Iowa Justices and an Independent Judiciary

At The Corner, William Duncan sniffs about liberal handwringing over the booting of three Iowa justices who voted to approve gay marriage there:

"Prominent law professors and advocacy groups are apparently concerned that the vote threatens the independence of the judiciary.

The framers of the Iowa constitution certainly didn’t see it that way, since they provided for retention elections. Those raising this concern seem to view the independence judges enjoy as independence from responsibility and from the text and meaning of the constitution they are supposed to be interpreting."

Fair enough. My concern isn't that there's a mechanism for removing justices, but that the process is asymmetric. The New York Times reports:

The most sustained effort to oust judges in this election cycle was in Iowa, where out-of-state organizations opposed to gay marriage, including the National Organization for Marriage and the American Family Association, poured money into the removal campaign. Judges face no opponents in retention elections and simply need to win more yes votes than no votes to go on to another eight-year term. In Iowa, the three ousted justices did not raise campaign money, and they only made public appearances defending themselves toward the end of the election.

You can, I suppose, blame the justices for not campaigning harder to save their jobs. For better or worse, that's not something they've ever had to do before -- and thus were defenseless when the tidal wave from NOM and the AFA hit their state. I'm certain that a fair number of Iowans oppose gay marriage, but I'm also certain that Iowans only really got to hear one side of the story during the election season. That makes it a rather less inspiring show of democracy.

That probably won't happen again. The judges are going to have to campaign for their jobs from now on. And where campaigns exist, so does money to influence the outcome. My concern about judicial independence isn't that the justices were held accountable for their actions, but that the form of accountability will drive them into the arms of campaign donors -- making the whole independence thing a little more tricky.

Should Philly ban Happy Meals?

There's no real proposal to duplicate what San Francisco did this week; nonetheless, the Inky decides to make trouble:

"Should the Philly area try to catch up to San Francisco? Put the freeze on cheeseburgers? Deny fries to small fries?

Should Philly go further? Under the California cutoff, a Happy Meal with a plain burger, fries and a soda would be fine.

Or should little consumers get to consume whatever food they want and get Transformers, too?"

I'm not going to claim that Happy Meals are good for you, but this does smack of the kind of nanny-statism that's all too easy for conservatives to use to tar all left-of-center law-making. Besides, the problem with Happy Meals isn't that they have toys -- it's that they're cheap, an easy way for poor families to put calories into their kids without offering quite so many nutrients. But even if a Happy Meal ban is somehow justified, it's completely tone deaf as a political matter. Maybe not in San Francisco, but everywhere else. The problem is that such stories make it hard to do important progressive changes elsewhere.

George W. Bush: War Criminal

We already knew it. It's just official now:

"The Washington Post reports that in his new memoir ... President Bush's response to a request to waterboard 9/11 big nut Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was, 'Damn right.' (Meanwhile, Cheney stated earlier this year that, 'I was a big supporter of waterboarding.')

The Post quotes Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch: 'Waterboarding is broadly seen by legal experts around the world as torture, and it is universally prosecutable as a crime. The fact that none of us expect any serious consequences from this admission is what is most interesting.'"

President Obama hasn't been the civil liberties president I hoped for. But as far as we know, he hasn't done this. George W. Bush was a moral disaster for our country, and I'm not sure we'll ever entirely get over it.

ACLU Sues Philly Over 'Stop & Frisk'

The stats certainly don't look good:

"The lawsuit says pedestrian stops have more than doubled since 2005, to 253,333 in 2009. Of those pedestrians stopped, 72 percent were African-American and only 8 percent led to arrests.

'The majority of these arrests were for alleged criminal conduct that was entirely independent from the supposed reason for the stop and/or frisk in the first place,' the suit says.

The plaintiffs are seeking class status and rulings to prevent the police from conducting pedestrian stops based on race or national origin.

The suit also asks the court to order more police training, supervision and monitoring to ensure that 'stops, frisks, searches and detentions comport with constitutional requirements.'

'Mayor Nutter repeatedly promised that this policy would be carried out in a way that respected the Constitution,' said Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania. 'But instead of stopping people suspected of criminal activity, the police appear to be stopping people because of their race.'"

