Justin's Political Corner

Recently GOP released an internal assessment of losses in 2012 elections, possible causes and recommendations. Though the report did state that party has been losing base with the minorities and many other groups, the response from the party was to “deliver the message better”. It seems to me that party has not understood the root causes of their losses in elections, less favorability in the nation and declining voter base. I became a US citizen in 1986, and voted as Republican till 2004. Since then I have been increasingly dissatisfied with GOP’s relationships with the Muslims in USA. The Islamophobic rhetoric, though not exclusively restricted to Republican Party, has been consistently increasing over years.

Muslims mostly identify with GOP due to conservative values, and up till 2000 used to vote in greater numbers with Republican Party. In 2000 national elections, George Bush was endorsed by Muslim organizations and over 70% voted for the party. Many of President Bush’s supporters give credit to Muslims in Florida for the win in the state, leading to White House. Last year about 4% Muslims voted for GOP. Over 40% of American Muslims view themselves as independent voters, 7% identify themselves as Republicans and rest are affiliated with Democratic Party. Over last decade there have been more Muslim voters added, as the second generation has become adults and more immigrants have joined the pool. The Muslim voters’ ratio has dropped dramatically, but the Party has not taken any constructive steps to improve the relationships or even look into the causes.

The anti Muslim zeal increased over the last 2 years. American Muslims are becoming accustomed to bracing themselves for increasing Islamophobia during election years for political gains. The hearings by Representative Peter King (NY) on radicalization of Muslims in America were mainly airing anti Muslim sentiments. Many Muslim organization and individuals who could have given positive reports about American Muslims were not asked to testify in front of the committee. Law enforcement officials denied that there were major extremist Muslim groups in USA. Over 20 states introduced legislations, mostly Republicans to ban “Sharia law”. According to our constitution we cannot have foreign laws; the legislators very well knew that Sharia law cannot be and is not being implemented. But to appease their base and get political gains among the public they chose to waste their time and efforts on this nonexistent issue. Only thing they succeeded were in inflaming the anti Muslim feelings. According to CAIR in last 2 years 78 bills or amendments were moved in the country interfering with practices of Muslims; 73 of these bills were moved by Republicans. The voters at large did reject this message, as in last year’s election 4 out of 11 congressmen who were the most proponents of anti Muslim bias lost their seats.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), along with four Republicans colleagues alleged that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton had ties to Muslim Brotherhood. This was based on pure speculations and Islamophobia. Some Republican leaders including Senator McCain did rebuke the comments but Rep Bachmann has not toned down her Muslim bashing. Herman Cain’s comments that he would require Muslims to take” a loyalty oath” in his cabinet were an insult to all Muslims who are hard working, productive members of the society. The remark was even more disheartening coming from Mr. Cain, who himself is a minority and has known the struggles of African Americans over years. Mitt Romney gave his tacit approval to the anti Islamic message during the campaign, while jogging our memories about difficulties faced by Mormons in the past.

President Obama has been “accused” of being Muslim and even his citizenship has been questioned. General Colin Powell aptly answered to this question of him being possibly a Muslim, “So what if he was”. Every born American irrespective of his/her faith, race or ethnic background can dream of becoming US President.

h/t: Ghazala Hayat at STLtoday.com

The Religious Right group Government Is Not God PAC in a message to members this week warning that if the Supreme Court strikes down Proposition 8 and DOMA then “religious freedom, freedom of speech and the First Amendment will die.”

“If homosexuals win, the Bill of Rights dies and religious liberty/free speech will die with it,” GING PAC argued. “We either fight this evil or see our children and grandchildren brainwashed and/or coerced into accepting homosexuality as the new normal in our society.”

The group went on to say that “no institution will be safe from being homosexualized” and that society will soon “see our children and grandchildren brainwashed and/or coerced into accepting homosexuality as the new normal in our society,” as anti-gay activism “will be punishable by suppression, fines, or even jail sentences.”

h/t: Right Wing Watch

President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality was an historic occasion, but he also qualified it somewhat by suggesting that states should continue to decide whether to discriminate against their citizens. In an interview released this morning with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, the president indicated that his views on marriage have evolved even further. He now says that he cannot imagine how a state’s decision to discriminate against same-sex couples could be constitutional:

“Well, I’ve gotta tell you that — in terms of practical politics, what I’ve seen is a healthy debate taking place state by state, and not every state has the exact same attitudes and cultural mores. And I — you know, my thinking was that this is traditionally a state issue and — that it will work itself out,” he said. “On the other hand — what I also believe is that the core principle that people don’t get discriminated against — that’s one of our core values. And it’s in our Constitution.”

Stephanopoulos then asked whether Obama could imagine a circumstance wherein a state’s gay marriage ban could pass constitutional muster.

