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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The GOP and the South

At RealClearPolitics, Sean Trende takes on the notion that the GOP gained ground in the South only because of racial appeals that started in the mid-1960s:
In 1956, Eisenhower became the first Republican since Reconstruction to win a plurality of the vote in the South, 49.8 percent to 48.9 percent. He once again carried the peripheral South, but also took Louisiana with 53 percent of the vote. He won nearly 40 percent of the vote in Alabama. This is all the more jarring when you realize that the Brown v. Board decision was handed down in the interim, that the administration had appointed the chief justice who wrote the decision, and that the administration had opposed the school board.

Nor can we simply write this off to Eisenhower’s celebrity. The GOP was slowly improving its showings at the congressional level as well. It won a special election to a House seat in west Texas in 1950, and began winning urban congressional districts in Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Virginia with regularity beginning in 1952.

Perhaps the biggest piece of evidence that something significant was afoot is Richard Nixon’s showing in 1960. He won 46.1 percent of the vote to John F. Kennedy’s 50.5 percent. One can write this off to JFK’s Catholicism, but writing off three elections in a row becomes problematic, especially given the other developments bubbling up at the local level. It’s even more problematic when you consider that JFK had the nation’s most prominent Southerner on the ticket with him.

But the biggest problem with the thesis comes when you consider what had been going on in the interim: Two civil rights bills pushed by the Eisenhower administration had cleared Congress, and the administration was pushing forward with the Brown decision, most famously by sending the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to assist with the integration of Little Rock Central High School.

It’s impossible to separate race and economics completely anywhere in the country, perhaps least of all in the South. But the inescapable truth is that the GOP was making its greatest gains in the South while it was also pushing a pro-civil rights agenda nationally. What was really driving the GOP at this time was economic development. As Southern cities continued to develop and sprout suburbs, Southern exceptionalism was eroded; Southern whites simply became wealthy enough to start voting Republican.

Patriotism and Purchases

A major theme of our book is that narrow economic self-interest does not explain everything in politics, and that motivations such as patriotism are an important part of political and civic life. Gallup reports:
Forty-five percent of Americans say they recently made a special effort to buy products made in the United States. When asked why, these shoppers mainly cited patriotic or altruistic goals related to the national economy, including creating and keeping jobs in the U.S., rather than product-specific considerations such as quality, safety, or cost.

More specifically, the most common reasons for "buying American" were to support the U.S. or to be patriotic, mentioned by 32% of adults who sought out U.S.-made products in recent months, and to keep or create jobs in the country, mentioned by 31%. Additionally 20% said that buying U.S.-made products is good for the U.S. economy in general.

Mexican View of the United States and Immigration

A national opinion survey of Mexico by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 4-17 among 1,000 adults, finds that roughly two-thirds (66%) of Mexicans have a favorable opinion of the U.S. – up from 56% a year ago and dramatically higher than it was following the passage of Arizona’s restrictive immigration law in 2010, when favorable Mexican attitudes toward the United States slipped to 44%.
...

More than 11 million Mexicans live in the U.S., including about 6 million who are in the country illegally. Mexicans are divided on whether this is good or bad for their country; 44% say it is good for Mexico that many of its citizens live in the U.S., and an equal share say this is bad for Mexico.

About six-in-ten Mexicans (61%) say they would not move to the U.S. even if they had the means and opportunity to do so. However, a sizable minority (35%) say they would move to the U.S. if they could, including 20% who say they would emigrate without authorization.

Mexicans are less likely than they were a year ago to say that people from their country who move to the U.S. have a better life there; 47% say life is better in the U.S., compared with 53% in 2012. About one-in-five (18%) say Mexicans have a worse life in the U.S., while 29% say it is neither better nor worse. However, among those who have close friends or relatives living in the U.S., 70% say these friends or relatives have achieved their goals, while just 25% believe they have been disappointed.

Three-in-ten Mexicans say they personally know someone who went to the U.S. but returned to Mexico because the person could not find work. About a quarter (27%) know someone who has been deported or detained by the U.S. government for immigration reasons in the last 12 months.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Growth in the Asian American Popualtion

The New York Times looks at demographic change in Southern California, noting that affluent San Marino has become majority Asian:
The transformation illustrates a drastic shift in California immigration trends over the last decade, one that can easily be seen all over the area: more than twice as many immigrants to the nation’s most populous state now come from Asia than from Latin America.
And the change here is just one example of the ways immigration is remaking America, with the political, economic and cultural ramifications playing out in a variety of ways. The number of Latinos has more than doubled in many Southern states, including Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina, creating new tensions. Asian populations are booming in New Jersey, and Latino immigrants are reviving small towns in the Midwest.
Much of the current immigration debate in Congress has focused on Hispanics, and California has for decades been viewed as the focal point of that migration. But in cities in the San Gabriel Valley — as well as in Orange County and in Silicon Valley in Northern California — Asian immigrants have become a dominant cultural force in places that were once largely white or Hispanic.
“We are really looking at a different era here,” said Hans Johnson, a demographer at thePublic Policy Institute of California who has studied census data. “There are astounding changes in working-class towns and old, established, wealthy cities. It is not confined to one place.”
At The Daily Beast several weeks ago, Lloyd Green explained a political challenge for the GOP:
According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Asian immigrants hold at least a college degree—compared with less than one in three members of the overall adult population. At Cal Tech—where race, ethnicity, and legacy status are excluded from admissions criteria—Asian-Americans comprise nearly 40 percent of the student body. At MIT, which professes a commitment to diversity, Asian-Americans comprise more than a quarter of students.

What’s more, Asian-American students tend to concentrate in the STEM jobs—sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics—that are crucial to our economy. Thus, in a sense, Asian-Americans are not just another ethnic group waiting for a politician to march in a parade, eat some exotic food, and then announce a community grant or shill for votes. Rather, they are also a subset of high-tech America, and one thing is clear: high-tech America is not in love with the Republican Party.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Red Tape Lives

In The Los Angeles Times, Doyle McManus praises a "little-recognized push by the Obama administration to streamline federal regulations."  He cites several examples of changes that made rules simpler and more user-friendly, and credits Cass Sunstein who was in charge of regulatory policy.

