priorities, part duex

Here are bills that caught my eye, one which passed, and the other which failed. And their respective faits tells you a lot about the Utah state legislature.

Sponsored by Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, HB143 was hailed as a way to challenge federal control over certain public lands that have remained untapped because of access issues.

Despite legal analysis by state attorneys that says the measure would not withstand court scrutiny, private attorney Mike Lee said he believes it is a fight worth fighting. Lee is a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

"I cannot rule out the possibility of victory in this case nor can I assure it," Lee told members of a natural resources committee on Tuesday. "I believe we have a good faith basis for an argument here, an argument the likes of which has yet to be addressed as far as I am able to discern. It is argument that strikes at the heart of the sovereignty of the state."
Two other bills sponsored by Rep. Ken Sumsion, R-American Fork, also seek to wrest control of public access to property held by the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, and specifically that property Sumsion and Herrod said has been devalued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to yank back 77 oil and gas leases that had been offered at auction.

"Most of the land is not in production. We cannot tax it and it cannot provide for us," Herrod said. "But the rewards of going after that land are in the billions and billions. I am not a gambling man, but if someone were to say I could put a quarter in a machine and had a chance to get a billion dollars, I would put that quarter in.

...

Those quarters for the legal fight come with Sumsion's HB323, which provides up to $3 million for up to three years to take on the federal government.

...

"Utah PTA is very concerned about the risk involved with this," said Tyler Slack. "Despite the articulate argument of Mike Lee," this is gamble, he added. "The odds are not very important when you are gambling with someone else's money."

So we have a bill, which proposes the state attempting to exercise eminent domain over the federal government, which will result in an instant, expensive, and doubtful legal battle. And the handpicked attorney? Why it is Republican insider-favorite challenger Mike Lee, who is running for Senate and must need the cash.

Someone in the comments section of this article taked about the equal footing doctrine, showing they paid attention in Constitutional Law class, or got notes from someone who did. However, Utah didn't quite enter the union on equal footing. In the later half of the 19th Century, Radical Republicans in Congress made a list of damands that the state had to agree before it would admit Utah into the U.S. Most famously of course was to ban polygamy and separate Church from State. There is a whole line of cases that fleshes out the equal footing doctrine to be more complex that Utah's rights=Alabama's rights.

Moreover, remind me the last time that a state exercised eminent domain against the feds. There is another doctrine out there, one which is actually written in the Constitution, so people like Scalia are happy. It's called the Supremacy Clause. So any law that a state passes that violates the U.S. Constitution or the constitutional laws of the U.S. preempts any state law. And it is not as if U.S. laws on this subject have not "occupied the field" as the magic words go. So really, while it would be a fun topic to debate at academic forums, it is not worth the state's money.

But hey what's three million dollars in the scheme of the entire budget?

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A Utah lawmaker wants school districts to get ready to shore up buildings against earthquakes.

Many education officials say it's too expensive to even get started.

Rep. Larry Wiley, a West Valley City Democrat, is sponsoring a measure in the Utah Legislature that would require districts to get a seismic evaluation of every school building.

Deputy state schools superintendent Martell Menlove says the seismic evaluations would cost nearly $2 million and building upgrades more than $9 billion. Menlove says there's no money for any of that.

The Utah Seismic Safety Commission says an informal 2006 survey suggests around half of Utah's schools are vulnerable to collapse from a major quake.

So let's see, we would rather take a $3 million gamble, which I thought was against the religion of most of the legislature, on a dubious legal claim so we can stick and eye in the Democrats in Washington Federal government than spend $2 million to find out just how much at risk a plurality of our population is to an earthquake. Is the legislature's plan to pay $3 million in legal fees, win the case or settle favorably, strike oil in school trust lands and then turn around and fix our schools before children die? Somehow I don't think they are planning on taking that next step.

I'm not alone

About a month ago, I wrote a screed wherein I talked about how the government is broken and the system has failed us.

Finally, CNN commissioned a study asking whether government is broken. The results?

Eighty-six percent of people questioned in the poll say that our system of government is broken, with 14 percent saying no. Of that 86 percent, 81 percent say that the government can be fixed, with 5 percent saying it's beyond repair.

Full results (pdf)

The number of Americans who think the government is broken has grown eight points since 2006. "That increase is highest among higher-income Americans and people who live in rural areas," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Maybe it's just a coincidence, but those are the groups that make up the bulk of the Tea Party activists today."

My question is, who are these 14%? Do lobbyists and their employers really make up 14 percent of the population?

Sound like those who voted for Obama and those who go to Tea Party events do have something in common: they think the government is broken and not going a good job. "Teabaggers" think we are turning into a "socialist" commune. Obama voters are thinking that they voted for change and mostly have gotten minimal results.

For example, credit card reform is one of the few changes that happened. The credit card reform finally went into effect, but the bill was rigged so that just after it passed the credit card companies jacked their rates up for no reason whatsoever other than they wouldn't be able to do that anymore after the bill went into effect. Gee, I wonder why that happened.

It's the same reason why the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee is one of the crookedest in Congress. There's money in it.

Voters handed Democrats the keys and expected things to change. They expected Democrats to pass the agenda they campaigned on, crazy I know. But health care reform, cap-n-trade, financial regulation, and lots of Obama appointees are indefinitely stalled. They don't care who's to blame for this. And that's the genius behind the GOP approach...politically. Practically, our country is in big trouble and no one is stepping up to the plate and taking any risk to make things work.

While you were distracted

So while you were getting all hot and bothered by some legislator's attempt to place a gun rights holiday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (a guy who was assassinated by a gun), or cutting 12th grade, or eliminating school buses, the legislature crafted a major reform of state pensions.

Why should you care about state employees' retirements? Because these are our judges, our highway patrolmen, our firefighters, and even our teachers. Many county employees join into the state system. Public employees make less generally than employees of private companies. And in exchange, to get good workers, employees are offered better hours, and used to have a pretty good retirement package. Pensions used to be available for private employees as well, but most folks are placed into 401Ks and if you have been paying attension lately, you would know that these funds lost lots of money in the last couple of years.

Here's what the reform would do:

Senate Bill 63 would replace the defined-benefit pension plan for public employees hired after July 1, 2011, with a scaled-down option.

The bill from Sen. Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful, would provide a choice between a hybrid retirement plan with reduced benefits or a 401(k) plan that allows workers to contribute 8 percent of their salaries.

Under the hybrid plan, public safety employees like firefighters and police officers could retire after 25 years instead of the 35 years originally proposed.
....
The other bill would bar Utahns who retire and are rehired after July 1, 2010, from collecting a pension and a paycheck at the same time, a practice known as ''double-dipping.'' The Senate didn't have time to vote on Liljenquist's third proposal, Senate Bill 94, which would relieve employers of the requirement to add 1.5 percent of a state or school employee's salary into their defined-contribution plans.

The two measures passed Friday now go to the House for consideration.

The economic meltdown in 2008 left many pension funds shortchanged. The crisis stripped Utah of $6.5 billion, and returns in 2009 did little to recover losses.

The reason why the rest of the country's press is covering this is not because they care about Utah, it is because every state's pension is woefully underfunded and their budgets are in deep red. Most of the gap-filling last year and this year was from the Recovery Act. Yet the local press likes to cover the message bills instead.

