Oregonian Runs Outlandish Fluff Piece on Gordon Smith

The Oregonian runs a silly fluff piece about how "bipartison" and "middle of the road" Gordon Smith is, with a press corps like this its no wonder its hard to convince people of the fact that Gordon Smith is little different than any other Republican. There are even little pieces in the article that demonstrate that Smith is in fact very Conservative, but the author merely brushes over them ignoring the implication. The article seems to make the claim that because every once in a while Gordon Smith breaks ranks with the Republican Party, he is therefore a moderate. But the rarity of Smith breaking ranks pretty much decimates the argument that Smith is a moderate. Furthermore, the article uses contrasting votes to demonstrate this when they don't demonstrate moderation at all, but rather a bad sense of public policy.

Additionally, Smith has been an adamant defender of Medicaid. The Pendleton millionaire whose high-end pin-striped suits earned him the "best dressed" senator award in a survey of congressional aides in Washingtonian magazine has earned praise nationally as an advocate for the poor.

Last year, amid escalating war costs and a growing federal deficit, Republican congressional leaders and the Bush administration planned massive cuts to Medicaid. Smith balked, leading a fight to reduce the cuts in the health care program.

Health care advocate Ron Pollack calls Smith "the most significant legislator" guarding the Medicaid safety net.

"Senator Smith has become the leading, and most effective, member in the Senate protecting low-income children, seniors and families needing health care," Pollack, executive director of national advocacy group Families USA, says in an e-mail.

But Smith also has supported tax cuts that opponents say help mainly the wealthy. For Chuck Sheketoff, an advocate for low-income Oregonians, Smith's positions are difficult to reconcile.

"He on the one hand very truly wants to protect Medicaid," says Sheketoff, executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. "I've sat in his office and talked with him. He's totally sincere about that. . . . On the other hand, it is unbelievably frustrating that he is so fiscally irresponsible when it comes to budget rules and budget process and taxes.

Supporting the tax cuts that put Medicaid in danger and then opposing cuts to medicaid is not moderate, it is just flatly stupid. Sheketoff is correct, that set of policy positions is not moderate, it is just fiscally irresponsible. If you're going to vote tax cuts for the insanely wealthy, sane public policy suggests that you should then support the spending cuts that go with it, otherwise you're just running up a massive deficit in order to give rich people a tax cut. Either way I think the policy is deplorable, but that demonstrates not moderation, but an attempt to have it both ways that simple cannot exist in good governance, Smith should either oppose the tax cuts or support the spending cuts that they cause.

The author goes on to claim that "the National Journal ranked Smith the most moderate member of the U.S. Senate [in 2005]." I can't find National Journal's rankings right now, but I'll take the claim at face value and disect it from there. The Republican Party has astounding Party loyalty, and the difference between the 10th most conservative Senator and the 50th most conservative Senator may not be very great. National Journal is not the only group that does in depth analysis of voting records. ProgressivePunch.org does this too. Progressive punch too finds Smith to be almost in the dead center of the body of the Senate ranking #52. But a closer look at the actual scores that Senator's recieve shows us that this is not a product of Gordon Smith being a moderate, but rather an astounding Party loyalty on the part of the Republicans. Progressive punch gives Smith a score of 14.8, meaning that Smith votes with the progressive wing of the Senate 14.8% of the time, or to put it the other way, he votes with the most conservative wing of the Senate 85.2% of the time. This is consistent with the author's own analysis of Smith's voting record, determing that:

Most Smith votes have toed the party line. Of about 200 votes this year that were not unanimous, Smith voted the same way as Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist 170 times.

170 of 200, that comes out to 85%, so the two approaches to analyzing Smith's voting record yielded nearly the exact same result. This separates Smith from the Senate's two most moderate members (proximity to a progressive score of 50) by 35, that same range which encompasses only 3 Republicans and 1 Democrat, can be equated to the +35 range over a progressive score of 50. While comparing Smith's voting record to Democrats with the inverse (Democrats who vote with the liberal wing 85% are the inverse of Republicans who vote with the conservative wing 85% as Smith does), we find that 20 Democrats fall within the same proximity to the middle point of the Senate as 3 Republicans So Joseph Biden of Delaware who ranks #25 in the Senate votes with the liberal wing the same amount of the time that Gordon Smith (who ranks 52 in the Senate) votes with the conservative wing. When one party has such astounding loyalty as the Republicans do, some members are made to appear far more moderate than they are, especially in studies like the National Journal's (I actually like National Journal in terms of methodology, they just don't show enough info) that don't show actual scoring only a comparison with the rest of the Senate.

In the most important cases, Smith has sided with the far right, he voted for the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, he voted for the confirmation of right wing ideologue, Anthony Scalia's mini-me, Samuel Alito, and the article points out a number of other votes he has cast with the far right fringe of America.

On several recent controversial issues, Smith voted with Republicans. For instance, he supported the constitutional amendment to prevent flag desecration. Smith says all rights -- including freedom of expression -- have limits.

"I promised our veterans I would vote for it," he says.

Smith, who campaigned in 2002 as an advocate of gay rights, also has supported a federal amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

Finally, I'll leave you with a nice gem quote at the end of the article showing Sen. Smith's general mindset demonstrating without a shadow of doubt that Smith is no moderate.

The senator quickly dismisses Democratic criticism of his votes.

"I've beaten them more than they've beaten me," he says. "The Democratic Party is not my constituency. These are people that believe in socialism. I don't."

That is a mindset that opposes any kind of pragmatism or compromise, it labels the opposition inaccurately in a way that sets them up as an ultimate evil to be opposed. If I were to adopt Mr. Smith's mindset I would call him a fascist to reciprocate, but I won't, because Smith's attitude does nothing for the country, and a reciprocation is just as bad as his initial remark.

Gordon Smith is not a moderate, he doesn't act like a moderate, he doesn't vote like a moderate. The Oregonian should stop running these kinds of fluff pieces that make incumbent Senator's nearly impossible to defeat. If the Oregonian is going to be fair they should run a feature on how moderate Ron Wyden is next week, after all, his progressive score is 88, only 3% more liberal than Smith is conservative. Smith can pretend to be a moderate all he wants, and he can run for reelection in 2008 that way if he wants, but he doesn't need any help from the press to spread his lie.

I'm slow

Sometimes you just get so mad about something that you can't even bring yourself to write about it. So, here are some thoughts on Bush's outrageous press conference on Monday in which he once again tied Iraq together with 9/11, then proceeded in the very next sentence to claim that he had never suggested a link.

...imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.

You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

The President was not even being subtle here in trying to equate Saddam Hussein's Iraq with the 9/11 attacks, and in response a reporter called him on it (a rare occassion).

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

Oops, Mr. Bush got caught so he had to backtrack. Iraq was involved in 9/11 until someone catches Mr. Bush spreading that lie, then Iraq wasn't, but they were still a threat to us and still tied to Al-Qaeda, also a lie. Bush is trying to toe a fine line here where he wants to tie Iraq into the "terrorist threat" while still not being accused of lying to the public about connections between Iraq and 9/11, it can't be done for the obvious reason that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

Where the White Women At?

Every August we seem to have the return of "Where the White Women At?" The quest in the SCLM to locate our nation's missing white women. This week, the return of the JonBenet Ramsey story. Don't get me wrong, its a horrible story, someone killing a mere child as is suspected, but lets be real. This kind of stuff happens all the time. If JonBenet had not been a rich white girl, and had instead been a poor inner city black girl, none of us would ever have heard of her. The most attention the story would have recieved would have been a local newspaper story, it certainly never would have become a favorite of network television and a nationwide story. Instead it is a story that is universally well known by the American public. And why? Because the media loves a missing rich white girl, and JonBenet Ramsey fit that profile.

Apparently I'm Pro Terror

With the British arrests last week and the response to Lamont's upset over Joementum, it is clear that the Bush Admninistration and the Republican Party have officially kicked off their 2006 midterm election campaign. The message? The Democrats will help the terrorists win. Not only that, but the terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again." Republicans have called Ned Lamont the "Al Qaeda candidate". It is clear that the Republicans hope to keep terrorism at the top of the public consciousness and once again falsely tie Iraq into it even though the claim that there was any relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda has been widely discredited. In one sense it's working. Terrorism has moved up 10 points in the last month in importance to the public.

This is a cynical attack, and a dishonest campaign strategy, but the American public fell for it in its more subtle forms in 2002 and 2004, hopefully now 5 years removed from 9/11 it won't play, and clearly the Republican Party feels the need to really lay it on, not even being subtle anymore. They are now directly tying the Democrats to terrorism and overtly suggesting that any opposition to the President on Iraq emboldens the terrorists. Clearly the public is less inclined to accept this than before, the Republicans saw no need to be quite this over the top in the past, hopefully the outright absurdity of the argument that the GOP is currently engaged in will shine through to the public so that this kind of fearmongering tactic will be soundly rejected in 2006.

