Cwech Blug

Breaking Down Baucus' Useless Bill

2009-09-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Not entirely fair in the headline here, Baucus' proposal released today does do some good things, including subsidizing individuals at up to 300% of the poverty level to purchase insurance out of regulated health insurance exchanges. The trouble is that in a failed effort to be "bipartison," the bill failed on the kind of cost control measures that American health care desperately needs. It contains no public option, and institutes fees on the most expensive insurance plans, a set of fees that will be shifted to consumers. Instead of a public option, Baucus opted for coops.

The Baucus bill instead would create of a series of private health insurance cooperatives, which Baucus and other centrist Democrats say could offer the same protections as a new government plan.

This kind of language dominates media reports on the topic and has dominated the conversation on coops ever since the idea surfaced, but the question I've always asked is "how are we going to create these things?" The answer in the Baucus proposal, it turns out, is that we're not. Baucus sets aside money for loans and grants for the creation of coops by anyone who wishes to, but does not actually create anything. I don't know if anyone has actually done any studies as to why there are few health care coops, it could be start up costs, in which case the Baucus proposal would effectively lead to their creation, or it could just be that they aren't viable in the insurance market, in which case we're just throwing away money to create some things that won't be able to last past the public investment to starting them anyway. I think the coop idea is rediculous anyway, but its not obvious that the Baucus proposal even leads to the existence of more coops. Why the media has put so much emphasis on the Finance Committee is beyond me, it lead to a crap proposal that isn't going to get any Republican votes anyway. I'm frankly not convinced that the finance committee will even pass this, and I would be just fine if they didn't.

Side note-The New York Times has a pretty good feature on the Baucus proposal. To summarize, nobody likes it, liberals hate it because it doesn't have a public option, and conservatives hate it because they claim its "too much government." A great idea we've had here, put pressure on Baucus to create a "bipartison bill," and then be surprised when everybody hates what he proposes. Its time everyone recognize that no Republican will support any health care reform that reaches beyond ending recessions and pre-existing conditions.

A "weak public option" may be a myth

2009-09-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

There's a recent post over at Blue Oregon about whether or not a "weak public option" is better than none and whether its worth fighting for. The post has lead to a lot of feedback, currently 68 comments. The thing is that I'm not convinced this is even a debate worth having. I've made my belief that a strong public option is necessary pretty clear, but lets go back and look at what a strong public option (as opposed to a weak one) actually entails. University of California Public Policy Professor, Jacob Hacker examined three crucial provisions (sorry, this file seems to have disappeared from the internet) that he argued make the difference between a good public plan and a not so good public plan. Those three provisions were:

(1) a "Medicare tie-in" that allows the public plan to develop a broad national provider network with competitive payment rates quickly, (2) the creation of a national excahnge that can give a wide range of firms, as well as uninsured Americans, access to both the public plan and regulated private insurance options, and (3) providing the public plan with enough authority to reduce medical inflation through drug-price bargaining and innovations in the financing and delivery of care.

According to Hacker all three of the bills contain some elements of a "strong public option," but all have some problems. For example the House Energy and Commerce Committee bill fails to set its imbursement rates to Medicare allowing providers to negotiate independently with the public plan under threat of opting out if they don't pay more than Medicare does, this would obviously drive up costs.

There are two things on my mind considering the question of whether a weak public option is better than no public option at all.

To begin with, health care reform does not stop with this fight, it will inevitably be tinkered with in the future. With that in mind however, it will be extremely unlikely for a program passed now to be abandoned, once we create programs we really don't like to get rid of them. So a weak public plan could someday become a strong public option. I think the far greater risk comes from no public option at all where the American taxpayers end up footing the bill for subsidies that benefit insurance companies without any competitive pressure to bring costs down, I'm sure insurance companies would just love to have 50 million new customers financed by the Federal Government. A weak public option on the other hand still has some bargaining and cost control power, just not as much as it should have.

Secondly, I don't think there's a lot to be gained by weakening a public plan. I have a hard time imagining that the strength of a public plan as opposed to its very existence, is a deal breaker for many (or any) Democrats in Congress. I'm sure various members have preferences on these matters, but I doubt that anyone whose vote is necessary will withhold their vote because the public plan is too strong, more likely they oppose the public option, period. I don't know how those whip counts would look, but the scenario under which a public option is acceptable to members whose votes are needed, but a strong one is unacceptable just doesn't seem plausible to me.

The far more dangerous possibility is that a trigger will be inserted into the bill, this is merely a means of destroying the public option, the trigger will never get sprung, though I have little doubt that the conditions that allow it to be put into place will arise. On the question of whether or not to accept a "weak public option," however, I think the answer is clearly that a strong public option should be fought for, but it can be strengthened in the future and if it must be weakened in order to pass, then that should be supported. The worst possible outcome is no public option at all, and that's what we should be fighting to avoid.

Why would we want banking innovation?

2009-09-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

When I first heard about the recovery of major banks' profits I was encouraged, we made a big public investment to prevent a complete crash and they had apparently used that to recover and return to some sense of normalcy. In that sense the bailing out of financial institutions seemed to work, and should be applauded. The trouble is that the way in which they've recovered is disturbing, effectively returning to the same way they did business before that caused the economic crisis.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and others - which have received tens of billions of dollars in federal aid - are once more betting big on bonds, commodities and exotic financial products, trading that nearly stopped during the financial crisis.

That Wall Street is making money again in essentially the same ways that thrust the banking system into chaos last fall is reason for concern on several levels, financial analysts and government officials say.

There have been no significant changes to the federal rules governing their behavior. Proposals that have been made to better monitor the financial system and to police the products banks sell to consumers have been held up by lobbyists, legislators and turf-protecting regulators

This has been my concern since the crisis began. One thing I thought Obama would do that would be an important change would be to re-regulate banking institutions to prevent the kind of gambling that they engaged in that got us where they are. Obama does have a proposal for re-regulation of banks, so the problem isn't being completely ignored. The thing is that I don't feel like Obama's heart is really in this one, and while I'm in no position to comment on what will be an effective banking regulation, I highly suspect that anything Obama proposes and anything Congress can get behind, doesn't really address the problem. What I find bizarre here is the talking point in response to arguments for more regulation, that we don't want to "prevent innovation by over regulating." This is a variation off a traditional free-market talking point that in some contexts has some validity, the thing is that it really doesn't here. What I've never heard anyone mention in response to someone who says this however is why we would even want our banks innovating. Personally I want my bank, in an ideal perfect world (that doesn't exist) to protect my money and use it to lend out to people who will be able to pay it back. I do not want my bank to be innovative, I want it to do the normal stuff and not engage in complex investment schemes like credit default swaps. Now Apple Computers on the other hand I do want to innovate, I want them to try to make the next step and advance technology, that's good for the world, complex methods of shuffling money around and trading as though they have value things that really don't have any on the other hand, is not productive or helpful to the world in any way. Why have I never heard anybody bring this up, is innovation in the case of a bank, actually a good thing that we should be protective of when considering new regulations?

The lack of any changes in the regulation of financial institutions yet has allowed them to return huge profits again, but by doing the same things they were doing before, by being innovative, and in the profits screwing up real people's lives. Sorry, but lets please not show deference to the innovation argument as we consider new regulations on the banking industry, and please lets get on this before they crash our economy by innovating again.

Promising Words from Wyden

2009-09-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

I find this extremely encouraging. While I've worried about Wyden's position in the health care debate, specifically whether he would support a public option, I find the tone of support he takes here to be a big relief, though he doesn't actually talk about the public option, the fact that he talks in optimistic terms (both from a policy perspective and in terms of momentum in Congress) about the principles outlined in Obama's speech that are enshrined in the bills that have been passed out of committee so far, and offers criticism of particular parts without bringing up the public option, I consider a major relief. I would still like to see him make a stronger statement in support of the public option, but after this I'm a lot less worried about where Wyden will come down in all this. Wyden did however have some concerns that should be explored.

Wyden says, "the area that i would like to be bolder in is in this area of creating a market through choice and competition."

Wyden believes the proposal wouldn't allow nearly as many people as it should to choose to enter so-called health insurance exchanges, if they're unhappy with the insurance their employers provide.
"Only people who are unemployed and uninsured and work at very small businesses would be allowed choice and competition in the exchanges," Wyden noted "Anybody who works at a mid-size business who doesn't like what they have, a government bureaucrat steps in and says you don't have choices.

As long as we're on this topic, I'm highly skeptical of the "choice and competition" talking point that Obama and Democrats have picked up on. Many employers offer multiple plans to their employees, and employees then choose the plan they wish to buy into. Employers who do this are effectively creating on a very small scale something we can call an "insurance exchange," as has been proposed in every bill on a much larger scale. Personally I have never met someone who, when given such a choice has any clue what they're choosing. People will get a choice, and businesses purchasing plans off the exchange will have a choice, but there's no reason to believe that they will make an economically rational one given the way insurance plans are presented. In High School my mom once changed plans at Washington State University because one of them offered better coverage for the asthma medication Advair, which our original insurance plan didn't want to cover, but was doing an incredible job of controlling my asthma. That was an awfully narrow consideration, that if you're able to do an in depth cost benefit analysis of the two plans, might not actually be worth it. However, since health care plans are unreadable for most people, consumers will make choices like the one my mom made rather than really figuring out which plan offers the better deal holistically. I think we need reform badly enough that I'm willing to get behind a strong health insurance exchange, but I'm pretty skeptical that it can actually work, even educated and informed consumers are going to be unable to distinguish between plans and will choose based on pretty narrow criteria. Wyden's other concern was related to the tax on health care companies that forms a central part of the Baucus cop out plan, and was endorsed by Obama the other night.

But Wyden was perhaps most critical of the financing scheme--enshrined in the Baucus plan, and endorsed by Obama--to raise the funds needed to pay for the bill by taxing high-end private insurance plans. That measure sells politically--who doesn't like the idea of taxing insurance companies?--but the incidence of the tax is likely to befall insurance consumers, including middle class Americans who Obama vowed not to increase taxes on.
"This financing system is not my first choice," Wyden said. "We're going to be working in the finance committee to address the concerns you describe."

Everything I've read on the topic of this type of a financing scheme agrees that the costs will just be passed on to consumers. Given the realities of American health care that's just not a productive outcome. I think Wyden is spot on here, and hopefully we can come up with a better way to finance this.

I was really relieved at the tone that Wyden seems to take here, he's not playing games with whether he'll support something like what Obama laid out the other night, but he is engaging seriously with the policy and looking for ways to work towards a better bill. As far as the two points I highlighted here, I think Wyden is wrong on the first, but so is Obama, absent a single payer approach however, it makes a lot of sense. And on the second he's spot on. Hopefully Wyden can help improve the Senate bill (whichever one becomes the Senate bill) and cast his vote for universal health care. Now he better not make me regret this post by working against a public option.

A Thought on Hate Crimes

2009-09-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

NPR's Talk of the Nation did a segment today with Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard's mother, she has a book out entitled The Meaning of Matthew in which she seems to talk about how Matthew Shepard's life and death transformed the gay rights movement as well as her personal struggle with that horrible incident. I haven't read the book so if that's not accurate forgive me.

At one point during the show, Judy Shepard discussed her support for hate crimes legislation, and she framed hate crimes as being the use of brutality in order to control a group of people through fear. So a cross burning is not aimed at the person whose lawn it is burned on so much as being an expression of lynching to strike fear in the hearts of the targeted community. Cross burnings and lynchings are ways to control the African American community rather than a means of attacking that particular person (though of course they are at the same time attacking that person). This seems right to me, and got me thinking, if the point of hate crimes laws is to add an extra legal sanction against that brutal means of expressing control over a marginalized community, why not prosecute such acts as terrorism cases? The Patriot Act defines terrorism as the following:

(5) the term `domestic terrorism' means activities that--
`(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
`(B) appear to be intended--
`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
`(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
`(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

This is a small piece of the Patriot Act that I consider useful, because terrorism is precisely that, it is a means to intimidate and coerce populations or governments to behave in a certain way under threat of violence. Sounds a lot like Judy Shepard's description of a hate crime. If nothing else can come from the horrible events of September 11th 2001, and the absurd policies that followed it, it should be that we as a society will not tolerate violence as a means of social control or coercion. Rather than prosecuting these types of acts as "hate crimes" they should be prosecuted as acts of domestic terrorism. I am supportive of hate crimes legislation and agree with the goal, but prosecuting these types of actions as terrorism rather than hate crimes seems to add a lot more levity to the situation and seems more socially justifiable to people who misconstrue hate crimes legislation as a form of "thought control."

Thoughts on Lyndon Johnson and Medicare and Medicaid

2009-09-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

I was listening to NPR yesterday when on whatever show I was listening to they started talking about the past attempts by President's to reform health care. What got me thinking in this conversation was when they brought up how Lyndon Johnson decided to be incremental and fight to establish Medicare and Medicaid. Assuming the absence of universal coverage, few Americans, and no good lefty will deny the positive impact of Medicare and Medicaid on the American health care landscape. Imagining America without those two programs is a sorry picture even considering the long term budgetary problems that Medicaid faces, including in Oregon with its innovative Oregon Health Plan. That budgetary challenge is a function of rising health care costs in general and is a primary reason that health care reform is necessary, but I digress, imagining America without those two programs is a sorry picture of deep poverty and very high rates of uninsured.

The question, however, is whether that situation would be so intolerable as to provide the extra momentum for Johnson, Nixon, Carter, or Clinton to pass universal health care. My sense is that Johnson pushed through an agenda that helped a lot of people, but at the cost of a long term fix to America's health care crisis. He created a sense of complacency, and shockingly in the recent debate, selfishness.

The biggest barrier to momentum on health care reform during the current debate (other than institutional barriers in the Senate) has been the hostility of elderly Americans who, however incorrectly, think that Democrats are trying to kill them, or cut their medicare. The Survey USA poll cited at the top of this paragraph finds Americans over the age of 65 to be the only group in which a plurality opposed the Obama outline plan. Now, lets pretend that Medicare didn't exist, and elderly Americans are struggling to get health care coverage. Not only do elderly Americans without health insurance become strong supporters of universal health care, but it also builds support for the program amongst younger Americans who are tired of watching their grandparents suffer.

The moral of the story is this, while Johnson eased a lot of suffering and passed two very good programs by fighting for Medicare and Medicaid, he simultaneously took the wind out of the sails for universal health care, and made the moral case for health care reform more dubious by allowing opponents to frame the uninsured in negative terms to a greater extent than they otherwise would be able to. Half measures do not work, they are unable to bring the costs down, and improve the position of opponents of reform in future battles. Johnson was able to pass both Medicare and Medicaid by big margins, had he decided to fight that battle I can't imagine with most elderly Americans lacking health insurance, plus those who gained coverage through medicaid, plus everyone that was left out by the Great Society Health Care reforms all pressuring the Senate and House, that we would not have managed to pass some version of universal health care, quite possibly in a better form than Obama's proposal. I recognize that the House and Senate are not necessarily a reflection of public opinion, but the 120 million Americans (do not put too much stock in this number, I just added the uninsured, plus 1/2 of the elderly, plus medicaid enrollment, I actually suspect that due to the economics of the matter the number would be higher, either way it wasn't a particularly scientific approach that got me there) who would be uninsured today if Medicare and Medicaid didn't exist would not be such a ho-hum affair, and it would be a lot harder for opponents to stand in opposition. The moment to do this was 1965 and Johnson blew his chance and made it a lot harder to pass universal health care. At the same time, he made a lot of people's lives better and reshaped America rather than fighting a battle that he wasn't sure if he could win.

Obama's speech before Congress next week

2009-09-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

At TMP Cafe today, Robert Reich has a piece on what Obama should say too Congress next week. All evidence seems to indicate that this is not even close to what Obama will in fact say, that said, I was more intrigued by this comment by wyt to Reich's post than I was by what Reich said.

You don't need compassion to sell health care and the public option. You need to pitch to self-interest and build up hatred and distrust of the insurance companies. The far right can't understand a world without evil in it. Obama fairly enough sees all in shades of gray. But it's time to speak to the nuts in way that looks true through their polarized glasses - which primarily polarize not along left-right but along good-evil.

Obama needs to highlight the true evil in the current system, and launch a crusade against it. The hard left - which also like a polarized view - will rejoice. And the hard right, which includes many who have life experiences that make it easy to hate the insurance firms, will join in.

Without portraying the insurers as evil (which in large part they are), there's no "bipartisan" way to promote the alternative, which is a public option.

I think wyt hits the issue right on its head, with one caveat. Compassion can be expressed by stirring up hatred of insurance companies, the message ought to fundamentally be, "look at these greedy insurance companies and their insane profits, look how they exploit the health of ordinary Americans all in the name of making money." By so doing Obama would appeal to self interest by appealing to most people's frustrations with private insurance as it now conducts its business as well as the self interest of 75 million Americans who are uninsured and underinsured. He could appeal to compassion by emphasizing our responsibilities to others and demonstrating how the behavior of insurance companies undermines our moral commitments to one another. The commenter is dead on, the approach from the start here should have been to build up hatred of insurance companies, demonize the crap out of them. That kind of a moral tirade, wyt calls it a "crusade," that works too, is effectively what Brown University Political Scientist James Morone argues in Hellfire Nation is the fundamental principle of American politics dating all the way back to John Winthrop's "City on the Hill" speech. Roosevelt was a master of this, as Morone writes:

At the heart of Roosevelt's moral talk lay his utopian picture of shared community. Roosevelt constantly pounded the selfish individual. He closed his first, hard-fought reelection campaign by wearily telling supporters, "I should like to have it said of my first administration that the forces of selfishness... met their match." Instead, he extolled mutual responsibility. During his second term, he urged the cleargy to "return to the religion as exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount"- the ultimate statement of what we owe one another, culminating in the Bible's most lyrical call to alms."

Eventually, Roosevelt's little sermons took a predictable form, almost a formula. First invoke religion; in the next breath, turn to social conditions. Faith sets up economics. "we have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals," Roosevelt said in his second inaugural address. "We know now that it is bad economics." Again, cheering his own first term: "The greatest change... has been the change in the moral climate of America." With this change came "our rediscovered ability to improve our economic order."

I had a chance to meet Morone in class a few years ago after reading his book, and he started off talking to our class about the Clinton health care reform effort in 1994. He walked into class and asked us, "why did health care reform die in 1993?" I raised my hand and said, "you guys got hammered by a very well organized and well financed insurance lobby that was ready to scare the crap out of the public to kill reform." Professor Morone looked at me for a moment and said, "I've asked that question to a lot of people including those who were involved in that battle in the Clinton Administration and that's about the most clear and coherent answer I've heard." Morone then continued to talk about how the debate was framed almost entirely by the right's ability to frame the issue around the morality of the uninsured with no clear moral response coming from the left. Clinton needed to engage in moral warfare against the insurance industry in order to pass reform, otherwise the moral argument about the lazy poor was bound to win the debate, as it did.

Clinton made the problem worse by delivering speeches about how, "the age of big government is over," and caving in to the Republicans on welfare reform (a year after the failure of health care reform admittedly), this all propagated the moral line that poor people are poor because of their own lack of morality, and therefore there's no public need to help them. While it is certainly not 1993 and the social dynamics are very different than they were then, the right has succeeded in framing health care along the same lines they did in 1993. Spread lies to scare the crap out of people and convince them that reform will hurt them, then convince the public of the lack of morality of those who lack insurance, this removes the uninsured from the debate, and makes it about self interest along lines that have nothing to do with the actual proposal. Once the debate is set on these terms 45 million who lack health insurance and 25 million who are under-insured get taken out of the debate.

I recognize that Obama wanted to kill the "private insurance is more efficient than government" meme by setting this conversation in terms of market efficiency and the public cost of health care. The cost of focusing on that was an unnecessary ceding of the moral ground. Obama has become the demon because in the minds of many Americans he's trying to kill grandma and steal my money, when there was an easy and obvious demon in this debate, supporters of health care reform just ignored the demon. The health insurance industry is the perfect demon, and Obama should (but again, I'm sure won't) recognize that in his speech before Congress next week. Rather than running towards compromise Obama should rediscover his inner Roosevelt and reclaim the moral ground in this debate that is so easily attainable for those of us who want universal health care. As I laid out yesterday, abandoning the public option is just about the worst idea imaginable, we have reached a critical point at which one of two paths must be followed, all out war for health care reform, or capitulation to a minority that has no interest in compromise or supporting any reform package. The former is the far superior path, but I fear the decision has already been made.

health care reform and the budgetary death trap

2009-09-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

The talk the of the day seems to be that Obama's prepared to jettison the public option. This is an enormous mistake, to begin with, Survey USA recently found 77% of the public supporting the public option. Even for Senators like Landrieu, whose electoral fears are understandable, the public option is not going to be electorally dangerous, support for any bill with or without a public option might be since public opposition to health care is overwhelmingly based on misconceptions about the proposals. This is evidently driven by whip counts rather than the nature of the public debate, since no real conversation about the public option has even begun for the most part.

The deal is that I have a hard time believing either of two things, that any health care bill that achieves universal coverage has 60 votes in the Senate, and that the public option does not have 51. Therefore, either way we're at the point of either magically and suddenly re-framing the way cloture votes are perceived (infinitely unlikely), or we get a new Senator from Massachusetts and convince all the Dems to vote to end debate regardless of their position on the legislation itself (still unlikely but a little more plausible than the first), or budget reconciliation. In all of those scenarios we should actually only need 51 votes for the public option, which again, I have a hard time believing doesn't exist.

This is just flatly bad policy, the public option is the only force under the proposed bills that has any ability to significantly lower health care costs, by creating a strong, nonprofit competitor to insurance companies that can deliver health insurance with very low administrative costs. Without that public option we do get improvement, but we get a budgetary mess (ironic given that the conservative Democrats opposing the public option claim to be so concerned about the budget deficit). What we end up with without a public option is some network of subsidies and mandates within a government regulated private insurance exchange, this brings us to near universal coverage, which is good, and there is some reason to believe that it might lower costs marginally, while Hawaii's employer mandate has some major problems, it has managed to hold costs under the national average. So its not out of the realm of possibilities that the growth in health care costs might be kept down just by dramatically reducing the number of uninsured, but there's no mechanism to force the insurance market to lower premiums and to keep administrative costs (and profits) down.

Jacob Hacker has a very good article on this in which he compares Medicare Advantage to the traditional government run medicare program, and finds that traditional medicare has far lower administrative costs.

the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage. This is a near perfect “apples to apples” comparison of administrative costs, because the public Medicare plan and Medicare Advantage plans are operating under similar rules and treating the same population.

