Why Was Kassig’s Death Different?

Yesterday, ISIS released a video showing that they had beheaded 26-year-old American aid worker Abdul-Rahman (né Peter) Kassig:

In the clip released early Sunday, the Islamic State displays the head of Mr. Kassig, 26, at the feet of a man with a British accent who appeared in the previous beheading videos and has been nicknamed Jihadi John by the British news media. Unlike the earlier videos, which were staged with multiple cameras from different vantage points, and which show the hostages kneeling, then uttering their last words, the footage of Mr. Kassig’s death is curtailed — showing only the final scene.

One possible explanation is that Kassig, a former Army Ranger, resisted his captors at the end. We may never know what happened for sure. One thing that is for sure, however, is that Kassig’s embrace of Islam during his captivity didn’t spare his life.

As Terrence McCoy notes, other captives of Islamist militant groups who converted, such as James Foley, didn’t reap any benefit from doing so either. Fawaz Gerges stresses that killing a convert “is an extremely serious violation of the well-established consensus in the Islamic community on the sacredness of life for converts to the religion”. He sees Kassig’s sloppy killing as a sign that the group is on the defensive:

Abu Muhammed al-Maqdsi, a mentor to many al Qaeda leaders, had called for mercy — not only because Kassig was a convert to Islam, but because he had given up so much to move to Syria and help victims of the war. Militant Islamists in the country also went public with a request for mercy. They said Kassig, a trained medic, had treated them when they were injured in battles against Syrian government forces.

It was inevitable that these calls would fall on deaf ears. Beheading Western hostages is one of the only tools ISIS has at its disposal to retaliate against the American-led airstrikes that are beginning to land serious blows on the group. … While it is difficult to keep track of the latest developments on the ground, what we do know is this: The momentum, at least in Iraq, is shifting. The group’s leaders are being hunted down, and they’re feeling the pain.

Now, according to Shane Harris, the jihadists hold just one American prisoner: a young woman, the same age as Kassig, who also went to Syria as an aid worker and was kidnapped in August 2013:

U.S. officials and the woman’s family have requested that her name not be made public, fearing that further attention will put her in greater jeopardy. No news organization has published her name. But the general circumstances of her capture and captivity have been known and widely reported for more than a year now. ISIS’s intentions for its remaining American prisoner are unclear. But current and former U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that it was notable she doesn’t appear at the end of a video, released Sunday, that shows the aftermath of Kassig’s beheading. That breaks with ISIS’s pattern of showing the next hostage it intends to kill.

Reflecting on better days when he could interview Taliban leaders without fearing for his neck, Goldblog worries about these beheadings prompting journalists (and, one might add, humanitarians like Kassig) to think twice before heading to war zones:

Why have some groups rejected the notion of journalistic neutrality? For one thing, the extremists have become more extreme. Look at the fractious relationship between al-Qaeda and ISIS, which is an offshoot of al-Qaeda but which has rejected criticism from Qaeda leaders about its particularly baroque application of violence. Another, more important, reason relates to the mechanisms of publicity itself. The extremists don’t need us anymore. Fourteen years ago, while I was staying at the Taliban madrasa, its administrators were launching a Web site. I remember being amused by this. I shouldn’t have been. There is no need for a middleman now. Journalists have been replaced by YouTube and Twitter. And when there is no need for us, we become targets. …

Today, even places that shouldn’t be dangerous for journalists are dangerous. Whole stretches of Muslim countries are becoming off-limits. This is a minor facet of a much larger calamity, but it has consequences: the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Syria and Iraq are not going away; our ability to see these problems, however, is becoming progressively more circumscribed.

The Amnesty Plan Cometh, Ctd

President Obama is expected to announce his executive action on immigration reform this week, promising a partisan bloodbath. Fox News is already talking about the i-word, of course:

Josh Voorhees revisits what exactly Obama’s action will probably be:

The most sweeping action the president will likely take is to extend DACA-like reprieves to particular groups of unauthorized immigrants, the largest of which will probably be parents of children who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Such a reprieve would temporarily protect them from the threat of deportation, but it wouldn’t remove that threat forever. Despite what conservatives are suggesting with their talk of “executive amnesty,” the president doesn’t have the unilateral power to make someone a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident. …

There is one group for whom Obama’s actions could have a more lasting impact:

those unauthorized immigrants whose spouses are U.S. citizens or legal residents. Most people in that group are technically eligible to apply for a green card already, but only if they first leave the country and wait out what’s typically a lengthy separation from their family. Obama could offer what is known as “parole in place” to that group, allowing them to stay in the country legally while the green card process plays out. He did a similar thing last November for undocumented individuals with immediate family members serving in the U.S. military. Anyone who has a green card in hand before the president leaves office in early 2017 wouldn’t have to worry about losing it if the next president changes course.

