Mitt Romney as George Costanza

This will get my rating to PG at least.

George: Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.

Boy, does that ever remind me of someone...

Some think he was feigning his moderation then and is revealing his true self now. But it's a safe bet that Romney would have passed a lie detector test in both incarnations. And that speaks to his consummate skills as a salesman, the best of whom believe so deeply in their product that they internalize its merits -- which is why they never sound like they're selling.

(Photo Credit: Associated Press/Deseret News) "If the world ended tomorrow, would you give $1,000?...Great, I'll put you down for a thousand."

You really should read rest of the lengthy article about Mitt Romney's recent "change of heart" on cultural issues great and small in today's Washington Post...that quote was just the closer. But here's some more choice bits. On abortion:

Including NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. In September 2002, at a face-to-face meeting at Romney's headquarters in Cambridge, Romney assured a delegation from the group that, no, he would not impinge on abortion rights. And yes, he would like to see easier access to emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B. He closed the meeting by taking on a just-between-us tone and saying, essentially, You need Republicans like me. And the party needs candidates like me, because this issue is killing the party, according to Melissa Kogut, who was then executive director of the organization. He didn't expect an endorsement, he told her, but he hoped the organization would refrain from attacking him during the campaign.

Which the group did, stressing instead its support for Democrat Shannon O'Brien. Kogut said at a news conference before the election that it would be "dangerous" not to elect a leader on this issue, but that's a long way from the war she and her colleagues would have declared against an antiabortion candidate.
[...]
But two years into his term, Moderate Romney started to vanish. NARAL's detente lasted until July 2005, when the governor vetoed a bill that would have allowed pharmacists to provide emergency contraceptives to women without a prescription -- a total 180 from his avowal during the NARAL meeting. Kogut, the group's former executive director, phoned the governor's office but, she says, he never called back.

"We felt completely played," she recalls. "We just couldn't believe it, given what he'd said to our faces."

On gay rights:

Romney also awed the state's Log Cabin chapter, meeting with the gay Republican group in October 2002 and wowing attendees with opinions on domestic-partnership benefits in the workplace (he was for them) and discrimination based on sexual orientation (strongly against).

He spoke against gay marriage, one attendee recalls, but it sounded as if he could countenance civil unions when he said, "Just don't use the M-word." He emphasized themes of tolerance and respect, and by the end of the meeting Log Cabin members were pretty dazzled. After Romney left, the group unanimously voted to endorse him.
[...]
By then, some Log Cabin Republicans were saying they'd been snookered.

"He shakes your hand, looks you in the eye," says Richard Babson, a Log Cabin member who attended the Romney meeting. "It's hard for me to know what Mitt Romney's first principles are on a given day."

The environmentalists:

Environmentalists, meantime, were amazed to discover that this uber-capitalist seemed pretty much a Greenpeace fantasy. Once elected, he brought environmental activists into the fold, among them Douglas Foy, the formidable president of the Conservation Law Foundation, who was given a newly created Cabinet-level job. And not long after he was sworn in, Romney went to the oil- and coal-fired Salem Harbor Station power plant and threatened to shut it down if its owners didn't meet a deadline to slash nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions.

"If the choice is between dirty power plants or protecting the health of the people of Massachusetts, there is no choice in my mind," he said at an impromptu news conference, in February 2003, while hard-hat-wearing workers at the plant jeered.
[...]
If the gay-rights crowd sounds bitterly disappointed, the state's environmentalists sound like they'd gotten punk'd. By the end of his term, Romney had announced his support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He'd supported an easing of regulations on power-plant cleanup, including Salem Harbor, the site of that confrontation. And he'd pulled out of a historic seven-state agreement designed to reduce greenhouse gases, an effort he'd initially championed.

"Hearts were broken," says Seth Kaplan of the Conservation Law Foundation. "That's the best way I can put it. And when someone is an unexpected advocate, like Romney was, it builds up your hopes and breaks your heart even more."

The Republican party:

[Mitt's change occurred during] the elections of 2004, when Romney backed a slate of Republican candidates, hoping to loosen the Democratic hold on the state legislature. When the GOP gained not a single seat, he seemed to abandon interest in a second term and set his sights on a run for the presidency.

That's not to say he gave up on the governor's job; in 2006, for example, he signed into law an ambitious health insurance bill that mandated coverage for all Massachusetts residents by July of this year. But he began traveling regularly outside the state for campaign-like, get-to-know-me appearances, more than 100 trips in 2005 and 2006, the Boston Globe reported. He stopped selling Massachusetts and started to make it the butt of jokes, telling out-of-state audiences that his job made him feel like "a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention."

The business community:

"Everyone knew that rebuilding the economy here would be 40 miles of hard road, and Mitt bailed out after five miles," says Howard Anderson, a professor of business at MIT and a longtime investor in Bain Capital who has known Romney for years. "At some point, we in the venture capital community became skeptics, and that eventually turned into rampant cynicism."
[...]
"It's as though he's let the market dictate his ideology, which is something no one who knew him in the private sector ever saw coming. Not a hint."

So let's look at the political ideological market and Mitt, by election:

In 1994, it was a banner year for Republicans, with large sweeps in the US House, US Senate, state legislatures, and governor's offices. President Bill Clinton was at his lowest popularity. Mitt was voicing liberal positions against Ted Kennedy running for the US Senate.

In 2002, Democrats listened to Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, offering up the disastrous Department of Homeland Security, losing the fight over unionizing its employees, and trying to bribe Seniors with prescription drug coverage...and they got trounced. Only one new Democrat was elected to the US Senate, and that was because the sitting senator had an affair with his wife. Mitt Romney espoused the liberal-to-moderate beliefs quoted above and won his Governor's race.

In 2004, with Kerry on the ticket in Massachusetts and gay marriage on the ballot in most states, Romney ran against gay marriage and pushed GOP local candidates and lost every single race.

After that, he moved to New Hampshire and Iowa, even though he still had a job as a Governor of Massachusetts. But to those of you who think Willard Mitt Romney lied to Bay Staters to win an election, it's not a lie if you believe it.

fake townhall meetings anyone?

Your Utah state legislature at work. In less than a month, Speaker Curtis and his fellow voucher voting Republicans will have egg all over their face when their bill to create vouchers is repealed by Utahns. Rather than work on finding out what their constituents actually want and making laws around those ideas, these Republicans are trying to sell something Utahns don't want by threatening a recession.

Still, Giles and Ann Florence, Salt Lake school teachers who attended the meeting, weren't comforted by the lawmakers' assurances about vouchers or even how the so-called town meeting was put together. The gatherings are being organized around the state by the Informed Voters Project, a political issue committee of lawmakers who support vouchers. Democrats are not invited, nor is anyone from the organized voucher opposition.
The Florences complained they spent all day trying to find one of the meetings, calling newspaper and lawmakers' offices, before they found a listing in The Tribune.
They found the town meeting at Daybreak development's community center a disappointment.
"There was no open discussion - it was definitely loaded in favor of vouchers," Giles Florence said. "It was not a town meeting." The voucher discussion began with a slick promotional film, paid for by the Milton Friedman Foundation, that presented the voucher program as necessary to prepare Utah for an expected onslaught of 155,000 new students over the next five years.
The short video that included cameos by Hughes, Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, and Senate President John Valentine made a case that Utah's recent prosperity is not assured and an economic downturn similar to one in the mid-1980s is possible. "Then, Utah is really in trouble," says Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, in the film. "Everyone agrees something has to be changed," says Tilton.
Utah's stalled voucher program, which must survive a referendum next month to be implemented, is the change needed, the film maintains, because it would reduce the number of students in classrooms while leaving additional money for public schools.

The meeting ended with these legislators handing out copies of the poorly drafted bill and a plea that this bill is not saying bad things about public schools. If you are having to sell your bill or program by saying what it doesn't do, or what other people say about it isn't true, you are already in trouble.

2008 round up

• Sens. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Joe Biden (D-DE), both of whom have no shot at winning their party's nomination (or a general election were they to succeed), are campaigning together in Iowa for Biden's dumb soft-partition plan. It is dumb because it is A) too late to partition the country now; B) the one thing the Iraqi Parliament has done is vote this proposal down; C) it smacks of colonialism. [More on Biden's idiocy later]


• The only reason Rudy has been successful thus far in the GOP primary is because Republican primary voters like bullies on their behalf. All he does is make negative statements about Democrats, especially Hillary, and they lap it up. A-holes for Giulliani.


