« July 29, 2007 - August 4, 2007 | Main | August 12, 2007 - August 18, 2007 »
Saturday, August 11, 2007
On Ames/responding to Eric [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 11:30 pm
Eric, you wrote:
I can't help but wonder how Giuliani, McCain and Fred Thompson might have done if they'd actually participated.
That's a good question. But ultimately, given the amount of money that it likely would have cost them to play, and given that not playing doesn't seem particularly damaging (unless any of them are neurotics and personally susceptible to Romney's schoolyard taunts that "they'd have played if they thought they could have won"-- a.k.a., "nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, I know you are but what am I"), I'm inclined to think they did well to sit this out.
Re: Ames [Eric]
11 Aug 2007 11:20 pm
Liz:
I also agree with Soren that Giuliani, Thompson and McCain all have got to be pretty happy about this. The way certain Romney supporters were crowing about Romney's organization, you might have expected to see Romney pull 40%. But he didn't, and that is significant.
I can't help but wonder how Giuliani, McCain and Fred Thompson might have done if they'd actually participated. This result does make you think that while Romney's Iowa organization is impressive, it might not be quite so amazing a group as we've been led to believe.
But then again, that would have required Fred Thompson to abandon his fake draft act — and he doesn't actually have his script written yet for Act II.
Ames results and thoughts [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 10:33 pm
Tomorrow, I'll cool it some on blogging about Republican this-and-that. But, for the time being, let me offer my thoughts on the Ames Straw Poll results.
Romney won with 31.5%. Mike Huckabee came second with about 18%. Sam Brownback came third with 15.3%. Tom Tancredo came fourth with 13.7%. Ron Paul came fifth with 9.1%. And Tommy Thompson came sixth with 7.3%. The rest is not worth mentioning, except to say that McCain came second from last, and Duncan Hunter, who I believe had a presence at Ames, did really, really badly.
The first thing, beyond the results themselves, that bears mentioning here is that in 1999, when (as I recall) pretty much the entire then-declared field played at Ames (unlike this year when Giuliani, McCain and Fred Thompson-- i.e., 3 out of the 4 frontrunners-- did not)-- making a 30%+ win at Ames something very noteworthy and indicative of much greater organizational prowess and popularity in Iowa itself-- George W Bush won with 31%.
In other words, Mitt Romney, playing a field uncrowded by other presidential heavyweights, only managed to pull off the same percentage as Bush did in 1999, when Bush was competing against the likes of Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Dole (who were treated as credible candidates at that time-- Patrick Ruffini notes that Steve Forbes threw millions at the straw poll in 1999, something Huckabee clearly did not do this year, and something that Romney apparently did). So, while a win for Mitt is a win, him taking 31% isn't really that much of a big deal. In some ways, when he was competing against a number of go-nowhere candidates, you might have expected him to do better.
My friend Soren Dayton rightly notes that if you combine Huckabee's votes and Brownback's votes, you more than equal Romney's votes-- which can't be a great sign for Romney. Of course, then again, that would have been true for Bush in 1999, too-- but then as I've alluded to, that wouldn't be such a surprising result in a year when all the big dogs played at Ames, which this year, they did not.
I also agree with Soren that Giuliani, Thompson and McCain all have got to be pretty happy about this. The way certain Romney supporters were crowing about Romney's organization, you might have expected to see Romney pull 40%. But he didn't, and that is significant.
Ultimately, this is a very good result for one person, and one person only: Mike Huckabee. He may not be my favorite candidate (I totally disagree with him on social issues, and he is more big government than me), but he deserves kudos for pulling off what he did today.
Me on the radio tomorrow (another shameless self-plug) [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 08:20 pm
Tomorrow, I'll be doing the Conservatives With Attitude! radio show, together with Michael Illions of Polipundit and Matt Lewis of Townhall. We'll be talking about Ames. Join in by calling by calling (646) 716-7229!
Straw poll results due shortly... [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 08:02 pm
So, with the Ames Straw Poll results due shortly, I've had a couple of emails from some folks out in Iowa who have expressed lots of concern about the effect that Mitt Romney allegedly paying off grassroots activists in order to earn their support in today's vote will have had.
I guess we'll find out shortly whether Romney's efforts-- possibly including those alleged--have paid off. But until then, I'm posting a video produced by the Iowa Values Not for Sale people, which covers the ground of what is being alleged, and uses a Pink Floyd tune (something I'm always a fan of).
Litigating Priest Sex Abuse [Stephen]
11 Aug 2007 07:17 pm
Right Coast blawgger Tom Smith is worried that Judge Louise De Carl-Adler, the bankruptcy court judge in charge of the bankruptcy of the San Diego Roman Catholic Diocese, may be prejudiced against the Church.
... she strongly supports causes which promote and protect the education, health, and the reproductive freedom of women.
(Emphasis added.) Of course, just because somebody is a big supporter of abortion rights does not mean they have anything against the Catholic Church. But the Diocese has, to say the least, been getting a rather hard time from the judge, which is not to say it does not deserve the same; I haven't followed the case closely enough to really know:
SAN DIEGO – In a blistering, six-page statement, a judge is threatening to throw the San Diego Catholic diocese's bankruptcy case out of court because of a financial report that found problems ranging from parishes withholding money to the diocese failing to report the fair market value of properties.
I am just wondering out loud here whether Judge De Carl-Adler might not be the biggest fan in the world of the Catholic Church, and whether that makes a difference in this case.
Tom continues:
Having raised this delicate subject, I will note more substantively that my problem is also that not much weight seems to be given, in the press accounts at least, and as far as I can tell, to the substantive fact that the assets of the parishes really are separate from one another and the diocese, in practice, though perhaps not in law. At least they are supposed to be.
For example, I gave some modest (and I mean modest) amount of money to help build an education building at my parish and another sum of money to build some building or other at the parish my kids go to school at. In each case, I was to get a brick with my name on it. But now I am given to understand that that money is just gone, poof, sucked into the maw of this case. I suspect any effort by the parishes to stop this from happening is part of what the judge and her independent expert are outraged about, though possibly less benign maneuvers as well. But, if we assume the Diocese is not supposed to start closing down some of the best schools in this educationally-challenged county so as to pay the sex abuse victims, and their lawyers, just how exactly is that aspiration to be accounted for?
I addressed many of the relevant legal issues in my article The Bishop's Alter Ego: Enterprise Liability and the Catholic Priest Sex Abuse Scandal:
Abstract: Since 1950, more than 11,500 sex abuse claims have been filed against priests and other agents of the Roman Catholic Church. The eventual direct costs to the Catholic Church of the priest abuse litigation are predicted to range from $2 to $3 billion.
The corporate structure of the Church under civil law can have a substantial impact on the ability of priest sex abuse claimants to recover on favorable judgments or settlements. In many U.S. dioceses, all Church assets are owned by a single corporation, typically a corporation sole, by virtue of which the local bishop becomes the legal titleholder of all Church-affiliated property in the diocese. The dominant view is that all assets of such dioceses, including those of individual parishes and other so-called juridic persons, are available to satisfy tort judgments against the diocese.
