Wampum

MIA

I apologize to my readers that I've been missing for a week or more (including last Flashback Friday) and am exceedingly thankful to Dwight (and my spouse) for keeping Wampum humming. Between working full time (albeit temporarily) for the first time since having my kids and trying to get our in-the-midst-of-renovation house in shape for my spouse's MoveOn.Org house party (yes, you can still sign up to attend) on December 7th, blogging time has been extremely scarce. However, there are bits and pieces of economic news I have been following, and hope to have some time tomorrow, while the turkey bastes and between coats of paint (on the walls, not the bird) to synthesize some of the information into a coherent post.

Congressional Arrogance

What is the one defining characteristic of the current Republican Party? It can not be economic conservatism as the huge deficits and run away spending on pork barrel projects attests. It can not be personal rectitude as the foibles of some of its most prominent faces (such as William Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, and Newt Gingrich) demonstrate. The Valerie Plame matter suggests that love of country does not always trump other interests for Republicans. It appears that the defining characteristic of the Republican Party is arrogance.

I am not sure why the GOP has evolved into the party of arrogance. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that during the 1990s, the two most prominent voices of the party were Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Few can match that pair for hubris, bluster or conceit.

The arrogance of the GOP is in full display in the House of Representatives. No less an authority than former Majority Leader Dick Armey has said that Democrats may use Republican arrogance as a campaign issue:

They (Republicans) have had control for 10 years, they've gotten arrogant, they demean the institution, they demean democracy by virtue of the heavy-handed way they run the House, minority rights are downtrodden, and it's time, Mr. and Mrs. America, to make a change... That isn't a whole lot different from the case we made in '94, after 40 years.

A former Gingrich aide has noted as follows:

I thought it would take us longer to get as arrogant as the Democrats were, but it doesn’t seem to be.

Congressional observer and quote machine Norm Ornstein says:

Democrats were insensitive to Republicans but not hostile. (Some GOP Congressmen have shown) more of a zeal to humiliate the minority and grind their faces in the dust.

The arrogance of Republicans manifests itself in a myriad of ways both big and small. Sometimes, it shows up in the form of simply being an ass.

For instance, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay recently attended a dinner with political supporters at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Washington. The restaurant is located in a federally owned building and federal regulations prohibit smoking in the restaurant.

After dinner, but before desert, DeLay wanted to smoke a cigar. When the restaurant management informed him that smoking was prohibited, Delay first tried to convince the management to allow him to break the regulation. “I am the federal government,” Delay declared. When the management would not budge, Delay “walked out” out of the party.

There are many other examples Republican arrogance in the House of Representatives. For instance, the Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Bill Thomas (R-Cal), was considering a complex $50 billion pension reform measure. The majority made changes to the bill, distributed the 90 page revision around midnight and scheduled a vote for early the next morning.

Democrats complained that they had no opportunity to read and consider the changes. To gain time, the minority asked that the entire bill be read line by line.

As Juliet Eilperin and Albert B. Crenshaw of the Washington Post describe the scene:

A clerk obligingly began reading it line by line, pausing only when Thomas interrupted to announce: "In the House, the minority can delay. They cannot deny."

As the reading resumed, the Democrats departed to a library just off the main hearing room, leaving only Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.) to prevent the Republicans from obtaining unanimous consent to skip the reading. After a few minutes, Thomas asked again for the unanimous consent, and instantly brought down his gavel. Stark told reporters he had objected, but Thomas had replied, "You're too late."

Even before Thomas gaveled the reading to an end, he had dispatched the Capitol Police to remove the Democrats from the ornate library.

Pete Stark then made some intemperate remarks but the arrogance of Chairman Thomas in requiring a vote on a measure that Democrats had no time to read or consider, failing to “hear” an objection by the lone Democrat remaining at the hearing, and sending the cops to remove Democrats from a library, is palpable.

Republicans also gave Democrats only four hours to read and consider the recent thousand page, $400 billion dollar Medicare prescription drug bill.

Republicans have shut Democrats out of the legislative process by refusing to allow Democrats to participate in conference committee meetings. No Democrats were permitted to participate in the conference on the recent energy bill and only two of seven Democrats on the Medicare conference committee were allowed to attend.

Republican arrogance is also demonstrated by a willingness to impose risks on average Americans that the GOP politicians do not wish to apply to themselves or their constituents.

For example, the GOP proposes privatizing air traffic control at 71 airports. Republican Congressman Don Young of Alaska is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman. He removed two Alaska airports from the list. What was his reason for removing the Alaska airports from privatization? The Washington Post reports:

"Of course the criticism of myself," he said, "is that I exempted the state of Alaska." But there were ample reasons for that, he said, ticking off a number of them.

"Lastly," Young said, "my hotel room is on the top floor of the Sheraton, and the airplanes take right off towards my hotel room. Every morning I look out and there's one coming right at me. It's an interesting experience and I want to make sure everything is done right in that field."

Mr. Young’s feels that his safety would be compromised by privatization of air traffic control at the airports near him. Others Americans will just have to take the risk. Merriam-Webster defines arrogance as “an impression of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or presumptuous claims.” Perhaps it would be easier to simply have pictures of Mr. DeLay, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Young.

In the Senate, the arrogance award goes to Republican Senators Gordon Smith of Oregon, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island.

Part of the GOP prescription drug plan would designate certain areas as pilot projects to test competition between Medicare and private insurance prescription drug plans. Critics of the plan suggest that seniors in the test areas will face higher premiums for coverage.

Senators Specter and Smith supported the measure but wanted assurances that cities in their states would not be chosen as the test sites. Senator Specter wrote that he “strongly protest(s) the possible use of my constituents as a testing ground for premium support.”

Senator Chaffee voted for the package but not until he received assurances from Tommy Thompson of HHS that Rhode Island would not be the site of one of the six pilot programs. The willingness to impose risks on others that they deem unacceptable to their own constituents reeks of arrogance.

The arrogance of the GOP is particularly ironic considering that gained power by criticizing Democrats as arrogant.

Donald R. Wolfensberger is a 28 year House staff veteran. He now is the director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In an essay entitled The Institutional Legacy of Speaker Newt Gingrich: The Politics of House Reform and Realities of Governing, Wolfensberger writes as follows:

The central premise of the Republicans' manifesto (the Contract with America) was that the House had become corrupted by the majority Democrats' arrogance of power and that it therefore required a major overhaul if it was to regain the people's trust and confidence. What was needed, Republicans suggested, was a greater degree of openness, accountability, responsiveness, and deliberation. What was at stake was nothing less than the institution's integrity, credibility and effectiveness.

It may not be this election, or even the next, but eventually GOP arrogance will become a political liability. GOP arrogance will galvanize Democrats, alienate independents and degrade our political institutions. The American people will then opt for a change in leadership.

A saying adapted from the Book of Proverbs holds that “pride goeth before a fall.”

Barteby notes that the saying means that “people who are overconfident or too arrogant are likely to fail.”

The GOP has demonstrated the arrogance, I anticipate a fall.

Derailing the Midnight Rider (Cobell v Norton)

On Friday the legal team respresenting the class action filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of the latest legislative twist in this saga -- the "midnight rider" that Congress hurriedly adopted this month at the request of the White House and the Interior Secretary to delay the long-promised, court-ordered accounting.

The motion claims that the rider attached to the Interior Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2004 is clearly unconstitutional because it seeks to tell federal courts how to interpret existing law and it nullifies and reopens prior final judgments of federal courts. Supreme Court Justices from John Marshall to Antonin Scalia have ruled that Congress cannot interfere with federal courts in this manner, so this latest twist is taking place outside of Federal Indian Law, and visits the familiar terrain -- can Congress nullify court rulings it does not like merely by passing legislation?

In the current Congress a measure sponsored by Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) was approved in the House by a 260-161vote on July 23rd as an amendment to an appropriations bill. Hostettler's bill barred the use of federal funds to enforce the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Glassroth v. Moore, in which the court ordered the removal of a rock the size of a washing machine fashioned as a "Ten Commandments Monument" from the Judicial Building in Montgomery.

That, not the accounting nightmare on a vastly larger scale than anything that brought down Arthur Anderson, and significantly depressed the economy, is where the issue stands.

The plaintiffs' website is nicely done link.

Little Lies, Part I

Lots of people have noted that the Bush administration lies a lot on big issues.

Support for the war in Iraq was built on a foundation of lies, distortions, exaggerations and misrepresentations. No less an admirer of the administration than Mickey Kaus has acknowledged that Mr. Bush’s tax plan was “based on lies.” Paul Krugman has noted that Mr. Bush’s proposed Social Security reform is based on the proposition that two minus one equals four. Joe Conason devoted and entire book to the Big Lies used by conservatives to attack liberals.

Those are all Big Lies. I wish to focus on little lies. Do not underestimate the power of little lies. The allegation that Al Gore was in the habit of telling little lies cost him the presidency. In 2000, the GOP argued that Al Gore was not to be trusted because he told lies about unimportant things. Perhaps the best statement of the GOP argument circa 2000 comes from America’s scold, William Bennett.
Bennett called Mr. Gore a “habitual liar” and went on to write that:

James Madison famously wrote that men are not angels, and nobody is insisting that the president be a saint. But with Mr. Gore, one begins to suspect that his lies are symptomatic of something fundamentally disquieting, and quite relevant.

The true irony of the GOP case against Mr. Gore is that it is itself based on lies, embellishments, distortions and half truths. In fact, the “evidence” they used to paint Gore as a “habitual liar” tells us far more about the honesty of the GOP than of Mr. Gore.

Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler has relentlessly and incomparably documented the lies, distortions and misrepresentations used by Republicans to paint Gore as a serial exaggerator.

Since Republicans in 2000 argued that an alleged pattern of lying about small issues disqualified Gore from being president, it seems appropriate to investigate whether or not the current administration has a pattern of telling untruths about small things. I will not concern myself with weighty matters of war and peace or trillion dollar tax cuts. Instead, I will examine a number of instances in which the Bush administration has told “little lies.” If a pattern of lying about small matters emerges, will Republicans conclude that are “symptomatic of something fundamentally disquieting, and quite relevant” about George W. Bush. Will issues of President Bush’s character then be central to the 2004 election? The first five examples of the administration's "little lies" are below.

Aircraft Carrier Landing

Many folks have discussed Mr. Bush’s stunt of wearing a flight suit while riding in a fighter jet during a tail hook landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Why did he choose to do so rather than simply take a helicopter to the ship or wait at the dock for the ship to dock?

