A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year: Hate Crimes in America (and Elsewhere)
By Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch Thursday, 24 January 2013 10:39 There are a thousand links in this article, I'm not posting all of them and maybe none of them, i'm sorry...
Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren't that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they're everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.
There is, however, a pattern of violence against women that's broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked. Occasionally, a case involving a celebrity or lurid details in a particular case get a lot of attention in the media, but such cases are treated as anomalies, while the abundance of incidental news items about violence against women in this country, in other countries, on every continent including Antarctica, [ http://www.wisenet-australia.org/issue64/Women%20in%20ANARE.htm ] constitute a kind of background wallpaper for the news.
If you'd rather talk about bus rapes than gang rapes, there's the rape of a developmentally disabled woman on a Los Angeles bus in November and the kidnapping of an autistic 16-year-old on the regional transit train system in Oakland, California -- she was raped repeatedly by her abductor over two days this winter -- and there was a gang rape of multiple women on a bus in Mexico City recently, too. While I was writing this, I read that another female bus-rider was kidnapped in India and gang-raped all night by the bus driver and five of his friends who must have thought what happened in New Delhi was awesome.
We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it's almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.
Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crimes are men, that doesn't mean all men are violent. Most are not. In addition, men obviously also suffer violence, largely at the hands of other men, and every violent death, every assault is terrible. But the subject here is the pandemic of violence by men against women, both intimate violence and stranger violence.
What We Don't Talk About When We Don't Talk About Gender
There's so much of it. We could talk about the assault and rape of a 73-year-old in Manhattan's Central Park last September, or the recent rape of a four-year-old and an 83-year-old in Louisiana, or the New York City policeman who was arrested in October for what appeared to be serious plans to kidnap, rape, cook, and eat a woman, any woman, because the hate wasn't personal (though maybe it was for the San Diego man who actually killed and cooked his wife in November and the man from New Orleans who killed, dismembered, and cooked his girlfriend in 2005).
We could talk about high-school- and college-athlete rapes, or campus rapes, to which university authorities have been appallingly uninterested in responding in many cases, including that high school in Steubenville, Notre Dame University, Amherst College, and many others. We could talk about the escalating pandemic of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment in the U.S. military, where Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta estimated that there were 19,000 sexual assaults on fellow soldiers in 2010 alone and that the great majority of assailants got away with it, though four-star general Jeffrey Sinclair was indicted in September for "a slew of sex crimes against women."
Never mind workplace violence, let's go home. So many men murder their partners and former partners that we have well over 1,000 homicides of that kind a year -- meaning that every three years the death toll tops 9/11's casualties, though no one declares a war on this particular terror. (Another way to put it: the more than 11,766 corpses from domestic-violence homicides since 9/11 exceed the number of deaths of victims on that day and all American soldiers killed in the "war on terror.") If we talked about crimes like these and why they are so common, we'd have to talk about what kinds of profound change this society, or this nation, or nearly every nation needs. If we talked about it, we'd be talking about masculinity, or male roles, or maybe patriarchy, and we don't talk much about that.
Instead, we hear that American men commit murder-suicides -- at the rate of about 12 a week -- because the economy is bad, though they also do it when the economy is good; or that those men in India murdered the bus-rider because the poor resent the rich, while other rapes in India are explained by how the rich exploit the poor; and then there are those ever-popular explanations: mental problems and intoxicants -- and for jocks, head injuries. The latest spin is that lead exposure was responsible for a lot of our violence, except that both genders are exposed and one commits most of the violence. The pandemic of violence always gets explained as anything but gender, anything but what would seem to be the broadest explanatory pattern of all.
Someone wrote a piece [ http://gawker.com/5973485/the-unbearable-invisibility-of-white-masculinity-innocence-in-the-age-of-white-male-mass-shootings ] about how white men seem to be the ones who commit mass murders in the U.S. and the (mostly hostile) commenters only seemed to notice the white part. It's rare that anyone says what this medical study does, even if in the driest way possible: "Being male has been identified as a risk factor for violent criminal behavior in several studies, as have exposure to tobacco smoke before birth, having antisocial parents, and belonging to a poor family."
Still, the pattern is plain as day. We could talk about this as a global problem, looking at the epidemic of assault, harassment, and rape of women in Cairo's Tahrir Square that has taken away the freedom they celebrated during the Arab Spring -- and led some men there to form defense teams to help counter it -- or the persecution of women in public and private in India from "Eve-teasing" to bride-burning, or "honor killings" in South Asia and the Middle East, or the way that South Africa has become a global rape capital, with an estimated 600,000 rapes last year, or how rape has been used as a tactic and "weapon" of war in Mali, Sudan, and the Congo, as it was in the former Yugoslavia, or the pervasiveness of rape and harassment in Mexico and the femicide in Juarez, or the denial of basic rights for women in Saudi Arabia and the myriad sexual assaults on immigrant domestic workers there, or the way that the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case in the United States revealed what impunity he and others had in France, and it's only for lack of space I'm leaving out Britain and Canada and Italy (with its ex-prime minister known for his orgies with the underaged), Argentina and Australia and so many other countries.
Who Has the Right to Kill You?
But maybe you're tired of statistics, so let's just talk about a single incident that happened in my city a couple of weeks ago, one of many local incidents in which men assaulted women that made the local papers this month:
"A woman was stabbed after she rebuffed a man's sexual advances while she walked in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood late Monday night, a police spokesman said today. The 33-year-old victim was walking down the street when a stranger approached her and propositioned her, police spokesman Officer Albie Esparza said. When she rejected him, the man became very upset and slashed the victim in the face and stabbed her in the arm, Esparza said."
The man, in other words, framed the situation as one in which his chosen victim had no rights and liberties, while he had the right to control and punish her. This should remind us that violence is first of all authoritarian. It begins with this premise: I have the right to control you.
Murder is the extreme version of that authoritarianism, where the murderer asserts he has the right to decide whether you live or die, the ultimate means of controlling someone. This may be true even if you are "obedient," because the desire to control comes out of a rage that obedience can't assuage. Whatever fears, whatever sense of vulnerability may underlie such behavior, it also comes out of entitlement, the entitlement to inflict suffering and even death on other people. It breeds misery in the perpetrator and the victims.
As for that incident in my city, similar things happen all the time. Many versions of it happened to me when I was younger, sometimes involving death threats and often involving torrents of obscenities: a man approaches a woman with both desire and the furious expectation that the desire will likely be rebuffed. The fury and desire come in a package, all twisted together into something that always threatens to turn eros into thanatos, love into death, sometimes literally.
It's a system of control. It's why so many intimate-partner murders are of women who dared to break up with those partners. As a result, it imprisons a lot of women, and though you could say that the attacker on January 7th, or a brutal would-be-rapist near my own neighborhood on January 5th, or another rapist here on January 12th, or the San Franciscan who on January 6th set his girlfriend on fire for refusing to do his laundry, or the guy who was just sentenced to 370 years for some particularly violent rapes in San Francisco in late 2011, were marginal characters, rich, famous, and privileged guys do it, too.
The Japanese vice-consul in San Francisco was charged with 12 felony counts of spousal abuse and assault with a deadly weapon last September, the same month that, in the same town, the ex-girlfriend of Mason Mayer (brother of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer) testified in court: "He ripped out my earrings, tore my eyelashes off, while spitting in my face and telling me how unlovable I am... I was on the ground in the fetal position, and when I tried to move, he squeezed both knees tighter into my sides to restrain me and slapped me." According to the newspaper, she also testified that "Mayer slammed her head onto the floor repeatedly and pulled out clumps of her hair, telling her that the only way she was leaving the apartment alive was if he drove her to the Golden Gate Bridge 'where you can jump off or I will push you off.'"Mason Mayer got probation.
This summer, an estranged husband violated his wife's restraining order against him, shooting her -- and six other women -- at her spa job in suburban Milwaukee, but since there were only four corpses the crime was largely overlooked in the media in a year with so many more spectacular mass murders in this country (and we still haven't really talked about the fact that, of 62 mass shootings in the U.S. in three decades, only one was by a woman, because when you say lone gunman, everyone talks about loners and guns but not about men -- and by the way, nearly two thirds of all women killed by guns are killed by their partner or ex-partner).
What's love got to do with it, asked Tina Turner, whose ex-husband Ike once said, "Yeah I hit her, but I didn't hit her more than the average guy beats his wife." A woman is beaten every nine seconds [ http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/10/prweb9986276.htm?PID=4003003 ] in this country. Just to be clear: not nine minutes, but nine seconds. It's the number-one cause of injury to American women; of the two million injured annually, more than half a million of those injuries require medical attention while about 145,000 require overnight hospitalizations, according to the Center for Disease Control, and you don't want to know about the dentistry needed afterwards. Spouses are also the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S. [ http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/health-pregnancy-violent-idUSL3E7LR03R20111027 ]
"Women worldwide ages 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined," writes Nicholas D. Kristof, one of the few prominent figures to address the issue regularly.
The Chasm Between Our Worlds
Rape and other acts of violence, up to and including murder, as well as threats of violence, constitute the barrage some men lay down as they attempt to control some women, and fear of that violence limits most women in ways they've gotten so used to they hardly notice -- and we hardly address. There are exceptions: last summer someone wrote to me to describe a college class in which the students were asked what they do to stay safe from rape. The young women described the intricate ways they stayed alert, limited their access to the world, took precautions, and essentially thought about rape all the time (while the young men in the class, he added, gaped in astonishment). The chasm between their worlds had briefly and suddenly become visible.
Mostly, however, we don't talk about it -- though a graphic has been circulating on the Internet called Ten Top Tips to End Rape, [ http://9gag.com/gag/5674046 ] the kind of thing young women get often enough, but this one had a subversive twist. It offered advice like this: "Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone 'by accident' you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can call for help." While funny, the piece points out something terrible: the usual guidelines in such situations put the full burden of prevention on potential victims, treating the violence as a given. You explain to me why colleges spend more time telling women how to survive predators than telling the other half of their students not to be predators. [ https://www.orl.ucla.edu/safety/sexual-assault ]
Threats of sexual assault now seem to take place online regularly. In late 2011, British columnist Laurie Penny wrote, "An opinion, it seems, is the short skirt of the Internet. Having one and flaunting it is somehow asking an amorphous mass of almost-entirely male keyboard-bashers to tell you how they'd like to rape, kill, and urinate on you. This week, after a particularly ugly slew of threats, I decided to make just a few of those messages public on Twitter, and the response I received was overwhelming. Many could not believe the hate I received, and many more began to share their own stories of harassment, intimidation, and abuse."
Women in the online gaming community have been harassed, threatened, and driven out. Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist media critic who documented such incidents, received support for her work, but also, in the words of a journalist, "another wave of really aggressive, you know, violent personal threats, her accounts attempted to be hacked. And one man in Ontario took the step of making an online video game where you could punch Anita's image on the screen. And if you punched it multiple times, bruises and cuts would appear on her image." The difference between these online gamers and the Taliban men who, last October, tried to murder 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai for speaking out about the right of Pakistani women to education is one of degree. Both are trying to silence and punish women for claiming voice, power, and the right to participate. Welcome to Manistan.
The Party for the Protection of the Rights of Rapists
It's not just public, or private, or online either. It's also embedded in our political system, and our legal system, which before feminists fought for us didn't recognize most domestic violence, or sexual harassment and stalking, or date rape, or acquaintance rape, or marital rape, and in cases of rape still often tries the victim rather than the rapist, as though only perfect maidens could be assaulted -- or believed.
As we learned in the 2012 election campaign, it's also embedded in the minds and mouths of our politicians. Remember that spate of crazy pro-rape things [ http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/01/phil_gingrey_todd_akin_and_richard_mourdock_the_gop_s_rape_problem_is_spreading.html ] Republican men said last summer and fall, starting with Todd Akin's notorious claim that a woman has ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of rape, a statement he made in order to deny women control over their own bodies. After that, of course, Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed that rape pregnancies were "a gift from God," and just this month, another Republican politician piped up to defend Akin's comment.
Happily the five publicly pro-rape Republicans in the 2012 campaign all lost their election bids. (Stephen Colbert tried to warn them that women had gotten the vote in 1920.) But it's not just a matter of the garbage they say (and the price they now pay). Earlier this month, congressional Republicans refused to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, because they objected to the protection it gave immigrants, transgendered women, and Native American women. (Speaking of epidemics, one of three Native American women will be raped, and on the reservations 88 percent [ http://www.indianlaw.org/safewomen/violence-against-native-women-gaining-global-attention ]of those rapes are by non-Native men who know tribal governments can't prosecute them.)
And they're out to gut reproductive rights -- birth control as well as abortion, as they've pretty effectively done in many states over the last dozen years. What's meant by "reproductive rights," of course, is the right of women to control their own bodies. Didn't I mention earlier that violence against women is a control issue?
And though rapes are often investigated lackadaisically -- there is a backlog of about 400,000 untested rape kits in this country-- rapists who impregnate their victims have parental rights in 31 states. Oh, and former vice-presidential candidate and current congressman Paul Ryan (R-Manistan) is reintroducing a bill that would give states the right to ban abortions and might even conceivably allow a rapist to sue his victim for having one.
All the Things That Aren't to Blame
Of course, women are capable of all sorts of major unpleasantness, and there are violent crimes by women, but the so-called war of the sexes is extraordinarily lopsided when it comes to actual violence. Unlike the last (male) head of the International Monetary Fund, the current (female) head is not going to assault an employee at a luxury hotel; top-ranking female officers in the U.S. military, unlike their male counterparts, are not accused of any sexual assaults; and young female athletes, unlike those male football players in Steubenville, aren't likely to urinate on unconscious boys, let alone violate them and boast about it in YouTube videos and Twitter feeds.
No female bus riders in India have ganged up to sexually assault a man so badly he dies of his injuries, nor are marauding packs of women terrorizing men in Cairo's Tahrir Square, and there's just no maternal equivalent to the 11% of rapes that are by fathers or stepfathers. Of the people in prison in the U.S., 93.5% are not women, and though quite a lot of them should not be there in the first place, maybe some of them should because of violence, until we think of a better way to deal with it, and them.
No major female pop star has blown the head off a young man she took home with her, as did Phil Spector. (He is now part of that 93.5 percent for the shotgun slaying of Lana Clarkson, apparently for refusing his advances.) No female action-movie star has been charged with domestic violence, because Angelina Jolie just isn't doing what Mel Gibson and Steve McQueen did, and there aren't any celebrated female movie directors who gave a 13-year-old drugs before sexually assaulting that child, while she kept saying "no," as did Roman Polanski.
In Memory of Jyoti Singh Pandey
What's the matter with manhood? There's something about how masculinity is imagined, about what's praised and encouraged, about the way violence is passed on to boys that needs to be addressed. There are lovely and wonderful men out there, and one of the things that's encouraging in this round of the war against women is how many men I've seen who get it, who think it's their issue too, who stand up for us and with us in everyday life, online and in the marches from New Delhi to San Francisco this winter.
Increasingly men are becoming good allies -- and there always have been some. Kindness and gentleness never had a gender, and neither did empathy. Domestic violence statistics are down significantly from earlier decades (even though they're still shockingly high), and a lot of men are at work crafting new ideas and ideals about masculinity and power.
Gay men have been good allies of mine for almost four decades. (Apparently same-sex marriage horrifies conservatives because it's marriage between equals with no inevitable roles.) Women's liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But we are free together or slaves together.
There are other things I'd rather write about, but this affects everything else. The lives of half of humanity are still dogged by, drained by, and sometimes ended by this pervasive variety of violence. Think of how much more time and energy we would have to focus on other things that matter if we weren't so busy surviving. Look at it this way: one of the best journalists I know is afraid to walk home at night in our neighborhood. Should she stop working late? How many women have had to stop doing their work, or been stopped from doing it, for similar reasons?
One of the most exciting new political movements on Earth is the Native Canadian indigenous rights movement, with feminist and environmental overtones, called Idle No More. [ http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/op-ed/Idle+More/7753967/story.html ] On December 27th, shortly after the movement took off, a Native woman was kidnapped, raped, beaten, and left for dead in Thunder Bay, Ontario, by men whose remarks framed the crime as retaliation against Idle No More. Afterward, she walked four hours through the bitter cold and survived to tell her tale. Her assailants, who have threatened to do it again, are still at large.
The New Delhi rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey, the 23-year-old who was studying physiotherapy so that she could better herself while helping others, and the assault on her male companion (who survived) seem to have triggered the reaction that we have needed for 100, or 1,000, or 5,000 years. May she be to women -- and men -- worldwide what Emmett Till, murdered by white supremacists in 1955, was to African-Americans and the then-nascent U.S. civil rights movement.
We have far more than 87,000 rapes in this country every year, but each of them is invariably portrayed as an isolated incident. We have dots so close they're splatters melting into a stain, but hardly anyone connects them, or names that stain. In India they did. They said that this is a civil rights issue, it's a human rights issue, it's everyone's problem, it's not isolated, and it's never going to be acceptable again. It has to change. It's your job to change it, and mine, and ours.
as subsequent people try to copy .. random changes in DNA accumulate .. the variations in the simple line in the top video accumulate .. the 2nd video .. facts vs theories .. in the end "cumulative changes give illusion of design"
linked here as "evolution" yelled .. oops/ow .. lol .. yellowed toward the bottom of this one ..
Notable (and Hilarious) Examples of the Christian Right's Failed Prophecies
John Boehner: Ending Abortion Is 'One Of Our Most Fundamental Goals This Year'
As hundreds of thousands of people braved sub-freezing temperatures in Washington, D.C., on Friday to join the anti-abortion protest March for Life, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) took the opportunity to reiterate his commitment to banning abortion in America for good.
Addressing the crowd at the National Mall via video broadcast, Boehner said it's time for anti-abortion activists to "commit ourselves to doing everything we can to protect the sanctity of life." Step one, he said, is making permanent the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal dollars from being used to pay for abortions except in cases of rape or incest.
"For the new Congress, that means bringing together a bipartisan pro-life majority and getting to work," Boehner said. "In accordance with the will of the people, we will again work to pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, formally codifying the Hyde Amendment."
Boehner said he will make it a national priority to "help make abortion a relic of the past."
"Let that be one of our most fundamental goals this year," he said.
The March for Life attracted a diverse crowd of young and old protesters from across the country. Hundreds of parents had bundled up their infants and toddlers and strapped protest signs to their strollers. Michael Kennedy, 33, and his wife Bethany, who is pregnant, drove their four children down from Westerly, Rhode Island to stand in 20-degree weather on the Mall.
"They're troopers," Bethany told HuffPost. "We felt like we have a responsibility just to be a witness to everyone else, to see that this is life, our children. We needed to be here."
Several lawmakers made it out to the protest to address the crowd in person. Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) touted a bill she recently introduced that would strip Title X family planning funds from Planned Parenthood, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delivered a sermon that called for a "spiritual cleansing."
"Our nation is adrift, adrift in a wilderness where right and wrong have become subservient to a hedonism of the moment," Paul said. "I believe our country is in need of a spiritual cleansing."
President Barack Obama 2013 Inauguration and Address
Published on Jan 21, 2013 by CSPAN
From C-SPAN coverage: President Barack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States and delivered his second inaugural on January 21, 2013.
United States Capitol January 21, 2013 11:55 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. (Applause.) The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.
And for more than two hundred years, we have.
Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.
Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers.
Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.
Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.
Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.
But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people. (Applause.)
This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending. (Applause.) An economic recovery has begun. (Applause.) America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it -- so long as we seize it together. (Applause.)
For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. (Applause.) We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own. (Applause.)
We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher. But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.
We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. (Applause.) For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.
We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us. (Applause.) They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great. (Applause.)
We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. (Applause.) Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.
The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure -- our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war. (Applause.) Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage. (Applause.) Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war; who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends -- and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.
We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully –- not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear. (Applause.)
America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe. And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth. (Applause.)
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law –- (applause) -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity -- (applause) -- until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. (Applause.) Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.
That is our generation’s task -- to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time. (Applause.)
For now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. (Applause.) We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.
My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride.
They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals. (Applause.)
Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.
Thank you. God bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America. (Applause.)
President Obama’s Inaugural Address was an unapologetic, unequivocal progressive manifesto of domestic policies.
I needed that.
The president wasted no time on hollow talk about fixing a broken Washington or taking on the toxic tone in our politics.
He seemed to have come to — and grown more comfortable with and accepting of — the conclusion that many have always understood: that his very presence, his existence, his achievement is what far too many others find objectionable.
He is the embodiment of their discomfort. He is the manifestation of their fear. He represents a current and future America — more socially liberal, more ethnically diverse, more the offspring of unconventional families — than they can accept.
He is generally effective, not troubled by scandal, pragmatic and patient. He’s not perfect, but he is exceptional.
During his address, the president challenged us to examine our ideas of America, to see today in the context of yesterday, to rise on the winds of change and not be afraid of them.
He put change itself at the center of the message and talked about how American constants like equality and altruism and stewardship are not static but dynamic, forever in need of care and maintenance and updating and refitting.
As the president said:
“What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.”
The speech was ambitious and aimed for the history books and may well have found its mark.
No speech can do all things, but a good one does some things exceedingly well.
This speech eschewed seasonal issues — economic ups and downs, international conflicts — for the everlasting concepts.
He could have delivered a great speech with the emphasis inverted, and no one would have balked.
The economy is still sluggish. People are still anxious about their jobs, if indeed they have a job. It is unclear how, or if, we can get back to prerecession prosperity.
And the world keeps getting smaller and more hazardous. Europe remains in a precarious economic state. The Middle East remains a mess of volatility. And as we saw last week with the hostage crisis in Algeria, Islamic extremists seem to be broadening their influence in northern Africa.
And yet the president focused on America, the meaning of America, the promises and truisms of America, the aspirations of and challenges facing America. And he did so through a progressive lens, tying liberalism to America’s historical idealism. He offered a liberal anchoring, that it is not a disavowing of American values but an affirmation of them.
In the president’s words:
“We have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”
And he went further, placing the gay rights movement in the context of the women’s rights and civil rights movements:
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths -- that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall ...”
He continued:
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
The most striking phrase in that passage, aside from the fact that it was included in an Inaugural Address at all, is “the love we commit.” In a time when so many conservatives talk ad nauseam about the differentiation between rights granted by God and those authored by governments, this phrase, the commission of love, the root of many religions, reframes gay rights as God-given rights like other human rights and therefore beyond the right of governments to restrict.
And that was only one of the things that made the speech special.
The president also acknowledged the value to our society of caring for the poorest and most vulnerable. He called on America to address climate change. And he took a sideswipe at those opposing any and all new gun regulations, saying,
“Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.”
This was a great moment in progressive politics.
Unapologetic, defiant even, and true to the core values of our country.
"Agree with me or you are un-American" is the way Republican political consultant Dan Hazelwood heard it, according to a tweet from The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza [ https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/293428822567682048 ].
While that particular reading of Obama's attempt to ground his arguments in the Constitution and the views of the nation's founders may be a stretch, it raises a fundamental question: Just how many Americans agree with Obama on the more "progressive" positions he advanced in the speech?
A review of recent polling as well as a set of questions asked on a new HuffPost/YouGov online poll [ http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/toplines12313.pdf ] show that more Americans agree than disagree with the president on key issues -- in most cases, by large majorities.
The inaugural speech opened, for example, with a defense of a progressive approach to both market regulation and social insurance programs (like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) -- what conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer called [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-obama-unbound/2013/01/24/10d43996-6660-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_story.html ] "an ode to the collectivity." Polls both new and old show that between 59 percent and 63 percent of Americans agree with Obama on three passages in which he defended activist government most clearly.
In particular, a HuffPost/YouGov online poll conducted this week shows that most agree with Obama that programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security "strengthen America by lessening worries about retirement and health" (62 percent) rather than "weaken America by making us a nation of dependents and takers" (21 percent).
Of course, as with many aspects of opinion on public policy, these attitudes coexist with conflicting sentiments. For example, one Pew Research survey found that while 63 percent support government regulation "to best serve the public interest," 57 percent think that "government regulation of business usually does more harm than good." While 59 percent agree that government has a responsibility to "take care of people who can't take care of themselves," 71 percent also say that "poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs."
Such opposing views create the space for much of our political conflict and help fuel the ongoing gridlock of our divided government. A conservative rejoinder to Obama's philosophy could offer rhetoric that would strike a similarly popular chord. But the underlying point remains: The philosophical defense of liberalism that Obama advanced is something that most Americans agree with.
Obama would face a more skeptical audience if he argued that climate change should be his top concern or a higher priority than turning around the economy. A new Pew Research survey [ http://www.people-press.org/2013/01/24/deficit-reduction-rises-on-publics-agenda-for-obamas-second-term/ ] released on Thursday found that while 64 percent consider "dealing with global warming" an important priority for the president and Congress, just 28 percent consider it the "top priority." Global warming was the lowest rated of 21 suggested priorities, scoring far below strengthening the economy (86 percent) and improving the job situation (79 percent).
Toward the end of the address, Obama committed to action on immigration, gay rights, gender equality and electoral reform aimed at easing long lines at polling places. Again, the rhetoric of the speech largely meets with wide support, as a series of HuffPost/YouGov poll results show.
Backing of Obama's positions on gay rights and immigration falls just below the majority level, but in both cases, support is far greater than opposition. Just less than half (47 percent) favor "ensuring that gays and lesbians have equal rights, so that they are treated like anyone else under the law," while 23 percent say they're opposed. Slightly more (49 percent) support "providing immigrants who entered the US illegally as children a path to citizenship if they attend college or serve in the US military," while 29 percent oppose it.
Popular counterarguments to the president's views also exist. On immigration, for example, a Pew Research poll conducted in April 2012 [ http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/ ] found that 69 percent of Americans agree "we should restrict and control the number of people coming to live in our country more than we do now."
Similarly, while the HuffPost/YouGov poll showed only 20 percent willing to oppose efforts to reduce long lines at polling places, opinion was more divided on a second question as to whether voting should be made easier "to reduce long lines" (44 percent) or harder "to prevent voter fraud" (41 percent).
The latest HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Jan. 22-23 among 1,000 U.S. adults. The poll used a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance. Additional crosstabs for the poll are available here [ http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/tabs12313.pdf ].
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more [ http://today.yougov.com/huffpost/ ] about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling.
Oh, the horror: a gay bar mentioned in the same sentence as Selma and Seneca Falls, a call to fix a gasping planet, a stirring defense of health care for the elderly and citizenship for 11 million people living in the American shadows. And now, women in combat. What’s become of this country?
“One thing is clear from the president’s speech: the era of liberalism is back,” said the perpetually puckered Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
“Unapologetically liberal,” was the takeaway quote in a video sent out this week by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.
Liberal, liberal, liberal! The wedge label is the last weapon of people who are out of step with their era. Rove and company are betting that “liberal” still has the power to scare. But did you notice that these opponents of President Obama’s Inauguration Day aria didn’t take issue with the substance of what he said? Are they for a legal system that excludes gays from rights that other citizens share? Do they favor global warming? Do they intend to deport the millions of immigrants without papers, and further alienate the fastest-growing block of voters?
A larger question for those who want to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!” is whether a majority of Americans now favor all the things that Obama alluded to on the first full day of his second term. In fact, they do. The electoral realignment is happening so quickly it looks like an Alaskan river thawing before our eyes. In opposition, Republicans speak for a fast-fading past, or a permanent winter.
And that sneaky, Machiavellian Obama: he made them do it. He’s trying to “just shove us into the dustbin of history,” said House Speaker John Boehner this week. No shoving was required — the Republicans climbed right into the dustbin and put the lid on to keep out the light.
McConnell believes Obama’s words in the 57th Inaugural Address were “unabashedly far-left of center.” Maybe in 1956 that was true. Or 1981. But not in 2013. Obama’s framework is the new center. Call him a liberal. But if you forget the label, and poll on the substance of his remarks, you find a broad, fresh coalition siding with the president on all the major issues he highlighted.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the country is more “liberal.” But it does mean, at the least, that the center has moved, and Republicans have not.
On climate change, a Pew poll at the height of last’s fall’s election found strong bipartisan support for taking steps against many of the effects of global warming. There was a significant increase in those who say the storms, fires, droughts, record-high-temperatures and ice-melting of the last decade or so are human-caused. Only 12 percent — and here’s where the talk radio and Fox wing of the Republican party are glaringly out of step — believe it’s some kind of hoax.
Gay marriage support has surged so quickly, and across the board, that only an aging cohort of Republicans is still against it. Among young people, those 18 to 29, it’s no contest: 73 percent favor it, according to Gallup last November.
Immigration reform is another loser for Republicans. An Associated Press survey released this week had 62 percent in favor of allowing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. The Republican Party cannot survive without Hispanic support, and this poll recognized that: 53 percent of G.O.P. members now favor the “liberal” solution — amnesty! — up an astonishing 22 points in just two years.
On and on, from protecting Medicare and Social Security against voucher plans like those advocated by Representative Paul Ryan, to increasing taxes on the wealthy, a big majority prevails. Guns? About 9 in 10 Americans favor criminal background checks for gun buyers, which is the one idea that seems most likely to pass, despite opposition from leading Republicans.
If the era of liberalism is back, as McConnell said in deriding Obama’s speech, it has metastasized and taken on a new form. It’s nonwhite, young and urban. It’s college-educated women. It’s West Coast and East Coast, the Rocky Mountain states of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and, soon, Arizona. It’s the upper Midwest, and the Philadelphia exurbs. In the South, it’s Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and maybe Georgia to follow within a decade.
Of course, the Democrats can always overreach. Arrogance breeds hubris. What do not have majority support are huge new government spending programs. And Obama, in his speech, did not call for such things. (His health care law is the product of Mitt Romney and the Heritage Foundation, and relies on free enterprise “exchanges” rather than a government takeover, despite what critics say.)
But Obama did defend the two great government programs that work and must be shored up: Social Security and Medicare. “These things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us,” Obama said. “They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.” If those words are the distillation of liberalism, bring on the chisels and scratch them into marble.
So, who is out of step? Who is to the far side of the center? In 1958, just four percent of those polled by Gallup were in favor of allowing blacks and whites to marry each other. That figure now is 86 percent. The Republicans of 2013 can stand still, like those Eisenhower-era opponents of interracial marriage. But they cannot call their opposition to gay marriage, climate change measures, immigration reform and raising taxes on the wealthy mainstream positions.
Looking at the coming battles in Washington, Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, spoke more political truth in one sentence than Boehner and McConnell have in four years of speeches. “The public is not behind us,” he said, “and that’s a real problem for our party.”
The GOP Crackup: How Obama Is Unraveling Reagan Republicanism
By Robert Reich Posted: 01/25/2013 3:11 pm
Soon after President Obama's second inaugural address, John Boehner said [ http://www.riponsociety.org/news_1-22-13.htm ] the White House would try "to annihilate the Republican Party" and "shove us into the dustbin of history."
Actually, the GOP is doing a pretty good job annihilating itself. As Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal put it, Republicans need to "stop being the stupid party."
The GOP crackup was probably inevitable. Inconsistencies and tensions within the GOP have been growing for years -- ever since Ronald Reagan put together the coalition that became the modern Republican Party.
All President Obama has done is finally found ways to exploit these inconsistencies.
Republican libertarians have never got along with social conservatives, who want to impose their own morality on everyone else.
Shrink-the-government fanatics in the GOP have never seen eye-to-eye with deficit hawks, who don't mind raising taxes as long as the extra revenues help reduce the size of the deficit.
The GOP's big business and Wall Street wing has never been comfortable with the nativists and racists in the Party who want to exclude immigrants and prevent minorities from getting ahead.
And right-wing populists have never got along with big business and Wall Street, which love government as long as it gives them subsidies, tax benefits, and bailouts.
Ronald Reagan papered over these differences with a happy anti-big-government nationalism. His patriotic imagery inspired the nativists and social conservatives. He gave big business and Wall Street massive military spending. And his anti-government rhetoric delighted the Party's libertarians and right-wing populists.
But Reagan's coalition remained fragile. It depended fundamentally on creating a common enemy: communists and terrorists abroad, liberals and people of color at home.
On the surface Reagan's GOP celebrated Norman Rockwell's traditional, white middle-class, small-town America. Below the surface it stoked fires of fear and hate of "others" who threatened this idealized portrait.
In his first term Barack Obama seemed the perfect foil: A black man, a big -- spending liberal, perhaps (they hissed) not even an American.
Republicans accused him of being insufficiently patriotic. Right-wing TV and radio snarled he secretly wanted to take over America, suspend our rights. Mitch McConnell declared that unseating him was his party's first priority.
But it didn't work. The 2012 Republican primaries exposed all the cracks and fissures in the GOP coalition.
The Party offered up a Star Wars barroom of oddball characters, each representing a different faction -- Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Cain, Santorum. Each rose on the strength of supporters and then promptly fell when the rest of the Party got a good look.
Finally, desperately, the GOP turned to a chameleon -- Mitt Romney -- who appeared acceptable to every faction because he had no convictions of his own. But Romney couldn't survive the general election because the public saw him for what he was: synthetic and inauthentic.
The 2012 election exposed something else about the GOP: its utter lack of touch with reality, its bizarre incapacity to see and understand what was happening in the country. Think of Karl Rove's delirium on Fox election night.
All of which has given Obama the perfect opening -- perhaps the opening he'd been waiting for all along.
Obama's focus in his second inaugural -- and, by inference, in his second term -- on equal opportunity is hardly a radical agenda. But it aggravates all the tensions inside the GOP. And it leaves the GOP without an overriding target to maintain its fragile coalition.
In hammering home the need for the rich to contribute a fair share in order to ensure equal opportunity, and for anyone in America -- be they poor, black, gay, immigrant, women, or average working person -- to be able to make the most of themselves, Obama advances the founding ideals of America in such way that the Republican Party is incapable of opposing yet also incapable of uniting behind.
History and demographics are on the side of the Democrats, but history and demography have been on the Democrats' side for decades. What's new is the Republican crackup -- opening the way for a new Democratic coalition of socially liberal young people, women, minorities, middle-class professionals, and what's left of the anti-corporate working class.
If Obama remains as clear and combative as he has been since Election Day, his second term may be noted not only for its accomplishment but also for finally unraveling what Reagan put together. In other words, John Boehner's fear may be well-founded.
Post-Inauguration Partisanship: Let's Stop Pretending Obama Is To Blame For The 'Tone In Washington'
By Jason Linkins Posted: 01/26/2013 9:08 am EST | Updated: 01/26/2013 1:36 pm EST
Last Monday, President Barack Obama delivered his second inaugural address to a crowd of mostly contented huddled masses, and within hours of its delivery, the congealed conventional wisdom had essentially declared it to have been a "bold" piece of oratory.
And to a certain extent it was just that. Obama trolled the GOP pretty hard during the speech, at times appropriating some traditional conservative rhetorical tropes as his own, and at other times taking deliberate, barely veiled shots at his former election year opponents. Paul Ryan, for example, got to hear the president's take on the whole "makers and takers" argument [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/paul-ryan-obama-inauguration_n_2527807.html ] one last time, for auld lang syne. Meanwhile, liberal supporters got to hear the words "climate change" during the oration, as well as a fairly stirring defense of marriage equality. Obama's second term goals -- as hinted by the address -- seemed to chart a more ambitious trajectory. And at the very least, the speech was much bolder than the one he gave at the Democratic National Convention, which I am pretty sure was titled, "Bill Clinton Just Got Me Home Field Advantage Throughout The Playoffs, So I'mma Rest My Starting Lineup."
That said, given that his inaugural address was "bold" for these varied reasons, it should be pointed out that not everyone was necessarily using the descriptor as a compliment. For every progressive commentator who was leg-thrilled by the notion that the next Obama administration was going to be a firmer defense of progressive policy priorities, there was a conservative who would tell you that the "boldness" just underscored how divisive the administration was planning on being in the future.
And it's on that dividing line that a secondary concern emerges. If Obama really wants to rack up significant accomplishments in his second term -- progressive-minded or otherwise -- how does he plan to govern? The hope, in the post-election season, is that the reality of a second Obama term would cause the so-called "fever" to break and a thaw to occur in the already frosty relationship between the White House and congressional Republicans. The promise of those possibilities, of course, remains to be seen. What we do know for sure is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, despite being fully aware that his chamber has been a bowel of undigested legislative ambition, has opted not to alter the institutional rules in a way that might end the constipation.
The president was able to dismiss, at least for a day, the harsh realities of presiding over a divided government and facing obstructionist rivals. “We cannot mistake absolutism for principle,” Obama said, “or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”
Oh, but they will: Republicans as well as Democrats in Washington are drunk on partisanship, hostage to a political structure built to reward extremism and reject compromise as capitulation. In this environment, it is understandable why Obama chose to reject the post-partisan, problem-solving brand that he rode to the White House four years ago.
In its place is exactly what liberal allies wanted. Chastened by four years in Washington, Obama has decided to fight partisan fire with fire. Surely it feels good, but will it work?
Politics is the delicate art of compromise: Two warring factions solving problems by finding ways in which all sides can declare victory. It is not, as Obama said, the work of absolutists. Which is why he needs to walk the narrow line between confidence and hubris, or otherwise he won't get anything through the GOP-controlled House.
History doesn't make excuses. If Obama's agenda fails because Republicans don't bow to his demands, that will be on him. He has to work with or around the GOP. Apparently, he's chosen the latter.
What happened to the idealistic young politician who argued against dividing the country into red and blue Americas? It seems we’re not going to see him again.
And you see, its writing like that that shakes me out of the torpor of wondering how Obama is going to pull off the feat of governing and makes me wonder what happened to the people who cover politics? When did they all go off and decide that they were going to throw observable reality into the garbage and adopt this hopelessly parochial, Pollyannaish vision of how governing actually works? Why am I always reading this subliterate nonsense?
For crying in a bucket, Fournier has "what liberal allies wanted" almost perfectly wrong! What "liberal allies" wanted in the first place was for Obama to pull off this post-partisanship! 'Twas those paeans that made Obama a celebrity, among liberals.
Effective politics means "two warring factions solving problems by finding ways in which all sides can declare victory?" Did landmark civil rights legislation not "solve problems?" I am asking because, to date, only one side has declared it a victory. The other side, for decades, has run a political operation explicitly designed to turn out the votes of those who hated that legislation and have continuing grievances concerning it.
"If Obama's agenda fails because Republicans don't bow to his demands, that will be on him." I mean, I can't even take this nonsense. That was the prevailing claim of the pundit class going into the 2012 election, and the electorate very neatly and deliberately did not blame Obama for failing to tame the GOP cray-cray. Instead, it returned him to office even though nearly all the macroeconomic winds, blowing across America, contended against the prospect. It's almost as if the electorate found the GOP's "demands" to be the unreasonable ones.
"Will Obama be able to govern, I don't know? What is happening?" From that question, a million hack columns have been launched, with no end in sight. The terrifying conclusion I've reached is that I do not believe that the political press even understands what's going on in Washington anymore. In fact, the reaction to Obama's inaugural is proof of this, as the Beltway media went on and on describing policy positions that are actually massively popular in America as really difficult reaches because they were super-liberal. Here is a chart that may help in rediscovering that reality [ https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/293842277539921921/photo/1 (next below)].
Because I appear to be one of the few people with an accurate scorecard on how the first nine innings of the "post-partisanship" era were played, allow me to fill in the blanks. Obama has sought, fairly consistently, a lot of very gentlemanly compromises. He bargains and he accommodates, in ways that frequently get him in dutch with his base. When he proposes policy, he includes a lot of time-worn GOP ideas [ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2009/10/29/171026/top-10-reasons-why-republicans-should-support-the-house-health-bill/ ]. He courts GOP support pretty explicitly. Recall, if you will, how long he sought to take Chuck Grassley to the Affordable Care Act prom, as his date. He gladly allows the legislature to pursue parallel policy explorations to his own. Gangs of Six were allowed to work on health care reform, for example.
