That sort of thing just doesn’t happen around here
In southern California last Wednesday, half an inch of snow brightened Malibu’s hills while a half-foot barricaded highways and marooned commuters in desert towns east of Los Angeles. Snow barred soldiers at Barstow’s Fort Irwin from deploying to Iraq. In Las Vegas, 3.6 inches of the white stuff — the most seen in 19 years — shuttered McCarren Airport Wednesday and dusted the Strip’s hotels and casinos. What are the odds of that? Actually, the odds are rising that snow, ice, and cold will grow increasingly common. As serious scientists repeatedly explain, global cooling is here. It is chilling temperatures — if not the climate alarmists’ fevered expectations of so-called “global warming.” According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2008 will be America’s coldest year since 1997, thanks to La Niña and precipitation in the central and eastern states. Solar quietude also may underlie global cooling. This year’s sunspots and solar radiation approach the minimum in the Sun’s cycle, corresponding with lower Earth temperatures. This echoes Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas’ belief that solar variability, much more than CO2, sways global temperatures.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service reports that last summer was Anchorage’s third coldest on record. “Not since 1980 has there been a summer less reflective of global warming,” Craig Medred wrote in the Anchorage Daily News. Consequently, Alaska’s glaciers are thickening in the middle. “It’s been a long time on most glaciers where they’ve actually had positive mass balance,” U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia told Medred October 13. Similarly, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has found that the extent of Arctic sea ice has expanded by 13.2 percent over last year. This 270,000 square-mile growth in Arctic sea ice is just slightly larger than Texas’s 268,820 square miles.


Across the equator, Brazil endured an especially cold September. Snow graced its southern provinces that month.“Global Warming is over, and Global Warming Theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change,” Imperial College London astrophysicist and long-range forecaster Piers Corbyn wrote British Members of Parliament on October 28. “According to official data in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been colder than that year, yet CO2 has been rising rapidly.” That evening, as the House of Commons debated legislation on so-called “global-warming,” October snow fell in London for the first time since 1922. These observations parallel those of five German researchers led by Professor Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences. “Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade,” they concluded in last May’s Nature, “as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [man-made] warming.” This “lull” should doom the 0.54 degree Fahrenheit average global temperature rise predicted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Vatican of so-called “global warming.” Incidentally, the IPCC’s computer models factor in neither El Niño nor the Gulf Stream. Excluding such major climate variables would be like ESPN ignoring baseball and basketball. America’s biased, pro-“warming” media holistically overlooked this paper in one of Earth’s most serious and respected scientific journals. Had these researchers forecast the years of higher temperatures, you would have heard about it, ad infinitum.



So, is this all just propaganda concocted by Chevron-funded, right-wing, flat-Earthers? Ask Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a physical chemist and retired Navy meteorologist.
“As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science,” Hertzberg wrote in September 26’s USA Today. “From the El Niño year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C [0.45 F]. From Jan., 2007 until the spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C [1.35 F].”

Blagojevich Attorney Asks Illinois Panel to Subpoena Emanuel and Others
An attorney for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has asked the legislative panel considering impeachment of the governor to subpoena more than a dozen witnesses, including President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff.
Ed Genson wants the committee to subpoena Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), longtime Obama friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett, and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), said state Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie.
Currie, the head of the committee, said she did not yet know what the committee's response to Genson's request would be. Its next meeting is scheduled for Monday, she added.
Currie noted that the U.S. attorney's office has already denied the panel's request to interview a list of people named in the criminal complaint against Blagojevich. U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said earlier this week that lawmakers' interviews of current or former members of Blagojevich's staff might jeopardize his criminal investigation.
Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, declined to comment Thursday, as did the Obama transition team. Messages seeking comment Thursday from Genson, Jackson, and attorneys for Jarrett and Emanuel were not immediately returned.
Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 amid allegations that he tried to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. He has denied any wrongdoing and is ignoring scores of calls to step down, including one from Obama.
None of the possible candidates for Obama's Senate seat, said to include Jarrett and Jackson, are identified by name in the complaint, but Jackson has said he is the person dubbed "Senate Candidate 5." The congressman has said federal prosecutors told him he is not a target of their investigation.
Genson told the Chicago Sun-Times that testimony from Emanuel, Jarrett and Jackson would help prove the governor's claim that he did nothing wrong in his handling of Obama's Senate seat, the newspaper said Thursday.

U.S. poll: Obama is most admired man
First time a president-elect has topped the annual USA TODAY/Gallup survey in more than a half-century. Hillary Clinton tops most-admired woman list again.
President Bush falls to a distant second after seven years as the most-admired man.
Hillary Rodham Clinton leads the list of most-admired woman, a spot she's held for 13 of the past 16 years — as first lady, then New York senator and now Obama's designate for secretary of State. A newcomer is second: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who wasn't well-known nationally until Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate in August.
The findings, a snapshot of public opinion at the end of a tumultuous year, reflect soaring expectations for an incoming president who will take over daunting economic challenges on Jan. 20.
"Things are down so much at the end of 2008 and the end of Bush's administration … and Obama represents a new beginning and some hope and anticipation that things can get better," says James McPherson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and editor of 'To the Best of My Ability:' The American Presidents.

Kennedy, In Senate Bid, Hasn't Shared Finances
At this time last year, Caroline Kennedy was promoting ``A Family Christmas,'' a collection of essays that featured the memory of her father letting her use the White House switchboard to call Santa.
This year, after warily stepping into the political free-for-all for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's job, Kennedy's activities during the holiday season included fending off requests to disclose financial information.
The calls for Kennedy to release her financial information, required of many public officials including her uncle Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, come after a lifetime of carefully cultivated privacy.
By all accounts a very wealthy woman who could be worth as much as $400 million, Kennedy has said she will not release details of her finances unless Democratic Gov. David Paterson picks her for the Senate seat that will open up if Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state.

Lack of donations to city, state Dems may hurt Caroline Kennedy's bid for Senate
Caroline Kennedy's supporters say she could raise tons of money as a senator, but when it comes to writing checks to New York Democrats, she's been largely AWOL.
This decade, other than a $1,000 donation to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Camelot heiress has not financially supported any Democrat seeking city or state office in New York, records reveal.
Some say Kennedy, who is worth at least $100 million up to $400mln , missed an opportunity to curry favor among Democratic pols to establish herself as a serious political player as she lobbies Gov. Paterson for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.

Lack of attendance at a Christmas service shows Barack Obama's church dilemma
President-elect does not like to disrupt other churches with security detail and has yet to pick a new home church
Barack Obama has long stressed the importance of religion in his life. But as his fellow Christians around the world attended Christmas services on Wednesday and Thursday, the president-elect and his family remained sequestered at their vacation compound on the windward coast of Oahu.
His lack of attendance at formal religious services showcased a dilemma faced by Obama, who is between churches and often expresses concern about bringing the disruption of his security detail into the lives of others.
Still, he has not attended a public church service since before being elected, a departure from the actions of his two immediate predecessors.

Rezko attorney 'owns' Obama Chicago Home
Lawyer at firm where Democrat worked receives tax bill
An attorney for convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko is listed as the owner and taxpayer for Barack Obama's Chicago mansion, according to records provided to Prsctr Fitzgerald.
William Miceli is a lawyer at the Chicago law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which also formerly employed Obama.
The controversy began when a website called News and Commentary for Thinking People published a 48-page document that lists Miceli as the owner of the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood, Chicago, IL
Miner, Barnhill & Galland was Obama's employer when he did extensive legal work for Rezko, who awaits sentencing after he was convicted in June of fraud, money laundering and bribery-related counts.
• Miceli, as a senior attorney at the firm, supervised Obama when the future president wrote letters on behalf of Rezko urging public authorities to award him new public properties to rehabilitate, notes the "Barack Book" website maintained by GOP.com.

An new inconvenient truth: The Earth is actually cooling
The “scientific consensus” that Al Gore and his fellow global warming alarmists rely upon to force radical changes in how Americans live and work is being unraveled by Mother Nature. In addition to the recent freak snowstorms in Malibu, New Orleans and Las Vegas, Arctic ice is expanding this year — not shrinking — and there were 115 record-low temperatures reported in the U.S. in October, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Despite rising carbon dioxide levels, the Earth has actually been cooling not warming since 1998, when the warming trend peaked in conjunction with heightened sunspot activity. It appears that 2008, the National Climatic Data Center now says, will go down as the coldest year in a decade.

“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?”
-asked Dr. David Gee, chairman of the 2008 International Geological Congress’ science committee.

That’s an excellent question for President-elect Barack Obama, who promised mandatory caps on carbon emissions and a new international global warming treaty. After meeting with Gore recently, Obama proclaimed: “The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over. We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years.”
Which scientists? Does Obama believe more than 650 current and former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(yes that is the same group that shared the Nobel Peace prize w/ al Gore for Global Warming) who are now publicly questioning the nonscientist Gore’s major premise? Or Norwegian Nobel physicist Ivar Giaever, who declared himself a global warming skeptic, as did Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology? Or the scientists who point out that “100 percent” of the 20th century global warming signal comes from man-made “adjustments” made to a computer model at NASA’s Goddard Institute?
There is no scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming. The IPCC’s own climate change models predicted rising temperatures for this year, but those actually recorded fall short of the predictions. Yet Gore and his fellow global warming zealots apparently think the rest of us are sufficiently gullible to believe that the current cooling trend “actually illustrates how fast the world is warming,” as a reporter for The Associated Press put it recently. In the absence of credible scientific evidence of global warming as a man-made problem, Obama’s plans to impose draconian climate control measures such as those found in the failed Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade proposal are not only unnecessary, they’re likely to leave millions of Americans out in the cold.

