I’m about to pick up the liveblogging of the Prop 8 trial from Teddy, who has earned a big break (and who is off to the court room for a spell). We’re in the middle of expert testimony–I believe that’s what we’ve got coming up after this lunch break.

Letitia Ann Peplau: Bachelor in Psych from Brown, PhD social Psych from Harvard. Research on heterosexual and same sex couples. Some studies that have involved marriage.

Christopher Dusseault (from plaintiffs).

Peplau: Four opinions. One, for those who enter into marriage, associated with benefits. Research of gay and lesbian couples remarkable similarities with heterosexual couples. When permitted to enter into civil marriage, will likely have same benefits as heterosexual couples. Permitting same sex marriage will not be harmful to heterosexual marriage.

Peplau: Americans very enthusiastic about marriage. Most Americans view marriage as one of most important relationships in life. Gallup poll, 91% reported that they have been married or planned to get married.

Dussealt: Any evidence that lesbians and gay men feel the same way.

Peplau: in most states, a hypothetical. Study by Kaiser Family Foundation, would you like to marry? Majority of gay men said they would like to get married. (study admitted)

Dusseault: Domestic partnerships valued as much as gay marriage?

Peplau: Researchers into prefer marriage or domestic partnership. These researchers asked, across all states that permit domestic partnerships. What percentage took advantage. Then, MA, where marriage available. What they found was that 10-12% took option of domestic partnership. Something like 37% of couples get married in MA. 3X as likely to get married as enter into quasi-marital relationships.

Dusseault: Research regarding impact of marriage on health?

Peplau: Very large body for heterosexual marriages on health. Very consistent findings are that on average married indivs fare better, physically healthier, live longer, fewer risky behaviors, better on psychological well-being.

Peplau: Interview a sample of Americans, 100,000 people, comparison between married and unmarried indivs, control for other factors, across all groups, married indivs did better on all measures. Consistent pattern, on average, married couples were better on health.

Dusseault: Why?

Peplau: Two main explanations. Selection effect. People who are healthier to start out with more likely to attract partner. Protection effect. The idea that things associated with marriage that enhance health. Things that people didn’t bring into relationship, that they experienced as a result of being married. Selection effect only partial answer, does appear to be protective effect.

Dussealt: Why protective effects?

Peplau: Getting married reflects a change in identity. For many people marriage is one of the identities. As well, part of being married may mean more of adult, or feel more responsible for our spouse. Marriage about relationship between two people. Important ways in which spouses support each other. This kind of support from another person can enhance health. Broader social network. When people get married, develop relationships with partner and extended family. Connection to extended community and family network. Marriage can also lead to supports from government. Beneficial laws, eligible for programs, health insurance. This doesn’t happen automatically in every marriage. These happen in good marriages. On average, marriage does seem to be associated with benefits, and for many good reasons.

Dusseault: Series of exhibits. 71, 913, 937, 964, 1043, 1171, 1173, 1250, 1254, 1474.

Peplau: I don’t think they’re in the order you read them in.

[Walker’s peaking at her, trying to find them]

Peplau: All articles about benefits of marriage.

Dusseault: Second opinion. Has research been done that compares same sex to heterosexual marriage?

Peplau: Number of studies.

Dusseault: Well-received in your field?

Peplau: Peer-reviewed journals, major conferences. One major topic, examine quality of same sex as compared to heterosexuality, durability over time, processes and dyanmics that affect relationships. To see if relationships influenced by same factors.

Dusseault: Does this show whether similarity?

Peplau: Consistency of findings across different studies. Consistent finding one of great similarity.

Dusseault: Quality of relationships. Research comparing quality?

Peplau: Researchers have tried to measure quality. Standardized measures of love, commitment. Researches also conducted observational studies. Systematically assess things like how much warmth, sarcasm. A lot of different methods to assess quality. Consistent finding, on average, same sex couples and heterosexual are indistinguishable.

Dusseault: Stereotype that gay marriages are unstable.

Peplau: Consistent stereotype, problem forming deep relationships.

Dusseault: Any support?

Peplau: None at all.

Peplau: Stability. For married couples, we have govt statistics. We have pretty good national data sets aboyt heterosexual marriages. Do not have comparable data for same sex couples. Some large scale representative surveys. Substantial proportion of lesbians and gay men in relationships, long term.

Dusseault: Any studies showing that lesbians and gay men can form long-lasting relationships.

Peplau: Demographic study, analyze data, representative sample of lesbians and gay men from CA. Are you currently in cohabiting relationship with partner. 61% of lesbian yes, 46% of gay men yes. For comparison, if you looked at same age range at heterosexuals, 62% of heterosexuals married or cohabiting, percent for hetero and lesbian essentially the same.

Dusseault: Long-lasting?

Peplau: How long has current relationship been going on. 8-10 years. To put that in context, average person who was part of survey was about 41 years old. If 41 now, ten years, 31 when relationship began. Indicates that these are people who, early in adulthood established partnership. For bulk of young adulthood, with same partner. Evidence that gay men and lesbians in extended relationships and at least some of quite long duration.

Dusseault: Can lesbians and gay men form committed relationships?

Peplau: Largest in world, adopted resolution on that topic.

Peplau: APA policy statement on gay marriage.

[Exhibit on screen: “many lesbians and gay men have formed durable relationships”]

[the factors that predict relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship stability are remarbly similar for both same-sex cohaniting couples and hetersex couples.]

Dusseault: gay relationships slightly shorter? Explanation?

Peplau: Because they aren’t directly comparable, married couples may be selected for high levels of commitment. Cohabiting slightly more diverse. Comparison that may be mixing apples and oranges. I think there are several other reasons as well: gay men and lesbians don’t have benefits of marriage. Marriage is stabilizing influence. We’ll talk about why that may be the case. Another reason, sexual orientation, still stigmatized identity, there may be ways in which stigma take a toll.

