Louisiana aims to punish the homeless by making it illegal to beg

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Oh, you're a homeless person? Well, fuck you.

That's not me saying that, it's the State of Louisiana, which is about to punish those who live on the streets, among others:

If you are poor, live in Louisiana, and have the audacity ask someone else for help, be prepared to spend up to six months in jail.

A new bill to outlaw panhandling is quickly moving its way through the Louisiana legislature. HB 1158 would criminalize solicitation, making it a misdemeanor punishable with a maximum fine of $200 and up to six months in jail. The bill is targeted not just at panhandlers, but hitchhikers and those engaged in prostitution as well. 

The bill passed the Louisiana House last week by a vote of 89-0. There was no floor debate. It is now being taken up by the Senate, where it will be acted on Tuesday.

The bill's author, State Rep. Austin Badon (D), told Post TV that he hoped that banning begging will somehow lead to fewer poor people on the streets. He doubted that many were in actual need, saying, "they're paying their cell phone bills, they're paying their computer bills. It's a racket."

Yes, that's a "D" after his name. While Republicans dominate the world of ignorance and injustice, they do not quite have a monopoly over it. (And this Badon asshole is our Worst Democrat of the Day.)

Badon is echoing a familiar trope — that panhandlers are living large from others' charity. But it's not based on any actual research. In fact, a major study of panhandlers in San Francisco last year found just the opposite: the vast majority make $25 a day ($9,125 per year) or less. That meager income is largely used to eat.

It is simply insane to think that the homeless are voluntarily homeless or otherwise aren't in desperate need of help. Many are are severely mentally ill and most certainly suffer from mental illness of some kind. By and large these are people who have been abused not just in their own lives but by a society that in many ways resembles the Hobbesian state of nature in its preference for brutality over dignity. Sure, many of them use drugs, but that's because they're addicts in need of help. It's hardly a choice, and really what options do they have?

And of course with Louisiana we're talking about a place with warm weather (that attracts those who have no other place to go but the streets), a terrible education system, poor health care generally, and various other social problems, not to mention a Republican governor (Bobby Jindal) and basically an entire political establishment that sees homelessness not just as a nuisance but as a criminal "racket," as a problem to be criminalized instead of one that should arouse compassionate public policy to deal not just with homelessness itself but with the conditions that cause it.

Most of these assholes supposedly being Christian, I suppose we can ask that stupid question of the Christianist ideology, what would Jesus do? Well, from what we're told, he'd help the homeless, for he had nothing but compassion for the poor, and then call out the injustice all the around him. And in Louisiana, as in so many other places throughout our rich and prosperous land (for the few, as in his own time), he'd have an awful lot of it to call out.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Mark Pryor

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress:

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) hinted on Tuesday that he would oppose a Democratic initiative to expand background checks to all gun purchases, but reiterated his support for an NRA-backed measure that would permit individuals deemed mentally ill or incompetent to purchase firearms more freely. Pryor is part of small group of Democrats in red states who have not endorsed universal background checks, even though the measure is supported by a majority of residents.

"You know, I'm a Second Amendment guy, everybody knows that. People in our state are very strong believers in the Second Amendment and the right to gun ownership," Pryor told "The Alice Stewart Show," which airs on KHTE 96.5 The Voice. The conservative Democrat then highlighted his co-sponsorship of an NRA concocted proposal that would reduce the number of records in the existing background check system by removing prohibitions against individuals who were involuntarily committed to mental institutions. 

This is insane. The problem isn't that some people "got their name wrongly in the first place or they've gone through some issue or whatever and that's behind them and they need to get their name out of the database," as Pryor put it, as if it's all about rectifying unfortunate mistakes and administrative errors, it's that, as TP explains, "[t]he bipartisan NICS Reporting Improvement Act would allow these people [those "ordered by a court into involuntary treatment, found to pose a danger to themselves or others, or lack the mental capacity to enter into legal contracts from buying weapons"] to purchase weapons immediately after being released, unless it can be proven that they pose an 'imminent' danger."

