Month: July 2010

Busted again.

Clifden, Ireland, 4.46 pm

Steve Kornacki agrees with Larison that she'd be a disastrous presidential candidate (I think that understates her talent as a performer) but also sees why her nomination is perfectly possible:

Today's GOP calls to mind the Democratic Party of '82 and '83: an aggrieved, resurgent base asserting itself after an electoral drubbing, believing with all its might that inevitable midterm blues facing the new president mean more than they actually do.  That is the environment that produced Walter Mondale in 1984. And it's the environment that could produce a similar debacle for Republicans in 2012.

Dave Roberts consults various journalists and wonks about what to do now that a federal cap and trade bill appears dead. Terry Tamminen:

I would stop focusing on the glass that's empty and focus instead on the one that's full. We already have a price on carbon in 10 Northeastern states, at least as it pertains to the electricity sector, under RGGI [Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative]. We are in the final stages of designing a similar cap-and-trade system in the majority of the Western states, and the Midwestern states have said they'll copy what we do. So by 2012, regardless of what Congress does, if we support these state actions — which are much more deeply rooted and have a lot more political support and practical demonstration of success — we are much more likely to have a price on carbon in the U.S. in the near-term.

"Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That's something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up. That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke," – Alvin Greene, joke Democratic nominee for US Senate in South Carolina.

The execution of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, an Iranian mother of two accused of adultery, is imminent:

She was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes, human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei said Thursday in a telephone interview from Tehran. She later retracted that confession and has denied wrongdoing. Her conviction was based not on evidence but on the determination of three out of five judges, Mostafaei said. She has asked forgiveness from the court but the judges refused to grant clemency. Iran's supreme court upheld the conviction in 2007.

NIAC has more:

In order for Ashtiani to have received the punishment of stoning, her adultery case must have been reopened, human rights activists say. Moreover, it is possible that Ashtiani had trouble understanding the court proceedings due a language barrier, said human rights attorney Mohammad Mostafaei. She speaks Turkish, the court proceedings were held in English.

The EU is putting last minute pressure on the Iranian government to spare Ashtiani.

Frum notes that class mobility in the US is not what it is sometimes imagined to be:

This is not an argument in favor of the European way of doing things. I agree with Lowry and Ponnuru – and Charles Murray too – that American freedom and individualism are important national values to be celebrated and defended.

But let’s not flatter ourselves: Those values exact a social cost – and they would be easier to defend if the cost were less high. And the fact that this cost is not being paid by my children or (probably) yours does not make the cost less real to the one-third of America whose children do pay it.

Chait marvels at Frum's increasing willingness to confront conservative shibboleths. Reihan disputes some of Frum's conclusions about child poverty.

(Hat tip: Massie)

Chait answers my question:

Congress is representing the generalized pro-Israel feelings of the public, which are strong, as opposed to their ambivalent views of the Flotilla incident, which are weak. In an environment where public opinion is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and when asked about a specific incident involving Israel, two-thirds of the public is either favorable to Israel or uninformed, the expected outcome is for Congress to support Israel.

And when the US public was clearly divided over the assault on Gaza – even Rasmussen found a 44- 41 split in general and opposition to Israel's assault reached 51 percent among Democrats – the Congress backed Israel in a resolution by unanimous consent in the Senate and with only 5 dissenting votes in the House. That was a function of Congress' reflection of popular opinion? Please. While half of Democratic voters were against the war, Democratic senators were unanimous behind it? Can Chait offer another example of such a massive discrepancy? There was more Democratic opposition to the Iraq war than to the Gaza war, which even Israel now concedes was beset with war crimes on its side as well as Hamas's. Chait is second to none is seeing through bullshit, except on this question.

I don't doubt that in any abstract conflict between "Arabs" and "Jews", Americans are likely overwhelmingly to back "Jews," and given the nature of Israel's democracy and the autocracies in most Arab states, I don't disagree. But the overwhelming nature of Congressional majorities on this question needs explanation. It's obviously a function of an extremely committed and affluent lobby – which distorts US foreign policy on Israel (and, via a different lobby in a different context, Cuba) against the interests of the US. My view is that we should try to avoid that kind of distortion. On Israel, Chait doesn't.