‘Helicopter Ben’ confronts the challenge of a lifetime
By Martin Wolf, Financial Times

Central banks may soon resort to their most powerful weapons against deflation: the printing press and the “helicopter drop” of money. It is a time for which Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has long prepared. Will this weaponry work? Unquestionably, yes: used ruthlessly, it will eliminate deflation. But returning to normality thereafter will prove far more elusive.

Mr Bernanke delivered a celebrated speech on the topic in November 2002, when still a governor.* He spoke quite soon after the US stock market bubble burst in 2000. Policymakers then feared the US might soon follow Japan into deflation – sustained declines in the general price level.

Yet Mr Bernanke then insisted “that the chance of significant deflation in the US in the foreseeable future is extremely small”. He pointed to “the strength of our financial system: despite the adverse shocks of the past year, our banking system remains healthy and well-regulated, and firm and household balance sheets are for the most part in good shape”. The words “pride” and “fall” come to mind. Six years and a housing-cum-credit bubble later, chairman Bernanke must be sadder and wiser.

Mr Bernanke’s view was also that “the best way to get out of trouble is not to get into it in the first place”. The fear that reversing deflationary expectations would prove hard explains why the Fed has cut its official interest rate so quickly since the crisis broke in August 2007.

Is deflation a realistic likelihood? Core measures of inflation strongly suggest not. But one measure of expected inflation – the gap between yields on conventional and index-linked Treasuries – has collapsed to 14 basis points. Moreover, yields on 10-year US Treasury bonds are already where Japan’s were in 1996, six years after the latter’s crisis began. (See the charts, which start one year before respective asset price peaks.)



Why then should central banks fear deflation? First, deflation makes it impossible for conventional monetary policy to deliver negative real interest rates. The faster the deflation, the higher real interest rates will be. Second, as explained by the great American economist Irving Fisher in the 1930s, “debt deflation” – the rising real value of debt as prices fall – then becomes a lethal threat. In the US, whose private sector gross debt soared from 118 per cent of gross domestic product in 1978 to 290 per cent in 2008, debt deflation could trigger a downward spiral of mass insolvency, falling demand and further deflation.

Already, the Fed has adopted a host of unconventional actions to keep the economy afloat. By December 10 the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet had reached $2,245bn (€1,663bn, £1,490bn), a jump of $124bn over a week and $1,378bn over a year. It held a wide range of government and private paper, including $476bn in Treasury securities, $448bn in “term auction credit”, $312bn in commercial paper and $233bn in “other loans”, which includes $57bn of credit toAIG alone. If it keeps going, the Fed may become the largest bank in the world.

Does it face any constraint? Not really. As Robert Mugabe has shown, anybody can run a printing press successfully. Once the interest rate hits zero, the Fed can perform much further easing. Indeed, it can create money without limit. Imagine what would happen if an alchemist could transform lead into gold, at no cost. Gold would not be worth much. Central banks can create infinite quantities of money, at no cost. So they can reduce its value to nothing without difficulty. Curing deflation is child’s play in a “fiat money” – a man-made money – system.

So what might central banks do? They might lower longer-term interest rates by buying as many long-term government bonds as they wish or by promising to keep short rates low for a lengthy period. They might lend directly to the private sector. Indeed, they might buy any private asset, at any price and in any quantity they choose. They might also buy foreign currency assets. And they might finance the government on any scale they think necessary.

Alternatively, the fiscal authorities can run a deficit of any size they wish and then finance it by issuing short-term paper that the central bank would have to buy, to keep interest rates down. At the zero-rate boundary, fiscal and monetary policies become one. The central bank’s sole right to make monetary policy is gone. But the reverse is also true: the central bank can send money to every citizen. This is the helicopter drop proposed by the late Milton Friedman and recently discussed by Eric Lonergan on the FT’s economists’ forum.

At this point, one might wonder why Japan has struggled with deflation for so long. I have little idea. But the explanation seems to be that the Bank of Japan did not wish to take such drastic measures and the Ministry of Finance did not dare to force the point. Such self-restraint will not deter the US authorities.

So will the Federal Reserve drown the world in dollars, whereupon we will be able to wake from the nightmare? As Willem Buiter shows in a recent blog, “Confessions of a Crass Keynesian”, the answer is No.

Once inflation returns, the central bank will need to sell assets into the market, to mop up the excess money it has created in fighting deflation. Similarly, the government must reduce its deficit to a size it can finance in the market. Otherwise, deflationary expectations may swiftly turn into expectations of above-target inflation. This may also happen if the debt sold in efforts to sterilise the monetary overhang is deemed beyond the government’s ability to service.

Countries without a credible currency may reach this point early. As soon as a central bank hints at “quantitative easing”, flight from the currency may ensue. This is particularly likely when countries remain burdened under a huge overhang of domestic and foreign debt. Creditors know that a burst of inflation would solve many problems in the US and the UK. The US may manage the danger of resurgent inflationary expectations. The UK is likely to find it more difficult. Avoiding deflation is easy; achieving stability thereafter will be far harder.

Ironically, we are where we are partly because the Fed was so terrified of deflation six years ago. Now, a credit bubble later, Mr Bernanke has to cope with what he then feared, largely because of the Fed’s heroic attempts at prevention. Similar dangers now arise with the drastic measures that look ever more likely. This time, I suspect, the result will ultimately not be deflation but unexpectedly high inflation, though probably many years hence.

*Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here, November 21 2002

From any angle, numbers don't add up in Mulcahy firing
by Jerry Izenberg/The Star-Ledger
Sunday December 14, 2008, 8:26 PM
Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger

There was a time when Bob Mulcahy and Richard McCormick presented a united front for Rutgers.
For six years, Bob Mulcahy was more trouble to Giants center Shaun O'Hara than a middle linebacker with blood in his eyes. He would see O'Hara on the sideline at Rutgers football games, or just outside the locker room, and always the conversation would end with a single question:
"When are you coming back?"

Not for a donation or a pep talk to the troops. Rutgers University still owed him three credits and O'Hara owed Rutgers the classroom time to collect them. Mulcahy never let up.
Eventually, O'Hara came home and earned his belated BA degree.

"We are a university," Mulcahy said last week by way of explanation. "That's what we are supposed to do. That's why their parents put their trust in us."
The operative phrase here was "supposed to do." There are a lot of universities where this couldn't have happened ... places where the athletic director gives that responsibility a low priority. But not at Rutgers under Mulcahy.

But last week, the athletic director got fired.

The primary way the NCAA measures a university's ability to educate its athletes is called the Academic Progress Report, which deals with graduation rates. In apportioning the results of the APR, the athletic director is -- or should be -- the main responsible source. That report puts Rutgers third in the country behind Navy and Stanford and among six teams that made the top call. That made it first among state universities.

But last week the athletic director got fired.

The tail-that-wagged-the-doggie logic was filled with politics and was self-serving, with even a little cowardice from the president and the Board of Governors.

So the athletic director got fired.

The recent investigative report on the athletic department authorized by the Board of Governors was a compendium of correct, partial and contradictory facts. The report said spending was out of control, and you could make that case. But what the report did not say, but was true, was that the school's president, Richard McCormick, constantly agreed with what Mulcahy was trying to achieve, and never set guidelines for Mulcahy to follow.

One must assume that the president, if he gave any of this any thought (until prompted by people with scores to settle and ad hoc agendas) must have been waiting for guidelines to appear through prayer and osmosis. The president couldn't grasp the fact that, as Pogo would say:

"I has met the enemy and he is me."

So the athletic director got fired.

On Wednesday, McCormick sent for Mulcahy. When the AD got there, the president made sure he had a witness. Then, according to Mulcahy, he said, "I want your resignation by the 31st of the month."

The president, according to Mulcahy, was nervous. The conversation, he said, went like this:

"Why?"

"I want to go a different way."

"What does that mean? What did I do?"

"You haven't been sensitive to the audit report."

"But you and I discussed it and agreed to work out the solution."

The president said nothing.

"I'm not resigning. Fire me if you want."

Then Mulcahy walked out. The president called him twice later in the day. Mulcahy did not pick up the phone.

"He announced it before I could tell my own family," Mulcahy said. "I have seven kids and a wife. I have 44 years of public service, and he sends me out like this."

That night, Mulcahy sent an e-mail to everyone who works in the Hale Center or the Rutgers Athletic Center and all the athletes, coaches and trainers, calling a meeting for 9 a.m. the next day.

That next morning they were there in the bleachers at the RAC -- nearly 800 of them ... coaches and secretaries; custodians and parking attendants; football players who had come from practice in jerseys and shoulder pads ... other athletes.

