Politics – Page 7 – Richard Bennett

Ten years too late

Family Scholars Blog is up to their old tricks again, touting some discredited old advocacy research as if it were bright, shining, and new: Family structure clearly influences educational outcomes for U.S. children. The weakening of U.S. family structure in recent decades, driven primarily by high and rising rates of unwed childbearing and divorce, has … Continue reading “Ten years too late”

Family Scholars Blog is up to their old tricks again, touting some discredited old advocacy research as if it were bright, shining, and new:

Family structure clearly influences educational outcomes for U.S. children. The weakening of U.S. family structure in recent decades, driven primarily by high and rising rates of unwed childbearing and divorce, has almost certainly weakened the educational prospects and achievements of U.S. children. Put more positively, there is a solid research basis for the proposition that strengthening U.S. family structure in the future — increasing the proportion of children growing up with their own, two married parents — would significantly improve the educational achievements of U.S. children…

Lower levels of income account for some of the differences in educational outcomes between children living with their own married parents and those in other family structures. For this reason, improving the economic circumstances of one-parent families would probably improve children’s educational outcomes in those families.

In fact, educational outcomes for boys in single-mother families are much worse than for girls, but this fact gets no mention in their latest “research brief”, a very shoddy piece of work based on an advocacy research paper by some group in Alabama. Pumping more money into these families is not going to help the boys, but alternative custody arrangements will, and that’s what the data actually show.

See a related and only slightly less clueless article on the marriage gap by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal. Hymowitz observes a big difference between highly-educated and poorly-educated women with respect to views on marriage, but fails to register the shortage of well-educated men in poor communities. So we have a self-reinforcing system in the poor and mostly ethnic communities: high rates of single-parent families lead to low numbers of well-educated boys, which lead to low rates of marriage, etc. It really shouldn’t take a network inventor to figure this stuff out.

Baiting the blogosphere

Declan McCullagh is Cnet’s chief political correspondent and an ardent champion of civil liberties, EFF-style*. He runs the Politech e-mail list, a place where such stories as the Little Red Book hoax are given wide currency and writes a column on civil liberties for Cnet, which most recently consists of a hysterical misconstruction of the telephone harassment provision added to the Violence Against Women Act. I’m no fan of VAWA, which is mainly a barrel of pork to fund “feminist” advocacy groups and has very little to do with reducing violence, but McCullough’s interpretation of the harassment law is completely ridiculous:

It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it’s OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

Well actually, it is a joke, as Cal Lanier explains:

Jeff Jarvis and others are upset about a News.com story declaring that President Bush made it a crime to write annoying comments on the internet. But perhaps the ranters didn’t read the source material.

Section 113 of the Violence Against Women Act adds a parameter to the telephone harassment law’s definition of “telecommunications device”: include any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications.

The definition already excludes “an interactive computer service”, defined as any information service, system, or access software provider, which should eliminate Internet postings from consideration, unless I’m missing something.

Here’s the important part of the new definition: includes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications .

If that doesn’t ring a bell, you probably aren’t familiar with the battle to define VOIP (voice over internet protocol). The previous law assumed that all phone calls would be made via a “telecommunications service” using a “telecommunications device”. The FCC has consistently found that VOIP is an unregulated “information service”, thus exempting it from all sorts of fees and services. A VOIP call may be functionally indistinguishable from a landline or cell phone call. Legally, though, it’s not a telecommunications service and doesn’t require the use of a telecommunications device. Adding the new text to the definition removes a potential loophole and ensures that VOIP calls will be treated just as any other telephone call.

and Orin Kerr concurs:

This is just the perfect blogosphere story, isn’t it? It combines threats to bloggers with government incompetence and Big Brother, all wrapped up and tied togther with a little bow. Unsurprisingly, a lot of bloggers are taking the bait.

Skeptical readers will be shocked, shocked to know that the truth is quite different. First, a little background. The new law amends 47 U.S.C. 223, the telecommunications harassment statute that goes back to the Communications Act of 1934. For a long time, Section 223 has had a provision prohibiting anonymous harassing speech using a telephone. 47 U.S.C. 223(a)(1)(C) states that

[whoever] makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications . . . shall be [punished].

Seems pretty broad, doesn’t it? Well, there’s a hook. It turns out that the statute can only be used when prohibiting the speech would not violate the First Amendment. If speech is protected by the First Amendment, the statute is unconstitutional as applied and the indictment must be dismissed.

This isn’t the first time McCullough has gone over the deep end on a story like this, and not the first time that bloggers have fallen for it, esp. those who suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Silly bloggers.

