Wampum

Broaden The Debate

I do not find efforts to explore the ways that a candidate’s religious faith informs (or fails to inform) his or her public policy positions to be inappropriate.

In the run up to the Iraq war, the National Council of Churches prepared and ran an ad that featured a Methodist Bishop. The ad has been described as follows:

In the latest ad, actress Janeane Garofalo says she keeps wondering: Does the United States have the right to invade "a country that's done nothing to us?' "

Bishop Melvin G. Talbert, the chief ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Church, answers: "No nation under God has that right. It violates international law, it violates God's law and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Iraq hasn't wronged us. War will only create more terrorists and a more dangerous world for our children."

The choice of a Methodist Bishop to deliver that message was quite pointed as President Bush is, of course, a Methodist.

I find nothing inappropriate about that ad. I do find it inappropriate that some networks and local stations refused to sell time to show the ad “citing the controversial content.”

Similarly, I find nothing inappropriate about the media or partisans raising the issue of how John Kerry’s Catholicism affects his public policy positions. My concern is that the debate is too narrow, not too broad. In particular, it seems to me that the efforts to explore the subject have too often focused on Democratic politicians, the Catholic faith and the issue of abortion.

Kevin T. Keith at Lean Left links to this Washington Post story in which some question why the debate is solely about abortion:

A question has been gnawing at Frank A. McNeirney since he read that some Roman Catholic bishops want to deny Communion to Catholic politicians, such as Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, whose public positions are at odds with church doctrine.

Does this only apply to abortion?" asked McNeirney, 67, of Bethesda. "What about the death penalty?"

Expanding the debate to include issues other than abortion seems like a good idea.

Atrios, in a series of posts entitled Gonzo Journalism, suggests the debate be broadened to include Republican Catholic politicians. Atrios suggests some questions for Governor George Pataki and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, both pro-choice Catholic Republicans:

1) Is it the Governor's position that pro-Choice politicians should not be allowed to take communion?

2) Does the governor himself take communion when he attends church?

3) Does the governor attend church regularly? Did he attend church yesterday? Did he take communion?

Atrios also wants to expand the debate to other issues by asking Catholic Republicans such as Senator Rick Santorum about their position on contraception:

Call the offices of Rick Santorum and ask them what the Senator's position on the birth control pill is. Does he think it should be legal to prescribe it? What about condoms? Vasectomies?

I find those efforts to explore the ways in which the Catholic faith affects politician’s thinking on a variety of public policy issues to be completely appropriate. I do not think that the exploration should be limited to politicians who happen to be Catholic.

President Bush has long used code words to signal to evangelical fundamentalists that he is one of them. I think that it would be useful and informative to ask Mr. Bush directly about his beliefs. For instance, I think that asking “Mr. President, do you believe that the earth is closer to 6,000 years old or billions of years old?” might elicit an interesting answer. Similarly as a belief that Armageddon is nigh could effect one’s thinking about a whole host of public policy issues ranging from environmental policy to 401k’s, asking President Bush directly about his beliefs on the subject is appropriate.

As noted above, Mr. Bush is a Methodist. The Methodist Church, like the Catholic Church, has taken positions on a whole host of issues that are related to public policy. Some of those positions seem to be at odds with the public policy positions taken by the Bush administration. It would be appropriate to ask Mr. Bush if and how he reconciles his public policy positions with his Methodist faith.

For instance, the Methodist Church teaches that:

We claim all economic systems to be under the judgment of God no less than other facets of the created order. Therefore, we recognize the responsibility of governments to develop and implement sound fiscal and monetary policies…

How does Mr. Bush square that teaching with his polices that have produced record deficits?

The Methodist Church:

We support measures that would reduce the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. We further support efforts to revise tax structures and to eliminate governmental support programs that now benefit the wealthy at the expense of other persons.

Did Mr. Bush consider that position when advocating his tax cuts?

The Methodist Church rejects “the permanent replacement of a worker who engages in a lawful strike.” Does President Bush agree?

The Methodist Church believes that:

Every person has the right to a job at a living wage. Where the private sector cannot or does not provide jobs for all who seek and need them, it is the responsibility of government to provide for the creation of such jobs.

Does President Bush’s accept the Church's position on that issue?

It is Republican doctrine that corporations exist solely to promote shareholder value. The Methodist Church disagrees:

Corporations are responsible not only to their stockholders, but also to other stakeholders: their workers, suppliers, vendors, customers, the communities in which they do business, and for the earth, which supports them.

Does President Bush accept or reject Methodist teachings on that subject?

The Bush administration is widely seen as the most secretive at least since Nixon. How does President Bush square that penchant for secrecy with the teachings of the church that “citizens of all countries should have access to all essential information regarding their government and its policies.”

There are many other examples such as school prayer, war, the role of the United Nations and others in which it would be helpful to know how Mr. Bush’s religious beliefs effect his public policy positions.

We should expand, not narrow, the debate over how religious beliefs shape candidate’s public policy positions. The debate should include Republicans as well as Democrats, Protestants (and Jews, and Muslims and others) as well as Catholics and a whole variety of issues instead of a single focus on abortion.

I think that such a debate would be healthy and informative.

Update: A couple of readers noted some usage errors. I fixed them. Thanks guys.

Creekstone Farms Update

I recently wrote about Creekstone Farm’s efforts to privately test all of its cattle for mad cow disease so as to be able to meet the demands of it’s Japanese customers. The United States Department of Agriculture refused to allow Creekstone to test its cattle despite the fact that Creekstone would completely fund such testing. If the USDA position stands, Creekstone will likely go out of business and about 800 workers will lose their jobs,

The always excellent Charles Dodgson of Through the Looking Glass has an interesting take on the subject as well.

As I previously noted, the USDA’s reason for denying Creekstone the right to meet it’s customer’s demands was that:

USDA officials say that they sympathize with Creekstone and similar operations hurt by the bans imposed by Japan and other nations, but that agreeing to the company's request could imply there is a safety issue with American beef and usher in an era of expensive testing that has no scientific justification.

In particular, the USDA objects to testing cows younger than thirty months. Julia was kind enough to send me a link to this UPI story by email. The story quotes a USDA official as saying:

In announcing the decision to reject Creekstone's proposal, Bill Hawks, USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said, "There is no scientific justification for 100 percent testing because the disease does not appear in younger animals" under the age of 30 months.

The USDA position, apparently, is that mad cow disease does not appear in younger cattle and that any testing regimen, private or otherwise, that tested younger cows is not justified by the science and would imply that there is a safety issue where none actually exists. In effect, the USDA position is that the testing of younger cows, as Creekstone proposes, would "usher in an era of expensive testing that has no scientific justification" by implying a concern about the safety of American beef.

Given that American beef producers can not now sell beef in parts of Asia, it is apparent that the current testing regimen has not prevented such safety concerns.

Even more to the point, the UPI article reports that the USDA has itself tested cattle younger than 30 months of age:

A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture decision to block a private company from testing all its cattle under 30 months of age for mad cow disease runs contrary to its own records that show it has tested more than 2,000 animals in that age range, United Press International has learned…

The department's mad cow testing records, however, which were obtained by UPI via the Freedom of Information Act, show over the past two years the agency tested 2,051 animals -- and possibly more -- that were under the age of 30 months.

"That's so hypocritical," said Michael Hansen, senior research associate with Consumers Union, the advocacy group in Yonkers, N.Y. "It makes it difficult for the USDA to argue to Creekstone, 'We only test animals above 30 months,' when USDA itself tests animals as young as 3 months old."

In 2002, the agency tested 999 animals under 30 months old, including one as young as 3 months. The bulk, 841, were 24 months old, but 40 were 20 months, 31 were 18 months, 52 were 12 months and there were single cases of cows as young as 9, 8, 6 and 3 months old.

The fact that the USDA has tested younger cows while arguing that Creekstone should not be allowed to do so because it might set off a panic unjustified by science raises a number of interesting questions.

If the science does not justify testing younger cows because the disease does not appear in cows under 30 months of age, why is the USDA wasting taxpayer money by testing such animals?

