The 'slippery slope' is what we've been on for decades. Chrysler reorganization really IS 'chapter 11.' And not just in legal terms.

Earlier this week, President Obama oversaw a marathon negotiating session which failed to produce an agreement to avert bankruptcy filing by Chrysler because a small number of preferred stockholders (according to reports, mainly hedge fund managers) held out. Following the all-night the administration annouced that the automaker was indeed going to enter bankruptcy. After that, the administration announced that the United Auto Workers (UAW) would command a majority stake in the company as it emerges from bankruptcy and that the hedge fund managers would in effect go to the back of the line to be paid from any assets sold off through the bankruptcy process.

My first reaction was that this arrangement tickled every progressive bone in my body. It was the fault of a few hedge fund managers after all, that the bankrupcty occurred in the first place. And hedge fund managers won't get much support from the public (I've not seen a survey on their popularity but I suspect that if there was one, hedge fund managers would likely score someplace between Dick Cheney and Bernard Madoff.) And giving the company to the union that represents the people who actually make the product, I mean what could be more progressive than that? The only thing that made it better to contemplate was to think of all the conservatives reading it and just putting their head in their hands and shaking it slowly back and forth. Sweet revenge for all the times I did that when the Bush administration did something by assertion that seemed way over the top.

On second thought though, there may be a reason why I had the same reaction then as conservatives have now. And it's a reason that should transcend partisanship, though we are where we are precisely because people with an agenda have used partisanship as one of several vehicles to drive that agenda. And that agenda is to empower the federal government, and in particular the executive branch, at the expense of the rule of law, civil rights and fundamental Constitutional rights.

To understand the danger, realize that whatever one may think of hedge fund managers, it is a long standing principle in contract law that the creditors of a company that is in bankrupcty court receive payment in a certain order. The hedge fund managers are what is known as preferred shareholders, meaning that legally they should be paid (which payment can be in shares of the new, post-bankruptcy company) before other shareholders (and certainly before the UAW.) That's not a matter of opinion, and I may consider it to be a grossly unfair arrangement (which I do) but it is nonetheless the law and it is not up to the President to rewrite the law and make changes in it. There is a way to make changes in the law, of course, which is to go through Congress, but Congress was not asked to vote on this.

And the fact of the matter is that if it is possible for the President to change the law by executive fiat and give a company to the union then what exactly prevents him or some future President from using exactly the same logic to seize your home and give it to the bricklayer, the gardener or the baby-sitter? The answer is that if this case is the precedent then there is nothing to prevent it.

Before conservatives think I'm with them on this though, I'd like to point out that this only continues a trend which has been ongoing for decades. With the singular exception of Jimmy Carter (during whose four years most of the civil protections from governmental overreach that we do have now were enacted) every President since Calvin Coolidge first appointed J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director in 1924 has pushed things in pretty much the same direction. Just to cite one recent example, some of you may remember the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was accused of plotting to plant a 'dirty bomb' and held without being charged for years in a military prison in South Carolina. After losing several appeals over the whole issue of habeus corpus protection, the Bush administration finally found one judge who would rule in their favor. As soon as they did they immediately did file charges against Padilla (though they did not charge him with anything related to a 'dirty bomb') and eventually managed to get him convicted on a single count-- that he had been to Afghanistan for training--- even while failing to gain a conviction on more serious charges. They filed the charges when they did specifically to make sure that the case would not be appealed to the Supreme Court which might have sided with all the lower courts and overturned their 'precedent.'

Now, I'm sure some conservatives will argue that the Padilla case is somehow 'different' than the Chrysler case. But if fact it is not. Both involve the President asserting a new legal and Constitutional standard where there was not one before. And if you are a conservative that still thinks that Padilla precedent is a good thing, I'd ask you whether you still like the idea that the Obama administration now has the authority to detain, using secret evidence, any U.S. citizen they say is an 'enemy combatant' without charging them as a crime for as many years as they want to. Because they now do have that 'right' courtesy of the Bush administration.

