Whose Banks? Our Banks.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/11/yes-the-us-government-ought-to-own-the-banks-now.html

"When you don't take equity...you aren't acting as a good agent for your principals, the taxpayers."

By all rights, the American people should own the major banks right now. We were lenders of last resort, and the government's decision not to secure equity for US taxpayers was an abject failure to represent our financial interests.

We were compelled by the crisis to act as a lender of last resort. But by all rights should have been able to take over the banks, clean house, restructure, and ensure the banks didn't make a profit off of their own avarice and incompetence. Instead, the government participated in the worst kind of crony capitalism by rescuing the banks and then letting their executives profit from tanking the economy

Obama Administration Attacks Court Ruling Striking Down DADT

What. The. Hell. Isn't this the man claiming to be "fierce advocate" of gay rights?!

http://www.openleft.com/diary/20284/fierce-advocate-stirkes-again-once-again-gay-rights-targeted-not-defended

To quote the Open Left piece:

"the Log Cabin Republicans brought suit on behalf of their members in the military. So now the Obama DOJ is arguing that they're the only ones who could possibly be affected. Meaning, by analogy, that Brown v. Board of Education should only have desegregated those children who were plaintiffs in the suits combined under Brown."

If the Obama DOJ had its way, the USA would still have segregated schools.

State Secrets Upheld in Jeppesen Ruling, Will be Appealed to SCOTUS

Yesterday, the ACLU's team that was challenging a post-9/11 US program that flew terrorism suspects to secret prisons, suffered a major legal setback. Jeppesen, a Boeing subsidiary was contracted out by the CIA to conduct said flights. The ruling, which was handed down by the 9th district Court of Appeals, was divided 6-5 and narrowly upheld the state secrets doctrine used by the Bush Administration and now defended by the Obama DOJ. The case will undoubtedly be appealed to the SCOTUS, which in all likelihood will uphold the appeals' court's ruling.

In light of the recent developments Jeppesen case, I thought I'd share a couple of relevant links. In this first video from a panel hosted by the American Constitution Scoiety (ACS), Ben Wizner, the ACLU's attorney in the Jeppesen case, discusses state secrets and national security. This is back from 2008, but the points Wizner makes are the same as the ACLU made in Jeppesen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJpcq6VO7N4

Here are two other great clips of Wizner on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#29129616 - This one starts a little silly with a reenactment of a 9th circuit ruling on Jeppesen from 2009, but quickly gets serious as Wizner joins Maddow to discuss state secrets, national security and the details of the Jeppesen case. This clip is the only one I could find where Wizner specifically discusses Jeppesen.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#31378360 - This clip has Wizner discussing the Bush Administration's state secrets doctrine. Wizner additionally provides proof of the use of State Secrets for political purposes.

Ben Wizner also came and spoke at Oxy in October 2009 about Jeppesen, the history of the state secrets doctrine, and ACLU involvement with other torture cases. I took extensive notes on the lecture/Q&A and posted them on my blog here: http://powertothepundits.blogspot.com/search/label/Ben%20Wizner

David Adler: The Q + A

After David Adler's Dec. 3rd lecture to Oxy's "American Presidency", which I blogged about last week, he had a Q+A session. I also got the chance to ask him several questions that focused more directly on torture and the constitution.

Here are some of the questions I asked and the responses I received from Prof. Adler. Because I did not have a recording device, I will be paraphrasing Prof. Adler's responses:

Q: In the last several months, the Obama administration has seen the resignation of several high profile officials who were involved with Guantanamo and Torture policy. The list includes such high profile individuals as Greg Craig (White House Counsel), Phil Carter (Detainee affairs policy appointee), and David Ogden (Deputy Attorney General). Do you think that this massive turnover in torture policymakers is indicative of a disagreement on torture in the Obama administration?

A: Adler does believe there is significant disagreement w/in the Obama admin. He believes that there is a significant push-pull between the Obama administration's desire to follow his campaign promises and Constitutional principles and political pressure from the military and party power brokers not to tackle the issue of torture. He believes Obama will eventually close Guantanamo Bay.

Q: Congress recently wrote legislation allowing the Defense Secretary to withhold photos of US-committed torture during the Bush years. The Supreme Court used this legislation as the basis to advise the 2nd District Court of Appealsto reconsider siding with the ACLU's FOIA suit. Is it unusual for the Supreme Court to rely on congressional legislation to make its legal decisions? Also, what effect does this have on the breadth and power of FOIA.

A: Adler replied that no, it's not unusual for the Court to use congressional legislation rather than just the Constitution and legal precedent. He also asserted that FOIA lost a massive amount of clout under the Bush administration, and he's hopeful that it will return to its previous prominence with the Obama administration's promises for open government.

