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Super Bowl Craziness
I have to admit, this is the first time that I have been in a city that has a team going to the Super Bowl since I was 16 years old, and my memory is not as good as I would have liked for that. Over the past week, I have noticed quite a few interesting things going on, and I am just wondering — is this normal?
- The Governor reschedules a major budget policy address
- The major local supermarket is now treating Super Bowl Sunday like Christmas Eve — closing down by 6:00pm
- Good doctors schedule treatment regimes based on the Steelers kick-off time
- My boss pushing our post-Super Bowl Monday meetings to Tuesday
- Several co-workers of mine plan to rent a Winnebego from Hagarstown, MD to drive to Detroit. They don’t plan on getting tickets, but they plan on partying in the parking lot.
- Another couple of acquaintances of mine are looking to sell eggs, kidneys and second born sons to get tickets to the game.
- The wife of an acquaintance of mine is scheduled to have a C-section at 6:00AM Monday morning. The guy spent roughly five days trying to figure out how he could get back from Detroit by 4:00 AM until he realized it would be futile.
- I hear a Steelers fight song on the radio at least once per hour.
Now what are some of the other things that you have heard/seen/are doing to prep for the Super Bowl?
The Top Ten Reasons to Reject Samuel Alito
Listen very carefully within the marbled, storied corridors of the Capitol and you’re apt to hear one question above all whispered from senatorial lips to senatorial ears: “Give me one good reason I should filibuster Samuel Alito and not simply allow him to be confirmed for the seat being vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court? Why risk the majority’s wrath, their threat to violate the rules of the Senate and exercise the Nuclear Option”?
Fair enough. I’ll give you not just one but ten good reasons for Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans to stand tall and reject this nomination, pandering to those far to the right of the mainstream (Source: SaveTheCourt.org):
10. Alito has supported extremist positions overall.
“There will be no one to the right of Sam Alito on this Court.” — Jonathan Turley, law professor who supported John Roberts but opposes Sam Alito
Alito’s dissents are more conservative than those of even fellow Republican judges 91% of the time.
Alito’s dissents argue against individual rights 84% of the time.
Alito has been criticized by many of his fellow judges for “ignoring, abandoning, or overruling precedent” and for “disregard of established principles of stare decisis.”
Alito testified that the meaning of the Constitution should be interpreted strictly in accord with its text and the “meaning someone would have taken ‘from the text’ at the time of its adoption”; a position that The Oregonian characterized as an “18th century view” that could “roll back many hard-fought federal protections that Americans enjoy today.”
9. Alito has opposed “one person, one vote.”
Alito wrote that he disagreed with Supreme Court decisions on reapportionment that established the “one person, one vote” principle inherent in equal voting rights.
8. Alito has opposed the First Amendment separation of church and state.
Alito ruled that a child evangelism group was discriminated against by a school district that did not allow it to distribute and post materials in back-to-school nights.
Alito voted to allow group prayer at school-sponsored graduation ceremonies; O’Connor and a majority of the Supreme Court struck down a similar policy.
Alito supported city-sponsored religious displays; in a similar case, the Supreme Court, with Justice O’Connor in the majority, ruled otherwise.
7. Alito has opposed a woman’s right to choose.
Alito wrote: “The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”
Alito upheld in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey a law requiring a woman to notify her husband before obtaining an abortion; Sandra Day O’Connor and a majority of the Supreme Court disagreed, stating “a State may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children.”
6. Alito has opposed remedies for victims of discrimination.
Alito as an applicant for a job in Edwin Meese’s Justice Department proudly cited his membership in an alumni group notorious for opposing admission of women and minorities to his alma mater.
Alito repeated wrote dissenting opinions putting up barriers to victims of discrimination — particularly women and people of color — to bring their cases to trial, let alone to prevail; one court majority went so far as to write that Alito’s view would have “eviscerated” federal anti-bias laws.
Alito has sided against 75% of people raising discrimination claims and against immigrants in seven out of eight cases before him.
Alito as a federal judge agreed that American citizens could be kept off juries in some cases simply because they spoke Spanish.