Hacker's example is even in a competitive market in which the Medicare Advantage private plans have to compete with traditional Medicare, and traditional Medicare delivers much lower administrative costs. Some studies have challenged the assertion that Medicare is far more efficient than private insurance by deducting taxes from private insurance's non-delivery (normally referred to as administrative) costs. There's a point to be made here regarding taxes, I'll grant that one, but to give them profits misses the entire point. How we concluded as a society that my health should be an item that other people can profit on is beyond me. Profits are a big part of the problem, and I'm more than happy to allow them to take a hit by trying to compete with a nonprofit government provided option, that hit is a part of where savings to the public will occur. Without that hit, and without the public option being able to take steps to lower its costs (negotiating drug prices, pegging rates to medicare...) the public is going to take a major budgetary hit somewhere down the road. One of the reasons we're talking about this is that health care costs will force Medicare and Medicaid spending to double over the next 30 years. We need some force in the market to force costs down significantly, and subsidizing private insurers to cover people at 400% of the poverty level will only increase Federal health care expenditures unless something forces costs down.

Reform is good, period, having nearly 50 million Americans uninsured is unacceptable, but reform that fails to really address rising costs is just begging for trouble, its a huge mistake for Obama to abandon the public option, hopefully these rumors will not turn out to be true. Furthermore, if he announces this in front of the AFL-CIO as is rumored, he's going to get destroyed, as well he should, its a terrible idea.

I think I'm going to puke

2009-09-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

In a recent ad, Michael Steele continues the Republican Party's scare the living crap out of seniors strategy. As Washington Monthly points out, this on top of suggesting last week that Social Security should be privatized.

just last week, Steele said -- within a 24-hour timeframe -- that Medicare is a) a great government program that Democrats are trying to undermine and the GOP is trying to protect; and b) a terrible program that doesn't work and should probably be privatized. And this only came after Steele ran one of the all-time dumbest op-eds to ever run on health care policy.

I obviously have a different opinion of Steele than most progressives do, for me, I think he's scary because he is extremely TV savvy and comes across on TV as both reasonable and friendly. This is a dangerous trait for someone who has absolutely no grasp of public policy. I don't know what Steele's favorability numbers are like, but it seems to me like if they're not high its probably because of a lack of exposure, because he is very good at these scripted appearances in commercials, and I think progressives ignore that at their peril.

For anyone with a firm grasp of the health care debate, as is usually the case, Steele's ad is a piece of crap, its dishonest and as a result wholly unconvincing. The trouble is that low information voters just get his folksy demeanor and are likely to accept the talking points. This debate has been totally mishandled on the left side, and as a result we've got an uninformed population of seniors who think Obama's trying to kill them. We should have been talking about Republican hostility to medicare and Social Security on day one of this debate, at this point in terms of public perceptions I fear the only way out is to have an epic battle between millennials and their grandparents. Maybe we need to invoke the Sarah Silverman strategy over health care, it is absolutely insane that the primary group of people who get government health insurance (and like it) have been scared so thoroughly that they're the one's standing in the way of getting something for the rest of us. This concludes my semi-pointless rant, I really had to get that out of my system, if I keep going this post may never end.

a budget neutral economic stimulus for Oregon

2009-08-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write this post for a couple of days now since the State of Oregon Economist Tom Potiowsky issued his report on the state of the Oregon economy on Thursday indicating that recovery may be particularly slow in Oregon. Collins, Snowe, Specter, and Nelson put States in a real bind by negotiating a lot of the aid to States out of the stimulus bill back in February. This put States in the position of having to cut spending or increase taxes in order to balance their books, creating what Krugman termed, "the problem of the 50 Herbert Hoovers." The road to full recovery is likely to be slow to begin with, and if Oregon lags behind the rest of the nation, it could be an awfully tough road back. It seems that while a second stimulus would be very useful from the federal level, a State-level stimulus package in Oregon would be particularly useful, but there's no way it can happen given Oregon's budgetary situation. That's why I was taken with an idea I originally bumped into in the the Washington Monthly about a month ago of taxing College Endowments as an economic stimulus (I for the life of me can't seem to find this post). The point being that because College Endowments have become a status symbol, they're holding on to them instead of spending them. Last time I checked the endowment was supposed to be sort of a "rainy day fund," and if now is not a rainy day I don't know what is. In defense of Universities, there has been a sizable dropoff in the size of endowments recently due to the fact that donors are tightening their belts. A policy that could force Universities to spend their endowments rather than holding on to them would be very beneficial to those communities. As a result, college endowments being currently tax free nonprofits, I propose setting a temporary tax on college endowments in the State of Oregon to force them to put some of that money into the economy, there are a number of beneficial uses that this money could be put towards.

Students-Have been hit with an enormous tuition increase this year, if Universities dedicated some of their endowment to not increasing tuition then students would both not be forced to drop out due to affordability, which is a long term positive and increases the likelihood that Universities will be able to rebuild their endowments in the future, as well as allowing those students who do stay in college to engage in more discretionary spending locally, this helps local businesses.

Infrastructure-Invest in new buildings and/or more maintenance on campus, this allows plumbers, carpenters, drywallers... to stay in business, keeping unemployment down and leading to more local spending.

General Operations-Kill all spending freezes and layoffs, keeps people employed and allows departments to operate as they did two years ago, once again (are we noticing a theme here?) this means more spending in the local economy by not forcing academic departments to do things like not using any more paper, and keeping people employed.

The circumstances surrounding the money reserved in college endowments is a tricky issue, and some of that money can't be spent. Without a thorough study of the status of endowments in Oregon I can't speculate on how much they can actually start spending in the near future, but any policy that forces them to spend more seems to me like it would be a good idea. The following are the total amount of the endowments for Oregon Colleges and Universities, so we can imagine what 1/2 or 1/4 of that put into the local economy would do for Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, or Salem. And the best part is, its not only budget neutral, but budget enhancing, as the State gets a chunk of whatever doesn't get spent.

University of Oregon-$498 million
Oregon State University-$476 million
Willamette University-$283 million
Lewis and Clark College-$231 million
University of Portland-$95 million
Linfield College-$71 million
Portland State University-$47 million
Southern Oregon University-$20 million
Western Oregon University-$10 million
Eastern Oregon University-$3 million
*list not based on who has the biggest endowments, but who I thought about

That's a lot of money out there that could be boosting the economy and is instead sitting in a bank account somewhere, there are very good ways it could be spent to help students, faculty, and the university itself. Any policy that gets them to spend a chunk of that is a net good, tax them for this year (and this year only) and see what they decide to use rather than give back to the State, and what they do give back to the State helps prevent cuts to education, infrastructure, or the Oregon Health Plan.

Robert Reich's incrementalist parable

2009-08-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

Robert Reich has a good piece on the need to fight the desire to be incrementalists on health care reform. This is great parable that I thought was worth repeating in as many places as possible.

Years ago, as the story goes, Britain's Parliament faced a difficult choice. On the European continent drivers use the right lanes, while the English remained on the left. But tunnels and fast ferries were bringing cars and drivers back and forth ever more frequently. Liberals in Parliament thought it time to change lanes. Conservatives resisted; after all, Brits had been driving on the left since William the Conquerer's charriot. Parliament's compromise was to move from the left to right lanes -- but incrementally, on a voluntary basis. Truckers first.

My attitude has long been that in terms of health care policy, incrementalism is public policy's version of Zeno's Paradox. If we forever resist universal coverage in favor of measures to insure part of the uninsured population, we never reach the point at which everyone has access to quality health insurance. In environmental policy by contrast there's no particular desired end point, so we can always hope to achieve better environmental outcomes, and can pursue those by increments, a small positive step here, a small positive step there and we always make progress. In health care on the other hand all progress towards universal coverage that falls short leaves some other group still lacking in coverage, and as we cover progressively more people in reforms, those left out become ever more vulnerable to moralistic claims about the lazy poor that the United States is so prone to.

RIP Senator Kennedy

2009-08-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

Senator Edward M. Kennedy died today after his long battle with brain cancer. It is a sad day for all Americans as Senator Kennedy was a great figure in the United States Senate. While he was initially dismissed as a pick of nepotism he proved to be one of the most influential figures in the history of the United States Senate. He was a true liberal lion and cared for the poor and working class in this country very deeply. He was responsible for leading the fight against Judge Robert Bork for Bork’s confirmation to the Supreme Court and was responsible for much landmark legislation. This included:
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
National Cancer Act of 1971
Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974
COBRA Act of 1985
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Ryan White AIDS Care Act of 1991
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
Mental Health Parity Act of 1996
State Children’s Health Insurance Program of 1997
No Child Left Behind of 2002
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009
Senator Kennedy served his country well and will be greatly missed.

There's got to be an ad in this somewhere

2009-08-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

The conservative strategy in opposing health care reform is clearly to scare the living crap out of the elderly. The irony in all this being that it is Republicans who are the longstanding enemies of Medicare and social security. As recently as the past election the Republican Nominee for President advocated cuts in Medicare to slash the federal budget deficit. So it is really strange to see the Republicans turning seniors into their base as they oppose a centrist plan to reform health care. So why hasn't Moveon or someone run an ad based on this quote:

"The reality of it is, this single-payer program known as Medicare is a very good example of what we should not have happen with all of our health care," said Steele. "The reality of it is, how many times have we been at the trough of bankruptcy and no money for the Medicare program, where Congress is running around like chickens with their head cut off, trying to figure out how to fix a program that they've already mismanaged? So now you want to do that, Congressman, on a larger scale? You want to include all of us. You're talking about taking our senior population, and expanding it to all of the population? Government cannot run a health care system. they've already shown that. Trust the private markets to do it the right way."

or this one.

We've had Medicare since 1965, and Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy. If there's any opportunity for more healthy activity, it's going to be, again, a private, competitive...

There's got to be a way to counter the fear mongering, seems to me that while the Republicans are pretending that the Democrats are trying to kill Medicare we should be reminding them who passed and still supports Medicare and who opposed and still hates it. Where are the moveon ads on this?

Wyden's game on the Public Option

2009-08-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Most accounts I've seen have Oregon Senior Senator Ron Wyden playing coy on the public option, suggesting that he might or might not support it. I've had a difficult time figuring out what exactly Wyden's position is on the matter, but he did seem to take a small step towards, "standing in the way [of the public option]," as he said he wouldn't when he signed a letter along with major health care reform roadblocks such as Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe urging a delay in the reform effort. That letter allowed for the push to slow to a halt leading into the August recesses, that allowed the anti-reform brigades time to organize and present their fake populist outcry against health care reform.

I'm not sure what Wyden's position is precisely here, beyond that he understandably likes his own bill. When it was first drafted a couple of years ago Wyden's bill was an excellent roadmap for what passable health care reform might look like given the slim Democratic majority of 2006, with of all people Robert Bennett of Utah as its cosponsor. The thing that's odd about this whole thing, however, is that Wyden won the argument before it began, his Healthy Americans Act was the first coherent presentation that I'm aware of, of the "health care exchange" model that forms the basis of the Senate HELP Committee bill, the House Education and Labor Committee bill, and the Obama outline plan. There are only two major differences that I'm aware of:

1) to Wyden's credit, his bill seems to advance insurance portability a little bit more effectively than the health care exchanges presented in the House and;
2) Wyden's bill contains no public option

Clearly the second is the more contentious issue, oddly given that a public option advances the goal of health care portability more effectively than anything else in the insurance exchanges that are presented in the bills that have been passed out of committee. This is very strange, given that its the first difference that Wyden's bill is more effective on, there may also be some very specific cost-containment measures in Wyden's bill that don't exist in other bills, but many of those could easily be added in by amendment. That the public option has become the point of contention with Wyden is very strange, since a well organized public option that assumes Medicare providers will participate in the public plan, ties reimbursement rates to Medicare rates, and allows for drug price bargaining by Medicare and the Public Option would provide tremendous downward pressure on private health care costs.

Back when he introduced it, Wyden's plan was a good outline for bipartison, effective health care reform that promoted universal coverage. Since that time however, it has become obvious that the goal of the Republican Party on many issues is to block the Democratic majority from any accomplishments, this was apparent from the stimulus debate and from Republican repositioning on the once bipartison Employee Free Choice Act, as well as to block any health care reform. This is part of why the debate has had nothing to do with the actual proposals, with half the debate being about Canada and Britain (solutions that are not being proposed by anyone with power) and the other half being about blatant lies and distortions. While Wyden's proposal could pick up Republican support in 2007 I seriously doubt that it could today. Nonetheless I'm not opposed to having a vote on Wyden's plan, but his waffling on a public option is just plain bizzarre, as Jacob Hacker (linked in previous paragraph) argues compellingly, Wyden's plan too would benefit from a public option. Its time for Wyden to stop playing whatever game he's playing here and get on board with the public option, its hard enough to pass health care reform over the objections of conservative Republicans, they don't need help from progressive Democrats.

Cwech Blug is Back!

2009-08-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

From June 2005 up to January 2007 I tried to regularly post here, and while there were lull months when something got in my way I was able over that period on most months to post 20 or so times. After the 2006 election I faded, with class it became difficult to keep posting consistently, and my brain was too fried to come up with interesting things to post. Even after graduating and getting through the 2008 election cycle I couldn't bring myself to bring the Cwech Blug back online. What I realized during that time was that the Cwech Blug was an important outlet for me to continue to keep my writing sharp and to maintain an outlet for my thoughts. As the health care debate has heated up this August I finally concluded that in spite of being on the verge of starting graduate school (which will undoubtedly put more pressure on me from class than I had as an undergrad), I needed to bring this blog back. This time I resolved to protect myself from creative lulls and class pressures by adding two good friends with good minds for politics to help me out, with three of us posting it should be a lot easier to consistently keep material coming and to avoid the pressure of having to constantly be posting something just for the sake of posting. This should keep the material here more interesting and fresh, while bringing some different perspectives to the table and allow for consistency of posts.

I hope that I can regain readers and find new ones from the last run at this blog, and keep interesting material coming.

The (Mythic) ‘Sister Souljah Moment’

2007-11-21T05:37:00.000-08:00

America’s ‘first black president’ confronted America’s ‘black community’ when he took the stage in front of the Rainbow Coalition and denounced the remarks of one of the ostensibly monolithic community’s leaders spokespersons, Ms. Sister Souljah. In so doing, he distanced himself from an ‘extreme element’ of the Democratic Party, offending some of its members but establishing himself as a moderate. Thus, Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination, and eventually, the general election.

This year, though there has been much ‘Sister Souljah’ calling, there will be no such moments. Why? Because there never was such a moment. To borrow heavily from a generic meta-narrative of the blog community, the media proffered the previously articulated narrative in order to explain why a white candidate would disagree with a rapper who argued for a ‘week to kill white people’ following the 1992 LA riots. Although I wasn’t there and haven’t yet been able to contact an official representative of the ‘black community’, I can imagine that there weren’t too many in the Rainbow Alliance audience who stood up to defend Sister Souljah’s right to kill white people. I think I know why; because while the ‘black community’ is an extremely intellectually and politically (and ethnically/racially) diverse imagined ‘community’, there isn’t much of a movement within the ‘community’ for racially motivated killings. As I said, I wasn’t there, but the primary reason for objecting to Clinton’s statement was probably was more along the lines of questioning why an alleged ally of the community needed to inform a pacific group of advocates for justice that killing people was wrong. So while the media generated a historic precedent, attendees of the rally wondered what Clinton had said that distanced himself from their political beliefs. They hadn’t endorsed Sister Souljah, or even contemplated picking up arms. There was a response against Clinton; not because he denounced killing, but primarily because Clinton did not warn organisers that he would be speaking out against Sister Souljah.

Despite the dubious nature of the moniker, its memory and precedent(ial) quality hovers over the current batch of Democratic presidential candidates. Incredulously, the biggest bout of ‘Sister Souljah!’ calling that I have witnessed has been over remarks by Barack Obama to that same ‘black community’, albeit twelve years later. Apparently, a candidate telling people that parent’s should be more involved in their children’s educations distances the candidate from the listeners. As if black parents are the sole guilty ones of excessively leaning on the TV to parent children. Or that Obama, a father of two daughters, only mentions the importance of parents to people whose skin colour doesn’t look like most of the rich and powerful of the world. Perhaps it was simpler for the media (including, I might add, many left leaning bloggers) to continue the flawed narrative by making the connection over racial lines. Ostensibly, this is because the ‘community’ is monolithically out of sync with mainstream American politics, holds incredible influence, and other voters may not support a candidate too close to such a dangerous monolith. (The second is rather interesting claim against a group that has only been allowed to vote for about 40 years.)

Of course, much of this commentary may stem from caffeine enhanced paranoia about the state of our nation and the media of convenience, but don’t dismiss it. Instead, look for ways that candidates substantively distance themselves from groups (or not), rather than citing actions that seem like distancing according to racially focused narratives. For example, Obama and Edwards distancing themselves from lobbyists, especially in contrast with Clinton not creating the same distance; or Obama’s speech to automakers in Detroit. These are easy examples by a rather uninvolved observer, I’m sure that you can find more.

Just don’t reference Sister Souljah when you do.

Bush Threatens to Derail 9/11 Security Bill over Empowerment of Workers

2007-03-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

The bill enacting many of the 9/11 Commission proposed reforms faces a possible veto from the White House because (gasp!) it would allow airport screeners to unionize!

The Senate's leaders moved closer today toward a head-on collision over using the 9/11 bill to give collective bargaining rights to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners, a provision that already has sparked a White House veto threat. The bill is now on the floor.

Senate Republicans have followed the lead of their House counterparts, who are countering a House Democratic plan to call up another pro-union measure later today. Republicans have blasted Democrats, arguing that the bill is a giveaway to the labor interests that have given crucial political support to the new majority. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told his party's faithful at today's Conservative Political Action Conference that Republicans would stay united to sustain any presidential veto of the 9/11 bill.

While it would be a shame to see a good bill get derailed over the right's perverse fear of all things union, I kind of hope they do back Bush if he vetos this, beause I dont see any way Smith or Collins, or Coleman will be able to explain their way out of this one. What are they going to say? "Preventing workers from forming unions is more important than the Nation's security"? Let Bush veto this, and let him veto the Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House today. 20% of the American public would join a union if they were given the opportunity, yet union membership is at an all time low 12% today and the Bush Administration and Republican Congress want to limit the right to unionize as much as possible.

Why EFCA is Necessary

2007-02-22T13:21:00.000-08:00

There's been much talk about the Employee Free Choice Act which was recently reported out of Committee in the House. Among other things the bill would allow the formation of a union if a majority of workers sign union cards rather than requiring a secret vote after workers sign union cards. I find the arguments that opponents are using very amusing.

"What you are seeing is an unprecedented effort by organized labor to overturn years of labor law," said Ringwood, a lobbyist for Associated Builders and Contractors. Like most business officials, she argued that removing the secret ballot would diminish workers' rights.

"This is moving very quickly and people are concerned that the rights of employees would be taken away."

By signing a union card workers are already expressing their support for a union, one must wonder at this point why a secret ballot election should be required after a majority of employees have already shown their support for a union. The answer of course is that oftentimes unions fail upon a secret ballot election. But this isnt because desire for a union is any less strong, but rather because employers threaten workers and run dishonest campaigns against the union. Further, as I pointed out a year ago, NLRB regulations against campaigns that intimidate workers are inneffective.

In 1997, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union lost a unionization election at the sprawling plant, built in this rural town 75 miles south of Raleigh. But it was not until 2004 that the National Labor Relations Board upheld an administrative law judge's decision that threw out the election results.

Seven years that workers in the North Carolina Factory I referred to in that post were without a union while waiting for the NLRB to rule on what was obvious. In that case workers were getting paid a full $3 an hour less than their unionized counterparts, the company may well be saving more than enough in reduced labor costs without a union to afford NLRB punishments after a 7 year wait. As I said at the time:

Seven years to finaly rule that the company violated the workers rights to a fair vote for a union. Seven years that the company was allowed to continue abusing its workers and for which the workers had no recourse of a union. Even after the ruling, organizers fear that the company would continue to act in the same way, intimidating workers so that they still would be unable to get a fair vote. If a new vote were held today and the company engaged in the same tactics and the vote had the same result, it would take another seven years to get the same ruling from the NLRB. Another 7 years for which employees would have no way to defend themselves against company abuses.

Go back and read that original post in which I quoted a fair share of a New York Times article on the subject, it was very disturbing. Its cases like these that show why we absolutely need EFCA, because these "confidential votes" are oftentimes anything but fair and are merely a means for employers who want to prevent a union to intimidate their employees to prevent them from voting for one. As to questions of whether its going to pass, I think it will, the bill is almost certainly going to pass the House as it has 230 cosponsors, both Democrats and Republicans. It has such broad support in the Democratic caucus, and has support of some of the most conservative Democrats out there that I see no possible way that it doesnt have the votes to pass the Senate, I would expect Collins, Snowe, and Specter to support it as well. Given the fact that it seems to have some reasonable Republican support and even has several Republican cosponsors, there might be enough votes there for an override if Bush vetos this. In short, I'm very optimistic about this bill. I guess the question on a veto override is whether there is any support from faux moderates like Gordo for the bill, if there is then any Bush veto will be overridden.

Uninspired Blogging

2007-02-21T00:16:00.000-08:00

Since the start of the new year I've felt very uninspired as I write this blog. My posts have recently been written most often because I feel like I should post something rather than any sense that I want to talk about a given issue. That all culminated almost two weeks (12 days to be exact) ago when following a post on Lt Watada I proceeded to go on a long hiatus without a single post. What all this tells me is that it is clear that this blog must change its course (much like the US in Iraq only without the bloodshed). It has been my observation that far too little attention is payed by the mainstream press and by major blogs to labor/union issues. I now hope to stake myself out against that trend dedicating the bulk of this blog to precisely those issues. I have set up google and yahoo news alerts for labor and union relevent articles and will try to extensively cover everything union to the best of my ability. If I feel compelled to write about another issue I will, but the bulk of this blog will henceforth be dedicated to labor and unions. Expect this to start sometime today.

The Watada Trial and Personal Responsibility

2007-02-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

I was struck by this collumn in the Seattle Post Intelligencer today regarding the actions of Lt. Ehren Watada. The author Robert Jamieson explores the difference between Lt. Watada and Sgt. Mickel David Garrigus who recently died in Iraq, asking which one should be treated as a hero. Before I get deeper into this I believe that Mr. Jamieson forces a false choice upon his readers, playing on every emotional connection that one can to portray Sgt. Garrigus well and Lt. Watada poorly. Undoubtedly we should mourn for Sgt. Garrigus just as we should morn for every one of the more than 3,000 American soldiers and countless Iraqis who have died in this terrible war. Jamieson acts as though one cant think highly of both at the same time, as though respecting the fight that Mr. Watada is putting up somehow diminishes the life of Sgt. Garrigus, it doesnt. The crux of Jamieson's argument however lies below.

