It Isn't Fair

He deserves to live in this country in as much peace as Orlando Bosch did, and with as many career opportunities as have been afforded Elliott Abrams and Ollie North, who did not release information for free but, rather, some missiles to terror states for money. – Blogger Charles Pierce, arguing that the U.S. should bring no charges against Edward Snowden, Friday

I suddenly had the thought that Snowden is the black guy caught for smoking pot while Cheney and his Bush, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are the white pot smoking college students. Who of the above killed more people and who of the above faces the most severe penalties? I don't condone Snowden; I sure as hell don't think he should suffer worse than those guys. – Reality Chex Contributor Citizen 625, Saturday

“It isn't fair.” Every toddler has said it. If that toddler is not fully socialized, he will keep on making the same complaint all his life, insisting that he should have more as others have less. He will become a conservative. If, on the other hand, he is properly integrated into the community, he will be able to empathize with others who, for one reason or another, do not receive equal treatment. He will become a liberal who wishes to live in a society governed by laws and rules that treat everyone with impartiality and fairness.

“It isn't fair” is the sentiment that underlies Charles Pierce's and Citizen 625's analogies. I get that. I feel it myself. But the "reasoning" is facile and illogical. As I wrote in response to Pierce's post, “This is the 'two wrongs make a right' fallacy.... 'George Zimmerman beat a murder rap so every murderer should get off scot-free.'” Friday, several contributors elaborated on my comment. Nonetheless, we did not dissuade Citizen 625 from making essentially the same argument Pierce made.

Pierce's examples of bad guys who got away with murder are particularly inapt. Bosch was never convicted of the major crime of which he was accused, he denied responsibility, and the Venezuelan government held him in jail for four years awaiting trial. Abrams is Pierce's best case, but it should be remembered that Abrams, like North, was working in and with the government rather than against it. Bush I pardoned Abrams and Bush II gave Abrams a job because Abrams was playing on their team. North was fired (by Reagan), prosecuted and convicted. He received a suspended sentence, probation, a substantial fine and a community service stint, some of which he did before ACLU lawyers got his conviction vacated. I don't feel sorry for any of these guys, but North did pay a price for his perjury and destruction of evidence and Bosch paid a price, too.

Citizen 625's analogies, though faulty for the same reason as Pierce's, are at least marginally better than Pierce's. It was, after all, the same Justice Department – Obama's – that decided not to prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz but has brought charges against Snowden. Yet again the situations are not analogous. Not only were Citizen 625's bad guys all working on the side of the U.S. government, they were the government. In addition, their attack on Iraq had overwhelming Congressional support. Would it be possible to find these guys individually guilty of war crimes? Maybe. But they had a helluva a lot of help. Are you going to charge Hillary Clinton, too? What about John Kerry? He was for it before he was against it, ya know. Better toss in most of the Bush administration's senior national security staff. And definitely George Slam-Dunk Tenet. Jailing (or executing!) American leaders who take the nation into ill-advised wars and who violate human rights in carrying out those wars would arguably lead to untenable governmental instability. There are, after all, good arguments against almost every war effort. For strictly pragmatic reasons, Obama's DOJ was probably right in not prosecuting – or threatening to prosecute – officials of the prior administration.

The war in Iraq -- stupid, unjustified, outrageous though it was -- was a lawful political action, sanctioned and carried out by those who had the Constitutional power and political backing to take the country to war. Ed Snowden does not enjoy that cover of law.

Is it “fair” that Dick Cheney spent Christmas in Wyoming shilling for his despicable daughter while Ed Snowden spent Christmas in Russia trying to get the hell out of there? Probably not. But our system of government is designed to protect Cheney and to prosecute Snowden. Cheney knew that when he did whatever he did that might have been war crimes. Snowden knew that, too, when he did what he did. Their situations are not analogous.

But even if their crimes were analogous, even if they were just alike, one systemic failure or miscarriage of justice does not justify another. Failures of the past certainly do not mandate that the system fail in perpetuity, as both Pierce and Citizen 625 suggest. Even when the relative outcomes are not fair.

P.S. Do not comment on this post, please, unless you have read Fred Kaplan on clemency for Snowden. Also, kindly spare us from Reductio ad Hitlerum in your commentary. Thank you.