Like most things, the motives were mixed. Certainly, the President and his advisors thought that the stunt would provide a perfect campaign photo-op. The fact that a Democratic Presidential candidate is now using the images in a TV commercial suggests that Karl Rove was mistaken.
In addition to the political motive, the President also wanted to take a joy ride in a jet fighter. The President seemed to relish the experience. He took time from what I assume is a very busy schedule to take underwater survival training in the White House swimming pool before the flight. His Press Secretary, Ari Fleisher eventually admitted that Mr. Bush wanted:

to see an aircraft landing the same way that the pilots saw an aircraft landing. He wanted to see it as realistically as possible. And that's why, once the initial decision was made to fly out on the Viking, even when a helicopter option became doable, the president decided instead he wanted to still take the Viking.

The White House could have acknowledged Mr. Bush’s desire without shame. He is a former fighter pilot himself. He was intimately involved in the planning and execution of a war in which he was about to declare victory. His desire for a “Walter Mitty” moment is certainly understandable and I suspect that most people would have understood it if he had been candid about it. He could have gotten the video footage for the campaign and have been honest about his motives.

Instead the White House decided to dissemble. It announced that the ship was too far from shore for a helicopter to reach the carrier. That was false.

The White House said that Mr. Bush’s motive was to avoid inconveniencing the servicemen by delaying the ship even though the ship. That was false. The carrier was ahead of schedule and could not dock until scheduled anyway. The White House said that a tail hook landing on an aircraft carrier at sea was the safest way to get aboard. I have no expertise in that area but that seems laughable to me. The tail hook landing was the first time a sitting President had ever pulled such a stunt. One would expect that if it was actually the safest method of transport, it would have been used before.

The President could have gotten his photo op and his joy ride while leveling with the American people. He chose instead to dissemble.

Now admittedly, Mr. Bush’s reason for wanting to participate in a tail hook landing is a “little lie.” What difference does it make?

In 2000, the GOP claimed that telling small lies showed a defect in character. If Al Gore lied about doing farm chores, the argument went, he was not qualified to be President. If President Bush lies about his reasons for a tail hook landing on an aircraft carrier, what does that say about him?

Reading the EPA report

Republicans have long been on the defensive on the issue of the environment. The American people, by and large, support environmentally friendly policies. Those policies frequently conflict with the interests of large, important Republican constituents.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz has provided advice to Republicans on how to neutralize the Democratic advantage on environmental issues. With regard to the issue of global warming, one report describes Mr. Luntz advice as follows:

One section of the memorandum, "Winning the Global Warming Debate," asserts that many voters believe there is a lack of consensus about global warming among scientists. "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly," it says. "Therefore you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue."

Among the ways to "challenge the science," the memorandum says, is to "be even more active in recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view and much more active in making them part of your message" because "people are more willing to trust scientists than politicians."

Republicans appear to have taken Mr. Luntz’s advice to heart. Republicans repeated argued that conclusive evidence of global warming and of the role played by human activities in that warming was never quite certain.

Into that backdrop came the 2002 Climate Action report produced by the Environmental Protection Agency. That report concluded that global warming is real and is caused, in part by human activity. That report cut into the heart of the Luntz strategy. It was prepared by Mr. Bush’s administration. It was based on science and not politics. It had the potential to collapse the GOP strategy on the environment.

Clearly, it was in Mr. Bush’s political interest to undercut the credibility of the report. When a reporter asked Mr. Mr. Bush about the report, he replied:

I read the report put out by the bureaucracy.

That response was made in a dismissive manner (Slate described it as a sneer).

President Bush’s response was well calculated to undercut the credibility of the report and keep the Luntz strategy alive. If Mr. Bush could casually dismiss the report, perhaps the American people could as well. The use of the term “bureaucracy” was also artful. It was not scientists or even politicians who had concluded that the debate over global warming was over. It was simply faceless, mindless bureaucrats.

There was only one problem. Mr. Bush’s statement was not true.

At a June 10, 2002 Press briefing, Ari Fleischer fessed up. The President had not read the report at all. He had been briefed on it.

Q: Ari, I just would like to set the record straight on something the president said last week, when he was up at the NSA, when he was asked about the report on global warming by the EPA. He said he read the report. I believe the report is 260-some pages—he meant he read the full report?

Fleischer: I think the president—whenever presidents say they read it, you can read that to be he was briefed.

While we are on the subject of “little lies,” Fleischer’s confession is particularly interesting. While it may be true that when Mr. Bush says he read a report, it means he has not read it but someone told him about it, the same is not true, as Fleischer implied, of other presidents As Brad DeLong has written:

Gee. When Clinton said he'd read something, he'd read it. When Carter said he'd read something, he'd read it. When Nixon said he'd read something, he'd read it...

Now admittedly, the difference between the President having read the report and having been briefed on it is very small. It is as smaller even than, say, the difference between having grown up in a ritzy Washington hotel and have spent part of your life living in a middle class apartment in a residence hotel while your Dad’s job required you to be away from home.

Nonetheless, the question remains, why did the President choose to tell a fib when the truth would have served his purpose equally well. Perhaps we will never know why the President was not honest and instead, as Dick Cheney said of Al Gore, we will have to remain “puzzled and saddened.”

Universal Consensus

When President Bush proposed his 2003 tax cut package, he put the elimination of the individual income tax on corporate dividends at the top of his list. Last July, I
reported on a Newsweek article (link now broken) about the White House position on elimination of the dividend tax. Newsweek reported as follows:

Bush wanted some answers from his team: the then Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, the then economic adviser Larry Lindsey, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and chief economist Glenn Hubbard. In the instant history that the White House put out last week, Bush’s question elicited a “universal consensus,” even from O’Neill and Lindsey, who would both shortly be fired. According to a senior administration official, all the men said their top priority was to end the double taxation of dividends. Not just to cut the tax on dividends paid by individuals. To end it.

That spin was not true. The Pennsylvania Post Gazette reported the following:

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in his first public comments since being forced out of the Bush administration in December, said money from the president's $674 billion tax-cut plan would be better spent on shoring up the nation's ailing Social Security system.

In an interview Friday for the KD/PG Sunday Edition television show and in comments afterward, O'Neill said he saw minor value in eliminating taxes on corporate dividends as proposed by Bush but added, "I would not have done it."

Would Mr. Bush’s push to end the dividend tax have really been harmed if the White House had reported “broad consensus” instead of “universal consensus” among his economic advisors? Did anyone really care what about the position of a fired Treasury Secretary? Is that the type of lie that led Donald Lambros of the Washington Times to write that Al Gore “deeply dishonest?”

Trifecta

One of the central proposals of Candidate Bush was a large tax cut. When Al Gore attacked the plan as risking the fiscal health of the country, Mr. Bush assured us that we could have it all. We could have a huge tax cut, run endless surpluses, reserve the Social Security surplus for Social Security, pay down all of the publicly held debt and have a large reserve in case of emergency.

Mr. Bush’s claims helped pass his 2001 tax cut. By the summer of 2002, Mr. Bush’s promises were not coming true. He had already invaded the Social Security trust fund to pay for the normal operations of government. Instead of running a surplus and paying down the national debt to prepare for the fast approaching retirement of the baby boom generations, Mr. Bush was well on the road to running record budget deficits. Mr. Gore’s claims that Bush’s policies risked our fiscal position were ringing true while Mr. Bush’s blithe assurances that we could have it all were beginning to ring hollow. How was Mr. Bush to square his campaign rhetoric with the governing reality? What was Mr. Bush to tell the people who believed him during the campaign?

Mr. Bush’s solution was the “trifecta” joke. Mr. Bush began
telling the faithful the following joke:

You know, when I was one time campaigning in Chicago, a reporter said, `Would you ever have a deficit?' I said, `I can't imagine it, but there would be one if we had a war, or a national emergency, or a recession.' Never did I dream we'd get the trifecta."

No reporters who covered the campaign could recall Mr. Bush ever putting the qualifiers on his promise not to run a deficit. When reporters asked the White House for details of when the President made that statement “in Chicago,” the White House referred them to GOP debates. No record of any debate contained the qualifiers. In May of 2002, Jonathan Chait of The New Republic ran an article pointing out that no record of the “trifecta” statement could be found.

When Mitch Daniel, then the OMB Director, appeared on Meet the Press, Tim Russert pointed out that no record of any such statement made in the campaign could be found. Daniel responded that he was "not the White House librarian."

Even after the fact that the story had no support became public, Mr. Bush continued to tell it. Mr. Bush told the joke at least thirteen times and mentioned the qualifiers an additional couple of dozen times.

The true irony of the “trifecta joke” is that the qualifiers had been mentioned previously. In a 1988 speech in Detroit, Al Gore said:

Barring an economic reversal, a national emergency, or a foreign crisis, we should balance the budget this year, next year, and every year."

It would not have been difficult to Mr. Bush to make the same point while remaining truthful. It really would not have too difficult to say something like “When we made our economic projections, we thought we could maintain a balanced budget even if we had a recession, a national emergency or a war. We did not anticipate that we would have all three simultaneously.” Is that really so hard?

What are we to make of the fact that Mr. Bush continued to tell his dishonest “trifecta” story long after it has been exposed as false both in the New Republic and on Meet the Press?

America’s scold, William Bennett, knows the answer:

This is, after all, an individual who has been warned repeatedly to take care not to lie, embellish, or misstate the facts … Yet the problem persists. His lying appears to be incorrigible. And it is a matter of public record…
Character matters in a president. … As the public considers for whom it will vote … it should recall the old adage: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Ken Lay was an Ann Richards Supporter

The corporate scandals of 2001 were a matter of some political concern to the Bush administration. Not only had President Bush and Vice President Cheney engaged in some questionable business practices themselves but some of their supporters were reveled to have been less and honest.

First and foremost among the corporate scandals was Enron. Enron’s collapse was particularly dangerous to the President because of his close relationship with Enron’s Ken Lay. Enron affiliated persons had given more than half a million dollars to Bush over the years. That made Enron George W. Bush biggest contributor. Lay was a Bush Pioneer. George W. Bush had even christened Lay with a nick name, “Kenny Boy.” Lay met with Vice President Cheney to help develop the administration’s energy policy. Mr. Bush and Mr. Lay had much personal correspondence.

Thus, when reporters asked Mr. Bush about Enron and Mr. Lay, there was a long history of a close relationship between them. Despite that evidence, Mr. Bush decided to tell a small lie:

And I got to know Ken Lay when he was the head of the -- what they call the Governor's Business Council in Texas. He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994. And she had named him the head of the Governor's Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken, and worked with Ken, and he supported my candidacy.