He nearly pulled off the whole Grand Bargain trick with John Boehner. It foundered only because Boehner's caucus members were unwilling to claim the massive legislative victory that was being dangled in their face -- a deal that would have so thrilled GOP majorities of yore, that they would have probably gone out and invented reggaeton, just to accommodate all the celebrating.
And even when Obama is holding all the leverage he needs, he'll still concede ground. He just did this, in the fiscal cliff fight over tax rates. Knowing that he could get the Bush-era rates repealed for earners making $250,000 and above, he nevertheless agreed to let the line slip upwards to $400,000. He did so knowing that he wasn't bringing home as much revenue as he could. He did so knowing that he may not end up with enough revenue to actually pursue his agenda, or fulfill his campaign promises.
Think about that. That's actually a problem. A problem that all these accommodations, which he cannot seem to get any credit for, have wrought. Similarly, it was Obama who -- stupidly, to my mind -- suggested that it wouldn't be a bad thing to use the occasion of raising the debt ceiling to wrangle a big deficit deal. He's since learned that the smart play is to have no truck with any such negotiations, but sadly, the knowledge came too late. The die is cast, and now we are in a sustained period where we bounce madly from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/congress-debt-ceiling-fiscal-cliff_n_2551627.html ], with no end in sight.
I raise these points to make something explicit: I am only pointing out that Obama pursued the sort of "tone-changing" and "post-partisan" approach that he promised. I am not defending Obama's pursuit of "post-partisanship" as something that I believe has absolute merit.
In fact, I don't want to defend it. I think "partisanship" is just fine, thank you very much. I don't fear heated debates, or even rancorous ones. When the only good things "bipartisanship" accomplishes are the naming of post offices, and the rest is stuff like unchecked warrantless surveillance, or getting rid of the payroll tax holiday during a massive unemployment crisis, or "No Child Left Behind," or the War in Iraq, or the War in Afghanistan, then I say, "Let us have some genuine acrimony, and quickly!"
At least then we can be reminded what is looks like when both sides truly are acrimonious, and stop pretending that the one guy who's gone out of his way to be accommodating is secretly the cause of all the rancor. Must we still contend that all of our ills stem from the fact that Obama didn't make enough overtures to Republicans? Does it really sound like that crew is amenable to such overtures? Ask Dick Lugar for his take on the matter. He has lots of free time now.
And yet, the press lingers languorously over the notion that Obama's the reason that nothing is working. The conventional wisdom surrounding why we are gridlocked usually boils down to a load of mystical piffle about how Obama's not giving good enough speeches, or not winning over opponents who have vowed simply to destroy him, or that everything could be solved by everyone going to dinner with each other or doing some No Labels nonsense like "bipartisan seating."
Thomas Friedman, who drives a lot of this surreal discussion, actually believes that Obama's big problem is that he's not yet managed to use the magic words that apparently, when uttered, unleash all of the sanity and reasonableness that his opponents really have [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/thomas-friedman-dreams-of_n_923354.html ], trapped within themselves. The failure to express the appropriate rhetoric -- words of such sentimental force that they would compel the Grinch to bring back the roast beast, and carve it himself -- is to his mind, a failure of leadership. He honestly believes that Washington is one good speech away from a campfire song that produces the platonic ideal of a 50-year budget projection.
What Obama should be doing in response, Brooks argues, is push for policies that provoke no opposition even from the craziest of the Republicans: “We could do some education reform, expand visa laws to admit more high-skill workers, encourage responsible drilling for natural gas, maybe establish an infrastructure bank.” Brooks argues that these issues would be uncontroversial enough to “erode partisan orthodoxies and get back into the habit of passing laws together.” Then, maybe we could pass some laws under a future president.
Note that solving actual problems is besides the point here. Brooks is almost explicit about this. He begins with the need for initiatives that he thinks will lead to happiness and comity between the parties in Washington, and then comes up with policies that might fit the bill.
So, Brooks thinks the way forward is more activity-masquerading-as-achievement in the short term, and we just give up doing anything of import. Like, say, finally getting around to ameliorating the effects of the 2008 financial crisis.
Chait would also, at this point, direct you to another popular argument, in which Obama's insistence on reasonable compromises just highlights that the GOP is unreasonable, and that this is a vastly unkind thing for Obama to be doing. Those who support such arguments, like Michael Gerson [ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/obamas-sinister-being-reasonable-ploy-exposed.html ], apparently believe that what Obama should do is act like Amy Poehler's "cool mom" character in the movie "Mean Girls," in which her daughter slowly turns into a sociopathic monster, but she's never made to feel bad about it, because that would be "divisive."
This is almost non-thought. Reading such arguments, you run the real-live risk of becoming dumber.
The truth is, it's anybody's guess how Obama will govern over the next four years. John Boehner says his fear is that Obama intends to annihilate the Republican Party [ http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/boehner-obama-to-annihilate-gop-86654.html ], which sounds crazy, but maybe isn't entirely wrong. From Obama's standpoint, preserving the future may boil down to making the case that the GOP has gone bonkers, instead of constantly pretending there is something salvageable and worth compromising with on the other side of the aisle.
But there's still every expectation that he'll continue to be accommodating, as he was during the fiscal cliff negotiations. Remember, it is very possible that Obama would actually prefer to make substantial cuts -- of the sort that the progressive wing of his party will find revolting -- to earned benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security. He just might not be willing to destroy them completely.
The hoped-for break in the fever might come. The GOP might start taking David Frum's advice [ http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo/ ], and start making shrewd deals that enshrine some of their ideas into the framework of legislation. And Boehner might be able to broker deals by returning again and again to the suspension of the "Hastert Rule" and cobbling a majority out of both sides. Alternatively, they may be mired in the gerrymandered, perma-shrill destiny they wrote for themselves.
Either way, it would be nice, if at this new opportunity to reflect and renew, the media people who cover the government get a grip with reality, learn what's actually been happening in this town, and stop bullshitting people for the sake of appearing polite. I'll happily concede that Obama has not succeeded in achieving "post-partisanship." That was a stupid goal to have enunciated, and I'll be thankful if it's never enunciated again.
We may never change the tone in Washington. But I am asking -- begging! -- the Beltway press to at least consider changing the drone in Washington, because it is hurting America.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers [id.]: "I think it is possible that we would shut down the government to make sure President Obama understands that we're serious."
There's no doubt that we're living through a destructive era of purity politics. November's election didn't end it: for a loud minority in American life, compromise is still treason. Nor is this the kind of problem that's solved in a single election. Purity politics have deep roots in American history, and we ought to look back much further than November to understand the real attractions, and the equally real pitfalls, of purism.
It's a tension that dates back to America's founding, and beyond. America's founders were dedicated students of history, and no period moved them more than the ancient Roman Republic. The pivotal player in the Republic's story is largely forgotten today, but he was a guiding light for the founders: the senator, soldier, and Stoic named Marcus Porcius Cato. Early Americans lionized Cato for defending liberty to the death. But Cato, through his influence on the founding, also left behind a tradition of unbending intransigence that shapes our politics to this day.
For revolutionaries facing impossible odds, there were few better role models than this bullheaded Roman martyr, who famously took his own life rather than bow to Caesar's dictatorship. George Washington staged an amateur play on Cato in the middle of the Valley Forge camp. Patrick Henry's famous line on "liberty or death," as well as Nathan Hale's parting words, came from the same play. Samuel Adams and General Washington himself were hailed as the "American Cato," and in the revolutionary era, there was little higher praise.
But while Cato carved immortality out of his refusal to compromise, up to and including his suicide, this same inflexibility damaged his causes in his lifetime and cast a shadow on his legacy.
The Founders missed a critical lesson of Cato's life: his overzealousness in defending Roman liberty hastened its demise. Long before Caesar showed any evidence of dictatorial ambitions, Cato had cast him as a tyrant in the making. In their first recorded encounter, Cato publicly, and falsely, accused Caesar of complicity in a terrorist plot to murder much of the Roman Senate. He goaded a violent mob to attack Caesar. And in the name of liberty, Cato repeatedly filibustered Caesar's popular and moderate land reform plans.
What is more, Cato's stubbornness alienated every ally who might have joined him to oppose Caesar through ordinary political means. Cato's admirable courage and personal uprightness brought him tremendous authority -- but, unfortunately for the Roman Republic, he also helped turn a reformer into a revolutionary.
Even if Caesar had harbored dreams of one-man rule, they would have been difficult to realize in a functioning Republic. But as that government broke down, thanks in large part to Cato, Caesar was free to claim that fractious times demanded a strongman. Cato struck the damning blow against his life's work, and the Republic, when he advised the Senate to reject a face-saving agreement with Caesar and embrace civil war. Dictatorship soon followed.
It would be one thing if the founders, in idolizing Cato, had dismissed his obstinacy as unimportant. To the contrary, they found it integral to Cato's legacy and worthy of emulation. Within years of independence, they were busy casting themselves in the role of Cato and their erstwhile allies in the role of the would-be dictator.
Three years after the Constitution took effect, Alexander Hamilton called the opposition Republicans "the Caesars of the community." Later, Hamilton wrote, "[I]f we have an embryo-Caesar in the United States, 'tis [Aaron] Burr." But when Burr killed Hamilton in a duel, John Adams called the killing as admirable as Caesar's assassination. Not to be left out, Thomas Jefferson passed on a story that Hamilton had privately admitted to admiring Caesar all along.
Cato's inflexible politics, which had seen the Founders through war, proved to be a destructive model in peacetime. The tendency to see our political opponents as enemies of liberty must be counted among the Founders' legacies: handed on from Cato, through them, to us.
Cato's purity won him lasting respect; it also undid his life's work. The Roman example teaches us that rigid principle has always been among the surest routes to authority. Such principle would wish away the complications, dissatisfactions, and occasional ugliness of politics. Purity can paralyze governments, radicalize opponents, and wear down even the strongest republics.
We should learn a more complete lesson from the ancient world than the founders did: prophesy the end of liberty long enough and loudly enough, and your prophecy can become self-fulfilling.
Traveling from tea parties in Texas to "Oath Keeper" rallies in Massachusetts, VICE investigates whether the country is actually on the verge of the 2nd Revolutionary War.
The Department of Homeland Security classifies them as potential "domestic terrorists"; they prefer to be called patriots. As the economic crisis deepens, a growing movement of Americans is rejecting the two-party system and the mainstream media. They believe a violent revolution is imminent, and they're getting ready for it now. VICE correspondent Ryan Duffy crosses the country to meet the people on the front lines of the struggle. They include Alex Jones, a radio talk show host in Austin, Texas who is waking people up to the dangers of the corporate globalists — and has seen traffic on his websites increase dramatically in recent months. We also meet Sgt. Charles Dyer, a U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton who has taken an oath to disobey unconstitutional orders and take up arms against the government if it becomes tyrannical — and is training a citizen militia to do the same.
Bill Maher & Howard Dean Defend Obama Inauguration From GOP Panelists
By Ross Luippold Posted: 01/26/2013 12:11 pm EST | Updated: 01/28/2013 1:28 am EST
On Friday night, Bill Maher hosted his first show of President Obama's second term. But based on the panel discussion which included the liberal former Vermont governor Howard Dean as well as conservatives GOPAC president David Avella and Republican pollster Kristen Soltis, one might think the election was still raging on.
Avella blasted Obama's inauguration speech. After pointing out that Obama made a direct dig at House Republicans by decrying "name-calling" despite doing his own name-calling just a week later, Avella was questioned by Maher exactly what name-calling Obama participated in.
"Well, he talked about right-wing Republicans..." Avella said.
Sixty-seven percent of self-identified Republicans and 39 percent of all of those polled believe the president should be impeached.
While 50 percent of Texans do not support impeaching the president, it is clear that the idea has legs among Republicans. However, as is common with these types of polls, many of those surveyed tend to take the negative option of any question regardless of the context simply because they do not support Obama.
The poll, which was conducted between Jan. 24 and Jan. 27, surveyed 500 Texans by automated telephone interviews. The margin of error is +/-4.4 percent.
This poll is not the only impeachment news to come out of the state.
Earlier this month, Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman released a statement [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/impeach-obama_n_2534121.html ] threatening to file articles of impeachment if Obama signed executive actions on gun control. Stockman backed off of his threat a few days later.
This is the highest his favorability has been since 2009, the first year of his first term, when he received 79 percent positive responses in a similar poll. It's also up from last year's ratings, which found his popularity in the 50 percent range.
In early January, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin made another scary appearance in Drudge Report, the Internet aggregator known for recasting all things ho-hum into something breathless and apocalyptic. Pictures of the two worst mass murderers ever were used above a headline: “White House Threatens ‘Executive Orders’ on Guns.”
Oh, my. And the executive orders? Well, the president called for a safe and responsible gun owner campaign, better coordination and tracking of sales, and research into the causes and prevention of firearms violence, among other small steps.
The Hitler hit was so over-the-top that it prompted the Anti-Defamation League to issue a plea to stop comparisons that are “historically inaccurate and offensive, especially to Holocaust survivors and their families.”
Rush Limbaugh, who sits atop the right-wing media food chain along with Drudge, has compared the president to Hitler for years. On Fox News, Hitler allusions are less overt, but crazy talk about Obama — dating to a 2008 suggestion that Michelle Obama’s playful knuckle bump with her husband may have been “a terrorist fist jab” — is the stock in trade.
The good news is that these people are talking mostly to themselves, from inside the much-ridiculed bubble that burst in spectacular fashion last November, while fewer and fewer voters are listening to them.
Yes, the pyramid of political dissemination is still in place: from Drudge, to Rush, to Fox, to Republican politicians in green rooms, trickling down to all the lesser Drudges and Rushes in the wacko-sphere.
They wheeze and whiff and hyperventilate. They claim there is a war on this, and a war on that (Christmas, God, golf pros). They have one mode: outrage, designed to get the pulse up, to generate a flight or fight reaction. But for all their huffing and puffing, the bloviators of the far right can no longer blow any houses down; most Americans couldn’t care less.
Thus, after a month of gun proposals, an Inaugural Address touting mainstream liberal values and yet another showdown with Republicans in Congress, President Obama just posted a 60 percent favorable [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/01/30/National-Politics/Polling/release_199.xml ] rating in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — his highest numbers in three years. Other polls have him lower, but he’s still more popular than any of the major players active in Washington.
All of which is to say Obama should have saved his breath for stronger targets when he went after the influence that kooks with microphones have on kooks in Congress. We might be able to solve more of our problems, Obama said last week, “if a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest.”
There followed the predictable faux outrage on a certain news network, under accompanied by the chyron: “War on Fox?”
The lash, Mr. President, is now a straw. Witness Limbaugh this week, trying to gin up opposition to bipartisan immigration reform. “It’s up to me and Fox News” to stop it, he said. Drudge did his bit as well, posting a picture of a manacled man, brown-skinned and convict-looking, his exposed abs tattooed with an Obama image, and the headline “Let My People Go.”
Over the last year, Limbaugh has lost significant advertisers and whatever respect he still had among a handful of decent Republicans after he called the Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke “a slut” and “a prostitute.” Many in the press and on the political stage are still afraid of him, but they should remember the words of the late Molly Ivins: being attacked by Limbaugh, said the bard of Texas, “was an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”
In truth, Drudge, though admirable as a bootstrap story, is a tool. Limbaugh is a tool. Fox is a tool. They are used to punish dissidents, people who actually try to govern and a range of enemies. Ken Mehlman, campaign manager for George W. Bush, bragged how he used Drudge to bring down John Kerry in the 2004 election.
But it’s a different era now. In the summer of 2011, House Speaker John Boehner sought Limbaugh’s approval of his insane plan to bring the economy to a halt by holding hostage what had been a routine debt ceiling measure. He made this show of fealty to a professional gasbag before he even revealed it to his conference. You saw how well that worked out, leading to the lowest Congressional approval ratings in the history of modern polling.
And while Mitt Romney played the Drudge Report to help him slay rivals in the primary, the same alliance got him nowhere in the general election.
So yes, Fox and friends can still crush their own, as Obama noted. But that only drives the Republican Party further to the fringes. Virtually everything the broadcast bullies are against — sensible gun measures, immigration reform, raising taxes on the rich — are favored by a majority of Americans.
It makes sense, then, that the logical next step for these folks is to retreat into an actual bubble of brick and mortar — their own city. Glenn Beck has announced plans to build “Independence, U.S.A.,” a sort of new urbanism for paranoids. In that world, at least, all the fantasies of the far right are always true.
The strategy would have states alter the way they translate individual votes into electors -- thereby giving Republican candidates an advantage. Had the 2012 election been apportioned in every state according to these new Republican plans, Romney would have led Obama by at least 11 electoral votes. Here's how:
In the 2012 election, President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 126 electoral votes [and in the final popular vote tally, by 65,899,660 votes, or 51.1 percent, to 60,932,152 votes, or 47.2 percent (about 40% of the way down at {linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83088597 {and preceding and following})].
Within the 26 states that Obama took, Romney won a plurality of votes in 99 congressional districts.
Obama, on the other hand, won only 32 congressional districts in red states.
That seems to be the plan of Republican lawmakers in several battleground states that stubbornly keep going for Democrats during presidential elections. Thanks in part to gerrymandering, many states already have — and will continue to have in the near future — Republican-controlled legislatures.
Republican lawmakers in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin are considering whether to abandon the winner-take-all approach to awarding Electoral College votes and replace it with a proportional allocation.
That change would heavily favor Republican presidential candidates — tilting the voting power away from cities and toward rural areas — and make it more likely that the candidate with the fewest votes over all would win a larger share of electoral votes.
One day I will have to visit the evil lair where they come up with these schemes. They pump them out like a factory. Voter suppression didn’t work in November, and it may even have backfired in some states, so they just devised another devilish plan.
Pete Lund, a Republican state representative in Michigan, “plans to reintroduce legislation that would award all but two of Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes according to congressional district results,” said an article [ http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130125/POLITICS02/301250376/ ] Friday in The Detroit News.
The paper continued, “The remaining two would go to the candidate winning the statewide majority.”
Lund, who proposed a similar bill in 2012, made Republicans’ intentions completely clear, saying, according to the article: “It got no traction last year. There were people convinced Romney was going to win and this might take (electoral) votes from him.”
These bills are a brazen attempt to alter electoral outcomes and chip away at the very idea of democracy, to the benefit of Republican candidates.
The Detroit News also reported that, according to an analysis by Mark Brewer, the state Democratic Party chairman: “Romney would have gotten nine of Michigan’s electoral votes and Obama would have received seven in 2012 under Lund’s proposal. Instead, Obama garnered all 16 Michigan electoral votes en route to his national tally of 332.”
Meanwhile, Obama beat Romney in the state by a margin of nearly 450,000 votes.
Virginia’s bill is further along than Michigan’s. It’s already being debated.
For reference, although Obama won the state of Virginia and all of its electoral votes last year, as he did in 2008, according to The Roanoke Times [ http://blogs.roanoke.com/politics/2013/01/25/gop-sen-smith-opposes-bill-to-allocate-presidential-electoral-votes-by-congressional-district/ ] on Friday, “If the system had been in effect for the 2012 election, Republican Mitt Romney would have won nine of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes, and President Barack Obama would have won four.” Keep in mind that in November, Obama won the state by almost 150,000 votes.
Republicans in Virginia are just as forthright about their intention to tilt the electoral playing field in their favor.
Yes, you read that right: he wants to make the votes cast for the candidate receiving the fewest votes matter more than those cast for the candidate receiving the most. In Republican Bizarro World, where the “integrity of the vote” is a phrase used to diminish urban votes and in which democracy is only sacrosanct if Republicans are winning, this statement actually makes sense.
Luckily, as the Roanoke paper noted Friday, Ralph Smith, the powerful Republican Virginia state senator, isn’t on board:
“Smith said this morning that he opposes the legislation, calling it ‘a bad idea.’ Smith sits on the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, which will hear the bill next week. Without Smith’s support, it’s unlikely the bill could get to the Senate floor.”
Paul Bibeau, who writes “a blog of dark humor” from Virginia, points out [ http://paulbibeau.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-message-to-virginia-gop-from.html ] a numerical oddity about the effects of the Virginia law that turns out, upon reflection, to be more stinging than funny: “This bill counts an Obama voter as 3/5 of a person.”
This is not where we should be in 2013, debating whether to pass bills to reduce urban voters to a fraction of the value of other voters and hoping that someone with the power to stop it thinks it’s a “bad idea.”
The GOP Plan to Take the Electoral-Vote-Rigging Scheme National
Reuters
A Republican operative reveals his initiative to award presidential electors by congressional district in states across the country.
By Molly Ball Jan 25 2013, 11:35 AM ET
Republican legislators in several states have begun pushing to apportion electoral-college votes by congressional district, a move that has Democrats up in arms. Had a similar scheme been in effect in 2012, nationally or in a handful of key states, Mitt Romney could have won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. (David Graham explains the idea, and why it's so controversial, here [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/how-to-win-states-and-disenfranchise-people-the-gops-electoral-vote-plan/272456/ ].)
Up to now, these efforts appear to have sprouted independently as the work of individual lawmakers in Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Virginia plan has passed a state Senate committee and could become law as soon as next week.
But now a Republican operative has a plan to take the idea national.
Jordan Gehrke, a D.C.-based strategist who's worked on presidential and Senate campaigns, is teaming up with Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio Republican secretary of state [the raging shithead Christo-fascist Uncle Tom who stole Ohio for dubya in 2004], to raise money for an effort to propose similar electoral reforms in states across the country, he told me this week.
Gehrke and Blackwell have been talking to major donors and plan to send a fundraising email to grassroots conservatives early next week. The money would go toward promoting similar plans to apportion electoral votes by congressional district in states across the country, potentially even hiring lobbyists in state capitals.
Gehrke isn't saying which states the project might initially target. He says he'd like to see the plan implemented in every state, not just the ones where clever redistricting has given Republicans an edge, and he justifies it in policy, not political terms.
A presidential voting system where the electoral college was apportioned by congressional district might not be perfectly fair, he says, but it would be better than what we have now. It would bring democracy closer to the people, force presidential candidates to address the concerns of a more varied swath of the American populace, and give more clout to rural areas that are too often ignored. And while it might help Republicans in states like Virginia, it could give Democrats a boost in states like Texas. Ideally, this new system, implemented nationally, would strengthen both parties, he claims.
I interviewed Gehrke about the plan and the many objections to it; an edited transcript follows.
Why do this?
What we have currently is a system where there are 10 battleground states and 40 states that don't matter. So all the federal government has to do [to secure the incumbent party's reelection] is buy off people in the 10 states and ignore the issues of the people in the 40. You're asking for a larger, more intrusive federal government -- that's what [the current electoral vote system of] winner-take-all does.
You end up with a situation where on Day 32 of the [2010 Deepwater Horizon] oil spill, Obama has not gone to Louisiana. But on Day 36, when oil starts lapping the shore in Florida, all of a sudden he's down there walking around with [former Florida governor] Charlie Crist. Or you get, in 2000, Bush supposedly running as a free trader -- but he comes out for steel tariffs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, because he's trying to win those states. And then in 2008, when West Virginia is no longer in play, Obama feels free to wage a war on coal.
We should have a system where the people running for president have to worry about what's happening in individual congressional districts. It brings government a lot closer to the people.
If that's your goal, why not just get rid of the electoral college and elect presidents by pure popular vote?
Abolishing the electoral college is not something I support; it's what the Founders intended. This is not abolishing or getting around the electoral college at all. Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution gives exclusive plenary power to state legislatures to award electors in the manner in which they see fit. Massachusetts has changed the way they award their electors multiple times throughout history. There's a letter from Jefferson to the Virginia delegation asking, after he lost to Adams, to change the way they [awarded electors] before the next election.
Already, Maine and Nebraska award their electors in this way, and nobody seems to be outraged about it. The alternative is something like National Popular Vote [an interstate compact currently in place in eight states and D.C. that would award electors to the winner of the overall vote nationally]. It's just not practical -- folks have been trying to do it for years and they need a lot more states to get it done. It's not going to happen anytime soon. This [electoral votes by congressional district plan] is a practical solution to a real problem. State legislators anywhere can simply get together and say, hey, how do I get more attention for my state? How do I make sure every vote counts?
I'm not really here to argue for or against this or that electoral system. All I think we have to prove is that this is better than the current system. The current system's a mess.
Isn't this really a way for Republicans to take advantage of their advantageous 2010 redistricting efforts, which used crazy gerrymandering to give them control of congressional delegations and state legislatures in states where they can't win a majority of the voters, like Virginia?
The question is fairness. We already have a system where you can win the popular vote and lose the election. I'm not saying this is a perfect system; I'm saying that, given that we have a fundamentally imperfect system, this is an improvement. Ultimately, it's very hard to argue that it's better to have a system where presidential candidates can ignore the majority of voters and not address their concerns. I'm not saying our system is perfect, but is this equal or better than what we already have? Do you believe it's acceptable to have, say, 100 million out of 130 million Americans whose votes effectively dont matter? And this other small group whose votes matter more than anybody else's, and that distorts policy outcomes with candidates trying to buy them off?
The common thing you're seeing in those states [where this is being proposed] is that major cities dominate the statewide vote, but meanwhile, people are voting for Republicans in state legislatures, assemblies, and constitutional offices. The divide between rural and urban America has never been bigger in some ways than it is right now. I really think that's what this is about. You've got people in Michigan saying, "Why is it that this is Mitt Romney's home state, yet he only came here [to campaign] one time?" It's the winner-take-all system. "Why should Ohio's votes matter any more than our votes do?" What you're seeing is that in a lot of these states, these guys want more attention paid to them. If you're a Democrat and you just won the presidential election but your state got ignored, you're probably OK with it. If you're a Republican, you're probably a little more bothered by it.
But Virginia, the state that's now looking at passing this, hardly got ignored in the presidential election. It was one of the top swing states.
Well, people in Northern Virginia didn't have any problem being paid attention to, but people in other parts of Virginia certainly did. I think that's what you're seeing [behind this legislation] -- legislators who represent individual districts that have gotten ignored. Look at Ohio, the preeminent battleground state in every single cycle. People in Cleveland get plenty of attention paid to them, but meanwhile, Obama's waging a war on coal in Southeast Ohio. I promise you, there are a lot of guys in Southeast Ohio who wish Obama had to come there and answer their questions and deal with them and ask for their votes. The fact is, he didn't, and it governed his policy in a way that hurt them.
Isn't that just because there aren't as many voters in Southeast Ohio? The reason rural America is losing power just because that's not where the population is anymore, and politicians are going to go where the votes are -- that's democracy.
The difference, though, is that rural and urban America increasingly have different goals, different aspirations, and different goals they use to evaluate candidates. We're seeing a situation where people in Michigan say, wait a minute, why should Detroit always get to pick our candidates? I go to Detroit once a year.
Here's the thing, this is how we already do it [in presidential primaries]. This is not a radical idea. This is why Obama beat Hillary. This is why Santorum was able to stay in [as long as he did against Romney]. He lost Michigan, but he split with Romney in terms of delegates [apportioned by congressional district]. We already do this. We already think this is a perfectly fine way for parties to award their delegates. It's not some newfangled, crazy idea.
I've heard an objection to this idea from some Republicans, who worry that it would have given Obama, for example, an incentive to campaign and turn out voters in their districts, which could hurt reelection chances for Republican members of Congress. Have you heard that objection from your colleagues in the GOP?
The point of this is not to help or hurt Republicans. Competitive elections are a good thing.
I also think this solves the voter-fraud problem. There's a perception that voter fraud happens on both sides -- Democrats believe Republicans do it, Republicans believe Democrats do it, I don't know who does it more or better. The point is, under this system you don't have much of an incentive to steal votes.
Why not? Isn't the incentive to steal votes the same anywhere?
It's a lot harder to steal votes in Sheridan, Michigan, than Detroit, Michigan. Dead people don't vote in Sheridan, Michigan. They do in Detroit.
A lot of Democrats will hear this as racial code -- that you want to disenfranchise urban voters, disproportionately minorities, in the inner cities, while giving more weight to the predominantly white populations of rural areas.
I want to disenfranchise dead people, yes. I believe their franchise ends when they die.
It has nothing to do with race. But I don't believe anybody in politics would tell you with straight face that there isn't some sort of problem with the way the Chicago machine works, going back to Dan Rostenkowski -- a white guy. It's not a race issue, it's about a machine.
You are a Republican operative, though. And it's Republican legislators who are pushing this in all the states where it's come up so far. You can claim this is about policy, but doesn't it really make it easier for Republicans to win presidential elections?
That could be a byproduct, depending on who drew the lines last and who's running -- a lot of different things. What it's really about is making sure that more people in more congressional districts get attention.
I think Democrats in Texas should be all over this. Democrats would probably win 15 electoral votes in Texas. I'm not saying this will always be comfortable for Republicans. I've had lots of Republicans argue with me about this, too. Why shouldn't Democrats in Arizona get their voices heard? Why shouldn't they matter too?
Roxanne Rubin sits for a photo at a neighborhood park, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013, in Las Vegas. Rubin pled guilty after trying to vote twice in the November presidential election in an attempt to make a case for voter ID laws. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
By Luke Johnson Posted: 01/28/2013 10:12 am EST
A Nevada Republican arrested for voter fraud in the 2012 election, after claiming she was trying to test the system's integrity, pled guilty and accepted a plea deal Thursday, forcing her to pay almost $2,500 and promise to stay out of trouble.
Rubin said that she was trying to show how easy it would be to commit voter fraud with just a signature. "This has always been an issue with me. I just feel the system is flawed," she told the AP [ http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2013/01/24/plea-deal-in-voter-fraud-case/ ] Thursday. "If we’re showing ID for everything else, why wouldn’t we show our ID in order to vote?”
Rubin, like many Republicans, claim that the threat from voter fraud -- which is close to non-existent -- is why voter ID laws need to be in place. But Nevada has no voter ID law -- other than for first-time voters [ http://aclunv.org/vote#id ] who didn't show ID when they registered to vote -- and she was caught anyway.
The prosecutor in the case said he knew of no other voters in Nevada or elsewhere arrested for voter fraud.
Rubin's deal requires her to pay $2,481 to the state in restitution, complete 100 hours of community service, stay out of trouble and complete an impulse control course.
A story that should register higher on the political-outrage meter (POM) is a concerted Republican campaign to subvert our democracy by rigging our elections.
As has been well documented, in 2012 Republicans pursued a voter suppression strategy to selectively suppress turnout among Democratic constituencies. The courts, in some instances, struck down these efforts, and resentment toward them may have fueled greater turnout, but the scope of them was breathtaking. If you are interested, read Elizabeth Drew's summary here [ http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/sep/21/voting-wrongs/ ]. This is one of our most astute and balanced observers of our politics for more than 40 years and she doesn’t contain her anger.
Perhaps recognizing the limitations of keeping voters from the polls, Republicans have designed a new strategy for 2016: Selective changes to the electoral college that only favor Republican presidential candidates.
Currently, in all but two states, electoral college votes are allocated on a winner-take-all stasis. Republicans, who for years have toiled to capture the low interest, backwater of U.S. politics, state legislatures, to control redistricting of congressional seats, now want to leverage selectively their advantage to rewrite the rules of presidential elections. Their proposal is to award electoral votes proportionally by congressional district, the very districts they gerrymandered, stuffing as many Democrats as possible into the fewest districts possible. This is how Republicans have solidified their advances in congressional elections; now, in a select number of battleground states where they control the legislatures and the congressional delegations, they want to award electoral votes by congressional district thus off-setting the trends in popular vote favoring Democrats. To see how such a scheme would have changed the 2012 results, check here [ http://bigthink.com/praxis/why-the-democrats-are-doomed-in-2016 ].
Let's call this attempted hijacking of our elections what it is: a continuing and shameless effort by Republicans to fix elections in their favor. “If you can’t win, cheat” is the motto of these thieves of democracy.
GOP Florida House Speaker Blasts Plan To Rig Electoral College
Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford (R)
By Scott Keyes on Jan 25, 2013 at 9:45 am
Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford (R) poured cold water on a Republican plan to rig the Electoral College that is being considered in a number of states to all but ensure that the next president will be a Republican.
A number of states that have voted consistently for Democrats at a national level but are currently controlled by Republicans at a state level, such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, are considering a change [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/24/1488491/how-the-republicans-plan-to-rig-the-next-presidential-race-in-six-pictures/ ] to the way they dole out presidential electoral votes. Currently, every state, except for Nebraska and Maine, uses a winner-take-all system. But a handful of Republican-controlled blue states are looking at a system of appropriating electoral votes by congressional district, based on maps gerrymandered to the GOP’s favor.
Florida, the largest swing state, won’t go along with changing the Electoral College if Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has any say (and he has a major say).
“To me, that’s like saying in a football game, ‘We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth,” Weatherford, a Republican, told the Herald/Times. “I don’t think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better.”
Fellow Republican leader, Senate President Don Gaetz, wasn’t favorable to the plan either. He said he would prefer a more progressive proposal: abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with a national popular vote. Said Gaetz, “The farmer standing in his field in North Dakota should be just as important as the factory worker in Ohio.”
Paul Ryan On Obama's Second Term: GOP Needs To Pick Its Battles
By KEN THOMAS Posted: 01/26/2013 10:37 am EST | Updated: 01/27/2013 3:27 am EST
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Paul Ryan said Saturday that Republicans need to stick together and pick their fights during President Barack Obama's second term, rejecting some White House proposals outright and trying to infuse others with conservative principles.
In a speech to conservatives, the GOP's 2012 vice presidential nominee said Obama would attempt to divide Republicans but that the party must avoid internal squabbles as it seeks to rebound from a second straight presidential loss.
"We can't get rattled. We won't play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united," Ryan said at the National Review Institute event. "We have to show that if given the chance, we can govern. We have better ideas."
The Wisconsin congressman outlined a pragmatic approach for a party dealing with last November's election defeats and trying to determine whether to oppose Obama's agenda at every turn or shape his proposals with conservative principles.
With a surging minority population altering the electorate, Republican leaders have discussed the need to attract more women and Hispanics while at the same time standing firm to the values that unite conservatives.
The party's future was a major theme during the three-day meeting of conservatives activists, who expected to hear from Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Ryan rejected the notion that Republicans were "in the wilderness," noting that the party controls the House and most statehouses. But he said Obama's victory over Mitt Romney meant that Republicans would need to recalibrate their approach to deal with the new political realities.
"If we want to promote conservatism, we'll need to use every tool at our disposal," Ryan said. "Sometimes, we will have to reject the president's proposals - that time may come more than once. And sometimes we'll have to make them better." He said Republicans should have two main goals for the next four years, namely "to mitigate bad policies" and "to advance good policy wherever we can."
Ryan acknowledged that "we all didn't see eye to eye" on the recent "fiscal cliff" vote to deal with a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes that were set to take effect at the start of the year. He defended his support for the bill, saying it was the only way to avoid sweeping tax increases and prevent the economy from going into a free-fall.
As chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan said Republicans needed to guard against a debt crisis for the country that would undermine the economy. He said he would promote changes to Medicare and Medicaid and would propose a budget "that will balance and pay down the debt."
But November's election results still linger. Ryan said he was "disappointed" by the outcome, saying he was "looking forward to taking on the big challenges" while living at the vice president's residence. "My kids were looking forward to having a pool," he joked.
Jindal did not mention Ryan by name, and a Jindal spokesman e-mailed to dispute this interpretation (see below), but the 41-year old governor spoke mockingly of Republicans who are "in love with zeroes" as he urged conservatives to stop focusing on Washington and to "re-orient our focus to the place where conservatism thrives – in the real world beyond the Washington Beltway."
Ryan, 42, the Republican House Budget Committee Chairman from Wisconsin, is nothing if not a wonk, and he has made his mark in the GOP - and was chosen by Mitt Romney to be his running mate last year - largely because of his work crafting a Republican budget proposal and because of his expertise on the ins and outs of the federal budget process, as well as the health care realm.
Jindal and Ryan are both top GOP prospects to run for president in 2016. And Jindal seemed to be taking clear aim at Ryan in his remarks, with passages in his speech like this:
Today’s conservatism is completely wrapped up in solving the hideous mess that is the federal budget, the burgeoning deficits, the mammoth federal debt, the shortfall in our entitlement programs…even as we invent new entitlement programs.
We seem to have an obsession with government bookkeeping.
This is a rigged game, and it is the wrong game for us to play.
And this:
Today’s conservatism is in love with zeroes.
We think if we can just unite behind a proposal to cut the deficit and debt…if we can just put together a spreadsheet and a power point and a TV ad….all will be well.
This obsession with zeroes has everyone in our party focused on what? Government.
By obsessing with zeroes on the budget spreadsheet, we send a not-so-subtle signal that the focus of our country is on the phony economy of Washington – instead of the real economy out here in Charlotte, and Shreveport, and Cheyenne.
We as Republicans have to accept that government number crunching – even conservative number crunching – is not the answer to our nation’s problems.
We also must face one more cold hard fact – Washington is so dysfunctional that any budget proposal based on fiscal sanity will be deemed ‘not-serious’ by the media, it will fail in the Senate, and it won’t even make it to the President’s desk where it would be vetoed anyway.
Jindal made sure to not completely dismiss Ryan and other Republicans in Washington, with this section:
Yes, we certainly do need folks in Washington who will devote themselves to the task of stopping this President from taking America so far off the ledge that we cannot get back.
We must do all we can to stop what is rapidly becoming the bankrupting of our federal government.
But we as conservatives must dedicate our energies and our efforts to growing America, to growing the American economy, to showing the younger generations how America can win the future.
But by and large, these portions of Jindal's speech were a statement that the work being done in Washington, and those Republicans doing it, are bit players. The implication then is that governors are the ones doing the real work to advance conservative principles and to show the effectiveness of their ideas.
Spokesmen for Ryan and Jindal did not respond to e-mails asking for comment.
The Governor has been clear that it is the job of Republicans to be fiscally responsible and balance the budget.
Paul Ryan has been doing more serious work in that vein than anyone in government and the Governor is grateful for it.
Paul is a friend of the Governor's and has his full-throated support.
The Governor made clear that fiscal conservatism and stopping President Obama's spending is vital.
His point is that budget balancing is a tool, not an agenda or a vision for a party. We have to have an agenda that is bigger than the numbers in the federal budget.
Paul Ryan Breaks Down Under Wonkterrogation [Updated]
Well, heck! If you wanna ... if you wanna play games here ...
By Jonathan Chait January 26, 2013 at 8:34 AM
Paul Ryan’s great genius has not merely been that he has united conservative Republicans around a single vision — several Republicans have done this before — but that he has simultaneously persuaded moderates that he shares their beliefs as well. That is how Ryan has pitched himself to America, not as a right-wing ideologue but as a thoughtful numbers guy. Literally every piece of evidence in Ryan’s career — from his formative infatuation with Ayn Rand to his indoctrination in the works of supply-siders to his mentorships under Jack Kemp and Sam Brownback to his entire voting record in public life [ http://nymag.com/news/features/paul-ryan-2012-5/ ] — says that Ryan is a hard-core supply-sider whose overarching goal is to reduce tax rates on the rich, far more than it is to bring budget deficits to heel. Nevertheless, Ryan has managed to persuade legions of moderates and moderate conservatives — see James Stewart [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/business/lots-of-accolades-but-little-action-on-budget-plan-common-sense.html?pagewanted=all ], Ruth Marcus [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/paul-and-barack-talk-medicare/2011/05/31/AGv8OlFH_story.html ], and Ross Douthat [ http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/paul-ryan-and-tax-policy/ ], to take a few examples — that he is secretly willing to raise tax revenue as part of some bipartisan agreement.
Ryan usually manages to elide the contradiction between the irreconcilable hopes placed in him by evading questioning, using weasel words, or just filibustering long enough to exhaust the topic. That’s what makes his talk Wednesday [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/23/what-happened-when-i-asked-paul-ryan-why-he-hates-taxes/ ] with Ezra Klein and other reporters so interesting. Ryan tried to evade the question, but Klein wouldn’t let him until Ryan had made it perfectly clear he would not accept higher revenue at all, under any conditions.