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Worst Democrat of the Day: Heidi Heitkamp, pro-NRA gun nut

By Michael J.W. Stickings

When it comes to elections to legislative bodies, partisans often just count the numbers: Do we have more they they do? In a way, that's all that matters.

And so it was for Democrats back in November. We wanted to keep the Senate, and perhaps even to pick up a seat or two, and that meant supporting Democrats who weren't exactly progressive. It was the party affiliation that mattered, just like it is for sports fans rooting for the jersey.

Heidi Heitkamp, running to keep retiring Byron Dorgan's North Dakota seat on our side of the ledger, was one of those Democrats. She won, and we cheered her victory if only because it meant another Democratic seat, and even if she wasn't all that great, at least the Republicans didn't take it.

Now, to be sure, you have to put up with less progressive Democrats, or even anti-progressive ones, if you want to win in solidly red states like North Dakota. And furthermore, Heitkamp was preferable by far to her Republican opponent, the far-right Rick Berg -- I suppose even a generally conservative Democrat like Heitkamp is (usually) better than a Republican.

But that really doesn't make it all okay, and her comments about, and against, gun control this morning only serve to prove the point that there are some awful Democrats out there.

Read more »

Worst Democrat of the Day: Andre Carson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I appreciate the anti-Teabagger sentiment, but this sort of unfounded hyperbole only hurts the cause:

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC's chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would "love to see us as second-class citizens" and "some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me... hanging on a tree."

Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to "the effort that we're seeing of Jim Crow."

This is certainly a good deal of racism in the Tea Party (for example, this) and perhaps a tiny, tiny minority hate blacks in a Mississippi Burning sort of way, but... seriously.

This just makes Carson -- not to mention the entire CBC, if not Democrats and all of us who loathe the Tea Party -- look bad. It undermines their, and our, credibility. It's like when conservatives call Obama a fascist, or like when the Nazi label gets thrown around. Except that this isn't a label that obviously doesn't apply but an unsubstantiated accusation of homicidal, if not genocidal, intent.

It's not just a statement that there's racism in the Tea Party, which would have been fine (and correct), but that the Tea Party generally, including its GOP members in Congress, wants to lynch blacks. Unless you can back that up, you shouldn't make such an accusation.

There are many good reasons to criticize the Tea Party. There's no need to make anything up, and certainly not like this.

Thanks, Andre Carson. Thanks for undermining our efforts.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Joe Manchin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another cowardly Democrat sucking up to Republicans:

In Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin's quest to strike a bipartisan chord as he campaigns to fill the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd's seat, he's joining the GOP's call to repeal pieces of health care reform.

Manchin endorsed President Obama's efforts on landmark health care reform and voiced support for the bill before and after its passage in March. Now, just five weeks away from a tougher Senate race than he expected against Republican John Raese, the governor said in an interview with RealClearPolitics that he supports many basic components of the law but volunteered that some of it needs to be repealed.

"I believe in health care reform. I don't believe in the way this bill was passed," Manchin said Sunday afternoon. "Why they overreached, I don't know."

The way it was passed? And how was that? With overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate? With Republicans opposing and obstructing anything and everything despite Obama's many overtures and Democrats' willingness to seek bipartisan cooperation and repeatedly to cave in and make concessions to the point where the final bill ended up looking an awful lot like the anti-Hillarycare Republican plan from the '90s? I mean, it's not like it included even a modest public option, for fuck's sake.

I realize that Gov. Manchin is trying to win a tough race in a fairly conservative state, but wouldn't be nice if these Democrats actually stood up proudly for what they believe in and defended their party's record as the party of the sort of meaningful change America needs?

Worst Democrat of the Day: Eric Massa

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That would be (now former) Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who has resigned, effective today.

And he's the worst for so much:

-- For (allegedly) sexually harrassing one of his aides at a party on New Year's Eve, and for frequently using "salty" (his word) and otherwise "inappropriate" (also his word) language in the workplace.

