publius

More On Today’s Executive Orders

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by hilzoy Now that I've actually read Obama's Executive Orders on detention (1, 2, 3, 4; the 4th is a pdf), I wanted to highlight a few more points. First: "The individuals currently detained at Guantánamo have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus." This was expected, but it's immensely important nonetheless. It's … Read more

Executive Orders

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by hilzoy TPM Muckraker: "President Obama moments ago signed an executive order closing the Guantanamo detention facility within a year. The move makes good on a key Obama campaign promise. Obama also signed two other orders, reviewing military trials of terror suspects, and banning the harshest interrogation methods. After signing, Obama said: "The message we … Read more

Sweet Blissful Ignorance

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by publius It's been difficult to capture in words the swirl of thoughts and emotions I've experienced over the last few days.  There's a fine line between recognizing the magnitude of the moment and being intolerably cheesy.  (Though I've really enjoyed Josh Marshall's readers' takes — especially this one). And while I've had moments of … Read more

Hopeful Signs

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: "In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration. The instruction came in a motion filed … Read more

It’s Over

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by hilzoy I've been trying to figure out what to say about the inauguration, with no success at all. I will only say: it feels like waking up from a horrible dream. — I have travelled outside the US a lot. All my life, when people have criticized the US, I have tried to stick … Read more

Good Morning, Good Morning

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by publius Something felt different today when I woke up.  The alarm on my phone had magically changed to the Hallelujah chorus.  Birds — happy cartoon birds like in Cinderella — came to my window chirping and maken melodye.  Children were laughing and playing on the streets.  A big cartoon sun was dancing up the … Read more

Race Since The 80s

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by hilzoy


Matt Cooper has a really interesting post at TPMDC, on the difficulty of explaining to people who weren't around (or old enough) at the time just how different, and more troubled, race relations were like in the 80s and early 90s. He asks: "Why is America's racial atmosphere less poisonous than it was then?" And he offers a few answers: the drop in black crime and teen pregnancy, the disappearance of issues like school busing,the mainstreaming of hip-hop, Bill Clinton's ease with African-Americans and Bush's cabinet picks. Josh Marshall adds: "American mass culture found a more useful scary other: Arabs and Muslims. That's a key thing that isn't pretty but I think is also true." 

Since I seem to be around the same age as Cooper, I thought I'd offer a few more possibilities, which I've put below the fold.

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No More Pardons?

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by hilzoy From the NYT: "President Bush on Monday commuted the sentences of two former Border Patrol agents imprisoned for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler, but he was preparing to leave office without granting clemency to any better-known figures or government officials who could face liability over administration policies. (…) A senior White House official said that … Read more

America’s Beinart Problem

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by publius A childhood friend of mine had a brilliant strategy to avoid losing basketball games.  Actually, he always lost them, so it was more like a brilliant strategy to convince himself that he didn’t lose.  After we’d score the last points, he’d immediately grab the ball and say “if I hit this, I win.”  … Read more

A Victory That Needs Protecting

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by publius Good news on the net neutrality front.  The House stimulus bill released this week contains $6 billion for broadband deployment.  Even better, the current bill imposes pro-neutrality conditions – essentially, any provider who receives money must operate “open” networks.  To put it mildly, this is a sea change from four years ago.  And … Read more

A Stimulus Question

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by publius Help me out here economists.  There's always been an incentive among conservatives and pro-monetary policy advocates to argue that the New Deal (as fiscal stimulus) wasn't very effective.  The modern policy implication, of course, is that we shouldn't be doing fiscal stimulus. The most common variation of this historical argument is the one … Read more

A “Disappointment”

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by publius In reading over Bush’s press conference transcript, I was almost starting to feel some sympathy for him.  Until I got to this part, which responded to a request to identify his mistakes: There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib, obviously, was a huge disappointment, during the presidency. A “disappointment.”  That’s the type of language … Read more

Joe the Plumber in Israel

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by publius There doesn't seem to be an embed option, but it's worth your time to watch this 2 minute dispatch from Joe the Plumber, reporter, taunting the press reporting live from Israel. Best line – "Oh…Reuters."

Lovely

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by publius The state of domestic Israeli politics continues on its hyper-nationalist descent into madness: The Central Elections Committee on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country's Supreme Court. The ruling, made … Read more

Pick That Template

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by publius In case you haven't noticed, we've been having some trouble with Typepad lately. No one likes the paginated comments, and there are clearly a lot of bugs in the new editor. Anyway, we've decided that it's time to move to WordPress. It's not 100% official, but it's close. This is where you come … Read more

Moral Clarity

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by publius Charles Krauthammer: Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating. Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Today’s Post: The International Committee … Read more

How To Approach Delicate Snowflakes in the Senate

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by publius In light of the continuing and incomprehensible whining and preening by people like Feinstein and Rockefeller (who are both apparently 5 years old), I think Obama needs to change some procedures when nominating his cabinet. Given that the snowflakes in the Senate are quite delicate, he needs to go personally to each Senator’s … Read more

The Great Distractor

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by publius There are of course many reasons to be upset with the Burris appointment. But I’m actually most angry at Burris — and I hope he never gets a seat. It’s one thing to accept an appointment and fight for it — Senate seats ain’t easy to come by. But it’s quite another to … Read more

“The Facebook”

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by publius Don’t know about you, but I’m really enjoying the RNC chair race. Here’s the current chair Mike Duncan on the need to embrace technology: “We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today,” Duncan ventured. With the combination of the Google and … Read more

