EJ Dionne's Quest to Find the Constitution

The Supreme Court’s continuing defense of the powerful

By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: June 29

The United States Supreme Court now sees its central task as comforting the already comfortable and afflicting those already afflicted.

I’m sure John Roberts and Antonin Scalia got together with the Koch brothers and said “You know what? To hell with this whole Constitution thing. I’m here to make you guys more money…Wait, you don’t own Wal Mart? Or AT&T? And you’re not running for office in Arizona? Fuck it, we’re helping them anyways because I can’t resist the opportunity to oppress women, minorities, and disenfranchise the poor.”

If you are a large corporation or a political candidate backed by lots of private money,

Because private money is far more nefarious than public money, after all.

be assured that the court’s conservative majority will be there for you,

Man, that second person construction is really clumsy. (Obviously it’s brilliant when I do it though.)

solicitous of your needs and ready to swat away those pesky little people who dare to contest your power.

Notice he hasn’t invoked the Constitution or constitutionality yet. I’m starting a raffle to see how many words he writes before he does so. I’m taking the first bet at 527 words.

This court has created rules that will have the effect of declaring some corporations too big to be challenged through class actions, as AT&T customers and female employees at Wal-Mart discovered.

That ruling, of course had nothing to do with the size of the company and everything to do with the requirements guiding the formation of a class. The Supreme Court simply said that working for Wal Mart and having a vagina did not entitle one to claim compensation for alleged discrimination of a handful of employees. AT&T was about contractual clauses that waive the right to legal recourse.

And remember how sympathetic conservatives are supposed to be to the states as “laboratories of democracy,” pioneering solutions to hard problems?

Yeah. Plus, it gives me an excuse to link to this article. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070104576398072003438908.html)

Tell that to the people of Arizona.

I know; they’re still pissed off about the Justice Department’s challenge to their immigration laws.

They used a referendum to establish a highly practical system

Highly practical? I get that he’s trying to sell me on the law before he’s even explained it, but it just comes off as pleading and needy.

of financing political campaigns that the court, in a 5-4 decision Monday, eviscerated. It was designed to reduce corruption and give a fighting chance to candidates who decide to forgo contributions from special interests.

It was also unconstitutional and ill-conceived.

The people acted, noted Justice Elena Kagan in a brilliantly scalding dissent,

Quite clearly, she’s the smartest person in the room.

after a scandal in which “nearly 10 percent of the state’s legislators were caught accepting campaign contributions or bribes in exchange for supporting a piece of legislation.”

That sounds like a good time to start criminal prosecutions against legislators and lobbyists, not to change campaign finance laws. More importantly, though, this little nugget of irrelevance has absolutely nothing to do with the Constitutionality of the law. Elena Kagan, being a Supreme Court justice and the smartest person in the room, should probably focus more on that pesky old parchment.

Under Arizona’s “clean elections” initiative, candidates who raised a modest amount in very small contributions could receive a lump sum of public money. They could raise no further private funds.

It’s a campaign finance two-fer: convoluted and idiotic.

No candidate had to join the public system. But if a privately financed candidate or the interest groups supporting his or her campaign started outspending one who was publicly financed, the public system came to the rescue with additional cash so the “clean money”

What did I tell you about liberals and public money? They think private money is dirty and public money is clean.

candidate wouldn’t be blown out of the race by lethal dollar bills.

In other words, public funds would be used to put a finger on the scale of an election based on one candidate’s fundraising prowess. How is the unconstitutionality of this even a question?

Why was this important? Kagan was spot on: “Candidates will choose to sign up” for public funding “only if the subsidy provided enables them to run competitive races.”

Again, as the ever-so-brilliant Kagan fails to mention, precisely none of this has anything to do with the Constitution. What’s more, it appears that she is actively advocating that public funds be systematically used to make races competitive for certain candidates based on arbitrary criteria. Which is flat-out crazy-illegal.

Such breathtaking common sense

It’s like he lacks the ability to filter information critically.

has been missing from the majority’s recent campaign finance decisions —

The Supreme Court foolishly decides to base its rulings on the quaint notion of Constitutionality. What rubes!

notably its Citizens United ruling, also a 5-4 conservative ukase,

I think it would help if he read his columns aloud to himself. Maybe he’d catch on to some of this nonsense, like arguing that a 5-4 vote in the United States Supreme Court is best described as a czarist decree. This when we actually have scores of czars in the executive branch!

allowing our poor, beleaguered corporations

I’m picking up on your sarcasm here, although it was very subtly crafted.

to expand their power in American politics.

Again, the Supreme Court has no business regulating someone’s power except in the context of whether or not it adheres to the Constitution or if it pits two legal precedents against each other.

Here’s the stunning part:

That you still haven’t mentioned the Constitution? At all? 363 words and 2300 characters in?

For years, opponents of campaign finance reform have accused those who want to repair the system of trying to reduce the amount of political speech.

And rightly so.

But Arizona’s law, as Kagan pointed out, “subsidizes and so

I don’t know if this is a typo or legal jargon. Either way, I forgive her because she’s the smartest person in the room.

produces more political speech.”

Yes, but it promotes only one side’s political speech. With public funds.

And then there was this shot at Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion: “Except in a world gone topsy-turvy,

Our Supreme Court justices are writing their opinions with pettiness last seen in an episode of Degrassi. Thanks for giving me an excuse to reference Degrassi, Elena. Now everyone knows that I watch Teen Nick.

additional campaign speech and electoral competition is not a First Amendment injury.”

Judge’s ruling? Judges?

No, citing the First Amendment in a quote whose main purpose was to dismiss First Amendment concerns does not qualify as a Constitutional invocation. Sorry, EJ. Keep trying, though.

Indeed, Roberts had to argue that those terribly downtrodden candidates financed with private money had their speech “burdened,” simply because their publicly financed opponents had the means to respond.

No. Because their opponents were given the means to respond. By the state. Who took it from the people. Approximately half of which oppose the candidate to whom their public money was funneled.

Kagan and the dissenters stood up for free speech.

Yeah, but they only stood up for free speech for one side. The other guy’s still got to pay.

Roberts’ majority defended paid speech.

Paid, yes. But paid equally by both sides with equality under the law.

The dissenters want to allow candidates to talk; the majority wants to enhance money’s ability to talk.

I’m sorry, I don’t speak bumper sticker.

I do speak rock, though. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je7MqES4Wfk)

Roberts was especially exercised over any notion of “leveling the playing field” between private-money candidates and their challengers.

He was “exercised” over the notion of using the government as a mechanism of leveling the playing field. And if you believe that government should play a more expanded role in determining those elected to operate the government, well, you might just think Elena Kagan’s the smartest person in the room.

He even included a footnote calling attention to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s Web site, which once said the law was passed “to level the playing field when it comes to running for office.” Horrors!

Unlike virtually everything that you’ve noted in support of Elena Kagan, Roberts’ focus on the effort to “level the playing field” actually does have legal and Constitutional relevance as it clearly demonstrates that the law necessarily favors only one side at the expense of the other.

