• The new Senate HELP Committee heath care reform bill has been scored by the CBO and when the employer mandate is included, the cost drops to $597 billion over ten years, extending coverage to an addition 21 million people. This, however, does not take into account Medicaid expansion -- the Senate Finance Committee's jurisdiction -- the savings of which cover an additional 20 million people, or about 97 percent of the population by 2019 at a total price tag of $1 to $1.3 trillion. Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn have more on this.
• I think we can all agree that sex scandals are more or less a bipartisan, er, affair. That being said, Politico does a little research and discovers that class of 1994 Republicans have been hit especially hard: "In the 14 years since that star-crossed class arrived in Washington espousing an agenda that placed family values at its core, no less than a dozen of its members have been caught up in affairs, sex scandals or in messy separations and divorces from their spouses that, in more than a few instances, led to their political downfalls."
• Fresh off of rooting for al-Qaeda to slaughter more Americans, former CIA operative Michael Scheuer is back, telling Alan Colmes that he doesn't think Barack Obama can or wants to protect the country. I've always found this particular tactic of claiming X has no interest in the national security of the United States to be especially disgusting. Even when liberals were arguing that Bush's policies were making the country less safe, no one was seriously arguing that Bush had no interest in protecting the country. Bush thought he was doing the right thing, but lacked the judgment to realize he wasn't. Scheuer's accusations are not of incompetence but of pure malevolence.
• Even more strange than Republican actors-turned-politicians criticizing Al Franken for being an actor-turned-politician is why they're making this argument now. It didn't work during the election. It didn't bear on the recount and court challenges. It's not going to change the fact that Franken's going to be sworn in on Tuesday. Oh, and there's the fact that he's probably wonkier than most members of the Senate in the first place. Oh, what has Minnesota wrought upon the world's greatest deliberative body?
• Remainders: The White House staff salary list; the administration embraces net neutrality in a roundabout way; Mitt Romney's foreign policy, reduced to a PowerPoint slide; and "Smokey Joe" Barton sprints ahead to the House GOP's race to the bottom of the stupidity barrel.

--Mori Dinauer

According to The New York Times, the Vatican is currently conducting two broad investigations of American nuns working within society. While the Catholic Church has not officially provided specific reasons, the rationale behind the inquiries seems to be that sisters in the U.S. are a little too modern, a little too independent, and -- just perhaps -- a little too feminist:

In the last four decades since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, many American nuns stopped wearing religious habits, left convents to live independently and went into new lines of work: academia and other professions, social and political advocacy and grass-roots organizations that serve the poor or promote spirituality. A few nuns have also been active in organizations that advocate changes in the church like ordaining women and married men as priests.

American nuns might also be a bit open-minded for the Vatican's tastes, suggests one of the Church leaders behind the inquiries:

Cardinal Levada sent a letter to the Leadership Conference [of Women Religious] saying an investigation was warranted because it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to “promote” the church’s teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.

Now, canonical visitations are very serious things. They're provoked by accusations of grave misconduct. Like sexual abuse, financial malfeasance … and heresy. By investigating the sisterhoods that seem not to perpetuate the traditional view of submissive holy women, the Vatican is sending a message that gender equality has no place in Catholicism and is even contrary to accepted belief.

It's not exactly shocking that one of the more patriarchal institutions in human history is acting in a sexist fashion. But, as someone who was raised Catholic, that doesn't make it any less disappointing to be reminded that one can't both fully love God and be an independent woman within the Church. My great aunt was a Carmelite sister, who gave up a career in New York to enter a convent well before Vatican II. I was always impressed by her decision -- she felt it was her calling, and she was willing to sacrifice a life that, by all accounts, she loved for it. I wonder, though, if she might have served God somewhat differently if the Church had allowed her to.

--Alexandra Gutierrez

Like most liberals with a sense of history, I'm naturally sympathetic to arguments that the United States should be doing everything it can to support anti-authoritarianism around the world -- it's very easy to think of the Lincoln Brigades, World War II, etc. and wish that our country would do more to stand up for its principles abroad, especially while haunted by recent failures of this impulse in Rwanda and Darfur. But the damage the last administration did to U.S. credibility and the scarring experience of the Iraq War, which took many a well-intentioned liberal into neoconservative territory before whipsawing them back to chagrined reality, demand that we consider whether our ideas would be productive or counter-productive in practice. That's why, reading this piece in the New Republic, I have to ask: what exactly is Nader Mousavizadeh advocating Obama do? Here's a relevant except (emphasis mine):

A prisoner of conventional thinking on Iran, the most popular American president in a generation was effectively rolled by a cartel of aging, unelected theocrats into believing that a strong statement of support for democracy could be manipulated into an imperialist intervention. ... Alas, this was a loss of nerve with likely dire consequences.

First, a movement for greater pluralism and the rule of law that was manifestly to the advantage of the United States has been silenced. Second, an emboldened hardline leadership will likely present even greater conditions for meeting with the United States and, at those negotiations, prove more reluctant still to seek common ground. Were this a matter simply for Iran, or for U.S.-Iranian relations, it would be bad enough. But there is a third, more ominous threat looming on the horizon--an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear installations.

There is no serious alternative to an adversarial engagement with Iran that includes all key bilateral issues, beginning with areas of common interest and ending with the nuclear question. But, by allowing the regime to dictate the lessons of 1953, and honoring too little and too late the people's movement of June 2009, the president has made an exceedingly difficult task all the harder for himself. An outstretched hand needs to be directed by a head held high -- confident in its own principles and values, responsive to the aspirations of the Iranian people, and signaling to the regime that two can play the game of tough-minded diplomacy.

For one, I'd argue that Obama did offer strong support for universal democratic norms, and it has been used by the Iranian regime to cast blame for civil unrest outside the country. Mousavizadeh believes that Obama's statements came too late to help. But what would have changed had Obama spoken earlier or more harshly? What more could he have done, short of direct action? If you want to be morally serious about an argument that the U.S. did not do enough, you must make clear what ought to have been done and how that would have changed the facts on the ground. An earlier or stronger statement from Obama would not have protected demonstrators from Khamenei's thugs or prevented a movement from being silenced. If there is an argument that his words would have changed facts on the ground, it isn't in this piece.

On the other hand, the idea that "just words" wouldn't have helped protesters could be construed as an argument against engagement -- if the Iranian regime won't hear the international community out on this issue, why should they be receptive to discussions about their nuclear program? But there's a difference between adopting a position and engaging in negotiations. Any international bargain with the Iranian government would be just that -- a deal, with policy changes and compromise. There was no deal Obama, or anyone in the international community, could offer a regime in existential peril to prevent it from crushing domestic opposition. That's why casting aside the policy of regime change is the only way to engage with whatever government eventually comes to power in Iran -- Khamenei and his ilk will not stop their nuclear program if they believe our goal is topple them. Perhaps sanctions are the answer to both questions, but those sanctions depend on the cooperation of the European community, China and Russia to be effective -- it's likely that the EC would cooperate now, but would Russia, where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed after the election?

That's why it's gratifying that Mousavizadeh recognizes that "there is no serious alternative to an adversarial engagement with Iran" and that the threat of an Israeli strike on that country's nuclear program is indeed an ominous one that would likely lead to broader destabilization across the region. The demonstrations in the aftermath of the Iranian experiment were inspiring and worthy of support, but -- sadly -- there was little more the United States government could conceivably do. I'm with Michael Walzer: Only civil society can engage with the Iranian opposition in a productive manner.

Further Reading: Iran Strategy After the Election.

-- Tim Fernholz

Kurtz:

Whether racial and gender identification produces a gauzier, more favorable portrayal of Obama is perhaps too early to judge. After all, no one raises questions when an Irish American male reporter covers a pol named Murphy. And with her carefully crafted focus on her children, affordable fashion and such reduced-fat apple pie issues as healthy eating, Obama has done little to warrant sharp criticism.

And yet, Kurtz still pens an entire piece for the Washington Post asking:

Well, yes, Obama is a black woman from the South Side of Chicago. It would be impossible for anyone to cover her without giving prominence to that fact. But are the beat reporters inadvertently invested in her success?

Look, the issue of reporters empathizing with their subjects is one that goes far beyond race--politicians who have failed to earn the empathy of their press corps (see Gore, Al) have done far worse than politicians who have (see Bush, George W.) so this shouldn't be a racial issue. It's entirely possible that a white male reporter would run into the same issue with Michelle Obama. More importantly, you would never ever see a media critic like Kurtz questioning the ability of white men to cover other white men objectively, or for that matter the ability of white men to cover women or people of color, despite the fact that if newsroom coverage were to be affected, it would be by the prevailing cultural biases of the better represented population in the newsroom. I'm wondering when the Post Ombudsman will be addressing the issue of whether Howard Kurtz empathizes too greatly with the white reporters he covers because he is a white reporter.

Meanwhile, it seems like Kurtz attentions would be better focused on the 25 gs the WaPo is charging for access to Obama adminstration officials, and what kind of "investment" that represents.

UPDATE: The "Salons" have been cancelled.

-- A. Serwer

Daphne Eviatar has been doing some great work on the debate over preventive detention that is currently unfolding across the center and the left (there's little apprehension about such a scheme on the right), and she clarifies an important point about preventive detention here:

Congress, in passing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) in 2001, allowed the president to wage war “against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States” — namely, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, when they ran Afghanistan. But since no one walks around wearing al-Qaeda or Taliban uniforms, who’s actually a member and therefore detainable remains a major point of contention.

Similarly, the laws of war allow for the detention of a combatant captured on the battlefield until the conflict is over. But whether the battlefield is the specific zone where U.S. forces are stationed in Afghanistan or Iraq, or an area as broad as anywhere in the world that terrorists who hate the United States may be found, is hotly debated. Many of the lawyers I cite in my piece today, such as Martin, Gude and the eleven lawyers who signed the letter to President Obama imploring him not to authorize some new form of preventive detention, argue for the geographically more limited definition of detention.

