"Tea parties" turn ugly

I've been looking on the internet for 'tea party' coverage today, and the organized protest that appears to have been put together by the GOP doesn't seem to have nearly as much pop as, for example, the antiwar protests of a couple of years ago.

It started with FOX News blaring about 'hundreds of people in Boston.'

Yeah. A few hundred in one of the countries' major metropolitan areas. That was with great weather, free finger food and a chance get their face on TV. I think more people than that show up every night and pay to watch a double-A baseball game just about anyplace in the country. Remember that over two million people came to the Obama inauguration, on a very cold day when they had to stand in line for hours and not only was no food provided but there was a shortage of porta-potties.

However this has shown a lot of what the right wing and their following is really about.

On CNN (courtesy of blog for Arizona), reporter Susan Roesgen interviews a couple of people who appear to actually know as much as the typical 'idiot-on-the-street' that Jay Leno likes to interview when he goes walking. One guy keeps saying Obama is a fascist and apparently has no idea what that means. He just keeps repeating that Obama is a fascist.

Ignoring the fact that the crowd shots they've shown (if you could call it a 'crowd') are pretty much all white, two incidents really highlight what this is about.

1. They had one in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. Someone threw a box over the fence. Security had to clear Pennsylvania Avenue and call in the bomb squad who sent a robot to examine the box. Luckily it turned out only to be a box of tea but the threat was unequivocable.

2. Joe Wurzelbacher (also known as 'Joe the Plumber') in stretching his fifteen minutes of fame into what is getting to be really annoying hours and days and weeks, was hosting a rally and on Pajamas Media TV a protester asked him if he'd like to waterboard President Obama.

So in other words, it's not about taxes at all (especially since not only are the Bush tax cuts still in force but this year in the stimulus package the Obama administration gave them another tax cut that is already showing up in paychecks.) It's not even about spending and government programs (though that is the ultimate goal of many of the GOP operatives who have been organizing this-- they don't want national health care or any other new programs.) These two incidents make it very clear that the one thing that is tying many of these people together is raw hatred of the President.

Texas Governor Seeks 'Sovereignty' from the United States.

I guess there are worse things than having Jan Brewer for Governor. Not that I can think of very many right now, but here is one: having Rick Perry for Governor.

Yeah, the residents of the great state (make that nation, if he gets his way) of Texas now have a bona fide nut, and it's official.

Perry, who is facing a tough GOP primary battle against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who wants his job, is suddenly sounding worse than any Arizona nutcake (and we've certainly got ours too.) Perry is expressing his support for 'Texas sovereignty.'

OK. As I understand it, 'sovereignty' has a lot of meanings, ranging from the right to void federal laws that one dislikes to full independence. However, it is usually interpreted as closer to the latter than the former.

Now it is true that Texas was an independent country for nine years (from 1836-1845) and that it also was one of eleven confederate states that seceded from the union during the Civil War, but that was a real, real long time ago. And in fact by the treaty in 1845 that brought Texas into the union, Texas has certain rights that no other state has (1. at least in Texas, it is legal to fly the state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag, 2. Texas has the right by treaty to subdivide itself into as many as five other states.) But even that isn't good enough for Perry. He wants actual or effective independence.

Maybe they should figure on building that 'border fence' so it walls off Texas rather than Mexico. Not only would it fit Perry's new definition of the border of the United States but it would keep some of the nutty thinking that exists inside, on the inside.

President handles his first crisis perfectly.

So much for the naysayers.

The far right was wondering, even salivating over the day when President Obama would face a significant international crisis. They were excited about having an opportunity to paint him as 'weak' or a 'wimp' (the kind of language you hear bandied about if you have the stomach to listen to right wing radio or read righty blogs, which I sometimes do so I can chuckle at the idiocy.) They even ginned up the non-crisis of the recent North Korean missile launch (which we've known was going to happen for months) as proof that the President wasn't up to the task of protecting the American people (apparently thinking that if he'd just shot the thing down then we'd all be much safer-- of course if he had they'd say that was still too tepid and yell that he should have ordered an all out attack on North Korea.)

Well, there isn't much they can say right now. The President did face an international challenge, received regular briefings on it, tried as hard as he could to defuse the situation diplomatically (though without budging on American policy to never pay ransom-- although some righties were taking guesses on how much ransom he would pay and how soon) and then when the time came to use force he gave the commanders on the scene (because they can see all that is happening much better than he can from Washington) authorization to use lethal force against the Somali pirates if the hostage was in 'imminent danger.' The commander of the SEAL team stationed on the rear of the U.S.S. Bainbridge concluded that he was and used lethal force. Against the three pirates who were constituting the imminent danger, and not against anyone else. Granted no one else was around but this stands in sharp contrast to the testosterone soaked trail of bodies that the right defines as 'foreign policy success.'

The final moment was handled perfectly by the military, but the whole crisis leading up to that conclusion was handled perfectly by the President of the United States.

However, in another stark contrast with his predecessor, this President didn't try to hog the glory. He praised the navy SEAL team that carried out the assault, but didn't try to play it up. In fact, there are five men who deserve the 'hero' label for this (Richard Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, Commander Frank Costellano of the U.S.S. Bainbridge who made the call on the scene, and the three team members who each made a perfect shot in rolling seas in a situation where a miss of even a fraction of an inch could have resulted in a much different outcome) and the President isn't pretending to be one of them.

As Gloria Borger succinctly noted,

Obama "didn't wrap himself around the bravery of those military seals."

Indeed, he commended the captain, the SEALs, called for multilateral efforts to stop piracy -- and went on the next day to give an economic speech. Indeed, this aide adds, "He's not about to put on a flight suit on an aircraft carrier and declare mission accomplished."

Message accomplished.

Borger then goes on to contrast this with a typical 'leader' of the right:

But what about the style of say, Newt Gingrich? The former House Speaker -- often mentioned as a possible presidential contender in 2012 -- decided to Twitter his inner thoughts on the pirates in real-time.

Last Saturday: "Obama is making a major mistake in not forcefully outlining the rules of civilization for dealing with pirates. We look weak."

By Monday, after the safe rescue of the captain, Gingrich was, er, a tad more laudatory: "The Navy seals did exactly the right thing in rescuing the American captain. President Obama did the right thing in allowing the Navy to act."

A grudging kudo, if there ever was one.

I guess Newt would have rushed in on Saturday when the mission would likely have been much riskier because there were still four, rather than three pirates on the boat and when the ideal moment when all the pirates and the hostage (Phillips) were all in plain sight had not yet come. I'm glad he's not the President in that case.

The message is clear. Unlike his predecessor this is not a President who goes looking for a fight. But if someone picks a fight with the U.S.A. while he is the President then he won't shirk from the need to do what is necessary to protect American lives.

OK, the right got their wish. President Obama was challenged with an international crisis. Adage to think about-- be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

ASU will give President Obama an honorary degree, after all

It looks like ASU will backtrack from their previously stated position and give President Obama an honorary degree when he speaks at the commencement next month.

That's nice of them.

Considering that among previous honorary degree recipients are an aloe vera tycoon and Canadian and Chinese officials, it seems absurd that the sitting President of the United States would not be presented with at least an honorary degree.

I'm shocked that they ever considered inviting a commencement speaker-- much less the President of the United States without giving an honorary degree (keep in mind it is a cheap perk. An honorary degree together with a ten dollar bill will be good enough for a meal at McDonald's.)

The price of decades of Republican rule in the legislature

After decades of the legislature being under the control of the same party, we've reached the point where taxes were cut to the point where they just allowed every institution in the state to operate on a shoestring budget even in the best of times.

But during a recession like we are in now, tax revenues are down and demands are up, and there is no way they can raise taxes (thanks to the law they pushed though via ballot initiative some years ago that requires are supermajority in both houses to pass a tax increase.) In other words they ran the car into the ditch and then disabled the control mechanism.

So, ironically we've now reached the point where a Republican governor is trying to put a measure on the ballot asking voters to approve a one cent temporary sales tax increase, and even the state Republican Party is backing the tax hike.

I may have to hold my nose and vote for it, but in so doing I believe it is critically important that we point out why it has come to this-- irresponsible and reckless huge and irreversible tax cuts from the party that has run the legislature for at least thirty years.

I wonder if the kid on the Hawaiian Punch cans has been named as a 'person of interest'

A crime story that is truly weird:

STOCKHOLM - Police say a Japanese pop star dressed up as a pineapple has been robbed while shooting a music video in southern Sweden.

Police spokesman Bo Paulsson says three young men beat up 41-year-old Hideki Kaji and robbed him of camera equipment worth around 20,000 kronor ($2,500) late Saturday.

The camera crew that was supposed to be filming him was taking a break. There are no suspects as yet and police are still investigating.

Well, I suppose that if you are of a mindset to rob somebody then a guy dressed up as a pineapple sitting around with some expensive camera equipment would qualify as an easy 'mark.'

Senate Republicans try to make President keep Americans in the dark about torture memos. He should call their bluff.

According to Scott Horton at the Daily Beast, Senate Republicans have threatened to 'go nuclear' and block some of President Obama's judicial appointments in order to prevent him from releasing Bush administration memos involving torture.

