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More Ice Than Ever
By Patrick J. Michaels
Published 2/5/2008 12:07:29 AM
The Washington Post recently ran a shocking above-the-fold article warning us of "Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica." A new paper by Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows a net loss of ice where most scientists thought the opposite would occur.
The Post went full-bore with this one, spreading the article on to an entire interior page. The piece ends by noting that Rajenda Pachauri, head of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is so concerned that he's is personally going down to inspect the situation.
He should. Before he even gets to Antarctica, Pachauri is going to see something even more surprising than Rignot's finding. Despite a warming Southern Ocean, the amount of ice surrounding Antarctica is now at the highest level ever measured for this time of the year, since satellites first began to monitor it almost thirty years ago. This represents a continuation of the record set last winter (our summer).
Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, we can also look at the departure from the average for ice mass in a given month. At present, the coverage of ice surrounding Antarctica is almost exactly two million square miles above where it is historically supposed to be at this time of year. It's farther above normal than it has ever been for any month in climatologic records. Around now, because it's summer down there and the ice is headed towards its annual low point, there should be about seven million square miles of it. That means, as data in University of Illinois' web publication Cryosphere Today shows, that there is nearly 30% more ice down in Antarctica than usual for this time of the year.
All of the IPCC's models of Antarctica in the 21st century forecast a gain in ice, as a warmer surrounding ocean evaporates more water, which subsequently falls in the form of snow when it hits the continent. It's simply too cold for rain in Antarctica, and it'll stay that way for a very long time.
Concerning Antarctica as a whole, the IPCC's new climate compendium notes "the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region." Other studies, such as Peter Doran's in Nature in 2003, show actual cooling in recent decades. (There is a small area of significant warming in the peninsula that points towards South America, but this is less than 2% of Antarctica's total land mass.)
There's brand new evidence, just published in mid-January in Geophysical Research Letters, of a striking increase in snowfall over that peninsula. The few snowfall records that are available elsewhere in Antarctica show considerable variation from decade to decade, so discriminating the "signal" of increased snowfall caused by global warming from all the rest of the "noise" may be very difficult indeed.
We see the same problem with hurricanes and global warming. Their strength and numbers vary considerably from year to year. 2005 was the most active year ever measured in the Atlantic Basin, while 2007 was one of the weakest in history. How do you find the fingerprint of global warming amidst such variation?
So it's not warming up, and the snowfall data are equivocal, yet the continent is experiencing a net loss of ice. How can this be, and is it even important? The current hypothesis is that warmer waters beneath the surface are somehow loosening the ice. That's plausible, but again, there's precious little proof of it.
And further, the bottom line is that there is more ice than ever surrounding Antarctica.
One of the tired tropes that reverberate throughout global warming reporting is that inconvenient facts get left out. In this case, it's blatant. Midway through the Post's page-long article comes a statement that "these new findings come as the Arctic is losing ice at a dramatic rate." Wouldn't that have been an appropriate place to note that, despite a small recent loss of ice from the Antarctic landmass, the ice field surrounding Antarctica is now larger than ever measured?
Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.
Iranian sisters face stoning for adultery: report
Feb 4 07:50 AM US/Eastern
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Iran confirms man stoned to death
Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper Monday quoted their lawyer as saying.
The two were found guilty of adultery -- a capital crime in Islamic Iran -- after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away.
"Branch 23 of the supreme court has confirmed the stoning sentence," said their lawyer, Jabbar Solati.
The penal court of Tehran province had already sentenced the sisters identified only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar (no age given) to stoning, the daily said.
Solati explained that the two sisters had initially been tried for "illegal relations" and received 99 lashes. However in a second trial they were convicted of "adultery."
The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued that there was no adultery as none of the footage showed them engaged in a sexual act with other men.
"There is no legal evidence whereby the judge could have the knowledge for issuing a stoning sentence," Solati said, adding that he had appealed to the state prosecutor.
"The two sisters have been tried twice for one crime," Solati protested.
Under Iran's Islamic law adultery is theoretically punishable by stoning, although in late 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi issued a writ suspending such executions.
However in July 2007, Jafar Kiani was stoned to death for adultery in a village in the northwestern province of Qazvin in a rare execution by stoning that provoked a wave of international outrage.
Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery. Iran currently makes more use of the death penalty -- almost always by hanging -- than any other country apart from China.
Zohreh's husband -- who accused his wife and her sister in January 2007 of having extra-marital affairs -- had planted a camera in his house in a bid to catch them in the act.
"She did not treat me well and her actions made me feel she did not want to live with me any more," said the husband, who was not named.
"To make sure I planted a camera in the house... When I watched the tape two days after, I found out that she and her sister brought over men after I left and had relationships with them," he said.
Zohreh said she had an edgy relationship with her husband because of the strict limits he imposed on her life.
"I was a teacher and loved my job but my husband did not let me work... he was always suspicious of me and thought our differences were because I had an affair," she was quoted as saying by the daily.
"I do not approve the confessions that I made in the investigation phase and I deny what I said," she said.
Etemad reported that the husband of the other sister, Azar, had not filed any complaint against her.
Barack Obama and "Tokenism" [Mark Hemingway]
I know Kathryn already linked this, but Erica Jong, who was last seen on CNN calling noted intellect and husband par excellence Charlie Sheen a "patriot" for suggesting 9/11 was an inside job, has a WaPo op-ed that deserves to be singled out for contempt:
[Obama] was lucky enough not to be in the Senate when the Iraq war resolution was floated after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied about WMDs. That was the true tragedy of race: a black man lying for a corrupt white administration that was using him as a token, much as they use Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now.
Obama is also a token — of our incomplete progress toward an interracial society. I have nothing against him except his inexperience. Many black voters agree. They understand tokenism and condescension.
I understand my hopeful friends who think an Obama button will change America. But I'm sticking with Hillary. I trust her because all her life, her pro bono work has been for mothers and children. And mothers and children — of all colors — are the most oppressed group in our country. I trust her to speak for our children and grandchildren — and for us. She always has.
If I may the risk of dozens of angry emails and sidestep the political minefield of whether or not the Bush admin "lied" about WMDs, I would like Ms. Jong to please explain how Powell (and to a lesser extent Secretary Rice) was being used as a "token." He was appointed to one of the most significant posts in government,.and one that deals with almost no issues related to racial issues in the U.S. He was a four-star general and his resume for Secretary of State certainly exceeds, say, Madeline Albright. If she doesn't like his conduct in office that's one thing, but it's quite another to claim him as a pawn who only occupied the position he was in because his race made him "token." If Powell wasn't qualified to be Secretary of State then who is?
As to her second point, how is Obama a "token" if the primary concern with him is inexperience, not race? Doesn't that show "progress toward an interracial society"? If she's suggesting that people won't vote for him because he's black, she offers no evidence of this. But raising the issue and letting it hang out there is, as Bill Clinton recently discovered, poisonous and not likely to be well-received. But frankly, her thinking here is so muddled I'm not sure what she's saying.
