The New Republican Leader-- Sounding Like the Old Republican Leader.

Well, now we have seen John Boehner's first comments on privately funded travel for congressmen. And he said 'Keep it.'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The new Republican leader in the House of Representatives backed more stringent disclosure rules for lawmakers and lobbyists Sunday, but criticized measures such as a ban on privately paid travel proposed by other GOP leaders....

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant," the Ohio congressman told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Uh, we already know that leaders of Congress have gone on all these junkets, paid for by lobbyists, corporations and others who want to influence them. That is what is at the center of the current scandal swirling around several members of Congress.

This may be why Boehner is reluctant to change the travel plans:

Boehner has taken trips valued at more than $157,000 since 2000, paid for by nonprofit trade organizations and think tanks, according to Federal Election Commission records compiled by the online research group Political Moneyline.

He told "Fox News Sunday" that the trips -- which include visits to Scotland, Belgium and Spain -- are necessary to keep lawmakers informed on the issues before them.

Hmmm. Scotland. Wonder if he went golfing with Bob Ney and Jack Abramoff. What's it about Scotland, anyway? Maybe it's the whiskey? Or maybe they really have found something in Loch Ness, and it's so hush-hush that they have to bring all those Congressmen there to see it?

These guys just don't get it, do they?

Coretta Scott King has earned the honors that Martin never got.

Thousands of mourners filed past the casket containing the body of Coretta Scott King today in Atlanta.

The bronze casket carrying the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was carried through the streets of Atlanta on a horse-drawn carriage before being ushered into the Capitol by an honor guard of the Georgia State Patrol. The crowd outside cheered and threw roses as the casket went by.

A lone bagpiper played "Amazing Grace" as Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife, Mary, escorted the casket into the statehouse, a sharp contrast to the official snub afforded Martin Luther King Jr. nearly four decades ago by segregationist Gov. Lester Maddox.

The wounds of 1968 may be a long time healing, but this scene shows how far we have come (although it is an irony that Republican Perdue won the Georgia governorship by campaigning to restore the old state flag which incorporated the Confederate battle flag, so in some ways we haven't come as far as we should have.)

It is true that lacking a firm knowledge of when Dr. King would have died of natural causes had not an assassin cut his life short at the age of 39, the death of his widow is the closest we can come to the kind of closure that we will never completely get. And it is certainly true that her casket lying in state in the Georgia statehouse is an honor that he deserved but never received.

It would be a mistake though to suggest that she is simply a 'fill in' for her husband. That would be false, in fact. After her husband's death, Coretta Scott King spoke out often and eloquently about what he had fought for. She spoke both about those things which have been accomplished and those things which remain to be accomplished. She fought to get him recognized as a leader, recognition which finally came when his birthday was declared a national holiday. Mrs. King delivered the 'State of the Dream' speech every year, both summarizing the successes that had been made in that year and detailing the challenges that lay ahead. And all of this she did while also raising children who were 12, 10, 7 and 5 when their father was murdered.

It may be true that had she not married Dr. King, the world might not know who Coretta Scott King was. But it may still have known, for she possessed a strength of character which would likely have been recognized anywhere. And the accolades that she is receiving this week are hers, not Martin's. She has earned them for a lifetime of standing up for what is right. With the benefit of the past 38 years to look over, it is clear that Martin Luther King believed in attaining the highest standards of character. Just look at who he married.

I may detest what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it-- Voltaire.

If you want a closer look at them individually, you can do that at this site (hat tip to indyvoter).

Now, I find these cartoons, which first were published in a Danish newspaper last week and caricature the prophet Mohammed, pretty disgusting. Even though I am not a Muslim, I can understand why they are so angry at cartoons depicting, among others, Mohammed wearing a turbin which is shaped like a bomb. And that cartoon certainly does nothing to fight the image that all muslims are terrorists, or that Islam itself is a violent religion, which in general is not true. And they are not even good cartoons; they look kind of goofy and not very well drawn. So why am I publishing them on Deep Thought, where I have in the past been outspoken against prejudice and stereotyping?

I'm publishing them because as a defender of free speech, I feel an obligation to publish them. I'm publishing them because once a death sentence was issued by a bunch of fanatics, it became the right thing for defenders of freedom to do. I'm publishing them in solidarity with the people throughout Europe who have been threatened with death for publishing them. A fatwa, or declaration that those who publish these should be killed, has been issued. I find this kind of thing to be repulsive in the extreme. And so I believe that the best way to fight it is to publish them as far and wide as possible. Make it clear that a handful of cartoons that probably would not have made it far from the lunch counter in Copenhagen, absent the fatwa, have now been seen by people all over the world. In their rage, they defeat themselves.

I believe in freedom of speech, even for speech I deplore.

NOTE: Bloggers on the right have taken the lead in this here in the U.S.; Now, granted, it may be easier for someone who actually agrees with the point of the cartoons to post them, but if there is anything we should be able to agree with them on, it is free speech.

Hate crime statistics

A couple of days ago I put up a post on race relations, and got quite a variety of comments. Some people said that things are getting better, while others pointed out (as the post did) that racial tensions are still with us.

Then there were two incidents reported in the national media over the last couple of days that brought the specific matter of hate crimes to light. In the first, a woman who was apparently mentally disturbed, and who was a self-described racist, went on a shooting rampage at a mail processing facility in Goleta, California, killing at least seven people (including a former neighbor) before taking her own life. News reports out tonight suggest that race may well have been a motive, as she did not fire at the white security guard or other white employees but selectively shot minorities. Three of her victims reportedly are black, one Filipino, one Hispanic and one of undetermined race. In the second crime, a teenager entered a gay bar in Massachusetts with a hatchet and attacked several patrons. When the hatchet was wrestled away from him, he pulled out a handgun and began shooting. Luckily, it appears that while several people were injured, some seriously, no one was killed in that incident.

Because of the discussion on the previous board and the news items from the past two days, I decided to examine FBI hate crime statistics to learn what was right and what was baloney. I compared the 2004 statistics (the most recent available) and 2000 statistics (which is on pdf, you will need to scroll down to page 11 to find the table comparable to the 2004 statistics. You can in fact access the FBI report for any year from 1995 to 2004 by linking from this page.

I learned four things:

1) the people who are saying that things are getting better slowly do have a point, although the emphasis is on the word, 'slowly'. The total number of hate crimes declined from 8,063 incidents in 2000 to 7,649 in 2004. Now, this is much too slow, IMO, and the quicker we can reach the neighborhood of zero, the better, but things are slowly getting better.

2) the traditional targets of hate crimes: blacks, Jews and gays still are way out in front of all other targets. There are about 3 times as many incidents in which blacks are targetted because they are black, as there are incidents in which whites are targets because they are white. Jews in 2004 were the victims of religiously motivated hate crimes in 69% of incidents (down from 75% though in 2000, largely due to the increase in hate crimes targetting muslims-- more on that in observation 3). Gay people were the targets in 1,147 of 1,197 crimes in which sexual orientation was an issue. Bisexuals were targets in 17 of the crimes (which I suspect were nearly all also committed by heterosexuals but I have no proof of that) and heterosexuals were the targets in 33 incidents in 2004. What this means is that Pat Robertson's claim from a few years ago that gangs of homosexuals were going out and beating up straight people notwithstanding, for every such incident there are more than thirty incidents involving gay people being targetted due to their sexual orientation. Collectively, blacks, Jews and gays, who together are less than 20% of the population, were the targets in well over half of all hate crimes.

3) What is in the news and heated rhetoric makes a difference. The most obvious example is Islamic people. In 2000, there were 28 incidents where muslims were targetted, while in 2004, this had jumped to 156 incidents (nearly six times as many). And this was three years after 9/11, when incidents targetting muslims spiked off the charts. Of course the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and terrorist incidents around the world may have played into this, but honestly, even if someone is fully of the belief that radical Islam is the biggest threat we've ever faced, how does beating up a muslim man in Pittsburgh do anything to advance America's military situation? Another area where rhetoric seems to have played a role is in attacks against immigrants. Despite the overall decline in hate crimes, incidents targetting people based on their national origin are up. I suspect that rhetoric targetting immigrants has played a role in this.

4) Hate crimes against the disabled have jumped by over 50%. That makes me wonder if, slight improvements in the rates of other hate crimes aside, we are becoming a more mean-spirited society (what kind of scummy human being attacks disabled people out of hatred, anyway?)

Another thing that this post makes clear is that hate crimes laws are still needed. Just consider this: without hate crimes legislation, someone who paints a swastika on a synagogue or Satanic symbols on a church is only guilty of graffitti vandalism, even though the clear intent is to harrass and intimidate. And these numbers are still high enough that we need to be sending a clearer message as a society that you are free to have your opinion, even if it is to hate others, but as soon as you take action and commit a crime because of that, then that is absolutely not acceptable.

