Month: April 2009

{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru.}

Before Arlen Specter’s Party switch announcement yesterday, the Senate’s Democratic caucus stood at 58 members.  Senator-elect Al Franken represented Democrats’ 59th vote toward cloture, still short of reliably ending Republican filibusters.  But now, with Specter joining the Democratic caucus, Senator-elect Franken represents the big 6-0, which is why Republicans will redouble their efforts to delay Senator-elect Franken’s seating – and why we in the netroots must redouble our efforts to send obstructionist Republicans a message and also provide them with adequate disincentive from delaying Senator-elect Franken’s seating any further.

Since the “One Dollar a Day to Make Norm Coleman Go Away” effort started just a couple weeks ago, about $40,000 has been raised to remind the Republicans funding Norm Coleman’s endless appeals that, for every single day that they delay the implementation of the will of Minnesota voters, progressive voters will raise money to use against these Republicans on Election Day 2010.

Your support will strengthen that message!

Norm Coleman and his fellow Republicans recently scored a success in further delaying Senator-elect Franken’s seating, as the trial schedule adopted by the state Supreme Court for Coleman’s appeal is such that oral arguments before the Court won’t begin until June 1st, over a month from now.  Further, although Minnesota election policy dictates that Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty must prepare and sign Senator-elect Franken’s election certificate once the state Supreme Court hands down its decision, Pawlenty has hemmed and hawed as to whether he would follow state election policy accordingly.

With a D next to Arlen Specter’s name, Republicans will go full force to block Senator-elect Franken’s seating.  Please join us in eliminating Republicans’ incentive to delay Senator-elect Franken’s seating any further by taking part in the “One Dollar a Day to Make Norm Coleman Go Away” effort.  Above at right is video of the segment on MSNBC’s Hardball highlighting the effort.

House Minority Leader John Boehner has an interesting reaction to the Hate Crimes Bill:

He attacked Democratic initiatives such as a “hate crimes” bill being considered this week in the House, which would boost the federal government’s authority to go after “bias-motivated violence.” Conservative critics say the bill amounts to a gag rule for preachers and other religious figures who do not support homosexuality.

The bill “makes me want to throw up,” Mr. Boehner said, blasting the idea of going after someone for “what we think they were thinking as opposed to what they did.”

The bill that John Boehner is referring to is the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which is known colloquially as the ‘Matthew Shepard Act’ and officially as H.R.1913. Here’s a description of what the bill provides for:

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA)/Matthew Shepard Act gives the Department of Justice (DOJ) the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence by providing the DOJ with jurisdiction over crimes of violence where the perpetrator has selected the victim because of the person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

The Act provides the DOJ with the ability to aid state and local jurisdictions either by lending assistance or, where local authorities are unwilling or unable to act, by taking the lead in investigations and prosecutions of bias-motivated, violent crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The LLEHCPA also makes grants available to state and local communities to combat violent crimes committed by juveniles, train law enforcement officers or assist in state and local investigations and prosecutions of bias-motivated crimes.

The bill makes two major changes to the 1969 Hate Crimes Bill. It extends protection to people who are attacked for their sexual orientation or gender identity and it expands the circumstances under which the Federal Government can get involved in local crime. It has an express provision protecting free speech.

SEC. 10. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In other words, pastors cannot be prosecuted for preaching against homosexual behavior even if their hate speech influences someone to commit a crime of violence against a gay person. Nothing in the law restricts free speech in any way. So, what exactly is John Boehner talking about and what is it in this bill that makes him sick to his stomach?

European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, (ECESG) is sending a big convoy of more than 100 trucks to Gaza in early May to deliver wheelchairs, medical tools and toys, and to provide medicines that currently ran out in Gaza. The convoy will originate from many EU countries like Britain, France, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria and Norway, and convene in Milan, Italy, before its next leg via Genoa to Egypt and the Rafah crossing into Gaza.

This organization is now the third to focus on the siege of Gaza. Last fall, the Free Gaza Movement, an American effort, sent a successive progression of small boats carrying human rights dignitaries and volunteers to break the siege from the sea, and last March, a convoy of trucks sponsored by Viva Palestinia, a British group, led by MP George Galloway, entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing.

On Wednesday, 22 April 2009, the ECESG announced that its convoy would be joined by disabled Europeans in wheelchairs (above).

