Today's e-mail to the White House

The President just MUST take a strong stand against extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 1-2%. This is absolutely critical. A speech on the subject is desperately needed. The President needs to summon Kent Conrad and Stenny Hoyer and any other wavering Congressional Dems and say, this is critical, it's what defines us: we stand opposed to special privileges for the very rich and FOR Main Street; you're not a Democrat if you don't stand with us, and we will not support any Democrat who doesn't vote with us on this and other key economic democracy issues.

It's HIGH TIME for the President to show some real backbone on this issue, and to USE his communication skills to explain to the people why the Republicans are trying to hoodwink them on this, as well as on the estate tax.

Another point, the WH needs to take credit for the end of the "BUSH BAILOUT" (TARP) in Fin. Reform, because polls show most Americans DO NOT KNOW that the TARP Bailout was enacted under Bush.

My note to the white house

The president needs to make clear to all Congressional Democrats that Democrats must stand FOR the people and AGAINST the special interests that stand in their way. And that means NO EXTENSION of plutocratic Bush Tax Cuts that benefit only the very rich, while at the same time continuing the MIDDLE CLASS tax cuts that were part of the stimulus.

Republinomics 101

As exemplified by John Boehner, the Republican "plan" to create jobs is just plain idiotic. Except that in reality, it is no such thing. The real Republican plan is much simpler: help the richest 1% keep theirs, and to everyone else: Go to Hell, except we pretend we didn't really mean that by lying and prevaricating.

Time for Bold Action

I am so fed up with hearing from Republicans and some Democrats that we have to stop spending so much, that the deficit is dragging us down, etc. etc. This is just so much balderdash, and so completely ignorant of the lessons of history. Look, folks: we’ve been down that road before. What we need is just the opposite: bold programs to engage the energy of our people to overcome the economic setbacks we’ve experienced, and solve the technological problems that face us as a civilization, all at the same time.

Here’s an example of the kind of nonsense that’s floating around out there, from a widely circulated right wing e-mail that depicts Obama as Norman Rockwell painting his self-portrait (except the image he’s painting is Jesus’):

“These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation.”

As economic principles, these are just plain false (not to mention mind-numbingly stupid). Of course, they sound good, in the way that slick propaganda phrases always do, but it isn’t the way the world works. An economy in a deflationary phase can only recover by increasing the amount of money in the hands of working people and the unemployed, who will spend it. This increases commerce and employment, and brings about job growth and recovery. Incentivizing hoarding by the wealthy, combined with spending cuts by government during severe recession such as was tried in 1930-31 by Hoover, and again, against better advice, in 1936 by Roosevelt, are the surest way to turn recession into Depression (the Depression was much improved by 1935, but the 1936 fiscal tightening policies brought it roaring back). Republicans' favored economic policies would be like a volte face, just as we were clear of the cliff and inching away, they would have us turn around and leap right off of it.

These are tried and true principles, which have helped America prosper in good times and bad for eighty years, and which we seem to be forgetting right when we need them most.

The Obama administration doesn’t entirely get it either. You hear some of this same fiscal restraint mantra even from them. And Bernanke keeps worrying about inflation. He’s supposed to be the great student of the Depression, but his policies aren’t noticeably different from that eminent psychotic Alan Greenspan. What we need is stimulus, and jobs, jobs, jobs. Nothing else will bring about recovery. Inflation is not the problem right now; in fact, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, we are actually facing a significant risk of a deflationary spiral.

The only thing that really ended the Depression of the 1930s was World War II, during which the floodgates of national debt were opened wide and the survival of civilization was used as a justification for a level of debt not seen since that time (proportionally), and which lasted a good many years after the war ended. If we really wanted to pull the US economy out of deep recession and bring about real growth so that 10 years out we would have near full employment and have turned the balance of revenue vs. obligations around, we should undertake the “moral equivalent of war.” This is a phrase that got Jimmy Carter nothing but ridicule when he used it, but actually was a good idea then and is an even better idea now.

We need to make huge public investments, and yes, with borrowed money, to build a renewable energy infrastructure to move away from a fossil fuel based energy economy. We need to invest in solar thermal power plants, ocean thermal energy and materials production, crash fusion energy research programs, crash exotic biofuel and biomaterials research and development, nonfossil transportation energy systems research and development… using the national laboratories and Depression era jobs programs as models, including facilities with thousands of employees... plus pushing and developing to the hilt the already existing solar, wind, and biofuel technologies... all with borrowed money.... as soon as possible in a truly massive way, and make the government the employer of millions of people to do it. And none of this fraudulent “clean coal” nonsense, or conventional nuclear energy, which isn’t worth it, because it’s never paid for itself, when even a fraction of the costs of waste disposal are taken into account.

