The Alchemy Blog

2009-12-31T03:42:00.001-08:00

Catastrophe and survival

By George F. Will
Thursday, December 31, 2009

Already 99.9 (and about 58 more 9s) percent of the universe -- it is expanding lickety-split -- is beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Into what is it expanding? Hard to say. We can say there is lots of stuff in space: Hold up a penny at arm's length and you block three galaxies from your field of vision -- billions of stars and other things -- 350 million light-years away, which is right next door in our wee corner of the universe.

But there is much more space than there is stuff in space: If there were only three bees in America, the air would be more crowded with bees than space is with stars. But there is much stuff besides stars whizzing around, and 65 million years ago -- the day before yesterday on the calendar of the 14-billion-year-old universe -- big bits of stuff entered Earth's atmosphere traveling faster than a high-caliber-rifle bullet.

One result was a 16,000-foot mountain, Bombay High, that has never been climbed because it is underwater off India's west coast. Another result was the "worldwide collapse of the climate and ecosystems" leading to the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs and two-thirds of marine animals, and the destruction of much of the planet's flora. So surmises Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University.

"Catastrophism," the study of calamitous episodes in Earth's geological history, has long postulated a cosmic collision that resulted in sudden extinctions. There are "iridium anomalies" -- concentrations of that material that suggest extraterrestrial origins. There also is 10,000 times more carbon than normal in the geologic time zone 65 million years ago, a worldwide layer of soot from fires kindled by the impact of a gigantic asteroid.

A consensus developed that it created Mexico's 110-mile-wide Chicxulub crater. But Chatterjee says there is a crater, Shiva, more than 300 miles wide, off western India, probably formed by an asteroid or a part of one, 25 miles in diameter.

He thinks it possible that Shiva and Chicxulub were created by portions of different asteroids that fragmented when they hit the atmosphere. The energy from the fragment that produced Chicxulub is estimated to have been equivalent to the explosion of 100 trillion tons of TNT -- 10,000 times the explosive potential of the world's arsenal of nuclear weapons. The much bigger fragment that created Shiva may have shoved India north. India was then an island moving three to five centimeters a year. Then came what has been a mystery to students of plate tectonics -- the surge of the Indian plate to the astonishing rate of 15 to 20 centimeters a year.

Dinosaurs, which were thriving in India, had lived a thousand times longer than humans have yet lived. Then they and more than 75 percent of Earth's plant and animal species died. Perhaps the two collisions, combined with a lot of volcanic activity in that era (some of it perhaps caused by the collisions), tossed up enough dust to block sunlight, creating perpetual night and acid rain, impeding photosynthesis and causing the starvation of many creatures. Or perhaps by screening sunlight, the dust caused a glacial episode.

Or perhaps dust and water vapor had a "greenhouse effect," holding in heat and cooking much life out of Earth. The discovery, two decades ago, of a bed of dinosaur fossils on Alaska's North Slope suggests that temperatures may have been warmer long ago, before there were human beings to blame for that.

Before Darwin, many people believed that no species could become extinct because this would mean there had been an imperfection in God's original handiwork. Yet 104 years before publication of "On the Origin of Species," the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 had caused some people to doubt that God has ordained a benevolently ordered universe. Nevertheless, in 1787 other people -- Americans call them the Founding Fathers -- who were influenced by Newtonian physics and the deist idea of God as cosmic clockmaker, devised a constitutional system of separated powers, checking and balancing one another, mimicking what they considered our solar system's clocklike mechanics.

Today, we know there is a lot of play in the joints of the Constitution and that every 40 million years or so asteroids more than half a mile in diameter strike Earth. Yet the Constitution still constitutes, and the fact that flora and fauna have survived Earth's episodes of extreme violence testifies to the extraordinary imperative of life.

2009-12-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

I don't need a war to fight my cancer. I need empowering as a patient
Using the martial metaphor for something as complex as cancer makes the disease ripe for political and financial exploitation

Obituaries routinely inform us that so-and-so has died "after a brave battle against cancer". Of course, we will never read that so-and-so has died "after a pathetically feeble battle against cancer". But one thing that I have come to appreciate since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma (a cancer of the blood) two years ago is how unreal both notions are. It's just not like that.
The stress on cancer patients' "bravery" and "courage" implies that if you can't "conquer" your cancer, there's something wrong with you, some weakness or flaw. If your cancer progresses rapidly, is it your fault? Does it reflect some failure of willpower?
In blaming the victim, the ideology attached to cancer mirrors the bootstrap individualism of the neoliberal order, in which the poor are poor because of their own weaknesses – and "failure" and "success" become the ultimate duality, dished out according to individual merit.
It also reinforces the demand on patients for uncomplaining stoicism, which in many cases is why they are in bad shape in the first place. Late diagnosis leads to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in the UK each year. For those who have been diagnosed it remains a barrier to effective treatment. The free flow of information between patient and doctor is a scientific necessity, and a reluctance to complain inhibits it.
Earlier this year Barack Obama vowed to "launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American". In so doing, he was intensifying and expanding a "war on cancer" first declared by Richard Nixon in 1971. But this "war" is as mislabelled and misconceived as the "war on terror" or the "war on drugs".
For a start, why must every concerted effort be likened to warfare? Is this the only way we are able to describe human co-operation in pursuit of a common goal? And who are the enemies in this war? Cancer cells may be "malignant" but they are not malevolent. Like the wars on "drugs" and "terror", the war on cancer misapplies the martial metaphor to dangerous effect. It simplifies a complex and daunting phenomenon – making it ripe for political and financial exploitation.
In the war on cancer, the search for the ultimate weapon, the magic bullet that will "cure" cancer, overshadows other tactics. Nixon promised "a cure for cancer" in 10 years; Obama promises one "in our times". But there is unlikely to be a single cure for cancer. There are more than 200 recognised types, and their causes are myriad. As a strategic objective, the search for the ultimate weapon distorts research and investment, drawing resources away from prevention and treatment, areas where progress has been and can be made.
Like other wars, real and imagined, the "war on cancer" is a gift to opportunists of all stripes. Among the circling vultures are travel insurers who charge people with cancer 10 times the rate charged to others; the publishers of self-help books; and the promoters of miracle cures, vitamin supplements and various "alternative therapies" of no efficacy whatsoever.
But most of all, there's the pharmaceutical industry, which manipulates research, prices and availability of drugs in pursuit of profit. And with considerable success. The industry enjoys a steady return on sales of some 17%, three times the median return for other industries. Prices do not reflect the actual costs of developing or making the drug but are pushed up to whatever the market can bear.
Exorbitant drug prices are at the root of recent controversies over the approval by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) of "expensive" cancer drugs – notably Revlimid, a therapy used in the later stages of a number of cancers, including mine – and top-up or "co-payments" (allowing those who can afford it to buy medicines deemed too expensive by the NHS). "We are told we are being mean all the time, but what nobody mentions is why the drugs are so expensive," said the Nice chairman, Professor Michael Rawlins. "Pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed double-digit growth year on year, and they are out to sustain that, not least because their senior management's earnings are related to the share price."
Many cancer therapies are blunt instruments. They attack not only cancer cells but everything else in sight. This is one reason people fear cancer: the treatment can be brutal. Making it less brutal would be a huge stride forwards for people with cancer. And that requires not a top-down military strategy, with its win or lose approach, but greater access to information, wider participation in decision-making (across hierarchies and disciplines) and empowerment of the patient.
Because I live in the catchment area for Barts hospital in central London, I find myself a winner in the NHS post code lottery. The treatment is cutting-edge and the staff are efficient, caring and respectful. What's more, I live close enough so that I can undergo most of my treatment as an outpatient – a huge boon.
Cancer treatment involves extensive interaction with institutions (hospitals, clinics, social services, the NHS itself). Even in the best hospitals, the loss of freedom and dependence on anonymous forces can be oppressive. Many cancer patients find themselves involved in a long and taxing struggle for autonomy – a rarely acknowledged reality of the war on cancer, in which the generals call the shots from afar.
As Susan Sontag noted, in the course of the 20th century cancer came to play the role that tuberculosis played in the 19th century – as a totem of suffering and mortality, the dark shadow that can blight the sunniest day. But the ubiquitousness of cancer in our culture is of dubious value to those living with the disease. The media love cancer scares and cancer cures; they dwell on heroic survivors (Lance Armstrong) and celebrity martyrs (Jade Goody). But as Ben Goldacre has shown in his Bad Science column, they routinely misrepresent research findings, conjuring breakthroughs from nothing and leaving the public panicked, confused or complacent.
What we need is not a war on cancer but a recognition that cancer is a social and environmental issue, requiring profound social and environmental changes.
---Mike Marqusee, The Guardian (UK), 12/30/09

2009-10-30T05:45:00.001-07:00

The Fatal Conceit
Humans are overconfident creatures. Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they are above average teachers, and 90 percent of drivers believe they are above average behind the wheel. Researchers Paul J.H. Schoemaker and J. Edward Russo gave computer executives quizzes on their industry. Afterward, the executives estimated that they had gotten 5 percent of the answers wrong. In fact, they had gotten 80 percent of the answers wrong.
Fortunately, for those who study the human comedy, the epicenter of overconfidence moves from year to year.

2009-07-17T04:25:00.000-07:00

"America's Undesirables"
Ginsburg’s Comments On Abortion
The New York Times Magazine printed a candid interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including this portion:

New York Times Question: "Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women?"

Justice Ginsburg: "Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae -- in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion."

A statement like this should not be taken out of context. The context surrounding this passage is a simplistic, pro-choice rant. Abortion, in Ginsburg's view, is an essential part of sexual equality, thus ending all ethical debate. "There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to be so obvious," she explains. "So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often." Of pro-lifers, she declares, "They're fighting a losing battle" -- which must come as discouraging news to litigants in future abortion cases that come before the high court and is contrary to the often used tactic of Supreme Court nominees and justices to avoid discussing topics on related to potential cases.
Given this context, can it be argued that Ginsburg -- referring to "populations that we don't want to have too many of" -- was merely summarizing the views of others and describing the attitudes of the country when Roe v. Wade was decided? It can be argued -- but it is not bloody likely. Who, in Ginsburg's statement, is the "we"? And who, in 1973, was arguing for the eugenic purposes of abortion?
It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who wrote the 1927 decision approving forced sterilization for Carrie Buck -- a 17-year-old single mother judged to be feebleminded and morally delinquent. "It is better for all the world," ruled Holmes, "if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." Such elitism, Holmes was known as the “progressive” justice of the day, has since been discredited; but unfortunately it is not extinct.
 It is estimated that the Hyde Amendment limiting Medicaid abortions has saved 1 million lives since its passage in 1976 -- some, no doubt, became criminals and some, perhaps, lawyers and judges

What do you think?

Well let's go back to Ginsburg before she joined the Supreme Court to hear what she thought of Roe v. Wade:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had, before joining the Court, criticized the decision for terminating a nascent democratic movement to liberalize abortion law(1).

(1) Ginsburg, Ruth. "Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade", 63 North Carolina Law Review 375 (1985): "The political process was moving in the early 1970s, not swiftly enough for advocates of quick, complete change, but majoritarian institutions were listening and acting. Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict."

2009-06-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

How is the Obama administration (or anyone else for that matter) going to save the US taxpayer money by creating so-called "Universal Healthcare"? Considering the following facts:

The Myth of the 46 Million
First off, Did You Know?
That of the number of “uninsured” that is constantly discussed in the media of 46mln that
14mln of them are already covered under a government program but may have not signed up
----10mln of them make over $75k and thus can afford a private plan but chose not too
----22% of all uninsured are NOT Americans citizens at all; even higher in major cities;
----60% of the uninsured in San Francisco aren’t even Americans
----18.3mln or 40% of the uninsured are under 34 so they may have simply made their own cost/benefit analysis and determined the best course for them is to not buy health insurance.
To be clear, the statistic is not pulled out of thin air. It comes from an annual report by the Census Bureau, which most recently pegged the number of uninsured at 45.7 million for 2007. But the problem lies in the way the statistic is commonly cited and understood.
Just a quick look inside the Census Bureau data shows that 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens of the United States.

How many people actually spend the whole year without health insurance? It's difficult to say, and recent data is hard to come by. But in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office took a stab at answering the question, and looked at two studies from 1998 that conducted interviews multiple times over the course of the survey period. One study pegged the number of people who were uninsured for the entire year at 31 million, while another put it even lower, at 21 million. In either case, the number was significantly lower than it was in 1998's Current Population Survey, which found 43.9 million uninsured.
Another problem with citing the 46-million figure is that many of those who are identified as uninsured are actually eligible for existing government program but simply never bothered to enroll. In 2003, a BlueCross BlueShield Association study estimated that about 14 million of the uninsured were eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP. These people would be signed up for government insurance if they ever made it to the emergency room.
In addition, some of the 46 million could theoretically afford health coverage, but chose not to purchase any. In 2007, 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000 and 9.1 million earned more than $75,000.
The Census figures also show that 18.3 million of the uninsured were under 34. Some in this age group may have simply determined that they are young and healthy and thus can do without coverage.
When all of these factors are put together, the 2003 BlueCross BlueShield study determined that 8.2 million (18% of the often used 46mln) Americans are actually without coverage for the long haul, because they are too poor to purchase health care but earn too much to qualify for government assistance. Even being without insurance still doesn't mean they won't have access to care, because federal law forbids hospitals from denying treatment to patients who show up at the emergency room.
Did You Know?
Despite ever-increasing healthcare costs and widespread dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system, a majority of Americans remain satisfied with what they pay for their own healthcare, the quality of the healthcare they receive, and their healthcare coverage. Gallup's annual Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 11-14, finds 57% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for their healthcare, while 39% are dissatisfied. These percentages have been quite stable in recent years, after a slight dip in reported satisfaction between 2001 (64%) and 2002 (58%).

2009-06-11T04:37:00.000-07:00

America's first Muslim president?
Obama aligns with the policies of Shariah-adherents
During his White House years, William Jefferson Clinton -- someone Judge Sonia Sotomayor might call a "white male" -- was dubbed "America's first black president" by a black admirer. Applying the standard of identity politics and pandering to a special interest that earned Mr. Clinton that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America's first Muslim president.

This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been made" -- in this case by him and his campaign handlers -- of the fact that he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright.

With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself. Consider the following indicators:

• Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to "the Holy Koran." Non-Muslims -- even pandering ones -- generally don't use that Islamic formulation.

• Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing in the faith) with the statement, "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." Again, "revealed" is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad.

• Then the president made a statement no believing Christian -- certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam -- would ever make. In the context of what he euphemistically called the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs," Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day ". . . when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

Now, the term "peace be upon them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men. According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God.

In the final analysis, it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim. In the Speech and elsewhere, he has aligned himself with adherents to what authoritative Islam calls Shariah -- notably, the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood -- to a degree that makes Mr. Clinton's fabled affinity for blacks pale by comparison.

For example, Mr. Obama has -- from literally his inaugural address onward -- inflated the numbers and, in that way and others, exaggerated the contemporary and historical importance of Muslim-Americans in the United States. In the Speech, he used the Brotherhood's estimates of "nearly 7 million Muslims" in this country, at least twice the estimates from other, more reputable sources. (Who knows? By the time Mr. Obama's friends in the radical Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) perpetrate their trademark books-cooking as deputy 2010 census takers, the official count may well claim considerably morethan 7 million Muslims are living here.)

Even more troubling were the commitments the president made in Cairo to promote Islam in America. For instance, he declared: "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." He vowed to ensure that women can cover their heads, including, presumably, when having their photographs taken for passports, driver's licenses or other identification purposes. He also pledged to enable Muslims to engage in zakat, their faith's requirement for tithing, even though four of the eight types of charity called for by Shariah can be associated with terrorism. Not surprisingly, a number of Islamic "charities" in this country have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.

Particularly worrying is the realignment Mr. Obama has announced in U.S. policy toward Israel. While he pays lip service to the "unbreakable" bond between America and the Jewish state, the president has unmistakably signaled that he intends to compel the Israelis to make territorial and other strategic concessions to Palestinians to achieve the hallowed two-state solution. In doing so, he ignores the inconvenient fact that both the Brotherhood's Hamas and Abu Mazen's Fatah remain determined to achieve a one-state solution, whereby the Jews will be driven "into the sea."

Whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim or simply plays one in the presidency may, in the end, be irrelevant. What is alarming is that in aligning himself and his policies with those of Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the president will greatly intensify the already enormous pressure on peaceful, tolerant American Muslims to submit to such forces - and heighten expectations, here and abroad, that the rest of us will do so as well.

2009-04-22T05:36:00.001-07:00

"the intelligence derived from CIA detainees has resulted in more than 6,000 intelligence reports and, in 2004, accounted for approximately half of CTC's [the CIA's Counterterrorist Center] reporting on al Qaeda."

In a saner world (or at least one that accurately reported on original documents), all of this would be a point of pride for the CIA. It would serve as evidence of the Bush Administration's scrupulousness regarding the life and health of the detainees, and demonstrate how wrong are the claims that harsh interrogations yielded no useful intelligence.

Instead, the release of the memos has unleashed the liberal mob, with renewed calls in Congress for a "truth commission" and even, perhaps, Judge Bybee's impeachment and prosecutions of the other authors. Mr. Obama has hinted that while his Administration won't prosecute CIA officials, it may try to sate the mob by going after Bush officials who wrote the memos.

One major concern here is what Mr. Obama's decision to release these memos says about his own political leadership. He claims that one of his goals as President is to restore more comity to our politics, especially concerning national security. He also knows he needs a CIA willing to take risks to keep the country safe. Yet Mr. Obama seems more than willing to indulge the revenge fantasies of the left, as long as its potential victims served a different President. And while he is willing to release classified documents about interrogation techniques, Mr. Obama refuses to release documents that more fully discuss their results.

2009-04-20T05:42:00.001-07:00

How to Raise Our I.Q.
Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics.
After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart, for example, have I.Q.’s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of fraternal twins who grow up together.
If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.
Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity — but focuses on how to raise America’s collective I.Q. That’s important, because while I.Q. doesn’t measure pure intellect — we’re not certain exactly what it does measure — differences do matter, and a higher I.Q. correlates to greater success in life.
Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and that’s the reason for the findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back.
“Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s,” Professor Turkheimer said.
One gauge of that is that when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.’s rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study. For example, a French study showed that children from poor households adopted into upper-middle-class homes averaged an I.Q. of 107 by one test and 111 by another. Their siblings who were not adopted averaged 95 on both tests.
Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says.
Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).
Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes. The Milwaukee Project, for example, took African-American children considered at risk for mental retardation and assigned them randomly either to a control group that received no help or to a group that enjoyed intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade.
By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q.
Professor Nisbett suggests putting less money into Head Start, which has a mixed record, and more into these intensive childhood programs. He also notes that schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program (better known as KIPP) have tested exceptionally well and favors experiments to see if they can be scaled up.
Another proven intervention is to tell junior-high-school students that I.Q. is expandable, and that their intelligence is something they can help shape. Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better grades. That’s particularly true of girls and math, apparently because some girls assume that they are genetically disadvantaged at numbers; deprived of an excuse for failure, they excel.
“Some of the things that work are very cheap,” Professor Nisbett noted. “Convincing junior-high kids that intelligence is under their control — you could argue that that should be in the junior-high curriculum right now.”
The implication of this new research on intelligence is that the economic-stimulus package should also be an intellectual-stimulus program. By my calculation, if we were to push early childhood education and bolster schools in poor neighborhoods, we just might be able to raise the United States collective I.Q. by as much as one billion points.
That should be a no-brainer.

2009-04-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

President Obama bows to the Saudi King

President Obama greeted the king of Saudi Arabia with a full bow from the waist yesterday. The action appeared especially awkward since among the dozens of world leaders and their spouses, handshakes abounded, but there appeared to be no other bowing in the room.

The U.S. State Department's office of protocol did not respond

he situation developed as leaders of the world attending the G20 summit in London assembled for a photograph to mark the event.

In this first image, after the king extended his hand while Obama approached, Obama bends from the waist until his head is nearly at the monarch's waist: In a second image, Obama has straightened up and is exchanging remarks with the Saudi leader:

President Obama bows before King Abdullah.

It has been the protocol of the US govt not have it leaders bow before any monarch. Full video is available on YouTube (http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=S60U-hl35Gw)

Even though Obama was born a Muslim and later converted to Christianity…

'One in 10 Americans still think Barack Obama is Muslim'

More than two months after Barack Obama placed his hand on the Bible and was sworn in as president of the United States, 11 per cent of Americans still think he is a Muslim, a poll suggested

White evangelical Protestants and Republicans were the most likely to say Mr Obama - who has an Arabic middle name - was Muslim in response to the poll question: "Do you happen to know what Barack Obama's religion is?"

Nearly one in five white evangelical Protestants and 17 per cent of the Republicans who took part in the telephone poll of 1,308 adults, which was conducted by Pew Research from March 9-12, said they thought Obama was Muslim.

Fewer than half in each group - 38 per cent of white evangelicals and 46 percent of Republicans - correctly identified him as Christian.

Even among Democrats, only 55 per cent correctly identified Obama as a Christian; seven percent thought he was Muslim.

2009-04-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

Judiciary Goes Global

In 2004, the Supreme Court sowed the seeds for a national-security upheaval when it ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that war prisoners held outside the United States had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the justices continued the seismic shift, holding that the right they had invented in Rasul — a right extended to aliens whose only connection to the United States is in waging war against it — was somehow rooted in our Constitution.

Thursday, the inevitable earthquake struck as a federal court in Washington took the imperial judiciary global. Though Rasul and Boumediene involved only the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Judge John D. Bates (a George W. Bush appointee) ruled that alien combatants detained by our military in Bagram, Afghanistan — an active combat zone — are entitled to petition the federal courts for their release.

Let’s be clear about what this means. Judge Bates is saying that, under the Supreme Court’s rulings, the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary extends everywhere in the world, without limitation

Judicial authority had — until about five years ago — been limited to sovereign American territory, but Judge Bates has decided that the courts have the last word wherever our government acts. Judicial authority had — until about five years ago — been limited to sovereign American territory, but Judge Bates has decided that the courts have the last word wherever our government acts.