Here's a rare exception:

State Sen. Jon Greiner, the Ogden police chief who draws a public-employee pension, was notably absent from a pair of long and contentious hearings last week on historic changes to the state's retirement system.
...
Had Greiner voted against any of the measures, the dramatic changes to Utah's retirement system would have stalled in committee on a tie vote.
"I'm not happy with two out of three of the bills," Greiner said. That includes the reform effort's centerpiece, which would replace the current pension system with a 401(k)-style plan for future hires.
Greiner, R-Ogden, said he had committed to Sen. Dan Liljenquist, sponsor of the reform effort and chairman of the Senate retirement committee, that he would not vote in committee to defeat the bills.
"He's not happy with some of them, but he would have voted them through anyway," said Liljenquist, R-Bountiful. "He understands that the rest of the body needs a chance to debate them."
Numerous law enforcement representatives turned out Wednesday and Friday to speak against the bills, including proposals to add 15 years to the time police officers must
serve before they are eligible to retire by raising the service requirement from 20 years to 35 years.
Greiner acknowledges the issue puts him in a difficult spot, with an inherent conflict on the issue no matter how he votes.
He is not only a recipient of a law enforcement pension and Ogden's police chief, but he also is a so-called double dipper. Greiner retired from Ogden's force and was rehired. He now receives a pension in addition to his $107,000 salary. The bills would not end double dipping for workers such as Greiner, but for future employees.
...
Liljenquist said the argument that law enforcement and firefighters should have an earlier retirement deadline has merit because of their jobs' physical demands, and he plans to find ways to change his legislation to let them step down earlier.
That will likely cost more money, which could raise the amount employees are expected to contribute.

Don't get me wrong: double dipping is wrong and I think the practice should be prevented...but there are downsides to ending it. If you want an experienced former chief from one city/town to be your chief, you can't hire him because he would rather take is pension and work for a private company or just be retired rather than give up his pension for the job you are offering.

There is likely waste in the system that can be rooted out like double dipping. There are probably employees who should not be retained but are kept on so they can reach the magic number of years in order to get their pensions. But this change will mean that a slew of experienced state employees will retire in droves just before the effective date if they have passed that magic number. Why stay on six more months or whatever and lose your pension when you could get a guaranteed discounted portion rather than play the Russian Roulette known as the stock market?

This proposed change is indeed massive and massively important. Will attorneys in private practice think twice about applying to open seats on the bench if it means that not only will their income be slashed dramatically, but they will not get pension benefit? I bet they will. Just like how Congress is filled with the characters we have due to our campaign finance system (who wants to constantly be dialing for dollars, knowing that some outside group and blind side you and knock you out of office?) Will some folks opt for other professions when they learn that the benefits of being a police officer, a firefighter, a teacher, etc. will much worse than they were even last year? Probably.

Will this reform make us safer, our children smarter? That's the big question that no one knows the answer to. But what we do know is that these three bills are a hell of a lot more important that whatever crap bills Buttars scrawls with his crayons. There is a reason why the Ogden Police Chief was told to either vote for the bill or make up an excuse not to be there for the committee vote: the leadership wants this to pass...while you are distracted about school buses or abortion or gay rights. When asked, Utahns weren't that favorable to the idea, hence, the distractions.

priorities

In the first month following Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provided an estimated $4.25 million in assistance, with plans for ongoing relief and recovery support for the ravaged Caribbean nation.

Mormon church officials, facing an ongoing investigation by the [California] Fair Political Practices Commission, Friday reported nearly $190,000 in previously unlisted assistance to the successful campaign for Prop. 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

The report, filed with the secretary of state's office, listed a variety of California travel expenses for high-ranking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and included $20,575 for use of facilities and equipment at the church's Salt Lake City headquarters and a $96,849 charge for "compensated staff time" for church employees who worked on matters pertaining to Prop. 8.

“We’re going to lose this campaign if we don’t get more money,” the strategist, Frank Schubert, recalled telling leaders of Protect Marriage, the main group behind the ban.

The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.

Headline of the Day

I am a political junkie, but cheep so I read the free feeds of the Hotline, the National Journal daily online rag. Here is the headline that got my attention:
Dicks Hopeful For "Powerful Position"

But wait, it gets better:

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) is making phone calls to fellow members of the House Appropriations Committee to line up the necessary votes to take over a defense panel left vacant by the passing of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA).
Dicks and Murtha joined the defense panel the same day in '79, and since Dems took control of the House Dicks served as Murtha's vice-chair. Dicks is the likely choice, based on his seniority, but he's taking the necessary steps to lock down the vote, he said today.

Stay classy Dicks

Of course he considered Rep. Murtha to be his friend and said good things about him further down in the article. But still, the man has been dead for less than 24 hours and Rep. Dicks is calling around to secure the chairmanship of the Appropriations Sub-Committee for Defense?

Let's just look at some of the members of this corrupting Sub-Committee:

Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.

The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients. A document obtained by The Washington Post shows that the subcommittee members under scrutiny also include Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) , C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

The document also indicates that the House ethics committee's staff recently interviewed the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) about his allegation that a PMA lobbyist threatened him in 2007 when he resisted steering federal funds to a PMA client. The lobbyist told a Nunes staffer that if the lawmaker didn't help, the defense contractor would move out of Nunes's district and take dozens of jobs with him.

As you can see, this is not a Republican or Democrat problem. The party in power tends to have more targets for the defense industry lobbyists to corrupt, simply because there are more of them on the committee.

Why is this committee the source of so much investigation? Because Defense is a sacred cow in Washington. No one dares to make serious cuts to rid the Department of waste, mismanagement, fraud, or boondoogles...lest they be accused of being weak or pro-terrorist. For example of what a member of that committee can do, read (or watch if your are pressed for time) Charlie Wilson's War.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for a few days held all of Obama's appointments up on behalf of a foreign Defense contractor--Airbus--to aid them in their longstanding feud with Boeing over a bid to supply a multi-billion dollar air refueling tanker aircraft contract. Now the holds are more relevant, limited to 3 nominees involved in the Air Force and the like.

Defense spending in a members' district means jobs for his constituents and millions in donations in the members' campaign coffers. Its a win-win...for everyone but the American people. So Dicks may get his "powerful position," but it won't change the fact that Norm is a corrupt dick.

ooh look a treasure chest!

image courtesy of Flickr user _delineated

So I have this theory, which I can't remember if I shared it with my ever so loyal readers: every year, the Utah legislature's leaders let one or more of their brethren say, do, or propose crazy stupid things. And while everyone is all hot and bothered (including yours truly) about said stupid thing, the real agenda gets passed without anyone noticing. So for every Wolf Killing bill, every "let's get rid of school because one time I saw an empty school bus on my way to work" bill, every "who needs 12th grade anyway" bill, every the word "international" in international baccalaureate sounds commie bill, for every "global warming is a vast conspiracy to control population growth" bill, there is a slew of bills made or altered at the request of lobbyists.

The same thing happens in Congress. Orin Hatch makes a big fuss about the BCS, and Health Care, and let's his cellphone ring when he is asked to say a prayer at the national prayer breakfast. But Hatch gets big bucks from Comcast and NBC folks when he sits on a key committee to approve the Comcast purchase of NBC. He extends copyright laws all the time and gets his rich friends out of tough spots.

If you as his constituent want help with your real problems? Well how we talk about abortion or "socialism", so something, anything else but the fact that Orin's son is a lobbyist. I am sure it is just because he is really good at persuading people, and not because his dad used to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

I pick on Sen. Hatch because he is easy pickings, but he is far from alone. Democrats couldn't get health care reform passed, but they could get Ben Bernanke reappointed to be Fed Chair. I don't know about you, but I am not going to get distracted by the comical stuff the legislature does every year, I am going to try to focus on the sausage making.

half a headline

So the Deseret News (and Salt Lake Tribune) both have stories on Rep. Jason Chaffetz's second 15 minutes of fame (first was his debut on the cable show about House freshmen), which is justified since he got on national TV with his good question.

But the headline should not be limited to "conservative House Republican confronts Democratic President, claims Democrat broke campaign promises." That is the journalistic equivalence to "Dog bites Man," i.e. completely expected. What is news is that President Obama and Rep. Chaffetz had an intelligent exchange on national TV. You be the judge who came out ahead:

CONGRESSMAN CHAFFETZ: Thank you, Mr. President. It's truly an honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Great to be here.

