Money for Nothing? Or Buying Votes?

Analysis …

The U.S. Supreme Court last week issued a 5-4 ruling Thursday that struck down prohibitions on political campaign contributions by corporations, saying that such measures aimed at control infringe on corporate First Amendment free speech rights. The decision means that corporations and unions will be able to spend unlimited funds on independent campaign expenditures. Reactions to the decision ranged from outrage by some who said the ruling has made U.S. democracy more corrupt to indifference because such practices are already in place anyway. What do you think of the ruling?

The American Prospect |  “If the Court rigidly insists that Congress can regulate only to prevent quid-pro-corruption, narrowly defined, then Citizens United has implications that extend well beyond what corporations can do. Justice Kennedy’s own opinion even hints at the possibility, as he notes that the evidence supporting the “soft money” limits – which apply across the board — rests on evidence about the connection between money and political access. While Justice Kennedy backed off from saying anything definitive, we may find that it was the Court’s discussion of corruption, not corporations, that matters most in the long run.”

Matt Welch @CNN |  “Even if you just can’t bring yourself to believe that people who take civil liberties seriously have long-held serious civil libertarian criticisms of campaign-finance laws, or if you simply think they’re all wrong, I’ll offer this last salve: It has never been easier for groups of citizens to swarm together and flow money through the Internet toward campaigns and candidates who excite them. Ask Ron Paul — or more relevantly, Barack Obama — what’s more powerful: $10 million from Dr. Evil Industries, or $10 each from 1 million people who can actually vote?”

Julian Sanchez |  “Why is it that so many people who clearly do think books and magazines and talk radio shows enjoy unambiguous constitutional protection, despite being corporate funded or operated, are simultaneously absolutely sure that paid broadcast spots are in an utterly different category? If one is above all concerned with exacerbating the translation of economic inequality into political inequality, it seems rather odd.  In effect, it means you only get to use your corporate money to get your agenda on the airwaves if (like GE or Time Warner) you’re big enough to buy them wholesale. But that’s OK, because you can pump money into all those other means of trying to influence voters; it’s just broadcast advertising that’s out. So I’d like to flip the reductio question around and ask: Given that people seem to mostly agree that all this other stuff constitutes protected political speech, why do so many people have such a different attitude about paid ads?”

Informed Comment |  “In Web 3.0 consumers will likely download content via the internet at will. Media is becoming pull media– individuals pull down what they want when they want it. Television may have to go to an iTunes model of charging per episode. In a pull-media world, for advertisers of any sort, whether pushing products or candidates, to get their message out and control it will become more and more difficult. Pull-media allows a fracturing of viewership (or participation– many consumers will be playing games rather than watching passively). The fact is that viewership for the 4 networks has already plummeted, and the advertising rates that companies now pay them to air commercials are unrealistically high, and appear to be a function of habit. What else could you do? There are hundreds of channels, then you add in the video blogs, the online gaming, and the blogs. Even if a network only pulls in a household share of 9 for the evening rather than the household share of 65 that that Gunsmoke used to on CBS, at least you’ve got that many households in one place, which is rarer and rarer. One of the few things Rupert Murdoch is right about is that there is not enough advertising to spread throughout the internet so as to support any particular newspapers or magazines. The buy of a half-hour attack ad by e.g. Morgan Stanley on CBS dissing Obama on October 25, 2012 just may not mean then what it would have meant in 1960 when CBS had a large proportion of television viewers and most Americans were television viewers, and there were only 3 networks. And if the attack ad is inaccurate, it will be shredded on social media or just ignored. All the vicious attacks on Obama, after all, did not prevent his landslide victory, since voters were tired of Republican shenanigans. Reality is still more important than media depictions of it.”

Alas, a Blog |  “As I think about it more…say goodbye to stopping global warming. In fact, bring it on!!! And there go environmental regulations!! And our food system will be going STRAIGHT to hell. No pass go, do not collect $200. Let us not even begin to think of the effects on the rest of the world. Remember how corporations did nasty things to Latin America with the full backing of the US gov’t? Does anyone think that they will stop now? Bolivia for instance, is already under pressure for its lithium.”

Best of the Web ..

The Advocate’s Foolish and Sad ‘Gayest City’ Ranking  |  Box Turtle Bulletin

I appreciate the Advocate for many reasons, not least of which is that they are a gay magazine that is still in business. But their recent effort to light-heartedly identify the “gayest cities” in the United States betrayed our community’s occasional inclination to still buy into the most negative stereotypes as though they define us.

Yes, It’s Perfectly OK to Have a Wind Turbine Near Your House  |  Global Comment

I too worry about unintended effects of wind energy on wildlife populations, particularly birds. We clearly need to minimize these impacts as much as possible. However, to limit wind production in a core wind-producing region because corporations and landowners worry the state will change makes no sense in the face of an urgent energy and climate change crisis. These localized concerns have far-reaching implications that affect national and international events, from funding for wind projects in Congress to rising sea levels and growing numbers of climate refugees in Bangladesh.

