Ho Hum, What's new?

California voters passed Proposition 8 last year, banning same-sex marriages. Then a challenge in the CA state court was not upheld by the CA Supreme Court. Now there is a lawsuit before a U.S. District Court claiming that it violates the U.S. Constitution. It could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chief Judge Vaughn Walker asked the lawyer for a group that sponsored Prop8 to explain how allowing gay couples to marry threatens conventional marriages, since that is their main defense.

"My answer is, I don't know. I don't know," lawyer Charles Cooper answered.

He later elaborated, "There are things we can't know. . . . The people of California are entitled to step back and let the experiment unfold in Massachusetts and other places, to see whether our concerns about the health of marital unions have either been confirmed or perhaps they have been completely assuaged."

Well . . . . let's look at that. That "experiment" in Massachusetts has now been going on for five and one-half years. And even its opponents have not offered one scintilla of evidence to suggest it has had any effect on heterosexual marriages at all. Heck, they haven't even tried to twist or bend statistics into misleading charges. Just one big silence.

Meanwhile, five other states have jumped on the bandwagon, and at least two others are likely to do so soon. And there's not even any push among conservatives in Congress to over-rule the District of Columbia's decision to allow gay marriages.

Lawyer Cooper, I believe you have a very weak defense, Sir.

Ralph

Biden speaks the truth

Newsweek's latest issue has a story by Bailey and Thomas that quotes Joe Biden in a September 13th national security meeting at the White House, arguing against Gen. McChrystal's request for an additional 40,ooo troops in Afghanistan:

Biden: Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?" Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. "And how much will we spend on Pakistan?" Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. "Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?" The White House Situation Room fell silent.

Now, I don't know their source for such a specific quote, but it makes sense; and it fits with Biden's thinking that we do know about.

What a dilemma. We are so wedded to the war in Afghanistan that george bush essentially abandoned to go after Iraq; and now it is a mess on the verge of becoming the dreaded quagmire of "can't win/can't leave."

I'm glad Obama is now The Decider; and I hope he listens very carefully to Joe Biden.

Ralph

It was a Republican idea; now it's "socialism"

An article by Paul Starr in The American Prospect (October 2009) simply blows away all the Republican rhetoric criticizing Democratic plans for health care reform as radical, socialistic, and whatever else is at hand by showing how most of the controversial issues were at one time part of plans advanced by Republicans.

1. In the late 1940s when Harry Truman proposed a single-payer plan, Republicans countered with a system of government-subsidized, private nonprofit insurance, with premiums scaled to people's incomes.

What a welcome addition that Republican initiative would be to today's proposed bills.

2. In the 1960s when Democrats pushed for government sponsored hospital insurance for the elderly, Republicans countered with a plan for voluntary insurance for physicians' bills for the elderly.

The Democratic proposal became Medicare Part A; the Republican proposal Medicare Part B.

3. In 1974 Nixon send to Congress legislation for universal coverage that relied on private insurance to cover the employed and a federal program to cover the rest of the population. National health insurance, Nixon declared, was "an idea whose time has come in America."

This got lost in the Watergate scandal; otherwise he might likely have been joined in this bill by Ted Kennedy, and

we could be celebrating the 35th anniversary of universal health care in the United States

instead of fighting over the very same issue.

As Starr also points out, Republicans offered these plans only when Democrats were pressing for reform, and their plans may have been only for show.

But at least they felt the need to make a pretense of getting on board, instead of screaming "Socialism" and far worse.

My, how times have changed. How the Republican Party has changed. And how much less the Democrats are having to settle for than we thought we could get . . . way back when.

Ralph

Republican absurdity # 165

OK, I'm not really keeping count, but it must be at least 165 absurdities coming from the right.

House Minority leader John Boehner (he of the perpetual suntan and constipated expression) opposes the recently passed addition of sexual orientation to the list of hate crimes, which currently include race, color, religion, and national origin. He dismisses it as trying to impose "thought crimes," because they are based on the perpetrator's motive and the effect on a large group of people and not just the individual harmed.