Equally essential, as well, we need to abandon the military adventures which have already cost us trillions of dollars since 2001, and which are simply not yielding any appreciable benefit to either our national security or our economy (apart from a select group of contractors; the program I’m outlining would far more than offset that, and give us far more bang for the buck both economically and in terms of America’s reputation in the world).

If we actually did these things, and really reformed our financial industry so it was no longer a parasite, and reformed the tax code to raise taxes substantially on the very rich and impose windfall profits taxes on financial and energy companies... and (and this is essential) abandoned the “globalization” paradigm that encourages corporate interests to export jobs and race to the bottom in terms of productive labor in America... we could be looking at 1954 all over again in 10 years’ time: the dawn of an era of prosperity, with, yes, a big national debt (then it was the residual war debt), but with the means to partly grow out of it, and, (to be honest), partly inflate it away. This is the way governments have always handled big residual debt.

I think this is actually possible, but it would require the kind of real, positive leadership that isn't just oriented towards greed and preserving the wealth of them that's already got it; the kind of leadership we haven’t seen in this country, since John F. Kennedy. Regrettably, I don’t see this kind of leadership on the horizon. Where are you, great leaders, in your country’s hour of need? Step forward!

Reducing Corporate Influence on Politics

Well, this is embarrassing. I wrote this comment on the implications of corporate control of elections, based on reports last night that showed Prop 16 and 17 had passed; but I now see that late returns, many from Northern California, have tipped the balance and both propositions lost. So, chalk one up for you can't fool all the people all the time. Much of what I had to say here is applicable anyway.
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No time just now for a lengthy comment, but I just wanted to say a few things about yesterday's election, especially to Californians, but also to folks living beyond our Golden Border. This isn't a left/right issue; it's a question of whether the people will rule or whether elections will be simply bought and sold. Representative Democracy or Elite Plutocracy •• the choice is that stark.


The passage yesterday of two wish-list bought-and-paid-for corporate initiatives here (one to ensure the perpetuation of the iron grip of monopoly by the State's largest investor-owned utility, PG&E, and the other a carefully crafted rate hike scheme by one of the state's largest auto insurers, Mercury Ins. Gp.) serve to illustrate two things, in my mind:


1.  The unfettered access to political influence now granted corporations in our political system nationwide, particularly in the wake of Citizens United v. F.E.C., is a catastrophe. We need to amend the constitution or get judges on the Supreme Court who will reverse this. We need to pass public campaign financing, and, as soon as the court's rulings will permit, severely limit if not eliminate the power of corporations to influence electoral politics.


2.  Unless No. 1 can be accomplished pretty neatly and quickly, the initiative process in California, hallowed progressive reform though it was, is now doing more harm than good and we need to consider amending the State Constitution to eliminate it... how about conditionally eliminating it, until such time as prohibitions on corporate financing of elections can be enforced?


Both of these propositions passed due to incredibly deceptive and mendacious corporate advertising blanketing the airwaves for weeks and weeks. PG&E, for example, outspent opponents to Prop. 16 by 511 to 1. In the face of this kind of power of money, rational discussion of the issues is completely lost in the cloud of misinformation and mendacious propaganda.


As another kind of example, the wonderfully simple initiative proposal put forth by George Lakoff, to eliminate 2/3 public and legislative supermajority vote requirements for budget and tax matters (which is quite literally crippling governance in this state), has likely failed (for the November ballot), for lack of corporate and party establishment support.


Not entirely relevant to the above, except that the PG&E ballot initiative (Prop 16) was falsely advertised as a "power to the people" law when in fact it requires one of these 2/3 supermajorities whenever a local jurisdiction wants to challenge its monopoly, here's my utopian proposal for an Initiative Constitutional Amendment:

Sec. 1.  No election, and no vote of the legislature, or of any other legislative body in this state, shall require more than a simple majority vote for passage. All provisions of the constitution and laws of this state to the contrary are repealed by this provision with immediate effect, with simple majority voting requirements deemed substituted for the supermajority votes specified in such provisions. Neither the legislature nor the electorate shall make any law which shall require more than a simple majority vote for passage in any election or vote of the legislature or other legislative body in this state.

