Joel Mathis

Some of my conservative friends have challenged me to take a position on President Obama's rule that religiously affiliated organizations must provide contraception coverage as part of the health insurance they provide employees. Truth be told, I've been torn. On the one hand, I'm a big believer in religious liberty. E.J. Dionne—no squishy liberal— makes a lot of sense to me when he upbraids the Obama Administration for its choice. He wrote: "Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the church would be more open on the contraception question. But speaking as an American liberal who believes that religious pluralism imposes certain obligations on government, I think the church’s leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings. The administration should have done more to balance the competing liberty interests here." On the other hand, I believe that women have a right to contraception a

Greg Sargent : Depressingly, Democrats approve of the drone strikes on American citizens by 58-33, and even liberals approve of them, 55-35. Those numbers were provided to me by the Post polling team. It’s hard to imagine that Dems and liberals would approve of such policies in quite these numbers if they had been authored by George W. Bush. That's right. I've already written about my angst about President Obama and the way he's gone against my hopes and expectations, where civil liberties are concerned. But Sargent is right: If George W. Bush was commanding drones to assassinate American citizens, the left would be up in arms. But somebody from our tribe is pulling the trigger now, so no big thing, right? If you trust Obama with that power, liberals, understand: Eventually there will be another Republican president. Maybe not in 2012. But it will happen. Will you trust that president—Rick Santorum, say, or Paul Ryan—to use that power in a way that you also trust? An

Checking my traffic logs, I can't help but notice that somebody in Washington D.C. is apparently going through my archives quite a bit over the last 12 hours. A sample: This, of course, makes me feel quite curious. If you're my D.C. reader, feel free to drop me a line!

Ben and I use this week's Scripps Howard column to consider recent comments by novelist Jonathan Franzen. Do e-books signal the end of democracy? My take . Last year, I read "The Federalist Papers" for the first time. The book is a collection of 200-year-old newspaper essays from Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison -- Founding Fathers all -- explaining and defending the Constitution of the United States. I read almost none of it on paper. Instead, I read the venerable document on these devices: a netbook, an iPhone, my iPad, a desktop computer and a Kindle. I took notes and made highlights, and many of the ideas I discovered and engaged in that book, on those devices, later became the basis for points I make in this weekly column. According to Franzen, though, my experience is impossible. According to Franzen, I should've opted to use those devices to play "Angry Birds" instead. When new technologies come along, old technologies are replace

The Daily News columnist takes it to a new level today , trying to find an avenue through which she can praise the now-late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua while also coming to terms with two grand jury reports that suggest he covered up expansive child sex abuse by priests under his command. Here's the weirdest part of a weird column: The truth is, Anthony Bevilacqua was no saint. If the grand-jury allegations are true and he transferred known sex offenders to other parishes instead of notifying the police that crimes were occurring on his watch, his conduct was criminal. Stop right there, Christine, that's great. No need to elabora— And yet, perhaps it was his sense of propriety - and redemption - that led him to shuffle priests as if they were chess pieces, believing that the interest of the church, the priests and the alleged victims would be better served by silence. It's a concept that doesn't carry much weight in a society that now rewards shouts and exhibitionis

I meant to make mention of Ronnie Polanecsky's excellent column yesterday in the Daily News, pointing out that while Archbishop Charles Chaput is pushing for a state law that would, essentially, direct taxpayer money to Philadelphia's Catholic schools, his subordinates are also making it virtually impossible for Catholic families to choose which Catholic school they want to attend. His notion of "school choice" then, is one in which the church gets to choose—not you. Since Chaput seems to be putting his muscle behind this effort, though, I feel it's important to point out something: Chaput was the archbishop in Denver when a Catholic school there rejected a student because that student had two mommies. Now: I don't like that, but that's certainly the right of a church-affiliated private school. But I also don't really want my tax dollars to subsidize discrimination against my gay neighbors, either. If Chaput can promise that Catholic schools