Writing in dissent, Justice Scalia presciently observed that, by abandoning American sovereignty as the limit of its jurisdiction, the Court had essentially claimed judicial dominion “over the four corners of the earth.” Scalia reasoned that diplomats’ obtaining control through a lease was no different in effect from a military brigade’s obtaining it by force of arms. The majority had offered no limiting principle. If the Court claimed jurisdiction over Gitmo, there was no reason why “parts of Afghanistan and Iraq” should not be regarded as equal subjects to judicial oversight. The justices, not the commander-in-chief, would be calling the shots.

Congress tried to limit the damage. In response to Rasul’s implausible claim that the federal habeas-corpus statute gave federal courts jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay, lawmakers amended the statute to make clear that this was not the case. Not to be denied, the Court simply swept that legislation aside. In Boumediene, the justices claimed it was not just a statute but the Constitution — the compact between the American people and their government — that somehow vested alien enemies of the American people with a right to challenge, in the American people’s own courts, their detention by the American people’s military, during a war approved by the American people’s representatives.

Predictably, Judge Bates has taken the next step. He reasoned that if the font of federal court jurisdiction is not U.S. sovereignty but de facto U.S. control, the Bagram military base in Afghanistan, which we firmly control, is no different from Gitmo. There was, however, a major difference: Bagram is in an active zone of combat. This was a circumstance even the Boumediene majority suggested was entitled to special consideration. Bates gave it none. And if Boumediene commands that everyone within U.S. court jurisdiction is vested with U.S. constitutional rights, why shouldn’t a prisoner in Afghanistan have the same privileges as a prisoner in Gitmo? Or, by Bates’s logic, as a prisoner in Pittsburgh?

The result? Battlefields are now crime scenes, and the U.S. military will be forced to behave like a team of police investigators. If they want to capture enemy agents rather than kill them, our troops had better carefully rope off the crime scene, meticulously gather the physical evidence, record witness statements, administer Miranda warnings, and make certain a contingent of defense attorneys is available for interrogation purposes. That isn’t how wars are fought.

2009-03-17T05:51:00.000-07:00

You tell me if you think this is classless from the tendentious New York Times….

From The New York Times 3/16/09
Ron Silver, 62, Persuasive Actor and Activist, Dies

Ron Silver, a versatile actor and independent-minded political activist who played Henry Kissinger, Alan M. Dershowitz and Angelo Dundee on the screen and supported Bill Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani and George W. Bush on the stump, died at home in Manhattan on Sunday. He was 62.
The cause was esophageal cancer, which was diagnosed two years ago, his brother Mitchell said.
Mr. Silver, who won a Tony Award in 1988 in David Mamet’s high-speed Hollywood sendup “Speed-the-Plow,” was known for playing verbally deft, charmingly manipulative characters, and his persona off stage was, if not Machiavellian, then certainly engaging and persuasive. (A classless remark for a newspaper to print in a man’s obit)
Intellectually curious and informed — he spoke Spanish, studied Chinese and served on committees for the Council on Foreign Relations — he was nearly as connected in Washington as he was in Hollywood and on Broadway, giving him a life away from performing that few other actors could match. Actually, he had a performing life that not many actors could match, either.
His résumé was ample on stage, in the movies and on television. His Kissinger was in a 1995 television movie, “Kissinger and Nixon.” In “Reversal of Fortune,” the 1990 movie directed by Barbet Schroeder about the high-society trial of Claus von Bülow (Jeremy Irons), he played Mr. Dershowitz, Mr. von Bulow’s voluble lawyer. And he was Mr. Dundee, Muhammad Ali’s trusted cornerman, in the 2001 film “Ali.”
He played other real-life characters, including Bobby Riggs, the tennis player and huckster who played — and lost to — Billie Jean King in a celebrated “battle of the sexes” match in 1973, which was recreated in a television movie, “When Billie Beat Bobby,” in 2001.He played the rock ’n’ roll impresario Bill Graham in a one-man show by Robert Greenfield, “Bill Graham Presents.”
Mr. Silver also appeared on Broadway in David Rabe’s play “Hurlyburly,” another Hollywood satire, and in movies that included “Enemies: A Love Story” (1989), Paul Mazursky’s bittersweet comedy about a Holocaust survivor who somehow ends up with three wives, and “Blue Steel” (1990), directed by Kathryn Bigelow, about a commodities broker who becomes obsessed with a young policewoman (Jamie Lee Curtis) after he witnesses her shooting an armed burglar. On television he had recurring roles on several series, including “Rhoda,” “Chicago Hope,” “The West Wing” and “Veronica’s Closet.”
But Mr. Silver was busy as a nonperformer as well. An activist most frequently allied with left-wing issues, he was president of Actors’ Equity, the stage actors union, for most of the 1990s and was a co-founder of the Creative Coalition, a group that advocates for First Amendment rights, public education and arts support. He campaigned for Bill Clinton for president.
“I’m an actor by calling but an activist by inclination,” Mr. Silver said in a 1994 interview.
Still, he had contrary impulses (contrary? How so and to whom? Maybe to the The New York Times liberal impulses which it can’t ignore and sadly which spill out into its news reports and unfortunately to its obituaries!) , and he paid attention to them. He was an advocate for President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense plan, and he supported Mr. Giuliani’s campaign for mayor of New York in 1994. In 2004, he made headlines when he was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention in Manhattan, supporting the nomination of President George W. Bush for a second term, largely because of the president’s stance against Islamic terrorism. He supported Mr. Giuliani for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
Ronald Arthur Silver was born in Manhattan on July 2, 1946. His father, Irving, was an executive in the men’s wear business. His mother, May Zimelman Silver, worked in the city school system as an aide and a substitute teacher. Young Ron attended New York City public schools, graduating from Stuyvesant High School. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, he studied Spanish; he received a master’s degree in Asian studies at St. John’s University in Queens. He studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio.
Mr. Silver’s only marriage, to Lynne Miller, ended in divorce. In addition to his brother Mitchell, who lives in Newton, Mass., he is survived by his parents, who live in Manhattan; another brother, Keith, of Stamford, Conn.; a son, Adam, of Los Angeles; and a daughter, Alexandra, of Manhattan.
His acting awed them, his conservative streak confounded them, Mitchell Silver said.
“Ron’s politics, as far as I know, were not shared by anyone he knew, except for the people he knew because of his politics,” Mitchell Silver said. He paused and added, “He told me that he did vote for Barack Obama in the end.”

2009-03-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

When Science Is a Siren Song

When a group of British academic researchers reported last spring that women fond of eating breakfast cereal were more likely to give birth to boys, the story was lapped up by journalists the world over. "Skip breakfast for a daughter, eat up your cereals for a son," advised The Economist, just one of many publications to seize on the report.

The problem with this fascinating study? It appears to be wrong. An analysis led by Stan Young of the National Institute for Statistical Sciences found that the original conclusion was based on poor statistics and is probably the result of chance.

So far, Young's rebuttal, published in January, has received little notice. That it is ignored by many of the media outlets that lavished attention on the original report isn't surprising; in fact, the most remarkable thing is how ordinary that lack of attention may be. A lot of science, it turns out, can't withstand serious scrutiny.

Thoughtful analysis by John Ioannidis suggests that more than half of published scientific research findings can't be replicated by other researchers.

Part of the problem is that we've been conditioned to trust university research. It is based, after all, on the presumably lofty motives of its practitioners. What's not to like about science carried out by academics who have nobly dedicated their lives to understanding the unknown, furthering knowledge and serving humanity?

Within academia's ivied walls the view is a bit different. The university is not a peaceable kingdom, and life is far more Hobbesian. Henry Kissinger was on to something when he observed that "university politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." In contrast to the academia-vs.-industry trope, hubris, self-interest and ambition are not checked at the university door; arguably, they are essential for admission and required for professional success.

University researchers are in a constant battle for recognition and the rewards associated with success: research space, speaking engagements, funding and autonomy. Consequently, while academic research is often described as "curiosity-driven," the reality is messier, as (curiously) many researchers tend to pursue the trendiest technologies and explore topics that happen to be associated with the most generous levels of research support.

Moreover, since academic success is determined almost exclusively by the number and prestige of research publications, the incentives to generate results are exceedingly powerful and can encourage investigators to see patterns that may not exist, to disregard contradictory observations that might be important, to overvalue data that might be preliminary or unreliable, and to embrace conclusions that deserve to be viewed with far greater skepticism

2009-03-13T06:18:00.001-07:00

Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
M.E. Cohen
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seeded, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.
While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.
And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.
There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.
While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.
Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.
Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.
Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.

2009-03-05T05:39:00.000-08:00

Health care summit at White House a first step to overhaul

Proposing “Universal Healthcare”

President Obama will kick off his effort to try to overhaul the nation's troubled health care system again today with an important misnomer.

There is an almost mystical number that that everyone - politicians, media, etc,. use for the so-called "uninsured" : 47mn. However, what no one will talk about - except the US Census Deptartment, is that many of the uninsured are not even Americans* . The way the media and politicians speak about this subject is often coded. They say "47mn people in this country (not 47mln Americans) don't have health insurance." Perhaps the reason is that no politician wants to have to discuss providing health insurance to millions of illegal aliens.

Now should the society decide to make the necessary expenditures to cover thousands of illegal aliens is another question -as well as forcing young adults to have healthcare insurance, but a question that should be asked honestly and debated in a transparent manner and not obfuscated the way it is now.

According to the US Census Department*:

Uninsured people in the USA who are NOT U.S. CITIZENS IS 45% or 10.2mln of the 47mln (22%)
Broken down by age, 18 - 34 years old 56.2% (19mln or 40% of the 47mln)do not have health insurance.

It's not such a "crisis" as the media makes it out to be: So in other words, fully 62% of the total uninsured are either non-Americans are young adults.

Of the remaining 35mln a good portion (19mln) are young people between the ages of 18 and 34 who, given free choice, have under their own cost/benefit analysis decided that paying a $1k p/month for health insurance they will most likely not need is not worth the costs.

All children, by the way, that don't have parental coverage, are covered by Medicaid. There is also State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

* http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf

2009-03-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

What Are the Odds of a Depression?
International evidence suggests there is a 20% chance our stock-market crash will lead to much worse.

By ROBERT J. BARRO

Central questions these days are how severe will the U.S. economic downturn be and how long will it last?

The most serious concern is that the downturn will become something worse than the largest recession of the post-World War II period -- 1982, when real per capita GDP fell by 3% and the unemployment rate peaked at nearly 11%. Could we even experience a depression (defined as a decline in per-person GDP or consumption by 10% or more)?

The U.S. macroeconomy has been so tame for so long that it's impossible to get an accurate reading about depression odds just from the U.S. data. My approach uses long-term data for many countries and takes into account the historical linkages between depressions and stock-market crashes. (The research is described in "Stock-Market Crashes and Depressions," a working paper Jose Ursua and I wrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research last month.)

The bottom line is that there is ample reason to worry about slipping into a depression. There is a roughly one-in-five chance that U.S. GDP and consumption will fall by 10% or more, something not seen since the early 1930s.

Our research classifies just two such U.S. events since 1870: the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933, with a macroeconomic decline by 25%, and the post-World War I years from 1917 to 1921, with a fall by 16%. We also assembled long-term data on GDP, consumption and stock-market returns for 33 other countries, sometimes going back as far as 1870. Our conjecture was that depressions would be closely connected to stock-market crashes (at least in the sense that a crash would signal a substantially increased chance of a depression).

This idea seems to conflict with the oft-repeated 1966 quip from Paul Samuelson that "The stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions." The line is clever, but it unfairly denigrates the predictive power of stock markets. In fact, knowing that a stock-market crash has occurred sharply raises the odds of depression. And, in reverse, knowing that there is no stock-market crash makes a depression less likely.

Our data reveal 251 stock-market crashes (defined as cumulative real returns of -25% or less) and 97 depressions. In 71 cases, the timing of a market crash matched up to a depression. For example, the U.S. had a stock-market crash of 55% between 1929-31 and a macroeconomic decline of 25% for 1929-33. Likewise, Finland had a stock-market crash of 47% for 1989-91 and a macroeconomic fall of 13% for 1989-93. We found that 30 cases where there were both crashes and depressions were also associated with wars. In fact, World War II is the worst macroeconomic event of the period, with strong U.S. wartime economic growth as an outlier.

In the post-World War II period, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries were strikingly tranquil up to 2008. The worst macroeconomic event in that period came in Finland in the early 1990s. Sweden also faced a financial crisis in the early 1990s, though it reacted quickly and is now being touted as a possible guide for leading the U.S. out of its current economic crisis.

Outside of the OECD, there have been many linked stock-market crashes and depressions since World War II -- including the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, Mexico's financial crisis in the mid-1990s, the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and Argentina's financial turbulence that lasted until 2002.

Looking at all of the events from our 34-country history, we find that there is a 28% probability that a "minor depression" (macroeconomic decline of 10% or more) will occur when there is a stock-market crash. There is a 9% chance that a "major depression" (a fall of 25% or more) will occur when there is a stock-market crash. In reverse, the chance that a minor depression will also feature a stock-market crash is 73%. And major depressions are almost sure to have stock-market crashes (our data show the probability is 92%).

In applying our results to the current environment, we should consider that the U.S. and most other countries are not involved in a major war (the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are not comparable to World War I or World War II). Thus, we get better information about today's prospects by consulting the history of nonwar events -- for which our sample contains 209 stock-market crashes and 59 depressions, with 41 matched by timing. In this context, the probability of a minor depression, contingent on seeing a stock-market crash, is 20%, and the corresponding chance of a major depression is only 2%. However, it is still the case that depressions are very likely to feature stock-market crashes -- 69% for minor depressions and 83% for major ones.

In the end, we learned two things. Periods without stock-market crashes are very safe, in the sense that depressions are extremely unlikely. However, periods experiencing stock-market crashes, such as 2008-09 in the U.S., represent a serious threat. The odds are roughly one-in-five that the current recession will snowball into the macroeconomic decline of 10% or more that is the hallmark of a depression.

The bright side of a 20% depression probability is the 80% chance of avoiding a depression. The U.S. had stock-market crashes in 2000-02 (by 42%) and 1973-74 (49%) and, in each case, experienced only mild recessions. Hence, if we are lucky, the current downturn will also be moderate, though likely worse than the other U.S. post-World War II recessions, including 1982.

In this relatively favorable scenario, we may follow the path recently sketched by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, with the economy recovering by 2010. On the other hand, the 59 nonwar depressions in our sample have an average duration of nearly four years, which, if we have one here, means that it is likely recovery would not be substantial until 2012.

Given our situation, it is right that radical government policies should be considered if they promise to lower the probability and likely size of a depression. However, many governmental actions -- including several pursued by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression -- can make things worse.

I wish I could be confident that the array of U.S. policies already in place and those likely forthcoming will be helpful. But I think it more likely that the economy will eventually recover despite these policies, rather than because of them.

Mr. Barro is a professor of economics at Harvard and a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

2009-03-04T05:24:00.001-08:00

So now bowing your head and taking a knee is a violation of the “Separation of Church and State”????

High court turns down coach's bid on prayer
School board prevails in E. Brunswick case

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from the East Brunswick High School football coach who was banned from bowing his head during student-led team prayers.
Without comment yesterday, the nation's highest court ended Marcus Borden's efforts to overturn a township board of education decision that as a public employee, Borden cannot mix religion with his work as a coach.
The high court's decision leaves intact a federal appeals court's April decision that Borden's desire to bow his head and take a knee during team prayer is an endorsement of religious activity at a public school.
Neither Borden, who has been the East Brunswick football coach since 1983, nor his attorney, Ronald Riccio, could be reached for comment yesterday afternoon.
Borden has been fighting for the right to bow and kneel in prayer with his team since November 2005, when he filed a federal lawsuit arguing the school district's regulations were overly broad. He won a U.S. District Court ruling in July 2006 in which a judge decided those rules were unconstitutional, but that decision was reversed at the appellate level in April 2008.
Riccio asked the Supreme Court in October to review the appeals court decision, arguing then that Borden's case was of national importance because "it addresses what public school educators are permitted to say and do when public school students engage in religious activities in their presence."
Richard Katskee, an attorney with the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the board of education in court, said in a prepared statement yesterday "children have a clear right to attend public schools without religious pressures being brought to bear by school personnel."
"Coach Borden was out of bounds, and the courts were right to blow the whistle," Katskee said. "I hope that other coaches and school personnel learn a lesson from this."
Todd Simmens, president of the East Brunswick Board of Education, in the same statement said "public school officials simply may not engage with students in religious activity."
"The board of education and district officials have, throughout this case, made certain no school employee supervises or otherwise participates in any type of prayer with our students," Simmens said. "Needless to say, the board is pleased that, in this case, the courts reaffirmed this long-standing constitutional principle."
The school district said Borden had a long history of leading prayers before he was ordered to stop after complaints from some parents. Borden resigned as coach in protest of the school board ruling in 2005, but rescinded the resignation within a week and hired Riccio to represent him in his quest to coach the team the way he had for more than two decades.

2009-03-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

“I fooled them and won”

2009-02-27T09:45:00.001-08:00

George Will,

Kudos for taking the New York Times to task today. I have just one comment for your thought.
Assuming it takes 30yrs or so for the "enlightened ones" to realize that global warming is what global cooling was-a shibboleth, I'm not sure the NY Times will be around to become even more enlightened.

Though the newspaper industry is suffering, the NY Times is notable given it just took out a huge "home equity" loan on its office building and are now paying -in an era of record low rates, Carlos Slim 14% for his loan. It is burning through $20mln cash per quarter and given its size of its balance sheet, a concern of company viability could emerge within two very short years.

2009-02-27T06:09:00.001-08:00

Jack Bauer wasn't born, he was unleashed.
Chuck Norris is tough, but Jack Bauer is tougher. Walker Texas Ranger never had to deal with Terrorist and get things done in 24 hours or did he? Anyway, Jack Bauer is tough, and he is the new man with the Random Facts.
1.If you wake up in the morning, it is because Jack Bauer spared your life.
2.Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
3.If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
4.Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
5.Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
6.Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
7.Jack Bauer’s favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
8. 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
9.If Jack says I just want to talk to him/her and that him/her is you¦ well amigo, you are fucked.
10.Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
11.Jack Bauer doesn’t miss. If he didn’t hit you it is because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
12.If you get 7 stars on your wanted level on Grand Theft Auto, Jack Bauer comes after you. You don’t want to get 7 stars.
13.When you open a can of whoop-ass, Jack Bauer jumps out.
14.Jack Bauer does not sleep. The only rest he needs is what he gets when he’s knocked out or temporarily killed.
15.If you are still conscious, it is because Jack Bauer doesn’t want to carry you.
16.Jack Bauer has no problem following orders, unless you tell him to do something he doesn’t want to.
17.Jack Bauer’s gun is actually a water pistol, but the water shoots out in the form of bullets. Why? Because the gun is being held by Jack fucking Bauer.
18.Lets get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
19.As a child, Jack Bauer’s first words were There’s no time!
20.While being put under in the hospital, Jack Bauer can count backwards from 100 every time. This annoys the doctors.
21.Jack Bauer can watch all 4 seasons of 24 in 24 hours.
22.Jack Bauer literally died for his country, and lived to tell about it.
23.Jack Bauer’s family threw him a surprise birthday party when he was a child. Once.
24.Killing Jack Bauer doesn’t make him dead. It just makes him angry.
25.Every time Jack Bauer yells NOW! at the end of a sentence, a terrorist dies.
26.If Jack’s starring at someone and his eye twitches, assume that person has less than 15 minutes to live.
27.When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade.
28.Guns don’t kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.
29.David Spade always says yes to Jack Bauer when he wants to redeem his credit card miles.
30.Don’t ask what Jack Bauer would do for a Klondike bar

2009-02-27T05:43:00.001-08:00

Bookshelf
Trying to Turn the Corner
General Motors now supports five retirees for every active employee.
General Motors Corp.'s reporting of alarming fourth- quarter results yesterday underlined one salient fact about the trouble in Motor City: Of the Big Three auto makers, GM is in by far the biggest trouble. Ford Motor Co. has cash and Chrysler LLC has an Italian suitor ready to absorb it as a North American arm of its business. But GM -- which suffered a net loss of $9.6 billion last quarter, $30.9 billion for the year -- needs $2 billion from taxpayers next month, in addition to the $13.4 billion it has already received, or it's off to bankruptcy court.
In 1953, when the GM chief executive at the time, Charlie Wilson, told Congress that what's good for America is good for General Motors, the fate that the company currently faces was unthinkable. Back then, GM employed more people than lived in Delaware and Nevada combined, and the company owned about 50% of the automotive market. When President Dwight Eisenhower needed a defense secretary, he chose Wilson. GM unquestionably mattered.
Despite what legions of skeptics might believe, William Holstein thinks that's still the case. His "Why GM Matters" is well-timed: Plenty of folks would be relieved to hear a convincing case that counters the drumbeat of dire reports about GM. The figures can be daunting. The company now supports five retirees in the U.S. for every active employee. The pool of people collecting pensions from GM nearly equals the population of Wyoming and will likely exceed half a million in 2009. Production of the company's trademark products -- trucks and SUVs -- fell 70% in January. And it's hard to find evidence to counter the grim news.
Still, Mr. Holstein has taken on the task. A business journalist who has periodically written about the U.S. auto industry in recent years, he spent nine months in 2008 visiting the corporate headquarters and traveling to GM outposts in Europe and Asia. He interviewed a broad range of employees -- factory workers, engineers and top brass, including Chief Executive Rick Wagoner. While Mr. Holstein labored, GM ran out of cash.
As sometimes happens when a reporter is granted unusual access within a company, Mr. Holstein seems to have become a captive of GM's corporate thinking. On the basis of his reporting, the author says, he believes "that GM, with the benefit of federal loan guarantees, will reach a point at which it is very competitive." He adds: "Federal assistance will not be wasted."
Like Mr. Wagoner, Mr. Holstein argues that GM is still too big too fail -- he doesn't dwell on the possible benefits is company declares bankruptcy, sorts out its costs and returns to the marketplace. The carnage would simply be catastrophic, he says, if a company with 6,200 dealers, 47 assembly plants and 1,500 suppliers in North America were allowed to go under. "On a national scale, there are other multipliers to consider," he says. "If GM spends a dollar to buy a particular part, that dollar is then used to buy a subpart or to pay workers at the parts supplier, who go into their communities to buy food or housing."
Mr. Holstein supports this simple thesis by taking readers to places that GM loves to talk about: the studios where the Chevrolet Volt is being developed; the office in Shanghai from which the auto maker is refining its assault on the Chinese market; the design shop for the forthcoming Chevrolet Camaro. He even burns a chapter discussing the virtues of Onstar, the money-losing, subscription-based navigation and communications system that was once heralded by Mr. Wagoner as central to GM's future.
Mr. Holstein tells readers about people like Burt Wong, a 35-year-old vehicle designer who is celebrated in the China chapter for helping adapt a Buick model to meet local demand for gaudy luxury. Mr. Wong was one of the key people behind a global design project that resulted in a new Buick LaCrosse, due to the market this year, that is meant to appeal to Chinese and American buyers alike.
But Buicks and Camaros and plug-in Chevy Volts are all unprofitable ventures for GM. The author might have been better able to gauge whether GM will continue to matter if he had stopped by the treasurer's office -- the wheelhouse on GM's sinking ship. Fritz Henderson is barely mentioned in the book, even though he is the chief operating officer who has spent the past three years scrambling to fix broken operations such as the parts maker Delphi Corp., GMAC financing and Saturn Corp. Chief Financial Officer Ray Young, who couldn't convince the credit markets to lend GM money last summer, doesn't even make an appearance in "Why GM Matters."
We do meet Harry Clay, though. He is a GM assembly-line worker who builds station wagons in Lansing, Mich. Mr. Clay provides some insight into the sort of thinking that prevails at the company. "I can't blame it on the managers," Mr. Clay says. "I think it's a set of circumstances lined up like the perfect storm -- the economy, weakened dollar, a global system. And I blame the lawmakers." (The gripe against Washington by auto makers is that cries for help on trade policy, research subsidies and health care have been ignored, while environmental zealots have had a disproportionate amount of influence over the creation of costly emissions regulations.)
Mr. Clay is 34 years old. Depending on his employment history, he could be eligible for one of GM's gold-plated, union-mandated retirements in less than 15 years. Between now and then, if the company continues its present practices, he will pay little for health care and have the assurance that a bountiful pension will greet him as he settles in for most of the second half of his life.
But this sort of insupportable financial burden for the company does not draw Mr. Holstein's criticism. Like Mr. Clay, the author blames GM's woes on lawmakers -- and short-sellers, private-equity firms, Wall Street analysts, ill-informed reporters and villains from past GM management teams. But not the current managers and certainly not the United Auto Workers union. Mr. Holstein surely means well with "Why GM Matters," but at a time when it is essential for taxpayers to gain a clear understanding of what's at stake in the automotive crisis, it doesn't help to look at the matter through a rose- colored windshield. That approach is what helped Detroit drive straight into its current predicament.

