Continued look at who independent voters are/are not and Obama’s poll numbers…

• A reminder: Most ‘independent’ voters aren’t (LA Times/Top of the Ticket)
• Sick and Tired of Republicans and Democrats? New Parties Say They Offer Alternatives (By James King, Phoenix News Times)
• Pa.’s Sestak plans Tuesday announcement (USA Today)
• Poll: Pennsylvania ranks 20th most Democratic state in the nation (Erik Westervelt, Phildadelphia Opinion Polls Examiner)
• Political Party Affiliation: 30 States Blue, 4 Red in ‘09 So Far (by Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup)
• Zogby/O’Leary Poll Reveals Majority of Voters Will Oppose Senators Who Vote to Confirm an Anti-Second Amendment Supreme Court Nominee (Press Release)  NOTE: Included here because the Zogby/O’Leary poll purports to speak for independents…
• Obama’s Ratings Slide Across the Board – The Economy, Health Care Reform and Gates Grease the Skids (Pew Research)

SCHWARZENEGGER/OPEN PRIMARIES

Calif Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger is determined to leave a legacy of reform — particularly open primaries, which would give more power to voters

• Schwarzenegger is unpopular but undaunted (George Skelton, Capitol Journal, LA Times)
• A State of Confusion editorial: State needs fixes to avoid a repeat (Sac Bee) As for the Legislature itself, an open primary in place of the partisan nominating system we have now might help elect more moderate lawmakers and lead to a more consensus-oriented body.

For more independent news, see The Hankster, where the independents are.

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.

This is Danielle Ivory from the American News Project.

As another $350 billion goes out the door, ANP looks at one small bailed-out bank. Eagle Bank is having trouble making loans. Its CEO, Ron Paul, says that the government has not taken fleeing depositors into account and, as a result, small banks and their surrounding communities will suffer.

Follow Danielle’s reporting on twitter.

http://americannewsproject.com/node/190

WATCH:

Today, Henry Paulson urged Congress to release the second half of the $700 billion of the bailout money. But no one seems know what banks have done with the first $350 billion. Despite the fact that Congress wrote more than one hundred pages about oversight in the bailout bill, they left a gaping hole.

All of the content on ANP is available for free! If you like the piece, please feel free to post it on your blog, or replay on the radio or tv.

http://americannewsproject.com/videos/186

Former Illinois Governor George H. Ryan (above) is the Republican who preceded Democrat Rod Blagojevich in the Springfield state house and may soon be joined by Blagojevich at the nearest Federal Big House.  Ryan, who served one term as Governor from 1999 to 2003, was convicted in 2006 for his role in the widespread illegal sale of government licenses, contracts and leases by state employees during his service as Secretary of State (1991-1999).  At least 76 former aides, lobbyists and others have been convicted in this scandal, which led Ryan not to seek reelection in 2002, opening the way for Blagojevich.  Ryan now resides in a prison camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Over the past few days, remarkably wide agreement has emerged among reporters, pundits and bloggers, from left to right, to the effect that Governor Rod Blagovich’s alleged misconduct is so out of the ordinary as to make you wonder if he’s “nuts” or “delusional.”

The sad truth is that Blagogate is just another example of conduct that is all too commonplace among politicians of both parties.  Although not so unusual, it is far more more dramatic than most corruption cases, because it involves the Senate seat of the man who was just elected President, and because the FBI actually bugged the Governor’s office and has him on tape, complete with [bleeping] expletives. The last time we had such vivid and shocking evidence of crude venality in high places was in Abscam, when we could watch one Congressman after another meet with a supposed “Arab sheik” and sell their offices for cash.

This kind of thing is certainly “the Chicago way” but it may not be too much of a stretch to look at it as “the American way.”  One insightful, smart take on this comes from veteran Democratic pollster and consultant, Doug Schoen, who writes:

To be sure, what has appeared in the news has been shocking for those who are somewhat removed from the world of politics. But while what Blagojevich did is undeniably beyond the pale, it is frankly much more common in the political world than anyone has been willing to acknowledge.

But this time, we have it on tape:

Yes, the wiretaps reveal clear and unambiguous evidence that Blagojevich hoped to get something in exchange for the appointment. But this kind of horse trading, in my experience, goes on all the time. It usually isn’t articulated as bluntly as it apparently has here, though–and there usually aren’t as many wiretaps marshaled as evidence.

While Governor Ryan’s blazing the trail for Governor Blagojevich should be proof enough that Rod is no innovator, I thought it would be fun to look at some other cases in the recent past, which include these in the great state of Illinois (remember, these are only the guys who got caught):

Former Governor Daniel Walker was convicted in 1987 of wrongdoing in connection with the savings and loan scandals and sentenced to a federal penitentiary.

