick. In particular, if the House were to cut its losses, abandon negotiations altogether and unilaterally pass a clean, stand-alone, two-year debt ceiling increase, it would be hard for Harry Reid not to allow a similar bill to pass the Senate, and even harder for Obama to veto it (though if he has nerves of steel he could do so, and force the House Republicans to accept a package of spending cuts and tax increases in the minutes before their midnight deadline). But in the meantime, Obama will keep slapping pucks at the G.O.P.'s beleaguered orange goalkeeper, trying to go three for three.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If winning a landslide reelection and reclaiming the House are indeed his true objectives, look for Obama to do the following: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Keep Taking Republicans to the Boards: </span>At this point, this is full-contact politics. Look for Obama to keep up the hard play. <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/13/obama-storms-out-of-debt-limit-talks-with-republicans/">Today's body blow</a>: Obama rejected one version of a debt ceiling increase, "insisted on one comprehensive deal" (i.e., one including tax increases), threatened to veto any short-term approaches, promised to "stake his presidency" on the issue, and walked out of a meeting with Canter. Look for more of the same.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Divide and conquer:</span> Obama's game depends on splitting the Tea Party Caucus from the Wall Street gray eminences, and foolish ideologues like Cantor from pragmatists like Boehner. Look for him to exploit every opportunity to drive wedges -- as he did today when he walked out of a meeting with Cantor, to Boehner's almost certain aggravation. If Obama's plan is working, on the other hand, look for ideological freshmen like Mike Lee (R-UT) to <span style="font-style: italic;">stop</span> saying <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/gop-freshman-mcconnell-ruined-our-leverage-on-the-debt-limit-which-obamas-holding-hostage.php">stupid, divisive things</a> -- a sign that their elders are explaining how the world really works. And also look for the better strategists on the G.O.P. side to air increasingly desperate plans to avoid being forced to raise taxes -- which will, in turn, bring fresh waves of outcry from party purists.To aggravate Republicans' internal divide, also look for Obama to uncharacteristically toss darts and jibes at the TeaParty to aggravate it further, at least until the deal's down to the short strokes.<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Move to the Right on Debt:</span> If the G.O.P. suggests a clean debt ceiling increase, Obama will co-opt the "debts matter" argument and, with less-politically-savvy purists like Paul Krugman screaming epithets at him, will demand budget cuts (and, by the way, just one <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8">wafer-thin</a> little tax increase!) as part of any deal. He will reiterate, over and over, that if not now, when? He will, to the dismay of the people at FireDogLake, adopt Frank Lautenberg talking points, crying that he does not want Sasha and Malia to inherit debt simply because John Boehner isn't willing to cut spending (with, again, just one tiny, insignificant tax increase attached).<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Appear to be Caving on Cuts and Entitlements:</span> Perversely, if Obama is focused on retaking the House, he will temper his hard-line position on tax increases by being almost ridiculously open to spending cuts and entitlement "reform" that his base considers intolerable. There are several reasons for this. First, the "raising taxes" pill is so poisonous that nearly any sacrifice that leads to them swallowing it is worthwhile. Obama is willing to eat a lot of garbage in exchange for the Republicans swallowing one teeny, tiny little tablet of cyanide. Second, any major cuts that pass the House must still pass the (Democrat-controlled) Senate. Finally, regaining both Houses of Congress opens the possibility of Democrats repairing any damage to entitlements that today's deal causes. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Almost inexplicably, keep avoiding a "clean vote" on the debt ceiling:</span> Even down to the last minute. Good games of chicken <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7hZ9jKrwvo">take it all the way to the edge of the cliff</a>.</p><br />Finally, how will we know if Obama has completely pwn3d the G.O.P.? Easy: the House of Representatives will, before the default deadline, pass a negotiated package that lifts the debt ceiling, contains something that can be characterized by wingnuts as a tax increase, and infests the G.O.P.'s 2012 platform's "debt hawk" plank with so much dryrot that it will be unsafe for them to stand on it.<br /><span style=""><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-38377092401047759092011-05-13T11:37:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:09:18.216-07:00How Much More French Can You Get?<span style=""><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-bush-reacts-publicly-osama-bin-laden-death/story?id=13592860">George W. Bush says</a> that when Obama called to tell him that Osama bin Laden had been killed, </span>"I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies." <span style=""><br /><br />Rise Nº1 in Dallas (<a href="http://www.risesouffle.com/">www.risesouffle.com</a>) sounds like a very nice restaurant. And Rise's "chef extraordinaire, Chef Cherif" probably grills a mean ribeye on his day off.</span><span style=""> But as Rise </span><span style="">Nº1's own homepage shows, </span><span style="">nothing says "French" like a good Texas soufflé:<br /><br /><br /><span style=""><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvsE9Or6YB3ySTcbLjppa0Af3PQxGJ474kxonzXB01i6I_chUsURf6g6Igidxgw6TB0C0qh96SO2BxvtZj5TZ_kfbRJC0ON4ANJb_e3XYnKA_R4Yykos7Qvjx_coUx7PIfBdLJ/s1600/rise2.jpg"><span style=""></span></a><span style=""><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZtdakns8-BzIoYLUs_IQ5CR1L7qh7dmtuqlOI0JN8USnT_e6SDyUQcTJQJ7g97ImshVNjnSetPSYtg780ZqGvcThPX0QTOyNQ-6CTy2-iv1QxTrUICMcDe88b-4JdF8A1BEU/s1600/rise3.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZtdakns8-BzIoYLUs_IQ5CR1L7qh7dmtuqlOI0JN8USnT_e6SDyUQcTJQJ7g97ImshVNjnSetPSYtg780ZqGvcThPX0QTOyNQ-6CTy2-iv1QxTrUICMcDe88b-4JdF8A1BEU/s400/rise3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606285876653173682" border="0" /></a></span><br /></span><br />So when that arugula-nibbling, stealth-Muslim Kenyan imposter Barack Obama was double-tapping bin Laden, the man on whose watch 9/11 happened (and whose first oil company was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbusto_Energy">funded by the bin Laden family</a>) was dining on puffy eggs rather than steak and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_fries">Freedom Fries</a>.<br /><br />How much more French can you get?<br /><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-52592092591985355122011-03-03T18:37:00.000-08:002011-03-03T18:50:55.672-08:00A Friend Buys Into A Fox News Meme; I ReplyA conservative friend, a fellow search-and-rescue volunteer, blasted out the following email today, cut-and-pasting a new Fox News Channel/conservabot email meme about Congressional pensions and federal-worker student loan forgiveness. Normally I just chuckle and delete, but because this person is tremendously goodhearted and well-intentioned in all things, in this case I researched and replied. Since my reply (and especially my written-to-persuade-rather-than-fight dissection of Fox News, at the very end) might help someone else, I figured I'd post the exchange.<br /><br />First, my buddy's email:<br /><br /><blockquote>Subject: 28th Amendment to the Constitution<br /><br />Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."<br /><br />No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get 50% of their pay. While politicians hold their political positions in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and receive full pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.<br />Monday on Fox news they learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?<br /><br />35 States file lawsuit against the Federal Government, Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.<br />This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on. This is an idea that we should address.<br />For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Health Care Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.</blockquote><br />My reply:<br /><br /><blockquote>Hi, [SAR-buddy-old-pal]. I know we have different political views, which is something I love about [SAR unit] (and America!). However, I've been pretty immersed in political journalism since 2008 -- mainly writing about the inside politics of how journalists spin the news. I love the saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts -- and this email has its basic facts wrong.<br /><br />The real story is that highly-qualified new hires like staff lawyers, forensic accountants, etc. often have large student loan burdens that often prevent them from taking jobs in the public sector, which pays them much less than the private sector does. If you're a newly-graduated, Harvard-trained lawyer with $300,000 in debt, will you take a job as a federal judicial clerk ($54,000) or with a Wall Street law firm ($170,000)? Even if you want to work in the government, you might not be able to afford to.