Q: Why can Obama increase troop levels? Isn't that congress' role?

A: Adler agreed with me that this should be congress' call to make. Because of congress' ceding of war powers to the Presidency and the executive's role as the sole organ of foreign policy has resulted in the movement of war powers from the legislature to the executive.

Q: As a potential US Senate candidate and a Constitutional scholar, I have to ask you abut the institution of the Senate itself. Considering the filibuster fiasco and other undemocratic elements (e.g. unequal representation of states) of the Senate, do you think fundamental changes nead to be made to the institution?

A: Adler believes that while the filibuster may have been useful during the civil rights era, it no longer serves a valid purpose. He would advocate the filibusters' elimination if elected. He doesn't believe that the Senate needs to be eradicated in the name of democracy.


And 3 questions from the class:

Q: If not Iraq, what will it take to get the American public to embrace a Constitutional culture?

A: Adler responded that he didn't know, but re-emphasized education.

Q: Is Obama surging in Afghanistan due to political pressure.

A: Adler has immense respect for Obama's character and thinks he makes extremely deliberative decisions that are not motivated by concerns for his legacy. Though he doesn't agree with the Afghanistan surge, he thinks that Obama is doing what he perceives to be the best and most rational course of action within a very poor set of circumstances.

Q: If you run for Senate, will you devote precious campaign time and resources to making a return to constitutional governance a major campaign cornerstone?

A: Adler reasserted that it will be a top priority for him both on the campaign trail and off.


Thanks a million to Professor Adler for answering so many of my questions and giving his time to our class! I wish him the best of luck, and know he will make an excellent Senator from the great state of Idaho.

David Adler: The Constitutional Presidency, Obama and Torture

On Thursday December 3rd, Oxy's American Presidency class was visited by decorated constitutional scholar David Adler. David Adler is an expert on the American presidency and constitutional law and is a professor at Idaho State University. He is also actively considering running against Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) in 2014. Imagine that, someone in congress who is an expert on the constitution.

A selection of some of the points he made in his talk about presidential power:

• Power abhors a vacuum. Congress relinquishes its powers and the president usurps them . The courts have failed to rein in the unconstitutional expansion of presidential power. In other words, congress has willingly abdicated responsibility to its constitutional role. This runs directly contrary to the Supreme Court's 1819 ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland which mandated that congress alone fulfill its constitutional rule.

• Since the Korean War, all presidents have claimed unilateral power to go to war. The only exceptions have been Eisenhower and (though with some debate) Obama. To return to a constitutional presidency, we would have to return to a pre-Johnson style of presidential role.

• The standard remedies to the excesses of presidential power are at best infeasible. Obama or any other president is unlikely to actually relinquish their own power. If they were to do so, they would be labled as "feminine" and "weak. The Supreme Court is also unlikely to reestablish a constitutional presidency, as indicated by its frequent decisions to hold up presidential power in foreign policy (e.g. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.). Congress, the institutional body that would seem to be the most interested in reaquiring their own constitutional power, is also unlikely to be the agent that effects this change. Primarily obsessed with their own reelection prospects, many congressmen view taking on the president on matters of foreign policy to be political suicide.

• The standard arguments about why the president should be the "sole organ" of foreign policy are bunk. He/she doesn't necessarily have more foreign policy knowledge than members of congress. The main reason the president might have a higher level of knowledge of current foreign policy information is because congress has structured the flow of information such that it flows through the executive before going to congress (if ever). Congress in the early days of the nation passed a law requiring that the executive branch had to share all of its knowledge with congress. This was passed with the support of Madison, Washington, and even Hamilton, perhaps the biggest founding supporter of executive power. In short, congress' lack of foreign policy clout is because it has artificially and unconstitutionally transfered that responsibility to the presidency.
  

• The solution to all this? Adler identifies the 3 C's: Constitutional culture, Constitutional consciousness, and Constitutional conscience. Adler believes that ultimately Americans must be educated from the ground up and reminded what a society without rule of constitutional law looks like. Once we've been educated enough to have a culture that prioritizes constitutional values, Adler argues we will have the consciousness to monitor government actions for excessive exercises of power and have the conscience to speak out against said abuses.
  

I had the opportunity after the lecture to ask Prof. Adler several questions about presidential power and torture 1-on-1. Stay tuned for a summary of that session as well as my own analysis and reflection!

