Month: May 2011

There are basically two things I figured Rand Paul would be good for in the U.S. Senate. First, he’d be a major skeptic about foreign military intervention and ask tough questions before the Senate signed off on any more adventures. Second, he’d be an ally on most civil liberties issues, perhaps including the War on Drugs. But in his first two real tests he’s been a failure. Does anyone remember Paul getting any national attention during the run-up to intervention in Libya? And, now, during the debate over the Patriot Act reauthorization, he made an effort but gained no allies on the Democratic side other than the two senators from Montana. Why? Because he chose to be an extremist.

A senatorial peacock with a rust-colored crown, Mr. Paul stands out as someone who, at least for now, seems to be here less to make laws than points. His libertarian-leaning amendments — one would have made it harder for counterterrorism investigators to obtain firearms records and another would have relieved banks from their duty to report suspicious transactions — failed by wide margins, even among Republicans.

He should have joined with senators like Ron Wyden and Mark Udall who have been warning of a secret Patriot Act within the Patriot Act, where the administration is interpreting the law more broadly than the legislative language can justify. He should have latched on to truly controversial aspects of the bill, like the roving wire tap provision and the business record authorizations. Instead, he got four votes for one amendment and ten votes for the other. And he earned the wrath of his colleagues who had their vacation plans disrupted so they could stay in town to debate Paul’s vanity.

On the issues that Paul really cares about, he doesn’t have majority support in either party, so, for him to be successful, he really needs to work hard on building strong personal relationships. Only through earning the good will of a lot of Democrats and the trust of most Republicans, can he ever hope to pass the kinds of bills he wants to pass. On civil liberties issues, with the exception of gun control, the Democrats are his more natural allies. On the Patriot Act, there is much more skepticism on the Democratic side of the aisle than the Republican side.

Instead of focusing on building relationships and finding areas of common concern, Paul just pissed off virtually the entire Senate and accomplished nothing. It’s not an auspicious start for a new senator.

Bob Dylan just turned 70 years old. As a tribute. Rolling Stone made a list of his 70 best songs. How many other artists have written enough great songs to make it possible to make such a list? Anyway, here’s my top 10:

Tangled Up In Blue
It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding
Simple Twist of Fate
Shelter From the Storm
Positively 4th Street
Forever Young
Idiot Wind
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Like a Rolling Stone
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues

I guess it’s kind of obvious that Blood on the Tracks is my favorite Dylan album. What are your favorities?

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What Manuel Zelaya’s return means for Honduras

(Guardian) – Zelaya was ousted from the presidency when he was kidnapped at gunpoint by the military on 28 June 2009. Although no hard evidence has yet emerged that the US government was directly involved in his overthrow, the Obama administration did everything it could to help the coup government to survive and then legitimate itself through elections that most of the rest of the hemisphere, and the world, rejected as neither free nor fair.

Zelaya’s return represents a partial reversal of that coup d’etat and Washington’s efforts to consolidate it, just as President Aristide’s return to Haiti after seven years in exile, on 18 March – despite furious efforts by the Obama administration, and even President Obama himself, to prevent it – is a partial reversal of the 2004 US-organised coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Haiti. And it is another demonstration of how the western hemisphere has changed: the agreement for Zelaya’s return was mediated through the governments of Venezuela and Colombia, with no US involvement or even lip-service support until it was over.

Instead, the mediation process had the unanimous support of Latin America and the Caribbean, which endorsed it through their new organisation, Celac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States). Celac contains all the countries of the Organisation of American States (OAS) except the US and Canada. It was formed in February 2010, partly as a response to Washington’s manipulation of the OAS in the aftermath of the Honduran coup.

The Obama administration lost a lot of trust throughout the hemisphere as a result of its support for the Honduran coup government, and so it was not surprising that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was smart enough to endorse the Cartagena agreement (for Zelaya’s return) after it was signed.  

Human Rights Watch noted that “Honduras has made little progress toward addressing the serious human rights abuses since the 2009 coup.” It cited the cases of eight journalists and ten members of the National Front for Popular Resistance who had been murdered since President Porfirio Lobo took office, as well as the impunity for human rights abuses committed by the coup government. If anything, the repression has become worse since then.

Three Honduran journalists have been shot since 11 May; two of them, TV station owner Luis Mendoza and television reporter Francisco Medina, were killed. Paramilitary groups have killed over 40 campesinos since Lobo has been in office. Trade unionists have also been killed, including Ilse Ivania Velásquez Rodríguez, a striking teacher whom Honduran police shot in the face, at close range, with a tear gas canister in March.