I want to stress this point--no one, not even the ACLU, is arguing that the military doesn't have the authority to detain combatants captured in an active combat zone for the duration of hostilities. The battle is over whether or not the "combat zone" or battlefield is in fact the entire planet, something that, as Eviatar notes, many liberals object to as problematic and unconstitutional.

At the same time, our complete departure from a law-and-order approach to terrorism during the Bush administration meant that we weren't building cases against terrorist detainees that could hold up in criminal court, which is part of the reason (other than, you know, torture) why the Obama administration has been left with the so-called "fifth category" of detainees who "can't" be tried or released.

For that reason, Ken Gude explained to me yesterday in an email, he might be able to support some limited form of "preventive detention" that applies only to those detainees who were captured previously, rather than an entire new legal structure that would ensure the practice of preventive detention going forward.

"[I]f the policy draws a circle around a dozen or so Guantanamo detainees in continued military detention but expressly bars military detention for future non-zone of combat captures, its not perfect, but its close enough for me to support it," Gude said. "Importantly, there would be no permanent statutory preventive detention regime and no national security courts, both complete disasters and far worse than this alternative."

A secondary question to this whole debate then, is whether or not preventive detention is something the administration would be authorizing for future captures or simply the problematic cases we already have.

-- A. Serwer

The Obama administration doesn't want Democrats to primary newbie New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand from the left. But Manhattan Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is doing so anyway. She'll have a huge deficit in fundraising. But today City Hall News reports that Bill Clinton has agreed to appear at a July 20 fundraiser for Maloney, alongside Charlie Rangel and Geraldine Ferraro.

Maloney is also up for reelection to her House seat, so these appearances don't necessarily constitute Senate endorsements. Still, considering all the media interest in the Senate seat, there's no doubt that any politician or donor appearing with Maloney has considered the implications.

One caveat: If Maloney wants to be taken seriously by New York progressives, she may want to steer clear of Ferraro, who enraged many during the Democratic presidential primary by suggesting that Barack Obama was only gaining traction because he was black. Then, when the Obama campaign criticized her comments, she called them racist. Yeah. It was crazy.

Update: A Clinton aide says the appearance is not an endorsement and that the former president believes Gillibrand is doing "a good job."

--Dana Goldstein

Photo of Carolyn Maloney via Flickr user TalkRadioNews.

Gershom Gorenberg on the future of the two-state strategy in Israel-Palestine:

Let's face it: When Barack Obama said in Cairo that "the only resolution" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two separate states, he was courageously insisting -- well, on what's become conventional wisdom.

But not the unanimous wisdom. The hardliners on each side aren't alone in questioning the two-state idea. On the street in Jerusalem, I've run into old friends, veterans of Israeli peace and human-rights activism who say we've passed the tipping point: There are too many settlements; Israeli withdrawal is impossible; negotiations on two states have repeatedly failed; the only solution is a single, shared Jewish-Palestinian state.

So is he pursuing an obsolete strategy? Actually, no. This time the conventional wisdom is correct.

KEEP READING ...

Simon Johnson is a smart critic of the administration, and no one questions his powers of economic analysis. But a disturbing trend in his recent writing has been making assumptions where he doesn't have the facts. He'll often accuse the administration of not presenting their understanding of how the financial crisis happened, for instance, when that's not true -- they just present a version he disagrees with. He's said that bankers wrote the financial regulation plan, when the evidence is that they didn't. Today, he writes this:

We know that Treasury consulted extensively with the financial sector on all its regulatory reform ideas, and indications are that the chief executives of major banks prevailed in most of their requests. Yet the administration was already in a position to submit a major consumer protection plan to Congress this week. Where did this come from? It must have emerged largely unscathed from interagency debate primarily because of the agenda-setting power of the National Economic Council.

Emphasis mine. But "it must" is not how we do analysis in the real world -- assuming always makes a something out of someone. In fact, though Secretary Geithner had been lukewarm about the proposal, Treasury officials like Assistant Secretary Michael Barr and Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Stein (late of the Center for Responsible Lending), along with Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, have been involved in this process and support the provision. Treasury sources I've spoken to have made clear that the Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- the best and most progressive part of the administration's mixed-bag proposal -- is a key priority. When I pressed one official on the failure of bankruptcy loan modification due to financial sector lobbyists, he told me that Treasury "has not yet begun to fight." That's both true -- about the not fighting -- and promising in that these officials realize they will have to fight for the CFPA. There's a reason, for instance, that the administration released legislative language for the CFPA before any other part of the plan.

While Johnson is pretty accurate in identifying Larry Summers' move to the left, his analysis that there is a "split" in the administration that could benefit progressives during legislative battles isn't spot on: once the proposal comes out, the administration will present a very unified front, with the possible exception of the independent -- by statute and personality -- FDIC Chair, Sheila Bair. The administration's solidarity is good for the CFPA, but it's also bad for things like derivatives regulation, further regulatory consolidation and corporate governance issues where the party line leaves a lot to be desired.

It's one thing to criticize Treasury for actual bad policy decisions -- like underselling TARP warrants. It's a whole different thing to criticize Treasury for what they haven't done even as they are promoting something progressives should favor. It's a shame because Johnson's critiques are really important and have proven to be quite prescient. But when he starts making bad assumptions, it kills his credibility.

-- Tim Fernholz

Photo via Flickr user Misternaxal.

When it comes to Mark and Jenny Sanford the answer seems to be: not a whole lot. I agree with Josh Marshall, who wrote to the embattled South Carolina governor: "Just go be with her," referring to Sanford's Argentine lover. Yes! Though I hope that first, he repairs his relationship with his kids through lots of one-on-one, father-son time.

Mark Sanford told the AP his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur was "a great love affair." On his way to visit her in Buenos Aires, he thought to himself, "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate." Sure, he's claiming he wants to serve out his gubernatorial term. But his weepy, tell-all interviews are sending quite another message: that he's still passionately in love with Belen Chapur and perhaps just one step away from riding off into the sunset. Sanford even said he didn't regret the affair, though it has quashed his presidential hopes.

Meanwhile, back home, Jenny Sanford, a former Wall Street executive who ably managed her husband's campaigns, said, "His career is no concern of mine." In her written statement, she said she kicked Mark out of the house because if she hadn't done so, she no longer would have been able to look her sons in the eye with her "dignity" in tact.

In other words, it seems clear this couple doesn't want to be together. After his recent affair and a string of other, less serious dalliances, Mark Sanford says he is "trying" to "fall back in love" with his wife. Ouch. Quoting the Bible and talking about forgiveness, it seems clear both the Sanfords, for the sake of their once-shared political ambitions, are trying to craft a salvation narrative that will appeal to their Christian conservative base, in which the governor comes to terms with his sins and and is reborn as a faithful, God-fearing family man. But it also seems clear that a continued Sanford marriage will look, to most of the world, like a total sham. I wouldn't want to be one of their four sons, living in a house with these two after all this has gone down. In fact, so much damage has already been done to those kids that divorce might come as a relief to them. After all, kids often know, better than anyone else, when there's something hopelessly wrong in their parents' marriage.

I hope this entire family is able to move on. Separation and divorce might be part of that. But so far, that possible outcome seems almost taboo to talk about.

--Dana Goldstein

Christopher Sopher sits down with the leaders of the new initiative to create national education standards:

The National Governors Association first declared its support for national education standards in 1989, with then-President George H.W. Bush’s blessing. Yet despite efforts during both the Bush and Clinton years, no common standards system ever emerged.

Now that could change. On June 1, 46 states, 3 territories, and the standardized-testing industry announced an initiative aimed at changing that. The stakeholders have promised to work together to create national curriculum standards -- but crucially, have not agreed on how to actually implement them in each state. The Prospect talked with Scott Montgomery, deputy executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Dane Linn, director of education for the National Governors’ Association Center for Best Practices, whose organizations are leading the coalition, about how this initiative is different that past national standards efforts and what challenges lie ahead.

KEEP READING ...

Dana Goldstein on the challenges of creating national education standards:

A year ago, the idea of setting national education standards was a lot like the idea of legalizing marijuana: Despite all common sense, it just wasn't going to happen. Yet on June 1, the National Governors' Association announced that 49 states and territories have signed on to an agreement, called the Common Core Standards Initiative, to develop national standards in math and English. For education reformers across the political spectrum who have long urged that the United States join its developed world peers in articulating national standards, the news is a major victory.

At this point, however, the initiative is vague, and its outcome uncertain.

KEEP READING ...

It's the only indicator that matters, really, and it just got much worse. 467,000 people lost their jobs in May, much higher than the 365,000 economists expected. In April, "only" 322,000 people lost jobs, suggesting to some that the rate of job loss was slowing. But the dismal new numbers reflect an increasing sense that more has to be done to mitigate the effects of this recession, and to that end it's worth reading John Judis' concise argument in favor of a third stimulus (he says second, but he forgets the Bush stimulus in spring '08).

Keep in mind that when we say 9.5 percent, we're talking about people who have lost their job and are looking for a new one. But when you factor in people who "currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past" "plus total employed part time for economic reasons," and you get a rate of 16.5 percent unemployment -- nearly one in five potential workers has lost significant wages and work in the current economic environment. That's the true cost of this recession, and a stark political warning to Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

The only silver lining the administration officials can present is the fact that we still haven't seen a majority of stimulus outlays -- the actual spending of the money authorized in February to fight unemployment. The bulk of that money will be spent in the next six months to a year and will hopefully have a mitigating effect on the current scenario. But we should also remember that the unemployment news is also bad news for the financial sector: The "stress tests" underwent by banks are becoming increasingly outmoded. Unemployment has exceeded the adverse scenario projected in the tests (see the graph below from Calculated Risk). I'm not worried about bank failure now -- my sources think capital reserves in most banks can withstand the current situation-- but I am worried that this will continue the hesitancy of banks to lend money.

