The Tenth Amendment Is Not A Suicide Pact


Rick Santorum is right, you know.

More on that later.     For now, let's congratulate the Department of Justice, which on December 23 officially notified the Deputy Attorney General of the State of South Carolina that the Justice Department was denying approval of South Carolina's new voter photo ID law. South Carolina is one of only five states required, because of their history of racial discrimination, by Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to obtain "pre-clearance" from the DOJ or a three-judge panel in Washington for voting requirements.

In a 2009 case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One vs. Eric Holder, Chief Justice Roberts, delivering the opinion of the Court, wrote "the preclearance requirement represents an intrusion into areas of state and local responsibility that is otherwise unfamiliar to our federal system.      While the South Carolina law appears headed back to the High Court, Jeffrey Toobin summarizes the critical role played by the Voting Rights Act, regardless of state of residence:

The Justice Department action in South Carolina underlines the continuing necessity for the Voting Rights Act, nearly four decades after it was first passed. The South Carolina law is part of a wave of new rules, passed in the wake of the 2010 Republican landslide purportedly to stop vote fraud, that limit the right to the franchise.


As many independent studies have found, “voter fraud” is a cure in search of a disease. There is no significant voter-fraud problem in the United States. Rather, these laws are transparent attempts by Republican majorities to stifle and suppress the number of minorities and poor people (mostly Democrats) who go to the polls. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department has the tools to stop this travesty—at least in states like South Carolina, which are still subject to “pre-clearance.”


Whether states imposing new requirements (and Holder has implied that the Department will challenge new laws in states not covered by the 1965 law) are doing so because they believe their legislators believe the NBA is unjustifiably dominated by blacks (inaccurate and accurate, respectively) or because they recognize that racial minorities mostly cast their votes for Democrats (accurate, and more likely the motivation) should not be controlling.       Either way, the laws should not be tolerated, inasmuch as they are intended to have a particular, and adverse, effect on black citizens.        


Notably, individuals will be allowed to vote in caucuses throughout Iowa tonight without having to show identification, pursuant to rules established by the state Democratic Party. Brad Friedman observes "since only Republicans are on the IA Republican Caucus ballot, unlike general elections, the GOP has no interest in disenfranchising their own voters."      He states the obvious:  "Polling place photo ID laws, passed in states where Republicans took control in the wave election of 2010, are instituted for one purpose and one purpose only: to suppress the votes of voters such as the elderly, minorities and students, all of whom have a dastardly tendency to vote for Democratic candidates rather than Republicans."
         
Perpetrators of racial discrimination ought not to be able to hide behind the cloak of "states rights."      But neither should the adversaries in the matter of same-sex marriage.      Rick Santorum has at least one thing right, having recently told MSNBC's Chuck Todd, according to Think Progress,  "I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody.    We can't have 50 different marriage laws in this country."


Instead, of course, we have the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman (Section 3)  and authorizes states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state (Section 2).       Lawsuits have been filed challenging DOMA as violative of  the full faith and credit clause in Article IV, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution and the Holder Justice Department has announced its refusal to defend Section 3 of the law in court.     


Meanwhile, efforts are underway in the U.S. Congress to repeal DOMA.       The momentum toward granting the right of same-sex marriage throughout the country may be brought to climax or, as Santorum wishes, a constitutional amendment barring the unconventional practice may be enacted (though that appears highly unlikely).      Either way, however, this issue, as well as preserving the right to vote free of restrictions imposed by Republican partisans, calls for aggressive, definitive, federal action, whatever the annoyance to states rights purists.    






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Barack Obama, The One


Four years ago, Hollywood was exuberant.     Halle Berry said she would “collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear," therein recalling Barnabas' cousin who two thousand years earlier quoted Isaiah predicting "the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

Oprah Winfrey, as usual, could not be restrained and announced "He is 'The One'," recalling the assurance given by a man skilled in seamless shoe analogies, who told the skeptics "I baptize in water but among you stands One whom you do not know."

Other Hollywood stars were at least somewhat less effusive (and biblically literate) than Berry and Winfrey, the latter of whom was curiously quiet after the Democratic convention. But as with those of us who preferred Edwards or Clinton, we all should have known better. New York Magazine reported on December 22 of an incident 9-10 years ago:    

On June 11, 2002, as a state senator, Obama and fellow state senator Rickey Hendon nearly threw down on the Senate floor. At issue was a bill that would close a child-welfare office in Hendon’s district. Obama voted in favor of the bill — accidentally, he claims — but Hendon was irate. “There’s a rift between the African-Americans on the West Side and South Side here in Chicago,” says David Mendell, Tribune reporter and author of an Obama biography.“They’re competitive, and [Hendon] was saying that Obama voted against his project because he wanted to placate some fiscal conservatives, and it was a West Side–South Side thing.” Obama at one point put his hand on Hendon’s shoulder as a friendly gesture, but Hendon slapped it away. It didn’t take long before both men were engaged in a heated shouting match on the floor of the Senate. When they took their argument to a different room, Obama allegedly had to be restrained. “According to people I interviewed who were there, they said Obama was ready to throw some punches,” says Mendell.

