Per Dog Per Day

Afghani Torture

2009-11-26T18:37:00.003-05:00

Jesse:
Just thought I'd share a quick, low-level thought about this whole thing.

From the House, quoted here:

Ignatieff: “Mr. Speaker, between January 2006 and May 2007, the government knew that torture was occurring in Afghan jails. It knew that it was transferring Afghans to those very jails, but the Prime Minister claims that no one transferred by Canadians was ever tortured,” he said. “How can he be so categorical when the government did nothing to investigate for 18 months? What kind of Canadian government does nothing to prevent torture?”

PM Harper: “Mr. Speaker, again, on the contrary, Canadian officials and soldiers have always acted when they have had credible evidence of abuse,” he said. “That is absolutely clear.”

Seems like a hint of a possible trap there on Harper's response. This is not about Canadian officials and soldiers. This is about whether their elected, civilian overseers:

A) Knew
B) Tried not to know
C) Took adequate action

Broder

2009-11-14T13:55:00.003-05:00

Jesse:
Based on this quote from a piece about Obama's Afghanistan call:

Obama needs to remember what Clark Clifford, one of Harry Truman's closest advisers, said: that the president "believed that even a wrong decision was better than no decision at all."

I think I've finally decided that I need to drop David Broder off my Google Reader.

I hate to resort to allcaps here but HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE THAT YOU COULD WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THAT?????????????????

Good Lord.

Freedom From

2009-10-23T10:49:00.004-04:00

Jesse:
This may seem too pat and obvious, but is there anyone in the US (or here, but you don't tend to hear it quite as much yet) fighting against this "protect our freedom" tea party crap by making an affirmative argument for either:

A) The fact that they're just picking and choosing negative freedoms?

The "freedoms" that the radical right in the US goes on about doesn't include civil liberty; they had no problems with the Bush administration spying on Americans. Which is not even to mention the fact that it's "freedom" only for "them" (whites southerners, mostly), and they have no interest at all in freedoms that were taken away from prisoners, or anyone else?

There's a case to be made there that any serious person would include those freedoms. But I don't really hear it; maybe I've missed it.

B) Freedom from.

This is especially stark in the health care debates. There are at least four ways to talk about health care:

It's just regulatory reform
It's about giving people an opportunity to succeed
It's about saving lives
It's about freedom from want

Now, to my mind, Democrats are focusing on the first one, because it lets them vaguely (or explicitly) demonize insurance companies. And everyone hates insurance companies. We're not hearing much of the second one, which to me is the sort of counter-economic argument ("these people go bankrupt otherwise, we need to help them be able to start small businesses"), though it obviously sounds little like equality of opportunity. We do hear the third one, but I think it's simply a moral power play (which there's definitely space to attack the right with). I think the fourth is something we should be hearing.

Someone should be out there saying that this is about creating freedom. Health care (it should probably be better labelled health insurance) reform in the US is the essence of liberal (small L) government. The American people, through their government, are going to (fingers crossed) decide to come together and create a system which will enable more (not all) Americans to be able to purchase health insurance, thus rendering them free from the affliction of fear for themselves or for their families, or for their own and their families well-being. It's about freedom, not handouts.

Now, obviously the tea party right doesn't think government can possibly create freedom. But since it can, I think that's a part of the debate that shouldn't be ceded.

Let The People See My Work

2009-10-22T17:07:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
In the interests of writing something more substantial than a book club post today, I want to talk about my foreign aid thought.

I was reminded to bring this up because of this Andrew Sullivan post, suggesting that it would be impossible to send tens of thousands of experts in various fields (doctors, lawyers, business executives, professors, nurses, whatever, to participate in nation building in places like Afghanistan because it would be impossible to convince those types of people. There was also these outtakes from Paul Wells's interview with physicist Neil Turok, in which Turok suggests that what Canada should be doing for Africa is helping Africa nations build up health care and education systems like ours, rather than just handing out money and food.