Outlining why Obama is moving ahead with this controversial power play, Dara Lind attributes his eagerness to the “smashing success” of DACA:

DACA beneficiaries say they’re no longer afraid to excel in school or become leaders in their communities, because they’re no longer worried that getting noticed will lead to getting deported. Advocates see the success of the DACA program as evidence that the administration has the ability to remove the threat of deportation from larger numbers of people if it really wants to. That’s why they’ve continued to push for affirmative relief, rather than being willing to rely on administration promises about passive protection of immigrants.

Unless the rumors about what Obama’s about to do are wildly wrong, it looks like the advocates’ argument has been persuasive. The White House has been convinced that if it really wants to remove the fear of deportation from unauthorized immigrant residents, it’s going to need to let them apply for relief themselves.

Also, Scott Clement and Peyton Craighill observe, there’s some evidence that the public would support the action Obama plans to take, if not the means by which he’s taking it:

[D]espite Obama’s low approval ratings (especially on immigration) and Democrats’ “(butt-)whuppin‘” in the midterm elections, he has something on his side: Public support for allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country. The 2014 national exit poll found​ 57 percent of midterm voters say most illegal immigrants working in the United States should be offered a chance to apply for legal status. Just less than four in 10 support deportation instead. And majority support on this issue isn’t all that surprising given national polling in recent years.

But Ian Gordon points out one thing Obama’s action apparently won’t address:

Still, given this year’s border crisis, it’s notable that the president’s plan seems to make little to no mention of the folks who provoked it: the unaccompanied children and so-called “family units” (often mothers traveling with small kids) who came in huge numbers from Central America and claimed, in many cases, to be fleeing violence of some sort.

The administration has been particularly adamant about fast-tracking the deportation of those family unit apprehensions, whose numbers jumped from 14,855 in fiscal 2013 to 68,445 in fiscal 2014, a 361 percent increase. Meanwhile, ICE has renewed the controversial practice of family detention (a complaint has already been filed regarding sexual abuse in the new Karnes City, Texas, facility) and will soon open the largest immigration detention facility in the country, a 2,400-bed family center in Dilley, Texas—just as Obama starts rolling out what many immigration hardliners will no doubt attack as an unconstitutional amnesty.

Tomasky, brimming with righteous indignation, claims that the Senate immigration bill “could have passed the House of Representatives, and probably easily, at any time since the Senate passed it in June 2013”, if not for Boehner’s decision never to let it come to a vote:

It’s been 16 months, nearly 500 days, since the Senate passed the bill. The House could have passed it on any one of those days. But Boehner and the Republicans refused, completely out of cowardice and to spite Obama. Insanely irresponsible. And on top of that, Boehner told Obama in June that he was not going to allow a vote on it all year. In other words, the Speaker told the President (both of whom knew the bill had the votes) that he was not only going to refuse to have a vote, but that he was going to let the Senate bill die. And now, when Obama wants to try to do something about the issue that’s actually far, far more modest than the bill would have been, he’s the irresponsible one? It’s grounds for impeachment?

Still, Danny Vinik worries about the consequences if Obama and the Democrats take the low road to immigration reform:

The president’s supporters argue that it’s the Republicans who have violated democratic norms, by refusing to even allow a bipartisan immigration bill that passed in the Senate to come to a vote in the House. It’s also unlikely that a move on immigration would set a precedent for future Republican presidents to undermine laws that Democrats support. I haven’t been able to imagine a comparable scenario where a Republican would have considerable legal authority to make a unilateral policy change. Immigration is a unique issue.

Still, Democrats could also lose some of their ability to claim the moral high ground on such issues. And that could matter very soon, because some Republicans are so angry about a potential immigration order they are considering using a government funding bill to block it, possibly setting up another shutdown.

Brian Beutler contemplates the Republican response:

There are three tools Republicans can use to stop Obama, but toxic Republican politics preclude the only one—a pledge to vote on comprehensive reform—that would actually work. That leaves the spending and impeachment powers. If, like Boehner, Republican hardliners truly believe the president is preparing to violate his oath of office, and an appropriations fight won’t stop him, then suddenly Krauthammer’s option becomes the last arrow in their quiver.

It won’t succeed either. But Boehner knows that this is where many of his members’ minds are already starting to wander. It’s why he’s once again floating the possibility of suing Obama instead.

Rachel Roubein also previews the Republican response:

If Obama announces his executive order next Friday at noon, the House could stay in session for as long as needed rather than beginning the planned Thanksgiving recess. The chamber could pass a resolution rejecting the president’s actions. Then House Republicans would focus on appropriations.

The current funding bill is set to sunset Dec. 11, and lawmakers are jockeying over passing another short-term continuing resolution or a longer-term package. The House could attach a rider prohibiting enforcement of Obama’s order, or it could not provide money to departments that would respond to executive action.