<br /><br />To help them recruit those top-level workers, federal agencies are allowed to offer student loan forgiveness -- but only if the employee doesn't quit or get fired, performs adequately, etc. There are similar proposals for inner-city schoolteachers, public health nurses, etc. And the agency has to make the loan payments itself, i.e., if the agency didn't pay the loan it likely would need to increase the salary so the employee can pay the loan. <a href="http://www.myduhawk.com/2011/03/03/congress-gets-student-loan-cuts/">http://www.myduhawk.com/2011/03/03/congress-gets-student-loan-cuts/</a>. And there's a cap on how much can be forgiven. It's still a good deal for a lot of kids fresh out of school, but it's nothing evil.<br /><br />Similarly, it's not true that Congresscritters get 100% of their salary in pension after one term. Congresspeople contribute to their own pensions; to get any pension benefit at all they must serve at least 5 years (so, yes, a senator earns minimal benefits in his first term, but representatives don't earn any until their third term); they can't earn the maximium amount (80%, not 100%) until they've served longer periods; and they don't draw anything until they reach retirement age (which varies according to a years served/age of retirement formula). There are 535 members of Congress at any given time; turnover in the House (where members must be re-elected every 2 years) is fairly high; there are lots of former Congresspeople; yet only about 400 former members of Congress TOTAL were receiving pension benefits as of 2006 (the year of the study I saw), and the average pension of those retiring under the system that's been in place since 1987 (and is still in place) was only $35,952. <a href="http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm">http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm</a>; <a href="http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30631.pdf">http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30631.pdf</a>. It's still a pretty kick-ass pension, and I'd love to have it, but it's not giving away a gold mine.<br /><br />I think part of the problem here is that not everyone understands what Fox News was designed to be: a political actor, not a journalism or news outlet. Don't get me wrong: I have no objection to them having an editorial slant -- everyone has one, and at least Fox admits it! But internally, and among journalists, Fox itself is pretty open about their main job being to package "news" in a way that influences elections and sway public opinion. Fox News' president, Roger Ailes, has no background in journalism at all: he was a political consultant for Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Giuliani. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes</a>. Rupert Murdoch, of course, is a money guy, not a news guy. It's not even a secret; Fox postponed starting a news channel in Canada while it tried to get a law against lying on news shows repealed -- and is abandoning that project altogether now that Canada has decided to keep that law in effect. (Imagine if we had that law!) <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/fox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/fox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html</a>.<br /><br />So the bad news is, Fox News is not a reliable source of information, and wasn't ever intended to be one. Double-check everything. The good news is, the world's not going to hell in a handbasket as fast as you thought.<br /><br />Hope you take this in the spirit in which it's offered!<br /><br />S.</blockquote><span style="font-size:0.7px;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-13441146085823500422011-02-07T17:10:00.000-08:002011-02-07T17:20:00.602-08:00Ding, Dong, the DLC is Dead.The Democratic Leadership Committee, flagship of incremental, triangulating "centrist" liberalism since the 1980s, is <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/07/rip_dlc/index.html">closing its doors</a>, thank God. Now if only its <a href="http://www.thirdway.org/">ideas</a> would die. (Yes, I'm talking about you, ThirdWay.)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:0.7px;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-44221474745517702312010-10-14T13:37:00.000-07:002010-11-17T17:05:35.516-08:00Eleventy-Dimensional DADT Chess(Updated below, Nov. 17, 2010)<br /><br />It's certainly possible that Barack Obama plans to appeal District Judge <a href="http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/Cacd/RecentPubOp.nsf/bb61c530eab0911c882567cf005ac6f9/4f03e468a737002e8825779a00040406/$FILE/CV04-08425-VAP%28Ex%29-Opinion.pdf">Virginia Phillips' ruling</a> holding Don't Ask, Don't Tell ("DADT") unconstitutional. Doing so would be a strong, and historically conventional, assertion of the Presidency's ultimate right as Commander in Chief to decide how the military will operate.<br /><br />But a White House <span style="font-style: italic;">threat</span> to appeal the federal court ruling doesn't necessarily mean that the White House <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> appeal that ruling. Nor does the White House's request today for a temporary <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69D5HQ20101014">stay</a> of that ruling while it "decides" whether to appeal. The United States has <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frap/rules.html">60 days to appeal</a> any ruling against it, and it might be wise for it to pretend it may appeal the ruling until the last minute, to increase pressure on conservative Democrats to toe the party line and vote to repeal the entire DADT law during the upcoming, post-election "lame duck" session of Congress.<br /><br />Obama has made no secret of his preference for overturning DADT legislatively rather than through the courts. A single trial judge in California can be dismissed by conservative pundits as "activist" and demagogued endlessly in tomorrow's culture wars. What's more, a single judge's ruling has no precedential value should other courts be asked to decide similar but jurisdictionally distinct issues in the future. A legislative decision to overturn DADT, on the other hand, could only be reversed if both a future Congress and a future President chose to re-impose military bigotry, after gay soldiers already are incorporated openly into the military and over the predictable filibuster. In other words, the Congressional solution Obama seeks would be better from a P.R. perspective AND stronger legally than merely letting the District Court ruling bear the weight alone.<br /><br />But even though it would be better for Congress, the President, and the federal courts all to condemn DADT rather than have the decision made by a single judge, the problem of how politically to obtain that sweeping condemnation remains.<br /><br />The political problem is that if the Justice Department doesn't appeal Judge Phillips' injunction, the pressure on Congress to repeal DADT dribbles away. Remember that just last month, Democratic senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/09/senate-blocks-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell/1">voted against ending the GOP's pro-DADT filibuster</a> -- but <span style="font-style: italic;">only after reserving their votes until the very end of the hearing, and confirming that the motion would fail anyway</span>. In other words, they likely would have voted to repeal DADT if there had been a chance of actually succeeding, but chose not to rile their more conservative constituents in a lost cause.<br /><br />If DADT is already dead by court order, conservaDems and moderate (or precariously closeted) Republicans aren't likely to go out on a limb during the "lame duck" session by voting to drive another stake through its already-dead heart. But if they believe the court's order may not stand, they still may be susceptible to pressure to repeal the underlying law outright. Will they succumb to that pressure, and do the right thing? No one knows, though Lincoln's and Pryor's delay in voting last month is a good sign that those two, at least, are secretly in the "repeal" camp. What is for certain, though, is that the chances of Congress repealing DADT next month are maximized by the White House's pretense of appealing -- or even, if still more pressure was needed, by <span style="font-style: italic;">actually</span> appealing, since that appeal could be dismissed later.<br /><br />Bottom line: the DOJ's and White House's saber-rattling about appealing Judge Phillips' ruling does not necessarily mean they will appeal. Even an actual appeal of that ruling wouldn't necessarily mean the White House is actually unwilling to let Judge Phillips' decision stand in the end. The White House's behavior so far is equally consistent with a negotiating strategy aimed at ramping up pressure on Blue Dogs and other Congressional Panderers-to-the-Right to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell for good. Only time will tell which one it really is.