This is something I've thought was the way to go about this for a long time (the first time it came to me was when a friend working at DFAIT was writing a paper about aid). I think the thing to do when it comes to improving the way Canada delivers aid is to pick a country or two (Haiti probably makes the most sense, but I think Canada should really be involved in Africa, as well). Then pick a town. And then absolutely go bananas trying to help that particularly town improve. Send city planners to plan things to build. Then send construction workers to build things, like serious schools and a serious hospital. Then send teachers to teach in that school and work with local teachers, and post-secondary students to spend time with those kids, and send doctors and nurses to help run that hospital, and help train locals to continue to run it afterwards. Canada, like other western countries, seems to me to have a glut of business consultants. Let's send them in there, and have them help locals figure out what can be done in that direction. And on, and on, and on.

This would not only be a fantastic help, it would also be a way to start building up, from the grassroots, some Canadians who could actually understand for themselves what it means to "do" foreign aid, and especially who locals in aid recipient countries actually are. To me, this is the way to improve the quality of our aid, and the engagement of us with recipients, and recipients with us.

As a further idea, build a university. Just build it. And then get Canadian professors to help staff it. Call it the University of Canada, or even (shudder) the University of Toronto African Campus. Give people in that country a chance to learn without leaving the land they know. Make it affordable. Recognize that some of those people will leave, but lots of them will stay, and put their knowledge to work.

I think all of this would make aid real, and would constitute a worthwhile Canadian project for the 21st century.

Let's Book Club!

2009-10-22T10:14:00.005-04:00

Jesse:
OK, so this is sour grapes, but I've definitely forgotten some books I read over the last while. Some of this is that I've started and read substantial parts of: Charlie Wilson's War, Israel's Secret Wars, and (somewhat more ambitiously) A Secular Age. However, I can add a couple books (and if I think of more, I'll add them). So, my additions:

The Future of Liberalism by Alan Wolfe (288 pages)

This book was super interesting, and clarified a lot for me about what I believe in, and how I could be thinking about liberalism. However... some of the middle sections definitely draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. I think it's worth the reading the first couple chapters, and some of the more "philosophical" chapters. I found his argument that on one (right) side of liberalism is a movement that's basically romanticism (cough cough John McCain / neo-Conservatism) interesting, but really, his thesis (regarding there being three meanings for liberalism; attitude, procedural, and substantive) was the most important part of the book. Some of the "practical applications" you could probably skip. I give it a B, to match What's the Matter With Kansas.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (272 pages)

An interesting book. I was not blown away. I found it somewhat of a weird mix of middlebrow armchair philosophizing, interesting social commentary, and Gen X whining (which, to be fair, he totally recognizes he's part of). I thought the first chapter (how movies and TV have made him incapable of love) and the chapter on how the media really works were far, far more interesting and important than the others. Nifty chapters included the one on Star Wars and the chapter on The Real World. Interesting, not that arresting, I give it a B.

Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger (400 pages)

A fantastic book. Extremely interesting. This is, of course, the book upon which the movie was based, both of which upon the TV show was based. I highly recommend this look at how insane a town in Texas (which actually isn't that small, by the way) takes high school football. A-

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis (352 pages)

Another great book. My biggest question? Since Lewis clearly set out to write a book about the left tackle position, then found Michael Oher to be so fascinating that he decided he'd just write it about Oher... why didn't he go back and edit it to make it a book about Michael Oher? The "left tackle" stuff he does do, to me, seemed to have nothing to do with the rest of the stuff. I particularly enjoyed the questions it raised for me at the end (when we learn that his family is talking about starting up a charity to help kids who can play sports really well go to school); is this really charity? Is there "good" and "not as good" charity (curing cancer vs. helping kids play football, or teaching kids to read vs. building an art museum)? Can't recall if Lewis meant for these questions to be there... but they were for me. A.

And, finally, some comments on the books I know I started but didn't finish. Israel's Secret Wars was interesting, but became far too "here's an interesting story" followed by "here's some dull information about how the Israeli secret services reorganized for the 19th time". Charlie Wilson's War was interesting in that it totally tracked the movie (which was based on the book). Great film. Really great film. See the film. The book... shmeh.

Comment Anti-Trolls

2009-10-20T09:19:00.005-04:00

Jesse:
Pulled a good point off the Macleans comment boards (at which point I pulled the chute, since comment boards are terrible, and I shouldn't read them) about the Conservative Stimulus Scandal.

