The Torture Legacy

By Christopher Hayes

Today at the gym I happened upon a report[PDF] from World Public Opinion about international attitudes towards human rights. (That's DC for ya.) There's a ton of interesting stuff in it: Palestinians are very suspicious of international bodies imposing human rights standards, the Russians are really not so sold on civil liberties (they're split about 50/50 on whether or not the press should be able to publish "without government control"), and a somewhat shocking 28% of Americans agreed that "there are some religions that people should be allowed to practice in the US."

But that to me was not the most disheartening result. What brought me up short was the section on torture. Interestingly the pollsters decided not to offer the issue as an either/or, but rather gave people three options. In the US, 53% of respondents said "all torture should be prohibited," 31% think we should accept limited torture of terrorists to save innocent lives, while a nutty and sadistic 13% thinks "torture should be generally allowed." While this still means that a slim majority of Americans reject torture (thank God), it also means that a very significant portion of the population now favors a torture regime, one that is facially a violation of Geneva, domestic law, international law, bedrock moral norms, and basic human decency.

For comparison, in Spain, Britain, France over 80% of those polled thought torture should be prohibited; in China the figure was 66%.

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January 6, 2009

The Week Ahead

By Christopher Hayes

I decided to bike to work on Capitol Hill yesterday because I wanted to survey the city, now playing host to the President-elect, and I have to say (maybe I'm projecting) there was an undeniable electricity in the air. With the brief exception of the week of the TARP bailout, Washington, the attention of the political world was on the election and the process of politicking rather than governing. But now, all eyes are on the District.

One of my New Year's pledges is to increase my blogging in this space, and I'll be writing more frequently in the print edition of The Nation about what's going down here in the capital. A recurring feature I want to get back to are preview and review posts about Congress at the beginning and end of every week it's in session. I've farmed this feature out to our very capable correspondent Greg Kaufmann, who filed the following:

What's Up with the 111th?

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(30) Comments

January 6, 2009

Year in Review

By Christopher Hayes

Dear Readers:

Sorry for the hiatus. I've been thoroughly enjoying the holidays, and taking a little time to do some sustained reading. (A few recommendations here.)

For the last few days, as I've been on my walks or bike rides, I've been trying to compose something akin to a blog-version of a Christmas card, one of those end-of-year recaps that folks send out around this time of year. It's a tradition that I really love, though never actually manage to do myself, and I thought it might be a good idea to attempt one here.

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December 31, 2008

Is What Blago Did Illegal?

By Christopher Hayes

Playing devil's advocate for a moment. Obviously, if the tapes are accurate, what Blagojevich was odious and unethical and dishonorable. But was it illegal?

Here's why I ask: the Tribune's reporting that not only was Jesse Jackson Jr. candidate five, but that Blago had a meeting with a business man named Raghuveer Nayak who's a fundraiser for both men, and it was during that conversation that Nayak offered to raise as much as $1.5 million for Blago's campaign fund if he gave Jackson the seat.

OK, it's possible that Jackson had no idea these folks (including, it appears, his brother) were scheming on his behalf. But here's my question: My understanding of the law is that there's a distinction between personal pecuniary interests/compensation and campaign fundraising. In other words: it would be manifestly illegal, obviously, if Blago was "selling" the seat in the sense of trading it fro cash for himself. But is trading the seat for fundraising help really illegal? and if so, doesn't that mean that a huge percentage of political transactions are illegal, including all those conversations during the primary about Obama inducing HRC to drop out in exchange for fundraising help to retire her debt?

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December 12, 2008

Is the Auto Bailout Bill a Trap?