While it is true that Mr. Lay gave money to Ann Richards’ 1994 campaign, as Slate has pointed out, he gave three times as much to Mr. Bush. In addition, Mr. Lay has shown the President’s statement to be false. PBS quotes Mr. Lay as follows:

I've been a strong financial and political supporter of, first, President Bush Sr. when he was running for president, and even when he ran for president a time or two and failed. And then certainly when he ran for president and was elected in 1988. [I'm] very close to the family, to Barbara Bush and the kids.

When Governor Bush--now President Bush--decided to run for the governor's spot, [there was] a little difficult situation--I 'd worked very closely with Ann Richards also, the four years she was governor. But I was very close to George W. and had a lot of respect for him, had watched him over the years, particularly with reference to dealing with his father when his father was in the White House and some of the things he did to work for his father, and so did support him.

Why would President Bush resort to dishonesty on a matter that could easily be checked? I do not know, but perhaps we should ask Professor Chris Wetzel of Rhodes College. In a New York Times article by Richard Berke about Al Gore, Profesor Wetzel is quoted as follows:

Why would someone say something like this when it can be so blatantly discovered?" asked Mr. Wetzel, who has taught a research course called Detecting Impostors and Con Artists. "I think it's like the false memory syndrome when people end up believing that they were abducted by aliens."

Does Mr. Bush suffer from false memory syndrome? Does he think he has been abducted by aliens? Has such an implication about Mr. Bush ever been posed in a major media outlet? If not, why not?

To be continued….

(Note: This is the first of a series of planned posts on Mr. Bush’s “Little Lies.” I have collected a large number of examples of Mr. Bush or his administration telling “little lies.” If you know of any that should be included, please leave a comment or send an email).

Autism Plan

The New York Times yesterday ran an article about the new interagency plan to combat autism. The plan was announced at the autism summit referred to below. The announcement marks the first time that various departments of the federal government have come together to establish goals, set priorities and map out a coherent government policy regarding autism.

Other news reports are available from the Seattle Times, USA Today, Reuters, and the San Jose Mercury News.

Jane Gross of the Times reports:

The plan includes objectives like the development of teaching methods that will allow 90 percent of autistic children to speak; the identification of genetic and nongenetic causes of the condition; and adequate services for all afflicted children in the next 7 to 10 years…

The three-pronged plan sets goals for more coordinated biomedical research, earlier screening and diagnosis, and effective therapy. The plan demands, for the first time, collaboration between scientists, clinicians, educators and policymakers in an array of federal agencies.

"Millions of people need help," said Robert L. Beck, president of the Autism Society of America, the nation's oldest and largest autism advocacy group. "And this is a new opportunity and a very exciting one." …

The plan, which will be reviewed by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Council, established by the Child Health Act of 2000, is presented in broad brush strokes, with few details and no price tags. It was drafted by scientists to assess the state of autism research and identify the roadblocks that might be hindering progress in understanding the cause and the best treatment options.

The plan lays out a timeline, in increments of 1 to 3 years, 4 to 6 years and 7 to 10 years and then ranks goals according to the likelihood of achieving them. Realistic goals in each of the three stages include the development, evaluation and institution of effective treatments, in collaboration with the Department of Education.

More challenging goals, by contrast, include finding effective drugs for the symptoms of autism and identifying environmental factors that may contribute to the development of the disorder.

There is much to like about the plan. It is the first time that the Federal government has taken a sufficient interest in the subject of autism to actually have a plan. Having a plan, even a less than ideal plan, is better than having no plan at all.

Secondly, the plan was developed by scientists including people from the biomedical field and the social sciences. That is good. The plan has a better chance to succeed if the direction of research is determined by science and not by politics.

Third, the interdisciplinary approach to the plan is a good. Coordination between the biomedical and social science research may be critical. For instance, one area of biomedical research is an effort to identify “bio-medical markers” to predict a child’s susceptibility to autism. Those markers may be genetic, blood proteins or some combination of both (and/or others).

At the same time, social science research needs to determine which educational and behavioral therapies are most effective.

It may be autism has multiple causes. It may also be that different therapies are more or less effective for different sub-groups in the autistic population. The coordination of the identification of bio-markers with the social science research may lead to the discovery that different social science therapies work better (or worse) for different sub-groups of children. That would be a huge step forward.

Fourth, the plan sets goals and timetables. Those goals and timetables will allow progress to be carefully measured.

In general I am quite pleased with the plan coming out of the Autism Summit. It should be said, however, that having a plan and implementing it are two different things. The current plan includes no funding provisions. NIH currently funds about $75 million of autism research annually. Some advocacy groups have suggested that about $500 million annually will be required to implement the plan. I will be happier when full funding is provided.

A Better Name

According to this story, a Florida man is objecting to his daughter’s middle school’s use of a devil as a mascot:

Kenneth Locklear enrolled his daughter at Roosevelt Middle School in West Palm Beach this year for its math, science and technology magnet program. He had no idea it was also the home of the devils.

This week, Locklear was horrified when his daughter showed him a school band T-shirt depicting the school's devil mascot. Satan appears with horns, pointy ears and a thick mustache printed in white against a maroon background. "It is a hideous portrayal of the devil," said Locklear, a Christian who is demanding the school dump the demon.”

Locklear is threatening suit on separation of church and state grounds if the mascot is not changed.

Locklear insists his appeal is a matter of separating church and state, and he's considering suing if the school district doesn't give in.

"What if this was a cross?" he asked. "Because it is the devil it doesn't seem to be recognized as a religious symbol. That will change."

Legal challenges to devil mascots are common around the nation, but they have failed so far. In 1996 three public school students in Ohio filed a federal suit against their high school for using a Blue Devil mascot, a symbol they thought to be satanic. A federal court ruled against the students, and an appeals court upheld that decision.

In 2002, high schools in Devil's Lake, Mich., and Devils Lake, N.D., voted to replace long-held team names of "the Satans" because of concerns that the names and mascots were inappropriate, according to The Associated Press.

Some conservative groups support Judge Roy Moore’s efforts to keep the Ten Commandments in the Alabama courthouse arguing that the constitution does not require separation of church and state. Will those groups oppose Mr. Locklear’s demand?

Personally, I think the Florida controversy is a bit silly. After all, I have a couple of degrees from Duke whose athletic teams are the “Blue Devils.” Duke is a Methodist school. Ninety miles down the road is Wake Forest. WFU is a Baptist school and its athletic teams are the “Demon Deacons.” The athletic teams of Depaul University, a Catholic school, are the “Blue Demons.” If Demons and Devils are good enough for the Catholics, Methodists and Baptists, it is hard to get worked up over the issue. Some folks are just looking to be offended.

Despite there being some disadvantages to having a Devil as a mascot (at least for a certain computer system), I think it is a matter of keeping our priorities straight. The Unix link thoughtfully provided by Eric.

If we are going to start changing names at schools, there are better places to start. When we were in college, my wife played flute in the Duke University Marching Band. I really think that changing Duke’s mascot to something other than the Blue Devils should be a lower priority than finding a different name for the D.U.M.B.

Edited to provide attribution for the Unix link.

Autism Summit: November 19-20

The Department of Health and Human Services along with the Department of Education will sponsor an Autism Summit on November 19-20 in Washington.

A National Institute of Health news release says that:

The summit will provide an opportunity to highlight the Federal government's interest in autism and mobilize resources to confront this recognized public health problem. It will begin to establish a national agenda of research and service goals to be achieved through advances by federal, academic, voluntary, and other public organizations.

The Summit will be broadcast on the web both live and in archives. The web cast may be found http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/nimh/031119/ here.

The NIH press release describes the biomedical program:

The summit's biomedical component will address autism research on diagnosis, causes, neuroscience, and treatment. Programs will build on the work of an expert panel of scientists that responded to a congressional request for a "roadmap" to identify and advance high-priority research goals. Federal officials, researchers, and community members will discuss such topics as genetics, epidemiology, and early intervention.

The second major theme, implementing autism screening and diagnosis, will review existing screening instruments and implementing practices in the community. Relevant research and current clinical practices will be discussed.

The third theme is integrating autism services throughout the lifespan. Topics will deal with issues for those living with autism, including fragmented services provided by educational and other systems.

For anyone interested in the current state of autism research, the web cast of the Summit sounds worthwhile.

RIP Sebastian

I always have admired Kevin Drum's Friday catblogging; a welcome respite from the stress and angst of political blogging.

This week, it became all the more personal, as my beloved feline companion of thirteen years, Sebastian (as in Brideshead Revisted fame) surprised my spouse and I by quietly retreating to the basement and passing away.

My spouse buried him in our garden next to the fence where he used to love to lounge in the sun for hours at a time. We're planting a riot of bulbs on his gravesite, to remember him come next Spring.

I know I have some pictures of him, but can't put my hands upon them. Imagine a black and brown tiger with the biggest eyes you've ever seen. He was more dog than cat, I often commented. And the foot of my bed is sadly empty now. This weekend we tell the children, and the most affected with be Grace, our eldest and neurologically typical.

The one saving grace are the three kittens born into our home last summer... Max, the only male, seems to be Sebastian incarnate. A blessing or curse, we've yet to learn....

On to PPI...

One of the surprises in this morning's economic news from the BLS was the surge in the Producer Price Index, or PPI. While PPI looks at wholesale prices, it's important to note that it does not always correspond directly with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as CPI also includes imported goods and services, whereas PPI looks only at domestic goods. That said, the correlation is more times than not fairly strong, with increases in PPI mirrored in smaller fluctuations, though in the same general direction, as CPI.

October's PPI increased 0.8%, significantly above the 0.2% market analysts predicted. Food and auto prices led the charge, with the groceries posting a 2.2% increase, the largest increase in 20 years. If this trend were to continue unabated, the average American family's average monthly $800 food bill could tack on an additional $240 over the course of a year, essentially wiping out a chunk of the recent Bush tax cuts. Heating oil also rose 9.6%, and autos 1.6%. Gasoline was the only bright spot, dropping 3.0%, despite OPEC's resolve to keep prices high.

While CPI for October isn't released until next week, the info from the PPI report doesn't bode particularly for that number, particularly since, as also reported earlier this week, imports were rather flat. And as I mentioned last weekend, with hourly wages stagnating, any increase in consumer prices is directly felt by consumers, as their paychecks must stretch further for less.

Are you better off now than you were three years ago?

