By Judith Miller
Published November 29, 2010 FoxNews
We are shocked, shocked by the statements of the obvious contained in many of the 250,000 secret cables that Julian Assange released Sunday on Wikileaks. While I might not endorse the conclusion of my friend and co-author David Samuels that Assange should be awarded the Pulitzer for his internet revelations about American foreign policy (I’m told only American citizens are eligible), it’s hard to argue that Americans will be horrified by evidence that diplomats say one thing publicly about both foes and allies, and another altogether in private.
Ok. Maybe American diplomats should have thought twice in e-mailed diplomatic cables before calling Vladimir Putin Russia’s “Alpha Dog” or Germany’s Angela Merkel a leader who “avoids risk and is seldom creative” – though Americans following foreign affairs might think that obvious.
And maybe the GOP’s Rep. Peter King (N.Y), who will soon head the House’s Homeland Security committee, is right to worry about the impact of the War on Terror by the disclosure that Yemen has been covering up American air strikes on Al Qaeda-aligned militants in his country, or that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s deputy joked about lying to Yemen’s parliament about that subterfuge. Ouch. But did those Yemeni parliamentarians really believe that Yemeni rather than American drones were targeting suicide bombers and terrorist plotters in their country?
Or, on terrorist funding, is anyone shocked that American diplomats think that Saudi money, despite efforts by Riyadh to reign in public and private giving to Al Qaeda and other militants, remains a major source of funding for terrorist groups? Are such revelations, as Italy’s foreign minister called them, the “9/11 of international diplomacy”? Nah.
Consider the Middle East, or specifically, what to do about Iran’s nuclear program. Unless you have lived on a distant planet, you might have suspected that Arab leaders (or even American diplomats, for that matter) might privately favor military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but be unwilling to endorse strikes in public. Should we be stunned by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah’s repeated plea to Washington to strike Iran, or “cut off the head of the snake” while there is “still time"? Is American national policy undermined by the disclosure that Washington persuaded Saudi Arabia to promise China a guaranteed source of energy if it would join in pressuring Iran?
Nor is it a shocker that Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, referred to Iran as an “existential threat” and was worried about getting “caught in the crossfire” if Israel or the U.S. provoke Teheran. Nor is it stunning that Prince Zayed warned against the dangers of “appeasing Iran” because “Ahmadinejad (Iran’s Holocaust and homosexual denying president) is Hitler." In an earlier conversation Bin Zayed urged Washington to consider sending ground forces into Iran if air strikes alone could not "take out" Iranian nuclear targets. Given similar public statements by the UAE’s energetic ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, they should have anticipated his boss’s concern.
Why should Americans not know that Arab states, often at the top level, have been urging Washington to take military or other drastic action against Iran, while they publicly oppose such action? As Foreign Minister of Qatar is famously quoted as saying: “They (the Iranians) lie to us and we lie to them.”
Nor should we be shocked that Israel and its Arab neighbors agree on the danger posed by an Iran with nuclear weapons, or that Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister and its current defense minister warned his American counterparts, according to a a June, 2009 cable, that there was a “window between 6 and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable.” After that, he was quoted as saying, a military solution would produce “unacceptable collateral damage.” Senior Israelis have not exactly kept their concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions a secret.
Would Americans really be shaken to learn that Washington has tried to engage with Iran knowing that such efforts would probably fail? Or that it has continued to give Teheran some slack in its public utterances, while privately preparing and distributing alternative pressure strategies?
Would Americans faint dead away to learn that Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa accused Iran of being the source of “much of the trouble in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” or that he also endorsed military action to end their nuclear program? “The danger of letting it [the program] go on is greater than the danger of stopping it."
Why shouldn’t Americans know that U.S. diplomats believe that China and Russia have both helped Iran’s and North Korea’s long-range missile programs? Or that Obama’s diplomats, despite the president’s soaring rhetoric about the benefits of engagement, describe the militant Islamist tendencies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “very dangerous.” Given what daily newspapers have been reporting, is it really a stunner that many U.S. diplomats see Turkey as unreliable? Or that the Turkish leadership is said to be divided? Or that some diplomats think that Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has little grasp of politics beyond Ankara?
Senator Joe Liberman warns that Assange will have “blood on his hands” because of the unauthorized disclosures. He claims that the leaks represent a “shared threat to collective international security.” Ditto, outgoing Republican of Michigan Pete Hoekstra, who asserted that the cables’ disclosure “undermine U.S. national security and damage our foreign policy.” Not to be outdone, the Obama administration has denounced Wikleaks for publishing the 250,000 cables as well.
Foreign policy experts will be poring over these documents for weeks. Maybe some truly damaging disclosures lie ahead. WikiLeaks’ recent disclosure of field reports from Afghanistan and Iraq did potentially compromise sources and methods and endanger those who cooperated with the U.S. That was truly reckless. But will any American who reads newspapers, watches news, and pays attention to foreign policy be stunned by these "revelations"? Embarrass diplomats, they surely will. Endanger them? Not so far.
The disclosures will make it harder for Arab governments to blame Israel for its dire warnings about Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb, or claim they had nothing to do with efforts to stiffen sanctions and ratchet up pressure on Iran if Teheran refuses to abandon its current course.
They also show that diplomats of all stripes and persuasion, including Americans, occasionally indulge in diplomatic double speak. Tell us something we don’t know.
Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Fox News contributor.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/29/wikileaks-whats-news/
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tribune Editorial--The suicide pacts
We have such sweet dreams, here in metropolitan Chicago and across Illinois. And we have such noble plans for fulfilling them! Though the needs be many, by golly, we'll extend history's march to betterment: Through our governments and schools, we will educate our children, and care for the helpless, and expand our universities, and provide for the aged, and put people to work, and protect the public's safety, and …
And, as our public finances stand today — neck-deep in debt and future obligations we have no way to meet — we'll likely fail to deliver on those promises. Each one and a hundred more are on the bubble — a moist, overinflated bubble that is wobbling and ready to implode.
Tens of billions of dollars that might pay for these priorities already are committed to future retirement benefits of public employees. Unless we curb that burden going forward, we will bequeath to next-generation Illinoisans an infrastructure of services and facilities that is grossly inferior to what our grandparents and parents bequeathed to us.
They knew they'd be gone
Beware boring but momentous changes that catch no one's attention:
Over the past four decades, many of the folks who run our state and local governments signed suicide pacts — spectacularly unaffordable retirement deals — with public employee unions. These pacts have committed so many of today's and tomorrow's dollars to so many pension and retiree health benefits that not enough money is left to fund everything else. Hence the suicide pact analogy: Our governments — our taxpayers, that is — cannot realistically cover all of these exorbitant retirement promises. And our public workers cannot realistically expect that their too-generous benefits will survive as written on paper.
Often when these retirement deals were cut, the public officials and the union leaders were, in effect, seated on the same side of the negotiating table holding hands. The politicians essentially pledged future tax dollars in return for the cooperation of public sector unions. Because those pension and health obligations didn't legally have to be funded immediately, politicians could redirect the money to other purposes. The unions don't like to admit it, but they didn't complain much about this chronic underfunding: Their members benefited from the higher government spending that skipping payments into pension systems enabled.
The Republicans and Democrats who cut these deals were playing with other people's money. The pols knew they were creating somebody else's problem. When the devastating costs came due, they would be gone, out of office, retired.
Expect courts eventually to decide whether, in the words of New York University law professor Richard Epstein, officials "violated all their duties of loyalty to the public at large when they entered into deals from which union pension funds got all the upside and everyone else got the downside." If judges find what constitutes the fiduciary breach known as self-dealing, they could undo the suicide pacts.
For now Illinois is stuck with metastasizing pension and retiree health costs. In the future those costs will even more boldly crowd out spending on education and other needs. Note that no state's retirement system is as underfunded — as unready to face that future — as is Illinois'. The city of Chicago and many other locales also are in desperate shape.
Today, then, Illinois government is a massive retirement system that, during work hours, also delivers services.
Right in front of us
In 1986, state budget director Robert Mandeville told the Tribune that fully funding the pension system "doesn't make sense" because earnings on assets would more than cover any shortfall in government contributions. That thinking justified several pension holidays and invited the present funding debacle.
This page complained when then-Gov. James Thompson, his successors and state legislators gave pension sweeteners to public workers. One 1991 editorial reported that after years of pension fund erosion, Thompson and lawmakers had agreed to a new funding formula to put the retirement plans on firmer footing. Then they simply ignored the plan, failed to appropriate enough money to back up their pledge — and also increased benefits for retired state workers. To quote the editorial: "Thompson, meanwhile, got a deal that doubled his own pension."
To imagine the future of an Illinois caught between today's rising indebtedness and tomorrow's unmeetable obligations, look east to the self-inflicted debt crises of governments in Europe. Predicaments vary, but as a group they overspent and overpromised. Northwestern University finance specialist Joshua Rauh warns that Illinois pension funds could pay out their last dollar in eight years.
In Chicago, this year's candidates for mayor won't be able to dodge the deterioration of city pension funds on Mayor Richard M. Daley's watch. In a powerful two-part series that appeared Nov. 17-18, the Tribune's Jason Grotto explained how shortsighted political decisions have drained billions of dollars, threatened the retirements of workers by the tens of thousands — and left taxpayers at risk.
Let's have it out
We'll soon know whether Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton want to rescue the pension system or preside over its collapse. If it's the former, they'll immediately reject Gov. Pat Quinn's insistence that they approve yet another $4 billion in borrowing — compounding debt with still more debt — to cover this year's routine pension contribution.
Earlier this year, lawmakers voted to reduce benefits for future state and municipal employees. They may vote this week to include future police and firefighters in those curbs. But reducing benefits only for employees who have not yet been hired won't be enough.
Madigan, Cullerton and Quinn need to unwind the unsustainable retirement deals for current employees. Some Democratic leaders still believe — against the advice of five world-class Chicago law firms — that cutting retirement benefits that today's employees earn going forward would violate the state constitution. Illinois is too broke to keep hiding from that fight. Let's cut future benefits and have it out in court.
Yesterday's state and local officials never should have signed these suicide pacts. Today's officials have to be the life-savers — for taxpayers and imperiled public employees alike. If Illinois governments don't rein in retirement promises, that monster will devour them.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-pension-20101127,0,4277227.story
And, as our public finances stand today — neck-deep in debt and future obligations we have no way to meet — we'll likely fail to deliver on those promises. Each one and a hundred more are on the bubble — a moist, overinflated bubble that is wobbling and ready to implode.
Tens of billions of dollars that might pay for these priorities already are committed to future retirement benefits of public employees. Unless we curb that burden going forward, we will bequeath to next-generation Illinoisans an infrastructure of services and facilities that is grossly inferior to what our grandparents and parents bequeathed to us.
They knew they'd be gone
Beware boring but momentous changes that catch no one's attention:
Over the past four decades, many of the folks who run our state and local governments signed suicide pacts — spectacularly unaffordable retirement deals — with public employee unions. These pacts have committed so many of today's and tomorrow's dollars to so many pension and retiree health benefits that not enough money is left to fund everything else. Hence the suicide pact analogy: Our governments — our taxpayers, that is — cannot realistically cover all of these exorbitant retirement promises. And our public workers cannot realistically expect that their too-generous benefits will survive as written on paper.
Often when these retirement deals were cut, the public officials and the union leaders were, in effect, seated on the same side of the negotiating table holding hands. The politicians essentially pledged future tax dollars in return for the cooperation of public sector unions. Because those pension and health obligations didn't legally have to be funded immediately, politicians could redirect the money to other purposes. The unions don't like to admit it, but they didn't complain much about this chronic underfunding: Their members benefited from the higher government spending that skipping payments into pension systems enabled.
The Republicans and Democrats who cut these deals were playing with other people's money. The pols knew they were creating somebody else's problem. When the devastating costs came due, they would be gone, out of office, retired.
Expect courts eventually to decide whether, in the words of New York University law professor Richard Epstein, officials "violated all their duties of loyalty to the public at large when they entered into deals from which union pension funds got all the upside and everyone else got the downside." If judges find what constitutes the fiduciary breach known as self-dealing, they could undo the suicide pacts.
For now Illinois is stuck with metastasizing pension and retiree health costs. In the future those costs will even more boldly crowd out spending on education and other needs. Note that no state's retirement system is as underfunded — as unready to face that future — as is Illinois'. The city of Chicago and many other locales also are in desperate shape.
Today, then, Illinois government is a massive retirement system that, during work hours, also delivers services.
Right in front of us
In 1986, state budget director Robert Mandeville told the Tribune that fully funding the pension system "doesn't make sense" because earnings on assets would more than cover any shortfall in government contributions. That thinking justified several pension holidays and invited the present funding debacle.
This page complained when then-Gov. James Thompson, his successors and state legislators gave pension sweeteners to public workers. One 1991 editorial reported that after years of pension fund erosion, Thompson and lawmakers had agreed to a new funding formula to put the retirement plans on firmer footing. Then they simply ignored the plan, failed to appropriate enough money to back up their pledge — and also increased benefits for retired state workers. To quote the editorial: "Thompson, meanwhile, got a deal that doubled his own pension."
To imagine the future of an Illinois caught between today's rising indebtedness and tomorrow's unmeetable obligations, look east to the self-inflicted debt crises of governments in Europe. Predicaments vary, but as a group they overspent and overpromised. Northwestern University finance specialist Joshua Rauh warns that Illinois pension funds could pay out their last dollar in eight years.
In Chicago, this year's candidates for mayor won't be able to dodge the deterioration of city pension funds on Mayor Richard M. Daley's watch. In a powerful two-part series that appeared Nov. 17-18, the Tribune's Jason Grotto explained how shortsighted political decisions have drained billions of dollars, threatened the retirements of workers by the tens of thousands — and left taxpayers at risk.
Let's have it out
We'll soon know whether Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton want to rescue the pension system or preside over its collapse. If it's the former, they'll immediately reject Gov. Pat Quinn's insistence that they approve yet another $4 billion in borrowing — compounding debt with still more debt — to cover this year's routine pension contribution.
Earlier this year, lawmakers voted to reduce benefits for future state and municipal employees. They may vote this week to include future police and firefighters in those curbs. But reducing benefits only for employees who have not yet been hired won't be enough.
Madigan, Cullerton and Quinn need to unwind the unsustainable retirement deals for current employees. Some Democratic leaders still believe — against the advice of five world-class Chicago law firms — that cutting retirement benefits that today's employees earn going forward would violate the state constitution. Illinois is too broke to keep hiding from that fight. Let's cut future benefits and have it out in court.
Yesterday's state and local officials never should have signed these suicide pacts. Today's officials have to be the life-savers — for taxpayers and imperiled public employees alike. If Illinois governments don't rein in retirement promises, that monster will devour them.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-pension-20101127,0,4277227.story
Friday, November 26, 2010
How do race, ethnic numbers stack up in mayoral election?
Posted by Greg H. at 11/23/2010 11:25 AM CST on Chicago Business
Much as Chicago has chilled out when it comes to race since the Harold Washington days, no one in their right mind would suggest that race and ethnicity mean nothing in this city.
After all, any politician begins by tapping support in his or her home community. If that candidate has a big base and it's united, that candidate is well on his or her way to winning.
That's why I was fascinated to look at a detailed analysis of how Chicago's vote breaks down by region, race and ethnicity, and how it's changed.
The analysis — which came from a mayoral campaign I can't name — indicates that there's been remarkably little change in who votes here since the late Mayor Washington's 1983 race.
Specifically, the study suggests that African-Americans make up an average of about 42% of the total city vote, varying no more than three or four points from that figure in any major election since. Similarly the white vote averages about 40%, down just a bit, and the Hispanic vote 18%, a statistically minor increase.
By region, the Near North, Near South and South Sides have gained marketshare just a bit, less than 1%, and the Northwest Side is off a tad.
The figures underline the reality of why the black candidates for mayor think they have a real shot to succeed Richard M. Daley. Blacks still represent the city's single-largest voting bloc.
But the real picture may be more complex than that.
I ran the above figures by one of Mr. Daley's political number-crunchers, and that source said the figures sound about right. But an overall analysis misses some important nuances, that source said.
