Open Thread

Your weekly messages from President Obama and Governor Markell...

The Fix's Chris Cillizza cites Libertarian-friendly attitudes of young voters towards same sex marriage and marijuana as reason for the hope that Republicans will get a bigger bite of the youth vote. However, E. J. Dionne, Jr. also has a column on the libertarian philosophy and its implementation in the real world...

Here is some schadenfreude:

“Ignore the fucking scandals for a few days and save the country from Chuck Schumer.”

That is Mickey Kaus, alarmed about immigration reform sailing through the first hurdle in the Senate with over 80 votes. Some other witless conservative dubbed immigration reform the "Schumercare Democrat Voting Fraud Act of 2013." LOL. First, these conservatives always personalize their opposition to a bill by attacking the person or persons behind it. Nancy Pelosi. Barack Obama. Ted Kennedy. Chris Dodd. Barney Frank. Harry Reid. And now Chuck Schumer. And hence "Schumercare," which is supposed to allude to Obamacare for some reason, I suppose to awaken fear and loathing in the conservative lizard brain, as if enough did not exist there already. Second, "Democrat voting fraud?" Let's ignore for the moment the fact that every single documented instance of "voting fraud" over the past several years has had a Republican as the culprit, and instead let's focus on the fact that conservatives view minorities voting as a fraud. That cannot be denied given all the Jim Crow laws Republicans are passing or have passed in the South. Further, the earliest that an undocumented immigrant can be become a citizen under this reform bill and vote would be 2028. 15 years from now. They will be voting on whether to keep President Julian Castro on for a second term. And if the GOP decides to go all racist in opposition to this immigration reform bill, then yes, those new citizens will all be voting Democratic. But their votes will be as legal as the conservative's vote. And that is because they would have paid their fines and their dues and fulfilled their other onerous requirements in this reform to bill to become citizens.

This is proof of the home team affect. When President Bush was President, Republicans marched in lock step. And now that President Obama is President, many Democrats have changed their minds and support surveillance, while an equal number of Republicans have changed their minds and now are libertarians. But...

Clearly, Democrats are more comfortable with NSA surveillance under a Democratic administration, and Republicans are more comfortable with NSA surveillance under a Republican administration. There is, however, one small catch -- it's not an apples to apples comparison. In 2006, the poll question dealt with a warrantless surveillance program in which the Bush administration exceeded its legal authority with no judicial check or congressional approval. In 2013, the Obama administration, at least given what we know now, appears to be acting within its legal authority, relying in part on the courts, and acting within a law approved by bipartisan majorities. For critics of government snooping, that's cold comfort, but when it comes to gauging public attitudes, the bipartisan hypocrisy comes with an asterisk. Nevertheless, the larger point is that the American mainstream is far less concerned with federal surveillance programs than civil libertarians had hoped. Indeed, the Post/Pew poll found that 45% of the public -- very nearly half -- believe the government should be able to go even further than it currently is when it comes to spying on Americans, so long as the goal is to prevent terrorism. And with results like these, the political appetite for changing the law will likely be non-existent.

So I guess Vice President Biden is getting up appearances as the Democratic Plan B, as he is making the rounds at state party functions. He is headlining Virginia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on June 29. This is his third Jefferson-Jackson keynote of the year, after South Carolina on May 3 and Michigan on April 20. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he would examine ways to block the National Security Agency's surveillance programs before the Supreme Court, according to The Hill.

"I'm going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I'm going to be asking all the internet providers and all of the phone companies: Ask your customers to join me in a class action lawsuit. If we get 10 million Americans saying we don't want our phone records looked at then maybe someone will wake up and something will change in Washington."

Well, a couple of things. First, if Rand Paul really wants to challenge these programs, the first thing he should do is sponsor a bill in the Senate to repeal the Patriot Act in its entirety. He is a Senator and legislation is his wheelhouse. The foundation for the surveillance state is the Patriot Act. Get rid of the Patriot Act, and you deal a crippling blow to all of these programs.

Here is some polling goodness for our open thread today.... 2013 MASSACHUSETTS--U.S. SENATE--PPP: Rep. Ed Markey (D) 47, Gabriel Gomez (R) 39. MASSACHUSETTS--U.S. SENATE--University of Massachusetts: Markey 51, Gomez 40. 2014 PENNSYLVANIA--GOVERNOR--Quinnipiac: Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D) 45, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) 45; State Treasurer Rob McCord (D) 43, Corbett 35.

"Already unpopular with Pennsylvania women, Gov. Tom Corbett trails the leading female challenger, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, and State Treasurer Rob McCord," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Election Day is 17 months away, but Schwartz is in a strong position to become Pennsylvania's first female Governor."

More inside...

Yesterday, President Obama strongly defended the NSA's Big Surveillance program:

Obama, who ran for president in 2008 on a platform of reversing some of the Bush administration’s encroachments on civil liberties, instead defended the programs. ”I came in with a healthy skepticism about these program,” Obama said, noting his administration has strengthened some program safeguards. “My assessment and my team’s assessment is that they help us prevent terrorist attacks.”

The news of the day seems to be the blockbuster story reported by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian of a court order that authorized the NSA to collect a good deal of phone call information from Verizon customers:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), "the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill, says he will not vote for the legislation he helped write and has staked his political future on, unless substantial changes are made before final Senate consideration," Byron York reports. What a tool, and such an amateur. And what a coward.

Let's get the important stuff out of the way -- the Holy Trinity Greek Festival starts tomorrow at 11AM. If you are in town (even if not, my office orders carry out once during this week), you can FAX in an order and pick it up curbside for a killer lunch. And there is even a shuttle bus to bring cubicle dwellers from downtown to the festival for lunch.

This Sunday's NYT provides a must-read for those of us interested in resolving the long-term problem of reducing health care costs. This piece take a look at how colonoscopies are performed and charged to demonstrate the scope of the problem. And basically the scope of the problem comes down to Profit incentives, rather than health incentives. It also shows how hard it is to even get cost data for procedures -- even by a physician doing the procedure. Certainly our health care system pays dearly for heroic end-of-life care, but it certainly looks as though basic procedures done by our physicians in their offices or their physician centers are ripe for cost review.

Today's Open Thread is in the form of a Chart of the Day. Chart of the War on Drugs era, most probably. But this chart comes from a 2005 study, taking a look at trends in incarceration of drug offenders. It was cited over at Wonkblog this week, noting some of the small changes in the War on Drugs: