McIlheran doesn't quite get separation of church and state

Columnist Patrick McIlheran can't seem to wrap his head around the concept of separation of church and state. In his latest opus, he opines that the IRS can penalize and potentially revoke a church's tax exempt status simply because its preacher decides to endorse a specific candidate for public office from the pulpit.

This is in response "Pulpit Freedom Sunday", an event coordinated by the right-wing Alliance Defense Fund wherein 33 pastors gave sermons that explicitly urged parishioners to vote for a specific presidential candidate (mostly McCain), and then sent those sermons to the IRS as a way to openly defy the tax law.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, along with several former IRS officials, have all sent briefs to the IRS urging them to investigate the churches that participated.

McIlheran rambles on about how this shouldn't be an issue at all, because "preachers were utterly free to rail for Lincoln or against Hoover for 178 years, and the nation seemed no more prone to divisiveness then than now. The civil rights movement was born in black churches, many of which have long been bravely, openly political. Pulpit speeches and endorsements from African-American pastors remain a staple of Democratic political campaigns."

What he utterly fails to see is that 1) because it was done in the past, does not mean it should be done now, 2) any preacher that makes an edorsement from the pulpit should be penalized, but endorsing from the pulpit is not the same as endorsing when you're just out and about. Martin Luther King Jr., it's worth noting, never endoresed a specific candidate, but he was still an active and strong force for social and political change.

McIlheran incorrectly and misleadingly asks "since when is it OK in this country for the government to rule there are certain political things certain people simply can’t say?" but that's not what's happening here. Preacher's are free to endorse a candidate so long as their church doesn't enjoy tax emept status. But once they accept the government's break, they are beholden to that one simple rule. Even then, they're free to support whatever political and social positions they so wish--just leave the specific candidates and their campaigns out of it. This seems entirely reasonable to me, and I'm a little baffled as to why the likes of the Alliance Defense Fund and McIlheran don't get it.

Separation of church and state works both ways: it keeps the government out of the pews, and, in theory, the pews out of the government. You can't have it both ways--accepting tax exempt status (the government out of your pockets) while simultaneously demanding to openly and actively meddle with who might run said government.

I hope the IRS does penalize these churches. We need to get back to maintaining some vague sense of balance. Lately it seems like organized religion has spread its fingers deep and wide into governmental affairs, whereas any attempts to back that off are met with allegations of persecution. It's ridiculous, and such ill-informed, published opinions on the matter like McIlheran's don't help at all.

Pham-Remmele not feeling very welcoming

"We must not continue to welcome into Madison more at-risk populations from elsewhere because we will never have sufficient resources to provide for them." - Madison Alder Thuy Pham-Remmele, 20th District.

I'm aware that sentiments such as this one exist, but it's somewhat rare to see them laid so bare, and by an elected official, no less. And I couldn't disagree with it more.

A skirmish of sorts has broken out between Pham-Remmele and those who advocate for more affordable housing and public services, the result of an email sent by Madison Police Captain Jay Lengfeld (West District) to Pham-Remmele. In it, Lengfeld argues that:

1. The City needs to reduce or freeze the number of subsidized housing units in the city. The at risk population in Madison has exceeded the ability of service provides to service them.

2. The City needs to license landlords, so we have citywide standards and can weed out the bad ones.

3. Landlords need more protection to deny applicants with a history of bad behavior. The Russett Rd shooting is a prefect example: a family was evicted from an address on the Southside for behavior reasons and within weeks they had the same bad behavior in the Russett Rd area. We are now evicting them from Russett, but I am sure they will find housing somewhere else in the city and bring the same problems to that neighborhood.

At first blush, I think most folks would agree that landlords should be able to better screen out bad tenants. But, according to Ald. Brenda Konkel, they already do have that ability under the law, so Lengfeld's point seems redundant. Konkel further breaks down his arguments, going on to note that:

1. The City hasn't increased its subsidized housing stock in, um, years. CDA hasn't built any new public housing units since the 1970's and the section 8 program hasn't added any Section 8 vouchers since the 1990s.

2. Landlords have all the ability in the world to deny tenants for bad behavior and eviction records. They simply have to do landlord reference checks and check CCAP.

