Face Of The Day

AFGHANISTAN-UNREST

A wounded Afghan man walks at the site of a suicide attack in Ghazni on September 4, 2014. A Taliban attack on a government compound killed 13 security personnel and left at least 60 other people wounded after a truck bomb triggered hours of fighting, officials said. About 20 insurgents armed with machine guns and grenade launchers were also killed during the assault on the intelligence agency base in Ghazni province, one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan. By Rahmatullah Alizadah/AFP/Getty Images.

Reproductive Rights, Texas Style

by Dish Staff

Emily Bazelon analyzes a recent abortion ruling in Texas:

Judge Lee Yeakel struck down the state’s “brutally effective system of abortion regulation,” as he put it, saying it was not likely to improve women’s health, would impact poor women the most, and “would operate for a significant number of women in Texas just as drastically as a complete ban on abortion.” The judge was clear and convincing on these essential points. But his ruling, as well as another one over the weekend that’s keeping clinics open in Louisiana, may well be in danger on appeal.

The case centers on a 2013 Texas law that “required all clinics to be outfitted as ambulatory surgical centers,” one example of the “far-reaching regulations that are enacted in the name of protecting women’s health and result in shutting down clinics”:

[T]he underlying legal question—how far a state can go to restrict access without crossing the constitutional line into saddling women with an “undue burden,” in the Supreme Court’s magical mystery words—remains unresolved. Yeakel took a crack by finding that in combination, the constellation of provisions in the 2013 Texas law creates “unreasonable obstacles” that have “reached a tipping point.”

Ramesh Ponnuru accuses Bazelon of ignoring constitutionality:

At no point in the article’s discussion of the Texas law does the article mention the Constitution it supposedly violates. … To come up with a clear rule distinguishing permissible from impermissible abortion regulations, the Court would have to be willing to limit its own discretion, and to sustain the pretense that this rule has something to do with the Constitution. So far it has balked.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown, meanwhile, gives an overview:

[I]n general TRAP (“targeted regulation of abortion providers”) laws haven’t fared so well in the Southern states lately. In early August, a federal district judge ordered Alabama legislators to reconsider a requirement that abortion-clinic doctors have hospital admitting privileges. And in July, the notoriously-conservative 5th Circuit court ruled that Mississippi’s admitting-privileges law—which would have forced the state’s one remaining abortion clinic to close—was unconstitutional.

The Real Phil Hartman

by Dish Staff

Bryan Curtis gets to the heart of the late, great comedian’s appeal:

When “Hartman” spoke, it was in a language of lies. Keyrock the Caveman jived his way through a closing statement; Clinton emoted feel-your-pain liberalism; for [Simpsons character Troy] McClure, it was the golden patter of the announcer reading a bogus script. “Hartman” affected a common touch: I’m just a caveman … As Steve Lookner, who joined SNL’s writing staff in 1993, put it, “It’s taking it to the limit of how cocky you can be and still fool people into thinking you’re simple.”

His con was ludicrously obvious: It’s more of a Shelbyville idea … But because we knew he was swindling us, that made the swindle easier to enjoy. “You appreciate the artifice,” [Newsradio co-star Stephen] Root said. “Even if you know what he is doing. Because he is doing it so well. ‘Oh, I don’t mind. That’s OK. It’s not that much money …’”

The final thing about “Hartman” is that he was just a bit remote. This is key to understanding why Hartman the actor may be tough to properly appreciate. We could spend a long weekend with Wayne and Garth, and tolerate at least a lunch with Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan. Hartman’s creations were highly polished and vacuum-sealed, easy to laugh at but harder to hug.

(Video: Hartman auditions for SNL in 1985)

They Got The Wrong Men

by Dish Staff

Yesterday, two men were freed after spending 30 years behind bars for a rape and murder they didn’t commit. Lauren Galik introduces us to the wrongly convicted:

The men, Henry Lee “Buddy” McCollum and Leon Brown, are stepbrothers. McCollum, 19 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to death and spent 30 years on North Carolina’s death row, making him one of the longest serving death row prisoners in the state. Brown, 15 at the time of the crime, was also sentenced to death but was later retried and sentenced to life in prison. Both men are considered mentally disabled—McCollum’s IQ is between 60 and 69 and Brown’s IQ is 49.