The conservative American Action Forum has a different take:
On paper, or at least in the editorial pages, 2012 was supposed to be a year of deregulation. President Obama’s regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, wrote that the government would work “to eliminate unjustified regulatory costs and to reduce burdens.” In one respect, Administrator Sunstein was correct; in 2012 the government published $2.5 billion in regulatory rescissions. However, those cost savings were easily dwarfed by more than $236 billion in new burdens. This caps a $518 billion regulatory expansion during the last four years, more than the combined Gross Domestic Product of Portugal and Norway.
Ten Thousand Commandments, an annual report on regulation from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, provides additional data from The Federal Register, where the federal government publishes its rules:


Who Writes the Laws? Lobbyists

Lobbyists have influence not just because of campaign contributions, but also because of knowledge and effort.  In California, The Sacramento Bee reports, they often do the detail work on legislation.
Whether or not it's disclosed, sponsoring bills is big business in the capital city, where there are more than 10 registered lobbyists for every state lawmaker.
When a group sponsors a bill, its lobbyists frequently serve as pseudo-staff to legislators – drafting bill language, researching issues and rounding up people to testify at hearings. Many times, the sponsoring interest group has drafted a bill before a lawmaker has even signed on.
"We write a fact sheet, we go knocking door to door to legislators, to those we think might have an interest in the issue – committee chairs if possible," said Michelle Castro, a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union. "If they don't want to be associated with a union bill, then they decline, they don't do our bill."
SEIU was listed in legislative records as sponsoring two dozen bills last session, more than any other interest group. They included measures to take away fingerprinting requirements for recipients of in-home care and a resolution creating a special day honoring "justice for janitors."
Lobbyists sometimes know the bills they sponsor better than lawmakers do. It is not uncommon for legislators to send out news releases directing media to call a sponsoring interest group for more information on a bill.
One example: A news release about a bill by Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, that would put new breastfeeding protocols in place at hospitals that deliver babies lists the sponsoring interest group, the California WIC Association, as a resource for reporters seeking interviews and information.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/28/5377329/california-legislation-often-sponsored.html#storylink=cpy

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Congress and Experience

An earlier post noted that only 21 senators of the 113th Congress were serving in either chamber at the time of the last big tax reform (1985-86).  Since then,  Daniel Inouye (D-HI) has died and John Kerry (D-MA) has become secretary of state, leaving just 19.

With the retirement of Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chris Wilson writes at Yahoo News about the departures of veteran senators in recent years:
The flight of the old-timers is neatly captured by a pair of simple statistics: When the 110th Congress convened on Jan. 3, 2007,the 100 senators had a combined 1,328 years of experience in theUnited States Senate. When the 113th Congress convened last January, that figure had fallen to 1,040.
Baucus, D-Mont., is the sixth veteran Democratic senator to head for the exits rather than run for reelection next year. Even if every other current senator stays put, the 114th session of the Senate will have fewer than 1,000 combined years of incumbency for the first time since 1985.
...

The peak Senate tenure in 2007 is a particularly impressive statistic given that 12 of those 100 senators had just been elected to the chamber in the previous election. If you switch to the House view, you see a much more responsive graph, with huge dips after Watergate and during President Bill Clinton’s first term. That makes sense; a senator has a two-in-three chance of dodging a politically toxic year for congress, like 2006 or 2010,while House members have to face voters every two years.
If you study the graph of Senate tenure carefully, you can also see a significant dip in the early twentieth century as states moved to direct election of senators—a policy enshrined in the 17th amendment, adopted in 1913.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Citizenship and the Boston Bombing

Our chapter on citizenship discusses denaturalization, the process by which naturalized citizens may lose their status under certain limited circumstances.  At Slate, Patrick Weil writes:
If the Boston Marathon bombing had taken place 70 to 90 years ago, alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would have been stripped of his American citizenship in addition to being imprisoned or executed for his crimes. In the first decades of the 20th century, naturalized citizens like Tsarnaev were routinely deprived of their citizenship for committing radical, "un-American" activities that took place after their naturalization. Citizenship in those years was understood as a benefit offered by a country in exchange for its citizens’ obedience to the laws of the land, always with the threat that certain actions could lead to its loss. It’s an approach the Supreme Court later rejected in the name of equal rights.

...
The Supreme Court reinforced the rights of naturalized citizens in 1967. Writing for the majority in the case of Afroyim v. Rusk, Justice Hugo Black said the 14th Amendment guaranteed protection for “every citizen of this Nation against a congressional forcible destruction of his citizenship.” When the 14th Amendment states that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States,” it makes citizenship an absolute right. The same is not true of “life, liberty, or property”; citizens can be deprived of each if they are afforded “due process of law.”

Today, a naturalized American can be stripped of citizenship only if facts emerge that would have initially warranted denial of his application—never for actions committed after the naturalization. This frames the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He will probably be deprived of his liberty and, perhaps, his life. Even if condemned to death, however, Tsarnaev will face his sentence as an American citizen. Each citizen—even the most troubling—preserves his status. For the court, safeguarding the rights of each naturalized American ensures the dignity and rights of all.

Federalism and the Boston Bombing


Our chapter on federalism includes an extensive discussion of crime.  Stateline reports:
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces federal charges that carry the death penalty, a punishment that does not exist in Massachusetts since the state repealed it in the 1980s.

So far, no Massachusetts authorities have publicly objected to a potential death sentence, but the case does raise federalism questions, said Doug Berman, a law professor at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University and the editor of the blog, Sentencing Law and Policy.

There is an understanding that federal authorities should be cautious before pursuing the death penalty in a non-death penalty state, said Berman. “But it’s well established that the federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are separate sovereigns and each side has the right to vindicate its interest,” he said.

Tsarnaev was charged by a federal court, but he could still face charges in state court for a number of state crimes, including the murder of MIT security officer Sean Collier, kidnapping and carjacking of a man from a convenience store in the Boston suburb of Allston, and other serious state crimes.

Pursuing the federal death penalty in a non-death penalty state has aroused conflict before. Just last year, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee argued all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the federal government from taking over the murder case against Jason Wayne Pleau because the federal prosecutor had said he would pursue the death penalty. Rhode Island has not had the death penalty since 1984, and before that, the state had not executed anyone in 99 years. Ultimately, the Supreme Court rejected the case and Chafee was forced to hand over Pleau to federal authorities. Pleau’s federal trial for robbing and killing a gas station manager is ongoing.

