Would Ben Nelson Ever Switch Parties?

You've got to wonder about my Senator, Ben Nelson (D-NE).

His re-election looms in 2012, and he's started to tack even harder hard to the right than usual. He supported his party's top priority, health care reform, but only after he won major conservative and parochial concessions on abortion and Medicare. He watered down the stimulus. He's not likely to support one of the next major initiatives, clean energy reform. And now he will oppose one of the President's appointees to the National Labor Relations Board because Republicans and businesses think the man is too pro-labor, never mind that a Democrat won the White House with 53% of the popular vote.

Politico's Manu Raju:

Nelson, a conservative Democrat up for reelection in 2012, has seen his approval ratings drop sharply since he lent his support for Obama's health care bill in December and secured deals for Nebraska's Medicaid payments.

His latest decision could help him tout his independent credentials back home, but will likely generate anger from the left, which says Becker is a well-qualified nominee who has been denigrated by his opponents.

One has to wonder. If Nelson is willing to abandon his positions when the politics get perilous, might he be willing to abandon his party if the politics get even worse? If the economy doesn't improve by November 2010 and Republicans make big gains, will Nelson switch parties for his re-election run? I'm sure if we asked his office they would vigorously deny that the thought has ever crossed his mind, but that's what Arlen Specter was saying just hours before his 2009 switch, too.

Morning Joe's Greatest Guest Ever

The Big Man on MSNBC! YES!!!!

(For those who don't know, that would be Clarence Clemons, the saxaphone player for Bruce Sprinsgteen and the E Street Band. He is the shiz.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I *HAVE* to have this book!!!

NBC Nightly News on the Budget and Defense Waste

I just watched two NBC Nightly News segments, one with White House Correspondent Chuck Todd about President Obama's just released budget and the other with correspondent Lisa Myers about wasteful defense spending. Both segments bother me.

In the first, Todd discussed the new budget, and focused on the deficits. The budget does trouble me - since the Iraq war is winding down, the economy is improving, and there is no 2010 stimulus package, the deficit should be going DOWN, not UP. However, I have two questions about Todd's reporting. First, he said that the budget assumes health care reform will pass, and that if it does not, the deficit will actually be $0.1 trillion MORE. This is blatantly untrue - as the Washington Post reports, the budget the takes cost cutting measures necessary if reform does NOT pass. Second, Todd said that if they economy does not keep recovering at its current pace, deficits will be larger than projected. Why the negativity, Chucky T? Why not also point out that if the economy recovers faster, than deficits will be smaller? I like Chuck Todd, but he fell flat tonight.

The next segment was on the C-17, a great plane that the Pentagon loves but says it has enough of. And yet, Congress wants to force the Pentagon to buy 10 more at a cost of $2.5 billion. This is typical Defense pork - as John McCain pointed out in the segment, the subcontractors that build the planes have factories "in every state and in most districts." Others counter that canceling the planes would cost 30,000 jobs - the problem is, $2.5 billion divided by 30,000 is $83,333. Surely there are more efficient ways for the government to create or save 30k jobs - if saving jobs is our goal, how come we have to use the $2.5 billion for 30k of them rather than 50k or 60k? But while I agree with the tone of the NBC report on this wasteful Congressional spending and the President's opposition to it, I don't like the fact that the segment was named "The Fleecing of America." Since when it is the network news' job to take positions on public policy? Ask tough questions, yes; imply that certain opinions are the right answers to those questions, no.

I like Brian Williams and his crew, but tonight, not so much. Video will be available at NBC's website later tonight.

Corporations Aren't People

Loved this commentary from Justin Fox on public radio's Marketplace today:

The ideal corporation [conservative economist Milton] Friedman described is out to do nothing but make as much money as it can, "within the rules of the game." It is supposed to behave in a supremely selfish and single-minded fashion. An individual who acted like that would be considered really unpleasant, maybe even psychopathic. The Supreme Court's decision frees corporations to play a potentially decisive role in shaping the "rules of the game," rules that they have to obey. It's a little like putting inmates in control of the asylum...

Equating corporate rights with individual rights, as the Court did, just doesn't smell right. If corporations are individuals, they are individuals with some pretty serious mental and emotional problems. You'd think any self-respecting judge would want to declare them incompetent.

Get Some Balls

Another Great Campaign Finance Quote

This one from Dalia Lithwick at Slate:

You can plainly see the weariness in Stevens eyes and hear it in his voice today as he is forced to contend with a legal fiction that has come to life today, a sort of constitutional Frankenstein moment when corporate speech becomes even more compelling than the "voices of the real people" who will be drowned out. Even former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist once warned that treating corporate spending as the First Amendment equivalent of individual free speech is "to confuse metaphor with reality." Today that metaphor won a very real victory at the Supreme Court. And as a consequence some very real corporations are feeling very, very good.

