MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: December 2, 2007

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December 7, 2007

Bye-Bye Cookie

Reuters reports that Howard "Cookie" Krongard has decided to resign as the State Department's inspector general. The decision comes after a disastrous appearance last month before Rep. Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where Krongard's testimony invited charges of perjury. Krongard, who had allegedly interfered in an arms smuggling investigation targeting Blackwater USA, initially denied that his brother Buzzy Krongard (a former high-ranking CIA official) was a member of that company's advisory board. He later changed his tune after reaching Buzzy by phone during a break in the hearing.

It's unclear why Cookie would have lied. But if by doing so he was trying to protect his brother, the favor went unreturned when reporters reached Buzzy for comment: He explained that he'd told Cookie about his Blackwater affiliation weeks before the hearing. Seeing as Cookie's congressional testimony had been under oath, the revelation may have opened him up to prosecution. So much for brotherly love.

I spoke with several congressional staffers last week, who suggested that both Cookie and Buzzy would be called to appear before Waxman's committee to account for Cookie's bizarre testimony. But now that Cookie has thrown in the towel, it's unclear if the hearing will take place. According to a statement released this afternoon by Waxman's office, “Mr. Krongard’s decision removes an enormous distraction from the Inspector General’s office and will allow the office to focus on its important oversight responsibilities. The Committee will certainly take this new development into account.”

Whatever happens, the lack of affection between the brothers Krongard appears to be indicative of larger family dramas. The Washington Post reported in September that Cookie's son and daughter-in-law, Kenneth and Kristin Krongard, had filed a restraining order to get him to stop sending "unprofessional and highly offensive" emails, in which he threatened that they'd be "put out on the street" if they lost a lawsuit he had brought against them. Cookie filed suit last year, alleging that the couple had defaulted on a $320,000 home loan. Although they paid back the loan in full after the suit's filing, Cookie is pressing his case, demanding interest and other penalties, as well as reimbursement of at least $114,000 in legal fees. Does Krongard feel guilty about suing his son's family? Who can say for sure, but the tone of this August missive points to no. "If you are willing to put your wife and children's future in jeopardy, that's your business," he wrote. What a guy.

Obama's Health Care Problem: Why It Has Become the Biggest Mistake of His Campaign

When Barack Obama released his health care plan, the health care heavies around the web noticed it lacked the mandate that John Edwards' plan had. That was a demerit. The whole point of universal health care is that because the healthy have to buy health care, there is a enough money around to pay for the exorbitant health care costs of the sick. Obama claims that his plan makes health care affordable so the poor can buy in, but the problem isn't just the poor. It's the young and strapping, who have no incentive to buy health care at any price.

But the aforementioned heavies didn't attack Obama on the issue. They even praised him. His plan was a serious one that represented a substantial improvement over the status quo. When Hillary Clinton came out with her plan, which mimicked to a great extent Edwards', everyone considered the three health care plans essentially the same. Obama, and even the other candidates, conceded the differences were minor.

But then the Clinton camp found a Jonathan Cohn article in which he crunched the numbers and found that Obama's plan would leave 15 million people uninsured. Cohn later said that the number was a "very, very rough estimate" but that it was "more right than wrong." Regardless of its accuracy, it was now campaign fodder.

Clinton and Edwards had found a substantive difference with Obama on policy, a rarity in this campaign. They started hammering Obama on the stump, in press releases, and in debates.

Obama defended his plan by saying that it didn't force poor people to buy something they couldn't afford, but he went a step further. Obama started attacking his opponents' plans and claiming his is better. In doing so, he used some conservative-sounding rhetoric. "Their essential argument," he said, "is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don’t buy it, then you’ll be penalized in some way."

Invoking a vaguely socialistic big-government bogeyman is out of the Rudy Giuliani playbook. It was for this, and not for his original omission of a mandate, that Paul Krugman and others around the web—those same heavies who withheld their fire earlier—started coming out against Obama.

And Obama escalated the fight. While his campaign has gotten pretty good at responding to media dust-ups recently, it absolutely screwed the pooch by releasing an opposition research piece on Krugman himself, saying that the New York Times columnist hadn't been consistent.

The Obama camp's claim that mandates aren't enforceable may be correct. And their claim that Krugman has changed some of his language since beginning to write about Obama's plan is a legitimate one (Krugman first called the plan "smart and serious" but now blasts it as "weak and incomplete"). But just because the Obama campaign has a point about Krugman doesn't mean it's playing smart politics. Failing to include the mandate was a poor policy move, but the campaign's current behavior, ramping up a fight in which they are at a clear disadvantage, is truly counterproductive.

At a time when Obama's campaign is rising in the polls, this appears to be its biggest mistake so far.