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died Tuesday night . I arrived in Philadelphia in 2008, after he'd retired, yet his name has been regularly in the news the entire time I've been here. Why? Because he was running the archdiocese when it apparently kept a lid on child molestation accusation. As the Philadelphia Inquirer's obit notes, "In September 2005, after a 40-month grand jury investigation into clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office issued a report excoriating Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol for systematically allowing hundreds of abuser priests to go unpunished and ignoring the victims." But aside from an oblique reference to governing the archdiocese during a time of "crisis," the Inquirer's obit doesn't explicitly reference the sex abuse scandal until the 12th paragraph. It's an odd choice. But to be fair, it appears to be one that the Inquirer makes regularly: It's recent news story anno

Mitt Romney may indeed have unkind feelings about America's poor, but I don't think this quote is proof of that: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.” This isn't a " screw the poor " moment. Romney is clearly saying that the safety net has covered the poor, so he wants to focus on getting the middle class moving again. It may be awkwardly phrased, but it's actually a pretty Clintonesque formulation. Now: It's not been so long since Romney's campaign had great fun taking a quote from President Obama wildly out of context , so if this new quote dogs him in the campaign, it'll be hard to be sympathetic. But an honest evaluation of his comments doesn't really come out quite as anti

Oil well drilling activity continued to increase in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to API's 2011 Quarterly Well Completion Report: Fourth Quarter . The report estimates that 6,149 oil wells were completed in fourth quarter 2011, a 10 percent increase from year-ago levels. "There's good news that domestic drilling continued to increase into the fourth quarter of 2011," said Hazem Arafa, director of API's statistics department.  "And with policies that allow greater access to the vast energy resources right here at home, we can provide even more of the energy our country needs while hiring more American workers and generating more revenue for our government." via api-ec.api.org

That's the question in this week's Scripps Howard column , following up on yesterday's Gallup poll and President Obama's State of the Union comment that "We can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules." My take: "Fairness" can be a slippery concept, so let's use Obama's formulation as our guide. In the American economy, does everybody get a fair shot? Does everyone do a fair share? Does everyone play by the same set of rules? No. Yes. No. No, not everybody gets a fair shot. Sixty-five percent of American men born poor stay poor, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Sixty-two percent of those born rich stay rich. Other studies show that it's much easier to rise from humble circumstances if you're a native of Canada, Norway, Finland or Denmark than in the United States. The poor often lack the education and resources to advance in

Adam Serwer : During his interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos this morning, Newt Gingrich was asked just how far he was willing to go in order to eliminate the Castro regime in Cuba. Gingrich said that he thought it was "baloney" that Obama intervened in Libya (a decision Gingrich was on both sides of on multiple occasions) but apparently hadn't thought of bombing Cuba. Gingrich said this contrast was "fascinating," and wondered why Obama "doesn't quite notice Cuba." You know, I've wondered the same thing about Ronald Reagan . He too bombed Libya and didn't bomb Cuba! I blame Saul Alinsky and Kenyan anti-colonialism for Reagan's weakness. More seriously: We don't expend much in the way of resources in toppling Castro because Castro represents no security threat at all the the United States. None. Zero. Zilch. He doesn't like us, and we don't like him, but the Communist regime there isn't going to do anything to

Via Gallup , we learn that Americans are roughly divided on whether the country's economic system is fair—but that 62 percent believe that the system is fair to them personally. Here's where it gets interesting. Fifty-six percent of Democrats believe the system is unfair. Fifty percent of independents believe the same. Only 42 percent of Republicans think the system is unfair. Weirdly, though, more Democrats than Republicans believe they've profited from that system: The columns, from left, are "fair," "unfair," and "no opinion." There's a rough correlation between whether Republicans believe the economic system is fair and whether they believe the system is fair to them . That correlation pretty much disappears for independents and Democrats. Why is that?

Sounds preposterous, but via The Notebook , here's the City Controller formally and publicly telling the district that "we have identified various conditions and events that, when considered in the aggregate, indicate there may be substantial doubt about the School District's ability to continue as a going concern." Man. I don't wanna move to the suburbs.

