Keynes Was An Idiot

Krugman’s theory, that we need government spending in order to restart the economy, seems to be bolstered by history but fails the test of logic. FDR’s spending program did not restart anything, it merely allowed an economy to stay the course until WW2 came along, as is pretty much confirmed by Krugman’s editorial in today’s NY Times.

It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession.

To me that suggests that the recession is at held bay only so long as you continue the government spending, and that is not a recovery at all. FDR's spending had been ongoing for more than six years, at what point would his attempt to balance the budget not been "premature?"

Krugman suggests that consumer buying will restore the economy, that it is the economy in fact, but if it is the government’s money they are using for that buying then the economy survives only as long as the government continues to pour money into the mix. Recovery from the depression of the thirties didn’t really occur until American production powered the rebuilding of a war-shattered world in the 1950’s.

Recovery of a real, sustainable economy is not going to occur until we are producing, and I don’t pretend to know precisely how that happens. I certainly don’t imagine that is going to occur as a result of the government providing temporary jobs, or pouring money into an economy based on credit and consumer spending.

Government provision of jobs may be, and I think is, necessary as a stopgap measure but not, as Krugman suggests, as a means of “restarting the economy.” If we’re going to do it, we should be focused on what we are trying to accomplish with it. In losing the focus on its purpose, we wind up doing it badly, and spending money that serves little purpose at all.

High speed rail projects are a case in point. That kind of project expends far too much on real estate and raw materials acquisition, which add essentially nothing to the economy, and provides relatively few jobs for the amount of money expended, which is the baseline purpose of the stimulus to begin with. It may be good social policy when money is available to do it, but it’s a damn poor means of providing jobs pending an economic restart.

Other nations seem to be focused on subsidizing manufacturing, and we complain about that. Boeing complains about the Air Force tanker deal because the EU subsidized the builders they were competing against. Our steelmakers complain because the steel we import is subsidized by the government of the countries in which it is made. We just complain, and focus more on how our government needs to spend more on “providing jobs so that consumers can spend,” and wonder why our factories aren’t building anything.

Call it the "Pacific Conference"

So Utah has now joined the Pac 10, giving it 12 teams and making it no longer the Pac 11, which it was before it became the Pac 12 while still being called the Pac 10 for no discernable reason.

Note that the Big 12 now has 10 teams, while the Big 10 has 11 teams.

So the Big 10 is a larger conference than the Big 12. Okay.

I recently found out that in order to have a "championship game" a conference must have twelve teams, which is about as logical as most NCAA rules, but no one has yet suggested that the Pac 10, with its 12 teams, will have one or than the Big 12, with its 11 teams, will drop its championship game. Rules; it's all about rules.

Why Regulate?

Let’s think back to Three Mile Island for a minute. Since that event there has been no accident of any significance at any nuclear plant in the United States. Do you think that is a coincidence? It’s not.

There have been minor infractions of safety regulations at nuclear plants, and when they have occurred the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has paid attention. They have, in fact, paid attention to those infractions like a flock of ducks pays attention to a June bug infestation. They not only issue fines and institute corrective measures, they set up a process of follow-up inspections to assure that the corrective measures are being met.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune recently, in an article regarding the San Onofre nuclear power station just north of here,

The commission placed San Onofre’s Unit 2 reactor on “regulatory response” in 2009, and has added inspectors until the plant meets the NRC’s standards. The plant’s other reactor, Unit 3, has no significant problems.

“None of those (problems) are close to the kind of concerns that would cause us to shut the plant down or anything like that,” Jaczko said in an interview. “Right now we’re not seeing any significant safety violations, but we’re seeing some things that if they’re not addressed soon could lead to performance challenges, and that’s why we want to address them early.”

There have been many “minor” accidents in the oil industry over the years, and no regulatory agency has addressed them. That’s why we have the Deepwater Horizon event today. We have not had a Three Mile Island event, or anything even close to it, because regulation and inspection works.

And for anyone who claims that the government can't do anything right? Three words; Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

A Very Wierd Speech

The President jarred me from the very beginning of his speech by reminding us that “our top priority is to recover and rebuild from a recession that has touched the lives of nearly every American” and that “our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists.”

It sort of put the subject of the speech in the role of side show, and in any case the main battle ground for “our brave men and women in uniform” is Afghanistan today, and our enemy there is the Taliban because al Qaeda
is located almost everywhere except there.

I had to wait for the text of the speech to become available, so that I could go back and read it to see if it really was as vague and filled with platitudes as the impression I got when watching it live. If anything, it is worse, since his personality and presence lent it weight beyond the content of its words.

He starts the content of the Gulf disaster part of the speech with how he’d “like to lay out for you what our battle plan” is going forward for the Gulf oil crisis, and the generalizations and platitudes begin.

We get a discussion of what has been done from the “very first day,” and in general terms what thousands of troops are doing today, which is not a “plan going forward.” We get told about the millions of feet of boom that have been laid, not mentioning that most of it has been laid improperly and purely for show. Then he promises that “we will offer whatever additional resources and assistance our coastal states may need” and that if any mistakes are made, he wants to hear about them.

If we had a battle plan like that in WW2 we would all be speaking German.

Do you think I’m being unfair or overly critical? That, perhaps I’m editing to cast him in a poor light? The entire text of his speech is presented here in the New York Times, read it for yourself and see if you see any “plans going forward” other than the phrase “we will offer whatever…”

Then he speaks of “focus[ing] on the recovery and restoration of the Gulf Coast,” and the generalities and platitudes continue.

Here we get a fund provided by BP and administered by a third party, which is at least delivered with a touch of firmness that might even be anger at the perpetrator of this disaster, and a “long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan” developed by “states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents.” That's it for restoration.

You know what a camel is, right? It’s a horse designed by a committee.

He does get somewhat specific when it comes to dealing with what went wrong, and for once he did not specifically blame George Bush or the Republicans. As an accountability moment it fell a little short, though,

A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe –- that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken. That obviously was not the case in the Deepwater Horizon rig, and I want to know why.

Approval of a plan which massively blew up in his face, and all we get is “I want to know why.” We want to know why he approved the plan, but he isn’t going to discuss that. We want some resolution of a massive presidential and national embarrassment, that something like this could happen and we were so blind to its possibility that we had just announced an expansion of the process, and he isn’t going to address that. And the promise of a “commission” to study the problem is certainly less of a solution than I was hoping for.

I’m not convinced that turning one federal bureaucracy into three of them is going to solve the problem, but it is action and it is specific. Also the guy he selected to oversee the bureaucratic cleanup looks like a good choice, so this area was definitely a high point in the speech.

But then he devolves beyond professorial and into a degree of vagueness that defies description as he segued into his ambitions for some sort of process for some sort of change for some sort of future, which he refuses to accept us not doing. The only part of it that was in any way clear was his refusal to accept us not doing it.

He referred to FDR marshalling known technology to build ships and planes specifically to defeat Nazi Germany. He referred to JFK marshalling known technology for the specific goal of placing a man on the moon in a specific time period of ten years. He then compared those two things to plunging forward with some sort of process and going someplace,

Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there. We know we'll get there.

Assuming that we do get there, how will we know we’re there?

Rock and Roll

The folks down in Ocotillo got the stuffing beat out of them last night. We got seriously rattled by a 5.7 at 9:30pm, and in the next 20 minutes that same fault produced two more at 4.0+ and 11 that were over 3.0 in magnitude. All in 20 minutes.

The major one briefly disrupted a Padres-Toronto baseball game at Petco Park, with the Canadian players looking significantly more uncomfortable than the Padres did.

We have visitors coming from North Carolina who arrive tomorrow, so we're trying to pretend that earthquakes don't really happen here. That shaking is, um... Well, never mind.

Update: The Padres lost 6-3 last night and the Union-Tribune headline this morning was "Shaky night for Padres." Sigh.

The Reich Delusion

Robert Reich was on Countdown last night, still spouting his delusional ideas about presidential powers for handling the Gulf oil well blowout. Keith Olbermann was nodding sagely and interjecting an occasional “Uh huh” as Reich ranted on,

I think it‘s very important that the president demand—not request, not negotiate with, not be all that polite—but demand that BP set aside an escrow account of something in the order of $20 billion so that BP cannot otherwise seek protection under the bankruptcy laws or otherwise just say, too bad.