Finally, Jong wants duke it out over who's been more oppressed — black people vs. mothers and children? Seriously? I hope that Clinton and her supporters do push this because I think I know how the American people will respond to yet another pathetic attempt to derive moral authority from victimhood — not well. The reason why Obama is liked by many Republicans is that he is campaigning as if the content of his character truly is more important than any vestigial constraints imposed by the color of his skin, and no one, especially not a pretentious hack like Erica Jong, is going to tell him that he's a "token."
02/05 12:37 AM
It Will All Begin In Tears
A make-or-break primary date looms within hours, and once again the focus falls on whether Hillary Clinton can blunt the momentum of the political neophyte Barack Obama. What can she do? She can fall back on the strategy that helped her to a surprise win New Hampshire by getting misty (via The Anchoress):
Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up this morning at an event at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked while in law school in the early 1970s.
Penn Rhodeen, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up, leading Clinton's eyes to fill with tears, which she wiped out of her left eye. At the time, Rhodeen was saying how proud he was that sheepskin-coat, bell-bottom-wearing young woman he met in 1972 was now running for president.
"Well, I said I would not tear up; already we're not exactly on the path," Clinton said with emotion after the introduction.
Well, it worked once, didn't it? And once again, the subject that brought tears to her eyes wasn't poverty, health care, or even national defense but Hillary herself. Just as it was in New Hampshire, she teared up after hearing what a great person she is and isn't it just wonderful to see her succeed!
Meanwhile, Matt Stearns takes a look at her biography and sees much less compassion in it than the Hillary campaign claims:
She routinely tells voters that she's "been working to bring positive change to people's lives for 35 years." She told a voter in New Hampshire: "I've spent so much of my life in the nonprofit sector." Speaking in South Carolina, Bill Clinton said his wife "could have taken a job with a firm ... Instead she went to work with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund."
The overall portrait is of a lifelong, selfless do-gooder. The whole story is more complicated — and less flattering.
Clinton worked at the Children's Defense Fund for less than a year, and that's the only full-time job in the nonprofit sector she's ever had. She also worked briefly as a law professor.
Clinton spent the bulk of her career — 15 of those 35 years — at one of Arkansas' most prestigious corporate law firms, where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards.
Neither she nor her surrogates, however, ever mention that on the campaign trail. Her campaign Web site biography devotes six paragraphs to her pro bono legal work for the poor but sums up the bulk of her experience in one sentence: "She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm."
There is nothing wrong with being a corporate lawyer. They need good and talented legal counsel for many reasons, not least among them predatory trial attorneys who exploit the legal system at the expense of producers and consumers. Hillary seems more interested in distorting her supposed years of experience in public service, however, and that gives voters a reason to question her credibility.
So do the timely waterworks. Just as with her claims to extensive public service rather than private sector work, the record of her emotional outbursts suggest contrivance far more than spontaneity. Hillary is building a reputation for disingenuity that has begun to rival her husband.
Umm, small detail peggy, the war in Iraq is not a declared war either
I'm done wasting time trying to use logic with you
You refuse to state which war you use to compare your "record" statement is based on
Conclusion- yet another mindless attempt to inflame and avoid any real discussion
So, are you saying that the war in Vietnam was based on truth and that they attacked us?
TIA
What war would you use as a comparison?
If you can't come up with an answer, it means your use of the word " record " was ridiculous.
And you smugly think that twisting of logic makes sense??
Ridiculous
So, I guess you consider Vietnam a war that WASN"T caused by a lie and was caused by a country that attacked us then, huh?
You said there were " record numbers " of deaths in the Iraq war. The fact is that compared to other wars, the rate of deaths has been extremely low
bot on peggie
Since when was the "fairness doctrine" about "o more lies and half truths that are allowed to be presented as the facts, the full facts and nothing but the facts"
IT was to assure equal doses of lying from both sides in political campaigning
Sheesh, the libs are really topping themselves in dim witted statements today>
The media has always been and always will be biased. It's up to the public to read between the lines and decipher and do their own research
The NYT, Reuters and on and on have all bene caught in outright lies, doctoring photos etc
IS it gonna be YOU that determines "truth"???
No thanks
Well, you didn't categorize your original statement
How about compared to any other war??
TIA
I'm still waiting
The reasoning by the libs today typically funny
"the number of our brave military dying in record numbers in Iraq"
Please link to stats that show "record" number of deaths.
It's my understanding that deaths have been very low compared to other wars
TIA
I'll wait
LOL, he changes the argument yet again
You do, of course realize that the number of average yearly deaths has been reduced now that SH has been deposed?
With the chance of continued political reconciliation, there is a chance that the reduction will continue
You don't care about Iraqi casualties, you just want an excuse to bash Bush
LOL, you get called on your original point, then try and spin it
IOW, if we weren't in Iraq, the death totals would be different?
Global warming wouldn't be a problem??
YOu would be able to cut back on viagra purchases??
Death is not a final diagnosis — Murder rates in US cities comparable to Iraq!
Jewish World Review ^ | Sept. 24, 2004 | Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak
Posted on 09/24/2004 7:17:50 AM PDT by Homo_homini_lupus
Death may not be a final medical diagnosis but the state of being dead is final! Are the deaths of our courageous soldiers any more final than those who die on our own streets?
On September 8, 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported (The Conflict In Iraq, U.S. Toll in Iraq Reaches 1,000) that through September 7, 2004, 1,000 US soldiers lost their lives in Iraq due to both hostile and non-hostile actions. This is certainly a tragic loss correctly reported in the media and mourned by the US populace. However focusing exclusively on these statistics does not provide the much needed perspective.
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report of May 24, 2004, the number of murders reported during calendar years 2002 and 2003 show a comparable death toll exists in several US cities. Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City reported 1,168, 1,246 and 1,184 murders during the subject 24-month period.
[...snip...]
The average monthly death toll for US soldiers in Iraq is 55.6 deaths per month while the average reported murders per month in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City are 48.7, 51.9 and 49.3 deaths per month. The murder statistics in the US cities are for hostile deaths only — whereas the death toll in Iraq includes both hostile and accidental deaths. This makes our own murder rates in LA, Chicago and NYC even more appalling. Yet there is not an equivalent amount of reporting or hand wringing.
[...snip...]
Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of going to war in Iraq. But objectivity requires that these deaths be put in perspective. Do we continue to condemn death in Iraq while simultaneously ignoring the concurrent deaths in our own cities — or should we consider all violent deaths a terrible waste of life?
What America's declining casualties reveal
By Vasko Kohlmayer
The dramatic decline in US casualties in Iraq has been one the great untold story of recent months. With thirty-nine lost in January, twenty-three in December, thirty-seven in November and thirty-eight in November, a young American male would have been safer in Iraq than in some of America's inner cities.
