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Save Africa by Not Saving Africa

(Originally published by UWIRE at uwireforum.wordpress.com)

This month, I attended Acton University 2009 in Grand Rapids, MI. This summer, I will be working for the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, and attending Acton U. was my first assignment. For four days, nearly 400 participants from almost 50 countries came to this city to learn about natural law, economics, religious morality, and other essential elements of a free and virtuous society. The article below is based on a conversation I had with a Ghanaian student of international development during Acton U, and is the first of a three-part series of columns this week related to Acton U.

An addiction is denying an entire continent the ability to escape the worst conditions of poverty on Earth. Governments use it as an excuse to maintain their corrupted regimes. It has torn the attention of voters and politicians in that continent away from developing their economies, even in times of such dire need. The worst thing about this addiction is that no amount of medicine or rehab can cure it.

Western foreign aid is killing Africans.

Click “Read More” to continue reading this article.

Sin, Responsibility, and the Fall of Bernie Madoff

(Originally published at the Acton PowerBlog: http://blog.acton.org)

“Only if there are new human beings will there be a new world, a renewed and better world.”

When the Pope said these words at Vespers on Sunday, perhaps he had Bernie Madoff in mind.

Today, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for defrauding his investors of nearly $65 billion over the course of 20 years. His corruption and crimes ruined the livelihoods of thousands of businesspeople, charity workers, and families that trusted his sterling reputation to protect everything that they had worked to earn.

Unfortunately, Madoff is not the only man to have betrayed his financial responsibilities to others. The last few years saw financial scandals at Enron and WorldCom shake the public’s trust in corporations. Just two weeks ago, Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford was arrested by the FBI on charges that he used a bank in Antigua to mask his $8 billion fraud, stealing from his investors.

Click “Read More” to continue this article.

Filibuster In July: Big Guests, Big Topics

In July, The Weekly Filibuster is heating things up with: big names, big shows, big topics, and the greatest panel in political talk radio! Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse “The Body” Ventura and former Congressman (R-GA) and 2008 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Bob Barr will join us. And as always, we’ll tackle the big stories of the week and take your calls!

Stay tuned for more details! We’ve got a few other surprises up our sleeve.

World Powers Give The Dollar A Run For Its Money

(Originally published as a letter to the editor in the Boston Globe on June 28, 2009)

BRAZIL, RUSSIA, India, and China might have been on to something when they considered dropping the American dollar as the basis for international currencies (“The world’s new power brokers,’’ Editorial, June 21). It was the inflation of the dollar during the Bush administration that lowered interest rates far beyond what the market would have allowed, meaning that far more mortgages and other loans were issued to people who wouldn’t normally be expected to be able to pay them back.

Click “Read More” below to continue reading!

WSJ “Letter To The Editor”: Forced Purchases of Health Care Will Crush Many

(Originally published in the Wall Street Journal June 25, 2009)

Sen. Ron Wyden’s plan to make every uninsured American buy health insurance makes about as much sense as would forcing every poverty-stricken and starving Haitian to buy food (“Wyden’s Third Way,” The Weekend Interview, June 20). Sure, having every American insure himself would save us all money from unneeded emergency room visits, but there are bigger things in the way of universal coverage than just imposing a legal mandate.

Requiring every American to buy health insurance would make millions of families change their economic priorities in ways that would lead to unfortunate consequences. Almost everyone believes that getting health insurance for themselves and their families is a high priority, but virtually no one thinks that insurance comes before food and housing. Even if the government passes the Healthy Americans Act or some other sort of mandate, and succeeds in making everyone buy insurance, the victory will be Pyrrhic. The needs that come before insurance for the 15% of Americans will still exist, but the money they use to meet these needs won’t.

Click “Read More” below to continue.

Did You Miss Our Last Show?

LISTEN TO WHAT YOU MISSED

What does Gov. Sanford’s affair mean for the 2012 GOP field? Does Charlie Crist stand a chance in the Florida Senate race? Is Michael Jackson’s death “dooming” the people of Iran? What does the newest climate change legislation include? Why did a GOP Rep. call it a “pile of s**t”? Is Tony Danza really the boss?

Did You Miss Ari Ne’eman?

Did you miss our roundtable with Ari Ne’eman, President of The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, about the politics of whether disability groups should be focusing on a cure or adaptability?

CLICK HERE TO CATCH THE SHOW!

This will be Ari’s second appearance on The Weekly Filibuster. He joined us on May 31st, 2009 to discuss his work and a recent profile in Newsweek magazine.

Did you catch Mike Gravel?

CLICK TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

Listen as we talk with Former U.S. Senator (D-Alaska; 1969-1981) and 2008 Democratic and Libertarian Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel, only days after returning from promoting his National Initiative (or direct democracy) proposal in South Korea.  We spoke with Gravel about his travels,Iranian elections,  the state of the nation and the Obama presidency thus far.

This was Senator Gravel’s third appearance on The Weekly Filibuster.  We last spoke with the Senator and The Huffington Post’s Joe Lauria about their book A Political Odyssey on July 13, 2008.  The Senator first appeared on April 13, 2008 to talk about his decision to leave the Democratic Party to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for President.

Give Letterman a break

Right wing opportunists have been going crazy this week over a few jokes by the newly re-crowned king of late night, David Letterman.  For his nightly “Top Ten list” on Tuesday, Letterman focused on the Alaska Governor’s recent trip to New York City.

Letterman controversially joked that Palin went to Bloomingdales to perfect her “slutty pilot look,” and joked that “one awkward moment [came] for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by [New York Yankees adulterer] Alex Rodriguez.”

Governor Palin and her husband Todd attacked Letterman, accusing him of making “perverted jokes” about their 14-year-old daughter Willow, who was traveling with Alaska’s first couple during their time in the Empire City.

Give me a break.

Click “Read More” below to continue reading this post.

Just Say No. Well… Kind Of

Californians, facing a $21 billion budget shortfall, are now clamoring for a bailout of their own. I have very little sympathy for them. For years, with a growing economy, they irresponsibly demanded a massive expansion of government services along with a decline in the taxes that would pay for them. Citizens must, in one way or another, be brought to understand that those are competing desires. For too long, our politicians have told an all-too-ready-to-believe populace that they could have tax cuts and benefit increases. That is the conservative myth of supply-side economics. It is nothing but a license to abuse the government coffers.

In 1978, at the height of California’s conservative renaissance, the voters passed Proposition 13, an amendment to the California constitution to require any tax increases to pass with a 2/3rds vote and capped property taxes. The cap slashed property taxes by an average of over 50% according to government records. California might have been able to sustain such a blow, but the 64.8% of Californians who voted for Proposition 13 also elected a series of State Governments that cut all manner of taxes.

Virginia Democratic Primary Results – Deeds Wins

Creigh Deeds won the Democratic Party’s Gubernatorial Primary on Tuesday night with nearly 50% of the vote. Two weeks ago it appeared that Terry McAuliffe would win the nomination in close competition with Brian Moran. At that point, the polling looked like McAuliffe would get a huge lift from northern Virginia but relatively little support anywhere else, especially in the most rural areas. Not only that, but McAuliffe was able to raise over $7 million for his primary challenge alone.

However, that was just not how it turned out. About a week ago, McAuliffe, by some polls, fell nearly ten percent: firmly into second place. Creigh Deeds, who was a long shot behind McAuliffe and Moran just a week and a half ago, was able to make a strong showing in northern Virginia. His more moderate positions and rhetoric helped him gain way in the south and west. The result was a massive swing of undecideds to his candidacy in the final week.

Sunday, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza joined us to preview the race.  Click here to listen.

Enough! Close Guantanamo Bay

Opponents of closing Guantanamo ask questions like: where will you put them? In the United States? In American Prisons?

Yes!!! Every year we trust those maximum security prisons to keep us safe from serial killers, the plethora of murderers, and convicted rapists. We don’t worry that they might get out. Neither do the residents of Florence, Colorado which has a maximum-security facility with a capacity for 490 prisoners. Among the hardened criminals housed there are 33 terrorists. Among those is Zacarias Moussaoui, a 9/11 conspirator, Ramzi Yousef, leader of the first WTC bombing, and the shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Fox News doesn’t have a conniption fit over their threat to the United States. Hint: it’s because there isn’t one.

The 90 – 6 vote in the Senate against allocating funds to transfer prisoners is unacceptable. It represents an abdication of moral and constitutional responsibilities by the same Senate Democrats that were elected spicifically to restore the supremacy of the rule of law.

In Guantanamo Bay, the prisoners have (or had) in many cases been denied access to legal counsel, have been held for years on end without charges or evidence presented against them, and, in several situations have been abused. While the abuse has not been on the scale of Abu Ghraib, the interrogations have included the use of rabid-like dogs, waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, and other ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques. Meanwhile, the cruelty of some prison guards outside of the interrogation room has led to such famous incidents as the defamation and flushing of a prisoners Koran.

‘Granny D’ joins us June 21

Be sure to join us on Sunday, June 21 at  10PM ET as we talk with 99-year-old Doris “Granny D” Haddock.  Ten years ago, Granny D gained national attention when she walked across the United States in support of campaign finance reform.  In 2004, at age 94, Haddock served as the Democratic Nominee for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, unsuccessfully challenging Republican Senator Judd Gregg.

You won’t want to miss our special conversation with Granny D!
Sunday, June 21 at 10PM ET

Did you catch Chris Cillizza?

 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

Sunday we spoke at length with Washington Post White House Reporter Chris Cillizza about Tuesday’s big Democratic Gubernatorial Primary in Virginia, President Obama’s speech in Cairo, and a new poll out this week that shows former Vice President Dick Cheney is more popular than Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

PLUS

We heard from Brett Powell of the Free State Project, a group of libertarian activists who want to move enough similar-minded individuals to New Hampshire a place where “the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.”

And get this–they’re looking for 20,000 participants, and they are almost half way there!

 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

National Fist Bump Day

From the website…

“On June 3rd, 2008, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle took part in what immediately became known as “the fist bump heard ’round the world.” Though it was an intensely personal and affectionate gesture of love and respect at a pivotal moment in Obama’s presidential campaign, it firmly placed the fist bump on the national stage.”

 

Did you catch Jim Ramstad & Ari Ne’eman?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

Did you catch our interview with former Minnesota Congressman Jim Ramstad (R), formerly in the running to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy?

Ramstad, who represented Minnesota in Congress from 1991 until earlier this year served as Co-Chair of the Congressional Disability Caucus where he championed mental health parity legislation.

We also had a very interesting with discussion Ari Ne’eman, the founding President of the Autistic Self-Advocacy network about health care and the disability community.  

 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

 

Did you catch Dodge Landesman & Liberty Dems?

LISTEN ON DEMAND

Listen to Sunday’s archive for our chat with NYC Council candidate Dodge Landesman.

For more info regarding Landesman, head to his website or read this week’s New Yorker piece on him.

This week Liberty University disbanded its College Democrats group, claiming their mission is inconsistent with university values. The group’s secretary, Jan Dervish also joined us to talk about the controversy.

 

Time two-steps it on Catholicism and Obama

 

Today, writing about “Church politics” (whatever those are), Time gushes over Obama and says that conservative Catholics may even be at “schism” (because the pundits of high liberalism know theology far better than the stuffy old bishops, of course) with the Pope for being so opposed to the Notre Dame commencement address.

In January, leading with the headline “Vatican slams Obama on abortion,” Time wrote about how ready the Vatican was to tear apart the President for authorizing funding for global pro-choice NGOs.

Republican Fear-tactics Continue

A new Ad. from House Minority Leader John Boehner:

Public officials have a responsibility to not traffic in fear. Blind terror does not advance effective public policy or aid our political decision making. This is just another example of Republican arrogance and irresponsibility and a final indicator that they have failed to learn ANY lessons from the last 8 years.

Socialism.

President replaces CEO and private ownership of corporation with labor union. Can you spell “syndicalism”?

Sunday: State of the American Press

Click Here To Listen Live Online!

Also …

Did you miss our interview with The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel?

Click HERE to listen on demand!

Weekly Filibuster On Twitter

FOLLOW THE SHOW ON TWITTER HERE!

As you may know, each of the panelists have been on Twitter for quite some time.