So, the Conservatives appear to have directed ~~about 55%~~ a lot more money per riding to Conservative ridings than they have to non-Conservative ridings (which is a lot). Two points, one mine, and one from the trolls:

1) Doesn't this mean that, per capita, the hosing is even greater? I think the Liberals have thrown some numbers out along these lines. But Conservative ridings are much less dense.

2) If this had simply been done based on efficiency and ease of getting the money out there, without partisanizing the issue, shouldn't it have gone completely the other way? Liberal ridings, for example, are basically all in cities. Cities have lots of matching funds. Cities have loads of projects that could use money (more roads, more rinks, more bridges, more libraries) and far more expensive projects (airports, for example). I doubt this point is going to get any traction with The People... but I think it's a good one. The money probably should've been 60-40 the other way. Without factoring in the per capita question, which probably would've made it even worse.

Now, is it possible that the Cons manage to come out with some sort of face-saving numbers (since they usually do) and this all goes away because it becomes he-said-she-said for the press? Yes. I think the per capita stuff might help them out a little here once they start trying to doctor something and get it out there (did the home renovation credit and other population-wide measures disproportionately benefit city-dwellers, so this is arguably a make-up plan?). And they seem to be able to get away with pretty much whatever they want. But we'll see.

Proposed Line of Attack

2009-10-19T11:53:00.002-04:00

Jesse:
Ignatieff: "Mr. Harper's spent millions to try to prove to the Canadian people that I'm an academic, not a politician. He's right. I don't "need" to be Prime Minister. I want to lead this country because I care about Canada, and I care about Canadians. But Mr. Harper and his gang need to be in power. They're lifelong, professional politicians. Mr. Harper's never done anything else. Jim Flaherty's never been anything other than a deficit-ridden finance minister. Is it any surprise they're taking your children's tax dollars and spending them on getting themselves re-elected? They have nothing if they're not in power. [So how's the hockey book coming, Mr. Prime Minister?]"

[Editor's note; maybe don't say the hockey book part].

More Gas Taxes!

2009-10-18T09:24:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
And now the CEO of Enterprise Rent-A-Car agrees with my earlier series of suggestions and self-congratulatory piffle that we stablize gas prices by raising the gas tax:

It strikes Taylor that if the government were to guarantee a stable gas price of between $3 and $4 per gallon—through a high national gas tax like they have in Europe, for example—it might spur innovation and hasten the shift to electric cars.

This is crucial. It could not be more obvious that we're not going to take this stuff seriously until gas prices are high, and it would help consumers and business and scientists alike to know where prices are going to be.

I justify this intervention into the market on environmental (keep driving down, help us figure out how to solve this problem), social (people probably have better things to obsess over than the price of gas), and economic (help us, instead of someone else, figure out how to solve this problem and ching-ching cash in.

Big, ugly downside? This would probably heavily politicize gas prices, giving unscrupulous governments more levers to tweak. How long until the first allegations that gas prices are being kept artificially lower in Conservative districts?

Plausible Deniability

2009-10-16T09:48:00.004-04:00

Jesse:
If Ministers MacKay and O'Connor did not, in fact, see reports on detainee abuse in Afghanistan, then I think we're at the point where they were willfully blind. I wonder if they'd testify in court that they never told anyone to keep stuff like that off their desks? I wonder if they're chiefs of staff would?

Either way, this is a big, big problem. It really sounds to me like MacKay, O'Connor, and Harper are either lying, or they're technically telling the truth but in reality perpetrated a coverup designed so as that they could deny this stuff.

Scandalicious

2009-10-15T11:59:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
When you combine putting the names of your own MPs and your party logo on government cheques with directing stimulus money preponderantly into your own ridings... isn't that showingmore chutzpah than the Liberals did during the sponsorship scandal?

There was a breakdown there, and some bad seeds stole some government money. And it was bad. But it wasn't a government sponsored slush fund to try to buy votes.

Pulpits

2009-10-11T23:39:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
A post that interested me by father-of-a-friend-of-the-blog, Dennis Gruending, went up today, and I had some thoughts (below the fold). You can find said post here.

