In the annals of Supreme Court history, there are perhaps only a handful of cases that go down in history as more egregious than what happened in Suzette Kelo v. City of New London.

In that case, the Supreme Court approved an eminent domain taking by the City of New London, Connecticut that involved taking the land of the principal plaintiff, and many others, and using it for a commercial development that would be used by Pfizer Corp. for a new corporate business center. It was a decision that was roundly and deservedly condemned at the time and which led to some efforts at eminent domain reform at the state level, many of which were successful.

But, in the end, Suzette Kelo still lost her property, and now, to add insult to injury, Pfizer has abandoned the project that was the subject of the eminent domain proceeding:

The private homes New London, Conn., took through eminent domain from Suzette Kelo and others, are torn down now, but Pfizer has just announced that it closing up shop at the research facility that led to the condemnation.

Leading drugmakers Pfizer and Wyeth have merged, and as a result, are trimming some jobs. That includes axing the 1,400 jobs at their sparkling new research & development facility in New London, and moving some across the river to Groton.

To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to the land Pfizer was buying for next-to-nothing. Suzette Kelo fought the taking to the Supreme Court, and lost, as five justices said this redvelopment met the constitutional hurdle of “public use.”

The private homes that New London, Conn., took away from Suzette Kelo and her neighbors have been torn down. Their former site is a wasteland of fields of weeds, a monument to the power of eminent domain.

But now Pfizer, the drug company whose neighboring research facility had been the original cause of the homes’ seizure, has just announced that it is closing up shop in New London.

Scott Bullock, Kelo’s co-counsel in the case, told me: “This shows the folly of these redvelopment projects that use massive taxpayer subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare and abuse eminent domain.”

One wonders if Suzette Kelo is paraphrasing former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan and wondering, where do I go to get my house back ?

And you know the worst part ? Not only did Suzette Kelo lose her house, but we’re stuck with an incredibly bad precedent that will likely take decade to reverse.

Everybody’s abuzz about the new Wash Post story today that starts off with the idea that Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) was turned into some type of “terrorist professor” because he was waterboarded.

And away we go…

The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is impossible to know whether less coercive methods would have achieved the same result. But for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general’s report and other documents released this week indicate.

Over a few weeks, he was subjected to an escalating series of coercive methods, culminating in 7 1/2 days of sleep deprivation, while diapered and shackled, and 183 instances of waterboarding. After the month-long torment, he was never waterboarded again.

“What do you think changed KSM’s mind?” one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding. “Of course it began with that.”

Yes, of course it began with that. Why? BECAUSE IT BEGAN WITH THAT.

Also, KSM didn’t start giving these terrorism lectures until a full 2 YEARS LATER. The waterboarding lasted one month. Think maybe building rapport and trust with him over the next couple years did more than making him feel like he was drowning?

Not only that, during this early period KSM gave us a bunch of false information…

Mohammed, in statements to the International Committee of the Red Cross, said some of the information he provided was untrue.

“During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. I later told interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive. I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time,” he said.

When will people begin to understand that there is an inherent paradox in the idea of torture: you don’t know what you don’t know. So somebody can make up ANYTHING to get you stop torturing them and you’ll waste your time.

Of course the vast majority of interrogators will tell you this time and time and time again, but the opposition finds a few people who were able to beat some actionable intelligence out of somebody and that makes it alright for us to do

And that gets me to the real point of this post. Torture works? Again, no. Because it completely undermines the values that we’re fighting to defend. America is not a TV show. Fighting terrorism doesn’t work like that. And if you don’t understand that having policies that allow us to kidnap and torture anybody we want makes us look like the big bullies they accuse of being, makes it easier for more people to hate us and therefore makes us less safe, well, please think on this some more.

Seriously, really dig into the cause and effect of what we’re doing. Because “blowback” is real, and I fear that if we don’t stop what we’re doing we’re in for yet another round of it.

