Political Irony

Just some quick notes:

First, the only thing comforting about the thought that the Republicans will gain power in the upcoming mid-term elections is that that just means that they will be shooting themselves in the foot again. Just look what they did with 8 years with Bush as president, control of the Supreme Court, and 6 years with control of Congress. Unfortunately, they tend to screw up our country horribly while they are screwing up themselves. But the Republican civil war has already started. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are attacking Karl Rove for pointing out the obvious: that the Republicans in Delaware just nominated a nutcase to run for Senate, and pretty much handed over that seat to the Democrats.

UPDATE: Rove Recants.

Second, Bill Clinton points out the obvious — the Tea Party is a corporate front:

They’re saying that Barack Obama represents the spearhead of this vast socialist conspiracy to have government swallow up the fabric of American life and he’s going to crush our individualism, and our freedom, and the vitality of small business … They tell us that they they represent America the way it used to be, self-reliant, virtuous individuals and small businesses. And the truth is, what they want to do is dismantle government so corporations, big corporations will control our destiny.

I always thought that Clinton’s presidency was just a little too much in bed with big corporate interests, so it is good to hear him say something like this.

Third, cartoonist Molly Norris, who thought up the idea of “Draw Mohammed Day” and consequently had a fatwa issued against her (putting her on an execution hit list), has been forced into moving, changing her name, and hiding. This, even though her original idea was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. At least now we know that the terrorists have no sense of humor.

Finally, Grey Path has a good rant about the fact that even though the economy is the number one issue to American voters, and Americans blame the Republicans for the current economic problems by a ten percent margin, they still plan on voting for Republicans in the fall election (by a ten percent margin). Are we nuts? But he has an explanation:

We’re mad at the President and the Democrats for not getting enough done to turn the economy around, but we also seem to understand that the Government is currently run by the minority party in the Senate. Republicans are on pace to triple the greatest number of filibusters by a Democratic minority. (ABC News, Mar 1, 2010). Filibusters have stalled critical appointments, only to be followed an almost unanimous vote in favor of each appointment. The Republican Party is using a tactic of stalling and stopping to make the Democrats look ineffectual. Are we really dumb enough to fall for this?

Tina Dupuy has an excellent article entitled “The Enthusiasm Gap or He’s Just a President” that speaks to one of my pet peeves. It is bad enough that the right-wing is (semi-successfully) painting Obama as a socialist, fascist, foreign-born, Muslim sleeper agent. But it doesn’t help that the left-wing is depressed and disillusioned. So disillusioned that they will probably stay home this November rather than vote, even if that means that rabid tea party candidates take over Congress. It is ironic that the right wants the left to be disillusioned, since it seems to be their only chance to take back Congress. That’s why they keep tossing out crazy attacks against Obama, even if the accusations don’t have any basis in truth.

Dupuy points out that in order to be disillusioned, at some point you had to be illusioned — you had to believe in an illusion, a falsehood. Maybe you believed that Obama was a radical progressive liberal who was going to fix everything immediately, instead of the moderate centrist he always said he was. Maybe you are blaming the slow pace of change inherent to our form of government on him. After eight long years of Bush, people were hungry for someone who could change everything in his first few weeks in office, as if by magic.

PolitiFact is keeping track of Obama’s campaign promises, and by their reckoning Obama is doing pretty good. He has already kept 121 of his campaign promises, compromised on 39, and broken 22 of them. There is still time to do even better, as 240 promises are “In the Works”, although there are an additional 81 that are stalled.

Some of the promises broken are not a big surprise, like his inability to introduce comprehensive immigration reform into Congress in his first year of office. But he did remove all combat brigades from Iraq, established a credit card bill of rights, reformed the financial sector, closed the “doughnut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug plan and required insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, fully funded the Veterans Administration, made US aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts there, changed Homeland security funding from a pork-laden boondoggle to being based on risk, reduced nuclear weapons, promoted democracy in Cuba, made presidential records more accessible, reformed student loans and expanded Pell grants, increased funding for national parks and forests, promoted arts education in schools and increased funding for the NEA, expanded AmeriCorps, reduced pay discrimination, banned gifts from lobbyists to executive employees, raised fuel economy standards, invested in alternative energy, and invested in public transportation, increased funding for the EPA, and reversed restrictions on stem cell research. Not shabby at all!