Will the revelation that the USDA had a regimen of testing younger cows "usher in an era of expensive testing that has no scientific justification" as the USDA contended private testing would? If so, there is no harm in allowing Creekstone to go ahead and test privately.

UPI reports that a Consumer Union research associate claims that two cows under 20 months of age have tested positive in Japan and two cows under 30 months have tested positive in Europe. How does that information square with the USDA position that “the disease does not appear in younger animals?”

It just gets harder and harder to understand the USDA position. Testing does not show mad cow disease in younger cows but the USDA has tested younger cows anyway. The USDA claims that testing younger cows will set off an unjustified safety concern so the USDA tests such cows. It is okay for the government to test younger cows but a private company must be prevented from doing so even if it means bankruptcy for the company and the loss of jobs for 800 employees.

The solution is simple. Let the USDA require testing that is justified by the science while allowing private companies, at their own expense, to do whatever additional testing they choose based on preferences revealed by the market. It is really not that difficult.

Autism News

I have been greatly remiss in reporting on developments in the world of autism research. To ameliorate that deficiency, here is a triple helping.

First, we have good news in the area of genetic research into the roots of autism. The Genome News Network reports:

Researchers studying families with autism have pinpointed a gene that may increase susceptibility to autism in a broad population. Most rare genetic mutations associated with autism have been identified in single families.

Joseph D. Buxbaum and colleagues at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York conducted genetic screening of 411 families with members who have autism. The sample included 2,000 people, of whom 720 are afflicted with the disorder.

The researchers report their findings in this month’s American Journal of Psychiatry…

Previous research had demonstrated an association between a gene located on chromosome 2 and autism. This chromosome is known to be associated with deficits in language development—a hallmark of autism. This time, researchers looked for a gene on a specific part of the chromosome, zeroing in on the gene known as SLC25A12.

Buxbaum and his colleagues confirmed that the gene occurs with greater frequency in autistic individuals and in members of their family than in families without the disorder.

The gene increases risk for the disease but carrying the gene doesn’t necessarily mean that an individual will develop the disease, Buxbaum says, noting that more than one gene is involved in autism. But individuals with the gene have twice the risk for developing the disorder as individuals without it.

The identification of gene SLC25A12 as being associated with autism makes the identification of other genes far easier. The creation of a genetic profile of persons at increased risk of autism may, in the middle term, permit a blood test to identify candidates for early intervention. Early intervention with intensive social science therapies (ABA etc.) is the current state of the art for achieving better outcomes for autistics.

In the long term, identification of the genetic roots of autism could lead to a cure. Good news indeed.

Last year a popular news magazine ran a story on autism suggesting that autism is an “extreme version of normal male intelligence.” I have my doubts about such a theory but, since God failed to grant me a monopoly on wisdom (for inexplicable reasons know only to Her), each must make his or her own determination.

The leading proponent of the “extreme maleness” theory is Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. His book, The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain is available here. Actually, if you want to buy it, may I suggest that you do so through Jim’s portal?

Simon Baron-Cohen has a new research report supporting his theory. A Sunday Herald story reports:

A leading specialist has claimed autism may be linked to over-production of the male hormone testosterone.

Research by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has shown that babies who produce high levels of the hormone in the womb are more likely to develop abnormalities in social development and other autistic traits.

Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, said his team had taken samples of amniotic fluid from the wombs of 3000 pregnant mothers to analyse for levels of testosterone.

On each baby’s first birthday, researchers videoed the child to determine social interaction with their mother, including how much eye contact they made. The research, the first of its kind to assess whether a foetus’s hormone levels could determine autism, found that babies who had produced higher levels of the male hormone were less likely to make eye contact with their parent.

Now, preliminary findings from Baron-Cohen’s latest research – which studies how the children cope socially at school – has again found that those with the highest levels of prenatal testosterone now face a greater challenge in forming friendships.

He said: “We have followed these women from before birth and we’ve looked at hormones, in particular pre natal testosterone. We are trying to establish whether hormone levels can influence social relationships. That is exactly what we have been finding.

“The children are now four and so we wanted to study them when they were just starting school, which is another social challenge. We have found that prenatal testosterone predicts how easily a child can make friends in a social group. These are brand new results.”

The initial results, which will be published later this year in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, comes from a sample of 170 children. Baron-Cohen said that by the end of the year, researchers will have results for the thousands of children in the study.

He added: “None of these children has a diagnosis of autism but it is inevitable that a number will in a group of this size. Most will not get a diagnosis until they are around five or six.

“At the moment we are writing to all the women to find out which, if any, [of the babies] have a diagnosis of autism or a related child development condition. By the end of the year we may be able to test whether a child who had elevated levels of testosterone prenatally will go on to develop autism.”

I will await the further report on the research to make any judgments as to what, if anything, the research shows.

Another researcher thinks that autism is linked to a lack of Vitamin A. The news story is here:

Virtually every fortified cereal packet broadcasts the message that vitamin A is vital for good eyesight. But even the most gung-ho marketing manager would pause before claiming that the vitamin can dramatically improve the symptoms of autistic children by repairing damage to their retina. However, this is precisely the claim being made by an American paediatrician, who has evidence that treating these children with the right sort of vitamin A is not only highly effective but provides valuable new insights into some of the most puzzling symptoms of this disorder.

"Once you understand the way autistic children 'see' their world," says Dr Mary Megson, a professor of paediatrics at the Medical College of Virginia, "the fact that they don't look you in the eye and can't bear for things to be changed makes perfect sense." She emphatically rejects the widely accepted hypothesis that these children have no theory of mind (ie, no understanding that other people have their own thoughts, plans, points of view), and that they relate to other people as just another type of thing.

Instead, she maintains that their seemingly alienated behaviour is perfectly rational. It is their way of surviving in an extraordinary and terrifying visual world, the result of damage to a protein pathway that affects the way that certain specialised cells in their retinas work. "Imagine that everything appeared to you like a some paintings by Picasso, flat and two-dimensional, with various features superimposed," urges Dr Megson, who has specialised in developmental disorders for the last 15 years. "Or think of a Hockney collage, digitally remastered with all the depth cues taken out."

At a conference on nutritional psychiatry in London earlier this year, Dr Megson described how she has found that a proportion of her patients have only a tiny visual window on the world where things are reasonably clear and appear in 3D. All around this they only see colours and vague shapes. This makes it very hard for them to follow movement, especially the subtleties of facial expressions. Making sense of a new scene is equally challenging - hence their desperate insistence that everything should follow ritualised, predictable patterns...

She is certain that vaccination is at least one of the factors fuelling the rise. But although she agrees with Andrew Wakefield's controversial ideas about the effects of the MMR vaccine on the gut, she is particularly concerned about the vaccine for whooping cough and the "pertussis toxin" it contains. The evidence that she has seen has convinced her that certain children have a genetic susceptibility that makes certain proteins in their bodies vulnerable to damage by the toxin, which can have wide-ranging effects.

Known as "G proteins", they are found all over the body, but especially in the brain and guts, and are involved in boosting or dampening down the signals coming in from our senses (such as sight via the retina), as well as controlling such vital pathways as those for fats and glucose. The scary visual world of the children provides a close-up of how far-reaching the damage can be.

The theory is that receptors in the brain that control the "rod" cells in the retina have been affected by the whooping-cough vaccine. Rods are the cells that convey shading and depth, and allow us to see in black and white in the dark. They are more thickly clustered around the edge of the retina. "When these children look away from you," says Dr Megson, "they are turning their eyes so that the light reflected from your face lands on the outside of their retina, where the rods still have some function."

I am highly skeptical of that theory as well but, as noted above, each must make their own determination.

The common element in all three stories linked above is that autism research, long a red headed step-child, is now an extremely robust area of inquiry with many different researchers exploring many different theories. For those of us who would like to see the identification of the causes of autism in order to eventually find a cure, that is the really good news.