Yes, I realize these laws are meant to prevent repeat offenses, but either up the penalties for those offenses or just leave them be. Once somebody gets out of prison, that should be it. End of story. If they commit another crime it would be tragic, but we have gone WAY too far with these laws and who can honestly defend forcing people to live under a bridge?

Also, let’s not forget that there are plenty of really stupid sex offender laws out there too. People get locked up for doing some fairly innocent things.

The Economist takes a closer look…

In all, 674,000 Americans are on sex-offender registries—more than the population of Vermont, North Dakota or Wyoming. The number keeps growing partly because in several states registration is for life and partly because registries are not confined to the sort of murderer who ensnared Megan Kanka. According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of “distributing child pornography” to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends.

How dangerous are the people on the registries? A state review of one sample in Georgia found that two-thirds of them posed little risk. For example, Janet Allison was found guilty of being “party to the crime of child molestation” because she let her 15-year-old daughter have sex with a boyfriend. The young couple later married. But Ms Allison will spend the rest of her life publicly branded as a sex offender.

The problem is…these laws will only get harsher because what politician in their right mind will try and soften them? This guy in Florida who’s suing the state is certainly a brave guy, but let’s remember that this has been going on for 2 YEARS. That’s how long it took for this to become enough of an eyesore for somebody to make a case that it’s hurting the economy.

What do you think?

While you could point out any number of mistakes these organizations have made in the last few months, perhaps the most glaring is their belief that they could use the momentum from the 2008 election to push their dream bills through to passage. Their sometimes misplaced tactics haven’t helped their cause either, pulling silly publicity stunts and waging a terribly mismanaged media push. The real meat of it was their misconstrued overall strategy of shoving this legislation through, over the opposition of nearly all republicans and a good chunk of moderate Democrats.

This was just plain foolish. They had to know that they would have a hard time getting moderate Dems to vote their way on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or card check if you prefer). They couldn’t have been so blind as to think the Blue Dogs would just roll over on their health care plan, with it costing so much… right?

Some polling has shown a bit of a shift, but numbers have been relatively steady on the issue of the secret ballot being favored over card check, and how wary the public is when it comes to expansion of government into health care. With the debt rocketing into the sky at an historic pace, and promised cost savings being debunked by the CBO, rather than work with the swing votes in the Senate to find a compromise these groups, and liberal organizations like them, have chosen perhaps the most ineffective strategy they could take.

Demonize the moderates.

There is a reason why politicians tone down the partisan their rhetoric after winning primaries, and why many are now saying that 2010 might not be so bad for Republicans after all. Attacking representatives who speak for those of us who worry about liberal overreach and a need for fiscal sanity helps nobody but the Republican party. Democrats may have the majority, and 60 votes in the Senate, but liberals do not… and this will not change any time soon.

Realizing this and working with the center, rather than attacking us, will allow these organizations to make progress on their legislative goals, keep their solid majority and stem the tide of independents that are now beginning to peel their support off. The silver lining of all of this, from my more centrist perspective, is this is leading to even more people leaving both parties. With over 40% of the population now identifying as independents, it is just a matter of time before something happens that turns the independent groundswell into a movement.

Anti-reform advocates are the gift that just keeps on giving. Take the case of David McKalip, who sent the above image out to his email list.

Does he genuinely not understand the implications of distributing trash like this? Because not only is it guaranteed to get out to the broader media, it also seriously undermines any arguments be brings to the table. And for a member of the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates to do this? Does he seriously have this little common sense?

Here’s more about Mr. McKalip:

He’s the chair of the Florida Taxpayers Union, the founder of Doctors For Patient Freedom, and anti-health-care-reform group, the president of the Florida Neurological Society, and an all-around anti-government activist who has appeared at events with GOP members of Congress and whose op-eds opposing reform have appeared in the St. Petersburg Times.

He’s also a member of the American Medical Association who has been quoted by reporters for the Associated Press, Business Week, the Palm Beach Post, the Tampa Tribune, and the Florida Sun-Sentinel opposing health care reform and taxes.