For most of my life, the 1960s have loomed large in the political life of the country. If you loved the 1960s, you were probably a liberal who loved the Civil Rights movement, feminism, Medicare—all the things that made the era perhaps the last great moments of center-left ascendancy in the United States. And if you hated the 1960s,  you probably missed the simpler times of the 1950s, when "Ozzie and Harriet" and Ward Cleaver ruled the airwaves, and life was orderly and a little more moral. Somewhere in the last few years, though, the script has flipped. Liberals have come to embrace the relative economic egalitarianism of America in the 1950s—blacks and women notably excepted—while conservative Republicans seem to view Dwight Eisenhower as an accomodationist who too easily surrendered to the welfare state designs of his Democratic predecessors. I'm not sure where all this started to change. Paul Krugman's "The Conscience of a Liberal" certainly celebrate

One of my criticisms of President Obama has been his seeming willingness to sit back and let Congress take the lead on certain issues, refusing to wade into certain lawmaking issues that might force him to get his hands dirty. One reason the Affordable Care Act debate lingered for a year was that the president left most of the dickering to Congress.* So the way I figure it, when Obama gives a State of the Union address and recommends policies, but casts himself in the passive role in getting those policies passed, you can be sure the president won't actually be pushing for those policies.  My rule of thumb for determining what those policies are? When the president asks Congress to "send me" a bill—instead of suggesting he'll send Congress a bill to get passed. The passive "send me" happened four times in the State of the Union: • He won't push to take tax breaks from companies shipping jobs overseas and give them to companies building their businesses

The Congressional Research Service offers an overview : President Reagan initiated this practice in earnest, transforming the signing statement into a mechanism for the assertion of presidential authority and intent. President Reagan issued 250 signing statements, 86 of which (34%) contained provisions objecting to one or more of the statutory provisions signed into law. President George H. W. Bush continued this practice, issuing 228 signing statements, 107 of which (47%) raised objections. President Clinton’s conception of presidential power proved to be largely consonant with that of the preceding two administrations. In turn, President Clinton made aggressive use of the signing statement, issuing 381 statements, 70 of which (18%) raised constitutional or legal objections. President George W. Bush continued this practice, issuing 161 signing statements, 127 of which (79%) contain some type of challenge or objection. The significant rise in the proportion of constitutional objection

A reader of the Scripps Howard column sent a lengthy reply--too lengthy for me to care to excerpt in its entirety--cataloging a list of destructive policies imposed on the country by Democrats. Some of it is hilariously off-base. For instance, did you know that Democrats created... Slavery. This practice was originated by the Democrats in the middle 1800's so that farmers in the deep South could pick their crops with cheap labor. Democrats are quick to counter that these were different times and so was the party. But a look at the economic facts behind the practice of slavery shows that it was based on the same theme they are pushing today. Democrats advocated slavery as the only way the South could compete with the wealthy railroad tycoons like the Rockefellers in the North. This tired Socialist Doctrine mimics the Democrats campaign cry today that it's the "rich" who are responsible for all our problems. Slavery also was the beginning of the Democrats phylos

Over the last year, there's been a lot of celebration in the local media about how college-educated parents are staying Philadelphia and raising their kids here—and even sending them to the better of the city's public schools . While Philadelphia has a lot of problems, the revitalization of Center City has generally been judged to be a good thing. I suspect that progress is very much threatened: In plainer, starker terms than it had ever used before, the School Reform Commission laid out the district's financial woes to the public in a dramatic meeting Thursday night. Commissioner Feather Houstoun, who chairs the SRC's finance committee, said the situation was much worse than people realized. And with 51/2 months before the end of the school year and little left to cut, the only options left on the table are bad ones - possibilities include cutting all spring sports, all instrumental music, all gifted programs, half the district's psychologists. Oh, and all

I actually agree with Daily News columnist Christine Flowers that churches, synagogues, mosques, etc., should have the right to choose their own ministers without government interference. But I think she distorts the facts of one case she references: Things do get murky when money is involved. As Catholic Charities of Illinois found out, the state can put you out of the adoption business if it thinks that you're discriminating with public funds. Just to be absolutely accurate: The state didn't put Catholic Charities out of the adoption business. Catholic Charities put itself out of the adoption business in Illinois rather than comply with state rules and help gay couples adopt kids. Flowers' description is legally defensible, I suppose—she is a lawyer, after all—but her characterization really misses the point of what happened.