When Mulcahy walked in, they stood as one and cheered. And then the room was dead silent. Mulcahy spoke in soft but emotional tones. He spoke of what all of them together had achieved. He spoke of them as family ... of Rutgers as the glue that held them together ... a unit with a mission that he said he was sure they would not falter in when he was gone.
"I love you," he told them.

When he finished, the first one out of the stands was Kenny Britt, the All-Big East wide receiver. They hugged and they whispered to each other, and when they broke that embrace, a line longer than you can imagine and stronger than the president or much of the Board of Governors could understand waited by turns to express their thanks for what they knew their athletic director had achieved.

That night, Mulcahy went back to the RAC to watch the women's basketball team. When he entered the building, half the crowd -- roughly 2,000 people -- offered a standing ovation. At about that time two spectators swear they saw the president leave the building.

On Friday the Rutgers Board of Governors held a meeting on campus. When the president took the podium, he said, "We are here to honor what Bob Mulcahy did for this university," and someone in the crowd hollered,

"Why didn't you?"

"We should give him respect," McCormick said.

And someone else shouted "Why didn't you?" When the president said we are looking for new leadership for the athletic department, someone boomed back "and for the university."

Whatever mistakes Mulcahy made, he is the one who cleaned up an academic mess when he got to Rutgers and who never let the worst in college athletics surface on his campus. It wasn't the president who was proactive for his students when the Rutgers women's basketball team was verbally assaulted beyond belief.

It was Mulcahy.

He stood with coach C. Vivian Stringer's young ladies after Don Imus' disgusting radio rhetoric (he called the team "nappy-headed hos") and the whining apology Imus offered in total panic. Mulcahy was their counselor and their protector and their guardian. And he trusted them enough to let them speak for themselves. Ask them and they will tell you. So will their coach.

He is the one who stepped up and helped hold the Big East together at a time when Rutgers was perilously close to being without any league.

He hired Greg Schiano, who has brought football at Rutgers dignity and honor, and stuck with him through some of the darkest 100-yard days the school that invented football ever experienced.

On Friday, David Harris, a member of the Board of Governors, said, "In my six years on the board, I never knew Bob Mulcahy to take an independent action, that is, an action without approval of Dick McCormick."

It wasn't the athletic director who failed in his obligation. It was a president who is a far more naked emperor than charismatic leader. The emperor has no footprints that even begin to lead toward a legacy. The emperor has no clothes.

So the athletic director got fired.
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COMMENTS (36)Post a comment
Posted by ScarletRogue on 12/14/08 at 8:43PM
Thanks Jerry..We need you back. There was no secret here. From The Ledger 2006:
By MATTHEW FUTTERMANSTAR-LEDGER STAFF
Here come the boosters.
The minute state Senate President Richard Codey got off the phone with Rutgers' head football coach last Friday, he knew what was going to happen.
Greg Schiano was going to stay at Rutgers instead of jumping to the University of Miami. and Rutgers was going to give him more money.
State and university officials were going to have to start hitting up private sources to cover the raise.
"I don't know numbers, but I'm thrilled he's staying," Codey said yesterday after Schiano announced he would remain. "The university has to make the decision for what is best and how much success they can accomplish. They came within an inch of the Orange Bowl and maybe another $10 million when you consider the intangibles. Are those intangibles worth it? I think they are."
Perhaps, but as Rutgers continues its struggle through a budget crisis that includes cutting six varsity sports after this year, the university will have to enter new territory by seeking private funding to give Schiano his due as one of the country's top young football coaches. Rutgers has used public money to pay Schiano $250,000 and $625,000 from "Nelligan Corporate Sponsorship moneys" according to his contract. That provision refers to Nelligan Sports Marketing, the Little Falls company that sells advertising for the university's athletic program.
The guaranteed money rises to $675,000 from 2007 through 2010 and to $750,000 in 2011 and 2012. Now Rutgers will follow the formula of several other major public universities, which often turn to local alumni and businesses to pay a substantial chunk of their football coach's salary.
Seton Hall did it in the 1980s when it wanted to keep basketball coach P.J. Carlesimo and asked its well-known supporters, including Robert Brennan, Frank Walsh and Dennis Kozlowski, to donate money for the specific purpose of giving the coach more. In exchange, boosters get prime seats and entertainment at games, and access to the coaches, who come speak to their companies or local teams for free.
It's a step that has burned football programs in the past, when boosters have gotten too close to the team and handed no-show jobs to players, but college sports experts say if the proper controls are put in place, everyone can win.

December 12, 2008

Mr. Robert Mulcahy
Athletic Director
Rutgers University
Louis Brown Athletic Center
83 Rockafeller Road
Piscataway, NJ 08854

IN Re: Star Ledger Coverage of Rutgers & Mayor Sharpe James


Dear Mr. Mulcahy,

I thought you might be interested in reading my exchange with The Star Ledger of New Jersey vis-à-vie their coverage of Rutgers Football/Athletics and in comparison to their coverage of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James.

I was especially critical of the paper for their front-page article this past Sunday (“Rutgers football: A game of secrets”12/7/08). Please find below my exchange with the editor of the Star Ledger..

Anyway, from one ex-Rutgers football Letterwinner (Rutgers College ’90) to you: Thank you for what you have done with our university.

Regards,


John Churchill



Sunday, December 7, 2008

Dear Editor,

The Star Ledger's "investigative" journalism of the Rutgers University football team might be taken more seriously if the paper had at least shown an interest in investigating the mayor of the city in which the Star Ledger is headquartered. I mean the Mayor is indicted on federal charges for corruption -Sharpe James reputation was hardly a state secret to anyone in the City and the paper never even bothered to investigate him...shows willful blindness or worse.

Regards,

John Churchill


Star Ledger’s reply below
================
December 8, 2008

Dear John Churchill,

I gather you are not aware it was our stories about James' expense account and land deals that led to the investigation. If you doubt that, just ask the US Attorney.
But thanks for taking the time to write anyway.

Regards,

J Willse
Editor
Star Ledger

===============

December 11, 2008

Dear Mr. Willse,

I have read the 86 page Federal indictment of Sharpe James and spoken to any and all that have any knowledge of this issue with the federal government. I have to tell you that what they are saying – and the evidence of public records that I have found, show it was ONLY after people in and out of his administration started talking to the Feds with the catalyst being twofold: the various Grand Jury subpoenas being issued and the people of Newark realizing that Mayor Sharpe James was soon to lose his “king’s crown” and power. The Grand Jury subpoenas started flowing to the Newark government’s office from the early days of Mayor James administration.

What I do find in researching the Star Ledger reporting of this issue can be characterized as thus:

1) Reporting of former Deputy Mayor of Economic Development Alfred Faiella’s actions but no mention of Mayor James culpability;

2) Reporting of other people –but not James, profiting from these land deals. Reporting mentioned developers and co’s that profited.

3) A change in the Start Ledger’s reporting following public awareness of US Prosecutor’s probe of James.

4) Once it appeared that Cory Booker was going to win the election, the Star Ledger’s reporting took a much different tone – much more hawkish on James. It started mentioning Mayor James by name in these land deals. The Feds also mentioned that once the people in the James administration realized that James was on his way out, they started to talk.

I cannot find any reporting the Star Ledger of Mayor James involvement in any type of corruption prior public awareness that Mayor James was under investigation.
What one would expect from the nation’s 15th largest paper and the paper of record for New Jersey is some sort of attempt to conduct the type of investigative reporting that columnist Paul Mulshine conducted vis à vie Robert Menendez. Instead what a Star Ledger reader would find prior to the probe becoming public knowledge is the Ledger mentioning people around Mayor James but the paper never questioning James’ ethics, motives and only a cursory attempt to hold him accountable. For example, in 2005 the paper tried to ask the Mayor questions about this subject, but he declined. Paper went no further. The paper submitted certain O.P.R.A requests but when the city didn’t complied, the paper went no further. Where is the front-page article demanding that the Mayor state what he knew and when did he know it and why is there a former felon (Faiella) running the land development of the City? I cite the following article as an example of the water-downed reporting of the Star Ledger from April 12, 2005: http://blog.nj.com/ledgerarchives/2007/07/in_citys_housing_boom_a_select.html

The paper gave Mayor James a pass on this right up to the time when it was clear he was no longer going to be Mayor. Where is the Star Ledger editorial proclaiming “The Buck Stops Here” and Mayor James must be held accountable his subordinates activities-not to mention his own?

Do we really need to wait for a federal prosecutor to announce tapes of phone calls (Illinois corruption) before we demand higher morals from our public representatives?

If you show any reporting to the contrary please tell me as my research does not show it. If you have any articles from the 1990s or early 2000s refuting my criticism then I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

Regards,

John Churchill

(I then included a synopsis of the articles related to James and his corruption investigation…they are in chronological order (from most recent to oldest)


This was Mr. Willse of the Star Ledger’s final response:

December 12, 2008

Dear John Churchill,

I appreciate the time you’re putting into this and only wish I could do the same. Your point seems to be that we gave Sharpe James a pass. You’re wrong.
Thanks for writing.

