Happy New Year

Wishing you a Happy New Year from the Filibuster crew.  Thank you for sticking by us throughout the year.

Be sure to tune in to our first show of 2009 this Sunday at 10 to catch the top 20 moments of 2008!

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

Continuing war. Economic collapse. Global threats. Dilution of values. Natural disasters leading to poverty and suffering.

It can all get pretty heavy. Earlier this year, Bill Maher remorsed about the country’s seeming lack of ability to do “great things”. I agreed wholeheartedly. Then we elected Barack Obama.

It’s a new year – a new possibility. The first one hundred days of a presidency are usually the most productive, and I’m excited to see what is going to get accomplished. It’s just going to be nice to finally have a President that asks us to sacrifice something – to be better as a collective whole. Because, if we learned anything in 2008, it was that we’re all in this together.

Obama Protesters in Hawaii

(photo from AP/Politico)

They might want to consider going to D.C. to lobby people who actually have power over the current situation.

From Politico:

Shortly after 9:30 this morning as Obama headed to his high school alma mater to play basketball, the small group of demonstrators near his vacation home waved signs that said, “No U.S. support for Israel” and “Gazans need food, medicine, not war.”

But Obama was sitting in the rear on the passenger side of his black sport utility vehicle, and was not visible to the protesters, according to a pool report, which said the president-elect sipped from a bottle of water and looked straight ahead as his vehicle passed the demonstrators.

History of the Conflict

Look, I’m not gonna lie.  I can’t stand Glenn Beck–he’s seriously misguided.  But Mr. Beck is right when it comes to Israel.  

Here’s “The History of The Middle East”

Greatest Political Press Conference Ever

Feel free to castigate the appointor but don’t lynch the appointor.

- Gov. Rod Blagojevich, At Press Conference On His Senate Appointment of Roland Burris

This guy is shameless.

Blago Makes Senate Pick

Embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will announce at 3pm today that he’s chosen former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as his choice to fill the Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama. There have already been reports that Harry Reid and top Senate Democrats are going to block the appointment, wanting to avoid anything that even looks tainted (anybody that has been appointed by Gov. Blagojevich). A couple of thoughts:

• Burris is certainly qualified for the position. Formerly the State Comptroller and Attorney General. The guy started running for the seat when Ronald Reagan was President.
• If Senate Democrats block Burris, it could create some serious problems with African-American voters in Illinois, a huge number of Democrats in the state, who were looking for an African-American to fill Obama’s seat.
• Why is Burris tainted as well? So what if he’s Blagojevich’s appointee. He’s highly qualified and would be the fourth African-American senator. Doesn’t blocking him create an unnecessary headache for Illinois and Senate Democrats? You’re down one more vote in the Senate (most likely during the entirety of Obama’s first 100 days), you further throw the Illinois Democratic Party into further chaos, and you reject an otherwise fine appointee.

Either way, corks are being popped at the Illinois GOP headquarters.

GOP's Success In Minority Outreach Continues

The Chip Saltsman debacle continues. Too bad Jesse Helms isn’t with us anymore, he might have done a less offensive job conducting minority outreach for the GOP.

Today on MSNBC, anchorwoman Tamron Hall talked with Kate Obenshain, vice president of Young America’s Foundation. Obenshain defended the song, calling it “a parody.”

HALL: Well let me tell you this — if someone referred to me as “Tamron Hall the Magic Negro Anchor Lady,” I would never see it as anything funny or amusing.

HALL: You’re not going to win a lot of people over calling them ‘Magic Negros.’”

House Dems in Trouble? Already?

According to the Politico, the Democrats will be facing a tough election coming in 2010.

“We have a daunting challenge ahead in the 2010 midterm elections,” Democratic House campaign chief Chris Van Hollen says in a year-end Web video thanking supporters. “Many of our new members are from conservative areas with long histories of Republican representation. We are looking at potentially 70 — 70 — threatened Democrats who will need our support.”

70 seats is nothing to sneeze at. Democrats picked up about four dozen seats in the last two elections giving them a healthy majority in the House. History is not on their side. Usually the party in power loses seats during a midterm election – as 2010 will be – so the Democrats will have to be careful how they govern in the next two years if they want to hold on to their mega-majority. I hope we will not have a repeat of 1994 come 2010.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan handicapping guide, places 48 Democrats in prospectively competitive races. And Democrats are expected to have targets of their own in 2010, with Cook placing 34 Republicans on its watch list.

Even given this preliminary report, the Democrats are looking at a 14 seat deficit.

Georgia v. South Carolina

Matt Cavedon has, in my view fairly, criticized my previous post Massachusetts v. South Carolina for not taking history properly into account. Although I controlled for a range of factors, history was not one of them and perhaps my argument would be more compelling if I attempted to come to a more well controlled comparison. I would then like to take up Matt’s suggestion that Georgia and South Carolina would be a more apt comparison. Although not nearly as liberal as Massachusetts by any streach of the imagination, Georgia has had some state-wide liberal economic policies over recent decades.

I’ll use the same criteria as I did in my post on Massachusetts and South Carolina.

Georgia’s high school graduation rate of 56.3% seems terrible (and indeed, it is) but not in comparison to South Carolina’s 46.2% graduation rate. Georgia’s #18 Emory University, #35 Georgia Institute of Technology, and #58 University of Georgia are more highly ranked by US News & World Report than South Carolina’s #61 Clemson and #108 University of South Carolina. Not as drastic as the difference between Massachusetts and South Carolina but still significant.

