Don't Ask Don't Tell Will Be No More
At long last, gay members of our United States military will be allowed to serve openly without fear of reprisal. No more will we lose Arabic translators simply because of their sexual orientation. No more will our war heroes be fired in disgrace because of their family lives. No more will the military be a haven of discrimination. This is a great day for the United States of America.
I have often said that gay rights are the civil rights battle of our time. Today is a victory in that battle. Today is a victory for our military. Not just the thousands of gay troops who, at long last, will be able to proudly serve their country without being forced to conceal who they are. Not just for the boost that military recruiting will get by being able to actively recruit gay enlistees who would have shunned service in the past because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. No, this is a victory for every member of the military, who can be proud to serve in an armed forces free of discrimination that is taking a forceful stand against bigotry.
This victory was a long time in coming and deserves the celebration and pride of the American people.
The key vote on cloture passed by a resounding 63-33 vote, with all present Democrats joining both Independents and 6 Republicans in favoring the measure (Joe Manchin, the newly elected conservative Democratic Senator from West Virginia, was rumored to have opposed the measure, but was not present for the vote.)
I'd like to recognize the six Republicans that showed the political courage to do the right thing in spite of intense pressure on the Republican side of the aisle to vote no. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Kirk, Scott Brown and George Voinovich bucked their party to be on the right side of history. Good for them...while Voinovich is retiring from the Senate, the other 5 will face the potential of primary challenges and still stood to their convictions. It is gratifying to see that the pronouncements of the death of the moderate are far overstated.
I'd also like to commend Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman for his tireless leadership on this issue. Joe can rankle the Democratic leadership from time to time, but he has shown himself to be a true patriot. Let's hope the voters in Connecticut don't forget this in 2012.
This change in policy will never be repealed...progress marches on in spite of the resistors. It's a shame that there are 33 Senators that chose to be on the wrong side of history. Perhaps most disappointing was Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who at one time at least open to discussing progress on this issue. I guess his transformation from maverick to party hack is complete.
The DREAM Act Fails
The DREAM Act, a bill to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who entered the country illegally as children and served in the US military a path to citizenship will not become law, at least this year. The cloture vote failed with only 55 of the required 60 Senators needed to break a filibuster voting in the affirmative. 50 Democrats, both independents and 3 Republicans voted for the bill, but could not overcome the opposition of 5 Democrats and 36 Republicans voting "nay" (3 Republicans and 1 Democrat were not present at the vote.)
I had written earlier in the week that I did not see how the math could work to get to 60, so the fact that this vote failed is no great surprise to me, but it is a shame. I hope the next Congress will tackle the issue of immigration comprehensively, but I'm not holding my breath.
Jon Stewart Targets GOP Filibuster on 9/11 Bill
The bill to provide medical benefits and compensation to 9/11 first responders, which had been caught up in the GOP promise to filibuster all legislation became the target Thursday night of Jon Stewart's ire on the Daily Show. Jon had firefighters and police officers who were 9/11 first responders and had suffered ill medical effects as a result of working in the debris on his show to discuss their disappointment in Congress not acting.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee also spoke on the show, calling on the GOP to support passage of the bill.
My hope is certainly that with the tax bill resolved, the GOP will remove its opposition to the 9/11 first responders bill and that the Senate will find a way to pass the bill this year (the House has already passed it.)
START and Missile Defense
GOP concerns around the new START treaty appear to be centering around its potential implication on missile defense. Specifically, they cite that the preamble, in their eyes, appears to state that future missile defense systems could give Russia the right to withdraw from the treaty. The actual text of the preamble is below:
"Recognizing the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced, and that current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties,.."
The GOP concern centers around the use of the word "current", seeing the implication that "future" strategic defensive arms initiatives could be viewed to undermine the viability of the initiative. John McCain has proposed an amendment to the preamble that would change the preamble.
The preambles of treaties are explanatory statements that are non-binding legally but often express the understanding of the countries as to how the treaties will be interpreted. From this point of view, McCain's argument has some merit. But the Senate adjusting wording in a carefully negotiated treaty is walking on a knife's blade at the very least.
The vote on the McCain amendment is scheduled for this afternoon. I don't have a lot of intelligence on its odds of passage, but my guess will be that it will not, as most Democrats will not want to change wording in the treaty in a way that could damage Russian support for the measure.
Next up...back to the numbers as I update Obama's popularity tracking and assess several of the early polls in the 2012 race.
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Showing posts with label Don't Ask Don't Tell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don't Ask Don't Tell. Show all posts
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Might the Lame Duck Be Less Lame Than I Thought?
The Unfunded Giveaway Advances
Last week, I went through in great detail, all the reasons why I thought and still think that the deal reached between President Obama and Congressional Republicans was a bad deal for America. The deal appears inevitable at this point, receiving massive support in final passage in the Senate, by a whopping 81-19 margin, with only 13 Democrats, 5 Republicans and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who entered Senate folk lore with an impassioned eight and a half hour speech on the Senate floor this past weekend that picked apart the provisions of the deal one by one.
The measure now moves to the House, where a vote is expected early next week, and save for a few liberal holdouts (and possibly a couple of Conservatives that don't like the unemployment extension provision), it seems sure to pass by a broad margin. The one potential hiccup is that some liberal House members are vowing to vote on an amendment to modify the estate tax provision. Rich dead people are unpopular enough in a House that is still Democratic for another couple of weeks, that it could actually pass, which might break apart Republican support for the overall measure. But my guess is that House leadership ultimately whips most of the liberals in line and the measure will pass basically unmodified.
