The Commentariat -- Feb. 23, 2015
Internal links removed.
** Paul Krugman: Education is the new Bowles-Simpson: "... whatever serious people may want to believe, soaring inequality isn't about education; it's about power." ...
... Lawrence Mishel, in a New York Times op-ed: "Contrary to conventional wisdom, wage stagnation is not a result of forces beyond our control. It is a result of a policy regime that has undercut the individual and collective bargaining power of most workers. Because wage stagnation was caused by policy, it can be reversed by policy, too." ...
... Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Robert Reich: "The rise of 'independent contractors' Is the most significant legal trend in the American workforce -- contributing directly to low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity. What makes them 'independent contractors' is the mainly that the companies they work for say they are. So those companies don't have to pick up the costs of having full-time employees. But are they really 'independent'? Companies can manipulate their hours and expenses to make them seem so. It's become a race to the bottom." Thanks to Janicefor the link.
Juan Williams in the Hill: "After a terrible, bone-breaking accident and two eye surgeries, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the former Senate Majority Leader, is scheduled to be back on Capitol Hill this week. Somehow the bruised Reid looks good compared to the new Republican Majority Leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.). In just over a month, McConnell has come to look like the beaten man. He is on the brink of breaking his promise to avoid shutting down government agencies.... 'It's not a good start for the future,' Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) conceded. 'But hopefully we'll get it put together.'" ...
Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Lawmakers will begin returning to Washington on Monday with only five days left to prevent a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)." ...
... Here's Jeh Johnson Scaring Me Again. John Bacon & David Jackson of USA Today: "The secretary of Homeland Security warned shoppers at Minnesota's iconic Mall of America and similar venues to be vigilant in the wake of new terrorist threats. 'I'm not telling people to not go to the mall,' Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press. 'I think that there needs to be an awareness.'... Hours later, department spokeswoman Marsha Catron said in a statement, 'We are not aware of any specific, credible plot against the Mall of America or any other domestic commercial shopping center.'" ...
... Really, Marsha? Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "The Mall of America has increased its security after a video online purported to show al Shabaab, a terrorist group associated with al Qaeda, threatening to attack the Minnesota mall, according to multiple news reports. The group called for an attack similar to the one it carried out in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. According to USA Today, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are both aware of the threat." ...
... Oh, for Pete's Sake. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "The US homeland security secretary on Sunday seized on a new threat of attacks against western shopping centres by Islamist terrorists to pressure Congress to avert a partial shutdown of his department and agree to a funding deal. Jeh Johnson said a propaganda video released by al-Shabaab on Saturday calling for strikes on the Mall of America in Minnesota, Oxford Street and two Westfield malls in London, and Canada's West Edmonton Mall, showed 'all the more reason why I need a budget'."
Kevin Cirilli of the Hill: "President Obama is expected to speak to the AARP on Monday afternoon to discuss retirement-related issues, according to multiple sources familiar with the speech. Obama's remarks come as his administration has put new emphasis in recent weeks on considering regulations -- dubbed 'fiduciary standards' -- for the financial advice industry that are vehemently opposed by the business community. A senior House staffer and two financial services industry sources each said they expect Obama to discuss the new regulations, which administration officials are expected to move ahead with any day."
Reid Wilson of the Washington Post: "Governors of those 34 states, even the Republicans who oppose the Affordable Care Act, say they are concerned at the chaos that could ensue if the court rules the federal subsidies unconstitutional." Via Greg Sargent.
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: Police are using cell-tower simulators, called Stingrays, to collects "information not just about a criminal suspect's communications but also about the communications of potentially hundreds of law-abiding citizens.... A gag order imposed by the FBI -- on grounds that discussing the device's operation would compromise its effectiveness -- has left judges, the public and criminal defendants in the dark on how the tool works.... So far, there is virtually no case law on how the Fourth Amendment -- which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures -- should apply to this technology."
Truth-Deniers. Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "Over the weekend, Greenpeace released a batch of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that showed [aerospace engineer Willie] Soon received more than $1.2 million from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.... Conservatives denounced the weekend's revelations regarding Soon's funding. Blogs cited the reports as further evidence of a concerted campaign to silence scientists like Soon, who they say need to seek alternative avenues of funding thanks to the establishment.
