Scorecard 2010

Here were my predictions for 2010, and here's how they did:

1. Jon Huntsman will resign as ambassador to China and begin to lay the groundwork for a Presidential bid in 2012.  Has not happened.  In retrospect, I failed to credit the idea that Ambassador Huntsman might actually like being the Ambassador to the PRC and that he might not really want to be President.
2. Foolishly, Democrats will campaign in 2010 against George W. Bush.  This will fail and result in gains by Republicans, but more in the House than the Senate.  Congressional Republicans will realize a net gain of only two or three seats in the Senate, leaving the Democrats still firmly in control of that body and reviving talks of abolishing the filibuster.  But, net gains in the House of Representatives will be such that the Democrats' majority in the lower chamber will be roughly ten seats and Republicans will optimistically talk of re-taking the House in 2012.  Democrats abandoned their strategy of running against George W. Bush in favor of atomizing local races, which was only partially effective; Republicans took the House but not the Senate, although their Senate gains were larger than I had predicted.
3. A reconciled health care "reform" bill will not be passed out of Congress until March or maybe even early April.  Its effect will be to very moderately increase taxes on middle-class Americans, only negligibly affect their actual health care options, and substantially inflate both the governmental deficit and the profits of enterprise-level health care providers.  I'm taking credit for calling this one pretty much correctly.
4. The net inflation rate of the United States for CY 2010 will be in excess of 4%.  Gratefully, this has not happened, but only because the Fed has kept the prime rate at a rock-bottom level.
5. President Obama will again increase the number of American troops deployed to Afghanistan.  This happened. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it because I'm not, especially because we're now talking about bringing them home with no apparent political objectives accomplished despite hard work and bloodshed by our military.
6. Canada's government will collapse, for real this time, and new elections will result in a badly-fragmented Federal Parliament with the BQ playing the role of powerbroker.  However, the BQ will not be able to leverage this into actual autonomy. Didn't happen; PM Harper took a hard hit, but survived.
7. An El Niño condition will manifest in the Pacific Ocean, relieving California's drought. In fact, it was a La Niña, but we had a wet winter at the start of 2010 and a wet winter at the end of 2010, and have been out of drought conditions all year.
8. Despite the economic help of favorable (that is, "wet") weather, California will increase sales taxes to 10.5% or higher, resulting in the highest sales tax in the nation.  Despite this, functionally all incumbents in the Legislature eligible for re-election will be re-elected in November and the Democrat nominee (who right now looks like Jerry Brown) will win the Governorship. Mostly happened. The only thing I got wrong was the sales tax hike.
9. A national newspaper of significant stature, I'm thinking the Boston Globe, will be liquidated. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer went all-online and has functionally diedas a result.
10. 2010 will be a good year for the stock market.  The S and P 500 will realize a net gain of over 20% in CY 2010.  As of today, the S and P 500 is 1,124.57, so that means that to win this prediction, the S&P will need to be at least 1,349.48 on December 31, 2010.  The year-end close was it was 1,257.64.
11. Iron Man 2 will be the biggest box office hit of the summer.  But another much-anticipated sequel in the same general genre, Tron 2, will disappoint and lose money.  Wall Street 2 and Sex And The City 2 will both prove to be so unwatchably bad that we all would have been better off had they not been made at all.  Remakes of Clash of the Titans and Red Dawn will both prove to be convincingly entertaining.  Mostly happened. Clash of the Titans disappointed; the release of Red Dawn has been delayed; Tron was fun to watch but looks on track to not make much of a profit compared to its production expenses.
12. In First Amendment news, the Supreme Court will decide for the government, 5-4, in the case of Salazar v. Buono, ruling that a large cross, originally built privately as a war memorial, later transferred to Federal land, then the subject of an Establishment Clause lawsuit, and then the subject of a law transferring the cross to the VFW.  The Court's decision will consider the longevity of the monument as a significant factor mitigating against the finding of an Establishment.  (I consider this a pessimistic prediction, for the record).  Justice Sonia Sotomayor will prove to be the decisive vote in favor of the government.  I nailed it right up to the Sotomayor prediction, which turned out to be wrong. The decisive vote was Anthony Kennedy.
13. In Second Amendment news, the Supreme Court will decide, by at least 7 votes, that the individual right to own weapons articulated in District of Columbia v. Heller will be "incorporated" into the Fourteenth Amendment and thus apply to the several states as well as to the national government.  However, the Court will unanimously decline the opportunity to expand the "privileges and immunities" clause embodied in the arguments.  Watch for the decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago to be one of the last decisions announced in June. I hit this one right on the head.
14. Brett Favre will play his final year for the Minnesota Vikings, and then retire.  For real this time because he'll be 41 years old and in at least moderate pain almost all of the time. He hasn't announced his retirement yet and there will be lots of jokes in August, but after the Vikings' disastrous season, it's clearly time for Brett to say goodbye.
15. Iran will successfully detonate a nuclear device.  This will cause much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and many Americans and a significant number of Europeans will consider this to be an existential threat.  While all of this is going on, the Russians will hem and haw and whistle tunelessly while staring at the ceiling while trying to blend into the background and go unnoticed.  However, the Iranians will not use their newly-developed nuclear weapon against anyone, including Israel. Gratefully, this did not happen.
16. On December 31, 2010, the U.S. national unemployment rate will be somewhere between 7.5% and 8.5%. I was too optimistic here; the unemployment rate hovered just under 10% all year.

Not so good this year. Hey, at least I didn't make any predictions as boneheaded as these:

10. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden: "More people are going to be put to work this summer."  June 17, 2010. Embarrassingly for me, Vice President Biden's prediction looks a lot like one of my own.

9. U.S. private citizen Meghan McCain: Sharron Angle, Charlie Crist, Christine O'Donnell, and Carly Fiorina will win their Senate races. November 2, 2010. All those candidates lost, three by decisive margins, congruent with polling data that had been available for weeks prior to Ms. McCain's prediction.

8. U.S. President Barack Obama: Guantanamo Bay's prison facilities will close within one year. January 22, 2009. Still over 150 prisoners there and only three trials have been held, all resulting in convictions.

7. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal: "We're not at the end of the military phase, but we're clearly approaching that." March 2, 2010. Gen. McChrystal was referring to Afghanistan, not Iraq, although in each theater we present have over 50,000 combat troops actively engaged in the vital job of killing bad guys.

5. (Tie) Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen: "Our countries don't need to be bailed out" (paraphrase), February 21, 2010 and November 15, 2010. Within weeks of each prediction, both countries were bailed out of imminent financial collapse by special funds created by the EU and the IMF.

4. Newsweek Magazine: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will be ousted in a military coup, December 2009. While Chavez remains in power, Newsweek was sold for one U.S. dollar earlier this year.

3. Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: The U.S.A. will soon launch an overt attack on Iran, shortly followed by another overt attack on North Korea, June 25, 2010. That, um, didn't happen, El Commandante. Better luck next time.

2. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton: If Israel fails to launch an overt military strike on Iran within eight days, the Iranians will achieve a nuclear weapon, August 17, 2010. The Israelis (presumably) used a computer virus instead.

1. Russian Foreign Ministry Diplomatic Academy Dean Igor Panarin: "There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," March 3, 2009. Sharp political differences over seemingly vapid causes should not be mistaken for the imminent collapse of a common national identity.

...Stay tuned for my fearless predictions for 2011, some of which will be based on sober analysis and some of which I'm pulling straight out of um, parts of my body.

Call This Man The Waaahmbulance

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway points out a case in which a recently-defeated Congressman (Ohio Democrat Steve Driehaus) is suing a political advocacy group (in this case a pro-life group called the Susan B. Anthony List, hereinafter "SBAL") for defamation:

The group claims Driehaus, who has campaigned as an anti-abortion candidate, supports taxpayer-funded abortions because he voted for the national health care law. Driehaus said the claim is false and that the law bars any federal funding of abortion.