The Commentariat -- January 5, 2014

Ben Hubbard, et al., of the New York Times: "... for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region's sectarian hatreds. Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries' conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers -- claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively -- cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: The idea of amnesty for Edward Snowden "won widespread attention last month when Richard Ledgett, who leads an N.S.A. task force evaluating damage from the disclosures, said on the CBS News program '60 Minutes' that it was 'worth having a conversation about' it to prevent further revelations. That position won further attention in the last week with editorials in The Guardian and The New York Times urging clemency.... Debates about the idea played out on CNN, ABC and elsewhere, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, posted a message on Twitter in favor of clemency. But inside the White House and the Justice Department, Mr. Ledgett's suggestion has been met with stony opposition. The administration has made no move to reach out to negotiate any kind of deal and makes clear that it has no plans to." ...

... CW: I'm really sorry I missed this segment, which aired about two weeks ago. It seems to me both Greenwald & Toobin get stuff wrong. To their credit, both of these often-over-the-top commentators behave themselves:

Michael Hiltzig of the Los Angeles Times: "Here's a business practice likely to keep booming in 2014: corporate extortion.... By the estimate of the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, state and local tax incentives funnel $50 billion in tax revenue into corporate coffers every year. On a national basis, ITEP says, this is worse than a zero-sum game: The incentives are 'much more likely to reshuffle investment between geographic areas than ... to spur genuinely new economic activity.' The trendsetter for the coming year may turn out to be Boeing. The aerospace company has been dangling the prospect of a big airliner production facility in front of several states, including California, since mid-November. That's when union machinists in Everett, Wash., rejected its demands for big concessions on pension and healthcare benefits. The process started only days after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed the biggest state tax break in history into law -- a package that will give Boeing up to $8.7 billion in benefits through 2040." ...

... Scott Hamilton of CNN: "A standoff between Boeing and thousands of unionized workers based in Washington state came to an unexpected end Friday after workers voted in favor of a contract to build the company's new commercial jet. The deal keeps economic activity worth billions inside the state, and means hundreds of thousands of jobs will be retained."

Frank Bruni writes a moving column about a dying man who just received an honorable discharge from the Marines after having been given a "less than honorable" discharge in 1956 when his superior learned he was gay. "... now that the military accepts gays, there is also a process that permits those who were dishonorably discharged to appeal for reclassifications of those dismissals as honorable. A military spokesman said last week that he didn't know how many veterans had sought to take advantage of it, or with what success." CW: I hope Bruni's column leads to more affected ex-servicemen & women learning of the new policy & taking advantage of it.

Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "More than 100,000 Americans who applied for insurance through HealthCare.gov and were told they are eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remain unenrolled because of lingering software defects in the federal online marketplace.... To try to provide coverage to these people before they seek medical care, the Obama administration has launched a barrage of phone calls in recent days in 21 states, advising those who applied that the quickest route into the programs is to start over at their state's Medicaid agency."

Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspector general will investigate a federal agency whose mission is to exterminate birds, coyotes, mountain lions and other animals that threaten the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers. The investigation of U.S. Wildlife Services is to determine, among other things, 'whether wildlife damage management activities were justified and effective.' Biologists have questioned the agency's effectiveness, arguing that indiscriminately killing more than 3 million birds and other wild animals every year is often counterproductive. Reps. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) and John Campbell (R-Irvine) requested the review, calling for a complete audit of the culture within Wildlife Services. The agency has been accused of abuses, including animal cruelty and occasional accidental killing of endangered species, family pets and other animals that weren't targeted."

Salon republishes a portion of A Neurobiography of the Brain by D. F. Swaab. In this section, Swaab discusses the religious brain & the evolutionary advantages of religion.

TBogg, in a funny piece in the Raw Story, predicts how Mitt Romney will address the Melissa Harris-Perry hoohah: "Unless Ann Romney is on with him, because Ann will cut a bitch, Mitt will probably be firm but gracious and will talk about the importance of family and about love being color blind and he will say that it is time to move on and maybe he'll make a little joke and will smile that uncomfortable-with-human-emotions grimace-smile of his and will end up kind of laughing this whole nothing-burger off. HA HA HA HA HA HA." CW: We'll learn later in the day if TBogg is an oracle. ...

     ... Update: Katie Glueck of Politico: "Mitt Romney said on Sunday he's forgiven MSNBC after a host and other panelists on the network made comments about his adopted black grandchild. Speaking on 'Fox News Sunday,' the former Republican presidential candidate said he accepted the apology of MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, who a day earlier offered an emotional on-air walk-back." CW: Sounds as if Mitt was gracious. Wait for the video.

Local News

Susan Craig & Jesse McKinley of the New York Times: "Joining a growing group of states that have loosened restrictions on marijuana, [New York] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York plans this week to announce an executive action that would allow limited use of the drug by those with serious illnesses, state officials say."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Australian officials have asked an American icebreaker to help with the rescue of Chinese and Russian vessels that are surrounded by ice floes off Antarctica...."

