The fine people on The Young Turks discussed prosecutors who are fighting against drug sentence reform. The video is embedded below. I agree with pretty much everything they say. However, they show a shocking lack of understanding about how the criminal justice system works. The group that came out against sentencing reform is The National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys. The Turks argue that the group only represents 25% of all the attorneys, and so is probably just a conservative group with an ax to grind. Maybe they are, but that is not at all the issue.

The way our system works, prosecutors have almost all the power. This is largely because of all the laws we have. As anyone who has ever been arrested for a serious crime can tell you, people do not face a single charge. If you take a swing at a cop, you will not be prosecuted for simply assaulting a cop. You will be facing about ten charges. If you decide to go to trial, you will be facing perhaps decades in jail. So most people just plead to the single assault charge and get the maximum penalty for that. Prosecutors love this power.

With minimum mandatory sentences, it is even better for prosecutors. Now if a junkie is found with three bags of dope, he faces perhaps three years for possession along with another ten years for “intent to distribute” and on and on and on. Suddenly, our poor little junkie is looking at life in prison. He pleads and the prosecutor gets more time on the golf course. This is mentioned in the video, but the Turks don’t seem to understand its meaning. David Zlotnick is quoted as saying:

But it isn’t just that it makes their jobs easier. Remember when I wrote about the Monopoly study where subjects who were given unfair advantages in the game came to think they deserved them? The same thing is going on here. The prosecutors believe that the totally unfair system that has benefited them all these years is right and proper. Fundamentally, these prosecutors don’t want to lose power. It has absolutely nothing to do with making the society safer or fairer.

The legal profession is based upon the idea of sophistry where the two sides try to make the best argument regardless of the truth of the matter. But in the justice system, this is wrong. The prosecutor should only argue for cases that he thinks are true. But this is not the way it works. Prosecutors have great incentives to convict as many people as possible. And they are almost never harmed by getting a false conviction—even when they knowingly railroaded a defendant. So very few prosecutors are going to think it is a good idea to take away their power to do what they see as their jobs. It’s an outrage, but sadly one that even the well informed people on The Young Turks don’t understand.

As regular readers know, I’m not keen on any of the recent proposals for immigration reform. Fundamentally, they are giveaways to big business with the bare minimum done for the immigrant community itself. And the most recent proposal to allow undocumented residents to become documented but not citizens is just madness. It would develop a kind of two-tier citizenship. Of course, I don’t suppose it really matters given that the pathway to citizenship of the other proposals was so long.

Of course, even this most recent proposal isn’t going to happen anyway. All of the Republican plans that don’t cut taxes on the rich and increase military spending are subject to what Jonathan Chait calls The Heritage Uncertainty Principle. I’ve written about this many times before, but I never came up with such a spiffy moniker. The idea is that Republicans only come up with policy plans as political cover. As soon as it looks like a plan might become actual legislation, the plan disappears because the Republicans who had proposed it turn against it. The best example is Obamacare, hence the name Heritage Uncertainty Principle.

A more recent example is immigration reform. And the newest occurrence of it was when Democrats accepted the Republican immigration reform plan that had no pathway to citizenship. As soon as it looked like it might actually pass: poof! It was gone because Republicans claimed that they can’t trust President Obama to implement it. Of course this is not surprising. The Republican base still thinks that giving legal status to undocumented residents is “amnesty.” So any immigration reform that is anything but “guard the border and deport more people” will never be acceptable.

Yesterday, Chuck Schumer called the Republicans to task on this issue. On Meet the Press, he said:

I don’t think Schumer is serious about this. But it is a great gambit. It highlights a few things about the Republicans. First and foremost, it calls them to task. If the issue really is Obama, then let’s take Obama out of the equation. But the truth is that this isn’t about Obama. The Republicans said the exact same things about Bill Clinton. So if there is a Democrat in the White House in 2017, they won’t trust him or her.

But I don’t think that the Republicans will be willing to admit that they can’t trust any Democrat ever. Instead, I think they will fall back to what they really believe: this newest watered down plan would still reward those terrible people who risked life and limb to come to the shining beacon of opportunity that is the America of legend. You know: amnesty! And that will be that. Real immigration reform will have to wait until the Democrats are in charge. If the Republicans get control, they aren’t going to pass anything other than some minor reforms to allow more H1-B visas and more guards at the Mexico border.

