• President Obama has pledged to committing the U.S. to reducing carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels in advance of traveling to Copenhagen Dec. 7 for the international climate conference, but between the parochial interests of individual senators and the energy industries they represent, as well as the denial caucus' proclivity for putting would-be political candidates in awkward positions, I have my doubts.
• Ezra Klein summarizes the unintended consequences of parliamentary rule changes: "The story of the filibuster is a story of small changes that everybody got used to, which allowed for more small changes that everybody got used to, and so on, until the Senate had undergone a large change indeed."
• It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that arguments against health-care reform on the grounds of constitutionality fail even the lightest scrutiny, but Tom Schaller has generated a list of rebuttals that ought to come in handy the next time you come across arguments like "members of Congress swear an oath to uphold the Constitution -- not the court's funhouse-mirror version of it."
• A persistent, one-size-fits-all criticism of the first year of the Obama presidency is that candidate Obama and President Obama are two different people, leading to both disappointment in his liberal base (hasn't moved enough to the left) and to outrage on the right (because he's moved too far to the left). In fact this is just the reality of settling in to governing and the pace of policy change is always going to be controversial for critics on the right and left, albeit for different reasons.
• Remainders: To claim the stimulus has done nothing or made things worse is patently absurd; at least on cap-and-trade it would be good to follow California's example; the people of New Jersey get a taste of the fabled compassionate conservatism; Alan Grayson reminds us that only the Senate can reform itself; Nancy Pelosi has the right idea on economic stimulus and jobs creation; and Charlie Crist asks a reasonable question of the conservative base, forgets said base is not reasonable.

--Mori Dinauer

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, The Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. TAPPED will be cross-posting the 10-part series with the New Deal 2.0 blog over the course of the next two weeks. In this installment, Pavlina Tcherneva describes how a much poorer country than ours — Argentina — used direct job creation to pull the country out of recession.

What has now become the standard government response to a recession – pump priming – is a gamble and it is time to abandon it as a tool for economic recovery and job growth. It takes too long to produce results and one never knows how much demand the government must pour down a leaky economy to turn it around. It is a risky strategy, which is why President Obama reminded us again on a few days ago that unemployment is a lagging indicator. Yet, there are no good reasons for putting up with high unemployment when we have an effective solution at hand. This is why I add my support to the growing list of those calling for direct job-creation programs.

While policy-makers cling to the astounding belief that the government can neither create jobs, nor find enough useful things for the unemployed to do, a much poorer country with presumably fewer resources and less effective government was able to do it just a few years ago. The country is Argentina, which did not settle for a jobless recovery when its economy plunged in its worst post-War recession; instead, it immediately launched a public employment program, known as the Jefes Plan, to deal with the crisis.

Just like the New Deal in the 30s, the Jefes plan was up and running in only a few months. In January 2002, the jobs program was signed into law as an emergency measure and five months later it began putting 500,000 people to work. Twelve months after that, it had employed 2 million people, or 13% of the labor force. The program offered a part-time, minimum wage public sector job to any unemployed head of household willing to work in a community project. The price tag of the Jefes plan was less than 1 percent of GDP.

More after the jump.

--Pavlina Tcherneva

Pavlina R. Tcherneva is an assistant professor of Economics at Franklin and Marshall College and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.

MORE...

Can you spot the glaring problem in this AP story about last night's state dinner?

First lady Michelle Obama chose to wear a gleaming silver-sequined, flesh-colored gown Tuesday night to the first state dinner held by her husband's administration. She was tending to her hostess duties in a strapless silhouette with the beads forming an abstract floral pattern that was custom-made by Naeem Khan.

Hey, AP? Crayola got the memo back in 1962--using flesh as a synonym for white or light-colored is, well, racist.

Sociological Images pulled together a collection of ads that trade on this same assumption--the default skin tone color is white. As Lisa wrote, "Part of the privilege of being white is having a society that considers you the norm and is, therefore, organized around you."

--Phoebe Connelly

(AP Photo)

Dana Perino has some thoughts on terrorism, in particular the Ft. Hood shootings:

PERINO: And we had a terrorist attack on our country. And we should call it what it is. Because we need to face up to it so that we can prevent it from happening again.

HANNITY: I agree with you. And why won’t they say what you just so simply said?

PERINO: They want to do all of their investigations. I don’t know. All of the thinking that goes into it. But we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term. I hope they’re not looking at this politically. I do think we ought it to the American people to call it what it is.

This isn't actually true of course, and other people have dealt with fact-checking this statement.

The Ft. Hood shooting initially inspired some rather interesting conversation on the right and left about the nature of terrorism and how it's defined. But Perino isn't actually making an argument about the nature of the attack, or attempting to determine what is terrorism or what isn't. She's just keeping score.

I'm sure Perino will bring the same morbid insight to her new position with the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

-- A. Serwer

Atrios has the correct response to Kevin Drum's rather odd claim that Social Security could somehow be "taken off the table" by instituting some benefit cuts and tax hikes: thinking that Social Security could ever be "reformed" to Fred Hiatt's long-term satisfaction will work out about as well as it did under the Reagan administration.  (You'll remember that regressive tax increases designed to "stabilize" Social Security funding ended up being used to justify future regressive tax cuts, and the same people who supported this scam then claimed we needed more "reform" anyway.) 

A couple more points:

• I'm also not sure why it would be desirable to have Social Security "taken off the table" even if it were somehow possible, since having it as a live issue obviously helps Democrats, as Bush's failed attempt at privatization proved. The Pain Caucus and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page represent public opinion on this issue even less that they usually do.
• I forgot to mention this earlier in the week, but I was amused by Ross Douthat's example of an "innovative" policy proposal from a Republican intellectual: "a payroll tax cut." Leaving aside the comic value of thinking there's anything innovative about Republicans advocating tax cuts as a solution to everything, in isolation the proposal isn't entirely unattractive: a payroll tax cut would, on its face, be both stimulative and progressive.   The problem, of course, is that regressive payroll taxes are acceptable because they fund progressive Social Security benefits, while cutting payroll taxes would be a long term-political disaster. If you think there's a lot of complaining about Social Security when payroll taxes are substantially overfunding payouts, wait until the program's fake "bankruptcy" is imminent rather than hypothetical decades away.  The idea is to force Congress to make bad and politically destructive "reforms" by denying Social Security its dedicated funding. I think I'll pass ...

