It's been noted that Bill Clinton keeps giving the Hillary Clinton campaign headaches, and at times he's been more of a net negative than a positive. Most notably, it was Bill Clinton who first played the race card, suggesting in South Carolina that African-American voters were only voting for Obama because he was black and comparing him to 'Jesse Jackson,' thereby earning Clinton the mass defection of the previously sizeable number of African-American voters who had been supporting her in that state and elsewhere.
Well, he said something that will give her campaign heartburn again Sunday while campaigning in West Virginia. In that state, polls have been suggesting that she will win big, maybe even by more than forty percent (which would be a 70-30 percent pasting.) Of course that won't matter because well over 90% of the pledged delegates have already been chosen for the convention and West Virginia's puny delegate total of 28 delegates wouldn't do much, even if Clinton won three quarters of them (21-7 which would be a margin of +14, insufficient to change the delegate reality in which Obama has increased his margin just of superdelegates by more than fourteen just since last Tuesday.) But rather than setting her up to bask in the glow of a big win, he inexplicably raised the bar to an impossibly high level. According to ABC News he said about West Virginia:
You have to realize that if you show up in enough numbers, and your neighbors in Kentucky do, and we have a good run through the rest of these states," asserted Clinton, "We gotta have your help and get the largest number of people to show up on election day. See all this stuff you are hearing about is an attempt to discourage you. That's what this is, pure and simple, hoping, well, Hillary can get eighty percent of the vote in West Virginia, and if only 100,000 people show up it is not enough. But if 600,000 people show up, and you say we want a president than you will see the earth move.
Let's look at what he said in terms of what Bill is saying defines an 'earth-shaking' Clinton victory: 1. He is suggesting that 600,000 people need to show up to vote in the Democratic primary. Even in this year of record high turnout in primary elections, that would be extraordinary. In fact that would be nearly every registered Democrat in the state. 2. He is saying that Hillary can get 80 percent of the vote. That would be a sixty point blowout. Impressive for sure. But virtually impossible, even for Hillary Clinton in the West Virginia primary.
So now, thanks to Bill, no matter how badly things go in West Virginia on Tuesday, all the Obama campaign has to do is quote back Bill Clinton and suggest that Hillary didn't win as impressively as she was supposed to. Bill Clinton has just turned what should be a blowout win by any standard for Hillary Clinton into what can be described as 'underperforming expectations.' Conversely, by setting the bar so low for Obama (20%), Bill Clinton has in effect given him a way to say he has some momentum, even in a state in which over 90% of the voters are white.
Once again, Hillary's worst enemy isn't the media, the anti-war movement, the vast right-wing conspiracy or any other active candidate. Her worst enemy is, well we know who it is.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
John McCain did the same thing as Rick Renzi. Will he be indicted for it too?
Rick Renzi is under indictment for using his influence in Washington to push through a Federal land swap deal that benefitted campaign donor James Sandlin, as I wrote about here. Renzi helped fast track the deal despite concerns raised by environmentalists.
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that John McCain pushed through a Federal land swap which benefitted long time supporter and campaign donor Steven Betts. McCain helped fast track the deal despite concerns raised by environmentalists. And even today, McCain's campaign website has a link to a press release about his Arizona leadership team in which Betts and his wife are listed as members of the financial arm of the campaign.
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers.
Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.
When McCain's legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal.
The Audubon Society described the exchange as the largest in Arizona history...But it brought an outcry from some Arizona environmentalists when it was proposed in 2002, partly because it went through Congress rather than a process that allowed more citizen input.
Although the bill called for the two parcels to be of equal value, a federal forestry official told a congressional committee that he was concerned that "the public would not receive fair value" for its land. A formal appraisal has not yet begun. A town official opposed to the swap said other Yavapai Ranch land sold nine years ago for about $2,000 per acre, while some of the prime commercial land near a parcel that the developers will get has brought as much as $120,000 per acre.
Well, you get the gist. Sounds a lot like what Rick Renzi may go to prison for. Almost exactly the same thing, in fact.
Of course, John McCain likely doesn't see anything wrong with pushing land swap legislation that benefits campaign donors. He certainly didn't see anything wrong with it in 2006, when in the midst of a bunch of reports about Renzi and Sandlin, McCain recorded a robocall praising Renzi for his HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BEYOND REPROACH
Obviously John McCain has a different set of ethics than the rest of us do, if Rick Renzi represents his definition of honesty and integrity.
The question is now whether he will be indicted for committing essentially the same crime as Rick Renzi committed. And further, we know that one reason it took as long as it did to indict Rick Renzi was that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez tried to protect him by firing U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton when he started zeroing in on the connection between Renzi and James Sandlin. Wanna bet that the Bush White House pulls out all the plugs trying to protect McCain from any unwelcome probes into the relationship between him and Steven Betts?
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that John McCain pushed through a Federal land swap which benefitted long time supporter and campaign donor Steven Betts. McCain helped fast track the deal despite concerns raised by environmentalists. And even today, McCain's campaign website has a link to a press release about his Arizona leadership team in which Betts and his wife are listed as members of the financial arm of the campaign.
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers.
Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.
When McCain's legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal.
The Audubon Society described the exchange as the largest in Arizona history...But it brought an outcry from some Arizona environmentalists when it was proposed in 2002, partly because it went through Congress rather than a process that allowed more citizen input.
Although the bill called for the two parcels to be of equal value, a federal forestry official told a congressional committee that he was concerned that "the public would not receive fair value" for its land. A formal appraisal has not yet begun. A town official opposed to the swap said other Yavapai Ranch land sold nine years ago for about $2,000 per acre, while some of the prime commercial land near a parcel that the developers will get has brought as much as $120,000 per acre.
Well, you get the gist. Sounds a lot like what Rick Renzi may go to prison for. Almost exactly the same thing, in fact.
Of course, John McCain likely doesn't see anything wrong with pushing land swap legislation that benefits campaign donors. He certainly didn't see anything wrong with it in 2006, when in the midst of a bunch of reports about Renzi and Sandlin, McCain recorded a robocall praising Renzi for his HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BEYOND REPROACH
Obviously John McCain has a different set of ethics than the rest of us do, if Rick Renzi represents his definition of honesty and integrity.
The question is now whether he will be indicted for committing essentially the same crime as Rick Renzi committed. And further, we know that one reason it took as long as it did to indict Rick Renzi was that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez tried to protect him by firing U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton when he started zeroing in on the connection between Renzi and James Sandlin. Wanna bet that the Bush White House pulls out all the plugs trying to protect McCain from any unwelcome probes into the relationship between him and Steven Betts?
It's time for the U.N. to forcibly do the job the Myanmar government won't do.
It's not often that I advocate that the United Nations take military action.
However, the intransigence of the Government of Myanmar, where as many as 100,000 people are believed dead from a cyclone and millions more even now at risk of dying of starvation, water-borne illness and other effects of the cyclone, may leave no other choice.
Aid workers have been turned away or refused permission to enter the country. Aid shipments have been seized by the military government. They say they will distribute the aid themselves, but from all accounts that isn't happening. Even doctors have not been allowed in, or to travel to the region. It's not like this is happening simply because of incompetence though-- the military there was quick and efficient enough to put down pro-democracy demonstrations a few months ago. I guess it is clear what the generals in charge of the government consider a crisis to be and what they don't consider to be one.
To simply allow millions of people to starve and an epidemic to start because a couple of generals are afraid that someone may talk about democracy is unacceptable behavior, and so is allowing it to happen.
I don't support unilateral action by the U.S. or any other country. Unilateral military action, even for the best of reasons, often leads to a costly engagement with unforeseen consequences (such as our ill-fated mission to Somalia a few years ago.)
For this reason intervention to feed the people should be done by the United Nations. There are concerns on the part of many nations about sovereignty, and understandably so. The history of colonialism is not all that far in the past for people in many parts of the world to have forgotten about. But while any intervention at all raises some questions about it, a U.N. force is the least likely to raise concerns about any desire to enforce a permanent occupation. The Myanmar junta has few allies in the world, but they do have one important one-- China. Of course China has a veto in the security council and has shown little concern about human suffering, but after getting a black eye earlier this year from their handling of Tibet and with the Olympics about to be underway in Beijing, I doubt if China would exercise its veto to prevent the U.N. from sending a multinational force to the Irrawaddy delta to feed people and treat disease.
However, the intransigence of the Government of Myanmar, where as many as 100,000 people are believed dead from a cyclone and millions more even now at risk of dying of starvation, water-borne illness and other effects of the cyclone, may leave no other choice.
Aid workers have been turned away or refused permission to enter the country. Aid shipments have been seized by the military government. They say they will distribute the aid themselves, but from all accounts that isn't happening. Even doctors have not been allowed in, or to travel to the region. It's not like this is happening simply because of incompetence though-- the military there was quick and efficient enough to put down pro-democracy demonstrations a few months ago. I guess it is clear what the generals in charge of the government consider a crisis to be and what they don't consider to be one.
To simply allow millions of people to starve and an epidemic to start because a couple of generals are afraid that someone may talk about democracy is unacceptable behavior, and so is allowing it to happen.
I don't support unilateral action by the U.S. or any other country. Unilateral military action, even for the best of reasons, often leads to a costly engagement with unforeseen consequences (such as our ill-fated mission to Somalia a few years ago.)
For this reason intervention to feed the people should be done by the United Nations. There are concerns on the part of many nations about sovereignty, and understandably so. The history of colonialism is not all that far in the past for people in many parts of the world to have forgotten about. But while any intervention at all raises some questions about it, a U.N. force is the least likely to raise concerns about any desire to enforce a permanent occupation. The Myanmar junta has few allies in the world, but they do have one important one-- China. Of course China has a veto in the security council and has shown little concern about human suffering, but after getting a black eye earlier this year from their handling of Tibet and with the Olympics about to be underway in Beijing, I doubt if China would exercise its veto to prevent the U.N. from sending a multinational force to the Irrawaddy delta to feed people and treat disease.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Republicans in legislature back up to their old tricks-- but a bad year for it.