The truth is that I get annoyed every time liberal commentators get excited at the prospect of immigration reform. It’s never real. Meanwhile, every time it happens, people’s expectations get lower as to what reform looks like. I fear that eventually a bill to increase H1-B visas will make Greg Sargent jump for joy. It’s important to remember that the Republicans have not done their greatest harm through legislation. They have done it by moving the entire political playing field to the right. They’ve more or less made actual liberal policy unthinkable. And they continue to do it with the Heritage Uncertainty Principle.

Tom Moran and The Star-Ledger Editorial Board published a bizarre editorial today, Chris Christie Endorsement Is Regrettable. It starts off by noting that they were wrong to endorse Christie for governor. Then they explain why they did it. And they finish by arguing that even with all they know, they would endorse him as Republican nominee for president. Get that? “We don’t think he should be governor, but president would be okay.”

I agree with their reasons for picking Christie rather than picking no one at all. “But voters have to push one button or the other, and we felt The Star-Ledger should belly up to the challenge and offer them our best advice.” This is the same reasoning that makes me a Democrat. Mostly, I think the Democratic Party sucks. But in a two party system, you really need to choose one of the big parties and the Democrats are far better than the Republicans.

Reading a bit between the lines, it seems that the main reason that The Star-Ledger tipped to Christie’s side is because they have very typical New Democrat thinking on education policy. I don’t personally have strong opinions about this. But it definitely seems that those in favor of “educational reform” are far too certain of the justness of their cause than the data would indicate. Reading the article, I get the impression that what the editors are saying is, “If we had endorsed Barbara Buono, who would have gone after the unions?!”

Regardless, the article is at its most bizarre when it turns its attention to the 2016 presidential election. It says, “[I]f you turn your focus to the presidential race in 2016, you might wind up facing the same dilemma we did in the fall.” Really?! Are we going to end up with Christie running against some loser Democrat? Well, no. That’s not what they are talking about. They just think that if Christie doesn’t get the nomination, Rand Paul might. And you never know; he might win.

Based upon this match-up, The Star-Ledger would pick Christie over Rand Paul. This is truly bizarre. Unless the Republicans had both houses of Congress, I don’t imagine Paul getting much done. Christie, on the other hand, with his prosecutorial hardball tactics? It might be like having J Edgar Hoover in the White House. But it would at least be like having Richard Nixon back in the White House.

In the end, the editorial seems to be a set up for their presidential endorsement in 2016. Assuming that Christie manages to survive his scandals, The Star-Ledger will be there to endorse him. They’ll start out by noting that he’s a bully and a liar and a criminal. They’ll go on to note that he isn’t actually any good at his job. And they’ll conclude, “Chris Christie 2016!” And in 2018 as Watergate 2.0 is breaking, they’ll write another article, “Chris Christie Endorsement Is Regrettable.”

Dan Balz wrote an interesting article at the Washington Post this morning, The GOP’s Immigration Conundrum. But that doesn’t mean that I agree with his thesis. Like most Washington reporters, he thinks that it is very important that the Republicans do something on immigration.

In his defense, he doesn’t think that it is a silver bullet. He said, “Passage of immigration reform won’t necessarily win the next presidential nominee significantly more Hispanic votes. But its absence as a divisive issue in the nomination contest would give Republican candidates an opportunity to talk to Hispanic voters about new ideas or issues.” That’s fine, but the broader point is that if only the Republicans would engage with Latino voters, they could win them over. There is a much more fundamental problem than policy proposals.

I am more or less a classic liberal in terms of philosophical orientation. But there is also a cultural side to it. When I think of conservatives, I imagine big chested men with guns who are desperately afraid that someone will think they are secretly gay. When I think of liberals, I imagine a diverse coalition in which I am very much welcome. So culturally, I identify with the liberals. And I think this is a big part of the problem with Republicans appealing to Latinos. It doesn’t matter what policies the Republicans might come up with, Latinos know that Republicans do not welcome them.