I'm not Johnny-on-the-spot with climate change issues, normally leaving that work to the estimable Brad Plumer, but I have rather enjoyed the excitement on the right as hacked e-mails from a British university's climate change research center have prompted wild misreadings and driven thoughts of a global conspiracy theory to hoodwink everybody into thinking global warming is real when it isn't. (Fact Check Alert: global warming is real!) Judging by most of the commentary I've read on the topic, the whole thing is overblown.

This morning, Jim Manzi does me one better by not even doing the basic background research. Instead, he offers this lovely bit of commentary on the subject:

I have not read the full set of e-mails, nor have I seen authoritative evidence of their provenance, but for the sake of argument let’s assume the allegations are correct.

Responsible! Manzi goes on to deduce from this fantasy evidence that "the scandal is obviously a PR disaster for those who believe that climate reconstruction is 'science' in the sense we normally use the term." Hrm. I would say instead that the wide scientific consensus around the fact of global warming is a PR disaster for those who believe we should do nothing about the problem.

More broadly, the idea that there is a world-wide conspiracy of people who want to manufacture the idea of global warming and then create laws to solve this fake problem requires a tremendous leap of faith. Here in the United States, for instance, Cap and Trade is a huge pain in the butt for liberals who would much rather be doing other things with their legislative time. No doubt someone will argue that this is just another way to raise revenue off of business, but almost all of the revenue in Cap and Trade goes to ease the transition costs. Believe me, we'd much rather be passing health care, reforming financial regulations, fixing labor law and improving the labor market than dealing with global warming, but those pesky facts have gotten in the way and somebody has attempt responsible governance.

-- Tim Fernholz

Daphne Eviatar looks at the arguments against giving Khalid Sheik Mohammed the death penalty:

“I think the fact that the defendants want to be executed shouldn’t count either way,” said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Cornell University, who advocated against the death penalty for these suspects when they faced military commission trials last year. “However, I do think it is legitimate for the government to worry about the possible counter-productivity of the death penalty here. That is, if the government had concluded that executing [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed], et al were likely to substantially aid Al Qaeda in recruiting, a decision not to seek the death penalty could be based in part on that worry.” According to Dorf, executing the men not only wouldn’t deter other terrorists from committing similar crimes, but could even encourage them.

I've already made my feelings on this issue known--although I will say I find it interesting that conservatives are constantly arguing that liberals somehow ignore specific cultural features of Islamic extremism out of "political correctness"--but then they turn around and ignore those some idiosyncracies when considering how something like execution for KSM might actually be in Al Qaeda's interest because doing so would be somehow "soft".

-- A. Serwer

Adam Serwer examines the backlash against trying the accused 9-11mastermind in civilian courts:

Republicans' view of whether trying a terrorist in federal court is a victory for the rule of law or "irresponsible" tracks closely with whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House. The U.S. has far more to gain from trying the alleged 9-11 conspirators in civilian court than it has to lose. Despite conservatives' fears, there will be no TV cameras in the courtroom, no Khalid Sheik Mohammed monologues on the evening news except for those delivered by transcript. What the trial will put on display is the United States' commitment to due process, and it may potentially prove America is unafraid to confront its own wrongdoing when it comes to the abuse of the accused while in government custody.

KEEP READING ...

Former CIA official Reuel Gerecht argues that the FBI can't handle counterterrorism:

It shouldn't require the U.S. to have a French-style, internal-security service to neutralize the likes of Maj. Hasan. He combines all of the factors—especially his public ruminations about American villainy in the Middle East and his overriding sense of Muslim fraternity—that should have had him under surveillance by counterintelligence units. Add the outrageous fact that he was in email correspondence with Anwar al-Awlaqi, a pro-al Qaeda imam well-known to American intelligence, and it is hard not to conclude that the FBI is still incapable of counterterrorism against an Islamic target.

No one's arguing that the FBI should be exclusively involved in counterterrorism without the help of agencies focusing on foreign intelligence, but I'd really like to hear Gerecht's plans for determining whether someone has an "overriding sense of Muslim fraternity." The fact that Major Hasan was in contact with Anwar al-Awlaqi was suspicious behavior on its own. What's disturbing about the Hasan case isn't the "political correctness"--an assertion that has yet to be substantiated in any real sense--it's the possibility that genuine suspicious behavior was ignored.

The past few months have seen the dismantling of a number of homegrown terror plots by domestic law enforcement, so the idea that the FBI can't fight Islamist terrorism is absurd on its face. The agents who posed as al Qaeda sleeper agents and foiled bomb plots in Texas and Illinois would probably also disagree. But I think that, between Gerecht's broad chauvinist declarations ("The West has stimulated every single great modern Muslim conversation") and his wailing about political correctness (meaning I suppose, that "a sense of Muslim fraternity" doesn't count as probable cause) I think we get at what he's really saying:

A law-enforcement agency par excellence, the FBI reflects American legal ethics. Because the FBI is always thinking about criminal prosecutions and admissible evidence, its intelligence-collecting inevitably gets defined by its judicial procedures. Good counterintelligence curiosity—that must come into play before any crime is committed—is at odds with a G-man's raison d'être. And much more so than local police departments—which are grounded to the unpleasantness of daily life—it is highly susceptible to politically correct behavior.

The Bush administration basically stopped thinking about annoying things like "criminal prosecution" and "admissible evidence" when dealing with terrorism, which is how we ended up with Guantanamo Bay. But of course, if we weren't all so politically correct, we'd just lock all these people up forever and wouldn't worry about it. 

Counterterrorism shouldn't solely be the job of the FBI. But the idea that the FBI is "incapable of counterterrorism against an Islamic target" is simply incorrect.

-- A. Serwer

The detestable Dana Milbank has an article today on the efforts of financial industry lobbyists to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would protect borrowers from pernicious lending practices. Some of his reporting is unsurprising, and some is just weird. For one, I'd say he's wrong about saying the CFPA is in danger in the House of Representatives -- it's already been watered down, but it is moving forward. But in the Senate, it's a different story. Compare this paragraph from Milbank's piece today:

[The lobbyist] detailed how various other lawmakers -- Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and, in the House, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and the Congressional Black Caucus -- were causing various problems for the bill. "It looks more and more like Senate banking won't take it up until January or February, and with next year being an election year, that does raise the concern level," Hempler reported with satisfaction. "This could delay the overall effort." Or, with a bit of luck, kill it outright.