Human Rights as Animal Rights  |  alias Bruce

Recently, a person I was talking with suggested that when we talk about civil and human rights, we ought to start bringing the rights of non-human beings into the discussion as well. Her idea being that just as we link, say, black rights with women’s rights with gay rights, we need to begin to link the rights of humans with the rights of other sentient beings. So that the welfare of non-human animals becomes part of the everyday progressive discussion about “justice” instead of being quarantined to the PETA and environmentalist end of the table.

This project gets messy. Because it is full of human ideas that we cannot just slap onto animal consciousness. For starters, what exactly is “sentience?” Who has it and who doesn’t? Is it even a fair standard? Can a non-sentient existence rank as highly on a worth-of-experience scale as a sentient one? And what is “freedom” or “the pursuit of happiness” to a garter snake?

Making maps to fight disaster, build economies  |  TEDTalks

As of 2005, only 15 percent of the world was mapped. This slows the delivery of aid after a disaster — and hides the economic potential of unused lands and unknown roads. In this short talk, Google’s Lalitesh Katragadda demos Map Maker, a group map-making tool that people around the globe are using to map their world.

Opting Out of Hate-Crime Law?

Analysis …

The Matthew Shepard Act was signed into law Oct 22, 2009 by President Obama. The law expands previous hate-crime laws and extends protection to victims of crimes motivated by perceived or actual gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. However, Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell (R-Oklahoma City) , argues that the act oversteps the Constitution and plans to introduce a bill to the Oklahoma Senate this spring to exempt Oklahoma from the Matthew Shepard Act. Here is some of what’s being said about this idea …

Oklahoma State Senate News | Russell said in no way would he discourage the prosecution of any individual who assaults or murders another, nor would his proposed bill interfere in cases that Oklahoma deemed appropriate under existing state hate crimes laws.

There’s no way this will pass Constitutional muster. I highly doubt that the state legislature will even waste time considering it. McAffrey nails it on the head when he calls it out as a political stunt meant to please the religious right.

“If a crime has been committed, the perpetrator must be held accountable. My concern is that someone may take this new federal hate statute and use it as a way to actually criminalize personal speech, lawful association and religious beliefs,” Russell said. “That would be a direct assault on the freedoms this nation was founded upon, and I hope to protect Oklahomans from that erosion of freedom with my legislation. I would also hope other states would follow our lead in defending personal liberty with similar measures.”

Metro Star | Among those in opposition to this legislation is State Representative Al McAffrey, a Democrat representing District 88 and Oklahoma’s only openly gay legislator. As he puts it, “Senator Russell is employing the same tired arguments from yesteryear. Preventing crimes against Oklahomans because of who they are is in no way an attack on freedom. That argument is nothing but empty rhetoric used to scare and mislead folks.”

Change.org | Steve is worried that the legislation creates a “special class of people” and “could be used to target people’s belief, freedom to associate in groups, right to assemble on issues, as well as target people’s right to free speech.” He’s fighting for his fellow Oklahomans, like Rep. Sally Kern, who just want to be able to say out loud that gays are a bigger threat to America than terrorism.

Fear not, Steve! Preach on, Sally! The government is at least one, if not many many many steps ahead of you. Let’s look at the bill itself, HR 1913. You don’t have to read the whole thing, it’s just a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo about what constitutes a hate crime and proper prosecution. I’d like to direct your attention to the very last line. “Nothing in this Act … shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

The Bilerico Project | This proposed measure would forbid state and local law enforcement from cooperating with Federal authorities investigating a gay hate crime in Oklahoma. As Senator Russell stated, “Basically if Oklahoma decided a case that the Feds wanted to overturn, they would be on their own. We would not share evidence or manpower.” Russell did state further that his proposed bill would not interfere in cases Oklahoma deemed appropriate in accordance with existing state hate crimes laws which do not include sexual orientation.

On the Web …

I.O.C. Panel Calls for Treatment in Sex Ambiguity Cases | New York Times.com

A panel of medical experts convened by the International Olympic Committee recommended Wednesday that the issue of athletes whose sex seems ambiguous be treated as a medical concern and not one of fairness in competition.

Athletes who identify themselves as female but have medical disorders that give them masculine characteristics should have their disorders diagnosed and treated, the group concluded after two days of meetings in Miami Beach. The experts also said that rules should be put in place for determining an athlete’s eligibility to compete on a case-by-case basis — but they did not indicate what those rules should be.

Prop 8 trial transcripts posted – or watch the re-enactment | 365  Gay

The American Foundation for Equal Rights, which is supporting the current legal effort to overturn Prop 8 in California, is now posting daily trial transcripts.

But if that’s too dry for you, check out MarriageTrial.com, which is producing re-enactments of the most exciting – and important – days of the trial. So far, there’s just a teaser – but if you’re a trial junkie, it may sustain you for now.

Uganda’s Cabinet Rejects Withdrawal of Anti-Gay Bill | Box Turtle Bulletin.

According to Uganda’s independent NTV, the cabinet considered and rejected the suggestion of withdrawing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.(Also, in a reminder that Uganda is not a free democracy, this report closes with an update on CBS Radio, which was closed last autumn in a political dispute between President Yoweri Museveni and the traditional king (Kabaka) of Buganda.)

