I never get tired of bitching about the editorial board.
From today’s ProJo, an op-ed on the Electoral College:
“Before citizens jump on the bandwagon [of the dissolution of the Electoral College], they would be wise to consider what the Founders were trying to do in creating what has turned out to be the most successful federal, not unitary, republic in history.
They worked hard to devise a government that would tend to protect the liberties of minorities (except tragically, most notably, the African-American population for many years).”
Yeah, that whole slavery thing with the 3/5 compromise was a low point. And then there were the Jim Crow laws even after the Fifteenth Amendment. Guess all that counts as a little longer than “many years.”
Wait, I know there was some other large group of U.S. citizens barred from voting for “many years.” What part of the population was it again? Wait…. wait… don’t tell me… I think it might have changed in the last 90 years… Help me out…
As I mentioned in
a prior post about the Garrahy Judicial Complex, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in that facility’s Courtroom 4C, where arraignments for RI’s 6th District take place. The judges at arraignment give a shpiel about the meaning and consequences of a plea whenever someone pleads out at that stage of the game, and I often take much of that shpiel for granted.
An important part of what they must instruct the defendants is that any criminal conviction or guilty plea will affect any immigration status or proceedings. For many, this means that deportation is inevitable. One thing missing from the shpiel, however, is consideration of how a guilty plea and prison sentence will affect the defendant’s status in Family Court. All too often, defendants are counseled to accept a shorter sentence with time served only to be served with Family Court subpoenas on charges of neglect—neglect that occurs while these parents are behind bars—or deportation papers.
Colorlines magazine has a great piece this month on the intersection of systems—namely immigration, incarceration, and foster care. In “
When an Immigrant Mom Gets Arrested,” Julianne Ong Hing and Seth Wessler write:
Immigrant mothers are not the first to deal with the ways that different government agencies intersect, usually to their detriment. The experiences Black families have had with child welfare and criminal justice policy make clear what can happen to communities when family policy intersects with a set of other punitive policies.
The Providence Journal’s Editorial Page does a pretty good job. If that job is an awkward misrepresentation of facts, spun to serve their pseudo-independent conservative agenda, then yeah, they totally rock it.
I was gonna rip on the editorial board’s Froma Harrop, who lives in Providence and writes a syndicated column, last week when I read her column, “
McCain no anti-abortion fanatic.” Gawd, you can tell from the title what this is gonna be: “Don’t worry, pro-choice voters. It’s gonna be okay no matter what.”
Persons with the unique ability to read McCain’s website and research his voting record have been buzzing over the wackness of Harrop’s column, including more notable writers than yours truly. So I’ll just leave it to Katha Pollitt of The Nation, who
echoes my daddy, Frank Rich, when she says:
Are there feminist Hillary supporters who hate Obama so much they’ll vote for McCain just to show the Democratic Party how ticked off they are? Yes, and I get e-mails from all five of them.
Okay, complete disclosure… I’m crazy about this woman. She’s just so brainy and cool and I can’t wait to have sophisticated, smart people in the White House. Sounds good to me — but no.
The New York Times reports that the consultants and spin-meisters have been called in to ‘fix’ her.
Now her husband’s presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff. On Wednesday, Mrs. Obama will do a guest turn on “The View,” the daytime talk show on ABC, with an eye toward softening her reputation.
This woman went to Princeton and Harvard Law, and ran with the big boys as a corporate lawyer in Chicago. Nope, can’t have that… we must make her go all soft and squishy and insipid. Come on! She’s got a good mind, leave her alone and let her speak it. Conservative bloviators got their knickers in a twist over some remarks she made about being proud of her country for the first time. (After the last eight years it is hard to remember feeling that way.) You’d have thought she had killed somebody (see:
Laura Bush).
Please Michelle, fire these people. You didn’t get this far with consultants and focus groups. Just be yourself. And no cookie recipes.
Citing a tripling in domestic violence homicides in the past two years, Gov.
Deval Patrick yesterday declared a “public health emergency” and directed health and safety officials to review data over the past three years and produce a trend analysis.
In 2007, there were 42 murders and 13 suicides related to domestic violence, averaging almost one a week and the highest rate since the early 90s, according to Jane Doe Inc., an advocacy group. In 2005, there were 15 murders and four suicides.
While Carcieri moves forward with his executive order against illegal immigration, Mary Lauby of Jane Doe, Inc., an organization devoted to ending domestic violence, points out that one reason for the rise in murders is all the anti-immigration sentiment. It seems many immigrant women are afraid to come forward and report cases of abuse.
Just another reason why hating on our immigrant population sucks.
For those who have been clamoring for an immediate HRC exit, a counter-proposal, from someone who has been wishing she’d drop out since February: Hillary should stay in.
Not only does she have the right to stay in, but she should. It serves the interest of all Democrats and indeed America itself for her to stay in the race and champion her cause, at least for now. Sure, there are caveats: she should not stay in until the convention, she should run a positive campaign, and avoid reopening the wounds of Florida and Michigan that are just beginning to
mend themselves. Basically, she should run, and is
perhaps even now running, with the implicit understanding that she cannot and will not win. But for now, maybe for the next month or so, she should stay in.
