City on A Hill

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going. – John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity

Dr. George Tiller, one of the few abortion providers in the state of Kansas, was shot and killed today in Wichita while attending services at the Reformation Lutheran Church. Tiller had long been the focus of anti-abortion groups: In 1991 he was the object of a summer-long protest; he was shot in both arms by a protester in 1993; in 1985 his clinic was bombed. More from the A.P. here.

Police have apprehended a suspect, Scott Roeder of Merriam Kansas, a member of Operation Rescue with a past link to the Montana Freeman militia group. Back in 2007, someone named Scott Roeder posted this on an Operation Rescue website called Charge Tiller:

It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the "lawlessness" which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp "Mengele" of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgement upon our nation.

Does the United States really need to have some special relationship with God? Isn't it enough simply to be a nation among nations?

Fidelity

The California Constitution is an inane instrument. Through the initiative process, it allows the democratic populace to strip disfavored minorities of fundamental rights on the basis of a mere majority vote at the ballot box. In that sense it can hardly be said to be a constitution at all, as part of what distinguishes constitutions from mere law is that constitutions are generally hard to change – mere majority votes generally do not suffice – except in California. 

Proposition 8 was upheld today, as expected. The California Supreme Court said that a majority of Californians legally amended the state constitution last November 4th to outlaw same-sex marriages. The court also said that same sex couples married prior to Proposition 8 were not effected by the proposition and are still legally married.

What the people can do, the people can undo. It's time to launch a political movement to again amend the California Constitution to repeal Prop 8. This is an opportunity for equality-loving Californians to educate their fellow citizens about the issue of same-sex marriage. And then in 2010 it'll be back to the ballot box to set things right. 

And hopefully in the long run, Californians will change the process for amending their state constitution. Amendment by initiative is a horrible idea. No mere majority should hold such a power. 

Contribute to the effort here.

"Endemic"

How the Catholic Church thinks it has any standing to lecture the rest of us about sexual morality is beyond me. 

Tens of thousands of Irish children were regularly sexually and physically abused by nuns, priests and others over a period of decades in hundreds of residential institutions that housed the poor, the vulnerable and the unwanted, according to a report released in Dublin on Wednesday. “A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys,” the report said, adding that sexual abuse was “endemic” in boys’ institutions....

[T]he Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, exposes for the first time the breathtaking magnitude of the problem, and shows how an entire establishment in an overwhelmingly Catholic country seemed to collude in perpetuating a cruel and sadistic system.... Speaking of sexual abuse, the report said that sometimes the abusers were moved to other facilities where they could prey on other children. “At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely.”

Condoms are bad. Gay sex is bad. Sex out of wedlock is bad. But raping little children is no big deal. Someone should tell these people to shut the fuck up. 

Toughness, Fear and Security

Glenn Greenwald distills the inane politics of national security to its essence: 

The "debate" over all the bad and scary things that will happen if Obama closes Guantanamo and we then incarcerate those detainees in American prisons... perfectly illustrates the steps that typically lead to America's National Security policies:

(1) Right-wing super-tough-guy warriors project some frightened, adolescent, neurotic fantasy onto the world -- either because they are really petrified by it or because they want others to be....

(2) Rather than scoff at the inane fear-mongering or point out simple facts to reveal its idiocy, Democratic "leaders" such as Harry Reid echo the right-wing fears in order to prove how Serious and Tough they are -- in our political debates, the more frightened one is, the more Serious and Tough one is....

(3) "Journalists" who are capable of nothing other than mindlessly reciting what they hear then write articles depicting the Right's frightened neurosis as a Serious argument, and then overnight, a consensus emerges: Democrats are in big trouble politically unless they show that they, too, are as deeply frightened as the Right is.

It's a long piece, but well worth reading. 

"I was there, but... I didn't kill anybody."

The Times reports:

At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Dennis J. Skillicorn is to be executed for his role in the murder of Richard Drummond, a businessman who had offered help to Mr. Skillicorn and two others when he saw their car broken down on the side of a road one night in August 1994....[W]hile he participated in robbing Mr. Drummond and was convicted of murder, another man (now also awaiting execution) was the one who fired the gun that killed Mr. Drummond....