The conversation is worth close examination, because Ryan simply hurls up nonsensical rationales one after another, and finally offers his actual reason when he has run out of gibberish. Ryan begins by pledging his abiding fear of a “debt crisis,” but insists he won’t accept higher revenue, even in return for spending cuts. Ryan replies:
“They already got their revenues,” Ryan said. “So what, we’ll roll over and they get more revenues? That’s not how it works. In the spirit of bipartisan compromise, they’ve gotten revenue increases already. We’ve yet to get anything as a result of it. It used to be 3 to 1. Isn’t that what Erskine says? $3 of spending cuts to every dollar of tax increase. The president in his own budget last year claimed 2.5 to 1. We’d argue with whether they actually achieved that, but where’s the 3? Where’s the 2.5? Where’s the $1.8 trillion in cuts?”
It is true — there was a $620 billion tax increase at the beginning of the year. On the other hand, there were $2.2 trillion in spending cuts in 2011. So you could just as easily say Republicans already got their spending cuts and there should be no more, right? Ryan replies:
“That was last session,” Ryan said. “We’re going forward now.”
In fact, the $620 billion was also last session. In any case, notice how fast Ryan has flipped his logic. First he asserts that there can’t be more revenue because we already increased some revenue. When reminded that we cut spending even more, he says it’s “last session” and irrelevant. I did not attend this meeting, so I don’t know how many seconds passed between Ryan insisting that a budget agreement in the last Congress inherently rules out a similar action and Ryan insisting that agreements in the last Congress are totally irrelevant to what happens going forward. It couldn’t have been many.
There’s more! Klein then asks what evidence he has that taking “another $600 billion or $700 billion out of tax expenditures” would harm the economy. Tax expenditures mean eliminating tax deductions for specific things, rather than raising rates. Here’s Ryan’s reply:
“I think rates matter,” Ryan replied. “I think the statutory rate matters at the end of the day.”
Note that this is not the premise of the question at all. He was asked about reducing tax deductions, leaving rates in place, and stated he wouldn’t do it because he likes low rates.
Klein then transcribes the resulting exchange:
“But you could have the same or lower rate there,” I said. After all, if you’re closing loopholes, the top marginal tax rate doesn’t change.
“I don’t know about that,” said Ryan. “Remember, we have to write these things statically. We don’t use macroeconomic feedback on the Joint Tax Committee.”
“But if you capped deductions at $15,000,” I pressed, “that wouldn’t change rates.”
Ryan didn’t budge. “You have to decide where you want to cap deduction or which deductions stay or go, what will pass, and what the resulting rates will be.
Here Ryan is descending into word salad, which impresses observers because he is using terms that pertain to tax policy — “statically,” “Joint Tax Committee” — but he is not using them in a way that makes any sense. The fact is that you could increase tax revenue by capping deductions, without increasing rates, or even with lowering rates. Ryan would know — he ran for vice-president promising to do exactly that! Here’s Paul Ryan explaining how the thing he now derides as impossible would work [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOyHwqi5rSY (next below, as embedded)]:
Rather than raise tax rates on individuals and businesses that are the source of job creation and economic growth in America, here’s what I would propose as an alternative: Take away their tax breaks. Take away the deductions, take away the loopholes. By taking away tax loopholes, which primarily benefit the well off, which are Washington picking winners and losers in the economy, what we’re doing is subjecting more of their income to taxation, albeit at a lower tax rate.
The difference, of course, is that Ryan and Romney wanted to take all the revenue they raised and use it to reduce tax rates. Democrats are suggesting instead to use some of the revenue to reduce the deficit, in return for spending cuts. Ryan now says it can’t work — that you can’t reduce tax expenditures without raising rates.
Ryan proceeds to insist he won’t trade revenue for spending cuts because such a deal is inherently a trick:
The other problem I’ve noticed — and this is just experience from my fifteen years in Congress — every time you give a little revenue, it just goes to spending. The spending cuts are always later and the revenue gets pocketed. It’s one of those fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
In fact, as Klein notes, Ryan’s belief that revenue just gets “pocketed” is false [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/24/the-gops-worst-cliff-myth/ ]. But you don’t even need evidence to see that. It’s silly as a matter of logic. Ryan is arguing for getting Obama to agree to spending cuts. He obviously thinks those cuts are real. Would it somehow make the cuts not real if they’re attached to revenue increases?
[Update: I have a transcript now, and Ryan was asked this very thing. ("If you have a bill that has real spending cuts in it and you add $700 billion of revenues, does that mean that the spending cuts aren’t real anymore?") Ryan's reply: "Well, look, I’m not going to get into that." Yes, why get into the inherent logical fallacy that undergirds your entire argument?]
Ryan then circled back to his “we already increased revenue” point, and then got to his real position: “And by the way, I think that revenue level is way too high, I don’t see how you get there.” After that, he changed the subject to corporate tax reform, where both sides want a revenue-neutral overhaul, which is therefore irrelevant. But the final confession is the tell. Ryan opposes more revenue because he thinks revenue is too high. He would like to cut spending, but keeping taxes low is the maximal priority.
WASHINGTON -- The nation's sharp disagreements over taxes and spending are on a re-routed collision course, as Senate Democrats launch a plan that includes new taxes and House Republicans vow to speed up their plan to balance the federal budget with spending cuts alone.
The Republicans' new approach would require even deeper cuts in social programs than they pushed last year. Liberals denounced those earlier plans as severe and unfair, and they say the new version would be worse.
The new commitments by House and Senate members stem from the ongoing dispute over raising the federal debt ceiling. The House voted Wednesday to postpone any showdown over the borrowing limit for three months. The Democratic-led Senate plans to endorse the idea, which the White House also supports.
That means the next big budget clash will occur in March. That's when major, across-the-board spending cuts – both parties dislike them – are scheduled to begin unless they are replaced by a different deficit-cutting technique.
It's possible that both parties will continue to find ways to postpone and minimize tough decisions on taming the deficit. But the new House and Senate endeavors could make such dodges more difficult. Voters, meanwhile, may get a clearer picture of the unpleasant choices they face.
"The American people will have a chance to compare the two approaches," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who wants deep spending cuts and no new taxes. The only way to shrink the government, he said, "is to choke the monster."
House Republicans now vow to balance the budget in 10 years without tax hikes. They say the methods might include reducing future benefits for Medicare, and possibly Social Security, for people now in their late 50s, rather than those 55 and younger.
The search for savings must "move over into entitlement spending" more so than before, said Rep. John Fleming, R-La.
Balancing the budget in 10 years without tax increases would require deep spending cuts, causing many analysts to view them as politically near-impossible. Such an effort would require cuts "that are a complete nonstarter for anybody – probably even including House Republicans themselves," said Michael Ettlinger, an economist at the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress.
But House conservatives say aiming for that goal is important. They demanded this week that GOP leaders agree to balance the budget in 10 years as the conservatives' price for supporting the three-month extension of federal borrowing powers.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called the new Republican goal "Ryan on steroids." She was referring to earlier Republican budgets drafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, the party's 2012 vice presidential nominee.
Ryan's earlier plans would have changed Medicare into a voucher-like program with limited government contributions to health care for seniors. His plans, endorsed by most House Republicans, also would have given states full responsibility for running Medicaid – the health care program for the poor – with a reduced federal contribution.
Even with those changes, Ryan's 2011 and 2012 plans would not have balanced the federal budget for decades.
As part of the deal putting off the debt limit showdown, the Democratic-run Senate made concessions of its own: It agreed to debate and pass a budget for the first time in three years. That exercise will force senators to commit themselves to politically distasteful spending cuts and tax increases that they previously had avoided.
Democrats, including President Barack Obama, say new tax revenues must be part of any eventual bipartisan budget accord.
"As we go forward to reduce the deficit, we need growth and job creation, we need spending cuts, we need revenue," Pelosi said during Wednesday's House debate.
Democrats say new limits on tax breaks that mostly go to high-income households could generate billions of dollars in revenue.
But Republican leaders, noting that Democrats achieved a 10-year, $600 billion revenue hike as part of the "fiscal cliff" compromise earlier this month, say further tax hikes are off the table.
The Republicans' "no new taxes" mantra has clashed many times with Democrats' vows to protect government programs. The result, for years, has been deficit spending.
The latest House and Senate decisions will merely heighten that debate.
Democratic senators, no longer able to sidestep budget details, are certain to renew their push for tax increases to accompany further spending cuts. And House Republicans have made their deficit-reduction goals harder to achieve by promising to balance the budget in 10 years instead of, say, 30.
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON Published: January 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — Republican governors are moving aggressively to cut personal and corporate income taxes, including proposals that would increase reliance on state sales taxes, setting up ambitious experiments in tax reform that could shape what is possible on a national level.
Even as Washington continues to discuss, if not act, on ideas for making the federal tax system simpler and more efficient, governors, some with an eye on the next presidential race, are taking advantage of the improving economy and a gradual rebound in revenues to act.
Along the way these governors are taking small first steps into a debate over what kind of tax system most encourages growth in a 21st-century economy. In particular they are focusing attention on the idea, long championed by conservatives but accepted up to a point by economists of all stripes, that the economy would be better served by focusing taxation on consumption rather than on income.
Taxing consumption has the potential to lift economic growth by encouraging more savings and investment. But the shift could also increase inequality by reducing taxes predominantly for the wealthy, who spend a smaller share of their income than middle- and lower-income people.
“The question of whether we should tax income or whether we should tax spending is really a proxy for a different debate,” said Joseph Henchman, vice president for state projects at the Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning research organization. “Everyone agrees we’ll get more growth with consumption taxes. It’s just that some people prioritize fairness.”
Beyond citing economic growth, the governors and their supporters say their plans would help make their states more competitive in attracting employers and high-skilled workers, simplify their tax systems and curb pressure for more government spending.
For Mr. Jindal and other Republican governors who are considering a presidential run in 2016, there are obvious political benefits to having a robust income tax-cutting record to present to conservative primary voters.
But Democrats say the approach would lead to cutbacks in education, health care and other vital services while shifting relatively more of the tax burden to those who can least afford it.
“These aren’t pro-growth policies — they’re shell games that reward the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else,” said Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association.
Nationwide, sales taxes account for about 46 percent of state revenues, and personal and corporate income taxes for about 42 percent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. States with relatively low income tax rates like Louisiana, which raises about $3 billion a year from its personal and corporate income tax system, can more easily shift toward a sales tax-only system than states with much higher rates, like New York or California.
Louisiana already has the nation’s third-highest sales tax, after Tennessee and Arizona. Combined state and local sales taxes average 8.84 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.
It is not clear whether any of the proposals will make it into law; even in states with Republican-dominated legislatures, governors face difficulty as they pursue their proposals because changing the tax code almost invariably creates losers as well as winners. In Kansas, Mr. Brownback wants to pay for lower income tax rates in part by making permanent what had originally been a temporary sales tax increase, but also by eliminating deductions for property taxes and mortgage interest, setting off objections even in his own party.
And just as President Obama has raised income tax rates on upper-income families, Democratic governors including Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Jerry Brown of California and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts have supported or put in place income tax increases on the wealthy.
“I don’t believe greater reliance on the sales tax is likely to be a broad trend in the country, although we may see it in some places,” said Donald J. Boyd, a senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. “In recent years voters and politicians have generally shown in a variety of ways that they have been more willing to support tax increases on higher-income taxpayers than on the broad populace.”
The shift toward sales taxes in some states is incremental, and nowhere near the scale or complexity that would characterize adoption of a federal consumption tax.
Still, the results could resonate in other states and in Washington. Nearly all other wealthy countries have some version of a national consumption tax.
The debates going on in the states, said R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the business school at Columbia University and a former top adviser to President George W. Bush, “offer suggestions for federal tax reform, too.” He cited proposals for marrying a broad-based national consumption tax with a wage tax on high earners to address concerns about fairness.
Mr. Jindal, whose status as a likely candidate for the White House in 2016 has drawn particular attention to his proposal, has signaled that he wants his plan to be revenue neutral, meaning that every dollar of revenue lost from eliminating the personal and corporate income tax would have to be made up elsewhere. The only viable source for making up most of the money is raising the state’s sales tax.
He has not yet settled on any specifics for changing the sales tax, and his aides say he would include safeguards to assure that lower-income people were not made worse off.
By focusing on sales tax revenue, Mr. Jindal has also opened up a fundamental issue in an Internet-heavy economy. Sales taxes were developed in an era when sales of physical goods dominated the economy, and they exempt many services, which now account for a majority of spending.
Hair spray is taxed, but not haircuts. So if states — or one day the federal government — want to shift toward a truly broad-based consumption tax, they would have to expand the definition of what should be taxable.
Officials in Louisiana have indicated that Mr. Jindal is at least open to looking at a broader sales tax that included some services.
“If the sales tax is going to stay a viable source of revenues for state governments, you have to bring in services,” Mr. Henchman said. “It’s not just haircuts and tattoo parlors. It’s lawyers and accountants and real estate agents.”
Republicans have a problem. For years they could shout down any attempt to point out the extent to which their policies favored the elite over the poor and the middle class; all they had to do was yell “Class warfare!” and Democrats scurried away. In the 2012 election, however, that didn’t work: the picture of the G.O.P. as the party of sneering plutocrats stuck, even as Democrats became more openly populist than they have been in decades.
As a result, prominent Republicans have begun acknowledging that their party needs to improve its image. But here’s the thing: Their proposals for a makeover all involve changing the sales pitch rather than the product. When it comes to substance, the G.O.P. is more committed than ever to policies that take from most Americans and give to a wealthy handful.
Mr. Jindal posed the problem in a way that would, I believe, have been unthinkable for a leading Republican even a year ago. “We must not,” he declared, “be the party that simply protects the well off so they can keep their toys. We have to be the party that shows all Americans how they can thrive.” After a campaign in which Mitt Romney denounced any attempt to talk about class divisions as an “attack on success [ http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/sep/05/julian-castro/julian-castro-says-mitt-romney-advised-college-stu/ ],” this represents a major rhetorical shift.
But Mr. Jindal didn’t offer any suggestions about how Republicans might demonstrate that they aren’t just about letting the rich keep their toys, other than claiming even more loudly that their policies are good for everyone.
Meanwhile, back in Louisiana Mr. Jindal is pushing a plan to eliminate the state’s income tax [ http://www.itep.org/pdf/LATaxSwapAnalysis.pdf ], which falls most heavily on the affluent, and make up for the lost revenue by raising sales taxes, which fall much more heavily on the poor and the middle class. The result would be big gains for the top 1 percent, substantial losses for the bottom 60 percent. Similar plans are being pushed by a number of other Republican governors [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/us/politics/republican-governors-push-taxes-on-sales-not-income.html (just above)] as well.
Like the new acknowledgment that the perception of being the party of the rich is a problem, this represents a departure for the G.O.P. — but in the opposite direction. In the past, Republicans would justify tax cuts for the rich either by claiming that they would pay for themselves or by claiming that they could make up for lost revenue by cutting wasteful spending. But what we’re seeing now is open, explicit reverse Robin Hoodism: taking from ordinary families and giving to the rich. That is, even as Republicans look for a way to sound more sympathetic and less extreme, their actual policies are taking another sharp right turn.
Why is this happening? In particular, why is it happening now, just after an election in which the G.O.P. paid a price for its anti-populist stand?
Well, I don’t have a full answer, but I think it’s important to understand the extent to which leading Republicans live in an intellectual bubble. They get their news from Fox and other captive media, they get their policy analysis from billionaire-financed right-wing think tanks, and they’re often blissfully unaware both of contrary evidence and of how their positions sound to outsiders.
So when Mr. Romney made his infamous “47 percent” remarks, he wasn’t, in his own mind, saying anything outrageous or even controversial. He was just repeating a view that has become increasingly dominant inside the right-wing bubble, namely that a large and ever-growing proportion of Americans won’t take responsibility for their own lives and are mooching off the hard-working wealthy. Rising unemployment claims demonstrate laziness, not lack of jobs; rising disability claims [ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/from-welfare-queens-to-disabled-deadbeats/ ] represent malingering, not the real health problems of an aging work force.
And given that worldview, Republicans see it as entirely appropriate to cut taxes on the rich while making everyone else pay more.
Now, national politicians learned last year that this kind of talk plays badly with the public, so they’re trying to obscure their positions. Paul Ryan, for example, has lately made a transparently dishonest attempt to claim that when he spoke about “takers” living off the efforts of the “makers” — at one point he assigned 60 percent of Americans to the taker category — he wasn’t talking about people receiving Social Security and Medicare. (He was.)
But in deep red states like Louisiana or Kansas, Republicans are much freer to act on their beliefs — which means moving strongly to comfort the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted.
Which brings me back to Mr. Jindal, who declared in his speech that “we are a populist party.” No, you aren’t. You’re a party that holds a large proportion of Americans in contempt. And the public may have figured that out.
Wages Recover For Top One Percent, While Stagnating For Most Workers
The wages of the top one percent have rebounded strongly during the economic recovery, while most workers' wages have stagnated.
By Bonnie Kavoussi Posted: 01/27/2013 10:47 am EST
If you feel the economic recovery hasn't helped your pocketbook much, it's not just your imagination.
The annual wages of the bottom 90 percent of workers [ http://www.epi.org/publication/ib347-earnings-top-one-percent-rebound-strongly/ ] declined by 1.2 percent between 2009 and 2011 when adjusted for inflation, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Meanwhile, the top one percent's wages rose 8.2 percent during the same time period by the same measure.
Nearly Half Of American Households Are 1 Emergency Away From Financial Disaster, Report Finds
By Jillian Berman Posted: 01/30/2013 12:01 am EST | Updated: 01/30/2013 4:35 pm EST
Kevin Price is one emergency away from not being able to cover his basic needs, but he doesn’t fit the stereotype of someone living on the financial edge.
Price lives in a three-bedroom house with his wife and two children in a suburb of Wilmington, Del. The family owns two cars, the kids participate in high school sports, and they all attend church services regularly. Price works full-time, as does his wife, and thanks to her job, the family has access to health insurance. But after covering rent, the cost of insurance for Price, his wife and their two children and other basic expenses, the couple had just $223 left in the bank in January.
Of his precarious financial situation, Price, 44, said, “It’s like Muzak in the back of your head. It’s a constant little annoyance.”
Price and his family aren’t alone in dealing with this constant threat. Nearly 44 percent of American households don’t have enough savings to cover their basic expenses for three months in the event of a financial emergency like losing a job or paying for unexpected medical care, according to a recent report [ http://assetsandopportunity.org/scorecard/ ] from the Corporation for Enterprise Development. That figure has changed little from last year, the Assets and Opportunity Scorecard found.
“These are households and individuals that are living paycheck-to-paycheck. And without savings, you’re one misstep away from financial disaster,” Justin King, federal policy liaison for the New America Foundation, told The Huffington Post.
The Great Recession and its aftermath brought the plight of Americans facing financial insecurity to the forefront, Andrea Levere, president of the CFED, told The Huffington Post.
“It’s really a mainstream issue,” Levere said. “The good piece about this recession is that this issue isn’t just about 'those poor people,' it’s about half of us.”
Many of the Americans living on the financial edge are employed and living a middle-class lifestyle, the report found. Three-quarters are employed full-time and more than 15 percent earn more than $55,000 per year, according to the Assets and Opportunity Scorecard. The median household income in the U.S. [ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html ] was $52,762 between 2007 and 2011, according to the Census Bureau.
There are a variety of reasons why so many Americans with full-time jobs and relatively high incomes are risk: They’re coping with stagnating wages and rising prices. This group is also navigating a banking system that subsidizes wealth-building programs -- like homeownership and retirement accounts -- that are geared towards the wealthy but don't offer the same boost to poor and middle-class savers, the report noted [ http://assetsandopportunity.org/scorecard/ ].
“The big economic trends of the last 20, 30 years are stagnating wages. Other costs are rising substantially -- income and wealth are concentrated at the top of the ladder,” King said. “Everything is more expensive, and they’ve got the same size paycheck to pay for it all.”
In addition to stagnant wages and high costs of living, many Americans are also struggling to pay for financial services, sometimes turning to non-traditional money lenders that can charge high fees. Critics say the lack of financial products available for lower- and middle-income Americans sends the message that savings shouldn't be a priority, unless you're already rich.
“We tell wealthy people to save and we’ll reward you for it, and we tell middle-class and lower-class folks -- don’t even bother because there’s nothing in it for you,” King said.
Price is one of those Americans looking to save, but he doesn’t have the means quite yet, he said. He and his wife both have checking accounts, but they don’t have a savings account. As for other forms of wealth-building, Price said his wife just has a small 401k retirement account. The millions of households like Price’s that are struggling to spend and save enough to invest in their future present “very significant consequences for economic growth,” Levere said.
“These folks should be the backbone of the economy, but they’re living scared right now,” King said. “People are focused first on making ends meet.”
Chris Christie Vetoes Minimum Wage Increase, Proposes Smaller One
By Hilary Russ Posted: 01/28/2013 3:24 pm EST | Updated: 01/28/2013 6:58 pm EST
Jan 28 (Reuters) - New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie on Monday conditionally vetoed legislation that would increase the state's minimum wage to $8.50 per hour from $7.25 and tie it to the consumer price index.
Instead, Christie proposed a smaller rate increase to be phased in over three years, without linking future wage hikes to the index. Democratic leaders vowed to send their proposal to voters in November elections.
Calling the bill "lopsided," Christie said in his veto letter to the state's Democrat-led legislature that its wage hike would doom small businesses.
"The sudden, significant minimum-wage increase in this bill, coupled with automatic raises each year tied to the Unites States consumer price index, will jeopardize the economic recovery we all seek," he wrote.
Christie sent the bill back to lawmakers, suggesting a $0.25 per hour increase immediately, with an increase next year of $0.50 and a final raise of $0.25 in the third year.
He also said the legislation should include an increase to the benefit amounts provided under the state's Earned Income Tax Credit program.
Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver said in a statement that the conditional veto was "unacceptable."
"Any proposal that lacks annual adjustments to ensure wages keep pace with the economy is not a real solution," she said.
She said lawmakers have the simple majority of votes they need to put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide in November.
On Jan. 1, ten U.S. states increased their minimum wage rates by between 10 and 35 percent. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this month proposed an increase of the state's minimum wage to $8.75 an hour from $7.25.
The GOP has emphasized its need to change communication styles. AP Photo
By JAMES HOHMANN | 1/26/13 7:02 AM EST
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Republican Party honchos who huddled here for their first big gathering since the election devoted lots of time talking about the need to welcome Latinos and women, close the technology gap with Democrats and stop the self-destructive talk about rape.
But the party’s main problem, dozens of Republican National Committee members argued in interviews over three days this week, is who delivers its message and how, not the message itself. Overwhelmingly they insisted that substantive policy changes aren’t the answer to last year’s losses.
Moderation, at least at this stage, is no virtue at the RNC.
“It’s not the platform of the party that’s the issue,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Friday after being easily reelected to a second, two-year term. “In many cases, it’s how we communicate about it. It is a couple dumb things that people have said.”
A slide presented during a closed-press strategy session said that Mitt Romney might be president if he had won fewer than 400,000 more votes in key swing states.
“We don’t need a new pair of shoes; we just need to shine our shoes,” said West Virginia national committeewoman Melody Potter.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a luncheon crowd that the GOP is at “a turning point” and needs “real change.”
Then he clarified: “It’s not about ideology…The people on the left are the people on the left, and they ask us to come to them – which is absurd…Obama’s a hard core left-winger. I want him to compromise with us on our terms.”
Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett said the key to a GOP turnaround is to catch up with Democrats technologically.
“Listen, we’re a conservative party. I’m proud of that,” he said. “They were on the ground for four years in Ohio. We didn’t pick up what they were doing in that four-year period, and they were pretty damn effective.”
A big focus of the four-day session, which wraps up Saturday, was adopting a more positive attitude – and smiling! – when interacting with voters and reporters. New Hampshire chairman Wayne MacDonald said party leadings need to work on “not being sour-pusses on television or the radio” – that there is a way to be firm and assertive without being mean-spirited.
“Nobody is saying the Republican Party has to change our beliefs in any of our platform planks,” he said. “This party wants to serve everybody that believes in our principles.”
Many of the 168 elected members of the committee brought up the comments about rape by GOP Senate candidates Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana. Each lost, even as Romney won both states handily.
“On some things, we have the right policy and do a terrible job conveying it. And the Democrats have a bad policy and do a great job,” said Mississippi Republican Chairman Joe Nosef.
“So conservatives feel like, whether this is right or wrong, that if we’re talking about the issues, that we have a really good chance at winning. The thing we can’t do is start talking about crazy stuff… We run people off… A collective number of these people are tired of doing that.”
“I feel like a pro-life position is a position that a lot of people have, but that doesn’t have anything to do with crazy talk about rape,” he added.
Behind closed doors, party bigwigs discussed “strategic partnerships” with blacks, Asians, Hispanics and women. There was talk about developing a “comfort factor” so that minorities feel they are part of the process.
“Actually our principles are more conducive to minorities than the Democrats,” said Holland L. Redfield II, the Virgin Island’s national committeeman.
Former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, now Kentucky’s representative on the committee, recalled the soul-searching that occurred after the 1992, 1996 and 2008 elections. He sees the chance to experiment with new forms of outreach ahead of the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey this year.
“The principles are sound,” he said. “Enlarging the map means reaching out to a lot more people and having a consistent dialogue with those people… It’s inviting them in. It’s communicating with them in the proper forums: it’s not just language but where they’re reading. It’s explaining the values to them.”
The widespread belief in the halls of the Westin Charlotte was that the pendulum will inevitably swing back the party’s way, just as it has in the past.
“In some respects, obviously, we have to look at things that didn’t work well,” said Curly Haugland, the national committeeman from North Dakota – a red state where Democrat Heidi Heitkamp won the U.S. Senate race. “But we actually have no shortage of successes around the country.”
He’s confident that Obama will overreach now that he’s secured reelection – and that this will drive voters to Republicans in the 2014 midterms.
“This administration is a socialist administration. There’s no question about it,” Haugland said. “America’s not a socialist country.”
Priebus convened a group to review what went wrong in 2012. Its members announced Thursday that they will not offer specific policy recommendations in their March report.
Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, noted that some Republican governors have won much higher percentages of minority groups than national candidates. Tone makes a difference, he said.
“It is a tale of two parties,” he said. “There’s a lot of success out there built around people who fundamentally have the same world view as the federal candidates.”
In fact, some border-state governors hold dramatically different views on the best approach to immigration than Romney and congressional leaders. And Romney’s view was much more hard-line than George W. Bush’s in 2004.
Mississippi national committeeman Henry Barbour, Haley’s nephew and one of the co-chairs of the review, said he read a 30-page paper written by a Democratic group in 1989 in the wake of Michael Dukakis’ loss. At a press conference, he marveled at the hand-wringing in light of the fact that Bill Clinton would win four years later.
Washington Examiner columnist Byron York, in the audience, interjected to note that Democrats went through wrenching changes in the wake of that defeat. Indeed, Clinton moved the party back toward the middle after more than a decade of being stranded in the out-of-touch liberal wilderness during the Reagan years.
For his part, Priebus warned against becoming “little more than watered-down Democrats.” He said the party should “stop talking about ‘reaching out’ and start working on ‘welcoming in.’”
“We can stand by our timeless principles and articulate them in ways that are modern, relevant to our time and relatable to the majority of voters,” he said. “That, I believe, is how we’ll achieve a Republican renewal.”
In discussing minority outreach, Priebus continued to stress that Hispanics and African Americans “have struggled disproportionately in the Obama economy.” That was a common – but ineffective – Republican refrain through 2012.
“When it comes to young people, when it comes to new African-American leaders, Hispanic leaders, we really have done an incredible job over the last few years,” said Priebus. “We’ve just done a lousy job bragging about it.”
The Puerto Rican woman he appointed to the review committee, Zori Fonalledas, did not speak during the half-hour press conference. Most of the talking was done by the two white men, Barbour and Fleischer.
Most GOP leaders recognize that real policy innovation – and recalibration – will come not from the RNC but from the 30 Republican governors, many of whom face tough reelections in 2014.
Newly-elected North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a rising GOP star, believes the party must reorient itself away from Washington and focus on experimenting with new policy approaches in the states.
“Sometimes I turn on the Sunday talk shows and I go, ‘These people have no idea what’s happening out there,’” he said in an extended interview. “It’s all the same eight people on the talk shows, and they don’t get outside the Beltway themselves…They’re all talking to themselves: the pundits, the Republicans, the Democrats.”
“We as Republicans need to develop a farm system in recruiting new talent for the future,” he added. “Part of my job as a 56-year-old governor is to start identifying the 35-year-olds and get them experience, whether it comes from the public sector or the private sector.”
For GOP Comeback, Leaders Urge Stepped-Up Outreach
Filed by KOSU News in Politics. January 26, 2013
In their first big party gathering since Election Day, Republican leaders from around the country met in Charlotte, N.C., this week.
The GOP is promising a great deal of change in advance of the next election. But one area where there will be no change for the party is in its leadership. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was elected to another two-year term.
In his acceptance speech, he cited a simple reason why Republicans failed to win the White House and lost seats in the House and Senate in November.
“I’m no math whiz; I’m an attorney. But I don’t need a calculator to know that we need to win more votes,” he said. “We have to find more supporters. We have to go places we haven’t been, and we have to invite new people to join us.”
Priebus has set up a special panel to make recommendations toward that goal. Party leaders insist that their conservative philosophy will not change. That’s not the problem, they say.
Rather, it’s that they lag behind Democrats in technology and organizing and that the GOP has not treated certain categories of voters well, using a tone during campaigns that is off-putting.
“We have to build better relationships in minority communities, urban centers, college towns,” Priebus said. “We need a permanent, growing presence.”
Priebus’ co-chair, Sharon Day, who was also re-elected, made the same point in a lighter way.
“I will talk to a head of lettuce if I can get them to vote Republican,” she said. “We have to reach out, as the chairman said, with our programs to make sure that we reach every single voter.”
It remains to be seen exactly how Republicans will reach some of the voters they’ve had the hardest time attracting. Most analysts say it wasn’t the party’s tone but its immigration policy that led more than 7 in 10 Latino and Asian-American voters to support President Obama in November.
The party has also shown a tendency in recent years to seek redemption in process and rules changes, such as voter ID laws and other challenges at the ballot box.
Just this week in Virginia, Republican state legislators have been pushing a change in the way the state allocates its vote in the Electoral College. Instead of giving all the electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote statewide, as Virginia and 47 other states do now, this plan would give one electoral vote to each congressional district. It would give the state’s two other electoral votes to the presidential candidate who won the most congressional districts.
By this system, Obama would have received just three out of 13 electoral votes in Virginia, even though he won the state with an outright majority.
Priebus was asked about the Virginia plan at his news conference on Friday.
“I think it’s something that a lot of states are looking at, and I think, in some cases, they should look at it,” he said. “I think it’s a state issue, but personally I’m pretty intrigued by it.”
The issue also caught the attention of Rep. Gerald Connolly, one of Virginia’s three Democratic congressmen.
“What they’re doing here is actually challenging the will of the people — by hook or by crook. Because they can’t win an election outright, so they have to cheat,” he said. “That’s disgusting.”
Preibus said such a plan would still be fair because candidates would still have to compete — they’d just have to do so one district at a time instead of statewide.
Meanwhile, in Richmond, Gov. Bob McDonnell’s office told reporters he thought the state’s existing electoral system “works just fine.”
CHARLOTTE — The official slogan for the Republican National Committee’s three-day winter meeting here was “Renew Grow Win.” But it did little to resolve the bigger issue for the battered party, which could have been summed in one word: How?
If there was an undercurrent of hope at the gathering, which was the first of the party’s central committee since the election, it was in the fact that there is a rising generation of GOP leaders, some of whom are getting buzz as possible presidential candidates in 2016.
Somewhere from this diverse group, Republicans say, could emerge a Moses-like figure — maybe several of them — to lead the party out of its wilderness.
“I just have a lot of confidence in our message-deliverers now,” said Illinois Republican chairman Pat Brady. “I love these guys.”
“Both the message and the messenger are critical,” added Saul Anuzis, a GOP leader from Michigan. “Right now, we are all a party waiting for the next messenger.”
That is a relatively unusual position for the Republicans. When it comes to picking a presidential nominee, theirs is a party that generally works like a European monarchy, giving its nod to the next in the line of succession.
Many here pointed to the 30 Republican governors as having the potential both to set the party on a new course and produce from their ranks a successful 2016 presidential candidate.
Jindal, an Indian American who has a wonkish appeal, is one of several GOP governors who are being sized up as presidential prospects. Others, with very different styles, include blunt-talking Chris Christie of New Jersey and Virginia’s polished Robert F. McDonnell.
Party leaders also are excited by the prospects of some of their stars in Congress, including charismatic Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, whose performance as the 2012 GOP vice-presidential nominee got strong reviews in Republican circles.
That the Republican establishment should be looking so eagerly for fresh faces is not the norm.
Going pretty far back, the party has almost always picked a nominee who had run before (Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012), who had been vice president (Richard M. Nixon in 1960 and 1968, George H.W. Bush in 1988) or who came with a pedigree (George W. Bush in 2000).
In nearly every one of those races, there was an insurgent alternative or two, but they were inevitably beaten back as the party rallied to its perceived heir apparent.
There is no obvious figure standing next in line for 2016 — nor are GOP leaders eager to see one, given their disappointment over Romney’s defeat by President Obama, whom Republicans had expected to be vulnerable.
If there is a comparison in recent political history to the situation that Republicans are in now, some said, it is the one that the Democrats faced in the late 1980s, after back-to-back presidential election defeats. They pointed to Bill Clinton as the type of transformational figure they need now.
“We’re foolish if we don’t learn from the past,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican committeeman from Mississippi who is part of a task force that is putting together a report aimed at correcting the party’s deficiencies.
But Clinton did more than sharpen the Democratic Party’s talking points. He also helped reorient its philosophy, taking it in a more centrist direction on issues from crime to trade to welfare.
That sort of ideological shift is something that few Republicans are willing to advocate at this point. They still insist that the problem is not what they believe, but how they express it.
“We do not need to change what we believe as conservatives — our principles are timeless,” Jindal said. “But we do need to reorient our focus to the place where conservatism thrives — in the real world beyond the Washington Beltway.”
Republicans know that they must do more than wait for a savior.
“As a party, we must recognize that we live in an era of permanent politics,” Priebus said in a speech after his reelection. “We must stop living nominee-to-nominee, campaign-to-campaign.”
And Jindal himself deflected questions from reporters about whether he is making plans for 2016. “Any Republican that’s thinking about talking about running for president in 2016 needs to get his head examined,” he told reporters after his speech. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to get the Republican Party back on track.”
Much of that work centers on addressing the GOP deficiencies that were laid bare by the 2012 election. They include a message that turned off swing voters, women and minorities; weak candidates who in some cases repelled those groups; and voter-turnout machinery that seemed decades behind that of Obama’s operation.
All of those things combined to limit the Republicans’ reach and their appeal. Rather than broadening their base, they deepened the perception that they are a party that stands on the side of wealth and privilege.
“Party leadership now needs to be beginning [to shape] the message,” said Florida Republican Chairman Lenny Curry. “We’ve got to be the party of the middle class and the little guy. And we need to be talking about those things now.”
Republicans are also looking at some tactical adjustments that might help their nominee, including limiting the number of debates in which their primary candidates engage and scheduling their convention earlier.
The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee emphasized the 2014 elections, calling focus on the upcoming races "imperative."
"It’s going to be like 2010, but this time around we need to shake up the GOP machine that tries to orchestrate away too much of the will of constitutional conservatives who don’t give a hoot how they do it in D.C.," Palin said. "D.C. is out of touch, obviously."
"Conservatism didn’t lose. A moderate Republican candidate lost after he was perceived to alienate working class Reagan Democrat and Independent voters who didn’t turn out for him as much as they did for the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008," Palin said. "Granted, those same voters also didn’t turn out for Obama as strongly either."
When asked about her reaction to the media declaring "both you and the Tea Party dead and buried," Palin said she was "raised to never retreat and to pick battles wisely, and all in due season."
"When it comes to defending our republic, we haven’t begun to fight!" Palin said. "But we delight in those who underestimate us."
As one of only two states to hold gubernatorial elections this year, Virginia will soon be in the national political spotlight. The coming election will be the Republican Party’s chance to reintroduce itself to voters after its defeat in November, when absurd comments on rape and abortion and other social issues hurt GOP hopefuls everywhere and marked the party as backward. The last thing that the party needs now is a headline candidate who will further damage the Republican brand — not to mention Virginia’s reputation as a top place to do business.
I am an independent who has supported Republicans — including, most recently, Mitt Romney — and Democrats in the past. I am also the head of a 150-employee company, and I want to attract and keep the best and brightest employees I can. I know I join other Virginia employers in concern that the state has become less attractive to talented Americans because of elected officials advocating on social issues such as invasive ultrasound for abortions. In fact, last year, it took me only a few hours to get more than 30 business leaders to sign a letter to the governor and legislators [ http://images.cesweb.org/edm/cea/VirginiaFirst.pdf ] saying that these extreme social positions are hurting Virginia’s attractiveness to businesses.
With Cuccinelli heading the ticket, we can expect the sole Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, to magnify this social extremism in advertising. A former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe was runner-up in the 2009 primary for Virginia governor. I like Terry and even held a dinner for him to meet potential contributors in 2009, but he is not a perfect candidate. With his record of advocacy for unions [ http://crystalclearconservative.com/2009/05/21/terry-mcauliffe-prefers-union-workers-over-the-non-union-workers/ ] and his reputation as primarily a fundraiser for Bill Clinton, he will not be embraced by independents and Republicans who are focused on the commonwealth’s economic health.
Virginia needs another Republican choice. Cuccinelli will not be beaten at the convention, but moderate Republicans could be drafted to run as independents. The most likely to succeed would be former congressman Thomas M. Davis III, a socially moderate businessman who ran the Fairfax Board of Supervisors and can appeal to voters in both parties. Fairfax Del. Barbara Comstock has brains and experience. Businessman Don Upson, who was Virginia’s first secretary of technology (and is a friend of mine), guided Virginia to lead the world in Internet commerce policy. And Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a moderate (compared to Cuccinelli, at least) who dropped out of the Republican primary, is a smart, albeit low-key, option. Bolling has said he is considering [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/bolling-testing-waters-for-independent-run/2013/01/02/302ce002-5550-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html ] such a run and expects to make a decision by early March.
I hope we can persuade one of these fine people, or someone like them, to jump in. For years, Virginia has succeeded because it is pro-business, with traditional but tolerant social views. There is no reason we cannot continue this legacy, but right now we — and the Republican Party across the nation — are in dire need of a third option in the race for governor of Virginia.
The writer is president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association and author of “Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses.”
Paul Broun enters Georgia Senate race Paul Broun, one of the true nuts in the House, tests how conservative 2014 GOP primary voters want their candidates Jan 30, 2013
Defiant Clinton takes on lawmakers on Libya attack
By Matthew Lee And Donna Cassata on January 23, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered fiery rejoinders Wednesday to Republican critics of the Obama administration's handling of the deadly attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, facing off with lawmakers who included potential 2016 presidential rivals.
At times emotional and frequently combative, Clinton rejected GOP suggestions in two congressional hearings that the administration tried to mislead the country about the Sept. 11 attack that killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans. She insisted the State Department is moving swiftly and aggressively to strengthen security at diplomatic posts worldwide.
In her last formal testimony before Congress as America's top diplomat — but perhaps not her last time on the political stage — Clinton once again took responsibility for the department's missteps and failures leading up to the assault. But she also said that requests for more security at the diplomatic mission in Benghazi didn't reach her desk, and reminded lawmakers that they have a responsibility to fund security-related budget requests.
Three weeks after her release from a New York hospital — admitted for complications after a concussion — Clinton was at times defiant, complimentary and willing to chastise lawmakers during more than 5 ½ hours of testimony before two separate committees. She tangled with some who could be rivals in 2016 if she decides to seek the presidency again.