Regards,

Mr. Willse
Star Ledger
================

Star Ledger Chief Editor says “uncle” to me….


The obvious rebuttal to his last email exchange w/ me (see below) is

“facts are funny things, they always seem to get in the way of a good opinion”….

So while he thinks I’m simply “wrong”, he can’t provide even one editorial where the Star Ledger demanded Mayor James step down…not one that even demands he be held accountable.

Pathetic….Given the overwhelming evidence that I provided (see below), one can see why he decided just to fold his hand and move on….

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:51:54 -0500
Subject: Re: Follow up to our conversation
From: JWILLSE@STARLEDGER.COM
To: churchill1717@hotmail.com

Mr. Churchill ...

I appreciate the time you’re putting into this and only wish I could do the same. Your point seems to be that we gave Sharpe James a pass. You’re wrong.
Thanks for writing.


On 12/11/08 5:45 PM, "churchill1717@hotmail.com" wrote:

Dear Sir,

I have read the 86 page Federal indictment of Sharpe James and spoken to any and all that have any knowledge of this issue with the federal government. I have to tell you that what they are saying – and the evidence of public records that I have found, show it was ONLY after people in and out of his administration started talking to the Feds with the catalyst being twofold: the various Grand Jury subpoenas being issued and the people of Newark realizing that Mayor Sharpe James was soon to lose his “king’s crown” and power. The Grand Jury subpoenas started flowing to the Newark government’s office from the early days of Mayor James administration.

What I do find in researching the Star Ledger reporting of this issue can be characterized as thus:

1) Reporting of former Deputy Mayor of Economic Development Alfred Faiella’s actions but no mention of Mayor James culpability;

2) Reporting of other people –but not James, profiting from these land deals. Reporting mentioned developers and co’s that profited.

3) A change in the Start Ledger’s reporting following public awareness of US Prosecutor’s probe of James.

4) Once it appeared that Cory Booker was going to win the election, the Star Ledger’s reporting took a much different tone – much more hawkish on James. It started mentioning Mayor James by name in these land deals. The Feds also mentioned that once the people in the James administration realized that James was on his way out, they started to talk.


I cannot find any reporting the Star Ledger of Mayor James involvement in any type of corruption prior public awareness that Mayor James was under investigation.

What one would expect from the nation’s 15th largest paper and the paper of record for New Jersey is some sort of attempt to conduct the type of investigative reporting that columnist Paul Mulshine conducted vis à vie Robert Menendez. Instead what a Star Ledger reader would find prior to the probe becoming public knowledge is the Ledger mentioning people around Mayor James but the paper never questioning James’ ethics, motives and only a cursory attempt to hold him accountable. For example, in 2005 the paper tried to ask the Mayor questions about this subject, but he declined. Paper went no further. The paper submitted certain O.P.R.A requests but when the city didn’t complied, the paper went no further. Where is the front-page article demanding that the Mayor state what he knew and when did he know it and why is there a former felon (Faiella) running the land development of the City? I cite the following article as an example of the water-downed reporting of the Star Ledger from April 12, 2005: http://blog.nj.com/ledgerarchives/2007/07/in_citys_housing_boom_a_select.html

The paper gave Mayor James a pass on this right up to the time when it was clear he was no longer going to be Mayor. Where is the Star Ledger editorial proclaiming “The Buck Stops Here” and Mayor James must be held accountable his subordinates activities-not to mention his own?

Do we really need to wait for a federal prosecutor to announce tapes of phone calls (Illinois corruption) before we demand higher morals from our public representatives?

If you show any reporting to the contrary please tell me as my research does not show it. If you have any articles from the 1990s or early 2000s refuting my criticism then I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

Regards,

John Churchill

===================
Below is a synopsis of the article related to James and his corruption investigation…they are in chronological order (from most recent to oldest)


.) Feds' probe of James now takes close look at Newark land deals
Author: IAN T. SHEARN AND JOHN P. MARTIN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: November 28, 2006
Word Count: 875
Document ID: 115B1FBB06B6D388
A federal investigation into the administration of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James has expanded, with more subpoenas delivered to City Hall and agents now scrutinizing real estate deals that benefited some of the ex-mayor's biggest supporters, according to sources close to the probe.
FBI agents in recent weeks have interviewed a number of city employees, and prosecutors also have demanded additional records from Newark City Hall, among them personnel files of at least four

One phone call gave momentum to James inquiry
People talked once he left office
Author: JOHN P. MARTIN AND IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: July 15, 2007
Word Count: 2016
Document ID: 11A69527D16D1710
While Sharpe James was building a larger-than-life persona as Newark's mayor and chief cheerleader in the 1990s, prosecutors and FBI agents were dropping hundreds of grand jury subpoenas at City Hall.
They won corruption convictions against two Newark City Council members, the police director and the mayor's chief aide. James, meanwhile, kept winning elections.
So no one had high hopes last summer when the newly inaugurated mayor, Cory Booker, called


) Indictment rumor swirls around James
Newark mayor probed in graft
Author: IAN T. SHEARN AND JOHN P. MARTIN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: July 12, 2007
Word Count: 674
Document ID: 11A599E4AE6D5C58
Federal authorities plan to announce "a major development" today in the long-running FBI corruption investigation into former Newark Mayor Sharpe James, according to two law enforcement sources.
For weeks, a federal grand jury in Newark has been considering evidence involving city land deals and travel expenses that James billed to the city while he was mayor, The Star-Ledger has reported. That grand jury meets Thursdays, so each week that day has brought new

Newark records reveal the art of the cozy land deal
Author: IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: June 25, 2007
Word Count: 1241
Document ID: 119FFF6395655738
Before he left office in 2002, Newark Deputy Mayor Alfred Faiella redrew the city's redevelopment boundaries, adding acres of land to the list of vacant properties Newark was willing to sell at a discount. The city sold 53 of those tracts in the West Ward two years later to a company half-owned by one of Faiella's close friends, Joanne Harz. Her firm paid $1 a square foot for the parcels, roughly 25 times less than the going rate for vacant Newark land at the time,


0.) Newark official involved in land deals resigns
City investigating Hilliard-Johnson's below-market house purchase from a developer
Author: IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: February 6, 2007
Word Count: 615
Document ID: 11723540DEE4FF20
A top Newark development official has resigned amid an investigation into her business relationship with one of the city's major developers of surplus municipal property.
Karen Hilliard-Johnson, 55, a director in Newark's Department of Housing and Economic Development, which oversees the city's residential redevelopment efforts, submitted her resignation last week and will leave the job March 1, according to Desiree Peterkin Bell, a spokeswoman for



152.) Newark official involved in home deal resigns
City probing below-market purchase from developer
Author: IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: February 6, 2007
Word Count: 668
Document ID: 117235406D9265A8
A top Newark development official has resigned amid an investigation into her business relationship with one of the city's major developers of surplus municipal property. Karen Hilliard-Johnson, 55, a director in Newark's Department of Housing and Economic Development, which oversees the city's residential redevelopment efforts, submitted her resignation last week and will leave the job March 1, according to Desiree Peterkin Bell, a spokeswoman for


A builder, an official and a sweet deal
House worth $348,900 bought for $200,000
Author: IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: January 7, 2007
Word Count: 662
Document ID: 116853450F7CA538
A top Newark development official bought a house far below market value in the city's South Ward five years ago from a builder who has since become one of the largest developers of city-owned land, a review of public records shows.
Karen Hilliard-Johnson, a director in Newark's Department of Housing and Economic Development, which oversees the city's residential redevelopment efforts, paid $200,000 for the four-bedroom, 3 1/2-bathroom house on March


New rules for Newark land deals
Booker's policy to highlight market rates, better value
Author: IAN T. SHEARN AND KATIE WANG STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: December 5, 2006
Word Count: 905
Document ID: 115D6DE1E2E9F530
Claiming Newark has squandered millions of dollars selling surplus land too cheaply, Mayor Cory Booker will soon propose new policy for selling municipal property that he says will bring greater value to the city.
Booker said that builders wanting to buy vacant lots and buildings from the city will have to pay market rates, or agree to include low- and moderate-income housing in the development or make other improvements to the neighborhood.
Under the administration of former



Feds probe dirt-cheap land deals
Former mayor of Newark sold lots to his supporters
Author: IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: December 4, 2006
Word Count: 1160
Document ID: 115D1A1A76F92A78
In the final months of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James' tenure, the city engaged in a flurry of last-minute real estate deals, selling municipally owned land at a fraction of its market value to politically connected developers, a new examination of property records shows. From March 27 - the day the five-term mayor announced he would not seek re-election - until he left office June 30, the city closed on 21 separate deals that involved dozens of lots and at least 20 acres


170.) Feds' probe of James now takes close look at Newark land deals
Author: IAN T. SHEARN AND JOHN P. MARTIN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: November 28, 2006
Word Count: 875
Document ID: 115B1FBB06B6D388
A federal investigation into the administration of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James has expanded, with more subpoenas delivered to City Hall and agents now scrutinizing real estate deals that benefited some of the ex-mayor's biggest supporters, according to sources close to the probe. FBI agents in recent weeks have interviewed a number of city employees, and prosecutors also have demanded additional records from Newark City Hall, among them personnel files of at least four