[Update: corrected multiple typos]

A new twist: the So-called-Conservative-media

Of all the papers, I least expected this kind of behavior from UPI. In this morning's assessment of retail sales and PPI releases, I came across this surprising paragraph:

Experts said it appears that retail sales have strengthened in the past 15 months, but actually the average monthly gain is virtually identical to the average monthly gain posted from January 2000 through December 2001.

It appears that the UPI reporter(s) refused to take the word of the "experts", looked up the data themselves, and found it didn't match with what they were told. I'm downright shocked.

To be fair, the entire article is much better than most AP or Reuter's reports in its attempts to explain to non-economist readers the significance of indicators such as monthly retail sales:

Investors read this report to track consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economy, so if you know what consumers are up to, you'll have a pretty good handle on where the economy is headed. Needless to say, that's a big advantage for investors.

The pattern in consumer spending is often the foremost influence on stock and bond markets. For stocks, strong economic growth translates to healthy corporate profits and higher stock prices.

For bonds, the focus is whether economic growth goes overboard and leads to inflation. Ideally, the economy walks that fine line between strong growth and excessive (inflationary) growth. This balance was achieved through much of the nineties. For this reason alone, investors in the stock and bond markets enjoyed huge gains during the bull market of the 1990s. Retail sales growth did slow down in tandem with the equity market in 2000 and 2001.

Retail sales not only give you a sense of the big picture, but also the trends among different types of retailers. Perhaps auto sales are especially strong or apparel sales are showing exceptional weakness. These trends from the retail sales data can help you spot specific investment opportunities, without having to wait for a company's quarterly or annual report.

Fortunately, the second half of the article focused on PPI, which is next on my agenda. No need to send out the Googling monkeys again.

Have yourself a merry frugal Christmas...

Recently, I wrote privately to a fellow econoblogger that I had significant concerns regarding the health of holiday retail sales, namely from what I've seen first hand in a particular affected industry. But while market analysts were promoting rosy projections for upcoming retail sales, even the world's largest retailer was attempting to tamp down expectations. Yesterday, Walmart offered detailed insight into their own recent experience:

Customers continue to buy the cheapest items in any given category — a sign that household budgets remain tight, Lee Scott, Wal-Mart chief executive officer, said on a recorded message. Buyers are "timing their expenditures around the receipt of their paychecks, indicating liquidity issues," Scott said. "I don't think consumer spending is slowing, but I also don't see the strength that many of you in the investment community appear to see," Scott said.

[via Calpundit quoting Prof. DeLong]

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics provided hard numbers to support those less tangible concerns; retail sales fell 0.3 percent, below market expectations. While September preliminary sales were adjusted, the past two months together indicate a 0.4% decrease since August.

Excluding auto, which dropped a whopping 1.9% despite being new model season, retail sales increased a modest 0.2%. However, a closer look at those numbers is somewhat telling. The largest increases were in building supplies and furnishings, not surprising for the clean-up and reconstruction necessary in the post-Hurricane Isabelle Mid-Atlantic states. One can probably expect a similar bump in those sectors next month, as Californians begin rebuilding after fires and floods. Retailers which tend to indicate a more consistent and healthy economy, such as groceries, clothing books/music and electronics, all experienced only minor increases, or saw sales fall in October.

Of course, all of these items saw the largest increase in price in since early Spring, but that's fodder for my next post.

[Update: corrected stat]

Flashback Friday: Dickensonian Edition

This morning, as I waded through the online news archives, I felt the ghost of Marley hanging about; so the focus of this week's post asks the question, are these the headlines of the past, present or still yet to come? I'll let my readers decide.

NEW REPORTS INDICATE RECOVERY IS FALTERING
RETAIL SALES FALL
JOBLESS BENEFITS CLAIMS RISE
Steven Mufson, Washington Post
November 15, 1991

Weak retail sales in October and a jump in applications for unemployment benefits during the week ended Nov. 2 point to a shakiness in the economic recovery, economists said yesterday after the government released new statistics.

Separate data also showed that the anemic economy kept a lid on inflation last month. A tiny 0.1 percent increase in consumer prices during October soothed concerns raised Wednesday by the disclosure of a surprisingly sharp October increase in prices at the...

PRESIDENT BLAMES SENATE DEMOCRATS FOR RECESSION
CITING RESISTANCE TO CAPITAL GAINS TAX CUT, BUSH DEFENDS HIS OWN ECONOMIC POTPOURRI
Ann Devroy, Washington Post
November 13, 1991

President Bush, on the political defensive as he begins his reelection drive, today put the blame for the recession on Senate Democrats and offered a stew of remedies that mixed everything from tort reform to a plea to credit card firms to drop their interest rates.

In the third of a series of Bush-Quayle fund-raising events, Bush portrayed himself as having a full program to deal with the nation's ills and said the Democrats have resisted that program at every turn.

NEW MEDICARE FEES FAVOR PRIMARY CARE
Associated Press
November 16, 1991

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration announced a new Medicare fee scale yesterday that will boost payments to family and general practice physicians while limiting increases for surgeons and other specialties.

The fee schedule, to go into effect Jan. 1, marks the biggest revision in the way Medicare pays physicians since the program began nearly 26 years ago.

It is intended to make the payment system more rewarding for primary-care physicians, which federal health officials hope will...

SENATE CRITICS STALL $5.1 BILLION JOBLESS AID BILL
SOME SAY THEIR STATES WOULD BE SHORTCHANGED
HOUSE APPROVES THE MEASURE, 396-30
Eric Pianin Washington Post
November 15, 1991

A $5.1 billion measure to provide up to 20 weeks of extended benefits for an estimated 3 million unemployed workers stalled in the Senate last night after sailing through the House by a vote of 396 to 30. Some senators complained that their states would be shortchanged by the measure.

"This proposal benefits many states very well, but others it severely handicaps," said Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.), who joined with others in blocking an immediate vote. "I'm not one to...

MODEST RISE IN HOME SALES FORECAST FOR NEXT 6 MONTHS
ECONOMISTS PIN PREDICTIONS ON LOWER MORTGAGE RATES
Jacqueline L. Salmon, Washington Post
November 16, 1991

Housing-industry economists are predicting a mild pickup in house sales in the next six months, but only if mortgage rates continue to fall and consumer confidence begins to rise.

"We're seeing a tug-of-war between low interest rates and slow job growth in today's economy," said John Tuccillo, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), "which is making this recovery for housing and the full economy an uncomfortable one."...

ESTATE TAX REPEAL SEEN RAISING REVENUES Mitchell Zuckoff, Boston Globe November 12, 1991

In a finding certain to fuel heated debate, a study to be released today concludes that repealing Massachusetts' estate tax would actually increase state revenues by $86 million a year.

The gain, the study claims, would come from increases in income, sales and other taxes paid by wealthy, older residents who now flee Massachusetts for low-tax states.

Gov. Weld has made deep cuts in the estate tax a cornerstone of his sweeping "tax relief" plan, but it has been a hard sell...

IRAN'S REACH FOR A NUCLEAR SWORD Boston Globe Op/Ed November 13, 1991

Now that the Cold War has ended, hawks and doves alike will be tempted to impose their versions of history, to insist that humanity escaped the nuclear sword of Damocles because of bloated defense budgets or because of arms control and the peace movement. Another possibility is that only dumb luck prevented obtuse and belligerent leaders from using the doomsday weapons at their disposal.

Lady Luck, however, is notoriously fickle. The discovery of Saddam Hussein's advanced...

SMALL BUSINESSES LOSING HOPE
Boston Globe
November 13, 1991

Small-business owners are losing confidence in the economy and have little hope that recent interest-rate cuts will do much to boost sales. The National Federation of Independent Business said a survey of owners showed their worries about the economy dipping into a second recession grew. "The economy stopped falling in the third quarter, but it settled into the mud," said NFIB chief economist William Dunkelberg. "The fourth quarter will not be as good and could produce another...

NERVOUS BULLS TRY TO FATHOM FUTURE PRICES
Robert Lenzner, Boston Globe
November 14, 1991

NEW YORK -- Wall Street is full of nervous bulls.

They are nervous that the stock market is fully priced, nervous that the economy is not recovering, nervous that lower interest rates aren't the solution, nervous that George Bush's re-election is no sure thing.

"Uncertain. Confused. Volatile." That's how the market strategists at Salomon Brothers described the investment climate last week.

"The die is cast," intones Michael Sherman, Shearson Lehman...

TAX CUTS: A FLAWED STIMULANT
Boston Globe Op/Ed
November 14, 1991

The intersection of a a swooning economy with the early stages of a presidential election campaign has predictably led to a revival in talk about taxes in general and tax cuts in particular. Politicians, many of them sincerely concerned about the state of the economy, detect an opportunity to fight the recession with a tax cut while appealing to voters' baser instincts at the same time. Whatever their motives, they are on the wrong track.

The American economy does need a jolt, and the...

FED SURVEY: WORST OF CRUNCH OVER
Associated Press
November 14, 1991

WASHINGTON -- Results of a new survey of banks suggest the worst of the credit crunch may be over, the Federal Reserve Board said yesterday.

An October poll found that nearly all the banks surveyed said they had not changed their credit standards for approving business loan applications since an August survey.

"In light of the historical tendency of banks to report that they have tightened standards, the virtual absence of reported tightening of standards . . . might be interpreted...

BUSH DOMESTIC PLAN REPORTED IN THE WORKS AIDES CITE CONCERN ON STANDING IN POLLS
John W. Mashek, Boston Globe
November 15, 1991

WASHINGTON -- President Bush plans to counter public concern over his domestic policies by using his State of the Union address to unveil a slate of proposals as a prelude to kicking off his reelection campaign, according to a senior administration official.

Bush himself suggested as much yesterday, saying, "I'll have a very strong State of the Union that hopefully can mobilize the Democrats that control Congress to do what they should have done some time ago."...

BUSH HONORS VETERANS WITH SPEECH ON GULF WAR
Associated Press
November 12, 1991

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Leading the nation's Veterans Day observances, President Bush placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns yesterday. He said that the victory in the Gulf War had kindled overdue respect for Vietnam veterans, and that this was "good for the nation's soul."

Bush pledged that the United States would "always be a force for peace in the world" as he paid special tribute to veterans of the nation's two most recent wars...

PAT BUCHANAN IS SAID TO WEIGH GOP CHALLENGE
John W. Mashek, Boston Globe
November 15, 1991

WASHINGTON -- Pat Buchanan, the conservative columnist and television commentator, has decided to challenge President Bush in the Republican primaries next year, several of his friends said yesterday.

Buchanan, 51, was in San Francisco yesterday, according to associates at Cable News Network, and numerous attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.