Interesting constitutional note: students of the constitution no doubt know that it states that bills impacting taxes and spending must originate in the House of Representatives, not the Senate. One might wonder who then the Senate can have first passed a bill which will now be voted on in the House that has exactly those impacts. The answer lies in technical legislative process. The Senate bill is technically an amendment to a non-controversial air travel infrastructure bill that the House had already passed. The constitution allows the Senate to amend tax and spending bills already passed by the House, so the Senate has simply amended the air travel bill to incorporate the tax and spending measures and the House will actually be voting to concur with the Senate amendment. Hardly seems like what the founders intended in terms of control of the purse strings, but it is technically within the constitutional rules.
Lots of Action Yet to Come
With the deal on taxes and spending, the deck has been cleared for all sorts of action on other fronts, as a unified Senate GOP caucus had vowed to filibuster ALL legislation until a deal was reached on taxes and spending. The Democrats have a short couple of weeks before this congress ends, but it actually appears there is the potential to do a few big things.
(1) The START Treaty
Continuing our constitution lesson, treaties require ONLY Senate approval (the House does not vote on them), but require a 2/3rds vote for ratification. The START treaty renews nuclear reduction efforts with Russia that have been through many rounds, dating all the way back to the Reagan Administration. It is a significant deal that would reduce stockpiles of the US and Russia by 25% over the coming couple of decades. And it appears that there may be sufficient bipartisan support to obtain the 67 votes that are needed for passage. The Senate just voted tonight to commence debate on the treaty. Filibuster is not at issue in this case as the 67 votes needed for ratification exceed the 60 vote requirement to cut off debate.
Odds of Passage? High.
(2) Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Amazingly, this outdated and discriminatory policy may finally die this year. The original strategy had DADT repeal tied to the Defense authorization bill, but that has been bogged down in the Senate as it is a complex bill that touches on many aspects of defense policy and even some repeal supporters didn't like it muddying the waters of other defense issues.
The new strategy, of a standalone bill that repeals the policy, seems to be bearing fruit. The House has already passed the measure today, by a 250-175 vote, mostly along party lines (15 Republicans voted for, 15 Democrats voted against, all of the rest voted the party line.) And the support seems to be there in the Senate. The last 4 Moderate Republicans standing: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts (who has been quite a pleasant surprise in his willingness to work across the aisle) and newly crowned Tea-Party killer Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have all expressed support for the standalone measure (in a technical sense, she is an elected Republican until January, at which point she becomes an elected Independent who caucuses with the GOP.) It appears that at least 55 of the 56 Democrats in the Senate support repeal (Ben Nelson, as usual, is a question mark) and both Independents (Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders) have been vocal advocates of repeal. By my math, this gives the repeal bill the support of 61 current Senators, more than the 60 needed to stop a GOP filibuster.
Odds of Passage? Surprisingly, high.
(3) The DREAM Act
The Obama Administration-backed effort to provide a path to citizenship for people whose families came to the US illegally when they were children and who serve in the armed forces appears to potentially have the votes to pass. Passage in the House appears assured if it is brought to the floor prior to January 5th (when the new GOP majority arrives) and there appears to be 55 committed "yea" votes in the Senate, including conservative Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is one of two primary sponsors of the bill. If the Democratic leadership can get the fence-sitting Democrats to vote yea, Hatch's support, along with the support of Bob Bennett of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dick Lugar of Indiana would potentially give the bill 62 votes, more than the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
The headwinds the bill faces are several though. Firstly, it is clearly a lower priority on the Senate category than the START treaty and DADT repeal. Secondly, 3 Democrats, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Jon Tester of Montana are committed "nay" votes, meaning that at this point there really are only 59 votes for passage, not 62. And Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Max Baucus of Montana are leaning nay votes. So, now you are down to 57. This makes getting to 60 difficult, although there may be a few more Republicans (such as Susan Collins) that break for the bill.
Odds of Passage? I'm having trouble making the math work, so I'll say low-to-moderate.
Also on the docket before the end of the year is passage of a bill to fund government operations for the rest of this fiscal year (through next September.) Regrettably, once again, Congress failed to pass the requisite appropriations bills prior to the start of the fiscal year this past October, so what we have had is a cobbled-together set of continuing resolutions (I've written extensively over the past year on how destructive this process is, you can refer back to my posts from last September and October for more information), with the latest expiring this week. The House has passed a full-year continuing resolution, which basically keeps Fiscal 2011 spending at 2010 levels by a narrow 212-206 margin (Republicans felt that cut should be more significant as did some Blue Dogs, some liberals wanted a higher level), but has yet to be debated in the Senate. There is still significant disagreement over how to proceed, with many Senate Democrats preferring to pass an omnibus budget rather than simply continuing last year's funding levels (I agree in principle, although the Senate-drafted bill appears to be laden with pork not contained in the House bill.) The Senate is not scheduled to take up debate on the measure until Friday and bill opponents have threatened to force the entire bill, which nears 2,000 pages, to be read aloud prior to debate (Senate rules call for all bills to be read on the floor and while this requirement is routinely waived without objection, only 1 Senator has to object to require the reading), which could potentially push voting on the bill into the middle of next week.
So, there are still some potential significant accomplishments on the table for the lame duck congress. But there is also a lot to sort out in a few short days. Congress was attempting to be home by Christmas, but that may not be possible if they want to finish all of this business.
It should be a busy couple of weeks in Washington.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Last week, I went through in great detail, all the reasons why I thought and still think that the deal reached between President Obama and Congressional Republicans was a bad deal for America. The deal appears inevitable at this point, receiving massive support in final passage in the Senate, by a whopping 81-19 margin, with only 13 Democrats, 5 Republicans and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who entered Senate folk lore with an impassioned eight and a half hour speech on the Senate floor this past weekend that picked apart the provisions of the deal one by one.
