Bobby Jindal is like extra Christmas for Dems

Bobby Jindal is really the gift that gives on giving.  After pretending not to know what magnetic levitation trains were, and pretending that it was some kind boondoggle Abbie Hoffman hippie weirdo thing worthy of derision on national TV, Jindal has decided that Louisiana needs some federal train money, for a high-speed rail line between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  

Last Tuesday, Jindal said the following:

"While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending," Jindal said. "It includes ... $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a 'magnetic levitation' line from Las Vegas to Disneyland."

Then, on Friday,  the Louisiana Transportation Department, overseen by Jindal, requested $110m that would be used to create new track and extend a spur line to create high speed rail from New Orleans to the LA capital.

Now despite the fact that high-speed rail from Vegas to Los Angeles would connect the 2nd and 28th largest American cities, whereas a New Orleans to Baton rouge line would connect the 64th and 82nd largest cities...

Asked for comment Friday about the Jindal stance on the federal rail money, the governor's Chief of Staff Timmy Teepell said he does not think the Las Vegas to Anaheim line is a good use of taxpayer money. He did not address the Louisiana proposal. 

It appears the speech went over well

A worthy opponent

Republican Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman (from Politico via Andrew)


Q: In December you talked about people 40 and under having a very different view on the environment. Is there a similar generational gap on gay rights?

A: You hit on the two issues that I think carry more of a generational component than anything else. And I would liken it a bit to the transformation of the Tory Party in the UK…
They went two or three election cycles without recognizing the issues that the younger citizens in the UK really felt strongly about. They were a very narrow party of angry people. And they started branching out through, maybe, taking a second look at the issues of the day, much like we’re going to have to do for the Republican Party, to reconnect with the youth, to reconnect with people of color, to reconnect with different geographies that we have lost. How do you win back the intelligentsia? How do you win back some of the editorial boards of major newspapers that Richard Nixon used to carry?

Q: Why do you think winning back the intelligentsia matters?

A: I think we’ve drifted a little bit from intellectual honesty in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt, for example, where they would use rigorous science to back up many of their policies, and in this case many of their environmental policies. Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. We declared the war on cancer.

A lot of intellectual rigor went into the policies of those days, and we’ve drifted a little bit from taking seriously the importance of science to buttress much of what we’re doing today.

Q: It sounds like what you’re saying is that Republicans need to win the educated class of America.

A: Absolutely. The country, I do believe, is a centrist-right country, for the most part, when you look closely at the demographics…I’m not sure that we have connected fully, meaningfully and in any complete way on the issues of the day.

Bobby Jindal- Imaginary Badass

Apparently the story that Bobby Jindal told during his response to Obama's non-SOTU on Thursday about how he and a rogue Louisiana Sheriff beat back the bureaucrats to allow volunteers to use their boats to rescue Katrina victims? You know, the story that was the only vaguely compelling part of Jindal's mag-lev and volcano-monitor bashing speech? Well... not actually true.

Jindal had described being in the office of Sheriff Harry Lee "during Katrina," and hearing him yelling into the phone at a government bureaucrat who was refusing to let him send volunteer boats out to rescue stranded storm victims, because they didn't have the necessary permits. Jindal said he told Lee, "that's ridiculous," prompting Lee to tell the bureaucrat that the rescue effort would go ahead and he or she could arrest both Lee and Jindal.

But now, a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone "days later." The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

You'd think that these guys would maybe think twice before baldly lying about something that can readily proved to be untrue in a major speech. On the other hand, I guess you'd also think that they wouldn't turn domestic policy over to Joe the Plumber either.

College gap

In Obama's speech on Tuesday he stated an ambitious goal on college education: "By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. That is a goal we can meet."



One can quibble with whether this goal is strictly obtainable (depending on what measurements you use), but everyone agrees that increases in educational attainment are really worthwhile. Along with the income disparity gap widening between the super-rich and everyone else, we also see a gap between the college-educated professionals and everyone else.



Matt Yglesias makes the case that a major cause of our static numbers in college graduation rates is the number of people who enter college and subsequently drop out. His answer somewhat predictably puts the burden on the schools and the government:



And though money doubtless plays a role in some of this, the main problem is lack of preparation. There's a need to both improve the performance of the earlier years of our system from pre-K on forward and to improve the performance of our colleges and universities, especially those that serve the low end of the market. In an ideal world, of course, every 12 grader would be perfectly well-prepared and colleges wouldn't need to worry about that. But we need our institutions of higher education to serve the population we actually have, and that requires more transparency about what's really going and more of an ethic of responsibility on the part of administrators.



Of course pre-K through 12 education needs to be improved, but, limiting our discussion here to higher education, some of the responsibility has to go to students. I certainly did not spend most of college working particularly hard, and spent (in retrospect) an inordinate amount of time playing videogames and beirut, and I don't think my experience was atypical for traditional students. Everything worked out for me, but obviously this is not the best cultural setup for maximizing either graduation rates or useful knowledge and skills obtained in college.



One suggestion might be for some students, particularly marginal or particularly immature ones, to delay college for a year or two after high-school graduation. One of the reasons for the sloth and debauchery in college is that, for most students, it's their first taste of freedom away from their parents, and also 18 and 19 year olds are not known for great decision-making and long-term thinking. A couple year gap between high-school and college would allow an increase in maturity as well as an understanding of why



This kind of gap could be created through Americorps style programs, as well as internships in private sector, non-profit and government organizations that would provide some exposure to both working adults who aren't your parents as well as possible fields to focus on once going to college. Even a minor push by the government on this would do a lot to erase the stigma that presently attaches to graduating high-schoolers who don't immediately head off to college.

Yale law students should be asking for a rebate again

Worst op-ed on home mortgage cram-downs ever. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27schwartz.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

That's not an argument against removing the restriction on modifying indebtedness secured by home loans, it's an argument against the bankruptcy process. The author, who apparently gets paid by Yale law students, thinks its a big deal that bankruptcy judges aren't experts at valuing home mortgages. Bankruptcy judges aren't experts at anything except (hopefully) the bankruptcy code! We have an adversarial system of civil justice in this country, and that means parties put on evidence and make arguments. Judges split the difference.

What's so shockingly dense about this op-ed that I had to read it three times to make sure I wasn't missing something is that he doesn't even acknowledge that most of these disputes will be settled, not litigated. The major impediment to settling these cases now is that there's no legal basis for one the parties to argue for modification.

I might do this gentleman the honor of destryong his three points more in detail later, but I've got real world bankruptcy work to do.

