Centerfield

UN Reform: Fix What We've Got or Make a New One?

Even many who think Bush approached the UN badly agree about Iraq see problems with the current UN system. The biggest problems are probably the high corruption, the obsolescence of the five-power scheme, devised half a century ago, and because the wide veto power is clearly a serious systemic barrier to UN action (arguably Iraq, certainly Darfur, the many Soviet vetos).

Kofi Annan himself sees that it's a problem, and has suggested a fix. I must say that, although his proposals would improve things, I'm not terribly happy with it. It only solves the middle problem. I think the veto is a pretty severe limit on UN deterrence and peacekeeping, which was the major reason the UN was set up in the first place. And the proposal would just make matters worse by spreading the veto out.

One of the differences between 1945 and now is that, at least in theory, most people live in democracies - yeah, mostly corrupt, but slowly improving, as democracies do.

I've been thinking that maybe we should be starting on a serious new union, of Democratic states (meeting a certain standard of electoral trust level), to absorb the duties of deterring dictators and preventing genocide, and maybe to handle world organizations where good operation is more important than the broad world acceptance that the UN brings? One with no complete per-country veto, just, say, 2/3-vote thresholds and directly elected representatives?

There has been motion in this direction, talk of emphasizing the UN Democracy Caucus, but so far the only responsibility it is being given is to undermine/replace the UN ?Human? Rights Commission. This, I think, is much too slow. Darfurs and Rwandas will keep happening until we do something like this.

What do you think? If you think it's a dumb idea, how do you think the UN should be reformed?

An Independent Republican

Charging RINO has the info on a Virginia centrist, Russ Potts

Potts, a four-term state senator and currently chairman of the Senate's Education and Health Committee, is a moderate Republican who supports womens' right to choose and has long decried what he calls the GOP's "drift to the right." In various newspaper articles he has been described as "irascible," a "prickly populist," "candid," "colorful and cantakerous" ... and he's running for governor.

Dissatisfied with the presumed GOP frontrunner, Jerry Kilgore, and Democrat Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, Potts announced on February 25 that he would enter the campaign as an "Independent Republican." His announcement speech, available here, is a wonderful expression of a truly centrist agenda that transcends party lines in the name of good government and common sense policy.

Best Wishes to Laura Ingraham

She's had surgery for breast cancer. I listen to her show, and like her sense of humor. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Open Thread

What's on your mind? Nothing is off-topic

Benefit "Cuts" For The Rich...The Horror! The Horror!

Bush has finally come up the first details of Social Security reform, and they include benefit "cuts" for the rich, and a sliding progressive scale-back for those in the middle. The poor would go on with the current schedules.

Naturally enough, Democrats are outraged.

Bush would "gut benefits for middle-class families," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said in a joint statement.

First, an obvious point. Benefits for those on the upper end would not actually be cut, the rate of growth in those benefits would be slowed down. Benefits for the wealthier among us in constant-dollar inflation-adjusted terms would not be reduced one dime from current levels. Benefits for the middle class would not be cut but would increase faster than inflation and thus would still rise in real terms. Benefits for the lower-income would rise as currently scheduled, and maybe even be enhanced.

This is the same shrill screeching we hear all the time about programs being "gutted" when they're actually getting more money than the year before, just not as much as they were previously scheduled for, or as much as they wanted.

Second, why is reducing federal expenditures (in a time of record deficits) on the rich and middle class a bad thing, but raising taxes on them a good thing?

As the mathematics of the Pozen proposal shows, much of the problem with future SS financing involves the steady growth of benefits at rates above inflation, and the effect of the proportion of those increased benefits going to the better-off. By establishing a baseline safety-net "floor" of benefits (as I've argued for here) and reining in the top-end expansions for those with more resources, a good chunk of the problem goes away. This is the mathematical "flip side" of the Democrat argument that the SS problem can be "solved" with "minor" tax increases.

UPDATE: House GOP Plans Social Security Draft

Soon to be seen on MoveOn.org as "House GOP Plans Draft". Hey, be sure to get "GOP" and "Draft" together in that headline....nope, no subliminality there.

MORE UPDATE: Bush's Social Security Plan Cuts Benefits

Under Bush's approach, future Social Security checks would increase more quickly for the lowest-income retirees than for everyone else. Though Bush promised that middle- and upper-income retirees would get benefits "equal to or greater than the benefits enjoyed by today's seniors," they would be smaller than what the system is now promising for the future.

See point #1, above. Seems that Pelosi and Reid are writing the headlines for AP now.

Citizen action on the Border

Two news items in Arizona highlight the controversies and politics of illegal immigration. While a big issue for the US, its huge in AZ given that the Arizona/Sonora border is now the largest entry point. First the now famous "Minuteman" have several allies in the Arizona congressional ranks; no big surprise there. What is surprising is the vocal protests from them concerning President Bush's "vigilante" comments regarding the Minutemen. Former sportscaster and future gubernatorial candidate Rep. JD Hayworth stated

"And for that simple constitutional act of standing up for border security these citizens were maligned far and wide by hysterical editorial writers and yes, sadly, even by the presidents of the United States and the Republic of Mexico,"

Even John McCain is now speaking cautionsly on this issue, given the surprisely strong support across the AZ electorate for some action.

Second, the US Dep of Justice is looking into possible civil action against US Army reservist Sgt. Patrick Haab. Mr Haab made a "citizens arrest" of several Mexican nationals at gunpoint in rural Maricopa County. Mr. Haab is not a part of the Minutemen. Our local county attorney, Andrew Thomas, a fairly conservative Replican, did not press charges because of the citizens arrest angle. (Turns out one of those "arrested" was a "coyote" and, according to Attorney Thomas, the rest were part of the "conspiracy". Mr Haab wasn't aware of that until after the fact.) This act has given Mr Haab new acclaim.

Haab has become a celebrity among anti-immigrant groups since his April 10 arrest, making several appearances on national conservative television and radio shows, saying that undocumented immigrants are turning the country into "Americo," a combination of the United States and Mexico. Haab said Wednesday that his decision to draw a pistol on the immigrants had nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

In AZ we're seeing widening splits in the Republican Party regarding immigration. Certainly Prop 200, proposed by Republicans but with significant Republican (i.e. Sen McCain) opposition highlighted that. The Minutemen activities have further accentuated that split.

Innovations from one end of the blogosphere

Roger Simon.

Charles Johnson, Marc Danziger and I have been sneaking around over the last few months, trying to turn blogs into a business. We have enlisted some others with names familiar to you with the intention of working in two areas - aggregating blogs to increase corporate advertising and creating our own professional news service.

With respect to advertising, we do not wish to go into competition with Henry Copeland's BlogAds, which we fully support. (Some of us even have them!) We are working on another model that will sell ads en masse, not blog-by-blog. We expect this model to go live within a few weeks.

As for the Blog News Service, a lot of work needs to be done and a lot of questions answered. An editorial board consisting of Glenn Reynolds, PowerLine, Lawrence Kudlow, Hugh Hewitt, Marc Cooper, Wretchard of the Belmont Club and Tim Blair, as well as the founders, is already in place with other bloggers in many countries having signed on as contributors.

This is no way meant to be exclusive. We invite you all to join us. On the advertising end, any blogger -- whether political or not -- is welcome. We would be delighted to place ads on your blog and pay you for them. You may find out more and, we hope, join by simply emailing us at join@pajamasmedia.com.

It is going to be very interesting to see how this venture works out.

Won't the Democrats Ever Learn?

It's hard to believe that a group of people could deceive themselves so thoroughly about their problems--or maybe it isn't. This article by Joshua Green in The Atlantic just illustrates why we are likely to have continuing Republican rule. The article discusses how the idea of "messaging" is taking over the Democratic Party. This is the idea formulated by George Lakoff that the language you use to frame an issue determines how people will respond to it. This makes sense to a limited extent, but the Democrats have persuaded themselves that ALL they have to do is reformulate the isssues to win.

This leads to some pretty whacky stuff. For example,

Lakoff offers no new policy ideas. Instead he suggests that the Democrats reposition the ones they already have, and spruce up some unpopular terminology while they're at it. He advocates referring to "trial lawyers" as "public-protection attorneys," replacing "taxes" with "membership fees," and generally couching the entire Democratic message in palatable—even deceptive—language in order to simplify large ideas and disguise them behind innocent but powerful-sounding phrases.