Walker: Are you saying there’s a difference in durability between cohabiting hetero and married hetero.

Peplau: I was trying to make comparison between same sex and hetero couples. We have a good idea of who those hetero couples, same sex more mixed group.

Walker: What would data show between married hetero and cohabiting hetero couples. Is there difference in durability in those relationships?

Peplau: On average hetero cohabiting relationships of shorter duration.

Dusseault: Processes? Research into whether same processes at work?

Peplau: What factors determine level of satisfaction in relationship. Arguments or conflict. Examined extent to which same sex and hetero. Same frequency of arguing, same sort of things, extent to which try to work out, negotiate, All the same. The process question is is the relationship between high levels of conflict and satisfaction the same. Yes, level of conflict influences quality in both.

Dusseault: Consensus in research as to whether these factors are similar, same sex and hetero.

Peplau: Similarity across these two types of couples.

Dusseault: Move into exhibit on studies.

[The witness, btw, looks very matronly, with very tidy, short chesnut colored hair. She’s dress all in black, which almost makes her look like a judge.]

Dusseault; Would gay men and lesbians benefit from marriage?

Peplau: if same sex couples were permitted to marry, would also enjoy same benefits.

Dusseault: professional orgs same conclusion?

Peplau: American Psychiatric Association, policy statement on that. Approved by assembly and board of trustees. 2005.

[Reads from statement: “In interest of maintaining and promoting mental health … supports legal recognition of same-sex civil marriage.”]

Peplau: my strong belief based primarily on large body of research on hetero marriage, and large body on similarities between same sex and hetero marriage. I don’t think we’d see difference in rate of getting married or rate of getting divorced. Govt website, stats on annual rates for marriage and divorce. 4 years prior to same sex being legal and four years after. Has there been change? There has been no change, rates of divorce and marriage same as they were before.

[Trouble finding exhibit again]

Walker: I have it.

Dusseault: Study looking at results where couples permitted to marriage?

Peplau: What I was referring to before were govt statistics. Predict that couples would report benefitting from that. This is the study. MA Department of Health, 4 years after, conducted survey. Not representative sample. Included over 500 lesbians and gay men. Why they got married, whether it improved their lives, for those raising children, how it affected the children.

Dusseault: What did it show?

Peplau: One things researches found, many said they felt more committed. I think hetero newleyweds might say same things. Other particularly noteworthy things. Many married lesbian and gay men, families more approving of relationship. Felt less worried about legal problems. 1/3 said either they or spouse said now have access to health benefits. A number of benefits. For those who had children, about 25% of respondants, they overwhelmingly reported marriage had been beneficial.

[Walker just highlighted something, now writing notes.]

Dusseault: Did this study support your opinion.

Peplau: yes.

Dusseault: Let’s turn to benefits. Fourth opinion. Opinion on whether allowing gay and lesbian couples would harm?

Peplau: I think it would have no impact on stability of hetero marriages. We mean two things. Is it going to affect entry into marriage. Exit from marriage, increase in divorce.

Dusseault: do you see any basis for arg that allowing same sex to enter in would affect entry into marriage.

Peplau: No, things about relationship, about special other person, nothing that would suggest that same sex civil marriage would lead fewer heteros to marry.

Dusseault: Any basis that would lead more married hetero couples to divorce or exit from marriage.

Peplau: Hard to imagine someone saying, “Gertrude, we’ve been married for 30 years, but we’ve got to throw in the towel because Adam and Stewart got married.” We know a lot of the reasons why people divorce. They’re very personal reasons. People most likely to get divorced. Nothing we know about these factors that lead to divorce has anything to do with civil rights for same sex couples.

Dussealt: Exposure to marriage. What percentage of what proportion of married couples would be same sex if permitted to marry.

Peplau: 1 to 2 to 3% of all married couples would be same sex couples. We usually measure marriage in terms of numbers, this would increase number of marriages. Anthropologists, large group that has done kinship, American Anthropological Association has position on this.

[Results of more than a century of anthropological research … provide no support … for the view that either civilizations or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. … A vast array of family types … can contribute to stable and humane societies.”]

[Repeating data showing that rates of divorce in MA consistent with expectation of no harm.]

Cross-examination:

Nicole Moss: Start first with your first opinion. Marriage confers physical and psychological benefits. When you talk about married indivs. You’re talking about hetero indivs. Reason is that you don’t have data on same sex indivs.

Peplau: On married same sex couples. Yes.

Moss; No empirical studies apart from this one survey on whether same sex marriage would confer the same benefits.

Peplau: Opinion based on hetero couples, research showing similarity. Informed by this one piece of information.

Moss: and hat is the only empirical study, or survey, that has been done. And similarly, there have not been any studies comparing whether physical and psychological benefits comparing domestic partnerships.

Peplau: Comparing indivs in same sex domestic partnerships and same sex marriages? We have many reasons to estimate what we’d find, but there have been no studies on this.

Moss; You’d agree that we study same sex marriage.

[Well, how the fuck are we going to do that if you won’t let peopel actually GET married???]

Peplau: I’d always support more research.

Moss; Studies on physical and psychological benes on domestic partnerships.

Peplau: Right, most rely on very large govt studies. Don’t have statistics like that for registered same sex couples.

Moss; You can’t rank or assess which particular aspect of marriage caused observed increase in physical and psychological health.

Peplau: I think they work simulatneously. I think that would vary from one couple to another depending on life circumstances. That’s not an activity researches have tried to undertake.

Moss; Some aspect that researchers have opined, one of those is access to health insurance, right? To extent that health insurance afforded through domestic partnerships, you would expect to see benefits from domestic partnerships.

Peplau: DPs have been an improvement. It is my opinion that they do not confer all of the benefits of marriage. But I do not dispute that there are good things taht go along with marriage.

Moss: You can’t say with certainty that those aspects that they don’t confer are responsible for greater health.

