Mapleberry Blog

Dead Again

2010-03-12T16:25:00.002-05:00

I just spoke to a staffer in Rep. Donald Payne's (D - NJ 10) office to see where he stood on the public option via the reconciliation process. She told me that Pelosi is sending them a bill that does NOT include the public option, AT ALL.

I told the staffer that this was unacceptable - that my preference, despite some good things in the bill, is that he should vote against it. She was apologetic - Payne has been and still is a big supporter of Universal Healthcare.

Benito Mussolini promised to make the trains run on time, and he probably did. There are good things in the healthcare bill we're being promised, too - but today, as it was in 1930's Italy, the cost is too high. I do not want to be forced by law to buy health insurance from a private company. That, although it pains me to sound like a tea-partier, is the fascist path - the merging of government interests with those of corporations. Government as a marketing arm of the insurance industry. I wouldn't mind paying taxes, or a premium, to Medicare, but mandating that I MUST pay Aetna, UHC, Wellpoint, or one of the other corporate insurers just isn't cool, isn't right, and is profoundly anti-democratic.

I may still support individual candidates from time to time, but I am tired of being fucked by the Democratic Party. I'm done with them. Unfortunately, they're probably not done with me.

In New Jersey, "The Beast" finally looks undernourished

2010-02-22T10:46:00.001-05:00

I had been ruminating on my last post, about the disconnect between message (We have tax no money for the things you want, and your taxes are too high already) and reality (we're really not taxing you that much, after all) and how that ties in with the long-term Republican strategy of "starving the beast." (For those who don't remember, "starving the beast" was Republican anti-tax strategist Grover Norquist's term for reducing taxes, and hence the size of government, until it could be "drowned in a bathtub.")

That tax cutting has been the politician's predominant vote-buying ploy of choice over the last 35 years (leading up to California's tax-decimating Proposition 13 in 1978, and its aftermath) is undeniable, dropping average federal tax rates by about 20% since 1980. But - the "beast" held on, at least in New Jersey. At the local level, taxing authorities (municipal governments and school boards, mostly) have been filling the holes left by their federal and state counterparts by furiously raising property taxes - but they've been unable to keep up (overall tax burdens down by about 3% in the last dozen years), especially since legislators in Trenton placed economic-reality-ignoring annual caps on tax rates and/or tax levies.

After Republican (and über tax-cutter) Governor Christie Whitman left office in 2001, a succession of Democratic governors managed as best they could to hold the line and preserve as much in the way of government programs and services as possible, but it's been a slow downhill grind. Now that Republican Chris Christie has taken office, he's aggressively taken on "the beast" again, cutting New Jersey's funding for municipalities, public schools, and public transportation by double-digit percentages. "The beast" has managed to survive, if not thrive, up to now but, with Mr Christie's ascension as Lord High Executioner (and he has, to be sure, "a little list"), the ol' boy is looking pretty gaunt. The 35 year mission of the Republican Party - to reduce government to a shell incapable of providing any "service" that does not require either incorporation papers or firearms (or, preferably, both) to carry out - is nearly complete.

I'm back to this subject, in part, because Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times is about this very subject - not about New Jersey or the size of our tax burden but about Republicans' efforts to kill off government and how, despite their rhetoric (and their very real tax cuts) they're unwilling to propose any real cuts in services for fear of angering voters. This appears to be true at the federal level, and even in the legislative branch of New Jersey government (the state Senate and Assembly). However, I have to credit Governor Christie, however odious, for following through. Where his predecessors at Drumthwacket - McGreevey, Codey, and Corzine - held on as best they could to the programs people most want, Christie is busy dismantling any vestige of citizen-centered, citizen-responsive government and replacing it with government that will not do anything (and soon will not be able to do anything) for citizens. In Chris Christie Republican-world, government is a cost-center business, providing services only to other businesses, and it has no citizens, only customers (and then only if they can afford to pay).

New Jersey: Taxed to Death? Or not taxed enough?

2010-02-20T17:13:00.007-05:00

Are we really paying more taxes than we used to?
In my home state of New Jersey it has become conventional wisdom that we are grossly overtaxed - that tax cuts are the only cure for the slew of evils besetting us. After having watched my own property tax bills more than double since I moved to the state in 1997, it was a sentiment I found hard to gainsay. I did wonder though, if my taxes were so high, why there seemed to be no money available to pay for anything. Our schools and municipalities, after all, have been retrenching and cutting back on programs almost continuously for my entire 13 year tenure in the state, despite the vertiginous (some might say outrageous, or even confiscatory) local tax increases. I did some poking around on the intertubes and, much to my surprise, found that far from being more heavily taxed than in the past, overall tax burdens have gone down almost continuously since the mid 1960's.

The Tax Foundation, which describes itself like this

The mission of the Tax Foundation is to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government. From its founding in 1937, the Tax Foundation has been grounded in the belief that the dissemination of basic information about government finance is the foundation of sound policy in a free society.

has a vast amount of historical tax data available on its website. In going through the data, I found that New Jersey residents' per capita tax burden (Federal, state, and local taxes taken as a whole) had actually declined by 3.1% between 1980 and 2007. The Tax Foundation's handy rubric "Tax Freedom Day" (the notional date we finish paying our taxes and start keeping our income for ourselves) was May 1 in 1980. In 2009 it was two days earlier. In 1998, my first full year in New Jersey, Tax Freedom Day was May 14. In other words, overall tax bills have gone down quite significantly since 1997 and even since 1980. The last time Tax Freedom Day in New Jersey was as early as it was last year, on April 29, was during the Carter administration.

So why do we feel overtaxed now, if we didn't then?
It's all about where we pay those taxes. In 1980, the mean Federal tax rate was 15.31% while New Jersey's state/local tax bite was 10.1%. By 2007, the state/local tax rate had climbed to 11.9% - but during the same period the federal rate had fallen to 12.68%. Using (for simplicity's sake) the 2007 NJ median per capita income of $54,264 (per the Tax Foundation's tables), 1980 federal taxes would have been $8308 while state/local taxes would have been $5481. In 2007, federal taxes would have fallen by $1427 to $6881 while state and local taxes would have risen by $994 to $6475. The total tax bill then, for a median taxpayer in New Jersey, would have fallen from $13,789 to $13,356. Because there has been no change in the NJ marginal income tax rate for taxpayers earning less than $400,000 (at least since 2000, the earliest year I could find data for), the increase in NJ taxes is attributable almost entirely to property tax and therein lies the cause of taxpayer discontent. We feel more burdened NOT because we are paying more taxes, but because federal and state elected officials have been buying our votes for the last 30 years with tax decreases that local elected officials are stuck having to paper over with corresponding tax increases. We feel the bill now, as we did not in 1980, because instead of paying it with money we never had in hand (i.e. via payroll withholding), we now write the checks out every month as part of our mortgage or rent payments.

The problem for New Jersey gets worse. In the period between 1981 and 2005 (again, the only period for which I could find data), for each dollar we sent out of the state as federal taxes the amount coming back to New Jersey declined - from an awful 72 cents on the dollar to an abysmal, disastrous 61 cents. In 1981, using the hypothetical income numbers from the paragraph above, NJ would have gotten back $5982 per capita from the Feds. In 2005 we would have gotten only $4197 - and that $1800 shortfall had to be made up from state and local sources.

The history of continued taxing and spending shows fairly convincingly that New Jersey residents, despite saying they want lower taxes (as who doesn't), even more strongly want the things that their taxes buy and, at least up to now, have been willing to pay to get them. A litany of elected officials in Trenton, though, have been either too clueless to understand this or too cowardly to work it politically. Instead of making the case for finding better ways to pay for the things their constituents want and need, they put arbitrary caps on property tax levies. They base their caps on the CPI despite the undeniable fact that what government spends most of its money on does not track the CPI at all. The cost of employee health insurance, for example, has gone up by double-digit rates each year for the last decade while municipalities and school districts were stuck with 2.5-4% caps on the amount of money they could raise. The disconnect between state-mandated tax caps and market-mandated cost increases has squeezed local taxing authorities to the breaking point - program cuts, furloughs, police, fire and emergency services layoffs have become not only thinkable, but expected annual events. Like their equally cowardly brethren in Washington, Trenton has bought votes by pretending to be tough on budget issues while really just pushing the bills down to the local level. Mayors, Township Committees, Borough Councils, and School Boards have to deal with political fallout both from tax increases and program cuts and layoffs while Trentonians have positioned themselves to look like heroes ( in areas selected for maximum political benefit) by tossing fifty thousand here, a few hundred thousand there, to fill in the local budget gaps they created in the first place.

What to do, what to DO?
New Jersey has only a couple of options, and what Governor Chris Christie is doing now (making draconian cutbacks in state aid to municipalities and school districts) shouldn't even be on the table. As outlined above, our tax burden is no heavier, and in fact is somewhat lighter, than it's been in the past. Cutting services is the answer only to a question no one should be asking.

We need, first of all, to raise taxes, not decrease them. This should be done at the state level, offsetting some significant portion of the (moderately regressive) property tax and the (deeply regressive) sales tax with increases in the (progressive) state income tax. Income tax marginal rates should go up a bit, too - particularly in the over $250,000 income range. (There's no such tax bracket today - a huge gap between the $75,000 and $400,000 brackets that should be filled). This, of course, would take courage from Trenton, courage that appears to be lacking in either party.

We need to hold our Congressional delegation's feet to the fire: New Jersey has senior, quite influential members in both houses of Congress, some in the Democratic leadership (Senator Menendez and Representatives Payne, Pascrell, Andrews, and Pallone come to mind), who just aren't doing enough to bring our tax dollars back to New Jersey. We need to make sure that the Bush tax cuts, due to expire soon, are allowed to do just that - and to call bullshit on any candidate, incumbent or newcomer, who calls that expiration a tax increase.

Finally, we New Jersey taxpayers need to step back and look at the whole tax picture instead of focusing solely on the rise in property taxes, because we're really not doing so badly on that front after all.

Reliable in their Scumbaggery

2009-09-30T11:09:00.005-04:00

As expected, the bought-off Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee (Senators Baucus, Nelson, Conrad, Lincoln, and Carper) killed the public-plan option in their version of healthcare reform - leaving it as a big, fat, sloppy-wet kiss for the insurance companies to whom they really owe their jobs.

I'm not going to bother sending these bozos any emails - there's no point since they've already demonstrated that they are not responsible to their constituents or to the country as a whole, but only to their corporate masters. What I WILL do is give money to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee for ads targeting Baucus and Company. Money and embarrassing publicity are the two things they will respond to.

There are a few things that Dems, as a group, could do:

Menendez (as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) should withhold any campaign money from them .
The DSCC should back primary challenges against those 5. The Publicans do this all the time to keep the troops in line and on message.
President Obama should call 'em in to the Oval Office and tell 'em, point blank, "When any federal departments (DOE, DOD, HHS, Agriculture, etc) have discretion as to where money will be spent, it will not be spent in your states."
The other Dems on Finance should vote to kill the bill before it ever gets out of committee.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should chuck Baucus's bill and bring the much better HELP Committee (Kennedy/Harkin/Dodd/Sanders) bill to the floor instead.

I doubt any of these will happen, since the swearing-in process for Democrats entering Congress or the White House seems to require orchiectomy surgery.

Obama's Speech - B+ for politics, D+ for content

2009-09-10T09:58:00.001-04:00

There was enough in President Obama's speech last night, but only barely. There was a bit of red meat and some tugged heartstrings, but I'll say this - his health plan is far too considerate of Big Insurance & Big Pharma and not nearly considerate enough of what is needed to truly reform the system.

In the President's proposal it would be illegal for people not to buy insurance from a private insurance company. In effect, he's adding a new tax, to be paid not to the government but to private, for-profit companies. Equating this mandate to the requirement to carry automobile insurance, as Obama did last night, is bogus because you can choose not to own a car but you can't simply choose not to get sick. This makes Aetna, Wellpoint, United Healthcare et al. into latter-day publicans, who've purchased the right to squeeze the populace for as much as they can. What the President laid out last night is a giveaway to insurance companies - the profits from the 30-50 million new, mandated "customers" will far outstrip any reduction in their profits due to restrictions on policy rescission and rejections for pre-existing conditions.

As the President described it, the public plan option will be there only for people who are otherwise unable to get insurance - i.e. only for those without an employer plan available to them. But what if the health insurance an employer provides sucks ass? Apparently it's "too bad, Charlie" because you can't opt out of employer insurance in favor of the public plan. It was not clear, but it appears that employers will be unable to choose the public plan when shopping for group health insurance for their employees - it will be for uninsured individuals only. This undercuts the raison d'etre of a public insurance option - to provide real, lower overhead/lower cost plans that will force insurers to keep internal costs down and innovate on the services they offer.

The health insurance "Exchanges" won't go into effect until 2013 (Why not? The Feds set up the Department of Homeland Security in mere months, and it has well over 100,000 employees) - leaving the uninsured still uninsured (except by a so-far-hypothetical assigned-risk pool that is likely to be very expensive to buy in to) for the next 4 years. In the meantime, insurers will almost certainly be raising premiums to cover the reduction in revenue from having to cover pre-existing conditions and rescinding the policies of sick people.

The President did not mention one of the most serious problems facing healthcare consumers today - the cost of prescription drugs. There's still no provision for negotiating lower prices. No re-visiting Medicare Part D to allow price negotiations. No elimination of the Part D "donut hole." And nothing that addresses the price disparity between what Americans pay for drugs and what the rest of the world pays (Canadian prescription drugs cost 35-90% less than they do here in the U.S.).

What also went completely unmentioned and unaddressed by the President was the massive waste of money on paper-pushing. Hospitals and physicians alike spend hundreds of billions each year on filing claims, requesting pre-certifications, issuing referrals - none of which add a single iota of value to the system. Health exchanges will only make that aspect worse.

The only viable solution for most of what really ails American healthcare is a single-payer plan. Despite his public support for it in the past, the President went out of his way last night to sneer at single-payer and its supporters, in what has lately become the Democratic Party modus vivendi - i.e. throw your most avid supporters under the bus while bending over backwards to try to satisfy your opposition, who will never support you anyway.