New Quinnipiac Poll for Connecticut Senate

A new Qunnipiac University poll has been released showing Joe Lieberman leading Democrat Ned Lamont in the race for the Connecticut Senate. Lieberman, who decided to run as an independed after being rejected by Democratic primary voters has become the defacto Republican nominee, as Alan Schlesinger currently polls at only 4% Statewide, and Lieberman has an astounding 75% support amongst Republicans. Not only that, but as David Sirota points out, Lieberman has attacked other candidates necessary for the Democrats to gain control of the Senate, has been supported by President Bush and RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, and has the glowing endorsements of Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter, and Michelle Malkin.

Furthermore, Lieberman has hired a Republican pollster and will share information with Republicans running for reelection as Governor as well as in the House of Representatives. Three House races in Connecticut could prove key to the Democrats winning back the House of Representatives, yet Lieberman will be sharing polling data with them as well as running his get out the vote operation with them. There can be little doubt now that Lieberman is for all practical purposes the GOP candidate, he is harming Democrats downticked and in other States, getting his base of support from Republicans, and doing as much as he can to prevent the Democrats from taking back one or both houses of Congress.

Webb Within Striking Distance of Allen

Allen's latest demonstration of his bigoted racist attitude appears to be giving a boost to the Webb campaign. A recent Survey USA poll has Allen taking a modest beating for the remark with 67% saying it was innapropriate, and a near 50/50 split saying the comment was racist. Furthermore, a majority thought Allen's pitiful apology was inadequate. Allen's approval rating in this poll has dropped from 51% to 47%. A new Rasmussen poll yet to be released allegedly has Webb only 5% behind Allen now. Since the poll hasn't even been released yet, I obviously don't have the internals, but the timing of the poll makes me think that Webb is probably picking up ground as an aftershock of Allen's "macaca" comment.

Federal District Judge Throws Out Warrantless Wiretapping

What a thought, that the Bush Administration might have to abide by the rule of law. I know that seems to be far beyond the comprehension of Administration insiders. Good to see this, the program was pretty blatantly illegal and the closest thing to a check on the executive lately has been Arlen Specter trying to pass a bill to make what they're already doing legal.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

''Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution,'' Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.
...
''By holding that even the president is not above the law, the court has done its duty,'' said Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

The NSA had no immediate comment on the ruling.

Taylor dismissed a separate claim by the ACLU over data-mining of phone records by the NSA. She said not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to support the claim and further litigation could jeopardize state secrets.

Line of the Day

From the DailyKos Cheers and Jeers Feature:

I can't believe I have to say this:

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BELTWAY DEMOCRATS: Support your party's nominee in the Connecticut Senate race!

BELTWAY REPUBLICANS: Support your party's nominee in the Connecticut Senate race!

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Or you get no cookies and nappy time. Sheesh.

Carter on a Roll

Jack Carter won the Democratic Primary today, but that's not why he's on a roll, since his primary victory was a given. Carter is on a roll because he's received a lot of attention in the past week. The New York Times ran a story on him yesterday, winning the primary has given Carter much media attention today, National Public Radio ran a story on Carter yesterday, and he appeared on Hardball with Chris Mathews today. This increased media attention is going to provide a big boost to Carter in name recognition that could put the Nevada race into serious contention. Carter has surged in recent polls, one poll conducted by Rasmussen has Carter only 7% down, others have a wider gap, but this race can definately be in play, and the increase in attention will only help Carter to catch Ensign. There are few people taking the Carter-Ensign race seriously, but this is a prime seat for the Democrats to pick up and could be the 51st seat needed for a majority.

George Allen: Racist Southern Senator

Senator George Allen's comment the other day at a campaign rally calling a Webb volunteer who had been attending Allen's campaign stops with a video camera to document the happenings of the Allen campaign for the Webb campaign "macaca". This took some time to pick up steam partly because very few people, myself included had any understanding of the word "macaca". An excellent diary at DailyKos provides us with the answer, it is white power, racist code speak.

Yesterday, when the news broke that George Allen called someone at a campaign stop a 'macaca,' I did some Google searches to find out what it meant.  As it turns out, the question is not if 'macaca' is a racist term, but which of the three definitions of the word 'macaca' did George Allen intend when he used it?

Here are the three choices:

1. 'Macaca' - French : racist slang; similar to English 'nigger,' used to describe Arabs.

2. 'Macaca' - English : racist slang; similar to 'nigger' used to describe Arabs.

3. 'Macaca' - English : racist slang; used by American white supremacists in 'insider' talk about African-Americans.

The volunteer, S.R. Sidarth, is of Indian descent, so the racist nature of the word is clearly applicable. The Allen campaign has insisted that Allen intended to say "mohawk" because that is what the campaign referred to the volunteer as based on his hair style. Atrios found a picture of Mr. Sidarth, and he clearly does not have a mohawk.

To top things off, in a terrible article by the New York Times completely missing the racist nature of Allen's remark, the following came out from Larry Sabato, Political Science Professor at the University of Virginia.

Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said today that Mr. Allen was strong enough in Virginia that the verbal gaffe would probably not keep him from being elected to a second term in the Senate.

But should Mr. Allen run for president, the word “macaca” will hurt him, “not only because it is offensive on its face but also because it fits into a long pattern of insensitivity by Allen on racial and ethnic matters,” Mr. Sabato said.

The article goes on to explain that Allen and Sabato went to school together and both served in student government. Allen isn't the only racist Republican Senator running for reelection this year, we've also got Trent Lott who famously praised Strom Thurmond's racist campaign for President in 1948, and Conrad Burns in Montana.

Back in 1994, while campaigning for a second term, Senator Burns dropped by a local newspaper, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and told an editor an anecdote about one of his constituents, a rancher who wanted to know what life was like in Washington.

Mr. Burns said the rancher asked him, ''Conrad, how can you live back there with all those niggers?''

Senator Burns said he told the rancher it was ''a hell of a challenge.''

The anecdote was published, and Senator Burns apologized. When he was asked why he hadn't expressed any disapproval when the rancher used the word nigger, the senator said: ''I don't know. I never gave it much thought.''

Maybe he didn't express any disapproval because he didn't particularly disapprove. On another occasion Senator Burns had to apologize after giving a speech in Billings about America's dependence on foreign sources of oil. In the speech, he referred to Arabs as ''ragheads.''

''I regret the use of such an inappropriate term,'' he said. ''I hope I did not overshadow the serious substance of my remarks.''
...
It has always been this way with Conrad Burns. Back in 1991, immediately after a civil rights bill had been passed, he invited a group of lobbyists, some of them white and some of them black, to accompany him to an auction.

When asked what was being auctioned, he replied, ''Slaves.''

The Washington Post quoted one of the lobbyists as saying: ''We were floored. We couldn't believe it.'' Senator Burns later said he was talking about a charitable auction in which the services of individuals are sold.

Voters in Montana and Virginia have a unique opportunity this November to boot out these racist jerks, Tester and Webb are first class candidates who would represent their State in a much more positive way. Voters have a choice this November between the hate mongers who want voters to fear the gays, the illegals, the foreigners, and the blacks, and candidates who have a real serious program to make this country a better place.

I'm Worried

Everything appears to be looking up for Democrats looking at the 2006 midterm elections. Recent generic congressional ballot polling has the Democrats with anywhere from a 12-18 point edge over Republicans depending on the poll. Egged on by poor fundraising numbers, the GOP has made the ID-01 contest between right wing lunatic Bill Sali and Democrat Larry Grant one of their targeted races, not to pick up, just to hold. Given the general state of Democrats in IDaho that race should not be competitive, yet it might be and Republicans are afraid of it becoming so.

Its easy to count to a 50-50 split in the Senate, its reasonable to suggest that Ford or Carter could be the 51st Democrat for a majority. Larry Sabato's recent list of swing races that the election could turn on requires less than half to be won by Democrats in order to take the House. Now DailyKos runs a story today about how the WA-05 could be in play, this was Tom Foley's old District, so it shouldn't be a stretch for the Democrats to win it, but in recent years it has trended strongly Republican, and for it to be in play is very bad news for the GOP.

I'm loving all the good news, and am very optimistic about the November elections, but in a way there is too much good news. It seems too good to be true, and things that are too good to be true usually just aren't true, and that has me worried.

They Took Our Jobs!

No, no they didn't.

High levels of immigration in the past 15 years do not appear to have hurt employment opportunities for American workers, according to a new report.

