Mayor Nutter hates home cooking

Me today at The Philly Post, writing a letter urging President Obama to hire Mayor Nutter away from us:

"You can probably sympathize with the mayor because he, like you, has found his time in office derailed by a cratering economy and the desperate, flailing need just to keep the ship afloat. Neither of you get the credit you probably deserve for the fact that our city and nation simply haven’t burned down in the last four years.

Still, Mr. President, you at least got a version of health care reform enacted. You ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. You ended the war in Iraq. These have been mostly good things, substantive stuff that improves lives.

Mayor Nutter’s had a harder time coming up with a signature achievement. The AVI failure is most recent, but it’s not been so long since he failed in his attempt to impose a tax on sugary drinks. Has any Philadelphia mayor so routinely failed to get City Council backing for his initiatives?"

Head over to PhillyMag to read the whole thing.

Billy Eger writes in

I hadn't heard from my most-loyal correspondent in quite some time. Never fear, he's still tracking me:

Hey joel,thats the first time in 3yrs you kinda told the truth.whats wrong giving up on your marxist ideas?that hope an change not working out like you thought?ps. Its been 3yrs he had to work on it NOT 27 months.your a joke

As is often the case: I have no idea what he's talking about. But it pleases me to receive Billy's emails. It really does.

Turns out Republicans don't want campaign-finance transparency, after all

Back when Citizens United was decided, I suggested that we'd soon see a movement toward keeping campaign donors secret: "The effects of corporate money flooding campaigns can be somewhat counteracted by know who is spending the money and where it’s going to. Soon, though, we might not even have that. And what we’ll have is millions upon millions of dollars being spent to sway voters without those voters having any understanding of how the system is really working. That’ll be good for corporations and the candidates they support. But it won’t be so good for the rest of us — or for our democracy." And I said it because that was the clear aim of the big-money advocates.

I mention this because, in a rare bit of vindication for my political prediction abilities, that's precisely what has come to pass. Fred Hiatt gives the overview today:

Republicans always dangled this apple in the most alluring way. Political money will find a path, they would insist. Give up! Give in! We will post every donation on the Web, instantly! We will give you transparency! Sunshine! Accountability!

What could be more democratic?

I never strayed, though, and now I thank the gods of McCain-Feingold that I did not, because the temptation turns out to have been nothing but a trick. The Republicans, apparently, never meant it. Now that they have Unlimited Donations, or something pretty close, they don’t want Unlimited Disclosure after all.

They want unlimited contributions, in secret.

Read the whole thing, as they say. It was all rather drearily predictable.

John McNesby hates accountability for Philadelphia Police, continued

In Philadelphia, a homicide detective falsifies his time sheets and gets fired—and his supervisors are reprimanded. FOP President John McNesby is on the scene:

"The murder rates in Philadelphia are through the roof, and guys like Kenny Rossiter clear the murder rates," McNesby said. "If I had a relative who had been murdered, I would want somebody like Kenny Rossiter on the case, whether he's home, whether he's at the office, or whether he's in North Wildwood."

We all love movies featuring hard-bitten detectives who have deep, compromising flaws. In real life, Kenny Rossiter effectively (and, perhaps I should say, allegedly) robbed Philadelphia taxpayers of money. And that's a problem: We can't find any homicide detectives who don't cheat their employers?

I sometimes wonder if I give McNesby too hard a time: He very often shows up in the paper when some bit of police malfeasance in the news, and it's his job to provide a defense to members of the union. And yet: The cumulative effect of his defenses is to suggest that the police alone are allowed to be lawless in this city. McNesby is breeding cynicism. Maybe he cares. Maybe he doesn't.

The ACLU: Not just a bunch of liberal hacks

Via Radley Balko, we see that the ACLU is defending (PDF) a student who wore an anti-gay-marriage shirt to school

Read the whole thing. And as always, I ask: Would the righty American Center for Law and Justice take similar action on behalf of a gay student? No. No it wouldn't.

Marco Rubio's bad reason to oppose President Obama's immigration policy

NYTimes.com: "Congressional Republicans were more pointed in their criticism, but they too were careful not to oppose some kind of solution to the problem of young people who are in the country illegally but who are productive, otherwise law-abiding residents. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, denounced it as “possibly illegal” for essentially bypassing lawmakers. Mr. Rubio said the announcement would be “welcome news for many of these kids desperate for an answer,” but that by going around Congress, the president had made it “harder to find a balanced and responsible long-term” solution." (Emphasis added.)