Lastly, Francis Wilkinson wants to know just what Obama’s opponents propose as an alternative:

There are, after all, a finite number of answers to the question of what to do about millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.:

1. You can offer them a path to legalization and/or citizenship.

2. You can deport them.

3. You can maintain the status quo, in which the undocumented remain in the U.S. without legal rights or recognition (and perhaps “self deport” in accord with the wishes of Mitt Romney). …

[Senator Jeff] Sessions, who along with Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas represents the hard end of anti-immigrant views in the Senate, shrinks from saying he supports deportation. He loudly condemns the status quo. And he’s virulently opposed to amnesty.

Suspected Of Being Muslim

Back in September, the Justice Department announced “a new series of pilot programs in cities across the country to bring together community representatives, public safety officials and religious leaders to counter violent extremism”. While the DOJ avoided using the words “Muslim” and “Islam” in its press release, the targets of these programs are obviously American Muslim communities. Naureen Shah, who grew up in such a community, decries the initiative as way too broad:

There is tremendous risk of abuse and mistake in any program that tries to predict future criminals, including terrorists. Empirical studies show that violent threats cannot be predicted by any religious, ideological, ethnic, or racial profiling.’

The evidence suggests that there is no direct link among religious observance, radical ideas, and violent acts. Some of the theories underlying the government’s approach caution just that, but they nevertheless advise law enforcement—and now, American Muslim community “partners”—to connect the dots linking an individuals’ noncriminal behavior, his ideas, and his attitudes. That kind of monitoring shrinks the space for free expression by creating an atmosphere where people fear they must watch what they say and how they act, lest it be reported.

It also denies what it is to grow up. As a teenager, I became angry and difficult. I disappeared on weekends. I chatted online for hours as my family ate dinner downstairs. I wasn’t a violent terrorist in the making. But under the government’s program, community members will be encouraged to monitor these behaviors and intervene with teens who engage in them.

Writing from the UK, where authorities have taken a similarly community-based approach to addressing radicalization, Arshad Isakjee objects to the assumption that there is such a thing as a “Muslim community” in the first place:

It is tempting to readily accept the warm notion that Muslims collectively behave like characters in Eastenders, buzzing around Asian Albert Squares across the country, their families constantly interacting at the local mosque – their version of the Queen Vic. We would never accept similar notions of Christian communities or white communities – but when applied to minorities, the idea sounds authentic and credible. …

Look closer though, and the Muslim community is far more elusive. Until the Salman Rushdie fatwa affair, Muslims in the UK were not conceptualised by religious identity. Ethnic groups such as Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians were the more legitimate conceptions of migrant communities. Even today, in most British towns and cities with Muslim populations, different ethnic groups will have their own mosques and religious institutions, and in some instances membership of those establishments remains exclusive to those specific ethnic groups.

Iced Out In Donetsk – And Brisbane

UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CRISIS

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Poroshenko ordered his government to withdraw all state services, including funding for hospitals and schools, from rebel-held provinces in the country’s east:

Poroshenko told his cabinet to take steps within a week “to terminate the activities of state enterprises, institutions and organisations in the various territories where anti-terrorist operations are being conducted,” a statement on his website said. “This is a decisive step, the games have stopped,” the security official added. “All the structures that the state finances will be withdrawn from there. Ukraine will no longer finance them.” The decree also proposed that Ukraine’s central bank take steps over the next month to withdraw all banking services for businesses and individuals in the regions.

But “if anyone thought this was an abdication and a letting go of the unruly region,” Jamie Dettmer underlines, “they need to think again”:

In the decree, he asked the country’s new parliament to revoke a law granting self-rule to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions—in effect rescinding September’s “special status” law granted under a ceasefire allowing the two mainly Russian speaking eastern region some autonomy.

The National Security Council recommended Poroshenko revoke the special status law following the November elections in the separatist Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic—polls that broke the conditions of the Sept. 5 Minsk ceasefire agreement. That ceasefire allowed for local elections in Donbas in December, but under Ukrainian supervision. The separatist polls amounted to a direct challenge to Kiev’s authority. But the decision now to sever economic ties with the eastern regions was a surprise—and a gamble.

Rebel leaders quickly decried the order as an act of “genocide”.  Poroshenko had already cut off the separatist regions from pensions and other state funds last week. Alexander J. Motyl supports putting economic pressure on the rebels and their backers in Moscow, but he acknowledges that there will be serious consequences:

The [Donbas] enclave is an economic mess, having experienced dramatic drops in GDP and employment and rises in business closures, food shortages, and inflation. And conditions will get much, much worse as subzero winter temperatures envelop the enclave. People will die not only from the fighting, but also from hunger and cold. Even Nikolai Levchenko, the young Regionnaire hotshot from Donetsk who distinguished himself a few years ago by insulting the Ukrainian language, brazenly flaunting his ill-gotten wealth in Jakob Preuss’s documentary film The Other Chelsea, and preposterously claiming to have read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace seven times, says he’s worried: “More than 3.5 million people who have remained in the zone of direct conflict will suffer from the cold and will be placed on the verge of survival under conditions of a wintry humanitarian collapse.”

