Thursday, September 08, 2011

Thursday Mashup (9/8/11)


  • This tells us that Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that the Repugs are trying so desperately to destroy, is currently polling within 9 points of “Wall Street Scott” Brown in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.

    And just as a reminder, these links provide lots of reading material about the incumbent Repug:

    Also, click here to watch a 57-minute clip of a lecture Warren gave in 2007 detailing the plight of the middle class in our “ownership society” (no wonder the Repugs want so desperately to defeat her and what she represents).


  • Further, Mikey The Beloved inflicted another attack on common sense on the Op-Ed page of the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday (here).

    I’ll try not to be too repetitive and restate only his main points, such as they are:
    1. Overhaul the federal tax code (see, Mikey says that “Small business owners tell me that uncertainty over a future tax burden makes them reluctant to expand, invest or hire. We must adopt tax reform that is fair and predictable.”)
    In response, I give you the following (here)…
    McClatchy reached out to owners of small businesses, many of them mom-and-pop operations, to find out whether they indeed were being choked by regulation, whether uncertainty over taxes affected their hiring plans and whether the health care overhaul was helping or hurting their business.

    Their response was surprising.

    None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.
    Continuing…
    2. Simplify and Streamline Federal Regulations on Small Businesses
    Mikey wants to pass the REINS Act, which would give Congress the authority to approve regulations from the executive branch…of course, he’s a co-sponsor – my response is here in the fifth bullet; even President Hopey Changey, who caves even for a stiff wind, won’t bite on this one, nor should he.

    Continuing…
    3. Incentivize Innovation
    Mikey also loves the America Reinvents Act, which has problems, according to this column…
    Most troubling, Section 18 of the bill amounts to a special earmark inserted in the Senate at the last minute per the request of the banking lobby. The provision discriminates against a class of patents that big banks infringe, financial related “business method patents” (“BMPs”). While the bill’s court-like opposition procedures are forward looking and time limited for every other type of patent, Section 18 expands the time limits just for BMPs and even allows banks to institute these procedures against already issued BMPs (even patents already tested in court).

    Section 18 will affect many companies, including ours. (Trading Technologies) owns patents that have gone through a trial in Federal Court, an appeal and two different reexaminations at the PTO. Yet, Section 18 will likely require TT to spend more time and money defending these tested patents. Only lawyers stand to benefit from this.
    Continuing…
    4. Authorize Drilling and Infrastructure Projects

    From the gas pump to electric bills, increased energy costs are straining American families and business productivity. Along with colleagues from both sides of the aisle, I have introduced the Infrastructure Jobs and Energy Independence Act to address America’s energy woes and also start rebuild our aging infrastructure.
    Interesting that neither Mikey, nor anyone else in the House as nearly as I can tell, have put a price tag on this, which tells me he’s not really serious about trying to stimulate job creation as he is about removing those oh-so-pesky federal regulations that prevent stuff like, you know, drilling for oil in the Everglades (more here).

    Continuing…
    5. Encourage the Repatriation of American Owned Capital
    In response, I give you the following here about that; it didn’t amount to diddly squat when it came to job creation the last time we tried it (and by the way, if our august captains of industry were playing by the rules, they wouldn’t need to “repatriate” the income to begin with).

    And last but possibly least…
    6. Make Government Live Within Its Means
    I’ve refuted this crap about a million times when it comes to job growth, so for now, I’ll just link once more here to Professor Krugman in response (and by the way, here’s a response to Mikey’s typical wingnuttia on the supposedly “failed” stimulus)..

    Mikey crowed like crazy last year during the campaign about how the unemployment rate doubled under the watch of then-representative Patrick Murphy. Well, our current rep hasn’t done anything to lower it either.

    Where are the jobs, Mikey??!!


  • Finally, I should note that Archbishop Charles J. Chaput (pronouned "shay-poo," I believe) is being “installed” today as the ninth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, as noted here.

    Please forgive me if I withhold any fanfare.

    As nearly as I can determine, the message from Rome (in naming Chaput) is clear: put a lid on the fallout from the abuse scandal, increase vocations and church attendance, and (for good measure) break the Catholic high school teachers union.

    As noted here…
    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Incoming Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput doesn't want the Roman Catholic church to lose members.

    But he says it's not the place for so-called "cafeteria Catholics" who don't accept all of its teachings.

    Chaput has condemned the University of Notre Dame for bestowing an award on President Obama, who supports abortion rights, and thinks Catholic politicians with the same beliefs should not take Holy Communion.

    "If they don't believe what the church teaches, they're not really Catholic," Chaput told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday, two days before his installation at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
    In response, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney wrote the following in July…
    As messages from on high go, this one couldn't be clearer: All you reform-minded Catholics out there had better keep on praying, or exit to the nearest Episcopal church. Change is coming to the Philadelphia Archdiocese, but it's nothing like what you envisioned.

