| Mar 31 | Money Money Money Mo-ney |
| Mar 30 | Friday Latin American Roundup, Chinchilla Blogging, & Shuffle! |
| Mar 29 | Gunshots |
| Mar 29 | Gregoire Polling; Immigration Follow-Up |
| Mar 28 | Glug glug |
| Mar 27 | Cut in Line? What Line? Play by the Rules? What Rules? |
| Mar 25 | Kyoto and City Mayors |
| Mar 24 | Friday Latin American Roundup, Chinchilla Blogging, & Shuffle! |
| Mar 23 | Illinois Congressional Primaries |
| Mar 21 | All Russ Feingold All The Time |
| Mar 15 | Russ Feingold: Willing Martyr |
| Mar 15 | Vacation Photos |
| Mar 13 | The Infinite Reach of the American Farm Lobby |
| Mar 13 | Politics as a Social Institution |
Today is the fundraising deadline for Federal Elections. The amount of cash a candidate has on hand at the end of this quarter is a crucial indicator to high-dollar donors and party institutions like the DCCC, DSCC, and DNC, when they're considering who should get support in the coming months. If you have some cash to spare, today is the day to give.
Here in Washington state, Darcy Burner is finally getting the buzz she deserves. You can give through Carl's Act Blue page.
The generic netroots page also has a good list of candidates.
Chinchilla Blogging & Shuffle! are on the flip.
I ought to say a few words about last Saturday's Capitol Hill shooting. Growing up in Atlanta, GA—which jockeys with Compton, New Orleans, Detroit, and DC for the title of "murder capital of America"—it's far too easy to grow numb to the news that someone has been shot and killed. But Saturday's shooting would jar the conscience no matter where it had happened. The youngest victim was only 14 years old, and no one who was killed lived a particularly dangerous lifestyle. Violence is a tragedy, and the shock of a seemingly unprovoked killing spree is almost impossible to comprehend. Because the shooter took his own life, we will likely never find a "motive" for his crimes no matter how hard we try.
Whenever innocent lives are the victim of such evil or misfortune, we have a natural urge to ask, "Why did this have to happen? What could we have done to prevent it?" There are good intentions behind that soul-searching, but we ought to leave it for the future, and let the thoughts and prayers of those who need time to mourn occupy the present.
It's worth pointing out that Chris Gregoire's approval ratings don't quite tell the whole story of how she'd fare in a campaign. Right now, Gregoire earns disapproval from 19% of Democrats and 29% of Liberals (!). In an election, nearly all liberals and Democrats would end up voting for Gregoire. The only real cause for concern is Gregoire's net negative approval among independents. Her best bet to improve her standing there is to force a showdown with the Flat-Earth Society wing of the Republican party and win it.
Thanks to the comments on Ezra's further discussion on immigration, it's worth pointing out that there are better phrasings of the current immigration policy than "there is no line". Perhaps the better phrasing is that the xenophobes in the Republican party would like to punish nannies, construction workers, bus boys, et al., for cutting to the front of a line that they're not allowed to stand in.
I'm not a terribly good messenger for statements on the matter; someone really ought to get an immigration lawyer on TV to put an end to this particular charade.
Podcasting Liberally, in which I interject myfavorite story about former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA).
Since immigration is suddenly in the news, it would be helpful if we all learned a thing or two about the current state of US immigration policy. Believe me, I'm learning as we go along too.
We need to start by dealing with the canard that illegal immigrants are somehow "cutting in line" and doing a disservice to those legal immigrants who "work hard and play by the rules". This notion is so unrealistic that it belongs in a dark basement, stacked between "we can balance the budget without raising taxes" [which ignores the reality that doing so would mean halving Social Security and Medicare spending, or eliminating the entire discretionary budget, including the Defense Department] and "we could have kept the peace in Iraq if we had sent 500,000 troops" [which ignores the reality that the US Army as presently constructed could not provide that many troops]. What's wrong with this New Democrat, rights-and-responsibilities notion? I'm only going to say this twice, so listen closely.
There is no line that uneducated Mexicans can stand in to get a green card and/or citizenship.
Once again, for those of you playing at home:
There is no line that uneducated Mexicans can stand in to get a green card and/or citizenship.
