Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 103

The Best Of The Dish Today

A glimpse last night at the Dish’s office – i.e. wherever our laptops happen to be:

Watching @sullydish and @chrisbodenner make The Dish magic happen… pic.twitter.com/DFNIwvPdZv

— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) November 5, 2014

And just when I get the socks right:

@fakedansavage @sullydish @chrisbodenner WHAT is going on with Andrew’s shirt?

— adambeaugh (@adambeaugh) November 5, 2014

I’m not sure what to add after today’s wave of depressive developments. But scroll down and you’ll find most every cranny and occasional nook of the post-election upshot covered. My own cri de coeur about the emptiness of the Republican mandate is here. Yesterday’s post on where Obama (didn’t really) go wrong is here. Those two were the most popular posts of the day.

Many of today’s posts were updated with your emails – read them all here. You can always leave your unfiltered comments at our Facebook page and @sullydish. 21 more readers became subscribers today. You can join them here – and get access to all the readons and Deep Dish – for a little as $1.99 month. Gift subscriptions are available here. Dish t-shirts are for sale here, including the new “Know Dope” shirts, which are detailed here. We like to think they clinched the decisive votes in DC, Oregon, and Alaska last night:

A final email for the day:

I’ve been reading this blog probably 5 times a day since February 5th, 2008, when Andrew spoke at a convocation at Lawrence University in Wisconsin on Super Tuesday, and it has been huge in shaping my thinking since then. However, I thought you might get a particular kick out of the fact that I now run and design a Jazz Vespers service as the music director of a Protestant church, and this blog is easily my chief source of material, be it art that you’ve used for various posts, ALL of the poetry (but particularly that of Christian Wiman) or quotes like “pressed up against the window of unfolding history.” The next service is entirely inspired by “Untier of Knots.” I sort of feel like I owe it to you to figure out a way to use some Pet Shop Boys …

See you in the morning.

Face Of The Day

Bahraini Shiite Muslim girls take part in a ceremony marking Ashura, which commemorates the seventh century slaying of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, in the village of Daih, west of Manama on November 5, 2014. By Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images.

The Capital Of Cannabis

Kleiman wants DC to allow the growing but not selling of marijuana. Katherine Mangu-Ward rejects that idea:

[T]he addiction, safety, and health costs associated with alcohol use aren’t caused by the fact that people can legally buy and sell the stuff. Money changing hands for a bottle of clearly labeled, cleanly manufactured gin in a well-lit store with regular hours is by far the most wholesome part of the whole life-cycle of booze.

By taking the money out of legal weed in D.C., the city will not somehow elevate the exchange of marijuana to a higher, more altruistic plane. Instead, it will force users and providers to continue to operate outside the law and live with dangerous uncertainty about what they’re buying, who they’re buying it from, and what happens if the deal goes bad.

Claire Groden warns federal employees against toking up:

[U]nlike private employees, federal employees in every state remain subject to Ronald Reagan’s 1986 “drug-free federal workplace” executive order, which banned employees from using illegal drugs on- or off-duty. In the wake of legalization out West, federal employers like the USDA and Colorado National Park Service issued staff-wide memos reminding workers that all pot use is considered unacceptable. Marijuana use also remains illegal on federal property, and in D.C., that means legalization won’t touch places like the National Mall and Rock Creek Park, a wooded recreational area that covers a large part of the city’s northwestern quadrant. Plus, many of the people who work in D.C. during the day don’t actually live in the district, but in Virginia and Maryland, where pot remains illegal. D.C. marijuana enthusiasts, who filled up a city bar Tuesday night to celebrate (including a rendition of “Blessed Ganja Herb”), might be cheering too early: Until federal law changes, there’s still a large chunk of their fellow D.C. residents who are left out of the high times.

Regardless, Christopher Ingraham sees major momentum for the legalization movement:

The symbolic importance of legalized marijuana in the nation’s capital, home to the Drug Enforcement Administration and the command center of the so-called “war on drugs,” is not lost on anyone. But the biggest effects of last night’s votes may be felt internationally. When Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana in 2012, they created political space for other nations to experiment with drug reform.