Emaw: We're the ones we've been waiting for

Emaw continues the conversation. Government is unsustainable, he agrees, but that's because our culture has become unsustainable:

"But we got ourselves into this mess. And we're going to have to get ourselves out. It's not going to be easy. I suspect that it will get much, much worse before it gets better. But I also think the best place to start is in your own neighborhood, in your own town, in your own city and state.

Democrats nor Republicans nor presidents nor senators will be able to help us. Relying on the government isn't the answer. We all need to pull together. Find people who need your help. There are a lot of great organizations and churches that are dedicated to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, trying to heal the sick.

We need to focus on our responsibilities as citizens, not our rights. Make personal changes like eating better food and less of it. Using less energy (I personally have lowered my body temperature to 94 degrees).

Voting is nice. But it is more important to get out and help than it is to get out the vote."

There is, I should say, some small overlap between this and my contribution to this week's Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk. I'll be posting that later today.

Michael Smerconish's Weird Pervez Musharraf Column

This column is weird, even for Michael Smerconish. Pervez Musharraf is in town, so Smerconish takes him to vote:

"We discussed apathy, and I described voter turnout patterns in the U.S., explaining that in 2008, only 63 percent of those eligible came out to vote.

'In Pakistan, it's the opposite.

'It's the educated class which does not vote. You said you've always voted. Let me shock you by saying that I have never voted - except in the last eight years.

'Yes, in this, I did go to vote. Otherwise, before that, when I was not the president, I never voted,' he told me.

Why not?

'Because I thought it was useless going to vote like that,' he answered.

What Smerconish never says -- and this seems really relevant if we're going to lump discussions of democracy and Pakistan together -- is that Musharraf didn't need to vote because he had a bigger vote than the whole rest of Pakistan combined: He took power through a military coup! In fact, he still advocates the Army be given a formal veto power over democracy there!

None of this makes it into Smerconish's column. Instead, we're supposed to value American democracy a little more because, heck, a former Pakistani president seems to think it's kind of cool. Smerconish had the chance to interview somebody influential and important about a part of the world that's critical to current U.S. interests ... and he pulled a radio DJ stunt. Disappointing.

Say, Aren't Tasers Supposed To Be 'Non-Lethal'?

Because this is the second Philly-area man to die after a Tasering in recent months. Is anybody having second thoughts?

Serwer: Majorities Don't Last Forever

Adam Serwer pushes back against Dem despair:

"Democrats were slaughtered at the polls regardless of how subservient they were to the larger Democratic agenda -- maverick Sen. Russ Feingold was true to his liberaltarian character in opposing both TARP and the PATRIOT Act, and he lost to an empty suit with an R next to his name. Voting against the Affordable Care Act didn't make conservadems any safer -- more than half of Democrats who voted against the ACA lost their seats. The America that went to the polls in 2010 isn't any more 'real' than the one that handed Democrats the White House and the biggest majority in decades in 2008, but it was older, whiter, and more Republican. And even this far more conservative electorate balked at electing many of the most rightward Republican candidates in statewide races where their radical beliefs faced greater scrutiny from the press."

One More Thought About Bush and Kanye

I've got to admit, there's something a little weird -- and possibly post-adult -- about a world in which the former president of the United States says his "lowest moment" was being dissed by a rapper. George W. Bush clearly doesn't understand that the proper response is not to whine, but to compose his own diss track! Somehow, I have a hard time imagining LBJ being kept up nights because the Temptations were angry about Vietnam.

Tony Blair's Sister-in-Law Converts to Islam

Well. That's certainly provocative.

The picture of the blonde-haired Lauren Booth wearing a head scarf is certainly striking, but it's also striking to me that she seems determined not to buy into the dominant narrative about Islam as a religion that subdues women:

Women who are being abused by male relatives are being abused by men, not God. Much of the practices and laws in "Islamic" countries have deviated from (or are totally unrelated) to the origins of Islam. Instead practices are based on cultural or traditional (and yes, male-orientated) customs that have been injected into these societies. For example, in Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive by law. This rule is an invention of the Saudi monarchy, our government's close ally in the arms and oil trade.