2009-02-27T04:31:00.001-08:00

Climate Science in A Tornado

Few phenomena generate as much heat as disputes about current orthodoxies concerning global warming. This column recently reported and commented on some developments pertinent to the debate about whether global warming is occurring and what can and should be done. That column, which expressed skepticism about some emphatic proclamations by the alarmed, took a stroll down memory lane, through the debris of 1970s predictions about the near certainty of calamitous global cooling.

Concerning those predictions, the New York Times was -- as it is today in a contrary crusade -- a megaphone for the alarmed, as when (May 21, 1975) it reported that "a major cooling of the climate" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950." Now the Times, a trumpet that never sounds retreat in today's war against warming, has afforded this column an opportunity to revisit another facet of this subject -- meretricious journalism in the service of dubious certitudes.

On Wednesday, the Times carried a "news analysis" -- a story in the paper's news section, but one that was not just reporting news -- accusing Al Gore and this columnist of inaccuracies. Gore can speak for himself. So can this columnist.

Reporter Andrew Revkin's story was headlined: "In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall." Regarding exaggeration, the Times knows whereof it speaks, especially when it revisits, if it ever does, its reporting on the global cooling scare of the 1970s, and its reporting and editorializing -- sometimes a distinction without a difference -- concerning today's climate controversies.

Which returns us to Revkin. In a story ostensibly about journalism, he simply asserts -- how does he know this? -- that the last decade, which passed without warming, was just "a pause in warming." His attempt to contact this writer was an e-mail sent at 5:47 p.m., a few hours before the Times began printing his story, which was not so time-sensitive -- it concerned controversies already many days running -- that it had to appear the next day. But Revkin reported that "experts said" this columnist's intervention in the climate debate was "riddled with" inaccuracies. Revkin's supposed experts might exist and might have expertise but they do not have names that Revkin wished to divulge.

As for the anonymous scientists' unspecified claims about the column's supposedly myriad inaccuracies: The column contained many factual assertions but only one has been challenged. The challenge is mistaken.

Citing data from the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog, the column said that since September "the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began." According to the center, global sea ice levels at the end of 2008 were "near or slightly lower than" those of 1979. The center generally does not make its statistics available, but in a Jan. 12 statement the center confirmed that global sea ice levels were within a difference of less than 3 percent of the 1980 level.

So the column accurately reported what the center had reported. But on Feb. 15, the Sunday the column appeared, the center, then receiving many e-mail inquiries, issued a statement saying "we do not know where George Will is getting his information." The answer was: From the center, via Daily Tech. Consult the center's Web site where, on Jan. 12, the center posted the confirmation of the data that this column subsequently reported accurately.

The scientists at the Illinois center offer their statistics with responsible caveats germane to margins of error in measurements and precise seasonal comparisons of year-on-year estimates of global sea ice. Nowadays, however, scientists often find themselves enveloped in furies triggered by any expression of skepticism about the global warming consensus (which will prevail until a diametrically different consensus comes along; see the 1970s) in the media-environmental complex. Concerning which:

On Feb. 18 the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that from early January until the middle of this month, a defective performance by satellite monitors that measure sea ice caused an underestimation of the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles, which is approximately the size of California. The Times ("All the news that's fit to print"), which as of this writing had not printed that story, should unleash Revkin and his unnamed experts.

2009-02-26T11:55:00.000-08:00

“When we elected Obama, we didn't know what a gambler we were getting”

--David Broder in today’s Washington Post

Who Knew?
Who Knew?

How pathetic!

2009-02-26T05:49:00.001-08:00

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

-------Abraham Lincoln

2009-02-26T05:12:00.001-08:00

Obama's description of the Bush-era tax cuts. "A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy," he explained in his Tuesday speech, after earlier saying, "tax cuts alone can't solve all of our economic problems -- especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few."

The Bush tax cuts were not targeted to "the wealthiest few." Everyone who paid federal income taxes received a tax cut, with the largest percentage of reductions going to those at the bottom. Last year, a family of four making $40,000 saved an average of $2,053 because of the Bush tax cuts. The tax code became more progressive as the share paid by the top 10% increased to 46.4% from 46% -- and the nation experienced 52 straight months of job growth after the cuts took effect. And since when is giving back some of what people pay in taxes "transferring wealth?"

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

2009-02-25T05:19:00.001-08:00

D.C. and the Constitution

Will Democrats let the law get in the way of an extra House seat?

The House of Representatives seems set to grow by two Members, to 437, after next year's election. Yesterday the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act passed a key procedural vote in the Senate, making passage of the legislation, which President Obama supports, all but certain. The only thing standing in the way may be the Constitution.

The District of Columbia is reliably and overwhelmingly Democratic, and most of the bill's sponsors are Democrats. But one Republican is conspicuous among its sponsors: Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. That is because the legislation also creates a new House seat for Mr. Hatch's state, which in 2000 lost out to North Carolina for the 435th seat because the Census Bureau declined to count Mormon missionaries temporarily overseas as Utah residents.

Utah is one of the most Republican states in the country, but this is still a bad trade for the GOP. Whereas the new District of Columbia seat is permanent, and Democratic dominance in D.C. is as permanent as such things can be, the other new seat will be Utah's for only two years. Thereafter, like all other Congressional seats, it will be reassigned every 10 years as part of reapportionment. It could just as easily go to a Democratic state as to a Republican one.

More important, the legislation runs afoul of the plain language of the Constitution, which provides that House members shall be chosen "by the People of the several States" and stipulates that the District of Columbia is not a state.

In 1960, Congress proposed a Constitutional amendment giving residents of the capital the right to vote for President. The 23rd Amendment was ratified the following year. The District already sends a nonvoting delegate to the House, but if Congress wishes to grant it full representation, it should do so by amending, not ignoring, the Constitution.

2009-02-24T04:02:00.000-08:00

Obama finds the Bush center

So far as president, Obama is startlingly like his predecessor on a number of issues.

Jonah Goldberg
February 24, 2009

Here's something President Obama's biggest fans may need to hear: He's just not that into you.

Recall that during the primaries, Obama was probably second only to Dennis Kucinich as an anti-Iraq war and anti-Bush candidate. But he has kept President Bush's Defense secretary and appointed a secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who voted for the war. His vice president, Joe Biden, also voted for the war. Obama himself seems to be in less of a hurry to leave Iraq than we might have expected from listening to him over the last couple of years.

The new president has ordered that his predecessor's rendition policies remain largely intact, even to the point of using the "state secrets" privilege to block a rendition lawsuit. Obama may have stated categorically that America "will not torture," but outsourcing it is still OK.

The White House also defends the Bush policy of imprisoning, without trial, enemy combatants captured abroad. Obama's lawyers argued in a court case brought by Afghan prisoners at the U.S. Air Force base at Bagram, Afghanistan, that the "government adheres to its previously articulated position" -- the one articulated by those evil Bush lawyers.

Meanwhile, a new Pentagon study commissioned by Obama has found that the prison at Guantanamo Bay meets the standards of the Geneva Convention. One can only guess how the White House will make use of that finding. At the least, it should provide cover while the administration looks for alternatives to Gitmo that might not be all that alternative.

On the domestic front, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided that Bush's signature No Child Left Behind Act should be retained and moderately reformed. His boldest suggestion so far? "Let's rebrand it. Give it a new name." Now that's change even cynics can believe in.

In a rare instance of consistency between his campaign and his presidency, Obama is keeping Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, though he's renamed that one.

There are many lessons one could draw from Obama's actions. You might conclude that the famous pragmatist recognizes that this is a center-right country after all. Or that he is a hypocrite, a statesman, or both, now that the buck stops with him.

You could say that this all shows that Bush's war-on-terrorism policies weren't nearly as outrageous as his opponents, Obama included, said they were. Some conservatives might argue that it demonstrates how centrist, even liberal, Bush's domestic policies were. Obama supporters might claim it proves that conservative fears that Obama was a crazy left-winger were always unfounded.

But how do Obama's biggest fans reconcile his contradictions? The slickest approach is to chalk up every about-face and inexplicable decision to Obama's abiding genius.

"Mr. Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike," explained New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. Translation: The One may move in mysterious ways, but that's no reason to doubt him.

Self-described conservatives who supported Obama in the election have made a similarly non-falsifiable argument about his qualifications (given that his record was patently unconservative): He simply has a superior presidential "temperament."

Such rationalizations reveal more continuity between Bush and Obama. Their biggest fans and foes seem driven by emotion rather than reason. We've seen this before. Bill Clinton moved his party to the right, but a lot of conservatives and liberals couldn't stomach acknowledging it. Bush was mostly a moderate Republican, but his liberal enemies hated him, and anything they hated had to be "right-wing." Even Republicans who admired Bush couldn't bring themselves to admit that the subject of their adoration might not in fact be a true-blue conservative.

Indeed, thanks in part to the lazy framing of the media and the pressure cooker of partisan Washington, conservatism became defined as Bushism, liberalism as not-Bushism, even though Bush had campaigned as a "different kind of Republican" and said over and over that "compassionate conservatism" was a sharp break with conventional conservatism.

It's early yet, but I think we're seeing with Obama what happened with Bush. The chess master is really just a man who's figuring it out as he goes along. Sometimes he'll be right; other times, horribly wrong. But whether he's right or wrong, left-wing or centrist, liberalism will likely mean whatever Barack Obama says it means.

2009-02-20T07:18:00.000-08:00

Obama the market killer.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 9,625 on Tuesday November 4, 2008 when we voted for our 44th president. The next day, after Obama had won it lost -5% (worst single day following a presidential election).
The Dow opened at 8281.22 on the morning of Obama's inauguration. Today it opens at 7,377 or almost a full quarter of market capitalization has been lost - again a record loss in stock market wealth following a presidential election.
That's a vote of practically no confidence in Obama's strategy for reviving the economy. The numbers were worse on the biggest days of the Obama presidency. The Dow fell 332.13 points on inauguration day, 381.99 points on the day Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced step two in the bank bailout, and 297.91 points when the president signed the stimulus bill three days ago. Financial markets are a bet on the future. The market's view is that an Obamanomics-driven economy looks grim.

2009-02-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

Is the Administration Winging It?
Obama's reputation for competence is at risk.

By KARL ROVE

Team Obama demonstrated remarkable discipline during the presidential campaign. From raising an unprecedented amount of money to milking every advantage from the Internet to grabbing lots of delegates from inexpensive caucus states, they left nothing to chance.

And now the administration has scored a major legislative victory in an extraordinarily short period of time. Less than 700 hours after taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama signed the largest spending bill in American history.

Nevertheless, this fast start can't overcome a growing sense the administration is winging it on issues large and small.

Take the vetting of cabinet nominees. Mr. Obama's aides ignored a federal investigation of New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson that started last August for a possible pay-for-play scandal. Mr. Richardson had to withdraw after being named to become secretary of commerce.

The administration treated as inconsequential the failure of its choices for Treasury secretary and White House performance officer, as well as its labor secretary-designate's spouse, to pay taxes. It failed to uncover Tom Daschle's problems with more than $102,943 in previously unpaid taxes, penalties and interest -- and once it did, aides assumed Mr. Daschle would be given a pass.

Team Obama promised Gen. Anthony Zinni he'd be ambassador to Iraq, then cut him loose without explanation. After the Bill Richardson fiasco, it romanced Republican Sen. Judd Gregg for commerce secretary -- then ignored his advice on the stimulus and wouldn't trust him with running the department, moving supervision of the Census into the White House. Mr. Gregg withdrew himself from consideration.

Then there is the stimulus itself. Mr. Obama's economic team met with congressional leaders in December to green light a bill costing up to $850 billion. But they described less than $200 billion of what they wanted in the envelope. In return for outsourcing the bill's drafting to Congress, the administration took on two responsibilities: running polls to advise Hill Democrats on how to sharpen their marketing, and putting the president on the road to sell a bill others wrote.

Team Obama was winging it when it declared the stimulus would "save or create" 2.5 million, then three million, then 3.7 million, and then four million new jobs. These were arbitrary and erratic numbers, and they knew there's no way to count "saved" jobs. Americans, being commonsensical, will focus on Mr. Obama's promise to "create" jobs. It's highly unlikely that more than 180,000 jobs will be created each month by the end of next year. The precise, state-by-state job numbers the administration used to sell the stimulus are likely to come back to haunt them as well.

Bipartisanship? The administration failed even to respond to GOP offers to endorse an Obama campaign proposal to suspend capital gains taxes for new small businesses.

Inexplicably, the president, in a prime-time press conference, raised expectations for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's bank rescue plan, which turned out the next day to be no plan at all. The markets craved details; they got none. When markets cratered, spokesmen didn't acknowledge the administration's poor planning, but blamed the markets.

Team Obama was also winging it on enhanced interrogation of terrorists. First it nullified all the Bush administration's legal authorities before considering what rules it should have in place. When the CIA briefed White House officials on the results obtained from these techniques, the administration backtracked and organized a four-month study of what rules were appropriate.

Something similar happened with the promise to close Guantanamo Bay within a year: The administration has no idea what it will do with the violent terrorists detained there. And on ethics, Mr. Obama proclaimed an end to lobbyist influence in government -- even as he was nominating lobbyists for major posts and filling White House ranks with former lobbyists.

Team Obama has been living off its campaign reputation for planning and execution. That reputation is now frayed, and all the bumbling and unforced errors will have an impact. Such things don't go unnoticed on Capitol Hill or in foreign capitals.

The president, a bright and skilled politician, has plenty of time to recover. The danger is that what we have seen is not an aberration, but the early indications of his governing style. Barack Obama won the job he craved, now he must demonstrate that he and his team are up to its requirements. The signs are worrisome. The world is a dangerous place. The days of winging it need to end.

2009-02-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 6, 2009; Page A17

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

-- President Obama, Feb. 4, 2009

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

2009-02-03T05:33:00.001-08:00

Dodd's Peek-A-Boo Disclosure
The Senator's modified, limited mortgage hangout.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has finally, sort of, kind of, ended 193 days of stonewalling about his sweetheart loans from former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. At least he did if you were a fast reader and were one of the few reporters he invited to his Hartford office yesterday to review -- but not copy or take -- more than 100 pages of documents related to his 2003 mortgage financings through Countrywide's "Friends of Angelo" program.

These are the files that Mr. Dodd pledged to make public after the news broke last summer that the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee had received preferential treatment from Countrywide. At first, Mr. Dodd denied everything. Later, he conceded that he'd been given special treatment but thought it was "more of a courtesy."

Heck, we'd all love the kind of courtesy that would have saved Mr. Dodd $75,000 over the life of the two loans he refinanced to the tune of $800,000, according to an analysis by Portfolio magazine. The savings came from rock-bottom interest rates and a free "float-down" -- the right to borrow at a lower rate if interest rates fall before you've closed on the loan.
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On Monday, with interest rates -- even for non-VIPs -- near historic lows, Mr. Dodd announced that he would refinance the sweetheart loans with another lender. The rates on the two Friends of Angelo loans were 4.5% and 4.25%, so the Senator will probably end up paying a bit more than he is now. But getting out from under the original loans doesn't shed any light on the key question: Whether Mr. Dodd knew that he got the red-carpet treatment because of his central role in regulating the financial industry. That's what former Countrywide employee Robert Feinberg has claimed to us and others.

We don't know whether the documents Mr. Dodd briefly showed yesterday illuminate this mystery or not, because he didn't release them to us, or to the public or his constituents. Perhaps the reporters he allowed to take a quick peak will tell us more. What he did release to everyone was a set of fact sheets that purport to show there was nothing favorable about the terms Mr. Dodd and his wife received from Countrywide, along with a consultant's report that reaches the same conclusion. Mr. Dodd's office did not respond to our request for the documents themselves, which he promised to release more than six months ago.

But consultant reports -- prepared at the behest of a law firm hired by Mr. Dodd to help him through the Countrywide mess -- tell us nothing about what Mr. Dodd knew and when he knew it. Instead, they are an attempt to change the subject. Mr. Feinberg has said that Friends of Angelo were regularly reminded that they were getting special treatment -- otherwise, what was the point? And he claims to have Countrywide documents that prove that Mr. Dodd was aware that Countrywide had done him favors. Those documents may or may not be among those that Mr. Dodd played peek-a-boo with Monday, but we still don't know. Mr. Dodd said he's "sorry" he didn't release the documents sooner -- just not sorry enough to actually release them, apparently.

Countrywide was for years the biggest single customer of Fannie Mae, the giant government-sponsored mortgage securitizer that has since gone into federal conservatorship. Much of Countrywide's business was built around its ability to sell loans to Fannie, and Mr. Mozilo helped push Fannie to accept dodgier and dodgier paper. Mr. Dodd in turn supported this goal by pressing Fannie to do more for "affordable" housing.

This nexus between Mr. Dodd's public duties and Countrywide's interests is a serious matter involving the Senator's personal ethics and accountability to taxpayers who will be paying for Fannie's bad loans for years to come. If, as Mr. Dodd claims, he has nothing to hide, then why is he still hiding it?

2009-02-03T05:31:00.000-08:00

Congress's Phony War on Torture
Why not ban waterboarding once and for all?

When Leon Panetta comes before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday about his nomination to head the Central Intelligence Agency, he ought to be asked tough questions about the things he's said about torture. And he will.

At a time when key congressional Democrats are backing calls to investigate Bush administration officials for war crimes, it would help if our elected representatives first answered the tough questions themselves. But they won't. And therein lies the key to understanding contemporary congressional morality.
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For the past few years, no word has been more casually thrown about than "torture." At the same time, no word has been less precisely defined. That suits Congress just fine, because it allows members to take a pass on defining the law while reserving the right to second-guess the poor souls on the front lines who actually have to make decisions about what the law means.

Last February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thumped loudly when they sent George W. Bush a bill that would have limited the CIA to the interrogation techniques found in the Army Field Manual -- knowing full well that he would veto it. Now they have a Democratic president who says he shares their views. So why not send him a bill declaring once and for all that waterboarding and other interrogation techniques constitute torture?

Manifestly our system of government gives them the right to do so. As CIA Director Michael Hayden noted in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in September 2007, the "CIA operates only within the space given to us by the American people. . . . That space is defined by the policy makers we elect and the laws our representatives pass."

Of course, defining that space would require something in short supply in Washington: an adult conversation. In such a conversation, good men and women could present the case for enhanced interrogation without having their words twisted and finding themselves held up in public as latter-day Torquemadas. Such a conversation might also begin by examining the reigning assumption of today's debate: that context and circumstances have nothing to say about what we call torture.

This is not the reasoning we apply in other areas. Consider a police officer who kills a criminal in a justifiable shooting. We do not call that murder, because the circumstances surrounding the act determine our judgment of that act. If that's true for something as serious as killing, is it really impossible that similar reasoning might apply to interrogation practices that leave no permanent physical or mental damage?

At times, even critics inadvertently make the point. When it is argued, for example, that Navy Seals have undergone waterboarding as part of their training, the response is, well, waterboarding someone as part of his military training is different from waterboarding someone in custody. Yes: Of course it is. In the real world, circumstances and context are crucial to our moral judgments.

While we're at it, let's forget about the theoretical ticking time bomb. Instead, consider a real assertion: Leaders in our intelligence community have declared that the intelligence gained from enhanced interrogations of high-value terrorists have helped save innocent lives.

You don't believe them? Fine. Bring in the people who know -- behind closed doors if you want them to speak honestly and avoid spilling classified information. And then come to an informed conclusion.

In a better day, Congress would allow the executive branch a great deal of latitude during a time of war. We, however, do not live in a better day. In our day, senators and congressmen call for inquisitions of people who operate within a vague torture statute that Congress could easily clarify if it wanted.

A year ago, the Speaker of the House expressed herself thus: "Failing to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh techniques," she said, "undermines our nation's moral authority, puts American military and diplomatic personnel at risk, and undermines the quality of intelligence."

So what's stopping her? The ban President Barack Obama has put in place is not a law but an executive order that can be reversed. This order came, moreover, with a huge back door in the form of a "task force" that will study whether eliminating waterboarding and other enhanced techniques will affect our intelligence needs.

If Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid believe their own public statements that waterboarding and other techniques are both torture and ineffective, they ought to incorporate their words into a law that takes these practices off the table forever.

That, of course, would mean a vote that would force lawmakers to face up to the real-life consequences of their actions -- and submit those actions to the judgment of the American people.

And as Mr. Obama is learning, the one thing that frightens Congress more than al Qaeda is accountability.

2009-02-03T04:55:00.001-08:00

BUSY BUSY BUSY, yeah whatever
As practitioners of Bokononism, the religion created by Kurt Vonnegut in the book "Cat's Cradle," like to say when contemplating the complicated machinery of life: "Busy, busy, busy."

2009-02-02T06:21:00.000-08:00

Obama's Moralizing Tone May Not Wear Well
How often do Americans want to hear how misguided they were before his arrival?

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

Two days into his presidency, Barack Obama delivered on his most celebrated and ardently pledged campaign promise -- the imposition of stringent limitations on the ways in which U.S. agents can question terror suspects, an executive order mandating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and the freezing of all detainee prosecutions.

That last request brought an eloquent reply from Col. James Pohl, Guantanamo's chief military judge, who promptly said no. He declared the directive to freeze all trials "not reasonable" -- a description that could as well apply to the whole of the administration's program for our moral cleansing and reformation in intelligence gathering. Col. Pohl refused, specifically, to delay the Feb. 9 arraignment of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri -- accused Saudi master-planner of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors and a cause célèbre for the American Civil Liberties Union. In its characteristically nuanced style, the ACLU declared, through executive director Anthony Romero, that the judge's ruling was the work of "Bush hangers-on in the Defense Department."

Mr. Obama, of course, isn't likely to be deterred by an insurrection from a military court judge. His view of America's new position in the world -- following the announcement of those orders -- was amply clear, its tone familiar. America had entered upon a new day -- we once were lost and now we're found, a people restored to the paths of principle and honor. Hillary Clinton, speaking as secretary of state, would a few days later add her voice to the general thanksgiving for our rebirth, declaring, "There is a great exhalation of breath going on in the world."

To hear Mr. Obama speak now on matters like the national defense is to recognize that the leader now in the White House is in every respect the person he seemed on the campaign trail: a man of immense moral certitude, prone to an abstract idealism, and pronouncements that range between the rational and the otherworldly.

That's not counting the occasional touches of pure rubbish. Having, on the second day of his presidency, issued executive orders effectively undermining efforts to extract (from captured al Qaeda operatives) intelligence essential to the prevention of terror attacks -- and in addition seriously hampering the prosecution of terrorist detainees -- Mr. Obama argued that it was just by such steps that we strengthened our security. In his own words: "It is precisely our ideals that give us the strength and the moral high ground to be able to effectively deal with the unthinking violence that we see emanating from terrorist organizations around the world."

What can this mean? What moral high ground, exactly, would have enabled us to deter the designs of the religious fanatics in search of martyrdom and the slaughter of as many Americans as possible on September 11?

So much had happened in Washington that week -- so much speechifying and celebration -- it was easy to tune out that pronouncement, particularly since we'd heard its like so often during Mr. Obama's presidential run. It was of a piece with those assertions, emphasized the length of his campaign, that it was not our strength in arms but our principles that had made us a great nation.

During his grim inaugural address -- never has the promise of a nation's rebirth sounded so cheerless -- he was similarly emphatic as he touched on the issue of our defense, proclaiming that "we will not give up our ideals for expediency's sake." It was a line that evoked a loud upsurge of applause from his audience.

They had heard in it again, Mr. Obama's most dramatic and familiar campaign charge, delivered now in shorthand that needed no spelling out: The day of the Bush administration's machinations against our sacred ideals, against democracy itself, all in the name of our security, was now over. In this new day of our national salvation, then -- in a post 9/11 America that had seen 3,000 of its inhabitants murdered by terrorists -- it was now acceptable to characterize strenuous efforts to avert more such catastrophes as "expediency." It was not only acceptable, but proof of a higher moral intelligence.

The generation of Americans who had faced down fascism and communism understood, Mr. Obama further explained on Inauguration Day, that power alone could not protect us. They understood that our security came not just from missiles and tanks but from "sturdy alliances" and "enduring convictions" -- it emanated from "the tempering quality of humility and restraint."

It's impossible to know what kind of history Mr. Obama has been reading but this much at least is true -- the generation he describes knew the importance of sturdy alliances all right. There was that one, for instance, between the American leader, Franklin Roosevelt, and the British, Winston Churchill. Both of them, along with their countrymen, were driven by one enduring conviction -- that fascism should be eradicated from the face of the earth and a total war of destruction waged on Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany until their surrender. It would be hard to find, in their pursuit of that purpose, any hint of that tempering quality of humility and restraint. Not that it isn't entertaining to imagine Roosevelt extending the hand of friendship and conciliation to Hirohito, or Churchill proposing to raise a glass and talk things over with Hitler.

It's been tempting to ascribe Mr. Obama's orders on terrorist detentions, interrogations and Guantanamo to his campaign promises. Not to mention the pressure of that political constituency whose chief enterprise has been these many years to portray the war on terror as an illicit enterprise, conducted by agents of government bent on robbing innocent Americans of their constitutional rights and instilling baseless fears -- and that has succeeded, with the invaluable aid of a like-minded quarter of the media, in presenting a picture of Guantanamo as a hell on earth akin to Auschwitz.

Mr. Obama, who has always been much better than his vocal supporters on the far left, better than the cadres in MoveOn.Org, is no extremist. Still, there is no reason to think that his views on security issues and Guantanamo and interrogations, his tendency to minimize the central importance of armed might, are not deeply rooted. They are clearly core beliefs.

And that, along with those trumpeting declarations to the world that new leadership had now come to the United States, that we were now a nation worthy of the world's trust -- those speeches suggesting that after years of darkness America had now been rescued, just barely, from the abyss -- will be in the end this president's Achilles' heel. Those are not, Mr. Obama may discover, tones that wear well in the course of a presidency.

2009-02-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

How Government Prolonged the Depression
Policies that decreased competition in product and labor markets were especially destructive.

The New Deal is widely perceived to have ended the Great Depression, and this has led many to support a "new" New Deal to address the current crisis. But the facts do not support the perception that FDR's policies shortened the Depression, or that similar policies will pull our nation out of its current economic downturn.
[Commentary] Corbis

A man selling apples during the Great Depression.

The goal of the New Deal was to get Americans back to work. But the New Deal didn't restore employment. In fact, there was even less work on average during the New Deal than before FDR took office. Total hours worked per adult, including government employees, were 18% below their 1929 level between 1930-32, but were 23% lower on average during the New Deal (1933-39). Private hours worked were even lower after FDR took office, averaging 27% below their 1929 level, compared to 18% lower between in 1930-32.

Even comparing hours worked at the end of 1930s to those at the beginning of FDR's presidency doesn't paint a picture of recovery. Total hours worked per adult in 1939 remained about 21% below their 1929 level, compared to a decline of 27% in 1933. And it wasn't just work that remained scarce during the New Deal. Per capita consumption did not recover at all, remaining 25% below its trend level throughout the New Deal, and per-capita nonresidential investment averaged about 60% below trend. The Great Depression clearly continued long after FDR took office.

Why wasn't the Depression followed by a vigorous recovery, like every other cycle? It should have been. The economic fundamentals that drive all expansions were very favorable during the New Deal. Productivity grew very rapidly after 1933, the price level was stable, real interest rates were low, and liquidity was plentiful. We have calculated on the basis of just productivity growth that employment and investment should have been back to normal levels by 1936. Similarly, Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas and Leonard Rapping calculated on the basis of just expansionary Federal

So what stopped a blockbuster recovery from ever starting? The New Deal. Some New Deal policies certainly benefited the economy by establishing a basic social safety net through Social Security and unemployment benefits, and by stabilizing the financial system through deposit insurance and the Securities Exchange Commission. But others violated the most basic economic principles by suppressing competition, and setting prices and wages in many sectors well above their normal levels. All told, these antimarket policies choked off powerful recovery forces that would have plausibly returned the economy back to trend by the mid-1930s.

The most damaging policies were those at the heart of the recovery plan, including The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which tossed aside the nation's antitrust acts and permitted industries to collusively raise prices provided that they shared their newfound monopoly rents with workers by substantially raising wages well above underlying productivity growth. The NIRA covered over 500 industries, ranging from autos and steel, to ladies hosiery and poultry production. Each industry created a code of "fair competition" which spelled out what producers could and could not do, and which were designed to eliminate "excessive competition" that FDR believed to be the source of the Depression.

These codes distorted the economy by artificially raising wages and prices, restricting output, and reducing productive capacity by placing quotas on industry investment in new plants and equipment. Following government approval of each industry code, industry prices and wages increased substantially, while prices and wages in sectors that weren't covered by the NIRA, such as agriculture, did not. We have calculated that manufacturing wages were as much as 25% above the level that would have prevailed without the New Deal. And while the artificially high wages created by the NIRA benefited the few that were fortunate to have a job in those industries, they significantly depressed production and employment, as the growth in wage costs far exceeded productivity growth.

These policies continued even after the NIRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935. There was no antitrust activity after the NIRA, despite overwhelming FTC evidence of price-fixing and production limits in many industries, and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave unions substantial collective-bargaining power. While not permitted under federal law, the sit-down strike, in which workers were occupied factories and shut down production, was tolerated by governors in a number of states and was used with great success against major employers, including General Motors in 1937.

The downturn of 1937-38 was preceded by large wage hikes that pushed wages well above their NIRA levels, following the Supreme Court's 1937 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act. These wage hikes led to further job loss, particularly in manufacturing. The "recession in a depression" thus was not the result of a reversal of New Deal policies, as argued by some, but rather a deepening of New Deal polices that raised wages even further above their competitive levels, and which further prevented the normal forces of supply and demand from restoring full employment. Our research indicates that New Deal labor and industrial policies prolonged the Depression by seven years.

By the late 1930s, New Deal policies did begin to reverse, which coincided with the beginning of the recovery. In a 1938 speech, FDR acknowledged that the American economy had become a "concealed cartel system like Europe," which led the Justice Department to reinitiate antitrust prosecution. And union bargaining power was significantly reduced, first by the Supreme Court's ruling that the sit-down strike was illegal, and further reduced during World War II by the National War Labor Board (NWLB), in which large union wage settlements were limited by the NWLB to cost-of-living increases. The wartime economic boom reflected not only the enormous resource drain of military spending, but also the erosion of New Deal labor and industrial policies.

By 1947, through a combination of NWLB wage restrictions and rapid productivity growth, we have calculated that the large gap between manufacturing wages and productivity that emerged during the New Deal had nearly been eliminated. And since that time, wages have never approached the severely distorted levels that prevailed under the New Deal, nor has the country suffered from such abysmally low employment.

The main lesson we have learned from the New Deal is that wholesale government intervention can -- and does -- deliver the most unintended of consequences. This was true in the 1930s, when artificially high wages and prices kept us depressed for more than a decade, it was true in the 1970s when price controls were used to combat inflation but just produced shortages. It is true today, when poorly designed regulation produced a banking system that took on too much risk.

President Barack Obama and Congress have a great opportunity to produce reforms that do return Americans to work, and that provide a foundation for sustained long-run economic growth and the opportunity for all Americans to succeed. These reforms should include very specific plans that update banking regulations and address a manufacturing sector in which several large industries -- including autos and steel -- are no longer internationally competitive. Tax reform that broadens rather than narrows the tax base and that increases incentives to work, save and invest is also needed. We must also confront an educational system that fails many of its constituents. A large fiscal stimulus plan that doesn't directly address the specific impediments that our economy faces is unlikely to achieve either the country's short-term or long-term goals.

Mr. Cole is professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ohanian is professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA.

2009-01-30T05:36:00.001-08:00

The Myth of Lost Innocence

Linda Perlstein, the author of “Not Much Just Chillin’: The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers.” This meeting occurred right in the middle of the “rainbow party” craze – that is to say, the media frenzy around the alleged oral activities of oversexed (and lipsticked) tweens.

Rainbow parties hadn’t actually played any part in Perlstein’s book. But that, she told me then, hadn’t stopped TV producers – representing “Oprah,” from “The Dr. Phil Show,” from a Katie Couric special – from calling and cajoling her to come on their shows to talk about them.

“I’d say, ‘No one is doing that,’” she told me when I called her this week to refresh my memory of her story. “Even the sluttiest kids I knew, when I told them about that said, ‘Ewww. No one does that.’ This really prurient stuff was being way overblown.

“Believe me, I wanted to be on ‘Oprah.’ I had a book to sell. I’d say, ‘There’s lots of stuff to talk about. Stuff that really should be talked about, that’s more nuanced and complex.’ They were like ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”

I found myself thinking about Perlstein’s media follies this week, when I read Tara Parker-Pope’s article “The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity” in Science Times on Tuesday. For me it not only raised the issue of myth and reality (teens are, in truth, having sex less and later than they did a decade or two ago), but also brought to mind the stories that we tell and what people are willing to hear.

Two sociologists in Philadelphia, Kathleen A. Bogle, of La Salle University, and Maria Kefalas, of St. Joseph’s University, both specialists in teen sexual behavior, told Parker-Pope that they’d had to struggle mightily to get people out of their “moral panic” mindset, and make them understand that teens are not “in a downward spiral” or “out of control.”

“They just don’t believe you. You might as well be telling them the earth is flat,” Kefalas told me when I called to follow up with her this week.

This reminded me of how the developmental psychologist Joseph Mahoney – and others – have had to fight to convince people that another much-discussed creature of our time, the Overscheduled Child, isn’t as common or as stressed-out or even as busy as we commonly think. (I myself didn’t believe him at first, and wasn’t too nice about it.) It reminded me, too, of the Boy Crisis – how hard it has been for scholars who have taken a hard look at the boy/girl achievement numbers to counter the popular wisdom that boys are falling behind. And it reminded me of the Overmedicated Child, that particular trope of child corruption, soul theft and performance pressure that has for so long fascinated me.

In each of these examples, real problems – that some girls are engaging in too-young, risky and degrading sex, that some children are being stressed excessively and stifled by nonstop structure, that some boys (poor and minority boys) are doing badly in school, that some children are getting really reckless mental health services – are grossly simplified and, via the magical thinking of dogma and ideology, are elevated to the level of myth. Real complexities and nuances – details concerning exactly which children are suffering, flailing or failing, and in what numbers, and how and why, and what we can do about it – are lost.

That’s no accident. After all, moral panics – particularly those concerning children – always serve some hidden purpose. “Modern ideas about the innocent child have long been projections of adult needs and frustrations,” Gary Cross, a professor of modern history at Penn State University, writes in his 2004 book, “The Cute and the Cool: Wondrous Innocence and Modern American Children’s Culture.” “In the final analysis, modern innocence has let adults evade the consequences of their own contradictory lives.”

All the examples of child myth-making that I’ve mentioned here have to do, at base, with the perceived corruption of childhood, the loss of some kind of “natural” innocence. When they depart from kernels of reality to rise to the level of myth, they are, I believe, largely projections that enable adults to evade things. Specifically, the overblown focus on messed-up kids affords parents the possibility of avoiding looking inward and taking responsibility for the highly complex problems of everyday life.

In the case of the allegedly lascivious Lolitas, Kefalas sees this flight from reality very clearly: “People don’t want to hear about the economic context, the social context” to young teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy, she told me. “For a 14-year-old to be having sex it’s usually a symptom of a kid who’s really broken and really hurt. Those who are having sex without contraception are a distinct set: they’re poor, from single-parent households, doing poorly in school, have low self-esteem. Teen pregnancy is so high in America compared to other places not just because of access to contraception but because we have a lot of poverty. But Americans don’t want to see themselves as a poor society. They want to make a moral argument: if only teens had better values.”

Certain kinds of children have certain kinds of vulnerabilities that make them particularly susceptible to the toxic elements of our culture. This is true of those who do or don’t fall victim to stress and anxiety, and it’s true of those who do or don’t engage in too-early, too-risky sex. Certain kinds of policies can help children. (Abstinence-only sexual education clearly does not help in combating teen pregnancy.) Certain kinds of parenting can help or hurt, too.

Having a family life that’s so atomized and disconnected that children have the physical and emotional space to upload nude pictures of themselves onto the Internet, and lack the self-esteem and self-respect to know better is obviously undesirable. Being a stressed and frantic, frazzled and depressed parent is harmful, too. (“We are a mess,” Suniya Luthar, the Columbia University psychologist, once told me, explaining why she saw overscheduling as a symptom rather than a cause of family distress. “We are the ones running around like freaking chickens without a head…. It’s the situation where the captain of the ship has lost control.”)

If we parents hadn’t created a world this high-pressured, if we hadn’t, for decades, voted in policymakers who stripped away regulations that protected us, we wouldn’t be so certain that other parents are “drugging” their kids to make them more high-performing, and we wouldn’t have to be so fearful of the influence of Big Pharma.

Luthar is right: we – the adults in this society – are “a mess.” I think it’s time to stop projecting our dysfunction onto our children.

Source Reference: http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/at-a-journalism-conference-a-c/

2009-01-30T05:01:00.000-08:00

Dodd of Indignation

Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd has been in typically indignant form this week, opining on the financial crisis. Before his Tuesday hearing on Bernard Madoff, he demanded that regulators get to the bottom of any crime: "American investors deserve an explanation and the responsible parties must be held accountable!" And yesterday the Connecticut Senator denounced Wall Street bonuses and said, "I am urging -- in fact, not urging, demanding -- that the Treasury Department figures out some way to get the money back."

Pardon us, Senator, but how about taking your own advice?

We refer to his promise to release mortgage documents for the two properties that he and his wife refinanced with Countrywide Financial in 2003. In June a former Countrywide loan officer charged that Mr. Dodd received preferential rates and had fees waived on those loans as part of a VIP program the company had for "friends" of the company's then-CEO Angelo Mozilo. Mr. Dodd first issued a denial and then, days later, acknowledged that he was a "VIP" with Countrywide but said he thought it was "more of a courtesy." In late June he pledged to make all pertinent documents public "at some point." We're still waiting.

Increasing accountability is critical to rebuilding public trust in the financial system, as the Senator keeps telling us. Countrywide was one of the most irresponsible lenders in the subprime frenzy but it did not act alone. One reason it could pump out so much bad paper is because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were around to buy it and then resell it with a taxpayer guarantee. Messrs. Dodd and Mozilo were two of Fan and Fred's biggest supporters, with Mr. Dodd playing a role in pushing the companies to take on "affordable housing" loans from outfits like Countrywide.

Perhaps Connecticut's longest serving Senator was bamboozled by Mr. Mozilo and used bad judgment in backing the reckless lender. But loan officer Robert Feinberg, who oversaw Countrywide's VIP program, says Mr. Dodd knew he was getting favors from Mr. Mozilo. Mr. Feinberg says his job was to remind beneficiaries at every step of the process that they were getting a special deal because they were "Friends of Angelo." If true, it would mean that the Senator had a clear conflict of interest as a legislator promoting the business of a company doing him personal favors. Recall the Ted Stevens precedent.

The way to clear this up is to see all the documents and get Mr. Dodd to explain what happened, preferably under oath. But Mr. Dodd has been stonewalling. In July he said he would release the documents after President Bush signed the first housing bailout bill. Nothing. Then in October he said he wanted to wait until the Senate Ethics Committee completed its investigation.

That could take a while. On July 28 Ethics Chairman Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) and Vice Chairman John Cornyn (R. Texas) issued a press release that explained "it has been the long-standing policy of the committee to defer investigation into matters where there is an active and ongoing criminal investigation and proceeding so as not to interfere in that process."

Earlier this month, Mr. Dodd's office confirmed that the law firm Perkins Coie has provided "ethics advice" to him, and we can't help but wonder what that entailed. The delay at the Ethics Committee in no way impedes Mr. Dodd from honoring his disclosure pledge. It's in his political interest to do so, assuming he has nothing to hide. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed his approval rating down to an all-time low of 47%. Rare is the politician who could clear his name overnight and chooses not to.

2009-01-29T12:17:00.000-08:00

What exactly did Obama mean when in his Inaugural speech he said it was “time to do away with childish things”???

Could that mean being irresponsible by closing a prison before you know what to do with the prisoners?

Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo
The president will soon realize that governing involves hard choices.
By JOHN YOO
During his first week as commander in chief, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA's special authority to interrogate terrorists.

While these actions will certainly please his base -- gone are the cries of an "imperial presidency" -- they will also seriously handicap our intelligence agencies from preventing future terrorist attacks. In issuing these executive orders, Mr. Obama is returning America to the failed law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11, 2001. He's also drying up the most valuable sources of intelligence on al Qaeda, which, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, has come largely out of the tough interrogation of high-level operatives during the early years of the war.

The question Mr. Obama should have asked right after the inaugural parade was: What will happen after we capture the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah? Instead, he took action without a meeting of his full national security staff, and without a legal review of all the policy options available to meet the threats facing our country.

What such a review would have made clear is that the civilian law-enforcement system cannot prevent terrorist attacks. What is needed are the tools to gain vital intelligence, which is why, under President George W. Bush, the CIA could hold and interrogate high-value al Qaeda leaders. On the advice of his intelligence advisers, the president could have authorized coercive interrogation methods like those used by Israel and Great Britain in their antiterrorism campaigns. (He could even authorize waterboarding, which he did three times in the years after 9/11.)

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Mr. Obama has also ordered that all military commission trials be stayed and that the case of Ali Saleh al-Marri, the only al Qaeda operative now held on U.S. soil, be reviewed. This seems a prelude to closing the military commissions down entirely and transferring the detainees' cases to U.S. civilian courts for prosecution under ordinary criminal law. Military commission trials have been used in most American wars, and their rules and procedures are designed around the need to protect intelligence sources and methods from revelation in open court.

It's also likely Mr. Obama will declare terrorists to be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration classified terrorists -- well supported by legal and historical precedent -- like pirates, illegal combatants who do not fight on behalf of a nation and refuse to obey the laws of war.

The CIA must now conduct interrogations according to the rules of the Army Field Manual, which prohibits coercive techniques, threats and promises, and the good-cop bad-cop routines used in police stations throughout America. Mr. Obama has also ordered that al Qaeda leaders are to be protected from "outrages on personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" in accord with the Geneva Conventions. His new order amounts to requiring -- on penalty of prosecution -- that CIA interrogators be polite. Coercive measures are unwisely banned with no exceptions, regardless of the danger confronting the country.

