There probably won’t be anything incredibly substantive to say about Bush’s farewell address: He was a really bad president and that’s about all there is to it.
So my go-to strategy for covering the speech will be to use my public Twitter feed. You’re welcome to subscribe or else I think you can just check in for tonight by clicking the link. If it’s worth saying more, there will be blog posts, but probably not.
During his confirmation hearing today, Attorey General nominee Eric Holder unequivocally rejected torture. “No one is above the law,” Holder said repeatedly during the hearing.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) could not fathom that an Attorney General would reject a practice that both is unlawful and endangers Americans. He tried to get Holder to back off his anti-torture stance by presenting an absurd “ticking time bomb” hypothetical in which thousands of American lives are at stake. “You would still refuse to condone aggressive interrogation techniques?” Cornyn asked. When Holder replied that waterboarding is not the only interrogation method, Cornyn insisted, “Assume that it was”:
HOLDER: I think your hypothetical assumes a premise that I’m not willing to concede.
CORNYN: I know you don’t like my hypothetical.
HOLDER: No, the hypothetical’s fine; the premise that underlies it I’m not willing to accept, and that is that waterboarding is the only way that I could get that information from those people.
CORNYN: Assume that it was.
HOLDER: [Laughs] Given the knowledge that I have about other techniques and what I’ve heard from retired admirals and generals and FBI agents, there are other ways in a timely fashion that you can get information out of people that is accurate and will produce useable intelligence. And so it’s hard for me to accept or to answer your hypothetical without accepting your premise. And in fact, I don’t think I can do that.
Watch it:
A few minutes later, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) identified where Cornyn most likely thought up his torture-is-the-only-option scenario: “I understand Senator Cornyn’s questions. They are questions that anyone who watches Jack Bauer on ’24′ would ask.”
Intelligence officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of a ticking time bomb scenario. Jack Cloonan, who spent 25 years as an FBI special agent and interrogated members of al Qaeda, said that he has “been hard pressed to find a situation where anybody” can say “that they’ve ever encountered the ticking bomb scenario” when interrogating terrorists. He said it is a “red herring” and “[i]n the real world it doesn’t happen.”
One law professor, who has extensively researched interrogation, said she had heard of only one ticking time bomb scenario. “It’s on the show ’24.’ And that’s the only one I know of.”
Transcript: Read more
Seth Michaels notes that not only do countries with strong economies feature strong unions even according to the Heritage Foundation, but specifically they feature the kind of labor-friendly legal environment that progressives are trying to bring to the United States:
What’s more, most of the countries Heritage considers to have a high degree of “economic freedom” have far more worker-friendly labor laws than we do in this nation. In Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the process for forming a union and bargaining is controlled by workers, not by bosses. Indeed, of the top 20 countries on the Heritage list, 16 have labor laws similar to the Employee Free Choice Act, letting workers have the choice to form unions through majority sign-up. In giving corporations veto power over how workers form unions, the United States is a rare exception among industrialized democracies.
In review, of the ten countries Heritage deems to have the largest degree of economic freedom, seven feature majority sign up as an option for workers trying to form a union. Then there are two East Asian dictatorships. And then there’s the United States of America. The next ten spots on the list are composed of nine labor-friendly countries and Bahrain—a small Persian Gulf dictatorship.
Earlier this week, the Justice Department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility released a report laying out former official Bradley Schlozman’s illegal and illicit activities at the department. In one particularly “horrifying” incident described in the report, Scholzman forwarded around an e-mail from then-Voting Section Chief John Tanner that contained a racial remark about an African-American colleague:
In that incident in August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Schlozman asking Schlozman to bring coffee for him to a meeting both were scheduled to attend. Schlozman replied asking Tanner how he liked his coffee. Tanner’s response was, “Mary Frances Berry style – black and bitter.” Berry is an African-American who was the Chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from November 1993 until late 2004. Schlozman forwarded the e-mail chain to several Department officials (including Principal DAAG Bradshaw) but not Acosta, with the comment, “Y’all will appreciate Tanner’s response.” Acosta said that when he was made aware of the incident, he required Schlozman to make a written apology to him for his role in forwarding the e-mail and that Schlozman did so.