• I get "breaking news" from the New York Times sent to me via my Google Reader. And the most laughable breaking news of the day was this one: "A Senate Star Sparkles Less on the Stump"...and that "senate star" is Joe Biden. Anyone who has heard him speak at committee hearings or on Sunday talk shows knows he is a pompous windbag that is an exemplar of what is wrong with Washington. Here's a taste from a resent trip to Iowa:
  

  The senator explained that he had just barely caught the direct flight from Washington to Des Moines that evening, “since neither Hillary nor Barack will lend me their G5 jets,” and that there had been no time to change. “I got in the plane — I was meeting with President Talabani, you know, he’s the Kurdish leader in Iraq, and I literally ran from that meeting in the Capitol.”
  [...]
  Mr. Biden may sometimes seem a caricature for long-windedness in Washington, but he goes over well with Iowans, who sit nodding through his stories-within-stories about the Senate and his meetings with presidents and world leaders.
  [...]
  “I think I have the ingredients,” Mr. Biden told a crowd of around 50 people who gathered to hear him speak in Burlington. “I could be wrong, to state the obvious, and if I’m wrong, then you’ll have to watch me on the Sunday shows and in the Senate. But if I’m right, then you may have the chance to really, really change the world.”

  Iowans are just polite and Joe has all the ingredients of a electoral disaster. Go name drop at a cocktail party in the Beltway and leave these poor people alone.


• Go Log Cabin Republicans!


• Is Obama '08 Daschle '04? Just look at these facts...
  

  the major former Daschle staffers now in Obama's orbit:
  
  *Pete Rouse: Rouse served as Daschle's chief of staff for 20 years before the South Dakota Senator's defeat in 2004. Shortly afterward, he was selected to serve in that same post for Obama.
  
  *Robert Gibbs: Obama's communications director, Gibbs served in that same role at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 2002 cycle. He was handpicked by the Daschle operation for that job.
  
  *Steve Hildebrand: Daschle's campaign manager in 2004 (and South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson's in 2002), Hildebrand accompanied Obama on a recent trip to Iowa and has been reaching out to potential staff behind the scenes. Hildebrand also ran the Iowa caucuses for then Vice President Al Gore in 2000.
  
  *Anita Dunn: Dunn, a longtime Daschle aide, has been tasked with straightening out Obama's Hopefund PAC through the end of this year. She will not be a part of any Obama bid as she is committed as a senior strategist for Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh (D).
  
  *Todd Webster: Webster is a former spokesman for Daschle and the brains behind www.runobama.com, a draft site for the Illinois Senator that has collected some 11,000 signatures urging him to run.

  Don't forget his finance team [larger image here]
I bought Wes Clark's new "presidential candidate book" and have just finished the introduction, but I am reminded again how terrible it was for him to have entered in so late that he missed Iowa, got crappy Gore '00 staffers and based his strategy on beating Dean in the February 3rd states. He would have been a terrific president. It also reminds me about how saddening it was to see him endorse Hillary this early. It would have been career suicide for Clark to support Edwards and maybe Obama should she win it all, but some how I was hoping for more.

Clark's loss in 2004 broke my political heart and I am still not ready to fall for any of these candidates yet. Although Obama is appealing, he is listening too much to those Daschle people who feed into his inner cautious streak.

Utahns say no to vouchers

When Utahns finally get a say, and not a few rich guys with crazy ideas that fund Speaker Curtis' 23-vote reelection campaign, the answer is an overwhelming no to vouchers.

Sixty percent of Utah voters say they would likely vote against a voucher program, according to a Dan Jones & Associates poll conducted for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV. In comparison, 34 percent said they would vote for vouchers, while 7 percent were undecided.

The poll of 409 Utahns was conducted last week and has a margin of error of 5 percent.
[...]
In July, the Deseret Morning News reported on a similar poll that found that 57 percent of those surveyed would most likely vote against the voucher program and 36 percent said they would vote in favor of it.

So people have made up their minds already. But the best quote of the day goes to PCE, in all of its delicious irony.

"We're convinced that as parents begin to understand who is behind this and who supports it and the merit of the program itself, they are going to vote for this," said Leah Barker, spokeswoman for Parents for Choice in Education, a pro-voucher group.

Who is behind vouchers? Overstock.com's CEO that pushed an unconstitutional intellectual property law for his company, out of state partisans and anti-public school nutters. And don't forget astroturf bloggers. Who is behind the anti-voucher movement? Utah teachers and their union, who asked for money from the national union. Contrary to the ads you see and hear, that has nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi, Moveon.org, or gays getting married. Now maybe gay people (who might want to be married) gave money or are teacher's union members, or maybe one of Moveon.org's 3 million members gave money, but really it is Utah's teachers that are opposed to it.

And as to the merits of the program, we have a study in Milwaukee, which has had vouchers for a few years now, that shows vouchers have made no improvement in student achievement, which is of course, the whole point of vouchers right? Or is it just to make schooling like health insurance, privatized.

I went to a private school (Rowland Hall-St. Mark's) from 5-PreK to grade 12, and it was great for me and my ADD with the small class sizes. But RHSM's current tuition is $14,710 for grades 6-11 ($15,040 for 12th because of graduation expenses) and $12,450 for full day kindergarten to 5th grade. That to me seems unaffordable for those who would get the $3,000 voucher. Now maybe Rowland Hall is at high end, but it is also one of if not the best school in the state. And don't our children deserve the best.

Truth is, the real problem is that kids in Park City get a much better education that those on the west side of the Valley. If we actually want to improve education for all of Utah's kids, we need to base funding on a state-wide funding mechanism, build more schools and hire more quality teachers.

Instead, our Republican-controlled legislature is content to resort to ideological gimmicks that won't solve the problem and will probably only make it worse. And this same Republican-controlled legislature is threatening to take your child's ball and go home: when Referendum 1 fails, they will decrease funding for Utah's schools. I am glad Utahns are at least standing up to these bullies.

Becker lays out his agenda, again

Rather than attack his opponent, Ralph Becker opted to summaries the highlights of the many blueprints he has perviously offered on different policy areas.

Under the 180-day outline, Becker pledges to appoint a first-of-its-kind education-partnership coordinator. If elected, he also would create the mayor's monthly school summit and develop a scholarship program.
Becker wants to build green, complete a capital bikeway system, require a review of so-called carbon footprints and finish work on the Jordan River Parkway.
He also hopes to bolster community engagement and better relations with the Utah Legislature, where he has served as a lawmaker for the past 11 years.
Becker also vows to pass a broader nondiscrimination ordinance and change city policy to allow an employee to name a domestic partner as a beneficiary.
To benefit downtown, the Utah House minority leader hopes for form a cultural district for the arts, create a year-round public market, add bike rentals and lockers at the transit hub and initiate a downtown circulator system for public transit.

Naturally, Buhler supporters have rated down the story and have filled the comments section with attacks on Becker that mirror Buhler's, even though these aren't new plans but a summary of pre-runoff plans.

If Buhler truly wants this to be an election about ideas, let's compare Ralph's blueprints to Dave's policy proposals and see which one is more appealing to more SLC voters. But I get the distinct impression Buhler wants it to be able how "ineffectual" Becker has been and not about what each proposes to do while in office.

Rocky finally wises up

(Photo Credit: Reason Magazine)

Although it might have been a tar baby strategy all along to endorse Keith Christensen and slam Jenny Wilson to help Wilson and Ralph Becker, this time Rocky for sure is staying away from something he supports on purpose.

No bully pulpit speeches. No public campaign. In fact, Anderson's input can be summed up by his three-sentence sound bite in the Prop. 1 brochure.
"Our resources and facilities are stretched to the breaking point," the mayor writes. "Our need for improved facilities is dramatic and urgent."
So where is the urgency?
City Hall insiders can't explain the mayor's quietude. Meantime, police and fire officials, who avoid public criticism, privately wonder about Anderson's support.

Who ever these unnamed sources are must be dense.

Rocky is a polarizing figure.