CBSNews.com contacted his office and inquired whether he opposes all hate crimes legislation, since that argument is at the core of the controversy over hate crimes.

As reported on Huffington Post: "In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics."

AHA!!!! GOTCHA!!!

This seems to mean that the Minority Leader believes sexual orientation is a not immutable (it's a choice) but religion is immutable (it's inherent and unchangeable)????

Tell that to all those who have converted from another religion to Christianity. Tell that to all the Christian and Muslim missionaries who are trying (futilely, if Boehner is right) to convert people to their religion.

GOTCHA, John Boehner. Let's see how you play this one.

Ralph

Obama and the Nobel committee

My friend Mickey Nardo, writing at http://1boringoldman.com, had this to say about the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Obama:

[Alfred Nobel's stipulations for the Peace Prize begin with this phrase:] " . . . to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations":

In a world where the largest military power has invaded two countries in its last Administration - one for cause and the second as part of a policy of preemptive war undertaken unilaterally with the express goal of asserting its place as the world policeman [with an ulterior motive to gain access to the invaded country's natural resources]. In such a world, what would be "the most or the best work for fraternity between nations" possible? I would think that if someone were to succeed in changing the foreign policy of that country to one that emphasized diplomacy and cooperation with the charter and mission of the United Nations - that would be an accomplishment of immeasurable worth to the cause of peace. And if the offending nation were to have a policy of torturing its prisoners of war, ignoring the Geneva Conventions, and that policy was abandoned and the validity of the Geneva commitments reestablished as the law of that country - that would be another major accomplishment in the pursuit of peace.

So what if a single person were to check the militarism of the world’s largest pugilist? Would that justify giving that person the Nobel Peace Prize? If I were one of the five persons chosen to select a prize winner, I’d select the person who did the things I just mentioned. It’s hard to accept that our country really is the biggest pugilist on the planet. We don’t think of ourselves as having a policy of world domination, but that is exactly what we’ve had for the last eight years. It’s called the Bush Doctrine and includes preemptive military strikes, unilateral military action, strength without peer, and actively promoting our form of government [throw in terms like American Dominance and Regime Change]. And many of us worried that our government would bomb Iran, rather than talk to them.

So we are still involved in two leftover wars and closing our torture center in Cuba is going slowly. So what? At least, the world doesn’t have to watch our every move to be sure we don’t go off half cocked for the flimsiest of reasons. The world doesn’t have to deal with the fact that our Ambassador to the U.N. didn’t even believe in the U.N. In one single day [January 20, 2009], the world regained a member of the family of nations - having lost that valued member for almost a decade.

Barack Obama, a minority candidate in a country still in the throes of a conservative mood and deep in the middle of a financial recession, was able to change the course of history by being elected President — to tame a growing monster. That’s the biggest accomplishment in the service of peace possible in 2009. All it takes to understand is to look into a mirror and see what we had become…

This is the best rationale I have read anywhere for why Barack Obama is the choice for the Peace Prize. Others have cynically made this same point, but with a negative valence, in saying "He got it for being non-Bush." Well, that's true -- but that sounds petty and political. Mickey's statement reminds us of the vitality and profundity of what that actually means, not only to us, but to the world.

Ralph

Baucus bill passes

The Senate Finance Committee passed the bill by 14-10 with Olympia Snowe joining all 13 Democrats. She said "my vote today is my vote today" and does not predict how she will vote on the final bill. She saw it as helping to move the process along, with the hope of getting a plan even more to her liking in the final bill. That's pretty good reasoning to at least vote for cloture to assure 60 votes when the time comes. Then even if she votes against the bill, there will be enough votes to get the simple majority.

But she braved the wall of opposition from her fellow Republicans, including a last minute threat that it might cost her the ranking minority position on the Commerce Committee when Sen. Kaye Bailey Hutchinson leaves in January to run for governor of Texas.

So Sen. Snowe deserves credit for keeping her focus on what's important. Just wish she was a little further to the liberal side to assure her support later on. But, if she braves the threats now, she probably will later on, and quite likely Susan Collins will join her.