CONGRESSMAN CHAFFETZ: And I appreciate you being here.

I'm one of 22 House freshmen. We didn't create this mess, but we are here to help clean it up. You talked a lot about this deficit of trust. There's some things that have happened that I would appreciate your perspective on, because I can look you in the eye and tell you we have not been obstructionists. Democrats have the House and Senate and the presidency. And when you stood up before the American people multiple times and said you would broadcast the health care debates on C-SPAN, you didn't. And I was disappointed, and I think a lot of Americans were disappointed.

You said you weren't going to allow lobbyists in the senior-most positions within your administration, and yet you did. I applauded you when you said it -- and disappointed when you didn't.

You said you'd go line by line through the health care debate -- or through the health care bill. And there were six of us, including Dr. Phil Roe, who sent you a letter and said, "We would like to take you up on the offer; we'd like to come." We never heard a letter, we never got a call. We were never involved in any of those discussions.

And when you said in the House of Representatives that you were going to tackle earmarks -- in fact, you didn't want to have any earmarks in any of your bills -- I jumped up out of my seat and applauded you. But it didn't happen.

More importantly, I want to talk about moving forward, but if we could address --

THE PRESIDENT: Well, how about --

CONGRESSMAN CHAFFETZ: -- I would certainly appreciate it.

THE PRESIDENT: That was a long list, so -- (laughter) -- let me respond.

Look, the truth of the matter is that if you look at the health care process -- just over the course of the year -- overwhelmingly the majority of it actually was on C-SPAN, because it was taking place in congressional hearings in which you guys were participating. I mean, how many committees were there that helped to shape this bill? Countless hearings took place.

Now, I kicked it off, by the way, with a meeting with many of you, including your key leadership. What is true, there's no doubt about it, is that once it got through the committee process and there were now a series of meetings taking place all over the Capitol trying to figure out how to get the thing together -- that was a messy process. And I take responsibility for not having structured it in a way where it was all taking place in one place that could be filmed. How to do that logistically would not have been as easy as it sounds, because you're shuttling back and forth between the House, the Senate, different offices, et cetera, different legislators. But I think it's a legitimate criticism. So on that one, I take responsibility.

With respect to earmarks, we didn't have earmarks in the Recovery Act. We didn't get a lot of credit for it, but there were no earmarks in that. I was confronted at the beginning of my term with an omnibus package that did have a lot of earmarks from Republicans and Democrats, and a lot of people in this chamber. And the question was whether I was going to have a big budget fight, at a time when I was still trying to figure out whether or not the financial system was melting down and we had to make a whole bunch of emergency decisions about the economy. So what I said was let's keep them to a minimum, but I couldn't excise them all.

Now, the challenge I guess I would have for you as a freshman, is what are you doing inside your caucus to make sure that I'm not the only guy who is responsible for this stuff, so that we're working together, because this is going to be a process?

When we talk about earmarks, I think all of us are willing to acknowledge that some of them are perfectly defensible, good projects; it's just they haven't gone through the regular appropriations process in the full light of day. So one place to start is to make sure that they are at least transparent, that everybody knows what's there before we move forward.

In terms of lobbyists, I can stand here unequivocally and say that there has not been an administration who was tougher on making sure that lobbyists weren't participating in the administration than any administration that's come before us.

Now, what we did was, if there were lobbyists who were on boards and commissions that were carryovers and their term hadn't been completed, we didn't kick them off. We simply said that moving forward any time a new slot opens, they're being replaced.

So we've actually been very consistent in making sure that we are eliminating the impact of lobbyists, day in, day out, on how this administration operates. There have been a handful of waivers where somebody is highly skilled -- for example, a doctor who ran Tobacco-Free Kids technically is a registered lobbyist; on the other end, has more experience than anybody in figuring out how kids don't get hooked on cigarettes.

So there have been a couple of instances like that, but generally we've been very consistent on that front.

OK, I am going to judge too... sorry, I can't help myself.

Chaffetz has some good points. Obama has some good counters, let's take them one by one.

1. Lack of Transparency on Health Care Reform bill vs. Campaign Promise to have debates on C-SPAN: Obama was correct that all of the markup hearings were on C-SPAN as well as floor debates and various speeches/rallies by people for and against. But that is largely a dodge. Chaffetz is right that the important part of the decision making was done behind closed doors. Obama was smart to admit to this and accept responsibility for it. While that particular campaign promise sounded like a good idea at the time, it was completely unrealistic and I bet Obama regrets making it.
2. Earmarks: Again, pretty good point by Chaffetz. While certain spending tags were not technically earmarks, again I think Obama did a bit of a dodge because there was a lot of spending allocated for particular projects. ProPublica, not known as a conservative rag, called them earmarks by another name. Obama'z 2009 strategy of being above the fray and allowing Congress to do the heavy lifting while he pushed behind the scenes on major legislation seems to have had messy, as in the case of the Recovery Act, and disastrous, in the case of the Health Care Reform bill, results. Now again, Obama said we will try to do better and have been making incremental progress. That is true. And really as I have stated before, earmarks per se are not a bad thing. Boondoogles that get in dead of night as earmarks are the real bad. And some times one has to weigh the greater good of the bill versus the wasteful earmark that is needed to get someone (or some group of someones)'s vote. see the Louisiana Purchase.
   Obama's challenge to Chaffetz though was brilliant. He essentially said, sure, I haven't done everything that I said I can do, but I am just the president. Congress writes the bills, the President (unlike many Governors) cannot do line-item vetos to eliminate earmarks. So Congress likes to stuff pork into "must pass" bills like Defense appropriations, or their even more obese cousins Continuing Resolutions or Omnibus Appropriations bills. Obama's retort isn't just good politics, it is true. Republicans were rather fond of earmarks when they were in charge of both the Congress and the Presidency and still are. Even Chaffetz is not immune. First, he said he would do zero earmarks, even if it would hurt his district, but then he changed his tune and talked about earmarks vs. "congressionally directed spending" the difference? These were earmarks he liked.
3. Lobbyists: Chaffetz is right that Obama did make several exceptions to his no lobbyists rule and it burt him badly. Case in point was former Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who was (as is his wife) a lobbyist and who failed to report all kinds of income while being a lobbyist. The Daschles "went Washington," and never looked back. And arguably, this doomed the health care bill back in February of 2009. So Obama learned his lesson the hardway. And Obama is right that they are still the most lobbyist-free administration since the lobbyists took over the city. And 43 percent of Chaffetz's money over his brief career have come from PACs, which are by definition "special interests" lobbying for something. By contrast, less than 1% of Obama's 2008 money came from PACs.

So my vote? Narrow edge for Obama.
What's yours?

present tense

So I was reading an email I got from a fellow political junkie friend of mine and I happened to have noticed the gmail contextual adds. One was for Andrew Cuomo for NY governor, the other was Pat Toomey for the PA senate seat, and the third was for Bob Bennett for the UT senate seat. Let me know if you had the same impression I had:

Bob Bennett For Senate
A Leader Who Will Work For Utah. Support Bob Bennett By Joining Now.
www.BennettForSenate.com/Join

Shouldn't Senator Bennett be a leader who has worked for Utah and wants to continue working for Utah? Maybe I am being reading too much into it, but it almost reads like an admission that he is only paying attention to the public now that he is under serious threat of losing his and his daddy's seat.

Or maybe Bob is singing that Pearl Jam song:

You can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets oh...
Or you can come to terms and realize
You're the only one who can forgive yourself oh yeah...
Makes much more sense to live in the present tense...