Apparently our GOP legislative leaders are back at it. Every year they hold a closed door session, locking out Democrats to produce a budget. It's always one with draconian cuts. Then they either fail to get it passed as some Republicans see the cuts as too drastic, or they pass it and get it vetoed by Governor Napolitano. And every year she makes them look like fools (otherwise explain why her disapproval rating in a poll last year was an astronomically low 9%-- exceptionally low especially for a politician who has made her feelings known by vetoing record number of bills.) Then they have to slap something together in June that they can actually get passed and signed, and it looks like something slapped together at the last minute.
So here they are in their closed room preparing to come back with another sham budget and be made to look like fools again. Which would be humorous, except that this year the state faces real and very serious budget problems-- so the old political gamesmanship, just by virtue of the less time they will have to work on a real budget, is itself going to cost the state a lot of money and be damaging for some citizens.
Time to vote out these clowns and elect a legislature which believes in making use of every day the legislature is in session to seriously address the state's problems.
So here they are in their closed room preparing to come back with another sham budget and be made to look like fools again. Which would be humorous, except that this year the state faces real and very serious budget problems-- so the old political gamesmanship, just by virtue of the less time they will have to work on a real budget, is itself going to cost the state a lot of money and be damaging for some citizens.
Time to vote out these clowns and elect a legislature which believes in making use of every day the legislature is in session to seriously address the state's problems.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Obama wins big in North Carolina, Hillary fails to counter it in Indiana.
It's been as bad a last couple of weeks as Barack Obama has had. After losing in Pennsylvania, he's had the news focus on all-Jeremiah-Wright-all-the-time, been accused of not being able to 'close' and had a tough time getting on message. Various pollsters and pundits were predicting that Hillary Clinton would have all the momentum tonight, and playing up her chances of taking away the nomination.
In spite of all the bad news, Obama proved he has what it takes tonight. He won the biggest prize left, North Carolina, by a crushing 16-point margin (who says he can't win in a big state?) and in Indiana, where polls out this week had Clinton winning by upper single digits (in fact a Survey USA poll showed her winning by 12 points) it was a nailbiter in which Clinton finally pulled out a win by less than two percent. In fact, the margin is so close that it is attributable entirely to Rush Limbaugh's ordering thousands of dittoheads to vote for Hillary Clinton (probably not a single one of whom would vote for her in the fall.) Winning only because she has the support of Rush Limbaugh (whose stated goal is to drag out the Democratic primary process all the way to a convention floor fight) DOES NOT QUALIFY AS A WIN (even if she does squeak out a one or two point margin.) There are numbers to back that up too: In the CNN commissioned exit poll, the question is asked how voters would vote in an election between Clinton and McCain. 16% of voters in today's Democratic primary indicated that in such a matchup they would vote for McCain. One would expect the cut off your nose to spite your face crowd would mostly be supporters of the other candidate. That is true, but not overwhelmingly so-- of those sixteen percent, Hillary Clinton got 41% of their vote. Forty-one percent of sixteen percent represents about 6% of the total vote (three times Clinton's total margin of victory.) So that is six percent of the total number of voters in Indiana who DID vote for Hillary Clinton today but who say they would vote for John McCain in the fall even if Hillary Clinton is his opponent. So yes, I think it is clear that she won Indiana because of Rush Limbaugh.
So, with things looking as bad for Barack Obama as they have at any time since Iowa, he beat back the challenge.
Hillary ran a tough race but it's time to unify the party (as she said in her own speech tonight). Obama will win the nomination and there is little she can still do to prevent it.
In spite of all the bad news, Obama proved he has what it takes tonight. He won the biggest prize left, North Carolina, by a crushing 16-point margin (who says he can't win in a big state?) and in Indiana, where polls out this week had Clinton winning by upper single digits (in fact a Survey USA poll showed her winning by 12 points) it was a nailbiter in which Clinton finally pulled out a win by less than two percent. In fact, the margin is so close that it is attributable entirely to Rush Limbaugh's ordering thousands of dittoheads to vote for Hillary Clinton (probably not a single one of whom would vote for her in the fall.) Winning only because she has the support of Rush Limbaugh (whose stated goal is to drag out the Democratic primary process all the way to a convention floor fight) DOES NOT QUALIFY AS A WIN (even if she does squeak out a one or two point margin.) There are numbers to back that up too: In the CNN commissioned exit poll, the question is asked how voters would vote in an election between Clinton and McCain. 16% of voters in today's Democratic primary indicated that in such a matchup they would vote for McCain. One would expect the cut off your nose to spite your face crowd would mostly be supporters of the other candidate. That is true, but not overwhelmingly so-- of those sixteen percent, Hillary Clinton got 41% of their vote. Forty-one percent of sixteen percent represents about 6% of the total vote (three times Clinton's total margin of victory.) So that is six percent of the total number of voters in Indiana who DID vote for Hillary Clinton today but who say they would vote for John McCain in the fall even if Hillary Clinton is his opponent. So yes, I think it is clear that she won Indiana because of Rush Limbaugh.
So, with things looking as bad for Barack Obama as they have at any time since Iowa, he beat back the challenge.
Hillary ran a tough race but it's time to unify the party (as she said in her own speech tonight). Obama will win the nomination and there is little she can still do to prevent it.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
It doesn't get much closer than that.
Guam caucus result:
Barack Obama defeats Hillary Clinton 2,264 votes to 2,257 votes, a seven vote margin. Each candidate receives two of the territory's four pledged delegates.
I originally wrote,
Luckily this wasn't in Florida, or the state bureaucracy, the candidates' legal teams and the courts would tell us the result sometime before the convention.
but it turns out that there are dozens of spoiled ballots which will need to be figured out. It likely won't change the delegate total, but it would be premature to say that Obama won.
Barack Obama defeats Hillary Clinton 2,264 votes to 2,257 votes, a seven vote margin. Each candidate receives two of the territory's four pledged delegates.
I originally wrote,
Luckily this wasn't in Florida, or the state bureaucracy, the candidates' legal teams and the courts would tell us the result sometime before the convention.
but it turns out that there are dozens of spoiled ballots which will need to be figured out. It likely won't change the delegate total, but it would be premature to say that Obama won.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Joseph Andrew concludes that a vote for Hillary is a vote for McCain-- and he's right.
Today, Joseph Andrew, a Democratic superdelegate from Indiana who was once named by President Bill Clinton as chair of the Democratic National Committee, announced that he has changed his support from Hillary Clinton, who he had supported early on, to Barack Obama. He made it clear that he wrestled with the decision, but today he wrote about why he made the decision.
Part of what he wrote is here:
Today I am announcing my support for Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. I am changing my support from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, and calling for my fellow Democrats across my home State of Indiana, and my fellow super delegates across the nation, to heal the rift in our Party and unite behind Barack Obama....
I believe that Bill Clinton will be remembered as one of our nation's great Presidents, and Senator Clinton as one of our nation's great public servants. But as much as I respect and admire them both, it is clear that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists John McCain.
I ask Hoosiers to come together and vote for Barack Obama to be our next President. In an accident of timing, Indiana has been given the opportunity to truly make a difference. Hoosiers should grab that power and do what in their heart they know is right. They should reject the old negative politics and vote for true change. Don't settle for the tried and true and the simplistic slogans, but listen to your heart and dare to be inspired. Only a cynic would be critical of Barack Obama inspiring millions. Only the uninformed could forget that the candidate that wins in November is always the candidate that inspires millions.
I ask the leaders of our Party to come together after this Tuesday's primary to heal wounds and unite us around a single nominee. While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our Party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us. John McCain, without doing much of anything, is now competitive against both of our remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him and distracting Americans from the issues that really affect all of our lives.
He's right too. About two months ago, most polls showed that John McCain was behind both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. Today many of the same polls show McCain virtually tied or in some cases leading either of them.
If the math was there for Hillary I wouldn't question her continuing onward. But to win she will have to convince not only a majority of the superdelegates remaining, but an overwhelming majority. I don't see that happening.
Here are some stark facts:
1. Obama has a lead of 156 pledged delegates, with so few remaining now that for Hillary to catch him she would have to win by amazing margins in all of the remaining primaries, something in the 70% plus range. She may be delusional in thinking that she can actually win, but she won't.
2. Both candidates have raised well over a hundred million dollars-- and spent it to beat up on each other. John McCain, despite having misjudged his fundraising abilities and constraints so badly that they have seriously jeopardized his campaign at least twice (proving how bad "Mr. campaign finance's" judgement is-- the first way you can judge a candidate's ability to manage is how well he or she runs their own campaign,) may well start out the fall campaign with more cash on hand than the Democratic nominee.
3. McCain should by all accounts be getting killed. He has stated in the past his complete agreement with some of the worst and most unpopular decisions by the Bush administration-- including to stay in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and continuing to borrow to cover deficits and for Social Security privatization. If the race was being run strictly on the issues, McCain would be campaigning in Idaho trying to avoid a fifty state sweep.
4. The campaign has become quite nasty on both sides. McCain doesn't have to go negative. It is guaranteed that the winner of the Democratic nomination will already have high negatives. People don't just forget overnight.
5. Obama keeps saying the campaign is about 'judgement.' He's not just talking about Iraq. The truth is, Hillary's campaign focused only on large and early states, which let Obama's campaign pretty much organize uncontested in a slew of midsized states like Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin and Washington as well as a lot of small states until the last minute, and it is in these states where he won by lopsided margins and ran up his delegate lead. See what I said in #2 about management ability and what we can learn about it by watching how a candidate handles his or her campaign. Obama may have lost some races, but he didn't skip a bunch of states.