Today we’re proud to present The Weekly Filibuster’s own Twitter account.

Follow us to recieve show updates, panelist commentary, news, and to give feedback on all things Filibuster.

Debate Over AIG: Was the Attorney General Right?

DID YOU CATCH KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND!

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Filibuster

CLICK HERE TO ON DEMAND!Join us at 10PM ET tonight for the FASTEST HOUR IN POLITICAL TALK!  We’ll talk about those Somali Swashbucklers who caused mischief on the high seas, and talk about the Vermont state legislature, active as ever!

Here is your “hope” and “change”

            What Democrat in the past few months has not been heckled for buying into the “hope” and “change” messages sold by the Obama campaign in the fall? Republicans and other non-believers point to the slogan to mock the legitimacy of his presidency. Other attempts have been made to critique him solely because he campaigned on this and has not followed through in the less than three months he’s been in office. Well I can say that I would agree with them up until the beginning of this week. I will argue that voters didn’t vote for Obama for his domestic policy that he has been bogged down with up till now. People voted for Obama somewhat symbolically. We voted for him to show the world we weren’t doing business like we had during the past eight years. We wanted to do business dramatically different. This past week at the G-20 is the first example of the “Change you can believe in” that Obama won over so many people with in the fall.

 

             Obama’s domestic and economic policy was and is the same as every other generic Democrat. The American people could have voted in any shmuck with the letter D in front of their name and you would have gotten the same stimulus packages, types of press conferences, talking points, etc. So, what makes him different than everyone else? It was the thought of seeing a guy that had nothing to do with ruining our reputation, at the same table with the world leaders. This same guy has a real, legitimate mandate from the American people to reverse the policies that got us in so much trouble. This is what Americans wanted to say when they voted for change this November and that voting model as of his first summit… worked. This Democracy thing was a pretty good idea (as long as my guys are in charge).

 

             By all accounts he made quite the impression on foreign leaders. I can’t see John McCain having a town hall meeting in France, or any other candidate for president for that matter. He sat down and made plans to stop future economic breakdowns and got the whole world on the same page. He made huge strides with Russia compared to where we were when Bush ran the show. After the whole invasion of Georgia, Bush just kind of packed up his bags on that front and let it be. He did not try to peer into the soul of Medvedev, the Russian leader, but he respected their differences, sought common interests, and they negotiated. Thats diplomacy ladies and gentlemen. No one else would have gone in to this summit with the light touch that Obama did and gotten away with it. Obama has higher favorability ratings in Europe than most of the politicians that the people elected. Any aggressive moves against him would come with some political backfire. No other American politician carries this kind of clout and no other politician could have thrown around the soft power the way that Obama did.

 

             Although it recently ended a lot has been written already. I have not seen one negative response to what was done in Paris this past week. This week a poll was taken and 38% of the people think the country is on the right track. These are the highest numbers in three years. If your like me, and don’t like statistics take a look at the mangled minority party. The Republican Party, has been in the midst of a political knife fight, this past week while Obama shined overseas. Speaker Gingrich is threatening a new party before 2012; Eric Cantor called the response to Obama’s budget “embarrassing.” Someone on the other side finally fired a shot at GOP party leader Rush Limbaugh. When I used to run track, my coach would always tell me to watch the other kid’s head bounce to see if it was safe to pass him. Sometimes it is valuable to watch how your enemy reacts to your actions to figure out how you’re doing. If this were a track meet the Republican’s head would be all over the place. Obama and the Dems gained a few strides on them with this summit.

 

             We saw this past week what he was talking about for the two years prior to his inauguration. So mock the “change” and “hope” messages if you will, but on April 3^rd of this year hope and change won. I think we can all say with pretty good confidence that we are happy that we have Barack Obama as our chief diplomat rather than George Bush. James Carville said that April 2^nd was Obama’s best day in office so far. A few more April 2nds and we are going to be in for another good Democratic cycle.

Miss Rep. Dan Itse?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

Did you miss our conversation with controversial New Hampshire Representative Dan Itse?  Click above to listen to our groundbreaking interview.

DID YOU MISS 2010 TROUBLE?

A new Suffolk University Poll has Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick at 34%.  Governors Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and David Paterson (D-NY) aren’t in much better shape.  Is 2010 shaping up to be 1994?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND!

Swett, vanden Heuvel highlight ‘Filibuster’ April

You won’t want to miss a minute of the Weekly Filibuster in April!

Join us on April 5 as we talk with former New Hampshire Congressman and  the Former United States Ambassador to Denmark, Dick Swett, about foreign policy in the age of Obama, and his wife’s campaign for his old seat in the US House of Representatives.

On April 12, we’ll talk with Kevin Preblud about his new project, the In Denver Times, the first real post-print, city-based, online subscription newspaper featuring former Rocky Mountain Times writers.

And on April 19, The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel stops by to help us evaluate the Obama presidency on the eve of his three-month anniversary in office.  You won’t want to miss this exciting interview.

Great Cartoon in the Connecticut Post

I was reading through the newspaper and stumbled upon what I thought was a great cartoon.

Miss the show this week?

Politicos Meet the Radio!  Did you catch the fastest hour in political talk?!  With the nation livid over AIG bonuses, should Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner stay or go?  We spoke to the panel about Geitner, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, and President Obama’s “special” Tonight Show appearance.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND!

Miss Sunday’s broadcast?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND!

Did you catch the fastest hour in political talk this week?  We spoke about the future of newspapers (after an awful week for the industry), the controversial AIG bonuses, and had a roundtable on the legacy of Andrew Jackson on his 242nd Birthday.

Did you catch Matthew Lesko?

You know him from television…or maybe you’ve read one of his bestselling books?  Sunday, we spoke to Mr. Lesko  about the state of the U.S. economy, and all that free government money floating around out there, and how YOU can get some government cash to help jumpstart our economy!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND 

OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST! 

 

Not All Americans Believe Healthcare is a Right

President Obama has proposed a bold new plan for restructuring out healthcare system to make it more accountable, more efficient, and to make it cover everyone. Unfortunately, not everyone sees this as a step forward. Congressional Republicans have been on the war path since the measure was called for. Representative Zach Wamp, in an interview that went from conservative to extreme began by saying: “It’s probably the next major step towards socialism.”

Making sure that people don’t die or go bankrupt because they can’t afford treatment is the next step towards a government controlled economy where everyone makes the same wage? Forgive me if I laugh.

He said that we are moving towards a system where the “government is bigger than the private sector.” Excuse me, do you know anything about government? The Federal Government, all told, spent $2.6 trillion last fiscal year. Half a trillion of those dollars were directly spent on hiring private contractors. So, real public sector spending is $2.1 trillion. While that is certainly a lot of money, it does not even begin to approach the amount of money spent in the private sector. Thinking further, how many of the services that you receive on a daily basis are from the government? Relatively few. These are scare tactics that should ring hallow.

He said that “of the 45 million people without health insurance, about half of them choose not to have health insurance.” Not to be impolite, but no they don’t. If they don’t receive health benefits from their employers, which normally means they make below the average American income, then they are expected to pay high premiums for purchasing their own insurance. That’s not to mention that the actual number of uninsured was 47 million before the economic collapse and is probably a lot higher now.

He then explains that Americans who do have health insurance would be taxed to pay for those who don’t currently have health insurance. After accurately describing taxes (as if we needed help) he called it “class warfare”. This is another moment where I have to pause the tape. Does a sitting congressman really believe that taxes are class warfare? If you take Rep. Wamp at his word, then yes. He could have stopped there but that would have merely made him look ignorant. Instead he dug himself deeper by saying that “healthcare is a privilege”.

You know, there’s a theory in psychology that therapists should repeat insane people’s words back to them in the hope that they’ll understand just how ridiculous they sound. I don’t put too much stock in it, but at this point in the interview, that’s what Tamron Hall tried. Here is exactly what he said: “for some people it’s a right, but for everyone, frankly, it’s not necessarily a right”. You’re right, that was frank.

“The problem with the Obama approach is: healthcare for everybody.” This is a point in the interview where I feel it’s important to actually be watching him puerilely wiggle with sarcasm as if the proposition were utterly ridiculous.

He closed with the following statement: “we better stand up and defend our system or it’s going to go away.” Let me address him directly. Congressman, I don’t think you’re going to get many takers for defending the current system. That anyone would defend our healthcare system speaks ill of our values as a nation. I’m not saying that everyone has to get behind Obama’s approach, but I don’t think it’s acceptable that there are people in this country that believe that healthcare is a privilege. People that believe that your chance to survive a disease should be correlated to your personal wealth. People who believe that our society should more vigorously defend the rights and lives of the rich than those of the poor. The transition to universal healthcare is ultimately an affirmation of the American value that “all men are created equal” and to attack that value is to attack the heart of our founding ideals. Ideals which we have yet to live up to, but for which we have fought for over two centuries.

Hear, Hear Mr. Brown! A Renewed Partnership of Purpose

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown finished his US visit with a speech before a Joint Session of Congress. In a tribute to the strength of the bond between our two nations he proclaimed that our friendship is “not an alliance of convenience” but “a partnership of purpose.” Through every trial of the last 100 years, the United States and Great Britain have stood together in forging a new way forward. And so we must do now.

Focusing on human rights, climate change, national security, and the economy, Mr. Brown laid out a framework through which the US and the UK would rally the global community to alleviate this moment of crisis. Calling trade “the engine of prosperity”, he recognized the need for all the nations of the world to pass economic stimulus bills to maximize the impact of each and rejuvenate the global economy. But recognizing that our prosperity is wounded by the absence of international law governing global finance he proposed that:

“So that the whole of our worldwide banking system serves our prosperity rather than risks it, let us agree at our G 20 summit in London in April to rules and standards for proper accountability, transparency, and reward that will mean an end to the excesses and will apply to every bank, everywhere, and all the time”

And speaking against the craven greed that led us to believe that sub-prime mortgages could back attractive securities, he recognized that “we have learned through this crisis that markets should be free. But markets should never be values-free.”

But he also reminded us of the liberal human values that unite our two nations in an understanding that we cannot forget “our duty to the least of these: the poorest of the world.”

“Let us never forget in times of turmoil, our duty to the least of these, the poorest of the world. In the Rwandan museum of Genocide there is a memorial to the countless children that were among those murdered, in the massacres in Rwanda. And there is one portrait of a child, David. The words beneath him are brief, yet they weigh on me heavily. It says, name: David, age: 10, favorite sport: football, enjoyed: making people laugh, dreamed: to become a doctor, cause of death: tortured to death, last words: the United Nations will come for us. But we never did. That child believed the best of us. That he was wrong is to our eternal discredit. We tend to think of a day of judgment as a moment to come. But, our faith tells us, as the writer says, that judgment is more than that: it’s a summary court in perpetual session.”

America’s bond with Great Britain is the indispensable alliance. In times of trial such as these, we must heed Mr. Brown’s call and renew our partnership for a new century of challenges that we must face together.

Alabama – Redistricting

Due to a strong Alabama Democratic Party, although national Democrats are less popular, the Democrats have control of 2/3 of Alabama’s state government. In 2008, there were two extraordinarily close races in Alabama. In the 2^nd District, Democrat Bobby Bright squeaked out a win with 50.2% of the vote against Republican Jay Love’s 49.6%. And in the 5^th District, Democrat Parker Griffith narrowly edged out Wayne Parker with 51.5% of the vote. As first term Democrats facing re-election in conservative Alabama, they will want help from new district lines assuming they make it past the 2010 elections. The 5^th district is boxed in by the 4^th which, because they earned a mere 25.1% of the vote in the last election, is a lost cause for Democrats. By reshaping the district lines slightly, they could bolster Congressman Griffith’s standing enough to help him fight back when rage against Republicans wanes. As for Congressman Bright, the2nd district is bordered by the 1^st, 7^th, 6^th, and 3^rd. By shifting some population with Rep. Artur Davis’ 7^th district stronghold, Bright could gain enough to hang on. Alabama is an excellent display of something that Democrats need to be thinking a lot about in redistricting: protecting vulnerable new members.

State of the States – Redistricting

With redistricting around the corner after the 2010 elections (a year and a half away), it’s about time to begin looking at partisan control in State governments now versus during the last redistricting in 2001. Although many of the current governors and none of the current sessions of state legislatures will be in office when it comes time to redistrict, it says something about what things are likely to look like in a year and a half.