That's really going to do it. And that's not all--the Democrats have a host of crackpots involved in what Green calls their "messaging efforts.

Along with the usual pollsters and strategists it includes the internationally best-selling mystery writer Harlan Coben, creator of the Myron Bolitar series, about the adventures of "a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent" (as Amazon.com describes it). Another member is R. J. Cutler, the reality-TV impresario behind last summer's Showtime series American Candidate (modeled after American Idol), which put the lie to H.L.Mencken's maxim that you can never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

At some point, the Democrats are going to have to realize that their problems go deeper than simple marketing. But anyone who has read any of the liberal blogs realizes that this is going to take a long time.

Overreach

David Broder believes that President Bush has fallen victim to the second term curse

Having armed himself with an ambitious set of goals in order to energize his government, Bush has become the victim of overreach -- the one problem he and his advisers did not anticipate.

They thought that things had gone downhill for Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton because those presidents had largely used up their "big ideas" in their first terms and were left adrift without much sense of purpose, vulnerable to their enemies, in their final four years. So Bush set forth what any president would have to consider a breathtakingly bold agenda. As Charles O. Jones of the University of Wisconsin remarked to me in January, it was particularly striking to see "a second-term president with the smallest electoral college majority since Wilson in 1916 undertake the most ambitious agenda since Roosevelt in 1936."

He never really had a second term mandate for positive action. He won re-election, despite poor "right-track/wrong-track" polling numbers by running a negative campaign that made John Kerry an unacceptable alternative (the Democrats were also very negative, and would have had difficulty presenting their agenda if they'd won). It's true that Bush mentioned partially privitizing Social Security before the election, and was not sunk by it. But it wasn't the central plank of his campaign, and voters never really endorsed it.

More good news on the Healthcare front

Two items from Modern Healthcare.
"Agreement may be near on large Medicaid cuts
A budget plan that cuts roughly $10 billion from Medicaid spending over five years will probably succeed and an agreement could be reached this week, several sources in Washington acknowledged today. As talks continue on Capitol Hill, Republicans in Congress are said to be pursuing legislation to create a commission that will study for one year the effects of such cuts. The creation of a commission comes as the result of the Senate's vote last month to not make cuts to Medicaid after the House had voted to cut $20 billion from the program. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) told reporters he is working in coordination with HHS officials to create the commission, which would make recommendations about how to make the cuts. Smith played a big part in the amendment that eliminated the proposed $14 billion in Medicaid cuts.

Groups representing seniors and healthcare associations have been publicly pressing Congress to avoid Medicaid cuts. The AARP released a study Tuesday that claims four out of five Americans oppose cuts in the Medicaid program as a means of reducing the federal debt. The American Health Care Association held a press conference today citing a study by BDO Seidman that shows Medicaid payment rates continue to fall behind the costs of providing quality patient care. At a hearing today on long-term care and Medicaid before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, CMS Administrator Mark McClellan reiterated his belief that the Medicaid system is outdated."

And in a ?related matter:
"Texas had the highest rate of uninsured residents of any state in the country, according to a report released today in anticipation of Cover the Uninsured Week, which will run May 1 to 8. According to the report, prepared by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota, 27% of adult residents in Texas were uninsured. New Mexico and Louisiana had the next highest rate of uninsured residents, each with 23%. Minnesota had the lowest uninsured rate at 7%, followed by Hawaii, Delaware and the District of Columbia, each with 9%. The report found that in eight states, at least one in five working adults did not have insurance and in 39 states at least one in 10 working adults had no health insurance. The report used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2003 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a national telephone survey of preventive and health-risk behaviors. "

Well, I have my health insurance.

Random links

Here a few interesting items that I have come across this week.

- E.J. Dionne says that moderates are in revolt.
- Ron Brownstein says that there may be an opening for a centrist third party.
- Brendan Nyhan says that Brownstein is nuts, but BullMoose refuses to give up the dream.

Background Check

A gun background check leads to the arrest of a major criminal.

The DNA matches have linked the man to a notorious series of unsolved rapes that terrorized Montgomery County in Maryland and drew comparisons with the rampage of the Boston Strangler. Manhattan authorities said the Maryland cases might be only the beginning, as other states run the suspect's samples through their own DNA databanks.

The man, identified by his lawyer as Fletcher Anderson Worrell, 58, was located in an Atlanta suburb late last year after he tried to buy a shotgun. The background check turned up two arrest warrants for him in New York City.

This disproves the notion that background checks are worthless because no criminal would be stupid enough to submit to one.

The Game As She Is Played

A couple of amusing follow-ups on the fallout from the Tom DeLay accusations.

It Didn't Start With Tom DeLay

The PoliticalMoneyLine study reviewed 5,410 trips taken by 605 members of the House and Senate. Democratic lawmakers had the edge, taking 3,025 trips, to 2,375 trips for GOP members.

.

The No. 1 trip-taker in dollar terms was Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Sensenbrenner took 19 trips valued at $168,000.

In contrast, DeLay finished 28th by taking 14 trips valued at $94,568.

Among those higher on the list than DeLay were 2008 presidential wannabes Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and two members of the Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, and outgoing Marylander Paul Sarbanes (D).

Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., took the most trips - 63. But Ford's less expensive domestic jaunts only totaled $61,000.

Top travel destinations, besides the U.S., were Mexico and Israel.

DeLay woes prompt rush to refile forms: Lawmakers fear fallout over ethics

An aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had not reported a 2004 trip to South Korea until a Washington Post reporter asked her office about it. Eddie Charmaine Manansala, Pelosi's special assistant on East Asian affairs, filed a disclosure form for the $9,087 trip a few hours after the newspaper's inquiry and sent a note to the ethics committee saying, "I did not know I was supposed to file these forms and I apologize for its lateness."

Oops! I forgot! Hey, isn't that Steve Martin's line?

Here We Go Again

Texas House Says OK to Gay Marriage Ban

The measure is intended to head off possible challenges to an existing state law that prohibits same-sex marriages.

First CC Policy Initiative

Hi folks. As part of the Centrist Coalition project, we've been putting together a policy team over the past couple weeks. Today we issued our first formal policy -- focusing on the judicial filibuster issue (the so-called "nuclear option") that is supposed to be taken up in the Senate this week.

We sent out a press release this morning, and our policy is posted here.

This has already gotten a bit of attention/discussion, particularly on Joe Gandleman's site and on Restless Mania.

If you read the policy and agree with it, there are links at the bottom that allow you to contact the six senators cited in the media as undecided on this issue.

And if you'd like to pitch in with this aspect of our mission or any other, just let us know.

Update: I found a really nice article on the recent history of judicial confirmations and how various tactics have been used.

Good news from Iraq

The regular bi-weekly Chrenkoff with the news you don't see at six o'clock.

Good news from Iraq, Part 26

The part from the BBC is interesting for assorted reasons.

Rather Departs, Cronkite Returns

The 88 year old will be blogging, thanks to Arianna Huffington's new venture

Having prominent people join the blogosphere, Ms. Huffington said in an interview, "is an affirmation of its success and will only enrich and strengthen its impact on the national conversation." Among those signed up to contribute are Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman. "This gives me a chance to sound off with a few words or a long editorial," said Mr. Cronkite, 88, the longtime "CBS Evening News" anchorman. "It's a medium that is new and interesting, and I thought I'd have some fun."

Somehow, I doubt that Rather will follow Cronkite into the blogosphere.

Dueling Conservatisms

Andrew Sullivan describes the dueling factions of "conservatism."

Crisis of Faith: HOW FUNDAMENTALISM IS SPLITTING THE GOP

Let me be rash and describe the fundamental divide within conservatism as a battle between two rival forms. The two forms I'm referring to are ideal types. I know very few conservatives who fit completely into one camp or the other; and these camps do not easily comport with the categories we have become used to deploying--categories like "libertarian," "social conservative," "paleoconservative," "fiscal conservative and social liberal," and so on. There is, I think, a deeper rift, and a more fundamental one....Call one the conservatism of faith and the other the conservatism of doubt.