*The EFF is an ersatz civil liberties organization that’s more concerned with virtual rights than real ones. They’re more worried about the fact that the Patriot Act enables the Justice Department to look at your library records, which they don’t actually do, than with the fact that Title IV-D of the Social Security Act enables child support agencies to data-mine bank accounts and utility records, which they do, and to imprison debtors without right to counsel, even innocent ones, as they also do. I have very little respect for rights groups who think it’s more important to collect child support than to defeat Al Qaeda; crazy, I know.

Sounds like fun

Today’s debate in the US House is the sort of thoughtful deliberation I like to see: The fiery, emotional debate climaxed when Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the most junior member of the House, told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel. “He asked me to send Congress a message: stay the course. … Continue reading “Sounds like fun”

Today’s debate in the US House is the sort of thoughtful deliberation I like to see:

The fiery, emotional debate climaxed when Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the most junior member of the House, told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel.

“He asked me to send Congress a message: stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: cowards cut and run, Marines never do,” Schmidt said.

Democrats booed and shouted her down, causing the House to come to a standstill.

I believe poor Mr. Murtha is sincere but misguided, and because of that, doesn’t deserve being called a coward; Ms. Schmidt should dial her rhetoric down a notch.

The Republicans aced the Democrats on this one. Murtha’s resolution was basically an immediate troop withdrawal with all sorts of loopholes and caveats that would have provided too much cover to members trying to have it both ways. It’s right that the troops in Iraq should know that their mission is, and how its success will be measured.

Schwarzenegger’s setback

It’s a shame that Arnie’s reform proposals all flamed-out at the polls yesterday. California desperately needs redistricting, and the other proposals to blunt public employee union influence and balance the budget were commendable. Arnie blew this election by running a shoddy campaign, putting too many things on the ballot, and holding a special election instead … Continue reading “Schwarzenegger’s setback”

It’s a shame that Arnie’s reform proposals all flamed-out at the polls yesterday. California desperately needs redistricting, and the other proposals to blunt public employee union influence and balance the budget were commendable. Arnie blew this election by running a shoddy campaign, putting too many things on the ballot, and holding a special election instead of letting the voters deal with his reforms during a high-turnout regular election.

But all is not lost. Dan Walters, the king of California poilitical journalists, writes a prescription:

The final weeks of the campaign gave flashes of the more thoughtful approach that would better serve his – and Californians’ – interests. He performed well during his unscripted television appearances, making cogent arguments for reform. He should continue in that vein, laying out the issues and the contradictions inherent in governing such a complex state without sugar-coating, and beginning the laborious task of rebuilding the trust that Californians invested him in 2003.

That said, he need not surrender to the forces of the status quo who apparently prevailed in Tuesday’s election. The status quo is not acceptable. The state budget process is screwed up, the gerrymandered legislative districts create an undemocratic and unresponsive Legislature and the public education system is performing poorly. One might fault Schwarzenegger’s prescriptions – and his campaign for them was poorly conceived and executed – but the issues themselves are very legitimate.

Schwarzenegger, having stumbled so badly, may be tempted to back away from confronting the status quo and do some face-saving small beer deals with the Legislature to rebuild his popularity and win re-election, much as he did in the first months of his governorship. That, however, would be doing himself and the state an immense disservice because California cannot afford to delay addressing pressing matters that have been ignored for far too long.

A straight-talking, humbled Schwarzenegger would lay out the issues that need attention and offer specific and credible proposals to deal with them, no matter what the reaction would be from those inside the Capitol who are more interested in playing partisan or ideological games than taking care of the public’s business.

Schwarzenegger’s political internship is over; it’s time to get serious.

It’s move forward with reforms or choke in the status quo for California.

Zell gets it

It’s like a spy thriller. Institutional rivalries and political loyalties have fostered an intelligence officer’s resentment against the government. Suddenly, an opportunity appears for the agent to undercut the national leadership. A vital question of intelligence forms the core justification for controversial military actions by the current leaders. If this agent can get in the … Continue reading “Zell gets it”

It’s like a spy thriller. Institutional rivalries and political loyalties have fostered an intelligence officer’s resentment against the government. Suddenly, an opportunity appears for the agent to undercut the national leadership. A vital question of intelligence forms the core justification for controversial military actions by the current leaders. If this agent can get in the middle of that question, distort that information and make it public, the agent might foster regime change in the upcoming election.

But the rules on agents are clear. They can’t purposely distort gathered intelligence, go public with secret information or use their position or information to manipulate domestic elections or matters without risking their job or jail.

But their spouse can.

Read the whole thing.

