Month: September 2011

The Register Guard of Eugene Oregon published an editorial, the type of which you can see in just about any newspaper. It caught my eye because it was brief, to the point and contained some basic stats which I found interesting.

   

For the first time since President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, an entire month has passed without a single U.S. soldier dying in a conflict that has claimed the lives of 4,474 American service members.

    The U.S. military is preparing to pull the last troops out of Iraq by the end of the year in accordance with a 2008 security agreement between the two countries. But there is troubling talk in Washington and Baghdad of extending that deadline to have U.S. troops remain longer in Iraq.

    While Iraq was becoming less lethal, 67 U.S. troops died last month in the Afghanistan war, making August the deadliest month for Americans in the longest-running war in U.S. history.

    Obama should also continue — and expedite — the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, site of a nearly decade-long war in which this country has invested $1 trillion, 10 years of effort and the lives of 1,754 U.S. troops.

I’m tired of the BS from Washington about withdrawing troops which usually comes with the disclaimer that the date could be postponed. What do the guys on the ground in Iraq think? Are they of the opinion that we’re doing something worthwhile there? Or are they cynical and angry?

I suppose it’s a good sign, no it definitely is a good sign that no fatalities happened in Iraq last month. My sincere prayer is that it may continue like that and somehow the government will do the right thing by the end of this year.

Afghanistan is another story. What in the hell has been accomplished there at such a cost? Was it all about Bin Laden and the Taliban? I doubt it, but whatever else it is, some strategic balance of power in the region or whatever, I say that’s enough. Let’s get out of there.

Unfortunately, as the August deaths indicate, it’s going in the opposite direction. What do those troops think? Is the idea that the U.S. is policing the world in order to make it safer something that sustains them? Bush and Bush supporters always said that, but do people still think that way?

The op-ed I linked to made the point that in order to heal the economy at home we need to stop spending so much on these wars. That may be true, but to me there’s a more important reason, a more human reason to end these ill-fated endeavors. We have young Americans dying over there and I honestly cannot see for what.

As has been said many times in defense of pacifist and non-intervention arguments, the best way I can see to support the troops is to bring them home, every one. We can spend some of that money on VA hospitals and PTSS clinics. We can invest in education and vocational programs for these young volunteers.

This is how we can make America strong.

What’s your opinion? Please leave a comment.
(cross posted at Mikeb302000)

It’s hard to believe that the website Dowd Report exists, especially when part of their mission statement is to “[g]et featured in a mainstream media report about obsequious fansites that border on or even cross the line dividing genuine fandom and creepy stalkerhood.” Back in 2008, the site actually dedicated a column to a defense of Maureen Dowd’s role in the Earth Tones Al debacle. It’s hilarious to read, as they miss the entire point of the criticism. The problem with Dowd’s coverage of the 2000 campaign wasn’t that she originated the Naomi Wolf story but that she perpetuated and reinforced it. She acted like it was more important that we know Al Gore was a bad campaigner than it was for us to know why the outcome of the election mattered. Yet, as soon as Dowd was confronted with the actual Bush-Cheney administration she acted liked she was horrified. Maybe she should have been able to predict the coming disaster rather than act like a fashion columnist.

Speaking of which, when will Dowd compare Romney’s robotic nature to Gore’s? Or ask if he’s a humanoid?

I really don’t want to ever again have to listen to Republicans talk about respect for the office of the presidency. If they can’t even show up for a Joint Session of Congress, then they’re too hypocritical to live, let alone be taken seriously. If this speech were about a matter of national security, they’d be there. But it’s about jobs. They don’t think creating jobs is important? Of course not. They would rather use it as an opportunity to be rude.

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‘Gates called Netanyahu an ungrateful ally to U.S. and a danger to Israel’

(Haaretz) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “ungrateful” toward the United States, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who left his post in July of this year, claimed during a closed meeting with senior American government officials.

The news came to light after journalist Jeffery Goldberg reported in a blog post that the meeting took place a short time before Gates’ departure. According to Goldberg, several senior government officials claim Gates told President Obama that not only is “Netanyahu ungrateful, but also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank.”