... to this paragraph from a piece I wrote last spring about the Chamber of Commerce:

Nonetheless, the Chamber is lobbying senators whom [the lobbyist] termed on the call "the usual suspects over there on Senate Banking." This includes Johnson -- "for sure," in Matthews' words -- Mark Warner of Virginia, Michael Bennett of Colorado, and Jon Tester of Montana. They are all Democrats the Chamber expects will choose a more business-friendly approach over consumer interests.

Happy to see Warner and Tester didn't make today's lobbyist roll-call, not surprised at all about Johnson. I was astonished to see the CBC on that list, but it may have to do with the decision by CBC members to hold up a recent vote on regulatory reform to protest the lack of economic policy attention given to African Americans. If they are actually fighting the CFPA more generally, they should be ashamed -- African Americans suffered from the depredations of predatory lending wildly out of proportion to any other community, and for their supposed leaders in Congress to block this agency would be a monumental betrayal.

The real problem, though, is the Senate, where no one has stepped forward to champion the CFPA -- Dodd is supporting it, but there is no one else on the Banking committee giving it full-throated backing. That's a real shame. The CFPA is critical to good regulatory reform -- there is no sense in fixing the banks if they can still screw over their customers -- and critical to good regulatory reform politics because it provides tangible benefits to everybody.

-- Tim Fernholz

• President Obama's "Educate to Innovate" campaign focusing on promoting the "cool" factor of science is quite welcome in an era of the Discovery Institute and the ongoing campaign to deny global warming even exists. The question is whether this is going to be the administration's strategy for strengthening education, which is supposed to be one of the big three domestic policy areas candidate and President Obama has repeatedly emphasized.
• The main takeaway from this Chris Hayes piece on the meaning behind Obama's trip to China is that most of the political and economic analysis which followed it is clueless about the true nature of our relationship with the Chinese government. Indeed, our "biggest creditor" only holds 22 percent of foreign-held U.S. securities and the biggest investors overall are domestic, and they're still quite happy to debt-finance the United States government.
• Charles Franklin's analysis at Pollster.com convincingly demonstrates that support for Obama among political independents, as with Democrats and Republicans, has been stable for some time now. But where has Obama lost support? Gallup notes that support among whites has plummeted for the president and PPP finds that crossover Republican support has gone, in their words, "from a small amount of crossover support to a very small amount of crossover supports."
  
• Remainders: There's more going on with India than fancy state dinners; Ed Kilgore explains the Brooks Maneuver; moderate Republicans are bailing on the bailout; Ezra Klein makes the case for emulating Bill Frist; and prop 187, the Republican minority, and California's fiscal crisis.

--Mori Dinauer

Over at Talking Points Memo, a friendly argument has broken out between a former Senate staffer and a political scientist over what might be called the problem of the Senate. That's the kind of fight I have to jump into!

In summary, the two viewpoints on filibusters are: (1) Something changed in the culture of the Senate, and filibusters used to be rare, mostly threatened by individual senators or factions who wanted some change to a bill rather than to block it completely. (2) It's a much more structural change, and in the past there were often large bipartisan majorities that wanted to pass major legislation, so the filibuster wasn't even an issue. (With the notable exception of civil rights.)

Both are probably right: In terms of culture and custom, the turning point was almost certainly the previous health-reform debate, in 1993 and 1994. That's when Bob Dole, then the majority leader, made the phrase "You need 60 votes to do anything around here" his mantra, and when -- thanks to Bill Kristol's famous memo -- the idea of blocking major legislation for political reasons, rather than trying to get it revised to reflect your own policy preferences, took hold. Maybe I put too much weight on that period because that happens to be when I worked in the Senate, but there's no doubt that at that time, a whole bunch of obstructionist techniques came out of the dusty toolbox, such as "filling the amendment tree" and, in the House, the motion to recommit a bill to conference. (I once witnessed Ted Kennedy asking staffers for advice about how to break one of these tactics, which he had never seen in 34 years in the Senate.)

Underlying that, of course, was the structural change that came with the realignment from a four-party system, in which each party had a liberal and conservative wing, to two ideological parties. (A center-left party and a far right party.) As frustrating as today's conservative Democrats like Mary Landrieu are, none of them are more conservative than any Republican, and no Republican is more liberal than even the most conservative Democrat. As a result, a filibuster can be organized and enforced by a party leader, whereas in the past, there was considerable ideological overlap, so both sides of a fight would be cross-partisan, and thus loose and shifting.

In the old Senate (up to the early 1990s), there were dozens of possible configurations that could produce legislation that won broad majority support. You could see it quite visibly in the Senate Finance Committee when Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was the chair -- from the center of that horseshoe dais, he might put together a coalition on the center-left one day, and one on the center-right the next, and if he played the politics right, the vote in committee would typically be something like 17-4, with a similar majority on the floor. My boss, as one of the more liberal members, was sometimes in the majority coalition and sometimes a dissenter -- it changed all the time. As debate began, it was hard to predict the final vote. But to watch Max Baucus maneuver in the same committee last month, you had to sympathize with how little he had to work with: Forty percent of his members were completely opting out -- any amendments they offered were purely symbolic or intended to support a talking point in opposition. The only coalitions available were a totally Democratic one and one that included Olympia Snowe. On the Senate floor, it's the same thing -- with a hundred senators, there are in theory, some mathematically unimaginable number of coalitions. But in reality, there are only two: Keep every single Democrat, including red-staters up for re-election and the now unabashedly malevolent Joe Lieberman, or lose one and get Olympia Snowe. There are no other options, and no legislative wheeling-and-dealing will open up any other possibilities.

As a result the Senate feels suffocating. It's easy to fantasize that maybe a tougher or more creative Harry Reid could do something, but even LBJ would be stuck if he drew this hand. The combination of the change in custom -- which involves not just using the filibuster to excess, but pushing to defeat legislation regardless of its content, for political purposes -- and the particular alignment of parties leaves shockingly little room for legislative maneuvering.