Sully may not have quite hit it out of the park, but he's sure as heck rounding third with a lead.

Christians against Wal-Mart

This item caught my eye, fresh off the discussion about "moral values" and politics. We've heard a lot of negatives against Wal-Mart. And I guess I fell in the trap of assuming its "those nasty liberals and unioneers fighting a rock bed American company that appeals to good value and middle class America." (Personally, I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart.) Well this article in Christianity Today, of all places, points out this "moral value" has "people of faith" on both sides.

"Wal-Mart's practices are immoral and unfair," says Reginald Williams Jr., associate pastor for justice ministries at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Pastors at the 8,500-member Trinity United and eight other African American congregations in Chicago called for a boycott of Wal-Mart.

Now the article does point out that the churches "fighting"Wal-Mart are primarily mainline, liberal, and Roman Catholic but clearly here are "church-going"people expressing their "moral values"(and I bet many aren't Republican).

In a previous post I mentioned how Christianity seems to be so easily co-opted into the "moral values" fight. This quote says it all

Indeed, based in the Bible Belt town of Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart has a tradition of tailoring its service to churchgoing customers. It sells only the sanitized versions of hip-hop cds bearing warnings of objectionable content. Responding to a campaign by the largest evangelical mutual fund group, The Timothy Plan, to keep Cosmopolitan magazine covers out of view of Wal-Mart customers, the company slapped plastic sheathes over suggestive women's periodicals and banned "lad mags" such as Maxim.

Wal-Mart knows its churchgoing, Middle America market. When Target Corp., a top competitor, refused to allow Salvation Army bell-ringers in front of its stores last Christmas, Bentonville seized the public-relations moment. Wal-Mart pledged to match the amount that Salvation Army bell-ringers collected at its stores.

Just like Tully's post from the NYT brings out, these are good discussions to have. They hopefully help us realize that neither party monopolizes "moral values" and that people of faith must be able to discern what's a moral question vs a political one.

Two State Governor?

According to boston.com

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld has had discussions with New York Republican officials about a possible run for governor or the U.S. Senate next year in the state where he has lived since 2000, a top GOP official said Sunday.
...
Sam Houston is the only two-state governor in history, having served as governor of Tennessee from 1827 to 1829 and Texas from 1859 to 1861.

This is not as crazy as it seems, in that Weld is a New York native, and thus has a stronger connection than Hillary Clinton did before she dropped in.

I like Weld a lot. Indeed, he was the inspiration for me to become a Republican in the 1990's, and it was when the Republican-controlled Senate rejected his nomination as Ambassador to Mexico that I dropped out of the GOP. Still, his abandoning of his position as governor of Massachusetts in mid-term would surely be an issue if he were to run for governor of New York. Many people think he simply became bored. That might be less of an issue were he to run for Senate against Sen. Clinton.

Food For Thought

Democratic Moral Values?

This may be a transitional moment for both parties. More voters now are refusing to join either party, rejecting the notion that either holds a monopoly on values. And as technology advances, so, too, does the shading of moral choices that used to seem black or white....Most Americans seem to understand that we are entering a time of complex, wrenching decisions that defy facile and self-righteous answers. Maybe it's time for politicians to admit that, too.

Some good chewy stuff there. Check it out.

Now There's an Ethics Charge

To date the "ethics charges" being bandied about and aimed at Tom DeLay have been pretty picayune stuff, standard Washington practices of which even his accusers are guilty, and often to a greater degree--if "guilty" is the right word for practices that look bad but aren't illegal, and are even traditional.

Here's something with more teeth to it.

DeLay Airfare Was Charged To Lobbyist's Credit Card

I have predicted privately that if real illegalities surfaced to sink DeLay, it would be through the Abramoff connection. This could be the tip of the iceberg.

UPDATE: More background on the meaty stuff from Fineman and Isikoff.

Reforming the Judiciary: Fact and Fiction

Almost everyone who's paid attention to the press or, say, The Daily Show, in the aftermath of the Terri Schiavo case has been aware of an intensifying effort by the conservative faction to "reform" the federal judiciary. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has famously hinted at using Congress's impeachment power to rein in "activist" judges. Senator John Cornyn (also R-Tex.) also complained about judges, both Democrat- and Republican-appointees, and, in widely decried and later retracted remarks on the Senate floor, almost seemed to explain away recent violence against judges in Georgia and Illinois as a frustration with judicial activism. Comments like these, and the current tension in the Senate over the so-called nuclear option on confirming judicial nominees, illustrate that the war between conservative and liberal is moving beyond the raucous halls of Congress and into the staid halls of the federal courts.

The proposal to defund the judiciary has been raised here at Centerfield, and comments to that thread have suggested a distinction be made between proposals offered by social conservatives to exact vengance upon the judiciary and genuine judicial reform. There's another reform proposal, possibly more subtle, often overlooked by those outside the legal world, and easily colored as an effort by conservatives to stiffle the independence of the judiciary: splitting the Ninth Circuit.

The proposal is not new, but may be picking up new momentuum as conservative frustration and conservative power coincide. The Ninth Circuit is known in legal circles as the most liberal federal court of appeals in the country (just as the Fourth Circuit is known as the most conservative). It has, for example, ruled against the pledge of allegance and the individual right to carry handguns. The Los Angeles Times quoted James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, targeting the Ninth Circuit specifically. "Very few people know this, that the Congress can simply disenfranchise a court," Dobson said. "They don't have to fire anybody or impeach them or go through that battle. All they have to do is say the 9th Circuit doesn't exist anymore, and it's gone."

But is circuit splitting just another example of conservative retribution?

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sits, as do its 11 regional brethren, immediately below the Supreme Court of the United States on most federal questions. It begins in the east at Montana's border with the Dakotas, swinging south through Idaho and Nevada, around Utah, to pick up Arizona. It then spreads west to include Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. At the last census, it was home to just under 57.5M Americans--almost twice the size of its nearest competitor.

Because the Supreme Court of the United States hears so few appeals (the 2004 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary records 91 cases argued in the Supreme Court in its 2003 Term (ending June 2004)), the regional courts of appeals are the only appellate forum available for most federal litigants. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts records 59,509 appeals filed in the 12 regional courts of appeal; 12,929, almost 22%, were filed in the Ninth Circuit. And little wonder: the Ninth Circuit is the appellate circuit for 15 of 94 federal judicial districts (almost 16%)--the closest competitor has 10 districts--and 112 of 679 federal district judges (again, about 16%). On its bench sit 28 of the 167 federal appeals judges (again, about 16%, but almost half as many again as its nearest competitor).

There's an active debate within the legal community about whether the size of the Ninth Circuit hinders its effectiveness. Appellate judges elsewhere tend to work closely with each other and develop a sense of collegiality; that's missing on the Ninth Circuit because there are so many judges that they don't see each other on the common three-judge panels very frequently. Moreover, most circuit courts sit en banc, meaning all the active judges of the appeals court hear the same case, in order to hear mini-appeals from the three-judge panels' decisions. Not so with the Ninth Circuit. Because it has 28 active judges, only the chief judge of the court and ten randomly chosen judges sit on the en banc "panel". See Circuit Rule 35-3. This means that a majority of the court is excluded from the en banc review. And the en banc decision is the final decision of the circuit--there is no higher appeal but to the Supreme Court of the United States, which, again, rarely accepts such requests for review.

(And, it should be observed circuits have been split before: the 10th Circuit was created from the 8th, and the 11th from the 5th.)

So proposals to split the Ninth Circuit do seem to have merit beyond the mere anti-judicial rhetoric of social conservatives. But there are many diffferent ways to skin a cat. There are currently two proposals in the House, H.R. 211 (sponsored by Michael Simpson (R-Idaho) and Tom DeLay) and H.R. 212 (sponsored only by Mr. Simpson). H.R. 211 ("the DeLay bill") would split the Ninth Circuit into three circuits: California, Guam, Hawaii, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the 9th; Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada in a new 12th; and Alaska, Oregon, and Washington in a new 13th. H.R. 212 ("the Simpson bill") would split the Ninth Circuit in two: California, Arizona, and Nevada in the 9th; and Guam, Hawaii, the Northern Mariana Islands, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington in a new 12th.

