Gov. Markell Bans Gifts from Lobbyists

Keeping a good-government campaign promise, Delaware Governor Jack Markell bans gifts from lobbyists to members of the Executive Branch:

As Governor Jack Markell wound up his first full week in office, he put his signature on his first Executive Order...the ban of gifts from lobbyists or vendors to officials within the Executive Branch.

Markell says he knows he's surrounded himself with the right people, but promised during his campaign to put the ban in place.

He said the ban only applies to members of the Executive Branch of government, but wouldn't mind seeing state legislators implement a similar rule for themselves. (link)

While legislators with a conscience would find Markell's ban incentive to ban gifts from lobbyists for themselves, don't expect Slick and Slippery state Senate Pro Tem Thurman Adams to be prompted to a similar action. He loves it when lobbyists inflate his gullet with chicken and dumplings.

In any case, good for Gov. Jack Markell.

Governor Markell Should Tax the Rich and Create a State Property Tax

The prognosticated budget deficit for Delaware's government is $606 million. That's 20% of the state's $3 billion budget. Governor Jack Markell is under no illusions about what that means:

Gov. Jack Markell wants to make sure everyone understands: The state's $606 million budget deficit is massive, and it's going to take painful cuts to close the gap....

Markell wants to articulate just how much $606 million equals -- for example, the entire state Medicaid program, or the cost of all the state's teachers and support staff, or 75 percent of all state personnel costs.

But he wants to be clear, he has no intention to ax Medicaid or lay off most of the state's employees....

He wants people to know that cutting the budget will require reviewing options that were previously untouchable -- looking at duplication of services at the county and municipal level, reworking state employee benefit packages or ending some programs entirely.

Whatever measures Governor Markell takes, he should follow the principle that it is best to cause the least amount of suffering possible.

Accordingly, I recommend that he increase the income taxes on the wealthiest Delawareans and create a graduated modest state property tax. Some cuts will still be necessary, but they won't need to be nearly as draconian as cuts would be without increasing the revenue stream.

That increasing the income tax on the wealthiest Delawareans would cause the least amount of suffering is self evident to all except those who have a knee-jerk (i.e., ideological) aversion against any tax increases per se. Such people are irresponsible participants in public discussions about financing government during hard times and don't deserve more than polite attention. Given the desperate tenor of the times, they cannot be taken seriously.

A graduated modest state property tax, however, would cause a modicum of discomfort, especially for those with modest income levels. But basing the graduated tax on property value should reduce the discomfort to a more than tolerable level. Besides, other states employ state property taxes, so the idea is not without precedence. Delaware should do the same.
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Obama Calls It Irresponsible; I Call It Naked Self Interest

That there are still still those who think the Lords of Wall Street should be left to their own devices and unregulated is incomprehensible to anyone whose economic ideology is based on what they can see and not visa versa. To such people the news that some of these Lords lavished themselves with billions of dollars of bonuses even as they had their hand out to Uncle Sam for help is not the least bit surprising.

President Obama calls it irresponsible. Wise people call it by its real name: the predictable outcome of unregulated self interest. The only shocking thing is that Obama and others expected the Lords to act otherwise.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from taxpayers. "It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility." The president's comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, came in swift response to a report that employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. The figure, from the New York state comptroller, drew prominent news coverage. Obama said the public dislikes the idea of helping the financial sector dig out of a hole, only to see it get bigger because of lavish spending.

