A house divided still

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By Alan Bean

Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln” pulled in $34 million over the Thanksgiving weekend, third best behind the new Twilight and James Bond movies.  When I saw the film over the weekend, the audience  applauded as the credits rolled–something you don’t see very often.

The film,  loosely based on Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals, is relentlessly historical.  Lincoln is portrayed as a bucolic Christ figure, but Spielberg stops short of turning The Great Emancipator into a comfortable citizen of the 21st Century.   Constitutional equality applied to Negroes, said Lincoln; that meant abolishing the slave trade in every corner of the Union and little else. (more…)

DEA agent told not to enforce drug laws in white areas

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Posted by Pierre Berastain

From Colorlines:

Meet Matthew Fogg, a former U.S. Marshal whose exploits led him to be nicknamed “Batman.” When he noticed that all of his team’s drug raids were in black areas, he suggested doing the same in the suburbs.

“If we were locking up everybody, white and black, for doing the same drugs they would’ve done the same thing with prohibition, they would’ve outlawed it,” Fogg says in the video produced by Brave New Films. “If it were an equal enforcement opportunity we wouldn’t be sitting here anyway.”

Mishandling of the Petraeus case raises profound concerns

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FBI agent Frederick W. Humphries

By Alan Bean

Civil libertarians are expressing grave concerns about central aspects of the unfolding scandal involving General David Petraeus.  In particular, the role of FBI agent Frederick Humphries is raising eyebrows.

Consider this excerpt from a recent piece in the New York Times:

By all accounts, Mr. Humphries doggedly pursued Ms. Kelley’s cyberstalking complaint. Though he was not assigned to the case, he was admonished by supervisors who thought he was trying to improperly insert himself into the investigation.

In late October, fearing that the case was being stalled for political reasons, Mr. Humphries contacted Representative Dave Reichert, a Republican from Washington State, where the F.B.I. agent had worked previously, to inform him of the case. Mr. Reichert put him in touch with the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, who passed the message to Mr. Mueller.

Here we have a rouge agent going above the heads of his superiors to pursue an unauthorized investigation.  Then, without authorization, Humphries contacts his friends in Republican politics who can be counted on to take the matter directly to the Big Cheese, FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Agent Humphries, it seems, was acting as a friend of Jill Kelley, not in his official capacity.  Kelley has been described as a “Tampa socialite”, whatever that means.  Like Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell, Kelley appears to be an attractive woman who collected prominent men the way some women collect tea pots.   (more…)

Osler: Pardon people, not turkeys

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Ramsey Muniz is a seventy year-old man who walks painfully with the assistance of a cane.   He once ran for Governor of Texas; now he is housed in a federal prison built for gang members.  Ramsey has served almost twenty years for his alleged role in an imaginary drug deal that was produced and directed by the federal government.  Even if you think he is guilty, compassion and common sense dictate a humanitarian release.  But Mr. Muniz and thousands of other applicants for clemency and commutation are routinely rebuffed by the office of the president.  As law professor Mark Osler observes, Barack Obama has been far less willing to utilize his pardon pen than was the tough-on-crime Ronald Reagan.  Mr. President, how about some change we can believe in.

Pardon People, Not Turkeys

By Mark Osler

Star Tribune

Under President Obama, the odds of clemency or commutation are shamefully slim.

If President Obama follows tradition and pardons a turkey this week, it will be a ceremony rich in irony. While the president has been a regular dispenser of clemency to fowl, he has not been so generous to humans. It is time for that disjuncture to end. (more…)

A Latino Christian responds to Al Mohler

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Al Mohler is rapidly becoming the voice of conservative evangelicalism, but he doesn’t speak for all evangelicals.  Like me, Miguel De La Torre is a guest blogger with the Associated Baptist Press where this piece originally appeared.  Miguel provides an alternative evangelical take on the election and its meaning. Miguel De La Torre is professor of social ethics and Latino/a studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver and an ordained Baptist minister.  Also like me, Miguel is a graduate of the school of which Al Mohler is currently president, the  Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY.  AGB

One evangelical voice was conspicuous in the aftermath of President Obama’s re-election Nov. 7, but it isn’t the only one.

Equal Time with Al Mohler

By Miguel De La Torre

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was quoted widely concerning the re-election of President Barack Obama. If afforded equal time, here’s how I would respond to comments attributed to him Nov. 8 on NPR, the New York Times on Nov. 9 and his blog on Nov. 7.

Mohler: “Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in. I think this was an evangelical disaster” (New York Times).

De La Torre: Brother Al, you confuse evangelicalism with white, male America. Continuing to fuse white/right political leaning with the message of Christ does a disservice to the gospel. (more…)

Don’t buy the hype; immigration reform will be a hard sell in Washington

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By Alan Bean

A week ago, I asked “Can the Republicans Romance Latinos?”  My conclusion was negative.  Immigration reform will require strong bipartisan support and the initial leadership must come from the Republican side of the aisle.  Barack Obama’s embrace of mass deportation (we deported more people in 2011 than were deported between 1907 and 1980) shows how desperate Democrats have been to flex their tough-on-immigrants muscle.  Obama is unlikely to stick his head out for the Latino community so long as the Republicans are competing to see who can offend Hispanic voters the most.  Only if the Republican party moves to the left of the Democrats on this single issue will the dynamics of the immigration debate shift significantly.

And that is unlikely to happen.  I argued that a political party that has prospered for two generations by tapping into white racial resentment is unlikely to discard it’s trump card.  How can you play to angry white men and advocate meaningful immigration reform at the same time?  You can’t.

