Month: March 2010

by Chris Bodenner

Think Progress has details:

An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo” is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,” and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a “Warfare Map” of its enemies in town. Calling Repent an “American Taliban,” blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God” is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.”

Dan Savage has more. Update from a reader:

Hizbullah translates to “Party of God,” not “Army of God.”  Jundullah would translate to “Army of God.”  They’re an entirely different terrorist group.

by Alex Massie

Poor Armenia. Just about the only time that wee country gets a mention in Washington is when the perennial Recognise-the-Genocide issue comes up. As tradition demands, the Secretary of State lobbied Congress to avoid passing anything resembling or hinting at any such thing. Nevertheless the Foreign Affairs Committee voted 23-22 in favour of the annual motion acknowledging the ghastliness. Whether it makes it to the floor remains a moot issue.

Everyone, I think, recognises the practical and political difficulties in siding with the Armenians or, as may be the case, handing a sop to the American-Armenian community. Turkey matters more than Armenia. And Turkey is touchy and macho and quick to take offense. No surprise then that their ambassador to Washington has been called back to Ankara for "discussions".

This is, then, an annual rigmarole from which few people escape with any great measure of credit. This includes the current President who promised not so long ago that…

I also share with Armenian Americans – so many of whom are descended from genocide survivors – a principled commitment to commemorating and ending genocide. That starts with acknowledging the tragic instances of genocide in world history. As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term "genocide" to describe Turkey's slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Emphasis added. In a better world it might be tough to walk back from that.

To be fair to Obama he is little worse than his predecessor who also raised Armenian hopes only to pass the issue on to his successor. But this issue should also be a reminder that you cannot wholly leave the campaign behind once you assume office and that you should, perhaps, be wary of writing cheques you cannot cash. Otherwise you look like a chump at best and, more probably, a duplicitous fraud.

Sure, yes, this is, in many ways, vastly more trivial than recent improvements in Yerevan-Ankara relations. It may well be that, as was true last year, passing the resolution and gaining Presidential approval might set back the bigger, broader, better picture. But this too should be a memo to 2012 candidates: don't make cheap commitments you have few intentions of honouring. 

Previously on Armenia and by me: here. Maybe I'm wrong, of course. You tell me! Write to alexmassieATgmail.com

by Patrick Appel

Leonhardt helps decode it:

If the storms indeed had a big effect — if they cut even 100,000 jobs from payrolls — then today’s report counts as very good news. The economy lost only 36,000 jobs last month, far fewer than forecasters expected…But that’s not the only plausible reading of the report. It’s also possible that economists vastly overestimated the snow effect. It’s even possible the snow effect was close to zero.

Chart from Calculated Risk.

by Patrick Appel

That is what the WaPo suggests. Greenwald:

Obama supporters spent months vigorously defending the decision to try KSM in a civilian court on the ground that Obama was upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law.  What are they going to say if he reverses himself and uses military commissions instead:  that he's shredding the Constitution and trampling on the rule of law?  If they have any intellectual integrity at all, that's what they will have to say.  

Ackerman:

Every time Obama compromises on a matter of national-security and civil-liberties principle, his GOP opponents raise the pressure to get him to bend further. His compromises earn him no good will. He is being, simply, punked. And if he compromises on KSM, does he really think the Guantanamo Bay votes will roll in; or will he simply have enough to break a potential filibuster around the Afghanistan war funding request? Obama can fight and win. Or he can compromise, demoralize his base, and the GOP will continue to roll him.

David Kurtz:

Think of the worst possible scenario for what would have happened to New York City, no matter how remote, then insert that into a campaign ad. There's no way to disprove what might have been. Human nature will be to focus on the bullet that we supposedly dodged. Whereas if you actually suck it up and proceed with the trial, it takes all the wind of out that sail. People still go to work, buildings don't fall down, the ground doesn't open up and swallow Manhattan. Democrats show they're strong and resolute and the issue goes away.

Yglesias:

I’m not going to attempt to defend this. I’ll merely note that it’s hard enough to have any kind of civil liberties in this country when the opposition party is pushing for them. When what you have is an opposition that’s pressuring incumbent officials to seize more power for themselves the incentive structure is nuts and the constitution is going to be shredded.

by Jonathan Bernstein

I'm making a list of ideas that reporters and political junkies pine for, but actually make no sense.  Seth Masket is on it:

Personally, I'd add to this the idea of a truly nonpartisan leader who can lead a state to greatness because he's not wedded to a party.  Also, the idea of a Unity presidential ticket that finds the least exciting ideas of both political parties and pairs up people like Lowell Weicker and Dick Lamm to advance them.

Several readers suggested variations of those ideas, which by the way are discussed in this book.   One particularly creative reader had a longer list than me…here's a taste:

1) Presidency decided by House of Representatives after no one gets an electoral majority, due to third party winning electoral votes or electoral tie
(2) Third party gets enough seats in the House to hold the balance of power in the election of the Speaker
(3) Amendment to the constitution produced by constitutional convention as described in Article V
(4) New state added to the union or State divided into two states with consent of state and Congress, as described in Constitution, article 4

Wait — I like that last one!  I don't think that would necessarily be a bad idea.  The other three, though, and the Mr. Smith scenarios that Seth discusses…yeah, they fit this category nicely.

by Chris Bodenner

Kashmir Hill observes:

Nowadays, if you’re not on Facebook, it’s possible you don’t actually exist. There was a time when we had to exchange phone numbers or email addresses to keep in touch with a new acquaintance. Now, we usually just head to Facebook and friend them.

The same holds true for business cards, which presumably have declined in use because of Facebook's omnipresent reach.  After my initial infatuation with the site, mostly as a means to track down far-flung people from the past, now I just use it as a directory.  So it has largely replaced the phone book as well. I met someone in New York last week and it simply didn't even occur to me exchange information. (And now, to friend someone, you can simply shake your iPhone.)

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

A good friend of mine got sucked into the payday loan scam a while back.  They had some medical bills and things got tight so they borrowed $600 from a payday loan place.  The terms of the loan were as follows:

1. The loan had to be paid off in full all at once.  So in any given month you were not permitted to pay down any fraction of the principal.  You had to come up with all $600 all at once.
2. The interest rate on the loan was 50%/month.  So to keep the loan current it mean paying $300/month.  

This of course meant that they would have to be able to scrap together $900 in any given month in order to pay off the loan.  Given that they were struggling to get $600 together in the first place, getting $900 all in one month would have been a stretch.  Paying the $300/month was painful but doable, but the problem was that they couldn't get out from under the loan because they couldn't get all of the principal together in any given month.