Jon Stewart

According to Comedy Central:

The Associated Press is reporting today that Jon Stewart is being named to the 9/11 Memorial Foundation Board this afternoon. This of course comes in the wake of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and many others recognizing the instrumental role Jon and The Daily Show played in pushing Congress to pass the 9/11 First Responders health care bill.

Well earned.

Gas Tax

Thomas Friedman recently wrote that we should institute an additional $1 per gallon gas tax, phased in at 5 cents a month. To me, this is the most sensible of the new taxes - except for 3% on all income earned over a certain amount (Obama says $250,000, I would be fine just over $500,000. It's only income earned over that amount, not all income earned. But I digress). One dollar is a lot, but smaller increments are a perfect way to raise revenue without the average person really feeling it. Starting at 5 cents gallon, that's probably up to $1 every time you fill your tank. However, the benefits to the country would be huge. We could pump money into infrastructure, public transportation, clean air, and green technology all while reducing our dependence on middle eastern oil. Friedman compares our politics in the middle east as building a house at the bottom of a volcano that is about to blow. In his words:

Legislating a higher energy price today that takes effect in the future, notes the Princeton economist Alan Blinder, would trigger a shift in buying and investment well before the tax kicks in. With one little gasoline tax, we can make ourselves more economically and strategically secure, help sell more Chevy Volts and free ourselves to openly push for democratic values in the Middle East without worrying anymore that it will harm our oil interests. Yes, it will mean higher gas prices, but prices are going up anyway, folks. Let’s capture some it for ourselves.

Even if these goals are not that important and you think that the tax might really affect some people, it means fewer cars on the road, less traffic and congestion, and less productive time lost commuting. To me, that's a win-win situation.

On Wisconsin

I wanted to post quickly about some bullshit arguments that conservatives are whining about regarding the Wisconsin public unions protesting to retain their right to collective bargaining, which costs the state nothing and does not help reduce any deficits.

1. "Greedy" unions are whining about pensions and health care.

They're not actually protesting paying more for these. They're just asking to retain their right to bargain collectively. That's a big difference.

2. Public unions shouldn't be able to protest because it's a conflict of interest.

This is one of the dumbest, most self-service statements I've ever heard. It's along the lines of Pat Sajak's "public employees shouldn't be allowed to vote" argument. Apparently some Republicans think that if you work for the government you don't pay taxes yourself and you shouldn't be allowed to vote. I'm glad that some people want to strip the right to vote from hard working Americans or that they think their tax dollars are meaningless. Really, this flies in the face of all American values, and I'm sure the same people making these arguments are also turning around and yelling about how everything else violates the Constitution - like the Census! Brilliant.

3. It's a problem when public unions make political contributions to a politician if he "agrees to the terms of the contract."

Sure, but it's perfectly fine when huge corporations do it for tax giveaways.

4. And finally, we get back to the "Governor Walker had to do it because of the dire financial straight."

This is where I hear arguments again that the unions caused the deficit. Again, simply not true. And what they're protesting isn't adding to the deficit. Wisconsin's problem right now is that their Governor entered office and instantly gave tax handouts to large corporations, who mostly don't pay taxes in Wisconsin anymore at the expense of its citizens - which includes (wait for it . . .) its public employees. I'll just point out that the billionaire Koch brothers practically own all the energy infrastructure in the state just got huge tax cuts. While they rake in billions of dollars, they are laying off employees in the state. That's good fiscal policy. Let the rich get richer while the middle class goes unemployed and then, because its the only terms conservatives understand, soak up state resources on unemployment. Then, the Koch brothers will fund more "grassroots" tea parties to make sure they never have to pay taxes and that the states can never balance their budgets, and more hardworking public employees and middle class workers suffer at their expense. THAT, is a "vicious cycle" if I've ever seen one.

Did Justice Thomas Cross the Line

I can go for quite a while about whether Justice Clarence Thomas's recent actions have crossed the line. To be brief though, I think his extra-judicial activities (and those of his wife) have raised at the very least, the appearance of impropriety. I also think that failing to disclose his wife's income on a simple federal disclosures form is unacceptable. Unfortunately, there is no oversight of Supreme Court Justices outside impeachment, and I don't think impeachment is really appropriate here. At least not based on what we currently know. Representative Chris Murphy is introducing legislation to increase oversight of the Supreme Court:

Murphy's bill will:

• apply the Judicial Conference's Code of Conduct, which applies to all other federal judges, to Supreme Court justices. This would allow the public to access more timely and detailed information when an outside group wants to have a justice participate in a conference, such as the funders of the conference;
• require the justices to simply publicly disclose their reasoning behind a recusal when they withdraw from a case;
• require the Court to develop a process for parties to a case before the Court to request a decision from the Court, or a panel of the Court, regarding the potential conflict of interest of a particular Justice.