“He is not the one who actually killed the person, and that just says to me: ‘Whoa! Let’s take a step back,’ ” said State Representative Steven Tilley, the Republican leader [of the Missouri House of Representatives]. “Look, I’m not soft on crime, but we can’t redo this once we’ve executed this person"....

[Mr. Skillicorn] said he was sorry for his drug-addled behavior of years past, but that he considered his death sentence arbitrary in a way, and said that he was not the worst of the worst. “I was there,” he said, “But in my case, I didn’t kill anybody."

Some might be surprised that this situation – the non-triggerman receiving a death sentence even though he didn't kill the victim directly – is permissible. This is true even though in many cases the non-triggerman's culpability is limited.

In fact, it's not at all unusual for the less culpable party to murder to receive a harsher sentence (though in Skillicorn's case both he and the triggerman received death). The factor that often most influences a defendant's relative punishment for a multiple-perp murder is not the relative culpability or individual characteristics of the defendant, but whether that defendant cooperates with prosecutors and testifies for the state.  

Wanted

The following individuals for torture and conspiracy to commit torture.

The Story of Stuff

Everybody should go to this website watch this. Here's a little teaser, The Story of Stuff, Chapter 5: Consumption:

Last Words

On Thursday, the state of Alabama executed Willie McNair for the 1990 murder of Ella Foy Riley, a woman for whom he did yard work.

According to the A.P., McNair declined to make a final statement.

After the excution, one of the victim's sons, Wayne Riley, issued a statement saying, "I ask that you pray for my family in the coming days and for the Willie McNair family, too, for they... have suffered for what he has done."

Last Words

A man named Donald Lee Gilson was executed by the state of Oklahoma on Thursday for the 1995 murder of his girlfriend's eight-year-old son, Shane Coffman. Gilson's girlfriend, Bertha Jean Coffman, was also convicted of the murder; she reached a deal with prosecutors and received a life sentence, rather than death, in return for her testimony against Gilson. Jurors were not informed of the deal.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended that Glison's sentence be commuted to life without parole based on evidence that the victim's mother, not Gilson, was primarily responsible for her son's death. Despite the Board's recommendation, Gov. Brad Henry (D) denied the request for clemency. According to the A.P., Gilson's last words were:

"I'm an innocent man but ... I get to go to heaven and I'll see Shane tonight."

One Man And One Woman

The desire of some to define marriage as a relationship between "one man and one woman" is problematic for all sorts of reasons. On a concrete level, even in states that prohibit same-sex marriage, policing the boundaries of such a rule is all but impossible in a world where gender and sexual identity are so fluid. 

Once one accepts that gender and sexual identity aren't binary categories, the whole "one man and one woman" marriage regime is revealed as fiction. As this male to female transsexual writes on the Times op-ed page: 

Deirdre Finney and I were wed in 1988 at the National Cathedral in Washington. In 2000, I started the long and complex process of changing from male to female. Deedie stood by me, deciding that her life was better with me than without me.... I’ve been legally female since 2002, although the definition of what makes someone “legally” male or female is part of what makes this issue so unwieldy. How do we define legal gender? By chromosomes? By genitalia? By spirit? By whether one asks directions when lost?... Gender involves a lot of gray area. And efforts to legislate a binary truth upon the wide spectrum of gender have proven only how elusive sexual identity can be....

A 1999 ruling in San Antonio, in Littleton v. Prange, determined that marriage could be only between people with different chromosomes. The result, of course, was that lesbian couples in that jurisdiction were then allowed to wed as long as one member of the couple had a Y chromosome, which is the case with both transgendered male-to-females and people born with conditions like androgen insensitivity syndrome. This ruling made Texas, paradoxically, one of the first states in which gay marriage was legal.

A lawyer for the transgendered plaintiff in the Littleton case noted the absurdity of the country’s gender laws as they pertain to marriage: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

Legal scholars can (and have) devoted themselves to the ultimately frustrating task of defining “male” and “female” as entities fixed and unmoving. A better use of their time, however, might be to focus on accepting the elusiveness of gender — and to celebrate it. 