“Well, I can’t, personally. I cannot,” Obama responded. “That’s part of the reason I said, ultimately, I think that, same-sex couples should be able to marry. That’s my personal position. And, frankly, that’s the position that’s reflected — in the briefs that we filed — in the Supreme Court.”

This latest statement is exactly right. Marriage discrimination is unconstitutional because the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment — which was ratified after the Civil War for the specific purpose of limiting the states’ ability to discriminate — provides that “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The Constitution could not be more explicit that its protections against discrimination apply to state lawmakers.

At the same time, however, the brief also recommends a legal standard that would inevitably lead to marriage discrimination laws being struck down nationwide.

h/t: Ian Millhiser at Think Progress Justice

Lochner v. New York is widely viewed as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history. It is taught in law schools, alongside decisions upholding segregation and permitting Japanese detention camps, in order to instruct budding lawyers on how judges should not behave. Even Robert Bork, the failed, right-wing Supreme Court nominee who claimed women “aren’t discriminated against anymore”, called Lochner an “abomination” that “lives in the law as the symbol, indeed the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power.”

Lochner fabricated a so-called right to contract in order to strike down a New York law preventing bakery owners from overworking bakers, but its rationale has implications for any law intended to shield workers from exploitation. In essence, Lochner established that any law that limits any contract between an employer and an employee is constitutionally suspect. If desperation forces someone to agree to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for a dollar a day in a factory filled with toxic air, then courts must treat that law with heavy skepticism. Not every workplace law was struck down during the so-called Lochner Era — the justices of that era sometimes valued sexism more than they valued exploiting workers, for example — but Lochner placed any law benefiting workers on constitutionally weak footing. Needless to say, the “right to contract” it invented appears nowhere in the Constitution.

Nevertheless, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took several minutes out of his lengthy talking filibuster yesterday to praise this “abomination” of a decision on the Senate floor:

You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obama’s a big opponent to this, but I would ask him — among the other things I’m asking him today — to rethink the Lochner case… . I think it’s a wonderful decision.

Paul’s speech also includes a somewhat rambling attempt to claim that Lochner helped “end Jim Crow,” a claim that would cause anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of civil rights history to scratch their head. Lochner was decided in 1905, and, while Paul is correct that the Lochner Era justices very occasionally struck down discriminatory laws, Jim Crow was still very much alive when Lochner was overruled in the 1930s. The Supreme Court decision that did the most to eradicate Jim Crow — Brown v. Board of Education — rested on the Constitution’s guarantee that no person shall be denied the “the equal protection of the laws,” not on some fabricated right to contract. And Brown alone was insufficient to overcome the campaign of “massive resistance” segregationists mounted in defense of Jim Crow.

What finally killed American apartheid was big, centralized government of the kind Paul and his fellow tea partiers love to hate. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 required business owners to contract with minorities — something that would undoubtedly been unconstitutional under Lochner. And, of course, the same Voting Rights Act that is now endangered in the Supreme Court tore down Jim Crown voter exclusions. Sen. Paul, for his part, has incorrectly suggested that the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution.

Paul’s endorsement of Lochner reflects a disturbing evolution in Tea Party thought. For much of Obama’s first term, Tea Party conservatives rallied behind “tentherism,” the false belief that most of what the federal government does is unconstitutional.  Unlike tentherism, which applies only to federal laws, Lochnerism prevents both the federal government and the states from enacting necessary legislation.

“Wonderful decision” my ass, Rand!

h/t: Ian Millhiser at Think Progress Justice

Yesterday, Missouri state Rep. Mike Leara (R) proposed legislation making it a felony for lawmakers to so much as propose many bills regulating guns. Leara’s bill provides that “[a]ny member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, shall be guilty of a class D felony.”

There are many problems with this bill, not the least of which is the fact that the scope of the Second Amendment is very much in flux. Last week, the NRA announced it would launch of blizzard of litigation intended to expand gun rights while the courts are still controlled by very conservative judges. So a lawmaker who introduces legislation that is perfectly constitutional could conceivably find that their bill suddenly violates a new understanding of the Second Amendment after the NRA wins another lawsuit — and thus could suddenly be hit with felony charges.

The biggest problem with the bill, however, is that it almost certainly violates the Missouri Constitution, which provides that “[s]enators and representatives … shall not be questioned for any speech or debate in either house in any other place.” Although there are very few court decisions interpreting this clause in the Missouri Constitution, the United States Constitution contains a parallel clause guaranteeing that federal lawmakers shall not be called to account for “any Speech or Debate in either House” of Congress, and courts commonly interpret parallel provisions of state and the U.S. Constitution to have similar meanings.

H/T: Ian Millhiser at Think Progress Justice

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said Tuesday that President Obama seeks to uphold the “Soviet constitution” and that he has “no concept” of the United States Constitution. 