Proof Positive - Bloggers are real journalists

2009-06-26T07:34:00.002-04:00

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Dingell-berries

2008-11-20T19:32:00.009-05:00

I saw a news story today reporting that Henry Waxman (D-CA) had edged out John Dingell Jr. (D-MI), in a rather hard-fought campaign, to be the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee for the 111th Congress. An interesting story in its way - it appealed to my wonky nature, especially since it made me worry that Rep. Waxman might relinquish the Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - a job he has performed with zeal and distinction, holding the Administration's feet to the fire whenever circumstances demanded - i.e. pretty much all the time.

But it really set me off when the article reported that Rep. Dingell has served in the house since 1955. "That has to be a typo," I thought, "Maybe they meant 1975." But no, John Dingell has been in the House of Representatives since December 13, 1955 - 2 1/2 weeks before my first birthday and well over half a century ago!

Odder still, the previous occupant of the that Congressional seat had been John Dingell Sr, who held it from 1933 until his death in 1955, when Junior took over. So - the residents of Michigan's 15th/16th (they merged in 2002) Congressional district have been represented by a John Dingell since the dawn of the FDR/New deal era, over 75 years ago.

I am not a fan of legislated term limits, and I have no axe to grind with Rep. Dingell - but there's something about this that strikes me, in a very visceral way, as somehow vaguely un-American, and just plain wrong.

(I do have to note that Henry Waxman has himself been in Congress since 1975, when I was but a sophomore in college - even so, John Dingell Sr/Jr still have 42 years on him.)

Hillary at State - and Bill in the Senate?

2008-11-15T11:02:00.005-05:00

Hillary at State? So all the news sources seem to be saying. The latest I've seen is that she has been offered the position and has asked for a little time to think it over.

Last night in a conversation I had at the South Orange "Harvest Ball" fundraiser, someone suggested an interesting and provocative scenario: Hillary Clinton resigns her senate seat to become Secretary of State, and then NY Governor David Patterson names Bill Clinton to serve out the remainder of Hillary's term.

Weird, eh? Unprecedented. But not in a bad way. I guess this could depend, at least in part, on how much the President-elect trusts the Clintons now that the election is past.

What California taketh away ...

2008-11-13T12:32:00.007-05:00

Connecticut giveth in return...

New York Times

Same-sex marriage comes to Connecticut!

So when does this happen in my home state of New Jersey? Come on, Trenton, get off your asses and get this done!

Rachel and the Wonkette

2008-11-11T21:47:00.005-05:00

Rachel Maddow is the best thing going on MSNBC - she's funny, goofy, cute, amazingly endearing, and very, very smart. She was, for too long, the best thing on Air America Radio, and certainly the best of their home-grown talent.

But what's up with her frequent MSNBC guest Ana Marie Cox? More specifically, why is she a guest at all? Cox was often entertaining at Wonkette as a kind of Gen-X Maureen Dowd - her shtick is a Dowd-like funny (and often mean-spirited) snarkiness, but she seems utterly devoid of Dowd's (too-rarely displayed) gift for the trenchant observation. Cox has not been an especially good reporter, and as an analyst she's neither very deep nor very insightful.

So Rachel, please - find someone else for whatever role it is you think Ana Marie Cox is filling.

The old John McCain?

2008-11-09T12:11:00.004-05:00

In this period of election postmortems, there's a lot (too much!) chatter about what happened to the "old" John McCain - the one everyone respected. To this I can only say "Get a clue, people!" That John McCain never existed - he was a creation of savvy marketing and a sympathetic press-corps.

Senator McCain was always the same creepy guy we saw this time around - the difference between then and now is that this year, he was THE candidate instead of 2000's the OTHER candidate, so the press was forced to look at him with a more critical eye. When they did (as in Tim Dickinson's damning Rolling Stone article), he responded both by withdrawing from them and by becoming bellicose. Without the day-to-day mutual wanking McCain and the press had enjoyed, reporters started to be able to see the character flaws and mean-spiritedness that had always been there.

Election Day, Town Hall, Maplewood NJ

2008-11-06T20:05:00.003-05:00

(click on the picture to see it at larger size)

The line of people waiting to vote, as it snaked around the Town Hall meeting chamber. At this point the wait was about an hour and fifteen minutes. Several times during the day the wait was well over 1 1/2 hours, and it was no less than 30 minutes from 6:00 AM, when polls opened, until 6:00 PM. The voters in my district, District 3, were luckier than those in District 6. Their line snaked through the hallways and out into the parking lot.

Remarkably, very few people left - no more than a dozen. But we sure could have used another couple of voting machines.

Prop 8

2008-11-06T19:22:00.002-05:00

Californians ought to be ashamed.

Members of the LDS church deserve to be ashamed.

The only upside to Prop 8's passage - the demographic groups that got it passed were the 45-54s (by a small margin), 55-64 and, most heavily, the over 65's. Time will have its way, and those who voted for it will sooner or later not be with us any longer. Give it 5 or 8 or 10 years and there will be few left who think it's okay to declare their fellows less than human.

Yay, us!

2008-11-06T19:17:00.000-05:00

I feel like my country is my own again - for the moment, at least.

Despicable

2008-11-03T09:04:00.004-05:00

Despicably anti-American crap.

"I'm the NRA - and I don't believe in Democracy."

Gun firm head resigns over Obama support

Published: Oct. 31, 2008 at 7:35 PM

STEVENSVILLE, Mont., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The namesake of Montana-based Cooper Firearms has been asked to resign as president of the company after he expressed support for Barack Obama.

The company said it asked Dan Cooper, founder and part owner of Cooper Firearms, to resign as president after he voiced support for the Democratic Illinois senator's bid for president in a USA Today interview published Tuesday, USA Today reported Friday.

"Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper," the company said in a statement on its Web site Wednesday. "It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms. The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as president."

Cooper, who said he usually votes Republican, told the paper in the interview he planned to vote for Obama "probably because of the war. And also because the Republican Party has moved so far right in recent years."

Cooper said Thursday he had submitted his resignation to the board.

"There is nothing on this earth I will not do for my employees ... When the Internet anger turned on these innocent people, I felt it was important to distance myself from the company so as not to cause any further harm," he said.

It's long past time to end stuff like this.

Vote Obama

2008-11-03T07:27:00.003-05:00

I was going to write a rationale for my Obama support, considering that, earlier this year, I had written some not-so-complimentary things about him. He was not my first, nor even my second, choice out of the huge Democratic field that had entered the primary fray. But that doesn't matter anymore. He is, I have come to believe, truly the "Change We Need."

There are many good things I could write about Senator Obama, but I don't need to - my friend Mark at A Cautious Man has done it for me - eloquently, as always.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow - it's probably the most important vote you will ever cast.

Cali friends - vote no on Prop Hate

2008-11-02T09:14:00.005-05:00

It could happen

Don't let it.

video via Avedon at Eschaton
link via tristero at Hullabaloo

Weepy

2008-10-28T19:26:00.003-04:00

I don't remember where it was, but a couple of days ago I read a blog entry written by someone who'd been working at an early-voting location. The blogger described a family who had come in to vote together, 4 generations of them. The youngest was 18 and voting for the first time, and the oldest was 92 years old.

They all voted, but when the 92 year-old came out of the voting booth, she collapsed into a chair. The blogger went over to help, thinking the elderly woman was having some sort of health emergency, but she waved the help off. She was not ill - she was weeping. She wept because, as she said, she'd never believed until that moment that she would ever in her lifetime be able to vote for an African-American for President. Only after she left the voting booth did the monumental reality of her vote truly register, and she was overcome with the emotion of it.

Tonight at the dinner table I was telling this story to my wife. I had to stop in the middle, because I started to cry as I told it. Indeed the tears are welling up again as I write this. I am a pretty cynical person - perhaps it's true that a cynic is really a perpetually disappointed optimist - but the idea that we, the people of this nation I so often despair of, might for once look forward instead of back and toward each other instead of only toward themselves, is breathtaking.

I don't think Barack Obama is the Messiah or even the best thing since sliced bread. He may become a great President, or turn out to be a lousy one. But I believe that the very fact of his election, should he win next Tuesday( and he's GOT to, dammit!), will mark the beginning of a new, different, hopeful, energized America. Please let us all make sure that happens. Don't forget to vote, and make sure everyone you know votes, too.

* * * * *

As I was finishing this item up, I got a phone call from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, asking for some (more) money. I'm kinda tight right now (as aren't we all) but I swallowed, and gave - because it's THAT important that we move our government away from the place it's in now, as far and as fast as possible. If you've got a few dollars to spare, give it to Barack, to the DCCC, to the DSCC, or one of the many fine progressive Democrats running for office this year. They surely can use it.

See you at the election night celebration!

Onward, Christian Soldiers

2008-10-22T15:48:00.002-04:00

This creeps me out more than a little:

She [Palin] also thanked her supporters — including Dobson, who said he and his wife were asking “for God’s intervention” on election day — for their prayers of support.

“It is that intercession that is so needed,” she said. “And so greatly appreciated. And I can feel it too, Dr. Dobson. I can feel the power of prayer, and that strength that is provided through our prayer warriors across this nation. And I so appreciate it.”

Prayer warriors? We don't need no stinkin' elections when we have prayer warriors!

Bait racing

2008-10-22T08:15:00.001-04:00

Is Joe Lieberman so supportive of John McCain because they're both white?

Just askin'.

Without Preconditions?

2008-10-16T09:43:00.006-04:00

John McCain is incredulous that Barack Obama would even suggest direct, no pre-conditions talks with Ahmedinajad. Last night, we saw why.

McCain's world view is all about anger and a short fuse - he wears his feelings on his sleeve and can't hold his tongue. It looked last night like he could hardly bear to be sitting at the same table with Obama - he probably can't even imagine sitting down with an 'enemy.'

Obama, on the other hand, is cool and even-tempered. It appears that he can listen to any amount of nonsense and vitriol, and pick out from it the points that actually need to be heard and addressed. That was how he dealt with McCain - who looked like he has more disdain and hatred for Obama than he does for Ahmedinajad.

Obama won the debates, and would 'win' (whatever that would mean, in context) in talks with Iran, because he's wired that way. McCain didn't, and couldn't, because that's the way HE is. And McCain is so buried in that angry-guy worldview that he can't fathom anything different.

Sarah Palin, Foreign Policy Queen

2008-09-26T13:38:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking that Palin has excellent foreign policy credentials because her name, ya know, is almost the same as Stalin, and he was foreign.

Thank you Senator McCain

2008-09-26T09:36:00.002-04:00

Dear John -

Thanks for showing how truly unfit for command you are. After ducking even David Letterman (and lying about it), you went to Washington (after preening before the crowds at the Clinton Global Initiative) and said almost nothing. When asked which plan to deal with the crisis you supported - a crisis which you deem so important that you "suspended" your campaign to deal with it - you contributed little and couldn't even say what bailout plan you supported. You appear not to be sure which political horse to ride - the "Professionals" (Paulson, Bernanke, a jillion economists, Chairmen Dodd & Frank and their working, bipartisan, committees), or the "Conservatives" (Senator Shelby and a bunch of grandstanding House Republicans). While you are fiddling, Rome may not yet be burning, but if it does no one will be able to borrow any money to rebuild it.

As President you don't get to do just one thing at a time. As President, you delegate work to people who are able to do it, and get out of the way until they tell you they're either a) done or b) need your help. As President, you don't get to call a time-out while you figure out how to pull your ass out of the fire. Perhaps your "suspended" campaign was the best favor you could do for America, for it shows us just how temperamentally unsuited to the Presidency you really are.

Robin Hood Hank (Paulsen)

2008-09-18T09:29:00.004-04:00

A co-worker of mine, a rabid right-winger, was commenting yesterday about how Barack Hussein Obama (as he always calls him) wants to use US tax policy to redistribute wealth. I can at least understand, if not sympathize, with that point of view. But he, like the vast majority of so-called conservatives, has chosen to ignore that this is exactly what the Bush administration, over the last 10 days or so, has been doing - redistributing wealth. Only they've been doing it in reverse - rather than stealing (as my colleague would call it) from the rich to give to the poor, they're engaged in taking the debts of the rich and saddling the the rest of us with them.

Single payer?

2008-09-18T09:08:00.004-04:00

The US Treasury now owns AIG's regulated insurance businesses.

In effect, we, the US taxpayers, own a health insurance company. So can we get us some health insurance now?

No atheists in foxholes?

2008-09-18T07:52:00.000-04:00

With the proviso that I'm no expert in financial markets (is anyone, really?), I have to say that one of my worries, more than the AIG fallout, is Lehman's bankruptcy.

Because a court will need to determine what their assets are worth, the credit derivatives they hold will have to be assigned actual monetary values, and those values will almost certainly be far lower than the value ascribed to them in Lehman's books.

Problem is that many financial services firms are carrying those same securities on their books at similarly inflated valuations. Hence, once the values are set by the court, all those other firms may suddenly find their assets have shrunk by many billions of dollars. Whoosh ... watch money evaporate! Whoosh - watch firms fall like dominoes as their creditors see just how undercapitalized they actually are.

Another worry - in taking over Fannie and Freddie, the US Treasury overnight added $5 TRILLION dollars to the national debt, effectively doubling the US debt load. That's $5 trillion in what was once private debt that is now public debt. The Treasury can't just print that much money - it will have to be raised by taxation, or by additional borrowing, and the credit markets are not a bottomless well. We're in some seriously deep shit here.

There's an old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. Well, apparently there are no conservatives in financial meltdowns, either. Inside every free-trade conservative is a socialist waiting to be set free. This week, a lot of them made it into the open.

Bristol Palin - a mirror, not an issue

2008-09-03T12:13:00.005-04:00

Barack Obama's statement about Bristol Palin being off-limits was, mostly, right on. Even though her pregnancy was put into public play by her mother, the presumptive VP candidate, she's still a kid and her private life should be just that - private.

