A fascinating part of politics is exploring what makes people vote as they do. The political belief that a person holds often is linked with something entirely unrelated. Several studies have shown correlations between, for instance, personality traits or hormone levels and support for the Democratic or Republican Party.
One such study was undertaken by Hotline and the National Journal, which can be found here. They compared the relationship between the sports people watch, the national parties they vote for, and their turn-out rate.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) in New York City may soon have to level with the public about their real agenda. At the Ms. Blog, Michelle Chen has an update on proposed legislation which would force CPCs in New York to disclose that they aren't reproductive health centers.
CPCs are anti-choice ministries that masquerade as full-service reproductive health clinics. They typically set up shop near real clinics to trick unwary clients. Real clinics dispense medical advice from doctors, nurses, and other licensed health care professionals. They are required to tell clients about the risks and benefits of all their treatment options. They don't push clients towards abortion or adoption. CPCs are typically staffed by volunteers. Instead of medical advice, they hand out over-the-counter pregnancy tests and medically inaccurate information about the risks of abortion. They use pseudoscience and high pressure sales tactics to derail as many women seeking abortions as they can.
Chen reports that if the bill becomes law, New York CPCs will have to post signs disclosing that "they do not provide abortion services or contraceptive devices, or make referrals to organizations that do." If the facility lacks licensed on-site medical professionals, the center would have to inform prospective clients of this fact. This is an excellent piece of consumer protection legislation. If CPCs are honest about who they are and what they do, they should have no problem with the law.
Christine O'Donnell: not (just) a joke
In an essay for the Women's Media Center, organizer Shelby Knox explains why Delaware's Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell represents more than an anti-masturbation punchline:
Not ironically, O'Donnell is a loyal disciple to the religious agenda that equates sexuality, especially female sexuality, with evil and the decline of humanity. [...] To most mainstream Americans, O'Donnell's concerted battle against solo sexual pleasure in particular is so fringe, so bizarre, it's laughable. Yet, those of us deeply familiar with the ideology of the extremist right wing have long understood the condemnation of sex and sexual pleasure for anything other than the purpose of conception within marriage to be the underpinning of public policies that invite (Christian) God and (big, big) government into our bedrooms.
Knox notes that the same underlying suspicion of human sexuality finds expression in more mainstream areas of American politics, like federally-funded abstinence-only education, which substitutes religious homilies and gender stereotypes for science-based sex ed. (I would add federal funding for some of the nation's aforementioned "crisis pregnancy centers" to Knox's list of examples of anti-sex religious ideology replacing science-based health services.)
This week, O'Donnell drew audible gasps from a crowd when she claimed that the separation of church and state isn't part of the U.S. Constitution, as Monica Potts reports for TAPPED.
O'Donnell may seem bizarre to the average voter, but Knox reminds us that she's pretty typical of a rising tide of anti-sex, anti-science conservatism that we ignore at our peril:
But more accurately she's the poster girl for more than 78 candidates running this election season who share her anti-sex, anti-woman views. These candidates believe abortion should be illegal in all cases, without exception for rape and incest. Some have promised a GOP majority would signal a return to funding failed abstinence-only policies. Ken Buck, the GOP Senate candidate in Colorado, even went so far as to refuse to prosecute a rape because the accuser had "buyer's remorse" over an abortion he alleged she'd had a year before the assault.
Condoms and porn
A porn actor in California became the latest performer to test positive for HIV last week. His diagnosis sent shockwaves through the San Fernando Valley's porn industry because the actor was reportedly a star who worked with a lot of big names in an industry where condoms are the exception rather than the rule.
The case has reignited controversy over the fact that straight porn companies aggressively flout California law that mandates condoms on porn sets. The industry maintains that it doesn't need condoms because it has a rigorous testing program for talent. As I report in Working In These Times the industry is being allowed to investigate the HIV outbreak on its own, which is a little like asking BP to monitor oil spills. The same industry-allied non-profit that administers the tests, and does PR about how great the testing program is, also investigates cases of HIV in the industry. Does anyone else see a potential problem?
Concussions in the NFL
Football season is in full swing, but for Dave Zirin of The Nation and many other football fans, it's getting harder and harder to reconcile their love of the game with our growing awareness of the toll that it takes on players:
In August, to much fanfare, NFL owners finally acknowledged that football-related concussions cause depression, dementia, memory loss and the early onset of Alzheimer's disease. Now that they've opened the door, this concussion discussion is starting to shape how we understand what were previously seen as the NFL's typical helping of off-field controversy and tragedy.
