Stop deep drilling now and forever

The BP oil spill has demonstrated one thing for certain.  Neither BP not anyone knows how to stop a deep-sea spill once it occurs.  It is equally certain that a spill of almost any magnitude can be and likely will be devastating to the environment and to the livelihood, health and safety of people who live in coastal areas.  Obama should make the suspension of oil permits for deepwater exploration permanent and no new permits should considered ever again.  The risk is too great.

Write the White House and Congress:  Tell them you want deep-sea drilling ended now and forever and existing deep-sea wells shut down as fast as possible.

Contact the White House here:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Contact Senator Reid here:  http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Contact Speaker Pelosi here:  http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

Bad news for Repubs—Consumer confidence up. Bad news for Obama-you’re being blamed for the BP mess.

The Conference Board reported today that its Consumer Confidence Index increased for the third consecutive month.  It is now at 63.3, compared to 57.7 in April.  The Consumer Expectations Index (index of consumer expectations about the future) is at 85.3 versus 77.4 last month.  That’s better than pre-recession levels.  People are much more optimistic about business and labor market conditions.  Americans expect the economy to continue to improve and that more jobs will become available in the months ahead.

All this is bad news for Republicans who hoped to ride to victory in November and possible take over the House or Senate or both because of job fears and worries about the economy.  In a previous post, I said that jobs are the key to Democratic wins in November but..big but…it’s not as much the actual job picture at the time of the election but voter EXPECTATIONS about jobs in the future.  If the trends reported by the Conference Board hold, we may go into the mid-term elections with voters feeling disappointed with the unemployment rate, which will probably still be over 9%, but optimistic that, at least as far as jobs are concerned, the country is on the right track and a brighter job market is ahead.  Voters are much less likely to dump Democrats under those conditions.  Still, a lot might happen between now and November so we will see.

Down side for Democrats is that the Obama administration is taking increasing heat for the BP disaster.  If Obama doesn’t want BP to turn into his Katrina then he needs to get federal feet on the ground in Louisiana and along the gulf coast doing something.  Let’s see thousands of soldiers cleaning up oil off the beaches and sailors operating oil skimmers.  Just sending members of the cabinet to the Gulf to make speeches is not enough.  So, Obama, get busy at least looking like you are busy cleaning up BP’s mess. 

Read the Conference Board report here:  http://www.conference-board.org/economics/ConsumerConfidence.cfm

What the Tea Partiers and Mr. Paul really want.

Rand Paul is actually doing the country a great service by exposing the extreme beliefs at the core of the Tea Party movement.  Mr. Paul doesn’t like civil rights laws that outlaw discrimination by individuals or private businesses or associations.  He is perfectly content to allow restaurants to refuse to serve blacks, Hispanics or anyone because of race or presumably gender, sexual orientation, or whatever defining characteristic.  Mr. Paul doesn’t think government agencies should tell oil companies where or how they can drill for oil or what safety measures they must take to protect the environment.  Mr. Paul doesn’t believe owners of mining operations should be held accountable for the safety of their workers.  Mr. Paul doesn’t much like the government setting a minimum wage.  Mr. Paul doesn’t seem to want the government to do anything that doesn’t involve war or national defense.  Education, get out of it.  Environmental protection, get out of it.  Child labor laws, do away with them.  Occupational health and safety, don’t do it.  Health care, none of the government’s business.  Meat and produce inspection, don’t need it.  Financial regulation, don’t do it.  Regulating banks or stock brokers, not needed.  Lending, let’m charge whatever interest they want.  Housing, no role for the government there.  Food processing plants, let them operate the way the want.  Telecommunications, no role for the government there.  Weather service, who needs it.  Americans with Disabilities Act, don’t need it.  CDC, FDA, NIH, shut’um down.  Equal Rights for Women, good God no.  Gay rights, God forbid the government should get involved in that.  National parks, privatize them.  Protecting fish and wildlife, Hell no.  Mining safety, let mine owners do what they want.  Drilling for oil, drill baby drill government oversight not needed.  IRS, replace it with a Fair Tax where poor people pay the same as rich people.  Highways, make them all private toll roads.  Hazardous materials, leave it up to the private sector to protect the public.  FAA, not needed, let the airlines take care of it. 