The measure now moves to the House, where a vote is expected early next week, and save for a few liberal holdouts (and possibly a couple of Conservatives that don't like the unemployment extension provision), it seems sure to pass by a broad margin. The one potential hiccup is that some liberal House members are vowing to vote on an amendment to modify the estate tax provision. Rich dead people are unpopular enough in a House that is still Democratic for another couple of weeks, that it could actually pass, which might break apart Republican support for the overall measure. But my guess is that House leadership ultimately whips most of the liberals in line and the measure will pass basically unmodified.
Interesting constitutional note: students of the constitution no doubt know that it states that bills impacting taxes and spending must originate in the House of Representatives, not the Senate. One might wonder who then the Senate can have first passed a bill which will now be voted on in the House that has exactly those impacts. The answer lies in technical legislative process. The Senate bill is technically an amendment to a non-controversial air travel infrastructure bill that the House had already passed. The constitution allows the Senate to amend tax and spending bills already passed by the House, so the Senate has simply amended the air travel bill to incorporate the tax and spending measures and the House will actually be voting to concur with the Senate amendment. Hardly seems like what the founders intended in terms of control of the purse strings, but it is technically within the constitutional rules.
Lots of Action Yet to Come
With the deal on taxes and spending, the deck has been cleared for all sorts of action on other fronts, as a unified Senate GOP caucus had vowed to filibuster ALL legislation until a deal was reached on taxes and spending. The Democrats have a short couple of weeks before this congress ends, but it actually appears there is the potential to do a few big things.
(1) The START Treaty
Continuing our constitution lesson, treaties require ONLY Senate approval (the House does not vote on them), but require a 2/3rds vote for ratification. The START treaty renews nuclear reduction efforts with Russia that have been through many rounds, dating all the way back to the Reagan Administration. It is a significant deal that would reduce stockpiles of the US and Russia by 25% over the coming couple of decades. And it appears that there may be sufficient bipartisan support to obtain the 67 votes that are needed for passage. The Senate just voted tonight to commence debate on the treaty. Filibuster is not at issue in this case as the 67 votes needed for ratification exceed the 60 vote requirement to cut off debate.
Odds of Passage? High.
(2) Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Amazingly, this outdated and discriminatory policy may finally die this year. The original strategy had DADT repeal tied to the Defense authorization bill, but that has been bogged down in the Senate as it is a complex bill that touches on many aspects of defense policy and even some repeal supporters didn't like it muddying the waters of other defense issues.
The new strategy, of a standalone bill that repeals the policy, seems to be bearing fruit. The House has already passed the measure today, by a 250-175 vote, mostly along party lines (15 Republicans voted for, 15 Democrats voted against, all of the rest voted the party line.) And the support seems to be there in the Senate. The last 4 Moderate Republicans standing: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts (who has been quite a pleasant surprise in his willingness to work across the aisle) and newly crowned Tea-Party killer Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have all expressed support for the standalone measure (in a technical sense, she is an elected Republican until January, at which point she becomes an elected Independent who caucuses with the GOP.) It appears that at least 55 of the 56 Democrats in the Senate support repeal (Ben Nelson, as usual, is a question mark) and both Independents (Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders) have been vocal advocates of repeal. By my math, this gives the repeal bill the support of 61 current Senators, more than the 60 needed to stop a GOP filibuster.
Odds of Passage? Surprisingly, high.
(3) The DREAM Act
The Obama Administration-backed effort to provide a path to citizenship for people whose families came to the US illegally when they were children and who serve in the armed forces appears to potentially have the votes to pass. Passage in the House appears assured if it is brought to the floor prior to January 5th (when the new GOP majority arrives) and there appears to be 55 committed "yea" votes in the Senate, including conservative Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is one of two primary sponsors of the bill. If the Democratic leadership can get the fence-sitting Democrats to vote yea, Hatch's support, along with the support of Bob Bennett of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dick Lugar of Indiana would potentially give the bill 62 votes, more than the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
The headwinds the bill faces are several though. Firstly, it is clearly a lower priority on the Senate category than the START treaty and DADT repeal. Secondly, 3 Democrats, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Jon Tester of Montana are committed "nay" votes, meaning that at this point there really are only 59 votes for passage, not 62. And Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Max Baucus of Montana are leaning nay votes. So, now you are down to 57. This makes getting to 60 difficult, although there may be a few more Republicans (such as Susan Collins) that break for the bill.
Odds of Passage? I'm having trouble making the math work, so I'll say low-to-moderate.
Also on the docket before the end of the year is passage of a bill to fund government operations for the rest of this fiscal year (through next September.) Regrettably, once again, Congress failed to pass the requisite appropriations bills prior to the start of the fiscal year this past October, so what we have had is a cobbled-together set of continuing resolutions (I've written extensively over the past year on how destructive this process is, you can refer back to my posts from last September and October for more information), with the latest expiring this week. The House has passed a full-year continuing resolution, which basically keeps Fiscal 2011 spending at 2010 levels by a narrow 212-206 margin (Republicans felt that cut should be more significant as did some Blue Dogs, some liberals wanted a higher level), but has yet to be debated in the Senate. There is still significant disagreement over how to proceed, with many Senate Democrats preferring to pass an omnibus budget rather than simply continuing last year's funding levels (I agree in principle, although the Senate-drafted bill appears to be laden with pork not contained in the House bill.) The Senate is not scheduled to take up debate on the measure until Friday and bill opponents have threatened to force the entire bill, which nears 2,000 pages, to be read aloud prior to debate (Senate rules call for all bills to be read on the floor and while this requirement is routinely waived without objection, only 1 Senator has to object to require the reading), which could potentially push voting on the bill into the middle of next week.