George W. Bush Remarks

In democracy, the purpose of public office is not to fulfill personal ambition. Elected officials must serve a cause greater themselves. The political winds blow left and right, polls rise and fall, supporters come and go. But in the end, leaders are defined by the convictions they hold. And my deepest conviction, the guiding principle of the administration, is that the United States of America must strive to expand the reach of freedom.

I believe that freedom is a gift from God and the hope of every human heart. Freedom inspired our founders and preserved our union through civil war and secured the promise of civil rights. Freedom sustains dissonance bound by chains. Believers huddled in underground churches. And voters who risked their lives to cast their ballots. Freedom unleashed creativity, rewards innovation and replaces poverty with prosperity. And ultimately freedom lights the path to peace. Freedom brings responsibility.

Independence from the State does not mean isolation from each other. A free society thrives when neighbors help neighbors. And the strong protect the weak. And public policies promote private compassion. As President, I tried to act on these principles everyday. It wasn't always easy and it certainly wasn't always popular.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Social Networking and Political Participation

Social networking sites have grown more important in recent years as a venue for political involvement, learning, and debate. Overall, 39% of all American adults took part in some sort of political activity on a social networking site during the 2012 campaign.
This means that more Americans are now politically active on social networking sites (SNS) than used them at all as recently as the 2008 election campaign. At that point, 26% of the population used a social networking site of any kind.
The growth in several specific behaviors between 2008 and 2012 illustrates the increasing importance of SNS as places where citizens can connect with political causes and issues:
  • In 2012, 17% of all adults posted links to political stories or articles on social networking sites, and 19% posted other types of political content. That is a six-fold increase from the 3% of adults who posted political stories or links on these sites in 2008.
  • In 2012, 12% of all adults followed or friended a political candidate or other political figure on a social networking site, and 12% belonged to a group on a social networking site involved in advancing a political or social issue. That is a four-fold increase from the 3% of adults who took part in these behaviors in 2008.
Deeper in the report, we find that SNS contributed to deliberation:
Some 43% of social networking site users say they have decided to learn more about a political or social issue because of something they read about on a social networking site. This group is evenly split between those who were first introduced to the particular issue by people they know personally, and those who were first introduced to the issue by someone outside their immediate friend circle:
  • 12% of users said they decided to learn more about an issue because of something they heard from someone they know personally.
  • 7% of users decided to learn more about an issue because of something they heard from someone they don’t know personally such as a public figure or organization.
  • 22% of users said they decided to learn more about an issue after hearing about it from both people they know personally and people they do not know personally.
  • 2% decided to learn more about an issue because of something they read on a social networking site, but could not remember who they first found out about the issue from.

Boehner, Health Care, and Congressional Coverage


A Politico report suggests that Speaker John Boehner is involved in talks to exempt lawmakers and staff from the insurance exchanges in the Affordable Care Act.  If the report is accurate, Boehner's stance is peculiar.  In 1995, he voted for the Congressional Accountability Act (aka the Shays Act) to cover Congress under certain laws from which it had exempted itself. On January 4 of that year, Boehner said:
But I hope there will be two things that come as a result of this legislation actually being enacted. First is that Members will begin to realize when we are drafting bills and we are building bills here on the floor, that the full weight of these bills will in fact fall upon us as Members of Congress. I think that with the passage of this bill, that Members will recognize that fact, that we are going to have to live under these. We might be a little more cautious.
 Second, I would point out that we ought to, as we begin to live under these laws, we are going to realize that the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act, and other laws we have exempted ourselves from, are rather weighty. They are weighty on the private sector, and they are going to be very difficult for all of the Members to comply with under our current structure. So we are going to have two choices, and we ought to have a debate about whether we should continue to live under the laws as they were drafted, or whether in fact we ought to go back and listen to what the American people said on November 8 when they said Government is too big, it spends too much, and is too intrusive, and maybe we ought to look at some of those laws and revise a lot of them.

James Madison on a Congressional Exemption

Politico reports:
Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.
The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.
In Federalist 57, James Madison wrote:
I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America -- a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.
If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.

Armenian on the House Floor

"As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people," wrote Madison in Federalist 52, " so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people"   Any House member representing Glendale, California, needs to have an intimate sympathy with its large Armenian community.

Yesterday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) commemorated the Armenian Genocide by speaking Armenian on the House floor:




In English:
“My Armenian friends, here and around the world, today on the 98th anniversary of the [genocide day], I speak to you from the floor of the House of Representatives in the language of your grandparents and your great grandparents – the language they used to speak of their hopes, their dreams, their lives and their loves in the years before 1915.
“Throughout the Ottoman Empire, tens of thousands were to be killed outright.

“I speak to you in the language of the sons who watched their fathers' murdered.
“Women were raped by the thousands.
“I speak to you in the language of the girls begging the gendarmes for mercy.
“Families were force marched through desert heat as the Ottoman government sought to destroy a people.

“I speak you in the language of the children begging for a drop of water.
“By the time it was over in 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children were dead. It was the first genocide of the 20th Century.
“I speak to you in the language of the mothers who died with their babies in their arms.
“A nation was scattered around the world... To the Middle East, to Europe and to America.
“I speak to you in the language of the survivors who came to America for freedom and made a new life.
“For almost a century, Turkey has denied the genocide. In the face of overwhelming evidence – much of it from American diplomats and journalists – Ankara has denied that the genocide ever happened. They want the world to forget.
“I speak to you in the language of those who were lost. Their voices drift across the decades – begging us to remember.
“I am not a descendant of the fallen, but I speak to you in their beautiful language because on this day, we are all Armenian. And not just on this day. Whenever we speak out against mass murder, whenever we refuse to be cowed into silence, we are all Armenian.
“For many years I have sat with you and listened – to the stories of those who were lost in the genocide and those who survived.
“I speak to you in their language to thank you for sharing your history with me. And I speak to you from this place, this House, because Americans have always shown the courage to look horror in the eye and speak its name, and I look forward to the day when its leaders will do the same.
“And because I know that day will come. May it come soon, so the last of the survivors may hear its awesome sound.

“May God hear our voices.
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield back.”