Ralph

I repeat: send in the comedians

In the distressing vacuum of responsible journalism that fills the airwaves, even the best of them come up short.

And who better to point this out and shame them for their lack of honest reporting? Yes, Jon Stewart.

He recently skewered CNN (perhaps the best of them except for NPR/PBS) for making a big deal out of fact-checking a Saturday Night Live skit that poked fun at Obama for not accomplishing anything. CNN said, in fact, that he had done a few things.

Jon Stewart ridiculed CNN for going to the effort to correct a comedy spoof show, while not applying the same fact-checking to their own guests. As reported on HuffPost:

He went on to show several instances of CNN guests saying spurious things and introducing made-up statistics without being asked where their numbers came from or countered with facts.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/13/daily-show-destroys-cnn-f_n_318295.html

Way to go, Jon. It's not the first time you've stepped in and done the serious questioning that the supposedly serious journalists fail to do.

Ralph

Making sausage

Senate Finance Committee will vote today on whether to send its bill to the full Senate. Baucus says he has the votes to pass it. So I guess we should be happy.

Fortunately, this is not what will wind up in the eventual bill that has to pass both houses and signed by Obama.

Like making sausage, you don't want to know too much about what goes into it. But here's one thing that must be left out. It apparently was put in to try to get more conservative support, but it should not make it into the final bill. They aren't going to vote for it anyway.

The bill includes $50 million annually for abstinence sex education for five years, plus another $75 million annually for pregnancy prevention and "Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training."

I'm all for sex education and personal responsibility. But if the government is going to pay for it, it must be comprehensive and not some conservative religious zealot's idea that "abstinence only" is what we should teach. That has been proven again and again not to work. It may initially lead to a small percentage of teens delaying becoming sexually active, but among those who do, the rate of pregnancy is higher than those who have comprehensive sex education. So why should $50 million a year of tax payer money go for it?

Ralph

We strain at gnats

ACORN drives Republicans crazy, like a swarm of gnats on a hot summer day.

So some conservative sting operators set up a trap and snared a couple of low level housing assistance workers into advising disguised actors about how to evade the tax laws for illegal activities. And then they put the video on the internet, and the rest is history, including Congress' canceling all contracts with the organization.

Never mind that, when the same stunt was tried at another ACORN office, the workers called the police. That video didn't get aired; in fact I never even heard about it until an article in The Nation on Oct. 12. Heck of a job, Main Stream Media.

And never mind that ACORN is an important humanitarian service organization that helps out in finding low income housing, pushing for increases in minimum wage, helping register voters, and training community organizers to empower poor people. Naturally that makes them the target for right-wingers. And there's plenty of ineptitude and lack of control of the low-paid workers and volunteers that give them ammunition. ACORN admittedly hasn't paid enough attention to such problems in its efforts to do good.

But, The Nation calls for a little perspective. "ACORN and its affiliates have received on average about $3.5 million a year from government contracts, or approximately one-millionth of this year's budget." Yet, Congress acted in record time to cut off its funding, without even an investigation or hearings.

Compare Blackwater. A recent audit says that they "may owe the government $55 million alledgedly for failing to meet the terms of just one of its federal contracts. Five of its employees face murder charges for their role in the massacre of Iraqi civilians." Yet Congress just extended Blackwater's $271 million security contract in Iraq indefinitely.

And Halliburton's KBR subsidiary? So far sixteen soldiers and two contractors have died from electrocution from bad wiring they installed. Yet their contract remains in effect.

Go figure. If you try to help poor people, Congress will strain at gnats.

And swat them.

If you are a big business contractor, you can literally get away with murder.

Ralph

Damn the torpedos

Damn the insurance industry; full speed ahead !!!!

Now that Max Baucus has dithered for months trying to accommodate Republicans, conservative Democrats, and the insurance industry -- and finally produced a better-than-nothing but not great bill -- the insurance industry has declared war against the bill.

They are mounting a big campaign to scare people with the specter of big increases in individual policy rates, as much as thousands of dollars a year.

Right -- and that is exactly why the final bill MUST have a public option, which they have successfully fought against including in the Baucus' bill.