Just remember-- this is what Republicans are all about.

The White House and Republicans may have backed off of President Bush's promise to cut mideast oil imports (hat tip to Dorsano for that) just the day after he made it (why did he say it, then?) but they made good on one of his priorities: Today the House passed a budget bill that includes cuts in medicaid and student loans. The vote on passage was 216-214 (funny how Republicans always manage to pass this kind of stuff by just the margin they need, while a few of their more vulnerable members get to vote against it.)

Of course, this makes a lot of sense since cuts in other sources of government funding for universities have resulted in sharply higher tuition. Apparently the intent of these Republicans really is to create a plutocracy-- make a four year college degree (which is required for most leadership positions) the exclusive purview of the wealthy. Sure there are scholarships, but the number of scholarships available is far less than the number of students who are accepted at American universities and colleges every year. The net effect will be to lock out middle class families if they don't have a genius or a basketball star in the home.

An analysis of the December 18 budget reconciliation agreement is linked to here. The reason for the re-vote (this is the same bill that was passed on Dec. 19) is because of technical differences between the House and Senate bills (nothing substantive however.) According to the analysis, which I blogged originally on Dec. 19 on CRFA (same bill, so I am revisiting the analysis I made then)

Cuts in Medicaid will require higher co-payments and lower benefits to poor people on the program. Now, I realize that everyone in America, even if they have insurance, are now seeing higher co-payments and lower benefits. And in that context, it is worth noting that the 'managed care' plans we have now ARE the Republican answer to the Democratic proposal for Universal Heathcare in 1994. However, the failure of the GOP model should not mean that we will now penalize the poorest of Americans, in one of the few programs where people CAN avoid having to worry about changing their doctor or being turned away for healthcare due to lack of coverage.

Higher benefit cuts in the area of 'asset protection' for middle class people who want nursing home care than were in either the original House bill or the original Senate bill. 'Asset protection' allows people to have something left they can pass on to their families even if they need long term health care.

For example, one provision of the House bill that appears to have been retained in the conference report would penalize many non-affluent individuals who make modest gifts to relatives or contributions to charity, and then experience an unexpected decline in their health several years later that causes them to need long-term care. So, if for example, your parents gave you some money last year, or made a donation to Hurricane Katrina relief or tsunami relief, and then in a few years they get sick and need nursing home care, they will be asked to give that same money to the nursing home, or what is spent on their care will decline commensurately. This makes clear that the people who are always going on about how bad inheritance taxes are (they prefer to use the term, 'death tax') want to make sure that if you are middle class and have a lingering disease, no you won't have anything to pass on-- the nursing home will get it all (and it makes it clear that the position of the Bush administration opposing the Oregon voluntary euthanasia law is actually quite sinister-- it almost seems as though it is their INTENT to make sure that every penny that can be stolen from the middle class and redistributed to corporate interests is taken-- even if it means forcing terminal patients to suffer for years until every penny they have ever earned is snatched away by health care providers.)

The conference agreement includes Medicaid reductions in this area of $2.4 billion over five years and $6.4 billion over ten years (higher than the $2.2 billion over five years and $5.8 billion over ten years in the House-passed bill). The Senate’s more targeted and carefully designed provisions in this area would have produced savings of $335 million over five years and $890 million over ten years.

There were some winners in the budget bill, however:

The conference report’s health care provisions also move toward the House bill in another respect: they cater to powerful special interests — in particular, the pharmaceutical and managed care industries — at the expense of low-income beneficiaries...

The conference report also protects Medicare managed care plans. It drops a Senate provision that would have eliminated a wasteful $10 billion slush fund to encourage participation in Medicare by regional Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs). The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) — the official, independent advisory body to Congress on Medicare payment policy — recommended this summer, in a nearly unanimous vote, that this fund be eliminated because it is unnecessary and unwarranted and provides an unfair competitive advantage to PPOs over traditional Medicare fee-for-service and other managed care plans such as Medicare HMOs. Nevertheless, the conference agreement leaves this fund fully intact.

This is the provision by which PPO's are paid to be willing to accept other government money that comes via Medicare. A payment to be willing to get paid. But this remains intact.

Partially gutting another provision to curb overpayments to managed care plans: There is near-universal agreement among analysts that the current Medicare payment structure provides excessive payments to managed care plans, and the Administration announced earlier this year that it would act administratively to eliminate a feature of the payment formula that is responsible for a significant volume of excessive payments... it appears that the conference agreement is written so the part of the Medicare payment formula that would be reformed would revert to its current, problematic status after five years, and after that time, managed care plans would again receive the overpayments this provision is supposed to curb.

Outright overpayment to some healthcare providers, and they can't even permanently eliminate that. I wonder if there is also a line in there somewhere for continuing to fund fraud.

Other cuts included in the bill include cuts in child support enforcement (obviously lobbying for the votes of deadbeat parents), welfare-to-work programs (I guess because they have been so successful, they no longer have enough 'welfare queens' to beat up on so they need to create a new generation of them to support right-wing rhetoric), child care funding, SSI disability payments, and foster care funding.

Maybe that is why the House leadership was forced to change the rules and release, let members study and vote on this monster in four and a half hours on the morning of Dec. 19, between 1:12 AM and 5:43 AM (which might also explain why this time around there were so many more Republican 'no' votes-- some of them actually have had time to read the bill.)

State of the Union speech

President Bush opened his speech with a brief tribute to Coretta Scott King, who died earlier in the day.

The tribute was appropriate, but it was notable in that it was all that the President had to say about race relations; relations that certainly were on display during Katrina, a lowpoint of the past year that the President would like to forget. What happened to, 'we will rebuild the Great City of New Orleans?'

Well, here, near the end of the speech:

So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We are removing debris, repairing highways, and building stronger levees. We are providing business loans and housing assistance.

Yet as we meet these immediate needs, we must also address deeper challenges that existed before the storm arrived. In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country.

Pretty much as little as he could get away with saying.

The President said as little as he could about Katrina, and nothing at all about race relations in general.

He began with the war on terror, which he again linked to the war in Iraq. This went on for half his speech.

One line went like this: In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies on Earth. Today, there are 122.

And American invasion and occupation created how many of those? Even if Bush claims that both Iraq and Afghanistan are successes, look at how many democracies were created without the use of American troops.

do not forget the other half — in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran — because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom as well.

Burma is the old colonial-era name for Myanmar, but considering how Bush was brought up to view the world, I guess that slip can be excused. Of course the biggest repressive nation in the world-- China, is our 'buddy' right now, so they don't make the list.

[Terrorists] seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder. Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world.

1. If we hadn't gone into Iraq, the terrorists would not be pouring in there to kill Americans.

2. Their attacks in London, Bali and Madrid (all of which occurred since after the Iraq war started) seems to suggest that the attacks are happening anyway, and they don't originate in Iraq.

In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders.

Tell that to the Minuteman project.

If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat.

First, they have singled out the U.S. for attack because we are the primary source of support for the corrupt and ruthless monarchies that hold sway in most of the countries they are from. If we quit supporting all those sheiks and emirs, I suspect they would be overthrown from the inside, removing the main source of anger and resentment among people in those countries who like bin Laden turn to terrorism as an answer. True, they would still be angry at us for supporting Israel, which we will continue to do, but at the same time, the way to address this is by working towards a comprehensive settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, something that Bush's predecessors at least tried to do, with varying degrees of success, but which he has never really tried to do.

Second, When is this a war about honor? Democracy, yes. WMD's, yes it was pitched that way. terrorists, that was used. But war is a terrible bloody thing, and those who think that it is about covering oneself with glory are probably still living in a past that in reality never was, to those who actually fought and died in the wars of human history.

Now, there is no question that we should never even consider making peace with someone like bin Laden, but that in no way justifies Iraq.

Third, we are striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy. Iraqis are showing their courage every day, and we are proud to be their allies in the cause of freedom.

And I'm sure that the Badr brigade, Iranian backed militia that have infiltrated the Iraqi army appreciate the training.

Marine Staff Sergeant Dan Clay was killed last month fighting the enemy in Falluja.

I thought we ended the resistance in Fallujah last November; guess not. Guerilla warfare is nasty-- you can control a place, but as soon as you leave the land reverts back to local control. That's why we have trouble controlling any place for very long in Anbar Province.

And tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

Ouch. How do you think that Iran will respond to this? I don't know, but think how it would feel if a foreign power said to us that they were speaking to the American people and that they hope that someday we will be a theocracy like them.

Previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have -- and federal courts have approved the use of that authority.

We've looked at that before. Abuses of the past led to the creation of the FISA, and turning back the clock to the days of those abuses hardly represents progress.

