January 2009 Archives

The power governors enjoy to appoint replacements to vacant U.S. Senate seats has come under fire in recent weeks thanks to the appointment spectacles in Illinois and New York (among others).

Rachel Maddow, Nate Silver, the Washington Post editorial page, and the great Senator Russ Feingold (among others) are arguing that now is the time to reform this 17th Amendment provision and mandate special elections.

I understand the view. What has happened the past month in New York and Illinois has been awful to watch. Silver has pointed out that appointed Senators have trouble winning re-election.

But I am thankful that our Constitution is hard to amend -- because in our rush to good government, I fear all of these special-election proponents are not placing enough consideration on one of the good elements of the appointment rule: the fact that in the event of a catastrophic event that were to kill most members of the United States Senate, that body could be reconstituted rather quickly.

One of the (many) failures of the Bush Administration lies in its refusal to ensure our government could continue to function after a catastrophic event.

After all of the talk in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks about what could have happened in Flight 93 had made it to Washington, D.C., and flown into the U.S. Capitol, our nation has done nothing to prepare for such remote, but important, possibilities.

After September 11, many people began to look at what could be done to recreate our government the event that many of our Senators and Representatives were killed -- like in a terrorist attack. The Brookings Institution even hosted a Continuity of Government Commission.

Alas, little has changed.

If Flight 93 had reached Washignton, D.C., at a time when Congress was in session, the results of that day would have been even more catastrophic. Would we still have a functioning government? How long would it have taken for the House of Representatives, which requires special elections for replacements, to constitute a quorum?

If we are going to reopen the question about the appointment of replacement Senators, we should only do so as part of a larger conversation about what can be done to ensure our government is able to return as quickly as possible under a worst-case scenario. Matthew Yglesias has an interesting idea that special elections are required unless a threshold number of Senators are killed in a terrorist attack or other disaster.

It should be an outrage that our nation has failed to deal with this issue more than seven years after the vulnerability was exposed. If we were to do something now, the Senate appointment dramas we have just witnessed would have some benefit to our Republic.

Matt at DemConWatch has posted the minute-by-minute inauguration ceremony schedule.

Dean Baker asks an excellent question.

Really? What does he have to do to be fired? To have taxpayers stop subsidizing his high salary?

Andrew Sullivan asks a vital question of the main-stream media:

A simple question: now that the chief Gitmo prosecutor has said that Qahtani was tortured, will the New York Times, the AP, Newsweek and the Washington Post stop using words and euphemisms that are not true? Or do we have to endure more linguistic cowardice from the MSM?

Alas, I'm going to bet on cowardice.

I admit that I am disappointed that with all of our technology and security that a solution has not been found to allow President-Elect Obama to continue to have a Blackberry after he takes the oath of office.

Yes, the e-mails he sends could be made public. Such transparency is not a flaw in my mind.

The New York Daily News had the idea to ask some major advertising people to use this situation and design ads that use the Obama situation as a jumping off point for an ad campaign for Blackberry.

It's a fun series. My favorite is slide number 7.

Ezra Klein explains how difficult it will be to pass health care reform at the federal level if it is not done this year.

I had lunch yesterday with a longtime Hill and administration health care adviser who argued, persuasively, that health care happens in 2009 or it doesn't happen at all. For the next year or so, Congress is going to be prepared for major action. It will be willing to spend money. It will be far from the next election. A year from now, all that crashes down. The midterms will loom. The recognition of how much we've spent will dawn. The public pressure for dramatic action will ease. The aversion to risk will return. It's not impossible to imagine health care happening late in the administration's first term. But it's very difficult. The money won't be there. The budget hawks will be reempowered. The boom-bust cycle of elections will reemerge, and with it, the natural caution of Congress.

Klein is more confident than I am that the Obama Administration understands the ramifications of this dynamic.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that no amount of capitulations negotiations will get President-Elect Barack Obama a huge Republican endorsement of, or votes for, his economic stimulus package.

I love the California Alliance for Jobs. They have done great work in the past on helping to secure support for desperately needed infrastructure jobs in this state.

That's why I am so disappointed to see them promote the untrue and unfair meme that the Legislature as an entire institution is doing nothing to solve the state budget crisis in two new radio ads. These ads feature the great Will Durst and "blast the legislature" for inaction on the budget crisis.