15 Fortune 500 companies reside in Georgia including Home Depot, UPS, Coke, Delta Airlines, Sun Trust Bank, AFLAC, and others while South Carolina has #500 Scana. The State of Georgia performs significantly better in median household income at $49,745 compared to South Carolina which stands at $47,680. Georgia’s unemployment rate of 7.5% compares favorably with South Carolina’s 8.4%. 14.8% of Georgians live below the poverty line compared with 15.7% of South Carolinians. 

South Carolina has the highest number per capita of violent crimes and aggravated assault and a murder rate of 70.5 per 1 million citizens compared with Georgia’s 68.7 per 1 million.

Certainly the differences are far less dramatic than in the comparison between Massachusetts and South Carolina. However, the differences in economic policy between Massachusetts and South Carolina were similarly more dramatic. The fact remains that I did not change any of the categories and I used every statistic generally used to analyze the effectiveness of a government and yet South Carolina failed to out-perform Georgia in even a single category.

Let the debate over alternate causality begin.

Ethics Committee Seat A Hot Potato

Kagro X, over at the under-visited Congress Matters, details the mad dash among House Members to either: remove themselves from the House Ethics Committee, or not be tasked with filling a seat on the House Ethics committee.

It’s not exactly breaking news that Members hate to be asked to serve on the committee … Go too hard on a colleague’s conduct and you risk their anger and thus your effectiveness. Go too easy, and you risk the public’s trust and thus your job.

Add to that the fact that the committee will continue its investigation of House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Charlie Rangel when the 111th congress convenes. The (likely) new chair will be Massachusettes Rep. William Delahunt, the only Democrat on the 110th Congress’ Ethics Committee who can’t cite term limits as a reason for leaving.

If Delahunt is named chair, Pelosi must find other Democrats she can strong-arm into serving on the panel, which will continue to review any new allegations against Rangel, or the existing charges if the current committee does not finish its work and issue an initial report on its findings. Any choice Pelosi makes will be analyzed for any Rangel implications. If the member is African-American, that could be viewed as an attempt to help Rangel, even if Pelosi tries to sell it as a way to fill Tubbs Jones’ old post with another African American.

Russian Professor Predicts US Demise

Russian professor Igor Panarin predicts this is what the US will look like after falling apart in 2010. His prediction has been pushed forward by the Kremlin, and they’ve got him giving a couple interviews daily.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Vouchers, Public Universities

In response to the discussion on the post Re: Equality through Capitalist Mobility.

Local districts, at least in Connecticut, get about 40% of their budget from the state government, a comparable amount from local governments, and the minority remaining from the federal government. Suggesting that the state has little impact on the quality of each district is simply false. The state, if they wanted to, can most certainly redistribute the money in a way that gives more money to the poorer areas and less money to the affluent areas. This helps to make up for the income inequality throughout various parts of the state. There is no need to send all of the local tax money that would go towards education to the state government. If an area is more affluent and pays more into their local education system, they should (and currently do) reap the benefits. Fundamentally, I disagree with the school voucher system for the k-12 public education system, and on the University level I think it is unwarranted.

State-funded colleges and universities already come at a high discount to the residents of that state. UConn, arguably the best public university in Connecticut, has a tuition of about $19,000 for in-state students, and $35,000 for out-of-state students. Bob Bowen is suggesting that we need to eliminate or heavily subsidize the costs for the in-state students attending. Already, students are getting a 45% discount from the “full” tuition, and if you compare the prices of UConn versus, say, the private Quinnipiac University which costs $42,700 per year, going to UConn looks like a good option (a 55% discount) . Quinnipiac is a good private school – good enough for those students who are smart enough to go to college, but can’t make it into the top tier to get the necessary financial aid. Both schools are in Connecticut, and both are solid schools.

Would a school voucher really change any of the dynamics? If the student isn’t smart enough to gain admission to a school which meets 100% of the demonstrated need, would a $12,000 voucher really make a difference? Tuition for Connecticut residents is $7,200 at UConn, a price that is manageable for all students – even disadvantaged ones. A $12,000 voucher would be refunding more money than the actual tuition. Students can work with the financial aid office to do a combination of work-study programs or apply for scholarship and grant money to help pay for the $7,200. Students can also work in the summer, too, or (gasp) take a loan. I have no problem creating incentives or a plan to lower the cost of in-state tuition, but I don’t think vouchers are necessarily the solution. If a student wants to go to the private Quinnipiac, taxpayer money should not be going to directly pay for the (more expensive) tuition of a student there because the student could get a comparable (and arguably better) education at UConn for a cheaper price.

So, in a nut shell, I think both vouchers and heavy subsidies from state taxpayers are not the immenent answer. School’s need to become more competitive in their own right, which seems to be happening in the case of UConn, which will attract more students of higher caliber and more money, and will in turn lower tuition rates.

Massachusetts vs. Delaware

Comparing the demographics of states only tells a small part of the story when it comes to whether economic conservatism or economic liberalism is a more effective philosophy. After all, the federal government controls the vast majority of economics in America, making performance levels between states only somewhat dependent on their own economic policies.

History is also a major factor when it comes to success rates. Up until 40 years ago, that’s one generation, the 29% of South Carolinians who are black had virtually no economic opportunity whatsoever. Add that to an economy inclined towards agriculture due to natural resources and it is no great surprise that Massachusetts, a major seaport with a wealth of industry built at the same time that South Carolina was being burnt to the ground by the Feds, outperforms Dixie.

Delaware, a state with a similar historical background and resource pool (albeit smaller) as Massachusetts provides a far better comparison. Delaware has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country, there is no sales tax, and the personal income tax ranges from 2.2% to 5.95%. There is no statewide property tax.