In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs.

That was after losing nearly three million before that. And the jobs lost have been mostly manufacturing jobs, with benefits, and replaced by low paying jobs with no benefits. So, over five years, Bush's record is a net of less than 2 million jobs. And in any case, Clinton created 20 million jobs in eight years.

This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year -- and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009.

Why do I get the feeling that these programs help the poor and the elderly? And Bush has squandered way more than $14 billion on his Medicare drug plan alone, not to mention Iraq and the effects of the tax cuts on the deficit.

The retirement of the baby-boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal government. By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. And that will present future Congresses with impossible choices -- staggering tax increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every category of spending.

Note, that the Medicare drug bill, projected to grow much faster than Social Security, is a big part of that. It is a sop to the pharmaceutical industry, and even an awful lot of seniors don't see much worthwhile in it. So the quickest way to address that is to undo the mistake of two years ago and get rid on the bill.

Also, if we had a national health care plan like other industrialized countries, we could keep costs down by negotiating with health care providers (as I have blogged on before, they are a higher proportion of the GDP in the U.S. than in other countries), and then we would be able to get rid of Medicare and Medicaid (which would be folded into the overall system.) What people don't think about is that they are already paying taxes to provide healthcare to the elderly and poor-- two high risk groups, and STILL have to, between their employers and themselves plus the profit to the insurance company, pay for their own health care.

As to Social Security, I agree that there is a problem ahead if we do nothing. However, what the President proposed to do last year (borrowing billions to privatize part of the system) would have done zip towards making it solvent. Come up with something that works, then we can look at implementing it. Also, one thing that no one factored in last year (couldn't, because you can't assume a law will change) is that with the millions of illegals, almost all young, who are now working 'off the books' (and therefore whose employers don't send in any Social Security taxes). If in fact we do create either some kind of anmesty or guest worker program so that the employers can report them as legal hires (and send in Social Security tax on them) that in itself would go a long way towards restoring a better balance of active to retired workers. Getting rid of the cap on wages subject to the tax would also go a long way towards solving the problem. If a company can afford to pay their CEO $40 million per year, then they can afford to pay 6.2% in Social Security taxes, the same as they pay for their lower level salaried employees.

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security.

Thank God for that. His proposal would not have saved Social Security, just as a similar privatization scheme passed in Britain in 1984 damaged, rather than saved, the British retirement system.

Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker.

Then, let's make the playing field level: tie free trade agreements to upholding standards similar to ours in environmental protection laws, working conditions and pay, and anti-corruption measures (well, maybe even a bit higher than ours on that last one.)

Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care.

Hint: Healthcare is affordable in all other industrialized countries.

We will strengthen health savings accounts.

I will have to do a post on these insidious little schemes sometime. HSA's are a mechanism primarily designed to shift more of the responsibilities and costs for health care onto workers.

I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year.

One problem with that is that the number they like to quote-- $250,000 (reduced to $166,667 if your lawyer gets a third and is willing to write off expenses), is about what some operations can cost. So what he is saying is that if they make a serious medical error (like the little girl at Duke University Medical Center who got the wrong heart a few years ago) and kill your child because of negligence, stupidity and incompetence, you get your money back. Heck, even Rick Santorum, a leading advocate of limiting lawsuits to $250,000, got more than that himself a few years ago when his wife sued a chiropracter. It's just you that they want to limit.

But as far as your medical bills that they can charge you-- the sky is still the limit.

ENERGY ADDICTION: See my last post.

Tonight I announce the American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy, and to give our nation's children a firm grounding in math and science.

First: I propose to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. This funding will support the work of America's most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and alternative energy sources.

Does that include I.D., Mr. President? And what good is it to have our kids learn science when we have cut research budgets at institutions of higher ed across the country, limited what they can research (i.e. stem cell limitations) and ignore what they find out if we don't like it(the mountains of evidence on global warming). This administration has been the most anti-science of any I can remember (not just my opinion, either, scientists feel the same way), so this is a perfect example of rhetoric that flies in the face of reality.


We have made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country.

Uh, SAT scores and other standardized testing scores began going up under Clinton. If anything, credit Goals 2000. This begins a recurring theme that Bush goes into here: taking credit for successes that Bill Clinton created.

In recent years, America has become a more hopeful nation. Violent crime rates have fallen to their lowest levels since the 1970s. Welfare cases have dropped by more than half over the past decade. Drug use among youth is down 19 percent since 2001. There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades.

Hopeful? People are now spending more than they are saving for the first time since the great depression. Hopeful if you are a bank liquidation company that stands to benefit from the new bankruptcy bill.

Crime rates? Credit the Clinton 1993 crime bill that put 100,000 new cops on the streets, built more prisons and created youth programs (remember Republicans poking fun at midnight basketball leagues? Well dang it, they worked.)

Welfare? Of course it's down, since we booted more people off welfare. Now granted, some needed to be booted, but some have ended up on the streets with no hope of finding a job. And those who were booted off and found jobs, did so among the 20 million jobs that Clinton created.

Drug use among youth: Credit Clinton again. Anti-drug education in the schools works.

Abortion and teen pregnancy: Yes, they are down. I've blogged on that as well. At least Bush gets the time frame right. And what has happened over the past dozen years? Sex ed, family planning, and birth control (yes, including condom distribution in the schools.) Keep in mind that 'abstinence only' education is a recent phenomenon that is still used in only a handful of schools. The success, in other words, of the Liberal agenda. Which conservatives opposed tooth and nail.

So Bush is right in terms of that paragraph. But he takes credit for the fruit that someone else planted.

This is a very typical State of the Union speech (by Bush or any other President): Long on topics, short on specifics. We will have to see what his specific proposals are this year, but there is little in here that gives me much hope.

Arriving at the game in the eighth inning.

Apparently in tonight's state of the union address, President Bush plans to preach an end to 'oil addiction'.

Hope he succeeds in that, insofar as our economy shouldn't be dependent on what happens in unstable oil producing regions of the world.

However, he is rather late to the game.

Here are some initiatives that have been proposed by Democrats over the years, which Republicans have blocked or cut back on:

* Increasing fuel mileage standards on vehicles.
* Increased use of alternative fuels, including research on
electric, hydrogen and other fuel sources.
* More funding for mass transit.
* Tax credits or funding for installation of solar and better
insulation in homes.

Now, I hope that the President is serious about ending our addiction to oil (for greenhouse gas reasons, in addition to other reasons), but let's see if he follows his words with actions.

It wasn't today's vote. We blew our best chances to stop Alito weeks ago.

As I predicted, not with enthusiasm, but with a realistic outlook, Samuel Alito will be confirmed.

I suspect that Republicans would have been able to push it through no matter what, but today's filibuster vote (only 25 in favor) is the culmination of a series of strategic blunders that scuttled any chance we as Democrats had of derailing this.

Start with the Harriet Miers nomination. Though I had my misgivings about Ms. Miers, I suggested that as Democrats we should support her. She actually had a number of positions when she was a city councilwoman which made her seem like someone who could be reasonable. And the fact is, a lot of Democrats may have enjoyed watching the President get his wings singed by the far right in the GOP (and with the coup de grace administered by Democrat Chuck Schumer), but we shouldn't have been watching. We should have pushed ahead with the process. It is likely that the half of the Senate Republicans who remained loyal to the President together with Senate Democrats could have gotten her confirmed. And she would have been a centrist, much the same as O'Connor. But not wanting to fight the same fight twice, it became inevitable when she withdrew that the President would choose someone from the far right (I predicted that too, before it happened.) And if, God forbid, there is another vacancy on the court, you can be sure that the President will take the road he has walked successfully, and choose another bleak conservative, likely Michael Luttig or Edith Jones.

Time tested political advice: If your opponent makes a mistake, jump on it. We let it go by, waiting for... what?

Then, a number of further strategic mistakes were made in how we went about opposing the Alito nomination. Democrats could have avoided the whole 'party of no' label easily enough, by pointing out that half the Democrats in the Senate supported Roberts, and that we were prepared to support Miers. Therefore, a full frontal attack in the press and in ads on Alito would have carried some weight. But early on, our representatives were much too timid, allowing attitudes about him to gel pretty much as the right wanted them to. If Democrats in the Senate had decided to go for a filibuster, the time to begin putting the pieces in place for that was in the early days after the nomination was announced. But because little was done, people on the whole either ignored Alito or decided that he wasn't so bad (remember we on the left can see the problems with him, but the majority of people are not so political in the first place, and need specifics before they can be induced to support us.) Trying to put together a last minute filibuster was bound to fail. Our opponents were organized, and we were not. A dozen phone calls at the last minute are less effective than one on the first day. Trying to put together a filibuster in two days is like trying to stop a train when it is already pulling out of the station. Most likely outcome: you get run over by the train.