“A lie is a lie,” Driehaus’ lawyers wrote in his federal defamation lawsuit. “The First Amendment is not and never has been an invitation to concoct falsehoods aimed at depriving a person of his livelihood.”

My initial reaction is -- boo frickin' hoo for you, Congressman. If you're going to play hard ball, expect fast pitches. If you're going to run for elective office in the United States of America in the early twenty-first century (or indeed at any time to date in our nation's history) you need to prepare for someone to deliberately and maliciously misrepresent your record and to fight fire with fire. You aren't entitled to a livelihood in Congress, you have to earn it. "It's the peoples' seat," remember?

The law would seem to support my initial reaction: New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) 376 U.S. 254, says that a public official will not prevail in such a suit based upon "...a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with “actual malice” — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." So here's his theory -- given that functionally no one in Congress had actually read the healthcare reform bill before voting on it, it's a reasonable bet that the SBAL had no real way to be certain whether the bill supported or did not support abortion, either, and that constitutes "reckless disregard of whether [the claim] was false or not."

So what this means is that in politically-charged litigation (SBAL is already suing Driehaus; Driehaus' defamation claim is part of a countersuit) both sides will get to argue about what is or is not in the healthcare reform bill for which Driehaus voted, thereby giving Driehaus' political enemies a platform upon which to continue spreading their message. And if there is even a colorable argument that under the new law federal money does go to fund abortions, then he's guaranteed to lose in court even if it turns out that, upon close examination, the law really does exclude funding for abortion.

Poorly played, soon-to-be-former Congressman Driehaus.

Whatever it was that the SBAL said about Driehaus, though, it's quite likely that it made little difference at all in the election. 2010 was a bad year to be a Democrat and a worse one to be a Democrat from a non-secure district who voted for the healthcare reform bill for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with abortion.

Driehaus has only himself to blame for not responding appropriately to campaign lies, he has only himself to blame for the voters growing dissatisfied with his performance in office and choosing to replace him, and he will have only himself to blame for the situation in which he will soon find himself -- paying for lawyers to continue fighting over the last campaign in court.

One would think that he has better things to do with the remainder of his life than this. The evidence, however, suggests that the contrary is true.

What He Said

When I don't write about something here, one of the reasons why is that I don't think I have anything new or insightful or useful to add to a particular subject. The subject of three Justices of the Iowa Supreme Court getting voted out of office because they ruled in favor of a right of same-sex marriage under that the Iowa Constitution's Equal Protections guarantee has just become such a subject.

Dan from Bleakonomy has occupied the field. And much more succinctly than I would have. I also want to extend to Dan thanks for writing the post about Oklahoma's Measure 755 which inspired me to produce not one but two posts on that same subject, posts with which I've had quite a bit of success with recently.

Advice About Two Years Too Late

Matt Yglesias suggests that the appropriate response by President Obama to the setbacks he and his party just sustained is to withdraw to the White House and make greater use of executive powers -- to do things like appointing more judges, aggressively negotiate trade agreements with major trading partners, and using regulatory and priority-setting power to bypass Congress towards encouraging economic activity. In other words, he needs to stop being the Democrats' Congressional-negotiator-in-chief and start being the President.

You'll pardon me if I say, "I told you so." Nearly three years ago, I mused:

Personally, I think that legislative service is a relatively poor way to train someone for executive leadership. Legislative service is inherently a deliberative process. It involves seeking consensus and compromise amongst people who are more or less equals. Chairs of Congressional committees certainly wield great power, but they do so because they have the backing of their peers and therefore concentrate the power of the entire Congress into themselves, at least within their areas of speciality.

Being a legislator is great experience for learning how to make deals. It isn't a great way to learn how to delegate tasks, how to read peoples' abilities and how to pick amongst people for various jobs, how to set priorities. Executive power is taking the helm of an organization; it is not exercised by seeking consensus and compromise, but rather through personal charisma and the dissemination of a common set of visions, goals, and values. Ultimately, being President isn't about making deals, it's about taking charge. So I have to disagree with those among you who picked service in the Congress as the best qualifier for the White House. I'd have picked "Cabinet service" before "Congressional service." But that's just me.

Leaving aside a spelling mistake which I should have corrected, I stand by those remarks. Nor do I think I was particularly unique or insightful back during the campaign to observe that Barack Obama's very first experience as an executive would be as President of the United States. He was never Governor of Illinois, never ran any kind of an enterprise like a university, never even ran the law firms he worked in. Knowing what to delegate and what not to, judging the character and competence of subordinates and figuring out how much leash to keep them on, and finding the right advisers to filter extraneous information and get the important data where it ought to be are difficult things to do.

Which is why it's telling, and of mid-range importance, that so many Republicans became Governors this time around. They are the farm team for the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Presidential election cycles. In the meantime, it's interesting to see liberals pointing out that President Obama needs to stop being Senator Obama. But this begs the question: shouldn't he have been doing that all along?

Premortem 2010

Ten months ago, I made a few SWAGs about (among other things) politics. Those SWAGs included the following:

Foolishly, Democrats will campaign in 2010 against George W. Bush.  This will fail and result in gains by Republicans, but more in the House than the Senate.  Congressional Republicans will realize a net gain of only two or three seats in the Senate, leaving the Democrats still firmly in control of that body and reviving talks of abolishing the filibuster.  But, net gains in the House of Representatives will be such that the Democrats' majority in the lower chamber will be roughly ten seats and Republicans will optimistically talk of re-taking the House in 2012.

* * *

A reconciled health care "reform" bill will not be passed out of Congress until March or maybe even early April.  Its effect will be to very moderately increase taxes on middle-class Americans, only negligibly affect their actual health care options, and substantially inflate both the governmental deficit and the profits of enterprise-level health care providers.

* * *

California will increase sales taxes to 10.5% or higher, resulting in the highest sales tax in the nation.  Despite this, functionally all incumbents in the Legislature eligible for re-election will be re-elected in November and the Democrat nominee (who right now looks like Jerry Brown) will win the Governorship.

My prediction for California is much closer to what has actually happened than what looks like is about to happen at the Federal level.

California is indeed poised to send back functionally all non-termed members of the Legislature back to Sacramento; those seats for which the incumbent is termed out appear poised for retention by the incumbent's party. There may well be no shift in the partisan makeup of the California Legislature at all.

Federally, I made my prediction believing that the bad general economic conditions present at the end of 2009 would not persist and be mitigated somewhat. I hoped that would be true. Now, where I predicted a gain by Republicans of two or three seats in the Senate, it looks more like seven. That doesn't leave Democrats firmly in control of that body, but they will still be the majority.

The House, however, appears poised for a reversal of control. Right now, Democrats have 255 seats, Republicans 178, and there are two vacancies. The magic number is a net gain of 39 seats for Republicans. My predicted gain of roughly ten seats will be far exceeded; the best predictions available is a shift of fifty-five (!) seats, which would be enough for the GOP to re-take the Speaker's chair.

I think what happened was that the election of Scott Brown earlier this year gave everyone a test of the political waters. Much like I thought, the Republicans found that running a campaign against President Obama and in particular health care reform was potent stuff; the Democrats found that running against President Bush was a non-starter. Why they ever thought to run against Bush during mid-term elections while they controlled the White House is absolutely beyond me.

What happened was that Democrats found that their brand had become toxic and they had no target to point to and say, "But we don't suck as bad as them!" anymore. The best they came up with were the Not-Ready-For-Primetime-Players like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and Joe Miller -- but in states with larger populations, even the more conservative of Republican nominees -- Rick Rubio, Pat Toomey, Mark Kirk -- had enough experience and polish to give lie to the idea that cosnervative ideology necessarily means silliness.

I see no reason to think, however, that this election represents an embrace by the electorate of "Republican ideas." Rather, it is a rejection of "Democratic ideas," specifically health care reform. If there is going to be a common thread in the stories at the House level, it will be that Democrats from marginal districts who voted for health care reform get thrown out, while Democrats who can say that they bucked their own party on this one issue stand a reasonable chance of hanging on to their seats.