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE, NOV. 17, 2010:</span> DADT repeal remains alive in the Lame Duck Congress -- and the GOP, if no one else (you listening, Dan Choi?), knows that having another crack at it is important to Senate Dems, and therefore is putting a high price tag on letting hearings happen: <a href="http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/dadt-not-dead-yet">http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/dadt-not-dead-yet</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:0.7px;"><br /><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-26456653495963715012010-05-15T10:56:00.000-07:002010-05-15T12:21:24.336-07:00Where should I focus my writing?Over the past 5 years I've blogged in four different places. I'd like to winnow it down, both to bring myself some focus and possibly to work on a blog-to-book project. I know this will take some time, but I would very much appreciate my friends' thoughts on the subject. Here's an overview of my blogging career, and the question that I'm hoping to answer:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://neoprogblog.blogspot.com/">The NeoProgressive</a>:</span> First came The NeoProgressive, an only mildly partisan, idea-based blog arguing for a resurgence of true Progressivism -- not the way the word's used now, as a safer synonym for "liberal," but it the early 20th century sense. A NeoProgressive, in my view, could tend liberal or conservative but would nevertheless be committed to the values that beat back the robber barons and made America great over its second 100 years. You can get a sense of what that blog stands for in <a href="http://neoprogblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/reprise-neoprogressive-philosophy.html">A Neoprogressive Philosophy, Collated</a>.<br /><br />If I were to rejuvenate that blog, my NeoProg philosophy might address such disparate issues as helping Democrats rediscover a unifying base of ideas (as opposed to the "GOP-lite" faux-pragmatist pollwatching that drove the DLC) and exploring ways the populist component of the Teaparty movement (as distinguished from many of its corporate-funded organizers and leaders) could be enlisted to fight against the Citizens United decision, socialization of corporate liabilities (BP), etc. A book growing out of NeoProg could appear to reasonable people across the spectrum, not just Democrats, and would make some use of my "real" training in law and mediation.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/">VichyDems</a>:</span> Then came this blog, VichyDems -- fairly rabid at times, definitely opinionated and partisan, and focused mainly on helping identify and oust those "Democrats" who often work against Democratic principles in the name of "pragmatism." VichyDems dislikes the Democratic Leadership Counsel, hates Rahm Emanuel and reviles Joe Lieberman without restraint. A good example of VichyDems can be read here, in <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2010/01/obama-teddy-perils-of-governing-without.html">Obama, Teddy, and the Perils of Governing Without Conviction</a>.<br /><br />In light of Godwin's Law, it's important to point out that VichyDems has never advocated for "purity tests" -- quite the opposite! The test of a Vichy, IMHO, isn't their political ideology, but their actions in wartime. There are relatively conservative Democrats, especially in purple states, who still believe in moving the cause forward. Bless them, and let's not primary them. But there also are Dems, some reasonably "liberal," who consistently help the other side. They are the Vichies I oppose.<br /><br />The Vichy analogy was very intentional: in occupied France there were many conservative French people who agreed with much fascist ideology but who nevertheless resisted the Nazi occupation -- I'd liken them to some of the more conservative, but still party-loyal, Democrats. Then there were the Vichy French who collaborated with the Nazis. No one cared about their political views; the problem was that they gave aid and comfort to their people's enemy. The test of a Vichy, then and now, is emphatically NOT their ideology, but whether they assist the enemy. It's a misunderstood distinction but one that needs to be repeated nowadays as much as ever, especially as fights spring up among liberals over when it's OK to oppose Obama and when it's important to support him (Exhibit 1: the fervent disagreement over how to characterize Jane Hamsher of <a href="http://firedoglake.com/">FireDogLake</a>).<br /><br />Sort of a sideline, but an important one, was VichyDems' early efforts, in 2006, to press Dem senators to filibuster Samuel Alito. Along with <a href="http://www.democrats.com/">Bob Fertik</a>, we did something no one had done before: tracked the position of every senator, developed game plans for lobbying them, and published their contact information (including their local offices, linking to fax services, etc.). Those strategies are common now, but at the time they were brand new -- MoveOn's use of those tactics followed ours. We succeeded in swaying two senators' votes -- Diane Feinstein, who admitted her vote changed due to unexpected constituent pressure, and Hillary Clinton, who denied her vote had changed even though we documented that it had. But, of course, we lost the war.<br /><br />And even though I strongly supported his later candidacy, VichyDems was among the first to reality-test a new face on the Democratic stage. On January 26, 2006 <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2006/01/add-to-game-plan-call-on-obama-to.html">I wrote</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Apparently Barack Obama, hero of the last Democratic Convention and the front runner for first African-American President, is OPPOSING a filibuster </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.buzzflash.com/index.php?story=Story">"for strategic reasons."</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bullshit. The only strategy the Democrats need to hear is this: YOUR BASE DEMANDS A FILIBUSTER, AND YOU CANNOT WIN WITHOUT YOUR BASE.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Lordy, I'm starting to think they're all Vichys. We need a hero. I had hoped Obama was it.</span> </blockquote>And that's VichyDems' position in a nutshell: even if a pol's in "our" camp, we still can push them to do better, and will. A book growing out of VichyDems would rally the base and call for a leftier Democratic Party, explaining why that's a good (and electorally practical) idea.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows">Off The Bus</a>:</span> During the 2008 election, I was invited to become a national correspondent for The Huffington Post's "Off The Bus" citizen-journalism project, and jumped at the chance. Working with tremendous editors including Amanda Michel and John Tomasic, and overseen by Marc Cooper and Jay Rosen, a dozen or so of us, including Mayhill "Cling To Their Guns" Fowler and Dawn Teo, covered the 2008 election as quasi-professionals. I rode Clinton's campaign bus, was myself filmed by CNBC as I covered Hillary (look, ma, I'm famous!), and attended the Denver Democratic Convention. Huffington Post has been very good to me, and I still have posting privileges there that I will continue to use -- but my regular slot for Off The Bus, called "Warranted Wiretaps," covering the campaigns' press releases and press conference calls, isn't active now.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://wiretaps.typepad.com/">Warranted Wiretaps</a>:</span> Finally, I started my own edition of Warranted Wiretaps on typepad. There, as I did for Off The Bus, I still try to provide readers with access to primary-source news material that normally is available only to what Marcos calls "gatekeepers." My belief is that the American people are smart enough, and interested enough, to listen to entire press conferences etc. and reach their own conclusions about it. But, while I believe that's an indispensable resource in a modern democracy -- and while Wiretaps is the closest thing I have to a true journalistic project, rather than an opinion blog -- I can't keep it going by myself; for Wiretaps to continue, I'd need to find a way to evolve it (and finance it!) into a multiperson endeavor. Wiretaps isn't unopinionated, but in the end its goal is to give access and lets readers decide. Relatively dry, meta-journalism-y posts can be found <a href="http://wiretaps.typepad.com/warranted_wiretaps/2010/02/audio-white-house-threatens-gop-with-reconciliation-but-wont-invest-in-public-option.html">here</a> and <a href="http://wiretaps.typepad.com/warranted_wiretaps/2010/02/insider-audio-wh-officials-unveil-new-obama-health-plan-to-press-before-public.html">here</a>; at the other extreme, an example of how powerful a Wiretaps post can be (drawn from its doppelganger on OffTheBus) concerned <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/anti-acorn-messages-threa_b_136222.html">death threats to ACORN employees</a>.<br /><br />So: NeoProg is nonpartisan, though liberal; it's relatively calm, thoughtful, and looks for ways to build bridges that will result in a more progressive America. VichyDems is partisan, and sub-partisan; it seeks to build the American Left, not as an end in itself but because our country does better when its people have strong beliefs and fight for them. Warranted Wiretaps is an experiment in journalistic transparency: it explores what happens when the gates come down and citizens can see/read/hear raw information for themselves; but it's not sustainable unless it grows. And Huffington Post remains a resource for occasional publication, for which I still and always say, thanks and God bless.