Page 23, Sentence 5

Via Talk Left, I learned of the following instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

In my case, my computer sits near my post WWII American history shelf. Three books were equidistant. The first was The Fifties by David Halberstam. The sentence concerned Harry Truman:

If his language when he was young was that of a rural Missouri boy, filled with crude references to African-Americans as “niggers,” he went beyond his predecessors in terms of activism for civil rights; if his letters had once been filled with unkind references to Jews and New York as “kike town,” he, more than any other politician in the world, was responsible for the creation of Israel.

The second was Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972 by Stephen E. Ambrose (back when he actually wrote his own books):

Two days before Nixon left the States, Kennedy had made a dramatic appeal for peace in a major address at American University.

The third was Taylor Branch’s superb Pillar of Fire: America In The King Years 1963-65:

Their dream was to make of this largest voluntary body of Negroes in the world -- upward of ten thousand preachers and some five million members—a ready-made civil rights phalanx that upon command could descend upon segregated targets for protest or Christian revival.

Comparison Shopping

Since the GOP has raised (link via Angry Bear) the issue of John Kerry’s military service, it seems appropriate to do a little comparison shopping:

George W. Bush:

A retired Alabama Air National Guard officer said Friday that he remembers George Bush showing up for duty in Alabama in 1972, reading safety magazines and flight manuals in an office as he performed his weekend obligations… "He sat in my office most of the time — he would read," Calhoun said. "He had your training manuals from your aircraft he was flying. He'd study those some. He'd read safety magazines, which is a common thing for pilots."

John F. Kerry(pdf):

Lieutenant (jg) Kerry was serving as Officer in Charge of Inshore Patrol Craft 94, one of five boats conducting a SEA LORDS operation in the Bay Hap River. While exiting the river, a mine detonated under another Inshore Patrol Craft and almost simultaneously, another mine detonated close aboard his Inshore Patrol Craft knocking a man into the water and wounding Lieutenant (jg) Kerry in the right arm. In addition, all units began receiving small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks. When Lieutenant (jg) Kerry discovered he had a man overboard, he returned upriver to assist. The man in the water was receiving sniper fire from both banks. Lieutenant (jg) Kerry directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire, while from an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain and with disregard for his personal safety, he pulled the man aboard. Lieutenant (jg) Kerry then directed his boat to return and assist the other damaged Inshore Patrol Craft. His crew attached a line and towed the damaged boat to safety. Lieutenant (jg) Kerry’s professionalism, great personal courage under fire, and complete dedication to duty reflected great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

George W. Bush:

Those who encountered Bush in Alabama remember him as an affable social drinker who acted younger than his 26 years. Referred to as George Bush, Jr. by newspapers in those days, sources say he also tended to show up late every day, around noon or one, at Blount's campaign headquarters in Montgomery. They say Bush would prop his cowboy boots on a desk and brag about how much he drank the night before… Bush also made an impression on the "Blue-Haired Platoon," a group of older Republican Women working for Blount. Behind his back they called him "the Texas soufflé," Archibald said, because he was "all puffed up and full of hot air."

John F. Kerry(pdf):

Lieutenant (jg) Kerry was serving as Officer in Charge of Patrol Craft Fast 94 and Officer in Tactical Command of a three-boat unit… As the force approached the target area on the narrow Dong Cung River, all units came under intense automatic weapons and small arms fire from an entrenched enemy force less than fifty feet away. Unhesitatingly, Lieutenant (jg) Kerry ordered his boat to attack as all units opened fire and beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers. This daring and courageous tactic surprised the enemy ambushers and succeeded in routing a score of enemy soldiers. The PFC gunners captured many enemy weapons in the battle that followed. On a request upon U.S. Army advisors ashore, he ordered PFCs 94 and 23 further up river to suppress enemy sniper fire. After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the boats were again taken underfire from a heavily foliated area and a B-40 rocket exploded close aboard PFC 94. With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party shore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon sweeping the area, an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed. The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (jg) Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission. By his brave action, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Does the GOP really want to raise the issue?

Liberal Federal Judges?

While some of us on the left view the right as a monolith, the truth is that the right is made up of a coalition of various groups. Libertarians, big business types, religious, cultural, and social conservatives, main street business people, and neo-conservatives all have a seat inside the right’s tent. Many of those groups have little in common. A poor, rural, Southern, religious conservative does not exactly run in the same crowd as a rich, yankee, Wall Street merger and acquisition tycoon.

What holds that coalition together?

Mark Kleiman suggests one common element of the various groups on the right is that they support polices that “as a practical matter, increase the share of the national income going to the top 1% of the distribution and decrease the shares going to the bottom tenth, bottom quartile, and (in most cases) bottom half.”

One of Mark’s readers, Steve Teles, is a political scientist at Brandies. He emails Mark and suggests a different commonality:

What holds all those folks on the conservative side together, fundamentally (along with a few substantive issue) is hatred of liberals. Disgust, on a very deep, gut level, and a sense that conservatives are marginalized in the institutions liberals control and a sense that they manipulate language and procedure to control those institutions and to keep conservatives out.

One institution that conservatives claim is dominated by liberalism is the Federal Judiciary. Conservatives have been complaining for half a century that liberal, activist judges on the Federal bench are laying waste to the values that conservatives hold dear.

The specific issues identified by conservatives to support that position include abortion, rights of criminals, school prayer, school desegregation and affirmative action.

That argument is as dated as Austin Powers. Each of those decisions occurred at least a generation ago. The seminal abortion decision, Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Affirmative action was approved in the 1978 Bakke decision.

Miranda was a 1966 case. Schools were desegregated by the 1955 Brown vs. Board of Education case. School prayer was addressed in the 1962 case of Engel v. Vitale.

Does it seem strange that conservatives claim that the current Federal Judiciary is liberal based on cases from twenty-five to fifty years ago?

The only recent “liberal” decision extending individual rights that I can think of off the top of my head is the Lawrence case overturning the Texas sodomy statute. That case was a 6-3 decision with four of the seven Republican-appointed Justices in the majority. If Lawrence is to be the example of recent liberal judicial decisions besieging conservative values, perhaps conservatives should take it up with the Republican politicians who appointed those Justices.

The conservative argument that the Federal Judiciary is controlled by liberals may have been true at one time but is clearly not the case today. That point can be demonstrated in three ways. First, the numbers show that it is Republican Presidents, not Democrats who, by and large, have shaped the current Federal Judiciary.

Of the nine current members of the Supreme Court, seven were appointed by Republicans. In the last thirty-five years (since 1969) there have been thirteen appointments to the Supreme Court. Republican Presidents have made eleven of those appointments while Democratic Presidents have made two.

At the Circuit Court of Appeals level, the pattern remains the same. Since 1969, Republican Presidents have appointed 211 Judges to the Circuit Courts. Democrats have appointed 122. Since 1969, Republican Presidents have appointed 813 trial Judges to the District Court bench while Democrats have made 508 such appointments.

If the Federal Judiciary is comprised of a bunch of liberal activists, it is the GOP who put them there.

The second method of showing that the Federal Judiciary is not dominated by liberals is to look to policy prescriptions advocated by conservatives. For instance, Republican tort reform proposals would funnel much class action litigation into the Federal courts and to give more power over such suits to Federal judges. If conservatives really believe that the Federal courts are infested with liberal, activist judges, why would they want to provide them with more power and control rather than less?

Finally, the idea that the Federal courts are a bastion of liberalism does not comport with my experience. When I was a defense lawyer representing some of the nation’s largest companies, I removed state court suits to Federal court whenever possible. Similarly, when I represent human beings against large corporations, the defense routinely removes the action to Federal Court if my complaint permits them to do so. It would be a strange coincidence if corporate America was seeking a more liberal, judicially active forum while poor, powerless individuals preferred the more conservative tribunal.

I have long wondered why conservatives keep making the argument that the Federal bench consists of a bunch of liberals when it is plain that it is just not so. Thanks to Steve Teles, I now understand. The factual basis for such a contention is irrelevant. The fiction that the Federal courts are a bastion of liberalism is politically necessary to keep the conservative coalition together. The idea of a liberal judiciary cuts across the right's coalition and gives shape and direction to the anger of the various parts of the coalition. It unites the northern, urban, M&A tycoon with the rural, socially conservative Southerner.