And therein lies the rub. What has enabled a decades long assault on civil rights has been a mixture of always finding the right 'bogeyman' (nazis, communists, mobsters, left wing subversives, right wing militias, drug dealers, criminal gangs, foreign terrorists, child molesters, Wall street crooks-- all have had their turn to scare us into surrenduring some measure of civil liberty) and partisanship. Whether it was Democrats foolishly supporting Bill Clinton's post Oklahoma City domestic surveillance bill or Republicans supporting the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps during the Bush administration, no one has ever taken a moment to ask why the mountain of powers that have already been given to the Presidency isn't enough already.

And we have already forgotten that Clinton's raid on Waco was entirely legal-- because of Reagan's 'war on drugs' legislation that ensured that federal agents could just come in unannounced and start shooting if there were allegations that drugs were on the premises. Someone had made such an allegation (though it turned out be false) and that was all the legal justification that was needed to charge in with guns blazing away.

Instead of looking at this kind of stuff with a partisan hue, colored by the administration that is then in power (i.e. "Democrat good, Republican bad" or the reverse) maybe the right way to look at is is always to be skeptical.

The worst thing about any kind of expansion of Federal powers is that they will still be there for all future Presidents. And in this area, it seems that Democratic and Republican administrations have been literally pulling the rope together and all sending us sliding down the same slope, a slope that leads down to.... where? I don't know but I fear to contemplate it.

Don't rest, there is still work to be done

Quite a few years ago I played on a rugby team. We had several very good players (note that I was not one of them) but overall lost more games than we won. One time in October 1984 we entered a tournament in Albuquerque, and in an upset beat a couple of teams we weren't supposed to beat. So the championship game was against a team from Holloman Air Force Base, which had also pulled off a pair of big upsets to get there. The game was played in the Albuquerque Sports Stadium. We had beaten Holloman 42-6 just a couple of months earlier and before the game one of our very good players (who had a poisonous attitude however) said, "It's only Holloman" and we laid back a bit and went in with an attitude that we would beat them soundly again. Final score: Holloman 18, Socorro 10. I did learn something that day (everyone did) about overconfidence.

It's a great time to be a Democrat. We've won big in two elections in a row (so that the Bush-Cheney-Hastert-DeLay-Frist cabal that held all the reins of power just a scant three years ago seems like a bad dream from which we-- and the country-- are fully awakened.) Overall, things seem to be going well. President Obama's stimulus plan seems to be starting to take hold as the economy is, though slowly and fitfully, beginning to sputter to life. Such bills as sCHIPS and the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act have been signed into law by President Obama in an even more robust form than the similar bills that President Bush vetoed last year (who says you can't win by losing sometimes.) It looks highly likely that we will have significant health care reform, credit card reform and a national service plan enacted by next year. The outlook for an energy plan is not quite as clear, but even without one there is much in the stimulus and elsewhere that will move us towards a greener future. Even in the states there is progress on what used to be slam-dunk conservative issues, as New Mexico just in the past few months became the thirteenth state to abolish the death penalty and Maine today became the fifth state to legalize any marriage between two consenting adults. We are finally finding out what was done to prisoners 'in our name' and guidelines have been approved to prevent it from happening again. President Obama has stayed at about sixty percent approval since he took office, defying the trend that has hounded former Presidents once they get to and pass their 100th day.

The outlook for Republicans is just as bad. They have pushed moderates out of the party and the result is a party that seems to be running ever more to the right. They seem to be a party of fits and starts that can't figure out how to connect with the American people. As one astute commenter on a blog I frequent pointed out, where are the 'teabaggers' now? Some 'movement,' it's gone within a couple of weeks of their big coming out party. Republican party ID is near an all-time low as people who had assumed they were Republicans have simply left the party and become independents or in some cases even moved over all the way to the Democratic party.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to rain on our parade a bit though. I detect an attitude of "it's only Holloman" running through a lot of Democrats (not so much here in Arizona, where we well know what our task is next year-- elect a sane legislature-- but nationally I detect it.) The truth is that the GOP is still a very dangerous opponent and we had best not rest on our laurels.