A pretty good confluence of my interests

Michael Steele's circular firing squad

Fresh on the heels of his suggestion that what Republicans really need to do is be more "hip-hop," GOP Chair Michael Steele has another great suggestion- run primary candidates against the only GOP Senators who have regularly won elections in blue states- the pro-stimulus Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter.

Let's think about this for a minute- in the 2008 elections, Maine went for the Dems 58-41. That's 17 points. So Steele's great idea is to try to either weaken Snowe or Collins or replace them with more conservative candidates? Ditto for PA, where Obama won 55-44.

Says NRSC head Jon Cornyn: "We need to be finding candidates that can win in different parts of the country ... not forming circular firing squads, especially when our numbers are so small."

No Mulligans

Apparently Norm Coleman has decided that, since he lost in the Minnesota re-count and can't find a way to win in court, the thing to do is throw out the votes of 3 million Minnesotans and have a do-over:

"What does the court do?" Norm asked rhetorically. "Yeah, you know some folks are now talking about simply saying run it again, just run it again."

"Have another statewide election?" Wilkow asked.

Coleman responded: "You know the St. Paul Pioneer Press is...one of the second largest papers in the state, last week [they] said we're never going to figure this out, just run it again. So you start hearing that. Ultimately the court has to make a determination, can they confirm, can they certify who got the most legally cast votes?"

This is an astonishingly desperate move by Coleman, who has been pretty graceless throughout this process. Part of the problem here is that there's little incentive for him to not grasp at every straw. If he loses, not only is he no longer in the Senate, but under Minnesota law is potentially on the hook for the state's costs of the recount- which might be awfully hard to recoup as a private citizen.

The main problem here, as in Florida in 2000, is that in the US, elections are not really designed to be precise down to the last ballot. There are lots of moving parts, poorly trained election-day officials, and many opportunities for human error. When states have a recount option in close races, they try to measure the result with an unreachable level of precision- which inevitably leads to court fights and the losing side thinking it got screwed. Coleman on election night was up a few hundred votes, and now Franken is up a few hundred votes. Another recount could easily wind up switching the results again because recounts (like elections) introduce human error into the system. Ultimately I think the best option would be to nix the automatic recounts and let election night results stand absent clear and compelling evidence of fraud or significant error (like a precinct or a bunch of absentee ballots not being counted).

Fifth Republic

A really interesting article posted on The Monkeycage, a blog co-authored by my former government professor Phil Klinkner, discusses Cornell professor Theodore Lowi's essay on what Lowi calls 'The Fifth Republic." Lowi's Fifth Republic encompasses the current era of American government where the presidency has become all-encompassing, based on the cold-war/war-on-terror constant "wartime footing" and popular disdain for meddling bureaucracy, incompetent congress and bench-legislating judiciary. Lowi argues that this isn't just a creation of the Bush administration, but a pervasive system into which Obama will likely fall, because the president needs maximalist powers because voters and the media place all responsiblitity on the executive. Very much worth reading.

Not quite watching the not-quite-SOTU

So I haven't actually had a chance to watch the speech yet, as I spent last night at Madison Square Garden watching Syracuse utterly humiliate a hapless St. John's squad. Commentary and polling indicates that Obama did a heckuva job, particularly in comparison to the St. John's of last night's politics, Bobby Jindal.

Jindal's delivery has been widely compared to Kevin the Page from 30 Rock, and apparently elicited an on-mic "Oh God" from Chris Matthews. David Brooks said, about Jindal's ideology "It's insane."

I should have something up about the speech once I get a chance to at least read the transcript.

A serious snag for cap-and-trade

Bradford Plumer at TNR notes a significant complication with cap-and-trade systems for reducing carbot output- the ability of companies to simply outsource their carbon-intensive processes to countries without such systems:

Take Britain, which, under existing Kyoto Protocol rules, appears to have reduced its emissions 18 percent since 1990. That looks laudable, until one includes imported goods and services, in which case Britain's total carbon footprint has actually grown by nearly 20 percent, according to a study by the Stockholm Environment Institute. While there are no doubt real reductions being made at home, a good chunk of the country's emissions are being outsourced abroad.

Absent an all-encompassing global treaty on emissions, it will be difficult to prevent a similar situation in the US if some kind of can-and-trade or carbon tax is passed. Outsourcing carbon could actually make global warming worse, because US factories are typically cleaner than those overseas, and the imported items would then have the carbon emissions from transportation added in.

One suggestion is to tax carbon at the point of consumption, but it's much harder to track the amount of carbon expended on a finished item (including all the raw materials, manufacturing, shipping, packaging, etc.) than it is to calculate it at the point of the carbon emissions. A tariff on imports to account for carbon might violate WTO rules.

We've seen in the past situations where US rules for labor conditions, child workers, toxic chemicals, etc. are more strict than other countries and result in manufacturing being outsourced to laxer nations. This has hurt American manufacturers, but at least the US has gained the benefit of its regulatory regime. Here, because carbon output is a borderless problem, the US could face the cost of its regulations without any of the benefit.

A Creative Compromise on Gay Marriage

David Blankehorn (president of the Institute for American Values) and Jonathan Rauch (author of "Gay Marriage: Why it is Good for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America") have come up with an ingenious compromise on dealing with gay marriage at the federal level. Right now any federal recognition of gay marriage is a non-starter. It would never get 60 votes for cloture in the Senate, and Obama (and all the other 2008 Democratif primary contenders) officially oppose gay marriage. Blankenhorn and Rauch propose the following compromise:

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

The religious-conscience protections would function similarly to those that prevent Catholic hospitals from having to perform abortions. They would help restrain some of the more maximalist and litigous organizations on the left that think they can litigate away bigotry. From the right, although many conservatives would prefer no recognition of homosexuality at all, there appears to be a rising understanding among right-wing politicians that gay-bashing is alienating educated and young voters. Officials like Utah Governor Jon Huntsman are staking out a position in favor of civil unions, which even in heavily conservative Utah are favored by a third of voters.

This would allow the federal government to mirror the policies of the various states, and allow a truly federalist policy on gay marriage. States that don't want to do it don't have to, but their opposition won't preclude at least a practical recognition by the federal goverment of gay marriages or civil unions performed in more enlightened states.

My personal choice would be for all levels of government to get out of the "marriage business" altogether. As long as they met basic health and consent qualifications (i.e.- no siblings, no underage marriages, etc.) the government would only sanction civil unions for both gay and straight couples. Marriage would go back to being a social/religious compact between the couple sanctified by their churches, families and friends.

GOP Govs love federal $, except when they want to score political points

Some pretty rich comments from GOP governors Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal in the Times. Both Jindal and Barbour are turning down portions of the federal stimulus money allocated for their states (Louisiana and Missippi).