• GOP Meddling Over Honduras – 2009

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

And Texas becomes the latest state to deliberately disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t own a state-issued photo identification card. The Democratic equivalent would be to require that all prospective voters prove that they do not own a boating license. That would have a similar effect of disproportionately impacting the base of voters from one party over the other.

I hope the Texas Republicans enjoy their last decade in the Sun, because their state will be Blue before long, and payback is going to be a bitch.

Here’s a few things that are irritating me. My boy is extremely allergic to mosquito bites and he loves to play outdoors. We’ve had so much rain that the mosquitos are much worse than usual right now. So, I did something I would not ordinarily do and bought a bug zapper from Amazon.com. I don’t use Amazon ordinarily because they like to donate money to Republicans. And I would prefer to leave bugs alone, not zap them into oblivion. But I can’t have my boy cooped up in the house or covered in what looks like cigarette burns. I paid an extra $3.99 for next-day delivery and the damn zapper never got here. Now I probably have to keep the boy inside all Memorial Day weekend.

On top of that, I bought a new grill from Home Depot a couple of weeks ago. I’ve used it about seven or eight times. The ignition switch is already broken and Home Depot is too busy to give me a new grill. So, now I have to go down there and get parts and try to figure the damn electronics on the thing. Either that, or I can just match-light the thing this weekend and deal with getting a new grill next week.

Also, too, I want to watch both the Philly Union game and the UEFA Championship between FC Barcelona and Manchester United, but I’ll never get away with watching both.

Did I mention that our dishwasher broke and it’s going to cost almost $400 to fix it? So, handwashing dishes all weekend.

At least the lawnmower didn’t break. We have a nicely mowed lawn that we can’t enjoy because of the skeeters.

And, it’s beautiful out right now, but I think it’s going to storm soon.

One of Ronald Reagan’s judges, a guy who has held senior status on the Eastern District of Virginia court for thirteen years, just ripped up the last shred of campaign finance law in this country.

A federal judge in Virginia has declared unconstitutional a century-old law banning political contributions from corporations, a ruling that, if upheld, could have major implications for the rules governing campaign fund-raising and spending…

…the ruling drew from and extended the reasoning in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last year in the Citizens United case. The justices ruled in that case that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections, but did not address the current bans on direct contributions by corporations to candidates.

In his decision, Judge Cacheris said that if corporations and people have an equivalent right to free speech under Citizens United, they also have an equivalent right to contribute to candidates, albeit within the same limits currently established by federal law.

“That logic is inescapable here,” Judge Cacheris wrote.

If upheld, corporations could give money directly to candidates for office, but they would still be bound by the individual caps that we all must abide by as individual citizens. Yet, it would make it impossible to police campaign giving.

“If this case stood, it would mean the end of campaign contribution limits for everyone, because it would be so easy to get around the law through a straw or sham corporation,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who is helping to defend a lawsuit challenging municipal campaign laws in San Diego.

Indeed, I would expect the number of corporations to explode, with tens of thousands of them being created each election cycle for the simple purpose of expanding the power of rich assholes to give more money to campaigns than regular folks are allowed to do. Individual candidates would face a compliance nightmare just trying to vet their donors.

This is what happens when Republicans seize control of our judiciary. They try to destroy us. Maybe they do destroy us.

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Whether it’s his home town Jerusalem or his place of business Washington DC, Dennis Ross is once again the president’s advisor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I just read two interesting articles/analysis in the Jerusalem Post.

White House advisor defends Obama peace talks stance

WASHINGTON – A top White House advisor defended US President Barack Obama’s controversial posture on peace talks, arguing that his approach was paying off by garnering European support.

Dennis Ross, a senior advisor to Obama on the Middle East, told Jewish newspapers that the president’s call for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on basis of the 1967 lines with agreed land swaps has been welcomed by European leaders during this past week of international meetings surrounding the G-8 summit of world powers.

“The character of discussions with the Europeans has clearly improved for the better,” he said of talks held this week. “They have been endorsing what the president had to say.”

AIM TO REJECT UN VOTE ON PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD

He explained that one of the reasons Obama “became convinced” that it was necessary to lay out this basis for talks was that it would give the US leverage with the Europeans so they wouldn’t support a unilateral declaration of statehood that the Palestinians are seeking at the UN in September.

“It’s important for us to be able to use with the Europeans in particular the fact that there is a credible alternative, there is an alternative basis on which to pursue the negotiation,” he said. “It gives us an ability with the Europeans to say this is not the right way to go. You should be opposing any effort to go to the UN.”