Kagan archly

How many adjectives do you think Dionne had to look up to adequately fellate Kagan in this article? Probably not enough. She is the smartest person in the room.

noted the “majority’s distaste for ‘leveling’ ” and then dismissed its obsession, observing that Roberts failed to take seriously the Arizona law’s central purpose of containing corruption. Leveling was the means, not the end.

Which, of course, is wholly irrelevant and kind of stupid. The Supreme Court exists to pass judgment on the means, not the end. Golly gee, I’m starting to wonder if Elena Kagan really is the smartest person in the room.

Nonetheless, pay heed to how this conservative court majority bristles at nearly every effort to give the less wealthy and less powerful an opportunity to prevail,

Want to “prevail” in an election? It’s not complicated: raise more money.

whether at the ballot box or in the courtroom. Not since the Gilded Age has a Supreme Court been so determined to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy.

Still, not a single word about the Constitution. Not one.

Thus the importance of the Wal-Mart and AT&T cases, the latter described by the New York Times as “a devastating blow to consumer rights.”

Golly, EJ. Thanks for bringing the reader up to speed on what the hell you’re talking about. There were actually two AT&T cases on the docket this year. The first was Talk America v. Michigan Bell Telephone. The second, and presumably the one to which you’re referring was AT&T v. Concepcion, which simply held that when signing a contract, the fine print matters.

Will the court now feel so full of its power that it takes on the executive and legislative branches over the health-care law?

Yep.

In 1912,

Very timely.

Theodore Roosevelt warned that the courts had “grown to occupy a position unknown in any other country, a position of superiority over both the legislature and the executive.” Worse, “privilege has entrenched itself in many courts just as it formerly entrenched itself in many legislative bodies and in many executive offices.”

Go back to hunting moose with large rocks, Teddy. We’ll call you when we need to invade Cuba.

What happens to a democracy when its highest court dedicates itself to defending privilege? That’s the unfortunate experiment on which we are now embarked.

It’s over. Not once. NOT ONCE. Not in 763 inglorious words did E.J. Dionne mention the Constitution. Nor did he mention relevant case history, or other relevant laws. Instead, he yielded to the most inflammatory and least technical areas of Elena Kagan’s dissent. (I assume that she, at very least, provides some actual substance at some point in her dissent, but Dionne seems to go out of his way to avoid them.)

This is like watching a game of football with a rabid fan. His team gets flagged for pass interference. Aghast, he cites the unfairness of the referees when the last three penalties have gone against his team. You ask him to look at the replay. The defensive back practically mugged the receiver; it’s clearly pass interference. Last time it was clearly an illegal procedure penalty for too many men (err…women. Err…players) on the field, and the time before that it was an obvious holding call. “That’s not the point.” He says defiantly. “We keep getting screwed.”

In Soviet Russia, Can Kicks You Down Road

Don’t make the economy worse

Other helpful advice from Eugene Robinson:

“Don’t touch the hot stove.”

“Drive with your eyes open.”

“Don’t stick your dangle in the whirlpool jets.”

“Beer before liquor makes you sicker.”

“Don’t jump!” and

“Breathe.”

By Eugene Robinson, Published: June 27

There is no good reason for negotiations on the budget and the debt ceiling to be deadlocked, because the solution is obvious:

Fantastic! Don’t worry everybody. Eugene Robinson has all the answers. Senator! Don’t bother drafting that legislation. Come listen to Eugene!

First, do no harm.

Christ. That’s it? Why not “give peace a chance” or “celebrate diversity” or “God is my copilot” or any one of thousands of bumper sticker platitudes that have absolutely no meaning? Eugene, you just made me look foolish in front of a hypothetical United States Senator. Asshat.

The Hippocratic injunction

It’s bumper sticker sloganeering. Call it the Hippocratic injunction if you think big words make this inanity any less trite, but we all see in you the moderately intelligent and massively insecure teenager slaving over SAT vocabulary flash cards.

should be something befuddled economists and warring politicians can agree on.

Eugene Robinson has staked out a bold position here. Next week he’ll unveil his new platform against raping children and drowning puppies. Courageous.

With the nation struggling to recover from a devastating recession, unemployment stuck at crisis levels, financial markets spooked by the possibility of European defaults and consumers disinclined to consume, it makes no earthly sense

As opposed to the wildly popular Martian sense.

 to suck money out of the economy.

Y’know, unless inflation is starting to pick up. Which—very predictably—it is. (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a09506a-a0b7-11e0-b14e-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1QaE1PT5z )

(Someone call Paul Krugman so that he can Officer Barbrady this. Move along, nothing to see here.)

Democrats are right that this is a terrible moment for spending cuts.

Government spending my spur GDP (it is, after all, an additive component of GDP), but it does nothing to increase the consumption and investment portions of GDP that drive the substantive economic growth that most Americans recognize. Indeed, most government spending is a massive vehicle for redistribution. Rich to poor. Young to old. Rural to urban. Soybean to corn. Coke fans to Pepsi lovers. Cats to dogs, etc. That vehicle requires vast resources that would be better spent creating and honing products that actually grow the economy.

Think, for a moment, of the man-hours and brain power that go into servicing the government’s redistribution vehicle: bureaucrats, lawyers, accountants, scientists, physicians, engineers, etc. Hundreds of thousands of people—in both the public sector and private—devote their lives and considerable knowledge to making the cogs in the government apparatus work poorly. Now imagine re-allocating even half those people and their aptitudes to projects developing a space elevator or a flying car or a cure for viruses or any one of ten billion things that will refresh and revitalize our economy. The market can allocate these people and their talents more efficiently than government—if we let it. That’s how you get economic growth.

Republicans are right that this is an awful moment for tax increases.

Well that’s true, but it also applies to any moment.

The only reasonable thing to do is kick the can down the road — but in a purposeful, intelligent way.

Your Honor, let the record show that on this date, June 27, 2011, that a liberal first openly and without duress advocated kicking the can down the road in clear violation of Article I of the Can-Kicking Summit of 1977.  

As a practical matter, this means Republicans must swallow an increase in the debt ceiling, and Democrats must accept painful spending curbs that kick in when the economy is off its sickbed.

Never let a crisis go to waste, right? We Republicans have been taking notes. We’ll pass, thank you.

It means conservatives have to be patient in bringing expenditures down and progressives have to be patient in returning tax rates — even for the wealthy — to what many of us consider appropriate levels.

Observe how tenuously he avoids using the words “raise taxes.” He’s careful to say “returning” instead of “increasing,” and won’t even say that tax rates will go “up.” He just cites rank populism. It’s a stunning display of politically couched language in an article whose main goal is to revel in the iconoclasm of praising the universally reviled policy of deferral and postponement.

Larry Kudlow was right, though. Repealing the Bush tax cuts is an obsession of these people.

