Repeal “Stand Your Ground” Laws

A reader sends a fascinating examination of how the new law has affected Florida. It’s from last month in the Tampa Bay Times but reads even more powerfully today. Money quote:

The number of [SYG] cases is increasing, largely because defense attorneys are using “stand your ground” in ways state legislators never envisioned. The defense has been invoked in dozens of cases with minor or no injuries. It has also been used by a self-described “vampire” in Pinellas County, a Miami man arrested with a single marijuana cigarette, a Fort Myers homeowner who shot a bear and a West Palm Beach jogger who beat a Jack Russell terrier.

People often go free under “stand your ground” in cases that seem to make a mockery of what lawmakers intended. One man killed two unarmed people and walked out of jail. Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free.

No wonder Zimmerman felt able to stalk Martin. What did he have to lose when he could simply kill the dude anyway and get away with it? Worse, the law is subject to huge discrepancies depending on the case, the jury, the prosecutors, etc. It’s enforced with wild inconsistency, as illustrated in the above video.

To my mind, it’s a return to the Wild West, where murderers walk the streets with no fear and plenty of opportunities for gunning down foes, rivals, family members, exes, and on and on. It’s completely out of control:

Drug dealers have successfully invoked “stand your ground” even though they were in the middle of a deal when the shooting started. In Daytona Beach, for example, police Chief Mike Chitwood used the “stand your ground” law as the rationale for not filing charges in two drug deals that ended in deaths. He said he was prevented from going forward because the accused shooters had permits to carry concealed weapons and they claimed they were defending themselves at the time. “We’re seeing a good law that’s being abused,” Chitwood told a local paper.

No, we’re seeing a terrible law having completely predictable consequences. I note that the governor who signed this provision into law was Jeb Bush. Perhaps someone could ask him how he feels about it now?

An Authoritarian Fanatic For Wyoming

Liz Cheney is running for Senate:

Larison wonders what her candidacy is trying to accomplish:

It goes without saying that there is nothing wrong with challenging incumbents, and launching intra-party challenges can be an important means to hold politicians accountable when they ignore their constituents or cease to be effective advocates for the people that put them in office. The obvious flaw in Cheney’s challenge is that Enzi has done nothing to anger voters in Wyoming or conservatives nationally. Other than trying to re-establish the Cheney family in Wyoming politics, her candidacy serves no purpose.

Friedersdorf reviews her record:

Liz Cheney hasn’t just embraced the objectionable actions and positions of neoconservative Republicans. She has also earned an independent reputation as someone who participates in weak, laughable, and even scurrilous attacks on ideological opponents that can only cast doubt on her judgment and moral character. The weak, laughable attacks are often aimed at President Obama, of whom I am often critical. But even people who hold Obama in low esteem can’t help but feel embarrassed on behalf of commentators who discredit themselves by making absurd claims like, “He’s unwilling to go after the terrorists that are threatening the nation.” To deny Obama’s willingness to go after terrorists is to be deeply ignorant, ideologically blinkered, or a liar. None of those qualities is desirable in an aspiring U.S. Senator.

A TPM reader expects her to lose:

I think Liz Cheney just made a fatal career move. Having lived in WY for 35 years, I do not believe that Liz can beat Enzi. I think this is going to cause all kinds of hard feelings in Wyoming because this kind of disrespect to a man who has done nothing to deserve being disrespected in this way will simply not sit well. It’s a very east coast kind of move (think Cory Booker) and will only serve to remind people that Liz Cheney has absolutely no real history in Wyoming.

She also seems to have forgotten a very basic element of the WY electoral process, i.e., we have same day voter registration and Democrats routinely turn into Republicans when they walk into the polling place for the primary and then switch back to Democrat on their way out. Personally, I’ve done this at least 4 or 5 times and I will surely do it again next year. Democrats often do this simply to meddle in the Republican primary, often to vote for the most conservative crazy in the field. But this time, I am sure a lot of Dems will happily switch just for the joy of voting against Liz Cheney.

What a joy it would be to see this pro-torture talk radio pugilist soundly defeated. But she’ll have neocon money. And her Daddy’s rolodex.

Obamacare Saves New Yorkers Money!

This [NYT] is great news – especially for Dish Publishing LLC – and bad news for those conservatives who loathe the market-friendly insurance exchanges solely because president Obama included them in the ACA:

Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday. State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.

Again, it’s worth noting that these efficiencies are gained by competition, an idea that was once pioneered by the Heritage Foundation. Now, their hatred of Obama has made them hate their own policies. Jonathan Cohn goes into more detail on how Obamacare is spurring competition:

New York … seems to be reaping the benefits of a more competitive market. Based on the filings, it appears that some insurers are pricing very aggressively, trying to underbid competitors. Some will price too low, and end up losing money, while others may be saving in ways consumers won’t like—say, by offering very limited networks of doctors and hospitals. But the insurers will find a price that works for them. Meanwhile, people can pick and choose the plan they want, which is something many simply can’t do now because they can’t really compare benefits and prices, or because they lack the money to pay for insurance in the first place. As New York officials pointed out today, per capita health care costs in the state are among the highest in the country. But these new premium rates are actually slightly lower than what the Congressional Budget Office had projected for a nationwide average. That’s an encouraging sign.