American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report obtained by The New York Times. A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban . The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan. via nytimes.com

Suicides among active-duty soldiers hit another record high in 2011, Army officials said on Thursday, although there was a slight decrease if nonmobilized Reserve and National Guard troops were included in the calculation. The Army also reported a sharp increase, nearly 30 percent, in violent sex crimes last year by active-duty troops. More than half of the victims were active-duty female soldiers ages 18 to 21. via nytimes.com

What is clear, though, is that a large majority of American households — about two out of three — pays less than 15 percent of income to the federal government, through either income taxes or payroll taxes. This disconnect between what we pay and what we think we pay is nothing less than one of the country’s biggest economic problems. Many Americans see themselves as struggling under the weight of a heavy tax burden (partly for the understandable reason that wage growth has been so weak). Yet taxes in the United States are quite low today, compared with past years or those in other countries. Most important, American taxes are not sufficient to pay for the programs that many people want, like Medicare , Social Security , road construction and education subsidies. What does this combination create? An enormous long-term budget deficit . via nytimes.com Read the whole thing.

Ben and I talk about Newt Gingrich's food stamp comments in this week's Scripps Howard column. Is he running a racist campaign? My take : Here's a little rule of thumb: If a politician offends someone but doesn't immediately "clarify" his remarks after the backlash, he meant to give offense. The fact that Gingrich doubled down on his remarks with smirking, sneering, patronizing comments to Fox News' Juan Williams -- an African-American journalist -- leaves little doubt: He is counting on the racism of South Carolina's Republican voters to keep him alive in the GOP nominating contest. There's a long, storied and relatively recent history of racist appeals to the South Carolina electorate. In 2000, John McCain appeared to be a threat to George W. Bush's march to the GOP nomination -- until someone circulated fliers accusing McCain of fathering a black daughter. McCain lost South Carolina, and with it his chance to be president. So Gingrich&

Yes, I think that's the case that Seth Mandel is making today . Because Romney is really wealthy, he's a minority that will have trouble overcoming the prejudices of a majority of Americans who are unlike him: If Romney is the Republican nominee there is no chance Obama would refrain from the class warfare rhetoric he has already outlined. But the ironic thing about this line of attack is that it must insinuate, because to say it plainly–that Romney is unlike most voters–would outrage many Americans. Obviously Romney’s election would not carry nearly the same cultural significance as Obama’s, but Romney would nonetheless face a challenge somewhat similar to the difficulty Obama had in explaining himself to voters. If Romney is elected president, it won’t be quite so dramatic, to say the least. But it will mean he had overcome a parallel challenge: his story, that of an honest, hardworking family man who built a life for himself and his loved ones through effort, education, s

Americans' satisfaction with the size and power of the federal government is at a record-low 29% and their satisfaction with the size and influence of major corporations remains near the all-time low at 30% -- making both highly susceptible targets for politicians and presidential candidates in this election year. via gallup.com

A letter-writer responds to the Scripps Howard column on Mitt Romney and Bain Capital : History shows that the "People not profits" slogan does "bear up under examination" contrary to Joel Mathis' assertion that it just "sounds cool". For example, KB Toys, an American company founded in 1922, employed manufacturing line workers, designers, engineers, and a host of supply chain jobs for thousands of workers. With health care and profit sharing for employees, KB was clearly a company that understood that when you consider people, profits come as a by-product. KB Toys wasn't in deep trouble, but the boom in electronic toys prompted KB to seek out Bain Capital for an infusion of money to bring the company in line with manufacturing more high-tech toys. Bain soon seized control of the company, off shored jobs, raided the company's pension fund, and eventually turned it into what is now Toys R' Us where you'd be hard pressed to find toys

Bill Kristol is good at finding new ways to be contemptible. It's bad that Marines in Afghanistan urinated on dead Taliban, he says, but you know what really makes him mad? The Obama Administration apologizing for it.  So perhaps, as Rep. Allen West, once a battalion commander in Iraq, put it last week, all the sanctimonious Obama administration bigwigs “need to chill.” Did Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta really need to speak up at all? Couldn’t comment have been left to some junior public affairs officer at Camp Lejeune? And once he decided to weigh in, did Panetta need to condemn the Marines’ action as not just deplorable but “utterly deplorable”? Perhaps he felt a need to match Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who expressed not just dismay but “total dismay.” Maybe, our current civilian leaders should spend a little less time posturing and a little more time supporting the troops who’ve been sent abroad to fight at the direction of their administration. Kristol is conge