OBTAIN EU SUPPORT TO REJECT HAMAS IN UNITY GOVERNMENT

Ross also warned that the Europeans don’t always believe Netanyahu is “serious” about making peace and see the United States as the Israeli leader’s enabler, Jewish leaders on the call said.

In that conversation as well, Ross defended Obama’s approach, saying doing nothing would have led to a drastically deteriorating situation when it came to heading off a unilateral declaration of statehood, and that it also helped rally international support for standing firm on Hamas after it joined a unity government with Fatah last month.

George Mitchell resigns as special ME envoy for Obama  

Diplomacy: Netanyahu and ‘The Book of Why’

Why was Netanyahu’s speech to Congress important, especially since he did not chart any radically new course?

While Netanyahu’s speech did not detail a new Israeli program, it did set down basic markers that are not irrelevant. Or, as Netanyahu himself said in private conversations, what he was trying to do was pound some policy stakes into the ground that would not be moved by the swirling winds in the region.

And those stakes are:  No return to 1967, no refugees, no Hamas, and the absolute necessity of the Palestinians recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Yet there were some other elements of the speech that deserve notice.

The first is that Netanyahu signaled flexibility – that he said he was willing to be “generous” if the Palestinians uttered six key words: “We will accept a Jewish state.”

Second, it is important to notice that Netanyahu never speaks of dismantling, destroying or uprooting settlements.

Instead, as he said to Congress, “in any real peace agreement, in any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel’s borders.”

Close aides to Netanyahu have said in the past that if a million Arabs live in Israel, there is no reason in the world why a Palestinian state must be cleansed of all Jews.

Third, when talking about a future Palestinian state – saying that Israel will be generous about the size but firm on where the border is put so the lines are defensible – Netanyahu never used the word “contiguity.” This was not an oversight, and it is not clear how exactly he envisions a link between the West Bank and Gaza.

And fourth, he indicated – for the first time publicly – some wiggle room on Jerusalem, saying that while it “must remain the united capital of Israel,” he also believed that “with creativity and with goodwill a solution can be found.”  

• Dennis Ross at J-Street

 

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Hello again painting fans.

This week I’ll be continuing with the painting of the Ferrari F430.  I will be using the photo seen directly below.

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I’m using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 canvas.

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.

Since that time, I have continued to work on the painting.

Armed with only tubes of black and white (and derivatives thereof), I started to fill in the outline of the car.  First came the thin black paint covering the body panels.  More thin paint, in gray, was applied to the windows.  Next came the tires.  Note the diffuser, in grays and black, at the lower rear of the car.  All of these are in only the preliminary phase but you can see how things are coming together even at this early stage.

 
The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

That’s about it for now. Next week I’ll have more progress to show you. See you then. As always, feel free to add photos of your own work in the comments section below.

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

I haven’t written much at all about the recall effort in Wisconsin. This isn’t because I don’t find it interesting or important or worth supporting. It’s mainly a combination of a general aversion to writing about state and local politics for a national/international audience, and a lack of knowledge on my part about the details of Wisconsin’s internal political climate and culture. Simply put, too many of my readers don’t care, and I don’t have anything of value to add.

I do note, however, that the whole recall effort has created a kind of bureaucratic clusterfuck that costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to litigate and arbitrate. And, it occurs to me, that it might be a few election cycles before Wisconsin sees an end to this kind of permanent campaign. Generally speaking, it’s best to let elections speak for themselves and not seek to overturn elections prematurely through recall campaigns. I didn’t like it when it was done to California Governor Gray Davis. I didn’t like it when Tom DeLay had Texas’s districts redrawn mid-decade. So, the only reason I’m supportive of the effort in Wisconsin is because the governor there is being so incredibly aggressive about screwing over important Democratic constituencies. By seeking to destroy public service unions and disenfranchise minorities, Gov. Walker isn’t merely governing; he’s waging war against the left. And I don’t shy away from that kind of war.

Yet, when this is all over and the Democrats have restored sanity to the Badger State, I suggest that progressives reexamine the recall laws. I say this because the next time we win power in Wisconsin, the GOP will instantly move to have recall elections and overturn the result. It’s not like a move like this will be restricted to ‘extraordinary circumstances.’

In general, people should be free to serve the full terms they were elected to serve, and any exceptions should be because of actual criminal activity, not policy differences. Impeachment is a more appropriate remedy than recall petitions. That is, of course, unless your opponents are looking to completely destroy you.