In a Salt Lake Tribune poll conducted earlier this month, 54 percent of Salt Lakers rate Anderson's performance as "good" or "excellent." That's virtually the same tally as the 53 percent approval he received in January 2006, the last time The Tribune asked residents to score Anderson.
But the numbers at the extremes have grown. More than a quarter (26 percent) rate the mayor's performance as "poor," up from 17 percent in the earlier survey. And 25 percent now say mayor is doing an "excellent" job, compared with 17 percent last year.
In addition, nearly half (45 percent) rate the mayor as only "fair" or "poor," up from 36 percent in 2006.
Fewer residents - a mere 1 percent - are undecided in the latest poll...

As such, the minute he goes out on the rustings supporting something, whatever that is sees its negatives go up. And it is a lot easier to vote down something like a bond initiative than it is to approve it. Ergo, Rocky's finally shutting his trap. You are welcome police and fire officials and "City Hall insiders."

Mr. Anderson has also thankfully stayed away from Becker, only to heap scorn on Buhler, which thankfully won't have as much of a chance to back fire as his dissing of Wilson. In any event, Rocky has thankfully discovered that he can be useful only in the negative or by working quietly behind the scenes.

I couldn't believe it

Since Bob and Jeni have rated their blogs, I decided to take a stab at it.

100% Free Personals from JustSayHi

I have been trying not to use swear words and the like because I don't want to offend those who are sensitive to such things so they can ignore my arguments and because using such words is usually short hand for anger we can be more articulately expressed. I just didn't know how family friendly my blog had become. Maybe I should go into lurid detail about Larry Craig to get a bad boy image.

Anyway, being in DC for the fall means that I get to enjoy federal holidays that no one in Utah cares about, so happy Columbus Day weekend. Monday's a vacation day for me.

What's the truth, SLC politico?

Since everyone is dumping on Jason Bourne/Mark Trowner these days, I wonder if we have another astroturfer in our midst. I hate to call out someone, but after poking around SLCpoliticstruth somethings caught my eye, and they raise a few red flags.

1. Of the three total posts on the entire blog, all of them since Buhler went on the attack against Becker.


2. All three of these posts are not only pro-Buhler/anti-Becker, but also fit tightly into Buhler's messaging. (By contrast, Jenni's or Rob's or Marshall's or my blog write nice things about Ralph and mean things about Dave, but we don't coordinate between ourselves or the Becker camp)


3. SLC Politico seems to have sprung up out of nowhere in response to my post on Buhler's first negative attack (I added him, as I do all non-spam commenters with a blog to my link list)

Now these suspicious signs could mean nothing. SLC politico could just be a Buhler fan and not like Becker. That's perfectly fine and he is entitled to his opinion. But if he is being paid by money or resume line to blog for a candidate, that to me is problematic.

I will take whatever response SLC politico offers at face value and assume it is true. If however, other facts come to light, I will not hesitate to bring them to the fore. So please feel free to comment here folks, I only seek to rid the blog of spam keep commenters emails etc. private. And to SLC politico, inquiring minds want to know.

Buhler goes negative without facts

Previously, I had labeled as a negative attack Buhler's press conference where he touted his record of "accomplishment" in the state legislature and compared it to the lack of bills that Becker has passed, claiming he would get something done and Becker was a dreamer. Some commenters claimed that this wasn't negative or an attack, just a contrast. But those of us who can look at context knew that it was an implied attack and the beginning of more to come. Today, Buhler's latest attack builds on the first.

With former police chief Rick Dinse by his side, the mayoral hopeful on Thursday laid out his second "to-do" list, which includes the installation of "crime cameras" at Pioneer Park, if he is elected in November.
[...]
Buhler also used the stage to blitz mayoral opponent Ralph Becker, whom he criticized for not passing any crime legislation during his 11 years as a legislator.
"He makes a few very vague promises," Buhler said, "but does not explain how he'll deliver."
Buhler tagged Becker's so-called blueprint on the topic, saying the only specific part is to curb graffiti.
"When it comes to public safety, he's been absent without leave."

The whole thing is ridiculous for a number of reasons. One, as I stated before, because he was the Democratic Leader in the House, Republicans in the legislature wouldn't let him pass anything. Two, Buhler was in the Republican leadership so of course his bills were able to pass. Third, a plan to violate the Fourth Amendment but do nothing for actual violent crime doesn't strike me as something that really will "fight crime." Sure those "crime cameras" might catch people dealing drugs, soliciting sex, etc. But when was the last time a person was killed, raped, shot or stabbed in Pioneer Park? The cameras idea is a gimmick. Adding 5 cops a year will barely put a dent in the problem.

Here's Ralph Becker's response.

"I'm glad to see that Dave is coming along with some proposals on what to do with the future of the city," he said. "Unlike Dave, I have been a law-enforcement officer, I have been a firefighter, and I have been an emergency medical technician."
Becker says he consistently supported legislation focused on drug enforcement, prevention and penalties for DUIs. He also pointed to a comprehensive list of city initiatives dubbed "blueprints," which he began releasing in June.

I will say it again, Buhler is attacking so often (and grasping at straws to do it) because he is down by nearly 20 points in the polls.

Yet more voucher shananigans

Or should I say unDemocratic "town hall" meetings?

[T]he target audiences of the intimate gatherings - active Republican and unaffiliated voters - suggest the meetings are more about marshaling ground troops for the Nov. 6 referendum than about fostering a genuine discussion of the pros and cons of vouchers.

The whole thing is a sham

The public meetings have not been widely publicized. The Salt Lake Tribune, for instance, had to ask for a schedule of gatherings, and was given an incomplete list. The explanation? Organizers are able to lock down the schedules of busy lawmakers only about a week in advance of any given session.
"If their goal is to really try to inform all potential voters on this referendum - it seems like it's not the most effective strategy," says University of Utah political scientist Matthew Burbank. "They are talking to a very narrow slice of those voters.
"But if they are trying to put some pressure on people they think should be supporting this, but apparently are not - then it may be somewhat effective," says Burbank.

And filled with trickery and astroturf

Orem resident Ada Wilson said this week she received an e-mail because she was actively involved in "politics and policy here in Utah," from an organization calling itself Utahns for Public School — not to be confused with the anti-voucher coalition Utahns for Public Schools.

But some people did.

And after a closer look, the fact that the e-mail sender clearly wasn't anti-voucher at all had some recipients scratching their heads.

The e-mail said, "If you support our cause to defeat this pro-voucher movement we would ask you to reply to this e-mail so we can build an action list of anti-voucher supporters."

It asked recipients to provide a personal e-mail address, name and contact number and then visit another Web site, www.vouchernews.blogspot.com.

That site is an anti-union blog clearly not aimed at defeating vouchers.

Here's the real reason Republicans have for supporting school vouchers: "Children in private schools will be protected from the liberal brainwashing currently occurring in our public schools." Really? I thought private schools were liberal, isn't that why the right keeps railing against people who go to good private schools, claiming liberal professors brainwash them? They have got to keep their arguments straight.

If you have to resort to lies, deception, self-contradictory arguments, and desperate pleas for help from conservative bloggers, you know you are in trouble in November. [Oh and the research shows, vouchers make things worse, not better.] [Oh and Utahns don't want them:]

Oyez I barely got in

Today's post is about my first (and hopefully not last) trip the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

This morning, I woke up for good at 5:45 AM (I never really got much rest last night, but that is another saga). This way, I could ride into downtown with my host, who leaves the house at 6:30 AM and gets into the office at 7:00 AM. His office is at Metro Center (G and 13th Streets), so I decided to walk from there to SCOTUS...with a pit stop for breakfast at Starbucks.

By the time I got to the Court, it was 7:55 AM and there was already a pretty serious line; I was number 72. And this was for a case that I thought was pretty obscure and uninteresting to normal folks. New York Bd. of Elections v. Lopez-Torres is a case involving New York State's crazy election system for judges.

My Aunt Lucy is a Supreme Court Judge in Bronx County (remember New York's Supreme Court is their trial court; confusing, I know) and she knows Judge Lopez-Torres personally and told me the facts of the case. Here's what happened: The Democratic Party bosses wanted her to make some moron her clerk, even though he was totally unqualified, he was a party hack/relative of a party boss. She said no. Accordingly, the party bosses used the state's cockamamie judicial election system to keep her off the ballot, although she did get on the Working Family's Party ballot. Since New York City is indigo blue, she lost her reelection in 2002. Judge Lopez-Torres is now a King County [aka Brooklyn] Probate Judge and has a much better job in terms of money, hours, etc.