Karzai’s “Win”

Analysis…

Hamid Karzai has been declared the elected president of Afghanistan after the sole challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the race.  The re-election was to take place Saturday due to the fraudulence of the first election in August.  Many are now questioning the future of the United States’ relationship with the country and how Pres. Obama will assess the current conflict.

The Daily Dish |  And if this isn’t a golden opportunity to drastically scale back our commitment, what would be? A clear reversal of course by Obama would be a sign that he can make a decision that the Beltway establishment does not have the strength to make; that he really is a change agent; that preventing Iraq from imploding again is now a more serious worry than propping up an unpopular, corrupt regime in Kabul … and losing more decisively to the Taliban in the end.

Afghan UN Official Peter Galbraith @The Washington Independent |  The run off was certain to be more fraudulent than the Aug 20 vote with more ghost poling centers and the same corrupt officials in charge. We are now stuck with the same corrupt and inefficient [incumbent President Hamid] Karzai that we had for the last seven years but now he is also rightly seen as illegitimate by a large segment of the Afghan population and by public opinion in the troop contributing countries. No amount of spin can obscure the fact that we spent upwards of $200 miilion on an election that has been a total fiasco.

PoliBlog |  Given that the other candidate in the race, Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out out, this is hardly a surprise.   However, since the first round was tainted by massive fraud and Abdullah pulled out stating that he did not believe sufficient measures had been taken to ensure a free and fair second round, the entire process has damaged the legitimacy of the Karzai government.
The situation further complicates the Obama administration’s decision-making going forward in regards to Afghanistan.  How much will the US and its NATO allies be willing to prop up the Karzai government if it is viewed as severely tainted, if not illegitimate?

Taylor Marsh |  And as much as I don’t like Karzai, it’s clear Abdullah Abdullah wasn’t the man for Afghanistan. If he isn’t willing to fight for his country at a critical point, it’s hard to argue that he’d be a better choice.
That said, the general consensus from experts I’ve talked to was that the whole runoff was a “charade” anyway, with some suggesting no work had even begun for the elections.
The outcome or lack thereof in Afghanistan is all bad news. For the women in that country it is a disaster. For U.S. policy it’s almost as bad.

News…

A reproductive rights week has been planned to oppose new Okla. legislation  |  The Oklahoma Daily

House Bill 1595 is a new provision on Oklahoma abortion laws requiring an official record and reporting system for all abortions occurring within the state. This information would be made public and includes demographic information on the women.
In response to a new Oklahoma legislation, some students at OU have planned a reproductive rights week beginning today that will culminate in a statewide protest on the state capitol Friday.

Lawsuit accuses psychologist of ignoring Guantanamo torture  |  Truthout

The state board responsible for licensing – and disciplining – psychologists in Louisiana is “fighting awfully hard to turn a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse” brought against one of its members, who is being accused of complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior adviser on interrogations for the US military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Depression link to processed food  |  BBC

Eating a diet high in processed food increases the risk of depression, research suggests.
What is more, people who ate plenty of vegetables, fruit and fish actually had a lower risk of depression, the University College London team found.

What’s Next for Japan?

News …

The Democratic Party of Japan this week won a landslide historic election, now holding more than 300 seats in the nation’s House of Representatives. The Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japanese government for more than half a century, lost nearly two-thirds of its seats. Japan’s next prime minister, the Democratic Party of Japan’s Yukio Hatoyama will take leadership of a country that’s face several difficulties, including its struggles to emerge from recession and to expand social services without straining Japan’s budget. What happens next for Japan and its new government?

The Economist |  “Besides naming a cabinet, Mr Hatoyama, who has appeared to flip-flop on sensitive issues such as Japan’s occasionally subordinate relationship with America, is soon likely to have to step onto the world stage. He hopes to travel to New York in September for the UN general assembly, and will probably meet Barack Obama on that trip. But as he sets out to introduce a new era of political openness and accountability to Japan, he will be dogged by a thorny question that was already being put to him as he cautiously claimed victory on Sunday night. That is the position of Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ’s former leader, who orchestrated this remarkable election victory and is a master manipulator eminently capable of pulling Mr Hatoyama’s strings.”

NPR |  “The DPJ has said it plans to cut waste and rely on untapped financial reserves to fund programs. But with Japan’s public debt heading toward 200 percent of gross domestic product, the plan has been criticized as a financial fantasy that would worsen Japan’s precarious fiscal health.”

Foreign Policy |  “The remarkable aspect about this election is that Japanese have voted for change they don’t believe in and for a DPJ leader, Yukio Hatoyama, they aren’t all that crazy about. Polls show that most voters do not support key provisions of the DPJ’s platform and only about one third want Hatoyama as the next prime minister. It is even more astonishing that a mere 25 percent of voters think the DPJ will head Japan in the right direction. Clearly this was a repudiation of the LDP and its dead-end policies more than a vote of confidence in the DPJ.”

Informed Comment |  “The thumping victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the Japanese general elections is going to have a strong influence on the future of Japan’s relations with the Islamic world. The DPJ has pledged to make the US-Japan alliance an “equal partnership,” by which they appear to mean that they will no longer be content to quietly accept foreign policy directions from Washington.”