The Pew Hispanic Center analyzed immigration state by state using U.S. Census data, evaluating it against unemployment levels. No clear correlation between the two could be found.

Other factors, such as economic growth, have likely played a larger role in influencing the American job market, said Rakesh Kochhar, principal author of the report and an economist at the Pew Hispanic Center in the District.

"We are simply looking for a pattern across 50 states, and we did not find one," Kochhar said. "We cannot say with certainty that growth in the foreign population has hurt or helped American jobs."

Immigration policy is a central issue in this fall's congressional elections. The report's findings appear to refute the idea -- often voiced by supporters of stricter immigration laws -- that foreign workers depress wages and take jobs from American workers, especially those with less education and fewer skills.

In the 10 states with the top employment rates from 2000 to 2004, for example, five states showed a high influx of immigrants while the other five showed little growth in the foreign-born population. "Even in relatively slow economic times, a relationship fails to reveal itself," Kochhar said.

Gotta love the Pew Hispanic Center, they do some really great stuff. It seems the job situation has so little to do with immigration that the general economic tide of the moment completely overshadows the effect of immigration on the job market.

Hopeless

Going through the right wing Spokeman Review (Spokane WA) editorial page, I bumped into yet another outrageous, misleading collumn by Thomas Sowell. This right winger at the Hoover Institute loves to distort and pull evidence completely out of context to make his case. Today, Sowell claims that increasing the minimum wage causes job losses. Its become apparent in recent years that this analysis of the situation is not evidently true, as a recent Bloomberg article points out:

it's an ``intellectual puzzle'' why a boost in the minimum wage wouldn't lead to wider unemployment, because the economic laws of supply and demand dictate that it should.

Explanations include cost savings from reduced job turnover, increased productivity as a result of better worker morale and the attraction of higher-quality employees through higher wages, Blinder says.

Labor is different than a product because as you pay higher wages and better benefits, employees are more likely to put forth effort. So as wages increase productivity would increase, more than making up for the wage gap. But Sowell says otherwise, and claims that there is a widespread consensus amongst economists that increasing the minimum wage does cause job losses.

A survey has shown that 85 percent of the economists in Canada and 90 percent of the economists in the United States say that minimum wage laws reduce employment. But you don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know that jacking up prices leads fewer people to buy. Those people include employers, who hire less labor when labor is made artificially more expensive.

90% eh? That's pretty compelling I guess. But wait! When was this study? Doesn't the "expert" consensus change as times change? After all, there was a time when scientists legitimately doubted whether global warming was human caused, but now there is a clear consensus that it is. The Bloomberg article thankfully cites the same study to answer my question.

This view once was widespread. A 1978 American Economic Review survey found that 90 percent of economists said the minimum wage boosted unemployment among low-skilled workers.

1978!? Wow Sowell, methinks you're not telling your readers that it was a 1978 study for a reason. Someone is hiding obvious facts in order to shape their argument. At least be honest enough to give your readers a date instead of leading them to believe it was a recent study.

Sowell's dishonesty continues as he argues the job situation was great in the 1940s when the minimum wage was outstripped by inflation.

The hard facts say otherwise. Back in the 1940s, there was no less racism than today and black teenagers had no more education than today, but their unemployment rate was a fraction of what it is now -- and was no different from that of white teenagers.

What was different back then? Although there was a minimum wage law on the books, the inflation of that era had raised wage rates well above the specified minimum, which had remained unchanged for years.

For all practical purposes, there was no minimum wage law. Only after the minimum wage began to be raised, beginning in 1950, and escalating repeatedly in the years thereafter, did black teenage unemployment skyrocket.

Gee, did it ever cross your mind Mr. Sowell, that perhaps there might have been something happening in the 1940s outside of minimum wage rates that would lead to high employment rates? Oh yeah! There was a war going on wasn't there? Nothing big, just a little World War with wartime production. Could it be that the large number of people going off to war as well as a needed increase in production might have caused higher employment? What a thought! Sowell, I know this is no different than anything else you've ever written, but this was a dishonest junk collumn. As a closing remark I leave you with the result of the 1997 minimum wage increase

Some economists say the 1997 increase had no impact on job growth.

``We saw no ripple effect at all in the unemployment rate,'' Stiglitz says. ``Unemployment just continued to go down.'' The minimum wage increase, he said, ``was totally swamped by other factors going on in the economy.'

Lieberman is a Ridiculous Self-Serving Prick

Joe Lieberman filed to run as an Independent candidate in Connecticut's Senate race today after losing the primary to Ned Lamont yesterday. As a long time Democrat, Lieberman should have more respect for the wishes of his party's voters in Connecticut, instead he risks preventing the Democrats from holding onto his seat by running as an independent.

The best coverage in the mainstream media that I have seen of the Lieberman-Lamont result last night came from the Diane Rehm show this morning which talked about the race as being about Lieberman's consistent record as an apologist for Bush, about how the Lamont campaign got rolling with the help of grassroots blogs, but was not a "blog anti-war" campaign, they rightly pointed out that Lamont would have gone no where if there was not already a lot of frustration with Lieberman. The rest of the media seemed intent upon discussing the race as a "moderates are being kicked out of the Democratic Party" dynamic, or as a blog insurgency dynamic, which would make one wonder how Lamont managed to get enough votes to win if it was just the blogs. This race was, as Rahm Emmanuel has pointed out, about what happens in 2006 when you're a Bush apologist.

Lieberman's Democratic colleagues need to make it very clear that he should respect the will of Connecticut's primary voters. Kos argued yesterday that he should be stripped of his committee assignments if he runs as an independent. That seems a little extreme to me, it should be made clear to Lieberman that the Party will not support him as an independent, but he should not be shunned too much because in the off chance that he wins we shouldn't alienate him so much that he caucuses with the Republicans.

In other news, Ed Perlmutter won the primary for the CO-07, and Cinthia McKinney lost her primary in the GA-04.

Lamont Wins Connecticut Primary

Lamont leads with nearly 96% of the votes counted. Looks safe to call the Connecticut Senate Democratic Primary for Ned Lamont. Congratulations and thank you for having the guts to boot Leiberman.

U.S. Senate - - Dem Primary
706 of 748 Precincts Reporting - 94.39%
Name Votes Pct
Lamont 138,836 51.92
Lieberman 128,566 48.08

A Few Points

1-Early reports that I placed in my blog about the ruling by Mexico's electoral tribunal were incorrect. About 10% of the precincts, those with particular evidence that fraud may have taken place will be recounted. The early reports incorrectly stated that the tribunal refused to grant any recount.

2-Primary day. In Connecticut and Colorado we have important primaries, Connecticut's race between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman should prove to be the real race for Senate, as whoever wins the primary today should trounce their opponent/s in the general election in November. I know I'm rooting for Lamont here. In Colorado it is primary day for 7th Congressional District, I don't care who wins, but whoever wins will be running in an open race that is clearly one of the top pickup opportunities in the House for Democrats in November.

Bad News In Mexico

The New York Times reports that the Federal Electoral Court in Mexico has rejected candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's appeal for a full recount of the ballots. Unbelievably stupid decision. In a country where election fraud has a strong history every precaution should have been taken to ensure the legitimacy and accuracy of the result. The closeness of this race in and of itself should have been enough to recount the ballots. It is now a reasonable conjecture that the wrong man will serve as President, or if Calderon is the right man legitimately elected then his administration will always have that shadow of doubt hanging over it as to whether Calderon truly won. Lopez Obrador's supporters will likely take to the streets, and with good reason. This was a sad day for Mexico's emerging democracy. This is not about Calderon and Obrador, but about how the public views the legitimacy of its elections, and when it is this close, all possible precautions to ensure that legitimacy should be taken, and have not been.

Recent Changes to Cwech Dozen

I have just updated the Cwech Dozen due to some recent changes, I have added Jack Carter in Nevada due to a new poll showing him closing in on Republican incumbent John Ensign, and have added Darcy Burner in the WA-08 House race against Republican incumbent Dave Reichert due to Congressional Quarterly updating the status of the race to "leans Republican," the NYT election guide calls this race a "toss up" and the district itself looks like a prime pickup opportunity, the district was won by both Gore and Kerry, and elected Reichert by less than a 5% margin in 2004. That leaves one spot remaining on the Cwech Dozen, if you have any suggestions for who to fill it with please leave a comment. My only criteria are that it be a Democrat in a competitive race preferably for House or Senate, I don't choose sides in primaries either for the purposes of the list. Candidates web pages are linked on the side bar.

Promising Poll for Kulongoski

Blue Oregon alerted me to an Oregon AFL-CIO poll showing Kulongoski with huge leads over Republican Ron Saxton. Kulongoski leads head to head 42%-25%, and has significantly better favorability numbers than Saxton.