Your Government Failed You

(title credit: Richard Clarke)

Despite what was said a few weeks ago, I think the decade just ended tonight. This decade will go down as the one where the government of the United States showed it is currently incapable of addressing the challenges of this era. Let us quickly run down all that happened in the last ten years:

1. On November 12, 1999, by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act repeals the Glass-Steagall Act, paving the way for mega-banks like CitiGroup to be formed. Phil Gramm goes on to represent UBS, another massive bank, which is revealed to have provided illegal tax shelters for the uber rich.
2. 2000: stock market crashes due to insane belief by mega-banks that market will continue to go up
3. 2000: The U.S. Supreme Court overturns Florida Supreme Court interpreting its own constitution, case law, and statues, resulting in George W. Bush becoming the 43rd President of the United States.
4. 2001: using the budget reconciliation process, the Republican majority in the Senate, combined with a handful of conservative Democrats, pass a $1.35 trillion tax cut, that due to the reconciliation rules, expires in 2011.
5. 2001: 9/11...I don't need to tell you what happened.
6. 2001-present: the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates near zero and for a large portion of this time, decline to regulate derivatives market.
7. 2002: Bush begins drawing down in Afghanistan in order to ramp up for war with Iraq and after bungled Operation Anaconda allows bin Laden to escape into the Pakistani side of the Tora Borra Mountains.
8. 2002-03: The Congress Authorizes President Bush to go to war with Iraq for reasons unknown. Those who voted for the authorization do not spend sufficient amount of time reading the classified intelligence report which contains numerous holes. Later, it is revealed that even this intelligence was grossly overstated and "stovepipped" by Vice President Cheney. Major media outlet, excited by ratings, promote those seeking to go to war, and fail to examine the claims of weapons of mass destruction.
9. 2001-08: believing that increased homeownership and stock ownership will result in a permanent Republican majority (and help privatize Social Security), President Bush pushes for policies to deregulate and expand mortgage and financial instruments as part of his "ownership society."
10. Thanks to large donations to both parties, mega-banks and other financial institutions like AIG continue to be largely unregulated for their largest "profit" making sectors: derivatives like CDOs, CLOs, Credit, Default Swaps.
11. Thanks to large donations to both parties, the pharmaceutical industry continues to make its profits on the backs of Americans, while every other industrialized nation manages to reign in spending on drugs.
12. 2008: the stock market collapsed after mega-banks' balance sheets are exposed by derivatives such as CDOs, CLOs, mortgage-backed securities.
13. Bernie Madoff admits to his sons that the whole multi-billion dollar fund was a giant Ponzi sceme. Several individuals complained to the SEC of Madoff's suspicious activities, yet the agency failed to act.
14. 2006-08: After a series of corruption scandals, an unnecessary war that lasting too long and costing too many lives and dollars, and a necessary war poorly managed, a massive collapse in the economy voters give Democrats a series of landlide electoral victories, handing the Congress, and then the Presidency to Democrats in overwhelming numbers.
15. 2009-10: Not wanting to lose their new majority, Democrats decide to attempt to compromise with Republicans, who unify behind opposing practically every major Democratic policy proposal, and not use the reconciliation process for their most important piece of legislation: health care reform. Other major policy proposals wither on the vine as conservative Democrats, faced with near universal Republican opposition, do not wish to risk losing re-election by supporting something wholeheartedly.
16. 2009: Martha Coakley is nominated to replace the late Ted Kennedy, whose "cause of [his] life" was health care reform. She proceeds to take a vacation and not campaign or run tracking polls.
17. 2010: Suddenly realizing the 60th senate seat was at risk (made necessary by the refusal to use reconciliation), Democrats and their union allies attempt a last minute GOTV and ads for Coakley. It fails and Republicans gain 41st seat. Health Care Reform has not passed both chambers in a form that President Obama can sign. He may never get anything to sign.

Our institutions cannot function due to hyperpartisanship, massive campaign donations, intrenched special interests with lobbyists, incompetency, ideology that refused to bend to reality, petty vengeance, political self-interest, and anti-majoritarian rules in the Senate.

The result is 10% unemployment nationally, trillions of dollars spent on tax breaks for billionaires and multi-millionaires, the Iraq war and bailing out the mega-banks, 54 million uninsured, thousands dying daily because they cannot afford the necessary medicine or medical treatment, hundreds of thousands more filing for bankruptcy because of medical costs, global climate change without global will to try and stop it, along with Al Qaeda morphing into a new organization with bin Laden still at its helm (or dead by natural causes).

Richard Clarke was right in 2004. Our government failed us. But not just in failing to prevent 9/11, but in failing to prevent the economic collapse of 2008, failing to catch Bernie Madoff, failing to pass meaningful and necessary reforms.

This last decade has been ten years of the mighty making their own right: from bankers to baseball players. All of us were expected to grovel at the feet of the CEOs, the intelligence agencies, the major media outlets, the syndicated newspaper columnists, and the professional athletes for their purported omnipotence and wisdom. It turned out they were incompetent, had no idea what they were looking at, were in love with having powerful people talk to them, were in love with hearing themselves talk on the TV, and pumping themselves full of drugs when they are not committing various other crimes.

The only good thing to come out of this period has been the internet's blossoming. Now I can instantly find out exactly how full of it a politician, talking head, lobbyist, CEO, or jock is and why. Now I don't need to subscribe to the New York Times and listen to the drivel of Thomas Friedman to know what is happening the world. I don't need to read press releases or speeches, or watch cable television for news.

One can get depressed by all this. Or use it as a cause for action. Voters thought they were getting change in 2008. Turned out, the establishment and the system is really good at fighting the will of the majority and keeping things the same.

We need to dramatically reform the Senate. No more anonymous holds or any other need for "unanimous consent" to pass or do anything. No more painless filibusters. You have to talk the whole time to stall legislation, not block it indefinitely. If senators repeatedly ignore the will of their state's voters, let them be recalled.

We need to reform Congress. No more districts drawn by politicians to help themselves and their friends. No more privately funded campaigns. No more hiring of relatives of members of congress to lobby any branch of the government.

We need to reform the Executive. Congress needs to take back control of many of the things its delegated to the executive (creating the alphabet soup of agencies and administrative law). And if Congress wants to go to war, it should Declare War, which it hasn't done since 1941. The president should not be able to start war on a bare majority of Congress, or without congress. No more "state secrets" doctrine; have an in chambers hearing proving that the evidence really is a matter of national security and then the evidence is excluded, not that the case is dismissed. No more Gitmo or secret prisons or warrantless wiretaps or National Security Letters...no more PATRIOT Act.

We need to reform the judiciary. Cameras should be allowed in federal court rooms in civil bench trials where the parties don't have a compelling reason to object (like witness intimidation or tampering). Supreme Court Justices should retire after they hit their 80s and decisions they make regarding their own conflicts of interest should be reviewable.

Newspapers are slowly being killed off, but cable news needs to change dramatically too. No more hours of hacks blabbing, more hours of investigative reports. No more softball interviews of politicians, executives, or athletes. Maybe then the fourth estate can serve as the intended check that the First Amendment provides, and not a refuge for the powerful to spout their propaganda.

If only a handful of proposed changes happened, the world would be a much better place for it.

a pattern

Hotline picked up on an insensitive trend:

As the MA SEN race looks to be headed to a photo-finish, several pols and pundits have used a similar, albeit unfortunate metaphor, to describe the prospect of a GOPer taking the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)'s seat:

Earthquake.

All of the following comments were made over 24 hours after the devastating 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti:

FNC's Sean Hannity: "What a political earthquake, though, that would be" ("Hannity," FNC, 1/14).

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), on MA state Sen. Scott Brown (R): "I know if he wins, then, obviously, it will have a seismic effect on American politics" ("On the Record," FNC, 1/13).

Ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich, on whether there's a Dem effort to stall a swearing in if Brown wins: "If the earthquake happens and if you have this sudden, stunning, unbelievable result, I think it would be impossible for the Democrats in the Senate, for the president to block the seating of the Republican candidate" "On the Reocrd," FNC, 1/13).

NPR's Juan Williams, on a GOP win: "I know the prospect is boy, that would be something. That would be an earth shaker. Talk about an earthquake. That would be one right here in American politics. No doubt about it" ("Hannity," FNC, 1/13).