One might think that splitting the Ninth Circuits three ways would be better than two. But the empirical data show otherwise. I've created a graph comparing the caseloads for each circuit under both proposals here. You can easily see that, though the DeLay bill creates three circuits, there remains a staggering imbalance between the circuit caseloads--though the new 12th Circuit bears the burden, while the new 13th circuit has a caseload half as heavy. The Simpson bill distributes the burden much more evenly.

So why the two proposals? Here's a hint: look at how the red states and blue states are distributed in the two bills. The DeLay bill puts California in a circuit all its own, relatively speaking; the Simpson bill ignores the politics and focuses purely on geographic blocks and caseloads.

As my example shows, not all moves to change the federal judiciary are threats to its independence. But even genuine reform efforts can be Trojan horses for social conservatives and partisan fanatics. The devil is in the details, and, unfortunately, we have to look at the "nuances"--God forbid.

Media Bias in Britain

Tory fury as BBC sends hecklers to bait Howard

The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.

The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".

These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair"....the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.

Don't Defund The Courts

This conservative proposal for defunding the courts is way extreme. I agree that there are cases of left-wing judicial activism, where judges seem to invent law out of whole cloth, the Massachusetts courts insistence on gay marriage (not even accepting civil unions as a substitute). I don't know what the soluition to such activism is, but defunding the courts is not it. Furthermore, what seems to have gotten this movement going more than anything else is the Schiavo case, which was not an example of judicial activism, but rather of judges following the law.

Powell on Bolton

Looks like Colin Powell may actually put the nails in the coffin of the Bolton nomination:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the troubled nomination of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador with senators who sought his opinion, a spokeswoman for the retired general said on Friday.

Another associate said Powell had little trust or affection for the hard-line conservative and The New York Times reported the he expressed reservations about Bolton to Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Whether you agree with this or not (and I do), it is a bit exhilarating to see a moderate Republican flexing his political muscles in a way that makes an actual difference.

Open Thread

What's on your mind? Nothing is off topic

Pope Benedict and Law

While we're talking about Pope Benedict, what do y'all think he'll do about Cardinal Law?

I'd say that's his first challenge, whether or not he realizes it. Of course, nasty old-boy stuff like tends to happen under dying leaders. But if the new guy lets it stand....

It's one thing to call homosexuality evil. But if you let Law off the hook you say, you're saying,

"Well, unless you're a priest, in which case it's do as thou wilt."

Federal Marriage Amendment developments

The original Federal Marriage Amendment (or if not the original, the one that got the farthest in the process and the one that got the most attention) in the last Congress is replicated in this Congress in Senate Joint Resolution 1.

SECTION 1. This article may be cited as the "Marriage Protection Amendment".

SECTION 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.

Beyond the inartful use of the first section, which would make this constitutional amendment the first amendment to have a short title, the second section raises serious federalism concerns because it mandates a construction of state constitutions, which would be binding by way of the Supremacy Clause on state judges as well as federal judges.  In other words, this amendment tells state courts what their state constitutions say.

(The second section of the original Federal Marriage Amendment also contains a glaring ambiguity, and there is little doubt how the judges whom the social conservatives want on the federal bench would interpret this ambiguity.  What are the legal incidents of marriage?  Is child custody an incident of marriage?  How about cohabitation?)

Not surprisingly, I'm not a big fan of the Federal Marriage Amendment.  I believe that marriage falls within the traditional scope of the states' police power and is not a proper subject for federal legislation, except for federal purposes (e.g., federal income taxation).

I can't speak intelligently about the wisdom of judicial decisions in Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts, or California that appear to mandate some form of state recognition of same-sex relationships based on their state constitutions because I don't live in any of those places and I'm not intimately familiar with their state constitutions. On the other hand, I believe that such decisions are properly left to the legislatures of the several states.  And they may not get it right even when they think they're being gay-friendly, as I noted here, but at least a legislative process is more competent to deal with the details of such state recognition than a judicial process.  That's why some time ago, when I formed the now-defunct Centrist Platform Committee as part of a experiment to define what it is, exactly, that makes a centrist, I proposed my own Federal Marriage Amendment.

Marriage in the United States, and in each of the several States, shall be defined as the legislature thereof shall provide, except that no State, nor the United States, shall restrict marriage on the basis of race.

Obviously, it didn't get any traction.

The members of Congress who have expressed reservations over the original version of the Federal Marriage Amendment have usually limited their reservations to the second sentence of the second section.  They say that they would wholeheartedly support the amendment if it just said, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."  In fact, I'd go along with that as well, begrudgingly, provided the word "marriage" is restricted to "marriage" and not "marriage-substitutes" and the other epithets social conservatives have for civil unions and domestic partnership registries.

(There's also a House counterpart, House Joint Resolution 39, which effectively mirrors S. J. Res. 1, but adds a Section 3. ("No State shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State concerning a union between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage, or as having the legal incidents of marriage, under the laws of such other State.") This essentially incorporates the Defense of Marriage Act into the Constitution of the United States.)

To get around this objection (i.e., that the second sentence of the second section goes too far), Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) creatively introduced Senate Joint Resolution 13--a lucky number for federalists indeed--on April 14, one week ago today.

SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

SECTION 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

"Ooo," a federalist might coo, "that one should work just fine."  But, from a federalist perspective, it's worse than the original Federal Marriage Amendment! 

The language in the second section isn't new; its use began after the Civil War, beginning with the 13th Amendment, and it reappears in the 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 23d, 24th, and 26th Amendments.  Why there, and not in all the amendments after the 13th?

Because a constitutional grant of power to enforce by appropriate legislation unlocks the door to federal preemption.  This is most notably evidenced in civil rights legislation under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.  Such a grant appended to the Federal Marriage Amendment would allow Congress to regulate marriage directly.  It would allow Congress to ban civil unions and domestic partnership registration under the guise of protecting against the "dilution of marriage," which would constitutionally be limited to "one man and one woman."  It would also allow Congress, rather than the states, to resolve what the "legal incidents" of marriage are.

And, if you favor same-sex marriage and you think the second section gives you hope because Congress could allow same-sex marriage, you're wrong:  Congressional action under the second section is limited by the first section, which constitutionally prohibits same-sex marriage.  All the second section permits is the dilation and contraction through Congressional oversight of what, if any, non-marriage statuses and rights would be available at either the state or federal levels.

In short, S. J. Res. 13 is a Trojan horse.  Rather than addressing federalist concerns about preempting "judicial activist" state court interpretation of state constitutions, S. J. Res. 13 would empower Congress to preempt state legislatures from creating "marriage substitutes," as Connecticut just did.

This sort of subtlety or, God forbid, nuance, is the sort of thing that lurks beneath the surface of the public policy debate. It can escape the casual reader of the mainstream media, if the media picks up on it at all. Accordingly, the side that defines its message first is the side that typically wins. And, because federalists based their opposition to the original Federal Marriage Amendment on the second sentence of its operative section--a sentence that the Brownback version in S. J. Res. 13 omits--the spotlight needs to be shone on this pernicious little cockroach as soon as possible.

Dean's Inappropriateness

I'm listening to O'Reilly now, and he's outraged by this recent performance by Howard Dean.

Only one report came out of the meeting, and it was written by Conrad Defiebre from the Minneapolis Star-Trib. It carries a vague reference to some sort of a gesture by the DNC Chairman. Defiebre's report states that Dean regaled an appreciative audience for nearly 90 minutes without once raising his voice, as he did after last year's Iowa primary election. But he did draw howls of laughter by mimicking a drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh. "I'm not very dignified," he said. "But I'm not running for president anymore."

I think the Democrats made a poor choice in their new leader.

Talk Radio

Reports are that Air America still isn't doing too well, even as they've expanded.

And look at Air America's ratings: They're pitifully weak, even in places where you would think they'd be strong. WLIB, its flagship in New York City, has sunk to 24th in the metro area Arbitron ratings — worse than the all-Caribbean format it replaced, notes the Radio Blogger. In the liberal meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Air America is doing lousier still.