So, there are still some potential significant accomplishments on the table for the lame duck congress. But there is also a lot to sort out in a few short days. Congress was attempting to be home by Christmas, but that may not be possible if they want to finish all of this business.
It should be a busy couple of weeks in Washington.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
The Internet Makes Me Nuts, Sarah Palin Has a Point...Sort Of, If You Still Oppose Gays In the Military It Means You Are a Bigot
When Did the Other Side Stop Being Human?
The light-hearted news of the holiday weekend involved President Obama taking an elbow to the face from one Ray Decerega in a morning basketball game at the White House. This is the sort of light-hearted, humanizing story that ought to give us a break from the usual political wrangling. But the response in this hyper-partisan age is all too predictable. Just read the comment section below any major news story on the event.
"The President is playing basketball while we are on the brink of World War 3" writes one blogger
"Lucky guy, Ray Decerega, I'd like to punch all libs in the face" writes another
And on, and on...
On the left, of course, the defense is offense....President Bush took more days often than anybody on Earth, etc., etc.
It is all very petty, stupid and undignified.
In the interest of civility, can we agree on a few things?
No President ever worked on policy every single minute of every day. They all found time to shower, use the bathroom, eat breakfast and maybe even talked to their spouses every once in a while. Blowing off steam by playing basketball for an hour in a day isn't a bad thing. Ronald Reagan took naps in the afternoon. George H.W. Bush loved going up to New England. Bill Clinton liked escaping there as well. George W. Bush had Crawford.
You cannot be a 24/7 President. So let's cut the nonsense. All Presidents have unbelievably grueling schedules. They are in the public eye all the time. They are on call all the time. They work every weekend, every holiday. Most get but a few hours of sleep a night.
Can we have a dialogue that is about policy? Barack Obama is not evil. You might think he's wrong as hell politically, but by every credible accounts, he is a nice guy, a good family man and a patriotic American. So was George W. Bush, by the way. Clinton too, if you exclude the good husband part of being a good family man.
So let's those of us of reasonable intelligence agree to debate policy and just enjoy, rather than politicize the light-hearted, humanizing parts of the Presidency.
I Don't Think Sarah Palin Is Stupid Because of Her North Korea Gaffe
It all happened so innocently during a friendly interview from Fox News Commentator (is that the right description?) Glenn Beck. Sarah Palin, asked about the recent crisis in the Koreas, stated:
“This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously we’ve gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”
Glenn quickly corrected her, noting that she must have meant our South Korean allies.
Predictably, the left was all over this gaffe, offering it as further evidence that the Grizzly Mama is completely out to lunch when it comes to discussing any policy matters. Palin, in turn, published a response to the criticism via Facebook, which cited a number of verbal gaffes that President Obama had made over the past 3 years and noted that she quickly corrected herself (not quite accurate, as it was Beck who corrected her, but from the context of the conversation, it is reasonable to assume that it was a verbal gaffe and not a mental one as she had been talking about our allies in South Korea just prior to the statement above.)
Sarah has a point, sort of. Her point that her intelligence or knowledge of foreign policy should not be judged solely on the basis of one verbal gaffe is absolutely correct. Her point that the President, or heck, any politician who is on the camera a lot, makes gaffes is also correct.
I don't think Sarah is stupid because of this gaffe. Heck, I don't think she is stupid at all. I do think she is profoundly ignorant. But not because of her statement about Korea. I think so because of her statement that she had foreign policy experience because she could see Russia from her window...a statement she did not correct or clarify. I think so because she said that the Vice President controls what the Senate votes on, another statement she has never corrected or clarified. I think so because she repeatedly flubbed very basic questions of policy during the 2008 campaign and seems incapable of forming complete sentences with coherent policy thoughts in even the most friendly interviews now.
Sarah is ignorant and dangerous. But not stupid. Our comparative tax returns this year will prove that fact.
Gays In the Military -- Your Excuses Are Gone
I have long contended that gay rights is the defining civil rights battle of this generation. Whether you are talking about non-discrimination laws (did you know that employers can fire gay workers simply for being gay in 33 states still?) to gay marriage and civil unions, to gay adoption to military service, LGBT Americans are the last major demographic that are still routinely denied equal rights under our laws. This is not to say that discrimination doesn't exist in other areas; we certainly still have our share of racial and gender bias problems, just that discrimination against LGBT is the only kind that is sanctioned by the law.
I have long advocated for the right of gay Americans to serve openly in the armed services. In the past, however, I was reluctant to accuse my opponents of bigotry. While there are many intrinsic logical and moral problems that I have with the point of view that gays shouldn't be allowed to serve because it would harm morale, I tried hard to accept that those who espoused that view held it honestly. No rational person can take such a stand any longer.
Consider the facts:
(1) The Israeli Army, perhaps the most fearsome fighting force on the planet, has allowed gays to serve openly for some time. An army from a heavily religious country, surrounded by people trying to destroy it, has made this arrangement work. Do we really not have our act together as well as Israel? By the way, Gays are also allowed to serve openly in 34 other countries, if you are interested, including virtually every NATO ally.
(2) 75% of troops do not believe that allowing gays in the military would damage military readiness, says a very recent pentagon study. There goes the morale argument. Do you think 75% of the enlisted supported integrating the troops at the time it was done?
(3) Every major military leader is in favor of the change, include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. By the way, all 3 are Republican appointees. Sure you can locate a General or and Admiral who opposes the change, but the top leadership is pretty united.
(4) During every draft war in the 20th century, the military refused to discharge gay soldiers. This included both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. They were good enough then but not now? Remember Corporal Klinger from MASH? The joke was that he was behaving in an openly gay manner and couldn't get discharged.