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said he opposed spending federal money because it would require permanent changes in state law. "It would be like spending a dollar to make a dime," Governor Jindal said on Meet the Press. "I just have a fundamental disagreement with this package."

Mr. Jindal, a rising star in the party since being elected governor in 2007, said he would take advantage of one stimulus provision to increase unemployment benefits by $25 a week, financed entirely with federal money. But he said he would not accept money to expand eligibility for unemployment because it would increase employer taxes.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, like Mr. Jindal, said that he would reject the money for expanding unemployment insurance.

There is some we will not take in Mississippi, Governor Barbour told CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. “We want more jobs. You don't get more jobs by putting an extra tax on creating jobs.

In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Barbour criticized the stimulus law, saying "it's filled with social policy and costs too much. You could create just as many jobs for about half as much money."

Jindal and Barbour, however, seem to have no such qualms about the receipt of regular federal government money. Louisiana in 2005 received $19 billion more in federal spending than it paid in taxes- $1.78 in spending for every $1 in taxes. Mississsippi in 2005 received $14 billion more in federal money than it paid in taxes ($2.02 in federal spending for every $1 in taxes), 2nd highest in the nation.

Of course, if you're Bobby Jindal and you're trying to prove to the Rushified GOP base that you're a hardcore conservative, it's a great idea to prove your bona fides at the expense of the newly unemployed in your state who could probably really use $100 million in unemployment insurance about now...

More on the F-22

The surge in blogosphere debate on the merits of the F-22, sparked by the Atlantic's article, has been very interesting to read. I've pointed out the problems with the article's bias (particularly its complete failure to discusss the Navy's role in military aviation strategy), but that doesn't mean that the F-22 itself should be counted out completely.

A friend familiar with the issue tells me that the main role of the F-22 would be to use its stealth capacity to knock out enemy surface-to-air (SAM) missile sites, allowing our other jets to enter enemy airspace without worrying about fire from SAM sites on the ground. In this way, a smaller number of F-22s could act as a force multiplier for the legacy jets in the service.

I think to some degree, some of the F-22 opponents are guilty of shortsightedness. Yes, we need to focus now on fighting asymetric wars against largely land-based insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will need to be able to do so in the future. This requires increased investment in special forces, predator drones, and counter-insurgecy training for soldiers and marines clearing and holding the ground. However, I think that it's dangerously naive to believe that we've reached a state of international affairs where we will never again face war with a great power who can field an airforce against us. After the Civil War, the US military spent the next 50 years fighting guerilla and counter-insurgency battles against Native American tribes and in the Philippines (and one short war against a cut-rate power, Spain), and then were completely unprepared for World War I.

Maintaining an aura of invincibility for US forces- particularly in aviation and our tomahawk missile-launching submarines, functions as a highly useful deterrent to potential adversaries. They have to make policy decisions knowing, in the back of their minds that we have the ability to come out of nowhere and hit them with virtually no chance to even fight back, which is an enormous advantage, and arguably keeps us from having to use force more often. Other leaders also have to consider that, when our military advantage is several orders of magnitude, that there's almost no way for them to keep up, which may quell attempts to engage in an arms race (although it probably does little to limit arms races with regional rivals). These benefits should not be lightly discarded.

I don't know enough yet about the costs and benefits of the F-22 to make a call on whether it is the correct platform to maintain these advantages, but the general point stands- there is value in spending money to maintain a significant military edge over other powers, and we shouldn't shortsightedly overlook that in the focus on our immediate foes.

Yglesias on govt spending

Matt Yglesias distills the liberal viewpoint on domestic spending quite nicely here. He notes that, on the whole, Americans are generally well-stocked with the products of the private-sector- dvd players, cellphones, cars, large houses, and that even the less well-off live lives that are well-appointed compared to most of the rest of the world. However, when you look at areas in which Americans are less well off, it turns out that most of these are areas where the private sector has a limited role compared to the government:

We have a smaller proportion of our population graduating from college than do some other countries, and we're making no progress. Relatedly, our K-12 education system could perform better. Our intercity passenger rail offerings are much worse than they could be, and none of our non-NYC metro areas have really top-notch mass transit offerings. We have substantially more violent crime than do other countries or historical periods in the United States. The level of prenatal health care our pregnant women are receiving is substandard, as is the physical fitness of our children. Public libraries are generally worse than they were a generation ago. America's streets and sidewalks are, in general, not especially clean or well-maintained. And though our highways are plentiful, they're not well-maintained either.

I think that this makes a lot of sense, and that it's preferable to use the marginal stimulus dollar on these collective issues rather than giving it back to me to spend on going out to dinner or upgrading my television.

The problem, politically, of course is that many people in fact value upgrading their TV over increasing inter-city rail. I think a lot of the right-wing stink being raised over the (imaginary) $8 billion in the stimulus plan for an LA to Vegas rail line is not really over Harry Reid's alleged perfidy, or the "boondoggle of Hollywood celebrities taking the train to Sin City," but really that a lot of conservatives don't ever take trains anywhere and think that it's stupid to use their money to have to pay for trains anywhere.

Department of Embarassing Adults

Following on the heels of Mitt Romney's highly successful "Who let the dogs out" outreach to the "urban" community last year (which you need to watch if you've not seen it), newly elected RNC Chair Michael Steele decided that the Republican party's downfall is not a lack of ideas or the fact that it's in thrall to a 300 lb barbituates addict, but that it's not "hip-hop" enough:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
The RNC's first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party's image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times.

Having been elected to the job that the Bush White House and its political guru, Karl Rove, once denied him, Mr. Steele is running the show his way. To those who claimed he can't make the trains run on time, he has this message: “Stuff it.”

We're not using our submarines there either

Spencer Ackerman is pretty disingenuous in his article slamming the Air Force's request for F-22s by stating four times (in a three paragraph article) that the F-22 isn't being used in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It's not being used, of course, because it's an air-to-air combat vehicle, and neither the rump Taliban nor the Iraqi insurgents have an air force. If Ackerman doesn't know this about the F-22, he shouldn't be writing about it. If he does know it, he's making a somewhat stupid point. The anti-aircraft weapons on our Navy ships aren't being used in either of these wars either, nor our are submarines. That's not an open-and-shut case for scrapping either. I'm amenable to the idea that the F-22 program should be scrapped, but this is a lousy argument.