I do listen to Al Franken on Air America from time to time. I enjoy it, because he does have his schtick. My theory for why liberal talk radio is weak compared to conservative talk radio has to do with the alternatives. I know when I first got into the habit of listening to talk radio in the 1970's, it was because I wasn't into rock music. From this non-statistically valid sample, I believe that liberals are more likely to be listening to rock and rap music, and while conservatives do listen to country, they are probably less heavy music listeners than liberals.

I also listen to Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor, which Franken is opposite. I mostly like O'Reilley as well. I may be the only person in American who likes both Franken and O'Reilly. As far as which I listen to, it often has to do with what stupidity is in the air. If there is some liberal stupidity going on, I'll tune into O'Reilly. If the conservatives are acting stupid, I'll tune into Franken.

Have you listened to Air America? What talk radio hosts on any network do you listen to?

Unfunded Mandate

Listened to the NPR story on the lawsuit by several school districts against the Department of Education regarding "No Child Left Behind". I heard that magical phrase "Unfunded Mandate". So what qualifies as an unfunded mandate? Wikipedia defines it as

statute that requires government or private parties to carry out specific actions, but does not appropriate any funds for that purpose.

As examples it cites "No Child Left Behind", "ADA" and my personal (and professional) favorite the "Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)".

So if the feds feel access to public spaces regardless of physical ability or access to emergency care regardless of ability to pay or access to measurably high quality education regardless of where you live is a good thing, what's the obligation of the feds to fund that conviction. Interesting that Wikipedia also cites the provisions in the United States Constitution that provide for direct election of Representatives, Senators, and the President as another example of an "unfunded mandate".

Health Savings Acounts: Not Gonna Do it!

As part of his plan to improve health care President Bush has signed legislation creating Health Savings Accounts (HSA's). These are tax-free saving accounts that when combined with a high-deductable insurance policy are supposed to help improve access to health care coverage. Well, as suspected, a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund suggests they won't solve that problem.

The major purported advantages of HDHPs are that they will a) lower health care costs by causing patients to be more cost-conscious, and b) make insurance premiums more affordable for the uninsured. This report, based on the Commonwealth Fund Biennial Survey of Health Insurance (2003), finds that such plans are unlikely to have a substantial effect on either costs or coverage.

Among the many points against the viability of HSA's as a solution are

For insured adults who are ill, having higher deductibles would mean they would be more likely to have difficulties paying medical bills or accumulate medical debt: 59 percent of sick adults with deductibles of $500 or more would experience medical bill or debt problems, compared with just 24 percent of comparatively healthy adults with a lower deductible.

The report points out many problems with HSA's and to be fair does make some suggestions as to how to make HSA's more workable. However, the study concludes they won't substantially address the problem of the uninsured.

Let's face it, health care is expensive. There's no "cheap" way around it. Expensive problems require dollars. Read my lips, someone's gonna have to use the "T" word.

Part of the Problem

We've discussed the problem of "the rich" pretty extensively. William F. Buckley illuminates a major chunk of the problem a bit more clearly.

"The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists."

Centrists Under Siege

The Yellow Line reports that two centrists are under attack

Now, conservative group Move America Forward has developed an ad attacking Voinovich, calling him “disloyal” and a “traitor to the Republican Party.”

Meanwhile, in a very underreported story, the liberal group MoveOn.org will be running ads against Democratic Minority Whip (and moderate) Steny Hoyer (MD) attacking him for his support of the recent bankruptcy bill.

If this were LiveJournal, I'd put up an unhappy icon. Despite most Americans being in the middle, I think it's become more and more difficult for a politician to be there.

Centrist Columnists

John Avlon of the New York Sun has long been our favorite columnist. Now, columnist Kathleen Parker has taken a shine to him, and praises him in her column. She seems to be center-right, and is a centrist on abortion.

My middle road, of course, makes me equally contemptible to those who dwell in the peripheries - both to the pro-lifers who view all abortion as murder, and to the slippery-slopers who consider objecting to "partial-birth abortion" tantamount to embracing the Vatican's view of The Pill. Caught between extremes of community morality and individual choice - amid near-hysterical ideological partisanship from parties that have been hijacked by radicals - people like me are adrift.

The Price of Energy

There is an energy bill making its way through congress right now. I could not be more conflicted.

First, a few details:

The bill includes a slimmed down $8 billion tax package, mostly tax breaks for [the] energy industry ... The legislation would increase the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive ... ...a provision that would, for the first time, allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska ... Provide a 20 percent tax credit up to $2,000 for homeowners who put in more energy efficient windows, doors and insulation.

There are two major problems with this bill, one of which I am possibly able to overlook under the right circumstances.

The first problem is the tax incentives to energy companies. Now, of course tax breaks aren't really just given out to friends (or at least they're not supposed to be), there's substance behind the break. The tax breaks for the engery companies, the article says, are intended to "spur expansion and modernization of the electric grid and construction of natural gas pipelines to meet growing demand for electricity and gas."

We should not have to give tax incentives to energy companies for them to do this, it's their job- the bigger and better the power grid, the more plentiful and happy their customers. If anything I would say we should impose penalties on energy companies who don't do what is needed to keep the energy infrastructure up to date, that way not only is the government not losing money through yet more tax cuts, it'd actually have an opportunity to be making a bit of extra money.

The second problem, the one I can see myself getting over if certain conditions are met, is the drilling in the ANWR. Now, my initial reaction to drilling in Alaska was absolutely no way man, you leave nature alone. Get your oil elsewhere. But thinking about it more over the past few years, I've lightened up slightly. I still don't like the idea, because it's a depressing reminder of just how inescapable our dependance on oil is, and because it would seriously screw with the biodiversity in the area (and trust me, ask any environmental expert, biodiversity is really really important).

But I said there was a way I'd overlook my objections. I'd do this only if there was a detailed plan to ensure the enviornment was disturbed as little as possible, the current inhabitants accomidated, and a comprehensive exit strategy that outlines exactly how all the fixtures and facilities will be removed and how the environment will be restored so we leave it cleaner than when we got there (something my grandmother always tought me to do).

Now you might cringe at the over-bearing, convoluted nature of that plan. But hey, it's what we have to do. And if the Republicans are going to please one of their most significant constituants, they'd better seriosuly consider it.

I also said I was torn, not pissed off, over this bill. The increase in use of ethanol included in the bill pleases me to no end. According to the article, it calls for a 1/3 increase (5 billion gallons) of of ethanol use in gasoline anually, but the article doesn't mention a time table. I've always been a proponent of ethanol because if every gallon of gasoline was just 30% ethanol, there would be no need for any adaptors or other changes to normal gas engines, it would decrease the amount of oil we need to take in (by about 30%, I'd say), and it would be an incredible boon to American farmers.

I am also happy about the individual tax break for using energy efficient products in your home, not because I see it as any sort of major political achievment, but because that means I'll be getting a tax break once I own my own home.

There's a New Pope in Town, Baby

Joseph Ratzinger has been elected the next Pope. He will be known as Pope Benedict XVI.

Cover Girl

Ann Coulter is on the cover of Time Magazine. It's a strange photo, showing mostly legs. Howie Kurtz has more.

Ann Coulter represents everything we are not at Centerfield. Hyperbolic, mean, and superficial. Unfortunately, that's what gets media coverage.

I do admit she can be funny sometimes, but I'm afraid some of her fans take her seriously.

Lincoln Disneyfied

The new Lincoln Museum in Springfield sounds cool. I'd like to see it. A few purists express concerns, but perfection is the enemy of the good.

Henry Hyde Retiring

Illinois Republican representative Henry Hyde used the occasion of his 81st birthday to announce that he's retiring at the end of his term in 2006. Hyde has been in the House for 30 years, and is one of its most senior and influential Republicans.

Anyone who knows his district care to comment on the odds of a moderate Dem being able to take the seat? Or even a moderate Republican? Inquiring non-Illini minds want to know!

Disabled At Risk From Federal Efficiency Initiative

An initiative to outsource federal jobs when they can be done more efficiently in the private sector sounds like a good idea overall. But it seems that no provision is being made for people with disabilities who have been preferentially hired by the government, which has served as a sheltered environment for them.