Some dioceses, however, long have separately incorporated at least some of their affiliated juridic persons. In response to the priest sex abuse liability crisis, there is a growing trend for diocesan assets to be divided among multiple incorporated entities. Although separate incorporation of diocesan assets implicates a number of legal doctrines, alter ego claims likely will play a central role in any litigation seeking to reach the assets of such corporations for the benefit of diocesan creditors.
There is no constitutional bar to a court using the alter ego doctrine to treat a diocese and its separately incorporated parishes as a single enterprise for liability purposes in the priest sex abuse scandal litigation (or any other dispute, for that matter). The analysis in this paper, however, suggests that appropriate cases for invoking the alter ego doctrine in this context will be few and far between.
Two entities will be treated as alter egos where (1) one entity exercises such a high degree of control that the other has effectively lost its separate existence and (2) the controlling entity has abused its power of control in an unjust or inequitable manner. As to the former prong, a diocesan bishop who comports himself in accordance with the requirements of canon law is unlikely to exercise the requisite degree of day to day control over a separately incorporated parish. As to the latter prong, the courts have discretion to consider the potentially severe deleterious impact of liability on the ability of innocent parties to exercise religious practices implicating constitutionally protected values. In other words, while the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses do not bar judicial application of the alter ego doctrine to churches, the values protected by those provisions appropriately may be weighed in the balance. Given the ready availability of alternative doctrines better suited to the problems at hand, particularly fraudulent transfer law, there case against invoking alter ego in this context thus becomes quite strong.
Iowa Caucus — Why? [Eric]
11 Aug 2007 05:31 pm
A source at the DNC reminded me of an interesting piece of history: the Iowa caucus is a great predictor who of who won't become president. The caucus has only been the country's first nominating event since 1972, and its record is pretty awful: George H. W. Bush in 1980, Bob Dole and Dick Gephardt in 1988, favorite son Tom Harkin in 1992, Bob Dole again in 1996, and John Kerry in 2004.
In fact, the 2000 election was the only time since 1972 that the non-incumbent victor in Iowa managed to win the presidency — and in that year, both parties' nominees were Iowa winners.
So why exactly does the Iowa caucus have this exalted status in the primary/caucus system? How did it worm its way into our political traditions, and why does it deserve to keep its position?
Quote of the Day [Eric]
11 Aug 2007 04:27 pm
"I told you! The King is NOT dead! Elvis lives!!!"
— A heckler at today's Iowa straw poll, yelling out during Tommy Thompson's speech and making light of Thompson's resemblance to the old, fat Elvis.
Guitar Moment of the Day [Eric]
11 Aug 2007 03:10 pm
Coming back to Eric on the HRC/LOGO forum [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 02:19 pm
Eric, I take the point that you're making about the forum having been designed to reduce confrontation and mis-steps and just give people a chance to talk.
That being said, I did think that Jonathan Capehart, if not Melissa Etheridge (and obviously I know the response that caused the outcry was to her question), was being tougher with Richardson than with other candidates, from the get-go. I'm certainly not saying that Richardson didn't screw it up, and big time (I made that point in my original post, remember), but I am saying that I'm not convinced there wasn't some preference on the part of the individual questioners heading into the forum, which may have impacted on how they handled each candidate throughout the whole 15 minutes.
For example, I think Hillary Clinton got off incredibly lightly when she said that her reasons for not supporting gay marriage were "personal." I certainly wondered what she meant by that, and I certainly didn't get close to finding out. Much greater attempts seemed to be made to nail down Obama and Edwards about why they didn't support gay marriage than were made with her, and whether that was intentional, or just accidentally how it rolled on the night, I do think that there were differences in terms of how the candidates were treated.
Richardson bungled it pretty badly, and without being specifically pushed to a point where he was bound to say something stupid. But I did get the impression that Hillary could have said "I don't support gay marriage because men making out kinda freaks me out," and the panel would very possibly have been like, "OK, let's move on."
Another big joke, on the day of Ames [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 01:59 pm
Libertarians for Romney-- now that's a pretty good joke if you ask me! The best bit about this post is that Jason Bonham, Romney fanatic and one of the main movers of the pro-Romney message online, claims that Romney doesn't want his health care plan rolled out nationwide. I guess Jason wasn't paying attention to, say, that interview with that waitress in New Hampshire, where the obvious message was "elect me, and I'll make sure you in New Hampshire have access to the health care plan I instituted in Massachusetts" (which, uh, as President as opposed to, say, Governor of New Hampshire, he could only really achieve by rolling his plan out nationwide-- obviously what he has in mind anyway, if you ever ask him about it point blank, as I have). Or maybe Romney was just saying that since he's such a great problem-solver, and his health care plan was the answer to everyone's prayers in Massachusetts, that waitress should vote for him because he's clever and strong enough to come up with a different, less big-government, less Ted Kennedy-approved plan when in the White House-- even though he couldn't manage that when back in Boston (but remember, his health care plan is great-- he keeps saying so in things like debates, which perhaps Jason doesn't watch).
My nomination for worst idea of the month [Liz Mair]
11 Aug 2007 01:40 pm
I received an email about a post written today by some chap called Aaron Goldstein, which I must draw to your attention for the sheer insanity and idiocy that it entails. It's on the subject of Rudy Giuliani and his need to "shore up" social conservatives if he is to win the 2008 GOP nomination. Its basic proposal is that Giuliani announce after Labor Day that Rick Santorum will be his running mate.
Rick Santorum, ladies and gentlemen.
The argument in favor of this monumentally stupid idea goes thusly:
Santorum is Mr. Social Conservative. Perhaps no American conservative personifies social conservatism better than Rick Santorum, who is currently a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.. There is no ambivalence about his positions concerning abortion, same sex marriage, euthanasia and a host of other issues dear to social conservatives in the United States. His positions more than offset Rudy Giuliani’s moderate to liberal social inclinations. Naming Santorum as his running mate would do a great deal to assuage social conservatives who might have reservations not only about Giuliani’s social positions but might also have reservations about his spotty history as a husband and a father.
[...]
While Giuliani and Santorum might agree to disagree on specific social issues they are perfectly in synch with each other when it comes to Islamic fascism and terrorist acts committed in its name.
[...]
Kathryn Jean Lopez highlighted the importance of Giuliani giving his running mate “an important domestic-policy portfolio.” I cannot think of a more important domestic policy portfolio than combating illegal immigration. While Giuliani opposed the Senate’s efforts to address illegal immigration earlier this year his position on that issue is somewhat compromised in that New York City was (and remains) a sanctuary city. Consequently, some conservatives might have reservations about Giuliani’s willingness to enforce immigration laws. This is where Santorum comes in. Santorum has long opposed illegal immigration and needless to say was not fond of the Senate’s efforts. Santorum wants the United States to enforce its existing immigration laws and strongly opposes any kind of amnesty.