Eliminating the Bush system will mean that we will get no more information from captured al Qaeda terrorists. Every prisoner will have the right to a lawyer (which they will surely demand), the right to remain silent, and the right to a speedy trial.

The first thing any lawyer will do is tell his clients to shut up. The KSMs or Abu Zubaydahs of the future will respond to no verbal questioning or trickery -- which is precisely why the Bush administration felt compelled to use more coercive measures in the first place. Our soldiers and agents in the field will have to run more risks as they must secure physical evidence at the point of capture and maintain a chain of custody that will stand up to the standards of a civilian court.

Relying on the civilian justice system not only robs us of the most effective intelligence tool to avert future attacks, it provides an opportunity for our enemies to obtain intelligence on us. If terrorists are now to be treated as ordinary criminals, their defense lawyers will insist that the government produce in open court all U.S. intelligence on their client along with the methods used by the CIA and NSA to get it. A defendant's constitutional right to demand the government's files often forces prosecutors to offer plea bargains to spies rather than risk disclosure of intelligence secrets.

2009-01-28T06:28:00.001-08:00

year

event
The
Muslim
Question On January 24. 2007, the Obama campaign released the following statement, "To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

On March 14th, in a statement to The Times, the Obama campaign corrected that statement with this:

"Obama has never been a practicing Muslim. The statement added that as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center."

In two months the Obama Campaign has gone from describing the U.S. presidential hopeful as never having been a Muslim and never having been raised as a Muslim to now having never having been a practicing Muslim.

But Muslims do not see practice as key. Islam is patrilineal. For Muslims, that fact that Obama was born to a line of Muslim males makes him born a Muslim. Further, all children born with an Arabic name based on the H-S-N trilateral root (Hussein, Hassan, and others) can be assumed to be Muslim, so they will understand Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, to proclaim him a born Muslim.

Obama's father was a Muslim. Obama's grandfather was a Muslim. Obama's stepfather was a Muslim. Sarah, who Obama calls grandmother is a Muslim. Obama's half-brothers and sisters are Muslims. To Muslims, Obama IS a Muslim, no matter what he says.

Obama's sister Maya was quoted by the New York Times as saying, "My whole family was Muslim." I assume she considers Obama a member of her family. After all, she refers to him as "my brother."

For a time, Obama clearly lived and was educated as a Muslim. Only Obama knows what he is today.

Quranic
Studies

In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

During the time that he was in Indonesia, young Barry Soetoro, being a Muslim, would have been required to study Islam daily in school. He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam.

However, Obama received additional training. As the principal from 1971 through 1989 remembers, Obama had studied "mengaji."

Our guy in Jakarta writes: "The actual usage of the word 'mengaji' in Indonesian and Malaysian societies means the study of learning to recite the Quran in the Arabic language rather than the native tongue. "Mengagi" is a word and a term that is accorded the highest value and status in the mindset of fundamentalist societies here in Southeast Asia. To put it quite simply, 'mengaji classes' are not something that a non practicing or so-called moderate Muslim family would ever send their child to. To put this in a Christian context, this is something above and beyond simply enrolling your child in Sunday school classes."

"The fact that Obama had attended mengaji classes is well known in Indonesia and has left many there wondering just when Obama is going to come out of the closet."

"As I've stated before, the evidence seems to quite clearly show that both Ann Dunham and her husband Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo were in fact devout Muslims themselves and they raised their son as such."
The
Witnesses In "Dreams...," Obama himself recalls, "In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Koranic studies."

According to Tine Hahiyary, one of Obama's teachers and the principal from 1971 through 1989, Barry actively took part in the Islamic religious lessons during his time at the school. "I remembered that he had studied "mengaji" (recitation of the Quran)" Tine said.

Obama's classmate Rony Amiris describes young Barry as enjoying playing football and marbles and of being a very devout Muslim. Amir said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong he looked funny."

Another classmate, Emirsyah Satar, CEO of Garuda Indonesia, was quoted as saying, "He (Obama) was often in the prayer room wearing a 'sarong', at that time. He was quite religious in Islam but only after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion."

In an interview with the New York Times, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s younger half sister, told the Times, "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim."
The
Answer? On February 27th, 2007, Barack Hussein Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth."

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent."

The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada:

"Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet... "

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim's complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam.

Obama knows this from his Quranic studies -- and he knows the New York Times will publish this fact and it will be seen throughout the world.

Original New York Times source -- has been deleted by the New York Times -- HERE is the Kristof article on another site.
Muslim
Perception An American Expat in Southeast Asia blog, written by an American who has lived in Indonesia for 20 years and has met with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, contains the following:

"Barack Hussein Obama might have convinced some Americans that he is no longer a Muslim, but so far he has not convinced many in the world's most populous Muslim country who still see him as a Muslim and a crusader for Islam and world peace."

"Barack Hussein Obama's race, his staunch opposition to the war in Iraq, his sympathy to Islam and Muslims worldwide and his Muslim heritage receive the Indonesian media coverage. There is no mention of his apostasy."

"A good example of how some of the Indonesian media is reporting on Obama's religion can be found in the following."

"Ayah kandung Obama disebut-sebut seorang Muslim, dan Barack Obama juga disebutkan pernah memeluk Islam. Setalah tinggal di AS dan diasuh neneknya, Obama mengaku telah memeluk Kristen. Masalah agama apa yang sekarang dianut Obama, itu adalah prinsip dirinya yang harus dihormati siapapun. Dan hanya Obama sendiri yang tahu dan akan mempertanggungjawabkan di hadapan Tuhan yang diyakininya."

"begin my translation..."

"Obama's father was mentioned to be a Muslim and Barack Obama had embraced Islam. After living in the USA and being taken care of by his grandmother, Obama claimed to embrace Christianity. The problem with religion and what is now followed by Obama is a principal he himself must honor. And only Obama personally will account before God for his beliefs."

"What I found interesting in the article was the use of the word 'mengaku' when refering to Obama's conversion from Islam to Christianity. The word 'mengaku' in Indonesian means "claimed" and as such leaves the insinuation to the native Indonesian reader being that Obama might actually still be a Muslim.

But this is how Indonesians see Obama, they don't see him as an apostate at all, they see him as a crusader for the cause of Islam."

Apostasy

Obama became an Islamic apostate Muslim by his conversion and the question needs to be asked, was Obama's conversion faith-based or political expediency? In either case, Muslims view Obama as first a Muslim and then as an apostate Muslim. He could face the death penalty in nearly the entire Islamic world.

There is no dispute among either ancient or modern Muslim scholars that under Islamic law, a murtadd, "one who turns his back on Islam," an apostate, must be put to death. Irtidad, apostasy, is committing treason against God, and traitors deserve to be killed. At a minimum, other Muslims would shun him if not kill him and his mother. The fact that Obama is eagerly welcomed by the Muslim community begs many questions.

2009-01-28T06:21:00.001-08:00

Obama Tells Arabia's Despots They're Safe
America's diplomacy of freedom is officially over.
By FOUAD AJAMI
"To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," President Barack Obama said in his inaugural. But in truth, the new way forward is a return to realpolitik and business as usual in America's encounter with that Greater Middle East. As the president told Al-Arabiya television Monday, he wants a return to "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."
Associated Press/Al-Arabiya
Barack Obama is interviewed by Al-Arabiya television on Monday.
Say what you will about the style -- and practice -- of the Bush years, the autocracies were on notice for the first five or six years of George. W. Bush's presidency. America had toppled Taliban rule and the tyranny of Saddam Hussein; it had frightened the Libyan ruler that a similar fate lay in store for him. It was not sweet persuasion that drove Syria out of Lebanon in 2005. That dominion of plunder and terror was given up under duress.
True, Mr. Bush's diplomacy of freedom fizzled out in the last two years of his presidency, and the autocracies in the Greater Middle East came to a conviction that the storm had passed them by and that they had been spared. But we are still too close to this history to see how the demonstration effect works its way through Arab political culture.
The argument that liberty springs from within and can't be given to distant peoples is more flawed than meets the eye. In the sweep of modern history, the fortunes of liberty have been dependent on the will of the dominant power -- or powers -- in the order of states. The late Samuel P. Huntington made this point with telling detail. In 15 of the 29 democratic countries in 1970, democratic regimes were midwifed by foreign rule or had come into being right after independence from foreign occupation.
In the ebb and flow of liberty, power always mattered, and liberty needed the protection of great powers. The appeal of the pamphlets of Mill and Locke and Paine relied on the guns of Pax Britannica, and on the might of America when British power gave way. In this vein, the assertive diplomacy of George W. Bush had given heart to Muslims long in the grip of tyrannies.
Take that image of Saddam Hussein, flushed out of his spider hole some five years ago: Americans may have edited it out of their memory, but it shall endure for a long time in Arab consciousness. Rulers can be toppled and brought to account. No wonder the neighboring dictatorships bristled at the sight of that capture, and at his execution three years later.
The irony now is obvious: George W. Bush as a force for emancipation in Muslim lands, and Barack Hussein Obama as a messenger of the old, settled ways. Thus the "parochial" man takes abroad a message that Muslims and Arabs did not have tyranny in their DNA, and the man with Muslim and Kenyan and Indonesian fragments in his very life and identity is signaling an acceptance of the established order. Mr. Obama could still acknowledge the revolutionary impact of his predecessor's diplomacy, but so far he has chosen not to do so.
The brief reference to Iraq in the inaugural could not have been icier or more clipped. "We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people," Mr. Obama said. Granted, Iraq was not his cause, but a project that has taken so much American toil and sacrifice, that has laid the foundations of a binational (Arab and Kurdish) state in the very heart of an Arab world otherwise given to a despotic political tradition, surely could have elicited a word or two of praise. In his desire to be the "un-Bush," the new president fell back on an austere view of freedom's possibilities. The foreign world would be kept at an emotional and cultural distance. Even Afghanistan -- the good war that the new administration has accepted as its burden -- evoked no soaring poetry, just the promise of forging "a hard-earned peace." The nation had cast a vote for a new way, and had gotten the foreign policy of Brent Scowcroft.
Where Mr. Bush had seen the connection between the autocratic ways in Muslim lands and the culture of terror that infected the young foot soldiers of radicalism, Mr. Obama seems ready to split the difference with their rulers. His embrace of the "peace process" is a return to the sterile diplomacy of the Clinton years, with its belief that the terror is rooted in the grievances of the Palestinians. Mr. Obama and his advisers have refrained from asserting that terrorism has passed from the scene, but there is an unmistakable message conveyed by them that we can return to our own affairs, that Wall Street is more deadly and dangerous than that fabled "Arab-Muslim Street."
Thus far the political genius of Mr. Obama has been his intuitive feel for the mood of this country. He bet that the country was ready for his brand of postracial politics, and he was vindicated. More timid souls counseled that he should wait and bide his time, but the electorate responded to him. I suspect that he is on the mark in his reading of America's fatigue and disillusionment with foreign causes and foreign places. That is why Osama bin Laden's recent call for a "financial jihad" against America seemed so beside the point; the work of destruction has been done by our own investment wizards and politicians.
But foreign challengers and rogue regimes are under no obligation to accommodate our mood and our needs. They are not hanging onto news of our financial crisis, they are not mesmerized by the fluctuations of the Dow. I know it is a cliché, but sooner or later, we shall be hearing from them. They will strip us of our illusions and our (new) parochialism.
A dispatch from the Arabian Peninsula bears this out. It was learned, right in the midst of the news cycle announcing that Mr. Obama has ordered that Guantanamo be shut down in a year's time, that a Saudi by the name of Said Ali al-Shihri -- who had been released from that prison in 2007 to his homeland -- had made his way to Yemen and had risen in the terror world of that anarchic country. It had been a brief stop in Saudi Arabia for Guantanamo detainee No. 372: He had gone through a "rehabilitation" program there, then slipped across the border to Yemen, where he may have been involved in a terror attack on the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital in September of last year.
This war was never a unilateral American war to be called off by an American calendar. The enemy, too, has a vote in how this struggle between American power and radical Islamism plays out in the years to come.
In another time, the fabled era of Bill Clinton's peace and prosperity, we were mesmerized by the Nasdaq. In the watering hole of Davos, in the heights of the Alps, gurus confident of a new age of commerce pronounced the end of ideology and politics. But in the forbidding mountains of the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, a breed of jihadists that paid no heed to that mood of economic triumphalism was plotting for us an entirely different future.
Here we are again, this time led by our economic distress, demanding that the world abide by our own reading of historical challenges. We have not discovered that "sweet spot" where our economic fortunes intersect with the demands and challenges of an uncertain world.
Mr. Ajami is professor of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. He is also an adjunct research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

2009-01-23T05:12:00.000-08:00

President Obama orders closure of Guantánamo
Extraordinary rendition of suspects is also to be reviewed as he restores 'values and ideals' to the war with terrorists
Bush's 'War' On Terror Comes to a Sudden End
President Obama eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on terror," as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless

The Current CIA Director doesn’t believe that the Army Field Manual should be the guiding rule-book for the US handling of terrorists, even though that is now the regulation handed down by Pres Obama
Freed by U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief
The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.
His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.
“They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. “He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear.”
The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees. But it also helps explain why the new administration wants to move cautiously, taking time to work out a plan to cope with the complications.
Almost half the camp’s remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — partly financed by the United States — similar to the Saudi one. Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.
“The lesson here is, whoever receives former Guantánamo detainees needs to keep a close eye on them,” the American official said.
Although the Pentagon has said that dozens of released Guantánamo detainees have “returned to the fight,” its claim is difficult to document, and has been met with skepticism. In any case, few of the former detainees, if any, are thought to have become leaders of a major terrorist organization like Al Qaeda in Yemen, a mostly homegrown group that experts say has been reinforced by foreign fighters.
Long considered a haven for jihadists, Yemen, a desperately poor country in the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, has witnessed a rising number of attacks over the past year. American officials say they suspect that Mr. Shihri may have been involved in the car bombings outside the American Embassy in Sana last September that killed 16 people, including six attackers.
• In the Internet statement, Al Qaeda in Yemen identified its new deputy leader as Abu Sayyaf al-Shihri, saying he returned from Guantánamo to his native Saudi Arabia and then traveled to Yemen “more than 10 months ago.” That corresponds roughly to the return of. Shihri, a Saudi who was released from Guantánamo in November 2007. Abu Sayyaf is a nom de guerre, commonly used by jihadists in place of their real name or first name.
• A Saudi security official said Shihri had disappeared from his home in Saudi Arabia last year after finishing the rehabilitation program

2009-01-23T05:11:00.000-08:00

The Jack Bauer Exception
Obama's executive order wants it both ways on interrogation.
Most politicians would rather do anything than make a difficult choice, and it seems President Obama hasn't abandoned this Senatorial habit. To wit, yesterday's executive order on interrogation: It imposes broad limits on how aggressively U.S. intelligence officers can question terrorists, but it also keeps open the prospect of legal loopholes that would allow them to press harder in tough cases.

While that kind of double standard may resolve a domestic political problem, it's no way to fight a war. The human-rights lobby and many Democrats are still experiencing hypochondria about the Bush Administration's supposed torture program, and their cheering about this "clean break" means they may be appeased. But the larger risk is that Mr. Obama's restrictions end up disabling an essential tool in the U.S. antiterror arsenal.

Effective immediately, the interrogation of anyone "in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government" will be conducted within the limits of the Army Field Manual. That includes special-ops and the Central Intelligence Agency, which will now be required to give prisoners gentler treatment than common criminals. The Field Manual's confines don't even allow the average good cop/bad cop routines common in most police precincts.

The Army Field Manual is already the operating guide for military interrogations. The crux of the "torture" debate has been that the Bush Administration permitted more coercive techniques in rare cases -- fewer than 100 detainees, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden. Yesterday Mr. Obama revoked the 2007 Presidential carve-out that protected this CIA flexibility.

The techniques that had been permissible until yesterday remain classified but were widely believed to include such things as stress positions, exposure to cold and sleep deprivation. Senior officials have said they stopped waterboarding in 2003 -- which in any case was only used against three senior al Qaeda operatives and succeeded in breaking these men to divulge information that foiled terror plots.

The unfine print of Mr. Obama's order is that he's allowed room for what might be called a Jack Bauer exception. It creates a committee to study whether the Field Manual techniques are too limiting "when employed by departments or agencies outside the military." The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer "additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies."

In other words, Mr. Obama's Inaugural line that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" was itself misrepresenting the choices his predecessor was forced to make. At least President Bush was candid about the practical realities of preventing mass casualties in the U.S.

The "special task force" may well grant the CIA more legal freedom to squeeze information out of terrorists when it could keep the country safe. An anecdote former Clinton counterterror czar Richard Clarke recounts in his memoir "Against All Enemies" is instructive. In 1993, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler was horrified by Mr. Clarke's proposal for "extraordinary rendition," where our spooks turn over prisoners to foreign countries like Egypt so they can do the interrogating.

While Mr. Clinton was still chewing his fingernails and seemed to side with Mr. Cutler, Al Gore arrived late to the meeting. "Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides," Mr. Clarke writes. "Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"

The wider danger Mr. Obama is inviting by claiming to draw a line while drawing no line at all is the message it sends to Langley. CIA interrogators are already buying legal insurance in the expectation that a Senator like Carl Levin or some prosecutor-on-the-make rings them up for war crimes. The executive order is bound to produce a more risk-averse CIA culture and over time less intelligence-gathering. No one may be willing to be Jack Bauer when Mr. Obama really needs him. This will have consequences for U.S. safety, and for the Obama Administration if there is another 9/11.

2009-01-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, it appears Conservatives are the real “Progressives”[1]

Over the past several years, studies have consistently shown that people on the political right outperform those on the left when it comes to charity. This pattern appears to have held -- increased, even -- in 2008.

In May of last year, the Gallup polling organization asked 1,200 American adults about their giving patterns. People who called themselves "conservative" or "very conservative" made up 42% of the population surveyed, but gave 56% of the total charitable donations. In contrast, "liberal" or "very liberal" respondents were 29% of those polled but gave just 7% of donations.

These disparities were not due to differences in income. People who said they were "very conservative" gave 4.5% of their income to charity, on average; "conservatives" gave 3.6%; "moderates" gave 3%; "liberals" gave 1.5%; and "very liberal" folks gave 1.2%.

A common explanation for this pattern is that conservatives are more religious than liberals, and are simply giving to their churches. My own research in the past showed that religion was a major reason conservatives donated so much, and that secular conservatives gave even less than secular liberals.

It appears this is no longer the case, however: The 2008 data tell us that secular conservatives are now outperforming their secular liberal counterparts. Compare two people who attend religious services less than once per year (or never) and who are also identical in terms of income, education, sex, age and family status -- but one is on the political right while the other is on the left. The secular liberal will give, on average, $1,100 less to charity per year than the secular conservative. The conservative charity edge cannot be explained away by gifts to churches.

Perhaps you suspect that the vast political contributions given to the Obama campaign -- $742 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, versus $367 million for the McCain campaign -- were crowding out charitable giving by the left. But political donations, impressive as they were this year by historical standards, were still miniscule compared to the approximately $300 billion Americans gave charitably in 2008. Adding political and charitable gifts together would not change the overall giving patterns.

But here's where the charity gap really starts to make a difference for the recession of 2009: Conservatives don't just give more; they also decrease their giving less than liberals do in response to lousy economic conditions.

Economists measure the "income elasticity of giving" to predict how much people change their giving in response to a particular percentage change in their income. It turns out the response in 2008 was dramatically different for left and right. For instance, a 10% decrease in family income for a conservative was associated with a 10% decrease in giving. The same income decrease for a liberal family led to a 16% giving drop. In other words, if this relationship continues to hold, the recession will almost certainly exacerbate the giving differences between left and right.

All this is good news for the health and survival of explicitly conservative organizations, of course. But folks on the political right give to all types of nonprofits -- from soup kitchens to symphony orchestras -- not just conservative groups.

Ironically, few environments are less tolerant of conservatives and their ideas than the nonprofit world. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported in October of 2008 that employees of major charities favored Democrats over Republicans in their private political contributions by a margin of 82% to 18%. Among the employees of major foundations, the difference was an astounding 98% to 2%.

Reasonable people can disagree on politics, but the numbers on giving speak for themselves. Nonprofit executives, disproportionately politically progressive, do well to remember that many of the folks they will count on in hard times are not necessarily those who share their political views. Understanding this might make for better fund raising in a scary year -- and help us all to give credit where it is due.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] As you know I always like to explicitly define key terms in any debate so we can all agree on what we are talking about. With this in mind, the term “Progressives” is defined by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © 2006 as:

n. “A person who actively favors or strives for progress toward better conditions, as in society or government.”

2009-01-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

Bush's Real Sin Was Winning in Iraq

In a few hours, George W. Bush will walk out of the Oval Office for the last time as president. As he leaves, he carries with him the near-universal opprobrium of the permanent class that inhabits our nation's capital. Yet perhaps the most important reason for this unpopularity is the one least commented on.

Here's a hint: It's not because of his failures. To the contrary, Mr. Bush's disfavor in Washington owes more to his greatest success. Simply put, there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.

Here in the afterglow of the turnaround led by Gen. David Petraeus, it's easy to forget what the smart set was saying two years ago -- and how categorical they all were in their certainty. The president was a simpleton, it was agreed. Didn't he know that Iraq was a civil war, and the only answer was to get out as fast as we could?

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- the man who will be sworn in as vice president today -- didn't limit himself to his own opinion. Days before the president announced the surge, Joe Biden suggested to the Washington Post he knew the president's people had also concluded the war was lost. They were, he said, just trying to "keep it from totally collapsing" until they could "hand it off to the next guy."

For his part, on the night Mr. Bush announced the surge, Barack Obama said he was "not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Three months after that, before the surge had even started, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pronounced the war in Iraq "lost." These and similar comments, moreover, were amplified by a media echo chamber even more absolute in its sense of hopelessness about Iraq and its contempt for the president.

For many of these critics, the template for understanding Iraq was Vietnam -- especially after things started to get tough. In terms of the wars themselves, of course, there is almost no parallel between Vietnam and Iraq: The enemies are different, the fighting on the ground is different, the involvement of other powers is different, and so on.

Still, the operating metaphor of Vietnam has never been military. For the most part, it is political. And in this realm, we saw history repeat itself: a failure of nerve among the same class that endorsed the original action.