They've talked about values they hold dear: patriotism and honor and duty.

Both have anguished over the implosion of Iraq.

But as soldiers they've long known -- or damn well should have known -- that an imperfect military machine works because men and women sign up to follow orders. They are contracted to abide by the rules. You break these rules -- even if you question, as I do, those at the top who are now enforcing them -- and you face the consequences. Period.

This is a deeply flawed moral philosophy that Jamieson presents his readers with, and one that needs to be examined. Jamieson even quotes the right source but fails to engage with the weight of its words, I refer to Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail."

"One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

This is not about whether Lt. Watada will face consequences (though I was sure he would until today) this is about the responsibility that an individual holds to others. Watata feels that the war is unjust and has made the determination that if one feels the war is unjust one should not participate in it. Jamieson's argument is precisely the one that was rightly rejected at Nuremburg, that individual's following orders bears no responsibility for what he has done. The Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann merely decided to do his job rather than to stop and question the fact that he was playing an active part in the slaughter of millions of innocent people. Watada has broken the law and should be confined to prison, but that misses the point, the point is that Watada has acted in good faith with his conscious, he has made the determination that he cannot bear to live knowing that he played a part in this war. Those who say that soldiers should not question the conflicts for which they fight merely return to the nuremburg defense. Watada is as King put it "showing the highest respect for law" but refusing to participate in this war and willingly accepting the penalty for it. But recent events undermine this.

The Army court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, which ended in a mistrial Wednesday, may have stranger turns ahead: Prohibitions against double jeopardy may keep prosecutors from having a second trial, his lawyer and another legal expert say.

The opposition of Watada and his defense team to the mistrial, declared by the military judge and eventually endorsed by prosecutors after their case fell apart, opens the door for a double-jeopardy defense, said John Junker, a University of Washington law professor.
...
The dramatic turn of events hinged on a stipulation of fact that Watada signed in a plea agreement more than a week ago. Under the plea deal, prosecutors dropped two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer against Watada. He was being tried this week on two other charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and one count of missing movement when his Stryker Brigade deployed to Iraq in June.

Head questioned Watada while the jury was out of the courtroom, which Seitz objected to but allowed, and legal experts such as Junker said they would consider that questioning "very unusual" in a civilian trial.

Head concluded that he could not accept Watada's statement. Although Watada had admitted to failing to deploy with his unit, it was not the same as admitting guilt, which prosecutors considered it to be, Head said.

Watada should in fact have admitted guilt, he should have said "yes! I refused to get on that plane, if that is a crime than I guess I'm guilty!" But he didnt, If Watada truly wants to take the moral high ground he should not be pleading his innocence but rather admitting his guilt. I have a deep respect for Watada's refusal to participate in more killing, he can not participate in this war if he truly believes that it is wrong. However, he should plead guilty and accept the consequences of doing so. The moral high ground rarely comes without consequences, and it seems as though Lt. Watada is trying to have it both ways, which is a shame.

Coolest Picture Ever

2007-02-05T13:55:00.000-08:00

Literally.

That looks like it should be painful but he doesnt look like he's in pain. Thank you CNN.com

Diplomatic Operations

2007-02-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

Josh Marshall asks:

Can we assume the number of billions of dollars for "diplomatic operations" is a pretty small part of the pie? And what "diplomatic operations" are they talking about exactly?

My guess is aggressive negotiations.

Anakin: When I got to them we got into aggressive negotiations.
Padme: Aggressive negotiations? What's that?
Anakin: Ah, well, it's negotiations with a lightsaber.

I've got to work Star Wars into this blog every once in a while.

My Thoughts on the New Tax Proposal

2007-02-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of the bipartison tax reform bill that the Oregonian discussed this morning.

A bipartisan plan to remake Oregon's tax system -- add a 5 cent sales tax, cut income taxes by one-third, add tax credits for the poor, slash the tax on capital gains -- was formally put before the Legislature on Wednesday.

If enacted, it would represent the biggest change in state tax policy since 1929, when Oregon began a state income tax.

But the odds are steep: The plan would have to be approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate, and it would have to overcome the deep aversion of Oregon voters and politicians to a sales tax.

I guess I'm one of those with a deep aversion to a sales tax. Sales taxes are regressive, and the sponsors of the bill realized that. They were wise to attempt to balance it out for poor Oregonians by making income taxes for those very people lower.

Taxpayers in every income range could expect to pay less in taxes, except some taxpayers who earn too little to owe income taxes. For most Oregonians, sales tax payments would be more than offset by reductions in income and property taxes, Westlund says.

But Westlund acknowledges that some people will slip through the cracks in this bill paying more in sales taxes but not having enough income to get an income tax cut to balance it out. So the poorest Oregonians end up paying a disproportionate high percentage of their income to the sales tax. Aside from that practical argument, I think sales taxes are also a pain, in Oregon now when you see a price on something you know thats the price, something reassuring, when there's a sales tax you dont really know what you're paying in the end unless you're a math wizz. There is something that can be done to this bill that I believe would make it acceptable. Washington probably has the right model here, Washington has a sales tax but it exempts food, so that the basic necessities that everyone must have and cause the sales tax to burn the poor are not taxed. If the legislature wants to enact a sales tax they should exempt food so that the poorest Oregonians dont get burned as they would without such an exemption.

The Problem with National Popular Vote

2007-01-30T19:58:00.000-08:00

The electoral college is broken, States like Wyoming that have a tiny population still get three electoral votes giving them far more electoral power than they deserve based on their population. Blue Oregon pointed out that we nearly had two consecutive elections in which the winner of the popular vote lost the electoral vote. In response a group called National Popular Vote has begun a campaign to convince States to agree to send their electors to the winner of the popular vote, bypassing the Constitutional Amendment process that would be needed to get rid of the electoral college. They seem to have convinced an Oregon legislator to introduce a bill sending Oregon's electoral votes to the nationwide winner.

This is a bad idea, because it means that Oregonians get less of a voice than anyone else in the Presidential election. By agreeing to send our electors to vote for whoever won the National popular vote, Oregon's concerns will be tossed aside for the concerns of voters in all the other States. If a candidate wants to win Oregon's electoral votes, that candidate needs to be able to convince Oregonians that he's the best candidate, and that he shares Oregon's values and concerns. His policies need to reflect the policies that Oregonians want enacted. By doing this, Oregon would in essence be agreeing to throw away the votes that are cast be Oregonians.

I don't believe that the electoral college is a good idea, but in order to chance it we can't go looking for the easy way out as this does, it undermines the voting rights of the resident's of the State who get nothing in return. If its going to be changed it must be done by Constitutional Amendment. Personally I favor removing Senators from the equation to calculate electoral votes, which would mean that while some States might still be overrepresented, their overrepresentation would be minimized. If only Representatives comprised the electoral votes then Gore would have recieved 227 electoral votes (assuming I counted right) and Bush would have won 213 electoral votes. Al Gore would be the President if Senators (which every State has two of) were not included in the formula for determining electoral votes. Bush gained 19 electoral votes over Gore by winning smaller States than Gore did. This is the hard way, because it requires a Constitutional Amendment, but it is also the right way because unlike the plan being offered for Oregon it doesnt take away one State's voting rights. There are other plans that would be reasonable as well, but any of those plans would also require a Constitutional amendment.

Smith Filibusters Minimum Wage

2007-01-25T15:14:00.000-08:00

After griping for the last three years about Democrats occassionally filibustering things, the Senate Republicans have already excersized their right to filibuster, demanding that any increase in wages for the lowest paid workers must be coupled with tax cuts for those higher up on the income ladder.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) — Senate Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats to pass minimum-wage legislation without breaks for small businesses on Wednesday, setting the stage for a potential impasse with the House, where lawmakers are demanding a “clean” bill.

The Senate vote of 54 to 43 was six votes short of the 60 needed to move ahead with a wage measure that does not include tax benefits for employers. Earlier this month, the Senate Finance Committee voted to add $8.3 billion in tax breaks to the bill.

And who joined this cynical Republican filibuster? None other "moderate" Republican Gordon Smith. That's your "moderate" Republican from Oregon, working hard in the Senate to stick it to workers every day. And if it takes a filibuster to make sure he can stick it workers, Gordon Smith will filibuster.

Cwechblug State of the Union Response

2007-01-23T21:24:00.000-08:00

First, excellent Democratic rebuttal by Sen. Webb. There were a few things in the State of the Union that struck me as interesting, bad ideas, or idiotic. First, I was surprised at how little substance there was in this State of the Union. Very few coherent policy objectives, and a lot of fluffy nice sounding rhetoric. The few things that he did propose left me perplexed however. Why did Bush propose the National Guard?

A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

If anyone can tell the difference between what he proposes in this section of the speech and the National Guard, please tell me, because I am still perplexed about why Bush proposed the National Guard tonight.

Moving on to Health Care. This is quite possibly one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. The following is what Bush proposed tonight in regards to health care.

For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, my proposal would mean a substantial tax savings — $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach. Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making health care affordable for more Americans.

My second proposal is to help the States that are coming up with innovative ways to cover the uninsured. States that make basic private health insurance available to all their citizens should receive Federal funds to help them provide this coverage to the poor and the sick. I have asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work with Congress to take existing Federal funds and use them to create “Affordable Choices” grants. These grants would give our Nation’s Governors more money and more flexibility to get private health insurance to those most in need.

There's been much debate about the problems with Wyden's plan, namely that it doesnt do enough to contain costs. But this is truly rediculous. If you make health care costs tax deductable and do nothing else, you merely give insurance companies the ability to charge any amount of money at public expense. Rather than contain costs as we need to do, insurance premiums would drive straight through the roof. Because once everyone has the ability to deduct health care costs from their taxes, insurance companies will have a huge market available to them for which there is no demand curve. There is nothing to contain costs of insurance. People by health care at price 1, deducting their entire premium from their income taxes, insurance companies raise prices because they can make more money, cost 2 is now far higher than cost one. Consumer purchases health care at cost 2 and deducts it from their taxes. It is a giant Federal gift to insurance companies that seems limitless. I'm also wondering about people who have so little income that they dont pay anything in taxes. Are they going to recieve money back from the government to cover their health care costs. This may be universal, but its a monumentally bad idea.

The proposal to give a Federal grant to encourage States to "find innovative ways to provide private health insurance to their citizens." This is really a way to prevent States from going single-payer on their own and stop the movement at the State level where it is beginning to take shape. This is not encouraging States to come up with innovative new policies, it is limiting them to a narrow set of policy options that are more likely to fail than single-payer. The specification of private insurance here is important.

Finally, Bush once more proposed health savings accounts, which have the fundamental flaw of assuming that health care is a normal consumer item. If I want a banana, I know that a banana is what I need and I can shop at a place in which I can get a good price for a banana. Health care isnt like this at all. If I need an MRI, the only way I know that I need an MRI is that the doctor who is going to make money through the process told me I need an MRI. I cant make the rational consumer choice that I dont really need an MRI, if I choose not to get one I run considerable personal health risks. The money in a health savings account would be limited, so if I develope a major health problem I might run out of money in the account and end up paying out of pocket. Not to mention the question of what one does if they dont have any money to put in the health savings account to begin with. So that's three bad ideas in health care by my count.

Bush also engaged in a little bit of Ron Saxton style rhetoric, claiming that we're going to keep medicare healthy, expand the war in Iraq, cut taxes, create a new National Guard (huh?), and balance the budget. A friend of mine commented "We're raiding Canada," and as near as I can tell that's the only way to do it. We're not going to cut programs, we're going to cut taxes, and balance the budget. It all sounds nice but cant be taken seriously, I guess Saxton's magic "inefficiences" have returned.

Oregon Takes a Lead on Health Care

2007-01-18T15:46:00.000-08:00

While California gets most of the press for Health Care reform, Oregon seems to be moving forward with plans to dramatically restructure the State's health care system. And unlike in California it has a chance of passing in Oregon (California has some screwed up laws on budgetary matters allowing a minority to easily block the legislation). The debate is beginning in Oregon, and not just on the topic of whether universal health care is the best policy (it is), but rather about exactly what plan is best to do that, good serious proposals are being made and sent into committee in the Oregon Legislature, there seems to be a growing consensus that something needs to be done and that the health care system as it is today is unsustainable. Former Governor John Kitzhaber is leading this charge with the Archimedes movement.

Former Gov. John Kitzhaber rolled out a bold legislative plan for overhauling Oregon's health care system Wednesday, hoping to leverage a national debate on health care reform that will spread to the 2008 presidential race.

"The health care system today is unsustainable," he said. "It is remarkable we are utterly unable to change our direction."

The plan would pool roughly $7 billion from employer tax deductions for health care and from state and federal tax money spent on Medicare and Medicaid in Oregon. The pool then would be spent in a more efficient and rational system that would provide a "core benefit" of essential health services to every Oregonian, including the 609,000 who now have no health insurance, said Kitzhaber, a former emergency-room doctor, during a news conference in downtown Portland.
...
Kitzhaber's bill will go to the Senate Special Committee on Health Reform, said the Democratic co-chairs, Sen. Alan Bates of Ashland, and Sen. Ben Westlund of Bend. The committee will consider Kitzhaber's plan along with at least three other health reform plans: one developed by a Senate commission led by Bates and Westlund and others from the Oregon Business Council and the Oregon Health Policy Commission.

"What is most significant and shows the true depth of this (health care) crisis is the number of groups that have come together to propose solutions," Westlund said.
...
No plan will work if it does not contain costs, Kitzhaber said.

Like other plans before the Legislature, his would seek administrative efficiencies, include incentives to keep costs low and the quality of service high, and would guarantee Oregonians health care no matter where they work.

Its a shame Kitzhaber appears to have no plans to challenge Gordon Smith for the Senate seat in 2 years, but it does little good to dwell on that. What Kitzhaber recognizes that Ron Wyden doesnt is the section I put in bold from the Oregonian article. Wyden seems to think that we cant effectively control the costs but we can ensure access to health care for all. This concedes ground in the debate that doesnt need to be conceded, one of the most compelling reasons for health care reform is the runaway cost of care in the current system. Massachussetts, Vermont, and Hawaii have all drastically reformed their health care systems, if California and Oregon do it too then perhaps the US Congress will begin to really take this issue seriously and do something about a broken system. The Oregonian piece also mentioned that Kulongoski is backing a bill to guarantee coverage for all children, and if we're going to take baby steps toward this thing that's certainly admirable, but it fails to deal with the larger health care crisis in the State and the country choosing instead of focus on select social groups while ignoring the larger problems. If a universal plan cannot get through the legislature than Kulongoski's plan to cover all children would be nice, but if we can make health care in this State more efficient and change its fundamental structure we should.

Weather Griping

2007-01-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is directed at everyone in western Oregon and Washington. You're all wimps. Linfield College was cancelled yesterday and the local news out of Portland acted as if all hell had broken loose when the roads were what I would describe as "clear" in both cases. Even so, lets entertain for a moment the possibility that the roads actually were dangerous. Linfield College delayed its opening today, my question is this: how can it take more than 24 hours to get the roads clear? If the roads arent clear by now someone isnt doing their job. Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging (also known as complaining about more relevent things than the weather).

The Effects of Higher Minimum Wages

2007-01-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

The New York Times ran a good story today on the way minimum wage law acts on the Idaho-Washington border where the highest minimum wage in the country meets the lowest. They pointed to the relationship between Post Falls and Liberty Lake. But the story was the same where I grew up in Moscow Idaho/Pullman Washington.

But instead of shriveling up, small-business owners in Washington say they have prospered far beyond their expectations. In fact, as a significant increase in the national minimum wage heads toward law, businesses here at the dividing line between two economies — a real-life laboratory for the debate — have found that raising prices to compensate for higher wages does not necessarily lead to losses in jobs and profits.

Idaho teenagers cross the state line to work in fast-food restaurants in Washington, where the minimum wage is 54 percent higher. That has forced businesses in Idaho to raise their wages to compete.

With a lowball minimum wage, Idaho businesses who pay minimum wage sacrifice more committed workers who cross the State line to Washington and is stuck with the bottom of the barrel labor at least in town near the border. One of my good friends in High School who commuted to Pullman to work every day made the comment once to me "why would anyone in this town want to work in Moscow, yes you pay a little more for gas to commute but its more than made up for by the difference in wage." Idaho businesses near the border, this article pointed out excellently are at a huge disadvantage if they fail to pay close to Washington's minimum wage to their employees.

Bush Ignores Democrats

2007-01-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

It seems that Bush is still excluding Democrats from the decision making process in spite of the fact that the Democrats now hold both Houses of Congress.

President Bush yesterday began promoting his plan to send more troops to Iraq, bringing more than 30 Republican senators to the White House as part of a major campaign to rally the American people behind another effort to stabilize the country.

So the Democrats won an election recently, largely because of anger over the Iraq war, yet the President still wont talk to Democrats? Interesting.

Congressional Diary Day at DailyKos

2007-01-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

It seemed to be Congressional diary day at DailyKos today as I recetly noticed three different recomended diaries at the same moment by Congressmen. One by Senator Edward Kennedy, one by Senator Dick Durbin, and the third by Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer. There is one (fairly minor) piece of Rep Blumenauer's diary that I want to key in on here.

Amidst all of that churn, Thursday’s events in Washington, DC were the most uplifting and positive that I've experienced as a member of Congress. Fifty-one new members, Republican and Democratic alike, came with a sense of enthusiasm and energy. Even some of my Republican friends quietly conceded that they might have more influence with the Democrats in charge with the way that we've vowed to run the House versus the DeLay machine.

Hopefully, in spite of Kos' silly objections to bipartisonship that he has expressed recently, the Democratic Majority lives up to its rhetoric and opens up the political process to Republicans such that we can govern with fairness and deliberation. The legacy of Delay and Newt of pushing the minority Party entirely out of the political process must go. By ending that legacy we can return to some good faith legislating in which all voices are taken into consideration as policy is made. Its excellent that some Republicans are excited about the upcoming session, it shows a readiness and a desire to work together accross Party lines when reasonable to achieve shared goals. Does this mean that we should be softening good progressive legislation for the benefit of the minority party or entertaining social security "compromises" that serve to weaken the program? No, it merely means that the opposition party is given a fair chance to participate in the process. A bipartison process does not preclude a partison clash, the Democrats should not blow the positive vibe that Blumenauer described in his diary by acting like Delay and company, they should live up to their rhetoric of opening the process up again after 12 years in the darkness. We cannot be as the Republicans have been, hostile to letting the democratic process work.

Patience My Friends

2007-01-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

The health care debate seems to have picked up steam since Ron Wyden introduced a plan for universal health care a few weeks ago. Today, Paul Krugman wayed in on what needs to be done in the short term.

Universal health care, much as we need it, won't happen until there's a change of management in the White House. In the meantime, however, Congress can take an important step toward making our health care system less wasteful, by fixing the Medicare Middleman Multiplication Act of 2003.
...
What should Congress do? The new Democratic majority is poised to reduce drug prices by allowing -- and, probably, requiring -- Medicare to negotiate prices on behalf of the private drug plans. But it should go further, and force Medicare to offer direct drug coverage that competes on a financially fair basis with the private plans. And it should end the subsidy to Medicare Advantage, forcing H.M.O.'s to engage in fair competition with traditional Medicare.

Conservatives will fight fiercely against these moves. They say they believe in competition -- but they're against competition that might show the public sector doing a better job than the private sector. Progressives should support these moves for the same reason. Ending the subsidies to middlemen, in addition to saving a lot of money, would point the way to broader health care reform.

It seems to me that the calls for a national single payer health care program have been getting much louder the last few weeks, which is good. I agree with Krugman however, and have articulated this before (though perhaps not on this blog). In terms of necessity the time for this is absolutely now, today in a perfect world we should institute national health insurance. However, the institutional standing of our country at this moment does not lend itself to this possibility. Before we can institute such a program, Democrats absolutely have to control the executive branch. If we push too hard, too fast for national health insurance without controlling the executive branch we risk losing the argument at a time when there was never any possibility of passage. Bush cannot hold the veto pen when we pass such a program. That's why I believe Krugman is correct here, ultimately we need national health insurance, but in the meantime we cannot possibly get it signed into law today, so we should chip arround the edges of American health care to make some good positive changes for people that we can get passed into law.

George Will: The Working Class Arent Human

2007-01-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

Sounds pretty rediculous eh? But I've read it twice and that clearly seems to be what George Will is saying, that low wage workers are not in fact people. In a bad article opposing the minimum wage, one of the worst such article I've read not for its position but because it isnt well written or well argued, George Will ended with the following:

But the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly. But that is a good idea whose time will never come again.

Labor is a commodity? Now I know a lot of economists like to talk in this language, even a lot of liberal economists do it, but lets think about the assumption being made to make that statement. You don't hear Will or anyone else talking about entrepreneurs as a "commodity," in part because they arent a commodity just as labor isnt, but also because they understand that to treat a person as a commodity is to make them something non human, something that is merely bought and sold, not something to be engaged with, not something to concerned for the well being of. At best maybe the "commodity" argument contends that labor is like a dairy cow, something whose health and life need to be protected only because production stops without it.

Please Mr. Will, you wrote a shitty article to begin with, but please dont reduce your fellow human beings whose well being and general welfare need to be defended to a mere commodity. They are far more important to our country and to our economy than a mere cow. Our fellow human beings have value to us far beyond any capital good, or any good at all for that matter, please dont demean their existence by reducing them to such an unimportant social status, it just shows your readers that you're self concerned and antisocial, and I'm sure you dont want them knowing that.

Keith Ellison and the Koran Controversy

2007-01-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

The debate over Keith Ellison's decision to take the oath of office is such a non-issue and silly discussion that I've basically ignored it up until now. The Washington Post today pointed out that Representative Ellison would be sworn in on a copy of the Koran which is an english translation that was owned by Thomas Jefferson. Washington Monthly praised the decision by Ellison saying "Good for Ellison. Sounds like he's a pretty smart cookie," but never really expalaining what about this move makes him a smart cookie. They are correct, this is a smart move, but only because it answers the criticism without actually engaging the argument (an argument that in my view isnt worth engaging).

At the heart of this discussion lies the provision in Article 6 of the Constitution which provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." This is one of only two places in the entire Constitution where religionis mentioned, the other of course being within the First Amendment in the establishment and free excercise clauses. The religious test provision dates back to Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom adopted by the State of Virginia in 1786 after James Madison introduced the provision. The major provisions of this statute (those mentioned already, religious tests and the first amendment) were included in the United States Constitution. The major proponent of these provisions was undoubtedly Jefferson, who wrote about religious tests in his autobiography:

"[the religious test] was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohometan, the Hindoo, and the infidel of every denomination."

