Immigration Reform and the Latino Vote

All of a sudden it looks as though we may get a comprehensive immigration bill through Congress this session.  A group of eight senators, four from each party, came forward on Monday this week to announce their agreement on a general framework.  They timed their announcement to try to upstage President Obama, who delivered his ideas for his own plan as scheduled in Las Vegas on Tuesday.  The big questions are whether it can pass the House and whether Hispanic voters have long or short memories.  

The rapid movement on an issue that has been dead in the water for years is a result of last November's election, in which according to exit polls, President Obama won 71% of the Hispanic vote to Mitt Romney's 27%.  Senator John McCain (R-AZ) clearly stated that the Republican Party badly needs to repair its standing with Latinos or it will become the minority party in states like his with "changing demographics."  The voters have spoken, and on the national and state levels, if Republicans continue to be the party that wants to deport grandma, they can write off the nation's largest minority group, which will also soon be its largest minority voting bloc.  As Bob Menendez (D-NJ), another in the bipartisan group of eight  stated, reform may well happen because "business demands it, Democrats want it and Republicans need it."        

The senators' outline includes strong border enforcement, employer enforcement, allowing a system for more legal immigration to include temporary agricultural workers along with the highly-skilled,  and a pathway to citizenship for those who entered the nation illegally after they pay fines, back taxes, and go to the end of the line behind those who are attempting to enter legally.  They hope to have a bill drafted by March and passed before the August recess.  The president echoed several of the same criteria, though he also called for the registration and immediate temporary status of those already here, a somewhat more rapid path to citizenship and called for permitting same-sex partners equal prerogatives for admission as enjoyed by heterosexual spouses.  In either approach, in order to determine who is eligible to stay and work in the U.S. it is likely some form of national ID would be needed.

The potential roadblock is in the House of Representatives.  There Republicans are in the majority and most are elected in safe, gerrymandered districts where they have more to worry about from tea party adherents primarying them from the right than from Democrats beating them in the general election by charging them with being too restrictive on immigration.  That is why Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and McCain said they hoped they could get 80 (of the 100) votes in the Senate to show overwhelming bipartisan support and generate pressure for the House to concur.

The other question is about Latinos themselves.  Their votes have scared thinking Republicans into realizing they might want to stop alienating the fastest growing population in the country.  President Obama applied the heat by saying if Congress stalls he will introduce his plan in full and demand a quick vote.  If the GOP refuses to vote or votes no, the next Latino election split might be 90-10.  But what if a sensible and reasonably humane immigration program does manage enough Republican votes in the House to succeed?  Will Hispanics and other immigrant groups so quickly forget the years of indifference and in many cases outright hostility heaped on them by the Republicans?  That they finally came around dragging their feet because they had been beaten into reluctant reasonableness?  And will they forget that it was the Democrats who had been the ones sticking up for them all along?  Based on what I've seen here in California on the Hispanic vote after the anti-immigrant GOP-sponsored Proposition 187 in 1994, I wouldn't bet on it.            

Being There: The Presidential Inauguration of 2013

I got back home late Wednesday night from my trip back East for the Inauguration.  I am indebted to my friends Greg and Lorene Guernsey for hosting me at their home and providing helpful driving directions and a friendly welcome.  I also want to thank Rep. Devin Nunes and his D.C. office staff.  He graciously provided a viewing ticket to the event.  His legislative aides, Caitlin Shannon and Rocci DiCicco, kept me up to date on the deadlines and procedures and rendered most cordial and accommodating service the day before the Inauguration when I went to his office to pick up my ticket and materials.

I spent the rest of Sunday walking DC.  I reconnoitered the route from the Metro station I would need to use to follow to the viewing area so I wouldn't get lost.  The Washington Metro subway system is excellent and easy to negotiate, by the way.  I  particularly wanted to see the new monuments that had gone up since my last visit to the nation's capital.  That was back in 1996 when Joan and I took our  daughters Jeanette and Marie before Jeanette's eighth grade year.  The three new ones for me were World War II, Martin Luther King and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  I also spent some time at the Lincoln Memorial.  All were well worth seeing, tastefully and impressively done.  At the Martin Luther King Memorial I got to see Jesse Jackson, who was there for the King Holiday.  The FDR Memorial was expansive and evocative of the many challenges he faced during his presidency.