Alice Ollstein describes how the brothers were pressured into giving false confessions:

[C]ivil and legal rights advocates, including Vernetta Alston at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, have long argued the “process” has not worked at all for Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown. “At every juncture, the system failed Henry and Leon,” Alston told ThinkProgress. “They were coerced into giving false confessions. These two boys could hardly read. They were very intellectually disabled. They were manipulated and threatened, and only signed the statements because law enforcement told them they could go home. It’s unacceptable.”

The brothers were interrogated for hours with no attorney present in order to obtain the confessions, which they both later recanted. There was never any physical evidence against them.

Dahlia Lithwick looks at the bigger picture:

This case highlights the same well-known and extensively documented problems that can lead to false arrests and convictions: Police who are incentivized to find any suspect quickly, rather than the right one carefully; false confessions elicited after improper questioning; exculpatory evidence never turned over; the prosecution of vulnerable, mentally ill, or very young suspects in ways that take advantage of their innocence rather than protecting it; prosecutorial zeal that has far more to do with the pursuit of victories than the pursuit of truth; and a death penalty appeals system that treats this entire screwed-up process of investigation and conviction as both conclusive and unreviewable.

Map Of The Day

by Dish Staff

Screen Shot 2014-09-03 at 1.51.35 PM

Niraj Chokshi illustrates how the best states for female workers are in the Northeast:

Massachusetts had the highest score [for women’s earnings and employment] among states, according to the analysis of four factors conducted by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. (D.C. scored even higher, though many argue it is better compared to other cities.) All but four of the 10 highest-scoring states – Maryland, Minnesota, Colorado and Virginia – were in the Northeast. Sixteen states earned a B- or higher. West Virginia ranked dead last and, along with Alabama, received an F. The composite scores, excluding D.C., ranged from 68.5 to 90.5, on a hundred-point scale.

The four factors analyzed to develop the composite scores were: median annual earnings (for full-time, year-round women workers); the earnings ratio between men and women (again, for full-time, year-round women workers); the share of women in the workforce; and the share of women in managerial or professional jobs.

Al-Qaeda’s Newest Franchise

by Dish Staff

In a video released today, Al-Qaeda international leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that the organization was establishing a branch in South Asia to wage jihad in India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Ishaan Tharoor examines the logic behind the decision:

Al-Qaeda’s desire for operational expansion eastward makes sense: There are roughly as many Muslims in South Asia as there are in the Arab world; there are more Muslims outside the Middle East than inside it. The history of the Mughal Empire allows al-Qaeda ideologues to invoke a narrative of lost Muslim preeminence, waiting for redemption, even though some Mughal emperors would have abhorred the terrorist organization’s brand of Islam. … But it’s hard to see how al-Qaeda can capitalize in South Asia if it hasn’t already. For all the tensions and enmities that exist in this diverse, overcrowded region, it’s a part of the world steeped in traditions of pluralism and tolerance. Al-Qaeda’s puritanical zeal, incubated in places such as Saudi Arabia, is wholly alien to the Indian subcontinent. And South Asian governments, particularly in India and Bangladesh, have stepped up cooperation on issues of counterterrorism.

One interpretation is that Zawahiri is trying to recapture al-Qaeda’s relevance as it loses ground in the Islamic heartland to even more radical outfits like ISIS, but Dan Murphy doubts it will work:

Can Zawahiri turn the tide against the upstart jihadis? For now, it seems unlikely. The small percentage of Muslims that support such movements seem elated by Baghdadi’s caliphate declaration, and imagine they’re living in epoch-defining times that will see their dream of converting the whole world at the point of a sword realized. The old Al Qaeda approach – that world domination wasn’t possible until “far enemies” like the US were somehow destroyed – is being upended by the arguably more conventional ISIS approach of seizing territory. For the small group of misfits and loners and true-believers who view the chopping of heads and gunning down captives in their hundreds as heroic, rather than revolting, ISIS is the emerging brand name. When was the last time Joe Biden vowed to chase Al Qaeda to the gates of hell?