For instance, Chicago's black population likely is older, includes fewer families and is more conservative — all a function of lower-income African-Americans being priced out of town, or moved out by the demolition of public housing units, that source said. In other words, the total black population may be smaller than it was, but a greater share of it is old enough and interested enough to vote.
Similarly, the white population base increasingly has moved from the ethnic Northwest and Southwest Sides to wealthier, more liberal, more diverse enclaves on the lakefront — neighborhoods that have begun to draw a growing Asian population.
The conclusion of that source: The winning candidate will be the one who puts together a coalition from a variety of groups, a coalition that will be different from Mr. Washington's combination of blacks and some lakefront whites and Hispanics.
A third source, mayoral candidate Gery Chico, says the 42/40/18 numbers above "sound about right. The question is, where are those folks going to go?"
Today's Hispanic vote is "more mature" and voters in every part of town "have less willingness to vote on the basis of race," he says.
No one knows for sure how any of this will play out in February. But it should be fascinating to watch.
* * *
One mayoral P.S.: Former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas is in town today, and he made formal his endorsement of Mr. Chico, who was president of the Board of Education when Mr. Vallas was schools superintendent.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/blogs?blogID=greg-hinz&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost%3ae5a3bd14-4035-4e5d-a38b-c7eb4a4948e7&sid=sitelife.chicagobusiness.com
Much as Chicago has chilled out when it comes to race since the Harold Washington days, no one in their right mind would suggest that race and ethnicity mean nothing in this city.
After all, any politician begins by tapping support in his or her home community. If that candidate has a big base and it's united, that candidate is well on his or her way to winning.
That's why I was fascinated to look at a detailed analysis of how Chicago's vote breaks down by region, race and ethnicity, and how it's changed.
The analysis — which came from a mayoral campaign I can't name — indicates that there's been remarkably little change in who votes here since the late Mayor Washington's 1983 race.
Specifically, the study suggests that African-Americans make up an average of about 42% of the total city vote, varying no more than three or four points from that figure in any major election since. Similarly the white vote averages about 40%, down just a bit, and the Hispanic vote 18%, a statistically minor increase.
By region, the Near North, Near South and South Sides have gained marketshare just a bit, less than 1%, and the Northwest Side is off a tad.
The figures underline the reality of why the black candidates for mayor think they have a real shot to succeed Richard M. Daley. Blacks still represent the city's single-largest voting bloc.
But the real picture may be more complex than that.
I ran the above figures by one of Mr. Daley's political number-crunchers, and that source said the figures sound about right. But an overall analysis misses some important nuances, that source said.
For instance, Chicago's black population likely is older, includes fewer families and is more conservative — all a function of lower-income African-Americans being priced out of town, or moved out by the demolition of public housing units, that source said. In other words, the total black population may be smaller than it was, but a greater share of it is old enough and interested enough to vote.
Similarly, the white population base increasingly has moved from the ethnic Northwest and Southwest Sides to wealthier, more liberal, more diverse enclaves on the lakefront — neighborhoods that have begun to draw a growing Asian population.
The conclusion of that source: The winning candidate will be the one who puts together a coalition from a variety of groups, a coalition that will be different from Mr. Washington's combination of blacks and some lakefront whites and Hispanics.
A third source, mayoral candidate Gery Chico, says the 42/40/18 numbers above "sound about right. The question is, where are those folks going to go?"
Today's Hispanic vote is "more mature" and voters in every part of town "have less willingness to vote on the basis of race," he says.
No one knows for sure how any of this will play out in February. But it should be fascinating to watch.
* * *
One mayoral P.S.: Former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas is in town today, and he made formal his endorsement of Mr. Chico, who was president of the Board of Education when Mr. Vallas was schools superintendent.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/blogs?blogID=greg-hinz&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost%3ae5a3bd14-4035-4e5d-a38b-c7eb4a4948e7&sid=sitelife.chicagobusiness.com
Rahm Emanuel has trouble? running into dirty (or at least petty) politics?
This afternoon, two petitions were filed at the Chicago Board of Elections challenging Rahm Emanuel's eligibility to run for Chicago Mayor based on Illinois' election law residency requirement.
The petitions were issued and signed by two separate registered Chicago voters, Paul McKinley and Marie Wohadlo
The petition claims a) Rahm Emanuel is not a registered voter at the Chicago address identified in his nomination papers and b) he has not resided in the City of Chicago for at least one year prior to the mayor's Election (Feb 22, 2011) (which is required by IL election law)
The address listed for Rahm Emanuel in his nomination papers is 754 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL. That is Rahm's new Chicago address and is not the address Rahm has listed on his voter registration.(which is his family's house he is renting out, at 4228 N. Hermitage Ave, Chicago)
We are expecting more objections against Rahm's residency status to be filed at Chicago Board of Elections this Friday, Nov 26, by a prominent election law attorney, Burt Odelson, who happens to be advising another mayoral candidate in the race.(Rev James Meeks)
The deadline to file objections is next Tuesday Nov 30th. Following the deadline, the Chicago Board of Elections holds multiple hearings to address the objections. The ultimate decision will most likely be decided in court. One attorney says he's prepared to take it all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court if necessary.
http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/rahm-emanuel-has-trouble/
The petitions were issued and signed by two separate registered Chicago voters, Paul McKinley and Marie Wohadlo
The petition claims a) Rahm Emanuel is not a registered voter at the Chicago address identified in his nomination papers and b) he has not resided in the City of Chicago for at least one year prior to the mayor's Election (Feb 22, 2011) (which is required by IL election law)
The address listed for Rahm Emanuel in his nomination papers is 754 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL. That is Rahm's new Chicago address and is not the address Rahm has listed on his voter registration.(which is his family's house he is renting out, at 4228 N. Hermitage Ave, Chicago)
We are expecting more objections against Rahm's residency status to be filed at Chicago Board of Elections this Friday, Nov 26, by a prominent election law attorney, Burt Odelson, who happens to be advising another mayoral candidate in the race.(Rev James Meeks)
The deadline to file objections is next Tuesday Nov 30th. Following the deadline, the Chicago Board of Elections holds multiple hearings to address the objections. The ultimate decision will most likely be decided in court. One attorney says he's prepared to take it all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court if necessary.
http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/rahm-emanuel-has-trouble/
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
House Dem dares GOP on healthcare repeal
By Julian Pecquet
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) is daring Republicans to make good on one of their top legislative priorities: repealing the healthcare law.
Using a somewhat unusual tactic, Ackerman, a strong advocate for the healthcare reform law, vowed Tuesday to introduce a series of bills next week that would roll back some of the most popular provisions of the law.
The congressman said the legislation — all titled the HIPA-CRIT (Health Insurance Protects America—Can't Repeal IT) — will give Republicans a chance to "put up, or sit down" on their campaign promise to repeal the eight-month-old law.
"This will be the big chance for Republicans to do what they've vowed to do," the 13-term member said. "These bills will be their chance to at long last restore liberty and repeal the evil monster they've dubbed 'Obamacare.' "
Ackerman has begun circulating a letter to fellow lawmakers telling them to "Go ahead, make my day. Become a cosponsor."
"The Affordable Care Act contains these and many other foolish protections for our constituents," the letter states. "So, join other Members of Congress who want to deprive their constituents of these silly safeguards from the big insurance companies. You can cast your courageous vote on a series of SIX bills to do it. Feel free to call it the HIPA-CRIT Act when you explain your vote."
The measures would overturn six consumer protections in the new law that:
• Ban health plans from rescinding coverage;
• Eliminate annual coverage limits;
• Eliminate lifetime limits;
• Prevent plans from turning down adults with pre-existing conditions;
• Prevent plans from turning down children with pre-existing conditions; and
• Require that insurers offer coverage for dependents up to age 26 on family plans.
Ackerman defended the Democrats' legislative record while talking to reporters on Capitol Hill last week.
"Republicans have mischaracterized a lot of the stuff that we've done," he said. "The policy was great [but] we didn't market it. People had no clue."
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/politics-elections/130541-democratic-lawmaker-dares-republicans-on-healthcare-reform-repeal
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) is daring Republicans to make good on one of their top legislative priorities: repealing the healthcare law.
Using a somewhat unusual tactic, Ackerman, a strong advocate for the healthcare reform law, vowed Tuesday to introduce a series of bills next week that would roll back some of the most popular provisions of the law.
The congressman said the legislation — all titled the HIPA-CRIT (Health Insurance Protects America—Can't Repeal IT) — will give Republicans a chance to "put up, or sit down" on their campaign promise to repeal the eight-month-old law.
"This will be the big chance for Republicans to do what they've vowed to do," the 13-term member said. "These bills will be their chance to at long last restore liberty and repeal the evil monster they've dubbed 'Obamacare.' "
Ackerman has begun circulating a letter to fellow lawmakers telling them to "Go ahead, make my day. Become a cosponsor."
"The Affordable Care Act contains these and many other foolish protections for our constituents," the letter states. "So, join other Members of Congress who want to deprive their constituents of these silly safeguards from the big insurance companies. You can cast your courageous vote on a series of SIX bills to do it. Feel free to call it the HIPA-CRIT Act when you explain your vote."
The measures would overturn six consumer protections in the new law that:
• Ban health plans from rescinding coverage;
• Eliminate annual coverage limits;
• Eliminate lifetime limits;
• Prevent plans from turning down adults with pre-existing conditions;
• Prevent plans from turning down children with pre-existing conditions; and
• Require that insurers offer coverage for dependents up to age 26 on family plans.
Ackerman defended the Democrats' legislative record while talking to reporters on Capitol Hill last week.
"Republicans have mischaracterized a lot of the stuff that we've done," he said. "The policy was great [but] we didn't market it. People had no clue."
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/politics-elections/130541-democratic-lawmaker-dares-republicans-on-healthcare-reform-repeal
Down with the Democrats: Polls Point to Rampant Voter Dissatisfaction
Jillian Bandes
It’s become a common refrain to say that the November elections were more of a rejection of Democrats than an endorsement for the Republicans. Two pollsters from opposite sides of the political spectrum have proven it.
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and GOP pollster Whit Ayres of Resurgent Republic released a poll earlier this month along with Stan Greenberg and James Carville, of Friends of Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. In it, they found that Independent voters side with Republicans in placing blame on the Democratic Congress for the current state of affairs, but that approval for Republicans is no greater than in 2008 and 2006.
The GOP has seemingly taken those sentiments to heart, muting their post-election victory celebrations and doing everything they can to convey the seriousness with which they are approaching the upcoming session.
“There’s a definite sense that voters will be watching to see if the changes that took place this November affect their stance on the economy,” said Luke Frans, of Resurgent Republic. “This wasn’t a free pass.”
In the memo, Carville and Greenberg had similar thoughts.
“To begin, we should note how discerning these voters are about the Republicans. Much like the new Senator from West Virginia, they aimed their weapons at the Democrats, not the Republicans for whom they have little regard for,” they wrote. “This election was about Democratic governance, not a new regard for the Republican agenda and philosophy.”
The poll found that Republicans think the country is on the wrong track by a whopping 92 percent, and Independents think the same at 79 percent. That was similar to the numbers of voters who opposed the health care bill, according to the survey. Republicans disapproved of Obamacare 93 to 3 percent, and independents opposed it 51 to 39 percent.
Dissapproval of the health care bill was reiterated by a McClatchy-Marist poll just yesterday. Overall, the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner / Resurgent Republic poll found that respondents favored health care repeal by a margin of 42 to 51 percent. Just yesterday, the McClatchy Marist poll found that 65 percent were not in favor of the individual mandate, with 29 percent saying it should be kept.
Strangely, fifty-one percent of respondents wanted to keep all or most of the health care bill – apparently, “most” did not include the mandate.
Frans points out that regardless of the level of support, one of the clearest issues that voters were angry about after the election was the health care bill, according to his poll.
“There’s a thermometer scale in the survey for a variety of issues… for independent voters, the only thing they rated worse than the health care bill was Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,” he said.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3078437581805316374
It’s become a common refrain to say that the November elections were more of a rejection of Democrats than an endorsement for the Republicans. Two pollsters from opposite sides of the political spectrum have proven it.
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and GOP pollster Whit Ayres of Resurgent Republic released a poll earlier this month along with Stan Greenberg and James Carville, of Friends of Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. In it, they found that Independent voters side with Republicans in placing blame on the Democratic Congress for the current state of affairs, but that approval for Republicans is no greater than in 2008 and 2006.
The GOP has seemingly taken those sentiments to heart, muting their post-election victory celebrations and doing everything they can to convey the seriousness with which they are approaching the upcoming session.
“There’s a definite sense that voters will be watching to see if the changes that took place this November affect their stance on the economy,” said Luke Frans, of Resurgent Republic. “This wasn’t a free pass.”
In the memo, Carville and Greenberg had similar thoughts.
“To begin, we should note how discerning these voters are about the Republicans. Much like the new Senator from West Virginia, they aimed their weapons at the Democrats, not the Republicans for whom they have little regard for,” they wrote. “This election was about Democratic governance, not a new regard for the Republican agenda and philosophy.”
The poll found that Republicans think the country is on the wrong track by a whopping 92 percent, and Independents think the same at 79 percent. That was similar to the numbers of voters who opposed the health care bill, according to the survey. Republicans disapproved of Obamacare 93 to 3 percent, and independents opposed it 51 to 39 percent.
Dissapproval of the health care bill was reiterated by a McClatchy-Marist poll just yesterday. Overall, the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner / Resurgent Republic poll found that respondents favored health care repeal by a margin of 42 to 51 percent. Just yesterday, the McClatchy Marist poll found that 65 percent were not in favor of the individual mandate, with 29 percent saying it should be kept.
Strangely, fifty-one percent of respondents wanted to keep all or most of the health care bill – apparently, “most” did not include the mandate.
Frans points out that regardless of the level of support, one of the clearest issues that voters were angry about after the election was the health care bill, according to his poll.
“There’s a thermometer scale in the survey for a variety of issues… for independent voters, the only thing they rated worse than the health care bill was Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,” he said.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3078437581805316374
In 2010 Sweep, Even the Finns Voted Republican
By Michael Barone | Washington Examiner
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Some reflections on the revolution of 2010, based on extended examination of the election returns.
Gentry liberals: The tsunami swept from the George Washington Bridge to the Donner Pass, but didn't wash away affluent liberals to the east and west of these geographic markers. Also surviving were the cannibals--the public employee unions that are threatening to bankrupt states like California and New York, a prospect that doesn't faze the left-leaning gentry. In these areas Republicans picked up one House seat anchored in Staten Island, two in New Hampshire and one in Washington state, and they came close in two California districts wholly or partly in the Central Valley. Gentry liberal territory stayed staunchly Democratic.
Jacksonians: In 2008 Barack Obama ran weakly in lands settled by the Scots-Irish from the Appalachians southwest to Texas. In 2010 Democrats did even worse there. In Andrew Jackson's home state of Tennessee, Republicans captured two open seats where they didn't even field candidates in 2008; ditto in Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas.
In southwest Virginia a 28-year veteran Democrat was beaten after voting for Henry Waxman's cap-and-trade bill. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin held Robert Byrd's Senate seat by running an ad showing him shooting a rifle bullet through a copy of the bill.
Germano-Scandinavian America: The Upper Midwest, settled largely by German and Scandinavian immigrants, has long been the most pacifist, isolationist and dovish part of the United States. That's one reason Obama did well in caucuses and primaries and in the general election in 2008 in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. He even made it a close race in the Dakotas.
But that appeal seems to have vanished this year. Perhaps dovish voters, dismayed that he kept troops in Iraq, sent more troops to Afghanistan and failed to close Guantanamo, decided to vote on other issues on which they did not agree with Democrats. Republicans won up and down the line in Wisconsin, won big majorities in the Minnesota legislature, unseated two formerly popular congressmen-at-large in the Dakotas and recaptured the Iowa governorship after a dozen years. The industrial heartland. The long-standing rule in American politics is that in times of economic distress, the industrial heartland--the Rust Belt--trends toward the Democrats. Voters evidently see more government spending as a solution.