Legal fiction that has come to life. A Constitutional Frankenstein. What great, and accurate, writing!

But as for me and mine, I'm going to stick my head back in the sand and listen to the Zac Brown Band's "Sic 'Em on a Chicken" for the fourth time in a row. It makes me happy.

Judicial Disaster

I generally don't care all that much for Senator Charles Schumer, but he nailed my thoughts about today's Supreme Court campaign finance decision with this quote:

"The bottom line is this: The Supreme Court has just pre-determined the winners of next November's elections. It won't be Republicans, it won't be Democrats, it will be corporate America."

Hey, Anthony Kennedy - why do you hate America?

Robertson And Limbaugh Are Not Good People

Rush Limbaugh has politicized the Haiti earthquake. Pat Robertson said it was punishment because Haiti made a deal with the devil. Keith-O smacks them down in awesome fashion: "Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. You serve no good. You serve no God. You inspire only stupidity and hatred and I would wish you to hell, but knowing how empty your souls must be for you to be able to say such things at a time of such pain, I suspect that the vacant, purposeless lives you both live now are hell enough already."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

On Race, History, Language, and "Negro Dialects"

My thoughts on the Harry Reid flap are at MyDD, but here's an addendum. Mark Kleiman of the Reality-Based Community said that the word "negro" was "the standard word for about the first half of Reid's life." And he's right. Unlike the real n-word, the African-American community itself (themselves?) used that word to refer to themselves for decades. It was in the early nineteenth century what "black" is now.

So Kleiman's comment got me thinking. Is it possible - no no, of course it's possible; is it likely - that in another fifty years, the words we use today will be at worst offensive, and at best historically anachronistic? Black. Brown. Race. Shirt. (Because in the late 1800s, "pants" was a swear word in England...)

The real n-word has always been a slur. Yes, at one point slurs were more common than they are today, but it's still nevertheless always been a slur. That's not the case with negro; negro was just the parlance of the day. So, what are the odds that the new parlance will go the same way? That in 2060, a prominent politician will get in trouble for calling someone "black"?

When Murder Is Legal

My blogging here has all but disappeared not because I've stopped blogging, but because I've more or less switched to the more-heavily-trafficked MyDD.com. More on that later. For now, however, I seem to have lost some posting abilities at MyDD as the result of a software switch. Here then is a post I wrote for MyDD that will just have to go here instead, at least until the mix-up is sorted out.

Horrifying news today: a judge has dismissed all charges related to 2007’s Blackwater (now Xe) murders in Baghdad. From the New York Times:

In a significant blow to the Justice Department, a federal judge on Thursday threw out the indictment of five former Blackwater security guards over a shooting in Baghdad in 2007 that left 17 Iraqis dead and about 20 wounded.

The judge cited misuse of statements made by the guards in his decision, which brought to a sudden halt one of the highest-profile prosecutions to arise from the Iraq war. The shooting at Nisour Square frayed relations between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration and put a spotlight on the United States’ growing reliance on private security contractors in war zones.

Investigators concluded that the guards had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault near the crowded traffic circle on Sept. 16, 2007.

I think the Times’ lede should have been “In a significant blow to justice,” not “the Justice Department.” Or perhaps “a significant blow to Iraq.” Such headlines would have been more accurate, putting the focus on the facts rather than the process.

I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to say about this, other than to make three quick observations. One, this reminds me of the Justice Department’s case against the corrupt former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) in that it shows the importance of getting an investigation right if serving justice is the goal. Two, this is the face of the United States to the rest of the world: A nation that will beat up on weaker states. A nation that can’t do its own dirty work, pretending that it’s rogue contractors and thus shifting the blame. A nation that refuses to hold itself accountable and puts potential legal loopholes ahead of justice. THIS is the example we set for the fledgling democracies we claim to have created? This is how we teach republican principles?

Most importantly, three, Blackwater is quite literally getting away murder. Or as the rest of the world will see it, especially in Baghdad, America is letting Blackwater get away with murder. And to the rest of the world, that’s you, and that’s me.

Indeed, a second New York Times story documents Iraqi outrage:

Many Iraqis also viewed the prosecution of the guards as a test case of American democratic principles, which have not been wholeheartedly embraced, and in particular of the fairness of the American judicial system…

“What are we — not human?” asked Abdul Wahab Adul Khader, 34, a bank employee who was shot in the hand while driving his car through the traffic circle. “Why do they have the right to kill people? Is our blood so cheap? For America, the land of justice and law, what does it mean to let criminals go? They were chasing me and shooting at me. They were determined to kill me.”