Impressive Speech From Sheldon Whitehouse

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered an important speech today full of shocking information, if it's still possible to be shocked by the Bush administration. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Whitehouse has access to the Justice Department's secret legal determinations. He then was able to get some of the determinations declassified, or at least the summaries he wrote down while reading them in a secure room. This is how he characterizes three of them:

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

In other words, the president is the law. Whitehouse concludes:

When the Congress of the United States is willing to roll over for an unprincipled President, this is where you end up. We should not even be having this discussion. But here we are. I implore my colleagues: reject these feverish legal theories.

There is, of course, little reason for Whitehouse to be optimistic this will happen. Still, it's a surprise to see even one senator demonstrating he cares about these issues, and explaining them in a way normal people can understand.

For more, see Marcy Wheeler's typically cogent commentary.

Fiscal Conservatives Hit Huckabee on His Tax Record

The problem with the Republican Party is that it is composed of various groups—small government fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, national security hawks—whose interests don't always align.

Usually the GOP can find a candidate, like George W. Bush, who satisfies all three groups. This time around, though, they're not so lucky. The candidates who "check all the boxes" are either faking it (Romney) or are only kinda interested in running (Thompson), and those who don't are getting beaten up by the portions of the party they leave dissatisfied.

Take this ad, for example. The fiscally conservative, tax-hating Club for Growth is hammering Huckabee for his moderate economic record.

The bad thing about Huckabee's tax hikes mentioned here is that they weren't progressive (except possibly the income tax "surcharge"); they hit the middle and working classes as hard or harder than they hit the upper class. That means that if Huckabee survives these attacks at gets the GOP nod, he'll probably be attacked for this stuff by the Democrats, too.

The Next Financial Crisis: Credit Cards

The next step in the growing financial squeeze—what the banking community likes to call the "soft landing"—is coming down in credit cards. Take a look at those offers you're getting in the mail. Gone are the promises of permanent low APRs on purchases or balance transfers. Instead, the companies are offering a low rate for 6 or maybe 12 months, and then it shoots up to 15 or 20 percent or higher. And there's usually a 5 percent transfer fee on your whole balance—the ceilings on transfer fees are disappearing. So even if you get, say, a 4.9 percent APR for 12 months, it's really 9.9 percent.

This week, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee, chaired by Michigan's Carl Levin, held hearings with representatives of several large credit card lenders on an even more devious practice: Consumers whose credit scores fall even slightly—due to a single late payment, or a problem that has nothing to do with their credit cards—can have their APRs jacked up without warning. The credit card companies can even apply this high interest rate retroactively to already accumulated debt.

"Interest rates are going up, low teaser rates are disappearing, and the credit squeeze is going to get a lot tighter," Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor and expert on credit card debt and personal bankruptcy, told Mother Jones this morning. She is an advisor to the campaign of John Edwards, who has made an issue of predatory lending practices and proposed a commission to regulate credit card rates.

What happens, I asked Warren, when people struggling to pay their mortgages go deep into credit card debt, and then can't pay? Do the credit card companies get to take their assets, including their homes? "Here's the deal: A credit card company can't seize your bank account or grab your car without going to court,'' she said. "BUT most credit card companies have put arbitration clauses into the fine print of your agreement, so they can go to arbitration, where they know the arbitrators and where they win more than percent of the time. They then take the arbitration award to a court and get a judgment on it, and the consumer can't do anything about it. If the arbitration was unfair, that's too bad—the credit card company wins. It is a scandal." (For another angle on this little-known scam, see my colleague Stephanie Mencimer's recent piece on car loans.)

Warren continues, "Alternatively, credit card companies can go directly to court and they often get a default judgment because the customer didn't receive adequate notice, didn't understand what the notice said, couldn't appear at that time, etc. Many credit card companies have figured out how to turn the court system into a cheap tool to collect from people in financial trouble.'"

So as the subprime crisis deepens, this other crisis is just waiting in the wings. And the new bankruptcy law passed in 2005 serves the interests of credit card companies and other lenders while screwing consumers in additional ways, leaving them no way out of the debt trap.

Does Huckabee Believe Angels Intervene in Hunting Contests?

That's the question I've tried to get the Mike Huckabee campaign to answer.

The surging social conservative who once was a Baptist preacher, as AP reports, is refusing to discuss theology and the "intricate, nit-picky things of church doctrine"--even though he recently attributed his success in the polls to divine intervention. For instance, he has declined in recent days to talk about his view of creationism (at an early debate he indicated he supports it) or to say whether he believes women should be permitted to serve in pastoral leadership roles (a controversial matter within some fundamentalist circles).