-- Tim Fernholz

John Bolton has a very important op-ed in The Washington Post today:

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Bolton mocks those who are in favor of continued engagement as "theologically committed" to such a course, even though he's certain it won't lead anywhere. Robert Farley and Matthew Yglesias have both expressed skepticism about whether meaningful engagement is possible with Iran post-crackdown, but it doesn't necessarily follow that bombing is in our interest, given our continued involvement in Iraq and the devastation a bombing would cause. It also probably wouldn't work; the consequences of a failed bombing would be pretty catastrophic both for the people of Iran and our relationships in the region, and it would reinforce the legitimacy of the regime at a time when it is struggling to maintain it.

Of course, "theologically committed" could also describe Bolton, who has expressed support for bombing Iran for years now, so it's hard to take seriously his proposal that now is actually the opportune moment to bomb Iran. At the very least, we've come to see an addition to the GOP policy agenda, which for a while was simply "cut taxes." Now we have:

1. Cut Taxes

2. Bomb Iran

 Can't wait for the white paper.

-- A. Serwer

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who is being tried in New York for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, spent two years in CIA secret prisons after his capture in 2004. As a result, his lawyers are now seeking information about his imprisonment:

His lawyers also said they would ask the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court, to order the government to preserve any sites where their client was held. They noted that the C.I.A. has said that it no longer operates detention facilities or black sites, and is planning to decommission them.

[...]

Another reason for their request, they wrote, involves the death penalty. If the government decides to seek it against Mr. Ghailani, the lawyers said, they want to be able to present “a detailed and accurate representation of the physical sites” where he was held and subjected to harsh treatment as mitigating evidence on his behalf.

It's possible that the decision to try terrorist suspects in federal court may have a similar effect to the proposed truth commission, in that information about the Bush administration's practices will come to light as a result of the legal rights of defense counsel to have access to exculpatory evidence. Surely the Obama administration was aware of whatever mistreatment Ghailani may have suffered while in CIA custody and decided to proceed to trial anyway -- likely due to the fact that the FBI was involved in investigating the bombings, which means the case against Ghailani doesn't rely on secret or protected information.

I'm not sure that this was the adminstration's intention, but it may be the ultimate outcome.

-- A. Serwer

• While the rest of the Beltway chatters about the 60th Democrat in the Senate, the immediate significance of Al Franken going to Washington is his appointment to the Senate Judiciary and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees, which will soon produce, respectively, hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, heath care reform legislation, and debate on EFCA. Meanwhile, RNC Chair Michael Steele should try to find the silver lining like his NRSC counterpart John Cornyn, instead of murmuring about being "deeply disappointed in the decision made by the state Supreme Court." Finally, if you're unconvinced that Franken won simply because he won more votes, this Politico piece helpfully explains "why Norm Coleman lost."
• I think it's a good idea for the administration to dispatch VP Joe Biden to Iraq to act as an "unofficial envoy" during the draw-down of U.S. forces in the country. But this illustrates just how poorly conceived the office of Vice President is in the first place. At best, the office can be malleable for situations like Iraq. At worst, you get a Cheney shadow government in the absence of a strong executive. It's a pretty major flaw in Article II's conception of the executive branch.
• It isn't exactly news that the John Roberts-led Supreme Court has been steadily drifting rightward, but these two stories in the Times and Post illustrate this reality nicely. The more troubling concern is that even if Barack Obama is in office for two full terms and likely gets three chances at appointment, there still won't be an opportunity to reverse the conservative drift of the Court until after 2016.
• You'd think that Sen. Joe Lieberman would want to play ball with the administration as it pursues health care reform, considering Obama personally aided Lieberman's return to Democratic respectability. Truth is he's always been against a public option in health care, claiming otherwise when there's an election to win, and constantly making sacrifices on the alter of bipartisanship. If only the public agreed with Dr. Joe...
• Remainders: House Republicans have had enough of Michele Bachmann's census shenanigans; National Security Adviser James Jones opens up for Bob Woodward's book on the Obama White House; and Dave Weigel profiles the "sovereignty caucus."

--Mori Dinauer

It's all echoes of 1963 in Honduras, as the coup situation remains tense. Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has made clear his intention to return to the country tomorrow, ignoring the threats of imprisonment made by Roberto Micheletti, the leader of congress-cum-interim president. Meanwhile, the Organization of American States has unanimously decided to suspend Honduras' membership to the group if Zelaya is not reinstated as president within three days.

Some hash has been made over the aggressiveness of Obama administration's response to Zelaya's expulsion by the military. In her defense of the "Honduran patriots" earlier this week, Mary Anastasia O'Grady criticized the U.S. reaction and characterized it as aggressive. (She also repeatedly insinuated that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the same politics as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, which is an intentionally damning parallel when made on the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages.) Meanwhile, Daniel Larison is vexed by the "overreacting international condemnation" of the military overthrow. And at yesterday's White House press briefing, one reporter commented, "On Honduras you've taken a very strong position. On Iran you took a very weak position."

Frankly, I'm just not getting how the U.S. approach to Honduras' turmoil could be described as forceful. If anything, the administration seems to be acting with much of the same restraint demonstrated through Iran's unrest.

Obama followed the lead of other American nations, condemning the move only after it had already been insinuated that the U.S. may have actually helped the military overthrow Zelaya. It wasn't until Monday -- a full day after Zelaya had been shipped off to Costa Rica -- that Obama even used the word "coup." The State Department still hasn't settled on use of that term. The U.S. is the only country in the region that has not withdrawn its ambassador from Honduras, and it is still providing the country monetary aid. The administration also seems content to work with international bodies and allow them to apply the most pressure, rather than overtly insert itself into Honduran affairs -- a smart call, given our less than stellar track record when it comes to influencing these sorts of Latin American politics.

I can understand how some would bristle at any support of Zelaya. There's little question that his maneuvering for another term was unconstitutional. But overthrowing him was illegal, too. Just because you may not agree with the government's stance on the coup doesn't mean the stance itself is particularly hard line.

--Alexandra Gutierrez

Today, President Obama held an “online” health-care town hall in Annandale, VA, taking questions in person and via video. Over the next few hours and tomorrow morning coverage of Obama’s “pitch” on health-care reform will percolate to most media outlets, filled with quotes and video clips.

The format was a smart choice for Obama, who, despite the recurring criticism that he lacks substance and relies too heavily on the teleprompter, excels at the town hall. This is where Obama’s supposed penchant for being “professorial” is a visible strength. At today’s Q&A, he received, among others, questions about why he was not considering a single-payer plan and about the idea of taxing employer health benefits. Obama explained his positions while maintaining a difficult balance: treating the audience like adults capable of intelligently considering the issue, without delving too far, as he joked, into the “CBO scoring.”

His ability to explain his agenda with clarity is the administration’s secret weapon. When the doubters emerge and the press writes an early death for health-care reform, Obama takes his case directly to the people. “Look,” he begins. The administration deployed the same strategy during the transition, sending the president-elect to interview with 60 Minutes and others where he had the format and the time to explain himself and his prescription for the economy. His major straight-to-the-public appearances are measured and not all that frequent, but they always make headlines at just the right moment.

It is, as one of my colleagues suggests, his “fireside chat” with the American people. Given all the parallels that have already been drawn between the current president’s situation and Roosevelt’s, that may prove to be an important asset.

--Christopher Sopher

Christopher Sopher is a Prospect summer 2009 intern.

The European Union countries are considering protesting the Iranian regime's decision to detain embassy workers by withdrawing all 27 of their ambassadors. I don't think this is an amazing idea (and it seems that not everyone involved is serious about it) but then again Iran's treatment of diplomats (and the foreign press) may warrant harsher moves. In other bad news, there's this:

In a statement quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency on Wednesday, Iran’s chief of staff, Hassan Firouzabadi, was quoted as saying that because of the European Union’s “interference” in “the post-election riots, they have lost their qualification to hold nuclear talks with Iran.”

“Before apologizing for their huge mistake,” he said, the European countries have “no right to talk about nuclear negotiations,” according to a Fars report quoted by Reuters.

It was the first sign that Iran might use its post-election dispute to cast further doubt over the stalled nuclear negotiations, buying time to continue a nuclear enrichment program which Tehran says is for peaceful, civilian purposes.

Just what we needed, another obstruction to possible engagement. Rebuilding negotiations with the Iranians is not the easiest choice right now, but the non-diplomatic options are just so sparse, risky and likely counterproductive that I shudder to think what the options will be for dealing with Iran's nuclear program a year from now if engagement goes by the boards. On a related note, despite the belligerent rhetoric of the Iranian regime, the administration should keep up its public efforts at rapprochement; those moves will help burnish U.S. legitimacy should that unpleasant list of non-diplomatic options be presented to the president this time next year. For now it's still too soon to prejudge the outcome in Iran or the U.S. response. (My quick-take piece on the subject has held up pretty well.)

In terms of the president's current rhetoric, I read this Michael Crowley item with interest, but I'd emphasize that the people who are looking for shifts in Obama's position on this issue aren't really framing the question correctly. It's not like Iran over the last few weeks has represented a status quo that Obama has changed his mind about in response to certain pressures. Instead, post-election Iran has been dynamic, and much of what drove the administration's posture has been events on the ground, not any single coterie of advisers or conservative criticism.

-- Tim Fernholz

Today marks the first day that Income Based Repayment (IBR) will be available for federal student loans. To learn what IBR is, watch the above video with the Green Debt Monster, who is a surprisingly apt visualization of the situation for millions of graduating students.