Her voice cracking at one point, Clinton said the attack and the aftermath were highly personal tragedies for the families of the victims who died — Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty — as well as herself.
"I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters and the wives left alone to raise their children," she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a packed hearing.
Clearly annoyed with Republican complaints about the initial explanation for the attack, she rose to the defense of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who was vilified for widely debunked claims five days after the attack that protests precipitated the raid rather than terrorism.
Clinton said, "People were trying in real time to get to the best information." And she said her own focus was on looking ahead on how to improve security rather than revisiting the talking points and Rice's comments.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., pressed her on why "we were misled that there were supposedly protests and something sprang out of that, an assault sprang out of that."
"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans," she said, her voice rising and quivering with anger as she and Johnson spoke over each other.
"Was it because of a protest? Or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided they would go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
If Johnson's comments drew an irritated response from Clinton, she notably ignored Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., when he said he would have fired her if he had been in charge and found that she had not read cables from her team in Libya asking for more security. Paul is a potential 2016 presidential candidate.
"Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post," Paul said. "I think it's inexcusable."
Clinton and other officials have testified that requests for additional security did not reach her level, and a scathing independent review of the matter sharply criticized four senior State Department officials who have been relieved of their duties.
"I did not see these requests. They did not come to me. I did not approve them. I did not deny them," she said.
Later, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina repeatedly challenged Clinton's claim to have looked at the tragedy with "clear eyes," saying she should have personally ensured security at the mission.
He said Clinton had "let the consulate become a death trap" in denying requests for additional security and called it "malpractice."
Clinton said she could have let the review board's report remain classified and told Congress "goodbye" before leaving office. But she said, it's "not who I am. It's not what I do."
Absent from the Senate hearing was Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the man tapped to succeed Clinton, who is leaving the administration after four years. Kerry, defeated by George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, is expected to win swift Senate approval. Clinton is to introduce him at his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
Politics play an outsized role in any appearance by Clinton, who was defeated by Barack Obama in a hard-fought battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. She is the subject of constant speculation about a possible bid in 2016.
A former New York senator and the wife of former President Bill Clinton, she is a polarizing figure but is ending her tenure at the State Department with high favorability ratings. A poll last month by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found 65 percent of Americans held a favorable impression of her, compared with 29 percent unfavorable.
On the panel at the Senate hearing were two possible 2016 Republican presidential candidates — Florida's Marco Rubio and Paul, a new member of the committee — as well as John McCain of Arizona, who was defeated by Obama in November 2008.
Clinton, 65, did little to quiet the presidential chatter earlier this month when she returned to work after her hospitalization. On the subject of retirement, she said, "I don't know if that is a word I would use, but certainly stepping off the very fast track for a little while."
In a second round of questioning on Wednesday, Clinton testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee where Republican members pressed her on why cables and other memos about security deficiencies in Benghazi seemed to be ignored.
"The dots here were connected ahead of time. The State Department saw this was coming," said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the chairman of the panel. "The State Department didn't act."
Clinton told senators the department is implementing the 29 recommendations of the review board and going beyond the proposals, with a special focus on high-threat posts.
"Nobody is more committed to getting this right," she said. "I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger, and more secure."
Clinton had been due to testify in December but postponed her appearances after fainting, falling and suffering a concussion while recovering from a stomach virus that left her severely dehydrated. She was then diagnosed with a blood clot near her brain and returned to work only on Jan. 7.
She won bipartisan well-wishes on her recovery, but while Democrats were quick to praise her for accomplishments as secretary of state, Republicans then hit her with withering criticism.
"It's wonderful to see you in good health and combative as ever," said McCain.
But in the same breath, he dismissed her explanation of events, the administration's response to warnings about the deteriorating security situation in Libya and even the attention paid to Libya after rebels toppled Moammar Gadhafi. "The answers, frankly, that you've given this morning are not satisfactory to me," McCain said.
To McCain, a friend that Clinton served with in the Senate, she replied matter-of-factly: "We just have a disagreement. We have a disagreement about what did happen and when it happened with respect to explaining the sequence of events."
Some Democrats raised the point that Congress had cut funding for embassy security.
"We have to get our act together," she told the panels, chiding House GOP members for recently stripping $1 billion in security aid from the hurricane relief bill and the Senate panel for failing for years to produce a spending authorization bill.
In something of a valedictory, Clinton noted her robust itinerary in four years and her work, nearly 1 million miles and 112 countries.
"My faith in our country and our future is stronger than ever. Every time that blue and white airplane carrying the words "United States of America" touches down in some far-off capital, I feel again the honor it is to represent the world's indispensable nation. And I am confident that, with your help, we will continue to keep the United States safe, strong, and exceptional."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., expressed incredulity that the independent review board did not interview Clinton for its extensive report. She also complained about the department's "false narrative" that four employees lost their jobs over the attack.
"There's just been a shuffling of the deck chairs," said Ros-Lehtinen.
Clinton said earlier that she was not asked to speak to the review board but would have been available. She said the four employees have been removed from their jobs and have been placed on administrative leave, but federal rules prevent the department from taking more drastic steps.
Her testimony followed more than three months of Republican charges that the Obama administration ignored signs of a deteriorating security situation and cast an act of terrorism as mere protests over an anti-Muslim video in the heat of a presidential election. U.S. officials suspect that militants linked to al-Qaida carried out the attack.
Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper and Andrew Miga contributed to this report.
Ron Johnson In 2010: Only 'Appropriate' To Disagree With Administration Privately 01/25/2013 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) made headlines this week for his heated confrontation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday during her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Johnson alleged that the Obama administration had "purposefully misled" about the nature of the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2012 that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. But the 2010 Johnson disapproved of criticizing foreign policy publicly when there are troops in the field. "There's an appropriate way of opposing a policy and an inappropriate way," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel [ http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/100203609.html ]. "The appropriate way if I'm a U.S. senator is going to be not public. If I'm opposed to something, I'll make those views known very, very well, but privately with the administration." Johnson was running against then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), a vocal critic of the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the quote was a shot at him for speaking out. [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/ron-johnson-hillary-clinton_n_2550760.html [with comments]
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Ron Johnson: Obamacare 'Greatest Assault On Freedom In Our Lifetime'
"I think Americans are a little bit like frogs in that pot of water," he said. "The water's being brought up to boil." He said he ran for Senate in 2010 because of President Barack Obama's health care law, which he called "greatest assault on freedom in our lifetime." He said that "collectively" Americans were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome due to the loss of their freedoms.
"So we're going to the Supreme Court, begging them please, please allow us this one last shred of freedom," he said. "Allow us the freedom to decide what product we're going to purchase or not purchase. And unfortunately for Americans, for our freedoms, we were denied that right."
The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the health care law in July and there is not currently a way to repeal it, given President Barack Obama's reelection and the Democratic majority in the Senate.
Johnson told the Objectivist group that he "absolutely" saw parallels between the plot of the Ayn Rand novel "Atlas Shrugged" and current events, citing CEOs' support for the group "Fix The Debt," which favors raising taxes on the rich. Johnson said that major CEOs would get paid more to cover their higher taxes, while CEOs of smaller companies would be hit hard.
One tried-and-true tactic is to recruit third parties to help deliver your talking points -- hopefully, individuals and organizations that are held in higher regard by the public than your own company or industry.
This is a staple of the insurance industry's playbook --my former colleagues know that they're not especially popular. In fact, internal polls I was privy to as an industry executive showed consistently that health insurers were beloved by the public just slightly more than tobacco companies.
True to form, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry's big PR and lobbying group, has rolled out a slick campaign aimed at getting Congress to gut some of ObamaCare's most important consumer protections.
"Time for Affordability" is the name of AHIP's campaign. Since the official name of ObamaCare is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the idea here is to persuade folks that the word "affordable" does not really apply to the law and that the insurers, long-time champions of affordability that they are, have solutions to fix it.
Among the patient protections insurers have set their sights on are the ones that prohibit them from selling what many consumer advocates call "junk insurance" and that prohibit them from charging older customers more than three times as much as they charge their younger ones. Insurers' preference would be for Congress to just get rid of that prohibition entirely. The consolation prize would be for Congress to let them charge older folks 500 percent more instead of just 300 percent more. Charging the elderly exorbitant rates is part of a decades-long strategy to make coverage unaffordable for older folks.
A perfect third-party ally in this fight would be an organization that purports to represent young people. Lo and behold, one has surfaced. It is SHOUTAmerica, founded by Clayton McWhorter, the former CEO of the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the Nashville-based for-profit hospital chain, and headed by Landon Gibbs, a former aide to former President George W. Bush. As several consumer advocates have brought to my attention, SHOUTAmerica is taking out ads using AHIP's talking points in an online publication well-read inside the D.C. Beltway.
According to SHOUTAmerica's 2010 federal tax return, the most recent available, its gross income, including membership fees, was $43,915.00 [ http://www.nonprofitinfomart.org/organization/263331764/ ]. All but $8,640.00 of that went to pay the salary of what appears to be the group's only full-time employee. SHOUTAmerica's address in the tony Nashville suburb of Brentwood is the same as that of a venture capital firm, Clayton Associates, the chairman emeritus of which is Clayton McWhorter.
The group must have had a recent infusion of cash to be able to take out ads in POLITICO PULSE, which has become a daily must-read on health care policy for Washington policymakers and opinion leaders.
A message from SHOUT America: Many younger, healthier individuals could be surprised to see the cost of their health insurance increase dramatically, potentially skyrocketing 40 percent or more when new provisions from the Affordable Care Act go into effect in 2014. What's behind this? New federal rating restrictions, including a 3 to 1 limit on the use of age, broader benefits, the health insurance tax, as well as other changes will cause the insurance premiums to increase disproportionately for younger, healthier Americans.
Now compare that to the first paragraph on AHIP's "Time for Affordability" website [ http://ahip.org/Issues/January-1-2014-Provisions.aspx ]: "The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will help millions of people get coverage for the first time, but the new health insurance tax, costly benefit requirements and age rating restrictions will drive up the cost of coverage for many consumers and employers. When this happens, many younger and healthier Americans could decide not to get coverage, which would further drive up costs for everyone else."
What AHIP and SHOUTAmerica don't say is that most young people will actually be able to get affordable coverage for the first time when ObamaCare is fully implemented on Jan. 1, 2014, either through the expansion of Medicaid or the subsidies that will be available for people making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($43,560 for an individual and $89,400 for a family of four in 2011, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation). This will enable millions of people, young and old alike, to leave the ranks of the uninsured.
Yes, a few relatively well-paid young people will see their premiums go up, but many of their parents, who helped put them through school to get decent-paying jobs, will see them go down.
The status quo that AHIP and friends are trying to preserve works best for a few people, especially insurance company executives whose companies make huge profits by selling junk insurance and gouging older people. It does not work at all for most of the rest of us, and certainly not for most of those young people that SHOUTAmerica claims to represent.
Last week, National Review's editors described Brewer's move on Medicaid [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337788/brewer-s-price-editors ] like this: "Governor Brewer, exemplifying that unfortunately common strain of Republican leadership that is uncompromising in rhetoric but opportunistic in reality, has decided to sign off on the federal government's plan to radically expand Medicaid eligibility."
The Pheonix-based Goldwater Institute, named after the late Arizona senator and one-time GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, jumped into the fray Thursday with a post by Byron Schlomach blasting the Medicaid expansion as too costly and too tied to the rest of Obamacare [ http://goldwaterinstitute.org/blog/expanded-medicaid-shrinking-wallets ]. Schlomach urged Arizona's GOP legislative majority to block Brewer's Medicaid plan. "Legislators who value fiscal prudence, the health of the state's future economy, and individual liberty should not support the expansion of Medicaid."
Brewer's office decided not to let the Goldwater Institute's criticisms go unanswered and distributed a point-by-point rebuttal of Schlomach's arguments to reporters Friday. The response defends Arizona's proposed Medicaid expansion by noting it would add just 57,000 people to the program, that it's paid for using a combination of federal dollars and fees levied on hospitals, and that Arizona can back out of the expansion if federal funding falls short.
"For defenders of freedom and the free market, the decision to uphold ObamaCare is nothing short of disheartening. The ramifications are sure to be vast, including a new tax on middle class Americans and the erosion of individual liberty as Americans begin to see their health insurance choices dictated by an overbearing federal government," Brewer said at the time in a statement.
Expanded Medicaid, Shrinking Wallets By Byron Schlomach
The federal health care law included a provision asking all states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all adults and children up to 133% of the federal poverty level. Right now, a little less than a fifth of the state's population is given free healthcare through Medicaid; if the state expands Medicaid nearly a fourth of Arizona's population would be covered.
Misleading. The expansion represents a minor change to Arizona's Medicaid eligibility, adding about 57,000 individuals above the level already mandated by Arizona voters. Even with this expansion, the Medicaid population will still be less than one-fifth of Arizona's population. Numbers aside, the bigger issue is whether we accept the current dynamic in which so many of our fellow Arizonans have no health insurance, receive Emergency Room care when they're sick or injured, and see their exorbitant costs offloaded onto the rest of us. This Hidden Health Care Tax amounts to nearly $2,000 per year for every Arizona family.
This expansion would cost a lot of money we don't have. Even with the federal government picking up most of the tab, estimates put the cost of expansion for Arizona at $125 million in 2016 alone. The yearly cost would rise as the federal share of the cost ratchets down to 90 percent. As the federal government's financial condition worsens, states will likely have to pick up even more of the cost.
False. The Governor's Medicaid Plan will employ hospitals to leverage federal dollars - guaranteeing there is NO COST to the State of Arizona General Fund. More than 30 states already use a similar mechanism to draw down federal Medicaid funds. Perhaps best of all: Governor Brewer's proposal will help alleviate Medicaid pressure on the General Fund, protecting critical state services such as education and public safety.
Governor Brewer wants a "circuit breaker" that will turn off the expanded program if the federal share ever fell below 80 percent. While the Supreme Court said states can't be compelled to expand Medicaid, it's an open question whether they can be compelled to continue an expansion once agreed to.
False. In a Dec. 10, 2012, letter to governors, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made it clear that states can choose whether and when to expand their Medicaid programs. And the letter clearly says any state may cancel its expansion at any time without endangering its remaining Medicaid funding. (see Question 25 - http://bit.ly/VaIJzx [ http://azahcccs.gov/reporting/Downloads/ChildlessAdults/CMS_FAQs_12-10-2012.pdf ])
If, in the future, the federal government insists that we keep expanded Medicaid coverage as a condition of keeping any Medicaid funds, we cannot count on our own state leaders to challenge that in court.
Misleading. Governor Brewer and other state leaders were united in challenging the Affordable Care Act all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Similarly, the Governor and legislative leaders would be willing to go to court once more in order to defend the authority of Arizona's elected officials to make financial decisions in the best interest of the State - just as they've done on other occasions.
After all, the Obama administration takes the position that Obamacare's expanded coverage of children is a valid mandate, in clear contradiction to the Supreme Court's decision. Still, state policymakers are doing nothing to challenge this position.
False. The Supreme Court's ruling did not change other Medicaid rules, and only made the expansion of low-income adults optional. Medicaid rules make it clear that the federal government CAN increase the minimum eligibility levels for mandatory populations, such as children.
But there's more at stake than dollars and cents. Expanding Medicaid means the state will participate in enforcing the health insurance mandate. After all, everybody is required to have health insurance, including Medicaid recipients, and the state will be put in a position of reporting when recipients drop off the Medicaid rolls.
False. The ACA DOES NOT require individuals to belong to Medicaid or purchase private insurance if their income is below the Federal Poverty Level or health premiums would exceed 8% of their income. As a result, restoring coverage for childless adults under Prop 204 and expanding eligibility up to 133% of the Federal Poverty Limit DOES NOT require Arizona to enforce the individual mandate since those individuals are EXEMPT from the mandate to start with.
Legislators who value fiscal prudence, the health of the state's future economy, and individual liberty should not support the expansion of Medicaid.
Legislators who value creating Arizona jobs, protecting Arizona health care and keeping Arizona tax dollars in Arizona should support the Governor's Medicaid Plan.
Medicaid Expansion: States Face Big Decisions On Obama Health Care Measure
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR 01/28/13 11:54 AM ET EST
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama thinks his health care law makes states an offer they can't refuse.
Whether to expand Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor and disabled, could be the most important decision facing governors and legislatures this year. The repercussions go beyond their budgets, directly affecting the well-being of residents and the finances of critical hospitals.
Here's the offer:
If states expand their Medicaid programs to cover millions of low-income people now left out, the federal government will pick up the full cost for the first three years and 90 percent over the long haul.
About 21 million uninsured people, most of them adults, eventually would gain health coverage if all the states agree.
Adding up the Medicaid costs under the law, less than $100 billion in state spending could trigger nearly $1 trillion in federal dollars over a decade, according to the nonpartisan Urban Institute.
"It's the biggest expansion of Medicaid in a long time, and the biggest ever in terms of adults covered," said Mark McClellan, who ran Medicare and Medicaid when George W. Bush was president.
"Although the federal government is on the hook for most of the cost, Medicaid on the whole is one of the biggest items in state budgets and the fastest growing. So there are some understandable concerns about the financial implications and how implementation would work," McClellan said.
A major worry for states is that deficit-burdened Washington sooner or later will renege on the 90-percent deal. The regular Medicaid match rate averages closer to 50 percent. That would represent a significant cost shift to the states.
Many Republicans also are unwilling to keep expanding government programs, particularly one as complicated as Medicaid, which has a reputation for being inefficient and unwieldy.
Awaiting decisions are people such as Debra Walker of Houston, a part-time home health care provider. She had a good job with health insurance until she got laid off in 2007.
Walker was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and she's trying to manage by getting discounted medications through a county program for low-income uninsured people.
Walker estimates she earned about $10,000 last year, which means she would qualify under the income cutoff for the Medicaid expansion. But that could happen only if Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, reconsiders his opposition.
"I think that would be awesome if the governor would allow that program to come into the state," Walker said. "That would be a help for me, robbing Paul to pay Peter for my medicines."
She seems determined to deal with her diabetes problem. "I don't want to lose a limb later on in life," said Walker, 58. "I want to beat this. I don't want to carry this around forever."
As Obama's law was originally written, low-income people such as Walker would not have had to worry or wait. Roughly half the uninsured people gaining coverage under the law were expected to go into Medicaid. The middle-class uninsured would get taxpayer-subsidized private coverage in new insurance markets called exchanges.
But last year the Supreme Court gave states the right to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. The court upheld the rest of the law, including insurance exchanges and a mandate that virtually everyone in the United States have health coverage, or face a fine.
The health care law will go into full effect next Jan. 1, and states are scrambling to crunch the numbers and understand the Medicaid trade-offs.
States can refuse the expansion outright or indefinitely postpone a decision. But if states think they'll ultimately end up taking the deal, there's a big incentive to act now: The three years of full federal funding for newly eligible enrollees are only available from 2014 through 2016.
So far, 17 states and the District of Columbia have said they'll take it. That group includes three Republican-led states, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was prominent among GOP leaders who had tried get the law overturned.
An additional 11 states, all led by Republicans, say they want no part of it. Perry says it tramples states' rights.
The remaining states are considering options.
In some cases, GOP governors are trying to persuade balky legislatures led by Republicans. Hospitals treating the uninsured are pressing for the expansion, as are advocates for the poor and some chambers of commerce, which see an economic multiplier from the infusion of federal dollars. Conservative foes of "Obamacare," defeated at the national level, want to hold the line.
The entire debate is overshadowed by some big misconceptions, including that the poor already have Medicaid.
Many of them do, but not all. Medicaid generally covers low-income disabled people, children, pregnant women and some parents. Childless adults are left out in most states.
The other misconception is that Medicaid is so skimpy that people are better off being uninsured.
Two recent studies debunked that.
One found a 6 percent drop in the adult death rate in states that already have expanded Medicaid along the lines of the federal health care law. A second looked at Oregonians who won a lottery for Medicaid and compared them with ones who weren't picked and remained uninsured. The Medicaid group had greater access to health care, less likelihood of being saddled with medical bills, and felt better about their overall health.
Skeptics remain unconvinced.
Louisiana's health secretary, Bruce D. Greenstein, is concerned that the Medicaid expansion could replace private insurance for many low-wage workers in his state, dragging down quality throughout the health care system because the program pays doctors and hospitals far less than private insurance. He says the Obama administration and Congress missed a chance to overhaul Medicaid and give states a bigger say in running the program.
"Decisions are made by fiat," he said. "There is not any sense of a federal-state partnership, what this program was founded on. I don't feel in any way that I am a partner." The Obama administration says it is doing its best to meet state demands for flexibility.
But one thing the administration has been unwilling to do is allow states to partly expand their Medicaid programs and still get the generous matching funds provided by the health care law.
That could have huge political implications for states refusing the expansion, and for people such as Walker, the diabetes patient from Houston.
These numbers explain why:
Under the new law people making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, about $15,400 for an individual, are eligible to be covered by Medicaid.
But for most people below the poverty line, about $11,200 for an individual, Medicaid would be the only option. They cannot get subsidized private coverage through the new health insurance exchanges.
So if a state turns down the Medicaid expansion, some of its low-income people still can qualify for government-subsidized health insurance through the exchanges. But the poorest cannot.
In Texas, somebody making a couple of thousand dollars more than Debra Walker still could get coverage. But Walker would be left depending on pay-as-you-go charity care.
"It's completely illogical that this has happened," said Edwin Park, a health policy expert with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income people.
Federal officials say their hands are tied, that Congress intended the generous federal matching rate solely for states undertaking the full expansion. States doing a partial expansion would have to shell out more of their own money.
"Some people are going to be between a rock and a hard spot," said Walker.
It's the kind of proposal that sells well in the with Tea Party politicians and will likely generate its fair share of "Don't Tread on Me" copycat proposals. But in addition to being astonishingly bad state fiscal policy, the proposal stands on extremely shaky constitutional footing.
While we devote a lot of time to the "rights" protected by the Constitution, the document is at its core a power-sharing arrangement between the states and the federal government motivated in large degree to managing commerce. That means that, tax laws generally and state tax schemes specifically, bring up important and complicated issues of federalism. Which may be too bad for Texas Republicans.
To be considered constitutional, a state tax generally cannot discriminate against interstate commerce. Broadly speaking, the Supreme Court has taken that to mean [ http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/466/388/ ] that any tax which, by its terms or operations, imposes greater burdens on out-of-state goods, activities, or enterprises than on any competing in-state goods, activities or enterprises violates the Commerce Clause and will be struck down. The basic logic of this conclusion is pretty clear—states shouldn't be able to simply preference their own industries at the expense of others if those industries touch or are part of national commerce.
This gets more complicated as state tax schemes get more complicated. In the case of a state tax incentive, like the one proposed in Texas, the Court has not been clear as to the scope of this prohibition, and, if carried to its logical conclusion, every state tax incentive would be considered unconstitutional. So the question then becomes, what do we do with this one?
Strickland characterizes the bill as a haven for employers like Hobby Lobby who refuse to comply with the mandate based solely on the religious convictions of the owners. However the federal courts have already shown an inherent skepticism [ http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/11/01/federal-court-weighs-whether-secular-employers-can-exercise-religious-rights ] to the claim that an individual's religious beliefs can transcend the corporate form as a matter of course and thereby grant all corporates religious liberties. So while there may be a flood of litigation by corporations trying to evade the mandate, there's no guarantee they will. In that case Strickland's bill is little more than political theatre designed to give employers like Hobby Lobby additional political cover as it tries to negotiate a settlement with the Obama administration or continue its legal challenge.
By effectively offering to waive state corporate tax liability in exchange for intentionally disobeying federal law, Strickland's proposal is also another example of lawmakers in the state arguing to extreme their power under the 10th Amendment. Much like the "states rights" challenges to Obamacare generally, the purpose of these arguments are not simply to advance an immediate legislative agenda or legal challenge but to shift ever-rightward the national framing of state and federal power. That shift is reflected not just in our national conversation over reproductive health care, but in the jurisprudence as well. After all, it's such a shift right that made the end of the Texas Women's Health Program [ http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/tag/texas-womens-health-program ] a reality.
Rick Perry Shouldn't Run Again, Most Texans Say In Poll 01/29/2013 Most voters don't think Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) should run for reelection, let alone take on another presidential bid, according to a poll released Tuesday [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_TX_129.pdf ] by the Democratic-leaning firm PPP. Fewer than a third of Texas voters said Perry should run for reelection, while 62 percent -- including 39 percent of Republican -- said he should not. Nearly eight in 10 Texans, including two-thirds of Republicans, said he shouldn't take another stab at the presidency in 2016. [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/rick-perry-poll_n_2574098.html [with comments]
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Labor Groups: GOP Wrong To Blame Immigration Reform Failures On Unions
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has said labor groups could hurt the effort toward immigration reform. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
By Elise Foley Posted: 01/24/2013 5:44 pm EST | Updated: 01/24/2013 5:49 pm EST
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on Wednesday that labor unions could kill comprehensive immigration reform unless President Barack Obama and other Democrats are willing to stand up to them on the issue of citizenship and give something less to undocumented immigrants instead.
It's a common trope among Republicans, who claim left-leaning groups are as much to blame as those on the right for past failures on immigration reform. But labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, reject the notion that they will need to cave on the need for a pathway to citizenship -- and Rubio's allegation that it would be their fault if reform efforts fail this time around.
"For Senator Rubio to be attacking unions for standing with immigrant communities, which is what he's essentially doing, is neither just nor the politics that will address the GOP's demographic cliff," said Ana Avendaño, the AFL-CIO's assistant to the president and director of immigration and community action.
"It's really time for us to stop playing politics with this issue," Avendaño added later. "It's much easier to point the finger at someone than to start doing the really hard work that it's going to take to change the law that so badly needs fixing."
Rubio has said he is working on a plan for immigration reform that would allow undocumented immigrants already living in the country to get a temporary work visa, but not a pathway to citizenship. That would be a major sticking point for many Democrats, nearly all of whom say a pathway is absolutely necessary for reform. And, there are some Republicans, including those leading bipartisan efforts at a bill in the Senate, who seem to agree.
"The labor unions don't like that, and that's going to be a big fight the president is going to have to have if he's really interested in moving this forward," Rubio said. "They’re going to have a decision to make. And that decision is, do they want to play politics with this issue, do they want to get into a bidding war where they continue to move the ball and water it down? Or are they serious about solving it? And if they’re serious about solving it then I think these are the sorts of principles they’d want to support."
It's true that labor groups support a pathway to citizenship as part of immigration reform -- it's one of the top priorities for both AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union. AFL-CIO also opposed a comprehensive immigration reform bill led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) in the mid-2000s.
Avendaño said many things have changed since then, including the politics of reform. After the GOP presidential candidate suffered a devastating defeat among Latino voters, a space has opened for immigration reform, which many consider was mandated, in a sense, by the election results. The AFL-CIO is also hoping a bill this year will not cater to corporations in the same way they felt the McCain-Kennedy bill [ http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/28/kennedy_mccain_try_again_on_immigration/?page=full ] did, she said.
The AFL-CIO is working with the Chamber of Commerce on immigration issues, and there is a general consensus that a pathway to citizenship is needed. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue said last week [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/carlos-gutierrez-immigration_n_2498430.html ] that he is open to a number of options, but wants an eventual road to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already living in the country.
Kica Matos, director of immigrant and racial justice at the advocacy group Center for Community Change, said in an email that the group appreciates Rubio's efforts on immigration, but that he is wrong on labor's past role in the process of reform.
"Senator Rubio likes to perpetuate the myth that labor has blocked immigration reform in order to shift responsibility from where it truly lies," Matos said. "Immigration reform was killed in 2007 by the far right and the patently racist ranting of conservative talk radio. In 2010, it was blocked by Republican Senators who upheld along party lines a filibuster determined to shield themselves from primary challenges from the far right of their party. Community groups fighting for immigration reform enjoy strong support from and alliance with unions who are fighting every day for a path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants."
Undocumented Immigrants Push For Military Service Under Deferred Action
Cesar Vargas, executive director of Dream Action Coalition, hopes to eventually join the military to serve as a lawyer. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
By Elise Foley Posted: 01/25/2013 6:29 pm EST | Updated: 01/26/2013 10:50 am EST
WASHINGTON -- A group of young undocumented immigrants ramped up a push this week for the ability to join the military, with about 20 visiting recruiting offices on Thursday to ask about enlistment.
Undocumented immigrants are barred from enlisting. But these young people all came to the United States as children and are now trying to gain legal status. Under a recent directive called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals they are allowed to work -- now they want President Barack Obama to allow that work to be in the military.
"For myself, I live in New York City and after 9/11, it was very personal for me," said César Vargas, 28, executive director of the Dream Action Coalition and one of the undocumented immigrants who visited the New York recruiting office. "For me, it was really about serving my country and to really send a message to a lot of people who oppose the Dream Act or immigration, for them to see who we are, that we are as American as they are."
The Obama administration announced its deferred action program last June and has now accepted [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/deferred-action_n_2506288.html ] more than 150,000 undocumented young people. Eligibility for the policy roughly aligns with the framework for the Dream Act, a decade-old bill that would allow young undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children -- often called Dreamers -- to become citizens if they met certain criteria.
But the Dream Act has a specific provision for military service while deferred action does not. Dreamers could either go to college or join the military in order to benefit from the Dream Act, but deferred action looks only at college. Although immigrants are eligible for deferred action if they have been honorably discharged from the military, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to join up, meaning the policy would only apply if they had already served.
A number of members of Congress and other leaders, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, have spoken in support of allowing immigrants covered by the Dream Act to join the military as part of that bill. Vargas said the groups are hoping some of those same officials will back their effort to allow deferred action recipients to enlist.
Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, explained the agency's policies on immigrant enlistment in an email. "Current law does not permit the services to enlist those who are not U.S. citizens or legal residents, unless the services declare the enlistment of such a person to be 'vital to the national interest," he said. "There has been no change to DoD policy, and it would be inappropriate to speculate with regard to any future changes."
Vargas said he will continue to push the Obama administration and the Defense Department to make the change. He graduated from law school and would like to become a military lawyer.
"There is no legislation required for this action -- the president and the secretary of defense just need to issue one memo," he said. "That's all we need."
Michelle Rodriguez, 26, is also hoping to enlist. She came to the United States from Mexico 21 years ago, and is now earning her bachelor's degree with hopes of attending nursing school. She decided after the Sept. 11 attacks that she wanted to join the military, and her goal is toy become a nurse in the Marines. It would be possible to serve in the military with a U-Visa, she said, but she wants to join as soon as she can.
"It would mean fulfilling one of my dreams. It's one of my dreams to be able to serve," she said. "I think I have what it takes to be a Marine."
Lindsey Graham Warns Immigration Reform Including Same-Sex Couples Will Fail
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says it's a mistake for the president to push for same-sex couples to be included in immigration reform. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
By Elise Foley Posted: 01/29/2013 2:29 pm EST | Updated: 01/29/2013 3:00 pm EST
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Tuesday that it's a mistake for the president to push for same-sex couples to be included in immigration reform, if he wants Republicans to support the bill.
"Why don't we just put legalized abortion in there and round it all out," Graham said to reporters.
Graham is part of an eight-member group -- four Republicans, four Democrats -- that released a framework on Monday for bipartisan immigration reform. Their framework touches on four main principles, but does not address same-sex couples, who are not given the right to petition for green cards for their partners under the Defense of Marriage Act -- even if they are legally married in their state.
The president will speak about immigration reform later in the day, and will specifically address the need for recognizing same-sex couples as families in immigration law. White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed the news, first reported by Buzzfeed [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/obama-will-include-same-sex-couples-in-immigration ], that the president would mention his support for such a provision.
"The president believes that it should be included and that should come as no surprise," Carney told reporters. "As we've said all along, this is consistent with the principles he has laid out over the last four years. And the president has long believed that Americans with same-sex partners from other countries should not be faced with the painful choice between staying with the person they love or staying in the country they love."
There is support for such a concept from many Democrats, some of whom have signed on to bills such as the Uniting American Families Act that would specifically address the issue of same-sex couples. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is the sole Republican co-sponsor of that bill in the Senate, and told HuffPost in December [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/susan-collins-immigration-reform_n_2280380.html ] that she would support its inclusion in broader immigration reform.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), another member of the "gang of eight," is a co-sponsor of that legislation, but aides say it's too soon to say whether it could be included in a bipartisan immigration bill.
Sen John McCain (R-Ariz.), another member of the group, made the same point.
"We haven't even gotten that far yet," McCain told reporters. "This is thrown out by the people who think we have gotten into the details, which we haven't. We haven't gotten into those kind of details."
David Vitter: Marco Rubio 'Amazingly Naive' On Immigration Reform Push 01/30/2013 Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) dismissed a bipartisan proposal on immigration reform on Wednesday and specifically went after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for his support, calling him "amazingly naive" to believe the plan would not amount to amnesty. "Look, I love and respect Marco," Vitter said on the Laura Ingraham radio show [ http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/30/vitter-on-rubios-immigration-reform-push-i-just-think-hes-amazingly-naive-on-this-issue/ ]. "I just think he’s amazingly naïve on this issue. This is the same old formula we’ve dealt with before, including when it passed in 1986 and that is promise of enforcement and immediate amnesty. And of course, the promises of enforcement never materialize. The amnesty happens immediately, the millisecond the bill is signed into law. And the same is true here." Vitter is one of several Republican senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who have criticized the bipartisan framework, which was released on Monday [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/immigration-reform-framework_n_2566494.html ] by Rubio and seven other senators, dubbed the "gang of eight." [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/david-vitter-marco-rubio-_n_2582927.html [with comments]
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Rush Limbaugh Attacks Mexican Immigrants, Inaccurately Portraying Them As Lazy And Government-Dependent
“They want relatively poor people who depend on government for their prosperity,” Limbaugh said of Democrats. The radio host went on to question Mexican immigrants’ work ethic:
For some reason, culturally, they think that they're invested in hard work. And using the Cuban exile model, they're exactly right. But the Hispanic demographic, if you will, or population, has shifted. And the Cuban exile model is no longer the dominant model. The Mexican immigrant model is. And that -- they arrive with an entirely different view of America. And I'm sorry if this is offensive, but it's true.
Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 64 percent of the population in 2010 and received 69 percent of the entitlement benefits. In contrast, Hispanics made up 16 percent of the population but received 12 percent of the benefits, less than their proportionate share -- likely because they are a younger population and also because immigrants, including many legal immigrants, are ineligible for various benefits.
When making the comparison between Mexican immigrants and the Cuban exile generation that immigrated in the 1960s, the conservative radio host insisted that he was “not just asserting it,” and that “the scholarly research from academia is out there.”
Limbaugh then said that 75 percent of voting Hispanics believe that prosperity is the job of government, without citing a source or breaking down the Hispanic population by country of origin.
The unattributed figure was typical of Limbaugh’s approach during his radio talk. Using no source, Limbaugh estimated the undocumented population at “11 million, 12 million, 20 million or whatever.”
While Limbaugh drew an unfounded distinction between the Mexican and Cuban work ethic, he did not mention a key fact that helps explain the Cuban-American community’s economic success: Cuban immigrants qualify for legal permanent residence [ http://www.state.gov/www/regions/wha/cuba/cuba_adjustment_act.html ] the moment they set foot in the United States.
Limbaugh isn’t the only person to lob insults disguised as analysis at the Latino community in recent months.
A poll released Wednesday (Jan. 23) shows that Americans have a relatively gloomy view of the state of religious freedom in the U.S. with more than one in three respondents blaming “the gay and lesbian community” more than any other. RNS photo courtesy Barna Group, OmniPoll.
Lauren Markoe Jan 23, 2013
WASHINGTON (RNS) Half of Americans worry that religious freedom in the U.S. is at risk, and many say activist groups — particularly gays and lesbians — are trying to remove “traditional Christian values” from the public square.
While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, “they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,” said Kinnamon.
“They cannot have it both ways,” he said. “This does not mean putting Judeo-Christian values aside, but it will require a renegotiation of those values in the public square as America increasingly becomes a multi-faith nation.”
Religious freedom has become an increasingly important political issue within the last year, as Republican candidates hammered President Obama for a contraception mandate that many conservatives feel tramples on the religious freedom of employers who must cover birth control in their health plans.
The poll of 1,008 adults showed that 29 percent of respondents were “very” concerned that religious liberties are under threat, and 22 percent “somewhat” concerned. Evangelicals were the religious group most likely to be concerned, at 71 percent.
Asked for their opinion as to why religious freedom is threatened, 97 percent of evangelicals agreed that “some groups have actively tried to move society away from traditional Christian values.”
And 72 percent of evangelicals also agreed that gays and lesbians were the group “most active in trying to remove Christian values from the country.” That compares to 31 percent of all adults who held this belief.
The results are somewhat at odds with a March 2012 poll [ http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/03/march-rns-2012-research/ ] sponsored by Religion News Service and the Public Religion Research Institute, which found that a majority of Americans – 56 percent – did not feel that religious freedom was under attack in this nation.
But results between the two polls align in that the PRRI survey concluded that white evangelical Protestants were the most worried about religious liberty. It found them to be the only religious group in which a majority (61 percent) considered it under threat.
The Barna poll, conducted in November 2012, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Do white evangelicals have a delusional persecution complex? Barna says yes, and provides quantifiable proof
This is a picture of Anne Hutchinson being expelled by the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Or, for white evangelicals, this is a picture of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony being cruelly persecuted by the wicked Anne Hutchinson.
By Fred Clark January 28, 2013
After discussing [in some other piece] the limits of the survey research and data supplied by the Barna Group, let’s turn to the merits of it, and what such research can tell us.
Barna surveys may not always help to tell us about how behavior actually corresponds to attitudes or perceptions, but they can be quite helpful in telling us how widespread particular attitudes or perceptions actually are.
For example, a friend of mine dislikes Brussels sprouts and says, “No one likes Brussels sprouts.” That’s quite a sweeping claim, but to what extent is it true? A survey is a useful way of finding out. We can measure what percentage of people share my friend’s dislike,* and thereby see whether her opinion is broadly representative or if she is an outlier — whether she is an exception to the norm or an accurate reflection of the majority view. It might be even better to find measurements of actual behavior — sales and consumption figures, for example, but a survey can still be a valuable tool for putting her comments in context.
Here’s a more concrete example relating to an actual bit of recent research reported by the Barna Group. Libby Anne recently highlighted a comment on her blog [ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/01/christian-persecution-complex-much.html ] that seems to epitomize what many of us have observed as a widespread, delusional sense of persecution on the part of many members of America’s privileged religious majority. The comment provides a remarkable specimen of what I call the “persecuted hegemon” — a person enjoying the rewards of cultural dominance while simultaneously insisting that they are aggrieved and suffering an injustice at the hands of people who are, in fact, marginalized minorities.
Here’s that comment:
As a matter of fact, it is [Christians'] rights that are being limited and we are becoming the minority in this nation. In many countries to even hint at being a Christian is the same as signing a death warrant. In our country they have taken away our right to pray in school, in some states we cannot even have private Bible study groups in our homes because it constitutes an illegal gathering, our organizations are being required to make the “abortion pill” a covered product on our insurance or be fined an absurd amount of money, our Christian doctors are being forced to consider if they even want to be doctors anymore or not because of a mandate that they must perform abortions……..and gay people are saying they don’t have rights?
As Libby Anne correctly notes, none of this person’s complaints correspond with reality. The examples of her perceived persecution are all imaginary and false. All of them.
Most of these false examples are, in fact, perversions and inversions of the actual facts of the matter. The comment is contradicted by the daily lived experience of the commenter.
This is delusional, and the delusion is doubly cruel. It is cruel, foremost, to the people who are actually marginalized and disenfranchised — who are being denied full and equal participation in society because they do not conform to the majority beliefs that this commenter insists must be mandatory for everyone else, and who are then, on top of that, being scapegoated and blamed as the supposed cause of the non-existent “persecution” being suffered by the privileged majority.