“I think my role is to uphold, support and defend our Constitution,” Broun told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  

h/t: TPM

In an email sent to National Rifle Association members on Thursday, the head of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) warned that politicians in Washington D.C. were “closing in fast on your Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”

“President Barack Obama and anti-gun politicians are on an all-out crusade to pass new laws that would: BAN tens of millions of rifles, shotguns and handguns…make it more difficult, expensive, and in some cases, ILLEGAL for you to purchase ammunition…and even FORCE you to register your firearms with the federal government,” NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox wrote in the email. “Some are even talking about a mandatory gun confiscation and ‘buyback’ program - where you would be forced to hand over your guns in exchange for a government check!”

The NRA-ILA is the lobbying arm of the NRA. Cox’s email came a day after President Obama announced 23 executive actions he plans to take to reduce gun violence in response to the massacre in Newtown, Conn. last month. Neither confiscation nor buybacks were on Obama’s list, nor were they part of the sweeping legislative proposals the President made on the subject.

Read the full text of the email here:

There are political fires raging across Capitol Hill right now and they’re closing in fast on your Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

President Barack Obama and anti-gun politicians are on an all-out crusade to pass new laws that would: BAN tens of millions of rifles, shotguns and handguns…make it more difficult, expensive, and in some cases, ILLEGAL for you to purchase ammunition…and even FORCE you to register your firearms with the federal government.

Some are even talking about a mandatory gun confiscation and “buyback” program - where you would be forced to hand over your guns in exchange for a government check!

NONE of this would have the slightest impact on making our children, our homes, or our communities safer. And that’s sad, because now more than ever, we need our elected officials to take serious steps toward improving public safety… particularly in our nation’s schools.

But the fact is, despite their statements, the main goal of the gun banners in Congress is not to make schools safer, but to ban your guns and abolish every last sacred right you have under the Second Amendment..until they reduce your freedom to ashes.

Your NRA-ILA is fighting every hour of every day to hold the line, but there is no way we can win without your full and active participation RIGHT NOW.

President Barack Obama recently pledged to raise $20 million to ram his gun ban agenda through Congress. And Obama’s got plenty of rich, gun-hating friends in Hollywood, along with anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who will shower him with the money he needs to strip you of your gun rights.

I don’t have friends like that. I’ve got something much better…YOU. You know what’s at stake. You love your freedom and your country, and I know you’re willing to STAND AND FIGHT to save both of them.

So please, whatever you can afford to give NRA-ILA right now, I need you to do it.

Whether it’s as little as $10, or as much as $150 or more, every single dollar will go toward winning this once-in-a-generation battle to save our Second Amendment freedom. AND EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR YOU GIVE TODAY COUNTS!

Your contributions to NRA-ILA support our fight on your behalf in the halls of Congress and across the country. Your contributions are the lifeblood of our legislative and legal initiatives, research, educational pieces, press activities, and all of our pro-gun advertising and grassroots activism.

There is no other way to put it: Our strength comes from you. Our ability to win comes from you. That’s why I’m asking you to help save our Second Amendment by making NRA-ILA stronger than ever before.

Thank you for everything you do to support NRA-ILA and defend freedom.

Please help as soon as you can.

Sincerely,

Chris

H/T: Eric Lach at TPM

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs pushed the extreme conspiracy theory that President Obama wants to destroy the Second Amendment as a first step in eliminating the entire Bill of Rights. But Obama has consistently voiced his support for the Second Amendment, including during the Monday press conference that Dobbs referenced on his show.

During his program, Dobbs aired a partial clip of Obama saying at the press conference, “The issue here is not whether or not we believe in the Second Amendment. The issue is: Are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school — “

Dobbs responded by claiming that Obama is “so committed to constraining or dismissing outright our Second Amendment rights, it makes you wonder why he’s not ridding the Constitution of the First Amendment as well.” He later said, “You’ve got to wonder why the president doesn’t double down in his assault on the Constitution, taking on not only the Second, but the First Amendment, the Fourth, the Fourteenth.” Dobbs then suggested that the reason Obama has “begun with the Second Amendment” is because “[w]ithout our rights under the Second Amendment, removing the rest of our Bill of Rights would be a lot easier.”

The context of Obama’s comments clearly shows that Obama was not “dismissing outright” Second Amendment rights. 

In response to a reporter’s question about potential government actions to reduce gun violence, Obama said, in part, “I think that those of us who look at this problem have repeatedly said that responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don’t have anything to worry about.” He also said that he believes we can reduce gun violence “in a sensible way that comports with the Second Amendment.”

And while Obama has not yet outlined specific executive actions he will take to strengthen gun laws, none of the possible executive actions reportedly offered by the Justice Department involve restrictions on weapons that law-abiding Americans may purchase.

