What makes me angry today

I was perusing my local school district's annual School Board statement online and was struck by the following Q&A (emphasis is mine):

Have Lincoln's union's agreed to changes that will help alleviate our district's financial challenges?

By law, the Board is not at liberty to discuss details of the collective bargaining process. We are looking forward to far and equitable collective bargaining agreements with all of our district's unions.

What kind of garbage is it that the law requires that educational financial decisions be conducted via backroom dealings?

When is Hitch going to shut up?

Over at Slate, Christopher Hitchens yanks out yet another protracted column about how it's perfectly fine for him to discriminate against particular political candidates on the basis of religion. Going further, he argues that everyone should discriminate against candidates based on religious viewpoints.

What is so shocking is that Hitchens famously belongs to the group which faces the most widespread religious discrimination: he's an atheist. According to a recent Gallup poll, more than half of Americans would never vote for an atheist.

This begs a question: When you're in the most oppressed of the minorities, why are you encouraging oppression?

NIE report repudiation of Bush doctrine?

Settling down into Salon - probably my least favorite place for Liberal opinion work and the anthesis of the much better written, much more sane Slate - I found this gem: Gary Kamiya trying to spein the recent NIE report as somehow bad for the President. How can you take an article seriously when it leads with this?

Bush's disastrous legacy is now locked in place. The National Intelligence Estimate released last week, which stated that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, is an explicit repudiation of the Bush doctrine and a preemptive strike against war with Iran.

According to the new NIE, 6 months after the U.S. entered Iraq, Iran and gave up its nuclear weaponizing programs. At about the same time, Syria gave up their own nuclear and chemical weapons programs. Strange coincidence, isn't it? It just must be an absolute repudiation of Bush's foreign policy doctrine that during his time in office, his projection of American strength and willingness to engage in preemptive strikes led to Iran and Syria abandoning nuclear and chemical weapons.

Of course, Mr. Kamiya's article has to follow up with another interesting anecdote:

One of [National Iranian American Council President Trita] Parsi's more remarkable tales takes place in May 2003, just after U.S. troops occupied Baghdad. Fearing that the U.S. was about to invade Tehran, Iran approached the U.S. with an amazing offer. In a dialogue of "mutual respect," it offered to stop its backing of Hamas and Islamic Jahad, support the transformation of Hezbollah into a disarmed political party, open up its nuclear program to international inspection and accept the Arab League's two-state plan for Israel and Palestine, thus making peace with the Jewish state. In return, Tehran asked for the U.S. to abandon its plans to topple the reign of the mullahs, end sanctions, turn over antiregime terrorists and accept Iran's legitimate interests in the region.

Assuming that this is, indeed, more than a remarkable tale of an amazing offer, this seems to strengthen the position of the Bush Doctrine, does it not?

Bringing Iran in from the cold
Iran isn't a mad state bent on Israel's destruction but a rational actor that wants a place at the table.
Current Opinion for Salon

Bush's disastrous legacy is now locked in place. The National Intelligence Estimate released last week, which stated that Iran stopped its nuclear program in 2003, is an explicit repudiation of the Bush doctrine and a preemptive strike against war with Iran. The professionals have struck back against the ideologues.

But in spite of the NIE findings, Bush and the wider U.S. establishment still share a view of Iran as evil and unapproachable. Until Washington realized that it would be better off engaging with the Iranian regime than demonizing it, its Mideast policy will continue to flounder along the failed pat of Bush's "war on terror." To avoid that outcome, it's going to have to be willing to question everything it thought it knew about Iran.

Congress and the media's so-what response to the Bush administration's outrageous attempt to cook the Iran intelligence does not inspire confidence. The Bush administration sat on the NIE for more than a year, trying to change the report to make it harsher on Iran, and all the while beating the drums for war. This fact has gone largely uncriticized, even though it's Iraq all over again. Bush has gotten a pass on his deception yet again for a simple reason: America views Iran as so innately dangerous, irrational and undeterrable that it doesn't care what Bush lied about what he knew and when he knew it.

In the eyes of the mainstream media, Congress and much of the public, Iran is the ultimate bad guy, a combination of al-Qaida and Adolf Hitler. This substratum of fear and hatred, some reasonable but much irrational, explains why leading Democrats, from Harry Reid to Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, have reacted so tepidly to the NIE and Bush's obvious lies about it. More important, it explains why even a Democratic president could still pursue a self-destructive course of confrontation with Tehran.

Dickerson lays it to the State Dems

This is sheer brilliance. Brian Dickerson of the Free Press slaps around the idiocy of the Democratic leaders and their continued pursuit at Michigan voter disenfranchisement.