In short, IBR allows students with federal student loans to repay those loans on a schedule based on family size and income. After 25 years -- 10 if you work in public service -- of payments, all your debt is forgiven.

At first glance, it looks like the perfect step in the right direction. In many ways, it is: The plan rewards graduates who take public-service jobs, accommodates those who earn less or have large families, and eventually forgives all debt. IBR is promising, but it’s not perfect.

IBR is only available to students with federal loans, not private loans or loans taken on by parents. Yet private loans represented 24 percent of education loans in 2008, and they have jumped from 5 percent to 14 percent of undergraduate loans in the past five years -- a trend that can be expected to continue in tandem with the recession. Students with private loans are more likely to encounter predatory practices and have fewer options for repayment if they fall behind. Private loans need the same kind of protection IBR provides.

The millions of students with federal loans whom IBR does cover will face challenges, too. Like the new FAFSA unveiled last week, the success of IBR will depend on how well students are informed about their options. IBR makes the loan process even more complicated, creating new paperwork requirements, and requires borrowers to work with their individual lenders to get IBR -- which can be problematic. The Consumer Law Center writes that lenders, collection agencies, and sometimes even the Department of Education’s loan staff “are consistently wrong in interpreting student loan law and regulations.” If students pursuing IBR or other loan adjustments are directed to people with bad or misleading information, they’ll make bad choices -- and end up in more debt.

And under current law, the forgiven debt from IBR would be taxed as income unless Congress passes a law to exempt it. All of this means that students need universally accurate and accessible information about their options. Despite positive nonprofit efforts, an aggressive federal program to help students navigate the process seems necessary.

These challenges don’t mean IBR isn’t a good program -- it is, and it’s going to help thousands of students manage their debt. But it’s not enough, and its existence shouldn’t let the student debt issue slide for another few years. Students need better information, protection from predatory private loans, and options like IBR across all loans -- not to mention better interest rates, lower tuition, and more access to non-loan aid. As you can see in the video, IBR may make the Green Debt Monster smaller, but it’s still there.

--Christopher Sopher

Christopher Sopher is a Prospect summer 2009 intern.

Asawin Suebsaeng engages satirist P.J. O'Rourke in some debate:

P.J. O'Rourke, the libertarian political satirist, is famous for his hilarious -- though usually wrongheaded -- skewering of all things government-related. But these days, as President Barack Obama rolls out nearly $800 billion in stimulus spending and meddles with the financial sector, O'Rourke isn't joking when he says he's mad as hell.

The Prospect argued with O'Rourke about government regulation and car culture and asked him how it feels to be an avowed right-winger in the Obama era. His short answer? Not so great.

KEEP READING ...

When Bernie Madoff was sentenced the other day for running a world-beating Ponzi scheme that defrauded people of millions of dollars, I didn't have much to say about it, or his 150 year sentence. ("They might as well sentence him to a million billion years," a friend observed.) But the more I consider it, the less important I think Madoff really is. I side with Joe Nocera on the subject of the victims; sympathy for their plight (and the plight of some of the important nonprofits that were ruined by the scheme) aside, the fact is that the performance of his fake fund really should have raised a lot of questions, and I don't have a ton of sympathy for the wealthy people participating in the fund who could afford lawyers and advisers to protect their money from this sort of thing (and should presumably know how to diversify their portfolios).

Meanwhile, we still haven't seen much in the way of prosecutions for pernicious actions that stripped wealth from people who couldn't afford to lose it and lacked the resources to protect it -- homeowners who saw their limited assets vanish thanks to predatory lending, people whose 401ks and pension funds have disappeared, etc. These broad-reaching prosaic losses are worth getting worked up about while the rare sensational crime holds attention; it's the broad, systematic failing of our financial system that's truly outrageous.

-- Tim Fernholz

I've talked before about the shell game set up by opponents (or even, in some cases, by nominal supporters) of same-sex marriage, in which somehow none of the pre-existing institutional mechanisms is good enough for enshrining marriage equality if another one is available. We now have another example from Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri, as he attacks those activist legislators in Vermont:

As Rhode Island prepares to become one of the next battlegrounds in the gay marriage debate, Governor Donald Carcieri has announced he and his wife, Sue, have joined the Rhode Island Chapter of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a group that opposes gay marriage.

The governor made his announcement this morning at the State House, reports WPRI, a Providence broadcaster.

Carcieri called himself a “traditionalist,” saying a child is better off in a home with a mother and father, and called for a vote on the issue.

“In Massachusetts it was the court. In Vermont it was the legislature. I believe the issue ought to be dealt with by all of our citizens. ... And let them decide,” Carcieri said.

I have to say I'm having trouble conceiving an attractive theory of democracy in which referenda are the only legitimate means of protecting minority rights. But hopefully comments like this will help disabuse people of the myth that opposition to gay and lesbian rights will somehow fade away if they just eschew litigation.

--Scott Lemieux

Whether it's the John Edwards saga or the Mark Sanford story, it seems a lot of folks are throwing around the word "mistress" these days. But isn't the term hopelessly old-fashioned -- and just a little bit demeaning to the women involved? For me it fails the basic sniff test for sexism: There is no equivalent term to describe a married woman's male lover.

This is totally unscientific, but I agree with Wikipedia's description of the word : "there is the implication that a mistress may be 'kept'—i.e., that the man is paying for some of the woman's living expenses, or provides her with an allowance." And while this may have been true in the case of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter, it's certainly not the case for Mark Sanford's lover, Maria Belen Chapur, a former journalist who lives with her two children in a luxurious Buenos Aires apartment building. A divorcee, Belen Chapur and Sanford first met on a trip to Uruguay and subsequently spent time together in New York City and the Hamptons.

Then there's that other, more contemporary use of the term "mistress" -- as a synonym for "dominatrix," as in S&M play. But I don't think that's what any headline writer was thinking when they chose the term!

--Dana Goldstein

Photo of Rielle Hunter filming John Edwards via Flickr user Chuckumentary.

Tim Fernholz on the challenge facing the Obama administration -- measuring success:

Now the party of government is the Party Of Government. President Barack Obama is rolling out major policy programs in response to the financial crisis, the recession, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress is overhauling the health-care system, putting together a landmark energy bill and composing the most comprehensive financial regulatory reform since the Great Depression.

But to prove their claims of competence, Democrats will need to prove that their policies work. The challenge now facing Democrats is determining how to measure success.

KEEP READING ...

The news, if you want to call it that, from this Bob Woodward piece is that the administration believes, correctly, that the military can only do so much in Afghanistan and that the key piece of the puzzle is economic development. But the graph included with the story was more striking -- I'm not sure I had really gotten my head around how significant the number of troops deployed was until I saw it. We now have as many troops in Afghanistan as were deployed there in the last four years combined. The last year really has seen quite an increase in U.S. forces in the area, and with a further 9,000 yet to be deployed, it's hard to imagine the dynamic in Afghanistan is not going to change significantly, even as Spencer notes that there still may not be enough troops there to achieve the administration's aims.

I discovered something a little more disconcerting working on today's story about the administration's attempts to quantify the results of their policies: The National Security Council has yet to develop measurements of success for the Afghanistan conflict -- they're working on it and have a general philosophy, but nothing concrete. That fits into a broader concern that we don't know exactly what we're doing over there -- what's the end of this conflict? Throughout the campaign season last year, Barack Obama impressed more than John McCain because he could describe what the end of the Iraq conflict looked like, while McCain never had a good answer for that question. But now the big question mark hangs over Afghanistan.

-- Tim Fernholz

Yesterday, Glenn Beck guest and former CIA official Michael Scheuer openly hoped for a terrorist attack on the United States, saying, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. ... It's an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary." Beck nodded solemnly.

This is the same Michael Scheuer who, a few months ago, played patriotism police arguing that anyone who didn't support the United States using torture to interrogate terrorist suspects was anti-American ... now he's begging for a terrorist attack on the United States. This is a pretty awesome example of how the right conflates its political interests with the interests of the country as a whole. If there's no terrorist attack, then Americans are safe. But Scheuer can't be right if there's no terrorist attack. And Scheuer being right is actually more important than Americans staying alive.

Torture apologists have tiptoed around the edge of this argument without actually saying so for some time; Leon Panetta walked back his observation about Dick Cheney, that "it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point," but as Scheuer and Beck proved yesterday, this is really how some people feel.

This gets to the essential creepiness about Beck's emotional display introducing his whole 9/12 project--the man wasn't weeping because he wished the country was as "unified" as it was after 9/11; he was weeping because the country is no longer in a such a state of petrified fear that it will acquiesce to whatever extreme measures the right deems necessary. Beck wasn't crying for the country; he was crying for himself, crying because people are no longer frightened enough to agree with everything he has to say. Understand, he only wants to hurt you because he loves you.

But understand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health-care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying sub-prime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate-free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States.

 Patriotism is dead, long live patriotism.

-- A. Serwer

Yesterday Judge Judith Retchin denied Bishop Harry Jackson and the Alliance Defense Fund's appeal of the D.C. Board of Ethics and Elections ruling that stated recognition of same-sex marriages in the District would not be a proper subject for referendum because it violates D.C. Human Rights law by enshrining discrimination against same-sex couples.

What is most significant however--and which bodes ill for future attempts in D.C. to put marriage rights to referendum--is that Retchin concluded that a previous case that concluded restricting marriage wasn't a violation of the DCHRA was no longer binding. The 1995 Dean case, which the petitioners were arguing supported their position, the D.C. City Counsel has changed the language of laws pertaining to marriage in order to make the laws gender neutral. Thus, while in Dean the judges concluded that the law had established marriage as being, by definition between a man and a woman, the law no longer does that. Which means that the anti-marriage-equality movement is going to have a hard time relying on Dean in the future. As Mike DeBonis points out, this isn't "judicial activism"; Retchin is taking her cues, as did the judges in the Dean case, from the legislature; she isn't making new rules here.