I came away with a number of impressions of the Inauguration itself.  First among these are the numbers.  There were an estimated 900,000 to 1,000,000 in attendance, the biggest second inauguration crowd ever, though about half the number who came to President Obama's First in 2009.  Despite the enormity of the crowd, the mood was cooperative and  patient.  The military and police presence was large and many streets were blocked off.  It took a long time to get through the lines and security searches, yet the folks took it with a positive attitude.  Everyone was bundled up; the temperature was in the twenties when we arrived, going up to a high of about 40.  As might be expected, the African-American proportion of the crowd was large, probably about one-third in my section.  Most everyone there was happy about the President's re-election, but there was a special pride among African-Americans.  Many came with their whole families to be part of the historic moment.

I wound up north of center about 200 yards out at the top of a set of steps at roughly two o'clock from the President's view from the lectern.  There were leafless trees partially obscuring a clear view, not to mention tall people.  But I could get a more direct view by shifting my feet and craning my neck.  Once at the viewing section people were crammed together very tightly.    That was helpful in resisting the cold and potentially could have led to frayed tempers, but did not from what I saw.  The prevailing spirit made for everyone to show consideration.  It was a celebration, after all.  For someone in attendance, much more than watching on television, the entertainment was important.  The Brooklyn choir, James Taylor, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce, and poet Richard Blanco were all sensationally good, as of course was the U.S. Marine Band.  When you are standing there for so long it's most helpful to break up the speeches and dead time with art that accentuates the theme.  They all came across as representative of the incredible talent of a great and vibrant nation.  See a collage of the day's activities here.

The crowd enjoyed greeting the various dignitaries as they filed in.  There were jumbo trons set up to get better views and even previews as they approached from within the Capitol Building's corridors.  Senator and Mrs. Kerry, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Joe and Jill Biden and Bill and Hillary Clinton evoked the greatest cheers from the crowd.  The reception for Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama was greater yet, and that for the President himself, accompanied by "Hail to the Chief," was loudest of all.  After the benediction things proceeded rapidly to the swearings in.  We heard the familiar voice of Vice President Biden repeating the oath administered by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  The devout Catholic Veep especially emphasized the last four words, "so help me God!" I turned on my phone's video recorder as Chief Justice John Roberts stepped forward.  He then swore in President Obama, and as he finished the crowd roared.  The army punctuated the moment with a thunderous 21-gun salute from a battery of cannon set up just to our left on the northwest lawn of the Capitol. 

The Inaugural Address itself is harder to follow live than on television.  Caught up with the crowd in the excitement of the moment, I more got impressions of the speech than a lot of hard content.  It struck me as a rather forthright presentation of the President'' progressive values, centered on the pragmatic pursuit of justice and human service.  By mentioning topics like climate change and gay rights within the larger contexts of community, freedom and justice the President came across as someone who will be unafraid in his second term to pursue what he believes.  He called for action and stressed our mutual obligations to each other through programs such as Medicare and public education.  He used the word "together" several times.  He called for action, saying though there will always be disagreements about how best to meet our challenges, we must act now on them and make adjustments as required by developments.  I felt he showed he will be vigorous and less likely to vainly wait for his political opponents to voluntarily accept reasonable compromises.  I got the sense there will be more hardball with Congress in the second term.  The crowd heartily approved.  See President Obama's Inaugural Address as recorded by ABC News here.