By Christopher Hayes

As my colleague John Nichols noted, the House passed the $15bn auto-bailout deal yesterday, with little Republican support. It now goes to the Senate where it's passage appears doomed, according the Times. I feel incredibly conflicted about the deal, but end up thinking that allowing the industry to implode, in a manner not dissimilar to Lehmann Brothers, is likely to be incredibly painful for millions of people. That said, a smart observer who's been following the legislative wrangling over the issue, writes in to tell me that he thinks this version of the bill is a terrible deal for the Democrats, politically:

Seriously--why are the Democrats walking into this Republican trap? They're passing a bill that sets March 31 as the next milestone without giving the auto companies nearly enough money to make it to March 31. This 14bn will be gone by Lincoln's birthday, and then there will need to be additional, emergency, legislation to provide for more capital. Plus, you can't even just add more money in the stimulus bill next month because the March 31 roadmap, along with car czar, will have already been set by this bill. Pelosi should tell the GOP that they have two choices. Let the automakers fail today on Bush and Paulsons watch or allocate 10bn for GM and Chrysler to get to January when the Democratic Congress will put together a comprehensive package. This current bailout will fail miserably and Shelby will make huge political hay.

We're once again legislating at the point of crisis, which does not, as a rule produce good policy (cough, TARP, cough), but I really, really, really letting the whole industry die in the next few weeks would be horribly ugly. I think the reader's second option makes more sense: pare back the amount of money and the timeline, get them through the recess and tackle the issue in the next congress. But it's unclear that shaving $4 bn off the price will get enough GOP senators to switch their vote. In which case, oy.

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December 11, 2008

Helping Workers Now

By Christopher Hayes

This dispatch comes from Nation reporter Gregory Kaufmann:

Two new reports from the Center of American Progress (CAP) suggest that there is much the Obama Administration can do to immediately improve the lives of workers simply by enforcing their existing rights through the Department of Labor (DOL) and reforming federal contracting so that it promotes good jobs. Two panels of experts advocated for this agenda at CAP yesterday, and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine delivered a keynote address.

Dr David Madland -- co-author of both reports -- said reforms like the stimulus and promoting the Employee Free Choice Act are critical "but these reforms will take time -- something that workers don't necessarily have… how [can we] make the economy work right away?"

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December 9, 2008

Consider Me Stimulated

By Christopher Hayes

Since I've strangely become some kind of spokesperson for "the left"'s discontent with Obama, let me say that the outline of the stimulus package he announced this morning made my heart sing. I give it an A. As recently as six months ago, something along these lines was a progressive fantasy -- something that you'd hear thrown around at think tanks or green jobs conferences. Now it's the stated policy of the president of the United States. Elections have consequences.

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December 6, 2008

At The Table

By Christopher Hayes

Back in the winter days of the primary when Center for Community Change hosted their forum on community values in Iowa, they invited all of the presidential candidates to listen to questions and stories from community leaders, and then finished with a simple direct question: will you meet with representatives of our group in the first 100 days. Everyone said yes, but Obama said he'd do them one better. They could meet with his transition team.

Well here we were, at Realizing the Promise, the second community forum

I was at the event yesterday and I have to say it's the most excited I've felt about the future of the Obama administration since election night. "Today community organizing has arrived in Washington DC," said CCC's Deepak Bhargava. "This is the biggest opportunity in 40 years. We now have a community organizer in Chief in the White House...We can't settle anymore for just complaining about what we don't like. We're planning on working in partnership with key allies not just to oppose, but to propose."

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December 5, 2008

Realizing the Promise

By Christopher Hayes

I'm here at the Hilton ballroom is Washington DC at the Realizing the Promise forum. It's organized by the Center for Community Change and the Gameliel foundation and is a kind of post-election counterpart to the Heartland Forum the groups held in Iowa. (Which I wrote about here.)

Special guests include Rep. Chris Van Hollen, CAP's Melody Barnes who will serve as head of the Domestic Policy Council in Obama's White House, and Obama's oldest friend and advisor Valerie Jarrett.

So far the event is one-part celebration -- jubiliant celebration -- one part announcement that the community organizations and the people the represent now have a voice in Washington. Kind of a people's inauguration. I'll have more to write in a bit, but you can watch live here.

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December 4, 2008

Is Personnel Policy?

By Christopher Hayes

Yglesias (via his cronies at CAP) reports that Melody Barnes will run Obama's Domestic Policy Council.

That's good news. I think she counts as a "dyed-in-the-wool progressive."

On a related note, there's been a fair amount of back and forth about my complaint the other day w/r/t the lack of movement lefties in the nascent Obama administration.

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November 24, 2008