Courtesy of Galley Friend B.F., we have this LA Times op-ed on Russia’s demographic crunch, by Patricia Herlihy.

She goes over Russia’s new super-conservative, family-values program, which has been instituted to help make more babies: Divorce and abortion are being actively discouraged. Same-sex marriage? Forget it. Even same-sex sex is being looked at unfavorably:

The state also is ramping up an anti-homosexuality campaign, with plans to commission artwork promoting “traditional moral and spiritual family values,” declared Sergei Ivanov, the Kremlin’s chief of staff. And last week, the Duma passed a bill banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” by a vote of 436 to 0.

So the country which gave us this is now to the right of Pat Robertson. Awesome.

Anyway, Herlihy goes on to make the perfectly sensible argument that if Russia is going really move the demographic needle, it needs to address its massive public health failures, especially concerning alcohol. She’s spot on. It’s a great piece. Right up until the last graph, which closes thusly:

And if, to put forth another long-shot idea, same-sex couples were allowed to wed, some of those Russian orphans that Americans are forbidden to adopt, who lie languishing in orphanages, might find loving, nurturing families.

I would bet the milk money that this kicker was foisted on Herlihy by an editor at the LAT. Because The Most Important Subject in the World will solve everything; even demographic failure.

A long biographical sketch of one of wrestling’s greatest heels.

Remember high school? Aren’t you glad to be done with it?

I’m a well-documented squish on the subject of immigration, but we’re in a weird place today where people’s thoughts about the upsides and downsides of “immigration”–which is a very broad subject–have been completely conflated with a much narrower question about a single immigration bill, of which the primary question is whether or not to amnesty a discrete population of illegal immigrants who already reside in America. You could, theoretically, be all in favor of increased STEM visas opening the legal pathway for new immigrants over the next decade, but be against the current amnesty bill, and you are hence classified as “anti-immigration.” Which is telling.

But more telling is the manner in which many of the supporters are attempting to sell the bill. For starters, we have liberal writers ranging from Jonathan Chait to Al Hunt–not to mention Congressional Democrats such as Bob Menendez–claiming that passing the current bill is necessary for the continued political success of the Republican party. On the merits, this claim is utterly unconvincing. The fact that the political expediency argument is being raised so vociferously by political opponents of the Republican party is, like the weird framing above, also telling.

Then you have Republican proponents of the bill making demographic arguments which are either beside the point, or intentionally misleading.

And finally there’s the discussion about what’s actually in the bill itself:

The key items, according to reports and sources, are: A doubling of the size of the border patrol, to 40,000 agents. Seven hundred miles of border fence. A requirement that the security plan submitted by the Department of Homeland Security include provisions — such as those above — mandated by Congress. All of these would be “triggers” that would have to be achieved before the path to citizenship can start.

But — and this is big – the provision sought by conservatives such as John Cornyn, that 90 percent apprehension be achieved as a “hard trigger,” is no longer in the deal as a precondition for citizenship. As the Times puts it: “Republicans agreed to make the 90 percent figure a goal rather than a requirement.” The key is that additional Republicans beyond the gang of eight — such as Bob Corker and John Hoeven — appear prepared to accept this.

Leading immigration advocate Frank Sharry, who was briefed on the emerging deal, tells me Dems successfully beat back Republican demands for inclusion of the 90 percent “hard trigger.” And so Sharry’s group, America’s Voice, can support the deal, albeit reluctantly.

“The deal is ridiculous from a policy point of view — it’s excessive and wasteful,” Sharry tells me. “But from a political point of view, if it brings 10 or 11 Senate Republican votes, we’ll probably will be able to live with it.”

In other words, some of the pro-reform forces aren’t even pretending that the language in the bill is being offered in good faith.

It’s this “good faith” part which is so worrisome to anyone who likes immigration in general, but is ill-at-ease with this bill. Because everywhere you look on the pro-reform side, you see people operating in what does not look like good faith at all.

Strip away all questions about policy merit and wisdom and just focus on the raw politics here for a moment. It makes you wonder how Republicans could ever get themselves suckered into voting for such a thing.

But then again, the Republican party signs on with stupid all the time.

I always thought Russell Brand was pretty funny. But not this funny. MSNBC has now justified the entire network’s existence with this guest spot.

Best cable news segment ever I’m Ron Burgundy?

No, really: “Thank you for your casual objectification.”

