Month: June 2013

It’s probably my lack of imagination, but I never even considered that Bert and Ernie were in a gay relationship until I read some references to that possibility a few years ago. I can see why gay men might want to think that and also how the two muppets fit certain stereotypes about gay couples, but I don’t know that it’s cool to appropriate them as symbols of the struggle for gay rights. It’s not that muppets shouldn’t be sexualized. After all, Miss Piggy and the Swedish nurse are intentionally sexualized. But Bert and Ernie are not intentionally sexualized. They appear to me to be more like Felix Unger and Oscar Madison than a couple in physical love with each other. They are close friends that suffer compatibility issues. They drive each other nuts but get along anyway. And I think that is the point that the creators wanted to convey to young children.

Still, there is something silly about people arguing about muppets, teletubbies, and other made-up characters.

The testimony of John Good is supportive of George Zimmerman’s self-defense case so it is noteworthy that he was called as a witness by the prosecution. I guess they figured it was better to call him than to try to hide from his testimony, but I don’t know that they are doing a very good job of raising reasonable doubt about his testimony.

This case is tough because there isn’t any question that Zimmerman caused a confrontation that resulted in the death of a person who was just minding their own business. In that sense, he ought to be somehow held responsible. But to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman wasn’t on the losing end of a fight in which he legitimately feared for his life may prove impossible, especially in light of Mr. Good’s testimony.

In any case, I think today’s testimony will decide the verdict.

Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson have a good and informative piece in Politico on the way forward for immigration reform in the House of Representatives. At first look, the legislation looks to be in trouble. The primary problem is that Speaker Boehner has promised not to bring the Senate version of the bill up for a vote, has promised to bring nothing up for a vote that doesn’t have the support of the majority of the House Republican caucus, and has assured his caucus that he won’t allow a vote on a Conference Report if the majority of his caucus won’t support it.

So, how on Earth is anything going to pass?

Don’t give up hope, yet, however.

First, let me once again explain how bills become law. At some point, the House will probably pass something related to immigration reform. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive. It doesn’t have to resemble the Senate version in any way. It could be 100% about border security. But some bill will serve as a vehicle to go to a Conference Committee with the Senate.

The way this works is that the House will have a vote on assigning members to serve on the Conference Committee. These members are called “conferees.” There will be a majority vote on this. Either the House agrees to assign conferees or they don’t. The Senate will also go through this process, although their approval of conferees is not in doubt. It matters who gets appointed as conferees. Ordinarily, the chairman and ranking members of the committees with jurisdiction are appointed, but slots are not restricted to them, nor are they guaranteed slots.

Speaker Boehner will not have an easy time convincing the majority of his caucus to assign conferees because he cannot assure them that the Conference Committee will produce a bill that they can support. What he has done, instead, is to assure them that he won’t allow a vote on the Conference Report if the majority doesn’t support it.

In order for a bill to become a law, both Houses have to pass an identical version of the bill. That is what the Conference Report is. House Republicans suspect that the Conference Report will not be a bill that they can support.

In truth, it’s doubtful that the Conference Committee can create a report than the Democrats can support and that the president is willing to sign, that is also acceptable to the majority of the House. In fact, it’s doubtful that they will even try to create something like that. So, the way it looks right now is that the Committee will produce a report than Boehner will reject and that he will not even bring up for a vote.

However, once a report is produced, the only way to judge whether the majority of the House Republicans support it is to do an informal whip count. There is no independent source that can verify if the majority of the House Republicans support it. It could be a close call, or it could be too close to call.

In any case, there will be considerable pressure on the House leadership to convince (or to whip) their members to support the report.

The House appears to be in no hurry to act on immigration reform, with several members predicting that they won’t be ready to vote until the end of the year or even early next year. The longer it takes, the more the 2016 presidential election will emerge as a factor in the Republicans’ thinking. For example, Rep. Paul Ryan, who is part of the leadership team, seems supportive of immigration reform. If he looks like a frontrunner for the nomination and he is arguing that he needs the bill in order to have a fighting chance at winning the presidency, there will be less resistance to passing it.

In this sense, time is on reform’s side. Right now, it looks impossible for the majority of the House to support a pathway to citizenship, but that possibility will grow more likely the closer we get to the 2016 election.

However, the strategy of delay threatens to dampen the momentum for reform created by the 68-32 vote in the Senate. To prevent that from happening, advocates for reform will have to build a movement to pressure the House to stop delaying action.

Ultimately, the House leadership wants to pass reform, but they need to convince their members of the need. They don’t need to convince a majority of their caucus, but they need to get close enough to argue that they have the support they need to test the support they have with a vote.

I guess the most surprising thing about the Senate passing comprehensive immigration reform is that every single Democrat voted for it. What that tells me is that the Democrats see no real downside to supporting reform even in states like Alaska, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Louisiana. I admit that I didn’t think that the Democrats could craft something that they could unanimously support.

What does that mean for the House? I think it means that there is no real political advantage in opposing reform. The Democrats in the House will support a decent Conference Report without fear of repercussions.