The White House did not take the news as a serious political threat. "It's a free country," spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said,...

BUSH AGAIN LAMBASTES HILL ON ECONOMIC LEGISLATION
WHITE HOUSE ADVISERS TARGET INTERNAL DISSENT
Ann Devroy and John E. Yang Washington Post
November 14, 1991

President Bush continued his assault on Congress yesterday for failing to pass his economic package while his top advisers met at the White House to better "coordinate" the administration's economic message, including persuading internal dissenters to keep quiet.

According to an official present at the White House session, a major goal was "to remind Jack Kemp that George Bush won the election in 1988 and that he is not one of the president's economic...

STOCK MARKET DIVE BIGGEST IN 2 YEARS
DOW AVERAGE PLUMMETS 120 POINTS
Robert J. McCartney, Washington Post
November 16, 1991

The stock market suffered its steepest drop in two years today as a growing concern about the nation's sputtering economy and doubts about Washington's handling of the banking crisis prompted traders and investors to dump shares.

The Dow Jones average of blue-chip industrial stocks plunged 120.31 points to close at 2943.20 in trading described as heavy but not panicky. It was the fifth largest one-day drop in points in the Dow average, erasing more than $130 billion in stock value...

BUSH'S RX FOR THE ECONOMY: SLASH CREDIT CARD RATES
Rita Beamish, Associated Press
November 13, 1991

NEW YORK -- President Bush urged credit card issuers yesterday to cut interest rates to help revive the nation's sagging economy and accused Democrats of sending his legislative prescriptions to "liberal limbo."

Speaking at a fund-raiser for his still-unofficial re-election campaign, Bush blended an attack on the Democrats with a fresh prescription for the economy, which has not rebounded strongly from recession as the administration had hoped.

JUSTICES HEAR CAMPUS BIAS CASE
Associated Press
November 14, 1991

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on a state's obligation to overcome a legacy of discrimination in once-separate white and black universities. The Bush administration and a civil rights lawyer, Alvin Chambliss, argued that Mississippi still has not done enough to dismantle its separate system for blacks and whites. Mississippi's attorney replied that the discriminatory practices ended long ago, that students may now choose universities even though they remain...

SHAMIR SAYS PALESTINIAN EXPECTATIONS ARE TOO HIGH
Ethan Bronner and H.D.S. Greenway, Boston Globe
November 15, 1991

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who begins a visit to the United States today, said yesterday that Palestinian expectations from the Middle East peace process are exaggerated and Israel will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"If somebody thinks about two states on this small territory, the meaning of it will be to condemn the populations of these both eventual states to an eternal conflict," Shamir told The Boston Globe in an interview on the morning of...

KERREY ASSAILS BUSH 'LIBERAL' BASHING
November 15, 1991
Walter V. Robinson, Boston Globe

Sen. Bob Kerrey asserted yesterday that President Bush and David Duke, by decrying "liberals" in their political rhetoric, are both employing the same "racial code word" that their Republican predecessors have used for more than two decades to frighten American voters.

The Democratic presidential candidate, in an appearance at Boston University, also described the president as out of touch with the problems of average Americans. He likened Bush to a French king in a Mel...

HOUSE BODY BACKS ELECTION FUND BILL
Associated Press
November 15, 1991

WASHINGTON -- A House committee approved a Democratic bill yesterday that would begin public subsidies of congressional campaigns and tacked on an amendment to restrict President Bush's use of Air Force One. The legislation, backed by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, passed the House Administration Committee by a 14-to-10 vote and was scheduled for full House action next week. Lawmakers of both parties cast doubt on its future. The legislation would grant federal matching funds to...

HOUSE VOTES TO EXTEND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS
Associated Press
November 15, 1991

WASHINGTON -- The House yesterday resoundingly approved a $5.3 billion bill to give extra benefits to the long-term jobless. But efforts to speed the measure to President Bush for his promised signature were slowed by Senate critics who complained it wasn't generous enough.

By a 396-30 vote, the House sent the Senate the compromise measure, which was crafted after Bush joined a Democratic effort he long resisted.

Enactment would mean that 3 million people who will have used up the...

LIBYANS DENY ROLE IN PAN AM BOMBING
Associated Press
November 16, 1991

ROME -- Libya denied yesterday that its intelligence agents carried out the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and called for a neutral investigating committee to look into the case.

In Washington, the Bush administration rejected any international inquiry. US and British authorities indicted two Libyan intelligence officials on Thursday in connection with the December 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

US officials said they believe the bombing also involved...

Dedication, Resources and Hard Work

I have previously written that autism may have multiple causes. It also takes a multitude of factors for an autistic child to reach his potential. A case in point is the story of a thirteen year old autistic boy named Hunter as reported in the New York Times.

Hunter is a remarkable young man. In many ways he is a parent’s dream come true. He is on the honor roll at his middle school. He often does as much as five hours of homework without complaint.

Hunter is a Boy Scout. He plays the piano and can play a song from memory after hearing it only once. He loves geography. He likes to make maps of trips he has taken with his family.

Hunter is a huge sports fan. He has a large store of sports trivia on command. Instead of vegetating in front of the television or video console, he likes to play outside where he practices his field goal kicking. He also likes to ski.

Hunter’s approach to his school work would make many parents envious.

I have to do a lot of stuff, which I'm doing right now. Complete homework on my own. Study for tests. Study real hard.

Hunter’s accomplishments are all the more impressive because he is autistic. The article makes clear that Hunter has a number of autistic behaviors. Hunter self-stims by pacing and twirling his hair. He has a hard time learning basic skills such as hand washing:

Most children learn to wash their hands by observation. Hunter needed it broken into 13 steps. Stand on stool/push back sleeves/turn on hot water/turn on cold water/wet hands/pick up soap.

Despite his obvious intelligence and remarkable memory, Hunter has trouble seeing things through the eyes of others.

On a history test, he could never explain how the Indians felt about being forced off their land. "Empathy does not come natural to Hunter," his mother said. "If another child fell, we had to teach Hunter to say, `Are you O.K.?' "

Hunter’s social skills are weak. He eats lunch alone. He speaks only when called on.

Hunter's mother gently questioned whether he was socializing. "Talk to anybody at lunch?" she asked.

"After lunch I go to the basketball court," he said.

"With anybody?" she asked.

"Four other guys," Hunter said.

"Good for you," she said.

"But I didn't talk to them," Hunter said.

Those are all classic autistic behaviors.

What accounts for Hunter’s successes? There are at least three factors. First and foremost, the credit goes to Hunter himself. He set goals for himself and has work very hard to achieve them. That is an admirable quality and it is formula for success for any person in any endeavor. Hunter deserves the bulk of the credit

Hunter’s parents also deserve a large measure of credit. Hunter’s parents made the personal, professional and financial sacrifice to have a specialist work with Hunter four days a week before he was school age. His parents took off mornings from work to assist in Hunter’s development.

They also set very high standards for Hunter. When Hunter made the honor roll at his middle school, his parents were not satisfied:

At his suburban middle school, Hunter made the honor roll, but his parents did not trust it. "We think they marked him easier than he deserved because he tried hard," Hunter's mother said.

Hunter’s parents also put in a lot of plain hard work.

To keep up in class, Hunter worked five hours a night on homework with his parents. His perseverance amazed them. "He never said this is too much," his mother said. They divided big ideas into little ones, creating thousands of homemade flash cards, which they kept in sandwich bags.

That work paid off. Hunter’s parents hope that Hunter will go to college and be able to work in accounting or computer graphics. If not, he may have to take a more menial job. Please trust me when I tell you that having possible outcomes for my autistic son ranging from independent life with a menial job to a college education and work in computer graphics would be cause for celebration.

Hunter’s parents are to be admired and congratulated. If I allow a small bit of envy to creep in, is that really so bad of me?

Credit must also be given to the public school system. That school system did not give up on Hunter and provided resources crucial to his development:

The public schools paid to send Hunter to a special education preschool an hour away and by the time he started back here with a full-time one-on-one aide in a regular first grade, Hunter could read.

Now that Hunter has achieved some success, the school system continues to provide necessary resources:

Even tiny surprises, like a telephone ringing, upset him, so starting a new school this fall was torture. Medfield agreed to pay the $23,000 tuition for Learning Prep, a private school in Newton for children with severe learning problems.

The combination of the dedication, sacrifice and work of Hunter’s parents with a school system willing to provide necessary resources has permitted Hunter to succeed through his own hard work. There is a lesson there for all persons within the autism community.

All Readers Appreciated

by Dwight Meredith

All writers appreciate readers. None of my (few) readers are as appreciated as those looking for information on autism. If I can provide some small piece of helpful information or perhaps bring a smile to the face of a parent of an autistic child, my day is made.

Nonetheless, some folks searching for information on autism are more appreciated than others. For instance, I do have to question the motive of the reader who located PLA through a MSN search for “I + need + a + research + paper + on + Autism + which + is + at + least + eight + pages + long + where + I + can + find + one.”

Milestone

Today marks the one year anniversary of Wampum (the original site hosted at Blogspot), and we want to thank you all for the nearly 200K unique visits at both sites since then. I started blogging as a way of venting my frustration after coming off a particularly disappointing campaign where my candidate, and friend, lost in her bid to unseat a mediocre, though moderate, Republican Senator. I fashioned my site initially on a particularly impressive one I noticed during my first stint surfing through the blogosphere; that of a witty, Progressive attorney from Georgia who also happened to be parenting an autistic child.

Just three days post-inception, I was discovered by that same well-respected blogger when the Thimerosal rider in the Homeland Security Bill story broke; in the span of a few days, I went from obscurity on the Net, to a place on the sidebars of writers and pundits far more remarkable than myself, essentially due only to blogging the right piece at the right time. Serendipity, pure and simple.

That my friend and mentor Dwight Meredith now hangs his hat at Wampum makes me feel as if things have come full circle, in the best possible sense. I can't speak for him specifically (he does a great job of expressing himself), but I want to thank our readers and colleagues, on both the Left and (center-)Right, who have supported us over the past 12 months, in particular giving us the chance to share the challenges and joys of parenting special needs children. As IDEA reauthorization comes to a head in Congress over the next few weeks, we'll be asking many of you to act on that support and contact your legislators; but more on that in upcoming posts. For today, I'm just thankful for the opportunities the last year has provided, and the many friendships which have blossomed, and look forward to more of the same in the future.

Growing Up

By Dwight Meredith

Many folks have already commented on the remarkable post by Kim du Toit decrying the feminization of men. Via Atrios, by way of Avedon, I located Winston Smith’s definitive analysis. It is truly not to be missed.