Marriage-equality activists in D.C. have been playing a long game. The events unfolding now are the result of 30 years of activism on the part of the gay-rights community, the efforts to restrict marriage have been cobbled together over the course of the past few months. This is a chess vs. checkers situation if there's ever been one--it's really quite astonishing how effectively LGBT-rights activists have managed to stack bureaucratic inertia in their favor.

The Rev. Patrick Walker, who heads the local Missionary Baptist Minister's Conference's Task Force opposing same-sex marriage, released a statement yesterday saying, “We are not surprised by today’s decision by Judge Judith Retchin because, in many instances, the judiciary’s decisions have often favored the rights of a few while disregarding the rights of the larger culture and society." I don't know how to respond to that other than to say I'm pretty happy that's often been the case.

The anti-gay-marriage movement is arguing that this is an issue of voter disenfranchisement. Brian Raum of the ADF issued a statement saying, "Marriage redefinition activists will advance their agenda by any means necessary, even if that means snuffing out fundamental rights like the right to vote." But no where in the Constitution does it say citizens have a right to vote to approve every individual piece of legislation passed by local bodies.

I'm not really sympathetic to this view because this is how our system of government works; we elect people to represent our interests, and we're not "disenfranchised" if they do something they don't like, because we can choose to vote them out. For example, like 70 percent of the American population, I'd like to see a public option as a part of health-care reform. I'm not going to be disenfranchised if that doesn't happen; I'm disenfranchised because as a D.C. resident I don't have a senator I can call who can then sell me out for campaign contributions for insurance companies under the pretext of fiscal responsibility.

-- A. Serwer

In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Reihan Salam argues that the global financial crisis will lead to "the death of macho." It's a provocative essay, and well worth a read. And while I don't want to diminish the world-historical importance of the shift from an industrial to an information economy -- and the impact that will have on men in particular -- I'm not nearly as convinced as Reihan that the upside of all this will be huge gains for feminism.

Of course, it's true that 80 percent of all American jobs lost during this recession were held by men. But that is due to occupational segregation; blue-collar men have always had access to better, higher-paying jobs than blue-collar women. The collapse of the American manufacturing sector is ending that stable lifestyle for non-college-educated men and the families they support. But it isn't clear at all that blue-collar women, who've been stuck in service-sector jobs, are benefiting from their husbands' and brothers' misfortunes. Instead, the result could be continued rising class inequality, as both working-class women and men get stuck in the service economy with irregular hours, poor pay, and no benefits.

Meanwhile, in many parts of the non-Western world, women remain radically underrepresented in the labor force. In Iran, for example, where feminist frustration is a key driver of the reform movement, only 13 percent of women have paid work outside the home. Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi actually had campaign advertisements promising to help women gain access to the job market. But during times of high male unemployment, women typically have more trouble, not less, finding work. This is doubly true in traditional societies that still have not fully accepted women in public roles.

In short, there are significant global political barriers to women's economic independence -- especially in the many, many nations where sex discrimination is written into the legal code. But there are also barriers in the United States, where women are disproportionately affected by many of the problems of poverty, from single parenthood, to the sub-prime mortgage crisis, to lack of health insurance.

--Dana Goldstein

• With little fanfare in this country, U.S. forces have began withdrawing from Iraqi cities as part of a status-of-forces-agreement negotiated during the Bush administration. In Iraq, they're understandably much more excited about this. It would be wise to remember on this milestone that the benefit of toppling foreign dictators comes at the cost of the humiliation of occupation and the blood of thousands.
• Norm Coleman conceded to Al Franken today in a quickly-arranged presser following the Minnesota Supreme Court's decision ruling against the Republican. Franken followed up with brief, graceful remarks, and Governor Tim Pawlenty has said he will sign the certificate "as directed by the court and applicable law."
• The day of reckoning has arrived for all but four U.S. states as their fiscal year comes to an end. Thirty-two states, in fact, do not have budgets prepared for 2010, which could lead to widespread government shutdowns and cessation of services unless state legislatures draft emergency funding measures. Meanwhile, this might be a good time to start rethinking fiscal federalism.
• I don't understand this fascination with reliving the 2008 presidential campaign -- once was enough for me. But the temptations of gossip and insider information are too great to prevent Vanity Fair from running a 9,000+ word piece on the Republican vice-presidential candidate from last year who shall remain nameless here. The picture that emerges is that of a hybrid: the vindictiveness and obsessiveness of Nixon and the lack of any intellectual curiosity and incompetence of Bush. Not a exactly a flattering combination.
• I've heard that Thomas Sowell has a reputation for being some sort of public intellectual. Reading this rant deemed publish-worthy by National Review, one wonders how he acquired that reputation. What difference is there, exactly, between believing that the president is going to institute Sharia law in the United States and birthers handing out typo-laden "Citizen’s Grand Jury presentments" on Capitol Hill (while Congress isn't even in session) accusing Barack Obama of treason? An editor to remove the typos, apparently.
• Remainders: Sen. Olympia Snowe is skeptical about the public option because it might (gasp) lower costs; Sen. Robert Byrd leaves the hospital; yes, the pro-life movement is largely made up of people who don't believe women can make moral decisions regarding their own sexuality; oh, Jonah Goldberg, you're so cute when you try to sound smart; debauchery economics makes a stunning debut in Oklahoma; and more tea parties are coming this Independence Day.

--Mori Dinauer

After eight months and $50 million dollars, today’s unanimous decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court declaring Al Franken the winner in his Senate race against Norm Coleman could be the first step toward ending the longest Senate vacancy in 34 years. But before Senate Democrats and liberal bloggers crow too loud over their oh-so-close filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a few things to keep in mind….

First, even if Franken is seated, he will not make for a particularly crisp #60. Though no one wants to say it, it is not clear that Sen. Ted Kennedy will ever vote again in the Senate, given his medical condition. Massachusetts lawmakers are already quietly jockeying for his seat. A replacement senator in Massachusetts needs to be chosen by the electorate (the governor has no role), which could mean weeks, even months, for primary and general election campaigns to be conducted. Meanwhile, after a month in the hospital, Sen. Robert Byrd was released today to continue his recovery at home, but the 91-year-old remains in delicate health.

Even if senators always voted party-line, which they don’t, it takes 60 senators present and voting to vote cloture. Democrats aren’t there yet.

While the verdict for Franken is a victory for Democrats, in many ways the GOP stall has had its intended effect. It is a public-relations accomplishment: They’ve managed to blur the likely result of the 2008 election, casting doubt on the circumstances under which Democrats have come to dominance in the Senate. That’s not a trivial accomplishment during these early months when a new president’s political capital is at its peak.

While there will be plenty of hand-wringing over how Republicans have hurt the state by drawing out a race Minnesotans wanted to be over long ago, nothing has been irreparably damaged by this extended vacancy. It isn't like Gov. Sanford disappearing for a few days. Executives really do run things. Senators don't. While it’s unfortunate that senior Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office has had to pick up the slack, the Democrats in the Senate haven’t lost any roll call result through the absence of a Franken vote.

More than anything, this prolonged partisan battle has been a headache for a state that’s famous for its friendly demeanor and squeaky-clean politics. It’s been an oft-repeated refrain in the last eight months, but it’s still true today: We’ll have to wait and see (though hopefully not for too much longer).

--Marie Diamond

Marie Diamond is a Prospect summer 2009 intern.

In a lot of ways, the Iranian election saga seems to be winding down. The Guardian Council pronounced yesterday that Ahmadinejad was the official victor. National newspapers are increasingly featuring their protest coverage below the fold. And #iranelection has even fallen somewhere between "Neverland Ranch" and "Vibe Magazine" as a trending topic on Twitter. But just because much of the action has ceased doesn't mean that things are anywhere near settled.

Dissent continues to be quashed by militia forces, and reports say that security is only tightening in Tehran. Closer to home for us, dozens of journalists are still being detained, including Iason Athanasiadis who has contributed to the Prospect.

Athanasiadis wrote two pieces for TAP Online in 2007. He recounted his experience as a graduate student there, describing the closure of his master's program after Ahmadinejad's election. He also reported on the sometimes strained relationship between Iranian reform activists and Western NGOs. Both stories are still relevant today, arguably more so than when they were first published.

With any luck, Athanasiadis will be released, just as Roxana Saberi was last month. Given heightened tensions, it's even more important that the Greek Foreign Ministry continue to put pressure on the Iranian government to get Athanasiadis home safely.

--Alexandra Gutierrez

TTR is a whole lot more than a simple affair; it is a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day. We've crossed lines with several exciting new reports, including a look at the U.S.' green deficit, an analysis of instability in Pakistan, a new plan for green jobs, and worries about state budget deficits. Have at it!