Sec. 2.  [Definition of "legislative body"]

Call it the "Restore Majority Rule Initiative." Of course, my expansion of Lakoff's idea to all laws governing all lawmaking bodies stands no chance of ever passing, because the vast power of corporate wealth would and will stand in opposition. The status quo benefits them, so why would they cede power back to the electorate?

Republican Logic: bailout and apologize to BP, but nothing for real people

The sheer lack of logical consistency in Republican policy positions is just unbelievable. They oppose Stimulus, because it "costs too much" (having spent trillions on their President's unnecessary wars and bailing out Wall Street as a result of idiotic deregulation they supported and their gurus like Greenspan and Friedman provided intellectual underpinnings for; and ignoring the well-known process, well-nigh inevitable after the crash, that if you don't get the economy working again it spirals downward; and ignoring the fact that thanks to their voodoo economics tax cuts for the rich, a trillion dollar surplus was turned into a 2 trillion dollar deficit under their president's watch).

But now, rather than hold BP, a foreign corporation, accountable for the promises it made in obtaining a permit to perform deepwater drilling it now appears it had no real ability to perform safely, they want the American taxpayers to pay the bill.

This makes no sense, even according to their own mean-spirited and proven-unworkable policy theories. It only makes sense if you disregard their fibs and look to their real policy: support crony capitalism at all costs, no matter how much it harms the interests of the nation and the people.

And yet, about half the electorate buys this crap.

I just don't get it.  
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Since I wrote this, we've had even more ridiculous comments from Congresspersons Bachmann and Barton. Sheesh

Comments to White House on President's Speech

I sent the following to the White House in response to the President's speech last week:

There seems to be a widespread view that the part of the President’s speech relating to “accelerating” the changeover to nonfossil fuels and renewable energy was short on specifics. One could imagine the President, echoing John F. Kennedy, having said something like “before this decade is out, I am committed to ensuring that at least half of America’s electric power will be generated from renewable sources, and at least 25% of the motor fuels used in this country will come from biomass, not oil.” (That would be extremely ambitious… but that’s what the people are yearning for… real commitment to something that will be a mission to make our country secure from foreign oil, and reduce the detrimental impact of fossil fuel use, with the added benefit of creating millions of Green Jobs).

It’s not too late… the President needs to follow up on this speech… and soon… with ambitious and concrete proposals, for R&D into biomass, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, Ocean Thermal, local energy generation, biofuels, synfuels, and putting the electric grid in place to where the new power sources are… all of which will be a huge commitment. Emphasis: not just research, but we will build what works, and quickly, because our nation’s future depends on it. It needs to be a teaching moment, where the President informs the American people about what is possible, and what he intends that we will do.

Then, speak directly to the American people and ASK for their support. Most people WANT to support the President, but they need to have something real and concrete to latch on to.

This will work, but the President has to be very determined and really mean it, and he needs to say it soon, forcefully, and repeatedly.

Rachel Maddow for President

I gotta say, I wish Rachel Maddow were President. Or at least that he would hire her as chief speechwriter, and follow her advice. (And mean it).

Here's her version of what the President should have said the other night.

Californians: N O on 16, 17

I've been a bit preoccupied lately, and haven't had a chance to comment on some of the very anti-democratic and destructive initiatives on the California primary ballot. PLEASE look into, especially, Prop. 16 and Prop. 17, both of which are corporate power-grabs.

NO on 16. Requires undemocratic 2/3 vote for decentralization of power sources in California... a naked power grab by P G & E and Southern California Edison to hold on to their monopolies by creating yet another supermajority provision to prevent majority rule in California. VOTE NO.

NO on 17. Interferes with rational regulation of insurance to increase profits... virtually singlehandedly bought and paid for by Mercury Insurance. VOTE NO.

Please see Courage Campaign's Progressive Voter Guide here.

O'Reilly compares gays to terrorists...well, not exactly

There's a bit of an uproar in the LGBT activist community about Dumbo O'Reilly's offensive comments [link] about a French McDonald's gay-friendly ad, which his show aired along with his dumb (and a little offensive) remarks. Supposedly equating gay people with terrorists. Well, not really. It was his lame attempt at humor, combined with his general contempt for everyone not like him. But that's nothing new and hardly surprising.

But to me, the real story is how sweet and positive the ad itself is. O'Reilly says they'll never run one like it here... gotta wonder why not? It would go a long way towards fostering a positive image of tolerance and welcoming.