This was a party wide failure. Our leaders should have made a decision early on whether to filibuster and stuck with it. If they were not going to, then they should have made the decision to go public in a major way and try to turn the tide of public opinion. But they did not do that either. So in the end, it was only a question of how to play out a losing hand.

What can we do now? First, work to make sure that Democrats take control of the Senate. Second, begin educating people now about how the conservatives are one vote short of the five they need to support the right of the government to interfere in people's lives in every way one can conceive of. Then, if there is another vacancy, we will have already laid the ground work to prevail in the court of public opinion.

Race relations in sports, and in society.

I've had a couple of things happen this weekend which have caused me to ponder race relations in America.

On Saturday, I took my kids to the movies, and we saw Glory Road, the movie out from Disney starring Josh Lucas as Don Haskins, who in 1966 was hired as the men's basketball coach at Texas Western University (now UTEP) and recruited several very talented African American basketball players, who won the national championship that year by beating the all white University of Kentucky team coached by the legendary Adolf Rupp. Incidentally, if you see the movie, Haskins has a cameo. At one point Lucas is playing Haskins talking on a telephone at an Esso gas station; there is an old guy washing the windows on a vehicle behind him-- that's the real Don Haskins.

On Sunday, I was in a Sunday school class in which we were discussing Cain and Abel. Someone said that the 'mark of Cain' was a darker skin color. I didn't let that slide by unchallenged, which led to an interesting discussion. In fact, nowhere is 'skin' mentioned in discussing the mark of Cain, and I've heard it described as a spiritual darkness rather than a physical manifestation. However, this isn't a religious blog and I've had enough of discussions that raise Cain for awhile, thank you.

After these events, I think it may be appropriate to blog on the present state of race relations in America.

Now, it is true that a great deal of progress has been made, compared to the way things used to be. Although the film sugar coats things in a way and makes Haskins out to be larger than life (he was a great basketball coach, to be sure, and deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, as he is-- and I remember booing Haskins lustily as a high school student in Albuquerque when I attended University of New Mexico games-- Haskins was about the only coach who could bring his teams into the Pit and consistenly leave town with a win). And he was color-blind (which is admirable, considering the era when he began coaching). But Disney crosses the line when they have Lucas as Haskins giving a speech in which he decides to start five black players because 'I want to end this (racism in basketball) tonight, forever.' In fact, Haskins' quote on why he started five black players was, 'I started my five best players.' The accurate quote would have worked just as well as the 'superhuman' version, and it would have been what he actually said. As I said, the man was colorblind, but he's still just a man. Don't treat him as more than that. Moreover the article I linked to points to problems that remain in College Sports. They focus on UTEP as an example, but the problem extends beyond that. And as far as sports is a microcosm of society, after we read this, we should consider society as a whole.

Haskins could never have dreamed of starting five blacks at any other school in Texas in the mid-1960s. Credit for that would have to go to El Paso, whose history of race relations is complicated; the city in many ways is more Western than Southern.

Still, Glory Road is a finely constructed film that does an excellent job of depicting the mid-'60s era. The banter and camaraderie between the players is perfect. As the films credits rolled, I saw movie-goers trading high-fives and chest bumps, no doubt leaving the theater certain that this road to glory for Texas Western and the world of college basketball was now on the superhighway to equality.

But that's not true, either.

UTEP, now a school with a Hispanic majority, has had countless black athletes who have, like the 1966 Miners, brought attention to the school — athletes like Bob Beamon, Seth Joyner, Tim Hardaway and Antonio Davis.

But consider this: Since that glorious 1966 game, UTEP has had seven athletics directors, 11 football coaches, four men's track coaches and three other basketball coaches. (Don Haskins finally retired in 1999.) That's 25 positions of leadership for some deserving coach.

Yet, every one of those 25 has been filled by a white male. Not a single black man. Or a Hispanic man. Or a woman of any race. Too bad that Don Haskins hasn't been doing the hiring.

Sadly, it's not just UTEP that has this problem. NCAA Division I-A football counts over a hundred teams as members. More than 50 percent of the players are black. Yet less than 3 percent of the head coaches are black.

In fact, the exact number in Division I-A football is 5 coaches out of 119 teams. That is less than the NFL (6 black head coaches) and the NFL only has thirty-two teams. One reason for this is that the NFL has implemented an aggressive affirmative action program, requiring that each team interview at least one minority candidate for any head coaching vacancy. And the turnarounds created by coaches such as Tony Dungy at Indianapolis and Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati make it clear that blacks have what it takes to coach in the NFL, and blow out of the water the idea that there are a shortage of blacks who can do the job. Colleges, which are still tied financially to boosters, which may include 'good old boys' networks, have no such plan. The SEC, the conference most associated with racial decisions (and the last one to integrate) has yet, to this day, to hire a black head football coach at any of its twelve schools.

Well, we know that college sports has a way to go, what about the rest of society? There are those who suggest that the laws that have been passed making discrimination illegal obviate the need for affirmative action and more regulation.

Unfortunately they are wrong. It is true that if you can prove discrimination in matters like housing, employment or job promotion, you now have the right to go to court. Unfortunately, this process is time consuming and expensive, and as we saw after Katrina, racial discrimination in housing (in that case, housing evacuees) does still happen.

Further, those who oppose continuing Federal regulation to protect against discrimination are generally those who wonder why African-Americans continue to vote in the 90% range for Democrats. The answer is quite simple, in fact. After 100 years of segregation, it required the Federal Government, whether under Eisenhower, Kennedy or Johnson, to force open a segregated society after Brown vs. Board of Education. So while those who believed in equality fought and united and won on their own, it is certainly true that some bastions of segregation, such as Central High in Little Rock or the University of Alabama, could not be desegregated without the use or threatened use of Federal force. The Federal government then continued to monitor the situation to make sure things were going forward. Now, we know that Republicans have preached for years, 'state's rights' and about smaller, more limited Federal government. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if a state changed something a few years ago only because of the Federal Government, that if the Feds take the pressure off, there will be a movement in that state (which may or may not eventually be successful) to return back to the 'old way of doing things'. And we know the old way of doing things was not healthy, in a lot of ways, if you are African-American. So, most African-Americans vote Democratic because they would rather see the Federal government remain involved with these kinds of things and not just trust states to do the right thing. History suggests that this is prudent.

As to those who argue that because everyone has an equal opportunity now, according to the law, affirmative action is no longer necessary, they are also wrong. To see why, consider a sports analogy:

Suppose that you are playing on the road in a football game. In the first half, the referees are not around. So they pull a few fans out of the front row (by coincidence the front row is where the other's teams biggest boosters sit), hand them whistles and flags and start the game. During the first half, no penalties are called on their team (despite cheap shots on almost every play), they get generous spots, even to the point of having the referee nudge the ball a little if you think you stopped them short, and your team is called tight, for even the smallest penalty, and if a player on your team makes a good run anyway, it is called back because of a 'ghost' penalty. Because of this one sided refereeing, your team is down 40-0 at halftime. At halftime, the real referees show up and agree to start calling the game fairly, but in a concession to the other team, they agree to keep the score from the first half as it is when starting the second half. Now, you could work your tail off in the second half, but 40-0 is a huge deficit, and while a few teams might manage to climb out of that hole (and be held up as examples that 'anyone could do it') most won't manage to overcome such a huge deficit. And so it is with minorities (not just African-Americans) in America today. The law may say everyone has the same opportunities now, but they are still largely behind the eight-ball because of blighted neighborhoods, lousy schools, high unemployement and other problems that may well have their roots during segregation (as well as a few, i.e. drugs, that have nothing to do with segregation and everything to do with scoping out a population vulnerable to your sales pitch.) And holding up the occasional kid who grows up in a ghetto or a barrio and becomes highly successful as an adult as proof that people can succeed from anywhere in life, is like holding up the powerball lottery winner as proof that we don't need social welfare, and poor people should buy lotto tickets instead. Sure, anyone can succeed (theoretically) but most don't succeed when the deck is stacked against them.

One does not have to agree with the solution to this problem (I myself believe that we still need some level of affirmative action, and I would propose an ongoing program, rather than direct cash compensation for the government refusing to honor '40 acres and a mule,' that instead focused on education and scholarships, money for small business startups and homebuyer assistance.)

In fact, black people are still facing the adverse effects of slavery as well, but segregation is much more recent and its effects are quantifiable (and to be honest, society did as a whole pay dearly for the costs of failing to stomp out slavery earlier-- probably close to a million lives, nearly all white, lost in the Civil War, which determined (among other things) that there would be no more slavery in America.)

Other minorities, such as Hispanics and Native Americans generally did not suffer from slavery (there was an attempt made by the Spanish in Mexico to enslave the local population, but the effects were disastrous, in that many of them died and in close quarters spread pandemics among themselves and their masters), but have suffered from segregation and discrimination.

