Unions and Obama

So an article by Molly Ball in the Atlantic poses the question "Are Unions Obama's Secret Weapon in Ohio?"

The article starts with an anecdote about Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. Ball asserts that Obama is in a good place to win Ohio and other Rust Belt states because of white working-class voters' distrust of Romney. However, this wasn't the goal of the campaign, but instead due to "Trumka and his minions," her language.

"A year go, all the talk was Obama could never win with high unemployment. The early conventional wisdom went further, writing off working class voters, asserting that the only path available to President Obama was upscale voters in states like North Caroline," says the AFL-CIO's political director, Mike Podhorzer. 

Ball argues that if Obama wins manufacturing states of the Upper Midwest it will provide insulation if he loses states like Florida, Virginia, and Colorado, and it will be due to union members working on his behalf. The AFL-CIO says its 128,000 volunteers will have knocked on 5.5 million doors, made 5.2 million phone calls, and passed out 2 million leaflets in six states.

The efforts are much bigger this year than four years ago, mostly because of Citizens United. Additionally, Ohio's Gov. Kasich gave unions a push in the right direction when he tried to strip collective-bargaining rights, which the voters of Ohio repealed with 62% of the vote (it was 2 to 1 in Cleveland). Finally, Senator Sherrod Brown, who is favored to win, has mobilized his supporters and ran as an unabashed liberal.

Ball describes her experience walking around in Ohio, which I guess is news. However, she says that,

"In poll, and in my own conversations with Ohioan, there's a clear sense that Romney is viewed as out of touch with the working class of this acutely class-conscious, industrial state, of which old-line unions still form the backbone."

Now, unions have not always been happy with President Obama particularly after The Employee Free Choice Act and I'd argue his lack of support for labor. There are union members who are grumbling, but they are falling in line because of how bad Republicans are on labor. The enemy you know I guess.

So unions have to work hard to not be taken for granted if Obama wins a second term. Happy Election Day!

Women are hormonal messes and can't be trusted to vote.

I didn’t actually believe this when I saw it last night and now I wish I had because I can’t find the chart. CNN being the beacon of journalistic integrity they are published a blog post on women’s voting patterns and the connection to hormones.  It looks specific to women because you know men are never hormonal; there have been no links to testosterone and violence or anything. Just us silly ladies who are completely hormonally driven. 

Also to be clear, I always wear my stilettos to vote ovulation be damned…also, serious question, do women who aren’t trying to get pregnant or are not using the rhythm method actually know when they are ovulating? Is this something all of my friends can answer? Because I have no idea. 

So what was the post actually about because I recognize you may have no idea if you know you read substantive articles about politics, women, and science. On Wednesday, someone over at CNN thought it would be a good idea to ask, “Do hormones drive women’s votes?” This clearly not sexist question, depicting women has hormonal simpletons, focuses on estrogen levels and how they impact women’s voting patterns. Naturally, CNN decided instead of asking women how they vote or what they think about politics, they have employed pseudo-scientific speculation. 

And because like every presidential election, both campaigns have discovered women are allowed to vote and generally turn out in high numbers, CNN cares how they vote. Now, women can’t just vote based on decision making techniques, values, education, and you know all the reasons men vote. It must be tied to women’s ovulation cycles, something scary the men folk don’t understand and can’t control. Or we’d just vote like men right?

The “study” says hormones may influence female voting choices depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship. Yeah, that makes no sense. To begin with everyone has hormones, not just women. Women are depicted as more hormonal, but it is a stereotype used to discredit and silence women. 

The study is supposed to be published in a peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science (though after the backlash I have to wonder if that is going to happen), and several political scientists are skeptical about the study’s conclusions. Like, the HuffingtonPost, I have no idea why CNN would publish this. Except that they have election fever too, and the horse race coverage is getting old.