Regardless of how conservative the Federal courts become, conservatives will always argue that the courts are liberal because the argument is politically necessary. The political imperative trumps the reality.
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True Love

Republican administrations, including the current edition, profess to love free markets. I believe them. This administration does indeed love free markets. The only problem is that it loves a lot of things. It is when free market principles collide with other interests that we can see whether its affection is a school girl crush or real love.

When free markets for steel ran up against the President Bush’s political interest, it turned out that votes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia were the administration’s true love and its affection for free markets was just an infatuation.

The example of Creekstone Farms is also instructive. Creekstone, a small Kansas company, runs a small, state of the art operation to produce and sell high quality beef. The Washington Post describes Creekstone’s operations:

As a small, upscale slaughterhouse and meatpacker, Creekstone … specializes in premium-quality Black Angus beef, accepts fewer and fewer animals that have been fed antibiotics or hormones, and can trace the origin of each animal it receives…

The Creekstone packing plant does not look, smell or operate like a traditional slaughterhouse. It is an entirely contained building that, from the outside, looks as if it could be manufacturing computer chips or cooking apple pies, rather than slaughtering 1,000 cattle a day.

Its production line is intentionally slow to enhance worker safety and ensure that the animals are dead before butchering begins. In 2001, previous owners built state-of-the-art holding pens and walkways for cattle heading to slaughter, designed by animal welfare specialist Temple Grandin to keep the animals calm.

Creekstone, however, has a problem. Some of its major customers are Japanese beef importers. Since 2001, when Japan located a cow with mad cow disease, the Japanese have been almost phobic about the risk of the disease. After a mad cow case arose in Washington state, the Japanese refused to import any beef that has not been tested for mad cow. The USDA does not test each US cow, so Creekstone can not sell its product in the Japanese market.

Creekstone decided to do something about that problem. It proposed to privately test each of their cows for mad cow disease so as to open the Japanese market. The testing would be done at an academic lab approved by the USDA but Creekstone would pay the entire cost. The Post reports:

In order to satisfy its very important customers in Japan -- customers the company needs to survive -- Creekstone wants to test for mad cow disease every one of the cattle it slaughters.

To do that, Creekstone has spent more than $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in an American slaughterhouse, and it has hired seven chemists and biologists to operate it. The company made the investment after Fielding returned from a trip to Japan convinced that officials there would lift their ban on American beef -- imposed after an infected cow was found in Washington state last December -- only if American companies adopt the Japanese practice of testing every animal.

That seems like a classic free market solution. Creekstone’s customers want testing and Creekstone has decided to give the customer what they want. Creekstone even found that private testing was far cheaper than government testing. The Miami Herald reports:

Creekstone said the company potentially can test 300,000 cattle for about $18 a head. The USDA's upgraded surveillance program, meanwhile, will cost $72 million to test approximately 221,000 animals, or $325 a head.

"The Creekstone Farms' plan will cost less than $6 million using the identical test kit, and our customers are willing to pay for it," Creekstone wrote.

All in all, Creekstone’s plan seems like a win-win proposition. The Japanese get the high quality beef that has been testing for mad cow disease. Creekstone reopens a market now closed to it. The 800 Creekstone employees get to keep their jobs (Creekstone will go bankrupt if it can not sell in the Japanese market). The beef sold to Japan will help our trade deficit. The government will get data on complete testing of every cow in a specified (albeit small) universe which will help its understanding of mad cow disease. The government may also learn how to test cows for $18 per head instead of $325 per head, thereby being able to test far more cows per testing dollar making the United States food supply that much safer. Indeed, it is hard to see the downside of Creekstone’s plan.

Creekstone seems to be an example of the type of company that Mr. Bush just loves. It is small (compared to others in the industry such as Tyson or Swift). It seems to be a good corporate citizen providing (relatively) good jobs in a good work environment. As the Post notes:

The average wage is between $11 and $12 an hour, and Arkansas City Manager Curtis Freeland said the company is about as good a corporate citizen as it could be. "The turnover rate at the plant is low, and they want to work with the community," he said. "This is not what people imagine when they think of a slaughterhouse."

Creekstone also has the “can do” entrepreneurial spirit that Mr. Bush professes to love. When faced with the problem of opening the Japanese market, Creekstone did not go looking for the government to help. Instead, Creekstone found an innovative, private, market solution to its problem.

The question, of course, is whether the Bush administration’s affection for companies like Creekstone is true love or just a school girl crush.

Creekstone has everything it needs to implement its plan except the kits used to test the cattle. Creekstone is willing to pay full market price for the kits but is having trouble finding a seller. The Post reports:

But there is a big obstacle in the way of Creekstone's mad cow initiative: The U.S. Department of Agriculture will not allow it.

The company has all the equipment it needs, but it does not have the kit of chemical reagents needed to run the tests. In the United States, the USDA controls the sale of those kits, and the agency ruled last week that only labs in the U.S. government's testing program can buy them.

Why would the USDA prevent Creekstone from testing its cattle, opening the Japanese market and saving the jobs of 800 American workers?

The stated reason is as follows:

USDA officials say that they sympathize with Creekstone and similar operations hurt by the bans imposed by Japan and other nations, but that agreeing to the company's request could imply there is a safety issue with American beef and usher in an era of expensive testing that has no scientific justification.

The issue is not the effectiveness of the testing itself, as Creekstone would be working under the auspices of an academic lab that the USDA has approved for mad cow testing. Rather, the agency objects to the very idea of testing every animal, including younger ones.

Pardon me for saying so, but the USDA’s argument is specious. The testing Creekstone proposes will not “imply there is a safety issue with American beef.” The testing will either show the presence or absence of mad cow disease in the cows at Creekstone’s plant. In either case, the testing of all Creekstone cattle will not unjustifiably “usher in an era of expensive testing that has no scientific justification.”

If the testing shows that younger cows are not infected with mad cow disease, the USDA position will be vindicated. If the testing shows that younger cows carry the disease, then the USDA will know that its current policy of testing only older cows is faulty.

What the USDA fears is consumer choice. If Creekstone, and perhaps other producers, provide testing beyond what the USDA requires, consumers may choose to pay a premium for tested beef or may choose to buy lower priced beef that has been subject to USDA’s testing regimen. Why the USDA would fear consumers having such a choice can not be based on food safety concerns as additional private testing can only make our food supply safer.

Perhaps the USDA’s position has nothing to do with science and has everything to do with politics. Who opposes the Creekstone plan to test all of its cattle? The Post reports:

While all American beef exporters have been hurt by the ban on sales abroad, Creekstone is especially vulnerable because it is small -- with less than 1 percent of the market -- and it only packs beef. The big players in the business -- companies such as Tyson Foods, Swift & Co. and Smithfield Foods -- also sell pork and chicken and can weather the beef ban much better.

If Japan will not buy their beef, the more diversified companies can sell pork, which they are doing now at a tidy profit. As a result, Fielding says, the beef export ban works to the advantage of the big firms and could end up squeezing many small operations such as his out of business…

The largest and most powerful meat-packing companies are dead set against Creekstone's proposal, as is the group that represents ranchers and feedlot owners, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Association President Jan Lyons said that allowing one company to test all its cattle could quickly snowball into a situation where all companies would have to do similar testing. "If testing is allowed at Creekstone and other companies, we think it would become the international standard and the domestic standard, too," she said. "But it's a standard that's not based on science, would be very expensive and so is something our government definitely needs to resist."

The large meatpacking companies and the large ranchers are afraid of free market competition with smaller companies. If there is no scientific basis for universal testing, if the testing is expensive and if you trust the good sense of the consumer (a premise of the free market theory), the large companies would gain a competitive advantage if smaller companies chose to bear the expense of universal testing. The large companies will not be required by the USDA to perform universal testing. If they are required by customer choice to do universal testing, is that not the way free markets are supposed to work?