This weekend was also an eventful one for Putin, who got such a chilly reception at the G20 summit in Australia that he ducked out early:

Western leaders piled huge pressure on the Russian president at the Group of 20 meeting in Brisbane, with host Tony Abbott calling on Putin to “atone” for the shooting down of Flight MH17 over rebel-held eastern Ukraine and Britain’s David Cameron branding him a “bully”. Analysts said Putin’s apparent anger at his treatment by his fellow leaders could worsen the crisis in Ukraine. “If he is leaving irritated, just wait for the fighting in Ukraine to intensify,” independent analyst Stanislav Belkovsky told AFP. Putin, who prides himself on his stamina, cited the “need to sleep” and a long flight home as his reasons for leaving the summit before the final communique was issued.

Leonid Bershidsky criticizes the G20 leaders who gave Putin the cold shoulder, arguing that such passive-aggressive behavior serves no purpose:

What were the Western leaders trying to achieve? Putin already knows they resent his meddling in Ukraine. Not inviting him at all would have sent a clearer signal that the West is prepared to isolate Russia from international decision-making, as it once did the Soviet Union. That message would have been misleading, however, because, despite Putin’s stubborn and increasingly ridiculous denials that Russia is taking action in Ukraine, the West still wants to talk with him: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker, not to mention the leaders of BRICS countries, all held meetings with him in Brisbane. Taunts and angry looks only make such conversations more difficult.

But Doug Mataconis wonders whether “Putin showing up at the summit wasn’t some kind of stunt for domestic consumption to begin with”:

With reports of Russian troops and equipment pouring across the border with Ukraine that seem hard to deny, and the whole idea of showing up with a fleet of Russian destroyers in international waters off the Australian coast, much further from Russian waters than the Russian Navy tends to travel these days, certainly seems like more Putin-esque showmanship and provocation. It’s almost as if Putin went to Australia with the specific intention of creating a scene like this for propaganda purposes back home.

The Russian and Ukrainian leaders continued their war of words in interviews published yesterday and today. While both leaders claim to want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, Poroshenko now says Ukraine is “prepared for a scenario of total war” while Putin drops hints that he is fully prepared to continue propping up the rebels:

In response to a question about whether Russia was arming the rebels, as contended by both Kyiv and the West, Putin said merely that “anyone waging a fight that they believe fair will find weapons.” He stressed that without such arms the rebels would be quickly destroyed by the Ukrainian forces – something Russia “does not want, and will not allow.” While Putin stopped short of acknowledging Russia’s material role in the conflict, his comments went further in emphasizing Moscow’s willingness to support the separatists than ever before.

(Photo: People shop at the market in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on November 17, 2014 as artillery fire continues to rock the eastern Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebel bastion. Fresh bloodshed between pro-Kremlin rebels and Kiev’s forces added to the tensions after Russian President Vladimir Putin left a G20 summit in Brisbane early amid criticism from fellow leaders. By Menahem/AFP/Getty Images)

“A Story Of Human Cooperation In A World Of Conflict”

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That’s how Jonathan Freedland describes the Rosetta space mission:

The narrow version of this point focuses on this as a European success story. When our daily news sees “Europe” only as the source of unwanted migrants or maddening regulation, Philae has offered an alternative vision; that Germany, Italy, France, Britain and others can achieve far more together than they could ever dream of alone. …

Even that, as I say, is to view it too narrowly. The US, through Nasa, is involved as well. And note the language attached to the hardware: the Rosetta satellite, the Ptolemy measuring instrument, the Osiris on-board camera, Philea itself – all imagery drawn from ancient Egypt. The spacecraft was named after the Rosetta stone, the discovery that unlocked hieroglyphics, as if to suggest a similar, if not greater, ambition: to decode the secrets of the universe. By evoking humankind’s ancient past, this is presented as a mission of the entire human race. There will be no flag planting on Comet 67P. As the Open University’s Jessica Hughes puts it, Philea, Rosetta and the rest “have become distant representatives of our shared, earthly heritage.”

That fits because this is how we experience such a moment: as a human triumph.

When we marvel at the numbers – a probe has travelled for 10 years, crossed those 4bn miles, landed on a comet speeding at 34,000mph and done so within two minutes of its planned arrival – we marvel at what our species is capable of. I can barely get past the communication: that Darmstadt is able to contact an object 300 million miles away, sending instructions, receiving pictures. I can’t get phone reception in my kitchen, yet the ESA can be in touch with a robot that lies far beyond Mars. Like watching Usain Bolt run or hearing Maria Callas sing, we find joy and exhilaration in the outer limits of human excellence.

And it’s a scrappy little lander:

Instead of landing on its planned target, Philae took a dramatic double bounce into the shadows of the comet, where only a tiny bit of sunlight can reach its solar panels. The battery, which lasts for two and a half days, was intended to power Philae during its first planned sequence of data collection. After the battery ran out, Philae was to rely on the sun.