But somehow, people are too busy screaming about some inconsequential mosque at ground zero to hear about that important stuff.

UPDATE: Obama just appointed Elizabeth Warren to start the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is excellent news, and should make the left very happy. It has already pissed off at least one Republican Senator.

Today, France banned the burqa. To be precise, they made it illegal to wear clothing that covers the face, which includes the burqa, a solid covering over the body with a semi-transparent mesh over the eyes, and the niqab, which covers everything but leaves a small opening for the eyes. The hajab, which covers the hair and neck but not the face, and the chador, which covers the body but not the face, are not illegal. Forcing a woman to wear a burqa or niqab is also illegal.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, the ban is clearly aimed at Muslims, so it is religiously intolerant. On the other hand, there are precedents for banning certain types of clothing. For example, in the US, it is illegal for women to go topless, but not men. Is that sexual discrimination? We also have laws against marijuana, even though members of the Rastafarian religion claim that this discriminates against their religion.

Interestingly, a Pew survey in several countries found that many Europeans favor banning the burqa. The ban is supported by 82% of the French. and majorities in Germany, Britain, and Spain. However, a majority of Americans (67%) oppose banning the burqa here.

The French parliament approved the ban by 246 to 1, with 100 abstentions. When the measure was introduced, the French government declared:

Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place.

How do you feel about this? Would it be ok to pass a law against wearing clothing that obscures most of the face? Is forcing women to wear the burqa itself sex discrimination? Is this a discrimination issue or a religion issue? How would the law deal with people wearing masks as part of a costume?

Three interesting articles in blogs today, all worth a read:

Over at Politicususa they analyze the recent Pew Research Center’s survey of where people get their news, and conclude that the biggest competition to Fox News is not MSNBC or even CNN, but comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. I love reading things like that, since Political Irony is based on a healthy mix of humor and politics. An interesting factoid is that the overwhelming majority (64%) of Fox News watchers are older, while an even larger majority (77%) of Stewart and Colbert’s audiences are younger. Maybe there is hope for the future!

There is a fascinating discussion going on about your right to silence when returning to the US after a foreign trip. The whole thing started with a blog post by Paul Karl Lukacs, who travels frequently. On a recent trip, when returning to the US he was asked by a passport control officer “Why were you in China?” to which he replied “None of your business”. He fully complied with the law, which requires him to present a valid passport and to fill out a customs declaration form, but beyond that he is not required by law to answer any questions. After hassling him for a while, they finally let him in.

The original post led to many comments, which then spilled over to other blogs, including postings on Boing Boing, The Consumerist, Reason, and Ycombinator, which have amassed over a thousand comments, some in support, and some against his actions. So he responded with a followup post answering some of the questions people asked.

When a US citizen is reentering the US (as opposed to entering a foreign country) they cannot be denied reentry, and they have the right to remain silent. Unfortunately, hardly anyone exercises that right. And as we all know, if you don’t exercise your rights, you are likely to lose them.

If you are one of the people who think you should always answer questions asked of you by authorities, watch this video. It will open your eyes.

Finally, a bit of wonderfully ironic news. Chuck Cooper, the lead attorney defending Proposition 8 (which made gay marriage unconstitutional in California) gave a talk to 200 students at Brigham Young University law school. You would think that students at a Mormon university would be sympathetic, since the Mormon church was one of the most vigorous promoters of Proposition 8. But no, they tore his arguments to pieces. “Chuck Cooper failed miserably in attempting to defend Prop 8 to possibly the friendliest crowd he will even encounter. … If Chuck Cooper can’t defend Prop 8 in front of a group of BYU students, then how is he going to defend it in front of the Supreme Court?”

© Tom Tomorrow

Yes, conservatives really are trying to lay claim to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. It boggles the mind.