• Lagging Behind in Green. Ahead of the House’s passage of the Waxman-Markey bill last week, the New America Foundation released a paper on America’s “Green Trade Balance,” or lack thereof. The report asserts that America’s dependence on foreign countries for the majority of our green goods undermines President Obama’s plan to use green investment as a key part of the economic recovery. The U.S. ran an overall “green trade deficit” of $8.9 billion in 2008, down from a surplus of $14.4 billion less than 10 years ago. Huge deficits in two major categories -- pollution management and renewable energy, a cornerstone of Obama’s green agenda -- are mainly responsible for the deteriorating trade balance. If the U.S. cannot find a way for domestic production of green technology to meet increasing demand, the report predicts that the U.S. will sacrifice the opportunity to create millions of high-paying green manufacturing jobs. Equally important, a trade imbalance this early on compromises the country’s potential to be a leading global producer, not just consumer, of green technology. -- MD
• Counterinsurgency: Pakistan. A recent Council on Foreign Relations policy paper outlines the quickly growing threat of extremist insurgency and militant operations conducted within Pakistan’s cities, and the Pakistani military’s inertia and their potentially fatal aversion to becoming a "counterinsurgency force." The report emphasizes the complicated relationship between the United States and Pakistan, as they see the U.S. as an "unreliable partner," one that will pull foreign aid as soon as security interests shift. The memo’s corresponding recommendation is the continued assistance to the Pakistani military, including a controversial F-16 program, as a way to win the trust of Pakistani elites. -- AS
• Saving the Job Market…and the Planet. Create 1.7 million new jobs. Sounds like a lofty goal, right? According to a new report by the Center for American Progress, putting $150 billion into clean energy could do just that. Modeled off of two government initiatives, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act, the report argues that a yearly budget of $150 billion could add 1.7 million net jobs to the country, with an even higher number if funding was increased. The passing of ACESA would create jobs in every state of the union, as demonstrated by state-to-state fact sheets and an interactive map, and unemployment would drop about 1%, from 9.4% to 8.4%. Both acts provide incentives for private investors to invest in clean energy as opposed to fossil fuels, such as tax incentives, loan guarantees, and bonds. The overall program aims to increase energy efficiency, lower the cost of supplying renewable energy, and mandating limits for pollution. Now we just have to pass ACESA. -- CIA
• 48 Budget Crises. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the fiscal situation for most of America's states has continued to worsen over the past few months. With most states starting their new 2010 fiscal year on July 1, the Center reports that 48 states (North Dakota and Montana are in the clear) project budget shortfalls in 2010 due to decreasing tax receipts, despite federal stimulus funding. Nationally, state budget gaps may amount to more than $350 billion through 2011, leading to inevitable cuts in state jobs and services. Don't pack your bags for Bismarck just yet, though -- the Center also finds that federal stimulus funding is closing 30 to 40 percent of state budget shortfalls, thanks to its timing and flexibility. With 48 states still in the red, though, these findings make a compelling case for considering another stimulus. -- CKS

-- TAP Staff

Previous Round-Ups:
6/23/09
6/16/09

Just now, the Minnesota Supreme Court handed down its unanimous verdict [PDF] on the long-running, unresolved contest between Al Franken and Norm Coleman to determine who will fill the state’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. Specifically, the decision pertains to which candidate received the most votes and whether those votes were counted (and recounted) properly. This was the whole basis of Coleman’s case against Franken, rejected by a lower court, and now rejected by the state’s highest court as well.

What remains to be seen is whether Norm Coleman will concede — which leaves Gov. Tim Pawlenty bound to multiple statements claiming he will certify the results — or appeal his case to the federal level. Legal scholar Rick Hasen explains that there’s a ten-day “rehearing” period before the opinion is final, in which the litigants could file an emergency stay application to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such an application would be considered by Samuel Alito, who handles the Eighth Circuit.

—Mori Dinauer

Paul Waldman on why 2009 isn't 1993 in the battle for health-care reform:

Talk to progressives on the subject of health care, and you will find they've gotten more and more nervous in the last couple of weeks. They are acutely aware that momentum for health-care reform seems to gain sufficient speed to make real change a possibility only every 15 or 20 years. Screw it up now, and it'll be a long time before there's another chance at it.

It isn't only those on the Hill who are issuing dark warnings. Stan Greenberg, who was President Bill Clinton's pollster during the last health-care reform effort, recently penned a gloomy article in The New Republic, making the case that from the standpoint of public opinion, 2009 is starting to look like 1993 all over again.

Should we be nervous? Of course -- lives are at stake, after all. But should we panic? Absolutely not.

KEEP READING ...

Adam has done an excellent job with Ricci in general and Alito's bizarre race-baiting concurrence in particular. But it's worth addressing one more point. According to Kennedy, New Haven acted illegally because there was "no strong basis in evidence" that an "equally valid, less-discriminatory testing alternative" existed. Admittedly, it's hard to say that Kennedy is wrong, exactly, given that his new standard seems to mean that Kennedy knows a strong basis in evidence when he sees it. Nonetheless, as you'll see if you look at the amicus brief filed by DeStefano, the evidence that an equally valid test that wouldn't produce an equally disparate impact existed can be found by heading a couple stops down the Metro-North line:

Because the City’s weightings were arbitrary, a different weighting would have been at least as valid. Testimony indicated that neighboring Bridgeport’s tests use different weightings and are less discriminatory.

Based on the raw test scores, if the tests were weighted 70%/30% oral/written, then two African-Americans would have been considered for lieutenant positions and one for a captain position.

Seems pretty strong to me, and if Kennedy has any reason to believe that the precise weighting of oral and written exams arrived at (through negotiations, not the judgment of professional testers) is required for a test to be valid he didn't bother to share it. Moreover, assertions that not certifying these particular test results would be a blow to meritocracy notwithstanding, it's also worth noting that the creator of the test "never suggested that the tests were calibrated closely enough to be used to rank-order candidates, which requires that each higher score reflect better anticipated job performance."

And, as Ginsburg pointed out in dissent, the arbitrariness of the test also makes hash of Kennedy's argument that "[t]here is no genuine dispute that the examinations were...consistent with business necessity. [my emphasis.] Perhaps reasonable people can disagree, but the idea that there's "no dispute" that the tests were justified by business necessity is absurd; the point most certainly is subject to dispute, particularly given the strong definition of "business necessity" that was reinstated by the 1991 Civil Rights Act. As Scalia's concurrence ironically also noted, "business necessity" is in fact a "demanding" standard, and if Kennedy was going to hold that New Haven had no reasonable fear that its essentially arbitrary testing process couldn't meet that standard he needed to do better than this feeble hand-waving.

--Scott Lemieux

Watch associate editor Dana Goldstein and senior correspondent Michelle Goldberg debate the meaning of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposed ban of the burqa.

--The Editors

Spencer Ackerman flags Robert Gibbs denying that there will be an executive order from the White House reasserting the "inherent" authority of the president to detain terrorist suspects indefinitely:

I think the President addressed the notion and the very tough issue that the administration is likely to face, and that is that we are going to have detainees that will be hard to prosecute and too dangerous to release. And while the administration is considering a series of options, a range of options, none relies on legal theories that we have the inherent authority to detain people. And this will not be pursued in that manner.

I'm inclined to believe this. While the adminsitration has continued a number of Bush policies, a reoccuring theme is that the powers asserted are drawn from Congress, rather than from the "inherent" authority of the executive branch. The thing is, Congress doesn't actually seem very interested in curbing that authority, particularly in the case of indefinite detention. Which, when you think about it, is actually somewhat strange: no matter what your position is on the issue, creating an alternate legal framework for indefinitely detaining people not captured in a zone of military combat, instead of trying them in court, is a radical act. But you wouldn't know if from the complete lack of controversy, either in Congress or among high-profile public intellectuals.

-- A. Serwer

Photo via Flickr user Long Island Business News.

Yesterday NARAL: Pro-Choice America endorsed Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand in the New York special Senate primary slated for September 2010. Gillibrand has gotten mixed reviews since her January appointment to Hillary Clinton's seat, with some New Yorkers critiquing her lack of legislative gravitas, while others are still stewing over the moderate positions Gillibrand took on gay rights, gun control, and immigration during her 2006 House run in a moderate, upstate district. Others are willing to cut Gillibrand some slack. She's new to the job, and what's more, she has the support of President Obama, who supposedly has asked other Democrats to refrain from mounting costly primary challenges against Gillibrand.

But Manhattan congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is ignoring that call, forging ahead with plans to primary Gillibrand from the left. The NARAL endorsement of Gillibrand is widely being read as "a blow to Maloney," to borrow the phrasing of Jonathan Martin. And indeed, Maloney has built her reputation on issues that matter to feminist organizations, such as reproductive health, domestic violence, and family and medical leave benefits for gay couples.

But we shouldn't read too much into NARAL's choice. Unlike Feminist Majority PAC and NOW PAC -- both of which supported Maloney this past winter -- NARAL made no endorsement for the seat back when Gov. David Paterson was stumbling through the appointment process. Over the past year, NARAL has consistently shown more deference to Team Obama and Democratic Party unity than other feminist groups; in May 2008, they became the first major feminist organization to endorse Obama, signaling that Clinton's bid for the nomination was no longer realistic.

The real blow to Maloney's candidacy will be if more women's organizations follow NARAL's lead. For now, though, the jury is out.

Update: EMILY's List has also endorsed Gillibrand.

--Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein on why most women lack bargaining power during the recession, and what it means for work-life balance.

You can't always get what you want. Especially in a recession.

Unfortunately, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, network television correspondents on a nationwide book tour and media blitz, haven't gotten the memo. In their book, Womenomics, Kay and Shipman tell women that all they need to do to fulfill their work-life balance dreams is, well, ask. Want to work three days a week instead of five? Just ask. Want to work from home? Just ask. Need to walk your dog every day at 5:15? Heck, march right into you boss' office and tell him it's nonnegotiable!

The authors advise, "Your company needs you more than you realize and quite possibly more than you need them."

But as the national unemployment rate inches toward the double digits, is that true?

KEEP READING ...

Speaking at yesterday's White House gathering marking the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, President Obama said this to LGBT activists about the administration's slow progress on repealing laws like the Defense of Marriage Act or Don't Ask Don't Tell:

So this story, this struggle, continues today -- for even as we face extraordinary challenges as a nation, we cannot -- and will not -- put aside issues of basic equality. (Applause.) We seek an America in which no one feels the pain of discrimination based on who you are or who you love.

And I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that. It's not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.

