Update (6/20): Didn't want to do a new post, but just wanted to let everyone know that this morning my final CPA exam grade was posted and I am in fact now officially a CPA!
OK, so I had planned to post all of the roundtable questions in consecutive posts but we seem to have reached another delay in the process and there are some other things I wanted to talk about.
After taking Ms. Clinton to task on numerous occasions for making some definitive statements one day and then reversing herself when it became convenient to do so, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't express my extreme disappointment that Obama announced today that he has decided to opt out of the public financing system for the general election. This completely contradicts a statement he made last November in a questionnaire where he said he would use public funding.
You can read his entire response to the question on page 2 here (http://tinyurl.com/4p7zuo) but here are some excerpts. The question was: If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?
"Yes. I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free
television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests."
"My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election."
"If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."
Much of the argument now boils down to the semantics about whether this represented a "pledge" (as Republicans contend) or merely an "option" (as the Obama camp maintains). However you want to characterize it, I think it's very clear that he intended to use public financing as long as John McCain did (which he agreed to do), and now he is reversing himself. For those that aren't very familiar with what this means, public financing for presidential elections comes from taxpayers (remember that "do you want $3 to go the presidential election campaign fund?" question on your 1040?). When a candidate accepts public financing, he is limited to using only that amount (currently about $85 million) in the general election campaign. By opting out, Obama can now use unlimited funds. And considering he has raised a total of $272 million since January 2007 (including $31 million in April alone) it's clear why it is an advantage for him to opt out.
So, what is his rationale for this reversal? In an e-mail to supporters today he said "the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system." That may be true, but I'm pretty sure it didn't break in the last 7 months, so that begs the question why did he support it then but not now? This appears to be another one of those stunning coincidences whereby a candidate reevaluates an earlier position and ends up with the epiphany that the correct position is the one that benefits them the most. And most insulting to me personally is the fact that he makes no mention of his earlier statement when announcing the decision. Not to mention the fact that he spent the entire primary deriding Hillary on the Iraq War by saying that we need a president who gets decisions right the first time. I don't want to blow this out of proportion; I am still an Obama supporter. But for someone who can credit his meteoric rise to the promise of a "new kind of politics" this sure looks like "old politics" to me. And while I can't say it's completely unexpected, it's nevertheless very disappointing.
I would also like to take a second to applaud McCain for his call yesterday to build 45 new nuclear reactors by the year 2030. As I have stated before, the danger of nuclear energy has been blown way out of proportion and I consider it to be a critical stop-gap in lowering carbon emissions and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Again, as of right now it is only rhetoric, but it's good to hear the right rhetoric coming from both sides of the aisle.
Lest everyone start to think that I'm moving to the right, I'd also like to comment on the recent Supreme Court decision to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their detention in federal court. To me, this is simply a matter of upholding habeas corpus. I believe that Justice Kennedy succinctly said it best by stating that "the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system reconciled within the framework of the law." Of course, critics of the decision were quick to revert to the time-tested retort of "be afraid; be very afraid!" New Gingrich said that "this court decision is a disaster which could cost us a city." He also called it "the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in its history. . . worse than Dred Scott." Now, I actually really like Newt Gingrich (I'm in the middle of his book right now) but this is a laughably ridiculous statement. The Dred Scott case returned a free man to slavery, while this decision did not free one detainee and offered absolutely no guarantee that any detainee would ever be set free.
Presumably the claim that this "may cost us a city" is based on the notion that some judge will eventually determine that some real terrorist has been wrongfully held and they will be released and then be integral in a plot that destroys a U.S. city. Well, if we want to go to extremes then how about considering the flip side of that? How about the terrorists we create because we hold an innocent person indefinitely and their family grows up hating the U.S. and gets recruited by Al Qaeda? I don't view either of these situations as very likely, and I fail to see the harm in forcing the government to present some form of evidence when deciding to indefinitely take away someone's freedom. If a foreign government held one of our citizens indefinitely and said simply "they are a terrorist" while providing no evidence to support it we would never accept that and, indeed it would probably be grounds for an attack. The problem with being the good guy is that you have to act like the good guy all the time, even when it has the potential to come back and bite you.
As a final note on this, 2 days after the decision was announced about 400 Taliban extremists escaped from an Afghan prison (read about it here if you missed it: http://tinyurl.com/5n56xd). You would think that would offer a little perspective, no?
Cause the world needed one more blog and someone had to do it.