Yes, a "friendly gesture."     And Mitt Romney merely wanted to soothe a nervous Rick Perry:




Admittedly, as this Wikipedia entry suggests, Hendon may be a guy whom it's easy to be tempted to slug.      But as Isaiah prophesied the coming of the Lord, the vote may have portended the presidency of Barack Obama, at least as notable for disregarding his liberal allies as for the lack of  courage reflected in his "present" votes as state senator             Still, how comforting it is to know that this November we'll probably have a choice between a patronizing right-winger and a patronizing centrist.






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Death By Another Cut


It was already all over for Newt Gingrich.

The latest surveys of likely caucus-goers in Iowa finds Newt Gingrich a distant fourth, well behind Messrs. Romney, Paul, and Santorum, in whatever order the three of them finish.

Gingrich's popularity among Republicans both in Iowa and nationally already had plunged.      And then, Virginia.

Newt Gingrich- as well as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman- failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for Virginia's primary ballot.      It's bad enough that it puts Gingrich and the others out of the running for gaining any delegates in the state tied for having the eleventh greatest number of any in the GOP nominating process.      It also suggests to primary voters elsewhere that these candidacies are not completely serious, or at least won't end in success.       (All five candidates are joining in a federal lawsuit challenging the state's ballot-access rules.)

But instead of leaving bad enough alone, an aide to the man who once described himself as "the most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times”  would compare the organizational blunder to the second worse attack ever on the U.S.A.     "Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941," he stated.      "We have experienced an unexpected setback, but we will re-group and re-focus with increased determination, commitment and positive action."

NFL running backs love openings as large as that gave Mitt Romney, who pounced, declaring  "I think it's more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory.      You've got to get it organized."





It may not mean much to voters under 50 or 55 years of age but to older baby boomers, the analogy resonated.      And now we have the Des Moines Register's analysis of its latest poll, indicating "the former Massachusetts governor has strengths with older and wealthier Iowans."      The unforced error by the Gingrich campaign won't itself hand a caucus victory to Mitt Romney, but it gave the latter's campaign a chance to shine, and me an excuse to post the classic video.


                                               HAPPY NEW YEAR

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Santorum's Challenge


Rick Santorum is in trouble.   Sure, polls indicate that he is on the rise in Iowa, now running fourth.       But there is a ceiling- a relatively low ceiling- for a guy who seems to believe that marriage for all will cure what ails the United States, a land in which barely half of all adults now are married, a record low.        And many of those couples are childless, not in the sort of marriage which would send a tingle up Santorum's leg.

But there is another problem with Santorum's goal of seizing the Repub nomination for President.     In a hotel-restaurant in Pella, Iowa recently, the former Pennsylvania senator observed

The reason you see some sympathy among the American public for them is the grave concern- and it's a legitimate one- that blue-collar workers, lower-income workers, are having a harder and harder time rising.

Sure, Santorum said "legitimate," rather than "justified," a higher bar to exceed.       But just a guess here- those "lower-income workers" to whom he was referring are not the same as the "job creators" Republicans are infatuated with.     Santorum then went on to note

We are not as income-mobile as even some western European countries, according to a lot of the data.    So that is something that as Republicans we should be talking about and being concerned about.

Comparing the U.S.A. unfavorably in any way to a European (even western) European country is not very wise in his party.      Old Europe!    Freedom fries!    Pampered Greek workers!

More subtle is his reference to "data."       That would be statistics- as in facts.     Don't look now, but Santorum may believe that human activity is related to global warming, though he wouldn't be so foolish as to admit it as every Repub contender vies to prove that he/she is more conservative, and oblivious to reality, than the other.

To be sure, Santorum's prescription, including taxation and deregulation, falls along the lines of right-wing orthodoxy.       And in Pella, he did exclaim "President Obama is for income equality.        That's socialism.    It's worse yet, it's Marxism.     I'm not for income equality. I'm not for equality of result- I'm for equality of opportunity."    