Republican Trickery

The minimum wage increase tacked onto the estate tax repeal turns out to not be a minimum wage increase at all, but rather a minimum wage cut for some employees in States like Oregon.

...progressives should be trumpeting that the bill will actually CUT wages for workers in a number of states by preempting state minimum wage laws for tipped workers. (Link and provision courtesy of the National Restaurant Association) So Paris Hilton's tax cut is going to be coming directly out of the lower wages for tipped workers in California and a number of others states.
...
The federal minimum wage is explicit that states and local governments are free to create higher minimum wage rates than the federal level for any and all groups of workers. While the federal minimum wage allows employers to pay a lower wage to tipped workers, a number of states have eliminated this so-called tip credit on the assumption that consumers pay tips not to subsidize low-wage employers but to actually reward service.

But the new House bill would preempt those state laws and actually cut wages for tipped workers in states like California, Oregon and Washington where tipped workers would see a lower minimum wage rate imposed compared to what they were guaranteed under state law.

This would be an unprecedented move by the federal government to preempt state minimum wage laws. Not only would it hurt tipped workers, it would set a precedent for conservatives to try to preempt all minimum wage rates higher than the federal level.

If that sounds too paranoid, consider this. after a number of cities began enacting city minimum wage laws, about a dozen southern and western states, including Florida, Louisiana and Georgia, passed legislation banning local governments from enforcing local minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage level. Backed by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, these "minimum wage repeal acts" are the model for the national GOP going further and preempting state minimum wage laws, just as they recently preempted state class action laws and just as they have preemped state health care and environmental regulation.

Progressives are actually winning a range of battles at the state level and conservatives are increasingly looking to use the federal government to shut those progressive state laws down. This new minimum wage cut for tipped workers is just one more shot in that attack.

Very tricky, it also turns out that this came straight out of the right wing lobby for the National Restaurant Association which routinely opposes all expansions of workers rights.

Yikes

Scary stuff in Seattle.

On the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, a 31-year-old man claiming he was upset about "what was going on in Israel" opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building, killing one person and wounding five women, one of them pregnant.
...
The gunman, brandishing a large-caliber semi-automatic pistol, forced his way through the security door at the federation, on Third Avenue downtown, after an employee had punched in her security code.

"He said, 'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a database coordinator for the center. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."

The other day I talked about the way opposition to Israeli policies has been twisted to where one can't express any kind of opposition without being labeled as "anti-Israel" and by extention anti-semetic. Lunatics like this guy help to keep that perception strong when they engage in acts of violence against unarmed civilians who have nothing to do with Israeli policy formation. At least they have arrested this nut.

Republicans Bring Back Estate Tax Repeal

House Republicans have brought back the estate tax repeal with a new catch to try to get a few more Democrats to vote for it. After the estate tax repeal failed in the Senate, House Republicans are now trying it again but this time adding in a minimum wage increase to con some Democrats into voting for it.

Democrats who oppose the estate tax repeal should have some patience. They can afford to shoot down this measure and bring a minimum wage increase to the floor on their own terms when they win the House back in November. This is just bait, and it should not be taken. I'm actually wondering if it will peel off as many Republican votes from members who oppose a minimum wage increase but support the estate tax repeal as it will Democrats who support a minimum wage increase but oppose the estate tax repeal.

On the Israel/Lebanon Crisis

The standard line of thought in the United States while discussing this situation has been the idea that Israel had to respond as they did because Lebanon was not properly containing Hezbollah. I take you back to April of last year, when Syria left Lebanon. This event was much praised in the United States, as it was taken (wrongly) as a sign that because we invaded Iraq the neo-conservative goal of spreading democracy through the middle east was working. No one seemed then to wonder whether the weak state of Lebanon would be able to control Hezbollah, but it was an obvious result, Lebanon lacked resources predictably after years of Syrian control of their country, if anyone had bothered to consider the situation it would have been a bright idea to lend support to Lebanon that would be necessary for them to crack down on Hezbollah militias in the south of their countries. But we sat there and praised the Syrian exit and talked about how wonderful it was that democracy was spreading instead of doing anything to ensure the stability of Lebanon.

Now in response to the kidnappings of several Israeli troops by Hezbollah Israel has decided to bomb the living crap out of Lebanon. Many of the strikes by Israel have been civilian targets, such as their fist one, the Beirut Airport. Foreign nationals have been hit by Israeli airstrikes, and all European countries as well as the United States and Canada have evacuated Lebanon. The casualties have overwhelmingly been in Lebanon, with Israel sustaining about 1/10 the number of casualties as Lebanon.

Israel and its defenders justify this by saying that Lebanon wasn't doing enough to crack down on Hezbollah. By doing so they conflate a sovereign country with a guerrilla force inside that country. Essentially this amounts to Israel bombing the crap out of the country of Lebanon, which serves as essentially a third party to the conflict as they take the brunt of Israeli strikes aimed at Hezbollah. All the while the United States refuses to get involved in any substantive way while we cheerlead the Israeli aggression.

And throughout it all, not a word in the mainstream discussion in the United States of what I have just stated. Not a word of opposition to what Israel is doing, as though speaking ill of Israel is tantamount to support for Hezbollah.

Democrats and Republicans alike seem to be lining up to see who can be more gung ho in support of everything Israel does. On Meet the Press, Newt Gingrich anounced that we were in the early stages of World War Three and his counterpart Joe Biden disagreed with the specific but was almost equally gung ho in his defense of everything Israel does. Olmert is making Sharon look like a pacifist and no one in the American press or political establishment is willing to offer so much as a word of criticism towards Israel. It even goes to the point where Israeli soldiers are not referred to as "soldiers" or "troops" but "defense forces" setting the frame of the debate completely arround the idea of Israel "defending itself" for the rest of the discussion.

This goes deeper than just a conflation of opposition to Israeli tactics with support for Hezbollah but goes down to conflating opposition to Israeli tactics with opposition to Israel itself. Once someone offers a word of criticism they immediately are labeled "anti-Israel" to the point where in order to offer criticism one almost has to begin the discussion with "I support Israel, but..." That should not have to be a prerequisite for criticizing Israel's policies, and for that reason I refuse to do it. It even goes beyond that, once one is labeled as "anti-Israel", that is in turn conflated with anti-semitism. So by the transitive property of politics, opposition to Israeli policies is treated as equal to anti-semitism. So I think Israel is pursuing a harmful policy, and suddenly I'm Hitler. That, my friends, is not a formula for honest open discourse, it creates an environment where everyone is afraid to criticize anything Israel does for fear of being labeled anti-semetic, and that is precisely what is happening right now.

John Edwards

There is an excellent diary at DailyKos about John Edwards, the essential argument is that Edwards has not been active lately because he doesn't have to be rather than because he's not energetic enough. Furthermore, the primary schedule favors Edwards, we know he can run well in Iowa after the recent poll showing him ahead, and South Carolina where he did well in 2004, and 25% of Nevada's voting population belongs to a union household. Very promising schedule for Edwards. I really like both Edwards and Feingold, the two of them are a cut above the rest of the potential candidates in 2008.

Too Depressing

The world's recent events have been so depressing that I periodically ceased to blog, I'll begin to write here again after having contemplated the state of the world privately since my last post. What a mess our world is in right now.

Specter: A sheep in wolf's clothing

Arlen Specter pretends to defend congressional oversight in regards to Bush's illegal domestic spying program, but all he really does is fold over for exactly what the Bush Administration wants. The fact of the matter is that the Specter deal (which wont pass Congress unchanged since nothing does), would make FISA totally obsolete and remove any requirements of oversight, why anyone would think this a reasonable "compromise" particularly with an administration that has blatantly broken the law, is beyond me.

Gonzales said the bill gives Bush the option of submitting the NSA program to the intelligence court, rather than requiring the review.

An administration official said Bush will submit to the review as long the bill is not changed in ways that he sees as undermining security. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deliberations are internal, said the bill would preserve the right of future presidents to skip that court review.

Give me a break, we go from required review of each case of wiretapping to optional review of the whole program? That's suddenly an adequate check on the executive branch? Give me a break, if anything the actions of the Bush Administration have warranted more, stricter review, not less review that is optional anyway. We've got an Administration that has blatantly violated FISA, and now we're going to react by changing the law to let them do anything they want? Quite frankly the disclosure of the Domestic Spying program by the New York Times in December should have lead to impeachment hearings, instead they seem to be leading to a total Congressional cave in to let the President do anything he damn well pleases.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, said Bush could submit the program to the court right now, if he wished. He called the potential legislation "an interesting bargain."