About Me
Better Than Life
Recent Movies Seen (1-5 Stars)
- Nebraska (4 Stars)
- The Lego Movie (4 Stars)
- Yojimbo (4 Stars)
- The Other Guys (3.5 Stars)
- The Messenger (4 Stars)
Recent Books Read (1-5 Stars)
- Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward (3 Stars)
- This Time is Different by Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart (4.5 Stars)
- The Big Short by Michael Lewis (4.5 Stars)
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (4 Stars)
- Runaway by Alice Munro (4.5 Stars)
20 comments:
Wow.
First of all, you can't govern if you don't win.
Second, you don't bench your best player. In this case, Obama's best player is his fundraising.
Third, the Republicans make MUCH better use of the free money groups (they have a number, but I forget.) Why is Kerry not president? I believe it is because of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This money is not regulated, and the private Right wing groups make use of this and run negative campaign commercials over and over. I don't remember much private money mudslinging from the left 4 years ago.
Also, you keep throwing this concept that nuclear power is safe out there, but where are you getting this crap? You sound like a 4th grader that learns something in school and then repeats it to everyone he meets. It sounds like you read a pro-nuclear book and are spouting the talking points.
I asked you last time, and I'll ask you again:
Where do we put the shit when we're done with it, and how are you going to come up with 45 cities willing to build new reactors? "Not in MY backyard."
The waste isn't safe. NEVER. And I don't say NEVER like I say that stuff takes FOREVER to biodegrade. I say NEVER and mean not in any amount of time will this stuff be safe. 20 generations from now spent fuel rods will still be highly radioactive. And that doesn't even go into security.
Hello, we already discussed this. We are going to launch that stuff into space. And don't give me this "remember the Challenger" line. Lightning can't strike twice... can it?
Weir, you baffle me. It has only been a month since I posted about the safety of nuclear power and already you seem to have forgotten everything about the conversation that followed. Here you ask where I'm getting this crap about nuclear power's safety from, but then you stated "While you are correct in saying that nuclear power plants are decidedly safer than what most people believe, the problem is the waste and the 'not in my backyard' attitude." To which I replied "for the record I would have no objection to the gov't burying nuclear waste in Evanston. Seriously. I am that convinced of its safety." So now you are arguing with yourself about nuclear power's safety and forgetting that I already answered the question you've asked. I am not going to go into all the details here about the safety of nuclear power (I may have a separate blog about it) but the jist is that Chernobyl happened because the USSR made the horrid decision not to build a containment building around its facilities, and Three Mile Island, rather than being an anti-nuclear rallying cry, should have been viewed as a shining example of how our safeguards worked. The containment building held as it was designed to do, and radioactive gas was vented slowly and without any known detrimental effects to anyone. Yes, people inside the plant got hurt but this is a risk with any form of power station.
Yes, you can't govern if you don't win. Think of where that line of logic takes you. I'll tell you where - ads like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It's a Machiavellian (ends justify the means) win at all costs mentality. Again, that's what I expect from politics, but not from a politician who pledges to be different. My problem is not with the decision to not take public money, it's with the complete reversal of his position without so much as the acknowledgement that it is a reversal. This is a very slippery slope. All the reasons you and he gave for not accepting public money are valid but were valid 7 months ago. At the very least he should acknowledge that when he gave that response on the questionnaire he and his staff hadn't fully realized the consequences of it. I don't expect my president to be perfect, but I expect him to acknowledge when an error has been made.
I follow the nuclear energy news closely because my town is pursuing a small reactor. At 10 megawatts, it would be the smallest commercial reactor ever made actually - the Toshiba 4s liquid sodium cooled "nuclear battery."
On the nuclear waste issue, DOE applied to the NRC for a permit on a central nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain Nevada earlier this month.
Read more about that here:
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2008/06/feds-file-license-for-yucca-to-open-in.html
There are lots of schemes to do something other than deposit the spent fuel. Depending on what type of fuel it was, it can be reprocessed and go back into the fuel cycle. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership proposal, in which the US would set up other countries with self-contained nuclear power plants, is trying to use reprocessed fuel as its initial fuel source.
From the same blog I linked to above, here's an entry on that subject:
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2007/10/organizing-worlds-nuclear-fuel-cycle.html
According to Star Trek, dilithium crysal power should be coming online in what, about 250 years? That's about 200 years after the coal and oil are gone. So what's it gonna be?
typically I don't have a problem with a reversal of opinion on a political subject when it's backed up by logic. That said, I agree with you regarding Obama's unexplained/underexplained decision on campaign funding. Seems to me he might be a little opportunistic seeing as his coffers are mighty full, and right now there's only about $85M in public funding available.