But it is also cruel to the commenter herself, fabricating a causeless source of misery and aggrievement, unnecessarily introducing stress where no such stress actually exists.
Now, both Libby Anne and I regard this comment as broadly representative of an attitude that we both see as widespread throughout the white evangelical subculture in America. But is that true? It’s possible, after all, that we’re simply cherry-picking data to support our thesis. Perhaps this one comment is not representative of anything other than the views of this lone commenter.
We can certainly demonstrate that this commenter is not unique. Scroll back through the archives of Libby Anne’s blog, or of this one [ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/indignation/ ], and you’ll see we both can provide dozens more examples of evangelical Christians exhibiting the same delusional persecution complex. But all of those examples put together still don’t prove that we’ve done anything more than identified what might still be only a small fringe sub-set of deluded white evangelicals. It may be that all of the anecdotes and examples we’ve collected and reported over the years are still just cherry-picked data selected only because they support our thesis of a broader evangelical persecution complex.
Another indicator of support for that thesis comes from the public statements of prominent white evangelical leaders. A single blog comment may reflect nothing more than the opinions of a lone commenter, but if the sentiments it expresses are repeated by a host of prominent white evangelicals in leadership positions, that would seem to indicate that such sentiments are more widely held.
That’s one thing that can be gleaned from a recent post at Homebrewed Christianity titled “On Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Society [ http://homebrewedtheology.com/on-religious-freedom-in-a-pluralistic-society.php ],” which cites several such prominent evangelical luminaries echoing the persecution complex described by Libby Anne’s commenter.
Christian at Homebrewed Theology mentions the “Manhattan Declaration [ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2009/12/01/the-fatuous-foolishness-of-the-manhattan-declaration/ ],” a 2009 manifesto embodying this same persecution complex which was endorsed by a who’s who of white evangelical leaders. And then he points to a recent column by three of those Manhattan declarers, Robert George, Timothy George and Eric “Call Me Dietrich” Metaxas, in which they lament the supposed persecution of the Christian majority:
They say there are numerous examples, and then pick three:
1. The brouhaha over Louie Giglio and the Inaguration.
2. The contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
3. The demise of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
Of these three, exactly none are “religious freedom” issues.
None.
They are, without exception, religious primacy issues.
None of these impact, in any measurable way, the ability of the Conservative Christian community to practice their faith openly and without fear of persecution in the United States.
In a pluralistic society, there’s a general rule. Your right to swing your fist ends at the other guy’s nose. That means, in a pluralistic society, for the health of the society, there’s a give and take. It’s the essence of the social contract that we live under when we decide to become a society.
When people like the authors above, or the creators of the Manhattan Declaration, complain that, not faith, but that their particular embodiment of faith isn’t given supremacy above all others and cries of “persecution” are heard, it is rightfully interpreted as an innate hatred of the rest of society and disdain for the social contract we all live under.
There’s a name for people who believe they, and their beliefs, should always be kowtowed to no matter what …
… they’re called sociopaths.
Well, yes. But it’s one thing to say that Metaxas and the Georges and the commenter at Libby Anne’s blog are delusional sociopaths who hate the rest of society — that much is obvious. It’s quite another thing to demonstrate that this hate-fueled delusion is more widely present within the broader white evangelical subculture.
And that’s where the latest survey from the Barna Group comes in. Because that survey provides what all those anecdotal examples cannot provide: Quantifiable proof that a majority of white evangelical Americans are hate-fueled sociopaths making themselves and others miserable with a perverse and delusional persecution complex [ http://www.religionnews.com/2013/01/23/poll-shows-a-double-standard-on-religious-liberty/ (just above)].
Barna doesn’t quite put it as strongly as that, but the implication is identical. A majority of white evangelicals “want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,” said David Kinnamon, president of the Barna Group.
“Dominate.” Or, as Christian said, it’s not about religious liberty, it’s about religious primacy.
The findings of a poll published Wednesday (Jan. 23), reveal a “double standard” among a significant portion of evangelicals on the question of religious liberty, said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, a California think tank that studies American religion and culture.
While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, “they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,” said Kinnamon.
“They cannot have it both ways,” he said. “This does not mean putting Judeo-Christian values aside, but it will require a renegotiation of those values in the public square as America increasingly becomes a multi-faith nation.”
Barna’s survey also found white evangelicals enthusiastically eager to lay blame to others for their perceived “persecution.” Nearly three-fourths of white evangelicals, “72 percent … agreed that gays and lesbians were the group ‘most active in trying to remove Christian values from the country.’”
Again, that’s a direct inversion and deliberate perversion of the daily, felt, known and experienced reality for those very same evangelicals. They cannot be unaware that evangelicals are the group most active in trying to remove LGBT people from the country. In a sense, I suppose, this survey response is an expression of that same desire to rid society of all such unwanted people — a way of restating the emphatic belief that their presence and very existence is a threat to the majority’s “values.”
That survey finding cannot be explained other than, in Christian’s words again, as evidence of “an innate hatred of the rest of society and disdain for the social contract we all live under.”
And it’s not just the attitude of a few outliers nut-picked from comment sections or of a few of the more outrageous pseudo-intellectual posers like Metaxas or the Georges. This delusional sociopathy is the majority view.
An old professor of mine used to say that social science sometimes amounted only to “the statistical approximation of the known,” and this survey may seem like that to many of us who have long observed what it quantifies. But that quantification also serves as evidence, as proof, of what we have been saying.
A great many white evangelicals have a delusional persecution complex. That delusion is an expression of a desire to dominate others and to scapegoat any others who refuse to be dominated.
Thanks to Barna’s survey, we know that’s not just a theory or just an argument, it’s a fact.
- – -
* I suspect those who agree with her are thinking mainly of boiled Brussels sprouts, which is unfair. Nothing is very appealing if you insist on cooking all the flavor out of it.
Brussels sprouts should be broiled — cut in half, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper or lemon, then cooked in an oven [ http://allrecipes.com/recipe/roasted-brussels-sprouts/ ], not boiled on a stove. Just saying.
Here comes the story of one woman, actually a pastor whose snide musings on an Applebee’s [ http://scallywagandvagabond.com/development/scally2/tag/applebees/ ] food receipt (‘I give god 10% why do you get 18') has escalated with the firing of the server who decided to post the snide remark on social media outlet reddit.
The server’s dismissal came after Pastor Alois Bell was mortified that her musings had suddenly gone viral on the web and in fact she had originally called the establishment to demand everyone involved be fired. I know God doesn’t take any shit kids.
But now Pastor Bell has had a sudden change of heart (yes God can forgive you if you try) and has now gone on to express contrition. Not necessarily because the scorned server got fired (they just wanted their tip, which Pastor Bell challenged after it was automatically added after Bell and her party of greater than 5 dined) but because her actions has ‘brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.’
Pastor Alois Bell is also a preferred hawt bixch.
Meanwhile Pastor Bell has gone on to offer her notation on the receipt was a “lapse in judgment that has been blown out of proportion.”
And what about the fired waitress, what’s her take on being at the center of God’s fury?
Hell have no fury like Pastor Bell, err God scorned…
The below YouTube video shows Bell preaching last year before a small crowd at her church, St. Louis-based Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah8i5YdsI84 (next below, as embedded)]:
Justice Antonin Scalia’s inauguration headgear: More than a hat?
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (L) and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts(C) arrive for the inauguration ceremony at the US Capitol on January 21, 2013 in Washington, DC. (SAUL LOEB - AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
By Elizabeth Tenety Posted at 11:00 AM ET, 01/22/2013
President Obama, with his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, offering a compromise on the contraception mandate last year. Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency
Legal Battles
More than 45 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts challenging the contraceptive coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act.
Most come from religiously-affiliated institutions and remain largely suspended while the government tries to offer a compromise.
More than a dozen suits are from private companies that do things like run mines, sell crafts and ship produce.
Of those, nine companies have received some form of temporary relief while the cases prepare for trial; five lawsuits have been rejected.
“This is highly likely to end up at the Supreme Court,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the country’s top scholars on church-state conflicts. “There are so many cases, and we are already getting strong disagreements among the circuit courts.”
But a provision requiring the full coverage of contraception remains a matter of fierce controversy. The law says that companies must fully cover all “contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures” approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including “morning-after pills” and intrauterine devices whose effects some contend are akin to abortion [ http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/surgery/abortion/overview.html ].
As applied by the Health and Human Services Department, the law offers an exemption for “religious employers,” meaning those who meet a four-part test: that their purpose is to inculcate religious values, that they primarily employ and serve people who share their religious tenets, and that they are nonprofit groups under federal tax law.
But many institutions, including religious schools and colleges, do not meet those criteria because they employ and teach members of other religions and have a broader purpose than inculcating religious values.
“We represent a Catholic college founded by Benedictine monks,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty [ http://www.becketfund.org/ ], which has brought a number of the cases to court. “They don’t qualify as a house of worship and don’t turn away people in hiring or as students because they are not Catholic.”
Defenders of the provision say employers may not be permitted to impose their views on employees, especially when something so central as health care is concerned.
“Ninety-nine percent of women use contraceptives at some time in their lives,” said Judy Waxman, a vice president of the National Women’s Law Center [ http://www.nwlc.org/ ], which filed a brief supporting the government in one of the cases. “There is a strong and legitimate government interest because it affects the health of women and babies.”
She added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Contraception was declared by the C.D.C. to be one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”
Officials at the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department declined to comment, saying the cases were pending.
A compromise for religious institutions may be worked out. The government hopes that by placing the burden on insurance companies rather than on the organizations, the objections will be overcome. Even more challenging cases involve private companies run by people who reject all or many forms of contraception.
“Two-thirds of the cases have had injunctions against Obamacare, and most are headed to courts of appeals,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the alliance. “It is clear that a substantial number of these cases will vindicate religious freedom over Obamacare. But it seems likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the dispute.”
The timing of these cases remains in flux. Half a dozen will probably be argued by this summer, perhaps in time for inclusion on the Supreme Court’s docket next term. So far, two- and three-judge panels on four federal appeals courts have weighed in, granting some injunctions while denying others.
One of the biggest cases involves Hobby Lobby, which started as a picture framing shop in an Oklahoma City garage with $600 and is now one of the country’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states.
Mr. Green does not object to covering contraception but considers morning-after pills to be abortion-inducing and therefore wrong.
“Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Mr. Green said in a statement. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit last month turned down his family’s request for a preliminary injunction, but the company has found a legal way to delay compliance for some months.
These cases pit the First Amendment and a religious liberty law against the central domestic policy of the Obama administration, likely affecting many tens of thousands of employees. The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and much attention has been focused in the past two decades on the issue of “free exercise,” meaning preventing governmental interference with religious practices.
The cases also test the contours of a 1993 law known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The law prohibits the federal government from imposing a “substantial burden” on any religious practice without a “compelling state interest.” The burden must also be the least restrictive possible.
Professor Laycock of the University of Virginia said: “The burden is clear especially for religious organizations, which ought to be able to run themselves in accordance with their religious teachings. They are being asked to pay for medications they view as evil.” He added that because the health care law had many exceptions, including for very small companies, the government might find it hard to convince the courts that contraception coverage is, in fact, a compelling interest.
“You could have an objection of conscience to anything the government wants you to do — pay taxes because they will go to war or to capital punishment, or having your picture on your driver’s license,” Mr. Marshall said. “The court has made clear that religious groups have no broad right for such exceptions.”
Mr. Laycock said that while judges are supposed to be neutral, they too can get caught up in the culture wars. Judges sympathetic to women’s sexual autonomy would probably come down on one side of the dispute, and those more concerned with religious liberty on the other, he said.
“There is a lot of political freight on this issue,” he said.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed yet another compromise on Friday in an effort to address the concerns of religious organizations that object to its policy requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives for women at no charge.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the proposal would guarantee free coverage of birth control “while respecting religious concerns.”
Churches and religious organizations that object to providing birth control coverage on religious grounds would not have to pay for it.
Under the proposal, female employees could get free birth control coverage through a separate plan that would be provided by a health insurer. The institution objecting to the coverage would not pay for the contraceptives. The costs would instead be paid by the insurance company, with the possibility of recouping the costs through lower health care expenses resulting in part from fewer births.
The White House has struggled for more than two years to balance its commitment to women’s rights and health care for all with the need to protect religious liberty. The contraception plan provoked a furor during last year’s presidential campaign, and the administration was forced to say that it would provide an accomodation for groups with religious objections. The subject of contraception coverage became part of a broader campaign dialogue over women’s issues.
The new health care law generally requires employers to provide women with coverage at no cost for “preventive care and screenings.” Under this provision, the administration says that most health plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge.
Specifically, the administration says, employers must cover sterilization and the full range of contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including emergency contraceptive pills, like those known as Ella and Plan B One-Step. Employers that do not provide such coverage will be subject to financial penalties.
The administration on Friday proposed a complicated arrangement to finance contraceptive coverage for employees of religious organizations that serve as their own insurers. The federal government would require health insurance companies to defray the cost indirectly, by paying higher fees for the privilege of selling health insurance to millions of Americans in new online markets run by the federal government.
The federal government was already planning to charge user fees to pay for the operation of those marketplaces, known as insurance exchanges. The cost of the fees can be passed on to consumers.
Administration officials also proposed a new definition of “religious employers” that can be exempted from the requirement to provide contraceptive coverage.
The exemption would be available to churches, other houses of worship and certain affiliated organizations.
Under the proposal, the administration said, “a house of worship would not be excluded from the exemption because, for example, it provides charitable social services to persons of different religious faiths or employs persons of different religious faiths.”
The administration had previously agreed to allow exemptions for certain religious employers. But church groups said the exemption was so narrow that it was almost meaningless.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a noncommittal statement saying he welcomed the opportunity to study the proposed regulation.
Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, said the proposed changes were “an important win for religious institutions.”
Under the original standard, a religious employer could not have qualified for the exemption if it employed or served large numbers of people of a different faith, as many Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies do.
The administration said that the new definition, though simpler, “would not expand the universe of employer plans that would qualify for the exemption beyond that which was intended” in a final regulation issued last year.
This videtorial is based on a May 8, 2012 editorial by Joseph Farah, founder and publisher of WND.com.
Rush Limbaugh asked a question last week — and it got me to thinking. "Who was the first leftist?" Rush suggested we ought to find him and string him up, but it's probably far too late for that.
So who was the first leftist? We could look at the question strictly historically. When was the term "left" as a political position even invented?
If we start there, we begin in 1789, at the time of the French Revolution. Members of the National Assembly divided themselves, according to their political loyalties to the left and right of the president. Perhaps that was the first time the actual ideological labels were used, but the worldview behind them began long before.
It may have begun at the Tower of Babel, when Nimrod, decided he was wiser than God and set out to bring the whole world together in one place in defiance of the Almighty. Ultimately, isn't that what the "leftist" philosophy is all about at its core? Wasn't that what the spirit of the French Revolution and those who followed in its footsteps were all about?
Yet, the more I think about it, the more I am persuaded the first lefty came well before the story of Genesis 10. I think it goes back to an earlier event described in Isaiah 14. There was an angel named Lucifer, the most beautiful and glorious creation of God. But he was proud. And he wasn't satisfied with his station in life.
So he declared in his heart, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High."
Indeed, I'm hardly the first person to suggest that Lucifer, or Satan, was the first lefty. In fact, one of the best-known lefties of the 20th century, one whose ideas may be reaching the pinnacle of their effectiveness today, said as much way back in 1972.
That would be the infamous Saul Alinsky. In Rules for Radicals, the inspiration of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and many others, wrote the following: "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer."
That is indeed what most lefties are after. They want their own kingdom. They don't want any part of God's Kingdom. They seek to devise their own and rule over it.
I don't agree with Alinsky about much, but about this he is right — Lucifer was the first radical, the first rebel, the first opponent of God's order. It may be too late to string up Alinsky. It may be too late to string up the agitators of the French Revolution. It may be too late to string up Karl Marx or Josef Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Lenin or Mao.
But Satan has been defeated. His days are numbered. His fate is sealed.
So keep that in mind when you get depressed by the politics and cultural madness all around you.
The Holy Bibles description of Satan Here! If you leave offensive comments, I will delete them. If you dont agree with my views, its easy to stop watching.
The Time I Called Pope Benedict 'the Devil' to His Face
By Michelangelo Signorile Posted: 01/25/2013 9:43 am
I'm celebrating a silver anniversary tomorrow. There are many things we all regret 25 years later. I'm thinking this is not one of them, though I'll let you all be the judge of that.
On Jan. 26, 1988, I jumped on a platform and addressed several hundred startled people who comprised the upper crust of New York Catholic and political society, including the recently deceased Supreme Court justice nominee Robert Bork; the influential conservative columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., and his socialite wife Pat; New York City Mayor Ed Koch and a slew of other New York politicians (Catholics and non-Catholics, Democrats and Republicans alike); and a battery of Wall Street power brokers and corporate leaders.
Pointing not 10 feet away at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope John Paul's emissary from Rome who had come to give a political speech promoting the Vatican's positions, which include condemnations of homosexuality, I yelled down to the rapt crowd in the loudest voice I could: "He is no man of God!" I paused briefly, as they listened intently, and then continued: "He is the devil!"
I truly had no idea where that came from, nor could I explain what force had had me jump on that platform.
The collective gasp from the audience -- and the cold clasp of police handcuffs around my wrists -- jarred me into reality as I quickly took stock of what I'd just done: A lifetime of Catholic teaching telling me that I was "intrinsically disordered" for being gay had come to a head, and in an almost involuntary action I was confronting the man who was responsible for it; the man who led the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; the man who came up with those vicious words that were so frequently used to attack lifesaving safer-sex education programs in the midst of the AIDS epidemic; the man who, unbeknownst to me at the time, would go on to become the pope himself.
It was exhilarating.
Let me be clear: I'd not interrupted a religious service of any kind, nor was the talk even inside a Catholic church. The event was held at St. Peter's Church [ http://saintpeters.org/your-church/ ], a stark, modern Lutheran church housed at the base of a citadel of American capitalism, the famous, sharply angled skyscraper in midtown Manhattan known as the Citigroup Center [ http://www.aviewoncities.com/nyc/citigroupcenter.htm ]. This was a political visit, and the Vatican required a more neutral location, free of the ornate and scary statuary of a Catholic church, so that the most prominent secular leaders would attend.
But suddenly much of my childhood and adolescence flashed before me; I vividly recalled the bullying I'd experienced at the hands of kids who called me a "faggot." I recognized on one side of Ratzinger the PR flack for the New York Archdiocese who had previously been the dean at the Catholic boys' school I had attended on Staten Island, where I was mercilessly bullied and the administration did nothing to help. I looked back at Ratzinger. "Because of this man and his teachings," I thought to myself, "I was taunted and attacked, treated like garbage." Suddenly something just overtook me, and there I was, jumping on that platform. Cardinal O'Connor, who sat on the other side of Ratzinger, buried his head in his hands, exasperated. But Ratzinger himself sat there stoically, staring at me, his eyes burning right through me.
I was carted off to jail, and the next day there I was, in handcuffs, along with other protestors, on the front pages of New York's tabloids, under the satisfying headlines "Gays Rattle Pope's Envoy" and "Gays Protest Vatican Biggy [ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727724,00.html ]." It's funny, but all I could think about that afternoon as I was shoved into the paddy wagon was, "I can't go to jail! I have a dinner party tonight." I was, at the time, a nightlife columnist, covering premieres, parties and nightclub events. But my life changed forever that day, and I immersed myself in ACT UP, chairing its media committee and publicizing AIDS demonstrations, trying to bring the message of government negligence to the public. Ratzinger unwittingly baptized me that day into AIDS activism and gay politics, setting my journalism career on an entirely different course.
After seeing Benedict's latest attacks a few weeks ago, calling gay marriage [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/09/pope-benedict-xvi-gay-marriage_n_1194515.html ] a "threat to the future of humanity," I thought of my upcoming 25th anniversary of calling him out and how it changed my life. Was it wrong to do? Immature? Unproductive? I don't think so. People like the pope need to hear from us over and over again, as activism has a cumulative effect even on the most intransigent. Moreover, those in the room needed to hear it, too. Perhaps one person, one influential individual in that room, thought about why these people would risk arrest and call the pope "the devil." And maybe it moved them to act.
We also need to speak out like that to empower ourselves to defend our own dignity, and to tell ourselves that we will not take the hate lying down. When we stand up and challenge our enemies and call them out every chance we get, we are stronger, and we let one another know that we will never be silent.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone Compares Legalizing Gay Marriage To Male Breastfeeding
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, of San Francisco, addresses the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Church's activities to promote the defense of marriage at the group's annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Monday, Nov. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
By Meredith Bennett-Smith Posted: 01/30/2013 11:15 am EST | Updated: 01/31/2013 12:46 am EST
During a recent interview, a Catholic leader made an unusual comparison between gay marriage and male breastfeeding.
In an apparent effort to emphasize the ridiculousness of the concept, Cordileone made the following comparison:
Legislating for the right for people of the same sex to marry is like legalizing male breastfeeding.
The archbishop told the Herald that the struggle to protect traditional marriage is God's "gift" to his generation.
“This is our particular trial, and by overcoming it we may achieve spiritual greatness," he said. "It will entail suffering if we are to oppose gay marriage, something which poses such destruction to the understanding of natural marriage, which is a child-oriented institution.”
Meanwhile, some transgender men have also been able to keep their female reproductive organs [ http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2012/08/26/la-leche-league-consider-transgender-leaders ] and breastfeed their children. This possibility, highlighted by the advocacy of Trevor MacDonald, forced international breastfeeding group La Leche to revisit its "female only" leadership policy, reports The Advocate.
Despite San Francisco's liberal atmosphere, Cordileone has spoken publicly against the LGBT community on several other occasions.
The meaning of marriage, though, cannot be redefined because it lies within our very nature. No matter what policy, law or judicial decision is put into place, marriage is the only institution that unites a man and a woman to each other and to any children born of their union. It is either this, or it is nothing at all.
Rebuke of Cardinal Mahony casts a lengthy shadow at L.A. churches
People leave morning Mass at Cathedral Of Our Lady Of The Angels on Friday. Photo by Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
By Harriet Ryan, Victoria Kim, Ashley Powers, Joseph Serna, Hector Becerra, Jack Leonard and Adolfo Flores February 1, 2013 | 10:41am
Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez's decision to relieve his predecessor, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children decades ago was met by both resignation and disbelief in churches across the region.
"I was hoping it wasn't true," 71-year-old Ann Gapas said outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels after a morning prayer Friday.
"Then I come here this morning and everything is so silent and the news vans are here. It's so sad."
The news of the sex scandals have been conflicting for Gapas, who stood outside the cathedral's doors in a sweater and jeans, holding a church newsletter.
Priests "are our role models and we respect them so much," Gapas said. "You always hope it's not true."
Gomez's decision to relieve Mahony was the right choice, said Armando Zamora of Los Angeles.
Mahony "should've been denouncing the abuse," Zamora said in Spanish, "not covering it up."
It's no wonder people are upset, he said. But he added that the sex abuse scandal didn't affect his Catholic faith.
"That's between me and Him," he said pointing at the sky.
Gomez on Thursday also announced that Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who worked with Mahony to conceal abusers from police in the 1980s, had resigned his post as a regional bishop in Santa Barbara.
The announcements came as the church posted on its website [ http://clergyfiles.la-archdiocese.org/ ] tens of thousands of pages of previously secret personnel files for 122 priests accused of molesting children.
"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," Gomez wrote in a letter addressed to "My brothers and sisters in Christ."
The release of the records and the rebuke of the two central figures in the L.A. Archdiocese scandal signaled a clear desire by Gomez to define the sexual abuse crisis as a problem of a different era — and a different archbishop.
"I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011," Gomez wrote.
The public censure of Mahony, whose quarter-century at the helm of America's largest archdiocese made him one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church, was unparalleled, experts said.
"This is very unusual and shows really how seriously they're taking this. To tell a cardinal he can't do confirmations, can't do things in public, that's extraordinary," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and Georgetown University fellow.
An archdiocese spokesman, Tod Tamberg, said Thursday that beyond canceling Mahony's confirmation schedule, his day-to-day life as a retired priest would be largely unchanged. He resides at a North Hollywood parish, and Tamberg said he would remain a "priest in good standing." He can continue to celebrate Mass and will be eligible to vote for pope until he turns 80 two years from now, Tamberg said.
The move further stained the legacy of Mahony, a tireless advocate for Latinos and undocumented immigrants whose reputation has been marred over the last decade by revelations about his treatment of sex abuse allegations.
Before Gomez's announcement, Mahony had weathered three grand jury investigations and numerous calls for his resignation. He stayed in office until the Vatican's mandatory retirement age of 75. No criminal charges have been filed against Mahony or anyone in the church hierarchy.
Terrence McKiernan, president of bishopaccountability.org [ http://bishopaccountability.org/ ], said that in a religious institution that values saving face and protecting its own, Gomez's decision to publicly criticize an elder statesman of the church and his top aide was striking.
"Even when Cardinal [Bernard] Law was removed in Boston, which was arguably for the same offenses, this kind of gesture was not made," he said.
Law left office in 2002 amid mounting outrage over his transfer of pedophile priests from parish to parish, but the church presented his departure as of his own accord and he was later given a highly coveted Vatican job in Rome.
Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien of Phoenix relinquished some of his authority in a deal with prosecutors to avoid criminal charges for his handling of abuse cases, but he kept his title and many of his duties. A Kansas City bishop convicted last year of failing to report child abuse retained his position.
The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and Dominican priest who has testified across the nation as an expert witness in clergy sex abuse cases, said the Vatican would have "absolutely" been consulted on a decision of this magnitude.
"This is momentous, there is no question," he said. "For something like this to happen to a cardinal.... The way they treat cardinals is as if they're one step below God."
Gomez's decision was the latest event in a two-week period in which the publication of 25-year-old files fueled a new round of condemnation of the L.A. archdiocese. The files of 14 clerics accused of abuse became public in a court case on Jan. 21. They revealed in Mahony and Curry's own words how the church hierarchy had worked to keep law enforcement from learning that children had been molested at the hands of priests.
To stave off investigations, Mahony and Curry gave priests they knew had abused children out-of-state assignments and kept them from seeing therapists who might alert authorities.
Mahony and Curry both issued apologies, with the cardinal saying he had not realized the extent of harm done to children until he met with victims during civil litigation. "I am sorry," he said.
Victims called for new criminal investigations and the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said it was reviewing the newly released files.
At the same time, a five-year battle over the release of confidential church records on abuser priests was drawing to a close. Under the church's 2007 settlement with more than 500 victims, the archdiocese was required to hand over the personnel files of every cleric accused of abuse.
The church waged unsuccessful battles to keep much of the material secret and later to ensure that the names of Mahony, Curry and other church employees were blacked out.
On Wednesday, church lawyers abruptly announced they planned to provide victims' lawyers with unredacted files that included the names of everyone in supervisory roles. On Thursday afternoon, a judge signed a final order requiring the archdiocese to hand over the files within three weeks.
An hour later, a spokesman for the church released Gomez's statement and the files were posted on the archdiocese website.
McKiernan of bishopaccountability.org noted that Mahony will keep the title of "archbishop emeritus" and suggested his removal from public life was primarily an effort to blunt the wave of criticism likely to follow the file release.
"They are trying to gain control of what is truly a devastating time for them," he said.
The files released Thursday contained additional evidence of attempts by Curry and Mahony to stymie police investigations.
In a 1988 memo about Father Nicolas Aguilar-Rivera, a Mexican priest accused of molesting more than 20 boys during a nine-month stay in Los Angeles, Curry expressed a desire to keep a list of parish altar boys from investigators.
"The whole issue of our records is a very sensitive one, and I am reluctant to give any list to the police," Curry wrote.
At the bottom of the memo, Mahony replied: "We cannot give such a list for no cause whatsoever."
The police charged Aguilar-Rivera, but after receiving a warning from Curry, he went to Mexico. He remains a fugitive.
In some memos, archdiocesan officials appeared concerned only with the church's reputation and displayed little sympathy for the victims of abuse. In a 1990 note about Father George Neville Rucker, who authorities believe molested 30 children, an unidentified church official wrote that three women had contacted the archdiocese alleging that the priest molested them decades earlier when they were children.
"One of these days, they may happen to meet and all hell will break loose," the official wrote.
At the Our Lady Queen of Angels Church on Olvera Street Thursday night, there was debate about Gomez's decision.
Richard Estrada, a church volunteer from Los Angeles, said he remained skeptical that Mahony participated in the cover-up, adding that if he did, he was trying to protect the church.
"But it hurts everybody," said Jose Lopez, a minister who said he become religious after multiple stints in prison. "Forget about embarrassment, it's hurting the kids."
"The whole thing is just a shame," Estrada replied.
Ralph Ochoa, a food volunteer, started to interrupt, then paused. The group went quiet. He then took a small breath and spoke.
"I really think Mahony is a disgrace," he said. "I really do. No matter what we say or do, no one knows. He'll get his judgment."
"If it's true," Estrada jumped in.
"We have to believe it's true," Ochoa said. "To keep our faith in the church."
Text of the letter Archbishop Gomez sent to the church community
Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, seen in 2010. (Wally Skalij, Los Angeles Times / February 27, 2010)
'These files document abuses that happened decades ago. But that does not make them less serious.… The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil.'
January 31, 2013, 8:46 p.m.
Here is the letter Archbishop Jose H. Gomez sent to the church community Thursday afternoon:
*
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
This week we are releasing the files of priests who sexually abused children while they were serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
These files document abuses that happened decades ago. But that does not make them less serious.
I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.
We need to acknowledge that terrible failure today. We need to pray for everyone who has ever been hurt by members of the Church. And we need to continue to support the long and painful process of healing their wounds and restoring the trust that was broken.
I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused, has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011.
My predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, has expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care. Effective immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry has also publicly apologized for his decisions while serving as Vicar for Clergy. I have accepted his request to be relieved of his responsibility as the Regional Bishop of Santa Barbara.
To every victim of child sexual abuse by a member of our Church: I want to help you in your healing. I am profoundly sorry for these sins against you.
To every Catholic in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, I want you to know: We will continue, as we have for many years now, to immediately report every credible allegation of abuse to law enforcement authorities and to remove those credibly accused from ministry. We will continue to work, every day, to make sure that our children are safe and loved and cared for in our parishes, schools and in every ministry in the Archdiocese.
In the weeks ahead, I will address all of these matters in greater detail. Today is a time for prayer and reflection and deep compassion for the victims of child sexual abuse.
I entrust all of us and our children and families to the tender care and protection of our Blessed Mother Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of the Angels.
A spokesperson told NCR today that the Vatican is not planning on releasing a public comment on a decision [ http://ncronline.org/node/44051/ ] by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles to relieve his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all administrative and public duties over his "failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care."
Gomez announced in a Thursday letter, which coincided with the release of files from Los Angeles concerning priests who committed sexual abuse, that he had also accepted a request from Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry to be relieved of his duties.
Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, told NCR that although he has received several requests for comment from news agencies, there are no plans at this time to issue a statement. Among other things, he said, the Vatican needs time "to better understand the situation."
As a technical matter, Gomez's action affects only Mahony's responsibilities in the Los Angeles archdiocese. He remains a cardinal and a voting member of three Vatican departments: the Congregation for Eastern Churches, the Council for Social Communications, and the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. Mahony will turn 77 on Feb. 27, which means that should a conclave occur in the next three years, he would also be eligible to cast a vote for the next pope. (Mahony participated in the April 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.)
It remains to be seen whether Gomez's decision will have any wider repercussions for Mahony's other roles.
In the annals of bureaucratic indifference, the phrase "we didn't know any better" is often employed by those who looked past human suffering and helped abusers to escape responsibility. In the cases of priests who have raped and molested children, Catholic bishops have often offered this excuse after the world comes to know that they protected their brothers rather than report their crimes to police.
The "we didn't know better" excuse echoed again from Los Angeles recently where newly released documents show that then Cardinal Roger Mahony and his advisor Monsignor Thomas Curry long maneuvered to shield known abusers from police and prosecutors. In one case Mahony advised a priest whom he knew had abused 20 child victims to stay out of California "for the foreseeable future" to avoid "some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors." In another case Mahony considered Curry's suggestion that an offending priest see a psychiatrist who is also a lawyer because the attorney-client privilege would bar the doctor from reporting his crimes. ""Sounds good --please proceed!!" wrote Mahony.
These notes, among many others, show a pattern of deference to priests whose victims included many who were children of undocumented Mexican immigrants. One letter noted that a priest named Peter Garcia admitted molesting boys "off and on" for decades but felt safe from prosecution because his victims feared the authorities. He even confessed to threatening one child with deportation if he ever complained to police.
As the documents were released, the cardinal's legal representative reminded reporters that Mahony and Curry dealt with these cases during "a period of deepening understanding of the nature of the problem of sex abuse both here and in our society in general." In fact in this time -- 1986 to 1989 - the problem of sexual abuse was widely recognized and many professionals were required, by law, to report even suspected abuse. In 1984 President Reagan used his state of the union address to decry "horrible crimes like sexual abuse and family violence." In 1985 Mahony and his fellow bishops received a report on the problem by experts who warned them that they faced "Extreme Criminal Law Possibilities" in such cases. The primary authors of the briefing paper, a lawyer named Raymond Mouton and a priest named Thomas Doyle, had examined Church records, understood how many crimes had been covered-up, and warned of an avalanche of scandal to come.
The avalanche started in the mid-1980s and has continued ever since, with hundreds of priests going to jail and more than $3 billion paid to victims in civil suits. The documents released on Jan. 21, thanks in large measure to the efforts of victims attorneys led by Tony DeMarco of Pasadena, add to the mass of evidence showing that long after they surely knew better, hierarchs continued to protect priests who had committed serious crimes. More details, and presumably more excuses will certainly come, as priest abuse files were released yesterday by the L.A. Archdiocese.
I often encounter people who wonder why, after three decades, the Church continues to be afflicted by scandal related to abuse cases, many of which are 20 or 30 years old. In the Los Angeles case, all the tragic truth could have come out years ago, when the Church settled lawsuits with payments totaling more than $600 million. At that time the archdiocese agreed to release its files, but it failed to honor its commitment in a timely fashion. This choice means the Church is now subject to a catastrophe occurring in such slow motion that everyone is able to see all the dreadful nuances of its cover-ups. And we have the time to check the record to see that in fact, everyone did know better, even way back then.
Brother Stephen Baker, suspected in many molestations in Warren, commits suicide
By Associated Press January 26, 2013 at 4:39 PM, updated January 26, 2013 at 4:44 PM
HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. -- Police say a Franciscan friar accused of sexually abusing students at schools in two states killed himself at a western Pennsylvania monastery.
Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said an autopsy by the county coroner confirmed that 62-year-old Brother Stephen Baker died of self-inflicted wounds.
White said officers were called to St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday morning after another resident had found Baker not breathing.
Baker was named last week in legal settlements with 11 men who said Baker had sexually assaulted them at Warren John F. Kennedy High School in Ohio three decades ago. A Pennsylvania school said it has also received molestation allegations involving Baker.
December and its holiday demands were a blur, and his burgeoning business had done well, bringing in $300,000 of sales since August. The trip was the payoff for all his hard work.
But Wallin needed someone to run his business enterprise while he was gone. Someone he could trust.
Only Kenneth "Lyme" Devries, his next door neighbor on Waterbury's Golden Hill Street, fit the bill.
Then there were the customers, like Kenneth Mason, calling, texting, even appearing at his door with money in hand and worries in mind: "Oh no, 12 days what am I going to do?" Mason texted.
"Lyme will be covering things while I'm gone," Wallin reassured him.
And there was the product: Was there enough? Was it ready for sale? His California suppliers were calling, texting, demanding payment. They too had to be taken care of.
And if all this wasn't enough, there was still the store. Wallin was hoping to open it in North Haven and fill it with adult videos and sex toys.
So life as a 61-year-old entrepreneur was a lot different from his old life as a priest, he was learning. But London was ahead with its sites and its theaters, a dream about to become a reality in just 12 hours.
Then came the pounding. There were fists banging on his doors and ear-splitting shouts. All around him were big guys with DEA emblazoned across their windbreakers.
Now he was "Monsignor Meth" -- the cross-dressing Roman Catholic priest who enjoyed sex in the church's rectory and crystal methamphetamine in his pipe.
*
Dealing crystal meth out of a second floor apartment in the hills of Waterbury, filled with multifamily homes and transient neighbors, is a far cry from a life of teaching at Greenwich Catholic Middle School, serving as secretary to two Bridgeport bishops and tying a homily to the struggle of love, life and death aboard the Titanic.
Just a day after that movie was released, Wallin eloquently made use of it, recalls the Rev. Leo McIlrath, a Catholic priest and chaplain to the Lutheran Home in Southbury.
"He's telling me about it and I'm wondering where he's going to go with this -- baptism in the water? But he spun it beautifully ... linking the people on the boat to the community ... it was wonderful."
"Wonderful" -- that's how parishioners like Gene Eriquez, Danbury's former mayor, remember Wallin's six years in that city.
"He was very caring, compassionate, a good shepherd," Eriquez said. "He had a good rapport with the other priests there."
It was more than good, said McIlrath, a lifelong Danbury resident. That parish home "was never happier."
Maybe that stemmed from Wallin's ebullient demeanor.
After all, Wallin was described as a "new breed of priest" in a 1981 Connecticut Post article about his entering the seminary at age 29. This new breed consisted of men more educated in both school and life. Men who had worked at other jobs requiring them to deal with people and confront problems.
As a boy, after his parents died, he was raised with his older sister by their grandparents. Wallin immersed himself in his studies, graduating sixth in his 1967 class at Earl L. Vandermullen High School in Port Jefferson, N.Y.
Six years later, he had a bachelor's degree in history from SUNY Purchase. The following year he received his master's in student personnel from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
While studying for his master's in Ohio, he worked as Defiance College's assistant dean of students. The degree got him hired by SUNY as assistant director for student activities at its Purchase campus.
During that time, Wallin moved to the Byram section of Greenwich and took a part-time job teaching at the Greenwich Catholic Middle School. He taught there until 1977.
Then it was back to Purchase in September 1978 as director for student activities and campus centers.
In the 1981 Post article, Wallin described handling a crew of college freshman living for the first time on their own as "frustrating, fulfilling -- but never dull."
But the enchantment of priesthood -- a vocation he first considered in high school -- was irresistible. With his 30th birthday approaching, Wallin went back to school to study to be a priest at the Catholic University Theological College in Washington.
"He was perfect for them," said a longtime Bridgeport Catholic active in Diocesan affairs. "He was well-mannered ... very sociable ... Impeccably dressed with his collection of French cuff links and collars. He wasn't going to embarrass them."
Egan would not comment on Wallin's plight. He has "declined all interview requests about Monsignor Wallin," said John Zwilling, the New York Archdiocese communications director.
When introduced to the diocese's well-to-do, Wallin would engage them in thoughtful conversation on current events, the most popular books and his favorite subject -- Broadway shows.
"He and Bishop Egan were great buddies," said Rev. McIlrath. "They went to all the musicals together."
It didn't stop with watching plays either. Wallin, who used the AOL screen name of Broadwayguy73, was known for arranging variety shows as fundraisers for the churches and reviewing plays he saw in diocese newsletters.
"He was quite a vaudevillian," said Eriquez, the former Danbury mayor, who appointed Wallin to the city's Cultural Commission.
Wallin was also health conscious, watched his diet and stayed in shape by frequently in-line skating in Danbury's Rogers Park, Eriquez said. He was described as charming and charismatic, with a good sense of humor.
But more than that, the former mayor said Wallin showed his priestly competence, introducing programs and overseeing renovations that included delicately refinishing the stations of the cross and reglazing the decades-old German stained glass windows without bankrupting the Danbury parish.
"I know of no one who left the parish because of Monsignor Wallin," said the Rev. McIlrath. "I only know of people who were drawn in because of him."
Others like Eriquez and McIlrath thought Wallin was destined for bigger things.