Why?
1. Money. Hillary needs it. Still. Always. Forever. In West Virginia, a kid sold his bike and video games to raise money for her campaign and, as Jon Stewart said,
she took it. Sure, staying in might give her the leverage to get Obama to help cut her debt, but that’s a contingency plan - and not one that serves the interest of the Dems in 2008.
(more…)
Only a few minutes into the movie
Iron Man, Tony Stark, the amoral munitions titan, is barraged with inconvenient questions from an aggressive female Vanity Fair reporter. He dismissively sums her up by assuming she attended Berkeley, to which she responds “Brown”. So, like it or not, Brown University is clearly shorthand for a certain type of left-wing bleeding-heart crusading do-gooder (and I don’t think that pie-lady helped). Okay, fine, that is nothing new — but then she jumps right into the sack with the guy! Completely betraying your core belief system just cuz he’s rich and hot? Berkeley maybe, but not our Brown gals. Ladies… man your pies!
(One more point, riding a Segway in a movie is code for — douchebag. If also bald — evil douchebag.)
With her familiar bob of white hair, O’Connor yesterday joined Selya and Chief Circuit Judge Michael Boudin in peppering lawyers with questions in a half-dozen cases, including the Rhode Island case of James H. Reyelt v. William B. Danzell and Louisa F. Beenker Danzell.
So how did it feel to appear before the woman who is arguably the world’s best-known judge?
“It was a very cool thing,” said Dana Curhan, a Boston lawyer who represented Reyelt.
“I am honored,” said Marc DeSisto, the Providence lawyer representing the Danzells. “I think it’s great when a senior Supreme Court judge lends a hand to circuit courts. It’s a great benefit to the court. It’s a great benefit to the bar. And it generates a lot of interest.”
While I *Heart* Sandra Day, I don’t think you could generate “a lot of interest” in a case involving promissory notes, zoning variances and a Barrington beach house even if Jean-Luc Picard was presiding. Or… could you?
On Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,
James Carville recently quipped: “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.”
It was far from the first time that a political pundit used testicles as a metonymy for power, courage, boldness, or guts. In fact, Hillary’s “balls” have been the subject of much praise (and disdain) throughout the course of this exhausted Democratic primary.
Introducing Clinton at a rally in Indiana, Paul Gibson, president of a steelworkers local union,
proclaimed that the nation needed a leader like Clinton with “testicular fortitude.” Clinton thanked him for the compliment, though she did note that women, too, can have fortitude.
Reporting on the incident, Salon editor
Joan Walsh wrote, “Clinton does indeed have … fortitude. Hell, she has balls.”
Walsh says that Clinton handled the situation as best as she could and did not employ a double-standard by accepting this incredibly sexist “compliment.”
No sarcasm, pun, or wit could make this news any funnier.
Wonkette reports:
Hillary Clinton’s pick to win horse racing’s Kentucky Derby, Eight Belles — the only female horse in the race — finished second, broke both front ankles, and subsequently was put to death on the track. The first place horse was “Big Brown.” Go nuts.
This makes my Dad’s attempt to find political meaning in the “underdog” Giants’ victory over the “machine candidate” Patriots in Superbowl 2k8 seem even more far fetched by comparison.
Here’s a new entry in the self-loathing sweepstakes — how to talk to the children about your cosmetic surgery. In his new book (to be released on Mother’s Day) plastic surgeon Michael Salzhauer outlines the approaches for talking to your kids about being shallow and insecure and why the family won’t have a vacation this summer. Speaking to
Newsweek magazine, one satisfied patient said she had read the book a half a dozen times with her 9-year-old son.
Instead of being uncomfortable about the surgery, Acosta says her son actually spoke up about it at a big party. “Did you see her new belly button? It’s so pretty!” he said of his mom. “I think he was proud,” she says.
I just returned from my visit to the US Supreme Court and meeting with Justice Alito. While it was a great way to cap off RWU Law’s “Supreme Semester,” I can’t help but think of one of the worst decisions that came down last term:
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.
In this case, the Supreme Court held that employees cannot challenge ongoing compensation discrimination if the employer’s original discriminatory decision occurred more than 180 days before, even when the employee continues to receive paychecks that have been discriminatorily reduced. Basically this decision goes against Congressional intent of eliminating workplace discrimination and essentially, ignores what may be really going on in the workplace. Justice Ginsburg (who founded the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project) had to watch as a woman’s statutory right to equal pay was diminished. This was a rare time when Ginsburg read her dissent aloud from the bench:
In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination…
The bit of good news about this case is that YOU can do something about it! If you believe in women’s equality in the workplace, please e-mail
Senator Whitehouse and
Senator Reed and tell them to support the Fair Pay Restoration Act (S. 1843), which will correct the Court’s reading of Title VII. The House passed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 (HR 2831) earlier this year.
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I never get tired of bitching about the editorial board.
