One More Time for Dale Hansen

By now you probably know about Dale Hansen - the Dallas sportscaster. In the past year he's called out homophobia and racism in sports. Well...he's done it yet again. This time he's calling out his hometown Dallas Cowboys for looking the other way on domestic violence.

Quick Take

You need no more evidence for how deeply Netanyahu stepped in it when he said there would be no Palestinian state on his watch than to see just how fast he back-tracked on it all as soon as he was re-elected. It's good to know the White House isn't necessarily ready to forgive and forget.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with White House policy, said that U.S. officials understood Netanyahu’s “need to tack to the right” during his campaign. “We get that those are tactics,” the official said.

But, the official added, referring to the prime minister by his nickname, “Bibi needs to understand that there are policy ramifications for the way he did this. You can’t say all this” about rejecting the two-state policy “and then just say, ‘I was just kidding.’”

Congress Has Abdicated Its Role on Foreign Policy

I have to admit to a fair amount of eye-rolling when liberals insisted that Congress get involved in approving a new Authorization For the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS or when they take a stand against fast-tracking trade authority on things like the Trans Pacific Partnership. Of course I have the same reaction to conservatives who insist that Congress weigh in if/when a deal is negotiated on Iran's nuclear program.

In a world where Congress can actually function, those demands would make sense. Unfortunately, that's not the world we currently live in. Case in point: the ISIS AUMF.

More than a month after the White House sought Congress’ blessing for the expanding war against the terrorist group, congressional action has gotten bogged down in partisan rancor and divergent viewpoints over what the war should try to accomplish, how long the administration should be authorized to wage it, and what level of force will be required. Some say that the liberals who insisted the White House include extra conditions, such as a deadline and limits on ground troops, overplayed their hand, undercutting potential Republican support.

“I just don’t hear many people standing up for what the president has proposed, so I think we’re kind of moving beyond that,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), told reporters Wednesday.

Neither side gets a pass here. The Republicans insisted that President Obama's proposal wasn't "tough enough." But Thronberry is right - a lot of Democrats didn't like it either. As Steve Benen put it:

...some lawmakers believe the draft resolution sent to Congress by President Obama goes too far, while some believe it doesn’t go far enough.

I don't mean to suggest that I take this lightly, but the first thing I thought of when I read that was the story about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Essentially what we have is a group of people playing small-ball with their ideologies and special interests. And its nothing but a food fight. Meanwhile, someone has to be an adult and take charge. That task has been left to President Obama.

Over the long term, that's a pretty big problem for our democracy. But right now I don't see a reasonable alternative.

A Different Way to Takle Money in Politics

A lot of people are commenting on the fact that President Obama said this yesterday in Ohio:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday suggested that if American voters want to “counteract” the role of money in politics, it may be worth making voting mandatory.

“It would be transformative if everybody voted,” Obama said during a town hall event in Cleveland, Ohio. “That would counteract (campaign) money more than anything. If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.”

What is interesting to me about this is not only the idea of mandatory voting as a way to counteract recent efforts by Republicans to restrict voting (which is the angle a lot of commentators took) but the President's stated reason for contemplating the idea - its affect on money in politics.

It strikes me that for too long progressives have focused only on legislative fixes to limit the role of money in politics. It's not that I would abandon those possibilities. But one thing I've always appreciated about President Obama is that he's clearly thinking creatively about other ways to tackle the problem.

What I see from this President is not so much an attempt to limit how much rich people spend on campaigns (although he has made clear statements against the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United) - but to engage the grass roots in a way that makes their money less relevant. He did that in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns by raising millions of dollars in small donations. That success will be one of his most significant legacies.

Now he's planting the seed of an idea that if everyone voted, it could counteract the role of money in politics. That - my friends - is a community organizer at work.

Maintaining the Trust and Confidence of Our Friends

Here's one of Jeb Bush's favorite lines on the stump these days:

Under this administration, we...have lost the trust and confidence of our friends. We definitely no longer inspire fear in our enemies.

That's why it is so jarring to hear this kind of thing from Sen. Marc Rubio:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says that if elected president, he would "absolutely" defy stalwart European allies if necessary in order to revoke an Iranian nuclear deal he might inherit from President Barack Obama.

I guess you can at least give Rubio points for acknowledging that the negotiations aren't happening unilaterally between the U.S. and Iran (as Cotton's letter implied). But he's pretty clear that  he's ready to forgo the "trust and confidence of our friends" when it comes to a potential deal.

Of course many people hear a line like that one from Bush and assume that he's really talking about "friend" in the singular rather than plural and that it refers to Israel. That is where the re-election of PM Netanyahu ensures that all of this is going to get increasingly challenging over the next few years.