"We'd joke with him ... say things like: `Don't forget us when you're a bishop' ... but he'd shy away from that talk," the former Danbury mayor said.
McIlrath always wondered why Egan, who he said held Wallin in such high regard, never took him to New York with him and "made him an auxiliary bishop."
*
Back in Bridgeport, as pastor of St. Augustine Cathedral, he oversaw the $4 million renovation of the nearly 150-year-old edifice.
With him came his expertise in fundraising. He quickly eliminated the $5 box on the donation envelopes so $10 would be the lowest amount.
He showed compassion to parishioners, like the couple whose son was undergoing serious surgery at St. Vincent's in 2011. He stayed at the hospital until they were assured their son was OK.
"Wallin was the highlight of the diocese," said a parishioner at St. Jude's in Monroe, where every year he would celebrate a Mass.
"He was a superb orator, a very good preacher who knew how to tap into people's hearts and reach them. It's a gift, what he had."
He also became executive director of the Inner City Foundation for Charity and Education, and was made one of the chaplains for the Order of Malta, a prestigious worldwide Roman Catholic charity.
That enabled him to hobnob with Fairfield County's most prominent citizens -- people like Jane Welch, the ex-wife of Jack Welch, GE's former chairman; Bill Mitchell, of Fairfield County retailer Mitchells, Richards and Marshs; and Daniel FitzPatrick, Webster Bank executive vice president.
"He liked hanging out with rich people," according to one of them. "But he also led a manic lifestyle traveling, going, doing, making, speaking -- he didn't stop."
Looking back, this prominent Catholic wondered if the energy wasn't coming from an alternate source -- diet pills or "speed," perhaps.
"From everything you could see this guy was destined to go places within the church," he said. "But when he wasn't moving up, it suggested to me maybe something wasn't right about him, maybe somebody knew something."
Methamphetamine is "speed," of course. Known as crystal meth, it's smoked or injected intravenously, producing a euphoric rush of pleasure that is highly addictive. It's often smoked in a pipe, like rocks of crack cocaine.
An energetic talkativeness, intense alertness and jacked-up libido are all part of the kick.
Street names for meth include "crank," "ice" and "crystal." Abuse of the drug can lead to devastating physical and mental problems, wrecking mind and body, and it's a growing public health and safety menace in the U.S. and worldwide.
*
Secrets have enveloped parishes in the Bridgeport Diocese for years.
There have been pedophile priests, pilfering priests and homosexual priests.
On April 23, 2010, Wallin captivated an audience at New Milford's Canterbury school, lecturing on suggested Catholic secrets contained in the popular and controversial "DaVinci Code" -- a novel about a hidden Catholic religious society entrusted with covering up Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene.
It's there he said something that foreshadowed revelations about his own apparently secret life.
"As human beings, we are very poor at keeping secrets," Wallin told the gathered group. "Everything eventually becomes public. Our newspapers publish secrets all the time. I know all the secrets in the Diocese of Bridgeport."
The following spring, priests and parishioners noticed a dramatic change in Wallin's behavior. "Towards the end of his time at St. Augustine's, there were some signs he was going through some difficulty," said Tom McCarthy, a longtime parishioner and president of Bridgeport's City Council. "You could see the signs of stress in his face."
Gone was the meticulous appearance. In its place was erratic behavior: He would go missing for days at a time, failing to celebrate the 7 a.m. Mass.
"Parishioners said he just didn't look right; he just didn't seem the same," said Brian Wallace, the diocese's spokesman. "We were never aware of any drug use at St. Augustine's."
Then he was seen dressed in women's clothing and there was talk of inappropriate behavior, such as cross-dressing, and whispers of sexual acts with men in the church rectory. A bag of sex toys was found in his room at the rectory.
Concerned that he was suffering from serious health issues, the diocese sent Wallin out of state for a medical evaluation.
That followed two separate stints in rehabilitation centers. On the second, at St. John Vianney Center in Pennsylvania, Wallin walked out after just five weeks in a three-month program. He also cut off all communication with the diocese.
By June 2011, Wallin had submitted his resignation and cut off communication with the diocese. The following month Lori placed him on sabbatical and suspended him with a stipend.
"We continued to reach out to him, but to no avail," Wallace said.
Wallin moved to Golden Hill Street in Waterbury, renting the upper right apartment in a four-family home. On May 14, he invited 100 of his closest associates from his days as a priest to a May 16 open house.
"I have decided to have this event to let people see where I have been living since last July and to celebrate my return to an active life with family, friends, the arts and several other indispensable aspects of my existence that I had let fall by the wayside the last couple of years at Saint Augustine," he wrote in a lengthy emailed invitation.
Just who or how many went to the "fandango," as Wallin called it in his invitation, is unknown.
Several residents on Waterbury's Golden Hill and adjacent Proctor Street were unaware that Wallin was their neighbor.
But a source assisting the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's New York City office claimed full knowledge of Wallin's Catholic priesthood and crystal meth operation.
By July, that individual was spilling his guts -- relaying a story that could have been swiped from a Quentin Tarantino movie: Wallin was dealing the drug.
The DEA source was paying him $9,000 a week for six ounces of crystal and then redistributing it in New York. He knew Wallin was addicted and was sent to rehab by the church. When Wallin was in rehab, he directed the source to retrieve a crystal meth shipment sent to the Golden Hill Street house by his California suppliers.
The source even gave up the names of the suppliers: Chad McCluskey, an electronics distributor, and Kristen Laschober, a wardrobe stylist. And he knew Wallin was trying to buy Land of Oz, an adult porn shop in North Haven. Authorities believe the sex shop was part of his plan to launder drug profits.
Working with the Statewide Narcotics Task Force, the DEA got to know more about Wallin.
They employed another source to introduce an undercover police officer to him.
On Sept. 20, the undercover cop purchased two grams of crystal for $440 at Wallin's home. While there, he saw drug paraphernalia and a safe, and was given two cellphone numbers to use in arranging future buys.
In later deals, he saw drugs, bundles of cash and more paraphernalia.
On Dec. 5 and 6, a federal judge allowed the DEA to intercept calls on Wallin's three cell phones.
For the next three weeks, they heard calls from customers looking for drugs, calls from McCluskey and Laschober offering drugs and requesting their payment.
On Jan. 3, Wallin heard from the DEA and the Narcotics Task Force. Within days, Wallin, Devries, McCluskey, Laschober and Michael Nelson all were arrested.
Sources knowledgeable in the case said Wallin was observed having sex in St. Augustine's rectory and that he liked to cavort about in women's clothing with other oddly-dressed companions.
"Never in a million years would I have thought that what happened would have happened," said McCarthy of Wallin's arrest. "I'm still in shock."
On Jan. 23, Wallin appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas P. Smith and pleaded not guilty to federal charges to distribute and sell crystal meth. He remains in custody.
The judge called the case "a real doozy."
Staff writers Anne Amato, Daniel Tepfer and MariAn Gail Brown contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Information detailing Monsignor Kevin Wallin's alleged criminal activity comes from court hearings, court documents, the DEA affidavit and federal wiretap recordings.
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More Information
1967 -- Graduated sixth in class from Earl Vandermeulen High School, Port Jefferson, L.I.
May 1973 -- Graduated with bachelor's degree in history from State University of New York at Potsdam.
September 1973-June 1974 -- Assistant dean of students at Defiance College, Defiance, Ohio.
August 1974 -- Awarded master's in college student personnel from Bowling Green University.
August 1974 -- Named assistant director of student activities at SUNY, Purchase.
1974-77 -- Part-time teacher at Greenwich Catholic Middle School.
September 1978 -- Named director of student activities, SUNY, Purchase.
January 1979 -- Named director of campus centers and student activities at SUNY, Purchase.
September 1981 -- Enrolls in seminary school at Catholic University Theological College, Washington, D.C.
1984 -- Ordained as Catholic priest, serving in Bridgeport.
1987-1996 -- Secretary to bishops Walter W. Curtis and Edward M. Egan.
1996-2002 -- Pastor of Church of St. Peter, Danbury.
2002-2011 -- Pastor of St. Augustine Cathedral in Bridgeport.
June 2011 -- Submits his resignation.
July 2011 -- Granted sabbatical and placed on suspension by the diocese.
May 2012 -- Holds open house at 22 Golden Hill Street, Waterbury, which allegedly becomes base of crystal meth operation.
Jan. 3, 2013 -- Arrested by DEA and State Police of charges of participating in a meth-dealing conspiracy.
Boy Scout Group Drops Gay-Inclusive Non-Discrimination Pledge After Threats
Posted: 01/27/2013 11:14 am EST | Updated: 01/28/2013 10:51 am EST
A Maryland-based Cub Scout pack has backed down on its non-discriminatory pledge toward gay participants after pressure from its regional council.
As Mother Jones reported [ http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/boy-scouts-threaten-kick-out-troop-who-supports-gay-members ], Pack 442 of Cloverly, Md. had "anonymously voted and overwhelmingly approved" to adopt a non-discrimination statement, which declared that the group would not discriminate "against any individual or family based on race, religion, national origin or sexual orientation."
By Jan. 26, however, Pack 442 officials had posted the following message [ http://www.pack442.us/ ] on the group's website:
"Due to pressure from the National Capital Area Council, Pack 442 is being forced to remove its Non-Discrimination statement posted below in order to keep our Charter (up at end of Jan). Please feel free to send feedback to the following NCAC Leaders at 301-530-9360: Sarah Pelter, Director of Field Services; Les Baron, Scout Executive."
Last week, Baron revealed to Mother Jones that Pack 442 had been told they "will not be recognized as an organization" unless they erased the reference to sexual orientation in their non-discrimination statement.
Among those to condemn the NCAC's threats was Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) President Herndon Graddick.
"To think that the Boy Scouts would rather cast out elementary school children than accept a parent-approved policy allowing gay children and parents to participate is just unconscionable," Graddick said in a statement [ http://www.glaad.org/blog/boy-scouts-threaten-remove-pack-supporting-gay-scouts ]. "This despicable act of bullying and intimidation is yet another reminder that the BSA is out of touch with its members and the American public at large.”
"The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting," the Scouts' chief executive, Bob Mazzuci, told the AP. "We fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society."
More evidence for my thesis below, about how Democrats now represent regular Americans while Republicans are a bunch of cranks, is the very fine news this week that the Boy Scouts of America are going to admit gay troop members and leaders. Yes. Bravo. To most of America it is not a big deal anymore.
It's existed in sports, with college bowl games down South that wouldn't take Northern teams that had dirty negroes. It's existed in rock and roll, when integrated road shows couldn't go down there. It existed on television in the 1960s, when Ed Sullivan had to very careful about how much black and white entertainers could mix on his show because sponsors and affiliates from a certain region of the country would howl. Sullivan was very courageous [ http://www.edsullivan.com/ed-sullivan-and-the-civil-rights-movement ] on this front, but variety shows led by hosts less powerful than he had to dumb their shows down to the Southern level.
As I've written previously, we are past the point in this country now where one's views on homosexuality can be called a "matter of conscience." No. Being against equality here isn't a matter of conscience anymore than having been against racial equality in 1955 was. It is just bigotry plain and simple. Enough. Piss off. Go form your own Boy Scouts. Go form your own stupid country. You aren't America anymore.
TexMessage: Rick Perry may lose his fight against openly gay Boy Scouts
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Yesterday, Boy Scouts of America announced it may finally be ending its policy to leave out the homosexual community, which would be a big disappointment for Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Perry outlined his devotion to the boys scouts in his book, On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For [ http://www.amazon.com/On-My-Honor-American-Fighting/dp/0979646227 ]. The book advocates for maintaining conservative values in the face of a “culture war.” A quote from Newt Gingrich on the inside cover reads:
“In ‘On My Honor’ Texas Governor Rick Perry examines the left’s attacks on a venerable American institution that has a profound impact on the values and virtues of young Americans: The Boy Scouts of America.”
The book makes Perry’s stance on the issue clear. Only closeted gays should be active in the Scouts, the governor insisted.
“Openly active gays, particularly advocates, present a problem. Because gay activism is central to their lives, it would unavoidably be a topic of conversation within a Scout troop. This would distract from the mission of Scouting: character building, not sex education.”
The “culture war” Gov. Perry warns his readers of could be lost as soon as next week, when the proposed policy shift is discussed in Irving.
Christopher Hitchens on the Mildly Fascist Founder of the Boy Scouts
Wikimedia Commons
In an Atlantic column, the inimitable writer looked back at the 1908 manual that started a worldwide movement.
By Jennie Rothenberg Gritz Jan 30 2013, 12:45 PM ET
"Be prepared." That was the advice the Boy Scouts of America gave its regional directors in a 1991 memo called "Atheism, Girls, and Homosexuality [ http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/bsa_gay_policy.html#1991 ]." It was a fraught time -- the organization was juggling multiple lawsuits, and local leaders were overwhelmed by the media attention. To help them fend off the press, headquarters sent out a "comprehensive package of information," beginning with a statement on homosexuality:
We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirements in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.
For many current and former scouts, this about-face raises questions about the very character of the Boy Scouts of America, an organization inspired by a British military officer named Robert Baden-Powell. In the June 2004 Atlantic, Christopher Hitchens looked back [ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/06/young-men-in-shorts/302962/ ] at Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys, the 1908 manual that gave rise to an entire culture of "young men in shorts."
As Hitchens writes, Baden-Powell was a peculiar character: "He was a racist and an imperialist and a monarchist, all right, but most of the time to a temperate degree. ... He had charm and courage, and a knack with the young, and he could draw excellent freehand illustrations."
Before founding the scouting movement, Baden-Powell was most famous for writing a book about wild-boar hunting (also known as "pig-sticking"). But his views on outdoor education were closely tied to his concerns about "the moral tone of our race." In Scouting, he stated that "one aim of the Boy Scouts scheme is to revive amongst us, if possible, some of the rules of the knights of old." He praised the Japanese code of Bushido, which taught young men to prize their honor above all else, even if it meant death or suicide.
Baden-Powell was equally enthusiastic about the fascism that began spreading through Europe after World War I. He visited Italy in 1933 and wrote admiringly about the "boy-man" Benito Mussolini who had absorbed his country's Boy Scouts into a thriving new nationalist youth movement. The dictator explained that he'd accomplished this feat "simply by moral force" - an explanation Baden-Powell felt "augers well for the future of Italy."
If Baden-Powell had had his way, the Boy Scouts might have formed close ties with the Hitler Youth. In 1937, he told [ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256241/The-Hitler-Youth-plot-tried-worm-way-Scout-movement.html ] the Scouts' international commissioner that the Nazis were "most anxious that the Scouts should come into closer touch with the youth movement in Germany." Baden-Powell met with the German ambassador in London and was invited to meet the Führer himself, though the war prevented him from visiting the Third Reich. But he continued to admire Hitler's values, writing in a 1939 diary entry that Mein Kampf was "a wonderful book, with good ideas on education, health, propaganda, organisation etc."
As Hitchens reports, Baden-Powell also seemed to tacitly approve of the Nazi attitude toward homosexuality. When the head of his international bureau told him that a German scout leader had been sent to a concentration camp, Baden-Powell dismissed it by saying the scoutmaster had been taken away for "homosexual tendencies."
By that time, the Boy Scouts of America had developed a strong, independent identity -- the fascist sympathies of an eccentric Englishman had little influence on the way boys camped, hiked, and tied knots across the ocean. But some of Baden-Powell's ideas continued to carry though the movement's DNA -- particularly his emphasis on honor, values, and uniformity. Hitchens quotes a famous metaphor from Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys that captures some of the issues the Boy Scouts of America are grappling with today:
You should remember that being one fellow among many others, you are like one brick among many others in the wall of a house. If you are discontented with your place or your neighbors or if you are a rotten brick, you are no good to the wall. You are rather a danger. If the bricks get quarrelling among themselves the wall is liable to split and the whole house to fall.
Churches threaten to pull funding if Boy Scouts drop anti-gay ban
(Credit: Reuters/David Manning)
About 70 percent of Scout troops are sponsored by faith-based organizations. Many are threatening to break ties
By Katie Mcdonough Wednesday, Jan 30, 2013 12:11 PM CST
The Boy Scouts of America announced earlier this week that they are considering an end to their decades-long ban on gay members, leaving it to regional and local councils to dictate membership guidelines on sexuality.
“If that is what the leadership is doing, then I think it will be a sad day in the life of the Boy Scouts of America,” Fred Luter, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told [ http://bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=39591 ] the Baptist Press. “This is a tradition that so many of us across the country grew up in. We were in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in elementary school, and this organization has always stood for biblical principles — all the things that grounded our lives as a young kid growing up. To now see this organization that I thought stood on biblical principles about to give in to the politically correct thing is very disappointing.”
About 70 percent of all Boy Scout troops are sponsored by faith-based organizations, with the Southern Baptists, Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints representing the most troops, according to Fox News.
And many are suggesting they will break financial and membership ties with the organization if the policy goes through.
“Churches of all faiths and denominations, including Southern Baptist churches, will be forced to reevaluate whether they can, in good conscience, continue to host Scout troops given that the Scouts appear poised to turn their backs on this clear biblical and moral issue,” Roger Oldham, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said.
Kay Godfrey, a spokesman for Boy Scouts in the Great Salt Lake Council, told [ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=170590394 ] NPR: “We’ve had 100 years of a very conservative approach to scouting. A major shift along these lines could change the face of scouting, but we’ll have to just wait and see.”
Beyond the larger religious organizations threatening to remove funding, many parents vow to take their sons out of the Scouts if the national executive board approves the measure.
“If this comes to pass, then I will pull my boy from Scouts. It wont be because of ‘fear’ as some ridiculously suggest. I simply don’t approve of the lifestyle,” wrote one parent in response to a blog denouncing the policy change by Matthew Franck, professor of political science at Radford University.
Mark Dietrich Sues Boy Scouts On Sex Abuse Allegations
By LISA LEFF 01/30/13 03:59 PM ET EST
SAN FRANCISCO -- A California man sued a regional Boy Scouts council on Wednesday, alleging he was sexually abused by his scout leader more than 30 years ago.
Coast Guard veteran Mark Dietrich, 49, filed the lawsuit in Solano County Superior Court claiming the scoutmaster of his Vacaville-based troop frequently molested him between 1978 and 1981.
The suit also claims Boy Scouts officials at the local and regional level knew the scoutmaster, Gary Hatfield, had inappropriate contact with other boys, and the abuse occurred "despite knowledge of Hatfield's dangerous propensities and unfitness."
Hatfield, who is also named as a defendant in the case, said he hardly remembered Dietrich and denied abusing him or any other scouts.
"That's a joke," Hatfield, 60, said of Dietrich's allegations.
Hatfield said he currently helps oversee a Nevada branch of a breakaway scouting organization called Confederate Scouts of America that split ranks with the Boy Scouts of America about 15 years ago.
The Navy veteran now works as an apartment maintenance man in Reno.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were sexually abused. However, Dietrich told the AP that he filed the suit to reach out to other former Boy Scouts who were abused.
"My message is that it's not your fault and you have nothing to be ashamed about, and I encourage you to speak out and seek resolution and accountability," he said.
Deitrich's lawyer, Irwin Zalkin, would not provide further details on the allegations.
However, he said Hatfield had not been named in internal Boy Scouts of America records on adult volunteers suspected of molestation that have been made public in similar lawsuits and are widely known as the "perversion files."
Neither the Boy Scouts' Golden Empire Council nor the national organization would comment.
The case filed Wednesday is the latest in a string of sexual abuse lawsuits brought against the Boy Scouts of America or its affiliates.
Posted: 01/29/2013 5:03 pm EST | Updated: 01/30/2013 7:14 am EST
A gay Oregon teen was taken off of life support after hanging himself in the playground of a local elementary school.
Komo News reports [ http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Targeted-by-bullies-Ore-teen-hangs-himself-in-schoolyard-188787421.html ] that 15-year-old Jadin Bell attempted suicide by climbing on a playground structure and hanging himself. Family friend Bud Hill, who said he considered Bell his nephew, told the news station that the high school sophomore had been the victim of intense bullying both in person and on the Internet because he was gay.
"He was different, and they tend to pick on the different ones," Hill told the news station. He remembered Bell fondly: "If someone was down and out he would walk into a room and say a couple quick words and everybody would just forget about their problems and smile. He just had a gift."
He was remembered as an outgoing member of the LaGrande High School cheerleading squad and a gentle, caring friend.
"He is amazingly sensitive," pal Jody Bullock told the publication. "If he saw a wounded butterfly [as a child] he wanted to heal it ... He is an amazing young man who is smart and very social; he has a persona and a presence that you want to be a part of."
KSDK reports that LuAnn Branch and Kelli Nichols of Vashon Island say they were driving to a medical appointment Jan. 28 when they say the suspect, who is identified as William Zesbaugh, rear-ended their car.
The alleged victims said that Zesbaugh, 71, emerged from his car with a Club steering wheel lock and began beating Branch with it, yelling, "I can tell you're lesbians. I should beat the crap out of you!"
Although Nichols is openly gay, Branch -- who was treated for a deep gash several inches long to her forearm, according to Seattle Weekly -- reportedly identified herself as being straight and married.
Former state psychiatrist charged with public lewdness
Charles Fischer waits in the elevator after appearing in court at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center on July 12, 2012. Jay Janner
By Andrea Ball and Eric Dexheimer American-Statesman Staff Posted: 5:02 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013
The psychiatrist facing felony charges that he molested five adolescent psychiatric patients under his care while he worked at the Austin State Hospital was arrested Tuesday afternoon and charged with public lewdness, according to police records.
Charles Fischer was taken into custody at around 1 p.m. on Rollingwood Drive just west of MoPac (Loop 1) near Barton Springs Road, according to an Austin police affidavit. The area described in the document is a small wooded park near the entrance of the Zilker Clubhouse.
According to the two-paragraph arrest affidavit, an Austin police officer patrolling the area saw Fischer go into a wooded area with another male. The officer said he spotted them a short time later having sex on the west side of the park.
The other man fled and was not found. Fischer, 60, was charged with public lewdness, a Class A misdemeanor for which he faces up to a year in jail. According to his report, the police officer was patrolling the area because the park has had “a high occurrence of lewd activity.”
Fischer’s bail was set at $5,000, and he was no longer in the county jail Wednesday. But his attorney, Chris Gunter, said the new charges would likely mean Fischer’s bond on his felony charges would be revoked, and he would be taken into custody in the coming days.
“It was an act between two consenting adults, however, they both used some extremely poor judgment in where they did this,” Gunter said.
The arrest is the latest in a series of legal and professional implosions for Fischer, who for 20 years worked as a respected psychiatrist at the hospital, a taxpayer-funded residential treatment facility for patients with severe mental illness. In November 2011, Fischer was fired and had his medical license suspended following accusations that he had sexually abused at least one child in his care.
A subsequent investigation by the Texas Medical Board determined that seven state hospital patients between the ages of 13 and 17 had accused Fischer, who earned $185,000 annually, of abusing them between 2001 and 2006. A 16-year-old had also levied similar accusations against the psychiatrist in 1992, when Fischer was working at the Waco Center for Youth, a state psychiatric facility for children and adolescents.
And in the early 1980s, when Fischer was working at the Southwest Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Antonio, a ninth patient had accused him of sexual abuse.
Yet none of the accusations could be proved and, despite one case being heard by a Travis County grand jury in 2002, Fischer was never charged.
That changed in late 2011, when the state Department of Family and Protective Services, responding to a renewed complaint, confirmed that Fischer had been involved in two cases of sexual abuse. The agency terms an incident “confirmed” if its investigation shows the allegation is supported by a preponderance of the evidence. The state hospital quickly fired Fischer.
On Nov. 22, 2011, the Texas Medical Board summarily suspended Fischer’s license to practice medicine indefinitely “after determining that Fischer’s continuation in the practice of medicine constitutes a continuing threat to the public welfare,” according to the agency’s order. Fischer “has demonstrated a pattern of sexually abusing teenage boys in his care for inpatient psychiatric treatment over a period of nearly 20 years.”
Through his attorneys, Fischer has adamantly denied all of the accusations. But last June, Travis County prosecutors formally accused the psychiatrist with sexually abusing five boys in his care. In an 11-page indictment, Fischer was charged with two counts of sexual assault, nine counts of sexual assault of a child, seven counts of indecency with a child by contact and five counts of indecency with a child by exposure, according to the indictment.
Assistant District Attorney Dayna Blazey declined to comment on the pending felony cases.
Two months ago, the medical board barred Fischer from the practice of medicine until his criminal charges are resolved.
Officials for the Department of State Health Services, which oversees the state’s system of 10 psychiatric hospitals, have said the agency is cooperating fully with the criminal prosecution. It, as well as the Department of Family and Protective Services, has since announced a series of reforms to prevent future abuses by treatment staff. They include installing windows on treatment room doors, to looking for patterns of accusations to identify potentially abusive employees.
Disability Rights Texas, a non-profit organization officially designated by the federal government to protect the rights of people with disabilities, is investigating how state hospital physicians who have been accused of abuse, neglect and rights violations are permitted to continue working directly with patients. Its report has not yet been publicly released.
Texas Public Schools Teaching 'End Times' Theology, Creationism: Study
Posted: 01/28/2013 4:19 pm EST | Updated: 01/29/2013 7:02 am EST
Students in Texas' public schools are still learning that the Bible provides scientific evidence that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that astronauts have discovered "a day missing in space in elapsed time" that affirms biblical stories of the sun standing still and moving backwards, and that the United States was founded as a Christian nation based on biblical Christian principles.
As more Texas schools are teaching Bible courses, many still fail to adhere to guidelines outlined in House Bill 1287 [ http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/80R/billtext/html/HB01287F.htm ], passed in 2007 to improve the academic quality of elective Bible courses while protecting the religious freedom of students and families, according to a new report by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. The study covered the state's 57 districts and three charter schools offering Bible courses in the 2011-12 academic year.
• "The Bible is the written word of God… The Bible is united in content because there is no contradictions in the writing [sic]. The reason for this is because the Bible is written under God's direction and inspiration."
• "Giving God his rightful place in the national life of this country has provided a rich heritage for all its citizens."
• "Christ's resurrection was an event that occurred in time and space -- that it was, in reality, historical and not mythological (cf. 2 Pet. 1:16)."
• "Survival of the Jewish nation is one of the miracles of history and her greatest agony is yet to come."
• "The first time the Lord gathered his people back was after the Babylonian captivity. The second time the Lord will gather his people back will be at the end of the age.
• "Sad to say mainstream anti-God media do not portray these true facts [of Moses and the Red Sea crossing] in the light of faith but prefer to sceptically [sic] doubt such archaeological proofs of the veracity & historicity of the Biblical account, one of the most accurate history books in the world[.]"
Students are also reportedly being taught the theology of the "end times" and that they may be living in the last days.
But a letter from Eissler to the TEA said the curriculum they ultimately developed was too vague and failed to include mention of specific religious texts. The broad standards were therefore weak and could not properly prepare educators for unbiased coursework, the Texas Freedom Network said.
Although some Texas districts do adhere to appropriate and merely academic study of the Bible in their courses, most still continue to ignore the law. Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says Texas public schools must take the study of the Bible's influence as rigidly and seriously as they do science or history.
"But the evidence shows that Texas isn't giving the study of the Bible the respect it deserves," Chancey said in a statement last week [ http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7191 ]. "Academically, many of these classes lack rigor and substance, and some seem less interested in cultivating religious literacy than in promoting religious beliefs. Their approach puts their school districts in legal jeopardy and their taxpayers in financial jeopardy."
The Texas Freedom Network's findings come as Arkansas state Rep. Denny Altes introduced a bill this month in his home state that would allow the state's public school districts to adopt a similar elective curriculum [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/arkansas-bible-course-bil_n_2536445.html ] for pure academic study of the Bible. The course would "consist of a nonsectarian, nonreligious academic study of the Bible and its influence on literature, art, music, culture and politics" and would "be taught in an objective and non devotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students as to either the truth or falsity of the biblical materials or texts from other religions or cultural traditions."
“Long hair, beard and sandals, and a funky bunch of friends, reckon we’d just nail him up if he came down again.” – Kristofferson, Jesus Was a Capricorn
I love Texas. Almost as much as I hate it’s prevailing majority politics. This is why I choose to make fun of my state. Laughter is much preferred to tears. And man do we have some reasons to cry down here.
Yes, it’s true, Texas schools, well, 57 of them, offer courses on the Bible. The state legislature approved this in 2007. A few other states do, too. Think Oklahoma and surrounds. Professor Chancey wanted to know if the Bible was being taught as mandated by the law, which is in an historical context and not devotionally. Of course, anyone who understands anything about Texas knows the answer to that question without an in depth study.
But before we get into the funny stuff, it’s worth noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Bible can be taught in public schools. But not in a manner that promotes a specific religion. Uh, yeah. How is that accomplished? Especially in Texas where our elected state school board argues for creationism alongside evolution and the president of the board takes pride in “standing up to experts.” Those educated people do tend to be a pain with their sciency stuff. They need to be stood up to.
I confess to being disgusted by any religion being taught in public schools. I don’t want anyone’s belief system being advanced in a building that is funded by my tax dollars. I don’t even like the idea of school districts renting out their buildings to religious groups for Sunday gatherings, which is a widespread practice in Texas. Regardless of what the religious right claims, the founders always intended to keep religion out of government.
But that’s not what we teach our little ones in Texas. One school district, according to the TFN study, quotes Revolutionary War hero Patrick Henry as saying, “It cannot be emphasized too strong or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Not true. Just crap. Give him liberty or give him made up quotes.
But that’s a minor historical sin compared to the other nonsense Texas kids are learning when they sign up for these Bible courses. There’s a full cuppa crazy to be had. In the Eastland Independent School District, for example, there is a curriculum tract that talks about the biblical “missing day,” and that “the space program is now proving what has been called a ‘myth’ in the Bible to be truth.” The little learner gets told that “astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, MD, discovered a “day missing in space and elapsed time” that corroborates biblical stories of the sun standing still.” From the book of dumbass, I believe, Chapter 4, verses 11-16.
Eastland ISD is on the case to keep their kids uninformed here in the real world. They even show students videos from the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas, which is famed for its arguments that the earth is 6,000 years old. They also say they have a fossilized dinosaur print that has been “intruded” with a “pristine human footprint” taken from a nearby riverbed. A recent state school board president has said he we are obligated to teach our children that there were dinosaurs on Noah’s ark and that humans and Tyrannosaurus Rex hung out in the same jungles together, which might explain the size of T Rex with lots of people easy to eat.
We are a backwards ass state in a fast forward world. Texas is a land of contradictions. We are creating some of the planet’s most advanced technology while teaching our children that archaeology proves the Bible to be factual. One Bible course worksheet in a public school says, “Archaeologist Sir Walter Ramsay (who went to Asia Minor himself on such a quest), found this book [Bible] to have been written with incredible accuracy. In fact, he could not even find one error.” Well, end of discussion then, if Sir Walter thinks it’s real.
In Texas, we don’t let our students be confronted by all of the archaeology that contradicts the Bible. Instead, we teach them “on the whole, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the Scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine.” Two, at the most, I bet.
Hell, a lot of this comes with commentary so our kids get it right before they go forth into the economy to seek employment and a farthing or two. One document from a West Texas school district says, “Sad to say, mainstream anti-God media do not portray these true facts in the light of faith. But prefer to skeptically [sic] doubt such archaeological proofs of the veracity and historicity of the biblical account of one of the most accurate books in the history of the world.” The materials state bluntly, without equivocation, that “Christ’s resurrection was an event that occurred in time and space – that was, in reality, historical and not mythological.”
Which is a matter of faith. Not history. Nor science. Did I mention that I am sick of religious material of any kind being taught in public schools? I think I did. It is wrong. And an abuse of my tax dollars. I doth protest. Here and now. Loudly as hell. Stop it. All of these crazy Texans excited about Christianity being taught in public schools would spew their barbecue if anyone wanted to hold a class or two on the Koran. And that’s precisely what makes this entire thing wrong. And hypocritical. And a violation of our personal rights to not have to endure someone else’s religious beliefs in public institutions.
A Christian school in Southern California is suing two former teachers who threatened to sue the school for firing them for refusing to prove their faith.
After teachers Lynda Serrano and Mary Ellen Guevara refused to fill out the forms and were not rehired, they threatened to sue.
"The teachers chose not to [fill out the paperwork], and they knew it was a condition of employment," the school's attorney, Rich Kahdeman, said to NBC. Kahdeman said the church exercised its constitutional right to freedom of religion.
But Dawn Coulson, the teachers' lawyer, said because the school was purchased by a church as a “for-profit” entity and not a "non-profit," it can't require such questionaires.
"That would be like the church buying shares in IBM, and IBM saying, 'We can now discriminate, based on religion,'" Coulson said.
Kahdeman is suing the two teachers in federal court.
President Obama, Please Call for a Second Giant Leap for Mankind
By Zack Kopplin Posted: 01/28/2013 10:48 am
Dear President Obama,
Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy stood at Rice, my university, and declared that we would put a man on the moon, in that decade [ http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm ]. He called for a scientific revolution.
Mr. President, we need another scientific revolution; we must have a second giant leap for Mankind.
I know these threats sound like science fiction, but they are real and my generation will have to address them. The way to overcome these challenges and ensure the continued long-term existence of our species is through investment in rapid scientific innovation.
Denying and misteaching evidence-based science like evolution and climate science will confuse our students about the nature of science and stifle future American scientists and scientific innovation.
I remember your last State of the Union Speech when you said America needs to "out-educate, out-innovate, and out-build [ http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address ]" the rest of the world. I was proud to be an American when you challenged those who "deny the overwhelming judgment of science [ http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/obamas-inaugural-address-we-will-respond-threat-climate-change ]" in your second inaugural address. You are absolutely right, and I hope you will reinforce this theme when you address science and innovation in this year's State of the Union Address. Please call for an end to science denial legislation. Please call on Congress to invest one trillion dollars in basic scientific research over the next decade. Please call for a second giant leap.
These are ambitious goals, but as President Kennedy said in 1962:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.
This scientific revolution is one we cannot afford to postpone. Please take a page from Neil Armstrong and President Kennedy and call on America to take a Second Giant Leap for Mankind.
Mother Tattoos Religious Sect Symbol On Her 3-Year-Old Son
Posted: 01/31/2013 1:30 pm EST | Updated: 01/31/2013 6:50 pm EST
A video circulating on YouTube showing a mother holding her 3-year-old little son as he gets tattooed with the symbol of a Puerto Rican-born religious sect while crying hysterically [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doobg9UbTfw (above, as embedded)] is causing alarm around the web.
The tattoo drawn on the kid’s arm is the symbol of three sixes identified with the "Growing In Grace" cult [ http://www.americateve.com/programas-01292013-28911181-138 ], whose founder is Puerto Rican Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda or "Jesus Christ, the Man" as he prefers to call himself, reports TV show "Sevcec a Fondo."
According to the show, the video was shot in Havana, Cuba [id.], where the cult has also been growing in followers in the last couple of years, sparking criticism and controversy after it was revealed that not just adults, but children were encouraged to mark their bodies with the emblematic tattoo.
Ancient religious beliefs expose the number 666 as the “number of the beast,” a symbolic creature [ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254360,00.html ] described in the Book of Revelations, also called the Apocalypse, which some believe to represent a number of revelations about the end of the world. The sign is also used allegorically as a blasphemy against Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Christian messiah, and to refer to Satan.
In an interview broadcast on "Sevcec a Fondo," one of the cult members said the group tattoos their bodies as recognition of that they are "identified as God's people [ http://www.americateve.com/programas-01292013-28911181-138 ] and with God.”
A man fires his handgun along a mountain range in Buckeye, Arizona, January 20, 2013. Joshua Lott/Reuters
By Lisa Miller, Jan 26, 2013 12:06 AM EST
According to the startling results of a survey [ http://publicreligion.org/research/2013/01/january-2013-tracking-poll/ ] released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute [ http://publicreligion.org/ ], 57 percent of white evangelicals live in homes where someone owns a gun (compared, for example, with 31 percent of Catholics.) And more startling, even after 20 first-graders were slaughtered in Connecticut at the hands of a madman with an assault rifle, 59 percent of white evangelicals continue to oppose tighter restrictions on gun laws.
An obvious question occurs in light of these results: How do such Christians reconcile their stalwart commitment to the Second Amendment with their belief in a gospel that preaches nonviolence? The Christian Lord allowed himself to be crucified rather than fight the injustice of the death sentence imposed on him. “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,” he says, in the Gospel of Matthew. The Bible is mute on the matter of guns, of course, but it is impossible to imagine that Jesus would find anything good to say about them.
With the Newtown tragedy so fresh and its victims so innocent, conservative Christian leaders are not falling over themselves to proclaim in public their pro-gun theologies. Neverthless, such arguments do exist. I will address some of them, moving generally from unpersuasive credos to more-convincing assertions of individual rights and responsibilities.
The Second Amendment is approved by God. This, at least, appears to be the argument on the home page of the Christian Gun Owner Web site. It goes like this: The authors of the Constitution were acting under the guidance of God, therefore the Constitution is itself inspired by God. This argument is a subset of the bigger “American exceptionalism” worldview. God has special things in store for this country, and its founding documents bear the imprint of that specialness.
Only prayer can conquer gun violence. This is Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s view. Evil is the source of violence in America, not guns. “Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice,” Perry has said. “Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help.” This couldn’t be called an argument, really. It’s more like a hope.
Don’t blame guns, blame a corrupt society. In this version, conservative Christians blame increasing gun violence on what they call “secular values,” which is to say the legalization of abortion, the growth of single-parent families, same-sex marriage and so on. These values — legal abortion in particular — have led mainstream culture to devalue life. “I pray that [the Newtown] tragedy will cause the nation’s cultural gatekeepers to turn to God again as our only hope!” wrote Joseph Mattera, presiding bishop of the Christ Covenant Coalition, in Charisma magazine. But in the absence of that revival, carrying a gun is every citizen’s right.
Curbing gun ownership is the gateway to curbing other rights. “There’s a suspicion of a too-powerful state,” Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told me. “Sometimes one will hear that if the government has too much power over guns, it will also have too much power over freedom of speech, freedom of religion.” The minute the state starts dictating the kinds of guns a citizen can own, this argument continues, it has gone over the line. Moore himself is not opposed to universal background checks and emphasizes that on the matter of gun control, believing Christians can disagree.
Self-defense and love (and defense) of neighbor are biblical values. This is how former Southern Baptist Convention official Richard Land [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/richard-land-a-southern-baptist-warrior-bids-goodbye-to-washington/2012/08/10/d0f92880-e186-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html ], in an interview on National Public Radio in December, defended his support of arming teachers. A similar argument was put forth by David French, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, in an article in Patheos several months ago. Going back to Noah, through Exodus and the prophets, French builds his case, and he concludes with the moral philosopher John Locke, who called the right of self-defense “a fundamental law of nature.” “The defense of self, the defense of others is not only biblically authorized but, in certain circumstances, is a moral imperative,” French told me. “Turn the other cheek does not mean turn your wife’s cheek or turn your children’s cheek.” Gun control, he wrote in Patheos, is the state’s effort to deprive humans of their God-given right to self-defense.
Provocative, but unconvincing. Jesus identified with the weak, not the strong; with the victims, not the shooters (or the people with the guns). More than 500 children were killed in accidental gun deaths in 2011. As the Rev. Gary Hall preached [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/at-washington-national-cathedral-preaching-an-activist-gospel/2013/01/23/5a25f5fc-659e-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html ] at Washington National Cathedral last week, “If we want to stand with Jesus and Martin Luther King, we’ve also got to stand with those who, like them, die by means of violence. .?.?. That may sound like a hard truth, but for a Christian, there’s no way around it.”