But what about angels? As I've noted previously and elsewhere, Huckabee gave a rather intriguing speech at the NRA in September, during which he deftly merged his heartfelt evangelical beliefs with his deep passion for gun rights and hunting. He recalled the time he was in an antelope hunting contest in Wyoming. After several hours of stalking prey on a miserably cold, windy and snowy day, Huckabee had his chance. An antelope was 250 yards away, but right at the edge of his range as a shooter. Then a miracle happened:

I decided that one way or the other, this hunt is about to be over, because I can't stand any more of this cold. And somehow, by the grace of God, when I squeezed the trigger, my Weatherby .300 Mag, which has got to be the greatest gun, I think, ever made in the form of a rifle -- for my sake in hunting, I've never squeezed the trigger and not gotten something -- did its work, and somehow the angels took that bullet and went right to the antelope, and my hunt was over in a wonderful way.

Thanks to those angels, that elk was dead.

After hearing that speech, I sent an email to the press office of the Huckabee campaign asking if the former Arkansas governor does "believe that angels literally intervene in the affairs of human beings and that such intervention includes hunting events." I received no reply. I tried again. Still silence.

Huckabee is delighted to let people know he's a firm believer in God. He's well aware that helps him with Republican primary voters, especially in Iowa. But he doesn't want to answer questions about his beliefs. That's trying to have it both ways--the glory without explaining. With less than month to the Iowa caucus, can Huckabee continue to duck questions about spiritual affairs? Maybe with the help of angels.

December 6, 2007

Here's Your Damn Baby, Now Where Are My #@%&ing Diamond Earrings?

Not to begrudge any woman who's toiled through nine months of pregnancy and multiple hours of labor, but there's something quite sickening about this NYT story about how new mothers are expecting their husbands and partners to pony up with some really sweet bling.

This bonus goes by various names. Some call it the “baby mama gift.” Others refer to it as the “baby bauble.” But it’s most popularly known as the “push present.” That’s “push” as in, “I the mother, having been through the wringer and pushed out this blessed event, hereby claim my reward.” Or “push” as in, “I’ve delivered something special and now I’m pushing you, my husband/boyfriend, to follow suit.”

“It’s more and more an expectation of moms these days that they deserve something for bearing the burden for nine months, getting sick, ruining their body,” said Linda Murray, executive editor of BabyCenter.com. “The guilt really gets piled on.”

A recent survey of more than 30,000 respondents by BabyCenter.com found that 38 percent of new mothers received a gift from their mate in connection with their child. Among pregnant mothers, 55 percent wanted one. About 40 percent of both groups said the baby was ample reward.

You heard that right, only 2 in 5 kids can rest assure that Mom wasn't disappointed that their arrival wasn't accompanied by a tennis bracelet.

It is not the fact that Moms are getting a token of their hard work that bugs me, it is that you know that the diamond industry has their hands in this. Just as they invented a "tradition" of diamond wedding rings, the "three months salary" rule, and the "three-stone anniversary ring." Hey, you can hear DeBeers' pitchmen saying: Why not a carat for each pound of baby? Don't you care, Dad?

I'm just saying. Because no man would ever dare.

(For a timeline of diamond marketing, follow the jump. And there's more here.)

Diamond Timeline
For more on wedding ridiculousness (and the inflation of JLo) go here.

1939: De Beers hires N.W. Ayer and Co. to make diamonds “a psychological necessity…the larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love.” Within three years, 80% of engagements are consecrated with a diamond ring.

1940: After a sociologist advises diamonds be presented as a symbol of a man’s ability to “get into the competitive race,” N.W. Ayer begins loaning gems to actresses, “who can make the grocer’s wife say, ‘I wish I had what she has.’”

1945: Department of Justice charges De Beers with “conspiring to restrict production, monopolize sales and arbitrarily influence prices” by cornering 95% of world market. De Beers executives fail to show up in court, pull company out of U.S. market, opting to use middlemen.

1947: “A Diamond Is Forever” slogan debuts. Jewelers instructed to tell men—who buy 90% of all diamonds—to spend at least two months’ salary on ring. The not-so-subtle message: Can you afford not to?

1970s: De Beers gains control of huge Soviet cache of small stones and begins emphasizing “color, cut, and clarity.”

1981:Thanks to 14-year campaign to glamorize Western wedding customs, 60% of Japanese wives sport diamond rings; their husbands spend more on them than American counterparts.

1994: DOJ again charges De Beers with price-fixing. Executives again skip court and can’t visit the U.S. for fear of arrest.

1999: Advertising Age declares “A Diamond is Forever” the most effective slogan of 20th century, recognized by 90% of Americans.

2000: “Three-stone anniversary ring” campaign is an instant success.

2002: “Diamonds that make a statement”—i.e., they’re bigger— campaign aimed at affluent married couples. Uses slogans like: “Thank you, Bob… Thank you, Lord.”

2003: De Beers markets “right-hand ring” to “stylish” and “independent” single women. Uses slogan, “Your left hand says ‘we,’ your right hand says ‘me.’”

2007: "Push Present" article appears in the New York Times...

Under Goss's Leadership, CIA Destroyed Torture Videotapes, CIA Admits

Breaking: The New York Times reports:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes. [...]