Death to Schiavo, Save the Babies

The right is severely confused and conflicted about federal judges. They want judicial restraint when they believe states will do the right thing, as in the case of abortion rights, but they want an activist federal judiciary when they don’t trust the states. Florida especially never seems to do the right thing, whether it’s counting … Continue reading “Death to Schiavo, Save the Babies”

The right is severely confused and conflicted about federal judges. They want judicial restraint when they believe states will do the right thing, as in the case of abortion rights, but they want an activist federal judiciary when they don’t trust the states. Florida especially never seems to do the right thing, whether it’s counting votes or pulling the plug on the irreversibly brain dead and chronically comatose.

But the problem is that you can’t have it both ways: either the states have meaningful power to enact public policy or they don’t. We observed on this very blog that Harriet Miers was nominated because the White House decided to go the activist route. They apparently reasoned that the right’s frustration over their inability to “save” Schiavo through extraordinary legal means was paramount, and besides, there were good if cynical political reasons to keep Roe on the books.

It turns out they miscalculated, underestimating the fickleness of their base and the depth of feeling about Roe. So we got Sam Alito, the very model of judicial restraint, the kind of judge who would strike down Roe in a heartbeat and leave the state of Florida to decide Terri Schiavo’s fate. So be it.

David Broder, bless his heart, adds to the confusion about Alito in this column on the wussiness of the President:

Under other circumstances, President Bush’s choice of Judge Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court would have been seen as a bold move by a strong president with a clear policy objective. By choosing a man of superior intellectual heft and an indelible record of conservative views on major social issues, Bush would have been challenging his critics on the Democratic side to test their arguments in an arena where everything favored him: a Republican Senate. (emphasis added)

No, no, no. The Supreme Court doesn’t have “views on social issues”. Supreme Court justices have views on Constitutional issues which may be said to be liberal or conservative independent of their policy wishes. Can we please get this right and stop pretending that Alito thinks strip-searching 10-year-olds or requiring spousal notification before abortion are “good ideas?” His job isn’t to express his wishes, it’s to decide if the state has the powers that it thinks it has, period.

Public policy is the province of the legislative branch. Really.

HT John Cole.

Alito and the rights of fathers

It appears that the dissent Alito wrote in Casey is going to play very heavily in the discussion on his confirmation. So here’s a link to it and a bit of the essence: My disagreement with the majority regarding a single provision of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 3201 et seq. (1983 … Continue reading “Alito and the rights of fathers”

It appears that the dissent Alito wrote in Casey is going to play very heavily in the discussion on his confirmation. So here’s a link to it and a bit of the essence:

My disagreement with the majority regarding a single provision of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 3201 et seq. (1983 & Supp.1991), results from disagreement about the portion of Justice O’Connor’s two-part test that must be applied to this provision. Under that test, as the majority explains, a law that imposes an “undue burden” must serve a “compelling” state interest. By contrast, a law that does not impose an “undue burden” must simply be “rationally” or “reasonably” related to a “legitimate” state interest. The majority holds that Section 3209 constitutes an undue burden. The majority therefore applies the first prong of the two-part test and strikes down Section 3209 on the ground that it does not serve a “compelling” interest. I do not believe that Section 3209 has been shown to impose an undue burden as that term is used in the relevant Supreme Court opinions; I therefore apply the second prong of the two-part test; and I conclude that Section 3209 is constitutional because it is “rationally related” to a “legitimate” state interest.

Although the majority and I apply different prongs of this two-part test, I see no indication that we disagree concerning the conclusion produced when either prong is applied to Section 3209. If the majority is correct that Section 3209 must satisfy heightened scrutiny, I agree that its constitutionality is doubtful. Similarly, I do not interpret the majority opinion to mean that Section 3209 cannot satisfy the rational relationship test. Indeed, the majority acknowledges that Section 3209 serves a “legitimate” interest. See majority opin. at 715, 716. Thus, my major disagreement with the majority concerns the question whether Section 3209 imposes an “undue burden,” and I will therefore turn to that question.

It strikes me as well-researched and well-reasoned, and if there’s a problem behind it at all it’s in the vagueness of O’Connor’s concept of “undue burden.”

Valuable endorsement

I’m sure the endorsement of the Gun Owners of America will help Judge Alito: Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., in the Third Circuit, has argued that Congress has no right to regulate the private possession of machine guns. Cool. HT Billy the Quick

I’m sure the endorsement of the Gun Owners of America will help Judge Alito:

Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., in the Third Circuit, has argued that Congress has no right to regulate the private possession of machine guns.

Cool.

HT Billy the Quick

Scalito!

The dude is a federalist: In the early 1990s, Alito was the lone dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case in which the 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law that included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses. …and only 55 years old. The hysterical reaction is going to be … Continue reading “Scalito!”

The dude is a federalist:

In the early 1990s, Alito was the lone dissenter in
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case in which the 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law that included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses.

…and only 55 years old.