Anyway, back to the oral arguments before the court. I barely got in, and Lopez-Torres' attorney's grandson was the last person allowed into the court. Another attorney from my non-profit sat along the side with me and we could only see about half of the justices around the large marble pillar. The place is pretty intimidating. Huge ceilings with marble relief, brilliant judges and attorneys, the deafening acoustics, and a very tall bench. Before arguments started, Chief Justice Roberts admitted attorneys into the Supreme Court Bar. This is the one bar membership that is worth it. Two other attorneys in our office left 10 minutes to 9AM and got in before we did. Plus, you get nice seats, you guessed it, behind the bar with the attorneys arguing the cases. ex.-Solicitor General and Bush v. Gore arguer Ted Olson sponsored someone and did the arguments for the Democratic and Republican Parties.

OK let's get back on point.

Unfortunately for Judge Lopez-Torres, all of the attorneys I talked to (and I) think this could be a 9-0 loss for her and the reformers. Justices Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg, Alito, Scalia and CJ Roberts all seemed skeptical at best of Lopez-Torres' argument. Thomas of course will do whatever the other three members of the four horsemen of the apocalypse decide, and did not ask a single question or even clear his throat. Silly cases were interrupting time he could be going on a book tour or RVing around the country.

Justice Kennedy worried about the burden of getting a slate of delegates versus the burden of getting a delegate (NY's system has delegates that pick the party's nominees, the delegates ALWAYS do whatever the party bosses want and are drawn from their own crazy districts with their no real constituency) but that was about it in favor of Lopez-Torres. Justice Stevens put up the hypothetical of a law that let the party pick its nominee however it wanted and the party let the bosses choose. Lopez-Torres' attorney conceded that that was constitutional, and in practice that is what the delegate system does. Justice Souter called Lopez-Torres' argument amounted to a right to win, Lopez-Torres reframed it as a right to compete. [Transcript of oral arguments is here]

In short, the whole thing was a disaster for those who want an independent judiciary in New York. [FYI My title is a pun off of the word Oyez. The clerk of the court always says "Oyez Oyez..." at the beginning of each oral argument to announce the Justices arrival] The AP agrees with me that the Second Circuit will likely be reversed.

Cannon's fodder

Way back at the beginning of the year (January to be exact), I said that U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Provo) would be primaried, and a serious challange at that. No more "the devil made me lose" oposition.

(Photo Credit: Ravell Call, Deseret Morning News)

No comes word that fmr. BYU placekicker and Huntsman campaign manager Jason Chaffetz is going to lay out the rational case about why Cannon needs to go.

"As I looked at the federal delegation," Chaffetz said, "I recognized how poorly the Cannon office was operating, how poorly they were representing their constituents. I've seen it up close and personal. ... I was the one who got to go with Gov. Huntsman and sit down with (U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret) Spellings and tell her why No Child Left Behind was wrong for Utah, because Chris Cannon wasn't. He was supporting it."
[...]
While Chaffetz said Cannon is "fundamentally and principally wrong on immigration, top to bottom," and promised a policy speech with a seven-point plan on the issue before the convention, he said past campaigns against Cannon have struggled to avoid single-topic challenges and promised to better negotiate that mire.
[...]
Chaffetz also attacked Cannon for being the only member of the Utah delegation to support a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and a June 15 vote for a $34 billion Homeland Security appropriation that was opposed by 148 House Republicans who sided with President Bush. Bush had asked for $2 billion less.

Lest you think I am pro Chaffetz lets remember that being a kicker for BYU is about the only association he has with the 3rd district. While he lives in Alpine, no one bothered to tell him that Chaffetz lives in Jim Matheson's district. [Thanks Redistricting!] But then again, maybe they did...because Chaffetz thought about running against Jim in 2006, but realized he would lose big. So much for prinicple.


That's not the only one who will be going for Cannon's job.

Cannon will have to fend off...at least one other challenger, former Juab County prosecutor David Leavitt. The three will face off May 10 at the state Republican Party Convention at Utah Valley State College, though others could still join the race.

Leavitt, who filed to run last spring, announced Monday that his campaign has raised more than $100,000 since starting its fund-raising efforts in August. Chaffetz said he has raised "tens of thousands of dollars."

(Photo Credit: Sam Chapman)
David Leavitt is HHS Sec./ex-Gov. Mike Leavitt's brother, who previously lost his job as Juab DA after prosecuting polygamist Tom Green.

Either of these two men though, would be light years better than Cannon, even if they are conservative. Because they have a brain.

Yet another Romney flip-flop

("I once caught a fish this big." Photo Credit: Itchmo.com)

Romney changed his mind about something, number...who can keep track anymore? This time, its on his campaign fundraising.

Willard "Mitt" Romney January 8, 2007:

Ron Kaufman, a top Romney adviser who attended the event, said it [raising over $6.5 Million in a single day] sent a powerful message to potential supporters who might have wondered whether Romney would simply run on his personal fortune.

"As self-funding, big-spending candidates have proven, it doesn't get you anything," Kaufman said. "The bottom line is: The way to be a candidate for president is prove you can put the organization together, prove to the voters that you've earned the right to be a serious candidate for president. You've got to earn it; you can't buy it."

After that event, Romney punctuated that message, telling reporters that it would be "akin to a nightmare" if he were forced to contribute much of his own money to his presidential effort.

Now here's Romney again, September 27, 2007:

To date, the venture capitalist has contributed $9 million to his campaign, nearly a quarter of his overall contributions.
[...]
"I'm not beholden to any particular group for getting me into this race or for getting me elected. My family, that's the only one I'm really beholden to, they're the ones who let their inheritance slip away, dollar by dollar."
In noting that he had "contributed significantly to the campaign," Romney added: "I presume I will again."

Oh and remember that nightmare quote? "While saying he reserved the right to do so, and in fact having already done so by the time he made the comment, he explained he wanted to build a broad apparatus of donors."

Why the lying, why the change? Well, we will see shortly that his fundraising has continued to drop off considerably compared to Giulliani's, let alone Obama's or Clinton's. Moreover, his massive lead in New Hampshire, where I thought he was least succeptable to losing, has evaporated.

It used to be he could stick to a position for a couple years, but now it is only a matter of months.

Becker is crushing Buhler

Today the Deseret News came out with a poll with unsurprising but happy results:

The Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll conducted by Dan Jones & Associates shows that if the Nov. 6 final election were held today, Becker would be favored by 51 percent of Salt Lake City registered voters; Buhler has 33 percent support. Eleven percent didn't know, while 5 percent mentioned someone else.
[...]
The survey of 403 registered voters in the city has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.0 percent. So, even within the ranges of the margin of error, Becker still holds a healthy lead.

So if even all 11 percent who are undecided go for Buhler, and we chip in 5 percent for the margin of error, Becker still beats Buhler by 3%. And that doomsday scenario isn't going to happen.

To be over fifty percent already is pretty devastating news in a open seat race for a challenger. If you take Becker's 38.48 and add it to Wilson's 23.46, you get a bit over 62 percent. If you take that number and minus it by the 51 Dan Jones found support Becker, you get a difference of 11.94%...about 1 percent more than the undecided number. So those undecideds could be Wilson supporters who aren't sold on Ralph and/or Christensen supporters, or more likely people who aren't going to vote.

I guess people prefer Dreamers who have big plans for this city rather than Doers who help pass legislation that harms cities and are against Salt Lake City values. So much for that attack line.

Romney's latest Tribune aided lie

Another day, another dishonest Thomas Burr article from the Salt Lake Tribune. Yesterday, he was part of two hit pieces on Ralph Becker [he only wrote one of them -Ed.], today, he lies for Mitt Romney. This can't be explained away merely by lazy journalism. Here's the offending paragraph burried deep in Burr's puff piece on some kid from Provo who supplicated himself for Willard Mitt Romney.