Listen, I’m a pretty reasonable person, but I’m starting to have a hard time believing that a fair amount of these anti-government folks aren’t closet racists. I obviously hate to paint with the broad brush, but as more and more of these stories pop up and you see all of those posters at the Tea Party rallies…ugh. Trust me, I want to think better of those folks, but they keep giving me reasons to not.

Past the constant calls for saving money by eliminating wasteful spending, which never seem to materialize into actual legislation, we need to find new forms of income to pay for this bill. They seem to be failing at convincing enough senators to support taxing benefits and the more affluent, so what else is left?

For the most part, we pay for our governmental services through income taxes (both individual and corporate), property taxes and consumption taxes. Property taxes are used for other things and rightfully shouldn’t be on the table here. The two proposals that were trotted out for discussion by the Democratic leadership were both taxes on types of income. What remains are consumption taxes.

In a way, consumption taxes are the most fair. For instance it makes perfect sense to tax gasoline and tires to pay for roads, as those driving on those roads need those things to do so. So doesn’t it make sense to tax those behaviors that create high health care costs? The American people seem to think so.

Kaiser Family Foundation poll

A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, from back in April, found that reforming health care is one of the public’s highest priorities, that a majority of Democrats and Independents believe that we need reform now and that a majority support taxing unhealthy behaviors as an acceptable way to pay for some of these reforms. When asked it they would support raising taxes on “items that are thought to be unhealthy, such as soda, alcohol, junk food and cigarettes,” 61% approved (39% strongly favoring, with 22% somewhat favoring the idea). I’m a huge fan of proposals that kill two (or more) birds with one stone, and I think this is a textbook example of such.

To fund a health care program, it makes much more sense to tax behaviors that lead to health problems than it does to tax income in general. By doing so we can, in one fell swoop, put more of the costs of the system in the hands of those who are causing the most problems, lower the consumption of these products AND help pay for universal health care. We already have taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and items deemed luxuries like jewelry, hotel stays and amusement parks. So why not extend similar taxes to the most unhealthy ‘food’ items in the market? (I put food in quotes because one could argue that high fat and sugar content items like pop, potato chips and many fast food items can hardly be described as food)

First on the cutting block is alcohol, with 68% of respondents strongly or somewhat favoring raising taxes on it to help pay for health care reform. Smoking is more demonized in our country, but alcohol related health costs actually outweigh those related to smoking. The Marin Institute lists several alcohol related health care costs, among them $175.9 billion on alcohol related problems, also saying that they bring about “$184.6 billion dollars per year in health care, business and criminal justice costs, and cause more than 100,000 deaths.” This being the case, I see it as nothing but reasonable to levy a higher tax on alcohol, possibly in relation to which forms of it result in the worst outcomes, that is equal to the cost to society it incurs.

Still with a few hundred billion dollars to go, we come to tobacco. I was a bit surprised that a higher cigarette tax was supported by fewer than the increased alcohol tax, but this may be because tobacco products are already taxed at a high rate. Florida alone loses $20 billion dollars when you compare the taxes it collects to the money it pays out, amounting to nearly $7,000 per smoker. A study released by the CDC in 2002 showed that “For each of the approximately 22 billion packs sold in the U.S. in 1999, $3.45 was spent on medical care attributable to smoking, and $3.73 in productivity losses were incurred, for a total cost of $7.18 per pack.” These numbers are sure to have risen since then, and with somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 billion packs of cigarettes sold in the US last year, it seems more than fair to tack on at least another few dollars per pack.

Whether or not this fills the gap entirely, we also should look at taxing the most unhealthy food items. A study at University of Victoria (British Colombia) found that all income groups would benefit, although more so near the top of the economic spectrum, from a tax on junk foods that sent money towards health care programs. I would suggest that this disparity would be less pronounced in the US, where many people near the bottom of the economic spectrum have much more to gain from such an arrangement, given that it will help pay for health insurance that many of them currently do not have.