201.) Newark halts land deals per judge's order
Author: JONATHAN CASIANO STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: June 8, 2006
Word Count: 535
Document ID: 11221ACDA180A489
The Newark City Council abided by a judge's order to stop selling city-owned land last night, tabling 13 deals until the council's next meeting. The land agreements on last night's agenda would have transferred 64 city-owned properties to a variety of private developers for the city minimum of $4 per square foot, a price well below fair market value. Proposed by developers from Newark to Burlington Township, most of the projects consisted of


202.) An easy layup for builders
Newark should quit giving away land to developers like Shaq's group and demand that they respect city history
Author: JOAN WHITLOW STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: June 2, 2006
Word Count: 942
Document ID: 11201C4BDAFBDC8B
Land. It's the one thing nobody is making more of, or so they say. Nobody makes buildings like the one that is currently home to Newark's Science High School. It is an old brick wonder, built in 1860 and decorated in what I'm told is art deco style. Look closely at the main entrance and you will see owls carved into the heavy wooden doors. Above that is a remarkable colored terra cotta panel showing human figures. One carries a torch. That could


203.) Newark council delays on land deals
Author: JEFFERY C. MAYS STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 421
Document ID: 111D24FF6E982E99
The Newark City Council deferred acting on a number of proposals from the administration of Mayor Sharpe James yesterday to sell land to developers building mostly two- and three-family homes for sale at market-rate prices. There were 10 proposals on the agenda to sell land at the city minimum of $4 per square foot. With between five and six council members present and Councilman Ras Baraka abstaining on most of the proposals, many simply did not have enough votes to


204.) End the Newark land rush

Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 381
Document ID: 111D24EF80F37221
EDITORIAL By the time Newark Mayor-elect Cory Booker is sworn in July 1, city-owned land that could be part of a well-planned, city-directed effort to rebuild Newark may all be gone - sold out from under him. The big land deals were made long ago, but the Sharpe James administration continues to send the city council proposals to sell bits and pieces at the bargain-basement price of $4 a square foot. In some cases, the development plans laid before council members lack




205.) Newark council delays land deals
Author: JEFFERY C. MAYS STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 421
Document ID: 111D24FF2CA4695C
The Newark City Council deferred acting on a number of proposals from the administration of Mayor Sharpe James yesterday to sell land to developers building mostly two- and three-family homes for sale at market-rate prices. There were 10 proposals on the agenda to sell land at the city minimum of $4 per square foot. With between five and six council members present and Councilman Ras Baraka abstaining on most of the proposals, many simply did not have enough votes to pass.


206.) Newark council delays on land deals
Author: JEFFERY C. MAYS STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 310
Document ID: 111D24FA9D06EB91
The Newark City Council deferred acting on a number of proposals from the administration of Mayor Sharpe James yesterday to sell land to developers building mostly two- and three-family homes for sale at market-rate prices. There were 10 proposals on the agenda to sell land at the city minimum of $4 per square foot. With between five and six council members present and Councilman Ras Baraka abstaining on most of the proposals, many simply did not have enough votes to


207.) Newark council's land sales hit delays
Most deals lack the votes to pass
Author: JEFFERY C. MAYS STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 431
Document ID: 111D24F236247C3A
The Newark City Council deferred acting on a number of proposals from the administration of Mayor Sharpe James yesterday to sell land to developers building mostly two- and three-family homes for sale at market-rate prices. There were 10 proposals on the agenda to sell land at the city minimum of $4 per square foot. With between five and six council members present and Councilman Ras Baraka abstaining on most of the proposals, many simply did not have enough votes to pass.


208.) Newark council delays land deals
Author: JEFFERY C. MAYS STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 352
Document ID: 111D24FC8C5B89E3
The Newark City Council deferred acting on a number of proposals from the administration of Mayor Sharpe James yesterday to sell land to developers building mostly two- and three-family homes for sale at market-rate prices. There were 10 proposals on the agenda to sell land at the city minimum of $4 per square foot. With between five and six council members present and Councilman Ras Baraka abstaining on most of the proposals, many simply did not have enough votes to


209.) Newark council delays action on land deals
Author: JEFFERY C. MAYS STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 24, 2006
Word Count: 310
Document ID: 111D24FC4A8D3293
The Newark City Council deferred acting on a number of proposals from the administration of Mayor Sharpe James yesterday to sell land to developers building mostly two- and three-family homes for sale at market-rate prices. There were 10 proposals on the agenda to sell land at the city minimum of $4 per square foot. With between five and six council members present and Councilman Ras Baraka abstaining on most of the proposals, many simply did not have enough votes to


210.) `Cozy deal' strips city of $35M in assets
Private companies Faiella created in 1980s and '90s legally own structures built largely with public money
Author: MARK MUELLER AND IAN T. SHEARN STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 21, 2006
Word Count: 3030
Document ID: 111C2C9B758892AE
In the fall of 2001, Alfred Faiella's quarter-century reign as executive director of the Newark Economic Development Corp. came to an inglorious end. A group of activist trustees at the agency, the primary vehicle for luring investment to the city since 1964, had clashed repeatedly with Faiella over his development policies, and they wanted him out. Faiella, also a Newark deputy mayor, agreed to resign without a fight, a somewhat surprising stance given his reputation 211.) THE POWERFUL PAUPER
As Newark's development czar, he built the city's skyline, controlled its assets and grew rich. Now his creditors are saying: Show us the money.
Author: IAN T. SHEARN AND MARK MUELLER STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Publication: Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ)
Publish Date: May 21, 2006
Word Count: 3209
Document ID: 111C2C9B4B2C1677 Alfred Faiella just might be the richest poor man in New Jersey. In a Monmouth County neighborhood of $700,000 homes, Faiella lives in one of the largest. He drives a Cadillac STS valued at $67,000. His Newark office whispers executive posh, with cherry-wood accents and an ornate glass chandelier. There he runs a successful law practice and presides over companies that control $33 million in assets. In 2004, he made $665,000. It's a comfortable living for a man


From: WILLSE, JIM [mailto:JWILLSE@STARLEDGER.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 4:35 PM
To: churchill1717@hotmail.com
Subject: FW:


Mr. Churchill ..



I gather you are not aware it was our stories about James' expense account and land deals that led to the investigation. If you doubt that, just ask the US Attorney.



But thanks for taking the time to write anyway.

Dear Editor,

The Star Ledger's "investigative" journalism of the Rutgers University football team might be taken more seriously if the paper had at least shown an interest in investigating the mayor of the city in which the Star Ledger is headquartered. I mean the Mayor is indicted on federal charges for corruption -Sharpe James reputation was hardly a state secret to anyone in the City and the paper never even bothered to investigate him...shows willful blindness or worse.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, is our best guess for the "Emissary" in the FBI affidavit... he, former Illinois 5th congressional district (Chicago's south-side) representative would be the nexus between Governor Blagojevich and Obama....he is Obama's Achilles heel in this whole episode... interesting that so far he has refused to answer any questions and wasn't at the press conference that Obama held yday.... he would be the logical go-between that the governor would use... he talked frequently with Governor Blagojevich on healthcare and other issues....


Obama first said that he never spoke to the governor at all now he is changing that to "What i am absolutely certain about is that no one spoke to the governor about any deal making for the senate seat'...
There was a Nov10th conf call between the Governor, his advisers and “people from Wash DC”… GeoMacro Consulting© believes that Valerie Jarrett (pictured lower right) – a close advisor to Obama, was on that call.

The players with Governor Blagojevich for the open senate seat

Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel
Asked if he is the Infamous “Emissary” Cited in the FBI Affidavit …




Other quotables of Sen Majority Leader Harry Reid
Remember what he said about the Iraq war?
"It's Lost" ..he said that right before the Surge was implemented along the renewed political process which has led to the stabilization that is happening now...
"Tourists smell" ...he recently said this about tourists that visit the Capitol

Last night in declaring the auto bailout bill “dead” he said that he hates to think what will happen to Wall St today… could mean after gapping lower, stocks stabilize and rally thereafter. His exect quote is thus:
“It’s over with…I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow," Reid said. "It's not going to be a pleasant sight."
The package died on a 52-35 procedural vote, well short of the 60 votes needed to bring the bill to the floor for passage.














Today’s Front Pages from Detroit Newspapers:

Obama Was Mute on Illinois Corruption
The president-elect could use his bully pulpit to drive a clean-up.


By JOHN FUND

This week Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on charges that he conspired to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat, among other misdeeds. At first the president-elect tried to distance himself from the issue: "It is a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that, I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment." But it quickly became clear that Mr. Obama would have to say more, and yesterday he called for Mr. Blagojevich to resign and for a special election to fill the vacant Senate seat.


What remains to be seen is whether this episode will put an end to what Chicago Tribune political columnist John Kass calls the national media's "almost willful" fantasy that Mr. Obama and Chicago's political culture have little to do with each other. Mr. Kass notes that the media devoted a lot more time and energy to investigating the inner workings of Sarah Palin's Wasilla, Alaska, than it has looking at Mr. Obama's Chicago connections.