Given the circumstances this is not what one would expect. For one thing, the number of casualties a foreign force takes usually grows as conflicts of this nature drag on. Secondly, a number of factors would appear to make Iraq the ideal place for the kind of partisan-style operation the insurgents are trying to carry out.
To begin with, the conflict's long duration has given the enemy the time to structure and organize themselves. Since America incites deep hostility in the jihadist psyche, there has been no shortage of recruits eager to fight the Great Satan. The eagerness of many to die and claim their virgins makes them an especially dangerous and deadly foe. The insurgency has also been well backed by the jihad's financiers who consider Iraq the central battlefield in their cause. Finally, the insurgency has been receiving steady state support from Iran and Syria in the form of weapons, materiel and advisors.
When an insurgency that is so favored ends up as ineffective as the one in Iraq today, there can only be one reason for it: a lack of support from the local population.
This is because native populations are to this type of fighters what water is to fish. Since they move and live among them, the insurgents depend on locals for cover, sustenance and other necessities. But the Iraqis apparently do not provide them with the support they need and demand. In fact, the opposite is the case. Everyday our soldiers receive tips which help them to bust enemy safe houses, find weapons caches, and foil plots.
This may come as a shock to some, but our low casualty rate clearly shows that the Iraqi people have taken the side of America and that on a mass scale.
The perception that the Iraqis detest our soldiers as oppressive occupiers has been falsely created by American liberals and their collaborators in the Democrat Party and the mainstream media. It was them who fabricated the notion that our military is a cesspool of wanton torturers, lust-filled rapists and unscrupulous thugs preying on the people of Iraq. Because American liberals loathe our military, they want to make every one else loathe it as well. Eager to drum up hatred, they have been spreading their slander either by direct accusation or by insinuation.
Liberals have shown their true nature by choosing the side of evil in the great struggle of our time. So complete is their betrayal that they obsessively shield some of the world's most bloodthirsty fanatics from temporary discomfort that would yield information that could save thousands of innocent lives. Even though they try to deny it, their actions clearly show that liberals have thrown their lot with some of the most brutal, cruel and depraved miscreants in recent memory. In their eagerness to hand them victory they have already declared this war lost even as their country dominates the battlefield. The terrorists for their part show their appreciation when they celebrate Democrats' electoral successes, for even ideological differences and geographic distance cannot obscure the fact that American liberals are the best friends they have.
So intimate is this shameful pact that the other side - Bin Laden, al-Zahawiri, al-Jazeera and their likes - routinely base their tirades against America on liberals' talking points. And while liberals give plenty of encouragement to foreign reprobates, they have little good to say about the best and bravest among us. Even as they disingenuously proclaim their support for our troops, they eagerly seize on every minor infraction to besmirch their reputation.
But like in much else liberals are wrong. Rather than being an accurate assessment of reality, their smears are a reflection of their own depravity which prevents them from seeing things as they really are. If they did, they would realize that there has never been a military which has treated both civilians and combat enemy more humanely or with more dignity. No one is in a better position to make this judgment than the Iraqi people who have had the opportunity to observe and interact with our armed forces first hand. The low casualty figures coming out of Iraq tell their side of the story loud and clear.
Liberals would do well to listen up.
The Latest Proposed Health Care Mandate
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
One of the reasons why I am a member of the Anti-Universal Coverage Club is summed up by the manifesto of the club:
Universal coverage" could be achieved only by forcing everyone to buy health insurance or by having government provide health insurance to all, neither of which is desirable.
In a free society, people should have the right to refuse health insurance.
This kind of statement is a prerequisite to having and maintaining a free society. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton appears to disagree and she has announced the most draconian of measures to finance her plans for universal coverage:
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.
The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."
Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."
Clinton's Filthy Lucre
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, February 01, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Ethics: Is it just us, or is there something off about ex-president Bill Clinton using his influence overseas to enrich a pal and then accepting the pal's big donation to his foundation? This looks like a bribery racket.
Related Topics: General Politics
Strong words, yes, but a New York Times report details a 2005 incident of Clinton and a minor Canadian mining financier jetting into Kazakhstan, where the two met with the local strongman. Shortly afterward, Clinton's pal won a huge uranium-mining contract that left competing mining companies astounded.
Anything untoward? Clinton says of course not. After all, doesn't every ex-president jet in to Central Asia from time to time to check up on his charity projects and sample the gourmet cuisine? Nothing to see here, move along.
But the story doesn't end there. Clinton's friend, Frank Giustra, eventually ended up a billionaire from that "lucky" trip. He then donated $31.3 million to Clinton's $208 million foundation as its largest donor in 2006. Any connection? Nada, Clinton's defenders say.
Who doesn't think something fishy is going on?
It's the tip of a larger problem with Clinton and his global foundation that was launched in 1997 to "make a difference."
Besides ending global warming and doling out AIDS medicine, it appears to have another purpose — as a vehicle for extending Clinton's global power reach. The foundation's potential to draw "thank you" donations for helpful acts like showing up in Almaty is just one part of it. It could go even further than that.
Another Clinton pal, Denise Rich, donated $450,000 to Clinton's library around the time that Clinton pardoned her ex-husband, Marc Rich, the fugitive financier on the lam for tax evasion and trading with the enemy. Any connection? Of course not.
It gets downright dangerous when one considers that Clinton's wife is now a front-runner for the Oval Office in 2009. With Hillary in high office, Clinton will be free to do as he pleases with his foundation but his proximity to real power will be far greater.
In a Dec. 20 report, the Times asked whether Clinton's foundation donations could be misused to "circumvent campaign finance laws intended to limit political influence."
That's worth paying attention to, because Clinton Foundation records show that one of the few projects it has funded is a group called Acorn, which had employees convicted of voter fraud.
So if Bill Clinton can and is willing to sway, even implicitly by his presence, a distant satrap such as Kazakhstan's leader to help a crony, then the potential for him to sway a U.S. president who may have interest in perpetuating herself and her pals in power is even greater.
Meanwhile, there's been a mysterious rise in donations that have been washing into the William J. Clinton Foundation's coffers. Mysterious, because most of the donors are anonymous.
A look at the foundation's 2006 donors from its most recent Form 990 IRS return shows that not one of the top 13 donors are identified. Clinton says he won't disclose them because he promised anonymity but for future donors, if his wife becomes president, he will.
Even that isn't as magnanimous as it looks. To all who would like to have Bill on their string, it's tantamount to a dinner call to get their donations in now. Not surprisingly, donations rose most sharply in 2006, the last published year, by almost 50% to $138.5 million.
The Washington Post reported last month that 10% of Clinton's donations for his presidential library were from overseas sources — not just wealthy businessmen, but foreign governments, too. The Saudis gave $10 million, and Kuwait and Brunei also chipped in.