All this is clear —

Crystal.

even as much else about the economy and its prognosis becomes increasingly murky.

What’s clear is that our tax revenues will revert to ~18% of GDP regardless of what tax policy is implemented. [Caveat: within reason. Obviously revenues will fall to near-zero at a tax rate of 0%.] Spending? Not so much.

Indeed, it is reasonable to ask whether the “dismal science” of economics even works anymore as a reliable tool for analysis and prediction.

If only they were so critical and skeptical of the veracity of sciences that their policy positions hinge upon. Indeed, it is reasonable to ask whether the “dour science” of climatology ever worked as a reliable tool for analysis and prediction. Is that reasonable, Eugene? I only ask since it appears that you’re the new arbiter of reasonable questions.

While some economists remain staunch, unwavering disciples of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman,

Wretched ideologues! Get with the times! All the cool kids are economic nihilists these days.

others have begun couching their words. It’s almost as if the laws governing the universe of money have changed.

If the fundamental laws governing money have changed, then why wouldn’t raising taxes spur economic growth. Sure, there’s no reason to think it would, but we just threw the laws out the window, babydoll.  Don’t even get me started on demand elasticity. Everything you think you know is wrong. Economic anarchy! Shit just got real.

Two years ago at a seminar, I heard a distinguished economic forecaster confidently explain how the recovery would proceed. While some usually reliable indicators were anomalous and contradictory, he said, the one thing he knew from the historical record was that sharp, deep recessions are followed by steep, roaring recoveries.

This guy clearly isn’t very good at his job. There are dozens of examples to the contrary, not the least of which is the Great Depression.

By the second quarter of 2010, he said, growth would be as high as 4 percent and unemployment would be tumbling. Happy days would be here again.

Keep in mind, these are the same people who think Pawlenty is batshit crazy for suggesting that the economy can grow at 5% under ideal circumstances.

I won’t embarrass the man by naming him, since he wasn’t much farther off base than many of his peers. No economic orthodoxy has come through the past few years unscathed.

I’ve got a little experiment. Take a snow globe. Pretty, right? Let’s just say inside is a factory with an American flag flying high on one of it’s smokestacks. Little workers going inside to make miniature snow-globes with even smaller versions of little snow-globe producing factories inside of them. Now give it a little shake. Fear not, tiny workers, the snow is going to settle pretty quickly. This is a normal recession.

Now take that very same snow globe and shake the shit out of it. Don’t throw it against a wall or anything. After all, it is a snow globe, but really get violent with that thing. This is a severe recession. Now, just when it looks like the snow is about to start settling, turn the thing upside-down, strap it onto a paint mixer and set it to high. This is the effect of the policies of the Obama administration’s economic policy.

At least former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan — once a firm, unquestioning believer in deregulation —

The only man for whom the “Miss me yet?” mantra applies more than George W. Bush.

had the honesty to admit that the 2008 financial meltdown exposed a “flaw” in his ideology and left him “in a state of shocked disbelief.”

Y’know, until everyone else realized that the 2008 financial meltdown was caused entirely by regulation, not a lack of it.

That’s where the whole economics profession should be.

Nothing has fundamentally changed about economics. Regulation and taxation still stifle innovation and suppress economic growth. Government redistribution is still petty and wasteful. Creditors still don’t like debtors who can’t pay their bills.

But even if economists don’t know where the nation and the world are heading, there’s plenty of data to tell us where we are right now.

Great! I love data!

Unemployment was at 9.1 percent in May, up from 9 percent in April. Housing starts were up slightly after having declined sharply the previous month. Retail sales were down a fraction after being up a fraction. Taking a longer view, the economy has clearly improved over the past year — but the improvement is slow, wobbly and fragile.

In other words: the economy is generally shitty.

Given this state of affairs,

I.e.: general shittiness.

it’s hard to imagine how taking money out of consumers’ hands — either through cuts in government spending or tax increases —

Cuts in government spending don’t take money out of consumers’ hands; they take money out of government’s hands. Similarly tax decreases also do not put money into consumer hands; they simply impede the governmental money-grab.

could possibly make things better. It’s easy to see how such measures could make things worse.

How about more tax cuts. That would make things better. Pair it with some spending cuts and we’re all good.

Oh wait. I forgot that no economic orthodoxy has survived so we’re all playing fast and loose with Robinson’s tripe.

Likewise, it’s hard to believe that running trillion-dollar deficits every year is sound policy.

This one goes on the “even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut” wall.

Economists who confidently tell us that it’s no problem that the national debt is approaching 100 percent of gross domestic product

…which foolish “economists” are these? (As always, Paul Krugman doesn’t count.)

sound as if they’re whistling past the graveyard. I believe it would be a long, long time before the financial markets began to see the United States as a great big Greece,

Elements of the financial market already see our position as being worse than Greece. Not in a “long long time.” Today. (Technically, it was a couple weeks ago, but that marginalizes the rhetorical impact of immediacy. http://www.cnbc.com/id/43378973/US_Is_in_Even_Worse_Shape_Financially_Than_Greece_Gross)

but at some point that day would come.

Excellent. We’ve reached a consensus: The current budgetary trajectory is unsustainable.

And how could Congress turn a long-range crisis into an immediate disaster?

By raising taxes and increasing spending.

By stubbornly refusing to raise the debt ceiling, which would be the economic equivalent of a toddler’s temper tantrum.

Of course the only adult thing to do would be the one solution that pisses everyone off based on some misguided attempt at cohesion. That’s maturity?

I’m more of a fan of the “we win, you lose” style of politics. (Which, you’ll recall, was only briefly in vogue when Democrats were in charge of the Executive and both houses of Congress.)

It’s clear what needs to be done. President Obama and congressional leaders should agree on a series of firm deficit caps that would reduce the debt over time. This must be accompanied by a reasonable increase in the debt ceiling.

That’s like saying that the solution to prison overcrowding is to have less crime. Platitudes and vagaries generally aren’t how serious adults conduct business. So we impose a deficit cap. Now how do we get there? What programs to we cut? Do we raise taxes?

Then we will spend years engaged in a difficult but necessary fight over what kind of government we want and how much we’re willing to pay for it.

That’s going to happen regardless.

At present, we’re operating a heavily armed, heavily indebted health insurance company — a giant, profligate Aetna or Prudential, with nuclear weapons.

Boy if that doesn’t inspire you to want to pay more taxes, nothing will.

That’s not going to win the 21st century.

Neither is pussyfooting around a solution because someone’s afraid to get their hands dirty in the substance of cutting government spending. A good framework for government is, for all Americans, our birthright. A good government, however, is something that we will only get when we deserve it. 

Seriously, Dana. What's the Point?

Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs

By Dana Milbank, Published: June 20

Where are the jobs, Gov. Walker?

Scott Walker, the chief executive of Wisconsin, is riding a wave of triumph.

Yeah, that guy kind of kicks ass.

The state Supreme Court just upheld his famous crusade

Seriously? Crusade?

to strip collective bargaining rights from public workers.