Supreme Court Rejects Appeals Court Ruling Ordering Release of Torture Photos

There is another frustrating setback in the torture photos saga that started on May 13th when the Obama administration reversed its decision to release a substantial number of new Abu Ghraib photos to the public. As reported today by the New York Times, the Supreme Court nullified the 2008 ruling by the Manhattan Second Circuit Court of Appeals that ordered the photos be released to the public. The Supreme Court has today kicked the ruling back to the Appeals Court, asking, as the Times put it, that it "give 'further consideration' to the issue in light of a Congressional action authorizing the Defense Department to keep the pictures from the public."

As a constitutional law dork, I have to ask why the Supreme Court would pay any heed to Congressional legislation in its rulings. Supreme Court cases deal by definition with matters of strictly constitutional law. If our system of checks and balances is to be believed, as articulated in Marbury v. Madison, it is the within the purview of the Court to curb Congressional action, not vice versa. The Court since its inception was meant to stand as an antimajoritarian counterweight to the executive and legislative branches. It is the Supreme Court's most basic duty in this case to authoritatively decide whether or not it is constitutional to withhold the torture photos as so-called "state secrets". If the Court is unwilling to fulfill its basic constitutional obligation to decide cases on the basis of constitutional law alone in this case, it should have not granted cert. to the case. Rather than subvert their own constitutional role, the Supreme Court could have simply let the Appeals Court ruling stand.

Sadly, the constitution sadly doesn't seem to be the center of this debate. My fingers are crossed that the hard work of the ACLU and their allies will be sufficient enough to convince the Appeals Court once again that the constitution still matters. Maybe then will we get the photos, and with them another step towards truth, justice, and accountability.

Return to the Rule of Law?

Breaking News: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 4 other men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks will finally be put on trial in NYC. Unfortunately, it was also announced that 5 other men will face military commissions. Regardless, though this is specifically being politically framed as bringing the 9/11 perpetrators to justice, it is a massive step in favor of law and order. President Obama is finally fulfilling President Bush's promise to bring the accused 9/11 conspirators to justice. This is a huge political risk for President Obama. If successful, the trials will make him a man of justice, and if plagued by complications from US-committed torture could be a major political albatross.

The GOP of course, is outraged. Surprise, surprise. Some pretty crazy things are being said by individuals such as Sen. Jeff Sessions and Sen. John McCain, but the crown jewel of crazy goes to former NYC Rudy Giuliani, who said on Fox that "We think they're criminals! These are soldiers in a war against us; and the rules of war should apply." Apparently the new chapter in Republican revisionist history is that we have treated these men as "prisoners of war" and should continue to do so. If they're POWs, the Geneva Conventions apply. Are you and the Republican party willing to accept that Mr. Giuliani? The hypocrisy of these men is astounding, as they flood the media with the message that these accused terrorists are POWs and hence can't be tried in civilian court. A reminder to Mr. Giuliani, Sens. McCain and Sessions and their ilk: it was you who supported the declassification of these men as POWs and the creation of the "Geneva Convention-immune" classification of "enemy combatant". You cannot call them POWs again out of convenience after 8 years of illegal detention, torture and Geneva Convention violations. That is revisionist history and blatantly deceptive.

Additionally, the Republicans seem to be arguing that the US courts are incapable of dealing with terrorism cases. As Rachel Maddow pointed out tonight, this is an absurd proposition. We've imprisoned Charles Manson, the "blind sheik", the "unabomber", the "shoe bomber" and even another 9/11 conspirator through the federal courts. This, as Maddow points out, is sheer cowardice.

I would go further than Maddow does though and outline the political implications of these proceedings for Republicans. I believe that the Republicans do have legitimate reasons to be afraid, though not for the safety of the American people. Rather, the Republicans are all too aware that these trials for the first time will allow the Guantanomo detainees to testify in a real American court about the torture they were subjected to at the hands of the US. No longer will the culpability of the Bush White House's torture program be shielded by a censor and thick glass, as Wizner described it as being in the Gitmo military tribunals. If the details of detainees gruesome torture at the hands of US operatives becomes public, Republicans could be forced to answer for the Bush administration's actions. I'd be panicking if I were them too.

For this blog, the timing of this decision couldn't be better. In my recent posts on Ben Wizner's talks, I quoted him as saying that "[state] secrecy is the source of rot". If AG Holder is serious about these prosecutions, and the accused 9/11 conspirators are only the first of many to face constitutional justice, our long national nightmare of secret torture may finally come to an end. That end is still a long way off, but today marks a historic first step. Friday night is when the most contentious policies are always announced (nobody listens to the news Friday night. Except me.), but this story will hopefully dominate the news for a long time.