North Korea’s Charm Is Offensive

Inside the insane world of Kim Jong-un’s $20m Masikryong ski resort. http://t.co/FDfUJdkaZV pic.twitter.com/Ab2oSAzrFh

— Telegraph Magazine (@TelegraphMag) April 20, 2014

Paul Haenle and Anne Sherman take stock of the country’s shifting relations with its neighbors:

Much to Kim Jong-un’s alarm, Chinese leaders have raised their level of criticism and reduced their patience for Pyongyang’s provocations accordingly. China supported a UN Security Council resolution to expand sanctions against North Korea for its third nuclear test in March 2013. A vibrant domestic debate about China’s North Korea policy has been allowed in Chinese traditional and social media circles. Most notably, President Xi was the first Chinese leader ever to visit South Korea before the North in June 2014. This snub was compounded when China failed to acknowledge in state media or send an official to celebrate Beijing’s 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Pyongyang this October.

Pyongyang has taken notice. … Among its acts of defiance, North Korea executed Jang Song-thaek, China’s most trusted interlocutor, in December 2013 on treason charges that included underselling resources to China. More worrisome however, is North Korea’s charm offensive.

In July, Kim Jong-un agreed to cooperate on investigations into Japanese abductees. In October, the North cooperated in human rights talks with the European Union and released an imprisoned American tourist. A surprise visit by several of North Korea’s most senior leaders to Seoul in October 2014 marked the highest level summit between the two sides in years and a potential interest in improving relations.

And now the dictator is even trying to attract more tourists:

The Hermit Kingdom is, paradoxically, in the midst of an unprecedented tourism push (one that was reportedly put on hold last week out of concern about Ebola). Since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011, several prestige projects have sprung up in North Korea: a waterpark, a dolphinarium, an equestrian club, a shooting range replete with live pheasants. These cheerful and contemporary sites are on an ever-expanding list of permitted destinations for foreign visitors.

And there are more in the pipeline. Pyongyang Sunan International Airport is undergoing expansion. There are plans for an underwater hotel complex in Wonsan, a sleepy resort town by the sea. Soon, the regime hopes 1 million foreigners will visit the country annually—a number that would put North Korea roughly on par with Sri Lanka as a tourist destination. Still, that’s just a fraction of the 12 million tourists that visited South Korea last year.

Bullet Initiatives

Voters in Washington state decisively approved a ballot measure that closes the “gun-show loophole” by requiring almost all gun sales to be transacted through a dealer, so that buyers are subject to background checks. Kate Pickert discusses how state-level referenda are becoming the new focal point for gun control advocates:

The new national strategy is to largely bypass Congress, where recent gun control efforts have gotten little traction even in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. Instead, gun control activists say they are redirecting their attention and money to states—and to voters directly. … Appealing to voters through ballot initiatives has helped advance other progressive causes in recent years, including minimum wage increases and the legalization of medical marijuana. It’s a lesson gun control advocates have taken to heart. “I think it does represent a subtle shift,” says Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who favors gun control. “What we’re seeing is a renewed effort by gun control advocates to take this issue to the voters directly.”

Frum approves of the new strategy:

When Michael Bloomberg and other deep-pocketed donors pledged themselves to gun reform after Sandy Hook, some observers imagined that he and they would waste their resources besieging the NRA on battlefields of the NRA’s choosing: state legislatures where intensely committed minorities can thwart even large-but-less-engaged majorities. The success of 594 in Washington shows the way to a very different political contest, in which majorities can make themselves felt over and against small pressure groups. Look for more such initiatives in 2016—a year when, with a president on the ballot, the electorate will be both larger and less conservative than in 2014. 594 is not the turning of the tide, of course. But it’s a harbinger of a possible new politics of guns, in which the nation’s gun rules will no longer be written by a fanatical and fearful minority of a minority.

But Charles Cooke downplays the significance of the vote:

This will presumably be touted as a great victory. But it’s really not. For a start, universal background checks represent the most modest of all the Left’s aims in this area. This was not a ban on “assault” weapons, which remain legal in Washington. It was not a reduction in magazine sizes. It was not a ban on open carry. Instead, it was a law that requires residents of the state to involve a gun dealer when they transfer a weapon to another resident within the state. (Transfers between immediate family members and between spouses or domestic partners are exempt.) I’m against these rules because I think that they are pointless and because they seem invariably to ensnare innocent and unaware people. Nevertheless, the significance of Washington’s having adopted the measure should not be overstated. That a blue state such as Washington should have convinced only 6 out of 10 people to support a billionaire-backed law that does very little in reality is a testament to the strength of support for the right to keep and bear arms even in nominally progressive areas.