Let’s clarify that point before we continue. We do not live in a tinpot dictatorship or a regency; Obama does not have the power to enforce such a demand of a U.S. corporation, much less a British-owned one. The fact the BP is operating in U.S. waters and has many U.S. stockholders is irrelevant; it is still a private corporation, and a British one to boot, and the President has no direct power over it.

And again Professor Reich returns to the receivership idea,

But also, that the president use some sort of legal mechanism—I think the easiest is sort of a temporary receivership, to assert control over the resources of BP.

I love the “some sort of legal mechanism” part. Olbermann asked him how that receivership would be imposed, what authority the President might use.

What the courts do if a particular company just may not have enough money to pay off claims, the courts are receptive to an injunction or receivership, or some sort of escrow account, under the mandate of courts. What the president could do, and I think he could very easily use the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 as his pretext, would be to force BP‘s hand on this. Say, BP, look, we have the power to force you to do this. We could negotiate, but we‘re actually going to do it.

"What the courts do..." Actually, professor, the courts don't. Am I the only one cringing when an Obama supporter is suggesting the our president do something under a “pretext?”

The “courts” to which the good professor refers are specifically bankruptcy courts, and it is they, not the President of The United States which would place a company into receivership. Further, the “receivership” which he is so fond of is a fairly complex process which is part of the bankruptcy proceeding and, just to drive the nail into the coffin of the Reich Delusion, British corporations are not subject to the jurisdiction of this nation’s bankruptcy courts.

As Olbermann would (should) say, “That man is an idiot.”

Delusional Analogy

Bob Herbert, who frequently makes a good bit of sense, starts his editorial in the New York Times today with a analogy that he dug up from some asylum somewhere,

Imagine that you’ve got the gas pedal to the floor (or almost to the floor) as you try to get your vehicle to the top of a mountain, where the road will level off. You’ve made real progress, but the vehicle is straining and wheezing. You’re not there yet.

Why in the world would you lift your foot off the gas and risk rolling back down the mountain?

He goes on to wax rhapsodic about stimulus spending getting us to the “top of the mountain” where a recovered economy holds the promise of jobs for everyone and to, presumably, Paul Krugman’s economy which is growing so fast that the deficit disappears in some magic process of relativity.

Why is he talking about “real progress” when total unemployment has gone from 17.6% down to… Oh, wait, it’s still at 17.6%. Stimulus spending is specifically about creating jobs, so how, precisely is he talking about how we “have made real progress” in the first place?

How does he maintain that we have “the gas pedal to the floor” as well? The first thing that Congress did, with Obama’s approval, was cut the stimulus bill from the original $1 trillion to under $800 billion, a 21.2% reduction. Hell’s fire, we started out by lifting our foot off of the gas pedal.

How does he know that the road “levels off” either? How does he know but what after the top of the hill the road tops off and goes straight down hill again? We spend like crazy to create jobs to get people spending to buy houses and cars on credit and what have we done? We’ve rebuilt an economy based on consumer spending and on credit, exactly like the economy that just failed us; an economy that’s based on people buying things and not on people building things.

His premise may or may not be right, I’m not an economist, but his analogy sure as hell needs some work.

Selling The War?

The discovery of resources wealth in Afghanistan is another subject on which I am reluctant to jump, but it just strikes me as suspicious. The New York Times article mostly cites anonymous "government officials" as sources, but it does say that the discovery is military. The only sources named are General Petraeus and an undersecretary of defense.

It comes at a time when the news of progress in the war is increasingly bad; that our presence is increasingly unwelcome and our tactics and strategy are failing badly. This just seems timed nicely to sell Congress on reasons why we need to continue. Additionally, the more I read the more it seems that this has all been known about for many years which, along with the source of the release being the military, adds to my suspicions as to the timing of this "big deal" news release.

Steve Hynd has a more exhaustive discussion at Newshoggers. I'm getting tired of thinking that my government is deceiving me, but in particular I'm getting tired of all of this publicity from the military, most of it self-adulatory and a great deal of it based on falsehood.

Leading the Parade

Obama is more and more confirming my impression that his form of leadership consists of waiting for a parade to form and then jumping to the head of it and serving as its leader. In 2008 he saw the clamor for “change in Washington” and capably led that parade. He is an excellent parade leader, but he does not excel at leadership when there is no existing parade for him to lead.

He got a stimulus bill passed that was the road most easily traveled, leaving the content mostly to Congress and negotiating the stimulus portion into oblivion. The bill wound up being smaller than promised, 40% non-simulative tax cuts, 40% long term social policy, and only 20% actual, current job stimulus. The public didn’t tell him what they wanted in the stimulus, only that they wanted one, and so his leadership consisted only of demanding the bill itself and nothing in terms of the bill’s content.

There was a clamor for “health care reform,” so he kicked that ball into the air and then stood aside to see what would develop. What developed was not real reform of the health care system itself, but the far easier demagoguery of the health insurance industry, so he jumped to the head of that parade. He demonized the health care industry with the best of them, gave lip service to everything else and got health insurance reform passed instead of meaningful reform of the health care delivery system.

He listened then to see what was next on the agenda and it turned out the clamor was more for financial reform than for the energy bill that he had been promising to pass, so he jumped to the head of the “let’s demonize Wall Street” parade, and let the energy bill get moved off of the stove.

In an effort to revive energy he started by giving Republicans a “drill baby drill” policy that promptly blew up in his face when Deepwater Horizon sank. His handling of that has been totally reactive to media pressure. He hears that he has not been in charge, so he has the Coast Guard start issuing press releases. He hears that he has not visited the Gulf so he makes a trip. He hears that the trip was too short so he makes a two-day trip. He hears that he has not shown enough anger so he talks about finding out whose ass to kick. He hears that he has not addressed the nation so he schedules an address to the nation from the Oval Office.

When he was elected to office he promised to close Guantanamo within a year. That he has not done so is a fault that lies with Congress rather than him, but where is his demand to Congress that they work with him on closing that blot on our national escutcheon? There is no national clamor to close that place and so he has no motive to lead on that issue.

There is no “close Guantanamo” parade for him to get in front of.

We Don't Need Hysteria

There’s a rather hysterical rumor going around, written up at Zero Hedge, being spread by Senator Ben Nelson of Florida and getting some play on Countdown, about the blown oil well in the Gulf having been damaged beneath the sea floor. The theory is that the well casing itself is ruptured and that the well cannot be shut off. Some doomsday prophets are even taking it to the point that it means that the relief wells currently being drilled will not work as planned.

The purveyors of this rumor are saying that the only possible end game, then, is to somehow “implode the sea floor” over the well, whatever the hell that means. I’m guessing they are back to the suggestion of employing nuclear weapons on the fool thing.

Well, everybody just calm the hell down. The relief wells are planned to intersect the blown well where it taps into the reservoir, so any damage to the existing well casing is irrelevant, assuming that it exists, which may very well be the case. It isn’t going to effect plugging the well, because the plan is to plug it at the bottom.

My concern is that the relief wells, after drilling down some 18,000 feet and aiming for a well bore which is only some 20 inches in diameter, might miss the damned target. There have been a few mentions from oil company representatives that hitting the bore is by no means guaranteed on the first try, but nobody is talking about that. I guess we are operating on the principle that brave talk, how the relief wells are the final answer that will solve the problem in August for sure, will prevent failure.

In any event, the well will be plugged, ruptured casing or not, and we definitely and absolutely do not need to use any nuclear weapons to do it, nor do we need to “implode the floor” of the Gulf of Mexico by whatever means.

More Shaking

Oh goody. Movement well to the north of recent activity, and on a different fault line. A 4.9 last night, followed a minute later by a 4.5 which we barely felt. We sure as hell felt the first one; the cat sank her claws into my leg, and didn't settle down for almost half an hour. This fault line is closer to the San Andreas, about the same distance from it as it is from the one that has been bumping. Can't say I'm thrilled by that.

Another "Jobless Recovery"

We keep being told that we are recovering, but that “unemployment will remain high for a prolonged period.” How does recovery not include jobs? How, why is recovery not defined by jobs? How does 400,000 temporary jobs, working for the government and ending in three months, represent “progress toward recovery” as Obama claimed last week?