-- Mark Schmitt

Kriston Capps on Jeanne-Claude's role in the art world:

In April 1994, married artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude fielded a question during an art-college lecture that forever altered their artistic practice. According to Wolfgang Volz, the couple's friend and photographer, a man in the audience inquired after "the young poet Cyril, Christo's son." Jeanne-Claude, Cyril's mother, wasn't mentioned. A discussion the artists, born Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon and Christo Javacheff, had been having for some time about fully attributing their collaborative works to the both of them, and what that might mean economically and aesthetically, was foregrounded by an innocuous question about the couple's most intimate collaboration. From that point forward -- and in revision, as far back as 1961 -- the works of Christo became the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

With the death of Jeanne-Claude on Nov. 18, at age 74, comes an opportunity to reconsider her contribution to the greatest collaboration in contemporary art. Out of their partnership came many of the environmental art installations that gave the genre form, including 2005's The Gates -- the celebrated, temporary installation of some 7,000 saffron-colored fabric panels in Central Park. Giving Christo the bulk of the credit -- or failing to give Jeanne-Claude her due -- misunderstands the enduring significance of their work. While Christo worked primarily on the drawings and models that made their enterprise possible, Jeanne-Claude focused on the fairly enormous behind-the scenes tasks that lend their work its post-Marxist heft.

KEEP READING ...

If I was making millions off of a mammy-like drag queen-type character I'd probably want to donate some cash to the NAACP too, just to be safe.

-- A. Serwer

As we prepare to break for Thanksgiving, TTR has a survey of technology availability in Native communities, another idea for solving the deficit problem, the latest public opinion on immigration reform, and another take on the challenges faced by local and state governments during the recession.

• More Tech Needed in Indian Country. A new report authored by Native Public Media and the New America Foundation highlights the limited digital media access Native communities enjoy. For most tribal communities, only one-third of the families have analog phone service, broadband access is limited to a 10 percent penetration rate, and traditional radio remains the chief source of information for rural and remote native communities.The study does note that of the population engaging in digital multi-media, the utilization of new technologies are at rates higher than national norms. Given the economic and social advantages of mass access to digital information, the report recommends actions that seek to expand access, including new technology infrastructure projects and investment in human capital to increase jobs and expand Internet know-how throughout native communities. -- MZ
• A New Social Contract for the 21st Century? [PDF] The Brookings Institute released a paper suggesting that the federal deficit could be mitigated in coming years by increasing the correlation between income and the amount of benefits received. For example, individuals with higher incomes would receive less Social Security and Medicare benefits than someone with a lower income. While this solution is not ideal, the paper suggests that a more targeted safety net is more likely to survive spending cuts. Moreover, reducing benefits for the wealthy is more politically viable than raising their taxes. -- PL
• Feeling conflicted about immigrants. Though immigration reform isn't on everyone's mind right now, President Obama's planned overhaul of immigration law next year will be sure to fire up Democrats
  and Republicans alike. According to a new Pew Research Center report, while more people support immigration reform than in 2007, it is a more partisan issue, with support increasing among Democrats and dropping among Republicans. Further, while most Americans respect immigrants for their work ethic and cultural contributions, most believe that they weaken the economy and contribute to crime. Understanding these views will affect how Democrats gather support for reform. --LL
• Dire States. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute analyzes the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on state and local governments. While the Institute estimates the act has saved more than 1 million jobs and $219 billion worth of economic activity since February, it also warns of a prolonged economic downturn if relief isn’t extended. Over the next two years, the report predicts shortfalls of $369 billion and $100 billion for state and local governments, respectively. To counteract this, the report recommends $150 billion of additional relief for state and local governments through 2011. -- MH

-- TAP Staff

Previous Round-Ups:
11/17/09
11/10/09

Anyway, Lieberman's foolishness on the public option has been well documented here. The latest entry is from Gerry Seib, the Wall Street Journal's bureau chief:

His objection is based on fiscal risk: "Once the government creates an insurance company or plan, the government or the taxpayers are liable for any deficit that government plan runs, really without limit," he says. "With our debt heading over $21 trillion within the next 10 years...we've got to start saying no to some things like this."

Mr. Lieberman also notes that the public option wasn't a big feature of past health-overhaul plans or the campaign debate of 2008. So he says he finds it odd that it now has become a central demand -- which it has, he suspects, because some Democrats wanted a full-bore, single-payer, government-run health plan, and were offered a public option as a consolation.

Beinart had observed that, in the past, Lieberman was awarded full support of an organization dedicated to single-payer. It's also nice to see Lieberman backing off his lie that the public option wasn't mentioned in 2008, but now he's just saying it's not a "big feature." But if it's not a big feature, how can it create an unlimited deficit liability? Given that this insurance company will be funded entirely by premiums, its pretty hard to understand where this unlimited deficit comes from, especially because those killjoys over at the CBO predict that the public option will save money, not contribute to the deficit. I know, repeating all this ad nausem won't change Lieberman's stance, but the Connecticut senator's repetition of false arguments basically makes interpreting his stance as either being in hock to insurance companies or voting his rage. Neither option looks particularly flattering.

-- Tim Fernholz

With the unemployment rate the highest it's been in 25 years, The Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists, and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. TAPPED will be cross-posting the 10-part series with the New Deal 2.0 blog. In this installment, Barbara Arnwine looks at the "ethnic recession" and how to address training and re-employment challenges for our most vulnerable communities.

As the economy continues its long road to recovery, we must be wary of the policies implemented along the trek. Race looms at the fork in the road, and we must determine which way to turn to most effectively address these issues in a manner to protect people of all colors.

That said, the significant impact on the African American and Latino communities must not be ignored. Among blacks, the jobless rate stands at 15 percent, while unemployment among Hispanics exceeds 12 percent. Comparatively, joblessness among white workers is below 9 percent. The gap between black and white unemployment rates “is an index of discrimination in our society” says William A Darity, professor of African and African American Studies and economics at Duke University, as reported in Congressional Quarterly. To focus attention on those communities hardest hit doesn’t divert attention from the omnipresent problem but reminds us that we must be strategic in our thinking to avoid the flagrant mistakes of the past.

As CQ reminds us, it is a fact that the jobless rate for black Americans has remained much higher than that of whites through good times and bad since at least the 1960s. As I stated in that article, we need specific programs directed toward communities of color, and unfortunately we’re not seeing that. President Obama is right to note that he must “get the economy as a whole moving to be able to help anybody,” but that effort should not be mutually exclusive from assisting those communities disproportionately impacted.

More after the jump.

--Barbara Arnwine

Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Barbara Arnwine has been the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law since 1989.