When I first read the du Toit post, I had a feeling of déjà vu. I just could not put my finger on where I had previously encountered that particular view of manhood. To spur my memory, I listed some the interests and activities that du Toit contends are typical of real men. Those things include the following:

Leering at chicks;

(playing) around with ridiculous games like "pin the bra on the boobies";

having beer-drinking competitions;

sports;

power tools;

hunting;

racing our cars;

smoking;

getting into fistfights over women; and

getting drunk.

The listing did the trick. I remembered where I had previously encountered that particular view of masculinity. It was accepted locker room wisdom when I was a sophomore in high school.

The process du Toit decries is also known as growing up.

I knew it was too good to be true...

While I noted yesterday that on the surface the employment situation for October looked good, I confessed to my spouse at the time that I had a nagging feeling that something was just not right. So I got up bright and early this morning (4am) in order to look over the numbers without the distraction of four children bounding around. I don't really know what drew me immediately to the statistics on hourly wages for production or non-supervisory worker bees, as I never tend to follow those numbers very closely. But immediately upon opening Appendix B-4, my concerns didn't appear so silly.

On the first chart below, I've plotted the trend of average hourly wage, in current dollars, for the last 10 months. I tried to go even further back, but, as we've seen is a common occurence recently at the BLS, the benchmarks were altered in April, and only revised back until January, so that even December's numbers are not comparable. As I'll discuss below, however, the trends over previous years are in fact statistically relevant, and shed significant light on the current situation.

The most obvious and disconcerting trend observed from this graph is that it appears that wages for average workers have stalled since July ($0.02 increase since summer.) This, in comparison with the $0.21 increase from January through June.

This next graph is the same data set (Jan-Oct 2003), but utilizing the 1987 benchmark, i.e., wages adjusted for inflation using the current Consumer Price Index (CPI).

[Note: October's number is preliminary, as it isn't released until later in the month, but is based upon +0.3% trend observed in the past three months.]

So while the "current" hourly wage for American non-exempt workers has stagnated, in the real world of rents or mortgages, groceries, heating oil, clothing and whatever else consumers need or fancy, what that wage buys has been decreasing since mid-summer. Unless the trend turns around in the next few months, US workers may see a decrease in their inflation-adjusted income for the first time since 1994. In comparison, in 1997 and 1998, American workers saw a net gain of $0.16 and $0.15 cents per hour respectively. Last year, the hourly wage gain a whopping $0.04 per hour, adjusted for inflation.

While this doesn't negate the excellent gains made in job creation during the past few months, it might take the bloom off the rose just a bit. Bush can promise hundreds of thousands of new jobs every month, but if the Democratic nominee can still ask the American public the old adage, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" and have a significant number of voters respond "no", that bus ticket back to Crawford may be the best that Bush can hope for next November.

Update: No sooner than I published this, I wandered over to the Times, where I came across this article on corporate execs not feeling so warm and fuzzy about the latest job news. And buried in the middle of the article, these timely paragraphs:

And a new economic study, prepared for the United States Conference of Mayors, concludes that wages are significantly lower in the service sectors that are adding jobs than in the manufacturing industries that have been losing jobs.

According to the study, prepared by the economic consulting firm Global Insight, the biggest job growth over the next two years will be in the areas of administration and support services, health care, travel and tourism.

The average wage in those sectors over the next two years is expected to be $36,000, the study concluded. By contrast, the average wage in manufacturing sectors that lost jobs is $43,000.

Hmmm...

An econoblogger takes off her tinfoil hat...temporarily...

I know that for the past eleven or so months, the first Friday of the month is usually full of doom and gloom regarding the newly released unemployment numbers. So it may come as a shock to all of you that this month, I truly am pleased to see that the unemployment rate has in fact decreased while the number of new jobs increased substantially. And while I need to take some time and do more than just a cursory glance over all aspects of the new report, the areas I generally hone in on (part-time unemployment, long-term joblessness, etc.,) all indicate more positive numbers than in previous reports.

This is great news for the millions of American families devastated by the drawn out effects of the recession which purportedly ended in the Fall of 2001. Two years is a long time for the economy to kick into an upward cycle, and although I'm actually not convinced this is truly "it" (in fact, I think, like Atrios, that this month is actually just a reprieve before things get much worse, but then I'm known to be a Cassandra on these issues), any good news is welcome.

Flashback Friday: Recycled rhetoric edition

Things have gotten so bad in Dejatopia, that not only are Bush policies being recycled, but so are the Democratic responses.

DEMOCRATS SEEK TO EXTEND TOUGH TRADE LAW
MEASURE ALLOWS SANCTIONS AGAINST NATIONS THAT DON'T DROP BARRIERS
Stuart Auerbach, Washington Post
November 5, 1991

Congressional Democrats, riding what they believe are favorable political winds, have introduced get-tough bills continuing the 1988 trade law provision that threatens retaliation against countries that refuse to remove barriers to foreign products.

House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), charging that President Bush "has failed miserably" in addressing the nation's economic problems, predicted yesterday that the bill would pass next year as public anxiety grows...

BUSH ASSAILED ON ECONOMY DEMOCRATS COMPARE RECORD TO HOOVER'S
Michael K. Frisby, Boston Globe
November 1, 1991

WASHINGTON -- The Senate majority leader, George Mitchell of Maine, delivered a scathing assessment yesterday of George Bush's presidency, declaring that his record on economic growth is the worst since Herbert Hoover.

Speaking with unusual bluntness, Mitchell accused Bush of ignoring the nation's domestic problems, such as inadequate health care and higher unemployment.

"Not since President Hoover told Americans the country had turned the corner has an American president...

A PITCH TO THE MIDDLE CLASS
Mark Shields, Washington Post Op/Ed
November 7, 1991

On Tuesday, while the Pennsylvania polls were still open, Paul Begala, the 30-year-old manager of Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford's long-shot victory, revealed that he still had much to learn about the contemporary Washington pastime of self-promotion. Refusing to seize credit for Wofford's remarkable comeback from his own June poll, which showed former attorney general Dick Thornburgh with a 67-20 percent lead, Begala pointed out "people rightly remember Secretariat...

VOTERS' MESSAGE TO CANDIDATES: DEFEND THE HOME FRONT
David S. Broder and E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
November 4, 1991

If America's voters could write the script for the 1992 campaign, they would tell President Bush and his Democratic rivals -- in blunt terms -- to get serious about problems at home.

They want to hear what the people they put in Congress and the White House will do to halt the loss of good jobs and the rise of crime, drugs, AIDS and homelessness. They want to know how politicians will hold down taxes, curb what they see as rampant waste in government and ensure that welfare goes only to...

RETAILERS TRY TO TEMPT WARY CONSUMERS AS HOLIDAY SEASON NEARS
Kara Swisher, Washington Post
November 4, 1991

As if retailers didn't have enough to worry about with the pernicious recession, weak consumer confidence, tighter credit, government spending cuts and substantial layoffs, the late date for Thanksgiving on Nov. 28 has shortened the prime Christmas selling season by nearly a week.

All the bad news has spurred merchants here and across the nation to search for strategies to encourage jittery consumers to spend money.

Some retailers are providing more selection and deeper inventories,...

FROM THE SHOWROOM, A VOICE OF GLOOM
Bob Levy, Washington Post Financial
November 6, 1991

My buddy John, the car salesman, called up the other day from his sun-splashed showroom near Tysons Corner. I started him off with a good-natured right to the ribs, as I usually do.

"This is costing you 20 cents, sport. How come you didn't reverse the charges?" I said.

"Things aren't that bad -- yet," said John.

"How bad are they?"

John let loose a sigh that seemed to say, "If I tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I may...

A TIDE OF PESSIMISM AND POLITICAL POWERLESSNESS RISES
Dan Balz and Richard Morin Washington Post
November 3, 1991

Under indictment by an increasingly cynical public, the American political system stands trial a year before the 1992 elections, facing a crisis of confidence that rivals the period of disillusionment immediately after the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal nearly two decades ago.

The sense of disaffection that resurfaced during the 1990 midterm elections has now been stoked by anxieties over economic dislocation. Confronted with continuing paralysis in Washington, Americans express

GOP MODERATES WIELDING NEW CLOUT
SENATE CENTRISTS POISED TO DECIDE VOTES ACROSS LEGISLATIVE SPECTRUM
Helen Dewar, Washington Post
November 3, 1991

Only a year after being closed out of the Senate Republican leadership by a conservative coup, GOP moderates are reemerging as a pivotal force in the Senate and exerting influence beyond their numbers with both the White House and the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill.

By signaling with new aggressiveness that their votes cannot be taken for granted to uphold presidential vetoes of legislation they oppose, they have increased their bargaining leverage with both sides -- to speed up the...

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES ATTACK BUSH
BARBS ALSO TRADED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
Dan Balz, Washington Post
November 3, 1991

It was a long time coming, but the Democratic presidential campaign hit New Hampshire today with a vengeance.

In a state battered by the recession, the Democratic field of candidates savaged President Bush for turning his back on the state that saved his nomination in 1988 and said he should have been here inspecting the damage to the economy rather than in Kennebunkport, Maine, inspecting his storm-damaged summer home.

But that was only part of it. Amid the hoopla of a state party...

FOOD STAMPS: ONE AMERICAN IN 10
Washington Post Editorial
November 5, 1991

THE GRIMMEST report to date on the economy has come from the usually sunny Agriculture Department. It matter-of-factly announced the other day that nearly a tenth of the population received food stamps in August. The number of recipients was a record 23.57 million, an increase of almost 5 million or more than 25 percent in just two years.

The stamps rolls are hardly the only sign of structural insufficiency in the economy. The unemployment rate is up with the recession, but the poverty rate ...

BAKER TO VISIT CHINA TO DISCUSS 'VERY REAL' PROBLEMS
David Hoffman, Washington Post
November 4, 1991

Secretary of State James A. Baker III announced plans tonight to visit China later this month in an effort to resolve "real problems" in Sino-American relations.

In making the trip, which will be part of an Asian tour that also will include Japan and South Korea, Baker will become the highest ranking U.S. official to visit China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy demonstrators. At the time, the Bush administration imposed sanctions against the Chinese regime,...

RATE CUTS' LIMITED REAL LIFE IMPACT
OTHER FEARS FUEL CONSUMER CAUTION
Anne Swardson, Washington Post
November 7, 1991

Margit Hunt, a lawyer, and her fiance, Kirk Nahra, another lawyer, have been looking for a house in the Washington area for a year. During that period, the Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates five times.