Wheeles said he has tried -- unsuccessfully -- to find some loophole to safeguard Goodman's job and those of other workers with special needs. But nothing in Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, the regulations that govern the job competitions, allows that, Wheeles said. And federal law requiring merit to be the governing principle in personnel matters prohibits giving disabled employees preferential treatment over other civil servants after they have been hired under special policies, he said.

"I personally have been looking at this issue for over a year," Wheeles said. "We looked to see, is there a rule, is there an option, is there some way to do this? And we were told, 'No.' . . . We've been talking with all the key players at all of the levels and trying to find a way that makes sense, that balances our need for a diverse workforce along with the need to meet the competitive sourcing requirements. And we haven't been able to do that."

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires the private sector to make reasonable accomodation to people with disabilities. But that may not be enough for some of the more profoundly handicapped. One alternative is to have them sit home all day in front of a TV. I think it's reasonable and compassionate to give them access to low-productivity jobs, but only the government and non-profits can to that, not private companies that must satisfy investors. I support legislation that would shelter the disabled from competitive evaluation in this situation. I would think that compassionate conservatives would agree with me.

New EU Constitution Unpopular in France: I Guess They Read the Thing

Drezner has good coverage of the EU Constitution's declining popularity in France as a vote approaches.

The pundits are all out looking for reasons for this. But none of them mentioned the possibility that people might simply have read it. I read about 2/3 of it, and it's bad. Now, I'm in generally in favor of the European unification project, but only if it's done right. Jefferson wrote in a letter on our Constitution that adopting it would be the right thing to do only if the result would be better than status quo. And events have shown that it was better than status quo.

It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. The last time I read it, it had a severe bug which would have made it too easy to repeal the Bill of Rights equivalents entirely, and there was a bad bug on subsidiarity. They fixed both.

Right now, it's really down to two big problems. It preserves the subservience of the most democratic aspect of the Union, the European Parliament, to the European Commission. Only the Commission can introduce legislation. Imagine what things would be like if Congress couldn't introduce legislation; Congress introduces plenty of bad bills, but they also introduce lots of needed reforms that the executive doesn't have time for.

The other problem is that the Constitution is too long and open to interpretation. Here in Texas, we have a Constitution like that. It needs amending about every two years. Thank God it doesn't rule over the well-crafted Federal one!

Europe, IMHO, has many people as smart as Madison and the Founders in our Constitutional Convention. So how did this happen? Well, maybe they should've started from scratch instead of backward compatibility, and kept their focus on the most important stuff. Jefferson wrote once that he'd told Parisiens who asked him how they wrote a Constitution that the Convention had asked themselves what a Constitution needed, and stuck to that:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Not the flat tax idea again

The Economist has a nice short review article, available on-line, regarding the flat tax. I have to admit when I hear flat tax I picture billionaire Steve Forbes on the stump and think "What's in it for HIM?" On the flip side it does bother me when folks talk about how the "wealthiest 1%" received the bulk of the tax-cut benefit. No one seems to complete that statement by saying "...and they PAY the bulk of the taxes".

Anyway the article discusses the success of the flat tax in several eastern European countries, first with Estonia and ultimately with Russia. Do we really want to be compared to Russia? Well no, but here's some interesting info from the article.

The most remarkable turnaround in government revenues was recorded in Russia. Prior to its 2001 tax overhaul, the federal government's tax-raising powers were rapidly deserting it. Clifford Gaddy and William Gale of the Brookings Institution report that tax arrears amounted to 34% of collections in 1997. By 1998, federal revenues had fallen to just 12.4% of GDP, leaving the government unable to pay its creditors. Investigators appointed by the president revealed that Russia's biggest enterprises ignored 29% of their taxes and paid another 63% in kind, with goods and services the government might or might not want. In lieu of $80,000 in taxes, one company reportedly offered the government ten tonnes of toxic chemicals. ....How did revenues respond? A year after the reform, the personal income tax was raising almost 26% more revenue in real terms. Some of this was due to the rebound in the economy: real wages grew by 12% that year, and the take from all taxes, flat or otherwise, consequently improved. ...They [two IMF economists studying the tax effects] did discover a conspicuous increase in compliance with the tax authorities, however. In the year before the flat tax, Russians in the two higher tax brackets reported only 52% of their income to the taxman. In 2001, after falling into the new, all-encompassing 13% bracket, these same households reported 68%.

The article does discuss the "fairness" issue of a flat tax as opposed to a progressive one.

Fairness is the chief reason why most countries have imposed multiple rates of tax. In Canada, Australia and the European Union, for example, staple foods, but not restaurant meals, are exempted from value-added tax. This is deemed fair because the poor spend a greater share of their income on unprepared food. It can lead to nonsense, however. Jeffrey Owens and Stuart Hamilton of the OECD point out that hot roast chicken is taxed, but cold roast chicken is not. “Does anyone expect tax administrators and business owners to have thermometers on hand when they do their tax calculations?” they ask, only half in jest.

George Bush has spoken of tax reform, though I don't believe he's explicitly mentioned a flat tax. Of course, he's already spent a lot of his "political capital" and so further expenditures of it will be severely taxed. So serious discussion of the flat tax will be left to another administration (or not at all). But given how complex and time consuming tax preparation has become, the interest in a simpler tax system sure rises this time of year.

Charging Rino

Here's a new moderate Republican blog, Charging RINO. For those of you who don't know what a RINO is, here is the Wikipedia entry.

Frist Kowtows to the Base

Very disturbing.

Jarvis is Blog Central on this one, Jumping the Shark for Jesus

There is an odd gleam of light here. He might be doing this because he wants a chance at running for President in '08, and needs the base. But suppose he can't or won't deliver on the Nuclear Option. Then this is what he's left with. Of course, if so, he's cutting off his nose to spite his face, because he's just lost the moderate (D)s he'd need to win.

Rick, I Hope They Don't Teach This in Journalism School

You really have to wonder about either the competence or the agenda of a journalist when he writes something as bizaare as James Dao of the New York Times did in this article about the return of baseball to Washington. It's a pretty unremarkable article about how the politicians are lining up behind baseball (there's a new slant) until you get to the following bizaare statement:

Never mind that the National's hat features a lone "W" above the bill, an uncomfortable reminder to some people in this overwhelmingly Democratic city of their Republican president.

Huh? The last time I heard, the "W" stands for a former president, President Washington, after whom the city is named, not the incumbent, whose last name doesn't even begin with a W. (And, yes, I realize people often call him "W.") I have not heard anyone say they are distressed over "W" being on the hats. I would have to wonder about the sanity of anyone who did. Does that mean that people from Seattle are upset over having "S" on their team's hat because it might evoke Stalin? Or how about the New York Giants? Maybe people there are unhappy because the "N" might stand for Nixon. I guess this is Dao's idea of being clever, but this has got to be one of the dumbest lines I have ever seen in the New York Times.

And speaking of dumb, in a story last night about presidents throwing out the first ball in Washington, ESPN reported that, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy, Jr., threw out the first ball. Hmm, he must have been a very precocious youngster; maybe his father, President John F. Kennedy, was busy that day.

Friday Open Thread

Come one, come all. It's all fair game.

Centrist Reading List

Welcome, reasonable Daily Show Fans. Since we have some new visitors, how about if we regulars chime in with a reading list. I don't think we have to necessarily cite books that are explicitly about centrism. Maybe we could cite ones that we as centrists have found formative to own political make up.

Here's a few I like:
Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. The subtitle is "Public discourse in the Age of Show Business."

Doublespeak, by William Lutz

And if you haven't read it yet, Robert Pirsig's very enjoyable Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Chime in with whatever you like.

The Roe Effect

Opinion Journal's James Taranto often writes of the Roe effect, the reduction in population due to abortion in those states where abortions are more common. He speculates that it has limited the population growth in states that have tended to vote Democrat, thus ironically harming the political base of support for abortion.

Now, Taranto discusses another possible Roe effect, a reduction of teen births and child poverty in Democrat-leaning states. The new book, Freakonomics, discusses a study by the author which purports to show that the availability of abortion reduces crime 18 years later.