Despite Philae’s precarious position on a cliff, it managed to collect all the data that mission controllers had planned for—images, information on the comet’s chemical composition and its surface properties, for example. The spacecraft even managed to drill into the comet’s surface. Mission controllers also rotated Philae 35 degrees in the hopes of getting its solar panels in a more favorable position. It remains to be seen whether the maneuver will pay off.

Joseph Stromberg explains the importance of comet research:

All this data is so valuable because the comet likely formed 4.6 billion years ago, from material leftover asEarth and the solar system’s other planets were coalescing. As a result, understanding the composition of this comet — and comets in general — could help us better model the formation of the solar system. Moreover, many scientists believe that in the period afterward, when the solar system was still a chaotic, collision-filled system, comets and asteroids were responsible for bringing water and perhaps even organic molecules to Earth. By analyzing data collected by Philae on ice and other substances on the comet’s surface, we could gather important clues as to whether the hypothesis is correct.

Rachel Feltman looks ahead:

Several missions in the near future will take us to asteroids, the slower-moving (and easier to chase down) cousins of comets. In 2016, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will use a spacecraft with a robotic arm to pluck some asteroid off and take it home. And while we wait for another Philae-like comet trip – which probably won’t come in the next 10 years – we still have Rosetta. The spacecraft will follow its comet for a year, studying it as it passes the sun. And during that time, if enough light hits its solar panels, Philae could even make a comeback – reuniting the world’s new favorite pair of space buddies.

(Photo: Rosetta’s lander Philae has returned the first panoramic image from the surface of a comet. The view, unprocessed, as it has been captured by the CIVA-P imaging system, shows a 360º view around the point of final touchdown. By ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA)

Will Republicans Stop DC Weed?

Sullum thinks not:

“I think a resolution of disapproval is unlikely,” says Bill Piper, director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. “Overturning a ballot measure passed by 70 percent of the voters doesn’t really look good for the incoming Republican Congress. If the council transmits [the initiative] in January, I think that pretty much reduces or eliminates the chance that Congress will overturn it outright. It just doesn’t fit with what they’re talking about doing, which is rebranding themselves as not being obstructionists.”

Yay! Why defunding the initiative is unlikely to work:

Unless Congress is still working on appropriations for the current fiscal year come January, [anti-marijuana Congressman Andy] Harris would have to wait until spending is authorized for fiscal year 2016. “They could do an appropriations rider that might take effect in September, October, November, December,” Piper says, “but Initiative 71 will already be in effect by then.”

Since the District already will have eliminated penalties for marijuana cultivation, possession, and sharing within the limits set by the initiative, telling it not to spend money on doing so will be ineffectual.

W. James Antle II wants Republicans to stand aside:

Congress would have to move quickly on a resolution of disapproval, making it one of the new majority’s earliest priorities. They would probably have nothing to show for it in the end, as President Obama has suggested his signature won’t be forthcoming. Even the frequently PR-challenged Republicans can likely sense this would be bad symbolically.

Where opponents could do the most damage is attaching riders defunding legalization’s implementation to must-sign appropriations bills. While it’s probably too late to stop legalization’s initial rollout, putting together the necessary tax and regulatory regime will take a couple of years. That’s plenty of time to gum up the works.

But this would be a step backward.

Chewing Over Executive Action On Immigration

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Readers know that my first instinct on hearing of president Obama’s decision to defer deportations for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in the near future was to oppose it:

Instead of forcing the GOP to come up with a compromise bill – which if it can, great, and if it cannot, will split the GOP in two – he’d merely recast the debate around whether he is a “lawless dictator”, etc etc. rather than whether it is humane or rational to keep millions of people in illegal limbo indefinitely. It would strengthen those dead-ender factions in the House that are looking for an excuse to impeach. It would unify the GOP on an issue where it is, in fact, deeply divided. And it would not guarantee a real or durable solution to the clusterfuck.

Among the more impassioned advocates of this view is Ross Douthat, whose conservatism and reason I respect a great deal (so sue me). He concedes that deferring deportations is indeed part of a president’s legal prosecutorial discretion but believes the context makes the current proposal outrageous. Money quote:

The reality is there is no agreed-upon limit to the scope of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law because no president has attempted anything remotely like what Obama is contemplating. In past cases, presidents used the powers he’s invoking to grant work permits to modest, clearly defined populations facing some obvious impediment (war, persecution, natural disaster) to returning home. None of those moves even approached this plan’s scale, none attempted to transform a major public policy debate, and none were deployed as blackmail against a Congress unwilling to work the president’s will.