TPMmuckraker reports today that Tanner has sent a letter of apology to Berry, claiming that he only used the phrase because he had recently heard an African-American customer at a coffee shop order coffee “black and sweet — like me.”
Today, House conservatives held a hearing to discuss proposals for an economic stimulus package, with testimony from former governor and CEO Mitt Romney, among others. While most of the hearing focused on how to best cut taxes for corporations, Romney used some time during his opening statement to take a swipe at the Employee Free Choice Act:
And there is one very bad idea that is being promoted by a special interest group. It is an idea that would have devastating impact on the economy—short term and long term. It would lead investors to send their funds elsewhere, businesses to expand elsewhere and jobs to relocate elsewhere. It is the plan to virtually impose unions on all small, medium and large businesses by removing the right of workers to vote by secret ballot. Card check is a very bad idea under any circumstances. In these circumstances, it would be calamitous.
As Michael Whitney laid out at the SEIU blog, “Business leaders and CEOs are developing a new strategy to combat the Employee Free Choice Act: threaten to take jobs overseas and divest from America.” Romney’s comment certainly falls into that category.
Fearmongering rhetoric aside, the Employee Free Choice Act would actually make the economy work for everyone, instead of only those at the top. According to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, if 5 million service workers join unions:
- 5 million workers would get a 22 percent raise on average, or an additional $7,000 a year.
- $34 billion in total new wages would flow into the economy.
- 900,000 jobs would be lifted above the poverty wage for a family of four.
- Between 1.8 million and 3 million dependent children would share in these benefits.
But Employee Free Choice is not only about workers receiving better wages and benefits. Stronger unions and a more secure workforce lead to a more productive economy. For example, one-third of all American workers joined unions between 1947 and the early 1970s, and in those years, “median family income more than doubled, productivity grew 2.9 percent a year, [and] America’s economic output nearly tripled.”
If Romney considers livable wages, higher productivity, and more economic output “devastating,” then maybe some devastation is in order.
Yglesias takes on the “conservative claim that making it easier for workers to form unions will cripple the economy” by looking at international union density stats.
All the talk about the stimulus bill shouldn’t distract attention from the fundamental need to get the banking sector sorted out. Absent a working financial system, it’s extremely difficult for businesses to expand even when they have good ideas and viable market opportunities. That makes it impossible for the economy to recover. It’s always the case that some firms and, indeed, some whole sectors are doing poorly. But during good times other firms and other sectors are doing well, so people who lose their jobs can get new ones. Without credit, that doesn’t work. And we’re still not out of the foods on the banking side. Felix Salmon says it’s time to nationalize Citigroup and Bank of America:
Citigroup, at $3.50 a share, simply doesn’t have the time to implement its new plan to get smaller slowly. And Bank of America, at $7.75 a share, doesn’t have the capital needed to absorb Merrill Lynch. Both are now trading at option value: on the hope, essentially, that somehow equity holders won’t be wiped out entirely. But they should indeed be wiped out, as part of a nationalization, along with preferred shareholders, including the government. TARP will show an immediate loss on its investments, which will serve as a salutary reminder for whoever’s in charge of disbursing the second tranche.
Nationalization is a messy solution, and one which will make no one happy. But it’s better than desperately trying to kick the ball down the field until the banks come back in a few weeks for even more money. If we’ve learned anything from the last Citi bailout, it’s that small interventions don’t work. What’s needed now is a complete revamp of both banks’ capital structures, and a brand-new owner.
“Nationalization,” of course, is a dirty word in the United States. We’re a very immature country, after all. There’s an international organization of center-left parties called the Socialist International to which Tony Blair and other mainstream left-of-center politicians from outside North America belong. Carol Browner participated in some Socialist International activities related to climate change. And that’s a good idea—climate change is an important issue that integrally requires international cooperation. This sort of thing is one of the reasons why international federations of political parties exist. But The Washington Times and Jim Inhofe tried to make a scandal out of it earlier this week. Because “socialism” is a dirty word. Like “nationalization.” But it’s the right thing to do, and that’s been clear for a while now. We can ill-afford to leave the health of the whole financial sector hostage to an ideological distaste for the concept. It’s not like we’re running a laissez faire banking system whose virginal splendor would be degraded via a forceful and effective state intervention, rather than a half-baked an ineffectual one.