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

It is disappointing to me that the administration appears to be knuckling under to this particular blackmail. It is important that we as Americans know what exactly happened (or for that matter didn't happen) over the past several years.

Go ahead and release the memos. If Republicans want to be identified as willing to block the President's judicial counsels in order to stick up for the Bush policy of torturing prisoners then let them so be identified.

I'm not arguing that the position of legal counsel isn't important, either in the Deparments of State or of Justice. But how much we find out about what happened is critical if we want to decide publically and in a national debate about whether we are ever going to allow this stuff to happen again.

Besides, I've heard righty after righty after righty claim that Americans will support them and that nothing that bad was done to people who (they claim) were all known terrorists. OK, let's accept that at face value. If that is true, then why are the Senate Republicans going to the wall to try and prevent these memos from being released into the public domain? If there is really nothing more there beyond what is already known and if the public supports them on it, then wouldn't they welcome the disclosure? But obviously there is more there, and they are willing to as an entire Senate conference lay it on the line just to make sure that we never find out what has been done 'in our name.'

I say, call their bluff. Let the public decide who is right about this.

Tax cut proposal in the face of massive budget cuts is an outrage

Three years ago the state legislature passed a temporary, three year suspension of a statewide property tax known as the equalization tax. The tax is designed to provide funding for school and community college districts that have a lower tax base relative to their population than more affluent areas.

The tax primarily affects some businesses, especially in more affluent areas.

The tax is due to expire this year. And like most temporary tax cuts, it appears that some of those affected by the tax consider it a birthright to have this tax taken off the books. They are already shouting about how when it comes back it will be a tax 'increase.'

Of course that is patently ridiculous. It is no more a tax increase than it would be a 'price hike' if your local merchant put an item on sale for a few weeks and then ended the sale on schedule. Rather than being grateful for being given a three year tax holiday, these individuals and businesses are howling about a 'tax increase' they will get when the tax cut expires on schedule.

But beyond that they are lobbying the legislature to not just extend the tax holiday but make it permanent.

Which of course in 2006 when it was passed, they might have had a case, but in 2009 with the state facing a $3 billion budget shortfall and slashing funds for virtually everything in the state, and in addition we may be asked later this year to vote on a 1% sales tax statewide.

Under these circumstances giving a tax cut to a few wealthy business owners who think they should be exempt from the shared sacrifice that the rest of the state is undergoing would be not only foolish but immoral.

They do of course have some lobbyists working on the legislature. But hopeully our legislators will have the backbone to not buckle under this special interest legislation.

Woman hit, beaten, raped. And nobody even bothered to call it in

This is a pretty disturbing story: In broad daylight on a heavily traveled highway in Massachusetts, a woman was run into from behind, beaten, knocked unconscious and sexually assaulted, and no one bothered to call it in.

A woman was viciously attacked in broad daylight Friday afternoon on a heavily traveled road, while other drivers passed by without stopping.

The woman, in her mid-40s, was knocked unconscious, brutalized and sexually assaulted after pulling over on Route 28 in Middleborough after a fender bender, police said.

The attack, which began about 4:30 p.m., lasted for more than 10 minutes. "She was definitely violently assaulted," said Middleborough police Lt. Charles Armanetti....

When police arrived, the man and his car were gone, and the woman was found unconscious. She was revived and taken to a nearby hospital.

Armanetti said they received only one 911 call from a driver who stopped to help after the man had left.

Now, I can understand why someone might not want to directly confront the attacker (though given the nature of the assault I'd like to think that most people would have anyway) but what is really apalling is that today, almost everyone has a cell phone, and in ten minutes of heavy traffic (probably scores of vehicles) no one even bothered to call it in.

You know, just this week here in Arizona, Dale Hausner, one of the 'serial shooter' suspects was convicted and sentenced to death. Among his victims was a man named Nathanial Shoffner. Shoffner was not originally slated by Hausner for death. But he was murdered after he intervened to prevent Hausner from shooting a stray dog and Hausner decided relieve his murderous lust by shooting Shoffner instead. Which shows that trying to stop a dangerous character in the act can certainly be dangerous itself. But the alternative-- to call 911-- is easy, safe and should be a no-brainer.

But at least Shoffner tried, and saved a dog-- and for that he deserves more respect than the entire traffic flow of route 28 in Middleborough, Massachusetts who couldn't be bothered to save a human being. It is a sad day when dozens of people see a violent crime and not one of them is even bothered to take out their cell phone and make a call. And because of it another very dangerous character is now on the loose.

Madonna and Child-- the sequel

Once again, I have to say that I am in the unusual position of siding with Madonna and question 'human rights groups' who claim she should not be adopting a child from Malawi.

Three years ago I wrote two posts, the first Madonna and Child in which I wrote about the fact that I felt it was a good thing that she had adopted a son in Malawi, and the second Madonna and Child--maybe a tragedy in which I wrote,

some things have happened during the past week. The main one is that the father of the child, who last week had been fine with the adoption, now is insisting that he was fooled or misled into signing his son over to Madonna. He says that he was told that she would only raise the child for him and then send his son home after he had been brought up by Madonna. For her part, Madonna has said that she never actually met the father (he confirms this) but did not take the child until she was assured that he had consented to the adoption. She also believes that one reason he has changed his position is because of all the media attention beginning on day one (which I believe may well be the case).

That was eventually worked out and the father did in fact agree to it-- he is however still in contact, which is probably the best outcome for the child. Frankly, if this child gets the best education that I'm sure Madonna can buy for him he will be in a much stronger position someday to help the people of Malawi if he wants to than he would be if he were sent back to the orphanage he was in.

Now, Madonna wants to adopt a second child (this one a girl) from the same orphanage in Malawi. And once again 'human rights groups' (specifically the charity, 'Save the Children U.K.) are criticizing her for it.

LONDON (AP) -- A British charity has urged singer Madonna to reconsider reported plans to adopt another child from the impoverished African nation of Malawi.

Save the Children UK spokesman Dominic Nutt urged the singer Saturday to "please think twice" before going through with the adoption.

He says he cannot comment directly on Madonna's plans but says adoptions in such contexts are often inappropriate and unnecessary.

Nutt says children are best cared for by their extended families.

Incidentally, E! Online seems to know more about the child than Mr. Nutt does:

Her name is Mercy James from Mchinji Home of Hope orphanage. She has no father and mother—they both died. We finished the assessment yesterday in readiness for the courts next week," a spokesman for the Ministry of Gender and Child Development told Reuters.

First point: If they are best cared for by their extended families then why is this girl in an orphanage?

Second point: After the controversy from two years ago, I am certain that Madonna has made darn sure that the girl's family consented-- in other words they were not planning to raise her themselves.

Third point: Children in an orphanage in Malawi face a very uncertain future, which includes a substantial chance that they will not live to adulthood. This is an 'innappropriate' circumstance for adoption?

Fourth point: I doubt if Mr. Nutt complains when Malawian parents (whether living in Malawi or abroad) adopt Malawian children. So do I perceive some kind of cultural bias here, perhaps even so severe that the imperativeness of not having a Malawian child exposed to the corrupting influence of an American celebrity in London is even worth the risk of the child's opportunity to escape poverty and perhaps even the risk of her life (see the third point above)?

If Mr. Nutt has evidence that there is any kind of bribery or coercion involved or that the child has been taken unwillingly from a family, then present that evidence. Lacking any such evidence (and if you read his statement it seems he does lack it) my advice for Mr. Nutt and other 'charities' is to perform their primary task. Even without the two children that Madonna (assuming this one goes though as planned) will have adopted, there are still thousands of other children languishing in orphanges in Malawi and other underdeveloped countries who need care, and who knows, maybe even someone who will adopt them, love them and provide a home and a future for them.

GOP alternative budget is a joke.

After being criticized for just blindly opposing the President's budget without offering any alternatives, the House GOP today came out with an outline for an alternative budget.

Well, sort of. At a capitol hill press conference minority leader John Boehner presented the Republican budget alternative. Their 'budget blueprint' is eighteen pages mostly of platitudes and talking points with unspecified proposals to cut wasteful spending and cut the size of the government (no hard numbers or programs where spending would be cut.) Cutting government spending is a little like ending hunger or creating a permanent peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians-- it's easy to talk about but much harder when you have to figure out how to do it-- so hard that nobody seems to be able to figure out a way (certainly not house Republicans, who ran the place for six years with a President who signed everything they sent up and responded by passing budgets that featured explosive growth in government spending.)

They say they are working on the details. OK, we will see exactly what they propose to cut and by how much.

They are proposing some tax incentives to insurance companies and other entities to expand access to healthcare. Ho-hum. The same kind of do-nothing approach that didn't do anything about healthcare during the past decade and a half.

The only hard number they offered was this one: Another massive tax cut, cutting the marginal tax rate to 10% for anyone earning up to $100,000 and 25% above that. Remember of course that the Bush tax cut only cut the top rate from 39.5% to 35%-- so this proposal appears to be at least twice as large as the Bush tax cut. Now, remember that the Bush tax cut cost $1.3 trillion. So just off the cuff, I'm guessing (even assuming no inflation) that this one would cost well above $2 trillion, in fact probably closer to $3 trillion. And this is from the crew who just last week said we couldn't afford the Obama budget which they claim will cost $1.9 trillion. How do they plan to reconcile the fact that their tax cut alone looks like it will add more to the national debt than they claim Obama's plan will add? Oh yeah, it's those unspecific and unnamed spending cuts.