Gail Collins interviewed Justice Ruth Ginsburg for the Times Sunday Review, & I missed it. Collin's column is delightful.
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Giuliani must have muted the sound whenever Obama spoke. He certainly has every right to his opinion about the tenor of the president's remarks. But he has no business claiming something that is so factually incorrect -- or easily disproved."
Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "... since [Rudy] Giuliani's disastrous run for the Republican Presidential nomination, in 2008, he has become a national embarrassment of a distinctive type.... At one level, one could see Giuliani's statements as simply incorrect.... But Giuliani's attacks on the President are not principally meant as assertions of fact. They are meant to tap into a deep wellspring of American political thought, one defined by the Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter five decades ago. In an article in Harper's, Hofstadter described 'the paranoid style in American politics,' which he said was characterized by 'heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.'"
David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Sunday suggested that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) had increased the national security of the United States by saying that President Barack Obama did not love America.... [CNN's Gloria] Borger pointed out that Giuliani's comments went beyond national security policy. 'These remarks were hateful,' she observed.... Issa replied, '... Now, the reality is I believe the president believes strongly in America, I just think he views America differently."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Brian Stelter spoke to former CBS correspondent Eric Engberg about his recent post questioning Bill O'Reilly's version of events on his reporting in Argentina":
... Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: "On the friendly territory of Media Buzz — on which host [Howard] Kurtz framed the dispute over O'Reilly's claims as a matter of 'semantics,' not facts and exaggerations -- O'Reilly spent as much time attacking his critics as defending his assertions." CW: As a matter of semantics, I won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. And the Oscar for Best Song last night. (Some quibblers might say I only watched the acceptance speeches of the "real" winners.) ...
... Video of the Kurtz segment is here. Jessica Contrera of the Washington Post reports on it, if you don't care to watch. ...
... O'Reilly Never Played Well with Others. Terrence McCoy: CBS News could hardly wait to get rid of cub reporter Bill O'Reilly, whom the news organization kicked out of Buenos Aires for being a "'disruptive force' who threatened his bureau's morale and cohesion," according to Eric Engberg. "... retired CBS national editor Sam Roberts in a Facebook thread beneath Engberg's Facebook post.... 'Dan Rather walked into my office and shut the door," Roberts wrote. 'He said, "Under no circumstances is O'Reilly to be assigned any story for the Evening News."'" When O'Reilly's agent called Roberts a few weeks later, Roberts told the agent O'Reilly should take a local station job he had been offered. "He'll never make it here," Robert told the agent." ...
... MEANWHILE, the New York Times finally gets around to O'Reilly. CW: It looks as if reporter Emily Steel has produced a good piece to put in the portfolio she presents with her Fox "News" employment application.
Jim Romenesko: "Investigative reporter Ken Silverstein has resigned from First Look Media's The Intercept after 14 months, saying he and others were hired 'under what were essentially false pretenses [by being] told we would be given all the financial and other support we needed to do independent, important journalism, but instead found ourselves blocked at every step of the way by management's incompetence and bad faith.'" From Silverstein's Facebook page, Feb. 20: "You know what's cool about being a former employee of First Look/The Intercept? That Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Betsy Reed and Pierre Omidyar all believe in Free Speech and the First Amendment so they won't mind my writing about my time working for and with them. Tentative title: 'Welcome to the Slaughterhouse.'"
Presidential Race
James Hohmann of Politico: "... being seen as a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination is testing whether the 47-year-old [Scott] Walker is really ready for the klieg lights. Since saying 'I'm going to punt' when asked about evolution in London 10 days ago, operatives from rival campaigns have begun quietly raising doubts about his preparedness. He's also taken heat from establishment Republicans for meeting with Donald Trump...." ...
... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: Scott Walker is "making an aggressive effort to win the hearts of the party’s Christian conservatives. In doing so, he is stressing a much harder line on social issues than he did just a few months ago, when he faced a robust challenge from a well-funded Democratic woman in his run for re-election as governor. The shift in emphasis and tone is noticeable not only on abortion, but also on same-sex marriage, another issue of intense interest to social conservatives." ...