Legal experts, including Daniel Marcus, former general counsel of the September 11 commision, which had requested all relevant material from the CIA and other federal agencies, told the paper that the legal consequences for knowingly destroying evidence and lying about it could be severe.

If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations. [...]

John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer from 2002 to 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said the destruction of the tapes could carry serious legal penalties.

“If anybody at the C.I.A. hid anything important from the Justice Department, he or she should be prosecuted under the false statement statute,” he said.

"I want to say 'unbelievable' but I find that I just shake my head thinking 'why should I be surprised,'" emails attorney Mark Zaid, an attorney who frequently represents Agency employees. "This is yet another example of the arrogance that exists out there - ESPECIALLY WITH THE LAWYERS (several of whom would have been involved in this matter) - that the CIA is the king that can do no wrong. They believe they are above the law and will not stop acting that way until someone or something prevents them from doing so."

More informed reaction from former Justice Department official Marty Lederman.

Campaign Reporting Nose-dives During the Holidays; Meanwhile, Jeffrey Lord Wishes Dems a Merry Christmas

By this point in the already-interminable '08 election season, the temptations of the holidays are beginning to seduce even devoted political junkies away from Iowa, New Hampshire, and their YouTube satellites. Campaign reporters—being only human—are also a little distracted by holiday cheer. Witness the New York Times' post-Thanksgiving report on the candidates' eating habits (Barack Obama looks as though someone had to Photoshop a corndog into his hand; Rudy Giuliani will steal your food), or yesterday's giddy recounting of the brimming happiness of Dennis Kucinich. But Tuesday's piece in the American Spectator almost defies explanation. In a long essay lamenting the nastiness of politics, writer and former Reagan political director Jeffrey Lord (aka He-For-Whom-YouTube-Is-Too-Liberal), proclaims that his Christian faith obligates him to say something nice about each of the Democratic candidates. In "Merry Christmas to the Opposition," he praises Hillary Clinton for being "a great Mom" and commends John Edwards for inspiring people "to just keep their heads down and stay on their respective tasks in life."

Heartwarming, no? And incredibly patronizing. Despite going on for paragraphs about how
conversations with liberals inevitably result in "furious personal assaults that usually end with the liberal in question abruptly walking away or refusing to discuss the issue," he makes no effort to show respect for any of the candidates' actual work, ideas, or positions. No, he's not obligated to do this—maybe he doesn't respect those positions. But to accuse all liberals of refusing to engage their conservative counterparts on substantive issues and then refuse to do so oneself, citing the obligations that Christmas confers on us to rise above the fray, is so smug it's almost offensive. Like the Republicans for whom the filibuster is an affront to the civility of Congress only when the Democrats are using it, Mr. Lord needs to tone down the self-satisfaction and raise the level of dialogue to where he thinks it should be.

—Casey Miner

Examining Mike Huckabee's Record on Immigration: Compassion Replaced by Intolerance

In honor of Mike Huckabee's newly released "Secure America Plan" to fight illegal immigration, which I will summarize below, I want to point out some past quotes from the former Arkansas Governor. Huckabee used to have a relatively compassionate view of immigration, which he seems to have abandoned in favor of the Republican party line.

- In 2005, Huckabee was faced with a bill that would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants. He opposed it. "[Illegal immigrants] pay sales taxes on their groceries. They pay fuel taxes. If they're using a fake Social Security number, they're paying Social Security taxes and will never receive any benefit," said Huckabee. Speaking of the bills primary backers, Huckabee said, "It would be closer to the truth to say [illegal immigrants are] subsidizing Joe McCutchen and Jim Holt more than the other way around." Huckabee added a line that would warm any liberal's heart. "Something that's not worth sharing is not worth celebrating," Huckabee said. "This is the kind of country that opens its doors. This bill expresses an un-American attitude."

- In the spring of 2007, Huckabee told Real Clear Politics, "When people say, 'They're taking our jobs'—I used to hear that as Governor—and I started asking this question, 'Can you name me any person, give me their name, who can't get a job plucking a chicken or picking a tomato or tarring a roof that would like to do that work?'... And I'd hear 'Well, it's a lot of people,' and I said, 'No, no, don't tell me it's a lot of people... Tell me their names. Take a few hours. Go get them. Give me their names.' I never, ever, had a person who could come up with the name of a person... so much of it was more about emotion than it was about the reality." In that interview Huckabee did support a fence, and opposed amnesty.

- Later in the spring of 2007, Huckabee said, "I just don't think it's realistic to say this weekend we're going to round up 12 to 20 million young people and their children and we're going to put them across the border and they're never going to come back."

- At a recent CNN debate, Huckabee defended his decision as mayor to give public university scholarships to the sons and daughters of illegal immigrants. He said, "We're not going to punish a child because the parent committed a crime. That's not what we typically do in this country." Later he added, "We're a better country than that."