MORE...

Paul Waldman on the politicization of mammograms:

The last thing Democrats needed, with reform still not passed, was any kind of health-care controversy. Yet that's just what they got when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force came out with a new set of guidelines on breast cancer screening, pushing back the suggested age for regular mammograms from 40 to 50. The uproar over the recommendation demonstrates a lot of the problems with how we deal with health care. It shows how opportunistic politicians can be -- the GOP, champions of women's health! -- and how as a country we have an inherent bias toward more health care, whether or not it's better health care. But the controversy also demonstrates how difficult it is to have a reasoned discussion and make good policy when scientific claims based on aggregates of cases are put up against vivid anecdotes from individual people.

Unsurprisingly, news reports about this issue have been filled with women testifying about the success of their own pre-50 mammograms. Since reporters always look for ordinary folks who can embody a controversy, they'll gravitate toward those who can say, "If I hadn't had a mammogram when I was 41, I'd be dead." The other side will be represented by a scientist wielding a stack of studies and figures.

KEEP READING ...

The reason I hate the complaints about "political correctness" is they generally only apply to the way social dialogue is policed for overt bigotry--as opposed to social pressure against saying impolitic things that are actually true. The implicit premise behind this complaint is that the world is now built to privilege undeserving minorities and women, who could not advance but for massive preferential treatment encouraged by the government--because social traditions that privilege white men don't actually count. This has only gotten worse since Barack Obama was elected, and the GOP decided to make the overt political pitch that the U.S. is being ruled by an iron-fisted racist who hates white people.

Then every once in a while, you read an article like this one, that puts it all in perspective. The unemployment rate for black men aged 16-24 in this country reached 34.5 percent in October:

Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population. And last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment in the District, home to many young black men, rose to 11.9 percent from 11.4 percent, even as it stayed relatively stable in Virginia and Maryland.

Of course, someone prone to blaming the ills of the world on "political correctness" could simply deploy a stereotype or two and rationalize the whole thing away. You could go intellectual, citing incarceration rates, or you could go old school, citing "work ethic."

Except the problem is this:

"Black men were less likely to receive a call back or job offer than equally qualified white men," said Devah Pager, a sociology professor at Princeton University, referring to her studies a few years ago of white and black male job applicants in their 20s in Milwaukee and New York. "Black men with a clean record fare no better than white men just released from prison."

Obama or no, if you're black in this economy you better have a tight grip on those bootstraps.

Look, I don't doubt that this has little to do with malice. I think that's part of the reason people don't want to acknowledge the role that racial bias continues to play in American life--it's not easy to tell where it begins or ends. But it's easy to see the results.

-- A. Serwer

Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But if science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that any sufficiently advanced technology will inevitably rise up to enslave us. So if you want to get ready for the day when your Roomba declares that maybe it’s time for you to start crawling around on the floor sucking up dust, it might be a good idea to evaluate the Republican and Democratic approaches to this problem.

Republicans might argue that with their ample stockpiles of weaponry and shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude, they’re the folks you want to have around during the robot apocalypse. I can think of one politician who might take particular pleasure in popping off her titanium pursuers (though she won’t be able to do it from a helicopter, since those computer-filled machines will be taking orders from their electronic brethren).

Democrats, however, have a trump card in this debate. Unlike their opponents, they’re at least aware that there’s a problem. Just as the GOP doesn’t really think there’s a health-care crisis, they don’t seem to be concerned about a robot uprising. Our commander in chief, however, is on the case.

At an event at the White House today, President Obama announced the “Educate to Innovate” initiative, meant to get kids interested in careers in science. The event featured a science project by some high school kids, a robot meant to “scoop up and toss moon rocks." As part of his remarks, Obama said the following:

As president, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything.

Granted, there is a great deal of planning to be done. But if we wait until the Predator drones are buzzing down Pennsylvania Avenue acquiring targets with their autonomous threat assessment protocols, it'll be too late. If nothing else, at least the president has identified the potential for disaster.

And don’t forget, the man also knows how to wield a light saber.

-- Paul Waldman

Ann Friedman explains why the fight for the common good must include individual interests:

Several years ago, The American Prospect held a "What is Liberalism?" contest. The winner, Todd Washburn, submitted this definition: "Liberals believe our common humanity endows each of us, individually, with the right to freedom, self-government, and opportunity; and binds all of us, together, in responsibility for securing those rights."

The first part of that statement is easy to embrace. We call ourselves liberals because we share a certain set of beliefs. The second part -- about our responsibility to act together on those beliefs -- is where things get tricky. Progressives do not live in a bubble. Despite our commitment to equality and opportunity, the movement reflects the biases and hierarchies of the rest of the country. We might all agree that gay couples deserve marriage rights and women must have access to reproductive health care, but when it comes to devising a political strategy and policy agenda, these are inevitably issues that always seem to slide quietly to the back burner.

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Sure, the President will take his fair share of lumps from Dobbs and he'll lose some Rust-belt voters too. But Dobbs's appeal, should he run, will be heavily concentrated amongst white, non-college educated men. And since that's a much more important constituency for the Republican party than it is for the Democrats then it makes sense for the White House to welcome Dobbs to the festivities and the race.

But Massie forgets another key point: A Dobbs run would immediately activate Hispanic voters who are predominately Democratic Party supporters. In 2008, Hispanics went for Obama 67 to 31 percent. Next time around, they'll be a much larger chunk of the electorate -- Hispanics are one of the fastest-growing populations in the country -- and, if Dobbs runs, not only will they be weighing all of the issues that are important to all voters, they'll also be facing a candidate whose careless smears of illegal immigrants and embrace of Minutemen groups have made him a symbol of xenophobia. If that doesn't boost turnout among that community on Election Day, I don't know what will.

At the end of the day, of course, Dobbs probably won't run. And if he does, he'll likely flame out -- simply because most media and entertainment personalities don't have the humility to handle a serious political campaign. Although politicians are known for their arrogance, to succeed in that game you need to be willing to bow and scrape for votes, meet and charm hundreds of local officials, get blasted in the media, have your shortcomings highlighted relentlessly by your own campaign staff (not to mention your opponents), and basically be uncomfortable for about a year. Some compare Dobbs to Al Franken, but if anything can prepare you for the hustings, it is trying to make it as a stand-up comic. I doubt Dobbs can handle that kind of pressure.