... Steve Benen: Walker "won't say whether he accepts modern biology. He won't say whether Obama loves America. He won't say whether the Christian president is a Christian. He has a record of repeatedly dodging simple, straightforward questions, which most political leaders are able to answer effortlessly. It may be debatable whether these are good questions. It's not debatable that Walker has provided cringe-worthy answers.... In recent weeks, he's made a fine impression with radical elements of the Republican Party's base, but he's simultaneously making it clear to everyone else that when it comes to genuine leadership abilities, Scott Walker is obviously not ready for prime time." ...
... Robert Samuels of the Washington Post: "The anti-union law passed [in Wisconsin] four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative than many had predicted.... The once-thriving public-sector unions were not just shrunken -- they were crippled." (See also Paul Krugman's column & Lawrence Samuels' NYT op-ed, linked above.)
Fracking Man. Adam Smith & Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times: Jeb Bush suddenly started speaking about the joys of fracking right after he & his family made big investments in -- fracking. "The technology is not just a key part of his policy on energy and the economy, but foreign policy as well..... Bush's fracking investments are not the only time his private business life has overlapped with his public policy advocacy. His work as an education reformer coincided with his financial stake in Academic Partnerships, an online higher education company." Via David Atkins. ...
... Karen Tumulty & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: Columba Bush, Jeb's wife, likes to buy expensive jewelry. Also, she's a famous tax cheat. But we knew that.
News Lede
Guardian: "Stuart Gulliver, the HSBC chief executive who has vowed to reform the crisis-hit bank, sheltered millions of pounds in a Swiss account through a Panamanian company and remains tax domiciled in Hong Kong."
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Reader Comments (18)
Collins's RBG column is a valentine. I signed it, too.
Robert Reich's current blog post on the growth of independent contractors ties in very well with the excellent columns by Paul Krugman and Lawrence Mishel today.
http://robertreich.org/post/111784272135
Andy Borowitz imagines a response from Obama to unnamed persons who claim he doesn't love America:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/obama-says-even-loves-americas-idiots?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(4)&CNDID=6894648&spMailingID=7525061&spUserID=MjczNzc0NjIyNTUS1&spJobID=622094953&spReportId=NjIyMDk0OTUzS0
Absent from the articles on wage stagnation is reference to the increased chunk that comes out of those wages to pay for health insurance. In 1996, $140/month was taken out of my husband's paycheck for family health insurance. Currently it costs us $640/month - a $500/month increase. Twenty years ago, all costs were covered by insurance, and we paid a $10 copay for doctor's visits. Now we're in a high deductible plan with a $6000 deductible. Because it's an HMO, anything out of network isn't covered. So my daughter's visit to the ER when she was visiting a friend out of state and was injured, will be paid in full by us, not the insurance company. So take another $1500 out of the wages right there.
In contrast, during this same 19 year period, the amount taken out for Medicare tax has increased by only $28/month.
Keep in mind that employers have seen the same increases in health insurance rates; my husband's school had historically contributed more than half the total cost of the insurance, though they've had to shift more of the cost onto the employees in recent years because as a nonprofit institution, the cost burden has been too much for them as well.
What I have searched for to no avail, and have requested from Krugman and other economists, is some sort of data showing how much the compounded effect of our private, for-profit healthcare system costs the average person. In my mind, this is different than the normal statistics cited that say, for example, the US spent $8233 on health per person in 2010. In other words, not only is my family paying $7700/ yr for insurance (plus significantly more for out of pocket costs), but a large amount of our property and state taxes pays for town and state employees' coverage, and the same costs are built into everything we purchase. Again, not only are wages stagnant, but more is being taken out in one way or another. . . . And all of this doesn't even include the exponential explosion in the cost of college.
The anti-tax, anti-government/pro-corporation crowd has really snowed the American people. And it is costing we the people a lot.
@Janice: If it will make you feel any better, that $140.00 you spent in 1996, adjusted for inflation, would be $478.25 today.