It all shows that if there is a loophole, Clinton will take it. Appearances of impropriety mean nothing to him. But with a new Clinton in the White House, the stakes rise. As money rolls in and the Clintons take power, this specter of an ex-president sitting on a cash-hungry foundation and his wife in a position to dole out favors bears potential for Marcos-like corruption and a sellout of American interests on a scale unknown in the U.S. Who is going to stop them?
McCain vs. Hillary on earmarks: Good government vs. pay to play
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Feb 1, 2008 3:00 AM (7 hrs ago) by Timothy Carney, The Examiner
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - President Bush, in his State of the Union address Monday, reinvigorated public discussion of earmarks — lawmakers’ specific spending items inserted into appropriations bills. While fiscal conservatives in Washington are skeptical about Bush’s ability to do much on the issue, the president may be helping his party by bringing up this issue, which touched on fiscal conservatism, government transparency and political corruption.
Earmarks, and their use of tools of corruption, could play a large role in the 2008 presidential contest if the current front-runners succeed in grabbing their respective parties’ nominations. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is a leading opponent of pork and one of the only lawmakers to forswear earmarks, while Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is Congress’ leading porker.
Clinton’s earmarking is not merely offensive to procedural purists who demand spending go through standard channels. It also is not merely a transgression against fiscal conservatism. Clinton’s earmarks often directly benefit specific corporations and businessmen, who, in turn, make large contributions to her campaign. This “pay-to-play” earmarking, as one left-leaning budget watchdog group put it, highlights the truly dirty side of earmarks and plays to McCain’s most famous theme: the corrosive effects of money in politics.
McCain earned floods of media praise — and conservative criticism — during his most celebrated crusade in the name of good government: the 2001 “Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act,” also known as McCain-Feingold. Most Republican politicians and Beltway conservative activists and journalists assailed this bill, supposed to “get corporate money out of politics,” as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech and a useless tool for cleaning up government corruption.
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The conservative way to clean up government is embodied in “Wheeler’s Law,” articulated by the late National Review writer Timothy Wheeler: “The way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of the high places.” On the question of earmarks, at least, McCain seems to understand this, and his crusade against them is probably his chief virtue among conservatives. In this election season, it could also be his chief contrast to Clinton.
Clinton’s most eye-catching earmarks might be the two $5 million line items for a mall in upstate New York. The Syracuse mall, called DestiNY, made a grand entrance into federal politics in 2005, when Clinton, together with local congressman James Walsh, Republican, put $10 million of earmarks for the project into the highway bill. Syracuse City Councilwoman Stephanie Miner, who is supporting Clinton for president, called government funding for the mall “corporate welfare.”
The developer behind the project is New Yorker Robert J. Congel, who has been a generous contributor to politicians, mostly Republicans. They make an exception for Clinton, however. Federal Election Commission records show Congel and his wife have contributed $26,700 to Clinton’s campaigns and political action committees. Clinton has also pocketed thousands in contributions from Congel’s family and business associates. The Los Angeles Times reports that Congel also held a fundraiser for Clinton that netted $50,000.
Many of Clinton’s other earmark beneficiaries are also her campaign contributors, fundraisers or prominent endorsers. Clinton secured $1.6 million in the 2006 defense appropriations bill for the New School on Social Research, where one trustee was Clinton fundraiser Norman Hsu, who raised $850,000 for Clinton before being indicted on fraud charges in December. Clinton has since returned the money.
It might be impossible to track down how many more Hsus and Congels are out there filling Clinton’s coffers and pocketing taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a left-leaning organization, says Clinton has secured 360 earmarks worth $2.2 billion, and many of them benefit Clinton donors. That’s why TCS research director Keith Ashdown told the L.A. Times, “Clinton has made aggressive use of the pay-to-play earmark game.”
For McCain, it’s easy to keep track: He doesn’t earmark. While earmarking is not the only avenue of corporate-political corruption, it’s the most blatant and the easiest way for lawmakers to make friends and woo donors.
Clintonian expertise in turning government power into political advantage makes her a formidable opponent, but McCain’s image as a reformer, combined with his reality as an earmark scourge, could boost the underdog Republicans this election year.
Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney is senior reporter for the Evans & Novak Political Report.
Did you hear your war monger Hillary try to explain away why she voted for the war resolution?
Said she didn't realize it approved of intervention- just was an OK to send inspectors back in
Obama came back with. well Hill, it WAS named the " approval for military action in Iraq" bill
Even Wolf said , "why don't you just admit you made a mistake
Too funny
based on the prevailing sentiment in the country with a view for her eventual run for potus
Well, in fact it was a direct quote from his speech
Turns out, the quote was not given it's full context. In it's full context, which I read after the post, the headline quote is misleading
Al Qaeda commander in Pakistan reportedly killed in U.S. missile strike
The apparent death of Abu Laith al-Libi shows gains by US intelligence in Waziristan.
By Michael B. Farrell | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 1, 2008 edition
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The Americans had a $200,000 bounty on his head. He tried to assassinate Vice President Cheney last year in Afghanistan, say US officials. But one of Al Qaeda's most senior commanders in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, appears to be dead. He was killed in a US missile strike in a remote part of Pakistan this week, according to a radical Islamist website.
Mr. Libi was the liaison between the terrorist group and the Taliban, say experts, but they add that his death would not cause much significant operational damage to Osama bin Laden's network.
Still, his reported killing late Monday or early Tuesday just outside Mir Ali in north Waziristan represents a significant gain in American or coalition intelligence gathering within the restive tribal belt. As of Thursday, his death had not been officially confirmed.
"It means they are having some accurate intelligence information gathering.... Usually the second rank of leadership is very careful in its movements," says Abdel Bari Atwan, editor in chief of al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper in London and the author of "The Secret History of Al Qaeda."
Mr. Atwan says that after many reports of unsuccessful attempts at targeting senior Al Qaeda leadership in the region, "it seems this time they have accurate information, which is a success.
"It's a blow to [Al Qaeda], but not a crippling blow. Once you cut off one head, three or four or five more emerge. He will definitely be replaced."
Libi, from Libya, was an Al Qaeda training camp leader who has appeared in many videos on militant websites and whom the United States says was behind the February 2007 bombing at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan during a visit by the vice president that killed 23 people.
A Pakistani intelligence official said that Libi was based until late 2003 in the north Waziristan village of Norak, about five miles outside Mir Ali, where he had several compounds. He shifted inside Afghanistan after he took charge of Al Qaeda operations on both sides of the border, but retained links with Norak.
Martin Navias, an analyst with Britain's Center for Defence Studies, says that the US has often said it would step up operations in Pakistan, but he was uncertain that this latest strike was an expression of this more aggressive stance against Al Qaeda in the region.