It’s now three years since Israel imposed the deadly siege on Gaza, which killed numerous medical patients unable to leave for appropriate care not available in Gaza. Malnutrition among children and adults continues to be reported by the UN because Israel only permits about 20% of the food needed to feed the population into Gaza. Since Israel’s invasion in December, the siege has had even more devastating effects on Gaza’s residents. Thousands of families continue to suffer. The basic infrastructure for supplying water, power and sanitation is reportedly in a devastated condition.

If you wonder why these people care, here is a message from Dr. Mads Gilbert who has worked and practiced medicine in Gaza for more than thirty years. He was one of few western observers on the ground during Israel’s January bombardment, On January 3, after an Israeli strike on a Gaza vegetable market, Gilbert sent a text message to his Norwegian and International contacts:

“They bombed the central vegetable market in Gaza city two hours ago. 80 injured, 20 killed. All came here to Shifa. Hades! We wade in death, blood and amputees. Many children. Pregnant woman. I have never experienced anything this horrible. Now we hear tanks. Tell it, pass it on, shout it. Anything. DO SOMETHING! DO MORE! We’re living in the history books now, all of us!”

It actually sounds as if Israel turned Gaza into an Iraqi scene in which dozens of innocent people were killed in a market place by suicide bombers. But that was not what it was. It was the work of a trained military using advanced American armaments to slay mothers and children. So the next time Jimmy Carter speaks of Israel’s “state terrorism,” we will know what he is talking about.

Buried in a story about a challenge to the Voting Rights Act filed by a conservative activist lawyer and former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas was this interesting tidbit:

Ten percent of white Alabamians voted for Obama, compared with 48 percent in states not covered by the [Voting Rights Act].

I have to say, I was surprised by that figure. I assumed that southern states would naturally have a lower percentage of white voters who voted for an African American and Democratic President (if only because they are so solidly Republican), but I was thinking the percentage was likely more in the range of 70% against Obama and 30% for him. That 90% of all white people in Alabama voted against Obama is sad. And that figure isn’t much better in Louisiana and Mississippi, the two states which sandwich Alabama (Louisiana just under 15% and Mississippi at roughly 11%). In each of these states fewer whites voted for Obama than they did for Kerry in 2004 by a significant margin. Only white voters in Georgia (23% for Obama) and Texas (26% for Obama) come close to matching the voting pattern in these three Gulf Coast states in 2008. Contrast that with other traditionally red states where Obama garnered more white votes than Kerry had in 2004:

There were a number of states with considerable increases (labeled in the chart for a five point or greater gain.) The most interesting are North Carolina (up from 27% to 35%) and Virginia (up from 32% to 39%.) Clearly Obama could not have won those states on the white vote alone, but those shifts amount to roughly a 5-6 point boost in statewide vote share, certainly enough to matter.

Also interesting are traditional red states Indiana and Kansas, with gains from 34% to 45% and from 34% to 40% respectively. Also Montana and North Dakota are notable, with gains from 39% to 45% and from 35% to 42%. While the Democrat didn’t win three of these four states, these shifts demonstrate that they are no longer as out of reach for Dems as recent past elections might have suggested.

Obviously, the majorities of white voters in all of these states voted for the Republican candidate, but to a far lesser extent than they had in 2004 when the Democratic nominee was white. All, that is, except for states like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana where one can only assume Obama’s race was more important than his politics. Heck, even in lily white Utah, hardly a bastion of Democratic voters, more whites voted for Obama in 2008 than they did Kerry in 2004.

Which isn’t to say the rest of the country is living in a post racial world. Far from it. I know plenty of people who voted against Obama in part because he was black, or they believed he would favor blacks over whites once in office. But 90% of the whites in my white bread suburban community didn’t vote against Obama. Here’s hoping the US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy doesn’t overturn the Voting Rights Act. Obviously, it is still needed nearly a half century after it was first enacted by Congress, with the full support (and professional arm twisting tactics) of a President from Texas.

The topic below was originally published on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, yesterday evening.

When an office colleague told me this afternoon that Republican Senator Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party, I had a flashback. In the fall of 1987, I was a freshman at Sarah Lawrence College. One of my professors assigned us a paper regarding the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. A few days of research (research without the Internet!) were sufficient to turn me off to Bork’s strict constructionist perspective as well as his advocacy for excessive executive power.
Watching those hearings it seemed to me that Republican Arlen Specter was the Judiciary Committee’s most persuasive critic of Bork’s reactionary dogma. Later that evening I called my Dad, who to this day remains the wisest voice about politics I know. We discussed the hearings and I complained that Specter belonged in the Democratic Party. My Dad sagely responded that it’s good for the country if Republicans have “moderate” voices such as Specter and he noted it enhanced the opposition’s credibility against reactionary figures such as Bork. Well, that seemed reasonable enough to me at the time.