Governor Otto Kerner, who served from 1961-68, was convicted of bribery, conspiracy, income-tax evasion, mail fraud and perjury.

Secretary of State Paul Powell was found with $800,000 in cash in a shoe box in his hotel room, but was never convicted. He died in 1970.

State Treasurer Jerry Cosentino was convicted on check kiting charges in 1992.

And of course, wheeler dealer Tony Rezko was convicted earlier this year 16 federal felony corruption charges.

Ah, but special kudos are due the Chicago Board of Aldermen for what may be a record-setting conviction rate for a single public office!  Consider: 

Alderman Arenda Troutman was arrested and charged with bribery in 2007.

Alderman Percy Giles was sentenced to three years in prison for racketeering, extortion, among other things, in 2000.

Alderman Lawrence S. Bloom was sentenced to six months in 1999 for filing a false tax return (what a boy scout!).

Alderman Jesse J. Evans got 41 months in prison in 1997 for racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, attempted extortion, mail fraud, influence peddling, filing false tax returns, and obstruction of justice (now that’s what I call a record!).

Alderman Virgil E. Jones Jr. drew 2 1/2 years in prison for extortion in 1999.

Alderman Joseph A. Martinez pleaded guilty in 1998 to putting “ghosts” on the payroll and sentenced to five months in prison.

Alderman Ambrosio Medrano pleaded guilty to extortion in 1996 and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Alderman Allan J. Streeter pleaded guilty to extortion and filing false income tax returns and was sentenced to prison in 1998.  (What’s with all these pleas? Are there no real men ready to take the weight left in the Windy City?)

Alderman Fred B. Roti was sentenced to 48 months in 1993 for racketeering, conspiracy, and bribery, among other things. 

Phew!  Not to outdone by their colleagues at City Hall, Illinois state legislators have been doing their part:

In 1992, State Representative James DeLeo was caught in the “Operation Greylord” investigation of corruption in Cook County, indicted by a federal grand jury for taking bribes, negotiated a guilty plea, and got probation.

In 1997, State Representative Joe Kotlarz was convicted and sentenced to jail for theft and conspiracy for pocketing in about $200,000 for a sale of state land to a company he once served as legal counsel.

In 1999, State Senator Bruce A. Farley got 18 months in prison for mail fraud.

And State Senator John A. D’Arco Jr. served time in prison for bribery and extortion. 

OK, I admit I’m beating up pretty hard on Chicago, so here’s a recap of some of the greatest hits of American political corruption over the past three decades.  Let’s start with some governors:

Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton (1976-1979) lost his reelection bid after exposure of a bribery scandal. Before leaving office, he issued a large number of pardons to convicted felons, apparently in exchange for bribes.

Rhode Island Governor Edward D. DiPrete (1985-91) pleaded guilty to bribery, extortion and racketeering.

Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel was convicted of mail fraud and racketeering in 1977.

Arkansas Governor James Guy Tucker, Jr. was convicted of fraud cnspiracy in 1996.

Then there was Vice President Spiro Agnew who resigned his office to face corruption charges involving his years as Maryland Governor. He was convicted in 1973.

Alabama Governor Don Siegelman was found guilty of bribery, mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2006 and sentenced to 88 months.

Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards was convicted of extortion in 2000.

Connecticut Governor John Rowland resigned in 2004 due to a corruption ivestigation. Later, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and tax fraud and served 10 months in a federal prison.

Last but not least, who can forget New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey who resigned from office in 2007 under a cloud for appointing his alleged male-sex partner as the sate’s homeland security director. (Jim really had to Pay to Play.) 

Yet, year after year, Congress remains home to a mother lode of illegal dealings involving money (not to mention all sorts of sexual hi jinks!). 

The Abscam boys are still, IMHO, recent history’s kings of Capitol Hill corruption. In this 1980 FBI sting, fake ‘Arabs’ tried to bribe 31 Congressmen.  A mere six were convicted, but many others were tainted. 

New Jersey Senator Harrison “Pete” Williams led the pack, being convicted on nine counts of bribery and conspiracy and became the first U.S. Senator to go to prison in 80 years.  Five members of the House were also convicted — John Jenrette of South Carolina, Richard Kelly of Florida, Raymond Lederer of Pennsylvania, Michael Myers of Pennsylvania, and Frank Thompson of New Jersey.  (The Feds also bagged a New Jersey state senator and members of the Philadelphia city council along the way.)