Following the fine humanity and evocative imagery of Richrd Blanco's poem and Beyonce's tremendous rendition of the National Anthem the dignitaries recessed out and the throng slowly broke up and moved toward the transportation nubs.  Like many, I meandered about, eating some trail mix and soaking in the festivities.  I took some people's pictures in front of the Capitol and a nice young man took mine.  The sense of community remained strong.  Later on I was able to attend a reception put on by the Claremont McKenna College Alumni Association, my alma mater.  There I enjoyed some stimulating conversation with alums working in Washington, such as Steve Dagadakis, a staffer with the House Democratic Caucus.  It was the cap of a magnificent day.

The next day I took a two-hour drive into central Virginia and visited Monticello, home of our third president, Thomas Jefferson, and Ash Lawn-Highland, home of his neighbor our fifth president, James Monroe.  It was a most fitting and satisfying end to my trip to see the way of life of two of our most important founders.  Enjoying our capital city, being present for a memorable Inauguration and getting in touch with some meaningful history was a wonderful experience.  I felt proud to be a citizen.

  

  


 

Obama Opens Fight for Sensible Gun Controls

This morning President Obama, declaring, "This is our first task in society: keeping our children safe" signed executive orders putting 23 directives on gun-related issues into effect and called on congress to take action on seven others.  See his presentation here.  Extensive public opinion surveys by two highly-regarded organizations, Pew Research and the ABC News/Washington Post Poll, indicate a strong majority of Americans support him.  In accepting Vice President Biden's recommendations for gun safety in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the President vowed to "use whatever power this office has" to fight for passage of his agenda, and called on Americans to communicate their support to their representatives.  We will now see to what extent the will of the majority can prevail on an issue against a determined minority backed by the organized money of one of Capitol Hill's most powerful lobbies.

Among the items included in the 23 presidential directives are instructions to law enforcement to share felony and background check information with other jurisdictions and gun dealers, to help school districts that so desire to hire additional "resource specialists" and to make it easier for mental health providers to warn of dangerous individuals.  He is also directing the Center for Disease Control to research the causes of murderous behavior, including violent video games.

Among the items the President wants from congress are:

Money to implement the research and the other measures, about $500 million.  Require a universal background check for anyone buying a gun, thereby closing the gun show, online and personal sale loopholes.  A ban on military-style assault weapons.  Limiting an ammunition magazine to ten rounds.  Severely increase the penalties for those who flout the requirements or who buy weapons to provide them to criminals.  Confirm Acting Director Todd Jones as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a position congress has refused to fill for six years.  Provide funds and a program to help localities hire more police.

According to the ABC News/Washington Post Poll and the Pew Research Survey the people are with the President on his ideas, often overwhelmingly so.  Universal background checks are favored by an average of 85% in the two surveys.  76% support background checks on even ammo purchases in the ABC Poll.  An average of 69% are for a federal gun database.  Banning assault weapons is favored by a margin of 17%, and banning the high capacity magazines is favored by an average of 22% in the two surveys.    

President Obama described the effort saying, "We can respect the Second Amendment while keeping guns out of the hands of an irresponsible few."  Emphasizing "It's time to do the right thing," he pointed out that action is urgent because, "In the month since Sandy Hook 900 more Americans have died at the end of a gun."   He granted that "no law" can prevent all violence but, referring to children who had written him on the stage with him, to survivors and parents of victims in the audience, held that "if even one child's life is saved" that we must act. 

The President is under no illusion the task will be easy.  He called on the membership of gun rights organizations to call on their leaders to support these sensible steps, and on Americans in general to communicate their support to their representatives.  "The only way we can change is if the American people demand it.  They have to say, enough!" he said.  He recommended finding out if your congressional representative is for background checks and limiting assault weapons.  If not, "Ask them why not.  What's more important, getting an A grade from the gun lobby and money for their campaign, or giving parents some peace of mind when they drop their children off for first grade?"          

    

How Accurate is the Movie "Zero Dark Thirty?"