Not this year. Republicans won Senate or governor races or both in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. They captured five House seats in Pennsylvania, five in Ohio, two in Indiana, four in Illinois and two in Michigan. You might want to add the five they captured in upstate New York. That's 23 of the 39 seats they needed for a House majority.
Republican gains in state legislatures were even more impressive. They will control the redistricting process in four of the five states in this region. The exception is Illinois, where Rod Blagojevich's successor as governor, Pat Quinn, held on by a few thousand votes--helped perhaps by the refusal of some Democratic county clerks not to send out military ballots in the time required by federal law. They did manage to send unrequested ballots to inmates of the Cook County Jail, though.
But the dominant message here is that government spending is the problem, not the solution. Blacks and Hispanics. Black voters remained almost unanimously Democratic this year. Not so Hispanics, who voted Republican in Florida and only mildly Democratic in Texas, where Republicans captured two Hispanic-majority House seats on the Mexican border. And Republicans Brian Sandoval and Susana Martinez were elected governor in Nevada and New Mexico.
The Finnish vote: Around 100 years ago Finnish immigrants flocked to the mines and woods of the country around Lake Superior, where the topography and weather must have seemed familiar. They've been a mostly Democratic, sometimes even radical voting bloc ever since. No more, it seems. Going into the election, the three most Finnish districts, Michigan 1, Wisconsin 7 and Minnesota 8, all fronting on Lake Superior, were represented by two Democratic committee chairmen and the chairman of an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, with a total of 95 years of seniority.
Wisconsin's David Obey and Michigan's Bart Stupak both chose to retire, and were replaced by Republicans who had started running before their announcements. Minnesota's James Oberstar was upset by retired Northwest pilot and stay-at-home dad Chip Cravaack.
So here's a new rule for the political scientists: As go the Finns, so goes America.
Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI.
http://www.aei.org/article/102817
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Some reflections on the revolution of 2010, based on extended examination of the election returns.
Gentry liberals: The tsunami swept from the George Washington Bridge to the Donner Pass, but didn't wash away affluent liberals to the east and west of these geographic markers. Also surviving were the cannibals--the public employee unions that are threatening to bankrupt states like California and New York, a prospect that doesn't faze the left-leaning gentry. In these areas Republicans picked up one House seat anchored in Staten Island, two in New Hampshire and one in Washington state, and they came close in two California districts wholly or partly in the Central Valley. Gentry liberal territory stayed staunchly Democratic.
Jacksonians: In 2008 Barack Obama ran weakly in lands settled by the Scots-Irish from the Appalachians southwest to Texas. In 2010 Democrats did even worse there. In Andrew Jackson's home state of Tennessee, Republicans captured two open seats where they didn't even field candidates in 2008; ditto in Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas.
In southwest Virginia a 28-year veteran Democrat was beaten after voting for Henry Waxman's cap-and-trade bill. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin held Robert Byrd's Senate seat by running an ad showing him shooting a rifle bullet through a copy of the bill.
Germano-Scandinavian America: The Upper Midwest, settled largely by German and Scandinavian immigrants, has long been the most pacifist, isolationist and dovish part of the United States. That's one reason Obama did well in caucuses and primaries and in the general election in 2008 in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. He even made it a close race in the Dakotas.
But that appeal seems to have vanished this year. Perhaps dovish voters, dismayed that he kept troops in Iraq, sent more troops to Afghanistan and failed to close Guantanamo, decided to vote on other issues on which they did not agree with Democrats. Republicans won up and down the line in Wisconsin, won big majorities in the Minnesota legislature, unseated two formerly popular congressmen-at-large in the Dakotas and recaptured the Iowa governorship after a dozen years. The industrial heartland. The long-standing rule in American politics is that in times of economic distress, the industrial heartland--the Rust Belt--trends toward the Democrats. Voters evidently see more government spending as a solution.
Not this year. Republicans won Senate or governor races or both in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. They captured five House seats in Pennsylvania, five in Ohio, two in Indiana, four in Illinois and two in Michigan. You might want to add the five they captured in upstate New York. That's 23 of the 39 seats they needed for a House majority.
Republican gains in state legislatures were even more impressive. They will control the redistricting process in four of the five states in this region. The exception is Illinois, where Rod Blagojevich's successor as governor, Pat Quinn, held on by a few thousand votes--helped perhaps by the refusal of some Democratic county clerks not to send out military ballots in the time required by federal law. They did manage to send unrequested ballots to inmates of the Cook County Jail, though.
But the dominant message here is that government spending is the problem, not the solution. Blacks and Hispanics. Black voters remained almost unanimously Democratic this year. Not so Hispanics, who voted Republican in Florida and only mildly Democratic in Texas, where Republicans captured two Hispanic-majority House seats on the Mexican border. And Republicans Brian Sandoval and Susana Martinez were elected governor in Nevada and New Mexico.
The Finnish vote: Around 100 years ago Finnish immigrants flocked to the mines and woods of the country around Lake Superior, where the topography and weather must have seemed familiar. They've been a mostly Democratic, sometimes even radical voting bloc ever since. No more, it seems. Going into the election, the three most Finnish districts, Michigan 1, Wisconsin 7 and Minnesota 8, all fronting on Lake Superior, were represented by two Democratic committee chairmen and the chairman of an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, with a total of 95 years of seniority.
Wisconsin's David Obey and Michigan's Bart Stupak both chose to retire, and were replaced by Republicans who had started running before their announcements. Minnesota's James Oberstar was upset by retired Northwest pilot and stay-at-home dad Chip Cravaack.
So here's a new rule for the political scientists: As go the Finns, so goes America.
Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI.
http://www.aei.org/article/102817
Editorial: Union payback
Harry Reid rewards Labor by pushing a public safety bargaining bill that would be ruinous to local communities
The Detroit News
Having survived a near-death experience on Election Day thanks largely to massive donations from labor unions, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is paying back his benefactors. The Democrat from Nevada says that during Congress' lame duck session he will try to once again force through a measure giving police and fire unions the upper hand in dealing with local communities.
Reid will seek a cloture vote on the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which despite its name has little to do with cooperation. Rather, the bill would be a federal clone of Michigan's disastrous Public Act 312, which is blamed with ruining the finances of scores of communities, including Detroit, and pushing many to the brink of bankruptcy — that's you, Hamtramck
The bill would make it easier for police and firefighters to organize labor unions and force all officers to join, even in right-to-work states. That's a brazen usurpation of state authority, and very likely unconstitutional.
In Michigan, where most major police and firefighters are already unionized, the largest impact would be in rural areas, since the law would also likely apply to volunteer fire departments. That would put most of those volunteer outfits out of business, and destroy an important grass-roots community protection network. These volunteers are often highly trained individuals who provide the only defense for their neighbors' homes and property.
But the worse part of Reid's union-buttering bill is that it would codify in federal law a state act that Michigan must get out from under if communities are to regain control of their finances.
Public Act 312 has been horrible for Michigan. The act — as would the Senate bill — requires that contract disputes between public safety unions and municipalities go to binding arbitration. The arbitrator is not required to consider a community's finances when ordering a settlement, and would not be under the federal legislation, either.
This provision has severely limited the ability of local government to control operating costs. And it's reduced the incentive of the unions to bargain. Why agree to a compromise contract when an arbitrator might award you the whole enchilada?
The act has been especially harmful for Detroit, where it has forced bad choices. Since the ability to negotiate concessions is so limited, the city's option has been to reduce public safety manpower, which it can usually do outside of the contract.
Unions have gotten around that relief valve in many suburban communities by sponsoring ballot initiatives mandating minimum staffing levels.
We've noted a number of times that PA 312 was the work of the late Coleman Young when he was in the Legislature during the 1970s. When he became Detroit's mayor, Young rued the act as the worst work he'd ever done.
Taking PA 312 national would amount to another unfunded federal mandate that would further erode the financial stability of communities already on the edge. That's not what Congress is supposed to do.
We knew there was a reason we were rooting so hard against Harry Reid in the recent election. The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act is it.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101124/OPINION01/11240315/Editorial--Union-payback#ixzz16DdSNYlc
The Detroit News
Having survived a near-death experience on Election Day thanks largely to massive donations from labor unions, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is paying back his benefactors. The Democrat from Nevada says that during Congress' lame duck session he will try to once again force through a measure giving police and fire unions the upper hand in dealing with local communities.
Reid will seek a cloture vote on the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which despite its name has little to do with cooperation. Rather, the bill would be a federal clone of Michigan's disastrous Public Act 312, which is blamed with ruining the finances of scores of communities, including Detroit, and pushing many to the brink of bankruptcy — that's you, Hamtramck
The bill would make it easier for police and firefighters to organize labor unions and force all officers to join, even in right-to-work states. That's a brazen usurpation of state authority, and very likely unconstitutional.
In Michigan, where most major police and firefighters are already unionized, the largest impact would be in rural areas, since the law would also likely apply to volunteer fire departments. That would put most of those volunteer outfits out of business, and destroy an important grass-roots community protection network. These volunteers are often highly trained individuals who provide the only defense for their neighbors' homes and property.
But the worse part of Reid's union-buttering bill is that it would codify in federal law a state act that Michigan must get out from under if communities are to regain control of their finances.
Public Act 312 has been horrible for Michigan. The act — as would the Senate bill — requires that contract disputes between public safety unions and municipalities go to binding arbitration. The arbitrator is not required to consider a community's finances when ordering a settlement, and would not be under the federal legislation, either.
This provision has severely limited the ability of local government to control operating costs. And it's reduced the incentive of the unions to bargain. Why agree to a compromise contract when an arbitrator might award you the whole enchilada?
The act has been especially harmful for Detroit, where it has forced bad choices. Since the ability to negotiate concessions is so limited, the city's option has been to reduce public safety manpower, which it can usually do outside of the contract.
Unions have gotten around that relief valve in many suburban communities by sponsoring ballot initiatives mandating minimum staffing levels.
We've noted a number of times that PA 312 was the work of the late Coleman Young when he was in the Legislature during the 1970s. When he became Detroit's mayor, Young rued the act as the worst work he'd ever done.
Taking PA 312 national would amount to another unfunded federal mandate that would further erode the financial stability of communities already on the edge. That's not what Congress is supposed to do.
We knew there was a reason we were rooting so hard against Harry Reid in the recent election. The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act is it.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101124/OPINION01/11240315/Editorial--Union-payback#ixzz16DdSNYlc
A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson
By John Stossel
Had today's political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow's holiday would have been called "Starvation Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn't be alive to celebrate it.
Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.
Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That's why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.
"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I) (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."
In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic.
"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."
Because of the change, the first Thanksgiving could be held in November 1623.
What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. The problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."
If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free-rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty.
What private property does -- as the Pilgrims discovered -- is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there's a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.
Here's the biggest irony of all: The U.S. government has yet to apply the lesson to its first conquest, Native Americans. The U.S. government has held most Indian land in trust since the 19th century. This discourages initiative and risk-taking because, among other reasons, it can't be used as collateral for loans. On Indian reservations, "private land is 40 to 90 percent more productive than land owned through the Bureau of Indian Affairs," says economist Terry Anderson, executive director of PERC. "If you drive through western reservations, you will see on one side cultivated fields, irrigation, and on the other side, overgrazed pasture, run-down pastures and homes. One is a simple commons; the other side is private property. You have Indians on both sides. The important thing is someone owns one side."
Secure property rights are the key. When producers know their future products are safe from confiscation, they take risks and invest. But when they fear they will be deprived of the fruits of their labor, they will do as little as possible.
That's the lost lesson of Thanksgiving.
Copyright 2010, Creators Syndicate Inc.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/24/happy_starvation_day_108049.html
Had today's political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow's holiday would have been called "Starvation Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn't be alive to celebrate it.
Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.
Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That's why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.
"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I) (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."
In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic.
"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."
Because of the change, the first Thanksgiving could be held in November 1623.
What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. The problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."
If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free-rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty.
What private property does -- as the Pilgrims discovered -- is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there's a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.
Here's the biggest irony of all: The U.S. government has yet to apply the lesson to its first conquest, Native Americans. The U.S. government has held most Indian land in trust since the 19th century. This discourages initiative and risk-taking because, among other reasons, it can't be used as collateral for loans. On Indian reservations, "private land is 40 to 90 percent more productive than land owned through the Bureau of Indian Affairs," says economist Terry Anderson, executive director of PERC. "If you drive through western reservations, you will see on one side cultivated fields, irrigation, and on the other side, overgrazed pasture, run-down pastures and homes. One is a simple commons; the other side is private property. You have Indians on both sides. The important thing is someone owns one side."
Secure property rights are the key. When producers know their future products are safe from confiscation, they take risks and invest. But when they fear they will be deprived of the fruits of their labor, they will do as little as possible.
That's the lost lesson of Thanksgiving.
Copyright 2010, Creators Syndicate Inc.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/24/happy_starvation_day_108049.html
China, Russia quit dollar
By Su Qiang and Li Xiaokun (China Daily)
St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday
Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.
"About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.
The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.
The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.
"That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said.
Putin made his remarks after a meeting with Wen. They also officiated at a signing ceremony for 12 documents, including energy cooperation.
The documents covered cooperation on aviation, railroad construction, customs, protecting intellectual property, culture and a joint communiqu. Details of the documents have yet to be released.
Putin said one of the pacts between the two countries is about the purchase of two nuclear reactors from Russia by China's Tianwan nuclear power plant, the most advanced nuclear power complex in China.
Putin has called for boosting sales of natural resources - Russia's main export - to China, but price has proven to be a sticking point.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who holds sway over Russia's energy sector, said following a meeting with Chinese representatives that Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to agree on the price of Russian gas supplies to China before the middle of next year.
Russia is looking for China to pay prices similar to those Russian gas giant Gazprom charges its European customers, but Beijing wants a discount. The two sides were about $100 per 1,000 cubic meters apart, according to Chinese officials last week.
Wen's trip follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's three-day visit to China in September, during which he and President Hu Jintao launched a cross-border pipeline linking the world's biggest energy producer with the largest energy consumer.
Wen said at the press conference that the partnership between Beijing and Moscow has "reached an unprecedented level" and pledged the two countries will "never become each other's enemy".
Over the past year, "our strategic cooperative partnership endured strenuous tests and reached an unprecedented level," Wen said, adding the two nations are now more confident and determined to defend their mutual interests.
"China will firmly follow the path of peaceful development and support the renaissance of Russia as a great power," he said.
"The modernization of China will not affect other countries' interests, while a solid and strong Sino-Russian relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries."
Wen said Beijing is willing to boost cooperation with Moscow in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in major international organizations and on mechanisms in pursuit of a "fair and reasonable new order" in international politics and the economy.
Sun Zhuangzhi, a senior researcher in Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the new mode of trade settlement between China and Russia follows a global trend after the financial crisis exposed the faults of a dollar-dominated world financial system.
Pang Zhongying, who specializes in international politics at Renmin University of China, said the proposal is not challenging the dollar, but aimed at avoiding the risks the dollar represents.
Wen arrived in the northern Russian city on Monday evening for a regular meeting between Chinese and Russian heads of government.
He left St. Petersburg for Moscow late on Tuesday and is set to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.
Agencies and Zhou Wa contributed to this story.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/24/content_11599087.htm
St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday
Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.
"About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.
The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.
The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.
"That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said.
Putin made his remarks after a meeting with Wen. They also officiated at a signing ceremony for 12 documents, including energy cooperation.
The documents covered cooperation on aviation, railroad construction, customs, protecting intellectual property, culture and a joint communiqu. Details of the documents have yet to be released.
Putin said one of the pacts between the two countries is about the purchase of two nuclear reactors from Russia by China's Tianwan nuclear power plant, the most advanced nuclear power complex in China.
Putin has called for boosting sales of natural resources - Russia's main export - to China, but price has proven to be a sticking point.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who holds sway over Russia's energy sector, said following a meeting with Chinese representatives that Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to agree on the price of Russian gas supplies to China before the middle of next year.
Russia is looking for China to pay prices similar to those Russian gas giant Gazprom charges its European customers, but Beijing wants a discount. The two sides were about $100 per 1,000 cubic meters apart, according to Chinese officials last week.