So -- damn the compromises. You can't compromise with these people. They get you to make changes to include them, and then they vote against it anyway.

Ralph

Obama and gay rights

Obama's address to the HRC Saturday night was a rhetorical success, even inspiring in his championing the cause of gay rights and likening it to the struggle for equal rights for blacks.

But did he promise anything new? No. And that is a big disappointment to the gay community. It was good timing, however, that the House passed the Hate Crimes bill the day before.

Still . . . while Obama could certainly get it all done yesterday, Congress can't. It is too dysfunctional and too complex to be able to do everything at once that Obama would like to get done.

He can set the agenda, he can push and even twist arms -- but he's up to his eyeballs in doing that over health care right now, with climate change waiting in the wings. I do think, however, that he could and should issue an executive order to stop discharging gay and lesbian soldiers, pending the legislative overturning of the DA/DT law.

It's tough, being gay and wanting full equality, to be told to be patient. But Obama will get us there. I am confident DA/DT will be ended within a year. DOMA will follow, although that will take a little more time. My prediction is that overturning more and more state laws forbidding gay marriage is inevitable, but we need some more state by state voluntary changes that will build the momentum for an eventual Supreme Court decision that will do what it did on sodomy laws.

Ralph

Al Qaida and the Taliban

The AJC is only a shell of the newspaper it used to be, but they do occasionally produce some highly useful informative articles. A recent one on the various health care options was a good example.

Today, there is a concise article explaining the differences in al Qaida and the Taliban, which I found very helpful. This is particularly important now, because Obama's new plan for Afghanistan will probably move away from fighting the Taliban and concentrate on al Qaida. I'll share the essence the article here:

Taliban is the Pashtun word for "students," because it began in the religious schools from which the original fighters were recruited. When the communist government collapsed in 1989 and Afghanistan was at the mercy of competing war lords, the Taliban arose to end the chaos and impose Islamic law. Their harsh control and draconian rules ended in 2001 when we attacked Afghanistan because they were harboring Bin Laden and al Qaida.

There has been some Taliban revival in recent years as an uprising against the unpopular Karzai government. But the Taliban's goal is supposedly limited to establishing control over their own nation according to Islamic law. They do not have ambitions to go outside Afghanistan or to attack us as long as we leave them alone.

In contrast, al Qaida was formed as a militant jihadist group to eradicate Western influence and establish sharia law across the Islamic world. They see us as a corrupting influence. They were responsible for planning and carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden, from a wealthy Saudi family, was the primary financier and leader. Today, rather than a centrally controlled organization, it has become more of a "brand name" for militant terrorist groups throughout the world. There are probably only a small number of the core group still in Afghanistan and a larger number in Pakistan.

In summary: The Taliban wants to restore control its own nation, Afghanistan, without an agenda to to harm other countries. Al Qaida, in contrast, has a record of terrorist acts far beyond the borders of the Islamic world and the stated intent to continue.

The extent of ties between the two groups at the present time is debated. In our considering our next strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there are some who argue for allowing the Taliban to be assimilated into the Afghan political system, if they will give up violence. But there is no question that al Qaida continues to pose a threat to us.

Ralph

The evils of monied interests

My recent optimism about health care reform took a hit this morning.

The lead story on page 1 of the New York Times begins with this paragraph:

"As the health care debate moves to the floor of Congress, most of the serious proposals to fulfill President Obama's original vow to curb costs have fallen victim to organized interests and parochial politics."

My first thought was: that's not true. At least, it's going to put an end to "pre-existing conditions" and loss of insurance when you change jobs, and its going to make insurance available to millions who don't have it now.

Then I re-read the paragraph: it's talking specifically about the cost-cutting proposals. Fair enough. That is a problem, because we don't need a bill that conservatives can point to in a few years and say: see, it was a dismal failure because it didn't rein in costs. And then they will blame the Democrats for this "out of control new entitlement."

When in fact it is the business interests of the health care industry and their lobbyists who are gutting this -- because they are more interested in their own fiscal health than in the health of the nation.

Ralph