These are interesting results, and ought to be thought about seriously. Obviously, if one is positive that life begins at conception, the benefits of abortion are no more material than the benefits of infanticide, which were apparent to the ancient Greeks. Many liberals are also uncomfortable with these results, because while supporting abortion as a woman's right, they don't like to admit that single teenage mothers are less capable of caring for a child than grown-up women in traditional marriages.

The Yellow Line

There's a great new centrist blog, The Yellow Line. Check out this post.

John Avlon On Daily Show, O'Reilly

Fellow centrist John Avlon appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. The segment will be repeated today at 7pm and 11:30 pm on Comedy Central. According to his publicist

In a 7-minute interview, Avlon and Jon Stewart agreed on the need for political centrism to combat the ideological extremes of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Avlon will also appear this evening on The O¹Reilly Factor on Fox at 8 and 11pm.

Cracks in China

Thousands of Chinese Villagers Protest Factory Pollution

Rumors of massive riots in China, brutally repressed, have been making their way into the West for the last few years, and seem to be sharply increasing in frequency. We think of China as a strongly controlled dictatorship, but it's not. China has suffered massive political upheaval periodically over thousands of years, and there's no reason to think that anything has changed under Communism. Indeed, the current situation, with a rapidly growing capitalist private sector and a repressive and relentlessly corrupt communist public sector, seems almost designed to breed unrest.

What's next? And when?

Bad Company

Tom DeLay has company, it seems.

AP/SFGate has a story out with a list of other Congresscritters who have relatives on the payroll.

I particularly enjoy the effort to alternate Democrats and Republicans in the list. But they missed a bet--they left out Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders. Don't Independents count too? Or is it strictly a "partisan hypocrisy" thing?

Democrats Giving Up The Fight Against Guns?

The new DNC chair, Howard Dean, was endorsed by the NRA when he ran for governor of Vermont. Salon's War Room points to an article in the left-wing The Nation which suggests that the Democrats go west by giving up on national gun control. New Mexico governor and potential 2008 presidential candidate Bill Richardson:

A large man sitting in a small office, wearing a brown suede vest and heavy, battered boots, Richardson clearly revels in his image as the quintessential Westerner. "You have to talk about guns in the context of lifestyle, recreation, a way of life," the Governor argues, "rather than as just a measure to prevent murders and deaths. Democrats need to move into a void in the West. The Bush Administration is scaring off recreationists, hunters and fishermen because of their extreme anti-environmental policies. It's important to build alliances with these ranchers and fishermen and broaden the dialogue. The West is becoming more fertile Democratic territory. It's important for Democrats on the East Coast not to make the gun issue a litmus test."

The West is more libertarian and less religious than the South. As the difference between the two parties becomes more based on culture and less on economics, the South moves further away from its Democratic roots while the West becomes less Republican. So such a strategy might work. However, the Western Democrat isn't impressed by the new DNC chair's first moves.

A Democratic Dilemma

No one ever said democracy promotion is easy. It's easy to talk about civil liberties and free speech, but it's another to support them when bad people say bad things about you. In the New Republic, there is an article about a Jordanian political activist, Ali Hattar, who has been making nasty, paranoid anti-American remarks. According to the article, such as

One slide showed images of bombed-out Falluja, a seat of Sunni resistance in Iraq, above the caption hiroshima 2. A photo montage portrayed the McDonald's arches in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, with the commentary, this is how they respect religions

Hattar was arrested by the Jordanian security services and faces up to two years in prison for these remarks. Hattar is, apparently, not a violent terrorist or even a Islamic fundamentalist--in fact he is a Christian. All he does is give speeches, albeit speeches that might stir up an already anti-American crowd. Jordan is extremely anxious not to offend the United States, in part because of the aid the U.S. has sent in return for Jordan's support of the war in Iraq.

The point of the article, obviously, is the inconsistency between the United States' stated objective to promote democracy and its apparentl willingness to look the other way while the Jordanian government suppresses speech that is critical of the U.S. Obviously, this inconsistency affects the way that Jordanians view Bush's rhetoric about democracy:

And that erosion in government tolerance of dissent not only undermines Jordan's image but also causes many Jordanians to laugh off George W. Bush's frequent remarks about advancing democracy in the Middle East. "It's hard to take [Bush] seriously when things are only getting worse here," says Hani Dahleh, a lawyer who heads Jordan's Arab Organization for Human Rights.

This has long been a point of contention in American foreign policy. During the Kennedy Administration, when JFK was trying to convince the world that the US would tolerate differences in Latin America, the president made a point of not trying to suppress anti-American speech. Yet, it's hard for Americans to see their tax dollars going to countries where the people abuse us.

It's also a lot more complicated than it appears. It's fine to say, everything goes in terms of speech. And in the US,that's probably true. But can you adopt that attitude in countries where speech may lead to violence? It's simply not that black and white a question as the article implies. Still, it's hard to see how the Jordanians putting people in jail for nothing more than making anti-US statements can further our interests in promoting democracy or in reducing anti-Americanism in the area.

Just What I Didn't Want to Hear

Boy oh boy.

Now, it may just be my opinion about the subject, but near the top of the short list of reasons why the United States is so detested throughout the Middle East is our unmistakable military presence in the region. So, naturally, it would make sense to begin formulating, I dunno, maybe a ten year plan or so to get us the hell out of there. If only the Defense Department shared that vision.

Rumsfeld is in Afghanistan right now, and he's been talking with President Karzai, who apparently wants more American bases in the Middle East.

President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday he is preparing a formal request to President Bush for a long-term security partnership that could include a permanent U.S. military presence.

America does not need more bases. Military bases in the Middle East are pretty much relics from the Cold War. The argument that they're needed to support the war on terror is waaaay flawed, because logistics can be headed up on aircraft carriers or other existing bases, and the war on terror is not primarily a military war in the first place. Or at least it shouldn't be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for total US withdrawal from the Middle East by next week, not at all. However, At this point, we need to start formulating a plan for improving our image in the area, not a plan for increasing our bases.

To his credit, Rumsfeld was pretty wishy washy about the subject, saying, "We find ways we can be helpful, maybe training, equipment or other types of assistance. We think in terms of what we are doing rather than the question of military bases and that type thing." However, given Rumsfeld's history of being less than straight forward with his comments to the press, that could mean just about anything.

Terror Level Justification

Three men in custody in the UK have been indicted in a plot to attack financial institutions in the US

The authorities provided few new details about the suspected plot but said they were convinced that there were plans under way to attack the financial centers until last August, when the United States raised its terror alert level and Britain arrested a group of eight suspects in connection with the case. "This conspiracy was alive and kicking up until August of 2004," James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, said in announcing the indictment.

Here is a CNN report from last August of the raising of the terror level. You may recall some on the left charging that the terror level was being manipulated to help the President's re-election prospects.

It looks to me like Tom Ridge was playing it straight. What do you think?

Healthcare #3: Healthcare and the poor

Well the problem of the growing numbers of uninsured didn't get much of a rise out of y'all. How 'bout cutting healthcare to the poor. Medicaid was created in 1965 as a federal and state funded but state-administered healthcare program for the poor. In the past few years, as states budgets have tightened, Medicaid has been threatened. The every state has cut benefits and/or tightened eligibility for their Medicaid programs. To make matters worse, the President's proposed budget would significantly reduce the federal support of state Medicaid programs.

One recent example of a proposed state cut comes from Missouri. Governor Matt Blunt (appropriately named) has proposed changes that could cut off 125,000 present Missouri Medicaid recipients. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggests these are severe AND unnecessary cuts.

Clearly folks are "itching" for a fight over healthcare for the poor. Now the Bush administration is fighting back in the PR wars. From Modern Healthcare

The Bush administration identified 15 states that it said wrongly used accounting gimmicks to increase their federal Medicaid matching funds. For example, states might overpay municipal and county providers, increasing state Medicaid spending and thus the federal match, and then receive the excess payments back without returning any portion of the match. Eliminating so-called "recycling" of Medicaid funds tops the administration's list of ways to reduce federal Medicaid spending.

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The administration specifically points to 15 states that have "gamed" the system: Alabama, Alaska, California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington

So is this prudent fiscal "loophole closing" for tight fiscal times or is it "picking on the most vulnerable" in our society?