The trouble with this argument is that the very text to which Ross links argues against him. There were indeed previous instances in which vast numbers of illegal immigrants were granted deferred relief, pending legislative gridlock or delay, by presidential discretion:

As Congress was debating the  Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, it weighed and opted not to provide a legalization pathway for the immediate relatives of aliens who met the requirements of IRCA unless they too met those requirements. As IRCA’s legalization programs were being implemented, the cases of unauthorized spouses and children who were not eligible to adjust with their family came to the fore. In 1987, Attorney General Edward Meese authorized the INS district directors to defer deportation proceedings where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed.” Legislation addressing this population was introduced throughout the 1980s, but not enacted. In 1990, INS Commissioner Gene McNary issued a new “Family Fairness” policy for family members of aliens legalized through IRCA, dropping the where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed” requirement. At the time, McNary stated that an estimated 1.5 million unauthorized aliens would benefit from the policy. The new policy also allowed the unauthorized spouses and children to apply for employment authorizations.

So both Reagan and the first Bush did exactly what Obama is proposing, as the AP has also reported, and their measures involved 1.5 million people. More to the point, the deferrals were for family members whose deportations would split parents from children. And that’s why Ross’s refusal even to address the humanitarian issue here is so disappointing. For someone who is often a stickler for Catholics in public life to follow their bishops’ lead, he is certainly treading on highly un-Catholic ground here in insisting that legal children separated from their illegal parents. The US Catholic Bishops regard this as an issue of “great moral urgency”:

As pastors, we witness each day the human consequences of a broken immigration system. Families are separated through deportation, migrant workers are exploited in the workplace, and migrants die in the desert … Immigration is a challenge that has confounded our nation for years, with little action from our federally elected officials. It is a matter of great moral urgency that cannot wait any longer for action.

As someone who has been through the immigration system – surviving the HIV immigration and travel ban for twenty years – I perhaps have a more personal understanding of this.

It is hard to describe the psychological agony of an immigration service having the power to tear your family apart, especially when it has been built in America for many years. These are human beings we are talking about – not abstractions in a partisan mudfight. They are mothers about to be separated from their children – and treated as inferior to them. They have no rights, even though they may have contributed a huge amount to the US economy, and have often displayed real tenacity in building strong and intimate families. They face real deadlines, and Obama, for a long time, has not stinted in deporting them under the law, as a (futile) way of building trust with the GOP.

It is also true that the House GOP does not seem to have any intention of moving on comprehensive immigration reform, preferring simply to build an even bigger fence on the Southern border, while the Senate has already passed a bipartisan comprehensive bill. Obama campaigned on this issue in 2008 and 2012. Majorities in the country favor a path to citizenship. Obama has said any action he takes would be superseded immediately by any new law. In a sane polity, Obama’s threat would lead to a commitment by the GOP to move a bill forward to address the core issues promptly. And I certainly favor that. Such prosecutorial discretion should never be considered as an alternative to legislation – just relief to individuals trapped in a limbo that would tear their families apart.

I still favor Obama’s deferral of his deferral in the interests of a more productive and constructive relationship with the GOP over the next two years. But that’s a prudential judgment of the politics of this. And it’s a close call. Far closer than Ross or the GOP would have anyone believe.

(Photo: US President Barack Obama pauses during a press conference in the East Room of the White House on November 5, 2014. By Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images.)

Gender War Update

A little house-cleaning on the last week’s WAM/Twitter thread:

I’m @srhbutts, the person you quoted the tweet of. You make a claim (out of nowhere, apparently) that I said @nero should be banned for being homophobic. I never said any such thing. I’m curious why you said this, and would appreciate it either being sourced or retracted.

Here’s the tweet to which I was referring:

If srhbutts’ issue with @nero were simply harassment, I don’t really understand why he was subject to that kind of criticism, as if his views had anything to do with his right to tweet freely. Another emailer close to the issue:

I am the Twitter user and YouTube video-maker mentioned in the second part of your post “The SJWs Now Get To Police Speech On Twitter“. I have no doubt you’re a busy guy, as am I, what with my campaigns of harassment and general shit-lord behavior, so let me make this as brief as I can manage, which is not at all. The description of me as a “critic of feminism in the atheist and skeptical community” is more or less accurate. The usual caveats apply: I’m not against women. I’m not a misogynist, except in the stupid Fashion Victim Feminist expansive definition of “someone who disagrees with them”. Although that’s not even strictly true.

By most measures my positions could be considered well within the scope of Second Wave Feminism that sought to redress social and legal inequality faced by women and most definitely solidly First Wave Feminist where, straight out of Mary Wollstonecraft, I believe in the social and moral equality of men and women.

What I do not support is the dishonest and manipulative “Fashion Victim Feminism” and invasive species of online Social Justice Warriors that barge into communities they had no part in creating and attempt to co-opt those communities with an agenda.

I am especially active where this concerns the online Atheist and Skeptic community. I have been a member of the Skeptical community from way back, am a member of the National Capital Area Skeptics and it’s only through the Social Justice Invasion that they attracted my attention at all.