Poppycock. The reason the president took action is that a "balanced and responsible long-term solution" has been impossible to come by in Congress. President George W. Bush tried and failed to achieve sane immigration reform when his party had control of Congress—but his party also has too many nativists who take a hard line against any path to citizenship for immigrants who are already here. President Obama, in the waning weeks of the Democratic majority in Congress in 2010, failed to secure passage of the DREAM Act that would give young immigrants a path to citizenship.

There's no reason—none—to believe that Congress is going to ever take a balanced and responsible action to resolve the situation. President Obama is walking up to the edge of his power in saying he affirmatively won't deport young illegal immigrants, but the idea that he's keeping Congress from doing the right thing is demonstrably ridiculous.

John Yoo doesn't like President Obama's immigration decision

Torture advocate John Yoo—who believes that the president has the legal power to order the testicle-crushing of a suspected terrorist's child and maybe even to suspend the First Amendment—believes that President Obama exceeded his power by saying he won't deport the children of illegal immigrants: "So what we have here is a president who is refusing to carry out federal law simply because he disagrees with Congress’s policy choices. That is an exercise of executive power that even the most stalwart defenders of an energetic executive — not to mention the Framers — cannot support."

This is actually completely consistent of Yoo, for one reason: President Obama didn't use "war" as the justification for the policy. But Yoo's history indicates there are virtually no limits on a president's powers if war-making is the justification. So Yoo would be conceivably be helpless—unless, of course, he's merely an opportunistic hack—if President Obama could justify his immigration decision in national security terms.

Let me offer one.

There is a national security concern that deporting young people—who, though they may not be actual citizens, have only known America as their home—to unfamiliar lands may radicalize them against the American government, a radicalization that, combined with their knowledge of the country and its customs, make them particularly useful allies to any terrorist organizations that wish to strike against us. 

Now, I don't think there's much of a chance that would happen. But what's the old Dick Cheney standard? The One Percent Doctrine? This seems to fit that doctrine. And under Yoo's view of executive power, it's all the justification needed for President Obama's action. "War"—real or not—means never having to say you're sorry.

Why can't Obama work with Congress?

A conservative friend recently told me that President Obama needs to be replaced with someone "who can work with Congress." But it's not entirely Obama's fault that Congress has been so unworkable. Michael Tomasky explains: 

"On the night of Obama's inauguration, Draper writes, about 15 GOP legislators from both houses--along with Newt Gingrich, journalist Fred Barnes, and pollster Frank Luntz, who arranged the evening--got together at a Washington restaurant. 

They were not necessarily the party's official leaders, but they were the emotional leaders of the new breed--Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy--which is to say, the cohort to whom many others were looking for leadership; indeed, if you know anything about Mitch McConnell, to whom the leadership was looking for leadership. They talked for four hours about what their posture should be. 

They agreed that night: oppose everything in completely unity. Show, Draper writes, "united and unyielding opposition to the president's economic policies." 

So, before President Obama had proposed a single idea, the Republicans had already decided that they would oppose everything he did. Didn't matter what it was. "

Emphasis added. And hey, there's nothing requiring Republicans to work with an opposite-party president. But Republicans have essentially broken the president's legs, then complained very loudly about how he doesn't run fast enough. It's not an honest criticism.

Is the private sector doing fine?

Maybe a little late, Ben and I discuss President Obama's comments in our Scripps Howard column. My take:

Obama was wrong: The private sector isn't doing fine. It's doing astoundingly great -- better than ever, in fact.

No, really.

How do we know this? Because corporate profits now comprise more than 10 percent of America's gross domestic product. As Reuters' Felix Salmon noted, that number has never been that big, ever. For comparison's sake, corporate profits topped out at just under 5 percent of the GDP at the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Instead of investing those profits and creating new jobs, which has been the usual pattern after previous recessions, corporations are sitting on the cash and hoarding the money. That's their right, but nobody should think that the private sector is doing poorly, and it belies the notion that Obama is running an anti-business administration.

It's the rest of us who aren't doing so well.