What about reverse discrimination? Well, it exists. To deny that is as foolish as denying that there is still traditional discrimination. Mayor Nagin's recent 'chocolate city' remark notwithstanding, there is no doubt that racial tension and discrimination can cut both ways. Until we can all (no matter who we are) accept Neapolitan ice cream in our town, we will continue to have problems with race.

And attitudes like those I discussed earlier? Yes, they exist as well. And there will always be some people who insist on it. However, the best way to fight these sorts of attitudes is to stand up and speak out when we hear someone say it, no matter where we are. However, I am also optimistic that as society grows towards diversity, it will be harder and harder to maintain these kinds of attitudes.

Is America's race problem better? Yes. Is it good enough to declare that it is over? Absolutely not. And there is no excuse why it is not.

They'll probably claim this was necessary as part of the war on terror, too.

We know that whether it is about restricting stem cell research, or pushing non-science into science classrooms, or ignoring data on climate change, or cutting budgets for student aid even as tuition has skyrocketed, the Bush administation has, to put it mildly, not been friendly to science.

We also know that they have not responded well to whistleblowers or anyone else who writes a story that contradicts their philosophy, and they or their attack dogs try to punish or at least muzzle the messenger (hence in July of 2003, ABC journalist Jeffrey Kofman wrote an article critical of the administration's handling of Iraq, and within 24 hours that story was buried under an avalanche of smears about Kofman, who most Americans had never even heard of before, being a 'gay Canadian' journalist.)

So it should not come as any surprise that these two trends have come together in the matter of James E. Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist.

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Of course the administration, like people who still claim that the moon landings were a piece of fiction filmed in a Hollywood production studio, continues to question global warming (despite the fact that the only scientists who agree with this position either have questionable qualifications, or they are drawing their paycheck or have close financial ties to industries who are desperate to spit in the face of reality to avoid having to make a change.) And industry as a matter of fact has figured it out as well, with the shipping company OMNITrax spending serious money to improve port facilities and railroad access to the sleepy little port of Churchill, Manitoba, in anticipation of when melting of the Arctic icepack will open up a shorter shipping route between Asia and eastern North America.

So, when someone like Mr. Hansen comes out of the woodwork and says something they don't like, their response is not to consider if a guy who has looked at NASA climatological data since 1967 might know a few things, but instead to shut him up.

The legislature gets a choice: Fund Flores, or watch Flores get funded.

Arizona's Republicans have long been a mixture of practical conservatives who are willing to work on fixing the state's problems, and those who can only be described as the 'nut-bag' right, those whose stubborn 'take no prisoners' brand of obstinacy can lead their own party into trouble. Unfortunately, the second group have often held sway within the Republican caucus, and it has cost their party, the state and the citizens of Arizona.

And so it is again. Today a Federal judge, following up on a series of decisions in the case, Flores vs. Arizona, which found that funding for English-learner programs was entirely inadequate, especially in a state that requires 'English only' as the official language, ordered that the state be fined $500,000 per day and it be deposited into a fund to help English-learners. This means that Governor Janet Napolitano, who supports the funding and has been at loggerheads with the legislature over it and who just this week vetoed two more attempts by Republicans to low-ball it, now can get her way just by doing nothing. Just let the fines accumulate long enough, and the by next year, the funding the courts require will be in place and ready to roll. And any bill the legislature passes that the Governor signs, students in English learner class get an extra half million outside of the bill for every day that they spend working on the bill.

Last year, the legislature sent the Governor another bill that was wholly inadequate, so she vetoed it (together with a pair of Republican tax credit bills just to make it clear that there needed to be give and take.)

Now, this has been working its way through the courts for fourteen years, so conservative Republicans who controlled the legislature for all of that time have had plenty of time to fix the problem. But being unwilling to do anything about it, they have sacrificed mightily just to reach today's decison against them. Had they gone along with the first court order regarding Flores, they would today have already addressed that problem years ago, and would certainly have delivered the tax cuts the Governor vetoed last year, but instead, they stubbornly stuck to their 'spend as little as possible' dogma, and now it has cost them everything. They won't have the money that is going into the fund to spend on anything else (including tax cuts), and now that the Governor will get this priority funded automatically just by leaving the whole thing alone, the legislature's only chance to get her to sign a bill on Flores funding is to pass a real one. There will be a special session starting this week to deal with Flores-related issues, but the Governor holds all the cards now, and the conservatives know it.

Time to call a special prosecutor.

How do you get rid of somebody who has been very successful at his job, and because he is so good at it, he's giving you heartburn?

How about give him a promotion?

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.

The prosecutor, Noel L. Hillman, is chief of the department's public integrity division, and the move ends his involvement in an inquiry that has reached into the administration as well as the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill....

Colleagues at the Justice Department say Mr. Hillman has been involved in day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began almost two year ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on accusations that Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a generation.

Now there are two ways to look at the nomination for Hillman, who has, in the course of his investigation, unravelled the complex web of ties between Abramoff, the Bush administration and Congress, and collected enough evidence against Abramoff to induce him to plead guilty three weeks ago to three corruption related charges in exchange for his cooperation with investigators (Mr. Hillman being the chief one) who theaten to expose quite a lot of corruption this coming year.

One way to look at this is that President Bush is so impressed with Hillman's work on the Abramoff case (pretty much all he has worked on for two years) and how much he has uncovered, and how he was able to break down one of the most powerful unelected people in Washington, that the President feels that he has earned the right to a Federal judgeship.

The second possibility is that President Bush is so nervous about the work Hillman is doing, getting closer and closer to both the President and his allies in Congress, that lacking a way to fire him or remove Hillman from the case without creating an even bigger firestorm (remember how thoroughly that backfired on Nixon during the so-called 'Saturday Night Massacre'), he has decided that giving the attack dog a steak is the only way to get him off.

Now, I'd love to suppose that it is the first reason, but to be honest, I believe that like I believe Brownie did a 'heckuva job'. And I can't blame Hillman for accepting the opportunity of a lifetime. Most of us would do the same.

However, what may have motivated the President to pluck a very effective prosecutor off of such an important case is secondary. Hillman has accepted the offer, and will become a judge as soon as he is confirmed by the Senate. So the question is what comes next.

And Democrats are absolutely right, when they point out that the importance of the Abramoff investigation is so high that it is appropriate to call a special prosecutor:

Mr. Hillman's nomination for a judgeship was among the factors cited Thursday by four Democratic lawmakers, two senators and two representatives, in calling on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to name a special prosecutor to oversee the corruption investigation.

The timing of Mr. Hillman's nomination "jaundices this whole process," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in an interview. "They have to appoint a special counsel. I think there will be broad support for one."

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, called the timing "startling" and said, "You have one of the chief prosecutors removed from a case that has tentacles throughout the Republican leadership of Congress, throughout the various agencies and into the White House."

Of course, Republicans, who have much more to lose, don't want one. Truth is, they would rather that this all go away entirely. But since it won't, they prefer to keep it under the purview of the Justice Department (that way, if someone starts sniffing too close to the bone, they can appoint him as a judge or something.) Recall, however, that whatever they may be saying now, that Republicans had no problem calling for a special prosecutor to investigate a 1986 land deal that the Clintons lost money on. And they kept it going for years, until the final report which had nothing about the land deal but was full of pornographic details about an affair that the President hadn't even had yet when the office of the Whitewater special prosecutor was first created. If that is the standard, then it seems that someone pleading guilty to corruption charges involving members of Congress is a much more serious matter and represents a bigger threat to our democracy.

President Bush has the Constitutional right to nominate who he wants to judicial positions (subject to the advice and consent of the Senate), and I suspect that Noel Hillman's name will sail through the Senate with none of the controversy we have seen around the Alito nomination. However, with his administation itself being among the many targets of the Abramoff probe, it is time for the Attorney General to ask Congress to create the office of a special prosecutor to investigate corruption and influence peddling.

Interpreting the Hamas victory-- and where from here

There are election upsets and election upsets. Most often, people know when one is coming. Whether in the case of Bill Clinton's upset of George Bush Sr. in 1992, or the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, or the recent Canadian election booting the Liberal party after 13 years of Parliamentary control and a kickback scandal, people pretty much know these results are coming because of polling that takes place ahead of the election. And this is true internationally as well. For example, in the British elections, the polls predicted that Tony Blair would get his wings clipped but survive. That happened. In the German election, the polls predicted that Andrea Merkel would replace Gerhard Schroeder, and she did. Polls showed ahead of the recall election that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez faced two years ago that he would win by a huge margin, and he did. In the recent Iraqi elections, polls predicted that the main Shiite party would win but not by enough to form a government all by themselves. Although the Shiites did a little better than expected (finishing ten votes short of an outright majority when the polls had predicted about twice that far), the polls were essentially correct. Polls also picked the winners of the recent elections in Chile and Bolivia.