Premier among their many unscientific beliefs, deniers cling to the notion that some magical negative feedback will avert serious climate impacts. Sadly, we will need magic to save humanity if we foolishly decide to listen to the deniers and to keep ignoring the one negative feedback that science says can certainly save humanity — simply reducing greenhouse gas emisions.
The scientific reality based on actual observations (not to mention the paleoclimate record) is that the climate models are not underestimating negative feedbacks — the models are wildly underestimating the positive or amplifying feedbacks. Among the greatest concerns is the growing evidence that the major carbon sinks are saturating, that a greater and greater fraction of human emissions will end up in the atmosphere.
A new study in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d), “Sudden, considerable reduction in recent uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the East/Japan Sea,” finds
The results presented in this paper indicate that the rate of CO2 accumulation in the deepest basin of the East/Japan Sea has considerably decreased over the transition period between 1992-1999 and 1999-2007.
The authors explain to the UK’s Guardian why this is an amplifying feedback, why warming is diminishing the ability of the ocean sink to absorb CO2:
Yesterday, the House voted 289 to 139 to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. The bill would “provide health insurance to an additional 4.1 million children and parents, including legal immigrant children and pregnant women, who currently must wait five years before becoming eligible for the program.” President Bush blocked a similar piece of legislation in 2007, backed by conservatives who complained that the measure was too expensive.
This time, SCHIP advocates were joined by six Republicans who had voted against the bill last year. Interestingly, one of those lawmakers was Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI). So what changed?
After all, in 2007, McCotter not only voted against the legislation, he was a leading voice in arguing for its defeat. When Catholics United criticized him, he called the group the “devil.” On his blog on Oct. 3, 2007, McCotter argued that unless the GOP defeated SCHIP, it would “lose its soul”:
If our Republican Party is daunted by the politics of S-CHIP and shrinks from reaffirming its defining principles, social welfare programs will never help poor Americans escape governmental dependence. Instead, the Democrats will continue their push to shackle Americans with a bureaucrat-centered health care system and other insidious forms of governmental dependence; and our Republican Party — the party of the Great Emancipator — will not only lose the next election.
It will lose its soul.
McCotter faced enormous discontent from many of his constituents after his “nay” vote, as did many of his colleagues. In fact, 11 Republicans who voted against SCHIP lost their seats in 2008. McCotter held on to his seat, but just barely — he won only “51% against a Dem who raised just $29K.”
Yesterday’s SCHIP vote may be part of the new McCotter. After the sweeping progressive victories in the November elections, McCotter, said, “We’re rock bottom. We are now free to start thinking again, acting again, and doing the right thing by what our constituents and our country need.”
Nicholas Kristof writes a depressing column about Cambodian kids who spend their days picking through giant heaps of garbage seeking usable scraps and dreaming of the day when they might be able to work in a sweatshop. I think it’s wrong to say that all consideration of international labor standards is merely aimed at keeping people stuck on the trash heap, but it’s a valuable reminder about the generally limited ability of just saying “no” to things to accomplish what people want. Part of the reason sweatshops exist and attract laborers is that life on the garbage heap is even worse, as is the life of a third world subsistence farmer. If you want to improve things, you need to actually be expanding the set of feasible options, not just arbitrarily closing down one path. And this happens in a variety of fields. Some neighborhoods in DC seem to have the idea that if they put tight restrictions on opening new chain stores or bars and restaurants that this will magically conjure up a diverse mom-and-pop economy. In practice, you get empty storefronts; crowded, mediocre bars and restaurants; and people driving to chain stores in the suburbs.
In both cases, there’s nothing wrong with the objective. But it’s a mistake to think that purely by vetoing stuff you can force the kind of positive action you want. To raise actual labor conditions in the third world, we need to create more prosperity and more economic opportunity not just say “no” to particular forms of bad conditions.
Like Kevin Drum, I haven’t yet posted on the Oscar Grant case. In part that’s because this seems so open-and-shut that there’s not much to say. As you can see on live video, officer Johannes Mehserle pulls out his gun and shoots an unarmed, subdued man in the back for what looks to be no reason:
What can you say about something like that?
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