The result of this will be that the Republicans in office for the 112nd Congress will believe that they have been rewarded for being "The Party Of No" and will double down on doing nothing. The chances that the Obamacare bill will actually get repealed are functionally nil -- the President still holds the veto pen, even if a repeal makes it through the Senate. But there is a reasonable chance, even a probability, that Obamacare will be whittled back incrementally. The political football will be the individual mandate. This strikes me as odd -- the Republicans will realize electoral gains and make political hay during the next cycle, by fighting for the right of people to not have health insurance if they don't have the money to buy it. But there you have it.

Downballot, at least here in California, the real prize is redistricting. Lots of people are focused on Prop. 19, which I predicted a while back and continue to believe will be a very close vote. Right now, I'm pessimistic about whether it will pass. But the big issue is Prop. 20 and Prop. 27.  In the last election, the voters passed Prop. 11, which delegated legislative redistricting to a bipartisan panel of 120 people, 40 Democrats, 40 Republicans, and 40 independents. Prop. 27 would repeal Prop. 11.  Prop. 20 would extend the power of the panel to Congressional districts as well. I have long thought that the heavily-gerrymandered districts are at the root of the political polarization which has effectively paralyzed California's fisc.

This will be somewhat mooted if Prop. 25 passes -- this would reduce the requirement for passage of a budget out of the Legislature from two-thirds to a simple majority. The result of this would be to eliminate the only power that the minority party in the Legislature has, which is to block passage of the budget. Since the 1950's, Democrats have been in charge of the Legislature and for most of that time, Republicans have used the two-thirds rule to slow or mitigate the creep of tax increases which Democrats would have implemented to pay for the expansion of government services that they nevertheless pass. Since Republicans will not allow taxes to be significantly increased to pay for this, the Democrats have financed these things by selling them piecemeal to the voters directly through bond measures and had to content themselves with only incremental increases in taxes and hoping that inflation would catch up with the bonds.

How long could such a thing be sustained?  Fifty-six years, as it turns out, until a national economic crash, hitting particularly hard here, caused existing revenue to drop through the floor.

So these are the big issues and the big forces I see at play right now. I want the Republicans to do better in Sacramento; there is little doubt in my mind that state taxes are already at such heights that California's economy suffers from a drag imposed by the government. This means we need to keep the two-thirds rule and try to fashion more logical and balanced districts in the future so that the Legislature is not run like an old-style Russian Soviet. At the Federal level, I'm not a fan of Obamacare and wouldn't mind seeing it repealed.

All in all, I find reason to be contented and moderately optimistic about the elections today. I don't relish the idea of gridlock and I would like it if the Republicans actually stuck their necks out and proposed actual policies instead of simply saying "Let's go back to the way things were in [mumble mumble]." The gold old days under George W. Bush weren't really all that good, especially from a fiscal perspective. Still, I'm encouraged to see that they are at least paying lip service to the idea of watching our collective money, and I can at least hope, perhaps forlornly, that this ethic by the voters will trickle down to the state level here such that we see institutional steps to keep California's finances in check retained and strengthened.

Quick Memo

TO:  Carl Paladino, candidate for the office of Governor of New York
FROM:  Burt Likko, the Transplanted Lawyer
DATE:  November 1, 2010
RE:  Your recent photograph at Halloween party

Mr. Paladino:

While reading one of my favorite blogs (linked above in the subject line), I saw a photograph of you at a Halloween party in which you seemed to be allowing your picture to be taken next to a man wearing blackface. Racial politics being as complex as they are in today's ever-changing social and cultural milieu, it occurred to me that you may have been confused and (perhaps because it appears there may have been moderate amounts of alcohol being consumed at this party) thus allowed your politician's natural reserve of inhibition to ebb. Because I've no particular love for Andrew Cuomo, I thought you might like to know that this photograph could tend to make people think of you as something of a douche bag.

This reminded me that there are decision-making matricies and flowcharts which can assist in handling difficult and nuanced situations like this. I have reproduced the relevant portion of the flowchart to the right in this memo. Suffice to say that I advise against allowing future such photographs to be taken, and to issue an appropriate explanatory statement at your earliest convenience.

Your apparent intoxication, squint, and tongue sticking out of your mouth do not add luster to this incident. However, the primary concern is the fact that you allowed visual evidence of your presence at a party where someone was wearing blackface. While perhaps not as problematic as being photographed while wearing a Waffen SS uniform, this is still well within the category of "pretty bad." Hopefully, this will assist you in the future should you find yourself "on the spot" and need to make a snap decision. Good luck tomorrow (you'll need it) and in your future electoral endeavors!

-TL

If Adams And Jefferson Had TV

I do so enjoy the Reason Foundation's videos -- they put things in perspective. Like this historical take on what has seemed like a remarkably dismal* election cycle:

* Not "dismal" for Tuesday's anticipated results, which I view as a mixed blessing overall. I say it's "dismal" because of the low quality of the candidates, the absence of meaningful policy discussion, and the sleaze and content-free emotionalism.

Men Sometimes Lie About Sex, You Know

A breaking political "sex scandal" on Gawker.com is an article written by an anonymous (or barely-so) man who claims to have had what he calls a "one-night stand" with Christine O'Donnell is not one that I would credit. The fact that the scandal is being released right now, the weekend before the election, makes it almost indisputable that it is politically-motivated, to no end that I can ascertain given that O'Donnell is polling so badly and her campaign appears to be destined to go down in flames. Also note that the man in question was apparently paid cash money for his story -- something in the "four figures." Ooh. Aah.

Because my analysis crosses the line into the vulgar at one point, the rest of my take on the story comes after the jump. Suffice to say, if you want to skip my analysis, the story has two major holes that I found with only one read-through and minimal investigation, I don't believe it and neither should you. If you live in Delaware nothing in this story should affect the way you plan to vote for Senate -- if you liked O'Donnell before, you should still vote for her; if you liked Coons before, you should still vote for him. After the jump, then, the details about why I don't believe this crap for a second.

More After The Jump -->

Welcome To The Next Cycle's Wedge Issue

(Cross-posted at League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

Once upon a time, illegal immigrants getting welfare were used as whipping boys to drive voters to the polls. Then it was gays trying to get married and atheists not wanting to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Next, it's about to be... Muslims! Specifically, Muslims with the temerity to use the courts. The preview is to be found in the great state of Oklahoma, where voters will shortly be presented with Measure 755, asking Oklahomans the following:

This measure amends the State Constitution. It changes a section that deals with the courts of this state. It would amend Article 7, Section 1. It makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law. International law is also known as the law of nations. It deals with the conduct of international organizations and independent nations, such as countries, states and tribes. It deals with their relationship with each other. It also deals with some of their relationships with persons.

The law of nations is formed by the general assent of civilized nations. Sources of international law also include international agreements, as well as treaties.

Sharia Law is Islamic law. It is based on two principal sources, the Koran and the teaching of Mohammed.

Shall the proposal be approved?

Now, I suppose the first question that may come to your mind is, "Wow! Is this really happening in, of all places, Oklahoma?"If you check the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, you'll find the most recent, statistically reliable data about the religious composition and behavior of people in the United States. There, we find that the religious makeup of Oklahoma is as follows:

Evangelical Protestants	53%
Mainline Protestants	16%
Historically Black Protestants	3%
Catholic	12%
Mormon	Less than .5%
Jehovah's Witness	Less than .5%
Other Christian	Less than .5%
Jewish	Less than .5%
Muslim	Less than .5%
Buddhist	1%
Hindu	Less than .5%
Other World Religions	Less than .5%
Other Faiths	1%
Unaffiliated	12%
Don't Know/Refused to Answer	1%

(For the record, Oklahoma has the highest percentage of self-identified Evangelical Christians of any state in the nation.)

So, it would seem unlikely that there is a lot of demand on Oklahoma courts to address Muslim issues, what with Muslims constituting such a small percentage of the population there (about 15,000 total). And, in fact,"the amendment's sponsors and strongest supporters cannot statutorily cite a case in which Oklahoma courts have applied Sharia law in any ruling."