Let's gut the First Amendment forever! That's not precisely what Gary Schmitt says today in The Weekly Standard , but that about covers the gist of it: Congress and the president should enact a statute that straightforwardly makes it illegal to publish or circulate materials that support, praise, or advocate terrorism as long as we are still formally at war with al Qaeda and its allies. Schmitt says such a statute could be "narrowly drawn" so that we don't go back to the bad old days of seditious libel. Maybe. But we still don't know which circumstances would cause the United States Congress to end the "war" authorizations spelled out in the AUMF and various other laws. Given the way our leaders have interpreted that so far, it might be a crime to praise the Muslim Uighurs who have rebelled against the Chinese government, or the Chechnyan Muslims who have revolted against rule from Moscow. More likely it might be used to prosecute Americans who pra

I've been struggling with what to think—and how to express my thoughts—about the wave of assassinations directed at Iranian nuclear scientists . I think that war is bad and killing is bad, but I'm not the complete pacifist I was in my Mennonite days—back, that is, when I thought God would make everything OK in the end, making it easier to accept certain evils and injustices on Earth. Perhaps it's the Mennonite poking through, but the assassinations strike me as ... unsavory. Yet, unlike Glenn Greenwald , I'm not prepared to quite condemn it either. This troubles me. I like my moral conundrums easily resolved. I suspect we could live with a nuclear-armed Iranian state. I don't think the mullahs are suicidal. I think they—like the U.S. and the old Soviet Union—would use the threat of nuclear arms use to throw their weight around the region and the world. But: The more nuclear weapons there are in the world, the more countries that get their hands on them, the more o

In fact, people over 60 are now the fastest-growing group contracting sexually transmitted diseases, according to government agency figures . Since 2002, syphilis has tripled in the over-65s in the UK, and HIV is up by 60%. via guardian.co.uk

After adjusting for inflation, the typical male college graduate earned about 12 percent less in 2009 than his counterpart did in 1969. Sounds pretty bad, right? The numbers are even worse for men without a bachelor’s:   Inflation-Adjusted Change in Median Earnings for American Men, 1969-2009 Weekly Earnings, Full-time, Full-year Male Workers Annual Earnings of All Male Workers Annual Earnings of Male Population Ages 25-64 -1% -14% -28% Ages 30-50 -5 -16 -27 Less than High School -38 -47 -66 High School -26 -34 -47 Some College -17 -24 -33 College Degree -2 -7 -12 Married -1 -2 -13 Not Married -2 -14 -32 Source: Adam Looney and Michael Greenstone, Hamilton Project As you can see from the last column in this table, the median man whose highest educational attainment was a high school diploma had his earnings fall by 47 percent in the last four decades. via economix.blogs.nytimes.com

Ben and I discuss Mitt Romney's venture capitalist past in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take: This is the problem with the Republican version of capitalism, as practiced by Mitt Romney and so many of his Wall Street friends over the last few decades: Profit isn't just regarded as the highest virtue; often, it is seen as the only virtue. It wasn't always this way. During the 1950s, a time when labor unions were ascendant, the American social contract expected that big corporations would make big bucks, yes, but that those employers would also provide their workers a comfortable living, and would even hang onto those workers during rough times. Now, quarterly profits are the only thing that matter and if a few jobs have to be sliced to make the accounting work out, then that's what has to be done. The result? Our businesses are richer. But our society feels poorer. And Mitt Romney helped lead the way. Profit isn't unimportant. What today's m

If progressives are frustrated that relatively doctrinaire libertarians are attracting the attention and support of people who care deeply about civil liberties, why don't they work to offer some alternative? Guys like me will probably still prefer Johnson. But is it really the case that the Democratic Party can't produce a prominent civil-libertarian politician who Glenn Greenwald would prefer to Ron Paul? That is itself a devastating truth about the post-2009 left. As Election 2008 proved, however, it isn't impossible to change. Democrats can in fact unapologetically run against indefinite detention, excessive executive power, and needless wars, and get elected doing it. What's additionally required is a civil-libertarian constituency big and motivated enough to hold them to their promises. That is what progressivism apparently lacks. via theatlantic.com