Here are some changes to our government Mr. Paul and the Tea Party folks are sure to like.  Suppose we changed the Constitution this way.

We declare unequivocally that each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the Constitution expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled is retained by the states. (i.e, the feds won't be allowed to do anything unless the states say it is okay.)

We abolish the House and Senate and replace them with one chamber in which each state has 1 vote and a majority vote of the states is required to pass any legislation.  Delegates will be appointed by the state legislatures for terms of one year.

We will eliminate the power of the federal government to tax.  Instead, Congress will request the states each year to send it whatever money the federal government needs to operate.  Contributions will be voluntary.

We will eliminate the Executive Branch.  No President, i.e, no Obama.

We will eliminate the Judicial Branch—No Supreme Court.

The federal government would have no power to regulate interstate commerce so no need to worry about business people being told what they can and cannot do.

Finally, we will change the name of the document.  Let us call it….well, how about the Articles of Confederation?  That sounds good.  Wait…just a minute…haven’t we done this before?  Huh, wonder how that turned out.  Let me check the Texas textbook on American history.  Yea, there it is and the Texas textbook writers say it was working out just great.  Then, some radicals like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison came along and messed everything up.  And, according to the  Texas textbook writers the country has been in a long decline since then.  Bring back the good old days of NO/Nothing government.  Vote for Paul's Tea Party.  Return the good old days of the Confederation.  That's what the TeaPartiers say.   

Tea Party Paul agrees with former racist Georgia govenor Lester Maddox

Lester Garfield Maddox, a devout segregationist, owned and operated a restaurant called the “Pickrick Cafeteria,” that was located at 891 Hemphill Avenue near the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, Georiga.  Maddox and his customers supported segregation and opposed the federal government's intervention in such policies.  The Pickrick was open only to white customers and refused those who were black or those who were considered integrationists. The restaurant featured a wide selection of free segregationist literature and the “Make a Wish for Segregation” wishing well.  . In 1964, he refused to serve three black students and chased them out with a gun while his white customers used axe handles. He contended that both his business and property were being threatened.  When the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which required integration of public facilities, passed, he sold the restaurant rather than integrate it. Many of his fellow citizens praised him for doing this and later elected him Governor of Georgia.

Tea Party leader Rand Paul seems to think that Maddox was right.  He gave the following answer during an interview in Louisville with the Courier-Journal's Editorial Board in April.

REPORTER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains and I`m all in favor of that.

REPORTER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners. I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant. But at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I think there should be absolutely no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that's mostly what the Civil Rights Act was about, to my mind.

Paul had this to say on the Rachel Maddow show last night.

MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has a right to say that 'We don't serve black people?'

PAUL: I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race. But do discriminate.  But I think what's important in this debate is not getting into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question 'What about freedom of speech?' Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking. I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things that freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it..

MADDOW: Howabout desegregating lunch counters?

PAUL: Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other.' Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion...

MADDOW: Well, it was pretty practical to the people who had the life nearly beaten out of them trying to desegregate Walgreen's lunch counters despite these esoteric debates about what it means about ownership. This is not a hypothetical Dr. Paul.

So, let’s see.  Paul thinks there should be no discrimination by public agencies or organizations receiving public funding but telling a business owner like Lester Maddox that he has to serve blacks is going a bit too far.

So, Tea Party folks.  Is your guy Paul right about that?  Did the Civil Rights Act go too far?

Republican law makers in Georgia seek to raise taxes on the poor in order to cut taxes for the rich

Georgia already has one of the most regressive state tax systems in the nation.  Now, thanks to Republican lawmakers, the state’s tax system will become even more regressive.  When fully implemented, changes in the tax system under laws passed in the recent general assembly will significantly increase taxes on the lowest 20% of wage earners while significantly lowering taxes on the top 1%.  The lowest 20% will now be hit with an effective tax rate of 12.2% versus 5.3% for the top 1%.

