Shorter Rod Dreher: “Only white men are qualified for the Supreme Court”

Something tells me that Rod Dreher’s assessment of Sonia Sotomayer as a mediocre “Quota Queen” has far more to do with her gender and ethnicity than it does with her court opinions or other legal work.  With “analysis” like this, conservatives shouldn’t be surprised that they have a problem with attracting women and minority voters.

Update: True to form, Ramesh Ponnuru has joined the chorus of right-wing voices attacking Sotomayor as “Obama’s Harriet Miers.”  Again, if a conservative white dude graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, edited the Yale Law Journal and sat on a federal bench for fifteen years, he would be hailed as a brilliant legal mind.  As SCOTUSBlog points out, women and minority candidates are often portrayed as being unqualified.  Indeed, the only thing that makes Sotomayer “unremarkable” is her gender and ethnicity, not her record.

Make money, spend money, dolla dolla bill y’all

Richard Smith – guest blogging at Spencer Ackerman’s place – is a little annoyed with the standard liberal line on defense spending:

Back in October Barney Frank made an argument for cutting the DoD budget by 25 percent. I thought, and still think, this is a pretty ridiculous idea.

Absolutely, the Defense budget is bloated and needs reformed. Without a doubt, there are weapons systems and defense programs that we invest in that are outdated and obsolete, and those funds could be better spent on domestic social programs. But why through out a number like 25 percent? Where did Frank get that number? Did he go line-by-line through the Defense budget to arrive at that figure? If the DoD budget could be cut 15 percent, would Barney Frank still be disappointed.

In truth, Barney Frank is one of my favorite members of Congress (and yes, I am nerdy enough to have favorite members of Congress) but this idea is totally off base. Likewise for the current attitude that same to be prevalent in the progressive community with regards to military spending.

Here is a hypothetical: what if we cut a $20 billion dollar program from the defense budget, but spent $30 billion to establish a counterinsurgency school? This would be an increase in defense spending, but it would replace obsolete programs with a program that would be beneficial to combat leaders. Would the progressive community challenge such an idea? While I won’t venture a guess on that, I would sincerely hope that we can move past the idea that the military industrial complex must be suffocated and instead, start thinking abut making smart cuts and not throwing out arbitrary numbers.

Speaking as someone who has repeatedly made the case for a smaller defense budget, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for progressives to ask for arbitrary, across the board cuts.  As far as I understand it, the chief problem with Pentagon spending is that it’s essentially limitless; the Pentagon can request virtually any sum of money and it will be delivered with little debate or opposition.  And why would there be?  Politically, increasing defense spending is win-win.  By contrast, reducing defense spending – or even reallocating it within the defense budget – is a recipe for political disaster (see: the reaction to Obama’s budget proposal).  An across-the-board cut is certainly arbitrary, but it would probably force the Pentagon to reevaluate is proliferate spending, and make necessary cuts to wasteful programs.

In any case, this is a near-useless hypothetical; I can’t even imagine a scenario where cutting military spending – much less arbitrarily – would be a politically advantageous – or even neutral – move.  In the current environment, where high military spending is a matter of course, I would be more than satisfied with Smith’s suggestion of reallocating spending to more useful ventures, like a counter-insurgency school or needed equipment (like a littoral combat ship, which if I remember correctly, is actually on the budget for the next year).

Sonia Sotomayor and the GOP’s problem with Hispanic voters

Tapped’s Tim Fernholz argues (correctly, I think) that the GOP is in a difficult position with regards to its efforts to oppose Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court:

No doubt that factor crossed the mind of the president’s political advisers, given that the share of Latino voters is one of the fastest growing in the United States. Steve Cobble and Jose Velazquez argue that they provided the decisive margin of victory for Obama in 2008, and keeping those voters energized and engaged is a key priority for the president going into 2010 and 2012, especially with the difficulty of pulling of comprehensive immigration reform, a top issue among Latino voters.

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting this is a pick made for that reason alone or even at all — Sotomayor is obviously well qualified for the position, but everything the president does has political ramifications and it’s important to understand them. In fact, the logic of the pick may preclude a difficult confirmation fight if Republicans decide this is not only a battle they can’t win, but that if they do succeed in blocking Sotomayor they will further alienate a constituency that is already indifferent to the Republican brand.

As far as I know, there hasn’t been any systematic study of Supreme Court nominations and their impact on the voting patterns of a particular demographic.  That said, I don’t think Fernholz is wrong in drawing the conclusion that he does; political scientists produced a wealth of information with regards to racial voting patterns and African-American’s overwhelming support for Democratic candidates.  What they’ve found is that for various historical reasons, blacks approach political parties with an eye on the African-American community as a whole.  Or in other words, if you think of a given voter’s preferences as a set of questions – “how does this party help me?" “how does this candidate help my family” etc.  – then for African-Americans, that question is most likely to be “how does this party/candidate help black people?”