That’s mildly misleading; the court decision had nothing to do with the actual law, which is universally acknowledged as adherent to both the state and federal constitutions. Nor did it pertain to anything Governor Walker actually did. The case sought to litigate the legislative procedure. (The one, you’ll recall, Wisconsin Democrats worked so gallantly to undermine by sauntering over the Illinois state line.) And even that was upheld.

The state legislature just voted, along party lines, to approve his 2012 budget reordering the state’s finances to his conservative tastes.

This sentence is kind of cute. But trying to blame Walker for the rank partisanship in the Wisconsin legislature shows that Milbank has pinpoint precision on par with that of Charlie Sheen in the beginning of Major League.

“…JUST a bit outside…”

These Democrats are the same people who would rather strong-arm a pregnant colleague into staying on the lam in Illinois than undertake the legislative process.

On Monday morning, Walker stopped by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to participate in a roundtable discussion about “what works and what doesn’t” in job creation. Walker regaled the assembled business leaders and governors with tales of his job-creating acumen.

Note the implication that Walker and “business leaders” are close. Not close, Walker “regaled” them. He showed off his “acumen.” The implication, of course, is that Scott Walker is some sort of business seducer--a lothario of the balance sheet, willing to whisper sweet nothings for positive cash flow. Nevermind that Jeffrey Immelt laughs just a little too hard at Obama’s jokes.

He boasted about passing tort reform, tax cuts, a “major regulatory reform” and his celebrated fight against the public-sector unions. “That’s powerful for job creators out there,” he said.

How powerful? “Since the beginning of the year in Wisconsin we’ve seen 25,000 new jobs,” Walker reported.

Sorry, governor, but that’s not very powerful.

I guess Walker doesn’t get the benefit of the “jobs created or lost” categorization that Obama has spent two years trumpeting. Or the goodwill and political capital from the election. It’s only been SIX MONTHS. I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

Instead of using some arbitrary sliding scale for what constitutes “good” job growth and what constitutes “bad” job growth, let’s just compare Walker with his predecessor. Taking the last year only, Jim Doyle saw an average increase in the total number of Wisconsin jobs of .05%. Walker has averaged .19%. Jim Doyle saw an increase of 10,565 seasonally-adjusted jobs over the last seven months of his term. Scott Walker has nearly tripled that number 27,060 in five months worth of data. Also, Scott Walker trounced Jim Doyle in a best of 7 Monopoly tournament shortly before being elected, and nearly broke Doyle’s wrist off in an arm wrestling bout.

Do these numbers take into account nation-wide trends or a myriad of other relevant factors? Of course not. I love me some Excel, but I’m far too lazy for that level of interest—which still leaves me eminently more thorough than Milbank, who basically set his macroeconomic expectations with a dartboard and a bottle of Scotch.  

The point is, Scott Walker is a significantly better governor, athlete, person, and (if the ladies of Alpha Epsilon Phi at the University of Wisconsin are to be trusted on such things) lover than Jim Doyle… It might have just gotten weird.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wisconsin’s nonfarm payroll in May was 2,764,300 on a seasonally-adjusted basis, up 20,300 from January’s 2,744,000.That’s an increase of seven-tenths of one percent in the workforce -- not much better than the anemic nationwide growth in nonfarm payrolls to 131,043,000 in May from 130,328,000 in January.

That might be relevant if the situation facing Wisconsin were anywhere close to the situation facing the country as a whole. (It’s not.) The rust belt has a fairly unique set of challenges that people in California, Texas, or Massachusetts, frankly, don’t relate to.

Wisconsin’s unemployment rate (7.4%) is well below the national rate (9.2%). What that should tell you is that the recession was far more shallow in Wisconsin than other places, particularly regional counterparts like Michigan or Illinois. This, of course, means that job growth and economic recovery will not be as robust in locations that were harder hit. That doesn’t mean that Wisconsin is doing worse.

This doesn’t mean Walker’s policies have failed;

No shit, dumbass. It’s only been six months.

by his own account, the benefits could take years to materialize. But it does suggest that the conservatives criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of the economy don’t have a silver bullet of their own.

No, it doesn’t mean that at all. It means that in four months of being governor, Wisconsin has slightly over-performed the national average, despite being situated for a more tempered recovery. Both the absolute unemployment rate and the pace of jobs improvement for Wisconsin are better than average. What exactly are we lamenting?

Given that the public sector union fight dominated the state political agenda for much of the winter and early spring, Governor Walker spent most of his political capital on that very worthy fight. Given the frivolous judicial battle that Milbank referenced mere sentences ago incorporated a stop on implementation, this policy has barely taken effect. But here’s the kicker: the law to which Milbank is referring with regards to public sector unions isn’t even an attempt at spurring job growth; it was designed to inject fiscal sanity into the Madison budget and avoid a reality that necessitated future job-killing tax hikes. By Milbank’s own admission, the legislature also “just voted” on his budget. That little piece of policy isn’t even law yet. That’s right. It hasn’t even been signed.

So when you say that Republicans don’t have a silver bullet—after a mere six months in office—it’s really that they haven’t finished loading the gun yet.

Walker, who has large Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature, experimented with a long conservative wish-list, but the state hasn’t been a standout in job creation during his six-month tenure.

This is like criticizing a well-regarded baseball prospect for batting .285 in a call-up to the big leagues. Sure, those aren’t exactly Pete Rose numbers, but it’s a little early to ship the kid off to Oakland for a low-A lefty and a couple of fungos.

The truth is that there’s not much more that government can do to boost jobs in the short term.

Not from what’s in the liberal playbook, at least. That’s why the Obama camp is collectively shitting itself right now.

Refreshing to hear it admitted from the left, though.

That’s up to the private sector now.

Well this is a hell of a time to turn into a rugged individualist, but I’ll take converts wherever I can get them.

Corporate America has recovered so well that profits have been at or near record levels of an annualized $1.7 trillion in the last two quarters – but businesses have yet to spend their piles of cash.

Boy, corporations stockpiling cash sounds precisely like the type of thing that regulation-busting legislation could fix. Maybe by decreasing outlay costs, adding certainty to cash flow projections and reducing annual expenditures would overcome those corporate hurdle rates to get NPVs for reinvestment projects into the black. If only there was a political party that had been saying that for the last couple years!

Instead, flush CEOs are demanding still more government spending.

Yet more proof that corporate executives generally aren’t real capitalists. Even so, it’s more the Democratic leadership that’s pushing more government spending.

This was a theme of Monday’s session at the Chamber, where 23 men and one woman sat around a u-shaped table and listened to Chamber president Tom Donohue describe states as “laboratories of democracy,” where businesses are more likely to find “common sense solutions, innovations, experimentations, bipartisanship.”

I don’t disagree, but it’s kind of like trying to get seismic readings while riding a massive bull. The highest state corporate income tax bracket is in, of all places, Iowa, at 12%. (Most are 4%-8%) Federal corporate tax rates run between 15% and 35%. At the high end, federal tax plays about four times as much into the decision-making of a firm.