Wen's trip follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's three-day visit to China in September, during which he and President Hu Jintao launched a cross-border pipeline linking the world's biggest energy producer with the largest energy consumer.
Wen said at the press conference that the partnership between Beijing and Moscow has "reached an unprecedented level" and pledged the two countries will "never become each other's enemy".
Over the past year, "our strategic cooperative partnership endured strenuous tests and reached an unprecedented level," Wen said, adding the two nations are now more confident and determined to defend their mutual interests.
"China will firmly follow the path of peaceful development and support the renaissance of Russia as a great power," he said.
"The modernization of China will not affect other countries' interests, while a solid and strong Sino-Russian relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries."
Wen said Beijing is willing to boost cooperation with Moscow in Northeast Asia, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in major international organizations and on mechanisms in pursuit of a "fair and reasonable new order" in international politics and the economy.
Sun Zhuangzhi, a senior researcher in Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the new mode of trade settlement between China and Russia follows a global trend after the financial crisis exposed the faults of a dollar-dominated world financial system.
Pang Zhongying, who specializes in international politics at Renmin University of China, said the proposal is not challenging the dollar, but aimed at avoiding the risks the dollar represents.
Wen arrived in the northern Russian city on Monday evening for a regular meeting between Chinese and Russian heads of government.
He left St. Petersburg for Moscow late on Tuesday and is set to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.
Agencies and Zhou Wa contributed to this story.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/24/content_11599087.htm
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Cardinal opposes civil unions
'No one has the right to change the nature of marriage'
BY DAVE McKINNEY Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief
SPRINGFIELD -- The head of Chicago's Roman Catholic archdiocese Monday portrayed legislation authorizing civil unions between gay and lesbian couples as an initiative that would ''change the nature of marriage'' and urged state lawmakers to reject it.
''Everyone has a right to marry, but no one has the right to change the nature of marriage,'' Cardinal Francis George said in a statement. ''Marriage is what it is and always has been, no matter what a Legislature decides to do; however, the public understanding of marriage will be negatively affected by passage of a bill that ignores the natural fact that sexual complementarity is at the core of marriage.''
George went on to argue that the legislation could require faith-based institutions to provide adoption and foster-care services or other social services to couples in civil unions. He also contended it could hit small employers who opt against providing family benefits to workers in same-sex civil unions.
Backers of the civil unions legislation, which would be the first major expansion of gay rights in the state since 2005, could seek a vote on the initiative as early as next week when lawmakers return to Springfield.
The proposal, pushed by Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) and Rep. Deb Mell (D-Chicago), would grant new spousal rights to same-sex partners in a civil union, putting them on par legally with heterosexual married couples when it comes to surrogate decision-making for medical treatment, survivorship, adoptions and accident and health insurance, for example.
But Harris said the legislation does nothing to change the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, which currently is spelled out in state law.
''I'd say either he is being misinformed about the state of the law in Illinois or they're trying to make more of it than there really is,'' Harris said in response to George's statements.
A portion of Senate Bill 1716 explicitly states that the proposal is not intended to ''interfere with or regulate the religious practice of any religious body.'' The bill goes on to state that religious bodies are ''free to choose whether or not to solemnize or officiate a civil union.''
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/religion/2915608,CST-NWS-george1123.article
BY DAVE McKINNEY Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief
SPRINGFIELD -- The head of Chicago's Roman Catholic archdiocese Monday portrayed legislation authorizing civil unions between gay and lesbian couples as an initiative that would ''change the nature of marriage'' and urged state lawmakers to reject it.
''Everyone has a right to marry, but no one has the right to change the nature of marriage,'' Cardinal Francis George said in a statement. ''Marriage is what it is and always has been, no matter what a Legislature decides to do; however, the public understanding of marriage will be negatively affected by passage of a bill that ignores the natural fact that sexual complementarity is at the core of marriage.''
George went on to argue that the legislation could require faith-based institutions to provide adoption and foster-care services or other social services to couples in civil unions. He also contended it could hit small employers who opt against providing family benefits to workers in same-sex civil unions.
Backers of the civil unions legislation, which would be the first major expansion of gay rights in the state since 2005, could seek a vote on the initiative as early as next week when lawmakers return to Springfield.
The proposal, pushed by Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) and Rep. Deb Mell (D-Chicago), would grant new spousal rights to same-sex partners in a civil union, putting them on par legally with heterosexual married couples when it comes to surrogate decision-making for medical treatment, survivorship, adoptions and accident and health insurance, for example.
But Harris said the legislation does nothing to change the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, which currently is spelled out in state law.
''I'd say either he is being misinformed about the state of the law in Illinois or they're trying to make more of it than there really is,'' Harris said in response to George's statements.
A portion of Senate Bill 1716 explicitly states that the proposal is not intended to ''interfere with or regulate the religious practice of any religious body.'' The bill goes on to state that religious bodies are ''free to choose whether or not to solemnize or officiate a civil union.''
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/religion/2915608,CST-NWS-george1123.article
Saturday, November 20, 2010
To Run or Not to Run, That Is the Question
It's only Thanksgiving 2010, but some GOP politicians must decide if they want a shot at the presidency.
By PEGGY NOONAN..
All eyes have been on Capitol Hill, but let's take a look at the early stages of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
This week the papers have been full of sightings—Newt and Huckabee are in Iowa, Pawlenty's in New Hampshire. But maybe the more interesting story is that a lot of potential candidates will decide if they are definitely going to run between now and New Year's—and some of them will be deciding over Thanksgiving weekend. It's all happening now, they're deciding in long walks, at the dinner table, and while watching the football game on the couch. They'll be talking it through, sometimes for the first time and sometimes the tenth. "Can we do this?" "Are we in this together?" "How do you feel?"
In some cases those will be hard conversations. A largely unremarked fact of modern presidential politics is the increased and wholly understandable reluctance of candidates' families to agree to a run. Looking at it through a purely personal prism, and that's where most people start, they see it not as a sacrifice, which it is, but a burden, a life-distorter, and it is those things too. But they have to agree to enter Big History, or a candidate can't go. And a lot of them don't want the job, if victory follows candidacy, of "the president's family." The stakes are too high, the era too dramatic, the life too intense. They don't want the intrusion, the end of all privacy, the fact that you're always on, always representing.
A president's spouse gets mass adulation one week and mass derision the next. But if you're a normal person you probably never wanted mass adulation or mass derision.
So what's happening now in the homes of some political figures is big and in some cases will be decisive. Potential candidates already have been approached by and met with campaign consultants, gurus looking for a gig telling them "Don't worry about all the travel, you can have a Facebook campaign, we'll make you the first I-pad candidate! You can keep your day job. You can even work your day job!" And then there are the potential contributors, the hedge fund libertarian in Greenwich, and the conservative millionaire in a Dallas suburb, who are raring to go. Candidates have to decide by at least New Year's in order to be able to tell them to stay close and keep their powder dry, and in order to plan an announcement in the spring, in time for the first big GOP debate, at the Reagan Library.
Some candidates and their families are not wrestling with the idea of running, of course. Mitt Romney, for instance, surely knows he's running. But not every potential candidate is serious about it. Some look like they're letting the possibility they'll run dangle out there because it keeps them relevant, keeps the cameras nearby, keeps their speech fees and book advances up. The one thing political journalists know and have learned the past few decades is that anyone can become president. So if you say you may run you are immediately going to get richer and more well known and treated with more respect by journalists. Another reason unlikely candidates act like they're running is that who knows, they may. It's hard to decide not to. It excites them to think they might. It helps them get up that morning and go to the 7 a.m. breakfast. "I'm not doing this for nothing, I may actually run. The people at the breakfast may hug me at my inauguration; I may modestly whisper, 'Remember that breakfast in Iowa when nobody showed? But you did. You're the reason I'm here.'" They're not horrible, they're just human. But history is serious right now, and it seems abusive to fake it. If you know in your heart you're not going to run you probably shouldn't jerk people around. This is history, after all.
All this decision making takes place within the context of a new mood in the party. We are at the beginning of what looks like a conservative renaissance, free of the past and back to basics. It is a revived conservatism restored to a sense of mission.
The broader context is this: Every four years we say, 'This is a crucial election,' and every four years it's more or less true. But 2012 will seem truer than most. I suspect it will be, like 1980, a year that feels like a question: Will America turn itself around or not? Will it go in a dramatically new direction, or not.
And if there are new directions to be taken, it's probably true that only a president, in the end, can definitively lead in that new direction. On spending, for instance, which is just one issue, it's probably true that the new Congress will wrestle with cuts and limits and new approaches, and plenty of progress is possible, and big issues faced. But at the end of the day it will likely take a president to summon and gather the faith and trust of the people, and harness the national will. It's probably true that only a president can ask everyone to act together, to trust each other, even, and to accept limits together in pursuit of a larger good.
Right now, at this moment, it looks like the next Republican nominee for president will probably be elected president. Everyone knows a rising tide when they see one. But everything changes, and nothing is sure. President Obama's poll numbers seem to be inching up, and there's reason to guess or argue that he hit bottom the week after the election and has nowhere to go but up.
Most of my life we've lived in a pretty much fifty-fifty nation, with each cycle decided by where the center goes. Mr. Obama won only two years ago by 9.5 million votes. That's a lot of votes. His supporters may be disheartened and depressed, but they haven't disappeared. They'll show up for a presidential race, especially if the Republicans do not learn one of the great lessons of 2010: The center has to embrace the conservative; if it doesn't, the conservative loses. Add to that the fact that the White House is actually full of talented people, and though they haven't proved good at governing they did prove good not long ago at campaigning. It's their gift. It's ignored at the GOP's peril.
All of this means that for Republicans, the choice of presidential nominee will demand an unusual level of sobriety and due diligence from everyone in the party, from primary voters in Iowa to county chairmen in South Carolina, and from party hacks in Washington to tea party powers in the Rust Belt. They are going to have to approach 2012 with more than the usual seriousness. They'll have to think big, and not indulge resentments or anger or petty grievances. They'll have to be cool eyed. They'll have to watch and observe the dozen candidates expected to emerge, and ask big questions.
Who can lead? Who can persuade the center? Who can summon the best from people? Who will seem credible (as a person who leads must)? Whose philosophy is both sound and discernible? Who has the intellectual heft? Who has the experience? Who seems capable of wisdom? These are serious questions, but 2012 is going to be a serious race.
Good luck to those families having their meetings and deliberations on Thanksgiving weekend
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622800962372246.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond
By PEGGY NOONAN..
All eyes have been on Capitol Hill, but let's take a look at the early stages of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
This week the papers have been full of sightings—Newt and Huckabee are in Iowa, Pawlenty's in New Hampshire. But maybe the more interesting story is that a lot of potential candidates will decide if they are definitely going to run between now and New Year's—and some of them will be deciding over Thanksgiving weekend. It's all happening now, they're deciding in long walks, at the dinner table, and while watching the football game on the couch. They'll be talking it through, sometimes for the first time and sometimes the tenth. "Can we do this?" "Are we in this together?" "How do you feel?"
In some cases those will be hard conversations. A largely unremarked fact of modern presidential politics is the increased and wholly understandable reluctance of candidates' families to agree to a run. Looking at it through a purely personal prism, and that's where most people start, they see it not as a sacrifice, which it is, but a burden, a life-distorter, and it is those things too. But they have to agree to enter Big History, or a candidate can't go. And a lot of them don't want the job, if victory follows candidacy, of "the president's family." The stakes are too high, the era too dramatic, the life too intense. They don't want the intrusion, the end of all privacy, the fact that you're always on, always representing.
A president's spouse gets mass adulation one week and mass derision the next. But if you're a normal person you probably never wanted mass adulation or mass derision.
So what's happening now in the homes of some political figures is big and in some cases will be decisive. Potential candidates already have been approached by and met with campaign consultants, gurus looking for a gig telling them "Don't worry about all the travel, you can have a Facebook campaign, we'll make you the first I-pad candidate! You can keep your day job. You can even work your day job!" And then there are the potential contributors, the hedge fund libertarian in Greenwich, and the conservative millionaire in a Dallas suburb, who are raring to go. Candidates have to decide by at least New Year's in order to be able to tell them to stay close and keep their powder dry, and in order to plan an announcement in the spring, in time for the first big GOP debate, at the Reagan Library.
Some candidates and their families are not wrestling with the idea of running, of course. Mitt Romney, for instance, surely knows he's running. But not every potential candidate is serious about it. Some look like they're letting the possibility they'll run dangle out there because it keeps them relevant, keeps the cameras nearby, keeps their speech fees and book advances up. The one thing political journalists know and have learned the past few decades is that anyone can become president. So if you say you may run you are immediately going to get richer and more well known and treated with more respect by journalists. Another reason unlikely candidates act like they're running is that who knows, they may. It's hard to decide not to. It excites them to think they might. It helps them get up that morning and go to the 7 a.m. breakfast. "I'm not doing this for nothing, I may actually run. The people at the breakfast may hug me at my inauguration; I may modestly whisper, 'Remember that breakfast in Iowa when nobody showed? But you did. You're the reason I'm here.'" They're not horrible, they're just human. But history is serious right now, and it seems abusive to fake it. If you know in your heart you're not going to run you probably shouldn't jerk people around. This is history, after all.
All this decision making takes place within the context of a new mood in the party. We are at the beginning of what looks like a conservative renaissance, free of the past and back to basics. It is a revived conservatism restored to a sense of mission.
The broader context is this: Every four years we say, 'This is a crucial election,' and every four years it's more or less true. But 2012 will seem truer than most. I suspect it will be, like 1980, a year that feels like a question: Will America turn itself around or not? Will it go in a dramatically new direction, or not.
And if there are new directions to be taken, it's probably true that only a president, in the end, can definitively lead in that new direction. On spending, for instance, which is just one issue, it's probably true that the new Congress will wrestle with cuts and limits and new approaches, and plenty of progress is possible, and big issues faced. But at the end of the day it will likely take a president to summon and gather the faith and trust of the people, and harness the national will. It's probably true that only a president can ask everyone to act together, to trust each other, even, and to accept limits together in pursuit of a larger good.
Right now, at this moment, it looks like the next Republican nominee for president will probably be elected president. Everyone knows a rising tide when they see one. But everything changes, and nothing is sure. President Obama's poll numbers seem to be inching up, and there's reason to guess or argue that he hit bottom the week after the election and has nowhere to go but up.
Most of my life we've lived in a pretty much fifty-fifty nation, with each cycle decided by where the center goes. Mr. Obama won only two years ago by 9.5 million votes. That's a lot of votes. His supporters may be disheartened and depressed, but they haven't disappeared. They'll show up for a presidential race, especially if the Republicans do not learn one of the great lessons of 2010: The center has to embrace the conservative; if it doesn't, the conservative loses. Add to that the fact that the White House is actually full of talented people, and though they haven't proved good at governing they did prove good not long ago at campaigning. It's their gift. It's ignored at the GOP's peril.
All of this means that for Republicans, the choice of presidential nominee will demand an unusual level of sobriety and due diligence from everyone in the party, from primary voters in Iowa to county chairmen in South Carolina, and from party hacks in Washington to tea party powers in the Rust Belt. They are going to have to approach 2012 with more than the usual seriousness. They'll have to think big, and not indulge resentments or anger or petty grievances. They'll have to be cool eyed. They'll have to watch and observe the dozen candidates expected to emerge, and ask big questions.
Who can lead? Who can persuade the center? Who can summon the best from people? Who will seem credible (as a person who leads must)? Whose philosophy is both sound and discernible? Who has the intellectual heft? Who has the experience? Who seems capable of wisdom? These are serious questions, but 2012 is going to be a serious race.
Good luck to those families having their meetings and deliberations on Thanksgiving weekend
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622800962372246.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond
The Next Fight
A conservative Democrat reassesses the political battlefield.
Sen. James Webb, above, is being uncharacteristically coy about his plans for the 2012 election.