Massachusetts, by comparison, has a 5.3% personal income tax, a 5% sales tax, and a 12% tax on the sale of capital.

Delaware has a $119 million surplus in its budget. Massachusetts has a $1.2 billion deficit. The average Delawarean makes $34,199 every year compared to $42,102 every year for the average resident of Massachusetts. It costs between $800 and $12,000 more to live in Massachusetts every year for the average person. An astonishing 50% of publicly traded companies and 60% of Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Delaware. Delaware spends over 10% less per public school pupil than Massachusetts, but has only a 2% lower graduation rate from high school. Massachusetts has more high-powered colleges, mine included, but the University of Delaware, servicing far fewer in-state students, has been rated 71st best school in America by US News and 20th best public college value by Kiplinger’s.

Massachusetts does appear to do better in crime rates, but the entire state of Delaware is essentially a metropolitan area. No surprise there.

Comparing Massachusetts to South Carolina is one thing, but comparing conservative and liberal economic policy yields dramatically different results.

Massachusetts v. South Carolina

Which style of governance is more effective? Economic liberalism or economic conservatism? The only way to objectively say is to compare cases studies in each form over a period of not just decades but over a century. Massachusetts is one of the most consistently liberal (not necessarily Democratic) states in the Union. After all, even the Republicans there are liberal: a Republican Governor instituted statewide universal health-care. Similarly there are few states more consistently conservative (not necessarily Republican) than South Carolina. It is a fair comparison because both states have been members of the Union for within months of the same amount of time and they have been of similar population for much of their history.

One of the key measurements of the effectiveness of government in a state is the quality of its education system because that determines whether or not that state will be a leader two or three decades down the road. The high-school drop-out rate in South Carolina is 53.8% compared to Massachusetts’ 11.7%. Massachusetts is home to #1 Harvard University, #4 MIT, #28 Tufts, #31 Brandeis, and #34 Boston College, all higher than South Carolina’s #61 Clemson and #108 University of South Carolina (all according to US News & World Report). So, Massachusetts is a mecca of education and South Carolina, well… isn’t. But there are other things that matter.

Like economic opportunity. 14 of the Fortune 500 call Massachusetts their home compared with exactly 1 headquartered in South Carolina (Scana…yeah, I’ve heard of them btw. they’re #500). The Median household income in Massachusetts is $62,365 to South Carolina’s $43,329. Their low economic production is similarly reflected by their 8.4% unemployment which is considerably higher than Massachusetts’ 5.9%. A stunning 15.7% of South Carolinians live below the poverty line while 9.2% live below it in Massachusetts which is comparably low. Massachusetts’ poor are also protected by a much larger social safety net. Which clearly, by the way, has not slowed down the Massachusetts economy. 

But conservatives will keep us safe! Not really. South Carolina is #1 in the nation in violent crimes and aggravated assaults per capita and #7 in Murders per capita at .705 per 1 million citizens. Massachusetts is #45 in the nation with a murder rate so low that it was declared statistically insignificant. 

QED.

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Congress should remove liability-shield

In 1998 Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, now the Governor of Pennsylvania, attempted to sue the firearms industry. By 2005, 20 cities had filed suit. The Republican congress then stepped in to end the lawsuits, passing an unprecedented liability-shield to protect gun-makers from lawsuits by individuals or cities for either repayment of actual damages or punitive damages. 

There are several reasons why suing gun-makers makes sense. Every company is responsible for how their products are used when the intent of the product is to cause damage. Yet, when it comes to gun manufacturers, the standard is different. I’m not talking about hunting rifles. The clear purpose of a hunting rifle or shotgun sold to the general public is for hunting. No one is disputing that and clearly a gun manufacturer should not be held to account for any misdeeds carried out with such weapons. However, when gun companies produce assault rifles with flash suppressors and silencers, the purpose of the weapon is clear. You would not go hunting with a military rifle. Uzzies aren’t good for killing squirrel and AR-15s aren’t good for bird-hunting. The only reason to fire one of these guns is to kill another person. When a company callously produces and profits from a product whose only possible application is to kill another person, cities and individuals should have the right to hold them legally accountable. In this scenario, they are enabling murderers; they are accomplices.

Families have a legal right to demand punitive damages and cities have the right to demand repayment for the excess medical bills and costs of law enforcement foisted on the taxpayer by gun-makers’ irresponsible proliferation of military-grade weapons.

How Iceland Collapsed

A fascinating post-mortem look at Iceland’s economy.

Khalid Aziz, chairman of the hospice trust, says he didn’t think twice back in 2005 when Icelanders bought the local bank. “With the globalization of markets,” he says, “everybody owns everything these days, don’t they?”

I'll Admit, Conservatives Love America More

Joel Stein, Los Angeles Times:

I don’t love America. That’s what conservatives are always telling liberals like me. Their love, they insist, is truer, deeper and more complete. Then liberals, like all people who are accused of not loving something, stammer, get defensive and try to have sex with America even though America will then accuse us of wanting it for its body and not its soul. When America gets like that, there’s no winning.

But I’ve come to believe conservatives are right. They do love America more. Sure, we liberals claim that our love is deeper because we seek to improve the United States by pointing out its flaws. But calling your wife fat isn’t love. True love is the blind belief that your child is the smartest, cutest, most charming person in the world, one you would gladly die for. I’m more in “like” with my country.

I still think conservatives love America for the same tribalistic reasons people love whatever groups they belong to. These are the people who are sure Christianity is the only right religion, that America is the best country, that the Republicans have the only good candidates, that gays have cooties.