"He's saying, if you do every single thing I tell you to do, I'll do what I should have done anyway," Leahy said.

This is disgusting, and because of this Specter should be forever remembered as a Bush Adminstration lapdog.

Israel Bombs Lebanon

Wverything is going to hell in a handbasket.

Early this morning, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, shutting the airport and potentially stranding thousands of visitors at the peak of the tourism season. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying that the airport was a target because Hezbollah receives weapons shipments there. Israel also announced that its navy would blockade Lebanon’s ports to cut off such shipments.

augh.

Mexico: Irregularities

The Guardian reports that a huge number of ballots were officially recorded as having been left blank.

As we found in Florida in 2000, my investigations team on the ground in Mexico City this week found voters in poor neighbourhoods, the left's turf, complaining that their names were "disappeared" from the voter rolls. ChoicePoint can't know what use the Bush crew makes of its lists. But erased registrations require us to ask, before this vote is certified, was there a purge as there was in Florida?

Notably, ruling party operatives carried registration lists normally in the hands of elections officials only. (In Venezuela in 2004, during the special election to recall President Hugo Chavez, I saw his opponents consulting laptops with voter lists. Were these the purloined FBI files? The Chavez government suspects so but, victorious, won't press the case.)

There's more that the Mexico vote has in common with Florida besides the heat. The ruling party's hand-picked electoral commission counted a mere 402,000 votes more for their candidate, Felipe Calderón, over challenger Andrés Manuel López Obrador. That's noteworthy in light of the surprise showing of candidate Señor Blank-o (the 827,000 ballots supposedly left "blank").

The margin of the election was slighly over 200,000 votes, with 827,000 blank, if the packets were reopened for a hand recount, assuming that the 827,000 were not actually blank (why would someone bother submitting a ballot if they weren't going to fill it out?*), Obrador would need to win by roughly 500,000 to 300,000 in order to essentially tie up the race assuming that nothing else changed after the packets were re-opened. The irregularities may be nothing more than simple mechanical errors which happen, but there is sufficient reason to believe that the result might change with the votes recounted by hand.

*All offices were separated and on different ballots, the ballots were not like US ballots in which one votes for President, Senate, House... on a different line on the same ballot, they were actually different ballots. Furthermore we already know that in some areas in the South more votes were recorded for lesser offices than for the Presidency suggesting that either votes were thrown out in these areas, not counted, or counted as "blank" ballots.

**I don't know why the Guardian reports the margin as 400,000, this is just not true, the margin was about 240,000 votes. Perhaps they got their information before the 500,000 ballots not counted until Wednesday were counted which dropped Calderon's lead from slightly over 1% to 0.64%, then the retabulation dropped Calderon's lead to 0.59%, so the Guardian must have had old information regarding Calderon's margin, with the margin less than they think, their case is even stronger.

Graham Fears for Republican Future

Robert Novak looked to fiercely conservative South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham for an analysis of Republican hopes in 2006 and beyond. The argument is that things look pretty bleak for the Republicans yet few in the Party seem to recognize it.

"It's like we think we'll get by with pars on the last two holes when we really need birdies," Graham told me. He referred to the 2006 mid-term election, where he sees a real danger of Republicans losing control of both houses in Congress for the first time since the 1992 elections. Such foreboding reflects Graham's fear that demographic changes in America will extend beyond this year's elections and return the Republican Party to minority status.

Graham's remedy to avert short-term and long-term disaster stresses Republicans returning to fiscal integrity by seriously cutting spending -- a goal to which his GOP colleagues give lip service. He also advocates policies on entitlements, the environment and immigration that he feels are necessary for the party's health but find little GOP support on Capitol Hill and only mixed backing at the White House.

It is not merely lack of enthusiasm for Graham's agenda. Since talking to the senator, I have tested his theories with a dozen prominent Republicans. All feel the tide has turned for them in the last month. Each of them says the American voter will stick with the Republicans after taking a good look at Democrats, a mind-set that often is a precursor of defeat. To follow Graham's metaphor, perhaps they are not reading the real leader board of American politics.

The Republican Party has followed the wishes of the Religious Right and corporate America so closely in recent years that moving where Graham seems to suggest is nearly impossible in the short term, which may be why he has been met with such hostility on these ideas. I think there is an essential rightness to the argument here, that in order to remain competitive in the future the Republican Party must become more Burkian and be a Party primarily of fiscal restraint. As to the environment, that is something that the GOP should be getting behind outside of any possible electoral gains just because something has to be done about fundamental issues like global warming in which strong action must be taken immediately. I don't know if there is an electoral gain for Republicans to start taking those issues seriously, but there is a social necessity to do something that Republicans should back just on its merits alone. But they have tied themselves to closely to large corporations that they cannot bring themselves to help do what must be done and instead deny that global warming is a problem, or even exist and do so at great expense to America and the world. As much as I personally dislike Graham, he understands something fundamental that most of the Republicans simply do not get. America is changing and in the long term the Republicans will be left behind if they don't change their course.

The rising Hispanic-American population not only has transformed California into a Democratic state; freshman Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar looks like the new political face of Colorado, and Arizona is no longer safe for Kyl conservatives.

These demographic changes suggest an end to the gradual political realignment that began in the late '60s and produced consistent electoral success for Republicans. As a South Carolinian, Graham must worry about his party suffering the fate of Democrats in the 1920s. Democrats elected only 20 House members and won no presidential electoral votes outside southern and border states in 1920.

Accordingly, Graham is one conservative Republican who supports President Bush on immigration. He and Bush advisers agree that the immigration hard line may alienate the Hispanic vote with disastrous consequences. But Graham has little backing at the White House for a softened party line on global warming and entitlement reform that includes greater contributions by upper-income Americans.

The xenophobic approach that the Republican Party has taken to immigration will indeed alienate hispanic voters. Census data suggest that hispanics will be the major force in American politics in the coming years as that demographic sees dramatic population growth.

I have argued that hispanics are a fundamentally liberal group by and large, indicated by the rise of the political left throughout Latin America, and Obrador's apparent near win recently in Mexico in spite of some disasterous strategic mistakes by the Obrador campaign that evaporated his lead (not participating in the first debate comes to mind). Recently some inroads have been made by Republicans to cut off hispanic support for Democrats, but those inroads will be lost by the Party that has essentially declared war on immigrants from the South.

Republicans are not the only ones misreading the political landscape however, Democrats are equally oblivious. One popular argument has been that Democrats need a Southern strategy to bite into the "values vote" that dominates the South. But population gains accross the South will come largely from increasing hispanic and black populations which we know to vote heavily Democratic, so the political culture of Georgia or Tennessee or Alabama will be fundamentally different than it is today. Furthermore the region making real gains in population is the Southwest and West where climbs in the hispanic population will be very dramatic. Democrats should be concerned with returning Texas to competitiveness as well as making Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada strong Democrat territory. The West Wing explored this theme showing that a Democrat could win even today before population shifts by sweeping the Southwest. Of course West Wing is fictional, but Santos didn't even have to win California, and the States mentioned above are definately trending Democratic, if Texas becomes competitive once more on the backs of an energized progressive hispanic population the American demographic will look inhospitable for the current Republican Party in 20 years.

For this reason the Democrats should make fighting the xenophobic immigration plans of the Republican Party a top priority, for it enhances this western strategy and sends the clear signal that the Republicans have nothing to offer hispanic voters, but Democrats do.

Federal Judge Says Republicans Cannot Replace DeLay

A Federal Judge has ruled that Tom DeLay is the only person who can run for the TX-22 Congressional seat as the Republican nominee in November. If this stands it is a huge blow to the Republicans forcing them to either essentially concede the seat to Lampson or have DeLay run for an office that he has already resigned from. If this stands Lampson's chances of pulling out a win just got a lot better.

My apologies if this is old news, I just found it a moment ago.

Mexico: Its Getting Ugly

In a sense I think there is some promise to the street marches that have begun over the past few days in that they could help to force a recount of the votes, which should be seen as essential to any election as close as this one is. However, if Lopez Obrador and his supporters do not accept the result of the election after a recount as has been suggested they wont (assuming there is one and that it is open and fair), then the civil unrest they will cause would be far worse than the results of a Calderon Presidency.