The bit I found interesting in the post was this (sorry for the long quotation):

A story that the mainstream media both covered and missed was the Prime Minister’s promotion of two individuals to senior positions in the PMO in March 2009. Darrel Reid became chief of staff and Paul Wilson replaced him as PMO policy director. Reid and Wilson have deep roots in both religious and political organizations. Reid was chief of staff to Reform Party leader Preston Manning while he was leader of the opposition. Later he became the president of Focus on the Family Canada, a conservative Christian lobby group that has worked against public childcare, same-sex marriage, and against adding sexual orientation to a list of minorities protected from hate crimes.

Wilson has worked for Trinity Western University, which is based in Langley, B.C. and is one of the largest evangelical educational institutions in Canada. Trinity established an Ottawa “campus” in 2001 in an old mansion near Parliament Hill. It houses the Laurentian Leadership Centre, which places students as interns with Ottawa-based organizations, predominantly with MPs. Wilson co-ordinated that internship program but when the Conservatives won election in 2006, he left Trinity Western to become a senior policy advisor to Vic Toews, then the justice minister. Wilson later served in a similar policy role for Diane Finley, the minister of human resources.

There is nothing wrong with these individuals occupying senior positions but their combined political and religious connections are worthy of note and journalists reporting the promotions missed the religious side. [Emphasis added.]

Now, the question this initially raised for me was "is this really OK?". I made the following comment on Mr. Gruending's blog (and I'll be sure to post any response he might right here, for my loyal reader):

Just out of interest, do you think there would be anything wrong with outspoken, “professional” atheists occupying senior positions in a government, just like Wilson and Reid? Atheists who were as vehemently intolerant? Who believed that religion (instead of just every other religion) was wrong, and who thought that everyone should really just believe what they believe? Who were as interested in manipulating government policy to support their beliefs?

Perhaps the more interesting question is whether Wilson, Reid, and Harper would accept something like that in the PMO.

And, you read it here first, as much as I wouldn't want to get into a whole hullabaloo about this, I'm pretty serious.

Trinity Western University comes to one's attention in law school because it fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada demanding that it be certified as a school for accrediting teachers. The reason it was rejected was that the school banned practices that were "biblically prohibited" included homosexuality. The B.C. College of Teachers thought this was discriminatory; the Supreme Court disagreed, suggesting that there was no evidence that TWU teachers would actually discriminate.

Attending a school that excludes a segment of society because their religion tells them they're bad isn't, to my mind, that different from attending a school that excludes people based on race. I think we can also safely assume that I, for one, would not be particularly welcome at TWU based on my religion (hint: not evangelical Christianity).

Now, I haven't looked into what else TWU stands for. Nor have I poked around at these two gentlemen further (fortuitously, Mr. Gruending has already highlighted that Reid worked for Focus on the Family, which opposed homosexuality to the point of trying to ensure homosexuality wasn't on a list of possibly grounds for hate crimes. Opposing gay marriage is one (horribly wrongheaded) thing. Opposing the idea of protecting gays from being assaulted for being gay? All I can say is wow.

Let's play our game then, shall we?

Would it be OK if these guys had worked for organizations that wouldn't allow Blacks, Asians, Jews, or Muslims? Would we be sanguine about them having prominent jobs in the PMO? I really, really don't think so, and I think that, at the least, we'd want some really, really serious apologies and explanations.

Beyond the despicable gay-bashing... I think I'd be interested in having the conversation about religious beliefs that are just plain unacceptable on their face, when it comes to this point. As I (attempt to) illustrate in my comment on the original post... would it be hunky dory for an atheist who was going to push for anti-Christian policies to be in the PMO? What about a fundamentalist Muslim who thought government's role was to try to push everyone into Islam? Or, hell, a homosexual who didn't think that straights should have the right to marry?

I don't really think we'd be OK with that. So why are we OK with this?

A Quick Thought...

2009-10-05T22:01:00.001-04:00

Jesse:
On the current Conservative lead in the polls.

Talk to me in three or four weeks. They were all tied up a little while ago. Sheesh.

A Canadian NeoConservative? It's Sort Of Like Seeing A Sasquatch, Really.