In order:     no, he's not (Goldman Sachs wouldn't permit it); no, it's not; no, it's not.      But no Republican running for President can deliver a speech without suggesting that Barack Obama is a threat to the very existence of the nation.         Further, judged in the context of his other remarks, Santorum's assurance that he is "not for income equality (but for) equality of opportunity" seems a lot like Democrats pleading  "I'm for the troops" or a President from Chicago by way of Indonesia by way of Hawaii ending nationally televised speeches with "and God bless the United States of America."    

Certainly,  Democrats are for the troops- for body armor, veterans' benefits, and, in some cases, for making sure they aren't sent abroad to get killed- but the myth persists that somehow they're unpatriotic.       And if I had devoted much of my adult life to public service and still were accused of being born in another country, I would end every sentence with "and God bless the United States of America."

As the only Republican in the race to have expressed discomfort with outsourcing American jobs abroad, Santorum

noted that the Wall Street Journal has criticized his idea for favoring one sector of the economy over others. He defended the plan, saying manufacturing jobs are the easiest to move overseas. “ Vermeer can move to China,” he said, referring to a leading Pella machinery manufacturer. “This hotel can’t. And therefore, we need to make sure we compete so Vermeer doesn’t move to China.”

Santorum is bidding for the nomination of a party which, fifteen months ago, blocked an effort by Senate Democrats to increase taxes on companies that move jobs abroad and reduce them on companies which brought them back from overseas.         Not only is encouraging American companies to increase American jobs a sure-fire loser with the party's corporate base, it is not a sure-fire winner among with the voter base.       Ask Newt Gingrich, who responded to Mitt Romney's criticism of him over his ties to Freddie Mac by asserting “I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain Capital, that I would be glad to listen to him.”       George Will accused Gingrich of being "the least conservative candidate" in part for charging Romney with "committing acts of capitalism";  and with the mainstream media gushing over Gingrich's uncharacteristic good sense and candor, the former House Speaker tanked in the polls.

Rick Santorum is an extremist on a wide-range of issues, including the environment, taxes, foreign policy and, especially, cultural issues.         But he is energized primarily by a kind of old-fashioned approach to American culture, as someone fervently opposed to abortion rights, gay rights, and unmarried life.      Coupled by a modicum of interest in the middle class (politically incorrect with the Republican hierarchy), Santorum, if he gains significant traction, would present a serious threat to the GOP establishment.




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Paul Danger



There are a lot of reasons to oppose Ron Paul, chief among them that he's an adherent of the naive and dangerous theory of libertarianism.         Ed Brayton has found a new one.

Representatives Paul and Ted Poe (R-NC) have sponsored the We the People Act, which requires that the U.S. Supreme Court and each federal court

(1) shall not adjudicate– (A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion; (B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or (C) 


any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and (2) shall not rely on any judicial decision involving any issue referred to in paragraph (1)

Section 7 of the bill stipulates "Any decision of a Federal court, to the extent that the decision relates to an issue removed from Federal jurisdiction under section 3, is not binding precedent on any State court."    

Brayton concludes, therefore,

This would reverse not only Roe v Wade but Griswold v Connecticut and Lawrence v Texas and every other ruling related to a right to privacy as well. That means the states could once again outlaw homosexuality and the use of contraception (and if you don’t think there are powerful political interests that favor doing both of those things, you haven’t been paying attention). It erases virtually every single church/state ruling in the last century, allowing public schools to once again force students to read the Bible aloud and to recite state-composed and mandated prayers.

The Court's 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut overturned a state law which criminalized the encouragement or use of contraception and established and determined that a state's prohibition on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy.      But new initiatives are under way.       Included are "personhood amendments," one of which was Measure 26, thankfully defeated in November by Mississippi voters, which would have amended the state's constitution to read "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof." This initiative shall not require any additional revenue for implementation."      

Nevertheless, similar measures are being readied for ballot approval next November in Florida, Montana, Ohio, and Oregon.        Prior to the vote in Mississippi, Personhood amendment Walter Hoye conceded to NPR's Diane Rehm the chilling affect passage would have had on use of birth control:

HOYE: Any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure.


REHM: So that would then include the IUD [intra-uterine device]. What about the birth control pill?


HOYE: If that falls into the same category, yes.


REHM: So you’re saying that the birth control pill could be considered as taking the life of a human being?


HOYE: I’m saying that once the egg and the oocyte come together and you have that single-celled embryo, at that point you have human life, you’ve got a human being and we’re taking the life of a human being with some forms of birth control and if birth control falls into that category, yes I am.

Ron Paul has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives approximately 23 years (1977-1984; 1996-present) and thus ought to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. And though the GOP establishment would rise up to prevent his nomination if it appeared a realistic possibility, polls in Iowa confirm that he might well win that caucus.       He should, then, be treated very seriously as apresidential contender.        And if his extremist views and their implications were well known, perhaps even Republican voters will realize just how much a radical he is.