Unemployment rolls dropped last month, but looking at jobs data reveals that it did so only because people stopped looking for work, or because their long term unemployment benefits ran out after 99 weeks. When your benefits run out you are no longer defined as unemployed.

Our government is playing games with us, and that is becoming so apparent that we are increasingly unable to continue ignoring it. We could, for instance, reduce unemployment to somewhere around 1% pretty much overnight be simply redefining the word again, as our government has done so many times to this date. Define it as people older that 18 but younger than 19 who have formally applied for at least five jobs per week for the past year, and I guarantee you unemployment would be below 1% in a heartbeat.

Is there any reason to define it in that manner? Of course not. But is there any reason to exclude from the count people whose benefits have expired? Other than to make the count smaller and reduce pressure on the politicians who take heat when unemployment is high, there is not. That didn’t prevent the politicians from creating the exclusions to lower the unemployment number and reduce the pressure on themselves.

Unemployment is 9.7% now, but if we defined it as, “everyone who wants to have a full-time job but is unable to obtain one,” unemployment would be very close to 20% and we would have to be calling this a depression. That’s how unemployment was defined in 1930, and using that definition unemployment was between 17% and 20% and they not only called it a depression, they called it the “Great Depression.” We avoid calling current times a depression because more than half of the actual unemployed are not defined as unemployed.

It’s hard to solve a problem while not admitting that you have a problem.

Chris Matthews is an Idiot

I watched his "Let Me Finish" last night, which is a bit unusual. Those things are so childish that I usually switch off as soon as I hear "Let..."

Apparently he is feeling that infamous "thrill up his leg" again, because he is now claiming that "Sarah Palin has a serious future in presidential politics." He goes on to compare her to, wait for it, Richard Nixon, because Nixon was at one time flat on his face and wound up winning. Matthews is so thrilled with this unique political insight that he is not limiting it to a one-evening speech; he has a blog at his website about it.

Except that, before he was flat on his face, Nixon was at one time taken seriously, too. He actually finished the terms of the offices to which he was elected. He knew where Guam is.

I should have stuck with my policy and cut him off at "Let..."

Disaster Environmentalism

The momentum for passing an “energy bill” now, using the Gulf disaster as leverage, is gaining ground, and the more heated the rhetoric becomes the more firmly I remain opposed to any such idea. Increasingly the idea is to “punish” oil companies, and to eliminate oil altogether, replacing it with wind and solar power.

Chris Matthews had a couple of guests on Hardball yammering on the subject yesterday, one demanding immediate and dramatic action, and the other against it but for the wrong reason, saying that no energy legislation was needed at all. I had to turn the sound off until they finished. Legislation is most certainly needed, but not until emotions have cooled down and it can be done rationally.

When capitalists made use of disaster to serve their purpose that was bad, but for environmentalists to make use of disaster to serve their purpose is a good thing. Whether an action is right or wrong is not a function of the action itself, but whether “we” or “they” are doing it; wrong if “they” are doing it, but natural and proper if “we” are doing it.

Perhaps it sounds better when phrased as the action is wrong if it serves “their” purpose, but proper and moral if it serves “our” purpose. Never mind that it’s the same action. Our purpose is noble and righteous, and their purpose is evil and destructive.

Never mind that “their” purpose, while generating profits for corporations, also provides jobs for workers and powers our homes and transportation.

Never mind that “our” purpose, while noble in its effort to save the environment, does not provide the fertilizer needed to feed the population, the fuel to power the trains and trucks to move that food from where it is grown to where we can consume it, nor the millions of products which are derived from petroleum.

Balance must be struck between the desire to leave the planet untouched, the need to minimize depletion of the planet, and the essential provision of resources to support life for the human population of the planet. That balance will not happen when legislators are being bombarded with howls of outrage and cries to punish the petroleum industry.

Disaster Environmentalism has decided to emulate Disaster Capitalism.

Jayhawk Is An Idiot

There will be a temporary departure from my usual penetrating analysis and trenchant discussion of current events while I get my wits back together. I was recently notified of a new post at Tom Dispatch, the title of which was listed as “Juan Cole, Israel’s Gift To Iran’s Hard-liners.”

I was baffled by that in more than one dimension. For one thing, Juan Cole is not from Israel. For another, I read Juan Cole’s Informed Comment daily, and how anyone could regard him as any kind of “gift to Iran’s hard-liners” struck me as deeply weird, since he has always written of Israeli and the US policies toward Iran as being insane and quite stupid.

Of course I went to read the article; any article at Tom Dispatch is worth reading regardless of how confusing its headline might be. It didn’t take long to resolve my confusion. The article was not about Juan Cole as being any kind of gift to anyone, it was written by Juan Cole regarding Israel giving a gift to Iran’s hard-liners with their ill-conceived and poorly executed raid on the Gaza relief convoy. Ah yes, silly me.

Read the article. Both Informed Comment and Tom Dispatch are regular hits for me, and I recommend them to you. Even if Tom Engelhardt does mess with my mind once in a while.

Short Memories

Last week economic news was thrilled by 431,000 new jobs, but cautioned that 400,000 of those were temporary jobs at the Census Bureau.

This week the thrill is a reduction of 255,000 in the numbers of filings for continuing unemployment claims. This is, apparently, wonderful news.

Nobody seems to connect the two facts. Last week 400,000 people get temporary jobs at the Census, this week 255,000 fewer filed continuing unemployment claims, and this is good news? It seems to me that if the 400,000 who are now working at the Census did not file, and one certainly hopes they did not, then at least 400,000 fewer claims should have been filed, but only 255,000 fewer claims were filed, so in effect 145,000 new claims seem to have been filed.

Short memories and disconnected facts do make life easier, but…

Unthinking Action

Last Sunday I wrote an opinion that enacting laws immediately following a crisis was folly wearing the disguise of affirmative action, and yesterday digby at Hullabaloo had a piece that seems to be a case in point,

We are witnessing the most horrific oil spill catastrophe in history. It is ongoing, nobody knows if they will be able to stop it, even months from now. It's impossible to estimate the damage to the environment. The public horrified and has never been so critical of the oil industry or more worried about the future. And all of this is happening within the knowledge that our dependence on fossil fuel is drawing us into wars around the world and that global warming is reaching a tipping point.

Common sense would seem to tell you that there has never been a worse time to defend the oil industry or obstruct a clean energy policy. You would think politicians would be petrified to face voters as supporters of those who are to blame for this unprecedented catastrophe and that it would be very easy to garner a super majority, a la The Patriot Act, to get something passed. Instead, Lisa Murkowski --- with the help of key Democrats --- is going to try to prevent the president from using executive power to enhance the Clean Air Act,

Emphasis mine. I would bet that when the Bush Administration used executive power to have the EPA declare that CO2 is a harmless gas that would not be regulated, digby was howling in outrage about his abuse of that power. Now, after speaking with high emotion of the present “unprecedented catastrophe” in the Gulf (read again that first quoted paragraph), digby wants Congress to stand by and allow Obama to “use executive power to enhance the Clean Air Act.”

This is exactly what I was talking about when I described “emotions running high and hot” and overwhelming reason. The Clean Air Act was passed by Congress, and if it needs to be enhanced then such enhancement must be made by Congress, not by Presidential fiat. I’m sure digby does not want the President changing acts of Congress with the infamous “signing statements” of portions which he will not enforce; why should he be allowed to “enhance” them with statements of additions which he will enforce?

Digby even references the Patriot Act; did she applaud that act at the time it was passed? Or did she, like me and other defenders of civil liberties, deplore it even at that time as an overreaction to fear and war hysteria?
That act would never have gotten out of committee in 2000, but that such a horror passed easily in the aftermath of 9/11 makes my point.

If reason prevailed then Congress, including members of both parties, damned well would act to prevent the President from “using executive power to enhance the Clean Air Act,” but everyone is all pissed off about the Gulf disaster and something must be done, even if it is the wrong thing, a violation of our constitution and against our long term best interests.

There is an old saying about, “Don’t just stand there, do something, even if it is wrong,” and whoever said it was an idiot.