Peplau: I have a lot of confidence, belief that you are in state of relationship that this society considers most legitimate undoubtedly has benefits that are not part of DPs.

Moss; But again, you have no empirical studies, that measure specifically whether there were benefits conferred differently from DPs?

Peplau: I believe that we know a lot about impact that stigma and being second class have on people and relationships.

Moss; Importance of legal contracts.

Peplau I think that’s not exactly what I said. Enforceable trust that in many kinds of relationships. One benefit of marriage, enhances the likelihood that those trusts will be acted upon. I don’t think solely about legal contract, that people associate with marriage a degree of seriousness and gravitas that leads them to relations.

Moss; You have no basis to dispute that many in DPs view their relationship with same level of commitment you see in marriages.

Peplau: Couples very resilient. Manage to form high quality relationships under adverse circumstances. Couples have formed strong lasting relationships. But would be further enhanced by having access to marriage.

Moss: One of the benefits of marriage that you talked about barriers to exit. Fact that it makes it more difficult to just split up.

[Moss is very pretty, fairly young, and has this flouncy thing on with a pink shirt underneath. Her voice makes her sound very young, too]

Moss: Civil unions also provide barriers to exit.

Peplau: Not equivalent, bc all of a sudden your relatives find out about. “Oh, Ann got married.” It’s not necessarily understood by your relatives, which is an important part of the barrier concept.

Moss; Have you undertaken any studies to test public’s perceptions on DP.

Peplau: No I have not.

Moss: And you don’t cite any in your bilblio One of the studies that you do rely on Kim Ballsome. In this particular study, researches found same sex couples not in civil unions more likely to end relationship. Authors characterize data as showing significant difference in relationship terminations.

Peplau: I think that is probably correct.

Moss: Isn’t it correct that they found significant difference in relationship terminations. Move into evidence. Focused quite a bit on ways in which gay and lesbian couples similar to hetero couples. Focus on ways in which they’re different. Gay men. Monogomy in gay male relationships different from hetero?

Peplau: Sexual exclusivity in monogomy. One, do you believe important. Second, have you been monogamous. One of ways in which gay men’s relationship differ, on average, is that a higher percentage of gay men do not value monogamy. not important. May have an agreement not need to be sexually exclusive. Somewhat more gay men may report.

[Has anyone asked Mark Sanford and John Ensign about this? Because I’m pretty sure they’d say monogamy was really important to them.]

Peplau: Monogamy correlated with relationship satisfaction for lesbians and heteros. It’s not one of the markets by which gay men.

Walker: That’s not true of most married people, is it?

Peplau: most married people. And for sizeable of gay men.

[Moss sounds worried, directs to another exhibit]

Moss; You write that sexual exclusivity might be exception for most gay men. Encouraged sexual openness rather than exclusivity.

[Moss seems to have no problem with lesbian marriages, then?]

Peplau: we might find different things. No one was talking about same sex marriage. Relationships more closeted. Our undestanding, less well-developed. I’m not retracting what I said, accurate of what I found at the time. I wasn’t studying gay men who, for example, had chosen to get married. Whether statements about majority of gay men.

Moss; Before I move on to more recent article.

Moss: “close relationships of lesbians and gay men.” In this more recent article, you did a study of a certain number of gay men in relationships.

Peplau: Not an empirical study I conducted. Literature review. Summary of results of other people’s research.

Moss; My apologies. On page 410, of lit review. You write about a study that indicates that 36% of gay men, important to be sexually monogomas, 75% lesbians, 80% of wives, 75% of married men.

Peplau: Study late 70s and 80s.

Moss: Less gay men believe that sexual monogamy important as compared to lesbians, wives and husbands.

Peplau: We may not be able to pin down percentages. Percentage difference is correct.

Moss; Going back to study on sexual exclusivity and openness. In that particular study, you noted that there was a difference between valuing and carrying through when it came to their behavior.

[Moss snorts stotily.]

Peplau: There are heterosexuals who pledge to be monogamous, and the same is true of gay men.

Moss: You find that they are in closed relationships, but have had sex with at least one other partner.

[Can we plase call Mark Sanford to the stand to ask about his promise of exclusivity??]

Peplau: What we did was give a definition of open and closed. The statement that you’re citing is an accurate depiction of what we found.

Moss: By closed, partners agreed they would be exclusive to one another.

Peplau: A little vague about how we asked that question. I assume that what we’re reporting, that yes, according to our definition. A question about presumably have you ever had sex with another person.

Moss: You also write that all men in relationships identified as having been closed, lasting 3 years or longer, had engaged in sex with at least one person other than primary partner.

Peplau: Study of gay men in LA in different time period. Don’t want to deny findings. Have the context in mind.

Moss: Turning your attention to desire of gays and lesbians to marry as compared to hetero community. 74% of lesbians and gay men, they would like to do so.

[Describe some govt statistics. With translation.Plaintiffs ask if it was disclosed on exhibit list.]

Moss; In the last couple of days.

[Now Belgian]

[Plaintiffs make same reservation on them just coming on the exhibit list]

Moss: Relative different percentages, hetero population versus same sex couples.

Peplau: My expertise is about relationships in the US. I’m in no way shape or form knowledgable about marriage in Europe. As researcher in order to comment, I can read you the statistics, but to comment or interpret them, I’d feel unqualified, bc I don’t know context in Belgium.

Moss; You did not do any studies about other countries where same sex marriage has been available.

Peplau: That is correct.

Moss: No statistics that would indicate how many gay and lesbians there were in that country. Would you agree that good conservative estimate 2%?

[Objection]

Walker: Witness has stated she doesn’t have expertise outside the US.

Moss: Do you have an estimate of pop in US that’s gay and lesbian.

Peplau: Something like 2-3% who identify as gay or lesbian.

Moss: From what you know, any reason that there would be remarkably different outside US?

Peplau: People’s willingness to disclose sexual orientation might well vary from country to country.