Alito as a federal appeals court judge argued that discrimination cases should not even reach a jury if an employer claimed to have picked the “best candidate,” even if the employer exercised conscious racial bias; the other judges in the case rejected his reasoning as having the potential to gut legal protections against racial discrimination.
5. Alito has opposed workers, consumers, and small business hurt by big business.
Alito applied legal doctrines inconsistently in various discrimination cases, consistently siding with powerful corporate interests against such victims as disabled or injured workers.
Alito has “seldom sided” with consumers suing big business.
Alito as judge ruled against a small business hurt by the anti-competitive practices of a large corporation that violated the Sherman Antitrust Act; the other judges in the case overruled him.
4. Alito has opposed environmental protection.
Alito voted to make it more difficult for citizens to sue alleged polluters under the Clean Water Act; his reasoning was soundly rejected by the Supreme Court in another case.
Alito as a government lawyer and as a federal judge tried to limit the power of Congress to apply the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which gives the federal government the authority to regulate activities within and between states, as to protect the environment with pollution controls or the Endangered Species Act; the Supreme Court will soon hear cases that could well render the Clean Water Act unenforceable.
3. Alito has opposed laws to protect society from violent crime as well as Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights of the accused.
Alito as a government lawyer and as a federal judge tried to limit the power of Congress to apply the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as to regulate the distribution of machine guns.
Alito rejected claims by an African American that he had been denied a fair trial by an all-white jury from which black jurors had been excluded because of their race; a higher court reversed the ruling and criticized Alito’s analysis as absurd.
Alito as Assistant Solicitor General argued that it was acceptable for police officers to shoot in the back an unarmed 15-year-old boy fleeing the scene of a burglary; not only the Supreme Court but also every police group that acted as friends of the court in the case rejected Alito’s argument.
2. Alito has opposed Fourth Amendment restraints on abuse of power.
Alito upheld the strip search of a mother and her ten-year-old daughter, unnamed in a search warrant; Michael Chertoff, then judge, now head of the Department of Homeland Security, warned that would turn the Constitution’s search warrant requirement into little more than a “rubber stamp.”
Alito as judge upheld video surveillance by the FBI without a warrant.
Alito in the Solicitor General’s office argued that Cabinet officials are entitled to immunity from legal liability for authorizing illegal wiretaps of Americans in America; the Supreme Court rejected his argument.
And the Number One reason to reject Samuel A. Alito for the Supreme Court:
1. Alito on the Supreme Court would effectively hand George W. Bush — and each of his successors as president, from either or any party — virtually unrestrained power.
And what could be more “extraordinary circumstances” — worthy of filibuster — than that?
Waxman et al. Today on "Barry Gordon From Left Field": Progressive Talk Radio
Former president of SAG and candidate for Congress Barry Gordon hosts “Barry Gordon From Left Field” on progressive radio station KCAA 1050 AM, broadcast from the Inland Empire (the fast-growing area east of L.A.) and webcast on http://www.kcaaradio.com/, every Sunday from 2 to 5 pm PST.
Today’s noted guests are:
Rep. Henry Waxman, leading congressional Democrat, who will discuss healthcare and other issues;
Quentin D. Young, MD, former physician to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, Past President of the American Public Health Association, and Chairman of the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, who will also discuss healthcare issues; and
Terrence Blanchard, jazz trumpeter, film composer, and current Grammy nominee, who will discuss the upcoming awards from The Recording Academy.
Listeners are encouraged to phone in. “It’s a whole new ballgame!”
Hostage taking is not new news
I have been seeing a whole lot more news lately from both the traditional press and the major blogs about the US taking several women prisoner in order to use them as hostages to coerce behavior from their husbands and other male relatives in Iraq. It is good to have this discussion but this is a discussion that we could have had in the fall of 2003, as these events were being reported then. On October 29, 2003, I wrote the following:
Trent Lott is stating that the United States should consider as a policy option
outright genocide. He said “If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be veryaggressive in taking them out.”This is not my country. I do not want my country, your country and OUR country to lose its soul. We should not be advocating or even considering as a potential option “Crimes against Humanity” which is what mowing the entire place down could become. I do not want this country to be a party to war crimes although those are already occuring at the lowest levels with interrogation techniques that are coming perilously close to torture, hostage-taking and collective punishment These are war crimes, and they are crimes that will completely stain the soul and character of OUR Country and ourselves. I want my country to not even think about committing crimes against Humanity, but now it is…. I weep.