Update: In a subsequent post, which is on another topic, digby reiterates the belief in unlimited presidential power,

And, by the way, going to this length over Blanche Lincoln who is about to sign on to Murkowski's move to limit presidential power to regulate on behalf of the environment is just too ironic. What exactly are these guys fighting for?

When the president is a Republican we scream and object about "abuse of power," but when he is a Democrat we rant about Congress being wrong to "limit presidential power." So anything is right if it is the right side doing it.

We Called It Jitterbug

Believe it or not, I used to do this kind of thing; won a few contests, too.
Our routine included me pulling my partner between my legs like that and tossing her over my head, too, only she was wearing a skirt with a bunch
of petticoats. Needless to say, I can't do that any more, but I was at least as good as this guy, and I think my footwork was a bit better. The girl here is awesome.

My Own Election Analysis

So much for the anti-incumbent mood which has been so hyped by the press. It was hilarious to watch the national punditry backtracking from their earlier gravedigging for Blanche Lincoln. In California at least, to my knowledge, not one single incumbent in either party lost to a challenger.

So much, in fact, for MSNBC’s poll which showed i.i.r.c. that only 29% of voters “favored retaining my congressperson.”

Whitman and Fiorina, both of whom I voted against, won but I’m not sure that really matters. I doubt either can win in November, although it can certainly get ugly. Each spent more money in her primary campaign than has ever been spent in the respective general election for the office, Whitman exponentially more, so pretty soon we will be spending more on elections in this country than we do on wars.

The race for California Secretary of State features, unbelievably, Orly Taitz. She is still claiming that Obama was born in Kenya, but I’m unsure how she thinks that winning this office is going to further that claim for her. Lawrence O’Donnell, who lives in California, was on Countdown last night to analyze this race, and the segment was well worth watching. Hilarious.

All of these idiotic media and pundits will be supremely unembarrassed by having 100% blown the predictions for election outcomes in yesterday’s primary. They will, in fact, pretend that they did not blow those predictions, offering reasons for victory and defeat, pretending that they knew those reasons prior to yesterday, and blissfully citing results as if they had predicted them all along.

“Of course Blanche Lincoln won yesterday because she was anti-union in a right-to-work state, where unions are not popular.”

The day before, of course, her anti-union stance was not in her favor, because the very powerful unions were backing Halter and vastly enriching his campaign. Between the money he had amassed and the power of the voting union membership, she was toast.

Back to California, the “Election Reform” proposition passed, and the “Taxpayer’s Right To Vote Act” is too close to call, which proves that Californians base their proposition votes on the title of it and never bother to read the damned things. The former one means that in some districts there will be two Republicans on the general election ballot and in others there will be two Democrats, which hardly serves the purported purpose of reducing the impact of partisan politics. Passage of the latter means that PG&E has a permanent monopoly on utility delivery in the state. Sheesh.

In San Diego the “Strong Mayor” form of city government was approved, proving once more that titles of bills matter more than content, and that emotion triumphs over common sense every time. The change means adding another district at an additional administrative cost of more than
$1 million per year, and it puts the checkbook in the hands of an elected politician rather than a person who actually has an education in the management of cities.

"We want a strong city, so we need strong mayor government."  Gack.

An anti-union measure passed in Chula Vista, suggesting that the ongoing decline of labor unions is not entirely due to government policies, but is partly due to declining popular appeal. I blame the abuses committed by public unions for much of that, with their inability to recognize the effect that their greed has on their fellow citizens. Public unions doom the overall labor movement by failing to acknowledge that their excesses takes money from the men and women who create public policy in voting booths.

A lot of noise, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Update: Orly Taitz was crushed, losing 77%-23% to Damon Dunn, former Jacksonville Jaguars football player, who didn't even actually campaign. Californians, it turns out, do retain some small shred of sanity.

Exciting Day

Excitement almost uncontainable today. Got to vote against Prop 16 and Carly Fiorina. The rest was fairly trivial, those two votes were fun.

And discovered a new Jack Reacher novel has hit the stands, one that I did not even know was pending. Wow! No waiting for the paperback of this one. Forget Spenser and Hawk, Jack Reacher is the man. I probably will not sleep or eat until Reacher wins the day again. I may have to take extra heart medication.

I will attempt to maintain regular blogging, but if you don't hear from me you'll know why.

Update: If I wanted to help Barbara Boxer in the general election, which I actually do, I would vote for Fiorina. Tom Campbell would have a chance of beating Boxer; Fiorina, I think, has none. Still, voting for Fiorina... No.

Who's In Charge?

We are assured by the President that the government is completely in charge of the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet the only information released by the government is that between 11,000 and 25,000 barrels per day are leaking from the blown well. As to the amount being captured…

“BP says that they captured…” is the daily release. “BP says they will…” in terms of what will be done next. “BP announced…” as to what is ongoing.

Even the ridiculously erratic range of estimates of amount being released is based on data provided by BP and views from video released at BP’s discretion. In the media, article after article calmly states the uncertainty about the degree to which our waters are being fouled and not one of them takes the next, logical step; asking, “Why the hell do we not know?”

If the government were in charge, as is claimed, then we would not be reading media reports which begin, “BP says.”

Idiocy In The Punditry

Another in my ongoing “Idiocy” series…

Howard Fineman was on Countdown last night, expounding as an expert on the company which is infamously dumping oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Interestingly, in the course of his research on that company he discovered what town it is headquartered in, how many millions it has in cash reserves, the name of its chief executive, how many British ministers it has bribed and that the list included Winston Churchill. What he did not discover is that the name of the company is not “British Petroleum.”

British Petroleum merged with Amoco in 1998 and became BP Amoco plc. In 2001 the company formally renamed itself as BP plc, so it has not been “British Petroleum” for more than ten years, and that name appears nowhere on its website. To judge by its own Internet presentation, it has apparently never been known by that name.

I would also challenge his statement about "buying off Winston Churchill in 1925" as being a bit hyperbolic. As Anglo-Persian Oil Company, they paid him to lobby on their behalf, but he was not holding public office at the time, having lost in the 1923 election.

Olbermann has called them erroneously by that name in the past, but I think has learned the error of it, as he was careful to refer to them throughout as “BP.” He did not, of course, correct Fineman’s usage; that would have been against the “code.”

As a result, they both looked like blithering idiots.

Update: Okay, so both of them actually are blithering idiots. That doesn't mean they have to make quite such a point of displaying it.

More Wierdness From Reich

First Robert Reich was suggesting, on Countdown and elsewhere, that Obama should place BP into receivership, with the government confiscating all of its income for oil spill cleanup. Now, since Obama didn't heed that wierd governmental policy advice, he is advising another bizarre plan involving the cleanup.

The President should order BP to establish a $5 billion clean-up fund, and immediately put America’s army of unemployed young people to work saving the Gulf coast. Call it the new Civilian Conservation Corps.

Emphasis mine. The man actually worked as an advisor to President Clinton, so you would think that he would have some inkling as to the limits of presidential authority, but apparently not. Of course, he is now a professor at the University of California, so that might explain a lot.

In addition to Obama having a seriously limited ability to "order" any corporation to do anything, even a domestic one let alone a foreign one, the "new Civilian Conservation Corps" would certainly need to be an act of Congress, so Obama's ability to "immediately put" anyone to work is questionable at best.

Thanks to Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice for the reference.

Discerning Motive

It is undoubtedly true that some of the people decrying illegal immigration are racists; they see it as a problem because most of the illegals are Latino and either they hate Latinos or are afraid that the increasing numbers of them will cause whites to become a minority race. Some people, however, see illegal immigration as a problem because of the depressing effect that it has on wages and other actual financial problems it imposes on society.

I don’t know what can be done about that, because nowadays if you oppose illegal immigration at all it isn’t going to matter what your actual reasons are; you are going to be labeled as a racist. It is going to be assumed that you do not oppose the illegal entry of white people, merely that you oppose the illegal entry of people with dark skin.

Witness today’s editorial in the New York Times by Timothy Egan regarding current discussion of the fourteenth amendment, which awards citizenship to anyone born on American soil, and those who favor changing the part of it which includes doing so to children born to people who are here illegally.