American-made

Robert Reich clarifies the "buy American" provision in the stimulus-

Foreign companies are eligible to receive stimulus money for things they make here (as long as the nations where they're headquartered have signed the WTO procurement agreement). For example, Alstom, the French engineering company, is eligible to receive stimulus funds for the power turbines it produces in Tennessee; Japan’s Sanyo, for the solar cell parts it makes in Oregon; and French-owned Lucent Technologies, for the high-speed internet components it produces here, as well as the research it does here through its research arm, Bell Labs. On the other hand, U.S. Steel may not be eligible for stimulus money for the steel slabs it casts in Ontario, Canada.
...
In the meantime, Reich notes the problem with bailing out the American auto industry:

Meanwhile, the Big Three themselves are global. A Pontiac G8 shipped by GM from Australia has less American content than a BMW X5 assembled in the United States. General Motors' European subsidiaries include Opel and Saab; Ford's include Volvo.

Under Water

The front page of today's Times delves into Obama's plan to rescue homeowners, and is critical of his approach. The Times divides troubled mortgage-holders into two categories- people who are having trouble actually making their monthly mortgage payments, and people who can make their payments, but currently have houses valued below their mortgage, who are labeled "under water."

The first group is comprised of about three million people, and the administration plans to spend about $50 billion to work with banks to keep these people in their homes, essentially splitting the cost of writing down the mortgages to a manageable level for the homeowners.

The second group, which is estimated at 10 million (and said to grow over the next couple years to 15 million) have an estimated $500 billion in mortgage debt in excess of the value of their homes. The fear is that, if the economy worsens, these people will walk out on their mortgages and opt to to rent instead- thus adding to the glut of houses on the market (and wrecking their credit in the process) and further dampening home prices. Obama's plan does nothing for these people, because studies indicate that in the past, only 1-2 percent of people "under water" on their mortgages actually walk out.

The Times, calling Obama's decision to only bail out the first group "a bit of rose-colored incrementalism," spins a fearful future (based on the statements of one Fed governor) that perhaps 10 percent, or 1-1.5 million people will talk out on their mortgages, and talks of spending $500 billion to bail out all the mortgage debt currently under water.

This is a ridiculous piece of analysis, because even if 10 percent did walk out, it makes no sense whatsoever to spend public money bailing out the 0ther 90% who had no intention of doing so (leaving aside the issue of why these folks get bailed out of a bad investment but I'm not getting a check to compensate me for my 401k's 40% loss last year). Even if we reached crisis proportions of people walking away from their mortgages, the government could much more sensibly take over the payments (or perhaps a portion of the payments, to split the loss with banks) of those who left and use the acquired properties for low-income rental housing- thus keeping it off the markets and avoiding the subsequent hit to housing prices.

Thumbs down to bigots in Utah

Following on the heels of Utah Governor Jon Huntsman's courageous stand backing civil unions for gay and lesbian people in Utah, some outfit called Americaforever took out this despicable ad in the Salt Lake Tribune, which compares gays and lesbians to "hookers" and "druggies".  After reading through the ad, I agree with Andrew Sullivan that an ad like this would never be published if it were attacking any other group in the US.

To give you an idea of the level of discourse engaged in by Americaforever, I refer you to the following sentence from the ad:

In 10 years, 10 generations of voting Children of today will be voting adults, and because they have been taught to believe that disagreeing with homosexuality is discrimination, they will vote to remove amendment 3.

Anybody interested in writing to the Salt Lake Tribune op-ed page to counter the Americaforever ad can address their email to letters@sltrib.com or can donate to Equality Utah here.

Uzbekistan or bust

Christopher Flavelle on Slate asks whether Uzbekistan is going to be the first test of Obama's rhetoric about dictators.  Uzbekistan has an exceptionally repressive dictator, who apparently boiled two people to death a couple years ago.  Flavelle wonders whether Obama is going to have to cut a deal with him in order to re-open an airbase that the Bush administration closed in 2005 after the Uzbek military massacred several hundred demonstrators.  The airbase is apparently necessary because Kyrgystan just revoked our ability to use a base there, and is needed as the US ramps up its efforts in Afghanistan with 17,000 new soldiers.  Apparently it's becoming much more difficult to use bases in Pakistan due to the new president who is somewhat more lukewarm to the US than his predecessor Musharraf.

I'm not entirely sure why the Uzbek base is necessary.  Kyrgystan doesn't actually abut Afghanistan, so any troops or materiel offloaded there would have to pass through Tajikistan anyway.  Also, why can't we just land people in Afghanistan, since we're allied with the government there.  Much of our air-power comes from carriers based in the Arabian sea.  I guess I'm not clear on why we can't just ramp up our bases in Afghanistan instead of getting back in bed with the atrocious Uzbek regime.

Pimping the F-22

This month's Atlantic has an interesting article on the F-22. The author leans very heavily toward pushing the need for the F-22 to replace the Air Force's aging F-15 fighter, based on the idea that other countries are now flying the Russian-made SU-30 and MiG-29s, as well as retrofitting older jets with new avionics and fire-and-forget missiles which make them much more lethal.

I was really surprised that the author didn't at all mention the Navy's air-combat capabilities when discussing the aging F-15. The Navy's F/A-18D and F/A-18E Superhornets came into service in the late '90s. Although they share a lot of components with the earlier Hornets, they're still very new planes with state-of-the-art avionics packages. They also have the advantage of being able to be launched from carriers (without having to negotiate with Uzbek dictators for bases) and can fulfill multiple roles- air-superiority, tactical support of ground troops and even as tankers to support other fighters. The failure to even mention the Navy or the Superhornet really damages the piece and makes it seem a much more one-sided toward pimping the newest Air Force kit.

GOP peddling mythical LA to Vegas high-speed rail

Matt Yglesias continues his excellent posting on the way that the GOP leadership is baldly lying about the stimulus bill- claiming that there is an $8 billion provision for an LA to Las Vegas high-speed rail when the bill in fact contains no such provision- just a general $8 b for high speed rail to be allocated by the transportation department, and probably a lot of it would go to John Boehner's home state of Ohio:

In a last-minute change, the total quantity of funds available was increased. But there’s no special plan for Las Vegas. The money will be spread all across the country. As it happens, I think an LA-Vegas HSR line is a perfectly reasonable project. But in practice the areas that will get a leg up should be the Federal Railroad Administration’s officially designated high-speed rail corridors. As it happens, LA-Vegas doesn’t make the cut. But guess who does have such a corridor? Ohio!

Indeed, the existing plan is a bit freakishly Ohio-centric, offering both a Cleveland-Toledo-Chicago line and a Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati-Indianapolis corridor while leaving things like Houston-Dallas and Orlando-Jacksonville (and, indeed, LA-Vegas) off the list. Long story short, John Boehner doesn’t know what he’s talking about and his position on this issue would imperil both short term jobs for Ohioans and an opportunity to substantially improve Ohio’s long-run capacity for economic growth.