I'm not exactly sure what Marc Ambinder means in the previously-linked article by the phrase "statutorily cite a case." Authors of legislation rarely cite to case law in statutes, except when they wish to legislatively reverse specific cases (e.g., the Civil Rights Act of 1991, statutorily reversing Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio (1989) 490 U.S. 642, thus giving lie to the idea that once the Supreme Court has spoken on a subject, the Constitution must be amended to reverse its effect). I presume, though, that Ambinder means that while these legislators don't like the idea of Oklahoma courts applying Sharia law, they can't find any examples of that actually happening.

But note that the issue is one of using Sharia law to interpret the Constitution and laws:  "[Measure 755] makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law." Let's unpack that:

Measure 755 makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. Do you mean to suggest they aren't already doing that now? Of course they are.

I'll take the next one out of order.  Measure 755 forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law. This despite the fact that the sponsors of the law can't seem to find a single instance of that actually happening. The only instances that I can find anywhere -- or that legal scholars with unlimited, free access to state-of-the-art legal research tools have found -- are cases involving family law and small business commercial disputes in which principles of Sharia law were specified to in choice-of-law clauses of contracts containing mandatory binding arbitration agreements.

So what this would really do in practice is prevent courts from enforcing private contracts in which the parties mutually agreed upon the use of Sharia laws -- restricting the right of free people to contract as they choose. What's more, it would not restrict the right of people to use other kinds of religious texts as the basis for their contracts that include arbitration clauses; one would be free to agree to "Christian arbitration" or "Talmudic law" as the choice-of-law in a private contract. That, of course, is somewhat problematic under existing Equal Protections jurisprudence.

One wonders what impact this would have on tribal courts in Oklahoma -- a not inconsiderable issue, given Oklahoma's racial and political demographics -- because those courts rely upon tribal law which, in some cases, are based upon ancient tribal religious traditions. As noted in articles linked above, tribal leaders in Oklahoma are against Measure 755 not because they like Sharia law and Muslims so much, but precisely because they want to protect their own traditions and religions. They, at least, get it that when one group of people are singled out, there's no telling which group is next, so everyone needs to be vigilant about the rights of even disliked minorities.

Now, back to the second point.  Measure 755 would forbid courts from considering or using international law. International law is defined in Measure 755 as "international agreements, as well as treaties." Which means that an Oklahoma state court would have to disregard international agreements and treaties if those were invoked in a particular dispute. Like, say, NAFTA. Or extradition agreements. Now, in theory, if a party to a case invokes a treaty, that may invoke Federal removal jurisdiction, but that isn't always the case. So you could be left with a state court required to disregard a treaty ratified by the Senate, and thus break an international commitment of the entire nation.

The authors of Measure 755 should read Article VI of the United States Constitution. Doing so would remind them that they are obligated as state legisators to uphold the United States Constitution and treaties made thereunder -- something which they are in fact attempting to subvert with this law.

And then there's the question of why, exactly, they are so afraid of Sharia law anyway. Sharia are practical legal principles derived from the Koran (the holy book purportedly written by Mohammed) and the Hadith (a collection of sayings attributed to Mohammed by oral tradition). Many of the teachings and commands of Sharia look a lot like the teachings and commands of, say, the Christian Bible. Worship is compulsory. Marriage is encouraged, children are encouraged within marriage, sex outside marriage is forbidden. Murder, theft, and dishonesty are generally forbidden. That's not to say that everything in Sharia is above criticism. It's to say that if you look into it a little bit, there is not much that is so awful it can't be tolerated in a private arbitration agreement. If there are prohibitions against women being treated equally as witnesses or litigants, that subverts an important Constitutional policy, but the few cases I've looked at have generally broken in favor of the women litigants so it can't be any worse than any of the more familiar religious choice-of-law clauses that ought to be enforced in courts for the very good reason that the parties to the agreement chose them.

Nor is anyone credible actually calling for Sharia law to supplant the Constitution as the supreme law of the United States. I don't include the Osama bin Ladens of the world; bin Laden is not credible sitting in a cave in Afghanistan mere feet away from a dialysis machine powered by a car battery, on the glide-path to obscurity and burial in a dusty, anonymous grave. When a Congressional candidate from a major party says that he will propose an amendment to the Constitution to guide courts to rely upon Sharia, I'll worry about this. Until then, this is a bogeyman.

But none of that is important. The facts don't matter and they are, indeed, inconvenient. The point is to make people scared of the toothless shibboleth that is Sharia law and thus drive them to the polls to vote for meaningless-at-best and Constitution-subverting-at-worst wedge issues like Measure 755. Don't fall for it -- keep it in perspective, folks.

Senate Candidates Of 2010: Not Ready For Prime Time

If you only listened to the news, or only read headlines on the Intertubes, you'd have to conclude that there are just plain not enough adults running for office this year. Let's review exhibits A through E on that subject:

• Joe Miller, Senate candidate in Alaska, thinks we ought to emulate the immigration policies of the former East Germany.
• Christine O'Donnell, Senate candidate in Delaware, doesn't think that the prohibition on an establishment of religion is part of the First Amendment.
• Jack Conway, Senate candidate in Kentucky, seems to think that there is a religious test for the office to which he aspires.
• Joe Manchin, Senate candidate for West Virginia, makes clear his opposition to "cap and trade" climate control laws by shooting a copy of the bill with a rifle.
• There seems to be a great debate about Sarah Palin cautioning her supporters to not yet "party like it's 1773." (For the record, 1773 is when the Boston Tea Party took place. Sadly for Gov. Palin, this reference is probably too obscure and subtle for most Americans.)

You know, politics hasn't been this entertaining since free beer and cider was passed out at rallies back in the Gilded Age. But where yesteryear's "free beer" rallies were the way serious politicians got elected, today fundamentally unserious politicians are now getting elected by promising free beer. Or at least, lower rent. People from other parts of the world have to be looking in to American politics this year and wondering what in the hell is going on over here. Come to think of it, you don't have to be from abroad to be wondering exactly the same thing.

She Turned Me Into A Newt

So newly-nominated U.S. Senate candidate apparently once "dabbled into witchcraft" back in her early twenties. That sounds like a gigantic yawner of a non-story to me.  There being no religious test for the holding of Federal office and all forms of religion being equally invalid nonsense to me, I fail to see why I should care that someone experimented with a religion not of her upbringing while she was a young adult.

Except it isn't a yawner of a non-story to a lot of people. This seems to have a reasonably large number of people upset.

I mean, come on, it's not like she experimented with Islam or anything like that.  Far, far better that she actually worshiped a divine personification of evil (one prominent conservative blogger calls this "excusable") than it would have been had she learned about a religion with over a billion adherents worldwide. And she's certainly come back to the cult of zombie-worship in a big way since then.

It's not at all clear to me that she actually did literally worship Satan anyway. From the small excerpts of the statements she made on Politically Incorrect that I can identify using the (admittedly minimal) effort I've put in to investigate story, it looks like she engaged in a single act of some kind of non-Christian worship while on a date with a man identified as a "witch." That means that, while in her early twenties, she dated a guy who was a Wiccan.

There are appreciable numbers of Wiccans out there and here's a news flash: they don't worship Satan. They worship -- well, there's no formal structure for Wicca so I don't think anyone can make a broad, categorical statement about who or what Wiccans worship as a group. Some Wiccans worship an entity they call "The Goddess" and others worship an amorphously-defined pantheon of spirits of nature, aiming at ultimately worshiping nature itself. In practice, Wicca involves honoring where your food comes from and the spirit of an animal that you consume, treating others the way you would want to be treated, and seeking an inner peace and harmony with the world around you. There are a lot of complex reasons, some rooted in over a thousand years' worth of history, why Wicca is called "witchcraft" and "Satan-worship," but taking its teachings at face value,* it is no more morally objectionable than pretty much any other religion you could care to name.