Now, Mr Goldstein does note some of the downsides of Santorum being stuck on a Giuliani ticket, but what amazes me is that he would even contemplate that this could possibly be a good idea given how numerous and serious the arguments against Santorum having no place on any presidential ticket, let alone Rudy's are.
Goldstein comments that "Rick Santorum is one of those people in life about whom almost no one has a neutral opinion. You either love him or hate him," and further, that "Should Santorum be named as Giuliani’s running mate, Rudy can kiss many independent and moderate votes goodbye. Santorum’s rhetoric on same sex marriage and abortion might be music to the ears of social conservatives it will be an anathema to this bloc of voters."
Uh, yeah. Here's the thing. I am a Republican. I vote Republican. I'm pretty conservative on everything but abortion and gay marriage, actually. I'm not a Rockefeller, liberal Republican type. And yet I can assure you right now that anyone who sticks Santorum anywhere on their ticket is going to really struggle to get my vote. And the votes of libertarian-leaning Republicans who hate the guy for being about the most out-there, pro-government-meddling social con around-- the guy wanted federal money spent on marriage counseling for couples contemplating divorce and a whole host of other absurdly big government, "government can fix our families" initiatives that have caused even socially conservative libertarian types to scream blue murder repeatedly.
If Santorum goes on anyone's ticket, oh sure, they may get the social con vote, but they won't get any independents or moderates (which, as 2006-- and, uh, Sabtorum's race itself-- showed us, both parties need in order to win), and they won't get the fiscal conservative-only/libertarian-leaning vote from within the GOP (which is still a good portion of it), either. Basically, they'll do about as well in 2008 as Walter Mondale did in 1984. Which is why, regardless of what this Goldstein chap thinks about the worth of adding Santorum as a running mate, no one will be doing it unless they a) have an IQ of 6 or b) have all the political acumen and sense of your average farm animal.
Rudy the Phony [Bruce]
11 Aug 2007 01:08 pm
In an earlier post, I suggested that Michael Gerson may have been the biggest phony ever to walk the halls of the White House. (See the September issue of The Atlantic and today's Washington Post.) Of course, this was meant as hyperbole. Considering the massive number of phonies who have worked on the White House staff, Gerson probably isn't even in the Top 10.
(In the days when I worked there late in the Reagan presidency, it would have been a lot easier to count the non-phonies than all the phonies. One anecdote: I knew people no higher in the pecking order than I was in the mid-level who would never leave their offices until they knew that the president had left the Oval Office for the night, just in case he needed them. The fact that he had never once summoned them, nor the extreme unlikelihood that he ever would, nor their easy availability by phone through the impressive White House switchboard, had any effect on their actions. It was really all about letting others, especially their subordinates, think they were more important than they really were. In actuality, among the hundreds of White House staffers, probably fewer than a dozen were genuinely important enough to worry about such things.)
Anyway, the point of this post of that if Rudy Giuliani becomes the next president, he may become the biggest phony. According to an article in the Village Voice that has been totally ignored by conservative bloggers, his one claim to fame of being The Man on 9/11 is totally without foundation. For example, he stupidly insisted that New York City's crisis center be located in the World Trade Center, which had already been attacked once, rather than some safer location in Brooklyn. Apparently, he wanted someplace convenient to hook up with his then girlfriend (now wife). Consequently, the center was worthless at the exact point it was most needed.
There's lots of other stuff in the article as well. Even if some of it is overstated, it still confirms my growing feeling that Giuliani is the worst of a bad bunch running for the Republican presidential nomination. It's like he has all of George W. Bush's bad qualities except that he is smart. This is a bad combination, in my opinion. The last thing we want is a president who competently implements disastrous policies; that will just make them even more disastrous.
Best. Movie. Line. Ever.
11 Aug 2007 11:42 am
"Flames". "Clue."
Monetary Consequences [Bruce]
11 Aug 2007 09:54 am
Two years ago, I first saw problems arising in financial markets. The problem was that the Federal Reserve had been easy for a long time in order help get the economy moving after the recession of 2001. This led to overexpansion of certain sectors of the economy that could not be sustained without a continuation of the easy money policy. In 2005, the Fed began reversing its easy money policy. This inevitably meant that those sectors--in this case, housing--that were dependent on easy money would likely crash. As I wrote in an August 2005 column:
"The problem here is that just because the Fed is raising rates gradually, the impact will not necessarily be gradual. It could come quite abruptly. Think of a balloon. Whether you blow it up slowly or fast, at some point it is still going to burst. The same thing oftentimes occurs with monetary policy. It may appear that nothing is going on for a long time and then, suddenly, something dramatic happens to show that monetary policy is working as expected."
I became very concerned by my analysis, even to the point of shorting the market in anticipation that my view would soon become widespread and lead to a market correction. And then nothing happened. The market sloughed off problems in the housing market and among subprime lenders. When I would talk to Wall Street-types, I was assured that things were under control. Everything was carefully hedged. The balloon wasn't going to explode, I was told. It would hiss a little air and everything would be fine.
Contrary to my expectations, the market went up. I closed my short positions, swallowed my losses, and concluded that my analysis was incorrect. Well, I should have had more confidence in myself, because the chickens have been coming home to roost this week exactly as I predicted two years ago.
One point I am trying to make is that to be successful in the stock market, it is not enough to understand fundamental trends and be correct in your forecast. There's also the critical problem of timing. If you are too far ahead of the pack, as I was in 2005, the information is essentially valueless. In fact, it can be counterproductive, as it was in my case. Even if I had held my short position all this time, I still would have lost money because even after the steep decline this week, the S&P 500 index is still more than 1,500 points above where it was two years ago. I still would have lost money.
Over the years, I have observed lots of investors and forecasters making similar mistakes, so I know I am in good company. The trick, as best I can tell, is not to be too much smarter than the market, but just a little smarter. If you are too smart, you move too soon and you end up losing money even though you were basically correct in your analysis. If you are only a little bit smarter, you figure out what's going on just before everyone else does. There's a great deal of money to be made with that kind of knowledge.
Crusted Rack of Lamb and Potato-Onion Gratin [Stephen]
11 Aug 2007 01:56 am
Over at PB.com, as regular readers know, we intersperse cutting-edge legal analysis that not infrequently is cited in judicial opinions and right-of-center punditry that has been called a "strong, respected, and demonstrably conservative voice" (although, I must admit, has also been called things I don't care to repeat), with wine tasting notes, recipes, and general culinary commentary. Being a 57% feminist and, if I may so, a pretty good cook, for most of our 21 years of marriage my share of household chores has included the grocery shopping and cooking.
On the menu tonight was rack of lamb and potato-onion gratin (modified from a recent Bon Appetit issue), with generic veggies and, of couse, a good red wine.