There were some unique factors at work in the last two elections that we can't assume will be repeated. The biggest one was simply that Americans were fed up and tired of eight years of failure and incompetence by the Bush administration. As long as George W. Bush was the President Democrats had the perfect foil. But Bush is gone now, along with the rest of that cabal I named that held power before. A second factor this last time around was the we had the most charismatic and telegenic Democratic candidate since at least JFK (and yes, that includes Bill Clinton) and Republicans nominated a guy who matched Bob Dole in the charisma department. President Obama will be running again in 2012 but it's safe to say that the GOP will have probably turned the page from John McCain. Third, we outhustled, outorganized and outraised the GOP (the last largely because the Obama campaign did not accept public financing and the accompanying limits.) The GOP has always held an edge in fundraising until recently so at the very least we can expect that to be much more competitive the next few election cycles. And John McCain depended on just reactivating the Bush ground game from 2004 and got smoked on the ground. Some of the files he was using hadn't even been updated since 2004. I expect that by 2010 and certainly by 2012 the Republicans will be up to speed on their ground game. We can still win it, just as we can still outhustle and outfundraise them, but it won't be a one-sided win if we do.

Now, I still believe that Republicans can only win if Democrats fail to do what we need to in order to win, but we have to be on guard against complacency, or we may be scratching our own heads in a few years asking how the mandate we had and the concentration of power that the voters had given us, had evaporated into thin air (which Republicans today ask themselves when they go back and read posts from three years back.)

Now is the time to go all out and build towards putting the next election away.

GOP: opposes photo radar. GOP executive director: caught by photo radar

Now we know why some Arizona Republicans are so up in arms about photo radar:

they don't want to get caught

The executive director of the Arizona Republican Party was charged with reckless driving and criminal speeding Wednesday after a photo radar camera caught him driving 109 mph on Loop 101.

Brett Mecum was arrested by Department of Public Safety officers around 10:30 a.m. at party headquarters in Phoenix in connection with an April 10 incident.

DPS Spokesman Bart Graves said Mecum was driving a blue 2008 Ford Mustang eastbound on the 101 near 59th Avenue. The camera caught him going 44 mph over the posted speed limit of 65.

To be honest I actually agree with some of the Republicans about the photo radar cameras, as far as there being little control over the data that is collected, but if their motivation for being against them is so they can personally drive 109 mph without getting caught, then I part ways with them.

One loose cannon deserves another

This is the kind of moment in which Rush Limbaugh makes it clear to all how big of a buffoon he is.

Republicans, led by Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney held a townhall meeting this week in northern Virginia, an area that has trended strongly towards Democrats, as part of a new effort to 'rebrand' the GOP. Not that they are really proposing any new policies, so it is just a repackaging tour for the same old crap but at least they are trying to put a different face on the party.

Rush Limbaugh went ballistic on them, accusing them of "hating" and "depising" Sarah Palin, which is why they didn't invite her.

Leaving aside the obvious fact that if they want to present a new face of the GOP then inviting last year's disaster is hardly the face they want, I wonder whether Rush's real pique is that they didn't invite him (I mean, he's the effective leader of the Republican party, and he didn't even warrant an invitation.) Palin just was the first name that came up when he was casting around for someone to yell at them for not inviting. "I'm angry because they didn't invite her" is code-speak for "I'm angry because they didn't invite me."

And the truth is, Palin showed herself to be something of a loose cannon both during last year's campaign and in the days and weeks afterward. Maybe Rush can relate to that.

In fact, the best line Limbaugh threw out there during his fit of apoplexy was this: He accused Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney of not inviting Palin because they have their own "Presidential perspirations."

Yes, you read that right. Now I'm sure that Mitt perspired a lot when he was running all over the country last year in his desperate bid to catch McCain, and Jeb Bush probably broke a sweat last year when he realized how hard it will be for him to climb out from under the ten ton weight of his brother's legacy of failure, but Limbaugh could have just mailed them each a can of Right Guard if he had a problem with that, instead of putting it on air.

We don't know who the nominee is yet but the 'party of no' is already against him or her.