The Retro Left

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by publius For years, I’ve prided myself on being a good Clinton/Blair-style liberal. Like them, I’ve generally considered myself socially liberal, pro-market, and skeptical of the traditional “Left,” which had viewed the world through class-colored lenses. In recent years, though, I’ve been slowly but steadily drifting Leftward, and the pace has quickened of late. To … Read more

Through the Iron Cage

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by publius

I haven’t waded in too deeply into Gaza – largely because I’ve been holiday traveling. I did, though, happen to be reading Rashid Khalidi’s most excellent The Iron Cage, which provides some interesting longer-term perspective on the ongoing tragedy. Below, then, are just a few scattered thoughts on the book that are hopefully relevant to recent events. (Khalidi is the moderate and well-respected scholar that McCain shamelessly attacked in the closing days of the election).

To begin, what really becomes clear in reading The Iron Cage is how profoundly ignorant Americans (including me) are about the region and its history. And the ignorance exists on many different levels.

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Public Service Announcement

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by publius Just a quick note to point some changes to the sidebar on the left. First, we’ve created a Twitterfeed. If you use Twitter, just start following “ObWi” and you’ll get a tweet when a new post is up. Second, we now have a functional search bar for this site. I’m also pleased to … Read more

Pardons – Mend ‘Em, Don’t End ‘Em

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by publius I’m not a huge fan of the presidential pardon power. If I had my druthers, we’d amend the Constitution and get rid of it entirely (Eric — echoing warnings from the Anti-Federalists — provides a few examples of how the process can be abused).** But there are of course legitimate reasons to keep … Read more

New EFCA Site

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by publius One more public service announcement before Santa departs — the AFL-CIO just launched a new EFCA website for those interested. It has lots of good resources for people seeking either to get more involved or simply to get better educated. Here, for instance, is a video I found on the site featuring a … Read more

Computer Gods Are We

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by publius Only about, oh, years too late — the technical wizards at ObWi are pleased to announced the “sharethis” widget at the bottom of our posts. 99% of you probably know this, but (as I keep trying to explain to Vint Cerf) the widget allows you to email the link to others or share … Read more

The Road to Copyright Reform

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by publius I’m almost finished with Remix — and like all Lessig books, it’s very good. One interesting part is that his rhetoric has subtly changed to attract more Republicans. That’s not a bad idea, but I think it’s ultimately a futile effort. Lessig was apparently influenced by a reviewer of his earlier book Free … Read more

A Special Note Re: Senator Shelby

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by The Management*

Most readers know that the views expressed by Publius are his own and don’t always reflect the views of the institutional blog. Such is the case with regard to Matt’s Publius’s comments about Senator Shelby and the bailout. Shelby is a fine principled man, and he just paid all of us (except for Publius) $100. Therefore, we have a great deal of respect for his critical thinking and excellent, totally principled work product. Therefore, we are intruding and actually posting on this blog to let you know that we think Shelby is awesome. Senator — we emailed you our mailing address.

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Detroit and the Battle for Norms

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by publius So I’ve been reading Lessig’s new book Remix, which provides further examples of how idiotic our copyright policy is. I’ll write more later, but one of Lessig’s main goals is “norms” reform. That is, he wants to change what people conceive of as normal and accepted. For instance, it would be perceived as … Read more

Epstein’s EFCA Hackery

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by publius

Richard Epstein takes to the op-ed pages of the WSJ to argue that the EFCA is – wait for it – unconstitutional. Make no mistake – this is a highly misleading op-ed made in bad faith. If Epstein is right, then 80 years of post-New Deal precedent is wrong. In short, it’s an extremely radical position – though one Epstein has been unsuccessfully peddling for decades. Details below.

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The Warren Wedge

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by publius

Since my spectrum post didn’t get many comments, you’ve forced me to talk about Rick Warren. And while I’m not exactly a fan of this guy, I don’t think inviting him to give the invocation is a big deal. Ready to comment now? I thought so.

On one level, no one should be surprised by this move. Obama consistently reached out to evangelicals throughout the campaign. He also quite deliberately avoided hot button cultural issues that galvanize these voters. The invitation to Warren is consistent with a long pattern of outreach. That said, the mere fact that he’s reached out in the past doesn’t necessarily mean that this particular invite is a good idea.

Obviously, Prop 8 complicates things. If the wounds of Prop 8 weren’t so raw, I think the invite would be a no-brainer good idea. But as Ed Kilgore astutely observes, Prop 8 has radicalized progressives. It’s a little bit like the backlash that followed the Fugitive Slave Act. It was one thing to know that slavery existed in some faraway land. But the FSA forced people who were already free to be captured and sent back to slavery. Seeing freemen seized on the streets of Boston radicalized the North in a new kind of way (I have an old old post on this). Perhaps the analogy is strained — but I think something similar has happened with Prop 8. California reached in and destroyed existing marriages — and now, something has changed.

And I don’t mean to discount that anger at all. It’s well-deserved, and Rick Warren deserves plenty of blame. But all that said, it’s important not to let blinding anger obscure the larger long-term political benefits of Obama’s outreach. Nixon famously said you can’t ignore a billion people. That logic applies here too. More on that below.

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Why Spectrum Policy Matters

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by publius There’s a school of thought in the telecom world that the fight over wireless spectrum is overblown. At the end of the day, they argue, wires will always be better than wireless. The policy implication is that, rather than trying to build crappy muni-WiFi on the cheap, we should be digging holes and … Read more