Way to go Georgia Repubs.  Take from the poor and give to the rich.  Oh, wait.  That’s what Repubs always do.

See the analysis at:  http://www.itepnet.org/pdf/gapr0410.pdf

Immigrants help to INCREASE the wages of native-born Americans.

If you are a native-born American the impact on your wages from immigrants entering this country is postive.  That’s the conclusion of a recent study by the Economic Policy Center on the impact of immigration on wages levels in the U.S. between 1994 and 2007.

The key findings were as follows:

• For workers with less than a high school education, the relative wage effect of immigration was similar to the overall effect. U.S.-born workers with less than a high school education saw a relative 0.3% increase in wages (or $1.58 per week), while foreign-born workers with less than a high school education saw a relative 3.7% decrease in wages (or $15.71 per week). In other words, immigration among workers with less than a high school degree served to lower the relative wages of other immigrant workers with less than a high school degree, not native workers with less than a high school degree.
• The wages of male U.S.-born workers with less than a high school education were largely unaffected by immigration over this period, experiencing a relative decline of 0.2% due to immigration (or $1.37 per week). Female U.S.-born workers with less than a high school education experienced a relative increase in wages of 1.1% due to immigration ($4.19 per week).
• Around 3% of the increase from 1994 to 2007 in wage inequality between workers with less than a high school degree and workers with a college degree or more can be attributed to immigration.
• This analysis finds no evidence that young workers in particular are adversely affected by immigration.
• While the methodology used in this paper does not allow for a racial breakdown of the effect of immigration on U.S.-born workers in different education groups, we find that the overall effect of immigration on wages is similar for white non-Hispanic U.S.-born workers (+0.5%) and black non-Hispanic U.S.-born workers (+0.4%) .
• From 1994 to 2007, the effect of immigration on wages did not vary greatly over periods of very different labor demand, in part, because immigration flows respond strongly to the conditions of the U.S. economy.
• An analysis of the four states with the highest immigration over this period—California, Florida, New York, and Texas—revealed some interesting departures from the national average. In these states, like at the national level, the overall relative effect of immigration was positive on native workers. However, some subgroups in these states fared worse—particularly male workers with less than a high school degree.

You can read the full report here:  http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp255/

For all of those who will soon be graduating

Some words from Henry David Thoreau for those about to graduate:

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.   In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.”  Henry David Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods, Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1981,p. 326

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to suceed, and in such desperate enterprises?  If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods, Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1981,p. 328

Tea Partiers are petulant anti-intellectuals living a fantasy of self-sufficiency.

Mark Lilla is Professor of Humanities at Columbia. His latest book is The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. Lilla has written an excellent article about the Tea Party movement in the current issue of The New York Review of Books (May 27, 2010 issue, pp. 53-56.). I encourage you to read the entire article but here are some excerpts:

Mark says the Tea Party folks have been “galvanized by three things: a financial collapse that robbed millions of their homes, jobs, and savings; the Obama administration’s decision to pursue health care reform despite the crisis; and personal animosity toward the President himself (racially tinged in some regions) stoked by the right-wing media.” I would disagree with Mark only to the extent that I believe the personal animosity toward the president is racially tinged throughout the entire movement although the majority of those in the movement will vehemently deny that their opposition has any racial component.

Tea Party people are almost universally anti-intellectual. Mark writes that they “have now convinced themselves that educated elites—politicians, bureaucrats, reporters, but also doctors, scientists, even schoolteachers—are controlling our lives. And they want them to stop.” Tea Partiers, he goes on, “prefer the company of anti-intellectuals who know how to exploit nonintellectuals, as Sarah Palin does so masterfully.” I will add that this same anti-intellectual sentiment was behind their attraction to George W. Bush. Certainly, no one could call Bush intelligent.