But one of the reasons I can't just let it go is that it is so reflective of larger themes being played out in this election cycle. What it's really about is neither Bristol Palin's poor choices (who, as a teenager, didn't make some really bonehead choices?) nor her mother's parenting style or abilities. It's about how Sarah Palin wants to force us all to follow rules that do not work even for her or her family.

It demonstrates yet again in small, as Iraq and Katrina demonstrated in large, that the doofuses currently in ascendance in the Republican Party operate with a world-view based in fantasy. In Republican-world, what one wishes for is actually what is true, simply because one has wished it (e.g. - Teens won't have sex if we just tell them not to and don't teach them anything about it; Iraqis will throw flowers at our troops and won't fight back after we invade their country; Cities won't flood if we stop spending money on flood control; Bridges won't collapse when we stop spending money on highway maintenance; etc. ad nauseum).

Not to say that I'm a huge fan of Kissinger-style realpolitik, but you can't deal with problems as they really exist if you pretend they're not really there, right in front of you. That's how our government has dealt with things for the last 7 years, and that's how Bush (the younger), Cheney, McCain, Palin, and their ideological peers operate. And we're long past able to afford it.

Strange Bedfellows indeed

2008-07-18T15:10:00.002-04:00

The new logos you see at the top and left side of the page will take you to the website of Accountability Now and The Strange Bedfellows coalition. This group, a meeting of the minds, so to speak, of concerned Americans from both sides of the political spectrum, believe that the biggest threat to the United States today is the government's blatant and ever-growing disregard for civil liberties and the rule of law - a disregard that is endemic to all branches of the US government and politicians of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon explains the problems, and the current efforts to fix them here - please read what he has to say and, regardless of your ideological orientation, understand how far down the slippery slope towards totalitarian government we have already slipped.

Corzine Killing Public Education in NJ? S4000/A500

2008-01-04T11:34:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted at BlueJersey.com

Governor Corzine and Commissioner of Education Lucille Davy are, pretty much under cover of darkness, trying to kill off public education in NJ while seeming to support it.

They've produced a new state education funding formula, embodied in Senate bill S4000 and Assembly bill A500, that they're trying to force through Trenton with so little time for reflection that few of our legislators will have sufficient time to look at the details and see just how awful it is.

My friend Steve Latz is a 9-year veteran of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education and one of the prime movers behind the Education Funding Committee of New Jersey. There are few people in NJ who understand the arcana of NJ school finance better than Steve, and he's taken the time to tease the details out of the Governor's bill. Steve is a bit wordier and more detailed than me - my 1 second precis is that Corzine's plan turns Abbott v Burke on its head: Where Abbott attempts to raise the lowest performing school districts up to the level of the best-funded schools in NJ, the Governor's plan will bring all the schools in NJ down to the level of the worst of them.

Here's Steve's thumbnail description of the Education Funding Committee and its current goals:

The Education Funding Committee of New Jersey is a statewide organization that grew out of the efforts of the Education Funding Committee of South Orange-Maplewood, consisting of education and tax reform advocates throughout the state. We believe in a legislative process where legislators are fully informed about the impacts of what they're voting on, with adequate public disclosure and dialogue. We believe that the interests of educators and taxpayers should not be at odds, that it's possible to craft a system that moderates the rate of increase in education costs while at the same time protecting the quality of education in all districts. AND WE ARE FIRMLY CONVINCED THAT S4000/A500 DOESN'T ACCOMPLISH ANY OF THOSE GOALS!

Steve and the Education Funding Committee have been talking to everyone they know, and lobbying heavily, to stop S4000/A500. Some members of the Senate and Assembly are on board, but many more do not have the facts and are being rushed into a decision by Gov. Corzine. It's a difficult bill to get a handle on - the information needed to do so is spread all over the place and, without a solid grounding in school finance, difficult to get a grasp on. Steve has produced documents that help, and I hope some of my fellow BlueJersey-ans will read them and start talking to the people they know.

Here's an email that Steve sent out this morning, including links to his presentations. If you'd like to join the Education Funding mailing list, there's a sign-up form on the Education Funding Committee website at http://www.njschoolfunding.org

To: All NJ Legislators

From: Steve Latz, Education Funding Committee of New Jersey

Gov. Corzine's proposed school funding legislation is not all it's cracked up to be. Or should we say that it's more than meets the eye. It adversely impacts 50-75% of school districts in New Jersey (not just the Abbott districts, but school districts in YOUR legislative district as well).

Commissioner Davy has not reported these adverse impacts to you. This bill will drive taxes up and educational quality down in middle income and wealthy districts in years two and beyond. It's one reason why the DOE has gone to the NJ Supreme Court to avoid the Appellate Court's ruling that it must release all data with which its calculations were done and all runs of that data it conducted in the course of crafting its proposed formula.

Take just five minutes and look at our independent analysis of what happens to YOUR school districts and your constituents -- for the current year but most importantly in years two and beyond. Our Guide allows you an at-a-glance snapshot of adverse impacts on a school district by school district basis, grouped according to legislative district for your easy reference.

----> See our New Jersey Legislator's Guide to Adverse Effects of S4000/A500

at: http://www.njschoolfunding.org/NJLegislatorsGuideTo_S4000_A500.pdf

-----> See our Briefing for NJ Legislators

at: http://www.njschoolfunding.org/UpdateForNewJerseyLegislators-123007.pdf

You really need to read this and understand the hidden consequences for all your constituents. The implications of the bill for years two and beyond will drive local taxes up beyond the 4% tax levy cap while at the same time driving down the quality of education in middle income and wealthy districts (and damaging the quality of education in the Abbotts as well).

How can we say this: If you believe that this bill won't seriously damage most of your constituents, then WE'VE GOT A BRIDGE WE WANT TO SELL YOU (and a turnpike and parkway as well!). Click on the first link above to open the guide, scroll down to your legislative district and look at the indicators -- the Guide is in the form of a "Consumer Reports" review, except that in this case, the more BLACK DOTS there are in the Indicator Columns of the chart, the worse it is for your school districts.

Read the six pages at the front of the Guide to understand exactly why. Our analysis has been vetted by leading education finance and legal experts. It's all in the bill, but it's tough to tease out. And Gov. Corzine isn't teasing on this one. We welcome your calls or emails with questions or concerns.

Truth or Consequences

They didn't tell the whole truth and YOU suffer the consequences!

Most wealthy and middle income school districts suffer serious consequences in years two and beyond. Over half the districts in the state will experience little, if any, aid increases for the indefinite future, no matter how much additional money the administration proposes to add to education aid in the coming years. That is because the vast bulk of aid that wealthy and middle income districts received in the past was in the form of categorical aid that is now wealth-equalized. For every additional dollar of special education that is generated by the formula in years two and beyond, a "wealthy" district will see only $.33 on the dollar (the one-third of Special Education Aid that remains categorical).

Why? Because the two-thirds of that aid is now wealth-equalized means districts that currently receive no wealth-equalization aid (Core Curriculum Standards Aid in CEIFA) will in all likelihood receive none of the new bill's Equalization Aid.

This will drive local taxes up in those districts as an increasing share of education costs are borne by the local share. And there are exceptions and waivers in the tax levy cap provisions that will allow many districts to rightly exceed the 4% cap. See 18A:7f-37 through 18A:7f-40.

We support these cap adjustments and waivers as necessary mechanisms for school districts, but firmly believe that the state has to cover a reasonable overall share of the total and distribute it fairly, leaving no one out of the equation.

Please, take just FIVE minutes and look at our Guide to Adverse Effects of S4000/A500. It just may save you from a vote that you'll regret when the next election rolls around in two years.

Sincerely,
Steve Latz
Education Funding Committee of New Jersey

Seriously Pissed Off

2007-12-20T11:15:00.000-05:00

I've had it with the DC Democratic "Leadership." They can go "F" themselves.

When the Democratic Congressional and/or Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraisers call these days, I hang up on them. I refuse to give blanket approval any longer to Democrats simply because they belong to my party. They no longer seem to represent me - nor, if polls are any indication, do they represent the views of most Democrats - on the most pressing issues of the day. I'll give money to my own choices - those whose positions are more congruent with mine.

Once again they've given President Bush a no-strings appropriation for Iraq(link), while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D. NV) and House Appropriations chair David Obey (D. WI-7) cry crocodile tears over how the Democrat-controlled Congress has tried everything "known to man" to stop the war and come up short.

Well, they haven't really tried much of anything. It's long past time for them to stop giving in every time Bush threatens a veto or the GOP caucus whispers "filibuster. Just let them do it. Then send the same bill back again and again, until the administration's pet programs are either totally out of money or Congressional Republicans are so embarrassed by the deadlock that they go along on an override. The D's in Congress seem to have no more commitment to their professed ideals than Arlen Spector does - always saying he won't give in on but always voting Bush's way in the end.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have both demonstrated an unwillingness, or an inability, to lead. It's time for Reid to step aside - maybe for a Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, or Chris Dodd. And Pelosi is worse even than Reid, with her "impeachment is off the table" preemptive capitulation.

It's all about messaging

2007-10-20T07:46:00.000-04:00

Continuing, if I may, on my Chris Dodd mini-infatuation.

Sure, as Avedon points out, Dodd's going nowhere as a presidential candidate - I called him a second-tier candidate, and that was being generous. Up to yesterday I hadn't felt the least bit inclined to give any of the candidates any money, but Chris Dodd's actions got me to haul my wallet out, for him, without a moment's hesitation. If we tell (and, more importantly, show) the other candidates that we love what Dodd is doing, that there is, as Avedon calls it, a "constituency for the Constitution," and said constituency can muster both influence and money, they are much more likely to move (however creakily) in the direction we ~~want~~ need them to go.

Chris Dodd "hearts" the Constitution. Why doesn't Harry Reid?

2007-10-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

The latest news on the FISA front is that Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader and so-called Democrat, reportedly plans not to honor Chris Dodd's hold - that he will allow the bill to come to the Senate floor anyway. Not only will he be undercutting a member of his own party, he'll be ignoring generations of Senate tradition and precedent. It kinda makes you wonder what Reid's about.

Dodd plans to fight - to filibuster if need be. Here's part of an email I received from the Dodd campaign just a few minutes ago:

Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd's intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies.

That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but Chris Dodd has pledged to stop this horrible bill any way he can.

So if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster.

I think it's time to call Harry Reid and ask him some pointed questions. And, like I said in my previous post - show Chris Dodd some love.

Chris Dodd - a leader

2007-10-19T10:55:00.000-04:00

Christopher Dodd, Senator from Connecticut and second-tier candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, did something yesterday that none of the other candidates have been doing - he showed some backbone and that he can muster up the courage of his convictions. Senator Dodd put a hold on the new FISA bill (which would give the telecom companies a free pass to break the law by spying on you and me). This was not only the right thing to do (where the bloody hell were you when we needed you, Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller? In the wrong place, apparently.), it showed that Dodd can take some risks and lead on an issue where other Dems, most especially the other presidential candidates, are afraid to go.

Dodd has also been a leader in the fight to restore that most ancient of rights in a free society, habeas corpus. On that front, too, we've heard little to nothing from Senators Clinton or Obama or from John Edwards - the presumptive front-runners. What Dodd seems to get, and the others don't (or at least are afraid to mention) is that even guns-n-butter issues like Iraq, health care, education, and taxes won't count for squat if this country continues down the path of trading illusory security for the rights and liberties we Americans (even the most secular of us) have held sacred for over 200 years.

I'm not sanguine about the future of this country as a pluralistic, open, truly democratic society. We have often fallen short of those ideals, but at least we always kept them in mind, measured ourselves against them, and were duly embarrassed by our failure to meet the expectations they engendered. But now, most of our so-called leaders show no shame in ignoring these ideals and, in fact, trumpet their commitment to trample them (couched, of course, in language that assures us it's all for our own good).

I need to learn more about Chris Dodd. I'm not quite ready to say "He's my guy," but his name is moving up the list fast, because he gets it - this is The United States of America, goddamn it, and, of all the candidates running, it seems like he's the only one who understands that we are the USA and not some third-rate, third-tier, proto-dictatorship perpetually locked in a very convenient, very contrived, "state of siege."

For this alone, we should show Chris Dodd a little love. Send him a thank you. Send him a mash note. Send him some money - he's got a hard row to hoe.

Obama the panderer

2007-09-18T14:22:00.000-04:00

Barack Obama says he wants to give tax relief to seniors and the middle class by raising taxes on the wealthy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama proposed up to $85 billion in tax cuts for about 150 million Americans on Tuesday, paid for by raising capital gains and dividend taxes on wealthy investors.

Obama's tax plan, set to be announced in a speech in Washington, includes a cut of up to $1,000 for working families, a mortgage interest credit for low- and middle-income homeowners and the elimination of income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 per year.

"To get through these uncertain times, we have to recognize that we all have a stake in one another's success," the Illinois senator said in excerpts of the speech provided by his campaign. "When folks are hurting out there on Main Street, that's not good for Wall Street."

Obama is playing catch-up in the 2008 presidential race behind Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who leads national polls less than four months before the first nominating contest in Iowa.

His focus on taxes comes the day after Clinton unveiled her plan for universal health care as the contenders in the November 2008 presidential election stake out their policy positions.

Obama said he would pay for the middle-class tax relief with a crackdown on corporate loopholes and offshore tax havens and an increase in the highest bracket for capital gains and dividend taxes. He did not specify the size of the increase.

Problem is, we don't really need tax cuts, nor have I heard of anyone other than the wealthy clamoring for them. On the contrary, the federal government needs more revenue. While I favor rolling back the Cheney-era tax cuts that most benefited the folks who needed them least, we (the federal government, that is) need that money for things besides yet another go-round of wealth redistribution. Bush/Cheney have done more than enough of that already. For one thing, we've built up a massive debt that won't be paid down until there is revenue to cover it. For another, I (for one) would like to see a single-payer health plan covering all US residents. Such a plan would cost a boatload of tax money, albeit much of it offset by the billions we'd no longer be paying to insurance companies.