I'll also note that, having driven to Vegas from LA on a couple of occasions, the 278 miles takes an absurdly long time, sometimes as much as 7 or 8 hours, because I-15 is the only way to get there. Given the amount of traffic plying that route on a regular basis, I could imagine this being a pretty effective project (if it was real).

George Will - even bigger jerk than previously believed!

Wowzers: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/where_theres_a_george_will_theres_a_way_to_deny_gl.php

George Will wasn't just selective and unscientific, he may have even been misrepresenting the stuff he did bother to cite! (The above cited link was brought to the attention of this member of the reading public through the work of Mr. Ta-Nehisi Coates.)

Disaster looming in CA

California is now $41b in the hole and is having serious difficulties closing its budget deficit.  The problem is the ridiculous legislative system in CA whereby taxes can be cut by a simple majority of legislators, but a 2/3 supermajority is required to both raise taxes and to pass budgets.  This functions to create a "ratchet down" where it's much easier to repeatedly cut taxes than it is to raise them when necessary.  Add to this a system where as much as a third of the budget is untouchable because it has been set directly by voters through initiative and referendum.

Another serious problem is the term-limits in the state legislature.  It prevents members from having spent the time in Sacramento necessary to develop competence in the legislative process and (much more critically) the personal relationships with members on the other side of the aisle.  Add to that the gerrymandered districts that make the average CA legislator much more extreme (to the left and right) than the average CA voter, and this sets the stage for the sort of paralysis we're seeing now.

George Will - Still a jerk

George Will wrote about climate change again today. I am not like "Mr. Climate Change Guy." I'm just not that in to it as a cause, but I'm happy to just go along with what other people put out there.

But Mr. Will is just not satisfied at anything less than being a total sophist about something where it might be appropriate to present actual argument. I bet these weren't even the most amusing of all the anecdotes he could have presented us with, even!

But here's the thing: which scientific arguments does he disagree about the interpretation of? (I don't know, but he put a lot dates in his article, so there's probably something....)

I also like that he quoted Gregg Easterbrook. I think of Gregg Easterbrook as the guy that George Will thinks of himself as: knowledgeable and interesting about sports, possessed of an appealing writing style, demonstrably liked by a circle of people beyond his immediate family.

But my other little problem with Will's item is that he overlooks one 'inconvenient truth'; Greg Easterbrook used to be a skeptic on global warming, but now thinks the evidence for it is overwhelming.

Good guy of the day award

I'm sure that Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and I disagree on many things, and if he runs for the GOP nomination in 2012 I will probably be very critical, but I have to give props to him today for bucking 70% of his constituents to support a bill granting civil unions to gay and lesbian Utahans.

Beyond civil unions, Huntsman also threw his support behind a bill to allow two unmarried, co-habiting adults to sign a "joint-support declaration" to gain inheritance rights and medical-decision making decisions for one another, as well as a bill to outlaw employment and housing discrimination for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Gregg: Obama will be an effective and good president

From Gregg's press conference:

Says Obama "has aggressively reached across the aisle." Says Obama "will be a strong and effective and good president."

Says he will be "more effective" for Obama in the Senate.

Says administration is doing "extraordinary job" of managing financial crisis.

"I made a mistake. I should have focused sooner on the implications of my being in the cabinet versus ... doing my own job."

These statements are helpful, because they deflect the incoming GOP spin that Gregg was just going to be a token that Obama was using to insincerely claim bipartisanship. Still not too great to bring up more discussion of the flawed transition process.

Good Change

WashPo on a proposed amendment to end gubernatorial appointment for vacant senate seats. I think its a good change.

The article asks what Russ Feingold and James Sensenbrenner have in common along with the rest of the 'motley' assemblage of sponsors. The answer: they inlcude like six of the ten crankiest members of Congress.

State Secrets Cntd.

Marc Ambinder gets into the administration's decision to continue to assert the state secrets privilege in Jeppesen here- definitely worth a read.

More on State Secrets

Yesterday AG Holder indicated that the United States would not reverse Bush administration policy of trying to have lawsuits dismissed because they touched on state secrets. In the Jeppesen case, where plaintiffs have sued Jeppesen, the logistics company used by the CIA to handle transportation when the plaintiffs were allegedly rendered to a foreign country to be tortured, DOJ official Douglas Letter stated that the core of the case - "their allegation that Jeppesen is complicit in a clandestine foreign intelligence matter" - could not be examined in court without endangering national security.

The ACLU is understandably up in arms, accusing Obama of violating campaign promises to run a more transparent government. This does seem like a missed opportunity to shed light on the Bush administration extraordinary rendition and torture program. I'm willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt, for now. The DoJ is a big department, and it may not make sense to have its lawyers change course before the entire policy has been reviewed. However, once they've had a chance to look this over, Obama should be held to his promises to run a more transparent government, and that means ending the Bush-era policy of blocking lawsuits through abuse of the state secrets privilege.

Lieberman/Tancredo cntd.

Per Adam's post below- anybody who wants a little background on Avigdor Lieberman and the Israeli election should take a look here.

I think the Tom Tancredo comparison is very appropos. Some might argue that Tancredo has never come close to the level of national prominence and electoral success that's predicted for Lieberman's party, but I think that's a function of the difference between the American and Israeli systems of government. If the US had a multi-party, coalition based parliament, it's quite reasonable to assume that some kind of isolationist, hyper-national, anti-immigrant party (whether headed by Tancredo or not) would garner 10-15% of the vote. Part of the reason Tancredo didn't get that kind of traction in the 2008 GOP primary was that nobody thought he could win, and in a first-past-the-post system like we have, winning means everything.

Avigdor Lieberman is to Tom Tancredo as __________ is to ______________?

By this time tomorrow, there's a very good chance that you will have been reading about Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman. As someone who cares a whole awful lot about the State of Israel, it's sad and frustrating both to see Lieberman succeeding at playing this terrible game and to see what a bad light this puts Israel and the Jewish people in. But I know it's actually not quite as bad as all that, and I want to share a couple of thoughts on why:

1. It's not just a democracy when we vote for things I like. - Lieberman has a position that does some crummy things, but it doesn't advocate violence towards the polity, so I wouldn't vote for it, but I also wouldn't advocate banning his candidacy or anything. Those are the breaks.