If I read this article right, It won't matter who the President picks as a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Phone lines around Washington began burning this morning as conservative organizations kicked off preparations for the fight over President Obama's eventual Supreme Court nominee.

Associate Justice David Souter's decision to step down at the end of this term has awakened a long-dormant network of conservative organizations that will do their best to augment — and at times pressure — Senate Republican efforts to frame Obama's eventual choice....

Groups like the American Center for Law & Justice, the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary and the Committee for Justice will all prepare background research on potential nominees, setting up the eventual, inevitable attacks on the nominee as a left-wing extremist....

Interpretation: It won't matter who Obama picks. You will hear the same attacks anyway, just because it is an Obama pick.

Is the next item on Glenn Beck's agenda a pogrom?

In case you don't know who Glenn Beck is (he's FOX News' latest talking clonehead) maybe what he said this morning will remind you of the kind of ignoramus that passes for an intellectual on the right.

After bashing the federal government for being 'too intrusive' he said, "Let my town decide if we want to be a 'Christian town' or not without the federal government telling us we can't make that decision ourselves."

Let's stop and remember though. At the time of the founding of our country there were many towns in Europe that proudly did proclaim themselves a 'Christian town.'

That proclaimation usually came shortly before they burned all the Jews' houses and ran the survivors out of town.

I don't quite get this poll result

I'm somewhat confused by a poll I just ran across.

I certainly can understand the notion that people of faith might separate their faith from their belief about whether torture is a good idea or not (though I don't think that it is a good idea myself), so I might have not been surprised to see a lack of correlation between religion and support or non-support for torture, but a new Pew poll out today suggests that especially among evangelicals and to a lesser degree among adherents of a number of other religions, support for torture is actually higher than it is among people who don't go to church.

According to the linked poll, 54% of people who go to church at least once per week believe that torture of prisoners is sometimes or often justified, versus 42% of non-church goers.

That statistic is somewhat misleading or at least overly broad though, as the survey finds that members of 'mainline' Protestant churches-- such as Lutherans, Presbyterians and Episcopals-- were actually more strongly opposed to torture than non-church goers (30% of mainline protestants answering that torture is never acceptable, versus 25% of the non-churchgoers) and Catholics were not that far behind non-churchgoers. The number that really sticks out is that only one in eight evangelicals believes the same.

Now, I'm not a member of an evangelical church and the President of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, had no comment on the poll. I'd be interested in knowing how they justify this though. I do go to church every week, and I've read the Bible extensively and I'm not sure what in scripture justifies torturing prisoners. I was reading the sermon on the mount the other day and I'm sure there was nothing in there about waterboarding. Maybe I will read it again tonight just to be sure.

If anyone who is a member of an evangelical denomination would like to comment on this and what in your doctrine makes members of your church more likely to support torture I'd love to hear it. I've always thought that Christians were more likely to uphold the teachings of Christ-- starting with compassion, even towards an enemy once he has been rendered powerless. But maybe I'm getting the wrong idea about that, this is more like the Christian values as practiced during the Inquisition.

Funds to help prepare for a pandemic were cut out as 'pork,' putting us all at more risk

Hat tip to Althouse:

John Nichols of The Nation calls them like he sees them. And he right on target today.

GOP know-nothings fought pandemic preparedness

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans -- led by Maine Senator Susan Collins -- aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey's attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.

And his partisan attacks on his efforts seem not just creepy, but dangerous.

Nichols then goes on to point out how Karl Rove pointed to pandemic preparedness funds in the stimulus package as an example of unnecessary pork.

Further on,

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."

Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.

The Republicans essentially succeeded. The Senate version of the stimulus plan included no money whatsoever for pandemic preparedness. In the conference committee that reconciled the House and Senate plans, Obey and his allies succeeded in securing $50 million for improving information systems at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

But state and local governments, and the emergency services that would necessarily be on the frontlines in any effort to contain a pandemic, got nothing.

I hope to God that this does not turn into a pandemic, but if it does and if state and local governments don't have the resources available to fight it, then remember the funding for that was in the original stimulus package. It was forcibly taken out of there by Republicans as a condition to pass any package at all.