It seems that we're reliving the same arguments that were settled by 1791 through Mr. Ellison's obvious decision to swear in upon the Koran. Using Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran serves as a reminder that our country has already had this fight, and that he has an absolute right to be sworn in on the holy book of his faith, Jefferson and others who supported these provisions felt that we could not afford to become a Christian Nation, after waves of immigrants and the clear reality that the United States is a pluralistic country, now more than ever it is important to uphold Jefferson's vision of what our country would be in this regard. For as a nation of immigrants there is not even any national faith to turn to, far more than in 1786 Americans are Hindus, Muslims, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and anything else that one can think of. If it was relevent enough to include in the Constitution then, it is far more relevent today. Keith Ellison's decision gives us a subtle reminder of this history as the religious right tries to bring back the days before the Constitution of religious tests.

General 2007 Discussion

2007-01-01T02:30:00.000-08:00

Without looking arround very specifically I'm sure nearly every blogger in the universe is doing something similar to this, but I retired for the last week and need to get back in the game, and it strikes me as a good idea to get the first post of 2007 off my chest. This is just a general, uninsightful, semi-meaningless discussion of what awaits us in the coming year.

Iraq
About 5 American soldiers a day have been dying recently, and it sure seems like every day we find a pile of 50 bodies somewhere in Iraq of the recently murdered. A recent informal panel of academics assembled at 12:10 AM today seemed only able to conclude that its a total mess. Josh Marshall has a good observation, as it seems all there are regarding Iraq are good observations and no good solutions.

If you watch the video of the moments leading up to Saddam Hussein's execution, am I wrong that it bears a certain resemblance to the terrorist snuff films we've watched out of Iraq over the last three years? A dark, dank room. The executioners wear not uniforms of any sort, either civilian or military, but street clothes and ski masks. We now learn that the executioners were apparently taken from the population of southern Iraq, the country's Shi'a heartland, where Saddam's repression was most severe. And in an apt symbolic statement on what the Iraq War is about, two of the executioners who saw Saddam off started hailing Moktada al Sadr in Saddam's face as they prepared to hang him. Remember, al Sadr's Mahdi Army is the force the 'surge' of new US troops is meant to crush next year. That's where we are.

economy
Paul Krugman recently argued that when economists cant agree on which way the indicators are pointing we're probably shifting directions. At the very least it seems we're at risk of a significant downturn. That said, things are looking up for working people relative to how things have been for the last 6 years as Democrats seem prepared to increase the minimum wage, pass an expansion in workers rights to unionize, and to examine possible solutions to the health care crisis.

sports
USC will defeat Michigan today. The PAC 10 will send Arizona, UCLA, UW, Oregon, and Washington State to the NCAA tournament in basketball. I have no clue who will win the World Series except to say that Detroit looks good again and that Santana and Liriano are one hell of a 1-2 punch. The Mariners will finish with roughly a 0.500 record as they produce runs and Felix Hernandez begins to look like a top pitcher, however a lack of depth in the pitching staff creates too many problems for them to be a real contender.

Oregon
The Democratic Legislature will allow Kulongoski to accomplish something, a nice change from his previous term. It looks like Kulongoski is preparing an aggressive agenda on health care and gay rights, hopefully a coalition can be built to pass some meaningful legislation in these areas among others. The State will enact a plan to build a bypass road arround Dundee, they will toll both the bypass and 99W. Consequently revolution will break out in Dundee requiring the Oregon National Guard to quell the chaos. Unfortunately the Oregon National Guard is in Iraq and unavailable.

Russia
Putin will confirm the trend that Russia is currently headed on by declaring himself Czar after inviting the entire Duma to a buffet of polonium laced food. Its ok though because Bush looked into his soul.

Presidential Candidates
Barack Obama will decide not to run for President, towards the end of the year the primary campaigns for 2008 will be kicked into full gear. The Democratic field will include Kucinich, Hillary, Edwards, Biden, Vilsac, and Richardson. The Republican field will include Newt, St McCain, Huckabee, Brownback, and Romney. I wont comment in this post on who either Party will nominate because that happens in 2008.

Democrats Move to Bring Back Cooperation in Congress

2006-12-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

The Democrats are moving towards restoring rules that were eliminated by the Republican Congress from 1994 through 2006 in order to give the minority a voice in what goes on.

After chafing for years under what they saw as flagrant Republican abuse of Congressional power and procedures, the incoming majority has promised to restore House and Senate practices to those more closely resembling the textbook version of how a bill becomes law: daylight debate, serious amendments and minority party participation.

Beyond the parliamentary issues, Democrats assuming control on Jan. 4 said they also wanted to revive collegiality and civility in an institution that has been poisoned by partisanship in recent years. In a gesture duly noted by Republicans, the incoming speaker of the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, offered Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who is remaining in Congress, the use of prime office space in the Capitol out of respect for his position.

Kos believes that this constitutes a "completely unneccessary act of kindness." He is completely wrong on this count for reasons that I will explain after giving a clearer explanation of what Kos meant.

But on collegiality -- If Pelosi and company are just blabbing about "cooperation" for PR purposes, that's fine. But it should be nothing more than rhetoric. We've already seen that Blunt and Company can't help themselves and even bother reciprocating the empty platitudes. They respond to them with insults and threats of political gamesmanship.

This is an era of hardball politics, and the GOP clearly has no intention to play nice. They aren't even going through the motions or pretending to be more collegial. So while our side can talk nice, their actions should reflect the current political reality.

What Kos is correct about is his contention that the Republicans seem to "have no intention to bother reciprocating." That doesnt change the fact that this is a very smart and good move by Pelosi and company. Regardless of whether Republicans will bother reciprocating, procedure in the House and Senate has been altered dramatically for the purpose of keeping the minority out of the process. That is not how democracy is supposed to work, let both sides come to the table, let both sides offer amendments, and at the end of the day let an honest and open vote determine whether we're going to pass X proposal into law. The oft observed end of bipartisonship and cooperation in American politics in recent years I believe is entirely the fault of the Republicans who have cynically destroyed any ability for the minority party to be involved in the policymaking process. It needs to be changed, and change requires at this time that Democrats be the better men. I dont care if it doesnt do anything for our agenda, Congress needs to return to its roots in this regard. Perhaps Kos, and any Democrats taking his side of this need to be reminded that 44% of the American public voted for Republicans this November. Does Kos really support acting like the Republicans and ignoring 44% of the voting American public entirely? I hope not. Let's take a look at what exactly has gone on in the last 12 years and what exactly is being proposed by Pelosi and Co here.

But to Congress watchers who grew increasingly outraged over Republican conduct of the House during the rule of Mr. Hastert and the majority leader Tom DeLay, the Democrats are definitely heading in the right direction.

“The House has been so egregiously run for a number of years that it was seen as contributing both directly and indirectly to the election results,” said Thomas Mann, a Congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. “There really is a strong political incentive to try to do business differently.”

Democrats said explicitly that they would abandon some of the most disputed Republican practices. They point in particular to the vote on Medicare prescription drug legislation in 2003, when Republicans refused to shut off a House vote for three hours so they could twist arms and push the measure through just before sunrise. Democrats stipulate that votes should be completed within 15 minutes and not held open simply to manipulate the outcome.

Democrats are developing a proposal to guarantee that lawmakers have at least 24 hours to examine legislation. They have also called for “an end to the two-day work week” and the beginning of a “predictable, professional, family-friendly schedule that allows the legislative process to proceed in a manner that ensures timely and deliberative dispensation of the work of Congress.”

In the House and Senate, the leadership is vowing to conduct full and open conference committees that reconcile differing legislation passed by the two chambers and produce a final bill. In recent years, those sessions have all but disappeared, with senior Republicans hashing out final versions behind closed doors, occasionally adding provisions passed by neither the House nor the Senate. Some of the major legislation approved in the final hours of the past Congress was written in private by just a few lawmakers and aides and rushed to the floor.

Good work Pelosi, as for Kos, I agree with you most of the time, but you're on the wrong side of this bud.

Chile Moves for Prosecutions of Pinochet Era Officials

2006-12-23T16:05:00.000-08:00

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has moved forward with plans to eliminate an amnesty provision in Chilean law instituted by the now deceased former dictator Augusto Pinochet which would protect officials under his command from prosecution for torture and murder.

“This government, like other democratic governments before it, maintains that the amnesty was an illegitimate decision in its origins and content, form and foundation,” Ms. Bachelet’s chief of staff, Paulina Veloso, said in an interview at the presidential palace here. “Our conviction is that it should never have been applied at all, and certainly should never be used again.”

Ms. Bachelet, a Socialist, took office in March in the fourth consecutive victory for a center-left coalition of Christian Democrats and Socialists since General Pinochet was forced to step down in 1990. In the past, pro-Pinochet right-wing parties have been able to block congressional efforts to overturn the amnesty, but Ms. Bachelet’s coalition has a large enough majority in both houses to make passage of such a bill almost certain.

This is a reasonable next step for Chile, I had many discussions with friends over whether Chile should pursue the Nuremburg model of post-WWII Germany or the Peace and Reconciliation model of post-apartheid South Africa. At the time it wasnt obvious that Chile would pursue either, now it appears that they intend to follow the nuremburg model of prosecuting war criminals. The potential problem with the nuremburg model is pointed out by a right leaning Chilean paper.

“Rather than contributing to social peace and national reconciliation,” the paper said, “this verdict seems to augur the reopening and perpetuation of many causes of division, due to the juridical uncertainty it creates.”

This is a positive step forward for Chile, I think I could support either this or the South Africa model of peace and reconciliation, but the Pinochet era needs to be revisited, it was one of the world's most brutal dictatorships and the full force of what happened during those years needs to be brought to light. This is a good move by Bachelet, as her Chief of Staff points out:

“This was a highly planned system of extermination, not just a solitary person,” said Ms. Veloso, a lawyer and former judge whose first husband was one of the dictatorship’s victims. “So I think the death of Pinochet will not alter the agenda.”

The entirety of Chilean society is a victim of Pinochet's brutality, and closure is needed in order to move past that terrible chapter of Chile's history, good move Bachelet.

Panel Recomends Civil Unions

2006-12-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

An Oregon task force on equality appointed by Gov Kulongoski has recomended that the legislature adopt civil unions for gay and lesbian couples much like what Vermont did while Howard Dean was Governor, and New Jersey did a week ago.

I thought (as much as I hated the measure) that this might violate the constitution as amended by Measure 36 in 2004. However, I went back and read the text and there appears to be a loophole for civil unions.

It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage.

By specifying "as a marriage" there is a narrow door opened for civil unions. In a Democratic legislature I expect this will at least get a chance on the floor. I dont know if the votes exist to pass it, but at least this will get an opportunity to be debated. This would be a great positive step towards gender equality in Oregon. Kulongoski deserves a lot of praise for his willingness to move forward on this. Other States that have done this have been forced to by the courts, Vermont, New Jersey, and even Massachussetts with their more sweeping reform. Kulongoski is acting out of sheer political will and desire for equality, this goes above and beyond what other States have done if we can pass it, because other States have been forced to action by the courts.

Nelson's Fishy Filings

2006-12-20T10:35:00.000-08:00

Donna Nelson (R-HD24) has been accused of withholding campaign contributions from July until October in her reelection bid against Democrat Sal Peralta this year. There is good analysis on this over at Loaded Orygun and at Ridenbaugh Press. Nelson claims that she just didnt open the mail until October.

She said any problems might stem from the fact she focuses on constituent mail first. She said "nonessential" mail, including lobbyist mailings that could include campaign checks, sits in plastic tubs until she gets to it - quite possibly months later.

I find it hard to believe that it took her 4 months to open the mail, and as is being argued over at Loaded Orygun, if it actually did take her that long it merely proves that she's a dunce. Nelson built her entire campaign on the theme that "I'm one of y'all, I love you and I love this town." And she seems to be falling back on that same narrative in the face of possibly criminal activity. I'm embarrassed to be represented by this woman, we deserve someone competent in Salem even if it were someone who I had strong political differences with, nobody deserves a completely incompetent Representative. It doesnt matter whether this was deliberate or accidental, it proves either that she maliciously broke the law, or that she's so clueless that she didnt think to bother opening her mail.

Enough With the South!

2006-12-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

I bumped into a diary at DailyKos last night which I will use as a jumping off point for something that has been bothering me for quite some time. The diary contended that John Edwards is not the guy to nominate in 2008 because he cant win in the South. This is a questionable claim to begin with, but it builds itself off the premise that Democrats need to win in the South in order to win the Presidency. Its a rediculous argument that a lot of people like to make, I would like to do my part to put it to rest.

After signing the Civil Rights Act, President Johnson said that he had lost the South for the Democratic Party. That still holds true, the South is by and large a dead region for Democrats. Even in a landslide Congressional victory, the Democrats picked up only two Congressional seats in the South, one in Kentucky and one in North Carolina. In the exit polling data, the South is the only region in the entire Country that the Republicans recieved more votes than the Democrats. So even in a tidal wave election in which the Democrats won by overwhelming margins almost everywhere they still did not do well in the South. This demonstrates that the South is far more hostile to Democrats than any other region in the Country. Yet the myth lives on that Democrats cannot win without winning Southern States and that therefore a Southerner on the ticket is needed. These people like to point to the success of southerners in Presidential elections. However, any Republican can be tossed out as irrellevent to Democratic success because the region is so strongly Republican we can expect them to win it regardless of who they run. Advocates of a southern focus for the Democratic Party point to Bill Clinton's electoral success. This actually demonstrates contrary to what advocates of a southern approach tend to argue, that Democrats dont need to worry about the South

If we look to Bill Clinton's elections in 1992 and 1996 in which he won by large margins with a few southern States. he would have won the election whether he won in the South or not. Arkansas, Louisianna, Kentucky, and Tennessee (and Georgia in 1992 but not in 1996) were bonus States for Clinton, they had no effect on the election. Clinton won 370 and 379 electoral votes, in 1992 Clinton won 47 electoral votes from the South. Subtract 47 from 370 and Clinton still would have won 323 and won the White House with a solid margin. Same holds true for 1996 when Clinton won 34 electoral votes from the South in a 379 EV win, subtract the south and Clinton would have won with 345 electoral votes. The South made no difference to Clinton. He won not because he could win in the South but because he had appeal elsewhere. In both elections Clinton won a couple of southern States on the back of Ross Perot swiping votes away from Bush and Dole respectively. So its clear that a) Clinton wasnt as effective in the South as his reputation and b) that Clinton didnt need the South in order to win.

A winning Democratic strategy should not be built arround the South, it is the most conservative region in the country. For every hour you spend trying to convince Southerners to vote for you, you could have spent 30 minutes to convince the same number of voters in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, or the Southwest. Demographic trends are actually promising for a Southwest strategy rather than a Southern strategy. The US population is increasingly shifting to the Southwest, and long term Democratic success would be smart to focus on Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and even Texas. This is where the US population is moving and this is where there are voters who can be convinced to vote Democratic. As the hispanic populations increase in these States there is a potential for it to become a farely strong region for the Democratic Party. There are votes to be won in the Southwest, not in the South. I'm sick and tired of this claim that the Democrats cant win if they cant win in the South. They can, and any Democrat who wins in the South only does so after they won significant victories over the rest of the country.

Certainly any State that the Democrats can pick off from the Republicans would be positive, and if we pick off some States that happen to be part of "the south" then that's great. Certainly Virginia increasingly looks like a State where Democrats might be able to win. But focusing on appeal to southerners is wrongheaded, Democrats should seek to appeal to States that can reasonably be won with some efficiency like Ohio, Florida, or accross the Southwestern region. Below is an electoral map I compiled based on census data, it shows where electoral power will lie in 2030 if the demographic trends continue as they have. Whoever wins in the Southwest, California, and Texas will likely control the White House in the future.

Oregon Dept of Transp Hates Yamhill County Residents

2006-12-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

It seems the Oregon Department of Transportation wants to institute dual tolling on both a bypass road and on 99W.

Don't expect to see the Newberg-Dundee Bypass built unless most motorists are tolled, no matter which route they choose. The question isn't whether to slap a toll on the highway, which has been around since early in the 20th century, but who to exempt and under what conditions, they say.

If that's the case I say no deal, the traffic in Dundee is horrible, but to force motorists traveling from Portland to the coast, Portland to McMinnville, or the other way to pay a toll every time is an outrage. Its essentially a tax on Yamhill County to pay for the profit margin of a private Australian company. The company of course loves the idea.

"That is exactly right," said Nicholas Hann, who represents the Australian conglomerate that hopes to build the bypass. His company, veteran of toll road projects around the world, would finance and build the bypass in exchange for enough toll revenue over a period of 40 to 70 years to make the investment pay off.

If ODOT wishes to contract out a company to build a bypass road at a fair rate for them to make a profit, then fine, if the company wants to charge a toll on the bypass road that's fine, but to toll 99W is death on Dundee, and is taxing us for living where we do in order for a private company to make a profit. If they wont do it without tolling 99W then I say dont build a bypass road, I'll live with the poor traffic flow. Its a bad idea and its incredibly unfair, it shouldnt even be considered.

The Return of Duel Tolling on 99W

2006-12-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

The Oregon Transportation Improvement group has issued a report suggesting a solution to the Dundee bottleneck problem. Their solution? Gouge the motorists and kill the town of Dundee.

While it throws cold water on the idea of tolling local Highway 99W traffic to prevent motorists from using it as a free alternative, that's unlikely to douse a firestorm of opposition ignited by the idea. In fact, it may actually fan the flames, as it includes several under which through-traffic would be assessed and one under which local traffic would be assessed as well.

The study projects a $1 toll for use of the bypass and a toll of $2 or more for use of Highway 99W, depending on how wide an exemption were to be granted for locals. The wider the local exemption, the higher the toll on other motorists would have to be to compensate.

This is an outrage. If they feel they need to toll in order to pay for it, then the bypass road should be tolled higher and 99W not at all. Once you've got a town (or two, I'm not sure if they're bypassing Newberg or not) on a toll road you create a disencentive for motorists to go to that town for any reason. What this proposal would do is kill the local economy of Dundee. This is a bad idea, and the people of Dundee are right to be angry about it. It doesnt matter if they create an exemption for locals because once you create a barrier to people coming into town all local businesses will suffer. They can place as high a toll as they want on the bypass road and its ok, it would allow drivers a way to cruise from Portland to McMinnville or out to the coast with minimal traffic problems while actually creating a small monetary incentive for motorists to go through dundee if traffic isnt bad. This is a huge problem and needs to be addressed, a bypass is the correct approach, but for god's sake don't toll 99W! Its a lousy idea!

If they follow through with the duel tolling proposal all people in the area, liberals and conservatives, people from Dundee as well as from McMinnville or Newberg or even Portland should gather behind the people of Dundee in opposing this, its an outrageous proposition and I really wish they would stop bringing it back.

Westlund to Take on Gordo?

2006-12-12T12:43:00.000-08:00

Today Blue Oregon welcomed State Senator Ben Westlund to the Democratic Party.

State Sen. Ben Westlund, the Central Oregon legislator who left the Republican Party in February and flirted with an independent campaign for governor, will officially join the Democratic Party today.

The switch in allegiance was sparked by a realization that his politics mesh more with Democrats than Republicans, Westlund said in an interview Monday.

There has been speculation before that Westlund hopes to take on Senator Smith in 2008. This would be the perfect preliminary move to doing so. By switching Parties Westlund puts to rest any concerns that he's "not really a Democrat" and generates stronger support than he would otherwise get in the Democratic primary. We already know that Westlund has ambitions for higher office as is demonstrated by his brief bid for Governor in 2006 (he dropped out early while polling under 10%). Then there's the fact, as Russel Sadler pointed out in Blue Oregon, that Westlund would take Smith's fake image as a "maverick" and as a "moderate" and turn it upside down, because here we have someone unambiguously both a maverick and a moderate, who grew so disinfranchised with his Republican Party that he couldnt remain in the caucus any longer.

That leaves Ben Westlund who, I suspect, is about to do that most spectacular of political maneuvers -- a Wayne Morse double reverse with a twist.

Morse was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 1944 and reelected in 1950. He had a falling out with Republicans over foreign policy and McCarthyism and declared himself an Independent in 1952.

Morse became a Democrat in 1955 and was reelected in 1956 and 1960, before Bob Packwood, another Republican maverick, defeated him in 1966.

Westlund won a State Senate seat from Central Oregon as a Republican. He quietly tried to end his party’s fake “surplus” rebates and their reckless “borrow and spend” policies. He was threatened with a purge from the party when he ran for reelection.

Westlund got the message, became an independent and ran for governor instead. When polls showed he could not win, Westlund gracefully retired from the field. Some grateful Democrats are now urging him to join their party and run for Smith’s Senate seat in 2008.

Given the voters’ rebuke of the Republican Party and Smith’s orthodox partisan voting record, Smith can no longer hide in Mark Hatfield’s maverick cloak. Smith is no maverick. Ben Westlund is. And Oregonians love their mavericks.

Finally, while Westlund's office insists that he is not thinking about running right now (while not denying that he might think about it later). Their recent statement can't really be taken seriously.

When asked via e-mail, '06 GOV candidate/state Sen. Ben Westlund (I) political adviser Stacey Dycus writes: "Democrats have been asking Ben to run against" Sen. Gordon Smith (R), "but he really hasn't considered it. People have also asked him about" Treas. and re-election to state Senate. "Right now, he's not thinking about his next election, he's thinking about a well-deserved vacation and the next session. ... He is an independent and all I can tell you is that his heart and mind is closer to the views held by Democrats, but he has no plans to change registration. If asked, he may caucus with the D's this session"

Clearly he did have plans to change his registration. Westlund is likely our 2nd best candidate to defeat Smith. Unfortunately, our best candidate seems to have no interest in running. Westlund might have a shot, but I think Kitzhaber would be very likely to take Smith down. In the absence of a Kitzhaber run, Westlund is a great candidate who can control the real center and contrast it against Smith's conservatism disguised as moderation. I think Westlund is preparing to run, and I hope he does.

Bi-ennial Sessions On the Way Out

2006-12-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

I've never understood why the Oregon legislature meets bi-ennially, but its good to see some growing support for meeting annually instead. The only real justification I can think of for meeting bi-ennially is that back in the day it might have been difficult for legislators from southern or eastern Oregon to get to Salem, so a bi-ennial session would have made sense to cut down on the amount of travelling. But with modern transportation I see no justification for it anymore.

Senate President Peter Courtney says he senses growing support among lawmakers for giving annual legislative sessions a test drive beginning in January - an idea he believes would help bring the Legislature into the 21st century.