My maps combine the Gubernatorial, State Senate and State House of Representatives maps into one map by indicating either all Republican, all Democratic, or two thirds of the bodies being in either direction. Here’s 2001:

First, a couple of quick notes about the grey spots on the map. In Minnesota, Governor Ventura (yes, the wrestler) was an independent while the Senate was Democratic and the House was Republican. In Washington, the House of Representatives was tied 49-49 while the Governor’s house and the State Senate were in Democratic hands. In Nebraska the governor was a Republican however they have a unicameral non-partisan legislature (hint: they’re still republicans). Meanwhile, Maine couldn’t get their stuff together so they had an Independent Governor, a tied State Senate, and a Democratic State House.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the numbers. The Democrats dominated government (all 3 posts) in states that had a total of 103 House seats. Republicans dominated government in states with a total of 103 House seats. Although they had parity there, the Republicans had control (2/3) of governments with a total of 125 additional House seats. Democrats came up short by only adding 71 Seats to their total by that measurement. Thus, in total, the Democrats had the opportunity to re-district 174 seats while Republicans re-districted 228 Seats (33 were re-districted by neutral governments).

However, it’s never that simple. At issue is that with the exception of Arkansas, constituents in the South were not about to vote for National Democrats despite the strength of their State Democratic Parties. Those states account for an amazing 59 Seats out of their 174 Seat total. Although their redistricting power might have blunted the power of Republicans there enough to dissuade me from flowing those 59 Seats to some non-partisan column, we certainly have to note that the Democrats didn’t get much mileage out of those opportunities. The actual number of Seats that the Democrats had the power to re-district to the benefit of the National Party was something closer to 115 Seats. Not surprisingly, the Republicans kept control of the House after this redistricting.

Now, to say the least, things have changed. Here’s the 2009 map:

In this model, Democrats dominate the redistricting process in 141 Seats (+38) while Republicans dominate in only 92 Seats (-11) with a net change of 49 Seats in favor of the Democrats’ power to redistrict. Where the real difference is is in control where the Democrats grab redistricting power over an additional 162 Seats (+91) while the Republicans hold sway over a mere  28 additional seats (-97) for a net change of 189 Seats! Totals are the Democrats majority power to redistrict over 303 seats and Republicans with the same power in 120 Seats.

There are other issues which I’ll address at length in later posts. First, Republicans dominate in several states that are at-large-districts which, of course, gives them no power to redistrict. Second, redistricting holds a limited set of advantages especially in urban districts and in states where the national party and the state level party have vastly different popularity levels. Third, the power to redistrict is distinctly opportune if your state is losing or gaining a seat. Fourth, many states sit on the edge of a party switch in 2010 that would greatly influence the outcome of redistricting. I’ll get to these issues and more in the next week.

It’s Time to Call This what it is

It now appears that the structural challenges facing the American financial system are more serious than we previously thought. With massive amounts of illiquid assets and no capital on the balance sheets, Bank of America and City Bank are in an untenable situation. Simultaneously, the Dow is falling below 7,000 points. It’s hard to imagine that just one year ago, when we were first declaring a recession, the Dow stood at over 13,000 points. Since then, an unimaginable amount of wealth has simply evaporated. With all of this in the past week, people have begun to ask the big question. This morning, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a financial analyst for the New York Times was asked if this was a depression. Here was his response: “Well, I’m depressed”.

So are we. A year ago, with forclosures rising and job availability drying up, I determined that this was a recession. But, at that point, I couldn’t have believed that we would reach this point. The economic definition of a recession is economic contraction for two straight quarters. That described the slightly unsettled waters of a year ago. That is utterly undescriptive of the economic hurricane that has rocked this country. How can a country lose half of it’s wealth and not call it a depression? Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t on the scale of a great depression, there is still only one of those. However, a recession is just not descriptive of the danger that our country now faces and the scale of the disaster that this is for middle and working class Americans.

Miss the show?

Did you miss our breakdown of the week in politics?  The greatest hour in political talk with guest panelist Erich Reimer? 

We spoke about President Obama’s address to congress, Bobby Jindal’s response, Kathleen Sebelius at HHS, and the new direction for US-Israel policy.  You can listen to the archive any time on demand, or subscribe to the podcast by searching “Weekly Filibuster” in iTunes.  Remember, the archived edition always has our special “Cloture” segment, unavailable during our live broadcast!  Listen in!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND

(Il)liberal Intolerance

(Originally published in the Harvard Salient. Sorry for being absent to Bowen’s socialist propaganda – I had the site under a right-wing monopoly long enough for some wrongheadedness to get a chance again)

Your presence in this country will “threaten community harmony and therefore public security.” Your views are “one-sided generalizations.” You will be scrutinized in a court of law in your home country for broadcasting a subversive, divisive message. You will find no asylum here.

If the above paragraph were shown to Dutch parliamentary leftists without context, I suspect more than a few would rightly find it to be a detestable rejection of the right of free speech and the right of asylum that are so essential to the identity of that small country. Unfortunately for freedom’s sake, these insults were found in a notice to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders from British Home Minister Jacqui Smith when he tried to enter the country in mid-February. Wilders returned home where the Dutch government, at the behest of its more leftist elements, continued its investigation of the MP for promoting intolerance.

Wilders is not a popular man among leftists in the Netherlands. Originally elected in 1998, Wilders is known worldwide for his vehement arguments against Islam. His vitriolic platform calls for such drastic measures as banning Islamic headwear in public and creating a limit of 5,000 political refugees in the Netherlands at any given time. His general attitudes towards Islam are best summed up by his own suggestion that the Dutch should “not tolerate the intolerant.”

Ironically, Wilders himself has not been tolerated by the Dutch and British governments. After creating a short film entitled Fitna, Wilders has come under investigation by his own government for inaccurately portraying Muslims. A group of British parliamentarians invited Wilders to present the film to them in England shortly after, but he soon received the Home Secretary’s notice declaring him persona non grata, and was sent back to the Netherlands.

Wilders’s case is disturbing for believers in free speech. The inability of the government to restrict certain views, no matter how distasteful, is a cornerstone of legal tradition in both Britain and the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the European Left seems to have a double standard for who exactly deserves protection under free speech laws. In many cases, the very same leftists calling for the prosecution of Wilders have advocated protection for radical Muslim activists. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, for example, is a self-described socialist who invited Muslim preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi to talk about moderate Islam. Unfortunately for Livingstone, activists discovered that al-Qaradawi has spoken sympathetically in the past about suicide bombing, female genital mutilation, the killing of Israeli civilians, and the stoning of homosexuals. Livingstone was outraged that critics would point out these inconveniences, accusing them of pushing “lies and Islamophobia.” There is nothing fair, just, or free about Livingstone’s decision to give a podium to al-Qaradawi followed by his vocal support of the entry ban against Wilders. When Livingstone originally stood up for free speech, perhaps he ought to have just come out and specified that he only meant the kind that was convenient for delivering votes from his constituencies.

Wilders is an obsessive, irrational, fixated man. He scapegoats Muslim immigrants as responsible for crime, budget problems, and declining moral standards in his home country – ironic, given that Muslims do not tend to frequent the brothels and abortion clinics that Wilders’s Dutch predecessors made widely available. The point here is that Wilders’s views hardly deserve credence, but they, too, are entitled to tolerance. In a free marketplace of ideas, illogical hatred will be pushed to the margins. In a society that seeks to defend one group against another and to protect a minority from the views of a belligerent extremist, however, resentment will grow alongside sympathy for extremism. People will react strongly against what they perceive to be a threat to their liberties. So long as Muslims are correctly seen as appreciating freedom in the West, they will be welcomed and, over time, integrated. The moment that Muslims are seen as an excuse for censorship, otherwise indifferent people will begin to resent their presence.

The other unintended consequence of statements made by people like Minister Smith is that they actually reinforce Wilders’s point. After all, if Muslims truly are peace-loving people who respect liberty, why does the government have to prevent an extremist from entering in order to preserve the security of the community? In her own lefty way, Smith herself is embracing as much of a dangerous stereotype of Muslims as Wilders is. Unfortunately, when she enters another country, there won’t be a band of protestors to greet her.

Obama Unvails Bold New Budget

In a 134 page document released today, the Obama Administration unvailed it’s first budget proposal. Previous speculation in many circles rumored a delay in ending the Bush tax cuts and a modest move towards Universal Healthinsurance. Shattering those expectations, President Obama moved boldly to the left.

The blueprint advocates the repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% remain on schedule for cancelation in 2011. It promotes a further increase in the taxes of Americans earning more than $250,000 annually. Those new taxes would cover the costs of adopting Universal Health Insurance by 2012. President Obama heeded the environmental community with a commitment to introduce a system of cap and trade on carbon emissions. These new commitments represent a step towards fulfilling the ideals of his inspiring Presidential Campaign.

While the changes in content over previous budgets are enormously significant, the structural changes are important and should gain bipartisan applause. Over the past 8 years, we have been dealing in budgets that hid key costs. Although the Bush Administration knew that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would cost large sums of money, they would ask for emergency appropriations of dozens of billions of dollars each year. Those appropriations remained obscure to the general public who were somewhat confused about how the government could end up in such massive debt with only moderately over-budget proposals. This new honesty about budgets is an absolute prerequisite to paying down the national debt over the next decade.

Read the Full Text

Tragedy for Camerons

David Cameron’s eldest son Ivan passed away yesterday at the age of 6. He lived all of his life with an extreme form of Cerebral palsy. We wish the Camerons all the best as they greive for their son.

“I know that, in an all-too-brief life, he brought joy to all those around him and I know also that, for all the days of his life, he was surrounded by his family’s love,”…”Every child is precious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure. Politics can sometimes divide us, but there is a common human bond that unites us in sympathy and compassion at times of trial and in support for each other at times of grief.”

- Gordon Brown

Alan Keyes how Obama will Destroy the Country

I saw this and it was so crazy that I had to share it.

He could afford to make his criticisms more sharp. I’m not really feeling it.

Priority 1: Primary and Secondary Education (UK)

Cameron starts off by promising to improve “discipline and behaviour in schools by shifting the balance of power in every classroom back in favour of the teacher”. I’m sorry, since when is that a policy? In practice, what does that mean? Since indeed, the British people would be paying David Cameron to be Prime Minister, I would expect him to take some kind of action.

He packed his green paper with other terrific proposals like a promise to deliver “more teaching by ability which streaches the strongest and nurtures the weakest.” Again, as an implemented policy, what would this look like? It would be nothing while looking like change, which actually fits Cameron’s m.o. just fine.

Finally, Cameron proposes increasing the number of private schools that are publicly funded. That, as it happens, is an actual initiative. Rather rare for him. However, current British law already allows for such schools. In 2000, the Government introduced a program by which a private individual or group (charity/corporation) could contribute up to 2 million pounds to defray the costs of the construction of a new school. The remainder of the funds, an average of 28 million pounds, is taxpayer funded. Under this law, such schools would be considered companies limited by guarantee, and granted charitable tax status.

The sponsoring group or individual would have the responsibility of most major decisions over the school. For example, they would pick the headteacher, be involved in the determination of the budget, appoint a majority of the governing board, and restrict the number of locally elected board members (the option remains for them to set the number at one). 83 such schools are in operation as of the posting of this article.

So, David Cameron’s only substantive proposal on education is to expand a program that would restrict the power of parents to influence their child’s education and transfer responsibility for the school from locally elected officials to unaccountable private entities able to shell out 2 million pounds. Does that sound like a good idea?

There would be another effect. Because he also proposes cutting taxes for the wealthy and paying down the British debt, new funding for private schools would almost certainly come at the expense of current public schools. Depriving public schools of funding isn’t going to help struggling families, and it isn’t going to increase opportunities for working-class citizens.

That’s all. David Cameron, the man who thinks he’s ready to be Prime Minister, has exactly 3 ideas on how to improve the UK’s education system. That’s it. You can’t make this stuff up. Never mind that two of the ideas wouldn’t actually translate into any government action. Never mind that the third idea doesn’t actually do anything that isn’t already being done.