On Veterans Day a crowd of 300 or so Virginians gathered in a tent on the grounds of the estate of Gen. George C. Marshall. They were there to commemorate what they still regard as their unappreciated service in Vietnam, a war gone bad through no fault of their own. Many arrived dressed in the dark business suits of late-middle-age prosperity. A few wore faded combat fatigues. One man sported a leather flight jacket with a TONKIN GULF YACHT CLUB decal on the right sleeve. VFW and American Legion caps covered bald heads and crowned gray ponytails.
A high-school color guard ushered in a platform’s worth of dignitaries, including the featured speaker, Virginia Sen. James Webb. The vets stood at attention and sang along with a local band that played the various service anthems. Webb joined in when the band struck up the Marine Corps hymn. The senator is 64, the same age as most of his comrades in arms, but he has the posture of a midshipman, a shock of red hair, and the face of a pugnacious baby that give him the youthful look of a man still looking forward.
The specific direction Webb regards as forward is a matter of considerable speculation. His Senate term ends in two years, and, in the general uncertainty engendered by the midterm elections, he has taken to telling inquisitive reporters that he hasn’t yet decided if he will run for reelection. “I’m not saying I’m not going to,” he says. It is an atypically coy evasion for a man with a reputation for blunt speaking.
What Webb does in two years will certainly affect Virginia politics. How he positions himself in the meantime may have broader significance as well: Webb could serve as a model for 10 other Democratic senators who face reelection battles in states like Virginia, where unstinting support of the Obama agenda could be a recipe for early retirement.
Republicans also are gaming how conservative Democrats like Webb will figure into the new calculus. “The big buzz in D.C. is whether Obama tacks to the left to appease his base or moves toward the center to appeal to moderates,” says Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. “The reality is he doesn’t have a choice. Not if he wants to actually get anything done in the next two years. There is a bloc of 11 [Democratic] senators who will be up for reelection from conservative states, and they are likely to establish a formidable group that will block any progressive legislation that is high on the liberal agenda.”
Webb’s Veterans Day remarks were brief and unadorned by the grandiosity displayed by the average political orator on patriotic occasions. Then again, Webb is not an average politician. He grew up as a peripatetic Air Force brat, aced Annapolis, and led a rifle platoon, and later a company, in Vietnam. In a year of combat, he was wounded twice, received a silver star, two bronze stars and the Navy Cross, a decoration second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. There were brave men in the tent on Veterans Day that morning, but none—not even the rear admiral who preceded Webb on the dais—had a better war record. It gave him the authority to end his talk with a plea to the audience to remember that some of the Vietnamese refugees in Virginia also fought on the American side and deserve acknowledgment (Webb is married to a Vietnamese woman and speaks the language). “I’ve never heard a politician say something like that,” an American-born Vietnamese journalist covering the event told me.
After the final benediction, Webb spent some time shaking hands. He is a notoriously bad campaigner, impatient and reticent, but here he was in his element. I found myself standing next to a thin man named Steve who had an I SERVED: VIETNAM badge pinned to his V-neck sweater. Together we watched the senator work the tent. “What do you think of him?” I asked.
“Jim Webb is something else,” he replied.
“You think he’s going to run again?”
“Don’t know,” Steve said and paused for a moment. “Here’s the thing. I love Webb, but I vote Republican. And I think most of the guys here do, too.”
If Webb weren’t a Democratic senator, he might vote Republican himself. He served as secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and quit because he was to the right of the Gipper on military spending. In 2000 he endorsed Republican George Allen’s Senate bid in Virginia. Six years later, running as a self-styled Reagan Democrat, he shocked the political world by narrowly beating Allen for the seat. Political observers in Virginia believe that there will probably be a rematch.
It is a race Webb could lose. His victory over Allen in 2006, followed by the large majority won by Barack Obama in Virginia in 2008, led many Democrats to believe that the state was finally trending blue. This proved to be wishful thinking. In 2009 conservative Republican candidate Bob McDonnell took the governorship in a landslide, and this year Republicans knocked out three Democratic incumbent congressmen and now control eight of the state’s 11 House seats. Still, a recent poll by Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling shows Webb leading Allen, his most likely opponent, by 49–45 percent. The fact that Webb has a fighting chance, much less an outright lead, is a tribute both to his personal popularity and the right-center positions he has staked out on behalf of what he refers to as Jacksonian democracy. It is also what makes him a potential role model for other endangered Democrats up for reelection in 2012.
It is a political truism that a lot of things can happen in two years. The national mood could shift in the progressive direction. President Obama might pull a Clinton and move to meet the electorate halfway. Republicans could overreach. But none of these things will necessarily happen. Politicians, like generals, tend to view the next campaign through the lens of the last one. By that standard, senators from deep-blue states—like Ben Cardin of Maryland, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, or Daniel Akaka of Hawaii—can look toward 2012 and relax, confident that sticking up for the president’s agenda, no matter how liberal it is, will not hurt their chances. But for Webb and his endangered colleagues from deeply conservative areas of the country, or swing states where the Democrats got clobbered this year, following the leader in the White House doesn’t feel like an effective electoral strategy. “I’ve been saying this for five years,” Webb told me. “Democrats have to reach out to the working class. Something has to change in the Democratic Senate.”
After the ceremony I followed Senator Webb into the Marshall mansion, up two flights of stairs to a small meeting room. On the way I noticed that he limps, the result of throwing himself between one of his men and an enemy grenade. This was our first meeting, but I had heard about Webb from Washington journalists. Several warned me with variations of “He doesn’t suffer fools lightly,” an admonition I tried not to take personally. His fearsome reputation was enhanced in 2007 when one of his senior aides was busted carrying Webb’s loaded handgun into a Senate office building. Webb, it emerged, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Virginia. It concentrates your mind to sit down with a U.S. senator who you assume is packing.
I asked Webb about his well-known encounter with President Bush at a White House reception in December 2006. Webb’s son was serving as a Marine infantryman in Iraq at the time, and opposition to the war was at its peak. “How’s your boy?” the president asked the senator-elect, to which Webb replied, “That’s between me and my boy.” It made Webb an instant hero of the liberal left, but Webb now regrets his churlish response to the commander in chief. “George Bush can be blustery, and the question hit me the wrong way,” he said. “Let’s just say that both of us were having a bad day.” Progressives who mistook Webb for a potential leader of the antiwar movement soon realized their mistake. Webb is very far from a peacenik. His basic objection to Iraq (and Afghanistan) is that they have resulted in occupations, which he considers a misuse of military power and the troops. His single great achievement in the Senate was forming a bipartisan coalition with Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Republicans Chuck Hagel and John Warner that pushed through a law granting today’s returning soldiers the same sort of benefits offered in the post–World War II GI Bill.
Fortunately, Webb was in a cordial mood during our interview. He is the author of a number of successful war novels, but his most important book is Born Fighting, the story of the Scots-Irish in America, which he was eager to discuss. Webb admires Andrew Jackson, the 19th-century president who opened the political door to the impoverished Scots-Irish of the South. He considers these folks—his folks—to be the backbone of the country, unfairly stereotyped by cultural snobs and discriminated against by supercilious government social engineers.
Webb also firmly believes that the base of the Democratic Party—African-Americans, Hispanics, college students, and urban elites—is missing a crucial piece, the white working class, and he has not been shy about saying so. In July he published an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege,” in which he argued against affirmative-action programs for all but African-American descendants of slaves. “Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hard--working white Americans…” Predictably, Webb’s article infuriated many liberals, including the head of the Virginia branch of the NAACP, who attacked the author for denying the existence of white privilege. But in our interview, Webb insisted that he is arguing only for simple equity. “When I met the president at a birthday lunch?at the White House in August, we discussed this. I told him, ‘Mr. President, people need to know you are fair.’?”
Affirmative action is only one of the Democratic orthodoxies Webb would like to dispense with. He opposes cap-and-trade and wrote a letter to the president on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit warning him that he lacked the constitutional authority to bind the United States to an agreement; he thinks the detainees in Guantánamo ought to stay put and be given military trials; he doesn’t necessarily support the abolition of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” preferring to wait for the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs; he wants a narrow path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here and $3 billion in emergency funds to build a serious border fence; and he is not enthusiastic about “Obamacare.” “I voted with the Republicans 17 times against provisions of the bill before I voted for it,” he said, unconsciously echoing John Kerry’s famous line in the 2004 campaign.
Webb not only advocates moving away from the more liberal aspects of the Obama legislative agenda, he thinks the party needs a change in attitude. In Born Fighting he scorned “the upper crust of academia and the pampered salons of Hollywood”—among the Democrats’ most important sources of money and policy advice—as an elite unable to comprehend, much less appeal to, working-class whites. He warns against the influence of these “cultural Marxists” and people on “the Activist Left” who want to create a “collectivist” America.
These are fighting words—Tea Party talk. The problem for endangered Senate Democrats is that it resonates loudly in the states they hope to carry in two years. Webb thinks these candidates would be wise to readjust their outlook, their voting, and their rhetoric. “I’m optimistic that people will see the logic of these positions and realize that it is in their self-interest to adopt them,” he said.
I asked Webb who among his fellow senators he considers potential Jacksonians. “People can describe themselves,” he said. But when I read him a list of endangered Democrats and asked if he saw them as potential allies in moving the Senate to the center, he nodded at nearly every name. If he is right, Majority Leader Harry Reid could find himself going into the 112th Congress up against not merely an energized Republican opposition, but a band of rebel Democrats led by the new Old Hickory.
Endangered List
The Democrats kept control of the Senate in the midterms. But James Webb and these other Dems, who face reelection in 2012, will likely need to emphasize (or find) their conservative side in upcoming campaigns if the current mood prevails.
Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska
A conservative pro-lifer in a state that voted heavily against Obama.
Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida
A center-left figure in a state with increasingly center-right views.
Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota
Will his role on the Senate Budget Committee clash with a cost-cutting mood?
Sen. John Tester, Montana
He narrowly won in 2006, in a state that voted for McCain two years later.
Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia
He often sounded like a Tea Partier when he won a vacant seat this year.
Sen. Sherrod brown, Ohio
Ohio elected a GOP governor and senator this year. Can this liberal survive?
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania went for Obama in ’08. This year the state veered right.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
She barely won in 2006; one recent poll showed a 38 percent approval rating.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri
The Republicans scored big midterm wins in the Show Me State.
Sen. Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
You can’t assume Wisconsin voters are as progressive as they used to be.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/19/the-new-calculus-for-conservative-democrats.print.html
Sen. James Webb, above, is being uncharacteristically coy about his plans for the 2012 election.
On Veterans Day a crowd of 300 or so Virginians gathered in a tent on the grounds of the estate of Gen. George C. Marshall. They were there to commemorate what they still regard as their unappreciated service in Vietnam, a war gone bad through no fault of their own. Many arrived dressed in the dark business suits of late-middle-age prosperity. A few wore faded combat fatigues. One man sported a leather flight jacket with a TONKIN GULF YACHT CLUB decal on the right sleeve. VFW and American Legion caps covered bald heads and crowned gray ponytails.
A high-school color guard ushered in a platform’s worth of dignitaries, including the featured speaker, Virginia Sen. James Webb. The vets stood at attention and sang along with a local band that played the various service anthems. Webb joined in when the band struck up the Marine Corps hymn. The senator is 64, the same age as most of his comrades in arms, but he has the posture of a midshipman, a shock of red hair, and the face of a pugnacious baby that give him the youthful look of a man still looking forward.
The specific direction Webb regards as forward is a matter of considerable speculation. His Senate term ends in two years, and, in the general uncertainty engendered by the midterm elections, he has taken to telling inquisitive reporters that he hasn’t yet decided if he will run for reelection. “I’m not saying I’m not going to,” he says. It is an atypically coy evasion for a man with a reputation for blunt speaking.
What Webb does in two years will certainly affect Virginia politics. How he positions himself in the meantime may have broader significance as well: Webb could serve as a model for 10 other Democratic senators who face reelection battles in states like Virginia, where unstinting support of the Obama agenda could be a recipe for early retirement.
Republicans also are gaming how conservative Democrats like Webb will figure into the new calculus. “The big buzz in D.C. is whether Obama tacks to the left to appease his base or moves toward the center to appeal to moderates,” says Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. “The reality is he doesn’t have a choice. Not if he wants to actually get anything done in the next two years. There is a bloc of 11 [Democratic] senators who will be up for reelection from conservative states, and they are likely to establish a formidable group that will block any progressive legislation that is high on the liberal agenda.”
Webb’s Veterans Day remarks were brief and unadorned by the grandiosity displayed by the average political orator on patriotic occasions. Then again, Webb is not an average politician. He grew up as a peripatetic Air Force brat, aced Annapolis, and led a rifle platoon, and later a company, in Vietnam. In a year of combat, he was wounded twice, received a silver star, two bronze stars and the Navy Cross, a decoration second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. There were brave men in the tent on Veterans Day that morning, but none—not even the rear admiral who preceded Webb on the dais—had a better war record. It gave him the authority to end his talk with a plea to the audience to remember that some of the Vietnamese refugees in Virginia also fought on the American side and deserve acknowledgment (Webb is married to a Vietnamese woman and speaks the language). “I’ve never heard a politician say something like that,” an American-born Vietnamese journalist covering the event told me.
After the final benediction, Webb spent some time shaking hands. He is a notoriously bad campaigner, impatient and reticent, but here he was in his element. I found myself standing next to a thin man named Steve who had an I SERVED: VIETNAM badge pinned to his V-neck sweater. Together we watched the senator work the tent. “What do you think of him?” I asked.
“Jim Webb is something else,” he replied.
“You think he’s going to run again?”
“Don’t know,” Steve said and paused for a moment. “Here’s the thing. I love Webb, but I vote Republican. And I think most of the guys here do, too.”
If Webb weren’t a Democratic senator, he might vote Republican himself. He served as secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and quit because he was to the right of the Gipper on military spending. In 2000 he endorsed Republican George Allen’s Senate bid in Virginia. Six years later, running as a self-styled Reagan Democrat, he shocked the political world by narrowly beating Allen for the seat. Political observers in Virginia believe that there will probably be a rematch.
It is a race Webb could lose. His victory over Allen in 2006, followed by the large majority won by Barack Obama in Virginia in 2008, led many Democrats to believe that the state was finally trending blue. This proved to be wishful thinking. In 2009 conservative Republican candidate Bob McDonnell took the governorship in a landslide, and this year Republicans knocked out three Democratic incumbent congressmen and now control eight of the state’s 11 House seats. Still, a recent poll by Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling shows Webb leading Allen, his most likely opponent, by 49–45 percent. The fact that Webb has a fighting chance, much less an outright lead, is a tribute both to his personal popularity and the right-center positions he has staked out on behalf of what he refers to as Jacksonian democracy. It is also what makes him a potential role model for other endangered Democrats up for reelection in 2012.
It is a political truism that a lot of things can happen in two years. The national mood could shift in the progressive direction. President Obama might pull a Clinton and move to meet the electorate halfway. Republicans could overreach. But none of these things will necessarily happen. Politicians, like generals, tend to view the next campaign through the lens of the last one. By that standard, senators from deep-blue states—like Ben Cardin of Maryland, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, or Daniel Akaka of Hawaii—can look toward 2012 and relax, confident that sticking up for the president’s agenda, no matter how liberal it is, will not hurt their chances. But for Webb and his endangered colleagues from deeply conservative areas of the country, or swing states where the Democrats got clobbered this year, following the leader in the White House doesn’t feel like an effective electoral strategy. “I’ve been saying this for five years,” Webb told me. “Democrats have to reach out to the working class. Something has to change in the Democratic Senate.”
After the ceremony I followed Senator Webb into the Marshall mansion, up two flights of stairs to a small meeting room. On the way I noticed that he limps, the result of throwing himself between one of his men and an enemy grenade. This was our first meeting, but I had heard about Webb from Washington journalists. Several warned me with variations of “He doesn’t suffer fools lightly,” an admonition I tried not to take personally. His fearsome reputation was enhanced in 2007 when one of his senior aides was busted carrying Webb’s loaded handgun into a Senate office building. Webb, it emerged, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Virginia. It concentrates your mind to sit down with a U.S. senator who you assume is packing.