<br /><br />I love them all. Each reflects a side of myself. At least two of them (NeoProg and VDems) are good subjects for books (which I'd love to write -- Glenn Greenwald's "How Would A Patriot Act?" showed that blog-to-book can be a great method, if the blog's focus is discrete enough).<br /><br />But I can't do it all, at least not by myself. Should I pick one fast horse and ride it hard? Should I pick two, one for my serious-journo side and the other for rants & opinions? Should I combine them all into one multichannel site of some kind, or would that just window-dress my problem? Should I look to join one of the better small-group blogs out there? Or just diary at DKos?<br /><br />Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions!<br /><br />-ScottM.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-89422260603864798422010-01-20T16:23:00.000-08:002010-01-20T17:14:11.055-08:00Obama, Teddy, & the Perils of Governing Without Conviction<p>Four years ago, I wrote a pair of meditations on my irascible old blog, <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/">VichyDems</a>, warning of the harm that would occur if Democrats regained national power without first abandoning the incrementalist, centrist approach advocated so unsuccessfully by the Democratic Leadership Council and instead returning, consciously and assertively, to their traditional, liberal roots. On the one year anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Obama, and the day after Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat was lost to a conservative male pinup with a pickup truck, my fears about the dangers of trying to govern without referring to fundamental principles seem to be coming true. </p> <p>In the first of those posts, dated March 17, 2006 and titled <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2006/03/overlong-dissertation-on-courage.html">An Overlong Dissertation on Courage, Strategy, Populism, and Respecting the Base</a>, I expressed my fear that governing without boldness and conviction would do more harm than good to Democrats' electoral longevity. I began by explaining why the conventional distinction between "pragmatism" and "purity" is misleading: </p> <blockquote>Some "liberal" bloggers and commenters (and many, many "concern trolls" who love to give bad advice to the enemy) express "concern" (it's almost always that word, "concern") that targeting and ousting "Vichy" Democrats will cost us seats we need to win back one or both houses of Congress.<br /><br />My usual response is this: I don't believe that's the case, because [politicians like] Joe Lieberman ... are more trouble than their seats are worth and if we unseated them, the rest of the caucus would sit up, take notice, and start acting cohesively again, which ultimately will win us a lot more seats than we lose.<br /><br />The Republicans won complete control of government not by running to the center, but by running to the right and persuading the media and the American public to shift right with them. They don't tolerate defections from the party line; they stick to centrally-distributed talking points and abide by rigid party discipline enforced by a man nicknamed "The Hammer." They don't fall silent when discourse turns discordant; they trot out the Big Lie and repeat it so often that it becomes Truth in the same way that big mountains create their own weather. They won by doing the exact opposite of what the DLC crowd preaches we need to do to win.<br /><br />It's as if the Democratic leadership doesn't understand how mirrors work: the key to Republican success wasn't in the fact that they ran to the right (and that we similarly must shift right if we want to win); it's in the fact that they ran AWAY from the center -- became more extreme -- and in doing so earned both the support of their base and the trust of centrist voters, who respect people who can articulate and adhere to principles even if they don't agree with all of them. Copying the Republican formula for success doesn't mean becoming more conservative.... [I]t means becoming more liberal and being proud of it. Articulating, and expecting some reasonable degree of adherence to, a unifying party platform is a good way to articulate principles and win elections, and if that means tossing one or two enablers like Lieberman overboard, good riddance; they're dead weight anyway.<br /></blockquote><br />Then I pointed out the danger of Democrats winning power without first reinventing their party along more principled, and more vigorous, lines:<br /><blockquote>But in addition to the above response, which I believe is true, I have a second reaction to the concern that attacking Vichy Democrats will cost us a potential majority: that until our "leaders" start listening to their constituents and acting like Democrats again, they (and we) don't deserve to be in power. Until we have our act together and are prepared to govern in a coherent, articulate, unified way, we should stay the hell out of it.<br /><br />Our nation is facing tremendous problems; only a drastic change in course can possibly reverse them. If we Democrats are not prepared to change America's course, however, then it's better for the inexorable collapse to occur on the Republicans' watch than on ours. My preferences, in this order, are: (1) a dialed-in, unified, energized, liberal Democratic Party in power, correcting American's course and restoring her fortunes; (2) a faltering, dissipating, weakening Republican Party in power, living or dying with the consequences of their past actions while real Democrats continue to rebuild our party in the wings; and (3) a faltering, dissipated, weak Democratic Party in power, demonstrating once again to voters that we aren't ready for prime time and possibly being blamed for a nationwide economic, military and social collapse created by the Republicans but foisted on us.<br /><br />A lot of intelligent, energetic grassroots activists are working to make sure that (1) above comes true. Most of the Democrats in Congress are working hard to see that (3) above comes true, even though they're too struck with Beltway Blindness to realize that's what they're doing. If they don't catch a clue and start working with us, (2) above is going to occur again in November, and then either (2) or (3) will occur in 2008. And that's simply not good enough. Democrats deserve better. America deserves better.</blockquote> <p> <br />The reckoning is coming in 2010, not 2008, but otherwise, the crumbling of the national party is occurring exactly as I feared -- and for exactly the reason I predicted. On healthcare, Afghanistan, Wall Street reforms, LGBT rights, and every other issue where they hold both the moral and the policy high ground, the White House and Senate have waffled and compromised. </p> <p>Even worse, they not only have allowed Joe Lieberman to continue pretending that his interests and goals are even minimally aligned with theirs -- letting him caucus with them, retain his chairmanships, and counting him among the fetishistic "60 votes" Reid supposedly possessed until Tuesday -- but they also have allowed his rebellion to infect others in the caucus. (The reason you remove bad apples from the barrel is that they ruin the apples next to them; Ben Nelson would never have the courage to block healthcare reform by himself.) </p> <p>By allowing Lieberman to block passage of an institutional public option instead of affirmatively blocking his games by using reconciliation or by mimicking the Republican threat to declare filibusters unconstitutional, as they arguably are; by increasing troop strength (twice) in Afghanistan instead of bringing our troops home; by deferring a decision on Don't Ask Don't Tell, and naming Wall Street insiders Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to oversight posts; by constantly courting the center, placing comity above principle, triangulating instead of leading, and seeking incremental advances instead of bold new deals -- by all these concessions, Obama and Senate leaders have forgotten that courage begets voter confidence and voter confidence begets electoral success. To the extent the debacle in Massachusetts is a referendum on anything besides Martha Coakley's execrable and lazy campaigning, it is a referendum on Democratic leaders' failure to hew to liberal principles. </p> <p> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who knows no legislative strategies besides "compromise", bears much of the blame, as do other senior Senate Democrats. (The House side's <a href="http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_senate_is_the_saucer_into_which_we_pour_legislation_to_cool/">coffee is noticeably hotter</a> than the Senate's these days.) </p> <p>But the ultimate responsibility for the Democratic Party's tepidity, and its electoral setback Tuesday, rests with Barack Obama, who for one year now has governed with an unseemly timidity. In his first year, Obama did not issue an executive order eliminating discrimination against gays in the military, as the Commander-in-Chief unquestionably has the right to do (and as Democrat Harry Truman did to desegregate the military in 1948). He did not go to bat for the public health insurance option when it was on life support in the Senate Finance Committee and again on the Senate floor. He elected (twice) to increase troop strength in Afghanistan instead of acknowledging that Afghanistan is no longer Al Quaeda's base and bringing our troops home. Instead of appointing agents of real change, he named Wall Street insiders Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to key oversight positions and appointed a consummate triangulator and centrist, Rahm Emanuel, as his Chief of Staff. </p> <p>The bragged-about fact that Obama passed 97% of his Congressional agenda this year demonstrates merely that he played it too safe. As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" </p> <p>There is a divide among Democratic activists today, between those who urge unity and support for Obama, and those who advocate dissenting at least enough to stop Obama from taking his base for granted and force him to shift left. What some people don't realize is that this divide, between progressive ideals and the pseudo-pragmatic impulse to compromise, is part of Obama's nature itself. The man himself doesn't seem to know which camp he belongs to. </p> <p>In <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2006/04/joe-lieberman-barack-obamas-mentor-in.html">Joe Lieberman: Barack Obama's "Mentor In The Senate"?