FiveThirtyEight |  “Moving forward, we should expect to see a focus on more “democratic socialist” style policies in Japan, while maintaining relatively low taxes and OECD-type foreign policy goals. The key question for observers is whether this is the beginning of a path of reform and change in Japanese political culture, or if perhaps this election simply confirms a change that began in the mid-1990s and early 2000s and was not brought to fruition until this year.”

Analysis …

• Meeting on Sept. 3 at Oklahoma Capitol to address Female Incarceration (Read more).
• Why seniors oppose all forms of government-run health care except their own (Read more).
• Debates over health care reform bring back the specter of the “welfare queen” (Read more).
• How Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants view human rights (Read more).
• A study says depression may make you smarter (Read more).

Remembering the Lion

News …

Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy was buried this weekend in Arlington National Cemetery, complete with military honors, near the graves of his brothers John and Robert. At the funeral Mass in Boston, President Obama lauded the “lion of the U.S. Senate,” calling Kennedy his “friend and mentor” and saying:

“Ted Kennedy’s life’s work was not to champion those with wealth or power or special connections,” Obama said in his eulogy.

“It was to give a voice to those who were not heard; to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity; to make real the dream of our founding. He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not, and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow.”

Bloggers also paid tribute to Kennedy, pointing out his work to advance various social causes such as immigration reform to anti-racism work, and his work to overcome class differences in order to represent those in U.S. society who needed a voice.

Shakesville |  “Teddy, as he was known, was privileged, in every sense of the word. And he made liberal use of his privilege, in ways I admired and ways I did not. The terrible bargain we all seem to have made with Teddy is that we overlooked the occasions when he invoked his privilege as a powerful and well-connected man from a prominent family, because of the career he made using that same privilege to try to make the world a better place for the people dealt a different lot.”

Global Comment |  “Ted Kennedy ultimately believed his role – his responsibility – in the US Senate was to give voice to the voiceless, those who couldn’t afford to hire expensive K-Street lobby firms or embark upon expensive ad campaigns to raise public awareness. With over 300 pieces of legislation passed during his lengthy tenure in the Senate that bore his stamp in some form or fashion, it is not hyperbolic to say that Kennedy helped steer the direction of American civil society in the latter half of the 20th century. This is reflected by the broad cross-section of organizations that hailed his life and legacy upon hearing of his passing. The National Center for Transgender Equality, NARAL, the United Farm Workers and the NAACP; these disparate groups (along with countless others) all heralded the tireless social justice efforts of a man who never allowed his personal wealth to stop him from fighting to fully extend the inherent rights contained in US citizenship.”

RaceWire |  “Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death yesterday was a blow to the immigrant community, as New America Media reports. For over 40 years, Kennedy was a tireless fighter for immigrant rights and is remembered for many valuable accomplishments, not the least in making possible the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which did away with the national-origin quotas that had been in effect in the US since 1924. Additionally, Kennedy help bring a close to the exploitive Bracero program, which supplied the U.S. cheap and temporary labor during World War II in the form of Mexican farm laborers who did not have proper protections or rights. Senator Kennedy also helped author the AgJobs bill of 2003, which gave undocumented farmers residency so they could continue working in the U.S. His legacy in the progress of immigration legislation is not in doubt.”

Box Turtle Bulletin |  “From championing efforts to provide basic HIV/AIDS care in the 1980s when Sen. Jesse Helms and others were proposing quarantines and concentration camps, to insuring the American with Disabilities Act covered individuals with HIV, to standing firm against efforts to write discrimination into the federal constitution, Sen. Kennedy was out in front — often way out ahead of everyone else in leading the way for equality. That’s what a fierce advocate really looks like.”

The Root | “John, Robert and Ted were different men with seemingly the same directive: to make America’s dream accessible to everyone. John, Robert and Ted Kennedy seemed not to be just pandering politicians, but officials who people of color could trust to listen and respond, to act in the interest of people struggling to grasp a hold of the American Dream; to acknowledge everyone as stakeholder and not dismiss The Others as irrelevant. The Kennedys seem to value compassion as an essential human virtue and walked the talk in ways uncommon for politicians of any stripe. They didn’t wear their whiteness with authority — they were big on playing the human card and left matters of race and class to be argued by the pundits.  Ted Kennedy wanted a more perfect union and was willing to fight for it.”

Analysis …

• The U.S. military’s recruiting ads make war seem like a video game (Read more).
• New Orleans still waiting for recovery four years after Hurricane Katrina (Read more).
• Reading Rainbow’s last chapter (Read more).
• Why Scotland really released the Lockerbie bomber (Read more).
• There are more slaves today than ever before (Read more).
• Swine flu deaths could cause 90,000 deaths; where did that number come from? (Read more).

Driven to Distraction

I’m ashamed that I’ve done this: I’ve texted while driving.