The Romney campaign did not choose another video for its finalists list even though at one point it was the most watched on its site. That video, by the editors of Slate, poked fun at a comment Romney made earlier this year in response to whether his sons had served in the military or would join.
Romney responded that his five sons are serving their country by helping him get elected.
In the Slate ad, called "Five Brothers" - in a takeoff on the military series "Band of Brothers" - shows the sacrifices the sons are making on the campaign trail, including hitting golf balls, seeing the world's largest catfish and pulling over to see a field buzzing with lightning bugs.

Burr forgot to metion the key fact that the ad that Idaho Rhodes Scholar and former White House Advisor Bruce Reed made beat the pants off of the ad Romney selected (and it wasn't the ad Burr mentioned in his piece. In fact Burr claimed the opposite

Ryan Whitaker, 23, of Provo, received the most views for his "Ready for Action" video and received nearly half the votes cast among the nine finalists. Whitaker, a junior at Brigham Young University, was stoked to learn he won the contest out of 129 entries.

Reed fired back on his Slate column

"Ready for Action" is a disappointing choice, and not just because it collected a paltry 20,000 votes to the 80,000+ votes for "Way!". A more apt title for it would be "Above the Fruited Plain." Stock video clips of flags, mountains, and the Golden Gate Bridge rush to keep up with Romney's favorite political clichés. The words "Strength," "Innovation," and "Experience" appear in subliminal blips, then give way to the tagline, "Strong. New. Leadership."

Team Mitt no doubt liked the ad because it so closely resembles the ads from Romney's consultants. "Ready for Action" says nothing about what Romney would do as President. One viewer complained that it doesn't even mention that Romney's running for President:

"Remember that the average person seeing the add on network television will have no clue who he is or that there is even an election going on. Network television is targeted to the lowest common denominator which when you look at what they show on network tv these days doesn't say much for the aptitude of our country."

We already have one Mitt propagana paper, it is the LDS church owned Deseret Morning News, we don't need another.

Buhler goes negative

(Photo Credit: Michael Brandy, Deseret Morning News)
Remember when Republican Dave Buhler claimed he was "nice guy?" Well, now that it has been a little over two weeks since he made it into the runoff with Democrat Ralph Becker, it seems Buhler's attacks have started.

Calling himself a doer, not a dreamer, Buhler stood in the shadow of the Utah Capitol to outline a "to-do list" of reforms he needs state help to tackle, if elected.
[...]
Buhler also assailed the legislative record of his opponent Ralph Becker, whom he questioned for passing just 15 bills during 11 years in the Utah House.
"Some years he didn't seem to make much of an effort," the Republican Buhler said about his Democratic opponent. "The race is between two nice guys," but "one's focus is on results. The other is focused on planning and blueprints."
Becker could not immediately be reached for reaction.
Buhler, a two-term city councilman who finished 11 percentage points behind Becker in the Sept. 11 primary, says he relishes the role of the underdog.
Suggesting Becker has been ineffective on Capitol Hill, Buhler pointed to his four-year Utah Senate term (when he passed 36 bills) and eight years at City Hall as tenures more full of results.

I guess that argument would make sense if you forgot that Buhler was in the Republican leadership in the Utah state legislure and Becker was in the Democratic leadership in the state legislature. Since the Republicans have a super majority in the state legislature, why would they let someone like Becker pass any bills and look good? In fact, it wasn't until Becker was practically gone on the campaign trail that they passed an ethics bill, something Becker has introduced year and after year.

In fact, one of the main reasons Becker probably decided to run for mayor was that he was tired of being stymied by the Republicans in the legislature. With the blue tilt of Salt Lake, he knew he would finally be able to get stuff done as mayor rather than as minority leader.

While we are comparing records of what each candidate has done in the state legislature, many of the things Buhler did weren't good for cities.

As a state senator, he repeatedly tried to limit the power of cities to govern themselves. In the Senate, Buhler tacked a rider onto a bill governing city incorporation. It allowed businesses that owned land in newly formed cities Kearns and Magna to opt out, escaping from new taxes. One company benefiting from Buhler’s changes was Kennecott Copper. Also, as state senator, he limited the power of cities in Utah to regulate rental units.

Maybe Buhler should more careful about throwing rocks out of his glass house.

UPDATE: Becker responds.

"My role is to help formulate and present the Democratic position on state policy and on the state budget, to work to make sure I represent my constituents well, to help our caucus be successful with its legislation," he said.

Becker also touted his perfect attendance record in legislative sessions for the past 11 years — "I've never missed a day," he said.

As for being labeled a dreamer by the Buhler campaign, Becker said he doesn't have a problem with that.

"I don't apologize for thinking about the future or working toward the future, engaging the community and achieving the community that we want," he said. "I think it's important that the mayor not only be someone who's managing city government well but develops and leads this city toward the future we want as a community."

butt biters for election stealing

(Photo Credit: Chilly Willy Fan.com)

The lede of the day:

Until this week, Missouri attorney Charles "Chep" Hurth III was best known for a headline-grabbing incident a decade ago in which he bit a young female law student on the butt in a bar.

Now Hurth, the city attorney for New Haven, Mo. (population 1,800), is the agent for a deep-pocketed group that donated $175,000 to fund a Republican-backed effort that would reshape the landscape of presidential politics in California.

Hurth has emerged as an unlikely lead player in connection with the ballot measure that seeks to change the way California allocates its Electoral College votes in the presidential election. His actions on behalf of the group Take Initiative America are being examined by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission after accusations from Democrats that the group is hiding the source of its money.

It's not the first time Hurth has been part of an effort that Democrats say has been aimed at changing the outcome of a presidential election. In 2004, he was the legal agent behind a GOP-funded group called Choices for America, which solicited donations from Republicans for another controversial signature drive - to help independent candidate Ralph Nader get on the presidential election ballot in key states, documents show.

It follows all the rules of sham front groups, have a vaugue name, make sure that name has words that every American loves like "America" "Choice" "Freedom" "United" "Future" "Senior" "[a state or citizens of a state]", and couple that with the exact opposite of its actual purpose. And you thought election law was boring.

(H/T Prof. Hansen)

Tribune creating a close race out of thin air

The Salt Lake Tribune after being embarressed by supporting distant fourth-place finisher Keith Christensen, is going after Ralph Becker by claiming Buhler can win the westside.

From Rose Park to Glendale, primary voters on Salt Lake City's west flank sidestepped the Ralph Becker cascade on Sept. 11. Instead, the area broke convincingly for Dave Buhler - and Jenny Wilson.
Becker, who swept a vast swath of neighborhoods across the rest of Utah's capital, did not carry a single precinct west of Interstate 15.
[...]
Even so, the west-end shutout - Buhler and Wilson dominated Fairpark, Rose Park, Poplar Grove and Glendale, leaving Becker in third - dropped some jaws.
"It's surprising," said Archie Archuleta, a Glendale resident and the city's former administrator of minority affairs. "The City Council members on the west side are Republican, and their constituencies came out very heavy."
Indeed, Buhler was endorsed by those council colleagues, Van Turner and Carlton Christensen. But the self-professed "underdog" argues his support runs deeper.
"I'm very encouraged by it," Buhler said, noting he pushed for the Pioneer police precinct and still has ties to fellow South High School alums. "This shows how this is a not a partisan race."
[...]
In one case, between 600 North and 1000 North just east of Redwood Road, Buhler bested Becker 111 votes to 38. Buhler is counting on that trend to continue to make up the overall margin.
[...]
In the four precincts that comprise the heart of Glendale, for example, Buhler outpolled Becker by roughly 100 votes combined. By comparison, Becker beat Buhler by 100 votes - and sometimes 200 - in each of six Avenues precincts and in two Harvard-Yale precincts.
Buhler topped Becker by more than 100 votes in a single precinct - Buhler's east-bench neighborhood.

So let me get this straight, Becker cleaned everyone's clock on September 11, getting nearly 39% in a 6-way race and thousands of more votes than Buhler, and the Trib is focuing on random low turnout precincts where Buhler got a couple dozen more votes than Becker did? There is also a hint of racist subtext here: that Becker purportedly ignored the west side, where more minorities live, to placate his white liberal base. Thankfully Wayne Holland sets the record straight.