2009-09-29T14:07:00.007-04:00

Cameron:
At risk of being unfair, I think I'd like to suggest that Chris Alexander might very well be the first bona fide neoconservative in Canadian history. This post is pretty much just a placeholder to that effect, in case the future would like to either a)hoist me on my petard or b)admire my prognostications.

My evidence is fairly thin: a Canadian of fairly mainstream politics who decides to go conservative out of a principle-based stance on foreign policy that stresses the primacy of democracy and human rights. I don't think we've ever seen one before, but here we are now.

Why principle-based, you ask? Well, it isn't out of policy differences, as the Liberals and Conservatives have basically formed a Wellsian "Grand Coalition" in regards to Afghanistan, and in fact Alexander is on record that we should stay in combat operations beyond 2011. That decision can't be based on a realist or social constructivist judgement, as, frankly, everyone agrees that Afghanistan is a real morass that no longer enjoys deep public support. And it isn't like Liberals don't like international democracy too, anyways, as Michael Ignatieff was a liberal internationalist 15 years prior to being a Liberal MP. It's just that the Liberals have, so to speak, started to waver because they think it's a lost cause.

You could say; sure, but Alexander is really just a PC kid from a PC family, which is true.

But why is he in politics? Is it for the economy? For social values? To fight against crime? No - it's because he is a bigshot in foreign affairs, and he would like to be foreign minister (sorry, Mr. Cannon, but you are only a seatwarmer.) Both parties sought his support, and he chose to support the Tories, presumably (and it is a big assumption, albeit the only assumption that takes everyone at face value) because he appreciated their muscular and principled approach to foreign policy (right? After all, a third party would have to agree that Harper and Ignatieff are both bona fide liberals - any differences are largely symbolic and based on Harperian "friends and enemies" distinctions that are the ethical core of neoconservatism.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
On a tangent of sorts, it is sort of funny that only in Canadian Foreign Policy would we see people selected as "stars" and "experts" precisely because they presided over our biggest disasters. I mean, this guy's career is effectively one of either serial mendacity or tragic incompetance, and we seriously think he's the better for it.

Or: "all idealism is mendacity in the face of necessity" - Nietzsche. Ecce Homo, (II, 10)

Il Media Diavolo

2009-09-25T14:35:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
And no, I have no idea what language that title's supposed to be in. But The Fix today suggested that President Obama's shots at the media this week could only be aimed at firing up the base. Raise some money, get Democrats engaged, push healthcare over the top.

I'd like to briefly suggest that, in this case, it could be more than that.

Let's agree that Democrats don't hate the media the way Republicans do. With Republicans, it's very much a straight up "the media is trying to screw us, the media controls everything, the media is full of liberals controlling everything and trying to screw us". Whereas, in my opinion, Democrats are much more "oh, well, the media doesn't always do a great job... and they pander to the GOP because they're scared of them sometimes... y'know...". Different. Conveniently, a Pew poll linked to by The Fix in that very article indicates that I'm not completely out to lunch here. Listing the numbers as GOP/Dem./Ind., we see that people feel that media stories are often inaccurate 69/59/53, tend to favour one side 84/67/73, and that the media are too critical of America 60/33/41. Therefore, I don't think "the media is blowing it for us" is necessarily going to be the BFG (warning, adult language) it was for McCain in firing things up.

So, why do it? I think it may straighten out the media a little bit, and I think it's a good story.

Obama said that "If you're civil, and polite, and you're sensible, and you don't exaggerate the -- the bad things about your opponent . . . you're not going to be on the loop.". If tagging the media a little bit this week means that the media reports a little less on crazies and a little more on substance going forward, fantastic! Health reform is nearing its goal anyway; procedurally, there's been tonnes of progress. Evidence? Well, there's lots of links and complex procedural stuff I could cite here, but let's just note that the GOP is desperately trying to put this off. Would they be doing that if it wasn't close?

And, this will be the story, at least for a bit. The media loves to talk about itself. And now the President is basically demanding that they do it. But the way they'll be doing it isn't "are we reporting on Obama too nicely?" like McCain wanted, it'll be "should we be more serious about health care reform?". Or, to rephrase my made up paraphrase, "is it our fault y'all don't understand how much health care reform will help you, and how full of crap the radical right is?". The subtext of which is "health care reform will help you".