As with Vietnam, with Iraq the failure of nerve was most clear in Congress. For example, of the five active Democratic senators who sought the nomination, four voted in favor of the Iraqi intervention before discovering their antiwar selves.

As in Vietnam too, rather than finding their judgment questioned, those who flip-flopped on the war were held up as voices of reason. In a memorable editorial advocating a pullout, the New York Times gave voice to the chilling possibilities that this new realism was willing to accept in the name of bringing our soldiers home.

"Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave," read the editorial. "There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide." Even genocide. With no hint of irony, the Times nevertheless went on to conclude that it would be even worse if we stayed.

This is Vietnam thinking. And the president never accepted it. That was why his critics went ape when, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he touched on the killing fields and exodus of boat people that followed America's humiliating exit off an embassy rooftop. As the Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti noted, Mr. Bush had appropriated one of their most cherished analogies -- only he drew very different lessons from it.

Mr. Bush's success in Iraq is equally infuriating, because it showed he was right and they wrong. Many in Washington have not yet admitted that, even to themselves. Mr. Obama has. We know he has because he has elected to keep Mr. Bush's secretary of defense -- not something you do with a failure.

Mr. Obama seems aware that, at the end of the day, he will not be judged by his predecessor's approval ratings. Instead, he will soon find himself under pressure to measure up to two Bush achievements: a strategic victory in Iraq, and the prevention of another attack on America's home soil. As he rises to this challenge, our new president will learn that when you make a mistake, the keepers of the Beltway's received orthodoxies will make you pay dearly.

But it will not even be close to the price you pay for ignoring their advice and succeeding.

2009-01-13T06:08:00.000-08:00

The Clinton Business
Bill out-negotiated Barack on financial disclosure.
These columns have long believed that a President deserves the cabinet members he wants, barring some major dereliction. So if Barack Obama wants to make Hillary and Bill Clinton part of his governing team, that's his business. We can only hope he understands the Clinton family business he's taking on.

Take Mr. Clinton's post-Presidential fund-raising, the scope of which he finally disclosed in late December after years of refusing and under pressure from the Obama transition. Amid the holidays and economic news, this window on the Clinton political method has received less attention than it deserves. Here is the spectacle of a former President circling the globe to raise at least $492 million over 10 years for his foundation -- much of it from assorted rogues, dictators and favor-seekers. We are supposed to believe that none of this -- and none of his future fund-raising -- will have any influence on Mrs. Clinton's conduct as Secretary of State.
The silence over this is itself remarkable. When Henry Kissinger was invited merely to co-chair the 9/11 Commission, the political left went bonkers about his foreign clients. In this case we have a Secretary of State nominee whose husband may have raised more than $60 million from various Middle East grandees, and Washington reacts with a yawn. Maybe someone will even ask about it at her nomination hearing today.
A Senator should ask, because this has the potential to complicate life for the new President. All the more so because under terms of his agreement with Mr. Obama, Mr. Clinton will be able to keep raising foreign cash as long as the donors send the checks to a Clinton entity other than the "Clinton Global Initiative." Instead of being immediately disclosed, future donations will only be made public once a year and the exact amounts and dates of previous donations will never be made public.
While Mr. Clinton will submit some donations from foreign governments to Administration scrutiny, he need only do so if the donations are new or are of a significantly larger magnitude from a previous donation. In other words, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman can keep giving millions without U.S. government review even while Mrs. Clinton is America's chief diplomat. These disclosure limitations suggest that the Clintons seriously out-negotiated Team Obama. We hope the President-elect does better with Iran.
As for potential embarrassment, consider the "up to $5 million" in donations to the Clinton foundation from Gilbert Chagoury, known for his ties to Nigeria's former military dictator, General Sani Abacha. The Journal's John Emshwiller recently noted that unfortunately for Mr. Chagoury, after Abacha died in 1998, "Swiss and other European authorities froze a number of bank accounts, including some related to Mr. Chagoury, as part of an investigation by the Nigerian government and others about whether billions of dollars had been improperly taken out of the country during the Abacha regime, according to news reports and a 2001 British court decision in Abacha-related litigation. Mr. Chagoury later agreed to return funds, estimated to be as much as $300 million, to the Nigerian government in exchange for indemnity from possible charges and to unfreeze his accounts, according to the British court decision."
Another notable donor -- also up to $5 million -- is Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of former Ukraine president Leonid Kuchma. Mr. Pinchuk was mentioned in a 2005 Journal story headlined, "Haunted By Suspect Deals Of Old Regime." Suspect indeed. The "privatization" of the country's largest steel plant in a sale to a group including Mr. Pinchuk was later overturned after the country held a democratic election.
And only this month, the New York Times reported that New York developer Robert Congel gave $100,000 to the Clinton foundation in November, 2004, one month after the enactment of a law that gave Mr. Congel access to tax-exempt "green bonds" to build a shopping mall in Syracuse. Mrs. Clinton had supported the law, and within a year of the donation she secured $5 million in taxpayer funds for the complex.
It'd be nice to think Mr. Clinton would forswear this money-hustle while his wife is Secretary of State, but that self-sacrifice would belie his entire career. As for Mrs. Clinton, note the scrutiny that Eric Holder, Mr. Obama's Attorney General nominee, is coming under for his role in aiding pardons for 16 unrepentant Puerto Rican terrorists in 1999. But keep in mind the timing of those pardons was intended to help Mrs. Clinton win Puerto Rican support in her 2000 Senate campaign. Someone should ask her at today's hearing about the role she played in that pardon.
In signing up the Clintons -- always two for the price of one -- Mr. Obama is no doubt hoping to unite his party and mute Democratic criticism when mistakes happen. He is also hiring someone whose prominence and allies make her impossible to fire, even as she and her husband have a history of cutting ethical corners. Good luck.

2009-01-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

Waiting for Dodd
Where are those Countrywide papers?
With the opening of the 111th Congress yesterday, all of Washington is tingling with the allure of a fresh start. Not so fast. We've got some leftover business from the 110th Congress -- namely, Chris Dodd's July 2008 promise to release the details of his sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial.
AP
The Connecticut Senator got favored treatment from the subprime mortgage purveyor, even as he was a power broker on the Banking Committee that regulates the industry. When the news broke, the Senator first denied that he sought or expected preferential treatment. He later admitted that he knew he was considered a VIP at the firm but claimed he thought it was "more of a courtesy." He also promised the Connecticut press that he'd come clean with the documents and details of the loans. But six months later -- nada, zip, nothing.
The rest of the press corps may have moved on, but we'd still like to know. All the more so because former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg told us last fall that Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program for the influential. Mr. Feinberg also reported that he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO, and Mr. Feinberg has offered to provide those documents to investigators.
Dodd Bedfellows
• Dodd and Countrywide 10/10/2008 – The Senator should take the witness stand.
• Mortgage VIPs 06/25/2008 – Sweetheart deals are just a phone call away.
• Angelo's Angel 06/19/2008 – The senate bailout for Countrywide needs more scrutiny.
• Congress and the Countrywide Scandal 06/18/2008 – Some senators want a bailout for big political donors. What a surprise.
• Beltwaywide Financial 06/16/2008 – The new ARMs: Angelo-rated mortgages for senators.
Just before Mr. Dodd made his promise, Bank of America closed its acquisition of Countrywide and Mr. Dodd has continued to oversee BofA and the rest of the mortgage industry as Chairman of Senate Banking. He will now play a lead role in drafting legislation affecting the very business that gave him preferential treatment, yet he still refuses to release the mortgage documents that would illuminate this treatment. As the Senate Ethics Committee examines this case, Mr. Dodd's office reports that he is cooperating with the investigation and that he still intends to make good on his six-month-old pledge. But nothing in the Senate ethics process prevents Mr. Dodd from coming clean with the public whenever he wishes.
We suspect there's at least one habit of the 110th Congress that won't change in the 111th: The Members think they can get away with anything -- and usually do.

2008-12-29T05:38:00.001-08:00

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].”

2008-12-26T07:36:00.001-08:00

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.

2008-12-24T03:25:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

‘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

2008-12-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-12T05:40:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-12T05:27:00.000-08:00

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:

2008-12-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-04T05:22:00.001-08:00

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.

2008-12-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

What Do We Really Know About the Uninsured?
We should find out before Obama turns our health care upside-down.
Next year, when Barack Obama becomes president, he will almost certainly move quickly toward some form of government-provided -- and possibly government-mandated -- health insurance. A principal reason for this is the oft-cited figure of 46 million uninsured Americans.

But what does this number mean? And do we really need to remake our entire health-care system to protect the uninsured? Most people have an incomplete understanding of the uninsured population, which can lead to bad policy choices.

Many Americans believe that the uninsured are too poor to purchase coverage and that government programs aren't available to them. But a study published in Health Affairs in November 2006 estimated that 25% of the uninsured were in fact eligible for public coverage, and another 20% probably could afford coverage on their own. If we apply those percentages to today's uninsured population, roughly 25 million people would need assistance in order to get health insurance.

That's a major concern. But the notion that there are 46 million Americans who can't get the health care they need for lack of money or public assistance is a myth.

The other two common misperceptions are that the uninsured don't get health care, and that when they do they're "free riders," i.e., they don't pay for the care they get.

A study published by the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) in April 2000 found that, of the uninsured California residents whose household income was at least twice the poverty level, 50% (about 1.3 million) had received care in the last year for which they were charged, and another 8% had received care for which they weren't charged. The study also found that 89% of these people were either somewhat or very satisfied with the care they received, and that only 15% went to the emergency room versus a doctor's office or clinic when they got sick.

Another recent study, published in Health Affairs in August, had similar findings, and estimated that uninsured Americans will receive $86 billion worth of health care in 2008.

These two studies also provide evidence that disputes the free-rider myth. The CHCF study found that of the 1.3 million uninsured who received care for which they were charged, 80% had paid for it, and almost half of the remaining 20% were paying in installments. The study published in Health Affairs estimated that the uninsured would pay for $30 billion of their health-care costs this year -- more than one-third -- out of pocket.

For the millions of the uninsured, then, who are getting and paying for satisfactory care on their own, foregoing needed care and sticking the public with huge ER bills is a myth.
Most of the proposals under discussion today involve a significant expansion of government programs, a legal requirement for everyone to carry insurance, or a combination of the two. But if millions of people have found ways to access and pay for satisfactory health care without involving an insurance company, is forcing them to buy traditional insurance an effective solution?

Perhaps we should look for ways to encourage the millions of people who are currently eligible for existing government programs to enroll before we expand programs to include people that may not need assistance.

Providing and funding care for those who have truly fallen through the cracks should be an urgent priority. But given the demands on state and federal budgets today, it's more important than ever to tailor solutions so limited resources can provide the most relief possible.

Come Jan. 20, President Obama and Congress should do all they can to separate myth from fact before tackling America's health-care problems.

2008-11-19T03:21:00.000-08:00

The More Things "Change" the More They Stay the Same....

Hillary Clinton: Sec of State

Rahm Emanuel: Clinton advisor

Eric Holder: Clinton Deputy Attny General

Holder Top Prospect for Attorney General

Rich, of course, was the commodities trader who fled the country in 1983 to escape prosecution for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy. Rich’s attorneys circumvented normal procedures, took the pardon to the White House attorneys, and gained pardon for their client, whose wife just happened to be a friend and major donor to the Clinton library, the Democratic Party, and Clinton’s legal defense fund. A firestorm ensued as did congressional investigations in which Democrats as well as Republicans excoriated the Clintons’ conduct. The federal prosecutors who indicted Rich are especially livid, particularly because, by definition, Rich appears to be ineligible for a pardon: He never took responsibility for his actions or served any sentence. The congressional panels were called to investigate the path to Rich’s pardon — which, as various documents seem to indicate, did not follow usual channels. In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. pardon attorney Roger Adams says when the White House sent over Rich’s name for pardon consideration — only a few hours before the president was due to leave office — there was never any mention of Rich being a fugitive.

Holder’s role is not in dispute. Without him this travesty would likely not have occurred, as described:

Mr. Holder, the [Congressional] report says, played a major role, steering Mr. Rich’s lawyers toward Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel. Mr. Rich hired Mr. Quinn, whose Washington contacts and ability to lobby the president made the difference, according to the report. It says that Mr. Holder’s support for the pardon and his failure to alert prosecutors of a pending pardon were just as crucial. …

The panel criticized Mr. Holder’s conduct as unconscionable and cited several problems. It cited his admission last year that he had hoped Mr. Quinn would support his becoming attorney general in a Gore administration.-from , March 13, 2002

No less than Maureen Dowd remarked that on this one the Clintons:

perverted the legal system and may have traded a constitutional power for personal benefit. … The Clintons ran a cash-and-carry White House. They were either hawking stuff or carting it off.

So to be clear, Holder helped steer the attorney for Rich, a fugitive whose pardon request would likely have been rejected through normal channels due to his status as a fugitive, to the man Holder wanted assistance with in getting his next job. Now there’s a man who knows something about conflicts of interest.

Eric H. Holder Jr., a former second in command at the Justice Department who served as President-elect Barack Obama's campaign co-chairman, is almost certain to be selected as U.S. attorney general, according to knowledgeable Democratic sources.

Holder recommended to Bill Clinton when he served as Pres Clinton’s Dep. Attny General that he should pardon fugitive Marc Rich. Rich was a fugitive from justice in Switzerland at the time and his Rich’s wife promised millions of dollars for Clinton’s library as well.

2008-11-13T06:47:00.000-08:00

This is how dangerous this situation can get....
In an WSJ Op-Ed, titled
"How to Put the Squeeze on Iran", WSJ 11/13/08
Cutting off its gasoline imports may be the only peaceful (my emphasis) way to get Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.- ORDE F. KITTRIE, professor of law at Arizona State University and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously worked for 11 years at the U.S. Department of State, including as a specialist on nuclear nonproliferation and sanctions.
----The writer should know that embargoes - esp. on fuel, are -far from being "peaceful", but rather are considered to be an act of war. In the 1930s the US initiated an embargo on fuel to Japan which led Japan to plan for Pearl Harbor....

2008-11-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

A Barack Market
The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren't. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting similar skids. The Dow fell another 4.7% yesterday.
The substance of what Mr. Obama has promised for the economy is bearish for stocks. The threat of higher tax rates, especially on capital gains and dividends, now may be getting priced into the market….in other words with Obama planning on hiking the capital gains tax, investors are selling before the end of this year when higher rates will take effect.
Add that to investor doubts about Democratic policies on unions, health care and trade -- and no wonder stocks are falling. Lower stock prices in turn reduce household net worth, thus slamming consumer confidence and contributing to what appears to be a consumer spending strike.

2008-11-12T05:24:00.001-08:00

Mandate? What mandate?

Did you know that Barack Obama got 40,000 fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry did 4yrs earlier?...Obama won the state only because Ohio Republicans didn't show up at the polls - only 30%, a record low, of registered Republicans voted in Ohio.

---Overall, about the same percentage of registered voters came out this year as in 2004

2008-11-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

Nancy Pelosi Shows Her Intelligence (lack thereof)

Remember when Treasury Secretary Paulson famously,following his meeting with House Speaker Pelosi for the first time said "she is the dumbest person I have ever met"....well,

Pelosi recently claimed to support the expanded use of natural gas "as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels".

Natural gas is, of course, a fossil fuel.
Her spokesman was forced to employ a variant of the "she's not stupid" defense, the "she knew that all along " defense.

Here's another,
She opposed a bill to ban federal funding for seizures of property by eminent domain. Pelosi said she opposed the bill because she didn't want to cut funding "for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court". But the court, in its Kelo decision, had merely ruled that governments could legally take properties by eminent domain. It didn't rule that such takings must be funded.

You probably haven't heard of these Pelosi "gaffes”,”errors" , "signs of intelligence", etc. only because her last name isn't "Palin" but then again she is third in line to the presidency!

2008-11-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

A SIGN OF WHAT IS TO COME....CONSIDER YOURSELF FOREWARNED!

For those that may have been hoodwinked into thinking the next US govt won’t be the most liberal ever consider what personnel changes are being made just days after the election….

John Dingell and Joe Lieberman are loyal Democrats. Dingell is holding down the party's right flank on energy, and Mr. Lieberman in foreign affairs. Now they're targets, and the retribution speaks volumes about the direction of liberal politics. California Democrat Henry Waxman kicked things off the morning after Barack Obama's victory, with an announcement that he will seek the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. The post is currently held by Mr. Dingell, the bulldog Michigander who next year will become the longest-serving Member in U.S. history. In Congressional physics, seniority is gravity, which alone makes Mr. Waxman's challenge extraordinary.
It is even more so because it is a coup d'etat against a climate-change moderate. For environmentalists, Mr. Dingell is a wet blanket because his committee will write any global-warming legislation. The word on the Hill is that Mr. Waxman enjoys the tacit support of übergreen Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who dislikes Dingell's independence. In media shorthand, Dingell's approach to climate change is called "industry friendly." Apparently, this is because his principles include words like "realistic" and "achievable" and "cost containment." An ally of the Detroit auto makers, he does not pretend that putting a price on carbon will be painless and fun. He also knows that well-to-do redoubts such as Mr. Waxman's Beverly Hills won't bear the heaviest burden. It will fall instead on blue-collar, middle-American regions that rely on manufacturing or coal-fired power
Even so, Mr. Dingell's committee has held nearly 30 hearings on climate change since his party took power. In October, he released a cap-and-trade bill that aims to reduce emissions to 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. Incredibly enough, even that huge cut counts as a liberal heresy. The greens demand 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a meaningless distinction considering that four decades is a political and technological eternity.
Then again, compared to Mr. Waxman, just about anyone could be mistaken for an Exxon executive. The Congressman has spent the last year trying to dragoon the Environmental Protection Agency into imposing an economy-wide carbon clampdown under current clean-air laws, an idea Mr. Obama also backs. But Mr. Dingell dares to point out that these laws -- passed in 1970, 1977 and 1990 -- were never written to include CO2. He should know. He wrote them.
The point is not only to humiliate a nuisance. Installing Mr. Waxman at Energy and Commerce would mean a far more aggressive push on global warming next year. It would also send a warning to the Blue Dogs and rural-state Democrats who might not fall in with the Obama-Pelosi energy agenda.

2008-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Black Pope could follow Barack Obama's election, says US archbishop

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American US President could pave the way for the election of the first black Pope, according to a leading black American Catholic.

Wilton Daniel Gregory, 60, the Archbishop of Atlanta, said that in the past Pope Benedict XVI had himself suggested that the election of a black pontiff would "send a splendid signal to the world" about the universal Church.

Archbishop Gregory, who in 2001 became the first African American to head the US Bishops Conference, serving for three years, said that the election of Obama was "a great step forward for humanity and a sign that in the United States the problem of racial discrimination has been overcome". Like Mr Obama Archbishop Gregory comes from Chicago, and was previously Bishop of Belleville, Illinois.

He said that recent Popes, beginning with John XXIII and Paul VI, had brought prelates "from all nations and races" to Rome to take up senior positions in the Curia, the Vatican hierarchy. This offered "an international vision of a Church rich in diversity", he told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Pope Benedict — whose next encyclical is on globalisation and social justice — had a "world outlook" as a theologian whose thought had "opened hearts and minds on five continents", Archbishop Gregory said. The former Joseph Ratzinger, who as a young man in his native Germany had witnessed "the horrors of the Second World War", spoke a "universal language".

Archbishop Gregory said that the next time cardinals gathered to elect a Pope they could "in their wisdom" choose an African pontiff. "My own election as head of the US Bishops Conference was an important signal. In 2001 the American bishops elected someone they respected regardless of his race, and the same thing could happen with the election of a Pope."

He said that in a papal conclave, the cardinal-electors were "guided by the Holy Spirit to choose the person who best responds to the exigences of the moment". At the last conclave in 2005, after the death of John Paul II, it was widely thought that the cardinals would choose a Third World pontiff, perhaps from Africa or Latin America.

The choice of Cardinal Ratzinger, who had been at John Paul II's side for over twenty years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was seen by many as a vote for a man who embodied continuity and had stressed the need to shore up the faith in the West itself in an age of secularism and materialism.

This week Pope Benedict XVI congratulated Mr Obama on his "historic" victory, offering his prayers for the President-elect "and for all the people of the United States".

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that the Pope's message was "personal" and would therefore not be published. However he said that the papal message referred to the "historic occasion" of the election and congratulated Mr Obama, his wife and family.

"He assured him of his prayers that God would help him with his high responsibilities for his country and for the international community," Father Lombardi said. The Pope had also prayed that "the blessing of God would sustain him and the American people so that with all people of good will they could build a world of peace, solidarity and justice." The message was sent via Mary Ann Glendon, the US ambassador to the Holy See.

How on earth can Archbishop Gregory say it is "a great step forward for humanity" to elect a man (of any color) with a 100% pro-abortion record, who voted against assistance for unborn children who survive abortions, and who seeks to repeal every state and federal restriction on abortion?
Not to mention Obama saying that if his daughters got pregnant that he wouldn't want them be "punished for their mistake" ...some people believe creating life is gift from God and has nothing to do with "punishment" ...

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”-Obama @ Obama’s town hall meeting in Johnstown, Penn. March 2008

Not to mention the fact that there have technically already been three African Popes... Pope Victor I, Pope Miltiades, and Pope Gelasius I. Aside from this, I' m not sure one can really make the argument that the Universal Church is taking its cues on ethic diversity from the United States.

2008-11-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

What is your tax benefit that you will be getting from President Obama?
Go to this webpage and see if you’ll benefit from Obama’s tax cuts for “95% of all workers”…promised tax rates “less than they were under Ronald Reagan”. The exit polls showed that among the 70% of voters who believe their taxes will go up under Obama, 55% voted for McCain. Democrats raise taxes in a recession at their peril.
I suspect that this link on Obama’s homepage will be taken down as soon as reality sets in just like Biden’s link on his webpage which pushed for splitting Iraq into 4 different regions as soon as Iraq situation started to get better.

What Obama promises “me’:

2008-10-30T05:29:00.001-07:00

An Acorn Whistleblower Testifies in Court
The group's ties to Obama are extensive.

Acorn, the liberal "community organizing" group that claims it will deploy 15,000 get-out-the-vote workers on Election Day, can't stay out of the news.