"It's the kind of operation that reflects good intelligence.... It's significant in the propaganda sense for the Americans, but it not going to have major operational effect."
The Islamist militant website that announced his death said Libi "was martyred with a group of his brothers in the land of Muslim Pakistan.... Though we are sad for his loss, he left a legacy that will inflame the enemy nation and religion."
• Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Easy, just look at the contract with America that was the bluprint for their gaining power back
How much of that did they follow through on??
People correctly view them as jsut more pols looking out for their own interests
IT's Congress in general- approval 11%- dems and reps share guilt
YEs, that's true, but not the motivating cause for what they did.
But you probably knew that didn't ya?
what's the purpose of government if not to take care of its people?
This is the libs fallacy in a nutshell
Paul had it right last night, the govt's role is NOT to "take care of it's people"
IT's role is to be as small and non interfering as possible, IT's there to guarantee rights ( opportunities ), not mandate results
Who is to determine what a CEO's salary should be? A bureaucrat in DC or the people who are hiring him
I trust the market over gov't interference
Clinton aide caught up in funding scandal
One of Hillary Clinton's aides in her campaign for the White House is having a professional complaint against his company considered by the self-regulatory body that governs political consultants in Britain. At a meeting on February 4, the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) will consider the complaint against Morgan Allen Moore, of which the controversial lobbyist and consultant Steve Morgan is chairman.
Morgan’s name has hit the UK headlines in recent days because of his involvement last year in Peter Hain's bid to become deputy leader of the Labour party, the funding of which is now being investigated by the police. Morgan left the Hain campaign last June - when, despite his efforts, Hain came a disappointing fifth out of six contenders - and is currently working with the Clinton campaign team, with special responsibility for overseas voters.
The complaint against Morgan has been made by James Davenport, a former employee of Morgan Allen Moore, who claims Morgan breached the APPC code of conduct – specifically a clause governing the separation of private and consultancy activities - while working on the Hain campaign. Members of the APPC management committee first met on January 28 to consider the complaint. A spokesman told The First Post that, as a result, they have asked Davenport to provide more information and substantiate his allegations. The committee will meet on Monday, February 4 to reconsider the complaint.
Welsh-born Morgan was brought in last April to take over Peter Hain’s election drive and – in his own words - "bring order to the chaos" left by others. He demanded a more upfront – and more expensive - American-style campaign, which required an immediate increase in fund-raising. Phil Taylor, who had run the campaign until Morgan’s arrival, left within days. In a resignation email sent on April 7, he warned Peter Hain that he could not see how the higher bills would be met. And he claims to have reminded Morgan that any individual donation of more than £1,000 had to be publicly declared within 30 days. It has since transpired that donations totaling £103,000 were never declared.
Last week, Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, had to resign from the Cabinet after the Electoral Commission passed their file on the matter to the police. As part of their investigation, the Metropolitan police's economic and specialist crime unit are expected to examine the Hain team’s relationship with the Progressive Policy Forum (PPF) think-tank, a little-known body that provided £26,000 in donations and an interest-free £25,000 loan to the Hain campaign. The PPF employs no staff and has not published any pamphlets or political work of any kind since it was set up in December 2006. Detectives will want to know if donors who gave money to the PPF also gave their permission for it to be used for Hain's leadership campaign and, if so, why they did not give money to the campaign directly.
Steve Morgan has worked for politicians on both sides of the Atlantic over the past decade. He helped on Tony Blair's 1997 election victory and was an international media spokesman for both John Kerry and Al Gore during their fruitless bids for the White House. He told the Sunday Telegraph earlier in January that, among other duties, he was running the Clinton campaign's 'outreach' programme, wooing oversees visitors, including 350,000 in Britain. "There are 6.5 million American expats now – that's more than voters than in the state of Masachusetts."
Why didn't you answer my question?
Hillary voted for the war
IS she a war monger?
The surge has actually resulted in greatly reduced casualties and could pave the way for a lasting political reconciliation.
He deserves credit for coming out for a policy change that was very unpopular at the time
But, you choose to deny the positive results the surge has brought, even though your hero has acknowledged them, along with many other previously anti war dems and reps
I guess I must have missed the part of the constitution that mandates that everybody has a right to be middle class
Corporate welfare should be a thing of the past, but how do you go about obtaining your ideal of no very rich or poor?
Once opportunity is created, how can end results be guaranteed?
Difference there is that the Clinton's sleaze is for their own gain
North and the whole Iran contra deal was about an end result that was ideologically motivated.
Bill: "We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy" to Fight Global Warming
January 31, 2008 9:26 AM
Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday.
In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."
At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? "Slow down our economy"?
Is Bill really trying to make sure Hillary isn't elected??
ON the verge of a recession and financial crisis, slowing down the economy is the worst possible stance to take
BRILLIANT
Any time she brings up political sleaze, she's looking for trouble
Just remember the pardon filth at the end of Bubba's reign
Hillary voted for going to war in Iraq
Isn't she a war monger also?
And she had the nerve to bring up Reszko during a debate
Obama should have come back with Charlie Tri and all their other fund raising scandals
An Ex-President, a Mining Deal and a Big Donor
By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.
Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.
Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.
Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.
The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.
Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.
Mr. Giustra was invited to accompany the former president to Almaty just as the financier was trying to seal a deal he had been negotiating for months.
In separate written responses, both men said Mr. Giustra traveled with Mr. Clinton to Kazakhstan, India and China to see first-hand the philanthropic work done by his foundation.
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton said the former president knew that Mr. Giustra had mining interests in Kazakhstan but was unaware of “any particular efforts” and did nothing to help. Mr. Giustra said he was there as an “observer only” and there was “no discussion” of the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev or Mr. Clinton.
But Moukhtar Dzhakishev, president of Kazatomprom, said in an interview that Mr. Giustra did discuss it, directly with the Kazakh president, and that his friendship with Mr. Clinton “of course made an impression.” Mr. Dzhakishev added that Kazatomprom chose to form a partnership with Mr. Giustra’s company based solely on the merits of its offer.
After The Times told Mr. Giustra that others said he had discussed the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev, Mr. Giustra responded that he “may well have mentioned my general interest in the Kazakhstan mining business to him, but I did not discuss the ongoing” efforts.
As Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign has intensified, Mr. Clinton has begun severing financial ties with Ronald W. Burkle, the supermarket magnate, and Vinod Gupta, the chairman of InfoUSA, to avoid any conflicts of interest. Those two men have harnessed the former president’s clout to expand their businesses while making the Clintons rich through partnership and consulting arrangements.
Mr. Clinton has vowed to continue raising money for his foundation if Mrs. Clinton is elected president, maintaining his connections with a wide network of philanthropic partners.
Mr. Giustra said that while his friendship with the former president “may have elevated my profile in the news media, it has not directly affected any of my business transactions.”