Their message: venez comme vous êtes....applies even if vous êtes homosexuel. In France, this doesn't even raise an eyebrow, as it shouldn't.

Shame on you, Bill Clinton

The very idea that Bill Clinton is attacking unions in an ad supporting DINO ("Democrat in Name Only") Blanche Lincoln makes me want to retch. Link.

Generally, national politicians should stay out of local and state primary races (and Bill doesn't live in Arkansas)...after all, the people of the jurisdiction should be the ones who decide who their representatives will be. The big exception to this I would propose is where a candidate is a fraud or traitor to the principles of the majority of the party. In this case, that's Lincoln, who is in the pocket of Wall Street, was instrumental in killing the public option, has consistently voted against Democratic principles and has misrepresented her positions. It isn't her opponent Halter, who is a pretty straight line Centrist Democrat. So there's no plausible excuse for Clinton to be attacking unions in support of Lincoln in a primary. National leaders should support Halter, a real Democrat, not Lincoln, who isn't one. The fact that unions, who are a bulwark of progressive politics in this country, have taken this stance should tell Clinton something: Real Democrats are supporting Halter.

Dialog on the "flotilla" incident and implications in region

I had the following exchange with a colleague who is more inclined to see Israel's side in various affairs than I am. I post this because I think it shows an interesting dialog on policy, where both sides have goodwill but just don't see the same reality in the news reports.

Me:
You and I see Israel/Palestine issues and US/Israel issues rather differently, but I appreciate that we can discuss these issues with mutual respect.

Anyway, I haven't had time to immerse myself in the whole Turkish blockade-running ship boarding incident (a better description that "flotilla" I think), but the International consensus seems to be that the video you referred to was, at minimum, "decontextualized" by the IDF. The ship was, after all, boarded in international waters, so I think it's fair to say, at least, that the breakout of violence can't just be blamed on those on board based on an edited video without investigation.

I'm sure there's questionable conduct on both sides, as usual. Yigal Arens, who, unlike his father Moshe, believes that the siege of Gaza is wrong, and is in favor of an aggressive pursuit of a territorial settlement, had some very interesting comments on Ian Masters' The Daily Briefiing yesterday.

Whatever your view of what happened, and who's right and who's wrong, I think it's pretty clear this was not a foreign policy win for Israel.

If anything good may come of it, it's at least conceivable that it could cause a shift in the complete bogdown of the so-called "peace process," whatever that's supposed to mean (more like "stalemate process").

Your view that Hamas and Hezb'ollah are going to launch a two front war this year is definitely not on most commenters' radar screens. I'd be curious what you're reading that makes you think this. If it's true, it shows that the leadership of both organizations are among the stupidest political leaders on the face of the Earth. (Not an ideological judgment, but a strategic one. There's just no way such action could benefit them in even the medium-range future). Still, without more information, I just don't see it. 

Colleague:

Dave, check out the actual video.  Activists? Upon arrival with clearly visualized paint ball guns the mob attacks to kill. We stop ships in int waters all the time.  If it was an aide mission, boats could have docked as asked so cargo could be inspected first as is done all the time.  Israel is at war.  Blockade has legitimate purpose.  I see no issue there.  Organizng turkish group has tie with muslim brotherhood.  After 6k rockets fired at them since gaza withdrawal, I can imagine suspicion of boats unchecked making deliveries. Reality is that This was a pr war event that israel blindly walked in to.  The people on that boat were clearly and expressly determined to deliver as planned or succeed in martydom.  Very clever as   paving way for hostilities I forsee soon. The pr war is just as important as fighting war.  I'm sure the lebanese christian community beleagured as it is, is not fooled by any of this.  classic hezbo. Tactic.

Here is the real issue.  Whether the us is engaged in ME peace process or not, I don't think it makes any difference.  What israel does or not does not make a diff. Either.  We are dealing with proxy forces. Period.  So long as political ambitions of syria and iran dictate otherwise, the palistinian will continue to be used as cards by their arab brethren who only stand to loose leverage should peace break out.

God forbid there should be peace.  To what external enemy would these barbaric regimes look to in order to keep their own people confortably distracted and preoccupied?  Would the masses with free time to consider their own "civil" institutions soon question the religio-political yoke of islam that has trapped 50% of their population under burkas, out of classrooms, and socially retarded. Oh no.  This civilization is 50-75 years from being ready for peace.  Everything else is a side show and let the reality of demographics plod on.