Of course there are those who want Hillary to keep on winning. For example, Ann Coulter earlier this year said she wanted Hillary for President, and talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have ordered their listeners to re-register as Democrats and vote for Hillary. This 'rush' of tens, or even of hundreds of thousands of 'dittoheads' to the polls certainly made the difference in Hillary's paper-thin margin in the Texas primary, and may well continue to inflate her vote total. But even with all the help she is getting from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Hillary still can only claim to be ahead if she counts votes from Florida, where she campaigned one day and Obama none because the DNC told everyone the votes wouldn't count and ask the candidates to pledge not to campaign there, and Michigan, where Obama signed a similar pledge and therefore took his name off the ballot. So I guess if you don't mind Rush Limbaugh choosing the Democratic nominee, then go ahead and vote for Hillary, right alongside his army of 'dittoheads.'
But let's make it clear. Hillary won't win the nomination. She'd have to win about 2/3 of the remaining pledged delegates (she won't) and then also convince the superdelegates to take it away from Obama and give it to her. She also won't do that. So at this point given the way Republicans are gleeful to see this race going on and getting more and more negative in the process, the only thing I can say is this: A vote for Hillary is a vote for John McCain.
Part of what he wrote is here:
Today I am announcing my support for Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. I am changing my support from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, and calling for my fellow Democrats across my home State of Indiana, and my fellow super delegates across the nation, to heal the rift in our Party and unite behind Barack Obama....
I believe that Bill Clinton will be remembered as one of our nation's great Presidents, and Senator Clinton as one of our nation's great public servants. But as much as I respect and admire them both, it is clear that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists John McCain.
I ask Hoosiers to come together and vote for Barack Obama to be our next President. In an accident of timing, Indiana has been given the opportunity to truly make a difference. Hoosiers should grab that power and do what in their heart they know is right. They should reject the old negative politics and vote for true change. Don't settle for the tried and true and the simplistic slogans, but listen to your heart and dare to be inspired. Only a cynic would be critical of Barack Obama inspiring millions. Only the uninformed could forget that the candidate that wins in November is always the candidate that inspires millions.
I ask the leaders of our Party to come together after this Tuesday's primary to heal wounds and unite us around a single nominee. While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our Party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us. John McCain, without doing much of anything, is now competitive against both of our remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him and distracting Americans from the issues that really affect all of our lives.
He's right too. About two months ago, most polls showed that John McCain was behind both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. Today many of the same polls show McCain virtually tied or in some cases leading either of them.
If the math was there for Hillary I wouldn't question her continuing onward. But to win she will have to convince not only a majority of the superdelegates remaining, but an overwhelming majority. I don't see that happening.
Here are some stark facts:
1. Obama has a lead of 156 pledged delegates, with so few remaining now that for Hillary to catch him she would have to win by amazing margins in all of the remaining primaries, something in the 70% plus range. She may be delusional in thinking that she can actually win, but she won't.
2. Both candidates have raised well over a hundred million dollars-- and spent it to beat up on each other. John McCain, despite having misjudged his fundraising abilities and constraints so badly that they have seriously jeopardized his campaign at least twice (proving how bad "Mr. campaign finance's" judgement is-- the first way you can judge a candidate's ability to manage is how well he or she runs their own campaign,) may well start out the fall campaign with more cash on hand than the Democratic nominee.
3. McCain should by all accounts be getting killed. He has stated in the past his complete agreement with some of the worst and most unpopular decisions by the Bush administration-- including to stay in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and continuing to borrow to cover deficits and for Social Security privatization. If the race was being run strictly on the issues, McCain would be campaigning in Idaho trying to avoid a fifty state sweep.
4. The campaign has become quite nasty on both sides. McCain doesn't have to go negative. It is guaranteed that the winner of the Democratic nomination will already have high negatives. People don't just forget overnight.
5. Obama keeps saying the campaign is about 'judgement.' He's not just talking about Iraq. The truth is, Hillary's campaign focused only on large and early states, which let Obama's campaign pretty much organize uncontested in a slew of midsized states like Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin and Washington as well as a lot of small states until the last minute, and it is in these states where he won by lopsided margins and ran up his delegate lead. See what I said in #2 about management ability and what we can learn about it by watching how a candidate handles his or her campaign. Obama may have lost some races, but he didn't skip a bunch of states.
Of course there are those who want Hillary to keep on winning. For example, Ann Coulter earlier this year said she wanted Hillary for President, and talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have ordered their listeners to re-register as Democrats and vote for Hillary. This 'rush' of tens, or even of hundreds of thousands of 'dittoheads' to the polls certainly made the difference in Hillary's paper-thin margin in the Texas primary, and may well continue to inflate her vote total. But even with all the help she is getting from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Hillary still can only claim to be ahead if she counts votes from Florida, where she campaigned one day and Obama none because the DNC told everyone the votes wouldn't count and ask the candidates to pledge not to campaign there, and Michigan, where Obama signed a similar pledge and therefore took his name off the ballot. So I guess if you don't mind Rush Limbaugh choosing the Democratic nominee, then go ahead and vote for Hillary, right alongside his army of 'dittoheads.'
But let's make it clear. Hillary won't win the nomination. She'd have to win about 2/3 of the remaining pledged delegates (she won't) and then also convince the superdelegates to take it away from Obama and give it to her. She also won't do that. So at this point given the way Republicans are gleeful to see this race going on and getting more and more negative in the process, the only thing I can say is this: A vote for Hillary is a vote for John McCain.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Obama takes the right position on 'gas tax holiday,' even though it will cost him votes
Gas is creeping upwards towards $4.00 per gallon (diesel heading towards five) and may get there this summer. Voters want to see gas prices go down. So both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have proposed a Federal 'gas tax holiday' during the summer (peak driving season.) Clinton, to her credit, at least has a plan to offset the loss of revenue-- earmarked for highway funding-- with a windfall profits tax on oil companies. I guess McCain would just as soon sacrifice the quality of American roads to serve his own short term ambition of getting elected President. Of couse he flies everywhere anyway so I guess he never has to worry about a pothole doing thousands of dollars worth of damage to his car.
However the candidate showing real leadership here is Barack Obama. In the face of the demands for a 'tax holiday,' he is making the difficult case that cutting off the gasoline tax won't reduce prices, and whether offset by a Federal windfall tax on oil companies as Clinton proposes or offset by not funding highway repairs as McCain proposes, either way in the long run it will cost more, not less.
For starters, in an economics 101 class you will learn that if you decrease the price on any item, demand increases. But if supply does not, it puts upward pressure on price which in turn leads you back to the same equilibrium point, a price at which demand equals supply. That is as true for gasoline as for any other commodity, which is the point that economists are making, Senator Obama understands and Senators Clinton and McCain either don't understand or choose to wilfully ignore in their reckless search for votes.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As summer approaches, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have found a common problem and a common solution. Both want to suspend the federal tax on gasoline, giving drivers a break from high prices at the pump.
At first glance, that sounds like a great idea. But if economists are right, it's their fellow senator Barack Obama who's got the better idea when it comes to the gasoline tax: Do nothing.
Both McCain and Clinton would suspend the 18.4 cents a gallon tax on gasoline. Clinton said Monday that she would also suspend the 24.4 cents a gallon tax on diesel this summer...
It would appear that Obama is risking a chance to win populist points by not standing behind a tax break, particularly when gasoline is at a punishing $3.65 a gallon. But if it's real relief the candidates are looking for, economists say, they should look elsewhere.
"I don't think that a gas-tax cut would result in a really big drop in gasoline prices," said James Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California San Diego. It's simple economics: Without a corresponding increase in supply, he added, the price would rise again.
Boosting supply at this stage would be difficult. In the summertime, refineries run at close to full tilt to meet expected demand from vacationing families and other summer drivers.
Since the refiners can't produce much more without building new refineries, the price has to go back up," wrote Len Burman and Eric Toder on TaxVox, the blog of the Tax Policy Center. (Their post is titled "What Were They Thinking???") "Unless the plan's aim is to boost short-term profits for petroleum refineries, the proposal makes no sense...
It might seem axiomatic that cutting taxes on gasoline would make it cheaper. But economists also say a side effect of cheaper gas would be increased demand for fuel as more people drive. That, they point out, would put prices right back where they started.
"They'll bid the price back up," said Andrew Samwick, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a former economic adviser to President Bush.
In fact, if the Clinton plan is adopted there is nothing to prevent the oil companies from passing the tax right back to the consumers while if the McCain plan is adopted then sooner or later the highway repairs will still have to be done, which means that some other tax will have to be used for the purpose and likely raised. So what we really see is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, just politicians who promise you one.
Obviously while Obama is right on this one, it is going to cost him votes. But sometimes leadership means doing what's right, even at a price.
The truth is, the reason for the high gas price is because we spent so many decades doing nothing (recall that Jimmy Carter had a plan to make America self-sufficient in energy by 2000 but except for the Alaska pipeline, a small part of it, Ronald Reagan dismantled the whole plan.) Just a couple of months ago, Congress passed the first increase in CAFE standards since 1978. And America is a nation of cars, partly because we lag the rest of the world in investment in mass transit (and then, like in the case of the Phoenix light rail system, we wait to build it until decades after it is proposed, and therefore at dozens of times the cost.)
We will need a comprehensive long term energy policy (which the next administration can and should put together and propose,) not a short term bandaid which will in the end save you nothing.
However the candidate showing real leadership here is Barack Obama. In the face of the demands for a 'tax holiday,' he is making the difficult case that cutting off the gasoline tax won't reduce prices, and whether offset by a Federal windfall tax on oil companies as Clinton proposes or offset by not funding highway repairs as McCain proposes, either way in the long run it will cost more, not less.
For starters, in an economics 101 class you will learn that if you decrease the price on any item, demand increases. But if supply does not, it puts upward pressure on price which in turn leads you back to the same equilibrium point, a price at which demand equals supply. That is as true for gasoline as for any other commodity, which is the point that economists are making, Senator Obama understands and Senators Clinton and McCain either don't understand or choose to wilfully ignore in their reckless search for votes.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As summer approaches, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have found a common problem and a common solution. Both want to suspend the federal tax on gasoline, giving drivers a break from high prices at the pump.