Put all of these together, and you might piece together enough to get over the hump. At the very least we could make it easier to pass one of the income tax ideas by lowering the amounts they’d have to raise through it.

One might argue that this would cause people to consume less of these products, thereby reducing the income from the levies. My response would be that we should then increase the taxes to keep up with the costs. This would hopefully create a cycle where more people would consume less, making the purchase of such products even more expensive, driving more out and lowering costs to treat those people over the long run. Herein lies the killing two birds with one stone situation.

One might also argue that this is a regressive tax. In effect it will be that way, at least at first. It is the lower end of the spectrum that spends a larger amount of their overall income on food. They also tend to eat less healthy foods. However, nobody forces them to choose to purchase these particular food items. Nobody should force them to quit, but if they want to continue to lead an unhealthy lifestyle, the rest of society should not be forced to subsidize it.

If people want to smoke, drink or eat themselves to death, then they can make a down payment on the hundreds of thousands of dollars the government will pay to take care of many of them during the last months of their lives. If we can save some of them from that fate by enacting the proposals mentioned above, thats even better.

Sanford I have fewer problems with not resigning, although I think he should save South Carolina the embarrassment. His attention is clearly divided at this point and he let down the voters by abandoning his post.

But Ensign fired his mistress’ husband from his staff and then continued to pursue her after the fact. Not only that, his parents bribed her to the tune of $96K.

I mean, come on…

But here’s the kicker…he’s going to run for reelection!

From Las Vegas Sun:

When asked Monday whether he had any thoughts about stepping down, Ensign said his supporters are sending one message: “They say, ‘Don’t.’ ”

“I fully plan on running for reelection,” Ensign said late Monday evening. “I’m going to work to earn their respect back.”

The two-term Republican senator was back on offense Monday, saying his support is coming from his fellow senators as well as those “on both sides” of Senate leadership.

Ensign said his supporters are telling him, “Keep your head up. This thing will pass.”

This is standard boilerplate when controversy pops up, so there’s no reason we should believe that Ensign is getting this advice from anybody but true believers. Still, if he runs in 2012 and wins? Well, I would be shocked.

I didn’t write about this before because it seemed odd, but there wasn’t a lot of there there.

Now there’s plenty.

From The State:

Gov. Mark Sanford admitted today that his secret trip to Argentina over Father’s Day weekend was to visit a woman he is having an affair with.

“I have developed a relationship with what started as a dear dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently as I expect many of these things do, just casual email back and forth,” Sanford said. “But here recently this last year developed into something much more.”

Asked if Sanford was separated from his wife, he said “I don’t know how you want to define that. I”m here and she’s there. I guess in a formal sense we are not.”

Sanford said his wife has known about the affair and they have been working through it for the past five months. “What I did was wrong, period. End of story,” Sanford said.

Forget about Presidential aspirations…this guy will probably get booted as Governor since he was hanging out in Argentina on state time. Wow.

More as it develops…

You probably noticed that I didn’t write anything about John Ensign’s affair because it seemed like just another hypocrite doing what hypocrites do.

But when I read the following letter penned by one of Ensign’s former employees (as well as the husband of the woman Ensign pursued), I was moved enough to share it. You’ll find out why soon enough.

From Las Vegas Sun:

More than any time in my life I understand why people take matters into their own hands. I am disheartened! I have sought wise counsel, tried to do the right thing and continue to run into road blocks (sic) in dealing with a very terrible circumstance and injustice that lives in my life. I am hoping you and Fox News can help.

My name is Doug Hampton. I am a former employee of US (sic) Senator John Ensign. I worked for Senator Ensign in his official government office on Capitol Hill from November 2006 to April 2008. My responsibilities were the oversight of his personnel in Washington as well as the state of Nevada. Duties included budgets, policy and public speaking on behalf of the Senator and his initiatives.