However, his lack of actual ideas didn’t stop him from bloviating for the better part of a page. Here’s an excerpt:

In our open and dynamic world, people’s horizons are broader, their ambitions are greater, and they expect to be able to make more and more decisions for themselves. Advancing opportunity means shifting power from the state to individuals and civic institutions, in order to open up this new world of freedom to everyone.

What? His platitudes don’t convince you? This guy’s a snake oil salesman if I’ve ever seen one.

So, if you want someone to get up on TV and talk for half an hour about how kids should be more respectful (see proposal 1 of 3) then pick David Cameron. But, if you want to hire someone who will actually do something, pick someone else. Anyone else.

Full Text of Tory Plan: http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Opportunity_Agenda.aspx

David Cameron is Unprepared to be Prime Minister

In the United Kingdom, David Cameron has turned the Conservative Party around to a 20 point (48-28) poll lead over Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour party. This is a serious threat to Labour’s 11 year administration because Gordon Brown will have to call elections by the summer of 2010. Despite his lead in the polls, Cameron is a dangerously unprepared flip-flopper.

He opposed the National Minimum wage in 1998 (there was no British minimum wage prior to that). Even as his fellow Tory MP Peter Bone bragged that he was paying an employee 88 pence an hour. For those unfamiliar, that’s significantly less than $2 an hour. He opposed targeted tax cuts for the bottom brackets in the current recession. He’s proposed less financial regulation as a preventative measure for further recessions. He wants to slash maternity leave and eliminate paternity leave entirely. I suppose he believes that raising a child is only the mother’s job.

He first claimed that raising taxes after the recession was “inevitable” but after he was criticized, he entirely reversed his position, saying that the government would be able to afford tax cuts after the recession. Similarly, he supported the government’s move to shore up the British banking system until he dipped in the polls at which point he reversed his position and began criticizing Brown on the issue. 

As for the lack of experience, he had never held a shadow cabinet post (much less an actual cabinet post) until taking over as Conservative leader a few years back. In fact, most of his political experience comes from being a media executive.

The Conservative Party has released Green Sheets on 7 topic areas:

1) Primary and Secondary Education

2) Alternative Energy

3) Poverty

4) Crime

5) Responsibility

6) Healthcare

7) Apprenticeships

Each of these policy’s consists mainly of fluff and Cameron’s chief goal in releasing them is to appear ready to take charge and full of ideas because he’s betting that no one will actually read and criticize his plans. That’s why, for the next 7 days, I will address each of his major proposed reforms.

Hectic Show!

 

Thanks for joining us tonight — sorry for the trouble.
Tune in next week for another exciting installment!

It’s Time for Universal Healthcare

Our healthcare system is in crisis. We annually spend $2.4 trillion dollars, a stunning 17% of GDP, on healthcare. For the extra 6.5% of GDP (compared to Switzerland who is the 2nd largest spender) we receive the 37th best healthcare system in the world according to the World Health Organization’s rankings. 47 million Americans have no health insurance at all, and millions more are underinsured. Our international corporations are suffering from competition with Japanese and European companies that do not bear the cost of healthcare for their employees. Our employer-based health insurance system is being torn apart.

In a fundamental misallocation of resources, private insurers spend anywhere from 14% to 18% of their income in administrative costs (it varies based upon provider). That money is used to hire employees that actively work to deny coverage. Just as unethically, health insurance companies spend much of your money ‘underwriting’. The word itself sounds mundane which is exactly what it’s supposed to sound like. What they really mean is if you have a family history of an expensive disease or you have a dangerous job (also likely to be a low paying job) you will either be denied coverage or have it offered at prohibitively high rates. The concept is fundamentally this: health insurance companies make money by charging you higher premiums while denying you coverage for expensive and necessary procedures.

The best solution would be universal, single-payer health insurance. To clear up a few things, this is not socialized medicine. In a socialized system, such as the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, the doctors are employees of the state. My proposal is a system in which the federal government pays for health insurance for all Americans. Let me reiterate: the single-payer system would only be a financing mechanism. You still have complete control over which doctor you receive care from and what kind of care you receive. All medically necessary services would be covered including primary care, prescription drugs, emergency care, long term care, dental, and vision. 

Many would argue that a government program could not be more efficient than private insurance. In most cases this is probably true. However, the Healthcare system the exception in this regard because of an incentive to deny coverage that is unique to private insurers. Medicare administrative costs are projected at 2% by the Department of Health and Human Services. The net gain of 16% would go a long way to covering the costs of those newly insured. In addition, the government would be able to negotiate bulk-orders of drugs as Canada does. A study commissioned by the US House of Representatives found that the cost of drugs from US manufacturers were 98% higher in the US than they were in Canada.

The opposition will attempt to scare you away from change by telling stories about long waiting periods. To this, I simply say: the plural of anecdote is not data. The statistics tell a different story about single-payer health insurance. In Canada, people undergoing voluntary treatments (plastic surgery) face long waiting times. However, people who need heart transplants aren’t forced to wait. It is time for us to put a system in place that recognizes that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

Matt Cavedon is an Investment Banker

Shocking news out of Harvard University today: Matt Cavedon is an investment banker. Just as true as his previous allegation, he took a large part in driving our economy into the ground and then taking million dollar tax-payer-funded bonuses.

BOB BOWEN IS A COMMUNIST!!!!!!!!!!!

And he doesn’t contribute nearly enough any more!
Consider this a call-out, comrade!

Did you catch Chris Myers Asch?

Did you catch our show Sunday night? We’ll broke down the latest in the political world, including the Stimulus Package, and Judd Gregg’s decision to withdraw his name from consideration for commerce secretary.  We also spoke with Chris Myers Asch about his proposal for the National Public Service Academy.  

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON DEMAND!

Fight agriculture subsidies!

They’re bad for the economy, the world, and farming. Sign our bipartisan petition to send them to the Dustbowl of history!

[Just a quick note for transparency: this petition is not endorsed by the show, and not necessarily the position of all panelists. - WF Online Editor]

Palin reconsidered

I loved her, then I hated her. This insightful commentary has me reconsidering her.

Thoughts?

Be proud to be partisan!

An argument against bipartisanship and political independence by the head of Harvard’s Government Department. I do not know her political leanings.

Medicare for Millionaires: thanks to the Democrats, Party of the Poor (C)

“Republicans wanted to deny the premium subsidies to people who had annual incomes of more than $100,000 or assets of more than $1 million. They also wanted to prevent people with more than $1 million of family income from taking advantage of the Medicaid option for the unemployed.

Democrats voted down those proposals in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. (emphasis mine)

Representative Nathan Deal, Republican of Georgia, said “the poorest of the poor” had long been subject to income and asset tests when applying for Medicaid. But, Mr. Deal argued, under the new option, a millionaire could get Medicaid benefits, financed entirely by the federal government, without being asked about such matters.

The committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said, “It’s highly unlikely that you are going to find millionaires who would like to go on Medicaid.”

Moreover, Mr. Waxman said, the purpose of the new options is to “streamline the enrollment process” and speed assistance to people who are unemployed.

“It’s going to set up an unnecessary barrier if we have any income test,” Mr. Waxman said, adding that the enforcement of a means test could require “a whole new bureaucracy.””

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/28health.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

Did you catch Bob Smith & HW Brands?

Did you miss Sunday’s show?

LISTEN ON DEMAND!  CLICK HERE!

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEKLY FILBUSTER PODCAST!

In a Weekly Filibuster exclusive, former New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith returns to the show to talk about Commerce Secretary-designate Judd Gregg.  Smith and Gregg together represented the Granite State in the United States House of Representatives (1984-1986) and Senate (1993-2003).  We’ll also ask Senator Smith about the President’s stimulus bill and reports that he is testing the warmer waters in Florida for a potential bid for the seat Mel Martinez will vacate next year.

In addition to breaking down the latest news in the political world, we’ll talk with the author of Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, HW Brands, about FDR’s legacy and the presidency today.

PODCASTING across America and the World…

It took us a year, but it’s finally here!
Now you can take the Filibuster with you wherever you go!

Download The Weekly Filibuster PODCAST on ITunes here!

New politics strike again!

Thank goodness we elected Obama and put an end to years of corruption, secrecy, waste, and divisive politics!

UPDATE: Yet another prospective nominee has joined the ranks of Tom Daschle and Bill Richardson in withdrawing herself from consideration. Ironically, this time it’s Nancy Killefer, Obama’s would-have-been chief performance officer.

Agricrap

My grandfather was a farmer; believe me when I say I’m all in favor of family farming as a lifestyle. But massive subsidies are wrecking markets, doing substantial humanitarian damage, and promoting environmental destruction. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for an opportunity to fight farming subsidies.

Did you catch our Halftime Spectacular?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON-DEMAND!

Were you watching ‘The Boss’ at Halftime instead of The Filibuster Crew?  We’re not offended, as long as you listen to the ON-DEMAND replay of our half-hour special.  Join the Filibuster Crew as we talk Gregg for Commerce, new RNC Chair Michael Steele, say “Bye-Bye Blago,” and do the Super Bowl Shuffle!

Long live Britain! No more gun bans!

Miss Sunday’s show?

Sunday night we discussed the possible political motives and implication of Gov. Paterson’s pick for Senate, spoke with victims of the Purplegate disaster, and discussed President Obama’s first round of Executive Orders.  Did you miss it?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN NOW

Hope for a change in the future

This week, America commemorates two momentous occasions. This year, the first African American president was inaugurated. He takes office on the promise of respecting the dignity of the poor, the needy, the sick, the immigrant, the prisoner, the homosexual, and the outcast. This is change we can believe in.

Hopefully, so is this.

No Show Tonight

The Monday night special edition of the Weekly Filibuster has been canceled. If you haven’t already, please check the archives for last night’s Republican round-table on the Bush Presidency.

Long Way to Dr. King’s Dream

Four decades have passed since Martin Luther King fought overt discrimination in our legal system. Now, especially with the election of Senator Obama to the Presidency, we tend to view his dream as largely accomplished. However, it would be a mistake to view his work as merely a historical remnant to remind us of a time when there was racism. It exists today, and we need to acknowledge and fight it like we once did.

Four decades after the civil rights movement, African-Americans have an infant mortality rate twice that of white Americans while 20% of African Americans still lack basic health insurance. In a country with a corroding public school system and violent inner cities where homicide is the leading cause of death amongst people under 50 we have not yet achieved the dream. Racial profiling and police brutality are still far too common in our legal system. Look at our board rooms and our nation’s top colleges which remain difficult for African Americans to enter. African American unemployment is twice that of white unemployment.

But this stain on American society runs far deeper than the mechanics of our businesses, schools, and government. It is a part of who many Americans are. When Obama began his candidacy for President, there was an assumption that as a black American he could not be a ‘one of us’, a patriotic American, or as the McCain campaign termed most of the country, not “real Americans”. There were the rumors that he would not say the pledge of the allegiance. Far worse were the rumors that he was a Muslim. To this I must ask: so what if he was? He isn’t, but why would it matter. Dr. King’s most valuable ideal was the hope that we would one day judge each other by the content of our character. In a world in which the average American can not look beyond an individual’s religion, we have a long way to go.

In fact, one of the largest problems has become that we no longer recognize racism as a disease that ails our national system. We must recognize that that awful history is still a part of our society and we must do everything we can to combat it. I believe, that one day, if we do as Dr. King asked, we will be able to truly judge people by the content of their character.

Please take time today to think about Dr. King’s legacy, what he has sacrificed for our nation, and what we must do to rededicate ourselves to his memory and dream.

Obamatopia

Thanks to all of you who tuned in to our conservative roundtable about the Bush Presidency and our exclusive interview with Peter Schiff! As President-Elect Obama prepares to take office on Tuesday, it is important to remember why we need conservatives. To that end, I am pleased to share a look at what the next eight years may bring…

Miss our special “Conservative Edition?”

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Did you hear Senior Republican panelist Matt Cavedon guest-moderate our special “conservative” edition of the Weekly Filibuster?  We heard from author and former Ron Paul economic advisor Peter Schiff, who predicted the economic crisis months and months before anybody else. Schiff has a new book out. Then, our special “Conservative Roundtable Retrospective” on the Bush presidency, with Republican panelist Jay Gobeil and guest panelist Duc Luu at Harvard University. Plus, a live report from Washington, DC, where Moderator Ben Goodman and Senior Democratic Panelist Tom Dec are gearing up for Tuesday’s festivities.

