Asking and Telling and Screaming and Yelling

The Constitution: Affirming Peoples' Right to Exist
Since 1789

          I was going to write the rest of this blog with a Dr. Seussian rhyme sceme, but Lieberman has too many syllables to get a good rhyme scheme going. Anyways.
          First let me begin by saying that I am happy that my lamentation of the apparent ineffectuality of the lame duck session of 2010 has proved false; big changes are indeed being made. Today was a historic day in the realm of politics, as it encompassed the (long-awaited) repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (yay!), a policy that is obviously as discriminatory as it is unconstitutional.  This day is awesome for a number of reasons: a) gay people can serve openly without fear of being discharged (as the approximately 14000 servicemen were--many of them specialists--in the past 17 years); b) this bill was a rare show of bi-partisanship, as eight of the sixty-five votes for the repeal came from Republicans; c) it is another step in the direction of gay rights.  Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut, led the effort for the repeal, helping draft a bill specifically for that purpose and courting some of the Republican opposition to support it.  This bill will definitely be remembered as his legacy, and that of the 111th Congress, which ends in just under a month.
          The DREAM Act, however, wasn't so lucky; it fell just a few votes short of passage, which is, of course, disappointing.  I guess only so many liberal notions can be stomached by Congress at any given time--gives those conservatives a serious case of indigestion or something.  The idea of a path to citizenship for college educated and motivated young immigrants was a great idea, but a heady dose of Nativism proved to be too much for its idealism.  If the time isn't right for such a bill now, it certainly won't be right within the next two years; if anything, the 112th Congress will seek to crack down on immigration, reinforce Bush-era tax cuts and generally do things I don't like. But such is life. However, I can't be  worried about what the future holds, no, today is a day to feel proud of a country that decided to act in favor of a long-suffering minority, this is a day to commend elected officials for doing what it right.

Lame Duck Period: A To Do List

"Rubber Ducky, you're not the one
Rubber Ducky, don't get nothin' done"
~Freely adapted from Sesame Street

          Yep, you guessed it: it's time for another liberal rant--this time maybe with a little less humor and a little more (self?) righteous indignation.  So, dear reader, I apologize in advance. I digress.
          In the upcoming two years, several things are NOT going to happen under the new, more conservative Congress--such as the repeal of DADT, the termination of the Bush Era tax cuts, a more comprehensive (yes, that is possible) health care act (e.g. the revival of the public option), the passage of the DREAM initiative...the list goes on and on.  The time for congressional Democrats to act, therefore, is NOW.
          Lame duck periods are aptly named; the previous one consisted and a president and a Congress quietly trying not to make the burgeoning recession get any worse while simultaneously trying to slink away, tail between they're legs.  That's just fine--it's the norm--but I do not want congressional Democrats to slink (dammit).  I want Obama to take the reigns a little more than he has been accustomed to doing throughout the first two years of his presidency and I want congressional Democrats to make some serious headway before they are replaced by conservatives who will, in all probability, do what I don't want them to (because obviously the center of the political universe is me, myself, and I--that's sarcasm, just in case you didn't pick up on it).  More to the point, the somewhat extreme ultraconservatives that have been elected have grand plans to further stifle LGBT rights and attack the legality of abortions, which has been a precedent since the momentous Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade in 1973.  That would really, to use the vernacular, suck--it would be a major setback to years of crusading for civil rights.
          The lame duck session congress is already proving ineffectual.  It failed to muster enough support for the repeal of DADT--which was intended to pass as a provision of a much needed defense-budget bill--and so was subjected to yet another filibuster.  True, plans exist to write up a bill exclusively for the purpose of ending DADT, but if the Dems don't act fast, they will have lost the historic opportunity to pass some truly meaningful legislation within the context of a lame duck period.  Sounds worthwhile to me.

WIKILEAKS (again)