Also, I don't know what state you live in, but most public employees pay for a portion of their health insurance. Here's a state-by-state chart for 2013 (pp. 7 & 8). I was too lazy to figure out if the employee contributions included estimated employee co-pays, but it would appear to encompass only premiums, not co-payments for care. It certainly wouldn't include out-of-pocket expenses for medical care not covered for any of a number of reasons. And of course those public employees also pay the same kinds of taxes everybody else does, so they are indirectly contributing an additional small amount to their own health insurance & other benefits.
Marie
'Merican Histry, Wingnut Version
Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety two.
I cannot tell a lie.
Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.
America, right or wrong.
Segregation now, segregation tomorrah, segregation forever.
You-Ess-Ay, You-Ess-Ay.
America is Awesome. And Exceptional.
And this is the sort of stinking rote crap that will be filtered into AP history courses in this country as the right continues its War on Education, its War on Knowledge, and War on Critical Thinking. It just won't do to have people able to think for themselves, to be able to consider possibilities outside the rules handed down by the wingnut lords (the Kochs, etc.).
A link posted here the other day pointed out the futility of thinking that Bill O'Reilly will ever be held accountable for his lies. The reason? The dominant right-wing power structure and media outlets will band together and scream at the top of its collective voice in a show of dominance that will force everyone else to back down, tuck tail, and skulk away. Shows of dominance don't make one right; they just make one meaner and more threatening. This extremely effective winger strategy is used everywhere and in all cases. Scream loudly enough and you will get your way. You may not get everything you want but you'll get a reaction and maybe even some movement in your direction.
Case in point, the way history is taught in advanced placement courses in high schools across the country. And why will they get their way?
This morning on NPR, a piece on the ridiculous complaints by wingnuts that AP American history courses don't include the collected speeches of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, but include, instead, "negative" aspects of American history such as slavery and Japanese internment during WWII helps to prop up the whiners at the expense of knowledge and critical thinking about history itself.
The problem is that the MSM far too often, bends over backwards in an effort to be fair to right-wing nationalists, uber patriots, haters, racists, and science deniers, producing pieces that make it sound as if the most outlandish, unfounded complaints made by people with little to no standing or expertise, have merit, or at least should be given serious consideration. It's as if you turned on the TV one morning and heard a reporter intone "Warnings that stepping on cracks could, in fact, break your grandmother's back, have become grounds for concern in many red states around the country. President Obama has been attacked for ignoring this problem and some have accused him of trying to sweep these concerns under the carpet. A coterie of conservative congressmen are demanding a congressional investigation. Various governmental and private agencies have promised to look into it."
It really isn't any different from that. The NPR piece, and others like it, by treating wild-eyed ideologues like this Fisher idiot in Oklahoma as if they have a leg to stand on, does an enormous disservice to the country.
The piece does, finally, get around to an interesting fact. One of the most common complaints of the wingers is that the new AP guidelines don't mention the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, George Washington, Revolutionary War battles, Washington's Farewell Address, or General Robert E. Lee. They wish to return to the old guidelines, which right away undercuts their argument as having any merit. Why? The old guidelines didn't include any of those things either.
The point is they are GUIDELINES, you fucking morons. And these are college level courses. I don't think many college history courses, at least not at any decent schools, are going to spend a lot of time with Parson Weems and the goddam cherry tree.
But because these are guidelines, all the things the droolers complain about are actually quite well represented in AP material. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Take a look at anAP history practice exam. Founders? Check. Washington's Farewell Address? Check. Constitutional questions? Check.
The NPR piece ends with the chilling report that everyone is now listening to the screamers and the College Board has promised to look into the complaints.
So, as usual, they get what they want. Maybe they don't get their version of American History to replace history as it is currently taught, but simply forcing people to take stupidity seriously is a big step in the right direction, and I do mean right.
James Grossman, Executive Director of the American Historical Association, who has taken the lead in trying to beat back the forces of ignorance, opines that history as a subject is particularly prone to these sorts of attacks because everyone feels like they know American History. "It would be hard to imagine" he suggests, "a state legislature mandating what a chemistry teacher should be teaching."