To date, Mr. Obama's approach to Illinois corruption has been to congratulate himself for dodging association with it. "I think I have done a good job in rising politically in this environment without being entangled in some of the traditional problems of Chicago politics," he told the Chicago Tribune last spring. At the time, Mr. Obama was being grilled over news that he bought his house through a land deal involving Tony Rezko, a political fixer who was later convicted on 16 corruption counts. Rezko is mentioned dozens of times in the 76-page criminal complaint against Mr. Blagojevich.

Mr. Obama has an ambiguous reputation among those trying to clean up Illinois politics. "We have a sick political culture, and that's the environment Barack Obama came from," Jay Stewart, executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, told ABC News months ago. Though Mr. Obama did support ethics reforms as a state senator, Mr. Stewart noted that he's "been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state including, at this point, mostly Democratic politicians."

One reason for Mr. Obama's reticence may be his close relationship with the powerful Illinois senate president Emil Jones. Mr. Jones was a force in Mr. Obama's rise. In 2003, the two men talked about the state's soon-to-be vacant U.S. Senate seat. As Mr. Jones has recounted the conversation, Mr. Obama told him "You can make the next U.S. senator." Mr. Jones replied, "Got anybody in mind?" "Yes," Mr. Obama said. "Me."

Starting in 2003, Mr. Jones worked to burnish Mr. Obama's credentials by making him lead sponsor of bills including a watered-down ban on gifts to lawmakers. Most of Mr. Obama's legislative accomplishments came as result of his association with Mr. Jones.

In 2002, Mr. Obama turned up to help Mr. Blagojevich, a staunch ally of Mr. Jones, win the governor's mansion. Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, told The New Yorker earlier this year that six years ago he and Mr. Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor. We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two [other participants]."

Mr. Blagojevich won, but before long, problems surfaced. In 2004, Zalwaynaka Scott, the governor's inspector general, said his administration's efforts to evade merit-selection laws exposed "not merely an ignorance of the law, but complete and utter contempt for the law." Nonetheless, Mr. Obama endorsed Mr. Blagojevich's re-election in 2006.

This spring, many Democrats were so disgusted with Mr. Blagojevich that state House Speaker Michael Madigan drafted a memo on why Democrats should impeach Mr. Blagojevich. Mr. Madigan's "talking points" compared the corruption going on in the state to a tumor that must be removed.

But Mr. Madigan's move drew a rebuke from Mr. Jones. The Chicago Sun-Times story at the time quoted Mr. Jones saying he thought it was wrong for the speaker to "promote the impeachment of a Democratic Governor. . . Impeachment is unwarranted in my opinion, and should not be used as a political tool."

Many people were curious who Mr. Obama would side with in the dispute. Would it be with those Democrats who wanted to move aggressively against an apparently corrupt governor or with his old Chicago ally, Mr. Jones, who preferred to wait? Mr. Obama did neither. He kept silent. (I emailed the Obama campaign about Mr. Blagojevich's problems in June, but my question was ignored.)

To his credit, Mr. Obama did call Mr. Jones in September to urge passage of an ethics bill banning some office holders from accepting money from a business that has a $50,000 or larger contract with the state. The bill passed and takes effect on Jan. 1.

Mr. Obama has spoken out forcefully against corruption outside Illinois. Kathy Tate-Bradish, a Chicago teacher active in education in Africa, gushed on Mr. Obama's campaign blog during his visit to Kenya last year about his "amazing" speech against corruption during his visit there.

"Corruption is the single biggest thing keeping not only Kenyans, but all Africans, down," she wrote. "Corruption is just killing them but nobody has been able to speak out against it because they fear for their own security. Barack spoke out against it, publicly, in Kenya. I honestly think the speech he gave will be one of the major factors that turns the tide against corruption."

Mr. Obama says he plans to return often to Chicago as president. "Our friends are here. Our family is here. And so we are going to try to come back here as often as possible," he told the Los Angeles Times this month. Perhaps during one of those trips he could find time to forthrightly address the corruption issues that the state will be sorting through in the weeks and months ahead. A president has a powerful bully pulpit. A few words from Mr. Obama could force real and lasting change in Illinois.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

Why Tie Health Insurance to a Job?
One thing we can all agree on is that portable coverage is more secure.

By EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL and RON WYDEN

Not many people are buying cars built 60 years ago. No one is watching TV on a set manufactured in the 1940s. Patients are not lining up to see a doctor who hasn't cracked a book since before the polio vaccine was discovered. Why, then, do millions of Americans get their health care through an employer-based system from the 1940s?

Employers didn't start offering health benefits roughly 60 years ago because they were experts in medical decisions. It was a way of circumventing the World War II wage and price controls. Barred from offering higher salaries to attract workers, employers offered health insurance instead. Aided by an IRS ruling that said workers who received health benefits did not have to pay income taxes on them, and by the fact that employers could write off the cost of the health benefits as a business related expense, this accidental arrangement became the primary way most Americans access health care.

The system worked at first, but a lot has changed in 60 years. Back then, the average soldier returning from World War II took a job with a local company where he would work for decades until he got a gold watch at a big retirement party. Today, lifetime employment is dead. By 42, the average American will change jobs 11 times.

Sixty years ago, most American companies competed only against neighboring companies for lucrative contracts. Today, most businesses are up against foreign companies that don't foot the bill for their employees' health-care costs.

Today, health-care costs are increasing at twice the rate of inflation. To stay in the black, companies are forced to raise their employees' premiums and deductibles, opt for cheaper insurance plans, or worse yet, drop health benefits altogether. Since 2000, the percentage of employers providing health insurance has declined by nearly 10%.

For too many, the employer-based system is inefficient. Each employer purchases health insurance separately. According to a recent estimate by the McKinsey Global Institute, this adds more than $75 billion in underwriting, marketing, sales, billing and other administrative costs that offer no health benefits. More than half of all American employers who offer health-care benefits don't offer their employees a choice. Consequently, most Americans don't have the option of giving their business to insurance companies that treat them well and only cover what they need. This prevents the usual market forces from holding down costs.

Workers are the ones paying for this waste. The money that employers are spending to buy health care for their employees could otherwise go to workers in the form of higher wages, empowering individuals to make their own health-care choices.

The currently available alternative to this employer-based system is even more horrifying. Individuals buying insurance don't have the same purchasing power as large businesses and end up paying much higher prices to cover administrative costs and risks. They also don't get the tax breaks that employers get for buying health insurance. In most states, insurance companies have the right to discriminate against individuals by denying coverage or charging astronomical prices to anyone with a pre-existing condition. It is no surprise that, when given the choice between the employer-based system and buying health insurance on their own, the vast majority of Americans reject the latter. (A Kaiser Health Tracking Poll this summer, for example, found that only 17% of Americans said they would prefer to buy insurance on their own.)

But this is a false choice. It assumes that the current system is the only option. Why can't Americans have the best of both worlds?
In today's Opinion Journal

Americans need some of the benefits of the employer-based system: the security of being part of a large group, of not being denied coverage because of age and pre-existing conditions, and the convenience of having experts screen qualified plans and manage enrollment. But Americans also need portable insurance -- coverage that follows them when they change jobs, lose jobs, start a business or whatever else may come. Americans need more choices and the market power to buy the health coverage that works best for them and their families and, in turn, to make insurance companies compete for their business.

Such a system could be implemented today by creating state or regional insurance exchanges that pool individuals and small groups to pay the same lower prices charged to larger employers; that certify that all insurance benefit packages meet minimum consumer protection standards; that manage the enrollment process; that collect premiums; and that require insurance companies to issue and renew coverage for anyone who applies, protecting the insurers by paying them a risk-adjusted premium that pays them more when they enroll sicker, more costly, patients.

Fundamentally, this means that insurance companies would have to change their business model to compete on the basis of quality, price and benefits, rather than by "cherry picking" the healthiest people to cover. It means spending less money on administrative costs and more money on keeping patients healthy. And it means letting everyone keep the health insurance they have if that's what they want, but giving all employers and employees more choices for their health care.

In the coming year, there will be no shortage of suggestions for fixing the nation's health-care system. But what Americans and the president-elect need to ask is whether the health-care system that was founded in the 1940s is the best health-care system for the 21st century. We believe that Americans deserve better.

Dr. Emanuel, an oncologist and chairman of the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, is author of "Healthcare, Guaranteed" (Public Affairs, 2008). Mr. Wyden, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Oregon and sponsor of The Healthy Americans Act.

GeoMacro Consulting(c) has stated this many times before:
TIME is the cure for this Cycle of Crisis....
"In the longer term, our nation must delever -- either by reducing the amounts of borrowing or by increasing consumer earning power through economic growth."
...not only consumers...Governments must as well. State and local governments across the nation have incurred direct and indirect debt or obligations in the tens of trillions of dollars -- obligations that cannot be met under any set of reasonable circumstances ....

The federal government has announced a series of actions in the past few weeks ostensibly designed to make consumer credit more available and invigorate the economy. Obviously, the country is in recession and the recession is likely to get deeper. But will these actions reduce the depth and duration of the recession? Or, in the long run, will they make matters even worse?