Corporate cash hoarding is one reason why. The other reason? Because government is slimming down.

No, really.

You wouldn't know that from Republican rhetoric that suggests the president has grown government bureaucracy to create a socialist kingdom. But the Washington Post's Ezra Klein ran the numbers, and the public sector -- including federal, state, and local governments -- has lost 600,000 jobs under Obama. Replace those lost teachers and social workers, and the federal unemployment rate declines to 7.8 percent -- still too high, but also a dramatic improvement.

For comparison's sake, President George W. Bush had grown public-sector employment by 3.7 percent at this point in his tenure, a number that, if duplicated today, would further reduce the unemployment rate to 7.3 percent. If Obama really was a big-government socialist, we might all be better off.

So Obama has produced huge profits and smaller government.

The private sector is doing fine, and it's clearly not enough. But ask yourself: What would Mitt Romney do differently?

Something I didn't address in the 300 words is what, if anything, federal policy can do to get big businesses to start investing in the economy again. But I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, in all  honesty.

John McNesby really, really hates accountability for Philadelphia police

Philadelphia Police are going to experiment with a new system that attaches cameras to cops and lets them record incidents from their point of view. John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, is naturally outraged: ""We're 500 cops below where we should be, so I'd be totally against it until they hired those officers, repaired every police station and put decent cars on the street," McNesby said. "When they finished that, I'd be more than willing to discuss putting cameras on officers.""

In other words: Never. You can have your accountability never.

Now: We all want police to have the best possible working conditions. But "best possible working conditions" shouldn't be necessary to ask police for some accountability. In any case, it's pretty obvious that  even if City Hall met McNesby's named conditions, he'd just move the goalposts a bit. The goal here to let police act as they will without interference from the public they supposedly serve.

On the bright side, though, McNesby's response reminded me of this:

About Gays and Mennonites

Back in 2001, I attended a national gathering of Mennonites in Nashville that brought two strands of the church together into the new Mennonite Church USA. It was a weird week—one that both made me thrilled to be a Mennonite, but also helped set my path out of the church.

The official gathering was on the grounds of the Opryland Hotel. But across the street from that, there was a second gathering—of gay and lesbian Mennonites. While individuals were allowed into the main gathering of Mennonites, the group itself wasn't allowed to put up a booth or display in the convention hall. So they met separately, sharing stories and worshiping together.

I made the trip across the street, and doing so permanently transformed my feelings about the church and its treatment of gays. It was meeting two gay middle-aged Mennonite men—one of whom had nursed the other through a heart attack—that I found compelling. They shared a real love, one that allowed them to serve each other in a real and genuine way.

And in that moment I thought: "Surely God can't condemn this. And if God does condemn this ... maybe I don't care. Maybe that's not a God worth worshipping."

A year later, I was out of the church.

I mention all of this because my friend Joanna, who is now the pastor of Peace Mennonite Church where I last attended, is under fire within the broader church denomination for officiating at a gay wedding. And today, she shares some thoughts about why she wants to be able to do that and (unlike me) remain a Mennonite.

Here’s the thing, though–I am not United Church of Christ or Presbyterian or Episcopalian. I am Mennonite. Anabaptist to the core. I will not baptize babies. I will not put a flag in a place of worship. I value simplicity and discipleship and community. And if I get to sing a few hymns in four-part harmony every week, that’s a bonus! I want my life to mirror the life of Christ, and I cannot find any other group of Christians that encourages me in this pursuit as well as the Mennonites. 

And here’s the thing–there are so many GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) people who also want to follow Jesus in this way. They want–they need–a Mennonite community as much as I do. It breaks my heart to know of sexual minorities who cannot find a faith home because the churches that most resonate with their souls will not welcome them in the fullness of who they are. 

And here’s the thing–the Mennonite church needs the graces and gifts of GLBT folks as well. It breaks my heart to think of the wonderful leadership, music, art, ministry that the church is missing out on because we do not fully include GLBT people. (I wish you all could know Randy Spaulding and Sarah Klaassen.) At a recent preaching conference I met a young woman pastor from United Church of Canada. When I told her I was Mennonite she said, “Oh, I have a lot of lesbian friends who used to be Mennonite.” 