None of those reductions, not even the one in the Fed's discount rate announced yesterday, has made it possible for the young couple to buy.

"What is stopping us from buying is not the mortgage rates, but the fact that prices have not declined," said Hunt.

REPORT REVIVES FEARS OF LAYOFFS
Associated Press
November 1, 1991

WASHINGTON -- Orders for manufactured goods dropped 1.7 percent in September for the second consecutive monthly decline, the government said yesterday, raising fears of production and job cuts in an economic sector that was doing well.

"It says the recovery is in trouble," said David Jones, an economist with Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., a New York securities dealer.

President Bush also expressed concern over the economy, saying "it is not as strong as, obviously, we would...

POLITICS IN THE BIG SLEAZY
DUKE'S CAMPAIGN AND LOUISIANA'S SUDDEN CLIMATE OF FEAR
Jason Berry, Washington Post
November 3, 1991

Edwin Edwards recently brought his gubernatorial campaign against David Duke to a lush rice farm in Cajun country. It was a 1970s period piece: local pols, black and white, ate jambalaya as the silver-haired Edwards, the state's three-term former governor, hugged old podnas, kissed ladies and ate red beans and rice

"What will it take to beat Duke decisively?" one asked.

"For me to stay alive," he replied. And people laughed.

It was, though, the third time in...

CHECK-BOUNCER STUMBLES
KENTUCKY CANDIDATE MADE FINANCES THE ISSUE
Edward Walsh, Washington Post
November 4, 1991

Rep. Larry J. Hopkins (R-Ky.), an affable and respected lawmaker who has avoided serious controversy during 13 years in Washington, is finding out what it's like to campaign for public office these days as a member of what Vice President Quayle has called "an arrogant, self-serving institution that is out of touch with the American people.

It's not easy, and it's not much fun.

Last spring, Hopkins emerged from a rough primary as the Kentucky GOP's gubernatorial...

IN VIRGINIA AND NATION, VOTERS REGISTER THEIR DISCONTENT
BENEFICIARY OF TREND BEING DEBATED
ECONOMY, HEALTH CARE ISSUES EMERGEArticle 111 of 200 found
Dan Balz and Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post
November 7, 1991

Tuesday's election returns delivered a warning shot to incumbents and sent the Bush White House scrambling to find ways to stimulate the ailing economy and deal with the politically potent issue of national health care.

Democratic and Republican spokesmen differed sharply on who was the major beneficiary of an off-year campaign that produced a series of surprising results in elections and referenda around the country....

WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES MEMO IN MOVE TO RETAIN BAN ON ABORTION COUNSELING
Eric Pianin and Ann Devroy, Washington Post
November 6, 1991

On the eve of a House vote to nullify an administration ban on abortion counseling at federally funded family planning clinics, the White House last night circulated a memo on Capitol Hill that it hoped would deny opponents of the ban the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

The memorandum from President Bush to Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan addressed criticism that the rule would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and would deny women their...

TWO MEASURES OF THE AREA'S ECONOMY FALL
AUGUST DROP FOLLOWS SPRING IMPROVEMENT
Anne Swardson, Washington Post
November 6, 1991

Two broad measures of the health of the Washington economy fell again in August, raising the possibility that business here could get even worse.

A gauge of future activity went down 0.33 percent, its fourth straight month of decline. And a gauge of the economy's current condition fell 0.23 percent, its 17th decrease in the last 18 months.

The declines came after a spring in which the forecasting index had been improving, giving hope that the economy was getting better.

PRAYER CASE TESTS COURT'S LAW ON RELIGION
GRADUATION INVOCATION PRESENTS OPPORTUNITY FOR JUSTICES TO RELAX SEPARATION OF CHURCH, STATE
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
November 7, 1991

The Bush administration joined forces with Providence, R.I., school officials yesterday to urge the Supreme Court to relax its strict test for separation of church and state and allow prayers at public school graduation ceremonies.

But the justices, who have given indications that they may be prepared to overhaul the law on separation of church and state, peppered lawyers for the administration and the school board with questions that reflected apparent discomfort with permitting graduation....

DETROIT'S DETOUR ON FUEL EFFICIENCY
Hobart Rowen, Washington Post
November 7, 1991

The typical American, it is said, has an enduring love affair with his or her car. But the typical American manufacturer has a love affair only with big cars. There's no mystery to it: The greater the weight and horsepower, the bigger the sticker price. The bigger the sticker, the bigger the profit. Detroit therefore loves pricey gas guzzlers and forever has fought fuel efficiency associated with smaller cars.

At the moment the industry -- in cahoots with the Department of Transportation...

SECOND U.S. AUCTION ALSO GOES POORLY
TRADERS: FED ACTION CONFUSED BIDDERS
Brett D. Fromson, Washington Post
November 7, 1991

The Treasury's three-day, $38 billion government securities auction went poorly for the second day in a row, as the Federal Reserve's cut in the discount rate threw confusion into an already weak market, traders said today.

Although the government sold all of the $12 billion in 10-year notes that it planned to market, neither the big Wall Street brokerages nor their blue-chip customers bid aggressively. The Treasury sold the notes for less than expected, forcing the government to...

Too bad these "cockroaches" were the ones still in power:

HILL PANEL VOTES TO BLOCK RULE ON MEDICAID MATCHING FUNDS Reuters November 8, 1991

The House Energy and Commerce Committee moved yesterday to block implementation of a proposed Bush administration rule that would cut billions of dollars from federal Medicaid payments to the states.

The legislation prohibits the administration from implementing the rule until after the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said the rule issued in September by the Health Care Financing Administration will produce "budgetary and programmatic chaos in the ...

Posted by MB Williams at 09:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gillespie’s Good Idea

by Dwight Meredith

CBS’s decision to produce then pull the plug on the Reagan miniseries has caused a small brouhaha. Conservatives are upset that the miniseries did not back light the actors playing Ronnie and Nancy Reagan so that their halos would be clearly visible at all times. Liberals are upset that CBS caved to political pressure and decided not to air the program on free TV.

The controversy gained momentum when Ed Gillespie, Chairman of the Republican National Committee sent a letter to CBS. In his letter, Gillespie suggested that the miniseries be submitted to a “team of historians to review the program for historical accuracy, and a panel of people who actually know the Reagans personally to review it for accuracy in its portrayal of them as individuals before it is aired.”

Gillespie’s letter continues:

If you're unwilling to do so, I respectfully request that you inform your viewers via a crawl every ten minutes that the program is a fictional portrayal of the Reagans and the Reagan Presidency, and they should not consider it to be historically accurate.

The reason for the crawl, according to Gillespie is that the program might contain “contains omissions, exaggerations, distortions or scenes that are fiction masquerading as fact.”

I think that is a great idea but I do not understand why it would apply only to the Reagan miniseries. After all, the President’s State of the Union speech is equally likely to contain “omissions, exaggerations, distortions” or outright fiction.

I suggest that all networks put a crawl on the screen during President Bush’s next SOTU speech. The crawl could run every few minutes and say “this program is a fictional portrayal of the policies and accomplishments of the Bush administration and should not be considered to be historically accurate.”

Luskin folds

by Dwight Meredith

Atrios and Donald Luskin have agreed to a Joint statement. The statement, which Atrios has posted says:

We both regret a series of misunderstandings that have resulted in something that neither of us intended. We have discussed our differences, and both of us are confident that such misunderstandings will not occur again in the future. As a result, Mr. Luskin is retracting his demand letter of October 29, 2003. We congratulate each other on having quickly achieved an amicable resolution. We are both glad to have put this behind us."

Kevin Drum finds the statement both “odd” and “mysterious.”

As someone who has been involved in the resolution of many legal disputes (both with and without resort to litigation), please allow me to translate the “Joint Statement.” Stripped of its negotiated language, the Joint Statement says the following:

Luskin: Man, did I ever screw the pooch? Having a lawyer write the letter threatening suit against Atrios was a stupid mistake. Not only would any such lawsuit be frivolous, but the truck-load of scorn heaped upon me by the blogosphere has decimated whatever small shreds of credibility I may have previously possessed. Therefore, I have decided to fold my cards and cut my losses.

Atrios: Okay.

I arrive at that translation by comparing the outcome to the interests of each party. Luskin wanted Atrios to delete this post and its comments. To get what he wanted, he threatened to expose Atrios’ identity and to impose the costs of defending a lawsuit on Atrios.

Atrios, for his part, did not want to remove the post, wanted to protect his identity, and wanted to avoid the expense of winning the lawsuit (I do not believe that there was any realistic chance that Luskin would actually win damages in the suit).

As far as I can tell, Atrios achieved all of his objectives and Luskin achieved none of his. The post and its comments stand. Atrios’ identity remains secret. No suit has been or will be filed.

The technical term for what transpired is “surrender.” Atrios is to be congratulated on his victory and he should also be commended for his graciousness in agreeing to post the “Joint Statement” to allow Luskin to save some small degree of face.

Echos

8:15 Eastern Standard Time here in Maine, and my partner and I are watching MTV's "Rock the Vote" Democratic candidate "debate. One of the reasons this is quite poignant is that telve years ago, as the Outreach Coordinator for Clinton/Gore in Connecticut, I helped organize some of the first "Rock the Vote" concerts, including Michelle Shocked, who was absolutely amazing. I'm now watching this debate with one seven-year old tucked into her bed, three and five year olds asleep on the couch, and a 15th month old issuing forth this blood-curling scream every few minutes she doesn't get what she wants, and who claps ardently for Al Sharpton (of which I do approve.)

After the debate, some CNN talking head babbled on about Dean's Confederate flag flap as "much ado about nothing"... Over the past few months I've had many friends (and some foe) who have inquired about my outspoken dispute with Howard Dean, and just recently, a woman I much admire asked for further clarification on the issue, as I haven't written much on the issue here on Wampum, and with good reason, as I have tried to keep the Democratic circular-firing squad off the front page.

However, I've now reached a point of email and comment saturation where I feel I need to publicly clarify my comments. As a preamble to this discussion, my honest feeling is that the vast majority of Americans, Democrats included, really don't give a flying, ugh, hoot, about American Indian issues, and other than our being systematically, or maybe publicly, eradicated, only a handful will utter a peep. [Of the Presidential candidates, from their records, the candidates I think who would actually take that stand would be Senator Edwards and Congressman Gephardt.]

But we were talking about Howard Dean, weren't we?