More on the President and the Armenian Genocide

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1915 "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century," but again broke a 2008 campaign promise to label the tragedy a "genocide." Doing so would have angered NATO ally Turkey.
...
Obama, who called the massacre "genocide" during his 2008 run for the White House and vowed to use the term as president, stopped short of doing so in his statement, as he has in the past. Turkey, a NATO member, fiercely disputes the genocide charge and has warned that formal U.S. steps to use the term will hamper relations. Turkey's ambassador to Washington, Namik Tan, sharply criticized a similar statement from Obama in 2011, taking to Twitter to denounce it as inaccurate, flawed and one-sided.
Today we commemorate the Meds Yeghern ["great calamity"] and honor those who perished in one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Ninety-eight years ago, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. We pause to reflect on the lives extinguished and remember the unspeakable suffering that occurred. In so doing, we are joined by millions across the world and in the United States, where it is solemnly commemorated by our states, institutions, communities, and families. We also remind ourselves of our commitment to ensure that such dark chapters of history are not repeated.
Things were different in California, which has a large Armenian population and whose governor does not have to worry about Turkey.  John Ellis writes at The Fresno Bee:
Gov. [Jerry] Brown embraced using the term "genocide," adding in his proclamation that the events were a "deliberate attempt by the Ottoman Empire to eliminate all traces of a thriving, noble civilization."

April 24 is Genocide Remembrance Day and is marked by Armenians worldwide. It has also become a contentious day in American politics as the word genocide is carefully avoided by U.S. presidents.

But it has been a different story in California. Back in 1985, then-Gov. George Deukmejian said it was time for President Reagan and Congress to "stop buckling under to Turkish pressure" on the genocide issue.

Subsequent governors have used the term in annual proclamations.

In Fresno on Wednesday morning, a group of Homenetmen Sassoon Troup 12 scouts raised the Armenian flag in front of Fresno City Hall as part of the annual commemoration.


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

President Obama and the Armenian Genocide

April 24 is the annual Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923.

On January 19, 2008, Senator Barack Obama sent this statement to the Armenian National Committee of America:
As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term "genocide" to describe Turkey's slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Genocide, sadly, persists to this day, and threatens our common security and common humanity. Tragically, we are witnessing in Sudan many of the same brutal tactics - displacement, starvation, and mass slaughter - that were used by the Ottoman authorities against defenseless Armenians back in 1915. I have visited Darfurian refugee camps, pushed for the deployment of a robust multinational force for Darfur, and urged divestment from companies doing business in Sudan. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.
One year ago, Jake Tapper reported:
On the fourth Armenian Remembrance Day of his presidency, President Obama has for the fourth time in a row broken his promise to the Armenian community to use the word “genocide” in describing what happened at the hands of the Turks roughly a century ago.
... 
In a statement, Ken Hachikian, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America said, “President Obama today completed his surrender to Turkey, shamefully outsourcing U.S. human rights policy to a foreign state, and tightening Ankara’s gag on American recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The President’s capitulation to Turkey – on this, the last April 24th of his term – represents the very opposite of the principled and honest change he promised to Armenian Americans and to all the citizens of our nation. President Obama’s pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide stands today as a stark lie, a painful promise etched on the hearts of all who had hoped and worked for change, but who, today, have been betrayed by a politician who failed to live up to his own words.”


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Duty

I checked Google’s Ngram Viewer (a wonderful data toy you should check out if you aren’t familiar with it) and found that the use of duty in American English has declined since 1789, whereas the use of responsibility has gone up and the use of obligation has been steady for a long time. So maybe presidents are still talking about their duty, but using different words. I reexamined the inaugural addresses looking for responsibility and obligation along with duty (and their plurals). In all cases, I counted a use only if the president was referring to himself or to the office. But not much changed. Presidents have used responsibility or its plural forty times since Hoover used it to refer to his own responsibilities in 1929, but only Jimmy Carter used it in the same sense. Obligation was last used in that sense by FDR in 1937. Adding still more possibilities (“trust,” in the sense of a responsibility, “service”) didn’t change the overall picture: A decline in the use of such language, gradual in the nineteenth century and precipitous in the last half of the twentieth, even when usage is expressed per 1,000 words of inaugural text.

The Rich Get Richer

During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.
From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.
These wide variances were driven by the fact that the stock and bond market rallied during the 2009 to 2011 period while the housing market remained flat.
Affluent households typically have their assets concentrated in stocks and other financial holdings, while less affluent households typically have their wealth more heavily concentrated in the value of their home.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Guns and Politics

An earlier post explained why background-check legislation failed in the Senate, despite seemingly overwhelming public support.  At RealClearPolitics, Sean Trende explains why the issue probably will not hurt the GOP:
  • "It was commonplace at the beginning of the year to claim that Newtown changed everything on gun control. But the evidence for that is pretty thin. Overall, the long-term trend lines seemingly (and surprisingly) either favor opponents of gun control or show minor movement above the long-term trend, depending on how the questions are asked."
  • "On Election Day, opponents of gun control are likely to go to the polls and vote on gun control. The other side is not. This is exactly why the assault weapons ban -- which passed the Senate in 1994 -- got only 40 votes this time around."
  • "Because of the geographic concentration of Democratic voters, 250 House districts have a Republican-leaning or even partisan voting index (in other words, tend to vote more Republican than the nation as a whole)...In the Senate, the picture is even worse. Only one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, is running in a state the president carried."
  • Voters take mental shortcuts. "While most voters are unlikely to punish a senator who supports, say, background checks, such support paints a broader picture of that senator as someone who possibly backs broader gun control, or who is liberal, or who supports an administration with mediocre national approval ratings. This is a real problem for proponents, and it isn’t likely to change anytime soon."

Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Miranda Warning and the Boston Suspect

At The New Yorker, Amy Davidson writes:
What is the “public-safety exception” to the Miranda warning, the requirement that defendants be told their rights, including that they can remain silent and have an attorney? Does it grant the police a limited ability to ask where a bomb is or which way an accomplice ran, and use the answers in court? Or is it a free forty-eight-hour questioning coupon the government gets for calling someone a terrorist? Can it get a rain check to use those supposed forty-eight hours whenever it wants if, as is apparently the case with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, the person they want to talk to is in no state to be questioned?
The legal discussion of the case this weekend has offered too many examples of how outer limits become inner ones, or just assumptions. Emily Bazelon has a good summary of where the public-safety exception came from—the 1984 Quarles case, involving a rapist caught with an empty shoulder holster; his gun, which his victim had just seen, was lost in the supermarket where he was arrested—and why its invocation in Boston is a problem. “Where is the gun?” or, as in another case (noted on the F.B.I.’s Web site), “Which wire do I cut to disarm this bomb?” are questions one can imagine asking, in those situations, before a warning. That is not what seems to be happening in Boston.
At The Wall Street Journal, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey writes:
 If your concern about the threat posed by the Tsarnaev brothers is limited to assuring that they will never be in a position to repeat their grisly acts, rest easy.
The elder, Tamerlan—apparently named for the 14th-century Muslim conqueror famous for building pyramids of his victims' skulls to commemorate his triumphs over infidels—is dead. The younger, Dzhokhar, will stand trial when his wounds heal, in a proceeding where the most likely uncertainty will be the penalty. No doubt there will be some legal swordplay over his interrogation by the FBI's High-Value Interrogation Group without receiving Miranda warnings. But the only downside for the government in that duel is that his statements may not be used against him at trial. This is not much of a risk when you consider the other available evidence, including photo images of him at the scene of the bombings and his own reported confession to the victim whose car he helped hijack during last week's terror in Boston.
But if your concern is over the larger threat that inheres in who the Tsarnaev brothers were and are, what they did, and what they represent, then worry—a lot.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Visa Waiver

In the aftermath of the Boston bombings, Lloyd Green writes at The Daily Beast:
A free America remains porous enough that terror can creep in, and so one area that warrants reexamination is America’s VISA Waiver program. According to the State Department, “the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) allows citizens of participating countries to travel to the United States without a visa for stays of 90 days or less” for “business, tourism, visiting or pleasure.” Presently, 37 countries across Europe, Asia, and Oceania participate in the program, including England, France, Germany, Brunei, Japan, Singapore, and New Zealand—though not Russia or Kyrgyzstan, where the Tsarnaev brothers reportedly lived before coming to America. NATO member Turkey, meanwhile, does not participate in the program.

The VWP screens for country of citizenship but may not sufficiently take into account other factors that could affect whether grievances are being transported to our shores. According to a former senior New York Police Department intelligence expert, the “VISA Waiver program is one that seems like it is ripe to being exploited.” He explained that a “Frenchman of Algerian origin comes to the United States on VISA waiver, and it is that much more difficult to identify him as a potential threat if he has a clean record.” And yes, ethnicity and family ties are not absolute predictors of anything, but they cannot be dismissed as irrelevant.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Meth Labs of Democracy?

The inability of Democrats and Republicans to see eye to eye in Washington has led lots of people to look to the states as friendlier and more productive venues. That's true not only for opponents of abortion, but proponents of gay marriage, legalized marijuana and environmental policies meant to combat climate change.

"A lot of these issues are more prominent at the state level than the federal level, because you know nothing can happen on them at the federal level," says Bill Pound, executive director of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

There's a lot of pent-up demand in states to address policy concerns, McNelis says, because they spent several years dealing almost exclusively with budget issues following the financial crisis of 2008.

Now, not only are states ready to make changes on taxes, education and health, but often there's an easier path toward passage than is currently conceivable in Washington. That's because partisan differences are playing out much differently elsewhere in the country.

Congress might be hopelessly divided between a Democratic Senate and Republican House, but in the vast majority of states, one party or the other now controls everything — often with legislative supermajorities.

As a result, Democrats are getting their way in blue states such as Connecticut and California, while the Republican agenda is unstoppable in Texas and Tennessee. "You're not deadlocked, necessarily, unlike the House and Senate, which seldom seem to agree in Washington," Pound says.
...

States have long taken the lead as policy innovators, acting as "laboratories of democracy," in one much-quoted phrase from 1932 attributed to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
...
Of course, not everyone applauds the laws that states pass — particularly at a time when various states are moving mainly in either liberal or conservative directions. Jon Stewart called them the "meth laboratories of democracy" in a Daily Show segment the other day mocking social policies in the states.

To Thine Own Self Be True

A major theme of our book is that self-interest does not explain everything in politics. But it does explain a lot. One case is a Tennessee lawmaker who sponsored a resolution honoring himself. In Nashville, WSMV-TV reports: WSMV Channel 4

Guns and Government

Even though some 90 percent of Americans favor expanded background checks for firearm sales, such a proposal went down to defeat.  In The Christian Science Monitor, I explain several obstacles to the legislation:

  • In the Senate, it takes 60 votes to pass most bills, and this measure had only 54 votes.
  • Lawmakers represent geographical constituencies whose views may differ from those of the country as a whole.
  • Politicians care less about poll respondents -- who may or may not vote -- than about people who take part in party primaries.
  • Foes of gun control tend to be more intense in their views -- and more likely to take political action -- than supporters.
  • Presidents have only limited ability to drive public opinion.
  • The Madisonian system hinders the direct translation of public opinion into public policy.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Views of Federal, State, and Local Governments


Recent polls have shown that public opinion favors the states in at least some conflicts with the federal governmentThe Pew Research Center reports:
Even as public views of the federal government in Washington have fallen to another new low, the public continues to see their state and local governments in a favorable light. Overall, 63% say they have a favorable opinion of their local government, virtually unchanged over recent years. And 57% express a favorable view of their state government – a five-point uptick from last year. By contrast, just 28% rate the federal government in Washington favorably. That is down five points from a year ago and the lowest percentage ever in a Pew Research Center survey.

The percentage of Democrats expressing a favorable opinion of the federal government has declined 10 points in the past year, from 51% to 41%. For the first time since Barack Obama became president, more Democrats say they have an unfavorable view of the federal government in Washington than a favorable view (51% unfavorable vs. 41% favorable). Favorable opinions of the federal government among Republicans, already quite low in 2012 (20% favorable), have fallen even further, to 13% currently.

The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 13-17 among 1,501 adults, finds positive ratings across party lines for state and local governments overall. But the partisan makeup of the state government matters: Republicans give more positive ratings to GOP-led state governments, while Democrats rate Democratic-led state governments more highly.

Notably, politically divided state governments get positive ratings from members of both parties. In the 13 states with divided governments – those in which the governor and a majority of state legislators are from different parties – majorities of both Republicans and Democrats express favorable opinions of their state governments.