This information is information that we as a public knew about over two years ago. Yet it is only being discussed now. I am angry, I am pissed, and I am ashamed for we have turned away from the reality of our actions and have deeply inhaled the opium of delusions as we debated on who was more optimistic for their own fuzzy math. I am disgusted that it has taken the press two years to start reporting on this story despite the fact that the evidence was already there and that some of their reporters had the courage to take the first steps, but the second, third and fourth steps never happened.
People may be puzzled why the United States has very little credibility overseas, and that no one is rushing in to back up our follies in Iraq. This is one of the reasons; we have betrayed the ideals that we have so loudly proclaimed and instead of actively taking steps to correct these problems, we as a public re-elected the administration that approved and encouraged these betrayals of our character in a quest for cheap political expediency when we should have known better.
[Edited on Jan. 30, 2006 to put linebreaks in the proper place--- Fester]
Let Your Fingers Do The Walking
But first, Happy Chinese New Year! With a first generation Chinese wife, I may not keep up with the elusive date (it changes from year to year), but we manage to figure out when it is in time to celebrate. No, now countdowns, no Dick Clark. There will be dim sum(yum), and I can’t wash my hair until tomorrow(boo).
Eh, anyway, don’t have a whole lot to say now, working on something, but it’s taking me longer than I expected. But I wanna talk about the pending Kerry Filibuster. As my last piece may allude to, I’m very much torn over the whole thing, so, instead of giving opinion, I redirect your attention to one reader’s blog who has just about all the info you need to do what you feel necessary to get the filibuster on its legs and running.
Check it out and let your fingers do the walking.
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IT WAS A FIREFIGHT!
Okay, so it may not end up being as epic a battle as the one alluded to by Willem Defoe’s character in Boondock Saints, but I have to say this much, the Alito confirmation just got interesting. That’s right, despite Democratic signals to the contrary, Sen. Kerry has made it known that he intends to try for a fillibuster of would-be justice Alito.
I said damn.
Now here’s the raw. I’ve been split on the idea of fillibustering Alito. Personally, I’m all for it. Get rid of this cat, the sooner the better, and be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after. Politically, though, that’s a different matter.
From the onset, I was of the mind that fillibustering Alito would be unwise to say the least. It’s a matter of risk assessment, and in this case, it just doesn’t add up to a happy sum. First, in today’s brave new world of the ever looming nuclear option, fillibustering Alito could not only fail to prevent him from being appointed, but you also run the risk of permanently changing Senate rules. Look, I’m a fan of the fillibuster. I believe whole heartedly in the protection it affords the minority from the majority. The fact that it’s even at risk in my opinion is just ludicrous, but that is the state of affairs.
Secondly, evoking fillibuster turns the Alito nomination from at least a partially policy based scenario into a purely political one. And if anything, the Republicans are significantly better politicians than the Democrats. The end result is that Alito would still be appointed, only at a much higher national profile, and possibly with more public support.
Because the battle is not going to be about Alito’s qualifications, or inadequacies. The GOP knows, and I think if Kerry’s motion becomes a true threat, you will see this quite prominently, that the meal ticket isn’t Alito, it’s the fillibuster itself. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it now, the campaigning will start, should a fillibuster actually come down, and it will be, all day and night, “fillibuster’s aren’t fair.”
See? It’s not even about Alito, it’s about Republicans falling back on the old standby of making the majority look like a bunch of abuse victims, and they are good at it.
That all being said, now that Kerry broke the seal, I think the Dem’s need to fillibuster. It’s done, it’s out there, he opened his mouth, and to show party solidarity, something that the Democratic party desperately needs to have and advertize if it wants a shot at the Senate majority, then they need to follow.
I’m going to close with two thoughts. First, I think it’s possible to sell this fillibuster to both America and forty senators if you do not sell it as a fillibuster. That is to say, just lengthen the debate. It’s a common saying of Senator wannabe’s that voting for a SCOTUS justice is one of the most important duties, so let’s honor that sentiment and lengthen the debate. The second thought I have is; where the hell are the Minority Leader and Whip? Isn’t it your job to be on top of this kind of thing? I’m not saying that it’s pink slip time, but I am saying… Mr. Reid… that one could do a little better at keeping his caucus in line (ahem… Byrd… cough cough).