The Tea Party movement, says Lilla, “appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that… [The have a] blanket distrust of institutions and an astonishing—and unwarranted—confidence in the self. They are apocalyptic pessimists about public life and childlike optimists swaddled in self-esteem when it comes to their own powers…. [Their] political target is an abstract noun, “the government.” They believe that government is inefficient, wasteful, controls too much of their daily lives, gives poor people too much assistance, and does more harm than good when it comes to regulating businesses.

Tea Partiers, writes Lilla, are devoted to Fox News as their only source of news because “the right-wing demagogues at Fox do what demagogues have always done: they scare the living daylights out of people by identifying a hidden enemy, then flatter them until they believe they have only one champion—the demagogue himself.” Fox tells them what they want to hear and they love it for doing so.

Mark concludes with this laundry list of wants from the Tea Party, “I want to be left alone” folks.

They want to be free from the government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well being in order to enjoy the freedom to eat unhealthy and unsafe food, drive unsafe cars, fly on poorly maintain airplanes operated by poorly trained or untrained pilots, invest their money with crooks, breath polluted air and drink polluted water, and generally live out their fantasy of self-sufficiency.

They want to be free from having to think about difficult problems such as what to do about the skyrocketing cost of health care, how to protect the environment, how to keep the country safe from terrorists, or how to solve the immigration problem. They want to be free to NOT think about anything to complicated or that does not have some magical and easy solution.

They want to be free from intellectuals who have expert opinions and free from politicians like Obama that do not look like or sound like them.

They want to say whatever they want to say and even voice the most outrageously conspiracy theories without fear that someone will contradict them or demonstrate that they are wrong. Instead, they want someone on the radio or TV to tell them they are not only right but damn right.

Finally, says Lilla, Tea Party people “don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules.”

Lilla has a lot more to say. Good article. Do yourself a favor. Read it.

You can access Lilla’s complete article here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/may/27/tea-party-jacobins/?pagination=false

Who is Elena Kagan?

President Obama announced today that he is nominating Elena Kagan to take the seat of retiring justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Who is Kagan? Here is some background provided by the White House.

• Elena Kagan was the first female dean of Harvard Law in the school's 186-year history. During her tenure, she fostered consensus among differing viewpoints, promoted a diversity of opinions, and encouraged a respectful exchange of ideas, earning her great admiration among the student body. She also instituted a financial program that encouraged and assisted students in choosing careers in public service.
• If confirmed, Kagan will be the fourth woman ever seated on the nation’s highest court. And, for the first time, the Supreme Court would have three women serving together.
• In 2009 Kagan was confirmed with bipartisan support as the first female solicitor general of the United States. As solicitor general she represents the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. When she was nominated, every solicitor general from the past 25 years—both Democrats and Republicans—wrote a letter of support, noting Kagan’s “brilliant intellect,” “candor,” and the “high regard in which she is held by persons of a wide variety of political and social views.”
• Kagan has stood up for the rights of ordinary citizens and shareholders against corporations in her work as solicitor general. And even though she knew the odds were long, Kagan chose Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission as the first case she argued before the Supreme Court, defending campaign finance reform against special interests spending unlimited money in an attempt to influence elections.
• Kagan studied history at Princeton University and later attended Harvard Law School, where she served on the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals and Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. She credits Marshall with reminding her that “behind law there are stories—stories of people’s lives as shaped by law, stories of people’s lives as might be changed by law.”
• President Obama and Elena Kagan were colleagues at the University of Chicago Law School in the 1990s before Kagan joined Harvard Law. As an academic, her scholarship focused on issues ranging from freedom of speech to government policy making—issues that have had a profound effect on daily life.
• Kagan is the granddaughter of immigrants and grew up in a family that emphasized service to others. Her parents were the first members of her family to attend college, and both parents taught their daughter the value of public service. Kagan’s father was a housing lawyer who fought for tenants’ rights. Her mother was a public school teacher. Kagan would follow in both parents’ footsteps, becoming both a lawyer and a teacher and inspiring the next generation of public servants.

Sounds like a good choice.