The man/woman binary, just like the black/white binary of Jim Crow, is based on a fiction. Accepting it requires erasing certain people who don't fit into either category and/or who arguably fit into both. Highlighting the (admittedly exceptional) cases of people who fit into neither category helps to demonstrate that the system that places so much emphasis on those categories is not only not natural and unchangeable, but not even an accurate description of the world.

Rightward Shift

The politics in Florida have been turned upside down. Gov. Crist had been a moderating influence on Florida Republican politics. He even made common cause with Democrats on some issues, something he didn't need to do in a state with huge Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. For example he championed the Obama stimulus and limited felon re-franchisement; the latter is an issue that flat-out hurts Republicans. But now with Crist running for the Republican nomination for Senate against a young, attractive, right-wing Cuban American, Club for Growth-backed Republican in a closed primary, Crist surely will tack to the right. He goes from being a likely ally on common sense criminal justice reform issues to being a likely opponent. 

Kos' analysis of the race here and here.

Distance Travelled

I don't know much about her, but this article about Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit reinforces my sense that she would make an excellent Supreme Court judge – an unapologetic liberal voice on an ideological, far-right Court. 

The article reminds just how recently women were all but excluded from the legal academy: 

When [Wood]... began teaching at the University of Chicago law school in 1981, she was the only woman on the faculty, and she was eight months pregnant. She had three children in five years. Prof. Lea Brilmayer of Yale Law School, who had preceded her as the only woman at Chicago, said the school in those days was “distinctly inhospitable” to women on the faculty.

Lea Brilmayer was my first year contracts professor. Brilliant, hilarious, and more than a little odd. Like Wood, when she started teaching at Chicago, she was the only woman on the faculty. The only woman on the faculty. While there's still a long way to go, it's worth pausing for a moment to appreciate just how recently legal academia was an almost exclusively male province. 

Recession Haiku

A little gem via Calculated Risk, one of my favorite blogs for info on the economic crisis:

Results from "Stress Test"

Bogus Kabuki theatre.

Truth remains hidden.

Tortured Phrasing

Awhile back I noted that the New York Times still refused to call the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the Bush Administration "torture" even though they clearly are torture as defined by U.S. law, international law, past American war crimes prosecutions, etc.

Today Andrew Sullivan – a Burkean conservative who has been outspoken in his opposition to the Bush torture regime – notes that the New York Times has no problem using the word "torture" when other countries do it. How ridiculously timid the Times has been over and over again the past eight years in the face of massive government criminality, as though the purpose of a free press is to do little more than repeat government propaganda.

Sullivan's initial post is here. His follow up is here.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald picks it up as well:

There's been a major editorial breach at The New York Times today...

[S]houldn't this be called "torture" rather than torture -- or "harsh tactics some critics decry as torture"? Why are the much less brutal methods used by the Chinese on Fischer called torture by the NYT, whereas much harsher methods used by Americans do not merit that term? Here we find what is clearly the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse: everything is different, and better, when we do it.

WWJD?

One of the least convincing arguments for the usefulness of religion is that it helps us humans navigate the moral landscape. That these people use religion to assert an oversized influence over our public morality is offensive.

Juveniles Serving Life

The Supreme Court granted cert today in two cases challenging the constitutionality of a sentence of life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles.

One of the defendants, Joe Sullivan, was convicted of committing a rape in Pensacola, FL when he was 13 and sentenced to life without parole. Sullivan, now 33, claims that that punishment violates the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. Sullivan also claims that he is innocent, though the Supreme Court will not examine that issue.

The Supreme Court rarely examines the applicability of the Eighth Amendment to punishments other than death, so the cert grants are an exciting development. The cases potentially raise two overlapping issues: First, how old must one be to receive a sentence of life without parole? And second, is the crime of which one was convicted a relevant factor – is life without parole an appropriate punishment for juveniles who commit some crimes (like murder), but not other crimes (like rape)?