-- For initially claiming that he was resigning because he has cancer (and thereby likely lying).

-- For trying to excuse his behaviour/language on his time in the U.S. Navy, where, apparently, it's fine to be a foul-mouthed lout.

-- For blaming Democratic House leaders for his demise: Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill. And this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they've gotten rid of me, and it will pass. You connect the dots." When I connect the dots, what I see is that Massa is an idiot. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has pushed back, asserting that he told Massa's staff to report the harrassment complaint a month ago. Actually, it's not clear what the House ethics committee is investigating, but it seems that Massa's inappropriate behaviour goes back many months, long before his vote on health-care reform mattered so much.

-- For viciously attacking Rahm Emanuel: "Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive." I'm not a big Rahm fan myself, but come on. This is laughable in its excess.

-- For regurgitating Republican talking points (i.e., propaganda) on health-care reform (more shoving the bill down our throats nonsense, which we've heard from countless Republicans).

-- Looking ahead, for going on Glenn Beck's show later today to attack and blame Democrats (what else?), and no doubt also to be lauded as a true American hero of Glennbeckistan.

-- And for being, in general, a pretty reprehensible figure. I feel sorry for him with regards to his very serious health problems, but, as for his political career, good riddance.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Ben Nelson, quasi-Republican

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Democrats may have to abandon their effort for comprehensive healthcare legislation in favor of a piecemeal approach, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said Friday.

Nelson, a centrist Democrat whose vote is critical to the fate of healthcare reform in the Senate, said that while he's inclined to support a majority-vote maneuver to pass a bill, he's unsure Senate Democrats will be able to do so.

"I don't know if we can get a comprehensive bill through," Nelson said during an interview on KLIN radio in Nebraska. "Honestly, I just don't know."

"We may be forced to doing healthcare -- to use my analogy -- by making a pie a piece at a time, which is typically not the preferred way to handle legislation," the senator added.

TNR's Jonathan Cohn says "[t]his seems to be his way of doing business. He'll grumble a lot, particularly when addressing his more conservative constituents, but that doesn't always foretell how he'll vote."

And, of course, Democrats don't necessarily need his vote. (The Hill's post is misleading, if not downright wrong.)

Still, when he's not an outright obstacle, he's a real nuisance, not least when he just seems to be regurgitating Republican talking points.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Dianne Feinstein

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For pulling an Evan Bayh and learning all the wrong lessons from the Massachusetts special election:

I think we do go slower on health care. People do not understand it. It is so big it is beyond their comprehension. And if you don't understand it when somebody tells you it does this or it does that and it's not true, you tend to believe it, even though it isn't true. It's hard to debunk all of the myths that are out there. In my view when people are earning, when their home is secure, when their children are going to school, and they are relatively satisfied with their life and there's a problem like health care – they want it solved. It doesn't threaten them. The size of this bill threatens them. And that's one of the problems that's got to be straightened out.

This is ridiculous. So let me ridicule it.

Health-care reform should be dropped because it's too complicated and because people are more worried about the economy?

Uh, no.

The specific elements of reform may be complicated, if hardly incomprehensible, but Democrats have done a lousy job explaining them to the American people. Maybe they should try instead of just giving up.

People are certainly worried about the economy, not least about the atrocious job situation, as well as about education, but how is health care, which tens of millions of American do not have in any adequate way, and which is sinking the economy and placing immense financial pressures on so many, not as pressing a problem as education? Yes, people want to go to school, and they want their children to go to school, but what does education mean if you're not healthy enough to take advantage of it?

To me, Feinstein just doesn't seem to grasp the primacy of health care, and health itself, when it comes to the happiness and well-being of the American people. Indeed, she treats it like an afterthought, as if it's just a sort of technical problem that can be put off until people are otherwise "satisfied." But how are people supposed to be satisfied if they don't have health insurance, if they don't have access to adequate care, if they're being denied treatment by their insurance companies, if the cost of health care is bankrupting them. Feinstein seems to be wildly out of touch with reality, and with the vast majority of the American people -- and her comments are appallingly condescending. She, after all, doesn't have to worry about anything, does she? She has a job, she has a lot of money, she has a nice home, surely, and she has access to the best health care all her money can buy.