Moss [snottily]: so would you just take as conservative estimate 2%?

Peplau: if we assume same as US, guesstimate, something like 2%.

Moss; I’m not offering as evidence.

Walker: Base testimony on hypothetical.

[Moss’ posture is telling, she’s leaning away, as if she’s very clever. Has a “cute” little smile.]

Moss, now making other assumptions.Strike that, I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

Moss: Govt data that shows hetero marriages.

Walker: It shows trend in homosexual marriages.

Moss: I meant homosexual marriages. In 2004, reports that 2138 indivs in same sex marriage.

Peplau: What I’m not clear about, who got married or who reported they were married.

Moss; I believe that the govt number.

Peplau: So fewer in 2008?

Moss: Total number who got married that year. Individuals who got married that year.

Peplau: So that number is twice as large as the number of marriages?

Moss; If you want to know how many at end were in marriages, you’d have to add up. It comes up a total number of 10,923.

[Um, how can you have an odd number of “individuals who were married”?]

Moss: if you take total number of married indivs and subtract out same sex, you’d agree that’d give you total number of opposite sex marriages? Would you agree that to determine what percentage, you would divide number into number of gay and lesbians who are married.

Peplau: I’m puzzled about one thing, you can do the math better than I can. I thought we said on first table, 10 million marriages total. But that the table for the homosexual is number per year.

Moss: 10 million.

Peplau: Married is 4.5 million. Total of everyone in Belgium.

Moss: 10,000 individuals.

[Moss, still leaning away, sort of propping herself up on her left elbow.]

[Objection: Ms. Peplau not a demographer]

Walker: Ask the bottom line question?

Moss; Assuming my math is correct. If numbers showed that 5% of gay and lesbian indivs and 43% had taken advantage of marriage, significant difference?

Peplau: Absolutely.

Moss: Data for Netherlands.

Peplau: Can I just make sue I’m with you on these data. You’re not saying that only 5% of homosexuals got married. What you’re saying is that all married indivs in Belgium, only 5% of them are homosexual.

Moss: No, I’m saying 5% of homosexuals are married. I asked you to assume that 2% are homosexuals.

Peplau: You’re saying 5% are married, compared to 43% of homosexuals.

Moss: You would agree that significant difference in percentage of population that is choosing to take advantage.

Peplau: I’d be struck by difference with analyses about MA that have chosen to get marriage. Americans are one of the most pro-family people around. Americans are enthusiasts of marriage.

One of the biggest stories at the North American International Auto Show yesterday was not the cars, but the congressional delegation — led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — that came to the show. In addition to Pelosi and Hoyer, much of Michigan’s delegation (the only Republican was Fred Upton, though Candice Miller had intended to attend before bad roads got in the way), Ohio Representatives Tim Ryan and Betty Sutton, and Senators Byron Dorgan and Tom Carper attended the show. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis were there, too; and until last Thursday, Obama was planning to attend (until the Secret Service decided it would be a security nightmare).

In other words, there was a big presence of DC bigwigs at the auto show. As Pelosi, in particular, worked her way from the General Motors’ display (she got a close look at the Volt) to the Chrysler to the Ford one (she checked out the new Focus), the media followed along in a big pack, filming her chatting with the CEOs of America’s (and, in the case of GM and Chrysler, the taxpayers’) auto companies. In the YouTube above, she and Hoywer are talking to Ford CEO Alan Mulally.

The crowds and media attention their presence brought tells you something — that DC has been far too distant from America’s industrial base for far too long.

Indeed, some of the DC-MI folks I spoke to pointed out to me that the US car companies have not done a good job at reaching out to the press in recent years, and nor has DC shown much interest in exchange.  The hope was that yesterday’s visit may begin to change all that. (I know GM plans a series of Volt test drives for politicos at the DC auto show later this month.)

And, at the very least, Pelosi has promised to come back next year.

Speaking to those close to the delegation, it sounds like one of the most productive parts of the day was a lunch some of the DC bigwigs had with some local representatives of energy companies: Dow Kokam, Johnson-Saft Power, and Dowding Machining. In addition to talking to about innovation going on here in MI, they talked about the kind of support they need to continue and grow such efforts.  That’s the kind of conversation — rather than just a pitch from a CEO standing in front of a shiny car–that we need to see more of.

Here’s a YouTube from the press conference Pelosi did at the end of the day. And here are the comments John Dingell and Fred Upton made at the same press conference.

Greetings from the North American International Auto Show.

As I explained last week, I’m going to have a number of discussions about your taxpayer owned car company–GM–today.

But the big news of the morning is that Ford won both the North American car and truck of the year, with the Fusion Hybrid and the Transit Connect, respectively. I expect the sweep of the awards (it is just the third time one manufacturer has won both awards) will continue Ford’s success at changing its brand image.

The other big buzz this morning is the presence of a sizable congressional delegation, led by Nancy Pelosi, here to figure out what is going on with our auto industry. There’s a fair amount of discussion about that among both the car people and other journalists.

I often joke with Californians that even as their environmental regulations make MI’s main industry defunct (admittedly, largely because of the short sightedness of Michiganders), MI will take over CA’s role as the lead Ag state. CA, after all, is fighting water problems because of its own short-sightedness. We, on the other hand, have got water–lots of it. And MI is already the country’s second most diverse agricultural state. Add a few degrees of temperature due to climate change (ignoring the signs that global warming seems to be making a cold sink stretching from MI to MN), and MI could be downright bountiful.

But there’s a more serious side to it–the post-industrial side. Specifically, the increasingly urgent efforts to turn Detroit back into an agricultural bread basket.

“There’s so much land available and it’s begging to be used,” said Michael Score, president of the Hantz Farms, which is buying up abandoned sections of the city’s 139-square-mile landscape and plans to transform them into a large-scale commercial farm enterprise.