3. There is no money in the City budget for increased community services to help service providers because we gave it all to the police department last year for their 30 new officers to deal with these problems. You can't have it both ways, do we need police to solve these problems or services?

I'd be curious to look over just what money is and is not allocated in the City budget for community services, and what, if any, those services are. But otherwise, Konkel makes some good points. We poured a ton of money into adding 30 new officers to the rolls--which still seems pretty excessive to me--and now Lengfeld's complaining that that's not enough. Since we clearly don't have the money to both add lots of officers and increase city services, we should maybe be spending more time figuring out which is the better investment. Me? I suspect we could have met in the middle, adding a smaller number of new officers and somewhat better funding for community services.

Law enforcement is important, but it doesn't solve everything. We need to work harder at preventing crimes in the first place, and a lot of that relies on making sure all of our citizens, at-risk or otherwise, are well served: good schools, affordable housing, accessible daycare, respite centers, job training, and after school programs are all good examples.

Simply saying "stop letting at-risk people move here!" does not solve the problem, and likely just makes things worse by demonizing an entire population and forcing them to pool in areas that don't have services. Then the cycle just tends to continue, with little progress for anyone.

Happily, I'm not the only one who's more than a little put off by Pham-Remmele's comments. But we need more voices chiming in, from all sides, so we can better devise good solutions and tactics for tackling what is a very complex--and very crucial--issue.

Vaudeville and politics

I didn't watch the VP debate last night. Instead, I was reveling in some top-notch entertainment at the Majestic Theatre. There was sword swallowing, some impressive feats of magic, burlesque, vaudeville, a live chicken, confetti galore, and lots of lovely singing. It was a hell of a good time, and my voice is still a bit raw from all the shouting.

In fact, I want to make the case for turning vice presidential debates into performances like that. Have the candidates square off with their best strip teases, magic tricks, song and dance numbers, or side show skills. Now that would be something worth watching, and I'd argue you might be able to discern more about the candidates from that sort of thing than you would from the muddy obfuscation that typically goes on during debates. No talking points. No notes. Just gloriously entertaining one-upsmanship.

The United States of Sideshow Freaks. It's gotta be better than what we've had.

UPDATE TO ADD: Photos! I didn't take many, because I was just having too good of a time to really think about photography (and I'm not sure it was technically allowed).

The Recession and you

I am in my late twenties. I have a full-time job that pays a decent hourly wage and provides fairly reasonable health insurance. I have no retirement savings, no 401k, no IRAs, and (probably through my own fault) almost no regular savings of which to speak. I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck, as do quite a few of my fellow citizens.

Basically, if I were to lose my job, I'd be in a pretty shitty position. And my long-term prospects, as they currently stand, are not great. I need to start saving--and start saving soon--if I want to retire at any point before I get a nice certificate in the mail from the president congratulating me on being a century old.

My situation is not unique, and I'm not laying this all out to garner sympathy (I long ago came to terms with my artistic temperament and the personal economic situation it would likely get me into). There are a lot of people who are far worse off than me.

And that's just the problem. There are lots of people worse off than me. And I'm no great shakes. Being that we're either staring over the edge of / tumbling into the abyss known as Recession (whether we're there already or just well on our way is a matter of some contention, but everyone seems to agree that Recession Is the Future), this fact becomes especially onerous when taken together with this whole "bail out" thing Congress is currently in a tizzy over.

Honestly, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the plan at first - certainly, the economy is facing a major crisis and some sort of major action needs to be taken to help stave off absolute disaster. But giving unfettered control of $700 billion dollars to one guy so that he could bail out the monstrously large corporations whose own stupid, greedy actions got us into this mess in the first place? That didn't quite jive, ya dig?

Some of the changes made to the bill by the House (like actual oversight) seemed reasonable to me, but overall, it still left a bad taste in my mouth. So I was somewhat relieved when the they voted it down, and frustrated when the Senate then passed a bloated version of the bill yesterday (Feingold, ever our rock, voted against it). Tax credits for hybrid vehicles are all well-and-good, but should this bill be the place for them? Especially considering some of the other wackadoodle stuff that ended up in there, too, like some sort of tax break for a company that makes toy arrows and various other pieces of blatant pork.