I know the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, but shouldn't the ethical rules that apply to all other federal judges also apply to the Supreme Court? The judicial branch was designed to be insulated so that political forces wouldn't sway their decisions. Isn't it troubling that Supreme Court justices are entering into political disputes and then failing to disclose payments they've received for doing so?

Hat tip to the Constitutional Law Prof Blog

Obama Screws Over Young People?

That is Andrew Sullivan's take on The Daily Dish where he has come back from his sick leave spoiling for a fight with the President he so often supports:

The logic behind president Obama's budget has one extremely sensible feature: it distinguishes between spending that simply adds to consumption, and spending that really does mean investment. His analogy over the weekend - that a family cutting a budget would rather not cut money for the kids' education - is a sound one. We do need more infrastructure, roads and broadband, non-carbon energy and basic science research, and some of that is something only government can do. In that sense, discretionary spending could be among the most important things government could do to help Americans create wealth themselves. And yet this is the only spending Obama wants to cut. . . .

To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.

I agree with a fair bit of what Mr. Sullivan says, in general. And in this case, I similarly agree with a fair bit of what he is saying in his analysis. However, I fail to see any line of clear thought that can fairly lay this all, or even mostly at the feet of this President. Sure, he's supposed to lead and he was elected to make the tough decisions, but at this point with the economy, he is coaching someone else's team, if you will allow the metaphor. Of course, it's two years in and that is a difficult argument to win with people who don't pay careful attention to these sorts of things. But to anyone who thinks seriously about the economy, it is rather obvious that the President is still dealing with someone else's mess. But he's judged on wins and losses and so he's trying to rack up as many wins as he can now, so he can secure a long-term contract extension. Once that extension is achieved, then he can go about putting in a new system and improve the overall quality of the team.

I don't think Sullivan's critique is unfair, I just think it is a bit too reactionary without being cognizant of political realities. What are your thoughts?

Supremely Political

(if it's not already, someone should make this post's title, the name of a blog!)

Yesterday, Noah Feldman published a phenomenally interesting op-ed in the NYTimes. I encourage anyone who cares anything about law, history, politics, and the places where they all meet, to check out this rather quick read. You will find it well worth your time. Personally, I also find myself in complete agreement. Some highlights:

Today, even the justices’ minimal extrajudicial activities come in for public condemnation — some of it suspiciously partisan. Does anyone seriously think Justice Thomas would become more constitutionally conservative (if that were somehow logically possible) as a result of his wife’s political activism? It is true that Justice Thomas voted to protect the anonymity of some corporate contributions in the Citizens United case. But this vote reflected his long-established principles in favor of corporate speech. The personal connection was nowhere near close enough to demand recusal, any more than a justice who values her privacy should be expected to recuse herself from a Fourth Amendment decision.

After all, Martin Ginsburg, a model of ethical rectitude until his death last year, was for many years a partner in an important corporate law firm. But surely no one believes that his career made his wife, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, more positively inclined toward corporate interests on the court than she would already be as a member in good standing of America’s class of legal elites.

Justice Antonin Scalia, for his part, naturally spends time with like-minded conservatives including Representative Michele Bachmann and Charles Koch. But when the brilliant, garrulous Justice Scalia hobnobs with fellow archconservatives, he is not being influenced any more than is the brilliant, garrulous Justice Stephen Breyer when he consorts with his numerous friends and former colleagues in the liberal bastion of Cambridge, Mass.

A FEW years ago, many insisted that Justice Scalia should not sit in judgment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims to enjoy executive privilege, noting that the two had been on the same duck-hunting trip. Justice Scalia memorably explained that the two men had never shared the same blind. He could as easily have pointed out that before President Harry Truman nationalized the steel mills, he asked Chief Justice Fred Vinson, a poker buddy and close friend, if the court would find the action constitutional. (Vinson incorrectly said yes.)

Just a point of personal privilege...

Perhaps this is not really a topic worthy of the blog and is a bit more regional in nature, however, I just saw this article referring to the death of former Chief of the Virginia Supreme Court Leroy Hassell. Chief Hassell swore both me and my wife into the Virginia Bar. Yesterday, he was laid in state in the Capitol in Richmond:

Hassell is the first African American to lie in state in the Capitol in the former capital of the Confederacy. Other notable men to lie in state there include former president John Tyler in 1862; Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson 1863; and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Sen. Henry L. Marsh (D-Richmond), a hero of Virginia's civil rights movement, said he was struck by the symbolism of the tribute to Hassell in a space that was long used to remember Confederates.

"It's a tribute to a man who did so much to help us enter the modern age," Marsh said. "It shows the regard with which people held his service."

I will always remember when my wife was sworn into the Bar in a fairly small ceremony (smaller than the mass ceremony where I was sworn in ) and the way Chief Justice Hassell was insistent on the good that attorneys can do in our society and the good they must do. Even though I wasn't being sworn in, it made a great impact on me and has stuck with me to this day. Hassell will surely be missed but his legacy will continue to resonate.