Every time it’s happened, I scold myself for doing it, because to me it’s the utter height of carelessness. Driving a 2-ton machine along a speedy river of concrete alongside other 2-ton-plus machines is dangerous work; the slightest mistakes can result in damage to property and injury to drivers and passengers. Inattention while driving — whether it’s from talking on the cell phone (while is another thing I’m guilty of doing), eating (guilty), putting on makeup, changing the settings on your MP3 player (very very guilty) or sending and receiving text messages — has been called the leading cause of most traffic accidents.

I would never ever read anything other than street signs while I’m driving; I would never attempt to type a paper or a blog post while driving. So why would I do both at the same time, and with a teeny-tiny screen and complicated little keyboard to boot?

And yet, I still do it; that little message-alert beep demands not only my attention but a response that’s not going to the wait 10 minutes until I get to wherever I’m going, not matter what harm it might cause. And judging what I observe on the road, I’m not the only one. It’s a problem that has caused some states to penalize anyone who causes an accident because of texting while driving. The New York Times this week details what’s been going on in Utah, which has passed the U.S’s toughest law against texting while driving. According to Utah’s law, anyone who causes a fatal accident while texting behind the wheel can land up to 15 years in prison. According to the article:

The Utah law represents a concrete new response in an evolving debate among legislators around the country about how to reduce the widespread practice of multitasking behind the wheel — a topic to be discussed at a national conference about the dangers of distracted driving that is being organized by the Transportation Department for this fall.

Studies show that talking on a cellphone while driving is as risky as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level — generally the standard for drunken driving — and that the risk of driving while texting is at least twice that dangerous. Research also shows that many people are aware that the behavior is risky, but they assume others are the problem.

While such cases raise some issues about privacy — for example, do the police have the right to access drivers’ phone records — they also make clear the dangers that inattentive driving can have. And, I think, they also remind us of how easily we can become slaves to the technology and easy communication that are supposed to improve our lives. I want my cell phone and my text messages so that I can be in contact with my friends, co-workers and associates — especially in emergency situations. But I have to ask myself why it’s so important that I always be in contact, to the point where I’m risking the health and welfare of those around me. What are my obligations in each case?

I’ve started keeping my cell phone in my bag instead of in my pocket while I drive; the bag is helpfully stashed on the floor of the car, out of arm’s reach, so that even if I feel compelled to answer a text alert, I won’t be able to. As far as I’m concerned, instant access and easy communication aren’t worth the lives and well-being of others traveling down the road with me.

Have you sent text messages while driving? Do you think laws against texting while driving are beneficial or do they limit personal freedom?

What Lies Ahead for Sotomayor

Analysis …

Judge Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in last Friday as the U.S.’s third female and first Latina Supreme Court justice. While many columnists and analysts hailed her confirmation as a milestone in U.S. history, they also acknowledged that the nation still has a long way to go in the creating peace between those supporting and opposing Sotomayor’s nomination, as well as settling the issues about judicial objectivity.

The Christian Science Monitor |  “Are the politics of Associate Justice Sotomayor’s appointment now over? Far from it. In the Senate confirmation vote, all but a handful of Republicans voted against her, and many see this as trouble for a party increasingly rejected by Hispanic voters. And it’s not just Democrats making this point. Conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (a former Republican congressman) said this about the GOP’s action on Sotomayor: “What’s wrong with them? … It’s about as short-sighted and stupid as any political move this year. The first test could come in the midterm elections next year.”

Obsidian Wings |  “What concerns me about the Sotomayor debate was its defensiveness.  Progressive jurisprudence didn’t exactly come away a winner.  Just the opposite, in fact.  Sotomayor ran away from it, as did many of the legislators defending her.”

FiveThirtyEight |  “ I don’t think anybody should vote for (or against) Sotomayor because she’s Hispanic, nor do I think they should vote for her because their constitutents are. But given that Sotomayor is reasonably popular with the public — most polls show about 50 percent wanting a vote in favor of confirmation, 30 percent against, and 20 percent indifferent — I was expecting a few more ‘yeas’.”

Center for American Progress |  “While there’s every indication that Sotomayor will be an excellent justice, the sad reality is that at least for the near future her best work will be done in dissent. Indeed, Justice Sotomayor joins a Court dominated by a conservative majority that consistently places the profits of well-heeled interests ahead of the law.”

Tapped |  “As Supreme Court experts rarely fail to point out, Sonia Sotomayor’s accession to the Supreme Court this week will do little to shift future outcomes in hot button cases, because she will likely vote as did her predecessor, center-left Justice David Souter. Nevertheless, the confirmation ritual she has just completed could ultimately turn out to be a substantial plus for progressives. Her performance, and even more, statements by senators, especially Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, could reposition progressives on and off the Court with a new vision that spotlights the Roberts Court’s appetite for judicial supremacy and reactionary outcomes — “unabashed law-making,” as Justice John Paul Stevens recently put it.”

News …

• How cities make the struggles that come with poverty a crime (Read more). Also read Caitlin Frazier’s analysis on this issue at her blog.
• More U.S. families are relying on the wages of women — who are still earning less than men — as primary breadwinners as more men lose their jobs during the recession  (Read more).
• Sound and serious arguments about the “Cash for Clunkers” program (Read more).
• Where does empathy reside in the human brain? (Read more).