The comments offer a contrast to the sensitivities to the term "tsunami" after the late '04 Indian ocean earthquake were still so strong during the '08 pres. primaries that networks abandoned their use of the term "Tsunami Tuesday" to describe the Feb. 5, 2008 primaries.

What do they all have in common? That's right, all appeared on Fox on the 13th and 14th. I am sure it is just a coincidence that they all said the same thing and these "pundits" and politics were not talking from the same script.

a new chapter in the annals of cluelessness

Well it seems that my least favorate State Senator, Chris Buttars, has an ingeneous way of cutting the state's budget to make up some of the $700 million dollar gap:

A state senator says school districts should stop busing high school students as way to save money.

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, told the Legislative Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Monday the move would save as much $75 million.
...
Buttars noted that 75 percent of the state's student population is along the Wasatch Front.

Yes, because (a) the other 25 percent of the state doesn't count to Buttars and (b) high school kids in urban/suburban areas can somehow get to school without a school bus.

As the head of the Granite School District noted, high school administrators have enough trouble keeping teenagers in school without having the lack of busing as an excuse. Moreover, how in the world are kids in rural school districts going to get to schools miles and miles away?

As Gubinatorial candidate Peter Carroon said the other day,

"Our state leaders have talked about education as their No. 1 priority for decades and Utah is falling in national standards," Corroon said. "They've cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of our education system. If that's priority No. 1, I'd hate to see priorities 2 and 3."

Buttars' solution will cause more problems which will cost more than the money he seeks to save. Why is this guy on the Senate Appropriations Committee again?

2.5 Million Dollars and a Good Pair of Shoes

The quote of the day:

Corroon, who raised over $225,000 in the final three months of 2009 and is carrying over about $77,000 from his 2008 mayoral campaign, recognized he has a long way to go in building the bank account, and reaching the voters, to mount a competitive race.

It's going to take $2.5 million," Corroon said. "And a good pair of shoes."

In those shoes, Corroon said, he will take his message to all corners of the state — a task necessary for a man whose name is not well known outside the Wasatch Front.

For those of you inclined to donate to Peter Corroon's gubinatoral campaign, here is the link.

the fortune cookie chronicles (my life)

So yesterday I go out to dinner and get a fortune cookie (which by the way were originally Japanese cookies that, thanks to internment camps during World War II became Chinese "fortune cookies"). That "fortune" said that (and I am paraphrasing here) I have a "major talent" that I am not using. Somehow, this struck home.

And I know this sounds prideful and arrogant, but I do feel like my abilities are not being fully utilized. Don't get me wrong, I am so lucky to have a job, especially a good one where I have as much fun as possible when you work 8-13 hours a day. And it is intellectually stimulating; I also have learned so much in the past year or so. Yet somehow, there is this sense I have that I am missing something. Perhaps this is related to my sudden desire to have a hobby.

Has a fortune cookie ever struck a chord with you?

the end (of the year) is neigh

For some reason, editors are forcing their writers to compose "best of" and "worst of" lists for the 2000s, even though this decade started in 2001 and ends in 2010. Nevertheless it is worth dwelling on this period because (a) it just happened and (b) the world feels like it is rapidly changing.

Through shortsighted greed, both financial and political, we ended up with a series of economic bubbles where very few people got extremely wealthy on paper and not a whole lot positive resulted from this greed. Sure, lots of marble countertops were made and stainless steel appliances, along with acronyms for financial products that did nothing but rake in fees for large banks, but people have lost their retirement funds, their jobs, and their lives in ill-conceived wars and policies that left us as a whole worse off.

I am reminded of this fact nearly every day that I enjoy a great job, with health insurance and fun co-workers. How can one not feel a bit guilty to have so many blessings while others around you suffer due to the poor choices of those in New York and Washington, D.C.? Worse still, almost none of them have been been adversely affected by their piss poor decisions.

Here is but one example of what I am talking about:

[B]etween 2004 and 2006, [Credit Suisse] was not above making more than $3 billion of senior secured "predatory" (according to one judge) loans to high-end real estate developers operating mostly in the western United States.

Within the last year, at least eight of the real-estate developments that received the Credit Suisse (CS) loans are either operating under bankruptcy court protection, have been liquidated or have been foreclosed upon. ...

The portfolio of loans was the brainchild of David Miller, a Managing Director at Credit Suisse, who was co-head of the U.S. capital markets business within the syndicated loan group. When Credit Suisse made the loans, it got paid millions in fees and then syndicated them all off to investors, who will be fortunate to get back pennies on the dollar during the various bankruptcy proceedings. (Credit Suisse currently has a minimal exposure to the original loans.)

Miller was well aware of the golden goose he had on his hands. In an August 2005 email to a colleague, Miller wrote, "[T]hese are aggressive deals and it is in all of our best interests, that the investors are protected, because if one of them should blow up, you will see these investors pull out of this land development mkt [market] and our gravy train will stop."

[...]

As for David Miller, he remains at Credit Suisse and was recently promoted to co-head of the firm's U.S. Loan Syndication business. [CS spokesman Brian] King declined to make Miller available to be questioned about the loan to the Yellowstone Club, the judge's decision in the case or whether the "gravy train" had ended.

Credit Suisse created CLOs (Collateralized Loan Obligations) that blew up in every resorts face. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs raked it in with CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations), which they proceeded to bet against at the same time. The only God's Work that goes on here is that these i-bankers were treated like gods and no one seems willing to punish them for the destruction that they wrought.

Youth in Asia

I don't always agree with Howard Dean. In fact, I still dislike him on a number of fronts since 2003. But he is making some good points, as are the people still supporting what is left of the health care bill, whenever Megolmaniacs Lieberman and (Ben) Nelson are done adding new provisions to make it even worse.

It makes one wonder if these two members of the Democratic caucus are doing this for political posturing for reelection, preening self-importance, or desire to make the bill so unpalatable that party stalwarts like Kerry can't stomach the final product. Another possibility is they want to show their superior power to that of say Brown or Sanders.

Principle clearly has nothing to do with it. Nelson said nothing about abortion until Stupak. Joe was for Medicare expansion before Liberals said it was better than the public option. Niether nixed Medicaid expansion until now.

With the announcement that Rahm Emmanuel, Harry Reid, and ultimately Barack Obama allowed Joe Lieberman to kill any hope that health care reform would include meaningful ways of controlling healthcare costs and abuses of the industry via competition, it worth remebering something.

Al Gore and John McCain are both great Americans who served our country with honor but made two terrible decisions and miscalculations of character in the name of political expediency. They picked Joe Lieberman and Sarah Palin for their VP nominees.

Once both Joe and Sarah got a taste of the big time, there was no turning back. Their need for attention and relevance and self-importance became all consuming. Joe is seeking to once again (see Dept of Homeland Security and Iraq War, 2002) destroy caucus' chances of electoral sucess in the name of poor policy. Sarah is slowly destroying hers as well (see Hoffman, NY23).

On Scott McCoy

Senator McCoy, who I am proud to say is my state senator is resigning to focus on his day job as a lawyer. I can tell you from doing research on legislative history of statutes that he was often the loan voice of reason trying to explain to his colleagues why the bill wouldn't do what they wanted it to do. I am a sad to see him go for many reasons and wish him luck in his trial.

One of the main reasons why I am sad is selfish. To me it means that any thoughts of getting more involved in politics means giving up my practice and therefore means I should be giving up on politics. That's the decision my father made it seems but we were both bit by the politics bug. Do you think both can be done?

Another reason is not that I thought he was a maverick but that he was a good state senator. Sounds corny I know but I am a corny guy. Just ask my friends who have to endure some of my "jokes".

It is not mavericky

You are not a maverick if you call yourself a maverick.  Then you are a shameless self-promoter.