It really chaps my ass when politicians, especially ones who claim to be "outside the beltway" types, start making tax-cut proposals as a way to buy votes. I expect it from Republicans, and even from some Blue Dog Democrats, but Obama has been painted (and portrays himself) as something different, and better. This is not better.

I've been slow to pick a Presidential candidate I'm ready to support, and I'm still not at all sure who I'll pull a primary lever for on February 5, but Senator Obama just went a long way to removing himself from the list of candidates I'll have to consider.

Imus

2007-04-10T10:51:00.000-04:00

Today's NY Post has a front-page headline that made me laugh out loud.

Aside from that, though, all I can think to say is WTF? Why does anyone (other than the Rutgers women's basketball team and their families) care? Why is anyone surprised? Don Imus has been a racist and a misogynist for many years. He periodically has to apologize for it. Who believes him when he does? Who really cares? And who benefits from his 'apologies?' Yawn - what a shocker - a dumbass racist white guy. This is news?

The big debate seems to be whether or not Imus should be fired. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, in typically self-aggrandizing style, are all over this. But really, Imus' stock-in-trade is in being an asshole, so assholishness isn't anything to fire him for. A valid reason for him to lose his job would be shrinking audiences and, even more, lost advertisers. If listeners no longer listen, and advertisers no longer trust him as a vehicle to pitch their products, he'll be gone faster than you can say "nappy ho."

Sure, reporters are tired of writing about boring stuff like Iraq or the economy, and Imus is in NY so they don't have to get on an airplane to cover him - but come on, is this really an above-the-fold story? Anywhere on the front-page? Three paragraphs on page A17?

Naaahh - this is a story that has Mary Hart written all over it.

Molly Ivins

2007-02-01T08:08:00.000-05:00

Molly Ivins has died at 62, way too young, after a long fight with breast cancer. Of her treatment for the cancer, she wrote “First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”

We've not had many like her. She'll be sorely missed.

Theo Buklad, RIP

2007-01-06T12:31:00.000-05:00

Theo Buklad, the first woman to be elected to the Maplewood Township Committee, passed away last night (1/5/07) as the result of a massive stroke she suffered two weeks ago. She was only 64 years old. Condolences to her family.

I knew Theo as a good, warm, committed friend, a person who couldn't sit still when there was work to be done to make the world, especially our little corner of it, a better place. She got me, like so many others, involved in local politics, and practically twisted my arm to get me to join the Maplewood CBAC. She was former Chair of the Maplewood Democrat Committee, a dedicated and long-time member of the League of Women Voters, a fierce partisan in the righteous task of ending the war in Iraq, an indefatigable booster of the What Exit? theater company, and so much more. Even for those in town who'd never heard of her, Theo made life in Maplewood better than it otherwise could have been. Although a Roman Catholic, she embodied the Jewish ideal of Tikkun Olam.

I will miss her, as will her many other friends, and we will all be the poorer for her passing. May her memory be for a blessing.

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

Best wishes to all for a healthy, happy, prosperous 2007.

I hope to be posting a bit more often this year. See ya then...

Bombs Away

2006-10-26T14:18:00.000-04:00

The MyDD GoogleBomb

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Team UK - World Police?

2006-08-11T07:32:00.000-04:00

Whether they were Al-Qaeda or not, yesterday's news of the arrest in the UK and Pakistan of 2 dozen people who were plotting to blow up airliners en route to the US shows us something very important - and it's something the Bush administration has never understood (or never cared to understand). There is no effective "war" on terrorism - unless you consider the term "war" in the same sense as the war on organized crime.

The way to stop terrorists in their tracks is not by making long-distance travel a study in frustration, and most especially it is not in the massive deployment and use of military might against civilian populations in the Middle East. The way Scotland Yard and the Pakistanis did it was through traditional, if unflashy, police work. They developed informants, did months of investigation, leg-work, and infiltration. And when the right time came, they treated these would-be terrorists as they would any other criminals - they were arrested and thrown in jail.

The Bush administration would rather we were scared half-to-death all the time - frightened people are much easier to manipulate. But the way to deal with those who would sow terror, whether from a neighborhood protection racket or from a trans-national political organization, is by old-fashioned, unglamorous, feet-on-the-pavement and nose-to-the-grindstone police work. And, like most such police work, it should be done as much as possible out of the public eye.

Corzine shuts 'er down

2006-07-01T13:27:00.000-04:00

Gov. Corzine shut down NJ's state government today, bringing to a head his dispute with the State Legislature over how to close a $4.5 billion deficit in this year's budget.

Corzine Signs Order Closing N.J. Gov't

Jul 1, 10:11 AM (ET)

By TOM HESTER Jr.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Gov. Jon S. Corzine closed the state government Saturday amid a bitter dispute with fellow Democrats in the Assembly over his plan to increase the sales tax, threatening to shutter beaches, parks and possibly casinos in the coming days.

...

After Saturday's constitutional deadline to adopt a new balanced budget passed without agreement, Corzine signed an executive order just after 9:30 a.m., a grim climax to weeks of budget squabbling among Democrats who control state government but haven't been able to agree on a budget bill.

...

The dispute centers on Corzine's determination to raise the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent to help close a $4.5 billion budget deficit.

Corzine sees the increase as a vital step toward providing reliable annual revenue, but most Democrats in the Assembly - the lower house of the state Legislature - and several Senate Democrats say the plan is unnecessary.

Link

Mixed kudos for Corzine. He's standing up to the legislators who are scared witless of taxes...but shame on him, too, for trying to raise the single most regressive tax we have, placing the burden of the deficit on those least able to afford it. He might know better if he'd had to count pennies, rather than millions, any time in the past 20 years.

Face reality

2006-06-19T08:29:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman today(behind the Times Select wall):

[F]ace reality. There are some commentators who long for the bipartisan days of yore, and flock eagerly to any politician who looks "centrist." But there isn't any center in modern American politics. And the center won't return until we have a new New Deal, and rebuild our middle class.

Doing the happy dance

2006-04-04T08:22:00.000-04:00

DeLay calls it quits

Re-elect David Frazer

2006-03-14T08:19:00.000-05:00

I'm not here much these days because I'm managing David Frazer's campaign for reelection to the South Orange/Maplewood Board of Education.

Needless to say, I think David is the best thing going in this election. Please be sure to visit his campaign website. It's chock-full of useful information about the schools. Even a cursory read will demonstrate just how difficult and time-consuming an undertaking being on the BOE can be. Too bad some other Board members don't take their responsibilities as seriously as David.

I urge you to read through the site. Attend one (or more!) of the many candidate "coffees" around town. Go to one of the Candidates' Forums. Listen to all the candidates and judge how concrete and realistic their ideas are and how their experience and temperments might fit into a group of 9 individuals - individuals who nonetheless must cooperate and make compromises without letting their preconceptions and personal agendas interfere, for the good of our students, taxpayers, and our entire community. I've done that, and David really stands out - which is why the Board unanimously elected him as their President last May. It's also why I myself am supporting David Frazer so wholeheartedly. I urge you to do the same.

Welcome to the Waxworks

2006-03-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

When my youngest child was still in utero (he's now in his early twenties) and the other two kids were under 10, we took our first family trip to Walt Disney World. As part of that trip, we visited the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, FL. The impression I was left with as we departed the Space Center was one of loss - the message that NASA seemed to want us to take away from the old Apollo launch site was "Look at all this great stuff we USED to be able to do."

When I think about the US Constitution today, even considering its trouble-laden, divisive history, I feel the same sadness I felt in 1983 at Launch Complex 39B, and for the same reasons - I can see the great things we USED to be capable of. But the stakes for relegating the Constitution to the realm of Madame Tussaud's are so much higher:

Laura Berg, a nurse at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., got into hot water for writing a letter critical of the government that pays her salary. Like many, she fired off a missive disparaging the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Among other things, she wrote: “Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence. ... We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.”

Published in the Sept. 15-21 edition of the local weekly, “The Alibi,” it quickly led to the seizure of her computer at the VA. Officials alleged she had used that computer to write it and accused her of sedition.

Responding to her inquiry, human resources chief Mel Hooker acknowledged that Berg’s “… personal computer files did not contain the editorial letter written to the editor of the weekly Alibi.” But he didn’t apologize: “The Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition,” he wrote. “In your letter ... you declared yourself ‘as a VA nurse’ and publicly declared the Government which employs you to have ‘tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence’ and advocated, ‘act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.’”

from the Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times via The Huffington Post

In case you've forgotten, Wikipedia defines sedition thus:

Sedition is a deprecated term of law to refer to non-overt conduct such as speech and organization that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often included subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws.

Wikipedia also notes how sedition is currently used:

PRESENT USAGE - SEDITITON IS A PRETENSE COMMONLY USED BY OPPRESSIVE GOVERNMENTS TO QUELL AN UNDESIRED PUBLIC MOVEMENT.

We have been down this road before - at the birth of the Republic, with the Sedition Act of 1798, described at Wikipedia: "The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials," and again with the Sedition Act of 1918:

the Sedition Act, was used to persecute individuals or groups who disagreed with presidential or congressional policy. Historically, these types of acts have been suggested and/or passed when a presidential administration or congressional majority has lost general public support and additional, judicial tools are necessary to minimize public dissent. The Sedition Act was the most recent attempt by the United States government to limit “freedom of speech,” in-so-much-as that “freedom of speech” related to the criticism of the government, or, more applicably, the political policies of the presidential administration or congressional majority.

Yes, we've been this way before, and maybe the Constitution can make another recovery, just as NASA reconstitued itself after the Shuttle program got going in earnest. On the other hand, NASA never regained its 1960's glory, and an air of dashed hopes and disappointment hangs over the place today. Is that the best we can hope for? To be left with regrets, disappointments, and dreams of former glory? Or just a paraffin replica of a piece of parchment, stuck there in the wax museum right next to John Glenn, Elvis, Marilyn, and Jack the Ripper?

Laurel Hester

2006-02-18T11:22:00.000-05:00

This morning I received an email from Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality:

The pain in my having to convey this news to you is enormous.

Lieutenant Laurel Hester died this morning, Saturday, February 18, 2006.

Millions came to know Lieutenant Hester as one of the most courageous citizens who graced the State of New Jersey. The LGBTI community came to know her as a symbol of our hopes and dreams for equality. We at Garden State Equality, whose lives were intertwined with hers these past many months as we fought for benefits for her partner Stacie, knew Lieutenant Hester personally as a selfless, radiant human being.

Even in her abject time of suffering, Lieutenant Hester lived with steadfast love for all of those around her. She was one of the most beautiful people, to the core of her soul, God put on this good earth. She was kind, caring, brilliant, charismatic and other-directed. She was a cherished friend, life partner and selfless partner in justice.

Her courage in fighting the Ocean County Freeholders brought to life why we in the LGBTI community are fighting for marriage equality. Lieutenant Hester gave a face and a story to our struggle. If we win marriage equality, we will be able to point to Laurel Hester and her partner Stacie Andree as the couple, as much as any other, who made history happen.

To be sure, Lieutenant Hester has already left a legacy to the world. The thousands she protected in Ocean County, and the counties across New Jersey she inspired to provide domestic partnership benefits in the last stage of her life, guarantees she will be remembered by generations to come.

Touching the hearts of millions, changing the minds of five stubborn men, and finally winning the battle that will allow her partner to live in the home they built together, Lieutenant Laurel Hester was able to die in peace.

Who was that shotgun really pointed at?

2006-02-15T09:40:00.000-05:00

Okay, so Dick Cheney shot and almost (so far, anyway) killed a man. There's something very smelly about the whole affair, but what I'm smelling most strongly from the Bush White House and the Republican leadership is this: it may be that Dick Cheney's days as VP are growing very short.

In the last week or so, we've been reading an awful lot about how Scooter Libby's "immediate superiors," i.e. Dick Cheney and George W Bush, authorized him to 'leak' classified information . High-ranking Republicans have been suggesting, in public, that this might warrant an investigation ... and then the dicey sounding shooting/coverup. It looks to me like "Big Time" is being prepped for a resignation.

Dubya may be dumb but he's not stupid - he has to know that some public house-cleaning is needed to preserve any semblance of an effective Presidency over the next 3 years. Rove certainly isn't going anwhere unless and until he's escorted out of the West Wing with cuffs on. While throwing Cheney overboard might enourage some of the impeachment fans, it would put a lid on such talk from the more moderate members of both parties - they'd perceive it as a signal that the administrations problems were being acknowledged and dealt with. It would push impeachment talk back into the fringes. So it's looking to me like Cheney may be asked for his resignation soon.

Look for someone like first-term Virginia Senator George Allen to be tapped as the new VP. He's relatively young (54), has a photogenic family, has pretty good conservative credentials, is up for re-elction this year, and is already being described as a front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Considering Democrat Tim Kaine's strong win in the recent Va. Governor's race, and former Dem Governor Mark Warner's continued popularity there, even in parts of the state long considered Republican strongholds, Allen might look kindly on being given a free pass out of a potentially bruising Senate campaign - especially if he gets to stay in the thick of things while not actually being responsible for anything other than optics. The RNC may see him as a fresh, new, exciting face - just as the Dems see Warner - and want him in position for a 2008 run.

Lies About Blowjobs, Bad. Shooting Someone in the Head? Not So Much.

2006-02-14T08:08:00.000-05:00

You've seen the Dick "Boom Boom" Cheney stories. But I couldn't pass up a little creative borrowing from Eric Alterman.

Impeachment resolution

2006-02-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

Rep. John Conyers (D, MI-14) is the sponsor of a resolution (H. Res. 635) to create

a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

The resolution currently has 21 co-sponsors, including my own Representative, Donald Payne (D, NJ-10) and my old, pre-NJ congressman, Maurice Hinchey (D, NY-22). The complete list of cosponsors as of today (February 7, 2006):

Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1]
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2]
Rep Capps, Lois [CA-23]
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1]
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17]
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22]
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18]
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9]
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5]
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14]
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7]
Rep McKinney, Cynthia A. [GA-4]
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8]
Rep Oberstar, James L. [MN-8]
Rep Owens, Major R. [NY-11]
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10]
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15]
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9]
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13]
Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35]
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6]

If one of these is your representative, call or write, to thank them. If the person representing you in the House is NOT on this list, ask them to join in co-sponsoring Rep. Conyers' resolution. And if you're a constituent of Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D, CA-16), who withdrew her co-sponsorship last week, please urge her to reconsider.