It's disgusting, really, especially coming from a Democrat.

Besides, lest we forget, both the House and Senate have already passed reform legislation. Now it's a matter of getting a bill to Obama, preferably the Senate bill approved as is by the House.

Maybe, in the meantime, Feinstein can pull herself away from her privileged life and help explain what reform is all about and how Americans will ultimately benefit from it.

Health care isn't an afterthought, isn't peripheral to people's well-being and happiness. It's central, and utterly essential, like being employed and having food on the table and a roof over one's head. Feinstein doesn't get that, apparently, but maybe she could get out there and talk to real people about what's going on in their lives. And then maybe she would see that health-care reform should be addressed now, in conjunction with efforts to create jobs and fix the economy, not at some distant point in the future when people are "satisfied" enough to handle it.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Blanche Lincoln

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For bailing on the public option -- because of its supposed cost:

For some in my caucus, when they talk about a public option they're talking about another entitlement program, and we can't afford that right now as a nation.

*****

I'm not going to vote for a bill that's not deficit-neutral, and I'm not going to vote for a bill that doesn't do something about curbing the cost in the out years, because it would be pointless... I would not support a solely government-funded public option. We can't afford that.

No, but the Democratic plan is actually... deficit-neutral. Which essentially renders Lincoln's opposition to it pointless.

Oh, but she has a point. The Arkansas senator is clearly pandering to her right-leaning constituency, what with her re-election prospects looking grim.

Benen: "This might be a good time to note that bloggers seem to be the only people in the country who realize that a public option would be cheaper than the alternative. If Lincoln is concerned about what "we can afford," she should be an enthusiastic champion of the public option. I suspect she knows this, but doesn't quite have the courage to explain this to her enraged constituents."

Indeed. And even if a public option were too costly, in Lincoln's view, what of the cost of doing nothing? The current system is simply not sustainable over the long term, with costs spiralling out of control (and with millions and millions of Americans either with inadequate coverage or without coverage altogether), and the situation is only getting worse.

But don't expect the likes of Blanche Lincoln to look beyond their noses, or even to put the good of the country before their own political ambitions.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Parker Griffith

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For publicly attacking Nancy Pelosi:

I would not vote for her [again for speaker]. Someone that divisive and that polarizing cannot bring us together.

Republicans, of course, feast on this sort of Democratic divisiveness. Why the hell can't Democrats just shut up? Why can't they do what Republicans do and keep their internal conflicts private?

Partly because Democrats are not Republicans. They value diversity over thoughtless obeisance. But partly also because "Democrats" like Rep. Griffith of Alabama, a Blue Dog, aren't really Democrats at all. They're more like quasi-Republicans, Democrats elected from largely Republican districts, "Democratic" only insofar as they're not quite as extreme as the right-wing Republican alternative.

But attacking your own leader? I suppose it troubles a "Democrat" like Griffith that an actual Democrat leads the Democratic Party in the House.

I'm all for difference, disagreement, and dissent, but at what cost? When key issues like health-care reform are at the top of the agenda, party unity is paramount. Griffith should just shut up or get the hell out. It's enough already.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Mike Ross

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For saying this yesteday on CNN:

I will never vote for a bill to kill old people, period.

Rep. Ross, from Arkansas, is, as you might expect a Blue Dog. And this is just the sort of fearmongering, and outright lying, you'd expect from Republicans.

No wonder Democrats are losing the spin war. No wonder the "public option" is dying. Republicans never do this to each other. Why is it that Democrats insist on tearing themselves apart?

If Joe McCarthy were a Democrat

By Capt. Fogg

This new report is proof positive that known and suspected terrorists are exploiting a major loophole in our law, threatening our families and our communities. This 'terror gap' has been open too long, and our national security demands that we shut it down.

says Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ) No one my age can fail to be reminded of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy and his fake list of names. Frank, of course, is also a damn liar.