Crusted Rack of Lamb
- 1 1-¼ lb 8 bone rack of lamb
- ¾ cup panko bread crumbs
- 1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 2 tablespoons fresh mint, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
French the rack, making sure to remove all the fat and connective tissue. Yes, it's painful given what you paid for the rack, but you really don't want fat or gristle in the finished product. Besides, your dogs will love the trimmings. (If you lack dogs but grind your own meat, freeze the trimmings and save for the next time you make meatloaf. If you neither have dogs nor grind your own meat, please accept my sincere condolences.) Season the rack with salt and pepper (both sides, please).
Combine the bread crumbs, cheese, garlic, onion powder, and the dried and fresh herbs in your Cuisinart mini-prep processor and pulse until the herbs have been well-chopped and the texture is something like that of dry couscous. Set aside.
Heat your Calphalon 12-inch non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat for 1 minute. Add enough olive oil to coat the pan very lightly (use a "pure" or "virgin" olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil, which has too low a smoke point). Sear the rack of lamb on both sides; about 4 minutes per side, until you get good carmelization. Transfer the lamb to a roasting pan with a rack. Allow to cool briefly. Coat the meat on both sides with the mustard, press the bread-cheese-herb mix into the mustard on both sides. Spritz with a spray olive oil.
Roast in a 425-degree oven for 25 minutes. When done, allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving.
Potato-Onion Gratin
- 2 lbs red skinned boiling potatoes, peeled and sliced thin
- 2 Maui sweet onions
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme
- 2 springs (about 4 inch) fresh rosemary
- 3 cloves garlic chopped very fine
- 1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
- 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, stripped and chopped fine
- 2 tsp fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ½ cup half-and-half
- 1 cup low sodium organic chicken stock
- olive oil
- butter
- salt
- pepper
Heat your Calphalon 12-inch non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat for 1 minute. Add onions and thyme and rosemary sprigs. Season with salt and pepper. Saute for 7 minutes or until onions have softened and are just starting to turn golden. Do NOT let the onions turn brown! Add garlic and chopped herbs. Saute 3 more minutes, but do NOT let the garlic or onions turn brown! Remove from heat. Remove and discard the thyme and rosemary sprigs. Let cool briefly.
Spritz your Pyrex 8 inch square baking pan with an olive oil spray. Layer 1/3 of the potato slices on the bottom. Season with salt and pepper. Add half the onion mix. Sprinkle with half the Parmesan cheese. Top with 1/3 of the potato slices. Season with salt and pepper. Add the remaining half of the onion mix. Sprinkle with the remaining half of the Parmesan cheese. Top with the remaining 1/3 of the potato slices. Pour the half and half over. Pour the chicken stock over until the liquid comes up almost to the top of the potatoes (you may need more or less of the stock called for in the recipe). Cover the pan with foil.
Put the pan in a preheated 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for another 30 minutes (add 10 minutes if you like your potatoes extra mushy, subtract 10 if you like them extra crunchy). Remove from the oven and allow to rest 10 minutes.
Finishing Touches
My cooking philosophy is to limit the hard work to no more than 2 dishes. Everything else gets short cuts. Tonight, I heated up Kato's Green Peppercorn sauce, which has a lot of mustard in it, as a sauce for the lamb. As a veggie side, I microwaved a package of Eat Smart's broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot medley.
I plated by napping the lower half of our 10 inch square plates with the sauce and topping with 2 double rib cut chops per plate. A healthy portion of the potatoes went in the upper right corner, with the veggies in the upper left corner.
Yum.
To drink, I served a 1999 Chateau Montelena Calistoga Cuvee, a Cabernet Sauvignon-based red wine from the Napa Valley. Unlike Chateau Montelena's justly famed Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, the Calistoga Cuvee generally is not a wine for the cellar, but I usually set aside a couple of bottles to see how they do (following famed California wine critic Bob Thompson's view that California Cabernet is usually at its prime at age 8). Tonight's bottle had thrown a lot of sediment, including a considerable amount of tartaric crystals, so it required decanting. The bouquet was somewhat muted, but on the palate it offered an impressive mix of flavors suggesting black cherries, tobacco, cedar, and oriental spices. I have one bottle left in my cellar, which I'll probably allow to age until 2010 or so to see if it develops some more.
Friday, August 10, 2007
More on Richardson and Logo [Eric]
10 Aug 2007 10:21 pm
To understand just how bad Richardson's performance last night was, Liz, it's important to realize this: the event was likely never planned around the possibility of a candidate truly losing.
The nature of the Logo forum was that the candidates were facing a group essentially pledged to support the Democratic nominee. The hosts might have given a candidate a tough question or two in order to put them on the spot, but they would not have asked anything intentionally damaging. After all, the same gay activists who arranged this thing would not want to be seen publicly attacking/humiliating a candidate, only to have to publicly support the candidate next year. It simply wasn't in the HRC's interest to be tough.
Think about the format. You had a nice Oprah-style couch, Melissa Etheridge fawning over the candidates, and the they all took questions one at a time instead of together. This way Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel didn't have the opportunity to attack the others for not endorsing gay marriage. This was set up to be just a series of softball questions, masquerading as a genuine political dialogue.
This all meant that in order for a candidate to be damaged at this forum, he/she had to really screw it up, bringing forth a gaffe that angered the folks there to no end. And Richardson managed to do it.
It was a hell of an accomplishment.
Romney feeding the masses [Liz Mair]
10 Aug 2007 08:36 pm
Via Wonkette:
On Wednesday, Romney held one of his “Ask Mitt Anything” town halls at a restaurant outside Iowa City, where prospective Romney supporters were treated to a free buffet. And we’re not talking sandwiches or finger food. Think Las Vegas style: shrimp cocktail, platters of steak, pasta salad, mashed potatoes and at least 10 different kinds of dessert, including strawberry cheesecake, brownies and multi-layer chocolate cake.
Yeah, yeah. Well, all I can say is, they aren't getting seared ahi tuna like the people who turned up to vote for Mitt in the last straw poll getting covered by the AP. And me. Who didn't vote for him in said straw poll. Despite seared ahi tuna. Which my friend Jack ate.
On Richardson/responding to Eric [Liz Mair]
10 Aug 2007 08:26 pm
I suspect Richardson did do himself significant damage last night with the "choice" comment. And I think that's too bad. This is a guy who even back in the 1990's when, from what I can recall, most Democrats as well as Republicans were sticking by Don't Ask Don't Tell, and he didn't. The fact that he was on the right side of that one, from the gay community's perspective, way back then (unlike Hillary and her hubby, who a lot of people in the gay community seem to like, which baffles me) tells me something about what he really thinks. So does his record of supporting civil unions as Governor.
Perhaps I'm just feeling sorry for Bill at the moment... I will admit that he is by far the most palatable Democrat from my perspective in the entire race. By far.