You are not a maverick if you leave your elected office less than half way into the position for no reason.  You are a quitter

You are not a maverick if you have other people write your book for you.  You are a person who falsely takes credit (and money) for other people's labor.

You are not a maverick if you don't show up to speeches or rallies you are scheduled to attend, or if you bail mid-way through a book tour event. It means you are selfish inconsiderate and irresponsible. By the way, Palin is scheduled to be at the Salt Lake Costco on December 9, from noon until 3 p.m. I know where I won't be on December 9th.

The self-described "maverick" is scheduled to visit 31 cities in 25 states, mostly Republican strongholds. Salt Lake City is her only stop in Utah, and she is scheduled to be in Reno, Nev., that evening.

Also, it is not mavericky to go to friendly territory for book signings.

Will-fully ignorant

You know what grinds my gears while I can't sleep at night? People who state false or misleading things that they KNOW are false and misleading, but apparently it is their job to that in DC. I can understand a dumb congresscritter or Sarah Palin making such statement because they are just repeating talking points.

But people like George Will, who is obviously intelligent and a good writer. He intentionally omits key details, misrepresents information, and many other debating no-nos to support his argument...when he clearly understands that the average reader/viewer will only agree with him if they get that particularly distorted view of reality. If said reader/viewer got the whole picture, however, they would disagree.

Such dishonesty is hard to swallow for me. It is one thing to make your case, it is another thing do it underhandedly on a weekly basis. How do they sleep?

A GOP congresscritter spoke to me: "if you are flipping the channel back and forth between football and CSPAN, and you only are hearing the majority speak, it sounds like a great bill...." I am probably one of the few people he is talking about.

Shurtleff drops out for the right reasons

Faithful readers know I get a kick out of beating up on Mark Shurtleff. And I usually don't like the "family reasons" excuse for sudden political moves (not running for reelection, dropping out of race etc.) However, after reading a few articles about the AG's situation with his daughter, I got to say my heart goes out to him and his family. Although maybe he shouldn't have ran for the Senate in the first place if his daughter's mental health was such an issue.

I also feel bad for the daughter whose struggles with depression, which would otherwise be totally private, have been splashed on the pages of the newspapers for all to read. Her suicide attempts, her therapy, her medications, a story of the AG having to forcibly take a knife away from her after she had cut her wrists at a church youth group outing.... I am purposely calling her "the daughter" because I don't know if she wants to be a spokeswoman for mental illness or it was foisted upon her because of her dad's political ambitions.

Sadly, the whole thing doesn't make me think much more of the AG as person. Although I am glad he used the family reason when it actually was a family reason. Politicans shouldn't use that excuse unless it is actually true. I just hope that his family can get through this and that his daughter can get better.

Remember in 2001 when Dems won the VA Gov and NJ Gov races a few weeks after 9/11 and then Democrats went on to win legislative and electoral battles in 2002-2004? Me neither.

Point is, you can overlearn lessons from off-year elections. This year, Obama voters stayed home in VA. What does it mean? I leave that for other pundits to read too much into.

The similarities between a section 341 meeting for chapter 7 bankruptcies and a criminal arraignment are striking. And in both cases, most of these people have no money and their attorneys don't know them.

I need a hobby.

Every good attorney has a side obsession to relieve the stress of the job, whether it be woodworking, gardening, river-rafting, fishing, skiing, hiking, scouting, astronomy, etc. Not that if I have one I will be good, but I think you go crazy if your life is just work, eating, and sleeping.

So what should it be? I haven't blogged much lately because I haven't felt like I had anything original to say. Is there an area you would like me to blog about? Any hobby suggestions?

Correction

In a prior post via SMS, I stated that Dallin H. Oaks equated the current and former treatment of Mormons to the Holocaust. Not so, he equated the current treatment of Mormons with regard to Proposition 8 to the treatment that African-Americans in the South in the 1960s faced. I still think it is a stupid analogy, one that he should have stayed away from. And I still think that comparing the current persecution and discrimination of Mormons to that of Slavery, Jim Crow, or the Holocaust is not wise. Bagley nicely summarizes a reply I wish I had come up with.


(Copyright 2009, Pat Bagley for the Salt Lake Tribune)

As for how the Mormons were treated in say Missouri in the 1840s when there were attempts by the state government to wipe them out, well, perhaps that is closer to the Holocaust, where Hilter attempted to wipe Jewish people off the face of the Earth and murdered 6 million of them. Nevertheless, if you start talking about the Holocaust and Hitler, you start distracting from your argument that your people have been treated very badly.

Godwin's Law is a good one for all speakers to keep in mind. Hitler and Holocaust have become to mean the worst of the worst. By comparing the Missouri period to the Holocaust, you are inviting people to dismiss your argument as being over the top.

It is better to point out the fact of say the Missouri period and all can agree that what the Governor did was genocide without having to argue whether this atrocity measures up to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews.

And remember, Oaks is whining about the grassroots response to the LDS Church's heavy handed intervention into California politics, not about the events that lead up to the Saints migrating to Utah.

Telephone Townhall with Congressman Jim Matheson Today

Website - Services - D.C. Tours - Legislative Info - Signup for my e-newsletter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 19, 2009

Dear [Oldenburg],

 

Tomorrow! Tuesday October 20, 2009.  Telephone Town Hall Meeting

with Congressman Jim Matheson.

 

What:  Telephone Town Hall Meeting to discuss pressing national issues.

 

Who:    Congressman Jim Matheson and Utah constituents.

 

When:  October 20, 2009 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

 

How:    To join the call at or after 7:00 PM, call (877) 229-8493.  When directed, enter the PIN # 13304.  You'll be able to listen in toll-free for as long as you like and, when prompted, ask the Congressman questions on the topic of your concern.

 

Sincerely,          JIM MATHESON        Member of Congress   Please do not reply to this email, as this box is unattended.  Instead, please use the webform on my website if you have any further comments Contact Information: 2434 Rayburn HOB | Washington, DC 20515 | Phone: (202) 225-3011 | Fax: (202) 225-5638 240 East Morris Ave. #235 South Salt Lake, UT 84115 Phone: (801)   486-1236 Fax: (801) 486-1417 321 North Mall Dr., #E101B St. George, UT 84790 Phone: (435)   627-0880 Fax: (435) 627-1473 Carbon County Courthouse 120 East Main Street Price, UT 84501 Phone: (435) 636-3722 Fax: (435) 613-1834 Toll-Free Number 1 (877) 677-9743

 

Dear Elder Oaks,
No matter how badly you think Mormons have been treated, comparing their treatment with the Holocaust just makes people belittle and ignore your point. The Holocaust and Slavery (or Jim Crow era Lynchings) are two things people should never compare their situation to if they want to be taken seriously.

Oh and the Church should be criticized for their support of Prop 8. Harry Reid, the most powerful Saint, agrees with me.

Join me in not watching cable news channels, makes you angry and dumb. I feel much better after stopping.

Can someone explain to me why every day there is an article in a local paper that is essentially "Hatch spews partisan talking point"? Why is that news? All I have to do is watch cable news (which I have quit and my sanity has vastly improved), find some GOP hack's statement, and call it Hatch's statement. If you compare his actual statements, there is little if any difference. That's because Hatch is a partisan hack. The times he stopped being a hack was when he worked on stuff with Kennedy. Now that Teddy is dead, that good part of Orrin died with him. That too is sad. Sadder still is the local media's fawning over the old, bitter man that is our senior senator.

Exchange of the day

At today's Senate Finance Committee's markup of the Baucus health care bill:

ROCKEFELLER: This is a very very important amendment, and it’s a very very bad amendment. If there’s anything which is clear, it’s that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but it is running certain people in this markup. [...]

CORNYN: With all due respect, senator, I don’t know what amendment you’re referring to —

ROCKEFELLER: I’m referring to yours.