Yeah, I'm convinced. I'm convinced that the Republicans still don't have a plan.

Toxic assets from China

First it was the lead in paint on toys. Lead based paint has been illegal in the United States for years because it can cause lead poisoning which can lead to among other things blindness and mental retardation in children, but that didn't stop a lot of Chinese factories from using lead based paint in toys. Lead paints are noted for their bright, new-looking colors. Apparently it was all about appearance, trying to get people to buy a product rather than the risks consumers might be subjected to.

Then it was the melamine which first showed up in pet food, resulting in the deaths of thousands of animals in the U.S. Later, melamine was found in some hard candy sold in the U.S. but it was in China itself that the most tragic stories were told concerning melamine. Apparently baby formula made with melamine looks nice and healthy, with a vigorous luster. But that luster concealed the death that lurked inside. The melamine damaged or destroyed the kidneys of thousands of children who drank the formula and several of them died. Worse, the Chinese government concealed the scandal and kept it out of the news for months while more children drank the tainted formula and died. Finally, they were forced to do something, and a handful of low level food executives were found guilty and sentenced to death. But if you believe that the handful put on public trial and convicted were responsible for the whole thing then you probably don't think that Donald Rumsfeld had anything to do with Abu Graib either.

Now, we are hearing about strontium sulfide in drywall that originates in China. It's not about the appearance, to be sure, since you usually don't see your drywall unless someone knocks a hole in the wall, but the drywall can be hazardous in at least two ways. The first is that it can give off gases when heated that corrode copper wiring. That in turn could cause a short and start a fire. The other is that the gases have been blamed for headaches and other ailments.

My issue is this: In the United States we have a lot of regulations for what can and can't be used in various products and almost all of those regulations have their foundation in hard science that is designed to ensure the safety of products that we use in our homes every day. In American factories those regulations are strictly enforced and their violation can lead to fines, jail time or the shutdown of entire companies (like the peanut company that was responsible for the recent salmonella outbreak and has since been forced to shut down.) Those regulations may be a bureaucratic mess for some businesses but they are written with a very clear directive-- that the basic safety of the consumer is the first and foremost concern.

In China, the same regulations either do not exist or they are not enforced. Sure, there was apparently a law somewhere that they used to convict the melamine scapegoats but they had been doing it for years with no consequence so if the law was there then someone had to make a conscious decision to either ignore it or choose not to look very closely to see if regulations were being followed. I might add that I don't know if it played a role in this case, but communism has not stamped out the centuries old tradition of bribery, especially in rural China.

Supposedly the stuff we import from other countries meets U.S. standards, but considering that even today we can't even inspect three percent of the cargo that comes into U.S. ports for things like nukes or biological weapons, I think it's safe to say that the percentage that get a chemical analysis for purposes of verifying product safety is something like zero (in fact it probably is zero.) Wait until people start showing up with symptoms, then they will investigate and order a recall.

There are still some countries whose labels I might be inclined to trust. But with this latest episode, I'd say that's strike three on China. I will try and avoid all Chinese made goods until I'm sure they've made the reforms necessary to ensure that their products are as safe as those made in the U.S., and then prove they can maintain those standards for a good long time.

Chinese made goods may cost less than American made ones, but my health and my families' health is too important to gamble on a few pennies saved at the store.

What will conservatives do if the stimulus works?

This is now becoming President Obama's economy. The stimulus funds are now being poured into the economy, billions of stimulus dollars are being spent by state and local governments to pay people to do jobs in their communities that need to be done, and this week tens of millions of workers are going to start seeing federal stimulus dollars show up in their paychecks. It is the very model of Keynsian economic theory: when people are not spending their money in the private sector, massive government spending replaces it and provides the spark to re-ignite a sputtering or failing economy.

And don't look now but:

Walgreens today became just the latest American company to announce that expected profits will exceed expectations.

February retail sales picked up at the end of the month and were not as bad as expected.

After federal aid went to the banks and the stimulus bill passed mortgage applications increased and now we find that new housing starts jumped 22% in February. March may be even better.

Although prices have dropped by 15% since last year, we find out today that existing home sales have suddenly spiked upward 5%.

New jobless claims, after accelerating downward for months, have now stabilized over the past month at about 650,000. Still bad, but no longer getting worse.

Ford, the only U.S. automaker which did not receive bailout funds, announced this morning that it will even buy back some of its own debt.

There is still plenty of bad news out there, but my question is this:

Having invested so heavily in the failure of the Obama stimulus plan, what will the Obama-haters do if it works?

Already some are backtracking. As I mentioned on a post about a week ago, my Republican Senator Jon Kyl, who as minority whip worked as hard as he could to organize a filibuster to stop the stimulus, is now trying to fool his constituents into giving him some of the credit for it. Yeah, that's taking a position on principle.

But the record is clear. Republicans, dittoheads, conservatives, and many others hitched their wagons to the position, clearly articulated by Rush Limbaugh, that "I hope he fails."

Fine, take that position. And it is still early, it may be that at the end of the day the stimulus and subsequent government spending won't be enough to save the economy. But if it does work, then don't be like Senator Kyl and try to make people forget that you worked to prevent it.

Obama administration stumbles on veterans healthcare-- but in the process demonstrates that government run health care works better than private care

This is the first time I think I've made a post in which I publically disagree with something proposed by the Obama administration. But there is a subtext which is worth pointing out as well.

The administration, after receiving a lot of flack from the American Legion and other veterans groups backed down from a proposal that they made that veterans who receive serious war wounds should use private health insurance to pay for the cost of ongoing care and treatment for those wounds. The plan, which would be an extension of a Bush administration plan that now forces veterans to rely on private insurance to pay for the treatment of non-war related illnesses and injuries, would significantly have reduced the role of the Federal Government in providing health care for veterans.

The administration had said that the government would save $540 million by the plan, but without pointing out that by shifting the burden of treatment to private insurers, those insurers would in turn have to recover their costs by boosting premiums, from their premium-payers, namely the veterans themselves.

I for one am glad that the administration has backed down on this. If anyone deserves to have the cost of their treatment paid for in full by the Federal government it is the veterans who have left limbs, eyes and other body parts strewn on battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

There is an interesting subtext here however. Given a choice between government provided and paid health care, or health care paid for by private insurance, this group of Americans didn't just prefer, but in fact demanded, the government-run and paid version.

That's not to say that there isn't a place for private health insurance within our health care system, but if a conservative organization (and the American Legion certainly is that) is ready to go all out to try and preserve government health care for their members so they wouldn't have to depend on private insurance, then maybe it isn't so bad after all, now is it?

New Mexico makes the right call. The State should not have the authority to kill anybody.

Two stories in a row from New Mexico, where I used to live.

Today Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill ending the death penalty in that state. And here is a shocker-- the Governor's office over the past two days received over 8,000 contacts urging him to sign the bill and fewer than 3,000 telling him to keep the death penatly.

Other states that have no death penalty include Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court found that New York's death penalty statute was unconstitutional in 2004 and since then several attempts to put a new law on the books have been unsuccessful.

Providing security is a proper role of the state (and prisons help to do that) but I applaud this law because what we've seen is over 100 people who spent time on death row exonerated, often due to DNA testing or other technology that wasn't available at the time (or in some cases just by old fashioned gumshoe detective work; in Illinois Anthony Porter, who once came within two hours of execution was cleared after a class of Northwestern University Law Students tracked down the real murderer and proved that he, not Porter, was guilty.)

Given this number of flaws in the system, we have to ask ourselves very bluntly whether we want state governments that have already made scores of mistakes in capital murder cases to be in the business of killing people at all.

When the government has the authority to kill anybody, there is a chance that they will botch the job and not kill the right people.

And simple ineptitude is the benign scenario when this happens....

Thirteen women murdered and killer still at large. Media ignores story.

My sister Miriam, who lives in New Mexico sent me the following guest post:

Time Magazine finally has a short story about it this week.

But have you heard anywhere else about the fact that 13 bodies have been found buried in the mesa west of Albuquerque, near where a new development was being started? A woman walking her dog discovered the first skeleton back in early February, and since then crews have unearthed 12 more, including a skeleton of woman carrying a fetus. All of the victims are female, and the killings appear to have happened about 5 years ago, in 2004. Only 3 of the 13 have been identified, and there is no lead on who the killer may have been.

Why isn't an undentified serial killer headline news? The American appetite for sensational news would seem to beg for this to be a top story, but the only news about this string of murders had been from local news outlets (including an insightful commentary from a local independent publication.) CNN, ABC, the AP – the national news outlets – have only had occasional second-teir mention; a ticker at the bottom of the screen mentioned it for a day or two, and then it dissapeared, despite the fact that bodies continued to be discovered for several weeks. Web sites with mention are few and far between.