Let's contrast all this to Huckabee's current immigration plan:

1. Build a fence. Self-explanatory.

2. Increase border patrol. Also self-explanatory.

3. Prevent amnesty. In reality, what Huckabee means by "prevent amnesty" is self-deport every single illegal immigrant in the country, as if this is somehow possible. His plan says, "Propose to provide all illegal immigrants a 120-day window to register with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and leave the country. Those who register and return to their home country will face no penalty if they later apply to immigrate or visit; those who do not return home will be, when caught, barred from future reentry for a period of 10 years." So to review, rounding up all the illegal immigrants in America and deporting them "this weekend" is not realistic. However, giving them 120 days to deport themselves is realistic.

4. Enforce the law on employers. Punish companies that use illegal immigrant labor.

Then there is some stuff about implementing the FairTax, discouraging dual citizenship, and modernizing the process of legal immigration (which would actually be very cool). There is nothing about what benefits ought to be afforded to illegal immigrants and their children already in the country. In that sense, Huckabee ducks some important questions.

Iowans Rail Against Illegal Immigrants They Rarely See

The LA Times has an article highlighting something that I noticed when I was on the campaign trail. Iowans hate illegal immigration, even though there are few, if any, illegal immigrants in their towns. In every Republican campaign event I attended, the candidate spoke at length about stopping illegal immigration, drawing some of the strongest applause of the day. Afterwards, Republican voters would speak at length about how the border needs to be enforced and about how unfair it is that immigrants use public services without paying taxes. (Which is wrong.) They would even talk about supporting Tom Tancredo.

And the Democratic voters weren't that much different. At the Democratic events, the candidates would avoid immigration for the entirety of their speeches and then the first question would always be, "What do you plan on doing about illegal immigration?"

This, despite the fact that Iowa is 97 percent white. The LA Times article collects all sorts of anti-immigrant quotes—"I'm dead set on this: You speak English or you get the heck out of here"—from citizens of 5,000-person town in which fewer than 50 were born outside the U.S.

It's almost like there is an inverse proportion between how often you see or interact with illegal immigrants in your community and how much you oppose their presence in the country.

Romney to Atheists: Drop Dead

Drop dead? Well, not really. But close. In his much-hyped speech today, Mitt Romney offered this short observation to Americans eager to know his thoughts about theology and politics:

Freedom requires religion.

That's an intriguing notion. Does that mean those who are not religious cannot be free? Are atheists or agnostics not truly free people? Is belief in a deity a prerequisite for embracing and living in freedom? Seems as if Romney does not fully appreciate an idea he pushed in his speech: tolerance.

Elsewhere in the speech, there was a line that took a fair bit of chutzpah to utter:

Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.

Romney was, of course, talking about spiritual beliefs. He wasn't talking about his beliefs regarding abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, or gun control--beliefs he has jettisoned for the 2008 campaign. During the address, Romney remarked, "Americans do not respect believers of convenience." The coming election might put that proposition to the test.

Internet Sales Taxes: Just in Time for Christmas?

A U.S. House committee today is hearing the pros and cons of a bill that would finally allow states to collect sales taxes on stuff bought online. The states desperately need the money. Sales taxes account for a third of all state revenue, and the bulk of it goes towards public education, but that tax base is eroding thanks to a proliferation of online sales outlets. One study estimates that by 2008, the states will be losing $33 billion in revenue on "remote" sales, $18 billion of which comes from virtual stores.

Internet retailers have successfully batted down such proposals in the past, arguing that they would infringe on interstate commerce. But the states have gotten smarter and in recent years many have banded together to create uniform tax codes and a voluntary agreement to tax these companies, hoping to get around the constitutional issues. The bill, introduced by Massachusetts congressman William Delahunt, would let those states bound by the agreement tax remote companies.

At the hearing today, the bill got support from retailer J.C. Penny, which has to collect sales taxes on its Internet business because it also has bricks-and-mortar stores in many states. It wants to level the playing field to make it easier to compete with companies that are solely online. Opposing the bill, though, is the Direct Marketing Association, once known as the junk-mail lobby but which now represents catalog sales companies and electronic merchants. Not surprisingly, the DMA is opposed to the legislation, and DMA rep George Isaacson insisted that state legislators have vastly overestimated how much money they're losing in sales tax revenue. He says the figure is more in the range of $145 million as opposed to the many billions claimed by the state legislators. Still, that's a nice chunk of change that could put a few new teachers in the classroom without causing too much pain to the general public. No word yet on the bill's prospects, but no doubt it will create a nice fundraising vehicle for legislators on both sides of the aisle.

Mitt Romney's Big Speech: Love all Religions (Except Islam)

Mitt Romney had an almost impossible task before him today in College Station, Texas: he had to emphasize America's proud tradition of religious freedom while winning voters in what has essentially become a Christian party.

"A person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should he be rejected because of his faith," said Romney, echoing John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on his Catholic faith. "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin."