And here’s the thing–from my perspective, according to my reading of the Gospel, anything less than full inclusion for gays and lesbians in our churches is an injustice. More than that, our failure to embrace and support sexual minorities is a rejection of Jesus’ way of love. It is to side with the religious powers that be–some of whom make good money off of their tirades against gay people–over and against the radical message of Jesus.

Read the whole thing.

As for me, my faith is still a broken thing. I do know that I won't worship a God who supposedly hates love—real and wonderful love. But I've also tried very hard to make sure I leave the door open to a return to the faith. And Joanna—her bravery and strength under fire—is one very big reason why.

Using yourself as collateral for a college loan

There are a few problematic things about Luigi Zingales's proposal to privately finance the college education of bright young students—starting with the fact that if you have to pre-emptively explain to readers that "this is not indentured servitude," it's probably indentured servitude.

But what really bothers me about the proposal is the assumption underlying this entire statement from Zingales: "This is not a modern form of indentured servitude, but a voluntary form of taxation, one that would make only the beneficiaries of a college education — not all taxpayers — pay for the costs of it."

This presumes that only the recipient of a college education is the beneficiary, and that's not even close to true. One reason the feds underwrite student loans—and why states still pay for public universities, even if that commitment is diminshing—is that the country benefits hugely from having a better-educated workforce. Those trained minds help create innovation and streamline processes, which—in theory anyway—has numerous positive ripple effects throughout the economy. The beneficiaries of a college education, then, include the taxpayers.

Deep Thought

Hmmm. Looking at my posts today, I wonder if people will think I'm turning conservative. I'm not. I just believe in a liberalism that meets the world as it exists--and that world has lots of people who aren't liberals. It's tough to get much done without securing their assent—or, at least, the assent of enough of them.

Are gay rights and religious freedom in conflict?

I don't think they have to be, but it appears they are in New Mexico:

"In 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found Elane Photography, an Albuquerque photography studio co-owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband, Jonathan, guilty of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for refusing to photograph Vanessa Willock’s same-sex “commit ment ceremony.” The court ordered the business to pay $6,600 in attorney’s fees.

If it was little surprise that the commission found in favor of Willock, it was a shock when, last month, the New Mexico Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. The three-judge panel rejected Elane Photography’s claim that forcing the business to photograph the same-sex ceremony against its conscientious objections constituted “compelled speech” in violation of the owners’ federal and state rights. It also rejected the Huguenins’ claims to protection under the First Amendment’s “free exercise” clause and the New Mexico Religious Freedom Restoration Act."

I believe in gay marriage. And I also believe in a First Amendment that lets conservative Christians complain about gay marriage—which is why I suspect that this ruling will be struck down, although somebody more familiar with the law on "public accommodations" might be able to educate me further on that. Is there a good reason to require Elane Photography to take these photos?

One reason that some Christians vociferously oppose gay civil marriage is because they don't think they'll be left alone—they suspect that they'll be forced in some fashion to endorse those marriages against their conscience. Mostly, I think that's wrong: No law is going to require a Catholic priest perform gay commitment ceremonies, now or ever. But stuff like this is going to make it harder for gays and their allies to win and secure that right to civil marriage. If rights are treated as a zero-sum affair, then somebody has to lose something. And in that case, it seems unlikely the losers will be heterosexual conservative Christians.

Atrios is wrong about California's HSR and liberal spending priorities

I think Atrios is right to keep pounding away at the idea that our elites love to bail out banks and leave austerity to the poor masses. But I think he's wrong that liberals should love California's High-Speed Rail project, even though there are massive cost overruns and questions about its utility: "My point is, on the rare occasion that the government is considering giving us some nice things, we should probably just stand up and applaud, even if we can imagine even nicer things that the government should give us but won't. The choice isn't between HSR in California and What Atrios Wants To Spend Money On, the choice is between HSR and, you know, more high tech killing machines, money for war contractors, and tax cuts for rich people."

Not really. There will always be money for high-tech killing machines, war contractors, and tax cuts for the rich. So liberals really need to prioritize what they want to do with a not-limitless pot of resources—particularly if we want to have credibility with that taxpayers providing those resources. "Spending lots of money is awesome!" isn't going to win many political campaigns. Unfair? Maybe, but also reality.