Assuming that this is also the case for Hispanic voters, it doesn’t take much thought to imagine how Sotomayor’s nomination (and likely confirmation) could further dampen Republican efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters.  In addition to the possibility that Hispanics would feel alienated by Republican opposition, there’s the possibility that Hispanic voters could walk away from the Sotomayor confirmation with the sense that Democratic administrations have been better for advancing “Hispanic interests” (by which I mean according respect to Hispanics in the public discourse) than Republican administrations.  If that happens, and if Hispanics assessing community concerns before individual ones, then there’s a fair chance that this could further entrench Hispanic support for the Democratic Party.  Which, as I’m sure you can imagine, would leave the GOP in really terrible shape.

links for 2009-05-23

• Interfluidity :: Distinguish between transactional and revolving credit
  "In fact, while transactional credit provision is a perfectly good business, it might be reasonable for the state to offer basic transactional credit as a public good. This would be very simple to do. Every adult would be offered a Treasury Express card, which would have, say, a $1000 limit. Balances would be payable in full monthly. The only penalty for nonpayment would be denial of access of further credit, both by the government and by private creditors. (Private creditors would be expected to inquire whether a person is in arrears on their public card when making credit decisions, but would not be permitted to obtain or retain historical information. Nonpayment of public advances would not constitute default, but the exercise of an explicit forbearance option in exchange for denial of further credit.) Unpaid balances would be forgiven automatically after a period of five years. No interest would ever be charged."
• The New Republic – John Judis – Tough Times
  "If conservative Republicans (and are there any moderate Republicans left in Congress?) think that, based on the Gallup and Pew polls, they can make a big fuss about whether Obama's nominee backs Roe v. Wade, they are in for the same kind of rude awakening that they received when they wasted Congress's time agitating over the Terri Schiavo case. The fact that Americans are becoming more socially conservative during crises is to be expected. But Obama doesn't need to worry about this in choosing a Supreme Court nominee or in gauging his and the Democrats' electoral prospects."

Is a spineless Democratic Congress good for Obama?

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but it seems like one of the big assumptions liberals made coming into Obama’s presidency was that congressional Democrats had learned their lesson after being repeatedly “rolled” and marginalized by the GOP during the Bush years.  We thought – hoped really - that Democrats would take advantage of their majority and use it to pass as much liberal legislation as possible.  All of the consternation and outrage directed at Ben Nelson and Evan Byah for their, in retrospect, predictable “centrist” obstructionism flows from this assumption.  Indeed, congressional Democrats’ unwillingness to play teamball has led liberals to either push for reform (in the form of abolishing the filibuster) or fantasize about massive institutional change (in the form of abolishing the senate).  This whole  drama subsided somewhat after the stimulus fight, but now that Senate Democrats have rejected Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo, the whole shabangabang (as it were) has started back up again.

It’s worth noting though that not every liberal is frustrated by Congress’ to refusal to fly in formation.  In fact, the American Prospect’s Terence Samuel seems almost encouraged by Obama’s difficulties with congressional Democrats:

If the president’s party has a controlling congressional majority, it is incumbent on that majority to, on occasion, save the president from himself — and in the case of Bush, to save the country from his mistakes. That did not happen. So eager to take advantage of what they saw as a rare opportunity to advance their conservative agenda after Bush’s victory in 2000, congressional Republicans abdicated the traditional institutional role of acting as a check on the administration. Instead, the GOP became a spineless enabler of all things Bush. From tax cuts to war to Social Security reform — whatever the White House wanted, Republicans supported. Ultimately, it cost them at the polls in 2006 and 2008.

Samuel suggests that we should think of the current situation as an opportunity; sure, occasional push back from congressional Democrats is annoying, but it can help the Obama administration keep its nose clean and its head in the game.  Indeed, Samuel is essentially asking liberals to make a trade-off: we can either have a pliant Congress and a rapid torrent of liberal legislation – which could give us an arrogant and clumsy White House – or we can have a somewhat defiant Congress and slow pace of legislation, but a more careful and cautious Obama administration.

I’m of two minds here; while I certainly appreciate the value of an independent Congress, I also recognize that we have a small window for action, and with a Congress which isn’t so much “liberal” as it is incredibly self-serving and risk-averse, I’m inclined to think that we need to take every chance we can get to pass as much legislation as we can get.  What’s more, I’m not convinced that President Bush crashed and burned because the Republican Congress failed to hit the eject button.  The GOP’s problems have far more to do with the terrible outcome of their policies, than with the pace or extent of said policies.  If the war in Iraq were massively successful, for instance, my hunch is that the Republican Party would still be a very healthy national party.