Sarah Kliff explains why New York is nonetheless an outlier:

A headline about the health care law driving down premiums, by this level of magnitude, is a rarity. But it shouldn’t be shocking: New York has, for two decades now, had the highest individual market premiums in the country.

A lot of it seems to trace back to a law passed in 1993, which required insurance plans to accept all applicants, regardless of how sick or healthy they were. That law did not, however, require everyone to sign up, as the Affordable Care Act does.

New York has, for 20 years now, been a long-running experiment in what happens to universal coverage without an individual mandate. It’s the type of law the country would have if House Republicans succeeded in delaying the individual mandate, as they will vote to do this afternoon. The result: a small insurance market with very high insurance premiums.

Beutler agrees:

The news out of New York vindicates the consensus view that the mandate-subsidize-regulate policy only works if it includes a mandate, subsidies, and regulations. This vindication couldn’t be better-timed, as the House of Representative gears up to vote on legislation to delay the mandate for a year.

Yglesias adds:

The haters are out in force already on Twitter to observe that this is happening due to special state-specific features of New York that won’t impact people elsewhere. That’s true, but this is a big deal anyway.

The first reason is that New York is a really big state. Its almost 20 million residents account for over 6 percent of the American population. In terms of the number of people impacted, a huge improvement in the health insurance market in New York is a bigger deal than a huge improvement in New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, D.C., Vermont, and Wyoming combined. So it’s true that if you live outside New York state this is not good news for you, personally. But if you’re capable of some human empathy, then it’s good news for an awful lot of people and you might care about that.

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 4

All NYT links:

1. Fewer people are suffering from dementia than in the past.

2. We could soon have a pill to replace the gym.

3. DNA has discovered authentically American dogs – and they’re super-cute.

4. There will be fewer brown-outs in the future.

5. A large fan outside can keep mosquitoes at bay.

6. Woody Allen may return to stand-up (and work with Louis C.K.)

Update from a reader:

Love the new feature. I hope this a new regular. We need more of this. It counterbalances the fatigue effect. If every day all you hear is bad news, you start being pessimist. There is still, despite the daily chaos, plenty of reasons to be happy about the road traveled and the possibilities ahead. Cheers to that!

Ending Infant Genital Mutilation, Ctd

A reader writes:

I feel weird telling you this, but your blog and its ongoing coverage of circumcision culminated around the fourth or fifth month of my wife’s pregnancy with our first child. She and I decided to not have him circumcised. Your blog had much to do with this decision.

What struck me about it in the hospital is how ingrained the process is across other aspects of post-natal care. Many nurses told us not to worry about the pain of the blood samples because it’s “so much less painful than circumcision”. The same goes for the surgery my son had on his frenulum to aid in breastfeeding. Everyone has a standard response: “The pain might be severe, but it’s nothing compared to his circumcision”. I don’t know if that means anything or not, but we corrected them when they gave that assurance, and I could tell that it was the first time they had stopped to think about it in a while.

Another dissents:

Even if you believe that circumcision should be ended – something I’m by no means convinced of – I question whether this documentary is the proper vehicle towards that dubious end. For one, I question the applicability of the title “documentary” to what is clearly an advocacy piece.

Though we’ve become accustomed to biased documentaries, from “Obama 2016” to “Capturing the Friedmans” and “Farenheit 9/11,” it’s long-past time to make a distinction between a nonfiction film that informs and tells a story, like “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” and a nonfiction film that argues and selectively presents facts, like any of the above.

“American Secret” falls clearly into the advocacy category, and though coasting on the “documentary” label, it makes damn sure you know it. The Kickstarter’s tagline – “One Nation Under the Knife” – is off-puttingly alarmist. Based on the film’s web presence, it also intends to use outdated, 19th century justifications for circumcision to argue against the modern practice, a rhetorical fallacy you see more often in anti-abortion extremists and creationists.

The film’s website also seems to imply that doctors continue routine circumcision because of the profit involved. That converts an argument that could be about education – doctors just don’t know that circumcision is bad, so they should be taught – into the serious accusation that doctors knowingly mangle children for money. There’s no easier way to alienate the middle, and kill a growing movement, than to impugn the intentions of those you’re trying to convince.

Beyond that, the film also charges that doctors could (and should) face civil litigation for circumcising a newborn child without the child’s consent. I have found no authority for this “wrongful circumcision” claim. Though there is litigation over botched circumcision, and doctors have faced discipline for circumcising over the parents’ direct objection, those are very different matters.