The U.S. intelligence community says in a secret new assessment that the war in Afghanistan is mired in stalemate, and warns that security gains from an increase in American troops have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan , according to U.S. officials. via latimes.com

There were approximately 4,430 changes to the tax code from 2001 through 2010, an average of more than one a day, including an estimated 579 changes in 2010 alone.  The IRS must explain each new provision to taxpayers, write computer code so it can process returns affected by the provision, and train its auditors to identify improper claims. via irs.gov

US forces in Afghanistan are facing fresh accusations of war crimes after film emerged which appears to show American marines urinating on dead bodies and laughing. The US military command in Kabul, which was severely embarrassed last year by revelations that Americans soldiers were running a "kill squad" murdering Afghan civilians, said it would investigate the undated video, and that if it proved to be authentic, desecration of corpses would be regarded as a serious crime. Despoiling of the dead is illegal under the Geneva conventions as well as under US military law. via guardian.co.uk Ugh.

Conflict between rich and poor now eclipses racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the greatest source of tension in American society, according to a survey released Wednesday. About two-thirds of Americans now believe there are “strong conflicts” between rich and poor in the United States, a survey by the Pew Research Center found, a sign that the message of income inequality brandished by the Occupy Wall Street movement and pressed by Democrats may be seeping into the national consciousness. via nytimes.com

A Pew Research Center survey identified financially-squeezed “disaffected” voters as a Republican-leaning constituency; just 21 percent of them agreed that “most corporations make a fair and reasonable profit.” via nytimes.com

The government's plans to reform welfare were badly hit on Wednesday when it suffered three defeats in the House of Lords on proposed benefit cuts. Plans to means-test employment and support allowance (ESA) payments for disabled people after only a year were rejected by peers. The means test would have applied to cancer patients and stroke survivors, and was denounced by Lord Patel, a crossbencher and former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians, as an immoral attack on the sick, the vulnerable and the poor. "If we are going to rob the poor to pay the rich, then we enter into a different form of morality," Patel said. via guardian.co.uk I'm not familiar with the ins-and-outs of British politics, but until now I honestly thought the House of Lords just sat there and looked pretty--performing more of a ceremonial function than doing actual governance. Now I have to learn some stuff.

In November, there were 13.3 million unemployed workers, an improvement from 13.8 million in October (unemployment figures come from the Current Population Survey and can be found here ). Therefore the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was 4.2-to-1 in November, a slight improvement from the revised October ratio of 4.3-to-1. To put this figure in context, the  highest  this ratio ever got in the early 2000s downturn was 2.8-to-1, and in December 2000, the month the JOLTS survey began, the ratio was 1.1-to-1. While the job-seekers ratio has slowly been improving since it peaked at 6.9-to-1 in the summer of 2009, today’s data release marks two years and 11 months—152 weeks—that the ratio has been above 4-to-1. A job-seekers ratio of more than 4-to-1 means that  there are no jobs for more than three out of four unemployed workers, no matter what job seekers do. via epi.org EPI points out that the ratio means that cutting unemployment benefits remains a bad idea. It pr

I've been noting all fall and winter the growing Republican rhetoric against millionaires receiving food stamps. Now that rhetoric is translating into action in Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess - an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states. Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250. Well, that's one sure way to make sure that millionaires don't get food stamps—make sure the thousandaires can't, either! Conservatives, I know, want to ensure that people who use the safety net actually need the safety net. And hell, I don't want the well-to-do to abuse the system, either. There's not much evidence of abuse, though, which makes Pe

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a ruling by a three-judge district court in Bluman v. Federal Election Commission which had upheld the federal ban on campaign contributions and independent expenditures by foreign nationals temporarily residing in the United States.  “We are pleased by the decision from the Supreme Court to affirm the lower court ruling and its recognition that certain restrictions on even independent expenditures are constitutional in federal and state elections,” Tara Malloy, Legal Center Associate Counsel, stated.  via campaignlegalcenter.org