That was essentially the message Kennedy delivered when he went before an organization of Baptist ministers and said that he would rather resign than let the Vatican dictate the decisions of the American government. "I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair," Kennedy said then. "I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to none."

But Kennedy and Romney gave their speeches in drastically different environments. Kennedy was trying to reassure Democratic voters, who were and are less fervently religious than Republican voters and who are more comfortable with, as Kennedy urged, an "absolute" separation of Church and State. Moreover, there were 35 to 40 million Catholics in America at the time. Most every Protestant knew one. Many had a family member married to one.

Today, Romney is running in a party in which 37 percent of members identify as white evangelicals, 23 percent identify as white mainline Protestants, and 19 percent identify as non-Hispanic Catholic. Twenty-one percent are "other" or "don't know." In other words, 79 percent or more of the party is Christian. And Mormons number just five to six million, roughly two percent of the country.

It is because of the Republican Party's religiosity that Romney had to acknowledge that questions about his religion were legitimate, and that religion has a role in public life. "The notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning," said Romney. "They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America—the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

For the portion of the GOP that actually believes liberals are waging a War on Christmas, Romney said that God should remain on "our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history."

Romney didn't go into the details of the Mormon faith—other than to say "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind"—claiming that laying out such specifics for the judgment of the nation would "enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution."

In fact, Romney only said the word Mormon once in the entire speech. That may have been strategic. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, white evangelical Protestants, the largest portion of the Republican Party, are the American religious group most reluctant to vote for a Mormon. Those who attend church once a week are even more hesitant: 41 percent say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate just because he is a Mormon. Only 21 percent of Catholics say the same, by contrast.

But Americans of all stripes have an uncomfortable relationship with Mormons. Just 53 percent of Americans as a whole expresses a favorable view of them. And only 52 percent buy Romney' argument that Mormonism is a Christian religion.

Romney, though, had a perfect distraction for his doubters, the religious group Americans distrust more than Mormons: Muslims. "Infinitely worse [than the loss of faith in society] is the other extreme, the creed of conversion by conquest: violent Jihad, murder as martyrdom, killing Christians, Jews, and Muslims with equal indifference. These radical Islamists do their preaching not by reason or example, but in the coercion of minds and the shedding of blood. We face no greater danger today than theocratic tyranny."

No matter how much Republican voters may distrust members of Romney's faith, they hate someone else more.

Red Storm Rising: Russian Fleet Resumes Regular Patrols

Dust off your old Tom Clancy novels. The Red menace has returned. Well, not really, but it's certainly giving it the old college try. Earlier this year, apparently emboldened by oil and gas profits, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the resumption of long-range flights by Russia's mothballed fleet of strategic bombers. The news today is that the Russian Navy has dispatched an 11-ship aircraft carrier group to the Mediterranean. According to Russian Defense Minister Anatoly E. Serdyukov, the move is part of an effort to restore regular Russian naval patrols to the high seas, which had fallen off after the end of the Cold War. The fleet currently in the Mediterranean includes an aircraft carrier, two anti-submarine ships, a guided missile cruiser, and refueling ships.

December 5, 2007

Banning Harry Potter Is Just SO 20th Century

Now that the Harry Potter books, films, water globes, watches and tote bags are an established part of western culture, banning The Golden Compass is about to be all the rage. The film, which stars Nicole Kidman, is based on the novel, Northern Lights, the first of British author Phillip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials . It tells the story of an orphaned girl who lives in a parallel universe that is threatened by a rigid dictatorship called the Magisterium.

Calling the film "atheism for kids," the Catholic League has strongly suggested that Northern Lights and the rest of the trilogy be removed from schools and libraries. Most descriptions of the film indicate that the author's stance against organized religion, and the Catholic church in particular, has been significantly diluted in the film version, but the banning has already begun. Catholic League William A. Donohue say he is aware that the film is tame by the book's standards, but he is afraid that children who see the film will want to read the novel.

Pullman, for his part, disagrees that The Golden Compass is anti-Catholic, though he acknowledges that atheism is a theme in the film. The American Library Association has issued a statement that calls on parents, teachers and librarians to resist any attempts to censor library collections.

And in a parallel universe where children are discouraged from reading books, several schools have already removed Pullman's works from the shelves.

The Golden Compass opens in theaters this Friday.

Iraqi View of Surge's "Success"

In a recent post on Last of Iraqis, one of the few Iraqi English-language blogs still up and running, blogger Mohammed offers a new perspective on what the U.S. has called success in Iraq. After a November 25th bombing near the ministry of health left his good friend's mom in critical condition, the 25-year-old dentist said he suspected the relative calm of the last couple of weeks didn't mean the insurgents were gone—just that they were pausing to regroup. He wrote, "It seems that the terrorists from all sides were just planning what to do next, they were planning how to overcome the current changes."