Here is my story. In December of 2007 in the midst of some very difficult personal issues that deeply impacted my family and marriage, Senator Ensign pursued and engaged in a relationship with my wife. Our families were lifelong friends, our children attend school together to this day, and our homes are in neighborhoods across from each other. My wife was the Senator’s campaign treasurer.

There is a tremendous amount (sic) of details and critical facts associated with this story and their relationship that will not be addressed in this letter but are very important and need to be further explored if you choose to meet with me. The purpose of this letter is to establish the framework for discussion and provide enough information to warrant a meeting with you and Fox News. This is the only letter of its kind and no other news stations have been contacted with this information. I have great respect and affection for Fox News and many of your collages (sic). I’m sending this to you because you have a legal back ground (sic) and this story has several legal elements.

The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year. In fact one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his home in Washington DC (sic) with a group of his peers. One of the attendee’s (sic) was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator. Senator Ensign’s conduct and relentless pursuit of my wife led to our dismissal in April of 2008. I would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving, but that was not the case and his actions did not subside until August of 2008.

The actions of Senator Ensign have ruined our lives and careers and left my family in shambles. We have lost significant income, suffered indescribable pain and emotional suffering. We find ourselves today with an overwhelming loss of relationships, career opportunities and hope for recovery. Our pursuit of justice continues to place me and my family in harm’s way as we fear for our well being (sic).

Today, Senator Ensign’s responsibility and stature have increased within the US (sic) Senate. His is currently the head of “Policy” for the Republican Party, the number four position within the Parties (sic) leadership team. We on the other hand are completely ruined and left to deal with the aftermath of very evil and completely unjustifiable acts by one of our countries (sic) top leaders.

It appears there may be nothing the law can do to correct and bring justice and restitution to (sic) this terrible wrong that has been done to us. I have sought a number of lawyers who are having difficulty finding charges that may hold up in court. There are either technicalities that exist due to the time period in which I have sought help, or other nuances that quite frankly make no sense to me given the egregious acts and blatant abuse of power by Senator Ensign. From my perspective this whole nightmare is terribly wrong and completely unacceptable and should not be tolerated.

I clearly understand this story is difficult to believe for anyone reading (sic) for the first time. I too would have difficulty believing it, if someone brought me this story. However I assure you it is true and there are facts, a paper trail, phone records and personal witnesses to testify to its truth. It is my belief we are dealing with a very powerful person and an institution in the US (sic) Senate that only the media can pierce to expose the wrong and bring light and focus to what needs to be done? (sic)

Please help me! This should not be how the leadership of our country should be allowed to behave. I need justice, help and restitution for what Senator Ensign has done to me and my family. Regardless of technicalities, regardless of position, regardless of power this cannot and should not be tolerated in our country from our trusted leaders. Will you help? Will you consider a meeting with me to further discuss this story and what can be done to bring justice and correction to this situation?

I love this country and considered it a great privilege to work in the US (sic) Senate. I am bringing this to you and Fox News to address this professionally and correctly. I could have sought the most liberal, Republican hating media to expose this story, but there are people’s lives at stake and justice is about proper process as well as outcome. Senator Ensign has no business serving in the US (sic) Senate anymore! I will send you and (sic) email as well as leave you and your staff messages in an attempt to meet you and your team as soon as possible. I live and work in Nevada but can be in New York within hours, I look forward to your help.

Sincerely,
Doug Hampton

What this guy did was pretty despicable, and now I think he should resign. And if Republicans are protecting him because of his stature within the party, well, they should stop immediately. Because like most hypocrites, it’ll only be a matter of time before he can’t help himself again and the GOP will have to deal with another one of these situations.

Be forewarned Republicans. If you let this one go it could seriously nail you later on.

And the Iranian people are mad as hell…

Here’s more…

Not only that, Twitter is being used a ton to get the message out.