From the Department of Duh
The commanding US general in Iraq, Gen. Casey gave an interview yesterday in which he said that US forces in Iraq were “stretched”
This is a conclusion from the Department of Duh as the evidence has been out there for all to see even before retired Col. Krepinevich Thin Green Line report was leaked earlier this week.
The first piece of evidence that should be evident to anyone who wants to be serious and usefully informed about Iraq was the September 2003, Congressional Budget Office estimate that if you held a 1 in 2 out pattern, that the Army ran out of forces from the active duty formations for a 17 brigade baseline force in 2004. We have already seen that happen as the current rotation is 2 in, 3 out. We are also seeing all fifteen National Guard ESBs go through mobilization and combat deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan at least once in the past forty months.
The second piece of evidence is from the operational patterns of US forces. It is quite typical for US forces to raid a town such as Haditha four, five, six times or to cut in by a third the forces available in Anbar provinces as raids into cities are proclaimed successes until they are repeated again next month. We should note that during the second battle of Fallujah, nine US battalions were available in the immediate vicinity of the city. At the same time, Mosul was left uncovered and the insurgents routed the police. The closest available US battalion to respond was a Stryker battalion that was already committed to operations in Fallujah. This concentration (bought by bringing in the British as backfill and uncovering Mosul) at Fallujah was sufficient to take the city, but recent increases in insurgent attacks activities there show that the city is no more secure than any other Sunni-Arab dominated city.
The third piece of evidence is the deployment pattern. Deploying the 11th ACR and the 1/509 PIR is a good indicator of stress. Both of these units are excellent units but their primary mission is to act as the graduate level training courses for every other US Army ground combat unit before they deploy. These two units are roughly a brigade equivilant, and a very expensive brigade equivilant for when they are in Iraq, they are not at Ft. Irwin or Ft. Polk improving the combat effectiveness of twelve to sixteen other brigades. This deployment was made knowing of this cost. If there was an easier/better way of finding another rested brigade for Iraq, the Pentagon would have preferred to have gone that route.
Fourth, there are many Marine battalions that are going in for their third rotation, and by Christmas, there should be at least one battalion that will being embarking upon their fourth combat tour. Active duty Army division and brigade level formations are seeing their second year plus tours starting now, and sub-units and specialists are seeing third and fourth deployments to Iraq.
Finally, recruitment is a strong indicator of the stress on the force. Last fiscal year, the US Army was short of a brigade slice in their recruiting efforts. This year, the quotas are being met, but only because the Army is willing to destroy a generation long committment to high quality in order to meet their quantity objectives. This again is a very high cost choice, and if the Army did not need/want to expand their ranks, the preference would have been for quality over quantity.
So it is good to see a statement of reality, but it is not new news to anyone paying attention over the past two years.
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Long Term Oil Prices
Last year, the trend in oil prices were for high short term prices, and then a weakening of prices as we went to future contracts three, four, five years out as there was an expectation that significantly more supply would be coming onto the market and that demand expansion was slowing down as prices increased. However Barry Ritzholtz at the Big Picture catches this great set of charts from the New York Times which shows that long term oil prices are starting to increase significantly, a point I made earlier this month in regard to reconstruction in Iraq.
Standard economic theory predicts that when people are hit with a short term price increase that the most common reaction against that price increase is some substitution but also a lot of borrowing against future revenues in order to tide things over until relative prices fall back into line with long term expectations.
Until recently, people believed that we were facing a relatively short term supply/demand grappling match that would soon resolve itself as demand at a given price would decrease and new supply at this price would substantially expand. Therefore marginal decisions should not be affected that much when consuming fuel as the primary option in a short term scenario would be to borrow a little more money and wait things out. However once people start to believe (as reflected by price) that the price increases are not going to be going back to their previous planning levels, then decisions should start to be made to reflect the new assumption of long term income profiles.