Me:
Apparently we'll have to agree to disagree. I just don't see it this way, and I am only concerned about US interests, which I don't see as congruent with Israel's. It's in our interests to disengage from this regional conflict, and the best way to do that is to try to foster (broker is too strong a term), a 2 state negotiated settlement. There is precedent. The peace with Egypt has lasted 30 years, and Jimmy Carter is the only US president to have ever actually brokered a peace deal in the Middle East.

If Israel is at war, it's her war, not ours, and in my view if that's the case, it's to a large extent Israel's choice in the matter. You can interpret history differently, but I reject the Neocon analysis outright, and believe that continued occupation and population transfers into occupied territories are illegal. (It's the world consensus view, although of course some don't agree). Israel is in a difficult position. It wants to be a first world country in a region that just isn't; but if you want to be a first world country you have to sign on to the norms of International Law. Sure, the other powers didn't get where they are in that regime, but that's the way it is.

I pretty much favor walking away from continued US involvement Middle East if a settlement can't be induced through diplomacy. The risks outweigh the potential benefits, to this country. I think our differing views are in part based  on a different analysis of whose interests are important. To me, the risks in the region outweigh the benefits, and the US would be better off trying to pressure a negotiated settlement, then disengaging from the entire region as much as possible, including economically (by developing alternative energy resources). Not least because those of us in this country who want to defuse the Forever-War party and reduce the military sector of the economy have to think longterm about changing the entire dynamic in that part of the world vis-a-vis the US. What happens between Israel and the other regional powers is their problem, unless nuclear weapons are used, in which case all bets are off and whoever is dumb enough to have used them will be responsible for destabilizing the world totally at the worst possible moment in history; very possibly a fatal outcome for the human race. But I can't see current US policy as making that less likely.

I still don't see where you conclude that a two front war is likely. (I don't see where it's in Iran's or Syria's (which are pretty much identical) interests anyway; the status quo is to their benefit).

Tough Times for Israeli People

Unfortunately for Israel's people (as opposed to their government, which I pretty much deplore), perception is reality, at least in terms of the fact that perception influences real world circumstances. I readily acknowledge that there are two sides to the argument over whether Israel's actions in the so-called Flotilla incident were rational or justifiable; certainly they were badly executed. (I also deplore the Siege of Gaza as a completely unjustifiable policy, but that's a separate issue). In any case, the fact is, Israel is losing the last remnants of goodwill and cooperation in the region, and even the relationship with the United States is probably more strained than at any time in quite a few years.

Here's the Jerusalem Post piece noting that Israel is losing its prime regional ally, Turkey:
(link)

And a comment by Josh Marshall:
(link)

(follow the link to Gideon Levy's column in Ha'aretz as well)

Rand Paul and the 14th Amendment

First, Fake Libertarian Rightist Nutcase Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul opposes public accommodation civil rights, an issue settled in this country almost 50 years ago. Now, it turns out, he's against a key provision of the 14th amendment, too (although it's not clear he even realizes it's part of the constitution). Why not just chuck the whole deal and restore the British Monarchy here in America? Maybe this lefty radical independence thing wasn't such a good idea. 

OTEC now!

My late father, a rocket scientist (literally) and chemical engineer, I recall was rather negative about the prospects for OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) technology. This technology basically uses giant ammonia refrigerator-in-reverse technology to generate electricity in subtropical and tropical waters. A great deal of research was done on this in the 1970s, but Pres. Reagan killed it. Now, it appears, thanks, ironically enough, to significant advances in floating platform technology from the offshore oil industry, Lockheed Martin and the DOD have taken enough of an interest in it to develop a pilot plant in Hawaii, which should be online by 2014.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion  Lockheed Martin also has a website on OTEC.

The feasibility is now thought to be "near-economic" meaning that some subsidy will be required to develop the technology further, then it should be pay-go. It only works in subtropical waters (warm surface, freezing at depth), which is found all over the world from +20 to -20 deg. lat. Notably, the subsidies to build even large 100 MW plants would be significantly less than the subsidies contemplated to build new nuclear plants, especially if you consider the ultimate costs of waste disposal and liability caps for any accidents. OTEC is pretty benign: you could have platform accidents, but nothing comparable to oil spills, and certainly nothing comparable to the environmental depradation of a Chernobyl, is remotely possible. If something goes wrong, you could have a local explosion (as in any power plant or refinery), but the longterm effect would just be that the plant stops working and has to be repaired.