And at the same time, Alabama voters approved a constitutional amendment affirming the right to bear arms and instructing the judiciary to apply strict scrutiny to any restriction thereof.

The Freshman Lawmaker Who’s Actually A Freshman

West Virginians just elected 18-year-old Saira Blair to their state Senate, making her the youngest state lawmaker in the country. Sam Brodey has more:

The college freshman was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in a landslide—she earned 63 percent of the vote to her 44-year-old Democratic opponent’s 30 percent—and officially became the youngest lawmaker in the country. She’ll represent a district of about 18,000 people in the eastern part of the state, near the Maryland border. The Wall Street Journal describes Blair as “fiscally conservative,” and she “campaigned on a pledge to work to reduce certain taxes on businesses.” Her website boasts an “A” rating from the NRA and endorsements from West Virginians for Life. As a 17-year-old, Blair primaried the 66-year-old Republican incumbent Larry Kump and advanced to the general election—all while legally being unable to cast a vote for herself.

Kris Maher highlights her opponent’s uncommonly civil response:

Ms. [Layne] Diehl congratulated Ms. Blair on running a good campaign and said she knew she was also up against broad dissatisfaction with Democrats in the state, partly from the widely held view that the Obama administration’s energy policies are hurting the coal industry. “I’m very proud of the race that was run on both sides,” Ms. Diehl said. “Quite frankly a 17- or 18-year-old young woman that has put herself out there and won a political campaign has certainly brought some positive press to the state. I look forward to seeing what her leadership brings to the state of West Virginia.”

Mahler notes that only 5 percent of the nation’s 7,300 state legislators are under 30, let alone 20.

The Curious Case Of Zivotofsky v. Kerry

Since 1948, the US has declined to formally recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, maintaining that the final status of the city remains unsettled as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does. But in 2002, Congress passed a law regarding “United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel”, which, among other provisions, permitted US citizens born in Jerusalem to have their place of birth listed as “Israel” on their passports. State Department policy is to list only “Jerusalem” without designating a country. Bush signed the legislation but issued a signing statement protesting that it interfered with his authority to conduct foreign policy.

Enter Menachem Zivotofsky, the plaintiff in Zivotofsky v. Kerry.

When Zivotofsky was born in Jerusalem shortly after the 2002 law was enacted, his parents requested “Israel” as the place of birth on his passport. The State Department denied the request, so the Zivotofskys went to court, arguing that State had violated the law. The government countered that the law infringed the president’s constitutional power to decide whether to recognize foreign nations. The DC Circuit first dismissed the case as a “political question” that the courts could not decide; SCOTUS reversed that decision and sent the case back to the circuit court, which ruled in the government’s favor. The family appealed, and the case is now before the Supremes for a second time. Amy Howe reviews Monday’s oral arguments, in which “lawyers for the two sides painted very different pictures of the potential effects of the law”:

Representing the United States, Solicitor General Don Verrilli told the Justices that the “question of the status of Jerusalem is the most vexing and volatile and difficult diplomatic issue that this nation has faced for decades.” He cautioned the Court that upholding the statute would undermine the president’s credibility in the Middle East peace process, and he reminded the Justices that the passage of the law had prompted “mass demonstrations in Jerusalem, thousands of people in the streets, some turning violent.”

Alyza Lewin, representing Zivotofsky, downplayed the government’s warnings about the possibly dire international consequences of the law, dismissing them as “grossly exaggerated.” Eventually, she suggested, listing Israel as the birthplace on the passports of U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem would “become a non-issue.” And Congress has the power to require the State Department to do so, she maintained, pursuant to its power to regulate passports.

Though he suspects that the amici curiae care more about whether the US recognizes Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem than about the separation-of-powers question at the heart of the case, Noah Feldman doesn’t buy Lewin’s argument:

Congress has indeed passed laws authorizing issuance of passports, and it’s not obvious that the world would shake if a handful of passports read “Israel” instead of Jerusalem. The problem is that the argument undercuts itself. After all, why is Zivotofsky bringing the case in the first place if not to make it appear that the U.S. has now recognized Jerusalem as part of Israel? Why, for that matter, did Congress pass the law if not to send that message?