"Their general strategy was to take Ralph to areas where he could get to know people that had a history of good turnout," said Wayne Holland, chairman of the Utah Democratic Party. "Primary voting being a low-turnout game, it was a very, very good strategy."
[...]
Holland notes the Becker camp researched voting hot spots from the 1999 and 2003 mayoral primaries and determined the west sector simply was not worth it.
"It just doesn't produce in a primary," Holland said. "He was spending his time and resources on higher-turnout precincts."
Becker says he initially tried to hit every west-side doorstep. Later, after realizing the dearth of registered voters there, he scaled back.
"It's really unfortunate," Becker said. "There is a really large percentage who don't vote regularly."
That said, Archuleta expects to see a bigger Becker brigade west of the freeway over the next month.
"Becker did not do as well on the west side in terms of his volunteer force," he said. "But without Wilson in the race, that will change."
[...]
Becker, who bristles at being labeled the favorite, says he is recruiting still more volunteers to work every part of the city.
"I can tell from walking door to door on the west side, a lot of people didn't know me," he said. "I'm hoping to spend more time getting to know voters over there, but also letting them get to know me."

If you know you are running in a low turn out race and you know certain areas haven't voted in the last two elections for your office you seek, why would you dedicate resources and time there? Oh that's right, you would if you were Jenny Wilson.

Make no mistake about it, Ralph is going to barn storm the entire city with volunteers knocking on doors. He is going to raise money from people looking to make a safe bet without much effort. He is going to be organized and disciplined. And he is going to win the race by 15-20 points. Becker 2, Tribune 0. Thanks for playing.

More dishonest pro-voucher claims

Supports of subsidizing private (and potentially religious) schools with taxpayer dollars make up numbers on the cost of said private schools.

Bobby Porter, a minister and director of student development at Layton Christian Academy who chairs Minorities for Vouchers.
Porter's group estimates the average tuition for Utah private schools is about $4,500, a figure far lower than the roughly $8,000 quoted by the anti-voucher group Utahns for Public Schools. He said his number excludes Utah's most expensive private schools because they skewed the number much higher. Voucher opponents say an average should include all schools.
He said a few thousand dollars would go a long way toward helping make private education affordable to minority students, who as groups often lag behind their white peers in terms of academic performance.
The voucher law, if it passes in a November referendum, would give most interested Utah students $500 to $3,000 toward private school tuition, depending on income.

What a concept, that number claiming to be the average cost of tutition should include al of the tutions in the state. of course, people like Porter were the same ones who used the "average" trick the other way to make Bush's tax cuts seem pro-middle class (when in fac thte vast majority of the benefits skewed to the wealthiest few). There is no secret that he chery picked data to get closer to the top end of the voucher. Paying $1,500 out of pocket for school sounds reasonable, $5,000 sounds as unattainable for working class folks as it is.

Oh and Porter fails to address the fact that NCAAP says vouchers will lead to seggregation, or at least did in the past. I just hope he isn't teaching those kids math.

novel concept for Shurtleff

If you read or watch the news in Utah, I think you have heard of two things, Warren Jeffs was convicted accomplise to rape by forcing a 14 year old to marry her cousin, and that Utah's AG Mark Shurtleff was in a motorcycle accident that requires multiple surgeries on his leg.

Shurtleff is a partisan hack. He goes around making dishonest claims and attacks on Rep. Jim Matheson in Southern Utah, were he knows Jim is most vulnerable politically.

While Shurtleff gets waves of free sympathy publicity about his injuries, something which he could use to run for Governor if Huntsman joins a Republican cabinet in 2009, doctors have the timerity to ask him to do something for the people of Utah.

Shurtleff says his motorcycle helmet may have saved his life. He says doctors are giving him a hard time about it.
Shurtleff says every doctor says: "You're a politician, right? You were wearing a helmet, now help us pass a helmet law."

He's not just a politican, he's the chief law enforcement officer in the state. He knows or should know how many people die in Utah annually because they are not wearing a motorcycle or bicycle helmet. [Warning the last three links are PDFs]

Helping Utahns comes second to Shurtleff, first is his political career. He wouldn't want to offend those libertarian types in rural Utah. Maybe this is part IV of Utah Republicans against health care.

Utah Republicans against Health Care, part III

I never dreamt (or "nightmared") that there would be enough material on Utah Republicans who opposed health care for their citizens, especially poor children, to write about. Alas, there is at least three posts' worth.

Part I dealt with fmr.-Gov. Leavitt's crusade to keep more poor children from getting health care, and our Senators Hatch and Bennett's halfhearted attempt to do anything about it(getting quoted in the paper and co-sponsoring a bill you know will never see the light of day doesn't count gentlemen). Part II was our Republican state legislature's lust for subsidizing private schools with taxpayer dollars overwhelming a public-private effort to give the poorest of the poor health care in Utah. And now part III, wherein our Republican US House members vote with Bush rather than the children of their district.

The compromised SCHIP bill passed the US House 265-159 yesterday, with 220 Democrats and 45 Republicans voting for it. Among the 151 Republicans who voted with Bush and against expanding health care coverage for poor children were Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop.

An overwhelming majority of Americans (and Utahns), conservatives, moderates and liberals alike, support this bill. Here's Cannon's excuse for voting against it:

Congress would raise the cigarette tax by 61 cents a pack to pay for the program.
Cannon criticizes the tax increase and CHIP, while at the same time pushing health reform that includes tax credits and health savings accounts.
"Forcing Congress to tackle real reform and market solutions will be a far better gift to posterity than a broken system run from Washington," he said in a statement.

He is against cigarette tax increases? Increasing such taxes discourages people from starting to smoke, not only saving lives and money, but also preventing what Rep. Cannon's religion believes to be a sin. So why is he against it again? And not a peep out of Rep. Bishop, the school teacher that seems to hate poor children.

Utah GOP legislators hold Utahn's lives hostage for vouchers

I am not going to sugarcoat it, nor am I exaggerating. People die while insurance companies deny treatments that would save lives if done in time.

A high-powered group of Utah businessmen and health experts put forward Monday a plan providing affordable health insurance to an estimated 360,000 Utahns...
[...]
According to [Rep. Phil] Riesen [(D-Milcreek) and former local news anchor], [House Majority Leader Dave] Clark, [(R-Santa Clara)] when asked about the political chances in the Legislature of the broad health-insurance plan, told the health subcommittee that if local businesses don't support the voucher plan, there would be little chance of the health-insurance plan passing the GOP-dominated Legislature.
[...]
"I don't recall exactly" what he said at the subcommittee, but no connection was meant, Clark added.

GOP leaders admit that they met with local business lobbyists this summer to ask for financial contributions to the pro-voucher PIC [political issue committee].

Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, who helped form the PIC, said GOP leaders brought together lobbyists and government liaison officials from businesses and/or trade associations that had previously backed a public education reform plan, which included vouchers. Because the businesses had backed vouchers previously, GOP leaders figure they should now put their money where their mouths are.

I think Rep. Hughes means that businesses should put their money where GOP state legislature's mouths are. This PICs goal is to raise at least $300,000 to push for vouchers. According to the LG's website, "There are no laws that restrict the amount of money political issues committees can spend or receive in Utah." This means that one rich ideologue like the Overstock.com guy can buy himself a bunch of misleading nasty ads about vouchers. Oh and while PICs must file disclosure reports, LG Gary Herbert (R-Provo), ex-Utah County Commission Chairman, doesn't bother to make these reports easy to get or find. You will notice that they are not available even to print off of the internet. Rather, one must make a GRAMA request and then go to the LG's office and get more runaround. And I am sure you can't get copies, but only look at them and take notes. So much for accountability for his GOP buddies.

I hope that voters wake up to the fact that the Republicans they have voted for are supporting things they don't want (vouchers, ethics loopholes) and killing things they want (money for education, health care, banning puppy torture). Utahns, these guys are scared of you, but think they can con you into supporting them again because some Democrats are gay. What that has to do with anything is beyond me.

On Judge Paul G. Cassell's retirement

This weekend I saw that the Professor who taught me Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure is leaving from the bench already, after only five years in the federal judiciary. No one will disagree with me that he is a brilliant, ethical, and fair man. Moreover, even though he was only a district court judge in Utah (and the youngest federal judge ever from that state at 42), he was highly influential.