Expect Health Care Costs to Double, Says Study

The USA's broken health care system will fragment even more. Expect more workers to lose their health care coverage because their employers will find them more unaffordable. Also expect more bankruptcies as a result.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Unless health-care reform becomes a reality, most Americans can expect to pay health insurance premiums that will double by 2016, a new report claims. Left unchecked, the costs of employer-paid health insurance will jump from $11,381 to $24,291 in the next seven years, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). And wasteful spending and inefficiencies are what is fueling the trend, the report contends. "As costs rise, one out of three American's health-care dollars are going to waste and inefficiency," said report co-author Larry C. McNeely II, a U.S. PIRG Health Care Advocate. Wasted dollars include inappropriate and unnecessary care, inflated drug prices and administrative bureaucracy, McNeely said. The total cost in waste in 2007 for insurance bureaucracies, drug companies, medical device manufacturers and providers was $730 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Bailed Out Banks Host Call to Defeat Employee Free Choice Agreement

They are effectively working on the taxpayers' dime yet they have no compunction about entering into propagandizing about pending national legislation. It's worse. While on the taxpayer dime, they have no compunction about engaging in partisan politics:

Donations of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to Republican senatorial campaigns were needed, they argued, to prevent America from turning "into France."

Shameless.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority. Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill. Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse. "This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears.

There's Always an Excuse for No Open Government in Delaware

Did we Delawareans think that this was the year for open government in Delaware? Think again:

No sooner had Delaware's open-government advocates started celebrating an apparent victory over the "desk-drawer veto" when a familiar nemesis emerged: the fiscal note.

Improving public access to government meetings and records was a key issue in last fall's election, and true to his campaign promise, new Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan made an open-government bill the first piece of legislation introduced this year.

But last week, during the first hearing on that bill, House Bill 1, Gilligan and others were surprised by a visit from state Controller General Russell Larson who stopped by the hearing to tell legislators the bill would have a cost: $61,500 to hire an extra staffer to handle the higher volume of open-records requests it would create.

In a year when the state is struggling to close a nearly $560 million budget deficit, that fiscal note, or price tag, could hurt the bill's chances for success.

Forget that $61,500 is a small price to pay for opening an entire branch of Delaware's government. Forget that an open government ought to be a right of all Delawareans in any case. Forget that $61,500 is a pittance in a $560 million dollar budget deficit. All that matters is that state Controller General Russell Larson might find the trickle of Freedom of Information requests annoying:

Larson said Friday....his office will be inundated with requests for records if the law is approved.

"It's not because The News Journal or the [Delaware] State News or WDEL are going to make a bunch of requests. It's because everyone requests something, from the neighbor next door who wants to know how much you make to someone doing program surveys," Larson said.

But is this smokescreen really the brainchild of Russ Larson? There is good reason to think not:

Sen. Liane Sorenson, R-Hockessin, said the fiscal note on H.B. 1 "muddies the water" because some Senate members have said they won't vote for the bill if it carries a price tag.

Open government advocate Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Stanton, said she thinks the fiscal note was requested by a member of the Senate, but said it won't stop the effort to pass the bill.

"I think some people see that this actually might get done, and so now they're starting to panic a little bit and are starting to sabotage it," Peterson said.

This new excuse for not giving the people of Delaware the open government they deserve has all the slickness and slipperiness of Senate Pro Tem Thurman Adams, the arch enemy of opening the state legislature to public scrutiny in Delaware. I don't know it for a fact, but I believe he is behind it.

I do know this, however. If Thurman Adams really wanted HB 1 to pass in the state Senate, it would be done with little or no questions asked.
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Israel Now Admits it Used White Phosphorous in Gaza

Their denials always were incredible given the numerous eye witnesses, but Israel is finally admitting it used white phosphorous in civilian areas in Gaza. The chain of evidence and denial went as follows:

January 5 The Times reports that telltale smoke has appeared from areas of shelling. Israel denies using phosphorus

January 8 The Times reports photographic evidence showing stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells. Israel Defence Forces spokesman says: "This is what we call a quiet shell - it has no explosives and no white phosphorus"

January 12 The Times reports that more than 50 phosphorus burns victims are taken into Nasser Hospital. An Israeli military spokesman "categorically" denies the use of white phosphorus

January 15 Remnants of white phosphorus shells are found in western Gaza. The IDF refuses to comment on specific weaponry but insists ammunition is "within the scope of international law"

January 16 The United Nations Relief and Works Agency headquarters are hit with phosphorus munitions. The Israeli military continues to deny its use 