Bronx Rep. Mario Biaggi was convicted in 1988 on 15 felony counts of obstruction of justice and accepting illegal gratuities.

Speaker of the House Jim Wright of Texas, no less, resigned in 1989 after an investigation into improper receipt of $145,000 in gifts.

Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, an Illinois (there I go again) big shot, was caught up in the great Congressional Post Office Scandal of the early 1990s, was convicted of heading a conspiracy to launder Post Office money through stamps and postal vouchers, and got 18 months in the slammer.

Rep. Buz Lukens of Ohio was convicted in 1995 on five counts of bribery and cnspiracy and served a year in prison.

Rep. Edward Mezvinsky of Iowa pleaded guilty in 2001 to 31 charges of bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud.

Rep. Jim Traficant of Ohio was found guilty in 2002 on 10 felony counts of financial corruption, sentenced to eight years in prison, and expelled from the House.

House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas, after years of ethics probes and reprimands, finally got his in 2005.  He was indicted and later resigned from the House.

Rep. Duke Cunningham of California pleaded guilty in 2005 to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail and wire fraud, and tax evasion and was sentenced to more than eight years.

Rep. William J. Jefferson of Louisiana — he of the $90,000 in cash stashed in his freezer — was indicted in 2007 on 16 charges of corruption for accepting bribes and defeated for reelection last month.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, without whom no list is complete, at 85 with 40 years in the Senate, was snared in a sweeping federal probe of political corruption in his state and convicted last October on seven counts of bribery and tax evasion. 

I have to add one more, a case that is still working its way through the system, because it’s becoming a personal favorite:

Massachusetts State Senator Diane Wilkerson, a rising star in her state’s politics, resigned a few weeks ago after being indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of alleged corruption. Wilkerson is accused of taking over $23,000 in bribes.  The FBI has video and audio recordings of many of these alleged acts, including a video tape of Wilkerson stuffing bribe money into her bra.

So, what was that about Blagojevich’s conduct being so over the top that he must be crazy?

(Visit me at The Purple Center)

My friend and colleague, Lagan Sebert, and I have just published a follow-up on the voting situation in Pennsylvania, arrowing in on a recent legal battle over paper ballots and the Philadelphia City Commission (which has kind of become a peculiar little beat for the ANP, I guess.)

This week, we attended the federal hearing against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (filed by the NAACP) and the last public meeting of the Philly City Commissioners before the election. We were surprised to see very few members of media at either meeting–Bob Warner of the Philadelphia Daily News was an exception.

If you like it, please do send this along to other people who might be interested or link to it or embed it on your websites! All ANP content is free for use in newspapers, blogs, television, and radio.

Chaos Looms Over Pennsylvania Vote
By Danielle Ivory on Oct 31, 2008

Philadelphia is shaping up to be a key city in a key battleground state in this election, but machine problems and long lines may plague the polling stations and voter disenfranchisement will be a serious risk. Unfortunately for voters, the people charged with running a smooth election in Philly seem surprisingly unconcerned. Philly’s veritable election czar, Marge Tartaglione (D), in particular, shocked ANP with her comments at a recent hearing. See more videos at the American News Project.

ANP has been investigating the perplexing case of the Philadelphia City Commission for a few weeks.

Click for our original story, Philly Official Scoffs at Voting Problems.

Click for our follow-up, Voters Sue Pennsylvania, Election Official Scoffs.

And click for the judge’s recent ruling in the case of the NAACP v. Cortes.

Follow Danielle’s reporting on twitter.

Follow Lagan’s reporting on twitter.

Just by way of introduction, the ANP is an independent non-profit video news organization in DC. We produce pieces for the web, but offer all of our content for free to newspapers, blogs, websites, radio, and television so please feel free to embed or share our videos. We see all visitors to our website as potential partners and hope that our community will eventually help fund specific beats, send us news tips and story ideas, and join us as freelancers. Another great site to check out is http://spot.us.

We’re convinced that journalistic collaboration will be essential to the future of news, and so far it’s worked pretty well for us. We’ve worked with McClatchy, The Nation, the Washington Independent, and The Huffington Post on investigative and breaking stories and look forward to more teamwork in the future.