Urs has carefully illustrated this phenomenon in a Choose Your Own Adventure Format. To gain citizenship, you need a green card. To get a green card, unless you have a family member whose a US citizen, you need a long-term work permit. To get a long-term work permit you need ... a college degree [Yes, in practice its a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of current policy -- ed.]. There are no "rules" that undocumented bus boys/janitors/construction workers/nannies could "play by" and somehow gain citizenship. They can come work in the US legally, on a seasonal H2-B visa*. How many H-2B visas are issues annually? 66,000. What is the estimated number of illegal immigrants annually? 500,000. We have specifically stacked the deck against the poor, huddled, unwashed masses of the rest of the world, and then we've stacked them some more against the masses of Canada, Mexico, the UK, and Australia. Now, there are good reasons for excluding the masses; as Ursula points out, "there's no percentage in them." Krugman says this is to avoid "importing poverty", and while the gains in quality-of-life for poor immigrants are substantial, they come at the cost of reducing living standards for the least fortunate citizens already here in the United States.
So, what is to be done. The "guest worker" programs are all terrible, terrible, immoral ideas, representing the realization of what David Neiwert calls "corporate America's wet dream ... a labor force that cannot vote". Nor is the nativist wing of the Republican Party going to be able to deport 11 million people and build a 700 mile long wall along the US-Mexico border. But liberal "legalize it" solutions will continue the slide towards greater income inequality. So, there are no easy answers. Until real political leadership comes along that is willing to hash out some sort of compromise, there's almost no point in debating alternatives.
*Note: I have ignored the significantly more complicated question of seasonal farm-worker immigrants, who have a separate visa category H-2A. However, H-2A requirements include provisions that immigrant workers earn wages and benefits roughly in line with what native-born Americans earn in the same field, leading most farms to employ illegal immigrants.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is in the news again, thanks to the release of Commission recommendations on how to meet the goals of his Climate Protection Agreement. The goals are very ambitious: reduce Seattle's CO2 emissions to 7% below the levels recorded in 1990, all within 10 years, "an amount equivalent to taking more than 148,000 cars off the road".
For a city of 569,000 people with a commuter population that's possibly three times as large, that's a tall order. Meeting that goal will require significant infill development (the recently passed zoning changes are a good start) and investment in mass transit. But the mass transit investment will be worthless if it's too hard to to live in the city without using a car. That means making space in downtown, Belltown, South Lake Union, and anywhere you're going to develop for amenities full-service grocery stores, drugstores, perhaps a hardware store or two, and livable public spaces. Now, "liveable public spaces" doesn't mean we have a forest at 5th and Pike. Personally, I would like to see more Savannah-style town squares in this country, but I know that's a tall order.
I need a niche. So, I'm putting my semi-rudimentary Spanish to use and providing summaries of some top articles in Latin American newspapers.
Tuesday was election day in Illinois, where the hot races were the governorship and and establishment-versus-grassroots tussle in the Chicago exurbs. The governor's race featured a two-thirds serious, one-third protest primary challenge to incumbent Rod Blagojevich (D), and a no-autopsy-no-foul contest for the Republican nomination between social moderate Judy Baar Topinka, two time Senate-candidate and immigrant basher extraordinaire Jim Oberweis, plus longshot conservatives Bill Brady and Ron Gidwitz. In Illinois-6, grassroots all-star Christine Cegelis squared off with Iraq War Veteran Tammy Duckworth, who will probably replace Paul Hackett as the most recognizeable "Fighting Dem". To make a long story short, establishment candidates won everywhere. That leaves Tammy Duckworth with the difficult task of bringing Cegelis's supporters into the fold.
Chris Bowers is worried, while Alec Ovis is unimpressed with the Fighting Dems. I have a different take: turnout was just really low. Lower, even, than most contested primaries. Just under 32,000 voters cast ballots in the sixth congressional district -- roughly 6% of the Voting Age Population and around 10% of registered voters. By contrast, there were 45,000 votes in the Texas-28 matchup between Ciro Rodriguez and Henry Cuellar. In such low turnout elections, grassroots candidates will always end up with impressive showings. Their voters and volunteers tend to be the most committed. Notice that in every race, the non-establishment candidate seems to have overperformed: Jim Oberweis for Republican Governor, Forrest Claypool against John Stroger for Cook County Board President, Eisendrath against Blagojevich ... all ended up with higher vote tallies than expected.
We should all be impressed with Christine's tremendous under-the-radar field effort. And the DCCC's meddling in the race was certainly ham-fisted; they really owe Christine a job she can leverage into a run for office some other time. But let's not get carried away. On election day in November, Cegelis's 12,000 votes represent roughly 4.2% of the total vote -- more than pocket change, but not a huge number either.