With another deadly blast hitting Baghdad today, Mohammed's view of recent developments seems far more accurate than the mainstream American media's. The violence has always been cyclical, and there's no reason to believe things are any different this time around.

Throughout the war, undiluted blogging from Iraqis on the ground has kept American news outlets in check. The BBC has done a roundup of these posts from civilians inside the country every couple of months since January of this year.

—Andre Sternberg

Supersize Coup—Morgan Spurlock Finds Osama?

No one can say for sure, but rumor has it that director Morgan Spurlock, of McMadness fame, has located the elusive al Qaeda leader. Read more over at The Riff.

—Casey Miner

Mitt Romney, You're No Jack Kennedy

George Packer on why Mitt Romney's upcoming "Mormon speech" should not be compared to JFK's famous 1960 "Catholic speech":

Romney’s intention is the exact opposite of Kennedy’s. He’s caught in a trap of his own and his party’s making. Romney can’t raise the shield of secularism, as Kennedy did, because he is seeking the nomination of a sectarian party that’s built on a religious test. He can’t stand on any principle at all, secular or religious; instead, he has to win over the Christianists, who make up a large part of the Republican base, even though he belongs to a faith that most of them consider un-Christian. His eternal truth will be: “Hey, we’re not that different.” He parades his large and perfect family, he reminds us of his spotless personal life, he is dismissive of the possibility of appointing a Muslim Cabinet member, all to immunize himself against the religious bigotry of the voters he’s wooing. He’s going to do the same thing on Thursday. So no more comparisons with Kennedy, please.

Read the rest here.

Government Can't Get Its Story Straight On Iran NIE

George Bush, yesterday:

DAVID GREGORY: When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat? And don't you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

THE PRESIDENT: ...I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze...it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley claimed much the same thing on Monday:

[W]hen the President was told that we had some additional information, he was basically told: stand down; needs to be evaluated; we'll come to you and tell you what we think it means. So this was basically -- as we said, this is information that came in the last few months, and the intelligence community spent a lot time to get on top of it.

As implausible as this seems, the Los Angeles Times reports that, according to "U.S. intelligence officials," Bush was telling the truth:

The new intelligence was considered compelling enough to call it to Bush's attention in August. In a news conference at the White House on Tuesday, Bush said that the nation's intelligence director, J. Michael McConnell, "came in and said, 'We have some new information.' "

Bush said that McConnell did not provide details...The decision to hold those details back has come under question...But U.S. intelligence officials said they felt compelled to employ that level of caution in part because of the searing experience surrounding the war in Iraq.

"Back in 2002, one of the knocks on the process at the time was that information was not vetted by analysts and was being rushed into the Oval Office," said the senior U.S. intelligence official...This time, even as they vetted the new intelligence and launched into major revisions of the estimate on Iran's nuclear program, intelligence officials said, they deliberately shielded analysts from administration officials and policymakers.

Yet this claim they were just working away without giving the Bush administration any hint of what they were up to is directly contradicted by a Washington Post story yesterday:

Senior officials said the latest conclusions grew out of a stream of information, beginning with a set of Iranian drawings obtained in 2004 and ending with the intercepted calls between Iranian military commanders, that steadily chipped away at the earlier assessment.

In one intercept, a senior Iranian military official was specifically overheard complaining that the nuclear program had been shuttered years earlier, according to a source familiar with the intelligence. The intercept was one of more than 1,000 pieces of information cited in footnotes to the 150-page classified version of the document, an official said.

Several of those involved in preparing the new assessment said that when intelligence officials began briefing senior members of the Bush administration on the intercepts, beginning in July, the policymakers expressed skepticism. Several of the president's top advisers suggested the intercepts were part of a clever Iranian deception campaign, the officials said.

So..."senior members of the Bush administration" including the "president's top advisers" were briefed "beginning in July" on the nitty-gritty of the new information, and they made specific criticisms of it. Yet the Bush administration had no idea what was going on until last week. You bet.

Can Fringe Anti-Mormon Fundamentalists Bring Down Romney?

Don't ask me why, but I'm on the email list of several extreme Christian fundamentalist groups. And lately I've received a couple of warnings from them: watch out for Mitt Romney. He's a Mormon.

On Thursday, Romney is scheduled to give (finally) what's being called his "Mormon Speech." Romney recently said, "I can tell you I'm not going to be talking so much about my faith as I am talking about the religious heritage of our country and the role in which it played in the founding of the nation and the role which I think religion should generally play today in our society."

No one really wants to hear Romney expound on the history of religion in the United States. The issue is whether he can persuade conservative conventional Christians that he, as a Mormon, is as good a Christian as they (and Mike Huckabee) are. Why is he delivering such a speech just weeks before the Iowa caucus? Obviously he and his advisers have decided he has no choice, especially with Huckabee, the former Baptist minister, surging in the polls in the Hawkeye State.

