Line of the day

“These opinions have an agenda. They seek to demonize the Obama Presidency and mainstream liberal politics in general. The conservatism they prefer is not the traditional conservatism of such figures as Taft, Nixon, Reagan, Buckley or Goldwater. It is a frightening new radical fringe movement, financed by such as the newly notorious billionaire Koch brothers, whose hatred of government extends even to opposition to tax funding for public schools.”

Roger Ebert

Why?

121 American soldiers died in Afghanistan in July and August.

Ghost Wars

At Live From Silver City Avelino takes a look at Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. One-third of the way through, and Avelino is already recommending the book.

“I’m incredibly impressed with Ghost Wars. It’s an elaborate, if chilling, history of the events leading up to some of the most important events in our lifetimes.”

He also recommends Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory, the story of Pat Tillman and the coverup.

“Like other Krakauer books, the text is engaging and (at least to me) moving.”

Follow the link above and read more of what Avelino has to say about these two books. He got me interested.

Katrina

Katrina made landfall five years ago this morning. The first levee at New Orleans was breached at 8:14 am. By the next day, 80% of the city was underwater.

Spike Lee’s documentaries When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise, David Simon’s Treme, and Dave Eggers’s excellent book Zeitoun all deserve your attention.

What you heard and saw on TV during the actual event was mostly bull shit.

Best line of the day

“We’re The Greatest Nation In The History Of The Universe

“But some things are just too expensive.”

Eschaton linking to this news item:

“Fire departments around the nation are cutting jobs, closing firehouses and increasingly resorting to “rolling brownouts” in which they shut different fire companies on different days as the economic downturn forces many cities and towns to make deep cuts that are slowing their responses to fires and other emergencies.”

♫ In the chapel bells are ringing ♫

Another nice essay from Roger Ebert. His last line is definitely best line of the day material, but no looking ahead.

Line of the day

“In fact if you follow Fox News and the Limbaugh/Hannity afternoon radio crew, this summer’s blowout has almost seemed like an intentional echo of the notorious Radio Rwanda broadcasts ‘warning’ Hutus that they were about to be attacked and killed by conspiring Tutsis, broadcasts that led to massacres of Tutsis by Hutus acting in ‘self-defense.’ ”

Matt Taibbi

He has examples of their inflammatory talk.

And this:

“There’s nothing in the world more tired than a progressive blogger like me flipping out over the latest idiocies emanating from the Fox News crowd. But this summer’s media hate-fest is different than anything we’ve seen before. What we’re watching is a calculated campaign to demonize blacks, Mexicans, and gays and convince a plurality of economically-depressed white voters that they are under imminent legal and perhaps even physical attack by a conspiracy of leftist nonwhites. They’re telling these people that their government is illegitimate and criminal and unironically urging secession and revolution.”

You should read Taibbi’s whole post.

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings

From another good column by Timothy Egan:

… It’s not just that 47 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. …

Who ya’ going to believe?

“Americans can confidently and safely enjoy Gulf seafood once again … In fact we had some yesterday.”

President Obama on Monday
______

“The government is telling us the waters and seafood are safe, but I would not feed my family on anything I catch out there now.”

Jerry Miller, who has fished off Mississippi’s coast for 35 years

We are all descended from immigrants

If you know Americans of Chinese, Canadian, Brazilian, Mexican, Eastern European, Italian, Greek, or Irish ancestry, or any other, for that matter, ask around. You may be surprised at how many descendants of unauthorized immigrants turn up, people who seem indistinguishable from any other doctor or student, mechanic or professor. Hispanic immigrants are following the same pattern as other immigrant groups of increasing English speaking ability and family income as generations pass.

In the past, America has come to regret policies denying citizenship to particular groups, policies like Dred Scott, and the racial tests for naturalized citizenship in force from 1790 to 1952. These policies always rested on the idea that some immigrants — almost always non-white — would not make good citizens. Doubt about the ability of the United States to take in and benefit from every branch of the human family has always been proved wrong, and, we have no doubt, will be here as well.

From Parents, Children, and Citizenship by Birth, a must-read on immigration, the 14th Amendment and citizenship.

I wonder how my own French Canadian ancestors came across the border.

Best analogy of the day

I’ll be watching the Little League World Series over the next week (it’s on ESPN), which might be an odd place to look for perspective on all this. But here’s some: in 1955, sixty-two local Little Leagues in the state of South Carolina entered the tournament that leads to the Little League World Series. For the first time, one of them consisted of black players—the Cannon Street YMCA All Stars. None of the sixty-one other teams had a single black player, and every one of them refused to play Cannon Street. They wanted them out of the tournament. Instead, the Little League head office disqualified the sixty-one white teams.

Amy Davidson : The New Yorker writing in the context of the Burlington Coat Factory mosque. Read the rest of her story.

Probable cause, where art thou?