At first glance, that sounds like a great idea. But if economists are right, it's their fellow senator Barack Obama who's got the better idea when it comes to the gasoline tax: Do nothing.
Both McCain and Clinton would suspend the 18.4 cents a gallon tax on gasoline. Clinton said Monday that she would also suspend the 24.4 cents a gallon tax on diesel this summer...
It would appear that Obama is risking a chance to win populist points by not standing behind a tax break, particularly when gasoline is at a punishing $3.65 a gallon. But if it's real relief the candidates are looking for, economists say, they should look elsewhere.
"I don't think that a gas-tax cut would result in a really big drop in gasoline prices," said James Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California San Diego. It's simple economics: Without a corresponding increase in supply, he added, the price would rise again.
Boosting supply at this stage would be difficult. In the summertime, refineries run at close to full tilt to meet expected demand from vacationing families and other summer drivers.
Since the refiners can't produce much more without building new refineries, the price has to go back up," wrote Len Burman and Eric Toder on TaxVox, the blog of the Tax Policy Center. (Their post is titled "What Were They Thinking???") "Unless the plan's aim is to boost short-term profits for petroleum refineries, the proposal makes no sense...
It might seem axiomatic that cutting taxes on gasoline would make it cheaper. But economists also say a side effect of cheaper gas would be increased demand for fuel as more people drive. That, they point out, would put prices right back where they started.
"They'll bid the price back up," said Andrew Samwick, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a former economic adviser to President Bush.
In fact, if the Clinton plan is adopted there is nothing to prevent the oil companies from passing the tax right back to the consumers while if the McCain plan is adopted then sooner or later the highway repairs will still have to be done, which means that some other tax will have to be used for the purpose and likely raised. So what we really see is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, just politicians who promise you one.
Obviously while Obama is right on this one, it is going to cost him votes. But sometimes leadership means doing what's right, even at a price.
The truth is, the reason for the high gas price is because we spent so many decades doing nothing (recall that Jimmy Carter had a plan to make America self-sufficient in energy by 2000 but except for the Alaska pipeline, a small part of it, Ronald Reagan dismantled the whole plan.) Just a couple of months ago, Congress passed the first increase in CAFE standards since 1978. And America is a nation of cars, partly because we lag the rest of the world in investment in mass transit (and then, like in the case of the Phoenix light rail system, we wait to build it until decades after it is proposed, and therefore at dozens of times the cost.)
We will need a comprehensive long term energy policy (which the next administration can and should put together and propose,) not a short term bandaid which will in the end save you nothing.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Bob Herbert is spot on about Wright.
Jeremiah Wright apparently felt disrespected and angry at Barack Obama when he didn't stand 100% behind him during the controversy that erupted just over a month ago. And so he has spent the past month carefully planning how to get back, and now he has.
Bob Herbert has a very insightful column about Jeremiah Wright and his outbursts this weekend and today.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him...
Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived...
So it’s not like he’s naïve politically. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Forget the gibberish about responding to attacks on the black church. That is not what the reverend’s appearance before the press club was about. He was responding to what he perceives as an attack on him.
Add in all the things he said this weekend, and it's pretty clear that after a few weeks of careful consideration, Reverend Wright is going out of his way to do the worst he can of proving the critics right. It is certainly true that the clips we've all seen were taken as small snippets of much larger sermons. But this weekend, the snippets were the sermons as he seemed to go out of his way to project the bogeyman that the Senator Obama's opponents have portrayed Wright as. There is no way he could have in just a weekend said extemporaneously so many of the things thich have bothered people, if he hadn't thought out well in advance how to say all of them.
Apparently Wright feels betrayed by Obama's failure to stand by him, including his sermons, when the story first appeared. So he's doing everything he can to hurt Obama now. He is being the caricature that was first put out there by Obama's political opponents. And he's not a stupid man at all, I'm sure he knows good and well what he's doing this week.
A window into his thinking was revealed in the Bill Moyers interview which started off this weekend of wall-to-wall veiled criticism of Obama mixed with outrageous outbursts. He said that Obama had responded to the intial criticism 'as a politician, and not as a man.' Apparently Wright felt then that Obama had not 'kept the faith' with him.
During his speech to the NAACP, Wright paid Obama a left-handed compliment, suggesting that his middle name (which Wright repeated at least twice at that point) is a function of language, and that there are Arabic speakers of all religions. What that did was to remind voters of Obama's alleged (though completely unfounded) ties to Islamists, and of course to remind them once again of Saddam Hussein (the first person most people associate with the name) and subliminally link Obama to him.
Obama in the end did the only thing he can do now-- he repudiated and rejected Wright completely, something he refused to do in his Philadelphia speech on race.
But let's make this clear for what it is. Jeremiah Wright, for personal reasons, wanted to do everything he could to harm Barack Obama. And now Obama has turned off the pipeline back to him, so whatever Wright says from now on won't have anything at all to do with Obama.
Bob Herbert has a very insightful column about Jeremiah Wright and his outbursts this weekend and today.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him...
Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived...
So it’s not like he’s naïve politically. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Forget the gibberish about responding to attacks on the black church. That is not what the reverend’s appearance before the press club was about. He was responding to what he perceives as an attack on him.
Add in all the things he said this weekend, and it's pretty clear that after a few weeks of careful consideration, Reverend Wright is going out of his way to do the worst he can of proving the critics right. It is certainly true that the clips we've all seen were taken as small snippets of much larger sermons. But this weekend, the snippets were the sermons as he seemed to go out of his way to project the bogeyman that the Senator Obama's opponents have portrayed Wright as. There is no way he could have in just a weekend said extemporaneously so many of the things thich have bothered people, if he hadn't thought out well in advance how to say all of them.
Apparently Wright feels betrayed by Obama's failure to stand by him, including his sermons, when the story first appeared. So he's doing everything he can to hurt Obama now. He is being the caricature that was first put out there by Obama's political opponents. And he's not a stupid man at all, I'm sure he knows good and well what he's doing this week.
A window into his thinking was revealed in the Bill Moyers interview which started off this weekend of wall-to-wall veiled criticism of Obama mixed with outrageous outbursts. He said that Obama had responded to the intial criticism 'as a politician, and not as a man.' Apparently Wright felt then that Obama had not 'kept the faith' with him.
During his speech to the NAACP, Wright paid Obama a left-handed compliment, suggesting that his middle name (which Wright repeated at least twice at that point) is a function of language, and that there are Arabic speakers of all religions. What that did was to remind voters of Obama's alleged (though completely unfounded) ties to Islamists, and of course to remind them once again of Saddam Hussein (the first person most people associate with the name) and subliminally link Obama to him.
Obama in the end did the only thing he can do now-- he repudiated and rejected Wright completely, something he refused to do in his Philadelphia speech on race.
But let's make this clear for what it is. Jeremiah Wright, for personal reasons, wanted to do everything he could to harm Barack Obama. And now Obama has turned off the pipeline back to him, so whatever Wright says from now on won't have anything at all to do with Obama.
Texas FLDS still deserve the right to individual hearings and presentation of evidence.
As regular readers of this blog are aware, I've been quite critical of the FLDS over the issue of child abuse. Some of the things which they do, ranging from forcing thirteen year old girls into 'marriages' in which they are raped by sixty year old men, to abandoning thirteen year old boys off on the side of the road with no education beyond rudimentary construction skills, are frankly appalling to any sense of decency.
So it may come as a surprise that after waiting for a couple of weeks to digest the news of the raids in Texas, I've reached the conclusion that there are some issues here in which I have to defend the FLDS.
To begin with, what happened in Texas should demontrate conclusively that Warren Jeffs is no prophet. He picked the site of the ranch himself, and didn't trouble himself with the detail that Texas has more latitude in taking state custody of children than virtually any other state in the country. So he made a terrible decision if his basis was providing for the security, if you could call it that, of his followers.
That said, I am concerned that all the children were swept up, apparently only because of their religious identity. There were a number of traditional families (one man, one woman, raising their own biological kids) in the compound as well as the polygamous families, and the state made no distinction between them.
If this blanket seizure of kids and blanket custody decision is allowed to stand, then consider what it could lead to (all of these are prevented only by societal perceptions, which can as we know change):
Could the state someday seize all Jewish boys as soon as they are born in order to protect them from circumcision (which some people define as child abuse, even today?)
Could the state someday seize all children belonging to families whose religions practice any kind of non-traditional medicine (be it prayer, tribal ceremonies or other kinds of medicine that don't involve doctors or prescription drugs?)
Could the state someday seize all the children of families who may not make enough money to feed them?
Could the state someday seize all the children of single-parent families, citing statistics that indicate the kids could be at risk?
Could the state someday seize all the children of convicted felons, citing the need to put them in an environment in which they may be protected from 'criminal influence'?
I know, I know. Some people are saying I'm overreacting and that this would never happen. But it was only a couple of weeks ago, I thought that the state would take your children only if there was evidence that you yourself were praciticing a lifestyle which was a danger to them, not swoop down on a community and blanket-confiscate all the kids there (that's the kind of thing that happens in totalitarian regimes, not in America.) And today you'd be right, none of the above is likely to happen. But as I said earlier, societal perceptions can change. It is the law and legal precedent which protect us from them when they do.
So it may come as a surprise that after waiting for a couple of weeks to digest the news of the raids in Texas, I've reached the conclusion that there are some issues here in which I have to defend the FLDS.
To begin with, what happened in Texas should demontrate conclusively that Warren Jeffs is no prophet. He picked the site of the ranch himself, and didn't trouble himself with the detail that Texas has more latitude in taking state custody of children than virtually any other state in the country. So he made a terrible decision if his basis was providing for the security, if you could call it that, of his followers.
That said, I am concerned that all the children were swept up, apparently only because of their religious identity. There were a number of traditional families (one man, one woman, raising their own biological kids) in the compound as well as the polygamous families, and the state made no distinction between them.
If this blanket seizure of kids and blanket custody decision is allowed to stand, then consider what it could lead to (all of these are prevented only by societal perceptions, which can as we know change):
Could the state someday seize all Jewish boys as soon as they are born in order to protect them from circumcision (which some people define as child abuse, even today?)