Re: Logo Forum [Eric]
10 Aug 2007 08:04 pm
Liz:
Tough night for Richardson, I think.
That's an understatement if there ever were one. The way he stumbled over the question of whether homosexuality is a choice was nothing short of disastrous. If any activists were still looking at his résumé and feeling tempted, this should just about end it.
Uhhh.. what's going on at Reuters? [Liz Mair]
10 Aug 2007 07:42 pm
Um, looks like Reuters compromised its standing as a top news organization...
News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.
The images were reproduced around the world - including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited - alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week.
But it has now emerged that the footage actually showed two Finnish-made Mir submersibles that were employed on location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic ship in the north Atlantic some 10 years ago.
This footage was used in sequences in James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster about the 1912 disaster.
The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.
May I also suggest that Finland find its schoolboys something to do other than compare and contrast pictures from major news stories with footage from bad films starring Leonardo DiCaprio?
Catholics and marriage [Liz Mair]
10 Aug 2007 07:30 pm
I got married back in 1999, and as a result, haven't had any real reason to find out what the deal is if you're a Catholic and you want to marry a Non-Catholic in the years since-- hence my posting of what it appears was some erroneous information this morning.
I have received an email from a kindly Deacon by the name of Eric who assures me that "In the past, it was true that the non-Catholic party had to promise to raise any children resulting from the union as Catholics. That is no longer the case. Now the non-Catholic party signs a statement that he or she understands the Catholic party has been told of the desirability of raising the children as Catholics, and the statement indicates neither agreement nor disagreement on the non-Catholic's part."
So there you go.
Hillary & the Right, cont. [Bruce]
10 Aug 2007 03:36 pm
I will be on Tucker Carlson's show this evening to discuss my Los Angeles Times article. I think it is interesting that no one at National Review has commented on it. It confirms an observation I've had that the right tends to deal with facts and arguments it doesn't like by ignoring them; hoping they will go away. The left is more inclined to try and destroy them, often to the point of overkill. Neither strategy really works unless the facts and arguments they disagree with are wrong. In the end, the truth will out. I think it makes more sense to deal with these things in an upfront, straightforward manner, even if it means conceding that the other side may be right once in a while.
Guitar/Violin Moment of the Day [Eric]
10 Aug 2007 01:19 pm
Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" performed on the violin:
Best Movie Line Ever
10 Aug 2007 01:05 pm
"What hump?" Young Frankenstein.
As Ames approaches... [Liz Mair]
10 Aug 2007 12:33 pm
As Ames approaches, I'm getting inundated with emails about, er, a certain candidate-- and other stuff. So, I'm just going to do a run-down of what I've been sent that is of interest.
1. A reader from up in New England thinks this Boston Globe piece on Romney is interesting. Personally, it looks like much of the same old, same old, to me, but the points raised in it are as valid now as they were when raised months ago to people who are deeply concerned about Mitt's movement on abortion.
2. Sam Brownback, who I really deeply disagree with on social issues, has posted a video response to Romney again on the subject of abortion. It's a bit long for my tastes, but evidently has been seen by a lot of people in Iowa, given the number of emails I've had about it. Will it affect Ames? If 10,000 of the 11,000 or so people who have watched it on YouTube are going to the straw poll, maybe. But I'm a little dubious of that. Anyway...
3. Tommy Thompson hopes to pull 20% at Ames. Somehow, I am doubting that will happen.
Recap of the Logo LGBT Issues Forum [Liz Mair]
10 Aug 2007 12:04 pm
This morning, I've been watching the Logo LGBT Issues Forum (which, if you missed it, can be seen here). I'd encourage anyone who didn't watch this to do so-- the forum was extremely interesting.
Here were some of the more standout bits for me (and note that I'm going to skip Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich in my summary-- Ryan Sager succinctly summarizes what they had to say, so check that out if you're interested).
Continue reading "Recap of the Logo LGBT Issues Forum [Liz Mair]" »
Civil Unions [Bruce]
10 Aug 2007 11:18 am
Since Stephen and I have been discussing the issue of civil unions and gay marriage, I thought I would pass along this useful analysis by FactCheck.org. It explains that a big barrier for my proposal to separate the issue of "marriage" from civil unions is that gays are heavily invested in the idea of "marriage." In other words, civil unions are not enough.
I think this is unwise as a political strategy. Civil unions are achievable, but I think full marriage rights for gays will probably not happen any time soon. In my opinion, it is silly to allow the semantics of a word stand in the way of getting what is important for gays: the right for their partners to have the material rights of married couples in areas such as health benefits, inheritance rights, and so on. I think this is a case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Re: Fighting Fair [Eric]
10 Aug 2007 09:39 am
It's a perfectly good position, Stephen, to say we should cut transportation pork before resorting to a tax increase. On the other hand, Bush doesn't have any credibility on this issue. If he had ever vetoed a previous transportation bill, or even endorsed efforts by anti-pork members of Congress to get rid of stuff like the Bridge to Nowhere, then we might have some reason to believe what he says.
Instead, it just comes across as a dishonest, dogmatic opposition to tax increases. Although in his defense, it probably has a lot to do with incompetence and the lack of real leadership qualities, as well.
Hillary & the Right [Bruce]
10 Aug 2007 07:48 am
I have an article in this morning's Los Angeles Times that elaborates on my earlier post about how Hillary is becoming more acceptable to at least a few opinionmakers on the right.
Let me anticipate one criticism I always get when I talk about how Bill Clinton's administration ended up being pretty good on economic policy. I am told that is only because the Republicans got control of Congress in 1994 and thereafter checked his excesses, such as the effort to nationalize health care that was run by Hillary.
This is quite true. Left to his own devices with a Democratic Congress for 8 years, I have no doubt that Bill would have been a far worse president from a conservative viewpoint. This is why I have been harping on the dismal chances the Republicans have for keeping the White House. If they recognize that this just isn't going to happen, then maybe the party can pour some extra resources into some congressional races and try to win seats that were lost in 2006.
Earlier, I quoted political scientist Larry Sabato as saying--correctly in my view--that the American people like gridlock. They don't trust either party to run the whole show. And frankly, the 2000-2006 experience of a Republican Congress and a Republican president is strong evidence in favor of divided party control.
Therefore, if Republicans were to run a national campaign reminding voters that the best economic times we've had in living memory came when we had a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, I think it could persuade a lot of voters to split their votes. If, on the other hand, Republicans insist of believing that they can hold the White House and put all their eggs in that basket, then we could have a nightmare scenario where Democrats in Congress are free to enact bad legislation with no restraint.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
On agricultural subsidies and the Farm Bill [Liz Mair]
09 Aug 2007 10:32 pm
Another shameless self-plug, I'm afraid. I have a column up at Reason on the subject of agricultural subsidies and the new Farm Bill. As you'd expect, I don't exactly give the 2007 bill a glowing review...