Almost as if the Democrats had not gone out of their way to cut programs dear to their constituents, or come up with an $18 billion budget package without Republican support, or they -- and not Governor Schwarzenegger -- vetoed that plan, or signed a non-negotiable pledge with uber-Washington radical conservative kingpin Grover Norquist to take one necessary part of any balanced solution to the state budget off-the-table, or been advocates of plans to starve the public sector.

Perhaps this is just a failure of the 30-second radio ad. That does not provide a lot of time for nuance. But blaming the Legislature as a whole -- and not mentioning the Governor at all or trying to point out that while one side is compromising dearly the other has drawn a solid and unmovable line in the budget sand -- will ultimately backfire. Buying into this frame, rather than trying to educate the public, will move us no closer to a budget solution.

The California Alliance for Jobs' ads say that "We need real negotiations and real compromise - a budget that balances major cuts AND revenue increases. . .and we need it now."

Um, yes. We absolutely do. And one political party is trying to get there. But the Governor has yet to get a single Republican vote for any plan. And the Republican legislators have shown no willingness to talk about the revenue increases the California Alliance for Jobs demand.

Yes, the nuance may be more difficult. But these ads solve nothing. They move us closer to the fiscal Armageddon they are supposedly trying to have our state avoid.

Other than that -- good work.

The story of the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, who successfully landed his disabled plane in the Hudson River yesterday, is well worth a read.

And, yes, as far as I know the Mayor of Claycord was the first person to point out that the pilot, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, is from Danville -- just a couple cities over from where I am located.

The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin gets it done:

He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.

Heck of a job, Mr. President.

Josh Marshall explains.

But on this one, I am going to pin the blame on the Democratic leadership in Congress. They went along with this deal. They are not insisting on adequate transparency or oversight.

After eight years, we should know how the Bush Administration handles this things. We should understand they will resort to secrecy and cronyism whenever they can.

It's the Democrats' jobs not to fall for it. Yet they did.

Of course, now that a Democrat is about to enter the White House, we can expect Congressional Democrats and Republicans to suddenly care about oversight of the executive branch.

I hope I am wrong in my skepticism. But I believe I am being given many reasons, like this one, to worry.

So, Roland Burris is going to be seated later this week as the State of Illinois' junior senator.

Were the controversies of the last two weeks really worth it, Senate Democratic Leadership?

Somehow this entire mess does not inspire confidence.

According to the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert, former Assemblyman Ray Haynes was extremely candid yesterday in explaining why the state budget crisis is likely to get worse.

The Governor and the Democrats were asking Republicans to betray a key principle of a key constituency and get nothing in return. The result to any Republican who voted for that tax increase would be the end of their political career. I know, because, I said, I would do everything in my power to make sure of it for anyone who voted for that tax increase, and I know there are a lot of Republicans who think like me.

I have often argued that, for many radical Republicans, this state budget crisis is not a flaw -- it is a feature. After all, they have signed onto a political ideology that demands, as Grover Norquist once noted, shrinking government at every opportunity until it reaches the size where you can drown the rest in a bathtub.

Why are we surprised when we see the radicals do exactly what they say they want to do? It does not matter that this is not what the people of California want. The Republicans have veto power over the situation thanks to the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget or raise taxes.

A state with a $40 billion deficit created, in large part, by the tax cuts that have been passed over the past decade? A state where we are discussing reducing the school year by five days? Where infrastructure projects have stalled and people are losing their jobs? Where we are going to gut the social safety net?

All that appears to be okay. Or at least more important than making clear that, just this once, a vote to restore some of the revenues lost by tax cuts (which Democrats stupidly agreed to in better economic times) is necessary in order to keep California solvent.

After all, a vote to restore revenues would not cost anyone their political careers if Republicans would agree that it wouldn't. This isn't a passive situation. Political leaders can, well, lead. They can change public opinion -- they can educate and change minds.

The choice here -- and it is a choice -- is not to do any of that.

The priorities are clear. Don't be surprised.

I have great hopes for a blog introducted today: California Budget Bites from the California Budget Project.

The California Budget Project is one of the most important organizations in the state. Their perspective and budget analysis is extremely important to our budget debate. I am extremely pleased to see them start a blog as this state enters a pivotal debate over how to resolve our current budget crisis.