Democrats offer reasonable proposal for immigration reform

Democrats have put forward a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform. It is not perfect, but it is a starting point. Responsible members of both parties should be able to build upon this proposal to get things done. Among other things, the Democrats propose:

· Increasing the number of Border Patrol officers and U.S. Immigration, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to combat smuggling of drugs, contraband and illegals across the borders.

· Expanding the use of high-tech ground sensors and other technology throughout the southern border.

· Providing grants to local towns and counties to mitigate the impact of unauthorized immigrants crossing the border.

· Equiping all ports of entry with the United States-Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (“US-VISIT”) system to keep track of whether foreign nationals have overstayed their visas.

· Checking all criminals in federal, state, and local prisons to determine their immigration status and deport those who are here illegally.

· Requiring all foreign nationals to provide the U.S. government with biometric information for identity verification.

· Increasing penalties for violation of immigration law including increased penalties for employers who exploit unauthorized labor.

· Developing biometric social security cards that are fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant, wear resistant, and machine-readable which contain a photograph and an electronically coded micro-processing chip which possesses a unique biometric identifier for the authorized card-bearer—This card could only be used for verifying legal employment status. Employers would be required to ask for this card from all applicants and would face stiff penalties for failing to do so. Employers would be able to swipe the card and get verification electronically within 24 hours. The system would be paid for though fees for obtaining the cards and employer fees for using the system as well as fines for violation of the law.

· Making a green card immediately available to foreign students with an advanced degree from a United States institution of higher education in a field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, and who have a job offer from a U.S. employer in their related field.

· Adding penalties for abuses of existing temporary high-skilled work visas.

· Reforming programs for importing lower-skilled agricultural and seasonal workers to ensure that businesses only obtain foreign workers when American workers are unavailable.

· Giving priority for immigration for spouses and children of lawful permanent residents to reunite families.

· Allowing existing illegal immigrants to be registered, fingerprinted, screened, and considered for an interim “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” (LPI) status that would allow them to work in the U.S. legally. After 8 years, they would be eligible to apply for Lawful Permanent Residence (LPR) status.’

These proposals seem to me to be a perfectly reasonable starting point for serious discussion between Democrats and Republicans. Don’t you agree? Republicans have said they aren't interested in discussing immigration reform this year. Sad, very sad.

You can review the complete Democratic proposal at:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/REPAIRProposal.pdf?sid=ST2010042905051

Consequences: BP may be liable for up to 2 hours revenue for oil spill damages

At the most, BP’s oil spill will cost it less than 2 hour’s revenue in liability for damages to beaches, the gulf fishing industries and so on.

Thanks to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP’s liability for damages resulting from the oil spill will be limited to $75 million. The Act reads:

§1004 The liability for tank vessels larger than 3,000 gross tons is increased to $1,200 per gross ton or $10 million, whichever is greater. Responsible parties at onshore facilities and deepwater ports are liable for up to $350 millon per spill; holders of leases or permits for offshore facilities, except deepwater ports, are liable for up to $75 million per spill, plus removal costs. The Federal government has the authority to adjust, by regulation, the $350 million liability limit established for onshore facilities.

BP had revenues of $375 billion in 2009 or more than $1 billion per day. So, let’s see $75 million is a little less than 2 hour’s revenues.

Why does BP get to enjoy such limited liablity for its actions. Here is a hint:

In 2009, BP spent nearly $16 million on lobbying the federal government, ranking it among the 20 highest spenders that year. It spent $10.4 million on federal lobbying in 2008. Also, in 2008, BP spent more than $530,000 on federal elections, placing it among the oil industry's top 10 political spenders.

Just goes to show. You get what you pay for.

Apparently, BP thinks it shouldn’t even have to pay the $75 million and has been taking steps to limit the right of fishermen to sue it for damages. Also, Alabama Attorney General Troy King, says BP has been getting fishermen from Alabama to sign away their right to sue BP in return for a payment of $5,000 and a contract to help deploy booms to contain the spill. After protests and a complaint from the Attorney General, BP has agreed to stop insisting upon the waiver requirement in the boom contracts and has agreed not to enforce those contained in agreement already signed.