Execs Broker News Feud’s End

Analysis …

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

The New York Times reported last weekend that executives for the parent companies that own news channels Fox News and MSNBC held an off-the-record meeting in May and agreed to end the cross-network feud between anchors Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann. Even though the verbal skirmishes had boosted ratings for both networks and drawn large audiences, “I was time to grow up,” a senior employee of one of the networks said. Olbermann told the Times in an e-mail that he’s not part of any deal, but neither he nor O’Reilly have attacked one another or the parent companies or their opposing networks since June. Is this a case of returning civility to the airwaves in order to put attention on larger issues? Or are Newscorp and G.E. censoring their news departments? If you watch either of these programs, do you miss the sniping?

The Daily Beast |  “Their feud was just fine while it was boosting ratings and confined to name-calling between two schoolyard bullies—most of the nastiness coming from Olbermann, whose audience is a fraction of that of the man he enjoys insulting as “Bill-O the Clown”—but it got out of hand when Murdoch and Immelt became collaterally damaged victims. In recent years, Olbermann has personally attacked Murdoch as a dotty old man (doing his impression of an Aussie-accented pirate who keeps grunting “AAAARRH!”) and O’Reilly has attacked Immelt as an unpatriotic money-grubber who sells out America to enemies like Iran (while Bill-O incited his followers to flood GE’s switchboard and crash the company’s stockholders meetings).”

Open Left |  “For every blatant example of a newsroom or a journalist brazenly shilling for their corporate master’s bottom line, there are infinite examples of those newsrooms or journalists avoiding or omitting stories that might offend those masters’ in the first place. Is it, for instance, really just a coincidence that the frightening effects of corporate agriculture have rarely been the topic of all those Sunday “news” shows whose sponsor are Archer Daniels Midland? Is it really just a coincidence that Friedman shills for corporations and the wealthy, when he is member of a billionaire family? Is it really just a coincidence that a newspaper like the Washington Post, which was trying to effectively sell its news coverage to corporate interests, generates stories that tend to be particularly soft on corporations and chock full of unchallenged corporate PR?”

Glenn Greenwald @Salon |  “So now GE is using its control of NBC and MSNBC to ensure that there is no more reporting by Fox of its business activities in Iran or other embarrassing corporate activities, while News Corp. is ensuring that the lies spewed regularly by its top-rated commodity on Fox News are no longer reported by MSNBC.  You don’t have to agree with the reader’s view of the value of this reporting to be highly disturbed that it is being censored.”

Global Comment |  “This story, though, highlights all the flaws of a for-profit media scheme and even more so of corporate consolidation. If MSNBC was its own company, the only thing it would care about would be Olbermann’s ratings, and no doubt they’d encourage him to do whatever he had to do to inflate them. While that on its own might not be good for journalism, the fact that Olbermann’s freedom to speak is compromised because of unrelated interests of the parent company should give everyone pause. What if the big story of the day is about GE? Will MSNBC simply fail to report it? And since GE is one of the largest companies in the world, how many important stories are falling by the wayside because the profit motive keeps reporters from investigating?”

Political Animal |  “While Immelt and Murdoch have sought to protect their corporate interests, there are legitimate concerns about interference with news programming. Will Olbermann receive orders to stop doing reports on Fox News-related controversies? Is O’Reilly no longer eligible to be named the Worst Person in the World? For that matter, O’Reilly seemed extremely interested in GE’s contracts in Iran. Will the story no longer seem important?”

News …

• Juan Cole @Informed Comment takes a look at the trials for the 100 Iranian reformists who were detained after the nation’s June 12 elections (Read more).
• How the success of Iraq’s national soccer team could hold the key to rebuilding the country (Read more).
• New York City’s plan to evict the homeless from the city (Read more.)
• Some workers, fearing the loss of their jobs, are ignoring abuses and dangerous work environments (Read more). Related link: Dealing with On-the-Job Harassment  |  Voices of Xenia

Making Her Own Case

News …

The Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor began Monday morning. According to NPR, Sotomayor invoked her personal experiences in helping her understand each case before her, but in the end always makes her judgments according to the law.

Adam Serwer at Tapped says that answer was tailored to meet the criticisms of Senate Republicans, who have been raising questions about Sotomayor’s impartiality, particularly in regard to cases in which race is an element. Serwer writes:

Sotomayor’s comments were always about how life experience might affect a judge’s perspective–and how that can be both a problem and an asset, depending on a judge’s ability to recognize where their own perspective ends and the law begins. If Sotomayor was rattled by Republican senators alleging that this means she allows racial prejduice to influence her rulings, she didn’t show it–but there’s still ample opportunity for them to try and throw her off her game.

In the press conference after the hearing, Jeff Sessions said that “if that was the theme of her speeches over the last few years we’d have less of a difficulty with her nomination than we do.” It might help if he read the entire speech.

I suppose this is the good thing about Republican pundits broadcasting and publishing their criticisms about her 24/7, it’s unlikely that she’ll have any surprises.