Zirin appends a list of over 30 players who have sustained concussions since the pre-season. Peter King of Sports Illustrated is calling for the NFL to start kicking excessively violent players out of the game, but Zirin says that's not enough to stem the tide of concussions. Devastating brain injuries can come from routine, legal hits. A lot of the cumulative brain trauma leaves players demented in their fifties is actually sustained during practice.
The carnage is built into the game. Concussions are unavoidable given anatomy of the human brain and the physics of huge guys crashing into each other. Helmets only help so much because they can't prevent the brain from smashing against the cranium. Zirin thinks football fans need to do a lot of soul searching. He argues that every fan should think hard about whether it's really that much fun to watch guys get their brains pulped in the name of sport. Zirin's not ready to give up football yet, but he thinks the gnawing guilt may eventually outweigh his love of the game.
Cephalon spokesdoc: "Maybe I am a pervert, I honestly don't know"
Mother Jones and Propublica have a blockbuster exposé of crooked doctors on pharmaceutical company payrolls. They found that a shocking number of "white coat sales reps" (doctors paid by pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs to other doctors) have checkered pasts and dodgy credentials.
For examples, in 2004, a court upheld a Georgia hospital's decision to fire Dr. Donald Ray Taylor, an anesthesiologist who had a habit of giving vaginal and anal exams to young female patients without documenting why. According to court records, Dr. Taylor explained himself to a hospital official as follows, "Maybe I am a pervert, I honestly don't know."
For reasons that are themselves murky, Dr. Taylor went on to become the highest paid speaker for the pharmaceutical giant Cephalon, earning $142,050 in 2009 and an an additional $52,400 through June. It turns out that Dr. Taylor is far from the only shady doc to make big bucks as a shill for big pharma. The investigators found 250 pharma docs with serious blemishes on their records for such offenses as inappropriately prescribing drugs, providing poor care, or having sex with patients. Some were just playing doctor on the pharma circuit, having lost their licenses.
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Is a new blog formed last week. It was formed by about 15 of us who are all together on a larger e-mail listserv for progressive bloggers interested in talking about sports together (thus, the title). Mike Lux and myself are writers (although we haven't found time to write yet, and I will likely start up when NHL free agency opens July 1 and increase during football/hockey season). The full list of writers is here, on the right side of the page.
We've got a lot of sports diversity, with topics ranging from World Cup and BCS FAIL to baseball trading cards and the LeBron sweepstakes. Also, Richard Allen Smith has a widely discussed post on interleague play.
Apologies for the college basketball related article. Will return to regularly scheduled political programming tomorrow morning--Chris
For as long as I can remember, debating conference superiority has been one of the favorite topics of discussion for fans of NCAA Division 1 men's basketball.
This year, due to a sub-par performance in the NCAA tournament, much of that discussion has focused on the Big East supposedly being overrated. In fact, at least among the people I follow on Twitter, some have even used this year's performance by the Big East to argue that the conference is overrated in general. For what I can tell, the thrust of these arguments is either that the Big East is puffed up by the sports media equivalent of the D.C. Village, or that northeast corridor basketball writers simply overrate their home conference.
However, since the great college sports conference realignment of 2005, the Big East has indeed emerged as the dominant conference in men's college basketball within the NCAA tournament. It actually isn't even close. While the Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac-10 have performed roughly has well as the Big East in the NCAA tournament on a team per team basis, and while the ACC and SEC are not far behind using that same metric, the significantly greater size of the Big East puts it an order of magnitude beyond the other conferences in terms of overall strength.
OK... while many are watching the NCAA Basketball games, I'll be watching the big sports action of the weekend: The Health Care bill in the House of Representatives.
CSPAN is showing BOTH the debates in the House and the Reconciliation Bill debate in the House Rules Committee (on CSPAN 2). The major players will all be out there, making the points or stalling to try and get the bill bogged down. Whatever happens today will determine what gets voted on tomorrow.
The preliminaries are finally over in the battle to finally, finally, finally- 97 years after Teddy Roosevelt first proposed it- pass comprehensive health care reform. I think the right sports analogy to use is the extended, exhausting, NBA playoffs: after 82 regular season games, 16 playoff teams play in a best-of-7 series to get to the second round, and then the remaining eight teams play best-of-seven to get into the conference finals for another exhausting best of-7 series. I think that's about where we're at, the conference finals, where the coming days will seem like a long tiring 7-game series that is only the preparation for the even more intense final championship round.
I am excited, though, because this is a whole lot further than we got to when I was in the White House health care war room in 1994. We got the bill out of some of the committees, but never out of Senate Finance, and never had a realistic chance to have a floor fight.