-- Tim Fernholz

What does Khalid Sheik Mohammed have in common with O.J. Simpson? Conservatives seem to think a great deal.

First, there was Sen. Chuck Grassley, who said this during Attorney General Eric Holder's Senate testimony last week:

I think a lot of Americans thought O.J. Simpson ought to be convicted of murder rather than being in jail for what he's in jail for now. It seemed to me ludicrous. You know, I'm a farmer, not a lawyer, but I just want to make that observation.

Indeed, a lawyer for one of the detainees has said that all five intend to plead not guilty “so they can have a trial and try to get their message out.” Were it not for Holder, they’d be on death row instead of preparing for a trial that will take years and make the O.J. Simpson case look like a traffic court hearing. And Holder chastises President Bush for delaying justice for 9/11 families?

Charles Krauthammer:

Holder himself told the Washington Post that the coming New York trial will be “the trial of the century.” The last such was the trial of O. J. Simpson.

Bill Kristol:

“What was the last crime of the century?” Kristol cried. “OJ Simpson . . . it’s disgusting to me that Holder used that term . . . crime of the century means a circus . . . it’s always been used for these tabloid show trials . . . now we’re gonna have another OJ Simpson trial in New York.”

This card is starting to get a little dog-eared, fellas. And just so we're clear, according to Human Rights Watch the score on terrorism convictions over the past eight years is criminal courts 145, military commissions 3.

-- A. Serwer

When Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 with U.S. support, displacing the Islamist government, the Islamic Courts Union, the usual conservative cheering section erupted in applause over the Bush administration's "toughness" in the war on terror. In fact, the decision was a humanitarian and national security disaster as the documents related to the Minnesota indictments of several Somali Americans yesterday make clear.

The removal of the ICU empowered its radical wing, Al Shabaab, led by the al-Qaeda-trained Aden Hashi Ayrow, which has now taken over terrorizing the country with suicide bombings, assassinations, and the killing of civilians. The ICU weren't what you might call "good guys" by any means, but they also weren't as bad as Al Shabaab. In fact, Osama bin Laden was so impressed by Al Shabaab that he offered them al-Qaeda's endorsement, denouncing the former head of the ICU, after he was elected president of the Transitional Federal Government, which has now adopted sharia anyway. The Bush administration's policy led directly to the rise of a more radical Islamic terrorist movement in the region, one that has culminated in the largest group of American citizens ever accused of joining a radical terrorist group, not to mention the first American suicide bomber.

The FBI criminal complaint yesterday makes clear that the political situation in Somalia figured directly in the recruitment of the individuals who have been indicted so far. One of the recruiters named, Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, according to the complaint, told eventual recruits that "he experienced true brotherhood while fighting in Somalia and that travel for jihad was the best thing that they could do." Another individual named in the complaint, Abdiweli Yassin Isse, who wanted to go to Somalia to "fight Ethiopians," helped raise money for friends to join him by telling everyone in the community they were going to study the Koran in Saudi Arabia. He himself never made it--but he did manage to fund the trips of others.

According to the complaint, Al Shabaab wasn't designated a terrorist organization by the State Department until June of 2008, nearly two years after the invasion. The problem isn't just, as Matthew Yglesias wrote last year, that the invasion bred "a new generation of anti-American jihadists." It's that it's breeding them here.

It's hard to imagine a worse outcome.

-- A. Serwer

Via Paul Krugman, this graph may help put some of the recent dollar panic in perspective:

Krugman observes that the dollar is more valuable now than it was in early 2008, but at that time the financial press was not freaking out about it the way we've seen recently. You could argue that our current economic situation makes a cheaper dollar more problematic, but Krugman notes that the opposite is in fact true. Here's what would happen in the supposed worst-case scenario, brought on by the deficits needed to fight the recession: If China starts to divest itself of dollar holdings, the effect would be to do what the Federal Reserve isn't willing to do but ought to, which is to use a more aggressive expansionary policy to fight unemployment. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? (Why Ben Bernanke isn't doing that anyways is another story entirely.)

-- Tim Fernholz

• One thing you'll notice about the RNC's new "purity test" is that the 10 alleged "policy positions" are mostly vague statements of principle. The very first item declares support for "smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes" but doesn't explain how they intend on actually achieving this limited government paradise. Of course, vague statements of principle -- and sometimes not even that -- are the sine qua non of base conservative politics these days, and anyone waiting for Republicans of substance to assume leadership of the party shouldn't hold their breath.
• One of the strongest arguments predicting successful passage of a health-care reform bill is that Democrats know failure is tantamount to political suicide. Even if not all rank-and-file Democrats get this, the leadership certainly does, and are probably circulating this poll to members of the caucus, which demonstrates the cost of failure. And being perceived as legislatively successful is an asset in Washington.
• I'm unable to comprehend this tendency of celebrities/CEOs/media personalities with little or no political experience to suddenly imagine themselves as credible presidential candidates. Actual time spent in elected office isn't the issue here, rather it's that one needs a political base to draw upon if one is going to endure the now-common two-year marathon that is the modern presidential race. Who, exactly, is Lou Dobb's constituency? Who's going to donate money to him? And why does anyone care that a washed-up cable news anchor thinks he's presidential material?
• Richard Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style" essay has been repeatedly referenced this year but the more relevant work has to be Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, which is the best book-length explanation for how obtuse news anchors like Chris Matthews can attest to Barack Obama's apparent handicap of having an analytical mind. And it's not just Matthews but more of a Beltway-wide phenomenon that consistently sighs under the burden of having to understand and explain policy details.
• Weekend Remainders: Senator Joseph I. Lieberman is a shameless liar; independents aren't exactly fleeing Barack Obama; I'm so glad we pared down the ARRA to an arbitrary dollar amount out of political necessity; conservative "arguments" against college students protesting have evolved little in the past 40 years; and is the tea party over?

--Mori Dinauer

With the unemployment rate the highest it's been in 25 years, The Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. TAPPED will be cross-posting the 10-part series with the New Deal 2.0 blog. In this installment, James K. Galbraith warns that without a bold change in course, the jobs problem won’t go away.

I’m tempted to say, the United States is plainly unable to cope with the economic crisis in a serious way. The barriers are philosophical, procedural, and constitutional. So long as economic thinking is mired in a world that disappeared with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, so long as any action requires 60 Senate votes, and so long as political capital erodes from the start of a fixed four-year presidential term, we’re stuck.