It also means that the House Republicans may oppose reform but that they can’t seriously think that they’ll benefit from their opposition.

Here is the roll call on final passage of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. It passed 68-32, with all Democrats and Independents voting in favor, along with 14 Republicans. The fourteen Republicans were Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Jeff Chiesa of New Jersey, Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Dean Heller of Nevada, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Marco Rubio of Florida.

So, what now?

It looks like the New York City city council has finally decided that they’ve had enough of Mayor Bloomberg’s Stop and Frisk policy. With veto-proof majorities they have passed one bill to create an Inspector General and one bill that “expands the definition of racial profiling and allows people who believe they have been profiled to sue police in state court.” Bloomberg says he will veto both bills, but he can’t prevent an override of his vetoes.

I doubt it matters legally or morally, but I wonder if it’s possible to estimate how effective this draconian policy has been in lessening the incidence of violent crime in the city. Among the 33 cities in the country with a population over 500,000, New York city ranks third-safest, trailing only El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California. By contrast, Philadelphia ranks as the fourth most dangerous, ahead of only Memphis, Baltimore, and Detroit. The turnaround in New York’s crime rate began in the 1990’s, during Mayor Giuliani’s terms in office, and it’s reflective of a nationwide decline in violent crime that has many possible explanations. Some think that removing lead from the environment could be a major cause. I really don’t know.

But I think New Yorkers have tolerated tough on crime policies, even when they clearly violate the 4th Amendment, because they seem to be working.

For whatever reason, that tolerance seems to have come to an end.

I wish that people like Phylis Schlafly and Pat Buchanan would be totally honest. They come closer than most Republicans to being candid about their racist beliefs, but I still want to know what they really think. The one thing that is obvious is that they don’t want more brown people in this country, and they certainly don’t want them to vote.

But, are they primarily motivated by racism or politics? In other words, do they oppose Latino immigration because they assume it will empower the left or because they just don’t want to live with Latinos?

The premise of the pro-immigration reform right is that the GOP cannot afford to lose more than 70% of the Latino vote, so the party needs to stop being an anti-immigrant party and show that they want to compete for Latino votes. Not so long ago, in 2004, President Bush won well over 40% of the Latino vote, and it helped him win reelection. The idea isn’t that Republicans are a natural fit for the Latino community, but that they can compete for their votes and get a decent share. Either Schlafly and Buchanan simply disagree that the GOP can improve their performance or they simply don’t care.

And that distinction is what puzzles me.

Many have noted that Latinos, taken as a whole, have some fairly left-wing views on both social and economic policy, but the GOP is not yet proposing that they change their policies to better attract Latinos. What they’re really saying is that they should just stop insulting and antagonizing them.

To give a corollary example, the GOP doesn’t have to adopt a pro-gay marriage platform in order to do somewhat better with the gay community. They can do better by being silent on the issue and focusing on other things, especially economic ones, where they are bound to have more appeal. It’s kind of a “First, do no harm” strategy.

As conservatives, I can understand why you’d be concerned that the party is going to water down its principles in order to appeal to a browner electorate. Keep the brown people out, and that risk disappears. I suspect that this is really where Schlafly and Buchanan stand. But, if that is where they stand, they are not being very clever about it. After all, the proposed reform would keep new Latino citizens off the voter rolls for the next three presidential elections while also reducing the degree to which the GOP looks like an anti-Latino party. In the short-term, they’d be in position to do better with Latinos, which would allow them to avoid changing their conservative principles for a little while longer, and maybe elect at least one more conservative president.

On the other hand, maybe there really isn’t much strategic thought involved. Maybe it’s just hate.

I think we have grown familiar with the ritual of some celebrity or politician making a racist or anti-Semitic or misogynistic statement and then entering into a period of public penance. There are public relations firms that specialize in this sort of thing. The current example is Paula Deen. But we’ve seen it before with folks like Michael Richards who played Kramer on Seinfeld, and Mel Gibson, and Don Imus. How sincere and convincing were their apologies? Did they suffer sufficiently for their remarks? How long before we forgive them? Can they ever find work again?

This is the way the public uses shame and moral condemnation to punish hateful thoughts. It’s not a violation of anyone’s First Amendment rights, but it can feel that way. “I’m not allowed to say what I think!”

It’s a fine line when you face no legal jeopardy for speaking your mind but can nonetheless lose your job and become a national pariah. How free are you to speak? If you were criticizing your employer rather than hurling hateful epithets, it would be easier to see the potential problem.

This is why religious conservatives like Justice Antonin Scalia fear that their attitudes about homosexuality are being defined as indecent. They are not merely wrong, but they are the enemies of mankind. They don’t want their deeply-held religious beliefs to become the social equivalent of white supremacy.

Yet, to win acceptance of homosexuality as a naturally-occurring facet of human life it has been necessary to insist that anti-gay beliefs are wrong and discriminatory in nature. No one set out to insult religion or religious belief, but in some sense it can’t be helped.