Professor Grossman must not be paying attention. Wingers have been telling science teachers for years exactly what they can and cannot teach.
If you'd like to see what the AP exam questions might be like should the wingnuts persevere, Funny of Die has a sample Right Wing "More Patriotic" AP exam with which to test your ideological chops.
And don't laugh too hard. This isn't very far off from what they'd love to see.
@Akhilleus: Very nice essay, but your lead-in was all wrong. You forgot Chapters 1 & 2.
1. God, via Moses, wrote the outline for the Constitution in stone.
2. Jesus ratified the outline.
(2a. Mormon Corollary: The Angel Moroni hand-carried it to our shores.)
I'll be checking out the Funny or Die spot to find our what the kidz should be learning.
Marie
So again, the genius Willie Soon does not have a full time job. And of course, since he is a conservative, the concept of conflict of interest does not apply. Also note about all those thousands of scientists who disagree with Soon and receive money from the goberment, with government funding the decision is made by a team including outside scientists, not by the the goberment.
@ Marie: I had a response written, and then it was lost when I went to preview post. So here goes again.
Yes, you're right that I didn't take inflation into consideration. Nevertheless we are still paying more in premiums for less coverage, in that our out of pocket costs have increased quite a bit.
I had found a similar chart on the National Conference of State Legislature's website, but your Pew Trust chart gives average premium costs, which is better. Connecticut pays 86% of the premium costs. According to a state government website, the co-pays are about $10-15, and the maximum out of pocket per year is $350. According to current labor statistics, there are 161,000 full-time state and local employees.
Here are two thoughts I have on this:
1) The premiums and co-pays for state workers appear to be lower than what we're presented with in the private sector. And those figures can (and are) used by those Scott Walker types who are trying to cut government and destroy public sector unions, i.e. "Is it fair that your hard-earned dollars are paying for better benefits for state employees than you get yourself?" The anti-tax, anti-union rhetoric pits us against each other to fight over scraps.
2) According to the medicareforall.org website: "If the Medicare payroll tax increases from the current 1.45% to 5%, then here is the total amount of employee payroll taxes for health care:
— $41.67/month = the health care payroll cost for every $10,000/yr of earned income
Example: $208/month for $50,000/yr of earned income."
Since employers pay the same Medicare rate, that means their costs would decrease as well, and maybe they could use some of that savings towards . . . higher wages.
The website also states that federal, state, and local taxes could be reduced because of the savings in government employees' benefits.
I know I'm preaching to the choir on this forum, but I needed to rant. The ACA is a step in the right direction, but that's now in jeopardy depending on the Supreme Court's ruling. I feel like we're ceding more and more each year to the oligarchs, and yet the politicians are debating who loves America more. Huh?
The Times piece on Bill O'Reilly's lies about his "war time" experience is a disgrace.
Emily Steel couldn't pick up the telephone and call anyone at CBS who was actually there? She couldn't interview Corn or Schulman? In fact, although she includes about 12 references to something Bill O'Reilly said in an piece of less than 500 words, it doesn't appear that she actually spoke to anyone. Her "Mr. O'Reilly said this" and "Mr. O'Reilly called them liars" and "Mr. O'Reilly challenged them all to a spitting contest" all come from other sources and Fox spin releases. She just sat at her desk, googled "Bill "O'Reilly, Argentina" and copied and pasted.
This is journalism? One would think that the Times, an organization with its own history of reportorial shoddiness might want to use a tiny bit more legwork for a story that calls to mind serious problems in the fourth estate.
This is why so few people can't tell the difference between real journalism and the sort of processed pap peddled by Loofah Boy and his disreputable network.
What liberal media?
It will be interesting to see how the Koch Party will manage to shut down the DHS while the bedrock of local capitalism--malls--are being threatened by terrorists.
Love to hear them try to pin the blame on someone else for that.
But hey, that's what happens sometimes when you're put in charge and have to "govern". And what a swell job they're doing so far in that regard, eh?