I wish I felt such certainty. Sure, it makes life less interesting and nuanced, and absolute conviction can lead to dangerous extremism, but I suspect it makes people happier. I’ll never experience the joy of Hannity-level patriotism. I’m the type who always wonders if some other idea or place or system is better and I’m missing out. And, as I figured out shortly after meeting my wife, that is no way to love.

Chip Saltsman's RNC Chair Campaign Gets Off To A Great Start

Chip Saltsman kicks off his campaign for RNC chair smoothly:

RNC candidate Chip Saltsman’s Christmas greeting to committee members includes a music CD with lyrics from a song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” first played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular radio show.

Liberals everywhere should be praying that this idiot gets the RNC chairmanship. Chip has clearly shown he can’t deftly handle being chairman of the party opposite Barack Obama. American’s like Barack Obama – a lot – and being a bigot won’t help Chip’s party win votes they don’t already have. Chip has loads of political experience too – you know, working for the third place Republican candidate who thinks the world is six thousand years old. That’s the kind of innovative thinking that’s going to bring the Republican Party back from the political graveyard.

But to be fair, let’s post Chip’s defense:

Saltsman said he meant nothing untoward by forwarding what amounts to a joke more at Ehrenstein’s expense than at Obama’s.

“Paul Shanklin is a long-time friend, and I think that RNC members have the good humor and good sense to recognize that his songs for the Rush Limbaugh show are light-hearted political parodies,” Saltsman said.

Because “Barack the Magic Negro” sounds rather “lighthearted”? Let’s continue to ponder why the GOP’s share of the black vote is almost non-existent.

Chip does deserve some credit. At least he’s managed not to insult Hispanic voters, who are only going to continue to grow as a critical swing voting block – a block the Republican Party still has a chance in hell at winning over.

The CD, called “We Hate the USA,” lampoons liberals with such songs as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Oh, shit.

The War On Terror's Little Blue Pill

The Washington Post:

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.

Seems like the surge is working.

RE: Generous Christians are Poor (EXCELLENT) Christians

When the government started providing everything from housing to pensions to health care to higher education and “Christians” stopped going to church is when charity started to die. When Washington says it will take care of everything and signs checks for $700 billion and taxes a third of your income is when people fail to step up. Start asking people to take responsibility for themselves, their families, and one another and perhaps things will start moving closer to home.

Generous Christians Are Poor Christians

As the Pope warns in his annual Christmas message that the world is headed toward ruin if selfishness prevails over solidarity during hard economic times…

Christianity Today Reports:

But this may actually be the best time for an emerging study that delivers the bad news. Over the next few months or years, as our economy travels down a long road of recovery, our neighbors may need much more assistance than we’ve grown accustomed to providing. And like skyrocketing home prices, the lack of generosity among American Christians is a trend that cannot continue without doing serious harm.

The median annual giving for an American Christian is actually $200, just over half a percent of after-tax income. About 5 percent of American Christians provide 60 percent of the money churches and religious groups use to operate. (It’s these people who skew the average.) “A small group of truly generous Christian givers,” say Passing the Plate’s authors, “are essentially ‘covering’ for the vast majority of Christians who give nothing or quite little.” In addition, America’s biggest givers—as a percentage of their income—are its lowest income earners.

In fact, in absolute terms, the poorest Christians give away more dollars than all but the wealthiest Christians. We see the pattern in recent history as well: When Americans earned less money following the Great Depression, they gave more. When income went up, they began to give less of it away.

Re: Equality through Capitalist Mobility

This country is not as socially mobile as we like to believe. In a study released by the Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics in 2003, the argument of social mobility was delt a serious blow.

If your parents are in the top quartile of earnings but your scores on standardized tests are in the bottom quartile you have a 30% chance of finishing a 4 year college which is higher than if your score was in the top quartile buy your parents’ earnings were in the bottom quartile (29%).

The logical conclusion from that is that, when considering who will graduate from college, you parents’ wealth is more important than your intelligence. This is disturbing. There are a lot of problems wrapped up in this but one of the largest ones is the method through which schools are financed. Schools are financed by local government and thus poor areas will deliver under-performing schools and rich areas will develop good schools. If all local tax revenue allocated for education spending was routed through the State who could determine which schools needed which amount of money, our inner-city and rural children would begin to receve an even shot.

However, the study was done based upon test performance. These are kids who, despite being sent to under-performing schools, rose above and achieved in the top quartile of all American students! These are extraordinary students. And yet, they have trouble affording college. In response to this we need to consider two actions. First, we should make attendance at state universities tax deductable (no tax deductions for $40,000 a year + schools). And second, we need to work to move the base cost of state universities down through subsidies because they have moved away from the idea of post-secondary education that was affordable to all Americans, no matter who their parents are.

My Person Of The Month

Tim DeChristopher, 27, University of Utah Economics Student

Salt Lake Tribune:

He didn’t pour sugar into a bulldozer’s gas tank. He didn’t spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder’s paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won’t be opened to drilling anytime soon.

DeChristopher On Democracy Now!:

I started off, actually, at a final exam at the university and went straight from there down to the BLM office. And I saw some protesters walking back and forth outside, and I knew that I wanted to do more than that and that this kind of injustice demanded a higher level of disruption. And so, I just decided that I wanted to go inside and cause a bigger disruption.

