Just Another Day in Iowa?

A persistent question in our electoral politics: Were you a business owner, would you really hire the candidate who says the job cannot and should not be done?

Really. Please. Just think about it for a moment.

In politics, we call this voting for Republicans. You know, the party that wants to drown government in the bathtub, because drowning someone you’ve beaten to such frailty that they cannot defend themselves is somehow a noble idyll?

And while Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R-12) is the sort of candidate for U.S. Senate that would ordinarily embarrass constituents, we must also remember that this is Iowa we’re talking about.

We already know about the example Speaker Boehner set, arguing that Congress can wait until next year to give any time to President Obama’s ongoing military action against Daa’ish. And Joni Ernst is taking that advice in earnest, making it a campaign argument. Steve Benen, who has spent some effort trying to follow the twists and turns of the Iowa Republican’s remarkably bizarre campaign, tried to unpack the latest truckload of premium-grade fertilizer:

At a Senate debate in Iowa over the weekend, Rep. Bruce Braley (D) argued, “I think Congress should go back into session and have a broader and longer conversation about the nature of our involvement” in the Middle East.

Joni Ernst’s (R) response was amazing, even by Joni Ernst standards:

“Yes, we knew this threat was there months and months and months ago and this decision could have been made earlier this year so there’s no sense in calling Congress back now when this decision could have been made several months ago.”

The quote comes by way of a Democratic group that recorded the debate.

Alaska, Losing

Perhaps the biggest mystery of the recent judicial avalanche in favor of marriage equality is the absence of Article IV in what are clearly Article IV cases. Consider Hamby v. Parnell, a case striking Alaska’s marriage ban.

Perhaps it is the lack of an Article IV claim, as opposed to Judge Heyburn’s decision in Kentucky that intentionally bypassed the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV. Still, though, Judge Timothy M. Burgess, appointed to the District of Alaska by President George W. Bush, finds his way through to strike the ban according to Due Process and Equal Protection under Amendment XIV. Still, though, in a case in which four couples are demanding their marriages from other states be recognized in Alaska, it would seem Full Faith and Credit should be a glaring issue.

To take an example, my father has been married twice, once each to different women. In his first marriage, the couple lived in three different states and a foreign country over the years. They never had to remarry in any of those jurisdictions; the Washington state marriage was sufficient, an act and record of one state recognized in another. In his second marriage, the couple has lived in two states and spent an extended period in Mexico. They did not have to remarry in any other jurisdiction; their Oregon marriage sufficed for other states and, indeed, other countries. This, ultimately, is what is at stake. Perhaps Article IV won’t come into it until a state refuses another state’s marital record in order to force the couple to repeat the ceremony and pay out for licensing in the new state.

The bottom line, however, is that another state’s marriage ban has collapsed under constitutional weight. This much, at least, is hardly mysterious.

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Burgess, Timothy S. “Order”. Hamby v. Parnell. United States District Court for the District of Alaska. 12 October 2014.

A Little Bit of Good News

“We’re pushing for equality for all, not just the G’s and L’s.”

―Selim Ariturk, GLIFAA

The news isn’t always bad. Joe Davidson brings the good news via The Washington Post:

The State Department, which has been on the leading edge of policies affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender federal employees, is eliminating the “transgender exclusion” from the agency’s largest health insurance program.

Insurance policies under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program generally exclude services “related to sex reassignment.”

In practice, this transgender exclusion “denies coverage to transgender people for the same treatments available to non-transgender policy holders, without regard to medical necessity,” the State Department said in a statement. “Insurance companies often view this exclusion in the broadest possible terms, excluding care that clearly has no relationship to gender status such as cancer treatment and routine preventive care.”

But starting in January, the exclusions will no longer be part of the department’s largest health insurance plan, the one provided by the American Foreign Service Protective Association.

And then we might also offer a note for those who think this is somehow terrible news: Really? Does being transgender mean you shouldn’t have insurance coverage for vaccinations, or, say, broken bones as the result of a workplace accident? And if your answer is somehow affirmative, the next question is: What is wrong with you?

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Davidson, Joe. “State Department ends transgender exclusion from health plan”. The Washington Post. 13 October 2014.