Further Viewing:

On the decision to put the 5 men on trial and Republican outrage:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On the challenges facing the court and a possible referendum on the Bush torture policy:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ben Wizner pt. 3: Q+A Session (Oct. 23)

In the Oct. 23rd conversation our class on torture had with ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, we discussed in greater detail and specificity the legal issues regarding torture. We covered a large range of topics, but with an emphasis on state secrets and the classification of the so-called "enemy combatant". Here are some of the gems of knowledge Wizner shared with us:

On State Secrets:

• In relation to torture: "secrecy is the source of rot".
  

• Secrecy and abuse are cyclical: State secrecy sets the stage for torture. Torture creates the need for state secrecy. Etc. etc.

• Though there are legitimate state secrets (e.g. military technology in wartime), secrecy must be balanced with the need for an open government of and for the people. State secrets have been abused since their very inception, as evidenced by the pentagon papers. The pentagon papers were held secret on the grounds of national security when ultimately it was revealed that they were kept secret because they were a political liability. Governments have an irresestible temptation to use state secrets for political ends, and this is where the courts must intervene.

On FOIA:

• Between 2000-2006, FOIA was the only oversight of the Presidency. The Republican controlled congress did not perform it's constitutional duty.
  

On the Gitmo Military Tribunals:

• "Secret people, secret laws, secret proceedings". Enemy combatants, being tried under "state secrets protected" secret laws, and the few human rights representatives present could only watch through a soundproof screen. Indeed, they had a censor at the ready to bleep out anything a detainee could say regarding his treatment in Gitmo.

• The tribunals, according to Wizner, were "not about keeping information from terrorists, but about keeping information from the American people.

• The purpose of the courtroom was to prevent testimony about torture from leaving it. The detainees were allowed to talk about martyrdom and other purported evils of the US, and indeed even call for direct assaults on the nation. But when they talked about their treatment in Gitmo, they were censored. In other words, they were allowed to call for assaults on the US, but it was far more important that evidence of US torture be kept secret.

On the So-Called "War on Terror":

• Bush: the "War on Terror" is not a normal war. Enemy combatants are not normal enemies. There are no rules for enemy combatants beyond what we make up. Even individuals acquitted by the Bush-created tribunals remained enemy combatants.
  

• Where Bush argues no laws apply to enemy combatants, as they are a new class of enemy, Wizner argues that they have additional protections. They are both private citizens and enemy fighters. Both criminal laws and rules of combat (e.g. Geneva Conventions) apply.

Question and Answer:

• Wizner opposes a truth commission. Such a commission assumes we all agree that torture occurred. As congressional Republicans exemplify, we do not.

• The rule of law is diminished by the 24-hour news cycle. He-said she-said partisan standoffs always assume two sides to any issue. In other words, the mass media legitimizes fringe believers in the usefulness of torture.

• Wizner hopes that congress will pass legislation defining, and hopefully limiting, the breadth of executive "state secrets".

This is the final installment in the Wizner Talks! Here are the earlier installments: Part 1 and Part 2 .

Ben Wizner pt. 2: Q+A Session (Oct. 22)

In his question and answer session to his Oct. 22 lecture, Ben Wizner addressed much of the audience's lingering confusion surrounding the US' torture program. Here are a few of the points Wizner made:

• President George W. Bush used "state secrets privilege" in an unprecedented manner. Rather than use the provision to withhold individual pieces of evidence at the case-be-case discretion of the judge, Bush used the provision to throw out torture cases before they even got to court. Rather than have to prove the "secret" nature of the individual evidence, the Bush admin. claimed blanket overriding secrecy and denied constitutional due process to the US' torture victims. This practice still continues successfully today in the Obama administration.

• Wizner wholeheartedly denounced Obama's decision to keep many torture photos secret- photos he'd previously promised to release. Obama's argument, no doubt inspired by the generals and his military advisers, was that the release of the photos would jeopardize American soldiers. The underlying rationale, as Wizner pointed out, was the idea that the more international outrage the photos' release would cause, the greater the need to keep them secret. To quote Wizner, this is an "ass-backwards legal philosophy". State secrets should not be applied simply because the relevant material is more outrageous. The law doesn't protect things more when they are more repulsive.

• Wizner is a strong advocate for targeting the publishers and commissioners of the OLC memos in particular because it will be extremely difficult to prosecute others involved. The DOJ would have an extremely difficult time prosecuting "lower-downs" who followed the DOJ's own directives during the Bush years. Conversely, it could be extremely difficult to prove culpability among high level Bush cabinet officials unless it can be proven that they specifically commissioned the memos. Targeting the authors and commissioners is perhaps the most effective path towards legally repudiating torture.