I asked Webb about his well-known encounter with President Bush at a White House reception in December 2006. Webb’s son was serving as a Marine infantryman in Iraq at the time, and opposition to the war was at its peak. “How’s your boy?” the president asked the senator-elect, to which Webb replied, “That’s between me and my boy.” It made Webb an instant hero of the liberal left, but Webb now regrets his churlish response to the commander in chief. “George Bush can be blustery, and the question hit me the wrong way,” he said. “Let’s just say that both of us were having a bad day.” Progressives who mistook Webb for a potential leader of the antiwar movement soon realized their mistake. Webb is very far from a peacenik. His basic objection to Iraq (and Afghanistan) is that they have resulted in occupations, which he considers a misuse of military power and the troops. His single great achievement in the Senate was forming a bipartisan coalition with Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Republicans Chuck Hagel and John Warner that pushed through a law granting today’s returning soldiers the same sort of benefits offered in the post–World War II GI Bill.
Fortunately, Webb was in a cordial mood during our interview. He is the author of a number of successful war novels, but his most important book is Born Fighting, the story of the Scots-Irish in America, which he was eager to discuss. Webb admires Andrew Jackson, the 19th-century president who opened the political door to the impoverished Scots-Irish of the South. He considers these folks—his folks—to be the backbone of the country, unfairly stereotyped by cultural snobs and discriminated against by supercilious government social engineers.
Webb also firmly believes that the base of the Democratic Party—African-Americans, Hispanics, college students, and urban elites—is missing a crucial piece, the white working class, and he has not been shy about saying so. In July he published an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege,” in which he argued against affirmative-action programs for all but African-American descendants of slaves. “Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hard--working white Americans…” Predictably, Webb’s article infuriated many liberals, including the head of the Virginia branch of the NAACP, who attacked the author for denying the existence of white privilege. But in our interview, Webb insisted that he is arguing only for simple equity. “When I met the president at a birthday lunch?at the White House in August, we discussed this. I told him, ‘Mr. President, people need to know you are fair.’?”
Affirmative action is only one of the Democratic orthodoxies Webb would like to dispense with. He opposes cap-and-trade and wrote a letter to the president on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit warning him that he lacked the constitutional authority to bind the United States to an agreement; he thinks the detainees in Guantánamo ought to stay put and be given military trials; he doesn’t necessarily support the abolition of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” preferring to wait for the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs; he wants a narrow path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here and $3 billion in emergency funds to build a serious border fence; and he is not enthusiastic about “Obamacare.” “I voted with the Republicans 17 times against provisions of the bill before I voted for it,” he said, unconsciously echoing John Kerry’s famous line in the 2004 campaign.
Webb not only advocates moving away from the more liberal aspects of the Obama legislative agenda, he thinks the party needs a change in attitude. In Born Fighting he scorned “the upper crust of academia and the pampered salons of Hollywood”—among the Democrats’ most important sources of money and policy advice—as an elite unable to comprehend, much less appeal to, working-class whites. He warns against the influence of these “cultural Marxists” and people on “the Activist Left” who want to create a “collectivist” America.
These are fighting words—Tea Party talk. The problem for endangered Senate Democrats is that it resonates loudly in the states they hope to carry in two years. Webb thinks these candidates would be wise to readjust their outlook, their voting, and their rhetoric. “I’m optimistic that people will see the logic of these positions and realize that it is in their self-interest to adopt them,” he said.
I asked Webb who among his fellow senators he considers potential Jacksonians. “People can describe themselves,” he said. But when I read him a list of endangered Democrats and asked if he saw them as potential allies in moving the Senate to the center, he nodded at nearly every name. If he is right, Majority Leader Harry Reid could find himself going into the 112th Congress up against not merely an energized Republican opposition, but a band of rebel Democrats led by the new Old Hickory.
Endangered List
The Democrats kept control of the Senate in the midterms. But James Webb and these other Dems, who face reelection in 2012, will likely need to emphasize (or find) their conservative side in upcoming campaigns if the current mood prevails.
Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska
A conservative pro-lifer in a state that voted heavily against Obama.
Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida
A center-left figure in a state with increasingly center-right views.
Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota
Will his role on the Senate Budget Committee clash with a cost-cutting mood?
Sen. John Tester, Montana
He narrowly won in 2006, in a state that voted for McCain two years later.
Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia
He often sounded like a Tea Partier when he won a vacant seat this year.
Sen. Sherrod brown, Ohio
Ohio elected a GOP governor and senator this year. Can this liberal survive?
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania went for Obama in ’08. This year the state veered right.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
She barely won in 2006; one recent poll showed a 38 percent approval rating.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri
The Republicans scored big midterm wins in the Show Me State.
Sen. Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
You can’t assume Wisconsin voters are as progressive as they used to be.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/19/the-new-calculus-for-conservative-democrats.print.html
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Newly elected Palatine Republican to forgo pension
By Kimberly Pohl
Newly elected state Rep. Tom Morrison raised some eyebrows Tuesday during freshmen legislators’ orientation in Springfield when presented with paperwork to join the General Assembly’s lucrative pension system.
That’s because he opted out a move officials can recall happening just once before.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” one administrator asked him.
The 35-year-old Palatine Republican, who succeeds six-term state Rep. Suzie Bassi in the 54th House District, realizes that forgoing his pension won’t make a dent in the state’s $13 billion deficit or $80 billion unfunded pension liability.
But Morrison says he’s a proponent of self-sacrifice and leadership by example, and he wasn’t willing to become a financial burden on a system he wants to overhaul.
“I want to demonstrate to voters and taxpayers that since cuts have to be made, I’m willing to step forward and make a personal cut,” said Morrison, a disaster cleanup franchise owner who defeated Democrat Matt Flamm earlier this month with 62 percent of the vote. “The dollar amount isn’t even a blip, but it’s the principle.”
Morrison won’t have to contribute 11.5 percent of his $67,836 annual salary the way the other members of the General Assembly Retirement System do.
But he will lose out on thousands of dollars even if he serves just two 2-year terms in office. After four years in office the amount of time it takes to become vested a current legislator becomes eligible to receive a pension of 12 percent of his salary, along with 3 percent increases if retiring after age 60.
That pension payout spikes to 27 percent of salary after eight years of in office, 45 percent after 12 years of service and finally the maximum 85 percent after 20 years.
Morrison, who’s also leaning toward declining the state’s health insurance plan in favor of his family’s current high-deductible health savings account, said he doesn’t fault other legislators for taking part in the pension system. But he does hope others consider following his lead.
“I think legislators should be compensated, but once that service is over, it’s over,” Morrison said. “I’d like for us to save for retirement just like the private sector does.”
His decision is final, as administrative rules within the pension system don’t allow him to ever opt back in, General Assembly Retirement System Executive Secretary Tim Blair said.
“We were a little surprised, but it has happened at least once before,” Blair said. “He had the statutory right to do what he did and he exercised that.”
Morrison said he doesn’t know how long he’d like to serve if given the opportunity, but sees his decision as assurance to voters that he’s in public service with only the best intentions.
“I think not participating (in the pension system) will take away any thought in the public that I want to run because I’m trying to serve myself,” Morrison said.
http://dailyherald.com/article/20101117/news/711189844/
Newly elected state Rep. Tom Morrison raised some eyebrows Tuesday during freshmen legislators’ orientation in Springfield when presented with paperwork to join the General Assembly’s lucrative pension system.
That’s because he opted out a move officials can recall happening just once before.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” one administrator asked him.
The 35-year-old Palatine Republican, who succeeds six-term state Rep. Suzie Bassi in the 54th House District, realizes that forgoing his pension won’t make a dent in the state’s $13 billion deficit or $80 billion unfunded pension liability.
But Morrison says he’s a proponent of self-sacrifice and leadership by example, and he wasn’t willing to become a financial burden on a system he wants to overhaul.
“I want to demonstrate to voters and taxpayers that since cuts have to be made, I’m willing to step forward and make a personal cut,” said Morrison, a disaster cleanup franchise owner who defeated Democrat Matt Flamm earlier this month with 62 percent of the vote. “The dollar amount isn’t even a blip, but it’s the principle.”
Morrison won’t have to contribute 11.5 percent of his $67,836 annual salary the way the other members of the General Assembly Retirement System do.
But he will lose out on thousands of dollars even if he serves just two 2-year terms in office. After four years in office the amount of time it takes to become vested a current legislator becomes eligible to receive a pension of 12 percent of his salary, along with 3 percent increases if retiring after age 60.
That pension payout spikes to 27 percent of salary after eight years of in office, 45 percent after 12 years of service and finally the maximum 85 percent after 20 years.
Morrison, who’s also leaning toward declining the state’s health insurance plan in favor of his family’s current high-deductible health savings account, said he doesn’t fault other legislators for taking part in the pension system. But he does hope others consider following his lead.
“I think legislators should be compensated, but once that service is over, it’s over,” Morrison said. “I’d like for us to save for retirement just like the private sector does.”
His decision is final, as administrative rules within the pension system don’t allow him to ever opt back in, General Assembly Retirement System Executive Secretary Tim Blair said.
“We were a little surprised, but it has happened at least once before,” Blair said. “He had the statutory right to do what he did and he exercised that.”
Morrison said he doesn’t know how long he’d like to serve if given the opportunity, but sees his decision as assurance to voters that he’s in public service with only the best intentions.
“I think not participating (in the pension system) will take away any thought in the public that I want to run because I’m trying to serve myself,” Morrison said.
http://dailyherald.com/article/20101117/news/711189844/
Ahmed Ghailani, Gitmo detainee, acquitted of all but 1 charge in N.Y.
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 18, 2010; 12:12 AM
The first former Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in federal criminal court was found guilty on a single conspiracy charge Wednesday but cleared on 284 other counts. The outcome, a surprise, seriously undermines - and could doom - the Obama administration's plans to put other Guantanamo detainees on trial in U.S. civilian courts.
After deliberating for five days, a jury of six men and six women found Ahmed Ghailani, 36, guilty of conspiracy to damage or destroy U.S. property but acquitted him of multiple murder and attempted-murder charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.
The Obama administration had hoped that a conviction on most, if not all, of the charges would help clear the way for federal prosecutions of other Guantanamo detainees - including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The administration did not want to rely exclusively on the military commissions that the George W. Bush administration had made a centerpiece of its detention policy.
President Obama's strategy, however, has run into fierce, cross-party opposition in Congress and New York, in part because of concerns that it would be harder to win convictions in civilian court.
The failure to convict Ghailani, a native of Tanzania, on the most serious terrorism charges will bolster the arguments of those who say the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be kept open, both to host military commissions for some prisoners and to hold others indefinitely and without trial under the laws of war.
"You deserve a lot of credit," U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told the jurors after the verdicts were announced. "You have demonstrated also that American justice can be delivered calmly, deliberately and fairly, by ordinary people - people who are not beholden to any government, including this one."
Ghailani could be sentenced to life in prison and faces a minimum of 20 years, according to the Justice Department.
"We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings," the department said in a brief statement.
Ghailani's sentence will be imposed by Kaplan, and prosecutors in New York said they would seek life in prison.
Ghailani is the fifth person convicted for his role in the bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Saalam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
But the verdict was still a blow to administration officials, who were quietly confident that Ghailani would be found guilty on all charges. For some, a conviction on only one count amounted to a close call. Had he been cleared of all charges, the administration would probably have been forced to take Ghailani back into military custody rather than see him released.
Ghailani, a former Islamic cleric, was captured in Pakistan in July 2004 and turned over to the CIA, which held him in several secret prisons overseas before he and 13 other high-value detainees were transferred to Cuba in September 2006.
At a 2007 military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Ghailani had presented himself as an unwitting participant in the embassy bombings. At the end of the four-week trial, one of his attorneys told the jury he was a "dupe" who was fooled by al-Qaeda conspirators into buying a truck and gas tanks used in the Tanzanian attack."This innocent, naive boy was used as a dupe by his friends," said defense attorney Peter Quijano. "Call him a pawn, call him a fall guy, but don't call him guilty."
Analysis of the verdict is likely to focus on the decision of Kaplan to exclude a Tanzanian whom the prosecution had described as a potentially "giant witness." The man was expected to say that he sold Ghailani explosives used in the attack.
But the judge ruled that the government learned of the witness only through the use of coercive interrogations at CIA prisons and that the participation of the witness would taint the process.
"The court has not reached this conclusion lightly," Kaplan wrote, barring the testimony. "It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world we live in. But the constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction." The prosecution did not seek to introduce any statements Ghailani made to the CIA.
The verdict, on top of that ruling, will be seized upon by those who argue that high-value detainees who were interrogated by the CIA should be tried only in military commissions, where the rules were written to be less stringent on the admission of evidence stemming from harsh interrogations.
"One of 285 counts is not exactly a track record for a prosecution team to be proud of," said Kirk Lippold, former commander of the USS Cole, which was attacked by al-Qaeda in 2000. "I think the administration is now in a position where they have to get serious about using military commissions. This case sends a clear and unmistakable signal about using civilian courts: It didn't work."
Republican lawmakers immediately said the verdict should force the Obama administration to abandon civilian trials for Guantanamo detainees.
"I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."
But human rights activists who have long called for the use of federal trials said the verdict was a vindication of their approach.
"Conspiracy to blow up an embassy is a serious conviction," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch. "I hope the conclusion people draw from this is that this is the way to get swift and sure justice."
He added: "The original sin here is torture. It would have haunted a military trial, too, with likely the same result. The only difference is that in this courtroom, Ghailani was convicted with legitimacy and finality."
But administration officials appear not to be drawing that conclusion. Although there is little support in the Obama administration for the widespread and exclusive use of military commissions to prosecute Guantanamo detainees, there is growing recognition that the degree of political opposition to holding federal trials is insuperable.
Senior administration officials said in recent interviews that Mohammed and other accused 9/11 conspirators will probably remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future.
finnp@washpost.com Staff writer Jerry Markon and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111705663_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010111706077
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 18, 2010; 12:12 AM
The first former Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in federal criminal court was found guilty on a single conspiracy charge Wednesday but cleared on 284 other counts. The outcome, a surprise, seriously undermines - and could doom - the Obama administration's plans to put other Guantanamo detainees on trial in U.S. civilian courts.
After deliberating for five days, a jury of six men and six women found Ahmed Ghailani, 36, guilty of conspiracy to damage or destroy U.S. property but acquitted him of multiple murder and attempted-murder charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.
The Obama administration had hoped that a conviction on most, if not all, of the charges would help clear the way for federal prosecutions of other Guantanamo detainees - including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The administration did not want to rely exclusively on the military commissions that the George W. Bush administration had made a centerpiece of its detention policy.
President Obama's strategy, however, has run into fierce, cross-party opposition in Congress and New York, in part because of concerns that it would be harder to win convictions in civilian court.
The failure to convict Ghailani, a native of Tanzania, on the most serious terrorism charges will bolster the arguments of those who say the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be kept open, both to host military commissions for some prisoners and to hold others indefinitely and without trial under the laws of war.
"You deserve a lot of credit," U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told the jurors after the verdicts were announced. "You have demonstrated also that American justice can be delivered calmly, deliberately and fairly, by ordinary people - people who are not beholden to any government, including this one."
Ghailani could be sentenced to life in prison and faces a minimum of 20 years, according to the Justice Department.
"We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings," the department said in a brief statement.
Ghailani's sentence will be imposed by Kaplan, and prosecutors in New York said they would seek life in prison.
Ghailani is the fifth person convicted for his role in the bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Saalam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
But the verdict was still a blow to administration officials, who were quietly confident that Ghailani would be found guilty on all charges. For some, a conviction on only one count amounted to a close call. Had he been cleared of all charges, the administration would probably have been forced to take Ghailani back into military custody rather than see him released.
Ghailani, a former Islamic cleric, was captured in Pakistan in July 2004 and turned over to the CIA, which held him in several secret prisons overseas before he and 13 other high-value detainees were transferred to Cuba in September 2006.
At a 2007 military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Ghailani had presented himself as an unwitting participant in the embassy bombings. At the end of the four-week trial, one of his attorneys told the jury he was a "dupe" who was fooled by al-Qaeda conspirators into buying a truck and gas tanks used in the Tanzanian attack."This innocent, naive boy was used as a dupe by his friends," said defense attorney Peter Quijano. "Call him a pawn, call him a fall guy, but don't call him guilty."