I saw "Zero Dark Thirty" Wednesday night with Visalia Times-Delta Entertainment Editor James Ward.  You can see his review of the film here.  He asked me along to look into the movie's historical accuracy.  When investigating a movie like “Zero Dark Thirty,” which depicts secret operations like the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the mission that killed him, there are unavoidable problems from the historian’s point of view.  There are some sources, but not a great many, and not from many different perspectives.  The official records remain classified.  Also, personal and political controversies still swirl around some facets of the events, especially including the means by which information may have been gathered to piece together the master terrorist’s whereabouts.

The film moves like a story within a documentary.  Director Kathryn Bigelow measures time for the viewer by making references to world events, especially to some of the al-Qaeda terrorist operations that took place between the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001 and the killing of bin Laden on May 1, 2011.  These are all historically accurate in the dates and in the characterizations of what took place.  In the movie these include the al-Khobar massacre of 22 victims on May 29, 2004, the London bus and subway bombings that killed 52 on July 7, 2005, the truck bombing of the Islamabad, Pakistan Marriott Hotel that killed 54 on September 20, 2008, the suicide bombing that took eight CIA personnel at Camp Chapman in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, and the attempted car bombing of Times Square, New York on May 1, 2010.       

The culminating raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, is rendered with exacting detail and remarkable faithfulness to the accounts we have.  “Zero Dark Thirty” portrays the raid in real time, taking precisely eighteen minutes from helicopter touchdown to the shots that felled the al-Qaeda chief.  The sequence correctly shows the SEALS and their actions in bringing down first bin-Laden’s principal courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, Kuwaiti’s brother Abrar, Abrar’s wife Bushra, one of Bin Laden's sons, Khalid, and finally Osama bin Laden himself, in addition to wounding one of bin Laden’s wives, Amal al-Fatah. 

There are a few inaccuracies in the raid depiction.  In the real raid, after killing bin Laden the SEALS had twenty minutes to gather intelligence.  The movie gave them four.  The SEALS brought a Belgian Malamois dog named Cairo along to sniff for explosives; he was portrayed as a German shepherd in the film.  A fluent Pashto-speaking operative was part of the mission in case they needed to speak to the local Pakistanis.  The movie shows many locals approaching the compound during the raid, and the operative having to threaten to have the SEALS shoot them if they did not leave.  In reality, he wore a Pakistani Army cap, only a few neighbors came by to see what was going on, and he easily got them to leave by telling them a security operation was underway and to go home and turn off their lights.          

Certainly the most controversial part of “Zero Dark Thirty” is its depiction of the use of torture to get information from detainees at secret CIA sites, and the importance of that torture in obtaining the crucial information that enabled the movie’s agent Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, to locate bin Laden’s courier and have him tailed to his master’s hideout.  Most sources that have come out so far take issue with that view, though not all. 

Former CIA chief supervisor of interrogations Jose Rodriguez says, “No one was bloodied or beaten in the enhanced interrogation program which I supervised from 2002 to 2007,” and that “written authorization from Washington” was needed even to give a prisoner a slap across the face.  He says they did use sleep deprivation or “in rare cases, waterboarding,” which was discontinued in 2003.  Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin, along with Leon Panetta, CIA Director from February 2009 to June 2011, strongly maintain that no information useful to the bin Laden operation was obtained by the enhanced techniques, including the identity of the courier. 

In opposition to that, former Bush Administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey has claimed that the waterboarding of al-Kaeda’s number three leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, (captured in 2003) provided information “that led to bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.”  He says this even though it wasn't found until seven years later.

The historian has to take special care to reserve judgment in the case of sources who may be trying to justify controversial political positions in their recounting of events.  Though the preponderance of those who have spoken so far tends to discredit the torture depictions of the film, the definitive verdict may have to await the declassification of the relevant documents.  That, of course, might not be for several years.  

2012 Hottest Year on Record in U.S.

Last night we got yet more confirmation of the rapidly growing effects of human-accelerated climate heating.  The lead story on ABC News, the New York Times, Washington Post and a host of other media outlets was the finding that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the United States, and also one of the hottest on record world wide.  Look at this National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration map of how each state's 2012 average temperature ranked of the 118 years since records have been kept.  See their entire bulletin here.