And from there, I found it really easy to get inside and become a bidder, and went inside and was in the auction room. And once I was in there, I realized that any kind of speech or disruption or something like that wasn’t going to be very effective, but I saw pretty quickly that I could have a pretty major impact on the way this worked. And it just took me a little bit of time to build up the courage to do that, knowing what the consequences would be. And so, I started bidding and started driving up the prices for some of the oil companies. And throughout that time, I knew that I could be doing more and could really set aside some acres to really be protected. And so, then I started winning bids and disrupting it as clearly as I could.

The back-story on the land sale:

Well, basically, the Bush administration was trying to rush through this auction as quickly as possible to get it done before Obama took office, because they knew that it wouldn’t be acceptable under any other administration other than Bush and Cheney. And so, they just circled vast swaths of southern Utah. Their initial announcement, they included pieces of property that had houses on them in Moab and included property that they didn’t even have rights to drill in or they didn’t have rights to sell off and included a lot of areas around national parks. And so, they rushed through the process and didn’t have time to do adequate environmental impact statements, didn’t have time to take an adequate amount of public comment or even input from other federal agencies. And there was a big battle with the National Park Service, because they were upset over a lot of areas that were included in there. But luckily, they also didn’t have time to make sure that all the bidders were bonded, which is how I got in so easily.

An act of civil disobedience that is to be applauded.

The Bush Administration however, hasn’t stopped with selling off national park land to oil compaines. The head of the EPA, Stephen Johnson, recently wrote a memo declaring “that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant to be regulated when approving power plants.” Sen. Boxer (D-CA) has (correctly) called the memo “blatantly illegal” in a letter to AG Mukasey.

Is anything sacred?

Equality through Capitalist Mobility

Contrary to popular media headlines, the average American is now making approximately 20% more than his father. Much of the change has been in non-monetary compensation, meaning that workers are now getting more health care, 401 (k)s, vacation days, and optional training than ever before. That, coupled with more productivity, means the average American can buy things today that were impossible even two decades ago: personal computers and music players, four phone lines, flat screen TVs, central air, imported cars, digital cameras, video cameras…

That growth has not been limited to the rich. Now, even most poor households have TVs, computers, cell phones, freezers, climate control, and other amenities that were limited to at least the middle class a few decades ago.

America is more unequal in terms of short-run wealth, maybe, but what about social mobility, another crucial factor in equality (in the long run)? France’s presidents have been culled from elites at the top civic universities for years, and business leaders in the UK are often descended from old lines of prestige (Sir Richard Branson, anyone?). Meanwhile, in the US, Warren Buffett has lived in the same modest house that he first bought fifty years ago when it was all he could afford and the president-elect grew up in a broken urban household.

Our willingness to have less short-term equality by lowering tax rates and reducing regulations in fact makes the field more open for nouveaux riche to get a foothold. Fewer tariffs, subsidies, corporate taxes, labor regulations, and nationalized industries means less of a skewed field towards established corporations and more room for the kind of innovation and creativity that means the powerful stay on their toes and the young guns just might have a shot at glory.

The exception to this rule, of course, is government action. America has joined Britain in subsidizing its banks, meaning fresh lenders with new business strategies will be unlikely to take the place of disastrously bad management. America has joined France in subsidizing its automakers, meaning new companies and even foreign-owned companies better set to meet the market’s demands are shoved back.

The kind of inequality that we need to worry about more than any other is the kind that puts trenches in the playing field of the market and that combines the power of politicians and corporate elites. It is the abandoning of the free market for corporatism. It is the rise of those too big to fail backed up by those to important to lose.

It is, in a phrase, government intervention.

Merry Christmas

From all of the Filibuster crew, we wish each of you a Merry Christmas!

Regular blogging continues Friday, and we’re [as always] live this Sunday.

Politics & Poetry: Caroline Edition

Hell,

I’d be fine with Caroline

Fillin’ Hillary’s

Soon to be

Secretary of State seat

But whatever Obama wills

He’d better do it toot sweet

- Klytus, Salon.Com

Obama Holiday Address

Forgiving George

Because, really, it’s time we start to move on.

U.S. Is Outlier in Gini Index

The Gini index is one of the most common measurements of income inequality. It measures income inequality on a scale of 0 (everyone has the exact same amount of money) to 1 (one person has all of the nation’s wealth) using the Lorenz curve. There is an interesting trend that has been shown for decades in the Gini index. Industrialized nations (France: .327, Denmark: .247, United Kingdom: .36) have low values while non-Industrialized states (Bolivia: .601, Mexico: .461, Turkey: .436) have very high amounts of inequality. The theory being that with increases in GDP, the wealth makes its way around to the general population.

This seems fairly consistent across every nation with one, obvious exception. The United States (.408) is comparable to China (.469) in income inequality.

Some of the difference is in income tax levels. However, much of the difference is accounted for by two factors. First, many European countries tax capital gains at the same rate as normal income. The United States does not. The US tax rate for regular income (in the top bracket) is 35% while capital gains are taxed at only 15%. The wealthiest 1% make large portions of their income in stock options and other investments taxed under the considerably lower rate. 

Second, other countries have a much higher rates of unionization than the United States. For example, in 1960, when the US had much lower income inequality, 30% of American workers were union members compared with 32% of Canadians. Today, American union membership is down to 13% while Canada’s has remained constant. 

All statistics are from the CIA or US Census Bureau.

RE: Pardon Me, Mr. President

We need to keep the power of the pardon as it is currently prescribed in the U.S. Constitution. With President Bush approaching the 200 person mark, the issue of pardoning has been raised once again. Yes, the power for the President to pardon can be abused. Yes, there has been some skeptisim regarding the use of this power. Of course there would be, too. When one man overrules the federal sentence of a convicted criminal, it raises some eyebrows (Scooter Libby, anyone?). The fact is that the pardon should stay as reads. Burack’s proposal to limit this power is simply preposterous and completely undermines the intention of the pardon in the first place.