Psalm 137 7-9: Understanding [...] Violence in the Bible 01/25/2013 [...] The Verse 1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and we wept as we remembered Zion. 2 On the poplars within her we hung our lyres, 3 for it was there our captors asked us for words of song, and our tormentors – for their amusement – said, “Sing for us from a song of Zion.” 4 How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil? 5 O Jerusalem, if I should forget you may my right hand wither. 6 May my tongue cleave to my palate if I cease to remember you, if I do not cause Jerusalem to be raised to the very top of my joy. 7 Do you remember, O Lord, the Edomites on the day of Jerusalem? How they said, “Tear her down! Down to her very foundation!” 8 O, Daughter of Babylon, you despoiler, Happy is the one who pays you your recompense as you dealt out to us. 9 Happy the one who will seize and dash your infants against the rock! [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/psalm-137-7-9-understandi_n_2550586.html [with comments]
Anti-abortion protesters flooded the National Mall in Washington on Friday for the annual March for Life. Many Catholic leaders and theologians are asking why many of those who call themselves “pro-life” have been silent when it comes to gun control. Christopher Gregory/The New York Times
The activists made their way up Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court. Drew Angerer for The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN Published: January 25, 2013
The March for Life in Washington on Friday renewed the annual impassioned call to end legalized abortion, 40 years after the Roe v. Wade decision. But this year, some Roman Catholic leaders and theologians are asking why so many of those who call themselves “pro-life” have been silent, or even opposed, when it comes to controlling the guns that have been used to kill and injure millions of Americans.
They called in particular on Catholic lawmakers, naming the House speaker, John A. Boehner, and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, both Republicans, as well as Senators Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, both Democrats, who they said have “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association, to stand up to the gun lobby. They urged support for legislation limiting the sale of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, like those used in the massacre last month at a school in Newtown, Conn.
“We’re addressing life,” said one of the signers, Thomas P. Melady, a Republican who served as ambassador to the Holy See under the first President George Bush. “I accept the Catholic teachings, which promote the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. And certainly the death of the 20 young kids and 6 adults in Newtown was not natural. Why can’t we take some steps with regards to these killings? These sophisticated weapons should be controlled.”
Professor Winright, a former law enforcement officer, said he was encouraged when the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, recently praised American religious leaders and the Obama administration for proposals to limit guns.
Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, which organizes the march, said that as a Catholic in the anti-abortion movement, “We absolutely support the idea of being pro-life from conception to natural death.”
“Really, the difference between the little ones in Connecticut, which is so heartbreaking, and the little ones in the womb is their size and their age.”
But asked about the letter from the Catholic leaders, she said: “I definitely have nothing to say about gun control. That’s so out of the parameter of what we’re about.”
Since the killings in Newtown, a broad spectrum of religious leaders have joined Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence [ http://faithsagainstgunviolence.org/ ] to demand controls on guns, but leaders of evangelical churches have been conspicuously absent. The National Association of Evangelicals [ http://www.nae.net/ ] surveyed its board of more than 100 members in December and found that 73 percent of them said that government should increase gun regulations. However, the association has not taken a position publicly.
A poll [ http://publicreligion.org/research/2013/01/january-2013-tracking-poll/ ] released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, found that among the roughly two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants who say the term “pro-life” describes them very well, 64 percent are opposed to stricter gun control laws, while 33 percent favor them.
The picture among Catholics is the opposite. The poll found that of the 4 in 10 Catholics who say that “pro-life” describes them very well, 61 percent support stricter gun control laws and 33 percent oppose them. The survey was taken in January and included more than 1,000 respondents with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
The nation’s Catholic bishops supported the unsuccessful effort to renew the ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004 and recently reiterated a call to control the sale and use of firearms, said Kathy Saile, the director of the bishops’ office of domestic social development.
“It wasn’t a tough call,” Ms. Saile said. “All of our policy work is rooted in our consistent ethic for life, and our belief in the sacredness of all life.”
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the Catholic News Service this month that he had told Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is managing the White House response to the recent shootings, that the bishops would assist in “the fight for greater gun control in the country.”
But John Gehring, the Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a liberal advocacy group in Washington, said that bishops who had demanded that Catholic legislators vote against abortion rights should do the same on gun control.
He said, “Catholic lawmakers who call themselves pro-life and are pretty cozy with the N.R.A. shouldn’t be getting a free pass.”
Gayle Trotter Testimony Captivates Senate Gun Control Hearing
By Christina Wilkie Posted: 01/30/2013 2:52 pm EST | Updated: 01/30/2013 4:43 pm EST
WASHINGTON -- Lawyer and gun rights activist Gayle Trotter gave vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee at a Wednesday hearing on gun violence. Trotter, a senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women's Forum, argued that a proposed ban on assault weapons would "disarm" vulnerable women and "put them at a severe disadvantage" in fights with multiple criminals.
Trotter painted a picture of mothers under siege in their homes, and when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned the details of one example she offered, she told the lawmaker he didn't understand the issue. "You are a large man, tall man, a tall man," Trotter said to laughter from the audience.
"You are not a young mother who has a young child with her and ... you cannot understand. You are not a woman stuck in her house, not able to defend her children, not able to leave her child, not able to go seek safety, on the phone with 911," Trotter said. And that woman, "she's not used to being in a firefight."
Despite arguing for serious firepower, Trotter said later the most important thing about assault weapons for women's defense is the way the guns look.
"An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon," said Trotter, a mother of six. "And the peace of mind she has ... knowing she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she's fighting hardened violent criminals."
More than once during her testimony, Trotter seemed to imply that five-on-one firefights are somehow easier for a man to win than for a woman and that women are at a grave disadvantage to men because women have so much less experience in firefights.
Despite her strong emphasis on the need to prevent violent crimes against women at home, Trotter is an outspoken opponent of the Violence Against Women Act, a law designed to aid women faced with domestic violence. In 2012, she wrote on the Independent Women's Forum's blog [ http://www.iwf.org/blog/2787750/There-Are-Real-Reasons-to-Oppose-VAWA ] that VAWA infringed upon the rights of men who were falsely accused of domestic abuse. The law would also embolden "false accusers," who would take "needed resources like shelters and legal aid … denying real victims of abuse access to these supports," she wrote. Trotter and the forum characterized VAWA as "reckless demagoguery."
Trotter was the only woman who gave detailed testimony on Wednesday, alongside National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre, constitutional law professor David Kopel, Baltimore police Chief Jim Johnson and retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
Her presence at the Senate hearing appears to be tied to her status at the Independent Women's Forum, a nonprofit public policy group [ http://www.iwf.org/about ]. But the forum doesn't specialize in firearms issues. Its stated mission is "to expand the conservative coalition" by making conservative ideas more attractive to women and by "increasing the number of women who understand and value the benefits of limited government, personal liberty, and free markets."
Like Trotter, the Independent Women's Forum has recently shown interest in gun rights. Before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the last time the group had published multiple items on gun rights was 2000, when gun advocate John Lott's [ http://www.iwf.org/news/2434371/Gun-Control-Hurts-Women ] book More Guns, Less Crime was referenced on its website.
Extremists who block progress on gun safety make solving our other problems tougher too
By Joan Walsh Thursday, Jan 31, 2013 06:45 AM CST
Another day, another big Washington D.C. gun legislation event interrupted by news of more gun violence.
Just as a televised meeting of Vice President Joe Biden’s post-Newtown gun safety task force was upstaged by breaking news of another school shooting three weeks ago [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/01/10/1430611/bidens-gun-violence-event-interrupted-by-news-of-another-school-shooting/ ], so did Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing compete with chilling news reports of three more gun horrors: a Chicago teen who marched with her school band in the inaugural parade shot down in a park; an Alabama child taken hostage (and his bus driver murdered) by a known anti-government “survivalist;” three people shot, one dead, after an “office dispute” in Phoenix, barely two hours away from where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was almost killed two years ago in Tucson.
Those competing gun-violence news stories are not technically a coincidence. With 30 gun homicides a day across the country, you’re going to have gun murders whenever you schedule an event to talk about it. We’re just finally paying attention to it. All of it.
Giffords herself testified at Wednesday’s hearing, which led Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin to apologize that her shooting [ http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/280123-durbin-apologizes-to-giffordss-husband-over-capitol-hill-silence-on-guns ], which left 11 others wounded and six dead, didn’t provoke similar hearings, task forces and ultimately, new legislation to curb gun violence. Jared Loughner might have been blocked from getting his guns by tougher background checks, and the thirteenth bullet in his 30-round magazine (new legislation would limit most purchases to 10-round magazines) reportedly killed nine-year-old Christina Taylor-Green.
“I’m sorry it’s taken two years for us to convene this hearing, that it took Newtown, Conn., to finally bring us to our senses and to open this national conversation,” Durbin told Giffords’s husband, Mark Kelly.
Once again, the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre was revealed as a well-paid gun-shilling automaton, unmoved by evidence or even his own past statements as he inveighed against new gun regulation. LaPierre blasted what may be the most popular measure to result from the Newtown tragedy: closing gun-show loopholes and requiring background checks for all gun sales – even though he used to back such a move [ http://www.nationalmemo.com/lapierre-flip-flops-on-background-checks-during-contentious-hearing/ ]. Now he said they’d affect “the little guy,” but not criminals. Durbin shot back: “The criminals won’t go to purchase the guns because there will be a background check! We’ll stop them from the original purchase. You missed that point completely.” LaPierre is paid $1 million a year to miss the point.
Next to LaPierre, the most ludicrous testimony came from Gayle Trotter of the Independent Women’s Forum, who claimed “Guns make women safer [ http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/01/women-and-guns-at-the-senate-hearings.html ],” without noting that Adam Lanza’s mother Nancy was killed by her own legally purchased guns (or that guns hadn’t made Giffords safer either.) Trotter singled out the AR-15, an assault rifle that was among the weapons Lanza used in his murder spree, as a particularly nifty choice for women. She wasn’t the only conservative unironically claiming that limiting guns hurt women; Sen. Lindsay Graham cited a woman who allegedly shot a criminal in her home: “There can be a situation where a mother runs out of bullets because of what we do here.” Graham also brazenly suggested Americans need more guns to cope with police department cutbacks due to budget cuts he’s backed.
With reason as well as emotion, advocates of tougher gun laws bested their foes, at least in debate on Wednesday. It will be tougher to defeat them with Congressional votes. But the ongoing toll of gun violence, everywhere, makes it hard to imagine the forces of reason won’t eventually prevail. In addition to accounts from survivors of the Newtown and Tucson shootings, there was the backdrop of those awful gun murders in Chicago and Phoenix and Midland City, Ala., all mentioned during the hearing.
One of the most important features of the gun debate since Newtown is that it hasn’t been derailed by demands that we tie regulatory responses directly to what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary, and only there. Background checks, for instance, wouldn’t have prevented the massacre, since Lanza got his guns from his mother, who public officials say got them legally. Newtown has become a big tent under which people appalled by all gun violence can unite. From his earliest remarks, for instance, a devastated President Obama included Chicago’s gun-violence victims among the tragedies our inattention to gun regulation has created.
I’m sure he never dreamed that barely a month later the carnage would claim a 15-year-old majorette who’d just marched in his inaugural parade. Hadiya Pendleton is only one of 42 people to die of gun violence in Chicago this month, the deadliest January in 10 years. And there’s still another day to go.
Nor did he likely envision that a popular school bus driver in rural Alabama would be killed by a man the Southern Poverty Law Center listed as an anti-government “survivalist [ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/hostage_taker_in_alabama_standoff_tied_to_survivalism_partner/ ],” after he tried to stop him from taking two boys off his bus as hostage (he wound up getting one, a six year old who’s still his prisoner.) The rampage after an office dispute in Phoenix is a little more common: Too many “office disputes” are settled by gunfire.
Hadiya Pendleton’s godfather had a searing if unintended rejoinder to LaPierre’s post-Newtown nonsense that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Duane Stewart, a police officer, told the Chicago Sun-Times about his happy honor-student god-daughter: “As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose. I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”
LaPierre derives his power from gun manufacturers as well as anti-government gun nuts who have gotten more extreme about fighting what they call the “tyranny” of the federal government. It gets worse under Democrats, rising under Bill Clinton and escalating sharply under Obama, most recently called a tyrant by Sen. Rand Paul for his modest gun measures. The opposition to common-sense background checks, supported by more than 70 percent of NRA members, derives from the paranoia of the fringe that somehow those government “tyrants” would use such a data-base to round up dissenters.
They’re the real tyrants, of course, blocking popular gun regulation with big money and also the threat of backlash. It took Tucson to turn Giffords and her husband Mark, both gun owners, into gun safety advocates; it took Newtown to turn them into activists.
But the same forces that block sensible gun laws also block action on other social problems. We have too many guns in this country; we also have too much poverty and inequality and mental illness, and they’re all tied together. It’s galling to watch LaPierre and others on the right pretend they care about mental health treatment, for instance. The same political stalemate that’s blocked action on guns has also made it harder to deal with other social problems that fracture us. While Hadiya Pendleton went to a good school and was shot in an upper middle class neighborhood not far from the president’s Chicago home, her assailants are reportedly gang members, and the plague of gang violence — which springs from generations of chronic, festering and unanswered urban poverty and violence – has been ignored for too long because it rarely touches the people deemed to matter in our country.
Durbin mentioned Pendleton during the hearing, noting that her inaugural parade appearance was “the highlight of her young life.” Then she returned to a city “awash in guns,” he said. “The confiscation of guns per capita in Chicago is six times the number in New York City,” said Durbin. “We have guns everywhere and some believe the solution to this is more guns. I disagree.”
Gabby Giffords didn’t mention Pendleton in her moving testimony, but she did talk about children. “Too many children are dying. Too many children,” Giffords said haltingly. “We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you.”
Giffords was talking about guns, and the children at Newtown, but her message has broader meaning. She was talking about Christina Taylor-Green and Hadiya Pendleton, and the unnamed six-year-old hostage in Midland City, Ala. Mustering the courage and political will to disarm LaPierre and his allies on gun issues will enable action on the country’s problems beyond just guns. Surrendering to them will make progress on everything else much harder.
A junior shooter receiving tips on a military rifle last fall from an Army marksmanship instructor at a clinic at Fort Benning, Ga. Youth shooting clinics and competitions often receive financial support or supplies from firearms-related businesses. Michael Molinaro/United States Army Marksmanship Unit
A Utah gun show last year. The gun industry spends millions promoting recreational shooting for children. George Frey/Bloomberg News, via Getty Images
The cover of a study exploring how to increase youth participation with guns.
A promotional video featuring Larry Potterfield, the founder of one of the nation's largest sellers of shooting supplies, on the Web site of the Scholastic Shooting Trust Fund.
A discount coupon on a gun maker's Web site.
An advertisement from the online Junior Shooters magazine.
A young boy firing a popular AR-15-style rifle at a shooting range. The gun is used in youth competitions. Ryan Houston/FlickrVision/Getty Images
By MIKE McINTIRE Published: January 26, 2013
Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.
The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.
The pages of Junior Shooters, an industry-supported magazine that seeks to get children involved in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semiautomatic rifle. At the end of an accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15 — an advertisement elsewhere in the magazine directed readers to a coupon for buying one — the author encouraged youngsters to share the article with a parent.
“Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”
The industry’s youth-marketing effort is backed by extensive social research and is carried out by an array of nonprofit groups financed by the gun industry, an examination by The New York Times found. The campaign picked up steam about five years ago with the completion of a major study that urged a stronger emphasis on the “recruitment and retention” of new hunters and target shooters.
The overall objective was summed up in another study, commissioned last year by the shooting sports industry, that suggested encouraging children experienced in firearms to recruit other young people. The report, which focused on children ages 8 to 17, said these “peer ambassadors” should help introduce wary youngsters to guns slowly, perhaps through paintball, archery or some other less intimidating activity.
“The point should be to get newcomers started shooting something, with the natural next step being a move toward actual firearms,” said the report, which was prepared for the National Shooting Sports Foundation [ http://www.nssf.org/ ] and the Hunting Heritage Trust [ http://www.huntingheritagetrust.org/ ].
Firearms manufacturers and their two primary surrogates, the National Rifle Association of America and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, have long been associated with high-profile battles to fend off efforts at gun control and to widen access to firearms. The public debate over the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere has focused largely on the availability of guns, along with mental illness and the influence of violent video games.
Little attention has been paid, though, to the industry’s youth-marketing initiatives. They stir passionate views, with proponents arguing that introducing children to guns can provide a safe and healthy pastime, and critics countering that it fosters a corrosive gun culture and is potentially dangerous.
The N.R.A. has for decades given grants for youth shooting programs, mostly to Boy Scout councils and 4-H groups, which traditionally involved single-shot rimfire rifles, BB guns and archery. Its $21 million in total grants in 2010 was nearly double what it gave out five years earlier.
Newer initiatives by other organizations go further, seeking to introduce children to high-powered rifles and handguns while invoking the same rationale of those older, more traditional programs: that firearms can teach “life skills” like responsibility, ethics and citizenship. And the gun industry points to injury statistics that it says show a greater likelihood of getting hurt cheerleading or playing softball than using firearms for fun and sport.
Still, some experts in child psychiatry say that encouraging youthful exposure to guns, even in a structured setting with an emphasis on safety, is asking for trouble. Dr. Jess P. Shatkin, the director of undergraduate studies in child and adolescent mental health at New York University, said that young people are naturally impulsive and that their brains “are engineered to take risks,” making them ill suited for handling guns.
“There are lots of ways to teach responsibility to a kid,” Dr. Shatkin said. “You don’t need a gun to do it.”
Steve Sanetti, the president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said it was better to instruct children in the safe use of a firearm through hunting and target shooting, and engage them in positive ways with the heritage of guns in America. His industry is well positioned for the task, he said, but faces an unusual challenge: introducing minors to activities that involve products they cannot legally buy and that require a high level of maturity.
Ultimately, Mr. Sanetti said, it should be left to parents, not the government, to decide if and when to introduce their children to shooting and what sort of firearms to use.
“It’s a very significant decision,” he said, “and it involves the personal responsibility of the parent and personal responsibility of the child.”
Trying to Reverse a Trend
The shooting sports foundation, the tax-exempt trade association for the gun industry, is a driving force behind many of the newest youth initiatives. Its national headquarters is in Newtown, just a few miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where Adam Lanza, 20, used his mother’s Bushmaster AR-15 to kill 20 children and 6 adults last month.
The foundation’s $26 million budget is financed mostly by gun companies, associated businesses and the foundation’s SHOT Show [ http://www.nssf.org/SHOT/ ], the industry’s annual trade show, according to its latest tax return.
Although shooting sports and gun sales have enjoyed a rebound recently, the long-term demographics are not favorable, as urbanization, the growth of indoor pursuits like video games and changing cultural mores erode consumer interest. Licensed hunters fell from 7 percent of the population in 1975 to fewer than 5 percent in 2005, according to federal data. Galvanized by the declining share, the industry redoubled its efforts to reverse the trend about five years ago.
The focus on young people has been accompanied by foundation-sponsored research examining popular attitudes toward hunting and shooting. Some of the studies used focus groups and telephone surveys of teenagers to explore their feelings about guns and people who use them, and offered strategies for generating a greater acceptance of firearms.
The Times reviewed more than a thousand pages of these studies, obtained from gun industry Web sites and online archives, some of them produced as recently as last year. Most were prepared by consultants retained by the foundation, and at least one was financed with a grant from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
In an interview, Mr. Sanetti said the youth-centered research was driven by the inevitable “tension” the industry faces, given that no one under 18 can buy a rifle or a shotgun from a licensed dealer or even possess a handgun under most circumstances. That means looking for creative and appropriate ways to introduce children to shooting sports.
“There’s nothing alarmist or sinister about it,” Mr. Sanetti said. “It’s realistic.”
Pointing to the need to “start them young,” one study concluded that “stakeholders such as managers and manufacturers should target programs toward youth 12 years old and younger.”
“This is the time that youth are being targeted with competing activities,” it said. “It is important to consider more hunting and target-shooting recruitment programs aimed at middle school level, or earlier.”
Aware that introducing firearms to young children could meet with resistance, several studies suggested methods for smoothing the way for target-shooting programs in schools. One cautioned, “When approaching school systems, it is important to frame the shooting sports only as a mechanism to teach other life skills, rather than an end to itself.”
In another report, the authors warned against using human silhouettes for targets when trying to recruit new shooters and encouraged using words and phrases like “sharing the experience,” “family” and “fun.” They also said children should be enlisted to prod parents to let them join shooting activities: “Such a program could be called ‘Take Me Hunting’ or ‘Take Me Shooting.’ ”
The industry recognized that state laws limiting hunting by children could pose a problem, according to a “Youth Hunting Report” prepared by the shooting sports foundation and two other groups. Declaring that “the need for aggressive recruitment is urgent,” the report said a primary objective should be to “eliminate or reduce age minimums.” Still another study recommended allowing children to get a provisional license to hunt with an adult, “perhaps even before requiring them to take hunter safety courses.”
The effort has succeeded in a number of states, including Wisconsin, which in 2009 lowered the minimum hunting age to 10 from 12, and Michigan, where in 2011 the age minimum for hunting small game was eliminated for children accompanied by an adult mentor. The foundation cited statistics suggesting that youth involvement in hunting, as well as target shooting, had picked up in recent years amid the renewed focus on recruitment.
Gun companies have spent millions of dollars to put their recruitment strategies into action, either directly or through the shooting sports foundation and other organizations. The support takes many forms.
The Scholastic Steel Challenge [ http://www.scholasticsteelchallenge.com/ ], started in 2009, introduces children as young as 12 to competitive handgun shooting using steel targets. Its “platinum” sponsors include the shooting sports foundation, Smith & Wesson and Glock, which donated 60 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols, according to the group’s Web site.
The site features a quote from a gun company executive praising the youth initiative and saying that “anyone in the firearms industry that overlooks its potential is missing the boat.”
Larry Potterfield, the founder of MidwayUSA, one of the nation’s largest sellers of shooting supplies and a major sponsor of the Scholastic Steel Challenge, said he did not fire a handgun until he was 21, adding that they “are the most difficult guns to learn to shoot well.” But, he said, he sees nothing wrong with children using them.
“Kids need arm strength and good patience to learn to shoot a handgun well,” he said in an e-mail, “and I would think that would come in the 12-14 age group for most kids.”
Another organization, the nonprofit Youth Shooting Sports Alliance [ http://www.youthshootingsa.com/ ], which was created in 2007, has received close to $1 million in cash, guns and equipment from the shooting sports foundation and firearms-related companies, including ATK, Winchester and Sturm, Ruger & Company, its tax returns show. In 2011, the alliance awarded 58 grants. A typical grant: 23 rifles, 4 shotguns, 16 cases of ammunition and other materials, which went to a Michigan youth camp.
The foundation and gun companies also support Junior Shooters magazine, which is based in Idaho and was started in 2007. The publication is filled with catchy advertisements and articles about things like zombie targets, pink guns and, under the heading “Kids Gear,” tactical rifle components with military-style features like pistol grips and collapsible stocks.
Gun companies often send new models to the magazine for children to try out with adult supervision. Shortly after Sturm, Ruger announced in 2009 a new, lightweight semiautomatic rifle that had the “look and feel” of an AR-15 but used less expensive .22-caliber cartridges, Junior Shooters received one for review. The magazine had three boys ages 14 to 17 fire it and wrote that they “had an absolute ball!”
Junior Shooters’ editor, Andy Fink, acknowledged in an editorial that some of his magazine’s content stirred controversy.
“I have heard people say, even shooters that participate in some of the shotgun shooting sports, such things as, ‘Why do you need a semiautomatic gun for hunting?’ ” he wrote. But if the industry is to survive, he said, gun enthusiasts must embrace all youth shooting activities, including ones “using semiautomatic firearms with magazines holding 30-100 rounds.”
In an interview, Mr. Fink elaborated. Semiautomatic firearms are actually not weapons, he said, unless someone chooses to hurt another person with them, and their image has been unfairly tainted by the news media. There is no legitimate reason children should not learn to safely use an AR-15 for recreation, he said.
“They’re a tool, not any different than a car or a baseball bat,” Mr. Fink said. “It’s no different than a junior shooting a .22 or a shotgun. The difference is in the perception of the viewer.”
The Weapon of Choice
The AR-15, the civilian version of the military’s M-16 and M-4, has been aggressively marketed as a cool and powerful step up from more traditional target and hunting rifles. But its appearance in mass shootings — in addition to Newtown, the gun was also used last year in the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., and the attack on firefighters in Webster, N.Y. — has prompted calls for tighter restrictions. The AR-15 is among the guns included in a proposed ban on a range of semiautomatic weapons that was introduced in the Senate last week.
Given the gun’s commercial popularity, it is perhaps unsurprising that AR-15-style firearms have worked their way into youth shooting programs. At a “Guns ’n Grillin” weekend last fall, teenagers at a Boy Scout council in Virginia got to shoot AR-15s. They are used in youth competitions held each year at a National Guard camp in Ohio, and in “junior clinics” taught by Army or Marine marksmanship instructors, some of them sponsored by gun companies or organizations they support.
ArmaLite, a successor company to the one that developed the AR-15, is offering a similar rifle, the AR-10, for the grand prize in a raffle benefiting the Illinois State Rifle Association’s “junior high-power” team, which uses AR-15s in its competitions. Bushmaster has offered on its Web site a coupon worth $350 off the price of an AR-15 “to support and encourage junior shooters.”
Military-style firearms are prevalent in a target-shooting video game and mobile app called Point of Impact, which was sponsored by the shooting sports foundation and Guns & Ammo magazine. The game — rated for ages 9 and up in the iTunes store — allows players to shoot brand-name AR-15 rifles and semiautomatic handguns at inanimate targets, and it provides links to gun makers’ Web sites as well as to the foundation’s “First Shots” program, intended to recruit new shooters.
Upon the game’s release in January 2011, foundation executives said in a news release that it was one of the industry’s “most unique marketing tools directed at a younger audience.” Mr. Sanetti of the shooting sports foundation said sponsorship of the game was an experiment intended to deliver safety tips to players, while potentially generating interest in real-life sports.
The confluence of high-powered weaponry and youth shooting programs does not sit well even with some proponents of those programs. Stephan Carlson, a University of Minnesota environmental science professor whose research on the positive effects of learning hunting and outdoor skills in 4-H classes has been cited by the gun industry, said he “wouldn’t necessarily go along” with introducing children to more powerful firearms that added nothing useful to their experience.
“I see why the industry would be pushing it, but I don’t see the value in it,” Mr. Carlson said. “I guess it goes back to the skill base we’re trying to instill in the kids. What are we preparing them for?”
For Mr. Potterfield of MidwayUSA, who said his own children started shooting “boys’ rifles” at age 4, getting young people engaged with firearms — provided they have the maturity and the physical ability to handle them — strengthens an endangered American tradition.
Mr. Potterfield and his wife, Brenda, have donated more than $5 million for youth shooting programs in recent years, a campaign that he said was motivated by philanthropy, not “return on investment.”
“Our gifting is pure benevolence,” he said. “We grew up and live in rural America and have owned guns, hunted and fished all of our lives. This is our community, and we hope to preserve it for future generations.”
*
Bearing Arms
This is the first in a series of articles that will examine the gun industry's influence and the wide availability of firearms in America.
-- designed by the National Rifle Association. The legislation was filed a day before December's school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children -- many of them first-graders -- dead.
"I hate mandates as much as anyone, but some concerns and conditions rise to the level of needing a mandate," the Associated Press reported Brown as saying.
The legislation also includes training for teachers on handling a shooter who enters a school building.
Brown's legislation comes as legislators around the country grapple with a similar legislation. In Oklahoma, state Rep. Mark McCullough (R-Sapulpa) proposed legislation [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/kevin-burr-oklahoma-schools-police_n_2347087.html ] that would crosstrain teachers as reserve police officers to provide school security and allow them to carry guns. McCullough has said that the bill will make it easier for teachers to respond to incidents of mass murders.
In Montana, state Rep. Jerry O'Neil (R-Columbia Falls) introduced legislation [ http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2013/lchtml/LC1672.htm ] that would make it easier for students to carry a gun into a school. Under O'Neil's plan, students cannot be disciplined if they store the gun in a locker, a locked car or with school officials during the school day. The Montana bill would also allow for students to bring guns to school when the gun is needed as part of the curriculum.
Just last week Hardwire LLC [ http://www.hardwirellc.com/ ], a Maryland-based armor company that has sold ballistic protection technology to the U.S. military for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, started selling a dry erase board that can stop gunfire.
The bulletproof whiteboards were designed to blend into the school environment, Hardwire's CEO George Tunis told The Huffington Post over the phone Friday morning.
"They were like, 'Dad, you own an armor company and we can do something about this!'" Tunis explained. "So the idea was as much theirs as it was mine."
Tunis emphasized that each school should follow its own procedure during a potential crisis, but said the bulletproof whiteboards are a good last line of defense against a shooter, adding that if necessary, teachers using the boards as shields could encircle students to defend against bullets.
The whiteboards are made from a material called Dyneema, a polyethylene fiber often used in bulletproof vests and in military vehicles. The boards are a quarter-inch thick, Tunis said, and have three handles on the back for teachers to hold while teaching or while shielding gunfire.
Currently Hardwire sells two sizes of bulletproof whiteboard. The larger size, designed to protect the head and torso, weighs under four pounds and costs $299, according to Hardwire's website. The smaller size, recommended for "playground, field, parking lot, or bus duty use," weighs one pound, is 10 by 13 inches, and costs $109.
Illinois School Shooting Drill: Cary-Grove High School To Fire Blanks In Hallway, Angering Parents
A suburban Chicago high school plans to fire blanks in the hallways Wednesday during a school shooting drill involving students and staff alike.
Posted: 01/29/2013 2:07 pm EST | Updated: 01/29/2013 2:10 pm EST
A suburban Chicago high school is planning to hold a controversial and unprecedented new drill: a simulation of a "code red simulation" that will involve the firing of blank bullets in the hallway in an effort to give students and staff "some familiarity with the sound of gunfire."
According to a letter sent by principal Jay Sargeant to parents of students at Cary-Grove High School in Cary, Ill., the school will be simulating an active shooter situation [ http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Cary-Grove-Drill-To-Include-Shooting-Blanks-188856881.html ] while teachers "secure their rooms, draw curtains, and keep their students from traveling throughout the building" for between 15 and 20 minutes on Wednesday, NBC Chicago reports.
During that time, unspecified individuals will be firing blanks in the hallways. After the drill, Sargeant wrote, students will "will take some time to process what occurred and then we will return to our normal classroom routine."
In the letter, Sargeant goes on to urge parents to discuss the upcoming drill with their children because "it may cause some students to have an emotional reaction." The school also will reportedly have social workers present to speak with students, should they need it.
“If you need to run a drill, you run a drill,” parent Sharon Miller told the station. “They run fire drills all the time, but they don’t run up and down the hallway with a flamethrower.”
"Active shooter" trainings for school staff have grown increasingly common nationwide in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. massacre -- but students are not usually present for such activities.
Jeff Berni, Washington Dad, Posted 'Alarming' Facebook Wish For Shooting At Rival School 01/25/2013 An angry father of a high school student in Washington state has been banned from two school districts after posting what police called "alarming" comments to his Facebook page. Jeff Berni, 39, is the father of a student basketball player for Skyview High School in the Vancouver School District. Skyview beat rival Camas High School 44-42 during a game Tuesday [ http://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/index.ssf/2013/01/angry_dad_sends_facebook_wish.html ], according to The Oregonian. But Berni reportedly got in an argument with the opposing fans while leaving the game -- and posted a message to Facebook: Camas fans!!!!! Worst in the league!!!! I hope someone shoots up their school really soon!!!!!!!!!! “He flipped kids off. He had some negative reaction [about the game]," Camas School District Athletic Director Josh Gibson told KATU [ http://www.katu.com/news/local/School-Frustrated-parent-posts-alarming-Facebook-message-188116491.html ]. “Exactly what is said, we don’t know.” [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/jeff-berni-washington-dad_n_2552469.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Gun safety advice from Dick Cheney, the guy who once shot his friend in the face
The former vice president, a staunch NRA ally, didn’t deviate significantly from the pro-gun talking points we’ve been hearing. He extolled the virtues of more guns in the classroom by way of armed officers, saying that approach was “probably a more effective deterrent than anything that Congress seems to be debating at the present time.”
Cheney’s own firearms mishap didn’t make it into the conversation. He made headlines in 2006 when he shot a friend in the face while quail hunting. The accidental injury made Cheney the first vice president since Aaron Burr to shoot someone. (Burr killed his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel. He was eventually tried for treason for unrelated reasons.)
Cheney also managed to find a way to bash Obama, saying that a recent court ruling that the president’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board was of a piece with Obama’s lack of respect for the Second Amendment.
Two conservatives who sit on the boards of mainstream right-wing groups control a PAC that gave thousands of dollars to a racist organization.
By Nick Baumann Tue Jan. 29, 2013 3:11 AM PST
Two prominent conservative movement officials who hold leadership positions for several right-wing groups—Ron Robinson and James B. Taylor—run a political action committee that donated thousands of dollars to a white nationalist organization, according to public records. And for several years Taylor was vice president of another white nationalist organization.
Robinson and Taylor are each board members of Young America's Foundation [ http://www.yaf.org/defaultpb.aspx ] (YAF), which cofounded the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and runs the conservative youth group Young Americans for Freedom [ http://www.yaf.org/YoungAmericansForFreedom.aspx ]. (YAF owns and manages the Ronald Reagan Ranch [ http://www.yaf.org/TheReaganRanch.aspx ], trains conservative journalists [ http://www.yaf.org/NationalJournalismCenter.aspx ], and calls itself [ http://www.yaf.org/mission.aspx ] "the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement.") And Robinson, YAF's president, is on the board of two other conservative groups: Citizens United, which brought the landmark Supreme Court case of the same name, and the American Conservative Union, which operates CPAC.
The Martel Society is named for Charles Martel, who stymied a Muslim invasion of Europe by winning the Battle of Tours in 734. It was founded in 2001 by William Regnery II, an heir to a conservative publishing fortune [ http://www.regnery.com/ ] and a "prime mover and shaker in white nationalism publishing," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist extremism. The Martel Society is best known for publishing The Occidental Quarterly, which is sort of the Nature of academic racism, and its sister online publication, The Occidental Observer. The Anti-Defamation League has characterized [ http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/Occidental_Observer.htm ] the Quarterly as "racist" and the Observer as "anti-Semitic." The Observer maintains an archive of stories on the topic of "Jews and the financial collapse [ http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/category/jews-and-the-financial-collapse/ ]," and the Quarterly once awarded a $10,000 prize for books on the "group evolutionary strategies" of Jewish people. According to records America's PAC filed with the FEC, its donation to the Martel Society was a "grant." The Charles Martel Society did not respond to a request for comment.
"It is preposterous to suggest there is any racial component to America's PAC's grants," Robinson says in an email. "We have supported Allan Keyes, Ken Blackwell, Allen West and others." In another email, he says, "I don't recall specific grants from nine years ago, you would have to talk to James Taylor about that." Taylor did not respond to requests for comment.
Taylor once led another white nationalist outfit. He was vice president of the National Policy Institute, also started by Regnery. The group was "basically was founded to be kind of a white supremacist think tank," says Marilyn Mayo, the codirector of Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. Started in Augusta, Georgia, in 2005 and now based in Montana, NPI has published reports on "Affirmative Action and the Costs of Diversity [ http://www.npiamerica.org/media/reports/CostsOfDiversity.pdf ]" and "The State of White America 2007 [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/8010439/State-of-White-America-2007 ]." It warns on its website [ http://www.npiamerica.org/about/ ] that "the dispossession of White Americans will have catastrophic effects for the entire world, not just for our people."
NPI and the Charles Martel Society prefer to be referred to as "white nationalists," not white supremacists, according to Heidi Beirich, a spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. She adds: "They think that's its a more high-brow term than white supremacism. Whether they call themselves white nationalists or white supremacists, what these are are people who have a racist notion of the universe in which whites are superior. And all of them, whether white nationalist or white supremacist, would like to live in a segregated environment. They want a white world."
The anti-Semitic and racist records of the NPI and the Charles Martel Society are beyond dispute, Mayo insists. "This whole web of the Charles Martel Society, the National Policy Institute—they're all vehicles for promoting white supremacy in various forms," she explains. "Their publications contain racist and anti-Semitic materials."
Taylor's connection to the Martel Society was first reported [ http://www.publicopiniononline.com/ci_20450909/candidate-connections-taylor?IADID=Search-www.publicopiniononline.com-www.publicopiniononline.com ] by the Chambersburg Public Opinion, a local Pennsylvania newspaper, last August. When asked about America PAC's donation to the society, Taylor, who was running for state Senate at the time, told the paper he now "thought the Charles Martel Society was too militant." But he acknowledged his connection to NPI, and defended its mission. "You've got the NAACP and B'nai B'rith," he said. "Why not something for white people?" Taylor went on to emphasize that he "hasn't been involved in years" with NPI or Martel, and "wouldn't be involved now considering what they have on the website now."
According to NPI's tax returns [ http://www.motherjones.com/documents/561741-npi-990-2007 ], Taylor was vice president of the group as late as 2007, when it released "The State of White America 2007." That report [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/8010439/State-of-White-America-2007 ] called Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools, "arguably the worst decision in the Court’s 216-year history." The paper contended that "integration and the civil rights movement led directly to the destruction of great cities; and to millions of whites suffering terrible injustices, including assault, robbery, rape and murder, and losing everything they had through the ensuing destruction of their neighborhoods and their property values." The NPI was founded, according to its original mission statement, "to elevate the consciousness of whites, ensure our biological and cultural continuity, and protect our civil rights."
In an email, Richard Spencer, who currently runs NPI, maintains that "NPI is not a 'white supremacist' organization" and has a record "of collaboration with Jews who support our mission." He continues: "We do not desire that the White race lord over other peoples; indeed, we find such a notion repellent…All kinds of races, ethnicities, and religious groups—from lesbians to left-handers—have been eager (and in many cases, encouraged) to organize and advocate politically on behalf of themselves. NPI believes that Whites have the same right…NPI takes its stand on behalf of America’s historic majority, as well as European peoples worldwide." Spencer says, "[W]e are nationalists, in the proper sense of the word: we seek to promote the heath of our race."
Asked about the Martel Society donation and Taylor's years of association with NPI, Robinson says, "I've known and worked with James Taylor for several decades and he has never treated anyone as part of a racial group and always treated everyone fairly as an individual."
By GRACE ELIZABETH HALE Published: January 28, 2013
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.
THE opposition by the New York State chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s restrictions on sugary soda caught many Americans by surprise. But it shouldn’t: though the organization argues it is standing up for consumer choice and minority business owners, who it claims would be hurt, this is also a favor for a stalwart ally — Coca-Cola alone has given generously to support N.A.A.C.P. initiatives over the years.
This is more than a story of mutual back-scratching, though. It is the latest episode in the long and often fractious history of soft drinks, prohibition laws and race.
While it is widely known that John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, invented Coke as a kind of patent medicine, it was in fact his second drink. His first, an 1884 invention called French Wine Coca, was a copy of a popular French wine that contained cocaine. But in November 1885, just as the product began to sell, Atlanta outlawed alcohol sales.
Across the nation, support for prohibition was often tied to the desire by native whites to control European Catholics, American Indians, Asian-Americans and, especially in the South, African-Americans. It gave police officers an excuse to arrest African-Americans on the pretext of intoxication.
Pemberton went to work on a “temperance drink” with the same “medicinal” effects, and he introduced Coca-Cola in 1886. At the time, the soda fountains of Atlanta pharmacies had become fashionable gathering places for middle-class whites as an alternative to bars. Mixed with soda water, the drink quickly caught on as an “intellectual beverage” among well-off whites.
Eliminating alcohol granted only a temporary reprieve. Though Asa G. Candler, who had taken over the business, kept the formula secret, an Atlanta paper revealed in 1891 what many consumers — who called the soda “dope” — already knew: Coca-Cola contained cocaine.