The Salem Democrat said House and Senate members of both parties are open to a session limited to 120 days in 2007, followed by a 60-day session in 2008.

"I'm encouraged by the reception I'm getting," Courtney said at a news conference Thursday.

In a tradition that dates to Oregon statehood, the Legislature has met every other year, instead of annually, as in 44 other states.

Of course some people just dont want the legislature to work for Oregonians, with an attitude like this I dont see why allowing the legislature to meet at all would be acceptable.

Not everyone is pleased about the prospect of Oregon lawmakers coming into session every year.

"If this happens, taxpayers will have to be in a state of red alert every year, instead of every other year," said Jason Williams, executive director of the Taxpayers Association of Oregon. "Every year they will be threatened with more taxes and more regulations."

In any event, I hope this change is adopted, its silly to meet bi-ennially.

UPDATEIn the original version of this post I consistently said "bi-annual", and a commenter pointed out that what I really meant was "bi-ennial" so I have deleted every instance of "bi-annual" and replaced it with "bi-ennial" provided I didnt miss any, which is always a possibility.

Blogger

2006-12-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not convinced I like the new blogger, maybe I'm just skeptical of changes in general, but right now I'm not a fan. Hopefully I'll just get used to it as I use it more, but I don't like it right now. It just seems wierd.

Oregon on the Road to Universal Health Care

2006-12-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

An Oregon State Senate panel yesterday backed a proposal for Universal Health Care in which individuals and employers would contribute to a pool which all residents of Oregon would be granted access to. Private insurance companies would then compete for the ability to cover the people paid into the pool.

The commission's draft bill lacks crucial details, such as costs, but it does outline a broad proposal for dramatically changing how Oregonians would buy and receive health care.

"We are trying to do something that has not been done in this state or this country before," said Sen. Ben Westlund, an independent from Bend who co-chairs the Senate Interim Commission on Health Care Access and Affordability. "All eyes are once again on Oregon."

Commission leaders, who met Friday in Wilsonville, say the plan would give every Oregonian a health card that could be used to buy a complete health care package -- including dental, mental health and vision coverage -- for less than most businesses and individuals now pay.

In addition to the goal of expanding access, the plan includes features to control costs and improve quality. The same three goals for comprehensive reform are being pursued by the Oregon Health Policy Commission, the Oregon Business Council and former Gov. John Kitzhaber's Archimedes Movement.
...
The Senate commission's plan would require all employers and individuals to contribute money to a common pool called the Oregon Health Care Trust Fund. Residents who earn less than 250 percent of the poverty level would not have to pay to be in the plan. The fund also would include public employee and federal Medicaid contributions.
...
The plan would collect money, possibly a payroll tax, from businesses. Large companies with self-insurance plans would have their contributions reimbursed.

An 11-member Health Care Trust Fund Commission or board, appointed by the governor, would adopt regulations and administer the trust. Businesses and individuals could choose health plans, which would be paid through the trust with rates set by the trust commission.

The Senate group decided that the trust commission should function like a corporate board, with an executive director and staff. Much of the debate Friday was over who should be represented on the board.

The plan would cover all Oregonians, including the more than 600,000 who now lack health insurance. Individuals who choose not to participate in the plan would lose their personal state income tax deduction. All participants would be required to write an advance directive, describing the level of care they would want at the end of life.

The directive is one of many features in the plan designed to contain costs and improve quality. Insurers, for example, would compete for health-card holders. The state also would increase competition by requiring hospitals and doctors to reveal their charges and costs.

I'm still skeptical that universal health care can really succeed on a State level, but when the Federal Government fails to act, States like Oregon, Hawaii, Massachussetts, and Vermont have no choice but to act. I look forward to seeing how this works out if it passes, but this is definately a step in the right direction.

Rupert Murdoch Really is Amazing

2006-12-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

Not Murdoch himself mind you, but any publication that is owned by him. The New York Post today is downright comical. To read a publication like that you have to either want a good laugh or be completely divorced from reality. This speaks pretty strongly to the "good laugh" argument. What is disturbing however is that they are completely serious when they say something like this:

The Iraq Study Group report delivered to President Bush yesterday contains 79 separate recommendations - but not one that explains how American forces can defeat the terrorist insurgents, only ways to bring the troops home.

Declaring the situation "grave and deteriorating," the high-powered commission proposed the United States talk directly to terror abettors Iran and Syria to get their cooperation, and commit to removing U.S. combat troops in early 2008.

To write this, one has to be completely unaware of the reality of the situation. It assumes that staying in Iraq is the only possible thing we can do, and that all others serve to "appease the terrorists". To me we've almost reached the point where the only relevent question in Iraq is "how can we prevent US troops from being killed?" I opposed this at the beginning, and for a year after we went in I took the "pottery barn" approach that we broke it we have a responsibility to fix it. But as we approach 3,000 dead American soldiers it seems pretty outrageous to insist on anything but saving American lives, particularly when our presence there seems to be accomplishing nothing positive for Iraqis. Perhaps if something were being accomplished my tolerance would be a little higher, but Iraq is far worse today than it was the day we invaded, and has been on a continual downward slide since that time.

Measure 37 Absurdity

2006-12-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

What always struck me as strange about Measure 37 is that land use laws exist for a reason. We place these regulations on property in order to accomplish some goal, and Measure 37 completely rejects that. It has also placed a perverse incentive for anyone blocked from doing something to file a measure 37 claim because odds are that by the time all appeals are out, property value will have increased. It merely allows people to be manipulative, and manipulation looks like exactly what this is to me.

Gary and Kathy George have lobbed a hot potato into the Yamhill County Planning Department - a big Measure 37 claim.

The county's most prominent political family - he's a long-time state senator, she was recently elected to a second term on the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners and their son, Larry, won an Oregon Senate seat in November - wants to divide their 394 acres on Ribbon Ridge Road into 20- and 40-acre building lots. Notice of the family's plans was mailed to neighbors and other interested parties Wednesday.

The Georges want to create 12 homesites through a series of partitions over a period of six years or more. That means that the development wouldn't technically qualify as a subdivision, as that's a term with a specific meaning - dividing land into four or more lots within a single calendar year.

In the county's triggering denial letter, Planning Director Mike Brandt indicated that even if the claim were approved, the Georges might not be able to implement their plans, though.

"A successful Measure 37 claim may not allow you to eventually partition the property into 20- and/or 40-acre lots," he wrote. "State land-use laws in place in 1978 may preclude division of the property into such lot sizes."

You know you've passed something absolutely insane when even Idaho, where property rights are more important than human rights, used Oregon as a model for which to illustrate that this is a bad idea when something just like M 37 appeared on their ballot in 2006.

If you don't like the land use laws that doesnt mean you deserve to get paid, it means you should elect people who will change them. Measure 37 is one of the silliest things in existence.

Human Rights and Immigration

2006-12-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

America's economic refugee situation has been discussed entirely on the wrong terms. Rather than to try to find approaches to manage the situation in which lots of impoverished people with the initiative to risk everything in order to come here that respect human dignity, much of the policy responses offered have been to crack down on these people who take desperate life risking measures in order to get to this country rather than those who violate the fundamental human rights of others. Person traffickers for example, are amongst the scum of the earth, people who smuggle poor people past immigration officials exposing them to inhumane conditions in order to make a buck. The conditions that person traffickers expose their victems who they claim to help can be seen in todays New York Times.

A truck driver was found guilty of all charges Monday and faces possible execution in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants who suffocated in his airless trailer in South Texas in 2003.
...
The milk trailer, piled with bodies and 55 survivors, was found abandoned at a truck stop near Victoria, Tex., in the early hours of May 14, 2003.

We are far too used to talking about this issue in terms of "illegal immigrants" which shifts the debate onto people who are in actuality the victems of our present broken immigration policy. A serious approach must acknowledge that the influx of people is driven by a fundamental economic reality, that we hold a unique position in the world, a developed economy sharing a 2,000 mile border with a developing economy. The approaches to this issue need to recognize that, and crack down on those who abuse the human rights of those who desperately seek passage to the United States. We need to crack down on people traffickers and those who employ illegal immigrants. We need to acknowledge that immigrant labor is important to many businesses, particularly in agriculture, and reform our visa policies to grant more visas to those who seek work in the United States so that they dont need to take the treacherous routes to pass into the United States illegally and won't be abused by people traffickers and unscrupulous employers who might pay less than minimum wage and house people in unsafe tin shacks. And finally, we need to expand fair trade and foreign aid with Mexico in order to equilize our economies. This issue is about human rights, and any reforms need to be focused on that reality.

Seattle Integration Case

2006-12-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Parents Involved v. Seattle School District. In which parents challenged Seattle's K-12 integration program for using race as a factor in determing which children should go to which schools. SCOTUSBlog believes Seattle's policy is doomed.

In order for public schools to try to reduce or eliminate "one-race" schools that largely reflect local housing patterns, they must be able to borrow from the college level the idea that the achievement of "racial diversity" in learning is constitutionally acceptable if based in part on race-based selection. That is the principle established by the Court in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003. And, while Kennedy dissented on the particulars, he had not totally rejected the core principle. On Monday, however, he repeatedly stressed that, for him, Grutter was limited to higher education.

"That case is completely inapplicable" to the K-12 cases now before the Court, he said at one point as the Court heard the cases of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (05-908) and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (05-915), involving the sometime use of race in picking which school a child may attend in a student-choice assignment plan. The Court, Kennedy, had never said that a school district that was not seeking toi end official segregation can "turn around and use an individual student's race" in assigning that student to a school. He commented that the Court, in the Grutter decision, "went as far as it could away from" the principle that an individual's race cannot be the determining factor in the education setting.

I disagree, while SCOTUSBlog is probably correct about how Kennedy will vote as the swing justice, there are options available to the City of Seattle that can accomplish the same thing, and more for public school equality after the current plan is thrown out.

There was discussion arround the time of the Grutter and Bollinger decisions regarding the Texas plan for higher education, which guaranteed low income students who were in the top 10% (or something like that, its possible I've got the number wrong) in their graduating class regardless of what school they attended, admission to a Texas public University. However, what happened was that UT overwhelmingly took the students from better schools and the students from low achievement schools got pushed aside to less esteemed State institutions. The plan faced problems in its implementation as I just pointed out, and also in the difficulty of using class distinctions for higher education. However, what Seattle could do is continue a program similar to what they are doing now, only using distinctions of economic class rather than race. There is a known correlation between the two, so Seattle would be ensuring a similar racial outcome to what they have under the present system with the added benefit of ensuring that there is diversity of wealth within schools, which will go farther for using education policy as a means of achieving social equity. Once rich kids are attending inner city schools the broader public is more likely to work for the improvement of those schools, rather than being seen as "someone else's problem" they become everyone's. So while SCOTUSBlog is probably correct about the way Kennedy will swing the Court, Seattle will still be able to do as much as they are doing now towards integration and more if they simply replace the emphasis on race with an emphasis on class.

Damnit Kitzhaber!

2006-12-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

Well, this is pretty unambiguous.

Kitzhaber is a guest on the KWBP interview program Outlook Portland with Nick Fish, to air Sunday morning at 6:30. A clip from it has been posted on the Willamette Week site. It shows what looks like the closing seconds of the program, when Fish asks Kitzhaber, “If the Archimedes Movement is successful and there’s something to be done at the federal level, would you consider running for the Senate?”

A smiling Kitzhaber replied, “No.”

You could parse the question and maybe find a trap door or two, but the speed and abruptness with which the former governor answered seemed to say it all.

That quote from Ridenbaugh Press. I disagree, you cannot "parse the question and maybe find a trap door or two. Kitzhaber is not running, and its a damn shame. Smith has to go, so, who is going to come forward to beat him? Westlund? Blumenauer? Kitzhaber is doing everyone a disservice by not running, but it does no good to dwell on it. Someone has got to take down Smith, Kitzhaber was our best shot, someone needs to step forward.

Oregon Union Victory

2006-12-01T21:27:00.000-08:00

This is certainly good news.

Oregon's largest dairy will start talks with union
Oregon’s largest dairy is expected to begin negotiations with a union representing about 250 workers, Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office announced Friday.

The United Farm Workers union has been organizing workers at Threemile Canyon Farms near Boardman since 2003, but until now the dairy has refused to negotiate. The battle has been acrimonious, with workers filing lawsuits alleging a variety of claims, including wrongful firing and gender discrimination.
...
The state has no collective-bargaining laws for farm workers. Legislative attempts to grant such rights over the past decade have failed, usually because unions opposed bills that they described as favoring farmers.

This country, and particularly this State need to make some serious reforms to aid the growth of unions. The intimidation tactics on the part of the dairy described here are not unique at all to this case, and worse is often done. Nationally one of the biggest problems is the presence of unapoligetically anti-labor members of the NLRB, but legislative reform is desperately needed here. We are just not a union friendly country, and Oregon is not a union friendly State. Democrats should use their majority both in Oregon and Nationally to institute some more union friendly policies.

Justice May Finally Be Coming in Mexico

2006-12-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

Amidst all the bad news from Mexico today regarding Felipe Calderon's inauguration. Yesterday the New York Times brought forth this piece of good news.

An appeals court on Wednesday cleared the way for the arrest and trial of former President Luis Echeverría on genocide charges in connection with the massacre of student protesters in 1968.

The court reversed earlier rulings that the statute of limitations had long since run out, saying it had two days to go.

The ruling is the final twist in a long battle by the administration of President Vicente Fox to charge and try Mr. Echeverría, who is 84 and in poor health, for his role in the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of students, leftist dissidents and guerrillas in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period known in Mexico as “the dirty war.”

The decision was a victory for Mr. Fox, who leaves office on Friday. He staked part of his political legacy on holding government officials responsible for past atrocities instead of forming a truth commission with no ability to charge people with crimes.

For all the problems I've got with much of Fox's leadership, I really respect what he has done here and with border issues with the United States. Mexico has a long history of oppression, it is that long history that lead to unrest in response to the close election in July (which finally culminated with a legislative fist fight today). Fox's decision to put Echeverria on trial for these crimes is a positive step in moving Mexico from the de-facto dictatorship that it was under the PRI into a functioning democracy.

What's Up With Russia?

2006-11-30T17:58:00.000-08:00

Surely Putin cant be behind any of this, after all Bush looked into his soul.

Yegor T. Gaidar, a former prime minister and architect of Russia’s early post-Soviet market reforms, has been hospitalized with a mysterious illness that his daughter and associates said Wednesday could have resulted from poisoning.

Mr. Gaidar, 50, fell ill in Ireland on Friday, the day after Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former Russian secret agent, died in London following an illness caused by exposure to polonium 210, a radioactive isotope. Mr. Gaidar’s spokesman, Valery A. Natarov, said Mr. Gaidar returned to Moscow on Sunday and remained in a hospital, though neither Mr. Natarov nor others would identify it.
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Anatoly B. Chubais, an ally of Mr. Gaidar and chairman of Russia’s electric monopoly, said that Mr. Gaidar appeared to have escaped an attempt on his life. He said the case was linked to Mr. Litvinenko’s death and to the recent killing of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

“This miraculously incomplete lethal construct — Politkovskaya, Litvinenko and Gaidar — would have been extremely attractive to those seeking an unconstitutional and forceful change of power in Russia,” Mr. Chubais said in televised remarks from St. Petersburg. He did not elaborate, but his words suggested he did not believe that the Russian authorities had been involved.

Still, the reaction to Mr. Gaidar’s illness underscored the sensation the London poisoning has caused, though the police in Britain have not classified Mr. Litvinenko’s death as a murder case, and the Kremlin has denied Russian officials were involved.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, on Wednesday criticized what he called the “completely unexplainable hysteria” over the cases.

Completely unexplainable. Putin has been grasping for more and more power for a couple of years now. It seems relatively clear that the Kremlin was behind Politkovskaya, probably Litvenenko, and maybe behind this. It will be interesting to see what happens when Putin terms out, if he'll seek a top position in the Duma or if he'll change the constitution to stay in power. But Bush looked in his soul, so he must be ok.

Rumsfeld not Agressive Enough for Bush

2006-11-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

President Bush was much hailed after the election for having his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resign. I never thought this was a signal for any change in policy, Bush is far too stubborn and bull headed to change his mind with a changing reality. But his replacement, Robert Gates appears to be even farther out there than was Rumsfeld.

In 1984, Robert Gates, then the No. 2 CIA official, advocated U.S. airstrikes against Nicaragua's pro-Cuban government to reverse what he described as an ineffective U.S. strategy to deal with communist advances in Central America, previously classified documents say.

Gates, President Bush's nominee to be defense secretary, said the United States could no longer justify what he described as "halfhearted" attempts to contain Nicaragua's Sandinista government, according to documents released Friday by the National Security Archive, a private research group.

In a memo to CIA Director William Casey dated Dec. 14, 1984, Gates said his proposed airstrikes would be designed "to destroy a considerable portion of Nicaragua's military buildup" and be focused on tanks and helicopters.

This man does not deserve to be Secretary of Defense, I'm not sure its a prudent time for the Democrats to attempt a filibuster of the nomination however. It really was a cynical thing for Bush to time the nomination this way and insist that he needs a Secretary of State immediately. I would venture to guess that if Bush had waited Gates would not have a prayer of confirmation in a Democratic Senate, however, it seems unwise to make our last act in the minority before the new Congress a filibuster. If a vote can be prevented before the new Congress without appearing quite as contentious as a filibuster would, that would be an excellent idea. I had no opinion on Gates until very recently, but it seems to me as though this man probably has no business being Secretary of Defense.

The Lost Scandal of Enron

2006-11-27T16:05:00.000-08:00

This weekend I watched, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room." I was impressed with the movie and appalled even beyond what I expected at what went on. I knew Skilling, Lay, and Fastow were scumbags, and that Arther Andersen couldnt seem to question what was right in front of them. But what I never realized (at least if you accept the view taken by the filmmakers) the extent to which those individuals running the company were able to influence the entire corporate culture.

This comes accross in the movie as being far more than a few bad apples at the top manipulating earnings and running the company into the ground for their own gain. Skilling in particular seemed to press an attitude so concerned with "I" that it forgot about "we". Even extending to lower level employees there seemed to be an attitude that "if I have to walk over 100 people to make an extra buck I'll do that." One scene discussed Enron's retention and promotion practices in which all employees would vote on each others performance, so there was an incentive to try to force anyone out who might get in the way of individual advancement. This had the perverse incentive of sometimes driving more talented people out of the company. There was a whole series of scenes discussing Enron's manipulation of the California energy market. They were able to obtain audio conversations from the Enron offices from this time for the film, and the conversations were appalling. These people all knew what they were doing to California and Californians, and they acted like it was some funny game to watch people suffer.

Talk about banality of evil, Skilling was able to create a culture that rewarded greed so heavily that everyone in the company knowingly contributed to what any reasonable sense of right and wrong should have lead them to know is unnacceptable. It reversed the moral order to where the goal was to harm people rather than to prevent harm as long as it benefitted Enron and the people carrying out its nefarious activities. It seems like the only person with enough sense to try to change anything was Sherron Watkins, the rest of Enron's employees who knew something was wrong it seemed were too afraid of some harm to themselves or too attached to the benefits Enron was bringing them at the time to make any effort to change anything. It seems that nobody bothered to, as Enron's slogan stated "Ask Why".

I thought it was a very well done and insightful documentary, if you havent seen it you should.

Earmarks Revisited

2006-11-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

Les Aucoin commented here yesterday regarding my highly mediocre post about Congressional earmarks. I feel he horribly misinterpreted the post and am thus posting my response as a new post instead of as a comment. Here's what Frmr Rep Aucoin said:

How do you like the MAX light rail lines--from PDX to Gresham and PDX to Hillsboro? Are they cutting emissions? Gasoline usage? Are the helping guide growth?

Earmarks, pal, both of 'em. I know. I helped perpetrate the "crimes."

It's hazardous to speak (or write) in absolutes.

Les AuCoin
U.S. Congressman, D-OR 1st District (ret.)

I didnt realize I was coming accross that way, I said everyone likes them and that this is why it wouldnt change with a Democratic Congress. I do think that some projects (bridge to nowhere) are way over the top. I stated quite clearly that there was a "universal incentive" to keep the pork coming. Yes, I do like the rail lines, and the fact that they and similar projects are so widely favored by constituencies is why nothing will change. Personally I don't know how it comes accross as though I were calling them a "crime"
(your word) and as absolutist argument against pork when I said this:

The fact is that while all legislators may rail about the pork that others are getting, and all voters dislike the pork that other districts/states recieve, all legislators love their own pork projects and all voters love the pet projects in their district that their legislator delivers to them.

Everybody likes the earmarks so there's no getting rid of them even though sometimes they get rediculous, that's the only point I was attempting to make in this post and I don't understand how it came accross the way you evidently read it. Am I critical of some of the projects? Definately, but I think I made it pretty clear that legislators are rewarded for bringing it home, and you're right, a lot of these projects do a lot of good as well. The New Deal was built in large part on these kinds of pet projects as a way to create jobs. Frankly your comment confuses me because I fail to see how it came off that way, but I guess it did. You're right about the light rail lines and about a million other projects just like them, and at no point would I ever have disagreed with you in that regard, hence my point, it wont change with the Democratic Congress.

At worst that was a bad post, and perhaps I should have found better language to make the point. But I feel it was badly misinterpreted in that comment.

Earmarks in the Next Congress

2006-11-26T11:13:00.000-08:00

Anyone who expected the amount of pork Congress doles out to change with the Democratic Congress taking office in January had unreasonable expectations. Certainly we need to be reducing the amount of local pet projects that accomplish little, but there's such a universal incentive for them that there's no getting rid of them. The New York Times today has a good discussion of pork in Congress.

Meet the new cardinals, as the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees are known on Capitol Hill. Many have a lot in common with the Republicans they will succeed.

All have worked for years to climb to their posts, where the authority to grant earmarks puts them among the most powerful lawmakers in Congress. Like Mr. Inouye and Mr. Stevens, many have developed unusual bipartisan camaraderie while divvying up projects. By longstanding, informal agreement, the majority typically doles out about 60 percent of the money for earmarks and lets the minority pass out the rest. And they form a united front against limitations on the earmark process.

“What is good for the goose is good for the gander,” Senator Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who is set to become chairwoman of the transportation subcommittee, said last fall in a speech defending an Alaska Republican’s allocation of more than $200 million in federal money for a bridge to remote Gravina, Alaska, with a population of 50. It became notorious as the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

“I tell my colleagues, if we start cutting funding for individual projects, your project may be next,” Ms. Murray warned. To anyone who might vote against the bridge, Ms. Murray threatened that her subcommittee would be “taking a long, serious look at their projects.” Every Democrat on the Appropriations Committee voted against an amendment to strike the bridge, and after threats from Ms. Murray and Mr. Stevens, only 15 senators voted for the amendment. The bridge’s future is unclear.