2. I chose the Tom Tancredo juxtaposition carefully. Lieberman is 'worse' than Tancredo. But how, and why? On the one hand, there's not a steady stream of suicide bombers and imported rockets firing down on Tancredo's (former) constituents, but on the other hand, what if there were? Would Tom Tancredo still be advocating loyalty oaths in that society?

3. Think "Bloc Quebecois". I know this may come as a suprise to you, but the world's only Jewish democracy is not, in fact, known for exhibiting homogeneity of opinion about anything. Moving from right to center (but not necessarily on economics or social policy, where the order changes again) the parties will be Yisrael Beitenu (Lieberman) - Likud (Netanyahu) - Kadima (Livni). Alltogether, they're looking at like 40-50 votes in a 120 seat parliament. Everybody knows that the parliamentary leaders will be putting together a coalition, and as we can tell you from the American experience, governments accomplish things that parties agree on (ie, special interest tax breaks and subsidies for sugar and ethanol), not what they disagree on (ie, liberalizing/repealing abortion laws). Likewise with Israel. A lot of people will be voting for the cranky Lieberman to express their crankiness.

4. Andrew Sullivan can go fuck himself. Do a search of his blog for a few terms: Avigdor (don't use "lieberman"), Meshal/Mashal, Haniyeh, Ranitisi, and Yassin. Four appearances for Avigdor Lieberman, for the first one. Avigdor Lieberman is a minority politician in a democratic country. Khaled Meshal and Ismail Haniyeh run a terrorist organization that's fired thousands upon thousands of rockets at civilians without even offering the pretense of strategy, and it recruits, arms, and trains suicide bombers while its leaders avoid the bombing in a bunker under a hospital. Abdel-Aziz Ranitisi and Ahmed Yassin were the brave, iconoclastic thinkers who got together in the mid-80s and said, "Sure, Palestinian terrorism against Israelis and Americans has worked so well for us up to now, but the PLO has this goofy secular, egalitarian vibe that just doesn't work for some of us. Maybe we can start something a little more repressive?" The last four names (and the common alternate transliterations of the names) appear on the blog zero times.

I try to be careful writing about Israel, because I know you really don't have to listen to me, so I want to make it work. Israel is pretty important to me, and my love for the country and respect for my friends (you reading this) makes me talk about it as I understand it, and not just from a "Rah Rah Rah" or "you have to agree with me or else yada yada yada" perspective.

Winning the battle

Chuck Todd, speaking after Obama's presser (and btw, wasn't it great to have a president who could get through a press conference without smirking or leaning on the podium?), should know better than to repeat the canard that "Obama is losing the battle of public opinion on the stimulus." Particularly when Todd's own blog FirstRead, has this to say today in a post entitled "Obama's Sky-High Numbers":

-- 76% approve of the president's job
-- Obama's worst numbers seem to come from last week's Daschle news: 80% say Obama is doing a good job providing leadership for the country; 76% say he's doing a good job handling foreign policy; 72% say he's doing a good job handling the economy; 68% say he's doing a good job handling terrorism; and 61% say he's doing a good job choosing his cabinet
-- 60% approve the job congressional Democrats are performing, versus 44% who say the same of congressional Republicans
-- 74% say Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans, while just 39% say the Republicans are doing enough to cooperate with Obama
-- 54% support the economic stimulus, versus 45% who oppose it

Generational theft

John McCain is traipsing around various media outlets spewing his reasoning that he can't support the stimulus bill because it's "generational theft"- stealing from future generations because of the deficit spending involved. Three points:

1.) Isn't it great how it's not "generational theft" to rack up huge deficits by giving big tax cuts to the rich and spending tons of money on an unnecessary war?

2.) As a member of a "future generation" (or at least future vis a vis John McCain), I can tell you that most of us are perfectly happy to have a stimulus package passed- especially those of us who've just been laid off or are looking for a start in life. I'll also bet that the millions of children of parents who are being laid off in the recession would prefer a stimulus bill.

3.) Again, as a member of a "future generation," I'll remind McCain that he's about the least credible spokesman for this theory, given that people under 30 supported Obama over him 66-31.

Steve Englebright, Deck Chair Re-arranger extraordinaire

As New York struggles with a crippling budget shortfall, State Assemblymember Steve Englebright has reintroduced a bill to post warning labels on all videogames sold in the state giving notice that people who have photosensitive epilepsy might have a seizure triggered by the lights or patterns in the game. This despite the fact that games already have this warning in the instruction manuals, and that anybody who knows that he or she has photosensitive epilepsy almost certainly already knows that flashing lights can trigger a seizure, because that's the definition of photosensitive epilepsy.

Of course this is about par for the course re: New York, redundant laws, videogames, and why the budget can't ever be passed on time

Failure to understand

Steven Pearlstein, the busineness columnist at the Washington Post, dumps on members of congress who, despite being in charge of crafting an economic stimulus bill, appear to know virtually nothing about economics or stimulus:

"This is not a stimulus plan, it's a spending plan," Nebraska's freshman senator, Mike Johanns (R), said Wednesday in a maiden floor speech full of budget-balancing orthodoxy that would have made Herbert Hoover proud. The stimulus bill, he declared, "won't create the promised jobs. It won't activate our economy."

Johanns was too busy yesterday to explain this radical departure from standard theory and practice. Where does the senator think the $800 billion will go? Down a rabbit hole? Even if the entire sum were to be stolen by federal employees and spent entirely on fast cars, fancy homes, gambling junkets and fancy clothes, it would still be an $800 billion increase in the demand for goods and services -- a pretty good working definition for economic stimulus. The only question is whether spending it on other things would create more long-term value, which it almost certainly would.
...

"What is most striking is how much 'stimulus' money is being spent on the government's own infrastructure," wrote Henninger. "This bill isn't economic stimulus. It's self-stimulus."

Actually, what's striking is that supposedly intelligent people are horrified at the thought that, during a deep recession, government might try to help the economy by buying up-to-date equipment for the people who protect us from epidemics and infectious diseases, by hiring people to repair environmental damage on federal lands and by contracting with private companies to make federal buildings more energy-efficient.

What really irks so many Republicans, of course, is that all the stimulus money isn't being used to cut individual and business taxes, their cure-all for economic ailments, even though all the credible evidence is that tax cuts are only about half as stimulative as direct government spending.