In addition to this, there is the issue of authenticity. During the vice-presidential debate in 2012, Biden said something that I still think is brilliant. After Ryan claimed that it was Obama who had cut Medicare, Joe Biden said, “Folks: use your common sense. Who do you trust on this?” It’s the same thing with Latinos and blacks and most other minority groups. The Republicans have long used them as scapegoats and ways to get whites to vote Republican. They are still doing it. So they use their common sense and they vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats.

Now I understand that for people like Balz, the issue is that the Republican Party needs to change. So comprehensive immigration reform is the first step in that direction. But that’s not how Republicans look at it. To them it is, “Okay, I’ll do this one thing. But that’s it!” And look at what that one thing is! The pathway to citizenship in the old proposal was almost twenty years long. But even that was too generous. So they proposed legal status without any pathway to citizenship. But even that was too generous. Latinos are not fooled by this. They can tell that any legislation the Republicans pass will be only done for the sake of politics and will only be done with the greatest of resentment about the whole thing.

It’s great if people want to hope that the Republican Party will move back from the crazy cliff and become an old fashioned conservative party. But that won’t happen any time soon. The modern Republican Party has always reminded me of the line, “I know you are an all or nothing kind of guy. And since you can’t have it all, I am giving you nothing.” The Republican Party is little more than a list of rules of what they cannot do. That in itself is okay. We all have our lines in the sand. But the Republicans have so many lines that it is unable to do anything. The only thing that will make the Republican Party change is electoral defeat. And I believe that is coming.

Kathleen Geier wrote an excellent article over at Political Animal this morning, On the Raiders’ Cheerleaders Wage Theft Suit: No Pay for Practices, Unreimbursed Expenses, and $125 per 10-Hour Game. It provides a good overview of Josh Eidelson’s interview with two Raiders cheerleaders about the situation. And it is totally unacceptable.

For those of you who haven’t heard, cheerleaders are barely paid. Now this in itself shouldn’t have come as a shock to anyone. I remember this issue coming up decades ago when when the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders were all the rage. The take home: cheerleaders are paid only for the games and they are paid really poorly. For the ten hour game day, they are paid $125. By using a bit of algebra and assuming that they ought to be paid overtime for two of those ten hours, we get an an hourly wage of $11.36. Of course, they are only paid for the games; they are not paid for practices and they are not paid for charity events. And they are not reimbursed for their expenses. And they are not paid weekly or monthly; they are paid at the end of the year.

This part of the story is all very clear. It’s a workers’ rights issue. It reminds me of what happened last year at JPMorgan Chase. The company was slapped with the biggest fine in history. And what was the result? It fired 7,500 line workers and gave its CEO Jami Dimon a 74% raise. Football teams are quite profitable and that is saying something given that most people own them for prestige and not profit. Regardless, paying the cheerleaders a living wage during their brief careers would mean nothing to the bottom line of the teams.

I am well aware that people don’t go to football games to see the cheerleaders. But they are very much part of the spectacle that is the NFL. One of the reasons I find football so incredibly boring is that it is a very long game during which very little actual play takes place. It is very much like a war: hours of boredom with brief moments of violence. So part of making the event not seem so tedious is to liven it up with eye candy like the jumbotron and the cheerleaders. And the mascot.

That was the most amazing and upsetting revelation in the interview. On college teams, the mascot is part of the cheerleading squad. But in the NFL, this is not the case. Whereas the entirely female cheerleaders get $125 per game, the mostly male mascots get “between $30,000 and $65,000 a year.” This is the fact that takes the situation beyond simply workers’ rights. A lot of people have argued that the NFL is misogynistic. I don’t think there can be any clearer example than the way the sport teams treat their cheerleaders.

The whole thing reminds me of the rise of unions in Major League Baseball. The players only got a collective bargaining contract in 1968. Before that, the team owners claimed that they just couldn’t afford to pay the players more. And they said the same things that the owners will say about the cheerleaders today, “They don’t have to work for us!” And that’s true. But there is no doubt that the cheerleaders do add as much value to the game as the mascots and they should be paid as such. The owners have gotten a great deal up until now. That shouldn’t be used as an excuse to continue to mistreat the only female part of the NFL.