There is strength in numbers, and although there may not be enough non-Koolade drinkers in the House today, there is an election in just nine months time.

Our crapulous press

2006-01-20T07:48:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman, in today's NY Times, wants to know, as much as I want to know:

It's interesting, though, that Scott McClellan has announced that the White House, contrary to earlier promises, won't provide any specific information about contacts between Mr. Abramoff and staff members.

So I have a question for my colleagues in the news media: Why isn't the decision by the White House to stonewall on the largest corruption scandal since Warren Harding considered major news?

Kudos to the Barista!

2006-01-19T07:18:00.000-05:00

Our very own (well, Montclair's, anyway - Essex County pride!) Debbie Galant, the Barista of Bloomfield Ave., has gotten a nice little notice from Doc Searls, thanks in no small part to her guest blogging at Jay Rosen's PressThink.

Unstylish life

2006-01-18T10:45:00.000-05:00

I just read a roundup of news about the despicable Ocean County NJ Freeholders/ Lt. Laurel Hester hoo-hah, and was struck, as I always am, by the editorializing implicit in the press' use of the word "lifestyle" when what they really mean is "sexual orientation."

"Gay" is not a lifestyle, any more than "straight" is a lifestyle. We, all of us, embody many styles. It's my choice, my style, to keep my hair short, to wear shoes with thick heels, to exercise to stay youthful - but I did not choose to have thinning hair, to be 5'10", to be 51 years old. Nor to be straight. Those things just are. Straight, gay, or somewhere in between - sexual orientation is, simply, everyday life. What could be less stylish than that?

Wow

2006-01-06T11:52:00.000-05:00

If you think of yourself as a Democrat ...

rewind ...

If you think of yourself as an American, you have got to read this piece by ReddHedd at firedoglake. Here's a bit - but please go read the whole thing.

(...)

You have to have a job to make any money to live. That's pretty much a given. You can start your own business, but that requires a helluva lot of work, too, so unless you are lucky enough to be born a trust fund kid (like the ones I met when I was away in college), life requires that you get off your butt and do something to earn a living.

To what end, though? As a worker these days, you have less earning potential in a whole lot of jobs that used to guarantee a decent day's pay. And at the end of the road, you have no guarantee that the pension into which you've been paying your whole damned life will even be there - I can't tell you how many people around here have lost everything because the business for which they worked went bankrupt and the pensions got voided in a reorganization under the corporate bankruptcy laws.

But as someone who has owned her own business, I can also tell you that the owner end of things isn't all roses and profits. After we got done paying out salaries, overhead costs, state and federal taxes, business taxes, social security and workers' comp, there was not a whole lot left for my partner and myself a lot of months. For small businesses, the margins are awfully small sometimes.

For a lot of corporations, especially those industries where money pressure has really put the squeeze on things in this economy, the margins are pretty tight, too. It's not enough to just say corporations suck -- that's too easy, and too intellectually sloppy. With the increases in fuel costs this year, I can't imagine trying to work a large budget for some of these places -- my little firm budget used to give me a migraine, and we only had a handful of employees and one office building.

None of this, though, excuses treating people like dirt. Nothing does. And that's where my gripe comes in today. CEOs for some of the major corporations in this country make obscene amounts of money, all the while, in a lot of cases, running the company into the ground and then taking off on their golden parachute ride -- leaving behind the folks who are living on the margins on their $7 an hour (and that's a great salary for a whole huge group of people in this country, let me tell you) to pick the pieces out of all those broken promises.

We need a voice for those people. John Edwards picked up this theme in the last election cycle during the primaries -- with his Two Americas -- and I would love to see that discussion continued into 2006. People who make $7 an hour (or less) can't afford to hire Jack Abramoff to represent their interests to the big shots in Washington. They generally aren't in any sort of union -- which would at least give them a possibility of an organized voice of some sort (although these days, that certainly isn't assured). They have no big money voice to back them up in Washington.

(...)

Screaming Carrot

2006-01-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

The fine folks over at BlueJersey.net are having a "Best NJ Blog - 2005" election - The Screaming Carrot Award - and Mapleberry Blog is in the running.

All the nominees are more than worthy, so please vote head on over and vote. Just click on the Screaming Carrot logo, here or over in the left sidebar.

Happy New Year!!!

2006-01-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

A great 2006 for all!!!

Today is also my fifty-first birthday - I'm officially OVER fifty now :-(

Four Thirty Five

2005-12-31T15:25:00.001-05:00

Nope, not AM. Not PM.

House seats.

The US House of Representatives consists of 435 members. The other day I was idly wondering - why 435? why not 434, or 436? Where did 435 come from? The Constitution specifies only that each House seat shall represent at least 30,000 people - so why 435?

Why indeed? Historically, the size of the House was increased after every decennial census, as the Constitution calls for. The last time, though, was in 1911, when it reached its current size. In 1920-21, Congress could not decide what methodology to use to do the reapportionment and so they did nothing that session. By 1930, they'd apparently decided that they really liked the idea of not watering down their influence and power any further - so ever since then we've had just 435 seats in the House (with a 4-year blip to 437 when Alaska and Hawaii entered the Union).

The House of Representatives is supposed to be the People's House - but a House member now represents, on average, about 660,000 people. That's way too many - a far cry from the constitutional lower limit of 30,000. It makes Congressional district constituencies so large that no individual constituent is adequately represented in Congress. How often have YOU spoken to your Representative? Have you even MET him or her? Odds are you haven't. Because they have to reach so many people, over such large geographic areas, it also makes Congressional campaigns so expensive that ordinary citizens without the ability to contribute to those campaigns have become almost irrelevant to them. The limited number of seats leads to rampant dishonesty and corruption of the re-districting process - as we've seen in Tom DeLay's recent indictments in connection with Texas' redistricting 2 years ago.

It's time to take a look at true Congressional reapportionment. The US population as of the 2000 census was roughly 282 million. If we went with 30,000 constituents per Member, the House would swell to almost 10,000 seats. Kind of unwieldy, I'll admit (it would be difficult to fit them all in the Capitol Building). But there are many compelling reasons for a serious increase in the size of the House - if not all the way down to 30,000, at least to something far lower than the 800,000 constituents per member it will likely be after the 2010 census.

Here's hoping for a more democratic (and a more Democratic) 2006, and I wish you all a happy, healthy New Year.

R.I.P. Michael Vale

2005-12-30T17:21:00.000-05:00

28 June,1922 - 24 December,2005

It's still time to make the donuts...

Best laugh I've had all day

2005-12-30T15:19:00.000-05:00

Atrios:

I do so enjoy reading Times' columnists these days, because there's a little present at the end of each one:

Thomas L. Friedman is on vacation.

Our crapulous press

2005-12-30T07:51:00.000-05:00

In a story about web cookies on the White House website, Associated Press reporter Anick Jesdanun demonstrates, right in his lede, what's wrong with the American press today, and why so many bloggers call reporters for the main-stream media "stenographers:"

U.S. to Probe Contractor's Web Tracking

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer Fri Dec 30, 4:27 AM ET

NEW YORK - Unbeknown to the Bush administration, an outside contractor has been using Internet tracking technologies that may be prohibited to analyze usage and traffic patterns at the White House's Web site, an official said Thursday.

David Almacy, the White House's Internet director, promised an investigation into whether the practice is consistent with a 2003 policy from the White House's Office of Management and Budget banning the use of most such technologies at government sites.

"No one even knew it was happening," Almacy said. "We're going to work with the contractor to ensure that it's consistent with the OMB policy."

...

Nonetheless, agencies occasionally violate the rules inadvertently. The CIA did in 2002, and the NSA more recently. The NSA disabled the cookies this week and blamed a recent upgrade to software that shipped with cookie settings already on.

The very first words of this story - before we even learn what "it" is or what the facts about "it" are, are that the White House knew nothing about whatever "it" is. Once we learn what "it" is, why should we believe that the assertion is true? Because David Almacy, the White House Internet Director, said so. As if everything (or anything) coming from the White House can be taken at face value. As if we were provided with any background information that would lend credence to Almacy's claim. Even the headline, "U.S. to Probe Contractor's Web Tracking", emphasizes that it was a "contractor," not the White House, who implemented tracking technologies that "may be prohibited". Is no one at the White Houe responsible for oversight of contractors? Not even Mr. Almacy? And what's up with "may be prohibited?" Either they are prohibited, or they aren't - there's no maybe about it.

Then, at the close of the story (to make sure we didn't miss the point, I guess), we're assured that government agencies like CIA and NSA violate the rules only once in a while and, of course, only "inadvertently." At least there was a single source, however compromised, for the the White House assertion, but not a one about the CIA or NSA.

It's just a little story, to be sure, but I think it's reflective of way too much of what our so-called journalists do on a daily basis. Shilling for the government, that is, while doing little or no actual reporting.

The "I" word gaining traction

2005-12-29T15:01:00.000-05:00

Impeachment, that is.

It'd be easy for middle-of-the-road Americans to write off Chris Floyd off as a left-wing wacko:

So now, at last, the crisis is upon us. Now the cards are finally on the table, laid out so starkly that even the Big Media sycophants and Beltway bootlickers can no longer ignore them. Now the choice for the American Establishment is clear, and inescapable: do you hold for the Republic, or for autocracy?

There is no third way here, no other option, no wiggle room, no ambiguity. The much-belated exposure of George W. Bush's warrantless spy program has forced the Bush-Cheney Regime to openly declare what they have long implied -- and enacted -- in secret: that the president is above the law, a military autocrat with unlimited powers, beyond the restraint or supervision of any other institution or branch of government. Outed as rank deceivers, perverters of the law and rapists of the Constitution, the Bush gang has decided that their best defense -- their only defense, really -- is a belligerent offense. "Yeah, we broke the law," they now say; "so what? We'll break it again whenever we want to, because law don't stick to our Big Boss Man. What are you going to do about it, chump?"

Molly Ivins is, of course, a well-known member of the ancient and hermetic order of the shrill:

This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the U.S. is going to have to understand and admit he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the press, the Congress all functioned superbly. Anyone think we're up to that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic?

But when Barron's - Dow Effing Jones his own self - starts talking about the ultimate legal remedy to an out-of-control president you know there's something afoot:

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

And even the American Enterprise Institute? Norm Ornstein?:

I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.

I think we got ourselves a convoy.

via The Sideshow, Shrillblog

Nixon/Bush

2005-12-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

Click on the picture for a full-size PDF of the ad.

Visit the ACLU for more.

via Daily Kos

I Spy? Why?

2005-12-28T18:19:00.000-05:00

The Maplewood Township Committee has been considering deploying surveillance cameras in some parts of town to reduce crime - particularly Jacoby Street, where there has been an upsurge in gang activity. For many reasons, this is a bad idea, not least that surveillance cameras do nothing to reduce crime. If the TC members think that merely placing cameras there, without 24x7 monitoring, will do anything at all, they are deluded - but monitoring the cameras will take manpower, and that manpower would be better spent by hiring new police officers and deploying them on foot patrol.

I'm a law abiding citizen, but I don't fancy the police watching my every move in anticipation that I might commit a crime. Surveillance cameras raise some nasty civil rights issues. I'm not sure where current legal thought is on such cameras, but they seem to me to be skirting legality, as violations of the 4th Amendment proscription against unreasonable search. One need only look in today's news to read about this, as the Bush administration is on the hot-seat for spying on citizens without explicit judicial consent and oversight.

These cameras are, simply, a very very bad idea.

The TWU won

2005-12-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

TWU Local 100 and the MTA have reached a tentative agreement on a new 3 year contract. The TWU membership will receive the raises that had been on the table when contract talks broke down last week - 3%, 4%, and 3 1/2%. The proposed 6% pension contribution for new employees has been scrapped, but union members will now have to contribute 1.5% (about $60/month) toward their health insurance.

The sticking point for the union had been the pensions - specifically that current TWU members were to continue their 2%-of-salary contributions but that new employees would contribute 6%. This divide-and-conquer strategy has been prevalent in labor contract negotiations for quite a while now, as management has attempted (with a lot of success) to dilute unions' power by creating multi-tier contracts and a class-stratified rank-and-file - in effect making newer workers distrustful and resentful of their unions and of workers with more seniority and thus better deals. The TWU managed, thankfully, to stave off this left-handed, nibbled-to-death-by-ducks approach to union-busting.

The strike was a pain in the ass for sure, for me and for millions of people in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area - but the ultimate benefit, for the TWU and for all working Americans should not be underestimated. Unions have been under the gun since Ronald Reagan took on, and destroyed, PATCO back in the early 1980's. Since then, American workers - blue-collar and white, unionized and not - have increasingly been on the shit-end of the stick when it came to employer-employee negotiating power, and the results have included newly huge income disparities, and static or declining household incomes in an economy that has been booming for almost the entire Ronald Reagan - Bush II period.

I'm not, and never have been, a union member, but my father was a public school teacher and teacher's union officer back when teachers had to strike just to get a living wage. When his union struck in 1972, we suffered the same Taylor Law 2-for-1 income loss that the TWU workers and their families are facing today. Unions aren't always in the right, nor management always wrong, and not all strikes are created equal - but in my opinion the TWU were more than justified in walking out. Congrats to Roger Toussaint and the members of the TWU for standing up for their, and our, collective bargaining rights.

New Years Resolution

2005-12-27T12:42:00.000-05:00

Let's resolve in 2006 to make New Jersey bluer.

Two NJ Republican House members are particularly worthy of booting out of office - Scott Garrett of the 5th District, and Mike Ferguson of the 7th .