For the past few years, beginning about the time of “ElevatorGate” in 2011, I’ve been having it out with these clowns. I’ve been incompetently doxed, laughably harassed and had people such as Greg Laden of Freethought Blogs and Melody Hensley of The Center for Inquiry make half-assed attempts at interfering with my employment. I have responded by punching them in the nose with a series of YouTube videos such as “Creepy Clowns: Freethought Bullies and the Threat Narrative Clown Horn” and “The Block Bot and the Dumbification of the Beeb”, which are far too long for me to recommend. After which I was often referred to as “He Who They Dare Not Name”, after proving direct intimidation wasn’t a course of action that would work against me.

But now, it seems, Women in Media have given the harassers another tool of harassment on the pretext of preventing harassment. Just to show how generally uninterested I am in the politics of these thing, I wasn’t even aware of WAM until someone directed me to your posts. I am now fairly convinced that my Twitter account was suspended as the result of a fraudulent mass flagging effort. Here is the only information as to why I was suspended I have received from Twitter:

Hello,

Your account was suspended because it was found to be violating the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules), specifically our rules around participating in targeted abuse.
If you would like to request your account to be restored, please confirm that you’ve read and understood the Twitter Rules.

Please note that future Twitter Rules violations may result in permanent account suspension. We appreciate your cooperation going forward.

Thanks,
Twitter

As Twitter seems intent on playing tag with me on this issue, and will not tell me what exactly the “targeted abuse” I engaged in was, my best guess before I read your article can be found in this relatively short (less than 15 minutes) video. Because Twitter’s protocol seems to be “We won’t tell you what you did, so just admit to it”, I may have been unconvincing in my prostrations and it seems that my Twitter suspension is a permanent state of affairs. Which means in one fell swoop and without anything like due process, I have lost my entire Twitter presence, complete with tweets, followers and those I follow going right down the memory hole.

I suspect my YouTube channel will be hit with bogus claims of inappropriate content and false DCMA claims. These people, soulless bastards that they are, are ruthless. Your post was one of the few that clearly detailed what is going on with WAM and these mass flaggings and as unresponsive as Twitter is, and they seem to be of the mind that a massacre of their users is a small price to pay for pandering to the right people. It’s only through efforts such as yours that these silencing tactics can be derailed.

Another story:

One of my viewers informed me of your recent call for anyone who suspects that they might have been suspended from Twitter as a result of WAM’s recent actions.  I was recently suspended from Twitter despite not having harassed, threatened, or otherwise violated the Twitter ToS, but my work gives me a unique reason to suspect that I was suspended due to WAM’s influence.

I’ve been a YouTube blogger since 2007 and started making it a semi-professional endeavor in recent years.  In addition to using it as a venue for my artistic endeavors, I also frequently comment on matters of gender politics, sexual freedom, and philosophy from a libertarian, free-market perspective.  Since 2012 I have devoted a large part of my video presence to commentary on the Social Justice Warrior influence on video game culture, which I consider myself a part of.

In August of 2014 my colleague Davis Aurini and I announced that we would be crowd-funding our new documentary, “The Sarkeesian Effect,” which will be a feature-length film aimed at a theatrical release.  It covers the last two years of video game culture that began in the summer of 2012 with the launch of media critic Anita Sarkeesian’s video series “Tropes Vs. Women in Games.”

The day we launched the project, the crowd funding website we were using, Patreon, was deluged with emails demanding that our project be pulled from the site.  This was spearheaded largely by Samantha Allen, a prominent SJW voice.  Patreon has received hundreds of emails on this matter, and on October 1st of this year we spoke with Patreon COO Jack Conte to discuss the matter with him directly. Funding has continued through the website, but they continue to receive demands that it be pulled.
Additionally, our project has been the subject of hit pieces and misinformation from news sites sympathetic to the SJW agenda and we have received intimidating tweets from various journalists, such as persons from BadAss Digest and the Guardian among others.

So, bringing this around to WAM and Twitter, I recently came home from the second leg of filming for the doc and woke up the next day to find that my Twitter had been suspended.  At first I figured it was the result of the usual false-flagging trolls, but then I noticed that it had come alongside another public push to have Patreon defund our project.  My followers on Twitter and viewers on YouTube noticed that WAM had recently partnered with Twitter, and my suspension came about two days after the announcement.

Well, I don’t have any hard evidence as yet, but I’m highly suspicious that this was done by WAM since Sarkeesian is a VERY close chum of theirs.  I outlined it in this video on my YouTube channel.
As someone who, because of the film, is becoming an increasingly recognized part of the #GamerGate movement, it’s more than a little curious.  Thank you for taking the time to read this, and feel free to discuss my concerns on your site and contact me if you have more questions.

Being Conscious Of Your Own Circumcision, Ctd

The start of another fascinating thread:

I feel for the couple with the seven year old whose foreskin won’t retract.  We went through that with both of our boys.  My husband is cut, but I put my foot down and demanded that both of our boys be left intact.  The older of the two started having problems with his foreskin when he was around four (he’s eight now).  It wouldn’t retract and the doctor thought it was very tight.  The urologist gave us some steroid cream and said, basically, “good luck, it probably won’t work; see you back in two weeks to schedule the circumcision.”