Andrew North observes that al-Qaeda has even been losing support in its traditional Af-Pak stronghold. He suggests the decision has something to do with that as well:

Several Pakistani-based militant groups previously allied to al-Qaeda have recently pledged allegiance to IS and its goal of an Islamic caliphate. The group has now reportedly launched a support and recruitment drive in border areas like Peshawar. Booklets in the name of the Dawlat-e-Islamia (Islamic State) have been circulating among the many Afghan refugees living there. Graffiti, or wall-talk, another guide to sentiments, is also going the group’s way, with pro-IS slogans now regularly appearing on Peshawar buildings. And while Zawahiri’s announcement seems primarily aimed at India, the man he named as the new leader of al-Qaeda’s South Asia wing, Asim Umar, is reportedly a Pakistani.

Katherine Zimmerman, on the other hand, argues that the video proves al-Qaeda is still alive and dangerous:

The split between al Qaeda and the Islamic State is very real, as is the contest for the global jihadist movement. The Islamic State’s unprecedented success in Iraq and Syria has energized the movement as a whole, which is why al Qaeda leaders have supported Sunni victories in Iraq. The Islamic State, and then al Qaeda, must both be defeated. Going after one and dismissing the other is short-sighted and leaves American interests vulnerable to attacks. Allying with so-called lesser enemies like Iran, or Syria, as Senator Rand Paul (and others) have suggested, to go after the Sunni threat is just as short-sighted. Just because the Islamic State and al Qaeda want to kill Americans doesn’t mean Assad and Khamenei don’t. Al Qaeda’s newest affiliate is proof of life for those who were questioning. There are still groups seeking to affiliate with al Qaeda, and some of them, such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s group in the Sahel, have killed Americans. Al Qaeda is not dead. It is still a threat to the United States, and Ayman al Zawahiri wants us to know it.

Remembering Sotloff, Foley, And The Rest, Ctd

by Jonah Shepp

Will Saletan reacts to Steven Sotloff’s murder the same way I did yesterday, urging us to remember the people whose suffering Sotloff and James Foley gave their lives to bring to light. He rounds up some of the latest reports on ISIS’s many atrocities:

Start with Monday’s testimony before the U.N. Human Rights Council. The documented incidents include 1,700 captives executed in Tikrit, Iraq, and 650 in Mosul, Iraq. Some 1,000 Turkmen massacred, including 100 children. More than 2,000 women and children kidnapped. “Systematic hunting of members of ethnic and religious groups.” Women raped and sold. Young boys executed. Girls enslaved for sexual abuse. Children recruited as suicide bombers. More than 1 million refugees, half of them kids.

Then read the report Amnesty International issued Tuesday. Its title is “Ethnic Cleansing on Historic Scale: The Islamic State’s Systematic Targeting of Minorities in Northern Iraq.” The report details, with eyewitness testimony, several more ISIS atrocities in Iraq. At least 100 men and boys herded together and shot to death in Kocho. “Scores of men and boys” summarily executed in Qiniyeh. More than 50 men “rounded up and shot dead” near Jdali. Human Rights Watch also released a report on Tuesday. It offers new evidence about the massacre in Tikrit. “Information from a survivor and analysis of videos and satellite imagery has confirmed the existence of three more mass execution sites,” says the report. That brings the death toll to “between 560 and 770 men.” The captives were shot dead while lying in trenches with their hands bound.

Saletan argues that these evil acts compel America to step in and stop the Islamic State from killing thousands more. It’s hard to dispute that: surely someone has to stop them, and since we’ve already committed to doing so, yes, we must follow through on that commitment to prevent atrocities and protect the innocent. Still, we know that such interventions are slippery slopes, and I only hope that in trying to alleviate this unimaginable humanitarian crisis, we don’t end up prolonging or exacerbating it. It’s hard to see from the vantage of the present how things could get any worse, but then it always is.