Picking on Corporations [Stephen]
09 Aug 2007 09:01 pm
Everybody's picking on corporations lately. In an earlier post, Labor good, gays and corporates bad, Liz noted polling data suggesting that being endorsed by business groups is a major negative for politicians this election cycle. A Firedoglake blogger complains (erroneously) about a supposed corporate tax cut:
Wow, it’s been — what? — two nanoseconds since BushCheneyCo did something nice for corporations! Wouldn’t want corporations to feel overlooked.
As someone whose vocation is the study of corporate governance, this sort of thing no longer surprises me, but it nevertheless still pains me. In their wonderful book, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, which I reviewed here, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge persuasively argue not only that the corporation is one of the West's great competitive advantages, but also that the number of private-sector corporations a country boasts is a relatively good guide to the degree of political freedom it provides its citizens. Indeed, they make the strong claim that the corporate form is “the basis of the prosperity of the West and the best hope for the future of the rest of the world.” (at p. xv) After 20 years of studying the corporation, I've come to agree.
I've addressed the corporation's social role in a number of papers, all of which are available free from SSRN.com (although some readers may need to register). In Catholic Social Thought and the Corporation, for example, I explored "Catholic social thought on corporate governance. Human dignity and freedom are central principles of Catholic social thought." I argued "that preserving the economic freedom of corporations to pursue wealth is an essential part of effective means for achieving human freedom. To the extent prudential judgments about corporate regulation are required, the Church and civil society should strive towards a nuanced balancing of freedom and virtue."
In The Bishops and the Corporate Stakeholder Debate, I again critiqued "Catholic social teaching on corporate social responsibility. Specifically, the essay focuses on one of the policy recommendations made by the U.S. Bishops in their pastoral letter on economic justice, Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. In that letter, the Bishops addressed the so-called stakeholder debate; i.e., whether decisionmaking by directors of public corporations should take into account the interests of corporate constituencies other than shareholders. This essay focuses on the Bishops' position as matter of public policy rather than as a matter of theology. The essay evaluates three ways in which the Bishops' position might be translated into public policy: (1) directors could be given nonreviewable discretion to make trade-offs between shareholder and stakeholder interests; (2) directors could be given reviewable discretion to make such trade-offs; or (3) directors could be required to make such trade-offs subject to judicial (or regulatory) oversight. None of these approaches is an improvement on current law; to the contrary, all are worse. The first approach would be toothless, the second would increase agency costs, and the third would either prove unworkable or pose an unwarranted threat to economic liberty (or both)."
In Community and Statism: A Conservative Contractarian Critique of Progressive Corporate Law Scholarship, which nominally was a review of Progressive Corporate Law (Lawrence E. Mitchell ed. 1995), I used that book "principally as a jumping off point for a critique of the strain of left communitarianism that has recently emerged in corporate law scholarship. The essay begins with a review of left communitarian critique of the nexus of contracts model of the firm and of rational choice. Because the arguments on both sides are well-developed in the literature, the essay focuses on the specific spin given the debate by Progressive Corporate Law's authors. The remainder of the essay is devoted to exploring the emerging communitarian theory of the firm. In the course of doing so, however, I also begin developing an explicitly conservative version of the law & economics account of corporate law. The essay looks to the intellectual tradition that runs from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk to articulate an alternative to both the left communitarianism of progressive corporate law scholars and the classical liberalism embraced by many practitioners of law and economics."
Fighting Fair [Stephen]
09 Aug 2007 08:42 pm
I'm no fan of George Bush, but lots of folks seem to be bashing him unfairly today (although, one might ask, what makes today any different than any other day)? For example, the New York Times says:
President Bush spoke out today against an increase in the gasoline tax, an idea that is being discussed as a potential part of a new Congressional plan to shore up the nation’s bridges after last week’s deadly collapse in Minneapolis.
Evil old anti-government conservative thinking that kills innocents, right? Wrong. Here's what Bush actually said:
You know, it's an interesting question about how Congress spends and prioritizes highway money. My suggestion would be that they revisit the process by which they spend gasoline money in the first place.
As you probably know, the Public Works Committee is the largest committee -- one of the largest committees in the House of Representatives. From my perspective, the way it seems to have worked is that each member on that committee gets to set his or her own priority first, and then whatever is left over is spent through a funding formula. That's not the right way to prioritize the people's money. So before we raise taxes which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities. And if bridges are a priority, let's make sure we set that priority first and foremost before we raise taxes.
In other words, what Bush said was, "let's get rid of earmarks like the one for the bridge to nowhere that waste highway spending before jacking up taxes." Which makes total sense. Back in 2000, a Heritage Foundation report stated that:
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-PA) claims that a $4.3 cent reduction in the gas tax will result in more than $7 billion in lost revenue that would otherwise go to states and local communities for planned infrastructure projects. But Congress and the President have wasted billions on questionable pork-barrel projects. In 1998, The Washington Post reported that Representative Shuster contributed to this waste with more than 130 projects worth $640 million for Pennsylvania, including $800,000 for renovating a train station in Gettysburg, and $7 million for a transportation museum as part of a proposed Allentown redevelopment project. In addition, Citizens Against Government Waste identified other pork projects, including $2.6 million to rehabilitate an historic train depot in San Bernadino, California, and $3 million for a parking garage in Peoria, Illinois. Washington wants to hold on to its billion-dollar golden goose called the gas tax so that a few powerful politicians can redistribute money from the pockets of the nation's hard-working motorists to support their own special interests.
If anything, it's worse now than ever. Yet, you don't get even a hint that this is what Bush was talking about until paragraph 6 and then it's largely obfuscated.
Second, Firedoglake is saying Bush wants to give corporations a new tax cut: "Yay! More Tax Cuts! This time — for corporations!"
Wrong. Here's what Bush said today:
I also made it clear that we're at the very early stages of discussion and that in my own judgment, anything that would be submitted to Congress -- if submitted at all -- would have to be revenue neutral. And therefore, what we'd really be talking about is a simplification of a very complex tax code that might be able to lower rates and at the same time simplify the code, which is like shorthand for certain deductions would be taken away -- in other words, certain tax preferences in the code.
And here's what WaPo's Peter Baker reports Bush said on the same subject yesterday:
A "determinant factor" in deciding whether to go forward, he said, will be whether advisers can craft a revenue-neutral plan, neither raising nor decreasing overall taxes.
If the bill's revenue neutral, there is no net tax cut. What's puzzling is that Firedoglake blogger TeddySanFran linked Baker's story but failed to note the revenue neutrality point (although Baker admittedly buried the point deep in the article). C'mon people. Fight fair.
Republican Crack-up [Bruce]
09 Aug 2007 07:10 pm
Quote of the day from The Economist:
"The Republicans have failed the most important test of any political movement—wielding power successfully. They have botched a war. They have splurged on spending. And they have alienated a huge section of the population. It is now the Democrats' game to win or lose."