Sounds like a good move to me. Would I suggest that the Iggernaut save a card like this to play at some point during the next campaign (such as "you aren't reporting that Harper has no plan", "you aren't taking into account that every time you endorse Harper you say he'll grow, but he never does *hack hack* Globe and Mail *hack hack*", or even a more positive "why aren't you reporting on my platform?"? Sure I would. I think campaigns probably have a steady drumbeat of this kind of stuff going. But I think saving it, and making it a Thing at just the right moment in the campaign would be a great play.

Corporations Still Aren't People

2009-09-22T09:21:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
Dear SCOTUS,

In your upcoming decision in Citizens United, please keep in mind that corporations aren't people.

As Justice Scalia said, most corporations are “indistinguishable from the individual who owns them.”, so please also note that if the people who own the corporations (shareholders) have something to say politically, they have many excellent outlets available to them which are reasonably (at least more so than the "none at all" you're considering) regulated (527s, etc.). It's just like the free speech zones you apparently don't think are ridiculous. Except I guess this time the ~~people~~ actors involved are rich rich rich.

That is all.

Impoverishment

2009-09-14T21:11:00.002-04:00

Jesse:
I think I vowed a while ago to try to talk a little more about poverty issues. That, obviously, didn't work out so well. But now here I am! This post from Ezra Klein makes a good point; the poor are outrageously underrepresented in Washington. He attributes this to the fact that they don't have money to throw around, or influence. I'd add that they basically have an entire party which is entirely opposed to their interests (hint: Republicans). Name another group which actually has an American political party which is opposed to them (other than immigrants. Or blacks. Or natives). You can't, can you?

What I'd like to add is that I think we still have some of the same problems here, but it's not for the same reason. We have a party at the federal level, and another at the provincial levels (in most provinces), which like nothing better than to talk about poverty. I'm going to posit that the reason the NDP hasn't been particularly effective is because of a real inability to come up with a change of angles. Pitching the same anti-poverty measures election after election after election really isn't getting it done. It isn't forcing the mainstream parties to take notice.

It's time for either the NDP, or the Liberals, to take some serious, new steps toward proposing something real and new about poverty.

Seriousness

2009-09-11T09:22:00.004-04:00

Jesse:
For my next trick, I want to refer you to this video of Michael Ignatieff talking about the PM's leaked video (h/t).

It's good, it's sober, and I think it's the kind of thing that's going to help a lot. If you want the Coles Notes, and since I know some of us question whether he can deliver a soundbite, here's what I pulled out of a CP news-style-video:

There have always been two Harpers. The real Harper comes out when he thinks he can't be heard

He treats every adversary as an enemy who needs to be destroyed, and you wonder why I can't support him?"

Those aren't the interesting, serious parts. But they're the parts that work on the news.

My conclusion? I think if you're one of the 4.5 people who read this blog you're relatively serious about politics. And I think this video's worth watching and really considering whether Ignatieff is, in fact, worthy of your support.

Do Work

2009-09-11T09:11:00.002-04:00

Jesse:
When I read this summary in my email of a NY Times piece on a prostitute lovin' Republican Senator I first get sad:

Obama Factor Plays to Senator’s Advantage
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who handily overcame a sex scandal, has capitalized on his state’s extensive displeasure with the president and his politics.

Then I try to remember the epiphany I had after Kerry lost in '04 (as a I walked through the bitter Ottawa cold). We have to take stories like this and remember that there's important work to do. If Louisianians are so twisted around by what they see and hear and think about politics that their on the side of the "family values John" because they hate a man like Barack Obama that much, then we need to fix it. We need to engage, we need to argue, we need to, in various non-re-educational-and-creepy ways, teach them that they don't have to think that.

Louisiana is the 44th poorest state (according to Wikipedia, and who else are you gonna trust?). 44th poorest state, and they're upset because Obama's introducing big government programs? You know who those programs help? Poor people and poor states! If you have specific concerns about "federal control", then we need to deal with those. But these guys shouldn't be going so far to turn down money that they support a guy like Sen. Vitter! It's ridiculous.

And it means progressive people and politicians have work to do.