Last month the Federal Reserve and the Treasury announced that the government would buy $500 billion in mortgages guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They also announced they would lend $200 billion against securities backed by car loans, student loans, credit-card debt, and small business loans. The purpose of both moves is to create lending capacity across key elements of the consumer sector.

Most recently, the government announced that it would subsidize new home mortgages by one percentage point, effectively lowering monthly payments on a 30-year loan by about 10%. The stated reason was to help the housing market, which is crucial to an economic recovery.

With each announcement, the Fed and Treasury were careful to point out they might take additional action in support of these sectors and others as well. And it is a virtual certainty the government will cobble together some program to reduce foreclosures to keep people in their homes. I'm sure that, as other industries or sectors come under pressure, there will be new programs to help. The automobile industry will not be the last to come to Washington.

To begin to understand today's problem, we have to have a sense of how we got there. Between 1994 and second quarter 2008, the U.S, housing stock more than doubled in value from $7.6 trillion to $19.4 trillion. Almost three quarters of that increase was due to a speculative bubble, the root cause of which was government policies designed to increase home ownership, largely among people who would be considered nonprime borrowers -- i.e., people without sufficient documented income or employment history and little or no savings or credit history.

The intellectual start of this mess was in a flawed Boston Federal Reserve study published in 1992 that purported to show that minorities were treated less well than whites. That study led to increased political pressure on banks to modify their standards with increased emphasis through the Community Reinvestment Act, and aided by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations in the Clinton administration that required parity of outcomes in the lending process.

The effect of all of this meddling was compounded by the lax or incompetent supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All in all, the government got into the business of encouraging and then forcing lending institutions to make mortgage loans to people who could not pay them back. What we ended up with is a failure of government, which we have erroneously termed a failure of capitalism.

The standards applied to these subprime loans began to be applied to what heretofore had been prime borrowers who also increasingly became overextended. But, as housing prices increased, owners cashed out their equity and bought cars, appliances and other items, including using the freed-up equity to pay for everyday living purchases. Over the past decade alone, U.S. households have taken on some $8 trillion in debt, bringing the nation's current consumer debt load to $14 trillion.

This cynical and unsustainable cycle was abetted by mortgage originators who had little interest in making sure loans were good quality, investment banks that securitized and packaged these loans, rating agencies who forgot fundamental laws of gravity, and purchasers who bought securities they could not possibly understand. This was fueled by borrowers who committed fraud and bought houses, or speculated in them, when there was no realistic chance they could afford them.

All of this led to a huge overleveraging in the consumer market. The increase in debt burden fueled much of the nation's economic growth over recent decades, aided somewhat by increases in productivity and underpinned by easy money from the Federal Reserve. Since consumers represent about 70% of the nation's GNP, and since leverage cannot increase forever, we were bound to see the bubble burst and eventually enter a substantial recession.

So, are the current credit easing actions likely to be helpful or not? In my judgment, measures to create liquidity are likely to be helpful. Financial institutions that lend money to credit-worthy people for reasonable purposes have experienced a substantial reduction in available funding from which they can make loans. Hence the programs to support the securitization markets are sensible because money used for this purpose will be lent and used for purchases. Programs that deliver a short-term reduction in mortgage rates will, at the margin, help absorb some of the available housing stock, reducing the time it will take for housing to reach market-clearing levels.


However, measures intended to reduce foreclosures, per se, are likely to be ineffective at best and morally flawed at worst. When analysts say that people are being foreclosed because house values have declined they are missing the point. A large number of foreclosures are taking place because people can no longer refinance and take value out. They could not afford the houses to begin with and greed or stupidity -- not a falling real-estate market -- have caused their problems. On the other hand, measures to subsidize homeowners facing foreclosures because they have lost their jobs can be helpful.

In the longer term, our nation must delever -- either by reducing the amounts of borrowing or by increasing consumer earning power through economic growth. Relying on growth alone implies a growth rate higher than we have ever experienced in our nation's history. Nonetheless, our public policy must encourage economic growth by lowering tax rates for corporations and individuals while at the same time avoiding what would be growth killers, including "card check" legislation and trade restrictions. Public policy should support higher savings rates, and avoid encouraging increased consumer spending funded by further debt, which may be helpful in the short term but catastrophic in the longer term.

It is not only consumers that must delever. Governments must as well. State and local governments across the nation have incurred direct and indirect debt or obligations in the tens of trillions of dollars -- obligations that cannot be met under any set of reasonable circumstances without an explosion in growth and tax revenues. In fact, we continue to incur debt for politically palatable ideas, like rebate checks, which have very little stimulative power but increase the depth of the hole we're in.

To solve this problem for ourselves and future generations, we must get back to our historic reliance on personal responsibility and market forces, and get government out of economic management. It doesn't do a good job, as the current economic mess amply proves.

While all the talking-heads on TV are consistently saying “no one thinks any of his problems or issues rise to a level that will keep him from becoming AG” or something similar, this GUY DOES HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS… and he should be blasted for his previous conduct….
Already the Wash Post editor has indicated they may publish an editorial critical of his appointment at the very least and may even be explicit in saying he shouldn’t be AG if the hearings show what is stated below:

Eric Holder's Politics
His years at Clinton Justice don't inspire confidence.
One of the media narratives about the Bush Administration has been its "politicization" of the Justice Department. We've always thought most of that was woven out of whole cloth. But since our media friends seem so distressed on this score, they might want to pay special attention to Eric Holder, the man Barack Obama has tapped as his next Attorney General.
AP
Eric Holder and Barack Obama.
Mr. Holder doesn't lack for a résumé. A former trial court judge and U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. who served as Deputy Attorney General in President Clinton's second term, he was Mr. Obama's senior legal adviser during the campaign and helped with the Vice Presidential vetting. Though he's an orthodox liberal on issues like gun control and has lately taken to denouncing Guantanamo and warrantless wiretaps, he was also among the first to argue that terrorist detainees were not entitled to Geneva Convention protections. If he does become AG, we hope he recovers some of that realism.
Before that, however, Mr. Holder will have to win Senate confirmation, and Members might want to ask about the politicization that took place during his watch at Justice. The first question revolves around Mr. Holder's role in Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive financiers Marc Rich and Pincus Green, a pardon that even Jimmy Carter denounced as "disgraceful" and "attributable to large gifts." Mr. Rich's former wife, Denise Rich, had donated to the Clinton Presidential Library.
Less than a month after the pardon, Mr. Holder told the House that "efforts to portray me as intimately involved or overly interested in this matter are simply at odds with the facts." But as Journal reporters Gary Fields and Phil Kuntz reported at the time, Mr. Holder had "interceded with prosecutors in New York" on the matter in November 1999, some 14 months before the pardon was issued. When then U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White refused to take a meeting with Jack Quinn, who was Mr. Rich's attorney and a former Clinton White House counsel, Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn "we're all sympathetic."
Following the pardon, Mr. Holder congratulated Mr. Quinn for doing "a very good job," while urging that "we [should] be better about getting the legal merits of the case out publicly," according to Mr. Quinn's notes of their conversation. It would be interesting to know exactly what Mr. Holder thinks those merits were, especially since he told Congress that the pardon application was "not particularly meritorious." It would also be interesting to know how it was that nobody at Justice -- including Mr. Holder himself, as he claims -- ever actually saw Mr. Rich's pardon application before it was approved. Mr. Holder did admit that "I wish I had ensured that the Department of Justice was more fully informed" of the matter.
That's not the only dubious pardon in which Mr. Holder was involved. In 1999, President Clinton offered clemency to 16 Puerto Rican members of the terrorist FALN, despite a previous warning from Attorney General Janet Reno that the group posed an "ongoing threat" to U.S. security. Here again, Mr. Holder's role seems to have been larger than he has let on. A 1999 New York Times report notes that Mr. Holder and Justice Department pardon attorney Roger Adams met in November 1997 with Democratic House Members to discuss the Puerto Rican case.
"According to Mr. Adams's notes," reported the Times, "Mr. Holder told the members of Congress that because the prisoners had not applied themselves for clemency this could be taken that they were not repentant, and he suggested that a statement expressing some remorse might help." Ultimately, the prisoners were freed having never offered a statement of remorse. The pardon was widely seen as an attempt to curry favor with Puerto Rican voters ahead of Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate bid.
Then there is Mr. Holder's role, as U.S. Attorney, in the case of Hillary Clinton health czar Ira Magaziner. Mr. Magaziner, recall, had filed an affidavit insisting that "only federal government employees served as members" of Mrs. Clinton's health-reform task force, a claim later demonstrated as untrue. In November 1994, federal Judge Royce Lamberth described Mr. Magaziner's affidavit as "misleading, at best," and he asked Mr. Holder to investigate Mr. Magaziner for perjury. In August 1995 Mr. Holder announced he would not do so, and even insisted on Mr. Magaziner's innocence in an 18-page letter, despite acknowledging that Mr. Magaziner's statements left him "open to charges that portions were inaccurate." Two years later, Mr. Holder was sworn in as deputy AG.
No doubt reporting this history will seem rude amid Washington's postelection elation. But it certainly is relevant to a President-elect who told voters he wouldn't represent a third Clinton term yet now seems to be populating his Administration with Clinton retreads. For a politicized Justice Department, none can compare to the Clinton Administration's, and the role that Mr. Holder played in it deserves the fullest airing before he is given the opportunity to return.