• The media was another topic Wizner addressed in the Q+A. Wizner criticized the confrontational punditocracy that takes place on most mass media today. Every issue, he rightly argues, is oppositionalized, with one pundit arguing one position, and another pundit the other. Wizner contends that it is outrageous that media outlets give extremist wingnuts like Dick Cheney de facto equal legitimacy in the rhetoric of torture by giving their outspoken perspective equal airtime.

• Wizner expressed extreme doubt that members of congress would be held accountable for their actions/inaction regarding torture. At the same time, he didn't close the door on future legal action should new evidence of congressional misconduct arise

Check back later this week for the third and final installment in the Wizner talks, where I discuss his intimate meeting with my Torture class!

See part 1 of the Wizner talks here.

Congressional leaders agree to try Gitmo detainees in US

For the first time since Guantanamo Bay's establishment as a detainment facility by George W. Bush in 2002, congressional leaders have agreeed to try the detained in the United States. This is a landmark decision that is a dramatic reversal of the unconstitutional system of military tribunals currently being implemented in Guantanamo Bay. This is not to say that this "compromise", as the NY Times calls it, is not highly problematic.

I have several questions I'd like to ask about the agreement in question:

1. Does this mean the prisoners will be granted habeus corpus rights? Can they go to trial in the US when we haven't even informed of their alleged crime?

2. The article states: "In addition, it was not clear whether the compromise would permit detainees to be brought to the United States for indefinite detention. An undetermined number of detainees are deemed too dangerous to release but cannot be put on trial because there is insufficient evidence against them". Is there the possibility that we will suspend habeus corpus on US soil? The entire Bush "legal argument", as articulated and ultimately rejected in Boumediene v. Bush, was that the constitution's 4th amendment protections don't apply on foreign soil. This appears to leave open the possibility that we will simply continue to detain prisoners whom we don't have sufficient evidence to convict. Does this compromise intend to only send suspected "dangerous" inmates to trial if we are sure of conviction? Last time I checked, that's not how the criminal justice system works.

3. Why would the agreement "forbid the Obama administration from releasing detainees in the United States"? If they are found innocent in the criminal justice system, aren't we obligated to release them? Where do we send them? To their home countries to face persecution and suspicion (or in the case of the Chinese Uighurs, death)? This seems to follow the same fear-inspired logic that caused congress to forbid Gitmo detainees from being held in US maximum security prisons. Nobody has ever escaped from a maximum security prison. Not the Unabomber, not Charles Manson,and certainly no terrorists. If our system of laws deems these detainees guilty, why can they not be held in our extremely effective high-security prisons? If they are innocent, what right have we not to release them immediately?

September Torture News Round-Up

1. Legal News: Spanish Court asking US DOJ for info on Bush-era Torture Practices: The Spanish Court, which announced its intent to investigate Bush administration officials on their role in the US torture program, is now officially requesting new information from the Holder DOJ.Though many cry foul at the Spanish investigating the US, the "Audiencia Nacional", or Spanish National Security Court maintains jurisdiction because Spanish citizens were some of the victims of the torture program. How the Holder DOJ responds is anybody's guess (mine is they won't), but this is the story to watch as an indicator of international legal momentum on the US torture program.

On a more frustrating domestic note, GOP senators have pulled out of the inquiry into the CIA torture plan. Apparently they are so outraged by Holder's decision to investigate the torture program that they refuse to take part in the Senate's effort to investigate the torture program. Huh?

2. Bagram News: The US has issued new guidelines granting significantly more rights to prisoners being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Each detainee is being assigned one military official who will gather witnesses and evidence. They still don't get Geneva rights, lawyers or habeus corpus, but it's a step in the right direction.

3. Gitmo News: Some huge news on the Gitmo front. Apparently the January deadline that Obama set for closing Gitmo in the beginning of his presidency is no longer hard. Obama says he's committed to closing the prison, but that more time will be needed to process all the cases. According to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the deadline was good politics but "it's going to be tough" to meet the January deadline. As much of a blow as this is to those of us who think that the time to close Guantanamo for Obama was when he took office, he's at least releasing 75 of the 223 prisoners still in Gitmo. Though the prisoners still are being denied their basic rights, it's a relief to see that steps are being taken towards their release.

Obama Admin. contends that Bagram Detainees have no rights

Even as the Obama administration makes platitudes about closing Guantanamo and ending the US torture program, the DOJ filed a brief on September 14th asserting that, unlike Guantanamo detainees, prisoners in Afghanistan's Bagram air base have no rights whatsoever. Nada, zip.

The briefing appears to depend on a very narrow reading of the US Supreme Court ruling in Boumediene v. Bush which firmly established habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees. The ACLU says in their statement that the DOJ has missed the entire point of the Boumediene ruling, and that it obviously upheld judicial review in all cases of detention.