Hello, my name is NOT Neil Patrick Harris

          I suppose one could say I'm a bit behind the times for posting this, as fresh Wikileaks news arrived very early this week, but I felt compelled to catch up on the topic after posting about it in October.  There has, of course been a great deal of media fracas and Hillary Clinton has been having a field day trying to repair diplomatic ties with nations who discovered mildly unpleasant US remarks and plans thanks to a release of quite a few diplomatic cables earlier this week (yes, ENTIRE governments function like cliques of high school girls if given the chance, weaving webs of intrigue and gossiping behind each others backs).  The release of these cables has been called a "diplomatic disaster" and many have feared that it will destabilize already unstable nations like North Korea (as per the recent attack on South Korea). Seriously?? If a volatile country like that is going to arbitrarily attack, it's just going to, not because some it finds out about Wikileaks...then again, Kim Jong Il sort of acts like a pubescent child sometimes, too.
          I digress. Despite the so-called "disaster," I am not particularly upset at the leaks; I actually think it's pretty cool, a sort of modern-day Pentagon Papers.  I mean, from an objective standpoint (concern for American foreign policy aside), it's kind of cool to watch an agent of chaos (think norse troublemaking god Loki) arrive on the scene and stir the pot, challenge the way in which our government conducts its business behind closed doors, make the American public privy to ideas and documents that it would not ordinarily EVER see.  Such occurrences, if timed right, may challenge complacency.  If I was an optimist, I would say maybe this incident will do for American diplomacy what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did for the meatpacking industry.
          Unfortunately, I'm not an optimist.  Much of the worries about a catastrophic event as the direct result of the leaked cables and other documents found on Wikileaks and its fellow websites were sensationalized by the media.  What will (undoubtedly) happen is a quiet cleanup on the part of our government, the (at least partial) demolition of the website, and the quiet return to pre-Wikileaks normal American life.  It is already beginning.  While still evading the authorities, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks will not be free for long.  Sites like Amazon and Paypal which tentatively endorsed Wikileaks have slunk meekly back to their corporate empires, tail between their legs.  And the website itself...well, when I attempted to access it today, it said domain not found.  Thus life returns to equilibrium.
          HOWEVER, there is a rumor--spread by various media sources--that Wikileaks may return triumphant, just in time to perform a huge document dump of top secret information from within Wall Street.  Such an exposé of the banking industry would be timely indeed.

California Prison Reform Claims the National Stage

SO MANY INMATES

         The issue of prison overcrowding, which was an (admittedly small and generally sidestepped) issue of debate between gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and governor-elect Jerry Brown has now been thrust into the national public consciousness thanks to a pair of twin cases that have arrived on the doorstep of the Supreme Court. Both cases, Schwarzenegger v. Plata and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger have to do with the squalid conditions (such as lack of healthcare and adequate sanitation) that plague the California prison system, which is choked to the brim with inmates.  The prisons themselves, which are designed to hold 110,000 inmates at maximum capacity currently hold 147,000 prisoners.
         The lawyers that have been engaged in building their respective cases have primarily cited the Eighth Amendment in their quest to prove the current prison situation in our Great State to be unconstitutional.  Personally, I agree, as the conditions described in various articles I have read are beyond inhumane--some prisons keep their inmates in conditions that would barely befit livestock.  Something obviously needs to be done.
          Although no definitive decision has yet been rendered, the judges on the highest bench are currently divided on rather partisan lines, with one judge wavering in the middle.  The more liberal judges are arguing in favor of a reduction in the numbers of inmates in order to remedy some of the buildup which has lead to the horrible conditions, while the more conservative side is focusing on the problems presented with the release of some 30,000 inmates into the world at large; it should be noted that it has been suggested that the nonviolent criminals in the prison system be shuffled down to the jails.  Personally, I believe that a way to alleviate at least a very small portion of the pressure and overcrowding in the prisons is to eliminate the Three Strikes Law, which has put too many people permanently behind bars.  Whatever the decision, it will be interesting to see how these cases play out, as the issue is all too close to home.

Health Care Bill Pronounced Unwell By Virginia Judge

Guess what, little girl? I voted down the Public Option.

          Yes, I realize the headings of my blog posts are starting to read like newspaper headlines and yes, this is intentional. I digress.  Within the last week Justice Hudson of a Circuit Court in Virginia deemed certain provisions of the "ObamaCare" Health Reform Bill unconstitutional, calling its legitimacy into question and initiating a judicial process that will in all probability bring the disputed Law before the Supreme Court within the next two years.
         Perhaps there are legitimate discrepancies between the Health Care Law and the Constitution, such as its interpretation of the national government's role in Interstate Commerce--this was Justice Hudson's ruling--but I am inclined to doubt that the sudden calling into question of the law is purely for the purpose of upholding the Constitution. Are there political motives involved in the various cases that have been brought before Circuit Courts throughout the country? You betcha. In the wake of the Midterms of 2010 which produced a overwhelming Conservative victory in Congress, there has been much talk of repealing the law by newly-elected republicans.  If the law was brought before the Supreme Court, it would erase the necessity for policy-makers in Washington to propose a repeal of the law and wade through all of the inherent complex political processes.  Knowing this, Republican Congressmen such as John Boener have been quick to express their support to the rendering of the decision.
         Unfortunately for supporters of the law, the way in which the original bill was written eschewed contingencies such as a Severability Clause, which would mean that parts of the law, if proved illegitimate, could be throne out without destroying the integrity of the law as a totality.  This means that if part of the law is called into question, the entire law (or at least most of it--some provisions such as insurance regulations would presumably be unaffected) could be thrown out.  As a supporter of the law, I really don't want this to happen.