The power to pardon is most powerful as a healing tool. It was used to heal a divided nation after the civil war -  confederates were pardoned by then President Johnson as a means to move forward. Ford’s pardon of Nixon to move the country beyond Watergate and George Washington’s pardon of those involved in the Whiskey Rebellion were all times where the pardon was utilized strategically and proved to be neccessary. At critical points in history, the pardon helped to rebuild and heal a nation. Sometimes, the President must exert his authority to lead the country in a new direction and if that means commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence, so be it.

The pardon also serves as a check to the judicial system. Sometimes there are significant individuals who the President believes have made radical changes in their behavior (for the better) and are worthy of acknowledging and highlighting this success; sometimes the President may utilize his power to pardon if there are injustices within the federal judicial system. In reality, the power to pardon is one that it utilized with utmost responsibility – very few people actually make it to the point where they are pardoned, and usually those who are are worthy of it. Pardons can often be against the will of the general public – did anyone really think Richard Nixon should have been pardoned coming off the heels of Watergate? Most people didn’t, and some argue that Ford’s move cost him the following election. That is exactly why most pardons are traditionally at the end of a President’s term – because they can often be unpopular. But then again, what’s popular isn’t always right. We must also keep in mind that if a President makes a controversial or pardon that was of dubious merit they risk their legacy and their integrity, which in it of itself is a deterrent for corrupt decisions.

We need to preserve the power to pardon and embrace a tool that has recieved undue critisim.

Evolution In The Muslim World

Salman Hameed in Science via Sullivan:

…although the last couple of decades have seen an increasing confrontation over the teaching of evolution in the United States, the next major battle over evolution is likely to take place in the Muslim world (i.e., predominantly Islamic countries, as well as in countries where there are large Muslim populations). Relatively poor education standards, in combination with frequent misinformation about evolutionary ideas, make the Muslim world a fertile ground for rejection of the theory. In addition, there already exists a growing and highly influential Islamic creationist movement (1). Biological evolution is still a relatively new concept for a majority of Muslims, and a serious debate over its religious compatibility has not yet taken place. It is likely that public opinion on this issue will be shaped in the next decade or so because of rising education levels in the Muslim world and the increasing importance of biological sciences.

That makes the momentary front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2012, if you’re to believe the CNN poll, right in line with the Muslim world. That’d be Huckabee, by the way. Palin, another evolution-denier, is the runner up.

Pardon Me, Mr. President

Earlier today, President Bush pardoned nineteen individuals and commuted one sentence. Reed Raymond Prior was convicted for the possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute – Charles Winter for violating the Neutrality Act by helping the Jewish resistance in the Middle East in the 1940’s. The individuals with sentences either pardoned or commuted have committed a wide range acts. Since in office, George W. Bush has pardoned 191 people, and has commuted nine sentences (Scooter Libby’s among them). This may sound like an awful lot, but it’s really not – at least compared to our two prior presidents. Reagan granted clemency 409 times,  Clinton 459.

Shouldn’t we trust the judgment of each President to only pardon in deserving cases?

You might think so – but not even expected public outrage stopped President Clinton from pardoning Mark Rich – the corrupt financier whose ex-wife had donated to President Clinton’s library. Clinton didn’t have to worry about either public or political pressure, because the pardon was signed on his last day in office. Presidents have the power to pardon anyone they want  – which can include siblings (Rodger, anyone?) and political allies. While the Justice Department reviews all pardon applications, their recommendations are non-binding.

All of this leads us to the larger question: should a President be able to pardon anyone – for any reason?

Should Ford have showed mercy on Nixon – should he have ’spared’ the country?

Should Clinton have been able to pardon his brother and a laundry list of individuals on his last day of office?

My answer is conflicted – maybe yours isn’t. However, I propose the following:

1. A President loose the ability to pardon/commute exactly two months before his/her presidency ends. This would ensure there would be some pressure against pardoning undeserving individuals, but would not conflict with the election of the next President.

2. A President only have the ability to pardon/commute individuals who are approved by the Justice Department.

3. A President not have the ability to pardon/commute family members.

4. A President will hand out “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards to those pardoned/commuted. Just for kicks.

Pies & Rick Davis

This Monday we’ll be talking with former McCain campaign manager Rick Davis for our December 18th show, and we want you to get involved by submitting a question for Rick.
Send your questions to: askrick@weeklyfilibuster.com
Ask about anything you’d like.
Just be sure to include your first name and home state.

Also,

Gene Amondson has extended an offer for christian Weekly Filibuster listeners. Christians should write to him here for a free copy of his excellent pie book, “Gene Amondson’s Mt. Rainier Pies Cookbook”.

Also, be sure to check out Gene’s website.

Miss Sunday's Show?

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

We talked about the notorious Illinois Governor, talked with the RNC’s eCampaign Director, and caught up with the Prohibition Party’s 2008 Presidential Candidate.

The Brick Testament

Behold! The entire Bible … in legos.

On Our Watch

“Today there are more slaves than at any time in human history.” – E. Benjamin Skinner, Foreign Policy Magazine

Skinner’s piece in Foreign Policy was more shocking than it should be. It makes sense. There are more people alive than ever before, more globalization, more inequality than ever before.

But how? Is it that these things aren’t brought to our attention more often (the media devotes the time to frivolous stories), or is it that we just don’t care? Out of sight, out of mind.