Could the state someday seize all children belonging to families whose religions practice any kind of non-traditional medicine (be it prayer, tribal ceremonies or other kinds of medicine that don't involve doctors or prescription drugs?)
Could the state someday seize all the children of families who may not make enough money to feed them?
Could the state someday seize all the children of single-parent families, citing statistics that indicate the kids could be at risk?
Could the state someday seize all the children of convicted felons, citing the need to put them in an environment in which they may be protected from 'criminal influence'?
I know, I know. Some people are saying I'm overreacting and that this would never happen. But it was only a couple of weeks ago, I thought that the state would take your children only if there was evidence that you yourself were praciticing a lifestyle which was a danger to them, not swoop down on a community and blanket-confiscate all the kids there (that's the kind of thing that happens in totalitarian regimes, not in America.) And today you'd be right, none of the above is likely to happen. But as I said earlier, societal perceptions can change. It is the law and legal precedent which protect us from them when they do.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Soldiers return to live in an appalling barracks at Fort Bragg
It seems year after year after year we keep hearing these kinds of stories about how our government treats our soldiers.
We've seen the extremes of fiscal conservatism applied to the military, at least to the men and women on the ground by this administration. We've seen how they tried to cut combat pay not long after the war began in Iraq. We've seen cuts in veterans services. We've seen how soldiers were forced to buy their own body armor while hundreds of billions were wasted on fat defense contracts buying more sophisticated long-range bombers and other equipment that is of little use in the kind of guerilla war we are now fighting. We've seen how little our soldiers are actually paid, and yet forced to stay in by 'stop-loss' programs. We've seen how much effort has gone into making it difficult for soldiers who have become disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan to apply for and get disability payments. We've seen the deplorable conditions that existed at Walter Reed Army hospital.
And through it all, the phrase 'support the troops' has been bandied about by this administration as a buzzword for 'support the President's foreign policy,' while the above situations make it clear that they have no concept for what 'support the troops' actually means.
So I'm almost not surprised at the video that's surfaced on U-tube, shot by the father of a soldier from the 82nd Airborne unit of the barracks the unit was housed in at Fort Bragg.
According to the local paper
RALEIGH --A video shot by the father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier that shows poor conditions such as mold in a barracks at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville has gotten attention from a U.S. senator and high-ranking Army officials.
Ed Frawley, a dog breeder from Menomonie, Wis., posted the narrated video on YouTube.com last week after traveling to North Carolina to welcome his son, Sgt. Jeff Frawley, home from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan.
The video shows peeling paint, mold, a bathroom drain plugged with what appears to be sewage and a broken room door lock, conditions that Frawley described as disgusting and embarrassing.
"The instant you walk through the front door, you know you are in a building that should be condemned," he said.
The army's excuse is that the unit returned three weeks ahead of schedule. What kind of excuse is that? That's an excuse for not doing anything about the mold or about the feces that appears to be backing up into the shower stall? What exactly was the maintenance crew doing that was more important than making sure our own troops had better conditions to return to than what you'd find in a Baghdad slum?
What's more, is this is five years into the Iraq war (and six and a half into the Afghan war.) You'd think by now the army could have figured out that these kinds of things happening are not good for our troops and taken steps to stop them from happening.
It's too bad that the American soldier doesn't have any lobbyists on Capitol Hill or at the White House, like all those fat defense contractors that get most of what's in the military budget.
We've seen the extremes of fiscal conservatism applied to the military, at least to the men and women on the ground by this administration. We've seen how they tried to cut combat pay not long after the war began in Iraq. We've seen cuts in veterans services. We've seen how soldiers were forced to buy their own body armor while hundreds of billions were wasted on fat defense contracts buying more sophisticated long-range bombers and other equipment that is of little use in the kind of guerilla war we are now fighting. We've seen how little our soldiers are actually paid, and yet forced to stay in by 'stop-loss' programs. We've seen how much effort has gone into making it difficult for soldiers who have become disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan to apply for and get disability payments. We've seen the deplorable conditions that existed at Walter Reed Army hospital.
And through it all, the phrase 'support the troops' has been bandied about by this administration as a buzzword for 'support the President's foreign policy,' while the above situations make it clear that they have no concept for what 'support the troops' actually means.
So I'm almost not surprised at the video that's surfaced on U-tube, shot by the father of a soldier from the 82nd Airborne unit of the barracks the unit was housed in at Fort Bragg.
According to the local paper
RALEIGH --A video shot by the father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier that shows poor conditions such as mold in a barracks at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville has gotten attention from a U.S. senator and high-ranking Army officials.
Ed Frawley, a dog breeder from Menomonie, Wis., posted the narrated video on YouTube.com last week after traveling to North Carolina to welcome his son, Sgt. Jeff Frawley, home from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan.
The video shows peeling paint, mold, a bathroom drain plugged with what appears to be sewage and a broken room door lock, conditions that Frawley described as disgusting and embarrassing.
"The instant you walk through the front door, you know you are in a building that should be condemned," he said.
The army's excuse is that the unit returned three weeks ahead of schedule. What kind of excuse is that? That's an excuse for not doing anything about the mold or about the feces that appears to be backing up into the shower stall? What exactly was the maintenance crew doing that was more important than making sure our own troops had better conditions to return to than what you'd find in a Baghdad slum?
What's more, is this is five years into the Iraq war (and six and a half into the Afghan war.) You'd think by now the army could have figured out that these kinds of things happening are not good for our troops and taken steps to stop them from happening.
It's too bad that the American soldier doesn't have any lobbyists on Capitol Hill or at the White House, like all those fat defense contractors that get most of what's in the military budget.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The shortage of food
Today, volume discount chains Sam's Club and Costco announced that they will begin limiting the amount of rice that people can buy.
This is just one manifestation of a problem that is sweeping the world: a global food shortage. In many countries where rice is a staple of the diet for millions of people, the price has spiraled to the point that there are literally riots in the streets as people cannot afford the food they need to survive on. But it is more than just rice. The price of nearly every kind of food has increased. Even here in America, as the recession deepens and increases the demand on food banks, many food banks are having trouble getting enough food to keep up with the demand.
There are a lot of reasons for this. The most obvious one is that production of food hasn't been sufficient to meet the demand. Bad weather is one factor, as storms and drought in many parts of the world have destroyed some crops (though as we enter a period of global climate change, it would be hasty to assume that the bad weather is limited to this year-- there is also a good chance that it represents the new 'normal.')
The cost of energy is also a factor. Except for food grown right where it is consumed, food must be transported from one point to another. But with energy costs up across the board, those costs get translated to the supermarket. We can see this here in the United States, as diesel costs for trucks are now well over four dollars per gallon, and the price to the stores which receive their cargo, and eventually to the consumers who buy it, has to rise in order to cover the increased transportation cost.
One reason that is cited, but I'm not sure accurately, is the production of bio-fuels. It is certainly true that every acre of agricultural land that is used to make cleaner burning fuels is not used to grow food. But as I just alluded to there is a cost to not making cleaner fuels as well. Further, I would argue that to blame biofuels misses the most fundamental reason for the food crisis: poor use of land.
Right now our government pays subsidies to farmers to not grow certain crops in order to keep the price up. Well, it is certainly up right now (for all kinds of food) so it may be time to end those subsidies and let the farmers grow and sell as much as they can.
But even that is dwarfed by a much more daunting problem: the overreliance in the western diet on meat. It is true that some marginal land is not suitable for growing crops and grazing is about the only practical agricultural use. But most food animals are fed grain that was produced in fields that could just as easily grow food to feed people. It is true that the food animals are eventually slaughtered for meat, but in fact it takes about sixteen pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat.
I confess, that I love eating meat. But the truth of the matter is that every time I eat a single quarter pound hamburger, it is using up as much as four pounds of food which could easily feed a family for a day.
I'm not proposing radical solutions such as quit growing biofuels or having the Government force everyone to stop eating meat but we do need to consider what impact these things have on the food supply and how we can make sure that there is an adequate food supply to everyone in the world, and that may require some changes in our own lifestyle.
Or we could ignore it, and in time the rationing of rice at these stores could expand to other stores and to other products as food becomes scarcer and more expensive, while in the meantime hunger and rioting spread across the third world.
Let's consider alternative policies that boost food production.
This is just one manifestation of a problem that is sweeping the world: a global food shortage. In many countries where rice is a staple of the diet for millions of people, the price has spiraled to the point that there are literally riots in the streets as people cannot afford the food they need to survive on. But it is more than just rice. The price of nearly every kind of food has increased. Even here in America, as the recession deepens and increases the demand on food banks, many food banks are having trouble getting enough food to keep up with the demand.
There are a lot of reasons for this. The most obvious one is that production of food hasn't been sufficient to meet the demand. Bad weather is one factor, as storms and drought in many parts of the world have destroyed some crops (though as we enter a period of global climate change, it would be hasty to assume that the bad weather is limited to this year-- there is also a good chance that it represents the new 'normal.')
The cost of energy is also a factor. Except for food grown right where it is consumed, food must be transported from one point to another. But with energy costs up across the board, those costs get translated to the supermarket. We can see this here in the United States, as diesel costs for trucks are now well over four dollars per gallon, and the price to the stores which receive their cargo, and eventually to the consumers who buy it, has to rise in order to cover the increased transportation cost.
One reason that is cited, but I'm not sure accurately, is the production of bio-fuels. It is certainly true that every acre of agricultural land that is used to make cleaner burning fuels is not used to grow food. But as I just alluded to there is a cost to not making cleaner fuels as well. Further, I would argue that to blame biofuels misses the most fundamental reason for the food crisis: poor use of land.
Right now our government pays subsidies to farmers to not grow certain crops in order to keep the price up. Well, it is certainly up right now (for all kinds of food) so it may be time to end those subsidies and let the farmers grow and sell as much as they can.