Recently, I’ve been covering voting infrastructural issues for the ANP and found myself in Philadelphia. During the 2008 primary, parts of Pennsylvania (particularly areas with high concentrations of poverty and people of color) experienced major delays due to machine failures, and many voters ended up waiting in line for hours or getting disenfranchised. When I spoke to Philly’s Deputy Commissioner, Fred Voigt, I was startled by a strong sense of institutional inertia, an unwillingness to admit that serious problems exist and, what’s more, that these problems could possibly be fixed with better management and funding. Furthermore, he and the commission (headed by Marge Tartaglione) seemed alarmingly unconcerned about long lines leading to disenfranchisement. We aired a story about this on Monday, featuring this disturbing interview. Since then, the NAACP and the Election Reform Network have filed a lawsuit against the state or Pennsylvania, requesting that paper ballots be made available for the voters of PA in case there are machine breakdowns. ANP’s original story was quoted in the complaint—Voigt’s comments were described as an example of a “woefully inadequate” official response to election problems.

We aired a follow-up yesterday, covering the lawsuit and presenting more of our strange interview with Fred Voigt. I asked Voigt how voters could avoid lines, and gave me another surprising answer.

We’ll continue following this case and the state of voting in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. (If you have ideas or tips, please feel free to email us at contact@newsproject.org.)

ANP: Voters Sue Pennsylvania, Election Official Scoffs

Click here to view our original story.

Click here to view the Voter Action complaint and plaintiffs’ memorandum.

Evacuation plans are in effect for New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast and no one from President Bush on down seems to be taking this threat lightly. Hopefully, Gustav will miss any heavily populated areas, but a hurricane of this size, even if it weakens before hitting our shores, is likely to do serious damage.

We can only pray mother nature is merciful and hope our local, state and federal governments are prepared.

To put it mildly, without a dramatic reduction in fuel prices, airlines in America are screwed. They were struggling even before the rise in oil prices and it would hardly be a stretch to call the industry one of the most disliked in America. The only service left to airline passengers is low fares. If those go away, so will the consumers.

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. of the Wall Street Journal expects a nasty fallout for the airline industry. But he does have two suggestions as to how the government might help ease the troubles.

1) Repeal limits on foreign ownership. Air France was ready to pump $750 million into the Delta-Northwest merger, until the airlines waved Paris off fearing political backlash. British Air would love to buy American. As part of larger global networks, domestic carriers would be supported by a much less volatile financial structure. Says Giovanni Bisignani, head of the International Air Transport Association: “How many car manufacturers do you have in the world — 20 or 30? We have over 1,000 airlines.”

2) Admit our antitrust laws don’t have all the answers. Basic property rights and freedom of contract are necessarily abridged when businesses are forbidden from negotiating with competitors. But in “code-sharing,” airlines have a ready-made way to collude to preserve capacity in a downturn without losing their shirts. Give airlines license to enter and exit these deals at will. Any abusive pricing would surely attract new entrants to compete away excessive profits. Fewer giveaway fares might be available on the Web, but passengers would get more of the services they are genuinely willing to pay for.

Obviously, the airline industry in America will survive in one capacity or another. Removing some of the current regulations on airline ownership and allowing more flexibility in entering and leaving code-sharing agreements could make the transition from today’s market to tomorrow’s market smoother. It’s at least more preferable to another massive bailout financed by taxpayers.

But, hey, now the airline is saying it’s not that big of a deal. Apparently only one in four passengers checks a bag.

But the real kicker to AA’s statement on the matter is this:

The airline defended the fee, saying it was a bargain compared with the cost of shipping a 45-pound bag overnight on a package-delivery company. A spokesman for the airline said the cost of sending a bag from Dallas to New York would range from $150 to $230 or more.

Makes me wonder what it would cost to ship myself. After all, a box could have more legroom than an American Airlines flight and at least UPS would guarantee my arrival.

Obviously American Airlines has to do what it has to do to remain a viable airline. But for those of us who travel more for leisure than business, checking a bag is a necessity. AA is pretty much ensuring that families will turn somewhere else for their domestic vacation travel.

Well, Malkin and others are correct that the keffiyeh has become a radicalized symbol and it wouldn’t be going too far to say it is at least as offensive a symbol as, say, the Confederate battle flag. But unlike the Confederate flag, the keffiyeh is not so easily identified. I, for one, did not recognize Rachel Ray’s scarf as anything other than a black-and-white scarf. And not even Malkin is accusing Ray or Dunkin Donuts of supporting radical Palestinian causes. Malkin assumes the parties involved were ignorant of the scarf’s symbolism.

Thing is, keffiyeh-chic has already invaded the mainstream. To me, commercializing this symbol does more to strip it of its meaning than does any offended protest by the likes of Michelle Malkin. Then again, I probably wouldn’t say the same thing about swastikas used as fashion accessories. The difference, I think, is that the keffiyeh is simply not a well-known or well-understood symbol.