The next time anyone considers engaging anything written by Matt Yglesias, keep the following in mind–and please note the time stamps:

Is Bobby Jindal’s reputation for intelligence anything other than ethnic stereotyping?

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 18, 2013

Fair enough! Those are hard to get. RT @nick_bunker: @mattyglesias he was a Rhodes Scholar!

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 18, 2013

For the record, now that I know more about Jindal’s life it’s clear that he’s a very smart man who just says lots of very dumb stuff.

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 18, 2013

What started it all was Yglesias proclaiming that Jindal “doesn’t understand money.” You can’t make this up.

Bobby Jindal doesn’t understand money: http://t.co/lGiZ9yucK5

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 18, 2013

For those of you who don’t frequent the Washington-Boston Amtrak corridor, the second car on each train is designated as the “Quiet Car.” Cell phone use is prohibited and conversation is limited to library-level. When it works, the Quiet Car is a thing of beauty and justifies every bit of Joe Biden’s love for subsidized rail travel.

But sometimes people in the quiet car ignore the rules. In my own limited experience, slightly less than half of the time, some asshat decides that he needs to jabber away on his phone. (It’s almost always a guy.) And what happens then is interesting.

Because the Quiet Car is a relatively new invention–I don’t think it’s even ten years old–and because it’s unique in the world of mass transit, there’s no set code of mores governing the enforcement of behavior. If you’re on the phone when a conductor passes through the car, he or she will loudly tell you to shut your trap. Which is awesome, and also efficacious. Confronted by a conductor, people always comply with the rules. But the conductors don’t come through very often. So the law of the quiet car is really in the hands of passengers.

I’ve seen two modes of response to infractions.

In the first, an annoyed passenger chastises the scofflaw by declaring, loudly but to no one in particular, “QUIET CAR!” In my own experience, this happens very rarely–maybe a fifth of the time. And its effectiveness is minimal. Most times, the guy on the phone just keeps talking.

Much more often, the first infraction incites a behavioral revolution. The car might have been totally silent for two hours, but 10 minutes after one guy pulls out his phone and takes a call, lots of other people do the same. And once this happens, it’s Lord of the Flies and the rules requiring silence are demolished for the duration of the trip.

I wonder what some genuine research into the behavioral system of the Quiet Car might show. I’d certainly be interested in the most effective (legal) way to enforce compliance with the mores of the car. It isn’t the most pressing question in the world, of course, but I suspect that much dumber subjects have been the grist of sociology dissertations.

I enjoy Molly Ball’s work normally, but this piece from her about how social conservatives need to get with the times is uncharacteristically naive.

Ever since Republicans got clobbered in the last election, some have suggested they dial back some of their hard stances in the culture war. The College Republicans, for example, commissioned a study that concluded that young voters see the party as fusty and old-fashioned, and urged it to get with the times on issues such as gay marriage. America may not be keen on free love and abortion on demand, but neither are voters clamoring for a party that wants to restrict access to contraception and keep women out of the work force.

And yet Republican politicians do not seem to have gotten the message.

I’m pretty sure that no one who actually understands politics finished watching Mitt Romney job-jobs-jobs–we’re talking about jobs!–campaign and came away thinking, Yup; Republicans lost because they wouldn’t stop with their crazy Bible thumpin’ again. But don’t take Romney’s word for it–look back at the contemporaneous reporting from the Obama campaign. Obama made a couple tactical war-on-women stands, but for the most part his campaign consisted of hammering Romney over income inequality. In fact, you might remember 2012 as the least culture-war presidential campaign of modern times.

Except, perhaps, for 2008. When Republicans nominated another candidate who had absolutely nothing to say on social issues and intentionally stayed away from them for the duration of the entire race. Which, by the way, turned on the collapse of Lehmann Brothers. Not gay marriage. I know, I know–it’s hard to remember that just five years ago gay marriage wasn’t the single most important issue in the history of the Republic. Weird, huh?

Also weird–if social conservatives are so dominant, why did the GOP nominate Mitt Romney and John McCain to be their standard bearers? And why is everyone so hot for Chris Christie in 2016? And why . . . oh, nevermind.

Look, this isn’t to say that double-barreled conservatives would have fared better in 2008 and 2012. Would Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum have beaten Obama? I wouldn’t have taken either of those guys without getting odds.

But the foundation of Ball’s argument–that the GOP is in thrall to the women-hating mouth-breathers–is such obvious silly, progressive CW, that I’m kind of disappointed to see her falling for it.