A sizable majority of Americans (69%) say that their state is currently facing budget problems. However, assessments of state budgets were even more negative two years ago; in February 2011, 81% said their state was encountering budget problems. And while just 30% say that economic conditions in their state are excellent or good, that is nearly double the percentage expressing a positive view of the national economy (16% excellent or good).

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Social Media and the Boston Bombing

Social media reacted quickly -- and often inaccurately -- to Hurricane Sandy and the Newtown massacreAt PCWorld, Zack Miners writes that the bombing at the Boston Marathon shows both the strengths and weaknesses of social media:
Twitter spread news of the blasts quickly and was a useful communications tool for public authorities such as the Boston police and the marathon organizers. But information on social media sites can also be questionable or just plain inaccurate, noted Greg Sterling, senior analyst with Opus Research.
“It cuts both ways,” Sterling said. “It allows you to get the information out more quickly, but it can also fan hysteria.”
Two bombs exploded within 100 yards of each other near the marathon finish line on Monday afternoon. Police say two people were killed and dozens more injured. They have no suspects yet, and President Barack Obama has said it’s not known yet if terrorists were involved.
The Boston Police Department’s Twitter log showed a positive side of social media. It was updated minute by minute in the aftermath of the bombings, often with instructions about which areas to avoid, or information about where the most police officers might be stationed.
There was also misinformation, however. A report was circulated quickly on Twitter that police had shut down cellphone service in Boston to prevent detonation of further blasts, though it ultimately turned out to be inaccurate, according to network operators.
Others had nefarious intentions. At one point, a Twitter account with the handle @_BostonMarathon was promising to donate $1 to victims of the blast for every one of its tweets that was retweeted. Users soon called it out as a fake, noting the real Twitter account for the Boston Marathon was @BostonMarathon.
That type of self-correction could be one of social media’s strongest assets, said Karsten Weide, an analyst with IDC. There can be a lot of false or misleading content, but the nature of the service means that anyone, regardless of their credentials, can do some fact-checking.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Administration Alumni and Interest Groups


At The New Republic, Noam Scheiber writes that Obama administration alumni are going into the interest group world.
Welcome to the buckraking phase of the Obama era. If the campaign was about hope, and the early presidency was about change, increasingly the administration has settled into a kind of normalcy in which it accommodates itself to Washington far more than Washington accommodates itself to Obama.
...
Within Obamaworld, there are a few unwritten rules about how to parlay one’s experience into a handsome payday. There is, for example, a loose taboo against joining a K Street lobbying shop and explicitly trading on administration connections. And while joining a consulting firm is acceptable, those who do are reluctant to work for clients reviled by liberals: gun makers, tobacco companies, Big Oil, union busters. Above all, there is a simple prohibition against excessive tackiness. “It’s like: Don’t embarrass yourself. You were part of something special,” says a longtime Obama adviser. “I think if [Obama] were to send an all-staff e-mail, it would be along the lines of Ron Burgundy—‘Stay classy, San Diego.’ ”
Some do not abide by these norms, but they are the exception.

The irony is that such tackiness is unnecessary. There are more than enough ways to cash in on a White House tour of duty that fall comfortably within the red lines governing Obama’s Washington. No one in the West Wing, from the president on down, would begrudge former colleagues the chance to make a buck so long as a modicum of tact is displayed.
The easiest place to accomplish this is at a Washington consulting firm that takes on corporate clients. For example, a group of companies might hire a firm like SKDKnickerbocker—a popular destination among young Obama operatives, run by former White House communications director Anita Dunn—to wage a P.R. campaign for certain tax advantages over their competitors. (The New Republic was an SKDKnickerbocker client.) “Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s two big rich companies fighting over something, and you pick a side,” says a former administration official now in the consulting world.
Previous posts have discussed non-lobbying lobbying.  The article explains its nicely:
Or a client caught in an unfortunate regulatory snag might want to know where to plead its case. “They say, ‘Listen, we have a problem with the White House. We think we should talk to Joe Smith,’ ” says the former official, describing a typical interaction. “I say: ‘That guy is a total moron. He’s not the person to talk to on this issue.’ ... It’s giving background advice to people without lobbying.”

Public Opinion About Taxes

Previous posts have examined public opinion on taxes. Gallup reports:
This Tax Day, 55% of Americans regard the income taxes they have to pay as fair, the lowest percentage Gallup has measured since 2001.

The results are based on Gallup's Economy and Personal Finance poll, conducted April 4-7, and annually since 2001. The recent high in Americans' perceptions that their taxes were fair, 64%, came in 2003, after President Bush signed tax cuts into law and weeks after the Iraq war began.
Gallup's history of asking this question stretches back to the 1940s. From 1943 through 1945, during World War II, few Americans complained about their taxes, with an average of 87% of Americans saying their taxes were fair. That dropped down to an average of 61% in 1946, the first year after the war.
Gallup resurrected the question in the late 1990s, when an average 48% said their income taxes were fair, including the historical low of 45% in 1999. Americans' views of their taxes as fair improved from 51% in 2001 to 58% in 2002, shortly after the Bush administration put into place a round of tax cuts.
Perceptions of income tax fairness, perhaps surprisingly, vary little by household income level. Fifty-seven percent of those whose annual household income level is below $75,000 say their taxes are fair, as do 54% of those whose income is $75,000 or above.
In fact, there are no notable differences by most major demographic groups. The biggest differences are based on political affiliation, with Democrats and political liberals much more likely than Republicans and conservatives to believe their taxes are fair.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Paperwork and Taxes


Cass R. Sunstein, former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, writes in The New York Times:
HOW many millions of hours do you think Americans spend on government paperwork every year?

The answer is staggering. It is measured not in the millions of hours, but in the billions — 9.14 of them, to be exact. Suppose that we value one hour at $20 (a conservative estimate). If so, the government imposes an annual reporting cost of more than $180 billion on the American people.

That figure is more than 20 times last year’s budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, more than seven times that of the Department of Agriculture, and more than six times that of the Department of State.

Large as they are, the numbers do not capture the frustration experienced by countless individuals and small businesses, which are required to grapple with long, complex and sometimes barely comprehensible forms.