Not only was every state's temperature above normal, but the U.S. average for the entire year was 1.0 full degree above the previous record of 54.3 degrees set in 1998.  This is strikingly unusual, since the difference between the hottest and coldest years up to now had only been 4.2 degrees.  When the figures are in, the weather service expects 2012 to have been the ninth warmest worldwide.  The ten warmest have all come within the past fifteen years, and in fact no year has been cooler than normal since 1985. 

The scientists warned that last year's drought, affecting 61% of the nation, and extreme storms (an unprecedented 11 for the year) are but a "foretaste of things to come."  Meanwhile, to no one's surprise, Fox News did not mention the story.  In the chart below, see the powerful correlation between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the top line and temperature in the bottom line over the past 400,000 years. 



To make matters worse, according to to NASA, human activity is putting an additional 8 billion metric tons of carbon into the air every year. We will continue to pay an increasingly steep, and even deadly, cost for this over the next few decades.

"Fiscal Cliff" Postmortem

The recently concluded budget fight over the so-called "fiscal cliff," demonstrates that neither side in Washington really cares very much about the deficit.  The term deficit is thrown around and used to appeal to the public, but it isn't what either Democrats or Republicans are truly primarily concerned with.  And in today's economic climate, that may actually be a good thing.

Start with President Obama and the Democrats.  The President campaigned and was re-elected on letting income tax rates return to the Clinton-era levels for individuals making over $200,000 and couples making over $250,000.  Yet even with the threat of cliff-mandated tax increases for all and defense cuts that Republicans hate strengthening his hand, he agreed to raise those figures to $400,000 and $450,000.  That change reduced the projected revenue to be generated by about $25 billion a year, revenue that if he had stuck to his position he would likely have been able to get to help reduce the deficit.

Now take a look at the Republicans.  They went along with the tax increase without forcing any spending cuts at all.  When they were in power under President Bush they cut taxes significantly without paring spending.  Then they funded two wars and a Medicare prescription drug benefit without securing any revenue for them, using borrowed money.  All these actions added to the deficit, of course.  So what gives?

First of all, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke coined the term "fiscal cliff" in reference to the automatic tax increases and spending cuts that would have kicked in on January 1 when the Bush tax cuts expired and the "sequestration" (large spending cuts, half in defense and half in domestic programs) of $120 billion in federal spending would have kicked in.  So, wouldn't these things have reduced the deficit if they had been allowed to happen?  Well, yes at least on paper.  But the combined effect of taking quite a bit more money out of so many regular taxpayers' checks, laying off thousands of federal workers and cancelling orders would have, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimate, have pushed the economy back into recession.  That's why it was called a "cliff."  Yet what was realized is that growth and the health of the economy are far more important than the annual deficit.

In fact, it is recession that primarily fuels the deficit.  The deficit Obama inherited for the year 2009 stood at $1.4 trillion.  It eased to $1.29 trillion in 2010 and $1.29 trillion again in 2011 as weak recovery got underway.  It fell to $1.1 trillion in 2012 and, as we are now halfway through fiscal 2013 and the recovery is gaining some steam, it projects to come in at about $900 billion this year.  (Deficit figures source.)  That's a reduction of 18% this year from last and 36% over the four years--a pretty good record, even without much tweaking of the tax code or changes on the spending side other than savings of about $80 billion a year we are now enjoying from ending the Iraq War. 

The exasperating "fiscal cliff" process will get under way again soon.  On February 28 the debt ceiling will need to be raised again.  On March 1 the threatened sequester cuts will come back.  And about March 27 the money will theoretically run out if the debt ceiling hasn't been raised.  Congressional Republicans will attempt to use these benchmarks to force what they really want, which their actions demonstrate is not about reducing the deficit.  What they really want is to repeal as many social insurance programs and environmental and workplace safeguards as they can.