This filing on the part of the Obama administration is deeply disappointing. What good is phasing out Guantanamo if, as the ACLU purports, the federal government can just send the detainees to Bagram instead, where they will have even less rights. Though the Obama administration is starting to give Bagram prisoners avenues to challenge their detentions, the prisoners' lack of habeas corpus rights is morally reprehensible.

For further reading see this ABC News Blog article.

Obama DOJ Supports DOMA

This is so disgusting it's hard to even rant about:

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/obama-justice-department-defends-doma.html

What a kick in the gut. The Obama administration has pulled the rug out from under the LGBT community. Rick Warren. Then no action on Don't Ask Don't Tell. Now his DOJ defends DOMA with the fervor of Pat Robertson. The administration claims it has to defend DOMA (bullshit), but do they have to compare gay marriage to incest and child molestation? He even went so far as to outright say that Loving v. Virginia which overturned anti-miscegenation laws has nothing to do with gay marriage and should be no defense for us.

Obama described himself in his campaign as a "fierce advocate" of gay rights. His administration's actions reveal instead pure bigotry. Even if Obama didn't mean what his DOJ said to the court (impossible for such a tightly controlled machine like the Obama administration), these words will provide strong ammunition against Obama if he ever does take a stand.

Awful, unconscionable, and absolute betrayal. Shame on you President Obama and your Department of Justice.

Two Paths for Recovery

Totally unrelated to LGBT rights, but nevertheless interesting: a fantastic article on the US's two options for economic stimulus from Associated Press business writer Yuri Kageyama from Tokyo and AP writer Karl Ritter from Stockholm. The two options are the Swedish historical model and the Japanese one. The beginning of the article begins by saying:

"Sweden moved quickly, nationalizing two banks and setting up an asset management company to take over bad debt. In contrast, Japan waited seven years before getting serious about bailing out its banks. The result: a "lost decade" of economic stagnation _ a fate the U.S. president says America must avoid."

Certainly a must read, especially among the growing calls to nationalize the United States' own "zombie" banks.

Check the article out at CBS News!

Wanda Sykes at the White House!

Wanda Sykes, the hilarious and now out of the closet comadian is going to be personally in charge of roasting Obama at the May 9th White House Correspondents' Dinner. Why is this so exciting? Well for one thing, the Obama team is doing this knowing full well that Sykes will roast the crap out of Obama for his anti-gay marriage stance and Rick Warren controversy. To get a preview of the fabulous Sykes doing her thing, check out this Leno clip:



The Obama team can't easily make amends for Rick Warren, but this is awesome! This major televised event could have had nearly any comedian, but the Obama team deliberately reached out to the LGBTQI community on this one! Could this be a subtle show of support for the community from the Obama administration? Let's hope it's a sign of positive things to come!

For more great Wanda Sykes LGBTQI media check out Prince Gomolvilas' excellent post at "The Bilerico Project"

I'll leave you with this awesome speech from Wanda at the Las Vegas "No on 8" rally! Moving stuff:



Thanks to Prince Gomolvilas at Bamboo Nation for the media links.

Rick Warren and the Inauguration Controversy

On the actual day of the inauguration, most people who watched didn't come away thinking about the two preachers who opened and closed the ceremonies. Of Pastor Rick Warren, some remember how creepy it was when he mispronounced Sasha and Malia's names. Some will remember Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights activist, and his humorous benediction that called for justice for all races in rhyme: "we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around...". What many missed though was the outrage that the selection of Rick Warren as invocation speaker sparked in the LGBT. President Obama, as I mentioned in my previous post, made multiple statements affirming his commitment to equal rights for LGBT individuals despite his opposition to gay marriage. Saddleback Church's notoriously anti-gay Rick Warren is an anti-choice preacher who was strong proponent of California's prop. 8 and he has repeatedly equated gay relationships with pedophilia, incest and adultery on video, as seen below.

Anderson Cooper had 3 CNN correspondents on his show Anderson Cooper 360 to debate the issue. One of the three, Hillary Rosen probably best capture the outrage felt at the Obama team's decision to have Rick Warren speak:



The decision was not just politically opportunistic: it was also homophobic. After already suffering the crushing defeat of Prop. 8's passage, the last thing the LGBT community needed was another high profile slap to the face. It was The Rachel Maddow Show's resident pop culturist Kent Jones who had the best quote of the night though:

"Apparently in his invocation Warren is going to be asking God not only to bless America, but also to make it a lot less gay.".