Dozens of government agencies impose significant paperwork burdens, but one stands above all others: the Department of the Treasury. That department accounts for 6.7 billion annual hours, which is nearly 75 percent of the total. No other agency accounts for more than 6 percent. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency impose big reporting burdens, but in each of these cases, we are speaking of millions of hours, not billions.

The Treasury Department is the national paperwork champion for one reason: It houses the Internal Revenue Service. As Congress starts to explore tax reform, it should begin with a project that ought to attract bipartisan support: a focused effort to slash the immense paperwork burden imposed by government in general and the tax system in particular.
 From OMB:

Asteroid Politics

NBC reports:
It is time for the private sector to aid in the search for potentially city-destroying asteroids and meteors, lawmakers said during a hearing Wednesday.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology made the call while hearing from NASA scientists and private-sector asteroid hunters during a hearing titled "Threats from Space," with both groups agreeing that something more needs to be done.
"Detecting asteroids should not be the primary mission of NASA," Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said at the hearing. "No doubt the private sector will play an important role as well. We must better recognize what the private sector can do to aid our efforts to protect the world."

The meeting Wednesday was the second of three aimed at understanding the threat to Earth posed by asteroids in space. The first hearing took place in late March, and addressed the ways governmental entities, such as NASA and the Air Force, are mitigating the risks posed by close-flying space rocks. The meetings were scheduled in response to a surprise meteor explosion over Russia and the close flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 — both of which occurred on Feb. 15

The hearing is available here.

CBS reports:

Lobbyists Bearing Gifts

State capitals are full of lobbyists.  In many legislatures, staffers have considerable influence.  Accordingly, lobbyists in these states try to woo the aides. and At UT San Diego, Christopher Cadelago writes:
In 2012, powerful interest groups lavished state lawmakers with high-dollar meals, trips and entertainment. But many of the same corporations and unions also showered legislative aides with meals, sporting tickets, concerts and rounds of golf, records show.
One reason? Term limits have made lawmakers themselves short-timers, while legislative staffers may transfer from lawmaker to lawmaker, committee to committee. They have power — and staying power.
Groups that spent the most on lobbying last year provided legislative aides with about $69,500 in gifts. A U-T Watchdog review showed that the same groups — from companies to associations and unions — bestowed roughly $70,500 in gifts to lawmakers.
...
A ticket to a basketball game or concert gives the purchasers the kind of face-to-face access to staffers that can be hard to steal amid the bustle of the workday. Schedulers can be particularly helpful in a company’s endeavors as they control virtually every minute of a legislator’s tightly-packed calendar.
“Because of term limits, the staffs have become the institutional knowledge of the Capitol — other than lobbyists themselves,” said Phillip Ung of California Common Cause. “It’s not just staff getting gifts, but it’s the relationship that’s being built, the long-term investment that is being made by these entities into these individuals.”
Ung and others argue that legislators should take a page from Congress, which has effectively banned gifts to staffers from lobbyists and their employers.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Abortion, Media, and the Gosnell Trial

West Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell is on trial for running an abortion clinic in which he allegedly killed babies that had survived illegal, late-term abortions, and where a woman allegedly died of a botched pain-killer injection.
"The evidence is certainly compelling," said The Philadelphia Inquirer's Joseph Slobodzian. Slobodzian has been in the courtroom every day of the trial.
"There are any number of witnesses, most of them former employees of Dr. Gosnell's clinic, who say they saw late-term abortions being done, they saw fetuses, babies, that were moving, breathing after the procedure, and those babies were killed," said Slobodzian.


At USA Today, Kirsten Powers notes that the CNN coverage is the exception:
A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press meant to foment outrage over an anti-abortion rights law in some backward red state.
The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial's first day. They've been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Hero Priest

On April 11, the president posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to Father Emil J. Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain who showed amazing bravery during the Korean War.  The president's remarks are worth quoting at length:
After the Communist invasion of South Korea, he was among the first American troops that hit the beaches and pushed their way north through hard mountains and bitter cold. In his understated Midwestern way, he wrote home, saying, “this outdoor life is quite the thing” -- (laughter) -- and “I prefer to live in a house once in a while.” But he had hope, saying, “It looks like the war will end soon.”

That’s when Chinese forces entered the war with a massive surprise attack -- perhaps 20,000 soldiers pouring down on a few thousand Americans. In the chaos, dodging bullets and explosions, Father Kapaun raced between foxholes, out past the front lines and into no-man’s land -- dragging the wounded to safety.

When his commanders ordered an evacuation, he chose to stay -- gathering the injured, tending to their wounds. When the enemy broke through and the combat was hand-to-hand, he carried on -- comforting the injured and the dying, offering some measure of peace as they left this Earth.

When enemy forces bore down, it seemed like the end -- that these wounded Americans, more than a dozen of them, would be gunned down. But Father Kapaun spotted a wounded Chinese officer. He pleaded with this Chinese officer and convinced him to call out to his fellow Chinese. The shooting stopped and they negotiated a safe surrender, saving those American lives.

Then, as Father Kapaun was being led away, he saw another American -- wounded, unable to walk, laying in a ditch, defenseless. An enemy soldier was standing over him, rifle aimed at his head, ready to shoot. And Father Kapaun marched over and pushed the enemy soldier aside. And then as the soldier watched, stunned, Father Kapaun carried that wounded American away.

This is the valor we honor today -- an American soldier who didn’t fire a gun, but who wielded the mightiest weapon of all, a love for his brothers so pure that he was willing to die so that they might live. And yet, the incredible story of Father Kapaun does not end there.

He carried that injured American, for miles, as their captors forced them on a death march. When Father Kapaun grew tired, he’d help the wounded soldier hop on one leg. When other prisoners stumbled, he picked them up. When they wanted to quit -- knowing that stragglers would be shot -- he begged them to keep walking.

In the camps that winter, deep in a valley, men could freeze to death in their sleep. Father Kapaun offered them his own clothes. They starved on tiny rations of millet and corn and birdseed. He somehow snuck past the guards, foraged in nearby fields, and returned with rice and potatoes. In desperation, some men hoarded food. He convinced them to share. Their bodies were ravaged by dysentery. He grabbed some rocks, pounded metal into pots and boiled clean water. They lived in filth. He washed their clothes and he cleansed their wounds.