Sami Hawas, 45, a taxi driver, was shot in the back during the episode and is paralyzed. “I can’t even think of words to say,” Mr. Hawas said after being told about the court ruling. “We have been waiting for so long. I still have bullets in my back. I cannot even sit like an ordinary human being.”

Ali Khalaf, a traffic police officer who was on duty in Nisour Square at the time and aided some of the victims, was furious. “There has been a cover-up since the very start,” he said. “What can we say? They killed people. They probably gave a bribe to get released. This is their own American court system.”

Hey Iraq – happy New Year.

Timothy Horrigan and Carol McGuire Want to Make Adultery Legal

Celebrity affairs and sex scandals are in the news all the time - see Tiger Woods - but rarely do we hear about the mundane neighborhood stuff. Even less often do we hear about the legality of it all. And yet, the subject has popped up twice in the past week alone.

CNN has the story, "Beware cheaters: Your lover's spouse can sue you." Seven states - Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota and Utah - have what are known as "alienation of affection" laws, and North Carolina juries have handed out several million-dollar judgments.

And moving from civil to criminal suits, it turns out adultery is still flat-out illegal in New Hampshire, and is subject to a $1,200 fine. The AP reports that two state House members, Timothy Horrigan of Durham and Carol McGuire of Epson, want to repeal that law. Horrigan makes a good point: "We shouldn't be regulating people's sex lives and their love lives. This is one area the state government should stay out of people's bedrooms." That convinces me the law shouldn't have been put on the books in the first place. Nevertheless, while it's one thing to not make adultery illegal in the first place, who seriously wants to be able to say, "I'm the guy who made cheating legal"?

This reminds me of something I heard once that may or may not be little more than an old wives' tale. I don't know if this is true, but, I was once told that it's legal in Idaho to kill your spouse's lover if you catch them in the act. Marriage is a man and a woman becoming one, so to see someone else having sex with your spouse is like seeing them having sex with you. And if you don't want it, it's rape. So killing them is self-defense. I don't know if that's true, but it'd be kind of neat if it was!

Tepid Support for the President's Plan

Unlike many other outspoken progressives, I am tepidly supportive of the President’s plan for Afghanistan as outlined in tonight’s speech. I say “supportive” because just as this mattered for preventing further attacks in 2001, it matters now for cementing gains in human rights and not letting the nuclear-armed Pakistan destabilize. I say “tepidly” because I have two deep concerns about it, only one of which the President addressed in his speech.

My first concern is time: this cannot be an open-ended commitment. We’ve already been in the country for 8 years, and are dangerously close to turning into the next Britain or Soviet Union. Fortunately President Obama seems to agree, and has promised to begin our withdrawal by summer 2011. Some will mock this as a “Friedman unit,” I know, I know, never mind the fact that there might actually be a difference between the orders of a Commander in Chief and the intellectual musings of an ego-centered pundit.

My second concern is Pakistan. We all know that al-Qaeda has shifted to that country, leaving just 100 or even fewer members in Afghanistan. I am reassured by the fact that the President listed our relationship with that country as one of his top three priorities, and accounts of national security meetings prove he means it. However, what I’ve been wondering is, with the exception of some Taliban containment, how will 30,000 more soldiers in AFGHANISTAN help PAKISTAN? More details on the eastern neighbor would have been a good thing.

So my support is tepid. But it is support. My favorite part of the speech was the line, “We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.” I have been hoping for more of a focus in this area since reading the July/August 2009 Foreign Affairs article by Fotini Christia and Michael Semply on our past failures to accept such defections.

Is this plan perfect? Nope. But no plan could be. It is, however, good enough for government work, as they say.

Plouffe vs. Palin

Back in Omaha from Thanksgiving in Austin.

Consider this: Four airports and I only saw one bookstore with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's new book in the front display and only one without Governor pundit Sarah Palin's new book in the front display. In both cases, it was the Fox News bookstore at DFW.

Odd, no? But cool.

Thoughts About Mike Huckabee

I'm not going to pull a full blog post out of it, but here are some thoughts I just Tweeted after watching Katie Couric's 45 minute interview with former Governor Mike Huckabee. (The reason, btw, that Huckabee is a FORMER Governor is because he didn't run for re-election in 2006, not because he quit in the middle of his term.)

"I'm glad Mike Huckabee is neither my president nor my governor, but I bet he'd make a good pastor. I'm not a supporter, but I am a fan.

"He doesn't have a good grasp of public policy, but I do think he has keen insight into day-to-day life, human psyche, & spiritual desires.