I think this story is not high priority for a reason, and that reasons shows that our country is far from the enlightened, fair-minded populace that we hoped the election of Barak Obama would help reveal. The first young woman's body was identified as a “prostitute and a drug-user.” The next 2 who have been identified also had a history of prostitution. So, that's the issue – apparently if a young girl is troubled and finds herself earning money in way not sanctioned by society (although obviously serving a business need successfully enough to be the “world's oldest profession”) she is a throw-away. Her murder doesn't matter. Violence against women- even when it results in murder – wasn't reason enough to raise this to the national conciousness. Indeed, even after the Albuquerque police department received reports several years ago about a number of missing women (someone out there DID love them after all), apparently the effort needed to find and stop the killer was not a high priorty. As NM Representative Linda Lopez (D-ABQ) eloquently stated on March 12 (in a story also reported only in the independent media) “the police have characterized the dead women not as victims of crime, but as criminals themselves.” Lopez, to her great credit, brought attention to the issue at a session of the State Legistlature by bringing a “State Memorial” (SM 85) which takes the both the press and the police to task for their treatment of the crimes. Her symbolic Memoral states:

WHEREAS, the women whose remains have been identified in the west mesa mass grave site have been depicted by both the police and many members of the media not as victims of violence and crime, but rather as criminals themselves; and

WHEREAS, the labeling of these victims creates an atmosphere of ambivalence with regard to the crimes that have been perpetrated against them, while also denying their humanity and their role in our communities as daughters, mothers, sisters,
cousins, nieces and granddaughters; …

The Memorial goes on to note the significance of the issue of poverty and violence against women in New Mexico, which she notes has the third-highest domestic violence rate in the country.

Representative Lopez's Memorial is right on target, but it is unlikely to raise the horrific nature of the event beyond state borders, despite the fact the very lack of attention being paid by the national press indicates this is much more than a local issue. If 13 middle-class soccer moms were killed and buried for 5 years without notice, the revealation would overtake the press for weeks, silencing all other issues with the media frenzy. That, of course, is the other end of the spectrum, but this story does at least deserve the respect of bringing issues of violence toward women – and a potential serial killer on the loose – the attention they legitimately deserve.

I would add that my sister is right about the double standard applied to women. We've seen the media obsess for months about the disappearance or murder of a single 'good' girl (like Natalie Holloway or Lacey Peterson) but they don't care if something happens to a 'bad' girl (they get to define who is 'good' and who is 'bad,' according to their own definition of morality of course.)

The conduct of the police here bears a disturbing resemblance to another case I once blogged on, in which a rape victim was arrested and the investigation into the rape closed all because she once had a juvenile arrest warrant that was years old). The job of the police is to solve the crime. It is not to be the judge and jury, and certainly not to prioritize solving the crime according to their view of the worthiness of the victim to receive their help.

Jon Kyl trying to fool people into giving him credit for the stimulus bill

This is the letter I got this weekend from Senator Jon Kyl:

Dear Mr. Blake:

I am sorry to hear about how the most recent state budget problems have affected Arizona's public schools.

As you know, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) provided, among other things, stabilization funds to aid state budgets. Arizona is expected to receive over $1 billion in these funds....

Incidentally, the bill he refers to is the formal name of the stimulus bill.

Now, if I didn't know better, I'd believe after reading the letter that Jon Kyl (as a member of my congressional delegation) had been involved with helping procure these funds. He certainly is all too happy to send out this letter to people (even Democrats like myself) who have expressed an opinion about state budget cuts.

Only, had Jon Kyl gotten his way this would not have happened. As a key member of the Senate, he tried to pry the funds for states out of the bill, and when he couldn't do that he tried as minority whip in the Senate to maintain a filibuster (at which he was unsuccessful when three of his Republican colleagues ignored him and negotiated a deal with Democrats.) At the time Senator Kyl was sharply critical of all of that.

But now that the stimulus funds are reaching the states, and starting to do what they were designed to do (just yesterday the state highway department gave the green light to begin work on $350 million in highway projects that will be paid for with stimulus funds, and incidentally creating and saving thousands of jobs in the process) he is sending out a letter which makes no mention of his opposition to the bill, and designed to make readers think he actually deserves a share of the credit!!

Now there is a politician who stands on... well, he's a politician, all right.

Neither

Back when Michael Steele, who once had a reputation as a moderate was elected as the chair of the RNC, I predicted that one of two things would happen, and then settled on the second as being the more likely.

The first possibility would be that he would actually try to lead the GOP in the direction that it needs to go-- to stop heading straight over the cliff of failed conservatism and irrelevance and move the party back towards a relevant position in American policy-making by supporting candidates who were willing to break with party orthodoxy. In this vision Steele would have the courage to take bold and perhaps unpopular, but necessary positions that would make the Republican party more appealing to Americans who have been repelled by the narrow focus of the party fixated on tax cuts and a twentieth century social agenda that is increasingly stale and outdated. In other words, it was my hope that Michael Steele, the man who in 2006 as a candidate for Governor of Maryland described the 'scarlet letter R' next to his name on the ballot, would understand the problems facing the modern GOP and have the boldness to take on the establishment in the party.

The second possiblity, which I predicted was that he would put all that aside and kowtow to the party komissariat and become just another conservative mouthpiece.

Well, it certainly was not the first possiblity, I was right about that (unfortunately). If anyone has any doubts about that, see his recent kissing up where he paid tribute to Rush Limbaugh and apologized profusely for saying that what Limbaugh says on the air is often 'ugly and incendiary.' So much for any hope that Micheal Steele will actually provide any steel to the GOP.

But now, he's also made one gaffe too many, and let his inner moderate come out-- not in the controlled and deliberate manner that would have served the GOP well, but in an accidental slip of the tongue that he had to take back right away. Michael Steele said in a Feb. 24th interview with GQ that abortion is an 'individual choice,' and that he therefore opposes a Constitutional amendment to ban it.

He quickly reversed himself and said that in fact he does favor such an amendment in a statement he issued today.

But already the hotheads in the GOP are all over him for it, and some are demanding his resignation. Failed Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who has appointed himself the guardian of all things socially conservative, threated that because of Steele's comments the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support. The fact that the reason the GOP is in the shape it is now is because of the members it's already lost that Huckabee has no plans to get back notwithstanding, the message is clear, that Steele is hurting the party.

Here is the sad thing: I actually believe that Michael Steele probably does believe that what Limbaugh says is ugly, and that abortion is an individual choice. He said those things because he believes them. But he has not the strength of conviction he would need to stand behind those statements, i.e. to stand up to the powers inside the Republican Party, and so he is in no man's land-- trying to be another GOP mouthpiece but not quite as suited for it as someone who actually believes what they are saying.

So in the end he is neither the leader the GOP needs nor the illusion of a leader the GOP wants.

A Republican legislator says what he REALLY thinks

Hat tip to Tedski at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

We don't just have Republicans here in Arizona.

We have some real wackos, like they do everywhere but here the wackos often reach enough of a critical mass to control the legislature.

We've got Russell Pearce, who has focused on the notion that if we can just make life in America so unpleasant for undocumented workers that an impoverished central American village seems like a nicer place then they will all go home.

We've got Ron Gould, who proudly flies a confederate flag in front of his home, and whose constituents are forced to go to other legislators to seek funding for even the msot basic infrastructure improvements because he also proudly refuses to seek funding for anything (Gould also walked out during a speech by a Governor of his own party the moment she even hinted that a temporary tax increase might be necessary given the enormity of the state budgetary hole.)

I could keep going, but then the list might get way too long.

I have to give the award for candor and openness though to state Senator Jack Harper. He wrote the following missive which was published in the Arizona Capitol Times:

I do not speak for the entire Republican caucus, and certainly not the minority party, but I hope to summarize this with a broad view of what to expect in the next budget for the under-employed or over-expectant.

If you are relying on any services from the state that are not mandated by the federal government, I advise you that those services may end June 30, 2009.

If you have children that require expensive experimental treatment or therapy that is not provided by the federal government, I advise that the state will not have the money for it after June 30.

If you have been laid off from your job and are not willing to take a job that is available, unemployment benefits, food stamps and AHCCCS for health care are going to fall short of what you could make by being employed.

Arizona will not follow the country into socialism. If you feel you need greater assistance and are not able to move to another state, please turn to your local churches and give them the opportunity to show their generosity and love.

Yeah, can't you just feel the generosity and love emanating from Jack Harper? Most places he'd be considered a member of the lunatic fringe, but in Arizona he is called, Mr. Chairman. Yikes!

The new GOP symbol: the vulture.

Last week, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky had to apologize after predicting the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So then Rush Limbaugh predicted that the health care bill now making its way through the Senate will be called, "the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill."

Excuse me, but both Justice Ginsburg and Senator Kennedy are very much alive, thank you. It is true that they are both battling very dangerous forms of cancer, but with advances in medicine but with advances in medicine it is no longer true that a diagnosis of a brain tumor or pancreatic cancer means a certain and quick death sentence.

At the very least, you'd hope these folks on the right would cool their heels a bit. It's probably asking too much to expect them to have the decorum to not be talking about someone's death while they are still alive but the ease that they seem to have in talking about it makes me wonder whether they are hoping for Justice Ginsburg and Senator Kennedy to die soon.