The fact is that while all legislators may rail about the pork that others are getting, and all voters dislike the pork that other districts/states recieve, all legislators love their own pork projects and all voters love the pet projects in their district that their legislator delivers to them. It creates an overwhelming electoral incentive to spend on things like the bridge to nowhere. I don't know how you create a culture of responsibility in DC regarding that, but its clear that there is an incentive for each legislator to oppose any changes.

Small Steps Towards Universal Health Care

2006-11-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

The Oregonian ran an AP wire report today (which they appear to have not put online) about the Democrats supporting a plan to reduce medicare expenditures without reducing the number of people covered.

Under traditional Medicare, healthcare providers bill the government for the services they perform. But with ''Medicare Advantage'' managed care, the insurers get a set amount per person. Then, the insurers reimburse the people who provide the care.

Medicare is already far more efficient than health insurance companies spending far less on administrative costs. This would limit those administrative costs even more, proving that the private insurance industry cannot adequately supply health care to the American people. This might be able to get through Congress but Bush will veto it, and that's ok, its a good proactive step to show the American people that Democrats are serious about fixing health care in this country without jeopardizing the policy of universal health care at a time when we clearly cannot pass it. 2009 is my target date for something to be done, when the Democrats (warning, wishful thinking) pick up 2 more seats in the Senate, hold their House majority and gain the Presidency. Right now, small steps like this are a good policy for the Democrats to take, things that can make a big difference, that the Democrats can unite behind and the Republicans will oppose. This may well be a futile effort because of Bush's presence in the White House holding the veto pen, but it can send a clear message to the American people that Democrats are interested in solving this crisis where Republicans are not. I don't think the debate over universal health care should begin until we have the structural advantage to pass it, we cant risk losing the debate again when we know from the start that we lack the means to pass the program. I think this is something Democrats should be campaigning on, but we need to have some patience and wait for the moment when we can get it done before pushing legislation for universal health care.

Get back to where you once belonged

2006-11-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

In much of the rural United States people have rightly taken offence to the stereotype that they are all a bunch of illiterate, gun toting, dirty, racist, and dumb individuals. Its a viscious stereotype that they are right to take offence at. However, crap like this does not help the cause.

Ordinance 208, passed by the City Council last week, asks Greenleaf's residents who do not object on religious or other grounds to keep a gun in the home.
...
Jett, a former Canyon County deputy sheriff, said citizens should be armed in case Greenleaf, which sits on high ground, is overrun by refugees in a Katrina-like flood.

The town, about 35 miles west of Boise near the Oregon border, is surrounded by three reservoirs and an earthen dam, Jett said. Plus, Idaho could experience a major earthquake, he said.

"This is not an 'it'll never happen here kind of thing,' " Jett said. "We could get refugees."

Because other Americans fleeing a disaster area are such a threat to Greenleaf. Right. What ever happened to respecting other people? Particularly when you're all citizens of the same damn Country. What is wrong with these people? Is this the lasting legacy of the minute men on the US-Mexico border? That we're all licensed to shoot anyone different who is "invading" our nice quiet town? This is apalling, and the next time the citizens of Greenleaf complain that the rest of the country doesnt respect their values or that they're unfairly stereotyped they deserve to be laughed out of town. I had hoped that the lasting legacy of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco would be a restoration of our social bonds with one another, a renewed sense of community. And maybe it is, maybe Greenleaf is just one little spot in the country that is bucking a larger trend, but this is very disconcerting to me. One of the most horrific stories last September was that police in a town next to New Orleans blocked the bridge that connected the two cities and with guns in their hands turned their fellow Americans back, into that watery grave that was New Orleans, and one would have hoped that Americans everywhere would look at that in disgust and say "No! We're better than that, we wouldnt turn away our fellow Americans in their time of greatest need!" And commit ourselves to reaching out to one another to make sure that our brothers and sisters do not suffer. One would hope that the horrors of Katrina would renew our sense of responsibility towards one another. But I guess not, at least not in Greenleaf Idaho. Disgusting.

Thanks Bush

2006-11-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

I'm certainly not an economist, but this looks ugly.

U.S. home construction plunged in October to its lowest level in more than six years, according to government data, sending a chill through the slumping housing market.

The Commerce Department reported today that construction of homes and apartments dropped to an annual rate of 1.486 million units last month, down 14.6 percent from the September level.

The sharpest drop came in the South, where construction fell by 26.4 percent. That region includes the Washington area.

Construction was down 11.7 percent in the Midwest and 2.1 percent in the West. The only region to show gains was the Northeast, where construction grew by 31 percent.

Fortunately for Oregon there's not much change in the west, and things look really good in the Northeast, but this is not promising. Home construction declines and I think we see big repercussions throughout the rest of the economy. Certainly when I talk to econ professors at Linfield housing prices get cited as a reason that we're probably heading towards a recession. Now that the popping of the housing bubble seems to be materializing in a decline in home construction I think the picture looks ugly. Looks to me like we might be headed for a big downturn just as the Democratic congress is sworn in. Which will be precisely the time that we want to deficit spend. But thanks to Bush's love affair with tax cuts, and his lunatic war we're already running huge deficits. I think the Democratic Congress has its work cut out for it, hopefully this can be managed, but its going to be tough. Getting out of Iraq I think would help a ton just by freeing up a lot of money. That's my amature prognosis, if you've got a good reason why I'm wrong please weigh in, since I'm a political science person, not an economics person.

Injustice in Oregon's Courts

2006-11-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

Back at the end of September the NYT exposed the rotton state of justice in small town New York where undertrained and underpaid judges make important decisions regarding fines, warrants, issues of protection, and jail time without any real knowledge or respect for the law. A key passage from the Times article that gives a hint into the behavior of these judges who usually lack a law degree and oftentimes lack even a college education.

A woman in Malone, N.Y., was not amused. A mother of four, she went to court in that North Country village seeking an order of protection against her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state officials, but later told the court clerk, “Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then.”

I know this article was a while ago and I'm late jumping on board covering it, but I found it interesting and started doing some research. I was interested in the claim made by the New York Times that 30 States have courts just like New York's. It was when I looked through the Oregon State Code that I discovered that Oregon is one of the 30. What I find interesting is how extraordinarily abusive the Courts appeared in the New York Times article contrasted with how little you hear about this issue. So I present two questions. 1) Should town judges be required to be lawyers? and 2) Have you had any experience with a Justice Court in Oregon that is worth telling?

I'm also curious if enough people even read this for me to get a real response here.

On Tomorrows Majority Leader Vote

2006-11-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Talking Points Memo discusses Murtha's comments regarding ethics reform.

A Roll Call article today quoted Murtha saying of a Democratic ethics reform package, "Even though I think it’s total crap, I’ll vote for it and pass it because that’s what Nancy wants."

With Matthews, Murtha sounded a call for openness as the antidote to corruption. "Transparency. I think that’s the only way to stop it," said the 34-year House veteran, who earlier this year worked to help kill Democratic lobby reform efforts. "And I think the regulations that Nancy’s in favor of were very important. I don’t mean to imply that they aren’t."

Someone at Blue Oregon yesterday made a comment that made a lot of sense to me, that this was going to be Pelosi's House and Pelosi's agenda, unlike the House under Tom DeLay where Hastert was nothing but a tool for the majority leader. Almost the opposite will be true here, Pelosi will set the agenda, and the Majority Leader will be her right hand man in carrying it out. I think that's what Murtha's comments support here, that Murtha will work for Pelosi's agenda, while I've heard speculation that Hoyer and Pelosi have bashed heads in the past and that Hoyer may subvert Pelosi's agenda. I think Murtha's the right choice, but at the end of the day I agree with Earl Blumenauer.

The next 48 hours are going to be a significant test regardless of the outcome. Will Democrats be able to conduct a decision on leadership in a way that is constructive with a minimum of rancor? Will we get the pieces right for the team and be able to make sure that we emerge stronger rather than weaker?

Jack and Steny are going to be fine regardless of what happens. At a minimum each are going to play key roles in an Appropriations Committee that will be energized under the leadership of Dave Obey and key new members. They both will chair critical subcommittees that will deal with important spending priorities. They will both be very powerful voices in our caucus with a devoted following of people who are their friends, admirers, and supporters.

I'm more interested in this as a test for Democrats than for the leadership position itself. Will people have the ability to deal with the selection and then move on in a way that will be the most constructive for our Caucus? Will we find a way to mute and avoid the tendency in close, hard fought contest to make it personal and make it public? I may well be the only person in the caucus who is not trying to persuade people one way or another. Indeed, I may be the only one who is still thinking about my choice and what it represents.

The recent attacks upon Murtha's history regarding ethics bode ill for Blumenauer's hopes, if Murtha wins this I just hope that Hoyer's supporters don't start undermining Murtha and Pelosi, Murtha will fight for ethics reform, the ethics story is old and not a story. Lets see how the vote comes out tomorrow and get to work whoever wins.

Now is the Time to Go After Smith

2006-11-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

DailyKos brought me this insight regarding Norm Coleman in Minnesota.

One of the keys to taking out Conrad Burns in Montana was early efforts by Montana Democrats (using DSCC money) to soften up Burns in 2005.

There's no need to give 2008 Republican incumbents any respite. Hit them hard, hit them early. And in Minnesota, DFLers are chomping at the bit to take out Norm Coleman.
With the wind at their backs, Minnesota Democrats are quickly making Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman their next target.

Following Amy Klobuchar's overwhelming Senate victory last week, Democrats are expected to line up soon in hopes of winning support for a 2008 run at Coleman, a stout backer of President Bush.

"I think the list of Democratic hopefuls for the 2008 U.S. Senate race has just grown exponentially,'' said University of Minnesota political science professor Larry Jacobs. "The reality of Klobuchar's smashing victory is so enticing. It's like honey for bees.''

If we're going to knock off the fake moderate Gordon Smith in 2008 now is the time to really start going after him hard. If we wait until early 2008 to start working hard to expose the fact that he's not really a moderate then it will likely be too late. So I propose a program accross the Oregon lefty blogosphere to start hammering Smith as often as possible over the course of the next two years starting today and doing whatever we can to bring strong smart Democrats like Blumenauer or Kitzhaber into a 2008 showdown with Smith.

Setting the Democratic Congressional Agenda

2006-11-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

Kari Chisholm made the following comment in response to my Lieberman post yesterday.

I'm not sure I agree that they need to work in a bipartisan fashion. Certainly not in the US House. They need to punch out a rapid-fire set of progressive policies.

Then, Bush can either sign or veto. If he signs, we win now. If he vetoes, we win later.

I think this holds true on a few issues, Iraq, minimum wage, and tax policy. But I don't think that this is a particularly bright approach for Democrats to take regarding thier 2006 agenda. It is precisely the mistake that the Republicans made that set the stage for our landslide victory this year. This country needs a return to good pragmatic government, and that means not acting like the Republicans have acted for the last 12 years. I wrote a diary at DailyKos last night which is effectively my response to Kari.

What a Moron

2006-11-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

Joe Lieberman is truly out of touch. Instead of dwelling on reponding to this bullshit, I'll just direct you to my previous post.

In at least as great a tidal wave election as 1994 Joe Lieberman can get up there and declare that "this was not a realignment election," is amazing. In every such tidal wave the losing party has picked up something, and in 2006 that didnt happen, I predicted that GA-12, but it appears that even that didnt happen, the Republicans were so thoroughly beaten this year that they couldnt even pick up a single house seat from a Democrat, yet Joe Lieberman can get up there and say "voters are equally frustrated with both parties." That's not to say that Democrats dont need to work hard in a bipartison fashion to prove to voters that they can govern effectively between now and 2008 to retain their majorities, but the voters sent a clear message on Tuesday and Joe Lieberman is in lalaland if he can't see that.

Finally, I know I'm a liar, I said I wouldnt go into why Lieberman is a moron, but as the post developed I realized I couldnt restrain myself.

Feingold is Out

2006-11-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

Russ Feingold will not run for President in 2008. Thanks to DailyKos for pointing out the story.

Just How Big was the 2006 Tidal Wave?

2006-11-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

While much of the discussions about this years elections have centered on the idea of the "sixth year itch" and the undeniable fact that the President's Party almost always loses seats in midterms generally, but sixth year elections in particular, I would contend that this year was a truly huge tidal wave election of impressive magnitude. After the counting is done in the remaining districts it is likely that the Democrats will control 231-232 seats in the House of Representatives. That means that one or two more districts voted for Democrats than in the 1994 Republican Revolution. Yes, Republicans came from a larger deficit to do that, but this is due to fewer gerrymandered seats. The fact is that more Americans are now represented by Democrats in the House than were represented by Republicans in 1994. The gains were short of 1994 levels only because of the makeup and representation of Congressional districts. It took a larger burst for Democrats to win 30 seats this year than it did for the Republicans to win 54 in 1994. Consider this:

Rarely have we had a president so unpopular going into a midterm; when we have, it has led to massive congressional turnover. Moreover, while Democrats have expanded our advantage on key domestic issues, Republicans’ once vast lead on national security has been largely neutralized.
...
One measure of political instability: the number of Republicans holding seats that vote Democratic for president and vice versa. When big political waves hit, that is precisely where much of the action is. In the two prior presidential elections, Bush (the father) or Reagan had won 30 of the 34 seats Democratic incumbents lost in ’94. Similarly, two-thirds of the Republican incumbents who lost in ’82 were running in districts presidential Democrats had won just previously.

Today, though, there are fewer mismatched seats than at any point in recent history. Going into 1994, 53 Democrats held seats won by Bush in 1992. Today just 18 Republicans hold seats won by Kerry. So, while forces in the political environment push strongly in a Democratic direction, they are acting on a relatively stable structure: Hence the test.

The moral of the story, in 1994 the political system was instable, there were a lot of Democratic seats begging to fall. Not the case with Republican seats in 2006. By my count the Democrats knocked off 8 Republican incumbents in the House this year, and all Senate pickups were against incumbents. The only Republican held Senate seat that was open was Tennessee where Harold Ford nearly shocked the world to win in deep red Tennessee. The Democrats on the other hand had an uphill battle in the Senate. They had to defend open seats in Maryland and Minnesota, the Republicans ran their best possible candidates in both districts, and expected to pick up at least one in Minnesota before this election had materialized. Further, red State Democrats were in potential jeopardy, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, and Kent Conrad were all considered shaky incumbents at the early stages of this election. So the Democrats had to pick up six seats in the Senate from incumbents with only one potentially coming from an opening while defending 2 open races and several at risk incumbent Democrats. Compare that to 5 Democrats retiring in the Senate in 1994. The Democrats had potential turf to defend this year, Republicans in 2006 had only one open seat to defend.

Finally, at the State level Democrats won the majority of governorships as well as controlling at least one legislative chamber of 39 States (Nebraska has no parties). Democrats have single party rule in 15 States now, Republicans in 10. The State-level Democratic gains show that this election was not purely an Iraq protest vote. Americans in most facets of policy do not like the way Republicans have been governing, and that is reflected by the large turnarround at the State level. 275 seats nationwide in State legislatures were won by Democrats last night.

In short, the tidal wave of 2006 should not have happened, the Republicans had all the structural advantages to prevent the massive losses that they experienced. The Republicans had far more advantages in 1994. The 1994 Republicans had open seats to pick off in the Senate, they were defending 1 open seat in 2006 to the 5 that the Democrats were defending in 1994. Districts in 1994 were often represented by members of the opposite Party as the Presidential candidate that they voted for, not the case in 2006. Finally, more Americans will be represented by a Democrat in 2006 than in 2004, the difference in gains only represents a difference in the number of seats held prior to the election. This tidal wave was not small, it was huge, as big as the 1994 tidal wave if not bigger.

American voters gave Democrats a chance on Tuesday all accross the nation. They want change, not just on Iraq policy but accross the policy agenda, and they made themselves quite clear about it. Now is the time for Democrats to govern and prove to voters they can do better.

Exit Poll Number Crunch

2006-11-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

Some observations from the exit polls via CNN. I'll probably post this again into some conclusion, right now I just want to get some of the data I found interesting out there. These are based on the House information because House of Representatives was the one office that everyone who voted would have had on the ballot. These are in no particular order, just the order that I noticed them when I looked through the exit polling.

1) The media talking point has been that this election was all about Iraq-however, those who said that Iraq was "not at all important" to their vote went more strongly Democratic than any other response. Admittedly only 10% of the electorate said Iraq was unimportant, but Democrats were very strong amongst those whom Iraq had no effect on.

2) Evangelical voters, who had been rumored to be unlikely to turn out comprised 34% of the electorate. Up 1% from their 2004 electoral share, so evangelical voters were no different than the rest of the electorate in terms of sitting this one out.

3) Voters in 2006 self identified as 2% less conservative, 1% less liberal and 3% more moderate than in 2004.

4) The more important terrorism was the more likely voters were to vote Republican.

5) There was no substantive difference between voters who said that local issues were more important and those who said national issues were more important.

6) Those who disaproved of GOP handling of the page scandal went heavily Democratic, though not very much more than those who dissaproved of Congress in general.

7) Voters with a union member in their household voted 5% more strongly for Democrats than they did in 2004 and comprised a nearly identical share of the electorate.

8) Just as in 2004 there is a clear level by level correlation between income and vote. The wealthier you are the more likely you are to vote Republican, this holds at every income level.

9) Those who attent church weekly voted far less Republican in 2006 than in 2004.

10) A plurality of 2006 voters voted for Bush in 2004. Democrats won the votes of 15% of them

11) Those who said the economy was "extremely important" to their vote voted strongly Democratic, those who said the economy was "not important at all" comprised almost no share of the electorate but voted Democratic.

12) The more important corruption was, the more likely a voter was to vote for a Democrat.

13) Those to whom the Saddam Hussein verdict was "extremely important" were won by a small margin by Republicans and were a surprisingly large portion of the electorate at 18%.

14) The less you approved of the war in Iraq the more likely you were to vote Democratic.

15) Those who wanted troop withdrawels from Iraq voted heavily Democratic, those who did not voted heavily Republican.

16) 59% of the electorate said the war in Iraq did not make the United States safer and that 77% of them voted Democratic.

17) Most of the electorate thought that "most illegal immigrants should be offered legal status" and voted strongly Democratic.

18) Any gains made by Republicans amongst hispanics in 2004 were lost in 2006 as hispanics voted heavily Democratic. However, hispanics represent 14% of the US population and only comprised 8% of the electorate.

19) Democrats won amongst big city voters, small city voters, suburban voters, and small town voters. Republicans only won rural voters who comprise 18% of the population.

20) Democrats lost in the South and won everywhere else.

21) Nearly 90% of voters voted the same way in their Senate race as in their House race if there was a Senate race.

Montana Goes to Tester

2006-11-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

Yes! Montana goes to Tester! Virginia may be in recountville for a long time but I feel good about saying that we have a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.

In other news, last night I posted a "Peralta wins" post, which I took down as soon as I realized my mistake. I looked at the Oregon Secretary of State page and saw Peralta 49% to Nelson 46%, the page gave no indication of how many votes had been counted and I assumed it was finished. Upon further investigation later in the night I realized that they were in fact not done counting and removed that post. If this confused anyone I apologize. Peralta is currently 200 votes down with what appears to me to be 2/3 of the votes counted.

Exit Polls

2006-11-07T15:45:00.000-08:00

East Coast Exit Polls here. Looks really good for Democrats, surprisingly close in Arizona, close in Tennessee, ahead in all other key races in the US Senate.

The Countdown Begins

2006-11-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

It is officially election day! Less than 3 hours until polls open on the east coast.

Why Mail in Voting is Genius

2006-11-06T20:01:00.000-08:00

Here in McMinnville its been a torrential downpour all day, the last few days really, but worse today. Without mail in voting McMinnville voters would have to go through the worst conditions imaginable tomorrow in order to vote. Thanks to mail in voting only a few procrastinators must face this daunting task. Voters would need boats to get to the polls in these conditions.

2006 Election Predictions

2006-11-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

Here are my predictions for tomorrow, US Senate, US House, Oregon Governor, and Oregon House and Senate.

US Senate:
-Democrats pick up 4 with little doubt, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Montana. Missouri and Virginia go to McCaskill and Webb respectively by tiny margins that take the whole night to finish counting. Lieberman will defeat Lamont, Cardin and Mendendez hang on in Maryland and New Jersey. The Senate will be comprised of 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans.

US House:
-Democrats pick up 34 seats and lose one. The new House of Representatives will be 201 Republicans to 234 Democrats. Democrats lose one seat in the Georgia 12th as Conservative Democrat John Barrow is unseated. Democrats pick up seats in the following districts:

NH-01, NY-24,NY-20, CT-05, CT-04, PA-06, PA-07, PA-08, PA-10, OH-01, OH-15, OH-18, VA-02, NC-11, FL-16, IN-02, IN-08, IN-09, KY-03, IL-06, IA-01, MN-06, TX-22, CO-04, CO-05, CO-07, NM-01, AZ-05, AZ-08, ID-01, WA-05, WA-08

Surprise wins of the night in the CO-05, WA-05, and ID-01.

In Oregon Governor Kulongoski will be reelected by a 5-7% margin as Oregon Democrats take a sigh of relief. Democrats sieze a bare majority in the State House of Representatives 31 Democrats to 29 Republicans, upset of the night, Sal Peralta unseats Donna Nelson. Democrats retain their majority in the Senate.

Health Care Crisis: Oregon Edition

2006-11-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Short little AP report I just found in the News Register (McMinnville) which is very upsetting.

A new study found that health care premiums in Oregon rose nearly six times faster than median earnings since 2000.

Consumer health group Families USA found that health care premiums for insurance provided through an employer rose 82 percent during the six-year period while median earnings rose 14 percent.

The average total premium in Oregon is $12,125 and median earnings are $25,537.
...
Nationally, the study found that premium costs outpaced earnings 6.4 times faster, on average.

Tough to find the key paragraphs in a 4 paragraph article. To some extent we should have already known this (though its nice to have hard data to back it up). The evidence is increasingly compelling that we must establish a single payer health care system in this country. It is morally right, it is in the public health interest, and will be cheaper for everyone. Yet as soon as we start to seriously discuss it again, the insurance companies will scream "No! That's socialism!" which its not, but they'll probably win with that argument. As for Oregon itself in the absense of national action, I don't know. I have mixed emotions about dramatic State-level changes. Unless health care costs are controlled nationally costs within a single State aren't likely to drop, so a single payer health insurance program would probably be too expensive for a State to maintain. In any event, this can't be sustained much longer, it is time for this to change. This shows a truly sorry state of affairs in Oregon and an even worse picture nationwide.