All of this leaves me to a simple conclusion...all of the evidence points towards the right answer being allowing gays to serve openly in the military. If you oppose the opinion of the troops, the military leadership, the American people and the world, why are you doing it? You are either a bigot or you are pandering to bigots.
Shame on those who fall into either category. And shame on those who support a change but continue to shove this issue to the back burner.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
The light-hearted news of the holiday weekend involved President Obama taking an elbow to the face from one Ray Decerega in a morning basketball game at the White House. This is the sort of light-hearted, humanizing story that ought to give us a break from the usual political wrangling. But the response in this hyper-partisan age is all too predictable. Just read the comment section below any major news story on the event.
"The President is playing basketball while we are on the brink of World War 3" writes one blogger
"Lucky guy, Ray Decerega, I'd like to punch all libs in the face" writes another
And on, and on...
On the left, of course, the defense is offense....President Bush took more days often than anybody on Earth, etc., etc.
It is all very petty, stupid and undignified.
In the interest of civility, can we agree on a few things?
No President ever worked on policy every single minute of every day. They all found time to shower, use the bathroom, eat breakfast and maybe even talked to their spouses every once in a while. Blowing off steam by playing basketball for an hour in a day isn't a bad thing. Ronald Reagan took naps in the afternoon. George H.W. Bush loved going up to New England. Bill Clinton liked escaping there as well. George W. Bush had Crawford.
You cannot be a 24/7 President. So let's cut the nonsense. All Presidents have unbelievably grueling schedules. They are in the public eye all the time. They are on call all the time. They work every weekend, every holiday. Most get but a few hours of sleep a night.
Can we have a dialogue that is about policy? Barack Obama is not evil. You might think he's wrong as hell politically, but by every credible accounts, he is a nice guy, a good family man and a patriotic American. So was George W. Bush, by the way. Clinton too, if you exclude the good husband part of being a good family man.
So let's those of us of reasonable intelligence agree to debate policy and just enjoy, rather than politicize the light-hearted, humanizing parts of the Presidency.
I Don't Think Sarah Palin Is Stupid Because of Her North Korea Gaffe
It all happened so innocently during a friendly interview from Fox News Commentator (is that the right description?) Glenn Beck. Sarah Palin, asked about the recent crisis in the Koreas, stated:
“This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously we’ve gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”
Glenn quickly corrected her, noting that she must have meant our South Korean allies.
Predictably, the left was all over this gaffe, offering it as further evidence that the Grizzly Mama is completely out to lunch when it comes to discussing any policy matters. Palin, in turn, published a response to the criticism via Facebook, which cited a number of verbal gaffes that President Obama had made over the past 3 years and noted that she quickly corrected herself (not quite accurate, as it was Beck who corrected her, but from the context of the conversation, it is reasonable to assume that it was a verbal gaffe and not a mental one as she had been talking about our allies in South Korea just prior to the statement above.)
Sarah has a point, sort of. Her point that her intelligence or knowledge of foreign policy should not be judged solely on the basis of one verbal gaffe is absolutely correct. Her point that the President, or heck, any politician who is on the camera a lot, makes gaffes is also correct.
I don't think Sarah is stupid because of this gaffe. Heck, I don't think she is stupid at all. I do think she is profoundly ignorant. But not because of her statement about Korea. I think so because of her statement that she had foreign policy experience because she could see Russia from her window...a statement she did not correct or clarify. I think so because she said that the Vice President controls what the Senate votes on, another statement she has never corrected or clarified. I think so because she repeatedly flubbed very basic questions of policy during the 2008 campaign and seems incapable of forming complete sentences with coherent policy thoughts in even the most friendly interviews now.
Sarah is ignorant and dangerous. But not stupid. Our comparative tax returns this year will prove that fact.
Gays In the Military -- Your Excuses Are Gone
I have long contended that gay rights is the defining civil rights battle of this generation. Whether you are talking about non-discrimination laws (did you know that employers can fire gay workers simply for being gay in 33 states still?) to gay marriage and civil unions, to gay adoption to military service, LGBT Americans are the last major demographic that are still routinely denied equal rights under our laws. This is not to say that discrimination doesn't exist in other areas; we certainly still have our share of racial and gender bias problems, just that discrimination against LGBT is the only kind that is sanctioned by the law.
I have long advocated for the right of gay Americans to serve openly in the armed services. In the past, however, I was reluctant to accuse my opponents of bigotry. While there are many intrinsic logical and moral problems that I have with the point of view that gays shouldn't be allowed to serve because it would harm morale, I tried hard to accept that those who espoused that view held it honestly. No rational person can take such a stand any longer.
Consider the facts:
(1) The Israeli Army, perhaps the most fearsome fighting force on the planet, has allowed gays to serve openly for some time. An army from a heavily religious country, surrounded by people trying to destroy it, has made this arrangement work. Do we really not have our act together as well as Israel? By the way, Gays are also allowed to serve openly in 34 other countries, if you are interested, including virtually every NATO ally.
(2) 75% of troops do not believe that allowing gays in the military would damage military readiness, says a very recent pentagon study. There goes the morale argument. Do you think 75% of the enlisted supported integrating the troops at the time it was done?
(3) Every major military leader is in favor of the change, include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. By the way, all 3 are Republican appointees. Sure you can locate a General or and Admiral who opposes the change, but the top leadership is pretty united.
(4) During every draft war in the 20th century, the military refused to discharge gay soldiers. This included both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. They were good enough then but not now? Remember Corporal Klinger from MASH? The joke was that he was behaving in an openly gay manner and couldn't get discharged.