Does a symbol lose its power when its wearer is ignorant of its meaning? And are people like Malkin overreacting for political reasons? My first thought was that Malkin is an idiot. But looking into the matter, the symbol is offensive, particularly to Jews. And while some can say the keffiyeh is just a symbol of Palestinian pride, some also say the Confederate flag is nothing more than a symbol of Southern pride.

Symbols are a difficult business because they only mean what people say they mean. Wearing a keffiyeh-like scarf in an ad for an American donut company in no way aids or even gives comforts to Palestinian militantism. Then again, if the keffiyeh is going to be a fashion accessory, people should at least be aware of its meaning and not unwittingly show support for a cause in which they don’t believe. In that sense, Malkin was not wrong for speaking up, even if it seems like a rather shrill complaint about a rather small matter. What do you think?

My cartoon was linked to post from the NYTimes

(Click on Bob McCarty) NYTIMES link

In reading blog coverage and comments about the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, I’ve gotten the sense that there are a lot of people who think this is no big deal. The underlying assumption is the either prostitution is not worth enforcing or that this particular case should be a private matter for the Spitzer family. Both assumptions, in my mind, are wrong.

First, hiring a prostitute and having a consensual affair are two very different things and we shouldn’t confuse the two. An affair is a personal matter as is any consensual sexual relationship between adults. The government has no business monitoring or regulating such acts and most of us have no business throwing stones. Prostitution, on the other hand, is a commercial matter and one that is excessively exploitative. It’s very much in the realm of matters the government should regulate or prohibit. And the rest of us have every right to expect our politicians not to hire call girls.

There’s a reason why only one state in the union permits prostitution and, even then, with plenty of regulations that would still consider what Spitzer did to be criminal. Prostitution places women at high risk for violence, disease and a multitude of other problems. Not to mention that, if we accept that our culture should have at least some standards, we hardly want prostitution to become a legitimate career aspiration for young women. Sure, we can’t wipe it out through enforcement but our society and culture are stronger for not tolerating such physical exploitation (as distinct from the less harmful voyeuristic exploitation that occurs in legal pornography).

As for enforcement, it’s usually a local matter and some jurisdictions place more emphasis on it than others. But as long as the majority want it to be a law we have to expect it to be enforced. And as long as it’s enforced, we have to demand it’s enforced on all levels – not just on the street but in the highest offices as well. Spitzer got caught because of his own clumsy use of wire transfers. No one pried into his personal life and then discovered the criminality. There was more than enough probable cause for an investigation because Spitzer gave them cause.

Ultimately, the Spitzer case is not about sex. It’s about a governor committing a federal felony (it became federal when paid a prostitute to cross state lines). This is not some over-reaction to a politician getting caught with his pants down. This is an appropriate reaction to a politician betraying his oath to uphold the law. Unless Spitzer claims he’s not guilty, there’s absolutely no reason the citizens of New York should tolerate him staying in office.

I am calling this post the DoodTube Surge, in order to highlight his emergence as a solid alternative to a Clinton nomination. I have already anointed one Democratic Senator as the Designated Democratic VP Candidate, but I am not quite ready to concede the nomination belongs to Clinton. She has too much time to lose it, and I’ve got a feeling she’ll figure out a way to do just that. Her formidable strength in the debates so far has emerged from her confidence and the perception that she “looks presidential. ” Well Chris Dodd is looking every bit as presidential lately, and has the additional advantage of, you know, actually doing things in the Senate that are important to Americans. I’m not saying he is going to strip her of the front runner title. I am not saying he is my favorite among the herd of senatorial presidential stock (That would be Chuck “now is the time” Hagel). I am not even saying that he is my favorite Democratic Senator running for President (that would be Joe “it’s the war stupid” Biden). I am just saying – keep an eye on him.

The Dood Tube Surge 1 – Sub-Prime Credit Contagion:
Earlier this week Chris Dodd met with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to discuss what could be done to keep the sub-prime market crisis and the record high mortgage default rate from spinning out of control. Stepping out of the meeting he was interviewed on CNBC:

In this video Senator Dodd speaks with authority and clarity about a complex problem that affects millions of Americans facing foreclosure on badly constructed and/or misrepresented loans, as well as a panicky credit market and business community. The interview is conducted on CNBC – the business channel of record – where he has a dialog with business journalists, not as presidential candidate, but as an important actor on the American economic stage. Is there another Democratic Senator running for President that could conduct this interview at this level of specificity and authority on this topic in this venue? If so, I don’t know who it is.