</a>, which I wrote on April 3, 2006 in response to then-Senator Obama's embrace of Joe Lieberman over challenger Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary, I discussed the contrast between Obama's progressive potential and his predilection for overcautious triangulation. The questions I asked about Obama's political soul back in 2006 -- about whether Obama would choose the old-school Democratic path of triangulation and compromise, or would save the party by leading a resurgence of Progressive ideals and courage -- are even more pressing today: </p> <blockquote>I want to like Barack Obama. His riveting, energizing speech at the last Democratic National Convention converted him from an attractive Senate candidate into the leading Democratic candidate for first African-American Vice-President and, eventually, President. His statement that "we worship an awesome God in the blue states" not only articulated the beliefs of that misunderstood, underrepresented and vital majority of Democrats and Independents who possess some sort of religious faith, but his use of evangelical "code" language -- "awesome God" -- reclaimed territory we had ceded to the Republicans and showed that not all Democratic politicians are tone deaf to religious nuance. I really want to like Barack Obama. <br /><br />But then I read things like the following, which comes from an otherwise-delightful <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/nyregion/02lieberman.html">New York Times article</a> about Democrats ignoring and even booing Joe Lieberman at a recent event:<br /><br /><em>[H]owever, the audience was riveted as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the guest speaker at the $175-a-plate dinner, stood on the podium and began the customary round of recognition of candidates and incumbents in the room. </em><br /><br /><em>When he got to Mr. Lieberman, <strong>who is his mentor in the Senate</strong> and who helped recruit him to speak at the event, the applause again was muted. </em><br /><br /><em>"I know that some in the party have differences with Joe," Senator Obama said, all but silencing the crowd. "I'm going to go ahead and say it. It's the elephant in the room. And Joe and I don't agree on everything. <strong>But what I know is, Joe Lieberman's a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America." </strong></em><br /><br /><em><strong>Then, with applause beginning to build, he finished the thought: "I am absolutely certain that Connecticut's going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate."</strong></em><br /><br />Joe Lieberman -- gutter of bankruptcy protection for working people facing disastrous health emergencies, supporter of an illegal war that's killed over 2,000 working-class Americans, apologist for hospitals that deny birth control to rape victims -- secretly has a "good heart" and "cares about working families"?<br /><br />Yow. <strong><br /><br />Here's what's good about Barack Obama: despite his relative youth and political inexperience, he is in the first ranks when it comes to political astututeness. He understands the game, plays all the angles with a skill approaching genius. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be better than Bill Clinton. </strong><br /><br /><strong>Here's what's bad about Barack Obama: at an age and place in his career where he should still be known for idealism, he instead is known for political astuteness. He has mastered the game instead of the ideals, applies his genius to playing the angles instead of changing the world for the better. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be worse than Bill Clinton.</strong><br /><br /><br />NOT being a "Star Wars" geek in any way, I hate to say this, but some analogies just leap out at you: Barack Obama is the Anakin Skywalker of the Democratic Party. He's an incredibly gifted young man whose gifts who will do either incredible good or incredible harm to the Democratic Party and to the nation. *** <br /><br />This incident is not the only one; Obama also spoke out against the Alito filibuster, working against us behind the scenes by trying to persuade other senators not to rock the boat, and he likewise is lobbying others not to support Russ Feingold's censure resolution. Obama looks good on the outside, but in his short Senate career he has come down on the wrong side of nearly every issue this blog's readers care about.<br /><br />Notwithstanding the above, I think Obama can be saved. What's needed is for [him to take] ... a nobler path than the one outlined by Bill, Hillary and Joementum. When we progressives recapture the soul of our party, the party may recapture the soul of Obama. Then Obama may be a tremendous force for good. But we need to show him that the path he's currently walking is a dead end.</blockquote> <p> Please understand: I'm not trying to undercut Obama. As regular readers know, I supported him vigorously in both the 2008 Democratic primary and in the general election, because I believed he was the best, and potentially the most progressive, candidate. I don't regret that choice. I want him to succeed. Hell, I cried when he won in November, and again when he was sworn into office one year ago. </p> <p>But that doesn't mean I've smoked the hopium. Party unity is essential, but so is competent, courageous leadership. I want Obama to be the best leader he can be; at present, he's falling short. If, as Howard Zinn said, dissent is the highest form of patriotism, then dissent with one's own party's leaders is the highest form of loyalty to that party. (That's why, in my VichyDems days, I blogged under the pseudonym "Thersites"; in the Iliad, Thersites was the courageous soldier who dared to speak the truth about the failings of his own side's leader, Agammemnon.) </p> <p>For exactly one year now, Obama has been keeping his powder dry, apparently without realizing that, in fact, he has almost no powder left. Political capital unused tends to dissipate like the dew; to be preserved, let alone compounded, political capital -- which Obama had a surplus of just one year ago -- must be invested if it is to be preserved. The fact that Obama's late effort to save Martha Coakley in Massachusetts failed, and that a state that overwhelmingly elected him in 2008 just handed Teddy's seat to a conservative Republican, demonstrates the truth of this assertion. There's a reason Teddy Kennedy held onto his seat for 46 years: he leavened his practicality with principle. If Obama and D.C.'s other Democrats want to retain their seats the way Kennedy did, they need to follow his example. </p> <p>It's not too late yet for Obama to deliver the change he promised -- and to salvage as much as possible of Democrats' Congressional advantage next November. For example, he doesn't need Congress to eliminate DADT; he simply needs to act like the Commander-in-Chief, order an end to discrimination, and tell his soldiers (including the general staff) to follow his orders. </p> <p>Likewise, healthcare reform can be salvaged without any disrespect to Massachusetts voters by the simple expedient of pushing House progressives to pass the Senate bill as-is, with a promise to effect further reforms later this year (via reconciliation if necessary). If that fails, a bold, principled Obama could rock the GOP's world by immediately pushing a singlepayer plan through the budget reconciliation process -- which could be accomplished well before the November elections and re-establish Democrats as a party with the courage of its convictions -- after which Obama could negotiate with conservatives to replace that (to Republicans) intolerable law with a reasonable compromise, including a strong public option, that they would not dare to filibuster (because that would leave singlepayer in place) and that would not be subject to reconciliation's ten year sunset provision. (Mark Kleiman wrote brilliantly on that negotiating strategy <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-kleiman/basic-bargaining-theory-a_b_292948.html">here</a>.) </p> <p>Obama could even do what the GOP threatened to do three years ago by dispatching Joe Biden, as President of the Senate, to declare the filibuster unconstitutional and simply call a vote on any healthcare reform package that can win a simple 51 votes. That may seem crazy, and it may be overreaching, but as a lawyer who's examined both sides of the Constitutional argument, I've concluded that <a href="http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/01/unconstitutional-filibuster">Kevin Drum arguably is right about this</a> and that the "nuclear option" could be exercised -- or at least threatened -- in colorable good faith. </p> <p>Most readers probably disagree with some or with all of these proposals. That's fine. The point is, bold options remain open to Obama. It's not too late. </p> <p>But he's losing his window. His choice -- the direction his presidency, and his political soul, will take -- must be made soon. As he surveys the debacle his party has made of Teddy Kennedy's legacy in Massachusetts, and embarks on his sophomore year as President, it's past time for Barack Obama to finally decide what sort of leader, and what sort of man, he chooses to be.