Salvaging the primary wreckage
The Detroit Free Press

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Michigan's Democratic leaders have figured out a way to make participation in their party's Jan. 15 primary even more meaningless.

Most observers figured the Democrats' primary fiasco had reached bottom last month, when Democratic state lawmakers couldn't muster the votes to assure that all their party's presidential candidates would appear on the Michigan ballot.

But now, in a new voter guide unveiled this week, state party leaders are urging voters who support any of the four Democrats who've dropped out of the Michigan primary to cast their ballots for "Uncommitted," effectively ceding their voices to an unknown slate of electors to be named later in party caucuses across the state.

That's right, citizens: The same party regulators who collaborated to render Michigan's vote a meaningless footnote to the Democratic presidential contest want your proxy to do as they please at the party's nominating convention.

If that's your idea of participatory democracy, I'd suggest a write-in vote for Vladimir Putin.

So angry that I can hardly type...

The News has an article about the recently passed House energy bill.

What makes me so angry?

1. All Michigan Democrats voted for the bill, even though it will kill Michigan jobs and continue our one-state recession.
2. The authors claim that Americans would save $2 billion in gas taxes without mentioning that Americans would spend $4 billion a year in costs to implement.
3. The authors claim that consumers would save "as much as $1,000 a year" in fuel costs, without mentioning that they would spend between $5,000 and $7,000 more for a new car - or between $1,000 and $2,300 a year (plus interest payments) for a car.

What kills me about this is, first, the dishonesty. This is not going to provide net financial savings for consumers. There is not a single hybrid on the market which is a net financial savings over the same vehicle with a standard power train. Eliminating the ability of GM and Ford to sell the only vehicles they make a profit on will not mysteriously "save" the companies by "forcing" them to "get with the times."

I hate to break it to the hippies, but no one in this country buys a car based on mileage. Even those who buy hybrids generally do it based on cosmetic reasons and precious few Americans buy hybrids. Cars in America are sold based on power, performance, safety, and utility - all items which will need to be reduced in order to comply with these guidelines.

Secondly, the solution to emissions problems is being placed primarily on Michigan. Cars account for about 25% of emissions but are expected to account for 90% of the solution. I'm still waiting to see the bills demanding a reduction in the emissions from California beef farmers or mandating "no-till" farming, even though agriculture dwarfs the automotive sector in emissions and switching strictly to "no-till" farming would have the same net effect as raising average fuel economy to 50 mpg.

Either way, we in Michigan have been betrayed by members of our representation. The UAW, the Union workers, the employees and management at GM, Ford, and Chrysler have placed their faith in Michigan's Democrats to protect them. They then turned on them, stabbed them in the back, and are working actively (knowingly or not) to destroy the auto industry and further wreck Michigan's economy. Is it too much to ask that Michigan voters hold these individuals accountable? They are: John Dingell, Sander Levin, John Conyers, Dale Kildee, Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, and Bart Stupak.

When the next round of Union layoffs comes around, know that these men and women actively worked to make it happen.

House OKs 35 mpg rule
But energy bill faces Senate, Bush opposition
The Detroit News

WASHINGTON - The U.S. House approved a landmark energy bill Thursday that increases fuel economy standards by 40 percent by 2020 but the measure faces substantial hurdles in the Senate and a likely veto by the White House.

"Democratic leaders in the House today pushed a partisan bill that members had very little opportunity to study before the vote, which they knew was unacceptable to the president and had no chance of being signed into law," the White House said. It is "a misguided approach and if it made it to the president's desk, he would veto it."

Raising fuel efficiency requirements to an average 35 miles per gallon for the total fleet of cars and light trucks built in the United States is the centerpiece of the bill approved by the House in a 235-181 vote.

The bill also requires the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 and forces utilities to produce 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power. The measure will be funded by rescinding $21 billion in tax breaks, largely for oil companies.

What happened to fighting global warming?

This is why I hate the 'environmental' lobby: so-called environmental groups in Texas are desperately trying to derail the construction of wind farms. Too many environmentalists are just using environmental issues to try to push an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist agenda.

Coalition sues Land Office over wind farms
Groups, including King Ranch, want to require extensive environmental review of wind projects
The Austin American-Statesman

The famed King Ranch and a coalition of environmental groups sued Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson in federal court Tuesday, seeking to require extensive environmental review and public comment on two planned wind power projects along the Gulf Coast in Kenedy County.

The coalition, the Coastal Habitat Alliance, also sued over the wind project in state District Court in Travis County. That suit claims that the state's Public Utility Commission illegally denied the alliance's request to participate in permit hearings for the wind project's transmission time.