Dood Tube Surge 2 – America’s Infrastructure
Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel worked for two years on crafting a bi-partisan bill to address the wildly under-reported issue of America’s crumbling infrastructure. A couple of weeks ago they announced this important bill in a press conference that was completely ignored by both new and old media. That is,the bill was ignored until a few hours after the press conference, when a major bridge fell down in Minnesota. Then the traditional media (and the blogosphere) took notice. Dodd and Hagel on MSNBC’s Hardball:

Dood Tube Surge 3 – Spanking Bill O’Reilly
This one is just fun. A couple weeks ago Chris Dodd took Bill O’Reilly to the woodshed on his own show over O’Reilly’s completely asinine and mind numbingly stupid attacks on Daily Kos. Dodd is obviously having great fun doing it, while O’Reilly blows a gasket on air.

Dood Tube Surge 4 – The dude with white hair.
We started with the hair, we’ll finish up with the hair. This from last Sunday’s debate on ABC:

excerpted and x-posted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall”

On MSNBC a girl who was in the car with her mother right behind the famous school bus. They pulled off because they had to pee.

In ancient times people believed in fate or the gods.

When I was growing up everything was upbringing, your environment in the broader sense of the word.

Nowadays Americans tend to believe in free will with quasi-religious reverence. Americans frequently go so far as to deny that any other force but free will can determine the path your life takes.

Of course now some Americans are finding a new, more scientific angle on old-fashioned fate: DNA.

The two cases cited above show that there’s another force, inextricably bound up with free will, environment and heredity: random chance.

The guy decides to brush his teeth. Free will. Maybe he had a genetic predisposition to tooth decay. So free will occasioned in part by DNA. Or maybe he’d just been raised well. In any case the effect of his decision to brush his teeth was determined by chance.

You mix together your heredity and your environment. You choose your path. Then you roll the dice to see what really happens.

Brush your teeth, forget to pee before you leave the house, you live. Equally tiny, insignificant factors put other people on that bridge at the wrong time.

Best not to dwell on it.

Justin asked about our favorite YouTube debate question. Instead, I’ll offer the one that pissed me off:

excerpted from Divided We Stand United We Fall

MR. BLITZER: So yes or no, would you pardon him?
MR. GIULIANI:“…and ultimately, there was no underlying crime involved.”
MR. ROMNEY: “…in this case, you have a prosecutor who clearly abused prosecutorial discretion by going after somebody when he already knew that the source of the leak was Richard Armitage. ”
SEN. BROWNBACK: “Yes. The basic crime here didn’t happen.”

What nonsense. Consider these quotes from two special prosecutors in two high profile investigations into high ranking members of the executive branch of government.

“Any lie under oath is serious. Any prosecutor will tell you… we cannot tolerate perjury. The truth is what drives our judicial system. If people do not come forward and tell the truth, we have no hope of making the judicial system work. If someone knowingly tells a lie under oath during any investigation, it is every prosecutor’s duty to respond by investigating and proving that if you can. That is a serious matter in any case. It is obvious it is a serious matter here in a case here where there is a national security investigation. The nature of any person telling a lie under oath to a grand jury is a serious problem. Having a high level official do that under oath under a national security investigation is something can never be acceptable. And that just made it mandatory that we pursue it. “ -Patrick Fitzgerald – Press Conference after verdict – March 6, 2007

“The whole idea of equal justice under law means that you’ve got to play by the rules. It has nothing to do with the underlying subject matter. You just tell the truth. “Lying under oath, and encouraging lies under oath, does go to the very heart and soul of what courts do. And if we say we don’t care, let’s forget about courts and we’ll just have other ways of figuring out how to handle disputes,” he said. “There is no excuse for perjury — never, never, never,” he said. “There is truth, and the truth demands respect.” – Ken Starr -Time Interview – Nov. 25, 1998

I agree with both prosecutors and both prosecutions. I don’t care which political party they are in. If a high-ranking official lies under oath, you take that official to the wall. No one is above the law. No one has the option of lying under oath without paying the consequences.

The identical rationale was used for impeaching Bill Clinton and prosecuting Scooter Libby. Clinton lied under oath during an investigation. He was impeached for lying under oath in an investigation into a blowjob. Libby was tried and convicted for lying under oath in an investigation about the leak of the identity of a CIA operative. It is completely irrelevant if the underlying reason for the lie under oath was a crime or not a crime. The blowjob was also not a crime. Clinton was still impeached for the lie about the blowjob. It is true that Cheney authorizing the public identification of Plame as a CIA operative was not a crime. It was not a crime since the President gave Cheney the authorization to disclose any secret information he deemed neccessary. No matter that his reason was to cover his ass politically and hide his role in selling the war to the American public under false pretenses. It was still not illegal. Just like Clinton’s blow job was not illegal. But the lies under oath are another matter.