But even that is dwarfed by a much more daunting problem: the overreliance in the western diet on meat. It is true that some marginal land is not suitable for growing crops and grazing is about the only practical agricultural use. But most food animals are fed grain that was produced in fields that could just as easily grow food to feed people. It is true that the food animals are eventually slaughtered for meat, but in fact it takes about sixteen pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat.
I confess, that I love eating meat. But the truth of the matter is that every time I eat a single quarter pound hamburger, it is using up as much as four pounds of food which could easily feed a family for a day.
I'm not proposing radical solutions such as quit growing biofuels or having the Government force everyone to stop eating meat but we do need to consider what impact these things have on the food supply and how we can make sure that there is an adequate food supply to everyone in the world, and that may require some changes in our own lifestyle.
Or we could ignore it, and in time the rationing of rice at these stores could expand to other stores and to other products as food becomes scarcer and more expensive, while in the meantime hunger and rioting spread across the third world.
Let's consider alternative policies that boost food production.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Hillary ENDORSED McCain at a dinner I was at. So what in blazes is she attacking Obama for?
Yesterday in Reading, Barack Obama said that all three remaining candidates, including John McCain 'would be better than George Bush.'
First of all, that is almost certainly correct. That's because it is a very, very low bar. Not just me, but many Presidential historians now consider that George W. Bush is likely to go down as the worst, or one of the worst Presidents of all time, in terms of everything from wrecking the economy with his ruinous tax cuts that ballooned the deficit and gave it away to foreign governments, to his stupid war in Iraq that gave bin Laden a chance to evade capture as Afghanistan became secondary.
So by that standard, every other President is 'better than Bush.' Even Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush would be by comparison 'better than Bush.' But that doesn't mean for a moment that I would want another Nixon, Reagan or Bush Sr., and I don't want John McCain.
But Hillary Clinton, always on the prowl for something negative to say, immediately jumped on the comment by Obama. She said, "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee."
OH, MY GOD!! WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!
I was at the Wild Horse resort in Chandler in 2004 to listen to Hillary visit and make a speech. I took my then eight year old with me. And during her speech, she praised John McCain and went so far as to endorse him for his Senate run that year (I don't know if she was trying to prove she was a 'moderate' or what the heck she was doing.) Keep in mind that this was a room full of Democrats. What was really insulting was that our statewide candidates (who had been introduced earlier) had a table of honor right in front of the speakers platform. Among them was Stu Starkey, who was running against McCain that year. I don't think that even Stu thought that he had a prayer of winning, but he campaigned gamely anyway and managed to deny McCain one jewel he would have dearly loved to have-- Stu held onto the votes of registered Democrats by a small margin (NO THANKS to the Senator from New York.) I was absolutely shocked to hear those words come from the mouth of our keynote speaker, and I doubt if I was the only one.
So to hear Hillary going after Obama after she had the nerve (right in front of me, and not more than twenty feet from the Democrat who was McCain's opponent) to gush all over McCain and endorse him for his Senate re-election in 2004 is nauseating. Absolutely nauseating.
First of all, that is almost certainly correct. That's because it is a very, very low bar. Not just me, but many Presidential historians now consider that George W. Bush is likely to go down as the worst, or one of the worst Presidents of all time, in terms of everything from wrecking the economy with his ruinous tax cuts that ballooned the deficit and gave it away to foreign governments, to his stupid war in Iraq that gave bin Laden a chance to evade capture as Afghanistan became secondary.
So by that standard, every other President is 'better than Bush.' Even Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush would be by comparison 'better than Bush.' But that doesn't mean for a moment that I would want another Nixon, Reagan or Bush Sr., and I don't want John McCain.
But Hillary Clinton, always on the prowl for something negative to say, immediately jumped on the comment by Obama. She said, "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee."
OH, MY GOD!! WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!
I was at the Wild Horse resort in Chandler in 2004 to listen to Hillary visit and make a speech. I took my then eight year old with me. And during her speech, she praised John McCain and went so far as to endorse him for his Senate run that year (I don't know if she was trying to prove she was a 'moderate' or what the heck she was doing.) Keep in mind that this was a room full of Democrats. What was really insulting was that our statewide candidates (who had been introduced earlier) had a table of honor right in front of the speakers platform. Among them was Stu Starkey, who was running against McCain that year. I don't think that even Stu thought that he had a prayer of winning, but he campaigned gamely anyway and managed to deny McCain one jewel he would have dearly loved to have-- Stu held onto the votes of registered Democrats by a small margin (NO THANKS to the Senator from New York.) I was absolutely shocked to hear those words come from the mouth of our keynote speaker, and I doubt if I was the only one.
So to hear Hillary going after Obama after she had the nerve (right in front of me, and not more than twenty feet from the Democrat who was McCain's opponent) to gush all over McCain and endorse him for his Senate re-election in 2004 is nauseating. Absolutely nauseating.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
McCain has nothing to say about Social Security. But he's already said enough.
In 2005, President Bush introduced a plan to borrow $2 trillion to begin privatizing Social Security. He told us that if Social Security was left as it is now then it would begin running a deficit in 2014 and become insolvent by 2042.
Well, that failed. The President was actually completely correct about the crisis that Social Security is facing, but his solution to privatize the system would have done little to prevent its impending collapse while putting at risk the retirement income of millions of people.
So how does the man who wants to succeed him as Republican nominee and President feel about the issue?
Well, I went to John McCain's website and in his 'search this site' button I typed in, "social security" and well,
what I get is:
"No documents were found."
Frankly it is frightening that a man who wants to be President of the United States has so little to say about Social Security that the two words don't appear together even one time on his website.
Luckily though there is a record of what he thinks.
On April 1, 1998 he voted, "Yes" to Senate concurrent resolution 86 which would have set up private accounts using the then-surplus.
And in the New York Times on January 11, 2000, an article about McCain's plans for Social Security said:
McCain will present today his first comprehensive plan for apportioning the spoils of the nation’s current prosperity, calling for. a program to shore up Social Security through the establishment of individual retirement accounts. McCain also specifically allocates money to help Medicare, which like Social Security faces a financial shortfall as the population ages. He calls for workers to have the option of investing at least 20% of their Social Security payroll taxes in private accounts.
In a 1999 Fox News interview McCain was quoted as saying,
Allow people to invest part of their taxes earmarked for Social Security to investment, in investments of their choice. I am convinced that that will make the Social Security system solvent.
In 2005, McCain supported the Bush initiative.
In a GOP debate in Orlando, Florida on October 21, 2007, he was quoted as saying
It's got to be bipartisan. And you have to go to the American people and say we won't raise your taxes. We need personal savings accounts, but we got to fix this system.
He wants it to be bipartisan, and his language is a bit more nuanced, but it's clear that he still hasn't given up on privatization.
Now I know why he hasn't said anything at all this year about Social Security. If he hadn't thought about such a major issue, I'd question his qualifications to be President. But he's thought plenty about it, and he appears to agree with President Bush on it. So I'm not questioning whether he's qualified, but rather I'm questioning whether his failure to put in on his website is because he knows darn good and well that many people would view his plans as extreme, as well they should.
Well, that failed. The President was actually completely correct about the crisis that Social Security is facing, but his solution to privatize the system would have done little to prevent its impending collapse while putting at risk the retirement income of millions of people.
So how does the man who wants to succeed him as Republican nominee and President feel about the issue?
Well, I went to John McCain's website and in his 'search this site' button I typed in, "social security" and well,
what I get is:
"No documents were found."
Frankly it is frightening that a man who wants to be President of the United States has so little to say about Social Security that the two words don't appear together even one time on his website.
Luckily though there is a record of what he thinks.
On April 1, 1998 he voted, "Yes" to Senate concurrent resolution 86 which would have set up private accounts using the then-surplus.
And in the New York Times on January 11, 2000, an article about McCain's plans for Social Security said:
McCain will present today his first comprehensive plan for apportioning the spoils of the nation’s current prosperity, calling for. a program to shore up Social Security through the establishment of individual retirement accounts. McCain also specifically allocates money to help Medicare, which like Social Security faces a financial shortfall as the population ages. He calls for workers to have the option of investing at least 20% of their Social Security payroll taxes in private accounts.
In a 1999 Fox News interview McCain was quoted as saying,
Allow people to invest part of their taxes earmarked for Social Security to investment, in investments of their choice. I am convinced that that will make the Social Security system solvent.
In 2005, McCain supported the Bush initiative.
In a GOP debate in Orlando, Florida on October 21, 2007, he was quoted as saying
It's got to be bipartisan. And you have to go to the American people and say we won't raise your taxes. We need personal savings accounts, but we got to fix this system.
He wants it to be bipartisan, and his language is a bit more nuanced, but it's clear that he still hasn't given up on privatization.
Now I know why he hasn't said anything at all this year about Social Security. If he hadn't thought about such a major issue, I'd question his qualifications to be President. But he's thought plenty about it, and he appears to agree with President Bush on it. So I'm not questioning whether he's qualified, but rather I'm questioning whether his failure to put in on his website is because he knows darn good and well that many people would view his plans as extreme, as well they should.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Bush proposal on global warming too little, too late.
President Bush, after finally acknowleging the fact of global warming in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence in favor of it, is offering a proposal that will slow down the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and finally in twenty years lead to a reduction in such gases.
That is a small step in the right direction, but it is indeed a small one. There is a concern here that if we sign onto Bush's plan then the next President could be hamstrung by it. I suggest that we go ahead until next year and let the next President decide what kind of plan he or she wants to put together, and move forward with that plan.
That is a small step in the right direction, but it is indeed a small one. There is a concern here that if we sign onto Bush's plan then the next President could be hamstrung by it. I suggest that we go ahead until next year and let the next President decide what kind of plan he or she wants to put together, and move forward with that plan.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
What part of 'temporary' don't they understand?
Yesterday Governor Napolitano vetoed a bill passed by the legislature which would have made permanent a temporary property tax cut that was passed in 2006 and is due to expire in 2009.