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

That's the change America voted for, huh? Needless to say, this incident has caused a fair amount of suspicion and bad blood between the LGBT community and the Obama administration right off the bat. The move was designed to bring Obama political capital; perhaps to give him a "Sister Souljah moment" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment) of sorts. The only way to keep Obama from throwing the LGBT community under the bus for cheap political capital in the future is to generate such a public outcry that it no longer benefits him to do so. Despite our collective hope, the LGBT community will have to be ever-vigilant under the new Obama administration. Once we've forced the Obama administration to respect us as they would any other group, maybe then the LGBT community can achieve its long yearned for progress.

LGBT Rights, Gay Marriage and Obama

For the class I'm taking this semester, Politics 101, we have been asked to pick a specific area of public policy to focus on in our blogs. For me I'm going to pick gay rights. This is an issue close to my heart for personal reasons and because I was involved in the failed "No on 8" campaign here in California.

A common mistake made by many political observers is the conflation of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) rights with gay marriage. To merge these two concepts is fallacious, ignorant, and lazy. For most of the gay community and almost every gay rights activist, gay marriage is a long-term goal that is secondary to the more pressing problems of legal discrimination, workplace discrimination and homophobia in the media. That being said, the media and political discourse have made gay marriage the big scary proxy issue that stands in for any and all enfranchisement of LGBT individuals. As such it will be unavoidable as a chief topic of interest in this blog. Whenever the Obama administration, Congressional leaders or media pundits talk about gay marriage, they are speaking too about the larger concept of LGBT equality.

With the massive Republican defeat in all levels of government this election cycle and hence the reduced clout of social conservatives, there would appear to be hope for LGBT rights activists. President Obama stated in an open letter to LGBT Americans in February that:

I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached. Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. (http://www.proudparenting.com/node/1321)

Needless to say, there is ample reason to feel that LGBT rights will see great progress in the Obama administration. The Bush presidency certainly didn't set the bar very high. In 2004 President Bush called for an anti-gay marriage amendment stating:

"Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife." (February 24, 2004, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_W._Bush)

The tides of civil rights are changing. I hope as many LGBT activists do that a new administration means more federal action for LGBT civil rights not against them. The hope is tempered by political reality. Nobody believes that LGBT rights are near the top of President Obama's agenda right now. With constant pressure from LGBT activists and the LGBT community though, I believe that the promises of "full equality in their [LGBT] family and adoption laws" (http://www.proudparenting.com/node/1321) that President Obama promised in his campaign could be realized within his first time. With momentum on our side, the movement for LGBT equality just might come to the White House.

It's Finally Over

Dear Readers,

I'm glad I was wrong. I've said earlier in this blog that Ohio would not play nearly a large role in 2008 as it has in the past. About that... Ohio was the turning point on election night. No McCain electoral victory map did not include Ohio. As soon as the state was called, a scream went up at Occidental's election watching party. Anyone who knew anything about politics knew that Ohio had just decided the election for Obama. Of course Virginia was the one to actually place the crown on Obama's head, but Ohio once again stepped up to the plate of history. I'll remember last night for a long time.

The night was bittersweet. Prop. 8 succeeded in California. It was a campaign I had worked long and hard on, and it broke my heart to see it pass. So today, I have been torn between my exultation over Obama's landslide and the crushing defeat of civil rights in California. Hope won the day in the US, but hatred and bigotry won in California.

Part of what's nuts is that the election isn't over yet! Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D) are heading for a nail-biting recount in Minnesota. And unless the few ballots left to be counted in Georgia change anything, Saxby Chambliss (R-i) will be heading into a December runoff against challenger Jim Maritn (D). Unlike Minnesota, this is a whole new election, so the campaigning and flow of resources will be unprecedented. I would not be surprised to see Obama stump heavily for Martin. Just a few hours, The Oregonian called the Oregon Senate seat for Jeff Merkley (D), bringing the Democrats to 57 seats in the Senate. In Alaska the outcome is still too close to call, but the consensus seems to be that a narrow win for 8-term incumbent and convicted felon Ted Stevens. Crazy.

It's been a fun ride, and it's not over yet! This blog will be updated less frequently with the election behind us, but please check in every once in a while! I doubt I can stay quiet for long!

Best,
Isaac

State of the Race: Ohio Polling

It's been too long since I've dedicated a post to this blog's main topic: the Ohio vote. Ohio was in 2000 and 2004 a major decider in the national election. It was close both times and would have changed the outcome had it gone to the Democrats. Because of the massive national poll movement towards Obama though and his unconventional electoral strategy, Ohio is much less of a hinge this time around: Obama can win without it. Indeed, venerable poll analyst Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com has Obama winning 78% of his election scenarios with the pre-assumtion of Ohio being in McCain's column. Sorry buckeyes: you're probably not the deciders this time.