This time, they want to exclude an ethnic minority, rather than include one. Their target is Latinos, particularly babies born to illegal immigrants who become citizens by their birth.

Actually, I have not heard anyone suggest that babies born to Latinas who are here illegally should be denied citizenship. I have heard it suggested that babies born to anyone who is here illegally should be.

Of course, race has nothing to do with it, these situational constitutionalists say. But you have to wonder if their concern over citizens-by-birth would have extended to big Irish Catholic families of 100 years ago, some of whom came to the United States through illegal border crossings from Canada.

Would he believe the proponents of the suggested change if they told him that they would extend their ban to Irish Catholics who were here illegally? He assumes that they would not do so, and implies that in his editorial, but he has absolutely no basis for that suggestion other than his assumption that the basis for their desire to make the change is racist in its motivation.

And perhaps, at least for some, it is. For some it may be that the law as it stands creates serious legal complexity in dealing with the status of the parents who are here illegally, in finding a way to avoid being forced to let that illegality stand. Unless they state it openly, only the people who are making the suggestion know what their motivation is for making it.

Unless you're Timothy Egan; he knows they are all racists.

Update: afterthought
No, I dont have any real position on the issue itself. I don't really favor such a change, and would probably oppose it if it were proposed.

The 14th did not consider the legality of the parent's presence at birth for the simple reason that when it was passed we did not regulate immigration and there was no such thing as an "illegal immigrant."

I can see a certain logic to granting citizenship only to babies born to persons here legally, but aspiration to freedom offered by this nation is so basic that I don't favor reducing the opportunity for it. I also see danger in creating a mechanism where citizenship can be questioned later in life.

It's not an easy point, but for me it's an issue best left alone.

Update 2: another afterthought
Wow, that is the really huge pitfall, isn't it? As an adult you get challenged with, "You aren't really a citizen, because your mother was not legally in the country when you were born." The burden of proof then devolves upon the person to prove the legality of his parent's entry, say, fifty years earlier to verify his own right to vote, etc.

Turns out I do have a position; no way do we want to go down that road.

Voting On Discrimination

There was a letter to the editor in the San Diego Union-Tribune the other day, which I can no longer locate and so will have to quote from memory, which struck me as quite eloquent,

Whites did not get to vote on the manner in which blacks would be incorporated into military service, men did not get to vote on the manner in which women would be incorporated into military service, why are straight people being allowed to vote on the incorporation of gays and lesbians into military service?

I would also like to speculate as to whether or not men serving on submarines were asked to vote regarding the incorporation of women into that service. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but I strongly suspect not.

Small memory regarding my father. When he died Davis-Monthan Air Force Base sent a detachment to participate in his memorial service before he was flown to Washington for burial at Arlington. Three of the pallbearers were women, and I was very pleased with that. Dad was very proud that the Air Force had been leading the way in incorporating women into the full spectrum of military service.

He would have wanted them to do likewise with gays and lesbians. He did not like discrimination in any form. Nor do I.

Disaster Politics

As we watch the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfold there is a chorus that this should be a lesson learned; that this is the perfect opportunity to leverage a new energy policy. I’m pretty sure that this is the very worst time to do such a thing.

Naomi Klein wrote an entire book, entitled “Shock Doctrine” if I recall correctly, about capitalism’s policy of using natural and man-made disasters to change government policies, and entire governments, to benefit the corporate culture. I read the book, and some of it struck me as hyperbole, but there was enough solid fact in it to keep me alert to the aftermath of disaster today.

Even before reading the book, though, I have tended to disfavor passing laws in the immediate aftermath of horrible events, at times when the emotions of lawmakers and the public are running high and hot. It tends to lead to over-reaction and bad laws. It leads to laws which remove a judge’s discretion in labeling for life as a sexual predator an 18-year-old who had consensual sex with a girl one month shy of the age of consent. It leads to “three strikes” which sends a youngster to prison for life without parole for stealing, metaphorically, a loaf of bread because it is his third felony.

Using disaster for the pursuit of policy enactment is no better merely because a significant sector, or even majority, of the population considers the policy to be generically good. The aforementioned examples were well meaning; they are over-reactions to what was and is a real problem. They do not solve the problem. Passed when emotion ruled, they made the problem, in some ways, worse.

Now may not be the best time to consider energy policy. Emotions are too high. Feelings are such that policy passed now could shut off resources that might be better reduced or modified rather than eliminated. Policy passed now might well tax resource production punitively rather than in a manner protective of the environment.

Naomi Klein made a very valid point; people and organizations should not be using disaster to serve their own ends. That principle should be universal, applying to causes as well as corporations.

Misnomer

Channel surfing tonight, and discovering that "America's Got Talent" is seriously misnamed. The show should be titled, "America Is Utterly Devoid Of The Slightest Degree Of Taste."

Honesty In Politics

The current horror in the ongoing train wreck that is California’s initiative political process is Proposition 16. Created by Pacific Gas and Electric, it is designed to further tighten the monopoly that PG&E holds on the utility industry in this state and is deceptively and ironically titled the “Taxpayer’s Right To Vote Act.” Funding for the campaign is provided by PG&E, the Chamber of Commerce and several other business groups.

There is a full page ad for its passage in the Union-Tribune every single day, and television is flooded with commercials urging a “yes” vote on the issue. I don’t know precisely how much is being spent on the campaign to pass this proposition, but it is many, many millions of dollars. There is absolutely no organized opposition to the proposition, and I have not seen a single advertisement urging a “no” vote on it.

As with many such campaigns, a significant amount of the advertising is openly and blatantly dishonest. When the infamous Proposition 8 was being debated, proponents claimed repeatedly that if the proposition failed then churches would be required by law to marry gay couples; that individual religious bodies would no longer be allowed to define marriage for themselves. The claim was totally dishonest, contained not one shred of truth, and yet not one news reporter or editor called the promoters on it.

Yet let one candidate shade the truth about his military service and the
New York Times, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and news media far and wide will mount a campaign to have that person tarred, feathered and run out town on a rail for his dishonesty. It seems that candidates may lie through their teeth about their opposition, may tell the most outrageous untruths about the issues and about others, but let them exaggerate their own virtues by the slightest degree and fountains of outrage erupt.

I guess it’s all in how one defines “honesty.”

Silence Can Be Golden

President Obama can come across as remarkably tone deaf at times. There are times to be a cheerleader, and times to just leave a subject alone. His take on the latest employment numbers, from Bloomberg today,

“Workers who are laid off -- they’re starting to get their jobs back,” Obama said at a truck factory in Hyattsville, Maryland. The economy is “getting stronger by the day,” he said. “There’s no doubt that we saw another month of private sector job growth,” Obama said. “An economy that was shrinking at a scary rate” is now growing, he said. “The question now is how do we keep this momentum going.”

The same article followed that with its own conclusions,

The president spoke less than two hours after the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers hired fewer workers in May than forecast, suggesting a lack of confidence in the recovery that may lead to slower economic growth.

The Charlotte Observer remarked on the stock market’s reaction to the same employment numbers that Obama was apparently cheered by and referring to as “momentum,”

The markets were sent skidding after the Labor Department's report on job growth in May fell short of expectations. While the economy added 431,000 jobs, more than 90 percent of the new jobs were in government - and most of them were temporary positions to help conduct the 2010 census.

And the Wall Street Journal, in an article in today's issue headlined "Hiring Recovery Sputters," was far less optimistic than Obama,

Private employers did little hiring last month, undermining hopes that the economic recovery was gathering pace and helping send U.S. stocks down more than 3% on the day.

The Labor Department said Friday that 431,000 jobs were added in May. But the vast majority were temporary workers hired by the government to conduct the 2010 Census. Private-sector employment rose by only 41,000, the smallest monthly increase since January. Without faster private-sector job growth, the U.S. faces a bumpy recovery restrained by households with little income to spend.

Renewed fears about U.S. growth and the financial turmoil in Europe sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling 323.31 points…

My grandmother, well, probably everybody’s grandmother, used to advise that if one cannot say something good it is better to remain silent. Perhaps Mr. Obama’s grandmother should have been a little more specific.