This could mean totally nonpolluting power plants for tropical island countries now reliant on expensive imported diesel, plus countries like Indonesia and India, even Northern Australia, Mexico, Central America, Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, even a post-oil Arabia, etc., could have near offshore power plants that don't use any fuel. It's possible it could be made to work off(f Florida and Texas, because the Gulf of Mexico is warmer further north than most places in the world. (The West Coast of the Americas, which have cold currents, are less suitable).

But the other great potential is factory platforms that don't even need to be near land. These could manufacture hydrogen or Ammonia, to be used as fuel, or even making carbon based fuels out of atmospheric CO2 (which is net CO2 neutral, of course); Ammonia to be used as fertilizer, or, by bringing in raw materials, any number of products, including even smelting aluminum, out on the surface of the sea, and using what amounts to solar power.

It seems to me that the Obama administration is in danger of missing a huge opportunity to use the current environmental disaster as a teachable moment, and a moment in which the opportunity to seize the initiative and sell to the American people the concept that we need to make not modest but HUGE investments, and immediately, to develop this and other "off oil now" technologies, for the energy and environmental security of our country.

Why Oil should pay for its true costs

I think the issue of legislation, now apparently killed in the Senate thanks to AK Sen. Murkowski, of making oil producers assume all liability for the costs of oil spills, really boils down to Econ 101. This isn't rocket science. 


I heard an estimate that if just the cost of environmental impacts (not including climate change impacts)... now assumed by the taxpayers were borne by oil producers, the cost per gallon of gasoline (and proportional costs for other petroleum products) would go up by about 29¢

I think it's a fair statement, as well, that a significant part of the military expenditures in the U.S., devoted to "security" in the "strategic region" of the Persian Gulf, is another hidden cost of petroleum, not borne by the producers or passed on to the consumers. There are other costs in terms of human rights violations in Nigeria and Myanmar, and the giant unknown of the costs of pouring so much carbon into the atmosphere, etc. The whole picture consists of one in which a significant part of the real costs of continued petroleum production are being borne by taxpayers, not just in the U.S. but in other countries, but especially in the U.S.

One has to ask, if these costs were imposed at the pump, as taxes, or as costs actually borne by the producers and thus passed on to consumers, would that not make the cost of renewable sources of energy more competitive... "level the playing field," as right-wingers like to say? If we actually knew the real cost, present and future, of continuing to recklessly consume petroleum (as if there were no tomorrow), I think we would be switching to other forms of transportation energy very quickly.


And much the same analysis would apply to the continued use of coal to generate electricity as well.


Of course, it takes time to transition to other means; and there have to be economic incentives for the R&D to be done to make the technological breakthroughs necessary to make things like microbial biofuels work, but as long as oil and coal are kept artificially cheap, it will remain very difficult for these things to happen. And time is ticking away, while the world's environmental crisis caused by the continued rampant burning of fossil fuels gets worse every day.

GOP to push health care repeal as top issue for Kagan, huh?

GOP to push health care repeal as top issue for Kagan -- headline in HuffPo [link].

You have absolutely gotta be kidding me. The utter cluelessness of these people is just unbelievable.

More Optimistic View: Let's hope Spitzer is right about Kagan

Having already delivered the somewhat naysaying view on Supreme Court nominee Kagan from what Howard Dean likes to call the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party," let me also say that I sincerely hope that Eliot Spitzer is right when he says that the new nominee, who will in all likelihood be confirmed despite the most despicable shenanigans the Republicans are capable of, "will be able to get the Fifth Vote."

If that turns out to be the case, I will admit to having been wrong to express disdain at her lack of a progressive track record.

Kagan not particularly progressive?

President Obama has followed form here, and selected someone who is an institutional game-player rather than a principled progressive to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. This, unfortunately, says more about the character of the President, and not in a good way, than it does about Ms. Kagan. See Glenn Greenwald's piece.

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Cameron to become PM

Hmm. I thought I was doing a slightly better than average job (for an American), of following the British elections.. hell, I watched Jon Stewart's Clustershag to 10 Downing sequences religiously... but I have to admit I was surprised by the news that Cameron of the Tories is becoming PM, having reached a deal with the Liberal Democrats.

I suppose purely from the point of view of stability, this is good news for Europe, but of course I'm never happy to see conservatives take power.