It should be the job of the USDA to ensure a safe food supply, not to make choices for consumers among safe alternatives.

The large companies just want the government, in the form of the USDA, to insulate them from free market competition. The Bush administration, in the form of the USDA, is doing so.

The Bush administration may be infatuated with free markets and small entrepreneurial companies but its true love is big business. No surprise there.

Claps and Cheers

Via Howie Kurtz of the Washington Post, I located a letter from a reader posted by Andrew Sullivan about the Bush press conference:

Did you watch a different press conference than I did? I mean, that the baseline is average means you're going in the wrong direction. Bush looked tired, nervous, easily confused; he had troubling answers questions, he couldn't address points, and at times he looked just purely uninformed. Two friends of mine, one conservative and one liberal, called me after the conference. The conservative said that "Bush looked like the first year (law student) who didn't do his reading and just wouldn't admit it to the [socratic] prof[essor]." The liberal said "The sad part about this is that conservatives are going to call it a strong performance. We now have a President whose not much different from a Special Ed student. We clap and cheer every time he has his shoes on the right feet."

I am in the relatively rare position of knowing something about being unprepared for a law school class as well as clapping and cheering for a special ed student. I must say that the conservative’s comment is closer to the mark.

The look on President Bush’s face as he searched for an answer to the “did you make any mistakes?” question was exactly the look on my face when Professor Van Alstyne asked me about Ex Parte McCardle and I was, shall we say, less than fully prepared. More than twenty years later, the wounds have healed but the memory remains vivid.

The liberal’s analogy to clapping and cheering for the special ed student who puts his shoes on the right feet is misplaced. The liberal misunderstands why we clap and cheer for seemingly simple tasks performed by our kids.

While on a recent vacation, we took the opportunity to cut Bobby’s hair. Bobby has never been able to tolerate hair cuts. The sound of the scissors, the feel of the cut hair on his body and the need to sit still are just unbearable. While getting a hair cut, Bobby will cry and scream, he will flail his arms and hands and thrash his body about.

We did it on vacation because we were at Grandpa’s house and it takes three adults to accomplish the task. One adult must hold Bobby’s lower body still to prevent his thrashing from injuring himself or one of us. A second adult must hold his arms and hands to keep the scissors from stabbing someone or putting out an eye. The final adult wields the scissors and tries to be quick so as to end the ordeal as fast as possible. Style and precision of hair cut were abandoned long ago. Instead of a specific style of hair cut, we just try for shorter.

As Deb, Grandpa and I set up for the haircut, Bobby’s older brother retreated to a bedroom with earphones and Grandma left the house. The crying, screaming and wailing that accompanies a hair cut is heart-breaking to Grandma and annoying to Bobby’s brother. We often imagine our neighbors listing to Bobby’s anguish while getting a hair cut and saying to company, “don’t mind that, its just the Meredith’s torturing their kids again.”

As we began, I was holding Bobby’s lower body, Grandpa his arms and Deb had the scissors. Instead of crying and screaming, Bobby began to chant a scene from a Disney video. He chanted the scene over and over. The chant had a calming effect on him. Tears were running down his cheeks as he struggled to tolerate the intolerable but he remained calm. The absence of thrashing allowed me to stand up, get an additional pair of scissors and have two people cutting hair. That reduced the total time needed substantially.

In the end, Bobby’s hair was shorter, if not of uniform length, and we had avoided both physical and psychic injury. No neighbor called the cops to report child abuse. For the first time in his life, Bobby had had his hair cut without screaming or flailing. Bobby had learned a technique to calm himself and tolerate a haircut.

We clapped and cheered, hugged and praised Bobby for his good work.

We clap and cheer when our kids show improvement. If Mr. Bush is to be treated as a special ed student, and if he seeks claps and cheers, he must first show improvement.

A Request For Information

I apologize for my lack of recent posts. In the last few days, I have been busy trying to understand the IRS depreciation recapture rules. That effort was the result of a couple of 2003 real estate transactions as well as my silly decision to prepare our 2003 tax return myself.

Before that, our kids were on spring break and we took the opportunity to visit the Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. We are considering moving to that area relatively soon and spent the week looking at houses and schools and visiting old friends.

That brings me to my request for information. Our decision about where to locate in that area is dependent, in part, on the quality of the schools. If any of you are familiar with the school systems in Durham, Orange County, or Chapel Hill-Carboro, would you please relate your experiences either by comment or email?

In particular, I am interested in middle school and high school programs for gifted students and elementary and middle school special ed programs for autistics.

I would greatly appreciate any help any of you could provide.

Regular posting will recommence soon.

Ouch!

From a scan of Briefing.com this morning, I knew industrial production and capacity utilization numbers were due out today, along with housing starts and the Michigan Sentiment report, e.g., one measure of consumer confidence. However, I guess I'd grown pretty complacent, with the generally good news emanating from earlier economic reports this week. Boy, was I in for a shock when I checked the Times a few minutes ago:

Industrial Output Unexpectedly Drops in March
By REUTERS Published: April 16, 2004

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. industrial production unexpectedly fell in March, dragged lower by softer demand seen at utilities and factories, a Federal Reserve report on Friday showed.

Output dipped 0.2 percent in March, after an upwardly revised 0.8 percent rise seen in February. The Fed attributed a 2.3 percent decline in utilities output to "unseasonably warm weather." Factory output, which accounts for more than 80 percent of overall industrial production, was flat.

The Fed said the drop in March utilities production was the biggest since March 2003.

Capacity in use at factories, utilities and mines also slipped in March, dropping to 76.5 percent from 76.7 percent in February. Wall Street had expected utilization to rise to 76.8 percent and output to show a 0.3 percent rise.

Housing starts were up, although that was expected after the March jobs report placed a big chunk of the new hiring in construction, buoyed by warmer than average weather. But the sudden downturn in manufacturing is of concern, particularly if it's not just a blip. Skyrocketing energy costs could be a culprit - I need to look closer at the actual reports, and will update later.

In addition, despite all the warm and fuzzies the Bush talking head are trying to push, American consumers aren't buying it. The Michigan Sentiment index dropped 2.6 points, a shock for the market which expected a 2 point increase.

Not a great way to end the week, and even investors are confused. Earlier this week inflation fears saw Wall Street turn skittish, as the spector of higher interest rates rose again. But if manufacturing is still seen as slumping, chances of the Fed raising rates, and thus discouraging investment, decreases exponentially.

The markets hate uncertainty, whether economic, social or political. If Bush can't get his lackeys to convince the money men that he's got thing under control, in Iraq and in Peoria, then things will only get worse in lower Manhattan. Stay tuned.

Return of the ... the One True King (pt 7)

For background see this.

Over dinner conversation with Marwen Radwan, responsible for the Palestinian ccTLD registry, I remarked off-hand that the US should involve Iran in the management of Iraq, as the Iranian government would show more restraint, and greater understanding of the nuances, than the US.

Yesterday I wrote about Mark Kimmit and John Abazid and Ricardo Sanchez, who appear to believe that career military officers must speak like hicks. I didn't include this gem from General John Abizaid, Commander, U.S. Central Command (its bold so you'll know he's not just some uniformed moron):

Q: Generals, Bret Baier again at Fox News Channel. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said last week that Iran is meddling in the situation inside Iraq. General Abizaid, can you tell us how Iran is playing a factor in the current situation on the ground? And have you taken any action along the border that may have involved Iranians?

Abizaid: Well, we haven't taken any action recently on the border that had to do with any specific Iranian activity. But clearly, there are indications from intelligence folks that there are some Iranian activities going on that are unhelpful, as the secretary put it. He's absolutely right. And there's also unhelpful actions coming from Syria.

But on the other hand, with regard to the Iranians, there are elements within Iran that are urging patience and calm and trying to limit the influence of Sadr. So it's a complicated situation. But what we need is all of the nations around Iraq to participate in calming the situation and assisting with a sovereign and stable government emerging.