Live From DC: Inauguration Coverage

Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration will be one of the most historic events in American history – so you know the Weekly Filibuster crew will be there with live wall-to-wall coverage.

Can’t make the trip yourself? Join us this Sunday and Monday at 10pm here at weeklyfilibuster.com for the inside scoop live from the Capitol. It’s the next best thing to being there.

And in true Weekly Filibuster fashion, you never quite know what’s going to happen – or which of the country’s political powerbrokers are going to show up.

Bush is a regulate and spend liberal!

Michael Tanner over at Cato is very, very right. Obama can blame Bush or he can blame the free market for America’s recent problems, but blaming both is just ridiculous. The massive trends towards privatization and deregulation in the past eight years that Obama went all Kucinich on during the campaign are not a part of observable reality. If anything, they stopped when Clinton left office.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/01/13/of-course-that-implies-he-had-principles/

“President Bush says that he ‘chucked aside my free-market principles’ when faced with the current financial crisis. Well, duh!

The president said that he had no choice because he was “concerned that the credit freeze would cause us to be headed toward a depression greater than the Great Depression.” Even if one accepts that rather contestable premise, one is tempted to ask what caused him to chuck aside conservative and free market principles when he:

* Increased federal domestic discretionary spending (even before the bailout) faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson.
* Enacted the largest new entitlement program since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, an unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit that could add as much as $11.2 trillion to the program’s unfunded liabilities;
* Dramatically increased federal control over local schools while increasing federal education spending by nearly 61 percent;
* Signed a campaign finance bill that greatly restricts freedom of speech, despite saying he believed it was unconstitutional;
* Authorized warrantless wiretapping and given vast new powers to law enforcement;
* Federalized airport security and created a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security;
* Added roughly 7,000 pages of new federal regulations, bringing the cost of federal regulations to the economy to more than $1.1 trillion;
* Enacted a $1.5 billion program to promote marriage;
* Proposed a $1.7 billion initiative to develop a hydrogen-powered car;
* Abandoned traditional conservative support for free trade by imposing tariffs and other import restrictions on steel and lumber;
* Expanded President Clinton’s national service program;
* Increased farm subsidies;
* Launched an array of new regulations on corporate governance and accounting; and
* Generally did more to centralize government power in the executive branch than any administration since Richard Nixon.”

9 reasons why SCHIP should not be expanded

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/10/17/how-to-argue-against-schip/

The Politcs Of Krispy Kreme

Popular doughnut maker Krispy Kreme, hoping to hop on the Obama Inauguration bandwagon by offering costumers a free doughnut this Tuesday, is facing a backlash from crazy pro-life groups.

“Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American’s sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies — just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet ‘free’ can be.”

Yes, it seems the problem is that the phrase freedom of choice (even when talking about doughnuts) “is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand”.

So keep in mind, all you baby-killing chocolate iced glazed cruller eaters, that ” the next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme, you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama’s radical support for abortion on demand.” YOU WERE WARNED!

I always hear this argument about how the left is comprised of the “politically correct”. This goes a bit towards realizing that it is on both sides, and what is referred to by saying “politically correct” is the longstanding fight on both ideological sides over which words and phrases are used to describe and name things. The bailout is called the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act” in order to make it sound more essential to our economic survival. Language on abortion is used to underline a particular side’s views, whether it is about “choice” or “life”. Words are powerful, bringing with them certain connotations and evoking certain feelings, so naturally there is going to be a fight picked over which words are used.

The “would be hilarious if it wasn’t so insane” press release from the American Life League, by clicking “read the rest”.

Bushism #4 – OB/GYNs

Inauguration Speech Generator

Some fun for Friday.

Bushism #5 – Neither Do We

While parallelism is good, maybe you shouldn’t get too far ahead of yourself Mr. President…

I wonder how Don Rumsfeld kept a straight face…

Just another day in Washington

David Bardallis takes on Obama’s new plan for the economy.

Bushism #6 – Pandemicflu.gov

Sometimes it’s just the way he says it…

International Filibuster Blog Launched

The International Filibuster has launched its new blog here. Check it out and don’t forget to comment.

The Financial Filibuster will be launching its blog in the next few weeks.

Bushism #7 – Bush and the G8

I think Bush could have been ruder…. I’m not sure how though….

Watch this one. Same summit. Wow, he was on a roll.

Bush: not so much with the diplomacy.

Ever seen a train coming down the tracks?

Funny thing is, 3 years and 30 million poor retirees later, the “progressive” media will still spin this to look like greedy corporations screwing helpless Americans.

Will Holder Have Problems in Judiciary?

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is required to recommend Eric Holder for AG before the vote passes on to the full Senate, has 19 members. There are 9 members from each side of the isle and one chairman, who, because it is a Democratic Senate, is a Democrat. However, Joe Biden is the 3rd ranking Democrat on the committee and will have to resign the Senate before the Holder nomination comes up for a vote. That will leave the committee at a 9-9 partisan tie and a tie vote is a failed motion. This is critical. Although it would take a lot of guts for Senate Republicans to take on a President this popular at the inception of his Administration, they have the option to attempt to cripple the Obama Administration with an embarrassing episode of weakness right out of the gate. What’s the downside for Senate Republicans? They’d look bad for a week and people would forget within a month. However, I don’t think that this scenario is likely, for that we have to look at the list of members of the Judiciary committee.

For starters, I don’t think there are any Democrats on the committee that there would be a remote chance of turning (Sen. Blanche Lincoln isn’t on Judiciary). Secondly, I think that while most Republicans would be hard to convince, there are several I don’t think would ever go for this play. Among them Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania). Take note, the Democrats would only need one Republican vote so even if Hatch (R-Utah), Kyl (R-Arizona), Sessions (R-Alabama), and Coburn (R-Oklahoma) decided to try to burn an incoming President, they’d probably be standing alone.

His Third Strike

From Dowd’s column Sunday: Asked by People magazine what moments from the last eight years he revisited most often, W. talked passionately about the pitch he threw out at the World Series in 2001: “I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.”

I think this speaks for itself.

Bushism #8 – The Red Door of China

Yes, you’ve probably forgotten about this embarrassing episode from Bush’s visit to China, but it has always been one of my favorites. Enjoy!

Re: Obama Should Reinvest in Diplomacy

I’ll largely agree with you here, especially on the State Department funding. Diplomacy is an essential, inherent, constitutional duty of the government, and tending to it is very important. That said, efficiency as well as new funding is important…

1) Nuke control ought to be shifted out of State and Energy over to Defense. It would streamline the process, show that we are committed to nuclear non-proliferation, and reduce costs.

2) USAID spends about $2.5 billion every year in Gaza and the West Bank. Given that we are subsidizing Israel’s military, is that not self-defeating?

3) USAID spends $2.1 billion on explicitly development-related projects in Africa. The Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, spends $8 billion every year subsidizing the production of staple crops in America, crushing the ability of African farmers to compete in American markets. Some consolation prize.

4) USAID has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Afghanistan fighting the production of opium. It would be far cheaper, effective, and beneficial for security and economics to legalize and regulate the production of the mild narcotic for medical and recreational reasons. American drug companies import all opium from India and Turkey; why not let Afghanistan’s poor farmers have a fair shot at cracking (no pun intended!) the market instead of selling to druglords or getting busted?

5) USAID has spent quite a bit on foreign aid handouts. Private investment, trade liberalization, and peace are far, far better models for economic development and elevating the human condition than state aid.

Miss Sunday’s Show?

The ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Karen Kwiatkowski, and what the death of Oscar Grant tells us about the future of Black America.

Plus, a tribute to one year of The Weekly Filibuster.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

SNL – Roland Burris Cold Open

Obama Should Reinvest in Diplomacy

Whether the purpose is postconflict stabilization and reconstruction, promoting the rule of law, encouraging democracy, aiding economic development, combating disease, or preventing the proliferation of nuclear arms, the State Department and USAID need a significant increase in their manpower and funding. To give an idea of how small the departments have become, there are more members of the military bands then there are diplomats and while DOD’s annual budget now stands at $750 billion the combined budgets of USAID and DOS barely reach $31 billion. In fact, when you take into account spending through DOE on nuclear technology and through NASA on iintelligence technology, hard-power accounts for 99% of spending on National Security and Foreign Relations.

This constitutes a major threat to our diplomatic efforts abroad because our diplomatic efforts need a transition from a focus on Europe to a global focus with particular attention to previously ignored developing nations. To meet these emerging US interests will require a significant increase in both personnel and funding. Secretary of Defense Gates agrees saying “Congress has not been willing, decade in and decade out, to provide the kind of resources, people and authority that it needs to play its proper role in American foreign policy.” One of Secretary Gate’s major concerns when making that statement was the level to which DOS responsibilities could not be met because of funding and personnel shortages were transferred to a military that is not adequately trained for those responsibilities.

One of the major problems with cutting Foreign Service Officers is that it has a negative result on FSO training. For training and other purposes the DOD, even under its current strain, only keeps 21% of its personnel forward deployed. However, 68% of the Foreign Service is forward deployed leaving no back bench. If DOS want to give FSOs additional training for new operational responsibilities then they do so at the cost of leaving their job vacant for the remainder of the training. The result is that DOS is reluctant to give FSOs even necessary training. The crisis is even more critical at USAID which has seen a 75% decline in employees since the 1970s. That decline has reduced USAID to a shell of its former-self and transitioned much of their operational (but not planning) responsibility to the military. The negative effects of this decline are clearly seen in the US’s failure to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq because USAID is the department that hires the government’s experts in postconflict reconstruction, a much needed and lacked capability.

Unlike the US military, diplomacy is not capital intensive. Although long term spending will have to be multiplied by 2 to 3 times the current $31 billion budget, experts such as Ambassador Holmes believe that the DOS can make monumental strides forward with $2.5 billion annually for diplomatic operations (a 33% increase) as well as doubling the number of FSO, increasing USAIDS’s staff by 150%, and increasing the number of experts at State by 50%. All of this would come at an annual cost of $6 billion. While this seems like a hefty price to pay, it is currently 2 weeks worth of Iraq War spending  and in return the government builds the necessary capabilities to engage in postconflict stabilization and reconstruction.

Bushism #9 – Peance Freeance

With only 9 days left until Bush leaves office, I will shamelessly post a hillarious video each day, if for no other reason than that the joke won’t be relevant in a week and a half.

 

RE: If your state was a country, by GDP

So, let me get this straight: every single one of our fifty states has an economy at least as big as Bangladesh and up to as big as Russia and Italy, but you want MORE federal funding of health care, education, transportation, and economic regulation?

Dude, there’s a reason the UN doesn’t work. Let’s not copy it as a system for governing 300 million people over 5,000 miles from coast-to-coast. Put fifty states with nation-sized GDPs to work if you want, or, even better, follow the route of Third World countries and look at private development of airports, highways, bridges, aviation control, ports, and a whole slew of other infrastructure projects. The federal government (and the state governments, for that matter) funding these things isn’t going to create jobs without taking money out of the economy first. Don’t forget that unemployment was worse in 1939 after two terms of the New Deal than it was in 1931 when he started, or that GDP was worse in ‘39 than in ‘29.

Infrastructure may have merits in and of itself, but to think that massive public spending on infrastructure will create jobs and GDP is, as experience showed us under Roosevelt, Carter, Bush I, and Bush II and as experience showed Japan in the “Lost Decade” of the Nineties, delusional.

Of course, the government will simply brag about “creating 3 million jobs” and argue that the resulting unemployment increase is a justification for more taxing/inflating and spending…

$50 Billion Bread

CNN: Zimbabwe’s central bank will introduce a $50 billion note — enough to buy just two loaves of bread — as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation. The country’s acting finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, made the announcement in a government gazette released Saturday. Although Chinamasa did not give the date on which the $50 billion and new $20 billion notes would come into circulation, an official at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said the notes would be distributed to all banks by the end of Monday. Zimbabwe is grappling with hyperinflation now officially estimated at 231 million percent, and its currency is fast losing its value. As of Friday, one U.S. dollar was trading at around ZW$25 billion. When the government issued a $10 billion note just three weeks ago, it bought 20 loaves of bread. That note now can purchase less than half of one loaf.