So, polling showing on the eve of the Palestinian election that Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party would retain power despite a stiff challenge at the ballot box from Hamas, seemed to be the case early on, when returns showed Fatah with a narrow lead. So I went to bed believing that they had won the election. Wrong. Hamas, a terrorist group which has specialized in sending suicide bombers into Israel and which calls for the complete eradication of Israel, won a shocking victory. This one was truly under the radar. It is clear that the people who polled Palestinian voters need to work on their science. And it is clear that the vote was less for Hamas, than it was against a government led by Fatah which has been corrupt, ineffective and unable to deliver peace. And the fact is that Hamas has used the money they have collected for 1) arms, and 2) to deliver services for poor Palestinians (who turned out in droves to elect them). What they have not done with it is enrich themselves (Arafat died with a fortune in banks around the world-- much in contrast to the grinding poverty that his people faced), so at least as far as getting rid of the corruption, they seemed well poised to do that.

The victory, which surprised even Hamas leaders, presents both a dilemma and an opportunity for peace.

The dilemma is obvious. Israel cannot sit down at the peace table with people whose only peace objective is to destroy them. And in the short term, it seems likely that the Israeli electorate is most likely to elect a candidate to lead that country who is a hawk as well (this outcome bodes well for Netanyahu in particular), fearing that Hamas in actual control of the Palestinian Authority will be a deadly threat. And they are right, if Hamas chooses to use its control to conduct more sophisticated and larger scale attacks against Israel.

There is also an opportunity here. One that is unseen right now, but could be exactly what is needed. The opportunity will present itself if Hamas, recognizing that they now have to govern, matures to the point that they see themselves as representing the nascent Palestinian state, as opposed to greater Palestine (i.e. getting rid of Israel). And they did leave the door open to that in their first public statements, reiterating their position on getting rid of Israel, but also reiterating their pre-election 'truce' opposing attacks on Israel, and stating that they are still abiding by it. They will inevitably have to deal with Israeli government officials in matters ranging from border crossings to water usage, and as such will inevitably be forced to acknowlege the existence of Israel. Of course, Israel has refused to negotiate with Hamas representatives as well, so I suspect these contacts will be done behind closed doors, and likely through intermediaries such as Egypt or Jordan, arab countries which have contacts now with Israel.

And whatever Hamas' official position is, they are likely smart enough to figure out that if they took the forces available to the Palestinian Authority into a full out war with the Israeli military, the result would be the destruction of the Authority and would set back any hopes for a Palestinian state by at least a generation.

But the real reason to be optimistic in the long run (though pessimistic right now) is based on an observation of the qualitative difference between Israel and the Fatah government of Arafat and Abbas: Israel could, and did, keep their promises even in the face of intense domestic opposition (the recent forced evacuation of the Gaza settlements being a case in point.) And Israel has had leaders like Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, who despite sometimes being considered as terrorists by their opponents, could at the same time command the respect and support of their people and be able to back up any offer they made at the peace table both with strength and with their good word. In contrast, after Arafat walked away from the Barak deal and went along with those who wanted to start the 'intifada,' I remember a very profound summary of Arafat's actual authority over the Palestinians from a Palestinian man I remember discussing it with once on the CNN message boards. He said something to the effect that, 'Arafat has the authority to say, 'yes' to those who wanted to riot. In other words, he was the acknowledged leader mainly because the west recognized him as such, but in fact, his real authority extended only as far as he went along with the people who wanted to attack. Abbas didn't even have as much pull as Arafat, and so his party was dumped unceremoniously as soon as the Palestinian people had a chance to do so (Abbas remains technically the President of the Palestinian Authority, but he presides over a parliament that is dominated by Hamas). In fact, this election only validates what many have known for a long time: that Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, has been the real power among the Palestinians for the past few years. And here is the reason for long term optimism even if it will start off on a rocky road: Unlike Fatah, Hamas can actually make their current truce or any other moves towards peace they make stick, because they have both the moral authority and reputation for ruthlessness among Palestinians (and no, that is not an oxymoron in that part of the world) to make it stick. Hamas, if they can be induced to accept reality and the fact that Israel will remain on the map, has one card that Fatah (under both Arafat and Abbas) never had. They can tell even the biggest hotheads among the Palestinians, either 'yes' OR 'no' when it comes to carrying out attacks. And if someone violated their directive, well let's say I wouldn't want to be that someone (including anyone who cooperated with them.) So while Hamas is not now a suitable negotiating partner, and won't be as long as they insist on the destruction of Israel, ultimately they may hold the most necessary card that Israel has proven they have, but was missing in Arafat's hand-- the ability to make any agreement reached hold, on their side.

Tragic accident casts another spotlight on the state where it is most needed.

I hate blogging about tragedies.

And I've been circumspect, for example, waiting until the day after the funerals began for the victims of the Sago Mine disaster before I said anything about it on Deep Thought. And one benefit of this is that I have facts available to blog with, instead of engaging in idle speculation.

Today though there was a story out from Florida that really makes me angry. Angry because it's very closely related to something I have been pointing out for years (literally) and not much has been done about. Today's tragedy may or may not turn out to be related to the problems in the Florida child welfare system (we will have to learn more about what happened to determine whether and to what degree the adoptive parents of seven children and the Florida Department of Children and Families may have been at fault.) What we do know is that seven children who had been (or in one case were being) adopted by the same family were in a minivan, driven by a fifteen year old girl (the legal age to obtain a driver's license in Florida is sixteen) and it was struck from behind by a truck carrying bottled water (which apparently failed to brake) and then was crunched between the truck and a school bus. If any of the seven survived the initial impact (doubtful given how compressed the van was), they died soon after as the van was engulfed in flames. Two children on the bus are also in very serious condition tonight and several more were injured in the crash.

Now, today's episode and the question of why the driver was allowed to drive, and carry six others before it was legal to do so aside, it is a fact that the state of Florida has singularly and spectacularly failed in its duty to protect its children.

Last year, the state was in the headlines for failing to track and follow up with convicted sex offenders. Two of them subsequently killed young girls in places where according to records, they should not have been. Once that came out, it turned out that making sure that registered sex offenders actually were living where they were registered was just not a priority for Florida, and it appears that thousands may have slipped through the cracks.

The Florida Department of Children and Families was also negligent in some truly apalling ways, such as losing dozens of children, including five year old Rilya Wilson, who simply has vanished to no one knows where sometime during fifteen months of missed visits by DCF.

Now, I know a number of people who work with kids here, and I am sure that they are the same in Florida--mostly hard working professionals, underfunded, underpaid, and overworked, who when they make the right call rarely get credit but if they make a mistake, it will haunt them, in every single sense of that word, for the rest of their lives. However, there is a difference between Arizona and Florida. When we had some egregiously horrible cases here involving Child Protective Services, our Governor made reforming CPS a top priority, and pushed the funding for it through a Republican legislature. The Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, had the opportunity to do the same, but he chose to do nothing.

In fact, Jeb's biggest nod to kids was to try to eliminate twelfth grade, and replace it with a year of preschool in order to save costs. Of course, most parents who care about their kids already send them to preschool, so in fact this was simply to eliminate twelfth grade (to pay for Jeb and the Republican legislature's tax cuts.) In a world where America's kids are increasingly losing the competitive edge with their counterparts from foreign countries, and where many blame, rightly or wrongly, our educational system, it is hard to understand how chopping off a year of high school will benefit children in Florida.

We need to do better by our kids everywhere, and it is true that we can't jump to any conclusions about today's tragedy until the police finish investigating it, but it has been clear in the past that the Sunshine State is way behind the rest of the country in taking care of kids.

Morales first move: Get them before they get you.

Last month, Bolivia elected leftist Evo Morales as President. The election was a disappointment for Washington, since they clearly didn't favor Morales (a close ally of Hugo Chavez), who had promised that he would only cooperate in the 'war on drugs' if guarantees are offered that Washington is reluctant to offer; Bolivia is a major producer of coca, the main ingredient of cocaine. However, in the past many indigenous farmers, even those growing other crops or producing small amounts of coca for sale in local markets have had their farms wiped out in large scale military operations involving Bolivian military with American support. The small farmers and others living in rural Bolivia in turn provided a large margin for Morales when he took a tough tack on ending these operations, allowing him to win the Presidency.