NewMexiKen never quite knows how much salt to take with some of the stories The Consumerist relays, but if this is even remotely true, TSA and other law enforcement are increasingly over the line. The Constitutional line.

Nice bit of misogyny too, I’d say.

Best bad heir line of the day

“So in the law as now written, heirs to great wealth face the following situation: If your ailing mother passes away on Dec. 30, 2010, you inherit her estate tax-free. But if she makes it to Jan. 1, 2011, half the estate will be taxed away. That creates some interesting incentives. Maybe they should have called it the Throw Momma From the Train Act of 2001.”

Paul Krugman — May 30, 2001

Line of the day

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

Dana Priest and William M. Arkin | washingtonpost.com

Best line of the day

“There are now about 250 million people worldwide living in jurisdictions which provide for marriage equity …”

Nate Silver — FiveThirtyEight

“Right now, it’s possible to marry your same-sex partner in Buenos Aires, in Mexico City, in Ames, Iowa, and in Pretoria, South Africa, but not in San Francisco.”

Time marches on

Argentina early this morning became the tenth nation to make same-sex marriage legal.

Argentina
Belgium
Canada
Iceland
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Sweden

Same-sex marriages are also performed in Mexico City and in Connecticut, D.C., Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Civil unions and registered partnerships are recognized in:

Andorra
Austria
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Finland
France
Germany
Greenland
Hungary
Luxembourg
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Slovenia
Switzerland
Wallis and Futuna
United Kingdom
Uruguay

And parts of Australia and Mexico, and the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.

Maryland, New York and Rhode Island recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states (as the Constitution requires).

Does it matter?

Andrew Sullivan has been, somewhat singlehandedly, pursuing the Trig Palin birth story. He simply does not believe Sarah Palin’s undocumented tale. Sullivan posts a lot on his blog (even by my standards) and I’ve learned to skim and skip, and I skim and skip the Trig business because I just don’t care.

But this week Sullivan is on vacation and one of his guest bloggers, Dave Weigel, put up a post about Believing Sarah Palin. Weigel took Sullivan to task for continuing to pursue this matter — “People want him to take a deep breath and stop obsessing over this conspiracy theory. Count me among those people.”

Well don’t count litbrit among those people. She has Some serious questions for Dave Weigel re: his decidedly unserious and woefully uninformed Sarah Palin assertions.

So, to rephrase my intial question, as pertains to the first of these big lies about Trig: If a male candidate for high office described an act of bravery in war that never happened, complete with details about leaking body fluids, and he were elected president, and then it was proven that said story was just that–pure fabrication–is it your contention, Dave, that it wouldn’t matter at all?

Litbrit makes an interesting case, whatever you believe, and whether you think this matters or not. She surely takes Weigel apart.

Often wrong, never in doubt

Mr. Franks’ latest comment is so erroneous I could not in good faith post it without correcting much of his misinformation. And I wasn’t comfortable just discarding it.

So here it is, in its entirety, in italics, with my response. It’s here for my readers edification; I see no point in continuing the discussion with Mr. Franks, though I wrote this as if he were a reasonable man.

Well, I do not see the relevance in the fourteenth amendment in the “right” of marriage. No place in the Constitution or Bill of Bights specifically or precisely states that Marriage of any kind is a Right granted to anyone.

So, My comment was entirely correct.

No, you are mistaken. First, I did not claim a right to marriage. (One does seem inherent in the “pursuit of happiness” doctrine of the Declaration of Independence though, doesn’t it?)

But more on point, the Fourteenth Amendment specifically says, “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That means, for example, that no state can enable Ford owners to register their trucks but deny Chevrolet owners the same privilege. The due process clause will soon come to mean also that no state can enable some persons to choose their spouse but deny others the same privilege. That is inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.

To deny equal protection, the state must have an over-ridding public purpose. Denying same sex marriage is no more of an over-ridding public purpose than denying inter-racial marriage was. And the court ended state bans on inter-racial marriage 43 years ago.

If I recall correctly:
The fourteenth was specifically written for black people allowing them to be recognized as legal American Citizens. Giving them the Right to be Americans.
It has little if anything to do with anything else. It was never intended to do anything else. This Applies to LIFE, LIBERTY and PROPERTY. Apply it how you wish but the facts are the facts Sir.

No, you are mistaken. Whatever its origins, whatever the intentions, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been applied to many issues beyond race. In addition to Brown (school segregation), the 14th amendment due process clause has been used in Gideon (right to counsel), Miranda (right to be advised of your rights), Griswold (right to contraceptive devices) and Roe (right to abortion), among others.

You may not like these rights, but that doesn’t mean the Fourteenth Amendment wasn’t applied in winning them.

“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;” This means each state has the right to legislate marriage ie. due process of law. Which in fact most do.

The language you quote does not grant the states any rights. It limits the states. But, in any case, I am not saying states cannot legislate marriage statutes. I am saying the Constitution requires that the states provide equal protection when they do.

It is highly unlikely that the amendment will be applied to Marriage Gay or any other kind.