“Farming is how Detroit started,” Score said, “and farming is how Detroit can be saved.”

[snip]

In Detroit, hundreds of backyard gardens and scores of community gardens have blossomed and helped feed students in at least 40 schools and hundreds of families.

It is the size and scope of Hantz Farms that makes the project unique. Although company officials declined to pinpoint how many acres they might use, they have been quoted as saying that they plan to farm up to 5,000 acres within the Motor City’s limits in the coming years, raising organic lettuces, trees for biofuel and a variety of other things.

Detroit has long been a symbol of America’s industrial might. And yet, quickly, it has become a symbol not only of decay, but of the earth reclaiming the land. Frankly, I’m in favor of using Detroit’s vacant space for farming (though I prefer it to be organic, small scale farming). But if Detroit is the canary in the coal mine of industrial society, we need to start preparing to return to an agricultural way of life.

Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicareeder/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Previously, Marcy Wheeler noted the unsavory blending of the private interests of health insurance companies with the power and hand of the US government:

It’s one thing to require a citizen to pay taxes–to pay into the commons. It’s another thing to require taxpayers to pay a private corporation, and to have up to 25% of that go to paying for luxuries like private jets and gyms for the company CEOs.

It’s the same kind of deal peasants made under feudalism: some proportion of their labor in exchange for protection (in this case, from bankruptcy from health problems, though the bill doesn’t actually require the private corporations to deliver that much protection).In this case, the federal government becomes an appendage to do collections for the corporations.
…
The reason this matters, though, is the power it gives the health care corporations. We can’t ditch Halliburton or Blackwater because they have become the sole primary contractor providing precisely the services they do. And so, like it or not, we’re dependent on them. And if we were to try to exercise oversight over them, we’d ultimately face the reality that we have no leverage over them, so we’d have to accept whatever they chose to provide. This bill gives the health care industry the leverage we’ve already given Halliburton and Blackwater.

Marcy termed this being “On The Road To Neo-feudalism” and then followed up with a subsequent post noting how much the concept was applicable to so much of the American life and economy, especially through the security/military/industial complex so intertwined with the US government.

Marcy Wheeler is not the only one recently noting the striking rise in power of corporate interests via the forceful hand of US governmental decree (usually at the direct behest of the corporate interests). Glenn Greenwald, expanding on previous work by Ed Kilgore, penned a dynamic description of the dirty little secret (only it is not little by any means) afoot in modern American socio-political existence:

But the most significant underlying division identified by Kilgore is the divergent views over the rapidly growing corporatism that defines our political system.

Kilgore doesn’t call it “corporatism” — the virtually complete dominance of government by large corporations, even a merger between the two — but that’s what he’s talking about. He puts it in slightly more palatable terms:

To put it simply, and perhaps over-simply, on a variety of fronts (most notably financial restructuring and health care reform, but arguably on climate change as well), the Obama administration has chosen the strategy of deploying regulated and subsidized private sector entities to achieve progressive policy results. This approach was a hallmark of the so-called Clintonian, “New Democrat” movement, and the broader international movement sometimes referred to as “the Third Way,” which often defended the use of private means for public ends.

As I’ve written for quite some time, I’ve honestly never understood how anyone could think that Obama was going to bring about some sort of “new” political approach or governing method when, as Kilgore notes, what he practices — politically and substantively — is the Third Way, DLC, triangulating corporatism of the Clinton era, just re-packaged with some sleeker and more updated marketing. At its core, it seeks to use government power not to regulate, but to benefit and even merge with, large corporate interests, both for political power (those corporate interests, in return, then fund the Party and its campaigns) and for policy ends. It’s devoted to empowering large corporations, letting them always get what they want from government, and extracting, at best, some very modest concessions in return. This is the same point Taibbi made about the Democratic Party in the context of economic policy:

The significance of all of these appointments isn’t that the Wall Street types are now in a position to provide direct favors to their former employers. It’s that, with one or two exceptions, they collectively offer a microcosm of what the Democratic Party has come to stand for in the 21st century. Virtually all of the Rubinites brought in to manage the economy under Obama share the same fundamental political philosophy carefully articulated for years by the Hamilton Project: Expand the safety net to protect the poor, but let Wall Street do whatever it wants.

One finds this in far more than just economic policy, and it’s about more than just letting corporations do what they want. It’s about affirmatively harnessing government power in order to benefit and strengthen those corporate interests and even merging government and the private sector.

Ms. Wheeler and Mr. Greenwald are correct, and the phenomenon is not just limited to the healthcare and military/industrial complex either; it is even more alarming in the ever more dominant and pervasive financial sector, home of the “too big to fail”. The phrase itself should terrify citizens, yet the country seems blithely oblivious to the implications. If there was even a vein of common sense among the people and leadership of this country, there would be immediate realization that an entity too big to fail is so big that it controls the government as much as the other way around. But the people are asleep, distracted by their own despair and desensitized over the years. The leadership, as both Wheeler and Greenwald describe have become symbiotic with the cause and, thus, are the part of problem not a source of solution.

Marcy Wheeler describes the concentration of power and wealth in corporations married to the hand of government as neo-feudalism; Glenn Greenwald and Kilgore posit it as corporatism. Both are worthy and descriptive terms, but the real ill goes a bit deeper if you also consider the accompanying rise in income inequality and transfer of wealth to the privileged and powerful few individuals that has paralleled what Marcy and Glenn describe. When you put it all together, the result is a situation that eerily duplicates the era of the robber barons existing in the United States 100 years ago.