Mining colleagues and analysts agree it has not hurt. Neil MacDonald, the chief executive of a Canadian merchant bank that specializes in mining deals, said Mr. Giustra’s financial success was partly due to a “fantastic network” crowned by Mr. Clinton. “That’s a very solid relationship for him,” Mr. MacDonald said. “I’m sure it’s very much a two-way relationship because that’s the way Frank operates.”
Foreseeing Opportunities
Mr. Giustra made his fortune in mining ventures as a broker on the Vancouver Stock Exchange, raising billions of dollars and developing a loyal following of investors. Just as the mining sector collapsed, Mr. Giustra, a lifelong film buff, founded the Lion’s Gate Entertainment Corporation in 1997. But he sold the studio in 2003 and returned to mining.
Mr. Giustra foresaw a bull market in gold and began investing in mines in Argentina, Australia and Mexico. He turned a $20 million shell company into a powerhouse that, after a $2.4 billion merger with Goldcorp Inc., became Canada’s second-largest gold company.
With a net worth estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Giustra began looking for ways to put his wealth to good use. Meeting Mr. Clinton, and learning about the work his foundation was doing on issues like AIDS treatment in poor countries, “changed my life,” Mr. Giustra told The Vancouver Sun.
The two men were introduced in June 2005 at a fund-raiser for tsunami victims at Mr. Giustra’s Vancouver home and hit it off right away. They share a love of history, geopolitics and music — Mr. Giustra plays the trumpet to Mr. Clinton’s saxophone. Soon the dapper Canadian was a regular at Mr. Clinton’s side, as they flew around the world aboard Mr. Giustra’s plane.
Philanthropy may have become his passion, but Mr. Giustra, now 50, was still hunting for ways to make money.
Exploding demand for energy had helped revitalize the nuclear power industry, and uranium, the raw material for reactor fuel, was about to become a hot commodity. In late 2004, Mr. Giustra began talking to investors, and put together a company that would eventually be called UrAsia Energy Ltd.
Kazakhstan, which has about one-fifth of the world’s uranium reserves, was the place to be. But with plenty of suitors, Kazatomprom could be picky about its partners.
“Everyone was asking Kazatomprom to the dance,” said Fadi Shadid, a senior stock analyst covering the uranium industry for Friedman Billings Ramsey, an investment bank. “A second-tier junior player like UrAsia — you’d need all the help you could get.”
The Cameco Corporation, the world’s largest uranium producer, was already a partner of Kazatomprom. But when Cameco expressed interest in the properties Mr. Giustra was already eying, the government’s response was lukewarm. “The signals we were getting was, you’ve got your hands full,” said Gerald W. Grandey, Cameco president.
For Cameco, it took five years to “build the right connections” in Kazakhstan, Mr. Grandey said. UrAsia did not have that luxury. Profitability depended on striking before the price of uranium soared.
“Timing was everything,” said Sergey Kurzin, a Russian-born businessman whose London-based company was brought into the deal by UrAsia because of his connections in Kazakhstan. Even with those connections, Mr. Kurzin said, it took four months to arrange a meeting with Kazatomprom.
In August 2005, records show, the company sent an engineering consultant to Kazakhstan to assess the uranium properties. Less than four weeks later, Mr. Giustra arrived with Mr. Clinton.
Mr. Dzhakishev, the Kazatomprom chief, said an aide to Mr. Nazarbayev informed him that Mr. Giustra talked with Mr. Nazarbayev about the deal during the visit. “And when our president asked Giustra, ‘What do you do?’ he said, ‘I’m trying to do business with Kazatomprom,’ ” Mr. Dzhakishev said. He added that Mr. Nazarbayev replied, “Very good, go to it.”
Mr. Clinton’s Kazakhstan visit, the only one of his post-presidency, appears to have been arranged hastily. The United States Embassy got last-minute notice that the president would be making “a private visit,” said a State Department official, who said he was not authorized to speak on the record.
The publicly stated reason for the visit was to announce a Clinton Foundation agreement that enabled the government to buy discounted AIDS drugs. But during a news conference, Mr. Clinton wandered into delicate territory by commending Mr. Nazarbayev for “opening up the social and political life of your country.”
In a statement Kazakhstan would highlight in news releases, Mr. Clinton declared that he hoped it would achieve a top objective: leading the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which would confer legitimacy on Mr. Nazarbayev’s government.
“I think it’s time for that to happen, it’s an important step, and I’m glad you’re willing to undertake it,” Mr. Clinton said.
A Speedy Process
Mr. Clinton’s praise was odd, given that the United States did not support Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid. (Late last year, Kazakhstan finally won the chance to lead the security organization for one year, despite concerns raised by the Bush administration.) Moreover, Mr. Clinton’s wife, who sits on a Congressional commission with oversight of such matters, had also voiced skepticism.
Eleven months before Mr. Clinton’s statement, Mrs. Clinton co-signed a commission letter to the State Department that sounded “alarm bells” about the prospect that Kazakhstan might head the group. The letter stated that Kazakhstan’s bid “would not be acceptable,” citing “serious corruption,” canceled elections and government control of the news media.
In a written statement to The Times, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman said the former president saw “no contradiction” between his statements in Kazakhstan and the position of Mrs. Clinton, who said through a spokeswoman, “Senator Clinton’s position on Kazakhstan remains unchanged.”
Noting that the former president also met with opposition leaders in Almaty, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman said he was only “seeking to suggest that a commitment to political openness and to fair elections would reflect well on Kazakhstan’s efforts to chair the O.S.C.E.”
But Robert Herman, who worked for the State Department in the Clinton administration and is now at Freedom House, a human rights group, said the former president’s statement amounted to an endorsement of Kazakhstan’s readiness to lead the group, a position he called “patently absurd.”
“He was either going off his brief or he was sadly mistaken,” Mr. Herman said. “There was nothing in the record to suggest that they really wanted to move forward on democratic reform.”
Indeed, in December 2005, Mr. Nazarbayev won another election, which the security organization itself said was marred by an “atmosphere of intimidation” and “ballot-box stuffing.”
After Mr. Nazarbayev won with 91 percent of the vote, Mr. Clinton sent his congratulations. “Recognizing that your work has received an excellent grade is one of the most important rewards in life,” Mr. Clinton wrote in a letter released by the Kazakh embassy. Last September, just weeks after Kazakhstan held an election that once again failed to meet international standards, Mr. Clinton honored Mr. Nazarbayev by inviting him to his annual philanthropic conference.
Within 48 hours of Mr. Clinton’s departure from Almaty on Sept. 7, Mr. Giustra got his deal. UrAsia signed two memorandums of understanding that paved the way for the company to become partners with Kazatomprom in three mines.
The cost to UrAsia was more than $450 million, money the company did not have in hand and had only weeks to come up with. The transaction was finalized in November, after UrAsia raised the money through the largest initial public offering in the history of Canada’s Venture Exchange.