In his 2004 decision in the United States v. Croxford, he became the first judge in the country to hold that the federal sentencing guidelines were unconstitutional based on prior Supreme Court decisions. In 2005, Cassell became the first judge to interpret the meaning of the Supreme Court Booker decision on the new advisory nature of the guidelines, and in 2004, defense attorneys applauded Cassell for authoring a lengthy opinion decrying a 55-year mandatory minimum sentence he was required to impose on young marijuana dealer Weldon Angelos. Also in 2005, Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Judge Cassell to be the chairman of the Judicial Conference Committee on Criminal Law.

He would miss classes to teach the rule of law to judges and attorneys in central Asia. I know his wife from the Salt Lake County DA's office and she is smart tough and funny too.

However, the thing that now Professor Cassell is most famous for is something I disagree with him highly on. In Dickerson v. U.S., he argued before the Supreme Court that Congress had overturned Miranda in the 1960s and that forcing police officers to read the famous "you have the right to remain silent..." statement was "handcuffing the cops". Thankfully, the court disagreed with him 7-2, including even the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, who authored the opinion.

Most scholars, police officers, prosecutors, judges, and criminal defense attorneys recognize that Miranda has become a largely pro forma statement that fails to deter the stupid criminals from waiving their rights and confessing to their crimes. It has become the equivalent of asking airline passengers if some one else packed their luggage.

In addition to his return to teaching students, which he does an excellent job, he will return to advocacy of Victim's Rights. He believes they should have a bigger role in the court proceedings and that a constitutional amendment is necessary to do so. I wish him and his family all the best in their future endeavours, so long as that doesn't involve overturning Miranda or getting his amendment passed.

Republicans against Health Care

Bush just announced that he would veto an expansion of an overwhelmingly successful (not to mention popular) plan that provide health care for impoverished children, calling it "a step toward federalization of health care." That's the point!

In calling for Congress to pass a “clean, temporary extension” of the current State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Mr. Bush argued that the Democratic bill would raise taxes and allow children whose families earn up to $83,000 a year to enroll. The Democrats propose paying for the measure by raising the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

But the chief Republican sponsor of the bill in the Senate, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said Mr. Bush “is getting bad information.” He said Mr. Bush’s reference to the $83,000 limit was drawn from a proposal put forth by New York State to receive an exemption from the program’s restrictions, which the administration recently denied.

It shouldn't matter whether a child is born in Massachusetts or Texas, they should all get the same quality of health care. We are the the richest country in the world. We pay more than three times the next closest country on health care, yet the end result is worse than any industrialized nation. Rather than taking this incremental, consensus approach to solving the biggest domestic crisis of our time, Bush wants to veto it. And national Republicans are supporting him all the way.

[fmr. Utah Gov. Republican Mike] Leavitt recommended that Congress temporarily extend the program so children receiving coverage do not lose it, while lawmakers and the White House continue to work out differences.

"The president would like to see SCHIP reauthorized, and we'd like to get on to the larger question of how do we provide insurance for all Americans," Leavitt said.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced a bill Wednesday that would provide a basic extension of the program for 18 months without the increase in funding or policy changes that have been approved. House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asking for a vote on Barton's bill Wednesday.

I am glad that Hatch is leading the fight on the expansion of SCHIP and that Bennett co-sponsored a universal health care bill. But the man they support for President is offering just the opposite.

Mitt Romney chose the sidewalk in front of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan, home of the Rudolph W. Giuliani Trauma Center, for a news conference this morning blasting Senator Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.
Mr. Romney has released his own health care plan, which relies on federal incentives for market reforms, tax deductions and other changes to encourage people to buy health insurance and drive down costs. A central principle is its “federalist” approach, encouraging states to take their own steps to lower the cost of health insurance.
“In her plan, we have government insurance, instead of private insurance,” Mr. Romney said. “In her plan, it’s crafted by Washington. It should be crafted by the states.”
“I think she takes her inspiration from European bureaucracies and instead we should take our inspiration from the American people,” Mr. Romney added.

Actually, Hillary's plan takes its inspiration from the Massachusetts plan that Gov. Romney recently gave himself credit for and signed into law (now he is of course, against it). Not that any of his primary opponents are any better. All the Republicans running for president want to do are bash Hillary, because it makes their primary voters happy, and keep the status quo, which makes HMOs and drug companies (their donors) happy.

Erza Klein sums it up nicely:

The Republican vision is for a world in which the sick and dying get to deduct some of the cost of health insurance that they don't have -- and can't get -- on their taxes. The Democratic vision is for every American to have health insurance.

Clinton-Clark ticket looking more likely

Wes Clark has a new book out, a memoir done Washington style (with someone else doing most of the work and getting a "with" byline). He is going on a small book tour, which I am going to miss. But I will have to buy it to complete my Clark Anthology and see how the voice has changed by this other writer.

He finally got his name domain, but has to get Wesley K Clark.com because there is some crappy song writer with Wesley Clark.com. He was on Meet the Timmeh on Sunday, too. But the most telling part that he is on Hillary Clinton's short list is this:

"Vice President [Dick] Cheney came up to see the Republicans yesterday. You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President’s motorcade pulls into the Capitol, and Darth Vader emerges," Hillary Clinton said just now at a $100-a-head fundraiser at town hall near New York's Times Square, referring to Cheney's efforts shore up Republican congressional support for the Iraq war.

"I’m not invited to their meetings and I don’t know what he says or does," she said, in an informal conversation on stage with former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack and retired General Wesley Clark. "But all the brave talk about bringing our troops home, and setting deadlines, and getting out by a certain date just dissipated." [emphasis added]

Vilsack ran a terrible presidential campaign, and Hillary helped retire his debts and has his wife Christie Vilsack endorsed Sen. Clinton (Christie Vilsack was a key Kerry endorsement in 2004). Of course, the former Iowa governor later also endorsed Hillary. So the Vilsacks are a strategic Iowa endorsement and possibly national ticket material. But that fact that Clark's endorsement of Hillary Clinton was toated to Bloggers $100 fundraiser in New York City (and Clinton's people probably are helping with this sudden publicity push of Clark) tells me they are floating the Clark balloon.

If he stumbles now in the spotlight, the Hillary camp can cut their losses. But if Clark passes his audition, he could be her ersatz Mark Warner. Moverover, anytime Hillary is critiqued about her foreign policy credentials or murmurs of people worried about a woman in charge of the military, she can point not just to her few years on the Armed Services Comittee, but also a four star retired General on her ticket who won the last war the US fought (that's right Iraq and Afghanistan aren't over yet)...one that involves ethnic conflict similar to the problems the Iraqis face.

Of course, I am biased and think the General should be our next president (and should have won the nomination in 2004), but as VP he could do a lot of good for this country and Hillary Clinton's campaign. I see him as being like Al Gore in 1992, someone who is similar and emphasizes the message the Clinton's wanted: then it was Southern moderation and youth, now it is Southern moderation and security.

Do Hatch and Bennett support our troops?

So far, the answer is no. Veterans for America are pissed at Bennett and Hatch for voting against the Webb amendment (which would give our troops one year back home for every one year they are in Iraq) this summer. Other Utah veterans have pointed out that our Senators are willing to cheer lead President Bush's anti-troop agenda.

But luckily for Bennett and Hatch, the Webb Amendment is up for a vote again. Listen to what Sen. Webb says about the amendment, a man who served with honor in Vietnam and more importantly, whose son is currently in harm's way in Iraq. In fact, his son's convoy was attacked once and people died just as his Dad was being sworn into the U.S. Senate.

So call Sen. Hatch (202) 224-5251 and Sen. Bennett (202) 224-5444 [Remember to be short & polite, but firm]
Or call them toll free:
1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

And if you hear some crap about "micromanaging" remind them of two things. That Bush is refusing to listen to his Generals (and replacing them with Generals like Petraeus, who tell him what he wants to hear...let alone what the American people have to say) and has managed the war so poorly that for the sake of the Republic, the Congress must take over.

The other of course, is the Constitution: Art I, Sec. 8:

The Congress shall have Power...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces

It is the Congress' solemn and sacred duty to exercise its war powers to defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

GOPers filibuster, voting rights edition

How many times in the 110th Congress has Min. Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican underlings led a filibuster (or its functional equivalent)? As mind boggling as this chart is, it needs to be updated. (kudos to McClatchy)

It is not just that Republican Senators are obstructing bills that are Democratic bills that are contentious issues with the public but they have repeatedly blocked bills that enjoy massive support from the American public. The Iraq bills are only the most prominent of these.