“Slavery exists today on an unprecedented scale. In Africa, tens of thousands are chattel slaves, seized in war or tucked away for generations. Across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, traffickers have forced as many as 2 million into prostitution or labor. In South Asia, which has the highest concentration of slaves on the planet, nearly 10 million languish in bondage, unable to leave their captors until they pay off “debts,” legal fictions that in many cases are generations old.”

“For four years, I saw dozens of people enslaved, several of whom traffickers like Benavil actually offered to sell to me. I did not pay for a human life anywhere. And, with one exception, I always withheld action to save any one person, in the hope that my research would later help to save many more. At times, that still feels like an excuse for cowardice. But the hard work of real emancipation can’t be the burden of a select few. For thousands of slaves, grassroots groups … can help bring freedom. But, until governments define slavery in appropriately concise terms, prosecute the crime aggressively in all its forms, and encourage groups that empower slaves to free themselves, millions more will remain in bondage. And our collective promise of abolition will continue to mean nothing at all.”

New York Should Hold-off on New Sales Taxes

New York Governor Paterson has called for 137 new Sales Taxes on items from digital music downloads, to new cigarette and cigar taxes, to cab fees, alcoholic beverages, and satellite TV. At a time when consumer confidence is approaching new lows, now would be a terrible time to raise taxes on consumption. The government needs to be encouraging shopping because decreased sales revenues are forcing companies to cut jobs which forces consumption down further in a cyclical nature.

For example, low sales figures have forced Chrysler to announce a 1 month long halt in production in all of its plants. Similarly, Verizon has announce layoffs and benefit cuts in response to suffering sales figure. These new taxes will put additional pressure on Working and Middle Class Americans whose budgets are already crunched. New York currently has an exemption on sales taxes for clothing under $110 in value. The problem with these Sales Tax proposals is that they target items that are necessities as well as basic leisures. If these Sales Tax proposals go through, families on the edge will have a harder time maintaining their standard of living.

Paterson further plans to close 10 government facilities including 6 family and child care facilities, cut school aid by half a billion, and slice health-care by $3.5 billion. These programs are necessary for Working Class families across the state. When the state cuts child care facilities, it makes it more difficult for both parents to work.

However, New York law forces the Governor to propose a balenced budget which currently has a $15.4 billion dollar gap. Much of this is caused by Unfunded Mandates from the Federal Government. One of the first things to go as the Federal Budget gets tightened is funding for cooperative programs between the Federal and State Governments. New York income and business taxes have also brought in substantially lower yields this year than years past. The problem is difficult but the answer is not to squeeze those with the least to give.

A Right to a Militia?

The 2nd Amendment doesn’t say what we think it says. This might sound crazy but take a look at what the 2nd Amendment says:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

That’s the whole 2nd Amendment. That one sentence. Which is why it’s perplexing to me that a majority of the US Supreme Court has decided to completely ignore half of it. It’s not that complicated. The whole preface to the statement is that well regulated militias are necessary. The 2nd Amendment gives States the right to form Well-Regulated Militias and members of such Militias have the right to bear arms. The states had such militias through the Civil War at which point there was a transition to National Guard and Reserve Units which replaced the need for State Militias.

The Filibuster Fray

Hey Filibuster Fanatics,

We meant to let you all know–no new show last night.  We’re all overwhelmed by the end of the semester, but we have a pretty spectacular set of guests coming up in the next few weeks.

See you next Sunday at 10PM EST!

My Human Rights

In this week when the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I came across Dignitas Personae, a recent proclamation of the Catholic Church on questions of sexual, bioethical, and scientific ethics. In a day when abortion kills 9 of 10 Downs Syndrome babies and IVF is used to weed out people with disabilities long before they are born, it’s good to see someone still standing up and saying loudly and unapologetically that disability is “part of the human condition” and that those of us with disabilities are entitled to the same right to be born and live as anyone else:

“Preimplantation diagnosis is therefore the expression of a eugenic mentality that ‘accepts selective abortion in order to prevent the birth of children affected by various types of anomalies. Such an attitude is shameful and utterly reprehensible, since it presumes to measure the value of a human life only within the parameters of ‘normality’ and physical well-being, thus opening the way to legitimizing infanticide and euthanasia as well’.

By treating the human embryo as mere ‘laboratory material’, the concept itself of human dignity is also subjected to alteration and discrimination. Dignity belongs equally to every single human being, irrespective of his parents’ desires, his social condition, educational formation or level of physical development. If at other times in history, while the concept and requirements of human dignity were accepted in general, discrimination was practiced on the basis of race, religion or social condition, today there is a no less serious and unjust form of discrimination which leads to the non-recognition of the ethical and legal status of human beings suffering from serious diseases or disabilities. It is forgotten that sick and disabled people are not some separate category of humanity; in fact, sickness and disability are part of the human condition and affect every individual, even when there is no direct experience of it. Such discrimination is immoral and must therefore be considered legally unacceptable, just as there is a duty to eliminate cultural, economic and social barriers which undermine the full recognition and protection of disabled or ill people.”

Off-shore Drilling

The issue of off-shore drilling was propelled to the national stage when U.S. Presidential Candidate John McCain issued his bold statement “drill here, drill now” at rallies across the country. We find ourselves in a situation in which we are addicted to oil. China’s rapid industrialization and reckless speculation on the Commodities Futures Exchange have pushed up demand for oil to a recent peak. Although alleviated by the collapse in the stock market, higher demand will likely soon return. In this situation, increasing supply relative to demand is roughly the equivalent of attempting to wean an alcoholic off alcohol by making it cheaper.