Four years later I was bitterly disappointed when Specter supported Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court and contributed to the Republican lies about his former colleague, Anita Hill. Hill had accused Thomas of sexual harassment. At the time, Senator Ted Kennedy’s nephew was a defendant in a rape trial. As a result, Kennedy wasn’t comfortable aggressively challenging Thomas’s refutations of Hill’s testimony. Many liberals at the time were hoping that Specter would once again rise to the occasion and take the fight to Thomas as he did with Bork. Instead, Specter turned his fire on Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas’s nomination was approved.

To the detriment of consumers and wage earners, Arlen Specter was an enabler for Clarence Thomas to become a guaranteed supporter of reactionary activism on the Supreme Court. Following the 1987 Bork hearings, Specter became a favorite target of Republican conservatives and he was desperate to appease them with the Clarence Thomas hearings. Hence, Clarence Thomas is just as much a part of Specter’s legacy as Robert Bork.

Since the 1991 Thomas hearings, a pitiful template for Specter’s performance as Senator was established: for the next eighteen years he simultaneously appeased and disappointed the radical right that demanded purity. Meanwhile, moderates and liberals were continuously let down when Specter talked the talk with respect to civil liberties under President George W. Bush but failed to walk the walk.

Twenty-two years ago I would have been thrilled if Arlen Specter had joined the Democratic Party. Today, my perspective is rather cold. Yes, I acknowledge that once Al Franken of Minnesota is seated the Democratic caucus will have a filibuster proof majority on paper. And to the extent activist progressive oriented legislation is enacted as result of Specter’s defection, i.e., health care reform, that’s all to the good. Also, I’m enjoying the Republican Party’s humiliation after years of watching southern Democrats defect. Perhaps, Specter’s defection will be the start of a trend.

Specter himself however is likely to be a Joe Lieberman like presence in the caucus. He’s pro-corporatist/pro Wall Street and opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. Specter is also hawkish, pro-war and very much representative of the establishment’s flawed national security mindset that created the mess we’re currently in. Had Specter remained in the Republican Party, we had an outstanding opportunity to elect a genuine liberal from Pennsylvania in 2010.

Only radical crazies remain in Pennsylvania’s Republican Party. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party now boasts 200,000 additional voters and Democrats could easily defeat Specter’s conservative antagonist, Pat Toomey who is Exhibit A of the far right’s psychosis. Had Specter somehow prevailed in his Republican primary fight, a liberal Democrat would have likely defeated him in the general election.

Hopefully, a credible and organized liberal will challenge Specter in the 2010 primary. A credible challenger for example might force Specter to flip flop on the Employment Free Choice Act and support worker rights. Specter has already demonstrated malleability to ensure his political survival whenever he appeased the far right.

Like a lot of politicians, expediency matters more to Arlen Specter than principle. Now that Specter’s a member of the Democratic caucus, we liberals need to aggressively persuade him that’s in his best interests to support our issues. A credible primary challenge is the best way to do just that.

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Update [2009-04-29 16:04:50 EST by Oui]:

BREAKING NEWS –
WHO chief to raise pandemic alert level to 5

As I discussed yesterday, it’s about the number of cases before the first death would be confirmed outside of Mexico.

FACTS FROM EARLIER REPORTS

The result of the test was never told to the Hernandez family. They learned of the swine flu result when it was broadcast on television and their son was mentioned. The local people have suffered illness over a longer period and employees at the pig farm have quit because of it. The stench of the containment is unbearable. The farms are located just 8 km (5 mi.) outside the village of La Gloria. Up to 60% of the villagers contracted a cold with flu symptoms earlier this year. No tests were performed and only one swab of Edgar at the hospital could be recovered when the swine flu was diagnosed elsewhere. The Mexican government is denying the facts of the outbreak and cannot be trusted for the data on cases and deaths. In the village of La Gloria, two infants died from pneumonia. The Mexican government isn’t interested in the true cause of death and refuse to exhume the bodies. The local people have been threatened not to talk to journalists. In the ABC VIDEO broadcast on BBC News, the single medical assistent or nurse in the village was not permitted to continue the interview.

The stench is not just from the pig farm and its containment ponds.

Smithfield subsidiary Granjas-Carroll

≈ Read my diary — Source of Swine Flu Outbreak Found? ≈

WHO in emergency meeting today, will review virus outbreak