Walker, whose tenure has made Wisconsin more of a laboratory of theocracy,

That isn’t even close to the right word for this situation, you oblong jabberwocky!

clenched his jaw at the mention of bipartisanship. “The very first day I was elected,”

Technically, Mr. Walker, it was the only day you got elected—for governor at least. (I can’t not give shit, even when I want to like the guy.)

he said when his turn came, “I put up a sign that said, ‘Wisconsin is open for business.’” He waved a bumper sticker for the Chamber crowd with that same message. “I called the legislature into a special session based solely on jobs.”

Of course, that has nothing to do with jobs, primarily because bipartisanship has nothing to do with jobs.

That led to the fight over collective bargaining, the fleeing of Democratic legislators across state lines, and huge protests in Madison. “We got a little more attention than most,” he said.

I may be 150 miles south, but I can still smell those hippies in the capitol.

The attention continued on Monday. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, one of two Democrats on the panel, said he “took a different approach” than Walker did: “I invited the unions to the table.” Markell said that the cuts he got from the unions exceeded his target by 30 percent, without creating statewide bitterness.

Sounds like his target was pretty low. (In addition, Markell—or his successor—will have to renegotiate soon, in conditions that are far more likely to favor the union.)

The other Democrat, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, implicitly rebuked Walker when he said “with a Republican House and Democratic Senate we passed our budget with at least 75 percent in both houses.”

Little known fact: the Colorado legislature also recently passed a series of internal rules whereby they have abandoned the Pledge of Allegiance in favor of singing Kumbaya before getting down to state business. Hickenlooper brings the guitar and afterwards, they just jam. Hippies from Boulder are invited to form a drum circle, and everyone shares a hearty meal of granola.

In terms of job-creation, neither Democrat’s approach has worked any better than Walker’s. Colorado added 9,000 non-farm jobs this year and Delaware has been flat. Iowa, represented on the panel by Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, added 12,000. Virginia, represented by Gov. Bob McDonnell, added 22,000.

Compared to those geniuses, Walker might as well be Ronald Reagan!

The biggest job creator of the six, Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.),

Why is it that I keep seeing R’s after the names of the governors of job-creating states and D’s after the names of unethical legislators?

boasted that his tax cuts, deregulation and tort reform enabled him to cut “unemployment every month since I came into office, and last month our job creation was more than the entire rest of the country.” That’s nice, but even Scott’s job growth amounts to just 1 percent of the state’s workforce, and Florida’s unemployment is among the highest in the country.

I’m not sure how you intend to get significant job growth by shitting on modest job growth and praising anemic job growth.

Eventually, the governors – like President Obama – will have more to show for their job-creation policies.

Walker has been in office for six months. Obama’s been sitting in the Oval Office five times as long. The comparison rings a little hollow when you’re talking about giving them time until the economic recovery kicks in. Besides, Obama’s still blaming Bush.

But for now, they’ll have to settle for baby steps.

So the moral of this article is: “Republicans are significantly better at governing than Democrats, but I don’t like them very much, so they’re not good enough!”

Walker told the Chamber that Wisconsin moved up 17 places in Chief Executive magazine’s annual ranking. “Last year we were 41,” he said. “This year, we went up to No. 24.”

An excellent achievement for the governor.

If only those happy CEOs would start hiring.

This piece was a complete waste of time.

danamilbank@washpost.com

Winning the Zombie Vote

How states are rigging the 2012 election

By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: June 19

An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot.

Are they making the slot in the ballotbox narrower? Those dastardly rogues!

If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging.

We wouldn’t, but you might. Then again, requiring a state-issued ID in the United States, where we have watermarks and magnetic strips, is somewhat different from requiring a state-issued ID in Afghanistan, where the most advanced piece of technology not belonging to the US military is a rock.

But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.

And yet, I keep hearing about how requiring a state-issued ID to vote is tantamount to lynching black people.

The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem

Considering the scale of the fraud of the ACORN registration scandal (and that’s just the one we know about) and the decades-old Chicago tradition of winning the cemetery vote, voter fraud is a major problem.

Worse, though, is that by implying that voter fraud is unimportant, Dionne allows an insidious misconception to fester. The very notion of the one person one vote principle that is foundational to our Republic. Certainly fraud is likely to occur in major elections with a lot at stake That doesn’t mean that the integrity of the election should be sacrificed to convenience for those too lazy or shortsighted to get to the correct poll on the correct day.

 — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place.

I don’t have an issue with voting being a process that requires more foresight than a whim. Do you?

Some of the new laws, notably those limiting the number of days for early voting, have little plausible connection to battling fraud.

Funny, I missed how big of an issue early voting was in those “emerging democracies.” After all, Iraq can’t possibly have democratic institutions if Kurds and Shiites don’t have the opportunity to vote for two months leading up to the election?

These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young.

All of these constituencies have access to the ballot box. All of these constituencies have access to identification cards. It’s sad that the left decides to deride these constituencies by implying that they’re too inept or apathetic to bring a valid ID card to the right polling place on the right day. It’s more sad that, statistically, these constituencies prove them right.

It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.

Democrats were reluctant to take on voter fraud that favored Democrats? Impossible!

Again, think of what this would look like to a dispassionate observer.

It would look like a sane government is moving to protect the sanctity of their elections.

A party wins an election, as the GOP did in 2010. Then it changes the election laws in ways that benefit itself.

Um…should the party that lost the election change the election laws? Would that soothe your conscience? If so, we’ll make those laws retroactive to 2008.

In a democracy, the electorate is supposed to pick the politicians.

Civics 101: in a democracy, the electorate is supposed to vote on laws. In a Republic, the electorate picks the politicians to make and enforce the laws.

With these laws, politicians are shaping their electorates.

So it’s kind of like congressional redistricting?

Paradoxically, the rank partisanship of these measures is discouraging the media from reporting plainly on what’s going on.

A member of a left-wing biased media is chiding that very same biased media in the belief that its fictitious impartiality is in fact, a right-wing bias. And to top it all off, he calls it a paradox. Brilliant.  

Voter suppression so clearly benefits the Republicans that the media typically report this through a partisan lens, knowing that accounts making clear whom these laws disenfranchise would be labeled as biased by the right.

This is some of the worst writing I’ve seen out of EJ Dionne in quite a while. It’s also some staggeringly scatterbrained reasoning. The advantage of “voter suppression” is so manifestly obvious that the media refuses to report on that advantage for fear of a right-wing base that already trumpets the media’s [manifestly obvious] anticonservative bias? Isn’t it more likely that the early voting requirements in Florida just don’t make an interesting story?

But the media should not fear telling the truth

Right, because conservatives have a history of bullying the media. Feel free to tell that to Sarah Palin in between the barbed jabs coming from MSNBC.

or standing up for the rights of the poor or the young.