It certainly reminds me of how a couple of years ago when South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson suffered from a ruptured blood vessel in his brain, within hours right wing news outlets were flooded with pundits reminding us that South Dakota has a Republican governor who would have picked his replacement. Which would have been true, in fact, except for one little detail-- Senator Johnson recovered from his stroke and was just re-elected to the Senate last year. He now has a clean bill of health.

It's bad enough when the GOP calls out the attack dogs, but please at least keep the vultures at home in a cage.

Don Bivens offers to debate Randy Pullen

During the party meeting this weekend, Don Bivens challenged state Republican chair Randy Pullen to a series of debates.

The Arizona Republic didn't mention that, and neither did some other blogs.

But I'd be all for it, especially if they were held around the state. Candidates debate all the time but often those debates are only held near the election, they tend to focus on specific duties associate with that office and sometimes the candidates don't lay out very much and stay with safe, rehearsed answers for fear of making a gaffe that will be widely reported on. I believe a debate between party chairs would be more likely to be free flowing since neither of them is personally a candidate for another office.

So I wonder if Randy Pullen is up to a debate, or if he is afraid of having to defend the kind of crap that his office holders are up to in a setting where he might be called on it.

Right becoming unhinged, comparing Barack Obama to Stalin

I can't say I'm surprised.

President Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy back to what they were under Bill Clinton (during which the 'job-producing class' did in fact use the money they had left after paying their taxes to produce 20 million jobs). He wants to make sure that affordable private (read that again, private) health insurance is available to all Americans, and he wants to begin moving us towards green energy that will do less to poison the planet.

And what is the reaction on the part of conservatives?

Well, they've begun comparing Obama with some of history's most brutal communist despots. No, I'm not making this up. They are calling up their favorite bogeyman, namely a murderous communist dictator from more than a half century ago.

Last weekend at CPAC, the annual conservative conference, Rush Limbaugh (whether he is the leader of the GOP or not is irrelevant-- nobody else is) said,

“So here we have two systems. We have socialism, collectivism, Stalin, whatever you want to call it, versus capitalism.”

Not to be outdone, former Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said of Obama's agenda,

"Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born".

OK.

Let's stop and remember what the U.S.S.R. under Stalin was. It was a nightmarishly perverse dictatorship where tens of millions of people were murdered out of political expediency. Millions more were arbitrarily rounded up and sent to slave labor camps, where they remained often for the rest of their lives. There was no such thing as private property at all-- quibbling about marginal tax rates didn't happen in the U.S.S.R because there was only one tax rate-- 100%, and it applied to everybody. Only one man-- Josef Stalin-- had a vote, and what he said was the absolute law.

The most memorable innovation by Stalin and his syncophants was the "midnight trial." If someone was suspected of a crime-- or worse, of dissent-- they might be taken from their homes in the middle of the night, accused of some crime they had no knowlege of, stand trial in a kangaroo court and be found guilty and sentenced to death with the sentence carried out immediately, often within an hour from start to finish. By the time the sun rose the next morning they would be buried miles away in an unmarked grave and their apartment would be occupied by someone who to all outward appearances had been living there for a long time (though if anyone came by looking for the now non-existent previous occupant that someone might be added to a list for some future midnight trial.)

This is what the right is accusing Barack Obama of trying to turn America into. Because he wants to commit the 'unpardonable crime' of letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire on schedule in 2011.

For the countless millions who perished under the monstrosity of Soviet communism, to compare their experiences to those privileged people who are upset because their marginal tax rate is going back up to what it was a few years ago is an outrage. Such a comparison cheapens and diminishes the horror of what happened during one of the darkest periods in human history and is an insult and an injustice to their memory.

Skeptical about the Governor's tax plan

It appears that Governor Jan Brewer, realizing the deep, deep hole that we've gotten into here in Arizona is asking for a special election to hike taxes.

Ignoring that the problem is as bad as it is largely because of many years of consecutive tax cuts (which she voted for, as a member of the legislature in the 1990s) and the effective disabling of the control mechanism for raising them in an emergency by the passage of the 'supermajority bill' for tax hikes (mostly by people who have since been term-limited out and now don't have to deal with the consequences of their foolishness,) there are a number of problems with her current proposal.

Obviously with a three billion dollar hole in the budget blasted by a combination of the present severe national recession and Arizona's overdependence on the sales tax which has dropped precipitously in the recession, something major needs to be done. If it isn't we are likely to see more teacher layoffs and larger class sizes, closures or restrictions on state services and universities closing campuses (which ironically will probably fit their decreased enrollment as a result of the doubling or near doubling of tuition within a few years.)

Brewer's proposal would do two things. The first would be a temporary sales tax hike. In other words, the most regressive type of tax in order to fix the budget hole. Even more ironically, they are still talking about a permanent repeal of the statewide business property tax. This tax has funded education for years but in 2006, when the economy was only at the point of developing a mild sniffle, the legislature and the then-Governor agreed to give the businesses a three year tax holiday. It is due to end this year. But the claim that the business owners are making that its return would be a tax increase is absurd. If they put an item on sale for two weeks and then two weeks later after the sale ends and the price returns to what it was before the sale they would laugh in the face of anyone who came in and accused them of raising their prices. But that is precisely what they are claiming about the fact that the tax cut they got is due to end on schedule. But it is downright insulting for them to push for this tax cut when we the consumers are being asked to raise our own taxes because the state doesn't have any money.

The second thing that Governor's proposal would do would be to allow the legislature to get their hands on dedicated taxes. Those are taxes which have been allocated by voter initiatives.

It is the second of those which disturbs me the most. As a voter I voted to tax myself to fund children's healthcare precisely because I didn't expect this legislature to fund it adequately themselves. I don't want them to take the money I chose to contribute to this and other dedicated taxes and use it to plug holes in the state budget so they can simultaneously give their friends another tax cut.

I'm willing to wait and see exactly what this proposal says but I'm certainly not ready to endorse this as a means to fix the state budget. Whether I do back it eventually or not will largely depend on what they do with the statewide property tax. If they make the tax cut for businesses permament, then it will probably be too much for me to swallow when they turn around and tell me they need to raid children's health care to pay for education.

Jindahl to west coast: Drop Dead

From Bobby Jindahl's Republican rebuttal to the Obama speech last night:

While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a 'magnetic levitation' line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'

Now, granted some of this is just plain stupid. The government (like any public or private institution) needs certain resources and unless he is willing to provide us with some context like how many cars the government needs to carry out its duties, what kind of cars they are buying and what the market price is, and how old the cars they have now are and what kind of repair bills they are running up (not to mention the gas mileage of the old and the new cars), his assertion that $300 million for new cars is wasteful spending seems unsupported by any background information. He might be right, but if he is then he has to give us more information than just the price tag.

As for the high speed rail project, again we don't know the context. It certainly sounds wasteful, but for starters is the terminal actually at Disneyland, or is it simply someplace in the greater Los Angeles metro area? And if it is, how many people drive every day between Las Vegas and LA? It may be the best investment of funds we've ever seen, without any background information we don't know if it's wasteful or not.

But the real threat he makes is by attacking funding for volcano monitoring. The United States ranks third, behind Indonesia and Japan, for the number of active volcanoes. Over twenty are in areas where they represent a significant threat to people, and are being monitored. The metropolitan area most at risk is Portland, Oregon, which lives in the shadow of Mount Hood, which is active and erupts periodically. A Mount St. Helens-type blowup of Mount Hood (which is a distinct possibility and sooner or later is likely) could potentially incinerate or bury up to a million people in the Portland area. Now, granted life goes on in Portland but the idea that we should quit monitoring the volcano is asinine. Coming from a Governor who several times in his speech referred to Hurricane Katrina is obscene (Hey Guv, how about shutting down the National Hurricane Center? What do we spend on it every year? How about it, Guv?)

I live in northern Arizona, a region pretty much devoid of natural disasters, but I recognize as an American that I have a duty to pay taxes to help monitor natural disasters that may threaten people who live in regions that aren't as blessed that way as this one is.

Since I don't believe that Bobby Jindahl is stupid (willing to play politics with anything, yes, but stupid no) I have to conclude that this attack on volcano monitoring is a veiled threat against the citizens of Washington, Oregon and Northern California (the populated areas most endangered by volcanic explosions.) After all, the west coast now elects six Democratic Senators (out of six), a 44-23 Democratic split in the house, and has gone Democratic for President for the past five elections (past six for Washington and Oregon.) Last year the west coast handed Obama 73 electoral votes. So the clear message sent by his honing in on volcano monitoring (as opposed to tornados, hurricanes or other disasters that might affect people in red states) is "If you don't vote for us then drop dead." Literally.

Yeah, I know that there was recently a volcano threatening Anchorage, Alaska. Dang, maybe even Sarah Palin would have done a better job with this assignment than Jindahl.

Perish the thought.

George Lakoff and the Obama Code

Fivethirtyeight posted a special article written by George Lakoff and submitted to fivethirtyeight, entitled George Lakoff on the Obama Code.