The report was not the first instance of an alleged mistrust of Netanyahu by global leaders. Earlier in the year former Downing Street communications chief Alistair Campbell indicated that former Prime Minister Tony Blair felt that the Israeli PM was untrustworthy. In the second volume of his diaries, wrote candidly of the British view of then, and current, Netanyahu, saying Foreign Office officials had nicknamed Netanyahu “the armor-plated bullshitter.”

Campbell goes on to say that this view was not held exclusively by U.K. officials, adding that former premier, and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Blair during a meeting that he was “was pessimistic because Bibi was a total bullshitter.”

Turkey to enforce more sanctions on Israel: PM Erdoğan

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday Turkey would implement further sanctions against Israel and said that “our ships will be seen more frequently in those waters,” referring to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Erdoğan said that Turkey was “totally suspending” defense industry ties with Israel, after downgrading diplomatic relations with Israel.

“Trade ties, military ties, ties regarding defense industry, we are completely suspending them. This process will be followed by different measures,” Erdoğan told reporters in Ankara.

Turkish Prime minister says he might visit Gaza

• From Turkey to Rothschild: The Gifts and Challenges of Sovereignty

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

The 2010 elections were not only a disaster on the federal level. The Republicans gained supermajorities on the state level in places like Alabama and Texas. Republican-majority governments in states like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Arizona, and Florida have been passing radical legislation, much of it unconstitutional on its face. The assault on abortion rights has been unprecedented, as has been the efforts to destroy public-sector unions, and to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies like racial minorities, college students, and the elderly who survive on fixed-incomes. In many cases, the courts have done what the Democrats were too weak to accomplish, and have blocked or overturned Republican legislation. But there is no guarantee that this dam will hold. The judiciary, on the state level, is growing more conservative, and the Supreme Court still has a conservative majority. The takeover of the judiciary is nearing completion, and the effort to starve the federal treasury of funds is making Grover Norquist’s dream of shrinking the government enough to drown it in a bathtub a real possibility.

I think the Republicans have pushed the ball far enough down the field that they will be in position to radically change this country if they win the White House next year. They’ll almost certainly be able to attain a majority on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, which will then allow all these extreme abortion laws in the states
to go into effect. They’ll probably be allowed to get away with severely limiting voting rights without any challenge from the Department of Justice. Public-sector unions will be gone. The EPA will be rendered toothless. Entitlements will be gutted. Everything that isn’t tied down will be privatized and corrupted.

There won’t be anything compassionate about the triumph of conservatism. And it will be really hard to fix.

I don’t think this is hyperbole. Do you?

Ed Rollins is the only Republican operative in the country who I kind of like. It’s probably his blue-collar roots and his history as a boxer that makes him seem like a regular dude. He’s a mercenary, like almost all the other great American campaign managers. But he also has a tendency to offer some blunt criticism of his own party. His 1984 “Morning in America” effort set the standard for great campaigns until David Plouffe came along in 2008.

I was a little bit disgusted with Rollins when he accepted Michele Bachmann’s offer to run her campaign. He doesn’t need the money and he knows better than to think she’d be an acceptable president. Rollins quit as H. Ross Perot’s campaign manager when he figured out that Perot had a screw loose. So, why was he going to help Bachmann?

Maybe he does need the money. He took the job and led Bachmann to victory in the Ames Straw Poll. I guess that was the extent of his plan for Bachmann, because he just stepped down as Bachmann’s campaign manager. Perhaps Rick Perry’s decision to announce his candidacy the same day as the Ames Straw Poll was successful in preventing Bachmann from gaining any positive momentum, and now Rollins’s whole plan has blown up. Yesterday, he told the Washington Post that it is a battle between Perry and Romney, which is not the kind of thing you’d expect a Bachmann advocate to say. Of course, he’s creating a facade that he’s resigning for health reasons and will remain a senior adviser, but that doesn’t explain why his assistant is leaving the campaign.

Mrs. Bachmann’s campaign cited health reasons for the abrupt change in the role Mr. Rollins, 68, will play in the presidential campaign.

“Ed is moving away from the demanding day-to-day operations of the campaign and into a senior adviser role,” said the spokeswoman, Alice Stewart. “He is fantastic and will continue to be invaluable on the campaign.”