The god-given right to vote five weeks before election day from the wrong polling place without an ID, damn it, because I’ve got some serious Madden to play on election day. After all, that’s why we fought the Civil War!!!

The laws in question include requiring voter identification cards at the polls,

In other words, voting requirements will be only slightly more stringent than those to enter a Costco.

limiting the time of early voting,

To put this in perspective, early voting still lasts longer than the never-ending Weiner sexting scandal.

ending same-day registration

Now what would liberals say if conservatives pushed same-day registration for gun ownership?

and making it difficult for groups to register new voters.

Groups like the thoroughly disgraced ACORN, and new voters like dead people and foreign citizens. (It’s the Chicago Way. Actually as Sean Connery says, pulling a gun when they pull a knife is the Chicago Way, but this is the second Chicago Way.)

It’s worth noting that Dionne has presented a five paragraph jeremiad plying the fear of racism, election tampering, and conservative media bias (I know, it’s a laugher, but try to stay with me) before even mentioning what these proposed laws entail.

Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up.

Oh you and your pop culture references from 2007! Adorable! Oh wait. He’s still on the air? Shit.

In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs.

Let’s see:

Conceal handgun license recipients are subject to an extensive background check and put through onerous state regulations. Student IDs—the ones that aren’t being given to illegal immigrants and other non-citizens—are regularly doctored by sure-handed punks with Exacto knives hoping to score a six pack at the local Circle K. (Good times from my youth…*Sigh* I really thought I could turn 1986 into 1981. Live and learn, I guess.)

And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points.

Republicans would win a militia-off. Doesn’t change the fact that a concealed carry license is a very good form of identification, whereas a student ID is not.

Besides Texas, states that enacted voter ID laws this year include Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Tennessee. Indiana and Georgia already had such requirements. The Maine Legislature voted to end same-day voter registration.

So 5 reliablly red states and two reliably blue states changed their election laws? This isn’t exactly blowing my skirt up, fellas.

Florida seems determined to go back to the chaos of the 2000 election.

You mean it’s going back to the butterfly ballot?

It shortened the early voting period, effectively ended the ability of registered voters to correct their address at the polls and imposed onerous restrictions on organized voter-registration drives.

All of which had precisely nothing to do with the chaos of the 2000 election, which was primarily an issue because Democrats are too dumb to vote properly.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, by 6 to 3, upheld Indiana’s voter ID statute. So seeking judicial relief may be difficult. Nonetheless, the Justice Department should vigorously challenge these laws, particularly in states covered by the Voting Rights Act.

I’m not a legal expert, but I’m pretty sure once something is upheld or struck down by the Supreme Court, it’s considered “settled law.”—“precedent” even! Calling for the Justice Department to continue raising nonsensical suits on something that is settled from a legal standpoint is not only foolish and petty, but it clogs up the courts with nuisance suits. And if the argument is that voting requirements—whether they be showing identification or shortening the time the polls are open—deter the democratic process by placing roadblocks in the way of a vital governmental process, shouldn’t frivolous suits from the justice department against the states be equally scorned? After all, these suits impugn the ability of the state legal team to do the people’s work, undermine the self-determination of the states and cost a hell of a lot of money.

And the court should be asked to review the issue again in light of new evidence that these laws have a real impact in restricting the rights of particular voter groups.

Sure. Let’s all pay a hell of a lot more lawyers to file more stupid suits.

“This requirement is just a poll tax by another name,” state Sen. Wendy Davis declared when Texas was debating its ID law early this year.

We name things to impart meaning. Poll taxes were detrimental because they necessarily excluded a certain segment of society. ID requirements don’t fit that bill at all. I have to provide more identification to watch an R-rated movie than these bills are requiring to vote.

In the bad old days, poll taxes, now outlawed by the 24th Amendment, were used to keep African Americans from voting.

Thanks for the history lesson, doc.

Even if the Supreme Court didn’t see things her way, Davis is right. This is the civil rights issue of our moment.

I thought that was gay marriage.

No wait, it was electing the first black president.

No wait, the civil rights issue of our moment is global warming.

Or some nonsense about circumcision that always reminds me of Arrested Development.

The civil rights cause has some pretty terrible heirs.

In part because of a surge of voters who had not cast ballots before, the United States elected its first African American president in 2008.

Read: uninformed dolts.

Are we now going to witness a subtle return of Jim Crow voting laws?

Subtle bigotry. The kind that’s so subtle you can’t even see! Boy those conservatives are nefarious.

Whether or not these laws can be rolled back,

They can, but not through the courts.

their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years.

You can’t relive the glory days just because you think it would be groovy. The two are not related in any way, shape, matter, or form.

The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012.

Wait wait wait. People should flock to the polls…which open in 2012…to insist on their right to vote…which, by virtue of them being at the polls has been granted…

Can you really vote yourself the right to vote?

If voter suppression is to occur, let it happen for all to see. The whole world, which watched us with admiration and respect in 2008,

And then quickly shifted their attention to developing nuclear programs.

will be watching again.

Christ. He didn’t just nationalize a state issue. He internationalized it. Simply breathtaking.

Common Sense Raped On the Altar of Feminism

SlutWalks and the future of feminism

By Jessica Valenti, Published: June 3

More than 40 years after feminists tossed their bras and high heels into a trash can at the 1968 Miss America pageant —

Which, of course, was retarded.

kicking off the bra-burning myth that will never die —

I’m pretty sure you just admitted that this “myth” bears a perfect historical accuracy.

some young women are taking to the streets to protest sexual assault,

Which, of course, is also retarded. I might as well protest murder.

wearing not much more than what their foremothers

Christ, feminism’s dogmas piss me off.

once dubbed “objects of female oppression”

Because they were idiots.

in marches called SlutWalks.

Sigh. Is it weird that my biggest objection to this that they failed to put a space between “slut” and “walks?”

It’s a controversial name, which is in part why the organizers picked it.

I thought it was because they’re attention whores.

It’s also why many of the SlutWalk protesters are wearing so little (though some are sweatpants-clad, too).

Classy.

Thousands of women — and men —

We all know that it detracts from the credibility of the men as, well, men, but is their infinitesimal presence at the rallies supposed to add to the credibility of the protests or detract?

are demonstrating to fight the idea that what women wear, what they drink or how they behave can make them a target for rape.

Will they also protest the idea that parking an expensive car in a bad neighborhood makes one a target for grand theft auto.

SlutWalks started with a local march organized by five women in Toronto

And, as with everything that has come out of Canada since Elisha Cuthbert, it’s retarded.

and have gone viral, with events planned in more than 75 cities in countries from the United States and Canada to Sweden and South Africa. In just a few months, SlutWalks have become the most successful feminist action of the past 20 years.

Really? Because I’ve had more productive sneezes in the last couple days.

In a feminist movement that is often fighting simply to hold ground, SlutWalks stand out as a reminder of feminism’s more grass-roots past and point to what the future could look like.