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a ruling by a three-judge district court in Bluman v. Federal Election Commission which had upheld the federal ban on campaign contributions and independent expenditures by foreign nationals temporarily residing in the United States.  “We are pleased by the decision from the Supreme Court to affirm the lower court ruling and its recognition that certain restrictions on even independent expenditures are constitutional in federal and state elections,” Tara Malloy, Legal Center Associate Counsel, stated.  via campaignlegalcenter.org

True story: I got of the Broad Street line in South Philadelphia a few years ago with a group of four or five cops right behind me. As I walked down to the Italian Market, I listened to their conversation behind me. It was gossip, but interesting gossip. Apparently a young new police officer had been assigned to one of the cushiest precincts in the city. Why? His dad was an Internal Affairs officer, and he had marched his son before the precinct's higher-ups and told them, essentially, "You take my boy or I will start vigorously investigating every complaint against officers in this district." I don't know if the story is true--I didn't think the police officers telling me the story would appreciate it if I revealed myself to be a journalist, listening in to their public conversation, so I didn't get in any follow-up questions--but the officers telling it sure seemed to think it was true. So it's good that a few Internal Affairs heads are rolling

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today introduced the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011 , legislation that states American citizens apprehended inside the United States cannot be indefinitely detained by the military. The Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011 amends the Non-Detention Act of 1971 by providing that a Congressional authorization for the use of military force does not authorize the indefinite detention—without charge or trial—of U.S. citizens who are apprehended domestically. The Feinstein bill also codifies a “clear-statement rule” that requires Congress to expressly authorize detention authority when it comes to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The protections for citizens and lawful permanent residents is limited to those “apprehended in the United States” and excludes citizens who take up arms against the United States on a foreign battlefield, such as Afghanistan. Feinstein said: “The argument is

Over at No Left Turns, Bill Voegeli offers a thoughtful response to my Philly Post piece decrying President Obama's signing of the NDAA. I suggested Obama had betrayed the cause of civil liberties; Voegeli sees it a bit differently. If I'm reading it correctly, his argument is two-fold: • The now-bipartisan embrace of once-unthinkable security measures represents a considered response to the terror threat that the United States faces. "National security is a hard, grave business. Candidates who spoke as glibly as bloggers and editorialists about respecting boundaries regardless of the consequences become far less categorical when they're in important positions of national power and must confront just how horrific those consequences might be." • Secondly, that we're at war, and sometimes during war the Constitution is set aside in order to save it. "Drawing the lines and rightly understanding the nation's exigencies is not merely a post-9/11 pro

Britain and the US, close allies who are both victims of the debt crisis, will today agree to scale down their military capability and back away from the kind of armed intervention they have enthusiastically supported in recent decades. That will be the clear message from the first meeting between Philip Hammond, the UK's new defence secretary, and Leon Panetta, his opposite number in the Pentagon, officials say. The Washington meeting will also be the first opportunity for Hammond to confront the US over particular British concerns, notably the availability and soaring cost of the US-made joint strike fighters destined for Britain's new aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales. As the US plans to withdraw more troops from Europe in what is building up to be a turning point in transatlantic relations, Hammond will also lambast European members of Nato for not pulling their weight. With Panetta expected to announce sweeping cuts in his defence budget, Hammond will point to simila

At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints. Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes. Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths. By emphasizing the influence

As surely as Ron Paul speaks to a real issue--the state's broad use of violence and surveillance--which the America's political leadership has failed to address, Farrakhan spoke to something real, something unsullied, which black America's political leadership failed to address, Both Paul and Farrakhan, in their glamour, inspired the young, the disaffected, the disillusioned.  To those who dimly perceived something wrong, something that could not be put on a placard, or could not move the party machine, men such as this become something more than political operators, they become symbols. Substantive charges against them, no matter the reasons, are dismissed. The movement they represent means more. But as sure as the followers of Farrakhan deserved more than UFOs, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, those of us who oppose the drug-war, who oppose the Patriot Act deserve better than Ron Paul  via theatlantic.com