Lakoff was the progressive who caught onto the way Republicans were winning the framing debate some years back and helped educate the left by explaining to us that we can't keep debating on their turf. A prime example of that is the term, "tax relief." Using the terms suggests that taxes are an affliction, so reducing them is always then a good thing. There are many other examples as well in which we stumble into their way of framing things (i.e. 'global warming controversy,' or 'war against terror.') It's like becoming the visiting team every time we debate with Republicans. That's not to say that we can't win a debate (sometimes the visiting team wins the game) but as long as we are debating using their language we are already starting at a disadvantage.

So Lakoff has analyzed the 'Obama code,' and discusses how we are likely to see things work, and the meaning of what Obama says, prior to tonight's speech. I won't repost the whole thing here (since Nate Silver is a guy I respect and he deserves credit for being selected by Lakoff as the outlet for this insightful article) but if you follow the link it's worth a read.

Sort of like the Energizer bunny.

Socks, formerly the Clintons' cat, died today. When the Clintons moved out of the White House, they gave Socks to press secretary Betty Curry, who has kept him for the past eight years.

Socks, it seems, had only one life.

But the Clintons do have nine lives.

The Republican one-page playbook

DEEP THOUGHT got an exclusive interview with an anonymous Republican Senator, who agreed to the interview on the condition that we keep his name anonymous.

DT: Thank you for coming today, Senator. Would you like some cookies?

S: Yes, thank you, and would you like some tax cuts?

DT: No, thanks. President Obama faces some huge problems. Chief among them is the economy. I noticed that like almost all of your GOP colleagues you voted against the President's stimulus plan, even after it had been watered down in negotiations with a handful of Republican RINOs.

S: It didn't include enough tax cuts.

DT: But by the end of the negotiations, almost 2/5 of the bill was tax cuts.

S: That's not enough.

DT: But Obama won the election, shouldn't he get a chance to do what he feels is necessary to fix the economy?

S: Sure, and we are willing to work with him on ways to cut taxes.

DT: Didn't tax cuts help get us into this mess? The economy prospered under the Clinton tax rates, but after Bush cut taxes in March 2001 companies built new factories overseas and outsourced millions of jobs, and the economy never did grow again after that as fast as it had under Clinton.

S: The problem was that after 2001, we didn't cut taxes enough. Bush's problem was that he wasn't aggressive enough, or he'd have pushed for another trillion in tax cuts the next year, and the year after that.

DT: And then raise them again when the economy is stronger?

S: Of course not. When the economy is good then you need to cut taxes.

DT: So when the economy is bad, we need tax cuts. But when it's good, as it was when Bush was running in 2000, you still need tax cuts?

S: Of course you do. It's sort of like breathing. You always need more tax cuts. Just repeat after me, "I need a tax cut... I need a tax cut..."

DT: Cut it out! Let's change the subject and talk about terrorism. How should the Obama administration approach the issue of international terrorism?

S: With tax cuts.

DT: How will tax cuts help?

S: They will just make things better, so much so that we won't care if terrorists attack again. We'll be able to afford our own private security guards.

DT: You maybe, I'm sure that one would be a bit out of my price range.

S: Offer the security guard a tax cut, maybe you can get a cheap rate.

DT: OK, let's talk about Iraq. George Bush completely lost his way after he started the war. How do you propose we get out of Iraq?

S: With tax cuts.

DT: TAX CUTS?!? How will they help get us out of Iraq?

S: They will cause all the people of Iraq to stop fighting and start hugging each other because they will all realize that they want tax cuts too. Remember, they're still looking for an excuse to throw flowers at us since we got rid of Saddam for them. Tax cuts would be the perfect reason for them to express their gratitude.

DT: So you are saying that tax cuts will fix Iraq. OK, what would you do about internet pornography?

S: Tax cuts.

DT: (sigh). Senator, what would you do about steroids in baseball?

S: Cut taxes.

DT: Pollution?

S: Tax Cuts.

DT: Identity theft and stock fraud?

S: A capital gains tax cut.

DT: Education and all the paperwork created by NCLB?

S: Tax cuts

DT: The flu?

S: Tax cuts are the cure.

DT: Gambling by NBA officials?

S: Tax cuts, for sure.

DT: Orbiting space junk?

S: Tax cuts.

DT: The peanut butter salmonella scandal?

S: They should have given the peanut company a tax cut.

DT: OK. Let's remember some history. What do you think about the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln earlier this week?

S: He is overrated as a President. There would have been no need for the Civil War if he'd just passed a big tax cut when he became President.

DT: Fine. REALLY Off-topic, I have a 2003 Dodge and it keeps squeaking at me when I turn left. Any idea on what I should do fix the problem?

S: A tax cut, definitely would fix it.

DT: Is there ANYTHING that you believe can't be cured by tax cuts?

S: Sure.

DT: What is that?

S: Death. Wait--if taxes aren't a sure thing, then maybe neither is death. On second thought, no there isn't anything that a tax cut won't cure.

DT: OK. Good-bye Senator.

S: Good-bye. Oh, yeah, did I remember to talk about tax cuts?

Don Bivens for Arizona Democratic Party Chair

The other day I put up a post entitled "An open letter to Paul Eckerstrom."

It had to do with how disappointed I was, including in myself, for supporting a guy who clearly was not up to the job as state party chair. He quit after only thirteen days.

In the process I had voted against Don Bivens, who I believe has done a pretty good job over the past couple of years as state party chair. Yeah, we did lose several legislative races last year (when we faced the triple whammy of McCain at the top of the ticket, prop 102 and continuing to run against a Republican gerrymander that we were handed by the supposedly "non-partisan" redistricting commission in 2001.) I know the state party has made getting a fair redistricting following the 2010 census a high priority.

Despite that, under Bivens we have outraised and outorganized the Republicans (this is still a state with a clear Republican voter registration edge, but less so than it has been in the past.) Looking past the legislative losses, we gained a congressional district (this one), and came literally within a couple hundred votes of going from no seats on the five member corporation commission to gaining majority (3 out of 5) control. As it is, we have two seats on the commission and with two more Republican seats up in 2010 I believe there is a very good chance we could pick up a majority. And winning seats on the commission is something that has been a party priority since, well, I became active but we never were able to pull it out until this past year.

More the point, Bivens this week sent out a letter to all of us on the state committee saying that he gets it. I believe him about that. He knows that we are all disappointed about the legislative races. And he's prepared to lead on that. Certainly now everyone in the state has seen point blank what this legislature, with a Republican Governor who would sign whatever budget they send her, will do. I've had conversations with people the past few years, when Janet Napolitano was providing a safety zone against legislative excesses, say "they wouldn't really cut that much out of the schools." Well, they will. They are. People can see that now. So we have a chance to make substantial gains in the legislature this year.

And I believe that Don Bivens is the guy who can help us do it-- he certainly has made it clear that he can and does learn by experience. Further, in picking himself up from the stunning loss of a couple of weeks ago and getting back in the saddle, he's showing that he is capable and willing to shake it off, and to stay in for the long haul. That is exactly the role model we need as we go back to work on the legislative races. The truth is, we all lost those races last year. But the gains that he made, in helping us organize and gain more voters across the state, are long term gains.

One thing that Paul Eckerstrom said in his speech that resonated was to develop a think tank to balance some of the garbage that comes from the Goldwater Institute(something that a lot of us have talked about in the past.) But I found out later that Don Bivens had talked to Vince Rabago about it at a meeting just the night before last month's vote, just he didn't discuss it in his acceptance speech. But he supports the idea too.

So although I did not vote for Mr. Bivens two weeks ago (and told him I hadn't), I will vote for him this time around. It's not often in life that if you make a mistake you get a do-over, but I'm glad that this time I get one. And this time I will make the right decision, and vote for Don Bivens for Arizona Democratic Party chair.

Accident this week highlights how we are making space more hazardous than it needs to be

The astronaut worked carefully, adjusting the solar panel which collected energy for the space station. Space walks were rare nowadays, with sophisticated robots doing most of the routine, and increasingly more complex outside work. But once in awhile there was still a need for a human touch. As she carefully set the final rivet in place, the astronaut felt a sense of exhiliration, not unlike that which anyone would feel upon doing a job better than any robot could....

All of a sudden it happened. A piece of space debris four and a half inches long and perhaps half as wide, weighing about a pound, and probably from some old and forgotten satellite or other relic from the late twentieth or early twenty-first century, ripped through her space suit travelling at several miles per second, many times faster than any bullet that had ever been fired by any gun on the earth. Instantly it passed all the way through her body, and she died in excruciating pain, but very quickly as blood, entrails and other contents of the space suit were ripped out into the icy vacuum of space. The space suit, now useless, shredded as her body blew up in the vacuum and literally exploded.

Even before anything had spilled out, the projectile had shattered the solar panel, depriving the station of power, and smashed into the outside wall. Though the wall had been planned and built extra thick precisely in anticipation of this kind of event, the piece was large enough that it punctured the outer wall. The emergency doors detected the immediate drop in pressure and sealed off the compartment that had been breached, though this meant death for the two astronauts inside it (nothing could be done about that, they almost certainly died nearly as gruesomely as their colleague outside as the air was sucked at an incredible rate through the hole that had been made in the wall.