The study, authored by the University of Texas at San Antonio, employed an internet survey of 275 women who were not taking hormonal contraception and had regular menstrual cycles for the data. The researchers claim that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of estrogen are high, single women are more likely to vote for Obama and committed women more likely to vote for Romney by a Margin of at least 20%. This is the basis for the argument single women like Obama and committed women like Mittens. Durante breaks it down for us, when women are ovulating, they “feel sexier” and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality. Married women have the same hormones, but tend to take the opposite view point. Durante eloquently put it, “I think they’re overcompensating for the increase of the hormones motivating them to have sex with other men.”

Hear that ladies, estrogen levels make you sluttier which makes you vote for slutty values like abortion and gay marriage. Ok, no wait. When women don’t feel sexy they are more likely to vote against their own interests. No. One more time. Sexy women love Medicare and don’t want it turned into a voucher system, and unsexy women are less likely to be raped so they don’t care that conservatives have no idea what rape is. As Huffington Post noted there is some weird assumption being made about single and childless women. 

Durante’s study also noted that liberal attitudes favor social equality and are less associated with organized religion while conservatives push more traditional values and has a greater link to religion. Shocking! Something, that looks like truth coming out of this. 

This study essentially concludes that women voters are unable to use cognitive though to assess political candidates or policy issues. The study doesn’t even address men so I guess we should leave the decision making up to them. This will work out well, after all these are the people who brought you slavery, rape as a weapon of war, and arguably the international financial collapse. 

As of last night CNN took down the post. See the screen shot below. Apparently, they figured out it didn’t fulfill editorial standards. Hey, who knew CNN had editorial standards?

Why does everyone support Sen. Sherrod Brown? Because he is awesome.

Athens’ News is the latest to come out in support of Sen. Brown. I’ve decided to report portions of their editorial on the subject because a friend of mine who is really into Chicago politics said it was amazing how much the Athens’ News hates Mandel.

Excerpts:

“We strongly support Sherrod Brown’s re-election to represent the State of Ohio in the U.S. Senate. We agree with his moderate-liberal stance on most of the issues, but also feel he’s clearly the superior candidate when it comes to character and integrity.”

This is where they talk about Brown’s reputation for hard work and service to his constituents. Then they rip into this opponent, state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who they note should be respected for his military service, but should be held accountable for this “anything to get votes” strategy. They note that Mandel has been slammed by many a fact checker (sounds like the lying is spreading in the GOP). They claim Mandel has put his friends in position they have not business being in then they go into their main reason for opposing him:

“All of this is troubling—and in our minds disqualifies Mandel from serving in any public office. However, our main reason for urging reader to support Brown is that unlike Mandel, Sen. Brown advances a reasonable and serious approach to addressing America and Ohio’s desperately serious economic, health-care, energy and foreign policy issues.
“In the U.S. Senate, we don’t need any more inflexible obstructions and party-first ideologues. Yet, everything that Mandel has said and one as a candidate—as well as his strong support among the uncompromising Tea Parties—suggest that he would line up with the conservative radicals in Congress against any of the problem-solving compromises that will be absolutely necessary if this country is going to address its problems. If you’re a fan of gridlock in Washington, then Josh Mandel’s definitely your man.
“But don’t let Mandel’s Tea Party support convince you that he’s a man of the people. He’s also benefiting mightily from the blizzard of corporate, elite and special interest money that’s piling up on the Republican side of this key Senate race.”

Burn.

Ohio Public said that, “nearly $18 million in outside money has been spent so far against Brown and supporting Mandel, from nine groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, as well as the largely unknown Government Integrity Fund.” Brown only has a sixth of that from unions and special-interests groups.