If Your State Was A Country, By GDP

Want to Catch Up on Minnesota?

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com wrote an excellent piece that challenges a Wall Street Journal Editorial on the legitimacy of Franken’s win that was certified by the Minnesota Canvasing Board last Monday.

The original Wall Street Journal article is here -  for the other side.

Take a look, they’re both very interesting.

Administration Should Reconsider Public Transportation Spending

The incoming Obama Administration has begun circulating a $800 billion stimulus package and have told legislatures that the acceptable range of spending is capped at $1.2 trillion. Noticeably absent from the $800 billion plan is any funding for Public Transportation. A re-investment in Public transportation has enormous potential to stimulate the economy with good construction and engineering jobs, while enabling working-class Americans to cheaply arrive at their places of work, and helping the environment by reducing pollutants. Federal spending on Public Transportation is key because un-subsidised, Public Transport is simply too expensive to be commercially viable to its target audience. That can be undone with Federal funding just as it is in a majority of the World’s developed nations.

Critics of spending on Transportation note that it would take years to plan and implement any new transportation projects and therefore would be a poor form of stimulus. However, the Department of Transportation estimates that there are nearly $25.2 billion in transportation projects that could begin construction within a year.

Radical Biblical Capitalism

An occasionally-flawed, yet ultimately consistent, rebuttal to “Christian” socialism: here.

Worst Year for Jobs in 6 Decades

The U.S. Labor Department released Employments statistics that show worse than expected job losses this year. The United States lost some half a million jobs in December alone bringing the total for 2008 to 2.6 million. This brings the unemployment rate to 7.2% up from 6.7% just two months ago. 2008 was the single worst year for job losses since World War II ended in 1945.

As disturbing as those statistics are, the worst news is in under-employment statistics. Under-employment is the phenomenon where Americans seek-out full-time jobs but can only find a part-time job. Under-employment has risen to a record 13.5% out of 14 years of tracking. The Department of Labor Statistics projects that the average weekly paycheck fell anywhere from $200 to $611. This is obviously an imperfect statistic. It counts all people including those who have maintained their jobs throughout this economic crisis when the vast majority of lost income comes from the 20.7% of the population that is either un-employed or under-employed. There is no statistic that accounds for just how much income each of those households would have lost however, the point is that it is a very large sum of money.

Re: Equality Has Heald Steady for Twenty Years

Actually, even the Cato Institute unconventional calculations show disproportionate growth in the bottom 40% and the top 20% while relatively modest growth in the middle-class. This growth is accompanied by a higher relative cost of living than existed in 1987.

What this data really shows is that the majority of Americans (around 70%) are coalescing while the top 20% have 1.25% of the expansion of middle-class income.

Cato Institute’s calculations are a disguise. While the bottom 40% and the top 20% have seen relatively similar (more or less 20% pre-tax increase) since 1987 this disguises three things. First, no one has access to pre-tax income. It’s just stupid to calculate on pre-tax. The real calculation of where people are is the post-tax calculations: what people get to keep. Those would show that with a dramatic drop in taxes for the upper-income brackets, the top 20% is doing better than advertised post-tax. Second, they do not stratify far enough. If the Cato Institute broke off a category for the top 1% then even Cato’s figures would see dramatic top 1% increases over the last decade. Third, 120% of $20,000 and 120% of $2,000,000 aren’t even close to being the same! A 20% increase in the income of the top 20% is a huge increase in their standard of living while a 20% increase in a working-class family’s salary is fine, but it might not even be enough to keep up with expanding costs. Certainly any real definition of equality has to account for those three factors!

Equality has held steady for twenty years…

…but income reporting on tax forms has not. See pages 20 and 21 for the fastest visual evidence that the top percent of richest Americans is doing no better today compared to everyone else than it was in 1987. Read the rest to see why it looks like they are in many publications.

Sen. Feinstein’s Reasons for Anti-Panetta Stance

Senator Feinstein has made significant news in the past three days for her opposition to Leon Panetta, President-elect Obama’s choice to head-up the Central Intelligence Agency. She says that her real issue is experience, however Panetta is well experienced for this new leadership position.

He has experience working with political leaders from his time as a Representative starting in 1976 and served for 17 years. In his period in the House of Representatives he served as the Chairman of the US House Committee on the Budget where he became well versed in the full range of US interests and resource allocation. He was then Picked to be Clinton’s Director of Office of Management and Budget after a year of his 9th term as a Congressman. From there he was selected as White-House Chief of Staff where he served for three years. In those three years, he sat in on every intelligence briefing, had close contact with the National Security Council, was included in every meeting at the Presidential level or slightly below in the Situation Room, and advised President Clinton on those matters. If that isn’t National Security experience, then I don’t know what is.

To start with, Panetta is firmly against warrentless wiretapping, torture, and extrajudicial renditions. These stances are solidly against Senator Feinstein’s. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has supported reductions in limits on the Executive Branch’s power to tap the phone calls and e-mail of American citizens through FISA. She voted for ex-post immunity for Telecom corporations that enabled the government to illegally wiretap American citizens. She was the original Democratic co-sponsor of the USA PATRIOT Act. Finally, she was one of only six Democrats to vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General, a supporter of waterboarding and certain ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ which continue in use today. Her real opposition appears to be more ideological: she supports a much slimmer definition of civil-rights than Leon Panetta does.

Second, as ‘The New Republic’ has pointed out, they have had an antagonistic political relationship for several decades. As Chief-of-Staff to President Clinton, Panetta was responsible for opposing several of Senator Feinstein’s most important priorities. Notably, the Base Closing Commission considered in 1995, closing several military bases in California including Long Beach Naval Shipyard. The Senator lobbied Panetta to scrap the report and force the Commission to start over. Panetta refused and then traveled to California, where he was once a Congressman, and explained the President’s decision to community leaders. In addition to this and other clashes over policy, they were both candidates in the 1998 race for the Democratic Nomination for Governor of California. Although it is far from definitive, there is certainly a significant possibility that part of her opposition has its roots in personal disagreements between the two northern-California politicians.

Really Not So Much To Be Proud Of

Just a few rebuttals to Matt’s response that go point by point:
1)The overwhelming majority of tax-relief was for the top 1% of Americans. There was a lowering of taxes for the middle-class as political cover.
2) Your $1 trillion figure for the national debt is over a single year. The total end of fiscal year calculation is over $11 trillion with various exact calculations: http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDebt.html

3) Do we really think that Africans with AIDS never considered abstinence? If they aren’t going to abstain then we should try to help rather than making moralizing statements from Washington DC

4) Drug companies make more money from curing Erectile Dysfunction and Restless Leg Syndrome than they would from curing diseases prevalent among poorer populations. Public funding is necessary to save lives because there will never be a profit motive to cure certain diseases.

5) I understand your position on stem-cells. But they will be destroyed either way. Health clinics won’t keep them frozen indefinitely, only until relatives no longer need them. If they’re going to be destroyed anyway, I can’t see why we shouldn’t attempt to improve people’s lives.

6) I don’t think that Matt hates poor kids. I also don’t think that Bush does. However, SCHIP is a wildly sucessful program. If any government health insurance merits continued funding then certainly it is a state program for poor children’s insurance.

7) Alito is terrible on civil rights and if any group should be charged with standing up for the rights of Americans then it should be the courts.

Banks have money, you’re right. But they aren’t loaning it. They can’t pull out of loans they’ve already guaranteed but they’re being very selective about new investments.

9) Many families lost as much as 1/4 of their net worth over the last year. It obviously depends on diversification and which sectors individuals were more heavily invested in. However, many senior citizens would have found themselves in a precarious financial situation.

NOTE: Matt’s list seemed a little like an explaination of how there were a few things Bush didn’t completely screw up. I still haven’t heard what he did right.

A little (a little) to be proud of

To refute just a few of Bowen’s points:

1) The middle-class got tax relief under Bush, too. The average family paid about 7% less in taxes in 2008 than in 2000 when Clinton left office: http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm

2) The US deficit just hit a record $1 trillion: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7816035.stm

Even factoring in Obama’s $800 billion surplus and various other spending proposals, the total deficit is still only about $2.8 billion under worst case scenarios. Both numbers are far short of Bowen’s claim of $11.3 trillion.

3) The only nation to shrink its AIDS-infected population since the epidemic began has been Uganda. The fall happened after a policy of abstinence as the first priority, followed by monogamy, was introduced. I’m not saying it’s a proven, but it certainly did not make things worse.

4) The National Institutes of Health budgets were cut, but more medical research is being done in America than ever before. Less federal subsidization means private companies have better competitive incentives to do their own research. The competition between companies working on cures also produces better results and more varied treatments.

5) The President was right on stem cells. If they can do all scientists think, the day might come when I could stand up for the first time in my life. But I cannot tolerate any research that kills the innocent to benefit others, especially when it is financed by my tax money.

6) If vetoing SCHIP means Bush hates poor kids, so do I. The best way to help poor kids is not more bureaucracy and public regulation. Its free market health care reform and a more robust economy prompted by lower taxes.

7) Samuel Alito is no “radical rightist.” No ruling he issues from the bench will impede on your right to vote for a state legislature and in some cases a federal Congress that will promote gay rights, abortion rights, gun control, liability clauses, and more education standardization. All he is going to do is prevent the Court from being used to advance agendas better left to the legislatures. I’d rather he was better on civil and legal rights, but even those can be protected by legislatures. The Court is not absolutely needed to do better there.
The credit crisis of 2008? Credit hasn’t contracted in decades. Credit hit a six-month plateau this year, always still higher than at the beginning of the year. The credit problems were a result of awful monetary and fiscal policies that put interest rates into the negatives after 9/11 (also Bush’s fault, by the way).

9) Social Security privatization was only a half-hearted effort by Bush. Too bad. In fifty years, at current rates of spending, entitlement programs will have a $520,000 per household liability. There is no reason that every working American, regardless of ability to provide for herself, should be forced to buy a government pension at a cost of 7.5% of her income every paycheck. In October 2008, in the midst of recession, the Dow was still 2,000 points (20%) higher than it was five years ago. Not a bad return on investment, especially for retirees.

Chief Vatican justice minister decries violence in Gaza

Among other things, Cardinal Renato Martino said, “Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp.”

People of conscience everywhere must remember that Palestine has been occupied for forty years. Regardless of the merits of this particular offensive or that one, the occupation has left 60% of Gazans without clean drinking water every day. It has disenfranchised 2.5 million people in their own homeland and violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by denying these people a homeland. It has led to the destruction of countless families, livelihoods, and ideals.

No matter what these coming weeks bring, ending the illegal and permanent military and political occupation of Palestine must be at the forefront of Middle Eastern peace efforts and humanitarian work today and for however long it takes until Palestine is free.

1967 is over. 42 years later, it is high time to acknowledge the sovereignty and self-determination of the people of Palestine and their right to govern, trade, and live as they choose as a member of the community of nations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7817019.stm

President Bush Will Not Be Well Regarded

Loyalists to the Administration and President Bush himself believe that history will vindicate his Presidency. He has gone as far as to compare his unpopularity with that of Harry Truman and Abe Lincoln. I think that it’s a little presumptuous for a man who can’t string a complete sentence together to compare himself to the deliverer of the Gettysburg address, but let’s look back at Bush’s Presidency and see if it’s something we’ll reconsider.

Like any great presidency, Bush’s started with a loss in the popular vote and a victory in the Electoral College. To achieve that victory, the US Supreme Court stepped in to prevent the counting of ballots in Florida because they would cause “irreparable harm” to Governor Bush. “Irreparable Harm” is the standard set out for the granting of a stay as was done in his case. In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court handed Bush the Presidency in process that was blatantly partisan. With a start like that, I don’t see how it could have gone wrong.

President Bush began with a massive tax-cut for the top 1% of Americans rather than for the middle-class who really needed it. By cutting taxes while conducting an unnecessary war, President Bush expanded the Federal Deficit from $5.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion in the space of just 7 years. Those figures do not account for the loss due to the financial crisis.