Offshore drilling poses a massive threat to our environment and biological diversity. For starters, off-shore oil rigs have significant risk of oil spills. One spill in Campeche, Mexico poured 140 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil decimated populations of fish, corral, and other marine life. Proponents claim that the scenario of an oil spill is a worst-case scenario meant to scare people away from an idea that is essentially good. However, in 2001, the worlds biggest oil rig sunk off the coast of Brazil. Yes, it collapsed, and sunk. The practice is also virtually impossible to regulate effectively. For instance, in 1992 alone, Chevron pleaded guilty to 65 violations of the Clean Water Act and paid the Federal Government $8 million dollars in fines. Not that that undid the damage. Their lack of internal safety standards is also disturbing. For example, in 1997, federal inspectors found that Chevron had failed to fix a broken anti-blowout valve in their rig off the coast of Ventura. But, no big deal, the valve only ensures that pressure does not exceed the valve’s maximum capacity and cause an uncontrollable oil spill.

Even without an oil spill, over its lifetime an oil rig can dump as much as 90,000 tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the water surrounding it. It will also drill as many as 100 wells each of which pours nearly 25,000 pounds of toxic metals like lead and mercury as well as carcinogens like benzene into the water. Their contribution to air pollution exceeds that of 7,000 cars driving 50 miles a day. In Louisiana, where some offshore drilling already occurs, on average, 62 square miles of costal wetlands are lost each year. This is a major problem because costal wetlands reduce the effect of storm surges like the ones that breeched the levees of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina.

But what are the benefits? While our nation consumes 25% of the world’s produced oil, America has only 3% of the world’s proven oil reserves. That three percent includes all of the on-land sites. If we were to allow offshore drilling, most industry experts have concluded that it would take a decade for oil companies to get the proper permits, produce the equipment, and conduct the planning necessary for new oil rigs. The necessary equipment is not mass produced leading to long construction periods, installation is complex and the sediment under which oil is located often requires more advanced engineering. In short, we can’t drill our way to energy independence.

However, let us assume for a moment that the Republicans are correct in saying that off-shore drilling will be effective. That result would be far worse because in addition to a slew of ecological problems, free-market forces would prevent the development of alternative energy. The lowered price of crude oil would make would make alternative energy, even with current federal subsidies, unattractively expensive. Investors would understand this and be hesitant to invest in green technology as it would be unlikely to make any money. Thus, research and development of alternative energy would be severely impaired.

Off-shore drilling is a politician’s pander to Americans crying out for relief from high gas prices. Most people don’t know the difference and it helps some people get elected, but it’s a bad policy.

Calif. residents trade books for groceries

LOS ANGELES – A program to exchange books for gifts has brought in a record number of publications this year as residents hit hard by the economy look under the bed and in closets to find items to trade for groceries.

The annual Gifts for Books program wound down Sunday in Compton, a working class city south of Los Angeles that has long struggled with subversion and public obscenity. In a program similar to ones in New York and San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department allows residents to anonymously relinquish paperbacks in return for $10 gift cards for Ralphs supermarkets, Target department stores or Best Buy electronics stores.

Turning in hardcovers yields double that amount.

In years past, Target and Best Buy were the cards of choice, with residents wanting presents for the holidays.

This year, most asked for the supermarket cards, said sheriff’s Sgt. Byron Woods.

“People just don’t have the money to buy the food these days,” he said.

Deputies expected to collect about 1,000 books this year. Authorities said 590 paperbacks and two encyclopedias were handed in during the last weekend in November, more than the total collected in any year and eclipsing last year’s 387 books.

Woods said most of the residents who turned in books were “family people.”

“One guy said he had just got laid off from his job,” Woods said. “He turned in five books and said it would really help him to put food on the family’s table.”

Book owners dropped their literature off at a local grocery store parking lot. Deputies checked the books to see if they contained onbjectionable materials, then destroyed them.

The annual drive started in 2005 after a spike in radicalism, though the political temperature had since dropped.

One man brought in a Soviet-era political manifesto.

“If that got into the wrong hands of subversives, they could destabilize the entire area,” Woods said. “Our biggest fear is an archive getting burglarized and these books getting taken.”

The drive also has yielded original printings.

Gift cards for the books exchange were paid mostly by Los Angeles County, but the three companies involved and the city of Compton, which contracts the county for police protection, also donated funds.

*************************************************************************

1) Scared yet?
2) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28099745/ has a real story of the government purchasing freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court, albeit a slightly more right-wing freedom than book ownership.
3) The media, so valiantly jealous of its own constitutional protections, cheerfully reports about workers feeding their families literally by selling their 2nd Amendment rights without any passing glance at the law. This is not the Huffington Post or DailyKos. It is MSNBC.
4) Freedom dies with bread and peace.

Last Night's Show

The recording from BlogTalk seems to be unavailable. We’ll update you when the problem is solved.

Should it be Legal to Shoot This?

Since this is only 20 weeks old, it is has been entirely legal to destroy it for any reason in the United States for over 30 years now. Indeed, approximately 2 million of these are killed in this country every year, 93% of them for socio-economic reasons such as financial problems and a woman feeling too young to have a child.

A few questions to provoke some debate; answer whatever you want:

1) What exactly is this?
2) When does/did this become a person and
3) What marks that change?
4) Should it be legal to shoot this (assuming it were not in someone’s body)? If so,
5) Under what circumstances?
6) Is this an independent being or a part of a woman’s body?
7) Would it be wrong to take this thing’s rights in order to secure the rights of another?