Andrew Sullivan sums it up like so…

This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics, motivated by terror, armed with nukes, and playing old but now far too dangerous games. This generation will not bypass existing institutions and methods: look at the record turnout in Iran and the massive mobilization of the young and minority vote in the US. But they will use technology to displace old modes and orders. Maybe this revolt will be crushed. But even if it is, the genie has escaped this Islamist bottle.

The revolution will be Twittered.

I’ve said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating…the ethanol industry is not good for this country.

But instead of paying attention to the facts, there’s a new lobbying push headed by General Wesley Clark to up the mandated 10% in our fuel supply to 15%.

Why? Because the industry is going bankrupt and they need the market gamed for them.

Ugh.

And as this Business Week article points out, there are A LOT of other problems too…

First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA’s own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).

Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.

Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle’s fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA’s fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.

Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history.

And if all of those reasons aren’t bad enough, the additive is also destroying our engines!

Though the media is ignoring it, one can easily find many stories on BMW blogs relating similar problems with fuel systems damaged by the use of ethanol. Certainly that was the case with Christi Jordan and her 2007 Mini. For weeks it was difficult to start; Moritz BMW in Arlington, Tex., inspected it and found severe carbon buildup inside the engine. On her second trip to the mechanics they decided to test the ethanol content of Christi’s fuel and found it was much higher than the federally mandated limit of 10%. This time the fuel pump had been destroyed by the ethanol. The repair bill came to $1,200: As in all cases where vehicles are damaged by ethanol, legally the factory warranty no longer applied.

All of this seems so obvious and yet we won’t let this industry die. Why? I can’t help but think one of the key reasons the it exists is because Iowa has one of the first presidential primaries, so it skews the political opinion towards supporting a market that is completely fabricated.

That’s why it’s up to us. Please try and spread the word in your social spaces about the real effects of ethanol and let’s shine a little light on this growing scam.

A 90 to 5 vote is a good show of bipartisan legislation, right?

Well, yes and no…

From CNN:

The Senate on Tuesday voted 90-5 to approve a bill that will make it tougher for credit card issuers to raise fees and interest rates starting early next year. [...]

The bill will now go to the House, which is expected to take it up on Wednesday and pass it before the weekend. The bill would get to President Obama’s desk before Memorial Day, as he called for.

So about that concealed gun poison pill that was put into this bill…it baffles me as to how it got in there. I mean, I know how it can procedurally get in, but comes on.

Here’s what it means…

The bill includes an unrelated measure that would allow people to carry concealed weapons into national parks.

The culprit? Tom Coburn of Oklahoma… (pictured above)

In a move that has drawn criticism, confusion, and more than a few comments about strange bedfellows, the Senate recently voted 67-29 to add a gun-rights amendment to a consumer credit-card bill. The provision, which was authored by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla), requires national parks to abide by state gun laws and would allow park visitors to carry concealed weapons. [...]

Even the amendment’s supporters had a hard time justifying its inclusion. “Why is this [gun amendment] being included in this [credit bill]?” mused Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo). “The answer is, this is the Senate, where everything is germane.

Regardless of whether you’re a Dem or Repub, this is the type of stuff that has to stop. Because what happens is something like this gets slipped into an otherwise VERY important bill, somebody takes a principled stand against voting for the amendment and then gets nailed in their campaign for not voting for the larger reform.

Ugh.

This is the stuff I love to hear because it means that one person’s bad decisions couldn’t bring down an entire movement.

From ABC:

I’ve talked to a lot of former Edwards staffers about this. Up until December of 2007, most on Edwards’ staff didn’t believe rumors about the affair.

But by late December, early January of last year, several people in his inner circle began to think the rumors were true.

Several of them had gotten together and devised a “doomsday” strategy of sorts.

Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards’ staffers have told me.

They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.

My only question…why didn’t they just sabotage it from the beginning and leave? Because a mass exodus would have been plenty to stop Edwards cold. Sure, I get that they wanted to collect that paycheck, but they were actively involved in selling a lie.