BlueJersey.net says there are 2 Democrats vieing for the nomination in the 5th - Anne Wolfe and Paul Aronsohn. ActBlue is now accepting contributions for the 5th district general election campaign and will distribute them to whichever candidate emerges after the primary, so why not toss 'em a few shekels? (FWIW, I met and had a nice conversation with Anne Wolfe in Maplewood not long ago, and she seemed like a good candidate to me).

In the 7th, it looks like former Hillsborough mayor Joseph Tricario will be facing off against Union Assemblywoman Linda Stender in the Dem primary, and the cheerleading there is being led by the Blue 7th PAC. They're holding a fundraiser in February - a concert at the McCarter Theater featuring The Indigo Girls - to help finance whoever ends up as Ferguson's opponent in November. Buy a few tickets for the folkies you love. (For more on why we should get rid of Ferguson A.S.A.P., check out DumpMike.com.) After the revolutionary election results in Millburn's TC races last month, I think getting Ferguson out of Washington is doable - so let's do it.

New Jersey Backgrounder

2005-12-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

The group-blog BlueJersey.net has produced a new, and very useful, guide to NJ politics and public policy, called New Jersey Politics 101.

It has 3 major sections - from the site's intro:

1. Government and Politics

New Jersey has many different, sometimes complicated levels of government, each representing different physical boundaries. In this section we identify the various levels of government, beginning at the top with representation at the Federal level and proceding down to the State, County and Municipal level. We then introduce the organization and structure of the Democratic party and explain why and how the party County chairs, sometimes refered to as the party "bosses" have so much power. Primary elections and requirements for voting round up this section.

2. Issues

In this section, we provide an introduction to some of the major issues affecting New Jersey. Some issues, like the Highlands and Home Rule, are unique to New Jersey. Others important issues in New Jersey include Suburban Sprawl, Urban Issues, Pay-to-Play, Property Taxes, Verified Voting, Women in Government, Stem Cell Research and Domestic Partners.

3. Important Names in NJ Politics
This section is self-explanatory. While it's not an exhaustive list, it contains information on some of the most influential players in NJ state politics.

John Adler (D)
Dick Codey (D)
Leonard T Conners Jr (R)
Jon Corzine (D)
William L. Gormley (R)
Tom Kean Jr (R)
Bob Menendez (D)
George Norcross (D)
Joe Roberts (D)

If you want to have some clue when you're discussing NJ politics, check this site out as one of your first stops.

Pigs may not be flying

2005-11-29T21:21:00.000-05:00

but I think they've turned kosher

It's not blood for oil - it's just blood for money

2005-11-18T08:45:00.000-05:00

According to an article in the NY Times, the US military is falling far short of its recruiting goals this year

The military is falling far behind in its effort to recruit and re-enlist soldiers for some of the most vital combat positions in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new government report.
The report, completed by the Government Accountability Office, shows that the Army, National Guard and Marines signed up as few as a third of the Special Forces soldiers, intelligence specialists and translators that they had aimed for over the last year.

[ ... snip ... ]

The report found that, in all, the military, which is engaged in the most demanding wartime recruitment effort since the 1970's, had failed to fully staff 41 percent of its array of combat and noncombat specialties.

The conventional wisdom is that this is yet another miscalculation by the Bush administration - that Iraq has frightened away potential recruits instead of inflaming the gung-ho sensibilities of credulous 18-year-olds.

I'm not so sure. The administration will argue that these positions must be filled - the security of the United States must not be compromised! So the shortfalls in military staffing must be made up somehow. The 'Publicans, already fearful that they're looking at a political bloodbath in the 2006 midterm elections, are not going anywhere near the topic of re-instituting a draft, and the administration knows that full well - in fact, I believe they are counting on it.

What they WILL do, however, under the rubric of "National Security," is to hire it done, at 5 to 10 or more X the cost of regular military. The Guard and Reserve will, of course, continue to provide the cheap cannon fodder to be killed, 2 or 3 a day, ad infinitum, while private military contractors (let's not mince words - they are mercenaries) will get hugely profitable contracts to perform (at 5 to 10 or more x the cost) the jobs the now- unrecruitable regular-military folks would be doing. Sure, some of this Iraq stuff is probably about oil - but it seems like there's a much higher profit margin in humans. Plus there'sa seemingly inexhautible supply and no pesky capital investment. Further, the more troublesome the war, the higher the price (and the profit margins) can be. Just remember - Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton, is in both the oilfield-services business AND in the private military business.

Are We Not Journalists?

2005-11-18T07:42:00.000-05:00

We are BlogO

Nia Gill?

2005-11-14T15:27:00.000-05:00

Just last Friday, the spouse and I were talking about who Governor-elect Corzine might pick to replace himself in the US Senate. None of the conventional-wisdom candidates seemed particularly compelling - Menendez, Pallone, Andrews, Codey, Donald Payne, Rush Holt. One name did pop up out of the wild-blue yonder that seemed like a great one, though - the State Senator from Montclair - Nia Gill.

Gill is a progressive. She's got good political infighting-skills - after getting kicked off the party line in the 2004 primary, she ran off the line and soundly beat the choice of the Essex County machine. She's African-American - in multi-ethnic, multi-racial Northern NJ (where most of the voters are), that counts for a lot. And, well, she's a she. Women account for a significantly higher percentage of Democratic voters than do men. Essex County was Corzine's brightest bright spot last Tuesday, so her hometown is not an irrelevant detail. However far off in left-field Gill might seem, naming a politically savvy African-American woman from Essex County might score some real political points. New Jersey has never had a woman in the Senate, nor a person of color. Politically, geographically, demographically, Nia Gill seems to have the goods. For Corzine, who'd probably like to start out looking like someone who can think outside of the box, Gill is a choice that wouldn't lack for boldness.

As it turns out, the very day we had our idea about Gill, Scott Shields wrote at MyDD about her as a real Senatorial possibility, and Steve Kornacki was speculating about her at PoliticsNJ. Obviously, great minds think alike - or maybe we just tapped into the zeitgeist.

Everybody's Talkin'

2005-11-11T06:27:00.000-05:00

about the Democrats who're suddenly, finally, saying that yes, the war was a mistake they wouldn't have made if they'd known better, and how they're all suddenly looking better as candidates because of it. Kerry did it the other day, and the latest is John Edwards.

This is a good thing, I guess - certainly long overdue. But elected leaders are supposed to lead, not follow, the electorate. They are supposed to tell us things we don't know and may not want to hear, and do it in a way that makes us feel better for knowing - better about ourselves, better about them, better about the country and our place in the world. And none of these folks are doing that. They're watching where the electorate has moved, and scuttling over in that direction as slowly and reluctantly as they can get away with. The only (relatively) mainstream politician who WAS a leader on this issue was Howard Dean, and we saw what the the ever-dutiful-to-power press did to his candidacy.

Good News for Maplewood

2005-11-09T08:22:00.000-05:00

Jon Corzine's election as Governor may be good news for Maplewood. Mr. Corzine has been a good friend to our town, visiting often, campaigning for local Dems or just visiting. It doesn't hurt that his daughter is the "Jen" of Pen & Jen's Tea Shop in the Maplewood NJ Transit station.

More importantly, for a politician, is this - Essex County voted for Corzine more strongly than any other county in NJ, at just over 72%, and Maplewood's percentage for Corzine was higher still - over 77% - so he should have no second thoughts about seeing to it that we get more of what we need from Trenton over the next 4 years.

Now here's a question - did Corzine leave the Senate and run for Governor because it better positions him for a Presidential run in 2012? He'll be 65 years old then - is that too late? I certainly don't see him running in 2008 - he doesn't have the political organization, or the experience, to do it so soon.

A Harbinger?

2005-11-09T07:55:00.000-05:00

Up until last November, no Democrat had been elected to Millburn's Township Committee in 30 years. But this year, Dems won both seats that were up - including one held by an incumbent Republican. It's probably too early to predict anything much for next year's Congressional elections from that, but maybe, if we're very good and very lucky, Mike Ferguson's days in the House might be numbered.

DeLuca and Profeta in a landslide

2005-11-08T23:37:00.000-05:00

Democrats Fred Profeta and Vic DeLuca won with a huge margin over Republican Bart Albini. I don't have the numbers at hand, but the Democratic team won by well over 4000 votes, with about 5500 votes cast.

Jon Corzine easily beat Doug Forrester in the Governors race, by 54% to 43%.

Vote!

2005-11-08T07:20:00.000-05:00

Today is election day.

In NJ, polls are open from 6 AM to 8 PM

Vote for Jon Corzine for Governor
and
Vic DeLuca for Maplewood Township Committee!

Amazon - Selling what's already free?

2005-11-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

Amazon has announced that they are going to offer individual pages of books for sale (on line, of course).

Why?

For almost any purpose that someone might want to put a single page from a published book, the fair use provisions of the US copyright law apply. In other words, it's okay to use the contents of the page for scholarly, pedagogical, or review purposes (USC Title 17,Chapter 1, Section 107). The only reason I can see, in my (admittedly myopic) view, is for use in another commercial work - but in that case, the author or publisher would have to buy rights from the copyright owner anyway - they want the right to use the content, not the page, in a derivative work. Same deal if it's an illustration they want to use, instead of the text.

So, if you want to write a paper, or a presentation, or a review, or an article, and cite some text from a copyrighted work, go to the library and make a photocopy of the page, or to a brick'n'mortar bookstore and copy out the passages you need. The law says you can, it's almost certainly cheaper, and Jeff Bezos doesn't really need the money.

(Disclaimer: IANAL)

Snoozapalooza?

2005-11-03T07:44:00.000-05:00

Has Maplewood lost its political gumption? Or are the Township Committee choices so clear cut this year? The latter, I suspect, but still...

Last night's League of Women Voters' candidates forum for Maplewood Township Committee was so sparsely attended that the only people there were ringers, LWV organizers and their spouses, and the candidates themselves (for the record, that would be Vic DeLuca and Fred Profeta - Democrats, and Bart Albini - Republican). There were no more than 20 people in the audience and I think a quarter of them have been TC members or TC candidates. For me, at least, it was the first time I'd set eyes on Bart Albini. No surprises there, but nice to see he actually exists.

Other than the aforementioned League members (and spice), I didn't see a single person there who hasn't been involved in one way or another as an insider in Maplewood politics. Which is a shame. Even if it was not an event likely to change any minds, it was at least an opportunity to ask the candidates some pointed questions. Too bad no one took advantage.

Nonetheless, thanks are due the Maplewood/South Orange League of Women Voters, who organized this event and so many others.

Harry Reid grows a pair

2005-11-01T20:22:00.000-05:00

Harry Reid forced the Senate into a closed session to embarass Frist and company into finally setting into motion the long-delayed second phase of the Senate's Iraq WMD/Intelligence investigation.

Frist was derisive in his post-session comments, which says to me that the 'publicans are a bit embarassed to be seen as obstructionists when so large a majority of the country has turned against the war and is so distrustful of the Bush Administration.

It looks like
1) The Dems have rocked the R's back on their heels a bit (with a bit of a helping shove from Patrick Fitzgerald), and
2) Democrats are (re-)learning how to play the news cycles - Bush made a speech today - something about funding for avian flu prevention - and Reid's play wiped it off the critical evening news leads.

Reid's office released a statement to the press that blasted the Administration's cooked intelligence and asked some very pointed questions. Without (yet) saying it in so many words, it looks like Senate Democrats are finally coming around to a better answer for the question "If you knew in 2003 what you know now, would you have authorized the Iraq invasion?" Still begs the question of why they were such pushovers in the first place, but it's something...

If Katrina was the turning point for Bush's popular support, Fitzmas might be seen as the point where the Dems started to get their nerve back. At least I hope so.

Very well then...

2005-11-01T10:45:00.000-05:00

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman - Song of Myself

Reading his columns these last few days, I'm guessing that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times must be a Walt Whitman fan, because it sure doesn't seem like he's concerned about contradicting himself.

In his 10/25/05 column(paid registration required), Kristof wrote, apropos Patrick Fitzgerald's anticipated TreasonGate indictments

...I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today.

That passage earned Kristof a well-deserved "Wanker of the Day" citation from Atrios last week. After all, perjury and obstruction of justice are NOT simply "technical," they are themselves felonies, usually committed while trying to hide other, even more serious, crimes.

In the 10/30 edition of The Times, Kristof is of another mind entirely

I owe Patrick Fitzgerald an apology.
Over the last year, I've referred to him nastily a couple of times as "Inspector Javert," after the merciless and inflexible character in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables." In my last column, I fretted aloud that he might pursue overzealous or technical indictments.

But Mr. Fitzgerald didn't do that. The indictments of Lewis Libby are not for memory lapses or debatable offenses, but for repeatedly telling a fairy tale under oath.

Writing of the Vice-President's role in all this, he says

You were right, Mr. Cheney, in your insistence that the White House be beyond reproach. Now it's time for you to give the nation "a stiff dose of truth." Otherwise, you sully this country with your own legalisms.

And this

...If Mr. Cheney can't address the questions about his conduct, if he can't be forthcoming about the activities in his office that gave rise to the investigation, then he should resign. And if he won't resign, Mr. Bush should demand his resignation.

Now, in today's column, he's moved to address this directly to Mr. Cheney

Even when Spiro Agnew was embroiled in a criminal investigation, he tried to explain himself, repeatedly. Do you really want to be less forthcoming than Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
We don't need to try to turn this into Watergate, and we don't need gloating from the Democrats. But we do need straight talk from you. The indictment has left a cloud that impedes governing, and if we're to move on, we need you to clear the air.

So, Mr. Cheney, tell us what happened. If you're afraid to say what you knew, and when you knew it, then you should resign.

Wow - from technicalities to Vice-Presidential resignations, in under a week! Patrick Fitzgerald may have connected the dots a bit better than those of us less in-the-know, but anyone who can read could have figured out that this was a case that went far beyond Ken Starr-style technicality-based persecution. Nicholas Kristof has been in the midst of this story for over two years now and, like the rest of us, has been observing Cheney and the Office of the Vice-President for the past 5 years. None of this should have come as a surprise to him. So what really changed his mind? I'd really like to know. I sure hope it was more than that a person in a position of authority (Fitzgerald) gave him (implied) permission to believe it. That would be a strange place for a reporter to be - but absent some better rationale, all I see is Whitman's "Very well then I contradict myself." That's great for poets, maybe, but not so hot for journalists.