Mr. Giustra challenged the notion that UrAsia needed to court Kazatomprom’s favor to seal the deal, contending that the government agency’s approval was not required.
But Mr. Dzhakishev, analysts and Mr. Kurzin, one of Mr. Giustra’s own investors, said that approval was necessary. Mr. Dzhakishev, who said that the deal was almost done when Mr. Clinton arrived, said that Kazatomprom was impressed with the sum Mr. Giustra was willing to pay and his record of attracting investors. He said Mr. Nazarbayev himself ultimately signed off on the transaction.
Longtime market watchers were confounded. Kazatomprom’s choice of UrAsia was a “mystery,” said Gene Clark, the chief executive of Trade Tech, a uranium industry newsletter.
“UrAsia was able to jump-start the whole process somehow,” Mr. Clark said. The company became a “major uranium producer when it didn’t even exist before.”
A Profitable Sale
Records show that Mr. Giustra donated the $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation in the months that followed in 2006, but neither he nor a spokesman for Mr. Clinton would say exactly when.
In September 2006, Mr. Giustra co-produced a gala 60th birthday for Mr. Clinton that featured stars like Jon Bon Jovi and raised about $21 million for the Clinton Foundation.
In February 2007, a company called Uranium One agreed to pay $3.1 billion to acquire UrAsia. Mr. Giustra, a director and major shareholder in UrAsia, would be paid $7.05 per share for a company that just two years earlier was trading at 10 cents per share.
That same month, Mr. Dzhakishev, the Kazatomprom chief, said he traveled to Chappaqua, N.Y., to meet with Mr. Clinton at his home. Mr. Dzhakishev said Mr. Giustra arranged the three-hour meeting. Mr. Dzhakishev said he wanted to discuss Kazakhstan’s intention — not publicly known at the time — to buy a 10 percent stake in Westinghouse, a United States supplier of nuclear technology.
Nearly a year earlier, Mr. Clinton had advised Dubai on how to handle the political furor after one of that nation’s companies attempted to take over several American ports. Mrs. Clinton was among those on Capitol Hill who raised the national security concerns that helped kill the deal.
Mr. Dzhakishev said he was worried the proposed Westinghouse investment could face similar objections. Mr. Clinton told him that he would not lobby for him, but Mr. Dzhakishev came away pleased by the chance to promote his nation’s proposal to a former president.
Mr. Clinton “said this was very important for America,” said Mr. Dzhakishev, who added that Mr. Giustra was present at Mr. Clinton’s home.
Both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Giustra at first denied that any such meeting occurred. Mr. Giustra also denied ever arranging for Kazakh officials to meet with Mr. Clinton. Wednesday, after The Times told them that others said a meeting, in Mr. Clinton’s home, had in fact taken place, both men acknowledged it.
“You are correct that I asked the president to meet with the head of Kazatomprom,” Mr. Giustra said. “Mr. Dzhakishev asked me in February 2007 to set up a meeting with former President Clinton to discuss the future of the nuclear energy industry.” Mr. Giustra said the meeting “escaped my memory until you raised it.”
Wednesday, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman, Ben Yarrow, issued what he called a “correction,” saying: “Today, Mr. Giustra told our office that in February 2007, he brought Mr. Dzhakishev from Kazatomprom to meet with President Clinton to discuss the future of nuclear energy.”
Mr. Yarrow said his earlier denial was based on the former president’s records, which he said “show a Feb. 27 meeting with Mr. Giustra; no other attendees are listed.”
Mr. Dzhakishev said he had a vivid memory of his Chappaqua visit, and a souvenir to prove it: a photograph of himself with the former president.
“I hung up the photograph of us and people ask me if I met with Clinton and I say, Yes, I met with Clinton,” he said, smiling proudly.
David L. Stern and Margot Williams contributed reporting.
Terminated
January 30, 2008; Page A16
Arnold Schwarzenegger's "universal" health-care plan died in the California legislature on Monday, in what can only be called a mercy killing. So let's conduct a political autopsy, because there are important lessons here for the national health-care debate.
It's especially useful to compare today's muted obituaries to the page-one melodrama that surrounded the Governor when he announced his plan a year ago. Endless media mash notes were bestowed on the "post-partisan" Republican trying to get something done.
[Arnold Schwarzenegger]
The idea was that Mr. Schwarzenegger would set a national precedent, leading to a groundswell for reform in Washington. Not to mention that the Schwarzenegger plan was a near-copy of the one Mitt Romney pioneered in Massachusetts, and the one Hillary Clinton now favors. A leading author of the California plan was Laurie Rubiner, who directed health policy at the New America Foundation before becoming Senator Clinton's legislative director in 2005.
* * *
So much for that. The California legislature is probably the most liberal this side of Vermont, and even Democrats refused to become shock troops for this latest liberal experiment. Mr. Schwarzenegger and Democrats in the State Assembly did agree on a compromise plan in December. But on Monday, only a single member of the Senate Health Committee voted to report the bill to the full chamber -- and thus it joined a graveyard full of state "universal" health-care failures.
Like collapses in Illinois, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, this one crumpled because of the costs, which are always much higher than anticipated. The truth teller was state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, who thought to ask about the price tag of a major new entitlement amid what's already a $14.5 billion budget shortfall.
An independent analysis confirmed the plan would be far more expensive than proponents admitted. Even under the most favorable assumptions, spending would outpace revenue by $354 million after two years, and likely $3.9 billion or more. "A situation that I thought was bad," Mr. Perata noted, "in fact was worse."
This reveals that liberal health-care politics is increasingly the art of the impossible: You can't make coverage "universal" while at the same time keeping costs in check -- at least without prohibitive tax increases. Lowering cost and increasing access, in other words, are separate and irreconcilable issues.
Of course Washington might be able to disregard these practicalities, because the states are prohibited from running deficits while the feds aren't. But the California experience also reveals some of the ideological differences among Democrats, which would also divide in the Beltway.
The centerpiece of the Schwarzenegger plan was the "individual mandate," which is also the heart of HillaryCare 2.0. Such a law would compel everyone to acquire insurance, with subsidies for those who couldn't afford it. But the individual mandate incited a liberal revolt. Many Democrats and some unions argued the subsidies weren't generous enough to cover lower-income families, and it wasn't fair to penalize them for coverage they couldn't afford. One state Senator called the plan "a knife in the throat of the working poor." So the plan failed because it was too expensive -- and because for some Democrats it wasn't expensive enough.
Opposition also arose because the plan didn't do enough to punish the left's health-care villains. While it greatly expanded regulation of insurers -- requiring them to accept all applicants, and prohibiting premium differences based on health status -- it didn't cap how much they could charge consumers, or regulate their profits. Democrats also complained that the taxes the plan imposed on business, as high as 6.5% of payroll, weren't high enough. Business disagreed.