There are Christians who consider Mormonism a heretical cult, but there's no telling if the fundamentalists who are gunning for Romney will have any influence on GOP Iowa caucus-goers, a relatively small slice of Iowans dominated by social conservatives.

One outfit called Godvoters.org has put out an email decrying Romney.

It notes that

At the core of Mormonism is the belief that Jesus and Satan used to be human blood brothers in a distant planet - Jesus behaved well according to Mormonism and became a deity in our planet system, while Satan behaved badly and became the devil. Moreover, Mormonism teaches that good conduct as per Mormonism in this life will enable Mormons to become God in a different planet system someday, just like Jesus a generation ago.

A religion which teaches that Jesus - our perfectly pure and holy God and Lord - is the blood brother of Satan - the perfectly evil and sinful creature - is an abomination, and the idea that a creature can become the Creator is precisely what turned Lucifer, the angel of light, into Satan, and is therefore Satanic by nature.

How significant is this group? Its website claims five dozen "bible-based" churches in Iowa are working with its effort to have all the presidential candidates answer a questionnaire that includes such queries as "Do you believe only those who obey Jesus as their master will go to heaven?" and "If you had to choose between God and country, which would you choose?"

Godsvoter.org declares, "Christians are not interested in a history lesson from Governor Romney....Neither are we interested in a sound bite commercial on Mormonism. What we want to hear and what will put our votes into play in his favor is a sincere, unequivocal and genuine repudiation of Mormonism." It wants the former governor of Massachusetts to answer these questions:

1. "Do you believe that Jesus and Satan once were human brothers as Mormonism teaches?"

2. "Do you hope to become God someday as Mormonism teaches that you can become?"

3. "If not, will you at this time renounce Mormonism and sever all ties to it?"

Romney sure ain't going to walk away from his church, and this organization has "fringe" written all over it. But the issue is whether such sentiments are creeping through the GOP electorate in Iowa. Remember, it was a bunch of nobody creeps in South Carolina in 2000 who spread a series of false rumors about John McCain (he had sired a child out of wedlock, he had been brainwashed in Vietnam, his wife was a doper) and who sank his campaign. A similar sort of crusade is not impossible in Iowa. Via emails and whispers, anti-Mormon fundamentalists need only sow doubt among tens of thousands of Iowans to tilt the election.

In the face of that, can Romney's speech create a theological firewall? Perhaps--if it's a helluva speech.

Video of The View: "I Don't Think Anything Predated Christians"

I don't want to make this "Poke Fun at Christians Who Say Silly Things" day at MoJoBlog (see here), but I just can't believe this went over the national airwaves.

"I don't think anything predated Christians... Jesus came first." Really, Sherri Shepherd? I ask this because you seem like a devout Christian woman: Have you read the Bible? Because there's this part called the Old Testament. Much, dare I say all, of it predates the part with the Christians.

They should have to issue a correction on tomorrow's show, just like a newspaper.

(H/T Ygelsias)

San Francisco GOP Dukes It Out With Paulites

The San Francisco Republican Alliance (yes, there are Republicans here) fended off a throng of Ron Paul supporters that threatened to overwhelm its annual pre-election banquet last night at Fisherman's Wharf. The dinner was to be followed by a straw poll, but Alliance leader Gail Neira canceled it after the Paulites showed up in droves. Paul supporters are known for swarming and being locked out of online straw polls, but this may be the first time they've shut down a poll in the meatspace. The pandemonium that ensured, captured on video below, looks like a scene from a Democratic tea party in 1969:

Though Paul supporters may not always be polite (or racially sensitive), they're clearly shaking up the GOP with the kind of energy bordering on fanaticism that is normally associated with the acolytes of left-wing revolutionarios. Among their latest exploits: a Ron-Paul-branded version of Google (RonPoogle), a Bands4RonPaul Myspace page devoted to Paul fight songs (there are 16), and efforts to conscript 40,000 donors to build a nuclear version of the Ron Paul Money Bomb by agreeing to generate $1,000,000 a week. Wonkette calls them Paultards, but I prefer the term embraced by the Weekly Standard: Ronulans.

Huckabee: God Responsible for My Rise in Polls

There is so much about Christian evangelicals that coastal liberals don't understand. Like how a man of obvious intelligence can attribute his rise in the polls to mass prayer and God's will.

Huckabee backtracked slightly after this appearance, adding, "I'm saying that when people pray, things happen.... I'm not saying that God wants me to be elected."

Huckabee, who is taking first and second in national polls of the Republican race nowadays, told GQ recently that it isn't fair that he gets so much scrutiny for his faith while the other candidates don't. He can't make those complaints with a straight face if he's going to go around saying stuff like this.

America needs to decide if they are ready for a president who literally sees God in the details. Doesn't the idea of getting God to do what you want through prayer contradict the very idea of being a governor or president? Because you woul