Analysis of the verdict is likely to focus on the decision of Kaplan to exclude a Tanzanian whom the prosecution had described as a potentially "giant witness." The man was expected to say that he sold Ghailani explosives used in the attack.
But the judge ruled that the government learned of the witness only through the use of coercive interrogations at CIA prisons and that the participation of the witness would taint the process.
"The court has not reached this conclusion lightly," Kaplan wrote, barring the testimony. "It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world we live in. But the constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction." The prosecution did not seek to introduce any statements Ghailani made to the CIA.
The verdict, on top of that ruling, will be seized upon by those who argue that high-value detainees who were interrogated by the CIA should be tried only in military commissions, where the rules were written to be less stringent on the admission of evidence stemming from harsh interrogations.
"One of 285 counts is not exactly a track record for a prosecution team to be proud of," said Kirk Lippold, former commander of the USS Cole, which was attacked by al-Qaeda in 2000. "I think the administration is now in a position where they have to get serious about using military commissions. This case sends a clear and unmistakable signal about using civilian courts: It didn't work."
Republican lawmakers immediately said the verdict should force the Obama administration to abandon civilian trials for Guantanamo detainees.
"I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."
But human rights activists who have long called for the use of federal trials said the verdict was a vindication of their approach.
"Conspiracy to blow up an embassy is a serious conviction," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch. "I hope the conclusion people draw from this is that this is the way to get swift and sure justice."
He added: "The original sin here is torture. It would have haunted a military trial, too, with likely the same result. The only difference is that in this courtroom, Ghailani was convicted with legitimacy and finality."
But administration officials appear not to be drawing that conclusion. Although there is little support in the Obama administration for the widespread and exclusive use of military commissions to prosecute Guantanamo detainees, there is growing recognition that the degree of political opposition to holding federal trials is insuperable.
Senior administration officials said in recent interviews that Mohammed and other accused 9/11 conspirators will probably remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future.
finnp@washpost.com Staff writer Jerry Markon and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111705663_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010111706077
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Dolan Chosen as President of U.S. Bishops’ Group
BALTIMORE — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops elected Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York to be its president on Tuesday in a surprise move that reaffirmed the conservative direction of the Roman Catholic Church in America.
The vote makes Archbishop Dolan the most visible face of the church in the United States. It also suggested that the bishops were seeking a powerful and reliably orthodox voice to reassert the church’s teaching in the court of public opinion and to disarm critics who insist that the bishops have lost their moral authority as a result of their role in the sexual abuse scandals.
For the first time, the bishops overlooked tradition and passed over a vice president who was running for the presidency, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson. Bishop Kicanas represents the more liberal “social justice” tradition of the American church and is known for advocating dialogue between Catholic liberals and traditionalists. Archbishop Dolan is considered a moderate conservative.
Archbishop Dolan said in a news conference after the vote that he would carry on the forceful opposition of his predecessor, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to the recent health care overhaul because the bishops believed it would permit expanded government financing for abortion.
“My major priority would be to continue with all vigor I can muster what’s already in place,” Archbishop Dolan said. “It’s not like we’re in crisis; it’s not like all of a sudden we need some daring new initiatives. Thank God for the leadership of Cardinal Francis George, things are going well.”
Archbishop Dolan also suggested that he would not countenance other Catholic leaders and organizations when they take public positions that contradict the bishops. That is what happened this year when some groups representing Catholic hospitals and nuns came out in support of the health care overhaul bill, despite the bishops’ staunch opposition.
“We’re pastors and teachers,” Archbishop Dolan said of the bishops’ role, “not just one set of teachers in the Catholic community, but the teachers.”
Archbishop Dolan’s election consolidates the gradual shift in leadership and priorities for the bishops’ conference, which from the 1970s through the 1990s issued decrees on more traditionally liberal concerns like economic inequality, workers rights, the environment and peace. While the bishops still do take up issues like immigration and poverty, they are far more focused on shaping public policy to stop abortion and prevent the legalization of marriage between same-sex couples.
The bishops also set a decidedly conservative direction this year in their choice of a vice president to replace Bishop Kicanas. They elected Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who is chairman of the bishops’ committee on marriage and an outspoken opponent of same-sex unions. The runner-up was Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, who is a theological traditionalist and a political conservative. The tally was 147 votes for Archbishop Kurtz and 91 for Archbishop Chaput.
“This is a signal that the conference wants to be a leader in the culture wars,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown. “The two vice-presidential finalists were the two most conservative on the ballot. That says something about where this conference is going.”
The final vote for president, after 10 candidates were narrowed to two, was 128 for Archbishop Dolan and 111 for Bishop Kicanas. Three years ago, when the same two men were finalists for vice president, Bishop Kicanas defeated Archbishop Dolan by two votes, according to the Catholic News Service.
Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and an adviser to some of the bishops on political and moral issues: “You could imagine a different approach where the bishops would say, ‘This guy is too combative. We need someone more conciliatory.’ They didn’t do that.”
Professor George noted that Archbishop Dolan was the host of the meetings that produced the “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto issued last year by prominent evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders to reignite and unify religious opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and what the leaders considered as threats to religious freedom. Mr. George, who helped to draft the document, said Archbishop Dolan was one of the original signers.
It was impossible to tell whether the bishops were influenced by a last-minute lobbying campaign against Bishop Kicanas that was mounted by conservative Catholic bloggers, who accused him of being soft on abortion and homosexuality and of allowing a seminarian who was accused of sexual abuse to be ordained as a priest.
Several advocacy groups for victims of sexual abuse by priests had lobbied against Bishop Kicanas and Archbishop Dolan, saying both were involved in covering up abuse cases.
The Vatican has no direct role in the bishops’ vote, but had expressed its confidence in Archbishop Dolan this year by appointing him to a panel that was investigating seminaries in Ireland, which has been devastated by the sexual abuse scandal.
Archbishop Dolan has led the church in New York since April 2009. Before then, he was archbishop of Milwaukee, where he served for seven years. In New York, he has a full plate of challenges, including a budget-cutting effort that will close dozens of churches and parishes.
He has been chairman for three years of Catholic Relief Services, the bishops’ charity arm, and he traveled to Haiti several times after the earthquake in January to observe the church’s relief efforts there. (He stepped down on Tuesday as leader of the relief agency.)
Speaking of Archbishop Dolan’s strengths, Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland said, “Not that many people can combine that intellectual depth and that jolly, outgoing personality.”
In an upbeat news conference, Archbishop Dolan said his differences with Bishop Kicanas are matters of style and not substance. He said the bishops rejected the idea that they were divided left and right, between the “social justice” and “pro-life” camps.
“The bishops see those as part of a package deal. It’s not a cleavage between the two,” he said.
He said that the battle over the health care overhaul had put the bishops in a “delicate position.”
“We should have been doing cartwheels” when the health care bill passed, he said, because the bishops had long supported expanding coverage
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3078437581805316374
The vote makes Archbishop Dolan the most visible face of the church in the United States. It also suggested that the bishops were seeking a powerful and reliably orthodox voice to reassert the church’s teaching in the court of public opinion and to disarm critics who insist that the bishops have lost their moral authority as a result of their role in the sexual abuse scandals.
For the first time, the bishops overlooked tradition and passed over a vice president who was running for the presidency, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson. Bishop Kicanas represents the more liberal “social justice” tradition of the American church and is known for advocating dialogue between Catholic liberals and traditionalists. Archbishop Dolan is considered a moderate conservative.
Archbishop Dolan said in a news conference after the vote that he would carry on the forceful opposition of his predecessor, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to the recent health care overhaul because the bishops believed it would permit expanded government financing for abortion.
“My major priority would be to continue with all vigor I can muster what’s already in place,” Archbishop Dolan said. “It’s not like we’re in crisis; it’s not like all of a sudden we need some daring new initiatives. Thank God for the leadership of Cardinal Francis George, things are going well.”
Archbishop Dolan also suggested that he would not countenance other Catholic leaders and organizations when they take public positions that contradict the bishops. That is what happened this year when some groups representing Catholic hospitals and nuns came out in support of the health care overhaul bill, despite the bishops’ staunch opposition.
“We’re pastors and teachers,” Archbishop Dolan said of the bishops’ role, “not just one set of teachers in the Catholic community, but the teachers.”
Archbishop Dolan’s election consolidates the gradual shift in leadership and priorities for the bishops’ conference, which from the 1970s through the 1990s issued decrees on more traditionally liberal concerns like economic inequality, workers rights, the environment and peace. While the bishops still do take up issues like immigration and poverty, they are far more focused on shaping public policy to stop abortion and prevent the legalization of marriage between same-sex couples.
The bishops also set a decidedly conservative direction this year in their choice of a vice president to replace Bishop Kicanas. They elected Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who is chairman of the bishops’ committee on marriage and an outspoken opponent of same-sex unions. The runner-up was Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, who is a theological traditionalist and a political conservative. The tally was 147 votes for Archbishop Kurtz and 91 for Archbishop Chaput.
“This is a signal that the conference wants to be a leader in the culture wars,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown. “The two vice-presidential finalists were the two most conservative on the ballot. That says something about where this conference is going.”
The final vote for president, after 10 candidates were narrowed to two, was 128 for Archbishop Dolan and 111 for Bishop Kicanas. Three years ago, when the same two men were finalists for vice president, Bishop Kicanas defeated Archbishop Dolan by two votes, according to the Catholic News Service.
Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and an adviser to some of the bishops on political and moral issues: “You could imagine a different approach where the bishops would say, ‘This guy is too combative. We need someone more conciliatory.’ They didn’t do that.”
Professor George noted that Archbishop Dolan was the host of the meetings that produced the “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto issued last year by prominent evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders to reignite and unify religious opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and what the leaders considered as threats to religious freedom. Mr. George, who helped to draft the document, said Archbishop Dolan was one of the original signers.
It was impossible to tell whether the bishops were influenced by a last-minute lobbying campaign against Bishop Kicanas that was mounted by conservative Catholic bloggers, who accused him of being soft on abortion and homosexuality and of allowing a seminarian who was accused of sexual abuse to be ordained as a priest.
Several advocacy groups for victims of sexual abuse by priests had lobbied against Bishop Kicanas and Archbishop Dolan, saying both were involved in covering up abuse cases.
The Vatican has no direct role in the bishops’ vote, but had expressed its confidence in Archbishop Dolan this year by appointing him to a panel that was investigating seminaries in Ireland, which has been devastated by the sexual abuse scandal.
Archbishop Dolan has led the church in New York since April 2009. Before then, he was archbishop of Milwaukee, where he served for seven years. In New York, he has a full plate of challenges, including a budget-cutting effort that will close dozens of churches and parishes.
He has been chairman for three years of Catholic Relief Services, the bishops’ charity arm, and he traveled to Haiti several times after the earthquake in January to observe the church’s relief efforts there. (He stepped down on Tuesday as leader of the relief agency.)
Speaking of Archbishop Dolan’s strengths, Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland said, “Not that many people can combine that intellectual depth and that jolly, outgoing personality.”
In an upbeat news conference, Archbishop Dolan said his differences with Bishop Kicanas are matters of style and not substance. He said the bishops rejected the idea that they were divided left and right, between the “social justice” and “pro-life” camps.
“The bishops see those as part of a package deal. It’s not a cleavage between the two,” he said.
He said that the battle over the health care overhaul had put the bishops in a “delicate position.”
“We should have been doing cartwheels” when the health care bill passed, he said, because the bishops had long supported expanding coverage
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3078437581805316374
Bean concedes to Walsh in 8th District
Tea party Republican secures seat in D.C.
By Dan Hinkel and Katherine Skiba, Tribune reporters
Republican upstart Joe Walsh held onto his whisker-thin margin over Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean as the final votes were tallied Tuesday, securing an upset for an underfunded congressional candidate who credited tea party groups — not the GOP establishment — for his win.
Bean conceded Tuesday night, finishing 290 votes behind Walsh after the counting of absentee and provisional ballots in Cook, Lake and McHenry counties. More than 200,000 votes were cast.
Already busy with freshman orientation week in Washington, Walsh said Tuesday he was "ecstatic" to hold onto the win. He said Republican leaders have enthusiastically welcomed the new faces, including less traditional GOP candidates with tea party backing.
"We're one big happy family," he said.
Bean, of Barrington, announced her concession in a two-paragraph statement saying she had called Walsh to congratulate him. She is scheduled to make further comments Wednesday.
Walsh's victory puts the north suburban 8th District back into Republican hands six years after Bean wrested the seat from GOP stalwart Philip Crane, who held the post for 35 years.
His win also lends reinforcement to the platoon of freshman Republicans from the Chicago area joining the new GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Walsh joins Robert Dold from the north suburban 10th District, Adam Kinzinger from the south suburban 11th and Randy Hultgren from the west suburban 14th.
Walsh, of McHenry, began the campaign as a distinct underdog, and raised less than $500,000 to Bean's nearly $2 million. Almost no one believed he could even make the race close, let alone that the result would turn on a count of a few hundred absentee ballots in the basement of the Lake County Courthouse two weeks after Election Day.
Dark-suited observers from each side joined a gaggle of reporters, photographers and election officials who watched Lake County Clerk Willard Helander lead the final count, calling out the totals to the crowd of about 50.
Walsh mounted a winning campaign despite being forced to address concerns about his recent personal history. He lost a home to foreclosure in October 2009, his driver's license was suspended twice in 2008 after he failed to appear in court, and he was cited twice for not having auto insurance in June 2009, according to court records and state officials.
In Washington on Tuesday, Walsh said he senses Republicans are united in their desire to drastically change the way the federal government works.
"There is a real humility in the air among these Republicans," he said.
Tribune reporter Lisa Black contributed to this report.
dhinkel@tribune.com
kskiba@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northnorthwest/ct-met-walsh-bean-1117-20101116,0,4451683.story
By Dan Hinkel and Katherine Skiba, Tribune reporters
Republican upstart Joe Walsh held onto his whisker-thin margin over Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean as the final votes were tallied Tuesday, securing an upset for an underfunded congressional candidate who credited tea party groups — not the GOP establishment — for his win.
Bean conceded Tuesday night, finishing 290 votes behind Walsh after the counting of absentee and provisional ballots in Cook, Lake and McHenry counties. More than 200,000 votes were cast.
Already busy with freshman orientation week in Washington, Walsh said Tuesday he was "ecstatic" to hold onto the win. He said Republican leaders have enthusiastically welcomed the new faces, including less traditional GOP candidates with tea party backing.
"We're one big happy family," he said.
Bean, of Barrington, announced her concession in a two-paragraph statement saying she had called Walsh to congratulate him. She is scheduled to make further comments Wednesday.
Walsh's victory puts the north suburban 8th District back into Republican hands six years after Bean wrested the seat from GOP stalwart Philip Crane, who held the post for 35 years.
His win also lends reinforcement to the platoon of freshman Republicans from the Chicago area joining the new GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Walsh joins Robert Dold from the north suburban 10th District, Adam Kinzinger from the south suburban 11th and Randy Hultgren from the west suburban 14th.
Walsh, of McHenry, began the campaign as a distinct underdog, and raised less than $500,000 to Bean's nearly $2 million. Almost no one believed he could even make the race close, let alone that the result would turn on a count of a few hundred absentee ballots in the basement of the Lake County Courthouse two weeks after Election Day.
Dark-suited observers from each side joined a gaggle of reporters, photographers and election officials who watched Lake County Clerk Willard Helander lead the final count, calling out the totals to the crowd of about 50.
Walsh mounted a winning campaign despite being forced to address concerns about his recent personal history. He lost a home to foreclosure in October 2009, his driver's license was suspended twice in 2008 after he failed to appear in court, and he was cited twice for not having auto insurance in June 2009, according to court records and state officials.
In Washington on Tuesday, Walsh said he senses Republicans are united in their desire to drastically change the way the federal government works.
"There is a real humility in the air among these Republicans," he said.