TVBarn's Aaron Barnhart informs us that AMC has published full-episode video of the entire 1967-68 series The Prisoner on the internet as a promotion for its reinterpretation mini-series scheduled to air later this year.

Watch the premiere episode of the original series, starring Patrick McGoohan.

FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver has a great analysis of the most common job pathways people take before getting elected to the U.S. Senate.

The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz posts historic charts of two measures of the unemployment rate.

It's a scary picture.

And Heather Boushey highlights this chart from the Center for American Progress shows the incredible loss of jobs in our economy.

One would think that when Nobel Prize winners like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz are clear that the Obama stimulus plan is not good enough and puts too much into tax cuts that politicians might listen.

After all, it's only a potential Great Depression at stake.

Robert in Monterey is correct: this Los Angeles Times editorial is an embarrassment. The paper has lost all credibility on state budget matters.

Here's a hint: agreeing with a radical crack-pot idea is not likely to make an editorial seem like a voice of reason.

Wow...does Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez really think Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson is going to be rattled by a press conference? Especially when Manchester United has a huge match with Chelsea on Sunday? EPL Talk has the story.

Not that this will stop those who distribute the "California's government is on a spending binge" talking points, but a quick look at Schedule 12A of the budget released today by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger shows that under his plan the state would be $21.335 billion below the State Appropriations Limit in 2008-09 and $18.581 billion below the limit in 2009-10.

Of course we are now told that it is absolutely necessary to enact a stricter spending cap. The old one is meaningless. Of course, we cannot consider that the 2/3rds vote rule has allowed the minority party to take actions that effectively have starved the public sector to the point where our schools, safety net, and infrastructure are crumbling.

When we are that far below the State Appropriations Limit, I wonder why we cannot dare to even consider the $12 billion a year in tax cuts that have been enacted since 1994-95.

Oh. That doesn't follow the talking points. Pardon me.

It's a lesson that Republicans at all levels of politics have placed in an ideological box and refuse to reconsider. Economist Mom, for example, makes note of this idioticeconomically partisan thought from House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) about the economic stimulus package proposed by President-Elect Obama:

"I remain concerned about wasteful spending that might be attached to the tax relief. Simply put, we should not bury future generations under mountains of debt," Boehner said.

Um, Mr. Minority Leader? Those tax cuts will also add to the debt. They always do -- and often add more debt over time, because it is far more difficult to reverse a tax cut than it is to cut spending (see, for example, the $12 billion a year in taxes that have been cut in California over the past 15 years -- taxes that cannot be reversed even as the state approaches a fiscal armageddon.)

In fact, a true fiscal stimulus would not focus on tax cuts -- because they are not as economically effective as targeted spending -- something Economy.com's Mark Zandi explained.

Dean Baker is wondering if former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin was responsible for a provision in the proposed economic stimulus package that will impact only a few companies -- including the one he has helped to lead the past few years. As Baker writes:

Did the political connections of Robert Rubin and others in the financial industry have anything to do with the decision of Obama's economic team to be so generous to them? I don't have an answer to that question, but the media should be asking it.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald is impressed with President-Elect Barack Obama's pick to lead the Office of Legal Counsel.

The Office of Legal Counsel, inside the Justice Department, is probably the most consequential federal government office that remains relatively obscure. The legal opinions which it issues become, more or less automatically, the official legal position of the Executive Branch. It was from that office that John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others did so much damage, issuing now-infamous memoranda that established the regime of lawlessness that has dominated our political institutions over the last eight years. Other than Attorney General-designate Eric Holder and Obama himself, there is probably no official who will have a more significant role in determining the extent to which the Obama administration really does reverse the lawlessness and legal radicalism of the Bush years.

Today, as The Boston Globe just reported, Barack Obama announced several new appointments to key DOJ posts, including Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC. Johnsen is a Professor of Law at Indiana University, a former OLC official in the Clinton administration (as well as a former ACLU counsel), and a graduate of Yale Law School. She's become a true expert on executive power and, specifically, the role and obligation of the OLC in restricting presidential decisions to their lawful scope.