He DID have a reversal on a subject this week that I applaud. His stance on re-negotiating NAFTA is now considerably better than it was before. I'm not in complete agreement with NAFTA, but unilateral re-negotiating the treaty would put us at great disadvantage when it comes to the question of Canadian oil. Perhaps someone deciphered the text of the treaty to him, and explained how that could affect his campaign, but at least he explained it as heated rhetoric. Rhetoric presumably designed to get him over the hump in Ohio.
527, 501C, and PAC groups are designations in the Tax code for groups intending (mostly) to influence elections. Utilizing their right to free speech, one of those pesky constitutional rights that mostly seem to get in the way of the Democrat party, they may produce materials, ads, and campaign for the candidate they choose to support. And Republicans are not the only party to use soft money to influence elections. In fact, of the top twenty 527s, $356,135,589 was spent by liberal 527 organizations while $86,571,982 was spent by conservative 527 organizations during the 2004 elections.
http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtes.php?level=C&cycle=2004
Weir, I believe you don't remember the money being spent, but it surely was. Maybe Kerry was "swiftboated", but it wasn't because of lack of cash. It was probably because every veteran and active service member I know or met thought him unfit to be Commander in Chief.
Regarding the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods (fissionable material), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has committed us to using a "once through" fuel cycle. Reprocessing spent uranium yields both plutonium (used in nuclear weapons) and additional radioactive material, actually increasing the amount of radioactive waste produced. Also, plutonium is, in its' pure form, just a powder... very easy to transport, and very difficult to detect due to its lower radioactivity levels. I used to be in favor of reprocessing, but the information so far does not support this stance, especially since the economics of the matter don't make sense. Reprocessing costs more than mining fresh uranium. For now, Yucca Mtn is the best alternative. It's safe and secure, and besides the spent fuel rods are far to radioactive for anyone to steal, unless of course they have a flying 1964 Chevy Malibu.
Thanks for bringing up Yucca, I was trying to think of it and couldn't. If you remember the primary stops in Nevada, this was a decent sized issue in which the people of Nevada were very strongly opposed to disposal there. I have no idea what kind of slant that website/newspaper has, so take it FWIW.
Obama is getting pretty well hammered today on his decision to forgo public financing. Unfortunately, the spin they decided to put on it will keep the story alive: his "pledge" depends on the definition of 'is.' I'm going to quote a Republican here, but bear with me. Joe Scarborough(sp?) said this morning that the Obama people should have just said:
We had no idea that so many private citizens wanted to become financially involved in politics. We have NEVER seen this before. Over 1.5 million citizens have donated to our campaign and that is a number that NO ONE could have predicted. These people are passionate, and they deserve to be taken seriously in their call for change, and that is what we plan to do. Public Financing was created to help stop lobbyists and special interests from funding campaigns, and we have found a different way to accomplish that while still letting regular Americans contribute their $50 or $100.
Obama would still get the flip-flop tag, but it would be because he found a better way to stand up for principle, and they could take the Republican spin and turn it back around to generate something positive.
As for the 527's, I know that the left does it as well, but in my recollections they are classier about it. (Maybe classy isn't the correct word, but...) The swiftboat ads were not about any particular issue. They were attack ads that called Senator Kerry a liar and a coward without actually calling him a liar and a coward.
I don't have a problem with attack ads. In fact I think attack ads are good when they stick to issues instead of generalized character assassinations that if you break them down, aren't really about anything at all.
And as for money, there is a definitely HUGE gray area when money does not equal speech.
Of course I contradict myself John, most of the time I type without thinking.
Russia wasn't the only country to have an accident
Uh, yeah, I already mentioned Three Mile Island in my response. But since you provided that link, here's a quote further proving my point: "However, there are no immediate deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community which can be attributed to the accident."
And I agree with what you say Obama should have said. And undoubtedly he will end up saying something close to that. It just would have been nice if he had been proactive about it up front rather than doing damage control later. Changing your mind about something is not inherently wrong. I am reminded of the Keynes quote in response to someone who accused him of flip-flopping on his economic model: "when the facts change, I change my model; what do you do?" I just expect an acknowledgement of "I said X and this is why I said it, but now that Y has occurred it has moved me to Z"
Mike - this is quite frightening. Coming on the heels of us agreeing on the 1st question in the roundtable I find I don't really disagree when anything you said in your comment.