Tired of hearing about Reagan all the time.

It seems that every time someone on the right is asked to come up with an alternative for fixing the economy to President Obama's economic programs they invariably suggest that we do what Reagan did. It's always 'Reagan this, Reagan that.'

Of course they do have one point right. Reaganism has dominated the national paradigm for the past quarter century. Even Democrats were debating Republicans over who could do the best job of cutting taxes, deregulating businesses and shrinking the size of the government.

But what in the end has thirty years of Reagan dominated philosophy done for us? It has increased the national debt by 1300%, it included such lowlights as the S&L bailout (if you think that massive taxpayer bailouts of banks that made bad decisions about real estate were something new, they're not,) Michael Milken and the junk bond crisis, recessions beginning in 1991, 2001 and 2007, Enron and the present housing crisis that is requiring bank bailouts on a scale that dwarfs even the S&L bailouts.

In fact the only years during the Reagan era when we did have a balanced budget was following the CLINTON TAX INCREASE (that was also when we grew 20 million + jobs in only eight years.

Yet it seems that for some of these folks they have grown Reagan into some kind of infallible myth. It's been more than twenty years since the man left office (in fact young people registering today weren't even born when he left office) and the old twentieth century solutions of 'tax cut, trickle down, deregulate' just haven't worked in the 21st century (note that the Dow was down about 25% between January 20, 2001 (inauguration day when George W. Bush entered office) and the same date eight years later.

So it's time to apply some new, 21st century solutions. John McCain advocated for smaller government and more tax cuts. If that's what people want then that's what they could have voted for. But they didn't. They voted for a candidate who promised to raise taxes on the wealthy, pledged to implement real health care reform and promised to improve the environment through better government oversight.

The era of Reagan is now over. And after 28 years, none too soon.

Tedisco concedes, Democrats hold NY-20

This is the occasional post where I laud a Republican for having some class.

Being behind by 399 votes shortly before the finish of the recount in a special election to fill an open house seat in New York state, Jim Tedisco conceded about an hour ago. Democrat Scott Murphy will represent the 20th district of New York in Congress. Tedisco had started the race out with a 20 point lead over Murphy in the polls but was hurt by his failure at first to say and then saying he would have voted against the President's stimulus plan while Murphy said up front that he supported it. Having made up twenty points on the specific issue of the stimulus, Murphy's win shows that Republicans run against President Obama's economic plans at their own peril.

UPDATE: the recount has been completed and it shows that Tedisco lost by 401 votes.

Recall that in 2004 in Washington state, Dino Rossi dragged the governor's race through the court system for months before he was forced to give it up. So he ran in a rematch last year against Governor Gregoire largely on an 'I-wuz-robbed' platform, and voters had had enough by then of Dino Rossi and he lost big (no recount necessary.)

Tedisco, on the other hand probably gains something with the voters for recognizing that he wasn't going to win and walking away instead of dragging it through the courts.

Somebody ought to tell Norm Coleman.

Even in New York, not enough people can afford an afternoon at the ballgame

It's not often that I sympathize with the New York Yankees.

I once told a friend of mine when we were discussing which baseball teams we liked that at the end of the day I rooted for 'any team that doesn't play its home games in the Bronx.'

But you have to feel just a little bit for the Steinbrenner family about now.

They made a decision before the recession to put together and spend $1.6 billion for a new Yankee Stadium, replacing the legendary old park that was better known as 'the house that Ruth built,' recognizing the man who is still the greatest Yankee (and some believe still the greatest ballplayer) ever.

In order to ensure that their 'build it and they will come' philosophy would work, the Yanks went out and spent millions more on C.C. Sabathia, the cream of the free agent crop, adding to their team payroll which for years has been at the top of the list in baseball.

Of course to recoup all that revenue they jacked up the prices to sky high, even by New York standards. The luxury section, known as the 'legends suite,' sells for $500-$2500 per ticket, per game (plus a small additional surcharge for non-season ticket holders.) That of course is just to get your seat, amenities extra-- at inflated ballpark prices of course.