A Quote: Benen on McCain on the American Czars

“There’s more than one angle to this story. The first is the obvious hypocrisy of Republicans who desperately want the president to have fewer czars, except when they want him to have more. There’s also the fact that a U.S. Surgeon General could certainly play a key leadership role at a moment like this, but a wide variety of senators, including McCain, are blocking a qualified nominee.”

―Steve Benen

Rape Advocacy, Courtesy of Chuck Todd, Meet the Press, and NBC News

To: NBC News, Meet the Press

re: Important stories, poor coverage

The important part here is that you’re doing it wrong.

Make the case? Okay, first of all, how about you explain the question: What part of affirmative consent does Chuck Todd find confusing?

“Is affirmative consent the best way to handle sexual assaults on campus?” To the one, why is affirmative consent not the standard?

Pretending there is a gray zone, inviting a rape defender like Matt Kaiser to argue on behalf of the plaguing number of rapists who aren’t really rapists but were just confused?

We live in a country where prosecutors have the discretion to ignore rape confessions because, well, the state (e.g., Colorado) thinks the victim deserved to be raped.

That Chuck Todd should pretend to be confused by the concept of affirmative consent is worrisome.

In a related issue, look, what is it with NBC News and trying to bury important stories? Providing a transcript for this particular Meet the Press endeavor just isn’t worth it to NBC News. Sure, we can get the transcripts of politicians reciting platitudes and talking points, but here you have a very important issue, and a guest trying to distill the argument in favor of rapists, and, well, maybe there’s a reason they don’t want that transcript on the record?

The segment was a disgrace. Meet the Press is a disgrace. And Chuck Todd certainly didn’t help NBC News’ reputation. Is mutual consent the best approach? Well, what would be better? Individual consent, disregarding of the other? Good one, Chuck.

Sexual assault is a horrible thing, whether it’s on campus or not. And, obviously, as a society we need to figure out a way to respond to that.

Asking colleges to do this, it isn’t fair to schools, it isn’t fair to the people who are accused, and it isn’t fair to the women who suffer through this.

(Matt Kaiser)

It really does sound like rape advocacy: It isn’t fair to schools to expect that they not make excuses to aid and abet criminals. It isn’t fair to accused rapists that they should know they have permission to have sex with another person. It isn’t fair to rape survivors because … er … ah … well, it just isn’t fair to rape survivors. Because Matt Kaiser says so!

So let us invite Meet the Press and NBC News to answer a straightforward question: Is rehashing toxic excuses the best way to handle anything?

The school still has an incentive to find the man responsible. If the woman is found to not be credible, if the woman is found to be lying, if she has been treated in any way she objects to, she can run to the Department of Education. She can run to file a civil lawsuit against the school. And schools know that.

Mr. Kaiser seems to be arguing that it would be unfair to expect a school to actually do the right thing, but they can be held accountable if a rape survivor has enough money to hire a lawyer to sue the hell out of the school.

This is starting to sound more and more like the Ken Buck school of law enforcement:

The secret recording by the victim, provided to The Colorado Independent, reveals Buck telling the woman the details appeared to show she consented to the sexual encounter, though he admits the woman “never said the word ‘yes’.”

The recording stems from a December 2005 case in which a woman alleged she was raped while drunk by a former lover whom she had invited over. Buck declined to prosecute the man, telling the Greeley Tribune in 2006 that “a jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse.”

The victim, who was a 21-year-old college student at the time, agreed to an interview with the left-leaning news site after a liberal Colorado group reached out to her again recently.

“That comment made me feel horrible,” she told the Independent. “The offender admitted he did it, but Ken Buck said I was to blame. Had he [Buck] not attacked me, I might have let it go. But he put the blame on me, and I was furious. I still am furious,” she said.

By Matt Kaiser’s logic, she has no right to be furious, since affirmative consent would be unfair to rapists.

Congratulations, Chuck. Good show, MTP. Thank you so much for trying to set the discussion back a few years for the sake of clickbait. Your efforts are noted.

‘Drive-by journalism’ is not really journalism.

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NBC News. “Make the Case: Is Affirmative Consent the Best Way to Handle Sexual Assaults on Campus?” Meet the Press. 9 October 2014.

Catanese, David. “Rape case haunts buck in Colorado”. Politico. 11 October 2010.

Deutsch, Barry. “Rape and Consent — Affirmative Consent Explained”. Ampersand. 9 October 2014.