Miers has withdrawn

2005-10-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

Miers Withdraws Supreme Court Nomination

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 5 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

President Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

Associated Press/Yahoo News

Collectors of tribute

2005-10-24T10:15:00.000-04:00

Avedon writes about how much the Rs use of "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party" bugs her. It has always annoyed the hell out of me, too, so most times, when writing about them, I like to call those other folks the "Publican" party.

Absolut Accuracy

2005-10-24T07:38:00.002-04:00

via Firedoglake

[11/13/2008
We're suddenly seeing a large number of hits looking for this image. How come? Leave a comment.
Thx - Curmudgeon
]

"Investigative reporting is not stenography"

2005-10-22T13:26:00.000-04:00

So sayeth Maureen Dowd, in her column in today's NY Times.

Gail Collins, The Times' editorial page editor, must be REALLY pissed off at her bosses Keller and Sulzberger, to let Dowd's column run as is. And, I'd guess, Keller felt he was not in a position to say no.

Here are a few excerpts - Dowd's saying things that a lot of us have been saying for a long time now. However belated, it's nice to see it coming from the Times Op-Ed page.

Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.
When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept "drifting" back. Why did nobody stop this drift?

I was wondering that very same thing after I read last Sunday's Times PlameGate article.

And here's a lesson that that almost everyone in today's mainstream media needs to learn:

Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about W.M.D. "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography.

Dowd's column closes with this:

Judy refused to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.

Brava, Ms Dowd. I know the Times is now in "pay to play" mode, so you may not be able to read it online - but if at all possible you should check it out, in print or in bits, if you care about the health and future viability of the US press.

Vote by Mail in New Jersey

2005-10-20T09:28:00.000-04:00

Whoever you plan to vote for in November (You ARE planning on voting, right?), you owe it to yourself to check this out. Although not billed as such, New Jersey now has by-mail voting.

The actual change in the law was to remove the restrictions on absentee ballots. It used to be that NJ voters were only eligible to vote as absentees for a very limited universe of reasons - being out-of-state on election day, and being disabed were the main ones. But the law was changed this year, allowing voters to request absentee ballots for any reason, or no reason at all. So there's nothing to stop you from applying for an absentee ballot and then voting at your convenience at any time up to election day (which this year is on November 8th).

The New Jersey Division of Elections website has some minimal info about this, and links to a pdf of an absentee ballot application.

There is just NO excuse anymore not to vote.

Is Big-time Dick gonna be swallowed?

2005-10-19T20:22:00.000-04:00

Jan Frel blogs at Alternet with an email purported to be from a House staffer with lots o' down'n'dirty scuttlebutt on Patrick Fitzgerald's TreasonGate investigation.

One of the highlights:

...[Colin Powell] had traveled on air force one with bush and cheney, and brought to their attention a classified memorandum about the issue of whether there was indeed a transaction inolving niger and yellow cake uranium. the document included ambassador joe wilson's involvement and identified his wife, valerie plame, as a covert agent. the memorandum further stated that this information was secret. powell told mccain that he showed that memo only to two people--president and vice president. according to powell, cheney fixated on the wilson/plame connection, and plame's status.

powell testified about this exchange in great length to the grand jury investigating the plame case. according to sources close to the case, powell appeared convinced that the vice president played a focal role in disclosing plame's undercover status.

. . .

lead prosecutor patrick fitzgerald has apparently been looking at the precedent of formerly indicted nixon vice president spiro agnew. this shows the likely path, because addressing executive immunity and privilege questions would necessarily begin start with a plea-bargain deal that would entail a resignation.

Arrest Warrant for Tom DeLay

2005-10-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

Doin' a little happy dance right now...

Arrest warrant issued for lawmaker DeLay

HOUSTON (Reuters) - An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday and bail set at $10,000 for former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ahead of his scheduled court appearance this week in Austin, Texas for money laundering and conspiracy charges, a Texas court clerk said.

The so-called "capias" was a "purely procedural event" but would require DeLay to turn himself into authorities to be fingerprinted and photographed, Travis County Grand Jury Clerk Linda Estrada said.

Court officials said DeLay was expected to go to Fort Bend County jail in his district near Houston for booking, but that had not been confirmed.

"To any sheriff or peace officer of the state of Texas, greetings, you are hereby commanded to arrest Thomas Dale DeLay and keep him safely so that you have him before the 331st Judicial District Court of Travis County," the warrant said.

DeLay has been charged with conspiracy and money laundering in a campaign finance scheme tied to his political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority.

from Reuters, via Yahoo News

Subway stories

2005-10-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

My all-time favorite NYC Transit/subway story may finally have been surpassed. The old fave:

The Lexington Ave. Express station at Wall Street & Broadway. It's a nasty, rainy day, and the trains are running very slow - it's been at least 20 minutes since the last uptown train, and it's afternoon rush hour. Nerves are frazzled.

A guy is threading himself through the crowd, up and down the platform, carrying a placard with a picture of Jesus and intoning "Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming." Finally an exasperated commuter sighs and says, loudly enough for all to hear, "Not if he's on the 4 train."

But here's a new favorite, one that could only have happened in post 9/11 New York:

One recent Friday afternoon, a bunch of rowdy schoolkids were hanging around the fourth car of a Manhattan-bound E train out in Queens.

One kid was swinging from the bars. Others were pushing and shoving. This was one day after the mayor and police commissioner went public with information that terrorists were planning to attack the New York subway with exploding suitcases and baby carriages. Life seemed normal underground.

One kid pulled a pair of black and red wires, probably computer cables, from his knapsack and left them dangling from the bag's side.

"Check this out," he told his friends.

The teen then placed the bag on the floor near the door to the next car. At Queens Plaza, the kid popped his head out of the car and told the conductor that there was a suspicious package on board the train.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are being temporarily delayed," the conductor announced moments later. "We are sorry for the inconvenience."

A man on the train, aware of the prank, jumped from his seat and snatched the kid's knapsack from the floor. He hurried to the door, pushed the kid out of the way, and hurled the bag across the platform. Textbooks, notebooks, pens and pencils, an iPod and strands of wire burst from the bag on impact.

"That's my bag," said the young man who planted the allegedly suspicious package, running after his belongings. "Are you crazy?"

"Not crazy, just tired!" the man answered before turning to the conductor in the booth.

"We found the owner of the unattended bag - false alarm," he informed the conductor, then jumped back on the train.

"Ladies and gentlemen, 23rd Street-Ely Avenue is the next stop," the conductor announced. " Sorry for the delay. Watch the closing doors."

via Sisyphus Shrugged

When Incompetence isn't enough

2005-10-17T10:51:00.000-04:00

Unlike recently-confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts, who professes to believe in stare decisis and is qualified by experience, at least, to serve on the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers has lots of strikes against her - most notably that she has no obvious qualifications for the job.

James Dobson of Focus On The Family has been pushing for Miers' confirmation, despite opposition from much of the conservative base. Now we know why, thanks to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal

Two days after President Bush announced Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination, James Dobson of Focus on the Family raised some eyebrows by declaring on his radio program: "When you know some of the things that I know--that I probably shouldn't know--you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice."

Mr. Dobson quelled the controversy by saying that Karl Rove, the White House's deputy chief of staff, had not given him assurances about how a Justice Miers would vote. "I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade," Mr. Dobson said last week. "But even if Karl had known the answer to that--and I'm certain that he didn't because the president himself said he didn't know--Karl would not have told me that. That's the most incendiary information that's out there, and it was never part of our discussion."

It might, however, have been part of another discussion. On Oct. 3, the day the Miers nomination was announced, Mr. Dobson and other religious conservatives held a conference call to discuss the nomination. One of the people on the call took extensive notes, which I have obtained. According to the notes, two of Ms. Miers's close friends--both sitting judges--said during the call that she would vote to overturn Roe.

The call was moderated by the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association. Participating were 13 members of the executive committee of the Arlington Group, an umbrella alliance of 60 religious conservative groups, including Gary Bauer of American Values, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and the Rev. Bill Owens, a black minister. Also on the call were Justice Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court and Judge Ed Kinkeade, a Dallas-based federal trial judge.

Mr. Dobson says he spoke with Mr. Rove on Sunday, Oct. 2, the day before President Bush publicly announced the nomination. Mr. Rove assured Mr. Dobson that Ms. Miers was an evangelical Christian and a strict constructionist, and said that Justice Hecht, a longtime friend of Ms. Miers who had helped her join an evangelical church in 1979, could provide background on her. Later that day, a personal friend of Mr. Dobson's in Texas called him and suggested he speak with Judge Kinkeade, who has been a friend of Ms. Miers's for decades.

Mr. Dobson says he was surprised the next day to learn that Justice Hecht and Judge Kinkeade were joining the Arlington Group call. He was asked to introduce the two of them, which he considered awkward given that he had never spoken with Justice Hecht and only once to Judge Kinkeade. According to the notes of the call, Mr. Dobson introduced them by saying, "Karl Rove suggested that we talk with these gentlemen because they can confirm specific reasons why Harriet Miers might be a better candidate than some of us think."

What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, "Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

"Absolutely," said Judge Kinkeade.

"I agree with that," said Justice Hecht. "I concur."

Roberts may not have been a cause that Senate Dems could rally 'round, but in light of this - along with what we already can see about Miers - if they can't see through to blocking her nomination they have no business calling themselves Democrats.

In a stunning reversal ...

2005-10-17T09:45:00.000-04:00

No sooner did I write my last post than I read Bob Herbert's column in today's NY Times:

...

It's no wonder the Democrats are gleeful.

They should get over it, and get on with the very difficult business of convincing the public that Democrats would do a better job of governing a country that is already in deep trouble, and sinking deeper by the day.

It's not enough to tell voters how terrible the Republicans are. (Leave that to the left-leaning columnists.) What Democrats have to do is get over their timidity, look deep into their own souls, discover what they truly believe and then tell it like it is.

Give us something to latch onto. Where do we go from here?

...

What the Democrats have to do is get off their schadenfreude cloud and start the hard work of crafting a message of hope that they can deliver convincingly to the electorate - not just in the Congressional elections next year, but in local elections all over the country and the presidential election of 2008.

That is not happening at the moment. While Americans are turning increasingly against the war in Iraq, for example, the support for the war among major Democratic leaders seems nearly as staunch and as mindless as among Republicans. On that and other issues, Democrats are still agonizing over whether to say what they truly believe or try to present themselves as a somewhat lighter version of the G.O.P.

...

He's right, of course, and that IS the question for the Dems - where do they go from here? I'm afraid they have no clue what people are looking for, and without a compelling story of their own to tell, 2006 voters likely as not will stick with the 'the evil they know.' The DLC folks want the party to move farther to the middle and I can't say I disagree entirely. What we know now as "the middle" is so far off the charts that Richard Nixon would have had to look over his right shoulder and squint into the distance to see it. But I'd be happy to see the Democratic Party move to the middle - as long as it's the middle as we understood it in 1975.

Schadenfreude

2005-10-17T08:56:00.000-04:00

I'm sad and horrified for my country, but ... this story makes me unaccountably happy.

Cheney May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation, People Say
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent's name, according to people familiar with the probe that already threatens top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.

The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has questioned current and former officials of President George W. Bush's administration about whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent's husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, according to the people.

Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney's communications adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president's knowledge of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources, who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity of the investigation.

from Bloomberg, via War and Piece

It makes me want to sing that song from Broadway's "Avenue Q"

GARY COLEMAN:
Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy

NICKY:
I'll say.

GARY COLEMAN:
And when I see how sad you are
It sort of makes me...
Happy!

NICKY:
Happy?!

GARY COLEMAN:
Sorry, Nicky, human nature-
Nothing I can do!
It's...
Schadenfreude!
Making me feel glad that I'm not you.

NICKY:
Well that's not very nice, Gary!

GARY COLEMAN:
I didn't say it was nice! But everybody does it!

D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?

NICKY:
Yeah...

GARY COLEMAN:
And ain't it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?

NICKY:
Sure!

GARY COLEMAN:
And don'tcha feel all warm and cozy,
Watching people out in the rain!

NICKY:
You bet!

GARY COLEMAN:
That's...

GARY AND NICKY:
Schadenfreude!

GARY COLEMAN:
People taking pleasure in your pain!

NICKY:
Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?
What's that, some kinda Nazi word?

GARY COLEMAN:
Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"

NICKY:
"Happiness at the misfortune of others." That is German!

Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken

GARY COLEMAN:
Or watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in!

NICKY:
Being on the elevator when somebody shouts "Hold the door!"

GARY AND NICKY:
"No!!!"
Schadenfreude!

GARY COLEMAN:
"Fuck you lady, that's what stairs are for!"

NICKY:
Ooh, how about...
Straight-A students getting Bs?

GARY COLEMAN:
Exes getting STDs!

NICKY:
Waking doormen from their naps!

GARY COLEMAN:
Watching tourists reading maps!

NICKY:
Football players getting tackled!

GARY COLEMAN:
CEOs getting shackled!

NICKY:
Watching actors never reach

GARY AND NICKY:
The ending of their oscar speech!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!

GARY COLEMAN:
The world needs people like you and me who've been knocked around by fate.
'Cause when people see us, they don't want to be us,
and that makes them feel great.

NICKY:
Sure!
We provide a vital service to society!

GARY AND NICKY:
You and me!
Schadenfreude!
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
To be!

GARY COLEMAN:
S-C-H-A-D-E-N-F-R-E-U-D-E!

Looks like The Times isn't any too happy

2005-10-16T22:14:00.000-04:00

I missed this yesterday. From The Raw Story:

Reporter in leak case to take leave of absence effective immediately
John Byrne and Jason Leopold

New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail protecting her source in the recent CIA leak investigation, will take an indefinite leave of absence effective immediately.
"Judy is going to take some time off until we decide what she is doing next," Times' spokesperson Catherine Mathis told RAW STORY Saturday afternoon.