The guards ridiculed his devotion to his Savior and the Almighty. They took his clothes and made him stand in the freezing cold for hours. Yet, he never lost his faith. If anything, it only grew stronger. At night, he slipped into huts to lead prisoners in prayer, saying the Rosary, administering the sacraments, offering three simple words: “God bless you.” One of them later said that with his very presence he could just for a moment turn a mud hut into a cathedral.

That spring, he went further -- he held an Easter service. I just met with the Kapaun family. They showed me something extraordinary -- the actual stole, the purple vestment that Father Kapaun wore when he celebrated Mass inside that prison camp.

As the sun rose that Easter Sunday, he put on that purple stole and led dozens of prisoners to the ruins of an old church in the camp. And he read from a prayer missal that they had kept hidden. He held up a small crucifix that he had made from sticks. And as the guards watched, Father Kapaun and all those prisoners -- men of different faith, perhaps some men of no faith -- sang the Lord’s Prayer and “America the Beautiful.” They sang so loud that other prisoners across the camp not only heard them, they joined in, too -- filling that valley with song and with prayer.

That faith -- that they might be delivered from evil, that they could make it home -- was perhaps the greatest gift to those men; that even amidst such hardship and despair, there could be hope; amid their misery in the temporal they could see those truths that are eternal; that even in such hell, there could be a touch of the divine. Looking back, one of them said that that is what “kept a lot of us alive.”

Yet, for Father Kapaun, the horrific conditions took their toll. Thin, frail, he began to limp, with a blood clot in his leg. And then came dysentery, then pneumonia. That’s when the guards saw their chance to finally rid themselves of this priest and the hope he inspired. They came for him. And over the protests and tears of the men who loved him, the guards sent him to a death house -- a hellhole with no food or water -- to be left to die.

And yet, even then, his faith held firm. “I’m going to where I’ve always wanted to go,” he told his brothers. “And when I get up there, I’ll say a prayer for all of you.” And then, as was taken away, he did something remarkable -- he blessed the guards. “Forgive them,” he said, “for they know not what they do.” Two days later, in that house of death, Father Kapaun breathed his last breath. His body was taken away, his grave unmarked, his remains unrecovered to this day.

A Super PAC and the McConnell Recording

It appears that the recording of a private conversation at Mitch McConnell's campaign was the result of deliberate eavesdropping, not staff error.  At Salon, Alex Seitz-Ward discusses the likely source, and in the process offers a cautionary tale about how Super PAC activity can backfire on the causes they're trying to help.
Liberal super PAC Progress Kentucky is at the center of controversy after a Democratic strategist in the state said activists affiliated with the group bragged to him that they secretly recorded the audiotape of Mitch McConnell’s strategy meeting that was leaked to Mother Jones this week. If true, they could face criminal sanctions. The treasurer of the super PAC resigned this afternoon.
Now, it’s worth stating that we don’t know for sure that Progress Kentucky produced the tape or is involved in any way — this is just the word of one Democratic strategist, who has an interest in distancing his party from the group.
But it’s not the first time the super PAC has gotten into trouble. In late February, they made a series of offensive “jokes” about McConnell’s wife on Twitter, attacking her for being Chinese-American. Even Ashley Judd felt compelled to issue a public condemnation.
But there’s something important you should know about Progress Kentucky: No one took its members very seriously in Kentucky, even before the slurs or the secret tape. I know this because I once quoted Curtis Morrison, who was one of what appears to be only two or three people associated with the group (he resigned in March), and a number of liberal activists in the state told me to never do it again.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Feelings About Doing Taxes

The Pew Research Center reports:
As April 15 approaches, a majority of Americans (56%) have a negative reaction to doing their income taxes, with 26% saying they hate doing them. However, about a third (34%) say they either like (29%) or love (5%) doing their taxes.

The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted April 4-7 among 1,003 adults, finds that the expectation of getting a refund is cited most often for why people like doing their taxes, but it is not the only factor.

When asked why they like doing their income taxes, 29% say that they are getting a refund, while 17% say they just don’t mind it or they are good at it; 13% say doing their taxes gives them a sense of control, while the same percentage cites a feeling of obligation – that it is their duty to pay their fair share.
...
Seven-in-ten (71%) Americans agree that not reporting all income on your taxes is morally wrong, while 19% say it is not a moral issue; just 6% see this as morally acceptable.

Bugging McConnell? Maybe, Maybe Not.

Rachel Weiner writes at The Washington Post:
The campaign manager for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s reelection bid insisted Wednesday that the Kentucky senator’s office was bugged, comparing the recording of a high-level strategy meeting to the work of the Nazi secret police.
Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, published audio Tuesday of a McConnell campaign meeting in which actress Ashley Judd was discussed. The senator has said that the office must have been bugged by the “political left.”
“This is Gestapo kind of scare tactics and we’re not going to stand for it,” Jesse Benton told radio host Mike Huckabee on Wednesday.
The FBI is trying to find out what happened.  But it's worth remembering a similar incident seven years ago, where one campaign leaked recordings of its opponent's private conversations.  As it turned out, there was no bugging or any other illegal activity.

In September 2006, The New York Times reported:
The campaign of the Democratic candidate for governor, Phil Angelides, said Tuesday that it was the source of audio files containing impolitic remarks by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those remarks were the subject of a front page article last week in The Los Angeles Times, which led to an apology by the governor.
Mr. Angelides’s campaign manager, Cathy Calfo, said at a news conference in Sacramento that the files had been culled from a Web site accessible by the public and that campaign staff members had not trespassed into a secure area of the governor’s office.

...
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Ms. Calfo called the Schwarzenegger camp’s characterization of the episode “politically motivated” and “outrageous” and added, “We believe these audio files accessed through a public Web site requiring no password are a matter of public record.”
CNET added some detail:
The controversy may center on the design of the Web server called speeches.gov.ca.gov. The California government used it to post MP3 files of Schwarzenegger's speeches in a directory structure that looked like "http://speeches.gov.ca.gov/dir/06-21.htm.htm". (That Web page is now offline, but saved in Google's cache.)
A source close to Angelides told CNET News.com on Tuesday that it was possible to "chop" off the Web links and visit the higher-level "http://speeches.gov.ca.gov/dir/" directory, which had the controversial audio recording publicly viewable. No password was needed, the source said.