Charlie Cook's 6 Day Out Analysis

2006-11-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

The November 1st election analysis at Cook Political Report really struck me hard. Cook tends to be on the conservative (football conservative, cautious) side of things, and the nature of his analysis really struck me hard. It seems right to me, but I tend to be optimistic about these things, I thought Kerry would beat Bush for example. Cook tends to try to avoid sticking his neck out, and at this point a few days from election day things look so bad for Republicans that Cook is predicting a massive tidal wave, which means one of two things, either for some reason Cook decided to stick his neck out when he usually doesn't, or things look so bad for the Republicans that he's not sticking his neck out at all and is following his usually cautious prognosticating pattern.

In the House, it would take a miracle for the GOP to hold onto their majority. The losses look very likely to exceed 20 seats, and a 20- to 35-seat loss is most likely, but we would not be surprised for it to exceed 35 seats. The vulnerable GOP seats are there, the wave is there, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't.
...
Many have commented, quite correctly, that the biggest variables are turnout levels among independents and Republicans. If independents show up in their normal, relatively low midterm election levels, GOP losses will tend to run on the lower end of those ranges. But if there is a significant uptick in independent turnout, the losses could go much higher, as Democrats show huge leads among independents (20 points in some cases) in many races.
...
While the president is different, the party is different and the issues are different, this is not too dissimilar to 1994 when voters were upset about tax increases, the Clinton health plan and the crime bill (read guns), others were upset about several years of congressional scandals, the House Bank and Post Office, Jim Wright, David Durenberger, the Keating Five and Tony Coelho, to name a few. Republican turnout soared, Democratic vote plummeted, and while some credit the GOP "Contract with America," that is largely revisionist thinking. At the time voters were angry with President Clinton, Democrats and Congress, and they wanted to send a message. They wanted to throw some people out of office.

National polling continues to show a wave of at least the same magnitude of 1994, looking at right direction/wrong track, Congress and presidential job approval and the generic congressional ballot test and maybe even worse. At the same time, it is certainly true that the playing field of competitive districts is smaller, though significantly bigger than 30, 60 or 90 days ago, the number of Republican retirements is lower than average and Democrats are running, though not by design, fewer battle-tested candidates with records of winning tough races.
...
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this election is that Republicans are having to fight and spend money in states and districts where few Democrats have dared tread in recent years, like in Idaho-01 (Butch Otter), Nebraska-03 (Tom Osborne) and Nevada-02 (Jim Gibbons). While this election started out as largely a fight in Northeastern and Midwestern suburban districts, the more recent additions to the competitive race lists have been disproportionately small town, rural and small cities, though not as many in the South but many in the West.
...
The bottom line is that at this stage, Republicans should consider themselves lucky if their net losses stay in the 20-25 range in the House, four or five seats in the Senate, and between five and eight governorships. It would be a tough election, losing their majorities in the House and governorships, but it would fall short of the devastating losses that are possible. But the chances of this thing going bigger -- far bigger -- still exist, and there are quite a few veteran Republican strategists, people who have done tons of races in all kinds of states and districts for many years, who are bracing themselves for that distinct possibility.

I really hope this is right, and being a cautious person Cook left himself an avenue for the lower end of what he thought possible. The moral 3 days before the election could not be clearer. We need to get Democrats and independents to the polls in big numbers. There is much work to do still to make the alleged tidal wave of 2006 a reality.

HD 24 Debate Video

2006-11-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

After much trial and error, and many technical difficulties the video for the Oregon House District 24 is now up on YouTube. I certainly learned a lot about video formats and youtube trying to do this, but it is now up, unfortunately YouTube would not allow me to put the whole thing up in one piece, I was limited to 10 minute segments, so I divided it into sections based on beginning of a question, the debate is in 9 parts.

A few things I forgot to mention about the debate in my previous post on the topic before I get to the video itself. It was a testiment to her inability to talk about public policy even on a most elementary level that the two questions that in my mind weren't especially useful she began her answer by saying "oh, that's a great question." One of them was "have your political views changed in the last 10 years," and the other "what would you like us to remember about you when we go to vote?" The second served as a nice way to bring the debate to a close with a question that served as a means for the candidates to make a closing statement, so it was ok even though I really don't think it was a good question. I would kind of like to say a few more things about it, and about how bad Nelson looked, but I'll ease off since she had a heart attack on Saturday, it seems kind of heartless to lay into her completely in light of that. So I shall let the video of the debate speak for itself.

Opening Statements:

Education:

Poverty:

Immigration:

Health Care:

Change in Political views (god I hated this question):

Campaign Finance:

Closing statements:

I can include the complete file (watch out its big), if anyone wants to see the whole thing uninterrupted, if you do, please say so in the comments and tell me how to do it and I will update this post to make that available.

Sarasohn on Saxton's Magic Efficiencies

2006-10-30T14:44:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's Oregonian, David Sarasohn wrote an excellent collumn about Saxton's magic "efficiencies." Saxton claims that Kulongoski is wasting money right and left, and that eliminating this so-called "waste" will allow him to cut taxes and increase/improve services at the same time. Sarasohn effectively calls bullshit. It seems Saxton thinks he can find so many "efficiencies" that he can allow Oregon to remain nearly last in the country in public education funding yet have a top of the line public education system.

So when Gov. Ted Kulongoski supports raising the $10 minimum corporate income tax to offer Head Start to all qualifying Oregon preschoolers, Saxton opposes the tax but supports expanding the program. He can get the money, he says, from efficiencies.

Saxton also opposes the governor's proposal for a car insurance charge to raise the number of state troopers. His new TV spot worries about the drop in the number of troopers, but he's confident he can find money to hire more in "efficiencies."

And he's just getting started.

Saxton has emphasized his skill at finding efficiencies in education, which he says could be improved without spending more money. But he supports strategies that would cost more money, such as increasing starting teacher salaries. His favorite education idea, advanced in multiple TV spots, is merit pay for teachers, which although controversial and complicated might conceivably save some money. But Saxton's campaign manager Felix Schein explained last week the program was meant to reward teachers who "went above and beyond" for their students -- meaning that it's likely to cost more.

By last week's debate, Saxton was talking about "an approach to education that involves more money" -- while the budget space to find his efficiencies gets tighter and tighter.

Maybe he needs an asterisk.

Saxton might need more than one asterisk to cover another of his positions: "Change is needed so we can insure the 600,000 uninsured Oregonians."

If you're going to do that with efficiencies, we've gone beyond medicine to miracles.

The list of things Saxton claims to be able to do while cutting taxes is rather incredible. After his appearance at Linfield I called Saxton the "free lunch candidate," Sarasohn sees the same thing. Unfortunately, Saxton's distance from reality might be why this race is even close. It seems that time and time again voters love the candidate who is going to do the impossible, increase and improve public services all while cutting taxes.

Big Hair vs. Big Ideas: The Peralta-Nelson Debate

2006-10-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Having never actually seen Donna Nelson speak until tonight, I was shocked. This woman really is a complete airhead. The entire debate, I'm not sure she said a thing. That's a bit of an exageration, but not completely off the mark. Donna Nelson came in wearing a Linfield sweatshirt, by her opening statement she had shown the audience what she wore at the football game two weeks ago that earned her "best outfit". And the entire debate, her response to every single question was to say that she "loves us," it was put on very strong that her one message was that she is part of the community and loves everyone in it. Policies were completely irrelevent and almost untalked about by this woman. The closest she ever really came to establishing a position on something was to talk about the constituant work that she has done, which is an important part of the job, but Yamhill County residents (and the residents of all counties) should expect some leadership from their Representative, Nelson appeared totally incapable of providing any real leadership in Salem.

The real debate of the night therefore, was between Peralta and Terry. While I disagreed with almost everything Terry said (immigration being the one exception where I didnt agree with him but liked his answer more than the other two), he came accross as an intelligent hard right winger with ideas. This was in a way what made the debate interesting, since Nelson was so frustrating with the nothingness that she responded to all questions with. There was a strong exchange of ideas tonight, but not because Donna Nelson brought any, the real substantive focus became the exchanges between Peralta and Terry.

The moment in the debate that I thought was most interesting was when David Terry was asked about how poverty should be confronted. Terry took a position so far to the right that it was somewhat amazing, he was literally off the map, and said that poverty needs to be addressed through growth, but not growth in the traditional economic sense of rising GDP, but growth outside of cities, he said that "high density is for insects" and actually supported urban sprawl, this seemed to be driving to the point that we need more economic developement in wild areas and should quit worrying about environmental concerns. Nelson then responded first by arguing with the question, but then (after Prof. Gutterman rephrased it to get her to answer) went into one of her constituant service spiels and finally said that poverty is best dealt with by getting people jobs (which should be so obvious that it isnt worth saying). Next it was Sal Peralta's tern, and he seized upon the question to launch into a pretty compelling discussion of our obligations to one another. The idea that, as Peralta put it "I am my brother's keeper". He talked about a single mother he met recently who makes only $600 a month and yet is above the limit to qualify for Oregon Health Plan coverage. This is something that must change, and Peralta is committed to finding better solutions for people.

Originally, I thought Blue Oregon's theme of "big hair vs. big ideas" was kind of a funny joke, but it really wasnt, the only thing Donna Nelson had to offer voters was that she was one of us and that she loves us. Voters of Yamhill County deserve a leader, and that leader is Sal Peralta.

The debate was aired on KSLC radio 90.3 FM McMinnville, and was videotaped. When I can I will post the video and possibly audio recording of the debate here so that you can watch it. I kid you not, it was stunning how empty Donna Nelson was, and once I get that posted you can see it for yourselves, because my discription could not possibly do it justice.

Peralta-Nelson Debate Tomorrow!

2006-10-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder to anyone in the McMinnville area, the Oregon House District 24 debate with Sal Peralta (D) Donna Nelson (R-i) and David Terry (L) will be tomorrow night (Oct 27) at 6:00 PM, Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall at Linfield College. It will be moderated by Prof of Political Science David Gutterman, if you're in the area please do come.

Very Strange

2006-10-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

This post is not about Ron Saxton, but about Fox News, Saxton only plays a tangeantal role to what I'm sure will be a rotten post.

Why, in a story about North Korea did Fox News feel the urge to show us a video of Ron Saxton calling him a "happy man in a bar"? What the Republican Gubernatorial candidate in Oregon has to do with North Korea is beyond me. If they thought that Saxton had something particularly insightful to say about North Korea it would even be fine, but why of all the "happy men in bars" accross the country they chose to run a video of Ron Saxton, and a better question, why they felt compelled to include a "happy man in a bar" in the report at all is beyond me. FOX News never ceases to amaze me.

McMorris in Trouble

2006-10-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

Word on the street is that Cathy McMorris (R-WA 05) is scared silly of Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark.

McMorris, a freshman Republican, is being challenged by rancher Peter Goldmark, an Okanogan Democrat who has struck a nerve by criticizing spending cuts that affect veterans.

"It's a closer race than I first imagined," McMorris told Craig before the teleconference was opened to callers.

Instead of being placed on hold and blocked, Camden was placed on mute, so he was able to hear their conversation but unable to tell them he was listening.

Goldmark is "hitting very hard" at her veterans budget votes, and on recent cuts in veterans services, McMorris told Craig. She asked the senator to emphasize the increase in overall veterans funding.

Craig told McMorris that Republicans are hurting across the country.

"The new numbers are just devastating," he said.

McMorris campaign spokeswoman Jill Strait said she did not hear the conversation because she had been placed on hold along with other callers, who heard background music.

She conceded that her boss may have made the statements.

Very telling that the campaign spokeswoman wouldn't even deny it. Goldmark has a shot.

As long as I'm talking about the Washington 5th Congressional District I'll take this moment to piss off my Oregon readership by saying "Way to go Cougs!"

House Polling

2006-10-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a fascinating post over at electoral-vote.com, so I'm going to put part of it here on why House of Representatives polling doesnt work very well.

The introduction of Internet telephony (VoIP) services, such Skype and Vonage, wreaked havoc with this scheme. VoIP customers can usually choose any area code they want. For example, a man in Omaha might choose Florida area code 561 so his mother in Florida could call him as a free local call. It also means that a pollster randomly calling 561 numbers might get someone who doesn't live in Florida. Since most people still have area codes that correctly designate which state they live in, for Senate polls, the problem is still manageable.

However, for House polls the problem is substantial. The layout of the area codes and exchanges do not align with congressional districts at all. While 914-949-xxxx numbers all lie entirely within NY-18, other exchanges straddle congressional district boundaries, especially when the CD has been gerrymandered into a pretzel. As a consequence, a pollster assigned to poll for some House race may have to call multiple area codes and exchanges, some of whose numbers lie within the district and some of whose numbers lie outside the district. Reverse lookup of the number about to be called is not always possible because many people have unlisted numbers.

As a consequence, some of the people polled may, in fact, not live in the district in question and some people who do live there may be missed. Of course the first question could something like be "Are you a registered voter in congressional district IN-07?" However, most voters probably don't know their CD number and some may be put off by such a question and hang up. Starting with "Hi, I'm doing a poll from the XYZ company. What's your zipcode?" is definitely a nonstarter.

I suppose you could ask zipcode at the end of the poll and just throw out any results that lie outside of the district, of course this would frustrate the hell out of the people making the calls if its a human administered survey, but it seems like it would work fine on an automated one. Whatever the solution I thought it to be an interesting and amusing problem in modern polling.

Farm Bureau Response to Misleading Phone Calls

2006-10-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

I pointed out the other day, thanks to the catch from the folks at Loaded Orygun that Nelson supporters had been making phone calls in the name of the Oregon Farm Bureau accusing Peralta of getting nearly all his campaign money from labor organizations in Portland. A charge that is completely false and the exact opposite of the truth. There's been an odd development recently. It seems that the Farm Bureau is in fact taking credit for the calls, but not the script that was used.

It's not clear how the attack on Peralta wound up being included in the script read by phone bank volunteers, but the Farm Bureau's vice president, Dave Dillon, disavowed it. He said it would not be included again.

"The script we approved was apparently not the one that was read to people on the phone last night," Dillon told the News-Register. "Somewhere, there was a miscommunication on the script that we would be comfortable with."

To his knowledge, Dillon said, no one from Nelson's campaign had anything to do with the phone calls. He said the initial request to mount a calling effort on Nelson's behalf, citing the Farm Bureau's endorsement of her candidacy, came from a political action committee formed to back Republican House candidates.

This is getting far too strange. Sounds like a pretty weak defense to me, the Farm Bureau had to know what was in the script unless they contracted out to someone else to do the phone banking, which is plausible given that caller ID records from people who recieved the call said "Gateway Communications". This is a very strange story, not surprisingly nobody wants to take credit for the phone calls. Right now it appears that the Farm Bureau contracted Gateway Communications to make phone calls for them, and someone at Gateway or in the Republican Party changed the script. At least that's the best explanation I can come up with. Its certainly equally plausible that the Farm Bureau is just lying and did approve that script.

In other News, there's a good race summary article in the News-Register today with some good info on all three candidates Peralta, Nelson, and Terry.

Saxton's Appearance at Linfield

2006-10-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

Ron Saxton made an unimpressive appearance at Linfield College last night. His entire speech seemed to come down to one central idea, that there is such a thing as a free lunch. Saxton criticized Governor Kulongoski on law enforcement for having "made cuts and cuts," yet he rejects all discussion of raising any taxes. He talked about getting a crime lab and increasing the number of police, yet he also says he's going to cut taxes. This vague discussion of "government waste" is outrageous. You cannot increase services while cutting revenue.

On education Saxton talked about poor student performance and said "its not about more and more money." Its not Ron? That's funny because I believe Oregon ranks 40th in K-12 education funding and 46th in higher education funding both on a per pupil basis. Should it really be that surprising that Oregon schools perform at the level at which they are funded? When you rank near the bottom in funding it shouldn't shock anyone that you rank near the bottom in performance. Yet in the world according to Ron Saxton there is a free lunch and "its not about more and more money."

He made the claim that tax increases are unneccessary because currently "the State is taxing you and not providing services for it." Give me a break Ron, is that why Oregon has vitually no corporate income tax? The Oregonian noted on April 16th that the vast bulk of Oregon taxes are payed by individuals with almost no contribution coming from corporations.

When Oregonians file their state income tax returns Monday, they will be on track to pay $10.6 billion over two years --nearly 90 percent of the tab for state government --while corporations that do business in Oregon will pay $705 million.

But no, there's no one we can tax according to Ron Saxton, everybody is already overtaxed.

Saxton was also shielded from criticism by the College Republicans, probably anticipating hostile questions. They reformulated questions to suit their desires and skipped other questions entirely. Instead of allowing questions from the floor they had questions placed in a box which they then screened and asked him. I know for a fact that there were Saxtonville questions in that box because I asked him a couple. Yet after being screened by the College Republicans they came out as the following "what do you think about illegal immigration?" Please, that's nothing approaching the questions that were actually in the box. His response there was amusing however, and brings up a good point about Saxtonville. He talked about drivers licenses again and said "we need to have rules that we need to follow." Do businesses not need to follow the rules Ron, if you're that concerned about immigration laws being followed shouldn't you have taken more personal action to ensure that it didn't happen at your farm? Because illegal immigrants are so much more enticed by the possibility of getting a drivers license than gaining employment. Message to the College Republicans: If you don't want your candidate to have to answer questions then don't allow questions, don't pretend to have him take questions when in fact your screening out everything that might make him look bad. I noticed they were sure to ask the question that began with "when you are governor..." Yes, pretend to take questions but don't actually allow anyone to ask something you don't like.

One more thing came out in the speech. Saxton's opposition to the minimum wage. He tried to dance arround this, but his position came out quite clear when he said the following: "I don't think we aught to have automatic adjustment." He opposes keeping the minimum wage in step with inflation, meaning that he supports allowing it to slip as prices go up, to the point where it represents nearly nothing.

Ron Saxton, breaking the laws of economics, getting by with a little help from his friends, and sticking it to workers.

Nelson Supporters are Desperate

2006-10-18T13:58:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Loaded Orygun for bringing this to my attention, very interesting development here in McMinnville. The Nelson campaign must be feeling very desperate to hold on to her seat. Recent developments lead me to really believe strongly that this definately a competitive race. First there's the newspaper endorsements, both from the Statesman Journal and from the News Register. Then there's the very fact that Rep Nelson agreed to a debate, something that I had it on good authority from within the Republican establishment here that she would not agree to. And now there is this gem from Loaded Orygun.

During the day his campaign had begun to receive reports from supporters that a caller identifying themselves as from the "Oregon Farm Bureau" was saying that Peralta gets most of his money from trade unions based in Portland (the district is in Yamhill County). That of course is not only untrue, it's the complete opposite of Peralta's centerpiece pledge to limit his money to local interests. It's a textbook Swiftboating, because it takes something generally seen as a positive (being a veteran, not taking outside money) and turns it on its head, using simple untruths to sow doubt.

Not only was the Farm Bureau dumb enough to identify itself as the sponsor, they were unlucky enough to push-call Sal Peralta's house, and his wife:
My wife, Tanya, answered and took down the following transcript:

CALLER: This is Eric from the Oregon farm bureau asking you to elect Donna Nelson and wondered if you knew that his opponent gets almost all of his money from Portland Business and Trade Associations and big unions

TANYA: Where did you get your information from.. I’m intimately familiar with his source of funding and you couldn’t be more wrong.

CALLER: From the computer

TANYA: From the computer… where is your source?

CALLER: Supervisor?

TANYA: Who is that? Who is funding this call?

Hang up

The allegations made by these calls are blatantly false. Moreover, they are in direct contravention to a campaign pledge that I made not to accept contributions from businesses, trade associations, or labor unions with no ties to Yamhill County.

I have returned checks and money from all such unions that have made such contributions, directly returning checks, uncashed, from the Northwest Carpenter's Union, and am in the process of returning a check received today from the United Steel Worker's Union, even though both of these unions have locals in my district.

Peralta has made campaign finance reform and not accepting PAC donations from outside of the district a major priority of his campaign, this is just spreading lies to try to convince voters that this is a lie.

The folks at Loaded Orygun do a good job of pointing out that this is really about Nelson's extreme opposition to the minimum wage, and her support for lowering all the way down to the federal minimum. From the comments however, Sal points out that this might not have even come from the Farm Bureau.

One of my supporters contacted the farm bureau, and apparently, this may not have even come from them, but rather, from Nelson's campaign, or possibly the Republican Caucus.

Stay tuned.

If this is coming from the Nelson campaign or the Yamhill Republican it shows a new level of desperation that speaks volumes to just how much danger Donna Nelson is actually in. McMinnville residents, come to the debate next Friday then throw the bum out on November 7th! McMinnville doesn't deserve to be represented by dirty tricksters.

What Drives US Iraq Policy?

2006-10-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

The New York Times today ran a depressing yet enlightening article about the knowledge that members of congress who sit on key oversight committees have about the conflict in Iraq, and accross the middle east.

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

Gee, you think that might have been a good thing to know before going into Iraq? Were you going to start another war in Iran still not knowing that? Jesus, what do these people do in committee hearings? This seems like something that would be fundamental to understand before you start a war.

Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.

“Do I?” she asked me. A look of concentration came over her face. “You know, I should.” She took a stab at it: “It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia.”

Did she know which branch Al Qaeda’s leaders follow?

“Al Qaeda is the one that’s most radical, so I think they’re Sunni,” she replied. “I may be wrong, but I think that’s right.”

Did she think that it was important, I asked, for members of Congress charged with oversight of the intelligence agencies, to know the answer to such questions, so they can cut through officials’ puffery when they came up to the Hill?

“Oh, I think it’s very important,” said Ms. Davis, “because Al Qaeda’s whole reason for being is based on their beliefs. And you’ve got to understand, and to know your enemy.”

It's very important yet even after the conversation quoted Rep Davis has no clue what a Sunni is and what a Shia is. If radicalism is the standard than I guess Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda must be the same group right? Oops. These people who are in charge of US policy in Iraq and accross the middle east really have no concept of the situation in that part of the world. As was said at Atrios, "we are governed by idiots." Congress clearly doesn't know a Sunni from a hole in the ground.

Saxton: Not a Small Business Leader

2006-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Ron Saxton has run much of his campaign claiming to be a small businessman, someone who knows the issues of that community and will be a strong advocate for them. His support for this? The cherry farm (or vineyard), that he owned in the 1990s.