Only a funny thing is happening though. The Yankees built it, but they did not come.

The most expensive spots in America's costliest ballpark have become an embarrassment packing a financial sting to the proud New York Yankees, as the Legends Suite section in the infield has been filled only once in the six games since the $1.5 billion stadium opened last week.

On most days, the 1,895 seats that cost $500-$2,500 as part of season tickets and go up to $2,625 for individual games haven't been close to full. And as TV cameras pick up the patchy attendance with every pitch, it serves as a little tweak to America's richest baseball team.

"We're done talking about seats," Yankees president Randy Levine said on Wednesday. "We're not talking about seats."

Just a bit annoyed, wouldn't you say? The article goes on to point out that there are even a bunch of empty seats behind home plate (imagine seeing empty seats behind home plate in the old Yankee stadium.) Apparently during a recession even America's most storied franchise with a brand new park can't just keep raising prices like it was the mid 2000's when they began working on this project.

Even in New York, there aren't enough people with enough money to spend it like that any more.

Just one more small step towards boondocksville

More discussion going on today in the legislature about the effect of state budget cuts on our state and especially on education. Keep in mind that the universities already got hit hard last year.

Meanwhile, the 2010 U.S. News rankings of Law Schools came out.

The University of Arizona law school dropped eight spots from last year, from #35 to #43. ASU fell three spots, to #55.

Just another raindrop in the storm.

Key witness in State Department passport case gunned down outside his church-- one year anniversary

Remember a scandal that erupted last year in the State Department when it turned out that Department employees had illegally accessed passport information regarding Barack Obama? Later on it turned out that the files of Hillary Clinton and John McCain were also accessed, though most of the scrutiny was of Obama's passport file.

At the time it was passed off as the clumsy work of a couple of low level trainees who apparently had accessed the information on a lark. Then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice even called Obama to apologize for the breach. A number of State Department employees were fired as a result.

Only the investigation didn't stop there. It led to an ongoing investigation into passport fraud. One key witness was Lieutenant Quarles Harris, Jr.

Well, obviously there is more at stake here than just ordinary passport fraud. Harris was shot to death one year ago yesterday as he sat in his car in front of his church.

It is not yet known who killed him or whether it is related to the passport fraud case. We will have to wait for the police to finish their investigation before we know that. But the fact that Harris was apparently specifically targeted at a location where he was known to frequent on Sundays is disturbing to say the least. Will they ever find out who killed him or will this simply be swept under the rug?

CORRECTION: I had originally looked at the date on the story and figured it happened this year. In fact this year was the one year anniversary of when it happened. And apparently they still have no killer.

Maybe it's not Texas, but Arizona that's like a whole other country.

Some highlights of the state budget that was passed by the state house of representatives by a unanimous vote:

*-- A 5.1% increase in spending (thanks to the use of federal stimulus funds without draconian cuts elsewhere)

*-- Increased scholarships for students whose families make less than $50,000 by 25%

*-- Expanded electric bill discounts for the poor

*-- Promotes the creation of a high speed rail line between two of the state's biggest cities

*-- Took money from the Governor's office budget to fund programs for veterans and the mentally ill.

*-- Gave most state workers, retired state workers and retired teachers a $1,000 one-time bonus

Wow, our house did that?? No, it was another state's house. A liberal, northeastern, high tax state then? No, it was TEXAS.

Granted this budget will have to be reconciled with the budget passed by the more conservative Texas Senate, but it shows that even in a conservative state it is possible this year to pass a progressive budget.

Except that here in Arizona our legislators give us a choice between draconian, more draconian and most draconian.

Homeland Security memo twisted out of shape by the right

This week the Homeland Security Department released a memo outlining ongoing terror threats and new ones that are developing.

Within hours the right was all over the document, and distorting it in misleading and terrible ways.

Well, let me defend the memo and the department and its chief, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.

First, let's address the whole issue of domestic versus foreign terrorism. Despite what you may have heard, nowhere does the memo suggest that we should be any less vigilant on the issue of foreign terrorists. We still live in a world containing people outside the United States who want to kill Americans and the memorandum says nothing to downplay that fact.