All of this leaves me to a simple conclusion...all of the evidence points towards the right answer being allowing gays to serve openly in the military. If you oppose the opinion of the troops, the military leadership, the American people and the world, why are you doing it? You are either a bigot or you are pandering to bigots.
Shame on those who fall into either category. And shame on those who support a change but continue to shove this issue to the back burner.
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Sunday, May 30, 2010
What a Mess in the Gulf, Kagan Hearings Set for July, At Long Last Some Action on Gay Rights, Another Incremental Jobs Bills
An Inept Response All Around
We are now over 40 days into the spill on a BP rig in the gulf that is spewing thousands of barrels of oil into the ocean every day and the sad reality is that we appear no closer to solving the issue than we were on day one.
The so called "top kill", an effort to pump heavy mud and solid material into the well to stem the flow of oil has failed and the next plan is a custom fitted cap to limit (but likely not eliminate) the flow of oil while a relief well is dug, which will take at least until August to complete.
Don't expect a full resolution to this spill, already the largest in United States history, until at least August or September, which means that this spill may wind up being 4 to 5 times larger than the horrific Exxon Valdez spill a generation ago. To make matters worse, while the Valdez was devastating to the Alaskan coast, the economic, social and ecological impact of a spill in the gulf is far worse. The entire gulf coasts economy will be impacted in huge ways: fishing will be badly damaged for at least a decade, tourism to the beaches will be destroyed and all of the dependent things in the local economy (fish processing, hotels, restaurants, you name it) will be devastated. The ecological damage will be immense, destroying scores of natural wildlife under suffocatingly thick oil. This is, to put it simply, quite possibly the worst ecological disaster in United States history.
And still the oil flows on. And I'm left with the question why?
I take a very simple view of this. There are only two possibilities. The first possibility is that regulations were utterly inadequate to prevent such a spill or to ensure that a contingency plan was in place to quickly solve it where it to occur. The second possibility is that the regulations existed but were not followed. In reality, it is probably a mix of those two categories, but the more information that I find out, the more it supports the first theory.
I'd never even heard of the Minerals Management Service prior to this spill, but the obvious coziness and outright corruption of that organization has now become clear. How is it possible that it did not require back-ups to a valve failing on oil rig designs? Can you imagine a nuclear power plant that wasn't required to build a back-up system if one part failed? How on Earth did inspections not reveal this kind of risk? The head of the MMS has been fired and that is a good start, but it is utterly insufficient. We basically have a complete failure of a regulatory scheme and a need to start over, with new people and with new authority. I'd start by replacing Ken Salazar, a nice guy who seems to care deeply about these issues, but not the kind of tough enforcer that you need to fix the broken system. Plus, what kind of message does it send if there is no accountability at the top in an instance like this?
The President has appeared weak-kneed and late to the game here. If BP didn't have a plan to quickly solve the issue, than the government should have. If it didn't, it should've been in their with all of its best resources, from day 1, running things. Where is the Army Core of Engineers? Where is the President's Science Advisor? Heck, where is the plan? Are we just going to try stuff and hope it works?
It has been speculated on the right that this is President Obama's Katrina. I'm not quite ready to go that far yet, but let's just say that I'm not at all satisfied with his handling of this crisis. It does not inspire confidence in how he would deal with a natural disaster like a hurricane. And my view of the supposedly smart people around him is heavily wounded.
Kagan Hearings to Begin in Late July
Elena Kagan's hearings to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court will begin in late July, according to the senior Democrats in charge in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans are already complaining that this gives them insufficient time to prepare, which is of course, utter nonsense, since they fully vetted Kagan less than 2 years ago as solicitor general, but as I've pointed out several times over the past few months, is a complaint consistent with a strategy of running out the clock on the current Congress in the belief (almost certainly correct) that the GOP will control more seats in the next Congress. They will complain and the hearings will go ahead anyway. Kagan will be confirmed, barring some unlikely previously unknown damning fact. Her vote totals will look a lot like the vote totals to confirm her for solicitor general (that vote was 61-31.)
Rumors have swirled around Kagan's sexual orientation, given her middle age and the fact that she has never been married. I have no direct knowledge of whether Kagan is gay or not, but can only say that if she is, I would love for her to come out of the closet and be a role model for gay Americans. I think it would be fantastic to have an openly gay Supreme Court justice. However, I don't even know if she is, in fact gay and if she is, she seems to have shown a preference for keeping those matters private, as should be her right.
Americans Worst Case of Employment Discrimination May Soon End
The House has finally voted, as part of the large Defense Authorization Bill, to end the awful, discriminatory and bigoted policy of "don't ask, don't tell" in the United States Military, following a full military review and sign-off by both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the President. The House Amendment passed with only 5 GOP votes and 26 Democrats voting no, despite the fact that new polling shows 80% of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly (although, out of fairness, I'm sure that the numbers if you polled the enlisted military would be far lower.)
The same day, the Senate Defense Committee agreed to a similar amendment to the Defense Authorization, with all Democrats on the committee voting for it, joined by Republican Susan Collins of Maine (thank goodness for those last two remaining Republican moderates in the US Senate.)
The road is certainly not over. The House has passed its version of the Defense Authorization Bill, but the Senate must still pass it's version, then both houses pass a reconciled conference report on the bill before in can go to the President for signature. Following that, the military review must be completed and the sign-offs from Gates and Obama take place before the policy goes into effect.
Because of the delay above, I renew my call on President Obama to show some leadership and suspend prosecution of gay members of the military until this work is completed. It is a crime that we continue to discharge brave members of the armed services for no other reason than being gay. And it is a crime that 4 out of 5 Americans, including the majority in some very red states, now recognizes as wrong. The American people are progressing their thinking a lot faster than Washington is.