January 21 Avital Leibovich, Israel's military spokeswoman, admits white phosphorus munitions were employed in a manner "according to international law" 

January 23 Israel says it is launching an investigation into white phosphorus munitions, which hit a UN school on January 17. "Some practices could be illegal but we are going into that. The IDF is holding an investigation concerning one specific unit and one incident" 

The preponderance of the evidence suggests that Israel lied.

clipped from www.commondreams.org After weeks of denying that it used white phosphorus in the heavily populated Gaza Strip, Israel finally admitted yesterday that the weapon was deployed in its offensive. The army's use of white phosphorus - which makes a distinctive shellburst of dozens of smoke trails - was reported first by The Times on January 5, when it was strenuously denied by the army. Now, in the face of mounting evidence and international outcry, Israel has been forced to backtrack on that initial denial. "Yes, phosphorus was used but not in any illegal manner," Yigal Palmor, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told The Times. "Some practices could be illegal but we are going into that. The weapon is legal if used as a smokescreen in battle but it is banned from deployment in civilian areas. Pictures of the attack show Palestinian medics fleeing as blobs of burning phosphorus rain down on the compound.

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On Distinctions that Make No Difference: A Reply to Steve Newton

Steve Newton questions whether we can usefully compare America to Europe, although he concedes that in two significant areas they are comparable:

Given that the European Union economy and population are comparable to that of the US.....

He sets forth seven reasons why he thinks the comparisons are not useful and cites my post about temporarily nationalizing bad US banks on the Swedish model as a suspect comparison without, he claims, pronouncing on its correctness:

This week, for example, Dana questions why we don't consider bank nationalization on the Swedish model, while the latest judicial attack on free speech leaves Becky believing that Europe is lost.

My point today is not to argue that either of them is right or wrong, but to illustrate the fact that such comparisons are often less than useful, because in many important ways America is not like Europe at all.

Let's concede that Steve makes distinctions between the USA and Europe. But to concede that is not to also concede that every distinction makes an insuperable difference to the point in question. For example, if Steve had said that the USA and Europe are distinct because they occupy differing longitudinal and latitudinal points, one would rightly ask, “Yea, but why does that mean we shouldn't temporarily nationalize US bad banks like the Swedes did?” In other words, how would that distinction make a difference to the point in question about nationalizing our bad banks? Unless we were given additional information, we would be mistaken to merely assume that a bare distinction makes a difference in this case. Therefore, it's incumbent upon the person making the distinction to show exactly how the distinction makes a significant difference to the point in question and that, I argue below, is precisely what Steve fails to do. He gives us seven distinctions and leaves us to assume that the distinctions make insuperable differences.

Consider his first “basic difference” between the USA and Europe:

[]I]n Europe, land was expensive and labor was cheap--so cheap, in fact, that the people on the land (or at least their labor obligations) were often sold with the land). In America (not counting those pesky Indians), land was cheap and labor was expensive, a situation pertaining right up through the heavy industrial revolution, and doing a lot to explain indentured servitude, African slavery, and massive European/Asian immigration.

People might find the claim astonishing that slaveholders found slavery financially costly, but let's concede the point for the sake of argument.* But why does that mean we should not nationalize our bad USA banks just as the Swedes did? The distinction augurs of no apparent difference to the point in question. The same problem arises with Steve's distinctions 2 – 5. We get a sense of distinction, but we get no sense how these distinctions mean that we couldn't nationalize bad USA banks.

It's only until we get to Steve's sixth distinction do we get a distinction that arguably might make a basic difference**:

Sixth basic difference: regulation. The US has a frontier mentality (the Turner thesis) that includes--among other variables--the idea that communities are self-organized out of rugged individuals, and that too much organization and government control means it's time to leave. This is, I suspect, one of the reasons why America has never been home to a truly politically important Socialist movement. If you look at America in the 1930s and compare it to what happened in Europe, one of the things you discover is that what distinguished the New Deal from what was going on in the Old World, you'll find that FDR did not proceed (thankfully!) anywhere near as far as his European counterparts. There is a thoroughly engrained suspicion of authority in American culture.