Decades Of Drought

by Dish Staff

Drought Map

The Southwest faces a surprisingly high risk of it:

A new study published as a joint effort by scientists at Cornell University, the University of Arizona, and the U.S. Geological Survey finds that the chances of the Southwest facing a “megadrought” are much higher than previously suspected. According to the new study, “the chances of the southwestern United States experiencing a decade-long drought is at least 50 percent, and the chances of a ‘megadrought’ – one that lasts up to 35 years – ranges from 20 to 50 percent over the next century.”  …  [Columbia climate scientist Richard] Seager says that the region hasn’t had a megadrought in several centuries; the Dust Bowl drought of The Grapes of Wrath, though incredibly severe, was not long enough to qualify.

Scott K. Johnson offers a sense of scale:

In the 1150s, for example, reconstructions tell us that the Southwest was in the midst of almost 25 years of below-average precipitation. For a solid decade, the Colorado River averaged about 85 percent of its normal flow. Arizona is allocated about 15 percent of the Colorado’s water, which now rarely makes it to the Gulf of California before drying up. That’s a decade without an Arizona’s share of water.

Bioclimatologist Park Williams, speaking with Doyle Rice, notes that more of the West has been in a state of drought over the past 15 years than in any other 15-year period since the 1150s era. Rice zooms in on California, which – while not as vulnerable to megadroughts as Arizona or New Mexico – has recently seen “the state’s worst consecutive three years for precipitation in 119 years of records”:

As of Aug. 28, 100 percent of the state of California was considered to be in a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. More than 58 percent is in “exceptional” drought, the worst level. Record warmth has fueled the drought as the state sees its hottest year since records began in 1895, the National Climatic Data Center reports. Because of the dryness, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown declared a statewide drought emergency this year. Since then, reservoir storage levels have continued to drop, and as of late August, they were down to about 59 percent of the historical average. Regulations restricting outdoor water use were put in place in late July for the entire state. … There are reports of wells running dry in central California.

Tom Philpott gulps:

This (paradoxically) chilling assessment comes on the heels of another study (study; my summary), this one released in early August by University of California-Irvine and NASA researchers, on the Colorado River, the lifeblood of a vast chunk of the Southwest. As many as 40 million people rely on the Colorado for drinking water, including residents of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, and San Diego. … The researchers analyzed satellite measurements of the Earth’s mass and found that the region’s aquifers had undergone a much-larger-than-expected drawdown over the past decade – the region’s farms and municipalities responded to drought-reduced flows from the Colorado River by dropping wells and tapping almost 53 million acre-feet of underground water between December 2004 and November 2013 – equal to about 1.5 full Lake Meads drained off in just nine years, a rate the study’s lead researcher, Jay Famiglietti, calls “alarming.”

Considering how much of the Colorado River Basin, which encompasses swaths of Utah, Colorado, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, are desert, it’s probably not wise to rapidly drain aquifers, since there’s little prospect that they’ll refill anytime soon. And when you consider that that the region faces high odds of a coming megadrought, the results are even more frightening.

Meanwhile, B. Lynn Ingram, coauthor of The West Without Water, warns of “cautionary parallels between our modern society and past societies that were forced into mass migration and in some cases collapsed under prolonged periods of drought”:

A particularly dry stretch occurred between 900 and 1400 AD, during the so-called Medieval Climate Anomaly, when two 100-year long droughts descended on the West. These droughts caused large lakes to shrink or dry out completely, more frequent wildfires, and extreme hardship for native populations as natural water sources shrank and other resources declined.  … Like these past societies, our modern society experienced rapid population growth throughout the relatively wet 20th century. Today, California has 38 million people, a number that may double by 2050, made possible by developing all available sources of water, including underground aquifers that took thousands of years to accumulate. We are not only using all available surface waters, we are drawing down our “water in the bank.” The drilling of these aquifers is currently unmonitored and unregulated, providing free water Central Valley farmers, increasingly only to those who are willing and able to drill deeper and deeper wells. Over the past year, the companies that install these wells and pumps are working round the clock, often deepening wells by 1,000 to 2,000 feet.

(Map from the U.S. National Drought Monitor)

Joan Rivers, RIP

by Dish Staff