Something tells me that the reason Edwards staffers hung on is they wanted Obama to win the nomination and if they had cut Edwards off, he wouldn’t have siphoned the votes from Hillary and Obama would have placed second.

What do you think?

“The Federal Reserve has been hobbled by at least two major shortcomings that were primarily responsible for the current and several previous credit crises. Its failure to spot the importance of changing financial markets and its commitment to laisser faire economics were big mistakes and justify a fundamental overhaul of the Fed.”
- Henry Kaufman in an editorial at the Financial Times

The entire article is fairly devastating stuff, and Kaufman details 6 different ways that economic libertarianism failed the Fed. I won’t reprint those here, but this is the conclusion…

By guiding monetary policy in a libertarian direction, the Fed played a central role in creating a financial environment defined by excessive credit growth and unrestrained profit seeking. Major participants came to fear that if they failed to embrace the new world of securitised debt, proxy debt instruments, and quantitative risk analysis, they stood a very good chance of seeing their market shares shrink, top staff defect, and profits dwindle.

And this is what many of us have been saying for quite some time now. Because we aren’t anti-markets, and nobody I’ve heard is suggesting that market driven capitalism isn’t the way to go. But we’re certainly anti-loosely regulated markets because it creates an environment where something really big and bad can happen. And so it did.

In short, it’s better to grow slower on a stronger foundation than grow faster on a weaker foundation. Why this wasn’t obvious to the libertarian economists is beyond me, but perhaps the liberal economic voices will be listened to more closely this time around.

Are we really ready to do this to kids? And the important part here is that the student in question was on the honor roll and they were searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen pills.

Yes, ibuprofen.

From Wash Post…

An important case at the Supreme Court sometimes informs as much about the justices as the issue at hand, and yesterday’s animated hearing on whether school officials have the right to strip-search a 13-year-old female student seemed just such a case.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wondered if the incident was much different from the experience of disrobing for gym class. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy affirmed his deep concerns about illicit drugs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed at times on the edge of exasperation with her all-male colleagues. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. searched for a way to make the issue go away.

But it was Justice David H. Souter who seemed to sum up the dilemma for a majority of the court. He put himself in the place of a school official balancing the need for keeping his young charges safe from drugs while respecting the constitutional protections even middle school students should receive.
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“My thought process is, I would rather have the kid embarrassed by a strip search, if we can’t find anything short of that, than to have some other kids dead because the stuff is distributed at lunchtime and things go awry,” Souter said.

Sure, but how big of a problem is this really? Lots of kids ODing on ibuprofen? I mean, come on…

And how far do we want to go down the “If one child gets hurt…” road? Life is full of danger, and there are laws in place to make sure we have reasonable assumptions of safety. But there’s no such thing as complete safety, and it feels like that’s what we’re aiming at with this.

Color me concerned because this slippery slope seems ripe for abuse.

Also, the idea that an entire “news” organization was pushing these events as if they were their own creates an environment where the protests were instantly discredited. I argued this a few days ago, and I know Fox realizes exactly what they were doing. So this “Gee, Fox was the only one to cover these,” nonsense is yet another Machiavellian marketing tactic to make conservatives feel victimized.

In fact, here’s Fox playing the victim itself…

I’m serious, this type of clearly dishonest commentary is appalling from a news organization. But, by the same token, so were all the jokes that MSNBC were cracking about teabagging. They could have stayed above the fray, but they decide to mix it up with Fox and now they’ve been dirtied up too.

Folks, we’re seeing our cable “news” channels quickly going down the toilet into the tabloidization model that Rupert Murdoch pioneered. Only CNN is providing news shows without some readily apparent bias anymore and their ratings are tanking. Is this really where we want it to go? Is the market deciding that as long as it’s entertaining and has a little news in it, that’s what constitutes news?