Two weeks later his foreskin was retracting like it was supposed to. Yea! Problem solved.

Fast-forward two years to when our youngest was two. Same problem. We went to a different urologist (for insurance reasons). He spent less than two minutes looking at my son’s penis and said: “He’s fine, leave it alone. A lack of retraction isn’t an issue until he is at least eight or older.”

Guess what: both foreskins now retract normally.  I’m very glad I pushed for alternatives and didn’t immediately agree to a circumcision.  So definitely get a second opinion before you cut.

A second:

I’m sure you’ll have some doctors who can speak to the medical aspect of your reader’s question, but I may be able to offer a useful personal perspective. I wasn’t circumcised when I was born, but I did get circumcised when I was 15 for medical reasons that sound similar to your reader’s son’s.

In my case, the foreskin was fused with the bottom of the head, which meant I couldn’t pull it back very far (and the few times I tried, growing up, were quite painful). I just thought that was normal. I heedlessly peed into the damn thing for years and never got any infections to indicate something was amiss. I think I just nodded when doctors would ask if I was careful to pull the skin back when I used the bathroom. At a physical when I was 15, I finally understood the question, so the doctor sent me to a urologist who proscribed a circumcision. Things were pretty swollen and grody for a few weeks; after that everything worked fine.

One thing that gets elided in the hyperbole “male genital mutilation” is the distinction between a medically-indicated procedure and a purely cosmetic one. It doesn’t make medical sense to circumcise all boys at birth, but being circumcised is not a particularly onerous condition.

My dad may have gone through some of what your reader is going through when we decided I needed to get circumcised. He was adamant that I not be circumcised at birth – partly for the reasons you bring up on this site, and partly because he was very not cool with the idea of some doctor cutting on his newborn’s dick without anesthetic (which was the standard in the mid-’80s, when I was born). When I later had to get circumcised, he expressed some guilt: in an attempt to not mutilate his son, he mutilated his son!

This was ridiculous, of course: I was (and am) grateful that I wasn’t circumcised at birth, just as I’m grateful my idiosyncratic problem was so easily treatable, just as I’m content now to live without foreskin. And I told him as much, with more respect than I was usually able to muster at 15. For one thing, I was very much looking forward to sex, and with a mostly immovable foreskin there can be complications. At 15, I would have hitchhiked to the hospital and panhandled for my copay if it meant I could have sex sometime in the future.

It is important to note that I was able to consent to the procedure. I knew what was going on and I was very clear as to the reasons we were doing it. But I can’t imagine I would have harbored any ill-will if I’d been circumcised a few years earlier for the same reason.

More stories to come. Follow the whole thread here.

Next Year’s Obamacare Premiums

premium_changes

They’re going up:

The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year — in some cases as much as 20 percent — unless they switch plans.

Sprung calls a foul:

Unless they switch plans is the key. For the 85% of buyer who qualify for federal subsidies, their costs will not go up at all if they buy the benchmark second-cheapest Silver-level plan, or a cheaper plan — except insofar as their income rises. Their share of the premium is a fixed percentage of their income. In fact, if their income is flat they may qualify for higher Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) benefits, since the formula for determining those benefits is adjusted yearly for inflation.

Sarah Kliff, who passes along the above map, adds that premiums “on Healthcare.gov will increase slightly in 2015 — but vary a lot depending on where you live”:

A new analysis from health research firm Avalere Health showed that, on average, premiums for bronze plans (the skimpiest products) will go up by 4 percent next year. Silver plans (which offer middle-of-the-road coverage) will have a 3 percent premium increase.

But those averages mask huge variation. Average silver premiums are falling by 18 percent in New Hampshire — but increasing 28 percent in Alaska.  There are two states where average premiums are going up by more than 10 percent (Alaska and Florida) and two where they’re dropping by double digits (Mississippi and New Hampshire).

And even these state figures likely mask a lot of local variation, with premium changes likely varying from city to city.

Samger-Katz examines other research on Obamacare premiums:

The studies suggest that, in large cities, at least, the new health insurance marketplaces are working as intended: Health insurers, competing for business, are keeping prices low. That’s great news for the federal budget, since the government is paying subsidies to help some 85 percent of people on the market pay their bills. It’s also good for consumers who will be coming to the market for the first time during open enrollment, which begins Saturday.

But just because the type of plan that the researchers examined — the second-cheapest plan in the “silver” category — is showing modest changes, that doesn’t mean that every plan is a great deal. The Wakely analysis highlighted that many of the most popular plans from 2014 are getting much more expensive, while many of the cheapest plans will be new to the market in 2015. That means that consumers who simply renew their plans without shopping could get stuck with a substantial increase.

Drum encourages Obamacare enrollees to shop around:

Even if you can navigate the website yourself, be careful. Not everything is obvious at first glance. And if you’re not comfortable doing it by yourself, don’t. Get help from an expert in your state. You have three months to sign up, so there’s no rush.