As the Governor noted, economic conditions have deteriorated in Arizona sharply since 2006. Arizona's economy is much more tied to the housing industry than most, so the mortgage meltdown has had severe repercussions here. We face a combined $3 billion state budget deficit over the next two years, so adding another quarter billion to that next year by extending the property tax cut would be, as she noted, "the height of fiscal irresponsibility." Over-reliance on the sales tax has compounded the problem-- in a recession people spend less so sales tax revenues are down (whereas, for example, a property tax tends to be a much more reliable and stable source of revenue.)
Advocates for the Republicans in the legislature and some in the business community (who were the beneficiaries of the tax cut) have howled that she is 'raising taxes.'
That is a competely stupid argument.
If a supermarket sells a bottle of pop for $1.39, but runs a managers special in which they announce, "THIS WEEK ONLY-- $.99" for the bottle of pop, then they are doing their customers a favor for a week. If the sale ends on schedule and the price returns to $1.39 (the normal price of the pop) it would be ridiculous to storm up to the store manager and claim that by ending the sale on the day they said they would, they are raising prices. Yet that is what advocates of extending the tax cut are doing. Instead of being grateful for the three years they don't have to pay their property tax, they are instead complaining that when it expires on schedule, they will see a 'tax increase.' Maybe they would be happier if it hadn't ever been passed at all, I suppose.
This argument, of equating the scheduled end of a temporary reduction in taxes with a 'tax increase' is breathtaking in its stupidity. But we will hear exactly the same argument nationally over the next couple of years as the Bush tax cuts (you know, the ones that were supposed to give us such a great economic success story this decade) expire.
As the Governor noted, economic conditions have deteriorated in Arizona sharply since 2006. Arizona's economy is much more tied to the housing industry than most, so the mortgage meltdown has had severe repercussions here. We face a combined $3 billion state budget deficit over the next two years, so adding another quarter billion to that next year by extending the property tax cut would be, as she noted, "the height of fiscal irresponsibility." Over-reliance on the sales tax has compounded the problem-- in a recession people spend less so sales tax revenues are down (whereas, for example, a property tax tends to be a much more reliable and stable source of revenue.)
Advocates for the Republicans in the legislature and some in the business community (who were the beneficiaries of the tax cut) have howled that she is 'raising taxes.'
That is a competely stupid argument.
If a supermarket sells a bottle of pop for $1.39, but runs a managers special in which they announce, "THIS WEEK ONLY-- $.99" for the bottle of pop, then they are doing their customers a favor for a week. If the sale ends on schedule and the price returns to $1.39 (the normal price of the pop) it would be ridiculous to storm up to the store manager and claim that by ending the sale on the day they said they would, they are raising prices. Yet that is what advocates of extending the tax cut are doing. Instead of being grateful for the three years they don't have to pay their property tax, they are instead complaining that when it expires on schedule, they will see a 'tax increase.' Maybe they would be happier if it hadn't ever been passed at all, I suppose.
This argument, of equating the scheduled end of a temporary reduction in taxes with a 'tax increase' is breathtaking in its stupidity. But we will hear exactly the same argument nationally over the next couple of years as the Bush tax cuts (you know, the ones that were supposed to give us such a great economic success story this decade) expire.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Life sentence is too harsh for videotaped beating.
We've all seen the sickening video by now of a sixteen year old girl being beaten to the point where she required hospitalization by six other teenage girls, while two teenage boys acted as 'lookouts.'
And we've heard how the Dr. Phil show has gotten into some hot water for bailing out the alleged ringleader, apparently with the promise of a future interview on the show.
It is also true that the six girls and two boys are being charged as adults. And I agree that the beating was severe enough that this is appropriate.
According to reports published late last week in the Lakeland-area newspaper The Ledger, and to Polk County Sheriff's Office affidavits, Mulberry High School cheerleader and honor student Victoria Lindsay had fought with her mother and was temporarily staying with her friend Mercades Nichols, 17, at Nichols' grandmother's house. On the evening of March 30, Lindsay entered the house, and Nichols and 17-year-old Brittini Hardcastle began to threaten her. Fourteen-year-old April Cooper struck Lindsay in the face and slammed her head into a bedroom wall, knocking her unconscious. Lindsay awoke on the living room couch, surrounded by Nichols, Hardcastle, Cooper, and three other girls, 17-year-old Britney Mayes, 16-year-old Cara Murphy and 15-year-old Kayla Hassell. Lindsay's complaint also alleges that she was held down and prevented from escaping as the girls took turns beating her while they videotaped the incident, statements supported in the video obtained by law enforcement.
What I disagree with is the prospect that at least three of the girls may be facing a life sentence in prison.
All eight suspects are being charged as adults with kidnapping and battery, say court records. The kidnapping charges constitute a first-degree felony, with a maximum sentence of life in prison. The battery charges are first-degree misdemeanors with a maximum sentence of a year in jail. Three of the girls are also charged with witness tampering, a third-degree felony with a maximum of five years in prison.
A stint in prison is probably appropriate for a serious case of assault. And the lack of remorse by the principles involved (and their parents) is sickening. But I'm not sure that a life sentence, or even a very long prison sentence is the answer. Clearly the girls who perpetrated the assault require a lot of counseling (and there are likely some home issues involved that resulted in their becoming this violent) but five year (or life) prison sentences are most likely going to transform them from out of control youth to career criminals.
I believe that some serious work, in the form of community service, may be in order, and that they probably should all go on the 'Dr. Phil' show-- to apologize publically to the victim (with all proceeds from the show to go to her.)
But while it may be appropriate to charge them as adults, I hope that the court will see the wisdom in sparing them serious prison time.
And we've heard how the Dr. Phil show has gotten into some hot water for bailing out the alleged ringleader, apparently with the promise of a future interview on the show.
It is also true that the six girls and two boys are being charged as adults. And I agree that the beating was severe enough that this is appropriate.
According to reports published late last week in the Lakeland-area newspaper The Ledger, and to Polk County Sheriff's Office affidavits, Mulberry High School cheerleader and honor student Victoria Lindsay had fought with her mother and was temporarily staying with her friend Mercades Nichols, 17, at Nichols' grandmother's house. On the evening of March 30, Lindsay entered the house, and Nichols and 17-year-old Brittini Hardcastle began to threaten her. Fourteen-year-old April Cooper struck Lindsay in the face and slammed her head into a bedroom wall, knocking her unconscious. Lindsay awoke on the living room couch, surrounded by Nichols, Hardcastle, Cooper, and three other girls, 17-year-old Britney Mayes, 16-year-old Cara Murphy and 15-year-old Kayla Hassell. Lindsay's complaint also alleges that she was held down and prevented from escaping as the girls took turns beating her while they videotaped the incident, statements supported in the video obtained by law enforcement.
What I disagree with is the prospect that at least three of the girls may be facing a life sentence in prison.
All eight suspects are being charged as adults with kidnapping and battery, say court records. The kidnapping charges constitute a first-degree felony, with a maximum sentence of life in prison. The battery charges are first-degree misdemeanors with a maximum sentence of a year in jail. Three of the girls are also charged with witness tampering, a third-degree felony with a maximum of five years in prison.
A stint in prison is probably appropriate for a serious case of assault. And the lack of remorse by the principles involved (and their parents) is sickening. But I'm not sure that a life sentence, or even a very long prison sentence is the answer. Clearly the girls who perpetrated the assault require a lot of counseling (and there are likely some home issues involved that resulted in their becoming this violent) but five year (or life) prison sentences are most likely going to transform them from out of control youth to career criminals.
I believe that some serious work, in the form of community service, may be in order, and that they probably should all go on the 'Dr. Phil' show-- to apologize publically to the victim (with all proceeds from the show to go to her.)
But while it may be appropriate to charge them as adults, I hope that the court will see the wisdom in sparing them serious prison time.
Friday, April 11, 2008
What exactly was Cheney fishing for?
While on a fishing trip, this photo was snapped of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Here is a closeup of the sunglasses. Take a good look at the reflection.
The official White House explanation is that the reflection is NOT of a nude woman, but rather of the Vice President's arm and tackle.
Decide for yourself. But whatever you do, don't go on an outdoor sporting trip with Dick Cheney.
Here is a closeup of the sunglasses. Take a good look at the reflection.
The official White House explanation is that the reflection is NOT of a nude woman, but rather of the Vice President's arm and tackle.
Decide for yourself. But whatever you do, don't go on an outdoor sporting trip with Dick Cheney.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The size of the army
During the recent discussion on Iraq and Afghanistan, we are being confronted again with a hard, cold reality-- that we simply do not have enough ground troops to fully cover the manpower needs of both wars (and you can forget about the idea that our military, at least in terms of being able to invade and occupy yet another country, is an effective deterrent anymore to Iran or anyone else who wishes to pull our tail.
Republicans often love to point out that the military was downsized after the end of the Cold War during the early 1990's and blame Democrats. That is at best an oversimplification however and at worst an outright revision of history. Following the end of the Cold War, the idea of a 'peace dividend' in which less would be spent on the military in the absence of the Soviet threat was widely bandied about Washington by politicians on both the left and the right. In hindsight, it may have been naive to suppose that there would not be other threats, and to fail to anticipate the threat from Islamic extremism, but it is certainly not anything that our friends on the right warned us about back then any more than anyone on the left assumed this would be a problem moving forward. And further, the military of the 1990's was plenty big enough to handle minor crises and wars in places like Haiti and the Balkans.
Since 2003, when we put Afghanistan on the back burner and invaded Iraq though we've had a consistent manpower shortage. The army has struggled to meet recruiting goals, tours have been extended, we've sent national guard units to fight in frontline combat operations in much higher numbers than we ever had before, we've 'stop-lossed' thousands of soldiers who were due to leave the army and some people are back in Iraq on their third and fourth tours. And recently it has become even clearer, as the administration has all but admitted that we don't have enough troops for Afghanistan because of how many are tied up in Iraq.