RAW STORY spoke with Miller by telephone at the New York Times newsroom in Washington Friday evening. She said that she had not previously been questioned about her plans going forward, and deferred extended comment to her publicist.
The Times' Sunday story asserts that Miller has not signed a book deal as previously reported.
"She said she thought she would write a book about her experiences in the leak case, although she added that she did not yet have a book deal," the article says. "She also plans on taking some time off but says she hopes to return to the newsroom."

Two reporters inside the newsroom say they have heard Miller will resign from the paper.

Miller was not cooperative with the Times internal probe, reporters told RAW STORY Thursday. This was confirmed in the New York Times' internal probe.

"In two interviews, Ms. Miller generally would not discuss her interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes," the Times reporters wrote.

The paper's executive editor, Bill Keller, says Miller provided a "detailed report."

"The package we are giving readers includes Judy Miller's account of what she told the Special Counsel," Keller said in a statement. "No other reporter drawn into this investigation has provided such a detailed report. We're relieved that we can finally put this story in the hands of our readers, who will draw their own conclusions."

I like the phrasing - "Judy is going to take some time off until we decide what she is doing next." Apparently Judy has no say in what she's doing next. At least not at The Times.

The Judy Miller show

2005-10-16T14:30:00.000-04:00

These are the thoughts I jotted down while reading the Judy Miller/TreasonGate article in today's New York Times. I'm sure I'll think of more later, and I'll probably keep most of it to myself. The blogosphere, the mainstream media, and vast stretches of winguttia will be filled with this stuff for the next several weeks.

I find it really hard to buy into Miller's claim that she doesn't remember who gave her the name "Valerie Flame" - she's supposed to be a pro - she'd keep careful track of who her sources were, especially when it involved personal information about a 3rd party. And it clearly had to come from some source, because if she'd looked up Joe Wilson's wife herself she would have found the name 'Valerie Wilson,' or even (though less likely) 'Valerie Plame' - but certainly not 'Valerie Flame.'

If Bill Keller really told Miller she could no longer work on WMD and Iraq issues, why did he subsequently allow 5 more of her articles on the subject into the paper? He could have killed them, which would have forced her in the direction he wanted her to go, instead of publishing them and encouraging her to continue working on stories he claims he didn't want her working on.

According to the article, "Sulzberger and Keller knew few details..." yet they "did not review Miller's notes." Last year Times senior management felt obliged to publish a mea culpa of sorts about their Iraq coverage, particularly about the totally off-base WMD stories - stories that were reported by Ms Miller (though she wasn't mentioned by name). Why, after her poorly researched and totally wrong articles had embarassed the paper so badly, were Sulzberger and Keller so trusting that they'd once again put the paper's prestige, legal resources, and money on the line simply on Ms Miller's say so? She'd already burned the paper and, according to the article, she seemed to have little interest in the needs or desires of her employers. Are Sulzberger and Keller really that credulous and irresponsible?

Speaking of credulous - Miller's credulity strains mine. After her reporting on Iraqi WMD, based primarily on one less-than-honest source (Ahmed Chalabi), she can say with a straight face that Scooter Libby was "a good faith source who was usually straight with me?" Is she so ignorant of domestic politics that she'd believe that Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff would be "straight" with anyone in the press unless it served the administration's (or Cheney's) goals? And when she says that Libby wasn't forcing the Wilson/Plame info on her - that it was matter-of-fact background stuff - it raises the credulity quotient even higher. If you want information to get around, and you want it to seem genuine and unforced, would you paint it on a sign with ten-foot high letters, or shout it in the face of every reporter you come across? Or would you pass it off as 'oh, by the way' material?

The Times claims that "If Ms Miller testifies, it may be immeasurably harder in the future to persuade a frightened government employee to talk about malfeasance in high places." That is so much self-serving BS, it seems to me. In this case, the "malfeasance in high places" was Libby and Rove's attempt to use the press to attack an actual whistle-blower. When reporters get a story like the Plame one, it not only would make sense to get independent confirmation (and, I suppose, The Times would have attempted to do so if they'd actually published the story) but also ought, at least, to raise the reporters hackles. Why is the information being disseminated? What administration goals does it advance? Who gets helped, and who hurt, by the story - and what larger policy agenda is involved? These are the stories that ought to have been generated. That no one wrote them nor, apparently, even thought to write them, says scads about what's wrong with the press in this country today. In particular Ms Miller and The Times, after being burned so badly by the Bush Administration on the WMD stories, should have been much more suspicious of Administration motives.

Finally, although Ms Miller's suspicion meter didn't seem to jiggle at all for information provided by Chalabi or Libby, why did she suddenly get so suspicious of motives and honesty when it came to Libby's assurances that she was free to testify? She'd been told by Libby's lawyer, and then in writing from Libby, that she was free to reveal him as her source - yet she insisted that he come and tell her face to face. Would that she had been so careful about information that has cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq.

Miller time

2005-10-16T11:04:00.000-04:00

I've been avoiding the blogosphere this morning, so I can get my own first impressions of the Judith Miller story in this morning's NY Times.

So ... I'll jot those first impressions down, and post them in a bit.

Come out

2005-10-11T15:32:00.000-04:00

Today is National Coming Out Day. The theme this year is Talk About It - so be good to your GLBT friends and neighbors (or yourselves). And talk about it.

Cronies

2005-10-11T09:20:00.000-04:00

John Tierney, writing this morning in the New York Times(registration and payment required), wonders why such a big deal is being made over Bush Administration cronyism when it is so common, he claims, in law and journalism schools. His basis for the claim is the preponderance of registered Democrats on the faculties of most prominent law and journalism faculties. I shouldn't have to spell this out for someone entrusted with a column in The Times but, at least in the Democrats' case, simple membership in the same party does not a fellow-traveler make. I can hardly imagine agreement on almost anything coming out of a room that held Bill Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Howard Dean, and Sam Nunn.

But that's beside the point. Tierney's conceit is that the accusations of cronyism being levelled at the Bush administration are concerned most with party affiliation - a notion that is as silly as it is disingenuous. Politics, after all, is a partisan affair, and one expects ideological agreement amongst various appointees. But one also has reason to expect (and in the past that expectation has usually been fulfilled) that appointments will go to people who are qualified by something more than personal loyalty and old school ties. He even makes the claim (as ludicrous as it is unsupported) that conservative journalists, relegated to fringe publications like Reason or The Weekly Standard can't break out into the "mainstream" while writers for The New Republic (as if that were a liberal magazine!) or The Washington Monthly have no trouble moving up to the bigs. I don't remember the last time I saw Kevin Drum's name, or Josh Marshall's, on a NY Times or Washington Post article, Op-Ed column, or masthead. But Mr. Tierney himself, and his colleague in conservatism David Brooks, standard bearers for the right, are on staff at that so-called bastion of liberalism, The Times. Maybe the journalists he has in mind don't get in to the mainstream because the dissembling, distortion, and dishonesty needed to work in the realms of Regnery or the minions of Moon mark them, not as conservatives, but as bad journalists.

Tierney also seems to be saying that a law school or J-school professor is as responsible to the populace at-large as is a Supreme Court Justice. Conservatives used to revel in the 'free market' - and post-secondary education is no less free (probably more free) a market than most. You don't want to be taught by Democrats? Fine - enroll in the University of Kansas School of Journalism (where, according to the numbers Tierney cited, Republicans outnumber Democrats by 10-8), or the Pepperdine University Law School. Just where does Tierney (and David Horowitz, who provided the numbers Tierney uses) think the jurists of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (the most conservative court in the country) or the editorial and news staff of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Fox News, The New York Post, and so on ad nauseum, come from? Maybe they sprang fully formed from Ronald Reagan's forehead.

In any case, Justices of the Supreme Court are responsible to, and for, everyone in the US, not just their ideological allies. The decisions they make apply to everyone, and tend to stand for a very long time. How many newspaper articles do you remember from yesterday, let alone from 20 years ago?

Finally, the Bush crowd is accused of cronyism not because of political association, nor even entirely because of financial intertwining, but because of its spectacular narrowness of vision. Is there really no Republican better qualified for the Supreme Court of The United States than Harriet Miers? No better administrator for FEMA than Joe Allbaugh or Michael Brown? Certainly there are, and I could probably find a few dozen of them myself in 15 minutes of Googling. But George W. Bush and the people in his administration don't care even to work that hard. They're satisfied to flip through their personal Rolodexes, looking for friends and aquaintances who have not yet been given a sinecure. Every toady needs his or her own lily-pad.

I'm sure, of course, that John Tierney does indeed know all of this - but he wants us not to pay attention to it. He wants us to believe it's all about partisan infighting. If that's all it were, it would be annoying but understandable business-as-usual. But it's much more small-minded, and we deserve so much better.

What's so liberal about peace, love, and understanding?

2005-10-09T09:57:00.000-04:00

Avedon's got things exactly right in her reaction to Kevin Drum. Go read her post at The Sideshow.

FWIW, I've been saying similar things for years, especially the stuff in her last 'graf.(In early/mid '60's, the top marignal tax rates were in the 70-90% range while the economy was growing at a phenomenal 6+% per year and unemployment was at 4% or less). The liberal ideal is (and it operated, at least half-heartedly, all through the Clinton '90s) A rising tide lifts all boats. But in government at all levels today the operative metaphor seems closer to We see, from here in our big houses overlooking the shore, that a lot of people are drowning out there. Tsk tsk, ain't that a shame. But hey, isn't this a great view!?!

This isn't rocket science, nor even weird and dangerous experimentalism a la "supply-side" economics. It's just common sense, borne out by the experience of 80-odd years of the 20th century. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, write to your newspapers, call your congress-critters - and elect some new ones who'll take it to heart.

Is Posse Comitatus dead?

2005-10-06T09:46:00.000-04:00

In a story in The Washington Times, George W Bush is quoted, not for the first time, as proposing regular army involvement in domestic issues:

President Bush said yesterday that he was concerned about the potential for an avian flu outbreak and suggested empowering the Pentagon to quarantine parts of the nation should they become infected.
"If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine?" he said during a Rose Garden press conference.
"It's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu," he added. "And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move."

I'm not usually too prone to conspiracy theories, but here's one for you - The Bush II administration has sent much of the National Guard out of the country (in place of regular army troops). So the local militias (i.e. the various state Guard units) are unavailable, leaving only regular armed forces available for the domestic duties the Guard would normally take care of. But the regular army is under the command of the President, while The Guard is, normally, under state control. So my paranoid fantasy is that this is just another toe in the door, another brick in the edifice the right wing is building to seize permanent control of this country. Am I nuts? Or maybe those guys in Montana aren't as crazy as I always thought ...

Let's get Blunt, without DeLay

2005-10-06T07:57:00.000-04:00

Tom DeLay is under indictment for conspiracy and money-laundering. His stand-in/successor in the House majority leadership is Roy Blunt, a long-time ally of DeLay's and a guy who learned his political lessons at The Hammer's knee.

Apparently he learned a bit too much, and I'm wondering how long it's going to be before Blunt is in exactly the same position as DeLay. I.e., looking at felony convictions. Remember, DeLay's indictments revolved around his swapping campaign money from place to place to obscure its origins and get it to where he wanted it, instead of where it was legally allowed to go. In this AP News story, it appears that Blunt has torn a page from that same play-book.

DeLay and successor Blunt swapped donations between secretive groups

JOHN SOLOMON and SHARON THEIMER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men's causes.

When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay's private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist recently charged in an ongoing federal corruption and fraud investigation, and Jim Ellis, the DeLay fundraiser indicted with his boss last week in Texas, also came into the picture.

The complicated transactions are drawing scrutiny in legal and political circles after a grand jury indicted DeLay on charges of violating Texas law with a scheme to launder illegal corporate donations to state candidates.

Blunt last week temporarily replaced DeLay as House majority leader, and Blunt's son, Matt, has now risen to Missouri's governor.

The government's former chief election enforcement lawyer said the Blunt and DeLay transactions are similar to the Texas case and raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether donors were deceived or the true destination of their money was concealed.

"These people clearly like using middlemen for their transactions," said Lawrence Noble. "It seems to be a pattern with DeLay funneling money to different groups, at least to obscure, if not cover, the original source," said Noble, who was the Federal Election Commission's chief lawyer for 13 years, including in 2000 when the transactions occurred.

Implausible non-deniability

2005-10-02T12:27:00.000-04:00

Atrios says "Put a second bottle [of champagne] in the fridge."

I just say "Uh oh." 'Cause the way this plays out will tell whether this country's so-called journalists, and maybe even the idea of a responsive American Democracy, are redeemable or not. No matter which way it goes, expect to see a lot of excrement being tossed around the monkey cages.

Corrente, diminished

2005-10-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

Sadly, The Farmer has gone out to pasture.

I'll miss ye, Farmer. Good luck, and don't let the a-holes get you down...

Brrrrrrr!

2005-09-30T07:45:00.000-04:00

Atrios points to a NY Times article about the rise of natural gas prices and how much that's gonna hurt this winter. He's got that right. Gas prices have risen 7(!!!) times since the '90s, and tripled in just the last 5 years.

What I really want to know is this - Why are public service/public utility commisions and the Interstate Commerce Commission (or whoever it is that regulates interstate gas pipelines) allowing such precipitous rate increases when there little or nothing to justify them? Production costs haven't gone up. Transportation costs haven't gone up. Advertising/marketing costs haven't gone up. Supply, they say, is a bit constrained due to disruptions on the Gulf Coast, but is still sufficient to meet demand. So if the supply is indeed sufficient, the only thing the gas-price rise reflects is, pure and simple, gouging and profiteering on the part of the gas industry, with government regulators complicit.

Expect to see a lot more fireplaces at work this winter. Of course, that will produce a lot of particulate-laden smoke, and its concomitant air pollution - for which there are no clean-up resources anymore.