Obama on Healthcare

2009-09-09T22:52:00.002-04:00

Jesse:
From President Obama's excellent speech tonight:

...when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter - that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

Right. On.

I think the President made an excellent case for health care tonight. Obviously, it still could have been a little more aggressive. But that's not what really sells.

Keith Olbermann (whom we were graced with access too by Rogers tonight) made what I think is a really strong point. The President mentioned "pre-existing conditions" three times, with emphasis the third, saying that "...unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek - especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions - just can't be achieved". Olbermann suggested this was an important point, because it would be difficult for the GOP to oppose. The point is that this could be the kind of bludgeon Democrats need to hammer Republicans in the midterms. Any Republican who votes against the health care bill that ends up coming forward should get hit, on the stump and on tv, over and over and over again that he or she voted to make sure insurance companies can discriminate against sick people. Emphasize, just like the President did, that this isn't about people ignoring insurance until they find out the need. It's about people who don't know they're sick, or who get sick, then lose their jobs. Over, and over, and over again.

Finally, as far as the Republicans rudeness goes (and I shouldn't need to remind you the outrage at anyone who wasn't nice to President George W. Bush that we used to see)... wow. First, Eric Cantor (House Minority Whip) was, apparently, texting during the address. You stay classy, Ohio. But wait... was he texting his wife? My research says no. According to the time, he was Twittering. And what was he Twittering?

Be sure to tune in to Hannity on Fox News tonight at 10pm following the President's address. I will be discussing my reaction to the speech

I saw this around 930, saying it had been posted about an hour before. Isn't that great?

And finally, the man you see pictured on the right interrupted the speech to call the President a liar because the President, and the bill say that illegal immigrants won't be covered. He's a member of Congress (who has apparently since apologized). Feels good doesn't it? As some guy on Twitter said:

Old white southern congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC), confused, shouts at Obama to get off his lawn.

Ladies and Gentleman, the Republican Party!

Running Scared

2009-09-09T11:01:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
The often excellent Andrew Sullivan('s blog), which is the number one bane of my existence lately; he posts too often, but it's too good for me to ignore, which overloads my Google Reader (also Slate) has shown me a bit of a running theme among the post I've kept around to write about.

To whit:

First, a reader of his on transferring Guantanamo Bay prisoners to SuperMax prisons in the U.S.:

Can someone remind me what it is the NIMBY crowd thinks these detainees are going to do once transferred to the U.S.? They act like these guys are half-MacGyver, half-Houdini, and half-Lecter. Do they think they're Transformers or X-Men or something, and that as soon as these mostly low-level terrorists touch U.S. soil they're going to shoot lasers from their eyes and throw cars at people?

Second, reporting on a claim that Dick Cheney fouled up a British terror investigation because he pulled the trigger on an arrest too fast.

And third, another reader on how his or her local school massively over-reacted to people worrying about the President talking to their kids.

The common thread here is that the right wing has become incredibly fearful. Terrorists might magically escape our prisons; I can't let law enforcement take a chance, even if it means terrorists go free; President Obama is going to magically destroy my children's mind.

Obviously, it's ridiculous. But what I want to emphasize is that we need to start punishing them for it. When our Prime Minister refuses to repatriate a child who's been abused in American prisons, I think there should be less complaining and more accusing. It's not that Stephen Harper "doesn't care about human rights", or even "doesn't care about non-white Canadians". It's that Stephen Harper is craven.

He's afraid he'll "look weak on terror"
He's afraid the Bush Administration won't like it
He's afraid an abused young man, who is a huge media figure, will somehow overwhelm CSIS.

Look. If you're too scared of your base to do the right thing, you don't deserve to be elected. If you're too scared of the Americans, you don't deserve to be elected. And if the intelligence services you oversee can't handle one guy who turns 23 in ten days, you don't deserve to be elected.

Yoo's Tenure

2009-08-23T23:17:00.002-04:00

Jesse:
Here then here is an interesting discussion about an email from the Dean of Boalt Hall (Berkeley's law school) on the subject of stripping John "torture memos" Yoo of his tenure. I could have sworn I had specific comments about this before, but apparently not, other than these.