Though I don’t believe now that circumcision should be ended, I would be willing to be shown otherwise. I bet much of the public feels similarly. A film that lectures the audience, and histrionically converts a public-education cause into a fight against some massive conspiracy, with your family doctor as the principal villain, is not the vehicle to perform that task.

The presentation of difficult issues is what the Dish does best. So, I urge you to take a second look at this issue.

I think it’s a little unfair to judge a documentary that hasn’t been made yet, although I sure hope, for the sake of the argument, that they don’t go in the histrionic MSNBC/FNC direction my reader suspects. The one point I’d make against my reader’s worries is that noting the financial incentives for circumcision for doctors and hospitals need not degenerate into name-calling. It’s just one small part of the fee-for-service bloat the ACA is trying to reduce. The producers would be better served by simply laying out the facts and arguments as clearly as possible. Like the case for marriage equality, why add lots of heat when you will win by simply adding light?

Meep-Meeped On Syria

I harrumphed and stamped my foot upon hearing that the Obama administration had agreed to some small arms sales to some Syrian rebels. I called the decision a “betrayal.” It seems more and more that it was instead just a canny sop to the allies until they came to their senses, which they seem to have finally done:

British newspaper reports on Monday said British military commanders had advised Mr. Cameron that there was no purpose to be served by sending small arms, since such modest arms supplies were unlikely to sway the outcome of the conflict, which is now in its third year. British officials declined to confirm the reports that Mr. Cameron had abandoned the idea of arming the rebels, saying that since no formal decision had been made to send weapons in the first place, it was not clear how he could be cast as retreating from it.

Of course, one reason to have a blog is to sound off loudly enough to send a message. So I don’t regret publicly going after Ben Rhodes et al. But I was empirically wrong to over-read what was a minimalist gesture in a longer game plan. And not for the first time.

Ask Michael Hanna Anything: Obama’s Record On Egypt

Michael thinks the Obama administration’s approach to Egypt is getting worse, not better:

The Economist wonders how much influence Obama actually has:

On a two-day visit to Cairo [this week], William Burns, America’s deputy secretary of state, met members of the military-backed interim cabinet, but Tamarod and the Salafists’ Nour party, which won the second largest number of seats at the last parliamentary election, declined to see him. The Brotherhood says it did not engage in discussions with him either.

It is not clear that Mr Burns would have had much to say to them, anyway. At the moment, America lacks a clear policy toward Egypt. Barack Obama has not publicly addressed the crisis, perhaps for fear of seeming meddlesome. Away from the cameras he is said to be trying quietly to influence events, but it is hard to see how he hopes to reconcile America’s democratic values with its immediate interests in Egypt, not least to ensure that Egypt’s treaty with Israel holds firm. Meanwhile, Mr Obama’s critics at home say his public reticence is due both to a lack of interest and to a confused analysis—a critique that dates back to his supposedly tardy and wobbly reaction to the Arab spring. A more likely explanation that unsettles Americans all the more is that the American president simply lacks the leverage to influence events in Egypt.

Michael Wahid Hanna is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, where he works on issues of international security, international law, and US foreign policy in the broader Middle East and South Asia. He appears regularly on NPR, BBC, and al-Jazeera. Additionally, his Twitter feed is a must-read for anyone interested in Egyptian politics. Michael’s previous answers are here. Our full Ask Anything archive is here.

The Great Shorts Debate

As the raging heat wave rekindles the debate over whether it’s proper for men to wear shorts when not exercising or going to the beach, Ryan O’Hanlon looks to Professor Susan Kaiser, an expert in the psychology of clothing, for some historical perspective:

Within Western culture, the history of shorts becomes intertwined with those of breeches or 3735401277_04a529131a_zculottes (worn prior to the French Revolution in 1789), and thereby linked with issues of class as well as masculinity. Long trousers had been worn by the working classes, whereas aristocratic and bourgeois men wore breeches/knickers/culottes. This changed after the revolution, and long pants began to be worn by men of all classes in the 19th century.

Shorts per se were for little boys, who “evolved” into their manhood by switching from long white dresses (infants) to shorter white dresses (toddlers) to shorts (little boy) to breeches (middle childhood or so) to long trousers (probably teens). This progression—associated with the 19th and early 20th centuries—was associated not only with age grades but also with a kind of “flight from femininity” and toward manhood. (The implication, of course, is that femininity did not have the same trajectory; it was infantilized to a much greater extent.)

Alex Balk, who has written about shorts on at least 20 occasions over the past three years (including the classic “Iran Cracks Down On Men In Shorts, And Good For Them”) responded to O’Hanlon’s post with one entitled “Men Wear Pants Because That’s What Men Do.” On the other hand, native Floridian Hamilton Nolan insists that forgoing shorts “is nothing more than a declaration that you enjoy walking around with a serious case of sweat-soaked swampass for a large portion of the year.”

I’m for them if Jon Hamm joins in.

(Photo from Jasper Gregory)