Wicca does not come with any of the hangups about sex associated with more traditional religions and for at least people, engaging in a Wiccan ritual is a countercultural and somewhat rebellious act. Some varieties of it use "ritualized" sex as part of an act of worship, so it could be that O'Donnell's date was actually simply trying to seduce her (and who knows, maybe he succeeded or didn't really have to try all that hard, that's between him and her and none of our business, although if so that would make the prudish O'Donnell something of a hypocrite) and all the Wiccan worship stuff was so much window dressing for this otherwise rather ordinary sort of human activity -- people in the twenties go out on dates and sometimes the dates go well and they have sex. It's, um, a lot of fun. O'Donnell was as entitled to have that sort of fun as anyone else.

Now, there's all sorts of reasons to be skeptical about Christine O'Donnell as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. She seems to take a rather casual view towards campaign finance laws and has allegedly used campaign donations to pay personal expenses like her rent. She has publicly voiced a deep identification with the women of the Lord of the Rings fantasy trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia series (again with the magic and witchcraft!) which is fine as a light-hearted matter but she seems to take the analogy rather more seriously than that.  Her early career involved advocating such an uptight vision of human sexuality that she has had to deny rumors that if elected, she would attempt to criminalize masturbation (I would foresee practical enforcement problems).†

Is the nomination of such a whack-job (no masturbation pun intended) a sign of deep insanity within the Tea Party movement?  I don't really think so.  There is certainly a legitimate debate to be had about whether the Tea Party is now or is inevitably going to be a movement embracing social causes.

I've had the impression from the start that the motive force behind it is a simple fear of government in the hands of Barack Obama, but over time I've been forced to admit that there's more depth to it than dislike of Obama and from the beginning some criticism (although not a whole lot of venom) has been directed at former President Bush for his free-spending ways, too. There seems to be a desire for fiscal responsibility but at the same time a desire for lower taxes (the legend is that the "tea" in "tea party" stands for "Taxed Enough Already"), and those are probably incompatible goals for the foreseeable future.

though, and I wonder if what's really going on is that individual local areas of "tea party" activism are allowing the social and religious issues to creep in while others, like the one characterized by the woman interviewed on NPR who said that as far as she was concerned, the tea party movement was about "Constitutionally Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free Markets." If I were convinced that was the extent of what was going on with the tea party movement, I could more or less get behind it.

But when we find out that a Tea Party-approved insurgent candidate once, as a very young woman, experimented with a non-Christian religion, and all the energy and air goes out of her campaign with a gigantic WHOOSH!, yeah, that makes me think that religion is one of the motive forces powering the phenomenon. Then I see things like this article, and while I don't pretend that it (or almost anything else I can find) is unbiased, it makes me think that even though on its face this is a movement with objectives I can endorse, people like Christine O'Donnell are not people like me and I've little reason to believe that, were she somehow elected to the Senate despite having had a racy date with a Wiccan nearly twenty years ago, I would be pleased with the way she helped govern our country.

As a final observation, I'll note that the Tea Party's big primary successes this cycle all seem to have come in relatively small states, or in states whose nomination processes have rules that lend themselves well to "inside baseball." The most-touted Tea Party successes in Federal elections have come in Delaware, Nevada, Alaska, and Utah. O'Donnell won her nomination by about 3,500 votes out of under 60,000 cast. She won, and that's significant, but it seems that in larger jurisdictions, the "establishment" Republicans have large enough numbers and enough pull that candidates of all sorts are forced to steer towards the mainstream and abandon their personal ideals for the sake of becoming electable at all.‡

So while I don't think the reports of Christine O'Donnell's flirtation with Wicca in her twenties is particularly revelatory or damning about her, it does reveal something about the state of the Republican party and its relationship with the Tea Party movement. It suggests to me that the party as a whole is probably still unmoved by the Tea Party but in smaller groups, and smaller states, a group of people who haven't really thought things through and have difficulty separating libertarian from socially conservative ideals are calling the shots. In other words, there is little to no adult supervision.


* To demonstrate how ridiculous a religion is, you rarely need to go deeper than face value.
† But seriously, Christine. Diddle the bean already. Do us all a favor.
‡ I'm looking at you, Rand Paul.

New Deal Meets Trickle Down

It's fair to say that a trio of announcements from the White House are enough to signal a new tone, if not necessarily a new policy, on economic issues. The policies are the result of the continuing failure of the 2009  stimulus package (and the Bush stimulus package before it) and the continuing failure of ultra-low interest rates to produce substantial growth in the economy, particularly with regards to job creation -- and therefore also caused in part by substantial political pressure on Democrats who have come to fear losing control of Congress in the mid-term elections (although the odds still favor narrow retention of Congress by the party in power).

The proposals are these:

• Businesses will get 100% deductions for new capital equipment purchases
• $50 billion will be spent to improve and create road and rail infrastructure
• $100 billion in tax credits to businesses, to be "paid for" by closing unspecified tax loopholes elsewhere

For those of you liberals who are keeping track at home, two out of three of these qualify as direct corporate welfare and the third is -- what the 2009 stimulus was sold to us as having done but apparently did not. Not that there aren't still New Deal cheerleaders out there, but jeez, why not go the last step and revive the WPA?  I've a soft spot in my heart for the CCC and that might produce some actual long-term environmental good, so why not let's pay college-age kids to plant trees instead of going to school again!  (Or we could just continue requiring timber companies to replant as a condition of getting permits to log national forests, but if I were so smart I'd be in the White House, right?)

Now, I like the idea of lower taxes and using tax credits and deductions to mold economic behavior. So it's not like criticizing these policy proposals comes easy for me. But recall that the 2010 deficit was already projected to be $1.5 trillion, so we're looking at raising that to something like $1.7 trilllion here. Recall also that we were promised $800 billion in "shovel-ready" projects which a year and a half later have produced -- some road resurfacing and a lot of pork. Consequently, the deficit comes with ten percent unemployment.

Again for those of you liberals playing along at home, I know you feel the instinct to say, "Without the stimulus, it would have been much worse! It would have been 1930 all over again!" Maybe, maybe not. We won't and can't know that; to say it would or wouldn't have been 1930 all over again is an article of faith and nothing more for anyone on either side of that dispute. I am skeptical of claims that the house would have fallen in completely; the rolling crash of 2007-2009 was not the result of commodities producers reaching peak market capitalization, but rather because the public came to understand that financial services institutions were sitting upon a larger-than-previously-realized amount of nonperforming and undersecuritized real estate loans. Cutting losses means accepting losses, and therefore a lot of institutions took losses. Then the government got involved and played favorites with some and not-favorites with others, and now we're... well, we're where we are, with anemic GDP growth that is not replacing jobs lost over the past couple of years.

So I'm hearing President Obama say that foregoing and/or spending another two hundred billion to two hundred fifty billion dollars or so is necessary to start creating jobs -- but fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. (Wait, I wasn't fooled the first time Obama suggested this. Or the time before that, when President Bush suggested it.) Spending nearly four times this much money before didn't do much of anything; why should it do anything this time? Someone needs to explain to me why adding this money to the debt, at this time, in this way, is going to do something different than the last time we bloated the deficit and punted the problem of paying for it all to the next generation.

I'm at a loss to say which facet of this amazes and disgusts me the most. Is it:

• The condescension that Americans will be so foolish as to give the government a third bite at this apple? or
• The readily-apparent linkage of the Democrats' current political troubles to this empty campaign promise? or
• The lack of originality in the proposal -- does the President's economic playbook really only contain one page? or
• The complete disregard for the fact that we're so far in debt already that the President's own top military and intelligence advisers have said the debt is our biggest national security threat?

While I'd love to see lower taxes we need government revenue so we're just going to have to accepting paying our taxes at the current, or even a slightly increased, rate for the foreseeable future. While I like new roads as much as anyone else that's about the only tangible stimulus result we've seen and it isn't doing a whole lot for the economy. And really, I'm supposed to come back and eat at the trough of stimulus spending for a third time?