AP: " U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that America would support Iraq in its fight against al-Qaida-linked militants who have overrun two cities in the country's west, but said the U.S. wouldn't send troops, calling the battle 'their fight.'"

AP: "Two warring factions from South Sudan held direct peace talks on Sunday for the first time since conflict began roiling the country last month, sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing for safety."

AP: "The deep freeze expected soon in the Midwest, New England and even the South will be one to remember, with potential record-low temperatures heightening fears of frostbite and hypothermia. It hasn't been this cold for decades...."

Yahoo! News: "A Delta jet skidded off the runway at John F. Kennedy International airport shortly after landing, the Federal Aviation Administration said. There were no immediate reports of injuries but the New York airport is now closed due to ice and snow, airport officials said."

The Commentariat -- January 4, 2014

Internal links removed.

The President's Weekly Address. White House: "In this week's address, President Obama says Congress should act to extend emergency unemployment insurance for more than one million Americans who have lost this vital economic lifeline while looking for a job":

     ... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker, is here. ...

... Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "The US economy is losing up to a billion dollars a week because of the 'fiscally irresponsible' decision to end long-term unemployment benefits, a Harvard economist said on Friday. Professor Lawrence Katz based his assessment on official forecasts of the impact to the economy of 1.3 million jobless Americans losing benefits." ...

... Amy Goodman in the Guardian: "The long-term unemployment rate is at the highest it has been since the second world war, while the percentage of those receiving the benefits is at its historic low.... On the other end of the economy, a year-end stock market rally is expected to boost the massive bonuses Wall Street is preparing to hand out." Alexis Goldstein of the Other 98% "points out the bonuses are essentially publicly financed because Wall Street banks obtain funds from the Federal Reserve at very low rates. These banks also can afford huge bonuses, she says, because 'they continue to commit crimes that are very profitable'." ...

... Jeff Mason of Reuters: "President Barack Obama will ratchet up his administration's push for an extension of emergency unemployment benefits on Tuesday with an event at the White House attended by people whose benefits have expired."

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday reflected on his eight-year tenure at the helm of the nation's economy, celebrating the central bank's accomplishments but also highlighting what he called 'uncompleted tasks.' ... Bernanke saved his toughest critiques for Washington. Since federal stimulus spending ended in 2010, the government has been a drag on economic growth, he said. After the 2001 recession, government employment rose by 600,000. During the current recovery, he said, it has declined by 700,000 jobs. 'Although long-term fiscal sustainability is a critical objective, excessively tight near-term fiscal policies have likely been counterproductive,' he said. 'Most importantly, with fiscal and monetary policy working in opposite directions, the recovery is weaker than it otherwise would be.'" The text of the speech is here. C-SPAN has the video here.

Whiney Little Sisters. AFP: "The US Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to throw out a challenge from a nuns' group against a birth control mandate in the Obamacare health reform law. The Little Sisters of the Poor had asked the US high court to exempt it from the controversial birth control clause, saying that providing birth control was contrary to its religious beliefs. The US government, in its written response..., argu[ed] that the provision does not apply to the nuns anyway. The Little Sisters' lawsuit is 'not about the availability or adequacy of a religious accommodation,' the Justice Department brief said. Instead, the nuns group wants to 'justify its refusal to sign a self-certification that secures the very religion-based exemption the objector seeks.'" (Emphasis added.) ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "As a new round of religion-based challenges to President Barack Obama's health care law head to the Supreme Court, advocates on both sides of the issue say the administration's arguments are likely facing a chilly reception." CW: Okay, then: universal health insurance is the answer.

Jenna Johnson & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "Maryland lawmakers are expected to pass legislation as soon as next week to assist the hundreds of people -- or, possibly, thousands -- who tried to sign up for health insurance through the state's new exchange program, encountered problems and were left uncovered when the new year began."

Brady McCombs & Paul Foy of the AP: "Legal arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court about Utah's overturned same-sex marriage ban have focused heavily on whether gay and lesbians can be suitable parents.... Lawyers for the state set the tone for the debate in a 100-page filing with the high court this week that made several references to their belief that children should be raised by straight couples. An attorney for same-sex couples says the state's argument has no scientific backing and that denying gays and lesbians the right to marry actually causes severe harm to their children. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is considering Utah's request to put an immediate halt on gay marriages in Utah."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that the Obama administration may continue to withhold a Justice Department memo that apparently opened a loophole in laws protecting the privacy of consumer data. The memo establishes the legal basis for telephone companies to hand over customers' calling records to the government without a subpoena or court order, even when there is no emergency, according to a 2010 report by the Justice Department's inspector general. The details of the legal theory, and the circumstances in which it could be invoked, remain unclear." ...