Libby is guilty. He perjured himself. He lied. No one else is going be convicted because Libby is taking the fall for others in the administration. Does he deserve it? Is he really a criminal? I don’t think he is a bad guy. He is loyal and he thinks he is being a patriot by protecting Cheney. I feel sorry for him. But he made a choice. He chose to protect the Vice President and probably Karl Rove’s political ass, while keeping the American people in the dark about what really happened. You can admire his misguided loyalty to the people he worked for, but he owed that loyalty to the American people. He made that choice.

As a consequence he might spend a year in jail for that choice, before Bush pardons him on the way out of office. So it goes. He deserves it.

Excerpted from a post on Divided We Stand. United We Fall

There seems to be a movement to characterize the tepid across the board voter polling as an indication that the new legislation is generally unacceptable…or in the extreme, as Minority Leader John Boehner described it after meeting with the president, it is “a piece of shitâ€Â?. While I can comprehend Will’s rationale, I’m inclined to disagree with his subsequent conclusions.

In fact, I view the poll numbers and the lukewarm reactions to this pending legislation as an egg that won’t hatch because it’s been sat on for far too long by an impotent brood of “banty� roosters who have repeatedly placed partisan objectives ahead of pragmatic and prudent policy. What we are witnessing is simply the acknowledgment that reality has come home to roost…and it has been forever altered by the proverbial practice of “head in the sand� hegemony and hypocrisy.

Let me attempt to explain what I mean. First, let’s look at some of the arguments being advanced in George Will’s op-ed piece.

Compromise is incessantly praised, and it has produced the proposed immigration legislation. But compromise is the mother of complexity, which, regarding immigration, virtually guarantees — as the public understands — weak enforcement and noncompliance.

In 1986, when there probably were 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants, Americans accepted an amnesty because they were promised that border control would promptly follow. Today the 12 million illegal immigrants, 60 percent of whom have been here five or more years, are as numerous as Pennsylvanians; 44 states have populations smaller than 12 million. Deporting the 12 million would require police resources and methods from which the nation would rightly flinch. So, why not leave bad enough alone?

Concentrate on border control and on workplace enforcement facilitated by a biometric identification card issued to immigrants who are or will arrive here legally. Treat the problem of the 12 million with benign neglect. Their children born here are American citizens; the parents of these children will pass away.

Were I living in the civil war era, I might conclude that The Reconstruction had commenced…though this time in the form of rewriting history to mask the motives that allowed the 1986 policy to morph into an illegal immigrant incubator. Ask the owner of any small business in operation during this period and they will gladly confirm that the process of worker verification had been given a virtual vasectomy…rendering it harmless, helpless, and hopeless.

Here’s how the Center for Immigration Studies describes the enforcement of the 1986 law:

Enforcement of this measure, intended to turn off the magnet attracting illegals in the first place, was spotty at first and is now virtually nonexistent. Even when the law was passed, Congress pulled its punch by not requiring the development of a mechanism for employers to verify the legal status of new hires, forcing the system to fall back on a blizzard of easily forged paper documents.

And even under this flawed system, the INS was publicly slapped down when it did try to enforce the law. When the agency conducted raids during Georgia’s Vidalia onion harvest in 1998, thousands of illegal aliens â€â€? knowingly hired by the farmers â€â€? abandoned the fields to avoid arrest. By the end of the week, both of the state’s senators and three congressmen â€â€? Republicans and Democrats â€â€? had sent an outraged letter to Washington complaining that the INS “does not understand the needs of America’s farmers,” and that was the end of that.

So, the INS tried out a “kinder, gentler” means of enforcing the law, which fared no better. Rather than conduct raids on individual employers, Operation Vanguard in sought to identify illegal workers at all meatpacking plants in Nebraska through audits of personnel records. The INS then asked to interview those employees who appeared to be unauthorized â€â€? and the illegals ran off. The procedure was remarkably successful, and was meant to be repeated every two or three months until the plants were weaned from their dependence on illegal labor.

Local law-enforcement officials were very pleased with the results, but employers and politicians vociferously criticized the very idea of enforcing the immigration law. Gov. Mike Johanns organized a task force to oppose the operation; the meat packers and the ranchers hired former Gov. Ben Nelson to lobby on their behalf; and, in Washington, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.) (coauthor, with Tom Daschle, of the newest amnesty bill, S.2010) made it his mission in life to pressure the Justice Department to stop. They succeeded, the operation was ended, and the INS veteran who thought it up in the first place is now enjoying early retirement.