Politico reported the change in Mr. Rollins’s role. The Web site also reported on Monday night that Mr. Rollins’s deputy, David Polyansky, would leave the campaign. “I wish Michele nothing but the best, and anyone who underestimates her as a candidate does so at their own peril,” Mr. Polyansky told Politico.

It sounds to me like Rollins had a plan and things went according to plan, and yet it still didn’t work. So, he and his team are cutting their losses. It’s unlikely that Bachmann will regain her former numbers. She’s already peaked.

   

Title: (3rd New Title) relative to physical force in defense of a person, relative to producing or displaying a firearm or other means of self-defense, and relative to eliminating minimum sentencing and adding civil immunity for certain firearm use.

I think we need a lawyer to explain this one to us, but my understanding is it would expand the castle-doctrine and lessen the punishment for gun offenses.

The Union Leader reports on the struggle expected this week by the NH Senate to over-ride the governor’s veto.

   

Gov. John Lynch faces his toughest fight on his veto of Senate Bill 88, which expands the legal use of deadly force and includes the so-called Ward Bird provision adding flexibility in sentencing for criminal threatening.

    SB 88 passed 19-5 along party lines in the Senate. That is more than enough for a two-thirds vote to override the veto. It would take four defections from Republican ranks to sustain Lynch.

    Senators have been under intense pressure from law enforcement at all levels. All 10 county attorneys, sheriffs, chiefs and police associations have urged senators to sustain the veto.

The sickness of partisan politics and voting along party lines irrespective of what’s right or wrong or what a particular voting politician really believes, practically dooms this one to failure. Four Republicans would have to defect, which to me sounds unlikely. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.
(cross posted at Mikeb302000)

Yea! The EPA job killing machine is dead! Long live the job creators in their victory over Obama the Evil Muslim Keyan Marxist Fascist! Obama has reversed course again, by rejecting the unanimous opinion of the EPA’s scientists to issue regulations to lower ozone pollution, but he saved American jobs, right? Except when has the EPA killed jobs before? Let’s look into our past instead of looking at Republican predictions of the future. Specifically let’s look at the effects of those horrible stop acid rain regs. The Republicans at the time predicted billions and billions of costs and (cue the drum roll) a major loss of jobs. What really happened?

For example, when the Environmental Protection Agency first proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act aimed at reducing acid rain caused by power plant emissions, the electric utility industry warned that they would cost $7.5 billion and tens of thousands of jobs. But the cost of the program has been closer to $1 billion, said Dallas Burtraw, an economist at Resources for the Future, a nonprofit research group on the environment. And the E.P.A., in a paper published this year, cited studies showing that the law had been a modest net creator of jobs through industry spending on technology to comply with it.

Damn. One Billion Dollars was all it cost to stop pouring acid rain into the lakes and streams where I live? That’s more than we lend those scumbags “job creators” on Wall Street every hour to –uh — wreck the economy. Could the “Job creators” be misinformed, or are they simply lying? Let’s look at another example, from Florida where Congresswoman Sandy Adams claimed regulations to clean up Florida’s water was a mass conspiracy to help polluters and “kill jobs.” Was she right?

Make no mistake, Florida needs these new standards. A near-dead Lake Apopka, a chronically sick St. Johns River and the region’s many algae-bloom-filled springs cry out for them. And with the NRC scientists examining the cost of making improvements to sewage plants, stormwater systems and septic systems, we expect they’ll show that the financial burden from the standards will be significantly less than the $1,000 per year per sewage customer that opponents contend. The EPA’s own estimate: $11 per resident.

If the arguments against the EPA’s tougher nutrient standards sound familiar, that’s because they’ve been used over and over again by reactionary lawmakers to eviscerate sensible regulations. The anti-environment gang in Tallahassee killed state growth laws they said killed jobs. What nonsense.