CORNYN: — you’re certainly not referring to my amendment —

ROCKEFELLER: I am.

Wow, Jello Jay, I didn't know you had it in you.

Still too large for an insane asylum

"South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum"

-- James Louis Petigru, 1860.

While that famous quip was made in response to South Carolina's succession from the Union in 1860 upon the news of the election of Abraham Lincoln, the quip seems to be relevant again in 2009.

Exhibit A: South Carolina Mark Sanford (R). He rises to prominence by refusing stimulus money for his state that desperately needs and wants it. The Republican-controlled Legislature overrides his veto, he still refuses to allocate the money, contorting the bill to only authorize him to accept the money. The South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously disagrees, and orders him to comply.

And then he goes "hiking on the Appalachian Trail" to see his lover in Argentina, whom he has visited in the past using taxpayer dollars. The Legislature seems to have started floating trial balloons about impeachment.

Exhibit B: US Senator JIm Demint (R-SC)

When [Glen] Beck said that we are seeing “a fundamental transformation into a new system where the executive branch is almost if not all powerful,” DeMint replied:

DEMINT: We’re just, we’re coming down to a matter of days. If we lose the health care battle, I think we’ve lost it all. [...]

And that’s why I’ve said strong things like Waterloo and other things. This is, the nation has to focus on this because the czars and other things are secondary in a way if we lose health care, the president’s going to be so emboldened, we’re going to see so much more of the growth at the executive branch level that, I don’t think we’ll be able to stop it. But if we stop him on health care then I think we have the opportunity to maybe realign the whole political system in our country.

DeMint then said that he doesn’t “care which party it ends up being,” but quickly added, “I hope it’s the Republicans.” Listen here:

Exhibit C: US Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) Yells out "You Lie!" during a joint session of Congress when President Obama says that his health insurance reform bill will not give coverage to undocumented workers. However, Obama wasn't lying and Sen. Baucus (D-MT) changed his bill to be doubly sure that no such persons could get health care.

And to tie it back to 1860, Rep. Wilson, while a state legislator in 1999, was one of only seven who voted in favor of keeping the Confederate flag flying over the state capital.

I rest my case.

it gets more interesting (part duex)

(Image/Fair Credit: Greater Avenues Community Council)

Ah, the Avenues Street Fair, a place where you can sign petitions (single payer health care and redistricting commission), join the ACLU, buy organic clothes of Obama turned into Che, along with lots of food options. I foolishly pushed the stroller up I Street from 3rd Avenue to 9th and thanks to my new lifestyle, I was a tad winded by the time I got up to the fair.


(you can see Obama/Che in the middle of the left side. Image credit: GACC)

All of the candidates for city council had a presence there.


(JJJ's booth; Image credit: GACC)

Some had volunteers/staffers roaming the fair for potential supporters, others had a cooler full of water to lure in potential voters. State Sen. Scott McCoy had a big booth even though he isn't up this fall. I saw my friend Yossof (I didn't see the other candidates but i just glanced at the candidates' booths) and he said that my last post on the race wasn't exactly very favorable to him.


(McCoy's Booth; Image credit: GACC)

After my post, I did notice his "Vote Yo!" signs, which are eye-catching and memorable despite their diminutive size. He explained to me his micro-targeting strategy, but I don't think he gave me permission to put it on the internet, so I will just leave it at that. And before I forget, congratulations Yossof on having a little one on the way. I was too hot to remember my brain and manners.

A saw another friend from church who is now a 3L at the University of Utah in full Kenyan garb. She explained that she has been selling stuff at this booth for 7 years now. I said she should have stolen Lisa Allcott's Obama cardboard cutout since he is an adopted son of her native Kenya. [That's right Birthers, ADOPTED. He was born the in 49th state of the union, Hawaii] Then I realized that all of the people I saw and recognized at the fair were associated with law school and felt like a big dork. Even while I was trying to feed my baby after leaving the fair, I saw Prof. Medwed.

Yossof reminded me and I will in turn remind my readers that tomorrow is election day for the city council...it is runoff day! Feels like it will be a low turnout affair, even less than 2007. Becker started to pull ahead right about this time and understood that his target audience was Democratic primary voter, and it took him over the top. Who will it be this year? Without polls, the only metric I have to go by without putting in some serious effort are signs I see walking the dog/baby. That portends a close race, but it is completely unscientific. Best of luck to all of the candidates.

deja vu

In the beginning of the year, Obama demanded a big stimulus and that Congress pass it before he was sworn in. They delayed a few months, it got watered down, GOP talking point line items were removed, it got a bit smaller, and the Maine Senators and soon to be Dem Spector were the only GOPers who voted for it. But it passed.
Call me crazy, but it seems like the same thing is happening again: getting watered down, slightly smaller, delayed past pre-Aug. Why won't pass by 60 votes and be signed into law?

the lessons of 9/11

My parents will never remember where they were when they learned President Kennedy was shot, and my generation will never forget where they were when they learned of the terrorists attacks in the morning of September 11, 2001.  We will never forget the clear, sunny skies, and the feeling of losing something beyond the lives of those who were murdered by Al Qaeda.   

President Bush stated that the lessons of that horrible day were that Americans are no longer protected by having the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans between us and our foes, and that we must be vigilant to prevent future attacks.  And for the most part (Pearl Harbor) I agree with him.

But there is another big lesson that was learned.

Americans and America at times is accused of being hopelessly selfish and demanding of instant, ever increasing demands for gratification.  Yet there were countless tales of people carrying others down hundreds of flights of stairs to safety while the Towers burned. Of firefighters and policemen and -women who weren't even called to the scene, yet stopped to lend a hand.  And of course, the courageous and selfless actions of the passengers of Flight 93, who stormed the cockpit and stymied another airplane strike aimed at Washington, D.C. 

While certain parts of America reared its ugly head in the weeks that followed (e.g. the assaults on Sikhs because of the religious turban the men wear), the aftermath of the attack also showed that Americans can be kind and selfless to strangers.  The Red Cross received millions of dollars, the blood banks were overwhelmed, and volunteers were turned away from clearing the rubble in lower Manhattan.  Many of my generation enlisted in the armed services or applied to a military academy.  

I would like to get that feeling back.  Along with the knowledge that the world was behind us, mourning with us, and vowing to help us exact revenge.  Much of that good will was squandered.  Even the organic urge for service was converted into a plea to go shopping and take a vacation.  

We know we have it in us.  It just takes a dramatic moment or a leader to actualize it.  Many were hoping that President Obama would be that leader.  So far, his feet are firmly planted on the ground, either by choice or by the realities of the legislative process.  Yet glimmers of hope arise, when, like Wednesday night, Obama gives a rousing speech and reminds those of us who voted for him why we waited for hours in line to do so.  

Senator Reid, call their bluff

All this talk about 60 votes versus 51 votes in the Senate misses a big point. Let the minority filibuster health care reform. Let them read the phone book for insurance companies. Let the Nelsons and the Liebermans of the Senate vote against cloture and make them read the OED. How many times can you talk about "socialized medicine," "death panels," and "a thousand pages long" during that pajama party? Go ahead pompous windbags, I dare you. If Harry Reid wants to get reelected he will stand up and make these self-proclaimed moderates put their butts at their desks for days straight and stand in the way of the people who want their health care not to suck.

it gets more interesting

So my local city councilman Eric Jurgensen decided to not run again this year because his family business was facing some serious legal troubles. And while these city positions are technically non-partisan, it was pretty clear that he was a Republican (although he voted very liberally, at least for a Utah Republican). There are many people running for this open seat race, including a classmate and friend of mine from law school--Yossof Sharifi. Yossof is running as a libertarian. There are two obvious Democrats in the race--LIsa Allcott, whose signs and mailings say Democrat on them--and Stan Penfold.