Technically it would have been fairly easy, 10 months ago, to get this bus back on the road. There could have been open-ended fiscal assistance to stop the budget hemorrhage of the states and cities. There could have been a jobs program and effective foreclosure relief. There could have been a payroll tax holiday. There could have been a strategy for sustained massive effort on infrastructure, energy and climate. There could have been prompt corrective action to resolve, instead of coddle, the worst of the banks.

I mostly don’t blame President Obama; he and his team went as far as they felt they could. I blame the head-in-the-sand politicians in Congress, the over-optimistic forecasters, the half-educated press, and the power of the financial lobby. I blame the avatars of fiscal virtue, the public debt scaremongers, the astrologers for whom 13 significant digits (a trillion) for the stimulus package was just too much. I blame the Senate, which hands the balance of power to small states at the expense of disaster areas like California, Florida and New York. I do blame the Bush-Obama financial policy team, who either believed that “credit would flow again” if you stuffed the banks with money, or knew that it wouldn’t.

The Bretton Woods point deserves another word. According to the system established in 1944, the U.S. current account deficit – and by extension our public budget deficit – was limited by an obligation to exchange foreign-held dollars for gold. Richard Nixon abolished that arrangement. Since the early 1980s, the world has held the Treasury bonds that the U.S. chose to issue. The system is fragile. But so long as it lasts, it doesn’t discipline our budget (and if it broke, we could replace it). Low interest rates prove this: Despite all the dire predictions, there is no difficulty in placing Treasury debt. Hence, we are free to pursue high employment, if we choose to do it.

Can anything be done now? Well yes, technically: The same steps that could have been taken in January 2009 could be taken in January 2010. But they won’t be, because for the moment we are seeing the inventory bounce, a productivity surge, real GDP growth, and other “good signs.” So we’ll be told to wait, to be patient, and to make sure we don’t buy what we can’t afford. And double-digit joblessness will linger on, breeding frustration and anger – perhaps all the way through to the mid-term elections. After which, what will be possible is anyone’s guess.

Sorry to be defeatist – it’s the way I feel. Prove me wrong.

-- James K. Galbraith

James K. Galbraith is the author of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.

Currently, no Republicans are leaving their seats except to run for higher office; in total, 12 Republicans and seven Democrats are leaving their seats open for various reasons. Right now, those numbers don't predict much about next year's elections, but it's still early yet; typically, members of Congress announce their decisions to retire or run in winter or spring of the election year, giving their respective parties time for a proper primary campaign. Watching the relative number of Democrats versus Republicans who leave behind open seats is one way to gauge what will happen eight months later and the general mood among the two parties going into the midterms.

-- Tim Fernholz

Right now, unemployment is a much larger problem than inflation, and creating a specific inflation target would, as Paul Krugman puts it in his discussion of the Japanese case in the 1990s, allow "the central bank to credibly promise to be irresponsible - to make a persuasive case that it will permit inflation to occur, thereby producing the negative real interest rates the economy needs." Negative real interest rates would be the step beyond the zero-interest rate policy that the Fed is following right now, which is not enough to provide a significant monetary expansion to allow for employment growth.

Bernanke could, conceivably, do something along these lines. But he hasn't yet. On the other hand, if you wanted someone who could credibly promise to be "irresponsible," at least from the view of monetary policy hawks, why not pick someone who Bond Vigilante-types already think is irresponsible (read, cares about unemployment), like San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen? Some might claim that this would damage the Fed's "political independence," but actually making use of the main check that the government has over the Fed -- appointing the chairman -- should be seen as within the normal bounds of Fed-government relations.

There are definitely downsides, of course. Financial markets, and bonds in particular, would probably react unwisely (remember that Bernanke was initially reappointed specifically to calm those markets on the day the updated budget was released). But it would be very smart politics for President Obama -- in one fell swoop, he demonstrates his seriousness about fixing unemployment, sticks it to the bankers that many Americans think he has been coddling, and captures a news cycle. The danger is that explaining the intricacies of monetary policy is challenging and that deficit hawks on CNBC and Fox would lose their minds; that said, the current explanations aren't particularly compelling and deficit hawks on CNBC and Fox are already losing their minds, so might as well make something of it.

-- Tim Fernholz

Jeff Faux notes that if the dollar crashes, it will take our economic cushion down with it:

The word from Washington and Wall Street is that the worst is over.

Sure, it will take a while for jobs to recover, for housing to come back, and for wages to rise. But we are definitely on the road to recovery from the biggest debt-bubble collapse since 1929.

Maybe. There were actually two debt bubbles. One was driven by Americans borrowing against unsustainable inflation in housing prices. The other was driven by America borrowing against unsustainable inflation in the price of the U.S. dollar. One more bubble is left to pop. When it does, our unique economic cushion -- privileged access to the world's savings -- will deflate. Like overvalued housing prices in the run-up to the 2008 crash, the dollar is headed for a substantial fall. The question is whether our political class can minimize the hit to working Americans' already-battered living standards. On the available evidence, the answer is, "No."

The central threat here is not the currently rising federal deficit, which despite the theatrical hysteria from Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats is a necessary remedy for the collapse of private spending. True, foreigners are financing the fiscal deficit, but because it is stimulating growth, it is ultimately self-liquidating. Rather, the core problem is the accumulating debt that the U.S. economy as a whole owes to the rest of the world, a result of a more chronic condition: 25 years of buying more in the global marketplace than we have been selling -- and borrowing to make up the difference.

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One of the most frequent canards trotted out by those against trying terror suspects in civilian courts is the idea that classified information will be revealed through discovery. Glenn Greenwald notes today that the doctrine covering the disclosure of classified information in court, the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), is being used to block the maltreatment of one of the alleged al-Qaeda members involved in the al-Qaeda embassy bombing, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. Judge Lewis Kaplan has imposed a protective order that allows the defense lawyers to review classified info only in a secure room, and that information can't be disclosed to Ghailani without government permission.

Greenwald writes:

Even during the Bush years, numerous defendants accused of terrorist acts were tried and convicted in federal courts -- John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid, Zacarias Moussaoui, Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla. Those spewing the latest right-wing scare tactic (Osama bin Laden will learn everything if we have trials!) cannot point to a single piece of classified information that was disclosed as a result of any of these trials. If that were a legitimate fear, wouldn't they be able to?