The lawsuits threaten to delay or stop the two massive wind projects, which could place more than 600 turbines on 60,000 acres near Laguna Madre, south of Corpus Christi. Part of the wind projects would place about 250 turbines just east of a portion of the sprawling King Ranch.

The federal suit, filed in U.S. Western District Court in Austin, said the turbines could kill untold numbers of migratory birds and damage the bay. It seeks to overturn the decision by the Texas General Land Office, which Patterson heads, to allow the projects to be built without environmental review or input fro the public. The suit contends that the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 and the Texas Coastal Management Program require a permit process for an energy generation facility on the coast, including wind farms.

Good news, bad news on Iran

By now you've likely heard about the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report and its statements on Iran. If you haven't, the short of it is this: the consensus among the U.S. intelligence agencies is that Iran had a nuclear weapons program but in the fall of 2003, about six months after the invasion of Iraq, Iran gave up their direct weapons program. MSNBC had a pretty good article yesterday on a summary, including some nuanced provisions. Key items from the report that MSNBC brings up:

• "Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons."
• "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."
• "Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU (highly enriched uranium) for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame."
• "Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so..."
• "We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of it's nuclear weapons program indefinitely..."

While there is good news that Iran decided to end their pursuit of nuclear weaponry right after the U.S. entered Iraq, deposed of the Baathist government, annihilated the Iraqi military, and forced the government either into hiding or prison, we need to keep a close eye on their uranium enrichment program. While we currently do not have to fear an eminent nuclear weapon, the idea of a radical theocratic regime hostile to the U.S. and desiring the eradication of Israel should give every Presidential candidate pause, even Sen. Barack Obama, who somehow thinks this isn't that bad of an option.

Capitol Hill tries to fathom Iran intelligence
Spy agencies can't say whether Tehran will halt nuclear effort indefinitely
MSNBC

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress tried to figure out Tuesday how to respond to the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released Monday which said that "Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" in 2003.

The previous NIE, in 2005, said Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons."

On one level, the congressional reaction was hurt feelings and puzzlement that the Bush administration hadn't given a heads-up to key players in Congress.

Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., indicated by their comments that they felt crossed up.

"I was on a show Sunday on CNN and made some comments about Iran which I believed were true and basically are true, but I would have made them more conditional, more qualified had I known there was change coming," Levin told reporters.

GWOT is not WWII

John Derbyshire writes for the National Review, writing a blog tracking the election and political issues. In an recent post, he ponders:

"The folk who direct our armed forces have spent four and a half years struggling inconclusively with a rabble of fanatics who have no navy or air force, no armored units, no regular formations at all in fact, and munitions they operate with cell-phones and lengths of string. In three and a half years, our grandfathers turned two mighty, sprawling fascist empires to rubble. What am I missing here?"

I hate this line of argument. You hear this brain-dead idiocy from so many people these days - we only took three and a half years to win World War II, so why do we still have troops in Iraq after four and a half years? I hate to break it to you, but we still have troops in Japan and Germany and they faced resistance and civil unrest after the war. During World War II, we lost over 270,000 members of our armed forces and tens of millions of civilians died. In Iraq, we've lost barely more than 1/100 of that number in both service members and Iraqi civilians. Then, of course, there's the messy bit that World War II had been going on for several years before we got there. Oh, and don't forget how we ended up winning that war: we used nuclear weapons to annihilate two cities and kill a few hundred thousand civilians.

So, until we're willing to lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers, willing to kill millions of civilians, and willing to use such tactics such as firebombing Dresden or nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki while rounding up all American Arabs to put them into concentration camps, let's hold off on comparing the war in Iraq to World War II.

Brian Williams is not among the deep thinkers...

Time Magazine has some suggestions from a few people about who should be Person of the Year.

You have people like John Kerry (LCpl James Crosby, who is outreach coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Veterans Services) and Aretha Franklin (Bill Cosby) who are making salient, informed, intelligent, well-thought out suggestions; you have Stephen King (Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears) who is making a very intelligent, astute observation about the situation of media in our country, and then you have Brian Williams making a ridiculously inane suggestions: Mother Earth. I'm not sure which is worse - that's he's making such an idiotic, mentally void statement or that he appears to think it's insightful in some way.

Would Sen. Clinton supporters vote for "Hillary Smith?"