The Athens’ News then goes on to discuss some issues specifically such as the Affordable Care Act and Climate-change. However, it is the portion on economic and tax issues that makes me almost feel for Mandel:

“On economic and tax issues, Mandel subscribes to the discredited theory (and as Bill Clinton pointed out in his glorious Democratic National Convention speech, really poor arithmetic) that reducing government revenues through tax cuts will actually generate more money for government. This has never worked as a serious long-term approach to budget balancing. It’s a particularly reckless strategy at a time when the national debt has reached a crisis stage.
“Brown supports letting the Bush tax cuts expire for families earning more than $250,000 a year [or as Mitten’s call them the middle class]. While this won’t put much of a dent in the budget deficit, it is a start toward fiscal solvency, and hopefully just the first step in a national realization that debt reduction will require a combination of tax increases, entitlement reform and spending cuts.”

Here Athens’ News advocates Democrats compromising on spending and entitlements, which I’m not willing to concede. There is plenty to cut without sacrificing the poor. But hell, that felt good.

Republicans, Officially Legislating Things that Haven’t Happened

Republicans are moving to prevent President Obama from making changes to welfare, which is just a way to provide Romney with a little ground after Obama received a bounce from the DNC and bully the President into following the rules.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, revealed resolutions on Monday that show disapproval with the DHHS recommendation that states should be able to obtain waivers to make changes to the welfare to work requirements. If it passed the Obama administration would be unable to grant these waivers.

The welfare work waivers have been an issue since July, when DHHS made its announcement via memo and the Romney camp jumped on it. There is a pretty awful ad featuring President Obama destroying welfare work requirements while propagating the myth that welfare recipients are lazy and unwilling to work. Of course these waivers are actually an attempt by the Obama administration to appease governors who have requested such waivers including at least two Republicans from Utah and Nevada.

Former president Clinton has come to Obama’s defense stating the Romney ad was wrong. Additionally, The Washington Post Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, pointed out the ad is wrong because it asserts President Obama has already moved to “drop work requirements” which isn’t true because no waivers have been granted.

Naturally, GOP lawmakers are also upset that DHHS had the audacity to make a rule change without consulting Congress. The Government Accountability Office said that administration needed to seek congressional approval before making policy changes, which makes sense.

Of course instead of framing the argument as the Obama administration should consult Congress before making policy change, the GOP lawmakers are jumping on Obama is gutting welfare:

“With the stroke of a pen, the Obama Administration single-handedly undermined one of the central tents of bipartisan welfare reform, that work is the best path to self-sufficiency. Given GAO’s findings, it’s an indisputable fact that this administration should have submitted its unilateral changes to Congress. The way forward is to put a stop to this unprecedented power play, as this resolution does, and start over on a robust reform and reexamination of this program,” said Hatch.

Camp added to this by calling it “unfortunate, but not surprising” that the Obama administration would overreach and not withdraw the change. Camp then continues to talk up welfare reform and the work requirements as the save all for poor people.

The House and Senate have restrictive timetables for voting so it is unclear whether they will vote on this before the election. Democrats are calling foul on all of this because it is based in lies. Also, Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich), ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, pointed out that the root of these claims are pretty racist. Republicans are grasping at stereotypes that welfare recipients are lazy and if not required to work will not work, which isn’t what the evidence supports. But they’re not really the party of facts right now. 

Romney teaches you how not to win an election

Unbelievable. David Corn at Mother Jones released these gems today. I'm baffled.

A federal judge allows early voting in Ohio

A federal judge ordered Ohio to open its polling places three days before the November 6 election. Ohio Republicans have been doing their best to limit voting in Ohio with voter ID laws and restrictions on early voting. 

Friday's decision restored early voting the weekend and Monday before the election. In 2008, more than 93,000 Ohio voters cast ballots during this time. It is being called a win for Obama's campaign. 

Last week, a three-judge court restored the weekend early voting in parts of Florida that are subject to the Voting Rights Act. Another judge in Florida voided part of a state law that would have prevented groups from registering new voters. A Texas law was struck down by a federal judge as well including a strict photo ID requirement and election districts that undercut the voting power of Latinos and blacks. 