Coming from a background in journalism, this trend shakes me to the core. And there’s literally nothing I can see that’s going to stop it from getting worse.

Take this segment from Your World with Neil Cavuto where a guest host just flat out says it’s his “duty” to promote the tea parties.

What does one say to this except how can Fox call themselves a news station anymore? Because between this and Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, the channel has become a 24/7 anti-Obama activism machine. It is CRAZY.

What’s more, and as the title suggests, I think they’re actually destroying any credibility the tea parties could hope to have because who’s going to believe that these are actually grass root gatherings? I mean, who does Fox really think they’re fooling? Do they genuinely believe they can snow the rest of the electorate into buying this? Independents are laughing at this.

However, let’s face it, if you really scratch the surface on who’s organizing these events you’ll find a who’s who list of traditional right-wing money folks like Richard Mellon Scaife, etc. So these were never grass roots events in the first place. And, to their credit, it’s not like they’re hiding any of these facts. So good for them for being being transparent, but somebody needs to to tell them they can’t fake the grass roots. Because ultimately it’s nothing more than a glorified media event with no true passion behind it.

And that’s the difference between something like this and the Ron Paul movement last year. That had passion behind it. Ultimately Paul was revealed to be a fairly flawed messenger, but his message still inspired. What message is inspiring the tea party folk? Obama is a socialist? More tax cuts? Again, there’s no “there” there because it wasn’t created by the grass roots. And Fox News covering these events like they’re conservative “love ins” only guarantees that failure will come quicker as the hungry mouth of the right wing media rips away any pretense of authenticity.

So maybe I shouldn’t be frustrated by Fox after all. Because in their hurry to make the tea parties their own, they’re unwittingly destroying them.

Moving on…

That’s the word out today and it sounds fairly damning for Jackson because how would folks come to Blago and promise this if it wasn’t backed up by Jesse Jr.?

From Chicago Sun Times:

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s camp was told last year that U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) would raise up to $5 million in campaign cash for the ex-governor if he was appointed to President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The overture came from at least two members of the local Indian community who approached the Blagojevich fund-raising team last fall, sources say.

Besides the $5 million to be raised by Jackson, the proposal also included another $1 million for Blagojevich’s campaign fund that would come from Indian donors, sources say.

And here’s how it went down…

The first came from Rajinder Bedi, a state employee who acted as a conduit to the Indian community for Blagojevich, sources say. Bedi met with the governor’s brother, Robert, to tell him that a longtime fund-raiser and wealthy health care businessman, Raghuveer Nayak, would help organize fund-raising within the Indian community and that Jackson would raise money as well.

Then, at an Oct. 31 planning luncheon at the India House restaurant in Schaumburg, Nayak delivered a similar message to Robert Blagojevich, the Sun-Times has learned. Nayak allegedly identified himself to the Blagojevich camp as a representative of Jackson, sources say.

Again, doesn’t bode well for Jackson. Because he has definitely had contact with Nayak and even if he didn’t do anything wrong, Nayak can say he did.

Ugh, what a mess.

More as it develops…

Looks like the Republican’s “budget” presentation last week was little more than a PR stunt after all. And I’m not sure why they even bothered. Because all it did was make them seem even less credible when it comes to fixing the economy.

Not smart.

From The Note:

According to a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate GOP’s plan remains the same: Republicans are planning to offer individual amendments to the Democratic budget but not a detailed, comprehensive budget of their own.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, has pointed out that if the GOP amendments are accepted en masse (which will not happen), the amended budget would be the Republican alternative. Senate GOP leaders have also pointed out that Senate Democrats didn’t offer a detailed alternative budget in 2005 and 2006, when Republicans last controlled the Senate.

That’s pretty thin gruel folks.

If they didn’t have a budget, they never should have said they did. Instead, they could have stuck to the facts, and told folks they had viable amendments to the existing budget that would help get this country moving again. But, for reasons that still remain unclear, they traded that for grandstanding and the move is likely to cripple them in this debate.