As might be expected, we're really not talking about "known" terrorists, but about people who have been put on a watch list, but against whom there is no evidence. The Justice Department tells us says CNN, that the FBI had thousands of names on its watch list based on outdated information and should have removed them. The GAO notes properly that being on a terrorist watch list does not mean that someone is involved in any terrorist activity, so as I said, we're not talking about "known terrorists" at all. Neither are we talking about a "loophole" here; we're talking about punishment without due process.

We should all be concerned when there's a proposal to make an accusation, an opinion, a conjecture or a suspicion reason to take away someones constitutional rights, but of course there are those so frightened of coming to harm that they just don't care, which makes them unfit to be participants in a democracy such as ours: a government of laws, not of fear. Sad to say, they're not all Republicans.

Lautenberg refers to a GAO report released yesterday, which reveals that about 90% of people who have sought to buy firearms and who had their names on a "watch list" were allowed to buy them because there was no evidence that they actually were involved in illegal acts. Perhaps they had opinions that were scary, beliefs that troubled the list makers and somehow knew other scary people: perhaps they were falsely accused or, as is often the case, had a name similar to that of a convicted felon. But of course our thoughts are supposed to be free and our associations as well. Should we start putting people who oppose abortion on a terrorism watch list because others with similar beliefs have committed crimes? What about people who have attended "Tea bag" parties? People with an 'unauthorized' religion? Why isn't thought crime abhorrent to us any more?

From his perch in the grandstand, Lautenberg claims to be introducing legislation that would give the U.S. attorney general "authority to stop the sale of guns or explosives to terrorists." That's something the law already addresses and of course it's deceptive since one is not a terrorist without some evidence of illegal activity and indeed without due process to determine guilt or innocence. So what Frank is saying here is that suspicion is guilt and suspicion trumps a fair trial and if you're different or someone doesn't like you, you have no rights. How long have we been fighting monsters that we're starting not to notice what we've become?

Worst Democrat of the Day: Ben Nelson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, it's a new series here at The Reaction. We focus heavily on the inanity, insanity, and idiocy of Republicans, but there are more than a few Democrats who deserve much the same treatment, not least because they are, or claim to be, Democrats. (Which is to say, you can and should expect inanity, insanity, and idiocy from the other side. When it comes from our side, it's rather more disturbing.)

So...

The inaugural WDD is...

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. HuffPo's Ryan Grim has the details of Nelson's terribleness:

Sen. Ben Nelson announced at the beginning of this month that he opposed the creation of a public health care plan that people would have the option to buy into. He'd be gathering together a coalition of like-minded senators to oppose the plan, the conservative Democrat from Nebraska promised.

More than two weeks later, it's still a coalition of one.

Since Nelson's announcement, eight moderate Democrats and one Republican have told the Huffington Post that they are open to a public health care option. Two others, Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), have signed on to the idea.

Last week, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) said they were open to a public plan but undecided. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) said much the same in a letter to the advocacy group Health Care for America Now.

Add more names to the list of those open to a public option: Jon Tester (Mont.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Kay Hagan (N.C.) and Maria Cantwell (Wash.).

That's right, Nelson is pretty much alone among Democrats, with a couple of moderate Republicans (and there are only a few anyway) siding with the Democrats. Which means that Nelson, a Democrat, loosely speaking, is solidly Republican, conservative Republican, on one of the central issues of our time.

I don't support ideological purification in the party, and I don't support any sort of purge -- that's what the other side is up to -- but how is it that Nelson is still a Democrat? Right, because he's from Nebraska, and you pretty much have to be a Republican to get elected as a Democrat there.

Still, that doesn't make it much better. The "D" after his name may come in handy from time to time, but, when it matters, as it certainly does on this key issue, Nelson can hardly be counted not just to vote with his party but to do what is right.