... Bernie Sanders: "U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials." ...

... ** I firmly disagree with the New York Times' Jan. 1 editorial ('Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower'), calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' for the 'great service' he has done for his country. -- Fred Kaplan, in Slate

Kaplan's piece is REQUIRED READING for Reality Chex readers who support clemency, a pardon or hugs. kisses & the Nobel Peace Prize for Ed Snowden. Any contributors who write in support of letting Snowden off the hook will be quizzed on Kaplan's column! -- Constant Weader

... Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will file a class-action lawsuit against the National Security Agency 'soon,' his office confirmed to The Hill. Paul had been gearing up for months to lead a suit against the agency, charging that the surveillance program gathering metadata on U.S. citizens has violated people's Fourth Amendment rights. He will file the papers in the D.C. District Court as a private citizen." ...

     ... CW: Besides being a private citizen, Paul is a U.S. Senator. He could sponsor a bill that limited the NSA's activities. Then again, maybe doing his boring day job is not what Li'l Randy has in mind. As Trujillo reports, "Paul's Senate campaign website already encourages individuals to 'please sign below and join my class-action lawsuit and help stop the government's outrageous spying program on the American people.' The solicitation, which asks for individuals' names, email addresses and zip codes, also asks for a donation to help 'stop Big Brother from infringing on our Fourth Amendment freedoms.'" ...

... Update: Grace Wyler of New York has more on the pending suit, including the name of Paul's legal advisor -- Ken Cuccinelli. CW: Last year Paul campaigned for Cuccinelli, who thinks women and gays should be subject to all kinds of unreasonable searches and seizures. (In fairness to Cuccinelli, he did warn Gov. Bob Transvaginal Probe off said probe on Fourth Amendment grounds.) Thanks to MAG for the link.

** The Ghost of Decisions Past. Dana Milbank: "John Roberts ... invoked both Scrooge's ghosts and George Bailey's guardian angel in the first sentence of his annual report on the federal judiciary ... in which he begged for more money for the courts.... I agree with Roberts on the merits.... But ... Roberts and his fellow jurists are being starved by a system that they, in large part, created.... His conservative majority has made the Roberts Court the most pro-business court since the 1930s, and he and his fellow justices have done a great deal to expand the rights of the wealthy and the powerful -- most notably by allowing them to spend unlimited sums to purchase lawmakers and to sway elections. The wealthy and corporate interests have responded by buying a Congress determined to shrink government and to weaken its reach -- including that of the courts.... Roberts may see his fellow jurists as victims of a Dickensian system. But they are the authors of this Christmas carol." Read the whole column.

** Eric Lipton of the New York Times exposes one way in which Last Year's Member of Congress becomes This Year's Lobbyist, making a mockery of so-called House ethics rules -- and federal criminal law. Featured in Lipton's piece -- last year's Ohio Congressman (and John Boehner BFF) Steve LaTourette & the two lobbying groups he runs. One, the Main Street Partnership, is a ha-ha "tax-exempt social welfare" group with secret corporate benefactors.

New York Times Editors: "... the current practice of contracting out vast swaths of government work indefinitely -- with little or no attempt to develop the needed technical and managerial expertise within the government or to enforce labor standards -- has created a bloated federal-contractor sector in which the public good is often subservient to profit."

New York Times Editors: "Rebuffed by Congress on stronger gun safety laws, President Obama is wisely using use his executive powers in a more focused attempt to bar mentally ill people from eluding federal watch lists and purchasing firearms. Two sensible changes proposed for the background check system would allow states and mental health providers more discretion than they have now in reporting information about potentially violent people." ...

... Here's the White House statement on the executive action gun safety measures.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "South Sudan is in many ways an American creation, carved out of war-torn Sudan in a referendum largely orchestrated by the United States, its fragile institutions nurtured with billions of dollars in American aid. But a murky, vicious conflict there has left the Obama administration scrambling to prevent the unraveling of a major American achievement in Africa."

The Chair Recognizes the Gentleman from Canada. AP: "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz vowed months ago to renounce his Canadian citizenship by the end of 2013, but the Calgary-born Republican is still a dual citizen.... Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration attorney, wonders what's taking so long. Kurland said Friday that unless there's a security or mental health issue that hasn't been disclosed, renouncing citizenship is a simple, quick process."