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Kerry says Syria unlike Libya, rules out military action

(AhramOnline) – US Secretary of State John Kerry ruled out a military solution for Syria, saying its conflict does not resemble Libya’s while calling for a settlement based on last year’s Geneva peace plan.

“This is not Libya. It is very different in many, many ways,” Kerry told reporters in Kuwait City in response to a question on why there had been no military intervention in Syria as during Libya’s 2011 armed uprising.

Kerry made the remarks after holding talks with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah. He said that unlike Libya, foreign forces including the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah had intervened in Syria, while Russia was supplying the regime with arms.

Kerry warned the fighting in Syria could lead to the destruction of the state, the collapse of the army and a total breakdown of a sectarian strife for many years to come.

“That becomes far more dangerous for all the region because it will empower extremists… and the potential increase of terrorism,” which is not acceptable to the civilised world. “There is no military solution here… We need to reach out for a diplomatic solution” through negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva, said Kerry.

Such talks would seek to implement the “Geneva 1 communique which requires a transition government in a neutral environment,” he added, referring to the 2012 peace plan backed by Russia.

The United Nations said Tuesday that Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are to meet next week in Brunei to discuss how to move forward towards a new international peace conference for Syria. Kerry also called on Iran to pull its troops out of Syria and for Hezbollah to return to Lebanon.

Obama Sidelined on Syria, Hollande and King Abdullah Deliver Arms to Syrian Rebels

Divided Syria ‘recipe for destruction’: Jordan king

(AhramOnline) – Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned in an interview against allowing Syria to fracture along sectarian lines, saying a Sunni-Shiite polarisation “will have devastating consequences”.

“A divided Syria means an open-ended conflict that would undermine the stability of the region and the future of its people for generations to come,” the king, whose country is home to around 550,000 Syrian refugees, told London-based Asharq Alawsat Arabic daily.

“Dividing Syria is not in anyone’s interest and tampering with Syria’s unity is a recipe for destruction,” he said.

The Jordanian monarch also warned against exporting the conflict to the wider region, saying that “fanning the fire of sectarianism in the Arab and Islamic worlds will have devastating consequences for generations to come and on the entire world.”

“The sum of all fears is that the Syrian conflict could expand into a fitna (Arabic for sedition) between the region’s Sunnis and Shiites.”

US troops and weapons to stay ‘as long as Jordan needs them’

Saudi Arabia cannot be quiet on Iran, Hezbollah role, says FM Prince Saud Al Faisal

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Gulf News) –  Saudi Arabia regards the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria’s civil war as dangerous and believes the rebels must be offered military aid to defend themselves, the kingdom’s foreign minister said.

Speaking at a news conference with US Secretary John Kerry in Jeddah, Prince Saud Al Faisal added that Saudi Arabia “cannot be silent” about Iranian intervention and called for a resolution to ban arms flows to the Syrian government.

“The kingdom calls for issuing an unequivocal international resolution to halt the provision of arms to the Syrian regime and states the illegitimacy of the regime,” Prince Saud said.

The discussions include Washington’s plans for providing direct military support to General Salim Idriss of the Supreme Military Council, the military wing of Syria’s main civilian opposition group.

Prince Saud said the world’s top oil exporter “cannot be silent” at the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict and renewed calls to arm the opposition and bar weapons sales to President Bashar Al Assad.

“The most dangerous development is the foreign participation, represented by Hezbollah and other militias supported by the forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” he said.

Saudi Arabia has become more actively involved in the Syrian crisis in recent months, expanding the flow of weapons to the rebels to include anti-aircraft missiles.

US Will Be Ousted by Saudi King Abdullah in Middle-East

The reactions to the Supreme Court’s gay rights rulings were not quite as crazy as I had hoped, but Rand Paul didn’t disappoint with his own personal Man on Dog contribution. I do wonder about the Man on Dog phenomenon, because it seems to make logical sense to these folks that if two women can get married then obviously you can marry your office chair, your coffee maker, or your kid’s pet gerbil. Glenn Beck’s slippery-slope polygamy charge makes a little more sense to me, although most of what we’re talking about with gay marriage has to do with legal rights dealing with inheritance, tax policy, hospital visitation, and so on. And it doesn’t seem hard to keep those policies as limiting one person as your spouse. It just doesn’t follow that if you can marry someone of the same sex that you should then be permitted to marry two people of the opposite sex.

The rest of the reactions are more religious in nature, and while I might think those kind of religious beliefs are a little whacky, I don’t know that I’d call them insane or crazy. Insofar as marriage is a sacrament in the Catholic Church, for example, I can see how some people might think that we’re messing with an institution that God thought was extremely important. But the separation of Church and State is well established in this country, so the Court hasn’t changed anything in terms of the sacredness of marriage. I was married for nine years as far as the government was concerned, even though the mayor of New Hope presided over the secular ceremony, and no church on Earth recognized our marriage.

Anyway, congratulations to the LGBT community. It was a long struggle and today was a breakthrough day.