<br /></p><span style="font-size:0.7px;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-43870800488348865822010-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:002010-01-15T17:15:57.867-08:00A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp, Or What's The Presidency For?<b>INTRODUCTION: </b>This is a <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2006/04/joe-lieberman-barack-obamas-mentor-in.html">repost of a piece I originally wrote</a>, under my then-pseudonym, on April 3, 2006.<br /><br />Originally, it was in response to the widely-misunderstood (including by me) report that the then-still-Democratic Joe Lieberman was Senate "mentor" of a brand-new senator, Barack Obama. Most assumed that title reflected a close personal relationship, when actually <span style="font-style: italic;">every</span> new senator is assigned a more senior colleague to show them the ropes -- a relationship that may become friendship, but is not necessarily so. At the very least, Lieberman's formal "mentorship" of Obama should not have been held against Obama.<br /><br />Obama's embrace of Lieberman's candidacy, on the other hand -- and his lackadaisical effort for Ned Lamont once Lamont wrested the nomination from Lieberman and Lieberman betrayed Democrats by running against Lamont as an independent -- was legitimate ground for criticism. And the points I made in 2006 about Obama's political soul, my questions about whether he would choose the path of triangulation and compromise and centrism, or would instead strike out boldly to lead Progressives back into dominance of the Democratic Party, were spot on.<br /><br />I supported Obama in both the 2008 Democratic primary and in the general election, because I believed he was the best, and potentially the most progressive, candidate. I don't regret that choice.<br /><br />But that doesn't mean I've smoked the hopium. Obama is not a perfect leader, and the caution that stood him so well in the campaign is not serving him so well as President. It's undeniable now (though many still do deny it) that Obama never seriously strove to have a public option included in his healthcare bill; that was a burst of chaff designed to distract GOP attackers, and both they and we liberals fell for it. He and his familiar, Rahm Emanuel, constantly pressured Congressional progressives to compromise, while applying little or no pressure on Congressional Democratic conservatives like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln (let alone playing real hardball with Joe Lieberman). Yes, he passed 97% of his Congressional agenda this year -- but that demonstrates only that he played it safe. As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"<br /><br />Could Obama still lead? Absolutely. He's not dead in the water yet. But he has been keeping his powder dry, apparently without realizing that, in fact, his powder's almost completely gone already; power unused tends to dissipate with the dew, while power invested tends to compound, like money.<br /><br />It's not too late yet for Obama to simply declare DADT dead, by executive order, and then to send a message of firm discipline by dishonorably discharging any homophobes who refuse to respond in good faith with the changed situation. They're soldiers; they should follow orders, period. Likewise, if this weak-tea healthcare reform bill fails, as it still might, then it's not too late for Obama to immediately push through a bold singlepayer plan, without fear of filibuster, via the budget reconciliation process -- which could be accomplished well before the November elections and re-establish Democrats as a strong party instead of a bunch of weak wafflers -- after which he could negotiate with conservatives to replace that (to them) intolerable law with a strong public option that would not be subject to a ten year sunset provision. (Mark Kleiman wrote brilliantly on that negotiating strategy <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-kleiman/basic-bargaining-theory-a_b_292948.html">here</a>.) (The other excellent components of the current bill, like the elimination of preexisting conditions, are popular enough to be passed over any filibuster threat.) It's not too late for Obama to fire Rahm (as he should), or to demand that Harry Reid change the Senate's filibuster rules at the start of the 2011 session (when only a majority, not a supermajority, is needed to do so). It's not, in short, too late for Obama.<br /><br />But he's losing his window, and his choice -- the direction his presidency, and his political soul, will take -- must be made soon.<br /><br />To explain again what exactly is the decision Obama faces, I'm reprising this old (and in places anachronistic) VichyDems post from four years ago -- and urging that now, at the end of his freshman year as President, a chastened and wiser Obama finally make the decision of what sort of leader, and what sort of man, he chooses to be:<br /><b><br /></b><span style="font-weight: bold;">ORIGINAL POST:</span><br /><br />I want to like Barack Obama. His riveting, energizing speech at the last Democratic National Convention converted him from an attractive Senate candidate into the leading Democratic candidate for first African-American Vice-President and, eventually, President. His statement that "we worship an awesome God in the blue states" not only articulated the beliefs of that misunderstood, underrepresented and vital majority of Democrats and Independents who possess some sort of religious faith, but his use of evangelical "code" language -- "awesome God" -- reclaimed territory we had ceded to the Republicans and showed that not all Democratic politicians are tone deaf to religious nuance. I really want to like Barack Obama.<br /><br />But then I read things like the following, which comes from an otherwise-delightful <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/nyregion/02lieberman.html">New York Times article</a> about Democrats ignoring and even booing Joe Lieberman at a recent event:<br /><br /><i>[H]owever, the audience was riveted as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the guest speaker at the $175-a-plate dinner, stood on the podium and began the customary round<br />of recognition of candidates and incumbents in the room. When he got to Mr. Lieberman, <b>who is his mentor in the Senate</b> and who helped recruit him to speak at the event, the applause again was muted.<br /><br />"I know that some in the party have differences with Joe," Senator Obama said, all but silencing the crowd. "I'm going to go ahead and say it. It's the elephant in the room. And Joe and I don't agree on everything. <b>But what I know is, Joe Lieberman's a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America."<br /><br />Then, with applause beginning to build, he finished the thought: "I am absolutely certain that Connecticut's going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate."</b></i><br /><br />Joe Lieberman -- gutter of bankruptcy protection for working people facing disastrous health emergencies, supporter of an illegal war that's killed over 2,000 working-class Americans, apologist for hospitals that deny birth control to rape victims -- secretly has a "good heart" and "cares about working families"?<br /><br />Yow.<br /><br />Here's what's good about Barack Obama: despite his relative youth and political inexperience, he is in the first ranks when it comes to political astututeness. He understands the game, plays all the angles with a skill approaching genius. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be better than Bill Clinton.<br /><br />Here's what's bad about Barack Obama: at an age and place in his career where he should still be known for idealism, he instead is known for political astuteness. He has mastered the game instead of the ideals, applies his genius to playing the angles instead of changing the world for the better. The last political operator we saw with Obama's skill was an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Hell, Obama may even be worse than Bill Clinton. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040300374.html">***</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4507/1746/1600/palpatine_lieberman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4507/1746/320/palpatine_lieberman.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>NOT being a "Star Wars" geek in any way, I hate to say this, but some analogies just leap out at you: Barack Obama is the Anakin Skywalker of the Democratic Party. He's an incredibly gifted young man whose gifts who will do either incredible good or incredible harm to the Democratic Party and to the nation. And if Joe Lieberman indeed is his mentor, then Lieberman is the Senator Palpatine to Obama's Anakin -- a moderate-seeming, soft-spoken statesman who pretends to want only the good of the Republic but actually serves those who would destroy everything it stands for -- and who seeks to magnify his influence by exerting a maleficent influence over a young politician whose skill, electability, political prospects and even ambition far exceed his own.