Doyle McManus:
Administration officials say they are looking at a wide range of other options to dissuade Libya's air force from attacking civilians. Military experts say those could include long-distance attacks against Libya's airbases and the provision of antiaircraft weapons to anti-Kadafi groups.
If the Libyan opposition forms a government and appeals for foreign help, that will quickly increase pressure on the administration and its allies to act.
The alternative — standing by and ignoring the opposition's pleas — won't be tenable for long.
It wouldn't be good politics, either, to pass up an opportunity to help a new and friendly government come to power.
But it's also worth counting to 10, slowly, before starting any war.
The Washington Post applauds the Supreme Court's ruling on the Westboro Baptist Church:
In upholding the rights of the members of Westboro Baptist, the Supreme Court - in a surprisingly united 8-1 decision - rightly embraced one of this country's most cherished principles. Speech cannot be quashed or punished simply because it is hateful or expresses an aberrant point of view.
Elie Mystal has a different take:
Call it Free Speech 101. The hard part about the First Amendment is that you have to allow people to say all manner of annoying, vulgar, and inappropriate things, at the wrong times.
Not that Justice Samuel Alito thinks so. Justice Alito was the lone dissenter in [Westboro Baptist Church] case. He was also the lone dissenter in the Stevens case, in which the Court overturned a ban on animal crush videos on First Amendment grounds. But he voted with the majority in Citizens United.
I can’t wait until Sam “Not True” Alito writes a book or something explaining why regular people don’t deserve the free speech given to American corporations and sitting Supreme Court justices….
New York Times:
The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years.
E.J. Dionne:
What's truly amazing, as Stateline.org reported recently, is the number of governors who are cutting taxes at the same time they are eviscerating programs. A particularly dramatic case is Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott. He faces a $3.5 billion budget gap - and is pushing for $2 billion in corporate and property tax cuts.
Historically, times of fiscal stress forced states to make useful economies in programs that didn't work or were not essential. But what's happening in so many places now is a reckless rush to gut the parts of government that all but the most extreme libertarians support - and that truly deserve to be seen (one thinks of education and programs for poor children) as investments in the future.
And those governors doing the hard work trying to balance cutbacks and tax increases get ignored, because there's nothing sexy about being responsible.
Karl Rove: Blah blah blah austerity blah blah blah Obama is vulnerable blah blah blah Reagan was a political genius.
Matt Miller is wishy-washy on teachers' unions. But:
The one thing I know for sure, however, is this: The future of the country depends on the public-sector workers known as teachers. That's because unless we dramatically improve our educational performance, America's standard of living will be at risk.
Gail Collins:
We’re a long way from the Eleanor Roosevelt Commission on the Status of Women, which was formed when there were no women on the White House staff doing anything more impressive than typing or cake decoration. “Men have to be reminded that women exist,” Mrs. Roosevelt tartly told reporters when the all-male list of top Kennedy administration appointees was released.
At the time, there were 454 federal civil service job categories for college graduates, and more than 200 were restricted to male applicants. It was perfectly legal to refuse to hire a woman for a job because of her failure to be a man, or to refuse her credit unless she had a husband to co-sign her loan. The median age for marriage for a woman was 20, and the only job open to most women that involved a chance to travel was flight attendant.
We’re in a different world, but this latest report highlights the one glaring gap: working women still make, on average, much less than men. Among people who work full time, women make an average 80 cents for every $1 that men take home.
And of course, women's very lives are currently under assault. As Joel Connelly explains:
A misleading lead to a recent column could create a mistaken impression among its readers: It began by stating that anti-abortion Republicans in Congress treat life as beginning at conception and ending at birth.
I stand corrected. The U.S. House of Representatives has launched an assault on life -- specifically, lives of women, particularly low-income women -- that begins long before conception.
...
At home, the House axed $50 million from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant that supports states' pre-natal care programs, helping 2.5 million women, and annually assists 31 million predominantly special-needs kids.
It imposed a $1 billion cut in programs at the National Institutes of Health that aim to find causes and find strategies to prevent preterm birth. Almost $1 billion was slashed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its preventive health programs.
The people who did this describe themselves as "pro-life" and fiscally conservative.
Yet, the level of cruelty in their actions is surpassed only by the economic cost. Premature births cost America at least $26 billion a year, according to a study by the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies cited by The New York Times.
If premature births were reduced by, say, 10 percent, the cost would be cut by $2.6 billion, and thousands of babies would not die.
And on a related note, the New York Times takes a stand in support of a new bill to regulate crisis pregnancy centers.
The New York City Council is about to vote on, and should pass, an important measure that addresses the problem of crisis pregnancy centers that masquerade as licensed medical facilities but are, in fact, fronts for anti-abortion groups that interfere with the ability of women to make timely, well-informed decisions about their reproductive health.
And yesterday, the City Council voted 39-9 to pass the bill. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he will sign it.
Mark Morford calls on all of us to join the revolution:
Maybe you can't send much money. Maybe you already sent a pizza, voted against the cretins in power, canceled your trip to Abu Dubai. Maybe you aren't exactly prepared to zip on over to Yemen, grab a burning Molotov and march. Hell, maybe you don't really care about the fat sheiks in Bahrain because what the hell do those billionaire misogynists have to do with the price of a decent dental plan for your kids?
Nevertheless, you know the cause is just. Do not miss this ride. Do not let the opportunity swirl by untapped. Harness this moment like it's a goddamn wild horse and make changes in your own world, push back against boundaries and regimes, oppressive dogma and deception. Why not? Hold up a sign. Support a local organization. Seek release. Live authentically, love intently, push back again the injustices immediately around you. Sound simple? Sound obvious? Sure it is. I dare you.
After all, each and every one of these stunning global protests is nothing but another verse in the universal struggle for more liberation, more empowerment (or in the case of Wisconsin, less disempowerment), more self-determination, the human animal ever hungry to choose its own fate without so many nefarious bindings and chains, jackals and billionaire trolls eating away the core.
As it is for you, so it is for the collective whole, the universal body. Micro to macro, intimate to communal and right back again. Viva la revolucion, baby. What's your offering?