Gerson Take-Down [Bruce]
09 Aug 2007 06:32 pm
I just finished Matthew Scully's amazing take-down of former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. Judging by Scully's account, no bigger phony than Gerson ever walked the corridors of the White House--and that's saying a lot. Apparently, Gerson spent just about every waking hour trying to figure out how to take credit for anything good that came out of the West Wing and had any number of gullible accomplices in the press corps that were happy to oblige him in his effort. Gerson was also shameless about hogging credit for every important Bush speech even if his contribution was minimal. I'm sure that in coming days, this issue of The Atlantic will become the most heavily read at the White House since William Greider's article about OMB Director David Stockman appeared back in December 1981.
I'm especially grateful to Scully for writing this article because it confirms what I wrote in an earlier post about compassionate conservatism. As I suspected, it was mostly campaign hokum cooked up by Karl Rove. Another reason I'm grateful to Scully is that I could never understand why the Washington Post gave Gerson a column when he clearly has nothing interesting to say about anything. Apparently, it is payback for all the leaks Gerson was spilling to the Post all these years. Unfortunately, the Post erred by not also hiring the speechwriters who did all the work Gerson took credit for as well.
American Competitiveness [Stephen]
09 Aug 2007 05:24 pm
In President Bush's 2006 State of the Union address, he proposed an American Competitiveness Initiative "to encourage innovation throughout our economy." Today he announced:
As part of this initiative, I asked Congress to expand America's investment in basic research, so we can support our nation's most creative minds as they explore new frontiers in nano-technology or supercomputing or alternative energy sources. I asked Congress to strengthen math and science education, so our children have the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future. I asked Congress to make permanent the research and development tax credit, so we can encourage bolder private-sector initiatives in technology.
Today I'm going to sign into law a bill that supports many of the key elements of the American Competitiveness Initiative. This legislation supports our efforts to double funding for basic research in physical sciences. This legislation authorizes most of the education programs I called for in the initiative I laid out at the State of the Union. These programs include Math Now proposals to improve instruction in mathematics, and the advanced placement program my administration proposed, to increase the number of teachers and students in AP and international baccalaureate classes.
All well and good, but what about the barriers to competitiveness the government has created during Bush's tenure in office? It was Bush who not only signed the “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act” of 2002—popularly known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act—but even praised it for making “the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” Odd praise, indeed, coming from a conservative President. Such praise was especially odd coming from a former state governor with a track record of stated respect for basic federalism principles. In fact, as the Paulson Committee and the Schumer-Bloomberg report have documented, "New York financial markets, stifled by stringent regulations, and high litigation risks, are in danger of losing businesses and high-skilled workers to overseas competitors, relegating New York to regional market status and adversely impacting the U.S. economy."
I addressed these issues in a mongraph, Sarbanes-Oxley: Legislating in Haste, Repenting in Leisure, which you can download free from SSRN.com. Here's the paper's abstract:
I focus on three areas in which the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, popularly known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), has proven especially problematic. First, the legal ethics rules added to the Act at the last minute have proven incapable of dealing with the incentives that condition lawyers to turn a blind eye to client misconduct. Second, the structure Congress chose for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the accounting oversight board created by SOX, turns out to have serious constitutional defects. Finally, and most importantly, corporate compliance costs have gone up far more than anyone anticipated and are staying up far longer than even Cassandra might have predicted. Worse yet, these costs disproportionately impact smaller public corporations, which are an important engine of economic growth. Taken together, these three areas of concern highlight why Congress should think twice before trying instant legislation in the future.
Continue reading "American Competitiveness [Stephen]" »
Why the Source of Edwards' Money Matters [Stephen]
09 Aug 2007 03:21 pm
In an earlier post, I noted that John Edwards is once again relying heavily on his fellow trial lawyers to support his Presidential campaign. Assuming Elizabeth "we can't make John black, we can't make him a woman" Edwards didn't just sink his campaign, let's spend a minute thinking about why the source of Edwards funding matters. I wrote on my blog back in the 2004 election cycle that:
John Edwards has been emphaszing jobs a lot lately, which sounds like a smart move. Skeptics, however, might ask what Edwards' profession - trial lawyer - has done for US jobs. The Manhattan Institute studied the effect of tort litigation on jobs in the asbestos industry and came up with some startling conclusions:
Companies bankrupted by asbestos have slashed an estimated 60,000 jobs, failed to create 128,000 new jobs, and forgone an estimated $10 billion in investment …. The damage will escalate—if current estimates of the eventual payout prove accurate—to $33 billion in forgone investment and 423,000 jobs not created.
Bruce Bartlett cites similar findings:
Increasingly, the only way companies can cope with rising asbestos liabilities is by declaring bankruptcy. Some 80 companies have already done so. These bankruptcies have cost at least 60,000 jobs, according to a new study by economists Joseph Stiglitz, Jonathan Orszag, and Peter Orszag. Each worker lost $25,000 to $50,000 in wages as the result of these asbestos-related job losses, plus another $8,300 in losses in their 401(k) plans.
Bartlett also cites a study by Tillinghast-Towers Perrin finding that: "At current levels, U.S. tort costs are equivalent to a 5% tax on wages." In contrast, Texas Governor Perry claims tort reform creates jobs: "Texas economist Ray Perryman estimated that our sweeping lawsuit reforms will create more than 240,000 permanent jobs and add $36 billion to the Texas economy."
If John Edwards wants to get serious about job creation, maybe he should get serious about tort reform. But don't hold your breath. As both EdwardsWatch and Overlawyered.com have documented, Edwards' record on tort reform is weak, at best, and he is raking in huge amounts of cash from his fellow trial lawyers.
Over at PB.com, I provide fairly regular coverage of litigation reform issues.
John Edwards' Fundraising [Stephen]
09 Aug 2007 03:15 pm
Peter Lattman reports:
During the 2004 election, the erstwhile trial lawyer John Edwards had a lock on the legal community, particularly the plaintiffs’ bar, which poured money into his campaign. This time around, lawyers are spreading the love. The NYT reports this morning that Clinton, Obama and Biden — lawyers all — are gaining in lawyers-dollars market share. ... Through the first two quarters of this year, Edwards had received $6.5 million from lawyers, compared with $6.3 million for Clinton and $5.5 million for Obama. A potential problem for Edwards is that he heavily relies on JDs for dough, while the others have a more diverse fundraising base.
The same pattern of reliance on the plaintiff bar was true back in 2004, as Walter Olson observed:
What scares the daylights out of his business adversaries isn't just that Mr. Edwards is a seasoned trial lawyer who decided to switch careers, in the manner of Orrin Hatch, Ernest Hollings and others. It's that from day one he's been at pains to construct a tightly organized fund-raising and electoral machine whose dominant figures, with scarcely a known exception, are wealthy plaintiff's lawyers like himself. In fact, most of his key backers are drawn from the tiny handful of tort lawyers even more successful than he, sometimes by orders of magnitude.