It was a bad year for the PRI which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years, as the news cycle this year consistently burned that party, they lost support in Oaxaca thanks to a heavy handed response to striking teachers, new evidence emerged that they had assassinated political opponents in the 1960s. The PRI could recover, overcoming its history of corruption and authoritarian tactics to become a respectable centrist party. But if they do not, the PRD has many votes still to gain from former PRI voters. The PRD should continue to build up its support running strong candidates for all offices over the next 6 years and running another strong candidate again in 6 years, perhaps even Obrador again. Obrador lost this election by refusing to participate in the first debate, which allowed the "Obrador will wreck the economy" frame to dominate the public discussion, it was a huge tactical error. In spite of the loss that Obrador has likely endured, this election was a victory for the political left in Mexico, the PRD gained legislative seats and is a legitimate opposition party, potentially even a majority party if they can align themselves with the PRI (which they were once part of) in the legislature. The fact that we were seriously talking about a legitimately liberal President in Mexico is a huge step forward, if the PRD continues to build in this way I have nothing but hope for Mexico's future, for this was a victory of political legitimacy for Mexico's poor overshadowed in her history only by the Revolution.

Calderon Wins Recount

With 99.52% of the votes recounted Calderon leads by 0.45% over Lopez Obrador, a margin of 150,000 votes. Obrador has anounced his intention to challenge the results in court. There certainly were some irregularities in this election, reports of ballot boxes being thrown out, as well as polling stations not having enough ballots for people who wanted to vote. I have heard nothing of any other ballots that remain uncounted, unless there are uncounted ballots to go back and add to the count the only place Obrador's challenges could go would be for a hand recount of each individual ballot, but that evidently would violate Mexican law.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, head of the Federal Electoral Institute, which is tabulating the results, said Wednesday that he was unsure how long the count would take. The process is complicatedby a law that allows for the contents of the vote packets to be opened only if the tally sheets, or the packages, appear to have been tampered with or damaged. Such packets are then sliced open and a vote-by-vote count is conducted.

Obrador Leads in Recount

In the recount of votes Lopez Obrador currently leads 35.95% to 35.26% with 94.32% of the ballots counted. Other good places to get updates, El Universal, La Reforma, and La Jornada.

More on Mexico

Something very significant has happened in this election, regardless of who comes out the winner in this affair after the recount. The PRI is officially an opposition 3rd Party, they won fewer seats than either the PAN or the PRD in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, and their candidate for President Roberto Madrazo did not win a single State. Something unheard of in Mexican politics over the last 76 years.

Meanwhile, Roberto Madrazo, the PRI candidate, did not win in a single state, garnering 21 percent of the vote, according to the unofficial returns. Mr. Madrazo's performance marked a new low for the party that once ruled Mexico with only token opposition until Mr. Fox's historic victory in 2000.

Even the PRI stronghold of Oaxaca went for Obrador, as the NPR report I referenced two days ago suggested would happen. A very clear regional breakdown on that vote, the Northern States all went for Calderon, and the Southern States all went for Obrador, this is clearly a regional divide between Northern Mexicans and Southern Mexicans choosing radically different directions for their Country.

Mexico Election Update

With Almost all votes in Obrador still trails by just barely over 1%. I'm not sure what's next, I'm guessing that they're going to recount them given that the IFE has stated that they will not declare a winner until Wednesday.

Gap Still Shrinking

Obrador still playing catch up, now down by less than 1%. 75% of votes have been counted, the current numbers:

Calderon-37.12%
Obrador-36.23%
Madrazo-19.93%

Obrador Gaining

A new update from Univision has Obrador gaining ground now with 61.5% of votes counted. Obrador now trails by only 1.4%, a tight tally seems to be tightening even more. The totals:

Calderon-37.5%
Obrador-36.1%
Madrazo-19.5%

I should reiterate that no official result is expected until Wednesday. Go Obrador!

Obrador Down with 1/2 of Votes Counted

The Mexican Presidential election is officially too close to call. Univision reports the following results:

Calderon-37.9%
Obrador-35.8%
Madrazo-19.4%
46% reporting

Election Day in Mexico

It is election day in Mexico, I'm currently lacking information, I will post here as information becomes available. Here's all I've got right now.

Each one of these sites can only have 500 ballots. One analyst commented that at 8:00 am he tried to go an vote and there was already a line of approximatly 500 people. I was at the Federal Electoral Institute this morning and the representative of the PAN at the IFE German Martinez commmented that even at the special ballot site at the IFE they were having problems... In Guerrero a PRD rep was killed, however, it is being reported that the murder was not associated with the elections. In Oaxaca, striking teachers took over a police station where ballots were being kept... Anyway.. Generally speaking it has been a peaceful election day in Mexico

Oaxaca Could Become Key Battleground Tomorrow

With the Presidential election tomorrow in Mexico, the race currently polling at a dead heat could turn on the State of Oaxaca, a traditional Institutional Revolutionary Party stronghold. NPR this morning discussed how a recent action by police in that State in response to a teachers protest could swing it towards the Democratic Revolutionary Party and play a key role in the election tomorrow.

Police violently stormed the square on the orders of the Governor Luisias Ruiz using teargas and helicopters... dozens were wounded. Instead of disbanding the teachers ahead of the July 2nd election, the confrontation entrenched them more, and now they're calling for the Governor's resignation, loudly.

The story went on to explain that because of the confrontation people in Oaxaca will not support either the PRI or PAN, the two ruling parties and will instead turn towards the PRD and Mr. Obrador.

The teacher pay issue that sparked the protest has been an ongoing event for some time, when I was in Oaxaca in January I witnessed a protest on this very issue. The teachers swinging left towards Obrador could make a huge difference tomorrow. If you know any Mexicans tell them to vote for Obrador tomorrow, he's going to need all the help he can get.

Supreme Court Overturns Guantanamo Tribunals

In a 5-3 ruling today (5-4 for all practical purposes), the Supreme Court threw out the Bush Administration's Guantanamo "trials" ruling that they violated the Geneva Convention as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This ruling provided the first hard evidence of Alito's tendencies to defer to executive power as I argued he would do when he was nominated. The Bush Administration really seems to view this as its top priority for Supreme Court nominees, they want people who will defer to the President's authority, as Bush believes (probably rightly) that his legacy resides with the success of his "war on terror." Marty Lederman at SCOTUSBlog has more.

the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. See my further discussion here.

This was a nice rebuke of the Bush Administration's claims of a completely open ended interpretation of executive power in wartime, as well as their claims of the Afghanistan war resolution as a completely open ended document for executive power. This was a big relief to see a rebuke of the Administration here, the claim they make to justify these outrages that the Afghanistan war resolution lets them do nearly anything they want is disturbing on several levels. Most importantly the fact that the "war on terror" that the Administration claims to be fighting will go on forever would, under their argument here as well as in Padilla and Hamdi, give the President nearly universal wartime powers as long as the President wants them. There is no traditional war against a traditional enemy at all, if we view the "war on terror" as a traditional war we will be fighting it forever, for terrorism can never be completely eradicated. Given the arguments the Administration has made about the Afghanistan war resolution, Barbara Lee's vote against it is starting to look awfully good. I suspect many more Senators and Representatives would have voted against it if they thought the Administration would use it the way they have.

Supreme Court to Review Bush Administration's Refusal to Regulate Carbon Emmissions

The Supreme Court has accepted an appeal in the case of Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency which challenges the Bush Administration's claim that they are not required to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. I don't know enough about the specifics of this case to discuss how the Court should rule, but it is a sorry day that we even have to debate this. Whether they are required to or not, the EPA should be working to curb carbon dioxide emmissions. This is the greatest environmental challenge of our day and the Bush Administration sits back and works for big oil instead of working for the American people. From a public policy perspective this approach by the Administration is irresponsible.

Washington Post Spouts Bullshit

Washington Post writers Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray show that they have no idea what they're talking about in an article about the House move to put off immigration until after the election.

House Republicans have long frowned upon the president's approach. In December, they passed a bill that would tighten border controls, clamp down on employers who hire undocumented workers, and declare illegal immigrants and those who assist them to be felons. Their position was solidified this month after Republican Brian Bilbray defeated Democrat Francine Busby by running against Bush's immigration plan in a hard-fought special election to replace imprisoned former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.).

There is absolutely no evidence in support of that statement, and actually some limited evidence that the opposite might be true. The fact is that the CA-50 in which Bilbray defeated Busby has a +14% Republican edge, to suggest that Bilbray won because of his hard line on immigration is patently absurd when as a Republican he won by only a 3% margin in a heavily Republican district. Furthermore, the independent running in the race who had the endorsement of the minutemen only won about 4% of the vote. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Bilbray won because of his conservative stance on immigration, while it might have actually hurt him considering that the race in the CA-50 should have been an easy win for Republican Brian Bilbray. The Washington Post should try doing a little bit of research before they write total bull shit and claim it to be fact.