The New Robber Barons

Robber Barons as a descriptor for the modern overlords came to me during a conversation with several colleagues a week or two ago on how to term the healthcare companies and their owners and executives. In writing this article, however, I have found I am far from the first person to realize how the old is new again in this regard to the rapacious class. Over a decade ago, Brad DeLong hit on the same precise thought, and he hit it hard and big:

“Robber Barons”: that was what U.S. political and economic commentator Matthew Josephson (1934) called the economic princes of his own day. Today we call them “billionaires.” Our capitalist economy–any capitalist economy–throws up such enormous concentrations of wealth: those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, driven and smart enough to see particular economic opportunities and seize them, foresighted enough to have gathered a large share of the equity of a highly-profitable enterprise into their hands, and well-connected enough to fend off political attempts to curb their wealth (or well-connected enough to make political favors the foundation of their wealth).

Matthew Josephson called them “Robber Barons”. He wanted readers to think back to their European history classes, back to thugs with spears on horses who did nothing save fight each other and loot merchant caravans that passed under the walls of their castles. He judged that their wealth was in no sense of their own creation, but was like a tax levied upon the productive workers and craftsmen of the American economy. Many others agreed: President Theodore Roosevelt–the Republican Roosevelt, president in the first decade of this century–spoke of the “malefactors of great wealth” and embraced a public, political role for the government in “anti-trust”: controlling, curbing, and breaking up large private concentrations of economic power.
…
And whatever the causes, the period since the mid-1970s has seen wealth concentration in the United States increase more rapidly than ever before–even during the heyday of industrialization in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Aggregate measures of wealth concentration today are greater than at any time since the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression, and are within striking distance of the peak in wealth concentration reached during the Gilded Age (see Wolff, 1994).
…..
It is striking how closely numbers of “billionaire” match shifts in aggregate wealth inequality: when the frequency of billionaires in the labor force is high, wealth concentration is high. A simple linear regression predicts that the frequency of billionaires would drop to zero should the share of wealth held by the top one percent drop to twenty percent or so–and, indeed, we find no billionaires back when wealth concentration was so low.
…..
These causes of immense wealth have nothing to do with the determinants of the relative supplies of skilled and unskilled workers, or with the technological requirements of production. It makes me think that the overall level of wealth concentration is much more a “political” and a “cultural” phenomenon than an “economic” one: that we through our political systems and our attitudes have much more to do with the concentration of wealth than does the dance of factor supplies and technology-driven factor demands.

DeLong’s piece is a comprehensive thesis that describes both the history of the earlier American robber barons and modern day versions, at least as of the time he penned his work in 1997-98. Brad noted disturbing trends at the time, but did not reach hard conclusions as to the overall effect of the phenomenon on the health of American society.

So if there is a lesson, it is roughly as follows: Politics can put curbs on the accumulation of extraordinary amounts of wealth. And there is a very strong sense in which an unequal society is an ugly society. I like the distribution of wealth in the United States as it stood in 1975 much more than I like the relative contribution of wealth today. But would breaking up Microsoft five years ago have increased the pace of technological development in software? Probably not. And diminishing subsidies for railroad construction would not have given the United States a nation-spanning railroad network more quickly.

So there are still a lot of questions and few answers. At what level does corruption become intolerable and undermine the legitimacy of democracy? How large are the entrepreneurial benefits from the finance-industrial development nexus through which the truly astonishing fortunes are developed? To what extent are the Jay Goulds and Leland Stanfords embarrassing but tolerable side-effects of successful and broad economic development?

DeLong knew what the issues were, but did not have firm conclusions and answers as to the potential detriment or benefit of such unequal wealth distribution. However, the decade plus that has elapsed since Brad wrote his version of the robber barons, and especially the last two, has put a far different patina on the situation. It is not just the difference between the rich man and poor man, it is the vanishing middle class coupled with the ever grosser arrogance, recklessness and impunity which makes the New Robber Barons such a dangerous and destructive force. There is no longer need to describe what the downside of the insanity could be; we know, we are living it as we speak and have been over the past two years.

The question is where we go from here with respect to the New Robber Baron overlords. Just mosey along status quo as the Obama Administration appears to envision, not looking back with anger, accountability and real change; or do we plow the harder, but ultimately more fertile ground of curbing the irrational and destructive accumulation of wealth and power through Teddy Rooseveltian anti-trust programs, return of Glass-Steagall protections separation of banking and investment functions and tax and social programs to rebuild the evaporating middle class.

Healthcare is the current flashpoint, and it is rightfully a big one. There is no question but that the US needs “reform”; but there is a real question, still to be answered, whether there will be something produced which benefits the masses of citizens both now and in the future or just an illusory pile of junk that benefits the ruling classes of politicians and health industry robber barons.

As Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald have persuasively argued, however, it goes much, much deeper than merely healthcare; the battle is over the root ethos of what this country is and is going to be. The incontrovertible trend is toward an unholy blending of the robber barons with the government itself. Not just the usual influencing of government policies through lobbying and monetary control of individual politicians to seek favorable policies, but where the federal government becomes an appendage to do collections, enforcement and expansion for the corporations. The best time to rethink and reverse this trend is now, it will not get easier as the trend becomes more ingrained and pervasive with time.

As long as this post is, the surface of this topic has barely been scratched. It is my hope to peg this phenomenon with a term simple, descriptive and instantly understandable by all, and to start a discussion both in comments to this post and in subsequent posts here and by others across the spectrum. Time is wasting at an alarming rate.

(graphic courtesy of Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University)

I have had several people ask me off blog about the “opinions” on the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) that have surfaced recently in the 9th Circuit. I may write more later; but for now I want to lay out the sequence of facts and actions and start the discussion.

The current issue really took flight last month when 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski entered an order dated November 19, 2009 on the matter of Karen Golinski, a staff attorney for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judicial branch employees such as Golinski are Federal employees and therefore have their benefits administered by the Office of Personnel Management (the same folks Obama and Harry Reid want to administer their poor excuse of a substitute for the Public Option). Based upon the OPM’s stated position, the contracted benefits carrier (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) refused to provide health benefits for her same sex legal spouse, Amy Cunninghis.