There was also a mini-scandal of sorts that came out this week in that it turns out the number of new recruits who have 'waivers' allowing them to join the army despite juvenile convictions or other issues has jumped from about 5% of all new recruits in 2004-2005 to a rate so far this year running at around 13%. For the record, that doesn't bother me at all since I believe that many young people make mistakes when they are younger and I don't believe that getting busted for underage drinking, drug use or some other petty crime in high school should disqualify someone who wants to turn his or her life around from doing so in the military.
We can still bomb the heck out of anyone who gets in our way but in the kinds of guerilla wars we find ourselves fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, overwhelming air superiority is at best only a minor benefit. In fact, this points out one of the basic problems we've had. We still spend as much as twenty times as much on our military as any other country in the world. So funding isn't the issue. But we've bought far too much expensive military hardware that has little use in today's wars, while neglecting the most basic of resources-- the 'boots on the ground.' We still have thousands of nuclear warheads, including those in storage, but not enough feet with boots on them. Some of this has to do with the structure of Washington itself-- makers of expensive planes and other high-tech equipment have a whole lot more lobbying muscle in Washington than does anyone whose priority is simply to make sure that we have a military tuned to the demands of the present and foreseeable future.
It is also true that during the 2004 campaign John Kerry promised that if elected he would authorize and expansion of the army to include the creation of two new combat divisions. George Bush was asked about it once during the campaign and said he'd 'consider it.' Unfortunately Bush won that election, and whether for reasons of pride (because the idea originated with his opponent) or because he is too dumb to realize the urgent need for a larger ground army, he never followed up on the proposal. Of course it takes time to authorize, pay for, recruit, train and equip a larger army (not that much time though-- in WWII we trained, equipped, won the war and had them back home in less than four years.) But had the President borrowed a good idea from his opponent and asked for the two divisions back when he began his second term they would be well on the way towards being usable and giving us the capability to fight two ground-intensive wars that we now lack.
I don't believe that we have to spend any more money to get a larger military either. I believe that instead of spending over a billion dollars on a single bomber, we should maybe look at reprioritizing our military budget and prioritize towards having more ground troops available and fully trained and equipped.
Republicans often love to point out that the military was downsized after the end of the Cold War during the early 1990's and blame Democrats. That is at best an oversimplification however and at worst an outright revision of history. Following the end of the Cold War, the idea of a 'peace dividend' in which less would be spent on the military in the absence of the Soviet threat was widely bandied about Washington by politicians on both the left and the right. In hindsight, it may have been naive to suppose that there would not be other threats, and to fail to anticipate the threat from Islamic extremism, but it is certainly not anything that our friends on the right warned us about back then any more than anyone on the left assumed this would be a problem moving forward. And further, the military of the 1990's was plenty big enough to handle minor crises and wars in places like Haiti and the Balkans.
Since 2003, when we put Afghanistan on the back burner and invaded Iraq though we've had a consistent manpower shortage. The army has struggled to meet recruiting goals, tours have been extended, we've sent national guard units to fight in frontline combat operations in much higher numbers than we ever had before, we've 'stop-lossed' thousands of soldiers who were due to leave the army and some people are back in Iraq on their third and fourth tours. And recently it has become even clearer, as the administration has all but admitted that we don't have enough troops for Afghanistan because of how many are tied up in Iraq.
There was also a mini-scandal of sorts that came out this week in that it turns out the number of new recruits who have 'waivers' allowing them to join the army despite juvenile convictions or other issues has jumped from about 5% of all new recruits in 2004-2005 to a rate so far this year running at around 13%. For the record, that doesn't bother me at all since I believe that many young people make mistakes when they are younger and I don't believe that getting busted for underage drinking, drug use or some other petty crime in high school should disqualify someone who wants to turn his or her life around from doing so in the military.
We can still bomb the heck out of anyone who gets in our way but in the kinds of guerilla wars we find ourselves fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, overwhelming air superiority is at best only a minor benefit. In fact, this points out one of the basic problems we've had. We still spend as much as twenty times as much on our military as any other country in the world. So funding isn't the issue. But we've bought far too much expensive military hardware that has little use in today's wars, while neglecting the most basic of resources-- the 'boots on the ground.' We still have thousands of nuclear warheads, including those in storage, but not enough feet with boots on them. Some of this has to do with the structure of Washington itself-- makers of expensive planes and other high-tech equipment have a whole lot more lobbying muscle in Washington than does anyone whose priority is simply to make sure that we have a military tuned to the demands of the present and foreseeable future.
It is also true that during the 2004 campaign John Kerry promised that if elected he would authorize and expansion of the army to include the creation of two new combat divisions. George Bush was asked about it once during the campaign and said he'd 'consider it.' Unfortunately Bush won that election, and whether for reasons of pride (because the idea originated with his opponent) or because he is too dumb to realize the urgent need for a larger ground army, he never followed up on the proposal. Of course it takes time to authorize, pay for, recruit, train and equip a larger army (not that much time though-- in WWII we trained, equipped, won the war and had them back home in less than four years.) But had the President borrowed a good idea from his opponent and asked for the two divisions back when he began his second term they would be well on the way towards being usable and giving us the capability to fight two ground-intensive wars that we now lack.
I don't believe that we have to spend any more money to get a larger military either. I believe that instead of spending over a billion dollars on a single bomber, we should maybe look at reprioritizing our military budget and prioritize towards having more ground troops available and fully trained and equipped.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Clinton campaign's obsession with Bill Richardson is not helping them.
A couple of weeks ago I put up a post on Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama in which I described some of the angry reactions that came from Clinton supporters, especially James Carville's comment comparing Richardson to Judas Iscariot.
Things haven't died down either. This week it was reported that Bill Clinton, while meeting with a group of Super Delegates in California and being asked about Carville's comments, blew up, got red in the face and according to one participant 'went off like a grenade.' He was quoted as getting red in the face, shaking his finger and saying about Richardson, "He promised me five times to my face he wouldn't do that." Richardson has since denied that he ever promised Bill Clinton (or anyone else) that he wouldn't endorse Obama.
Well, in this game of he said/he said, one thing is clear-- at least one part of what Bill Clinton said is demonstrably false. While running for President himself, Richardson was clear that he was running to try and win the nomination on his own. He withdrew on January 10. CNN reported Tuesday that they had compared the two men's schedules since that time and found that the two men were in the same place only once since then-- on February 3 when they watched the Super Bowl together. So at most, Richardson COULD have only made such a promise one time, not five (since Bill Clinton clearly said "to my face," which to me pretty clearly indicates in person, not by phone, email or other messaging device.) Whether he made the promise on that occasion is an unprovable, but given that at least one part of Clinton's statement has already been shown to be less than truthful by the CNN sleuths, all other things being equal Richardson has more credibility on this than the former President.
More to the point though, the longer this goes on the worse it hurts Hillary Clinton. She is running against Barack Obama right now, not Bill Richardson. So no matter how bad her campaign and supporters make him look, they are taking their eye off the ball. Maybe it's little wonder that her lead in Pennsylvania, which just a week or two ago was polling as high as twenty points, is now less than half that much. Yeah, keep on campaigning against Bill Richardson. I can see the Obama campaign thinking, 'heh-heh-heh,' the longer this goes on.
It is true that the Richardson endorsement broke through a couple of weeks of static and has since led to a steady trickle of other super-delegates and influential party leaders endorsing Obama (including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Minnesota Senator Amy Kobluchar, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal and former Indiana Congressman and 9/11 commission co-chair Lee Hamilton, in addition to a comment not quite rising to the level of an official endorsement by former President Jimmy Carter who strongly hinted that he will vote for Obama at the party convention.) But beating up on Richardson some more still won't turn off the tap on superdelegates declaring their intention to vote for Obama giving him some substitute for momentum during a six week stretch between primaries. So it's hard to see what the Clinton campaign has to gain from this.
Things haven't died down either. This week it was reported that Bill Clinton, while meeting with a group of Super Delegates in California and being asked about Carville's comments, blew up, got red in the face and according to one participant 'went off like a grenade.' He was quoted as getting red in the face, shaking his finger and saying about Richardson, "He promised me five times to my face he wouldn't do that." Richardson has since denied that he ever promised Bill Clinton (or anyone else) that he wouldn't endorse Obama.
Well, in this game of he said/he said, one thing is clear-- at least one part of what Bill Clinton said is demonstrably false. While running for President himself, Richardson was clear that he was running to try and win the nomination on his own. He withdrew on January 10. CNN reported Tuesday that they had compared the two men's schedules since that time and found that the two men were in the same place only once since then-- on February 3 when they watched the Super Bowl together. So at most, Richardson COULD have only made such a promise one time, not five (since Bill Clinton clearly said "to my face," which to me pretty clearly indicates in person, not by phone, email or other messaging device.) Whether he made the promise on that occasion is an unprovable, but given that at least one part of Clinton's statement has already been shown to be less than truthful by the CNN sleuths, all other things being equal Richardson has more credibility on this than the former President.
More to the point though, the longer this goes on the worse it hurts Hillary Clinton. She is running against Barack Obama right now, not Bill Richardson. So no matter how bad her campaign and supporters make him look, they are taking their eye off the ball. Maybe it's little wonder that her lead in Pennsylvania, which just a week or two ago was polling as high as twenty points, is now less than half that much. Yeah, keep on campaigning against Bill Richardson. I can see the Obama campaign thinking, 'heh-heh-heh,' the longer this goes on.
It is true that the Richardson endorsement broke through a couple of weeks of static and has since led to a steady trickle of other super-delegates and influential party leaders endorsing Obama (including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Minnesota Senator Amy Kobluchar, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal and former Indiana Congressman and 9/11 commission co-chair Lee Hamilton, in addition to a comment not quite rising to the level of an official endorsement by former President Jimmy Carter who strongly hinted that he will vote for Obama at the party convention.) But beating up on Richardson some more still won't turn off the tap on superdelegates declaring their intention to vote for Obama giving him some substitute for momentum during a six week stretch between primaries. So it's hard to see what the Clinton campaign has to gain from this.
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