"I won't vote for him in 2012, but I did really enjoy this interview with @katiecouric. http://bit.ly/5zqj6b

"He also has a deep and sincere respect for all Americans, regardless of whether or not they share his politics. I love this quote:

"'"Hes the CINC. Hes the POTUS and I want 2 respect him as president & I think I can argue with him on policy w/out questioning... his motive'

"And because of that quote, I think John Shadegg and Eric Cantor might very well claim that Mike Huckabee is an enemy of freedom. #tcot"


Watch CBS News Videos Online

A Skeptic and an Activist Discuss Global Warming

I posted a link on Facebook today from environmental scholar and activist Bill McKibben, who argues that President Obama has not been as outspoken about the urgency of climate change as he should be: "[Obama] has acted; in fact, he's done more than his three predecessors combined... But doing more than George W. Bush on global warming is like doing more than George Wallace on racial healing."

A conservative friend of mine replied, arguing that "the world will fix itself...there is no such thing as global warming caused by man." I in turn made some brief arguments and referred him to some scientific sources. Here is our conversation, as well as a video from one of those sources that actually proves some of my comments to be a little off-base, but does back-up the basic argument that global average warming is real and that we humans do have an impact on our atmosphere. I have fixed both our punctuation and capitalization. Otherwise they are as posted.

My friend's three successive comments:

[comment 1] And in about 10 years the headlines will be... "GLOBAL COOLING" Did we cause it? hahaha

I think it's a big waste of time to spend all this money and effort on the so called Global Warming... we can't do anything else with this money and effort?

[comment 2] Nathan - have you seen the headlines of the past? We used to think that there was going to be a new ice age! Haha! The world will fix itself... there is no such thing as global warming caused by man. What are you thoughts... and your proof/evidence for such ideas?

[comment 3] A link from the Heritage Foundation.

My reply, also in three successive comments:

[comment 1] So called "global cooling" is junk science. The "headlines of the past" were not backed up by serious scientists. There was never broad discussion of cooling from peer-reviewed journals or major institutions like there is warming. [NOTE: I was a little wrong on this, as the below video shows, but my basic point was true.]

It is possible that global warming could cause regional cooling by changing air and ocean currents - that's why the shift toward the name "climate change," to avoid linguistic confusion - but that would come from an *average* rise in temperature.

It is true, as your conservative think tank link points out, that the earth warms and cools on its own and that we don't completely understand those cycles (or how ocean currents work). However, it's also true that our current warming trend is far greater than any previous recorded cycle, and that it corresponds almost exactly with greenhouse gas output, especially carbon.

I can't tell who authored the Heritage post, but I looked up the two names it quoted. There was nothing new about Wallen on the first page of Google results. Calder is a science journalist - but not an actual scientist himself. (To be fair, that's also true of the man who wrote the link I posted above.) He is also not an example of changed "headlines" or opinions - he is still a warming denier.

[comment 2] I'm a political process junkie and an environmental justice advocate, not a scientist, so I won't dig too deep into the evidence here. What I can do is point you to three sources more articulate on the subject than I. For starters, here is a web-page not from journalists or a think tank with an agenda, but from non-political climate scientists at NASA, Penn State, U. Mass Amherst, and others: Real Climate.

(In fact, they even wrote a brief post about Calder once: Real Climate: "Nigel Calder in the Times".)

Here's another good link, aimed at warming skeptics such as Calder and yourself, with some videos about the science: Greenfyre's intro tab.

And here's a book that, while I haven't read it yet (it's on my nightstand), was recommended and loaned to me by my geologist dad: The Long Thaw.

[comment 3] I would say two final things. First, yes, you and the Heritage Foundation are both absolutely correct, addressing climate change will come with a heavy short-term price tag. I do think that, through energy job creation and new energy sources, there's money to be saved and taxes to be lowered in the long term, but yes, there are high start up costs. However, all good things come with sacrifice and a price, but more importantly, if one believes what the scientific method is telling us, the high price of inaction is even greater than the high price of action.

Finally, thank you for not bringing up Al Gore. It ticks me off when skeptics and deniers try to make this about him or other activists even though their names aren't to be found anywhere in the relevant journals or papers. I appreciate that.

My Keyboard Supports Sarah Palin

I was working on a pretty good post about the right-wing’s obsession with accusing the media of treating Obama like a Messiah while themselves treating Sarah Palin the same way. I had transcribed a quote from today's Morning Joe and excerpted a Denver Post column.

And then my computer ate it. GRRRRRR.

I don’t know why, but it’s very easy to do stupid things with my new computer – accidentally hit a button without realizing it and thus keep on typing anyway – but that button took you away from your text and to a menu and so your keyboard strokes accidentally open a new window or, in this case, delete everything.

DAMMIT.

I don’t know if I’ll retype the piece later or not.