Well, that’s a biased “ecoterrorist” source. Obviously. Just like this “study” by the EPA examining the benefits and costs of the Clean Air Act over the period 1990 to 2020. Here’s the short version:

A new report, released by the EPA this month (March 2011), analyzes the costs and benefits from the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA) as they relate to the economy, public health and the environment. It found that the benefits from CAAA regulation far outweigh the costs by a factor of 30 to 1 with high-benefit estimates exceeding costs 90 to 1. Even low-benefit estimates found gains exceed costs 3 to 1. According to the analysis, CAAA will continue to better Americans in the near future; for the year 2020 alone, benefits will reach $2 trillion and save 230,000 people from premature death.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stated, “The Clean Air Act’s decades-long track record of success has helped millions of Americans live healthier, safer and more productive lives. This report outlines the extraordinary health and economic benefits of one of our nation’s most transformative environmental laws and demonstrates the power of bipartisan approaches to protecting the health of the American people from pollution in our environment.”

Would you like to see some colorful graphics and charts illustrating her statements? I thought so. Here’s one showing the cost of regulation versus the benefits. Call it the Balloon within a balloon graph:

Whoa, Nellie! Two Trillion Dollaros in savings for a cost of a mere $65 Billion over 30 years (How much again did we pour down the Banksters Rat Hole give Wall Street job creators and Big Oil job creators over the past couple of years?) Sure sounds like a great deal to me.

But there’s more!

But there’s more!

The extent to which estimated benefits exceed estimated costs and an in‐depth analysis of uncertainties indicate that it is extremely unlikely the costs of 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment programs would exceed their benefits under any reasonable combination of alternative assumptions or methods identified during this study. Even if one were to adopt the extreme assumption that air pollution has no effect on premature mortality –or that avoiding such effects has no value—the benefits of reduced nonfatal health effects and visibility improvements alone are more than twice the total cost of compliance with 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment requirements. […]

Economy-wide modeling was also conducted to estimate the effect of the 1990 Amendments on overall U.S. economic growth and the economic welfare of American households. When some of the beneficial economic effects of clean air programs were incorporated along with the costs of these programs, economy‐wide modeling projected net overall improvements in economic growth and welfare. These improvements are projected to occur because cleaner air leads to better health and productivity for American workers as well as savings on medical expenses for air pollution related health problems. The beneficial economic effects of these two improvements more than offset the costly effects across the economy of expenditures for pollution control.

Let’s look at another chart shall we?

Gosh darn, there the EPA goes again, disputing the facts the “job creators” at The Exxon funded Heritage Foundation and other conservative and business groups assert that the EPA and its regulations are “job-killers.” They even forced Mr. First Black Muslim President Who May or May Not Have Been Born in the USA to adopt their rhetoric that the EPA “kills jobs.”

Just days after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced the House would begin voting to repeal proposed air quality regulations that he said would prevent job growth, President Obama instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its proposed ozone regulations.

“I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover,” Obama said in a statement.

Obama said the standards are already being revised and would have to be updated again in 2013.

“Ultimately, I did not support asking state and local governments to begin implementing a new standard that will soon be reconsidered,” Obama said in the statement.

Funny, but that’s not what his EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, said just days before President Obama told her to shove her agency’s regulations where the sun don’t shine:

Some in Washington are working to weaken safeguards and undermine laws that protect our families from pollution that causes asthma, cancer and other illnesses, especially in children. Big polluters are lobbying Congress for loopholes to use our air and water as dumping grounds. The result won’t be more jobs; it will be more mercury in our air and water and more health threats to our kids. As a senior official from the Bush EPA recently wrote, “Abolishing the EPA will not cause a revival of America’s economy, but it will certainly result in a major decline in public health and our quality of life.” […]

When big polluters distort EPA’s proposals as a drag on our economy, they ignore the fact that clean air, clear water and healthy workers are all essential to American businesses.

They also overlook the innovations in clean technology that are creating new jobs right now. The CEO of Michigan’s Clean Light Green Light recently said, “EPA has opened the doors to innovation and new economic opportunities. By spurring entrepreneurs who have good ideas and the drive to work hard, the EPA has helped give rise to countless small businesses in clean energy, advanced lighting, pollution control and more, which in turn are creating jobs.”

It’s time to recognize that delays of long-expected health standards leave companies uncertain about investing in clean infrastructure, environmental retrofits, and the new workers needed to do those jobs. These are potential opportunities for engineers and scientists, as well as pipefitters, welders and steelworkers. Pledges to weaken or slow proposed standards, many of which have been developed over years and with industry input, prevent businesses from investing in those jobs.