Basic notions of fairness

Matt Welch at Reason complains about the stimulus package:

Why do people oppose the stimulus? Here are a few actual reasons: There is no strong evidence that stimuli work, and plenty of evidence that they don't (a relevant consideration, no?). Like the deeply flawed PATRIOT Act, the deeply flawed Iraq War resolution, and the deeply flawed bank bailout, it is being rushed through the legislature in an atmosphere of pants-wetting crisis and presidential warnings of impending doom. It is filled with special interest giveaways, big-government featherbedding, and "Buy American" considerations that have about as much to do with stimulating an economy as playing violin has with putting out fires. By taking from fiscally responsible states (like South Carolina) and giving to fiscally irresponsible states (like California), it violates basic notions of fairness and creates still more moral hazard in an already hazardtastic universe. These will do for starters; there will be more and better reasons in the comments.

We can argue later about "special-interest givewaways" and big-government featherbedding, but let's talk about his claim that it violates basic notions of fairness to use some of "responsible" South Carolina's federal tax dollars to bail out California. South Carolineans (based on 2005 numbers) paid about 22 billion in federal taxes, and were the recipients of 30 billion in federal spending- an 8 billion net for their state, and a return of about 1.35 on their federal taxes. Californians on the other hand paid about 290 billion in federal taxes, but only got 242 billion of it back- a loss of 48 billion dollars and a return of .80. Now, that 48 billion dollars went someplace... and I'd guess that maybe 8 of it went to South Carolina.

Now Matt, explain to me again how it's unfair for federal $ to be used to help balance California's books?

El Rushbo

A new poll shows Rush Limbaugh with a public-approval rating of just 21 percent among likely voters, while 58 percent have “cold” feelings toward the right-wing radio-talk-show host. Limbaugh’s cold rating was higher than that of all the political figures the firm polled. It was seven points higher than Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright and eight points higher than former Weather Underground domestic terrorist William Ayers.

This would probably be a good time for Dems to start trying to make Rush the face of the GOP. The Republican congressional leaders McConnell and Boehner are relative unknowns outside the beltway, and big GOP names like Palin, Huckabee and Romney aren't directly involved with the stimulus or other critical debates (although Romney has been on TV discussing the economy). Particularly given Rush's statement that he "hopes Obama fails," this might be a useful tack for the dems to take.

Way to go Senate

The Senate just approved a $11.5 billion addition to the stimulus that would make sales tax and interest payed on car loans deductible. There doesn't appear to be any phase-out for income levels or particular kind of car. So this means some multi-millionaire wants to buy a $200,000 Bentley, he can deduct the sales tax and the interest. On the other hand, those of us making over $70,000 this year will be unable to deduct a cent of the interest on our student loans. Glad to see that buying expensive import cars is more important to the overall health of the economy than, say, higher education.

More on the Mass healthcare issue

Commenting on Adam's post below, there definitely seems to be something wrong with a situation where somebody who is capable of working gets a large amount of quasi-discretionary healthcare for free. It's a serious problem when a "liberal program" like government healthcare provision makes even liberals want to tear their hair out, because it's evidence that it's both bad policy and likely to be broadly disliked and thus doomed to failure.

I'm trying to think about how to make a system like Massachussetts's work properly. The initial question is, what makes Adam's scenario so troubling? Is it that the woman was a "starving artist" and could have worked a "real job" that paid enough for her to pay for her own healthcare? Was it that the care was essentially free? Was it that the care seems discretionary?

Courts handling child-support routinely make decisions about what a person's "earning capacity" is- for instance, a doctor making $150,000 who quits his job to become a painter making $15,000 is going to be on the hook for child support based on his $150k earning potential. That could be applied to the healthcare system as well. One problem would be figuring out what to do with the investment banker who gets laid off and has to work at the Gap- no health care for him? Also, what about the lawyer who quits his unsatisfying corporate job to become a public defender making $25k?

A problem with completley free care is that, as your parents probably told you, you care less about something you're given for free. My fiance interns at a community mental health center in New York, where low-income people can get free counseling and mental health services. She has an enormous problem with patients not showing up for their appointments- usually about half of her scheduled appointments are no-shows. I have to imagine that if her patients were charged even a nominal fee like $5 per appointment, and had to pay even if they missed without calling to cancel, that folks would make their appointments or at least call if they were going to miss. The downside is that for the very poor, that $5 might be a reason to not go, or for the irresponsible it might be better spent on two ringtones or a couple beers.

In the Massachussetts case, it's hard to figure out where to draw the line. Adam suggests having patients pay for 25% of their care, but for $10 or 15k of care, you're looking at thousands of dollars, which would be an enormous burden on someone making.

As for the issue of the care being quasi-discretionary- without having all the details, a hysterectomy and vision care kind of split the difference between the purely optional (propecia, cialis, botox) and emergency surgery. An eye exam and glasses can prevent constant headaches, and can be critical components of safe driving, and a hysterectomy potentially necessary for sexual autonomy (again- neither of these immediately life-threatening issues). Here again we look at critical questions of where to draw lines on what the government should cover.

I think ultimately some kind of sliding co-pay, linked to a person's earning potential rather than actual salary, is probably the way to go here... but as always the devil's in the details.

Tearing my hair out

I just heard the most aggravating NPR story: apparently now under Massachusetts Commonwealth care, adults under no disability who earn up to three times the poverty level can get lots and lots of healthcare. They featured the story of a 'starving artist' who got an eye exam, glasses, and a hysterectomy for a grand total of five dollars.

Does this strike anyone else grossly inappropriate? On the one hand, I'm in favor of single payer healthcare, but on the other, I think this borders on disgusting. This woman was asked to pay basically nothing in order to receive a ton of healthcare (I'm guessing between 10 and 25K worth.)

How about $25 a month? How about she pays for 10% of the cost of all this over like five years? If she chooses to work as an artist making only $15,000 a year instead of as a store clerk making $22,000, that's fine, and it's OK with me if we want to make sure that she should receive a certain minimum amount of medical care.

But my question is how much more should the rest of us have to work in order for her to get that care? I just think that until we have a single payer system, it's really inappropriate not to introduce some reciprocity here.

Gov't: "Hey y'all! Lawyer, cop, and hardware store guy! I need you each to work one percent more so we can pay for an operation for that poor chick."
Chorus of people: "That's cool with us. We would want help if we needed it, too. How much does she need us to help pay for? 75%? 85%?"
Gov't: "Nope. All of it."

Who's with me on this one?

What change looks like

Ezra Klein argues that the embarassing moments of the transition were unavoidable, and in fact will lead to a cleaner administration:

But if Daschle's actions were forgivable in the eyes of President Obama, they still stood in sharp contrast to the rhetoric of candidate Obama. And that turned out to matter. In explaining his decision to withdraw, Daschle pointed to two New York Times articles. One was an editorial that concluded, "Mr. Daschle is another in a long line of politicians who move cozily between government and industry...[and] could potentially throw a cloud over health care reform." The other was a front page news story that said "Obama's ethics rules face an early test" and noted that "Mr. Obama on his first day in office imposed perhaps the toughest ethics rules of any president in modern times, and since then he and his advisers have been trying to explain why they do not cover this case or that case." It was this coverage -- not a word from Obama or an attack by the Republicans -- that drove Daschle to withdraw his nomination. And this coverage would not have existed had Obama not run the campaign he did.