One hopes the Edwards '08 campaign is being a bit more careful about who it takes money from. You may recall that back in 2003 the ACU charged that the Edwards '04 campaign had taken a number of questionable donations, alleging that:
Published reports from the Center for Individual Freedom's website state that twenty (20) persons identified as paralegals and nine (9) listed as legal assistants employed by Turner & Associates PA in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed $2,000 each to the Edwards campaign after receiving assurances that their contributions would be reimbursed. From this law firm alone, more than $58,000 in suspicious contributions to the Edwards campaign were received, yet only $10,000 was reported by the Edwards campaign as being returned to the donors from that firm. See www.cfif.org, John Edwards: An Oops for the Trial Lawyers' Presidential Candidate¸ posted April 24, 2003. See also "What John Edwards Money Said" by John Samples, www.cato.org, posted on the website of the Cato Institute on May 9, 2003. ...
The Hill newspaper reported on May 7, 2003 that Edwards for President campaign documents filed of record with the FEC reveal a pattern of illegal contributions by low-level employees of law firms whose principals are engaged in contributing to and fundraising for the Edwards for President committee.
According to The Hill, "Donations to Edwards Questioned", by Sam Dealy, the contributions from low-level employees contributing at the maximum $2,000 level arrived on the same day along with contributions from the partners and attorneys of the firms employing the individual donors. Further, the FEC records reflect that contributions from spouses and other family members were also made on the same dates as those from the low-level employees of the law firms. No conduit reports were filed by the law firms which employ the donor-employees.
In 2006, CNN reported that:
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign and a donor were fined Thursday for soliciting and accepting illegal contributions. The Federal Election Commission also cited other violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Fines totaled $59,500.
Not From The Onion [Eric]
09 Aug 2007 02:57 pm
Laura and Jenna Bush are co-writing a children's book. It's the tale of a young boy who does not like to read, but learns in the course of the story just how fun and beneficial it can really be.
Now there are some family values for you: mother and daughter working together to help out dad.
Best Movie Line Ever
09 Aug 2007 02:13 pm
"Time to die." Blade Runner.
Massachusetts Counties [Eric]
09 Aug 2007 02:09 pm
A reader:
As a liberal Bay State Democrat who despises Mitt, I hate to admit that I can see how he would get the counties-in-Massachusetts question wrong. For one thing, counties are far less important in New England than the rest of the country, most of their duties and responsibilities belonging to their constituent towns (ruled by town meeting, usually -- go democracy!). In addition, a number of counties -- Berkshire, for instance -- have been abolished for all but symbolic purposes as of the late 1990s.
Still, Mitt is an enormous fraud, and everyone here hates him.
Mad Men [Bruce]
09 Aug 2007 12:34 pm
There's an article in this morning's New York Times about the growing popularity of cable series such as "The Closer." Despite the fact that such programs don't have nearly as much availability as major network programs, they are growing both in quality and ratings.
One of these cable-only programs that I enjoy is one called "Mad Men" on the AMC channel. A new episode will appear tonight. It's about some Madison Avenue advertising executives in 1960. So far, there's not much of a plot. But as a sociological study, the show is absolutely fascinating. It's about an era when everyone smoked, the women always wore dresses and heels even when vacuuming the carpet, when alcohol was the drug of choice, before feminism and Vietnam, before the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK and so on.
What intrigues me about the program is the incredible attention to detail. The producers have really done an amazing job of capturing every aspect of life in those times precisely accurately. I was only a child during that era, but it all looks right to me. For example, in one scene the lead actor opens a can of beer and it is the old fashioned flat-top can that one needed a can opener to open. It made me wonder where they found those old cans, which haven't been manufactured since at least the 1970s.
I can see where the plot is going. The men are in total control and appear to have it all. In their own way, so do the women. But none of them are happy. Their lives are empty and meaningless even though they have achieved the "American Dream."
We'll see where it goes. Undoubtedly some awful tragedy is lurking right around the corner for one of the major characters. However it goes, it remains the most accurate portrayal of that period of time that I have ever seen--even in movies and programs produced contemporaneously. In some ways "Mad Men" is a caricature, but one that emphasizes the important details.
Quote of the Day [Eric]
09 Aug 2007 11:59 am
"Lewis Libby was held accountable."
President Bush, at today's press conference.
The View From Your Window
09 Aug 2007 11:34 am
New York, New York, 6.25 pm.
For a newly updated, global gallery of Dish readers' window views, click here.
The Articles of Confederation [Eric]
09 Aug 2007 11:23 am
President Bush just said at his press conference that anybody who has studied the Articles of Confederation knows there are periods of turmoil in an emerging democratic country.
So is he admitting that Iraq is a failed state, as the United States was under the Articles, and that they'll have to replace their constitution in a few years?
Update: Now that I think about it, we're probably already at that "few years" point. And if we're not, it's coming soon.
Guitar Moment of the Day [Eric]
09 Aug 2007 11:02 am
Are you a feminist? [Liz Mair]
09 Aug 2007 10:40 am
No surprises here. I am 79% feminist.
| You Are 79% Feminist |
 You believe in gender equality, at least most of the time. You also believe there are a few exceptions. |
Talking Heads [Bruce]
09 Aug 2007 09:33 am
In this morning's Wall Street Journal, my friend Brian Wesbury complains about the "talking head" culture on business television where every interview seems designed to provoke debate. If one of the guests is a bull, Brian says, then the other has to be a bear. If there is only one guest, he says, the interviewer generally plays Devil's advocate.
The result, Wesbury says, is that viewers are often misled into thinking that there is a great deal of disagreement among economists when in fact there may be a virtual consensus. By seeking out a few incompetents or cranks just to have "balance" and create sparks, news shows may be unintentionally misleading viewers by implying that isolated views that are well outside the mainstream actually have validity. This may encourage investors to pursue unwise investment strategies or worry unnecessarily about extremely unlikely dangers.
This is a pet peeve of my own and a reason why I avoid these sorts of programs. One thing that annoyed me particularly was that the producers would often put me up against some total nobody who had no clue about what he was talking about. In one case--I kid you not--I debated the minimum wage with an honest-to-God, fresh-off-the-streets homeless person. I refused to ever appear on that channel ever again and it eventually went off the air. (Incidentally, it's also annoying that bookers almost never tell you who you will debating ahead of time.)
I don't mind debating those whose views are diametrically opposed to mine. In fact, I enjoy a good debate and have any number of friends on the left whom I would be happy to debate any time on any issue. Even though we may come to different conclusions, I know that we can probably agree on the facts and will argue along predictable lines. But too many producers find such sober discussions to be boring, so they try to liven things up by setting up debates with people who make up their own facts, argue illogically, make no effort to be consistent, and, too often, use up most of the alloted air time. Thus you end up wasting your own time refuting the other guy's errors rather than