If Not Privacy, What?

Bill Safire says our privacy is gone. Referring to the author of a new book, Safire writes:

He quotes Ole Poulsen, chief technology officer of Seisint, on its digital identity system: ''We have created a unique identifier on everybody in the United States.

Seisint is now part of LexisNexis.

I have previously supported the idea of a National ID. The present system is moving toward all-pervasive knowledge anyway. What we need to think about is how individuals can have access to the data on them, and how they can dispute inaccurate data. For instance, I'd like to see my Seisint file. It doesn't look like I can do that. Here is their privacy policy (pdf)

A Kiss-up, Kick-down Sort of Guy

That's how John Bolton is described by Carl Ford, Jr., the former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research

Mr. Bolton did find a defender in Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, who said that Mr. Ford had not witnessed abusive behavior by Mr. Bolton, and that his testimony would not be admissible in a court. But Mr. Ford said that his testimony had not come easily. He described himself as a loyal Republican, a conservative and a strong supporter of President Bush and said he had agreed to appear only after considerable "soul-searching."

I never heard of Mr. Ford before, so I can't judge whether he's a Bushie or a Clintonian mole. But what a wonderful description of the type of person we know and don't love.

It seems to me that Bolton is a bully, and as such, he's a reflection of the man who picked him, President George W. Bush. The President's bullying nature is portrayed by his former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill in his book written with Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty. Bolton is a more intense version of Bush. Should the Senate protect the President from himself?

Death Taxes

Tomorrow the House will vote on making the repeal of the estate tax permanent. All the old arguments, pro and con, will be dragged out and re-aired and re-demogogued. Much will be claimed on both sides, and most of it will be incomplete at best, or simply false.

You know that someone is playing defense when they rely on emotional arguments and volume, instead of realities. The Washington Post weighs in with two editorials this morning, one from the editorial board and one from the ever-petulant E.J. Dionne, both of them notable for their histrionic use of psuedo-factoids and class envy arguments.

So what are the facts about the "death tax?" What are its real purposes, how well does it work at achieving those goals, and how much of the smoke and mirrors is based in reality rather than rhetoric?

UPDATE: House passes legislation to end 'death tax'

Mr. McGovern [Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat] said Congress should accept Mr. Pomeroy's bill and then take the cost difference between those two proposals — about $218 billion — and put it back into the Social Security Trust Fund. He argued that Republicans who insist there is a Social Security crisis should be eager to solve it quickly and easily.

That part really cracks me up. Put it back into the SSTF? That isn't where it came from! What a bright idea--take non-payroll tax revenues and use them to finance MORE deficit spending...all in the name of "saving" Social Security, of course! The sad thing is that some people will actually believe that's a good idea.

The Irregular Joe

Joe Gandelman has published his remarks at the Stanford Law School panel on blogging the elections. I'd be very surprised if you saw this on the six o'clock news.

UPDATE: Joe just had a tryout on MSNBC. On this page you'll find a four minute segment where Joe reviews blog posts. Hope this turns into a regular gig, Joe!

The Regular Chrenkoff

I seem to have missed the previous one in the hustle of local elections, but here's the regular Chrenkoff, with all the stuff you don't see at six o'clock.

Good news from Iraq, Part 25

DeLay under the gun

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is saying that it's time for Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) to "come forward" and explain the actions that have led to accusations of ethical lapses and misconduct.

Sen. Rick Santorum's comments seem to reflect the nervousness among congressional Republicans about the fallout from the increased scrutiny into DeLay's way of doing business.

DeLay, R-Texas, has been dogged in recent months by reports of possible ethics violations. There have been questions about his overseas travel, campaign payments to family members and his connections to lobbyists who are under investigation.

"I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves," said Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

When those immediately behind you in line for the party leadership start handing you sharp objects and telling you to be careful, it's time to review your career options.

UPDATE: It has been vastly amusing these last few days to listen to the right-wingers mercilessly savaging Chris Shays for his statements, while pointedly ignoring Santorum's.

Paglia: Hard To Label

Camille Paglia is returning to the limelight because of a new book she's written, and she's done a very interesting interview with the Boston Phoenix. She calls herself a liberal Democrat, but most of her bile is directed toward the academic left

When I first came on the scene, though, and was expressing these criticisms, no one had ever heard of me, and they assumed, "Oh, she must be conservative, because no one that we could ever respect would ever criticize feminism." That’s how elementary their education is — they don’t understand what an insurgency is. A rebellion against an establishment that’s become ossified. A social elite run by Gloria Steinem and all of the women’s-studies programs at the major campuses. They didn’t understand that. I was affirming feminism while demanding change in the way feminism is taught in the schools or discussed in the media and so forth.

I was so trashed. I mean, it was really bad. There was a campaign to get me fired from my college. They were harassing the president of the university. These were all feminist groups! They were awful. If that’s how they treated me, you can imagine how they suppressed all kinds of women, silenced them all these decades. Everyone assumed that they knew what Sexual Personae was about, and ha ha. They lost. They called me an essentialist. "She’s an essentialist! She’s a positivist!" All these labels. The Village Voice had a vicious campaign against me for years. At one point I actually went to a lawyer, and we put a stop to it. I was being defamed as a racist and all kinds of other stuff. I, who had suffered for so long because of my independent ideas, who could not get published, to be treated by the alternative press in that way, it’s a scandal. And it shows what’s wrong with this polarization of political opinion in the United States, where people are in lock step, and they’re just not perceiving political issues in a nuanced way.

That's the sort of treatment that turned a number of liberals into neoconservatives. In Paglia's case, her lesbianism and her preference for ancient Greece over ancient Israel has prevented her from aligning with the Republican Party. I see her are sharing the centrist dilemma of being "in-between" the major poles of opinion.

It's Coming for YOU!!

Youve been warned; it's the Unitarian Jihad!

Collaborators can get their new names here.

UPDATE: You can call me Brother Cattle Prod of Reasoned Discussion from now on. The Profesora and I were easy prey because we got married at a UU church.

UPDATE SEQUEL: We asked at the UU church if they would have a problem marrying us because we're atheists. They said it would be no problem atall; they even had some atheists in the congregation.

Healthcare #2: The growing uninsured

A recent article in the "Health Affairs" health policy journal paints a bleak picture for the future regarding the number of Americans without health insurance. Essentially the study correlates the increase in health care spending to the increase in the uninsured. Here are few choice tidbits:

we estimate that per capita spending for insured adults will grow 7.4 percent per year from 2002 to 2013 and that personal income will grow 4.6 percent per year over the same per

So health care becomes progressively more expensive.

we estimate that the rate of uninsured nonelderly workers will increase by 4.0 percentage points to 27.8 percent in 2013. We estimate that the uninsurance rate among all nonelderly Americans will increase by 3.3 percentage points to 20.5 percent in 2013.

And getting to the heart of the issue:

We estimate that for each 1 percent increase in health spending (relative to personal income), the number of uninsured people will increase by 246,000. This estimate is similar to an earlier estimate from the Lewin Group, using substantially different methods

And what are the consequences of that in "real life" terms.

At this “moderate” rate of spending growth, we expect that the number of uninsured people will increase “only” thirteen million over the next decade from its 2002 level, or eleven million from the estimate of forty-five million uninsured people in 2003. Based on estimates from the Institute of Medicine, this will lead to an increase of 4,500 deaths annually and to an increased annual loss of human capital of $16–$32 billion

So we should get more employers to pay for their employees health care right?

Regardless of whether health care benefits are being paid out of the employer’s or the employee’s pocket, and without regard to the amount of premium contribution that employees are required to make, there is a remarkably tight relationship between affordability and coverage rates.

And so we should go to a government-funded program?

It is unlikely that we will be able to solve the problem of the uninsured without some form of universal health insurance coverage requiring contributions from some combination of employers, employees, and taxpayers. It is also unlikely that either our current system of employer-sponsored coverage or an alternative system of universal coverage will be sustainable without more effective efforts at cost containment.

So what are the solutions? As an aside I know first hand how much Americans and their doctors and hospitals hate our present cost-control efforts. What will it be like in the future?