Month: July 2009

"The pastor of Cornerstone Church of San Antonio, [John Hagee] is indeed a pea-brained bigot … and it's sad — and uncharacteristic — of McCain to accept his support. Those people unsatisfied with Barack Obama's equivocations about Louis Farrakhan should have the intellectual consistency to admit that McCain's embrace of Hagee is far more troubling," – Jamie Kirchick, TNR, February 2008.

"Rather than draw attention to the murderous antisemitism, terrorism and impending nuclear-armed theocracy that Israel must confront, J Street prefers to churn out countless blog posts, press releases and op-eds denouncing the people who it believes are the real impediments to peace: stalwart defenders of Israel like Pastor John Hagee, Senator Joe Lieberman and former House speaker Newt Gingrich," – Jamie Kirchick, the Forward, July 2009.

Daniel Akst wants a market in kidney donations:

The unearned piety of those who condemn these transactions strikes me as outrageous. If someone has the right to abort her own fetus, why does she not have the right to sell her own kidney? By what authority does the state tell me I cannot save myself or my family members by paying money I earned to a willing seller of a surplus item? In fact, why wouldn't a system of national health insurance include a provision for organ purchases? These transactions should not just be legal for the rich but subsidized for the poor, all in a carefully designed and closely regulated marketplace serving buyers, sellers and even medical ethicists. It's a shame that even one more person has to die before this law is changed.

"Time is running out – if Israel doesn't achieve permanent, internationally-recognized borders and diplomatic relations with the bulk of Muslim-majority countries soon, the campaign to delegitimize the very idea of Israel will become even more ferocious than it's been.  In my humble opinion, J Street is trying, in its own way, to prevent this from happening, and this puts it in the mainstream of American Jewish political life," – Jeffrey Goldberg.

A follow-up on that report of the murder and burning of a gay sailor. It seems clear to me from the investigation that homosexuality had nothing to do with any of it.

Richard Posner's take on health care reform:

The Congress of the United States is clearly incapable of running a balanced budget – under Democrats just as much as under Republicans. And the president of the United States, even with the legitimate allowance of greater debt necessary to counter the Great Recession, has no long term plans to fix it. The US is going under – because its political system is as bankrupt as its finances.

I was researching sleep-deprivation last week so missed the fooferaw. I did my best to be fair to both parties in my Sunday column here. John McWhorter is, as often, worth reading on this:

Loury's fair point:

But MoDo is still right, I believe, in this summary:

No matter how odd or confrontational Henry Louis Gates Jr. was that afternoon, he should not have been arrested once Sergeant Crowley ascertained that the Harvard professor was in his own home. President Obama was right the first time, that the encounter had a stupid ending, and the second time, that both Gates and Crowley overreacted.

Maureen's dad was a cop and she knows people like James Crowley. I do too. And Obama is right that cops like Crowley are good men in general (although I can't pass a judgment on someone I don't know). I also believe in being respectful and polite to policemen as a rule, and do not recall any moment in my life when I haven't been. But I do think it's necessary to remember that policemen are our servants, not our masters. We pay their salary – and they'd better treat us right. And I find the many comments that we should always show deference to the man with the gun and the badge and never publicly criticize cops to be alarmingly authoritarian in its implications.

If a cop gives you trouble in your own home after it is perfectly clear that no crime has taken place, you have every right to tell him to get the hell out of your house; and he has no right to hang around. You also have every right to give him your opinion of his police work or his haircut if you so wish.

There is a distinction, in other words, between a deference to cops based on trust and a deference based on fear. I find the idea that mouthing off to a cop in your own home is enough to get you arrested a disturbing feature of the post-9/11 police state. My gut sense of the interaction is that Crowley – used to total deference and fear from those he interacts with – was simply appalled at being harangued so vituperatively, especially by a black man (but race was not the only factor), and quickly realized he had no grounds to arrest Gates in his home, and so lured him outside to get the pretext of "disorderly conduct" in front of seven people. Yes, Skip over-reacted after a long flight and an embarrassing battle with his door; but Crowley – a cop who declared that he was a Republican to the media for no apparent reason – got the man who didn't kowtow to him in cuffs as revenge. The very fact that the charges were dropped tells you who was in the wrong, according to the Cambridge police.

I don't know about you, but I prefer societies in which the exercize of free speech in your own home does not lead to being arrested – especially just to teach you a lesson on how to be deferent to police.

Cheney wanted to use the military to round up terrorist suspects on US soil:

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property. The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

What interests me here is the fact that the task was easily within the capabilities of the FBI who did the job. What Cheney was doing here was making a point: that he believes that the president can impose the equivalent of martial law inside the country at any moment he feels it's necessary, even if it isn't. What Cheney was about was making a point about his own untouchable power outside the constitution to wage a war, even in America itself against American citizens. Remember also that Cheney strongly believes in the power of torture as well – as integral, as he has put it, to American constitutional practices.

One day, we will realize what a threat Cheney was – and remains – to America as a constiitutional republic and to the national security of the West as a whole.

They are now claiming that links to AP articles violate fair use. Ed Morrissey:

Agreed. As the MSM struggles to make money, expect more and more of this. The golden era of blogging and linking and open discussion may be coming to an end. The suits are terrified of it. And their bottom line is not the dissemination of ideas or facts, but the making of money. If they have to lose readers but make money, they're happy.

And the final circus was as bizarre as the rest of it.

I was shocked tonight to bump into a new friend, Mark, hobbling down the street. I was about to make a joke as I rode up behind him on my bike and then saw his face. It was a blur of blood and bruises. Friday night, he was leaving the Atlantic House – an historic gay pub in Ptown – when a group of three local kids hiding in an alley-way to target gays threw a bottle at his face and called him a faggot. He threw the bottle back and then they set upon him. He's not a slight guy, he's strong and built and bearded. But he was clearly reeling from the assault and will return to the hospital tomorrow. The cops apparently responded heroically and after a chase captured the assailants.

This has been a bust of a summer this year on the Cape: almost no sun, an economic depression that is killing businesses and crippling real estate, and vicious hate crimes from some locals. Oh, and the sewer broke over July 4, with poo coming up out of the drains and showers and toilets. Good times.