Science fiction? Perhaps. But this nightmare scenario will be faced by Captain Kirk or any other future astronauts as they venture out into space. It will be confined to the vicinity of earth, but it is our generation's gift to them.

A gift for which we will be cursed probably for hundreds or even thousands of years, just as we today curse those who left such hazards as chemical dumps that continue to poison people who live near them and which we all pay thousands of dollars a year to clean up as those who created them are long since dead, radioactive islands in the Pacific that will not be habitable for thousands of years, or who chose to hunt animals like the passenger pigeon to extinction without giving any thought to what we can't do or see anymore. And remember the tragic episode that happened here in Arizona about a year and a half ago which I blogged about, when a girl lost her life and another was critically injured, courtesy of some now-forgotten miners from a hundred years ago or longer, who simply walked away from the mineshaft they had dug into the earth without bothering to mark it.

Well, now it's our turn to be the miners who don't care what future generations will go through in space as the consequence of our own devil-may-care attitude about it.

As portrayed graphically in this image (though it is a graphic designed to make a point-- the objects are portrayed by scale as miles wide, when they are at most a few meters across), the earth is now being orbited by over 12,000 known pieces of space debris, ranging from fractions of an inch to defunct satellites or pieces of satellites weighing several tons. Pieces now being tracked include such objects as a screwdriver that was once lost on a spacewalk, along with the more mundane such as military, weather or communications satellites that are no longer in use.

But the pieces which are known about and are being tracked are not the ones we have to worry the most about. Rather, it is those which are not being tracked. This problem came into perspective last Thursday when an old Russian military satellite collided with a communications satellite operated by Iridium communications, inc. The fault was clearly that of the Russian government. It is true that most governments don't make the locations of their military satellites public (especially since we know that several nations have the technology to shoot down satellites) but certainly once it was no longer in use the Russians should either have provided tracking data to NASA and other organizations that keep track of this kind of stuff, or else put it into a decaying orbit which would cause it to burn up and fall to earth over water (what is usually done with old satellites.)

God knows how many new, certainly untracked pieces of space junk were created by the collision. Most fell to earth, but many did not and are now orbiting in orbits that no one has a clue about-- until they hit something. Several years ago a tile on the space shuttle was damaged when it apparently hit a fleck of paint-- in other words a tiny piece of orbital debris-- that had apparently flaked off of some long ago space mission. Unneeded trash, human waste (yes, there are shits in space, zipping along hundreds of miles over our head at several miles per second)-- those were once let go into space as well (though to our credit we now recycle everything that can be recycled, and stash the rest.)

Most galling, China test fired a missile several years ago at a real target, a satellite six hundred miles in space. This certainly created thousands of untracked pieces of space debris (well, what do they care? They're China.) Then the U.S. responded with our own missile test last year. The cover story was that we were protecting the population of the earth from lethal hydrazine fuel from a disabled satellite. Of course, even if you found the fuel tank, hydrazine would only be lethal if you stood there and sniffed it for hours (and dozens of satellites with hydrazine fuel tanks have fallen to earth in the past without any consequences.) In other words, it was a missile test to show that we could do what the Chinese can do, but after the flack they took for theirs we had to find an excuse.

Unlike explosions on earth, where nature eventually heals even the most horrific of scars (such as those caused by nuclear testing), an explosion in space is destined to leave debris that will orbit the earth into the far distant future, perhaps forever. It's safe to say that if there is ever a war fought in space then it will turn low earth orbit into a deadly field of orbiting debris that future astronauts will breathe a sigh of relief when they clear. The asteroid belt would probably be a safer place.

Obviously there will always be accidents in space (like dropping a screwdriver) and that can't be helped, but we have an obligation to future generations to begin urging governments and private companies that venture into space to put together a policy by which 1. no dumping of any kind will be allowed (just because we've wised up on this doesn't mean everyone will-- so let's get it in writing while we can and this provision remains relatively non-controversial); 2. all satellites should be tracked or safely removed from near earth orbit (whether that means putting them into a decaying orbit to re-enter over water, as is done now, or whether it means boosting them out of earth's orbit entirely either out of the solar system or into the sun), including military satellites that are no longer in use; and 3. (especially this one) just like the nuclear test ban that the United States and the Soviet Union inked in 1962 when the hazards of atmospheric radiation were becoming obvious and could no longer be ignored, it is time to urge that the U.S., China and any other nation that is developing into space sign a ban against test firing anti-satellite missiles at targets outside of earth's atmosphere (which would in no way prevent any nation from firing a missile not set to explode, into empty space against a virtual target, which a computer could model its motion and indicate whether the missile got there or not.)

But now that we are becoming aware that this is a problem, to do nothing and continue to fill space with thousands of physical hazards and leave it to future generations to fix problems that we could much more easily not cause in the first place, would be the spineless way out.

RINOs are still elephants at the end of the day.

President Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to reach out to Republicans.

He's also put actions behind those words. He kept George Bush's Defense Secretary, Bill Gates, on the job. He named Republican representative Ray LaHood as Transportation Secretary (George Bush had a Democrat, Norman Mineta as Transportation Secretary, but Mineta was the only Democrat in the Bush cabinet, while with Gates, LaHood was Obama's second Republican.) He appointed another Republican, retired General James Jones, as his National Security Advisor.

Obama made the trek back to Capitol Hill to hold several meetings with only Republicans (something previous Presidents had not done, insisting that members of the opposition party, especially when they were in the minority, come to the White House instead for consultations and then accompanied by members of the majority party.)

He included billions of dollars worth of tax cuts in the stimulus proposal, despite angering some members of his own party.

He asked Republican Senator Judd Gregg to become the third Republican in his cabinet, as Commerce Secretary. After a bit more than a week as the presumptive appointee, Gregg withdrew his name.

Now, I don't blame a lot of Republicans for voting against the stimulus bill. If someone fundamentally disagrees with something for ideological reasons then they absolutely should vote against it. I understand that and I can respect that.

Rather, what has bothered me is a report on today not only saying that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was disappointed with three RINOs who agreed to support a watered-down stimulus bill, but that apparently there was a plan afoot to vote as a bloc against the bill specifically and for the singular purpose of sticking Obama with a defeat.

What this says is that the GOP in Washington, rather than agreeing with the President that the voters expect everyone to work together to solve problems, are still playing partisan games. The only bullet they have left is a 41-Senator solid bloc sticking behind a filibuster, but instead of using it once or twice when it might prevail, the GOP leadership intends to force the issue more often, even if it is difficult to get all the rinos to hold the line with them.

As Democrats we should be careful though. First, let's get this straight-- a Rino is still a Republican, and is even less a friend of ours than, say, Joe Lieberman. They may be pursuadable on specific issues but if we had 60 Democrats in the Senate the whole question of how far to cut the stimulus would be moot, and we'd have gotten a better bill.

Second, Rinos are notoriously erratic and unpredictable. For example, the prototypical Rino, John McCain, was squarely against the stimulus bill. He might be pursuadable on issues like torture or immigration, on the other hand. But I don't like being in the position of having to depend on a John McCain or an Arlen Spectre or a Susan Collins to be the tie-breaking vote.

Third, as we saw on the stimulus bill, there is a price for support from Rinos. Maybe it is such an emergency that this price was necessary but it still may not achieve a big enough jolt to the economy, thanks to RINO's cutting things out of the bill and diluting it with more tax cuts.

In 2008, Nancy Pelosi's House, though increasing the Democratic margin by a modest number, crossed a key benchmark when the size of the majority outnumbered the number of 'Blue Dog' Democrats. That meant that the conservative caucus no longer can pull the entire House to the right by defining the center.

That doesn't mean that the congressional leadership should ignore the blue dogs, but they also no longer have to bend over for them, and they shouldn't. Listen, let them be involved, incorporate any good ideas they have. But don't let them hold the Democratic Congress hostage. Somewhat similarly, looking especially at the Senate, it would be good if we were able to ignore RINO's. Right now there is little choice-- even if Al Franken pulls out a win in Minnesota, Democrats will still need a vote from a Republican whenever Senator McConnell decides to try and filibuster (which seems to be on most votes.) Rinos may be the most likely ones to crossover, but if it's not such an emergency I hope our leadership remembers that in this election and last, it was Republican ideas that the American people rejected, not Democratic ones.

Oh, no. Not another one.

The President needs support from the Senate, as we saw this week, to get his bills passed.

And equally on display this week was that despite his attempts to reach out to Republicans, the GOP in the Senate is as partisan today as it ever has been.

With this in mind, the Democrats' 58-41 advantage in the Senate (probably 59-41 once all the appeals are exhausted in Minnesota) is one vote shy of the magical 60 vote mark, which prevents the GOP from launching a filibuster.

You'd think after the way this week has gone that the Obama administration would take better note of the numbers game in the Senate than they have been.