Hardball Goes Nuts

I have a somewhat more established opinion of our politics regarding the Israeli flotilla action than I do the action itself, namely that it is utterly incoherent and is related to our deranged attitude toward Iran and its nuclear program, which we call its “nuclear weapons program.” Hardball did a piece on the subject Wednesday, which was thoroughly detached from reality. I was waiting for a transcript so that I could quote accurately, but none is available so far which may, in itself, tell you something.

It started by showing a clip with Netanyahu describing how the Israeli soldiers were having to “defend themselves.” That is something like a mountain climber falling to his death and the family claiming that he was unable to defend himself from the mountain. Maybe not climbing the mountain would have…

Then we had Andrea Mitchell, who was less supportive of Israel than Chris Matthews wanted her to be. He kept baiting her with his “questions” (rants) and she kept talking about what the rest of the world was saying instead of what Chris wanted her to talk about, namely the bills that Congress has passed in support of Israel’s actions.

Then came Barney Frank, who is usually rational and not infrequently brilliant, but who this time went to great length to prove that he is not a self-hating Jew. First he leapt to point out that the blockade of Gaza is not merely an Israeli blockade, but is an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. He made that point several times, even going so far as to point out that the Egyptians participate in the blockade in their own national defense interests. He did not claim that the Egyptians participated in stopping the flotilla.

Then he was critical about the world’s blasé attitude when the “North Koreans sank a South Korean submarine and 46 people were killed.” Apparently the event didn’t have much impact on him, either, because it was not a submarine that was sunk, but rather that did the sinking. He also seems to have not noticed or forgotten that Secretary of State Clinton made quite a big deal of the event, and is still doing so. If she doesn’t shut up, in fact, she may start a war.

He then goes on to discuss the blockade itself with no more than a modicum of hyperbole. I would be more sympathetic if the blockade were not preventing the entry of food, medicine, concrete and other basic construction materials; a fact which he fails to discuss.

He finished with a statement which might come from Alice in Wonderland about how Turkey has “already interfered with our ability to get sanctions on Iran,” and so they cannot blame this episode on any poor relations that might come to pass between them and Israel or them and the United States. (It’s a rather convoluted statement and is why I was waiting for the transcript. It’s right at the end of the segment.)

Apparently, getting sanctions imposed on Iran has devolved to having become an end in itself, perhaps now even detached from the original reason why we wanted to do it. Why else would we, when Turkey and Brazil broker a deal which removes the nuclear fuel enrichment from Iran and resolves the weapons question from their nuclear program, refer to that as “interfering with our ability to impose sanctions on Iran?”

The rest of the world either believes that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, or that if it is doing so that its success would not represent the end of the world. We, and Israel, seem to be completely alone in believing that if Iran develops a single nuclear weapon it would promptly use it. Why they would do so and where they would drop it seems unclear.

Imperfect Game, Perfect Role Model

Olbermann said, in discussing Selig's refusal to overturn the call, "Nobody wins here," which was by no means an unreasonable observation.

But I saw a winner. Perfect game or not, the grace and sportsmanship of Armando Galarraga was simply what the sport of baseball is all about. No foot-stamping, rage or claims of having been cheated, but calm satisfaction in a game well pitched and acceptance of the outcome. He not only directed no anger at the umpire, he expressed a measure of compassion for the guy who blew the call. Armando Galarraga showed what it is to be a man.

Not Changing Washington

I finally have a comment on the deal about the Obama Administration’s supposed job offer to Sestak in return for his agreement to abstain from challenging Specter in the primary election. It seems that a similar event occurred in Colorado with respect to filling the seat vacated by Salazar.

Assuming that the Sestak one happened, I’m glad he didn’t take the job, because now the people in Pennsylvania get to vote for an actual Democrat in the Senate race.

The one thing that I dislike about this issue, and to date I have not seen it mentioned anywhere, is the extent to which it reflects Obama’s willingness to play “business as usual” party machinery politics. This was the candidate who campaigned on changing the way things are done in Washington, and as the elected president he is making deals to preserve the incumbency of a Senator, and to reduce the choices which are made available to voters in an election.

That is not the kind of change I voted for.

Update: Thursday, 11:45am
Digby at Hullabaloo has a rather odd take on the criticism that I am voicing here, at least insofar as it comes from Republicans. Digby says that critics have never been critical of this kind of thing before this,

Obama's "grassroots" image --- or the idea that people get offered jobs in Washington --- is hardly something anyone has ever shown the slightest concern about before.

So there is some sort of deadline on this concern? Having not voiced this criticism prior to this point, not that this particular subject has ever arisen before now of course, it is no longer valid to do so at this point? What was the deadline for voicing this particular criticism?

I'm thinking that Obamabots have a tendency to reject criticism merely because the "right wing" spoke it. That is the pitfall of all of the bogus criticisms that the right keeps coming up with, of course; that when they come up with one which contains some validity it simply gets lumped in with all of the garbage. That is amplified though, it seems to me, by the apparent unwillingnesss of Obama supporters to listen to any critical words regarding his performance.

Oh, This Is Lovely

This country likes to think of itself as a “world leader,” and indeed we are in many ways. We win the most medals at the Olympics, we have the most supercomputers, we win more Nobels, we have more colleges and universities, we use the most oil and gas…

Well now, according to a United Nations report, we are also the world’s leading “user of targeted killings,” mostly by use of remotely piloted drones.

The author of the report, according to the article in CNN News, goes on to say that some 40 nations are developing the same pilotless drone technology which we have, and that we are establishing dangerous new rules of war with the way we use ours.

"The United States seems oblivious to this fact [the manner in which it is changing the rules of war] when it asserts an ever-expanding entitlement for itself to target individuals around the globe," he said. This "ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions."

We seem even to be quite proud of the increase in our use of “targeted killings.” Roger Cressey was on Hardball Tuesday to explain just how wonderful this program is, and to brag about just how many Obama has killed during his presidency and, moreover, how he has spread the effort
to far more countries.

"He‘s doing extremely well. He‘s launched military strikes not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia. … So if you look at the Predator program alone, Chris, under the Obama administration, we‘ve killed at least two dozen senior al Qaeda and Taliban officials. Under the Bush administration, it was probably that same level, maybe a little bit less. And what we talking about here, less than two years of a presidency."

He did admit to some “Cost-benefit—there‘s always collateral damage.”

As to our invasion of the airspace of other sovereign nations, well he didn’t mention Yemen or Somalia, but one must consider that we are occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and Cressey says that the government of Pakistan not only approves, but actually likes having us do it. The people of that country, perhaps, not so much.

“It‘s very difficult to sell elements of the Pakistani population on why this is necessary. That‘s why the Pakistani government will, every now and then, admonish us or criticize us. But they‘re not pulling the plug on the program. That tells you why they like it.”

The man was practically having an orgasm as he described the program.

So forget Bush and his flight deck swagger; Obama has more notches in his gun in sixteen months than Bush racked up in eight years. And he didn’t even need to don a flight suit to do it.

Man On A Wire

Too much input on the Gaza blockade and the flotilla; I have to take an attitude of simply not knowing what the hell to think. My gut wants to utterly deplore the blockade and condemn the Israeli attack on the relief flotilla, but Hamas does have an official policy which includes the destruction of Israel, and it is the popularly elected government of Gaza.

My initial reaction is to want Obama to join the rest of the democratic world in condemning Israel, but upon reflection I think his course of action is the best thing that we could be doing. We could have prevented the UNSC resolution, and we did not; instead modifying it to call for condemnation of the situation generally rather than of Israel specifically. I am comfortable with supporting that decision.

The Obama Administration has committed missteps in foreign policy, some of them pretty awkward, but I don’t think that this is one of them. In fact quite the reverse, I think their footwork has been pretty nimble here. It is important to support Israel without, as the Bush Administration did, uncritically endorsing every action that Israel takes, and it seems to my amateur eye that Obama and Company have charted that course very well.

Israel is not an easy friend to have, but it is a friend, and one does not cast a friend aside for selfish reasons or because they turn out to be less than perfectly loyal. Friendship takes work, and there is obviously work to be done on this one. Obama, Biden and Clinton might be the team that can do it.

Narrowing Miranda?