Obama's crew already took some flack for not-so-quietly telling Canada and Mexico officials "he doesn't really mean this" during the Ohio and Pennsylvania stops. There was a really good article in The Economist this week about all of Obama's advisers, and pretty much all of the economic ones (likely to be part of his cabinet) are big free-trade proponents. But, yes, I will admit that it is a bit hypocritical of me to chastise him for changing his position on one topic and not on the other. I think the distinction for me is that I never really believed his anti-NAFTA talk, so in my mind he hadn't really changed his position, just his rhetoric.
And Mr. Bodony it is good to see you chiming in all the way from Alaska! I believe you are now credited with the first Star Trek reference on this blog, which seems hard to believe given the general sci-fi nerd leanings of me and the main commenters.
Thanks John, but just wait for my response on the Supreme Court's decision to apply our constitution to foreign nationals outside of our country. I'm sure we'll get into it then.
So... nothin on the 64 chev? I'm kinda saddened by that.
Repo Man? I had to look it up. I have actually never seen that movie (though I have heard of it).
ohhhh, you need to see it. put it in your netflix queue this instant!
So, now the question of Gitmo and habeas corpus. When in the history of the world has one country given its citizens' rights to prisoners of war? These detainees, at MOST, are subject to military tribunals per the Geneva Convention (Human Rights Watch, Jan. 11, 2002 http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/01/us011102.htm ).
I do not suggest that they should be given less than humane treatment, or that they should be held indefinately without proper trial. I do agree with their fate being subject to military tribunal, even though their status as unlawful enemy combatants calls into question the application of Geneva Convention rules. But I absolutely disagree with the idea that they are offered equal protection under our constitution, and the right to Habeas Corpus in a federal court is clearly a constitutional right.
Some of these people are being held because of information from classified sources, and in U.S. courts all parties have rights of discovery. Opening up this classified information for discovery during a trial would lead to some very bad people having complete and total access to some very delicate information.
A military tribunal would take into account the information, without exposing it to full disclosure to all parties.
Not the best option, but hey... maybe building a roadside IED wasn't the best option either.
Sadly, I now trust our military more than I trust our Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branges of government. Not what the Founding Fathers had in mind, I guarantee.
One unintended consequense of the ruling will likely be an increased body count for AQ and the Taliban. Regardless, Unlawful Enemy Combatants are not "Criminals" per se, and thus should not be treated as such.
Mike - I can see your points (of course, that doesn't mean I agree). One of the biggest problems here is that this is an altogether different war and thus creates a different type of prisoner of war. The war on terror is ongoing and we'll never get to a point where we can say "it's over; now we can make sure we hold (or have held) tribunals for all of our prisoners." And holding the tribunals will just not be a top priority while the military is so engaged and stretched. I don't trust the military or any of our 3 branches to act unilaterally; checks and balances have been an integral part of our system and I think it's a good idea here too. The exposure of sensitive information is a valid concern, but I believe that there is some type of middle ground that can be reached where we take this into account on a case by case basis.
To me, the risk of potentially releasing an actual terrorist is more pallatable than the risk of locking up an innocent person indefinitely.
The military tribunal system actually operates separately from the rest of the military, so there are no issues with an otherwise occupied fighting force. And there's no need to wait for the fighting to stop to commence the trials... the reason we're waiting on them is because the civil courts have allowed challenges to jurisdiction. Again, these are not civilians, not American Citizens, and really should not have any pending litigation in our courts. But, hey, that's what you get when the Judiciary makes unilateral decisions that have no constitutional basis.
Checks and balances have been thrown out the window here. The Courts are now able to make law without benefit of the legislature.
In reading the constitution, and not some interpretation of it... the ACTUAL CONSTITUTION, you will see that this is not how things are supposed to work.
The legislature makes laws.
The executive branch enacts the laws.
The judiciary, when needed, decides on the constitutionality of the law.
Nothing more or less.
I'm sorry to get riled up here, but there's a real lack of understanding when it comes to our representative form of government that is just exhausting.
From people not really understanding the electoral process and why it's in place; to people not understanding that when a president signs a bill into law, it's been approved by both the senate and congress; to people not understanding that the Supreme Court is not there to MAKE law, but to decide on the constitutionality of laws already in existence.