From the 01.14.2013 edition of FBN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight:

h/t: MMFA

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution expressly provides that nearly anyone born in the United States is a citizen, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. Yet, despite the Constitution’s clear command, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to ignore our founding document and prevent the children of undocumented immigrants from becoming citizens:

It’s the first week of the 113th Congress, and one House member is already trying to stop children born in the United States to undocumented parents — whom he calls “anchor babies” — from gaining citizenship.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an outspoken hardliner on immigration, introduced a bill on Thursday that would “clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” The Supreme Court has consistently held that anyone born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, should receive citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

King disagrees, as do 13 co-sponsors on the bill, including Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Mo Brooks (R-Ala.).

The Constitution is clear that King’s bill is unconstitutional. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The word “jurisdiction” refers to people that are subject to American law. Thus foreign diplomats and their families, who are granted broad immunity from U.S. law, are not entitled to citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Likewise, at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted many Native Americans were subject only to tribal law and thus were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Undocumented immigrants and their children, by contrast, are not immune to U.S. law. And thus fit squarely within the Fourteenth Amendment’s command.

h/t: Think Progress Justice

There are many opinions on what constitutes personality, but it can generally be considered to be the particular combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns of an individual, and in fact, can be attributed to a nation in certain circumstances.  People from around the world typically have two distinct opinions about America; on one hand, it is the government and its policies that many foreign people either love or hate, and on the other hand, it is the American people that define America. For the most part, the American people are good, decent folks whose primary focus is, like most human beings, taking care of their families and living peaceably, but there is a loud, very vocal segment of the population intent on imposing their dysfunctional worldview borne out of their belief that Americans are exceptional and infallible according to god’s holy dispensation, and it provokes them to disregard the rights and autonomy of individual citizens and foreign governments alike, and it is just one reason America suffers from personality disorder.

There were two specific events over the past week that highlight why Americans are not all exceptional, and it is on account of intolerance for dissent and belief that an American’s will supersedes that of a sovereign nation. To be clear, this is not an indictment of all Americans, but it does impugn a mindset in this country that hypocrisy and double-standards are part of Americans’ personality. The outrage over a television personality’s criticism of America’s love affair with guns instigated a movement to deport him, and a sovereign nation’s law restricting American’s from adopting their children incited a condemnatory statement from the State Department after complaints from irate childless American citizens.

One of the hallmarks of so-called hard-right “patriots” is their immutable adherence to the Constitution and all of its tenets, and yet they reserve the most important right, that of free speech, for themselves. After the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, television personality Piers Morgan spoke out against the Constitution’s 2^nd Amendment and the Wild West mentality of many of its supporters, and because he was exercising the Constitutional right of free speech, a phalanx of patriots demanded his immediate deportation for expressing his opinion.

This is not a rare occurrence, or something reserved for British television hosts. This column’s author fields on average 10 to 15 death threats per week from uber-patriots and evangelical fanatics for expressing an opinion that does not comport with their vision of America, and the irony is that each threat of violence is related to an alleged attack on their Constitutional rights. There is a reason the Founding Fathers gave freedom of religion, speech, and the press the top spot in the Bill of Rights, and that they did not make them conditional on agreeing with conservatives, because the idea of “freedom” is not conditional, at least not in a free society like America. Still, conservatives have set conditions on speech dependent on whether or not one agrees with their views on guns and religion, and it has come to define America’s personality as intolerant and spreads the message that speech is not free if it is anti-gun or anti-god.

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning the adoption of Russian orphans by U.S. families as retaliation for the Sergei Magnitsky Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama which imposed sanctions on Russian officials allegedly involved in the death of a whistle-blower. The reason for the ban is irrelevant because as a sovereign nation, Russia has the right to self-governance irrespective of childless Americans’ wishes or belief their rights supersede a foreign government’s internal affairs. The incident highlighted many Americans’ belief that their individual wishes override all others, foreign or domestic, and it portrays all Americans in a selfish, arrogant, and entitled light that has become the overriding personality trait of this country’s people.  It is true of gun rights activists, religious liberty fanatics, anti-government maniacs, and bigots of all shapes and sizes, and it is on display for the entire world to see. It is a travesty that all Americans are portrayed as self-indulgent and entitled, because it is not an accurate characterization of the American people, but it is the one that the world sees more than any other.

h/t: PoliticusUSA

On her daily radio commentary yesterday, Linda Harvey offered a rather interesting theory about why the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” shouldn’t apply to marriage equality - or seemingly to gay people at all, for that matter - since “people are not naturally homosexual.”

Apparently, being a “gay person” doesn’t actually qualify one as a “person” under Harvey’s understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment.

H/T: Kyle Mantyla at RWW