CongressMatters is following Sotomayor’s hearings and covering all the bases, providing not just commentary, but also live-blogging and video posts. They even bring a member of Oklahoma’s delegation into the picture:

The day has been just as active on the WTF-are-you-talking-about-meters, as Tom Coburn did, when he groused that because Sotomayor had said that judging is subjective, she must really mean that there’s no room for objective fact in it.

Obviously ridiculous, and frankly, a pretty remarkably stupid thing to say.

Well, at least he’s not talking about John Ensign anymore …

The Daily Kos and Political Animal both took Associated Press White House correspondent Ron Fournier to task over his interpretation — literally — of the hearings. Rather than provide an analysis, Fournier offered a “translation” of what he heard behind Sotomayor’s opening statement. This is because, he said, “In the polite, white-hot world of confirmation hearings, senators and witnesses can’t always say what they want to say. So they speak in code.” For example:

WHAT SHE SAID: “If I introduced every one that’s family,” Sotomayor said with a strong voice and a smile, “we’d be here all morning.”

WHAT SHE MEANT: I may not look like all of you but, trust me, I’m no different than every other family-loving American. I’m surrounded by people who love me.

Political Animal called it “a “code” that only Fournier understands. The Daily Kos accused him of shilling for Rush Limbaugh. I think it’s just bad, and an example of what happenes when you put pressure on someone to be funny when they’re not.

If you’re not enjoying all the hullabaloo that the Sotomayor confirmation hearings are creating, since, after all, the odds of her not being confirmed are quite slim, then the American Prospect has an answer for you. Scott Lemieux says that the politicization of the process is helpful, not harmful, to U.S. democracy. He writes:

Ideally, the Sotomayor hearings would not be “depoliticized” but conducted as a more honest form of political and constitutional disagreement. Republicans should raise fair points about ideological conflict, and Democrats inside and outside the Senate should vigorously defend Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy rather than whining about the number of Republican Senators casting largely symbolic “no” votes. And questions about whether a nominee with sterling credentials by any historical standard is “qualified” to sit on the bench should be relentlessly exposed as the egregiously offensive double standards that they are.

I think that Democrats need a better strategy about whining about the symbolic “no” votes. Certainly, it seems to be that hanging up the process for ideological reasons alone is something that has to be addressed, but in a language that Republicans can understand.

Finally, Racism Review posted a video Monday from the Women’s Media Center that compiles all the racist and sexist attacks against Sotomayor. It’s tough to watch, and I think it underscores what’s behind the “symbolic no” (I say at risk of channeling Ron Fournier).

Ultimately, this is not discourse that should be happening at this level of either journalism or government. So how do we change the tone?

Analysis …

• Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, in his column at the Times (U.K.) Online, says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s resignation announcement is exactly like the type of shallow reality TV fodder that is characterizing the Republican Party. (Read more.)
• Billionaire T. Boone Pickens’ abandonment of his plan to build wind farms in Texas is an indication of how dire the search of renewable energy sources that won’t harm the planet is becoming. (Read more.)
• (via Matthew Yglesias @ThinkProgress) Has the digitization of personal entertainment — such as the books on the Kindle and music on the iPod — diminished our sense of aesthetics, or just our ability to flaunt our cultural snobbery? (Read more.)
• (hat tip to Alas, a Blog for this link) How a trip to the hairstylist led to the loss of health care: A call for the public option (Read more.)

News for June 30

Coups and Courts edition

Xenia News & Analysis, by the way, is a Michael Jackson news-free zone, since I’m pretty sure Xenia followers have no trouble whatsover finding event the tiniest iota of information, comments and blogs about the mega popstar’s death. I’ll have something to say about the media coverage over in Voices of Xenia shortly.

Meanwhile, on with the news.

What you might have missed while cable news stations were dedicated to covering Jackson’s death from every angle were a military coup in Honduras this weekend that took President Manuel Zelaya out of power, and on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that white firefighters in Connecticut were subjected to discrimination when their city threw out a hiring test on which black candidates had performed poorly. That decision overturned a ruling made by Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor, prompting discussion about the intersection of race, law and politics. The coup on Honduras, meanwhile, is creating more criticism about how the U.S. media is covering events from afar.

Crisis in Honduras

Honduran soldiers stand in front of government offices. Photo by rbreve/Flickr, used in CC license

The New York Times |  “The United States has long had strong ties to the Honduras military and helps train Honduran military forces. Those close ties have put the Obama administration in a difficult position, opening it up to accusations that it may have turned a blind eye to the pending coup. Administration officials strongly deny the charges, and Mr. Obama’s quick response to the Honduran president’s removal has differed sharply from the actions of the Bush administration, which in 2002 offered a rapid, tacit endorsement of a short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez.”

Alterdestiny |  “Widespread condemnation from the international community and rising pressure from labor unions and the poor could plunge Honduras into crisis pretty quickly. With Barack Obama, the EU, and Hugo Chavez all opposing the Honduran military, it’s hard to see how the coup can survive. Honduras has been a US client state for decades. Banana companies controlled the country in the early 20th century. It was the home of the Contras when they organized to launch against the Sandinistas. Today, it is a major center of maquiladoras. So there is a long American tradition of exercising power here. Given this history, can the military hold up in the face of real U.S. opposition? Much I think depends on what the U.S. opposition looks like. If Obama backs this up with some economic reprisals, decline in aid, etc., I think the coup falls apart in a heartbeat. If not, it might survive.”