Yet more bigoted, sexist drivel from a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Maybe Robin Gerber needs to step back and analyze her own prejudices. She honestly thinks that Hillary Clinton would be viewed differently if she was a man? Let's just set aside the straw man arguments that Ms. Gerber is postulating here, the waffling on abortion (a charge I've not personally heard) and on the war (a charge which rings very true) - her detractors are a little more concerned about things like the "vast right-wing conspiracy," her methods of dealing with the media, her former business dealings, the censorship of her notes and papers from her time as First Lady, the mysterious death of a former associate, the secrecy surrounding the Clinton White House, and the people who work for her engaged in personal destruction while working for her husband.

To address specifically the straw-man arguments and bigoted suggestions in the article. Hillary Clinton is neither effective nor qualified for the position. There is not a single piece of significant legislation she has enacted. She has never run a single thing in her life - never run a business, a city, a state, an Executive department, or even a legislative committee. She has accomplished exactly nothing as a legislator, as a First Lady, as a business manager, or as a lawyer. Further, the entire sum of her qualifications are 8 years in Congress. By that measure, there are - literally - hundreds of other lawmakers who are at least as qualified as she is.

The issue is, and always has been, that Hillary Clinton is an unsuitable candidate because of who she is - not that she happens to have two X chromosomes. Plenty of other female candidates would be much more suitable, most notably Christie Todd Whitman, Elizabeth Dole, Madeline Albright, Janet Napolitano, or Mary Jodi Rell. All of those women have actual accomplishment, have actual qualifications, and have actually led. Elizabeth Dole, in particular, is extremely well qualified.

The bottom line, however, is that the real question Ms. Gerber should be posting is not "would you vote for Hillary Clinton" but, rather, "would you vote for Hillary Smith."

Hillary should play her gender card to the hilt
NewsDay.com

Sen. Hillary Clinton has a trust problem. Polls in Iowa and New Hampshire show that voters give her very low marks for being trustworthy and honest. The media and her opponents have built and reinforced the charge.

But they're blaming the victim. Clinton is running for president in a sexist culture that persists in seeing strong, capable women as suspect.

It's not the voters and her opponents think Clinton's experienced and competent, and they don't like or trust her. It's that they think she's experienced and competent and that's why they don't like or trust her.

A study earlier this year by Catalyst, a nonprofit business research organization, showed the start dilemma that competent women face. In "the Double-bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership," women were criticized for being "too aggressive and self-promoting," but men with similar styles were praised for being direct.

Buy Michigan

Since 2002, 49 states in the nation have experienced job growth. Michigan is the only state which has lost jobs. We currently rank dead last in unemployment at 7.6%. That's significantly higher than Mississippi and more than twice the rate of Louisiana. For many this holiday season, Christmas and the New Year will be met with joblessness and poverty. As the holiday season approaches, we can all pitch in.

In the short term, please consider adopting a family through organizations such as Volunteers of America. The Michigan branch is sponsoring a holiday adopt-a-family program. Please consider the program. Even a small donation, $10 or $20, can make a significant difference.

For long-term help, please consider making a concerted effort to purchase primarily Michigan products. This will help spur job growth here in Michigan and many of these products are less expensive than their national counterparts. The organization Buy Michigan Now has a handy holiday guide on their website.

Please consider spending your holiday money in Michigan this holiday year.

The Final Betrayal

John Dingell has completed his sell-out of the American Auto Industry. The auto fuel economy standards will increase 40% over the next 13 years, which will cost the auto industry - and let's be honest, that means it will cost Michigan - $4 billion a year. Dingell has completely surrendered the entire battle without a fight, something I have been predicting for months. He wants to avoid a contentious debate in the House, he wants to avoid giving up the power he has in his party, and he has made it clear that his power and his party come before his constituents.

Lawmakers Reach Gas Mileage Boost Deal
Fox News

WASHINGTON - An agreements among congressional Democrats - including those from auto industry states - to support a 40 percent increase in vehicle fuel efficiency is likely to be the tonic needed to push energy legislation through Congress before Christmas.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime protector of the auto industry, settled their differences in an agreement late Friday on the fuel economy, or CAFE, issue, clearing the way for a House vote on a broader energy bill, probably on Wednesday.

Automakers would be required to meet an industry wide average of 35 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks, including SUVs, by 2020, the first increase by Congress in car fuel efficiency in 32 years.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the compromise "good news" and said he hoped to take up the legislation quickly after the House acts.

Slitting their own throats

One of Milton Friedman's biggest laments was when business interests forsook free-market capitalist and pro-business candidates and fund their opponents: the anti-capitalist, anti-business, anti-growth interests and their socialist candidates. He viewed this as the companies slitting their own throats. Were he alive, he'd likely feel that lament once again.