This is the marriage of the worst facets of New Deal economics with the worst facets of trickle-down economics -- all that we need is to blend in some Great Society and then the package will be a complete ménage à trois of useless deficit spending. Oh, wait, we got some Great Society earlier this year -- it was a big f--ing deal, remember? Nothing good will come of this and in the long run, America is going to regret it more than it likes the benefits. If they get behind these ideas as a whole, Democrats deserve to lose Congress this November -- not that free-spending Republicans deserve to win it back.

Ugh. I'm going to go clean up dog vomit in the other room because that's bound to be more pleasant than contemplating this any further.

The Worst President In History

I'm not all that impressed with Barack Obama, either.  But has he really earned Ben Quayle's attack as "the worst President in history"?  My choice for that label is number fifteen:

As bad as Obama is -- the worst deficit spender in history, a statist with no demonstrable commitment to protecting the Constitution, and at the end of the day, an empty suit (albeit a good-looking and intelligent one) -- I can at least say for Obama that he hasn't allowed things to get so bad that people are talking about seceding from the Union if they can't get their way at the Federal level.

Oh, wait.  Well, not many people are talking about secession.  Outside of the same parts of the country that tried to secede before.  Splitters.

Still, I'd probably be more down with comparing Obama to this fella:

Or, as I've done in the past, suggesting that Obama is this generation's...

And while that's hardly intended as a compliment, it's also not the same thing as "the worst President in history."

Man Up And Buy It

This blog has an odd name and there's a lot of social conservative stuff there that sits poorly with me.  But a friend writes there and he just freaking nailed it today.  It's sad to see that incumbents, even in the opposition party, still don't get it.  But it's better to see that there are others who do.

Ground Zero Mosque

There is a building near the corner of Broadway and Park Place in New York City, occupying a spot either two or three blocks north of the edge of the World Trade Center reconstruction site depending on how you count it (it’s on the north side of the street two streets away from the northern edge of Ground Zero).  It has recently been the home of Burlington Coat Factory, which four or five stories tall, it is dwarfed by taller building surrounding it.  The building is owned by Soho Properties (possibly Inc. or possibly LLC; the use of multiple business entities for a single enterprise is a common and legal strategy for high-capital ventures such as buying and selling real estate in Manhattan.)  Soho Properties, in turn, is controlled by a man named Sharif El-Gamal, one of its principal owners and its CEO.  El-Gamal is also affiliated with a group called the Cordoba Initiative.  Cordoba Initiative describes its mission as follows:

Cordoba Initiative aims to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, bringing back the atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago.
Solving some of the most intractable conflicts in the world today requires innovative strategies for cross-cultural engagement. Cordoba Initiative tackles this mandate with forethought, expertise and the ability to leverage contacts in influential positions within the Muslim World and the West. Thinking outside the box about international and intercultural conflict resolution also means thinking introspectively about each side's place within its own historical narrative with a view to devising internally oriented solutions.

Cordoba Initiative would like to build a thirteen-story building at Park Place and Broadway.  The proposed project, “Cordoba House,” as a thirteen-story tall community center which will include a worship space for Muslims.  The first link in this paragraph is a CNN article describes it as a 15-story project, but later reporting says it would be 13 stories.  It hardly matters for our purposes because this is not an architecture blog, I’m interested here in the political, social, cultural, legal, and economic issues raised by the project.  Whether it’s a 13 or 15 story building is something that architects, engineers, financiers, and zoning commissioners can tackle later, if the project ever goes forward.

The principals of the Cordoba Initiative, which presumably includes Mr. El-Gamal, are Sufi Muslims.  Sufism is a sect of Islam which has a highly spiritual, mystical component and is separate from the better-known Muslim sects of Shi’a and Sunni; it is the same sect that gave rise to the famous whirling dervishes (more formally called the Mevlevi) and avows that its doctrines are of infinite tolerance; there are some people who claim to be Sufis but deny being Muslim, which is a matter of some theological controversy among religious scholars and others who care about such things.  Point is, people are pissed.

The proposal to build Cordoba House is, unsurprisingly, controversial.  Those who find the proposal offensive and in bad taste – including on the one hand a conservative or GOP-related group I’d never heard of before called “the Republican Trust PAC,” which unsuccessfully tried to run advertisements on TV to use the issue for fundraising, and on the other hand angry atheist (really anti-theist) “comedian” Pat Condell (who tries to be preachy and is therefore not funny in his video blasting the idea) – dwell on the fact that the terrorists who hijacked the planes and flew them into the World Trade center nearly nine years ago were not only Muslims, but motivated by a fanatical belief in Islam.

So it is not surprising that there is an effort underway to, regardless of the merits of such a proposal, slap “landmark” status on the existing building so as to prevent its being torn down and rebuilt as Cordoba House.  There is even a proposal to build something called “The 9/11 Christian Center At Ground Zero,” which strikes me as just a little bit tacky (especially considering that there is already a rather famous Christian Church, Trinity Church in Manhattan, which is already literally across the street from Ground Zero and boasts of George Washington having worshipped within its historically-significant walls.  Rick Lazio (amusingly described to me as “a punk” during my visit to New York City ten years ago by a self-identified Republican back when then-Congressman Lazio was running for Senate against Hillary Clinton) is making the source of its funding a campaign issue; which is good for him because Lazio’s campaign appears to be pretty much out of dough.

In response, the Cordoba Initiative has decided to rename their project “51 Park Place.”  As if that matters at all to anyone at this point.  It seems pretty clear that no matter what they call it, if there is a Muslim house of worship there, a certain group of people are going to whine about it.

I say "whine" rather than "object," because the building of this community center, mosque, house of worship, or whatever else you want to call it, does not appear to violate any laws of the United States of America, or those of the State, County, and City of New York.  The appropriate local governmental board and the Mayor have given their blessing to the project.  So it’s a legal use of the property and that is what the owner wants to do with it.  If it’s not illegal, people should be able to do what they want with their own property.  Respecting the freedom of others means tolerating it when they make decisions you would not have made.  You might not choose to be a Muslim, but you’ve got no choice in the matter of your neighbor deciding to become one.

Are the whiners bigots?  Well, if I – an atheist who thinks that Christianity and Islam are simply two different kinds of the same nonsense – can distinguish between fanatic Sunnis who hijacked the airplanes and the quasi-hippies of the modern-day Sufi movement, then surely others can do the same.  (Stipulated that historically, Sufis have been as violent as pretty much any other religious sect you care to name.)  These aren’t the same Muslims. Both of the whiners I cited -- Pat Condell the atheist "comedian" and the Republican political group I've not heard of before -- present a monolithic view of Muslims, which is that all Muslims are the same as the ones who flew the planes into the buildings or who odiously celebrated that attack after it happened. But such a monolithic view of Muslims is erroneous; Muslims are no more monolithic in even their religious views of the world than are Christians and imputing similar politics to them based on their purportedly similar views of the divine is as much a mistake as saying that all atheists are politically liberal. It's just not so. Condell in particular warps history by condemning even the name of the Cordoba initiative as one which celebrates the Muslim conquest of Spain; I would challenge him to find an alternative example of a place and time in which "Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity" other than the Umayyad Caliphate.*

By either deliberately or ignorantly failing to see these people for what they really are, they are portraying the sponsors of the building as evil when they are not.  Ignorance, or worse, deliberate misrepresentation, are hallmarks of bigotry.  A sometimes blogger of whom I am a big fan would likely go further and call the attempts to stop the mosque from being built "dog-whistle racism;" I'll say that many of the opponents of the mosque may not think of themselves as bigots, but if so, they ought to take a step back and try to look at their actions and statements from a more objective perspective.

And then there’s the issue of a mosque going right there.  “Why can’t it be built somewhere else?” is the question.  Having it close to Ground Zero may well be the point – locating a center dedicated to portraying Islam as having a peaceful, tolerant side near the site of a great atrocity committed in the name of Islam may well be the focus of the idea behind the center in the first place.  Perhaps you disagree with the notion that Islam can be a religion of peace (and indeed, there is ample evidence that people use Islam to justify horrific acts of violence and war).  But you can’t stop someone from saying something just because you disagree with what they have to say.