I find this market decision to make a lot of sense as the swing capacity in the global supply market is no longer Saudi Arabia but an array of global guerillas who have the ability to take 5 million or more barrels per day off the market in Iraq, Nigeria, Russia and other nations. Combine this with saber rattling against Iran, and the incability of new supply replacing Iran’s oil if that comes off the market in any significant amounts and time periods, I think that this is a good bet.
So what does this mean for the American economy? Well if marginal decisions are being made in the anticipation that $25/bbl oil won’t be happening anytime soon, any car manufacturer who relies primarily on SUVs for their profit margins is going to be hammered. Land at the outer periphery becomes a lot less valuable, as the cost of a long commute increases, which means the building boom starts to slow down as it gets harder and harder to flip a house and get a favorable appraisal for a new home equity loan. It also means that there is less and less disposable income available, which means either even more debt to maintain current consumption levels and growth path, or a reduction in demand that leads to a recession unless capital expenditures by businesses boom in the next year.
Christmas Overhang?
This morning I threw on a pair of jeans that were just a tad too tight for me the week after Christmas, and they fit fine now. I guess the lack of 24-7 feasting, an increase in weight-lifting and a better eye at what we are eating was sufficient for me to work off my Christmas overhang pretty quickly. I was thinking about the ARG poll that contains some dismal economic approval ratings for Bush, and I was thinking about the probable causes: interests rates are increasing, mediocre job growth at best, vehicle fuel prices that rebounded off their 6 month lows and are heading back to $2.50/gallon for the cheap stuff, and an increasing probability that the home equity extraction ATM is not working quite as well as it used to. All of these causes seem reasonable to me as a reason for low approval ratings, but I am also curious about something else.
Is there any predictable seasonality with January being a down month for most/all presidents against their relative trend performance on economic approval ratings because everyone is opening up their Christmas credit card bills and saying “Damn, I have to pay that off?”
Is any component of this very low number due to Christmas overhang and that as we go back to the gym, will it come off quickly?
Take the Long Way Home
Michael Rosenberg has a great piece in the Detroit Free Press this morning about Bettis and the Steelers.
The Steelers won because they were the toughest, nastiest team in the AFC, which is odd, because the night before the AFC championship game they melted like Richard Simmons getting interviewed by Barbara Walters.That’s because Bettis was speaking. He told his teammates to bring him home, and he said they just had to do what they had been doing all year. It wasn’t exactly the stuff of Disney movies. But what was said didn’t matter as much as who said it. Bettis, who turns 34 on Feb. 16, is probably going to retire after the Super Bowl. And while there are better running backs, nobody in the NFL is more respected in his locker room than Jerome Bettis.
Last year, as the Patriots finished picking the Steelers out of their teeth in an AFC title game, Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger made a pact with Bettis. Come back, Roethlisberger said. Come back and we’ll take you home to Detroit.
Really, he said that.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you,” Bettis said with a laugh. “He promised me that.”
Pittsburgh’s Going To The Super Bowl!
“Here we go!”(click to listen)
Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Steelers, Here we go
Pittsburgh’s going to the Super Bowl
Here we go!
Next Stop…
Today on "Barry Gordon From Left Field": Progressive Talk Radio / Webcast
Former president of SAG and candidate for Congress Barry Gordon hosts “Barry Gordon From Left Field” on progressive radio station KCAA 1050 AM, broadcast from the Inland Empire (east of L.A.) and webcast on http://www.kcaaradio.com/, every Sunday from 2 to 5 pm PST.
Today’s noted guests are:
Author David Heenan, who will discuss his newest book, “Flight Capital,” about the “reverse brain drain” that is sending U.S.-educated foreigners and even U.S. citizens back to their ancestral homelands to build up their economies at the expense of our own economic well-being;
Steven Gardner, lawyer for the Center for Science and the Public Interest, who will talk about their lawsuit against Viacom, owner of Nickelodeon, and Kellogg Corp., to stop the marketing of junk food to children; and …
Dianne Bates, entertainment journalist, who will report on the Sundance Film Festival and especially on the new political documentaries that have surfaced there.
Listeners are encouraged to phone in … and let the public know the Left is right!
– Doug Drenkow (working on a piece about Bush invasions of our privacy etc.)
Holy Crap!
Steelers 24 - Broncos 3 at the half? Can this be for real?
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