So now come the machinations and maneuvering to figure out how to merge the two bills in the Senate and three in the House. The strategy now looks to be to get through on the Senate side with the 60 Democrats and maybe Snowe, but to continue to hold reconciliation (where you only need 51 votes) out as an option if needed once the conference committee comes back.
As I had predicted awhile back, Baucus' initial bill in Senate Finance was an ugly mutt of compromises and decisions, but it got a little better in the committee process, as he gave the progressives on the committee a few solid improvements here and there. Reid will now merge the two bills, and I am convinced that he will work to create a better bill in the process, and then we have the floor fight and finally conference committee. At every stage, I think progressives have the ability, if they stick together and negotiate well, to make progress.
On the highest profile and incredibly important public option issue, I believe we are now well-positioned to have a public option in the final bill. We have come a long way since those summer months where all the conventional wisdom repeatedly said the public option was dead, but I think we are now at a position where the biggest question is more likely to be how good the public option is, not whether we will have one. There will continue to be conservative Democrats who want to placate insurers and Olympia Snowe by dropping the public option, but I think progressives can stop that from happening. The key, as it has always been from the first day of this fight, is for progressives, especially in the House, to stay together and stay strong in the negotiations. In fact, I will go so far as to say this: progressives should not panic if the Senate bill isn't great on the public option issue, and Democrats in general shouldn't panic if the conference committee is a long drawn-out affair with lots of fussing and fighting. We have come too far not to get a bill, and as long as House progressives stay strong and stay together, that bill will have to include a pubic option.
The conference finals are about to begin, but I'm not going to tell you to pull up a seat, because we need every progressive to stay in the game (yes, I will torture this metaphor to the end). It is only because of the progressive movement that health care has been on the agenda, and only because of that movement that the debate has not drifted inexorably to the right. We have a shot at passing a strong bill that will actually cover all Americans and create competition and a check on the power of the insurance industry. We have a shot at making history. Let's stay on the court until the victory is won.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says negotiators are discussing a new plan to save General Motors and Chrysler LLC. Reid, D-Nev., wouldn't give details but said it would be different than the plan passed by the House on Wednesday night or the alternative put forward today by Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker - which would place stricter demands on automakers and the UAW.
Right now, it is not believed that Reid and Senate Democrats have the 60 votes needed to end debate and approve the legislation as written. Reid said another senator had offered the new proposal but didn't say who.
But, he said, if negotiators are able to work out the proposal "the bill would overwhelmingly pass the Senate," perhaps as early as Thursday night, and then be sent to the House for consideration.
Obviously, the devil is in the details, which are currently not available. However, we have already given a lot away, so I am wary of what further concessions have been made.
NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is "not qualified" to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.
In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.
In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency's moon program, sources said.
Warning people not to criticize certain governmental programs, restricting the flow of information, and calling the new administration "not qualified." Delightful. Time to fire Griffin. Obviously, this is a prime and particularly gratuitous example of why personnel matter: some personnel simply don't follow executive policy. Also, last year at Netroots Nation I made the case for why the netroots should care about space policy. You can read it here.
Also, the most recent poll in for the Democratic primary shows Attorney General Lisa Madigan at 32%, Illinois Veteran's Affairs head Tammy Duckworth at 18%, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. at 11%, and Schakowsky at 10%. Jackson has fallen from a large lead two weeks ago, after he was identified as "Senate Candidate #5" in the Blagojevich investigation. He has not, however, been accused of any wrongdoing and is not under investigation.
In the increasingly heated battle for Secretary of the Interior, Raul Grialva (excellent choice, endorsed by over 100 environmental orgs) and Mike Thompson (bad choice, corporate Blue Dog) both appear to be out:
Last week, California Rep. Mike Thompson, D, and Arizona Rep. Raul M. Grijalva were considered top contenders, but sources close the transition say that "problems and concerns" have arisen with both candidates. New names emerging this week to fill the Interior slot include two former assistant secretaries of the Interior in the Clinton administration: Kevin Gover, now director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and John Berry, now director of the National Zoo.
Looks like a compromise choice will be made. At least such an appointment will have loads of experience, and not suck.
However, can I just say that I do not enjoy having to cheer for my conference in addition to cheering for my team? I already expend enough emotional energy supporting Syracuse, that having to support the other 15 teams in the Big East when they play non-conference games is simply exhausting. Further, the other teams in the Big East are Syracuse's main rivals, so why should I even cheer for them at all when they are playing non-conference opponents? I don't get this aspect of sports fandom. Why do the teams you cheer against for most of the year suddenly become teams you support just because they represent your conference or division in the playoffs? Doesn't make any sense to me.
This is an open thread, too. Let those thoughts in your head seep out into the Internet in comment form.
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