The FBI is investigating its voter registration efforts in several states, amid allegations that almost a third of the 1.3 million cards it turned in are invalid. And yesterday, a former employee of Acorn testified in a Pennsylvania state court that the group's quality-control efforts were "minimal or nonexistent" and largely window dressing. Anita MonCrief also says that Acorn was given lists of potential donors by several Democratic presidential campaigns, including that of Barack Obama, to troll for contributions.

The Obama campaign denies it "has any ties" to Acorn, but Mr. Obama's ties are extensive. In 1992 he headed a registration effort for Project Vote, an Acorn partner at the time. He did so well that he was made a top trainer for Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he represented Acorn in a key case upholding the constitutionality of the new Motor Voter Act -- the first law passed by the Clinton administration -- which created the mandated, nationwide postcard voter registration system that Acorn workers are using to flood election offices with bogus registrations.

Ms. MonCrief testified that in November 2007 Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette told her she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists. Ms. MonCrief also testified she was given a spreadsheet to use in cultivating Obama donors who had maxed out on donations to the candidate, but who could contribute to voter registration efforts. Project Vote calls the allegation "absolutely false."

She says that when she had trouble with what appeared to be duplicate names on the list, Ms. Gillette told her she would talk with the Obama campaign and get a better version. Ms. MonCrief has given me copies of the donor lists she says were obtained from other Democratic campaigns, as well as the 2004 DNC donor lists.

In her testimony, Ms. MonCrief says she was upset by Acorn's "Muscle for Money" program, which she said intimidated businesses Acorn opposed into paying "protection" money in the form of grants. Acorn's Brian Kettering says the group only wants to change corporate behavior: "Acorn is proud of its corporate campaigns to stop abuses of working families."

Ms. MonCrief, 29, never expected to testify in a case brought by the state's Republican Party seeking the local Acorn affiliate's voter registration lists. An idealistic graduate of the University of Alabama, she joined Project Vote in 2005 because she thought it was empowering poor people. A strategic consultant for Acorn and a development associate with its Project Vote voter registration affiliate, Ms. MonCrief sat in on policy-making meetings with the national staff. She was fired early this year over personal expenses she had put on the group's credit card.

She says she became disillusioned because she saw that Acorn was run as the personal fiefdom of Wade Rathke, who founded the group in 1970 and ran it until he stepped down to take over its international operations this summer. Mr. Rathke's departure as head of Acorn came after revelations he'd employed his brother Dale for a decade while keeping from almost all of Acorn's board members the fact that Dale had embezzled over $1 million from the group a decade ago. (The embezzlement was confirmed to me by an Acorn official.)

"Anyone who questioned what was going on was viewed as the enemy," Ms. MonCrief told me. "Just like the mob, no one leaves Acorn happily." She believes the organization does some good but hopes its current leadership is replaced. She may not be alone.

Last August two of Acorn's eight dissident board members, Marcel Reed and Karen Inman, filed suit demanding access to financial records of Citizens Consulting Inc., the umbrella group through which most of Acorn's money flows. Ms. Inman told a news conference this month Mr. Rathke still exercises power over CCI and Acorn against the board's wishes. Bertha Lewis, the interim head of Acorn, told me Mr. Rathke has no ties to Acorn and that the dissident board members were "obsessed" and "confused."

According to public records, the IRS filed three tax liens totaling almost $1 million against Acorn this spring. Also this spring, CCI was paid $832,000 by the Obama campaign for get-out-the-vote efforts in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as "staging, sound, lighting," only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.

"Acorn needs a full forensic audit," Ms. MonCrief says, though she doesn't think that's likely. "Everyone wants to paper things over until later," she says. "But it may be too late to reform Acorn then." She strongly supports Barack Obama and hopes his allies can be helpful in cleaning up the group "after the heat of the election is gone."

Acorn's Mr. Kettering says the GOP lawsuit "is designed to suppress legitimate voters," and he says Ms. MonCrief isn't credible, given that she was fired for cause. Ms. MonCrief admits that she left after she began paying back some $3,000 in personal expenses she charged on an Acorn credit card. "I was very sorry, and I was paying it back," she says, but "suddenly Acorn decided that . . . I had to go. Since then I have gotten warnings to 'back off' from people at Acorn."

Acorn insists it operates with strict quality controls, turning in, as required by law, all registration forms "even if the name on them was Donald Duck," as Wade Rathke told me two years ago. Acorn whistleblowers tell a different story.

"There's no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances," says Nate Toler, who worked until 2006 as the head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in California. And Ms. MonCrief says it is longstanding practice to blame bogus registrations on lower-level employees who then often face criminal charges, a practice she says Acorn internally calls "throwing folks under the bus."

Gregory Hall, a former Acorn employee, says he was told on his very first day in 2006 to engage in deceptive fund-raising tactics. Mr. Hall has founded a group called Speaking Truth to Power to push for a full airing of Acorn's problems "so the group can heal itself from within."

To date, Mr. Obama has declined to criticize Acorn, telling reporters this month he is happy with his own get-out-the-vote efforts and that "we don't need Acorn's help." That may be true. But there is no denying his ties with Acorn helped turbocharge his political career.

2008-10-30T05:27:00.001-07:00

Now comes Barack Obama, standing at the head of a progressive Democratic Party, his right hand rising to say, "Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be for-profit cowboys. It's time to spread the wealth around."

What this implies, undeniably, is that the United States would move away from running with the high GDP, high-growth nations rising today as economic and political powers and move over to retire with the low-growth economies we displaced -- old Europe.

As noted in a 2006 World Bank report, spending in Europe on social-protection programs averages 19% of GDP (85% of it on social insurance programs), compared to 9% of GDP in the U.S. The Obama proposals send the U.S. inexorably and permanently toward European levels of social protection. This isn't an "agenda." It's a final temptation.

In partial detail:

Obama's federalized medical insurance system starts the transition away from private medical care and toward Obama's endlessly promised "universal health care." This has always been the sine qua non of planting a true, managed-market economy in the U.S.

Obama's refundable tax credits are direct cash transfers from the federal government. This would place some 48% of Americans, nearly half, out of the income tax system. More than a tax proposal, this is a deep philosophical shift, an American version of being "on the dole."

2008-10-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

Note that Obama wouldn't be the first politician with Muslim roots to lead a major non-Muslim country. Carlos Menem, a Muslim of Syrian descent, served as Argentina's president from 1989 to 1999. But he dropped his Arab-Islamic first name and adopted his baptismal Christian name before entering politics.

Obama, by contrast, has retained his Arabic-Islamic names. (Barack means "blessed" and Hussein means "beautiful.") His family name is Swahili, an East African lingua franca based on Arabic. Arab commentators note that his siblings also all have Arabic Muslim names. His sister is called Oumah, Arabic for "the community of the faithful his older daughter, Malia, bears the name of a daughter of the Caliph Othman, who commissioned the compilation of the first edition of the Koran. That Obama's stepfather was also a Muslim (from Indonesia) strengthens the empathy that many Arabs feel for him.
Republicans fear a Barack Obama victory would turn America sharp left

2008-10-27T02:29:00.000-07:00

“My center is giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I attack!”

That’s the message supposedly sent by General Ferdinand Foch of France to his commanding general, Joseph Joffre, during the crucial First Battle of the Marne in September 1914. The French and British counterattacks succeeded. The German Army, after advancing for a month, was forced back.

2008-10-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

Obama Meets Petraeus
GeoMacro Consulting© understands that a recent meeting between Obama and head of Centcom Gen Petraeus was anything but copasetic.
We understand from military sources that Obama "got up in the face" of Gen Petraeus about the need for a timetable and Obama accused the General of been a simple lobbyist for his strategy.
GeoMacro Consulting © also understands from Obama campaign sources that THE #1 policy initiative that Barack Obama will push on Day One is Alternative Energy

Americans unsure of accuracy of voting

'04's most accurate pollster: Obama 44.8%, McCain 43.7%
Republican making headway with middle- and working-class voters, Catholics

Newspaper shows Obama belonged to socialist party
Democrat's campaign denied allegations, but new evidence indicates membership
Previously documented that while running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the socialist-oriented New Party, with some blogs claiming Obama was a member of the controversial party.
The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.
Among New Party members was activist Noam Chomsky.
The New Party News, the party's official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, list him as a New Party member and include quotes from him.
The party's Spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). The paper quoted Obama saying "these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work."
The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.
New Ground, the newsletter of Chicago's Democratic Socialists for America, reported in its July/August 1996 edition that Obama attended a New Party membership meeting April 11, 1996, in which he expressed his gratitude for the group's support and "encouraged NPers (New Party members) to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration."
Becoming a New Party member requires some effort on behalf of the politician. Candidates must be approved by the party's political committee and, once approved, must sign a contract mandating they will have a "visible and active relationship" with the party.
The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.

Democrat: Obama's grandma confirms Kenyan birth
'This has been a real sham he's pulled off for the last 20 months'
The Pennsylvania Democrat and former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General who has sued Sen. Barack Obama demanding he prove his American citizenship – and therefore qualification to run for president – has confirmed he has a recording of a telephone call from the senator's paternal grandmother confirming his birth in Kenya.
The issue of Obama's birthplace, which he states is Honolulu in 1961, has been raised enough times that his campaign website has posted an image purporting to be of his "Certification of Live Birth" from Hawaii.
But Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, told the Michael Savage talk radio program tonight that the document is forged and that he has a tape recording he will soon release.
"This has been a real sham he's pulled off for the last 20 months," Berg told Savage. "I'll release it [the tape] in a day or two, affidavits from her talking to a certain person. I heard the tape. She was speaking [to someone] here in the United States."
Philip J. Berg

"Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn't have a birth certificate aren't actually about that piece of paper," says the "Fight the Smears" section of Obama's website, "they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen.
"The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America," the campaign website states. It also includes images of the Hawaii certificate bearing the name Barack Hussein Obama II.
The Washington claim states, "If in fact Obama was born in Kenya, the laws on the books in the United States at the time of his birth stated if a child is born abroad and one parent was a U.S. Citizen, which would have been his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama's mother would have had to live ten (10) years in the United States, five (5) of which were after the age of fourteen (14). At the time of Obama's birth, his mother was only eighteen (18) and therefore did not meet the residency requirements under the law to give her son (Obama) U.S. Citizenship much less the status of 'natural born.'"

What If The World Voted in America’s Presidential Election?

Stages Being Built
Barack Obama’s election night stage in Chicago, IL is being planned and Mayor Daly of Chicago is saying it will cost $2mln to host the Obama party in Chicago’s Grant Park.
He suggested the United Center as cheaper simpler alternative but was turned down.
The mayor said the cash-flushed Obama campaign has agreed to reimburse the city for those services because Chicago is grappling with a $465 million deficit and is in no position to pay for it.
Asked if he objected to Obama's decision to hold the rally in Grant Park, Daley said, "Could you see me saying no to Sen. Obama? Give me a break. I'm not that dumb."
The mayor said the indoor United Center "would be much easier but the campaign so far ... wants to do it in the open. They applied for the permit."
Daley acknowledged that the Grant Park rally would create a logistical nightmare. "You'd have to secure buildings, close down buildings," he said.
"You need sanitation. ... You have to secure the CTA. You have to have traffic people. ... You have close streets seven to eight hours before."
---The inauguration stage on the Capitol Bldng in Washington DC is already being built for the inauguration of Jan 20, 1009

McCain campaign worker says man robbed her, then cut a 'B' on her face when he saw her affiliation
The Republican presidential nominee has since called the volunteer, 20-year-old Ashley Todd, and spoken with her and her family. Barack Obama's local campaign team also issued well-wishes to the Texas resident. A source close to the alleged victim says that during her visit to the police station Thursday night she volunteered to take a polygraph test after some people question her account of what happened.
Executive director of the College Republicans National Committee, said Todd was volunteering through his organization and that she had taken a year off to work on the campaign.
He said that her attacker became enraged when he saw she had the McCain bumper sticker, and yelled, "You are one of those McCain people."

2008-10-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

The Audacity of Barack Obama
He thinks liberals can get beyond the old debate by finally winning it.

Any politician who has taken on Bill and Hillary Clinton's national political machine and won should not be underestimated. Yet Republicans as well as many Democrats persist in underrating Barack Obama's electoral talents and, above all, his soaring political ambition.
[Claremont Institute]

His writerly mind, professorial bearing and effortless self-control make it difficult to take his measure as a politician. He can seem cool, detached, unusually introspective. As a wag at the Financial Times put it, if John McCain's life story is the stuff of Hollywood movies, Mr. Obama's is like an off-Broadway play—it lacks action but is full of internal monologues. Raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, his father a Kenyan, his mother a sweet Midwestern atheist, Mr. Obama as a young man thought himself something of an outsider wherever he went. Smart and popular, he seemed to prefer to maintain his emotional distance, partly because he was confused about his own identity (as he explains in "Dreams from My Father," the autobiography he published at age 33), and partly because he feared being trapped in places that were too small for his talents.

Eager to find himself by finding a community to which he could belong, he was struck, nonetheless, by the flaws or limits of every race, culture and country he encountered. Unlike other intelligent human beings who have made the same discovery, Mr. Obama did not lower his expectations but decided that, just as he could and did choose to refashion his own identity, communities could do the same, with a little help. He spent three years as a community organizer in Chicago, but was disillusioned with the results. Eventually he found in politics, and especially in political oratory, the path he was seeking: the way to redeem the sins of an existing community by leading it to a vision of its future, better self; and to introduce himself, proudly biracial, multicultural and progressive, as living proof that the divisions and disappointments of the past can be overcome, if never quite left behind.

A New Majority

Part of the past that Mr. Obama wants to transcend is the recent history of the Democratic Party. In "The Audacity of Hope," his second autobiography (focused on his Senate years, not quite two of them at that point) and the source of his most thoughtful campaign speeches, he treats the party elders respectfully, but not exactly warmly. He mentions Teddy Kennedy three times, calling him one of the Senate's best storytellers; devotes a page to Al Gore's emotions after his "precipitous fall"; and acknowledges "the Kerry people" who invited him to speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Mr. Obama goes out of his way to emphasize that he is a newcomer to the party who couldn't even get a floor pass to the 2000 convention. Reflecting on the elections of 2000 and 2004, he confesses that "I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation—a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago."

Mr. Obama praises Bill Clinton more highly than any other contemporary Democrat, because Mr. Clinton recognized the staleness of the old political debate between left and right and came close to moving beyond it with his politics of the Third Way, which "tapped into the pragmatic, nonideological attitude of the majority of Americans." But Mr. Clinton blew it, and the author gradually lets you know it. First, he regrets Mr. Clinton's "clumsy and transparent" gestures to the Reagan Democrats, and his "frighteningly coldhearted" use of other people (e.g., "the execution of a mentally retarded death row inmate" before a crucial primary). Then Mr. Obama notes sadly that Mr. Clinton's policies—"recognizably progressive if modest in their goals"—had commanded broad public support, but that the president had never been able, "despite a booming economy," to turn that support into a governing coalition. Finally, he gently accuses Mr. Clinton of the worst offense of all: strengthening the forces of conservatism. Due to his "personal lapses" and careless triangulations that ceded more and more ground to the right, Mr. Clinton prepared the way for George W. Bush's victory in 2000.

In his campaign speeches, Mr. Obama can't afford to be so candid—he needs Hillary and Bill's supporters, after all—but he subtly makes his point. For example, in his acceptance speech in Denver, the single biggest speech of the campaign, he laid at Bill Clinton's feet the oldest backhanded compliment in the books, thanking the former president "who last night made the case for change as only he can make it." That's a disguised double insult: It reminds the discerning ear of Mr. Clinton's characteristic bloviation, and then of his political failings (when you see Mr. Clinton, you're reminded why the Democrats need Mr. Obama).

Granted, Mr. Obama holds Mr. Clinton to higher standards than he does the other party elders. Jimmy Carter, Mr. Gore, Mr. Kerry—these gentlemen lacked the political talent that Mr. Clinton squandered, in Mr. Obama's estimation, and they were innocent of political daring. Their shortcomings are palliated, to some extent, by the fact that the times were not auspicious. Still, Mr. Obama is fairly clear that if the party is to move forward it must return to earlier exemplars, and especially to its heroes who brought about major political changes lasting for a generation or more. This was the context of his comparison of Mr. Clinton to Ronald Reagan, which raised such a ruckus early in the campaign:

I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.

The comparison of Mr. Clinton to Nixon is delicious in its own right, but Mr. Obama's larger point is that Mr. Clinton was no Reagan, partly because the times were different but mostly, as he points out in his book, because Mr. Clinton was undisciplined and conceded too much to the right. As tokens of Mr. Obama's seriousness about fundamental political change, "The Audacity of Hope" mentions Franklin D. Roosevelt more often that it does any living Democratic politician; and it features a long, interesting discussion of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the political point of which is to re-establish the Democrats' claim to speak for American ideals, the touchstone of every electoral realignment.

Thus the commentators who interpret Mr. Obama as a new kind of postpartisan political figure get it exactly wrong. It's true that he wants to stop "arguing about the same ole stuff," as he told Planned Parenthood; he wants to move beyond the decades-long debate between liberalism and conservatism. Bill Clinton wished for the same thing in 1992, as did George W. Bush in 2000. The 42nd and 43rd presidents had doctrines that they hoped would precipitate this magic synthesis—the Third Way and compassionate conservatism, respectively. What's interesting, as political scientist James W. Ceaser noted in these pages, is that Mr. Obama does not feel the need for such a doctrine. Nor does John McCain. The 2008 race is taking place squarely within the familiar ideological framework of liberalism and conservatism, but with Mr. McCain promising some maverick departures from the norm (while still accepting the norm), and Mr. Obama talking up hope and the need for change. The change needed, however, is for nothing less than a full-blown electoral earthquake that will permanently shatter the 50/50 America of the past four presidential elections. He thinks liberals can get beyond the old debate by finally winning it.

"Eking out a bare Democratic majority isn't good enough," he writes in "The Audacity of Hope." "What's needed is a broad majority of Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and independents of good will." After the New Hampshire primary, he told his supporters, "You can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness." A month later, after winning the Wisconsin primary, he explained what he called "my central premise," that "the only way we will bring about real change in America is if we can bring new people into the process, if we can attract young people, if we can attract independents, if we can stop fighting with Republicans and try to bring some over to our side. I want to form a working majority for change." That's easier said than done, of course, and likely would require several elections. Speaking to the AFL-CIO in 2003, he laid out the long march that would be necessary:

I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program . . . a single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

As a matter of fact, he is not officially a proponent of a single-payer health care plan; his 2008 platform stops far short of that. Nor has he repeated this sweeping, candid endorsement of his ultimate goal, which might be described by that hoary but accurate epithet, socialized medicine. In the meantime, however, the Democrats in 2006 recaptured both the Senate and the House. If after 2008 the Democratic Party controls all three elective branches, then his "working majority for change" will be in a position to go to work.

A New Lincoln

If the leading edge of Mr. Obama's audacity is his desire to bring about fundamental political change at a time when every other leading Democrat has given up on it or lacks the gifts to achieve it, his daring shows itself too in his confidence that he is the man for the job, the man of the hour. His self-confidence has been noted, of course, and well parodied. It's even been parodied unconsciously, as by Mark Morford, an online columnist in San Francisco:

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans . . . but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

Yet the fact is that the precise character of Mr. Obama's ambition has not been well understood. In his own terms, he seeks to bring about enduring political change even as (to mention those he invokes in this connection) Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson did before him. (He didn't concur with Reagan's change, to be sure.)

It's Mr. Obama's account of Lincoln that deserves particular attention. Lincolnian language appears and reappears in Mr. Obama's speeches. In fact, he compares himself indirectly and sometimes directly to the first Republican president. The speech that initially put Mr. Obama on the map, his 2002 denunciation of the pending Iraq war, concludes in a poor paraphrase of the Gettysburg Address: "Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain." He announced his candidacy in Springfield, Ill., a place central to Lincoln's political career and site of some of his great speeches, including the "House Divided" and his affecting farewell to the city as he left to assume the presidency. In his speech, Mr. Obama does his best to appropriate Lincoln's memory:

And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together . . . I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president. . . . By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail. But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible. He tells us that there is power in words . . . in conviction. That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people. He tells us that there is power in hope. As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say: "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through." That is our purpose here today. That's why I'm in this race. Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation. . . . Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth.

Mr. Obama identifies himself (as we say today) with Lincoln: Abe is not the only "tall, gangly, self-made" lawyer primed for greatness that the audience is supposed to recognize. Though it ends with another paraphrase of the Gettysburg Address, the passage—and the whole speech—is meant to recall Lincoln's "House Divided" speech, which kicked off the Illinois Senate campaign in 1858 against Stephen Douglas. The quotation about the "four winds" is Lincoln's description of the new Republican Party, forged from fragments of the fading Whig and Free Soil parties, and reaching out to antislavery Democrats and centrists.

Thus Mr. Obama compares the new majority he seeks to build to the majority party that Lincoln helped to create. He tries to inspire Democrats by appealing to the founder of the generations-long postbellum Republican majority. This is partisan ambition of a high order, masquerading as high-toned bipartisanship or post-partisanship: Mr. Obama speaks as though Lincoln were trying to overcome the country's divisions by calling for unity, for cooperation in the spirit of national renewal. In fact, Lincoln's point was that the Union would "become all one thing, or all the other." It would become either all free, or all slave. Lincoln's road to unity ran through division, through forcing the country to choose. Mr. Obama's point is similar, despite his soothing language: Our divisions will be healed once the country is safely in the hands of a new liberal, Democratic majority.

MR. Obama spoke in 2005 at the opening of the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. On that occasion, he talked more of the man himself. Lincoln exhibits "a fundamental element of the American character," he said, "a belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams." He hailed Lincoln's "repeated acts of self-creation, the insistence that . . . we can recast the wilderness of the American landscape and the American heart into something better, something finer." The wilderness of the American heart—now that's an expression, and a sentiment, that Lincoln never uttered. Is it Mr. Obama's own view of the American soul's desolation?

Lincoln's life ends up sounding a lot like Mr. Obama's. "Lincoln embodies our deepest myths," Mr. Obama averred. "It is a mythology that drives us still." Here is the stark difference between the two men. Lincoln never thought of himself as pursuing or being driven by a myth, even though his life and death acquired, in the eyes of others, mythic significance. At any rate, when Mr. Obama later contributed a version of the speech to Time magazine, he altered a line to read:

In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat—in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of human life—the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.