Normally I am all for civil rights, and oppose any decision that increases the power that authority holds over individuals. The recent Supreme Court decision that supposedly “narrows Miranda rights,” however, seems to me like a perfectly proper decision. I’m looking at this from a standpoint purely of logic, as I know nothing about it whatever from a legalistic standpoint. I’m merely saying that I don’t find it very disturbing unless someone can show me otherwise.

A guy named Thompkins was arrested on suspicion of shooting someone and was read his Miranda rights before questioning began. “You have the right to remain silent, and if you give up that right anything you say can and will be used in a court of law,” etc. The questioning went on without the guy asking for an attorney and, for the most part with the guy sitting mute. From an article in The Detroit News,

When police questioned Thompkins, he remained mostly silent for more than two hours, Jacobs said, but he later answered "yes" when one of the officers asked him if he prayed for forgiveness for "shooting that boy down."

He was convicted on the basis of that answer and his defense claimed that his Miranda rights were infringed. The Court upheld the conviction, claiming that he could have ended the questioning by asserting that he was claiming his right to remain silent. Justice Sotomayor was in dissent, saying that the decision “turns Miranda upside down," but I’m not sure at what point she expects the police to stop questioning a suspect if they do not say that they are asserting a right to silence.

They bring a suspect in, read him his rights, he says nothing other than that he understands his rights, and they begin questioning him. Then what? He either answers or he does not. If he is not answering but does not tell them he is “asserting his right to silence,” what are the police supposed to do?

It seems to me that accompanying the right to silence is the obligation to claim that right by asserting it, or at least by actually remaining silent. If the subject has not “asserted the right to silence” and has acknowledged his right to not answer questions, then if he chooses to answer a question how can that answer not be used against him?

Certainly it would be true that sitting in silence while police are hounding you with questions would be hard, but at what point are the police required to stop asking questions? Two hours is rather long, but does not strike me as unreasonable given the gravity of the suspected crime.

The defense does not claim that Thompkins was being tortured, or even coerced. They do not claim that he asserted that he was not going to answer questions, that he asked for an attorney, or that he even asked that the police stop questioning him. In fact, throughout the session he was apparently answering some of their questions. Why would the police stop asking questions?

Certainly the rights of individuals must be rigorously defended, but Justice Sotomayor's position would seem to imply that police may not question suspects at all. If we expect law enforcement to protect society we cannot tie both hands behind their backs.

Idiocy In The Cable "News"

It was a real hoot listening to Olbermann and Robert Reich talk about having "Obama put BP into receivership" last night on Countdown. That way, Reich said, they could take all of BP's money and use it for the Gulf oil cleanup. I'm not a corporate or constitutional lawyer so I may not have the precisely right take on this, but I do read history and current news.

First thing is that I'm not sure how different this would be from Truman's attempt to take over the steel industry during the Korean War, but I'll bet it's close enough that the Supreme Court would nix this idea just as it did that one. The President can't "put into receivership" any corporation, he has to get a court to do that, and the court is going to need a better reason than Reich was giving. Claiming a "national emergency" isn't going to fly.

I would like for Reich to provide one example of a "national emergency" during which the government took over financially as he describes. He specifically mentioned a "nuclear meltdown," but at Three Mile Island the government did not take over the finances of the company which owned the reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission took command of the scene of the accident, but Reich is not suggesting anything like that be done now. He is suggesting the opposite; that BP continue in operational command and that the government take over BP financially.

I strongly doubt, in any case, that an American court is going to place a British corporation into receivership. In 1812 we fought a war with England because they were stopping our ships at sea and "impressing" our sailors. I shudder to think what British reaction might be if we decided to impound the proceeds of one of their major corporations. They would not be happy.

Idiocy In The Blogosphere

Updated below
I never read the "Great Orange Satan," mostly because I dislike demagoguery as much when it is used in the liberal cause as I do when it is used in a conservative one. It also contains some of the most ignorant posting in the universe, witness one to which I was directed regarding the Israeli attack on the Gaza relief convoy.

The poster contends that the commando landing on the ship was not needed, that they could have used other means, and cites as the source of his expert credentials that he was alive when we blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis in 1962. Well, so was I; in fact I was on board a U. S. Navy ship. Unlike the poster, I knew how to read and/or was paying attention.

After Kennedy's speech to the nation, Robert Mcnamara, Secretary of Defense, went before the journalists to answer questions about the blockade and he explained how the U.S. would engage in this blockade and turn around all ships bound for Cuba. He explained that if a Soviet ship in the high seas does not stop and refuse to be inspected by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Navy was given the order to disable the ship by firing on its propeller and rudder in order to disable it. Once the ship is disabled, the U.S. Navy would tow the boat to a secure area, inspect it and turn it around.

This option was available to Israel. Why didn't chose it? I will answer it later.

At no moment did the U.S. armed forces engaged in hostile action (though it was technically hostile to stop a ship in the high seas and inspect it) or landed with guns blazing on the decks of any ship bound to Cuba. They knew that this kind of actions would lead to a certain military engagement with the USSR and the consequences of that engagement are unthinkable. The world was on a hair trigger and we ALL felt it. The fact that i am talking about it some 50 years later tells you how deeply i was and we were all impacted by those 14 days.

Actually it was, famously, thirteen days and, being aboard a submarine which was armed with nothing other than torpedoes and a few M-1 Garands and wondering how the Navy expected us to stop a ship without sinking it, I'll bet I was a bit more "impacted" than the poster was. And to suggest that firing naval artillery at a Soviet ship would have been seen as less hostile than landing an inspection party on its decks is utterly ignorant and absurd.

We would have, in any case, felt really silly demanding that any ship "stop and refuse to be inspected," as such a demand would be confusing in the extreme. We would been confused issuing such a command, and would not have known exactly how to carry it out.

If, however, we demanded that a ship "stop and agree to be inspected" and they complied, guess what we would have needed to do. We would have needed to board the ship; i.e. put a landing party onto its decks. How else would we inspect its cargo, some kind of extra sensory perception?

Suppose that a ship did not stop and that we did still have our 1945 deck gun, how do we "disable the ship by firing on its propeller and rudder" exactly? The propeller is quite deep underwater and so is most of the rudder. If the ship is heavily laden, the rudder is pretty much entirely underwater. I was an electrician, not a gunner, but I can tell you, hitting things underwater is really hard. More like impossible. We could hit the propeller with a torpedo, of course, but that would most likely sink the ship.

The post writer is trying for something "less provocative" than the boarding process that the Israelis used, so I suspect sinking the ship is not what he had in mind.

Assuming that, magically, we did shoot off its propeller and tow it in for inspection. The poster then says that we could "turn it around" and, presumably, send it home. How is it going to go home without a propeller?

The poster says that we did not board any ships in 1962 by rappelling onto them from helicopters. Actually, we did not board any ships at all in 1962, but if we had we would have not done it by rappelling onto them from helicopters because we had not yet developed that technique. But we would have boarded them before firing any naval artillery, that's for damned sure.

Update: Tuesday, 11:30am
From a couple of comments it seems I need to update my post, because my point was not so much about the "rightness" of either the Israeli or the flotilla's action, as about the idiotic idea that firing at the ship's propeller and rudder would have been a better course of action than landing troops on the deck. First, firing on a ship would be a far more drastic course of action. Second, how in the hell do you hit a ship's propeller with deck guns?

And, to further invalidate the concept that blowing off the propeller is a better idea, and as Joe Markowitz pointed out, we actually did land a boarding party on a Soviet foreign ship in 1962. (My bad.)

Weak Tea

France said that "nothing can justify" the violence of Israel's Gaza ship raid, while German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "deeply concerned" about the deaths.

The European Union demanded Israel mount a "full inquiry" into the killing of at least 10 people in a raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza. EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton warned that Israel's "continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive," demanding "an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening" of crossings to Gaza.

Greece withdrew from joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the raid, as it summoned Israel's ambassador to demand an "immediate" report on the safety of about 30 Greeks on board the flotilla.

As for the United States, our President called Natanyahu and “expressed deep regret at the loss of life” and “expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances around [the] tragic events as soon as possible.” He doesn't seem to have inquired about the safety of any Americans who might have been abord the ships.