Sanchez: If I may add, Bret, as part of our ongoing operations, we had increased the capacity of the border police out in the Iranian sector, and we had also increased some of our patrolling along the southeast and up in the central part of the country to prevent some of the illegal movement that had been occurring from Iran. So, as part of our current operations over the course of the last 30 to 45 days, we had increased some of our ops in that area.

Abizaid: I would like to go back to a previous point on a different question, and just to clarify the situation somewhat. There is not a purely U.S. military solution to any of the particular problems that we're facing here in Iraq today. There may be combinations of Iraqi and American solutions to the Sadr problem, to the Fallujah problem. There may be purely Iraqi solutions that are arrived at. So it's a combination of military and political action, both on the Iraqi and the American side, and on the coalition side, that will ultimately work towards a more secure environment here.

and

Sanchez: The mission of the U.S. forces is to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr.

This special briefing took place on Monday, April 12th via teleconference between Baghdad, Iraq and the Pentagon. Also participating Bryan Whitman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)). Iran is unhelpful, and the US is increassing ops to seal the boarder, which would cut off any flight by al Sadr and others...

Wednesday, April 14th, a diplo team headed by Hossain Sadeqi, the DG of the Iranian Foreign Ministry (Gulf Affairs), entered Iraq. Here is what they accomplished. They guaranteed the personal jurisdiction over Moqtada al-Sadr would be exercised by post-occupation court(s), religious and secular, on the three pending criminal charges. That made every day of what passes for a cease-fire between the opposing forces in Falluja possible. That made the talk about negociations, about pre-conditions, then the lack of pre-conditions, the talk about a stand-down of his militia, and finally the talk about exile, possible.

Bremmer, Abizad, Sanchez and Kimmit wasted 89 US KIA and another 100+ wounded on a farce and had the Iranians not acted, this week would be a repeat, or worse, of last week. There are 80+ troops alive today that would be dead, and another 100+ that would be limbless-in-Ramstein, had Kamal Kharazi blown off the covert channel (via the Swiss).

Which part of the absurdly disfunctional criminal enterprise we call our government had the sense to call the Swiss sometime before April 7th?

Khalil Naimi, the first secretary of the Iranian Embassy, was shot dead this morning. There is a price to peacemaking. The next time some worthless neocon CF rants that Persia is the Great Evil, remember, 80+ toe tags and 100+ stump kits and colostomy bags were not issued this week.

Inflation on the horizon?

CPI was just released by BLS this morning:

Consumer Prices Up 0.5 Percent in March
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 14, 2004
Filed at 8:34 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumer prices -- lifted by more expensive gasoline, airfares and clothing -- rose by 0.5 percent in March, raising questions about whether the seeds of unwanted inflation are being sown.

The increase in the Consumer Prices Index, the government's most closely watched inflation barometer, followed a 0.3 percent advance in February and matched the rise registered in January, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

Of course, the big culprit was record gas prices, reaching well over $2 on the West Coast, and expected to do the same almost everywhere else this summer. Over the past three months, energy prices have risen 38.6%, also driving up transportation costs by 14% over the same period. However, apparel, which has been consistently declined over the past year, jumped 0.9% last month, which might send off an alarm or two.

This is certain to send the "worker bee" hourly wage index markedly down next month.

Emily's List Training post-mortem...not exactly

I still haven't had time to write up my thoughts on the Emily's List candidate training I attended in Vermont this past weekend, mainly because I've been busy doing all the things they told me to do right away (re-write my campaign plan, message, hire staff, etc.) I'll try and get something written up this week, but in the meantime, I wanted to post this information:

EMILY's List will be holding upcoming political opportunity trainings in the following locations:

Columbia, Maryland
May 14-15, 2004
Hilton Columbia

Miami, Florida
May 21-22, 2004
Radisson Hotel Miami

Atlanta, Georgia
June 4-5, 2004
Wyndham Atlanta

Columbus, Ohio
June 11-12, 2004
Columbus Hotel

Dover, Delaware
June 14, 2004
Sheraton Dover Hotel

Des Moines, Iowa
May 14-15, 2004
Four Points Sheraton North

These are the dates and venues for the upcoming candidate training - you don't have to be a "formal" candidate - if you're thinking for running for office sometime in the future, GO! This weekend was a truly amazing experience, and I urge any and all women thinking of holding public office to attend. For more information, visit the Emily's List website, email Jessica Reyna at jreyna@emilyslist.org or call her at 202-326-1400.

Just do it! (Yeah, Nike, you got a problem with this, bring it on!)

One thing - Emily's List is convinced that down-ticket candidates, particularly women, can't raise money on the Internet... Please help me to convince them otherwise, and click on my donate button to the right.

Update: The trainings are FREE! Yes, no charge, graits, libre, etc. You only pay for your hotel, they even feed you (and man, the food at the Stoweflake was awesome - so much for the Atkins while I was there...) Now go! Sign up...hurry, they fill up quick.

in media res

Mark Kimmitt called Aljazeera, and other Arab media outlets the "anti-coalition media" and advised viewers to "change the channel". He was joined by John Abizaid, who said "It is always interesting to me how Al-Jazeera manages to be at the scene of the crime whenever a hostage shows up or some other problem happens to be there."

I found some Kimmitt gems, a few days ago it was accusing the insurgents of using the population as "human shields", and some Abizaid gems, but it seems a silly pursuit. The real question is if these guys worked for George Marshall or Omar Bradley or Chester Nimitz would they be strutting and puffing, in the respective roles of deputy director of deputy director of operations (Iraq) and Brigadier General, and head of US Central Command and Major General, respectively. Or would they be in-route to Unalaska and defense of the Pribiloffs.

It is rather complex. The not very great paper here, the one that went 500 words on "Mullahs bad, elections good" back during the Iranian election cycle when I was doing the multi-part "Return of the ..." series, and finding the time delay in the US media outlets multi-day and the content consolidation rather remarkable -- something like all US press on Story-Foo derived from one (totally or partiall wrong) source, for several weeks of ongoing Foo-Stories, well, the Portland Press Herald just sent one of their people, someone I like, to Iraq. To report. Bill Nimitz is going into the Cheech-and-Chong Gong show orchestrated by Abizaid, Sanchez and Kimmitt, where he could get killed just as dead as Jim Rioux was by Mohammad Atta. He would be far safer here in Portland, and writing from the material that appears in the English editions of the Gulf press, Aljazeera included. America, even the Maine unit now stuck in Iraq, doesn't need more bad copy. It needs good writing and multi-sourced reporting to present a compeating narrative. N.B. Jim Rioux was our toxic torts (lead) attorney, he was going to represent Jonah's claim(s) until 9-11 stopped him.

I started this piece today with the contrast between a Reuters wire that described Sadr as "vehemently anti-American" or some such overblown capitalization, and the texts from many Iraqi bloggers who find him equivalent in his excesses as some people the Americans (we) have put into their (our) puppet government. It was this kind of crap that drove me, personally, to learn French and read Le Monde. That was my escape from a press defined by the Five O'clock Follies" held by the MAC/V press handlers.

Source: defenselink.mil

Abizaid: I would like to add about the Fallujah situation -- I was just out there talking to the Marines a couple of days ago. The Marines have been doing a great job in conducting military operations. They've been very precise. They have attempted to protect civilians to the best of their ability. The Arab press, in particular Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyah, are portraying their actions as purposely targeting civilians. And we absolutely do not do that, and I think everybody knows that.

It is always interesting to me how Al-Jazeera manages to be at the scene of the crime whenever a hostage shows up or some other problem happens to be there. So they are -- they have not been truthful in their reporting, they haven't been accurate, and it is absolutely clear that American forces are doing their very best to protect civilians and at the same time get at the military targets there.

Pity he's not eager equal their competency on the ground.

Noted.