Candler began marketing the drink as “refreshing” rather than medicinal, and managed to survive the controversy. But concerns exploded again after the company pioneered its distinctive glass bottles in 1899, which moved Coke out of the segregated spaces of the soda fountain. Anyone with a nickel, black or white, could now drink the cocaine-infused beverage. Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern newspapers reported that “negro cocaine fiends” were raping white women, the police powerless to stop them. By 1903, Candler had bowed to white fears (and a wave of anti-narcotics legislation), removing the cocaine and adding more sugar and caffeine.
Coke’s recipe wasn’t the only thing influenced by white supremacy: through the 1920s and ’30s, it studiously ignored the African-American market. Promotional material appeared in segregated locations that served both races, but rarely in those that catered to African-Americans alone.
Meanwhile Pepsi, the country’s second largest soft drink company, had tried to fight Coke by selling its sweeter product in a larger bottle for the same price. Still behind in 1940, Pepsi’s liberal chief executive, Walter S. Mack, tried a new approach: he hired a team of 12 African-American men to create a “negro markets” department.
By the late 1940s, black sales representatives worked the Southern Black Belt and Northern black urban areas, black fashion models appeared in Pepsi ads in black publications, and special point-of-purchase displays appeared in stores patronized by African-Americans. The company hired Duke Ellington as a spokesman. Some employees even circulated racist public statements by Robert W. Woodruff, Coke’s president.
The campaign was so successful that many Americans began using a racial epithet to describe Pepsi. By 1950, fearing a backlash by white consumers, Pepsi had killed the program, but the image of Coke and Pepsi as “white” and “black” drinks lingered.
Not long after, perhaps seeing the business error of its ways, Coke quietly began to market to African-Americans. Eventually, part of Coke’s strategy was to support African-American organizations, forming the basis of its relationship with the N.A.A.C.P.
The historical weight of that relationship came to the surface after a 1999 discrimination case brought by black Coke employees, which created bad press for the company around the world. In 2000, Coke agreed to a settlement for $156 million and made a $50 million donation to the Coca-Cola Foundation to support community programs.
It took time, but the new tack worked: today the racial line between the soda companies, even in the South, is a dim memory, and the soft-drink industry is on good terms with one of its largest demographic markets: African-Americans.
Of course, the New York State N.A.A.C.P. may have a legitimate complaint against the soda restriction as a threat to minority business. And it may be fair to see the proposal, as some observers have intimated, as an instance of middle-class whites trying to control the behavior of working-class minorities — just as they did under Prohibition. But to understand the real story behind this unexpected alliance, we first have to understand its tangled history.
Social injustice and "a most wonderful invigorator of sexual organs"
By James Hamblin Jan 31 2013, 7:38 AM ET
When cocaine and alcohol meet inside a person, they create a third unique drug called cocaethylene. Cocaethylene works like cocaine, but with more euphoria [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7616402 ].
But as Pemberton's business started to take off, a prohibition was passed in his county in Georgia (a local one that predated the 18th Amendment by 34 years). Soon French Wine Coca was illegal -- because of the alcohol, not the cocaine.
Pemberton remained a step ahead, though. He replaced the wine in the formula with (healthier?) sugar syrup. His new product debuted in 1886: "Coca-Cola: The temperance drink."
After that, as Grace Elizabeth Hale recounted recently in the The New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/opinion/when-jim-crow-drank-coke.html (just above)], Coca-Cola "quickly caught on as an 'intellectual beverage' among well-off whites." But when the company started selling it in bottles in 1899, minorities who couldn't get into the segregated soda fountains suddenly had access to it.
Hale explains:
Anyone with a nickel, black or white, could now drink the cocaine-infused beverage. Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern newspapers reported that "negro cocaine fiends" were raping white women, the police powerless to stop them. By 1903, [then-manager of Coca-Cola Asa Griggs] Candler had bowed to white fears (and a wave of anti-narcotics legislation), removing the cocaine and adding more sugar and caffeine.
I'm part of a very great experiment in self-government where we the people determine our own pursuit of happiness and our own individual freedom and liberty not to be confused with the Barack Obama gang who believes in we the sheeple and actually is attempting to re-implement the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776. And if you want another Concord Bridge, I got some buddies.
Do we have to go over this again? Nugent and his buddies would be utterly wiped out. Full stop. Actually, they might as well be threatening to ride velociraptors into the White House, armed with magic wands and accompanied by Space Monkey Gleek. It's just that ridiculous. The whole notion of an armed revolt and secession from the United States failed miserably in 1865, and the revolutionaries at that time were headed by skilled West Point commanders like J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee who directed massive armies. These gun nutjobs today have -- who? -- octogenarian D-list electric guitar player Ted Nugent and a gaggle of his redneck disciples. Good luck, boys.
In fact, you know what? Bring it on. Seriously. I'd like to see Nugent try his hand at something like this -- to actually follow through on one of his kneejerk treasonous threats. But considering how he chickened out of the Vietnam draft, we can safely assume that Nugent prefers to only shoot at things that don't fire back.
And he didn't stop there. Here's his latest threat against the president:
But here is what is wrong with America today. We have a president, and everybody better write this down, and memorize this. The president of the United States goes to the Vietnam Memorial Wall and pretends to honor 58,000 American heroes who died fighting communism and then he hires, appoints and associates with communists. He pretends to pay honor to men who died fighting communism, and then he hangs out with, hires and appoints communists. He is an evil dangerous man who hates America and hates freedom. And we need to fix this as soon as possible.
The election's over so the only fixing he could expect to achieve would have to come in some other form, and he doesn't have the power to impeach the president. By the way, you know who else hates freedom? The owners of the venue where Nugent and his fellow over-compensators held their big gun show last week, that's who. One of the regulations emphasized by the SHOT Show organizers was that attendees couldn't bring [ http://www.nssf.org/SHOT/blast/view.cfm?vol=Vol5&ed=e5 ] their own firearms into the convention hall. No conceal carry at the world's largest gun show.
But that's incidental. Nugent has, for the third time (that I'm aware of), threatened to assassinate the president. Did he mean it?
Chances are he isn't very serious, and he's just popping off for attention, but who really knows? He's a board member for the NRA, and the NRA insists that video games and the media can somehow incite a man to walk into a school and kill 20 children. Well then, by that same logic, influential pop icon Ted Nugent's constant outbursts about violent insurrections and assassinating the president could just as easily influence a man to take a shot at Obama or drive a car bomb into an army base (another Concord Bridge would ostensibly involve Nugent and his buddies attacking American military forces somewhere).
So perhaps the authorities should take him a little more seriously, since he clearly has no self-censor or self-control. And the gun lobby would do well to take Nugent a lot less seriously. But they won't.
Adding... Looking over some of the words I used in this blog post, it occurred to me that this URL could easily be red-flagged by the hyper-sensitive national security infrastructure that Nugent supported throughout the Bush years. You know, because he's all about freedom. Also, yes, I know. Nugent isn't really an octogenarian.
And it’s about some of Sheriff Joe’s most ardent supporters, who rallied at the State Capitol in Phoenix this month to profess their devotion, as one sign-holder put it, to Jesus, freedom and guns. (Not necessarily in that order. Mostly it was about guns.)
Now these amateurs are going to have more heavy weapons, too. “We are the only law-enforcement agency in the nation known to possess a .50-caliber machine gun which can be used in any needed circumstance,” the sheriff said in a news release on Wednesday, “and soon we’ll have more semi-automatic rifles in patrol cars than about any other law enforcement agency around.”
“I am proud of those facts,” said the sheriff, who once staged a raid on a house with a tank and the actor Steven Seagal. They didn’t bag any bad guys, but they did kill hundreds of chickens and a puppy, prompting a lawsuit.
The sheriff’s timing was impeccably repellent. His news conference came on the same day that Gabrielle Giffords, the former Congresswoman wounded in a mass shooting two years ago, testified at a Senate hearing on gun control and practically begged [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/us/politics/senate-hearing-to-focus-on-gun-violence.html ] Congress to do something to end the slaughter.
This is the battlefield on which Arizonans like Ms. Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, are waging their campaign for sanity.
It’s a courageous struggle, but an uphill one. When the talk is about guns, not everyone is reachable. On Thursday I wrote about a video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcLLEiUxZJE (below, as embedded)] shot at a gun-rights rally on Jan. 19 at the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix. As I noted then [ http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/jesus-freedom-and-guns/ ], it’s a good window into the life of a state where the Tea Party, birtherism and anti-immigrant radicalism regularly combine to raise the political temperature from overheated to boiling.
Mississippi 'Nullification' Panel Pushed By Tea Party Legislators Would Negate Federal Laws
Mississippi state Rep. Jeff Smith is one of two state legislators looking to establish a commission that would block federal legislation it deemed undesirable.
By John Celock Posted: 01/28/2013 7:18 pm EST | Updated: 01/28/2013 9:03 pm EST
Two Tea Party lawmakers in Mississippi have proposed legislation to create a permanent committee charged with nullifying federal laws the state does not want to follow.
Under the legislation, a committee of 14 state lawmakers would be authorized to stop any federal law from applying in Mississippi, the Dispatch reports [ http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=21781 ]. The bill comes as state lawmakers around the country have sought to block enforcement of President Barack Obama's new executive orders related to gun control, often in ways that have been called constitutionally questionable.
Mississippi state Reps. Gary Chism (R-Columbus) and Jeff Smith (R-Columbus), both said that the gun control measures, along with the Affordable Care Act, were the impetus for their proposed nullification panel.
"Obamacare is one of the reasons we started talking about this bill," Chism told The Dispatch. "Then the new gun control laws brought it back up. The federal government shouldn't be allowed to tell us we can't have guns. The Tea Party people are adamant about protecting their Second Amendment rights."
The Dispatch reports the proposed panel would be similar to a Mississippi state commission set up in the 1950s in an effort to block federal desegregation efforts in the state, but Chism downplayed that connection. Under the plan, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) and state House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) would lead the panel and appoint other lawmakers to join them. The panel would have exclusive power to nullify federal laws.
State attempts to block any federal gun restrictions have swept the country in recent weeks. Wyoming led the nation with a proposal in early January, before Vice President Joe Biden released recommendations from his gun control task force. Under Wyoming's proposal, federal law enforcement agents could face five years in prison and a $50,000 fine if they attempted to enforce new federal guns laws in the state. Wyoming lawmakers are likely to debate the bill in committee this week. Other states soon followed Wyoming's lead, including Texas [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/steve-toth-gun-ban-texas_n_2482211.html ], Virginia, Missouri and Kansas [ http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2111_00_0000.pdf ].
Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford University law professor, told The Huffington Post earlier this month [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/10/wyoming-gun-control_n_2451438.html ] that the Constitution gives supremacy to federal laws over state laws and said the state bans would likely be found unconstitutional. Fisher said states could reject federal programs in conjunction with federal funds, but not laws themselves.
"It is elementary that a state cannot pass a statute that blocks enforcement of an otherwise enforceable federal law," Fisher told HuffPost.
traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in the March on Washington for Gun Control in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.
In the midst of this robust national conversation about how we can use the power of the federal government to protect families and communities from violence, pro-gun extremists are increasingly asserting that they are above the law when it comes to firearms regulation. Case in point is a recent movement by a small group of sheriffs to assert "Posse Comitatus" theory and issue an open -- and sometimes violent -- challenge to the federal government.
While the roots of the so-called Christian Patriot movement and the Posse Comitatus can be traced back to the 19th century and even earlier, the present trend really got its start nearly 30 years ago, in the early 1970s. The Posse Comitatus, which is Latin for "power of the county," was originally founded by William Potter Gale in 1970. But the movement did not gain significant momentum until Gale was able to join his Christian Identity beliefs [a racist theology identifying Jews as the literal progeny of Satan and blacks as subhuman] with the growing anti-tax movement in the United States ... In reality, Gale's ideas were really nothing more than verbal flourishes used to disguise old-fashioned vigilantism ... If you look at the philosophy of today's militias, common-law courts and county supremacy movement, it is absolutely inseparable from the original concepts set forth by Gale almost 30 years ago. What the Posse has done to survive between then and now has been to be very flexible and to inject those ideas into whatever social conditions exist and use those conditions opportunistically.
As documented [ http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/winter/resurrection ] by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mack launched the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) [ http://cspoa.org/ ] in 2011. Its mission statement declares, "The county sheriff is the line in the sand. The county sheriff is the one who can say to the feds, 'Beyond these bounds you shall not pass.' This is not only within the scope of the sheriff's authority; it's the sheriff's sworn duty."
Mack has a long record of extremist activism and extensive ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA). After the Brady Bill was signed into law in 1993, the NRA funded lawsuits in nine different states attempting to have the law struck down as unconstitutional. Mack was one of the sheriffs the NRA picked as a plaintiff. Another was current NRA board member Jay Printz [ http://meetthenra.org/nra-member/Jay%20Printz ]. The case of Printz v. United States eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that the federal government could not compel local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks. This effort greatly weakened the nation's background check system (Printz is the primary reason the FBI's NICS database is missing millions of disqualifying records today), but for his role Mack was crowned NRA Law Officer of the Year and inducted into the NRA Hall of Fame.
At the CSPOA website, Mack proudly touts a list [ http://cspoa.org/sheriffs-gun-rights/ ] of 90 [currently 228] sheriffs and two state sheriffs' associations as having taken up his call to resist enforcement of gun laws. The list includes the Utah Sheriffs' Association, which in a letter [ http://www.utahsheriffs.org/USA-Home_files/2nd%20Amendment%20Letter.pdf ] to President Obama envisioned a violent confrontation with federal authorities over guns laws, writing, "We are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of [the Second Amendment's] traditional interpretation." Regarding the president's newly-announced gun policy proposals, the Utah sheriffs said, "As you deliberate, please remember the Founders of this great nation created the Constitution, and its accompanying Bill of Rights, in an effort to protect citizens from all forms of tyrannical subjugation... We pray the Almighty will guide the People's Representatives collectively."
The current crop of Posse Comitatus-style and state-level nullifiers are a key cog in what a recent report [ http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf ] from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point calls the modern "Anti-Federalist" movement. The report classifies Anti-Federalist efforts to undermine the federal government through a range of ideas, including New World Order conspiracies, militia advocacy and fears of environmental and firearm regulation. Its authors warn, "In the last few years, especially since 2007, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of attacks and violent plots originating in the far-right of American politics." The insurrectionist [ http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Democracy-Insurrectionist-Joshua-Horwitz/dp/0472033700 ] implications and violent potential of nullification couldn't be clearer.
Meanwhile, threats of violence distract us from the conversation we should be having right now about how to best protect our children in the wake of a gruesome school shooting perpetrated by a dangerous, possibly mentally ill individual who never should have gotten anywhere near an AR-15.
That said, we ignore the threats of sheriffs and would-be sheriffs like Richard Mack at our own peril. Today it's an attack on gun laws. In the 1960s, it was Birmingham, Alabama Sheriff Eugene "Bull" Conner defying federal orders to desegregate public facilities. Tomorrow, it could be an attack on women's rights, LGBT rights, voting rights or labor laws. Let us not embolden extremists by shrinking from a debate about the supremacy of federal law and the government's role in vindicating and protecting individual rights. Out of this terrible tragedy in Newtown arises the potential to not only prevent the future loss of precious lives, but also to recommit to the pillars of democracy in our Constitution that form the basis of American freedom.
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Kaufman County Assistant DA Hasse knew his life was in danger
Kaufman DA shooting. Photo by Sherri Thornhill
Written by Sherri Thornhill 31 January 2013 Last modified on Thursday, 31 January 2013 19:30
**Update--a local news channel had reported that Craig Watkins, the Dallas County DA, confirmed an arrest had been made in this case. However, according to Kaufman County DA Mike McLelland and Kaufman Police Chief Aulbaugh, no arrest has been made in connection to this shooting. A manhunt still continues for the suspects.**
A shooting that took place today behind the Kaufman County Courthouse Annex in Kaufman at 8:50 a.m, does not appear to be random. Kaufman County Assistant DA Mark Hasse was gunned down by two assailants this morning after parking his car behind the Annex. Multiple shots were fired after Hasse exited his vehicle. The gunmen are still on the loose. Sources close to the investigation now say that they are looking into a connection between a case or cases involving the Aryan Brotherhood that DA Hasse was working on.
According to inForney.com sources, Mark Hasse was aware that his life was in danger and was reported to have carried a handgun on his hip for protection. He was known to always scope out his surroundings when entering or exiting his car and the courthouse. Despite his heightened awareness, he was ambushed this morning by two gunmen wearing black, and possibly wearing tactical vests.
DA Hasse did tell friends in previous months that he felt his life could be in jeopardy due to multiple cases he recently had in front of the Grand Jury. Each of the cases involved one particular suspect that had connections to the Aryan Brotherhood in Van Zandt County. The DOJ also issued a press release today about another Aryan Brotherhood case that Hasse had worked on, which resulted in convictions. (Read that press release here [ http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/January/13-crm-140.html ].)
A friend of DA Hasse said this, “Mark was one of those people that when you meet him one time, he leaves such an impression that you'll never forget him. He was a really good guy and he cared about people and loved his job. Even knowing how his life would end, he still would have went to work every day.”
Kaufman DA Mike McLelland said this about Hasse, “Kaufman County, the State of Texas, and my office have suffered a devastating loss today.” He said that Mark Hasse will be sorely missed by everyone and that he was, “A stellar prosecutor and friend.” McLelland wants the suspects to know this, “We're gonna find you.”
If you have any information in this case, please contact the Kaufman County Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-877-847-7522. There is a $36,000.00 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in this case. The amount has grown throughout the day thanks to generous businesses in Kaufman County.
Wilson is namechecking Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s call for a “new conversation” on gun control [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/politics/after-newtown-congress-must-act-pelosi-says.html?_r=0 ] in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre. Wilson follows up his question by firing off a few rounds of ammunition, giving his handiwork an admiring look, and declaring: “Welcome to the age of the printed magazine.” The screen flashes a message: “Download your mag today.”
The 51-second video closes with Wilson eating a meal. An off-camera voice asks him: “So how does it taste?” His answer: “Tastes like Dianne Feinstein’s lunch.” It’s another anti-gun control broadside, a slam against the Democratic senator who plans to introduce legislation that would reinstate the ban on selling high-capacity ammunition magazines that existed from 1994 to 2004.
Wilson’s message could not be more blatant. In the age of cheap 3-D printers and open-source, easily downloadable design code, he is declaring that gun control is obsolete. So don’t even bother trying.
After four high-profile mass murders involving guns over the last two years, gun control is once again a hot political issue in the United States. President Obama has made it clear that he will push for significant new gun control measures. But not only is it doubtful that Obama’s new push will successfully move legislation out of Congress, but the entire question of how to achieve effective gun control has been complicated by the onrushing era of ubiquitous do-it-yourself 3-D printing technology. Gun rights activists like Wilson are arguing that even the toughest new laws will be toothless.
And they may be right, if the history of computer technology is any guide. When music became software in the 1990s, the jig was up for the music business as we had known it. Now things are becoming software — and what that means for the future is anyone’s guess.
At the moment, sure, there’s still plenty of hype included in the do-it-yourself weapons manufacturing kit. Evangelists for 3-D printing are quick to note that it is still a lot easier to buy a gun (or steal your mother’s AR-15) than make your own from scratch. Moreover, experts in gun technology caution that an assault rifle assembled solely from plastic parts extruded from your typical 3-D printer today would be highly likely to self-destruct after a single shot [ http://www.zdnet.com/no-you-cant-download-a-gun-from-the-internet-7000002108/ ], if it worked at all.
But the technological frontier moves awfully fast. The cost of 3-D printing is plummeting even as technological capabilities soar [ http://assets1.csc.com/lef/downloads/LEF_20123DPrinting.pdf ]. There seems little doubt that we are witnessing the maturation of an extraordinarily disruptive technology with incalculable consequences for the manufacturing process of all kinds of products. Perhaps not today, but almost certainly tomorrow, the code to 3-D print your own gun will be as shareable as MP3s. Outmoded legal approaches to restricting gun ownership may not apply.
How are we supposed to think about that? More to the point — how do some of 3D printing’s most fervent evangelists think about it? It is a point of pride for DIY hackers that computers and networks are tools that liberate creativity. The more we share, the better. But does that premise hold true when we are sharing the code to manufacture lethal weapons? Do we really want to live in a future in which gun control is effectively impossible?
***
Make Magazine’s “Ultimate Guide to 3D printing,” published this winter, bursts with the same unconstrained enthusiasm once associated with the Homebrew Computing Club where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak presented the first Apple computer. The smell of revolution is in the wind! Manufacturing has been democratized! There are no limits to what you can fabricate in your living room! In his editor’s note, Make publisher Dale Dougherty writes that “The dream of 3D printers stirs our imagination … like the first personal computers 3D printers were signposts for an unsettled territory, awaiting the pioneers to explore the future.”
Make’s guide has everything an aspiring 3-D printing hobbyist needs to know to get started. Detailed reviews of printers. Directions to where one can download product designs. The best software. Do’s and don’ts advice. Make Magazine, a combination bible/how-to-FAQ/manifesto for the Do It Yourself movement — has gone all in on the 3-D printing future.
But skim through the pages looking for any information on how one might 3-D print one’s own gun, and you won’t find any help. Nor will you locate any in-depth discussion of 3-D printers as potential weapons factories in former Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s recent book, “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution.”
Members of the Maker community, understandably, prefe to focus on new technology as a tool for personal empowerment. When pressed, they will acknowledge that 3-D printers can just as easily be used for less joyful purposes. But that’s just how it is, how it has always been with any new technology. One reason why we might not see much hand-wringing about the negative consequences of the spread of 3-D printing technology is that it simply doesn’t do much good to worry about it now. That oh-so-slippery genie is once again way out of the bottle.
“I see this as just another example of the power of general-purpose technologies (from the PC to the Internet),” says Anderson, “which empower people to use them in any way they want, both good and ill. We’ve got decades of experience with these, and in general we tend to regulate the use, not the technology.”
In other words, you might say, 3-D printers don’t kill people. People kill people.
“In any case. I really don’t see how you can restrict the technology,” says Anderson. “It’s open source and out there globally from hundreds of sources, small and large.”
“Most revolutions, even technological ones, enable positive and negative outcomes,” Dougherty told me. “A 3-D printer potentially adds new options for manufacturing weapons. Perhaps the concern is that it could be easier for more people to manufacture guns more easily. However, it is certainly much easier for people to buy guns than to make them, and there are plenty in circulation.”
Science fiction author and Boing-Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow has thought long and hard [ http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html ] on how society can and should grapple with the destructive potential of new applications of computer technology. It’s a staple of both his fiction and his public speaking. He acknowledges that the weapons-making potential for 3-D printers is “scary” and supports seeking solutions that would offer some security in a 3-D-destabilized future.
But the nightmares are not limited to printed guns, he notes, suggesting that the same 3-D printing technology could be applied to manufacturing “solid state meth labs” and even intelligently designed viruses and bacteria. Focusing too much on what a 3-D printer can or cannot do misses the big picture. The printer is just another computer peripheral, he says. The real challenge is the unlimited utility of the computer.
In the past, says Doctorow, “not only was it possible (for a long time) to regulate printing presses and machine shops, they were also specialized equipment that only certain people would possess and know how to use. We could figure out who was printing the fake money by tracing the press, and also by tracing people who were likely to know how to operate it.”
“Today, with general purpose technology, we have two problems: 1) The technology is in everyone’s possession, and so the fact that mischief is made with a computer tells you nothing about where it was made. 2) The technology is programmable and so allows for replay of others’ skilled manipulations. You don’t have to know how to write … code, just how to run it.”
“I hope we can come up with effective solutions to these problems … but the key word there is ‘effective.’ A comprehensive, nip-it-in-the-bud ban on the technology to produce 3-D printed guns is a ban on computers. Because there’s no other way you could accomplish it.”
What Doctorow is saying is that you can’t feasibly limit a computer from doing any particular task. The music business tried digital rights management to stop people from sharing music and discovered, to its dismay, that the strategy just wouldn’t work. The same will be true, says Doctorow, if governments try to craft gun control regulations that put technological limitations on what can or cannot be printed from a 3-D printer.
Recent events have given us something of a test case of this thesis. As Forbes’ Andy Greenberg reported in December [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/12/19/3d-printing-startup-makerbot-cracks-down-on-printable-gun-designs/ ], Bre Pettis, the CEO of MakerBot, a leading manufacturer of cheap 3-D printers that also maintains Thingiverse, a popular repository of open-source design code, noted in a blog post in October 2011 [ http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/10/03/deadly-weapons-on-thingiverse/ ], “I’m not convinced that 3D printing is easier than buying a gun illegally, but it does offer another avenue for weapons to enter the world. Will the next war be armed with 3D printers? One thing that’s for sure, the cat is out of the bag and that cat can be armed with guns made with printed parts.”
But in December 2012, shortly after the Newtown massacre, MakerBot announced that it would no longer allow users to upload gun designs to Thingiverse. Cat — back in the bag!
So what happened? Cody Wilson and the activists at Defense Distributed immediately created DefCad [ http://defcad.org/ ], a safe haven for anyone to upload gun design code. In the month since, thousands of people have downloaded the code to make high-capacity gun magazines. Any attempt to extirpate all such code from the computers of the world would be yet another hopeless game of Internet whack-a-mole. Cat — running wild and free, armed and dangerous.
Government action to prohibit the uploading of gun design code would be a more serious matter than MakerBot’s voluntary-imposed restrictions, but given what we know about how easy it is to copy and distribute digital information on the Internet, ultimately, it would probably be just as ineffective.
Of course, that doesn’t solve the basic problem, which is that, in the 3-D printing era, if you have the will to make a gun, you will eventually be able to find a way, more easily than you have ever been able to do so before, just as, if you really, really want to see that episode of “Downton Abbey” that was broadcast in the U.K. six months ago but still hasn’t been shown on U.S. TV, you can find it on the Internet, if you look hard enough. And yes, that is scary. For those Americans who are looking for ways to reduce access to guns, the next wave of 3-D printing poses an ironic, and perhaps tragic conundrum. Just as social pressure is starting to once again rise in support of gun control, achieving such a goal may be getting harder than ever.
True Believers in Justice: A Young Public Defender's Struggle in the South
Published on Jan 24, 2013 by TheNewYorkTimes•
The filmmaker Dawn Porter follows Travis Williams, a young public defender in the Deep South, who struggles against long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads to bring justice to all.
I’d always wanted to be a lawyer, but unlike Travis Williams — the subject of this Op-Doc video — I never wanted to be a public defender. I didn’t understand how anyone could represent people who did terrible things. “Criminals” were not people I wanted to help.
Then, in 2009, while working in the legal department at A&E Television, I met Jonathan Rapping, the founder of what’s now Gideon’s Promise. He invited me to his client-centered legal training program in Alabama. At the start of training, Mr. Rapping asked each lawyer to articulate why he or she chose to become a public defender. One young man said he had a brother with Down syndrome, so he wanted to help people who could not navigate the legal system for themselves. Another said he had been arrested as a teenager, so he wanted to help kids like him who didn’t know their rights. Their stories moved me. I learned more about the true state of the criminal justice system during that week than I knew from all my years practicing law. I wanted other people to learn about what they were doing and so I decided to make this film.
I was horrified by what I learned about the criminal justice system. Innocent people, in prison for months or years, sometimes plead guilty to get out of jail; onerous sentences are too often given for minor crimes; people can lose civil rights, like the right to vote, as a result of criminal convictions. In America, a felony conviction can be a lifelong sentence because of this multitude of collateral consequences.
I also saw what a difference it made to have lawyers like Travis fighting hard for poor people’s rights. I saw him tell clients and their families that they were facing long sentences, outrageous bail terms or prison. But I saw him deliver even the worst news with compassion, and I saw him fight for every client. He’s inspired me to judge less and listen more, to try to put myself in the position of people who face a terribly structured system that often provides justice to neither the victim nor the accused. Thanks to Travis and the other young lawyers I met on this journey, I can proudly say I’m a “true believer” in their cause.
This video is part of a series produced by independent filmmakers who have received major support from the Ford Foundation and additional support from the nonprofit Sundance Institute.
Dawn Porter directed and produced “Gideon’s Army [ http://gideonsarmythefilm.com/ ]”, a feature documentary that is premiering at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and will be broadcast later this year on HBO. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Prison Population Can Shrink When Police Crowd Streets
Officers on patrol in the 73rd precinct in Brooklyn. Under Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly the New York police have focused on crime-prone areas, aided by computer mapping. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
"If you had a dollar to spend on reducing crime, and you looked at the science instead of the politics, you would never spend it on the prison system," Micheal Jacobson, president of the Vera Institute of Justice and former New York City correction and probation commissioner, said. Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times
Better Policing the Problem [embedded audio] John Tierney talks about New York's strategy to stopping crime on the Science Times Podcast.
By JOHN TIERNEY Published: January 25, 2013
Now that the United States has the world’s highest reported rate of incarceration, many criminologists are contemplating another strategy. What if America reverted to the penal policies of the 1980s? What if the prison population shrank drastically? What if money now spent guarding cellblocks was instead used for policing the streets?
In short, what would happen if the rest of the country followed New York City’s example?
As the American prison population has doubled in the past two decades, the city has been a remarkable exception to the trend: the number of its residents in prison has shrunk. Its incarceration rate, once high by national standards, has plunged well below the United States average and has hit another new low, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced recently. And crime in the city has fallen by more than 75 percent, almost twice as much as in the rest of the country.
Whatever has made New York the safest big city in America, that feat has certainly not been accomplished by locking up more criminals.
“The precise causes of New York’s crime decline will be debated by social scientists until the Sun hits the Earth,” said Michael Jacobson [ http://www.vera.org/users/mjacobson ], a criminologist who ran the city’s Correction and Probation Departments during the 1990s and is now the president of the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice research group. “But the 50,000-foot story from New York is that you can drive down crime while decreasing your jail and prison population — and save a huge amount of money in the process.”
New York’s singular success has attracted attention across the country from public officials whose budgets have been strained by the prison boom. The 2.3 million people behind bars in America, a fifth of the world’s prisoners, cost taxpayers more than $75 billion a year [ http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/incarceration-2010-06.pdf ]. The strict penal policies were intended to reduce crime, but they have led to a historic, if largely unrecognized, shift in priorities away from policing [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2010.00700.x/abstract ].
“The United States today is the only country I know of that spends more on prisons than police,” said Lawrence W. Sherman [ http://www.ccjs.umd.edu/facultyprofile/Sherman/Lawrence ], an American criminologist on the faculties of the University of Maryland and Cambridge University in Britain. “In England and Wales, the spending on police is twice as high as on corrections. In Australia it’s more than three times higher. In Japan it’s seven times higher. Only in the United States is it lower, and only in our recent history.”
Before the era of mass incarceration began in the 1980s, local policing accounted for more than 40 percent of spending for criminal justice, while 25 percent went to prisons and parole programs. But since 1990, nearly 35 percent has gone to the prison system, while the portion of criminal justice spending for local policing has fallen to slightly more than 30 percent.
New York, while now an exception to the mass-incarceration trend, also happens to be the place that inspired it. When New York State four decades ago commissioned an evaluation of programs to rehabilitate criminals, the conclusions were so discouraging that the researchers were initially forbidden to publish them.
Eventually one of the criminologists, Robert Martinson, summarized the results in 1974 in the journal Public Interest. His article, “What Works? Questions and Answers About Prison Reform [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2010.00700.x/abstract ],” was soon known as the “nothing works” thesis. Dr. Martinson concluded that rehabilitation strategies “cannot overcome, or even appreciably reduce, the powerful tendencies of offenders to continue in criminal behavior.”
An outgrowth of the study was a consensus to eliminate parole for many offenders and to mandate long sentences determined by formulas rather than rely on the discretion of judges and parole boards.
Dr. Martinson wrote an article in 1979 recanting his “nothing works” conclusion, but by then it was too late. The trend toward tougher sentences continued, causing prison populations to grow rapidly in the 1980s throughout the country, including in New York. When crime kept rising anyway, sentences often were further lengthened.
But New York diverged from the national trend in the early 1990s, when it began expanding its police force and introduced a computerized system [ http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cscity.pdf ] to track crimes and complaints. Officers also aggressively enforced laws against guns, illegal drugs and petty crimes like turnstile jumping in the subways. Arrests for misdemeanors increased sharply.
Yet serious crime went down. So though more people were being locked up for brief periods — including many who were unable to make bail and were awaiting trial — the local jail population was shrinking [ http://books.google.com/books/about/Downsizing_Prisons.html?id=PUr07P0Vi3QC ] and fewer city residents were serving time in state prisons.
“Even with more people coming into the system, the overall bed count was declining because people weren’t staying as long,” Dr. Jacobson, who was correction commissioner from 1995 to 1998, recalled.
“It was a nightmare to administer because there was so much churning and turnover, but it was good news for the city.”
Saving $1.5 Billion a Year
Even as the city grew by nearly a million people in the last two decades, the number of New Yorkers behind bars fell by a third, to below 40,000 today.
If the city had followed the national trend, nearly 60,000 additional New Yorkers would be behind bars today, and the number of city and state correction officers would have more than doubled since 1990, said Franklin E. Zimring [ http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyProfile.php?facID=127 ], a criminologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
The crime decline, which has lasted for two decades, has been so striking that some critics wonder if the police stopped reporting some offenses. The police vehemently deny that, and numbers have continued dropping even for crimes that are difficult to hide — homicides, most notably.
Policing, of course, is not the only possible explanation for the safer streets. A shift in demographics, the arrival of new immigrants, the waning of the crack epidemic, and other economic and social changes had an impact on neighborhoods in New York — and in the rest of the country, where crime also declined in the 1990s.
But the drop was much steeper and more prolonged in New York than elsewhere. And while researchers attributed about a quarter of the decline in the rest of America to the stricter penal policies, that explanation did not apply to a city that was locking up fewer people. Something else was responsible, and criminologists have been trying to figure out how to repeat it.
“The intellectual tragedy of the New York crime miracle is that it had no experiments to identify just what worked,” Dr. Sherman said.
His frustration is shared by David Weisburd [ http://cls.gmu.edu/people/dweisbur ], a criminologist at George Mason University in Virginia and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
“As long as crime is going down, New York’s police don’t seem to want to know which strategies are working and which aren’t,” Dr. Weisburd said. “When I proposed an experiment to one police official in the last administration, he replied, ‘You could only bring me bad news.’ ”
Elsewhere, studies have shown that crime drops when more police officers are hired, so it is not surprising that the expansion of New York’s police force in the 1990s by more than a third was accompanied by a drop in crime. But during the past decade, the force has shrunk by 15 percent, and yet crime has mostly continued falling.
When Dr. Zimring and other criminologists look at this trend, and compare it with the fluctuating crime rates in other cities, they conclude that the retreat in crime in New York is not just a matter of the number of police officers. Those officers must be doing something right, but what exactly?
The most likely answer is a shift in strategy called hot-spot policing.
In the 1970s, research had shown that a small percentage of criminals committed a large share of crimes, so it had seemed logical to concentrate on catching repeat offenders and locking them up.
In city after city, researchers found that half of crimes occur within about 5 percent of an urban area — a few buildings, intersections and blocks, often near transit stops and businesses like convenience stores, bars and nightclubs.
The criminal population keeps changing as men in their 30s drop out and are replaced by teenagers, but crimes keep occurring at the same places.
A Focus on Hot Spots
Researchers suggested: Perhaps the authorities should pay less attention to individual criminals and more attention to the hot spots where they operate.
Dr. Sherman, Dr. Weisburd and colleagues have tested the idea in randomized experiments in Jersey City; Houston; Kansas City, Mo.; Minneapolis; Philadelphia; Sacramento; and cities in Britain and Australia.
Typically, a list of hot spots was identified, and then half were randomly chosen to receive extra police attention, like more frequent patrols. Other strategies were also used, like improving street lighting, fencing vacant lots or arresting people for minor violations.
As hoped, there were fewer crimes and complaints at the hot spots chosen for extra attention than at those that were not. And once police officers started to show up often and at unpredictable intervals, they did not need to stay more than 15 minutes to have a lasting impact.
Nonetheless, the hot-spot strategy was initially met with skepticism by police veterans.
“We assumed that if we hit one area hard, the crime would just move somewhere else,” said Frank Gajewski, a former police chief of Jersey City, who worked with Dr. Weisburd on the experiments there.
“Crime doesn’t move as easily we thought it did,” Mr. Gajewski said. “If I’m a robber, I want to be in a familiar, easily accessible place with certain characteristics. I need targets to rob, but I don’t want people in the neighborhood watching me or challenging me. Maybe I work near a bus stop where there are vacant buildings or empty lots. If the police start focusing there, I can’t just move to the next block and find the same conditions.”
Many experts also see it as the best explanation for the crime drop in New York. Although the city’s police did not participate in randomized experiments, they did use computerized crime mapping to focus on hot spots in the 1990s. This strategy was intensified with a program called Operation Impact, which was started in 2003 by Raymond W. Kelly, then and now the police commissioner.
Commissioner Kelly gives the strategy credit for the continued decline of crime despite the reduced police force.
There is supporting evidence from Dennis C. Smith [ http://wagner.nyu.edu/faculty/facultyDetail.php?whereField=facultyID&whereValue=34&display=publications ], a political scientist at New York University who led an analysis of trends in the dozens of precincts where the city’s police focus on “impact zones,” as the hot spots are called. Rates of murder, rape, grand larceny, robbery and assault declined significantly faster in precincts with hot-spot policing than in those without it.
The Stop-and-Frisk Debate
One part of the hot-spot strategy in New York has been highly controversial: the stopping and frisking of hundreds of thousands of people each year, ostensibly to search for weapons or other contraband.
Some critics say that the tactic has been used so often and so brusquely in New York that it has undermined policing by arousing disrespect for the law, especially among young black and Latino men, who are disproportionately stopped and searched. Research shows that people who feel treated unfairly by the police can become more likely to commit crimes in the future.
“Getting the police to stop people more often and search them for illegal guns does help keep guns off the street and reduce gun violence,” Dr. Ludwig said. “That’s not to say whether or not stop-and-frisk is worth the costs that the practice imposes on society. But there’s a complicated trade-off here that needs to be acknowledged.”
Defenders of stop-and-frisk, including Mayor Bloomberg, argue that when it is done properly and politely, the practice prevents crimes that disproportionately hurt the city’s minorities.
“If New York went back to the policing of the 1980s,” Dr. Smith said, “there would be hundreds of thousands more victims of serious crimes every year, and the great majority of them would be African-American and Hispanic.”
Police officials note that if the homicide rate of the 1980s persisted, 1,200 additional New Yorkers, most of them black or Latino men, would have been killed last year — when the police recorded 417 murders. Further, if the city’s incarceration rate had followed the national trend, an additional 100,000 black and Hispanic men would have been sent to prison in the past decade, Dr. Zimring calculates.
Whether or not other cities adopt New York’s specific stop-and-frisk tactics, social scientists say the rest of the country could benefit by adding police officers and concentrating on hot spots.
Dr. Ludwig and Philip J. Cook [ http://fds.duke.edu/db/Sanford/cook ], a Duke University economist, calculate that nationwide, money diverted from prison to policing would buy at least four times as much reduction in crime. They suggest [ http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/12/prisons-cook-ludwig ] shrinking the prison population by a quarter and using the savings to hire another 100,000 police officers.
Diverting that money to the police would be tricky politically, because corrections budgets are zealously defended in state capitals by prison administrators, unions and legislators.
But there is at least one prison administrator, Dr. Jacobson, the former correction commissioner in New York, who would send the money elsewhere.
“If you had a dollar to spend on reducing crime, and you looked at the science instead of the politics, you would never spend it on the prison system,” Dr. Jacobson said. “There is no better example of big government run amok.”
That is the same lesson that William J. Bratton draws from his experience as New York’s police commissioner in the 1990s. “We showed in New York that the future of policing is not in handcuffs,” Mr. Bratton said. “The United States has locked up so many people that it has the highest incarceration rate in the world, but we can’t arrest and incarcerate our way out of crime. We need to focus on preventing crime instead of responding to it.”
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