The INS got the message and developed a new interior-enforcement policy that gave up on trying to actually reassert control over immigration and focused almost entirely on the important, but narrow, issues of criminal aliens and smugglers. As INS policy director Robert Bach told the New York Times in a 2000 story appropriately entitled “I.N.S. Is Looking the Other Way as Illegal Immigrants Fill Jobs”: “It is just the market at work, drawing people to jobs, and the INS has chosen to concentrate its actions on aliens who are a danger to the community.” The result is clear â€â€? the San Diego Union-Tribune reported earlier this month that from 1992 to 2002, the number of companies fined for hiring illegal workers fell from 1,063 to 13. That’s thirteen. In the whole country.

So when Will states that the problem was “weak enforcement and noncompliance�, he is only offering a superficial view of the problem. The law was sufficient…but the will of the government (executed by elected officials)…tempered by the economic concerns of important constituent groups and the politicians who needed their votes…didn’t exist for long, if at all.

What resulted was a confluence of competing interests that enabled the unbridled and unchecked flow of immigrants into the country. Republicans satisfied their corporate supporters and Democrats tallied the numbers of a rapidly expanding voting block. Keep in mind the relevant dates…from 1986 to 1992 we had a Republican in the White House and from 1992 through 2000, we had a Democratic president…all followed by the seven years of festering and fractional concerns that have plagued the Bush administration’s tenure. So if it wasn’t solely Republican or Democratic malfeasance that defined these years, what was it? Perhaps politicians of all flavors were savoring the perceived spoils?

Read the full article at Thought Theater

I popped my head out of the fridge and listened some more. Yep, a gigantic tornado had indeeded practically wiped the town from the map.

I live in the Midwest, and I’m used to stories about a small town here and there being heavily damaged by wind or tornados. A few years back, heavy winds took apart St. Peter, Minn., and the grim joke around here is that God hates trailer parks, because they seem to get hit so often.

But Greensburg was different. Because I’ve only been to Kansas once, and Greensburg is the only town in the state (besides Dodge City) that I actually visited.

(Continued at Midtopia)

So what do I know? I know that people on both sides of the political divide have sought to take advantage of the situation. While that isn’t necessarily wrong, it is indicative of a much larger problem in our society. In the broadest sense, it’s the oversimplification of us versus them…good versus bad.

To make my argument, the best example I can offer is from the 2004 presidential election and the circumstances surrounding John Kerry’s military service in Vietnam. At the Democratic convention, Kerry made his oft quoted announcement, “Reporting for Duty”, and so began a series of volleys intended to frame the issue for the voting public. The two choices offered were that he was either a courageous war hero who risked his life for his fellow soldiers and then focused his energy on opposing a war that was wrong…or he was a cunning opportunist who crafted his actions to garner the accolades of a heroic soldier in order to provide him with the vehicle to make inflammatory accusations about the war and his fellow soldiers to promote his own political and personal gain.

Back to Imus. There is no doubt that his actions triggered this mess. His derogatory comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were ignorant and inflammatory. His words were immediately met by a barrage of criticism and that is as it should be. In short order, MSNBC acknowledged the inappropriateness of his remarks and suspended him for two weeks. As an outside observer, that certainly seems warranted.

So now what? Well, this is the point at which it gets tricky. This is the juncture at which the situation becomes larger than the sum of its parts. This is where it becomes less about Don Imus and more about ideology and advantage for those in search of opportunities to engage in the dialogue of us versus them…good versus bad…from positions that have eclipsed the essential considerations of those involved in and impacted by the transgression. It’s not surprising and it’s nothing new…but it is wrong.

Let me attempt to explain. Fortunately, today’s headlines provide a relevant example…the dismissal of rape charges against three Duke University La Crosse players. By all accounts, the local District Attorney sought to manipulate the system and the media to further his own agenda…regardless of the intended purpose of his office…to determine the guilt or innocence of the alleged perpetrators.

First, my own mea culpa. When it was reported that one of the accused had previously been involved with, and charged in, a gay bashing incident, I felt justified in doubting the assertions of his friends and family that he was incapable of the alleged rape. In my own way, I wanted to punish him and all those who would commit crimes against gays…and I made the rape incident about more than those charges and the guilt or innocence of those alleged to have committed those specific charges.

Read the full article at Thought Theater…here:

www.thoughttheater.com