New Yorker: "On this week's Political Scene podcast, Mattathias Schwartz and Patrick Radden Keefe join Curtis Fox ... to discuss American drug policy at home and abroad":

... "Ruth Marcus, David Brooks & Reefer Madness." Dave Weigel of Slate: "Marcus and Brooks sound like perfect parodies of clueless Acela Corridor pundits who think a lot about 'society' without bothering to explore it.... We've been waiting for the prohibitionist backlash to follow a legalization experiment like Colorado's, and it seems relevant that the lashers have started with such thin and logically lazy arguments. That's all they've got, as people in the rest of the country keep getting arrested?" ...

... Charles Pierce: "Laws against marijuana certainly have molded our culture, especially profoundly, if you happen to be young and black." CW: One day when I was young and white (also female and cute), two LAPD came to my apartment to ask me about a burglary that occurred across the hall. While one of them was asking me what-all I had seen or heard, the other was pocketing the little bag of weed I had left on the kitchen counter. I'm pretty sure the "white" part was important. ...

... Michelle Goldberg of the Nation: "Somehow, [Brooks has] written a whole column about the drug war that doesn't once contain the words 'arrest' or 'prison.' It's evidence not just of his own writerly weakness but of the way double standards in the war on drugs shield elites from reckoning with its consequences.... A recent ACLU report tells us that between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million marijuana arrests in the United States, 88 percent of them just for possession. The vast majority of these arrests, of course, are not of those in Brooks's cohort. White people and African-Americans smoke pot at similar rates, but the latter are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested." CW: Contributor Safari also did a good job of covering this in yesterday's Comments. ...

... The Libertarian Argument Against Brooks & Marcus. Matt Welch of Reason: "The absence of prohibition is not the presence of government sanction. There are a countless number of perfectly legal activities I may find personally abhorrent ... but keeping them legally permissible is not a case of my values being trampled by the state. If anything, the opposite is true: The more government uses laws to shape behavior, the more it is likely to offend your core values, whatever they may be." ...

... In Another Confessional, Jeffrey Goldberg, in Bloomberg News, does a great job of explaining to Brooks why legalization is a good idea. Also, the post is uncharacteristically funny. ...

... Update. The next two pieces come via Driftglass who contributes the image below, and much more:

Artwork by Driftglass.... I should have known: Matt Taibbi says it best, and makes the same point I made in today's Comments: "The Brooks column is particularly infuriating because in just a few hundred words it perfectly captures why marijuana needs to be legalized. Here's this grasping, status-obsessed yuppie who first admits that that he smoked an illegal drug without consequence in his youth, then turns around and tells us, as a graying and bespectacled post-adult, that it would be best if the drug remained illegal for the masses." ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress: "'Is this a great fucking country or what?' Gary Greenberg, the psychotherapist who had unintentionally convinced journalists around the country that he had grown up toking up with a New York Times columnist, was having a good day. Greenberg's essay, a takedown of David Brooks' anti-pot confessional column written as if Greenberg and Brooks were childhood smoking buddies, had become easily the most popular piece ever published on Greenberg's personal blog. He had gotten interest from (among others) The Atlantic, The Washington Examiner, and The Huffington Post." Except it was a parody. ...

     ... Warning to journalists. Headlines of other likely parodies:

Burns gets advance copy of Brooks' Yale class syllabus.
American Economics Association honors David Brooks.
David Brooks enters monastery, takes vow of silence.
I had sex with David Brooks.

... More on Drugs. The New York Times gives Mike Tyson plenty of space to explain why he has had so many problems with drugs & alcohol. Like Brooks, he wants to be sober to be a better person.

Ben Goessling of ESPN: "The Minnesota Vikings announced Friday they will retain two local attorneys to conduct an independent review of the allegations former punter Chris Kluwe made against the team Thursday."

Another Excellent Reason Not to Watch the Sunday Shows. According to Matt Wilstein of Mediaite, Mitt Romney is expected to address Melissa Harris-Perry's controversial "comedy" segment in which she highlighted the fact that one of Romney's grandchildren is black when he appears on "Fox 'News" Sunday."

News Ledes

AP: "The leader of an al-Qaida-linked group that carried out attacks across the Middle East before shifting its focus to Syria's civil war died on Saturday while in custody in Lebanon, the army said. In a short statement, the Lebanese army said Majid al-Majid 'died this morning while undergoing treatment at the central military hospital after his health deteriorated.'"

AP: "The death toll from the latest violent clashes in Egypt between Islamist protesters and security forces has risen to 17, a security official said Saturday. Friday's protests were the deadliest in months, coming less than two weeks ahead of a key referendum on an amended constitution."

Reuters: "President Vladimir Putin has eased restrictions on demonstrations in the Black Sea Winter Olympics venue of Sochi, his latest bid to burnish Russia's image ahead of the Games."

The Los Angeles Times' full obituary of Phil Everly is here.