Penfold was the director of the Utah AIDS Foundation, his black on yellow signage is a subtle sign that he is indeed supported by Mayor Ralph Becker. A number of other prominent Dems support Penfold as well, including former Congresswoman Karen Shepherd.

Allcott has more cash behind her, and has a raft of endorsements from the Democratic establishment as well, including Peter Corroon. And although Penfold is a gay man and ran the Utah AIDS foundation, Allcott has the support of the Utah Stonewall Democrats and Equality Utah (although these gay rights groups appear to be supporting both Allcott and Penfold).

These two appear to be the front runners, but it could be that they split the Democratic vote and someone else squeaks into the runoff (that's Yossof's plan). Both Allcott and Penfold have been sending mailings and flyers. I have had door knocks from Allcott's campaign (once with her personally, another with a staffer/volunteer) and Penfold has called my parents house for me twice, once even with a colleague from work. And while I have seen some signs for the other candidates, Jennifer J. Johnson and Phil Carroll, I have not seen any other forms of on the ground presence from them (and nothing from Yossof).

I wish all of the candidates the best of luck and will be following this race closely.

In thinking about Teddy K, it is important to note that we learned of his flaws in real time, unlike his slain brothers. Also unlike RFK and JFK, he was able to live a full live and achieve much more than inspiration. He has effected lives from South Africa to Poland to Norther Ireland. And while his dream of universal healthcare is yet unfulfilled, it shall never die.

SC Sen. Jim DeMint has joined the illustrious company of fellow SC Sens. John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond in advocating for Nullification. Calhoun wanted to keep Slavery alive, Thurman wanted "Segregation forever," and DeMint wants to keep our broken health care system. What is wrong with South Carolina senators?

Shurtleff is shameless

So if you are a politician, and you took money from and appeared to give favorable treatment to a ponzi schemer like Utah outgoing AG Mark Shurtleff, one would think that you wouldn't criticize your opponent for his choice of contributors, lest people be reminded of said lax prosecution of ponzi schemer (although to be fair, Rick Koerber had friends in the legislature too) But if you are Shurtleff, such naked displays of hypocrisy are not troubling.

Shurtleff's campaign, in a news release, said that Bennett's top five donors received $178 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.

The attorney general is "using TARP to demagogue without understanding the issue," said Jim Bennett, the Senator's son and campaign spokesman. He referred additional questions to Utah Bankers Association President Howard Headlee.

The American Bankers Association was Bennett's fifth-highest donor, Shurtleff's campaign said, although the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics lists the association as Bennett's ninth-biggest contributor.

Headlee said those donations came well before TARP.

"Unfortunately we find ourselves in the middle of a fierce campaign," Headlee said, "and we're concerned about any attempt by any candidate to tie our financial support to specific issues."

So Shurtleff is going to pitch his campaign tent with TARP (sorry, couldn't resist a pun)...let's look at their contributors in detail:

Shurtleff received much of his money through huge donations (much larger than allowed by federal law in Senate races) from corporations, which by law cannot give directly to federal candidates. The cash usually came from local groups interested in his local work as attorney general, ranging from local law firms to payday lenders.

Bennett, meanwhile, received the lion's share of his donations from national political action committees interested in national issues, with donations coming in the smaller amounts authorized by federal law.
...
EnergySolutions. Its PAC gave Bennett $6,000, and the corporation gave Shurtleff $10,000.

CitiGroup (banking and securities). Its PAC gave Bennett $5,000 and gave Shurtleff $1,000.

JP Morgan Chase (banking and securities). Its PAC gave Bennett $2,000 and gave Shurtleff $1,000.

Reagan Outdoor Advertising. The company gave Shurtleff $5,000. Corporations cannot directly give to federal candidates. But the company's principals, William and Julia Reagan, individually gave Bennett a combined $4,800.

Union Pacific Railroad. Its PAC gave Bennett $2,300, and the corporation gave Shurtleff $5,000.

Frank Madsen (former top aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch) gave Bennett $500 and gave Shurtleff $400.

Former U.S. Rep. Howard Nielsen gave $2,000 to Bennett and $100 to Shurtleff.

Hy Saunders (a developer) gave $2,300 to Bennett and $100 to Shurtleff.

So Shurtleff attacks Bennett for taking money from TARP recipients like CitiGroup and JP Morgan Chase...which also gave money for Shertleff. I guess he is mad that they gave him less money than they gave Bennett?

Next time, I hope a reporter doesn't just copy and paste a press release, then go on to opensecrets.org, and then call the other side and call it a day. I pieced this together with google in a manner of minutes.

And they wonder why journalism is not as respected as it once was.

What to focus on during the health care "debate"

The August break, which could be the make-or-break period for health care, is almost half over. And while it is fun to watch the crazies turn out and get in Congresscritters' faces, it is all a big distraction. My sense is that the behavior of these "grassroots protesters" may be great theater for the press to cover, but all it is doing is annoying the members of Congress that are holding town halls. It isn't changing minds of the members of Congress whom they are protesting. Congresscritters are more scared of the TV ads being run in their states/districts.

Rather than go over plowed ground, let's talk about what people that care about health care should be focusing on.

1. What does the House bill look like?
Right now, there are three house bills that made it out of committee that make up the health care reform bill. It will be up to those committee chairs, the Rules Committee, and the Speaker and other Democratic House leaders to merge the bill. This bill will not tell us what the final bill will look like, but it will be a sense of what the most liberal version of the bill possible will likely be.


2. When does the Senate Finance Committee's "Gang of Six" finish its bill?
If it is before October, there will be enough time to merge that bill with the HELP Committee bill and vote on it in the Senate. If it continues to dither, who knows what will happen.


3. Who sits on the Conference Committee?
That is, will strong liberal policy makers, like Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Waxman, be named to that merge the differences between the House and Senate bill (and create a new bill all together)? Or will a milquetoast "bipartisan" Democrat be named like Sen. Baucus? How many "gang members" will be on the committee?

These pieces of information will tell us what health care reform will actually look like, and whether it stands a chance of happening this year. Personally, I think something will get passed. It might not be like the Clinton or Edwards plans, or really like the Obama plan during the primaries, but it will be a hell of a lot better than the do-nothing plan.

Here's an NYT chart that explains it all:
Here are the possible areas of compromise, according to that article:

Orange Herbert

Remind me again why Jim Matheson passed on taking on the not-quite-yet Governor Herbert?

[A] new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll...found [that] only 39 percent would vote for Herbert if he's the GOP nominee in next year's special gubernatorial election.

Even more respondents, 42 percent, said whether they'd vote for Herbert would depend on who else was running or that they didn't know yet how they'd vote.

The statewide poll of 402 residents was conducted Aug. 3-5 by Dan Jones & Associates. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

Call me crazy, but 39 percent sounds eminently beatable. Of course, if you are a Democrat thinking of running, that's also a problem. Because maybe another candidate will emerge from the GOP convention/primary.

33 percent said the governor should be moderate. Only 12 percent of respondents described Herbert as moderate but 34 percent said they didn't know what his political ideology and philosophy is.

Those 33 percent are called "Democratic Voters" So is Carroon going to take the plunge? Will Matheson do an about face? Will anyone step up to the plate if it appears Herbert will be pushed out by someone really crazy?

Jim Matheson seems to attract terrible GOP candidates to challenge him. Then again, Carroon had his share too. I say let the games begin.

In 2006, Democrats told Americans to put them back in control of Congress so that they could pass legislation, like ending the war. But very little happened. The excuse during the 2007-08 period was essentially "Well, you can't do anything without 60 votes." After Specter switched parties avoid losing in the GOP primary and Coleman threw in the towel this spring, the Democratic Caucus had 60 votes. Now there excuse is this: Kennedy & Bryd are sick so it is really only 58.

The American people voted to give you control of the Congress and the White House because they wanted change, not because they wished Congress critters would get along.

Grow a pair and get some bills passed. No more excuses.