If Ohio was so important in 2000 and especially 2004, why is it less so this time? The answer lies in Obama's groundbreaking fundraising and "50-state strategy". Obama has been investing heavily in alternate electoral strategies. And with his coffers he can afford to do so. Even if McCain gets back the 2004 Bush states with small Obama leads currently (North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, North Dakota), McCain would still need to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Nevada to win. That's a tall order. So take solace buckeyes: if you give an Obama an early win on election night, you could still "select" our next president!



This graph from Pollster shows the trendlines for the Ohio polls. Interestingly the projected 7-point or so gap between Obama and McCain is right on par with the national polling numbers. I guess that speaks to Ohio's reputation as a bellwether. Considering how crappy McCain's endgame strategy on the ground appears to be, the Republicans will need a voter disenfranchisement system even better than 2004's. And now Ohio's Secretary of State is a Democrat. That'll make things harder. Without even that being topped, McCain needs a big external surprise in the next 3 days. Barring that, we'll be calling him President Obama.

But most of all? Remember to VOTE!!!

The Freak Show is Nervous...

Our lovely buddies in the "news" media, aka the Freak Show are nervous about election night. And not in a way that anyone else in America. The Freak Show is nervous about their dramatic election night extravaganza will be cut short by an Obama landslide! With the polls shifting dramatically in Obama's favor and McCain's prospects looking worse and worse, there's a good chance that the election will be over before voting results from the West start coming in.



As is usual, the colls will close on the east coast several hours before their west coast counterparts. In 2004, the media had a feeding frenzy with 2 extremely close races, each coming down to one Swing State. The electoral map this time though, barring a national crisis, is looking a little different:



If Obama starts the night with North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania, McCain is screwed. McCain has no reasnoable electoral strategy w/o Virginia, let alone North Carolina. McCain is playing major league defense right now. His electoral strategy appears to be a replication of Bush's 2004 map. He's been campaigning and spending heavily in Virgiia, North Carolina, Indiana and West Virginia, states he can't afford to worry about on the electoral map. In order to win McCain needs to be able to focus all his energy on traditional Swing States like Florida, Nevada, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and especially Ohio. To reitirate, McCain is done without winning Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio:

<p><strong>><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/">Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

In this example, McCain loses Virginia, which has less electoral votes than Ohio and Virginia which I here hypothetically give to McCain. What can he move from this map into the GOP column? Maybe the 2004 Bush states? He's thrown Iowa under the Straight Talk Express with his continued slamming of ethanol subsidies (which I kind of agree with him on), putting it all but out of reach. New Mexico similarly doesn't look like much of a contest this year. He would need to flip both or Pennsylvania to offset his Virginia loss. And if he loses Florida or Ohio right off the bat? Forget it.

So why does this have the media running scared? Simple. Its a huge conundrum for them. If the race ends early, do they call it for Obama? There are two significant downsides to doing so. 1. It hurts ratings. Doing so would force them to talk about something else substantive like the congressional elections. Wouldn't that be awful. 2. Their declaration could affect voter turnout. If the media declares it in the bag for Obama while its still daytime in the West, voter turnout could go down. Why vote if the election is already "over". States like Missouri, Nevada and Colorado could potentially be won by McCain because Obama voters are already celebrating. This would be a real shame, and deter from a truly representative electoral result.

So what are the media bigwigs going to do? Senior Vice President of CBS news Paul Friedman said: "We could say something like, ‘Given the number of electoral votes Obama already has, and given what we know about the voting so far in various states where the polls have not closed, it is going to be very hard for John McCain to win.’ I would sincerely hope that kind of language would not discourage people out West from voting.” Sam Feist, CNN's Political Director said "A night of early surprises would be a gift for John King's "Magic Wall" of computerized maps. Feist said: "If we know early in the evening that Barack Obama wins a critical state such as Virginia or Florida, we'll have a conversation about what John McCain would have to pull out of his hat now," such as Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado or Nevada". This is why we love CNN. John Kind just goes crazy with that newfangled thing. I miss the whiteboard.

On MSNBC, the diagnosis is not good for McCain. Joe Scarborough said on “Morning Joe”: “When it becomes obvious that one candidate’s going to lose, usually members of that party start jumping, like rats from a ship. You’re starting to hear from Republicans that are really afraid McCain’s going to lose, Democrats may [reach] 60 in the Senate, and this is going to be a historic rout.” That's not exactly a glowing prediction for McCain's Nov. 3 chances. I can't wait to see the media freak-out then.

(Thanks to Mark Halperin at The Page for directing me to the Politico article)