The Battlepanda has gone another round on Russ Feingold, so I think I ought to respond in kind. In the days following the Feingold censure announcement, Democrats not named Ben Nelson have been somewhere between vaguely supportive of investigations that might lead to censure (Murtha: "I’m hesitant to say the president ought to be censured before a committee looks at it and really investigates it and comes up with some real conclusions") to outright support from Barbara Boxer and Tom Harkin. Given the blindsiding that appears to have taken place this strikes me a decent outcome. Perhaps the biggest complaint is that the censure story didn't do enough to elevate the NSA wiretapping story. Individual Members are focusing on "censure: yes or no" rather than the story motivating Feingold's censure resolution. A notable exception on this front is Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who went on Fox News and told it like it is.
The key is to get Republican Members to answer the "censure: yes or no" question while Democrats present a united front favoring investigations of Presidential abuse of power (surely we all remember this phrase from the Clinton era, right?) with a promise that they will "make changes to the law to protect our liberties and our safety, censure, and move on". Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will censure resolutions. Especially without controlling either house of Congress.
Ezra Klein has a fantastic article on the New Al Gore. You have to take Joe Trippi's quote with a grain of salt, but other than that it's great stuff.
Koufax Voting: For the love of all that is holy, if you do not vote for Fafblog! as the Most Humorous Blog, you simply don't know funny. Likewise, Goldy deserves some recognition for his humor, informative content, and occasional real journalism.
I'm finally headed back to Drinking Liberally tonight. Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th ave E, 8pm until whenever.
Carl makes a good point: Feingold appears to have blindsided his Democratic Senate colleagues with the censure announcement. Likewise, Democrats who go on Fox News and complained about his fellow Democrats aren't doing much to promote party discipline.
If the Censure proposal were serious, which I think would be good politics (I'd love to see Mike DeWine, Lincoln Chafee, and Conrad Burns cast a vote that is basically "Bush: Yes or No"), it wouldn't be Feingold all alone. And the message would be "censure and move on". Everyone would talk about what a huge distraction the Clinton impeachment became. Diane Feinstein would hold a press conference with the two dozen Democrats who supported the Clinton censure. Everyone would talk about how this was a similar situation and while Congress needs to get back to its business, Bush should know that he cannot simply ignore the will of Congress.
Instead, Feingold made an announcement, then whined when Senate leadership didn't support him.
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"Free trade politics is tricky. Farm politics is trickier."
Now that that's out of the way, the Chilean paper La Tercera had a brief blurb on a trade agreement between the US and Colombia. Colombia's intial demands for duty-free imports of 1,000,000, then 500,000, then 350,000 tons of sugar to the US were reduced to 50,000 tons, which may still be enough to derail the trade deal in Congress. By my nose count, if the Republicans representing sugar producers (mostly in Florida) get together with the Republicans representing textile producers (mostly in the Carolinas) and vote "No", the agreement is dead.
Of course, this is insane; Colombia is going to have to find ways for those living in rural communities to make a living that doesn't depend on the drug trade, and eliminating the sugar business as a viable option makes no sense. But being the principled guy that he is, Bush caved to Big Sugar rather than try to do a little better at fighting the War On Some Drugs When Used By Some People.
Why does George Bush want to take away your cheap sugar? And why is he soft on narcoterrorists?
I think Matt Stoller's observation here is missing a second paragraph:
I met Mark Warner briefly once, and I really couldn't distinguish him from any other political candidate. It was at what he calls a 'Happy Hour with a Purpose', a townhall-style event that takes place in a bar and without as much speechifying as a normal political event. He gets credit for understanding that what is exciting about politics is not the speeches, but the social interactions and sense of comraderie that emerges from public discourse.
Yes, the Internets, blogging, frustration with Bush, Meetup, Howard Dean, and the desire to stop Bowling Alone have made political discourse more social than in previous years. Which is great for people like Matt Stoller and me. But, there are still plenty of people who would frankly prefer not to pay super close attention to what's going on and have elected officals simply Do Their Jobs. After all, at the level of engagement where you're going to Drinking Liberally once a week or a Meetup once a month, and probably reading the news and perhaps occasionaly sending emails to your friends on the subject, you've picked up another hobby.
Generating a large social movement that will agitate for positive change is a Good Thing, but at the same time someone needs to be thinking about how to sell it to people who are more interested in how their kids are doing in school or how the baseball team is doing.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 09:00 02 September 2006