Banking on the idea that Democrats are going to come to power, corporate lobbyists are pouring money into Democratic candidates. Let's be very clear here, because obviously too many donors just don't understand this point: even if you can buy out a candidate's deeply held anti-capitalist convictions, you certainly can't do it for the few thousand dollars you're allowed to donate.

As bad as lobbying, special interests, and the entire funding process for American democracy, the issue is not candidates being bought. As someone who has been lobbied as a candidate, I can certainly tell you: successful lobbyists are not out trying to bribe people with different opinions; they're trying to identify and fund candidates who already share their opinions while shutting down candidates with differing opinions.

Business interests who think that donating ten thousand dollars to a congressional candidate will somehow cause the candidate to support their position only needs to look at John Dingell. Despite a quarter of his donations coming from energy and utility companies, he just negotiated an energy bill which would be devastating to those same energy and utility companies. Despite another quart of his donations coming from auto companies, the same energy bill includes mileage requirements which will be devastating to auto companies. If even John Dingell is willing to value personal political power over not only his donors but his constituents whose very livelihood depends on the success of the auto industry, why would companies think that candidates are willing to sacrifice their own personal political power within the party to serve their interests?

Business lobby increases pressure ahead of '08
Race is on ahead of presumed change in administration
The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

Hoping to lock in policies back by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exception from the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements.

"There's a growing sense, a growing probability, that the next administration could be Democratic," said Craig L. Fuller, executive vice president of Apco Worldwide, a lobbying and public relations firm, who was a White House official in the Reagan administration. "Corporate executives, trade associations and lobbying firms have begun to recalibrate their strategies."

Democrats: Every vote must count!

The Democrats have finally, officially voted to disenfranchise the voters of Michigan. Not only will the Democratic Presidential contenders not campaign in Michigan, not only have half of them pulled out of the race, but the Democratic National Convention has now officially made it clear that no Michigan vote will count.

Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer apparently expects that the Democratic presidential nominee will make sure that Michigan's delegates will be counted at the convention. If it's a close race, however, and Michigan's delegates will make the difference - don't count on democracy to win out.

Democrats punish Michigan for early primary
MSNBC News

VIENNA, Va. - Democratic leaders voted Saturday to strip Michigan of all its delegates to the national convention next year as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules.

Michigan, with 156 delegates, has scheduled a Jan. 15 primary. Democratic Party rules prohibit states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina from holding nominating contests before Feb. 5.

Florida was hit with a similar penalty in August for scheduling a Jan. 29 primary.

Michigan officials anticipated the action by the Democratic National Committee's rules panel. But Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said before the vote that he didn't think the delegates would be lost for good. He expects the Democratic presidential nominee will insist the state's delegates be seated at the convention.

A mixed weekend for democracy

Jubilant news in our hemisphere, as Chavez's attempts to stack the vote in Venezuela to make him dictator for life have failed. Unfortunately, in the Eastern hemisphere, Putin's perversion of democracy has kept his party in charge of the government.

Chavez was making the largest push for more power, trying to institute a government which would allow him to have unilateral control over choosing election officials, allow him to stand as "President" indefinitely, and allow him unilateral control to declare states of emergency, which would give him the ability to stridently curb civil rights.

Putin's win was a perversion of democracy, as his government imprisoned dissidents and opposition leaders, bribed and threatened to get votes, and limited the access available to election monitors. The win will keep his party in power but he will be forced to step down as President and instead take a position as Prime Minister - a much weaker post in Russia. The only slight positive news is that this opens the opportunity for a strong, democracy-focused candidate to take over the Presidency.

Chavez: Plan may have been too ambitious
Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Humbled by his first electoral defeat, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state.

"I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense," he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reform by 51 percent to 49 percent."

Opposition activists were ecstatic as the results were announced shortly after midnight - with 88 percent of the vote counted, the trend was declared irreversible by elections council chief Tibisay Lucena.

Some shed tears. Others began chanting: "And now he's going away."

and...

Monitors say Russian vote unfair
Associated Press

MOSCOW - Foreign election observers and Russian opposition groups accused authorities Monday of manipulating a sweeping parliamentary victory for the party of President Vladimir Putin, who hailed the vote as a validation of his leadership.

"Of course, it's a sign of trust," Putin said in televised remarks. "Russians will never allow the nation to take a destructive path, as happened in some other ex-Soviet nations."

The victory of the United Russia party sets the state for Putin to stay in charge as a "national leader" even after he steps down as president next spring because of term limits.

The presidential candidate to be named by his party this month is expected to be a figurehead who would take orders from Putin or even step down early to let Putin regain his seat. Any candidate who has Putin support could be expected to win easily amid tight Kremlin's control over media and official harassment of opposition groups.