From Judge Kosinski’s November 19 Order:

Karen Golinski has been denied a benefit of federal employment because she married a woman rather than a man. I previously determined that violates this court’s guarantee of equal employment opportunity. To avoid a difficult constitutional problem, I harmonized the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 1 USC §7; the statutes creating the benefit program at issue, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), 5 USC §8901 et seq.; and this court’s commitment to equal employment opportunity.

I then entered [an] order
…
No “party or individual aggrieved” by my decision appealed it.

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) complied with my order and submitted Ms. Golinski’s form 2089 to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Servie Benefit Plan, Ms. Golinski’s health insurance carrier. That’s as it should be; the AO is subject to the “supervision and direction” of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 28 USC §604(a), and I exercised authority delegated by the Judicial Conference when I ordered relief. After the AO submitted Ms. golinski’s form, I thought this matter had concluded.

The Executive Branch, acting through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), thought otherwise. It directed the insurance carrier not to process Ms. Golinski’s form 2089, thwarting the relief I had ordered. (citations omitted)

That is the basic tale of Golinski and Kozinski. Since the November 19 Order the above language was taken from, the situation has become even more exacerbated by the intransigence of the Obama Administration and its OPM which, either comically or tragically depending on one’s view, is headed by John Berry who the Administration made a big show of touting as its highest ranking openly gay official.

The irony just oozes. After further refusal and contempt of his clear order, which the Administration never appealed, Judge Kozinski entered another Order Tuesday further blistering the Administration and all but instructing Karen Golinski to sue them.

But that is not the only such matter percolating in the 9th Circuit. In a separate matter involving Brad Levenson, a member of the Federal Public Defender’s Office of Central California, an office also under the same benefits plan, a different 9th Circuit Judge, Stephen Reinhardt, has also indicated dissatisfaction with the position of the government as directed by the Obama Administration. In a decision dated November 18, 2009, just a day before Kozinski’s Order in Golinski, Reinhardt wrote:

Brad Levenson, a deputy public defender in the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California (“FPD”), is legally married, under California law, to Tony Sears. Nevertheless, Levenson has not been permitted to enroll Sears as a family member beneficiary of his federal health, dental, and vision benefits (hereinafter “federal benefits”) because both spouses are of the same sex. In a previous order, I determined that the denial of benefits on this ground violates the Ninth Circuit’s Employment Dispute Resolution Plan for Federal Public Defenders and Staff (“EDR Plan”), which expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation. I also determined for similar reasons that the denial of benefits violates the United States Constitution. As a further remedy for those violations Levenson now requests an order directing the FPD to enter into separate contracts with private insurers in order to provide Sears with benefits comparable to those provided in the existing federal plans, or alternatively, a monetary award pursuant to the Back Pay Act. For the reasons set forth below I have determined that an order directing the FPD to enter into separate health insurance contracts would not be a “necessary and appropriate” remedy within the scope of the EDR Plan. A back pay award, however, would be appropriate under the circumstances. Accordingly, I grant Levenson’s alternative request for monetary award, and remand the matter to the FPD to determine the actual amount awarded.

In both of these cases, Golinski and Levenson, the “plan” they were under was contractual and stipulated the only remedy and forum available for prosecuting claims of employment discrimination, which mandated first a “counseling” which was effectively a discussion with OPM representatives, followed by mediation, followed only after unsuccessful exhaustion of the first two avenues, by the ability to petition the 9th Circuit Judicial authority. The latter allows the matter to be heard by a judge, but clearly in an administrative authority as opposed to pursuant to their Article III formal judicial authority. And therein lies the rub and why the Obama Administration feels empowered to contemptuously thumb their nose at the resultant orders.

In case there is any question what Judge Reinhardt thinks of DOMA and its effects on members of the LGBT community under the circumstances:

As I concluded in my previous order, the application of DOMA to FEHBA so as to deny Levenson’s request that his same-sex spouse receive federal benefits violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In reaching that conclusion, I believe it likely that some form of heightened Constitutional scrutiny applies to Levenson’s claims.

For the uninitiated, Reinhardt finds DOMA clearly unconstitutional and, because it discriminates against protected classes, must be judged under a particularly burdensome standard, which it cannot, and does not, meet. A striking and quite correct analysis.

It is somewhat scandalous, if not outright scurrilous, that the Obama Administration, which ran hard on relief to the GLBT community and protection and equal protection of their rights, would hide behind the DOMA they once scorned to deny equal protection to Karen Golinski and Brad Levenson. But that is just how they roll.

The question now is what avenue for remedy will Golinski and Levenson pursue? That is still unclear, but it ought to be very interesting. The other thing that simply cannot be emphasized enough is how remarkable the decisions of Judge Stephen Reinhardt and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski are. They have not hidden behind illusory outs or carefully kept their powder dry. Both judges have observed unconstitutional provisions and acts, egregious positions by the Obama Administration that openly claimed otherwise to get elected, and denial of equal protection to worthy citizens, and they flat out called it for what it is.

And make no mistake, those of us who live and practice in the 9th Circuit can attest to how different a place on the ideological spectrum these two are. Stephen Reinhardt is a proud old school hard liberal appointed by Jimmy Carter; Kozinski was a young and fairly radical conservative when appointed by Ronald Reagan and openly complained that the 9th was too wild eyed liberal when he joined. Their decisions here may not have precedential value as reported Article III cases, but when these two are on the same page calling foul, as they have done on the acts of the Obama Administration against Ms. Golinski and Mr. Levenson, it is a powerful marker that something very wrong is afoot. And so it is.

I’ve been noting for months that Rod Blagojevich would make a big deal out of the conversations his people had with Rahm about gaming the election for Rahm’s former seat. If for no other reason than Blago claims Rahm gave him the idea behind one of the charges, Blago has every incentive to embarrass Rahm thoroughly over the course of his trial.

And, not surprisingly, Blago has made the first move in that play.

Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers want the FBI to give up details of interviews conducted last year of President Obama, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and others as part of the investigation into the former governor.