Peggy Noonan, with her usual keen perception, took him to task in The Wall Street Journal for having explained "that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better." In "The Audacity of Hope," Mr. Obama charmingly relates the story, pooh-poohing the notion that he was seriously "comparing myself to Lincoln." But Ms. Noonan had it right.

Wright and Wrongs

To make possible a new liberal majority, Mr. Obama has to rehabilitate liberalism's reputation, to separate it from the extremist cultural politics of the 1960s and the burden of defending big government. Bill Clinton began this renewal in the 1990s, proclaiming "the era of big government is over" and preaching the Third Way gospel of opportunity, responsibility, and community. Mr. Obama's politics is a continuation and deepening of Mr. Clinton's efforts, aided by a much more favorable political environment—further removed from Reagan's shadow; coming after two terms of a deeply unpopular Republican president; in the midst of two wars, one of them tainted by shifting (and frequently extravagant) aims, premature claims of victory, and strategic mistakes; and with the final two months before the election dominated by a market meltdown frequently said to be the most serious since the Great Depression.

Mr. Obama's debt to Mr. Clinton is real, though usually (especially lately) unacknowledged. Mr. Obama far outdistances Mr. Clinton, however, in telling the story of America in a way that reinforces a renascent liberalism. The term is perhaps inexact, because Mr. Obama (like Hillary Clinton now) prefers to call himself "progressive" rather than liberal. But the difference is tactical and semantic, not substantive. More than any Democratic presidential candidate since JFK and especially FDR, Mr. Obama has an interpretation of American history that justifies what he wants to do. Not incidentally, Mr. Obama's version also has the advantage of countering Reagan's view of the country's history as the working out of American exceptionalism (including divine favor), popular good sense, limited government, free-market economics and moral traditionalism.

Mr. Obama is a good writer whose strength is narrative, and his account of America is a kind of story, mixing social, intellectual and political history, that begins with the founding—with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. (Not for him is Reagan's emphasis on the Puritans and their "shining city on a hill." In profound ways, for Mr. Obama the black church replaces the Puritans in his understanding of America.) He tries to construct a new consensus view of the country that acknowledges, and contextualizes, traditional views in a way meant to be reassuring. In "The Audacity of Hope" he quotes the Declaration's famous sentence on self-evident truths and then comments: "Those simple words are our starting point as Americans; they describe not only the foundations of our government but the substance of our common creed." Though few Americans could "trace the genesis of the Declaration . . . o its roots in eighteenth-century liberal and republican thought," every American understands its "essential idea":

that we are born into this world free, all of us; that each of us arrives with a bundle of rights that can't be taken away by any person or any state without just cause; that through our own agency we can, and must, make of our lives what we will.

It sounds Lincolnian, until you notice that the "bundle of rights" is not said to be natural, exactly, nor true exactly, but simply understood by Americans without their quite grasping those rights' origin in 18th-century political thought. Would that old understanding, say Jefferson's, still be authoritative for us now, or are we permitted (or forced?) to understand them in a way more congenial to our own felt needs and desires? Mr. Obama soon makes clear that Jefferson and the other founders were less than faithful to the universal principles they proclaimed. Like a good law professor, he lines up evidence and argument on both sides before concluding that, in fact, the founders probably did not understand those principles as universal but rather as confined to the white race. The "spirit of liberty," he writes, "didn't extend, in the minds of the founders, to the slaves who worked their fields, made their beds, and nursed their children." In the end, then, Mr. Obama's interpretation is the opposite of Lincoln's, who devoted some of his finest pages to proving that the founders regarded slavery as a moral and political evil because it violated the rights of man.

The dog that didn't bark is Mr. Obama's renowned speech on race, the one devoted to starting a national conversation on the subject and to putting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's notorious comments in their proper context. The words "all men are created equal" do not appear in it. And so it is a very different appeal, with a very different view of America, than one would find in, say, Martin Luther King's great speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Obama mentions the Constitution briefly, noting its "ideal of equal citizenship" and that it "promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time." But he does not mention the conclusion that he arrives at in his book, namely, that the Constitution's "people" did not refer to or include blacks, and especially not black slaves. Although he regards both the Declaration and the Constitution as racist documents originally, he does not emphasize the point in his speech because it would confirm Mr. Wright's fundamental charge, that the U.S. is a racist country. And the point of Mr. Obama's speech in Philadelphia, at the National Constitution Center, was not merely to repeat his condemnation of Mr. Wright's remarks "in unequivocal terms" but to put the whole controversy behind him.

In truth, Mr. Obama's evaluation of Mr. Wright's statements was very equivocal. He calls the reverend's charges "not only wrong but divisive," that is, untimely, because the American people are "hungry" for a "message of unity" right now, as delivered by the junior senator from Illinois. Mr. Wright expressed "a profoundly distorted view of this country," Mr. Obama says, "a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America." What that means becomes clearer a little later, when Mr. Obama declares that "the profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is . . . that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made." But Mr. Obama's own candidacy confirms "that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope—the audacity to hope—for what we can and must achieve tomorrow." In short, Mr. Wright was not wrong that America was a racist nation, with racist principles; he was wrong, however, to speak as though the country is as racist as it used to be. "America can change," not in the sense of living up to its first principles but in the opposite sense of moving away from them. Except, that is, from the deepest principle of all, which expresses "the true genius of this nation"—our belief in change itself.

Mr. Wright's eruptions were dangerous to Mr. Obama not merely because they raised questions about his judgment in having Mr. Wright as his pastor, and because they raised doubts about his ability to be a unifying, postracial figure. They were dangerous above all because they represented a particularly virulent strain of the spirit of 1960s radicalism, and shook Mr. Obama's claim to have left all that behind him and behind his new movement for change. As he said in his second, more decisive repudiation of Mr. Wright (April 29, 2008), "The reason our campaign has been so successful is because we had moved beyond these old arguments." Because he did not actually disagree with Mr. Wright's fundamental charge but could not say so openly, Mr. Obama's reasons for denouncing the reverend became oddly personal. "I don't think that he showed much concern for me," Mr. Obama told reporters. Indeed, Mr. Wright's performance at the National Press Club was "a show of disrespect to me. It's . . . also, I think, an insult to what we've been trying to do in this campaign."

A Renewed Liberalism

But Mr. Obama disagrees emphatically with Mr. Wright on the question of change. He thinks Mr. Wright is trapped in the past, even as Mr. McCain and the Republicans are—two very different pasts, doubtless, but equally out of touch with the country and its future. A proper understanding of America's past—centered on change and the country's openness to it—will make sense of the present and liberate us to make a brighter, more unified future, claims Mr. Obama. His understanding of the past thus pays lip service to such terms as self-evident truths, original intent and first principles, but quickly changes the subject to values, visions, dreams, ideals, myths and narratives. This is a postmodern "move." We can't know or share truth, postmodernists assert, but we can share stories, and thus construct a community of shared meaning.

At times, Mr. Obama seems to agree with this. "Implicit . . . in the very idea of ordered liberty," he writes in "The Audacity of Hope," is "a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or 'ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course." Is the idea that human freedom is right, slavery wrong, thus to be rejected lest we embrace an "absolute truth"? After criticizing the founders for allegedly overlooking precisely this universal principle, Mr. Obama now warns against all such truths. More remarkable still, he praises the same founders for being "suspicious of abstraction"! "It may be the vision of the Founders that inspires us," he writes, "but it was their realism, their practicality and flexibility and curiosity, that ensured the Union's survival." In other words, the founders' integrity is shown precisely by their not believing too deeply in their own principles. Their deepest principle, so to say, was their sheer flexibility or openness to change.

Yet Mr. Obama is by no means a complete postmodernist. As a decent man, he believes in justice. (Accordingly, in yet another twist, he honors Lincoln for pursuing Lincoln's "own absolute truths" with a saving "humility.") And as a self-described progressive, he believes in change, i.e., he believes that change is almost always synonymous with improvement. He is heartened by the fact that political and constitutional change led to the Union becoming all free. He doesn't dwell on the fact that change could have led, instead, as Lincoln had feared, to the Union becoming all slave.

As an African-American, he knows of course that blacks had to wait a long time for change to be their friend. So he is no simpleminded progressive. In fact, what's most interesting about him as a writer is his struggle with these powerful, and conflicting, intellectual currents.

As a politician, however, he treads an easier, more familiar path. He sets up, in "The Audacity of Hope," a debate between Justice Antonin Scalia's and Justice Stephen Breyer's opinions on how to interpret the Constitution. After much toing-and-froing—"I'm not unsympathetic to Justice Scalia's position. . . . I understand the strict constructionists' reverence for the Founders . . ."—Mr. Obama comes down, surprise, on Justice Breyer's side. The Constitution "is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world." He expressed the same point when he announced his presidential candidacy: "The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed." That sounds, and is, anodyne—in an "ever-changing world," how much genius does it take to design a government that can change?—but it's the only formulation that permits him to show that the founders were the original progressives.

Mr. Obama sees the American story as a blend of two themes, individualism (symbolized in the Declaration) and unity (symbolized in the Constitution's commitment to "a more perfect Union"). The latter phrase, plucked from the Preamble, has long been a favorite of liberals, and was used in the same way by, for example, Bill Clinton. Unity means being your brother's, and sister's, keeper; it means coming together "as one American family." Mr. Obama explains: "if fate causes us to stumble or fall, our larger American family will be there to lift us up." He doesn't explain who get to be the parents in our new national family. Membership in this community confers or protects our "dignity," in the sense of guaranteeing "a basic standard of living" and effectively sharing "life's risks and rewards for the benefit of each and the good of all." Conservatives prefer to leave us "to face fate by ourselves," he notes, because they believe in "the Social Darwinist idea," which "requires no sacrifice on the part of those . . . who have won life's lottery."

Thus unity is for the sake of "dignity and respect," which require both "social justice" and "economic justice." The latter ramifies widely, demanding, for instance, that "if you work in America you should not be poor"; that a college education should be every child's "birthright"; and that every American should have broadband access. Mr. Obama does not follow FDR, who turned such socioeconomic goods into rights and called for enshrining them in a Second Bill of Rights. Chastened by the right-wing and middle-class backlash against welfare rights, MR. Obama again follows the example of Bill Clinton, who reconceived such benefits as components of "opportunity." As Mr. Obama presents it: "Opportunity is yours if you're willing to reach for it and work for it. It's the idea that while there are few guarantees in life, you should be able to count on a job that pays the bills; health care for when you get sick; a pension for when you retire; an education for your children that will allow them to fulfill their God-given potential." These are not rights, exactly, because that would imply big government to provide them. These are things that government will guarantee

2008-10-17T02:32:00.000-07:00

A Liberal Supermajority
Get ready for 'change' we haven't seen since 1965, or 1933.

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

The nearby table shows the major bills that passed the House this year or last before being stopped by the Senate minority. Keep in mind that the most important power of the filibuster is to shape legislation, not merely to block it. The threat of 41 committed Senators can cause the House to modify its desires even before legislation comes to a vote. Without that restraining power, all of the following have very good chances of becoming law in 2009 or 2010.

- Medicare for all. When HillaryCare cratered in 1994, the Democrats concluded they had overreached, so they carved up the old agenda into smaller incremental steps, such as Schip for children. A strongly Democratic Congress is now likely to lay the final flagstones on the path to government-run health insurance from cradle to grave.

Mr. Obama wants to build a public insurance program, modeled after Medicare and open to everyone of any income. According to the Lewin Group, the gold standard of health policy analysis, the Obama plan would shift between 32 million and 52 million from private coverage to the huge new entitlement. Like Medicare or the Canadian system, this would never be repealed.

The commitments would start slow, so as not to cause immediate alarm. But as U.S. health-care spending flowed into the default government options, taxes would have to rise or services would be rationed, or both. Single payer is the inevitable next step, as Mr. Obama has already said is his ultimate ideal.

- The business climate. "We have some harsh decisions to make," Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned recently, speaking about retribution for the financial panic. Look for a replay of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, with Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Ed Markey sponsoring ritual hangings to further their agenda to control more of the private economy. The financial industry will get an overhaul in any case, but telecom, biotech and drug makers, among many others, can expect to be investigated and face new, more onerous rules. See the "Issues and Legislation" tab on Mr. Waxman's Web site for a not-so-brief target list.

The danger is that Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries.

- Union supremacy. One program certain to be given right of way is "card check." Unions have been in decline for decades, now claiming only 7.4% of the private-sector work force, so Big Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s. The "Employee Free Choice Act" would convert workplaces into union shops merely by gathering signatures from a majority of employees, which means organizers could strongarm those who opposed such a petition.

The bill also imposes a compulsory arbitration regime that results in an automatic two-year union "contract" after 130 days of failed negotiation. The point is to force businesses to recognize a union whether the workers support it or not. This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935.

- Taxes. Taxes will rise substantially, the only question being how high. Mr. Obama would raise the top income, dividend and capital-gains rates for "the rich," substantially increasing the cost of new investment in the U.S. More radically, he wants to lift or eliminate the cap on income subject to payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security. This would convert what was meant to be a pension insurance program into an overt income redistribution program. It would also impose a probably unrepealable increase in marginal tax rates, and a permanent shift upward in the federal tax share of GDP.

- The green revolution. A tax-and-regulation scheme in the name of climate change is a top left-wing priority. Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy. Huge chunks of GDP and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and a vast new global-warming bureaucracy. Without the GOP votes to help stage a filibuster, Senators from carbon-intensive states would have less ability to temper coastal liberals who answer to the green elites.

- Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls. The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress -- Democratic, naturally.

Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition.

- Special-interest potpourri. Look for the watering down of No Child Left Behind testing standards, as a favor to the National Education Association. The tort bar's ship would also come in, including limits on arbitration to settle disputes and watering down the 1995 law limiting strike suits. New causes of legal action would be sprinkled throughout most legislation. The anti-antiterror lobby would be rewarded with the end of Guantanamo and military commissions, which probably means trying terrorists in civilian courts. Google and MoveOn.org would get "net neutrality" rules, subjecting the Internet to intrusive regulation for the first time.

It's always possible that events -- such as a recession -- would temper some of these ambitions. Republicans also feared the worst in 1993 when Democrats ran the entire government, but it didn't turn out that way. On the other hand, Bob Dole then had 43 GOP Senators to support a filibuster, and the entire Democratic Party has since moved sharply to the left. Mr. Obama's agenda is far more liberal than Bill Clinton's was in 1992, and the Southern Democrats who killed Al Gore's BTU tax and modified liberal ambitions are long gone.

In both 1933 and 1965, liberal majorities imposed vast expansions of government that have never been repealed, and the current financial panic may give today's left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for "change" should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.

2008-10-16T06:42:00.001-07:00

Mortgage Mess
Speaking of blame, another scheduled witness is Eugene Ludwig, who was Bill Clinton's Comptroller of the Currency in the 1990s. In 2000, Haverford College's magazine reported that "Ludwig remains proudest . . . of his efforts to compel bank compliance with fair-lending laws and his revitalization of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a 1977 law requiring banks to invest in poorer neighborhoods and improve lending and service to low- and moderate-income borrowers. Although branded an 'activist' for his vigorous support of the act . . . he points to the cold, hard facts to justify his tactics. After just one Justice Department referral in the OCC's previous 129 years, Ludwig's tenure witnessed 27 fair-lending cases, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in fines against violators." Will he testify today that noneconomic loans were entirely the fault of bankers?

2008-10-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

What do you think of Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to change the term-limit laws (not by referendum but rather legislative directive)?

Here’s some historical context of how the NY Times thinks about changing the term-limit law:

While some call for changing the rules so that Bloomberg could stand for re-election next year, the NYT opinion is noteworthy. The New York Times complained that the term-limits law "is particularly unappealing now because . . . it would deny New Yorkers -- at a time when the city's economy is under great stress -- the right to decide for themselves whether an effective and popular mayor should stay in office."
The paper took the opposite view seven years ago, when there was talk of extending the second term of Bloomberg's predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, in the wake of 9/11. "To suggest that the city would be incapable of getting along without Mr. Giuliani . . . undermines New York's sense of self-sufficiency," said the Gray Lady. "While Mr. Giuliani has been a great leader during this crisis, the truth is that no one is indispensable."
How Times change.

2008-10-15T04:47:00.000-07:00

The Barack Obama You Should Know
1. Jesse Jackson Says
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end. Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.

"Share the wealth" is scary for those trying to create it..
2. Plumber Asks Obama
Conservatives ripped Obama after he was caught on video telling an Ohio plumber that he intends to take the profits of small-business owners and "spread the wealth around" to those with lesser incomes.
The fracas over Obama's tax plan broke out Sunday outside Toledo when Joe Wurzelbacher approached the candidate.
Wurzelbacher said he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.
"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the blue-collar worker asked.
After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: "I've worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama told him. "I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. ab
Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics.
"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Barack Obama tells Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher he intends to "spread the wealth around."

3. New Poll
80% of American CEOs prefer John McCain to Obama 920%) in a new CEO Magazine poll

2008-10-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

Can you image Bill Ayers Sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom?

Given that unremorseful Bill Ayers has said in speaking of his Weather Underground/terrorist days “I didn’t do enough”(1) and given that the Obama campaign has said that the two are “friends” If Obama wins the presidency and given that presidents very often have friends sleep over at the White House, should we be concerned that Bill Ayers might blow up, say the Lincoln Bedroom?

Before you fall into the trap of "that was a long time ago", consider this quote from Ayers:

So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? "I don't want to discount the possibility,'' he said.

(1) NY Times interview September 11, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&scp=1&sq=bill%20ayers%20interview%20september%2011,%202001&st=cse

2008-10-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

Nobel Joke

This is nothing short of a joke…
Princeton University Professor Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.

IT goes to show that all one has to do is criticize the US govt in general and Pres Bush specifically to win the “hearts and minds” of the Swedes.
He used to be an economists abut has turned into a liberal hatchet-man.

Just to give you a sample of this "economist's" "intellectual" thinking:
``Mr. Bush has degraded our government and undermined the rule of law,'' Krugman wrote in a column on May 18, 2007. ``He has led us into strategic disaster and moral squalor.''=Krugman

``Paul Krugman the economist died a long time ago; the man named Paul Krugman is a public intellectual,'' Luskin, a contributing editor for National Review Online, said in an interview. ``He is not in the same category as John Maynard Keynes, he is in the same category as Oprah Winfrey. To give it to him is to dishonor the Nobel Prize.''

2008-10-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Global Poverty Initiative
Obama’s “Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) was submitted to the US Senate, but didn’t pass. The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends.

A release from the Obama Senate office about the bill declares, “In 2000, the U.S. joined more than 180 countries at the United Nations Millennium Summit and vowed to reduce global poverty by 2015. We are halfway towards this deadline, and it is time the United States makes it a priority of our foreign policy to meet this goal and help those who are struggling day to day.”

The legislation itself requires the President “to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.”

Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the U.N.’s “Millennium Project,” (and he is an Obama supporter) says that the U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP in increased foreign aid spending would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.’s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the “Millennium Development Goals,” this amounts to $845 billion. And the only way to raise that kind of money, Sachs has written, is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

2008-10-10T05:45:00.000-07:00

Dodd and Countrywide

The Senator should take the witness stand.

Former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld was under oath Monday when he was grilled on Capitol Hill about his role in the current financial meltdown. But if Members really want to understand the credit mania, they should also call Chris Dodd.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, (D., Conn.).

The Connecticut Senator has been out front denouncing the "companies that form the foundation of our financial markets," for "their insatiable appetite for risk." He has also decried "reckless, careless and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry" and he has proclaimed that "American taxpayers deserve to know how we arrived at this moment." To that end, we propose he take the stand -- under oath.

Former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg says Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program the California mortgage company had for the influential. He also says he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO.

That a "Friends of Angelo" program existed is not in dispute. It was crucial to the boom that Countrywide enjoyed before its fortunes turned. While most of the company was aggressively lending to risky borrowers and off-loading those mortgages in bulk to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mr. Feinberg's department was charged with making sure those who could influence Fannie and Freddie's appetite for risk were sufficiently buttered up. As a Banking Committee bigshot, Mr. Dodd was perfectly placed to be buttered.

In response to the charge that he knew he was getting favors, Mr. Dodd at first issued a strong denial: "This suggestion is outrageous and contrary to my entire career in public service. When my wife and I refinanced our loans in 2003, we did not seek or expect any favorable treatment. Just like millions of other Americans, we shopped around and received competitive rates." Less than a week later he acknowledged he was part of Countrywide's VIP program but claimed he thought it was "more of a courtesy."

Mr. Feinberg, who oversaw "Friends of Angelo" from 2000 to 2004, begs to differ. He told us that as the loan officer in charge he was supposed to make sure that the "VIP" clients knew at every step of the process that they were getting a special deal because they were "Friends of Angelo."

"People are referred into that department as 'very important people.' You're told that your loan is priced from Angelo. As the 'Friends of Angelo department,' [the department] has to give them a sense of importance and explain the reduction of fees and the rate as a result of being a 'Friend of Angelo,'" he says. According to a report by Dan Golden in Condé Nast Portfolio in August, other VIPs included Senator Kent Conrad. Mr. Golden reported that "Countrywide also offered special discounts to congressional staffers involved in housing issues."

As to Mr. Dodd, Mr. Feinberg says he spoke to the Senator once or twice and mostly to his wife and that like other FOAs Mr. Dodd got "a float down," which means that even after he had a preferred rate, when the prevailing rate dropped just before the closing, his rate was reduced again. Regular borrowers would pay extra for a last-minute adjustment, but not FOAs. "They were aware of it because they were notified and when they went to the closing they would see it," Mr. Feinberg says, adding that he "always let people in the program know that they were getting a very good deal because they were 'Friends of Angelo.'" All of this matters because Mr. Dodd was one of those encouraging Fan and Fred to plunge into "affordable housing" loans made by companies like Countrywide.

One indicator of his influence is the $165,400 in campaign contributions -- more than to any other politician -- that Fan and Fred have given him since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. These contributions are legal. But favors like those Mr. Dodd is alleged to have received may not be. Mr. Feinberg says he went public with his story because when he heard Senator Dodd on TV talking about predatory lending, he felt it was "hypocritical" and he says, "I just thought, 'This is wrong.'"

Mr. Dodd hasn't yet released his copies of the mortgage documents, though he promised to do so more than two months ago. His office told us this week they'd get back to us on that. Meanwhile, presumably the Justice Department can have Mr. Feinberg's Countrywide documents, if it's interested.