Another Do-Little "Jobs" Bill
There is little question that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the Stimulus Bill) is the President's signature piece of economic policy in his first two years. A massive $787 billion collection of expenditures and tax cuts spread over the first three years of his term, is more or less defines his economic approach in his first term. The reality is that most of the spending associated with that bill, which has, in a lot of ways, faded from public attention, is yet to take place. Here are the latest stats on the spending associated with the bill:
Spending: $236B out of $499B (47% complete)
Tax Cuts: $163B out of $288B (56% complete)
Total: $399B out of $787B (51% complete)
That's right, the stimulus bill is just barely half executed. And it was designed that way, not just as a short-term shot in the arm (which is what people typically think about when they think stimulus), but as a multi-year, multi-tiered approach to driving economic growth. Big tax incentives on the front-end for things like Cash for Clunkers or the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit to spur sales of cars and homes. By the way, remember how everyone on the right said Cash for Clunkers simply pulled forward sales that would have otherwise occurred later an that the auto industry would be back in the doldrums after it expired? Checked the stats lately? Auto sales are now up 25% year over year WITHOUT the credit. So, it's hard to argue the effectiveness of the short-term incentives.
Tier two was infusions of entitlements and state cash to stave off massive state budget cuts that would drive unemployment and to put cash in the hands of the unemployed and needy that would immediately be reinserted into the economy driving growth. This stage has had mixed success, with states staving off cutbacks....until now that the money is running out. Perhaps the money served it's purpose by saving those cuts until the economy was on more solid footing, but there is no doubt that there are state budget crisis everywhere right now that have to be solved.
The third stage, which we are really now entering in earnest is about infrastructure spending. Road and bridge upgrades. Green energy programs. Things which create jobs but are also investments in the future of our economy. There is road work upgrading I-295 near me (a badly needed project.) Solar panels have gone up on light poles all around me, provided by private industry, but subsidized by stimulus funds. This is all good stuff, whether or not it is enough to immediately bring down the unemployment rate. In fact, my criticism at the time is that I wished far more of the bill were devoted to infrastructure spending (only $275B out of the $787B packaged was devoted to such items, scarcely over a third.)
So with a clear approach already laid out and in progress, why is congress passing silly little $48B (and yes, $48B is tiny in the scheme of our economy) jobs bills? Because they are trying to show that they are doing "something" about the persistent near 10% unemployment rate and the 8+ million jobs lost in the recession. The truth is that the latest bill, a collection of small tax cuts which is about 50% offset by some tax hikes, does little either way to impact the economy. But it looks like action. And as mad as people still are about unemployment, they want to show some action.
The latest "jobs bill" is a small aside that will be quickly forgotten. But, keep the faith, unemployment will come down. The fundamentals are returning to the economy, with economic growth taking place and good employment growth over the past two months, for the first time since the recession started. But it is now obvious to me that it will take a painfully long time to get down to an acceptable level of unemployment (I define "acceptable" as somewhere around 7%, "good" as somewhere around 5%.) We'll see if the American people have that kind of patience. I suspect not.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
We are now over 40 days into the spill on a BP rig in the gulf that is spewing thousands of barrels of oil into the ocean every day and the sad reality is that we appear no closer to solving the issue than we were on day one.
The so called "top kill", an effort to pump heavy mud and solid material into the well to stem the flow of oil has failed and the next plan is a custom fitted cap to limit (but likely not eliminate) the flow of oil while a relief well is dug, which will take at least until August to complete.
Don't expect a full resolution to this spill, already the largest in United States history, until at least August or September, which means that this spill may wind up being 4 to 5 times larger than the horrific Exxon Valdez spill a generation ago. To make matters worse, while the Valdez was devastating to the Alaskan coast, the economic, social and ecological impact of a spill in the gulf is far worse. The entire gulf coasts economy will be impacted in huge ways: fishing will be badly damaged for at least a decade, tourism to the beaches will be destroyed and all of the dependent things in the local economy (fish processing, hotels, restaurants, you name it) will be devastated. The ecological damage will be immense, destroying scores of natural wildlife under suffocatingly thick oil. This is, to put it simply, quite possibly the worst ecological disaster in United States history.
And still the oil flows on. And I'm left with the question why?
I take a very simple view of this. There are only two possibilities. The first possibility is that regulations were utterly inadequate to prevent such a spill or to ensure that a contingency plan was in place to quickly solve it where it to occur. The second possibility is that the regulations existed but were not followed. In reality, it is probably a mix of those two categories, but the more information that I find out, the more it supports the first theory.
I'd never even heard of the Minerals Management Service prior to this spill, but the obvious coziness and outright corruption of that organization has now become clear. How is it possible that it did not require back-ups to a valve failing on oil rig designs? Can you imagine a nuclear power plant that wasn't required to build a back-up system if one part failed? How on Earth did inspections not reveal this kind of risk? The head of the MMS has been fired and that is a good start, but it is utterly insufficient. We basically have a complete failure of a regulatory scheme and a need to start over, with new people and with new authority. I'd start by replacing Ken Salazar, a nice guy who seems to care deeply about these issues, but not the kind of tough enforcer that you need to fix the broken system. Plus, what kind of message does it send if there is no accountability at the top in an instance like this?
The President has appeared weak-kneed and late to the game here. If BP didn't have a plan to quickly solve the issue, than the government should have. If it didn't, it should've been in their with all of its best resources, from day 1, running things. Where is the Army Core of Engineers? Where is the President's Science Advisor? Heck, where is the plan? Are we just going to try stuff and hope it works?