In as dispassionate a tone as I can take, my problem, as a Wabanaki Confederacy Indian, is that Howard Dean's record in Vermont is unredeemable. Despite the fact that Indian gaming was not an option in Vermont for even federally recognized tribes under the Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), Dean consistently asserted that his opposition to the Swanton Band of Abenaki's petition for federal recognition was based upon his concern regarding "Indian gaming". He hired an outside firm to try and undermine the Abenaki's petition by claiming that they were "French Canadian" and not Indian, all the while, in an official position, attending the funeral of Chief Homer St. Francis, former leader of the Western Abenaki. When the Vermont Legislature sought to provide Abenakis with "state recognition", which would allow Abenakis to 1) hunt and fish without licenses, 2) allow Abenaki children to qualify for scholarships and specific benefits, and 3) protect sacred grounds, including Abenaki burials grounds. The latter resonates personally for me as I, as a tribal archaeologist, received the phone call late one night, where one of our traditonal burial ground was being desecrated by a state-ordered backhoe.

Why you should always read the small print...

As I was surfing through economic headlines this evening, this jumped out at me:

U.S. manufacturing activity surges
Closely watched measure of manufacturing activity stronger than expected in October.
November 3, 2003: 11:17 AM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. manufacturing accelerated in October, the nation's purchasing managers said Monday, in a report that surpassed most forecasts on Wall Street.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of manufacturing activity jumped to 57 from 53.7 in September. It was the fourth straight month the ISM index was above 50, a number that indicates expansion in the sector.

Economists, on average, expected the ISM index to rise to 55.8, according to Briefing.com.

"This is the best report that we have seen in quite some time in terms of the overall strength of manufacturing," said Norbert Ore, chair of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. "The picture continues to improve, and it appears that manufacturing will finish 2003 on a very positive note, assuming the recent trend continues."

Now to be honest, I never got past the "surges", as I was unaware that the ISM report was in fact due out today. After surfing over to their website for the official report, I was confronted with a somewhat less "rosy" analysis:

ISM's Backlog of Orders Index indicates that order backlogs improved again in October. However, manufacturing Employment continued to decline in October as the index remained below the breakeven point (50 percent) for the 37th consecutive month. ISM's Prices Index indicates that manufacturers experienced higher prices for the 20th consecutive month. New Export Orders grew in October for the 22nd consecutive month, while October's Imports Index grew for the 12th consecutive month.

Comments from purchasing and supply managers seem to be lagging the data. The indexes indicate significant improvement, but the purchasing and supply managers' comments do not reflect this trend. It appears that some industries are not yet experiencing the upturn.

Hmmmm...that doesn't sound so great... Time to read more of the CNN report:

The ISM noted, however, that some parts of the manufacturing sector have yet to improve, based on comments from individual purchasing and supply managers that were still cautious.

"It appears that some industries are not yet experiencing the upturn," the ISM report said....

The employment index rose to 47.7 from 45.7 in September, indicating manufacturers were still cutting jobs, but at a slower pace.

"We're still seeing job cuts in manufacturing, and it's going to stay that way for some time," said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Native American Securities in New York."

[Note: Yes, there is a large financial institution run by Indians which is oft quoted in mainstream media outlets.]

So the news is really not all that different from recent months; A significant Keynesian upsurge based upon consumer spending due to one-time middle-class tax credits, but which fails to motivate businesses to increase employment versus fall back on an upswing in productivity.

A lot of Administration apologists assert that critics want nothing more than to see the economic "recovery" fail; to be honest, seeing that in this household we've been unemployed all but six months out of the past twenty-one, I personally would like nothing more than to see a true upturn in the economy. Unfortunately, I see this recent upswing as a house of cards built on a foundation of sand, to mix metaphors, and suspect that as the stimulus which was infused late this summer winds down, we'll see a return of the "double" (or is it now "triple"?) dip in employment, whether or not GDP continues to surge.

Race Card

by Dwight Meredith

Jane Galt recently played the race card. Jane accuses Democrats of racial discrimination in the confirmation of Federal appellate court judges. Specifically, Jane charges that:

Democrats are pretty clearly trying to keep conservative minorities off the appellate bench.

She even suggests that the Democrats would be guilty of violating discrimination laws if their conduct had occurred in the private sector.

I think Jane’s charge is baseless for two reasons. First, the evidence she presents in support of the charge is almost non-existent. Secondly, she fails to explore alternative explanations for the very few examples she provides.

Jane’s evidence for her charge of racial discrimination consists solely of the fact that Democrats blocked the confirmation of Miguel Estrada, a Hispanic male, and may block the confirmation of Janice Brown, an African-American woman. Those two instances are the sum total of all evidence marshaled to support the charge of discrimination.

Mr. Bush has nominated other minorities to the bench. Those nominees are conservatives. As Jane has noted, “George Bush is going to nominate conservative judges because George Bush is a conservative.” Before Democrats are charged with “trying to keep conservative minorities off the appellate bench” those other nominations should be considered. In Jane’s comments, Alkali sets the record straight, listing the minority nominations to the Federal bench:

Confirmed, Hispanic: Christina Armijo (NM), Phillip Martinez (TX), Randy Crane (TX), Jose Martinez (FL), Alia Ludlum (TX), Jose Linares (NJ), Edward Prado (5th Circuit), Consuelo Callahan (9th Circuit), S. James Otero (CA), Cecilia Altonaga (FL), Xavier Rodriguez (TX), Frank Rodriguez Montalvo (TX)

Not confirmed, Hispanic: Miguel Estrada (DC Circuit)

Confirmed, African-American(*): Beggie B. Walton (DC), Julie A. Robinson (KS), Legrome D. Davis Pennsylvania (PA), Percy Anderson (CA), Lavenski R. Smith (8th Circuit), Henry Edward Autry (MO), Morrison C. England, Jr. (CA)

Not confirmed, African-American: Janice Rogers Brown (DC Circuit) (at least not yet)

(*) Does not include two nominees which were originally nominated by Pres. Clinton. Also omitted are two African-American nominees who are expected to be confirmed shortly.

By my count, that is 19 minority nominees confirmed, two more likely to be confirmed, one defeated, and one pending. In fairness, though, Jane’s charge was limited to nominees to the Circuit (appellate) Court bench while Alkali’s list includes nominees to the trial (District) courts.

Assuming Alkali’s list to be accurate, when only Circuit Court nominations are considered, Edward Prado (5th Circuit), Consuelo Callahan (9th Circuit) and Lavenski R. Smith (8th Circuit) have been confirmed while Estrada and Brown have not.

Now in most circumstances, Jane would be the first to tell you that drawing conclusions from a data set as small of five is inappropriate. Not so long ago, I looked at economic performance by party of the President. The period studied covered thirteen presidents and about 75 years. In comments to that post, Jane wrote:

No statistician would use a data set this small, since random variance is likely to be much more powerful than any effect you're trying to measure in a data set with seven members. I can't even begin to go into the number of ways in which this data is totally meaningless -- using it is the worst sort of cargo cult science.

The data set Jane is considering (minority nominees to the Circuit Courts) has a data set of five members. Jane ignores the three instances that do not support her hypothesis. She then draws a sweeping conclusion of racial discrimination from the two data points she chooses to consider. If that is not the “worst sort of cargo cult science,” it surely must be the best sort.

Jane also fails to consider non-racial explanations for Democrats’ opposition to Estrada and Brown before playing her race card. She has previously noted that it is appropriate to consider alternative explanations before concluding that actions are rooted in racial discrimination.

Last year a study showed that job applicants with “black names” were far less likely to be called back for an interview than applicants with identical resumes but with “white names.” Before concluding that the disparity was racially motivated, Jane thought it necessary to ask “Are there alternate explanations to racism?”

That is an appropriate inquiry. Before charging Democrats with discriminating against minority nominees, did Jane look for alternative explanations? She did not. If she had looked for alternative explanations, she would have found plenty.

For instance, when Judge Brown was being considered for a position on the California Supreme Court, the California Bar gave her an “unqualified” rating. When nominated for the appellate bench, the American Bar Association gave her a split rating of “qualified/unqualified.”

Secondly, Judge Brown favors a return the Lochner era jurisprudence of substantive due process. As the Washington Post has noted:

In speeches, she has openly embraced the Supreme Court's so-called "Lochner" era, during which the justices struck down numerous worker protection laws on grounds that they violated the supposed right of free contract. Across the spectrum of constitutional law scholarship, there are few points of greater consensus than that this period is a blot on the Supreme Court's history. The very word "Lochner" -- named for the 1905 case that forged the doctrine -- has come to be used as a pejorative shorthand for judicial usurpation of legislative authority. Yet Justice Brown has insisted that without such usurpation, "a democracy is inevitably transformed into a Kleptocracy -- a license to steal, a warrant for oppression."

As Alan Brill has written, a return to Lochner era jurisprudence would permit such things as child labor in the name of “freedom to contract.” Is it possible that Democratic opposition to Judge Brown arises from opposition to that position rather than racial discrimination? Jane chooses not to explore that question.

Perhaps most disturbing is Judge Brown’s position with regard to the applicability of the Bill of Rights to the States. The Atlanta Journal Constitution says that:

Brown's views, as espoused in speeches to ultraconservative groups, are far out of the mainstream of accepted legal principles. For example, she has disputed whether the Bill of Rights, as incorporated in the U.S. Constitution, should have been applied to the states.

It is hard to overstate how radical a position that is. The First Amendment, for instance, says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

By its very terms, that provision only prohibits conduct by Congress. It does not protect freedom of speech or religion from actions taken at the state level.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits states from engaging in conduct that violates the First Amendment only because the Supreme Court has long held that the 14th Amendment incorporates those rights and makes them applicable to the states. It is that incorporation doctrine that Judge Brown opposes.

If the Journal Constitution is right about Judge’s Brown’s position, then she would see no federal constitutional problem with a state law requiring that all newspapers seek approval of the state government before publishing a story.

In addition, suppose a state passed a law adopting Islam as its official religion. The law might ban the publication, ownership and reading of the Bible. It might also require each and every citizen to bow towards Mecca and pray to Allah five times a day. The penalty for violating the law might be incarceration. In the jurisprudence of Judge Brown, no federal constitutional provision would prohibit such a law.

Is it possible, just barely possible mind you, that Democrats oppose the confirmation of Judge Brown because she is viewed a radical nut case whose jurisprudence would set the clock back many decades rather than because of her race? Jane ignores that issue in her haste to play the race card.

Charges of racial discrimination are always serious. Charging more than forty of our top political leaders with racial discrimination is even more serious. Such charges require a great deal more evidence than has yet been presented.