No, you are mistaken. The due process clause was key to the argument to overturn California’s Proposition 8 in the recent trial. My point yesterday was that “ultimately” the courts and legislators will apply the Fourteenth Amendment to state marriage laws.

As far as I am aware there is no Federal Law against it now.

But hey that’s just me I suppose.

Once again you are mistaken. There is a federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C. DOMA says no state has to recognize marriage of same sex partners in another state, and defines marriage for the federal government as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

The first portion is clearly unconstitutional under Article IV, Section 1: “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” The second part is unconstitutional under the federal due process clause in the Fifth Amendment.

The courts will get there. One federal court (Reagan appointee) ruled DOMA unconstitutional last week.

Great point though.

Indeed. For those tired of waiting I am sorry, but you can feel better I think knowing that, as the Rolling Stones sang, “time is on my side.”

Marriage

To those who oppose marriage for any two persons who wish to be married, I ask simply:

Is marriage important, yes or no?

Do you think marriage helps children who are being raised, yes or no?

Do you think it hurts people (legally, socially, emotionally or financially) not to be married if they want to be married, yes or no?

How specifically could gay and lesbian marriage damage your marriage?

Isn’t America about equality?

Gay Marriage on Trial

David Boies describes why opposing witnesses in the Prop 8 trial failed.

4:45 after the brief ad.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Best line about the hearing

“[Elena Kagan] seems fully comfortable standing before this committee and suggesting something which no recent nominee has ever dared suggest: Supreme Court justices should be among the nine smartest people in the land, and guess what? I’m one of ‘em!”

Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine

Afghanistan, June, 2010

This month has been the deadliest month yet for foreign troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of Defense now reports that one hundred coalition troops were killed this month. The death toll for 2010 to date now stands at 320. With soldiers and equipment still arriving in the country, peak troop strength is anticipated to reach 150,000 by August. And, with the removal of General Stanley McChrystal from command of Afghanistan following an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone magazine, a shift in leadership is underway with General David Petraeus attending confirmation hearings now. Efforts are now being made ot both weaken the Taliban and pressure them to reconcile with the Afghan government, but progress is slow, and many earlier gains are becoming unstable once more. Collected here are images of the country and conflict over the past month, part of an ongoing monthly series on Afghanistan. … (42 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

Impressive array. Many emotions.

‘Please Remove Your Shoes’

From Ask the Pilot, Patrick Smith’s review of “Please Remove Your Shoes.”

Still, though, my favorite line in the film is this one from FAA security agent Steve Elson: “They [TSA] focus on all kinds of minutiae and crap, rather than the items they need to.” Elson tells the story of the time a simulated bomb was run through an X-ray machine with a bottle of water placed on top of it. Guards caught the water, of course, but missed the bomb.

The Stringer and the Snake-eater

From David J. Morris at The Virginia Quarterly Review Blog, as good a summary as you’ll find about what they were thinking and why. A key excerpt:

It is still a little difficult to believe that an accomplished fifty-five-year-old officer would say and allow his staff to say the outrageous things in the Rolling Stone article. You can just hear the chorus in Washington: “What was he thinking?” But then, I think McChrystal and his buddies didn’t expect that Hastings would actually write down everything they said and put it into print. It’s an unfortunate staple of Beltway journalism that has bled over into war reporting that most reporters are loathe to burn their sources by writing derogatory things about them. To be blunt, most reporters are as career-obsessed as the officers they’re interviewing and they don’t want to poison the well. This is doubly true if the officer being interviewed is a four-star general. There is a simple reciprocity involved: if you want to be invited back to ride on The Boss’s helicopter, if you want continued access, you’d better not write about his soft spot for strippers and gin. That said, it’s a naturally antagonistic relationship and most officers hate reporters because they represent a threat to their reputations. There are no medals awarded for conspicuous gallantry in a press conference. . . .

Enter into this mix Michael Hastings, a reporter who apparently had made a decision at some point to not play by the normal rules; who can be friendly, interested, and reasonably non-threatening in-person; whose brother is an army officer; and who was writing for what is primarily a pop culture magazine. McChrystal and his staff, jangled and beat-down after literally years of being in and out of various combat zones, probably thought they were coming across as hip and irreverent in front of the Rolling Stone guy, knowing that there was a far better chance their teenage daughters were going to read about them there than in the back pages of the National Review. Of course, many of those staff officers are now dealing with what amounts to the final mistake of their careers within an organization that doesn’t forgive much in the way of media fiascos.

Link via Andrew Sullivan.

The Last Firing Squad

Around midnight last Friday the shoeless prisoner was roused from a nap and strapped into a chair. The guards put a patch over his heart, the firing squad’s target from 25 feet. Any last words?

“I do not. No.”

With that, a black hood was placed over the bald head of the condemned man, and the countdown began . . .

So begins Timothy Egan’s story of The Last Firing Squad. It merits your click.