Making law without the other two branches of government is just plain unconstitutional.
There's no doubt that the constitution needs some fine tuning from time to time. But there are mechanisms in place to make these adjustments. It's HARD to do this for a reason, though. The tyranny of the majority could easily rewrite the constitution every time we pick a new american idol winner. The slow moving titanic processes of amending the constitution is there to prevent society's whim from becoming law.
My first choice for an amendment? An amendment to the process for impeaching a Supreme Court Justice.
I just want to break up this debate to alert you to great new article from The Onion.
Headline: Man Who Used Stick To Roll Ball Into Hole In Ground Praised For His Courage
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/man_who_used_stick_to_roll
John, just because there were no immediate deaths doesn't mean that there weren't future environmental and health issues. When you are dealing with radiation, you are dealing with effects that could manifest years later. Course, everything gives you the cancer now-a-days, so who knows.
Mike, the constitution is 220 years old and sometimes severely out of date. I use the right to keep and bear arms (in a well regulated militia necessary for the security of a free state) to illustrate this all the time: guns were essential for safety 220 years ago, now they are not. Unfortunately, the constitution is near impossible to amend with partisan politics, so there has been a growing number of ways to get around some things.
Also, in a list of things that people don't understand, you list "it's been approved by both the senate and congress." I'm sure you MEANT to say Senate and House, but in a list of ways you think people are stupid, I found that funny.
Side note: I was at the Cubs/Sox game yesterday. We were in the bleachers so we had to wait in line for quite a while and got some people asking us for shit. We had the toothless lady asking us to pledge money for cancer (yes, that is how she phrased it.) We also had the guy who was getting signatures to get Nader's name on the presidential ballot. He went through his whole speech to me, including that their goal was to get his name on the ballot in November in Illinois, so I asked him "On the ballot running for what position?" I was being sarcastic, but the asshole rolled his eyes and started explaining it to me like a 2nd grader. So he asked if I would sign his petition. Since he was treating me like a child now, I felt the need to smack him around a little bit. I told him I like the concept of a third party candidate, but was appalled that Nader was once again trying to run. I told the guy that he has absolutely no chance of winning and that while I appreciate a symbolic statement, and trying to set a precedent for future third party candidates, all Nader would be doing is stealing votes from the Left, and that by doing so it makes it easier for the Right to hold the White House and that the Right certainly cares less about Nader-centric issues than the Left. I wanted to keep at him, but he walked away. Instead of trying to get the people behind me in line to sign, he walked about 20 feet away in line. I think he was a little scared of me. Stupid hippie.
Yeah, you got me there. After editing that post about a half a dozen times to try and keep my point clear enough... well, it was a bad gaffe, and clearly invalidates the entire content of the rest of the post. I'm going to go and get a drill and lobotomize myself now because of that one.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Or I could just adopt another editing technique:
"Of course I contradict myself John, most of the time I type without thinking."
Hey,hey, what do you say, way to be a CPA! CONGRATULATIONS JOHN!!!!!
LOVE, MOM AND DAD :-)
Weir, I think you are re-wording the 2nd Amendment to make your point. Here is the actual wording:
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
As you can notice, it doesn't say "in a well regulated militia" as you stated. It has an important comma before "the right of the people to keep and bear arms", making two separate points. It is saying that the people have the right to a well regulated militia and the right to keep and bear arms.
Also, the growing ways to "get around some things" is blurring the lines of separation of powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Both the legislative and judicial branches seem to be trying to do the job of the executive branch.
I didn't actually want to talk about guns, although the comma discussion is a fun one.
All I was trying to say is that there are parts of the constitution that are arcane and need to be changed, but due to partisan politics will never get close to the votes.
This was supposed to segue into saying that parts of the Geneva Conventions (which, admittedly, I've never read, so I'm skating on thin ice here) are sure to be archaic. The rules and the laws of war are outdated. Never again will two sides line up, shake hands, and charge at each other. War has turned sneaky and that has to be recognized.
More to the point, however, is that the prisoners at Gitmo are not technically prisoners of war. They don't represent a country we are at war with, they represent themselves, their cell, and most often their religion. These guys don't have POW rights, but what rights do they have? If we go by the last 7 years, they have no rights at all. And that isn't fair or moral.
I know that when you make up laws on the fly, sometimes you fuck up, but you have to try to not lose your core identity while you do it.
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