Janice, medicare for all is a serious violation of the main principle of American medicine, make money. It would eliminate the health insurance industry which contributes absolutely nothing to healthcare and would make it impossible for doctors to make millions (without committing fraud). I mean if we did this we would be the same as the rest of the developed world. If we took healthcare seriously as a basic human right it would probably seriously reduce the third leading cause of death in the US, medical errors. This idea that your healthcare or costs are a issue is a clear violation of American exceptionalism.
Marie,
I think I also forgot to add that Jesus or Moses or one of those guys also wrote the transportation safety rules, at least in Mississippi.
It appears that if you drive a church bus in Mississippi, you can do it without a proper license now, because Jesus, natch.
According to the Clarion-Ledger, "House members on Thursday passed a bill exempting mid-sized church buses from the state's commercial driver's license requirements, prompting one lawmaker to call it the 'Jesus Take the Wheel Act.'"
And by "mid-sized buses" they mean up to and including 30 passenger school buses. You know, the big yellow clunker, wheels-on-the-bus go round and round sort of thing.
So it's "Jesus Take the Wheel", eh? Will "Jesus Pay the Settlement" if one of these unlicensed church drivers rolls the it over and squashes half the congregation some Sunday morning? I'm thinking those Baptists better learn about Saint Christopher (patron saint of bus drivers) right quick, even if it is a sort of Papist thing.
But I'm not really gonna complain because first, what good would it do? And second, we've gone way around the bend long ago in making special exemptions for churches.
I wonder if they'll okay this for mosques? That's assuming there are any in Mississippi...
Ak,
Lordie! MS already has some of the worst drivers I've ever experienced, even those with licenses. It seems they've never heard of the rules, such as "Keep right except to pass" and "Signal your intentions." But, then, it could just be because of FREEEDOM.
There are mosques in Mississippi.
Unwashed, when I lived in New Orleans, I knew a lot of prople who went to Mississippi to get a driver's license. You could buy them in drug stores, they said.
Watching the Oscars off and on last night, I was sure the wingnuts would erupt in an explosion of furious hatred at the fact that "American Sniper", a movie about killing dirty Mooslims, because why not?...wasn't accorded honors as the Best Film of All Fucking Time.
I was right. But they also found other ways to be outraged. (Seriously, wingnuts could find a way to be outraged about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.)
Wingnuts took off on Patricia Arquette's declaration on the iniquites of wage inequality. Most, stupidly, said things like there is no such thing. Most of those blowhards were men. But some were women who are paid very well by wingnut media outlets to say such sorry-ass mendacious bullshit.
But some criticized her for her concern for working women by ripping her because she was wearing an expensive looking dress and that she's a well paid actress, ergo, someone who has no business talking about poorer women. Oh, but wait. It's perfectly fine for millionaire wingnut pundits to offer their opinions on this subject, right?
Well, okay. Let's extend that "logic" (because pulling the string on wingnut logic is immensely edifying, owing to the fact that there is really no logic behind it at all).
If Patricia Arquette, an actress who has some money in the bank, is not allowed to have an opinion about women who don't have much of anything, how is it that Jesus, who is accorded the title of "GOD"--by definition a being who has everything--is allowed to have an opinion about those who have nothing?
Oh....he can do it because he is a GOD and because his law says that we must look after those who have less than us? Okay, well that sounds great.
So what's the fucking problem?
Jesus (literally), these fucking people!!
Unwashed,
16 mosques. In Mississippi. Wow.
The most interesting fact is not that there is what appears to be a reasonably thriving Muslim community in Mississippi, but that it seems as if most Mississippians would rather pretend that this is not the case. Rather than embrace their neighbors, or at the very least, seek to learn more about them, most red staters would opt for more and more draconian ostracization.
But then, isn't that the Wingnut Way? Why choose civility when you can go for hate?
Akhileus- I sent a reply re your point about Patricia Arquette that must have got lost in the inter tubes. Anyway, Arquette was no doubt including working class women, but no doubt thinking of her fellow female actors as well. Gender -based wage discrimination knows few boundaries.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/02/23/behind-patricia-arquettes-oscar-speech-hollywoods-pay-gap-looks-a-lot-like-ours/