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And now, the Lie of the Year

Congratulations, Politifact. You are responsible for the Lie of the Year by having selected on December 20 'Republicans Voted to End Medicare' as the 2011 Lie of the Year.

In retrospect, it was predictable. (So why didn't I predict it? Oh, never mind). On December 6, the American Prospect's Paul Waldman reasoned

Giving the "Lie of the Year" award to Republicans three years in a row would just invite too much criticism from the right, and if there's one thing the right is good at, it's screaming at journalists about "liberal bias." So my bet is that they're going to go with the contention that Paul Ryan's budget plan "ends Medicare," which has the benefit of being an important assertion repeated many times, despite the fact that it's actually not a lie at all (but that's a discussion for another day).

The following day, Dave Weigel flagged an e-mail sent by Paul Ryan (R-WI) to his PAC, arguing

Politifact, a non-partisan, fact-checking website, is now taking votes for the 2011 “Lie of the Year,” and one of the nominees is the Democrats’ “Pants on Fire” lie about Republicans voting to “end Medicare.”

Click here to vote now and ensure the Democrats’ lies about the Path to Prosperity are exposed.

Remember, our budget is the only plan that actually saves Medicare. We know the stakes are high in 2012 – it’s a chance to take our country back and get us back on a path to prosperity. We can’t let lies by Democrats about our conservative solutions go unchecked.

Help me fight the lies, falsehoods, and attacks of the Left by casting a vote to show the Democrat’s lie that Republicans voted to “end Medicare” is the worst political lie of 2011.Click here to cast your vote now at Politifact.

Lending credence to the idea that Politifact was intimidated by charges of "liberal bias," Politifact charged Democrats and liberals overreached," which normally would be insufficient to reach the level of "pants on fire" or "lie of the year." However, The Weekly Standard's Mark Hemingway, in an article roundly critical of the art of fact-checking, slammed Politifact as biased toward Democrats. The following day, Politifact would say of those Democrats and liberals:

• They ignored the fact that the Ryan plan would not affect people currently in Medicare -- or even the people 55 to 65 who would join the program in the next 10 years.

• They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.

• They used pictures and video of elderly people who clearly were too old to be affected by the Ryan plan. The DCCC video that aired four days after the vote featured an elderly man who had to take a job as a stripper to pay his medical bills.

Medicare is not a private system; it is not a system of vouchers, which the Ryan budget plan would have established. Currently, the government acts as insurer for elderly people by paying the major medical bills. As Steve Benen explained, Medicare "is a single-payer health care system offering guaranteed benefits to seniors. The House Republican budget plan intended to privatize the existing system and replace it with something very different — a voucher scheme. It would still be called “Medicare,” but it wouldn’t be Medicare." (Here, Media Matters thoroughly debunks Politico's claim that Paul Ryan's plan would not have ended Medicare. )

There is a good reason the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad (below) slammed ineffectually by Politico used elderly people: it is elderly people who would have been harmed by the GOP plan. Not the old persons of today- but those who would be old when the plan kicked in. If the Democrats had used young people in the ad, the message would have been confusing, indeed misleading; and Politico presumably would have slammed them for trying to scare youth in an ad pertaining to health insurance for individuals 65 years of age and older.

In its original analysis of the Democrats' claim, Politifact conceded "The Republicans voted on a budget resolution that states policy preferences, but the vote did not actually change Medicare, much less end it. As we’ve noted before in previous fact-checks, budget resolutions are non-binding documents that cannot be viewed as the equivalent of legislation that establishes law." But as Jed Lewison noted, "the ad did not Republicans of actually accomplishing their goal of ending Medicare. It accused them of 'voting to end Medicare.' In other words, it accused them of stating a policy preference." By Politico's logic, "if Republicans had voted to replace the FBI with a voucher program giving citizens subsidies to pay for private investigators, it would have been inaccurate to say they had 'ended the FBI.'"

As Paul Krugman quipped months ago about the Ryan Medicare plan, "you could also call an onion a rose. But a non-rose by the same name would not smell as sweet." Benen, though, following Poltifiact's designation, came up with the best analogy:

.... imagine someone owns a Ferrari. It’s expensive and drives beautifully, and the owner desperately wants to keep his car intact. Now imagine I took the car away, removed the metallic badge off the trunk that says “Ferrari,” I stuck it on a golf cart, and I handed the owner the keys.

“Where’s my Ferrari?” the owner would ask.

“It’s right here,” I’d respond. “This has four wheels, a steering wheel, and pedals, and it says ‘Ferrari’ right there on the back.”