In 2010, as of right now there are likely to be 19 Republican and 17 Senate seats up (including special elections for Senators appointed to seats.) So far, The President has chosen four sitting Senators for his cabinet (including Joe Biden for Vice President.) Two of those, in Delaware and New York are probably going to go Democratic (though Delaware Republican Representative Mike Castle could make things interesting if he runs for the Senate, presumably against Biden's son.) In Colorado, Ken Salazar's departure and replacement by a little known Denver schools superintendent certainly puts the seat in play, a seat which Salazar would have held easily. On the other hand let the President appoint who he wants, and he essentially undid the Colorado situation this week when he announced that New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg would be appointed to be the next Commerce Secretary (after Bill Richardson had to withdraw from contention for that post.) Gregg only agreed to go after a deal was struck with the state's governor for his chief of staff to be named as his replacement, which won't change the present partisan balance of the Senate; but she almost certainly won't run in 2010 and while Gregg would probably have held the seat in increasingly blue New Hampshire it looks at least as ripe for Democrats as Colorado may or may not be for Republicans.

Obviously in being elected President, Obama gave up his Senate seat in Illinois. That seat would almost certainly have gone Democratic, pre-Blago scandal, but now it's anyone's guess.

But now let's go beyond current Senators. In selecting Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security Chief, Obama did his election opponent, John McCain a huge favor. A poll out last year showed Napolitano beating McCain in a 2010 head to head matchup. But with her out of the equation here in Arizona I am not sure if we have another Democrat who could do as well versus McCain (Terry Goddard will almost certainly run for Governor.) We saw this week that minus any threat from Napolitano McCain was certainly anything but bipartisan. So Obama may well have handed the GOP a seat (or at least prevented a Democratic takeover next year) with his pick.

Again, he can pick who he wants and I'm sure that Janet will do an excellent job at Homeland Security (or even at the Supreme Court, which she is rumored to also be on the short list for.)

So now after the withdrawl of Tom Daschle, we see that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is rumored to be the front runner for Health and Human Services. Like Napolitano, she has been the popular Democratic Governor of a Republican state. One reason why Senator Sam Brownback is retiring is that he supposedly expected a challenge from Sebelius, one which he might well lose. With him gone, she has to be considered the front runner for the seat.

Except that once again, Obama is going to the Senate 'farm system' to call up a promising prospect for his cabinet.

Like I've said three times here, he has the right to pick who he wants to pick. But this continuing stream of Senators and likely Senate candidates is going to cost him, later if not sooner. If a loss in Colorado, Arizona and/or Kansas ends up costing Democrats the 60 vote margin in 2010 then Obama may have to blame himself if he has trouble getting legislation passed as he is running for re-election.

An open letter to Paul Eckerstrom

BACKGROUND Two weeks ago the state committee of the Democratic Party met and voted out incumbent chair Don Bivens in favor of Paul Eckerstrom, who seemingly popped up from nowhere. In my opinion, Bivens did a pretty good job, outfundraising the Republicans and helping to better organize the party. And we did have an uphill fight this year, with proposition 102 (Gay Marriage) bringing out the Republican base and with John McCain at the top of the ticket.

Nonetheless we did lose legislative seats and from my perspective it seemed like we were more worried about not losing than we were about winning; there was no clear message articulated about why voters should vote for our candidates. Also, the state party seemed at times disorganized. We ran a write-in candidate in the September primary for the state Senate after the Republican incumbent died and a staunch conservative was appointed to replace him. We did our part, and got the write-in enough votes to appear on the November ballot. But then the state party was late or non-existent in support of his campaign, and this is a district where Democrats can win. S

o as such, I was open to looking for new leadership even though I felt that Bivens deserved to be re-elected. Eckerstrom gave a resounding speech after being nominated from the floor at the state committee meeting, and he ran a good campaign that day. For example he got his stuff out on the seats. Of course Bivens probably came that morning expecting to be re-elected by acclaimation, but he had nothing out there. People read what is on their seats while waiting for the meeting to start and if they have no other information about the candidates, as many of the first time members did not, they tend to vote based on what they see on the seats. Bivens had sent out an email but people usually get emails when they have a bunch of others to read, in sharp contrast to the sometimes long waits they endure while sitting in the meeting.

What Eckerstrom said that got my vote (and probably many others) was that he favored a more focused message that concentrated on articulating what we stand for, and also that he favors the creation of a think tank in the state (which the Republicans already have, the Goldwater Institute.) He also said that he believes that the Colorado model for turning the state blue could and should be replicated in Arizona, and I also have said that myself in the past. It took me less than twenty-four hours to regret that vote, when I read the Sunday Arizona Republic and Eckerstrom was quoted as saying he had 'no intention of winning.' ?? If he didn't intend to win, then why did he run? In a group of six hundred voters, it's safe to say that if you get nominated for a position then you might, **gasp** win!

As such, I was personally disappointed but hardly surprised when Eckerstrom sent the members of the state committee an email indicating that he is resigning after two weeks on the job. He said that he did not realize the time commitment that a state chair has to put in (there is no excuse for being surprised by that. Even I know that, which is one reason why I have no intention of ever seeking any level of state party office.) I tried to respond but apparently his email is not set to accept responses. So, I am rephrasing my reply as an open letter:

AN OPEN LETTER TO PAUL ECKERSTROM:

Dear Paul,

Unlike many of those who voted for you, I had a very difficult time deciding to do so because I felt that Don Bivens has done as good a job as anyone could have done under the circumstances (people tend to forget that we are still fighting against what amounts to a Republican legislative gerrymander that the officially 'nonpartisan' redictricting board handed us in 2001.)

I voted for you because I agree that we need to confront these issues head on and your idea for a think tank is something I have believed is necessary for a long time. However, it was not an easy decision (and I have enough respect for Don Bivens that I told him that I didn't vote for him and why, which was not easy for him to hear.)

In this context I am disappointed with your decision to quit. If you were not fully prepared to serve then it would have been appropriate to officially withdraw your candidacy at the conclusion of your speech (as has been done by others in the past) and move that Mr. Bivens be elected by acclamation. There are many, many new state committee members and it is certainly going to be a drain on their enthusiasm to have to go back next month and elect another new chair, to say nothing of how much it will set our efforts back for the 2010 election cycle.

Paul, if you weren't aware of what the job would entail and if you weren't completely ready and willing to serve then you had an obligation to withdraw your name before the vote, and I am saying that as someone who did vote for you. In a group of six hundred voters, it is certainly feasible that anyone who accepts a nomination, might win.

-- Eli Blake

The good news out of all this is that I will get that rarest of moments in life, a do-over after screwing up (Eckerstrom won by a fairly healthy margin, but I'm still glad I at least get to fix my mistake.) And this time I will support Don Bivens if he runs. If he does not then I will still have a chance to vote for somebody who I feel confident actually wants the job, knows what it will entail and is ready to accept all responsibilities associated with the job.

Howard Dean would be an excellent choice to head HHS

Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Raul Grijalva are both pushing the same idea: Howard Dean as the new Secretary for Health and Human Services. Of course the position is now open following the withdrawl of Tom Daschle.

I can't think of a better choice. Dr. Dean was a practicing physician who has succeeded in providing health coverage for all kids in Vermont, and during his tenure at the DNC did an outstanding job of building our party.

Another argument in favor of Dean is that given the circumstances that led to Daschle's withdrawl the Obama administration can't afford another vetting mistake in making the pick. But Republicans have just spent the past five years digging dirt on Dean, so if there was any don't you think they'd have slung it by now? About all they've got is the 'Dean scream' geography lesson which is old news and irrelevant.

He's not all that popular with Rahm Emmanuel, to be sure, but then whose white house is it, anyway? Dean has certainly showed he is willing to submerge his own ego to help others succeed, and that he is a team player. Picking Howard Dean would help put to rest the rumors that got started earlier this month when Tim Kaine was announced as the new head of the DNC after Howard Dean was off building the party in American Samoa.

Groundhog day roundup.

On groundhog day:

President Obama saw his shadow. It's still larger than anyone else's. But house Republicans are still working on a way to cut it off at the knees.

Vice President Biden did not see his shadow. He's standing in Obama's shadow.

Former Vice President Cheney did not see his shadow. He's in some new undisclosed location, and it's one where the sun don't shine.

Osama bin Laden did not see his shadow, for the same reason as Cheney didn't see his.

Cardinals Quarterback Kurt Warner saw his shadow. It still looks like the Steelers defensive line.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner did not see his shadow. He forgot he had to have one.

Indicted former Congressmen Rick Renzi, William Jefferson and John Doolittle took a long look at their shadow. By this time next year they may not get to look at it.

Mitch McConnell saw his shadow. It's only about 41/49ths as large as it was just last month.

Former President Bush saw his shadow. And it was much diminished from four years ago.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't see her shadow. Spring is here, and she's trying to thaw out some of our foreign relations.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saw his shadow. And it looks like Lenin, Khruschev and Gorbachev. The fact that he is bald is the second similarity.

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps isn't sure whether he saw his shadow or not. It was sort of hazy right where he was standing.

Rod Blagojevich won't decide whether he saw his shadow yet. He said, "A shadow is a bleeping valuable thing. And if I don't get the money then I'll bring six more weeks of winter, and then you'll all be sorry."

United Airline Pilot 'Sully' Sullenberger saw his shadow. And he laid it down perfectly, right where he wanted it.