In a Friday filing, Blagojevich attorneys also asked for information regarding first lady Michelle Obama. However, a source said late Friday that the FBI never interviewed the first lady.

Prosecutors may well delay (that’s certainly what Fitz did in the CIA Leak case, where he turned over materials on prosecution witnesses just weeks before the trial started).

But I can imagine that Obama would prefer to put off this little side show until health care gets done–if it does get done. And I imagine Blago knows that well.

Okay, this is just creepy, but creepy in terms that may impact politics more than Tiger Woods taking a hiatus from golf:

The Missoulian newspaper today disclosed that Sen. Max Baucus’s future girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, was involved in discussions with the senator’s divorce lawyer in 2007 while serving on the Montana Democrat’s Senate staff. The Montana newspaper quoted from billing records submitted by Baucus’s lawyer, Ronald F. Waterman, in Helena.

Main Justice obtained a copy of the billing records. Click here to see them.

The records show that Hanes – whom Baucus later recommended to the White House as a finalist for Montana’s U.S. Attorney – consulted with the divorce lawyer on such delicate matters as how to determine the value of the home Baucus shared with his then-wife, Wanda, in Washington’s exclusive Georgetown section.

Mind you, nothing about this development (unlike the fact that MaxTax nominated his girlfriend to be US Attorney and that he brought her on a trip to Dubai) is ethically scandalous. MaxTax just had his then State Director and now girlfriend handle discussions with the lawyers drawing up his separation agreement with his then wife.

Indeed, at one level this proves the point Baucus’ office has been making–that Baucus’ relationship with Hanes (which reportedly started in June 2008) had nothing to do with his split with his ex-wife.

But it is all rather, um, cozy.

Update: It gets creepier. Baucus’ then wife, Wanda, didn’t know that he was scheming on a separation at the time.

Wanda Baucus, the senator’s second wife, said Friday that she knew nothing about the 2007 meetings and that the couple had not at that point discussed getting a divorce.

“I think this whole thing is very sad. It’s not the way you do things,” she said in an interview.

[snip]

“Ending a 25-year marriage is a serious undertaking that should be discussed first within the family,” Wanda Baucus said. “There’s no justification for the staff being involved in such private matters.”

Which I guess means Baucus’ then State Director and now girlfriend knew that he was splitting before his then wife did.

ABC has now caught up to Jeremy Scahill. In this Blackwater installment, they describe sketchy details of two Blackwater operations in Afghanistan/Pakistan, one in 2003, and one in 2006.

CIA officials acknowledge that two private contractors were killed in Afghanistan in 2003 when they and other members of a CIA paramilitary team were in a firefight with Taliban fighters on a remote road.

In another case, in 2006, 12 Blackwater “tactical action operatives” were recruited for a secret raid into Pakistan by the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command, according to a military intelligence planner. The target of the planned raid, code-named Vibrant Fury, was a suspected al Qaeda training camp, according to the planner, who said he did not know the outcome of the mission.

It’s not clear whether this on the record discussion of planning for an op in 2003 is the same one named above, in which two contractors (presumably BW) were killed. But note the explanation: a desire to avoid oversight.

A U.S. Army officer who ran human intelligence collections activities in Afghanistan in 2003, Tony Shaffer, says he never worked directly with Blackwater personnel but frequently encountered them in secret operations run by the military and the CIA.

“I actually met with the CIA and Blackwater operatives who were working together, totally hand in glove, to conduct operational planning and support of their objectives, which are paramilitary operations along the border,” said Shaffer, then a Major but now a Lieutenant Colonel who teaches at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.

“The idea was to bring to bear additional resources for specific special operations missions,” he said. “The purpose for that, in my judgment, may have been to avoid some level of oversight.”

In 2006, the purpose of using BW was to provide forces that were otherwise unavailable because they were occupied in Iraq.

In the case of Operation Vibrant Fury, military personnel say the decision to request Blackwater personnel came after a request for military “tier one” operatives was denied.

A spokesperson for Blackwater said the company was unaware of any operation with the code name Vibrant Fury.

The mission was to raid, destroy and kill al Qaeda members at a camp in Pakistan where guards for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri were believed to be training, according to the military planner.

A second person briefed on the operation confirmed Blackwater agreed to provide operatives for the military special forces.

The commanders of the elite special forces, then called Task Force 373, decided to solicit help from Blackwater, said the planner, after military superiors said the men could not be spared from Iraq.

The request to Blackwater was met on Oct. 31, 2006, according to the planner.

I’ll come back to some of the details. But for the moment, consider how the history of Bush letting Osama bin Laden go at Tora Bora played into this. Both ops were attempts to chase al Qaeda into Pakistan. One of those was an attempt to get OBL’s guards.

Wouldn’t it all have been better if we had dedicated the resources in 2001?

In a predictable move of arrogance and ignorance, Chris Christie asked Bruce Springsteen to perform at his inauguration.

Christopher J. Christie, the Republican governor-elect of New Jersey, has attended 122 Bruce Springsteen concerts and wanted nothing more than to have the Boss appear at his inauguration. Mr. Christie’s brother, Todd, a stock trader, sent a message through an intermediary to Jon Landau, Mr. Springsteen’s manager, saying that he would make a gift to a charity of the singer’s choosing if Mr. Springsteen performed.

[snip]

But word came back that, while Mr. Springsteen had performed for the Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Kerry, “he doesn’t want to get involved in state politics,” Todd Christie said.

Turns out, though, Springsteen is willing to get involved in the kind of state politics that matter.

A BRIEF STATEMENT FROM BRUCE
Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I’ve been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I’ve long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, “The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is — a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law.” I couldn’t agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now.

May Santa bring coal to those who deserve it–and civil rights to all.

Update: To help Santa deliver civil rights to the same sex couples in New Jersey, click over to Garden State Equality and help make calls in advance of the vote on this.