There have been nine Pearl Harbor investigations, and on the foreknowledge question, the alternate form of the preventability question, after five decades of advocacy, the "FDR provoked" or "FDR knew" positions are on the fringes. So it isn't that surprising that today's Note has this:

One leading Democratic interest group recently asked a focus group in Florida to respond to a potential television ad accusing Bush of negligence in failing to stop the attacks. The result was volcanic against the ad. LINK

"'They were so angry I thought they were going to turn the tables over,' said a Democratic operative who watched the session. 'It was a very polarizing ad, and it pushed people who were on the fence decidedly away from us.'"

Bush is no FDR, but the whole foreknowledge thing lives in a petri dish rich in things germs of ideas previously deemed noxious thrive on, so popping off that lid is best left where it is ... in a Florida survey group. As The Note Notes, joy to the BC04 high command.

I think those unnamed Democratic consultants share the same spotty sense of history that Chris May over at the NRO managed to make the talk of the town over the weekend.

The Post-Condi Sunday Follies

As you watch Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) on ABC's This Week tomorrow morning, along with Richard N. Perle, about whom I've written unflatteringly about here and here and Dwight wrote about here, with Paul Bremer, who Le Monde's editorial board credits cette révolte – provoquée par une série de gaffes de l'administrateur américain Paul Bremer with the killing of now over 40 uniformed US and what remains of the Coalition soldiers, some civilian contractors, and an unknown number of wounded, along with an order of magnitude greater killed and wounded count among Iraqis, and a surprisingly quick disintegration of the New Model Iraqi Police and Army, I suggest you try and take in the full measure of Susan's slow cadence and calm, almost deadpan delivery.

In her last race Susan started off with a TV ad that was pitched at 3rd-graders on the importance of the flag. That was her substantive ad. In debate she made the point that Federal spending under Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) had risen in absolute dollars during her term in Washington. Anyone of the three of us who write at Wampum could tell you when asleep or changing diapers that the service population is rising non-linearly and funding is not even holding steady, when accounted for correctly, in Maine which is under the Ohio plume (coal fired mercury particulates), and elsewhere (Silicon Valley is another hot-spot).

MB worked hard for Chellie Pingree, who ran against Susan Collins in 2002. We contributed a chunk of change to her campaign. Chellie's gone on now to run Common Cause. Perhaps she will be back in '08, when Susan has to next defend her seat, though '06 may be "the big year" in Maine, with several surprises possible. Perhaps not.

The point is, as you watch Susan tomorrow, consider how you can help get her replaced. Solve for the following boundary conditions: must win in the southern coast (semi-safe Democratic 1st CD), AND must not loose overwhelmingly in the rural balance-of-state (semi-safe Republican 2nd CD), which is where most of the Indian votes are, AND must be a woman. MB isn't running for Susan's seat in '08. But some woman will. MB's got a primary in 8 weeks to win, then a general in November. This is how it begins. Qualified candidates do not just step, fully formed, armed and charming, from the foreheads of gods. Please contribute to MB's campaign.

For the love of old film

Earlier this week, pre-Condi, I watched a film. It was December 7th: The Pearl Harbor Story (1943), directed by John Ford, with Walter Huston as the complacent Uncle Sam. Now I was really struck by the final minutes of the film, which I'd like to write about, but something's come up.

Over on NRO Chris May wrote this:

"President Roosevelt waited until after World War II to put in place a commission to investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor."

Now Ford's work in documentary form (all the exploding models and the exchanges between Uncle Sam (Walter Huston) and his conscence, aka "Mr. C" (Harry Davenport), the tiresome ethnic spies-R-us segments, and the final segment I want to write about were removed) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (1943). I do not understand how Chris May missed this. Then again, he missed the fact that FDR didn't live to see VJ Day.

But all this mindless blother is about criticism within a democracy of that democracy's prosecution of a war during that war. The timid would prefer to be above criticism during the pendancy of the present war.

When FDR asked Congress for a declaration that a state of war existed on December 8th, Jeannette Rankin (R-MT) voted "No". Throughout the war Rankin spoke against Roosevelt and his policies. She wasn't alone. There was criticism about the North African Campaign, 1,000 dead at Kasserine Pass, about the equipment, about ... and the criticism didn't stop there.

Enough about the amazing Mr. Chris May, who has an interesting and readable bio here.

There is important reading to do. I've found some gems:

• from Home Front and War Front: September 1944,
  
• from FRD's Fala Speech to the Teamsters Union at the Hotel Statler, September 1944,
  
• Reflections on German and American Foreign Policy, 1933-1945
  

The good stuff is in the extended entry. Enjoy the evening, and remember to send MB more gelt. I've spent enough time on this, and its time to go color with the children. Motivation to go googling down memory lane courtesy of Roger Ailes via Atrios (who linked to the extended entry with the lovely Dewey quote last night).

While ironing tonight I listened to Dewey's second (and I hope last, for me) campaign speech concerning foreign policy. If I were an editorial writer I would liberally intersperse my critique with such words and phrases as "immature", "startling Republican amnesia concerning the facts and causes of the last depression", "vague", etc. etc. The only concrete thing one could get out of the speech was the un-Christian, Republican unwillingness to do anything about future international relations except stand by with pious neighborly smiles as if to say, "Uncle Sam is watching you and wishes you all the luck in the world." He openly deprecated the idea that we could be of economic aid to depressed nations or that we have any kind of economic intercourse with anybody except of the cutthroat 19th-century variety. There's certainly no doubt in my mind how that his administration, if he were elected, would be a bad one.

From Home Front and War Front: September 1944

"These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks and my family does not resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him - at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars - his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself - such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to, libelous statements about my dog."

From FRD's Fala Speech to the Teamsters Union at the Hotel Statler, September 1944.

It's worth recalling Thomas Dewey's remark of 26 September 1944 to General George Marshall's messenger, Col. Carter W. Clarke. In reply to Clarke's plea to suppress the whole issue during the election campaign, Dewey said: "From what I know of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt, instead of being re-elected, ought to be impeached."

From Reflections on German and American Foreign Policy, 1933-1945

Nephew of Navajo Nation vice president killed in Iraq

(Window Rock-AP) – The 29-year-old nephew of Navajo Vice President Frank Dayish Jr. has been killed in Iraq.

Sergeant Lee Duane Todacheene of Lukachukai, Arizona, was killed Monday night.

Dayish says he and his family are devastated by the news.

Todacheene was a member of the Army’s First Infantry Division medic unit. He was stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany, where he and his family have lived for the past two years.

Todacheene is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and his 8- and 9-year-old sons.

Todacheene’s brother Rydell Todacheene says Army officials told the family that his brother was killed in a surprise attack and died instantly. No other details were immediately available.

I'll update this when navajo.org or another site posts details.

Fundraising updates

Friday 5am update:
Only $43.70 left in this fundraising goal! I leave for Stowe, Vermont later this morning for an Emily's List candidate training, so probably won't be around to see reach the top of the thermometer. But I want to again extend my appreciation of all the support, from the contributions to the cheering section. Thank you.

Thursday morning update:
As of 8am this morning, we reached the halfway mark! This also means that I have to submit my 101% finance report to the state campaign finance office within 48 hours, and since I have over 200 donors at that point, that's a lot of typing. Generally, my treasurer would compile the reports, but I know he's busy supporting striking iron workers (he edits the Maine Labor News.) Tomorrow, I'm off to Vermont for an Emily's List candidate training weekend.

Thank you all so much for your support. It's great to see the non-mercury in the thermometer steadily rise.

Wednesday noontime:
I'm off to the printer to pick up the literature piece I'll be sending out later today (or tomorrow, depending upon how long it takes to label and sort 1,700 brochures.) The printer, btw, is Dale Rand, spouse of the Honorable Anne Rand, the last woman elected to the Legislature from the city of Portland. I worked on her final campaign in 2000, as part of the Maine Coordinated effort. This is one more instance where term limits have hurt, rather than helped, the cause of increasing female participation in Maine government.

Since I won't have much time to write today (and tonight I'm mending fences at our local post-Dean meetup), I do want to update our fundraising efforts as we go along today. FYI, as mercury thermometers are prohibited by law here in Maine, the image to the left represents a non-toxic thermometer.