All this, apparently, to sweeten the deal enough to convince hold-outs to vote for the damn thing. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that some of our elected officials need to be given candy before they'll eat their veggies, but seeing it laid so bare is always a bit of a shock to the system.

Ultimately, pork or no, I think the bill is a bad idea. I came to this conclusion through my own meaty brain powers, but also by consulting with a lot of people what holds fancy degrees and credentials as actual economists. Apparently the vast majority of 'em, too, think the bill is a bust and would much rather the government buy out the bad mortgages instead of handing over a huge wad of cash directly to the banks. Glenn Greenwald over at Salon has a pretty excellent take on this, and I encourage you to give it a read before continuing on with my ramblings. Here's a sample:

...Jonathan G.S. Koppell and William N. Goetzmann of the Yale School of Management argued that a far preferable solution is to have the government pay off all delinquent mortgages -- which would transform the toxic waste into solid instruments and would prevent people from having their homes foreclosed....

Johnston condemned what he called the "atrocious" journalism on the financial crisis, and said "there's an enormous amount of just wrong reporting going on." In particular, Johnston documented the fear-mongering taking place among TV journalists that has plainly put the public into the state of submissive panic that Pearlstein wants them to be in, whereby -- exactly as was true for Iraq, eavesdropping, the Patriot Act and a whole host of other measures -- they come to be convinced that they better unquestioningly and immediately submit to the dictates of the political and media establishment, they better relinquish any belief that they should question what they're being told, lest they suffer imminent, inevitable, catastrophic doom.

And that's another thing that really puts me off: it was only for my insane blog-reading habits that I came across this apparently widespread economists' consensus over a better way to deal with the crisis. I've heard nothing about it on the radio or in newspapers (and I'm sure there hasn't been much on TV, but I don't have one, so I'm not sure), only the continued "we must act now or diiiiie!" quotes coming from Washington and a general sense of urgent beffudlement. Even Obama has gone in for this thing, which, while somewhat understandable, is still disappointing.

I, for one, would really rather not see tens of thousands (if not millions) of people lose their homes, their jobs, etc. So yes, action must be taken to stabilize the economy and put liquidity back into the credit markets. But bailing out the big banks that caused the problem in the first place? Hell no. How about some trickle up, instead of trickle down, for once? Clearly, there are alternatives to what's being championed by Bush and a strangely bipartisan coalition in DC, so what gives? Is it just a panic mentality, or is something more insidious, yet again, happening?

We've been tricked-through-fear into supporting and passing other terrible legislation in the not-so-distant past, so I can't help but wonder if this isn't just more of the same. Think authorization for the Iraq War. Think the Patriot Act. OMGactnoworwe'reallgonnadiiiiiie! Same sort of thing.

Only this time, the consequences won't just effect soldiers, Iraqis, dissidents, activists, etc., - ie: others. And that, apparently, is finally enough to make a broad coalition of folks stand up and take notice. Because the people guiding this bill--Paulson and the like--come from the very institutions that caused the problem, though, we're being led pretty fucking astray as to how to best go about dealing with it.

Meltdowns like this should be a great opportunity to start setting things right, to make sure we have a system in place that actually works to prevent the exact same thing from happening every decade or so. Sadly, and yet again so far in this case, we tend to go in for the same old stuff time and time again, no matter how roundly the methods have been disproved. And it will continue on like that so long as we allow for massive deregulation, cronyism, corruption, etc., to rule the roost.

I, for one, would rather the state of my personal finances be left up to my own devices--that is, if I work hard and play it smart, I might actually do all right for myself in the long-term--as opposed to having the deck stacked so firmly against me by people who make more money in a day than I'll see in years. I'd rather that be true for all of us. I'm not interested in "getting mine" and then pulling up the ladder behind me. I want parity. Ya dig?

HAVA compliance now! No wait, scratch that....