Abroad, the President alienated us from traditional allies with his with-us-or-against-us foreign policy. He pushed hard for an invasion of Iraq in 2002 without allowing for weapons inspections to be completed. In this unnecessary war, 4,000 US Soldiers have lost their lives and between 400,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians have died. The Iraqi government has still not arrived at necessary political compromises and the US has no credibility to act as a broker.

Under the Administration’s watch, North Korea gained Nuclear Weapons Capabilities. The A.Q. Khan Network has remained largely operational. Despite 7 years of ’searching’, Bush has not managed to capture Osama bin Laden. In one of his more charming foreign policy decisions, Bush politicized the prevention of AIDS in Africa by insisting that organizations receiving US funding from USAID counsel abstinence until marriage and not hand out condoms except to prostitutes. Some do not even distribute condoms to prostitutes for fear of losing funding. The US is allowing AIDS to spread because evangelical Christians don’t appreciate their values systems: great.

President Bush signed an Executive Order granting the NSA the unconstitutional power to wiretap American citizens without a court warrant. Five years later, he passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which circumvents the independent judicial process mandated by our constitution for ‘unlawful enemy combatants’. The bill further strips those ‘combatants’ of the constitutional right of Habeus Corpus. The Bush Administration vetoed HR 2082 which would have banned the use of waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. Finally, his administration remained oblivious for months to the atrocities being carried out at Abu Ghraib that shocked the world. Even worse, they condone the outright torture carried out on ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ in other countries from Extrajudicial Renditions and the harsh conditions met by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2001, the Administration backed out of the Kyoto Protocols and rolled-over a group of Interior Department scientists in order to divert more water in the Western United States to ranchers, decimating local fish populations.  They continue to question whether Global Warming is caused by humans or natural factors despite a scientific consensus on the issue. He argued for the Clear Skies Act of 2003 which would reduce environmental regulations for corporations. Recently, he lifted a long-standing presidential ban on Offshore drilling.

George Bush cut funding for the National Institutes of Health for the first time in 36 years. In 2006, Bush vetoed a bill to allow HHS and NIH to conduct life-saving stem-cell research, preferring that the frozen embryos from in-vitro fertilization simply be destroyed. He then vetoed the States Children’s Health-Insurance Program, a wildly successful federally funded program to provide health-insurance to poor children. He justified this because the bill would have expanded funding to allow 10 million poor children to receive coverage rather than just 6 million. Denying poor children access to health coverage? Who does that?

His administration de-funded under-performing inner-city schools with No Child Left Behind. He denied civil rights for gay Americans by saying that Gay Marriage would be granting ’special rights’ to gay couples. And who can forget Bush’s nomination of the singularly unqualified Harriet Miers to become a Justice of the United States? Of course, when the Democrats took over congress in 2006, she was no longer qualified to be the President’s top lawyer. He then nominated radical rightist Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O’Connor’s wise voice of moderation.

Then there are the screw-ups that don’t even require an explanation: Hurricane Katrina, Walter Reid, the Credit Crisis of 2008, invocation of Executive Privilege against staff subpoenas, the leaked identity of Valarie Plame, and the Scooter Libby pardon. There were the times that he displayed his love for democracy with statements like “I frankly don’t give a damn about the polls” and “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” And then there was his attempt to privatize Social Security…

I’m sorry, what exactly are they proud of?

President-Elect Obama has Made Excellet Cabinet Picks

Although it is certainly funny to claim that Dr. Sanjay Gupta is no more ready to be Surgeon General then Ben Goodman is to Chair the Council on Foreign Relations, it is simply not true. Dr. Gupta has broad administrative experience from serving for several years as a White-House Fellow and Special Adviser. He also has extraordinary medical talents, serving as a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory University (one of our country’s top 25 schools). To say that he only performs surgery on a couple of Iraq War vets is also untrue. He regularly performs brain surgery at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta Georgia where he works. So, he has experience in government administration, experience as a surgeon dealing with the problems routinely experienced by other doctors, and he has communication skills that would be helpful to a Surgeon General. He is an excellent pick.

Timothy Geithner is a similarly accomplished nominee. He served in the international division of the Department of the Treasury throughout the Clinton Administration, finally becoming the Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in 1998 and serving there until the Bush administration took over two years later. He continued his experience in US inter-connectivity with Foreign Economies as a Senior Fellow on the Council on Foreign Affairs. In 2003, he was named the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. With the turbulence in the US economy, the rise of China, and the large amount of debt owned by foreign creditors, could there possibly be a better time to nominate someone as well versed in US relationships with Foreign economies as he is? Quite simply, no. He is similarly a fantastic pick.

Leon Panetta, President-elect Obama’s pick to head up the CIA is, once again, a good choice. He has experience working with political leaders from his time as a Representative starting in 1976 and served for 17 years. In his period in the House of Representatives he served as the Chairman of the US House Committe on the Budget where he became well versed in the full range of US interests and resource allocation. He was then Picked to be Clinton’s Director of Office of Management and Budget after a year of his 9th term as a Congressman. From there he was selected as White-House Chief of Staff where he served for three years. In those three years, he sat in on everyintelligence briefing, had close contact with the National Security Council, was included in every meeting at the Presidential level or slightly below in the Situation Room, and advised President Clinton on those matters. If that isn’t National Security experience, then I don’t know what is.

That is not to mention the outstanding nominees who’s credentials have not come under fire from Conservatives: Robert Gates for Defense, Hillary Clinton for State, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Eric Holder for Justice, Susan Rice for UN, Tom Daschle for HHS, and other extremely qualified and competent candidates.

Believe me, I get that Conservatives don’t like the ideology of Obama’s nominees. I’ve lived with that feeling through 8 years of Bush’s Cabinet. Conservatives should criticize the results of the Cabinet, just as Liberals should be skeptical of results. That’s our job as citizens of our great democracy. However, each of these candidates is qualified and we should give them their due.

Rise of the Unqualified

Sanjay Gupta, 39, has been offered the position of Surgeon General by President-Elect Obama. You likely remember him from CNN, where he serves as top medical adviser. Performing emergency surgery on a few Iraq War vets is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but it qualifies you to be head up the American government’s public health care bureaucracy about as much as Ben Goodman is qualified to sit on the War Powers Committee because he (presumably) attended Model UN one year.

Leon Panetta has been nominated to serve as the director of the CIA. He is best known for being a Washington insider who can pull strings for presidents and make politics happen. During his terms in Congress, he never sat on the Intelligence Committee. Since then, much of his work has focused on protecting the world’s oceans. If confirmed, he will be in charge of rooting out corruption and abuse, hunting for Osama bin Laden, and discovering the truth about nukes in North Korea and Iran, and at the sprightly age of 70, leading the entirety of America’s covert intelligence operations.

Timothy Geithner has been nominated to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. In his 47 years of life, he has enjoyed fly fishing, tennis, skateboarding, and cussing. His qualifications include advising the government to buy out AIG and Bear Sterns (but not Lehman Brothers) and helping spend US dollars to bail out Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Thailand in the past two decades.

President-Elect Obama, 47, served part of a term in the Senate. He is best known for a riveting convention speech in 2004, immediately after which he began running for president. He introduced two pieces of legislation in his Senate years: one to prevent nuclear proliferation and one to set up a website to track government spending, which he pledges to increase. He becomes leader of the free world in 14 days.

Michael Novak, a lifelong Democrat and Catholic intellectual, wrote in the latest edition of First Things about some of the lack of foresight that got our economy into a mess. Perhaps it is worth reflecting on what happens when good intentions result in awful things when executed by people who simply don’t know what they’re doing:

“The core of the crisis lay in the field of mortgages…. Beginning with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, the political system helped create this mess. The aim was a noble one: to put as many poor people in homes as possible. And it had its early successes, with more than a million poor people coming to own their own homes for the first time. Indeed, in the 1990s (under the leadership of Franklin Raines and Leland Brendsel) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—mortgage lenders secured by government commitments—were given this as their leading purpose.

This was a goal I had shared since at least my 1971 book The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, and I applauded Fannie Mae for this achievement—despite the foresight of my colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute who warned of the eventual costs to the nation. Many in Congress cheered as well, but gradually they did more than cheer. They began to violate age-old banking cautions and practices: forbidding mortgage lenders to demand down payments or to do strict scrutiny of the ability of new borrowers to make regular mortgage payments. They also made mortgage lenders subject to lawsuits—by special-interest groups and pressure groups—if they insisted on what for generations had been thought to be due diligence.

These decisions attracted swarms of speculators to new homes to take advantage of these wholly new and unheard-of incentives. A great many mortgages were granted to well-off people who made use of the incredibly lenient terms to buy or build extra homes for resale. Many economic conservatives warned against this Ponzi scheme. Several attempts by Republican members of the Congress to introduce serious reforms were rebuffed by the friends of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Congress, who insisted that the financing of these two enterprises were [sic] sound and safe: Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and Christopher Dodd, prominently, with many others joining in.

Independent investigators at last inspected the Fannie Mae accounting books, and massive irregularities were discovered. Top leadership was obliged to resign. But fundamental regulatory changes were blocked. The loose, unregulated practices, defended in the name of noble intentions, were allowed to stand. In a crucial way, the mortgage crisis of 2008 was initiated by specific acts passed by Congress and fiercely defended against detailed warnings about the dreadful consequences to come. All those warnings were dismissed as politically motivated, but they turned out to be accurate.”

Senate Should Seat Roland Burris

Governor Blagojevich is still the Governor, and under Illinois law the Governor still retains the power to appoint a senate replacement to an outgoing senator. There is no stipulation for indictments or impeachments, the law says what it says. The Illinois State Legislature had weeks to revoke the Governor’s ability to make pardons and they chose not to. Therefore, it is the express will of the representatives of the people of Illinois that Governors maintain the right to make Senate appointments.

With the very well supported accusations of corruption on a massive scale from attempting to sell the senate seat to blackmailing money from a children’s hospital, he is undoubtedly not in the best position to make an appointment. I believe that it was unethical of him to appoint a Senator given the accusations of illegitimacy that surround him. However, that is an entirely different question. The question here is whether the US Senate should follow the laws that they wrote governing the selection of members of the senate as well as the decisions that they deferred to the respective states. Such deferred decisions include how a selection of a replacement senator is to be made. Senator Reid’s (D-NV) argument rests on the fact that the Secretary of State of Illinois has not yet certified the selection. The Illinois law does stipulate that the appointment must bear the Seal of the State, which only the Secretary of State can give. None the less, the Secretary of State’s role in the proceedings is to affirm that the Governor made the appointment, just as he would affirm that the people made the decision in a standard election. No part of his role is to countermand the decision of the Governor just as it would not be his role to reverse the decision of the people in an election. This is a question of the rule of law, and the law is clear. The Secretary of State and the United States Senate are obligated to uphold it and to do so immediately. If the people of Illinois lack confidence that Burris was the appropriate selection, they will have the opportunity to reverse the decision in the 2010 election.

The Credit Crunch that didn’t happen

Looks like a massive contraction of credit isn’t what started this mess:

How about record inflation that gave us negative interest rates and worthless government bonds, meaning the housing market suddenly looked like the sexiest investment on the planet? Especially when you factor in laws like the Community Reinvestment Act, which actually mandates that banks give loans to high-risk mortgage seekers, and government charters for two cutely-named companies to control 70% of American mortgages without getting the same scrutiny as private banks, it is even more clear that “unrestrained free market capitalism” isn’t to blame for this. Neither is the more Robin Hood-esque “corporate greed.”

American House of Commons or House of Lords?

Does America’s government resemble a House of Commons or a House of Lords. At the surface, there are the oft cited examples of Senator Hillary Clinton, wife of President Bill Clinton, who was elected without prior experience and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, son of Joseph Kennedy and brother of John and Bobby Kennedy. But even in the Senate, the issue runs far deeper. Tom Udall of New Mexico and Mark Udall of Colorado were both elected to the Senate in 2008 from the famed Udall family. The Udalls were leaders in the move westward and are sometimes even termed the ‘Kennedys of the West’. Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon was just unseated by Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley. Senator Smith is also an Udall. Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire is the son of a former Governor of New Hampshire.

Lisa Murkowski, a Senator from Alaska, is the daughter of former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski who appointed her to the senate. Elizabeth Dole, the recently unseated Senator from North Carolina is the wife of Bob Dole, former senator from Kansas. Mark Pryor of Arkansas was elected to the Senate as the son of Arkansas Governor and former Senator David Prior.