Of all the countries where someone like Morales could get elected, Bolivia is the one where one problem in particular, that has festered all over Latin America since the days of Bolivar, screams the loudest for attention: military corruption. It is only recently that the 'coup a year' adage was no longer completely true for Bolivia (for years, we were reminded that since gaining independence in 1826, Bolivia averaged 'a coup a year.') Despite the fact that Bolivia has, like the rest of Latin America, made the transition to Democracy, the military in Bolivia still considers itself the most powerful institution in the country, making a coup a distinct possibility at any time. And Morales is well aware of the abortive coup attempt that his mentor, Chavez, faced in 2002 (a coup attempt which the Bush administration initially welcomed, until it became obvious that it would fail.) In his first test of leadership, Morales moved swiftly to address this potential threat.

He appointed a lower tier general, Wilfredo Alfredo Vargas, to head the armed forces. Many of the higher ranking generals were furious at being passed over. Apparently they believe that the old way of doing things in Bolivia should be followed. However, let's note that first, the President has the right to appoint anyone he feels comfortable with to head the armed forces, second, that given the history of coups in Bolivia, it is probably wise of him to pick who he trusts ahead of who is looking to move up, and third, since his stated objective is to get rid of corruption in the military, we may assume that when choosing a leader, he looked at who was honest ahead of who had picked their way up the ladder in the old system. The claims that Vargas is unqualified don't ring true, either. They would if Morales had picked a political hack to head the military, or if he had picked a private, or a sergeant, but a general, even a lower level one, probably knows enough about the military to make intelligent decisions about how to run it.

In fact, Morales had good reason to feel he couldn't trust the existing military establishment.

The decision to send 28 Chinese shoulder-launched missiles to the United States for destruction prompted Morales' predecessor to fire a top army chief, whom Morales replaced in Tuesday's ceremony at the Government Palace...

Morales argued during his campaign that the decision to turn the missiles over to the U.S. was illegal because it was not authorized by Congress.

Now the issue here isn't whether the missiles were obsolete, as the army claimed, nor whether it happened under Morales' predecessor or under Morales. It is that apparently in Bolivia the army still believes that they can make decisions like this in open defiance of the civilian leadership.

He did make one decision I'm not so sure about:

Morales also named new army, navy, air force and police chiefs.

Bolivian navy? Did I miss something?

Morales, whose leftist government took power Sunday on promises to reinvent Bolivia by fighting poverty, discrimination and corruption, said he would investigate the missile case.

"I regret that some of the generals are under scrutiny by the government," he said. "They have to submit themselves for investigation."

"It's important to strengthen our armed forces because a country without a military is not a free and sovereign country."

Now, Morales has not said that he isn't willing to cooperate with Washington on policy issues, including the war on drugs. He has only said that it has to be done on an equal footing, and the rights of farmers and others who are only making a living have to be respected.

He is definitely a leftist:

In addition to supporting small farmers and loading his government with union leaders and other political activists, he appointed a Marxist known for criticizing gas and oil companies to oversee Bolivia's energy policy.

But regardless of his politics, he is clearly an able leader who knows the score, if his first few days in office are any indication. Washington had probably best get used to the idea of dealing with Evo Morales for the next several years.

Our military effectiveness suffering for Bush's mistakes.

Another article that says the same thing we keep hearing: Army stretched near the breaking point.

WASHINGTON - Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a “thin green line” that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract...suggested that the Pentagon’s decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended....

The Krepinevich assessment is the latest in the debate over whether the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn out the Army, how the strains can be eased and whether the U.S. military is too burdened to defeat other threats.

Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and Vietnam veteran, created a political storm last fall when he called for an early exit from Iraq, arguing that the Army was “broken, worn out” and fueling the insurgency by its mere presence. Administration officials have hotly contested that view.

This report seems to indicate that Murtha is right.

Remember the military machine that George W. Bush inherited from Bill Clinton? It was the same one that Clinton inherited from Bush Sr., that had won the Gulf War resoundingly. Under Clinton, it did the same job in Kosovo. Although I never supported the rationale for the war in Kosovo, I have to admit that our military did an extraordinary job of stopping the killing that was going on there, and did so at a cost of zero U.S. casualties.

So when George W. Bush took over, he had the most successful, most frightening military machine that has ever been assembled in the history of the planet. Used wisely, this could have done a great deal of good.

Then September 11 happened, and America went to war in Afghanistan. And we booted the Taliban out, got Osama on the run (and would have had him if we hadn't outsourced the job of finishing him at Tora Bora to Afghan militias who could either be fooled, bribed or cajoled into letting bin Laden escape,) and looked to be in control of the situation in Afghanistan. Had we sent enough troops and kept them there, there is every reason to think he would be history today.

But then the Bush administration chose to go into Iraq. And ignoring the advice of Gen. Shinseki who said that 400,000 troops would be needed during the occupation phase to prevent an insurgency from taking root, Don Rumsfeld and George Bush effectively fired him and planned to do the job with 100,000 (which was talked up to 150,000 by Gen. Casey.) Now that the insurgency is there, our presence does nothing to prevent it, and when we fight we feed it as much as we damage it.

And with the present administration's record of inflexible dogma, even ticking off our allies by our methods (remember that Italy was a coalition partner until we kidnapped a terror suspect off the street in Milan in a covert op) it is certain that we can't expect much tangible help (other than maybe some cheerleading) if we go to war again, for example against Iran.

And as I have said numerous times, there is a reason why Iran has become so much more confrontational now. They know the U.S. could still bomb them very effectively. But they also know they can survive that, and that to actually overrun the country, we would need 'boots on the ground,' and right now we don't have any to spare. We did four years ago (one reason why having the monstrous military might available that George Bush did then was a good position to be in; deploying force effectively doesn't necessarily mean actually using it.) Iran knows that our military is like a cannon that has been fired. We have to reload it before we can fire it again, and in the meantime the advantage is theirs, to take as much advantage as they can. Does anyone really think that if we still had the physical ability to invade and occupy Iran, that they would be as belligerent about their 'right' to build nukes as they are now?

Our military is like a very good car. Maintain it and use it properly, it will take us anywhere we need to go, internationally speaking. But fail to maintain it and abuse it, even the best car will break down after awhile.

Ford joins GM on the layoff list, Daimler Chrysler shows it's not inevitable.

Last November, I blogged on layoffs announced by General Motors.

Today, Ford announced that it is cutting 30,000 jobs.

Note that the Ford cuts are occurring pretty much the same place as the General Motors cuts. None outside of North America, and within North America, almost all in the United States, with relatively few job cuts in Canada. The whole Ford list has yet to be announced, but so far, five plants have been announced: Windsor Casting in Canada, Batavia Transmissions in Ohio (both parts makers which have no further market with the shutdown of assembly plants) and three major assembly plants: The Wixom assembly plant near Detroit, the St. Louis assembly plant in Missouri and the Atlanta assembly plant in Georgia.

Now, I briefly addressed Ford's problems in my post last November:

then why IS General Motors in such dire straights, especially compared to foreign auto makers (not just Toyota)? For that matter, Ford is limping along as well, hamstrung in similar ways, and Chrysler has had a mild resurgence, and that only since being absorbed by Daimler-Benz, a German company.

In fact, I was a little off on Daimler Chrysler. It is not just having a 'mild' resurgence, but its U.S. sales are up by a healthy 5% (including both sales of Chryslers and of German imports).

Now, there has certainly been mismanagement at both GM and Ford, which banked too heavily on bigger and better SUV's, even as consumers were finding that both the payments and the fuel prices on SUV's were no longer so affordable. But there is more here than that.

Conservatives will blame unions, and the associated contracts. However, that ignores the fact that Daimler Chrysler is doing so well (they have UAW unions in the United States, and in Europe they have arguably even stronger unions and workplace laws that include more vacation time and higher pay than in America.)

What we should recall is very simple. Health care. Foreign auto manufacturers (remember Diamler Chrysler makes a lot of cars in Europe) don't have to worry about either paying health insurance premiums or paying someone to administer their plans. And without healthcare on the table, unions and management already start labor negotiations much closer together.

About fifteen years ago, foreign governments were accused of 'subsidizing' their auto, steel and other heavy industries by American manufacturers. And they were, if you call their national healthcare plans a 'subsidy.' Our lack of one adds over a thousand dollars to the price of a new GM or Ford vehicle, and that is why American manufacturers are hurting, and increasingly closing plants in the U.S. (and just as in the case of GM, the Canadian plants are less likely to be closed than plants on this side of the border).

The fact is, America is a very rare bird when it comes to healthcare, in fact unique in the world. We are the only nation that doesn't have a national healthcare system, but in which a majority of our population is covered by private healthcare (most nations with only private healthcare are third world, poverty stricken nations, where only the privileged few can even afford a doctor; And developing countries that can afford for more than these few citizens to have health care, still opt for socialized medicine (like Mexico.)

Now, conservatives have a very specific solution. They would like for workers to pay part or all of their health premiums, claiming this would restore America to competitiveness in the world economy.