Thanks to an email tipster, I was made aware of this little bit of interesting news that had otherwise slipped under my (sleepy, coughing) radar:

A recent alert by the Social Security Administration announces that the agency plans to shut down its databases for maintenance from October 11 through October 13. While this might not sound like an election issue, it turns out that this could significantly impede registration of first-time voters as well as the re-registration of eligible citizens.

Here's why. A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, requires all states to "coordinate" their voter registration databases with the Social Security database (and state motor vehicle databases) for the purpose of processing new voter registration forms. For the millions of voters who do not have current driver's licenses and register using the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, state election officials are required to try to match their voter registration information against Social Security records. But if the Social Security database is down—as it will be for four days—they won't be able to do that. Across the country, the processing of these voter registration forms will grind to a halt for four days.

Both Senator Diane Feinstein and EAC Commissioner Rosemary Rodriquez have sent letters to the SSA asking them to delay the shut down until after the elections, which seems like an entirely reasonable request to me. No word yet on whether or not the SSA will actually do that, though.

Which leaves us with the distinct possibility that, in the midst of one of the busiest election cycles in recent memory, when state's voter registration officials are scrambling to keep up not only with new registrations but, as may be the case in Wisconsin, with cross-checking older registrations in order to comply with last-minute lawsuits, said officials may be plain SOL for four days.

Let the good times roll.

Now, whether or not this was some planned partisan move, I can't rightly say. My hunch is that it was just really, really bad timing on the SSA's part--stupid, thoughtless timing--and not a concerted effort at further mucking up the voter registration process. It is interesting to note, however, that Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue "is a veteran of Republican administrations going back more than 20 years, according to his biography on the SSA Web site. Campaign finance records also show that the Belmont, Mass., resident has given more than $35,000 to GOP candidates and causes during the past decade."

Regardless, though, I sincerely hope that the SSA agrees to postpone the shut down until after the elections. State officials already have enough to worry about leading up to Nov. 4 without the added monkey wrench of the complete disappearance of their main resource for four days in October.

The good news for Oct. 1, 2008

I've been doing epic battle with a pretty nasty cold this week, so my blogging has--naturally, I think--suffered a bit. And though a lot of other people seem to be fighting colds, too, there are still quite a few great blog posts going up in the aether. Here are just a few that I've been sampling while trying to convince my throat and lungs to stop being so persnickety.

• [It's All About the Story] Dustin offers an insightful, humorous, but serious take on how the current credit and economic crisis effects us, and also makes some good, biting points about how the more well-to-do are reacting.
• [That Other Emily] My fellow Emily takes on political propaganda and human psychology with great skill and braaaaaains.
• [UCrime.com] A website that combines Google maps with local police blotters to provide up-to-date and easy to read crime statistics at various universities now includes UW-Madison.
• [TPM] Discussing whether or not the push to get rid of the "Mark to Market" rule is a good idea for dealing with the economic crisis or not. My gut feeling--and that of the author--is that it is not, and would just help create more problems in the future. It seems excessively bizarre to me, too, that there are still people calling for more deregulation in light of everything that's been going down lately.
• [Illusory Tenant] The incomparable illy T takes Malkin and her ilk to task over their latest outrage regarding the moderator for tomorrow night's VP debate.
• [Cute Overload] This beagle, at least, has a bail-out plan.
  

Ridiculous

So let me get this straight: a woman gets a job working for the East Streets Division for the City of Madison, then gets sexually harassed on the job by a co-worker/superior. Woman gets fired by said co-worker, woman files suit, court finds that she was likely terminated because of sexual discrimination/harassment, city pays out $80,000 to her but also allows the offending co-worker to keep his job, while woman is barred from ever working for the city again.

How on earth does that even approach making sense?

Because that's exactly what happened to Michelle Heimann, and Mayor Dave himself has even stated that he thinks the settlement was fair. For now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was only talking about the money and not the other circumstances surrounding the case. How is it fair for a guy guilty of sexual harassment to keep his job? How is it fair for the woman who fell victim to that crap to be banned from working for the city ever again? Heimann has even said that she would prefer just to get her job back rather than get the settlement money.

This is just ridiculous, and I'm ashamed that my city would handle the situation in such a way. I think more than a few phone calls and messages to the mayor are in order.

h/t Brenda Konkel