Saxton's website makes frequent reference to his ownership of the cherry farm in an effort to play up his small business credentials. Saxton clearly does not want anyone putting his web content into blog postings, so I will kindly oblige him here by not linking to his site either. The beginning of Saxton's "Economic Development" plank under "issues" makes immediate mention of the cherry farm. It is also mentioned as a biographical highlight in his "about ron" section. Clearly Saxton wants us to believe that because he owned a cherry farm he knows small business. So how does that mesh with his response to the Saxtonville matter?

"I was not involved in any arrangements with the labor," Saxton said Wednesday. He said one of the partners handled the paperwork. He said they took pains to make sure their employment practices complied with the law, including withholding taxes from paychecks.

He portrayed a picture of himself as a hands-off partner, although in his campaign literature he frequently refers to his ownership of the farm.
...
"It's our policy not to hire undocumented people," said Jose Perfecto of Salem, who handled the labor force for Oak Grove Farms during the 1990s. "Is it possible? Anything is possible."

Saxton said he has no memory of a contractor hiring the labor and said he never has heard of or met Perfecto. Likewise, Perfecto said he never had met Saxton and was unaware the candidate had been an owner of the farm.

Which is it Saxton? Are you a leader in the small business community as evidenced by your ownership of a cherry farm? Or did you hire illegal immigrants? These two don't match, and if Saxton wants to say he had nothing to do with it he shouldn't go arround bragging about how he owned a cherry farm.

Nelson Agrees to Debate Peralta

2006-10-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

Donna Nelson has agreed to participate in the Debate on a different date. It is now going to be held on Friday October 27th at 6:00 PM in the same place, Melrose Auditorium (also known as Ice Auditorium) at Linfield College. Other than the date, time, and participants, all else remains the same. I send out thanks to Representative Nelson for agreeing to participate.

HD-24 Debate to be Held October 18th

2006-10-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE 4:30 10/13---Donna Nelson has agreed to participate in the debate. To make it more convenient for Representative Nelson it has been moved to Friday October 27th at 6:00 PM, the location remains unchanged

Next Wednesday, the Linfield College Democrats will be hosting a debate between the candidates for House District 24. Sal Peralta the Democrat, and David Terry the Libertarian have agreed to attend. We have not heard back from Rep Nelson, and while we would love for her to attend the debate will commence without her presence. The unfortunate fact of incumbency is that there is rarely a motivation to agree to debate. Donna Nelson, as far I can tell has no desire to participate. This is unfortunate but will not prevent a debate from being held.

The debate will be held on Wednesday, October 18th at 7:00 PM at Linfield College in the Melrose Auditorium, now renamed to "Ice". The debate will be moderated by Associate Professor of Communication Arts at Linfield College, Jackson Miller, and Associate Professor of Mass Communication at Linfield College Nancy Cornwell. The debabte will be aired live on the Linfield College radio station KSLC 90.3 FM.

Representative Nelson really should get out of her bubble and agree to participate, but she seems hell bent on avoiding it. Should be some excellent clash between Peralta and Terry though. If you're in the neighborhood please do come, it will be free of charge.

This is why Bush Needed His Interrogation Bill

2006-10-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

Also known as "the torture bill." We now have an allegation with a court filing of torturing of an American citizen.

An alleged operative for Al Qaeda imprisoned for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant is saying he was tortured and forcibly medicated with "a sort of truth serum" while in a Navy brig.

Jose Padilla, 35, was arrested in 2002 on suspicions that he was plotting a radioactive explosion, also known as a dirty bomb. He spent several years in a military jail in Charleston, S.C., without facing criminal charges. As legal wrangling over his fate continued, prosecutors in Miami charged him late last year with providing material support to a terrorist group and conspiring to murder, maim, and kidnap Americans abroad.
...
"He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution," the chief federal defender in Miami, Michael Caruso, wrote. "Additionally, Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations."

Lovely

Mark Warner Out

2006-10-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

Mark Warner will not be running for President in 2008. The favorite of the "we need a southerner" crowd is now gone, will they jump to Edwards? Clark?

Chalk Another Endorsement Up For Peralta

2006-10-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

I initially missed, and was informed this morning of the recent News-Register (McMinnville) endorsement for Sal Peralta in the HD-24 race. While the Statesman Journal endorsement was significant, this is more so. For starters the News-Register is very very conservative, accompanying the Peralta endorsement is an endorsement for serial liar Ron Saxton in the Governor's race. I recognize that newspaper endorsements do not win elections, but the string of endorsements from conservative papers recently for Peralta gauges what I believe to be a general mood here in McMinnville that Donna Nelson is in fact, not "a keeper". She has precious little to bring back to her constituants and is visciously anti-worker.

He [Peralta] has gained insights into local communities through various civic and political activities. More importantly, he has a strong grasp of important state issues and clear thoughts on how to improve quality of life for Oregon citizens.
...
Some might worry that Peralta will become a leader for causes that increase public costs without an offsetting curb on government excesses. We accept his claim to fiscal conservatism and believe that he knows how to compromise on tough issues.

This is the News-Register folks, not exactly a bastion of liberalism. Nelson is in trouble, while there is no polling to prove this I think that Peralta has a serious shot at winning this. The second paragraph is relevent to address, while the Register sounds skeptical but trusting about Peralta's committment to a sound budget as he advocates improving Oregon schools, law enforcement, and health care. He has a very good idea how to fund these needed increases in essential services. He is definately sincere and has good ideas for paying for his ideas. The corporate kicker for example causes massive budgetary problems defunding our schools, health care, etc. This State can't afford to do what it needs because out of State corporations are giving nothing back to Oregon.

David Reinhard Is Delusional

2006-10-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

In the midst of a Democratic wave in the 2006 elections David Reinhard appears to have stepped up his delusion factor above even what it normally is by suggesting that Darlene Hooley (D-5th) is in danger of losing her reelection bid. Never mind that nobody who knows what they're talking about or has a reputation to uphold has this race even on their radar screen, Reinhard is convinced that Hooley is likely to fall.

Y es, it takes some getting used to. Oregon has one of the nation's competitive congressional races, and it's a Democratic incumbent at risk. Something like this just isn't supposed to happen in a true blue state in a season when Mark Foley and "Red America" Republicans -- sorry, make that George Bush and "Red America" Republicans -- are on the run. And yet, a month out from Election Day, Rep. Darlene Hooley is in the race of her life in Oregon's 5th Congressional District.

The signs are everywhere. There's the Moore Information poll that shows Hooley with only a 44-37 lead over Republican Mike Erickson, and 17 percent of likely voters undecided. OK, Moore Information is Erickson's pollster, but that poll is not the only sign or even the most important one. The first came when Hooley felt compelled to run fact-challenged attack-ads against Erickson early on.

Mostly I found this collumn funny, particularly since Reinhard shows that it is himself rather than Hooley who is out of touch. In other news, Reinhard (this shouldn't be surprising) is a liar.

n independent expenditure group (the Economic Freedom Fund) hit Hooley for, among other things, favoring Social Security for illegal aliens.

I don't know what this is talking about, but there was no vote in the House that did this, so this is badly distorting something, I've never heard anyone support that idea, in fact its not even on the table. This dishonest collumn was good for only one thing, a good laugh.

Saxton Turns to Immigrant Bashing

2006-10-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

Ron Saxton must be getting desperate, he has turned to non-existant problems and immigrant bashing in his campaign for Governor.

More are "pouring in," the ad states. The commercial attacks Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski for taking a soft line on "illegal aliens" by allowing them to obtain driver's licenses and vote in state elections.

Saxton must really be desperate if this is all he has to run on, illegal immigrants are clearly not voting in Oregon, as was pointed out by Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury when the US Congress passed a law requiring all voters to show ID at the polls in order to vote.

Oregon, Bradbury wrote "does not have a problem with ineligible voters." Of the more than 10 million votes in Oregon cast since 1991, Bradbury wrote, "only 10 people have met criteria that would even warrant an investigation into their citizenship. Of those 10, two have been prosecuted."

Howard Dean recently claimed that this was really a cynical attempt to disinfranchise voters.

Dean said he was particularly irked at Saxton's charge that illegal immigrants are obtaining driver's licenses in Oregon that they then use to be able to vote in elections. "There's never been any evidence of that whatsoever," said Dean, arguing that Republicans are really interested in discouraging less-affluent citizens from voting.

This would clearly be the effect of such a law, proving that at the very least Republicans don't care if they disinfranchise legal voters. However, I think Dean goes a little too far here. This is not about disinfranchising voters for disinfranchisements sake, it is about finding this years public enemy. A clear part of the Republican strategy this year seems to be to run against the most marginalized population in the United States. Immigrants, as though they are some threat to the American way of life.

Saxton makes a front and center problem out of something that simply is not happening, sounds to me like a campaign with nothing real to bring to voters, just hatred and xenophobia.

Statesman Journal Endorses Sal Peralta

2006-09-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

The Statesman Journal out of Salem today endorsed Salvador Peralta in the race for House District 24. They cite as their primary reason Peralta's vision compared with Nelson's complete absence of acheivements.

He's passionate about campaign-finance reform; he helped get two measures on the November ballot.

Peralta is clear about what he wants to achieve, and he has ideas about how to pay for it. For instance, his top priority is improving Oregon's funding for K-12 and higher education, which he says ranks among the lowest in the nation. He would find money by eliminating the corporate kicker and allowing communities to expand systems-development charges to pay for school construction.

He would be a strong advocate for doing the people's business in public and giving citizens the same access as lobbyists. He wants to put more money into providing health insurance for children and combating meth addiction.

Peralta has so much conviction in the importance of campaign finance reform that he has refused to take any out of State PAC money. This race comes down to two very different visions of Oregon, someone who brings fresh ideas and a commitment to bettering people's lives by improving schools and healthcare, versus someone who wants to drop the Oregon minimum wage all the way down to the federal minimum of $5.15 an hour. The choice should be clear here in McMinnville and across Yamhill County.

This is not America

2006-09-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

The Bush Torture Act of 2006 passed the Senate today, I don't know what to say except to ask the following questions:
Is this China?
Iran?
Saudi Arabia?
the return of the USSR?
We have now gone down the path of dictators everywhere, following in the footsteps of Augusto Pinochet. The United States does not torture. Not the United States I know. What country is this? The United States has always been a beacon of hope for the world. We have been the light of liberty, and of due process to the world, now we torture. We were once a great nation, now we've lowered ourselves to the company of lowly dictatorships. Lowly dictatorships that have no respect for human rights. This is not America. Where has my country gone?

CNN Is Unbelievable

2006-09-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently CNN cannot read their own transcripts or listen to their own shows. CNN.com summed up an interview with Former FBI Agent Dan Coleman with the incredible headline "Former FBI agent: Clinton never approved a plan to kill bin Laden," this gives readers the impression that Clinton lied on Fox News when he said that he did. However, what Coleman actually said was nearly the opposite, in fact Coleman expressed some gratitude the Clinton reacted like he did in the Fox interview.

ARRIS: What do you give Clinton credit for in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his attempts to disrupt al Qaeda?

COLEMAN: President Clinton is very careful in his comments. I was at least happy to see him get angry about something and at least try to fight back.

I doubt that anything he said was incorrect because he's too careful a man. But as far as I know, he may -- he approved the assassination of bin Laden, but he never approved a particular plan.

HARRIS: His claim is that he couldn't get the CIA and the FBI to agree on responsibility, for example, for the Cole attack and to launch countermeasures.

COLEMAN: I disagree with that.

HARRIS: He said he had a battle plan drawn up to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale search for bin Laden.

COLEMAN: Well, he didn't do it.

HARRIS: Did you see evidence of a plan?

COLEMAN: Not at my level. No, sir.

HARRIS: So what do you make of his claim?

COLEMAN: He was saying that he made a very specific statement about getting a forward operating base in one of the former Soviet republics which he was not able to get. ... You don't need a forward base in one of the former Soviet republics to go in and do a quick operation.

Coleman never says anything approaching what CNN lead with, and of course the headline has far more impact than the transcript, for example I didn't read the rest of this interview, only the parts pertaining to Clinton, so if they made a sweeping claim about something else I wouldn't have known about it because I, like most people am busy and too fundamentally lazy to read the entire transcript. Now that I've established what Coleman did not say, lets look at what he did say. I have put the important parts of this in bold. He said, "I was at least happy to see him get angry about something and at least try to fight back." The implication of this statement is apparent, Coleman thinks that in the face of outrageous charges against President Clinton in relation to how he responded to terrorism, Clinton has generally not done enough to defend himself and the work of his Administration. That is the only reason that Coleman would be "happy to see him [Clinton] fight back." Next Coleman says "I doubt that anything he said was incorrect." Coleman claims no real inside knowledge to Clinton's claims, but states that as far as he knows its correct and he doubts that Clinton would have been dumb enough to say something untrue in the interview. Yet CNN leads with a headline that clearly suggests that Coleman believes Clinton lied in the Fox News Interview. Finally He says that Clinton did approve the assassination of Bin Laden, the exact opposite of what the lead suggests, the lead claims that Coleman said Clinton did not, when Coleman in no uncertain terms stated that Clinton did in fact approave the assassination of Bin Laden.

All Coleman said in this interview was that he had no knowledge of a specific plan to assassinate Bin Laden, that while Clinton did approve Bin Laden's assassination, he did it in general terms and did not give an explicit instruction based on specific information of where Bin Laden was at a given time to assassinate him. This headline really teeters on the line between misleading, and flat out lying. CNN should be ashamed of themselves.

US House Passes Anti-Oregon Voting Law

2006-09-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

The United States House of Representatives today passed a law that would require all voters to show identification at the polls. There are two major problems with this that are immediatly obvious. First, and most importantly, it violates the 24th Amendment banning poll taxes. And Secondly, because it is blatantly anti-Oregon.

This seems to me clearly to violate the 24th amendment as it essentially is a poll tax. Unless all United States citizens are given a free voter ID card, then the cost of obtaining an ID or drivers license, makes requireing their presentation at the polling booth in order to vote unconstitutional. Two Courts have recently ruled precisely this, one overturning a Georgia law requiring ID in order to vote, and the other in Missouri doing much the same thing. Why are judges throwing out these laws right and left? Because it isn't really a difficult Constitutional question, clearly these laws are fundamentally the same as a poll tax as banned by the 24th Amendment.

The bill also is anti-Oregon, or rather anti-Oregon voter. With the highly successful mail-in ballots (Oregon has about a 67% voting rate), sending a drivers licence or other identification would be highly inconvenient to Oregon voters, and would undoubtedly cause Oregon's voting rate to decrease, as some voters would be unable to run to kinkos before mailing their ballot. Representative Peter DeFazio points this out.

"There are going to be plenty of people who are going to be reluctant to take some of their most secure identification, Xerox it, stick in an envelope and send it to the Elections Division," DeFazio said. "What are they going to do with it? Do they keep it on file? Do they shred it?"

Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury agrees calling it the "Oregon Copier Acquisition Act." Stating:

"This bill does nothing other than destroy the accessibility of vote by mail, and makes it a chore, not a right, to vote," wrote Bradbury, who oversees the state Elections Division.

Anyone who voted in favor of this piece of crap bill should be ashamed, and anyone from Oregon who voted for this piece of crap bill should be chased out of the State. Shall we see if any of them did (as the law passed in a 228-196 vote).

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the only Oregon representative to vote for the bill, said he has received an assurance from House leadership that the final version will address Oregon's concerns.

Aha, Eastern Oregonians should promptly vote Mr. Walden out of office shortly, due to his desire to prevent his constituents from voting. Congrats to the entire Democratic Oregon delegation for soundly opposing this anti-Oregon bill. How does Mr. Walden justify himself? Better question is how does he live with himself, but we'll answer the one that can be answered here.

"In my district, 70,000 square miles, if every voter every time has to photocopy their ID and put it with a ballot that they send in, it raises some issues," Walden said on the House floor Wednesday. "I think there are other ways to guarantee that only citizens get ballots to vote."

Walden said he'd like to address those issues when the bill moves to conference committee. During Wednesday's floor debate, he asked one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., for his support in "trying to address that issue" in conference committee.
...
Walden spokesman Matt Daigle said Walden secured a "really solid concession."

"He supported the bill because he supports this sort of reform and trying to not disenfranchise voters," Daigle said. "But his support was strongly conditional."

Aha! A "really solid concession," he just won't tell anyone what that concession was. In addition to all I said before, Bradbury brings up a good point. All this effort, and high risk of voter disenfranchisement, is in response to a complete non issue.

Oregon, Bradbury wrote "does not have a problem with ineligible voters." Of the more than 10 million votes in Oregon cast since 1991, Bradbury wrote, "only 10 people have met criteria that would even warrant an investigation into their citizenship. Of those 10, two have been prosecuted."

Sure, some States are probably higher, but there has been no real reason to suspect that masses of noncitizens are voting, and the rates in other States I feel confident in saying, is also extremely low. This is really a cynical attempt to keep poor people away from the polls, and has the added side affect of keeping Oregonians in general away from the polls. This unconstitutional bill must be stopped in the Senate.

The GOP "Rebels" are Anything But

2006-09-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

I could also have entitled this post "David Broder has lost all contact with reality," for the day's outrage begin when I read Broder's collumn printed in the Oregonian.

American politics reached a critical turn last week. The revolt of several Republican senators against President Bush's insistence on a free hand in treating terrorist detainees signaled the emergence of an independent force in elections and government.

This movement is not new, but the moral scale of the issue -- torture -- and the implications for both constitutional and international law give it an epic dimension, even if it is ultimately settled by compromise.

The senators involved -- John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner -- were also instrumental in forming the "Gang of 14," the bipartisan bloc that seized control of the Senate last year and wrote the compromise that prevented a drastic change in the filibuster rule that otherwise would have triggered a bitter partisan divide.
...
They were joined in their opposition to Bush's call for extraordinary interrogation techniques by Colin Powell, the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is still, despite the controversies over his role in Iraq policy, one of the most admired Americans.

That these Republicans -- and others -- were ready to join the Democrats in rejecting Bush's plan caused the White House to scramble for alternatives and House Republican leaders to postpone a scheduled vote. The revolt goes well beyond three men.

What it really signals is a new movement in this country -- what you could rightly call the independence party. Its unifying theme can be found in the Declaration of Independence's language when Jefferson invoked "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."

Ok Broder, now to begin with, the Republicans on the "gang of 14" evidently were just using the agreement to bully Democrats into not filibustering a few of Bush's extremist judges, since Lindsey Graham has publicly stated that the agreement didn't mean a goddamn thing.

[a filibuster] based on a judicial philosophy difference or an ideologically driven difference, I don't believe that, with all sincerity, I could let that happen.

Secondly, everyone praised in the Broder article has been a major enabler of the Iraq war, with the only people showing any inklings of dissent on Iraq mentioned as the heroes of "indendepence" in the Broder article have only dissented by saying we need more troops there. If they were truly independent of the Bush Administration, the people Broder turns to have more than enough clout to force an investigation into Iraq, which has had no investigations yet, the only American war that has not had Congressional investigations and oversight as Harry Reid noted on the Senate floor yesterday.

Broder really bases his article off a specific case of "independence" where some Republicans have broken off of the Bush Administration to not allow torture, which should be a no brainer to any sane person that we shouldn't be torturing people. However, the alleged "independence" of these Senators fails to hold true even in this current case, as they struck a deal with the White House today on an interrogation bill which gives the White House exactly what it wants, the authority to torture people and use secret evidence in judicial proceedings, the Constitution be damned.

Seeing as how they are announcing this with Steven "Probable Cause is Irrelevant" Hadley, forgive me for having my doubts on that one. Doubts that are confirmed by this next statement:

Mr. Frist said the agreement had two key points. "Classified information will not be shared with the terrorists" tried before the tribunals, he said, according to Bloomberg News. And "the very important program of interrogation continues."

And how was that "very important" program viewed by these would-be rebels prior to this compromise?

The three senators have contended that the administration was undermining Geneva Convention protections in a way that could leave Americans vulnerable in the future, and that its plan for military tribunals of terror suspects would allow evidence obtained coercively, and information they were not allowed to see to be used against them.

The "very important program of interrogation" that they have agreed to preserve is torture. Torture is at the heart of this program and is what the administration has been fighting for since the Supreme Court handed down Hamdan. What's more, Frist's statement makes clear that the Uniform Code of Militart Justice, which guarantees that defendants have the right to see the evidence against them, is going to be gutted in this "compromise."

Talking Points Memo has a slightly different but equally frustrating take on the agreement, which shoots down Broder's rosey picture just as well.

from what I could tell the torture compromise is that we agreed not to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, only to continue violating them. The Post now has its editorial out. And they appear to have to come to something like the same conclusion. (Can't wait to hear the Dean's verdict.) The senate won't formally reinterpret the Geneva Convention or explicitly sanction the president's torture policies. But they'll allow him to keep using them.

That's the compromise.

So the alleged independence doesn't even exist on this issue that Broder is specifically writing about, now admittadly this deal developed after Broder wrote his article, but a little bit of skepticism about a group that has a past more than shady enough to warrant skepticism would be nice. In fact, Talking Points Memo goes on to call Broder out in a different post.

I must confess that I am simply dying to hear what Dean David Broder has to say about this torture compromise. In yesterday's paper he was positively rhapsodic about his prized Republican moderates channeling Thomas Jefferson and standing up to President Bush's lawless presidency. He even managed to get in a few digs against the only people who've actually opposed this lawless chief exeecutive. So where does he come out now that his 'independence party' has conceded most of the points of contention, folded abjectly and basically given up?

Broder goes on about the hope that comes with this new coalition of independents.

A "decent respect" begins at home, with an acknowledgment of public opinion. Americans are saying no to excess greenhouse gases and no to open borders; yes to embryonic stem cell research, yes to a path to earned citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants and yes to a living wage. Six more states are likely to approve increases in the minimum wage through ballot initiatives in November.

That paragraph came right after Broder trashed Sherrod Brown, praised Lincoln Chaffee, and accused Ned Lamont of being controlled by "rthe vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left." What the fuck having a foul mouth has to do with anything is way the hell beyond me, but I guess I don't give a damn. The point is this, Broder singles out Democratic Party platform issues, that have been opposed by Republicans. Republicans will not pass a living wage, by and large do not want a path to citizenship, and do not take greenhouse gasses seriously. The "open borders" argument is nothing but a straw man so I'll dismiss it. If Broder really sincerely cared about these issues, he would understand that the way to get them passed would not be to send back Chafee and DeWine who will vote for probably Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader, who will in turn put all those issues on the backburner. The way to advance the very agenda Broder wants acheived is to elect Democrats in November. Broder's article serves as nothing but an argument for Republicans to use to pretend to be independent from the White House and to hide the fact that they are Republicans.

But what do I know? I'm nothing but a goddamn foul mouthed blogger.