It has been speculated on the right that this is President Obama's Katrina. I'm not quite ready to go that far yet, but let's just say that I'm not at all satisfied with his handling of this crisis. It does not inspire confidence in how he would deal with a natural disaster like a hurricane. And my view of the supposedly smart people around him is heavily wounded.
Kagan Hearings to Begin in Late July
Elena Kagan's hearings to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court will begin in late July, according to the senior Democrats in charge in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans are already complaining that this gives them insufficient time to prepare, which is of course, utter nonsense, since they fully vetted Kagan less than 2 years ago as solicitor general, but as I've pointed out several times over the past few months, is a complaint consistent with a strategy of running out the clock on the current Congress in the belief (almost certainly correct) that the GOP will control more seats in the next Congress. They will complain and the hearings will go ahead anyway. Kagan will be confirmed, barring some unlikely previously unknown damning fact. Her vote totals will look a lot like the vote totals to confirm her for solicitor general (that vote was 61-31.)
Rumors have swirled around Kagan's sexual orientation, given her middle age and the fact that she has never been married. I have no direct knowledge of whether Kagan is gay or not, but can only say that if she is, I would love for her to come out of the closet and be a role model for gay Americans. I think it would be fantastic to have an openly gay Supreme Court justice. However, I don't even know if she is, in fact gay and if she is, she seems to have shown a preference for keeping those matters private, as should be her right.
Americans Worst Case of Employment Discrimination May Soon End
The House has finally voted, as part of the large Defense Authorization Bill, to end the awful, discriminatory and bigoted policy of "don't ask, don't tell" in the United States Military, following a full military review and sign-off by both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the President. The House Amendment passed with only 5 GOP votes and 26 Democrats voting no, despite the fact that new polling shows 80% of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly (although, out of fairness, I'm sure that the numbers if you polled the enlisted military would be far lower.)
The same day, the Senate Defense Committee agreed to a similar amendment to the Defense Authorization, with all Democrats on the committee voting for it, joined by Republican Susan Collins of Maine (thank goodness for those last two remaining Republican moderates in the US Senate.)
The road is certainly not over. The House has passed its version of the Defense Authorization Bill, but the Senate must still pass it's version, then both houses pass a reconciled conference report on the bill before in can go to the President for signature. Following that, the military review must be completed and the sign-offs from Gates and Obama take place before the policy goes into effect.
Because of the delay above, I renew my call on President Obama to show some leadership and suspend prosecution of gay members of the military until this work is completed. It is a crime that we continue to discharge brave members of the armed services for no other reason than being gay. And it is a crime that 4 out of 5 Americans, including the majority in some very red states, now recognizes as wrong. The American people are progressing their thinking a lot faster than Washington is.
Another Do-Little "Jobs" Bill
There is little question that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the Stimulus Bill) is the President's signature piece of economic policy in his first two years. A massive $787 billion collection of expenditures and tax cuts spread over the first three years of his term, is more or less defines his economic approach in his first term. The reality is that most of the spending associated with that bill, which has, in a lot of ways, faded from public attention, is yet to take place. Here are the latest stats on the spending associated with the bill:
Spending: $236B out of $499B (47% complete)
Tax Cuts: $163B out of $288B (56% complete)
Total: $399B out of $787B (51% complete)
That's right, the stimulus bill is just barely half executed. And it was designed that way, not just as a short-term shot in the arm (which is what people typically think about when they think stimulus), but as a multi-year, multi-tiered approach to driving economic growth. Big tax incentives on the front-end for things like Cash for Clunkers or the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit to spur sales of cars and homes. By the way, remember how everyone on the right said Cash for Clunkers simply pulled forward sales that would have otherwise occurred later an that the auto industry would be back in the doldrums after it expired? Checked the stats lately? Auto sales are now up 25% year over year WITHOUT the credit. So, it's hard to argue the effectiveness of the short-term incentives.
Tier two was infusions of entitlements and state cash to stave off massive state budget cuts that would drive unemployment and to put cash in the hands of the unemployed and needy that would immediately be reinserted into the economy driving growth. This stage has had mixed success, with states staving off cutbacks....until now that the money is running out. Perhaps the money served it's purpose by saving those cuts until the economy was on more solid footing, but there is no doubt that there are state budget crisis everywhere right now that have to be solved.
The third stage, which we are really now entering in earnest is about infrastructure spending. Road and bridge upgrades. Green energy programs. Things which create jobs but are also investments in the future of our economy. There is road work upgrading I-295 near me (a badly needed project.) Solar panels have gone up on light poles all around me, provided by private industry, but subsidized by stimulus funds. This is all good stuff, whether or not it is enough to immediately bring down the unemployment rate. In fact, my criticism at the time is that I wished far more of the bill were devoted to infrastructure spending (only $275B out of the $787B packaged was devoted to such items, scarcely over a third.)
So with a clear approach already laid out and in progress, why is congress passing silly little $48B (and yes, $48B is tiny in the scheme of our economy) jobs bills? Because they are trying to show that they are doing "something" about the persistent near 10% unemployment rate and the 8+ million jobs lost in the recession. The truth is that the latest bill, a collection of small tax cuts which is about 50% offset by some tax hikes, does little either way to impact the economy. But it looks like action. And as mad as people still are about unemployment, they want to show some action.
The latest "jobs bill" is a small aside that will be quickly forgotten. But, keep the faith, unemployment will come down. The fundamentals are returning to the economy, with economic growth taking place and good employment growth over the past two months, for the first time since the recession started. But it is now obvious to me that it will take a painfully long time to get down to an acceptable level of unemployment (I define "acceptable" as somewhere around 7%, "good" as somewhere around 5%.) We'll see if the American people have that kind of patience. I suspect not.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
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