There are several striking pieces of evidence that suggest this appointment may be Obama's best yet, perhaps by far. Consider, first, this rather emphatic Slate article authored by Johnsen in the wake of the disclosure, last April, of the 81-page John Yoo Memo which declared that the President's power to torture detainees is virtually limitless. Her article is notable at least as much for its tone as for its substance...

Reading her articles does bring hope that after the Bush Administration leaves, the rule of law may return to the White House.

Kevin Drum wonders why Republicans never name Abraham Lincoln as their favorite president -- is it because the GOP has produced only one president in the past century about which they can cheer after his term?

Steve Benen highlights a Washington Post story explaining why many of us are worried about the government having the ability to order surveillance of people with little oversight. Abuse of the tactic is almost assured.

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a "security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights."

This is an intolerable act. We should not accept it. The Founding Generation would be shocked to learn we are submitting to these actions with little complaint.

Speaking of music, Boston Philharmonic Conductor Benjamin Zander shows us in this TED talk how important passion is to an appreciation of classical music.

Via Balloon Juice, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performs Shaft.

No, I could not turn this off.

Despite the oft-repeated Republican lieclaim that the United States has not faced a terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, people in the reality-based community remember the anthrax attacks which followed in the weeks after.

The New York Times' Scott Shane has a story about Dr. Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide in July just before the FBI was to file formal charges against him in the anthrax case, and the sorry state of the investigation into the anthrax attacks.

Shane opens his story with a helpful anecdote to remind us of the huge impact the anthrax attacks had on our nation:

Outside, on that morning of Nov. 14, 2001, five people were dead or dying, a dozen more were sick and fearful thousands were flooding emergency rooms. The postal system was crippled; senators and Supreme Court justices had fled contaminated offices. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation was struggling with a microbe for a murder weapon and a crime scene that stretched from New York to Florida.

Before we get back to the troubled investigation, remember that paragraph the next time someone tells you that President Bush kept us safe because there were no terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001 (even if you were willing to overlook the fact that they happened nearly 19 percent into Bush's first term of office).

Grave doubts remain about the FBI's handling of the case. While Ivins is suspected now, more than seven years later this case is not solved. And all of this is happening after the mistakes made with the focus on Dr. Steven Hatfill, who won a financial settlement from the government.

So, the stakes, as Shane explains, are high.

Still, doubts persist. The case will be reviewed this year by the National Academy of Sciences and by Congress. If the F.B.I. is wrong, then a troubled man was hounded to death and the anthrax perpetrator is still at large, as many of Dr. Ivins's colleagues at Fort Detrick believe. When institute scientists began their own review of the evidence, nervous Army officials ordered the inquiry dropped.

One of the major doubts, discussed here earlier, is that it seems implausible that Ivins could have mailed the anthrax letters from Princeton, N.J. As Shane writes:

The agents were building what they thought was a prosecutable case against Dr. Ivins, but gaping holes remained. No evidence placed him in Princeton, N.J., where the letters were mailed. No receipt showed that he had bought the same type of envelopes. No security camera had caught him photocopying the notes.

Nor, in his e-mail messages and conversations with confidants, could agents find any hint of a confession. One colleague who knew Dr. Ivins well told them, "If Bruce had done this, he never would have been able to keep quiet about it."

See this post to learn more about why people are seriously questioning the FBI's current case.

I am glad the National Academy of Sciences is going to review the case. In August, I called for an independent inquiry into the FBI's handling of the Anthrax investigation. As much as I like the NAS, I think a stronger inquiry is still needed.

Michael Lewis and David Einhorn have contributed a pair of must-read opinion articles in today's New York Times examining the roots of the financial and economic crisis facing us today.

Lewis and Einhorn make many excellent points. They highlight the fact that the financial system does not have enough incentives for the long-term good of the economy. They write:

The Madoff scandal echoes a deeper absence inside our financial system, which has been undermined not merely by bad behavior but by the lack of checks and balances to discourage it. "Greed" doesn't cut it as a satisfying explanation for the current financial crisis. Greed was necessary but insufficient; in any case, we are as likely to eliminate greed from our national character as we are lust and envy. The fixable problem isn't the greed of the few but the misaligned interests of the many.

[...]