Pardon My Exception
Soon after Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the former president and I had a brief telephone conversation. I had been downright heated about the pardon, a lot angrier than I had ever been about Monica Lewinsky. Clinton implied that I had things historically backward. Long after the Rich pardon had been forgotten, he said, the Lewinsky scandal would remain a vivid memory. That day is yet to come. The Rich pardon is back.
The vehicle for this lingering echo from 2001 is the choice of Eric Holder to be Barack Obama's attorney general. Holder was Clinton's deputy attorney general, and he played a significant role in the pardon. When asked by the White House what he thought about a pardon for Rich, Holder replied, "Neutral, leaning towards favorable." These four words have stalked him since.
Rich was a commodities trader who amassed both a fortune and some influential friends in the 1970s and '80s. Along with his partner, Pincus Green, he was indicted in 1983 on 65 counts of tax evasion and related matters. Before he could be prosecuted, however, he fled to Switzerland. There he remained, avoiding extradition and eventually arranging to be represented by Jack Quinn, a Washington lawyer and Clinton's onetime White House counsel -- in other words, a certified power broker. Quinn did an end run around the Justice Department's pardon office and went straight to Holder and the White House. With a stroke of a pen, justice was not done.
Holder was not just an integral part of the pardon process, he provided the White House with cover by offering his go-ahead recommendation. No alarm seemed to sound for him. Not only had strings been pulled, but it was rare to pardon a fugitive -- someone who had avoided possible conviction by avoiding the inconvenience of a trial. The U.S. attorney's office in New York -- which, Holder had told the White House, would oppose any pardon -- was kept ignorant of what was going on. Afterward, it was furious.
When I tell people that I am bothered by the choice of Holder for attorney general, they invariably say that everyone is entitled to a mistake. Yes, indeed. And I add for them that in almost every other way, Holder is a dream nominee. He has been U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a judge and a well-regarded lawyer in private practice. Moreover, to my personal knowledge, he is charming and well liked by his subordinates. A better attorney general nominee you're not likely to find . . . the pardon excepted.
But the pardon cannot be excepted. It suggests that Holder, whatever his other qualifications, could not say no to power. The Rich pardon request had power written all over it -- the patronage of important Democratic fundraisers, for instance. Holder also said he was "really struck" by the backing of Rich by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the possibility of "foreign policy benefits that would be reaped by granting the pardon." This is an odd standard for American justice, but more than that, what was Holder thinking? That U.S.-Israeli relations would suffer? Holder does not sound naive. He sounds disingenuous.
Holder sounded just as disingenuous when he told a House committee that he did not "reflexively oppose" the pardon of a fugitive because "I had previously supported a successful pardon request for a fugitive, Preston King." King, a black civil rights activist, chose to be tried for draft evasion in 1961 rather than submit to what he considered racist treatment. After his conviction, he fled to Europe. The two cases are not in the least similar.
As noted, any person is entitled to make a mistake. But no one is entitled to be attorney general. That's a post that ought to be reserved for a lawyer who appreciates that while he reports to the president, he serves the people. This dual obligation was beyond the ken of George W. Bush's attorney general once removed, Alberto Gonzales, whose idea of telling truth to power came down to saying "Yes, sir. Yes, sir." On Guantanamo, domestic spying and Bush's "l'État c'est moi" view of the presidency, Gonzales was a cipher, and the damage of his tenure still needs to be repaired.
Holder was involved, passively or not, in just the sort of inside-the-Beltway influence peddling that Barack Obama was elected to end. He is not one of Obama's loathed lobbyists; he was merely their instrument -- a good man, certainly, who just as certainly did a bad thing. Maybe he deserves an administration job, just not the one he's getting.

---By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/01/AR2008120102403.html

America's Other Auto Industry
There is such a thing as a profitable car maker in this country.

The men from Detroit will jet into Washington tomorrow -- presumably going commercial this time -- to make another pitch for a taxpayer rescue. Meanwhile, in the other American auto industry you rarely read about, car makers are gaining market share and adjusting amid the sales slump, without seeking a cent from the government.

These are the 12 "foreign," or so-called transplant, producers making cars across America's South and Midwest. Toyota, BMW, Kia and others now make 54% of the cars Americans buy. The internationals also employ some 113,000 Americans, compared with 239,000 at U.S.-owned carmakers, and several times that number indirectly.

The international car makers aren't cheering for Detroit's collapse. Their own production would be hit if such large suppliers as the automotive interior maker Lear were to go down with a GM or Chrysler. They fear, as well, a protectionist backlash. But by the same token, a government lifeline for Detroit punishes these other companies and their American employees for making better business decisions.

The root of this other industry's success is no secret. In fact, Detroit has already adopted some of its efficiency and employment strategies, though not yet enough. To put it concisely, the transplants operate under conditions imposed by the free market. Detroit lives on Fantasy Island.

Consider labor costs. Take-home wages at the U.S. car makers average $28.42 an hour, according to the Center for Automotive Research. That's on par with $26 at Toyota, $24 at Honda and $21 at Hyundai. But include benefits, and the picture changes. Hourly labor costs are $44.20 on average for the non-Detroit producers, in line with most manufacturing jobs, but are $73.21 for Detroit.
[Review & Outlook]

This $29 cost gap reflects the way Big Three management and unions have conspired to make themselves uncompetitive -- increasingly so as their market share has collapsed (see the nearby chart). Over the decades the United Auto Workers won pension and health-care benefits far more generous than in almost any other American industry. As a result, for every UAW member working at a U.S. car maker today, three retirees collect benefits; at GM, the ratio is 4.6 to one.

The international producers' relatively recent arrival has spared them these legacy burdens. But they also made sure not to get saddled with them in the first place. One way was to locate in investment-friendly states. The South proved especially attractive, offering tax breaks and a low-cost, nonunion labor pool. Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina -- which accounted for a quarter of U.S. car production last year -- are "right-to-work" states where employees can't be forced to join a union.

The absence of the UAW also gives car producers the flexibility to deploy employees as needed. Work rules vary across company and plant, but foreign rules are generally less restrictive. At Detroit's plants, electricians or mechanics tend to perform certain narrow tasks and often sit idle. That rarely happens outside Michigan. In the nonunionized plants, temporary workers can also be hired, and let go, as market conditions dictate.

All the same, Mitsubishi Eclipses and Toyota Corollas are made by UAW workers at plants in Illinois and California. In each case, unions have made concessions to ensure the jobs stay put. Honda makes the Civic and Accord in two plants in Ohio, which isn't a right-to-work state. But attempts to unionize foreign-owned factories have generally been unsuccessful, most recently at Nissan; their workers know too well what that has meant for their UAW peers. Since 1992, the Big Three's labor force declined 4.5% on average every year; the international grew 4.3%. According to the Center for Automotive Research, for every job created by the transplant producers, Detroit shed 6.1 jobs in the U.S., 2.8 of them in Michigan.

Another transplant advantage: Their factories are newer and production process simpler. As a result, they can switch their assembly lines to different models in minutes. In response to the economic downturn, Hyundai decided to make more fuel-efficient Sonata sedans and fewer of the larger Santa Fe model at its Montgomery, Alabama plant, sparing steeper production cuts. Such a change would take weeks at UAW plants.

It's true that at the foreign companies, strategic decisions are taken and much of the value-added design and engineering is done back home. But both U.S. and the Japanese and European companies have tended to move operations closer to large markets. The expansion of manufacturing in the U.S. has brought research and development. Honda stands out for designing some cars from the ground up in the U.S. The foreigners account for a small but growing chunk of the $18 billion in yearly development spending. And while headquartered overseas, the companies have millions of American shareholders -- either directly or through pension funds. Is Honda a Japanese or an American company nowadays? It really is both.

As GM CEO Rick Wagoner recently wrote on these pages, the Detroit companies have finally begun to adapt to this real economic world. Last year Detroit struck a deal with the unions to unload retiree health obligations by 2010 to a trust fund set up by the UAW. The trio's productivity has improved as well. In 1995, a GM car took 46 hours to make, Chrysler 43 and Toyota 29.4. By 2006, according to Harbour Consulting, GM had moved it to 32.4 hours per vehicle and Chrysler 32.9. Toyota stayed at 29.9.

Yet these moves born of desperation have come so late that the companies are still in jeopardy. Both management and unions chose to sign contracts that let them live better and work less efficiently in the short-term while condemning the companies to their current pass over time. It is deeply unfair for government now to ask taxpayers who have never earned such wages or benefits to shield the UAW and Detroit from the consequences of those contracts.

There's no natural law that America must have a Detroit automotive industry, any more than steel had to be made for all time in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania or textiles in New England. Britain sold off all its car plants to foreigners and was no less an advanced economy as a result, though it was a healthier one. Detroit may yet adjust to avoid destruction in the best spirit of American capitalism. The other American car industry is a model for how to do it.