Greenwald's argument is that the CIPA is too strict, describing the guidelines as "draconian measures so extreme that it's hard to believe they can exist in a judicial system that it supposed to be open and transparent."

I just want to add that one of the examples most often cited by conservatives in opposition to the trial is the identity of unindicted co-conspirators disclosed during the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in 1995. Here's Michael Mukasey giving a typical version of the spiel:

Moreover, the rules for conducting criminal trials in federal courts have been fashioned to prosecute conventional crimes by conventional criminals. Defendants are granted access to information relating to their case that might be useful in meeting the charges and shaping a defense, without regard to the wider impact such information might have. That can provide a cornucopia of valuable information to terrorists, both those in custody and those at large.

Thus, in the multidefendant terrorism prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others that I presided over in 1995 in federal district court in Manhattan, the government was required to disclose, as it is routinely in conspiracy cases, the identity of all known co-conspirators, regardless of whether they are charged as defendants. One of those co-conspirators, relatively obscure in 1995, was Osama bin Laden. It was later learned that soon after the government's disclosure the list of unindicted co-conspirators had made its way to bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, where he then resided. He was able to learn not only that the government was aware of him, but also who else the government was aware of.

Notice that Mukasey says "valuable" information, not "classified" information. Nevertheless, people arguing against civilian trials do as best they can to conflate the two by implication if not outright deception -- the idea being that something terribly valuable had been disclosed as a result of trying a terrorist in a civilian court.

In fact, bin Laden had been calling for "jihad" against the U.S. since 1992, so the idea that he discovered that we were "aware" of him in 1995 is absurd. The 9/11 Commission Report notes that he had been calling for holy war against the U.S. for at least three years by that point. If OBL was "relatively obscure," it wasn't because he was trying to keep a low profile.

At any rate, for the 9/11 trial to have the intended public relations effect internationally, the government is going to have to fess up to some of the things that were done in the name of "security" -- and I have little doubt that can be done without compromising valuable intelligence information.

-- A. Serwer

Paul Starr says voters need to see immediate progress on jobs and health reform:

The continuing rise in the unemployment rate, up to 10.2 percent in November, has to give a sense of urgency to Democrats in Congress and the administration about the work they have at hand before next fall's elections. In 2010 Republicans are looking to repeat the success they had in 1994 after Bill Clinton's first two years, and if Democrats do not produce results soon, Barack Obama may suffer the same kind of midterm reversal as Clinton did.

The one good thing for the Democrats about the risk of losing control of Congress next fall is that, as Samuel Johnson said about the prospect of a hanging, it concentrates the mind. And it ought to concentrate congressional minds in two areas where the pressure is greatest to match promise with performance -- the economy and health care.

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“For the last year, as we’ve struggled to pass healthcare reform, we’ve been told that we have to pay for the bill – and the cost over the next decade will be about a trillion dollars. Now the President is being asked to consider an enlarged counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan, which proponents tell us will take at least a decade and would also cost about a trillion dollars. But unlike the healthcare bill, that would not be paid for. We believe that’s wrong,” said Obey, Murtha and Larson. “Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for.”

“The only people who’ve paid any price for our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are our military families,” they added. “We believe that if this war is to be fought, it’s only fair that everyone share the burden. That’s why we are offering legislation to impose a graduated surtax so that the cost of the war is not borrowed.”

I spoke with Ellis Brachman, Obey's spokesperson, to get more details on the plan: Essentially, below the $150,000 level, the 15 percent bracket for a family, there would be an increase of 1 percent of your current level, so for most people that would be 15.15 percent. Separate changes would happen between the $150,000 to $250,000 income level and above $250,000, which would be set by the president depending on his eventual decision on what to do in Afghanistan; currently, the war costs about $68 billion a year, but that could increase if the White House decides to send more troops or spend more money on development projects.

While this does present a serious challenge for those who would champion putting more resources into the conflict, but it will be hard for them to argue against this bill in good faith. These members of Congress are right to point out that many Americans are insulated from the effects of this conflict, and the least they can do is feel it in their pocketbooks. Should this bill come to a vote, it will be especially hard for Republicans who support the war effort but don't, in general, support higher taxes for any reason. (That's fiscal responsibility!) For now, it's just one more wrinkle in President Barack Obama's effort to make the right choice in Afghanistan, but if it forces him to make a real case to the American people about what U.S. forces are doing in Afghanistan and why it is worth the price, then it can only be a good thing. And if this legislation highlights his inability to do that, even better.

-- Tim Fernholz

Gabriel Arana explains why more than marriage is at stake in the federal legal challenge to Prop. 8:

On Nov. 4, 2008, when the polls closed on the West Coast and media outlets reported that California voters had passed Proposition 8, gay-rights supporters across the country were stunned. How could the purported gay haven of California -- home to Hollywood, Harvey Milk, and the Castro -- have rejected same-sex marriage?

It was an odd cultural moment, infused with the countervailing energy and promise of Barack Obama's victory. While progressives across the country danced in the streets chanting, "Yes We Can," angry gay-rights supporters gathered on the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento carrying signs that expressed their indignation: "No More Mr. Nice Gay." As Obama declared in his victory speech, the ground had shifted, but in the Golden State, it had moved in opposite directions.

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“Today’s employment report contained both signs of hope for recovery and painful evidence of continued labor market weakness. ... The unemployment rate, however, rose four-tenths of a percentage point, to 10.2 percent. That this occurred despite the rise in real GDP last quarter reflects both the typical lag between GDP growth and unemployment decline, and the recent exceptional increases in productivity. Having the unemployment rate reach double-digits is a stark reminder of how much work remains to be done before American families see the job gains and reduced unemployment that they need and deserve.”

Yup, that's just about the same effect as flying out to an aircraft carrier and raising a huge banner that says "Mission Accomplished."

However effective the administration's policies have been thus far -- and I think they're more effective than people generally give them credit for, and in many cases their failings are caused by Congress, not the executive branch -- no one is saying that this job is over. The president is having a "Jobs Summit" next week to talk about new job creation policies, and Congress is pushing to have something prepared on the same issue after health-care reform is done. It's one thing to complain about the approach, but to complain about the president and Congress declaring victory and going home just doesn't reflect the facts.

-- Tim Fernholz