In the real world, if the court held for Zivotofsky, it’s true that sophisticated observers would understand that Congress, not the president, had set the policy — but that would precisely reflect a conflict between the different branches of government, a circumstance that the Constitution for the most part has been interpreted to prohibit. Of course, it’s impossible for a tripartite government truly to speak with one voice on foreign affairs. But it’s definitely a goal toward which a rational constitutional system should aspire.

Jack Goldsmith favors the government’s position and urges the court to rule that Congress never had the authority to enact the 2002 law in the first place:

The beauty of ruling against petitioner on the basis of a lack of congressional power for the statute is that it allows the Court to avoid the super-hard problem of defining the contours of exclusive presidential power based on the vague and uncertain textual materials in Article II. In other words, the Court can resolve the case, and mark off a narrow presidential power to determine what country should be designated on a passport, without reaching or discussing Article II (at least not discussing it very much), by focusing instead on the more precise terms of Article I.

And for you legal realists out there, this way of resolving the case satisfies two larger imperatives, somewhat in tension, that will certainly be in the back of the minds of many Justices: (1) not wanting to cross swords with the Executive on an important Middle East policy at a very fraught time of Middle East relations; and (2) not wanting to grant the president a large or vague exclusive presidential power related to recognition.

But Yishai Schwartz sees the case differently – as an opportunity to reassert Congress’s authority in international affairs:

Congressional supremacy is the basis of our entire constitutional system, and congressional oversight our best protection against tyranny. To be sure, a powerful executive, capable of acting against sudden threats and during periods of Congressional dysfunction (like now), is essential. Someone must fill the void. But allowing presidential discretion to become presidential supremacy undermines basic principles of democracy. In a democracy, after all, it is the people that are sovereign. It would be bizarre if their representatives, tasked with confirming treaties, regulating international trade and declaring war, had to bow to the president in smaller matters of foreign policy.

Dahlia Lithwick contends “that the worst-situated government agents to decide Mideast peace policies and whether what’s written on passports perhaps implicates Mideast peace policies, are the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court”:

Nobody is quite sure, after argument, which side will cobble together five votes, or for what. One thing that is certain is that even if the court wants to try to look neutral on the subject, it will have taken sides, in a massively consequential fashion. And while it’s always fascinating to hear the nine Justices bat about matters of foreign policy “Taiwan!” “Crimea!” “Barcelona!” the way they might do at a dinner party, it’s clear that dinner party knowledge is pretty much what they have to offer. And by deciding who the decider will be, at least on matters of foreign policy, even the neutral justices, aren’t.

Garrett Epps hopes the court rules clearly and decisively, noting that separation-of-powers cases can have surprisingly broad consequences:

Consider that a minor dispute over the sale of machine guns to Bolivia is still quoted today. That 1936 case, United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., provided the opportunity for Justice George Sutherland to proclaim (though the issue was not even present in the case) the “the very delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations”—language that presidents have relied on since in issues more important than Bolivian arms sales, most notably George W. Bush’s claim of unilateral authority to attack foreign nations without congressional authorization.

The GOP’s Lock On Congress

Chait declares that “Democrats stand almost no visible prospect of attaining a government majority”:

The structural advantages undergirding Republican control of both chambers of Congress are so imposing that only extraordinary circumstances could overwhelm them. Democrats managed, briefly, to gain control of Congress when the catastrophe of the Bush presidency created two successive national wave elections in their favor.

Only that sort of freakish event would suffice.

And Democrats might notice that, since winning back Congress requires a backlash against the president, their “positive” scenario requires first surrendering to Republicans’ total control of government. As long as Democrats hold the White House, Republican control of Congress is probably safe — at least for several election cycles to come.

The second conclusion is simpler, and more bracing: Hillary Clinton is the only thing standing between a Republican Party even more radical than George W. Bush’s version and unfettered control of American government.

But Suderman argues that last night was bad news for Clinton:

Knowing Clinton, she’ll likely attempt a tailored version of the strategy that Democrats in close races adopted this time around—positioning herself as separate from the president but not actively opposed to him. She’ll highlight the parts of policies that are widely liked, but acknowledge that many need to be fixed, tweaked, or updated—while providing as few specifics as possible about what those specifics should be. Indeed, to some extent, this is already the approach that Clinton has taken, vaguely moving away from Obama in ways designed to cause as little real friction as possible. She’ll be neither with Obama nor against him, emphasizing distance but not disagreement.

That awkward, fence-straddling approach led to some slightly ridiculous moments, and ultimately failed to work for Democrats in this year’s midterm. It’s not likely to work for Clinton (or any other Democratic nominee) in 2016 either.