I consider all the business about the enduring “frontier mentality” of the American population romantic filigree and probably no longer true on the whole. But I think that Steve's basic point (“There is a thoroughly engrained [sic] suspicion of authority in American culture”) is largely incontrovertible. That suspicion might make a difference between the USA and Europe such that temporarily nationalizing bad USA banks is politically unfeasible. Of course, for this distinction to make an insuperable difference there would have to be nothing else in the American character to draw upon to bridge the difference between what the Swedes did and what Americans can do. I believe there is another facet to the American character, one that would make successfully tried and tested European economic ideas congenial to Americans at large: viz., their pragmatism.

It's a little known fact, but philosophical pragmatism as a movement had its origins in the USA. It is thoroughly American. In my view, its “does it work” ethos is one of the enduring and laudable traits of the American character. Given that bank nationalization did work for the Swedes, it is natural (and quite American) to count it as a tried and tested idea, one that could in principle work in the USA. Quite frankly, it was precisely my American pragmatism that prompted me to advance the idea on Delaware Watch. If the idea hadn't worked somewhere else, then I wouldn't have proposed it (that's also why I recommend European models of single-payer universal health care).

From a pragmatic point of view, Steve's blanket reluctance to entertain European economic ideas and practices seems indefensible. It stifles our instinct to explore what worked elsewhere and ask how we can make it work in the USA. It almost has an obscurantist effect. For Steve to convince us that we cannot make proven ideas and practices work here, he needs to do more than raise a few gossamer distinctions between Europeans and Americans. He needs to do the work of showing how each and every European economic practice simply cannot, in the nature of things, work here. That would be a painstaking and difficult, if not impossible, task in many cases.
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*Equally astonishing in my view is the implication that US workers are more expensive to employ than their European counterparts. That is certainly not shown in their per capita wages.

** I am not going to take up Steve's seventh distinction because I find it too vague to comment on. It's vagueness is something Steve concedes in his post.

Let's Be Like Sweden: Nationalize the Bad Banks

Sweden once had a banking crisis similar to the USA's. But instead of giving money to banks on the hope that they would use the funds wisely, they took temporary measures that would ensure the banks would use the funds wisely:

The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize.

Officials in Washington are trying to figure out how to shore up American banks that once ruled the financial world but now seem to weaken by the day, despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in government aid.

With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.

Former government officials in Sweden, many of whom come from the market-oriented end of the political spectrum, say the only way to solve the crisis in the United States is for the government to be prepared to temporarily take full ownership of the banks.

It's important to note that Sweden's nationalization of the banks was temporary and that is all I am recommending for our bad banks:

Sweden placed its banks with troubled assets into a so-called bad bank, where they could be held and then sold over time when market and economic conditions improved. In the meantime, it used taxpayer money to provide enough capital to allow banks to resume normal lending.

Unlike the USA, Sweden got something in return for their money:

By contrast, the United States government, so far, has bailed out banks without receiving large equity stakes in return, said Bo Lundgren, Sweden’s minister of fiscal and financial affairs during the Swedish bank takeover.

“For me, that is a problem,” said Mr. Lundgren, who called himself more of a free marketer than some Republicans. “If you go in with capital, you should have full voting rights.” …

In effect, the Swedish state took on all the assets that were worthless or impossible to value at the time, and then managed them or sold them with the aim of getting as good a deal as possible for the taxpayer.

Lundgren is correct. US taxpayers should get a return for their bailout funds, instead of hoping that the loans that have been provided to the banks will be paid back in the end:

For all the billions of dollars committed to the banks by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, American taxpayers have, in effect, used mostly loans to turn themselves into emergency creditors of the financial system.

Besides, the threat of nationalization itself can act as a corrective measure:

Moreover, he said the mere threat of nationalization nudged some Swedish bankers to find creative solutions to their problems in the 1990s.