Well, that depends what kind of competitiveness you mean. Apparently they mean competitiveness against impoverished nations where people do in fact purchase their own healthcare, if they can afford it. Yeah, we could compete economically with Chad! They obviously don't mean competitiveness against countries like Germany and Japan, where most of the cars that have been chasing GM and Ford out of the market are made. Apparently, they can't even look at Daimler Chrysler (a hybrid company with half its workforce under national healthcare) and figure it out.

Having to ask the same questions, again.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged It is now time to start asking hard questions about the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia that claimed the lives of twelve coal miners and in which the one survivor was found by rescuers literally on death's doorstep.

Unfortunately, questions like those which needed to be addressed then, are slow to answer. Investigations must be done, the intentional misdirection and obfuscations of those who don't necessarily want full answers must be punctured, and then legislation must be passed. That takes time. And as the time drags so slowly by, the conditions that need to be corrected continue to exist, in many other places.

And so it was today. Two more West Virginia miners died, this time following a fire at the Aracoma Coal companies' Alma #1 mine near Melville, West Virginia.

Now, let's review the questions I asked in my post two weeks ago: I will copy and ask the three questions exactly as I asked them then, and then look at how they relate to the current disaster.

1. Why was action not taken by the owners of the mine to bring it into compliance? According to a number of news stories, the Aracoma mine received more than 90 citations from Mine Safety and Health Administration in 2005. According to the MSHA Web site, the most recent were issued Dec. 20, when the mine was hit with seven violations for problems related to its ventilation plan and efforts to control coal dust and other combustible materials. So, despite the mine receiving all of these citations, there is no indication that the owners actually spent any effort or money actually addressing them.

2. Why, after violation after violation after violation, did the government not take action to close down the mine? Well, just as I answered two weeks ago, merely issuing citations and then doing nothing to enforce them, as was the case with the Sago mine, in effect gives the owners the incentive to do nothing. As long as this question has to be asked, the first question will always have to be asked. But there is even another twist here. Today's tragedy was started by a fire in a conveyor belt system. It turns out that

An MSHA proposal in the early 1990s would have required more vigorous testing of fire resistancy of conveyor belts. But it was shelved in 2002.

The agency proposed the change after a study showed that conveyor belts sparked 53 coal mine fires between 1970 and 1988, with 36 of them occurring in the 1980s.

So this particular problem was well known by the government, and they proposed a remedy. But it was set aside by the Bush administration.

3. The mine was a non-union operation. Would a union have helped prevent this?

I will repost my answer from two weeks ago, because like the Sago mine, the Alma #1 mine is non-union.

You bet your sweet patootie they would have. Unions go to court and fight aggressively to have regulations enforced and safety improvements made, and the 'penalty' problem I mentioned in the second question doesn't exist, because employers fear legal action by the union and/or strikes much more than they fear the relative inaction by the government. Three years ago, the union in Pennsylvania (remember that?) pushed for everything from a speedy rescue operation to overtime pay for the trapped men.

In the face of a government whose response to these kind of things ranges from inaction to actively trying to roll back safety requirements, the best friend that people working in dangerous jobs like this can have, is a strong union.

We should turn this job over to a Union.

Notice what you don't see any of in this story.

The New York Transit Workers, who just before Christmas engaged in a three day strike, voted on whether to accept a new contract. And despite the urging of union officials to accept the contract that was negotiated with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, they rejected it by seven votes, by a margin of 11,234 against to 11,227 in favor.

Now, there are plenty of recriminations floating around, and they are examined in the article. The point of this post is not to take a position about whether the contract was good or not, or whether the union should have rejected it or not, or whether the campaigning was above board or not, or whether Governor Pataki's threat to veto funds that were involved in a key part of the contract affected the vote, or not. I'm not taking a position on it because I really don't know enough about the specifics of the Transit Workers contract to take a position one way or another.

No, the point of this post is to look at what isn't in dispute. The vote count. This is an election in which thousands of votes were cast, the margin was seven votes, and no one is disputing it, or asking for a recount, or threatening to go to court over it, or challenging the legitimacy of a single vote that was cast, or leveling accusations of fraud or chicanery.

In fact, the reactions of the defeated proponents of the contract were decidedly muted.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the harshest critics of the three-day walkout in December, called the contract rejection "disappointing news to all New Yorkers." He urged both sides to return to the negotiating table.

and

[union President Roger] Toussaint blamed "downright lies" told by contract opponents for the ratification failure but said the union's leadership was ready to "go back to the drawing board" as soon as possible.

So the losers acknowlege losing and are ready to go back and work on putting together a better package.

Now, we saw that a few years ago, when George W. Bush and Al Gore were within a margin that percentage wise was even closer than this in the state of Florida, the Republican machinery which is in control in that state was engaged together with the national Republican machinery to make sure that the recount was never completed. And despite the HAVA, what we had last year was a system rife with disputed numbers, apparent errors, allegations of hacking and other vote fraud, and complaints. And today, the same problems still exist. And probably a number of local elections (maybe even statewide elections) will remain in doubt until well after the election. Some may end up in court, and whoever is eventually declared the winner, will not be the winner in the minds of those who supported their opponent.

And this is despite millions spent on new voting equipment.

I have a suggestion.

Let's turn elections over to a bunch of union guys. It looks like they can count the votes and get it right, so that no one questions even the closest elections.

Bin Laden Truce Offer

Every now and then I end up agreeing with the Bush administration. And at least to a degree, this is one of those times.

Osama bin Laden sent a tape offering a 'long-term truce.'

The Bush administration, after confirming that it was indeed bin Laden on the tape, rejected the offer.

Now, unless bin Laden is completely delusional, he must have known that this would be the answer. So either he is desperate (I hope that is the case, but probably not, given our failures to date, and the diversion of American resources into Iraq which could be used looking for him) or he thinks that by making a tape like this he can divide the American people.

If so, then he is wrong about that. I believe that the Bush administration made a stupid and completely wrongheaded move into Iraq, but that has nothing to do with the fight against Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is still the man who has repeatedly attacked America, and who has killed thousands, both Americans and those who simply got in his way. Allowing him to move about freely while rebuilding his organization is absurd in itself (even without the added benefit he would gain just by virtue of his survival of being able to claim that he 'defeated' us which he could then use to stir up even more unrest throughout the region). The President was absolutely right to reject this offer. My only complaint on this topic with the President is that he hasn't done enough to take out Mr. bin Laden, instead focusing on Iraq. But as far as the need to catch and either kill or capture Osama bin Laden, there is no disagreement with that here. I hope that whatever else the President achieves (and thus far, little if any of it has been good) he does leave with Osama bin Laden neutralized as a threat. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by accepting his offer. The only way such an offer could even remotely be entertained is if he agreed to renounce publically everything he has devoted his life to, and lived by that renunciation, and I doubt if we will ever have to consider whether to accept it in that kind of context.

So let me say it here:

I fully support President Bush in his quest to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.

Now, that is not to say that there aren't other things we can and should be doing to address the situation we now find ourselves in involving Mr. bin Laden.

Let me draw an analogy. Our foreign policy in the middle east, in particular, propping up unpopular monarchies that plunder their countries' wealth and oppress their people, and which we do because we need the oil, is like a lifestyle, which has produced the cancer of Osama bin Laden and his followers.

Now, President Bush has said that we need to get rid of them. And he is absolutely right about that, we should aggressively treat the cancer until it has been eradicated. If he has not done so vigorously enough, instead choosing to concentrate on what amounts to muscle enhancement instead (i.e. Iraq) then I only urge that he get re-focused on the task at hand, beating the cancer.*

What the President has not done, is address the underlying causes of why we are having to contend with the likes of Osama bin Laden. It is as if someone who was fighting cancer continued smoking three packs a day, eating the same poor diet they had before, and other risky behavior. Sooner or later, they would be likely to have more cancers, even if they were successful at treating that one.

What the other part of this equation is, is that we need to 1. conserve oil and develop more fuel efficient vehicles to be able to cut middle eastern oil out of the picture, 2. quit propping up monarchies like the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families and let the people there make their own decisions about what to do about them, and 3. work at least behind the scenes with reformists and Democratic leaders in those countries (but absolutely never with Osama bin Laden-- the only right we should be willing to grant him, is the right to hire a defense attorney, should he be fortunate enough to live to see the day when he needs one.)

*--and before anyone suggests that Iraq is a part of this fight, I'd like to point out that al-Qaeda's only foothold in prewar Iraq was an enclave way behind Kurdish lines, nowhere near anyplace that Saddam had any control over; and if we left Iraq, then it would be Zarqawi and the other terrorists who have come there to kill our troops, who would then be seen as the foreign invaders and would be opposed by the local populace.