Broder Hates Democracy

David Broder, defending Joe Lieberman in his collumn seems to suggest that long time Senators should not be held accountable to their party's voters in a primary. The essential fact of the matter is that Lieberman has run this campaign like a Republican and seems to have a disturbing willingness to flee the Party and run as an independent if he doesn't win. Furthermore, Broder ends his collumn defending perhaps Lieberman's most rediculous statement comparing Connecticut Primary voters to Jihadists. As if its so outrageous for issues to matter to voters. Just because Lieberman is an incumbent does not give him free reign to do anything without repurcussions from the voters. If Lieberman does not feel that he's a Democrat anymore he should leave the Party before the primary, he should not run as an independent in a fit that his message does not resonate with Connecticut primary voters.

"I know I'm taking a position that is not popular within the party," Lieberman said, "but that is a challenge for the party -- whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line. No successful political party has ever done that."

I just find that unbelievable, primary voters are jihadists according to their Senator, anyone who runs on that message doesn't deserve to win the primary.

Augh

End this, now, please, time to get out.

WASHINGTON - American deaths since the invasion of
Iraq have reached 2,500, marking a grim milestone in the wake of recent events that
President Bush hopes will reverse the war's unpopularity at home.

United Auto Workers Re-elect President

Ron Gettelfinger has been re-elected as President of the United Auto Workers. I don't know a whole lot about Gettelfinger, but I do know one thing. The UAW needs to change direction. They cannot continue to accept pay cuts and suffer layoffs as they have in recent years. They are declining in numbers and relevence, as the article points out:

All the union officers were elected by a voice vote, and there was no opposition to any of the nominations, despite the troubles have swept the industry during the past four years. In that time, the U.A.W. has lost roughly 78,000 members, falling to under 600,000, the lowest level since 1942.

The lowest level since 1942, amazing. The fate of our country will fall in line with the fate of labor, and the UAW is of particular importance. The break in labor last fall was an acknowledgement of this, things cannot continue to be done the same way. As for the United Auto Workers, they must move away from their tendency to pit themselves against environmentalists. The US auto industry is in decline and the only way to curb that will be for US auto manufacturers to be innovative as they once were. I'm sure if Henry Ford could return to this earth he would be shocked to find that we are still using the internal combustion engine (I stole that from somebody, but I don't remember who). The UAW should join hands with environmentalists to push for US car manufacturers to aggressively pursue energy efficient vehicles, beginning with hybrid technology and moving forward from there. It serves the best interest of all parties involved, environmentalists concerned with global warming, workers concerned with job and pay cuts, and the manufacturers who are seeing declining sales. This is perhaps the best possible example of an issue that would fall within Rousseau's "general will." Everybody's interests would be best served by a move towards energy efficient innovation by the US car companies. The UAW needs leadership that will push them in that direction using whatever tools necessary.

House Appropriations Committee Passes Minimum Wage Increase

The House Appropriations Committee voted Monday to add a minimum wage increase to an appropriations bill for labor and health programs. I don't see this passing ultimately, but its nice to see this move forward. I thank the 7 Republicans who broke ranks to tack this onto the bill. I predict that the Republican leadership won't let the bill go to the floor with the amendment, which would be an interesting hypocrisy for people who forced ANWR drilling onto the floor via appropriations bill. Hopefully this can set the stage for the passage of a similar minimum wage increase when the Democrats take control of the House in 2006, force Bush to veto it and expose the agenda of his party.

Dog Night

I was just watching ESPN and found out that its "dog night" in Detroit for the Tigers game. It was so funny I had to put it here. This brought to mind several questions. Do you have to buy an extra seat for your dog? If you do have to buy an extra seat for your dog how much does the "dog seat" cost? Is this Detroit's way to sell out the stadium, by selling a few thousand seats to dogs? If the dog runs out on the field, who gets ejected, the dog or the owner?

WaPo Summarizes the Candidates

The Washington Post summarized the candidates for Mexico's Presidency on the 9th. Patricia Mercado actually sounds pretty good, but I still stand strongly behind Obrador. When I was in Mexico in January I recall seeing several signs for Mercado, but knew nothing about her until now. I just hope she doesn't serve as Obrador's Nader. As an aside, this piece of the article struck me as interesting:

In 2000, Obrador became mayor of Mexico City. He won over the hearts of residents by providing cash subsidies to single mothers and the elderly and addressing horrendous traffic problems with elevated highways and an improved bus system. He left office in 2005 with an unprecedented 80 percent approval rating.

If Obrador improved the traffic flow in that City I would hate to see what it looked like before he became Mayor, that town has some major traffic problems.

Why Stop At Flag Burning?

The three items on the Republican Senate agenda this week were gay marriage, estate tax repeal, and flag burning. Two of these have now failed and we are waiting on the constitutional amendment to ban the burning of the American flag. Before the Senate votes on flag burning, Senator Frist should withdraw the constitutional amendment and rewrite it to make it more expansive and more in line with the conservative GOP agenda.

It is clear from Ann Coulter's outrageous comments recently, and from the Republicans rushing to defend her, that what they really want is for ordinary citizens to be stripped of the right to criticize their government. So Mr. Frist, I ask you, why would you stop so far short of what you really want? Particularly given how extraordinarily rare flag burnings are. Senator Frist, please, do not undershoot your goals, legislate to make America what your Party clearly wants America to be. I propose that the flag burning amendment be withdrawn so that a far better constitutional amendment can be brought to the floor. Why stop at flag burning? The Senate Republicans should instead go for what their party really wants and ban all speech except by public officials. For as Ms. Coulter and her supporters have argued: Why let the 9/11 victims make the case when Howard Dean can make it for them? Let's just get rid of speech by ordinary citizens, that way we can better weed out the rabble. The text of the amendment currently reads as follows:

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

But this can be much improved upon, Senator Frist should not stop there, when he can go so much further. The Amendment that the Senate should in fact be voting on would read like this.

The first article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Private Citizens in the United States shall speak only when spoken to.

With the extraordinary effort Republican partisons have gone to recently to defend Ann Coulter's outrageous statements, I fail to see why the Republican Party would sell itself short. Senator Frist should move to eliminate the pesky First Amendment immediately.

cross posted at dailykos

Zarqawi Killed

Al Zarqawi has been killed in a US Airstrike. Ultimately I believe this is meaningless in terms of what happens in Iraq, though not insignificant in public opionion related issues within the United States. The Iraqi insurgency has no top down organizational structure. The Iraqi insurgency doesn't even have a common goal. People are fond of comparing this war to Vietnam, and some of the parrallels are valid, but one thing in particular breaks down. In Vietnam it was easier to tell who the enemy was. This is because in Vietnam we were fighting the Vietcong who wanted South Vietnam to join communist North Vietnam, but in Iraq we are fighting 8 million different factions that all want something different. Some are Sunni separatists, some Shia fundamentalists, some Sunni fundamentalists, some former Baathists, and some foreign fundamentalists fighting their jihad for no secular purpose at all. Its such a hodgepodge of interests that we literally have no enemy in Iraq.

Whoa, Slow Down

Abe Kaul blogs like he's on crack.

Results Coming In

The special election in the CA-50th seems to be tightening as the night goes on, Busby currently trails 45.06% to 49.64% with 78% of precincts reporting. I don't think she can bridge the gap, though I hope I'm wrong when I wake up. An impressive run by Busby to do that well in a heavily Republican district and force the Republicans to spend $4 million to the Democrats $2 million in order to hold onto it. A fiercely Republican district, I will count the closeness of this race as a moral victory.

In other news, Jon Tester has defeated John Morrison for the Montana Democratic Party nomination to take on Sen. Conrad Burns in the November election. The nation's most unpopular Senator is in trouble. David Sirota has a great post on Tester.

Good Night and Good Luck.

Election Day

It is election day in the CA-50. I would expect a close race for the House seat left open by Duke Cunningham. Personally, unless there is very low Republican turnout (a definate possibility) I don't see Busby getting over the 46% she took in the primary.

I will now take this moment to criticize the fact that there is a special election at all. It is only a few months until the general election in November, and much of that time the House will be out of session. There was no reason for a special election here, whoever wins is going to have to be elected again after just a few months. Personally I think Arnold should have just appointed someone to fill the seat until the election, instead San Diego County has to spend a lot of money and resources on running this special election. The OH-02 special election was different, the winner of that election had most of a term to fill out, and thus it made sense. Here it really does not. I hope the best for Busby, but there shouldn't be a special election, it is a waste of time and resources.

On the Mexican Presidential Election

I am watching this election pretty closely, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Center-Left PRD in Mexico is currently running neck in neck with Felipe Calderon of the right wing PAN (Vincinte Fox's party). The Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico as a one party state for 70 years until Fox's election in 2000 seems to be completely out of the race. The New York Times ran an excellent article about the race and about Obrador in particular yesterday. Some exerpts from the article of particular interest to me.