OUR financial catastrophe, like Bernard Madoff's pyramid scheme, required all sorts of important, plugged-in people to sacrifice our collective long-term interests for short-term gain. The pressure to do this in today's financial markets is immense. Obviously the greater the market pressure to excel in the short term, the greater the need for pressure from outside the market to consider the longer term. But that's the problem: there is no longer any serious pressure from outside the market. The tyranny of the short term has extended itself with frightening ease into the entities that were meant to, one way or another, discipline Wall Street, and force it to consider its enlightened self-interest.

One example of this problem are the credit-rating companies:

These oligopolies, which are actually sanctioned by the S.E.C., didn't merely do their jobs badly. They didn't simply miss a few calls here and there. In pursuit of their own short-term earnings, they did exactly the opposite of what they were meant to do: rather than expose financial risk they systematically disguised it.

And let's not forget the S.E.C. itself:

Created to protect investors from financial predators, the commission has somehow evolved into a mechanism for protecting financial predators with political clout from investors. (The task it has performed most diligently during this crisis has been to question, intimidate and impose rules on short-sellers -- the only market players who have a financial incentive to expose fraud and abuse.)

The instinct to avoid short-term political heat is part of the problem; anything the S.E.C. does to roil the markets, or reduce the share price of any given company, also roils the careers of the people who run the S.E.C. Thus it seldom penalizes serious corporate and management malfeasance -- out of some misguided notion that to do so would cause stock prices to fall, shareholders to suffer and confidence to be undermined. Preserving confidence, even when that confidence is false, has been near the top of the S.E.C.'s agenda.

And the worst part?

And here's the most incredible thing of all: 18 months into the most spectacular man-made financial calamity in modern experience, nothing has been done to change that, or any of the other bad incentives that led us here in the first place.

Alas, of this I am not surprised, given the government we have had in Washington during this crisis.

Their second opinion article looks at what must be done to save the financial system from itself.

One of their conclusions?

If we are going to spend trillions of dollars of taxpayer money, it makes more sense to focus less on the failed institutions at the top of the financial system and more on the individuals at the bottom. Instead of buying dodgy assets and guaranteeing deals that should never have been made in the first place, we should use our money to A) repair the social safety net, now badly rent in ways that cause perfectly rational people to be terrified; and B) transform the bailout of the banks into a rescue of homeowners.

That certainly makes more sense than the numerous plans our Treasury Secretary has tried, with little oversight or transparency.

Lewis and Einhorn outline some sensible reforms in their piece -- and they are right to wonder why their plans have not already been put into place.

It is impossible to overstate the gravity of this problem facing the incoming Obama Administration.

I'm sure the NHL is happy with the corporate sponsorships of its All-Star Game balloting, but can the league really approve of a system that denies Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin of a starting spot? As D.C. Sports Blog's Dan Steinberg puts it:

Through blatant homerism, technological manipulation and a desire to establish that the will of the people is dumb, NHL fans failed to elect the game's reigning MVP and most exciting young star.

Then again, Ovechkin is likely to find more inspiration from this snub, which will only help the Washington Capitals' drive to the playoffs.

Oh, hell. Even I won't stretch that much to make lemonade out of this stupidity. This is an embarrassment for the National Hockey League.

Some conservatives think President-Elect Barack Obama's advisors are too liberal.

Oh. My. God. And the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. Film at 11.

(This is a story?)

Wow...those Senate Democrats sure show some awesome strategery. Jane Hamsher points out that the Senate Republicans are using the Democrats' refusal to seat Roland Burris as the reason why Al Franken should not be seated provisionally either until all the legal actions are concluded in Minnesota.

Wow...great work. Thanks to the Senate Democratic leadership, two Democrats are not going to be seated.

This is really painful to watch. Can we get some people who can think a few steps ahead, please?

I am sure no one was editing the text messages being shown on Fox News Channel on New Years Eve.

DocJess at DemConWatch links to a Congressional Quarterly video about the office selection process used to figure out where new Members of Congress and their staffs will reside.

Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton debunks the oft-said Republican myth that former Governor Pete Wilson's tax increases lengthened the early 1990s recession. As Skelton observes:

The facts tell a different story. They point to the recession lingering longer in California because this state was especially hard hit by cutbacks in military aircraft production and by base closures.

No need to consider that.

The Republicans often demand a spending cap, even though we are billions of dollars below the Proposition 4 Gann Limit already. Grover "drown the rest of the government in a bathtub" Norquist must be proud of his ideological fellow-travelers in the legislature.