The filibuster de jure was a bill that garnered 57 votes. As designed, it would give another House seat to one Republican (via Utah) and one Democrat (via D.C.). The two additional seats would be permanent, but reapportionment in 2012 would change nearly every state's delegation size save Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana, and now the District of Columbia.

But because DC is predominantly black, and because the DC voting rights groups would next push for two Senate seats the GOP blocked the bill.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, a close adviser of the Republican leader, said McConnell's argument was good enough to keep many Republicans from voting for the bill.

"Basically it wasn't a surprise," Bennett said of today's vote. "I never thought we had 60."

Bennett said the vote has little negative effect on Utah. "It means, Wait until the next Census," Bennett said.

Shorter Bennett: Stop bothering me with your Democracy for DC and power for Utah crap, I am a very important Senator in Washington D.C.!

Sorry to trouble you Mr. close adviser of the Republican leader of the United States Senate, but you represent the people of Utah, not the Republican party. Next time, try to lift a finger on behalf of your state and care when your party filibusters a bill that hurts your state. Yes, even if it makes you that not-so-close-adviser to the Republican leader.

Utah-DC bill voting in Senate today

UPDATE: (via HuffPost) Senators voted for the DC/Utah bill 57-42, just three votes short of the 60 needed to move the measure forward over a Republican Fillibuster.

This is a non-partisan issue, even though I rag on Republicans who oppose the bill (like Bennett and McConnell) on partisan grounds dressed up in constitutional "concerns." (If you want to talk about the constitution, Mitch McConnell is no expert, he lost at the Supreme Court on McCain-Finegold)

Call Sen. Hatch (202) 224-5251 and Sen. Bennett (202) 224-5444 and tell them to vote for this bill and to urge their Republican colleagues to either vote for it, or allow the bill to have an UpRDown ™ vote

For the first time in almost 30 years, the full Senate plans to take up the D.C. voting-rights issue in a showdown Tuesday that could either give the legislation a strong push or kill it for this year.

[...]

The vote could be a cliffhanger. Almost all of the Senate's 51 Democrats and independents back the bill, as do at least five Republican members.

"We think unless something happens -- arms are twisted -- that we have it," said Nancy Zirkin, a top official with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, another major backer of the bill.

[...]

The bill would expand the House of Representatives from 435 to 437 seats. It was designed as a political compromise, with one seat going to the heavily Democratic District and the other to the next state in line to pick up a seat: Utah, which leans Republican.

Now given that the latest map approved by the legislature after the latest push for this bill would create a safe seat for Rep. Jim Matheson or a tough seat for Matheson and swing seat for a Ashdown or Carroon-type Democrat, it think it is pretty safe to say that the seat margin will not change between parties.

Calling is the best way to let Senators know the people want something. Postal mail takes weeks to get through thanks to the Antrax mailer and is all irradiated (so don't send your child's paintings). Emails are too voluminous to read. But calls are taken seriously, especially when there are lots of them all of sudden. Congress critters get scared of the people when they call in droves. Make it short and sweat (aka polite) but tell all your friends to call, especially if they work for Hill AFB or Dugway. More members of Congress=more clout in DC=more federal funding.

So please call Sens. Hatch and Bennett toll free at:
1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437
While you are on the phone tell them to vote to restore a 400 year old civil right--Habeas Corpus. Dodd's bill has popular national support. Oh and Happy Constitution Day.

Bennett waffles on more power for Utah

If you were a Republican Senator from a small state, and there was a bill that would create another House seat for your state before the Census AND that seat was going to be a safe Republican seat, you would go for it right? Not Senator Bob "Watergate" Bennett.

But Bennett, R-Utah, says he is concerned that passage of the measure could lead to the District of Columbia arguing it deserves U.S. Senate representation for its nearly 600,000 residents.
His amendment, which will be offered later if the bill passes a procedural vote Tuesday, would nullify the legislation if the U.S. Supreme Court rules the District of Columbia must get Senate seats as well.
"If this bill becomes a covert way to give D.C. two senators, I want no part of it," Bennett said in a statement Friday.
The senator also said Friday that he will attempt to change the bill's provision that requires it to be wholly thrown out if the Supreme Court decides the District of Columbia does not qualify for a House seat. Under the current legislation, Utah would lose its fourth seat if the district loses its proposed member of Congress.
[...]
If the amendments fail to be included in the bill, "my constitutional concerns will compel me to vote with the president and sustain his expected veto," Bennett said.

Why would giving the District two Senators, home to more US citizens than South Dakota, be such a bad thing?

Well, DC is overwhelmingly Democratic and worse for Bennett, has a large African-American population. This means that out of the 1-3 person DC delegation, all or most would be black. Get Bennett his vapors.

Still, it is only fair that a city that has had no representation in Congress for 200 plus years should have its fate tied to Utah, who will get at least one more seat in 2012. Bennett's amendment is a poison pill amendment, and he knows it. The whole point of the bill's crafting was to make both Democrats and Republicans happy with it while fixing two inequities at the same time, Utah getting hosed out of a seat because the Census didn't count returning LDS missionaries and DC for having no representation at all.

In short Bennett will vote against his own state's interest just because it might help Democrats and black people have more of a voice in congress.

On Clark's endorsement of Hillary Clinton

I am a huge Clark fan. For Christmas in 2002, I asked for Waging Modern Wars, because the little I had heard about him (via a TIME article that October) made me think he would be the best president for our country. I talked up Clark all year in 2003, telling everyone he would run and could win. I joined the draft movement officially in April 2003, and helped launch MassforClark when my wife and I moved out to Boston. I gave him $100, a lot for me, in September.

I campaigned for him in New Hampshire multiple times and was heartbroken when he had to bow out in February 2004. Back then, he endorsed John Kerry and hit the campaign trail hard for him. Since then, Clark has gotten much better at campaigning (and learned a lot when he was running for president). He raised lots of money for candidates all ove the country and held lots of rallies supporting them in 2004 and 2006.

Like Matt noted (another MassforClark alum) the General is very sensible on why he is for universal health care, gays in the military, reforming the Pentagon budget, progressive tax reform, etc. He was outspoken against the war in Iraq from the beginning, and has led the fight to keep us out of Iran, which makes Joe Lieberman sad.

So when I got an email from Wes Clark saying he supports Hillary this time around, I take it that the race is essentially over and that Hillary is moving in the right direction. Edwards and Obama must win Iowa to win the nomination, the danger is that their share will split and she will still come in first.

Word on the Hill is also that Senator Clinton is taking names of everyone who supports her rivals, and those intrepid soles will find themselves on the outside looking into a second Clinton White House.

Clark had a lot of tacit support from the Clintons in 2003, both in terms of staff and in terms of money, and how many Rhode Scholars can their be from Arkansas in the late 1960s/early 1970s?

I would be very pleased if Hillary were to choose Clark for her running mate. Now that Mark Warner is off the table, Senator Clinton's choices other than Clark are ex-IA Gov. Tom Vilsack, KS Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama, Richardson, IN Sen/ex-Gov. Evan Bayh, and that's about it. Obama and Richardson are very unlikely because Obama and her are getting nastier towards another by the day, and Richardson keeps saying dumb things and even dumber excuses. Bayh and Vilsack have proven to be uninspiring for most people and it is unclear whether Bayh would be able to deliver Indiana for her (since that state would seem prime anti-Hillary territory) and Hillary might be able to win Iowa without Vilsack on the ticket.

To me, Sebelius is the best conceptual fit for Hillary. Both are successful women politicians whose main selling point is tough competent pragmatism. And if that put Kansas in play, that would be icing on the cake.

But Clark would offer to broaden Hillary's appeal in Arkansas, flipping that state back into solid Clinton Country. And Clark could make inroads into other Southern states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina somewhat competitive. Virginia could become a swing state with Warner on the ballot. Warner would have done this too (except more Virginia and less Arkansas) but we need him in the Senate, despite what Matt thinks.

Of course, this is all speculation, but unless something dramatic happens in Iowa, it is not looking good for Obama or Edwards in Iowa and hence the nomination.