Month: April 2009

Marriage equality came to the heartland a few minutes ago. The court found unanimously that the ban on marriage for a small minority of citizens violated Iowa's constitution. Analysis to come. for now, though, a human, not a legal argument. If you want to understand why some of us are adamant that only civil marriage will do, this video might help. It's of a woman recovering from the premature death of her wife. If you believe her grief is worth less than a man's grief for his late wife, then you should oppose marriage equality. I support it in part because this widow's grief is as real as her love, and because the kind of commitment that marriage means transcends the boundaries of gay and straight into the zone of being fully, awfully, human:

Netanyahu referred to this infamous statement by Ahmadinejad about Israel in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. It's a contested quote – both in translation and meaning. Wikipedia has a really thorough section exploring it that's worth your time.

"Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, which is allegedly occurring even though, according to statistics published by the World Meteorological Organization, there has not been a warmer year on record than 1998," – George Will.

Will's worries about various green policies and technologies that may be ill-conceived are perfectly legitimate – and are where, in my view, conservative criticism of environmental policy should focus. But the premise is silly. As Chait noted, the sentence above is one that lies beyond the fact check. It's simply illogical on its face. There is no causal relationship between the evidence for global warming over decades and one outlier data point ten years ago. If a high school sophomore wrote this, you'd tell him to start over.

Free Exchange looks at the correlation between high oil prices and global GDP growth. They then turn their focus toward China:

The Chinese are growing wealthier and demanding automobiles by the tens of milions, but the demand for oil they create is likely to send petrol prices soaring again before long, making driving unaffordable for most Chinese families. It’s no wonder, then, that the Chinese government is anxious to develop electric automobile technologies. Not only would this allow Chinese families to continue driving as petrol prices soared, it would also allow China to sell into foreign markets similarly afflicted by dear oil—including America. China recognises this and is heavily subsidising efficient automobile purchases and production.

The margin was 95 – 52, not veto-proof, but decisive. Money quote:

“I didn’t choose to be gay,” Rep. Steve Howard, D-Rutland, said. “God made me gay. I begged him not to make it so,” he said. “I stand because nobody should be ashamed of how God made them.” With his voice breaking from emotion, Rep. Jason Lorber, D-Burlington, described seeing the notice about his union with his partner under the heading “civil union” in the newspaper. “Why do we have to be off to the side,” Lorber said. “Why do we have to say you are different? Why can’t we just say congratulations?”

Rep. Tim Jerman, D-Essex Junction, said he hopes his daughter, a lesbian, will be able to come home to marry when the time comes.

We await the court's ruling in Iowa later today. But, if you'll pardon the expression, freedom is on the march. And a certain joy creeps into the gladdened heart.

Dan Greenhaus is skeptical:

While I continue to believe the market has room to rally in the very short term, in the medium term, the threat of a GM bankruptcy and/or the need for additional capital at a major banking institution has the very real ability to exert tremendous downward pressure on the market and the economy more broadly (in the case of GM).

A theory.

There is, in CNN's formulation, an "internal government dispute" preventing the release of the OLC memos which may well prove the nature of the torture authorized by Bush and Cheney. The man we nearly got as CIA director, John Brennan, is waging a scorched earth campaign to prevent transparency and accountability. We'll soon see how committed the president is to letting the sunlight in.

Goldblog had a few more quotes up his sleeve:

I'll give you two quotes that I neglected to include in the first piece. The first one is from one of Netanyahu's defense advisers, speaking on background: "We have to make sure our friends in Washington know that we can't wait forever. There will come a point soon when it will be too late to do anything about this program. We're going carefully, but if we have to act, we will act, even if America won't."

The second is from Netanyahu: "Iran has threatened to annihilate a state or to have a state wiped off the map of the world. In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It's a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion.

Sure, there are perfunctory condemnations, but there's no j'accuse – there's no shock and there's a resigned acceptance that this is acceptable practice. Bad things tend to get worse if they're not challenged early. Iranian leaders talk about Israel's destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance."

I followed this statement with a question: Is there any chance that Iran could be stopped through non-military means? Netanyahu responded: "Yes I do, but only if the military option is left on the table."

Based on all these statements, I think it's fair to say that Netanyahu, when he comes to America, will tell President Obama that should America fail to suppress the Iranian nuclear program, Israel will have to try. 

(Photo: Leon Neal/Getty.)

Joe Klein wants to end this Prohibition era:

…why not do it? There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe — with some good reason — that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to "riverboats" and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald's has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. (Although it's true that with legalization, those two might not be unrelated.) Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?