Some leaders in Congress have already stated their intent to roll back critical environmental protections when they return to session. Misleading claims are translating into actions that could dismantle clean air standards that protect our families from mercury, arsenic, smog and carbon dioxide. All of this is happening despite the evidence of history, despite the evidence of Congress’ own objective Research Service, and despite the need for job creation strategies that go well beyond simply undermining protections for our health, our families and our communities.

By “Some leaders in Congress” she meant Republican Congressional slugs members like Eric the “Let’s use Debt Ceiling Bill to hold America Hostage” Cantor. Who knew that her boss was going to agree with those “Job-creatin’ Big Polluter campaign contribution takin'” Republicans only days after she wrote her opinion piece for the Huffington Post.

I guess she didn’t get the memo:

Well I’m sure this is a wily and brilliant electoral stratigcalistical maneuver by the President’s ace campaign re-election team. I’m sure someone will tell me it is, in any event. I can’t wait until President Obama’s next brilliant move to destroy the Professional Left’s (e.g., people like EPA scientists and his own EPA Chief and that devil Paul Krugman) undue influence on Democratic Politics, which is, as we all know the only real obstacle to improving his approval rating, his re-election and a safer, more secure America — for “Job Creators.”

I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon or so blatantly, but I wasn’t really that surprised when the Administration pulled the plug on EPA ozone regulations.  

Why did this happen. and what does it all mean?
I think we can dismiss the possibility that the issue was decided on the merits, that the Administration became convinced by the Republicans’ contention that the way to stimulate the economy is to increase hospitalizations for respiratory disease.  The move was political in intent.  Perhaps the Republicans’ argument was polling well, and the Administration wanted to coopt the issue.  That’s not really plausible, either.  If you are doing something because the polls show it is popular, you don’t do it, in classic bad news fashion, on the Friday before a holiday weekend.

What has happened is that the environmental movement has become politically irrelevant.  And it goes back to the last election.

I think that the 2010 election will be recognized as the most significant election since 1860.  There is an optimistic analysis of the election, which I don’t really buy, that there are two electorates now — a large, liberal leaning electorate that shows up in Presidential years, and a smaller, right-wing electorate that votes in the midterms.  Even if you believe this, you have to deal with the consequences of the 2010 election, which are that the winners rewrite the rules for elections.  So when the quadrennial voters show up next time, many will find that they have been stripped of their right to vote, and those who can still vote will discover that their votes no longer have any impact on who controls the House or their state legislatures, because of aggressive redistricting.

Here is how I think about what happened in 2010.  A third party, which had not existed before, became the majority party, by taking over the party that had been the minority party, driving it to the right ideologically, and somehow in the process increasing that party’s support.  It doesn’t make any sense that such a thing could occur, but it did.

And something else happened as well.  The party that was the majority party, in fact, the party that had achieved the largest legislative majority of any party in more than a generation, ceased to exist.  There had since the late sixties been a party that supported strong environmental laws and widespread consumer protections.  That party had also been, from long before the sixties, the party that supported the labor movement.  That party, the majority party in the country, simply disappeared after the 2010 elections.

What changed everything, what made 2010 possible, was the Citizens United decision.  There can no longer be a majority party that supports positions that industry opposes.  And since majority parties want to regain the majority after an electoral reversal, the choice between corporate contributions and the support of environmental activists becomes a no-brainer.

The environmental movement has become politically irrelevant.  There can be a scientific consensus on what levels of ozone are harmful to human health.   Such inconvenient truths, along with others, are best ignored if they are likely to be harmful to a party’s political health.

But there is no getting around this inconvenient truth  — for environmentalists, the party is truly over.

It’s nice to have a day honoring labor, but in contemporary America it seems more appropriate to have a Hedge Fund Operators Day or a Capital Gains Tax Holiday. For three hundred and sixty-four days a year we don’t honor labor in this country. We honor bling. We honor Donald Trump. If we honored labor, we’d tax wages at a lower rate than capital gains. We do the opposite. And it’s supposed to create jobs but it never seems to deliver. Our priorities are screwed up because our overlords are polluting our minds every day. That’s what I think about on Labor Day. This year, more than ever. Viva la Wisconsin.