By PolitiFact’s reasoning, I haven’t actually replaced the car — and if you disagree, you’re a pants-on-fire liar.

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Phrase Warp

A gaffe, Michael Kinsley once famously said, is when someone accidentally tells the truth. Now, anyone who is anyone quotes Kinsley's statement "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."

In that spirit, consider a new term: "phrase warp." That, we'll argue, is intentional distortion of an expression- and it is one reason Mitt Romney, once he is nominated, will be difficult to defeat. In a column in USA Today, Romney argued that the upcoming election will pose a choice between what he terms an "Entitlement Society" and an "Opportunity Society" because

in an Entitlement Society, government provides every citizen the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to innovate, pioneer or take risk. In an Opportunity Society, free people living under a limited government choose whether or not to pursue education, engage in hard work, and pursue the passion of their ideas and dreams. If they succeed, they merit the rewards they are able to enjoy.

In remarks prepared for delivery the next day in Bedford, New Hampshire, Romney expounded on this theme, contending

Once we thought "entitlement" meant that Americans were entitled to the privilege of trying to succeed in the greatest country in the world. Americans fought and died to earn and protect that entitlement. But today the new entitlement battle is over the size of the check you get from Washington....

In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing-the government.

An entitlement program, however, is "the kind of government program that provides individuals with personal financial benefits (or sometimes special government-provided goods or services) to which an indefinite (but usually rather large) number of potential beneficiaries have a legal right (enforceable in court, if necessary) whenever they meet eligibility conditions that are specified by the standing law that authorizes the program." Thomas Edsall notes


Romney and his aides have designed his rhetoric to define pretty much all spending on entitlements, including provisions for the injured, unemployed, sick, disabled or elderly as benefits to the poor who, Romney implies, are undeserving. And it doesn’t matter whether the money to pay for these programs comes from employer and employee contributions and not just tax revenue — they are all under suspicion.


There is no telling whether Romney's phrase warp will become commonly accepted in the media. But the implications for the 2012 elections are enormous, given parallel circumstances a decade ago.


One reason the Bush Administration claimed for launching Gulf War II in 2003 was possession by Sadaam Hussein of those rarely-defined "weapons of mass destruction." Obviously, no such weapons were found. But if chemical and/or biological weapons had been discovered, the Iraqi dictator still would not have developed weapons of mass destruction. "Weapons of mass destruction," we were led to believe (without any explanation) included biological and chemical weapons. In reality, however, biological weapons are clearly, and chemical weapons are likely, not weapons of mass destruction.. Wolfgang KH Panofsky wrote in 1998


Nuclear weapons can increase the total explosive power that can be delivered in military payloads by up to a factor of a million. The weapons detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed about a quarter of a million people, had an explosive power about one-tenth that carried by a modern nuclear weapon....

The destructive power of nuclear weapons is well understood. If a 1-megaton thermonuclear warhead exploded at optimum altitude over a large city, little would be left standing or alive within five miles. A firestorm could be ignited, further extending the range of destruction. In a large-scale exchange, lethal fallout would cover an entire region.... If virulent BW materials were to be widely distributed over an exposed population, then the ratio of potential lethality to the total weight of the material could be comparable to that of nuclear weapons. However, for this horrifying scenario to occur, the materials cannot be dispersed by a single-point explosion, but instead must be spread by an appropriate mechanism such as spray tanks or by "fractionating" a missile's payload and dispersing separate mini-munitions over a wide area. Moreover, survival of BW material depends critically on local meteorological and other conditions which define the delivery environment. The survival of agents is generally of short duration and effects are delayed for days. Fortunately, there is no operational experience and test data are limited....

There is little question that the lethality of chemical weapons-as measured by per unit weight of delivered munitions-is lower by many orders of magnitude than it is for nuclear weapons or the undemonstrated and inherently uncertain potential of biological weapons. Thus, it is misleading to include chemical weapons in the category of WMD; "weapons of indiscriminate destruction" or "weapons of terror" might be a more appropriate designation.

The Bush Administration could have acknowledged that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program but argued that most evidence indicated that it did possess biological or chemical weapons. But then the hawks could not have conflated biological/chemical weapons with nuclear weapons, and Condoleezza Rice could not scare Americans with visions of mushroom clouds.

And so the phrase warp, wherein non-WMD could be termed WMD, took over. Similarly, entitlements would as appropriately be termed "earned benefits." Still, even entitlements include only Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security rather than the entire social safety net that Romney infers. If his manipulation of the language succeeds, it will not be only President Obama's second term which will be endangered, but far more importantly, the vision of the late Hubert H. Humphrey:

the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

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