How did it work in Sweden?

SEB, the bank controlled by the Wallenbergs, the first family of Swedish business, engineered a private recapitalization to plug the hole in its balance sheet. Distressed assets were then placed in a bad bank of its own, freeing management to run the sound parts of the business.

Nordbanken, a Swedish bank that had expanded in the go-go years of the late 1980s, fell entirely under the control of the government because its losses were so great. It is now Nordea, a banking giant in the Baltic Sea region, and still partly government-owned.

Securum was capitalized with 24 billion kronor ($2.88 billion), a sum equal to the country’s military budget at the time. (The total United States military budget is less than the $700 billion allocated to TARP.)

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland concluded that Securum eventually returned about 58 percent of that upfront cost to the Swedish treasury, though in depreciated krona.

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Obama Reverses Global Gag Rule on Abortion

This is a significant (re)advancement in a woman's right to choose. It will save the lives of women around the world.

clipped from www.commondreams.org President Obama signed an executive order Friday striking down a rule prohibiting U.S. money from funding international family planning groups that promote abortion or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion services. The order comes the day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States. It reverses the "Mexico City policy," initiated by President Reagan in 1984, canceled by President Clinton and reinstated by President George W. Bush in 2001. The policy, referred to by critics as "the global gag rule," was initially announced at a population conference in Mexico City. The group Population Action International praised Obama's move, saying in a statement that it will "save women's lives around the world."

Obama Hits the Right Note on Capitalism

Another reframe of old questions and issues that Obama performed during his inaugural speech was about capitalism:

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

The opening few words “Nor is the question before us“ refers back to his statement:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

In other words, he is reconfiguring old questions in accordance with emergent realities that have made the configuration of old questions misleading and the questions themselves moot. One such question is “whether the market is a force for good or ill.”

Obama reframes this question by asking us to look at three realities of capiltalism simultaneously and not deny the facticity of any of these realities:

1. “Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched....”
2. “but that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control....”
3. “that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”

His statement suggests that those who only look on capitalism as a force for good do so because they are focused on its power to generate wealth and expand freedom. But they fail to acknowledge the reality of how markets can spin out of control and, without a watchful eye overlooking them, tend to favor the prosperous at the expense of the nation as a whole.

Likewise those who only look on capitalism as a force for ill do so because they are focused on how markets can spin out of control and disproportionately favor the prosperous. They fail to acknowledge the reality of how capitalism can generate wealth and expand freedom.

It's only by focusing on one or two of these realities that the false question about whether capitalism is a force for good or ill is generated. But when all of the realities are acknowledged, a new question emerges, one about what really should count as a successful economy. Obama provides the direction for an answer to that question:

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

In other words, we need to utilize the “watchful eye” of regulation in order to direct the enormous wealth-generating capacity of capitalism to extend relative prosperity to more than just a few hands but to “every willing heart” because to do so is the best hedge against markets spinning out of control and such an arrangement constitutes our common good.

That is a prescription on how to live in the real world of capitalism and make it work for all of us.

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Obama Hits the Right Note on Government

I grew weary long ago of the effete discussions about the size of government. Although I have never heard a solitary soul say that government needs to be bigger, public discourse is rife with those who use hackneyed phrases about it needing to be smaller. Somehow their construction of the question often seemed wrong-headed, as if they were asking the wrong question and, perhaps often, deliberately so. Today President Barack Obama reframed the question in the way it needs to be asked:

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

That bears repeating: “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”

Obama has reframed the question away from size and asked the question in terms of government's function: Is government working to secure the well being of it citizens? Where it is, he says, move forward with it. Where it is not, cut it out. This is a pragmatist's approach to government or as this pragmatist likes to say: we shouldn't spend a penny more on government than is needed AND not a nickel less.

Those who will continue to ask the question about government merely in terms of it size are being left by the march of history. Good riddance.