So, how far out from the “sacred ground” of Ground Zero do we have to go, anyway, before a mosque’s presence would be tolerated?  Presumably, those folks who say that it is an insult to the memories of the more than 3,000 people who died on 9/11 and argue that a mosque “right there” is inappropriate must concede that such an argument implies that it would be appropriate to build a mosque somewhere else.  So two blocks away is too close.  How about Chambers & Church, five blocks away?  Still too close?  Maybe not in Manhattan at all, so how about Brooklyn?  (Too bad, because there’s already a mosque in the East Village, about one and one quarter miles from Ground Zero.)  My suspicion is that the sort of person who objects to a mosque being built in Manhattan is going to disapprove of a mosque being built pretty much anywhere, at least anywhere in the U.S.A., but that result is also unacceptable in a country whose ideological roots are as permeated as ours in the idea of freedom of religion.

Another objection is that this somehow symbolizes a triumph of Islam over America.  But I don’t see that in the presence of a mosque at all.  I see the presence of a mosque near a place so important to our national memory as a triumph of American values – values of tolerance, of liberty, of property rights, of people of different backgrounds coming together to form a new culture – dare I use the word “diversity,” charged as it is with the weight of political correctness?  Yes, I dare.  Diversity is better than its opposite, and the idea of America as a "melting pot" of global cultures inherently involves diversity.  The "melting pot" idea also involves assimilation into the larger culture here, but the avowed ideals of the Cordoba Initiative fit very well into both halves of that dynamic.

My personal preference might be that there be no houses of worship at all in downtown Manhattan at all.  But even so, I’d concede along the way that some of the churches there are historically significant, some are beautiful buildings, and they provide outlets for the residents of those neighborhoods to engage in the religious activities of their choice.  My personal preference can’t be what’s happening because my preference infringes on the freedom of others.  Your personal preference might be that there be no mosque there, but Christian or Jewish houses of worship are okay.  But such a preference also infringes on the freedom of those who want there to be a mosque, and moreover that preference favors one religion over another.  It is our own rule, our own ideal, that the government may not favor one religion over another.  And, whatever rule is made should be one that maximizes freedom to the extent that is reasonably possible.

Therefore the result must be, let Cordoba House, I mean, 51 Park Place, be built.  Not to appease the Muslims or permit them a "victory," but rather in fulfillment of our own national ideals of freedom.  When we fulfill our own ideals of the rule of law, especially in so poignant a place as this, that will be our victory, a victory more profound than a military conquest.  It will be a victory for liberty.


*  Cordoba itself is ambiguous from the standpoint tolerant diversity, peace, and prosperity.  If you lived in Cordoba in, say, the year 1000, you would much rather have been a Muslim than a Christian or a Jew.  The dhimmi paid higher taxes and faced restrictions on their ability to own property or pursue a career in the government or the military.  Nevertheless, they were not enslaved, free to practice other professions, able to access education, buy and sell property, pursue justice in the courts, and were allowed to worship as they chose and maintain their own houses of worship.  The Umayyads conquered Iberia from 711 to 718, and Christian leaders, initially based in what are today regions of Aquitaine and Languedoc began the reconquista in 722, which was not completed until nearly eight hundred years later.  So it's not like the Christians of the era were universally happy with being ruled by the Muslims -- but since King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella implemented the Inquisition so soon after expelling the Moors from Granada, the completed Christian reconquista can hardly be seen a step towards greater tolerance.  What's more, even the Muslims of the era cannot be seen as monolithic; while the Umayyads practiced a relaxed form of Islam, one which permitted interfaith marriages, the drinking of wine, and did not enforce daily prayers, they were eventually displaced by the Almoravids and the Almohads, who were more culturally similar to the stricter observances pervading in the Arabic and Iranian areas of Muslim dominance and who also fragmented the political unity of Iberia that the Umayyads had achieved.  So there were intolerant Muslims who came to rule the Caliphate of Cordoba after a time, too.  I can and do accuse the sponsors of the Cordoba initiative of idealizing the Caliphate of Cordoba, but the point here is that despite the ambiguity and flaws that came out of the nearly eight hundred years the Muslims ran the show south of the Pyrenees, there was for a substantial period of historical time a degree of interfaith tolerance actually practiced, combined with a degree of economic prosperity and cultural achievement, that had not been known anywhere on Earth since the fall of the Roman empire.  And yes, I'm including China, India, and Byzantium in making that claim.

Ron George To Retire

This is big news.  He's timing his retirement so that Arnold Schwarzenegger, and not his successor, gets to name the next Chief Justice of California.

If Prop 14 Had Been In Effect Yesterday

The top overall vote-getters for Governor yesterday were:

Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown	1,478,752
Meg Whitman	1,101,528
Steve Poizner	461,823

So under the old rules, Brown and Whitman are their party's nominees and will face off against each other in November. Same result under the new Prop. 14 rules. How about for Lieutenant Governor?

Gavin Newsom	937,982
Abel Maldonado	675,854
Janice Hahn	588,494
Sam Aanestad	477,265

Once again, same result under the old rules and the new. For Attorney General:

	Steve Cooley	737,048
	Kamala D. Harris	554,582
	John Eastman	534,684
	Tom Harman	290,105
	Alberto Torrico	249,679
	Chris Kelly	265,547
	Ted W. Lieu	176,526
	Rocky Delgadillo	170,195
	Pedro Nava	167,897

Much closer, to be sure, but again, same result -- the top two vote-getters are a Democrat and a Republican.  This is a little bit instructive.  Had 20,000 Cooley voters (all Republicans, because this was a closed-primary election) chosen Eastman instead, the results would have been:

	Steve Cooley	717,048
	John Eastman	554,684
	Kamala D. Harris	554,582
	Tom Harman	290,105
	Alberto Torrico	249,679
	Chris Kelly	265,547
	Ted W. Lieu	176,526
	Rocky Delgadillo	170,195
	Pedro Nava	167,897

This would have produced a runoff between two Republicans.  But, this presumably is not how it would have gone down even if Eastman had been marginally more popular than he was -- because in a jungle primary, there would be independents voting for whatever candidate they wanted, enlarging the pool of voters, and there would be crossover voters; it's likely that some Democrats from Los Angeles would have voted for the relatively popular Steve Cooley, for instance, siphoning votes off from some other Democrats, maybe even from Harris.  We can't know for sure, because this election was an old rules election.

But the point is, the evidence suggests that the new rules aren't going to look that different from the old rules.  With the exception of there not being any minor parties at all on the November runoff election ballot.

June 2010 Election Endorsements

I haven't ever done official endorsements before, but blogging is all about trying new things.  So here goes.

Proposition 13:  Provides that certain kinds of seismic upgrades to existing structures will not trigger reassessment and thus property tax increases.  I suggest voting yes on this initiative.  The impact on property taxes will be negligible and this is an appropriate use of tax policy -- to incentivize desirable behavior, such as hiring contractors to make buildings more resistant to earthquakes, thereby stimulating the economy and reducing the amount of capital losses in the event of a disaster.

Proposition 14:  Changes the way primary elections are run so that all candidates participate in a "jungle primary" in June and then the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff election in November.  I am torn, because I believe that politics are too polarized, and the theory is that a "jungle primary" would produce more moderate candidates making it into the general election.  However, experience suggests that the result of open primaries is more political polarization, not less.  Consequently, I think that this well-intentioned initiative will be counterproductive and I therefore suggest voting no.

Proposition 15:  Would provide for public funding of political campaigns, to be paid for by a tax on lobbying, and available to candidates who accept spending limits for their campaigns.  A silly idea that will not work.  Well-heeled candidates may still voluntarily eschew the public funding and the "voluntary" spending limits if "traditional" fundraising proves more productive for them -- remember Barack Obama's pledge to adhere to spending limits, quickly discarded when he found he could raise, and spend, much more money than John McCain?  Same thing would happen here.  No major candidate for office in either major party has accepting existing Prop. 34 spending limits; why should Prop. 15 produce any different results?  Vote no.