    In one of the least-kept secrets of the summer, Cardinal Justin Rigali is being replaced by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput.

    In Rigali, the archdiocese's 1.5 million Catholics had a seemingly disengaged leader who said little and emoted less. In Chaput, they gain a practically puritanical - and proudly political - shepherd who has so many hard-line views, he deserves his own slot on Fox News.

    …

    …Chaput barks like a bulldog and is revered by those who would rather the church become smaller and purer than change…

    And if that forced exodus of change agents leaves the Catholic Church poorer and unable to serve those most in need? So be it. At least for another generation.

    "Real leadership," Chaput told an interviewer last month, "is about more than making people feel good about themselves."

    Perhaps, but must it involve making faithful followers feel worse?
    After reading this, I thought it best to do a little research myself. And in so doing, I discovered the following (from a commemorative issue of the Catholic Standard and Times published last Sunday).

    This is from a letter dated July 22, 1998, marking the 30th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae” (Of Human Life), an encyclical letter from Pope Paul VI on “the regulation of births,” in a section called “The world since 1968 (I suppose, as far as Chaput is concerned, that's the year this country turned into Sodom and/or Gomorrah)”…
    Sooner or later, every pastor counsels someone struggling with an addiction. Usually the problem is alcohol or drugs. And usually the problem is the same. The addict will acknowledge the problem but claim to be powerless against it. OR, alternately, the addict will deny having any problem at all, even if the addiction is destroying his or her health and wrecking job and family. No matter how much sense the pastor makes; no matter how true and persuasive his arguments; and no matter how life-threatening the situation, the addict simply cannot understand – or cannot act on – the counsel. The addiction, like a thick pane of glass, divides the addict from anything or anyone that might help.
    So as far as Archbishop Chaput is concerned, birth control can be equated with drug or alcohol addiction. Nice.

    In addition, I give you this…
    A significant new technology does not “add” something to a society; it changes everything – just as a drop of red dye does not remain discrete in a glass of water, but colors and changes every single molecule of the liquid.

    Contraceptive technology, precisely because of its impact on sexual intimacy, has subverted our understanding of the purpose of sexuality, fertility and marriage itself. It has detached them from the natural, organic identity of the human person and disrupted the ecology of human relationships. It has scrambled our vocabulary of love, just as pride scrambled the vocabulary of Babel.
    I understand of course how the church feels about birth control, even though I disagree; it’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a clinical explanation for why they oppose it…of course, they’re wrong about the “add” part.

    Want more? Here…
    Archbishop Chaput has faced sharp criticism (including by some Philadelphia newspaper columnists) for opposing an extension of the statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors for civil lawsuits.

    The criticism is incorrect, according to Archbishop Chaput and his administrators.

    The law, as proposed by the Denver legislature, would have extended the statute of limitations for churches and other non-governmental entities. It would have exempted public schools and public officials. In opposing this, the Archdiocese and others validly asked (?), should children in public schools have less protection than children in Catholic schools?

    When presented in this light, the bill was amended to include public schools, but it was defeated, not because of Catholic opposition, but because legislators and the public school community realized public school districts could be exposed to possible bankruptcy, just as Catholic dioceses would be.
    So he tried to include public schools as covered in the statute that would be lengthened. Funny, but I don’t recall any instances of abuse taking place in public institutions.

    But Chaput knew that trying to include the public schools would defeat the measure. Slick.

    And finally…
    (Jeanette DeMeo communications director for the Denver Archdiocese and general manager of the Denver Catholic Register, the archdiocesan newspaper) remembers her very first senior staff meeting (with Chaput). A particular issue came up, and Archbishop Chaput went around the table. Each member gave his or her opinion, and when it came to her, DeMeo started listing the pros and cons. The Archbishop stopped her. “Yes or no?” he asked.

    “I was shocked; I had to make a decision. That was a lesson to me, he wants a clear and direct answer,” She said. “He can sniff out if you are just trying to appease him. He has tremendous respect for the laity.”
    Well, I would argue that one person’s sense of “respect” is another person’s dictatorial notion of authority.

    Let’s dispense with the rose-colored mythology, shall we? Chaput surely lobbied for this because he knows that being named to the head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia practically assures him of becoming cardinal, thus climbing another rung on the power ladder of the Catholic Church. And unlike his predecessors Rigali and Bevilacqua, he is no doubt itching for a fight (leave it to Benny, the most doctrinaire pope in my lifetime, to appoint someone as staunchly conservative as he is).

    And putting on a Phillies cap at the news conference announcing your appointment (or “gear” from any other Philadelphia sports team) isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference. Trying to shove your ideology down the figurative throat of “the faithful” is going to do nothing except make those empty pew spaces on Sunday a little emptier each week.
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