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Tonight on Progressive Voices: Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan

Listen to “Progressive Voices” every Monday evening on WVUD, 91.3 FM from the University of Delaware in Newark, DE.

Tonight’s hosts: Marion Peleski & Dana Garrett.

Note: Monday’s show starts at 6:30 p.m. and ends at 7:00. Listen from anywhere in the world you at http://www.wvud.org/listen_online.htm

* * * *

Tonight's guest will be Delaware state Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan. We will talk to Speaker Gilligan about the Legislative agenda for 2009 and the needs of the state of Delaware.

Is the Killing Finally Over?

Both sides have now declared a ceasefire. Israel went first. Hamas initially rejected it and illegally shot 8 missiles into civilian areas in Israel. But now Hamas has also declared a ceasefire and has given Israel a week to leave and to open Gaza's borders to humanitarian aid.

Hoepfully, the killing has stopped and--here I am dreaming--a real peace process can begin.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Hamas today announced an immediate ceasefire by its fighters and allied groups in the Gaza Strip, hours after Israel unilaterally declared a truce. A senior Hamas official, Ayman Taha, told Reuters that its ceasefire was dependent on Israel pulling its troops out of the Palestinian territory within a week. "Hamas and the factions announce a ceasefire in Gaza starting immediately and give Israel a week to withdraw," Taha said in Cairo, where he was holding talks with Egypt on a truce deal. Hamas also demanded that Israel open all of the Gaza Strip's border crossings to allow in food and humanitarian aid to meet the "basic needs for our people", he said. A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "We'll play this day by day. We'll see how this goes. We want to leave Gaza. We'll do so as soon as we can."

Jon Stewart on the Israeli & Gaza Conflict

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Is Obama Waffling on the Employee Free Choice Act?

"I'm for it, but I could support something else" appears to be Obama's new message on the Employee Free Choice Act. The act is designed to allow employees to unionize in an initial card check off vote without undergoing weeks and even months of employer intimidation until a vote is taken.

Obama's logic about solving the unemployment problem first is misleading since even if the employment rate hit 10%, the majority of the workforce might want the option of joining a union without intimidation. Union jobs raise income levels and often provide employees with benefits they don't often have in non-union jobs.

Many of the Americans that cannot pay their bills are employed but work at low-wage jobs. The Employee Free Choice Act would address that problem.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com The president-elect also gave his support for legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize, but he said there may be other ways to achieve the same goal without angering businesses. And while many Democrats on Capitol Hill are eager to see a quick vote on that bill, he indicated no desire to rush into the contentious issue. "If we're losing half a million jobs a month, then there are no jobs to unionize, so my focus first is on those key economic priority items I just mentioned," he said. "Let's see what the legislative docket looks like."

Israel Uses White Phosphorous on UN Compound

Israel continues to deny that it's using white phosphorous bombs in civilian areas although the evidence seems increasingly incontrovertible. The use of white phosphorous bombs in civilian areas is proscribed by the 1980 Geneva convention.

clipped from www.commondreams.org The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus. The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low. Mr Ban expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling and demanded an investigation, only to be told by apologetic Israeli leaders that their forces had been returning fire from within the UN compound. The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.

Car in Dover Tonight

Yours Truly on Delaware Talk Radio Today

I will appear as a co-host on Delaware Talk Radio today from 1:00 – 5:00 PM. I will appear with Tyler Nixon and Mike Matthews.

Delaware Talk Radio can be streamed from anywhere in the world here.

The Desk Drawer Veto is Dead...Almost

It isn't dead yet, but the Delaware state Senate desk drawer veto has been mortally wounded:

The "desk-drawer veto" is dead -- or at least that's what several of its longtime opponents are saying.

The Senate passed a new version of its rules Tuesday, the first day of the 145th General Assembly, that states bills will be considered in committees within 12 legislative days of their filing.

Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Stanton, who has fought for years against the practice of assigning bills to committees where they would never be brought up for a hearing -- essentially leaving them to die in the committee chair's desk drawer -- said the Senate Democratic caucus debated the new rules for several hours and agreed it was time to end the so-called desk-drawer veto. On Tuesday, Peterson voted in favor of the rules -- which are voted on at the beginning of each new legislative session -- for the first time in her career.

"This does away with the desk-drawer veto as we know it," she said.

There is at least one doubter, however:

But not everyone is so sure. The rules let the Senate force a bill from a committee chair who ignores the 12-day deadline, but the petition process used to do that has long existed -- and has rarely been successful.

Republican Sen. Colin Bonini, Dover South, the only member to vote against the new rules, said they will continue to allow the desk-drawer veto under a different name.

The new rules say if the bill is not considered in committee after 12 legislative days, it can then be petitioned out with the signatures of 11 of the 20 senators.

Bonini said the "if" statement that preserves a process for petitioning also leaves wiggle room for committee chairs to not hold hearings for bills. In turn, he said, that only makes the desk-drawer veto worse because lawmakers now have to wait 12 days to start a petition, versus the previous practice that allowed them to petition bills whenever they wanted.

Apparently, Senator Bonini works on the principle that progress isn't real unless it results in perfection. Nevertheless, his “hopes” are more enlightened:

"I hope I'm wrong," Bonini said.

Bonini is partly incorrect. The new rule allows the majority caucus to hold a vote to get a bill out of a committee. This is an extra measure for getting a bill out of committee and is not the same as petitioning a bill out of committee, which remains as an option for all the state senators.

Good government activist John Flaherty also has a concern:

Open-government activist John Flaherty called the new rules "a step in the right direction," but pointed out that they still allow committees to meet without a quorum.

True, but that has always been part of the rules. Besides, there must be 5 days public notice of a committee meeting before a committee meeting can be held. Committee members will know what bills are assigned to their committee and when the meetings will be held.

The surprising report is the relief that Senate Pro Tem reportedly feels that the desk-drawer veto is mortally wounded. He told a reliable source that the only reason he assigned bills to his committee and consigned them to the oblivion of his desk drawer is because he was requested to do so by some of his colleagues. That sounds like a lot of horse hockey to me, but if true, one can only marvel at how Sen. Adams felt his first line of duty was to be responsive to the wishes of his fellow senators and not the legislative needs of his constituents and the people of Delaware. Time will tell if “Slick and Slippery” Thurman Adams will hold committee hearings on all the bills he assigns to his Executive Committee.

In any case, the rule changes do indicate a sea change of sorts:

Peterson said there is no way to promise all members are going to abide by the 12-day rule, but said the long discussion held in caucus, during which all committee chairs agreed to end the desk-drawer veto, should inspire confidence.

"It's as much an attitude change as it is a rule change," Peterson said.

Haven't the Joint Chiefs Been Doing this Already?

What have the Joint Chiefs of Staff been doing to date? Telling each Presidential administration that it should use military force whenever it is asked?

The country's top uniformed officer said Monday that the Defense Department should be ready to tell civilian leaders when military force is not the best response -- and be prepared to transfer resources to other agencies during times of crisis.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, previously has made the case for nonmilitary solutions to world problems, but his comments Monday were his most forceful to date on the subject.

Apparently the incoming Obama administration has lent more exigency to Admiral Mullen's tone:

They also came as he prepares to report to a new president who has pledged to strengthen America's "soft," or nonmilitary, power abroad.

But is a change of tone a harbinger of a change in policy, one that makes the USA's approach less aggressive in the world? One hopes so and in spite of the tendency of some on the blogosphere to write the history of the Obama administration's foreign policy before the administration has even begun, Mullen's comments indicate that the Joint Chiefs will have to acquire new reflexes:

Reacting to trouble spots is a natural reflex for the military, and the Pentagon's willingness to respond ensures that it gets more resources. But its ever-present readiness means the military is frequently asked by top civilian leaders to do more.