On the day before the election, Netanyahu declared that there will be "no Palestinian state on my watch." In other words, the long-standing goal of negotiations between Israel and Palestinians towards a two-state solution are over. As Joe Biden would say, "that's a BFD." And not in a good way.

I am reminded of a conversation President Obama had with Jeffrey Goldberg about a year ago.

What we also know is that Israel has become more isolated internationally. We had to stand up in the Security Council in ways that 20 years ago would have involved far more European support, far more support from other parts of the world when it comes to Israel’s position. And that’s a reflection of a genuine sense on the part of a lot of countries out there that this issue continues to fester, is not getting resolved, and that nobody is willing to take the leap to bring it to closure...

I’ve said directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu he has an opportunity to solidify, to lock in, a democratic, Jewish state of Israel that is at peace with its neighbors and...with permanent borders. And has an opportunity also to take advantage of a potential realignment of interests in the region, as many of the Arab countries see a common threat in Iran. The only reason that that potential realignment is not, and potential cooperation is not, more explicit is because of the Palestinian issue...

What I’ve said to him [Netanyahu] privately is the same thing that I say publicly, which is the situation will not improve or resolve itself. This is not a situation where you wait and the problem goes away. There are going to be more Palestinians, not fewer Palestinians, as time goes on. There are going to be more Arab-Israelis, not fewer Arab-Israelis, as time goes on...

I have not yet heard, however, a persuasive vision of how Israel survives as a democracy and a Jewish state at peace with its neighbors in the absence of a peace deal with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. Nobody has presented me a credible scenario.

Netanyahu's rejection of a two-state solution means that - over time - Israel will become even more isolated from the rest of the world. And it remains to be seen how he will maintain any notion of democracy in Israel as the number of Arab-Israelis continues to rise.

What Republicans need to grapple with is if they are willing to lose the "trust and confidence of our friends" around the globe in order to continue to support Netanyahu's increasing recklessness.

Scott Walker's Record

A few weeks ago, I suggested that the antidote to Scott Walker would be to compare his record to that of Gov. Mark Dayton in Minnesota. But it's also telling to see how his state's economy compares to the rest of the country.

Scott Walker's Wisconsin ranks:

• 49th in economic outlook,
• 44th in private sector job creation, and
• 44th in wage growth.

That - my friends - is what conservative economic policies will do to a state. 

As for Scott Walker, his favorite punch line these days seems to be: "You don't have to go to the center to win the center." I'd suggest that once those in "the center" actually take a look at his record, he won't be going anywhere but home.

Really Bad Moves from McConnell

It's time for me to admit that I was wrong. In the past I've thought of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as uninterested in any particular policy issue, but pretty good at being strategic when it comes to the power games that often drive our politics. It's on that latter part that I've obviously been wrong.

Case in point: How he's handling the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be our next Attorney General.

You might have read by now that he slipped an anti-abortion poison pill into the Senate bill on human trafficking - which Democrats won't support. His position is that he will not hold a vote on the Lynch nomination until that bill is passed. In other words, his new hostage is confirmation of our next Attorney General.

Allow me to ditto what my friend Allan Bauer tweeted yesterday.

Dear Senate @GOP, the worst outcome of your current hostage crisis is that Eric Holder remains Attorney General, and we can live with that.
— Allan Brauer (@allanbrauer) March 16, 2015

Not the brightest move, McConnell.

But then, apparently yesterday he demonstrated his complete hackery on all this by blaming the Democrats for not voting on Lynch during the lame duck session last year. Ummm...Mr. McConnell, that wasn't that long ago and some of us remember (or can google) what you said back then.

“Ms. Lynch will receive fair consideration by the Senate. And her nomination should be considered in the new Congress through regular order,” McConnell said in a statement.

Senate Republicans are unified against Lynch’s nomination moving through the lame-duck session...

Finally, Majority Leader McConnell seems to be out on a limb with his insistence that an anti-abortion provision be included in the human trafficking bill without the support of Republicans in the House.

The House versions, carried by U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minnesota, did not include the abortion language.

Paulsen, who is back in Minnesota during a House recess, called the Senate stalemate disappointing Thursday.

Paulsen supports restricting federal funds for abortions and the morning-after pill, but said that language has no place in the Senate bill.

“There is no reason it should be included in these bills. This issue is far too important to tie it up with an unrelated fight with politics as usual,” he said. “To me, this is about saving lives.”

Over the last four years, a lot of ink has been devoted to wondering whether or not John Boehner is the worst Speaker in history. Who knew McConnell wanted to get in on that action?