The original thought I wanted to add is brief. Should governments be receiving legal advice from more disparate sources? America, in it's infinite wisdom, passes the presidency from Democrat to Republican and back again relatively regularly (yes, if draw the window exactly where you want, it looks like the GOP dominates, but I think that's a little ridiculous). Is it a good idea to have partisan advice? No, probably not. But if you're going to do (since high level appointees are partisan), does it make sense to have both sides of the argument? Absolutely.

This doesn't mean (to me) that President Obama should hire someone who's as out there (and criminally and ethically dubious) as Professor Yoo. But, maybe they should be realistic. The United States is a divided country. I think they would benefit from having their own Ainsley Hayes. And, of course, I think we can all wish that the Bush administration had hired someone who wasn't completely insane.

Hitlama? Obitler?

2009-08-19T15:42:00.007-04:00

Jesse:
I've been thinking about writing something about dishonesty in politics for a while, based on the utter crap being spewed by the American right surrounding their healthcare debate. I'm still going to try to write something, but I absolutely refuse not to post this inspiration video, in which Congressman Barney Frank kicks the (rhetorical) crap out of a crazy lady at a town hall.

(h/t)

Watch the video. And my message surrounding it is we absolutely have to stand up to these kinds of people. We are at times, in my opinion, too easily cowed by crazies, and by our own liberal sensibilities. These tend to combine in a "oh, let 'em play, they're just crazy" attitude which I think is wrong, wrong, wrong.

A Good Israel Piece

2009-08-17T13:43:00.003-04:00

Jesse:
I think this Andrew Steele post is a fantastic exposition on why the anti-Israel boycotts we've seen from CUPE and so forth are ridiculous. He explains simply and clearly why they're a terrible idea, from the standpoint of the United Church's recent proposals. Money quote:

...it buys into a false logic that the Middle East is an easy situation of white and black hats, that the state of Israel is inherently bad, and that a one-sided boycott will produce peace. At the heart of this "boycott Israel" movement is the severing of dialogue between Israel and Palestine, a hardening of positions into camps of stubborn isolation that is the opposite of peace.

Khadr Decision F

2009-08-14T12:38:00.016-04:00

Jesse:
I've just read the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada (Prime Minister) v. Khadr. Two judges upheld the decision of the Federal Court that the federal government had to request Mr. Khadr's repatriation; the other dissented. Here's the Globe's report.

I'm sure there will be an appeal, and, frankly, I think the majority has an underpants gnomes problem. Relying on a 2008 Khadr decision of the SCC holding that Mr. Khadr was entitled to disclosure of documents Canadian officials obtained through participating in a process that violated international human rights law, the judges (a total of three of four now) involved in this process have said that since Mr. Khadr's Charter rights were engaged by Canadian officials interference, the government now has to request Khadr's repatriation. I think there's a real gap there which did not exist in Khadr 2008. To illustrate, let me show of my charting abilities once again.

Since
Canadians abetted an illegal process

Canadians abetted an illegal process

And
GOC has related documents

???

Therefore
We order disclosure of those documents

We order the government to request Khadr's repatration

I think there's a big problem there. To be clear; I absolutely think Khadr should be repatriated. I'm willing to consider that there might be a good way to make the legal case that the courts should require it. I'm not sure that this is that good legal case.

It turns out it's kinda hard to deal with a government that's so ridiculously out of line. It should be so painfully obvious that Mr. Khadr should be repatriated, this shouldn't be an issue. Questions of courts making orders involving foreign affairs should be hard cases, not easy ones.

Anonymous Liberals

2009-08-13T17:12:00.002-04:00

Jesse:
Since Kady brings it up, the whole quoting unnamed Liberals is something that's bothered me before... and I think I've written about it before (but couldn't find it). So, my only idea?

Everyone who's in any sort of position of authority with the party, to a certain level, obviously, publically signs a pledge to only comment on the record. I don't know if it'd have any effect, but at least then "anonymous Liberals" would either be insignificant, or breaking an agreement.

I'd like to highlight that the agreement wouldn't be stopping anyone from talking to reporters. It would be stopping them from doing it anonymously. I'm sorry, but if there's something so important that the press has to know about it, then bloody well do it on the record.