Loud, unattractive and classless. Not sure how this represents a departure from the past though.

The marches are mostly organized by younger women who don’t apologize for their in-your-face tactics, making the events much more effective in garnering media attention and participant interest than the actions of well-established (and better funded) feminist organizations.

I’m not sure how marketable being obnoxious really is.

And while not every feminist may agree with the messaging of SlutWalks, the protests have translated online enthusiasm into in-person action in a way that hasn’t been done before in feminism on this scale.

We get it. Feminism has been a miserable failure since the dawn of the internet.

The protests began after a police officer told students at Toronto’s York University in January that if women want to avoid rape, they shouldn’t dress like “sluts.” (If you thought the days of “she was asking for it” were long gone, guess again.)

There’s a world of difference between excusing the activity of a criminal by shifting blame to the victim and the notion that certain noncriminal actions or choices provoke criminal responses.

Heather Jarvis, a student in Toronto and a co-founder of SlutWalk,

Is it a fucking LLC?

explained that the officer’s comments struck her and her co-organizers as so preposterous and damaging that they demanded action. “We were fed up and pissed off, and we wanted to do something other than just be angry,” she said.

So you forced your anger other people until they just got annoyed. Seems like a completely reasonable response.

Bucking the oft-repeated notion that young women are apathetic to feminism, they organized. What Jarvis hoped would be a march of at least 100 turned out to be a rally of more than 3,000

I saw more women in less clothing last Halloween.

— some marchers with “slut” scrawled across their bodies, others with signs reading “My dress is not a yes” or “Slut pride.”

All of which misses the completely reasonable point that victims of sexual assault are more likely to be scantily clad. That doesn’t make being scantily clad wrong. Nor does it make sexual assault right, okay, or permissible.

The idea that women’s clothing has some bearing on whether they will be raped is a dangerous myth feminists have tried to debunk for decades.

And they haven’t. Because it’s true.

Despite all the activism and research, however, the cultural misconception prevails.

Probably because the research is either anecdotal or intrinsically biased. All of which is not to mention that it is a compete truisms that sexual assault occurs when one party is disproportionately aroused and that women often dress in a manner specifically designed to arouse men.

After an 11-year-old girl in Texas was gang-raped,

See. Anecdotal.

the New York Times ran a widely criticized story this spring that included a description of how the girl dressed “older than her age” and wore makeup — as if either was relevant to the culpability of the 18 men accused of raping her.

I rarely defend the New York Times, so let me be clear that I’m not doing the research on this. An 11 year old girl was raped by adults. No fact pattern—including whether or not the girl nominally consented—is relevant to the culpability of perpetrator. Nor is it the job of the New York Times to use the article to try the accused in the court of public opinion. If the point of this story is to argue that “the idea that women’s clothing has some bearing on whether they get raped is a dangerous myth,” then where is the danger? The action had already occurred before the “myth” was even stated. All unless Valenti believes that the rape occurred because the rapist thought that raping an 11 year old was somehow more socially acceptable because she wore makeup and dressed like an adult (which would be even dumber than the rest of Valenti’s convoluted ramblings).

In Scotland, one secondary school is calling for uniforms to be baggier and longer in an attempt to dissuade pedophiles.

Also not even close to dangerous. Not even mildly inconvenient.

When I speak on college campuses, students will often say they don’t believe that a woman’s attire makes it justifiable for someone to rape her, but — and there almost always is a “but” — shouldn’t women know better than to dress in a suggestive way?

Namely that there are actions that reasonable people take to avoid criminal interactions on a day-to-day basis that all involve displaying a modicum of common sense. (For example, it’s unwise to should that the Dodgers suck in Chavez Ravine. That doesn’t mean that Bryan Stow got what was coming to him—or that any assault of the sort should be excused.)

What I try to explain to those students is part of what the SlutWalk protests are aiming to relay on a grander scale.

There is no grand scale. These are college girls with a distinct lack of perspective.

That yes, some women dress in short, tight, “suggestive” clothing — maybe because it’s hot outside,

...Are you fucking kidding? We’re not that dumb.

maybe because it’s the style du jour

God that’s petty.

or maybe just because they think they look sexy.

Even more petty.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Aside from being insufferably petty.

Women deserve to be safe from violent assault, no matter what they wear. And the sad fact is, a miniskirt is no more likely to provoke a rapist than a potato sack is to deter one.

That’s a sad fact? Why exactly is that sad? Also, what exactly is factual about it?

As one Toronto SlutWalk sign put it: “Don’t tell us how to dress. Tell men not to rape.”

The law tells men not to rape. Just like it tells men (and women!) not to murder, steal, threaten, perjure, and jaywalk. One police officer in Toronto argued that it would be more prudent to dress with greater discretion, and as a result a gaggle of childish ne’er-do-wells decided to make a show of doing exactly the opposite.

And Jessica Valenti not only gives these attention whores the attention that they crave, but also the credibility they so decidedly have not earned.

It’s this — the proactive, fed-upness

That concept doesn’t exist.

of SlutWalks — that makes me so hopeful for the future.

Christ. Keep it in your pants, lady.

Feminism is frequently on the defensive.

That’s because it’s frequently idiotic.

When women's activists fought the defunding of Planned Parenthood, for example, they didn’t rally around the idea that abortion is legal and should be funded.

Uh…does she really not see the problem with linking legality to federal funding (and by extension government sponsorship)? No wonder liberals fight government cuts so virulently. They think conservatives are trying to outlaw PBS.

Instead, advocates assured the public that Planned Parenthood clinics provide breast exams and cancer screenings. Those are crucial services, of course, but the message was far from the “free abortion on demand” rallying cry of the abortion rights movement’s early days.

“Abortion on demand” doesn’t exactly test well these days. Probably because the abortion rights movement’s early days was filled with eugenicists and all-around bad people.

Established organizations have good reason to do their work in a way that’s palatable to the mainstream. They need support on Capitol Hill and funding from foundations and donors. But a muted message will only get us so far.

“We called ourselves something controversial,” Jarvis says. “Did we do it to get attention? Damn right we did!”

I told you they were attention whores.

Nineteen year-old Miranda Mammen, who participated in SlutWalk at Stanford University, says the idea of “sluttiness” resonates with younger women in part because they are more likely than their older counterparts to be called sluts.

Brilliant. Let’s hope this gem didn’t actually come from a Stanford student. I don’t want to have to lose respect for that institution too.

“It’s also loud, angry, sexy in a way that going to a community activist meeting often isn’t,” she says.

Congratulations. You’re obnoxious. So are toddlers.

Emily May, the 30-year-old executive director of Hollaback, an organization that battles street harassment,

In other words, a vaguely purposed nanny-state factory for do-goodery.

plans to participate in SlutWalk in New York City in August.

Wait a minute! That’s not grass roots.

“Nonprofit mainstays like conferences, funding and strategic planning are essential to maintaining change — but they don’t ignite change,” she says.