I know a lot of attention is focused on national campaigns these days - but please remember that many of these battles are being carried out in the wells of legislatures in states all around the country, and the races are tight:

A pitched battle for state legislatures Chambers in 25 states could change majorities with a tip of three seats or less as parties fight furiously across the country.

By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

LOS ANGELES - With the media's political Doppler radar fixed squarely on this November's presidential showdown, a less-obvious political battle is taking place that, in several ways, will have a more direct impact on the lives of Americans.

The outcome also could more accurately reflect where voters stand on a spate of domestic issues, from gay marriage to abortion and taxes.

The battle for party control over state legislatures, say experts, is more intense than at any point in recent political memory.

Of the more than 7,000 legislative seats in the US, the GOP holds a slim 60-seat advantage. And of the 50 states, 25 have legislative chambers that could switch party control with a shift of just three seats or less.

In Maine and Colorado, a switch of one seat could reverse longtime party dominance of both legislative and executive branches. While in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, a change in three seats could significantly reshape the poltical path of the South's fastest-growing states.

Several of the nation's key battleground states - Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington - could solidify political alliances for years to come.

"This is a far bigger election year for state legislatures than most," says Tim Story, election analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Because there are so many close votes which could shift party control of legislative chambers, it will likely have an impact on every issue before state government from civil unions to transportation, education, and health care."

This fall's vote will indicate whether Republicans can continue to garner more power in state governments. The 2002 election gave the GOP control of a majority of US legislative seats for the first time in 50 years. (Republicans now control both chambers in 21 states, compared to 18 for Democrats.)

And speaking of the EPA mercury emissions report...

In case memory in the blogosphere is fleeting, this is not the first time the OMB attempted to sabatoge EPA findings on the dangers of mercury emissions to the nation's children. Back in February, 2003, I reported on Mitch Daniels and the OMB delaying the EPA's report on the health of US children by nine months. In that instance, EPA worker bees leaked the White House's stonewalling to Sen. Barbara Boxer's office, stirring up a bit of a firestorm.

Obviously, it wasn't enough of a ruckus to prevent the White House from trying the same tactic again, although this time, it appears the not only did OMB delay, but it actually redacted information from the NAS's 2000 report on the dangers of mercury emissions. [Nota bene: As mentioned on Monday, EPA has now warned that the NAS number significantly low-balled the dangers to pregnant women and newborns, by an order of magnitude - 60,000 vs. 630,000 per year.]

When I wrote on the subject last year, I firmly believed OMB Director Daniels was motivated by the desire to conceal the dangers of mercury in children, namely due to his ties to Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal. And while Daniels' personal motives might still be suspect, it appears now that the White House is concerned about a problem which may be much more widespread and potentially damaging to the energy industry, an even more important GOP backer than BigPharma.

The concept that so many children have been, and continue to be at risk may be just too difficult for the American psyche to wrap itself around; even yesterday, I stood gazing longingly at the sushi counter at Wild Oats before walking away empty-handed. But on today's agenda: A call to the food service department of my children's school, to make certain that the tuna they're served 2-4 times a month is "light chunk", not albacore.

Why not kick a few dogs while they're at it...

The GOP: The Grand Old Party, with it's highly touted compassionate conservatism, fiscal responsibilty and big-tent philosophy.

Come again?

Within 10 minutes of opening the web sites of the NYTimes and WaPo, I'd already read these three articles on how Republicans in the Administration and Congress truly care about the health and welfare of children and minorities.

White House Minimized the Risks of Mercury in Proposed Rules, Scientists Say
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Published: April 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 5 — While working with Environmental Protection Agency officials to write regulations for coal-fired power plants over several recent months, White House staff members played down the toxic effects of mercury, hundreds of pages of documents and e-mail messages show.

The staff members deleted or modified information on mercury that employees of the environmental agency say was drawn largely from a 2000 report by the National Academy of Sciences that Congress had commissioned to settle the scientific debate about the risks of mercury.

'Dream' PAC Not Living Up To Goal: Little Money Goes To Elect Minorities
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 7, 2004; Page A01

When Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) took charge of an independent political fund called American Dream PAC in 1999, he made clear that its mission was "to give significant, direct financial assistance to first-rate minority GOP candidates."

Since then, only $48,750 -- or 8.9 percent -- of the $547,000 the southwest Texas congressman has raised for his political action committee has gone to minority office-seekers while more than $100,000 has been routed to Republican Party organizations or causes, including a GOP redistricting effort in Texas, a legal defense fund for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and Bonilla's reelection campaign. Most of the remainder of the money went to legal fees, fundraisers in Miami and other cities, airline tickets, hotels, catering services, consultants and salaries.

Republican and Democratic members of Congress have used independent "leadership PACs" to spread their influence, and in recent years hundreds have been set up. Such PACs enable lawmakers to multiply contributions from special interests and legally avoid the limits set on personal campaign funds. But Bonilla's comes with a twist: It's one of the few PACs, some experts say, that has not lived up to its clear mission statement.

Indian Fund Investigator Angrily Quits
By JOHN FILES
Published: April 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 6 — The court-appointed investigator who has been seeking for more than three years to determine the finances of an Indian trust fund administered by the Interior Department resigned on Monday. He said the government had routinely allowed energy companies to shortchange Indians on royalties from oil, gas, timber and other leases on Indian land.

The investigator, Alan Balaran, accused the department of a persistent effort to impede his work and said he had found a "systemic failure to properly monitor" the activities of energy companies acquiring oil and gas from Indian land.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court here appointed Mr. Balaran in 1999 as part of a class-action lawsuit filed by Elouise Cobell, a banker and Blackfoot Indian from Montana, and more than 300,000 other Indians. They accused the government of cheating them out of as much as $137.5 billion over the past century.

And it's only 6:30am... Who is next on the GOP's hit list? Grey-haired grannies? Injured puppies? Disabled veterans? (Oh, already made the list previously.)

Supporting PAYGo, campaign-style

One of the little known, but hotly contested issues of the past few weeks has been a requirement that Congressional budgets return to the "pay-as-you-go" requirements first established in 1991, under the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. Ironically, although initially the brain-child of fiscally conservative Republicans to reign in spending in the Democrat-controlled House, it is now the Democrats who are demanding any increase in spending, or reduction in revenue, be balanced by matching spending cuts or revenue increases. The few Senate Republican hold outs who have sided with Democrats in demanding such responsible budgeting, Snowe and Collins of Maine, Chafee of Rhode Island and McCain of Arizona, are under increasing pressure, both by Congressional party leaders and the Administration. So far, they're not budging.

In solidarity with the Maine House and Senate delegation, all of whom support PAYGo, I've decided to run the remainder of my primary campaign along similar "pay-as-you-go" lines as well. This means that for each major expenditure, I'll raise funds dedicated specifically to that project. That way, my supporters can see where and how their money is spent.

This decision is quite timely, as my first piece of campaign direct mail literature is being printed as I write. Tomorrow, it will be labelled, sorted and mailed to 1700 Democratic households in my district here in Portland. I've included .gifs of both the back and front (it's a 4 panel folded piece) in the extended entry section. The amount to be spent on the literature and mailing:

Printing (union shop, of course): $270.00
Labels: $ 4.50
Postage (1700 x .226 bulk rate): $384.20

Total: $658.70

$658.70. That's the goal for my current fundraiser. As soon as the money is raised, I stop asking until the next big expenditure (probably literature for door-to-door canvassing, in a few weeks.)

If you'd like to help me reach this goal, one large step in my campaign to keep my House District in the hands of a Progressive Democrat, please contribute by clicking on the "Make a Donation" button on the sidebar.

And if you think this is a good, or bad, idea, feel free provide feedback, in comments below or via email. I think that many of us would like to see a little more accountability in political campaigns, and politics in general. This is my attempt, while trying to raise awareness of the PAYGo battle our Dems (and a few good Republicans) in Congress currently face.

Outside panels (4 panel brochure)

Inside panels

Conservatives, ADHD and Mercury

This began as JAAP (Just Another Autism Post) but was waylaid. While re