There was always something studiedly vague about Obama's insistence that he would battle a culture in which “our leaders have thrown open the doors of Congress and the White House to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” Obama could not remake Washington anew. His administration would certainly face unwanted scandal and welcome proficient rogues.

But it turns out that Obama's words, well, mattered. They made it harder to ignore scandal, as the Bush administration had done. The endlessly long vetting forms forcing deep tax and income transparency, which in turn uncovered embarrassments that would never have emerged under past regimes. This has made for a more troubled transition, but will probably also result in a cleaner administration. For all the embarrassments, this, in a concrete sense, is what change looks like. It's not an administration that decides to be clean so much as one that has little choice in the matter.

It's only socialist when it applies to corporations

A number of my colleagues are up in arms today about how the Treasury Department's $500k cap on executive salaries amounts to socialism, or heads the nation down a path toward totalitarianism where the government will be dictating salaries and jobs for everyone.

There are a number of good rebuttals (among others Adam's point that executive salaries are a drop in the TARP bucket and we should really be worrying about whether the other 99% of the TARP money is being usefully spent), but the best I heard came from another colleague. She noted that when families or individuals come upon hard times and have to get cash payments from the government, we have no problem attaching onerous provisions on them- in order to get welfare, in many cases people can't get married or move or work too many hours or stop going to rehab. Society has had little problem reaching very invasively into the private lives of families that need bailouts, but once we try to do it to companies or rich people... "Woah, socialism!"

Unethical fat cat wheeler dealer cigar chomping bastards

Hay has been made of the two (oh no!) waivers granted under the new Obama ethics policy that prevents lobbyists from serving the administration. In general, I think of appropriate waivers as a sign that a policy is working, not that its failing, but that's sort of a more general point.

As far as I can tell one of those two waivers (for a total nearing 50% of all waivers) was issued on behalf of William Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Folks,the real problem is that our laws don't differentiate among real public interest groups (ie, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids), self-interested groups that take publicly spirited positions (ie, Nat'l Assoc of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Nat'l Treasuree Employees Union), and a "not-for-profit" group that just serves a narrow self interest (PhRMA, American Petroleum Institute, etc.).

Andrew Cuomo, Semi-homemaker

My respect for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo dropped a bit after revelations that he's dating food network tablescaper Sandra Lee. I was thinking about leaving this subject alone, until Lee, on a recent episode of her show "Semi-homemade with Sandra Lee," directed her viewers to make a drink out of 2 shots of gin, 1 shot of sweet vermouth, and 2 shots of blue curacao. That makes Lee the only person over the age of 22 to own a bottle of blue curacao.

See the video below where Lee extolls the joys of Hypnotiq:

State Secrets

New Attorney General Eric Holder has pledged to review all cases where the DOJ has invoked the State Secrets privilege. This is excellent news for those of us interested in increased government transparency. The States Secrets privilege ("SSP") allows the government to block the production of documents in lawsuits where it claims that the documents are state secrets. In some cases, invoking this privilege can also result in having suits against the government thrown out of court if the alleged secrets are at the heart of the suit. For example (from wikipedia):

In May 2006, the illegal detention case of Khalid El-Masri was dismissed based on the privilege, which was invoked by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Khalid El-Masri alleged that he was falsely held by the CIA for several months (which the CIA acknowledges) and was beaten, drugged, and subjected to various other inhumane activity while in captivity. He was ultimately released by the CIA with no charge ever being brought against him by the United States government. The U.S. District Court dismissed the case because, according to the court, the simple fact of holding proceedings would jeopardize state secrets, as claimed by the CIA. On March 2, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. On October 9, 2007, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the Fourth Circuit's decision, letting the doctrine of state secrets privilege stand.

Currently, there is very little review of any claim that documents or whole cases are covered by the SSP. The government merely needs to provide assurances that the relevant agency considers the items to be secret, and did so before the litigation. The court has no ability to rule on whether the alleged secrets merit coverage by the privilege.

As Brian Beutler notes, Eric Holder's judgment on these issues is certain to be better than Alberto Gonzalez's, but as a whole, it would be best to have some kind of legislation creating a formalized way of reviewing SSP claims. The courts are not going to effectively rein in abuse of the SSP by the executive branch due to a general justiciability concerns, so Congress, supported by Holder and Obama, could perhaps create something along the lines of the FISA courts to review SSP claims in camera and determine whether alleged secrets are really items of national security.

Ugh

My job can get pretty depressing at times, but it's got nothing on people that passed up lucrative positions in the private sector to become GOP congressional staffers, only to have to write an email like this:

"In case you weren't planning to attend CWG tomorrow morning, you might want to reconsider because Joe the Plumber will be joining us!" Kimberly Wallner, an aide to South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, wrote in a message to her e-mail list this afternoon.

Further evidence that revolutionary socialism is not a useful ideology

From an article in today's Times about Bolivia's vast lithium reserves, which are increasingly important in electronics and car batteries:

“Of course, lithium is the mineral that will lead us to the post-petroleum era,” said Mr. Castro. “But in order to go down that road, we must raise the revolutionary consciousness of our people, starting on the floor of this very factory.”

Social Security Privitization

This notion came back to me as I was listening to an NPR story on retirees who are considering going back to work because of the fragile/diminished/underperforming/non-existent status of their nest eggs.

I wouldn't say that many people are pushing this idea right now, but here's one: Radley Balko (if that is your real name!) of Fox News.

Two thoughts on this:

First, kol hakavod* to you, Mr. Balko for having the courage of your ridiculous convictions.

Second, this is exactly the time to be talking about Social Security privitization to show what's so bad about the idea. Social Security was always supposed to be a non-cyclical source of income. Can you imagine what would be happening if we didn't have it today? Not only would many senior citizens make dramatic cuts in their consumption, but all the people who work by selling them goods and services would face massive job insecurity. This problem would even cascade a bit, because my guess is that a ton of senior citizen members of the 'investor class' would decide to take their money out of equities and other investments. I recognize that it's possible that this could function as a good signal in an efficient market yada yada yada, but you sir, Mr. Smartypants-strong-free-market theorist, will have the burden of proof on that point.

*look it up