<br /><br />This incident is not the only one; Obama also spoke out against the Alito filibuster, working against us behind the scenes by trying to persuade other senators not to rock the boat, and he likewise is lobbying others not to support Russ Feingold's censure resolution. Obama looks good on the outside, but in his short Senate career he has come down on the wrong side of nearly every issue this blog's readers care about.<br /><br />Notwithstanding the above, I think Obama can be saved. What's needed is for his elders in the party to lead the young Senator down a nobler path than the one outlined by Bill, Hillary and Joementum. When we progressives recapture the soul of our party, the party may recapture the soul of Obama. Then Obama may be a tremendous force for good. But we need to show him that the path he's currently walking is a dead end.<br /><br />Step one is to send a message to him, and all similar triangulators and accommodationists, by forcefully and overwhelmingly jettisoning his "mentor in the Senate," Joe Lieberman. Please donate to Lieberman's Democratic challenger, Ned Lamont, <a href="http://www.actblue.com/list/vichydems">here</a>.<br /><br />And may the Force be with you.<br /><br />(My kid brother is going to be so proud of this post! But I'm not making another Star Wars reference for at least a year, I promise.)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:0.7px;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>M.S. Bellows, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05329189103861162611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-87291958784930814142008-08-22T15:43:00.000-07:002008-08-22T16:30:39.078-07:00VichyDems Is Covering the Dem Convention!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AQsWR-I_X0/SK9IxBGyFiI/AAAAAAAAAKo/KdoFZj7KDac/s1600-h/Thersites.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7AQsWR-I_X0/SK9IxBGyFiI/AAAAAAAAAKo/KdoFZj7KDac/s320/Thersites.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237484898602849826" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7AQsWR-I_X0/SK9ICWAwuPI/AAAAAAAAAKg/vGV6M5ZneEM/s1600-h/P6020162.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7AQsWR-I_X0/SK9ICWAwuPI/AAAAAAAAAKg/vGV6M5ZneEM/s200/P6020162.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237484096760887538" border="0" /></a><br /><br />(Photos: separated at birth?)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It's time I shared a dark secret:<br /><br />I have a good twin (I'm the evil one). He looks exactly like me, acts like me, and shares my political views. Our fingerprints, retinal scans, and DNA are identical. So are our shoe, hat, and suit sizes. He even happens to be married to my wife, and we have the same kids. Needless to say, we're very, very close.<br /><br />But there are differences. He's saner. He writes better than I do. I proudly bear the names our parents gave me (Thersites D. Scott, or, over at <a href="http://www.eschatonblog.com/">Atrios' pad</a>, "T.D. Scott" or "T2"). But my good twin, for some strange reason, has abandoned his birth name (Ulysses Navinski Scott, or "U.N. Scott") to take the boring, predestrian <span style="font-style: italic;">nom de plume</span> "M.S. Bellows, Jr." -- which sounds, I don't know, like the name a lawyer would have in the real world. Ugh. Most people call him Scott, though. <br /><br />M.S. Bellows, Jr. began writing occasional pieces for The Huffington Post's "Off the Bus" citizen journalism page back in February, often asking me to cross-post them here. Two or three months ago, they asked him to start writing a regular column, "Warranted Wiretaps," with his basic beat being the campaigns' regular telephonic conference calls. He was one of the first three they asked (another was Mayhill Fowler, who, for good or ill, famously broke the "Bittergate" story).<br /><br />For Off the Bus, my good twin has ridden the press bus following Clinton in Oregon, covered (as press) several campaign appearances by both Democratic candidates, BEEN covered on national cable by CNBC, asked questions during press conferences that have been covered by the MSM, honed his writing skills (with good editorial help from Huffington Post's professionals), and now been chosen to be one of a handful of writers given credentials and all expenses to cover the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week. The only thing that he isn't doing is get paid for his writing -- but he's hoping to fix that soon, too.<br /><br />So while I stay home and sulk over his good fortune (our parents, and even our shared wife and kids, now openly acknowledge that they love him more!), he'll be posting regularly at Off the Bus all next week. And Twittering. And possibly posting audio or even video (Reuters is providing videocams and professional editing). And accepting IMs from those who want to send him ideas (or invitations to the coolest parties, hint hint). And using his free pass to do yoga and get aromatherapy at HuffPost's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/huffposts-oasis-the-place_b_120170.html">Oasis</a>.<br /><br />Off the Bus is here: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus/">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus/</a><br />M.S. Bellows, Jr.'s posts will all be collated here: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows</a><br />His other contact info is:<br /><br />Twitter: msbellowsREMOVE<br />AIM: bellowsmsREMOVE<br />Email: REMOVEmsbellowsREMOVE@gmail.com<br /><br />Sure, I'm jealous of him -- I feel like I might as well just disappear! -- but still, I love him, so please show him lots of love while he's on his big adventure.<br /><br />Thanks, everyone!<br /><br />Thersites D. Scott<br /><br /><span style="font-size:0;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-42448276493759713562008-06-14T16:27:00.000-07:002008-06-14T19:10:23.957-07:00McCain: "The Rights of the Unborn Are As Important as the Rights of the Born."In a "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/mccain-to-hold-virtual-to_b_106762.html">virtual town hall</a>" Saturday designed specifically to boost his standing with independents and disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, John McCain did his best to project a moderate, bipartisan image - but wound up enunciating policy stances that sharply conflict with positions held by Clinton -- and by most women, and by most Democrats -- on such things as women's right to choose, gay rights, the composition of the Supreme Court, America's role in using force overseas, and even the importance of intelligence and academic success in a good President. Instead of effectively <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/14/campaign.wrap/index.html">wooing social moderates</a>, McCain instead has clearly delineated some significant differences between his views and those normally considered "moderate" -- and may have given those voters who were thinking of sitting out the November election, or of crossing party lines to vote for him, some new and compelling reasons to actively oppose his election instead:<br /><br /><b>McCain on Roe v. Wade:</b><br /><blockquote>"Roe v. Wade, we obviously will have a disagreement. I think it was a bad decision."</blockquote><br /><b>McCain on abortion rights:</b><br /><blockquote>"[W]e have to change the culture of America. We have to convince people of our view that the rights of the unborn <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1445274620080615?">are</a> as important as the rights of the born."</blockquote><br /><b>McCain on medically necessary late-term abortions:</b><br /><blockquote>"I am unalterably opposed to partial birth abortion."</blockquote><br /><b>McCain on the two or more Supreme Court appointments the next President is likely to make:</b><br /><blockquote>"I would find people along the lines of Justice Roberts."</blockquote> "I wouldn't have selected Justice Ginsberg or Justice Breyer."<br /><blockquote>"I believe that interpretation of the Constitution, and <i>only</i> that, should be the criteria for Supreme Court justices."</blockquote><br /><b>McCain on gay rights and "don't ask, don't tell":</b><br /><br /><blockquote>"Don't ask, don't tell: I want to rely on the advice and counsel of our military leaders. As President ... I will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go back and review that and other policies to see whether those policies are appropriate, and I do rely on them to a large degree because they're the ones we entrust the leadership of the lives of our young men and women in our military. And I'm sure you may have a disagreement with that policy."</blockquote><br /><b>McCain on his own intelligence:</b><br /><blockquote>"You don't have to be real smart. I stood fifth from the bottom of my class at the naval academy, which shows in America anything is possible."</blockquote><br /><b>McCain's on what makes America great:</b><br /><blockquote>"We're the <i>only</i> country in the world that has over time sent our young Americans to shed our most precious asset - American blood - in defense of someone else's freedom."