Tribune reporter Lisa Black contributed to this report.
dhinkel@tribune.com
kskiba@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northnorthwest/ct-met-walsh-bean-1117-20101116,0,4451683.story
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Amid airport anger, GOP takes aim at screening
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
Did you know that the nation's airports are not required to have Transportation Security Administration screeners checking passengers at security checkpoints? The 2001 law creating the TSA gave airports the right to opt out of the TSA program in favor of private screeners after a two-year period. Now, with the TSA engulfed in controversy and hated by millions of weary and sometimes humiliated travelers, Rep. John Mica, the Republican who will soon be chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, is reminding airports that they have a choice.
Mica, one of the authors of the original TSA bill, has recently written to the heads of more than 150 airports nationwide suggesting they opt out of TSA screening. "When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees," Mica writes. "As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law."
In addition to being large, impersonal, and top-heavy, what really worries critics is that the TSA has become dangerously ineffective. Its specialty is what those critics call "security theater" -- that is, a show of what appear to be stringent security measures designed to make passengers feel more secure without providing real security. "That's exactly what it is," says Mica. "It's a big Kabuki dance."
Now, the dance has gotten completely out of hand. And like lots of fliers -- I spoke to him as he waited for a flight at the Orlando airport -- Mica sees TSA's new "naked scanner" machines and groping, grossly invasive passenger pat-downs as just part of a larger problem. TSA, he says, is relying more on passenger humiliation than on practices that are proven staples of airport security.
For example, many security experts have urged TSA to adopt techniques, used with great success by the Israeli airline El Al, in which passengers are observed, profiled, and most importantly, questioned before boarding planes. So TSA created a program known as SPOT -- Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques. It began hiring what it called behavior detection officers, who would be trained to notice passengers who acted suspiciously. TSA now employs about 3,000 behavior detection officers, stationed at about 160 airports across the country.
The problem is, they're doing it all wrong. A recent General Accountability Office study found that TSA "deployed SPOT nationwide without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment." They haven't settled on the standards needed to stop bad actors.
"It's not an Israeli model, it's a TSA, screwed-up model," says Mica. "It should actually be the person who's looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they've hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done."
In a May 2010 letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Mica noted that the GAO "discovered that since the program's inception, at least 17 known terrorists ... have flown on 24 different occasions, passing through security at eight SPOT airports." One of those known terrorists was Faisal Shahzad, who made it past SPOT monitors onto a Dubai-bound plane at New York's JFK International Airport not long after trying to set off a car bomb in Times Square. Federal agents nabbed him just before departure.
Mica and other critics in Congress want to see quick and meaningful changes in the way TSA works. They go back to the days just after Sept. 11, when there was a hot debate about whether the new passenger-screening force would be federal employees, as most Democrats wanted, or private contractors, as most Republicans wanted. Democrats won and TSA has been growing ever since.
But the law did allow a test program in which five airports were allowed to use private contractors. A number of studies done since then have shown that contractors perform a bit better than federal screeners, and they're also more flexible and open to innovation. (The federal government pays the cost of screening whether performed by the TSA or by contractors, and contractors work under federal supervision.)
TSA critics know a federal-to-private change won't solve all of the problems with airport security. But it might create the conditions under which some of those problems could indeed be fixed. With passenger anger overflowing and new leadership in the House, something might finally get done.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Amid-airport-anger_-GOP-takes-aim-at-screening-1576602-108259869.html#ixzz15Ss2h0Wq
Chief Political Correspondent
Did you know that the nation's airports are not required to have Transportation Security Administration screeners checking passengers at security checkpoints? The 2001 law creating the TSA gave airports the right to opt out of the TSA program in favor of private screeners after a two-year period. Now, with the TSA engulfed in controversy and hated by millions of weary and sometimes humiliated travelers, Rep. John Mica, the Republican who will soon be chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, is reminding airports that they have a choice.
Mica, one of the authors of the original TSA bill, has recently written to the heads of more than 150 airports nationwide suggesting they opt out of TSA screening. "When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees," Mica writes. "As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law."
In addition to being large, impersonal, and top-heavy, what really worries critics is that the TSA has become dangerously ineffective. Its specialty is what those critics call "security theater" -- that is, a show of what appear to be stringent security measures designed to make passengers feel more secure without providing real security. "That's exactly what it is," says Mica. "It's a big Kabuki dance."
Now, the dance has gotten completely out of hand. And like lots of fliers -- I spoke to him as he waited for a flight at the Orlando airport -- Mica sees TSA's new "naked scanner" machines and groping, grossly invasive passenger pat-downs as just part of a larger problem. TSA, he says, is relying more on passenger humiliation than on practices that are proven staples of airport security.
For example, many security experts have urged TSA to adopt techniques, used with great success by the Israeli airline El Al, in which passengers are observed, profiled, and most importantly, questioned before boarding planes. So TSA created a program known as SPOT -- Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques. It began hiring what it called behavior detection officers, who would be trained to notice passengers who acted suspiciously. TSA now employs about 3,000 behavior detection officers, stationed at about 160 airports across the country.
The problem is, they're doing it all wrong. A recent General Accountability Office study found that TSA "deployed SPOT nationwide without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment." They haven't settled on the standards needed to stop bad actors.
"It's not an Israeli model, it's a TSA, screwed-up model," says Mica. "It should actually be the person who's looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they've hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done."
In a May 2010 letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Mica noted that the GAO "discovered that since the program's inception, at least 17 known terrorists ... have flown on 24 different occasions, passing through security at eight SPOT airports." One of those known terrorists was Faisal Shahzad, who made it past SPOT monitors onto a Dubai-bound plane at New York's JFK International Airport not long after trying to set off a car bomb in Times Square. Federal agents nabbed him just before departure.
Mica and other critics in Congress want to see quick and meaningful changes in the way TSA works. They go back to the days just after Sept. 11, when there was a hot debate about whether the new passenger-screening force would be federal employees, as most Democrats wanted, or private contractors, as most Republicans wanted. Democrats won and TSA has been growing ever since.
But the law did allow a test program in which five airports were allowed to use private contractors. A number of studies done since then have shown that contractors perform a bit better than federal screeners, and they're also more flexible and open to innovation. (The federal government pays the cost of screening whether performed by the TSA or by contractors, and contractors work under federal supervision.)
TSA critics know a federal-to-private change won't solve all of the problems with airport security. But it might create the conditions under which some of those problems could indeed be fixed. With passenger anger overflowing and new leadership in the House, something might finally get done.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Amid-airport-anger_-GOP-takes-aim-at-screening-1576602-108259869.html#ixzz15Ss2h0Wq
Monday, November 15, 2010
Freudian slips may haunt Obama-
By: Keith Koffler
President Barack Obama, fresh from his drubbing in the 2010 midterms, is trying to revive his fortunes by pursuing a path toward the middle.
But Obama’s effort to overhaul his image is encumbered by conflicting impressions of who he is that have been engraved in voters’ minds by his own words.
During unguarded and even some staged — but inadvertently revealing — moments, Obama has allowed unintended glimpses into his thinking. At various times, his offhand comments have led critics, and many voters, to view him as an ardent leftist or an elitist or — most recently — a partisan Democrat.
These Freudian slips, uncovering the man beneath the spin and the speeches, are embedded in Americans’ subconscious, if you will, because they seem to come directly from the president’s inner self. Obama can change his policies, but he cannot easily erase these perceptions. And because of his cool opaqueness — noted even by his own staff — and his relatively brief track record on the national stage, voters have little else to go on.
Obama’s meteoric rise and young presidency have been marked by asides that appear to offer insights into his psyche.
His surprising self-revelations began during the presidential campaign. They were harmful but did not create major problems.
First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
The remark suggested he is an elitist, so far removed from the concerns of average Americans that he presented a harsh stereotype of what they are like. This perception of Obama’s being removed from mainstream voters was not helped by Michelle Obama’s own Freudian slip. “For the first time in my adult life,” she said early during the 2008 campaign, “I am proud of my country.”
There was also the case of Joe the Plumber. “I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama told him, “it’s good for everybody.”
The statement raised eyebrows — not because of the principle, which many agree with, but because of the terminology. “Spread the wealth” sounded scarily like a socialist tract people are forced to read in college.
But then came the actual policies of President Obama, and they seemed to fill in the outlines suggested by these earlier glimpses. Faced with the economic abyss, Obama ordered unprecedented government interventions into the private sector and the massive stimulus bill. He moved on to heavily regulate the health system. He stocked the White House with “czars” unanswerable to Congress.
While Obama has said his policies were required to address the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and a health care coverage emergency, many regarded them as overbearing government intrusions, out of step with American traditions of individualism and reliance on the private sector.
Other presidential Freudian slips even left a sense that Obama is hostile to accumulating wealth. His lectures to bankers, credit card company executives and health insurers sounded unduly harsh to some voters. Perhaps they felt validated in their suspicions when Obama said in April, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
His assertion just after the midterm elections that voters’ concerns about his policies stemmed from his failure to fully explain them — implying that they hadn’t understood him — inadvertently revived the perception of a man who elevates himself above the electorate.
Added to this, in the weeks before the midterms, was the vision of a snarling partisan voters hadn’t previously seen, the former avatar of “hope and change” dressing down House Minority Leader John Boehner and dismissing Republicans as Slurpee-guzzling incompetents.
What will be harder for Obama to revise are the powerful impressions created by two slips that indicated his campaign partisanship might be more than rhetoric. First was the suggestion, made during an interview on a Latino radio station, that Latinos should “punish” their “enemies” at the polls, followed later by the awkward attempt to walk it back by saying he meant “opponents.”
Obama then undermined the sincerity of his repeated calls for Republicans to work with him as equals, saying as the midterm campaign headed into its final week, “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”
It happens to presidents. When Ronald Reagan joked on an open microphone that he had outlawed Russia and “we begin bombing in five minutes,” or George H.W. Bush read aloud his cue card notes, exclaiming, “Message: I care,” or Bill Clinton said, “That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is,” their remarks seemed to reveal some essential truth about each man that framed the way the country understood him.
In Obama’s case, the accumulation of comments that seem contrary to the image he conveys not only will create perceptions the president will find difficult to dislodge but could prompt questions about his sincerity.
This could ensure that Obama’s stroll to the center will seem, at best, a bridge too far and, at worst, disingenuous opportunism.
Keith Koffler, who covered the White House for CongressDaily and Roll Call, is editor of the blog White House Dossier.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4BF67EB3-A616-C58D-6A2C3F2CBCE5A73A
President Barack Obama, fresh from his drubbing in the 2010 midterms, is trying to revive his fortunes by pursuing a path toward the middle.
But Obama’s effort to overhaul his image is encumbered by conflicting impressions of who he is that have been engraved in voters’ minds by his own words.
During unguarded and even some staged — but inadvertently revealing — moments, Obama has allowed unintended glimpses into his thinking. At various times, his offhand comments have led critics, and many voters, to view him as an ardent leftist or an elitist or — most recently — a partisan Democrat.
These Freudian slips, uncovering the man beneath the spin and the speeches, are embedded in Americans’ subconscious, if you will, because they seem to come directly from the president’s inner self. Obama can change his policies, but he cannot easily erase these perceptions. And because of his cool opaqueness — noted even by his own staff — and his relatively brief track record on the national stage, voters have little else to go on.
Obama’s meteoric rise and young presidency have been marked by asides that appear to offer insights into his psyche.
His surprising self-revelations began during the presidential campaign. They were harmful but did not create major problems.
First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
The remark suggested he is an elitist, so far removed from the concerns of average Americans that he presented a harsh stereotype of what they are like. This perception of Obama’s being removed from mainstream voters was not helped by Michelle Obama’s own Freudian slip. “For the first time in my adult life,” she said early during the 2008 campaign, “I am proud of my country.”
There was also the case of Joe the Plumber. “I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama told him, “it’s good for everybody.”
The statement raised eyebrows — not because of the principle, which many agree with, but because of the terminology. “Spread the wealth” sounded scarily like a socialist tract people are forced to read in college.
But then came the actual policies of President Obama, and they seemed to fill in the outlines suggested by these earlier glimpses. Faced with the economic abyss, Obama ordered unprecedented government interventions into the private sector and the massive stimulus bill. He moved on to heavily regulate the health system. He stocked the White House with “czars” unanswerable to Congress.
While Obama has said his policies were required to address the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and a health care coverage emergency, many regarded them as overbearing government intrusions, out of step with American traditions of individualism and reliance on the private sector.
Other presidential Freudian slips even left a sense that Obama is hostile to accumulating wealth. His lectures to bankers, credit card company executives and health insurers sounded unduly harsh to some voters. Perhaps they felt validated in their suspicions when Obama said in April, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
His assertion just after the midterm elections that voters’ concerns about his policies stemmed from his failure to fully explain them — implying that they hadn’t understood him — inadvertently revived the perception of a man who elevates himself above the electorate.
Added to this, in the weeks before the midterms, was the vision of a snarling partisan voters hadn’t previously seen, the former avatar of “hope and change” dressing down House Minority Leader John Boehner and dismissing Republicans as Slurpee-guzzling incompetents.
What will be harder for Obama to revise are the powerful impressions created by two slips that indicated his campaign partisanship might be more than rhetoric. First was the suggestion, made during an interview on a Latino radio station, that Latinos should “punish” their “enemies” at the polls, followed later by the awkward attempt to walk it back by saying he meant “opponents.”
Obama then undermined the sincerity of his repeated calls for Republicans to work with him as equals, saying as the midterm campaign headed into its final week, “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”
It happens to presidents. When Ronald Reagan joked on an open microphone that he had outlawed Russia and “we begin bombing in five minutes,” or George H.W. Bush read aloud his cue card notes, exclaiming, “Message: I care,” or Bill Clinton said, “That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is,” their remarks seemed to reveal some essential truth about each man that framed the way the country understood him.
In Obama’s case, the accumulation of comments that seem contrary to the image he conveys not only will create perceptions the president will find difficult to dislodge but could prompt questions about his sincerity.
This could ensure that Obama’s stroll to the center will seem, at best, a bridge too far and, at worst, disingenuous opportunism.
Keith Koffler, who covered the White House for CongressDaily and Roll Call, is editor of the blog White House Dossier.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4BF67EB3-A616-C58D-6A2C3F2CBCE5A73A
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Obama's economic view is rejected on world stage
By Sewell Chan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David E. Sanger
New York Times
SEOUL, South Korea -- President Barack Obama's hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free-trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring global economic growth ran into resistance on all fronts Thursday, putting Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.
The most concrete trophy expected to emerge from the trip eluded his grasp: a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, first negotiated by the Bush administration and then reopened by Obama, to have greater protections for U.S. workers.
And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communique to be issued today, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.
Each rejected core elements of Obama's strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America's competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.
The result was that Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive. He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Obama insisted that it would be resolved "in a matter of weeks," without the pressure of a summit meeting, it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to U.S. cars and beef would be resolved.
Obama's meeting with China's president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China's trade surplus. While Lael Brainard, the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said that the United States and China "have gotten to a good place" on rebalancing their trade, Chinese officials later archly reminded the Americans that as the issuers of the dollar, the main global reserve currency, they should consider the interests of the "global economy" as well as their own "national circumstances."
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_16589240?nclick_check=1
New York Times
SEOUL, South Korea -- President Barack Obama's hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free-trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring global economic growth ran into resistance on all fronts Thursday, putting Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.
The most concrete trophy expected to emerge from the trip eluded his grasp: a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, first negotiated by the Bush administration and then reopened by Obama, to have greater protections for U.S. workers.
And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communique to be issued today, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.
Each rejected core elements of Obama's strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America's competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.
The result was that Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive. He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Obama insisted that it would be resolved "in a matter of weeks," without the pressure of a summit meeting, it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to U.S. cars and beef would be resolved.
Obama's meeting with China's president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China's trade surplus. While Lael Brainard, the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said that the United States and China "have gotten to a good place" on rebalancing their trade, Chinese officials later archly reminded the Americans that as the issuers of the dollar, the main global reserve currency, they should consider the interests of the "global economy" as well as their own "national circumstances."
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_16589240?nclick_check=1
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