Please tell me the U.S. Senate Democratic leadership has a better plan to do with Roland Burris' appointment by scandal-plagued Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich than having armed police bar him from the chamber.

On this, this the Senate Democrats finally take a stand?

Blagojevich is a horrible governor. But when the Illinois legislature decided to get cute and not demand a special election, they kept Blagojevich in power -- and the appointment of the president-elect's replacement in the U.S. Senate was one of those powers.

If the best contingency plan they can dream up is armed police blocking the Senate doors, they should just seat Burris and let the voters of Illinois deal with the problem.

Otherwise, they take the real risk of having the country focus on this rather than all the other work that is so desperately needed.

Over at the California Progress Report, Robert Cruickshank has an analysis of what Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed budget could mean for California students.

As Cruickshank notes, if you think five fewer days of instruction, less science requirements, and larger class sizes are the answer to help California students stay competitive in the 21st Century global economy, you'll love the governor's proposals.

Schwarzenegger has been governor for five years. Instead of blowing up nonexistent boxes, he's cut the unpopular car tax but set the state on this road. Quite a legacy for our governor -- one wonders if he's thought about that as he's spent the last few days in Idaho, despite his earlier promise.

It is just shocking that we cannot trust the pharmaceutical companies. (Not.) Ezra Klein has the details.

So much that is wrong about the Bush Administration is highlighted in the following note written by Crooks & Liars' Jon Perr:

10 days ago, the Obama transition team notified about 90 of the Pentagon's 250 Bush political appointees that their services would no longer be needed after Inauguration Day. But despite DoD spokesman Geoff Morrell's declaration that holdover Republican Defense Secretary Robert Gates was "absolutely satisfied" with way the transition was being handled, one loyal Bushie at the Pentagon was anything but. Jim O'Beirne - the same Jim O'Beirne who famously populated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad with Republican campaign hacks and Bush bath-water drinkers - is crying foul.

Really -- of all the people who should just be quiet and disappear into the retired Republican hack ether, Jim O'Beirne is near the top of the list.

O'Beirne's mismanagement of the hiring during the initial stages of the Iraq reconstruction helped to create the horrible situation there. His insistence on hiring people loyal to George W. Bush over people who, um, actually had experience in rebuilding a country following a war is unforgivable.

Frankly, the fact that O'Beirne still has a job in the government after all of these years is a huge scandal.

The California Progress Report has posted a transcript of Assembly Speaker Karen Bass' teleconference in reaction to Governor Schwarzenegger's budget proposal.

Given the media's "both sides aren't compromising" reporting of the situation, I want to emphasize one vital point made by the Speaker when asked about the Democrats' willingness to accept solutions with which their constituencies may disagree:

In the $18 billion of solutions that we put forward, and the economic stimulus that we agreed to, offends every one of our constituencies. All of the constituencies that work on behalf of public employees that fight against the cuts that we put forward. The education coalition--the cuts that we put forward to education. The environmental community--the relaxing of CEQA. Every single one of our constituencies have been offended by what we have done so far. And we were even willing and are willing to go further. But at some point in time, you have to say, if we have met you 75% of the way, if the economic stimulus proposals that you are putting forward will not address the crisis that Mr. Chiang references yesterday, then we have all year long to debate the 25% that are remaining of your proposals. [Governor Schwarzenegger] should at least take an affirmative step and adopt the solutions that we've put forward at this point in time.

This point cannot be repeated enough. The Democrats have been compromising with themselves on the state budget crisis. The Democrats have agreed to horrible spending cuts and other measures that go against their interest groups.

Meanwhile, the Republicans hold fast to their Grover Norquist commanded "no new taxes" pledge -- and the Governor continues to fail to obtain even a single Republican vote for his plan.

(A failure much more relevant to the budget crisis in which we find ourselves than the Governor's pathetic deficit clock.)

The myth of bipartisan intransigence may be a more interesting story for state pundits to tell, but this fiction does nothing to move the state towards a solution to this problem.

Frameshop's Jeffrey Feldman has made his predictions of the 10 phrases that could shape political debate this year.

I thought Carl Sagan's classic observations about our place in the universe would prove a good way to start the New year.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. -- Carl Sagan