The hysterical reaction is going to be fun to watch. One case they don’t want you see is this one:

A majority opinion in Fatin v. INS, 12 F.3d 1233 (3d Cir. 1993), holding that an Iranian woman seeking asylum could establish that she had a well founded fear of persecution in Iran if she could show that compliance with that country’s “gender specific laws and repressive social norms,” such as the requirement that women wear a veil in public, would be deeply abhorrent to her. Judge Alito also held that she could establish eligibility for asylum by showing that she would be persecuted because of gender, belief in feminism, or membership in a feminist group.

Oops. HT Jeff Goldstein.

Appellate law blogger Howard Bashman knows Alito and likes him:

A first for the Third: Not only is Circuit Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. President Bush’s third nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, but Judge Alito is also the first judge serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ever to have been nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Philadelphia-based Third Circuit is, of course, the federal appellate court before which I practice most frequently, and I know Judge Alito well. At some point over the days to come, I will explain why I enthusiastically support this nomination. For now, my wife (who thinks Judge Alito is a great person, too) and I just want to take a moment to wish Judge Alito well in the days ahead, for he is a truly kind, intelligent, and compassionate person who undoubtedly will serve the Nation with great distinction on the Supreme Court just as he has served to this point with great distinction as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge.

So that’s another “yes” vote from the blogosphere. HT Baseball Crank.

In addition to being vaguely racist, the Scalito label isn’t especially accurate:

The conservative bent of judge Sam Alito, who President Bush nominated this morning to the U.S. Supreme Court, has prompted facile comparisons to Justice Antonin Scalia, arguably the most stridently conservative member of the court. But clerks and associates say the comparison, often made with the derisive nickname of “Scalito,” does a disservice to the man. “I think he really looks at the facts of the case; he’d be very realistic,” says former clerk Katherine K. Huang. “He doesn’t have his head in the clouds. He’s not going to be carried away by some legal doctrine or some arcane grammatical rule.” Huang is refering to a little-known Social Security case in 2002 which may be instructive when it comes to comparing Alito to Scalia.

In that case, Alito argued passionately with other members of the 3rd Circuit Appeals Court that a disabled woman, Pauline Thomas, should be granted benefits because she had been laid off from her job as an elevator operator and could not find a new job since the position of “elevator operator” had virtually disappeared from the economy. A lower court had ruled that a narrow and technical reading of the Social Security statute did not entitle Thomas to benefits. Alito called this result “absurd” and overrode the objections of several of his colleagues and convinced the full 3rd Circuit to overturn the lower court decision.

Alito’s passion didn’t move the Supreme Court, however, which overturned his decision in 2003. In a pointed rejection of Alito’s opinion—accusing him of “disregarding” basic grammatical rules for interpreting the law—the Supreme Court fell back on the narrow and technical reading and denied Thomas her Social Security benefits. The author of this stinging rebuke to Alito? Justice Antonin Scalia.

From your well-know righty rag, Time.

Cost of Fitzgerald investigation

One of the crazy factoids that’s buzzing around the left side of the blogosphere says that Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Joe Wilson matter only cost $723,000. It’s been on Daily Kos and 30 other blogs, and widely used by Air Hysteria’s hosts. It’s based on a sloppy reading of a story in the Washington Post: … Continue reading “Cost of Fitzgerald investigation”

In its first 15 months, the investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office.

But it’s not true.

GAO does report on some of the expenditures of Special Counsels, but their reports don’t come out for a year after the expenditures are made. Every six months, they issue a report on the expenditures that were made in a six month period ending six months before the report, so we don’t have figures for the past year.

The reports that we do have are pretty sketchy, as they don’t include all the personnel costs associated with government employees, like Fitzgerald himself, for example.

Fitzgerald started in Dec. 03, and the report for the period ending Mar 04 shows personnel costs of only $13,330. That’s one cheap lawyer.

In the next six months, ending Sept 2004, Fitzgerald got his operation ramped-up and charged $584,899, again exclusive of certain personnel costs for government employees.

In the next half-year, Fitzgerald charged $112,550 plus an additional $35,195 for Justice Department lawyers and an unspecified amount for FBI investigators:

Also, certain costs were incurred by detailees from the Federal Bureau of Investigation involved in the investigation but the associated costs were not readily identifiable. Such costs of detailees are not reflected in the statement of expenditures

So that’s already $759,236 not counting FBI agents and anything that happened since March of this year. Certainly, the costs are in the millions already, but we won’t know the basics for a year, and even though we won’t know the whole story. One thing is clear, however: the costs of this investigation are already a lot more than the figure used by the Kossacks.

And yes, this type of investigation is cheaper than Ken Starr’s, but no more substantial.