All of which is to say that while the plan was opposed by nearly all Republicans, it died at the hands of Democrats. Mr. Schwarzenegger was a collaborator in that he went out of his way to assail and thus alienate fellow Republicans for opposing tax increases to pay for the plan. But if Mrs. Clinton or Barack Obama want to push a major health-care reform through Congress, they will have to find a way to appease their own left-wing while not alienating business and taxpayers.
* * *
What the California collapse should discredit in particular is the individual mandate as a policy tool for Republican reformers. This was Mr. Romney's enthusiasm for a time, helped along by the Heritage Foundation. But in order to be enforceable, such a mandate inevitably becomes a government mandate, and a very expensive one at that.
Voters are rightly concerned about health care, but they also don't want to pay higher taxes to finance coverage for everyone. Mr. Schwarzenegger's spectacular failure shows that there's an opening for Republicans to make the case for health-care reform based on choice and tax-equity, not mandates and tax hikes.
wsj
Obama To Dems: Tear Down This Firewall!
Barack Obama got in some hot water in Nevada for making a mildly positive reference to Ronald Reagan, but he wants to win the nomination in part by emulating one of Reagan's most well-known feats. Rather than publicly demand the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, though, Obama has set himself the task of tearing down Hillary Clinton's last and most significant firewall -- the superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention:
Bill Richardson's phone has been ringing off the hook.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called Sunday night, followed by her husband, and then Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Clinton backer. Sen. Barack Obama called twice Monday morning. Monday afternoon, Richardson spent 15 minutes on the phone with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
But the New Mexico governor, who dropped out of the presidential race after a dismal finish in the New Hampshire primary, is torn. "I have a history with the Clintons," said Richardson, who served in the Clinton administration, first as ambassador to the United Nations, then as energy secretary. "And I've always liked her," he said. But he considers Kennedy "a mentor" who helped to get him elected to Congress in 1982. He also likes Obama but remains undecided.
Obama allies are hoping to make Richardson take part in a stream of high-profile endorsements from Democratic Party leaders, who will help to dismantle what the Clinton campaign calls its "firewall" in the nomination battle: a clear advantage among superdelegates, who account for about a quarter of the total number of delegates who will determine the nominee.
This is what makes the Kennedy endorsements so powerful. They have enormous influence on a large part of the Democratic establishment, which broadens Obama's efforts considerably. Where campaign operatives would have trouble getting serious talk time with people like Bill Richardson, he has to take Teddy's calls, and he knows it.
Once again, this underscores the nature of the establishment. Kennedy represents the Old Left, and the Clintons the New Left. It gives the Kennedy faction an opportunity they have not had in sixteen years to turn the Democrats around and away from the DLC. Fueled by the remnants of the anti-war activists Kennedy has courted, they could make a serious run at the superdelegates and isolate the DLC faction -- and Bill Clinton's clod-like behavior on the stump can only help.
If Obama takes a lead in the superdelegates, Hillary will be in serious trouble. Superdelegates consists of about 16% of the entire delegate total, and a win there would be akin to taking California and New York combined. He could afford to lose a couple more states, and Hillary would be pressed to run the table. Even if she did win, a loss in superdelegates leaves her limping into a divided and potentially divisive convention, with a big vote of no confidence from the establishment she hopes to represent.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on January 30, 2008 6:54 AM | Co
A Woman's Word [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From the Union Leader:
COURTING VOTERS in Iowa and New Hampshire, last August Sen. Hillary Clinton signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in the Michigan or Florida Democratic primaries. She participated in both primaries and is campaigning in Florida. Which proves, again, that Hillary Clinton is a liar.
Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot when others removed theirs, she campaigned this past weekend in Florida, and she is pushing to seat Michigan and Florida delegates at the Democratic National Convention. The party stripped those states of delegates as punishment for moving up their primary dates.
"I will try to persuade my delegates to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida," Clinton said last week, after the New Hampshire primaries and Iowa caucuses were safely over.
Clinton coldly and knowingly lied to New Hampshire and Iowa. Her promise was not a vague statement. It was a signed pledge with a clear and unequivocal meaning.
Stratfor peeled off a few and looked beyond the shallow tedium of the speech to the strategic core of the Bush administration's late-game foreign policy:
Many see Bush as constrained by his lame duck status, his unpopularity and a Democratic majority in Congress. Stratfor disagrees. We see these factors as empowering the White House.
Bush is not running for reelection, so he need not cater to the polls. He has no clear successor to support, so he need not spare the lash for fear of harming an ally. A Democratic Congress combined with a general election in November means that all of his initiatives are dead on arrival on the House and Senate floor, so he need not even spare a glance in the direction of domestic policy.
All the pieces are in place for a no-holds-barred executive with very few institutional restrictions on his ability to act. Foreign affairs require neither popular support nor Congressional approval.
The president’s primary goal in 2008 is simple: reaching an arrangement with Iran. Ideally, this would be a mutually agreed upon deal that splits influence in Iraq, but we have already moved past the point where that is critical. Al Qaeda, the reason for being involved in the region in the first place, is essentially dead. The various Sunni Arab powers that made al Qaeda possible have lined up behind Washington. Iran and the United States may still wish to quibble over details, but the strategic picture is clearing: a U.S.-led coalition is going to shape the Middle East, and it is up to Iran whether it wants to play the role of that coalition’s spear or its target. And the Bush administration has the full power of the United States — and one long year — to drive that point home.
MICHAEL YON EMAILS: "Major offensive has begun in Mosul. This is likely Al Qaeda's last real stand in Iraq. Surely they will continue to murder people for a long time, but they are running out of places to hide. Just arrived Kuwait. Should be in Iraq tomorrow and will be in the middle of it." I look forward to the reports.
posted at 10:20 AM by Glenn Reynolds Permalink
Well, to all but the moonbats, casualty stats over the years paint a more accurate picture than anecdotal incidents. You could psot about horrible murders in any big city in the US daily and claim our streets are unsafe
Did you bother to read the report on the progress in Fallujah I posted. Previously one of the most violent cities, it's now greatly changed- but go ahead with your continued quagmire wishes- that puts you on the far left scale of the moonbats- congrats
I guess the problem was that they elected the ad hoc terrorists whose charter has the elimination of Israel as a main goal ( but, yes we know the jews deserve it )
I said the fact that they are is the reason US casualties are down.
LOL, and you call me a liar
IED and all other attacks are down- THAT is the reason our casualties. IF you combine our and the Iraqi casualties, they are still downtrending nicely
Please provdie justification for your "raging civil war: comments. Just got tired of quagmire????
Murtha and many other congress people formerly against the war have all admitted progress is being made, yet you still pathetically hold on to your wish taht Iraq is still torn by civil war