Figgy |  “Now, about this protest. I have to be honest about this, too. You know how I know it was happening? Because CNN Spanish was showing it. No local news channels were showing images. CNN SPanish finally had a reporter on the ground, and she was very emphatic saying that the crowds were NOT in the thousands, and that the police had NOT provoked them. And then the CNN signal cut off. That was bad. If the new government wants to look fair, they really cannot keep cutting off the flow of information. That is pretty bad. But Tegucigalpa is a tiny city, so the news spread fast. the crowds DID disperse pretty quickly.

“After that, it was fairly quiet. We still have a 9pm-6am curfew. But through this all we’re hearing CNN interviewing Zelaya and Hugo Chavez saying how he’ll do anything to get Zelaya back into power. Do you know how terrifying that is to hear? When people here are trying to get back to their normal lives, when Congress is doing everything legally (after the coup and the “resignation” of course)? It’s not RIGHT, dammit, that Zelaya keeps saying he’ll come back at the head of an army or whatever, and we’re sitting here just…waiting for this to go down peacefully. Information is so very confusing, is my point. But I’m speaking from my heart, and I am being as rational as I can.”

The Brookings Institution |  “Now the Honduran military have responded in kind: an illegal referendum has met an illegal military intervention, with the avowed intention of protecting the constitution. Moreover, as has been so often the case, this intervention has been called for and celebrated by Zelaya’s civilian opponents. For the past week, the Honduran Congress has waxed lyrical about the armed forces as the guarantors of the constitution, a disturbing notion in Latin America. When we hear that, we can expect the worst. And the worst has happened. At the very least, we are witnessing in Honduras the return of the sad role of the military as the ultimate referee in the political conflicts amongst the civilian leadership, a huge step back in the consolidation of democracy.”

Beautiful Horizons |  “What I can gather about Zelaya is that he may very well have overreached and that he had made a lot of enemies. There is, however, a solution for this: laws. Given the region’s literally tortured history, the military should never ever take a role in deciding who is in power except to restore a legitimately elected government.”

• Related link: In Pictures  |  BBC News

The Politics of Ricci

RaceWire |  “In the view of the court’s narrow majority, the exam proved the white firefighters’ merit, and the city unjustly denied them opportunity. But if the quality of the test, as the city contended, was too weak to withstand a legal challenge on civil rights grounds, then what kind of merit did the court reward? How does society weigh those scores against the burden of historical injustice?”

Obsidian Wings |  “To step back, Ricci doesn’t really turn on all the various complex legal doctrines that you’ve probably read about.  When you scrape away the legalese (i.e., the Matrix), the case is really about one’s political opinion of certain remedies for historical racial discrimination.  Conservatives like Roberts don’t really (in their heart of hearts) think racial discrimination is a problem anymore.  Innocent white people can’t keep paying the price for crimes their ancestors committed.

“Others, like Ginsburg, view the issue more historically.  They don’t see racial discrimination in terms of the personal moral failings of our ancestors, but as deep structural harms whose legacy lives on and must be addressed.  It’s like a river that has carved a deep canyon over centuries.  Even when the water gets turned off, the canyon remains.

“That’s what Ricci is about.  The legal doctrine is simply a mask for this political fight.”

The Daily Beast |  “Unlike Scalia and Alito, I don’t think it’s avoidable or disturbing that white male judges find it easy to empathize with white male litigants. What’s disturbing is that they do think it’s avoidable—and therefore they also believe it’s both legally and politically irrelevant that 106 of the Supreme Court’s 110 justices have been white males.”

Adam Serwer @Ta-Nehisi Coates |  “The problem with the conservatives Justice’s reasoning–in particular Sam Alito’s preoccupation with politicians being concerned with the interests of black voters–is that it removes racial discrimination from all historical context. This is not like the kind of pervasive, deliberate, racial discrimination that was once a staple of hiring for municipal jobs, nor is it like residual systemic discrimination that favors candidates with certain external advantages that have nothing to do with ability. Throwing out the tests was, instead, the result of the city being careless in how it composed the test–unfair to those who studied for it, not just because promotions were denied, but because the test was flawed to begin with. There’s no getting around the fact that Frank Ricci was wronged–but in my view, the city wronged everyone who took the test, period.”

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen |  “I am afraid for my country. This country has a permanent black underclass; Hispanic economic mobility is not much better. Decades of affirmative action have done little to fix that. Now, we appear ready to abandon those attempts to level the playing field entirely. Of course, principles and ideals are important. But my question is open, and I apply it to the most thoughtful opponents of affirmative action and the most rabid and unthinking alike: what are the effects, for our country, of a permanent racial achievement divide? And can we reasonably expect to maintain a peaceful and just society with such a gap between the races?

“And how long can we continue to pretend that these questions aren’t staring us in the face, or that they don’t matter?”

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