The cases are Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida. They likely will be heard next fall.

Northeastern Republicans

Arlen Specter's switch to the Democrats provides a good opportunity to examine the state of the Republican party in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. 

Members of the House of Representatives, New England and Mid-Atlantic, by state: 

Maine: Dem-2, Rep-0

New Hampshire: Dem-2, Rep–0

Vermont: Dem-1, Rep-0

Massachusetts: Dem-10, Rep-0

Rhode Island: Dem-2, Rep-0

Connecticut: Dem-5, Rep-0

New York: Dem-26, Rep-3

New Jersey: Dem-8, Rep-5

Pennsylvania: Dem-12, Rep-7

Maryland: Dem-6, Rep-1

Delaware: Dem-0, Rep-1

Totals for the region are Democrats-74, Republicans-17. And I would expect the Republican number to shrink still further if Democrats control the 2010 redistricting in New York and New Jersey, as it looks like they will, and after longtime Republican incumbents like Peter King (NY) and Mike Castle (DE) retire from their increasingly Democratic districts. 

In those same eleven states, the Senate picture is even bleaker for the Republicans. Now that Specter has switched, they have only three senators – Judd Gregg (NH) who does not plan to run for reelection in 2010, and Susan Collins (ME) and Olympia Snowe (ME). Snowe may follow Spector and switch parties at some point. As the most moderate Republican Senator, she may feel unwelcome in a rump GOP increasingly hostile to moderates. Current Senate totals for the region: Democrats-19, Republicans-3. (Note: Democratic Senate total includes independent senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Joe Lieberman (CT) both of whom caucus with the Democrats. Ideologically Sanders is at the leftward edge of the party, Lieberman is on the right.)

Souter Retirement

While many have speculated that Justice Stevens, age 89, would be the first Supreme Court retirement of Obama's term, those with most intimate knowledge of the Court have long said that Souter was disillusioned with D.C. and the Court and wanted to return to his quiet life in New Hampshire. According to the Times, this term will be Souter's last.

In 2007, Justice Stevens said that since Richard Nixon appointed Lewis Powell to the Court in 1971, "[e]very judge who’s been appointed...has been more conservative than his or her predecessor." Here's the list:

1971 Lewis Powell (Nixon) replaced Hugo Black (FDR)
1972 William Rehnquist (Nixon) replaced John Marshall Harlan II (Eisenhower)
1975 John Paul Stevens (Ford) replaced William O. Douglas (FDR)
1981 Sandra Day O'Connor (Reagan) replaced Potter Stewart (Eisenhower)
1986 Antonin Scalia (Reagan) replaced Warren Burger (Nixon)
1988 Anthony Kennedy (Reagan) replaced Lewis Powell (Nixon)
1990 David Souter (Bush I) replaced William Brennan (Eisenhower)
1991 Clarence Thomas (Bush I) replaced Thurgood Marshall (LBJ)
1993 Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Clinton) replaced Byron White (JFK)
1994 Stephen Breyer (Clinton) replaced Harry Blackmun (Nixon)
2005 John Roberts (Bush II) replaced William Rehnquist (Nixon)
2006 Samuel Alito (Bush II) replaced Sandra Day O'Connor (Reagan)

This pattern has moved the Court far, far to the right of where it was when Stevens first came to the Court 30+ years ago. Seven of the nine current justices were appointed by Republicans, including the Court's two most liberal members, Justice Stevens and Justice Souter. Even Clinton's two appointees were more conservative than their predecessors. For example, Justice Breyer, a liberal on the current Court, is far less liberal than his predecessor Justice Blackmun, a Nixon appointee. Perhaps the most dramatic shift to the right was when George H.W. Bush appointed arch-conservative Clarence Thomas to replace civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall.

In any event, Souter's retirement at a time when the Democrats control the Senate would give President Obama a chance to interrupt this longstanding rightward shift. But given the current state of the judiciary – in which even Democratic appointees tend largely to accept conservative judicial philosophies, the liberal "bench" isn't very deep. I hope Obama finds a replacement at least as liberal as Souter.