“Amnesty” In Jeopardy?

Even though Press Secretary Josh Earnest swears the plan is still on, Yglesias expects the GOP wave to scuttle Obama’s promise to take executive action on immigration reform by the end of the year:

To see why, just think about the speech that the president would have given had he announced this initiative back in June. He would have said that immigration reform was a pressing problem. He would have praised the Senate for passing a bipartisan reform bill with an overwhelming majority behind it. He would have noted that the House of Representatives had refused to bring any kind of immigration legislation to the floor. He would have argued that the public was behind him, and made the humanitarian case for action, and flagged the business community’s desire for reform. He would have bemoaned Republican obstructionism. And he would have plowed ahead with a controversial expansion of executive authority.

His argument, in other words, would have been that House Republicans were obstructing something the public, the business community, and even a bipartisan majority of the Senate wanted. But can you really cry obstruction right after losing an election? Republicans are now able to claim not just that Obama was stretching his authority in a novel way, but doing so specifically to overturn an adverse result in the midterms.

With nothing left to lose, though, Allahpundit fears he’ll go all-in:

Obama has nothing to fear from voters anymore. Even in a worst-case scenario, where he issues the order and there’s a public backlash, Hillary and the rest of the 2016 crop are free to condemn him for it. “I support the president’s noble goal of bringing the undocumented out of the shadows,” she’ll say, in perfect left-speak, “but we need to let the people’s representatives work this out in Congress.” That’s a win/win answer, pandering to the Latino voters she needs in 2016 while distancing herself from O for the benefit of independents. And of course, amnesty fans who are grateful to Obama will end up expressing it by voting for her, notwithstanding her (tepid, phony) opposition to it.

Meanwhile, issuing the order would have some nice political benefits for Obama. It’d be his way of showing his deeply demoralized base that he’s not giving up on progressivism entirely, even if he ends up making a deal or two with the evil GOP. And it’d be a clever way to throw the new Republican Congress off-balance, putting Boehner and McConnell in the agonizing position of deciding whether to pander to their base by fiercely opposing the order or to pander to Latinos they’re wooing for 2016 by going easy on Obama over it.

Obama had delayed his promised executive action out of fear of making even more trouble for Democrats in the midterms, but Esther Yu-Hsi Lee observes that the delay might actually have hurt some candidates:

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) vacated his Senate seat for Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) on Tuesday night, setting off speculation that low Latino turnout was the cause. Advocacy groups like Presente and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) have actively called on Latinos, who were a decisive force in the 2012 election, to resist voting for Democrats out of anger that the President hadn’t acted on promised action. Despite Udall’s loss, a Latino Decisions poll found that Latino voters in Colorado still strongly favored him over Gardner by a 71 percent to 23 percent margin. On the campaign trial, Democratic House members like Rep. Joe Garcia (D-FL) were confronted by Latino voters who demanded to know why the party — including Obama — had done nothing on immigration reform. Garcia lost his race on Tuesday to Republican challenger Carlos Curbelo.

Adrian Carrasquillo takes a closer look at Colorado, where new polling data “supports advocates’ contention that Udall’s defeat may have had something to do with immigration”:

According to a Latino Decisions election poll that connected with 400 Latino voters in Colorado in English and Spanish, on cell phones and on landlines, voters were not well-informed on the distinctions on immigration stances between the two candidates. A Colorado advocate with knowledge of the poll set to be released Wednesday said only 46% of Latino voters said they knew Udall’s stance on immigration and beliefs on Gardner’s stance were all over the place, with 21% saying he supported a path to citizenship, 38% saying he opposed “comprehensive immigration reform,” and 20% saying they didn’t know his stance.

And while Latino voters did turn out for Udall — in slightly higher aggregate numbers, according to early figures, than they voted four years ago — their share of the vote didn’t rise as fast as some expected. (Latinos make up more than 20% of the population of Colorado, according to federal figures.) So while Udall won 71% of the Latino vote, according to Latino Decisions, he fell short of Obama’s 87% showing in 2012 and Michael Bennet’s 81% in 2010, with the lack of clear distinctions on immigration as part of the reason why.

Mental Health Break

An impressive lip-dub pulled off in a fast-motion video, all shot in one take:

Eva & The Heartmaker – Told You from Kenneth Karlstad on Vimeo.