Voting-rights advocates are pretty pleased as they should be:

"It shows judges take very seriously the right to vote as fundamental in a democracy. And when politicians manipulate the rules for political purposes, their rules are not entitled to the normal deference," said Penda Hair, a veteran civil rights lawyer for the Advancement Project.

Naturally, this time of year election lawyers and civil rights advocates have been warring with one another over the new rules many states have come up with on casting ballots and counting votes. Florida and Ohio have adopted early voting after previous elections resulted in long lines at the polling places. The African American turnout the weekend before the election contributed to the narrow victories Obama had in both states in 2008. 

Conservative legislatures reduced early voting in Ohio. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a former Republican leader in the state House, claimed the early voting on weekdays is the only "uniform, fair" rule for all 88 counties. Later he said military voters and their families could cast ballots on the weekend. 

The Obama campaign sued claiming all voters should have equal rights to vote early and in person on the three days before the election day...weird, that sounds fair. 

U.S. District Judge Peter Economus agreed Friday. "Restoring in-person early voting to all Ohio voters through the Monday before election day returns to voters the same opportunity to vote as previously conferred under Ohio law," he said. Military families will benefit as well because they will be certain the polls in their area will be open, he said.

Naturally, Ohio is going to appeal the ruling:

Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine said he would appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati. If his appeal is turned down, he could ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

Earlier this week, a different federal judge blocked an election rule in Ohio that caused 14,000 ballots to be thrown out in 2008. Ohio claimed that votes cast in the wrong precincts had to be discarded, even if the voter went to the correct polling place and was then sent to the wrong spot. The judge noted a single polling place can serve several precincts.

Both of these judges were appointees of President Clinton. The judge in Texas was appointed by President G.W. Bush. 

This comes after a pretty big loss in Pennsylvania when a state judge upheld the state's photo ID law. Pennsylvania's Supreme Court is considering an appeal. 

The not anti-women candidate compromises on women's health and surprises no one.

So far they claim to preserve the goal, which is to have employers cover women's birth control. The compromise itself is still undetermined because Obama has yet to make his announcement. I'm thinking he's going to keep birth control covered, but allow religious institutions to cease hiring women, something crazy that will make his hard line on birth control completely inconsequential.

Jezebel had this to say:

The accommodation will apparently be "based on state models" and might involve insurance companies stepping into provide birth control coverage themselves. ABC says this is cheaper for them than the alternative since it keeps them from having to deal with the consequences of unintended pregnancies, but it's still unlikely that insurance companies are going to pay for birth control out of their own pockets. Will religious employees have to pay some sort of separate premium directly to insurance companies for their birth control? And won't this piss off the same people who didn't like the idea of separate funds for abortion coverage in the health care bill?

I'm guessing the announcement will do nothing and piss a whole bunch of people off. Do you feel that shift in the air? Campaign season. And just when I thought Obama would figure out that some people aren't going to vote for him no matter what he does.

President Obama announces 2012 Campaign

Ok, so he is the sitting President and is certainly going to receive the Democratic nomination for President. Additionally, he did a few things that I completely agree with [nods to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act].

That being said I demand a Democratic challenger in the primary, yeah I'm looking at you Dennis and Feingold. I'm serious, it is time to bring Obama back to the fold by any means necessary. I'm advocating anything short of force at this point. I'm not advocating a third part candidate yet, but I'm also not ruling it out.

A few reasons we should want a challenger in the primary?

• cutting spending for the poor
• a third war, because two we can't afford just wasn't enough
• caving on health care
• and just about everything else
• extending the Bush tax cuts
• a serious lack of support for labor

The list can go on, but I have class in a few and need to wrap this up. The most important thing is not to give this campaign your money!!! The prediction is that the 2012 Obama campaign will break all kinds of fundraising records, but I refuse to give until we see and hear some of our concerns being brought up. So I am advocating ransom. He has appeased the right every chance he could, and I don't want a moderate President. I want a liberal.