So while everyone else expresses outrage, talks of unjustified violence and demands corrective action, we “express regret” refer to “tragic events.” Why did I expect otherwise?

Defensive Driving

Much of the argument regarding the Israeli action of stopping the Gaza relief ships seems to be centering around whether or not it was piracy, or was a "legal" act in terms of enforcing a blockade. That reminds me of a lesson when I was learning to drive a car, regarding the rules of the road,

"He was right, dead right, as he sped along,
but he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong."
I don't know if Israel's action is legal or not, but even if it is, it is proving to be deeply unpopular. It is going to make that nation a lot of new enemies, and is going to make old enemies even more hostile toward them. As such, it strikes me as a stupid move.

A Personal Connection

In loving memory of my own personal hero, and his comrades, and one of my favorite lines,        [Click the picture for larger inage.]

"They go to war, these young men, not to die for their country, but to place themselves, their precious lives, between their homes and loved ones and the forces of destruction."

Kenneth Roberts, Rebels in Arms (The American Revolution)

Blockade Relief Policy

I'm going to have to tread a bit carefully, here, to avoid becoming shrill.

Back when Israel was using phosphorous weapons in Lebanon, and destroying civilian infrastructure in the country such as bridges and water treatment facilities, the entire world was calling for a cease fire while our president was calmly saying that Israel "has a right to defend itself."

Now Israel is attacking ships sailing in relief of a blockade that Israel is imposing in direct contravention of international convention, killing unarmed members of that convoy and seizing the relief supplies. Israel's leader is scheduled to meet with President Obama tomorrow, and so far Obama is about the only world leader who has not condemned Israel's actions. I am waiting to see what he will do.

Update: Netanyahu cancelled, so we'll see what Obama does with that.

A Couple of Records

I just realized that in the post On "Keeping Us Safe" yesterday I managed to be critical of both Republicans and the Obama Administration in a single piece, which I think is something of an accomplishment. Not everyone would view it that way, of course, but I have to admit I'm rather taken with it. I have criticized each separately quite often, but felling both of them with a single swoop is rather neat.

I've also reached 68 posts in a single month, which is a new record.

"Top Kill" Failed

You will know by now that the "top kill" attempt at staunching the blowout failed. There are a couple of long shot interim plans, but the ultimate solution being held out is still the "relief well" solution which we are told will come in August. I don't want to seem like a prophet of doom, but maybe we should recall that, like all of the failed methods to date, that also has never been done at such great depth.

On "Keeping Us Safe"

Republicans are missing a really good opportunity to portray Obama as “failing to keep us safe” by using the wrong arguments regarding the right terrorist incident.

They have been making that case since he took office, of course, and I have yet to see them use a reason, excuse or rationale that came even close to making sense. They tried that he was threatening to close Guantanamo, that he wasn’t spying on Americans sufficiently, that he’s trying terrorists improperly and, of course, the ludicrous canard that he was cutting overall defense spending.

Now, with this attempted bombing of Times Square, they are presented with a chance to make some logical arguments, and they walk right past the logical arguments to make the usual illogical and ridiculous claims of manners in which it represents Obama making us less safe. First that he is making us less safe by giving the guy Miranda rights and not torturing him, and then that he is making us less safe by bringing the guy to trial in a civilian court of law.

The Obama Administration’s best defense of their actions seems to be, “Well, Bush did it too,” rather than saying that it is the right thing to do because we are a nation of laws and that this is what our constitution requires that we do. But that’s another issue.

If the Republicans have a working brain cell and wanted to damage Obama, they would be screaming at the top of their lungs about two things; the guy is Pakistani, and he was trained for the plot by the Taliban.

In all the years under Bush we had plots against us fomented by Iraqis, Saudis, Afghans, Yemenis, and Americans, but Pakistan was an ally and we never had a plot against our homeland plotted by a Pakistani and planned in Pakistan. Now Obama comes into office and widens the war into Pakistan, and look what happens.

Secondly, in all the years under Bush, the enemy was al Queda and all of the attacks against our homeland were planned by al Queda. The Taliban were local forces who were not interested in foreign adventures. Now Obama has made the war in Afghanistan specifically a war against the Taliban, and now the Taliban are planning attacks against our homeland.

I know, I’ve never used the term “our homeland” before, and I promise I won’t do so again. I was speaking as a surrogate for Republicans.

The problem for Republicans, of course, is that if they use these lines of attack they will be criticizing Obama for widening the war, and that would never do. They would love to attack Obama, that goes without saying, but to do so on the grounds that he widened a war would just stick in their collective craw. The Republican Party is the party of war, and they could no more be critical of increasing the scope or intensity of a war than they could advocate widening abortion rights.

NatGeo on Oil Spill

I watched the National Geographic Channel's one-hour special on the Gulf oil spill, and that may be the least informative hour of television watching I have ever indulged in. Judge Judy is more educational than that thing was.

Half of the time slot was devoted to artistic film clips, things like the driver's eyes in the rear view mirror, of the salvage crew making ready to leave on their mission. Things like packing their suitcases at home, loading trucks, and semi's driving on the freeway. After all of this disconnected set of film clips, it turned out that the salvage company's ship never left port because Deepwater Horizon sank before they could do so.

They showed about four minutes of Deepwater Horizon burning, and a rather dramatic scene lasting twenty seconds or so of the rig sinking, but otherwise there was nothing to learn that the major three networks had not provided more than a month ago. Total waste of an hour.

Reassuring the Troops

I am constantly amazed. I guess that is one of the joys of getting old; watching with astonishment the antics of the younger generation. I served in the Navy, but I’m not sure that today’s generation would have survived the conditions we served in.

For one thing we served with some gay guys, although we didn’t call them that at the time. While they didn’t openly announce it or wear signs, it was never any big secret. It didn’t adversely affect our “unit cohesion" or "readiness” or, if it did, we would have been awesomely effective indeed without those guys, because we were damned good with them.

Did it cause some friction? Sure it did. So did that idiot who kept flapping his mouth about what an awesome Italian he was, and how many women his Italianness allowed him to… Never mind.

Our superiors never asked us our opinions about much of anything. I don’t recall the ship ever leaving port and the Captain asking us where we wanted to go; he just said things like, “Left ten degrees rudder, all ahead standard.” He always had his own plan in mind, and never much shared it with us. Sometimes when we got back we didn’t know where we’d been; submarines don’t have windows.

But today Congress passes a bill about gays serving in the military and the Secretary of Defense freaks out and has to reassure the military that he has their back, so to speak, and that he won’t let anything happen until every member of the military has had a chance to provide an opinion about military policy regarding serving with gays.

"Every man and woman in uniform is a vitally important part of this review. We need to hear from you and your families so that we can make these judgments in the most informed and effective manner," Gates said. "So please let us know how to do this right."

"Please let us know how to do this right." If I had ever gone to my division officer and said “let me tell how to do military policy right,” he would have called for a straight jacket. He certainly valued my knowledge of the inner workings of an electrical switchboard, but the idea of me providing input to the command structure as to military policy would pretty much have sent him into hysterics.

The posturing seems to be about willingness to serve alongside gays.

This “finest military in the world” must be a bunch of real candy asses if they are afraid of a few gay guys and women, and they also must be stupid as hell if they don’t realize that gays are already serving in the military. The question isn’t about gays serving, you morons, they are already doing that, as the present law allows them to do. The issue is about whether or not gay people who are presently serving legally in the military will be allowed to admit they are gay.

Perhaps the issue is that our troops are willing to serve alongside gays if they don't know that they are gay, but are not willing to if they do know that they are gay. What? This is going to be difficult to say without sounding homophobic, which I’m actually not, but how does that make any sense?

If I were worried about having someone “checking me out” in the shower, I would want to be sure that gays are serving openly in the military and not concealing their gayness, because I would want to know who they are so that I can be sure not to shower with them. As long as they are “in the closet” and I’m showering with a bunch of guys, I have no idea who might be checking out my, you know, whatever, and I’m never going to know when it is safe to pick up the soap that I just dropped.

If the military is so concerned regarding the effect on morale created by the policies they implement, why did they never conduct a “peer review” on the “stop loss” policy; the policy that says that the military can keep you in service after your enlistment period expires?