Uncle Steele

Adam Serwer catches Michael Steele tomming it up for white folks:

When Steele has a black audience, Obama’s victory is “a testament to struggle, perseverance, and opportunity.” When Steele has a white audience, he thinks Obama is a “magic negro” who just won because of liberal white guilt.

Steele ran his campaign for RNC Chair partially on the premise that he would be able to launch race-based attacks on the President while inoculating the GOP against charges of racism because he is black. I guess part of me hoped it was a hustle, and that he wouldn’t actually go that route. I think it’s pretty clear from the above who Steele was actually hustling.

I tend to mock/ridicule Michael Steele whenever I get the opportunity, but not for his politics.  Honestly, I don’t really care about Steele’s politics, in fact, I feel kind of sorry for the guy; he’s the token black Republican with in a party which is pretty hostile to minorities, where it’s his job to help those old, mostly-prejudiced white guys win elections.  No, I dislike Michael Steele because he is completely devoid of integrity, dignity and self-respect.  He makes a mockery of black conservatism, and in my ideal world, Michael Steele would be shamed for his minstrelry.

First It Giveth

Tim F. at Balloon Juice hits on the most problematic aspect of the executive power status quo; namely, that what Obama giveth, Obama taketh away:

Obama says that he won’t let Americans torture. That’s nice. Bush said that too. Obama could, of course, change his mind without any apparent consequences. Maybe he really needs to torture just this one guy. Maybe the next President will decide that yeah, he kind of would like to torture people. Better lawyers than me can explain what will compel Jeb or Bobby Jindal to respect a law that has no criminal consequences.

As long as the president, and not Congress, is responsible for reigning in executive power, we’re going to be stuck in a status quo where torture, indefinite detention and all those other fun things depend entirely on the whim of the president in question.  To echo Tim F., if a future president decides that he must torture his way to winning a war, then as of now, there is absolutely nothing that we can do to stop him, short of overthrowing the government itself (which, sounds attractive, but really isn’t).

Update: If you get the chance, read Chris Dierkes’ post on the absolutely necessity of Congressional oversight for curbing executive power.

Last hired, first fired

I’m sure most of you recognize the post title as an unfortunately short and pithy way of describing the frustrating situation African-American workers are usually in during recessions.  The latest statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that that’s still the case:

Black Male Worker Jobless Rate Jumps To 17.2% in April

The official seasonally adjusted jobless rate for Black female workers over 20 years old also increased from 9.9% to 11.5% between March 2009 and April 2009; and the official "seasonally adjusted" jobless rate for all Black workers increased from 13.3% to 15% during this same period.

[…]

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for Black youth between 16 and 19 years old increased from 32.5% to 34.7% between March 2009 and April 2009, while the unemployment rate for Hispanic or Latino youth increased from 24.9% to 26.5% during this same period.

Historically, black workers – and especially black male workers – have had a difficult time finding employment.  A 2004 report commissioned by Northeastern University compared the employment rates of black male teens (16-19) and black male young adults (20-24) over the past fifty years.  The results were stunning.  Among black male teens, the employment rate dropped from a high of 52.3 percent in 1954 to a low of 19.9 percent in 2003, with an average rate of approximately 31.4 percent. Among black male young adults, the employment rate is higher, but there is still a significant decline over the past fifty years, from a high point of 82.8 in 1966 to a low point of 56.2 in 2003.  In both categories, as the following graphs will show, there is a huge disparity between between the employment rate for black males and the employment rate for their white counterparts.

Historical trends in the gap between the employment/population ratios of black and white 16-19 year old men in the U.S., 1954-2003:

Historical trends in the gap between the employment/population ratios of black and white 20-24 year old men in the U.S., 1954-2003:

Moreover, black teenagers were disproportionately affected by the recession of 2001 and the subsequent jobless recovery of 2002-2003.  And while the employment rate of black men increases steadily with age, it’s still the case that black males remain underemployed when compared to their white and Hispanic counterparts:

As the report notes, “what is most depressing about the low average employment rates of Black men, however, is the high fraction of such men, especially those with limited schooling living in the nation’s central cities and its small urban/rural areas, who are idle all year long.”  Although a rising fraction of 25-54 year old males in the United States are idle, that is even more pronounced among black males; the idle rate for black males aged 20-64 was 24.5 percent, a little over twice as high as the idleness rate for white and Hispanic males (11.8 percent and 12.3 percent respectively), and 10 percent higher than that for Asian males (14.6 percent).  It’s worth noting that the “idleness” rate is separate from the joblessness rate.  While the latter measures the percentage of individual who are not working in a given month, the former measures the percentage of individuals who did not work at all in a given year. In other words, almost a quarter of all black males did not work in 2003 (and that has surely increased as a result of the recession).  The picture is even more bleak when you disaggregate the results for age:

I recommend that you read the whole report; it’s a little old, yes, but contains a wealth of valuable (but extremely depressing) information.  On nearly all measures, from wages to GEDs/high school diplomas to college diplomas, black males are significantly behind their white, Hispanic and Asian counterparts.  Interestingly, the trend for black females is nearly the reverse of that for black males; over the past fifty years, the employment rate for black females – as well as the high school graduation and college attendance rate – has increased dramatically: “in the 1999-2000 school year, Black women (of all ages) obtained 188 Associate degrees and 192 Bachelor degrees for every 100 such academic degrees awarded to Black men.”

Of course, the obvious question after reading all of this is “can we do something?”  And the answer is yes, there are a myriad number of short-term and long-term, macro and microeconomic strategies the government can take to address or alleviate the problem.  The first few are obvious: bringing the country out of the recession and putting it on the road to strong, healthy job growth, as well as boosting the number of school-to-career and school-to-work transition programs (making it easier for black male teens to move into the job market).  After that, the solutions are more acute and far more politically difficult: workforce development programs targeted at older black males, federal direct job creation programs to boost short-term employment prospects, and sustained federal and state investment in improving literacy and numeracy proficiency, as well as educational attainment.  And finally, a concerted effort to reduce the number of black men in the criminal justice system, as well as an effort to reduce incidence of out-of-wedlock births, which combined with poor socio-economic opportunities, is a definite growth killer.

Depressingly, even if you pitched these as “universal” programs, they wouldn’t be an easy sell to the American people; not only are Americans notoriously allergic to welfare programs – of any sort – but as we all know, Americans tend to associate “welfare” with “black people,” and as such, any attempt to expand these programs will be met with substantial opposition.  Moreover, the fact that Democratic presidential candidates didn’t mention any of these things – even in the midst of a recession and Democratic wave – shows that it isn’t politically wise.  I wish I could end this post on a happier note, but unfortunately, I can’t.

Paid Vacation Time*

Although it sounds like a joke considering that it comes from Disneyworld’s congressman, I don’t think we should laugh at Rep. Alan Grayson’s attempt to create federally mandated paid vacation. On Thursday, Grayson (D-FL) introduced a bill which would “require companies with more 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they’ve put in a year on the job.”  This would increase to two weeks after three years on the job, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide at least one week of paid vacation.  If passed, this would be a huge step towards putting the United States in line with other rich industralized nations, which have generous fairly guarantees for paid vacation.  Even Japan – which is quite stingy by global standards – guarantees its citizens eighteen days of combined paid annual leave and paid holiday leave.  Indeed, a few years back, the Center for Economic and Policy Research released a report showing that the United States was the only rich nation which didn’t guarantee some form of paid leave.  They even made a nice comparison chart!

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to merely give Americans paid vacation time.  Of those with vacation time – paid or otherwise – more than half fail to take all of their vacation times, thirty percent use less than their allotted time, and twenty percent only take a few days at most.  And when you consider that there are substantial productivity benefits to taking regular vacations, it’s probably in our best interest to devise ways of ensuring that Americans actually use their allotted vacation time.  Here too we can look to Europe for ideas; Denmark, Ireland, and Switzerland require leave to be taken by the end of the year in which it’s granted, and other nations offer various tax incentives/breaks for using their leave.

Americans pride themselves on living in a wealthy society and it’s true; we live in one of the wealthiest societies in human history.  And while I don’t expect – and wouldn’t want – Americans to abandon our long Puritan commitment to work and productivity, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ensure that Americans use their wealth to enjoy live, and not just live it.

*It’s an unoriginal title, yes, but in my defense, it’s taken from an old At the Drive-In song.

America’s little Pinochet

Zachary Roth picks up on a particularly disturbing segment in Dick Cheney’s speech this afternoon:

And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

Frankly, Cheney’s speech wouldn’t sound out of place in the mouth of a petty tyrant; to Cheney, argument and debate – the core elements of our democracy – are at best an indulgence, and more likely a dangerous liability, that we must abandon in the war against “terror.”  I’ve said this to friends and it’s worth saying here: Cheney is so singularly obsessed with security, that he is only one step removed from a Pinochet or a Viola or a Galtieri