'Mad Men' and the infantilization of America, continued

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner kinda-sorta confirms my theorizing about how Depression-era generation helped create the never-grow-up culture that followed it: "One of my things is that human behavior doesn't change, but certainly the manners change, and what you're watching is the manners changing.

And I use it in every aspect of the storytelling. And it's a very fine gradation, and it's hard to do, but I think the audience felt that there was this kind of precipice, and Don feels it, too. It's not just about people saying exactly what they want. When Megan's going to follow her dreams, because that's what she wants to do, and Roger says, "My father told me what to do," and Don says, "I grew up in the '30s; my dream was indoor plumbing." We take it for granted that you can choose what you want to do. That's all part of a new generation, and very soon there's going to be a generation doing whatever it wants, and they're completely supported by the generation before them. In the Rolling Stones episode, when Don's backstage with that girl, she says, "You don't want us to have fun because none of you did." It's actually the opposite: a lot of parents really indulged their kids because of that very thing, because they grew up in the Depression."

Emphasis added. I meant to mention Don's line about "indoor plumbing" in my previous post—it's a thought that stuck with me through the rest of the season.

Death of Football Watch: Pop Warner makes changes

The kiddie football league limits full-speed collisions—but only in practice. In games, it'll still be legal to watch your child get his block knocked off: "Dr. Matt Grady, a pediatric sports medicine specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the new rules, while a good start, did not go far enough, and that the emphasis in football for players who have not yet reached high school should be on developing skill and technique, not learning how to tackle. “Playing tackle football at 10 years old doesn’t translate to being a pro athlete,” he said. “I think the ability to catch and run and throw translates to being a pro athlete. Players should develop these skills, and then we can add in the collisions later.”"

As I think I've said before, it's going to be increasingly untenable for most parents to let their kids play tackle football as it becomes more and more clear that the game takes a huge toll on their bodies. That'll dry up the supply of players over time. Football is going into decline.

Archbishop Chaput pleads for a state bailout

The leader of Philadelphia Catholics urges Harrisburg to pass vouchers, or he'll have to close schools: "What I noted in February is even more pressing today: Without new scholarship tax credits and school vouchers to relieve costs, more archdiocesan schools will close soon, and more of the financial burden of educating young people will fall on the public."

But even under Chaput's solution, more of the financial burden of educating young people will fall on the public. Students whose education isn't currently publicly subsidized would be for the first time, a likely hit to taxpayer wallets over time.

Conservatives who balk at auto industry bailouts will be amenable to Chaput's proposal. But it's worth considering the idea that Catholic schools are failing of their own accord: Philadelphia church pews aren't as full as they used to be, certainly, so it makes sense that the population of students for church schools would also be in decline. Chaput is blaming the closure of schools on financial challenges, but it might also be true that market forces are working as they do—and that Philadelphia families are voting with their feet.

Hey, I think he's talking about me!

At least he managed to get the link right.

Richard Arenberg is wrong about the filibuster

A scholar writes in defense of filibusters: "But those seeking to end the filibuster would rue the day. We need only recall how overzealous majorities in the Wisconsin legislature attacked collective bargaining, or in Virginia sought to impose mandatory vaginal probes on women seeking abortions. We can easily imagine efforts to overturn health reform, repeal financial reforms, cripple environmental regulation, scale back Medicare, privatize Social Security, or drill for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. If Mitt Romney is elected with a Republican Congress, without the historic protections in the Senate rules, where could a Democratic minority turn?"

I'm fine with rewriting the rules, as Arenberg suggests—my own suggestion would be that filibusters actually be filibusters, and to make Mitch McConnell stand in the Senate well for 50 hours at a stretch if he really wants to block President Obama's appointments to the judiciary. It might simply be easier, though, just to scrap the filibuster entirely.

Yes, that means that legislative minorities might be brushed aside in crafting legislation. But it also means that legislative minorities could scrap that legislation once they became the majority again. (There is no such thing as a permanent majority in American politics.) Wise senators would hopefully take that into consideration and craft legislation that would be politically difficult to undo at the next change in power. Right now, the filibuster isn't used to protect Social Security—it's often used for no better reason than to make the president's life a living hell. I can't get misty-eyed about that. Scrap the filibuster and let the chips fall where they may.