This probably too easily discounts the negative aspects of any religion -- but, of course, it's always the sinful people who distort a religion, not the religion itself that's at fault. But Booth is a very new convert, seeing Islam as a lens through which to criticize her society. It'll be interesting to watch her journey, and to try to figure out what -- if anything -- it means for the rest of us Westerners.

About Those Postwar Tax Rates

Will Bunch re-tweets:

"Top marginal tax rate for the entire 1950s was 91%. Yet the U.S. economy expanded 79%. Overall tax burden today is lowest in 6 decades"

This tidbit is actually pretty commonly repeated among liberals -- I think I've even used it myself in a Scripps Howard column -- and yet it feels slightly dishonest not to acknowledge that the world economy was vastly different during the 1950s than it is today. Britain and Western Europe were slowly recovering from the devastation of World War II; same for Japan. The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China had more or less withdrawn from global trade. The United States was so vigorous during this time not because of high marginal tax rates, but because it was basically the last man standing. That's no longer the case: Other countries are more competitive with our own economy, so we need to be more competitive too.

This isn't an argument against returning to Clinton-era marginal tax rates. I think that could safely be done without harming the economy to any great extent. But dropping the Ike-bomb on the tax discussion often omits the ways the world has changed, and liberals do themselves no great service when they make that omission.

Can Anybody Save Us? Emaw Isn't Sure.

Emaw*, who comes around here to keep me honest in my pro-Dem hackery, doesn't sound so optimistic about the results of the election:

"Of course, the problem with campaigning FOR something these days is that in order to really solve our most pressing national problems, you have to be an advocate of doing stuff that nobody wants to do. Nobody wants drastic, Grecian Formula spending cuts, but that's what we need. Nobody wants major tax and fee increases (certainly not me), but that's what it will take to balance our budget even if we cut spending.

So you get what we have now (which interestingly is frighteningly similar to what the Romans had near the end of their republic). Politicians make promises that, while popular, have little hope of coming to fruition without bankrupting the country. Political expedience makes meaningful reform impossible."

We get after each other, but I think Emaw and I basically agree that there's something unsustainable about the governance of our country. Question is: If Democrats can't do the right thing and Republicans won't -- I'm not sure Emaw would agree with the framing -- what can we do? Where's Ross Perot when you really need him?

*For you non-Kansans, "Emaw" is short for "Every Man A Wildcat." It's a K-State thing.

Ari Berman Got His Wish: The Blue Dogs Are Gone

Remember late October, when Ari Berman could write something like this?

"Democrats would be in better shape, and would accomplish more, with a smaller and more ideologically cohesive caucus. It’s a sentiment that even Mr. Dean now echoes. “Having a big, open-tent Democratic Party is great, but not at the cost of getting nothing done,” he said."

Well, most of the Blue Dogs are gone now. Guess what? So is the Democratic majority. I get as frustrated with the Blue Dogs as anyone, but the Democrats literally cannot govern without them. In most cases, the Blue Dogs represent districts that would never vote for a liberal Democrat. Having Blue Dogs in the coalition puts a check on liberal ambitions, but it makes it possible for any kind of liberal legislation to pass in the first place. That's not fun; it's very frustrating. The alternative is worse. Utopian fantasies like Berman's do nothing to further progressive causes.

George W. Bush and Kanye West

Lotsa people talking today about the ex-president's hurt feelings over Kanye's post-Katrina comments, which to some extent means re-fighting that war. I think Adam Serwer has it right:

"The response to Hurricane Katrina was a reflection of basic administrative incompetence and cronyism, not active racial animus. Bush made an active effort to court black voters, marginalized (mostly) Islamophobes, he appointed a diverse Cabinet, and, defying the nativists in his own party, he brokered an immigration compromise that policy-wise, was better than anything we're going to see for a very long time. The spate of noose-themed hate crimes during 2006-2007 seemed to make him genuinely angry."