It does however highlight domestic terrorism as the fastest growing terror threat at this time. If anything, I'd think the right would be taking plaudits and repeating their oft-repeated assertion that this shows that the Bush administration's policy against foreign terrorists worked, at least inside the United States. And while I may feel that some of the tactics employed by the Bush administration may have been unnecessarily intrusive and a violation of civil rights (such as the right to search your home when you are not present and without presenting a warrant) I'm willing to give them credit in that attacks by foreign terrorists since 9/11 have all occurred outside rather than inside the United States.

But the right chooses to go after the whole 'domestic terrorist' argument as an attack on them. Where does it say that? The memo is about growing terrorist threats, and nowhere does it suggest that anyone who speaks out peacefully against the administration is a threat.

It does go into some detail about the profile of people that domestic terror groups are looking to recruit. One sentence states that returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are more likely to be recruited by these groups because they value their weapons training and combat experience. Unfortunately the right has turned this on its ear and said that the memo claims that veterans are now being called terrorists. House Republican Leader John Boehner called the language 'offensive' and demanded an apology. The commander of the American Legion demanded that that section of the document be retracted. Napolitano has contacted him to set up a meeting to discuss the issue. However the interpretation that the memorandum calls veterans domestic terrorsts is a gross distortion. For one thing, the memo says that these groups are looking to recruit returning veterans. Obviously if you are recruiting someone they are not yet a member of your organization. Further, it is a fact that all terrorist organizations (foreign or domestic) need to recruit people and if you know who they want to recruit then you can take advantage of that knowledge (for example if the FBI wants to infiltrate a domestic terror group then they would probably start by looking for agents that fit the profile of who the group is recruiting.) Saying that domestic terror groups look to recruit veterans is no more an indictment of veterans than for example the statement that al-Qaeda likes to recruit young unemployed muslims is an indictment of all young unemployed muslims (at least not to any rational person-- maybe the right does read it that way since some of them actually do believe that all young unemployed muslims are therefore terrorists.)

The memo goes on to discuss a number of specific issue-indentified terror threats, most notably militant anti-abortion groups or individuals. From this, the right has twisted it to claim that anyone who expresses a pro-life opinion on abortion is therefore being tarred as a terrorist. Which is of course ridiculous. Nothing in the memo says any such thing, but it is a fact that we live in a nation in which several doctors have been murdered and numerous abortion clinics have been bombed. This is terrorism, plain and simple, and if the right can't figure out the difference between a pastor who uses his First Amendment right to speak out against abortion and Eric Robert Rudolf, then they are either stupid or are being wilfully ignorant. The Homeland Security Department is concerned with preventing acts of violence, and if there is an increased potential for violence from anti-abortion extremists then it is the responsibility of the deparment to recognize that and take action to prevent it. The memo isn't about shutting anybody up, it's about stopping terrorists before they strike.

And that is the crux of the problem. If this memorandum was never issued and a terrorist attack occurred then the department would be attacked for never delving into the groups that carried it out (just as the right used the occasion of the Oklahoma City Bombing to jump all over the Clinton administration for supposedly weakening domestic surveillance and not looking closer at those kinds of groups after Waco.)

Incidentally the same memorandum suggests that left-wing extremists are more likely to be involved with cyberterrorism. I'm not sure how come computer literate people on the left are more likely to engage in malicious hacking than computer literate people on the right, but I am throwing that in to show the contrast-- for the most part the righties are assuming this memo targets them and are ignoring that section of the document, except for a couple of talk radio heads who have instead jumped on it as what they claim is 'the only thing in it that is true.' You can't win with this paranoid, xenophobic crowd.

I would like to conclude that I believe that it was a mistake to put FEMA under the auspices of the Homeland Security Department. DHS is tasked with stopping terrorism before it happens, not picking up the pieces afterward. That is what FEMA does, but if DHS does its job well then FEMA will be able to concentrate on natural disasters.

But instead of 'you're doing a great job, Brownie' apparently the reaction of the right to the memo put out by DHS is that they are baking something into the brownies.

"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.