Proposition 16:  Would require local voters to approve, by two-thirds vote, local utility and service districts establish electrical service to be paid for by taxpayer bonds.  In theory, this sounds "pro-democracy," and it is certainly the case that local districts in California exercise shocking amounts of power with shockingly little effective public oversight -- including those districts which have elected boards, sometimes seeing voter turnout as high as the low teens for most elections.  However, the practical effect of this initiative, if passed, would be to force local districts out of the electricity-generation business, and some of them are doing good things like putting up windmills and other "green" power generators -- and competing with the duopoly of Southern California Edison and PG&E.  (Who, unsurprisingly, are the major financial backers of Proposition 16.)  It's not that I hate PG&E, but there is a lot of dishonesty in the very slickly-produced campaign here, and that turns me off.  More competition is better; more electricity is better; more green power is better.  No on 16.

Proposition 17:  Allows auto insurance underwriters to consider an insurance applicant's past insurance payment history when setting rates and issuing quotes.  In practice, this is a premium-polarization effort.  Poor people are more likely to have spotty records of insurance and therefore will be charged higher premiums.  Rich people are more likely to have records of continuous coverage, and therefore will be charged lower premiums.  The result?  Insurance will become more difficult for the people who need it most to get it, and that will result in more uninsured drivers on the road, not less.  Vote no here -- it may seem like your premiums will go down a little bit, but if you ever get hit by an uninsured driver, you'll realize that it wasn't worth it.

Republican for Governor:  As between Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, I think Whitman presents a more appealing face for the general election and she makes for a more electable candidate.  As to how they would govern, either Whitman or Poizner promises to be not so very different from Gov. Schwarzenegger, so the question for Republicans is really who has the best chance of preventing The Return Of Jerry Brown.  Whitman gets my vote.

Democrat for Governor:  You've only got one realistic vote here, and that's Jerry Brown.  To be sure, today's Jerry Brown is not the Jerry Brown of the 1970's.  But a leopard can't change his spots; if Brown is Governor, taxes will go up, he will likely call for a Constitutional convention to destroy Proposition 13, and there will be no consideration of any kind of fiscal or spending reform, which is badly, badly needed.  I just plain can't endorse him because I can't imagine that anything he does is going to help the state's financial problems, so I decline to make any endorsement for Democrats.

Republican for Lieutenant Governor:  There are two major candidates, Sam Aanestad and Abel Maldonado, the incumbent.  Maldonado got appointed and confirmed to the position after caving on relatively modest tax increases in the last budget impasse.  Aanestad is pro-life, which I do not like, but that is not a big issue at the state level because the state constitution would largely tie a pro-life official's hands.  Other than that, Aanestad would clearly push the Legislature and the Governor to concentrate on spending reforms rather than raising taxes; Maldonado proved "reasonable" on the single issue that Republicans need to not be reasonable on.  Aanestad is the better choice here.

Democrat for Lieutenant Governor:  Here, the choices are between Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles City Councilmember, and Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco.  Hahn is an experienced behind-the-scenes technocrat; Newsom is a firebrand willing to take risks, most notably on gay marriage.  Newsom has demonstrated leadership as well as competence; Hahn has demonstrated only an ability to work below the public's radar and to avoid public admissions of marital infidelity, which is more than Newsom can say.  Still, if you are a Democrat, you'll want to see Newsom grow and develop as a public figure for the future; he is the better choice between the two.

Republican for Secretary of State:  Given that one of the two Republicans running is uber-birther, conspiracy theorist, repeat litigation-abuser, and all-around nutcase Orly Taitz, pretty much any other choice is the way to go.  That other choice is Damon Dunn, about whom I know nothing other than that he is not Orly Taitz and therefore, unlike his adversary for the nomination, has not made a spectacle of a profound inability to come to grips with reality.

Democrat for Secretary of State:  Incumbent Debra Bowen has no partisan competition for the nomination.  My experience of dealing with the Secretary of State's business division is that since Bowen took office, the quality and speed of service from this branch of the state government has declined.  Oh, sure, she won a "Profile in Courage" award for pulling hackable electronic voting machines from use at the last minute, but that doesn't seem like such a difficult call to me.  Since Bowen has not impressed me as having delivered good service from her office, I urge my Democratic Readers to not vote for her.

Republican for Attorney General:  By contrast, Steve Cooley has impressed as Los Angeles County's District Attorney.  Before Cooley took office, the L.A.D.A. could not secure convictions in any high-profile case.  Cooley, however, has found a way to minimize the showboating and maximize the prosecutorial efficiency.  He has also brought a degree of sanity to child support garnishment enforcement without sacrificing the effectiveness of that program.  He can't take credit for crime going down overall, but he can take credit for running a tight ship and producing better results than anyone had thought possible.  He deserves a reward for that, and being California's top prosecutor seems fitting and stands head and shoulders above Senator Tom Harmann, his only real competition for the nomination.  Cooley for A.G.

Democrat for Attorney General:  This is a crowded field, including Kamala Harris, the District Attorney of San Francisco; Chris Kelly, the privacy officer for Facebook; Rocky Delgadillo, the city attorney of Los Angeles; Assemblyman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance); Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara); and Assemblyman Alberto Torrico (D-Fremont).  Of them, I can suggest excluding Kelly and Delgadillo out of hand -- Kelly because he lacks any kind of prosecutorial experience and, let's face it, privacy on Facebook is a cruel, sick joke; and Delgadillo because he has demonstrated a significant tendency towards corruption.  Harris shows the most chops as a prosecutor, although I do not have a sense for how well she has run the S.F.D.A.'s office.  Torrico appears to be the unions' choice, and Nava appears to be the choice of a number of environmental advocates and has made environmental protection a focus of his campaign.  As between these choices, the bread-and-butter choice is Harris, because she, more than anyone else in this field, has proven that she can run a prosecutorial office best.

Republican for U.S. Senator:  There are three credible choices here, Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina, and Chuck DeVore.  Unlike for a state-level position, there is nothing to bind a U.S. Senator from acting on a pro-life position, and DeVore's pro-life stance should be considered here -- at minimum, for the fact that in a California general election, a strident pro-life stance is a virtual guarantee that a candidate will not be elected.  Campbell and Fiorina are both more socially moderate; Campbell more so than Fiorina.  Campbell is a little bit too "reasonable" for my taste on the idea of raising taxes but very bright and creative on the spending reform side of things.  Fiorina has made a push to the right, but there are health concerns and people coming from big business tend to not do well in government, particularly the legislative side of things, because there are different skill sets at play for success in a logrolling, compromising body like the Senate than in a corporate boardroom.  Of the three imperfect candidates, Campbell possesses the better blend of attributes and should get the nod.

Democrat for U.S. Senate:  I've never been a fan of Barbara Boxer and have always considered her a weak politician.  She has only been elected as much as she has because her first opponent crashed and burned in a sex scandal one week before the general election and the Republicans could never get their crap together enough to field a real candidate against her six and twelve years after that.  By contrast, Mickey Kaus is a blogger and a wise-ass, which even if I disagree with some of his opinions, makes me want to identify with him; if by some astonishing miracle he gets his party's nomination, that would be just plain fun.  Democrats, vote Kaus for Senate.

Proposition 13:  Yes
Proposition 14:  No
Proposition 15:  No
Proposition 16:  No
Proposition 17:  No

Republican for Governor:  Meg Whitman
Republican for Lieutenant Governor:  Sam Aanestad
Republican for Secretary of State:  Damon Dunn
Republican for Attorney General:  Steve Cooley
Republican for U.S. Senate:  Tom Campbell

Democrat for Governor:  No endorsement
Democrat for Lieutenant Governor:  Gavin Newsom
Democrat for Secretary of State:  No endorsement
Democrat for Attorney General:  Kamala Harris
Democrat for U.S. Senate:  Mickey Kaus