</blockquote><br />I'll supplement this post later with more details, and with audio when it becomes available - but for Clinton supporters wondering what the effects on America would be if they either voted for McCain in November or simply stayed home and allowed him to be elected, just the few quotations given above - again, delivered in a setting designed to woo social moderates, not extreme conservatives - may be a powerful indication of how deeply reactionary a McCain administration is likely to be.<br /><br />I tend to think that the DNC talking point that McCain would be "a third Bush term" is oversimplistic. On the other hand, though, in just one public appearance McCain has announced that he is pro-life, anti-<i>Roe v. Wade</i> (and other privacy rights), would appoint Supreme Court justices just like those that Bush appointed, is blindly instead of wisely patriotic and doesn't know his history (America is the ONLY country that's ever shed blood in defense of someone else's freedom?!?), and is dismissive of his own poor grades in a superb university that his family connections got him into. If that's not "Bush III," I don't know what is.<br /><br />Anyone who thinks Obama is running against the pro-choice, fiscally conservative, socially moderate John McCain that we all respected in 2000 had better <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Body-Snatchers-Kevin-McCarthy/dp/0782009980/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1213482678&sr=8-1">check behind the house for pods</a>, because the John McCain of 2008 is nothing like the straight-talking "maverick" we used to know. And anyone who feels estranged from the Democratic Party by the unfortunate divisiveness of the primary season should look very, very carefully at John McCain - ver. 200.8 - before indulging any shortsighted inclination not to cast their vote for the Democratic alternative next November.<br /><br /><span style="" com=""><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21506744.post-89778690095812155752008-05-14T14:33:00.000-07:002008-05-15T07:45:53.120-07:00Edwards Endorses Obama!The day after Hillary Clinton won a solid victory in West Virginia but lost 7% of the vote to a candidate who wasn't even running any longer, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/15/dems.wrap/index.html">that candidate</a> -- John Edwards -- has come off the fence and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/14/edwards.obama/index.html">endorsed</a> Barack Obama.<br /><br />This endorsement is huge, not just in itself -- a white man, from a neighboring state, with strong rural support, who still has a strong following in the most recent primary state and nationally -- but also as a huge reality check -- "check" as in hockey -- to Clinton and as a hint of the direction Obama's Vice Presidential choice might go.<br /><br />On racism: 20% of West Virginia Democrats voting yesterday said that the candidates' race played a role in their decision. And of those, 85% voted for Clinton -- ie, this is not black voters supporting the first serious black candidate (or female voters supporting the first serious female candidate), but white voters intentionally voting AWAY from the black candidate. That's 20% of West Virginia Democrats admitting they're at least somewhat bigoted -- meaning at least another 20% more actually are, since pollsters have long known that people are reluctant to admit to socially unacceptable views, even anonymously.<br /><br />On the veep slot: pressure's being put on Obama to consider Clinton for a running mate -- and Clinton isn't closing that door; her campaign spokesmen refused to that possibility out (or, admittedly, in) at a telephonic press conference this morning. But Clinton doesn't help Obama with his electoral map in November, which (as Roy Romer <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/former-clinton-gore-campa_b_101532.html">explained yesterday</a>) is very different than Clinton's "one state solution" map. (Obama's path to the White House involves winning states like New Mexico, Colorado, and the Dakotas, whereas Clinton simply wants to win the states Democratic Presidential candidates have always won, plus either Ohio or Florida. That's why there's so much infighting between them on the "kinds" of states each one wins: Obama has won twice as many states as she has, indicating his ability to win his map, while Clinton has won the "big states" of Ohio and Pennsylvania, proving her ability to win her map. But the two maps don't really intersect.)<br /><br />And, of course, it would be galling -- and look weak to voters -- for Obama to curry favor with what Clinton's campaign <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/post-indiana-clinton-camp_b_100708.html">openly calls</a> "the <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2008/05/clintons-hail-mary.html">white electorate</a>" by tapping the very woman who, far more than Rev. Wright did, has destroyed his standing with the <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2008/04/struggling-american-distillery-breaks.html">boilermaker-drinking</a> class of whites.<br /><br />What Obama needs is a running mate who can help him win his map -- or who can help repair the (fairly recent and definitely not fundamental) rift with white voters -- or both. And in those regards, two names pop to the top:<br /><br />Bill Richardson: helps Obama court the West, including his home state of New Mexico and the adjacent states of Colorado and -- taking the fight right into McCain's backyard -- Arizona. Plus, Richardson would draw the Latino vote throughout the West and in many Northern cities as well, and he has tremendous foreign policy credentials. (A more thorough explanation of why Richardson would rock as a veep <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2008/02/is-obama-richardson-in-works.html">here</a>.)<br /><br />John Edwards: strong in the South, strong with precisely the rural voters Clinton has been baiting, superb on healthcare (blunting any harm Clinton's done to Obama there), well-respected on both sides of the aisle. And Edwards was the first candidate to <a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/2008/02/edwards-economy-and-war-arent-separable.html">clearly connect</a> the war with the economy, an equation that helps Obama and blunt's Clinton's claim to be better on the economy than Obama is.<br /><br />The other option for Obama is to choose a Clinton acolyte, perhaps Evan Bayh, who could help him win Indiana. That might appease some of Clinton's backers and lure them back into the fold. But contrary to how it might seem on <a href="http://www.taylormarsh.com/">some blogs</a>, Clinton's supporters are fervent, not rabid; upset, not petulant and self-destructive; grieving, not suicidal; and most of all, progressive, not conservative. Obama can't take their support for granted, the way Hillary has said she CAN take black support for granted, and he'd be wrong to neglect to mend fences. But Obama can assume that nearly all Clinton supporters are reasonable, open to logic and persuasion, and more interested in the common weal than in nursing their own disappointment. They don't have to come around, but Obama will reach out to them in meaningful way, after which they will come around. The alternative is to allow the remaining two Democrats on the Supreme Court to be replaced with <a href="http://neoprogblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/alito-and-slippery-slope-to.html">Scalito</a> clones, and for <a href="http://neoprogblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/neoprog-approach-to-abortion-debate.html">all privacy rights to go away</a> -- not just abortion choice, but all Constitutional privacy rights including the right to be gay, the right to have oral sex with your spouse in private, and the right of married couples to buy condoms, all of which would be stricken under the judicial philosophy of Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and the kinds of judges McCain recently promised to appoint. Seriously: these judges want to reverse Griswold v. CT (1965), the basis for all these rights. States could make gayness, oral sex, and condom use illegal again, along with abortion. Again: seriously.<br /><br />Clinton's supporters won't let that happen. Which means that while Obama needs to take concrete steps to make peace with the "Clintonistas" (said with fondness), and will do so, he doesn't need to bribe them to support him with something as precious as the running mate slot. Reach out to them, yes. Bribe them, no. They're better Americans than that. He's free to pick a running mate who he honestly wants to work with and thinks will help him win, which could be Clinton or one of her supporters, but doesn't have to be.<br /><br />So now Obama not only has the nomination locked up <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/m.s.-bellows/a-big-win-in-pennsylvania_b_98126.html">mathematically</a>, but with Edwards' endorsement has now also made up a lot of the demographic ground he lost in recent weeks. And possibly, quite possibly, this also may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship -- an example of what a "dream ticket" would really look like.<br /><span style="font-size:0;"><a href="http://vichydems.blogspot.com/"><b>BACK TO VICHYDEMS HOME</b></a></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1