Of course there is more than one kind of racial resentment.  If the Democrats have been undermined by white racial resentment, the Republicans just stumbled over Latino racial resentment.  Latinos have good reason to resent both parties, but the Republicans tried to shore up white votes by intentionally demeaning Hispanic voters.  It came down to choosing which brand of racial resentment would hurt you the most.  Republicans decided, correctly, that they had more to lose by alienating their Tea Party base than they would gain from courting Latino votes.  Obama, realizing he couldn’t out-tough the Republicans, wisely decided to toss the Latino electorate a bone.

Republicans should understand that conservative white voters won’t be voting Democrat anytime soon.  Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.  Conservative whites will vote Republican even if the party moves to the left on immigration; but a large chunk of the party faithful, perhaps a majority, will voice their displeasure.  An internecine civil war will be avoided at all cost.

Barack Obama would likely do his part if the Republicans took the lead on immigration, but he is unlikely to go to the wall on this issue  if he isn’t sure his party has his back.

So it comes as no surprise that Chuck Schumer of the Blue Team and Lindsay Graham of the Red Team are now associating “reform” with an even more militarized border and no real path to citizenship for undocumented residents.  That kind of talk will get us nowhere.

Seth Wessler, the author of the article pasted below, is the guy I call when I have a question about immigration.  He has a thorough grasp of the key issues and the courage to speak painful truth.

Until we get it through our heads that undocumented immigrants are normal men and women with a compelling interest in bettering their lives, we won’t create just policy.  Even those who seem willing to grant “amnesty” insist on “sealing the borders” first.  That is the approach Ronald Reagan took: “The people that are already here can become citizens, but that’s it.”

In the real world, however, people keep crossing the border no matter how many walls we build or how dangerous the passage.  Moreover, in their shoes, we would do the same–if we could summon the courage, that is. (more…)

Normal Republicans have always favored immigration reform

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Although you would never know it from watching television during the past five years, Republican report for comprehensive immigration was strong before the Tea Party made the issue toxic.  Or so says Molly Ball.

Why Republicans Are Suddenly Pro-Immigration Reform

Molly Ball

The Atlantic

November 14, 2012

The GOP establishment has long wanted to pass comprehensive immigration reform but been cowed by its activist base. Tuesday’s election gave them an opening.

Republicans lost the election in part because Mitt Romney drew record-low support from Hispanic voters, who made up a record-high proportion of the electorate. Within days, top Republicans have figured out what to do about this: Support immigration reform!

The chorus of prominent voices has been stunning: From Sen. Marco Rubio to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, from television and radio host Sean Hannity to columnist Charles Krauthammer. To some on the left, this looks like the most craven sort of opportunism — the GOP scrambling for a quick PR fix to its deep-seated demographic problems. (more…)

The military scandal nobody wants to talk about

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By Alan Bean

As I write, America is mesmerized by the sins of General David Petraeus, the man who reportedly turned around the Iraq fiasco.  As this BBC story suggests, Americans have always venerated our generals, electing exactly ten of them to the presidency.  Although we haven’t elected an ex-general to the nation’s highest office since 1952, military men like Colin Powell and Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf have been talked up as presidential possibilities.  As the gap between the military and civilian life widens, our love affair with the American general grows apace.

Apart from America’s love affair with the military, the rock star-groupie relationships between women like Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley and generals like Petraeus and John Allen would be hard to believe.  Why are these women fighting over these men?  And why are we so shocked to learn that a talented egoist like Petraueus would be seduced by an adoring and beautiful biographer like Ms. Broadwell?  Why are we on pins and needles as the email relationship between Allen and Kelley is probed for evidence of romantic dalliance?   (more…)

The Conservative War on Prisons: how an unlikely coalition of evangelicals and libertarians changed the politics of crime

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By Alan Bean

I heartily commend this well-crafted article on the unlikely evangelical-libertarian coalition that created the Right on Crime movement. David Dagan and Steven M. Teles appreciate that liberal organizations like the ACLU, the Open Societies Institute and the Public Welfare Foundation carried the torch for criminal justice reform during the dark ages (1980-2000) of tough-on-crime politic and ever-expanding prison populations.  But liberal politicians have been too afraid of the soft-on-crime label to associate themselves with the reform movement; in fact, Democrats like Bill Clinton built careers on out-toughing the conservatives.

Real political change required a bi-partisan approach, and this meant that the impetus for reform had to come from the political right.  Democrats will vote for change, but only if conservatives give them political cover.  Conservatives, especially in deep-red states like Texas, don’t have to worry about looking soft.

But it goes deeper than that.  The initial inspiration for the reform movement came from the evangelical world.  Pat Nolan, an evangelical Catholic Republican who once carried a torch for the lock-’em-up movement, went to prison in 1993 on corruption charges.  Nolan still claims he was innocent (and I am inclined to believe him) but, like many defendants, he accepted a plea deal rather than roll the dice with a jury.  In the joint, Nolan encountered the brokenness that is the American criminal justice system.  Because he was plugged into the evangelical world of Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship and the Republican political establishment, Nolan found ways to make things happen. (more…)

The Southern Strategy breathes its last

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Melinda Henneberger’s analysis is a strong version of the standard take-away analysis coming out of this week’s election.  You can still win big by appealing solely to white voters in the South (due to the kind of racial resentment Henneberger describes) and in portions of the West (because the minority population is relatively low), but you can no longer win at the national level without addressing the concerns of minority voters.  AGB

The end of a long, ugly road for the GOP’s Southern strategy

Posted by Melinda Henneberger on November 8, 2012 at 7:37 pm

Ann Romney said one thing during her husband’s presidential run that no one can dispute: “This is hard,” she said of the slog. (Actually being president is hard, too, as George W. Bush once noted 11 times in a single debate.)

Here’s one campaign call, though, that should never have been a head-scratcher: Running on white resentment is not a winning strategy, and the next Republican who tries it will lose, too. (more…)