The president made an explicit comparison between the civil-rights movement and the LGBT-rights movement. Maybe that was rhetoric, meant to smooth tensions between the White House and the LGBT community, but it doesn't excuse the administration's behavior; it does the opposite: it implicates the president for not acting more swiftly to end bigotry enshrined as law. The president has made some important steps, such as extending federal benefits to same-sex couples, but his administration has also defended DOMA in court and hasn't taken any concrete action on DADT.

In 1955, the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation to commence with "all deliberate speed."  Lately, it seems like the Obama administration has been moving in slow motion.

UPDATE: I get pwned by Eric Rauchway.

-- A. Serwer

Conservatives latched onto one out-of-context quote from one of Sonia Sotomayor's speeches to argue that she was a dispenser of race-based justice. Today they're praising Justice Kennedy's opinion in the Ricci case calling for "a strong basis in evidence" for cities to throw out test results based on disparate impact, but the overwhelming evidence shows that Sotomayor's ethnic background has done nothing to influence her rulings in race-related cases. Conservatives didn't have a "strong basis in evidence" to claim otherwise, but they did anyway.

Of course, there is another justice who testified to how his ethnic background affected his jurisprudence, and that was Samuel Alito. Testifying in front of the Senate during his confirmation hearing, Alito said:

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.

Frank Ricci, the plaintiff in that case, is Italian American, just like Samuel Alito. Was Alito thinking about "people in his own family" who "suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background" when he cast his vote in the Ricci case? Was his ruling and concurrent opinion affected by his "taking that into account" as he says he does in such cases?

There's no way to know. But what I find interesting is that no one's even asking the question. No one is suggesting, despite Alito's own statements, that his ruling was based on racial or ethnic sympathies. No one is questioning his motives or his judgment. In our national conversation, bias is something people of color and women have toward white men, not the other way around, history be damned. This isn't a new phenomenon either, based on some sort of (nonexistent) "reversal of fortune" for white men in society--they asked the same questions of Thurgood Marshall that they're now asking of Sotomayor.

-- A. Serwer

Via Pat G., some underappreciated news from yesterday's release of Supreme Court decisions: The Court ruled 5-4 that state attorneys general have the right to investiagate nationally chartered banks for violating consumer protection laws. Previously, banks monitored by certain national regulators like the Office of Comptroller of Currency did not come under the jursidiction of state officials.

This all comes from a case argued by NY AG Andrew Cuomo, crusading as always -- what do they give those New York AGs to drink up there, anyway? Answer: An incredible jurisdiction and a huge media spotlight. Cuomo wanted to see if national banks were engaging in discriminatory practices by funnelling minorities into dangerous sub-prime loans. Fannie Mae estimates that more than half of sub-prime borrowers qualified for prime loans; many were minorities suffering under redlining practices. The map to the right (click for a larger version) shows the distribution of foreclosures in New York City; foreclosures are most dense where minorities are concentrated, in large part because of these practices.

But when Cuomo tried to look into the problems, the banks told him that their national regulator preempted any state efforts to monitor their business. Since the national regulator, the OCC, didn't really do much at all, it was licensce to behave poorly. But now the OCC is set to be shuttered under the Obama administration's financial regulation plan, and Cuomo has free reign to protect the consumers of his state thanks to the Supreme Court. Good stuff! This is part of a general trend in government against federal preemption; the administration is trying to make consumer protection laws into a floor, not a ceiling, and with this decision -- with the ever-Federalist Antonin Scalia joining the court's four liberals -- we have some judicial confirmation of the strategy.

Further Reading: Going After the Perpetrators of the Housing Bubble. State AGs are going after banks, and this is how they do it.

-- Tim Fernholz
Map courtesy NEDAP

• Last year, there was quite a lively debate over the role of superdelegates in the Democratic primary process, particularly whether these so-called unelected party officials would override the will of the voters. Now the DNC’s Change Commission is looking to seriously reform how the party picks candidates, including the possibility of eliminating the superdelegates altogether. More significant will be the actual primary calendar, not so much in 2012 when President Barack Obama will almost certainly face no competition, but for 2016 when the field will be wide open again.
• Did Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty really unequivocally state that he would certify the state supreme court’s ruling that will determine whether Al Franken gets to take his Senate seat? He did! But as Eric Kleefeld points out, Pawlenty also re-asserted that he would follow Coleman’s lead if the matter was appealed to a federal court, which has always been his position.
• I’m glad The New York Times has used editorial space to make the point that Republican holds on administration nominees are nothing less than deliberate obstructionism that threatens, in their words, “good government.” I know the minority party has very little in the way of pushback at this point, but it’s high time this issue received more attention than the "GOP goes ballistic over latest Democratic proposal/nominee" storyline.
  
• Roll Call has a brief look at the renewed focus on a “liberal agenda” for the second half of the legislative year, and it’s worth looking at the big picture in terms of prioritizing legislation. Obama could -- and should -- have done more addressing these "hot-button" cultural issues during the first five months of his term and should take some heat, but it's clear that the economic problems facing the country -- in addition to health care and energy reform -- simply dominated the early days of his administration.
  
• Weekend Remainders: The Census Bureau gives Michele Bachmann a lesson in high school civics; it’s not that Fox News is conservative, it’s that they don’t seem to grok the basics of journalism; apparently the John Birch Society is still chugging along even without the threat from global communism; the ACLU wants the UN to investigate extraordinary rendition; and the research goes on for those elusive ties between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.

—Mori Dinauer

I have a long, ill-considered rant over at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog, where I'm guest-blogging, on the Ricci case that TAPPED readers might want to check out.

-- A. Serwer

The Prospect is co-hosting a D.C. event for Kevin Mattson's new book. He will be discussing some of the themes from his article in the April issue. Details below:

What the Heck are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country.

A book talk with Kevin Mattson.

Monday, June 29, 6:30pm
Busboys and Poets
1025 5th Street, NW
5th and K

--The Editors

Ross Douthat is the author of a book arguing that marriage-promotion -- even among the very poor and the very young -- should be a major goal of national social policy. He has an aversion to birth control and abortion. He has even written about his own efforts to stay sexually chaste. So it is surprising that Douthat now writes, "Our meritocrats could stand to leaven their careerism with a little more romantic excess."

What's responsible for Douthat's change of heart? Like me, he is currently reading Cristina Nehring's A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century, which uses the lives of literary greats to argue that foolish love -- passion, sex, and even obsession -- fuels genius and productivity. Nehring believes that today's college-educated professionals have sanitized love through feminism and "companionate marriages," focusing too much on child-rearing and real estate acquisition, and not enough on sex. This line of argument offers Douthat an opportunity to engage in one of his favorite pastimes: attacking the culture of affluent liberals. "The same overclass that was once most invested in erotic experimentation ended up building the sturdiest walls against the passions it unleashed," he clucks.

But make no mistake -- the likely appeal of Nehring's work, for Douthat, lies in its negative assessment of feminism as an anti-romantic killjoy. This is a major flaw in Nehring's book; she treats feminism, as an ideology, as if it ceased to exist in the 1980s during the internecine wars over the acceptability of pornography and heterosexual relationships. In fact, feminism is a dynamic movement that has continued to evolve over the last two decades. Many feminists call themselves "sex-positive." Some sex workers identify as feminist and even strive to create feminism-friendly pornography. Some feminists are anti-marriage altogether. Others advocate open relationships because they are inherently skeptical of sexual monogamy.

Yet Douthat buys, hook, line, and sinker, into Nehring's reductive analysis of feminism as anti-sex. One possible solution to dull marriages, he suggests, is less equity between marriage partners. He's not talking about the kind of sexual power-play that Nehring adores. Rather, he suggests that highly educated men are "ideal soulmates" for less-educated women, who could benefit from the economic stability such men offer as husbands and fathers. The problem is that many highly educated men want to marry women who share their intellectual interests. And what single moms need -- more than a rich husband who may or may not make them and their kids happy -- are social supports such as decent jobs, health care, child care, and schools.

Those topics aren't sexy, though. I get that.

--Dana Goldstein

Photo by Susan Etheridge for The New York Times

MoveOn sent out an e-mail today asking its members whether the group should fight to make the weak cap-and-trade bill better. My assessment of the Senate's ability to improve legislation is so pessimistic that MoveOn is probably better off focusing on health care, but at the same time it's always a good idea for lefty groups to be vocally pushing improvements in legislation. I am skeptical of its focus on eliminating the concessions in the bill that obtained the votes needed to pass it in the House. There is no way the Senate, where there is neither a Henry Waxman-style legislator nor a strong progressive constituency, will end up passing a stronger bill than the lower chamber.

More realistically, progressives' immediate focus' ought to be making sure this bill gets through the Senate intact, with no further concessions -- see Brad Plumer on that -- so that it can be improved after it is on the books, not while it exists as a nebulous legislative compromise. As more evidence for the idea of continuous legislating, I thought climate guru Joe Romm's piece at Salon made a good observation:

It is worth noting that the original Clean Air Act -- first passed in 1963 -- also didn't do enough and was subsequently strengthened many times. Similarly, the 1987 Montréal protocol would not have stopped concentrations of ozone depleting substances from rising and would not have saved the ozone layer. But it began a process and established a framework that, like the CAA, could be strengthened over time as the science warranted. The painful reality of climate change is going to become increasingly obvious in the coming years, and strengthening is inevitable.

I'd only disagree with the idea that "strengthening is inevitable." Strengthening will require effort from a lot of different constituencies. But the idea that this single bill will make or break climate-sustainability efforts is the wrong way to approach policy-making. This is the kind of thorny problem (and complex solution) that will require much revision, and I think the climate bill of 2010 or 2011 will be much more progressive than the one in 2009 simply because it will build on what has been accomplished this year. (That assumes that the Dems keep their congressional majority, etc., but I'd say odds are still on for that.)