2012: The Latest Conspiracy Theory

No brains, no headaches

          Earlier this week, Sarah Palin, everyone's favorite folksy, air-headed ex-governor told talk show host Barbara Walters that she thought she had a decent chance of beating Barack Obama in the election of 2012, essentially announcing her candidacy.  While liberals like myself have been liable to discount members of the Right fringe such as Sarah Palin and her protégés, I think the time for complacency is past--this, I believe was proved by the recent Midterm Elections, in which Democrats and more centrist Republicans alike took a decent whopping from that pesky Tea Party, foe of moderates everywhere and the darling of a pissed-off electorate.
          The sad thing is, if Obama (read: his congress) does not manage to make substantial economic gains within the next two years, voters everywhere will continue to hate him, and there will be a very good chance that America will be "rewarded" with not only its first female president, but its first reality television star as well.  This possible picture of American life is a pretty accurate representation of the pervasiveness of "celebrity politics" in our society.  A recent edition of Newsweek featured a lengthy article listing the "most powerful people in America."  It was telling that the top five on the list were all media personalities and that four of those five were staunch Rightist Conservatives. Barack Obama, meanwhile, landed in twentieth place.  While this list (and Newsweek in general, for that matter) is certainly not the be-all-end-all of journalism, it is a relatively accurate barometer for the faith that We the People put in the so-called "experts"--the media personalities--who may in fact have no expertise on a given issue.
          Despite this gap in actual credibility, the partisan rants that come out of the mouths of the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and yes, Keith Olbermann are exactly what the public wants to here.  Given the current state of public opinion, I would hardly be surprised if Beck were to announce his candidacy within the next six months or so, as he has emerged as a seeming beacon to fringe Conservatives, so much so that he has made his extremist form of Conservativism mainstream.
          However, public opinion is fickle.  Maybe, just maybe, two years down the road, the aims of Tea-Party-esque candidates will have lost their luster.  Until then, I'm more liable to believe there's a grain of truth in that completely-out-of-context legend of the End Of The World, as "predicted" by the Mayan Calendar (and lapped up by conspiracy theorists).  At the risk of sounding absolutely silly (and I say this with more humor than seriousness), I must say that anything is possible with that woman's hand on the proverbial Button.

One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State

Lower than average voter turnout rate? Seriously?

         Well, I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious: the Democrats took a good thwacking in midterms--Republicans gained control of the house (the current total being 239 R seats to 187 D seats with 9 undecided) and edged into a larger minority in the senate (now 53 D seats to 46 R seats with one undecided).  This was an overwhelmingly national trend, with Republicans making substantial gains in traditionally Blue areas of the map.  Everywhere, of course, except California, which, strange as usual, decided to utterly buck the national trend and vote in a Democratic Senator, Governor, and NOT replace any House Democrats with Republicans.  I guess everyone must have gotten sick of Meg Whitman.
          I digress.  Not long after the majority of the elections had been officially called, the former House Minority leader and Heir Apparent for Speaker of the House, John Boener delivered a speech that essentially said "the people have spoken, and we have received the national mandate," et cetera.  Midterms are, by nature I suppose, opportunities to vent frustration and anger on the the party of the president/the party in control Congress.  This was no exception.  Whether or not the Republicans and their more radical Tea Party Brethren (who, admittedly did not do quite as well as they had hoped), actually received a national mandate is unclear--less than half of those registered to vote exercised their right to do so on Tuesday, and many of those that didn't were liberals and moderates--but what is clear is Obama is going to have to adapt his strategy to incorporate combatting gridlock within congress in order to maintain a successful presidency.  If he doesn't, I fear for him in 2012; regardless of how little control a president has over certain aspects of the legislative branch he will be blamed for legislative mistakes and lack of cooperation.  Such is politics.
          However, it's not all bad for those of us that are democrats, right? Gridlock isn't all bad, right? Besides--a friend of mine said it best: "now that midterms are over, we can start campaigning for 2012." There's always something to look forward to.  And this time, this time I'll be voting.