What's more, the RNC chairman under Bush rather explicitly repudiated the party's longtime "Southern strategy" of appealing to white racism as a way to gain votes. There's lots that was wrong with George W. Bush -- I still think he he's in the conversation as one of the worst presidents ever -- but racism, even passive winking racism, wasn't one of his sins.

Tom Ferrick on Philly's Future

Uh-oh:

"As to Philadelphia, we are screwed.

The city, which has a large portion of the state's poor and the state's largest school district, is dependent on state government aid in so many ways it's hard to enumerate. For the last eight years, we had the great and good luck of having a former Philadelphia mayor as governor. That era is officially over.

Now we have a conservative Republican from Allegheny County, who is a pleasant enough guy but who couldn't give two hoots about the city.(Whose voters gave his rival, Democrat Dan Onorato, 82 percent of their votes on Tuesday.) On Tuesday, the city looked like a blue island in a suddenly red state."

The National Mood

Matt Yglesias::

"One reason it’s difficult to read midterm elections as reflecting shifts in the “national mood” is that the actual set of voting people is quite different. According to exit polls, for example, the relative proportion of youth voters and senior voters shifted quite dramatically."

Well, but doesn't that also reflect the "national mood"? Two years ago, young voters were inspired and motivated to get to the polls. This year? Not so much. That made a difference in the results, yes. But their absence doesn't mean we're missing information on the national mood -- it's reflective of it.

Holding the GOP Accountable

Via James Fallows, sense-making from Andrew Sullivan*:

"My view is a relatively simple one: the GOP ran on cutting spending. I think their first move should be to propose a path to balancing the budget in the foreseeable future. I want to see their actual proposals on entitlements and defense. They refused to reveal them before the election. Are we supposed to wait till 2013?"

Damn straight. My personal prediction? GOP rhetoric about fiscal responsibility will prove as hollow as it ever was -- enthusiastic about tax cuts but unable or unwilling to force the pain of even proposing real budget cuts to match. There'll be talk about how the tax cuts will "pay for themselves," even though there's no real evidence that happens.

* I'm still boycotting Sullivan, but I can't help it if James Fallows quotes him, can I?

Liberals: Time To Do What You Can Do

Back in Kansas, a friend of mine - a pastor, and a liberal - has sent this note to Governor-elect Sam Brownback:

"Dear Sam Brownback, I am pleased that Kansas has a governor who respects the sacred nature of life. In the upcoming legislative session, I urge you to apply your pro-life principles to all people and support the repeal of the death penalty in the state of Kansas."

I'm no fan of Sam Brownback. I once wrote an editorial for the Emporia Gazette comparing him to Tom Hagen in "The Godfather Part II." There's a lot about his theo-ideology that I detest and think is dangerous to the rights of Kansas women, in particular.

But...

Ever since his conversion to Catholicism, Brownback has made more skeptical noises about the death penalty and more enthusiastic noises about helping convicts find their way to rehabilitation. This might actually be an opportunity -- seriously! -- for liberal Kansans who are interested in that variety of social justice.

More to the point: He's going to be the governor for the next four years. Liberal Kansans can spend that time bitching about him (or bitching about the state's voters) or they can work on rebuilding their coalitions while spotting opportunities for common ground with him in the meantime. I think such collaboration will be more difficult in Congress, but: Just because your allies have gone away doesn't mean your causes have. I'm proud of my friend for turning her electoral despair into positive action. We should all follow her lead.

The Tears of a Boehner

I Tweet:

"Every single Republican now praising Boehner's 'humanizing' tears would've mocked the manhood of any Dem who cried."

John Boehner Starts Ducking Responsibility

From tonight's speech by the Speaker-in-waiting:

"While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it is the president who sets the agenda for our government. The American people have sent an unmistakable message to him tonight, and that message is:“change course.”

Wait a minute. I know it's common convention to refer to the president as THE leader of the country, but Congress is a co-equal branch of government, is it not? There's no need for Republicans to wait for a Democratic president to start setting a Republican agenda -- and Boehner surely knows it. Sounds to me like the real agenda of the next two years is to blame the president for the failure to get anything done. The groundwork is already being laid.