As the Mexican historian Enrique Krauze has pointed out, López Obrador's emphasis on his loyalty to the poor connects him, in the mind of much of the Mexican general public, to "the core ideals of the Mexican Revolution." It is common at campaign rallies to see people holding placards with slogans like "López Obrador: For all Mexicans, but first for the humble" and "They will not rob us of our dreams."
...
"People say that I am promising too much. But we're talking about a society where 20 million people — 20 million! — live on $2 a day. So when, for example, I talk about giving food aid to the poor, I'm talking about 20 pesos each" — the equivalent of about $2. "And that money — those $2 — would double what these 20 million get and radically change their lives. What the people of Mexico need is not that much, you know."
...
Everything changed when Fox, the PAN candidate, won the 2000 elections and the PRI government of Ernesto Zedillo did not try to invalidate the results. But in the minds of many Mexicans, perhaps even a majority, this political transformation was not matched by economic progress. The middle class unquestionably expanded during Fox's term, and along with it grew rates of homeownership and, in certain regions of the country, disposable incomes. But in other parts of the country, the Nafta years were ones of falling incomes and rising joblessness. A result was mass emigration to the United States, enormous even by already-high past standards. "It's not a migration; it's an exodus" was the way one of López Obrador's aides described it. Or, as one Mexican writer put it to me, Fox did create 10 million jobs for Mexicans — unfortunately, they were all in the United States.

López Obrador emphasizes the emigration issue at virtually every campaign stop. Resentment at the treatment of Mexican migrants in the United States is at a fever pitch in Mexico, with practically every affront against illegal workers, real or imagined, getting huge coverage in the Mexican media; the recent pro-legalization rallies in the U.S. were treated with adulation. But López Obrador speaks of emigration as a tragedy for Mexico and as something Mexico needs to put a stop to out of its own national interest. Unlike many Mexican political figures, AMLO doesn't seem to expect the U.S. to continue to accept the current levels of immigration. Nor does he base his economic calculations on the $20 billion that emigrants to the U.S. send home each year, in the process helping to prop up the Mexican economy. And he says that addressing the question will be a priority for his administration.

"If I am elected," he told me, "I will propose a conference on migration with the United States. Building a wall is not a viable solution. The only thing that will work is creating jobs in Mexico. Fox was not able to maintain good relations with Washington. But I can't see any reason why I can't succeed in doing so."

Mexico has not had anyone like this ever, someone who really seeks to make life significantly better for poor Mexicans who have been forgotten about in a neoliberal tide. All through her history Mexican politics have been dominated by foreign business interests. There have been brief shifts away from this, obviously in the break from Spain, in the rise of Benito Juarez, and the Mexican Revolution, all represented an acknowledgement of the struggles of indigenous and southern Mexicans, but they were shortlived. Independence was followed by Santa Anna, Juarez was followed by the French occupation, and the Revolution was betrayed by the PRI. Obrador follows from the tradition of Hidaldo, of Juarez, and of Zapata, the tradition that fights for the poor and disenfranchised of Mexico.

Too many particularly in the south have been pushed aside by this neoliberal tide. In principle NAFTA can be good for Mexico, and where I had worried about the extent to which Obrador was against the treaty, this article kind of puts those fears to rest. He seems to acknowledge that NAFTA and globalization are a fact of life but wants to alter the trade policies so that poor rural farmers and workers are better protected. In terms of US Mexico relations, I really think that Obrador hits immigration issues on the head, its bad for Mexico to be losing some of its most motivated citizens to the United States. It is as I've said many times here before, an economic refugee crisis. It is a problem of human suffering, and people are going to continue to migrate to where the jobs lie, to Mexico City and to the United States until the basic problem of poverty that drives the situation is dealt with.

Great article on the race, not nearly as pro-Obrador as I am, but a very good summary of the election circumstances, go check it out. As a side note, I believe that Obrador's support is underrepresented in the polling, his support will come from rural and poor areas where pollsters will be unable to reach. Mexican polling has failed before, Fox trailed by 6% right before the election in 2000, and we all know what happened.

Gore Instists that he Will Not Run for President

In today's Washington Post, Al Gore explicitly states that he will not run for President.

"I can't imagine any circumstances in which I would become a candidate again. I've found other ways to serve. I'm enjoying them."
...
"I have no plans to be a candidate for president again," he said. "I don't expect to ever be a candidate for president again. I haven't made a so-called Sherman statement, because it just seems unnecessary, kind of odd to do that."

Its a shame, if he wanted it I think the Democratic nomination certainly, and the Presidency likely would be his for the taking in 2008. The remade Al Gore would be a compelling candidate far better than the cautious candidate we saw in 2000.

Pinning Down the Identity Gap

I believe I have found the cause of the identity gap. It would certainly need more study if I have. Check out the Diary at DailyKos.

The Republican Strategy in 2006

They have no record to run on, they have cheerleaded a disastrous war, the most visable public figure for their Party has a 30% approval rating, and they have failed to engage in any oversight of an administration that, as Blumenthal pointed out in yesterday's Salon, has shown a blatant disregard for the Constitution. So what are the Republicans going to do to avoid losing one or both Houses of Congress in November? Jack Cafferty hits it on the nose on CNN this morning. They are going to try to ride hatred, bigotry, and fear into the election.

This is pure politics. If has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gay marriage. It's blatant posturing by Republicans, who are increasingly desperate as the midterm elections approach. There's not a lot else to get people interested in voting on them, based on their record of the last five years.

But if you can appeal to the hatred, bigotry, or discrimination in some people, you might move them to the polls to vote against that big, bad gay married couple that one day might in down the street.

Its really no different than the strategy in 2002 and 2004, divide the country and push all public debate into a "us vs. them" mentality. In 2002 and 2004 it was easier for they could simply use 9/11 to do this. Now, with Republican leadership in foreign policy clearly out of touch, this tactic of division and seclusion has a greatly diminished chance of working for the Republicans in 2006. So they have returned to their favorite whipping boy in 2004, the gays, and added a new player to the mix. The "illegals". Expect the Republican theme in 2006 to be a constant harping of the need to be afraid of these two minority groups. Be afraid of the gays and the illegals.

The War Paradigm

Sidney Blumenthal has a good article over at Salon on the "war paradigm" adopted by the Bush Administration after the September 11th attacks. Not anything really new, but he clearly and concisely hits the mark on the way this Administration governs. One piece of information I was unaware of:

In the short run, Bush's defense of his war paradigm could precipitate three potential constitutional crises. In the first, freedom of the press would be at issue. On May 21, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the "possibility" that the New York Times would be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for publishing its Pulitzer Prize-winning article on the administration's warrantless domestic surveillance. "It can't be the case," he said, that the First Amendment "trumps" the "right" of the government "to go after criminal activity" -- and he then defined the Times' printing of its story as "criminal activity."

The 1917 Espionage Act? I was either unaware of Gonzalez making this argument or had forgotten all about it. That shows a truly unbeleivable disrespect of the first amendment and for openness in government. Very good article, go read it.

Spokesman Review Avoids Reality

Ironically on this day the Spokesman Review decides to run this fantasy article, the major news of the day would be this report. One wonders if Sowell and the Spokesman Review which chooses to pick up his article have been paying attention particularly in the past month when we've seen a major decline in the stock market, rising inflation, and now very low job returns. Is there any remaining doubt that the Spokesman Review clings to some FoxNewsesque idea of balance? Anyone who hopes to become informed by reading the paper should probably be avoiding the Spokesman at this point. When the Spokesman Review consistantly runs this kind of crap and then "balances" it with soft moderates like David Broder its seriousness as a paper is put into question.

Bush Tries to Reconcile House and Senate Immigration Bills

President Bush attempting to convince the House and Senate Republicans to reach a compromise over their competing immigration bills today spoke from the US Chamber of Commerce headquarters on the need for compromise.

At this point it strikes me that neither bill is good, the Senate bill is bad but not terrible and the House bill is outrageous. There is no reason that this issue needs to be dealt with at this exact moment. Democrats should withdraw their support and allow Republicans to feud over the xenophobe bill and the corporate friendly bill. If most Democrats withdraw their support from both bills I don't think there's any way that these can be reconciled, we can come back to the issue after the midterms or after the 2008 Presidential election. Until this is taken for what it is, an economic refugee crisis nothing good can come of it. What is needed is serious visa reform (which a guest worker program with a path to citizenship starts to do), a renegotiating of NAFTA, and a committment to helping Mexico improve her rural infrastructure. As long as we're talking about militarizing the border, eliminating due process for illegal immigrants, and building a giant fence nothing should be passed.