The House of Representatives does not fare much better. Rep. John Salazar is the brother of Senator Ken Salazar (now nominee for Interior). Jessie Jackson Jr. of Illinois is the son of Jessie Jackson and was recently heavily considered as a possible senate apointee. Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island is the son of Senator Ted Kennedy. Speaker Pelosi is the daughter of a former Baltimore mayor and 5 term Congressman. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard’s father was a congressman from the same district. Rep. Sander Levin is the brother of Senator Carl Levin. The list goes on and on.

As if this pehnomenon wouldn’t be ugly enough as a case of nepotism in elected office, it extends far beyond that. Minority Whip Roy Blunt found a lobying job for his son Andrew and wife at Altria. Colin Powell’s son Michael Powell was appointed Chairman of the FCC. Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Her husband was made  Chief Counsel for OMB. Eugene Scalia, son of Justice Scalia, was made chief counsel to the Department of Labor. Strom Thurmond Jr., Son of famed racist Senator Thurmond, is the US Attorney for South Carolina. It’s possible to go on an on. With no-bid contracts, shady employments, and questionable appointments.

NOTE: I don’t mean to say that none of the above people are qualified to hold the jobs that they do. Many of them are. But I think that we should recognize that Politics is very much a family business for many politicians and that isn’t a good thing. For every person who gets a job from nepotism and is qualified, there are probably several who are not.

Back To Basics

With the new Congress being sworn in today, Eve Fairbanks over at The New Republican previews why the GOP caucus is likely to swing even farther to the right:

You would not expect House conservatives, dwindled in numbers and without even the consoling possibility of filibusters, to be relishing the prospect of 2009. But purist right-wingers in the House are oddly happy these days. That’s because they, like many outcast peoples, have discovered in their folklore their own Little Bighorn, a tale of resistance that gives them pride and hope.

If House Republicans push back on the proposed stimulus plan – not objecting to it completely, but acting as the party that says “you can’t have everything, here’s what’s wasteful” – they can score a great deal politically. This is, afterall, what we’ve been constantly hearing: the GOP has to go back to its roots.

Miss Last Night’s Show?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

We discussed the violence in the Gaza strip, the ongoing Senate dramas, Bill Richardson, Tim Kaine, and counted down the top 20 political moments of 2008!

Lock-Step On Israel

Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com:

Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice?  More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party’s voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party’s leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?

Blago Impeachment…..Already?

According to this report from the Chicago Tribune, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich may be impeached as early as next week. A Illinois House Investigative Committee may recommend the impeachment of the Governor as early as next week. Blago was invited to testify in front of the committee at a later date, and tapes were being turned over to the Committee by the state’s Attorney General.

Isn’t this a bit preemptive? Don’t get me wrong, based on media reports it seems as though Governor Blagojevich is guilty, but should the legislature impeach someone just because they were accused of being corrupt? It seems as though it would be out of place right now. I agree with Senate Democrats not wanting Burris to take office while the Governor is [rightfully] accused of selling the seat, but for the legislature to impeach before any type of legal action seems irresponsible. Apparently Blagojevich feels he has done nothing to warrant impeachment, so let’s have due process do its magic.

If the Assembly was nervous about Blagojevich appointing someone, they should have stripped Blagojevich of that power and held a special election. Now, we have an appointed Senator – definately qualified – by a seemingly corrupt Governor.

Do Independents Swing Republican?

Here’s a popular piece of political conventional wisdom: Independents swing Republican. But is it actually true? Let’s go through the reasons.

Reason 1: Democratic voter identification has remained significantly higher than Republican identification over the last 50 years and yet Republican candidates have won six of the last ten Presidential elections. In order for that to be true, voters without a fixed political affiliation must have voted with the Republicans in at least six of the last ten elections.

This argument is false at the most basic levels. A lot of the explaination for high Democratic ID comes from the south. Older Southerners who are historically Democrats (as were their parents) but feel that the party has abandoned their conservative views often claim to identify with Democrats and vote for Republicans. For example, Louisiana is 40% Democratic and 32% Republican, Oklahoma is 37% Republican and 39% Democratic, and North Carolina is 35% Republican and 37% Democratic.  So, it would seem logical that Democrats would have the electoral edge in all 3 of those states. Well, that’s not quite true because the Democrats lost 2 of them and narrowly won the 3rd. 

Exit polls showed that only 75% of Louisiana Democrats voted for Obama while 96% of Louisiana Republicans voted for McCain. They’re holdover Democrats, and they vote like it. But one state isn’t enough to prove the point. In Oklahoma which has a 2% Democratic edge in Voter ID only 67% of Democrats voted for Obama while 95% of Republicans voted for McCain. Even in North Carolina where Obama won he carried 90% of the Democratic vote to McCain’s 95% of Republicans. And that is a vast improvement for North Carolina Democrats over that number in the 2004 election. It gets complicated after this point, but if we were to measure nationally the number of people who say they are Democrats and then vote that way against the number of people who say they are Republican and then vote that way (let’s call that Actual-Party ID), it seems likely that Republican Actual-Party ID would be higher than Democratic Actual-Party ID.

Reason 2: This is a much more academic explanation for why some Political Scientists believe this to be an actual phenomenon. Because it involves the actual use of statistics and facts, it is a less common argument so I tackled it second rather than first. These political scientist point out that Democrats have lost the independent vote in 8 of the last 13 Presidential elections. This explanation merely pretends to be more sound. Including the last 13 elections takes us all the way back to 1960! If you are trying to figure out how 1960’s voters would have decided on a group of candidates in a hypothetical and purely academic pursuit then this information might be useful. However, the political landscape has changed dramatically since then. To pretend that American politics is at all similar to politics before the Reagan Revolution that brought economic libertarianism to prominence in the Republican Party is absurd. So, if we look at how Independents have decided after the Reagan revolution we get a more accurate picture of how independents might vote in future elections. In the last 20 years of Presidential Elections, Independents have voted Democratic four of six times. Starkly opposed to a deficit, it’s a whopping 67% of the time!

Trust fund mom for Senate?!

Boy, if Caroline Kennedy is qualified to be vice president because of her name, her ability to part-time fundraise for public schools, and her ability to see the Russian Tea Room from her house, I have got quite the vice presidential candidate for you…

Kennedy for U.S. Senate?!

With HRC moving to serve as SOS in the Obama Administration, Gov. Paterson will have the opportunity to appoint a person to represent New York until the next federal election in 2010. Any choice he makes should surely be a shoe in for the special election – in the heavily democratic New York, republican opposition is generally weak. Much speculation has been swirling in recent weeks about the possibility of Caroline Kennedy replacing Hilary as the U.S. Senator from New York.

For the Obama Administration, this would be a gift from above: a liberal senator who endorsed Obama in the election. I think Caroline could be a great pick. She has largely been outside of the political scene down in Washington since this year, she has lead and been a player in the non-profit sector, and is also an author and a lawyer. Granted, she needs to clarify some of her views, and granted I do have reservations about some of the ones she has voiced (such as her support for the auto bailout), but I think she would be a fine Senator.

Caroline has received support from many prominent New Yorkers, and she has been gaining traction on the national stage. Now we just wait for Gov. Paterson….

If you support Caroline’s bid for U.S. Senate, you can sign a petition to Gov. Paterson here.

Comments – Jump In!

Everyday, great discussions happen here at the Weekly Filibuster blog. Right now, for example, some of the topics include:

• Whether Blago senate apointee Ronald Burris should/will ever make it to the Senate.
• The conflict in the Gaza strip.
• Whether we do great things as a nation, or individually.

We’re going to continue these, and other great conversations throughout the year. Make sure to get in on the discussion by posting a comment on any blog post. It’s easy, allows you to voice your opinion, and will make reading this blog all the more fun!

USA: Forged in Freedom

We put a man on the moon; I’ll chalk that one up for the Feds. Saving Europe? Please. We didn’t enter the war until we were directly hit, at which point doing anything less would have been cowardly. The Marshall Plan helped make inefficient bureaucratic welfare states throughout Europe possible by breaking prosperity away from economic sanity. We ended racism in our legal systems, sure, but never forget that it was legal systems that made institutional racism possible. We used Social Security to force every American, no matter how well-off or far-sighted, to buy into socialized pensions that will either bankrupt themselves in a few decades or face privatization (not to mention that our seniors were NOT living in abject poverty before Social Security and the market has grown by a third in the past forty years! Show me any Social Security account with that kind of growth, even after factoring in recession!). We faced down Stalin? Where? We faced down Khrushchev by taking American missiles out of Turkey quietly – hoorah humility. We proved to the world democracy and free markets could work by being rich and free without central control of our lives and money.

America is doing more research than any other nation on the planet to research cures for everything from cancer to HIV/AIDS to genetic diseases to heart disease. Our private system of health research and insurance means that people can choose to pay for more experimental treatments than they are elsewhere. In the UK, every treatment must be certified by a central government body. One of the criteria they use for certification is cost effectiveness. If a treatment does not extend average life expectancies by a certain amount per pound spent, it is not approved. A recent kidney treatment extended average life spans by six months in patients; unfortunately, the government cost ratios mandated at least a year of improvement before the drug could be used. In America, you are free to make your own choices about the kind of treatment you need with your doctor. Unfortunately, new HHS Secretary Daschle’s plan could change that.

Universal health insurance will not come without dramatic new government control of the health care system. 130,000 pages of Medicare regulations already set the standards for what is cost-appropriate. Believe me, I’ve purchased more than one wheelchair and other pieces of medically necessary equipment through private insurance and still had to have my needs meet state standards. As long as the government is footing the bill for health care, it and not competition, my freedom to pick insurers, and my doctors will have the power to ultimately say what I can consider. If we want to truly help the poor, let’s limit tort and liability so that doctors can take patients as Good Samaritans and make house visits without fearing the lawyer. Let’s give more tax deductions for research of new drugs and cut back on restrictions that prevent people from freely choosing alternative and experimental treatments. Let’s shrink down Medicare and Medicaid so that more private insurers can be innovative with their coverage plans.

Finally, as for railroads, the labor standards sucked and were abusive, fine. In the end, though, it is perhaps more of a testament to the dedication of Chinese immigrants that the system came out as well as it did, just as Southern agriculture is a credit to the slaves who built it from nothing. In so much as the overlords and task masters get credit, you are right, it is wrong because so many were forced to work without contracts they freely entered. Perhaps, though, the end result is a source of pride for the people whose ancestors still worked through it all and made something impressive. But then, I’m just another white guy from the middle class who cannot really speak of such things.

NYT Annual Quiz

If you’re feeling up to it, Ben Schott provides “one hundred and eighteen questions, and a fiendish election table, on the incidents, accidents, hints and allegations that defined 2008.”

Netanyahu makes the case

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Israeli Likud Party, has released this video on his English campaign website explaining the conflict.  His campaign website, seemingly directly modeled after President-Elect Obama’s campaign website, is using social networking websites Obama-style to organize supporters ahead of the February 10 Elections, where Likud holds a small lead in the polls.  Israel needs Netanyahu back at the helm.

Despite the fact that Netanyahu does not belong to Prime Minister Olmert’s Kadima party (founded by former PM Sharon a few years ago), Olmert has sent Netanyahu and Kadima Leader Tzipi Livni out to do joint statements, and asked Netanyahu to do foreign interviews–probably because he is such a well known figure.

 

Watch Netanyahu explain what’s going on, and why Israel is doing what it is doing.

Conflict on YouTube

Bloomberg has a story this morning about how Israel is using Bloomberg to make their case (in proving how justified they are) for their strikes against Hamas in Gaza.  Here’s one of the videos (the text from the YouTube page explaining the video follows):

 

 

Video of Israel admitting a Gazan child for treatment at an Israeli hospital via the Erez crossing. Hamas has used the people of Gaza as human shields—Israel, in contrast, values human life and is willing to open its borders to provide for medical treatment.

Despite the ongoing rocket fire, 12 Palestinians from Gaza were allowed in Israel from Gaza on 31 Dec. 2008. This child, who was not hurt as part of operation “Cast Lead,” will join hundreds of other Gazans hospitalized in Israel.