Oh well that makes sense.  After all, the world needs professional followers.

“It’s easy to forget that change starts with anger, and that history has always been made by badasses.”

History is made by historians. Historians are not badasses. Unless they’re Indiana Jones, but he was an archaeologist.

Unlike protests put on by mainstream national women’s organizations, which are carefully planned and fundraised for — even the signs are bulk-printed ahead of time — SlutWalks have cropped up organically, in city after city, fueled by the raw emotional and political energy of young women.

The Tea Party kind of set the bar high for grass roots movements. This one just sounds like pathetic kids begging for attention.

And that’s the real reason SlutWalks have struck me as the future of feminism. Not because an entire generation of women will organize under the word “slut”

Their parents must so proud. God I hope I never have a daughter.

or because these marches will completely eradicate the damaging tendency of law enforcement and the media to blame sexual assault victims (though I think they’ll certainly put a dent in it).

First, you haven’t proven that it exists (it doesn’t), and secondly, you haven’t proven that it’s dangerous (it isn’t, because it doesn’t exist).

 But the success of SlutWalks does herald a new day in feminist organizing.

Feminists discover the internet: circa 2011.

One when women's anger begins online but takes to the street, when a local step makes global waves

Whoa. Let’s not oversell this.

and when one feminist action can spark debate, controversy and activism that will have lasting effects on the movement.

In other words, because it’s getting attention, it’s worth it for feminists to take a completely untenable position. This really isn’t a new concept for feminists. Remember when women were burning their bras? (Callback, bitches.)

Established feminist groups have had tremendous success organizing feminist action in recent years.

Really? The entire point of this article has been that grass roots anger, stupid though it may be, has succeeded in getting feminism off of the defensive. Of course, feminism was on the defensive precisely because feminist groups have not had tremendous success organizing feminist action.

The 2004 March for Women’s Lives — put on by the National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Feminist Majority Foundation and others — brought out more than 1 million people protesting President George W. Bush’s anti-woman, anti-choice policies.

I have exactly no recollection of either the rally or any policy of the Bush Administration that could be construed as anti-women.

It was an incredible event, but the momentum of the protest largely stopped when the march did.

In other words, it wasn’t momentum.

It’s too early to tell whether SlutWalks will draw people on that scale,

Fortunately, most people instinctively recognize a foolish cause when they see it. Except Cubs fans.

but they are different in a key respect. Instead of young women being organized by established groups, SlutWalks have young women organizing themselves — something I believe makes these women more likely to stay involved once the protest is over.

This is soooo booooring. This article could have ended like 4 paragraphs ago.

SlutWalks aren’t a perfect form of activism.

Really? Because I thought this was exactly the Civil Disobedience to which Thoreau referred.

Some feminist critics think that by attempting to reclaim the word “slut,” the organizers are turning a blind eye to the many women who don’t want to salvage what they see as an irredeemable term.

If all goes well, women can have their own personal version of the N-word.  Boy, that has social value.

As Harsha Walia wrote at the Canadian site Rabble:

Truthfully, that alone is enough to get me to ignore it off-hand.

“I personally don’t feel the whole ‘reclaim slut’ thing. I find that the term disproportionately impacts women of color and poor women to reinforce their status as inherently dirty and second-class.”

God, even when they agree with me, they use shitty arguments.

Anti-pornography activist Gail Dines argued, along with victims rights advocate Wendy Murphy,

Feminism has sub-genres? Who knew?

that the SlutWalk organizers are playing into patriarchal hands.

“Patriarchal” is like the center square of any self-respecting Feminist Bingo board.

They say the protesters “celebrating” the word “slut” and dressing in risque clothing are embracing a pornified consumer sexuality.

Let’s all just agree that it’s stupid. You can think it’s because of pornified consumer sexuality or patriarchial repression or whatever you want. I’ll deal with your particular brand of idiocy when it becomes relevant.

Frankly, I don’t think any of these women will be posing for the “Girls Gone Wild” cameras anytime soon.

Generally, pornography involves attractive women. From what I’ve seen, SlutWalk are generally the type of thing that men think about in bed to last longer.

Yes, some protesters have worn lingerie, but others have worn jeans and T-shirts.

Kind of missing the point, ladies. You need a shtick.

Organizers encourage marchers to wear whatever they want because the point is that no matter what women wear, they have a right not to be raped.

Can we also protest the right of rich people to not be stole from? How about the right of pedestrians to not get run over by cars?

The law’s already on the books. It is actively enforced. If you’re going to be obnoxious, at least have an idea in mind about what you want to accomplish. Instead, this is all thought police type of nonsense that aims to tell the New York Times what it can and can not report about with regards to rape.

And if someone were to attack them, they have a right not to be blamed for it.

They have a right to not be blamed for what they are not responsible for. But as always with crime victims, there are certain actions  that are prudent, and they should be encouraged to prevent future crimes. Similarly, there are certain actions that are imprudent, and they should be discouraged to prevent future crimes. Mind you: not legally enforced. Encouraged.

In the past, clothing designed to generate controversy has served to emphasize the message that women have a right to feel safe and participate fully in society. Suffragists wore pants called “bloomers,” named for the women’s rights activist Amelia Bloomer. They were meant to be more practical than the confining dresses of the times.

Note: pants are more comfortable and practical than skirts/dresses (At least that’s what I’m told.)

But, echoing the criticism of SlutWalk participants today,

Further note: Lingerie is not comfortable or practical. (At least that’s what I’m told.)

the media did not take kindly to women wearing pants. The November 1851 issue of International Monthly called the outfits “ridiculous and indecent,” deriding the suffragists as “vulgar women whose inordinate love of notoriety is apt to display itself in ways that induce their exclusion from respectable society.”

Yeah…most of that proved to be right. Doesn’t change the fact that these vulgar women also happened to be right about voting. Just like the SlutWalk women are right about not blaming victims. The problem is, the law is already on their side, which is why they’re not arguing against any current law or for any proposed law.

The SlutWalkers, in outfits that could be grumpily labeled “ridiculous and indecent,”

I prefer to dub them stupid, exhibitionistic and self-aggrandizing.

are not inducing exclusion from respectable society. They’re generating excitement,

Maybe, but they’re generating a lot more eye-rolls.

translating their anger into action and trying to change our supposedly respectable society into one that truly respects men, women and yes, even “sluts.”

Society is cohesive because it adheres to certain norms. Those who live outside those norms are informally punished by the lack of consideration and even disrespect by those adherent to the norms. Forcing respect to those who actively eschew those norms actively undermines social cohesion and promotes conflict. In other words, the goal of the SlutWalks (as relayed by the impossibly clichéd Jessica Valenti) is to generate a utopianist society of infinite permissiveness, limited cohesion, and massively divergent experiences and values. Whereas most movements seek to establish mainstream credibility to a certain type of deviancy, Valenti supports mainstream credibility for deviancy in general. The predictable result, of course, is destruction.

Christ, I hate the social issues.