"I believe we should be more willing to break this cycle," Mullen said, "and say when armed forces may not always be the best choice to take the lead."

And there you have the institutional interest in the Joint Chiefs' instinct to resort to military force: “the Pentagon's willingness to respond ensures that it gets more resources.” Perhaps one of the benefits of the current deep recession is that it will temper excessive military expenditures. Mullen might be signaling that realization.

In any case, Mullen is envisioning a role for the military that is, in part, non-aggressive and adjunctive to the work of other agencies:

[H]e said that in many situations, the military should mainly support efforts by other agencies.

"We must be just as bold in providing options when they don't involve our participation or leadership," Mullen said. ...

Mullen's views are in line with the thinking of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has spoken out many times about the need for the military to work more closely with civilian agencies.

In a series of speeches, Gates called on Congress to provide more funding for the State Department's foreign service and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

To offset the shift in U.S. approaches, the Pentagon has transferred funding to help the State Department send civilian officials to trouble spots. Pentagon officials also have encouraged military assistance for stabilization efforts.

But Mullen said efforts to shift resources to other agencies were insufficient. He argued that Congress should provide greater flexibility for the military to transfer funding during a crisis.

"As an equal partner in government, I want to be able to transfer resources to my other partners when they need them," Mullen said.

Mullen envisions a Pentagon that will at times assume the role of a pupil:

Mullen said the military has much to learn about how the State Department and other agencies use such power effectively.

Those who understand that the USA's aggressive military posture has historically caused it more conflict than has been necessary will hope that the Pentagon will assume the role of a student most often and will not assume the role of the teacher nearly as much as its past.
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Must He?

Must George Bush inflict himself on the American public one last time? On his last day can't he just slip quietly out the back door and let us now enjoy the illusion that he is already gone?

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com President George W. Bush will give a farewell address to the nation Thursday night, billed by the administration as a chance to reflect on his tenure and welcome Barack Obama without fighting old battles one last time.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

The 1.12.08 Progressive Voices Interview with Corey Bowen about Autism Spectrum Disorder.

MP3 File

Newark Is First In Nation To License Electric Cars Providing Power

Good for Newark, Delaware. We are the first state in the nation to approve an offshore wind power project and now this. It's something to be proud of.

clipped from www.am1290.com The vehicle, which runs on electricity alone, is specifically designed to store energy and improve grid reliability, and is called vehicle to grid or VG2. University of Delaware researchers helped develop the concept. UD Associate Professor of Marine Policy Willett Kempton says, this technology is different than your usual electric car, because you charge it and it has a one way flow, but the reason it is called the VG2 is, because power will flow back to the grid. Kempton adds, currently there is no storage built into the electric grid system, meaning that electricity usage and electricity generation must be simultaneous, but as solar and wind power, become a larger fraction of our electric generation, energy storage will help grid operators smooth power output fluctuations.

Obama to Issue Order to Close Gitmo During the 1st Week

I don't believe that Obama is backpedaling from his comments yesterday, contrary to what the article below says:

The pledge comes only the day after Obama appeared to row back from campaign promises by saying closure was more complicated than he had realised and it would be a challenge to do so in his first 100 days in office.

His comments yesterday had nothing to do with when he would issue the order, but with the disposition of the prisoners, some of whom are dangerous terrorists. Also, there is a question about what to do with the prisoners who should be released. It would be irresponsible to return them to countries where they are likely to experience (further) torture.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk President-elect Barack Obama is to issue an order to close the Guantánamo detention centre in his first week in office, according to his advisers. Obama, who takes over the presidency next Tuesday, will make closure one of his first decisions, two of his advisers told the AP news agency. The pledge comes only the day after Obama appeared to row back from campaign promises by saying closure was more complicated than he had realised and it would be a challenge to do so in his first 100 days in office. Guantánamo has become a touchstone for the new administration. Democrats and liberal lawyers, as well as European governments, have repeatedly called for its closure, seeing it as an affront to human rights. Some of the detainees have been tortured.

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