-- Tim Fernholz

Responding to Justice Alito's allegation that the City's decision to throw out the test was based on the political calculations of New Haven's mayor in order to avoid a backlash among New Haven's black voters, Justice Ginsburg writes:

Most of the allegations JUSTICE ALITO repeats are drawn from petitioners’ statement of facts they deem undisputed, a statement displaying an adversarial zeal not uncommonly found in such presentations. What cannot credibly be denied, however, is that the decision against certification of the exams was made neither by Kimber nor by the mayor and his staff. The relevant decision was made by the CSB, an unelected, politically insulated body. It is striking that JUSTICE ALITO’s concur-rence says hardly a word about the CSB itself, perhaps because there is scant evidence that its motivation was anything other than to comply with Title VII’s disparate-impact provision. Notably, petitioners did not even seek to take depositions of the two commissioners who voted against certification. Both submitted uncontested affida-vits declaring unequivocally that their votes were “based solely on [their] good faith belief that certification” would have discriminated against minority candidates in viola-tion of federal law.

More on this later. But obviously I think that's a pretty strong rebuke to the notion that DeStefano was acting out of political concerns, although he would argue that the mayor's influence goes against the notion that the CSB was "politically insulated." Ginsburg, however, adds that "Kimber and others no doubt used strong words to urge the CSB not to certify the exam results, but the CSB received “pressure” from supporters of certification as well as opponents."

The outsize Byron York-like concern with politicians "pandering" for black votes (because conservatives are completely uninterested in the interests of their constituencies) though, is just the kind of analysis one would expect from a partisan Republican. Just not from a judge.

-- A. Serwer

Eli Sanders on what's next for drugs in America. The "war on drugs" may be over, but that doesn't mean legalization is around the corner:

As far as statements from high government officials go, it was a radical declaration. Kerlikowske, and by extension Barack Obama, was rejecting four decades of federal government marching orders -- a bold departure that would have been unthinkable in previous administrations. But even more striking than his announcement was the reaction: crickets.

What's fascinating about this moment in the drug-reform debate is not just how strongly the tide has turned against the failed war strategy but also how little clarity there is on the ultimate end goal of policy reform.

KEEP READING ...

Tom Lee on the problem with a privately owned service -- Twitter -- serving as a platform for political activism:

That discussion of the Iranian election popped up on Twitter was not particularly surprising. The microblogging service is often mocked as a venue for the discussion of daily minutia -- a recent spoof was made up entirely of real-time reports about the sandwiches that users were eating -- but by now Twitter is clearly one of the most popular forums for online chatter about current events. But when the action on Twitter began to affect events in Iran, well, that was downright shocking. And to the extent that it signaled Twitter's arrival as an important political tool, it was also somewhat alarming.

Twitter is far from the only online tool being used for political ends, but it's one of the few that is both a medium and a company. Yahoo.com might handle your e-mail, but if it went down, the e-mail system would still work. Google search is important, but its disappearance wouldn't make the sites it indexes stop working, and there are plenty of search engines that would be glad to take its place.

Twitter is not like that. If it went away, that would be that.

KEEP READING...

Justice Sam Alito, from his concurring opinion in the Ricci case, written mostly as a rebuke to the liberals' dissent, my emphasis:

Therefore, the decision below, which sustained the entry of summary judgment for respondents, cannot be affirmed unless no reasonable jury could find that the City’s asserted reason for scrapping its test—concern about disparate-impact liability—was a pretext and that the City’s real reason was illegitimate, namely, the desire to placate a politically important racial constituency.

I'd say that's a pretty startling accusation of bad faith on Alito's part. Namely, Alito seems to believe that the sole reason for the city throwing out the tests was a fear of pissing off black voters, noting ties between New Haven Mayor Michael DeStefano and the Rev. Boise Kimber, a local black leader known for having made racially inflammatory comments in the past. Alito basically alleges that Kimber browbeat city officials and the mayor into not certifying the results by threatening the political consequences from the black community in New Haven. This is important because Alito is arguing that the decision to throw out the tests was not based on a good faith concern about disparate impact but about avoiding the political consequence of a backlash among black voters.

Of course, it also needs to be said that there's no way Italian Americans could be considered anything like a "politically important" ethnic constituency in the Northeast.

The number of concurring opinions here--Scalia filed one as well--rebuking the dissent of the court's four liberals is interesting. The court's conservatives are protesting, one might say, a little too much.

-- A. Serwer

The military coup in Honduras is, at the very least, an occasion for Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to agree on something, albeit with a wide variance in expression. It sure is another sign of the times to hear a leftist South American leader -- oustered President Manuel Zelaya -- say something like this before the coup occurred:

"Everything was in place for the coup, and if the U.S. Embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not. I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States," he said in the interview, which was published Sunday.

I don't think the coup went through after Zelaya's remarks with U.S. approval -- American officials are now apparently trying to have Zelaya reinstated and disputing a seemingly forged resignation letter produced by coup organizers. John Boonstra at UN Dispatch observes that there is some ambiguity surrounding the controversial referendum to extend Zelaya's power that led to the coup, but that it behooves a cautious U.S. foreign policy to support legitimate democratic process over military coups, whatever the policy differences are. Thus, Obama's statement last night:

"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel [sic] Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."

In the past, of course, coups in Latin America have led to a lot of domestic political turmoil in the United States, with conservatives and liberals lining up with their respective factions -- contras and Sandinistas, etc. Seeing Obama and Chavez on the same side -- which will, ironically, help undermine Chavez' authority as chief anti-American demagogue in South America -- will no doubt angry up Republican blood. Who will be the first American conservative to side with the military junta? Or will we see a general agreement that taking a stance against military coups is a net benefit for U.S. national security? I hope it's the latter, if only to avoid sending mixed signals abroad.

-- Tim Fernholz

Photo of Zelaya (R) and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa (L) from the official photostream of the Ecuadorian Presidency.

The three founders of The American Prospect debate the perils and the promise of a public insurance option:

In "The Perils of the Public Plan," Paul Starr warns that a public-insurance option could turn into exactly the opposite of what progressives want. Here he discusses the problems with the Prospect's two other co-founders, Robert Kuttner and Robert Reich.

KEEP READING ...

The opinion released by the court in the Ricci case is 93 pages long, so it's going to take me a while to wade through it. The court ruled along ideological lines, 5-4 in favor of the white firefighters who were alleging racial discrimination. Having read the introduction however, I can already take a good guess at what the lede will be, particularly for those opposed to Sonia Sotomayor's nomination:

All the evidence demonstrates that the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white. Without some other justification, this express, race-based decision-making is prohibited.

The facts of the Ricci case are this: The city threw out a series of tests under the results of which several white and Hispanic firefighters would have been promoted, because there was a serious racial disparity in the results. The city feared being sued for discrimination, so it threw the tests out.

Clearly, this is a pretty ham-handed way of following affirmative action laws. But the above sentence from the Court oversimplifies. The city didn't throw the tests out because it didn't want any white firefighters, or because it believes whites aren't smart enough to be firefighters, or because whites are inherently unskilled and therefore can't be firefighters. The city didn't throw the tests out because they contradicted long-held beliefs about the "racial characteristics" of whites. The city threw the test results out because it feared getting sued for discriminating against others who didn't fare well on the test. Saying that the city simply "threw out the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white" is not exactly correct.

There's probably more like this in the rest of the opinion, but those opposed to Sotomayor's nomination partially on the grounds that minorities have all the rights these days already have plenty to work with.

-- A. Serwer

Today at 10 AM, the Supreme Court will be releasing its last opinions and orders for the term, including the controversial Ricci affirmative action case. The conservative lean of the court suggests it will overturn the lower court's ruling, but we won't know how far it's gone until the orders are released. SCOTUSBlog will be liveblogging the release.

In the meantime, whatever the court decides, it's unlikely to affect Sonia Sotomayor's chances at confirmation. A recent poll from The Washington Post shows 62% of Americans want to see her confirmed.

-- A. Serwer

There was a huge newsdump last week, with The Washington Post reporting that President Obama intends to circumvent Congress and reassert indefinite detention authority by executive order. At the same time, the Brookings Institution released a paper by Ben Wittes and Colleen A. Peppard giving the possible outlines of a preventive detention statute. Although I didn't post about it, I initially assumed that the administration's move would be along the lines of what Wittes is proposing.

That isn't the case. I interviewed Wittes at length this weekend for a feature I'm doing for the print edition, and I had a chance to look over the whole proposal. Wittes told me personally that he thought Obama re-asserting--as Bush did--the inherent authority to detain terrorists suspects indefinitely would be "a disaster."

The Wittes proposal is not likely to make any civil libertarians happy. But unlike the administration's move--if the Post story is accurate--it does propose some meaningful constraints on the indefinite detention power, which up till now we've seen being used arbitrarily except where the courts intervene. The Wittes proposal would set up a FISA-like system, where terrorist suspects could be detained for 14 days without court oversight, but their cases would be subject to judicial review every six months afterward to determine if the suspect should remain detained, according to a "three pronged test." The individual would have to be: "(1) an agent of a foreign power, if (2) that power is one against which Congress has authorized the use of force, and if (3) the actions of the covered individual in his capacity as an agent of the foreign power pose a danger both to any person and to the interests of the United States." The president would also have to submit a list of groups to Congress every few months that it wants covered by the AUMF, and whose members can be subject to preventive detention. The evidence threshold for detaining someone would be lower than that used in criminal trials. There's more to the proposal, but I won't try to explain it all in one blog post.

Don't read this post as an endorsement. If you're against indefinite detention in principle, the Wittes proposal will be unacceptable. But it's very different from the powers the administration would allegedly be asserting, in that it installs some checks from the other branches of government.

-- A. Serwer